Springfield City Council — November 12, 2024

0:05 I'm going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call May V Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councelor rodley here councelor Blackwell here councelor Doyle here and councelor pisher here thank you we've got many items tonight at at least three of them the first one we have is Planning Commission interviews with Sandy bson good evening mayor and Council my name is Sandy bson the comprehensive planning manager and I staff the Planning Commission so I have the pleasure tonight to bring to you five candidates who have applied for three positions so we have two Commissioners whose terms are coming to an end at the end of December that's uh commissioner buck and um commissioner

0:51 Salazar and then commissioner Stout resigned um given that he has been elected to serve on city council and wanted to take some time before um to be with his family before starting that position so we have one currently vacant position and two that will become vacant at the end of December um so with that I will turn it over to you and the five candidates who are all here in council chambers okay so six candidates three total appointments we need to make five candidates were oh I looked at attachment attachment one was the questions got it five candidates three appointments yes okay and um does anybody have questions about the

1:41 questions um do you want to go first or well I just want to say that as I have specific questions about some of the answers that were given by some of the applicants and so I can wait until they come up and they answer the questions that that the mayor presents to them and then once he's finished with that that may answer some of my questions if not then I'd like to call out some of the specific things that were written in their answers and ask them about that I already verified that it was okay to do that yeah so that was yeah that was the part that we're we're gonna bring up we're gonna ask the six qu we're gonna ask five questions and then if some if anybody has any clarifications from there we can we we can go from there all right you want to send the first person up

2:40 evening mayor council City staff members uh my name is Morgan Driggs um I am excited to be here glad to have you um usually I I ask all the questions everybody else takes the notes somehow I've ended up with uh that that is the activity so are you ready for your first question yes all right what attracted you to apply to the Planning Commission um well I am graduating from uo with a masters in community and Regional planning um next month um I have been a Springfield resident for uh 5 years um I've rented in the city for five years I've been a homeowner for the past one year um and I I really love Springfield um I've also served this

3:25 city in a variety of different volunteer positions um I vol tied one summer for the uh bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee um doing a sidewalk inventory um literally just walking all the sidewalks recording like little raises or dips or where trees have like drastically um shifted the sidewalk and um updated that uh with the city's uh RGS online um application for that um I served I'm going to have to look up the full name of this um I served for a year on the comprehensive plan map clarification project advisory committee um where I worked with uh the city and elog to help create the uh comprehensive

4:11 plan map that replaced the um the Metro uh map that was previously yes um and then uh this summer I interned with uh uh the department of development and Public Works uh working on the CFA projects um with the uh planning department um I I'm passionate about this city and I want to continue to um serve Springfield and its community members and do any small thing that I can to help make this community better for everyone Economic Development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if you think about how development

4:56 happens do you have opinions on how the cost between should be shared between developers and the public um so inadequate infrastructure can be a key barrier to Economic Development and the cost of infrastructure can also be a a key barrier to development as well um infrastructure such as sewer water storm water um electricity uh sidewalks and streets are all necessary for a development to function um the provision of infrastructure should not always solely be placed on the contractor um it can be a big inhibitor to development um so there are a few different options out

5:43 there for like cost sharing or funding [Music] um if a developer say can't construct a project that would um like increase the livability of an area in the city uh there could possibly be some partnership at the the uh local state or federal level for some funding um there's also local Improvement or um business Improvement districts uh tax increment financing um and uh developments can also um benefit from public private and non nonprofit Partnerships um and well no one wants to raise utility rates and people certainly don't want to

6:28 pay more for U ities sometimes it is necessary to increase utility rates for um repairs uh in in areas where where people live um basically the more resources the more likely the development will happen if you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change Springfield development code what would you change um so magic wand ask would be uh to change to form based code versus the traditional ukian zoning code um so form based code prioritizes the forms of uh buildings it's based on the belief that the form of the building and the relationships of the buildings to each

7:14 other um create a stronger sense of community character and also promote walkability um uh also promote Transit friendly development and more compact uh settlement patterns um this however is a huge ask um I work every day in development code I'm a a planner for um Ben County um so I know how big an ask it is to even change like a portion of the de development code so I do have some other Alternatives um uh make uh mixed use development allowed in all residential and Commercial areas um as an outright permitted use no conditional use necess

8:00 um and in the uh mixed use areas um allowing for multiple unit and attached single unit residential um office uses retail commercial um and uh public uh buildings like government buildings schools um child care even um I would still keep the Industrial Development in the current areas where they are in the city um couple more things uh prohibit maximum densities and then increase the um minimum densities of uh the residential zones um and all of this would really help to increase the housing Supply over

8:46 time how would you like to see the city change in the next 10 years and how would you see the Planning Commission helping to change the city um I'd like to see increased public transportation options um in terms of of uh frequency predictability use and then um covered bus stops particularly would make it a much more comfortable environment for anyone waiting for a bus um um I'd like to see the cfas become successful I had a little bit of personal stake in there working on them so it it'd be nice to see um some uh in increased um housing and walkability come out of those areas um more walkable communities uh with a

9:32 mix of residential and Commercial uses and then more um local businesses as well all right could you describe the relationship between the Planning Commission and city council and the city council and the city staff to the Planning Commission um so the Planning Commission um advises and makes recommendations to City Council on um important policy matters um they review complex and sign ific matters using um their knowledge base skills and um knowledge of the community's values um and uh use all of this to make informed recommendations to city council um the commission also reviews quas judicial development

10:18 proposals um and makes Land Use decisions based on uh the city regulations the uh Eugene Springfield metro plan um and and different uh functional plans and the development code of course uh City staff's role um they advise the Planning Commission um provide a a wealth of information to the Planning Commission um help uh get planning Commissioners um trained in uh the code and land use and what they need to know to make decisions um and uh staff does much of the work to prepare for the quas judicial development reviews and uh just provide

11:05 Commissioners with extensive information to help them with their decision-making process all right thank you so much oh go ahead thank you and thanks for volunteering and and applying for this I appreciate that um just some quick questions about some of the answers that you gave um in your application and then putting that together with your understanding of the planning commissioner's role um in question number two um kind of in the middle you said your decisions and your actions and your advocacy are Guided by a commitment to promote fairness inclusivity and social

11:52 justice for all and then you went on to say that you want to focus on equity and prioritizing the voices and experiences of underserved groups in the city and then on number four similarly you said you you quoted about two-thirds of Springfield households are low income and that you would keep this at the front of mine and work towards solutions to keep families in their homes this um concerns me because that's not the role of the Planning Commission and so what I need to know is how you feel those items that you clearly feel strongly about play a role in your position if you were a a commissioner um it's it's a lens that I

12:38 have so I always keep these issues like front of mind um but I understand that a Planning Commission position isn't making like decision well maybe some decisions that would affect some things down the line um but um not decisions that would like solve any Equity problems like right away okay yeah because the the council really relies on the recommendations of the planning commission based on code based on what's in the books regardless of what our feelings are on it a lot of times so I just wanted to make sure that you're aware that some of the things

13:24 that you feel really strongly about you may not have the ability to make those things happen and it's important that those decisions be made from that so I just wanted to make sure that you understood that okay yeah thank you I'm I work in development code every day um so I mean not this development code but I'm really um well-versed in reading code and I've done a lot of different um projects where I did like a code review for different jurisdictions during the planning program all right I think that is it all right we we still have four interviews to go so thank you for coming soone all right so the next

14:12 person everybody good evening everybody good evening thank you so much for joining us are you ready for for me to uh give you the questions I think so all right what attracted you to the Planning Commission um primarily uh I've served on Planning Commission in the past in cerg or just 10 years uh that was in a while ago um kind of looking now been in Springfield since 2000 and been looking for something similar to contribute and uh be a part of Economic Development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if you think about how development happens do you have opinions on how the cost should be shared between developers and the public probably proportionately uh there's definitely players in those

14:57 kinds of decisions that either stand profit more or less um Regular citizens not so much usually um so definitely proportionally based on uh who's going to benefit if you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change the Springfield development code what would you change boy probably the biggest would be um would be based on language because so many people go online and find the codes and can't understand uh how those have to be written in the language in them um some form of interpretation or uh you know plain spokenness for so everyone can be a part of

15:42 those how would you like to see the city change in the next 10 years and how do you see the Planning Commission helping the city right I've been at Springfield long enough to see um how incredible the downtown change has been um and I don't see any reason why that can't broaden um most people I talk to to other Springfield residents just really enjoyed being downtown now being a part of the community um at its core um Planning Commission of course plays a role in um decisions based on planning of course um and anything that would change the fundamental fabric down there would would I'm sure go through that process could you describe the relationship between the Planning Commission and the city council and then City staff in the Planning Commission right so my recollection again from

16:28 cobber days was um Planning Commission serving as kind of a link between the regular citizenry and U officials like yourselves and representing them and um interpreting decisions and forwarding recommendations on uh Planning Commission relationship to to staff um immensely thankful for staff uh in at the Cobra scenario that was elog that served that purpose um and the wisdom and interpretation they brought of course let us make decisions so all right thank you so much excuse me mayor can we confirm the name of that last applicant just so we have it on the record oh it's Pat Greenwall hopefully you are

17:14 Pat all right thank you make it easy this time around do you want to state your name for the record yes my name is Nicholas all right thanks for coming down are you ready for your first question yeah What attracted you to apply to the Planning Commission yeah so um first off I work with the Springfield Eugene tenant association I'm the hotline operations director and the deputy director I've been um in this role for just over a year now um so the um I've gotten a I speak with tenants on a daily basis about the issues they experience um just living um in both Eugene and spring

17:59 field and so just hearing those stories and being able to um have that perspective and bringing those in has been a huge part of that um I lived in I moved to Eugene in um 2015 and I lived there for um about eight years um I had a brief St up in Portland um but then um I came back down here and my husband and I have chosen to make a home in Springfield our home is in the urban growth boundary and so also the personal connection there of being able to get involved in um the community we have decided to make our our home um and I've also had some experience in Eugene's Urban growth uh strategies group um just as in my role um with Ceda I'm not a large role um just in attending some of the the meetings and it's been really

18:44 interesting to be a part of and so I would love to take a much larger role in a similar um path Economic Development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if if you think about how development happen do you have any opinions on how the cost should be shared between developers and the public yeah um so first off I just want to share I don't really think it should be about my personal opinion with it I don't think there's any one siiz um fits-all approach for it um I would first want to look at like what is data and successes and failures from other cities with similar things um like I would um was looking up um prior to this meeting um some different public private Partnerships um both successes and failures and I think we should in

19:29 general avoid like complete privatization of public resources an example would be Chicago who privatized their public um parking with a 75e lease that has not really seemed to work out too well for them and so I think just avoiding things like um again complete privatization of public resources is probably something to avoid but again it's a case-by case basis depend depending on the difference of the short-term um versus long-term gains um of everything so that's one example um I do think that we should be cognizant of um issues that can cause gentrification of areas um like often public private Partnerships um focus end up focused on luxury housing and there are some guarantees and promises for affordable housing but it doesn't always tend to

20:15 work out that way so I feel that there should definitely be transparency um and accountability um when public dollars are being spent um and particularly in landl tenant law uh for housing developments new housing developments are not subject to the 10% um rent increase cap um which can often lead to um further issues for low-income individuals and so just keeping all of these things in mind um it again needs to be that case-by casee basis for each individual um situation there um but again I wouldn't want it to be necessarily what I feel is right and dependent on what's right for the individual case and situation and um for the city if you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change the Springfield development code what would you change yeah um this is um a big

21:03 question I would say um I think something that I'm really interested in is um uh tenant first opportunity to purchase um that was a really cool thing that some cities um have implemented like Washington DC when a large apartment building is sold uh the tenants get a first chance to organize and potentially um buy the apartment building before it is um sold to another developer um there have been some successes with that um I think that could be a really great addition um I also from my role in Ceda I would love to see habitability standards um in the Springfield code in general um just so that way there can be enforcement of those things um but I would say those are two that I'm pretty like highly interested in um just seeing how they have shaped out in other

21:58 cities how would you like to see the city change in the next 10 years and how would you see the Planning Commission helping that yeah um I mean I really think that vibrant and distinct neighborhood communities um are really important to a city and not necessarily just one central location um so being able to have um that also be like walkable and bikable and for for people who um might not have cars to access all of that I think the city needs to come alive with more opportunities for small business um all of those things I think are really integral to what I would love to see in um Springfield in the next 10 years um as far as like how the Planning Commission commission can be a part of

22:43 that I mean I think again representing the community and um being aware of um again just the the benefits uh to public private Partnerships to just how things move forward in the um sorry I'm getting a little bit nervous and tongue tied here but um yeah so I think I'll move forward don't worry about it that happens to folks all the time describe the relationship between the Planning Commission and city council and City staff in the Planning Commission yeah so I uh the I feel the commission just offers perspective and recommendations to the city council when adopting new legislation um and as well as just like reviewing and ensuring that proposals follow the adoptable adopted

23:30 land use um um plans and policies um as far as relationship with City staff this is something that I will admit that I'm not 100% sure of and I think any answer I give is going to be influenced by the two previous people who've gone um but I just want to um say that I'm sure that like being uh responsive and transparent and working with them and like having the accountability to uh get answers timely things along those lines is really important but I am open to learning all right Victoria thank you thanks for coming in um so on your application question two um your answer was I hope to represent the experiences of renters which have um I've had through my work and then you went on to say to find a BAL you hope to

24:16 find a balance in zoning that benefits all residents and so my question is um how will you represent renters as a planning commissioner or how do you feel like that would happen and and then um also with the balance of zoning what's your understanding of the role of a planning commissioner to affect the balance of zoning um all good questions um so I will say I don't know if I have um the the best understanding at this point in time to answer that question because this is like Housing Development and Zoning is relatively new um for myself um so I um I would as far as how I'd represent that is just making again like making sure that um the um the people who um I would say renters

25:02 are often lower income a lot of the people that we speak to are seniors people on fixed incomes things along those lines so mostly that's going to be in focusing on again like affordable housing things along those lines so that is um a lens again that I would work through with that but I will say that I'm not 100% sure of exactly how it interplays um and I acknowledge that being an interview for that I should like we have a little bit better of an understanding of that um what I will say is that I can take on um uh I can learn things really quickly um in Springfield Eugene tenant association I had never worked with landlord tenant law um previously and I have very quickly become an expert on it and I've written a completely new handbook on all of

25:47 landlord tenant law and so while I don't know now I can guarantee that um the time and effort that I will put into to learning and understanding it um it I'd be able to do that really quickly so um I wish I had a better answer for that and I'm down to learn and um no more all right thank you so much good evening uh name is Frank Juan welcome Frank well thank you are you

26:32 ready for your questions by way What attracted you to apply to the Planning Commission U starting to slow down business-wise and everything and I saw an ad and I read into it a little bit and this fits in exactly what I do for a b my business where I hire people I had at one time between both businesses about 75 employees and it's one thing you nothing goes according to plan and anything and everything can happen and will happen and just the whole thing is to be open and not to be judgmental but to make the best logical reasonable decision based on the facts

27:19 and information that you could gather at the time Economic Development and infrastructure are major Council goals if you think about how development happens do you have any opinions on how cost should be shared between developers and the public well my business I mean you gave me you know three-phase power all the power I need sewer water phone I mean that's what you need to operate a business and uh knowing the laws you know you know especially most of Springfields built on a flood plane or the groundwater is only about 5T below the surface and and just to um know that and to make adjustments

28:07 accordingly if you have a magic wand and you have the ability to change Springfield development code what would you change uh I love what you do to help expedite building permits but if you could build a little bit bigger Warehouse to expedite in in a quickly manner that would be nice and and just some quirky little regulations you have uh that are that kind of handcuff the business but other than that um reason why my business is in Springfield because you are extremely business friendly here and you are very welcoming and accommodating and I cannot speak more highly of what you have done here and

28:53 the police and everything on keeping us all safe and orderly and a very extremely chaotic world that we live in how would you like to see the city change in 10 years and how do you see the Planning Commission helping to change the city to help give direction for information that we have I mean we are going into an era of unprecedented change and who knows what's going to happen CU especially cuz what's killing me is inflation on business wise but to develop a code or a an idea plan to help facilitate the betterment of society and

29:41 everyone so everyone has equal chance to succeed and make themselves as most successful and happy as possible could you describe the relationship between the Planning Commission and the city council as well as the city staff and the Planning Commission to Supply facts information even though a lot of the decisions that are made are abstract and just and you're always probably going to go wishy-washy in on things change but just to give them all the tools that they were able to make the best most

30:26 Sound Decision with the information given at the time all right thank you so much for coming well thank you for your time and thank you for your service for yeah good evening counselors my name is Andrew Buck thank you for coming down Andrew What attracted you to apply for the Planning Commission again yeah so the first time was because Vonnie mikkelson said you should really do this and you know I I took some time to learn about what it was and I honestly didn't know a lot um of what I know now it was it was really about

31:13 learning how the city functions and how things get done um and there was a lot of aha moments like every meeting it's like oh that's how that works okay um and I think that over the course of the time um what I've really seen is the role of the Planning Commission um which I know we'll get to in a later question plays a vital role in making sure when things come before Council they're actionable and you guys have what you need to be able to kind of move forward so we can kind of go through the technical stuff and um get you something that you can can move on we've seen times where that didn't happen and and

31:58 it created a problem for you um and there was times where we did it our job and you were able to kind of move through it and say we can do something now Economic Development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if you think about how development happens do you have opinions on how the cost should be shared between developers and the public um yes and and I will say this this kind of border on the line of land use right so it still fits into you know the cland is charge of working with land use um but kind of barely right because it's it's cost um but what I would say is I would look at who benefits if it's

32:45 a if it's a building that the public doesn't really benefit from and maybe that would be a consideration but if it's something that we're all going to benefit from um um I think we should all you know share some role in in the cost how that happens and and what that looks like I don't think there's one cookie cutter answer but I do think that looking at who's going to benefit makes sense if you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change the development code what would you change so um I don't know that I would change the city development code what I would change is the city's been um handed lots

33:30 of um legislation from the state that tells us what we're going to do how we're going to do it where we're going to do it and why we're going to do it and my would use my magic wand to kind of back some of that off and have the have some of that decision- making given back to the cities so they can decide these are the goals that we want to get to okay how are we going to do that what makes sense for Springfield because what makes sense for Springfield may not make sense in LR may not make sense in Beaverton um but here it makes sense and I think that it's a little more comforting to know that people who live in our community are able to make the decisions for our community rather than people who may never have been here telling us exactly how our city um map

34:17 should should develop uh that's how I'd use that magic wand how would you like to see the city change in the next 10 years and how do you see the Planning Commission helping to change the city okay so my kids obligated me to say that we need more ice cream shops I'm just saying that right now on the record um and so I'm really excited about the next 10 years um you know it's easy to look at the river um the Glenwood area and the exciting stuff that has being talked about there lot of decisions ahead and I'm looking forward to seeing what that looks like and how develops for the benefit of the community and and businesses

35:02 um given that I live out in the thirston area I would love to see um ways that The Thirst area can be developed as well um case in point and uh I think there's one maybe two if you call it family style restaurants out there Mexican and Hawaiian but there's just not a lot of that out there and so I would love to see um both ends of our city get developed in that way could you describe your relationship between the Planning Commission your understanding the relationship between the Planning Commission and city council as well as City staff and Planning Commission yeah so the Planning Commission is charged with dealing with matters of land use

35:48 that's what we're here for now that can be interpreted a lot of different ways and so one of the things that we do uh for the council is we hear motions and applicants that you guys will eventually hear and what we do is we help advise staff and kind of shape how that comes to council so it's actionable and if there's some things that we need to kind of work through before it comes to councel we can do that we recently had uh an applicant in our last meeting where what really was needed was a little more time to have some conversations so maybe some consensus so we move that gave them some time work coming back to the Planning Commission at our next meeting and hopefully from

36:33 there we'll have something that can go forward that everybody can agree on so it makes your job easier we also help uh we have a very close relationship with staff they support us um in all that we do uh I'm not sure that um we get through one of our meetings without having to refer to our our uh City attorneys for how's this motion supposed to go but um the other side is true too city city staff come to us and say hey this is a presentation we're going to give it to council and we give them Direction and feedback hey this doesn't make sense or hey we like this or you should lean into that or it's great so I

37:20 think that there's that collaborative relationship but really our job is to try and make sure that when it does come to Council you guys are aware of the technical things and if there are issues um leveraging on our relationship with their raas on to say hey pay attention to this piece of it because this was something we got hung up on this something we noticed uh so that's our job all right thank you so much that was our last uh interview that was our last applicant so I'm looking for for people to jump in and okay Victoria and then we got to get to three okay so first off I want to say thank you to all the applicants it is so

38:05 refreshing to have three positions and have five people that applied that doesn't happen that often and that's fantastic so thank you very much as the Planning Commission leaz on for the council and also having this as my um my work full-time across the river um I find it's it's important to me that this um that the Planning Commission us um they do thorough work because we really rely on the Planning Commission I think it's probably one if not it's probably the most important next to budget committee or with the budget committee to to what we do um with that said um it needs to be about the land use it needs to be about the code it needs to be about what is specific and it can't be about activism or agendas um and so I

38:53 have to go by what I have in front of me and I would um entertain um uh appointing a number two four and five for um appointment to the Planning Commission so that's Pat Frank and Andrew okay uh Joe and then we're going to go to me yes we can I I have to concur with councelor Doyle completely I think two four and five would be the best fit for our current commission and what we have our commission doing I think that um uh

39:40 the job of the commission is not to carry forward personal desires or agendas or feelings with things how things should be it's the commission is a a very black and white type uh body that need to interpret law and not inject personal biases towards anything so I I think I two four and five to me would be the best fit for sure thank you um unlike my colleagues actually appreciate diversity of opinion and thought and perspective when it comes to how we build the future of Springfield um so my choices are Morgan Nicholas and Andrew thank you

40:38 thank you everybody for applying it is nice to see five applicants it does make our job more difficult um I appreciate everybody and what they had to say and my choices are Morgan Pat and Andrew thank you sure I Echo the sentiment of our previous comments thank you all for coming this is really it does make our job more difficult but it's exciting to see the um interest that that you all are are sharing with us so thank you um I two and five are are yeses for me and um I'm I'm kind of leaning on either

41:24 Frank or Morgan I don't know that I have a strong preference with either one so maybe see where the majority takes us Steve my phone is on uh you know Carrie Driggs I've never seen anybody have so much knowledge in my life and I really like to see her on there apparently she may not make it tonight but I want her to continue forward please Bo you're good so uh Nicholas and Andrew and and uh and Frank are the other three I would select all right you have to give me them in preferential order so you get three order was

42:12 say so you're saying so you're saying you want you want Morgan give me your top three yes Morgan okay which one is Morgan on this list it's number one it's Carrie oh okay sorry okay Morgan that's the one I want I didn't know there was a name of Morgan with her but Carrie is the one I want and then Nicholas and then Andrew okay so I'm jotting down notes to the side so I've got enough for Andrew to go forward I don't know if you want to come back up Sandy

43:00 I've got I've got enough for Pat to go forward I got four for Pat to go forward and then I've got two for Nick and three for Frank or Morgan and three for Frank so I think I've got three for Morgan now I let counselor Weber off the hook originally with uh with with a I put myself in that position didn't I well I gave councelor Mo a hard time about it so I figured I should come back to you thank you um well I really appreciate the

43:49 um that Morgan does this job for a living I think that really adds some benefit to the conversation for sure um and do appreciate that you clarified for councilor Doyle that this lens is what you you know you always have that lens but it's not necessarily going to drive every decision that you make like to the to The Bitter End right um and Frank I appreciate you you coming in too but I think if I'm going to have to make a choice then Morgan her experience in her daily job I think really is a big huge benefit to the to the and I've been sort of talling as we've we've been going but like it is planning commission's hard work and some of the hardest work that gets done in City Hall it means a lot to us all to

44:34 have actual actual choices and a lot of experience in the room to be able to make a to make a selection so I really appreciate you raising your hand for Planning Commission and please we have plenty of committees so if you are not selected tonight we will put you um we will gladly put you to work so I have Andrew going forward I have Morgan going forward and I have Pat going forward I'm looking around to make sure people who are taking notes are all nodding because it wouldn't be the first time that uh that I counted it incorrectly go ahead that sounds good um one question um I mean clearly commissioner Buck will be continuing with a another term y um it would be helpful to know which one you want to have replace um commissioner

45:19 Salazar with a term starting in December um January and which one you want to fit into Stouts um so could you clarify how much commissioner Stout has left on his term before we decide I don't have that in front of me um but less than a full term okay so go ahead well maybe that would I mean for me maybe that would give me the opportunity to see and be able to um with with Carrie who do you want to be called Carrie or do you want to be called Morgan okay it's just written down Carrie I apologize for keep saying that I'm okay with either way but that might give me an opportunity and like ease my mind more to be able to see that for that half term with Morgan so that's

46:04 just I mean I'm okay either way I'm not I'm not so I'm gon some head nods um my suggestion would be why don't you slot Morgan into commissioner Stout's leftover term but bring us back how long that term is so we might choose when we get to the regular session to to move people around if sure if uh you know once we have the information does that sound good to everybody yes his term expires December 20 or December 31st of 2026 okay so you were right it was right about a half term all right then let's do that thank you thank thank you so much and Sandy for 45 minutes of interviews we're only one minute over

46:50 aloud thank you so much all right I know we have a lot of uh bullet in here that came from the interviews you're more than welcome to stay don't feel obligated to talk about flood planes with us the next person the next uh item is Oregon National flood insurance program Endangered Species Act integration and pre-implementation compliance pick them

47:51 I I don't like public speaking so I apologize in advance um I'm Jeremy um the designated flood plane uh administrator um I'm here with Haley Campbell she's a senior planner I'm also here with a group of other people that have really supported um me in bringing this presentation and gathering information um so I can present it to you tonight so I want to recognize some of these people kogan he he's the emergency manager uh Megan Murray um I don't know if she's here tonight but um she's an environmental specialist here at the city um also want to uh recognize uh Julie she's with um she's a a senior Environmental Specialist with and she's

48:37 a consultant um with AKs engineering and she's she's back she's right there um she she's been really helpful in understanding because she's a biologist and she knows what it would take to implement some of these plans and so she's been able to help help me understand um the cost of what what this um uh uh implementation um measure will will will will um will bring so um I also want to mention uh Mike Travis he's a GIS analyst he's not here tonight but he he helped me get some statistics for you too so that might be

49:22 helpful um this um this uh pre Implement excuse me pre-implementation compliance measures um is really just a short-term um plan until the um Endangered Species Act is actually integrated with the national flood insurance program so that's what tonight's um presentation is really all about um and it's evolving it's as a matter of fact what I'm going to show you tonight has already changed and so um it's very difficult to stay on top of it but as we go through it um I'll I'll do the best I can to keep you up to dat on any changes that are happening and I'll when we get to those slides I'll we

50:09 we'll mention that so it's evolving um to date U we've coordinated and had um meetings with uh female region 10 so we've had some webinars that we've attended Haley and myself um we've attended a variety um of League of um of Oregon cities so we're up to speed with what other cities are doing as much as we can and we've been in communication with uh dlcd uh dcd's State plane uh uh FL plane manager or excuse me coordinator um so um we're up to speed

50:54 where where where they are standing on a lot of this stuff and other jurisdictions such as Lane County and Eugene so we're coordinating with them as well and listening to what they're they're they're doing and tonight they're listening to what we're doing so um so we're really trying to coordinate with um local jurisdictions and with the with the cities over the state see what everybody's doing so and of course we've also provided you with with a um with a packet um hopefully you have a chance to read it it's very um I guess technical in nature and I apologize for it but it's very complicated it's hard to condense all the the knowledge that we've obtained over the year or not years it feels like

51:40 years I'm sorry over the months about what this is all about so go ahead and go to the next slide so so where are we right now um I'm going to put my glasses on so I can read my notes um in 20 2016 the national Marine fishery Service issued a biological opinion and reasonable and prudent uh prudent alternatives on the national flood insurance program what the objective was or what the outcome of that was is um a a no net loss to the flood plane functions on the endangered species within the flood plane so in uh from from 2020 to 2021 FEMA issued a draft National flood

52:27 insurance program slash Dash um uh Endangered Species Act and compliance imple um implementation plan 2023 which is a year ago FEMA was sued they were sued to take immediate action because it was found that they had not taken meaningful action to implement the 2026 or 2016 by ological opinion so in July um the city uh received a letter from FEMA that announced the uh pre-implementation compliance measures and um these measures are um short-term measures to comply with endanger Species Act in the special

53:14 flood Hazard areas so I'm going to turn it over to Haley because I don't really like public speaking that much so she she's going to talk a little bit about how we how we kind of got here some a little bit background thank you Jeremy um I'm just going to slide in in a couple slides here and there but you guys have heard from me before about you know code update projects so um so as Jeremy mentioned on the previous slide on April 4th 2016 the national Marine fishery service completed their analysis of the effects of the national flood insurance program or nfip on species listed as threatened or endangered Under The Endangered Species Act um and they issue this biological opinion and concluded that the current implementation of the national flood insurance program in

54:00 Oregon is likely to jeopardize the continued existence of 16 fish species and the southern resident killer whale the reasonable and prudent alternative as we mentioned on the previous slide included with the biological opinion proposed alternative approaches to the nfip performance standards that would that when implemented would avoid continued Jeopardy for the listed species and habitat described in the biological opinion so essentially just saying we have to do what we can to prevent those species from being harmed what are the requirements of the 2016 biological opinion there's three areas it the standard that they came up with was a non net loss standard and it

54:45 had to do with FL uh flood storage water quality and riparian vegetation so when it comes to the flood water storage um it's limiting new fill or requ iring compensatory flood water storage to offset any new fill water quality limiting uh new impervious services and heightening storm water requirements and then uh the riparian reg uh vegetation uh is really uh restricting removal within a 170 foot um riparian buffer zone is what they have So within U within the water feature

55:30 okay we can go to the next slide okay so let's let's talk about the impacts a little bit and uh so I wanted to present a few few statistics that we were able to obtain um so just just for your general knowledge we have within the City of Springfield 40 policy holders um and we have and we have um so to be clear that does not include the ugb we don't have we don't have statistics on that because FEMA doesn't um uh so those are in Lane County so those are included with Lane County so there's more but within the actual City Limits we only have 40 policy holders um and then give you a little context on um development uh Springfield

56:17 issues about two residential One commercial and one utility flood plane permit per year that's about four permits of of flood plane permits per year um over the last five years you can see it on your board there's 13 permits four commercial and five utility go ahead and turn to okay you got it so most of the land in the special flood haard area is designated residential and located along Harbor Drive Hayden Bridge along Channel 6 and Mill Race the remaining lands include commercial and Industrial Zone properties which are along South second the east side of Glenwood and North Gateway so as far as residential is

57:05 concern it's clear that most of the area Long Harbor Drive is 100% in the flood plane and less so in other areas in Springfield uh the commercial areas in North Gateway is 100% impacted so um there are there will be no area that can be developed outside the flood plane and you can look at at the all the statistics for yourself so when we're talking about vacant Lambs those nine vacant Parcels that you see there that's North Gateway pretty much um and then U that's what um so uh so areas uh lands that are partially within a flood plane there's quite a few quite a bit more so there is potential for developing outside the flood plane

57:51 but part part of the the parcels are going to be inside of it so um that's just kind of give you a kind of a general idea as best as we can um about the statistics there so I'm going to turn it over to Haley she's going to talk about the pick them paths a pre-implementation compliance measures thank you Jeremy um so FEMA is requiring cities and counties to select one of three picks or short-term paths prior to December 1st 2024 although you are seeing four on the screen and I'll get to the fourth one one pathway one adopts the pium model flood plane management ordinance which is in your packet I believe is attachment uh three um that considers

58:37 impacts to fish habitat and requires mitigation to a non net loss standard pathway two requires us to review individual development proposals and require permit by permit habitat mitigation to achieve no net loss using flood plane habitat assessment and mitigation guidance from FEMA we'll get into a few minutes about what the permit by permit requires how much that costs pathway three is to prohibit all new development in the flood plane and pathway four which is shown on the screen while not a FEMA pium would have Springfield withdrawing from the nfip all right let's get into some pros and cons with each one of those Pathways um ju just to put it um put it all into

59:25 context um each each regardless of which pathway you you choose um a measure 56 notices are most likely required um according to dlcd um and that's an um that's their opinion but we also need to respect our city attorney's opinion on that as well but regardless of the options um housing and Commercial development will be Li will be impacted because the limits because it limits land use on private land and it transfers a lot of the burden of compliance with the esa from FEMA to the property owner and to the city

1:00:11 so I might get in trouble for saying this but it's really just an un unfunded mandate um so you can read the uh pros and cons but as far as the model code um it's it's fairly easy to implement it's just timec consuming take all of them going to take time but um it's it's right there it's all been written for us um um and then um the permit by permit um that's not true that could be IM this is one of the changes that um has happened is it's not uh according to the uh City attorney it may not be immediately implementable so um it may have to go

1:00:56 through the measure 56 or may have to go through other processes um prohibiting all new development is is a possibility um but it it still I believe has to go and somebody can correct me as other the measure 56 notice um those those prohib prohibits would be um shortterm of course so um the cons on that one would be um no no develop vment would be allowed um for um for a period of time so um there is one other one that um that's that's not really a FEMA option um it is to withdraw from

1:01:41 nfip um so in that case we wouldn't have to implement any of these um there are other private insurance companies that will ensure chairman can you hang on one second yeah quick question what is our rating with the CRS are we like eight nine um I'm assuming with only 40 and like the amount of work it goes into that number that we're probably pretty yeah that number I don't have off off hand right now but I I think we we've actually made progress over the years because I know that U we've had um I issues in that in the past and we've changed our code and we've had um um DL um yeah I think it's dlcd that comes in does our inspections here and uh I think

1:02:28 we're we're doing okay but I don't know what the number is I'm just asking that because I'd like to know if we were to consider withdrawing from the nfap because I know that the amount of work and stuff that goes into trying to keep that up every year and all of that and every five years having to do what you have to do um if the cost to the um homeowner is going to go up significantly or if it wouldn't be that much and I say that because if it we're you know we're number level four then their rates are probably you know 5% I I understand I think it's like 5% each each rating you go it goes down 5% for the person who's insured but if we're at like eight or nine and withdrawing is only going to take them up 5% I'm wondering if that's not an option um so I've done a did research on private companies that do flood insurance and

1:03:14 and they provide a a a very um um com comparable rate and and and some of their U some some of the things that they do is actually a little bit better than what FEMA provides um however they rely on FEMA on their maps and what they do in order to provide that insurance so if we withdrew the chances are that those private insurance company my my my belief would be that they wouldn't they wouldn't want to do it privately anymore so people would not get would not have insurance jarn can you hang on a minute can I see you kind of go coming up and down about whether or not you need you have something to add to this

1:03:59 convers come on up here hold up a chair yeah good evening mayor and Council Ken vogan the city's emergency manager um in response to council Doyle's question about the community rating system Springfield is not currently a participant so official we're a nine because we're not actually participating in the program I'm glad you clarified that yeah I'll stick around for you thank you thank you all right back to you

1:04:48 Jeremy um the other thing about the cons about that besides what was just mentioned here is that suspension um would also uh well would also lead to um loss of federal funding um so one one of the things is and and Ken can talk more about it is um the levy um we're looking to restore that in some way but um those kinds of fundings may disappear as well if I might Jeremy there's there's one other con that um I realized we didn't have on the slides and that is if we withdraw from the national flood insurance program it does not provide us any protection from The Endangered

1:05:33 Species Act determinations of potential harm um to this to the listed species so we could be standing on our own if somebody decided to Sue City of Springfield for doing development in the flood plane in a way that wasn't compliant with um what FEMA and the national Marine fishery service put together under the biological opinion okay all right what's this all going to cost to the landowner um and what we're talking about here is just the assessment cost itself just for a biological um assessment um

1:06:18 and this one would be the assessment uh route um but I suspect that it also um relates to the model code too because there is an assessment that's required for the model code as well so here's one of these areas where things are evolving um these numbers are incorrect um recently FEMA has realized that U the assessment criteria was way too stringent and so what they did is what what they are doing we don't have the information right now is the assessments being U um redone and um so but we do have some

1:07:05 kind of clues of where they're going with it so with that um a simple assessment um and this doesn't include the construction costs and you know actually mitigating it's actually this is just the Consulting um so the simple um would be 8 to 9,000 a a moderate to 13 to 15 and then a larger project uh 25 to $30,000 based on what we know right now um and again that does not include I don't have those numbers um the cost of actual mitigation you the construction of

1:07:50 that and with that good news I'm going to pass it on over to Haley okay um so the next thing you're going to see on the screen is some information that was provided initially um from the city's attorney's office um a recommendation and our comprehensive planning department uh they recommended that the city adopt the model ordinance by July 31st 2025 which which which is what we are required to do by FEMA um the city's city attorney's office also initially recommended implementing the permit by permit option on December 1st um as the model ordinance can not be adopted by the by the deadline um which is essentially we need to be moving toward a direction um by December 1st right you guys have seen me come to you over the last year or two um a code

1:08:36 adoption process takes at a minimum at least six months sometimes longer um so there's no way we could really implement it by December 1st so in light of new information um from FEMA the city's attor City attorney's office provided their revised recommendation of moving forward to adopt the model ordinance um so it's different from what's recommended on the screen which was originally to do a permit by- permit implementation by December 1st and then move ahead with the model code adoption by July uh 31st 2025 um so I just wanted to point out that the habitat assessment is the default option um if no other pium is chosen so FEMA is essentially saying like you have to implement the the pium uh habitat by habitat by habitat

1:09:21 assessment if you don't choose another um pick them choice um and again as Jeremy mentioned earlier if a pathway is not chosen the city risk suspension or or probation from the nfip which would result in the loss of federal flood plane project assistance assistance such as the 42nd Street Levy so next steps um on December 2nd Jeremy is going to be returning to you uh with a resolution to choose one of the FEMA Pathways uh once Council chooses is a pathway staff will begin the necessary steps to adopt that pathway into into the development code starting in January Springfield must implement the pum path by July 20th by July 31st 2025 to

1:10:09 provide a report to FEMA in January 2026 on our implementation progress so we just need to be providing that report of how we are progressing with the pick and path that we've chosen uh Fimo will finalize and issue the nfip esa implementation plan by January of 2026 so we've got about a year to start implementing it and then they'll give us a finalized version of if we need to make any changes to the code or any changes to how we're implementing the habitat by habitat by habitat assessment in 2027 we can expect to fully implement the final plan and uh I just wanted to point out on the bottom of the screen there you can see that as of August 1 of 2024 FEMA has temporarily suspended processing applications for

1:10:54 letters of provision based on Phil or lar fs and conditional letters of map provision based on Phil or Kar Fs in nfip communities to avoid negative effects on Esa listed species so um just ask me if you guys have any questions about what that means uh so next UPS again if you guys have any questions Jeremy I Ken others are here to help answer them but what we'll really be looking for you from you for tonight is a recommendation on which pick on pathway you would like so that we can incorporate it incorporate that into a resolution that will be coming back to you on December 2nd okay before I open up to about the earli questions that we're gonna have um prior to

1:11:39 December 2nd is it possible that we get new information yes yeah so this could change 75 times between then so whatever we choose tonight it is very possible we could find ourselves here at December 2nd going with new information we're going to cross out whatever option we chose and then drop in drop in a different option okay and I think we'd also like to mention too that FEMA's recommendation has been you just have to pick a pathway and if something changes between after you've chosen that pathway on December 2nd and implementing it by July 31st 2025 that's okay you just need to be moving in some sort of path toward implementation yeah and I think that was my my second question is effectively

1:12:25 we're just saying dear FEMA we choose option one or option two uh third question and you guys do not have to take you know have this answer now I know how strapped the comprehensive planning staff is and this sounds like a significant amount of work so when we always talk about capacity and where the line of things getting worked are it would be really helpful to understand what we just left by the wayside because FEMA is sort of I don't know jumping the line maybe the right just so we understand the trade-off that we're we're making go ahead Joe I just wanted to have a just a quick question going back to your um slide page nine where it's a habitat

1:13:11 assessment costs are those new on top of to say is that the the simple one is what you're talking I know it's not as high as what's indicated there something up upwards of up to $8,000 I think you said is that on top top of what a person that wants to build a home would have to pay today or is this I mean is this coming in field so yep with those kinds of fees I I I gotta I mean the only thing that's comeing to my mind is that we don't have to worry about no further uh production or no further uh um work getting done or development because these fees are going to make development prohibited I mean I don't understand

1:13:57 it's almost like these fees or habitat assessment costs are engineered to torpedo future development so again I mean whatever whatever path is the the easiest and the simplest and the least cost to the development I in favor of all right thanks sh anybody I just feel very comfortable and I'm sure that the people who live in this are going to understand paying those fees to save the southern killer whale that might be running around Hayden Bridge area in Glennwood so um this is why people get frustrated

1:14:43 with government regulation um I don't really have a lot to say about it I think you need to do what you need to do I understand the NF because my first thought was like let's just bail on the nfip but if that's going to have some effect on the levy and those type of things and that's obviously not an option that we can look at um I would be okay with what you have placed here which is the permit by permit which what you can Implement immediately and get it off your plate but I do like the model code idea if we have time to implement that that would probably be my choice but and and can we um you just get a clarification from from legal here that the the recommendation for from the city attorney is move to go permit by permit and then

1:15:29 uh mayor and Council this is Rebecca Dorman she's been assisting some contract legal work while Christina's on maternity Le and she can answer your question all right welcome Rebecca thank you mayor council um Rebecca Dorman here um so your question could you repeat it for me please yeah so the slides seem like that uh that the the legal advice was to go with permit by permit and then and then comprehensive planning was saying permit by permit and then into the model code and then in the staff presentation um I thought I heard that there was a revised uh City attorney recommendation to just to that was more aligned with the model code yes um exactly so um back in August and

1:16:14 September or so um FEMA's position seemed to be pretty um stringent that a local government needed to select and Implement one of the three path pathways on December 1st 2024 and that just is impossible for us to do in Oregon with the way we do things for our land use um codes and so since then um FEMA has seemed to soften um what they're expecting on December 1st 2024 um such that as long as a local government selects a pathway um and make progress then afterwards towards implementing that pathway um that will suffice um and so the recommendation initially was from the city attorney's

1:17:00 office was um under the impression that um we would be penalized if we didn't Implement something and FEMA um offered the permit by permit habitat assessment as something that could be implemented immediately off the shelf which is just not true um but we were going to try our hardest to do that um to comply with FMA so the recommendation then was um go ahead and do the permit by permit habitat assessment as best we can on December 1st 2024 while then moving towards adopting the model code as our longer longer term um posst implementation compliance measure um so that was that was the advice in August September things seem to have softened

1:17:46 again with FEMA's position such that it would be better to just move towards working towards adopting the model code at this point okay and thank you for for helping to clarify that because my instinct here is to follow follow that recommendation um and I guess I have two more questions before we go back to Joe here the first one is when I think about the issue we're trying to solve here this is this isn't sort of a runoff issue this right like like if I if when I read it it sounded like it was it wasn't a runoff issue it was more a in the flood plane in the event of a flood right how does how does the built environment impact impact endangered species is that correct yes correct y okay so it's kind

1:18:34 of having to shift my brain thinking because most of the time we're talking about discharge and runoff and you know what happens to the water in this case is in the event of a flood what actually happens in the flooded areas the second question and I that I have is does is somebody is there somebody that can just chat to just the amount of I don't know letters and questions that are coming out out of both the governor's office and the Congressional delegations about this and then we'll go to Jill yes we we do have some um let me get my other glasses on here give you a rundown of

1:19:21 that okay so once you receive received the um letter from FEMA um we did get a uh Congressional Delegation to write a a letter to FEMA and that was dated August 22nd 2024 um to delay um it wasn't saying to to stop it so basically all these letters are to delay and then September 26 2024 Governor Tina Tina cotek also appealed to FEMA to delay and then um the house na natural resources committee chairman uh wrote a letter to delay and used very strong language in that one and that was done

1:20:09 um what was the date on that one that was recent October 30th so so still there's a I think we're going to learn a lot in the next couple of weeks go Ahad Joe and then we'll wrap up thanks thank you Sean so I think two is that if we're making these decisions we need to also take into consideration uh I'm very concerned about those those studies um for example what about work we're thinking about having done in Glenwood the uh how a large project such as the park development that that well Aman's going to have to do are they going to be subject to that as well I assume the the the broad implications of

1:20:55 this is astronomical and could effectively halt everything that that we're trying to do here and so I'm really hoping that someone comes to their senses and makes this uh more pilotable but I'm just voicing my frustration because I think this is crazy anybody else yeah Cory and then we'll go to Steve um I would support the model ordinance this is crazy uh right feel like a pingpong ball option number two we can't do because we can't get it done by July correct takes its own

1:21:40 change let's see what they they get mixed up the pathways so um so option two permit by permit why don't we do an emergency zone change we can do that I think but that's my it does anybody have anything to add we may need some technical help here this is Rebecca Dorman again um subbing in in the city attorney's area here um so counselor Mo you mentioned um a zone change um and you know when I've seen zone change referen uh um in these

1:22:25 options it's been um kind of as an alternative to a moratorium on development instead of a moratorium on development just rezone everything so that it's not developable um and um I think that that's um probably a lot of um staff time to to go through that and there could be some um uh there could be some um problems with with what that does to people's property values and their expectations and there could be claims along those lines I didn't really expect you to answer that but thank you sorry okay way I'm just coming at you so first of all thank you guys for

1:23:10 um continuing to work on this I know this is changing a lot it has changed the five times you've talked to talked to me about it six different times in between um so please continue to stay connected with our local partners and especially on the actev side you know businesses that are impacted I think we have direction that says okay assuming nothing changes that the second we we would work towards the model model ordinance so um I think that's what you needed thank you thank you very much we've got one more topic left to go we're going to end with a fun one here so this is the Springfield emergency response application or Sarah

1:23:57 city council overview and we're bringing kenb back uh good evening mayor and Council I'm Neil ADOT I'm the assistant city manager I'm here with Chris zitner our JS database administrator and Ken voggy our emergency response manager while Chris is setting up the app and connecting I'm just going to give a brief overview of um some of the information this evening so on January 12th as you all remember 2024 which was less than a year ago the National Weather Service predicted we would get about a half inch of ice in Springfield um in response to that the city Operations Division prepared the full winter Fleet um by January 13th on

1:24:43 that Saturday morning um several of us were under City Hall U making plans to close City Hall and at that time no one had any idea that we were looking at the beginning of an unpr prent at ice storm in Springfield uh the city implemented a full response including operations police fire city hall employees our elected officials all providing service and information uh we declared an emergency the emergency Ops Center was activated and staffed and communication and updates were implemented and pretty early on we realized that unlike that this storm unlike other emergencies such as the um holiday Farm fire the modern way of communicating that we were using was problematic in many of the areas for

1:25:28 the mass power outages and the kind of the folks stuck in certain locations and during that week we started to I know personally I kept thinking back to a story i' seen on a news um magazine about flight 1449 which was the flight that landed in the Hudson River um and they did a story with the first interview of the pilot and the um um flight attendants on that flight um and it was a big deal because they were the first ones to talk to Sully and the co-pilot about the issues and it was the first time they had put their uniforms back on since they made the emergency landing in the Hudson and all of them were wearing their uniforms except for one flight attendant named Dorene wellsh

1:26:13 she was in the back of the plane the back of the plane hit the Hudson first and why the while the pilot and the co-pilot and the two uh attendants that were up front claimed that the landing was pretty comfortable in the back of the plane it was a fully different experience um the plane was filled with water people were panicking um Dorene was injured um and so she was not able to put her uniform back on and I kept thinking about this because different areas of Springfield were experiencing the same storm very differently um and it was a one-size fits-all communication that we were using to try to communicate um so you know even folks on this dis

1:26:59 experienced it differently I was fortunate and I live by the kingford plant we were only out of power for a couple of days I was able to drive in and out to work but some folks obviously were much more impacted on this very Council um so when we connected with community members either at their home by visiting or when we had the resource center here at City Hall and hundreds of residents came by one of the questions we asked was you know what did we miss what could we have done differently and a lot of it came back to communication people understood the operations doing everything they could they understood that police and fire were going above and beyond and they saw us all working but it was the communication piece um so the community feedback echoed that we needed to do a better job

1:27:44 of kind of understanding the impacts of neighborhoods and how to communicate and respond to those different neighborhoods in Springfield and that's where we came up working with operation s and GIS we came up with Sarah the Springfield emergency response application so this was all done inhouse and it's still uh we're still uh working on uh different details but what hopefully you'll see tonight as Chris kind of goes over the details of the app is it provides a detailed overview of all of our Springfield neighborhoods where we can dive down into the neighborhoods and kind of get practical information on the needs and concerns of citizens and then develop a response based on that it develops an active list of

1:28:29 resources contacts and partners throughout the city so we can make those Community connections during a crisis and if you kind of think about you know we think a lot about the council reaching out and saying what can we do how can we connect with things that are happening this allows us to dive into those neighborhoods that were really hard to reach pull up those connections that we made and we have and then provide them with updates or reach out to them um and we'll also go through a few of the kind of connections that we'll make door too this is a living application and it can change as needed so uh Chris is going to kind of walk you through uh some scenarios one thing that we won't go over is Ken is working on what a AM radio station would look like just for Springfield so it would be a

1:29:16 dormant through most of the year and then activated during an emergency and we can push people to those you know we counselors and the mayor can do updates and and other things but uh thank you to Chris thank you to um all of operations Brian to uh kind of bring this thing to life and I'll kick it over to Chris great thank you I need turn there we go sorry first time long time um so thanks Neil for the robust introduction to this I'm gonna go ahead and give you guys just a highlevel walkthrough of the applications that we've stood up to support the um what we're calling Sarah Springfield emergency resp response application so the first one we're going to go through is really the backend

1:30:02 components what our EOC staff members would be using in an event right how do we how do we communicate incidents that we're seeing on the ground back to the EOC so they can deploy effectively um we've mocked up some areas here that we've you know noticed issues before so thirston Hills is is a winter storm event that we've identified inside of the application it will then Zoom Us in inside of there we'll have an active incident area which we have some predefined ones again based off of pth storms um this will allow us to Monitor and track issues that are going on inside of these

1:30:47 boundaries and the third one that we've developed so far is this wellness check area these will allow us to Define areas on the map that can then sorry go back to thirst that we can then deploy volunteers staff to begin checking on residents to make sure they have the things they need to survive to thrive throughout the event um again this is a very detailed application I don't want to walk you through all of it I'll just try to highlight some of the pertinent things that you guys might be interested which primarily is understanding our impacts right so we have a bunch of reports that can be run based off of different boundaries so if we select our

1:31:34 incident boundary it's going to run out and run a canned report that's going to give us a highlevel demographic of that area you know who lives there what are the sorry internet um high level you know population h hospitals Children at Risk you know people without cars people without internet everybody loves people with dogs um and how do you get that information that seems kind of the the do intrusive just the whole like knowing whether people have cars or don't have cars and this is generally sourc from the Census I would read it says it's down at the very bottom it's what the actual

1:32:19 source of this information is thank you I'm looking I'm looking really closely does this include um people with disabilities yes I'm going to I'm going to get to that awesome thank you um currently not but we are working towards that and I'll show you how we'll access that information when we do have it um high level you know senior population so on and so forth the nice thing about this this can all be exported out to an infographic so it could be shared to council members who then could share it through social media or however we want to share that this data is information that we keep in house um so any vulnerable populations that we've identified distribution sites so we've categorized distribution sites

1:33:05 currently as any place that you can get food water ice um again all of this is subject to be refined and reanalyzed um and then another area working on is neighborhood contacts so identifying people in neighborhoods throughout the city who are interested in being volunteers to help facilitate these neighborhood Wellness checks again any of any of this can be exported um opened up for uh further exploration some of this information hasn't been uh populated yet it's a living document we're working as we can get to it yeah as Chris is kind of covering it's the U kind of the direct feedback that we heard from folks it's like where

1:33:51 is my distribution site do you know how many houses are up here that people can't get to we were sending the police up to neighborhoods we weren't quite sure exactly how many people were there this kind of gives us a better look that we'll know there are 20 homes we have contact with these three or four people maybe we can call them if they have phone service and ask how things are on the ground before we send people up we know that they were asking especially in thirst for propane and firewood um but they had to come down here to tell us before we could get the information to them and we have that now and so we're just trying to give it a place to live right and some of the more detailed information obviously about distribution sites is listing what's available to those sites as we're monitoring this we can begin to take those things off if

1:34:37 Bart is out of ice we can remove it so we're not sending people to BART to get ice um so really just trying to build a communication thread throughout the city um so that's kind of the back in portion of this that we would be monit again monitoring inside the link public Wi-Fi is slow um again highle dashboard that can be shared with um anybody inside the

1:35:23 organization a council included um all password protected so very secure uh this first page is just really a high level overview of what's going on throughout the city where are incidents you know any weather watches that we have we currently have two because we do have a snow or not snow but rain and Windstorm pending for tonight um any evacuation notices that have been issued this is fake data so we don't have any evacuation notices currently um and distribution sites and road closures the real um interesting part about this dashboard is going to be the wellness check side of it so this is going to be realtime information feeding in from those who are out doing the

1:36:09 checks door too so we're going to know you know we have 178 current act active Wellness checks only four of those have been completed of those four here are the things they've identified they've needed right we have three three that need firewood one that's been delivered uh four that need water one that's been delivered any of these can be filtered down to show exactly the addresses that need it um on multiple levels so if we have somewhere that needs all four of those things then we can really start to filter down and get out to those people effectively um again this is all streaming in real time as they're being collected

1:36:57 and the last application that I will show you is really is just the wellness check application that we've stood up so this is an application that can be run on any device you know Android iOS iPad iPhone laptop whatever somebody has they can to get to the internet they can use this application and it's really designed to be as simple as possible where somebody can select an address they'll then identify items that are needed obviously they don't know any because it's not been completed yet um and simply go through our list that we've identified of things that are needed do they need water do they need

1:37:44 food do they need medical supplies if so what type do they have power yes or no um really simple stuff right and we can update that that's then going to feedb and it's actually going to update our list so when we go back out we're going to know that these addresses need these three things when we go back out or they come in the city or distribution site we can look up their address and check them off to make sure that they've received those items and if I can this gives us a a little better understanding you know if you remember kind of those days where we were just going out to areas and walking

1:38:30 um now we know a little bit more about those areas and we can say here are the areas we know are going to be in some sort of trouble and let's get out to those areas and a lot of folks that came again to the resource center were like geez if I only had those green propane tanks that could have stayed at home or if we only had firewood um so this allows us to kind of when we're calling folks when we're talking to people just uh store that information yeah so that's kind of that's kind of it that's the high level overview I mean we could go into depth of like the inner workings of all of this and how we would deploy it and who's going to do what this that's the other but can you speak to the application inent Advance yeah I think that's an important

1:39:22 piece yeah absolutely um thanks for pointing that out Brian um obviously this was built around an incident that occurred to this fresh in our mind but it can be utilized in any event right a fire a flood a windstorm um you know however whatever happens in the city we can deploy against all right go ahead Corey could it be used um not necessarily a natural event like say there was a shooting or something like that could it be used in that case too thank you yeah so this is designed you know if we look at you know really digging into it if we want to o a new incident we have essentially this list here this can be changed as well but it's pretty in depth already um not sure there's going to be many volcanoes in um

1:40:07 or tsunamis in Springfield but if we do have one knock on wood right now it has been a crazy couple of years but we do have Cascadia we do have cascad I think that's something that's really vital that we I I don't know if Springfield has a team or a plan that practices and is around that I'd love to be in you know find out what we are doing to prepare for that because it's not a matter of if that's going to happen it's a matter of when so I love this but I love I'd like to see if that how that connects with that because we're going to be cut off from food and stuff and that happens and again there is a whole level of training that's going to need to go into this and since we're digging in to the depths here a little bit this is all hosted remotely so if something were to happen to City Hall and our servers went down this would actually

1:40:54 keep running Steve sounds a lot like the old civil defense programs back in the 60s very similar uh similar but different you know uh they stocked food they stocked all kinds of things Springfield High School had a big storage area back then for whatever whatever happened of course that sort of diered away and the other thing I've never heard Ken mentioned before citiz the band radios you can go a mile with that and another mile another M and they're hard to keep charged but you can communicate all over with those and and that's one one method of communication maybe not the best one but it is a one go ahead Beth I'm really excited about this this is neat to to hear about

1:41:40 I um like Neil pointed out we all experience the ice storm on you know different levels but one thing that we all heard is um was talk about communication so um this is this is great I'm glad Springfield listened to that is taking action on that but uh is this going to live so it's an app to download for the public as well and put their information in is that what I'm understanding or is this just an internal currently internal Curr internal um and then deployed to people that we identify as volunteers um I would be it's it has the ability to be broadcast to the public okay um we would just have I was just wondering if there was a portion of it that was an external app for for you know communication to so for information

1:42:26 coming in or how it helps there is an exter external portion for communication um people can go and look up their address to see if there's any evacuation notices or road closures near their address but they don't have the ability to go in and actually say my address and I need this and is would that be then on the website you mean is that how yeah I wanted to go and look okay yeah I can I can get this little thing I can show you so you're looking that up the question I had was so when we when this goes active in an emergency right I know you know we've got police we got fire we got Public Works we've got utility workers out there so the expectation would be if police make makes a welfare check they're going to record that information in here if fire do as well what about

1:43:11 what about uh like if if the utility makes contact with somebody are they supposed to report is the plan for to have them report back that's a great question we still are working with our team Springfield Partners they've received some information but they haven't been integrated into this yet but yeah the way that the wellness check works is really just could be on their phones and they can keep track of where they're at I think we want to you know it's early we don't want to have it be too much but what you're asking definitely that can happen um and I think this is the public facing right yeah this would just be you know if we have an incident on IV Street

1:43:57 I learned how to type Street like that public yeah live demos are really my favorite so just looking up Ivy Street it's going to tell you there's four results there there's a road closure two road closures three road closures and an evacuation warning obviously this is available right now so we all know for the record this is practice data yes um and again in there they could click on this to find a shelter nearby so the amount we're releasing to the public right now is very small um but it can be expanded over time as we

1:44:42 develop sure I just want to thank you for all the work on this this is a really really helpful tool given everything we learned in the ice storm it's going to be really really great and I had the same question about our team Springfield Partners so um I think collectively any way that we can work together through those emergencies is really going to be critical for our community so bringing them on board somehow would be wonderful Cory yeah thank you I'm excited about this and I Neil had a little drip campaign so I'd heard about it and so to get to see it it's fantastic and I think one of the things I'm thinking about and you know when councelor gber mentioned that um I think it's going to be great to see how it evolves over time because I think each time we use it we're going

1:45:28 to learn more we're going to say oh we should really have LTD or we should really have you know um and so just having the basis to to build on is going to be fantastic so not that I'm looking forward to using but I'm kind of looking forward to using it let's hope we never have to use it um I guess the one comment I had about team Springfield is I think it is interesting to have a like how do we all work together you know how do we tighten our bonds so that you know we we get better about um responding to emergencies communicating just staying staying linked I think in my mind and I know this is still really early is we can't we can't host and be responsible for everybody else's reporting out because that's just one too many steps right so

1:46:13 if it is you know the Utility Board you know they need to be responsible for out who's out of power if it's the parks District they need to be talk about what buildings are open and right we can maybe you know talk about how to work through that better but to me each of the government agencies has to be the source of Truth for impacts to the public all right Nancy I saw you waving your hand in here thank you mayor um I just wanted to mention that we did uh uh Chris gave a presentation to team Springfield much similar to what you've seen here this evening and I think that it it was very well received our team Springfield um Partners appreciated being able to get to this granular level of data and so I think there will be

1:46:58 more conversations about how we can connect together and how they can provide data to us and we can share on platforms uh back and forth you know right now again we're in the planning uh phases of this but how this could play out would be you know let's say we had something in the near future hopefully we won't but there would you know this could be a a person in the Emergency Operations Center that is using this platform as we are learning things in real time either from reports from our police via dispatch or people notifying it but would be under the incident command structure within the Emergency Operations Center I think is the is the best way to make sure that the data is uh reliable and verified right I'm sorry m one other I

1:47:45 wanted to thank uh all of the people involved with planning this esec especially uh Neila Chris of course eer and Ken vogan as as well as you know the gis team was just it was all hands kind of working on this um we we even had Jennifer from our office was inputting data on where grocery stores were so you know there's a lot of excitement around this and being able to really help our community in the way that they need specific to their area and then this obviously information would be available for you as council members to work with your constituents so you have more detailed information on what their needs are perfect thank you all right before we wrap up I just I guess I wanted to say thank you one more time because you know there's lots of Parts where the

1:48:30 community came together in the ice storm and did a fantastic job and it and it takes a lot of diligence to really step back and go okay if we had to go through all of that again what what other tools do we need to have in place and be a little bit you know constructively dissatisfied to position this community to be helpful and productive and more responsive to emergencies and it means a lot to me when when the when we see the shortcomings of an incident and then 6 months or 9 months or 11 months later we're starting to see the things come back and go okay this is how we we respond to this going forward this is how we close that Gap so I really appreciate this all right this is the last topic so thank you guys and we are adjourned for

1:49:15 the evening