Springfield City Council — February 18, 2025

0:05 I'm going to call the uh Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call Mayor Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo councel rodley here councelor Blackwell here councelor Doyle and councelor stout here thank you uh councelor Doyle is excused for the evening we are expecting councelor Mo shortly but we can go ahead and get started um can we maybe reverse the order and do the uh bpack interviews first since there it is only one person true just had this look like oh no don't all right good evening my name is Andrew Larson senior Transportation planner for the City of Springfield and

0:50 tonight we are uh discussing and interviewing one candidate for one vacant position on the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee Miss Tanya mil is here um the reason for the vacancy is we had a resignation due to some inactivity um and so that's why we have the one vacancy so she would if appointed serve approximately a three-year term ending on December 31st 2027 anybody have any questions does anybody feel like they want to ask the questions or you guys going to make me do it all right

1:42 hello thanks for being flexible with us uh changing the uh agenda around are you ready for your couple of questions okay what strengths or skills would you bring to beac I would say first of all I have been pretty much a lifelong committed pedestrian uh I've rarely had a license by choice um I choose to travel but on foot or by bike or public transportation as much as possible I've also lived all over the world and traveled all over the world and seen how other countries do transportation and prioritize uh non you know single car or single uh non-automotive traffic I should say um some doing it better some

2:28 doing it worse but but um I think there's room for for improvement locally in prioritizing pedestrians and bicycle safety how do you think the work of bpac improves our community well again to focus attention on the needs and the safety of people who are not driving is important uh I also truly believe that make making things better for people who choose not to drive actually improves things for people who are driving and if you could make one positive change in Springfield what would it be does it have to be related to pedestrian me you can read that question

3:15 as wide as you want no I mean I do think that would um be an important change again we've got a downtown that just in the few years I've been here really has changed and developed and thrived and if we made it better for people who are traveling on foot uh and safer you know then we would um bring even more business and uh make this even more of a destination spot that it should be given like the energy that I see again in my few years living here all right those were all the questions I had thank you so much okay thank you it's only one interview for one spot so I'm going to look around and see

4:07 if all right do you want to put that on the agenda all right thank you okay so let's start with the Planning Commission interviews hi I'm Sarah Weaver and I am the Planning Commission assistant I support uh Sandy bellson who's the comprehensive planning manager in in carrying out tasks in support of the planning commission tonight uh and she tendered her regrets that she was unable to be here today so you've got be um we are having commissioner rhs is resigning from the Planning Commission as of March 10th that means there will be one vacancy in the Planning Commission as of March 10th and his um and his uh and his expiration date of um of

4:55 his term would be December 31st 2026 so he has almost two the person if you didn't decide to appoint someone would have almost two years with the commission um we have three candidates that came here tonight to be interviewed um that is um Dena J Jacobson Gary Jones and Jonathan seagull and I'm sure that we love to answer your questions right thank you Jonathan how you doing good how are you I recognize Steve good to see you we go back a long ways first I want to apologize I just came back from out of town and I brought a cold back with me so I don't normally sound like an old

5:40 jazz musician well you're uh you're quite far away from us we feel safe I I don't feel particularly contagious I just sound like I just sound like it well don't feel the need to sing Jazz as we go through this thank you what attracted you to a planing for the Planning Commission so I'm on the Planning Commission and late 80s and the mid 90s when we did a lot of big stuff and then I had three kids and uh now they're grown up and I'm retired and um I've always had an interest in working in city government as an adviser I don't particularly want to be the decision maker but uh happily provide input to the city council uh land use planning is something that I have always been

6:25 interested in and we have several crises with lowcost housing and homelessness and I'd like to be a part of the solution Economic Development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if you think about how development happens do you have opinions on how cost should be shared between developers and the public if we're talking about lowcost housing which is a particular interest of mine you can't build cheap and therefore it becomes necessary that subsidizing housing that

7:12 can be affordable is necessary now that doesn't necessarily mean we're going to put money into it but we should provide incentives so that people can build their own houses so I think government has a role to play in the development process but development is done by the private sector so I think there needs to be a partnership between the two and we need to perhaps look at different ways of doing it than we're doing it now if you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change the Springfield development code what would you change the development code well the metro plan requires that you build from the middle out but unfortunately cities especially in

7:58 Oregon the core cities are the core of the cities are those parts that we want to save so we need to look at perhaps developing the fringes of the city for more housing and that could be multif family so I would suggest that the areas on the edges of the city that we are looking to develop be uh open to multif family housing uh I just came back from France and that's exactly what I saw uh the cities themselves remain intact and the growth is on the outside and up I would suggest that I'd also suggest nodal housing developments I think nodal development is the future there are a

8:43 number of nodal developments going on in the state of Oregon right now uh which I think are just fabulous and I think we need to look into that as well how would you like the city to change in the next 10 years and how do you see the Planning Commission helping the city change well we got to grow I mean everything grows uh I think that uh the Planning Commission should have a fundamental role as a gatekeeper for information to the city council so that we should be expanding all of our insights and all of our uh expertise in looking at ways to improve the city and develop the city in a sensible and productive way um the development code I mean right now I'm mostly familiar with the historic

9:29 because that's what we created I I was the original petitioner for that and I enjoy it very much but I think that we need to recognize infill housing is going to be uh appropriate I'd like to see the city look at infill housing not in terms of in adus not in terms of short-term rentals but in terms of more long-term use could you describe the relationship between the Planning Commission and the city council and then City staff and the Planning Commission no the planning is an advisory commission yes it has some quasi judicial uh uh requirements that it does but it's primarily an advisory issue so I would say that we are the the the organization that is going to take and receive uh information from the

10:14 community and process it and pass on our best suggestions to the city council all right I think that was it thank you so much okay all right thank you have a good one thank you nice to see you Steve even I worked on Glennwood all right do we have Gary Jones here come take the hot seat good evening I am Gary Jones and I live on Diamond Street here in Springfield and I'm a recent uh immigrant to Oregon so um my history is mostly in Washington State

10:59 well we're glad we're glad you're here are you ready for your questions sure what attract did you do apply for the Planning Commission well as a kind of a new person in the community I wanted to get to know uh more about it and so maybe that's upside down on what your objectives are but I uh I do think I can learn from the experience of being on the Planning Commission and because of my background as an attorney I was 42 years as an attorney in a civil law practice that included a lot of real estate and um development issues including environmental litigation about uh salmon habitat and uh the application

11:44 of both state and federal laws uh had a lot of experience with the growth management act which is the counterpart of your Oregon goals and comprehensive planning economic development and infrastructure are two major Council goals if you think about how a development happens do you have opinions on how the cost should be shareed between the developers and public yes um one of the things I read today was The Proposal that's coming to the legislature for a screening of applications by cities to provide infrastructure or other uh encouragement for Housing Development and seems to me that would be a very

12:30 good place to uh begin in terms of looking to that kind of source of funding to see where there are gaps in funding expansion of existing infrastructure whether it would be sewers drainage uh Street improvements pedestrian improvements things like that which if they fit well with existing applicants for development would I think incentivize the Housing Development and would also achieve goals of the city to not only grow but to grow in a fashion that is where the needs of the people are met at the time of development if you had a magic wand and

13:16 you had the ability to change the Springfield development code what would you change I think it would be premature for me to offer much of an opinion about that I have uh looked at the mapping and the code to some extent um but I would I I don't have any strong opinions about how it should be changed it how would you like to see the city change in the next 10 years and how do you see the Planning Commission helping with that yeah I think planning commissions have a very important role in community involvement which is the first goal of your state planning system and a good planning commission is going to be able to elicit

14:01 and evaluate the information that comes in from many sources including developers with applications including nonprofit corporations including you know other uh people within the city and state and federal government that have a role in uh Economic Development and I think this Planning Commission is can be a funnel for Gathering and sorting some of the information that's hard for any one member of the city council to stay on top of and gather and evaluate in a given the time that's required and the uh the need to consider a range of information and people's opinions that would be additive to what the council member knows could you describe the relationship between the Planning

14:46 Commission and the city council and the city staff and the Planning Commission well I think your earlier questioner did a very excellent job of answering that question it's an advisory job and um I I would anticipate I mean one of the things that I think I could bring to the situation is that I've studied a lot of development plans I've in some cases represented developers so I have a pretty good idea of some of the screens that these projects have to go through and I I think the as a Planning Commission member I could at least to some degree be helpful uh perhaps adding um a Viewpoint or experience from outside the immediate area

15:32 here all right that was all the questions that I had thank you so Deana de Jacobson um I uh started my Springfield life which I've Loved here in ad and thirston and I felt like I knew exactly what everything was supposed to happen you had the streets you had the sidewalks and the schools and and then I entered education and um learned the finery of elog and

16:19 subdivisions coming and changing boundaries and all the grief that came with that and um and the ch changes you know it was inevitable uh to me that probably speaks to the question of sharing between the developers and the public but I'm jumping the gun so I was lucky enough in all my working life to live in Springfield so I didn't have a huge commute and um saw some property I'm in the urban growth boundary that's what I would bring to the table and have watched things around me um we're on the corner of clearw and Jasper Road and have watched in the

17:04 last 20 years a quiet little little uh neighborhoods and and Road come to fruition so I'm a lifelong learner I'm retired now I have raised my kids and I guess what I would bring is What attracted me was the Planning Commission part there's pieces and parts of it I still don't understand you know how how things are uh prioritized for the me feed you the next question yes so 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 the

17:49 developers and the public do I have an opinion well I've watched these subdivisions and watched the traffic um I think that the granted the sidewalks need to happen and and some kind of a plan forward for the traffic is what I bring um the road in front of my house has become a freeway very very dangerous I don't feel comfortable pulling out of my driveway anymore and it's you know there's high density housing across now and now it goes from in front of our house to the

18:35 railroad or to the I call it the cemetery Hill Road so I think in that respect there's got to be some kind of working with making sure that the schools can handle this and that the Public Services can handle it and because I'm in that no man's land of being in Lane County and and have had to deal with um you know calling an ambulance no problem but the house being robbed and waiting for someone to come I don't know it just feels like maybe that's getting even more compromised with the growth if you had a magic wand and you

19:21 had the ability to change the Springfield development code would there be anything you would change I would have to really get familiar with it like I said I'm bringing to the table I live in the urban growth boundary and I'm passionate about this city and I've educated a lot of kids that still live here and that's the beautiful part of it we owe them what we all had when we were first moving here 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 well um evidently we do have still some a lot of work to do with the pedestrians and the

20:06 sidewalks and uh the roundabouts have been a mixed blessing which we have one right out by our house but you know I'm speaking to the fact that there was a a little bit of a happening today at Agnes Stewart and it always makes my heart stop that you know is it the the traffic is it there's so many kids trying to get to school and not being safe you know as a teacher you get do that every day in a parent the changes I guess would be a way to get them safely where people that are walking and I'm a walker down clear water every day and it's been a interesting ride

20:53 some days could you describe the relationship between the planet commission and the city council and the city staff and the Planning Commission I've learned a lot just from listening to the other people um I guess I always thought that the Planning Commission was the approval or or the uh question asker in the city council was the end result you know the teachers and the principles I don't know so once again I'm coming as a lifelong learner and I anxious to do my part for a city that I love all right thank you so

21:39 much all right Sarah you may have to help us it's one one approval tonight one spot one yeah we have one spot opening on March 10th for um commissioner rhs who has submitted his resignation um his spot will his term is uh completed on uh December 31st 2026 um and yeah we have one vacancy right now it's time for people to in with all um I would put Gary as my first choice and Jonathan as my

22:24 second Stephen I'm a little biased on Jonathan because I work with him so long know how he works but the other two candidates are super I like like to hear the way they think they're in intellect and then how they want to participate and if this doesn't quite work out there's a lot of other committees you can join for a while to get get some experience so I hope you do that no so you Jonathan I'd like to Echo that I feel like um three wonderful candidates and I enjoyed hearing all you so thank you so much I'd put Jonathan first and Gary as my

23:10 second um it's a very difficult choice and so but I would put excuse me Deanna first and Gary as my second go ahead thank you all for coming and interviewing I Echo the the thoughts that have already been shared um I think each of you brings something to the table that's worth um considering and and um I my first choice would be Jonathan and um mostly based on his time living in the city and his his um understanding of of a lot of the things that we've already experienced as a as a Planning Commission as a council I think that history will be very helpful all right so um if I'm sort of counting

23:56 noses I don't see anybody getting to getting to four here but Victoria's gone for the day we're we're selecting the first one are we selecting one for March 10th or not out this group it's just this one okay it's just the same one so I'm giving folks the option to uh to uh if they if they want to change their preference or have further discussion about it otherwise what we'll do is just have it submitted to the full session without a recommendation and then we'll sort it out when Victoria gets here oh yeah okay so since they're why don't we why don't we uh wait for Victoria and then we can we can talk through it and

24:41 then if we can't come to a decision then then I can use the tiebreaking button which I don't get to use very often all right and you may have to send her the recording too because she get going to get to listen to the interviews which is always fun all right that's the only other item we have for um the work session so we're going to adjourn until 7 o'l when we're we'll pick up with the regular session feel free to stay if you want you know if you don't want to join us for the regular session then you can uh enjoy the rest of your evening

25:30 I'm going to call the regular session of the Springfield you guys ready okay I'm going to call the regular session of the Springfield City Council to order with roll call Mayor Van Gordon here councelor Weber here councelor Mo here councelor rodley here councelor Blackwell here councelor Doyle and councelor stout here thank you uh councelor dell is excused she is sick this evening please join for the Pledge of

26:26 Allegiance there are two designated times for public testimony this evening under public under public hearings and business from the audience if you are attending in person please complete that request to speak card located at the front of the city council chambers and turn them into the city recorder if you're joining us online with a tablet smartphone or computer and wish to speak at either of those times please use the raiseed hand feature in Zoom the order of public testimony is as follows anyone any person in the council chambers and then anyone who has raised their virtual hand first item please mayor the first item is the consent calendar I move to approve the consent calendar second call vot you yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes

27:12 councelor rodley yes councelor Blackwell yes councelor Doyle and councelor stout yes thank you motion passes five yeses zero NOS one absent next item please uh next item is public hearings you have two public hearings this evening the first one is item number one annexation of territory to the City of Springfield this is annexing approximately 26.6 Acres of vacant property in South Glenwood located on the east and west sides of Franklin Boulevard between the central Oregon Pacific railroad bridge and 5470 Franklin Boulevard Andy lbert is here for this item thank you good evening Mr Mayor counselors I'm just going to provide a couple of slides just for context got

27:57 the whole script to go through Jump Ahead sorry about that no that's okay that's okay we we could have just delayed your start a couple of minutes before we hear the hear the staff report oh the assistant City attorney don't no worries we'll provide a statement regarding the procedures for tonight's hearing thank you mayor you're welcome the hearing tonight is characterized as a quasi judicial hearing quas judicial means that the applicant and the public are entitled to certain rights in this process these include the rights to notice to present evidence to have a written decision based upon standards and to an impartial decision maker any

28:42 person with an interest in this annexation can offer a relevant oral or written testimony or both if you want the council to consider your testimony you and to preserve your right to appeal the decision to the Oregon land use board of appeals you must testify orally or in writing to the city council before the council closes the record you must raise an issue clearly enough so that people can understand what it is and offer evidence in support of it or else you cannot raise that issue on appeal to the landu board of appeals if you are the applicant you must raise concerns about conditions of approval clearly enough to allow the city council to respond and to preserve your right to seek damages in circuit court if you feel you need more time to prepare evidence or testimony for the city council you can ask the council to hold open the record or to continue the

29:29 hearing you must make that request before the council closes the public portion of the hearing please make sure testimony is related to the applicable criteria the criteria for annexation are in Springfield development code section 51413 and are described in more detail in the staff report posted in tonight's meeting packet they will also be summarized by staff in the presentation last organ land use Law requires the city council act as an impartial decision maker counselors must dis close any experting contacts or conflicts of interest related to this matter a conflict of interest is a situation in which the decision maker his or her family or their business would benefit or suffer by the decision Maker's decision an expart contact is a communication to the decision maker that includes substantive issues regarding

30:15 the application and occurs outside the public venue bias is an actual personal interest in the outcome of the decision or a prejudgment by the decision maker as to the outcome without regard to evidence and argument submitted to the decision maker mayor please quer the council about any experte contacts you have and state any that you may have as well all right we'll start over with you for expart contacts are conflicts of interest no xart contacts or conflicts of interest I have no expart contacts or conflicts of interest no expar contact or conflict interest I don't have any expar contacts

31:01 or conflicts of interest no expar contacts or conflicts of interest no expar no expar contact or conflicts of interest all right now we're ready for you Andy thank you I'm just gonna bring up a couple PowerPoint slides just to orient uh counselors um and other viewers to the site in question this is kind of at the very Southern point of Glenwood uh close to the I5 on-ramp and so it properties built on the east and west sides of Franklin Boulevard Advance a slide

31:49 can there it is okay so it's approximately 26.6 Acres the bulk of the property is on the west side of Franklin and and kind of encompassed by Franklin B bouevard i5 and the central Oregon Pacific railroad tracks it's elongated portions of property there and there are two what I describe as Ribbon or linear strips of property on the east side of Franklin and also abing the wamt river this is an owner initiated annexation and because the property contains both Hillside areas and flood plane uh which are natural resources areas um it warrants a public hearing and that's why we're here this evening the applicant is proposing the annexation uh to pursue further development plans on the property which

32:34 include a public utility installation however at this point the annexation we're looking at the criteria of approval which include the proximity to existing City Limits which it abuts on the Franklin Boulevard Frontage as well as to the north of the the wildish property is annexed to the city so it it is continuous with the city limits and urban Services can be extended to the property uh there is sanitary sewer just to the north of the railway tracks on Newman Street and there's another um on Franklin Boulevard and there's also electricity and water available to the site as well therefore it satisfies the criteria of approval for annexation of the City of Springfield I'd be happy to answer any questions I know that the applicant and

33:19 the representative are here this evening um to make a presentation as well in support of the sanation request I'd also note that um dur there was no response to any public notification of signage posting and publication of the public hearing notice uh no questions or testimony was received up to the point of this public hearing all right thank you Andy we will now open the public hearing the applicant will present first and just the note for everybody that the applicant is not subject to the three minute public hearing mark

34:12 uh thank you good evening mayor councel and staff um I am Colin MacArthur uh principal planner with Cameron McCarthy landscape architecture and planning uh I'm joined by Laura far Farthing principal engineer and project manager uh with eweb um Eugene Water and Electric Board is the applicant and the request is for type four annexation approval to incorporate three properties that total 26.6 acres into Springfield City Limits um the overall site is comprised of five properties there's two properties to the north uh the eweb owns that were annexed in 2009 uh as staff show the site is in

34:59 between McVey Highway and Interstate 5 uh it's below the Confluence of the middle and Coast torque of the wamit river and it's in within the Southwest portion of the Springfield Urban growth boundary um the site itself is planned for uh the future construction of a waste water or water treatment plant excuse me and intake facility um currently e web's only sour SCE of drinking water is the MacKenzie River with an intake facility and treatment plant near Hayden Bridge uh given the risks of a single water supply Source e began exploring options for a second Source on the W River in

35:47 2012 and acquired um this property in 2015 um for this purpose overall um once this project um is developed purpose is to increase system resiliency and to better serve local residents the proposed project will give the community a second source of water should the sole source be become unavailable for any reason um this project uh is e web's most significant modern investment in water reliability and is being planned in four phases this is the first phase annexation um the second phase will

36:34 involve some plan and code amendments and the third phase will be more technical land use applications and then um finally design and construction so following annexation approval um e web intends to apply for amendments to the Springfield development code and the Glenwood refinement plan and this is because the code and the plan at the time they were written did not uh anticipate the size and type of facility um proposed by eweb in this particular location so we'll pursue amendments for that and then um assuming those amendments are approved eweb would then apply for site plan

37:21 review and other Associated site specific Landes applications including W green Way flood plane development and Hillside development um anything else required for the project um however um those plan and code amendments um are not dependent or required for annexation annexation is simply about um making the property available and ready for development um assuming uh those other phases are completed uh regarding the approval criteria the subject property is contiguous to the city limits it complies or the proposal itself complies with applicable

38:06 policies and standards and the comp plan Metra plan and other adopted plans as demonstrated by the staff report key Urban services are available to serve the site and there is sufficient capacity to accommodate the proposed development or future development and then um the mitigation of any fiscal impacts can be addressed and assured through the subsequent um land use processes as condition site review Greenway others and um we have reviewed the staff report um we concur with uh the staff report and support the director's recommendation and um look forward to moving forward with this with this

38:52 important project for um Community resiliency and a major investment in public infrastructure so thank you be happy to take any questions questions C St thank you um I app appreciate the work you're doing on this this is an important project for the community um one of the concerns that Council has had in the past is the relative attractiveness of this project to the highway to people coming in because uh that McVey highway is immediately the entry into the Glenwood it's also the entry in many into Springfield downtown I was just wondering if you could speak to for a moment your plans either to through um uh through you know whether it's you want to obscure the properties

39:38 uh in developments or if he wants to um you know make them more visible how we're going to make that a very attractive entryway and a gateway to the Glenwood area actually hang on one second I don't know that that's is is that out of line well I'm going to look at the uh City attorney because that is a broader interesting question but I don't know that it's applicable to an annexation question because my my question is really a matter of if if because this is still within the urban renewal area for Glenwood whether or not that additionally has um some purchase on what can be developed there I think you mean the Glenwood refinement plan yes thank you I think it is also within the urban renewal area um

40:24 just less applicable uh there the annexation itself um does not bear on the Glenwood refinement plan necessarily but I do think that the Glenwood refinement plan will be relevant to the ultimate use of the property um I think I'm comfortable with the council asking questions to gather information but I do want to be clear at the time that you make your decision um that it's based on information that's relevant to the criteria of approval for the annexation um but I also recognize that sometimes you won't know how things may be relevant if you don't ask the questions all right thanks for the help we don't do that many of these so thanks for uh being patient with me CER Stout go ahead yeah sure and I'm comfortable ask

41:09 answering that question it's an important question um it is it more of a design question and this isn't really about design but uh I can tell you we're in close collaboration with the City of Springfield we aware the applicants aware of future plans for McVey Highway and improvements along there and we're aware of of the need to um improve both Aesthetics Public Safety visibility um in this area and um uh I I can't um offer anything specifically that we're going to do because we haven't reached to the design process but there will be plenty of opportunity through the Amendments and um through the uh future design process site site plan review um

41:56 and uh Greenway other um other land approvals um to make sure that uh e web's improvements are consistent with the refinement plan there are policies and standards in the refinement plan that speak to the um speak to the issues you you've you've identified and um eweb um will do its best to collaborate with City of Springfield and make good on those policies thank you I appreciate that any other questions all right thank you I'm to call the so we we will now we will now take additional public testimony please state your name and mailing address for the record and keep your comments to under three minutes we're going to follow

42:41 testimony in favor testimony opposed or testimony neither in favor nor opposed or testimony opposed to the application so I don't have any cards uh to testify in in the uh I don't have any cards for this item know do we have any hands raised does not appear we have any hands for this item all right Andy it looks like it's back to you I don't good evening do we have someone who's I don't think we have anybody online just to testify all right so I don't think we

43:26 have any staff response we don't need we don't need applicant response either so I think we're ready to close the close the hearing so I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing yes um if it's unanimous you can close the hearing and record um if there's any discussion or disagreement on either of those and a motion would be appropriate I think there are 10 to this right close the hearing and we're closing the record I don't see anybody asking to okay then I'm closing the hearing and we close the record and this is a first reading no actions required tonight thanks

44:16 Andy next item please next item is public hearing number two the 2024 Americans with Disabilities Act self evaluation and transition plan approval Mary Bridget Smith is here for this item all right good evening mayor and Council I'm here this evening to present uh the 2024 Americans with Disabilities Act uh transition plan for the City of Springfield we are asking tonight for the council to to um conduct a public hearing and then approve the transition

45:01 plan I'm going to go through a brief PowerPoint to discuss some of the main aspects of the plan and then ask you to conduct a public hearing and then um do the approval let see if I can drive here you know is it h oh perfect thank you okay so I'd like to talk a little bit about before we get going um this is one of those areas of um our organization where it's definitely been a team effort um there are some obligations that the city has as an organization where we may not necessarily have somebody whose dedicated job is to um address or be

45:47 responsible for this kind of program and it does um cover the entire city so just to give you an idea of how we interact with the Ada and the transition plan it touches just about every Department Jamie aboa uh is our risk manager and she's here this evening she's our Ada coordinator so she would be the persons whose name is on the website she would take complaints from the public I've seen Jamie talking to people out in the lobby kind of working through their issues in terms of ADA access uh other departments that are connected to this would include you know DPW engineering and planning that's everything from uh making sure sure that plan public facilities and private facilities are accessible um through planning and

46:32 design then uh our facilities group are the people in operations who are um responsible for this building and other City facilities so working on making sure that those are accessible and then we have our other departments who really are the Frontline folks who um work with the public so that would be munic Court um Police Department fire and Library we deal with um members of our community who may be disabled in trying to make sure that they get the service that they need uh Christina worked on the Ada transition plan actually back in 2017 when she was an intern in my office and um has continued to work on it and then it um helped with our new website and uh CMO helped with public Outreach this

47:17 fall so this is definitely a team effort on behalf of Staff here I think that you know as we're talking about disabilities It's always important to remember that you know the disabled Community is not a monolith it's a wide varied um experience for people in our community sometimes it's not readily apparent that somebody is living with a disability and other times it can be quite apparent which um I think can make people feel uncomfortable about talking about it so I just want to be clear that our intent has always been to make sure that this organization is welcoming to everyone and we're just trying to improve as we go I would say the main point of the Ada is to make sure that everyone has access to Civic

48:02 life and that it would be for All City programs and services and we are required under the law to make sure that we have a plan in place that allows for that that process for that plan is What's called the self- evaluation and the transition plan and that's what we're going to talk about in more detail this see ah here we go okay so just a quick review of the title two regulations because you may be thinking like why is this before the City of Springfield if it's a federal law so this has its roots in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 and the Ada of 1990 um we are required to make sure

48:49 that our services and programs are accessible to our whole Community as I mentioned uh Jamie aboa is our Ada coordinator there's a complaint process on our website you can sync into the transition plan and make a complaint or contact the city some of the things that we need to be able to show that we can do are reasonable modifications for folks who may need that for some of our services effective communication and then this self- evaluation and transition plan I do want to note that the city is also subject to title one of the adaa and that's with regards to employment which is another set of regulations but that also is to ensure that it has um employees that have um access and are able to do their

49:37 work so looking at the um self-evaluation aspect staff did a self-evaluation where each department went through and answered questions about how their services um relate to people who are experiencing disabilities so that's everything from you know customer service at the counter someone being at the library public meetings like we're at tonight um our website printed materials and another aspect of that is employee training and awareness to make sure that when we are interacting with folks or one of these situations comes up that we're able to handle it uh one thing I forgot to note on a previous slide there is a liability element to the Ada so there are a couple ways that the city could be facing liability there is a um Department of Justice

50:22 enforcement uh aspect where they could um bring an enforcement action against the city and require that we um improve our Ada transition plan and our access and then there's also the ability for citizens to sue the city if we are not compliant with the Ada the transition plan is actually more related to facilities so that would be City build buildings and then making sure that those are accessible and then also um priority prizing upgrades for buildings that are open to the public um city streets sidewalks and curbs obviously another big area priority service areas for our community so be

51:07 thinking about things that are close to public transportation schools other public and uh facilities and then a system inventory as a way to determine you know what exactly do we have out there in terms of our infrastructure and where does it sit in regards to the Ada and then as always with everything that we um deal with are the funding sources and limitations you know the aspect of facilities sometimes can Loop into transportation funding uh which is a good way to try and get some of these projects going thinking about um our facilities um this council chambers is something that's been upgraded since our last transition plan so it's an example of some improvements the improvements in the library as well more accessible Furniture more accessibility for um

51:53 folks to come and use that facility okay I just had to do some pictures since we're doing presentation here these are just examples of um what a curb ramp could look like or an improved facility so this would be a physical facility out in our community this is an example from another jurisdiction but the before and after can give you the idea of what that would be like to try and access a facility or try and get across the street or do something if you're somebody experiencing a visibility so just a visual there so you can see the curb ramp the changes to accessing the um walk signal those kinds of

52:41 things Mar Rich yeah um I think that's a great example and one of the sort of untold stories for the for the city is just as we've gone through and done a lot of work on Transportation the last few years of how much that money really has been uh been uh in the Ada ramps and curbs and that that money is we've spent a lot of money working essentially yeah those kind of pictures yeah I think that's a great point and I think that really shows where staff and the council have brought that awareness about our requirements under the Ada to different areas that you're in to say oh yeah that's right you know that would help us if we were able to get this funding for X Y and Z or for this area or crosswalked by a school those kinds of things so it's really I think helped our community I wanted to take a couple minutes and talk about the public Outreach so another requirement of the

53:27 Ada as you're working on these transition plans is to make sure that the public has an opportunity to um provide feedback about your transition plan so I had assistance from Alise uh this fall to assist with this we did a um public Outreach in 2017 we took a different approach this time you know in 2017 and and this was a while ago but it was a much more traditional like open house here at the city you know what I mean people come to talk to us about it frankly it wasn't that successful and so this year what we tried to do was kind of go to where people are but really capitalize on digital and electronic means and then with a targeted followup to stakeholders so social media call out for people to provide information and feedback and we got some great email

54:13 comments from the community and then targeted Outreach to particular Partners to see if they had other feedback so um happy about the um feedback that we received the majority of it was from the hearing in the Community about their concerns Timmy buttons okay implementation so um transition plans are reviewed just about every five years on uh implementation for the next few years after approval um as I mentioned the um council chambers has been reworked it has a hearing Loop Jesse main also does but I think it's also kind of that awareness like making sure that it all works trying to think if there are other um you know assisted

54:58 devices that could help in other areas of the city like if you're at the counter trying to get a building permit you know is there something small and portable that would help you hear better other things like that trying and get that awareness um also with our website our website has been improved which is great but making sure to sort of you know what they would say is proof that website that attachment and pages are in a way that is accessible for um different software for folks particularly people who are blind or um side impaired and then sometimes we have connections to third party websites you know like municipal court and other things might and making sure that those can also be accessible for folks with disabilities City Hall way finding is another um Target and something we'd like to work on and again that's staff training and

55:43 awareness facilities uh looking at City Hall elevators are um obviously crucial and a real um sticking point for the city because there aren't very many people who repair elevators and it can be really challenging to make sure that it is still that they're still operational but it's always top of mind for us um public restrooms another um area that I think uh engineering might be looking at is s similar to um the road survey you had uh you learned about a few weeks ago with GIS about all of the public facilities you know that technology now might be able to be leveraged to sidewalks and curb ramps and other facilities so we could really get an idea of what it is um we have here where do we need to improve so I

56:28 think that could be something that be pretty interesting our next steps as I mentioned are to implement this plan um and really continue with that awareness and training about um how we can better serve our community and also be thinking about I think technology both personal technology in terms of people's phones or what they're going to have with them when they're here trying to interact with the city and how we can make that experience better for folks and then these sort of larger Tech like using I AI to try and inventory the um City facilities all around the city so that goes to that awareness and learning and then next review would be probably in 2029 and thinking that we would focus on

57:13 facilities for that particular review because this time uh we really looked at services so that's the information I have for um the Ada plan and I'd ask that you conduct a the hearing and then I'd be happy to answer any questions that you may have as well all right thanks mayor briet well unless you have clar some sort of clarification we could probably do those okay then I think we're ready for the public hearing I'm going to open the public hearing I have two cards for this item the first is Peggy Nicholson and if you could state your name and location in business for the record please and you have three

58:08 minutes can you hear that yeah okay I'm um a citizen of Eugene I'm here tonight to represent uh loop Oregon and the center for hearing access um at theed in Eugene uh but we we're here generally as advocates for a hearing disabled people um there are one in8 um adult Americans with hearing loss that's 30 million people uh over the age of 75 it's one in five people have hearing loss so there's a real need I've been very impressed coming here tonight with uh your looped city council room um uh then you the noise that you make uh not

58:54 the noise but uh I can hear you because uh when you speak into the microphone it goes directly to the telecoils in my hearing aids and that is supremely important for for clarity in hearing and understanding um let's see um I I guess the questions that I would ask tonight is we're finding over in Eugene at our Sound Advice program that many people who have hearing aids or are about to get hearing aids do not know how to use Loops or to use telecoils so any way that you can train your own citizens but hey we've got this it's here all you really need to do is press a little button if you don't know

59:40 if you've got the little button ask your audiologist but you probably have a telecoil in your hearing aid and it will help enormously if you know how to use it you need to train your citizens and you need to train your staff and it sounds like you're trying to do that to be aware of telecoils and and how to offer them to your citizens um couple of other things to think about um I was at Senator merkley's uh meeting at South hugene High School last week uh it was awful no one could hear I mean we all wanted to hear there were over a thousand passionate angry people uh the senator couldn't hear them

1:00:26 they couldn't hear the senator uh there was no Loop facility available um I'm wondering if your high schools and their auditoriums have facilities and if not you need to think about getting those uh your population is getting older and older going over 75 and they can't hear uh in terms of emergencies forest fires uh floods earthquakes you may need to gather a large amount of people in one place and can they hear you they sure couldn't hear Senator merley the other night um you need to think about small venues like in your library can a tutor meet

1:01:12 with a single kid wearing a Cocker implant and can they hear each other in that small room uh if not you need to Loop it all right thank you Ralph mayor Van Gordon nice to see you again councel thank you so much for the opportunity I am genevra Ralph um here tonight as the founder and director of the center for hearing access at the shed Institute which is a relatively new National advocacy and educ initiative that we founded um on behalf of folks

1:01:58 with hearing loss part of it happened because when we put in hearing Loops in 2017 everybody said what are they do I have a telecoil how do I use it nobody asked me to turn their pacemakers on or how to use the elevator but it tells you what Peg was just saying I've been a disability Advocate both personally and professionally since the 1960s and what I would say is that this transition plan that you have and that whole process is just so important as an advocacy tool hearing loss advocacy in my mind is where physical disability advocacy was in year three of the Ada it was it existed it was ignored it was fought and it was Unknown by many

1:02:44 people that that even did exist and so as Peg mentioned most folks with hearing loss don't realize that they even have rights under the Ada we're we're finding that and the telecoil the thing that the reason that's so important is that that is what gives you access to your assist of listening systems that are required by the Ada if you don't have that then it's out of compliance so there's there's that piece the other problem with hearing loss is that it's so invisible and it still has a stigma and so that's another piece that we're working on what's so cool about what's been happening locally with this Loop Oregon and loop all the work that we've been doing is that Springfield for

1:03:29 example has got great Loops now kefir Center the wildish this room is great and what I love is Tracy Hogan over at Grocery Outlet every single one of her checkout Lanes is looped and that's made national news and she did that because once you have the experience that Peg is having in this room of hearing you Loop a person they Loop the places that they go to so what I would love to do with you is over the next four or five years is help offer our services our advocacy group to work with you to assess all those one-on-one places all the places that people can't hear but want that confidentiality they want the clarity the accuracy to be able to interact with

1:04:15 city government and to then have you publicize that even the heading tonight on the agenda isn't quite clear it says physical access is here and then it says for these other services asked for accommodations the hearing Loop is here put it up there with wheelchair access is here if you need other stuff then we can ask for it thank you and thanks for doing this thank you I don't have any other cards do we have anybody online I don't do not see any hands for this issue I'm going to go ahead and close the public hearing councelor rodley thank you um had a question before but I also just wanted to I want to thank folks for coming and sharing um

1:05:01 we recently got the loop in the building that I work at at Lane County developmental disability services and went through the training so we all know how to tell people how to use it so I love that idea and that maybe there's a partnership with our library or whatever that we could have that available I love it and um really liked the the pointing out um because I know that it's I know it's a challenge for people um to hear and SP es and I really appreciated the pointing out of thinking about where we hold things and whether or not people can hear when we're doing there when we're doing our Outreach so thank you for that um the question I had before we in our in our plan we talk about ADA accessible ramps and and we have we've talked about that up here

1:05:46 before um I have had a few constituents talk to me just about sidewalks in general um because we don't necessarily control all those sidewalks and I don't know that we've ever had a plan but the folks who've shared with me that that that's been where they've had accidents or been upended of somebody who's a wheelchair user or somebody who's using a walker it's in a neighborhood being able to move around with the uneven sidewalks and I know that's bigger than a bread box for us to have some sort of a plan for how we want to encourage or support or whatever we want to do um if we really want to to lean into our walkable bikable neighborhoods and maybe we tie it in with the the CC communities or something that we just somehow think of like how do we want to incentivize and encourage people to take care of um

1:06:33 the sidewalks because I think that's a place where we don't you know we're putting in those Ada but we're not necessarily making so the folks can smoothly um walk or move about thank you okay that's helpful feedback I can bring that back thank you and I somebody's got a response specific to the sidewalks I vaguely remember there's actually a process for that I can take this this is the part of the transition plan that I primarily worked on the municipal code makes sidewalk repair and maintenance the property of the the responsibility of the adjoining owner and the city has had a process for notifying owners but it is unpopular for people to be told that

1:07:18 they need to repair um the sidewalks and so I believe that um the the Public Works operation group um is working on at some point coming to council with a work session to talk about sidewalk fixes and repairs the informal policy has been that when a sidewalk um upheaval is usually the issue when it's an upheaval issue that's caused by a city street tree that the city um treats that as a um customer service request for our own infrastructure and we'll make those repairs if it's caused by a by an actual City infrastructure issue if it's a caused by a privately owned owned tree or another type of issue then we would notify the property owner that it needs to be repaired we don't have funding or resources to do a broader enforcement

1:08:05 program um and then the um other sidewalks that are not adjoining like multi-use Pastor those those types of things there are either agreements with waman as a cooperator um or for the city to make repairs to those other types of pedestrian surfaces and then vegetation is the other issue and they do respond to the those um uh concerns when they're on um places that hit those High priorities for Ada accessibility and I believe in their process they prioritize um accessibility like vegetation issues when they are coming from somebody with Mobility needs as opposed to someone who's complaining um you know it's an issue for me if I'm walking my child in a stroller but it's not an accessibility issue and so they

1:08:50 try believe try to prioritize those um through the those customer service requests as well so we should if we get a constituent concern about that we should be pointing them back towards operations yes and there's a great tool that was developed for walking and biking obstacles within the city and we can get um information to the Council on that but they're um around town even are these QR the QR code that you can scan and it takes you right to that geolocated tool you can put in your customer service request for any kind of sidewalk or um clearance issue that you have walking or biking around the city and then that becomes a a geolocated customer service request for operations to track and and address man that Ops folks are great work lately it was a cooperation with operations on the

1:09:36 bicycle and pedestrian committee and I believe that tool is discussed in the transition plan document counc I was just going to say um going on walk audits throughout the city I have seen multiple occasions where members of the committee have just been able to instantly report take a picture report so um I know it's being used all right anybody else all right I've got just a couple of comments uh this is really important work and I really appreciate the that we've kind of gotten to our our into a a normal natural rhythm of having this discussion for the people that have come with um I took uh with public testimony all great suggestions and thank you for calling

1:10:22 out the wildish I think that was a city grant that was able to get the wildish done um so I was been really proud of that the other piece that I've seen I don't know it may have been a 2025 thing I just have really noticed since we've done the looping work how much more aware the staff is on how to coach folks um or be thinking about how to be ready to to utilize the loop it's here we want people to use it and when you brought that up in public testimony it just it just made me think to probably there's been four or five meetings where I've heard staff go okay how do we share this information how do we get it out in front of people I think councelor rodley had a great idea I had the library idea written down too so great my think ofik um but um reaching out to the library

1:11:09 that would be they're always looking for for uh programming and U thank you for the note about the agenda I we've seen we've seen that agenda for probably a long time up here and then you know having an extra set of eyes to look at it and say hey you did great work double underline it and I really the grocery outlet thing just that just gave me a smile right we've got a lot of great businesses out there doing a lot of great work and that you notice the work that they're doing and what called it out you know I thank you for sharing that good news with us I think we're ready for you counselor weather

1:11:59 I move to adopt the 2024 Americans with Disabilities Act Ada self-evaluation and transition plan I will second that yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes councelor rodley yes councelor Blackwell yes councelor Doyle and councelor stout yes thank you motion passes five yeses zero NOS one absent thank you mayor Bridget next item please next item is business from the audience I have one card up here it is for Vonnie

1:12:53 mikkelson is it on okay you're live okay thank you I'm going to myself here um I want to actually confirm the time is it three minutes or 10 minutes yeah we'll provide it to you for some extra time because usually because you're a generous mayor in Citys thank you I didn't go that far all right thank you mayor and city council I'm Vonnie mikkelson CEO of the Springfield area Chamber of Commerce and I thank you for the opportunity to report back on a very specific and partnership that we have with the City of Springfield and our hospitality industry and that is uh for tourism services and just a note upfront this partnership is a longstanding one uh for many many years um it leverages the

1:13:41 chamers established marketing platforms and our competencies and community-based relationships um we have I think it's important to call out the chamber does many things of business Economic Development economic growth is our priority and our focus and that includes tourism tourism is an extremely important economic sector uh across link County I've heard um direct and indirect total economic activity upwards of a billion dollars annually and so the goal of this Grant and the Springfield chamber is to capture as much of that as we possibly can right here in Springfield so the visitors center I have access to

1:14:26 this excuse me uh the visitor center is housed in the historic South Southern Pacific Railroad Depot you see there that building is owned by the city and the chambers headquartered there we lease the property from the city for both our offices uh Business Development and of course visitor services so it's located in the western Gateway into downtown and it's easy accessible from i5 serves as Springfield's front door welcoming residents visitors and families also relocating to the area we're open five days a week we provide personalized Services via uh visitors who uh happen by or who come

1:15:12 specifically to get information from the Chamber of Commerce which they know is a credible resource we also respond to emails uh in inquiries and have a 247 365 day robust website our tourism pages in 2024 represented there's a visitor Services only or things to do in Springfield lodging dining recreating um couple of great attractions that we have that is dedicated solely to visitor services and you'll see in the report that we provided earlier that that attracts uh over 7500 views a year and 2400 unique users we also provide relocation Port so these are customized relocation packets

1:15:58 that assist both our local employers who are recruiting from outside the area individuals and families who may be considering moving to Springfield are really happy to send those out packets out they're the best of the best that Springfield has to offer and we've seen them go as far as California Michigan Arizona all across the country visitors I think it's interesting to know will most frequently they're most frequently asked for than things and you can probably guess a couple let me see if you can guess the top three but they are certainly still Maps even in a world of GPS uh inhand map is one of our top requests so we make sure we have plenty of those on inventory bicycle map so bicycle rots around the area are a big ask and of course um attractions local

1:16:46 attractions so we like to send them to all our favorite places and then some uh starting with Springfield but also across the beautiful region the top request no matter where they come from Mostly from International visitors is of course where is The Simpsons mural the real Simpsons mural it is outstanding and obviously we we tell them exactly how to get there but we also uh let them know what they can see and do along the way so it's something to be proud of uh some of the visitor uh Center enhancements I think it's really interesting and important that uh the presentation that we heard just before this about the um disability um enhancements to facilities and also our awareness of that uh we

1:17:32 also installed the hearing Loop uh technology in 2023 that was together with traveling county who has been a huge advocate for accessibility which is a really important theme for tourism as well so we have that at the visitors centers we worked with the City of Springfield on a bike rack installation a couple years ago and a community group who helped restore the rail car uh exterior or continue to make improvements on that so the chamber also put in uh approximately $100,000 on a total interior refresh that was some of our chamber members contributing as well as in kind contributions and some Grant so we have a place where we can not only meet and convene for businesses but also invite Community organizations to come

1:18:18 and stop by we get a lot of visitors who like to look at the historic displays take a look at the real wood floors up in the break room that we affectionately call it and um so it's it's it's nice to be able to open that up for um uh variety of folks all right again I mentioned some Partnerships of course I sit on the traveling county board with councelor Weber Weber to ensure that Springfield's um interests are represented on a regional destination marketing and um uh uh tourism industry board um Ali camper Economic Development uh manager for the city also sits on that with us um we've had many uh collaborations in tourism

1:19:03 major sporting events that shine the light just on on Springfield specifically through the Olympic trials and Track Town USA activations locally uh track and field Hall of Fame induction and several that we might not think about as tourism draws but those are sporting events that uh will llain has is a huge draw and those sporting events whether they're youth sports or adult sports they draw they're a big draw for tourism and especially if they're overnight stays so we like to actively promote that and tell the story um couple of things that uh call out here um we do across the board the Springfield chamber has print digital um

1:19:49 earned media campaigns as well as uh paid advertising campaigns and this is all to uh position Springfield uh as a visitor friendly and also business friendly destination where folks want to come and spend their money um we uh skip that one thing that uh we have in place and have now for at least 5 years is an online news service it's called the bottom line and that is a huge draw annually unique visitors some 30,000 unique visitors it shows up on seu on news feeds so I'm really proud of that it's an important place that we can tell our story because we got a great story to tell we want it to go obviously the um as far as we can on that reach and

1:20:34 some nearly 55,000 views uh in 2024 and of course folks are noticing and when they notice we accept the the celebration of the great things that we're doing in Springfield one of which uh uh was most recently uh in partnership with the City of Springfield uh recognizing Springfield's downtown revitalization with the traveling county destination war of 2024 of course the chamber again uh came and um did a a short video and put it out there celebrating that um award uh to our audiences abroad which got over 5,000 impress Impressions and quite a

1:21:20 few views and then the return on investment I will say confidently uh Beyond Dollar Plus on the dollar of the investment in the tourism uh Grant to the chamber and we're happy with that we think it works really well um together with what we do in business and economic development and we're thrilled with the partnership it's a long-standing one got a great team at the chamber that loves working with the city and the City team and it's just a pleasure to do business in the way that we do in Springfield and you see some of those stats there one of the things that I do believe is important is our survey scores from our members put out of 10 categories those three things promoting

1:22:05 the community Communications and staff knowledge as the top uh most um uh valued scores so I think it goes to say those dollars are in good hands and we're happy to support the growth in the trt for the city and for our local businesses Al together so once again I want to thank you for the opportunity to provide this update update thank you for the partnership and uh thank you for being a city council and a city leadership that appreciates and understands the value of their local business Community all year round it makes a difference and and we appreciate that thank you I don't have any other cards for

1:22:51 business from the audience do we have any hands uh we had a hand up it went down and it's back up um Jason profit you should be able to unmute your microphone now good evening I want to say uh thanks to the mayor for coming up and looking at my issue on southp with that Ice Break Stuff last year been laying in the ditch for year uh like to talk a little bit on the 80 Ada uh I appreciate the parking Mark close to the entrances and then my hearing is bad from years of chainsaw and little valves behind the glass

1:23:37 Booth when the guys start turning their head and and trying to listen I have a hard time with that with that real young voice I don't wear hearing a yet that's oh Uber about refuse coming down Cory I watched these truck right Saturday night just before he come down here and uh it's just mud puddle after mud puddle it needs attention thank you thanks Jason do we have any other hands no other hands mayor is there any Council

1:24:24 response all right next item please next item is business from the city manager item number one is the cdbg substantial amendments and Aaron ffield is here sorry can we go back to business room the council see if there's any other updates other counc rodley did you know did you see my notes about I I sensed it thank you um thank you to everyone for coming it makes for much more interesting meetings when we have people engaging um with local government so I really appreciate all of the folks coming and sharing today um I just wanted to say that I was able to go to the illumination event on February 8th which we are um now celebrating um

1:25:09 indigenous and Native communities in Springfield and it was a wonderful fantastic event and it was my honor to be there um and to see all the folks who come from all over to be a part of that and if you you don't know about it because I think we're in year two or three and we've done several storytelling um uh art installations and you can access it on the city website it's done through the museum so that was fantastic and I might not be the only one because there were others who were at the books and Brew four there's in four years nice um so you can see the videos you can see the things through the museum and it's just it's just it brings Community together and such an

1:25:54 amazing way it was such a beautiful event I was so happy to be there um some of us were at books and Bruise also to celebrate the library just this last Saturday it was lovely they changed it I think we adjusted um first it's like what's happening there's Maps but it was fantastic um and the last thing which is more of a busy thing I just want to call out you may or may not notice we now have written minutes because we have somebody who's been coming and taking minutes and we have been approving them in our consent agenda I have heard from constituents who really appreciate this I we sort of fell off of it because of capacity and covid and there are people who are really appreciating the fact that we now have written minutes again that they can read instead of having to just and watch the things that's what I

1:26:39 had thank you thank you anybody else all right I had a couple quick items um the first thing was an ask for the city manager I am getting questions about the the status of the fire governance uh work that we're doing I know I think it's with the uh with the city managers right now and then I know that we're we're going to come back and I think the committee is going to have to meet before we get to a final recommendation there's a lot of questions out there right now it would be really helpful to get a memo that kind of covers you know where it is what steps we have left what questions we still have to answer so that we all have the same facts when we're um when we're

1:27:24 having this these discussions mayor and counselor I'd be happy to provide that information to you thank you and uh and I know that it might it's still and you and Sarah are still talking about it so just take the time you guys need just tell us how what the plan is all right I do have one committee change that I'm making then you know that uh that um councelor Stout and councelor Weber are going to switch and um I noticed everybody went what there's a committee change I will I will I will write it down and get it over to Allison um but councelor Stout is going to go to espac and counselor Weber no other way around

1:28:09 I'm sorry other way around councelor Stout is going to bpack counselor Weber is going to spack and normally especially in years when we get uh new councils um sometimes the scheduling just doesn't work out and so in this case the scheduling just didn't work out and happy birthday it's councelor Blackwell's birthday all right that is all I had next item please uh next item is business from the city manager item number one is the cdbg substantial amendments Aaron ffield is here and one more thing before we bring er no I'm just kidding it's after a I get 50% funnier

1:28:55 after 8:00 good evening mayor counselors um I'm here tonight with an item asking for your approval to reallocate Federal grant money away from projects that are not fully utilizing their funds um tonight's item actually isn't going to get us all the way there to spend the funds we need to so we'll need to come back to council for another me meeting in April to hope hopefully get us there um but tonight's approval will um help solve a problem in the short term um and I do want to acknowledge um Council leadership has pointed out the need to have a larger more strategic uh

1:29:40 conversation about these funds and I certainly welcome that um there's just this short-term problem I'd like to focus on first um so as you may um already be aware the City of Springfield receives about $550,000 each year from the federal US Department of Housing and Urban Development also known as HUD um and we received that through the Community Development block grant program cdbg um those funds are primarily used to put toward affordable housing and other Community Development strategies that primarily support low uh low-income households in Springfield uh some of the strategies the city funds include down payment assistance loans for firsttime

1:30:25 home buyers um home repairs like plumbing and heating assistance and roof repairs for low-income homeowners uh funding to support local nonprofits um serving Springfield households with case management and other services um the city has also used cdbg funds over the years to help with Ada curb cuts um and building crosswalks near schools in low-income neighborhoods planting trees and supporting new businesses in Springfield um the cdbg program is both flexible in allowing the city to decide where to allocate funds um and it's also restrictive in the amount of federal due diligence and regulation that's built in to carrying out the program and one of those Federal Regulations is that the

1:31:10 city must have no more than 1.5 times its entitlement allocation when measured on one day May second each year uh that's referred to as the timeliness test and so if the city city does not meet this test then the city is considered untimely in its spending of cdbg funds putting future funds at risk HUD issued a memo this last fall that given our circumstance would most likely have us losing future cdbg allocations if we don't meet this year's timeliness test over the past 18 months staff have been working with the city's HUD representative in Portland to address this issue one of the key components of our plan has been to identify projects that are not spending down those funds

1:31:56 quickly and to reallocate those funds and that's what we're doing here tonight I'll add that there there are and have been many Community projects that are extremely worthwhile and extremely needed and that may not be a good fit for this particular Federal program given those restrictions um and there are a lot of unknowns that pop up during the due diligence so because project s have not been using funds sometimes isn't an issue with the project itself it's just sort of the storm um when we came to council last spring uh you recognized a construction project that was no longer able to move forward

1:32:41 in a timely way and we began the conversation on how to reallocate those funds you gave Direction um to reallocate funds to a number of projects over the summer and then to come back um you supported the reallocation of additional funds that would rehab the city's existing housing stock through the repairs of income qualified affordable housing rental units which is a new program we hadn't done so following the City's cdbg community participation plan the city proposed the reallocation of funds put out a notice for public comment on the proposal and your Community Development advisory committee held a public hearing on the proposal and made a recommendation for your consideration um I'll just note we refer to the

1:33:26 reallocation um in the packet and in the motion as a substantial Amendment because essentially you're substantially amending past allocations also I think of it as a reallocation um so in your packet in the council briefing memo is a table of the advisory committee's recommended amendments the total amount identified is $393,100 approximately 68,000 is recommended to be reallocated to the city's existing home repair program and the remaining 325,000 about would support this new fund of rehabbing the existing housing stock um essentially lwi income housing rental units um I'm available for questions there's a motion in your

1:34:12 packet are there any questions Council rodley thank you um and I appreciate this and it sounds like there's some conversations that have happened so maybe I just need to be brought up to speed um what is the amount you said this isn't all of it so there's more that would need to be reallocated that we're going to talk about in April I think it's more about how um not necessarily money that needs to get I think at this point the timing we're at the we're at the end of our timing sort of we're hitting the sort of the point to reallocate funds towards strategies it's now working creatively within the strategies um so that's the conversation conversation I think and I was sort of wrestling with this when I was reading this um because I I I

1:34:58 completely understand the need to reallocate funds by a certain amount of time and because it's all going into these two buckets basically it feels like maybe we're not being as strategic as we possibly could um and one of the things that I thought about is is it possible for us to put more money into Human Services and I know that there's there's we can't do at all for like actual the service delivery but perhaps like shelter or is there a way for us to contribute to the sort of regional stuff that we're working on because we have not been able to increase the amount that we're able to to contribute to those projects and in this current climate that might be a place that needs them so I was thinking is it worth it to

1:35:43 take a little bit of time to be more strategic about it or is it one of these things where it's just like okay we just are going to give it all to this one bucket um which just feels like I want I want to do more with it so th those are my comments what comes to mind there um I would say the the request tonight um to put it into the bucket of uh rehabing the existing housing stock um happened through public com started happening through public comment last spring and then a conversation with counil in June and July of last year and so that's where that Direction came from um and

1:36:29 when we we had then heard that there was a need and then put out um a request for applications in January and so gotten had received a request that we believe is able to move forward um that would um sort of help us meet that um the question of Public Services um is spot on and the need is there we know the need is there um cdbg requirements right now restrict the amount that we can give toward public services and the city has decided to give the cap so far um during covid when we received an additional amount of funding that cap was waved by Congress and we spent the money as quickly as we could and put it all toward public services so um I think

1:37:14 there are some other creative ways more on the capital side of shelter not the operating side um but yeah a bigger conversation anybody else very good I think we're we are [Music] ready I move to approve the Community Development advisory committee's proposed substantial amendments to Prior Your Community Development block grant annual action plans and authorize the city manager to execute all documents needed to give effect to the city's agreements with the US Department of Housing and Urban Development for these funds I will second that yes councelor Weber yes councelor Mo yes councelor rodley yes councelor

1:38:01 Blackwell yes councelor Doyle and councelor stout yes thank you motion passes five yeses zero NOS one absent thank you Erin next item please any other business from the city manager uh just one quick item thank you um good evening mayor and Council I wanted to take a moment to recognize our police chief Andrew shear who recently announced that he will be pursuing a different uh professional opportunity that will allow him to be closer to his family in the Portland metro area something I completely understand it is certainly not for lack of performance on his part he's been an exceptional chief he has done a tremendous amount in a very small amount of time I feel so

1:38:46 incredibly uh grateful that he chose our city and in fact he he stayed longer than I than I thought I would be able to have him and he accomplished so much more so he has always exceeded my expectations and those were already quite High um as he you know prepares to make that transition um my intent will be is to um have uh the deputy chief Jamie R be the interim Chief um and you know that way that we'll have continuity in that leadership deputy chief R was part of the transition of the department with Chief sheer he you know convinced her to move South and she and her husband have um Liv here in Springfield and she loves it here and she is well beloved in our community and

1:39:32 in the department so I think that I anticipate a smooth transition um In This Very visible and important position in our city but I wanted to just take a moment to thank and recognize Chief sheer thank you Chief I think uh I could speak for an entire Community when we say we're really grateful for your time here and we both we're all saddened to to you know hear you switching jobs but also excited to get see you take on a new opportunity and you will be great in ingression him we were having some troubled times when the Chief came in and there was controversy even at that time in his selection and I'll tell you he has done

1:40:17 a wonderful wonderful job in settling things down and making the city the city a respectful City and I really than thank him for that all right next item please uh any business from the city attorney uh just a quick thank you to the council for um going with the change in annexation hearing procedures so uh that's a result of passing the new annexation code and um I think it went really well tonight and we'll kind of keep refining it but there um those hearings will be different moving forward and we'll have the script W be ready but anyway thank you seeing your policy kind of into action schol thanks for the script it helps a lot all right that is the that is

1:41:03 everything for the evening we are adjourned