Springfield City Council — April 28, 2025

0:04 I am going to call the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call. Mayor Ray Gordon here, councelor Weber here, councelor Mo here, councelor Rodley here, councelor Blackwell here, councelor Doyle here, and councelor Stout here. Thank you. Before we start for the evening, I just want to take a second to acknowledge that uh Mayor Morsett's well and former legislator Morsett's funeral was today. Several of us went out there and Mayor Morsette contributed significantly through a lifetime of service to the city of Springfield and we honor that and he will be missed dearly. The first item that we have is the affordable housing department of administrative service grant funding award with Nancy Newton. Good evening, Mayor Council. Uh thank

0:49 you for uh this evening. We're going to have kind of a conceptual conversation tonight in work session to talk about um a contract that you will be approving at a later date. So, no decision is required tonight, but I want to walk through the process. Uh this involves um a federal grant that was um formerly the source it was ARPA funds that went through the state of Oregon that were then um allocated to Springfield for the purposes of affordable housing. So, the total amount of this onetime federal grant was $620,000. Tonight, we're talking about $500,000 of it that would be um converted into two projects for affordable housing. The first uh location would be 190 South 41st Street.

1:35 The second location would be 15777 Laura Street. Um both of these projects uh would be um conduct uh constructed by uh Dev Northwest. Uh we have used uh this um nonprofit in the past and they have a history uh docu uh documented history of um providing affordable housing in our area. Um the remaining $100,000 would be um then also used for the same purpose of affordable housing. there is a potential project in in the works that is not yet in the the ready to turn to a project stage. So we have these two in the pipeline that can go now. Um the key points to remember on this really is the funds need to be

2:22 extended by December 31st, 2026, which is why we're coming before you tonight for a head nod on yes, this is okay use for us with this um developer. Uh you saw in your packet information some of the uh requirements for the development of um 13 units that would and we are looking into the area meeting median income uh percentage that uh they will need to meet for affordability index. We'll have that for you uh prior to you making that decision. Um, and then also you'll see note on the scope of work there was some wording that got cut off of item E and so we will get that uh

3:07 cleaned up and bring it back before you. So it was on scheduled for consent on the May 5th agenda. We'll probably have to set aside maybe five minutes um to just bring it back to you so you can fully discuss if you have any other questions. Are there any other questions? The only question I had is we had another piece of property that was out like 52ndish that was the the uh uh I guess the same size as the lower piece of property. Is that wrapped up in a different funding source or is that something that is potentially included in this? Mayor, I would need to check on that, but I am aware of the property that you're referencing. Council member,

3:55 I just have a couple of questions regarding uh dispersement of funds. Yes. I I assume those are dispersed with that quarterly report or at some sort of a dispersement period. So we this is done through this this is actually state funding that we they're passing through us and it does have quarterly reporting requirements attached to it. Yes. Okay. And if for some reason the funds aren't expended by 123126 circumstances that were not, you know, that are out of people's control, is there um the funds that have already been dispersed, is there any issue with those being compliant with the terms of that grant? There shouldn't be uh council member, but I will double check on that. I mean, one of the things that talks

4:40 about on on the um scope of work is having uh occupancy permit uh ready. So, it really depends on what that circumstance would be. Uh, say for instance, they were able to get half of the units constructed and and occupancy done, then those would certainly uh qualify. But, um, you know, so it really kind of that's one of those classic it depends answers. Um, I feel confident in this uh developer that we'd be able to to get this project going. These are um projects that they have in the pipeline currently. Okay, great. Thank you. Anybody else? No, I think we are good. Thank you. Thank you. Uh the next item is the Santa Pac annual rate adjustment

5:25 with Jeff Pascal. I don't know if Santa's coming up too. Yeah, I'm going to introduce it and then I'll turn it over to Santaac to answer the hard questions. um since trash is not my forte or refuge um and disposal. Um so yeah, tonight is our annual review of the Santa Pack rates. Um it's part of the franchise agreement that we have with them that they bring the rates and the council approves any rate increase. Um so what you have laid out there and staff has reviewed that is they're proposing 2.6% rate increase which is in line with what the inflationary factors were last year. Um, one thing to note, they're proposing that, but I think if you read through the materials, you see that they're

6:11 experiencing their labor rates went up, but they're holding to what the um, CPI is in the rate request. And then when we bring this back, part of the process, so any decisions or recommendations that the council has tonight on the rate, um, we'll bring that back packaged up with the full master fees and charges list on June 2nd for a public hearing and adoption. Um, and right now I'll just introduce Aaron and Chris and they'll come up and they can um, well, they'll walk you through some information they have and you can answer they can answer any questions you may have unless there are any questions for me. Any questions for Jeff? All right. Thank you.

6:59 Thanks, Jeff. Uh hello, mayor and uh city council and city staff and manager. I'm Aaron Donley from Santaac. Uh thanks for having us tonight. Um I'm joined by uh Chris Chris Walker. I'm the interim district manager for Santaac. Um, so, uh, we do have a little presentation here because there are some significant changes that are coming to recycling in the state of Oregon this year in July. So, we wanted to provide an update on that. Um, but I guess before I moved on to that, did anybody have any questions about the rate increased requests of the CPI? Are there any questions for Santa? Councelor Stout. Uh I I first of all I I am love Santa and I love the work you guys do and I know we've had a great relationship with Santa Pac and the city of Springfield. So you have my respect

7:44 and admiration. I just want to I think make a comment out there which is that um while while the rate request initially seems very reasonable um every utility is bumping at every single price cost. And I'm almost wondering if we can also look just consider from the other side of things that not everybody's experiencing the same increase in CPI in their own household budgets. And so I just want to be really attentive that in this conversation and any any other pointed uh questions that I might ask. That's that's really Thank you. That's good input. Thank you. Yeah. Um yeah, that's definitely definitely good input. Um, you know, if someone is having difficulty paying their bill or if it if if the rate increases too much, we do like to try and talk to them as much as possible to see what other services we

8:29 can provide. If it's a different service level, uh we go all the way down, I believe, to 20 gallons once a month. And we try to encourage people to recycle as much as possible to divert uh because recycling is free with their garbage. Um but but thank you for that. Um and and look forward to any anybody else have any questions on that? Okay. I'm sure when you get through the presentation, we'll get have plenty of questions. Okay. Um, so the presentation tonight was uh is about changes to really not just Springfield recycling, but recycling in the state of Oregon. So Oregon um uh passed a legislation called the uh recycling modernization act and it is really a landmark legislation in the United States. Um uh many states are following suit. Uh Oregon is one of the first states to adopt it and actually enact it. Uh, it will become official in

9:17 July of this year, July 1. So, I'm just going to kind of walk you through just some um hopefully this will Am I doing that right? Is it the next button? Okay. I might have clicked a bunch of times there. Oh, Okay. Yeah, if you just want to go to the next slide. Uh okay. So, uh the next slide is uh you know why is recycling changing? Um before we get to that, so just just some back background on this is that uh

10:02 the uh recycling markets as you might remember in the United States or especially in the west coast uh faced a crisis in 2017 2018 when China announced that they would no longer accept America's recycling. Uh it it created a lot of instability and dramatically raised costs to dispose of recycling. Um as a result uh lots of stakeholders and DQ in Oregon legislators started considering you know how can we prevent this from happening again and how can we create stability in the recycling uh markets and the recycling process. Um and so out of that uh developed was years of work sessions that you know we were involved with you know a number of people obviously were involved uh to develop what became the recycling modernization act. Um so why recycling is changing. Um so we wanted to or the

10:49 state wants to make recycling easier, cut contamination and guarantee responsible in markets. Um so the goal of this is to uh require that the companies that produce this material in the first place uh then are responsible for paying uh for the recycling and the end life uh sort of handling of that material. Um, so if you these companies are, you know, large plastic producers, you know, everything you get your packaging in from Amazon and so forth. Um, so what they have to do is they're going to be required to pay into a fund. Uh, and that fund and the group itself of those plastic producers or packaging producers uh is is called a pro, a producer responsibility organization. And so all of those companies come

11:35 together and then they're going to be under the umbrella of another company called CAA, Circular Action Alliance. And Circular Action Alliance is the group that's managing the RMA, uh, all of the funding that has to be done and the work that has to be done on behalf of these producers. So um, the DEEQ now another so so the Oregon DEQ is responsible for sort of the oversight and the governance of this program. Um, and then they're going to require these companies to then pay into the fund that will then reimburse haulers and cities uh for certain activities regarding recycling. So, it's sort of I might have a graphic on it, but we'll see. Uh, one of the other long-term goals was to make sure that uh Oregon's recycling was

12:20 ending up in a responsible inmarket. So when we collect recycling, we take it to a recycling facility and those facilities in order to receive funding will have to be accountable to where are the end markets for all of those materials end up. So there's a lot of news sometimes you hear of of you know recycling ending up in the rivers, the ocean and so forth. Um those facilities will be accountable to track where all the material goes and prove that it actually is being recycled. So it's it's sort of an accountability factor as well. Um, let's see. They're also going to help uh pay for some education and outreach as well as some uh depots that will be coming down the line. So, let's go to the next slide. So, this is what uh we accept now in our in our co-mingled recycling

13:05 program. Uh cardboard, uh pop cans, food cans, plastic jug, bottle, paper box, dairy cartons, and then uh paper. If we can go to the next one. And then the next slide is what's new. So, another goal of the recycling modernization act was that every city in Oregon has its own sort of program and its own list of what can go into the recycle can. And in order to clear all of that up, what they're trying to do is establish one list throughout the state that every city abides by that everyone knows no matter what city you're in, essentially you can put the same materials into your recycle can. And it's called the statewide acceptance list. So, for us, um, uh, we actually already accept a large number of items that were on that list. But here's some new stuff. Nursery plant packaging, um, scrap metals less

13:52 than 10 pounds in weight, aseptic cartons, uh, and plastic, uh, buckets and pales and storage containers. Um, so those are all new and we hopefully hopefully those will help divert some waste out of the garbage stream as well. Yes, Victoria. So that sounds really great. Sure. But my thought process is they're not going to eat that cost. They're going to pass that on to us, right? So we're we're ultimately going to pay to have this new process done where they ought to just charge us directly and then we wouldn't be paying for 16 different acronym departments to run through the bureaucracy to get this done. That that's just what it sounds like. I'm not that's not your problem, but um I just don't see how they're not going to the

14:37 people that we buy this stuff from aren't going to just pass that on to us. So, yeah, that's been discussed a lot um at the DEQ level as to what impact it'll have to consumers. Um I don't I haven't heard that there's been definitive information on that, but in my personal experience, the companies tend to pass on their costs um that they incur, but it's it's I mean I don't have an answer for that, but that's a thank you for that comment. Okay. Uh let's go to the next slide. What not to include. So this is contamination obviously that is very problematic for recycling centers. Um it can tend to shut down the facilities themselves if they have to climb in there and cut out bags from these large uh wheels that sort of move the material around. Um batteries obviously are a

15:24 huge concern. It's it's it's a big issue in the industry right now causing lots of fires. Uh food or liquid can contaminate the recycling itself. Um, and then bagged recycles is problematic because you want them to be loose and sort of jumbling around for the sorting uh equipment. Um, let's go to the next one. Okay, so uh beyond just the statewide acceptance list, there's also going to be uh depots that the uh producers are responsible for uh funding and and establishing. Um, so these depots uh will are based on the number of depots you have to have in your city is based on the population of the city. Um and uh so then they can be sporadically uh sort of spread throughout the city. Um there's also an opportunity for them to potentially be uh accepted at back to home back to

16:10 retail return to retail stations similar to how you might do um light bulbs or or uh plastic bags at grocery stores or something like that. So these are depots. These are items that will be accepted at depots. Um we are we'll continue to accept glass bottles and jars at the curb like we do now. Um but there'll be some other items that people can take to depot. um for that. Let's uh go to the next slide. This is other support um that's going to be coming from these uh the pro group. So uh they'll be essentially subsidizing the costs to transport recycling after uh we collect it. So we'll collect the recycling and then we take it to a uh processing facility. If that processing facility is more than 50 miles away, then they provide a

16:56 subsidization on the transportation cost of moving that material to the recycling facility. Um, and so the recycling facility itself has to become certified. It has to be a certified recycling facility and has to be there can't be one within 50 miles in order for you to get this credit. Um, they're going to be funding. So, what's available for education and outreach uh is $3 per capita is what's been announced so far. So, um population of Springfield uh times $3 is potentially what's available. Um as far as the materials and education, they are developing that at a statewide level so it's consistent across the board. Um I'll show you just a logo that of things you might start seeing soon. It's called recycle on. Um but as far as how to get the materials

17:41 out there, we haven't been instructed on that yet. Um potentially future depots for collection of hard to recycle items. Uh there's supposed to be glass companies are going to help subsidize the glass collection costs. Um potential support for additional equipment if needed. Um we turned in um a request, you know, early on they asked, you know, what kind of funding would you need? And it was it's still sort of unclear as to what the impacts of this are going to be, but potentially we might need another truck uh if there's a lot more volume or uh carts for more material or something like that. So there's potential support for that. Um and then I mentioned before accountability for processors uh to ensure recycling is properly handled handled. So um one of the questions that we sometimes hear is like is you know if if we're getting

18:26 funding then what's that going to do the rates and at this point you know we don't know exactly um because this is such a new program but we are expecting some kind of downward pressure on rates um but we just don't know clearly what that's going to be yet. So next time when we come back we should have a better estimate as to what those impacts actually are and the benefits are. Um so next question or next slide sorry. So who's paying for this? Uh this is sort of my earlier rambling as to all the acronyms. Um but these are some of the companies they join. You know they're in this this group called the pro and then underneath there is the circular action alliance sort of group that manages those companies as part of the uh deal. Um so let's go to the next slide. This kind of how everything

19:11 works. There's the producers which are the pro groups, obviously the customers. Uh uh there's the recyclers and the end markets. So everybody sort of has a role to play in the system. Let's go to the next slide. Okay. So that's uh some of the outreach that we'll likely be seeing. Um recycle on Oregon is sort of the branding that the DEQ has settled on on how to promote this uh new program. So you'll start seeing potentially commercials, flyers, information like that. Um from Recycle on Oregon. Let's go to the next slide. Uh okay. So uh Katherine Ashcrooft, that is not me. That is Katherine Ashcrooft. She's our sustainability coordinator. She's sitting here uh as well uh from Santaac. And um so she goes out and uh provides

19:56 education to groups and schools and so forth. She'll be here. I believe it's next month that there's a public works day. Um, and we'll be out here in the in the uh parking lot as well. Um, so she can assist uh businesses and residents on this as well. Um, so yeah, that's that's the end of the presentation. I'm happy to answer any more questions you guys have. Council Rodley, thank you very much and thank you for being here. Um, I have a question, but first a statement. I'm very excited about nursery pots. I'm just going to say um because yes, that's all I have to say is I'm very excited about those. I don't know what Bring is going to do without everybody dropping off all their nursery pots. Um, but I'm so excited about that. Um, uh, you mentioned a couple of times that there's going to be

20:41 this accountability tracking and I'm just I'm curious as to whether or not there's been any that's been set up yet or what that's going to look like in terms of like the accountability of making sure people are paying and doing and all the things. Thank you. So um in order to receive funds uh ourselves we'll have to you know record the tonnages that we collect the you know obviously the trips that we would make to transport the material um and all that has to be documented and returned in order to receive reimbursement. Um but I think you might be talking more about the recycling center uh accountability. Um I haven't been on that side of the discussion as much. Um, but uh I know that there's a there's an in-depth certification process that has to go they have to go through and there's lots of requirements that they

21:27 have to go through like um they can't have a certain amount of uh residual waste out the back end of the facility and they have to truly sort and and receive a percentage of diversion from their sorting efforts at the facility. Um because otherwise you know theoretically you could have you know material coming in not sort it very well and dispose of it as garbage and potentially save money. Um but there's accountability on that and the percentages they have to achieve. I think there'll be waste I think there'll be audits on the material that's uh outgoing um and then they have to track. So these facilities they they take all of our comingle that we put in a can and they sort it um and then they bail that material separately and then they ship that to end markets. Um and so those in

22:14 markets are the ones that will have to ultimately be accountable um by the facilities uh in order to what's happening to that material. Um domestically I one thing that happened with the China store is that we ended up sort of developing more domestic markets. You know cardboard and paper obviously we have companies like international paper here in Springfield that didn't take that. Um there's you know Denton Plastics which is in Portland uh that can process plastics. Um aluminum and metal is easily recycled. Um, so, uh, yeah, I I'd be happy to get you more information on that, but I know that the DEQ, if you look, if you just Google recycling modernization act, um, they have a pretty extensive website with videos and there's even a link that says questions or, um, I think I believe it's like frequently asked questions for municipalities. Um, so you might want to

23:00 check that out as well. And there's a whole section in there about um, it's the processing facilities. They're called CPR CPRFs. I believe there's lots of acronyms in this whole thing, but yeah. Yeah. Any question, Councelor Stone? Just so just to be clarified, which uh where is this uh processing facility going to be? Is this the Glenwood location or is it elsewhere? No. Um so right now we take our recycling and some of it some it depends on the market conditions. Basically, you want to sort of shop and get the best price that you can on it. International Paper in Springfield accepts a lot of recycling for the area and they sort it there. Um, we also take recycling to our facility in Glenwood, which is Ecosort. Uh, we bail it and

23:46 then we truck it to north to where the the large facilities are. So, there's about seven large facilities in Oregon. Um, there's one that just came online that that Waste Management built. Um there's one in uh Salem called Garden Services that we've taken material to, but our parent company, Waste Connections, in May of last year bought um its own MURF called Pioneer Recycling. It was one of the larger ones in Portland and uh in Washington. And so that's an opportunity for us as well to take material there. Um, and then there's obviously the there's been discussion of the uh Lane Countyy's clean lane facility, which if built, they have a proposed recycling facility as part of that as well.

24:33 Hi, Councelor Doyle. So, I just want to thank you for this. I know I sound grumpy about fees, but the truth is is that I love the fact that we recycle the way we do in Oregon. Um, I was in New York back in 2001 and was trying to help clean up and was crushing cans and the people were like, "What are you doing?" They had no idea what I was talking about and what I was doing. And so I hope that see knowing that this may be national and maybe going nationwide would be really awesome. Um, it still breaks my heart every time I go to a state and I see people throwing cans away cuz I'm like that's worth a dime. But um, so I mean that education part of it I think is just so important. you know, getting us to where it's just second nature and it's like, no, no, you know, we catch ourselves going, no, you don't throw that away, you recycle and what have you. And so, I'd be excited to see that we start kind of going back to having more options prior to se, you know, being able to actually do that.

25:18 So, anyway, thank you for all the work that you do. Thank you. Yeah. So, uh I think this is a good reminder for everybody. Can you uh maybe update us on what happened in 2017? Sure. Um, so historically u uh there's a trade deficit which I'm sure everybody's heard that term more recently but uh historically um China sent us uh all the goods and we sent them back and so they had all these boats coming to America full of containers and goods and they were going back empty and then someone along the way had the idea to send them back our recycling uh so that they could use that raw material to make those goods and then send it back to us. Um, unfortunately, uh, a lot of the United

26:04 States West Coast, um, recycling is was contaminated with garbage. Um, and, uh, and so we were sending them a lot of essentially recycling, but it it was a lot of garbage. They were they were taking it because they wanted the raw materials so desperately, but um, ultimately they uh, it was having a, I believe, a significant environmental impact on their country and on their people. And they were saying there was also potentially some political elements. They said, you know, we don't want United States garbage anymore. Um, and so they uh officially they started something called the China green fence. They gave a warning and they did something called the China National Sword and they said that we won't that China will not accept any recycling that has more than I think it was it was like a one it was a really low percent that

26:49 was unattainable for anybody essentially to send the material. So it effectively cut off China who was the major importer of American recycling. Uh, and that caused um all of the recycling centers that we take material to to no longer have a place to take it. And so they had to find sources to take it, those places that agreed uh were more expensive and they demanded um more uh cleaner recycling. And so the facilities we took the material to had to slow down their lines substantially. They had to put limits on what they could accept. They were shutting down. Uh basically it was sort of dayto-day for a long time. we were having to call and fortunately we we never had to landfill any recycling. Um we had good relationships with our processors and they were able to take all of our materials. But it kind of

27:36 caused this big backlog in the whole system and um and I think this is really important because in 2017 we thought we put it in the big blue bin and it all magically got recycled. Right. Yeah. Yeah. And so for I guess for us as elected leaders and and the public, it's a good reminder if we don't follow the instructions that Santa publishes, right, we're essentially creating we're creating more garbage out there. Yes, I think that's a good point. Yep. Um the other thing I think the other two questions I had about changes in in the recycling is you mentioned the education funding that we would get $3 per uh per capita. how I was unclear during the presentation how is that getting how is

28:21 that getting spent who's getting those dollars you know and who's creating the sort of programming around that yeah so uh Santaac is the designated uh I guess receiver of those funds um my understanding is that they'll be available in July but we still need to receive guidance uh from the EQ on what materials we're supposed to distribute and you know what we're reporting back we have to obviously account for all of our expenses and return it back to them in order to be reimbursed to me. Um I just talked we have we have someone that's been sort of spearheading this throughout Oregon. We actually have a big meeting tomorrow with our companies um to discuss this as well, but there's a little bit of uh vagueness right now in my understanding as to how that's going to work exactly. Okay. Um and I and I'm fine knowing more

29:06 when we when information is available. Yeah. The other I guess comment that I had about the uh recycling was there were two things that looked like they had to go to a depot, right? Which was essentially aluminum foil, right? And then, you know, shredded a sort of shredded paper. And from a convenience and a sort of uh data safety perspective, my assumption is that it would be easier at some point if we could just bin the, you know, the shredded paper, right? Because one of the I guess conflicts people have had is as we've gotten better at dealing with the 2017 paper, right? We're either we've got so much that from a privacy perspective, we're being told to shred, but you've created this situation where, hey, I want to recycle this because all my life I've been told, hey, you know,

29:51 recycling's good, but also from a privacy perspective, right, I need to get that stuff shredded so that I can get it, you know, protect my, you know, personal information. Mhm. And knowing that, like if we could get to a point where that shredded paper is just going into the bin, uh the blue bin, it's going to be easier for everybody. Yeah, ideally that would happen. I I I don't understand it at all, but I I do understand that um the issues with shredded paper that it doesn't look like paper to the sorting, and there's some issues with the sort of um uh length of the uh paper itself, the pulp for recycling that that causes issues with shredded paper if it's with normal paper. My guess is the pro groups that are responsible for these depots might look to potentially subcontract that work to a current shredding hauler that

30:36 has some kind of secure way to collect all that material, but I'm not sure. So, like most of this from a programming perspective, it sounds like um your feedback is, hey, this is still all new. We're going to learn more as we go, right? And just be, you know, be be patient as the information comes out. And one of the things the the head of the DQ has said repeatedly is like yes the dead the date is July 1, but that doesn't mean on de on you know midnight of July 1 everything's like rolling. He's like it's going to be a process to step into it. Uh for example, right now they're um they're really looking at financing and doing the outreach for cities in Oregon that don't have any recycling. Uh so they gave a schedule of cities that are listed A throughF. Uh F being the most sophisticated and not necessarily needing it. Springfield's an

31:22 F because we have a comprehensive recycling program here, but there are cities that are an A that are getting a lot of focus right now. So, they're starting with that first. Yeah. Um, and I have two more comments to make. One of them is about composting related to food scraps, right, which is something we do in my household. And I can see why the update um the last time we chatted you mentioned that like not a lot of people do that. Yeah, we would like more people to participate. Um, and that's part of uh Katherine's new role is to encourage that as well. Um, the best thing we can do is to is to really try and get food waste out of our our garbage. Um, but uh, yeah, but it does take a lot of labor. Like I like you know, you have to be dedicated. You have to have you have to separate it. Uh, you know, a lot of people have a little bin

32:07 that they can put in their refrigerator or even on their counter. It takes cleaning that bin. Takes going out there and putting it in your cart. Um during the summer you put a bunch of food in your cart and you can get issues. Um so cleaning the cart, putting baking soda in there as you dump in the food is good, but it does take work. So it it does take work. I would say it's worth it um for your kids and and family. It's it's a good thing to do, but it does take work. Yeah. And and I think that was the the feedback I was going to mention having done it probably for the last two years, right? It it is a lot of labor and you know you're always sort of fighting a very messy yard waste can and that can stink and attract flies and all sorts of stuff that you have to be aware of and knowing that you've got a coordinator now to help get tips to

32:54 people is is helpful. Yeah. There's also new technologies that are emerging. I have one called a food cyclinger where you can keep it in your counter and you put food waste into it and it essentially grinds it up into a soil amendment. not necessarily compost, but it is a way to sort of get away from all the cleaning a little bit. Um anyway, there's other things that are happening with that. Councelor Rodley, thank you. Yes, we too have been on a quest for the last few years to reduce our food waste. Um you mentioned about batteries, which I know we hear a lot about about not putting batteries in there. Um and just for anybody who might be watching, where can we take our batteries? Because I got a plastic bag of batteries. I've heard I could take them to BMart, but I'm not sure if that's up and going. So, where can people take their batteries?

33:40 So, I might ask Katherine if she knows a little bit more about this than I do, but I believe that you're right. I think Bart is a participate as a participant um with Lane County. Lane County received a grant um in my understanding to sort of have back battery takeback locations. And I'm pretty sure that BART is one of those locations where you can take it. Um Lane County also has a household hazardous waste uh drop off location. So, I'd probably advise people to um look up that on the website. Um but we are going to also um likely very soon have a have a battery probably coming back to you to talk about batteries um because there's a number of communities that are starting to launch programs for battery collection um because it is becoming a serious problem. Everybody has batteries with

34:26 laptops and everything else. So, um yeah. All right. Um, the one piece of direction we've got to give tonight is we have to head nod what we want from a rate perspective. Um, and I'm just looking to make sure everybody's okay with the staff suggested 2.6%. It's significantly lower than we've had the last two years. I mean, it's like considerably less. So, I I think it's great. Yeah. Great. These are never great, but affect her than last time and the year before. And I appreciate your guys's work and really hearing us on, you know, the importance of rates to our community. Um, that was a piece of feedback we've given the last couple of years. We we are pretty rate sensitive and it is and I appreciate you guys

35:13 continuing to sharpen the pencil about it. Thank you. All right. Anything else? Thank you so much. Thank you. Do you need anything else from us, Jeeoff? Are you good? We'll give right back June 2nd. All right. Thank you. All right. So, uh, last item is the bicycle pedestrian advisory committee BPAC report. Good evening. You You are not Drew. No, I'm not Drew. Um, unfortunately, Drew got held up. Flight delayed in Billings, Montana. So, uh, uh, good evening, mayor and council. Um, I am Michael Leebler. um your city of Springfield transportation planning engineer uh

35:58 staffing BPAC. Here tonight with Keith Dicki, chair of the bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee um to provide the BPAC's um um end of year report um and talk a little bit about um this year's upcoming activities. So with that, I will u pass it over to Keith to start the presentation. Thank you. Uh great. Uh before we begin, I just wanted to thank councelor Weber for being our uh our liaison to the BPAC for the last couple of years and for your input which has been very much appreciated uh over that time and and I look forward I believe councelor Stout's going to be our new uh assoc leazison and looking forward to working with you on the committee going forward and I also want

36:45 to also shout out to Drew who isn't here uh as you know sta city staff member has been great uh very supportive and also Michael uh those guys are do do great work. So thanks thanks to all of you. Uh so uh having said that we um have our 2024 year end report uh and you can just click to the next slide there I guess uh you know we um uh really focused last year I think I've been on this committee for like this is my third year and I came on in 2022 and it was I think kind of a looking back at it was the first it was right when we first started to do actual in-person meetings again. Um and uh I

37:31 think now looking back at that I realize that it must have been really difficult during that co time period for a lot of these committees to really coalesce and um I feel like the last couple years we've really you know have are doing more and more we're kind of getting our footing again uh maybe um and so that that's exciting. Um we uh last year we've really focused on uh on doing a lot of uh education. Uh we do a lot of uh events around uh the city um where we you know uh try to make sure folks are aware that there's a BPAC in Springfield and uh share information about what's going on. U so uh so that's

38:16 good. Uh we also um have uh done uh we do a lot of walk of audits, safety audits. Um and traditionally in the past we've done I think you've seen them um walk what we call walk audits but last year we actually started doing u bicycling audits as well which is been really interesting because it it's a different perspective you know it's like when you're walking and you're looking at something and riding a bicycle and looking at something it's it's it's a different experience. Uh so so those things uh are happening and continue to happen. This year we just finished our first one in u um Glenwood area which was interesting and learned a lot. Um we uh also uh you know worked a lot on trying to you know uh give advice on u

39:03 updating the the city's website, the WalkBike Springfield website. If you haven't looked at that, recommend you look at there's a lot of great information on there. Um, you know, it's a lot of what we do, I think, is is trying to we have some really great tools, you know, that that are that the city has. I don't think a lot of people are aware that they exist. And I think that's something we really need to we try to work on and and that's when we go out and do these community events. We talk about that when we meet with folks and and try to make them aware of that. Um we do work you know a lot with uh we have great partners that we work with uh Lamblane Elco um and uh they've been very supportive uh as well. So um uh going forward uh

39:48 you know I think uh this last year beginning in January we actually had our first kind of what we call a retreat uh and we have two subcommittees uh on um on this uh on our in BPAC and I think there's another slide. Can you move to the next slide? I'm not sure. There we go. So that was the year in Newport. Yeah. Community outreach walk by Springfield path etiquette campaigns. Uh we also talked with roadway striping uh you know we do the stripings um every year uh and we try to have input on that where we see things or we can that might be improved. Um and uh going forward uh we also uh is really exciting that uh Drew has been able to secure the grant for uh um you know a

40:36 new u bike ped plan master plan for the city uh which we're looking forward to. So, um, and you can go and click through there. Um, we did the walk bike. I'm sorry, I hadn't seen this slide presentation, so working our way through it. Uh, walking bike, the safety audit. Uh, yeah, we did G Street, Main Street, uh, uh, last year and the bike a we did the, uh, Rosa Park bath, uh, bike path and the Harlem Gateway area. Um, again, and those reports are included in the information that you've received. So you can look at those uh and you can next uh and uh the kind of things that we we do on those audits, you know, we look for obvious stuff uh structions, missing sidewalks,

41:23 ADA curb, uh you know, vegetation that's in the way of of uh u obstructing the pathways, those type of things. What happens when you identify it? we uh work with staff and staff goes back and and uh talks to the correct folks. So yeah, I guess it it would depend on what the level of need is for the issue. Um if it's a minor thing, that's something we can just pass on to the operations division, you know, cleaning something up or removing debris. Um that's one level. There's another level probably costs a little bit more. We have the funds, we can we can tackle it. Then there's there's larger things that as you're going, you know, obviously we don't have the funds for a bridge, but it's always nice to know for planning

42:09 purposes. So, um, a lot of it's documentation, some of it's lowhanging fruit that we can take care of now, some of it's just for us and planning to then present as future plans. So, so it all that feedback historically has been gathered. It may turn into a customer request form or it may inform plans we're making or, you know, a piece of infrastructure we're working on. Okay, perfect. Thank you. You know, you know, things like uh one another thing that we look at is wayfinding. Uh you know, we we have a that's an area where I think we can really make a lot of improvements. That's kind of to me that's really lowhanging fruit. Doesn't cost a lot to put a sign up somewhere. I don't think, you know, it's not like, you know, building a bridge. It's just a sign. But, um, you know, if we can, you know,

42:55 one of the challenges we have here in Springfield is is just the way the city's laid out. It's really difficult some to get from one place to the other. I mean, if you live out in Thirstston, you know, it's not the easiest thing to make a bicycle trip into downtown. There are ways to do it, you know, but um and I think the least we can do it, you know, until we can figure out something better is at least have the correct wayfinding signage so that folks know that, yeah, this can happen. I mean, if I may not know exactly how to get someplace, but if there's a sign that tells me I can get there, that's a big thing, right? you know that that encourages me. Um so those are the kind of things that we look at you know trying to uh figure out things that can kind of move the needle improve the system without you know spending tons of

43:40 money. Um so um um and then the bike audit which I talked about which is which is a um which is a new thing that we're doing and I think it's it's it's it's we're learning some stuff by doing that. Um, so we will continue to do those and then the community outreach. And then last year we did, like I said, the path etiquette campaign. By the way, uh May is bike month beginning May 1st all the all the way through May. And we have a bunch of events here in Springfield which you're all welcome to attend. Uh the uh wheels by the lammit is uh we're going to have two of those in May. It's down by the um kind of the intersection of River Hills and West Dy on the bike

44:26 on the Walle bike path. And um I'd encourage you if you if you've never been to one of those before, ride your bike or just stop by and uh spend a little time. You get to visit with folks that are riding their bikes to work or back and forth and and you'll learn a lot. Uh we did the ch children's festival, the block party October, and then just recently we did the u uh egg hunt out in Thirstston which was great and I'm glad we did that and I think we're trying to and if you guys if anybody's got suggestions on other events that we should be at in the city, um we're open to that because you know we want folks to know that we're out there. Um, and uh the white bike Springfield page again uh we that was revised last

45:11 year. I think it's a lot easier to use. A lot of good information on there. Um, and we'll continue to I think work on that uh going forward. And uh for this year, we we reconstituted our subcommittees. We had two subcommittees before that were not they kind of were out of whack. uh the portfolios for them really weren't were kind of out of out of date. So in January we got together and uh we kind of redivided that. We came up with uh with two subcommittees. One that focuses on um uh accessibility and connectivity which is more kind of infrastructure stuff and then the other one is education and outreach. Um, and really what we want to do this year, we're really trying to reach out to other uh,

45:56 you know, partners in the community like the the Chamber of Commerce, folks like that, just to talk to them about, you know, uh, how, you know, uh, bicycling u, and good pedestrian uh, access is important. Um uh and it is you know we've got a great downtown and probably the you know and just in anecdotally I run into I run into people that are friends of mine. I used to live in spring in Eugene a long time and and all of a sudden I'm finding all these folks from Eugene that are showing up in downtown Springfield. Uh and you know we need to make it easy for them to get here. If they're riding their bike from Eugene we need to make sure we got good wayinding that says hey this is where downtown Springfield is. You know those kind of

46:41 things. So, uh, you know, those are are things that we're supportive of and, uh, next this coming year, uh, working together and and also with other, uh, folks like Elco, um, uh, LTD, you guys know, um, has been very supportive, especially with the bike share program. Uh, so, you know, we've got bike share now in downtown Springfield. just make sure people can get here, you know, although they have to cross Mil Street, which is a whole another situation. But, um, so anyway, um, that's what we're up to. A lot going on. And any questions? Questions? Councelor Rodley. Thank you so much. And prior to councelor Weber, I got to come to the

47:26 BPAC meeting. So, it was before you were there. Yeah. And one of the things you didn't mention that I remember was a conversation when I was on BPAC is like bike repair. Do you all still have like the bike repair kits or a way for folks to check stuff out or am I making that up? No. Um that might be true. Sure. At at the time you were um on the BPAC as the liaison, we were working with some grant money to put in some bike fix it stations. Um, we had a little hiccup with that in trying to find a buy America product um to to to be able to actually purchase it. It was rather difficult. We moved on from that. Um, I don't believe we were successful in being able to find that. I do know that Wamla has had success in that and has

48:12 put some bike fix it stations. I know at the Bob Keeper Center. I'm not sure if any other places. So, I think we're going to continue to look into um how they got that um through the by America and see if we can replicate that and see if we can still work with that grant funding. Great. Thank you. Else uh councelor Stone, just dream with me for a minute and maybe this has come up in your conversations. If you had, let's say, you know, unlimited buckets of paint and maybe a week of staff time, you know, two or three people in public works, where would you paint stuff like, you know, the the the chevrons that sh say there's bikes here or, you know, more indications or little green, you know,

48:57 uh, segments like we have or would you say, you know, ballards? Safety always comes back to me. I'm I am the biggest proponent of ballards in lie of of let's say changing um infringing on others property rights. Um I'd rather install ballards to make things safe. I'm just curious like where would let's say you had you know a chunk of money. What would you do? Well, that's it's an interesting question because obviously we don't have we don't have any money, but uh it's you know I would say like there's just there's I would try to make what we have now you know better uh in terms of just you know better way finding you know when and if we have a uh you know if a street is designated as is a bicycle street let's make sure that there's b

49:43 there's sherrows on that street we don't even we don't have that now you know we there's a lot of of streets that just aren't marked that way. Um, you know, so I think just those just starting kind of from the basics. Um, there's there's things we could do to make our our bicycle system better that I don't think cost a lot. It's just having the, you know, the bandwidth to get it done, you know, you know, and I know the staff is is, you know, it's got a lot going on and, um, so, you know, and I think I'm hoping that I'm excited about the bike ped plan that Drew is going to be working on because I think that's an opportunity to revisit all that stuff and to really go back and and make that

50:30 right, you know. Um, and I think there's some, my understanding is the existing bike cut plan is fairly old, probably not, you know, it needs to be revised. Uh, so once that's and I think that'll be happening. I understand the work on that's going to be starting next next year, I think. Um, and so there's going to be opportunities there to really I I think make some some really good positive changes again without having to like tear up streets or anything like that. It's just, you know, making what we have better, you know. Uh, councelor Weber, I just want to share my appreciation for the members of this committee and for

51:15 Drew and Michael. Um, Drew and Michael come in often on Saturdays to help with these bike and walk audits. um their dedication to helping make that path of travel safer and just um really thinking about what's possible, but also understanding financial constraints is um a balancing act that you're constantly dealing with. And I just um this committee right now, they came in on a Saturday for four hours, was it? Yeah, three or four hours. um had some really great discussion about planning, changing the committee structures, just doing all the work to really make um just make things make sense, right? The work they're doing really has some

52:00 structure around it now. And I just want us to share my appreciation. Um great presentation. Uh the one question that I did have is we did get a communication uh packet memo that was talking about sort of trips and data associated to multi uh modal transportation. Is that something that's going to the BPAC? Um one of our BPAC work uh plan uh um agenda topics is is better data collection. Um it it definitely a desire from the committee to to be able to prove the worth of of the different things that they do, but also the larger

52:45 projects that we do. Um I believe councelor Pisheri wanted some before and after data about the the Daisy Virginia bikeway, previous counselor. Um and so we're starting to look at um being more proactive with collecting data. We've um engaged ELCOG um with getting some before and after data for the 42nd in um Daisy, Virginia. Intersection improvements um and we're going to continue to do that and and work with the BPAC to identify areas that we need to collect more data for. Um bike and ped data is especially safety data has always been hit and miss in the transportation world. We often have to talk to hospitals as opposed to get it um um from accident data. And as we increase the the monetary limits um um

53:31 for the thresholds for reporting a collision, we also get more limited data. So um more data and and being more proactive um and getting before data for larger bike and ped projects is one of the the focuses for for the BPAC for this year. Um I would say that uh it's not just bike and ped that struggles with the data question of transportation that that has been pretty consistent throughout you know every state transportation project and I hope and I think we we I continue to share the observation that uh ODOT you know helping to wrap their hand around some of these data questions would do a lot to support citizen groups as well as as local staff. I'm going to, you know, I

54:17 have a question specific to this memo. So, I'm going to try to throw a curveball and if you want to uh come back to me and answer it, that is perfectly fine because I'm sure you do not have the memo in front of you. It lists the North Bank Trail at D Street is having a roughly 600 daily trips. So, if I put that into if I think about 600 daily trips, what would that be from like a road perspective? like a from a a car perspective like what kind of road would would be 600 daily trips. Um I would say that for for vehicles for vehicles a roadway that has 600 daily trips would be more in the local kind of

55:04 categorization. Usually a local would be about zero to about a thousand trips is what we try to keep. Once we see that then we're into more of a collector. You see more safety and other issues associated with that. I think for bicycling in our area, 600 would be essentially considered like an arterial for us. Okay. Um probably one of the higher volumes um from one of the counters that we have. Um and I think that's mostly from everybody coming in through Eugene. Um um so that's pretty accurate, pretty good data. Um definitely high for us. I I'm probably going to have to get back to you as to whether you know what 600 matches for a functional classification of a a bicycling facility, but in I can say relative to you know our city that's

55:50 fairly high number. Uh and I I don't think there's a need to do any research here, right? Just having your anecdotal kind of observation around like well the busiest bike way we clearly have right like you know to give some context around it is is helpful enough. I just chime in there. I I live on that bike path right in that area and I'm on that I'm down there every day and um I can and I've we've lived there since 2016. And the one thing you have to to I think you I'm sure you're aware of this, maybe you're not, but I think there's uh just anecdotally uh the development of the ebike has changed uh how people get to

56:37 work and and basically that Westy U bike path system to me it's it's basically the Franklin Boulevard of bicycles between Eugene and Springfield. I mean, that's pretty much how most people, you know, that and I see it in the morning when I go for a walk, you know, it's it is it's like a commuter uh art arterial. Um even during the winter time in the fall, I mean, it's and it's h it's increased over the year over the year, year to year. I'm sure it has. And I think it's going to continue to do that because um it I don't know how many of you had the opportunity to get on an ebike and ride one, but uh it's fun and it's uh also you don't you don't have to work out very hard. I mean, you can easily ride an ebike and not break a

57:22 sweat to get from uh Eugene to Springfield. So I think you know my personal feeling is you know we need to be looking at our our bike infrastructure more like we look at our car infrastructure because uh more more and more we're going to see you know that happening and and there's all sorts of issues with that safety issues. I mean, you know, you guys I mean, there's people are riding bike uh ebikes on those trails that are doing 25 30 m an hour, you know, with young families and strollers and old people that are and walkers and it, you know, there's all sorts of issues there and that I think in in the coming years are people we're going to have to deal with that uh because these these systems were not built for that. They were built mostly for recreation.

58:09 And what we're finding, I think what you're what the reality of it is is that they're now being used for, you know, transportation. So, um, you know, I think that's just something that we have to kind of wrap our heads around as a city and as leaders as well. Yeah. Uh those are really great uh observations and uh you know and I think you know as we between ebikes and scooters and there's a a bunch of stuff that is going on here you know over the next couple years hearing you get uh your opinion about how to keep you know where we should engage as a council and how to keep people safe. Right. What you've told me is pretty consistent with the public feedback we've heard around that area for the last I don't know maybe three years. Um, so it's definitely

58:54 something that's on on our mind. Um, and as we wrap up, I just want to just observe, you know, everything get I tell all citizen groups roughly the same thing. It the more and crisper data that we that that we get that shows a growth in usage of transportation and systems and you know um and the changes that are happening in households makes it easier to sort of invest in things, right? like because when we have people using the system right then suddenly it becomes an easier community conversation about where we need to make investments. I really appreciate the time and effort. This was really well put together and um I enjoyed the our conversation. Thank you. Thank you.

59:47 I'm going to journ session and we will reconvene for CEDA in a little bit and scheduled at 7 o'clock. We're going to say it's 7:02.