Springfield City Council — November 10, 2025

0:05 Call the Springfield City Council work session to order with a roll call. >> Mayor Van Gordon >> here. Councelor Weber here. Councelor Mo >> here. Councelor Rodley >> here. Councelor Blackwell >> here. Councelor Buck >> here. >> And councelor Stout >> here. Thank you. >> We have one item this evening. It is a fire and governance conversation. Before I turn it over to Nancy to introduce this item, I just want to say, Chief, really good to see you and your staff. I know it's Veterans Day tomorrow and would you we're going to be out at the PD so we're not going to see a lot of the the fire folks, but would you please extend our thanks on behalf of this Springfield community to uh the people in the department that uh serve this country? >> We absolutely will. Thank you. Could you please uh introduce this item? >> Yes. Thank you, Mayor, and thank you for remembering our veterans. Um this

0:50 evening we have Chief Caven here and Deputy Chief Basket. I hope you're deputy chief and or is it assistant chief? Which one did? Oh man, I did I just promote you? I might have. Okay. Uh to talk about uh do a report regarding uh the governance of um the fire department. As you know, we have a functionally consolidated department with the city of Eugene and we have a task force that was working diligently on what would be the future of this department and some potential options. And this evening is really to talk about a couple of those options. We're not asking you to make a final decision at this time, but there's a lot of information to absorb and digest. And this is why we have the professionals at

1:36 the prof at the table here to uh kick off this presentation. So, I'm going to hand this over to Chief. >> Thank you, city manager Newton, Mayor, Council. It's a pleasure to be here tonight. Um, do you want questions along the way or do you want us to try to hold it? Like I've we've all been through the presentation. So the uh do you want us to ask as we go or you want to hold us hold them until the end? >> I think it might work best just so everybody sees it and kind of hears the rhythm um to hold them. That way I keep on a cadence with the shorter time frame. >> Okay, perfect. We'll do that then. Um, and I take a just a point of personal privilege before we start to say um our gratitude to the Springfield community for the passage of the fire levy this past Tuesday. Uh, means a lot to to the

2:21 fire department, the firefighters to have the community support. Uh, so as city manager Newton said, um, we're here to talk about fire governance. We're going to focus on a couple specific items. Um it's kind of long. Um but as she mentioned, we're going to focus on um two specific areas. The ones that that seem to have the most interest um either uh out in the the public with the labor union and or um with the uh intergovernmental entity as recommended by uh the consultants. So um uh the information that's contained herein is specific to Springfield. when we get down to the the root of the data. Um, but we're going to talk about um all

3:07 the the models at one point. We're going to dig deep on on those two. Um, and then kind of talk about what what might come next or what's on the horizon for us. Um, so, uh, as when we covered this in Eugene on the 22nd, um, there's many different audiences that we're speaking to. who obviously are elected officials, the community that's watching, the firefighters, and many folks who have had a role in um how we got here um and have an interest in where we end up going. So, uh our uh community receives excellent support from from our fire department. We're incredibly proud of the firefighters that serve it. Um but, uh as we spend time on these these challenges, um it's important to to remember why why we're doing the work.

3:52 And um we'd work to identify a northstar of of you know how we measure our outcomes and looking for stable, efficient, scalable governance model uh that ensures long-term stability and grows the comm with the community it serves um are very important uh pieces of this equation. Whoops, wrong button. Um as we go on uh you know the other outcomes that we look towards come right from the AP Triton report. Um I won't read each of them verbatim. I think you guys have been in and out of that report. Um but that you know big things is the sustainability um and the growth of our fire department is achievable with the model that um that we choose. Um so when we think about um our needs,

4:37 you know, we think about fire and life safety services. They're not something you really want to reactively plan for. Um we need to be proactively planned and resourced. Um, and I think the the good quote is the best plan to um or the best day to plan for your worst day is not the day after. Um, so we think about our future, it's, you know, a future that's stable, predictable, the ability to um plan and innovate. Uh, the ability to respond to the community's growing needs in particular is as we continue to hear good information about investments in downtown Springfield um that are coming. um fire department needs to be able to adapt and and have the resources to meet the need to protect um Springfield. Uh we think about the resources that um are

5:23 needed today and as we think about the future. Um we know that uh ambulance funding is a challenge. Um you've all seen it on Nate's 5-year forecast. um assets um the the growth of uh support uh training and administrative uh components of our organization to modernize um and then the ability to um work on capital improvement um debt service options. So um we know we have deferred maintenance in our stations. We know that some need to be u potentially moved and or rebuilt. Um and so we need a future that allows us to to tackle those um very issues. Um there were five models that were explored. Um those started with keeping

6:08 it currently organized. Um one city providing service to another i.e. contract um the establishment of an a fire district. Um or the dissolution of the current merger. Um when we think about the two we're talking about, as I mentioned, um we'll go over the fire district and the um but as we move uh into this conversation, I think it's important to uh reiterate and it was reiterated on the 22nd that um being individual departments isn't something to be afraid of if we're not able to find a sustainable path forward um for our organization. So, uh, we'll dive right into the fire district information. Um, on this first

6:56 slide is just a representative look of, um, the the tan areas are our jurisdictions in the city of Eugene and city of Springfield. Um, and those different shades of of pink salmon or wherever we might debate those colors, uh, are the rural districts that surround um, our communities today. Um when we think about forming the fire district, um really if either city chose to form a fire district on its own, the statute doesn't actually allow that to occur. Um you know, you either need to join with a typically a rural um fire department to share service or to annex into um but you just can't decide that well, we want a district to provide this specific provision within our already um

7:42 existing geopolitical boundaries. Um and so that's really that's out of the question. um annexing to a special or annexing annexing to an existing district um is the path that we could take. Um and this is just a small list of the challenges um that we would need to cross um to make that happen. Um the existing district has to have interest. as we talk about that district here shortly. I'll I'll mention um that um nobody has engaged uh with that district to um see if they're interested in annexing our cities or not. Um but you think about their votes, you think about the city council votes to refer it, the metro plan work, city code changes, um assets. I mean, there's a lot of

8:27 complication. Um I just want to bring up the short list as to not get way down into the weeds tonight about what would it actually take. Um, but it's a fair amount of work and a lot of people uh agreeing in the affirmative along the way. There we go. Uh, so this slide um we're kind of focusing on uh the Will Kinsey Fire District. Um, and the reason that is is, um, that's the one district that has a tax rate sufficient to absorb our, um, our needs and fund it effectively. Um, as a a note, uh, back in 2004, uh, both cities took a look at this district for

9:13 the potential of moving fire services uh, 20 years ago. Um this map shows you uh the UGB um that we'd be looking to serve and those green outlined areas are um the relatively small areas uh that the Willenzy Fire District still continues to serve within our area. Um as I mentioned, the district uh is essentially a new government. Um and therefore it's subject to all the same limitations uh and restrictions as the city of of Springfield would be. um frustrations with limited pro tap property tax growth um are the same. Um and again we're focusing on specifically information as it relates to Springfield. Um we're

9:58 going to use the tax rates of the Willenzy uh Rural Fire Protection District U which has a rate of approximately 307 per thousand. As you'll see in later slides, the city of Springfield's entire permanent rate is roughly 472 per thousand. Um this is as we talk about it the maximum case scenario. Um so it's important to look um as probably most of you are aware if there is a new taxing district nobody legally gives up uh their taxing authority and so you could potentially expect um from day one that uh all uh legally accessessible taxes would be assessed and and we're going to work work through that. While it's possible that the city could choose um to lower rates to offset um in particular uh the

10:44 fire levy, but um in some cases in the report we talked about going further um to offset that. We also know that uh there isn't really no way that the city um could offset the entire 307 rate it would take to to service that fire district. Um it's also important to look at what's possible and likely. Um, and so, uh, we don't want to say this on every slide. Um, but we're trying to share the scale of the numbers, um, to help folks understand how these two compare and contrast against each other. Um, it's meant to be unbiased and and kind of in that worst case scenario. Um, as we narrow the options, um, we'll need to continue refining that data into the

11:29 future. Um Nate does an amazing job in going through tax uh compressions and limitations. So I'm going to buzz through this slide really quick um about measure five and it's uh limiting real market value. Um and the compression occurs at the individual um property level and most property owners don't know that they're compressed uh today. Um so this example um is you know with a picture but um is a property here in Springfield. This is their tax bill. Um, this is designed to kind of show um where general government comes from. Um, it says it right there. That's the county, the city, and any special districts that exist. Uh, and including any operating levy levies that exist in

12:15 that space. Um, and the total amount that you're paying. um the new district will fall within that uh general government rate as we know. Um and it's how that general government rate is set off of your real market value, not your assessed value. And so the the amount of taxes a property can absorb are higher than what we've all been trained to look at, the $10 per thousand uh cap on taxes. And we'll continue to kind of go through this and refine it. You don't have to remember all that off of just one slide. Um this is that house. Um we pulled the URAS out and so that top number is is a rep or

13:00 that top list of of taxes or representative number but not everything that makes up um this individual properties um tax bill. When we Oops, sorry about that. Um, when we look at how your u property is capped, it's again $10 on your real market value or for this specific property, $5,357. Um, if we add Will Kenzie to the equation, um, we add another $886 to this specific property. Um, taking our general government cap from 1078 to 1347 or $3,894. Um, as you'll notice, it's still far short of what the general government cap

13:47 is, even though your tax rate exceeds $10 per thousand. Um, this is just to reiterate that again, this property's real market value um would allow it to be taxed up to $5,300 um based on its assessed value with the fire district on top of existing taxes and backing the levy out. Um that new permanent rate for general government would be $1347 per thousand. Um what's this mean? This property can absorb another $776 in taxes before uh they reach compression. Uh this is just an example. If you've looked at the the tax records, there's usually a plotted map of your assessed

14:33 value. That's the red line. The light blue line is your property value. Um and then dark blue line is your property value which is improvement value. Um as we move through that your $10 um per thousand um in times of economic downturn can start to compress um as those uh numbers get narrow. As you recall really felt that following the 2008 recession in 2010 to 14 in local government and we still feel the effects today. Um so let me catch Um, this is just taking a look at uh neighborhood. Um, so look at that same property tax bill. Um, and grab just a

15:19 few different examples of of properties here in Springfield. Um, this home built in 2,600 ft². Uh, it could be taxed up to $18.52 before it's compressed. Another example, and we'll see these houses a little closer in their full cost here in a moment. Um, this house could go $20.50 before it's compressed. Um, which are not small numbers when you think about the actual cost. Um, and then 17 16 for this home that was built in 1964. Um the point of this slide one is to show um not only uh the different ways value come into play but the inequity of when your home was assessed um and its real market to assessed value um transition.

16:06 We didn't have available to us the same compression data that Eugene did um for the presentation over there to find a property uh a specific home that was in compression. Um and so we'll talk about how that works here in a moment, but um nonetheless, um it can be uh quite a challenge. Okay. Um so this is those same three properties and the way their homes experienced uh market corrections or adjustments. Um and so you can see is everybody feels it differently at different times. Um and if that um real market value dips below the assessed value um that's where you see significant losses um in the system. Um commercial property um what's

16:52 important to understand about uh commercial properties is they uh almost exclusively are are riding pretty close to compression. We'll see a map a little while later, but um based on how they come onto the tax roles, but also how um they interact um with not only their property, but the personal property that they get taxed on. Um so this is Walmart here in Springfield. Um as you see its real market value, assessed value are uh identical. Um what that means is there is no collection beyond the $10 per thousand. Um so today, um their maximum taxation or assessment would be $25,799.

17:39 If we were to apply the full rate, assuming that the Willenzy Fire District was here, um that property tax would be $277,000. Um what does that mean? Um that mean a little excited there. Um that means with the measure five limit there's $71,000 worth of taxes that we're not able to collect um in uh the district situation. Um so these are the same properties that we just talked about. Um and this is to look at um what then do they experience with taxes uh if there was a district annexation. Um, and as you can tell, uh, you know, from a a monthly basis, um, it's not inexpensive, um, from 65 all the way down to 49 or about $500 a month

18:25 if we were able to achieve, um, tax collection from, uh, commercial properties. Uh, I did look up uh a beloved former counselor's u tax situation and um the taxes on that property would be about $45 more um per month uh if if there was an annexation. There's not as much uh spread in the real market to assess value on the home, but it could still absorb um like all of these houses uh that that district and end up paying the full cost. Um so how how likely is compression based on um property types? Um if you're familiar with the property tax um change

19:10 property ratio um this is when a property is assessed how um how much is it assessed and uh the business personal property it's one to one machinery equipment um those that that do the state appraised industrial and central assessment um I'm not an expert on that um why people choose to go that route uh industrial county appraised and you can see is is housing takes the um the biggest gap um which means housing um whether multif family or residential um are going to pay the full brunt um in most cases. So compression is less likely for homes, more likely um in that business and personal property. Um so the inverse are looking at it less

19:55 versus more. Um this is a heat map uh of um what Springfield looks like. The darker uh orange are those commercial properties um that are nearing compression um and in some cases o over compression um and then the lighter uh properties are are the least compressed um in that list. Um these are revenue considerations. Um so uh general fund plus the fire levy is about $17 million. When we look at where um the district would fit in our our property taxes here

20:40 um in that $10 for general fund uh or $10 for general government and then no limit on um bonds. Uh this is an example and again as I mentioned um city of Eugene uh got to the county assessor early um before they realized how much work it would be to help us understand the impacts of compression. Um and so this slide is in reference to how it would be experienced there. We don't yet have that data for Springfield but we do know we have individual properties in compression um you know every year. So, um, but for example, um, in Eugene, if the they were to annex to the district, uh, there'd be 23 or 2.3 million um, lost to

21:27 compression. The county 1.7 million. The fire district would already be experiencing some compression. Um, and a little bit to the water and soil district. Um, important to understand that the cities are giving up a service. Uh, meaning plausibly there's, uh, general fund surplus for what was being paid to the fire department beforehand. Um if we're assuming the worst case scenario, uh the biggest challenge to overcome um when looking at this is um the county's public safety levy, which would be the first compressed in this scenario. Uh and they're not giving up a fire department. Um and so that's a that's a challenge. Um that is the one um entity impacted here uh or in Eugene in Springfield. So we have to assume the county and mama lane would both feel the

22:14 impacts of compression created by the fire district. Um so when we think about revenue again this is just a snapshot out of the budget you all have seen it um where we grew uh year-over-year. Um uh the revenue considerations uh the district's general fund would be uh 18.7 or 18.8 8 million roughly uh in revenue, which exceeds uh our current general fund plus the fire levy. Um or about $ 1.5 million in new revenue that would be available to meet some of those needs that we talked about earlier. Um other considerations just for, you know, the breakdown between assessed value and um property taxes. Um there's a greater

22:59 volume of assessed value um with with some more business and industry um over in Eugene as compared to Springfield. and that that population ratio flips a little bit or decreases a little bit. Um not a surprise. Um but just something worth worth considering. Uh again to kind of wrap the the district discussion up, it's a new form of government. It's a separate elected body. Um it does have a single focus. It's funded by property taxes. That's the only method outside of ambulance service that a district might have. Um in Oregon most districts are typically uh rural and um you know we saw it's the boundaries are set um already.

23:44 So catch up with my slides here. All right. Um so the intergovernment agency we've you guys probably heard more about this when we think about the report that we got from AP Triton. Um this was their recommendation. Um it is a an independent u public body um but also a municipal corporation because it comes from uh the joint efforts or through a 190 agreement between the cities. Power and responsibility is dedicate delegated by the cities. um new board um typically their single service um can be funded by more than um than one city um could be

24:31 up to multiple does not have any taxing authority um but cities can authorize an uh to adopt fees to help support the service um and that's the re or not the recommendation but that's how we're going to talk about u the is understanding is we have needs to grow in both of our the communities we serve we need to identify what the long-term term and stable funding might be. Um this model is similar to MWMC which I know you all are very aware of. Um but in this case the would be the single um uh employer. Um we'd have a a linear uh reporting structure um not specifically part of one city you know a separate entity alto together um with separate

25:18 systems um but unlike the district its focus is uh urban service delivery. Um the sample form um not uh unachievable um but a number of of deal or process points that need to to be discussed um once a recommendation is made and how exactly um we will hit those points. Um how we'll fund it. um who will sit on the board, our equipment, our assets um and then um what exactly that IG looks like in the end that forms the um that could take up to two years um once a decision is made.

26:03 Uh revenues um fortunately this isn't is nearly as complicated as talking about compression. Um when we look at the budget and we think about those stable, efficient, scalable, um with a governance model ensures long-term stability and grows with the community, um we look towards the potential for creating that same $ 1.5 million um in new revenue uh that the district might bring um through a potential fee model. Um this has been uh studied more uh on the Eugene side of things over the last year or so. um how exactly those systems work and what could be generated and what does it cost a typical um resident. So you see those examples on the right hand side about $12 a month um for our typical home in Springfield and $50 a

26:48 month for the typical commercial property. Uh there's another model to look at what would it take to generate $3.5 million in new system revenue. Um and that's where you saw that that middle slide about addressing those um unfunded capital needs um uh in the system. And so um just here for example purposes at the moment push a button. Um same houses we looked at before um with a look at what might that cost them um in the model versus the district model. Um and so you see far more economical um for our individual properties. Um our

27:33 commercial properties that are as large as say a a giant store like Walmart. Um it does cost uh a little bit more. Um in that scenario, but overall um this is just designed to look at what might that how might that impact a property owner. And we also look at um you know theoretically as we talked about the district we would assume uh that the fire levy would go away to generate that that revenue. Um in this same scenario um this is just a look at um what would the typical property pay um each one of these properties and if you decreased the levy or eliminated the levy and implemented a fee um what would be the

28:18 net increase for these properties? Um so again just for example purposes um on how we might u provide long-term funding and stability in the model. Um again just side by side the district um at roughly $65 a month for the typical home $12 a month for the um or the um the higher revenue the $17 a month to um kind of fully fund what our current needs assessment is. Um and these are from their recommendation um out of the AP Triton reports single governance and administration. Um our operational advantages are retained. There's still oversight by both cities. Uh financial impacts are manageable. ESF staff

29:04 experience. Uh it's positive. Uh impact on city administration is reduced. Um sustainability and long-term um planning um for our staff um and a reasonable time to implement. Um what comes next? Obviously we're here today on November 10th. Um the city manager in Eugene is going to make a recommendation to council on December 10th. Um there's uh still trying to um dis or still internal discussion on um the review panel um and how they can help um as we round the corner on a decision. Um and then um hopefully uh we have time in the first quarter of 2026 um to come back with a recommendation um

29:50 or discuss uh what occurs on December 10th in Eugene. That was a lot of words surprisingly. Um I cut it short. >> Uh thank thank you chief and uh your photography and animation quite good on your PowerPoint slides. >> Um so I got to give credit where credit's due. Um, uh, the presentation I stole from Sarah Maderi. Um, and so the artwork, um, transitions, I learned a lot about it helping make these, uh, but, um, Janelle and Mike, uh, did the, uh, Springfield photos. Um, but we wanted to try to make this as as Springfield as possible. So, >> and we appreciate it. And I'm assuming on the Eugene side, like the Eugene saw

30:35 Eugene saw their version of roughly the same narrative. >> Yep. Okay. Yeah. And I think we're ready to open up for questions. Remember, I don't think we're trying to get to a solution tonight. This is just an information only and get some of the questions you might have out on the table. Any council st? Thank you guys. We um you guys are amazing. You're incredible professionals and the fire department has been underfunded for years. So, let's just start with that as a comment. Um on your fire fee, is it possible if we were not to go down the route, but instead go to individual departments that council could issue a fire fee to go along with that or would it have to be done through the model?

31:20 >> No. Um, that's that's one of those things I think that's interesting if if that's the direction that's that's chosen is uh both could start to fund it as as we build the systems and put it in place um independent of the issuing it. >> Okay, that that's excellent. And then um the just two okay one the shorter question is when you're looking at um sprinkling commercial properties especially or uh adopting a fee for commercial properties. One of the concerns I have is looking at properties perhaps a little bit differently that have full sprinkler systems in place versus ones that don't have full sprinkler systems in place because it seems that it's a good faith effort on the pera on behalf of the property owner not just for their

32:05 insurance bill but also perhaps for their fire fee bill to increase the level of safety um if we're walking into a sprinkled facility versus an unsprinkled facility. I'm just just throwing that out there for consideration um in terms of your proposals. I think the last the big question though this is and this is really the one is in the e model how is there oversight by both cities if what we have is a separate elected body to provide the oversight. >> Uh so in that model uh through your uh internal processes you would appoint counselors to that. Um but there's that's one of the decision points, right? Um that will be probably one of the maybe more difficult ones to work

32:51 through is is um volume of representation on that board between the two cities. Um and then but it would be elected officials. You could also establish um that board similar to MWMC that has counselors and then council appointed uh representatives from their community. So, um, there's various ways to do that, but at its core, you could just choose to appoint counselors from each city to oversight. >> Council M, >> the proposal to Eugene, is it going to be similar to this one? >> Uh, so Eugene got the same presentation. Uh and then the uh city manager will

33:36 make a recommendation to council >> cuz I've seen different versions over there in the past, not now on storm water fees or uh different kinds of fees attached to the fire and I guess that didn't go over very well. So I don't know what how you're going to do it now. Now, you said if we transferred or set this up, our general budget, our general taxing would be less because that fire part for fire would go over to the district, new district. Correct. >> It could be. In the presentation, we assume that it's not because unless you have a charter amendment that limits your taxing ability, you're not legally required to to reduce that. But what I'm

34:22 trying to identify is we do do that and we have another tax out here onto the present tax. How's that how much is that going to be? So that that takes the current tax rate from 1078 to 1347 if there's no reduction which is high. Um and that doesn't take into account um if any other new districts uh or tax levies are established thereafter. that will just further compress the system. >> And that's been my my concern all along is how much more will Springfield taxpayers have to pay? I don't know. I want to do the right thing and I will go along with anything that they want, but it needs to be pres presented to them and I need for them to support it.

35:14 >> Um, I've got I guess a couple of questions here. One of the things the presentation talks about is sort of new like needed new revenue. And I know that we're talking about in the long uh the long time horizon sort of range. If we think about the gap between what we're spending now and um potentially what the firefighter like the the fire department actually needs. How big is that gap? Is that is that where the million and a half is coming from? So, when you project in the five-year forecast here in the next year or so, we're going to be at a million dollar deficit in the ambulance. We're working on strategies to address that. Um, when we look at administrative gaps um between the two regardless of whether we

35:59 go this path or we fully account for um the current structure, um that's another million dollars roughly. So, as a city, right, and the the net difference between um between sort of what we're paying today and what what you're saying we ultimately need to meet, you know, our our service is two and a half maybe $3 million. >> Correct. >> Okay. Um I think the next question uh that I have is when you think about um like you presented sort of a a service fee type model, right? If we go with the uh intergovernmental entity, is the city obligated to choose uh to choose that that specific service fee type model?

36:45 So, could we could we find a scenario where the city of Eugene chose to fund their portion by one way and we chose to fund our fund our portion by by another way? >> Yes. Uh it's a great question. At its core, uh, the can be established however the two cities agree as long as they can agree on what the fee or the the member fee to participate is um and how they fully fund that need. Um, so yeah. And is it fair when when I look at the district option to think about it like the way I read the presentation would be that effectively based on our compression numbers right now that we were pushing like the obligation for a

37:32 fire district would fall get pushed sort of down the line towards homeowners opposed to commercial properties. >> Yes. and the the net revenue, the $ 1.5 million in there assumes the the revenue that comes from Will Kinsey. If you look just within the city limits of Springfield, that net new revenue is about $800,000 um is all that's really left to be able to to pull out of it. >> Okay. And I think I'm going to make a couple comments about the IG in general. And I know the IG by far is the hardest to understand, right? because it it could come in so many different varieties. How many people are voting? Like what who owns what, right? Like there's a there's a million questions

38:17 here. A couple of things that are really important to me in in this discussion um are that we whoever the city managers really need to be the people that are driving the budgetary decisions, you know, at at the level. So by that I mean if we go that route is that the cities are actually choosing their service level and rolling it up opposed to MWMC MWMC sort of makes the decisions and sort of pushes it back down. The other piece that I think's critical in that conversation is that it it's important to me that the city managers are the ones that are jointly supervising and hiring the fire chief and not whatever the committee is. um because that allows for some sort of broader strategic, you

39:03 know, direction. Um like when I go through the material, I mean, there's some details to work out, but I think we I want to say those statements out early on is that really protecting the role of our city managers and balancing that with the electoral oversight is is critical to me here. Okay. What other questions do we have? All right, Nancy, are you are you is the the the presentation had the Eugene city manager making a recommendation. When we play this out a couple of weeks, are you planning on coming back to us with a recommendation? >> I love it when the mayor just, you know, pops a question at me and it's just a little tiny question.

39:48 >> You know, I think that this is we're in two different time periods. I think Eugene is in a different scenario with because their city manager is retiring at the end of the year and I applaud her because she is really trying to, you know, do as much as she can before she goes, including starting her council off on that path. Um, it was not my intent to come to you at our next check-in with a full recommendation. Um, I I think that what I would like to do is have this council discuss this further and if there's because there are some some concepts here that we've talked about tonight that you all haven't really seen before to the to the

40:34 same level of depth that has been discussed within the city of Eugene. Um, and so there are a couple things that I would want to weigh. One would be um if the council um what your various feelings are on given the information you've seen tonight on the on the two options that were presented. think I know what you might be saying, but I want to hear more. And then based on that feedback, maybe coming to you with some of those uh discussion points and negotiation points that are important to you as council members and where we could go with that. I think also there are some basis basic concept that I would like to

41:19 uh propose with a total recommendation. So, we need to see how those numbers pencil out before I could say yes, I can definitively give you a recommendation because I there's a little bit too many unknowns for me to be able to promise that right now. I'd rather underpromise and overd deliver. >> All right. Now, it's time, I guess, to share some more opinions. If anybody's got uh more more opinions, >> I already looked this direction >> because I don't really have opinion. I mean, do you have I have opinions and everybody knows my opinions. >> Um I think I just want to thank you very much for doing this and I know to councelor Mo's point, he's been wanting to see numbers. So the more numbers you

42:05 can throw at Councelor Mo, the better I think to get to the decision-m. Um, and I do I really appreciate the conversation. I hope we have more of this about the um navigating the who's going to be impacted and how. I think it's really helpful to think about how is it going to impact our commercial um property owners and how is it going to impact our homeowners I think is really important. Um, and I think when we come to to the city manager's point, when we come back, if she's she's not going to make us a recommendation, um, some of the things that I'd like to bring back into the conversation is us just thinking about, um, the workforce and how they're going to be impacted either way. I think we're going to have to have a it's going to be interesting

42:50 to see what um the city manager in Eugene recommends because I think the governance model for if we go with an is going to be um uh a a sticky conversation and so I think it's going to be helpful for us to be thinking about that like what do what would we want to see that would make us feel um both empowered and have trust here in Springfield. So, um, not necessarily opinions, but more thoughts. And I do I just really appreciate that we're continuing this conversation because, um, the city manager can attest to probably every time we meet, I'm like, how are we doing with fire? Um, and just keeping it moving forward has been important to me. So, thank you. >> Anybody else? Um, I think to the comment that that you

43:35 made like the details of governance here become really important. I'm not concerned that we won't be able to figure those those out. We have a lot of intergovernmental entities that work successfully with our partners in Eugene that have the sort of balance between how many votes do you get, how do you veto one portion? MPC's, you know, a good example of that. MWMC has a model that works. Um, so I would assume that we would be able to find uh some sort of model that uh works out. Um, I think when we when we talk through this again, I think the thing that really sticks out to me is being able to clo find something that starts us down the path to kind of close that long-term ambulance gap and get us to the point

44:21 that we're doing that long-term planning um to be successful in the in the presentation. And maybe this is a question I would love to see more information about. on an IG model, it seems like we're running like two to five years to really sort of set it up. But at what point do we get to the kind of the long range and strategic conversation, you know, in that is it really at the end of that five years or is this like once we have a model, we can start diving into some of these other strategic plan conversations? Go ahead, Nancy. >> Thank you, Mayor. I want to make sure I clarify my pre my statement so that everybody understands what I'm saying because I the question was posed. Would I be giving a recommendation the next time I come to to council? Probably not because we have we have a lot to discuss on this issue. Am I

45:08 reluctant to give a recommendation? I have no problem giving a recommendation to this governing body. I just want to make sure that that we have all of the information that we've done all of the outreach with our community that we've done those kind of calculations that you've mentioned up here tonight. Is that feasible? I'll probably be having doing a check-in before we have all of that data. I don't want to leave that much of a gap. So, I think there will be an intermediate check-in point with this government as we talk more about a funding structure or some of the major um negotiation points that are important to you as the council and then I have no problem with giving a recommendation.

45:56 >> Could we do a recommendation near when Eugene gets its information? And I know that they're they sound like they're going to get it near if it's not their last meeting uh for the winter, it could be it's pretty darn close. So I I'm not uh I'm not as concerned like if we don't see it until um until early January. But in my mind, you know, whatever it goes to the Eugene Council, you will have had some sort of check-in with your co with your colleague over there to make sure you guys are roughly on the like at least understand each other's thinking. Um, so I would think from a timing perspective, you know, either we're doing it near Eugene Council or right when we come back or pretty close to it. >> I think mid January, mid to late January is is a realistic time to engage in this. But again, you know, I I would

46:43 give a recommendation on direction and there are a number of details that would still need to be negotiated and worked forward. >> Okay. So I I I agree with that that you know that you're going to get us pointed to a cardinal direction understanding the details are going to fly out. Okay. Councelor Mo, we've been talking about the increase in fire. Ambulance service is going like crazy. I don't know what we're going to do about it, but I'm hoping there is some solution out there that can help slow that down because that's that's a big factor. >> Go ahead. Yeah. We we've got both the countywide process. Um we'll also be coming back with some fee discussion on how to better u recover those dollars.

47:29 But that is that is one of those places where both cities different ambulance systems are strained. Um so wherever we can bring and and do things one way um would be ideal ambulances and beyond. >> Okay. I know you >> do we have two separate ambulance services? >> Sure do. every operational change we make negatively impacts the other city um every time. >> Thank you. >> Yeah. >> All right, Councelor Buck, >> you know, uh thank you. Uh I want to just kind of highlight um a couple of things that came up. Um I really appreciate uh NY's comments about, you know, we have to make sure we're the order of operations, right? You know,

48:14 you got to you got to add and subtract before you multiply and divide. And so I think that's really important to make sure we're going through that process. And then um and then again, this is kind of one of my my points I keep hammering on. So from a public consumption standpoint, right? Um I can see there being confusion. It's like the public supports the fire the fire district and public safety. It's it's critical. I don't think there's any question about that. And they just passed a levy. So I can see we have some work to do on transparency with like okay wait a second now why are we having this discussion like you know the next week kind of thing. So as we go through this being able to kind of conceptualize this

48:59 for the general public who who may not understand the model doesn't I mean since we're at a place where we don't fully have a grasp on the model the public won't as well. So factoring that in, how are we going to communicate this in a way that um the public can digest it and say, "Oh, I get what we're doing and I get why we're doing it." This was to to councelor Mo's point earlier as well. And so that's just a thought that I have out there. Not that I think we're we're not doing that. I just think it's it's very important because if you say to the average homeowner, it's going to cost you a little more each month for fire and they understand why, I think a lot of people are going to get on board. But if they don't understand why and they're like, "Wait a second. We just did this other thing and now we're now we're now we're doing something else." That's where we can get ourselves into

49:44 trouble. >> All right. I think where you've got enough comments. Do you have enough direction? >> I mean, it makes sense. So, one thing I would just take an opportunity to add as you guys think about this um and how this gets structured is to to come at it with an an open mind. Um the more things that are different will continue us in the same environment where it's really difficult to plan a long-term future. Um and so that that part of how we go about our work will be important um as we try to come together as one organization. Um, and I will note that like I think all of our goal is to

50:29 get to get the fire department to the point where they have that long-term planning going on because that is a gap that we all see out there and that we're trying to that that we're trying to get past. The other thing, um, I am supportive if we need to go back to the fire governance committee to kind of work out some of these details. Um because we're I realize you guys are in the ma middle of the the uh the ultimate game of phone tag, right? Between taking information over to the city of Eugene over to us and we're both trying to make a decision kind of at the same time, you know, we need to roughly end up at the same spot. Um so if if we need to do some creativity as far as getting the the committees back together to hash out some of this these details or at least a model we can respond to, I would be

51:14 supportive of that. Nancy, >> just kind of a parting observation. I know this evening we're focused on uh our fire services, but I also want to point out that our police services um also rely on a 5-year local option levy for their department budget, and they have a very low sta staffing ratio uh per thousand of population in our city. So, you know, I'm very cognizant that I don't want to create a winner and loser situation here. I'm also trying not to complicate this matter, but I I want to also recognize that public safety includes our police and jail as well as our municipal court. So, there's a lot of moving parts to this conversation.

51:59 >> Okay, we got to get wrapped up so we can go and see that. >> One s I'm curious to see what how Eugene handles it and then uh I asked for numbers. I got numbers. Thank you. All right. Thank you, Chief. Thank you for your bringing your staff along. Um, we are adjourned from the work session. We are going to uh take a take a small pause. So, as we get ready for CEDA,