Springfield City Council — November 24, 2025

0:04 And you and you warned me about it already. I'm going to call the regular the Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call. >> Mayor Van Gordon >> here. >> Councelor Weber >> here. Councelor Mo >> here. >> Councelor Rodley >> here. >> Councelor Blackwell >> here. >> Councelor Buck >> present. >> And councelor Stout >> here. Thank you. >> All right. Thanks for clarifying. >> Apologize is not a U issue. >> Does that sound better? >> No, it's got a little echo. >> Let's see. Does that Does that sound better?

0:51 We're We're calling it audible. All right. We have eight items this evening. um a lot a a lot of uh committee interviews. The first one is Springfield History and Museum Advisory Committee interviews with Mattie McGrath. >> Yeah. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council. I am here for the Springfield History Museum Advisory Committee. Um, we opened up recruitment and we have three currently vacant positions and two applications

1:38 were received during the most recent recruitment position or period, sorry. So, our first uh applicant will be Kai Fireside. right. Are you ready for the questions? >> Yes. >> Why are you interested in serving on the museum committee? >> I love history. I am an archaeologist by profession and I saw that there were three openings, which is entirely too many, and that kind of alarmed me actually. So, I decided that that's probably somewhere I should start helping out.

2:24 >> All right. The Springfield Museum has a rotating exhibit space. One of the rules of the committee is to make recommendations for exhibits and programs. Can you give us an example of an exhibit you might recommend? >> I would love to see history of unions. And how do you think the work of the Springfield History Museum improves our committee community? >> I think it's part of it's part of educating the community which is hugely important because it's a it's a social obligation that we have that just prevents a lot of other problems. A museum is a good third place for people to be. It's not home. It's not work. And it's open to everyone. And there are so few places that just

3:10 feel like everyone can go there. >> All right, that was the last question. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> And you want to bring the next person up? Is it Stephen? Thank you. Thanks for joining us this evening. Steve, why are you interested in serving on the museum committee? Well, I'm very passionate about history

3:56 and uh last year Maddie um the curator of the museum invited me to do a a talk at the Wildish Theater and it went over real well. It was about the Pingyang school that was out near Marcola. And I I got to know Maddie and I really liked her. And I and I'm acquainted with a number of people in uh Lane County history and the museums and associations and all of them that know Maddie like and respect her a lot. So I thought, okay, this is some this is a way I can give back. Basically, that was that was it was in the short answers. this is how I can give back cuz I really enjoyed it. When you do history and you have a great

4:42 big screen to put your slides up on and a good microphone, that's Yeah. >> The Springfield Museum has a rotating exhibit space. One of the roles of the committee is to make recommendations for exhibits and programs. Can you give us an example of an exhibit you might recommend for the museum? Well, uh, I might lean on others like Maddie or people on the museum board for those, uh, exhibits because I think of things like, uh, uh, Diane DS used to be my mail lady and and and there's she is a true crime is a big thing right now on podcast and I tell you, you'd get a lot

5:28 of people going to the museum with an exhibit on Diane towns who, you know, lived here in Springfield. And uh uh that's but also the other thing I'm passionate about is uh graveyards, an exhibit about area graveyards. I'm vice president of Laurel Grove Cemetery in Glennwood and uh I uh we have many of the historic Springfielders and um uh and many many historic people from East Lane County. And how do you think the work of the uh Springfield History Museum improves our community? >> I think it improves it a lot. We all need to know our roots. The more we know about our roots, the more connected we

6:14 are. The more connected we are, the better citizens we are, the better citizens we are, the better people turn out and peacefully vote for city councilors and mayors. All right. Thank you so much. >> Thank you. And thank you for the work you do. >> All right, Maddie, it was three total openings. Okay. So, we just need a thumbs up if everybody is okay. Um, if you're keeping track, uh, would you move those two folks forward for uh to regular session? The next committee interview is arts

7:01 commission applicant interviews with Mindy. Uh, mayor, we are still waiting for a couple of applicants. Um, would you like to hold or maybe go to the next item? >> Do we have everybody here for Cedak? >> We can check on that real quick. >> All right.

7:50 I suggest we just stick with the uh schedule we've laid out and then we'll play it by ear as we get closer. >> Okay. Very good. Then we will do that. Good evening, mayor and counselors. My name is Mindy Linder. I'm the staff liaison for the Springfield Arts Commission. We have um four vacancies currently and we have the good fortune of having six highly qualified applicants and please uh it was my error in telling them that the meeting started at 6:00 p.m. tonight and for them to show up at 5:45. So, please do not count their tardiness against them. Count it against me. But let us celebrate the wonderful early folk who are here to join us to kick us off tonight, which um

8:37 we will get started with Charlie Swing, who is the last applicant for the arts commission in your packet. >> Thank you. >> Hello. >> Hello. How are you? >> Thanks for joining us. Thank you. >> Are you all ready for uh the questions? >> I'm ready. >> All right. Why are you interested in serving on the arts commission? >> I have a strong interest in socially engaged art. Um I've seen many communities thrive due to the active engagement of artists and creativity within the community. And that's not only artists, it's really inspiring the whole community to engage in being creative. So it the arts can

9:25 really build a sense of community and place and I think it is extremely important. >> Could you describe your understanding of the role you will have in serving as an arts commission and how it relates to the work of the council? >> My interest especially is in reaching out to members of the community to find what their interest is and um helping that happen. In the past, I've worked to create um social socially engaged pro public art events where the art was actually on the streets happening in real time and people were participating in um with the artists in the process of the art happening. So

10:18 my um that was as the uh founder of Art City that I organized those events. But as a commissioner um or not as a commissioner but on the commission, I would be interested interested mostly in reaching out to the community and helping the community determine what their interests are for Springfield. >> And what do you see as the current issues and challenges for the city of Springfield? I'm fairly new to Springfield, I have to admit. I've been here for two years. Um coming from Eugene I um two years ago I would say that um what I've seen here is that there is a strong interest in the community in

11:05 being in participating a real sense of pride in Springfield from the people who live here and I don't think it's recognized enough outside of Springfield. So, uh, I would be interested in helping that recognition grow. >> How are you? Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> And our next applicant is Britney Algar. >> Algaw. >> Thank you. >> Thank you, Britney. >> Good evening, council. Thank you for joining us. Why are you interested in serving on the Arts Commission?

11:51 >> So, I am a musician by trade. Um, and primarily my work is with young people in the community. I'm the owner and the lead teacher at the Neighborhood Music School, which operates in Springfield. And, uh, I'm really interested in bringing more youth programming and more interactive programs for the children in our community into the arts space. Can you describe your understanding of the role you will have serving as arts commissioner and how it relates to the council? >> Absolutely. So, I had a great uh email conversation with the chair of the arts commission regarding the work that we do and uh as it was explained to me, you know, the arts commission works to, you know, bring what the community wants uh to the first Friday art walks and to all

12:36 the other types of programming that they put on throughout the year. and um you know it relates to to everything that the city and the council are doing because this is what brings the community together. >> And what do you see as current challenges and current issues and challenges for the city of Springfield? I think that a lot of communities are struggling since COVID um with you know loneliness and people not being out and engaged in their communities and I think that the arts are a great way to bring people together and to you know continue to build the pride that we're talking about in the city of Springfield and to continue to develop you know our identity as a city. I know that, you know, there's been a great effort to revitalize the downtown and I think it's

13:21 a wonderful thing that's happening and I can't wait to see more of it and to be a part of it. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> um I think is everybody okay if we just keep going and and then we'll come back to arts commission give them a little bit of time okay so uh let's see if we got we have seed application interviews I don't see Aaron

14:14 Sandy, are you doing CAD? All right. Um, how about we keep going to Emily's in the back, so do we have library folks here? All right. Let's do library committee interviews. Good evening, mayor and council. For the record, I'm Emily David, director of the library and museum, and I'm here tonight as the staff liaison to the library advisory board. Um, we had four, excuse me, we had two vacant positions and four applications. One was a direct appoint for the um person who was previously on the library board. We had two applicants withdraw. So, we have one applicant here

14:59 tonight for one position and that is Jim Linger. >> Thank you. >> Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council again. >> Thank you for joining us. Um, what strengths or skills would you bring to the library board? Well, prior to joining Springfield Library a year ago, um I worked over 12 years for King County Library Services in in um King County, Belleview, largest company, largest library in the country in terms of activity, 22 million

15:44 circulation. I worked in 28 different units. I was trained thoroughly as a page and quite thoroughly as a library technical assistant. So I did a lot of substituting throughout the system and was very well trained. I think I bringing that training and that background to the Springfield Library. >> And how do you think the work of the Springfield Library improves our community? >> Well, libraries, as I've mentioned before, are the uh underpinning of a successful uh community. Uh we provide a lot of services to the community. We are one of the last bastions of democracy in America. We are a place of belonging in the community where all people can come in and are treated equally and we help

16:31 them find the merchandise and the and the information and the technology that they're seeking. >> If you can make one positive change in Springfield, what would it be? >> In Springfield. Um, Springfield happens to have authentic small town charm and I think that's something you want as a council to preserve. Uh, other towns do not have that. They've given it away and they try to recreate it, but it's not authentic. Main Street is authentic small town charm. Development is on its way in all communities and development must be held responsible for not changing a main street, an authentic Main Street with small town charm.

17:17 >> All right. Thank you very much. >> You're welcome. >> Okay. So, it was one interview for one spot. I'm looking for them. Okay. um let's do this. Is Sandy, do you have all the are all the planning commission folks here? All right. There there apparently is no good way to do this, but just work

18:02 through work forward it. Why don't you bring Mindy, why don't you bring the next arts commission first forward? Mayor, there is one other option if you'd like to just hold for a moment. Um Katie Carol was nice enough to move her item up and that would give us 15 minutes for folks to gather and then we can do all the interviews at once if that works for the council. >> I I think that would be a great idea. So, thank you for everybody hanging in there while we skip around to try to be as effective as possible. All right. Hello everybody. I'm Katie Carroll, housing analyst for the city. So, tonight you are going to be reviewing a temporary program that waves system development charges for new housing that will be sold affordably to

18:47 households with low incomes. Um, so a little bit of background on this. System development charges or SDC's are one-time charges imposed on development to accumulate the capital needed to provide sufficient capacity in infrastructure systems to serve that development. The city collects SDC's for uh transportation, storm water, and local wastewater systems. We also collect SDC's on behalf of the Metropolitan Wastewater Management Commission MWMC for regional wastewater and on behalf of Wamelain for parks. SDC's are collected at the time a building permit is issued. So that adds up to the upfront cost of doing development and can make it harder for a project to pencil. So waving SDC's is

19:33 one tool the city has that it can use to incentivize certain types of development. However, that does reduce um funds available for projects in those areas where we collect SDC's. In 2023, the city began waving SDC's for affordable home ownership housing to encourage more home ownership opportunities in Springfield. Um we also wave SDC's for accessory dwelling units or ADUs. Um but that's sort of separate of this discussion. However, there's a little bit of information about that in your memo if you're curious. The SDC waiver for affordable home ownership housing waves the city's SDC's. So not William or MWMC um for new housing that will be sold to

20:18 households at or below 80% of the area median income which we generally consider to be low income and uh sold at an affordable price which is defined in the guidelines and then kept affordable for at least 5 years. Currently, the waiver is set to expire at the end of this year, 2025, or when the city has waved $300,000 in SDC's, whichever one comes first. Um, and so we're coming up on the end of that three-year period. Uh, so staff is bringing this back to you to see if you want to renew the waiver with some recommended changes that I'll get into in a moment. Um, one change that has happened since this was last at council is that will lamelain also began offering a program to wave

21:03 their SDC's for affordable home ownership housing. Um, so when Lamelain did their SDC methodology update earlier this year, they also adopted a waiver program that basically mirrors the cities. So if someone is found um eligible for a waiver of city SDC's, then they're also eligible for Wamlanes. um because it mirrors the city's program. Will Amalain's SDC waiver is also set to expire at the end of this year. So, I've been in touch with their staff and coordinating. Um they're going back to their board on December 10th. So, obviously, we'll report um back to them what the council decides to do and then their board will make a decision how to move forward. Um staff is recommending some changes to

21:49 the waiver guidelines moving forward which would support more streamlined administration and program compliance. Um we're not recommending any substantive policy changes at this time though. Um so that would be things like the affordability period, the income level or who would be eligible to apply. Um the recommended updates are detailed in attract changes version of the guidelines which is attachment three in your packet and then also summarized in bullets in the memo. But kind of the main ones are to put some additional requirements in for applicants who will need to complete a land division in order to sell the homes um that are receiving a waiver. to try and provide a bit more flexibility in the guidelines for the city to take advantage of any exist existing affordability

22:35 restrictions that an applicant might have in place for a project so long as those kind of are in line with the waiver requirements. And then also adding a penalty fee for not selling homes that receive a waiver within a year of certificate of occupancy. Um since the waiver was established, the city is granted waivers for nine homes. Unfortunately, the developer of three of those homes wasn't ultimately able to meet the program requirements and paid the fees back. Um, so to date, the city's only waved a total of $62,000 in SDC's under the program. Ahead of this meeting, I did reach out to um local developers that have done affordable home ownership housing in the area to kind of get an idea of do they have projects planned in Springfield coming

23:20 up over the next several years. Um, and based on that information, we could see potentially waiver eligible home ownership projects that have city SDC's totaling over half a million dollars in the next four years. Um, mainly from the, if you'll recall, you um granted Square One Villages some land acquisition funding. So, that's kind of the of where that estimate is coming from, but there's more in your packet about that. Um, so based on that information, staff is recommending that the program be extended through December of 2029. And the reason for that is it would take us to one year after the state required housing production strategy is due um

24:07 which we'll be getting into a lot more starting uh early next year. And so giving that kind of period of time would allow the city to more fully evaluate any potential substantive policy changes to the waiver program and then also how it fits as a tool in with other things the city might want to do to incentivize housing development. Um, on that topic, the state is estimating Springfield will need over 2500 housing units in the next eight years just for um, serving lowincome households. So again, that's that 80% of the area median income level or below. And so given that significant need for housing at that income level and ongoing

24:54 market challenges that developers are facing, staff is recommending that if council continues to offer the waiver program, uh that it move forward with extending the program without a financial cap. And so instead, staff would report annually back to the council through the next four years and a cap or a pause uh could be added at any time if necessary. So, the questions in your packet um for you tonight are first, does the council want to continue offering SDC waiverss for affordable home ownership housing? Um and then if so, does council agree with staff's recommended program cap and changes to the guidelines? Um and if you're comfortable moving forward with the recommended changes and approach, then we will bring this back to you with a

25:40 resolution uh at your December 1st meeting. And with that, happy to answer questions. >> Councelor Booker. >> Um, so o over the last uh few years, you know, this has been been an option. We've only been able to give uh 62,000 and um a significant percentage of those who who did qualify ultimately gave money back. So, I guess my my concern is really around um what are our takeaways on on that? Because I I would be hesitant to really

26:25 say let's go forward another 3 or 4 years if there's some barriers to people actually being able to use it. Um I'm not so much concerned about the cap issue as I am like can people use it? Is it an effective program? Because right now I wonder um I wonder if there's barriers that that we need to work on because if what was it um nine was it and two >> three of the nine >> three of the nine so 30% had to had to give it back. I'm just wondering do we need to do some work around making sure that that half a million um potentially we could realize a significant

27:11 percentage of that. >> Yeah, thanks for that. I can speak to it. Um so the issue that those three units faced is ultimately um they built the housing and then they went to do the land division and figured out at that point that there were significant barriers to be able being able to do the land division um which meant that they could not sell the housing units. So that is one of the changes that we added into the guidelines to try and address situations like that in the future was to require um that if there's a land division involved that someone attend a development um initiation meeting to kind of identify and address potential barriers earlier on and then also

27:57 changing um some things around the timing of when we would actually wave the SDC's making sure that that land division is complete. Um, speaking to the broader issue of like how usable is this affordable home ownership housing is really hard to do. Um, so it's more I think that is the bigger barrier. Not so much on our usability side though there may be other barriers. We just haven't seen a lot of projects to be able to test it. So we're responding to the issues that we've seen. Um, but yeah, I think we're at kind of this unique moment of having multiple potential projects upcoming and both those also depend on other financing

28:42 coming through from the state. So, >> uh, Council Weber, >> thank you. I don't really have a question, more of a comment. I just want to share my appreciation for the opportunity to check in annually, make sure the program's doing what we want it to do, make adjustments um as needed in those time periods. I think that's a really important piece of extending contracts is to have those check-ins. So, thank you for that, >> Councelor Roley. >> Thank you. Um, and I appreciate what my colleague said before. I also was interested in what what are the barriers and how are we tweaking and so I really appreciate that that that is one of them because I'm like oh land division that's really interesting. Um and I completely

29:28 agree with counselor Weber that I I don't want us to like wait four years because we extended four years because I think this is dynamic and it's changing and it took us so long to get this and it takes a while for these programs to really find their feet. So to councelor Buck's point, I would be really interested in us really kind of tracking like what are those barriers? What are those challenges? Do they look different depending on what you're building and are there roles that we can play outside of just looking at the policy once a year to help people get those things over the finish line. Um I also don't have strong feelings about the cap because I just want us to like dial it in and make it really usable first. Thank you. Uh, councelor Mo,

30:16 >> I think it's wonderful. I think it's a great idea, but at the end of this year, the city's going to be faced with budget challenges and we may be having to cut some programs somewhere. And I'm not saying here, but overall, we need to take that into consideration. >> Council Blackwell, >> I agree with my colleagues as well, and I would like to see it extended um, excuse me, with with a check-in, an annual check-in of some sort. just so so we know kind of where it's going and and what's happening. I'm also happy to, you know, see that Wamelain had mirrored um our uh reduction of or waiver of the SDC's and I hope they continue to do so as well.

31:01 >> Councelor Stout, >> um just one question on if I could have a little background. Why is it only five years that the SEC waiver uh extends into the future for the property? Um I'm sure you guys consider that. Did you consider longer or is is it is it possible to put it like on a permanent thing where hey it turns into market rate housing and then yeah at the next transition then they have to start uh you paying back the SDC's or something like that. Can you just give me some background on that? >> Yeah I'm trying to think back to when we put it in place how we landed on five years exactly but I think part of it was this balancing of like staff having to track something also. Um, so part of the problem is when there's not a different affordability restriction, which we wanted this to be open. So like if a

31:48 small market rate developer that normally does that wanted to come do an affordable unit, we wanted it to be open to them, but they're not necessarily going to have a different affordability restriction in place, which means that we as staff have to track that over time. And so five years if I'm recalling kind of felt like a good balancing point of like the city's getting you know kind of the usefulness out of giving this benefit without you know that becoming a long-term burden for tracking that we don't really have capacity to do. >> Thank you it's also I just have to compliment the great presentation on this. Thank you. >> All right I think we are good and ready to go forward. Um, >> right.

32:34 >> Thank you. >> There. Are we looking Erin? Are we looking good for SEAK folks? All right, then we're going to do SEAK interviews next with Aaron Field. >> Good. Good evening, council. Um, my name is Aaron Fefield, staff liaison to the community development advisory committee. Um, currently we have three vacancies. I just want to say we did have an applicant withdraw um either today or yesterday. Um, applications for the committee were due back in August.

33:19 Um, and he and his wife recently welcomed a baby boy and is just now adjusting and says, "You know what? I need to take some time." So, um, we have two applicants tonight. That is Mike Quala and Connor Gagner. Um I would like to so I'll say there there are three vacancies. Two of those vacancies are for a full 4-year term and then we have a partial term for two years also vacant. Um I just want to put a a worm in your ear perhaps um that each of the applicants for the planning commission have also expressed they would consider the SEAK as an appointment. You have three interviews for the SEAde and you have two positions open or sorry for the planning commission you have three interviews and two positions. So if someone that you choose not to appoint

34:05 for the planning commission you would like to appoint to the CDC that is an option. So just want to plug that but um I'll start with Mike. You have the questions in your packet. Any questions to me? >> I think we're ready. Okay. Hi Mike, thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. >> What strength or skills are you would you bring to Cedak? >> I used to be the uh planning commission representative to Sedak. So, I've spent a couple of years uh on CADAC and I think it's just a really well-run

34:51 program that does a lot of good for many people in the community and um I find myself with a little extra time and I would like to come back and assist in uh distributing the funds that SEAC does. >> And how do you think the work of Sedak improves our community? >> Uh in various ways. I'm a big fan of the um uh home uh improvement program that uh helps lowincome people uh you know get new furnaces, get roofs put on, um make their homes more weatherproof, etc. Uh so there's a there that's a real really nice program. Uh, Sedak also contributes to the uh the basically the

35:36 large homeless um services portion of Lane County and then a number of other things through like Catholic community services and um other uh needy um St. Vincent to Paul and other good other good organizations. >> If you could make one positive change in Springfield, what would it be? uh increased funding for um city services. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you and happy holidays to everyone. >> Thanks, Mike. You too.

36:26 >> Hi, Connor. Thanks for joining us. >> Thank you. What strengths or skills would you bring to Sedak? >> Um, I would say I guess I've spent a number of years working with I'm I'm an advocate for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault, human trafficking, and stalking. And a lot of the survivors that I work with are either in unstable housing conditions or have been unhoused for a period of time in relation to their abuse. So, I guess I'm pretty familiar with the kind of barriers they face in accessing services and what kind of what works for them and what hasn't worked for them. And I'd like to think that um I guess that front frontline experience could uh help me make decisions when it comes to funding

37:11 of of programs or where we can or could put our money as a city. And how do you think the work of SEAK improves our community? >> Well, um, access to affordable housing projects for one is huge for a vast swath of our population for sure. As well as I think rapid rehousing programs are are pretty valuable and I assume some of the funding that uh Springfield has goes into those kinds of things. So, I think it's pretty important. And if you could make one positive change in Springfield, what would it be? >> Um, I guess if I could, yeah, create more housing stability in general, more,

37:56 you know, either give it people more access to services that prevent homelessness, um, the things that will keep them in the homes that they're already in or, um, help expand already expanding, I guess, affordable housing projects, uh, in the area. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you. >> Okay. Uh we have two interviews for three spots. >> Okay. Um Mr. Mayor, so two of those spots were were full terms and one of them was a partial term. >> Yes. So are we considering these two applicants for the full-time spots? Is that how that works? >> Um we could do that. uh we have to give

38:42 some sort of direction to say where we want to put them. Um so we could put these two people in the full-time spot. We could ask staff to assign them randomly. We could interview the third person and then then decide it is our discretion. I I would recommend just putting these two folks if people were fine with them in the two full-time spots and just being really clear about that. Okay. Very good. All right. And now we got a Sandy. Do we have everybody here for planning commission interviews?

39:31 Okay. Uh then we will keep waiting patiently and this let this thing play out a little bit um and see if people show up. Um Mindy, how are you looking for Um, why don't why don't we do this? I see Stan in the back. Could we Why don't we go with a capital improvement uh plan and then we'll give this a little bit more time and thanks for being patient as we kind of rearrange the entire schedule.

40:31 Good evening, mayor and city councilors. My name is Stan Petro, city engineer. Discussion I have item I have tonight is the city's capital improvement program, commonly referred to as the CIP. As you likely know, the CIP is updated every two years, and it's a 5-year plan. Uh, this current update covers the years of 27 through 31. The goal of tonight's work session is to go over the CIP, answer any questions you may have, and hear any feedback you may have. Um, I'll highlight accomplishments, future goals, um, our unfunded kind of wish lists. And while I can't dis we can't discuss projects without discussion of the budget, this process is more focused on the project selection and how much those projects cost. Um but I will kind of briefly touch about the budget situation in our budgets. Um

41:17 the numbers that are shown are in used to inform the capital budgeting process which happens later in the spring of 2026. This rough schedule is that we look at these projects now and approve them. um they kind of they get approved um late December, early January and then the budgeting process happens later in the spring of next year. So this CIP informs the budgeting process next year. Um traditionally the principal constraints in developing the CIP are realistic availability of staff and financial resources to support the timely completion of each project cycles um each cycle's projects. As a refresher, the CIP is a planning tool to forecast what projects may reasonably be anticipated and delivered over the next 5 years. These projects typically meet one of four quite criteria. They either

42:02 address regulatory requirements, maintain, repair, or preserve an existing asset, respond to your council priorities, um, which we went over kind of earlier in the year. Um, also addressing citizen requests, which I'll go over those later, but we have about 90 of those. Those were included. There is an attachment I think four um and projects identified in long-range plans such as the wastewater master plan um our new walk roll plan that we're creating uh the RFPs out for that right now um the TSP refinement plans public facilities and services plans etc. Um the funding rough comes from five major sources um user fees fees collected from users of a system like storm water and gas tax. Um the second one's development

42:48 charges, charges collected through um development activity. Uh the third is assessment fund costs paid by citizens who own properties benefiting from projects and then bonds and grants. Some of the grants are state and federal programs. So funding as I mentioned briefly, I'll briefly discuss the funding situation. Similar to the general fund, our street fund is facing continued decreases while at the same time seeing increased costs. Um, some of it's due to reduced gas tax and, you know, more EVs every day coming online. Um, some of it is the increased is due to inflation. Um, we're currently waiting for the transportation bill funding and there's some uncertainty with that. So, we're expecting that that could be delayed. Um with this

43:34 uncertainty and reduction in revenue, we're looking at shifting our project f focus from street repairs um and preservation of local streets more to um wastewater and storm water projects. We'll continue our slurry seal and crack seal programs, but we'll be limited in future preservation projects, the bigger ones. U with wastewater and storm water reserves stable over the last decade, we're looking to transition staff and projects to these type of projects and somewhat away from transportation, although we've got still major transportation projects ongoing. Also, in transportation, the focus will be on using um SDC improvement funds for the projects we can deliver, which means we'll be focusing more on capacity adding than preservation type of projects. In order to make progress on local street preservation, we're ultimately going to need to pass either

44:19 another bond project uh package or preferably a transportation utility fee, commonly called a tough um to provide a long-term stable funding stream. Uh but that's a whole another ongoing discussion and um should be part of the budgeting process in the spring. So, I'd like to get into the projects now. Maybe we could um put up the project list. Actually, before that, maybe um we'll bring up the citizen project request form. Yeah, that one that was just up there. You already had it there. The attachment for Stan. Are these net new projects from the survey this year, or is this like

45:04 multiple years of um people's requests? >> These are new, but almost everyone that was in the previous is in these two. So, yeah. >> Could you help me understand one piece? Like, I see things that were were that we've repaved in the last two years, but they're on that but they're on the citizen request list again. And so are is there damage to those roads or is that more like or do you think it's more like a um that you know it's 42nd Street has been such an issue for such a long time that people are like are always answering 42nd Street. >> Yeah. Some of those might have came in come in before the paving was finished or even started. But a lot of them are

45:49 also like traffic issues with the the left turns like at the westbound exit ramp. there's no signal there and it's really dangerous and been working with ODOT on that but yeah we get a lot of requests on that. So some of the 42nd ones are um not pavement condition but my guess is the pavement condition ones are either past where we paved or they came in before because these go back a couple years basically from the last update till now. Um, so I put out a call for new requests recently, like over the summer, but so a lot of them came in since that, but some of these are from, you know, say last year or the year before. >> And um, let me ask another question. On page two, there's one for Bob Stro landscaping. >> And my, am I remembering right? I

46:34 thought Bob Strop was a county road. >> It is, but I think we do have um, we have maintenance responsibilities at least on part of it. Is that right? Yeah. >> Okay. >> So, yeah, we've we've got a lot of maintenance needs as well for landscaping and their storm water treatment facilities. We actually got a contract this year to bring in a um outside uh contractor to help with that. So, >> okay. >> Yeah, the green ones are the ones that are either ongoing or, you know, we're addressing. They're either in design or underway, you know, under construction. But, yeah, you see a lot of um local streets in there. Um, yeah, and a lot of lot of requests for the same streets. So, I'm not going to go kind of blowby-blow through.

47:19 >> Yeah, I think people are going to have questions here. Go ahead, Council Rodley. >> Thank you. Um, do you uh track like are these just one person has recommended them? Um, do we track if we have things are you tracking how many people is what I'm trying to say in a really messy way. like do we are we think >> kind of yeah there's asterisks there on some of them that those are ones where we've gotten multiples so I didn't list if there was 20 of them but um yeah I've got a rough I I've got a pretty good idea in my head and I think other staff do but um yeah there it's a form where they have to put their address and their name in so we get one request per resident >> well it would just because I love the data and it helps in decision- making it would be great I would love to see it if we could see them ranked or somehow see

48:05 >> another column with like number of requests >> like number of requests by year or however would be helpful for me. >> Yeah, no problem. >> All right. Okay. Any other questions on those? >> Anybody have other questions about the citizen >> uh review? Um so when folks are calling in especially things where we have a project in the queue like things like the road bond or you know maybe we've are we letting them know that? >> Yeah, I try to reach out to everybody. Um, yeah. Okay. >> Yeah. And I return every call that I get and every email. These are kind of just the forms that are sent in. So, yeah, I'll typically email back everybody. >> There's we get quite a few too that are, you know, like on Main Street that are ODOT jurisdiction or county jurisdiction. Some people don't know

48:50 where the boundaries are and so I try to let them know, hey, you need to contact the county or contact the state. So, >> yeah. Go ahead. >> And and if if this is the wrong time for this question, we're going to come back and talk about it. Just let me know. I I wanted to dig in a little bit more about what I was hearing as your recommendation due to kind of um transportation funding being in flux that you want to focus on the wastewater storm water things because I'm looking at the requests. There's not a ton of those. >> Um >> and so I'm curious around the kind of thinking around that just a little bit more. Um, and one of my concerns around that, even though, you know, funding is going to definitely determine that, one of my concerns is that, um, people don't know as much about that, right? So, if

49:37 we're like, I'm sorry, we're not working on streets for a while because we're doing these things that you don't even know is underground, right? >> That there's some some kind of perception issues. So, I just wanted to dig in a little bit more around why we're doing that, give you a chance to to extrapolate a little bit for the public to understand as well. Yeah, it's normal. People don't see the pipes underground. So, it's kind of out of sight, out of mind. They don't really think about it. But we recently had our wastewater master plan updated and what it showed is there's a significant amount of older like concrete pipes that are deteriorating and um it's it's needed that we you know um put some effort into the waste the older wastewater pipes. Um but yeah, it is mostly it's partly funding driven, but it's also at some point we do need to

50:23 >> do that. We've kind of somewhat been neglecting that a little. So, >> all right. Uh, councelor Sto, >> just a question. What's the absolute cheapest thing that you can do on this like the citizen request forms? And I'm just wondering like is it a stop sign? Is it painting something? Um, that's just kind of what I'm wondering that would that would fall under your per this the purview of this project. Um, yeah, I don't know an exact answer, but these are t typically the bigger projects, you know, capital projects. So, that stuff, a lot of that falls under maintenance like striping and signs and stuff. Um, the smaller things don't really make it into here. In fact, when I go over the projects, there's so many in there, I wasn't going to hit every single some of the smaller stuff. I was going to focus kind of on the bigger ones, but yeah, the CIP is really

51:08 those big projects. Although, sometimes we'll take a lot of small projects and group them together to make one big project. Um, yeah. Councelor Buck, >> the my colleagues probably already know the answer to this. I'm just kind of getting up to speed here a little bit. >> Yeah. So, when when we're looking at our um maintenance needs and improvements and and all of those kind of things, um how far out are we currently projecting what those needs are and and are we working on trying to to the best of our ability? I mean costs change over the course of time but saying hey we think we're going to need to do these things and in this period of time and you know

51:55 forecasting that budgeting I know that um some of the other folks in the planning department have touched on this while I was sitting in the planning commission um and I can't remember exactly how that process goes. So, I'm just curious how far out we're looking. Um, so like are we going to be talking in two years about another set of these or are we kind of looking at a period of time? >> Yeah, that's a good question. So, like the plans like the bike ped plan, the mace wastewater master plan, all these plans, they're typically like 20-year plans. They look out further out and they line up all the projects and they kind of look at the whole system and all of all the projects. And then this really looks at the the next five years of that. So like the wastewater master

52:40 plan, if you look in there, it shows year by year by year all the way 20 years out. So I grabbed the next like five years of projects and that's what you see. And some of those are in the unfunded, but yeah, those that's kind of how this works. This is capital is more of what we're getting ready to do and then what's funded. And we have unfunded as well, but um it's mostly the funded and in progress type of projects. So, we have that that 20-year outlook and and you're just kind of grabbing, okay, like in the next five years, this is what needs to be done. >> Okay. >> Yeah, exactly. Based on our funding and, you know, grants that come along, bonds. >> All right. Um, so a question that I had is we kind of bounced back and forth between sort of engineering capacity.

53:26 >> So, if I think about the next, um, I don't know, maybe two years, right? We've got the general obligation bonds from the street bond that are kind of we should start to see some of those begin construction in 26. >> Y >> So are there is there a type of cap is there a type of capital work that we're putting on hold because where we have got the money to do work but we don't have the engineering capacity. yeah I I think we could do more if we had more staff. Yeah. Um I don't know. Yeah. So, we've we're there's three projects in the bond package that are going out to construction next year and

54:12 then three more after that. But we have consultants that are doing the majority of that work. Um we could do more in-house and we could save costs if we had more staff. So, we do as much as we can do with funding that we have, but it's more expensive to have consultants. So, we could get more bang for our buck. we could do more projects and get more infrastructure fixed if we had more staff in house, but it's hard to recruit and we only Yeah, we can only grow so fast as well. So like in our survey group, we're bringing in a rightaway division now and we're hiring in more staff. We just got someone from the city of Eugene. So we're trying to constantly bring in resources and do as much in-house as we can. Um but I would say that we're we're keeping up with the amount that we need to do and we're spending the funding that we have. It's just it's more of a consultant focus than inhouse.

54:58 >> Okay. So, if I look out, so it's fair to say to the public we're implementing the geo bond, you know, >> and you know, we're implementing the the uh wastewater master plan, right? There's no there's no barrier for us to to essentially take the capital funds we have and get them out on the street. >> I don't think so. No, because if we can't do it in house, we just hire consultants to do it. >> Um >> Okay. Um, all right. Other questions? Is there other things you want to go over? We could talk about roads. And >> I was going to go through the projects quickly if you wanted, but um, you've all reviewed them, so I don't know if you have questions on certain projects or if you'd like me to kind of go through and give an update, but >> I don't have I don't have questions on specific projects. The one that I do

55:43 want to point out is sometimes we talk about these missing sections that could be high impact to to neighborhoods, right? um it's on the top of that list. That second street improvement that goes from like I don't know Rish to Tish that that is something that neighborhood consistently talks about especially with level of foot traffic that goes through there and uh the the amount of potholes. It's not something that we have dollars around to fix right now, but I want to at least start talking about it in the in the way of like some of these residential roads have half block segments, full block seg segments that would be go a long way to uh changing the entire experience in the neighborhood. Council Rodley. Yeah, when I was looking at the the kind of combining the project list, I think

56:30 what is would be helpful for me is um having been through this process now a couple of times in terms of we keep our we try to keep our eyes on this and I'm thinking we've got new counselors who probably haven't been through this >> and I still am a little bit wiggly on how we get to figuring out um what are going to be the projects that go into a bond, what are going to be projects that go into these different things. I think I'm looping back again to that we're gonna focus on storm water and wastewater and wanting to make sure that we don't lose sight of these projects. And so it would be helpful and I don't know when the next time we see you or how we as we start to really pay attention to what happens with the next um kind of bond projects is just to keep an eye on these and see how they're shifting and see if some get taken in

57:15 some ways and just to go through that process with us as to how these eventually end up in a bond project or if oh we've came up with a grant now we can pay for it because I I get worried that we'll lose sight over time if we're focusing on other things. >> Okay. Yes. >> Okay. Other question. >> All right. Other things that we've got to Did you get enough direction from us? >> Yeah. I think >> anytime you talk about building things, we could, you know, we can pepper you with questions all night. >> Yeah, there's a lot there. >> Okay. So, I think then we are good. >> Okay. All right. Thanks, Dan. Thanks. >> All right. We are going to come back to the art commission interviews, it looks like.

58:09 Thank you, mayor and counselors. Um, I do have an update. Three I have just confirmed over the phone three of our six applicants have had to do last minute withdrawals. Um, two due to health and one due to capacity changes in life. So, they extend their sincerest apologies. So you have a total of three applicants for four vacancies. Um so I want to remind you you have seen Charlie Swing. That was the first applicant interviewed for the arts commission. The second applicant interviewed was Britney Algawer. And your third that you're about to hear from is Gregory Hayes.

58:57 Thank you for joining us, Greg. Thanks for your patience tonight. >> Good evening. >> Good evening. Why are you interested in serving on the arts commission? >> Um, well, I've have had a a history of um showing work at the gallery there and um uh also have a history being a graphic designer and I'm an artist myself. So, um I love that Springfield supports the arts on such an immediate level. Could you describe your understanding of the role you will have serving as an arts commissioner and how it relates to the work of the council? >> Uh, I've attended a few meetings. I've helped out as a volunteer with the block party to represent the SACE. Um, basically encouraging the arts, which I think is really important, um, and being

59:43 available for all the all the wonderful projects that they do. And what do you see as the current issues and challenges for the city of Springfield? >> Well, um, budget is a big one, but we're all aware of that. Um, I think the important thing about the arts is it helps us to connect with each other on a very humanistic individual way and there can't be enough of that in today's climate. >> All right. Thank you very much. >> Thank you very much. Have a good evening. I did all three of them. All right. So, we have three people for four spots and yeah, um looking for signals. So, um would you uh put all three of them forward for the regular

1:00:28 meeting? >> Wonderful. And is there any direction? We have one fullterm position and three partial term positions. >> I think in this case, could you randomly assign them? >> I would be happy to do so, but wanted your direction confirmation. Thank you. Okay, Sandy, how are we looking about planning commissioners? All right, why don't we bring the one planning commissioner that we've got? Good evening, mayor and council. We have um Fabian Go Gomez Hernandez who has applied for vacancy on the planning commission. We actually have two vacancies with Bruce Weber's um term

1:01:16 ending at the end of this year and our other commissioner has now sitting with you. So >> um >> we'll have come up. >> Thank you. Hello. >> Hello. >> Thank you for joining us. Um, and thanks for your patience tonight. What attracted you to apply to the planning commission? >> Uh, well, first I'd like to say thank you, council. Thank you, mayor, and thank you, city staff, for your time and consideration here. My name is Fabian Gomez Hernandez. I am a recent graduate from the University of Oregon. I graduated with a bachelor's degree in

1:02:02 planning, public policy, and management, also known as 3PM, as well as a bachelor's degree in economics. I currently reside in ward 3 and I am a renter. Uh what attracted me to planning commission uh specifically was well I I've seen what planning commission can do to a community. I've seen how it can help communities grow and nurture and just create such amazing things. Ever since me and my fiance moved here to Springfield, we've felt nothing but welcomed. And I want to ensure that anybody who moves here and anybody who's currently here feels that welcomed warm feeling for generations to come. Economic development and infrastructure are two major councils go council goals. If you think about how we development

1:02:48 happens, do you have opinions on how cost should be shared between the development developers and the public? >> I don't think cost should be fully given to either private developers or the general public. I believe that the current system that the city has with uh system development charges is a good step forward ensuring that when a developer wants to develop on their property that they pay for the additional use of the public facilities that they are indeed using. Um at the same time however I do agree that economic development requires that development occurs. Um we want to ensure that there is enough buildable land for there to actually be development. If you had a magic wand and you had the ability to change anything about the

1:03:33 development code, what would you change? >> I would have said the natural hazards section of the code, but I see that we've made improvements with that and we're updating that. So, I'm glad that we're doing that. It's a step in the right direction. I love it. Um, currently right now though, I would say that I would change the hillside development code. I've heard from both planners and from developers alike that that code is a bit confusing. Um code should be straightforward, streamlined, and pretty easy to read. If it's not, it stifles development and growth. Uh code should do the opposite of that. It should encourage growth both in our industrial, commercial, indust uh mixeduse residential and just residential in general. >> And how would you like to see the city

1:04:19 change in the next 10 years? And how do you see the planning commission helping the city? Well, just personally, I feel like amenities are the way that the city should continue forward. Ensuring that we have access to parks, a bustling downtown filled with local businesses with mom and pop shops, and a place where people can have family wage jobs and affordable and pretty good homes. I feel like the plan commission has a role in this by creating zoning that uh that conforms with mixed use residential and with pedestrian friendly uh neighborhoods. >> Yeah. >> And could you describe the relationship between the planning commission and city council and city staff to the planning

1:05:05 commission? >> Uh planning commission is an advisory uh committee to city council. They are the first ones to talk to when uh playing uh item comes to mind. Um that is what their main role. They also are the first stop when uh something is brought from staff. Uh staff to planning commission. They are experts in their field. They are what planning commission go to when they have questions. They are there to enforce decisions and they are also there to ensure that the city continues to prosper. All right. Thank you very much. Thank you for your time and consideration.

1:05:53 Uh Wendy Warner did um say that she had forgotten and would like the chance to interview and I haven't been able to get a hold of Walter Depw. And we do have one term that um it would be expiring on the 28th and then the other full term that would start in the new year for four years. >> So I think we've got a couple options tonight. Um I think we could hold making over any decisions and ask uh Sandy to reschedule uh uh reschedu uh Wendy. Um, we could green light going forward with one and then ask them to bring back um or anything else in between this. Do people have an opinion here? Go ahead, Councelor Rodley. >> I support greenlighting the candidate that we have and then letting Sandy work out whoever comes back before us.

1:06:39 >> Okay. Anybody else? I think let's do that. All right. Thank you, Sandy. >> Thank you. >> All right. Neil and Allison, I'm looking. Did we I think we got all the committee appointments is by my accountant. Okay. Excellent. I think the last thing we have is city manager compensation with chame. >> Yeah. Go ahead. >> I just wanted while you're coming up here, I know a lot of the folks have left, but um and I know it was a little bit fast and loose. It was an interesting night with these, but what a great group of folks who've come out and to see all of these folks who are

1:07:24 willing to volunteer to participate and to help make decisions and to give back to Springfield. I I love it. So, I just wanted to whoever's still here, thank you for doing this and looking forward to the work that you're going to bring to the city. So, thank you >> and and I want to add add to that. I and absolutely agree and and thank you to those who are currently serving on these committees that came out to to watch the interviews and and be part of this process. Um we all appreciate your service to the city. >> All right, Chim, we are almost on time. I've been enjoying listening to it and I agree with you that the uh individuals that are uh wanting to be part of the board have been uh great to listen to.

1:08:10 So, uh, Chame Herz, uh, HR director with the city of Springfield. Uh, it's been a little while since I've come to you to talk about city manager wages. Um, so I'm going to provide a little more context than I've done in the past. Uh, but as just as a couple of general reminders, one, uh, the city manager's contract requires that I meet with council on an annual basis, uh, each year to discuss whether a wage or cost of living adjustment should be recommended for the fiscal year. Uh so the time frame that we're talking about uh is traditionally retro back to the July 1 of this year. So July 1 of 25 uh for the FY26 wage increase. Uh as a general reminder uh last year when we were meeting there was a decision uh to not do a wage increase last year. So it has been a period of time since we've uh

1:08:56 looked at and had a at length conversation regarding the city manager's wages. Uh and also during the last time we had a discussion even though there was an agreement to hold off any wage adjustments because of the market conditions uh there was some discussion to look back and have um some conversation around whether a wage for the last year should be adjusted or whether or not there was an interest in uh providing some additional paid time off into NY's leave bank. So I'm just parking lot those items as part of the the broader conversation. Um the contract uh within the city manager specifically specifies uh that we provide some market indexes as far as what the wages uh for inflation look like. I provided that in attachment one

1:09:41 uh which reflects I think like a 2.93% uh year after year. Uh and then in addition to that we also provide um to council the market data uh looking at comparable comps. So, communities of comparable size, we traditionally do a three up and three down. Uh, and that data shows that the city manager's wage for the city of Springfield is currently seventh out of seven uh, comparable agencies. Uh, and drops below market median by about 10 a.5%. Uh, our general comp philosophy is to try to stay within plus or minus 5%. Um and uh clearly the city manager's wage currently is far exceeding that traditional comp philosophy that we have. Um and so

1:10:26 inside the AIS I provided uh a couple of scenarios. Council is free to look at any of those or make a different determination. Um and then um what I'm looking for is some guidance for a recommendation for an adjustment or not uh for next Monday. and I'll pause for any questions that council may have. >> All right. So, we Does anybody have questions? Okay. So, we have it sounds like two distinct decisions. One of them is how do we close off the conversation for last year? We had and then the other one is do we want to make an adjustment going forward? Um when you I guess the one clarifying question that I have is when you look at the uh the uh the

1:11:13 survey data, a couple of those cities are out uh right now or about to go out for city managers. What you how should we think about those cities and when they go back out? >> So to be specific, we're talking about the city of Medford and the city of Tiger. Both of which are falling below the current market medians. both are communities that would look in addition to us but look at similar market data as ours uh given the current conditions and g given the current challenges of finding qualified talented individuals to run probably one of the most important jobs within uh any municipal as the city manager uh it's probably safe to believe that they're going to be targeting the market median if not greater and so while our data reflects 10 a.5% I think it's probably safe to

1:11:58 assume that once those positions are filled um that they'll be filled at a rate higher than what they're currently at. Um, just based on what we've experienced and what I've seen in other cities as far as filling those positions. >> Okay. Thank you. All right. So, anybody have additional questions? So, I think we've got two questions to answers. One of them is what do we do about last year's then how do how do we address going forward? Um, yes. Do you want do you want to share some insight here? I just wanted to thank Shane for his work on this and also just to provide a clarification um it's reflected in the materials but uh last year I requested not to have a salary inquiry. I didn't want anybody in our community to feel that this governing body uh made that

1:12:45 decision. I they did ultimately make decision but based on my request. Thank you. >> All right. So, um, my opinion here is that when we think about last year, we asked that, uh, that her leave bank be credited with at least a week of, you know, additional time, pay time off. Um, and that would get us through and then we would discuss what we what we wanted to do going forward. Does anybody have >> So, America, if I can add just a bit more context to that. So, um, if you had done an inflationary adjustment, um, as a value of time off last year, um, I did a quick calculation of that before I was prepping for this session. That would give 75 hours. So, um, I would think

1:13:30 somewhere between 75 to 80 hours would be the >> That is a helpful piece of uh, piece of information. >> Then I that would be two weeks. >> Yeah. Okay. So, I think we're comfortable with that is crediting her her time off bank with two weeks and then going forward, how do we want to think about her wage adjustment going forward? Man, you guys are a quiet bunch. Go ahead, counselor Rodley. >> I'm so good at being messy, so I'll just get in there and then people can throw shoes at me and agree or disagree. Um, I definitely do not want us to keep falling behind. Um, I think that Nancy has been a great employee and a really good partner as we work through some really challenging times. So, I would

1:14:15 like to look at maybe three and four h how we get this to market alignment. And I and I really appreciated you asking about Eugene and Medford because if Nancy was to, you know, win the lottery and move to the Bahamas, um, it would cost we would have to get this job up to scale. Um, and so she deserves that as much as a newer person would deserve that. So I'd like us to just sort of dig in there and see like how do we do that? Can we do it all at once? Do we want to do it in phases? H how would we want to do that? So that's my opinion. Just kick us off. >> Councelor St. I would just move that at a very minimum we move towards a cost of living adjustment if not just to keep um consistent with the market. And I would actually tend closer towards the market

1:15:00 alignment altogether. Again, I'm thinking more along the the lines of my colleague, uh, Councelor Rodley. Um, also, um, open to I'm open to a request from the city manager, too, within that, uh, that, uh, range. >> All right. Um, anybody else? Um, my sense here is that like this is got Did you want to get in here, Steve? >> Yeah. >> Well, I thought you just left it on. >> You didn't raise your hand. Well, okay. Here. >> I think she's the best city manager ever. Uh we've had some differences, but I'll I'll support as much as we can afford to give her. Anybody?

1:15:46 >> Um here's things I'm learning for from this. Nancy, please don't play the lotto and move to the Bahamas. Um, I I think we need like getting to the market rate is a goal that is probably going to take over a couple over a couple of years. Um, I would support going with 5% that way we're making some sort of progress towards it. Given the fact that we are still got serious fiscal challenges and we're going to be asking a lot from this community, I would have a hard time saying we need we can take that full bite at uh, you know, at 10 at 10 and a half%. That would give us a chance to get the data out of Medford and Tiger. We know that our goal like because James curing us state what our goal is is to get closer to what that market guidance

1:16:31 is over a couple of years and balance it kind of with the short-term um budget challenges that we're facing. right. Anything else? I'm hogging our microphone. >> Microphone. That's all right. >> Uh, go ahead. >> I just want to thank the uh mayor and council. This is always an awkward conversation to have. So, it it also makes me think, how could I ever convince somebody to do this job uh when we have these meetings? But side issue. Um, I I support the mayor's recommendation and and this council's

1:17:16 recommendation. I I I personally would not feel comfortable accepting more than that given um where we are as a city in our budget challenges uh the challenges facing our community um and state and also just you know I'm very committed to this city. I'm proud to work here. I'm proud of the people that live here and they show up time and time again for us and I want to show up for them and I think that's what being a good partner is. Um, I think it's also pretty comparable to um some of the wage increases that we've had um in recent contract negotiations. So, you know, it's it's in that same type of range and I which makes me feel more comfortable with that decision. Thank you.

1:18:04 >> All right. One more question about the PTO before we go. Like I'm I come from the private sector so after a year it goes away. um is right how long does it uh stay in the bank? We're not asking Nancy to empty out these two weeks in the you know next 30 days, right? >> That's correct. City policy is that they can uh maintain up to two years of uh annual cruel balance in their PTO bank and so we'll we're completely fine. >> Okay, good. >> All right. And do we have anything else that you need direction on? >> No, I think that was pretty clear. I appreciate the council guidance and I will be looking forward to seeing you on Monday. >> All right, great. Thank you. All right, I think we've gotten through all eight items. Um, we should have asked Maddie if this

1:18:49 was the longest work session in uh most items in work session history. Did done a little research. We are adjourned. We will be back at 7 o'clock for proced Oh, 7:30.