Springfield City Council — April 13, 2026

0:05 I'm call Springfield City Council work session to order with roll call. >> Mayor Van Gordon >> here. Councelor Weber here. Councelor Mo >> here. >> Councelor Rodley >> here. Councelor Buck, >> I'm here. >> And councelor Stout >> here. Thank you. >> All right. We have three work session items this evening. The first one is the MS4 phase 2 stom permit renewal and it's with Megan Murphy. I am Megan Murphy, environmental services supervisor, and I oversee the city's storm water permit with the state. And this is my boss.

0:51 >> I'm just here for support and then uh didn't have any questions. I should say Matt Stouter, environmental services director. >> You got it. >> Okay. >> All right. So as our city grows, prairies, oak savanas, woodlands are covered by imperous surfaces that do not allow water to soak into the ground like rain. This increases both the volume and speed of runoff that flows to our rivers

1:36 and streams and can cause flooding and erosion if not properly managed. In Springfield, most of our drinking water comes from an aquafer beneath our feet. If rain cannot replenish this, our aquafer could dry out. In addition to altering natural hydrarology, development adds pollutants to storm water runoff. Anything that is on a hard surface like a roof or a driveway ends up flowing to our streams, the McKenzie or Wamtt River or into groundwater. Common stormwater pollutants include litter, bacteria from pet waste, sediment, autofluids, and herbicides.

2:23 Runoff from urban areas is one of the leading causes of water pollution in Oregon and nationally. We are very lucky in Springfield to be surrounded by the McKenzie and Wamtt River and we have high quality drinking water that we want to protect. Uh runoff from our city impacts our own drinking water and that of other communities like Eugene, Corvalis, Wilsonville, Sherwood, etc. I'm going to have a sip of water right now.

3:11 So because runoff from urban areas is a leading cause of water pollution, it is regulated under the federal clean water act. In Oregon, the Department of Environmental Quality or DEEQ implements Clean Water Act requirements on behalf of the state or the EPA. DEEQ issues many types of different water quality permits including the municipal separate storm sewer system or MS4 permit. Um permits the MS4 permit allows municipalities of a certain size to discharge storm water runoff to waters of the state in Springfield. This includes the McKenzie and Wamtt rivers and their tributaries.

3:56 The city of Springfield is a phase 2 MS4 community with a population between 50 and 100,000. Eugene, for example, is a phase 1 because their population is over 100,000. Phase 1 permits are more extensive and have more detailed requirements and monitoring. They lead the way and have more requirements than phase 2s. They're also regulated under a different section of the Clean Water Act. So, this is what our MS4 the front page of our MS4 permit looks like and it allows us to discharge storm water to the Mckenzie and Wamtt rivers with conditions.

4:41 And then we have um a storm water management plan or MS4 plan that describes how Springfield will meet the conditions of the permit. So this is the who, what, when, where, and how. Uh, Springfield also has a total maximum daily load or TMDL implementation plan to address the high levels of bacteria, temperature, and mercury in our waterways. Um, Springfield is listed as a designated management agency or DMA in these TMDLs because we have legal authority over sources of pollution in the Wamut basin. The purpose of the plan is to reduce non-point sources of pollution pollutants like pet waste and

5:26 riparian degra degradation. Um so all of these plans are important for protecting our beneficial uses in our rivers like swimming, drinking water, and recreation. The ultimate goal of all of this is to protect water quality and habitat in Springfield. I'm going to go into just a little bit of permit history. So, in 1990, um, phase one permit issuance began, followed by phase 2s in 1999. Uh, we spent about seven years preparing for our first individual phase 2 permit that was issued in 2007. Um, so we did a whole bunch of like mapping and monitoring, hiring staff and

6:12 um adopting code to address the MS4 permit requirements that we knew were coming. Um, and then at the end of 2011, our individual permit expired and development of of a general permit began. So we went from a 14page individual permit to a 49page general permit in 2019. Springfield along with four other phase 2 communities took legal action and after about two years of negotiation a modified general permit was issued by the state and then that permit expired on February 28th 2024. So since then we have been working with DEEQ on a renewed general permit. Um,

6:58 Springfield along with other phase 2s and environmental groups submitted comments on the registrant draft in September of 2025 and now the public review draft is out. Um, and the majority of Springfield's concerns that were submitted were not addressed by DEEQ. So, I'm just going to go over really quick what's in our our permit. Um there's six control measures that are intended to prevent storm water pollution. The first is public education and outreach. Next is public involvement and participation. Um third is elicit discharge detection and elimination. Construction site runoff control post

7:43 construction site runoff for new and redevelopment. And then pollution prevention and good housekeeping and municipal operations. So compliance with all of these requirements is deemed compliance with our state water quality standards. And it's important to note that how much work the storm water permit is for us as staff depends on two factors. It's what the permit says the requirements in the permit and then also how much development is happening in Springfield. So those last three control measures on the bottom are really dependent on development because the more construction there is, the more plan review permits and inspections there are. And then as our city grows, that

8:28 comes with more public stormwater infrastructure for us to map and our operations division to maintain. So what is in this new draft permit? Um it came out on February 18th, 2026. It's very similar to the registrant draft that we submitted comments on already. Um but overall the requirements are going to take more time for us to implement. Um and there's a few places where the language is concerning. I'm just going to highlight a couple of examples. So, the proposed language would now require the city to prevent discharges of pollutants from construction sites instead of reduce them. If language like this ends up in the final permit, it

9:13 could open us up maybe to potential third-party lawsuits. In addition, this is above and beyond what's currently required of phase one communities, uh, which only require a reduction of pollutants and not prevention. They increase the amount of construction site inspections from once to twice during the permit term for sites over an acre and from inspecting 25 to 50% of construction sites over under an acre. Um the proposed permit language expands how much tracking we need to do of our inspection and cleaning of the storm water system. Um, so we would be asked to estimate volumes of trash and debris

9:58 removed during our operation and maintenance activities like how much sediment did we pull out of our catch basins either individually or as a total number of structure structures inspected and cleaned. And while we track some of this data, this is much more detailed than what we are currently doing. uh they added a public education survey. So again the phase one permits they don't have a current requirement for that. So it's above and beyond what's in our what's in the phase one the bigger permites. Uh the the public review draft also added a technical memorandum requirement where we would need to demonstrate that our

10:43 design standards for pre-approved stormwater facilities like rain gardens and planters address impairment pollutants like dissolved oxygen as well as TMDL pollutants like bacteria. So again, this is another example of a requirement that's been added to a phase or they're proposing to add to a phase 2 permit that's exceeding phase 1's. And then under the proposed permit language, we would need to develop a winter road operation and maintenance program including a written strategy. This would include things like a list of materials used in winter road maintenance and the city's practices for preventing pollution during sanding and magnesium chloride applications. Um, we'd have to track

11:28 quantities and general locations of materials used and other actions to protect waters of the state. We're not currently tracking all of those details. Um, the draft permit added an industrial site screening requirement. We'd need to go through industrial pre-treatment screening surveys and business licenses and refer any sites that appear to meet the criteria for needing an industrial storm water permit to the state. Um the industrial stormwater permit program is under the exclusive responsibility of the state and now they're proposing to have cities like us uh help with this. Uh they added a requirement to complete two adaptive management assessments per

12:13 year where we would need to determine the effectiveness of efforts within at least two of our control measures like public education or elicit discharge and then implement changes Another requirement was uh to do a TMDL and 303D evaluation where we would look at pollutants applicable to Springfield and evaluate whether our best management practices are effective at reducing bacteria, temperature, and mercury, which we already have programs for, as well as impairment pollutants like dissolved oxygen and trash. Requirements like these tend to be administratively burdensome with little water quality benefit.

13:02 So these updates to the permit are going to mean more staff time spent addressing all of these requirements across the control measures. Development and public works would be the most impacted. Um, even though DPW is the primary implementer of the permit, it's important to note that this is a citywide permit and all departments must adhere to requirements for pollution prevention and elicit discharge reporting. Um, there will be financial impacts as well, especially if the city needs to hire more staff andor consultants for project delivery. Um, and then this could, you know, mean a user-free increase for storm water. So our next steps include legal review

13:48 which is going to focus on key issues with the permit and compare them with what's required by the act and what may be above and beyond what's required. Um it'll focus on some of those like industrial site screening and the technical memorandum. Then uh we will submit a comment letter to DEEQ which is due April 24th summarizing our comments on the draft permit. Um we are part of the Association of Clean Water Agencies in Oregon and um they will also be submitting a comment letter as well. Um, permit issuance is expected by July 1st of 2026.

14:33 And then once the permit is issued, we will determine if our comments were addressed by the state and if we can meet the new requirements. We're working with other phase 2 communities on a response to DEEQ and thinking about next steps. Depending on what's in the final version of the permit, um we may come back to you for guidance during an executive session maybe later this spring. Thank you. And what are your comments and thoughts? >> I almost passed you a note and said I'm going to have some things to say about this. Um and first of all, my rant is not in any way directed at you all who are doing your very best and this is not your fault. And I think this is a And

15:18 I'm going to say a few things and I have a couple of questions. This is a perfect example of barriers to building more housing, right? And we we people ask us like what would what is gets in the way? Um because we are all very supportive and we live in a community that is very supportive of building housing. And when you look through all of these additional regulations and all of these things that then come up um that are directly tied to development, it gets in the way of us being able to do what we are also being mandated by the state to do. Um and I'm know that I'm just probably speaking things out loud that everybody else is eager to do. Um, a couple of questions that I have is, um, just clarify for us that that there's no like funding or technical assistance that is is

16:04 predicted to come with this, right? >> Right. >> Um, once the permits are issued, how long are they good for? >> They are good for five years. >> Okay. Um, and I was looking at the timeline when I was preparing for the packet. Is it is it common that then things get because that happens too, right? that that that things change at the state and in that fiveyear period they go back and they're like now we're going to do it this way. Is there any anticipation or is it like that the the goal is we're going to get settled on this and we're going to all try to figure out how to do it and it's going to stay that way or is we're going to get settled on this, we're all going to try to figure out how to do it and then it's going to change again in five years. >> That's a good question. I think usually

16:49 the the permits sort of build. So, it's like we had our um our first general permit in 2019 and now they're like adding a few more things and then in the next permit which would be in like 2031, they'll probably add a few things. That said, sometimes they put things in that aren't necessarily like the public education survey and the technical memorandum. I'm not sure that we would necessarily be asked to do them again, but they're they usually they build over time. Diet >> it'll get more stringent certainly this where the clean water acts down and so we expect it's it's a continuing the goal is to eliminate pollution, >> right? >> Which is a novel goal, but

17:35 >> um yeah, >> which is which is yeah, it's an honorable goal and I should have said at the very beginning, first of all, thank you very much for this presentation. It's very helpful and I appreciate all the work that you all are doing on this. Um, and I also really appreciate that you've already reached out to other cities. I think that's been a great strategy for Springfield in the past is that we connect with other cities that are and kind of build a coalition. So, thank you and I will shush and let other people go. >> Very quickly, I'm beame becoming upset with mandates that we have to pay for and we don't have the money to pay for it. So, as time goes on, you're going to hear a lot of that from me. >> Councilor Buck. Um, thank you for the presentation. Um, it it's always it's always challenging

18:20 um to kind of have to kind of tackle these these things um especially without the resources uh accompanied as my fellow counselors have said. I'm I'm specifically thinking about, you know, the ongoing projects that we have around the city, including the Glenwood area. And um, you know, our we're going to make comments about this, but that's it. It feels to me, and again, I don't understand necessarily all the nuances, but feels to me that as as we develop that area, especially since it's along the river, um these mandates are are going to add a complicating layer to that. Is that something that we've kind

19:07 of factored in when we're thinking about how we're going to respond to this? Um does that make sense? I think so. Yeah. I mean, the more building there is, I mean, Glenwood's a little bit of a unique situation. >> Absolutely is unique system out there. So, um, >> and I don't know if that uniqueness helps or not. >> Well, I think we're going to be looking at I mean, we're going to be doing infiltration and retention in Glenwood. I mean >> it it presents some opportunities. >> Okay. Yeah.

19:54 >> Okay. Um, one question I had going through the material is when we think about how much it costs the public to comply with these permits like and I know you're not going to have an exact number, but can you can you help us just get our head around when you say comply with a permit? How much money are we talking in sort of capital and programmatic expenditure that comes from storm water users? I'd have to we'd have to probably look look back at that. The average household is around $167 a month for storm water. We'll be here next week to talk rates. Um I I think we're going to look at, you know, five six% rate adjustments every year resulting from a permit like this. Um on our fees and that's just to start with. So, I think one of the things um Megan alluded to is, you know, there's a

20:39 lot in this permit that's going to be good for the environment and protect water quality, but there's a lot of things that are administratively burdensome are not going to do a lot for us. And that's the areas that we're not interested in in doing work to do work and spending money to do to spend money. Um folks are having a difficult time as it is and we've tried to make that impression to DEQ. It's fallen on deaf ears. um we have a contingent of other communities we're working with and so I think one of the things we're going to be weighing a staff is like what level of risk are we willing to accept how much uh and then and with the with a per with the permit what's the chances that we might be litigated and we can't meet that and then what how much is this going to cost our rateayers that and how much of that is is shouldn't be borne by then them and do we want to what in what sense do we want to push back and I

21:25 think we're going to need guidance from council and we won't know until the final permit comes out, but if it's any indication of, you know, what the past track record of of when their response to comments, they generally don't respond, they don't make changes. And so we expect the final permit to be very similar to this permit. And so we'll probably be back before you saying, "Here's an assessment. This is our recommendation." Then and then let us know. >> Yeah. And and I think I think we we still have to just think about this in the in the sort of long-term long form, right? because what you describe is actually accurate, right? The Clean Water Act is trying to get rid of all all pollution and getting our thinking um or on the same page about hey what's the stuff that we need to be giving feedback that says okay this actually

22:10 helps based on what's on the ground and then less things like this which are you know a lot of effort and not producing a lot of a lot of results right like we're this conversation is not going away any you know anytime soon and just getting ourselves to the point where we can kind of separate those two conversations to be like hey this is burden some it's not actually doing something for the quality of our water, but yes, more of this, which is actually helping us get better, would be helpful. >> All right. Anybody else? Did you get what you needed out of this conversation? >> All right. >> Thank you both. >> Thank you.

22:57 uh, the second item, Santa Pack annual rate adjustment and update, you don't look like Josiah Brownfield of Broomfield. >> I know it's Yeah, you, uh, get me tonight. Uh, good evening to me, mayor, council. Uh, Jeff Pascal, community development director. Um the item before you right now is SANPAC's annual rate and uh or annual report and rate discussion um as required and allowed for um under the franchise agreement. Um the presentation provides council with the opportunity to review the system performance, understand current cost drivers and evaluate rates in the context of both uh local operations and a broader industry conditions. Um uh but and tonight the presentation is going to be presented by Santaac. Um and so um

23:43 you'll hear several factors such as disposal practices, regulatory requirements, and market conditions um that continue to influence solid waste system and associated costs. Um with that, I'll turn it over to Aaron Donnelly and Luke Pike from Santaac for their presentation. Good evening, mayor and council. Uh my name is Aaron Donley. I am our uh Santa's municipal account manager. Uh and with me is Luke Pike. Like to introduce Luke. Go ahead, Luke. >> Good evening. I'm uh my name is Luke Pike. I am uh the new I guess I say new, it's been since August. I moved uh from

24:29 the coast. Um so I'm the new district manager at Santaipek. Um, I worked, just real quick, um, I worked at Santa Pack from 2010 to 2015. Had an opportunity to go to the coast and work, um, for the company down there. I spent 10 years and then got to come back and, uh, actually just move to Springfield and if this meeting keeps going along, I don't have to open up any more boxes in the house. >> Yeah. Um, so yeah. So, thanks, Luke. So, um, the first thing we want to talk about, uh, tonight is the annual rate adjustment request. Uh, we try and keep rates obviously as low as possible. In Springfield, we typically come in discussing, um, a CPI, uh, increase, which this year is just over 2.6%. Um, there are some other additional

25:14 increases that we had that exceeded that, including labor and steel, and, uh, most recently fuel. um where uh fuel I believe is up 44% from July 1st of last year at this time. But um with that said, we this is a unique year in that we had the benefit of the recycling modernization act funding um that essentially helps subsidize the cost of recycling. And so that puts downward pressure on our costs. And so uh tonight we're coming in asking for no price increase, just a 0% change. Um we ran through all the numbers and it looks like it equals almost just right at 0%. Uh at least on our major costs. Um so and as far as the fuel, our plan is to continue to you know ride that out and

26:00 uh we hope that it stabilizes and drops. It is a significant cost for us. Um of course um but that's where we're at with it right now. So we're requesting a 0% price increase this year. Um I don't know if you want me to pause to ask any questions on that specifically before I move on. >> Uh go ahead. Councelor Bradley, >> thank you very much. And I'm going to I'm going to ask the hard elephant question >> around this this fuel to give you a chance to talk to us about it. Okay. >> The increase in the fuel prices, um, does that include or have anything to do with shipping the trash down south? >> Oh, no. I mean, the the the vast majority of our fuel costs is just an day-to-day operations for our trucks. It's it's more due to the economics of

26:47 gas prices. Okay. >> Yeah. And fuel prices up. >> And they go up and down, you know. So, right now they're up significantly, but we're going to hang tight and hopefully we can see them drop and and maintain. So, >> great. Thank you, >> Councelor B. >> Um, haven't had a chance to meet you guys, so it's nice to nice to meet you guys. Um, you know, one of the things that I wanted to kind of put out there is is we did get some we have gotten some community questions. Um, you know, not necessarily there's there's so many layers to it, right? And it's really hard in a public session to to um to really respond to those things. And so some of the communications we've got are around um residents not really

27:32 understanding all of what's going into why why things are being shipped out of county, what what's going into the relationship with the county and and so it's not so much a question. I just kind of want to put that out there that we're getting those those questions. Um I think that there's there's a lot to that. Um but it's it's our job to kind of bring those things forward and I just kind of want to put that out there. I'm sure you've heard those things. >> Is there anything that you guys can say kind of >> uh to those to those issues? I mean, again, I get that, you know, we could be here all night if we wanted to get get into it and it's not an easy topic, but I just wanted to throw that out there that we're getting those questions and >> and if you could maybe speak to those. >> Yeah, it it is a very complicated issue.

28:17 There's a and it involves a long timeline of reviewing the process since really 2022. Um there is sort of an interconnectivity to this uh issue uh with regards to plans that Lane County has done for a new uh facility, the clean lane facility and what that does to impact the disposal fees at Lort Mountain Landfill. Um so along the same timeline is us uh purchasing uh Dry Creek Landfill in Medford um which has been in the works for many years and had nothing to do with uh any any plans that the county had. it. We purchased it in October of 2022. Um and then the county, I believe, approved the final contract for Clean Lane in um October of 2024.

29:02 Um so, uh we had we had already plans and we had already purchased the landfill long prior to that. Um so, it's about largely about stabilizing rates. Um the facility that you know was proposed uh there's been two increases so far. uh an 11% and an 11% uh each year on disposal costs. Um some of that was CPI. It was not all, but most of it was due to the clean pay for the clean lane facility. Um they haven't announced what their increase is going to be for this year yet, so I'm not sure. Uh but each of those two years because we were moving waste uh and taking it to a dry creek landfill, we were able to stabilize the rates in Springfield and only apply a CPI during that time period and not the additional cost uh for the

29:47 clean lane facility. Um, initially we did a study uh uh regarding moving the waste uh to Dried Creek landfill and because of the advanced sort of gas capture nature of the investments in that landfill that we've made to turn it into renewable natural gas um it the study that we had showed that it was beneficial actually to take it there as well. Um waste transport is not uncommon. Um uh Portland's waste gets transported to eastern Oregon. Uh Seattle's waste goes to eastern Oregon and and uh southern Washington as well. Um a lot of times people just don't have a landfill in their area and landfills are usually best suited out in the middle of nowhere kind of a thing. Um but it is something that's common. So we did the study and we looked at the uh

30:33 impact of rates and and that's when we started discussions with the city. Um and then uh I can talk there's some more specific pieces of perhaps misinformation or misunderstanding. um that that I've seen come out. I'm happy to talk through any of those. Tonight I kind of had a presentation just on one specific one which hopefully will be helpful. Um and that is the rate there's been a question about the rate comparison in Springfield versus Eugene. So yeah. >> All right. And I know we're going to dive into the presentation, but like the rate conversation is one of those things where watching from the watching from the outside, it just illustrates the constant, let's just say, friction between you guys as an organization and the county, right? Is I I'm looking at

31:19 this question going, okay, nobody's on the same same page about what the basic facts of the pro, you know, what the problem are. And as we go through this, um, I I want you to keep in mind that at the end of this, I would love for you to go back to the county and at least agree upon what the basic facts of the problem are because this is this is going to be an example of where the county has presented to their board and about one set of facts and you guys are here giving us information which, you know, it's, you know, well thought out and understands your business, but it's going to say something completely different. And at no point are we kind of bringing this conversation back to, hey, let's all work off the same set of facts here. And so I'm hoping, well, I'm asking you guys to go back to the county with this same set of information and go

32:05 through it with their staff to make and come to some agreement's the wrong term, but understanding that like how do we compare rates here? >> Yeah. Sure. Yeah. and and we are and you we've had uh discussions with the county and we're always open to having you know productive discussions and and everything like that. So, but I think it's a very good point that you made, mayor, to get on the same page about the same uh facts. So, um okay, >> with that said, maybe I'll unless somebody has any questions. Okay. >> Oh, sorry. Was there a question? No. >> Why don't you jump in real quick? >> Uh just real quick. Uh last year my comment was just to keep rates low. And I can tell you I never felt so heard in my life. And I appreciate the um intent

32:50 to and frankly demonstration that it is possible to whether it's through a tax credit which or or you know the uh the federal funding there um or other creative ways to find ways to keep our overall utility costs low because yes it is still a very difficult landscape for a lot of us and I've been very frustrated having to vote on a lot of tax increases currently. So thank you. >> Yeah. Thank you. Okay. So, uh Oh, it's on. Oh, there it is. Okay. Okay. Um Okay.

33:36 So, this is just an overview. And again, the only topic that I'm presenting on tonight is really just residential rate comparisons um as it was brought up. So, Lane County Board of Commissioners have had a couple meetings where they've uh staff has brought this issue up uh December 9th and March 31st. It says 36, let's just say 26. Uh so, statements and presented information claiming that Santa rates were higher in Springfield than in Eugene. Um before the December 9th presentation, I I looked at the agenda and I saw the materials come out and I emailed the county and provided um and I asked them to please, you know, hold off. I believe there are some incorrect pieces of information in these materials that could confuse the public. I went and provided public comment as well uh in person. Um unfortunately, uh they continued to present the information. Um I wasn't contacted um uh

34:23 to discuss that those items. Uh we've had meetings with county staff. Uh during one of those after that presentation initially um I explained, you know, verbally u basically what I'm kind of going to go over tonight. Um, you know, the the rate comparisons provided by staff were based on a misunderstanding of differences in cost between subscription and mandatory yard reprograms. Um, not no pun intended, but it you do have to get into the weeds to, I think, understand this. I actually just thought of that just now. Uh, okay. So, uh, on March 31st, county staff presented another rate comparison slide. Um again though they repeated the same uh logic uh in what we believe is a misunderstanding about subscription versus mandatory yard debris rates. So this is a yard debris program uh in

35:08 Springfield. It allows all these items to go in including uh food, bones, yard debris, plant trimmings, etc. Um you can see the growth of it over time and it's about 48% participation which is on the very high end of participation for a subscription yard debris service. Um there's two different types of yard debris programs that we operate with and and every city operates with. Uh subscription versus like what we call a mandatory. So subscription is what we have in Springfield. If you want this service, you pay for it separately apart from your garbage service. Mandatory is what happens uh in Springfield in Eugene, sorry, where it is built into the cost of your garbage service itself. And when you pay your trash bill, you also pay for yard debris. Uh when you set up service, you're provided yard debris. it's part of that one uh bill.

35:55 Um so it's also, you know, the and as we get into this, you'll see that the cost of it, the program is built into all residential customers, the entire customer base, whereas the subscription rate uh service in Springfield is built into only those who pay for the service. And so this is just a little overview of a neighborhood. you know, the expenses that you have are, you know, the truck, the driver, um the ultimate processing fees. Uh when we take the materials to, you know, Lane forest products for Rexius subscriptionbased versus mandatory. Mandatory, you still don't get 100% setout. Um you get a little bit in my opinion more than subscription. There's not really there was a study that was done, I believe, in King County maybe eight or nine years ago that showed that there was an uptick, but even that uptick only took it to about

36:40 50% on mandatory. Um, that was my understanding at the time. So, it's not still 100%, but you can see I guess what I did was I I put this here because I wanted to show like even a subscription that same driver and truck has to drive through all those neighborhoods and streets and pass the houses that uh don't have the subscription service. And so, the savings is is in is not substantial because he's already having to drive down all the same streets to essentially pick up maybe a few less carts. But the there are some fixed costs that are built in to that model inevitably. So this is just an example of a 100 households. So um let's say you had 100 households and the processing costs to pick that up uh every other week for a month was $400. These are

37:27 just estimates. These are not real numbers. But um and then for a mandatory uh let's say it's $500. You have a small incremental uptick because there's potentially more carts set out, a little bit more time, a little bit more processing fees. Um but in order to pay for each of those uh in the subscription base, let's say you had uh 50 households, a 50% setout rate, um which Springfield's at 48%. And that only gets you $400 um at eight, you have to charge $8 a can times 50 households to cover the costs. And if you have a mandatory, because everyone is paying into it, whether they're using it or not, all 100 households are paying into it, you can charge less. It's $5 to get to the $500

38:12 cost. So the subscription versus mandatory has different pricing structures because the revenue base is not the same for similar costs and subscription is going to be higher. Uh let's go to the next slide. Okay. So, and in fact, this is what you see in Springfield, a subscription yard service. If you want it, it's $7.35 a month for an every other week pickup of a 65gallon air to debris cart. Now, in Eugene, it is built into the rates, but there are some services in Eugene that don't have it built into the rates. And for those, there's actually a line in the Eugene rate case, rate code that talks about if they want yard, what do they pay? And they pay $44 a month. And

38:57 so you can see the difference there between the costs of a subscription and a mandatory service. So that is an example. It's directly from Eugene's uh rate case that says essentially what that yard debris service costs. This is just an example to show you sort of this is um to show you sort of the sim same market conditions. We we launched Creswell Yard Debris in 2018 and when we did that we sent out postcards and mailers and said look if you let us know we did a survey do you want it to be builtin at and we offered 385 a month or do you want it to be subscription at 645 a month I believe those are very similar to what the Springfield and Eugene rates were at the time 57% of the residents said they would use the program but only 38% wanted mandatory service so we uh city council ultimately decided on a subscriptionbased service there

39:45 okay so Here are the excerpts from the county presentation slides in question. Um the first one is from the December and the second one is from the March. So uh on the December slide on this great comparison um and they're really only comparing one can size which is a 35gallon once a week. It is the most frequently used can size. Um, but what they did was they took the Eugene rates in that blackbox area and subtracted the Springfield subscription yard debris cost. So those those rates there are not actually the Eugene rates as they that are, but they're the Eugene rates minus that 735 or some version of that as you go down. Um, so that is the part that I pointed out to said that's not an accurate uh representation of how to

40:32 compare these two cities. The second one is a similar uh avenue, but they took the um Eugene oh sorry they took the Springfield rate with the yard debris added to it. So the Springfield 35 gallon is 2355 plus 735 for yard debris takes it to 3090 compared to Eugene's uh they they showed an invoice from Santaac at 29.92. So again, um they're comparing unfortunately the trash rate plus subscription yard debris to a trash rate plus mandatory yard debris system, and they're just not the same. Um in order to get actually the same costs, what I believe you need to do is take the trash rate in Springfield without subscription yard debris, 2355, and you take the

41:19 Eugene rate without the mandatory yard debris. And how do we know what the mandatory yard debris rate is? It was that 404 number because that is the when there are customers in Eugene that don't have yard built into the garbage rate and they want yard debris, they can pay $44 a month to get yard debris. So essentially that is the lower cost. That's the mandatory cost of that program. And so in order to get an apples to apples, you should take the trash rate without subscription yard debris in Springfield and the trash rate without the mandatory yard debris in Eugene, which is 2802 - 404, which is 2398. And there you see that that smallest can level, uh, Springfield is still lower than Eugene in this case. Um,

42:05 the compounding effect actually though really takes takes place once you go to the larger cans. the uh the the larger can 65 and 95 gallon, excuse me. As you can see there, per month there's about $3 or less than $3 difference on the 65 and on the 95 it's $4.70. And that really plays in uh comes into play when you look at um excuse me, the actual demographics. So, uh, what I've seen in my time in this industry is that largely people pick their garbage can size based on the demographic makeup of their household. Like an elderly single person generates a lot less waste than a family of four or six. The larger family needs a bigger can. Um, so if you're

42:51 actually but if and and if actually you look at the percentage of who has what size cans and you compare Springfield as far as a percentage of who has what size cans to Eugene, the Springfield uh sort of residential customer base tends to lean more towards the 65 and 95gallon cans. And so a higher percentage of them are using or need that level of service and they can take advantage of even the greater amount of savings that are achieved from those levels of service when comparison to Eugene. So that tends to compound the benefit of the Springfield versus Eugene direct comparison. Um you know there's a there's a a lot of other sort of factors to come into play as well. Um and this is from our annual report but the city beautifification. So

43:36 Santa donates a number of services uh every year to the city of Springfield um including street sweepings and donating to all the facilities um you know you know in Eugene you know the facilities have to pay for those services directly with the hauler the donation value of that is about $177,000 last year um there's a difference in city fees paid so Santa pays Springfield 7% um across the board um on the uh for a franchise fee and in Eugene it's it's 3% on residential and 6% for commercial. So there's a bit more funding um back to Springfield there as well. And then there's another uh factor at play which is that um the Eugene rates that have

44:21 been presented are are typically at the minimum rate. Eugene has a has a rate system where they allow haulers a minimum rate that they must charge and the hauler can go up to 10% above that minimum rate. And in practice many haulers do this. um to where the actual rates are closer to the men plus 10% uh that residents experience. So in Springfield, if you were to compare the 35gallon with the Eugene men plus 10% and this is subtracting that 404, you can see that the difference only grows um as you are allowing in the additional percentage markup in Eugene. Um so I believe that's the end of that uh presentation. I'm happy to answer any questions. Maybe we just start specifically on this on this topic and

45:06 then anything else. >> Any council Rodley? >> I don't really have a question um except for that I appreciate this. Um, everybody up here know I have a daughter who's a math teacher. So, I'm always about She's always about follow the math, figure out the math. And it helps if we're comparing apples and apples and oranges and oranges. And um uh so I just I appreciate walking through it and seeing understanding the differences because I will say that I did watch that county commission meeting. I'm like, wait, wait, what's happening? Um so, thank you. >> Thank you, >> uh councelor Stone. Thank you again. I really appreciate working with you guys. You've been a great partner for Springfield. Um I have just two questions. One that I I maybe

45:51 just want to get cleared up. Um if we did not have a franchise agreement in Springfield, would we be would you be subject to additional uh fees if the trash were to leave the county? Can you just tell me like is there a per ton fee that goes out by that? I don't get. >> Yeah. So I think what you're talking about is the intergovernmental agreement IGA. So, um, so, uh, the county has something called a system benefit fee. If you look at their garbage rate when you take a ton of waste into Short Mountain Landfill, there's several fees that are built into that one ton. Um, there's the fee essentially an operational fee to operate the landfill. Um, and then there's an other fee which is about 7% which is um, various road

46:38 maintenance. I'm not I'm not entirely clear on that, but I believe it also does litter cleanup um in the outside areas. The uh but about 60% 50 I believe it's like 55% um is called the system benefit fee. Okay, so we call that the SPF. And so um if you were to take a ton of waste into the landfill at $112 and 46 cents a ton, which is what it is right now, potentially between $55 $60, I believe, is the system benefit fee. And that goes to pay for uh various county um operations. Uh so uh largely I my understanding it you know it pays for the operations of the transfer sites. Um um there's the transfer sites, there's the household hazardous waste uh program. They do recycling and education outreach. Uh they have outreach

47:23 coordinators. Um and it may also do some uh litter cleanup. Um I'm not entirely sure about that. So it pays for a number of sort of programs that the county runs. Um, so I don't know if I if you So, okay. So, I think your question is, um, some cities have decided to get into what's called a intergovernmental agreement, IGA, uh, with the county that says, uh, for for the example, the city of Eugene does this. If you take, if you generate the waste in Eugene, you pick it up and you haul it out of Lane County, you have to pay the county the system benefit fee amount in order to take it out of the county, right? Um, so that that $55 or whatever that is per ton is what you would need to pay in order to remove that waste. Um, in my understanding there's uh I think there's

48:09 12 incorporated cities in Lane County. Um, maybe there's less. There's there's four that have an intergovernmental agreement. So right now it's uh Creswell, uh, uh, Florence, Eugene, and Oakidge. >> Okay. >> And the rest of the cities do not have an intergovernmental agreement. And so when you remove waste from one of those cities, then no system benefit fee is owed. >> Got it. >> So c can can I ask one real fast followup and then I know you're you're hauling it out. I I just get this question frequently. Um how many truckloads are we hauling down to Medford? And what's the approximate fuel economy of those transfers? I think I get a lot of questions about just what is the environmental impact on there and I'm all for clean air and fresh water, but I just kind of want to know. So,

48:54 we're talking two truckloads a day, one a day, one a week, or just just about how much it is. What can you share? >> Um, I am not super experienced on that those specific numbers. Um, let me think. Um, I don't know if Luke, if you have anything more to contribute there. You're probably a little bit closer to it than I am. I can say though that you know when we did the due diligence initially uh to study this I think what maybe some people don't understand is that um it's the meth the real impact of waste environmentally is the methane that gets created ultimately after you take it to the landfill. >> Uh it breaks down and creates methane that is much more potent and powerful than CO2. Um it's many many times more. So what happens to it at the landfill is

49:41 almost exclusively more important than the different than it what it takes to get to the landfill because of how potent methane gas is at the landfill. And so to properly capture that and turn it into renewable natural gas is a great environmental benefit and that's what showed in our study. Um but maybe Luke can talk a little bit more about that. >> Yeah. So we we'll take the waste and it goes to our facility Ecoore and gets transloaded and we do about eight trips um 7 to eight trips a day roughly. Um and within that some of that's also backhauled. So that helps with the that those like wood chips and things like that are going back and forth anyway. So it's it's tied to that.

50:27 >> So there's a there's a volume of material that needs to come north to this area. um from that area and those trucks would be coming here and so we take advantage of the back hauls that they would be coming here anyway to to drop off that material. >> Nice. Thank you. >> Hi, Councelor Weber. >> Thank you for the presentation and for walking us through those um those differences. That's very helpful. Um I'm all for the the 0% rate increase. So, thank you for that. That's awesome. I just hope it doesn't transcend into something a big swing for next year, but we'll see what things are when we get there. Um, I think what you're kind of hearing from us is the questions we're being asked from our residents and the importance um, of both Santa Pac and the

51:13 county coming to an agreement on what what the facts are and really um, making sure we're very clear with the community on that cuz it's it's just confusion out there and and it's just it's it's reached this point where I think you're hearing us all say please, you know, please find the solution and help explain it to our community in a way that that they don't have any more questions or concerns. >> Yeah. Thank you for that, >> Councelor Buckham. You know, um while we're presenting definitely the questions that we're getting from from folks. Um the other side of this is way back in December, you were reaching out to us as counselors. Um I've been here

51:58 for about a minute and a half. Um but I remember your email. um pointing out like, wait a second, this is misleading and this isn't really painting an accurate picture. And so um while a lot of the the clean lane stuff and some of the other county stuff has been really prevalent and really out there, you guys have um and I just want to acknowledge on the record, you guys have done what you can to clear that up. um communicating with us, letting us know this this isn't this isn't quite an accurate representation and um and and so there's there's that other side to it. It's it's not just that you guys have been ignoring this or oblivious to this. You guys have been very cognizant of this and you guys have been working on it since that first came

52:44 out as to say, "Wait a second, we need an accurate picture here." Um and so I just wanted to put that on the record, too. It's like there's confusion from from residents. Um, and I think that I think that a lot of the material that's been been put out there has led to that. But at the same token, the other side of that is is what you guys have done. And I appreciate the partnership and you being willing to answer some of these questions because it's not not always fun and easy. But I appreciate you doing that. >> Thank you. >> All right. Anybody else? I think Oh, council. A lot of the current concerns I've heard is is why are we bypassing local landfill clear down to Medford? I

53:29 understand that, but people look at it as people here could be more employed if it was done here instead of down there. That's one of the reasons why I hear that. >> Okay. Thank you. Yeah. >> Okay. So, I think we're grateful for 0%. I mean that I think that is an ask that we've given to you for uh a couple of years which is continue to manage our rates because we are a particularly rate sensitive community and we want to make sure that you know we try to do everything we can to keep it affordable to live in Springfield. I think the other takeaway that you folks do have is continuing to just go back and chat with the county. Um you know I know something's gonna something's going to

54:14 get worked out. Ideally, it would be you guys coming to some sort of understanding about the the uh the basic facts that everybody's deciding off of, right? That that to me is the first step because that's where all the swirl is and then, you know, some sort of, you know, strategy or go forward forward from there. >> Yeah, that's that's good feedback. Thank you, >> Council Weber. >> I just want to also acknowledge that Greg Rickoff is in the audience listening to this presentation and I see him taking a bunch of notes. So hopefully hopefully that leads to a productive conversation. Thanks Greg for being here. >> All right, before we let you go, also thank you for your partnership around spring cleanup. Um it is the by far the most popular event that it happens in in

54:59 Springfield and if and we couldn't do it without you. >> Oh, thank you. Yeah, thanks for the opportunity to sort of lay this out this one issue out slowly. Um, part of the frustration is that it's sort of in deep industry issues that sort of take this level to to explain and it's something that I'm happy to talk about on any topic. I feel like we have a good story to tell. Um, and uh, so yeah, I'm so thank you for this opportunity. >> All right, I think that is So, Neil, what's the next steps here? Is do they have to bring it back to a public hearing or we'll make room for Jeff? um it'll come back to you as part of the overall um master fees and charges public hearing which we'll have the first part

55:45 of June. >> All right. Perfect. Thank you. >> Thank you. >> All right. Our last item is 2025 SPD annual use of force report. And I see a lot of PD folks here. So we may have to get some extra chairs so nobody has to stand.

56:31 All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Jamie Rash, chief of police. Thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening to present to present SPD's 2025 use of force report. Again this year, our report will outline how often force is used, the types of force applied, injuries sustained by officers and subjects, demographic data, and recommendation for our continued evaluation of force. Before the presentation begins, I would like to thank professional standards division Lieutenant Kyle Potter and uh PSD analyst Lily Wick, who worked throughout the year to review force, not just for this report, but to ensure we are actively informing our training and policy decisions. I would also like to thank you and the Springfield community for your continued support of SPD and for every member of SPD for their dedication to professionalism and the Springfield community. And with that, I'm going to turn it over to Lieutenant

57:17 Potter. >> Thank you, Mayor Van Gordon, city councilors, and city leadership for the opportunity to present the 2025 Springfield Police Department use force report. As chief said, I'm Lieutenant Kyle Potter and I currently manage and supervised professional standards division at SPD. That division includes also includes crime analyst Lily Wick, who is here tonight, and Sergeant Terry Murray, who was recently added to PSD to uh help conduct personnel investigations. I would like to start by acknowledging Lily's work on this report. Lily's work ethic and ability is second to none, and without her, this report would not be what it is today. Thank you, Lily. I also need to thank all the women and men of the Springfield Police Department. Their daily efforts, call to

58:03 call, are reflected in this report. Without the line level troops putting in the day-to-day work on the street, we wouldn't have a report to share. 2025 is the fourth full year where the blue team pro software has been used to compile this report. This software gives us the ability to compare the data in an apple to apples format. We purchased that software in 2021. That year we were playing catch-up with our data and numbers and in turn the results were not as elegant as what we get to work with today. Uh the data I speak of tells a story and this year that's going to show that SPD officers went to 30,150 calls for service. During these calls for service, SPD only used force in 139 different events. SPD responds to the

58:50 city's most volatile and emotionally charged incidents daily while only using force in approximately one out of every 200 calls for service. If you take anything from this presentation, know that SPD remains busy while continuing to drive our use of force events down for 2025. The format of this report remains largely the same. This was intentional. We want to be able to compare the numbers year-to-year to identify trends in that data. Once identified, these trends can help shape equipment training and policy decisions. The routing method has not changed from 2024. When a member of the department uses force, they complete an entry into blue team. That entry then is sent to their supervisor for review. While reviewing the force, the supervisor will

59:36 attach the police report, photos, body camera footage, and any other pertinent info into the blue team entry. The module is then forwarded to the division lieutenant who who who reviews the force for compliance with policy and law. If there are no concerns with the incident, the module is forwarded to the IPRO database. At that point, the use of force has received its two levels of review and Lily and I review it again for completeness. If at any point during the process, an additional review or investigation is required, professional standards is consulted and the incident is addressed accordingly. The additional review can range from consultant consultation with a subject matter expert to internal administration in administrative investigation or even a criminal investigation conducted by an

1:00:21 outside agency. Anyone along the use of force review chain can raise an issue and forward the incident to PSD for further review. One thing to note as you view the data contained in this report, we count each application of force by each officer as well as each force option. This is why you will see higher numbers than our total number of force events. I will take you through this slide for a better understanding. This is same slides you guys saw last year and it uh represents one use of force event, a hypothetical use of force event uh where two officers respond for a call for service. Officer one uh during the call for service uses a takedown on the subject that counts as one use of force application. Officer

1:01:07 one also uses a hand strike uh which counts for another use of force application. During the same call for service and the same subject, officer two uses two hand strikes uh and taking the subject into custody. So out of two officers on one event, that makes four different use of force applications. And that's why you'll see more applications of force than actual force events themselves. >> All right. I had a question about this slide. >> Um I know the county method uh re hasn't really changed the last couple of years, but as we do more and more inter agency work, how does this kind this way of counting um change if there's other agencies other agencies involved? So you see the whole so you see the whole picture.

1:01:52 So we only track SPD's use of force. So we don't have a way to then go to see like how the county is tracking theirs or how Eugene or anybody else is tracking theirs. >> So if I think about a big regional like regional deployment when we sort of take a step back and look at the the whole experience like we're just looking at our piece of it. >> Correct. We're just looking at our officers. >> All right. Thank you. Go ahead. >> Um I I really appreciate that question. um particularly because we've had you know we have um protests and things that happen where you you have mutual aid and I know or I might think I know that there's like a group of like public safety people that all get together around the county and perhaps that could be a topic of conversation. It's like how would we track that at some sort of

1:02:38 an event? I'm not saying you all have to answer that. I'm just saying that because you brought that up um that it would be really interesting to to eventually come to some way to track the sort of inter agency responses when we're doing something as a big group to see because it could be that one person has then the sheriff's department and somebody from SPD and you know yeah that would be really interesting I think and helpful. >> Uh councelor Brooke. All right Corey confused me. It's her fault. Um, so what I thought I heard you say is you track your officers, but that would include even if you're they're responding to somewhere else. I mean, if if your officers involved in force, you're tracking it. Doesn't matter whether it's um you are supporting Eugene or the

1:03:23 county or anywhere else. If your officers involved, you're tracking it, right? >> Yes, sir. >> Correct. >> Okay. >> You threw me off there. I I think look, we've gotten so so much better at this and I know that there's a whole lot of this that we see inside uh that we don't see that happens inside the PD that is done for training and done for um you know just follow up and just done to get better. And I think the feedback that you're hearing from us is not necessarily go out and create a bunch more tracking, but instead just the openness that says as you guys as law enforcement professionals, if there's other ways to try to gather more information so that you have a better holistic picture so you can follow up for training for safety and the public,

1:04:10 I think we're open for that. >> Absolutely. But but you guys get to drive that conversation. Don't let us being excited, you know, to talk about uh Yeah. to talk about data gathering like turn into us adding to your work for sure. We've continued to pursue trainings related to force as you just said training. This slide further breaks down the hours spent. You can see crisis negotiation and crisis intervention training continues to be at the forefront of our training program. Crisis negotiation is a form of deescalation. SPD has a team trained to communicate with people in crisis. The goal for this specialized team is to resolve volatile situations peacefully and without SPD having to use force at

1:04:55 all. Crisis intervention team training provides law enforcement with tools to better deal with people who suffer from mental illness and/or addiction. Each SPD member is required to attend 40 hours of CIT training with the sole goal to promote officers and community safety by using less force. We also have one force review committee currently in progress that was triggered by a crit critical incident in 2025. Force review committees convene whenever certain criteria are met. The primary goal of the committee are to thoroughly examine use of force incidences to identify areas for improvement and in training tactics, equipment, and policy changes. The committee hopes to better prepare the department personnel for future use of force events by identifying reasonable alternatives to

1:05:42 the actions taken that could potentially eliminate or reduce the likelihood of a use of force in the future. The next two slides are going to be two graphs that represent the force types uh the types of force we are using. On both graphs, it lists from top to bottom the most used options down to the least used. The low-levels force consist of control holds or simple displays of force options to generate compliance. The first graph displays force types shown by officers. It is worth noting that some, if not most agencies do not even track shows of force. K9 displays make up a large percentage of SPD shows of force. Whenever a K9 is out of the patrol vehicle while challenging subject, it is counted as a show of

1:06:28 force. Displaying the K9 is a great tool because more times than not it helps us avoid force altogether. SPD also added a dog this year which may have contri contributed to higher numbers of K9 shows of force. The next the second graph displays our force types used. Control holds make up more than 57% of all force shown on this graph. Control holds are a minimally intrusive application of force used to separate, guide, and or gain control of a subject. A control hold is the lowest level of force used by SPD officers. Control holds are control holds are a use of force that some police agencies do not even track. We have the mindset

1:07:13 that more data is better. We can also always filter out that data later, but collecting or recreating that same data set down the road is a much more difficult task. The next several slides speak to our use of force numbers for the year. Lily works hard all year compiling and analyzing these numbers. She will walk you through the next slides and share what she found for the year. Right. Thanks, Potter. Uh over these next two slides, I'm going to go over use and show force effectiveness. Effectiveness, as it currently stands, is a rather subjective measure. Um, it could depend on subject compliance, uh, an officer's success at using a specific tool or technique, um, or the tool or technique resulting in just better positioning. Um, officers also use and

1:07:59 show force for a variety of reasons in general. And an officer's perception of what is going on during an incident uh, depends on many different factors. Um, it's also important to note that when an officer uses a tool or technique, um, that is ineffective at gaining compliance or getting to a better position, uh, they typically move to some something else, some other tool or technique. Uh, in blue team officers mark whether their use or show force was effective or ineffective, um, in the module, but they don't provide the reasoning um, for why it was either effective or ineffective. That is left for the police report, that explanation. Uh so this slide covers show force effectiveness um which as rated by officers was slightly more effective in 2025 compared with 2024.

1:08:49 Uh moving on to use of force effectiveness. Uh here we have use of force. Uh and as you can see control holds, hobble or uh control holds, pushes and shves and hobbles were noticeably more effective in 2025 compared with 2024. Uh these force options were focal points of the most recent set of control tactics trainings and we saw that those force options were used with greater effectiveness following those sets of trainings. Uh taser discharges were noticeably less effective in 2025 compared with 2024. Um however officers only chose to use their taser uh on three occasions this year compared with 12 occasions last year. Um, like I said, we currently use the effectiveness measure in blue team to gauge overall um, confidence with a tool

1:09:35 or technique. Recommendation two, which I'll talk about on the last slide, hopes to address some of the subjectiveness related to this metric and hopes that uh, we can continue to train on these tools and techniques to increase their effectiveness and decrease further decrease injuries and other issues associated with those specific force options. So like we've presented in years past uh we've defined force related injuries into these four categories. Uh these definitions take into account the severity of the injury and the treatment received instead of just a simple description of the injury. So for example if I tell you that I have a laceration that could be anything ranging from some minor scratch to a gaping wound. We felt that it was important to account for all aspects of

1:10:22 an injury. the the type, the severity, and the treatment received for it. When discussing use of force related injuries, there are some additional tables and explanations in the actual report related to subject injuries and what force options were used um during incidents when subjects did end up being injured. The injuries here uh are also subject injuries specifically uh sustained directly as a result of use of force. So, they do not account for pre-existing injuries or medical events or any other injuries that occurred outside of use of force. Last year, 2024, we had 43 incidents that resulted in injury to the subject. In 2025, we had 34, which is a 20% overall reduction

1:11:07 in incidents resulting in subject injury. And nonetheless, we did have one officer involved shooting that resulted in the death of the subject. Appendix two in the report which addresses last year's recommendation relating to force injuries and training uh discusses how we observed a decrease in force related injuries following our most recent set of trainings. And we believe that this is a testament of the quality of training received and our officers taking the tools and the techniques that they learn out onto the road with them. Moving on to officer injuries. These are also injuries sustained directly as a result of using force. So if an officer trips walking up or down a set of stairs and sprains an ankle, that is not reflected in the report or in this

1:11:52 presentation. Currently officers are not required to document their injuries in blue team. We assume we assume that most do um but it's not a guarantee that all force related injuries are uh that do end up in the data. As we know, some injuries develop over time. An officer could be involved in a force event, um, finish their police report, finish their blue team force module, go home, um, and then realize maybe they have some scrapes and some bruises, maybe their knee starts to hurt later. Um, and that is not going to be reflected in the blue team data. We will learn about it through other means and processes in the department. It by no means goes unaccounted for, but it's not necessarily in blue team. So considering officer participation, we did not see any change in the number of force

1:12:38 related officer injuries in 2025 compared with 2024. However, nearly all officer force related injuries, as you can see here, were considered minor. Uh blue team added an option for including deescalation tactics used during force events. We made this data element mandatory in 2025. So we were able to capture the data for nearly all force events, especially when you account for officers inputting that data when it was still voluntary. So this list represents the uh deescalation options that are available in that drop-own menu. Out of 134 use and show of force events that captured deescalation data, there were 83 events where all the officers who either used

1:13:24 or showed force attempted at least one deescalation tactic. There were 28 force events where some officers were able to attempt deescalation and others were not. And then there were 23 force events where all the officers who either used or showed force indicated that the that any deescalation was not safe, feasible or prudent. Uh so not every officer is uh that either used or showed force may have been present from the onset of a call. When an officer is involved in a force situation, they request assistance over the radio which indicates to other officers that they need immediate help and the officers that show up may use or show force without attempting any sort of deescalation because at that time it may no longer be safe, prudent, and

1:14:09 feasible to do so. So also as the report describes, we've seen a decrease in cahoot service hours over the last two years. This has placed more responsibility on officers to respond to mental health incidents when they are not available. And we also saw a slight increase in police officer holds in 2025 with a decrease in holds that resulted in the use of force. We believe that this is also a testament of a shift in officer mentality when it comes to responding to people experiencing mental health crisis. um coupled with more training uh like Potter mentioned about how to handle these types of situations. I would also like to point out that we are are on track to having more police officer holds in 2026. If we keep up

1:14:54 with our current rate from January until now, we will have more than more than a 30% increase in the number of police officer holds by the end of this year compared with last year. Uh so here we have our three recommendations that we came up with at the end of last year's report. Appendices 2, three, and four in the report address these in much more detail. Recommendation one revolved around the analysis of force applications, injuries, and training. As I pointed out earlier, we observed a decrease in subject injuries in 2025. And following our most recent set of control tactics trainings, we also observed more force applications for the options that we specifically trained on. Uh we also saw more force applications

1:15:41 used per event, which we attribute to officers documenting the force options used as they were trained to do so. So for example, officers learn some takedown techniques uh that involved a multiple officer collaboration followed by control holds. When officers choose to use these techniques, they will document more force options used as we would expect and as is appropriate. Recommendation two revolved around resistance types. We redefined and trained our officers on the resistance types. So, active resistance, combative resistance, some of those options in appendix 3 uh to better understand what types of opposition officers face. We discovered that officers encountered fleeing, actively resisting, and verbally resisting subjects the most and

1:16:26 used control holds, takedowns, and pushes and shves to address those types of resistances. Uh, we also added a new menu for describing the subject's arm status to document if at the end of a force event, the subject ended up being armed or unarmed. We moved that to an entirely new menu because an officer's decision to use or show force is dependent upon their perception of all the information that they have and sometimes confirmation of a weapon doesn't come until after the entire force event is over. Recommendation three discuss instance with no force usage. We looked at 20 calls for service where we felt like it was a near miss when it came to using force. We discovered that officers using their deescalation techniques were successful

1:17:11 and they involved subjects with a variety of intensifying factors. So intoxication, resistance levels, alerts in our system, arm status, um the overall severity of criminal activity. Um and we also observed through looking into this recommendation that uh that shift that I mentioned earlier in officer mentality regarding how they approach and address people who are in crisis. On this slide, we have our recommendations following this year's report. Recommendation one addresses our jail. Our jail staff also use force to protect public safety and they are bound by our use of force policy. We would like to provide additional analysis with respect to jail force to determine if and how uh their trainings, equipment,

1:17:56 and tactics may also be improved. Recommendation two revolves around those ineffective and effective uses of force that I talked about earlier. Again, currently this is a very subjective measure that depends on a variety of factors. Uh but to facilitate a more accurate analysis with respect to effectiveness, we would like to provide some guidelines to help officers determine what elements of these force options um make them effective or ineffective. Our third recommendation addresses the continued study of training, injuries, and force applications to distur to determine if and what aspects of the tools and techniques that we currently have can continue to be trained better. >> That's going to conclude our presentations and we have time if you guys have any questions, comments,

1:18:41 suggestions for next year. >> Uh, councelor Buckham, >> um, I think that I pulled this out of the presentation. Just wanted to, you know, um, clarify. So part of the training and part of the review process is also looking at um the type of force selected by the officer that you guys have multiple options in any given given um situation and maybe reviewing and part of that training is I I thought I heard I thought I understood is definitely looking and saying okay you chose option A B and C were available was that appropriate why did you choose this because I'm imagining um you know from officer to officer certain techniques versus you know make more

1:19:27 sense to them and all those things but those things are looked at in the training and and and trained on. >> Yes. Correctly. Um when officers write reports they'll write why they used one uh force option versus another. And so we look at that and it's all part of the reasonleness when the force is being reviewed. Was that decision reasonable? Was that force option reasonable? Um, and then if it wasn't, there's an option to address that. But yeah, all of their decision- making is looked at throughout the whole process. >> Mr. Rodley, >> thank you and thank you for this. Um, I realized when I was looking through this that that this this work has been parallel with my time on council. And so I have just had um a front row seat in

1:20:12 the trenches as watching as we have evolved this. And I and I want to acknowledge the Kenny family who has um been reluctantly or tragically a part of this because of the death of their child um from SPD and has definitely held us accountable in continuing this work. And while we we do we do better every year and so I'm hesitant to say that I am proud but I but I am proud of the work that we have leaned into for the the Springfield Police Department. the changes that have happened. Every year we look at this really hard and critically and say, "What about this and what about this and what about this?" And I I I appreciate all of that. And um and it's it's always a little bit hard because I think of where it was when I

1:20:58 started on council and where it was 10 years ago in Springfield. And then I see how far we've come and I know that we'll never rest on our laurels and you all just every year come back just stronger and tighter. Um, and I appreciate it so much. And then my feedback is I really appreciate the the leaning into the detention officers. I think it's a great next place to be going and to, you know, now that we're we've laid that groundwork and we're collecting the data and we're doing the training to have that feedback and start to just really because, you know, I've never been a public safety officer. Um, but I did raise teenagers and I know that in the moment of intense stress, you know, the more you train yourself in how to react in those and the the better you practice and feedback, the more less the less

1:21:44 likely you are to respond with, you know, something inappropriate. So, um, I just wanted you all to know I appreciate you. I appreciate the Kenny family and your your continued holding us accountable as part of the community here in Springfield. So, thank you. >> Anybody else? It was good to see the the Kenny family come out as well. It's I'm glad every time we get to see you. Um I remember when this was a pie chart, right? And if you think about how far we've come in this and this has been a lot of work and a lot of dedication by everybody over in the PD to really do this in a critical and thoughtful way and I really appreciate the amount of

1:22:29 time you guys spend on it and especially to try try to find meaningful you know trends in training like there's not that much data there and you look under every possible rock to try to figure out how to do your job and police in a in a better in a better way. Um I one piece of feedback I would have is look I don't know what the rules are on um but the 2021 data where we were just hustling to get it all in the system. um it may be, you know, it may be time to, you know, retire it with the uh with the pie chart, right? Because it's the one piece of data that you have where we where if I really asked about it or I really dug into it, um you would say, "Look, I can't tell you it's good." Um

1:23:15 but I would be open and supportive of doing that. The other two pieces of feedback that I have, um the deescalation things was really meaningful. That was the next logical step and having, you know, having that first set of data. It's good that we continue to add and improve things. And I think we're all open um for your profession to really kind of lead us to what's the next logical question. And I don't know what that is, but as we continue to this continuous improvement uh sort of culture, I think we're open to, you know, taking whatever the next logical step is, you continue to do this every single year. Go ahead, Nancy. >> Thank you, mayor, members of council. I also wanted to acknowledge the Kenny family here this evening. Um um and the important role that they have played. Um

1:24:02 but I also want to talk I I agree with the mayor. I think at this point 2021 is now an outlier. The department that is here before you today uh the people here and the department itself is dramatically different than the department um that I inherited when I became city manager in 2020. Um I'm incredibly proud of every member of our uh police department and how they have understood uh the challenges before them and how this challen they really turned this into an opportunity to keep our community safe and our officers safe. I think we we recognize that uh deescalation is a key component. Sometimes you can't sometimes it's not always possible and we know that but we also know that our the safety of our

1:24:47 officers and our community is paramount. Um, I think our department has now evolved to being uh the department where uh people look to for examples of good police work. Um, and driven by data, driven by a culture of safety. Um, and I'm incredibly proud of that. So, um, just thank you for the work that you are doing. Thank you for, uh, keeping our community safe. Um, we love our police department and I continue to support you. >> All right. Thank you. We are I'm going to adjourn the work session and then we are going to reconvene for executive session. That'll

1:25:32 give us a chance to reassemble the room to the correct height.