Sorry, so fabling.
I call the meeting to order. Good evening and welcome to the August 19th, 2025 business meeting
of your Ashens City Council. Councillor DeCain will offer the landing
announcement. Thank you, Mayor. We acknowledge and honor the
Aboriginal people on who's ancestral home lands we work. The Ecoroxum
band of the Shastonation, as well as the diverse and vibrant native
community, native communities who make their home here today. We honor the
first stewards in the Rogue Valley and the lands we love and depend on, tribes
and ancestral lands in and surrounding the geography of Ashland watershed,
and include the original past, present, and future indigenous inhabitants of
the Shasta, Tacoma, and Afabassin people. We also recognize and acknowledge
the Shasta village of Wacca where the crow lights. That is now the Ashland
City Plaza. Thank you. Councillor Dale will lead us in the
pledge of allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America.
And if you do not know about the Bush's hands, one issue on your mind, indivisible with
whatever you think you can adjust as strong.
We'll call please a listen. Councillor Schwell, Dale, Bloom, Mayor Graham,
here, Kaplan, Ducane, here, Hansen, here.
All right. For Mayor's announcements, I have two agenda changes. The public hearing and
first reading of ordinance 3272, an ordinance annexing property and withdrawing an
annexed area from Jackson County Fire District number 5, and also repealing ordinances
3215 and 3194, which were the previous annexation approvals in Casita 1 and Casita 2.
1511 Highway 99 planning action, number PA T3-2024-0011, is going to be continued at the
applicant's request to September 16th at 6 p.m. and under ordinance's resolutions and contracts,
the second reading and adoption of findings for a legislative amendment to the Southern Oregon University
Facilities Master Plan and implementing ordinances 3267, 3268, and 3269, number PA-L-2025-0016,
is being amended and so we will come back. We are canceling the second reading. It will
come back for a new first reading with those amendments on October 7th.
I also wanted to say it was so great to see so many Ashlanders out last night at the park, celebrating
the great music concert series that our community partners have hosted, and it was just a lovely
way to cap off the evening last night. So I hope you were able to be there if not, check out
the calendar, and make sure there's still a couple of more this year. We move on now to approval of
minutes. Are there any changes to the minutes? The floor is open for a motion to approve the minutes.
Councillor Bloom? I'm over approval of the minutes.
Is there a second? Will call please a listen? Hansen? Yes. Ducane? Yes.
Captains? Yes. Bloom? Yes. Dale? Yes. Cheryl? Yes. Thank you. And we are now to the consent agenda,
or would any Councillor like to remove an item from the consent agenda?
Yes. Okay. The floor is open for a motion to approve the consent agenda?
I move to approve the consent agenda as is. Second. Will call please? Dale? Yes. Bloom? Yes.
Cheryl? Yes. Hansen? Yes. Ducane? Yes. Captains? Yes. Thank you. And I just wanted to think that people who
have stepped forward to serve on the Housing and Human Services Advisory Committee, the Planning
or the Historic Preservation Advisory Committee, and our new ad hoc committee that will be
developing a facilities plan for the 2,200 Ashton Street project. That community service is really
what helps this council do. It's working. We appreciate the hard work of all of our council or committee
members and commission members, and the new people who have stepped forward to help us.
We now move to special presentations. In this evening, I am going to offer a presentation on my trip to Ukraine.
In early June, I was invited to the cities and regions summit in Ukraine, in large part,
or entirely, because we have a sister city with a town named Fiatahirsk, which is in the
Dinesk Oblast. We have been in conversations with our sister city since the council approved
this relationship about two years ago, and a little bit later on, I'll invite the folks from the Ashton
Siatahirsk aid project who have been really leading the charge in developing the sister city relationship
in terms of the people to people aspect of it. I will invite them up to share briefly what they have
been doing in those two years, and the various ways that we have been able to help our sister city.
So, what I was invited to come to this summit, I reached out to our city manager and to our
council chair, Councillor Dale, because this is not a typical request to go into a place that is an
active war zone, not something that people typically do on purpose. I wanted to talk with them about
what this meant, and what this risk was, and what did they think about it? Of course, there were concerns
about safety, but there was also a strong support for doing this, for standing with our sister city,
and whatever way we could do this work. And so, I committed to going, and we were instructed to not
share information about this publicly until the summit was complete for security reasons. And so,
I went, and we start out, the way that they have this set up is that they meet the delegates that we're
coming in from cities all around the world, primarily Europe and some from the US, but they met us in
Poland, and then we took the night train to Kiev. And, and this is an eight-hour train ride after
four flights to get to Poland. So, it was a long haul to get there, and we went through the night on the
train. And, and that morning, the very first thing that we did when we arrived was, I met with Mayor
Vlad, a mayor of a Balkan. And so, Mayor of a Balkan is the man in this picture who has this
Ashland together hat on, Ashland better together hat on, and we exchanged gifts. And what I brought for Mayor
of a Balkan, I wanted to have a mix of things that were useful and also things that were beautiful, because
his community, and you'll see the little bit later on the map, is right near where the Russians are.
They had overtaken Sveta here for several months, and then the Ukrainians were able to push them back,
but they are very, in very close proximity to the Russians. And so, I brought a lot of things from Ashland.
We have a variety of things from the city that I wanted to share with him, also brought them some
things that taste good, and then a solar lantern, because they have difficulty with generators and that sort of
thing. One of the things, if you can go back, one of the things that I particularly liked was I brought
a flower, a paper flower bouquet, because when I talked to Mayor Re Balkan by Zoom, he's in a building,
that of course is a kind of thing that you run military operations out of. And so, I wanted Ashland
to give him this bouquet that wouldn't wilt, and it wouldn't die over time, and where he could see it,
and remember that people in Ashland are thinking of him in his community, and we're sending all of our
good wishes for a peaceful and to this conflict. I wrote in that bouquet comes with a little card, and I wrote
some things to him about how we feel about their community, and the courage that they all have,
and I had our folks from Ukraine, 188 International Translator for me, so it had a little translation
inside of it, and each time I talk with Mayor Re Balkan, what he says is two things that what we're able
to help them with in the physical space is really important, and they very much welcome it and appreciate it,
and also they appreciate knowing that someone sees them, and that somebody is paying attention to what
is happening to them. And so, we exchange gifts in the hotel, and one of the things that he brought to me,
and you can see the head sticking right out of that little bag. Is this doll? And this doll is a handmade doll,
it's made out of string, I'll have it where people can see it at the break, but it is each of last,
which is kind of like a state in Ukraine, has its own doll, its own design, and it is a protection doll,
and I thought it was interesting that I'm arriving, and he's sending me home with a doll to protect my
town, from the different things that might befall us, and so I accepted this gift, I gave him his gifts,
and then we went outside, they had someone there to do a media interview, and the media interview was going
to be broadcast across the Oblast where he comes from, and they were paying particular attention
to bringing these messages of friendship back into that space, where they are really struggling with
the reality of the war. So I was pleased to do that interview, Mayor Rebalkin also spoke to the media
folks, and then we went on to the summit. And so when we got there it was a very interesting thing
is a completely international summit, and so they were going to be speaking in Ukrainian, and so they gave
me the translator, the translator headphones, and then this is where we met our partners from Ukraine,
Aided, or National, you see the two gentlemen on the bottom of that screen, and we went through that
summit with them, and spent another day the next day in Kiev with them. And I just wanted to point out,
when you hear from Ben Stott a little bit later on, Ben was with us, and you would have seen him in that
first picture, and so we had representation both from the city council, and also from the Ashens Fiat
to hear Skate Project at the summit. So one of the first things that happened was President Zelensky came,
and he offered some words, and he gave awards to a variety of different cities and regions that had
been helping directly Ukraine and helping with their communities and what they needed and providing
similar support to what we are doing with Fiat to hear Skate. It was an inspirational speech,
even though I didn't understand a word he said, and I had to get it a little later in terms of the
translation, but it was a powerful moment to be there with President Zelensky thinking to people who have
been helping them. Then there were a variety of different panels that talked about different elements
of how to continue to do the work of living and repairing things while they're still in a war zone,
and so one of the things that was interesting to me is we all saw the pictures of Kiev right after
the Russian invasion, and it looks like very much like what's on the left side of that screen, but when you
go around Kiev, now you don't see that.
They have repaired or rebuilt 22,000 of the 30,000 physical objects in the city that have been destroyed.
And so it's a people that are very much trying to carry on with living while being in the middle of this very difficult situation.
This is, they had a wall map of Ukraine, and what you can see is Mayor Rabalkin is showing us where the region, where Siyatahirsk is located.
That that white space, that next one over is the one that the Russians hold.
So you can see that he's right on the border with where the Russians currently are, and that Ukraine is a huge, huge country, but they're right up on the edge of it.
And that is the reason that I did not go to Svyatahirsk.
There was that that was too risky of a space, but others from Ashland have been all the way to the village there.
And I also wanted to share this picture because you'll see in all of the pictures that we have of Mayor Rabalkin.
He always has his Ashland better together had on.
And he's super, he's super keen about Ashland, I will say.
He decided to come to the summit when he found out that I was coming.
Because we have been talking, you know, over these last couple of years, and this relationship is important to him.
But the other reason he's wearing that hat is that he has a head wound.
If you can go back Sabrina one, he has a head wound, and he is bandaged underneath that hat.
You can see a little bit of the bottom of it sticking out the back.
And he apologized to me for not taking his hat off in these sort of formal spaces.
But explain that he has a head wound that is healing.
And so that's what was happening with that. Let's go ahead and move on.
So we have been trying to sign our official documents for quite some time.
When you have to translate something into a foreign language, it doesn't always go super smooth even when you've got
Native Ukrainians translating.
There are very specific things that these sorts of documents must say and must not say in their language.
So I was able to bring the final version over and we were able to sign the official documents ratifying our sister city relationship.
Go ahead.
We also were able to be there with Ukraine aid international as they won an award from the Dinesk Oblast.
So the Oblast gave them a specific award because they are helping not only see it here, but some of the other cities that are right right there on the edge of the conflict.
And I also ran into the National League of Cities President Steve Patterson, who is the mayor of Athens, Ohio.
And his community is also assisting a Ukrainian community through a different program.
So it was great to see some other Americans and other American mayors at the event.
Go ahead.
So one of the things that was really striking to me while I was there is just what it is to be in a city that has been bombed has been invaded is trying to carry on.
Because children are still growing and people still have to go to work and grocery still have to get bought and cooked.
And seeing how people are reacting to that and how they are coming together and they have been together as a nation has was really very touching.
That street was just outside of where my hotel room was and that's what it looked like before the curfew at night because there is a specific curfew.
And once the curfew is down that giant street with eight lanes is empty.
There is not a single person out there. There is one maybe one police officer at the intersection to find out if anybody is driving what that's about.
And that's a people do it voluntarily because they know it's a security issue, but it's just a very different reality.
And one of the things that they instructed go back if you had one of the things that they instructed us to do before we came was to download the air siren app.
Who would have known that there is an app for that?
But there is.
And so when there are air raid sirens that are going, the app you'll tell the app where you want to be notified if there's a warning.
And when I was on the first train into Kiev the first night I woke up because there was we were stopped and the air raid sirens were going.
We had stopped us in a train station and the air raid sirens were going and I was just waiting to figure out what there was really nothing to do but to wait it out.
So that happened the first night and my app didn't catch it because I wasn't in Kiev at the moment.
But we went on and the second night that we were there.
About two thirty in the morning the sirens went off in the hotel and my phone went off at the same time.
And I took screenshots of the two.
The first one is the one you see right in the middle is the one that when it first started and you can see that incoming missiles are the places where they have detected missiles coming.
And then you can see that of course dark red is the most dangerous place and then Kiev has a little is a little bit darker red section over there and the lighter red.
And then when it's done as it's playing out different elements show up so you can see where the Ukrainians are responding and then at the end you can see where some of them have landed.
And so that's that's just a daily reality for the people who live there is that they get woken up very often in the middle of the night with their phones looking like this and having to decide what to do and how to respond.
And I would just say knowing that air raid sirens exist is a whole different thing and actually experiencing one and having to decide what what am I going to do.
The day after the, excuse me, the day after the, the summit we spent just going around Kiev with the mayor and with the staff from Ukraine eight international and made on square is right in the middle of Kiev and it is really the place where their pro democracy.
And again several years ago I think in 2014 and they have a flag there for the people who have died in the war from Kiev and towns across Ukraine have similar things in this in this city squares.
But when you go up you can see pictures of people people of brought family members have brought photos of them they've brought members.
And there are so many flags there are so many flags and there are flags from other countries too from the other people who have come to their aid and have not returned home.
And so it's a, it's a, it's a powerful display of of of of heart for their community and also a reminder of the tragedy you see there's a doctor there in that picture there's these are not all military people.
But it was a very it was a reality check in terms of what that looks like.
And now before we move on to the next slide I also just wanted to mention that while we were walking back from made on square we saw a procession coming in and it was a funeral procession on the way to the cemetery they had a military person who had been killed.
And they came to that big intersection that you saw in one of the earlier slides and everybody stopped all all traffic in all four directions stopped.
The drivers got out from their car they took a knee and they played their national anthem and then they stood for a minute of silence before the the procession moved forward.
And we stood still on the side and we we watched this and and the mayor told me that this happens very frequently not only in key but in also in towns across the country as they bring their their soldiers home who have been killed in the war.
And it took me out to the bridge you may have remembered when the when the invasion happened initially that the Ukrainians blew up their own bridge to keep them out.
This is the bridge that was blown up and they've left it there as a as a reminder they've built the new bridge next to it.
And I think in many places around the city they are doing a variety of different things to remind people this is probably the most stark of the reminders but to to.
And it was my memories forward not only with this type of a scene but also with art and so one of the things that we they took me to where they had these kind of art memorials different places where they had stacked up burned out vehicles but then artists had come and and drawn beautiful things on the side as a reminder of kind of both of the elements that we find in a conflict like this.
One of the things I think was the most striking to me was how determined people were to carry on to keep moving in the space of this difficult difficult time and so they went and took me to places where you could see more of the city.
And and then we found a restaurant where apparently it's a very famous Ukrainian chef but what he's doing is he's playing with traditional Ukrainian food as his contribution to to his culture and to the effort and so I got to experience both traditional Ukrainian food and also traditional Ukrainian food with a twist.
So that was a great day. They were very keen to share traditional Ukrainian food and what they do in terms of their customs and the love for their community really came through in those those times.
One of the things that while we were up high like that Mayor Rebalkin and I were talking and and there was some music coming up and he was we didn't we didn't share the same language but we could hammer through the fact that this was a Ukrainian composer and and.
And I found out in that conversation that before the war and I guess he still could probably play but Mayor Rebalkin was also a musician and I knew that he was a teacher but I found out here that he also is a musician.
And then just a lot of street scenes where people you know finding joy where they can and taking pride in their community.
And then we went out to some of the places where they have the larger monuments and and the kind of the cities the city monument this the country monuments that you would expect to find in a capital city.
And then they even had a little bit of fun with with the floor matters of things street street vendors out like I say people really trying to hold steady in the middle of this this war.
I was just close out the trip with just saying.
The the friendship that we've been developing with Fiatahirsk with their leadership and also in more of a person to person relationship is really important.
I think sometimes we forget the importance of friendship the importance of traveling away with someone else and before he left what Mayor Rebalkin told me was that the first thing he was going to do when he got back to his people in Fiatahirsk was he's going to he was going to read to them what I put in the card.
That that was that was the the prized piece that he was bringing back to his community.
Go ahead.
And so we came back I have the I have the the designations we did them in English and in Ukrainian and we each have a copy so I have those here and I'll let all bring them out during the break as well.
I also.
With the I wouldn't that so we I got back to Poland and they were just then announcing the new pope was in was in place and so I took the train right home there was no air raid siren on the way home so that was appreciated and and we got there to the end.
Really glad I went it was a tough trip and I and I was so honored to be able to represent this community and the heart that I know that we bring to this relationship with them we are feeling our way through with it we don't know exactly what it looks like or what will be called on.
To do to help with but we also know that friendship is really what's at the core of it.
As I mentioned mirror we're Balkan and I have been in touch and talking for these last couple of years.
Not very often because it's a 10 hour time zone difference and he's right right in the thick of it.
But one of the things that he he was very keen to share the history of the conflict and of the people's rising up for for their democratic values.
And one of the things that he he did is he told me more of the story of a about a gift that he had sent to me last year.
And before the invasion Sveta here's was a lot like Ashland.
It's got beautiful forests and mountains around it rivers.
People would come from miles and miles around as a tourist draw.
They have a beautiful old very old church in their in their community and they were a place where where they had art and theater and fun things and I have refrigerator magnets from from Sveta here's.
Because they they were very much like us and what they used it that what they had before the invasion was the they had lined the streets.
With Ukrainian flags so coming into Sveta here's the they there were two big rows of flags and of course the first thing that it invader does to harm them or the morale of the people that they're.
Over taking is to take down their symbols and so they tried and they had the Ukrainian folks had gone they had stationed people up in the hillside and so they were never able to.
Only take this section of the road. Because when they would try, they would get shot at. And so the flags never came down.
After they were able to push the Russians back, they pulled the flags down and they put new flags up, of course, as you do.
The flags that came down from the sides of the road into Sveta here are now in museums across Ukraine. But one of them is here.
And it's not every day you get a gift in an ammo can. I will say, this is a different reality for me.
But I would ask councilman if you'll help me.
This is the flag.
I haven't known exactly what to do.
I haven't known exactly what to do with that flag. So I've held it.
When I was there, I asked Mayor Rebalkin if it would be appropriate for us to frame it so that we could hang it up without it being damaged.
And he said that would be very, very nice. He would appreciate that. So we are going to do that. And we will find a place as city hall to hang that.
So thank you for taking that little journey with me. At this point, I would like to just invite Ben Stott and anyone else from the Ashland Sveta Harris project.
They're going to briefly explain to us what they have done in these last two years and then they will be coming back in front of council a bit later on.
But we can also ask questions of them. So go ahead and come up to these two microphones.
Yeah, if you can hit that button in the front, it'll turn red for both of the microphones.
Well, first of all, my name is Jim Nagle and I'm the president of ASAP.
And I want to first of all, thank you, Mayor Graham. And this city council for allowing her to go to Ukraine and bring back that wonderful presentation.
I'm not going to speak too long because the gentleman next to me Ben Stott has been to Ukraine, been to Sveta Harris many times and he's much more familiar with everything that's going on.
And what we would like to do is just to talk to you a little bit about what we have managed to do through our fundraising efforts to help Sveta Harris do some recovery and some of the infrastructure that was totally destroyed or stolen by the Russians when they came.
We're critical to keep a city running. And so Ben will address those issues. At the same time, I would like to recognize a couple of our other board members who are here in attendance rich Whitley.
Who's back there and Mike Petrovich. So we've got a small group, but they do an awful lot of work and I'm really proud of this group.
So Ben, if you take over and talk a little bit.
Let's see you all with two and a half years ago that I was here when you so kindly agreed to take on Sveta Harris because there's this to city.
Since that time we've done a lot.
I wanted to say first of all because you got a chance to meet Mayor Robaltkin that you should know that for months ago he found out through DNA evidence that his son who had disappeared had been burned in a tank.
He was a tank operator and so he just found out not too long before he came to this meeting that he'd lost his son in the war.
So he's a magnificent man.
Sveta Harris is a small town. We chose it because it was quite a bit like Ashlyn. It has the tourist big tourist industry.
It's a lot of forestry and it's one of the prettiest towns that I've seen in Ukraine.
And I've been over there now five times driving, I'm driven all over the country doing various things.
And I think Sveta Harris is probably the prettiest town that I've seen.
Although I'm told in the far west and the corpatings, it's also gorgeous.
So since we started we incorporated and got 501 c status just before we got the approval to be a sister city.
We've done three fundraisers each time we get Ukrainian people to perform other musicians.
And we've been pretty successful in raising money. I don't know the exact total, but I know the last one we did we raised $40,000.
With that money we've tried to help provide things that Merro Balkan said that would be most useful for the town.
His thing was not to spend too much money on rebuilding because frankly they're not sure they're going to survive.
The Russians are still pushing and they're only 25 kilometers away.
So we focused on providing machinery to rebuild the infrastructure so that there will be a town there when people can move back safe.
And so far we've bought a dump truck, a very large dump truck which is used to get rid of rubble.
They got an excavator from somewhere else.
And so this dump truck helps to get rid of all the rubble.
So they cleaned out a lot of the damaged area so they can be rebuilt.
Also they had a problem with their garbage.
The garbage truck had been blown up by the Russians.
And so their garbage is piling up in a flat area in the center of town.
It was a big health menace.
So using the dump truck we were able to get rid of that garbage.
The next thing was a municipal water system through UAI and some private funding throughout foundation.
I have myself.
We built a water reprocessing center in town.
So people could come to a central location in the town and fill up buckets and take them to their places because there was no municipal water.
People didn't have any toilets or couldn't take a shower.
So this system enabled them at least to have some of the things that we take for granted here in the nation that they don't have.
We also helped them to buy out what's called a wood pallet machine that makes fuel.
Which they used to warm up the municipal buildings where people could go and stay warm in the winter because nobody had any electricity.
And so no one had any heat.
And so everybody there are about 450 people who still live in the town out of around 4,500 that were there before.
We would comment they could stay in these, there are two main municipal buildings with big boilers and wood pallets that could take all the debris and all the trees that were blown down and all the leftover debris from the broken buildings.
Can be put in this machine and they make usable fuel that could be used to burn in this municipal.
So we've enabled them both to have water and to have heat during the last two winter which has been important and helpful to them.
Most recently they had a very severe forest fire last summer.
So it was a similar to our town and about 10,000 acres were burned.
And they needed chain saws in order to clean up the area so they'd prevent future fires and also provide more fuel.
So we've also recently provided them with those.
We also did a project that actually didn't work out but we tried to provide them with temporary windows for all the blown out windows in the buildings where people were trying to live.
By using a double plastic method which is a lot cheaper than glass and also is safer in case there were more bombardment that there wouldn't be any fragments in the shadow glass they'd have to deal with.
As it turned out there was another method they found that was more successful so we only did about one sample project but that was our first attempt to try and solve that problem as well.
Right now we're trying to raise money they've asked us to try and see if we can find them something like an armored car or a protected vehicle that they can use for varying supplies in from further west.
Because now the roads going into Seattle are becoming dangerous and they're thinking that they'll need some kind of relative protection so that they can continue to bring food and also to take out anybody who's wanted to local hospitals that are further away.
That's our present project is to try and locate something that could serve that purpose.
So that's our work today as you know people are tired of hearing about Ukraine so it's a challenge to raise money and so we're working to find novel ways to encourage more public interest.
And get people to stay engaged and you're helping through the city just as a bullet to keep people in action aware of that we have a sister city and there needs a great it's really helpful to us in doing the work we're trying to do to help the city.
So thank you. Oh one thing I wanted to ask you do you all share a email address as council members.
We have a group address and then we each have our own individual.
Get that from you because I didn't bring any audio visual stuff but I have a very short video of Seattlehurst because it was before the war it's only about three minutes long.
I also have the movie that we made this last year in Seattlehurst which really shows and gives a feeling for what it's like and their interviews with a lot of residents so you can meet some of the people who are there.
That's 20 minutes long which may be a bit much but we've made a five minute short promo sort of version of that.
And with your permission I'd like to send those three clips to you so that if you have the time and interest that you could see some of the scenes of the actual town that you're doing so much to support.
That would be great and Alyssa can give you that email address.
Are there any questions? Any questions?
I might add and we also purchased with our last one.
The water truck to transport water so that the people don't have to come from far distances to go to water source.
Now we have a water truck for them that takes the water out.
I just want to start by offering my immense gratitude for you all individually and your organization for what you're doing.
The reality is obviously very difficult over in Ukraine and I think that what you are setting up and what you're seeking to do is going to be the model for rebuilding.
There will not be a martial plan as there should be.
But if we all individually as cities around the world and certainly within the United States can partner with cities in Ukraine like we are that's how they're going to rebuild and give passes.
So thank you so much.
Councillor Dio.
By the way, I just found out that Oregon actually is a sister state to one oblast in Ukraine.
And Connecticut is also now adopted the whole province of Oblast of Donetsk, which is a part which should make a big difference for fundraising in a larger scale.
By the way, I'm also leaving in three days to go back to Seattle.
So hopefully I'll be able to send you some film this summer.
Thank you.
Councillor Dio.
Thank you, Mayor.
And thank you, Ben and Jim.
I don't may ask to be on any questions.
I don't know what I would ask.
All I have is a statement and it's similar to Councillor Bloom.
I just, I am so deeply grateful for all the work that ASAP has done and I've been able to follow along.
Watch all of the good work and the constant work that goes into to what you do and the fundraising and just the care.
And, you know, listening to the Mayor, as well as the conversations we've had and I've, I've routinely tried to remind my kids I heard this several years ago and it goes something like this.
On your very, very worst day that you could possibly imagine.
There are at least 3 billion people on the face of this earth that would consider their prayers and sort to trade places with you.
And when we think about what we talk about the good work that happens up here that we're trying to do it.
It pales in comparison to the work that's being done in places that that we have the luxury of and this this pains me to say to not even think about on the regular basis.
Because we're worried about the little things that we're worried about, whether it's stuck in traffic or whatever.
And I also wanted to share a little bit about when I received the call from Mayor Graham and she, she answers the phone and it was a tone unlike anything.
I've heard when our conversations, which she says I need to talk to you about something. And I could tell
what was common was serious. And she explained, and we had a healthy conversation to start
about safety and about logistics. But if I know Mayor Graham, there is zero chance that she
turns from anything she goes right into this to help people. And to bring our values and her
leadership, and I'm so incredibly proud of you, Mayor, for making that trip. And the connection
that you brought halfway across the world to another community that is that if anything needs,
of course they need rebuilding, and they need infrastructure, and they need tools, but they need
help, and they need love, and they need connection and community. In addition, Ben, trip number six,
and everyone that has been involved in the mayor, I just want to say that when you got back, I exhaled. And
we were in communication while you were there, and it wasn't quite fine my phone like it is with my daughter,
but I was so incredibly proud to be part of this community. And thank you so much for going.
That just means so much. And for anyone that doubted whether that was appropriate, I highly suggest
that you watch tonight's council meeting over and over and over until you do not have any more doubt.
This is what governments do. This is what people do. This is what communities do for one another.
And thank you so much to everybody that was involved in this.
Thank you. Councillor Dickie? I don't have a question. I have just a brief voice of gratitude.
Thank you both and the other two gentlemen and the audience for all that you do, and it truly gives
me a sense of gratitude. Keep up the good work. Ukrainian people are resilient and awesome.
We can all take a page. So thank you so much. Councillor Hansen?
Thank you, Mayor. I'm really grateful that you went and to represent. And I'm sure it was a tough trip,
but we're all behind you. And we thank you. And I appreciate you coming forward and speaking with us this
evening, but really the efforts for the last two and a half years are really not going unnoticed.
And when you came here and you told us that you aspired to the dump truck, I was confident that
that was the mission and you would do it. And hearing now all the other important
infrastructure tools that you've been able to bring back to the community. I'm just so proud of you
and the work that you've done and my heart goes out to the Ukrainian people. And I haven't
forgot. But as we get busy in our daily lives, as it's been said, it's good and healthy to be reminded
of the struggle and the struggle is real. So I appreciate you. And thank you very much. And I really wish
the rebuilding and the conflict ending tomorrow and the rebuilding continues. Thank you.
Councillor Caffer. Thank you. Thank you, Mayor. I don't have a whole lot to add. Thank you to the
eloquent words. If there's your spoke before me, particularly Councillor De Allen and Councillor Bloom
and both to you, Jim and thank you so much for all that you do. I think all of us have a different lens of
how we look at these things. I have a personal lens. One of my grandfather's was on my grandparents
was born in Ukraine and came to this country many years ago. I never met him. He died with my mother
was 13. But I think about him and his family and I appreciate all that you're doing for our
sisters and brothers in Ukraine. So thank you very much. Councillor Caffer. Yeah, I don't know how I can
follow all of that. But just thank you so much for your service. I'm not just the two of you, but the
rest of your group and the people that you leave behind when you go and the people that support you
and call you every day and say thank you and we love you. We're really lucky to have members like you
in this room and in our community and I'm glad you made it back safe, Mayor. Thank you. Say you're just one
thing. This is a very key moment right now that I just heard on the way over here that the Senate is going to
hopefully pass a bill for severe sanctions on Russia which can totally change the tender of this war
or could potentially end it in short order. So now if there ever was a time to call your
Congress people, whoever you know and you guys have more influence because you're in the political sphere,
please use your influence to make sure that the Senate doesn't get cold feet because this is a critical
moment right now there are 82 senators have signed on for a bill of 100% sanctions and that could
totally change the tender of this war. So now's the time to put the pressure on to make a difference.
Thank you. And I would just like to once again thank you, Mayor Graham. Thank you council members
because you're bringing this to the forefront of this community certainly helps our fundraising efforts.
And without your support I'm sure we couldn't have done it. And nearly as successful as we have
been able to do it. So thank you. Thank you both. Safe travels, Ben.
We are now to public forum. We have 15 minutes for public forum and we have five people who have
signed up to speak. Public forum is for any items that are not on the agenda for the evening.
Generally I tell people how to sign up but today with the agenda changes I skipped I missed that section.
So if you're intending to speak tonight on something that is not on the agenda, can you please raise your hand so
I know if we've got everyone. Okay so what you would like to what you will do maim is to please
go over and get one of those sheets and fill it out. This is exactly and bring it to Alyssa and it looks
like that'll make seven people who who are have signed up to speak. So go ahead. Is that the last one?
There's no more. Okay so if the two of you can please get your papers in quickly you don't want to. Okay.
Oh you're here. Okay great. So we'll go ahead and get started. Each person will have
two and a half minutes to speak. You'll come up to this microphone here. You'll have a
light display that tells you where you're at in your time. There's also going to be time up on the clock.
When you get to, when you have 20 seconds left you'll hear a chime and your light will turn to yellow from green
and then when you are out of time it'll go to red and the time will will end on the clock
and you'll hear another chime at which point please finish the sentence that you're on so that we can
move on to the next person. The people who have signed up to speak are Aguero, Paul Mozina, Debbie
nice wander and Ashley Roard Roberts and then Kathy Bowen Jones and then we have one more person.
So please go ahead. We'll start with Aguero. Right here. Go ahead.
Hi. Aguero you know I'm an astronaut resident. I'm here to comment on the
recent discussions you guys have been having on the ELA expansions, the kind of control of who's
allowed in what places in the city of Ashen. We're being told that this authority should be given to the
police and that this authority can be used through people who are not even charged with anything
just at the police owns a court. You heard from your chief of police saying that we should do this one
because Madford's doing it. Respectfully that's a bullshit argument. Another one is that there's no
complaints that your current policies are not equitable. My personal experiences with the police here
I'm not going to explain it on record but I'm not going to complain like that because I've been
profiled. I've been defimated by the police here. So yeah if I'm being charged or something I'm not
going to go complain to the police and that's not just me that's many people of color here that's
many houses people here. So and kind of like taking us out of the bubble that we live here in Ashen a lot like
I'm sure you're all aware of the policies being passed and Washington DC right now who can be police
and what areas and who cannot that's exactly what is happening right here.
It's not just for houses people too. Our freedom of speech, ice being in our communities,
people to write to protest that is being under attack. If you're giving police the authority to
remove people based on their first amendment rights you're you're doing Trump's job for them for him.
You are giving the police more power on freedom of speech who can beware with no actual
convictions just authority from the police and I got 20 seconds. I'd also like now that I'm here
I've written you all multiple emails about our police department being in circles with ice.
I've asked you what kind of comments I can get from that. I haven't heard anything.
Our police department is in the same circles as ice and yeah I would just like a response to that. So
if you want Ashwin to be a police city do it but just reevaluate the values you say the city
of Ashwin has if you're going to do that. Thanks. Thank you. Paul Mozina. Followed by Debbie
nice wander. My name is Paul Mozina. I live in Ashwin. I like to call your attention again to the
to what happened at the recent budget process that 2025-2027 budget. The city of Ashwin
evaluated some important principles that counsel the mayor, the city administrator, the city attorney,
the police chief. And one of those is the oath of office that you took which was to support the city
charter. I just want to call your attention to what happened during that budget process and how
you violated the city charter. And I'm speaking about the mayor. I like to complete my thought.
Can I get some time back on my clock there? I'm being interrupted. I would appreciate it if you
could give him a little bit more time. I appreciate that. The Ashwin charter chapter eight section
six says proceedings to be public. No action by the council shall have legal effect unless the motion
for the action and the vote there on take place at proceedings open to the public. This council
amended the budget that was approved by the citizens budget committee. And that amendment process was not
open to the public. There was no public vote. I mean you had the discussion in public but there was no
motion or public vote to make that change. You made a decision and you did not have a vote or
a motion to make that decision. A chapter in section nine says vote required. Except as this charter
otherwise provides the concurrence of a majority of the members of council present at a council meeting.
She'll be necessary to decide any question before the council. You had a question before that council.
That was the funding for the childcare grant program. You debated it. You talked about it. You gave
instructions to the city administrator and then at the budget meeting on June 3rd you simply assumed
that the motion. In fact, the deputy administrator said the motion had actually been taken on this.
There was no motion. There was no vote. There was no public vote taken. You violated two important chapters
of the charter in the processing of that amendment to the CBC. I just want to make that clear.
There was no vote. The charter explicitly says there is no carve out for changes to the citizens budget
committee. There is no carve out there. You have to vote on every decision. There was no budget
was on the table. You decided to change it but you did not have a vote on that change. Every single
time a resolution comes from the council. When you want to change it, you vote on the amendment
and then you vote on the item as amended. I have a couple more seconds. You added time to your time
Mr. Mozina. I appreciate that. Thank you. Thank you very much. I really have a problem with the way
the long end of this. Thank you, Mr. Mozina. Mayor, point of order. Yes. I moved to suspend the rules.
Yes, I would like to address this. This has been coming up multiple times. Mr. Mozina has been
responded to on these claims. I would like an opportunity for the city attorney to respond
to this publicly so that this misinformation does not continue.
City attorney? Thank you, Mayor.
I'm just looking for the exact date. This has come up numerous times and it looks like
I'm trying to find the date here. On July 2nd, I responded.
To Mr. Museum, I will read that email as follows. I reviewed the email that you sit in City Council and provided by analysis back to them. I also had conversations with department heads and council members to address any follow-up questions they had. I will summarize very briefly for you.
My interpretation was that the study session relating to the principal subject of a financial update was a perfectly legitimate time to discuss financial questions pertaining to the budget.
Additionally, as a matter of state law, the absence of a subject from a notice does not preclude the governing body from discussing it.
Under the public meetings law, the list of anticipated subjects does not limit the ability of a governing body to consider additional subjects.
CMS192.640. By consensus, at a study session, the council may direct staff to act on other matters that do not require council decision by ordinance or resolution.
That comes from Ashland Municipal Code 2.04020C Section 1.
In this case, the budget resolution, or excuse me, in this case, the budget resolution that was noticed and eventually put forth had council's guidance and direction that included changes to not use the reserve fund
and rather to take it from the additional funds released from the parks fee and then reappropriate a portion from the homeless budget, which can get replenished as needed mid-year.
That is what council voted on at the budget adoption meeting.
There was no need for a motion to amend the budget because it was already discussed in prior sessions and included in the budget that they were presented to vote on.
Per budget law, after the budget committee has approved the budget and a public hearing was held, the City Council can make changes to the budget that was approved when adopting the budget.
They do not have to go back to the CBC if the expenditure is under 10%, which it was not.
That comes from the local management budget manual chapter 11 and also from ORS 294.456.
Council more than sufficiently discuss the change in previous council sessions and right before the public hearing.
So it was clear and transparent before they voted on the adopted budget.
Budget law provides that the budget council adopts can already have those changes in place and they can vote on it.
That is what occurred.
All members of the council and staff took your concerns seriously and I provided responses to them to address them and explain the legal approach.
Thank you for bringing your concerns to the attention of the council.
Thank you.
We will return to public forum.
Debbie Nicewander.
Debbie.
Okay.
Then Ashley Roberts.
Hello.
Yes.
I'm here to comment also on the proposed changes to the police's exclusions zones downtown.
So to the community.
The current exclusion zone ordinance downtown states that.
If the police identify a person that has three or more violation qualifying charges.
They have the authority to remove certain people from downtown and the police chief is trying to change it so that.
Police will have the authority to remove people if they just have certain violation charges without even being committed of a crime.
I have to speak honestly here this policy is absolutely unhinged and city council you need to understand this.
The exclusions own policies in place are already a violation of the constitutional right to exist in public spaces.
But with this, APD is trying to completely eliminate due process for unhoused people.
Most vulnerable members of our community is unhinged to propose giving APD the absolute power to remove whoever they want from the city without a criminal conviction.
Who will hold APD accountable? You have this list of violations that would justify removing people, but if there are no courts involved.
But we'll stop asking cops from just like lying and saying that people were committing violations on the list when it isn't true.
What will stop APD from just removing whoever they want from downtown?
Make no mistake, this is the exact same dynamic at play with Donald Trump and ICE.
Donald Trump is giving ICE the absolute power to remove anyone that they want from the country, stripping way due process and not allowing those targeted to defend themselves in a court of law.
City Council, you are in a position of power in which you could choose to do something to actually compassionately help the unhoused members of our community and instead of trying to make their suffering invisible in the name of property value.
You could remove the exclusion zones, move money and resources away from policing, and instead support other than space practices like harm reduction and affordable housing.
However, if you would instead approve this, you will be worsening policies that attempt to hide homelessness rather than address its root causes, and you will be voluntarily bringing Donald Trump's fascism and police violence to Afsland without him even asking you to do so.
Donald Trump is building concentration camps for immigrants and homeless people, but we'll do.
Thank you.
I will remind the audience that we do not have, we don't have shows of support in that way.
If you are supportive of something somebody says, the universal sign of applause for sign language is something that this entire council can see and it stays within the decorum of the meeting.
We now move the next people on our Kathy Bowen Jones followed by Maggie Thompson.
I'm sure there's been everyone else I guess.
Hi, I'm Kathy Bowen Jones and I've never done this before, but I taught high school at Asson High for 37 years and I guess the kids are probably if they're watching they're going, okay, she's got the timer that she gave us.
I'm here and I'm sure this is just a beginning and I will probably not say everything that I intend to, but I got into the city politics this year over the Castle Park subdivision and my great fear for fire safety.
I don't live there I own a home there that I rent to seniors and I live at the edge of the forest service.
I'm very grateful to someone who's in this audience, Chris Chambers, for guiding me and my husband to be fire wise for over the last 35 years.
I have a great fear that we're not doing enough in our community and that we're on a collision course with infill and fire safety and I think we've witnessed it intensely for the last five years all over the world.
And we can't ignore it and I'm not saying you need to fix it or our city administrators need to fix it or the planning commission needs to fix it.
I think our whole community needs to come together and I want to give you a model in my mind.
In the 1970s when the comprehensive plan was being planned for this community, I participated along with many other people in this community at Stevenson Union and there were great leaders in that room.
We were all at tables, it took almost a year, a very thoughtful and sometimes painful conversations because everybody knows better than everyone else what this community should look like.
But we all live here, we love each other and we do not want to see anyone in this community harm.
I do not feel it safe, I do not feel that what's happening in Castle Park is safe, I feel that we have a lot of communities that do not have two outlets of exit in this community and so I'm done but I would like you to think with your team about bringing more of us together without timers.
So we can be thoughtful together in a space and really get the work done that we do.
Maggie Thompson.
Hi, if I need to, I would see my time to my neighbor down the room because he wrote a letter and was supposed to be able to read it at this meeting tonight.
Is he not on your list, he's not on my list.
Well, he should be and I'll just step away and he can read his.
He's under the fire plan. Oh, he's he's signed up to speak later when we get to the community wildfire protection plan can we start her time.
Sorry.
This this sir this time is the public forum time was just for issues that are not on the agenda.
Okay, you're signed up for later on in the evening when we talk about the community wildfire protection plan.
Go ahead, man.
Mine is concerned about the Castro development too.
We live at the top of the hill right at the edge of where the grass is and my husband and I have a plan that when there's a level one evac having to do with the north mountain neighborhood we will be packed and gone.
Because there's no sense in sitting around and waiting to see if we can get the out get the hell out of our house, which is one block off of north mountain.
There are two exits out of the the Castro units below the mountain meadows units and the the high rises at mountain meadows where 227 people live.
All of that time I mean all of those people have to get out on mountain avenue and guess what mountain avenue is going to be bumper to bumper nobody's going to let you out.
So it's just it's just awesomely crazy to allow this dense infill that they're planning that Kyle Taylor is planning to build you know 20 feet away from all of the houses at the top.
With no new roads that add any access.
So we're really concerned about that.
Many of the people at mountain meadows and in the in the pharaohs neighborhood talk about well.
You know we'll just burn in place because many people don't drive anymore you know that people at mountain meadows don't have cars.
And they're you know they're walking with canes and walkers.
So the city really really needs to I feel rethink that density that Mister Taylor is being allowed to develop right behind all the mountain meadows houses at the top of the hill.
And I don't have anything more to say thank you.
Thank you.
So we've postponed the public hearing and also the second reading on our agenda so we move now to the emergency shelter contract agreement or amendment.
Sabrina.
Thank you mayor tonight director flurry is here to talk about the contract for the construction of the 2200 Ashland Street facility.
If you remember council gave direction to include several things one was to make it permanently usable for a severe weather shelter.
The other was to include showers, laundry and storage so tonight we have before you the construction contract to move forward.
Post the design phase currently we're still on track to be open in November for the winter weather for the severe weather shelter.
And with that I'll hand it over to Scott presentation complete.
Before the council tonight is a request to approve a construction contract amendment without liar construction company for emergency shelter upgrades to 2200 Ashland Street.
Is part of your responsibility as the local contract review board will get into some of the details of what the project plans for improvement to meet code requirements.
And to facilitate its opening based on the master plan recommendations.
So here is a general timeline of what's transpired over the last couple years.
The shelter was acquired in 2023.
It was used as a low barrier shelter in that winter then an ad hoc committee was established and developed a master plan of which the council accepted that master plan.
Those guiding recommendations in the master plan were then used by staff to develop the solicitation documents for progressive design build project to upgrade the shelter to meet building code requirements, including fire life safety requirements.
Then money's were requested in the budget process that council approved as well.
So we have performed the solicitation and that was approved by the legal department and as I said it was a progressive design build and we did it that way in order to facilitate the kind of narrow timeframe.
And for those who don't know a design build project brings on mechanical electrical plumbing engineers civil site engineers architects and the construction contractor and they all work together to develop a schematic design and construction documentation.
Or the planned improvements. And then, once they developed those construction documents of which we submitted to the building department, the building department has reviewed those and approved those for a building permit.
The contractor develops what they call a guaranteed maximum price. And as part of that guaranteed maximum price, that covers all of the construction activities planned to upgrade that facility.
So we've gone through those steps currently. And that's what's before the council tonight is that construction cost amendment to our base schematic design and construction document contract that we approved internally as part of this process.
Now, as the city manager said, the improvements are developing new restroom facilities with the shower, new laundry facilities, washer and dryer facilities in the building itself.
And these facilities per the code allow a certain level of occupancy within the building.
So the main portion of the shelter and what we call the garage area was designed to allow for an occupant load overnight load of 32 occupants with two shelter staff.
There's also two overflow areas designed and the facility as well that can allow another 22 occupants and two more additional staff.
Potentially requiring additional outside restroom facilities and shower facilities as part of that.
The code I believe it is nine people per shower or nine people per restroom and 10 people per shower vice versa. And so that's what they used to establish those occupancy loads for the building.
And also to meet fire life safety requirements, they'll be the installation fire sprinklers throughout the whole facility itself.
And then as part of our design process, we talked about alternate additions into the design scope.
And the first alternate addition is the adding of a new HBA system to provide for adequate heating and cooling in the primary garage shelter area.
The current units are undersized and don't provide adequate heating and cooling for the whole facility. So the recommendation is part of that design process was to add an additional unit.
And part of the other scope is to recommend to replace two of the existing units that are essentially end of life.
They were installed in 93 and there's concern of keeping those going and having a catastrophic failure at some point knowing our luck during when the shelters open.
So the recommendation is to replace those.
There'll be new ADA access from the exterior so ADA parking.
It will be leveled at grade and ADA access into the facility itself.
And so as I said, we've received the code review approval from the building department.
And the building permit has also been approved.
All of the documentation has been submitted by architect Nalaya and been reviewed by our building official and greenlighted for the next phase of construction.
And so that's what brings us here tonight for contract approval for that construction phase.
So here's a look at the overall building layout.
It was in your packet as you can see and what we call the garage area.
There's the addition of the fire riser room for the fire sprinkler structure, a restroom with shower facility, a washer and dryer outside that restroom kind of a utility kitchen area.
And then the actual open space shelter area.
There's a firewall break between that garage area and the main portion of the building that's accessed through a door.
And then within that middle section of the building, they are restructuring the existing restrooms to allow for an additional restroom.
So we go from two restrooms in the facility to four always showers and two of them or three of them are ADA accessible restrooms.
And then the addition of a washer and dryer within the main body of the facility and then also kind of a galley style kitchen within that facility.
And then you can see there's two areas that allow for additional overflow common area here in the main space and the common area here to the east.
And then all the offices you know are available for potential other uses for the facility itself and then is part of the project will supply storage lockers for storage of anything that gets brought into the shelter when it's operational.
And as I said as part of the structure of the contract we talked about those alternates and one of the alternates was the addition of a new HVAC system.
To provide for adequate heating and cooling.
The other addition was to run underground utility to what we call kind of an RV pedestal that could be potentially used in the future for laundry shower restroom hook up RV style to the west of the facility itself and what would be kind of the grass area itself.
And so we broke it out into potential options for the council to discuss the base guaranteed maximum price is the facility improvements themselves the ADA the fire the laundry the restrooms and that's the 856000.
The addition of 60,000 for the new HVAC unit would bring you to 917 and the addition of the HVAC system and the RV pedestal with power would bring you up to that 947 amount.
And I think really that's kind of nuts and bolts I know there'll be some questions about the system and.
We're trying to still meet that kind of November timeframe to open up the facility so.
We are tight on the schedule from outliers perspective to meet that, but they are working with their sub consultants and their vendors to kind of hold to that schedule as part of the silver all process.
Thank you, Mayor. Thanks, Scott. I appreciate that a couple questions. I think you partially answered my second one right then, which was.
I'll just phrase it this way. What would you say is the probability of it completing or what is.
You said by November so I was going to ask when would it be ready to go, but you said potentially November and so maybe I'll just look for a probability of that number two is is I'm in this to the best you know.
It's a heating and cooling shelter. Why was heating and cooling in option or an alternate. I think that when that just be like table stakes.
Yeah, so what we found out when they looked at the existing units and talked to their contractor.
They decided that the existing structure the units didn't provide the level of cooling and heating of today standards in that garage area.
And so that was the recommendation to add an additional unit. It is it does have heat and cool in it. There's two registers that feed that garage area.
But based on the size of the facility itself and the existing units there.
HVAC system contractor recommended an additional unit to bring it up to what we would say today standards are.
And then when we first began this discussion we didn't anticipate replacing the existing units, but our facility staff made that recommendation because they are from 1983.
And then our concern as I said of a system failure, you know, when they are loaded during winter at any time and then we have a non operational unit and we're kind of scrambling on a temporary basis to add space heaters to the facility well we try to go out and get fits to replace the existing system.
So that's why that was added in is part of that design process.
It's for the schedule. The RFP determined or laid out November 1st was the anticipated opening date of the facility itself.
I think right now based on our discussions with outlier we could probably be potentially based on the outcome tonight within one to two weeks of that.
I have to talk to them about schedule two because there are probably some things that they could do while the shelter could potentially be open that wouldn't impact operations.
There's probably some logistics that we can work on from facility improvements that would still allow that.
Great. Thank you so much.
Yeah. Thank you.
So my question is kind of run budget. So once construction is completed, there's obviously operational expenses associated and those aren't really optional right.
So you've got utilities, janitorial, supervision, security, facility management.
If we move forward, those become permanent obligations.
So my question is how much will this cost operate before we commit nearly a million dollars to finish building on? Do we have estimates on that?
So our intent would be to contract with a service provider like we've done before. So we do have money budget for that. We currently pay for and have budget for the utilities, the phone line, etc.
So I think those costs depending on the partnerships that we develop for the other side of the building beyond the severe weather shelter are kind of two be determined.
And my recommendation would be that there is an agreement with whoever is in that building and part of that cost, obviously it's going to be paid by them as lissers or utilizers of the space.
Quick follow up.
Okay. So trying to understand that. So it's let's build it. Then we'll figure out how much the budget is going to be. We'll figure out what money we can get out of providers that would pay to rent spaces.
And that money would be coming out of our homelessness fund, essentially, right? So that money then wouldn't be able to be used for other services or other potential options to help the unhoused.
Correct.
So that would be, you know, council's discretion. So right now that money is used for kind of infrastructure on the dusted online and then for contracting for severe weather shelter.
So we're going all in on this and then that's.
And if I may, the council has already made the decision to move forward with this, which is what the contracting element is.
The reason that staff has done this design work and engaged in this contract with this construction company is because this council directed them to do that.
And the next step in this process is the the the second ad hoc committee that is being put put forward.
They're going to be looking at the larger property and the rest of the facilities that will be built around it.
But as you can see from this design that we have here, there are a number of offices that have been protected in their current state so that other providers can come in.
I think that that maybe maybe it would be good to speak to what that process will be to to identify what service providers will be offered space in that.
Building.
Yeah, I think using the ad hoc plan for the site, right, the city would look to, you know, RFP or work with our partners to identify services that are not currently here that should be here.
Or I know that there is some need for more space from some of the service providers that are already here.
So there would be, you know, a formal use agreement because legal is sitting here.
You know, formal documents that would outline, you know, expectations about the use of the building, as well as the cost of, you know, being in that space.
Put in clarification.
Mayor of Santa, so that you said, yeah, we agreed to look at this, but this council could decide that this is the satisfactory and not vote on this contract.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Councillor Kaplan.
Great.
Thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
And thank you, Scott.
When we, I mean, we bought this, we purchased this building now two, two years ago.
And we knew that there is going to be, it was for the specific purpose of severe weather shelter and other services that could be provided for.
Or, uh, emergencies or for, uh, most services as you can invest decision by the council at that point.
We knew there were going to be, there is going to be some needed infrastructure improvements and then also some operating costs associated with that.
But we decided that we needed to do that.
So I really appreciate, um, you coming forward today with this contract and really working creatively to try to find a way to get it done, you know, is low, at a lower cost is possible.
And also it's quickly as possible to make sure that it's available for this next winter.
I mean, I'm very focused on making sure that this gets, uh, the garage space, which will be more than a garage space.
We have a lot nicer than just a garage space like it was last time.
We'll be available when the cool weather gets really cold.
Again, according to this council's direction and resolution of to open us severe weather shelter when the temperature dips below 32 degrees.
Um, so my, my question really is about the heating and cooling facility in the, uh, in the shelter space.
The first, the primary shelter space with the formerly garage space, I'll call it.
Um, that's a new unit.
We had a conversation about this.
That's a new unit because, uh, the existing units are, uh, the medical engineers determined that that they're working pretty hard to try to get their,
that this space is heated, um, heated or cooled.
Um, but we have a, um, administrative policy in this city that says that we don't put in, um, natural gas, uh, fuel equipment that emits carbon.
Um, and the, that's been spec that particular unit has been spec to be a natural gas unit because the other two units are natural gas.
So my question really is, what would it do they all need to be the same?
Could we spec that new unit?
That is a new unit.
It's not, you know, there yet.
Could we not add to our carbon footprint by specing.
That with a high efficiency electric heat pump system instead of a natural gas unit. That's my first question.
Yeah, we can partition that structure out, and look at have outlier work with their HVAC engineers to develop inspect a heat pump for the additional cooling and heating needs for the facility.
What the electrical loading would look like and the electrical connections for that is a kind of a stand alone process.
So right now is part of this. We have this guarantee maximum price on get into the weeds a little bit here.
But some of these things are not fully and formally designed. It's a system. It's a hot water heater.
It's this and this. The subcontractors then formally designed what that component looks like and how it gets installed.
And then they take it from there and get it permanent. So we can look at it as the one unit could be a stand alone package.
And so that alternate would be $60,000 to add that additional unit. The cost for electric versus natural grass in the basic equipment of the system is relatively similar.
Your additional cost is going to be the electrical wiring and conduit and any sort of upgrades to the panel that would be required.
So for one unit it would be relatively small and we still need to work through the cost thing without layer on that.
I know that and speaking with them to do all three.
The cost would be generally the same for the equipment, but you're looking at 85,000 to do the electrical system upgrades.
And that's kind of a surface level look panel up grades, conduit upgrades, some demolition that would need to occur in the facility to run that conduit to all three locations for those units.
So we can partition that out for sure and task outlier with one and then work as a side stream on the other two potential moving forward.
They operate, you know, and maybe that's one of those logistic things that those don't get changed out, you know, by that November first deadline, we have adequate heating and cooling install with that third unit for the garage base.
And then the other two get replaced outside of kind of our schedule threshold that we've established.
Yeah, thanks, thanks God, that's helpful.
I know that there's also currently an electric hot water heater in the building.
You had a conversation about this.
There's minimal water heating needs in the current space.
There are three water sinks that have hot water.
So the part of the spec is to actually put in a larger water heater that can heat the showers as well.
And I know that you told me earlier that that's not not been spec yet whether that's electric or or gas that that could also be, that could also be spec to be an electric as well in order to comply with our administrative policy not to use carbon emitting equipment in the building.
That could be speced as an electric hot water heater and it's hard with this little pointer here, but yeah.
And that green storage area is the design plants called the utility closet and that's where the new hot water heater will go.
And so this area where the bathrooms and showers are going is all going to get reconstructed with new electrical and plumbing.
So it would be, you know, in line with kind of the project scope to run power to power an electric water heater in that utility closet, we just need to provide outlier with directions so that they can provide their subs with that direction.
And then just to follow it, which would save also if it's not gas, you don't need to perforate the membrane the the ceiling and then the membrane roof in order to do an exhaust.
Yeah, you would need the venting would need the venting for an electric.
And then as I have one tiny little thing, there's a door that's been bothering me, I don't it seems like a door to nowhere.
And if you can see it on there, just above the on the west and the garage side, just above the green storage, there's a door where does that go?
It seems to go into a little closet from the outside.
That's the fire riser for the sprinkler system.
So they're installing a fire vault outside the parking lot area and running the fire line into the building to a fire riser and from there it goes to the sprinkler system.
Throughout the whole facility, it's not an egress door.
No, it's it's a utility closet.
Okay, thank you very much.
And this is kind of the schematic design.
The one the permit drawings in your packet is part of that guarantee get into more of those details of what gets installed in those locations.
Thank you.
Councillor Hansen.
Thank you, Mayor.
Thank you, Scott.
This is the this is the design.
I think that that checks the boxes.
You know, there's offices for regional partnerships.
You know, it meets.
It meets what we ask for.
I appreciate the attention to detail and meeting our climate goals and focusing on fuel sources.
I think that's important and I appreciate you bringing up that in the conversation.
I'm curious though, with with the new heating and air system, are we going to be able to filter the air?
I know that the heating and cooling shelter is something that are other vulnerable populations.
The house are going to be visiting our heating and cooling shelter and during smoke season.
I think it's going to be super important that we have our infrastructure in.
What are your questions?
Are you keen to hit the filters or whatever kind of air filtration system we need to do to make this.
You know, truly a disaster resilient.
Those sort of I know it from city practice.
So what we've done in the past from a city operational standpoint is during smoke season when we do have smoke in the valley as we change out all the filters within the city facilities.
I think they're called Mer 4 filters.
So they have a finer micron filtration point that filters out more particular matter in the system.
So that's kind of our basic operating protocols to install those filters during smoke season when we have smoke in the valley.
So that would be the same for this facility, you know, from our facility operational standpoint.
And we haven't discussed, you know, truly like an air purification filtration system is part of that.
We're kind of falling back to managing it through the appropriate installation of filters.
Okay. I'm just wondering if there's a there's a heat pump system that has filtration.
And if not, it it already has an HVAC system which can monitor to a certain extent air quality.
But I would just like to put that on the on the list.
And then my second question is the pad.
I was here January 1st, 97 and hyped up to count wells to get water from the National Guard when we had our flood.
And when I when I think of the pad and I think of this new ad hoc committee that's going to be paying attention to the exterior and the opportunities that this facility might have for residents and and you know greater emergency.
I'm just wondering is the is the pad.
Intended to be like, you know, base camp for for natural disaster resiliency hub or is is you know, I'm just wondering if we should if we should, you know, either take it off the board or put it on the board with a little bit more.
Infrastructure or just could you describe what the intention is of that pad.
So there's our V pads a little different than like, you know, resiliency hub.
There's there's two components one, you know, the intent as part of the base price is to have the utility for that installed to the exterior wall.
The additional price is actually trench across the parking lot to install that riser.
When we talked about it with outlier the overall intent, I think, and the city manager can correct me if I'm wrong, but was to provide for a higher level of ability to.
Meander through a bigger emergency event by having additional resources be able to connect the utilities and one of the things we talked about is what if we have firefighters that need to camp there.
We need to bring in a shower trail and laundry trailer. That could be parked there and hooked up and utilized during a bigger emergency operation.
Sounds like you're checking that box with that's one of the discussions that we had during this design phase for that is looking at the bigger picture of potential use for that facility.
We've talked about it as a hub for storing water bottles and things like that food and things like that for a bigger emergency.
So people can circle in and pick up things and come in and out of the facility itself if we were to have some larger scale emergency event.
Okay. I know this facility isn't going to do everything we wanted to do, but if we're going to spend the money on it, I'm glad to hear that those conversations are happening.
So thank you and thank you staff.
Councillor Dickie.
Thank you.
Okay.
I appreciate the conversation that was had about the AVAC and HVAC system.
And I remember our meetings in that building and I was freezing to death.
So the air conditioning works well.
So something I had some questions on this really quick when I looked at this first off.
Something that was mentioned before this property was purchased in 2023 via the grant that had the criteria that this building has to be used for the unhoused.
And having this in that capacity, this building is going to be an emergency a severe weather shelter, correct?
Okay. So I just wanted to put that out there and it is not going to be opioid recovery center, correct?
So the intent, you know, council's direction was severe weather shelter.
Yes.
And then the direction for the building really where staff wins with the designers and I appreciate their attention to this is to make a building that's as flexible for use as possible.
Because I think there's still ongoing discussion with the ad hoc and with council and the opportunities to partner.
And so the design of the building is really to allow for the severe weather shelter, allow for overflow in emergencies, allow for it to be used as an emergency center if we need to.
It is not going to be a method on clinic or anything like that.
But I think, you know, it's to be determined what social services are going to be in that building.
And I heard mentioned prior about regional partners. We have 10 offices in this building.
And I know we are having a new ad hoc committee in the prior ad hoc committee had mentioned working with regional partners in these office spaces.
So sending out the RFP, I don't know if that's going to come to the community or if it's just going to stay within the realm of the ad hoc committee.
Who will be given an opportunity and ask to be in one of these offices?
I do, I believe it's very important that we're transparent and let the community know that these are the regional partners that we are considering or that we have asked to occupy one of these offices.
I think that's important.
Are we considering that or is it going to be in the ad hoc? Is it going to come to council? What is that going to look like?
So it would probably be a similar request for proposal but the city would publicize that we're looking for partners to utilize that space.
Using the master plan for the space as a parameters and a new additional things that might come out of the second phase of the ad hoc to kind of guide what we're doing in that building.
Before they go out would the ad hoc or council or the community members know what regional partners we're looking at?
Oh, it assumes so. I don't know why not.
I would hope so. I think that's important because I want us to have open conversation and communication with the neighboring community to let them know that this is the direction we're going in.
And I also wanted to mention that the previous ad hoc committee had talked about when I look at providing utilities to outdoor shower trailers.
And one thing that and I heard you mentioned Scott that if it was an emergency and we had to have firefighters come down and be housed in this building.
Having additional showers and what it's permitted for now. But in a state of emergency just like when the governor brought down the state of emergency when we first acquired this building and we didn't we had no egress, no fire, no smoke detectors or anything.
We were allowed to have additional people in that space. I'm thinking that in case of an emergency and we did have to open it up for other use such as firefighters that looking at seven people per shower 10 people would super see the the emergency would super see that.
And I say that to say that the previous ad hoc committee, one thing that they stressed with strong importance is to have all plumbing indoors.
To have no showers, no toilets, no porta potties out of doors for many reasons for the community around 2,200 and for the privacy of the unhoused.
I don't support that. I also see that we're already 86,000 and some change over budget. If we adhere to just sticking to what we have, and I appreciate the suggestion of the HVAC and upgrades and the bells and whistles, but right now, I think it's important to use this building as it was purpose to be.
I don't see looking at everything that's hitting the people right now, the general fund right now, I believe we should keep it simple and stick to what's in front of us.
Can you do have a question?
So my question was about just the purpose of the utilities out of doors. I just wanted to make that point about the previous ad hoc question.
So on here it says that we anticipate receiving a 100,000 to 300,000 K in the years to follow from the money, and is that kind of a ballpark. Can you tell us how much money we are receiving now and what that looks like?
So we have a guaranteed 230,000 to come in still for 25, 26, but there are two more settlements that just happened and so I'm unsure of that dollar amount that will be coming, but there will be additional funds from those two settlements as well.
And with that money, be used to go towards some concerns from Councilor Bloom, what he mentioned.
Sorry could you specify some of the concerns that Councilor Bloom mentioned was how will we pay for the management of this and utilities and things like that?
Well, that money go towards the additional.
So as long as it falls under the exhibit that allows for the use of that money, it can be used for that.
Thank you. Thank you. So I have a couple of follow-up questions kind of in that same line of the of the RV hookup.
So the ad hoc committee that is forming now that we just finished the appointments for this evening.
One of their primary element is going to be looking at what else to do with the property and I know that the first ad hoc committee had identified some sort of more permanent housing on that site in the rest of that property.
So to what extent does that pedestal limit what can be done on that site?
It would just be the electrical service.
So you're looking at probably a 50 amp electrical service to the one pedestal in that water service, so a half inch water feed line.
So it does limit your ability if you're looking at a greater expense for use of the facility.
You would want to look at up-sizing those utilities out into that area or another area on the site that might be used for something outside of a hookup.
But we would have to plan for the potential of a trailer out there in terms of if there's housing on there's not very much land is what I'm suggesting.
So it sounds to me if I understand you correctly that if we put the pedestal in we will interfere in some way with the potential for the rest of the build out of the property is that correct.
It could based on sizing needs in the future yes.
And then I saw the mention of the portable toilets and I understand from the ratios that when you have a certain number of people in the severe weather shelter you need to have a certain number of toilet facilities for them.
How does that work where where what is a portable toilet work because we wouldn't know until we were right on that emergency that we would need an additional toilet or two.
Well that would be one of the that's one of the things we talked about throughout this process and counselor do changes reference it if we are in a declared emergency.
Then we have some leeway and some flexibility about the number of people that we could put in that facility with the existing.
So there are a lot of opportunities within it without having to bring in additional shower and restaurant facilities that could be hooked up on a temporary basis.
I think our thought when we started this was a grander scale emergency a community based emergency that would require more items out there for use from community members you know people like I said you know firefighters and things like that using that facility is kind of a emergency related hub.
So that's yeah I think that that's where we kind of ended up with what you see before you tonight as far as the design.
So I think if I could give a scenario so last winter we declared an emergency during the blizzard we went over the capacity of the building to allow people to be in there.
So in a similar situation we could do that again and use the toilets that are at the facility.
Now if there's an extended emergency such as a wildfire or a flood where we have community members or you know wild and firefighters staying there.
For multiple days or weeks we're going to need to bring in portable services because quite frankly it's just not going to work for that number of people.
So okay that helps me understand we so you say declaring an emergency it can also be a locally declarative emergency doesn't have to be a state or federal declarative emergency.
I believe that's how we discussed it the building official yes.
So when we look at this with our existing toilet and shower facilities we could in fact accommodate the full.
What is house by math.
54 with the two overflow areas without having to suddenly scramble for a for port of bodies or some sort of temporary toilet under that emergency.
We just have to declare a local emergency in order to do that.
There's you know.
Actually used to be considered and so if it's an emergency more than two or three days we're going to bring in portable services.
Okay council.
Thank you.
So my and I appreciate that it was going to be one of my questions and that that does help so now kind of moving on to this.
They use the opioid dollars and I really appreciate the worth it's been done contacting the state and kind of finding out where we stand with that.
It would be allowable other cities are doing it.
Unfortunately in the last two years of having to deal with this building.
The states lied to us before they've tried to move the goal post on us and so I understand that there is a potentiality that that could happen.
And in that case we would have to expand the kind of opioid addiction treatment of facilities that the state would then require.
Am I wrong in that legal that that is a possibility.
The state moves the goal post at some point sure that's always a possibility.
However, you know we've talked about this I think to be totally honest I think we're getting a little bit out of the scope of this contract vote.
Right now you're acting as a contract approval board and and I understand your question.
So answer it in this way to the extent I can.
And it kind of ties into Councillor Dickens question so that will actually be a better way to answer it.
So the previous ad hoc committee had talked about you know appropriate uses for the property and that included.
Appropriate ways to help people meet the needs for transitional housing including bridge housing and appropriate spaces for training and meetings relating to housing and homeless services.
That ties directly into exhibiting of the opioid use.
Settlement funds which is comprehensive wraparound services to sub.
Individuals including housing transportation education job placement job training or child care.
Those are very broad and I think they could be interpreted by our community partners everyone's going to say they fit that need.
So I think we would be well within those that exhibit under that regard.
Providing employment trading or educational services hiring social workers training behavior health workers.
There are so many things under that exhibit that this shelter could potentially be used for and therefore appropriate use those funds.
So I feel very confident that unless they just completely say we're not giving this away.
If you look at the information set out to council which lists the numerous ways that people have used this and it's been approved and has gone through.
This falls smacked out of the middle of all of them. So I feel very confident in the work that we've done to make sure that we're using this funds appropriately.
Thank you.
Councillor Schell.
Thank you, Mayor.
I appreciate it Scott. Thank you for your time and bringing this forward. I've got about four or five questions that are really direct in their like building specific construction related.
And value.
Have we had an appraisal do we have any idea what kind of contributory value this investment makes and the reason I asked that is because a lot of what I'm hearing about this building in the whole process leading up to today is negative.
And if we have to cut our losses and potentially divest in this building potentially at a loss is this million dollar approximate investment going to give us a contributory value.
Have we had any appraisal at all to the construction?
Not what I would say a real estate analysis on valuation of improvements relative to the base appraisal number.
So we have not looked at that.
I think our goal when we started this process was to just maintain the maximum flexibility and use of the facility with set improvements recommended by the ad hoc.
But we haven't done kind of a real estate analysis with a commercial broker giving having them give us their best idea of what it would do to the facility itself.
In your opinion of overseeing facilities do you think this million dollar investment is going to be a good investment into this asset?
For continued operation for the city of what we talked about I feel like it will be.
It provides the benefit of what the discussion for the master plan ad hoc committee has brought forward.
While still allowing flexible use of the space allowing other people to come in into provide services and lease out that space for those services.
And then there's still future expansion area and changes that could be had based on additional recommendations that come out of additional discussions.
Copy and then as far as the HVAC is it just an HVAC contractor I mean.
Outliers are reputable company.
They're respective here, but is it their engineer and their HVAC contractor saying yes from 93 upgrade it or have we done any data tests like temperature tests have we checked the refrigerant.
What type of refrigerant is it can we still get it like do we have some data that says we need to replace it because we find often in construction is if the older stuff lasts a long time and the new products we're installing today.
Don't have the same legs so have we had any data to support that we have it as better let's just get new stuff based on the age of the system and the loading required you know with HVACs and I'm not an expert by any means but.
The higher the load that you put on the system the more used the faster they burn out over time and with this system being from 93 and being of its age.
We've seen this on our own facility side that they will just kick the bucket and then as I said your scrambling to get a replace kind of under an emergency basis and then you're paying a higher you know front end.
To expedite especially for operating as a city and emergency shelter but we haven't done any any sort of test on the system itself copy do more.
Have we if we were to compare again super respectable company a lot of confidence in them but if we were to look at the contract we currently have with outlier downtown can we say that they're staying on budget and on time schedule because that's a good comparator to the work we're about to take on.
And the lift we're going to take at 2200 so I did actually look at bid tab from community center pioneer hall to cross compare a couple of items.
And in the bid tab in your GMP they kind of align with the previous pricing we've seen especially on the HVAC system units and you know some of the fit and finishes work that are proposed and side 2200 so.
Generally lines with what I've looked at cross comparison and then timelines and as well.
The timeline was extended for community center because we had the Mac and some additional structural renovations so.
Piner Hall was completed within about a month and a half of the original anticipated finished date which was slowed down by our process primarily and some lead time issues that came up.
And in the community center it's been delayed a couple more months because the additional structural work but I still think that there was confidence when we originally started this that they could finish on that schedule.
That we anticipated for those facilities outside of potentially as you know some lead time issues that come up on procurement for equipment that drag the schedule down.
So if we give outlier the green light they already have all of their procurement ready to send out to their subs and give them the green light to start that process in order to kind of hold that November first target in place.
Awesome thank you that was a good answer to that in the last question I have is not a dig to staff it's not a dig to this building it's just like are we building a checklist based on the pressures we're facing now to use to do due diligence on the next building before we go buy it like all these meetings of the mind to go test the HVAC and to look at these systems like we should be having before we make the purchase.
Not two years down the road so again not a dig to staff like everybody's doing the best they can with what's in front of them are we building a checklist so we don't get in a similar pickle where.
The committees people and the emails and everybody's asking us all these like pretty good questions and we're like we're trying.
So I'll interrupt and say that that's a question for the city manager.
Yeah I think the purchase of this building obviously was a different time two years ago so I think there's a lot of lessons learned but I don't foresee as.
anywhere in the near future being in a similar situation in terms of procuring a building that being said I think we can do it better next time.
Great thank you both appreciate that.
Thank you mayor and yes being just.
This four days over two years ago, when we made this vote, I can assure you I wish I would have thought about fire sprinklers when we had that vote, and I did, and I kicked myself every day for that.
Carmel, thank you for stepping up, because this one's for you. This is kind of along the same lines as the city attorney talked about, kind of opposite, though, it is you had written in here in the packet about the proposed renovation, and I'll read it.
The question at the end of this, where you said, the cross system service center is intended to act as a central point for collaborative cross system coordination, which is a crucial strategy for preventing over-prescribing, addressing opioid misuice, and supporting individuals with OEDN, co-occurring disorders, planned upgrades, including sleeping and shower.
A lot of people will enable this center to provide comprehensive wrap-around services in a continuum of care for vulnerable populations affected by the opioid crisis by co-locating various services and resources.
The city will facilitate connections, the treatment, recovery, housing, and other essential support systems, thereby addressing the goals of the opioid abatement and community support specified in the settlement agreement.
I don't know what that means.
You simplify that and give me examples, because what I feel like is, I appreciate, despite best efforts and all the hard work for staff.
I feel like we're building this plan as we're flying it, and just even tonight I felt it's real creepy, just really crept in.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Help me dial this in.
Can I just real quick before Carmel goes through detaining answer?
I just want to point out that we're already doing this by contrast. Excuse me.
With aura and road retreat.
If you're doing all that?
Yes.
Okay.
Yes. Thank you for calling out my, I guess, legally user, perhaps a two verbose of an answer.
I mean, I think some of it really, I mean, my analysis.
It also really goes back to what the city attorney spoke about was taking a very close look at exhibit e.
And what you'll find in exhibit e, which was the, which is basically the outline for cities for how that how cities,
and other counties, people, entities that have agreed to partner in the use of opioid funds.
It's, it's like, it's very specific and broad at the same time.
And that is sort of, in my reading of the document and my kind of understanding of the opioid crisis is that it's broad on purpose,
because the people who suffer from opioid abuse have need a variety of care options.
And so the terms of the settlement were written kind of broad on purpose.
There are some, so that, so I think the long language was sort of my attempt to try and summarize exhibit e.
That answered it.
Okay. Thank you.
Councillor Henson.
Thank you. One more question about the emergency part of the emergency shelter.
Are we putting in a generator plug on the outside?
Power goes out. City has generators everywhere.
It seems like we're doing all this upgrade work.
We need to have some sort of ability to hook up to a generator.
We haven't talked about transfer switch installation on the exterior of the building where the panel is,
but that's something that I can raise with outliers part of the process so you could plug in.
We do have trailer amount of generators in the city infrastructure that are used in other locations that could be deployed,
potentially to provide backup power to the facility.
So I can raise that without liars part of the discussion.
Since if they move forward with panel upgrades and electrical changes that something that could potentially be easily slipped into that portion of the work.
Right. Thank you very much.
Appreciate that.
Councillor Kaplan.
Yeah. Thanks, Mayor.
Scott, I'm trying to move towards, I'm trying to craft a motion.
It's better to need a little bit of help because where I'm going.
If is I'd like to, I'm going to try to create a motion that improves the contract amendment as we're talking about.
The first, the HFAC upgrades for the main building, main part of the building,
but includes a separate HFAC system for the main shelter area.
And my problem is, what's the amount not to exceed that?
So I would look at it from a contracting flexibility side of things because if you look through the GMP everything is itemized per a bullet and it's a mount.
We can cross things off that list and add things to it.
So you would be generally to provide us the ability to have those conversations allow outlier to do their work.
Get bits back from the sub and refine those numbers.
You would look at the alternate one motion.
And what we do as part of the contracting process is do reconciliation throughout the structure.
So say, outlier finishes a scope item and it came in under budget by $500.
Then there's a change request that credits our contract amount by that $500.
If a budget item goes over by $500, we do a change request to process that addition for $500.
And so it's a continuous balancing of reconciling the amounts for each one of those bid items throughout the whole process.
And that's how we've done the community center.
We've had credits and we've had debts as part of each one of the scope items that get reconciled.
So if we have that I'll just say that 917 amount that gives us the ability to let them go look at that other unit.
We pause the two new units.
So just for reference the new unit would be 60,000 plus the electrical work.
A replacement of the two existing units is anticipated to cost 80,000.
So you have kind of that balance there of washing those two out with a little bit of additional money for potentially the electrical upgrades that might be required that we haven't looked at yet.
The change if they anticipated the hot water heater under the original scope to be gas to change that to electric.
And there's just from a contracting flexibility a little bit more granted to staff to maneuver through that process.
Councillor Dickens.
Thank you.
I know we're kind of going back and forth for Carmel this once for you.
I'm looking at exhibit E and it says lays out the variety of ways that recipient can comply with the terms of the settlement.
Regarding the opioid fund.
So if looking at the 10 offices that are a 2200, if there was a regional provider that assisted, it was a resource and could direct people to go to A, B or C location to get treatment.
Would that satisfy that need?
Yes.
And that's a great example of speaking to the flexibility that the settlement really wanted cities to have in helping treatment, which is a lot of times partnerships.
I want to express the importance that we adhere to the ad hoc committee, the previous ad hoc committee, because I was one of the liaisons and one thing that they really stressed was using this as a weather shelter.
That's what it was got.
The grant was written for that.
That's what it is.
And so I want to really stress the importance of hearing and listening to our community.
Thank you Carmel for your answer.
Any remaining questions?
Councillor Schwell.
Thank you.
This is probably for city attorney.
Do we have any pre-payment penalty on the private debt that we hold?
Do we have any debt on this building still?
Yes.
I believe we have a private note for 20 years.
Do we have a pre-payment penalty?
If we have to bail out of this and sell this asset to recover funds, because it doesn't work, we build it.
Nobody comes or we have whatever problems the goalposts move, can we get out of the debt if we had to?
Yeah.
We just have to pay it off.
Without penalty?
Yes.
Copy.
Thanks.
Are there any final questions?
The floor is open for a motion.
Councillor Caffin?
I moved to approve the contract amendment without a large construction company.
For the Emergency Shelter Upgrade Project, pausing the replacement of the two existing HVAC units,
including a separate HVAC system for the primary severe weather shelter space,
not to exceed $17,000 toward your paid dollars.
Is there a second?
For lack of a second, the motion fails.
The floor is open for a motion.
Councillor Hansen?
Thank you.
I moved to approve the contract amendment with Outwire Construction Company for the Emergency Shelter Upgrade Project,
including Alternates 1 and 2 in an amount to not exceed $947,000,000, $936.
Second.
Councillor Hansen?
Thank you.
I appreciate my colleagues amendment or motion.
But I'm really interested in the ultimate flexibility of this property, having been through
a couple of natural disasters here in Ashland.
I think it is a wise investment for our community.
I know that this is going above and beyond, perhaps, the Emergency Shelter minimum mandate.
But we have invested enough in this resource that I feel that it's important for us to take
it to the next level.
I'm really distressed that we didn't have our Shelter in hand for last winter.
And I realized that staff were tired and now here we are.
I'm glad to hear that we can try to get in there by November.
And that's my primary concern is can we get in there by November and I'm glad that we're here.
So I hope that something passes tonight, if not this, one of the other amendments,
because that's the most important thing.
I love the plan.
I love the ability for services and to help our unhoused community.
Get those services and get the help that they need ultimately housing.
So for those reasons, and for all the work that's put into this, I think that is the best-wise investment
for the city to go for both the alternatives.
And that's why I support this.
Why I'm making this motion.
Can't trust you out.
Yeah, thank you, Mayor.
I could have supported either motion I think, but I think there is going to be an economy of scale
if we do this job.
Let's do the best we can while we're in there.
So we don't have any callbacks.
And I hope we're not taking longer and costing more.
Councillor Blue.
Yes, I moved to amend the motion to add directions to staff to do the following before the building
becomes operational.
The no shower laundry trailer will be allowed unless in the event of a city wide emergency
that there will be no camping or outdoor lodging unless with the express permission of the city council.
The selection of service providers for the building must be approved by council.
That all access to services will be by appointment only.
That property should be fenced and will maintain with additional trees, fire safe, landscaping.
Continuous weed abayment and routine maintenance to keep the site visually in line with other city facilities.
And that before the building is operational,
there is a clear operational budget for the expenses the city would be responsible for.
Second, Councillor Blue.
Yes, I'm making this amendment to the motion because these are quite literally with the original ad hoc committee
put in their recommendations.
And I think that if this does go forward, which I do not support at this time, I think that it's important that we formalize those recommendations
and make sure that they are carried out on behalf of the ad hoc committee and the hard work that they put into this.
Councillor Dukai.
Thank you.
I would like to do what my colleague said.
The ad hoc committee took six months out of their life and hours out of their life and away from their family to spend good time collaborating with everyone.
And housed and unhoused and business owners to put together consensus, a common ground that we could all live with and live together.
So I want to make sure that our community is heard and thank them for their work and do it the right way the first time.
Is there any discussion on the motion? Councillor Dale.
On the amendment.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Councillor Bloom.
I was sitting here thinking as you were reading it, I was following it along.
Yeah.
This is something I still struggle the fact despite the absolute best efforts of staff and especially
you and your team.
You've done exactly what we've asked you to do.
But I still see this.
I still struggle with the kind of lack of a vision and that's on us.
And again, we're trying to just come up with ideas that just seem to be happening in real time.
So any sense of metrics or KPIs or otherwise performance measurements is, I think, absolutely
just fundamental to this to the success of this project.
Councillor Hansen.
Thank you.
I mean, yeah.
That is exactly the original ad hoc's.
Birbage off of.
The document that came back to us. I am a little concerned with the amendment only in practice that this body isn't always here in an emergency like the city manager is here in an emergency.
So I would just suggest that we amend the amendment to council or city manager, deputy manager. I think that's a great amendment, but I'm concerned that we're going to get hung up on city council if we ever need to pull that lever.
Yeah, just to address that. So specifically I said, you know, with the shower laundry trailer in the event of an emergency that the city manager still retains that authority to do that, I understand the other concerns.
I don't see how they relate to an emergency. So I don't see a situation where picking a service advisor would be under an emergency situation. So that's no, no, that's all I'm thinking.
Go ahead. Yeah, I appreciate the clarification because you read it really fast. Okay, and we'll read it against lower before we vote.
Councillor Catholic. Yeah, in addition to reading it again, I'd like to see I'm got now I have the the master plan open and I don't see the specific language you said you it was literally control room said that it was literally from the I talk master plan.
I don't see it. So if you when you read it again, if you could direct us to that space so I can follow along.
Yeah, I can't direct you to the exact document. This is from literally members of the ad hoc committee and and just from memory. I remember we clearly discussed that there would be no congregate shelter that there would be no outdoor shower trailers.
That the facility would be upcapped and including the weed abatement. I mean those are all very, very clearly defined from the ad hoc committee in order for us to go forward.
Okay, are there is there any other discussion on the amendment.
Mayor, I have a point of order just because I'm trying to in my brain.
And there's a lot of things that were just said, but practically attached this to the role as a contractor approval board.
So I totally see your point and I think that's a great direction to give staff.
Trying it to approval of a contract in my mind that the two motions are unrelated.
If this is.
It's very sticky and it's it's tough for me to even follow at the moment. And so I'm just throwing that out there that it's creating some confusion.
That's to the role in this specific issues that are happening and I totally I understand that it's perspective and I understand the you know concerns and I support that not that it's my place, but but I'm just practically speaking as of as the parliamentary way in here.
I think that there are some issues with the way this is getting structured and I speak to.
But not yet what would be the you're recommended path forward.
I think a voting on the contract motion and then a separate motion directing staff and getting the support of council to.
Put those things in place as it's like with any other motion that would take more than two hours of staff time.
And is there a particular order that is required to go in might the council take up this what is the structural elements of this amendment prior to the vote on the.
Well now you have to vote on the amendment and then on the.
No, they can also be we can we can unwrap all of this so what would your preference is there is there a prohibition on which one goes first.
Okay, all right, thank you.
So we have a structural question here and under the advice of our parliamentarian it would make sense to split this motion.
And so I will put it to the amendment maker.
So what you would like to do make that a title for me.
I personally I think that this amendment is is legitimate in this situation it is germane to the topic that we're discussing and involves adding staff direction.
So the main motion goes forward to approve the contract in this case that Councillor Hansen made and this is simply an amendment giving staff direction to do these particular things as the building becomes operational.
And I'm happy to if it's easier for everybody to withdraw this and for us to make a separate motion.
But I would like to see I would like to see my motion on these items to go before the contract approval.
So you're willing to withdraw your motion.
It would come back then to the primary motion maker.
Would you be willing to withdraw your motion so that this amendment could go first.
Okay, so let's go ahead and go through the following motion.
Thank you Councillor Hansen.
And go ahead and formally withdraw your amendment.
And I formally withdraw my amendment.
Okay, the floor is open for a motion Councillor Bloom.
I move to direct staff to do the following before the building becomes operational.
That no shower or laundry trailer will be allowed unless in the event of a citywide emergency.
That there will be no camping or outdoor lodging unless with the express permission of the city council.
That the selection of service providers for the building must be approved by council.
That all access to services will be by appointment only.
That property should be fenced and well maintained with additional trees, fire safe landscaping, continuous weed abayment and routine maintenance.
To keep the site visually in line with other city facilities.
And that before the building is operational there is a clear operational budget for the expenses the city would be responsible for.
Second.
Okay, Councillor Bloom.
I've already spoken to this.
So I need further discussion on the motion.
Can I get a point of clarification on the motion?
So appointment only an operational budget that is not pertaining to the severe weather shelter with the other side of the building.
Is that correct?
That is correct.
Yeah, access to services will be by appointment only.
I don't see the weather shelters a service service provided it's part of what we do.
Councillor Hansen.
And thank you for reading that again and the.
The pace helped me but I caught something in there that still concerns me that's.
Camping again state of emergency I think you know city manager in city council.
What are we talking camping firefighters camping they might be camping.
I just don't want I don't need to get stuck in the weeds here but I just don't think that city council needs to have that.
That ultimate control of the city manager is should share that and they do under an emergency declaration.
I guess I'm I'm I'm I'm not sure why this is necessary given that we this council already approved and I did follow along now in the prohibited uses and and they do track fairly closely with the prohibited uses the wording is not exact.
In fact the the previous uses drop in services it's not an affirmative requirement for an appointment it's a prohibition prohibition against put drop in services.
But in any case the ad hoc committee mess the master plan was approved by this council.
It is in force I'm not sure why we need an additional direction to staff along the repeating very much the same things.
Would you like me answer that.
Sure I think that it's important that we ensure that we hold everybody accountable to what was agreed on and formalizing an emotion as we've all discussed before is seems to be the path forward that works best.
Okay we're going to continue to move this forward it's 823 and we have other business to carry on so any other discussion about this motion.
Please listen.
Cheryl.
Yes.
Dale.
Yes.
Bloom.
Yes.
Kaplan.
You can.
Yes.
Hansen.
No.
So the floor is open for emotion regarding the contract council or Hansen.
I moved to the contract amendment with outlier construction company for the emergency shelter upgrade project including
alternate one and two and an amount not to exceed nine hundred forty seven thousand nine hundred thirty six dollars.
There's second.
Second.
Councillor Hansen.
Again thank you staff and I want this to be the most flexible as possible and just.
I agree with council cap one on the amendment we've already agreed to this so I appreciate what's trying to be done here but that's why I voted no on that.
And I support this amendment or this motion with both of the alternate and thank you.
Councillor Schrell.
Is there any further discussion.
Councillor Boone.
Yes.
I put in the time to review the plans.
I've read the master plan recommendations and considered this design.
But I've also asked myself whether the fundamental questions have really been answered and for me the answer is no.
I don't believe we should invest nearly a million dollars in renovations without knowing what it will cost to run this facility or who will be responsible for doing so.
I don't believe we should continue building out a site that still raises neighborhood concerns.
Still suffers from basic infrastructure limitations and still risk being pushed into a direction this council didn't intend.
At some point we have to stop and ask whether the best way to fulfill our obligations is by doubling down or stepping back.
This is nearly a million dollars that could be spent and a lot wiser ways.
We could spend a lot of money that we have budgeted for homeless services that could be stretched throughout this community and serve maximum purpose.
Or we could go forward with this and ask ourselves if it fits in tassels long term strategy or if we are simply just trying to repair mistakes of the past and it is simply a vanity project.
So I have been on the council for this is by 70 year now and even from the very beginning we had some serious conversations about the needs of our unhoused people.
And one of the immediate needs was that we needed a severe weather shelter because at that point they were bouncing from church basement to church basement.
And our community partners in the churches were having more and more difficulty being able to maintain their part in that partnership.
And we were at very serious risk of people dying during these severe weather events and every time they came about our community had to scramble.
We also know that we are facing a crisis that is very much a housing crisis, it's a mental health crisis, it's an addiction crisis.
All of those things call on us to provide a certain type of service to our unhoused people.
And that involves wraparound services. That's why we have been partnering with other service providers. The city is not necessarily a service provider in this way.
We need to get this work done through partnerships. One of the things that I noticed in the work of local government is that it is very often an imperfect process.
We would have loved to have had a master plan in place, but our county refused the money that would have allowed us to build that master plan.
So when the state came through with one time only money and it was clearly signal that they were paying for infrastructure this year and then they were moving on to housing services next.
We understood that there was a single opportunity to move even though we didn't have the exact plan laid out that we wanted.
And we took what I think and I still think was a very important step. We got funding from the state. We got funding from grants. We've put some of our own into this process so that we could buy a property.
Was it, did it move faster than we wanted? Absolutely. Where we pressed by grant deadlines to do things in a way that wouldn't be the way we would love to do them absolutely. Those things are all true.
But we now have possession of a piece of property that we have continued to move forward with and now with the design I see up here is really well positioned to do what we have known as needed to be done for a good long time.
It also gives us the potential to have additional emergency services provision in the event of a major disaster earthquake fire and it also allows us to have some land to work on transitional and workforce housing.
So yes the pathway here has not been perfect. It has had its bumps. But I think staff has done a tremendous job of bringing us back what our first ad hoc committee said they wanted us to do and what this council agreed to do.
So it's my hope this evening that this council will approve this contract and allow this work to get started so that we can have our shelter in place and have that process moving with our local partners by the late fall here by November.
Is there any further discussion? Councillor Dicking.
Thank you. I would I appreciate with Councillor Bloom brought forward and this is my second term on council and I remember when I got here.
One of my hopes was that we could have a weather shelter because I too witnessed everyone scrambling in the community to find some place to house people when it was freezing outside.
And winter comes every year just like Christmas but you would act as it was as if we didn't know that so did we get here and a rocky road yes we did.
Are we ever going to do this again? No.
However we're here and what we have in front of us I want to make the most of it and it was mentioned that this council might not be here forever.
However while I'm here I'm going to hope people accountable to make sure.
Or that this is operated in the best possible way for the citizens of Ashland.
Any further discussion?
Roll call, please listen.
Hansen?
Yes.
Dukeain?
Yes.
Kaplan?
Yes.
Bloom?
No.
Bale?
No.
Sure.
Yes.
Motion passed.
Thank you.
Thank you, staff.
We have been here for a solid two and a half hours.
So we're going to take a short break.
Councils, please be back in your seats at 837 by the clock to my right.
Thank you.
Here we convening.
I call this meeting back to order.
Councilors, we're back in sessions.
We are now.
And now to new business, the 2025 Ashton Community Welfire Protection Plan, Sumerian Council
of Christian Bersers here tonight, to answer any additional questions you may remember and we
went over this during a study session in July.
So this is the year-long process that resulted in two year-long process that I rounded down
inappropriately that resulted in this updated community Welfire Protection Plan.
So if you have any questions, Chris is here to answer those, but we are here for the adoption
of this plan tonight.
Councillor Boone.
Thank you.
Thank you for being here.
I know we went over this at length and so I appreciated not having to spend too much time
this week and honest since we did previously and really just looking at some of those changes
which I appreciate you incorporating.
It's kind of a two-part question.
I'm going to try not to laugh, asking it, but this plan doesn't include logging 10,000 acres
of pristine rare-old growth forest.
Does it?
It does not.
I didn't think so.
Would you care to take the opportunity to respond to some of these just kind of blatant
falsehoods that are being put out in the community by some?
I'd like to spend a lot of time on it.
Given our history of very responsible for thinking and ecologically informed fields reduction
in the watershed, I think our track record speaks for itself, this plan does not change any
of that direction that's been approved by Council and the previous CWPP nor in the
Ashland Forest plan that was approved in 2016 and will be updated in the coming year.
The city remains, definitely committed to the ecological integrity of our watershed.
We've learned a lot over the last 20 years in forest management and that it would not include clear
cutting in our watershed.
Or would it even be legal in the federal lands above us in the Ashland Creek watershed, which
is designated a late-successional reserve?
So it's not even a possibility that's on the table, and as part of this plan or any other plan.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Councillor Caffin.
Yeah, thanks.
I want to take up this kind of this same point in just a second, but before we do that, I want
to thank you for the memo that you prepared, because when you presented this to us before and
as in the study session, I asked very specifically for what is it that only the city can
do?
Yes.
And you came up back with a three-page memo, very explicit description of what things the only
the city can do.
I also asked at that point for those things that the city should do in order to ensure that community
partners can be successful.
It's a little less clear in there, but there's a little bit of that in there, and I think you
hit on some of those things.
But I'll be pressing on that more as we go along, because I know this is just the overall
plan.
It is going to be individual initiatives, and we're going to see some of those again, and I'm going
to continue to try to work with you to see what is it that the city can really do to make
others effective in doing the things that the city really wants them to do as well, because I think
that we're all that was one of the lessons that I took away from this new approach to the
community welfare protection plan.
On this question that you just answered, yes.
Thank you for confirming that there's not going to be clear cutting of 10,000 acres.
There is, however, some discussion of thinning of forest canopy and the upper watershed in
order to increase snowpack and things like that.
It's a kind of a passing reference in section 12, with not super well explained, though, there's
some reference to some academic literature on it.
But then in terms of the actual initiative, there's an initiative to facilitate creation of
a climate smart plan for the entire Ashwin watershed.
I wonder if you could just explain a little bit more, what is a climate smart plan?
How long does it take?
Who's involved in all of that?
Yeah.
And when are we going to start doing that?
It seems like it's going to be able to be a pretty long-term project.
I believe that will be a long-term project.
First, I want to introduce our extraordinary volunteer, Shari Satoriac, and in part,
because Shari Satoriac brought this idea of climate smart planning to the forest lands management
advisory committee, actually a number of years ago, before we even started this, as we were
looking at, a climate change adaptation, and dendom to the Ashwin Forest Plan.
Climate smart forestry is actually a process that was created by, and I hope I don't get this
wrong, the National Wildlife Federation.
It was an interagency team that was led by the National of New York months.
Oh, there you go.
Do I keep it down?
No.
You're fine.
It's fine.
Let me hit it.
Okay.
The climate smart approach was developed by a collaboration of federal and nonprofit entities to take
a hard look at the planning process.
Sometimes we can give you a full one presentation on it, but there's a publication in 2014 that
describes the process.
It means looking at the future with a lands on that's different from the past, dealing with
uncertainty, but I don't think that's what we're here for tonight.
And I will add to that that we don't expect that we will be able to engage in that process during
the current administration, because we're talking about the Ashwin Waterchide, which is over
90% federal land.
So I don't think we're going to get traction on that particular issue, at least not for
the next few years, but it's good that we have it in our plan as a placeholder.
And when we have a more climate-friendly administration, I think that's something that we can
take up and hope to make some headway on.
Thanks, Chris.
Thanks, Bruce.
And I would just add to that that particular framework is specifically for natural landscapes.
With the climate-smart framework.
And so it's been, you'll hear frameworks that are specifically for community communities and community assets. And then there are other frameworks that are for natural landscapes. And in fact, one of our national residents was one of the authors of one of the chapters for that. So there has been a lot of work in the conservation world around that with national wildlife Federation being the lead organization. Other questions? Councillor Duking.
Thank you. One of my questions is, I remember when this was brought in front of us the first time.
So it says that a conservative estimate of 80 to 100 million dollars. So that's an a 10-year timeframe. So that's 10 million dollars per year.
How are we going to get there? How where is this money going to come from? We have a 372.5 million dollar budget. And that is not in the budget. Where is this money going to come from?
In part, it is in the budget. The community or the wildfire risk reduction fee. It was passed by council.
Very forward looking move on the council's part does create a fund that is dedicated to wildfire risk reduction. That is part of the calculation.
And more not that that fund is enough to get us to 10 million dollars. It's nowhere near that. But what that fund creates is a down payment so that we can go out to state federal foundations.
You name it and we have a match fund that we can then extend out and say, hey, we have put our money where our mouth is as a local community. We have skin in the game. We've been doing this actually for a long time back to the 1315 biennium and having a fee dedicated to wildfire mitigation.
We have a good track record. We've performed on that. We have double down on it in the Latin. This current biennium and we are looking to be an example community for the entire country.
And we have this money. And so we hope that what that will do is allow us to access the millions of dollars that are listed in the plan as a potential budget.
A very similar thing when we happened 21 years ago when we approved the original community wildfire protection plan in 2004. We didn't know where the money was going to come from.
At that time we thought the budget was 10 to 12 million dollars to do the project. We ended up with 33 million and counting.
As we had success in the project we attracted funding. We found other funding sources. We lobbied for dollars. So we more than doubled.
What we thought the budget would be and we made it very successful for thinking project. I'm hopeful that we will have an experience that is similar this time around as we look at protecting our community and doing the necessary work that we need to do.
But I can't honestly sit here and say there's money in the bank. We're going to figure that out.
Man. Thank you Chris. I appreciate that explanation.
And that was years ago when that happened and looking at the federal government where we are right now there are no grants there are no federal dollars.
Yes the citizens were taxed with the wildfire fee and that is not going to get us to the 10 million.
So I just don't see how we can get there.
Is there some sense of urgency you mentioned before how Ashland is the leader and the nation and doing and it's wonderful to be the leader.
However, I don't see where the funds are going to come from to get us there.
So that is my question when I saw this.
The wildfire fee the six dollars that's implemented but that's not going to get us there no grants or no federal funding is in place.
So it's not clear to me.
There's still a federal grant that's in its last year and it's actually the same funding that we got to fund the creation of the CWPP.
It's called the WAP Community Wildfire Defense Grant.
It's still in existence. It'll be in its last year we can apply coming up this fall or winter when they release the the notice for that grant.
So it'll be the fourth year of that grant. It allows communities to apply for up to 10 million dollars for implementing a plan that we've just finished.
So we'll be in pretty good position to do that. That is one of the only federal remaining funds that I know of for this kind of work.
Whether or not we engage in that and we're having issues with language and federal grant agreements.
Maybe this one works out for us. I hope it does.
I'm also encouraged that the state legislature passed 43 million dollars in wildfire mitigation and prevention funding.
Apart from the money that they are paying to put fires out right now.
This is separate dollars that were carved out by the legislature and that is something that we're going to have to write a really good grant application for.
And I think we can do that and be very convincing at the state level to get funding as well.
So this is a follow up. Yes. So question about that. Thanks Chris. Is that.
If this is going to move forward and it is if it is going to pass.
My question in here when I was reading and looking through this is.
Some people are not able to.
It's said that every every individual's responsible and it is mentioned institutions and individuals and property owners.
If you are a property owner doesn't necessarily mean you have x amount of dollars to do this to your home.
My concern is that this is not mandatory.
Can you explain that question you're concerned that it is not mandatory for someone to harden their home.
So many communities have already looked at landscape being and done things in their community around their house to.
For fire while for fire mitigation right and so my concern and looking at these goals and where the city wants to go.
If I'm a property owner and I don't have the money to harden my home and my going to get penalized is going to be mandatory.
What is that going to look like?
Thank you.
The intent in the plan is to help those who need the help to get there.
So lower income landowners just like we have utility bill assistance program for home heating and air conditioning in the city.
We can come up with a threshold for income that people would qualify to have some significant proportion of the work done for them.
Out of funding that we have either from the fee and or fee and a combination of some grants that we're able to get to make that happen for people.
We have some of the contracting capacity in place in the community we need to train a lot more contractors on how to do the work that we want them to do.
And I think we can get there pretty quickly that we can offer the services and help people get to the point that they need to be for wildfire protection.
Without a lot of out of pocket expense.
I appreciate that and it's been my experience.
Some people will fall through that threshold and that's where my concern lies. Thank you.
Thank you.
So a couple of things just to make sure we have the clarifications that 10 million dollars a year that includes the estimates for what individual homeowners would also need to do correct.
So that's not we're not looking at the city having to have a 10 million dollar a year budget to do this work that correct.
That would include contributions from the homeowners themselves.
That looks at our experience in the current FEMA grant and where we've offered the money to help people homeowners will often spend over and above the amount that's required for their match.
So you know if we're acquiring 25% that they kick in, they often do more and end up paying 50% to 75% because they wanted to just go ahead and do the whole package.
We used those numbers that we got so real world numbers from our own city out of the FEMA grant experience to run those calculations.
So we completely expect that for those who can do the work and pay for it.
Great.
That is included in the 10 million dollar.
Great.
And I had I know when we had the the study session here at Council.
There was a conversation that was kind of linked I believe to this question that Councilor Kaplan had asked, which is.
Where are we at in terms of our staffing, our existing staffing in terms of moving forward those elements that are uniquely the cities to move forward.
And I asked that question by email and I believe.
Mr. Shea sent a good answer out, but I think the community might do well to hear it in terms of.
How well how well are we suited at this moment with the staffing we have to get started on this plan.
And is there a significant gap in staffing immediately known that we should be looking to address.
So we had a long discussion in our division about this we feel like in the the two years of kicking off the plan we have staffing right now at a level that we can.
Make the heavy left to get this plan off the ground into implementation including writing grants.
Developing codes that would be necessary to move this forward.
We will have to have this discussion at some point about maybe another FTE to add to the division so that we can eventually enforce the codes.
But we're not going to get there within the first two years.
So in the current by NM we're not saying that we want any more staff.
We also have to realize that this is a community effort we already have partners who are at the table with funding and hand including the Chamber of Commerce for the business community portion of what is in the plan.
And also applications that are being submitted by the Ashland climate collaborative.
That we're and mayor submitted a support letter for thank you very much.
So we're expecting that this isn't just all falling on the city's shoulders and in fact that's the way the plan was put together.
It's a community plan and in fact we left the city logo off it and I'll apologize to the city for that but that was purposeful.
In order to make this you know not something that every time something question comes up we got to go to the city council and ask for an answer we have to go to the fire department.
This is a collaborative effort in our entire community because we all stand.
And to benefit from it and we all stand to lose if there is a major wildfire.
So we need all of the institutions, nonprofits, everybody at the table to step up and do some of it.
This is meant to be a community community wildfire protection plan.
Great.
Councillor Dicking.
Thank you.
Okay last question.
I just wanted to you mention it's not on the city's shoulders.
I don't want it to be on the people's shoulders either when it comes to dollars and cents.
So in developing code that you mentioned will will happen eventually while doing that can you assure the community that it's not going to be anything mandatory that they will have to do to their property or be penalized if they don't.
So I don't think we can assure that because any code would come to council for review before it's adopted.
So it would really be a discussion with the code under consideration.
And I think it's fair to say that there won't those those code changes will not be made without council approval.
So any any concern that you might have there will be a discussion in a vote at the council around those code changes that correct.
Absolutely.
Then it gets an important point about anything in the community wildfire protection plan just by adopting the plan doesn't make it so the very next day.
It sets a demotion processes that will come back to council such as code adoption.
Any planning that happens for work in our forests is going to either have to come back to council or a combination of council and the forest service.
So there's a long road ahead in process and this is an important step but it in and of itself does not pass any codes or doesn't make any significant changes without further review further citizen participation.
And further budget.
Okay.
So I have one last question and that's around the reference to thinning forest for water.
It's that practice is a practice that is it's a very complex process and so what would that what would it look like.
What is a process before the city would engage in that because it's potentially severely maladaptive and so what by having it mentioned in here.
Would it still need to come to the council before we undertook anything even in the areas where we can control our even in our own forest lines.
One the city doesn't own forest lands in the.
Significant forest lands we do have the wind burn parcel that does get snow the lower watershed one is below the drainage area every reservoir so that's it doesn't have any significance in terms of capturing water that we are going to be drinking.
And also the the wind burn parcel is so small it doesn't have enough area to really have any hydrological benefit to the availability of water by doing thinning.
And the rest is for service line the rest is for service line which would have to go through federal need.
and land management and extensively, just like we did back in 2004, a council process to approve a plan in conjunction with the Forest Circus.
Just like we did in the original CWPB.
Okay, thank you. If Councillor Schrow.
Excuse me, thank you, Mayor. Thank you again for coming back and thank you for all the work that you did to put this together.
This is a really major piece of text that's going to help our community, I believe, for a long time.
My only concern and I plan to support this is just like the unattended consequences.
You know, it's the elephant in the room. We have all this amazing state legislation that's passed in.
I mean, multiple infill housing bills have passed since this was, since we were even here last time, a couple months ago looking at that.
And I just would hope that we would kind of be looking far down the road to avoid unattended consequences of pairing fire safety with density and within fill housing.
In fill housing there was some some good testimony earlier. And as it pertains to community development in this section, you were talking about in your memo that you sent out. I believe on the 13th. Can you speak maybe to your kind of education in your point of view down the road as this competes with in fill housing.
This is a sticky issue and there's no silver bullet.
Clearly putting more structures and more people in a confined space like the city limits is going to make things more challenging for wildfire.
The piece that we do have in our back pocket is having already adopted the state building code for wildfire prevention, which is our three section R327.
That requires that all new construction in national and residential construction is built to the highest protection for wildfire.
And that really is like the golden egg that we have right now without that we would be in a lot more trouble and digging ourselves in a lot deeper hold than we are right now.
So that was like really visionary. I'm actually invited to give a presentation to believe Oregon cities about that coming up next week for other communities in Oregon who are considering that approach.
So Ashland has was a leader on that front and continues to be and that's something that we should hold on to as tightly as possible because it is the best bet in allowing
To fill at the same time as providing the kind of fire protection that we absolutely need for the future.
The big challenge is our existing construction and what do we do about that?
That's really, you know, the main emphasis of this plan but I don't think we're going to see ourselves getting out of the in fill with all of the state land use planning and energy going into it.
And you know wanting to maintain a compact city and not sprawl out all over this end of the valley. So I don't have an easy easy answer.
But that what we have done to date in requiring defensible space in home hardening and new construction is really important.
And that's I think that's as good as it gets for us.
Yeah, I would I would agree just to quick follow up on that. I mean, our 327 is really powerful and it's is the industry standard here. We opted into that.
Which should be proud that we have it. It is expensive, but I'm what's the price of life safety right.
The follow up question to that was also relating to your memo that you sent out talking about maintain overall vision and values including a focus on equitable risk reduction.
And right now it seems like it's only a certain small part of the market that's being put into that hardening standard.
And I really like how the city has got a system where they're going to lead by example. And they're going to harden their buildings first apparently.
So I really like that. I just maybe would ask what is what's your definition of applying this new standard as we apply new codes as we enforce new codes equitably.
All right. Well, Cherie, do you want to talk about that? You did most of all. Cherie stood hundreds of in person surveys with sort of socially vulnerable populations as part of the plan.
And that that is what we're talking about. And we talk about equitable risk reduction is, you know, how do we communicate to socially vulnerable populations?
How do we find out what it is they need? And that was a large part of the planning process.
The issue of equitability is really core. And I can't say that we have the answers.
But one of the things that we're working on right now and one of the reasons that I've really been a proponent for a dedicated staff person to implementation is that.
To find the solutions we need to develop partnerships, we need to talk to the community and listen to people.
And that's what we did for this plan. That was just a small sampling of the people that we learned a lot.
The next step is to develop a community driven partnership community led and that just happened to land in our lap.
A week and a half ago I found out that there's an opportunity to propose a for or to apply for a grant from the Oregon Health Authority.
And then the Ash and Climate Collaborative agreed to be the parent organization for creating a new Ashland world partnership resilience partnership.
And it's purpose is to figure out how to do that equitable approach.
And what I propose is that using this grant funding, we don't contract but we essentially find community connectors who can who are already embedded or integrated within certain populations.
And facilitate them talking to these folks and finding out where they're at.
But what really the plan is and this whole approach is about is the one goal which is to save homes from wildfire to reduce the homes as a fuel source.
For those who can't afford to do it on their own that's where the big money comes in and under the current administration that's going to be tough to raise the funds to serve socially vulnerable populations harden their homes.
One of the areas that we collectively need to take a hard look at is how the city looks because of its vegetation we have a tradition of planting in a certain way and promoting certain kinds of vegetation.
Making that transition means informing the community and educating them so that they can understand that their anxiety over climate change and wildfire.
It might greatly be reduced if we collectively look at becoming a community that won't burn.
It would become a safe harbor.
These are big dreams, big ideas and people who are working daily or having a hard time earning money or taking care of their families don't have the breadth necessarily to really engage in these conversations.
We don't have all the answers but the important thing about this grant proposal is an 18 months.
If we can form partnerships with various people who serve the community kind of like the issue you were just talking about with the unhoused.
You invite partners into participating in this conversation and develop the structure and framework of the systems, the tools that will more accurately serve people.
That's the vision of the CWPP and the great thing about this grant proposal is that it would be community led and we would partner with the city of Ashland on many of the important things.
But there are some things that we can't do and one of those things is codes and enforcement of codes.
That happens to be the stick I'm hoping to find something sweeter.
And that sweetness has to do with vision.
Compelling people because it's the right thing to do.
I'm saying too much, I'm sorry.
I think this is an important question.
Thank you Councillor Schwell and the work that's gone into making sure that we deal with this element that we don't leave our community members behind who are struggling and are not able to afford the changes that need to be made.
I think that's a key element of all of this so it's an important discussion to have.
We do have some folks who have signed up to offer public testimony though.
So did you have anything else to add to that?
I know.
I just hope that you can help us realize this dream because we're all in it together and we have to be or this won't happen.
Thank you.
A lot of benefits from being together.
Better together.
Indeed.
So we have three people who have signed up to speak this evening.
What you'll do is you'll come up to the microphone.
There's a light sensor or light display next to you.
It'll start on green.
When you have 20 seconds left, it'll move to yellow.
You'll hear a little buzzer.
And then when your time is up, it will move to red and you'll hear the final buzzer.
The three people are David Lane, Daniel de Roe and Aaron Muck.
Please tell us your name and where you, the city and which you reside when you start.
And then we'll give that each of them three minutes.
You called my name first?
Yes.
I'm David Lane.
I've lived in Aschland for 14 years.
I've lived just on the other side of the city limits for more than 30.
So I'm sort of a fixture around you.
I really want to build on what you said.
I think we have to fix in our minds that failure is not an option.
Failure would mean coming home from an evacuation and finding a pile of ashes.
And we can't let that be a possibility.
We have to do what we have to do.
That's got to be sort of a mantra for the next 10 years.
And what that means is we can't let our thinking be in the normal style.
Oh, we can't do that because of such and such a regulation.
Instead we have to say, how can we do it?
How can we accomplish this?
That's got to be what we think.
It's got to be what we get the rest of our residents to think.
It's got to be a collaborative kind of situation.
It's not just education.
It's motivation.
We don't know how to do that very well.
We know how to do the opposite.
We know how to use the stick.
Not the carrot.
We need to work with, say, the psych department at the college at the university.
We need to put together a whole program of recreating some of the enthusiasm that we had done World War II.
When we had people having used tires, drives and paper drives.
And that kind of thing because they were so committed to the outcome.
And that's what we've got to do here.
And that's what I really, really want to encourage the council to turn thinking around from the normal usual run of the mill business.
You brought up the idea about, how are we going to find this?
We don't really know how we're going to find it.
We need to just jump in and start and get the rest of the population enthused.
And we've got lots of wealthy people here on Iceland.
We need to tap into them and get them enthused about supporting this.
Because if we end up with even 15% of the structures in Iceland destroyed by a fire,
it's going to change everything about this town.
We can't let that happen.
Thank you.
Daniel Dero.
My name is Dan Dero and I live in Ashland.
I've been here 11 years and I want to thank you for your efforts on producing the comprehensive wildfire protection plan.
And thank you for this opportunity to comment on it.
My concern is the warning that is stated in there about high density in filling and evacuations restrictions on being able to get out bottlenecks and like that.
Planning can reduce risk by reducing density.
There is a conflict between the demand for infilling and the demand for fire safety.
And it seems to me that instead of infilling to the maximum number of units allowed that we contend towards a more moderate amount of units going in.
Under what used to be normal conditions there would be no problem going forward but now we've all agreed that the playing field has dramatically changed.
The risk percentage is stated in the study are nationally Ashland is ranked in the top 97% of communities most likely to suffer a catastrophic wildfire event.
This new information is being integrated through community and city efforts.
However, the current plan for high density in filling adds more people and structures which the wildfire and evacuation studies advise against.
The Kestrel Park face three as a prime example of where it is possible to act.
In Ashland the top wildfire concerned concern identified in the 2024 citizen survey was that traffic bottlenecks.
Blocked evacuation routes and lack of alternatives to evacuation were most concerned third highest was.
Third House concern was over narrow streets and over development in peeding evacuation. As a wildfire protection plan states, these findings make one thing clear. The greatest threat we face is not simply wildfire itself with unchecked development in high risk areas, unless we align our planning with reality, lives will be at risk. It is imperative that we reimagine both our community and our behavior or we will face more frequent, and more severe losses as the climate continues.
Right now we have an enormous opportunity with careful planning and decisive action. We can prevent a catastrophic fire.
Considering that the mountain metals retirement and memory care complex will be in jeopardy, the proposed 38 unit development at Castro and the 90 units planned at Main and Mountain.
Right across the street here are going to further impact safe evacuation.
Now is the time to act and I hope that the city can lower its hopes for maximum population in filling and moderate the amount of units that are being proposed for these developments. Thank you.
Thank you. Aaron Mac.
Good evening, Mayor and council. It's wonderful to see you all.
My name is Aaron. If you'd like, that's helpful. You can lift it. Thank you.
Very helpful. My name is Aaron O. Kelly Mac. I've lived in Ashland since 2001.
And I'm the Executive Director of the Ashland Climate Collaborative.
The Ashland Climate Collaborative is a Solutions focused 501c3 founded in 2002 to serve as a hub for community-based action to reduce our climate pollution and to build a resilient community.
Today, our community is a growing number of Ashland residents who want to take climate action by switching from natural gas to 100% electric homes, walking biking and rolling around town, sending our food scraps for composting,
serving water and collaborating with our neighbors to reduce wildfire risk. All of these choices when taking collectively make a difference.
Wildfire is Ashland's top public health and safety threat. Ashland climate was pleased to be a community partner with the city of Ashland in the 2025 better prepared for wildfire series.
We believe that this program series was a great example of community collaboration.
We applaud the thoughtful work that went into crafting the 2025 community wildfire protection plan and urge you to adopt the plan in full.
It is extremely comprehensive and we believe that it offers an excellent blueprint for reducing our risk of a catastrophic wildfire.
Ashland Climate especially would like to recognize the significant effort that went into identifying and presenting strategies to address the needs of those in our community who are renters as well as our socially vulnerable households.
We would like to inform the mayor and the council that the Ashland Climate Collaborative is in the process of applying for a grant from the Oregon Health Authority to help coordinate and accelerate the implementation of the CWPP.
If awarded, this grant would enable Ashland Climate to establish the Ashland Wildfire Resilience Partnership or AWRP as a hub for community led wildfire risk reduction.
In addition, the project will shape whole community wildfire risk reduction initiatives. Oh my gosh that was fast.
Our grant application has been largely authored by Cherice Sedoriac and who served as lead community engagement liaison for the CWPP.
She has worked closely with the leadership of the Ashland Fire and Rescue.
And we are so excited to be a part of this. Thank you. Thank you.
Any further questions or staff?
Okay. The floor is open for emotion.
Good.
Okay.
Councillor Blue.
Thank you, Mayor. I move to approve adoption of the 2025 Ashland Community Wildfire Protection Plan.
Councillor Blue.
Yeah nice to make a positive motion here. I'm proud to support this plan.
It's comprehensive community driven gives clear path to reduce wildfire risk.
Thank you to everybody involved and the community getting involved and doing more.
Cherice Sedoriac said it well. It really takes all of us, you know, kind of deciding psychologically that this is something that we need to do.
And I think that it's evident that we do need to do it.
I really look forward to all of us kind of getting to work on this.
Thank you so much.
Yes. I'd like to echo Councillor Blue and really appreciate all the work that's been done and this has been a long time coming.
I've been for I think one of the first meetings at the OSF rehearsal hall getting everybody.
I don't know what that was called.
Maybe that was the Mac or something. It was a big meeting with 60 or so people breaking after that into working groups and trying to going out and coming back.
Some of the researchers coming into a meeting that I've participated in.
I think it was at SOU somewhere.
It's just an enormous amount of work and I think it shows in this document that you've produced.
I think you said pretty eloquently that this is a real frame.
There's a lot of initiatives to take forward.
So it's really a jumping off point to starting point.
We have to build it together.
I appreciate what David Lane said is that we don't know all the answers.
But we have to, we failure is not an option.
And we absolutely have to put our shoulders to the wheel and work together and figure it out and move along.
So thank you very much for giving us the first push on this.
More than just a push as a shove, I guess.
And I appreciate all that you've done and be happy to support this.
Thank you.
Yeah, I think David Lane kind of shared me over onto the other side.
However, something that was brought up earlier about density and that's real, evacuation, that's real.
And we already have in place that all new buildings will be built a certain way and electrified and this and that.
And I think that's great.
I'm just hoping that I'm still here when we develop the code.
So I can give my five cents because, you know, we talk about equity.
So many people in Ashland are renters 47%.
And just because you own a home doesn't mean you're living large.
So my hope in seeing this through is that it truly is equitable.
I still don't know where we're going to get that $10 million a year from.
And I just don't want that to be on the ratepayers and the people who really are struggling here in Ashland.
That is my reluctancy.
That is my resistance.
So yeah.
I'm done.
Councillor, do you want to say thanks again for all the work that's one of this.
I think if this goes well, you'll probably go sleep really well tonight.
I know it's been a long journey and just we're lucky to have you both.
I know growing up here and seeing your career bloom.
It was like a regional award and regional training and national and international and then having you come into the community and put in.
To tens of thousands of hours probably on this.
We're just like really lucky to have a couple of the smartest minds around doing this work.
And I plan to sort of thanks.
Councillor Dale.
Thank you, Mayor. Yes.
I wasn't going to speak to this just because I don't think I could say it any better than my colleagues here.
Just a full support of this.
But Councillor Dickane brought something up and it made me think.
I just wanted to state that I refuse to accept that intelligent density of housing design cannot coexist with intelligent responsible community wildfire protection.
I don't think that you.
I just I find refusal to provide adequate and well intention and design housing to be the enemy of wildfire protection.
We can do both.
We have.
There will always be a little bit of risk in a forced community.
I live in a community that the area of town I live in.
And it's just I mean for those of now I fly over this town all the time and look down.
And there are a ton of trees and it is very dense and that's just in somewhat of inherent risk.
And I appreciate all of our partnerships that are working very hard to mitigate that as best as possible.
But you can't bring risk to zero.
And I do not want any kind of you know the perennial perfection to be the enemy of good when it comes because
to housing because housing and infill.
Density options or something that this council looks at that we take very seriously and I really trust staff and partnerships to get this right.
We don't have an option not to but I just refuse to accept that they can't coexist in an elegant way.
Thank you.
Chancellor Hansen.
Thank you Mayor.
Chris.
Thank you both for coming back.
I really appreciated the first presentation and I learned a lot and going back over the plan.
I still think is fabulous.
I appreciate the memo too and that the city will lead by example among other things in that memo.
And I most appreciate that this is a partnership between so many different organizations.
And I'm grateful that the climate collaborative is interested to come on board to help.
We can't make people do things.
We want people myself included to be engaged and to help the community out.
I know that there's going to be some hard I don't know.
I think that there's going to be some hard code decisions for the state of Oregon collectively.
And I hope that it doesn't fall with a heavy price tag on businesses and people but we're going to figure it out.
We're going to figure it out and I don't know I don't know what that means.
I mean five ten years from now.
I'd love to look back on this.
But I'm in I'm in a hundred percent so.
Hold me accountable to that and I thank you for all your hard work.
And I just want to thank all of the community members and the staff who were involved in putting this together.
When the city passed the climate energy action plan in 2017 we understood that it was adaptation light.
But it did identify wildfires our biggest climate threat and that threat has only escalated in the last several years.
And so this is a said this is a climate adaptation plan and it avoids so many of the falls that many communities.
Find when they're doing adaptation planning because it it imagines the reality that we are trying to address.
It it understands the the existential threat that wildfire poses to us.
And it lays out the full breadth of what we need to do even though we don't know exactly yet how we're going to get there.
And that those elements and including the entire community are really the hallmarks of an adaptation plan that will work.
So I also am all in I believe this council is all in and thank you again so much.
We look forward to what those next steps might be.
There's no further discussion roll.
Please listen.
Hansen.
Yes.
You can.
Yes.
Kaplan.
Yes.
Bloom.
Yes.
Dale.
Yes.
Cheryl.
Yes.
Thank you.
And we're going to go by this clock.
The night twenty seven so city manager what do you have to report to us from your report.
Speaking of wildfire on August 21, we do have a free webinar called the wildfire prepared home.
So you can find information on how to sign up on our website.
And is over zoom so accessible that everyone hopefully.
Um, covert work is happening.
There is a temporary bridge in place.
So the one or trail on the lobby trails in twenty sixty four service road are accessible.
So there is a signage up there that's hopefully steering people in the correct direction.
We have switch to a e newsletter format.
You can subscribe to over email.
As of this week, we have over 900 subscribers, which is pretty significant over three weeks.
And there is plan or work going on downtown.
The sidewalks are open, but you will see some construction with that.
Going on.
Thank you.
And I know we generally would go to liaison assignments, but we don't really have time for that tonight.
Thank you both so much for your presentation.
Um, just a reminder, the first meeting.
We will not have the first meeting in September because of the Labor Day holidays.
So we'll see everyone in mid September.
The floor is open for a motion to return.
So moved.
Second.
All in favor?
Hi.
Meeting is adjourned.