Okay, it is it is 6:30
everyone and welcome and welcome tonight.
We heal. >> We heal. I have a
warm water >> and I'll let I'll let [clears throat]
you do your >> Yeah.
[clears throat] >> Can you hear us? Okay.
» I'm going to assume that you can hear us.
» Wait a minute. Maybe we've had these problems before.
» It's the owl. I think I think it looks like
we are >> select speaker
» microphone is this.
» Okay.
Well, um I didn't mean to zoom in like that. Here we go.
Good evening everyone. Um, thank you for being here. My name is Chhating Chen.
Uh, you can also call me Ting. I am visiting from HDR, which is a civil
engineering consulting firm, and I'm based in the Seattle area.
Um, and I'm here to present you the work that we've done on the stormwater
comprehensive plan, which is the first one that's done for city of Cosmopolis.
And this effort was um supported by the grants funding from office of Shahala
Basin. Um and oh and my role is a storm water
engineer. So I'm a civil engineer by training
and many of you probably are sitting in the for the first time listening in on
stormwater planning. So I want to first give you some background on what that
actually means. So storm water planning, we think about it as a guide to manage
your rainwater and runoff. So when rainwater hits hard surfaces, it's going
to go somewhere. And what do you do about that?
And the goal for storm water planning overall is to minimize the negative
impacts on the environment, on your infrastructure, and on your communities.
And here in uh lower Shahes Basin and also in Cosmopoulos, flood reduction is
our number one goal. And that's kind of what we're going to go into focusing on
flood reduction as a part of the storm water planning.
So to be able to do that, we first try to figure out what are the biggest
flooding issues that we're seeing. And once we identify those issues, we go
on and do the engineering analysis to figure out what are the potential
solutions and which ones to go first. And lastly, the the million-doll
question literally is how do we actually fund these solutions?
And uh this is kind of the steps that I'll go through when we're talking about
the storm water comprehensive plan is also the step that uh we've done these
plan. So we go from talking about existing flooding issues and then we go
to proposed solutions and lastly we'll go into the financial analysis that we
performed as a part of this comprehensive plan
and that's also the agenda for today. So first going over to the bigger
picture of storm water planning. Um in United States clean water act tells us
how we should regulate and protect our water resources.
And in state of Washington state uh department of ecology usually regulates
that. But for uh municipalities that's small like cosmopoulos the municipal
storm water permit which is a part of the clean water act actually does not
apply. What we have here is local ordinances that help us uh regulate
storm water and tell us what to do. So there's one ordinance uh for developers
focusing on storm drainage. Uh and then there's another ordinance that is uh
applied for storm water and surface water management and that has to do with
collecting storm water utility fees for greater surface water protection.
And it's important to talk about cosmopoulos in connection with Shahal's
basin because the river connects all of us together.
So for the for this area Washington department of ecology has set up the
office of Shahala's basin and there are three major goals. The first one is to
protect communities from flood damage. Second one is to restore habitats for
salmon and other aquatic life. And third one is to prepare the communities for
more major and potentially more frequent flooding.
Uh what's really great is that the office of Shahala's basin the OCB
administers state funding to these different communities
and the as I mentioned before the efforts to produce this plan were
completely funded by that state funding and we received it in 2025.
So with that background I'll go into the analysis that we perform in our
engineering firm and um and then the solutions that we come up with. So first
I want to start by talking about existing infrastructure.
So we review some old drawings of the city system and identified about 220
patch basin and manholes. You drive by them every day. There are about four
miles of pipes. For this specific um uh study, we focus on two outfalls. Uh
there's a Shahalis River at East Street, so that's the one over here. And then
Mil Creek at Second Street, so that's the one closer to the Mil Creek at over
here near the Thai gates. We did not consider the J Street alpha
and this and this other alpha near the Mil Creek Dam.
» [clears throat] >> So what are the known flooding problems?
And I think you know this better than I do. Um being in cosmopoulos there's
lowlying topography especially where we are right now. There's just not enough
of a slope to send water to river when it's flooding. And of course the
proximity to Shahala's river also leads us to a lot of known flooding problem
during especially during high rainfall event during king tide where you have
both flooding locally and also the water cannot get sent out to river because the
water level is so high at the river. And lastly this is the problem that
every single utility faces is that we have aging infrastructure that's
underground. We don't see them. we don't know how what their conditions are. We
only know them when they collapse and that's that's a little bit too late and
that's usually really expensive to replace. So [clears throat] that's the
problems that we have in this area and from the interviews that we've done
we identify that Mil Creek is the highest priority area for flood
reduction in Cosmopolis. So, yes, >> but this is not a big deal, but if we
minimize the zoom box one more, then we can get the full picture up there.
» Let's >> click over to the one farthest to the
left. There we go. >> Great. Thank you.
» See, I thought I was a zoom expert, but you're the zoom expert.
» No, no, no. [laughter] >> Let me move it to this over here.
» There. Yeah, perfect. >> Okay. And hide this maybe.
Hide fold and med. Okay, great. That's much cleaner.
So, yeah, the picture here I'm just showing from a 2022 report that was per
uh that was done and that's showing covert uh flooding along Mil Creek.
Okay. So, I want to first situate us um in Mil Creek along Mil Creek and
focusing on the main in uh biggest infrastructure here. So starting most
upstream we have the Mil Creek Dam. Uh it was breached in 2008 and it was
replaced by 2019 and my firm HDR actually also applied for state funding
at that point and designed and constructed the the dam.
And then going from Mil Creek further downstream we have all the covert
crossing I was just talking about. I'll come back later and we'll go to the
confluence point with Shahalis River and that's the Mil Creek tide gates. Uh
right now the tie gates are controlled but we don't really know how it's
operating. They're boxes with locks on them and there's no way to really go
back uh go and and uh adjust any of the setting. But we think that if we were
able to actively lower the water level before storm roll in that may help us
reduce flooding in Long Mo Creek because that's creating additional source for
water to go to. Uh here on the right I'm showing some of the photos um that's uh
of of the Tigate structure um that's along the uh Shahalis River
and in this like downtown low-line area we have six culverts crossing
[clears throat] Mo Creek and photo showing here again these six often get
flooded during high uh rainfall events.
So those are the three main area along Mo Creek. And now I want to talk about
some inland flooding that we also investigated. So first this is flooding
the spot near the gas station near F Street and First Street in the parking
lot. There's flooding and we've identified from camera inspection that
it just collapsed pipe. So pipes need to be replaced and catch basins need to be
replaced. And we've also investigated a flooding
at J Street and Fourth Street um right outside of the county roads maintenance
yard. Uh there's a sag in the road that also sometimes see flooding.
So to summarize the major issues that we investigated, we are looking at Mil
Creek Highgates. We're looking at the six covert crossing along Mo Creek and
then two inland flooding issues kind of in the lowlying area downtown.
And now that we've identified the flooding issues, I want to go in and
talk a little bit about the solutions that we've come up with at the very high
planning level. And addressing those four separate
issues, we come up with six different projects because sometimes you need two
projects to target one issue. So at the tight gate we have in mind that we'll
start with a study of how the tig is actually operating and what are some of
the options that we can actually that does for improving [clears throat] the
and then once we use that study to identify the best cost-saving option we
will go in and do the construction and improvement. So that will be the second
project. And you notice that I started kind of
talking about Mil Creek from the downstream near the river before moving
back up because if we have the downstream bottleneck having that issues
addressed, hopefully that opened up more space that the upstream issues are not
as severe as they have been before. So for the covert replacement, we focus on
replacing the downstream coververts first, the first three and then we move
up and to kind of look at it at the as a series and then for the two inland
flooding project we also looked at some of the alternatives there and I'll go to
project one by one and going back to the map.
So for the Mil Creek study and design uh we have applied uh Mayor Mayor Smeir and
I have worked together and we applied for grant funding for uh at office of
Shahill's basin again to study the actual operation and what are the
options to improve our tie gates and if this uh the decision will come out
actually any point now in August they're just in the final stages of picking the
projects um and if we were to receive the fund funding, the design will begin
or the study will begin in um 2027 and that will go for probably a year or two.
And what's really great about this OCB opportunity is that they are readily
available to support your shovel ready design to go into construction. So if we
present them a plan and say hey we got money from you to do the design, they
would say basically you can go ahead and do the con construction. So, it's a
really good pipeline for our community to do projects with OCD funding. And
that will be looking at 2029 to 2031. And moving upstream, as I said, um like
the salmon, we are going to talk about the cover replacement. So, there's 20 uh
the downstream portion is going to be looking at 2030. the further upstream
portion closer to the dam is going to be looking at 2035
and then the inland and flooding are lower on a priority because we want to
go to Mil Creek first. So we identified that the parking lot uh drainage problem
is going to be the the fifth project that we can address. So that included
some catch basins replacement, upsizing broken pipes, that type of work.
Similarly, um the last project that we looked at is upsizing pipe along J
Street going into that outfall. And part of the hope is that with all of
the um Mil Creek flooding problem solved, you can see that that that
triangle, the outfall is going straight to Mil Creek. So, if we actually can
solve some of the flooding issue here, maybe the water level at that triangle
will be lower. So we don't see a lot of flow backing in. So that in itself will
release some of the flooding and we don't actually need to go back and do
this project. So everything is tied with Mil Creek. If we address the issue in
Mil Creek, there are a lot of opportunities to do something else.
Um and this is the ranking and the planning level project cost. And I know
these are big price tags. So I want to go into it one by one. Um I kind of
talked already talked about how we are ranking these projects in terms of
priority and came up with a planned construction year. So the project costs
I want to I want to really emphasize with a giant asterisk around it is that
these costs when we're looking at 2038 that's escalated to 20 $38. That's not
looking at 2026. We're assuming 3% of inflation every year to get to that
cost. And when we're presenting this analysis,
because it's at the planning level, we assume the most conservative cost. So
this is going to be probably the upper limit of what we will see on these. But
even with that being said, this totaling is looking at $27 million, right? We're
all wondering how are we going to do project like that? Um and grant funding
is really the best best place to go. And this is looking at 10 years. And I just
also want to emphasize again that we are actively pursuing grant funding to do
some of these studies. And we just do them one at a time, one step at a time.
[clears throat] And this is um yeah and then the TAGE study and design is the
first one on the list. So this last part of the presentation I
want to go into a little bit of detail of the financial analysis that we
performed as a part of this project. We started by looking at the existing
revenue uh for coy storm water utility here is exclusively funded through rate
revenue. So that's the stormwater fee that you're paying right now. is a flat
fee of about $7 per account per month. So that's per per parcel per month. And
what I didn't include here is comparing it with what other utilities are
charging in the area. We're at about $7 flat fee per month. And [clears throat]
the second cheapest one above us is at $14
per month, doubling what we're charging right now. So, I think it's fair to say
that Col has a smaller revenue simply because we're not charging as much as
some of our neighbors are. And even with that, uh, we are right now
budgeting at approximately $70,000 annually for stormwater utility fees.
And when we did this analysis, we assume there to be no customer growth over
10ear horizon. So the future revenue projection assume there's no customer
growth distributed just at staying at the same population same amount
and I will go into the weed a little bit here because I want to kind of step by
step go through how we came up with these numbers.
Um the first thing that we go in is to try to figure out how much money do you
actually need to run your program to run your storm utility. So the number one
thing that everyone spends money on is operation and maintenance just doing the
bare minimum. And in this case in CI the 2026 O&M budget is about $44,000
and when we are looking at future cost analysis we're escalating that at an
average inflation rate of 4.2%.
And [clears throat] to simplify the analysis you can see me crossing it off
there. we assume that there are no additional revenue coming from taxes or
from inter fund transfer. So we just we're just focusing on storm water
utility on its own. And we also assume we also know for a fact that storm water
utility itself does not have any debts. So that's also cross off of the revenue
requirement. We don't have to pay any debts from stormwater utility.
And the last piece of this puzzle is to figure out what we call rate funded
capital. That is if we had savings, if we had a reserve
um and if we had needs to go fix this project, how much would that cost just
to do the basic repairs in addition your to your operations and maintenance? Just
basic capital cost. So I will show you now the capital plan that we use to um
to kind of look at the rate funded capital.
So from the capital funding plan we started at a capital cost
and that's what the system needs and based on the six projects that are at
endify this is the astronomical number of $27 million over next 10 years. Um
and uh that's that's the capital cost. But then when we're looking at how much
money that we can actually pay for that, as I said, we're actively pursuing
grants to actually pay for some of the capital costs. And to further simplify
the analysis, again, we're assuming that we're not spending money on net reserve
to fund any capital projects and there's no debt to pay. And the difference
between what it costs to do all the capital projects and what we can get
from grants ideally will be the rate funded capital. And even that is a big
gap. So I I do want to give you the time to kind of think about
that for a little bit. But coming from the race study, a number
one recommendation is to continue pursuing grants and loan opportunities.
Here in the purple highlight, I uh basically highlighted opportunities that
have loans. And it's really great that in the state of Washington, hardship
communities like Cosmopolis are often prioritized for loan forgiveness and
also for grant funding. So this is really an advantage for us in that way
to get that grant funding to do something with storm water management
and with flood management. What's in blue are the um the grants that's
available for storm water management and also with like office of sha basin for
flood reduction. These are competitive grants that um every everyone in
Washington will go for. Um as a consultant I I help other cities apply
for these things. even if it's Belleview, even if it's um effort that
have bigger bigger pot money. Um but but again, hardship communities are often
prioritized when it comes to receiving these fundings.
So that's the number one recommendation. And number two, and this is what I want
to present as uh something for all of us to consider. This is not a thing that I
want us to go in with the resolution today but is thinking about what to do
to increase capital reserve. So I'm presenting two options here in the part
of this analysis. The first option is to uh increase rates
by face. Um, and as an example, uh, we're thinking about increasing the,
um, rate by 5% annually for the first 5 years. So, we build up some of that
reverse and reduce that increase to 2% annually, just as an exercise.
At this rate, we're going to see a uh total reserve of about $20,000 by 2031,
which is still a small amount for the kind of work that we need to do, but
that is a 28% increase from what we have right now. That's pretty huge. And what
that looks like to your monthly fee could look like is just putting a
quarter and a dime in the piggy bank every single month. And that if everyone
were to do that, that's $19,000. But this is this is just one option that
we considered. The second option which is very common
among stormwater utilities is to support uh to use a equitable rate structure.
Meaning if you have a bigger parcel, if I own a bigger piece of land, I'm
expected to pay more for storm water management just because there's more
rain that land on my property than on single family home. So in this case, uh
a lot of time the industrial parcels and commercial parcels could be charged more
to offset that difference and the rate for the single family home and
residential could remain the same. So, these are just two options that
we've looked at for our uh for the comprehensive plan and something for us
to kind of consider uh as we move forward.
But I'm going to close it out by just talk about some of the recommended next
steps. So, the first two I've already talked about when it comes to financial
health. One is to continue pursue external grant funding. Two is to
consider adjusting storm water rates to fund capital. Perhaps adopting a more
equitable rate structure. And three, um I'm using some big words
here, asset management plan for city storm water infrastructure. What it
means is that I think it's important for the city to know what facilities we
actually own and what's in our responsibility to maintain. That's what
I uh mean by asset inventory to know what's in the system. And the second is
because they're all underground most of the time, doing a condition assessment
of these assets will give us an idea of if they need to be replaced in 5 years
or 10 years to 50 years. So we have a way to plan for these upgrades.
And the last thing coming up from that is to figure out how much do those
replacement and renewal will cost. So that will help us get a sense of at
least what is coming up next because like any of your home repair when it's
broken it's going to be more expensive than replacing something proactively.
And the last piece is to continue implementing engagement activities for
overburden communities so that they know that there are different flood reduction
initi initiatives going on in the region. Um, this is my last slide and I
left my email uh my my work email on the on the slide for you if you have any
other questions about the comprehensive plan. It's now on the city's website for
you to also uh look at if you're interested, but I'll open the floor up
for any questions.
» In your um presentation, you you talked about low slope and not a big retention
area. for water. One of the things historically is is the area by
the the north end of town by the flood gates that property back in there. There
there was we used to clean it out. We used to go in there and actually dredge
that that creek uh take care of beaver dams, things like that. that gave us the
capacity a lot of times in the winter >> to be able to store more water.
» Yes. >> During that time, is that factored in
here at all as far as that maintenance? >> That's definitely something that we are
considering for the TAG study in the way that
creating storage is the only thing that will make the tigate work. And one way
to do that is to dredge it. And what we did not look into is um environmental
permits that's required to do that. It can be it can be expensive and also the
maintenance that's related to that. But another option coming out from that is
to uh potentially looking at pump stations.
» So instead of instead of judging it creating that storage year after year,
putting in pump station and then pumping that water directly out to Shahalis
could be another option. And that's uh that's pretty common in this area as
well. So for the the funding that we applied, those are the things that we'll
look into. >> And that's part of what's happened in
South A. And they redirected a bunch of water to this system.
» Okay. >> And so they put in pump stations
upstream, but this they also [clears throat] redirected they ditched
it. They put a lot of extra water into our particular area. And so,
um, I was curious about that. The other thing I had a question about is at the
headwaters of the Mill Creek, um, there are large parcels of property that do,
you know, that's where that's where the water starts and comes in. Is there any
kind of opportunity to collect from those land owners?
It's in the county versus the city. >> Yeah. I think that's the tricky part of
storm water management is water goes where it wants to go. Water doesn't care
if it's in [laughter] right if it's in the town next door or
and and the [clears throat] city only has
agreement with its own residents and I think that's a really tricky part and
that's where some of the kind of region level regional level efforts come in. I
think when we talk about flooding, we really need to see each other as
partners and talk about opportunities to work together.
And I don't know the I I don't know the issues well enough to really answer your
question, but that's where [clears throat] my mind goes first.
» Um, Councilman Davis's deal Aberdine is building another a new pump station here
in South Everdine off of Farragut Street. It's one of their proposed
projects that will >> help reduce the amount of water that
comes from that south not south what is it this well southeast side or south
yeah southeast side of Aberdine south Aberdine [clears throat] they call it in
the swamp area between the two cities here and um I'm part of the flood
authority I'm one of the members of the flood authority and and I brought up the
idea that eventually that we might look at a pump as well as what Aberdine and
Hokquim have now put in and we're finding to be more and more because in
my time here the creek floods and if it can't get out
because the river level is as high as it is. That's why you got to have the pumps
instead of a gate. A gate's just going to keep the water from the river coming
in, but it isn't letting our water out. and and so I know that's one of the
ideas that we've been passing around. Uh we have turned in um the paperwork for
the project for the study and stuff. It has made and went through the first set
of evaluations. It came back. >> You guys went through it a second time
and sent it back in. And so it's been evaluated and now we're just waiting for
it. It it didn't make shovel ready. So yes, it didn't end up hitting right now
to be funded, but that next bianium is where we look like we'll end up with it
in getting into the next bianium with that funding.
» Okay. Yeah. And and exactly what you're saying, pump is a pump is an option.
What Councilman was saying too, like dredging and creating additional storage
is another option. And definitely we're looking at both short-term construction
costs and also long-term maintenance, what that will look like.
» And T, I hate to stop you here, but we do need to start our um council meeting.
Yeah, >> you have the her email address. You can
reach out and contact her. I've had the pleasure of working with her for several
months and I see us continuing to work together. So, um, if you do have
questions, please reach out. Okay. >> Yeah.
» Thank you. Thank you J very much. >> Are you going to stay for the meeting?
» Yeah, I'll stay for it. But >> you don't have to.
» I don't know how to exit it. So
» So do you have any other presentation which is
» No, that that's the only presentation. >> I think then we leave it on and ask have
people just start admitting that. Leave it this big screen on
in case people want to ask questions. >> Okay. Uh what we want to do is have it
as speaker. >> We'll have Chris and Casey on tonight.
» Okay. I think it's still all working. >> Okay. Should we proceed then?
» Y. >> Okay. Um
Councilman Skinno, could you lead us, please? I pledge allegiance to the flag
of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one
nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
» Thank you. And Councilman Skinn, will you do roll call, please? Oh, this is
Mayor Springo. It's Wednesday, August 19th, and I call the council meeting to
order. Mayor Springer
» here. >> Councilman Skinner here. Councilman W
present. >> Councilman Spargo
» present. >> Councilman Davis
» here. >> Councilman Darcy
» here. >> All accounted for.
Um, before we vote, I'd like to add an addition to tonight's agenda, the
boundary line adjustment ratification for partial A and B, block 24, which I
would like to add as an item four under new business discussion and item two
under new business council action. Is there a motion to approve the agenda for
tonight's meeting as amended? >> So move. You need to have someone to
make a motion that we add. >> You got to have
» Okay. So, >> I make a motion that we a um
a
adjust the agenda to reflect the um new part. [laughter] Here we go again.
amend >> to add
the ratification of for parcel A and parcel B block 24
to uh the new business and item number two
take council action.
» Is there a motion? >> That was the motion. Now you need a
second. >> Thank you.
» Seconded. >> All is in.
» Any questions? Any questions? Where is that? Where are the uh what
area are we talking about? >> Isn't this this piece of property?
» This is part of the Oh, this part. Oh, okay. Okay.
Any other discussion? >> All in favor?
» I >> I
Okay, moving on to the consent agenda. Is there a motion to approve the consent
agenda? I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.
» Is there a second? >> Council me second that.
» Is there any discussion?
» All those in favor? >> I.
» All those opposed. Okay. There'll be none. Council comments
at this time.
Hearing none. [clears throat] We'll move on to committee reports, auditing and
finance. Uh we I didn't go over the um vouchers
and also um Councilman Skinner and I the vouchers ourselves as well.
[clears throat] Park
uh our public safety meeting last night. Uh I will refer the reports from the
Aberdine Police Department and the um Cosmopolis Fire Department to those
committees when they move that direction. Uh we did have a little more
discussion last night on what's going on across the street and the updates that
have been uh uh shared with the community whether through the newsletter
or the newspaper. Uh there's plenty of social media people out there reporting
on what's going on across the street as well. Uh
all different kinds of information. I think our best bet is to get our
information from the EPA. um and go with what they're
letting us know and how they're dealing with the issues over there. We can all
see as we drive by that it seems to me that somehow even if it is August,
there's less water right now sitting over there on the ground than there had
been for the last few months. So either they um broke a a beaver dam or
something happened over there to reduce some of it. they have taken chemicals
away and they will proceed to or continue to do that for the upcoming
months. So, uh that uh we discussed a little bit more about the traffic
calming uh issues that we've uh identified and um uh we've tried I would
say we're working towards getting them on the agenda. The agenda has been full
of priority items and so that hasn't hit the agenda yet, but we hope to here real
soon get that on the agenda. Um, other than that, uh, Councilman Davis, you
took some notes. You got some more to add to it. I think you pretty much cover
everything. >> Okay.
» Okay. Public works. We did not have a meeting this month, so
» Okay. >> Official reports. Um
» if you could do that >> city administrator
» uh council, first of all, this is my first council meeting uh that I've been.
So it's been um I tell people I've been drinking drinking from fire hose uh to
get that. But I really want to do appreciate you as council uh helping
helping me understand kind of how that we're where we are with
it. U because anytime you walk in something new, it's new. you just don't
know. You assume stuff and you don't know. And and um but it's been a great
it's been great being here and I've just been amazed with the citizens that are
in Cosmopololis. I mean, they're just great people and the parks and and just
just the whole town is just a is a great town. Um now, with that being said,
obviously there's some big challenges that we have. Um, and you guys have been
doing actually a pretty good job of of of managing it. I mean, with with
limited resources, um, definitely a lot of stuff going on. Um, but I'm I'm
excited to be here and um, and my door is always open, you know. So, um, if you
need to track me down on something and if I don't know, I'm going to tell you I
don't know. If I do know, then I'll probably, hey, this is what we can do.
and and I and I'm I'm gaining some thoughts but of of the town. Um but
understand that there's just a lot of things that my goal is to work within
versus coming in and saying, "Hey, I've got the answers for everything." Because
I don't. But, uh here at the [clears throat] table, I think that we
can work together. Um so, with that being said, uh want to give some updates
and one of the big things that obviously that we've been working on is Cosmo
Specialty Fiber and the site cleanup. um that we had uh uh last week on Thursday
uh we had held here at the city hall um uh meeting with the EPA or EPA basically
it's a drop in you know um so people could ask questions there were 12 people
that were there and they included representative from uh uh Congresswoman
uh Randall's office um I was there we had a daily um world reporter um and a
representative from the Kronalt Indian Nation. And then of course the three EPA
employees that were there, one public affairs specialist and the two on on uh
seeing um coordinators um and the EPA's goal um is to remove
large quantity of chemicals stored at the site um over the next 3 to 5 months.
Um, and they're going to be working Monday through Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to
5:00 p.m. Um, the funding, that was a big question that came up was where it's
coming from. It's coming through the super fund authority. Uh, but the
officials stressed that this is not a super fund site, you know, so it just
that's the that's where the pot of the money comes from. Um, and the reason why
the EPA is here is they have the ability to work on acute problems that are time
critical, you know, so that's removing the chemicals. So that's there. What
they don't do is they're not they're not going to do soil. They're not going to
do, you know, whatever the structure is over there. They're they're just
basically there for the chemicals. That is where ecology comes in, you know. And
so that's going to be a bigger discussion of what happens next after
the EPA is done. Uh they think there's between 700,000 and 750,000 gallons that
have been confirmed. Um primarily uh the the red liquor um which contains
magnesium bulfite. I don't know if I got that spelled right or said that right.
Um but there's there's additional tanks that they haven't gotten to yet, you
know, that they're going to work on getting there. So there could be there
could be a lot more. Um the red liquor is going to be pumped uh using new
equipment. So they're going to instead of using their existing equipment
because there's no power over there. They're going to open up the top and
basically suck the stuff out. Um and then they've got stuff that's going to
neutralize it on site. So neutral pH. Um and then they're going to truck it uh to
the licensed disposal uh facilities. Um they said that they're probably going to
take it through the Blue Slooh area instead of going through town, but
they'll do that. Um the Washington Department of Ecology, uh which was not
there, but they're going to they are the ones responsible for the separate
address oils and the smaller containers. And so you you're probably going to see,
uh spill uh vehicles in there. It's not that there's a spill, they're there to
clean it up. Um, so far the EPA has documented 8 to nine leaks mostly in the
piping. Uh, and some of them are small leaks. Um, uh, but they said that the,
uh, inactivity of the facility makes it less hazard than an operating mill, you
know, cuz I know we've all been talking about what happened down south. Um, but
it's no longer heated, no longer pressurized. Um but they've got concerns
with aging tanks and they have no maintenance history of what what's going
on. Um so it remains concern. They're going to be uh air monitoring. We'll
watch for sulfur sulfur uh dioxide particulates vapors. Um and they're
going to be publishing monitoring data uh weekly on treatment and shipping
totals. Um right now they're using open uh treatment tanks. Um, and the reason
why they do that because they can analyze whether or not it's happening.
Um, now if they're going to monitor it, but if something was to happen where
there's more um fumes that are being released, I mean, and they're they've
got sensors all over the place, then they can do um closed tanks instead, but
it's hard it's harder to monitor it. Um EPA they over and over again said
they're limited to removing the bulk chemicals and ecology is the one
responsible for long-term investigation soil, groundwater, sediments, wetlands,
overall site cleanup and and we've had conversations but we don't really know
what the plan is. Um so that's that's going to be something that that we just
got to keep pushing. unresolved issues which they don't know is the residue
sludge because as the tanks as the tanks empty out there might be stuff that's on
the bottom and then it might not be practical to remove it other than I mean
if if you want to get someone in there to suck it out. So that's where they
just have to figure out as they go whether that makes sense. And then
there's uh a lot of pipes through the entire
thing. And so some of the some of the pipes are like inch thick. Um and so to
clean all the stuff out of there is probably going to be impossibility uh
with it. Um but they're going to do once they get in there, they're going to have
a better idea. Um, again, like I said before, it's
taxpayer funded, but the EPA expects to pursue costs to recover from current and
former owners, and they made that clear, but they they gave the current owner
plenty of time to try to get the thing cleaned up, but there's been no
response. Um, so they're they're pursuing um the legal legal aspect. Um,
uh, EPA is coordinating with county emergency management, fire, law
enforcement. We had a big meeting with everybody in there to understand what's
going on. Uh, but there is no dedicated public siren. So, if something happens,
you're not going to do that. But there is because there's no power in the side,
but if something was to occur, energy management would handle the
notification. So, it' be typically that we would do if a tornado came through or
whatever, you'd be um, alerted. Um [clears throat]
the I think the one feedback that I got was uh there was not enough notice for
people to know and why it was so quick and the reason why it was so quick is
the direct conversation we met with them is they were in town. We felt that it
was important to get a meeting right as soon as possible, you know, so the word
is out. They're talking about whatever it whatever it's going to be and we
still had um good good representation in there, but the plan plan is to do um
many more. I mean, so um it all depends what but there'll be greater more
advanced notice. Um and uh you know if there's things that we can put the
word out better um to get that you know we certainly would do that cuz really
there they were um if you were there they were they were great people to talk
to. I mean they just gave you gave you the facts. Um I said that you know what
they could work on what they wouldn't u but they haven't actually done done all
that stuff. So so the plan is to have more dropins. Um and then uh our plan
from the city is also to create a web page with with all the information on
there to keep people up there. But uh their their page that they actually have
uh which is the um response.gov/cosmotc
is pretty good. I mean it has has all the stuff and you can go to see some of
the documents with it. So So our plan is to put that together. Anyone have any
questions before I go on my next thing? >> And they have put security back.
» Yes. Yes. I I mentioned they they as long as they're there, they are going to
have security. Now, what happens when they go
» Mhm. >> is is there because it's it's obviously
it's a it's a great nuisance >> [clears throat]
» um out there. But yes, yeah, they have that.
» The time frame is 7 8 months. Is that what they said? uh they said about 5
months, but they won't know until they start actually, you know, getting in
there. But they're they're here and they're they're on site. Um and they've
really been great to work with so far. >> Very approachable.
» Yeah. With it. And and they have no problem if you've got if you got
questions, you know, and they'll they'll tell you what's going on and uh some
things they can't say, but um you know, but um they're they're a great a great
team. And anything else?
um just give you an update. I I don't know if you if the council knows or not,
but you know, uh I'm still working on the fire museum water damage. Um and so
uh we have the insurance company has not reopened the claim, but they've
approved us to uh to go and do further investigation on the wall and have it
open it up and see if there's any um water damage or whatever is in there.
And then once we get that, then we'll see what our next steps are. So, no no
promises, but at least we're um we're having the conversation. They're going
to come back and take a look at that. Um tomorrow, we're going to be interviewing
for deputy clerk position. Um they're scheduled for tomorrow. We've got four
people that we're interviewing. Um and the administrative office is we're are
going to be closed as there's three of us that are going to be interviewing.
Um, so I'll update the the council as soon as we decide whatever whatever
we're going to do. And then the building department coverage, I know that some
people have have, I guess, talked about it, but um, but
the building inspector, Bill Cider, is has been out. He's got he's got some
issues that he has to uh take care of. Um, we expect him to come back. Uh, but
in the meantime, Josh Padet from Aberdine is covering his position. Um,
and he he's getting all of Bill's emails, uh, um, returning phone calls.
He's been out doing inspections. Um, and, uh, so we're we're on track and
we're not we're not dropping anything there. And, um, we talked to Bill
[gasps] probably at least every other day about
what whatever is going on. So, uh, uh, we hope to have him back and and get
back up to speed. But, uh, we do appreciate, uh, the help that we've been
getting from Aberdine, um, on on that, you know, and again, I I really do
appreciate all you guys do as council members. I mean, that, uh, being a
council person, it it's hard. I mean, you just from time to get the stuff done
and um, and right now as a is a tough time in Cosmopolis and and to be on the
council, you know, there's some decisions you have to make that are
tough. Um, and it's hard, you know, but I really I really been impressed with
the work that you guys do and especially for some challenges you're in there. I
mean, I think that um uh you are guys are doing a lot with not a lot with it.
So, so I appreciate it and I'm glad glad to be here and again my my door is
always open. Um, so whatever I can do to help you guys or or just or you guys
help me on figuring out how do we get get places, that's all I got.
» Okay. Thank you. >> Police Chief Chief Green.
» Thank you, Mayor. Uh, just to go out with the city manager said make sure you
sign up for your [laughter] alerts to Gar County Emergency
Management. There's a link on there to put your uh name and phone number to
that they have your correct information. So if you have an alert, they can do
that. They're able to do it um geographically based. We can do the same
thing for our dispatch center. So that's very important stuff that has to make
sure you guys keep keep updated on that. The city of Abin also has a notify me um
app and a website too. Uh I would certainly encourage you to sign up for
them too. Uh they're just you so it's important you get any emergencies might
be going on with your neighbors. Uh last month in July we saw 54 calls. So it was
down from June. uh the most of the calls, the highest call we had with was
parking enforcement. I think that's a good thing that uh if people are calling
our parking enforcement officer for some of the nuisance uh vehicles um you know
when we started this I kind of talked about our goal with the parking is to
just get people to comply and take care of their business and so George has only
written two tickets out of 20 calls. So that's a good thing. I think most people
are complying. That's about about the rate that we see in the city of 2. One
out of every 10 persons doesn't want to comply. So, we think they get an
interfaction later this year. Later this year, you'll get an update on the
parking codes. Uh, city causes are kind of outdated, so we're just going to um
make them current. Uh, you see the traffic data on the report, too. So,
you're getting us just under uh 6,000 cars a day driving by the speed signs in
the both directions. They're still still well below the speed limit. That's a
very good thing. And uh the average speed is is staying very consistent
which uh we also think that's a great thing too because sometimes people might
get too used to it and start speeding up a little bit but we haven't seen that
yet. [sighs and gasps] We were able to hire our 37th officer this last month.
She starts police academy on September 15th and she'll be graduating uh next
spring. Then we had Nash night out on the 4th just a couple weeks ago. were
able to stop them both the one I ever site and then two both of the Kazy sites
before we got stuck in our barricad call just down the road um really appreciate
all the community coming out and helping us out and then we were on that call you
know our priorities [clears throat] make sure everybody in the neighborhood's
safe so that's why those things take time you know we're never in any kind of
hurry to resolve the situations we want to make sure that everybody in the
neighborhood's safe and the victims are taken care of and so those things just
take time unfortunately and that's just kind of how it goes
» thank you And at this time, our fire chief will be joining us by Zoom. Chief,
» I uh good evening and uh my apologies for not being present tonight. I had a
had a family uh issue that occurred. So, I normally would be there. Um, so it's
been a fun start um for uh being your fire chief and um met a great group of
volunteers on the first drill night uh of the month and kind of kind of got
some understanding of people's needs and uh where we can grow the department from
here. Um so current >> currently we are sitting at 216 calls
for service. That's 34 calls since our last since the last report that you
received. Um we saw a significant uptick in uh fire uh structure fires or FSRWs
as they're listed. Um those were all mutual aid um with other departments
predominantly at the city of Aberdine. Uh however uh still a significant uptick
having 11 in a uh month's time. We did have some uh medical responses and 13
aid responses. Uh four lift assists and two hazmats that were unrelated to the
mill. Um just want to make sure that we don't it wasn't Cosmo. Um all the
majority were handled um well by our own volunteers um with the assistance of
Aberdine Fires paramedic unit and engine coming from Southside and we really
appreciate that cooperation that we do have. Um with that we have two members
that are in uh fire 2 academy. both are being reported doing really well and are
representing um Cosmopolis fire um very well. Uh we have two um recent
applications uh that one have gone out, one's already returned to add additional
volunteers. Both have an interest in fire and EMS. Um so that is great. And
we were able with the donation and mayor, I need you to say the family last
name so I don't destroy it. [laughter] >> Okay. Hopefully I don't. Um Daryl Drewi,
» thank you. Um with the charitable donation from their family, we were able
to uh repair our uh two of our bay doors that needed had much needed repairs um
with no cost to the city. So pretty happy to be able to um get that
[clears throat] fixed so we have a safe uh environment that doesn't delay our
response. Um, that's that's all I have for this meeting. Uh, I'm sure I'll have
more in future meetings. >> Thank you, Chief Mac Binger.
[clears throat] Um, on to the mayor's report. I have a
few updates to show this evening. So, coming up this Sunday is Festival in the
Park. Um, Festival in the Park is August 23rd from 11 to 4. I want to note a
correction. Our newsletter had a misprint listing Saturday at the correct
the correct day is Sunday the 23rd. You can look forward to a free kids corner
music featuring from 12 to 2 call engage who is a well-known musician in the
community and very popular. We have five food vendors with a nice variety of
food. 25 vendors plus several agencies that will be providing information that
support our citizens. There'll be a cruise in car show. Prizes will be
awarded. Citizens will be voting on the different categories. Um it'll be best
in show and different as I said different categories. The midnight
cruisers and push rods will be participating. also participating
in kind of the community event [clears throat] will be the Dennis York
Historical Museum will be open that day. They plan to bring one of the historical
fire trucks to the festival. Um our chief will have also applications for
that. Um volunteers can pick up there. Um and so there'll be a lot happening on
the 23rd. get out, visit businesses, come to the festival, go up to the
Dennis York Historical Museum. Um, we normally, well, we had started the
pancake volunteer pancake breakfast. Unfortunately, we're not having it this
year because our two volunteers that are very actively involved in it. They are
the individuals that training and then our chief, um, Koko was also one of the
volunteers last year. He is now working um full-time as a fire chief at a
different department. [clears throat] So, also we have a blood drive that will
be on August 24th. I think she still has a couple spots. We have information that
if you stop by city hall, we can connect you. It's also on our city Facebook page
and it's from 9 to 3. The blood mobile will be located on D Street on the curb
next to the fire hall. So, if you haven't, you know, you have an
opportunity to save a life and really help out because blood at this time of
year, um Jane came in and spoke at the senior lunchon and gave a wonderful
presentation about the need and there was a very high need for it. Um we did
not have a public works meeting scheduling was interesting
[clears throat] this but I will give you an update. Um, one of the things that
public work has been working on, they did do all the alleys. Um, if they miss
one, let us know. But all the gravel has been put in the potholes in the alley.
They're contining to work on cold patching. Um, as you can see, if you
take a look at First Street, it looks pretty amazing. Um, again, our seasonal
help was brought on as a full-time employee. Um, and he's doing an
excellent job keeping things trimmed and looking nice here in the city. Um, let's
see how we move on.
Oh, the other thing coming up is um I just the chief spoke about National
Night Out. We had one [clears throat] there at Highland Park and one at the
Dennis York um historical museum. Nice turnout for both of them. the police a
police department, the cadets and the VIPs who are in attendance and we want
to thank you. You had a excellent [clears throat] turnout and people
enjoyed um seeing you and visiting. So that's my report this evening. So we are
going on to new business at this time. Item number one, public hearing,
closure vacation of Ali Row. And John, will you speak to this? Uh you want to
do that? >> Oh. Oh. So at this time I will recess
the regular council meeting and reopen and reopen the continued public hearing
on the petition to vacate the alley right away adjacent to lots through 20
block 49 rural NIMs addition as petition by the Cosmopoulos school district.
» Okay. Uh if you remember on July 15th, the council um uh passed resolution 2601
setting tonight uh setting tonight's date for the public hearing that we had
on that special meeting uh to vacate the alley right away adjacent to lot 1
through 20 block 49 rural news edition. Um the petition was filed by the
cosmopoulos school district. Um and they're they're the property. It's like
right in the middle of the school um with it. Uh we have not received any
written comments and we only received two so far we've only received two um uh
verbal comments and they were both in favor of doing this. Uh so at this time
we'll take any any comments that anyone might have.
» Okay. Then you can go ahead and close the hearing.
» Okay. Seeing no further comment, I will close the public hearing. I will now re
reconvene the regular council meeting. Item two, lease of the police station
space. Um I'm excited we've had the um had alto be leased rented. Um we do at
this time have an agency that is interested. the staff has put together
um a we have a proposed rent um we put together for leasing the space at the
police building. A summary is below and I'm going to go through it with you.
There's a proposed rent of 25 to 3,000 a month with room for negotiation. The
space is 2,444 square ft. That's the entire office
space over there. Um the structured as modified growth leaf base rent plus
prorate utility, water, zero, garbage, electricity. The term is a yearly
contract agreement with no automatic renewal. Grant is based and approved
upon square footage with the andor CPI adjustment. The city retains master
access. Tenant is responsible for telecommunication, internet, phone, and
property liability insurance. the city will pay for technology relocation.
» Actually, they they agreed to change. >> Oh, that's right. They did agree to do
that, which was very nice. For office or professional use. Um, so we really had
to look at who this would be rented out to. So, for the office, it's only for
professional use. No retail, food service, or hightraic public facing
uses. Um, no use that conflicts with the city hall operations. No use requiring
evening weekend public access. Tenant must pass background and security
screening. Proposed ten tenant at this time is the crisis network support which
meets with this which met with the city and we were very pleased with our
discussion. See this as a very positive step forward for that youth. Um so the
only um clients that they see is uh crisis support. They um it's very
discreet, very confidential and um I think they'll be an excellent tenant. So
is there any discussion at this time? >> Will they be using the same access as
» No, they will they will use a police side.
» Okay. >> Yeah, they will not be coming through
the city side at all. Any other comments, discussion?
Okay. Um,
so um, moving on to resolution 2026-02-
[clears throat] EMS fee. Tara, would you like to speak
to this at this time, the EMS fee? >> Sure. Um, thank you, Mayor. Tara
Dunford, finance consultant. Um, I just want to make sure that council
understands how critical this is. Um, when council did approve the contract
with Aberdine, this really should have happened at the same time. Um, the
difference in the rate is $39.62 per month per customer. So, for your 751
accounts, that equates to nearly $30,000 a month. If you don't adopt this rate
increase tonight, the general fund has to pay the difference. The general fund
simply does not have that money. That's as much as your entire police contract
with Aberine is. We're already going to have to eat the one month since it
didn't pass last month um correctly and and that already will hurt the budget.
Uh the general fund had about $250,000 in it at the end of June. that money
would be gone so quickly if you start eating it down with this. Um, I know
it's very expensive. I know it's a big impact on customers. I absolutely agree.
We should look at a rate study to see if there is some sort of subsidy option or
a way to lower that rate, but we don't have the capacity in the budget to not
adopt this rate at this point. Um, there's just no money there. Um, I was
involved with Aberdeen's budget presentation and budget process when
they went through this and and they had a lot of heartache over doing it too. I
mean, it went through many, many, many council meetings. Um, it was a huge rate
increase that they were subsidizing the EMS by the city's general fund and in
fact in essence subsidizing Cosmopolis's EMS services through Aberine's general
fund. Um, and their budget just simply couldn't sustain it. That's the reality.
So, um I I just want to make sure council understands how critical this is
and how important it is. And you're contracted now to pay this rate to
Aberdine. If you don't pass this and collect it from customers, it has to
come from the general fund and and cuts are going to have to come from somewhere
because there's simply not money there to fund it.
» Thank you, Terara. So this resolution would increase the monthly EMS fee
charged on the utility count to 6754 as we discussed in a workshop
meetings many times previously
um amending resolution number 2023-04. Is there any discussion before
[clears throat] they'll vote this evening?
» I have a question for you Tara. You might recall Chief Folly brought forward
an EMS fund or some sort of em EMS breakoff from the utility bill. That
separate money was going towards the Kazzy Fire Department.
What happened to that fund? That money or does this rate eliminate that fund
now that the rate is in increased? >> That's a great question. So, you still
have the new fund 110. So that was established last year for the EMS fund.
Previously the EMS revenue was accounted for in the general fund. It's still in
essence the same thing. The money comes in from customers and it goes out. We're
just tracking it in a separate fund so that you have really easy visibility.
um what was established last year when that fund went into play, there was a
very small difference between the amount charged to customers and what was
remitted to aver bucks and it equated to $7,500 in last year's budget. The goal
of the chief at that time was to build up some money and have a little bit of
resources to start funding your own EMS program. Being that now it's going to be
a direct pass through, we won't have that additional $7,500 a year.
» Gotcha. It's a great question. I do recall that we talked about being more
of an accounting. >> I mean, even if it lowered that fee to a
$66 instead of 67 per month, it would help the citizens. Um, you know, it's
just a it's just a heavy rate on our utility bill.
» Uh, thank you, Tara. I was curious about that.
My questions are still the same that I've had is the uh is
in the contract it says utility hookup um what utility we talked about it
whether it's sewer whether it's water >> it water utility so it's the 751 water
connections there are roughly 630 I can't remember if it's 631 or 633 sewer
connections um so those that are on wells obviously don't pay sewer. Um so
it's a 751 water connections.
» Um so the other part of that question is
there is exemptions available and are we using or do we know what
those exemptions would be? So my question is my math says we're we're
paying 759 connections based on the fee to be paid
and uh I'm just curious about the the city buildings. Are we including those?
Because we didn't used to in the water connection. It was exempt from the
contract. So, we went from 730 a few years ago to 700 I have 759
um water meter connections.
» I'm just looking at the July report right from the financial system and 751
connections were built were build >> um in July. Uh whether those are where
the city ones are, I'm going to see if I can find that. I am not an expert in the
utility billing system. So, let me see if I can find that answer quickly. I may
or may not be able to.
But yes, the city in theory should pay the
flat monthly 6754 per water meter connection.
» So, the so the city so like the parks each park each pump station each
» each hug. Yes. And [clears throat] u you asking how many meter connections the
city has? >> I'm trying to find out why our meter
connections went up that much because we didn't have 20 new connections in the
last two years. >> And so I would think that would be a
spot where the city would be able to get an exemption from the city of Aberdine.
I agree that the fee does need to be paid. We do need to get it and it does
need to go out to the citizens unfortunately. However, the city itself
shouldn't because we're already funding, you know, our fire department. We're
already funding EMS fees. So, there should be a blanket where all of the
municipal buildings we shouldn't have to pay that because I'm assuming I don't
know 10 how many connections do we have? But that's something we can do. We can
ask for an exemption down the road after that. after any of this other stuff
happens after we have to get this resolved now and then any other ideas
that come up or ideas that you may have need to be handled after and then start
form a committee and make it happen >> and I don't disagree with you at this
point because of the time frame but all that stuff should have been handled
previously well >> before we got into this whole thing so
» well there's a lot of things that should have happened I mean like I said all
these ideas people could have showed up at Aberdine commit, you know, council
meetings and nobody did. So, >> well, actually they did and they did
email council members. >> Yeah. And I watched them.
» Yeah. But Aberdine is doing what they need to do for Aberdine and
» I understand do what they do for our cos on
» I I recall that we were using a discounted rate where the city was
essentially subsidizing these bills >> correct
» for a while. Is that now just being passed on to Aberdeene? That so we've
transferred the subsidy that was provided from our general fund and now
Aberdine's been doing it. Is that >> we used to get a 20% discount from
Aberdine and now we're being charged the full rate of 100%.
» So they were actually giving us a formal discount
» because we had our own fire department. We're handling some of the EMS calls
» and uh the problem is that we didn't have enough volume. Our our staff didn't
respond to enough volume of calls and so they wanted to raise it to 100%.
» Okay. >> There is a there is a a hope that we can
get more active and be able to respond to the calls. And then at that point
they they said they would consider lowering it back down to an 80%.
» Right. I recall that by a chief Goldberg kind of good presentation on it.
» I was under the impression though that part of the you know the kind of
discount to our citizens was being paid um well basically just being covered by
the city of Cosmopol. >> It was but the last administration
» I would have to remember when
» Yeah. the previous Yeah. They stopped doing that cuz when I first moved here
there was a sub this city was subsidizing and there was a council
meeting I came up I believe in like [clears throat] 2022
probably like around 23 end of 22 23. >> Yeah. But that's a different thing.
» They axed out the city subsidizing any of that. Yeah.
anything. >> Only comment I'm going to make and and
this probably not make some happy, but we voted and passed this resolution
over a month ago. And then we came back and found out that we had to or passed
this ordinance to raise the rate. And then we came back because we found out
that we had to pass a resolution to pass the bill or to pay the bill.
And the action of the meet of the council that night cost the city $30,000
of our reserves even though it had already been voted on
and passed to try to make some point about not having process procedures or
doing things in the past. We just threw away $30,000
that should have been passed on to the residents. We're all residents.
I'm not saying that I was exempt from paying it. I had to pay it, too. And I
understood that I had to pay it. But to hold hostage the bill [clears throat] to
try to prove a point was not good policy.
Well, I respect your opinion. However, I I disagree. I think the good policy
would have been to answer these things. We brought it up in February, January,
and February, and tried to get answers to these questions, and they weren't
answered, and they're still not answered tonight. So, tonight we're going to call
for a vote. There's still questions to be answered, but I do agree again, we're
put under the gun of the urgency of we have to do this now. the policy should
be done previous to the vote. So you want to blame the cost of $30,000
to the city, you know, look look around. >> So I'm just I'm going to step out of
mayo throw for a moment. Um which I can do and I'm going to speak to this.
Aberdine took this before those citizens numerous workshop
as to other people can and Sue who attended those meetings council meetings
they did not resolve it until March this wasn't a rush through last minute
we had workshops we had meetings we had a town hall meeting had to go back and
forth politics doesn't happen overnight It would be nice if we could get things
passed quickly. It didn't. And overall, it has cost.
And thank you for pointing that out. We came, you should have been educated.
You should have understand instead of pointing fingers, you have a
responsibility to the citizens to make decisions that
keep this city moving forward. The last two and a half years have been hard
work, sacrifices that have moved this city forward to to
make that kind of vote that set us back 30,000
was very disappointing because there's a lot there's council
here that work that volunteer to make a difference and then to see what happened
last council meeting was very disappointing and that's the last I'm
going to say on it.
[clears throat] Any other comments at this time?
Okay, with hearing no other comments, John, where do we go from here?
» Number four. >> Okay, moving on to item number four,
boundary line adjustment, ratification, parcel A, parcel B, block 24, John
Martin and Chris Koko. Well,
» so the reason why this is here uh that is we have on further down um a proposal
to sell a piece of property um and uh went through uh digging to get some
information on uh a boundary line adjustment uh that was it was done. So
it was surveyed, it was done, the boundary line was submitted to the um uh
the um uh the board the assessor's office or
what whatever the uh that makes it. So it's been it's been filed. Now one of
the things I went through and I could not find any documentation that was
brought before the council for approval. Um, so,
uh, what we need to do is obviously before we sell the property and the the
correct property description, everything is in the sale
package correctly. But one of the things that if you're in a city and you make an
adjustment to a property property line adjustment, the council has to approve
it. It has to become the and it didn't. And I don't know why, but it just
didn't. And so um in advice to our um attorney that his suggestion is that to
make it legal, what we need to do is bring it before the council, make it um
basically backdate that we approve it. Um and because
well, it it needs to be approved. I mean, from from a council point of view.
So that's the reason why it's here. ask what is the reason for the property line
adjustment? >> You know, I was not here when you guys
talked about it. So, I I don't know. I can I I can make some assumptions with
it. I mean, if you look at the what the original property was and what the
property is now of being buildable, but I don't know. I mean, I I'm guessing.
So, the reason it got brought up was uh the new building was supposed to be over
on that lot, right, and all that. So, the idea was was to ensure that there
was enough room for the rideway at the end of this building to be able to get
to the street so that the property line was surveyed. So, we knew we had enough
access in there. and it ended up moving the property line on I believe like 18
ft close >> but there's still 30 ft in there
» which should be plenty >> the idea was to be able to get a fire
truck through there you have the sallyport
» lid out there and stuff like that that's why it got brought up
» and so >> okay essentially we we're selling the
property we had some allotted on this parcel that we're on right now that we
no longer need >> that is correct yeah
» okay so that's the reason why it's here Very nice.
» So, moving on to item five, sale of city property 1312 First Street, John.
» Okay. And this is the property we just talked about right next door. Um there's
uh buyer uh David Mill. Um uh county assessor appraised the value is 39781.
uh listed price we put up at 79,500. Buyers originally offer was 65,500
and then we countered and this is where it 76,000 with it. Um you know and so
the the key the key is one if the council accepts that when we go in there
but uh we kind of need to do both of them if we're going to uh proceed
forward as far as the boundary line adjustment and this. So,
» we could probably do. Yeah. So, I just have a question about the um agreement
that's on here. Is it expired? Cuz it says that this that his offer was made
in July and that it's only >> we there Well, no, it's not expired
because we >> did the counter.
» We Well, we did the counter. It said that. And then it also is on there that
it's um for council approval. >> So, and we had this is our first time
that we've met. >> Oh, right. Okay, sounds good. I just
wanted to double check on that. Yeah, >> other than that, it's just your basic
land deal, you know. >> Yeah.
» So, only other question I have is where does the $76,000 go? I would earmark
that to go someplace specifically. >> Sure.
» That's going to go to the city's general fund. You could earmark it specifically
to go to some specific purpose if you wanted to.
That'll be good to help make up for the EMS fees that we just lost.
» Mhm. [laughter] >> Yeah.
» Be a good year to mark. >> Yeah. The appropriate time to do that
would be during the 2027 budget process. >> Process.
» Yeah.
» Do we know if he what plans he has been around?
» Yes. So, I'll go ahead and speak to that. Um,
his plans are to build a twostory building with a residence or apartment
up above with some type of retail down below, possibly a restaurant or offices
down below. >> Nice.
» And he understands it cannot be storage units or anything like that. That would
make very clear. >> Not another coffee shop.
Well, [laughter] he actually said he wanted a not and he was thinking about a
coffee shop and offices and I said, "Well, we have two coffee shops within
two blocks." And he's like, "Oh." I said, "But you know, it was interesting
cuz there was information put out because we have another piece of real
estate and people have talked about a restaurant, a number of things, and I
shared that with him." So he seemed very excited to move forward not with a
coffee shop but maybe a restaurant something sandwich shops and off other
offices. [laughter]
» So you said that that's been very clear but is that in the contract at all?
» Yes it will be under contract. It will be
» that it is. I talked to the realtor and he said it would it is.
» No. >> Okay. Moving on to ordinance six number
1406 vac.
» Yes. So [snorts] this is what we've been talking about. It's the um school the
school district that wants it vacated. Uh
we uh no one has spoken against it. Uh the
people that spoke for it, you know, the comments were why haven't we done it
before? Um [laughter] >> 75
» 75. >> Yeah, cuz there's a um there's actually
part of a building on on the rightway. uh we are not giving up uh our easements
when it comes for water, sewer, storm water, etc. with it. So, we still have
the rights uh there. Um it it really has no impact to the city because it's
really all school property that that it's there. Um and uh um you know that
the >> I don't I really don't have much more to
say. I mean, it's it's it's something, you know, I I'm pretty sure the reason
why that it was never brought up before is back in the day, people didn't have
computers. So, to look at >> plots and things like that were very
difficult. They probably didn't realize it. And then when they started this
construction project, their their team goes, "Hey, you know, you know that you
don't have, you know, uh, right access, and this is the time that we should fix
it." So, I'm sure that that's why it came to
us and and again, it's the right thing to do.
» Okay. Um, so moving on to item 7, 2026, our
budget amendment ordinance number 1405, second reading, Tara Deford, our CPA.
» Uh, thank you. So, no changes to this document since council saw it last
month. Um, just to go through the items quickly. Uh in the general fund, there's
$192,115 for museum capital improvements. This is
100% um funded by insurance money that was received partially in 2025 and
partially in 2026. Um the reason we need a budget amendment
is council still has to give expenditure authority to the general fund in in
whole and there's not enough cushion in there to absorb $192,000.
uh but it is truly a net zero in terms of revenues and expenses. Uh the next
two items go together. So the bond fund is getting $242,91
um coming from the real estate excise tax fund. Um this is related to the
shortfall on the city hall project. Um the comprehensive plan was adopted back
in April and um included the project in the comp plan which allows the city to
use real estate excise tax funds to pay for debt service and project costs on
this building. Um again that one is really there are no other options. There
are no other funding sources for this. Um it it really is administrative
cleanup and and the only only available funds um that the city has at this time
to solve this problem. Um in the sewer fund, increasing
intergovernmental services funds uh 273,000 to reflect partial payment to
Aberdine uh for 2025 services. Um, back when we did the
original budget, we didn't include any payments to Aberdine because we didn't
know what the payments were going to be and what the um agreement was going to
be. Uh, lastly,
amending the FTE schedule, uh, removing the position of police clerk, and then
adding the part-time city administrator position. Um, again, back when we did
the 2026 budget, we kind of knew we might be moving towards uh contracting
over police services, but we did not reflect that in the dollars budgeted.
Um, [clears throat] net savings for 2026 are approximately $58,000 for the police
department switch. Um, there were a substantial amount, about $92,000 of
leave buyouts, insurance, and other expenses incurred in 2026, which will go
away in 2027. So uh the total annualized savings is about 150,000 from
contracting the police department. Uh part-time city administrator on an
annualized basis will be approximately 75,000.
Um that can be allocated across uh all funds. So the utility funds can pick up
a piece of that. Um [clears throat] cost for the remainder of the year is
$36,500.
Those are all the items included in the in the budget amendment.
» Does that take care of the rest of the building? Finally, that
» Yes. >> Okay.
» It takes care of the rest of the building [clears throat] except for the
interesting fact that the mill >> is behind on property taxes now. And to
your point, Amy last time, it's other others as well that are put on property
taxes, but their property tax bill is so substantial
» um that it's it has caused that fund to go in the negative because when the city
levies for the debt service payment, their piece of the pie is so
substantial. So >> that's going to hang out there as an
issue until that's resolved, >> right? What u what would we be able to
do with the remaining funds in the real estate excise? Um so anything that's in
the comp plan and and also complies with state law regarding spending a real
estate excise tax um you can spend on that. So think parks, capital
improvement, street projects, um a new city hall if you want to [laughter] go
that route and just general administrative um and
general government capital improvements typically.
» Save it for a rainy day. >> Yeah, it's interesting. You cannot use
it for uh police services. You can't use it for EMS. You can't use it for
anything like that. It's it's strictly capital improvements.
» We need some of those, too.
» Okay. So, moving on. Item eight, policy and
procedure committee. Councilman Davis, did you want to speak to that?
» Yeah. I'd asked to have the uh policy and procedure committee brought
up. I think it's necessary in talking with u several other council members
over the time. We've asked I've asked for policies around things and we don't
have written policies in a lot of cases and even even the council meetings
change from time to time as far as what how we handle it, how how public comment
periods are handled, who's addressed in the uh [clears throat] how the how the
public is recorded in the uh minutes uh has gone from their name to a citizen.
And it's really hard when you go back and try to research something when it
just says a citizen said or a group of citizens said made a comment and and if
somebody really has the courage or has the stamina to get in front of a council
and speak, I think respectfully their name should be put in there. But those
are some of the items. um hours of city hall, the use for this building, uh lots
of different things that we really don't have any policy, any written policy on
that we should have policies concerning. I felt like it's a good there's probably
10 or 15 things off the top that we've talked about at the council that we
don't have policies on. That was the goal was try to put together a committee
that would actually address each of those and bring those policy suggestions
to the council to be fulfilled. >> Okay. Thank you. Any comments?
» Well, I think our ordinance specifically says that the forming of account of a
committee is at the discretion of the mayor. So, it seems like it's a not a
decision that we need to make. It seems to be an administrative issue. So,
that's what our ordinance states. So, it's nothing that we really officially
vote on to happen. You seems like something you should be sitting down
with the administrator and the mayor if you want to create a committee because
they're the ones who do that. which I have. And so what I'm doing is I'm
asking the council [clears throat] to work together
on creating helping the administration understand the need for a policy
committee.
» Got it. All right. Moving on. Um, council member Wyn, would you like to
speak to your street tree planting? >> Sure. I'll try to keep it very brief,
which is edging out my forte. [laughter] >> Okay.
» You don't have to laugh that hard. Um, you know, I I uh presented the
ordinance a couple meetings ago and uh invited any comments, concerns, and I
really did not get any uh feedback. I did have a chance to meet with Bill
Cedor about it and we spoke about you know any kind of lingering concerns that
he had. He uh overwhelmingly the concerns are we plant trees what about
the maintenance issues. So that is all, you know, stuff that I've been mindful
of for 3 years in drafting this ordinance. And I feel very confident
that, you know, whatever guidelines we develop, they will be incredibly
sensitive to maintenance concerns and actually will alleviate some of the um,
you know, other issues that the city has. Um as we talk about storm water and
trees is um you know a strategy that many cities are using to combat storm
water runoff. Um but I'll just clarify quickly that um you know this city
street tree ordinance that we are um going to be voting on I think at the the
September meeting um is uh it's limited to so first of all it only says that
we're going to develop a plan. It doesn't contain the plan itself.
[clears throat] It simply uh establishes that that's how we're going to uh
approve or [clears throat] not approve planting trees um in certain areas in
the city moving forward. Um it doesn't apply to citizen-owned property that is
managed by citizens. It doesn't really apply to city- owned property that's
managed by the city. It is almost exclusively addressing what are called
the parking strips or planting strips or they're called different things
depending on where you [clears throat] are. But it's that very narrow strip
between the sidewalk and the street. So you pull up your car, park on the side
of the street [laughter] and you see a bare strip of grass there between your
car and the sidewalk. That is the area that we're talking about. Many of those
are actually owned by the city, but it's the citizens respons responsibility to
maintain it. if you have if you own the adjacent property. [clears throat] So,
that's mainly what we're uh talking about. It it gives citizens some right
to plant things on that city- owned property um but with very, you know,
kind of strict approvals to ensure that, you know, it's it's handled um
responsibly and sustainably doesn't create a burden on our infrastructure,
our maintenance workers, [clears throat] and a lot of other things. Um, so I I'll
just sum up to say that I I think that, you know, in talking with uh various
folks around the city over the past few years, I I think everybody has been
satisfied with the plans that we have for ensuring that this is done
responsibly and it doesn't become a burden on the city. Um, the only thing
that materialized in my conversations with Bill Cedor was he had some
enforcement concerns um, which I thought were very um, very fair concerns about,
you know, how would we if somebody plants something inappropriate, how
would we know, how would we address it? Um, and so we have a a pretty good idea,
I think, of how we'll address that as well. But all the details will be coming
in a later thing before the council. This is just basically us agreeing we
will develop a plan that will be brought before the council.
» Okay. Thank you, Councilman Wyn. Um at this time, public comments limited to
agenda items only. I will now open the floor. Um you will have three minutes.
Please state your first name. And
are there any public comments at this point?
I I'm Mary. Um I just want to make a comment on the
sale of the property next door and Steve asked about for [snorts] what the money
was earmarked for. Well, my lack of recollection recogn
um was at the meeting when it was discussed that we needed to do that
because of the budget overreach for the building and that type of thing that um
it was talked about of that it should be earmarked for
paying on the overage of the building which if it's paid off and it's fine
then that's one thing but that's what was discussed. at the time that it would
be used to pay towards the building since it was part of the whole
situation. Okay.
Any other comments at this time? Okay. Hearing none, we are going to move
on to council action items. So we will move on to item one to vote to approve
resolution 2026-02-
EMS fee. Is there a motion to approve resolution 2026-02
increasing the monthly EMS fee to 6750 per per account.
» So moved. >> Is there a second?
» Second. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say I.
» I. >> I.
» Any opposed? The motion passes.
Item two, motion for council consideration, boundary line adjustment
ratification. Is there a motion to retroactively
approve and ratify the boundary line adjustment between parcel A and parcel B
block 24? >> I Councilman Skinner I move that the
city council retroactively approve and ratify the boundary line adjustment
between parcel A and parcel B block 24. >> Councilman Spargo seconds.
» Okay. Is there any discussion? Hearing none, all those in favor? I.
» All those opposed. >> The motion passes.
Item three, vote to approve the sale of city property 1312
First Street. Is there a motion to approve the sale of city property at
1312 First Street? Um, tax parcel 0310 024001
00 to David Malik for 76,000. >> Councilman Spargo moves to go forward on
topic. >> Is there a second?
» Councilman Skinner second. >> Is there any discussion?
Hearing none. All those in favor? >> I
» I [clears throat] motion passes. Item four, vote to
approve ordinate 1406 to vacate alley row. A motion to approve ordinance
number 1406 vacating the portion of the alley
rightway adjacent to lots 1 through 20 block 49 rural ns addition of petition
by the cosmopoulos school district. >> So moved. Council Spargo seconds.
» Is there any discussion? All those in favor?
» I.
» Any opposed? The motion passes. Item five, vote to
approve the 2026 budget amendment ordinance number 1405.
Is there a motion to approve ordinance number 1405 amending the 2026 budget
adopted with ordinance number 1402? Councilman Skinner makes a motion to
approve the 2026 budget amendment. >> Council Garcia will second that. All
those in favor? >> I I
» I >> I'm sorry. Is there any discussion?
» Okay. All those in favor? >> I.
» Any opposed? >> The motion passes. Item six, vote to
approve final storm water comprehensive plan with HDR.
Um, is there a motion to approve the final storm water comprehensive plan as
presented by HDR incorporated? >> Council Darcy will uh move that the
final uh to approve the final storm water comprehensive HDR.
» Councilman Spargo seconds. >> Any discussion?
All those in favor say I. I. >> Any opposed?
Motion passes. At this time, public comments for city business only. The
floor is open to the general public for comment. Please state your first name.
We ask that you be respectful and keep your comments to three minutes.
Okay. Hearing none. Moving on. Council
comments. the council member.
» I guess I'll start us off. Um, first I want to apologize for not making it to
your presentation. Um, most of the council knows and most of the the
community knows. I'm a big part of uh most of the community sports. If kids
play this play the sport, I normally coach it or I'm participating. This time
of year is football season. It is started. Bobcats are playing football
over there at Steuart Field. I will be [snorts] limited for the next two months
as budget season is started. I will be doing my best to arrive for meetings,
but presentations may be difficult to attend for the two meetings going
forward. Um, my apologies. I will try to make myself as available as possible.
Second thing I do have to say, um, I'm an open book. Um, the community members
and of this town, they elected me to stand up and raise my hand when there's
questions or concerns. I've had citizens stop me at the gas station. I've had
citizens come talk to me at the Hong Kong restaurant while I'm having dinner
with my family. I've had people come to my house. I live next door to the
school. I'm easy to access. If anyone ever has a problem or the concern of the
things that I say or do as an elected official of this community, please reach
out. I am happy to discuss anything that I am saying, doing, or voting on. Um,
fellow individuals at this table, please also feel free to communicate to me. Um,
there was one individual that reached out. They were concerned on what was
done last meeting and we spoke on it and I feel that we left it in good terms and
she understood where I was coming from. Um, so I am not out to make enemies. I'm
out to try to stand up for the community and the citizens of Cosmopoulos as they
elected me to take this position. So that is all I have to say. I appreciate
everyone that's came out and I appreciate everyone sitting at this
table. >> Thank you. Okay.
» Any other comments from council? >> In the spirit of uh apologizing, I don't
I don't know that apology is is strictly necessary. Um you know, it has been
noted to me uh by folks that um you know, they would like to see me more in
person and less on Zoom and um and I've missed a few more meetings than I would
have liked to. Um, and I I just want to acknowledge that and, you know, be very
transparent in that I' I've always struggled with having the capacity to
serve on the council. I think in general, all all of us who are stepping
into these public service roles, we have a finite amount of capacity for them. We
can't all give as generously of our time as the mayor does. Um, but, uh, you
know, I I do want to assure everybody that I I really am doing my best. you
know, I often feel that I'm not um able to fulfill the the duties of this role
to the extent that I personally would would like to see, but I I ran
unopposed. Um so, [laughter] I don't feel too bad about it either. Um
so, you know, uh and we've had we've had a difficult time filling committee seats
and and even just standing up committees at times. I I think that we all um owe
each other grace when it comes to um you know recognizing the the sacrifices that
our public servants are making. So I I want to say thank you to you all as
well. >> Thank you.
» I'd like to make a comment with uh with attorney Chris Coker and John Martin. I
appreciate your endeavors and uh for the for the information, the
returned phone calls, the returned emails uh for a long time. You know, I
have I have questions and they go my emails go unanswered at times, but you
both have been very uh forthright with information. I appreciate that. It helps
a ton. Uh I appreciate each council member and what they do. Some do more,
they spend more time, they have more opportunity. But there is five council
members at this table and so that information should flow freely amongst
all five. And I appreciate John. [clears throat] I appreciate you working
towards that. Thank you. >> Thank you. Any other comments this
evening? >> No, I'm quiet tonight.
» Okay. So, is there a motion to adjourn? Councilman [clears throat] Spargo moves
to adjourn meeting >> and council virtually second that.
» With there being no other business for the meeting, the meeting is adjourned at
8:20. Thank you everyone. Sun is sinking