Lake Elmo City Council Meeting - 04/21/2026

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[0:01] All right.
[0:03] Welcome tonight. Going to call the Lake Oswego City
[0:07] Council meeting for Tuesday, April 21st to order.
[0:11] Um first order of business is Pledge of Allegiance.
[0:16] Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the
[0:21] republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and
[0:27] justice for all.
[0:30] I can honestly say I This is the first meeting I've had besides COVID where
[0:34] there haven't been anybody here. So.
[0:39] All right. Um I'll entertain a motion to approve the
[0:43] agenda in front of us. So moved. Second.
[0:49] All those in favor of the agenda as presented, please signify by saying I.
[0:53] I. My microphone is not working now.
[0:59] Um do you have something on top of the mute? Not anymore. Oh, okay. Cool. But
[1:03] it's it's showing red.
[1:08] There it is. All right. Thank you.
[1:12] Um since there is nobody here unless somebody up at the dais would like to uh
[1:18] have some public comments, that'd be fine.
[1:21] Uh otherwise we'll move along to approval of the minutes for
[1:25] » [snorts] >> uh special City Council meeting from
[1:29] uh February 17th, City Council workshop on the 10th of
[1:34] March, and the City Council meeting from the 7th of April.
[1:39] I'll entertain a motion for approval of those minutes. So moved.
[1:44] Second. All those in favor of approving the
[1:47] minutes from as previously previously referenced,
[1:51] please signify by saying I. I. Agenda uh minutes are hereby approved.
[1:59] In the consent agenda this evening, we have approved payments and
[2:02] disbursements, approved night out special event permit, approved first
[2:07] quarter financials and dashboards. And that's all we have on the consent
[2:12] agenda this evening. I'll entertain a motion to
[2:16] approve the consent agenda. So moved.
[2:20] Second. All All those in favor of approving this
[2:23] consent agenda as read and presented, please signify by saying I. I. All
[2:28] right. Moving right along to the regular
[2:31] agenda. We have a first quarter 2026 goals update,
[2:36] which shouldn't be too much different from our
[2:40] update that we had 2 weeks ago, correct? That's correct.
[2:43] So, um
[2:45] the quarterly goals update are meant to give a kind of a summary recap of how
[2:51] we're making progress on the strategic goals, but you're absolutely right. We
[2:55] just did our first annual annual report, which definitely was much more detailed
[3:00] um talking about what we uh accomplished in '25 and then what [clears throat] we
[3:04] have going on in '26. So, this should uh just kind of be a recap,
[3:09] but we didn't want to skip it either and and we do keep this document, you know,
[3:12] as a a running running tally of our progress. So,
[3:17] um we did um talk about next steps for the
[3:21] 180 acres on March 10th. And um also Jason presented the schedule
[3:26] for community engagement, so that will get going pretty soon.
[3:30] And then as Clarissa will um always thank you for um the new financial
[3:36] software. We did uh implement it in the first quarter, um but there are
[3:41] definitely uh finance department is still really
[3:44] busy um working out the bugs and and we're all learning how to still use it a
[3:48] lot. So, do you want to say thank you again for
[3:51] purchase. Thank you, All right.
[3:56] Um and then for our stormwater um feed discussion, you know, it's it's
[4:00] ongoing. So, we're we've talked about it a few times and now um we are um on
[4:07] schedule to hopefully be coming back May 5th um as long as that engineer um can
[4:11] make sure that he has all of his um
[4:14] thoughts in order and and can be ready for that. So, that's the plan right now.
[4:19] For communications, um we were able to
[4:23] um move everyone that was signed up for Constant Contact for the weekly email
[4:28] into [clears throat] our new um platform on the on the website um starting in the
[4:32] beginning of the year. And then
[4:36] um our finance department [clears throat]
[4:39] and communications coordinator have been working on creating a couple of the
[4:43] one-pagers when we do have policies that are new. So, they created the one for
[4:47] the budget, but also for franchise fees. We did that in January.
[4:52] We also um set up the notify me group for the public hearing notices where
[4:56] people can go and sign up to be notified when public hearing notices are added to
[5:01] the website. And then
[5:05] um public works um implemented work orders
[5:09] in Beehive in quarter one. So, that is something that you should see in your
[5:13] the dashboards um that we added where resident-driven work orders and we were
[5:19] able to break it down for quarter one and how many are open and how many are
[5:23] completed um under our categories: streets,
[5:28] parks, water, stormwater.
[5:32] That So, that that's been a nice addition to keep keep track of the work
[5:36] that that's coming in that way. And then we did recruit and hire for one
[5:41] additional public works um operator position this spring as well.
[5:47] So, those are our kind of the bigger highlights, but if you have any
[5:50] questions
[5:53] Do you have any questions for the administrator?
[5:58] All right. Does that sufficiently cover your
[6:02] your topic? Okay. Yep. I Can I just quick say thank you for
[6:06] doing this again and I know we did just cover it last week, but I I really
[6:10] appreciate how this is like obviously a priority to
[6:14] make sure that this is the focus of the team. So, you know, even coming back and
[6:17] doing it again to just restate it, I just think that's great. So, I
[6:21] appreciate it. On the comms aspect between the stuff
[6:26] that you and and Kathy are doing and however else is distributed within the
[6:30] team, I find those to be one of the bigger game changers because that the
[6:35] expectation that city staff do those things did not exist
[6:40] for years. And it was all the elected's will
[6:44] communicate it. Well, we aren't We we can speak for boastfully and
[6:48] sometimes with too many words, but we don't create communications. We don't
[6:52] do, you know, one-pagers in a certain way where a certain style that's
[6:57] effective to get a message across across from a certain standpoint. That's not
[7:00] our specialty. So, having those things being now created for specific
[7:05] instances, that to me is a tremendous value gained and I am also happy that
[7:09] it'll be a sustained practice that's becoming a part of the work culture. So,
[7:13] I appreciate that and thank you for those efforts.
[7:19] All right. Thank you. I guess from that we can move into
[7:24] councilor reports. Councilor Dragasits.
[7:27] » [clears throat] >> You know, unless it's a short meeting, I
[7:28] thought I'd talk about how all the theory of relativity impact of pavement
[7:32] life um in the downtown district on an inverse relationship to the distance to
[7:37] the moon. Other than that, I have nothing else to
[7:40] report. Okay. Thank you.
[7:43] Uh Council Member Holtz. I have nothing
[7:47] specific to report. All right. Well, um
[7:51] as you may have seen uh I think it might have come out today.
[7:56] Yesterday, myself uh special projects manager uh
[8:01] » [clears throat] >> Clark Schroeder, city administrator
[8:03] Nicole Miller, and myself went to um the capital.
[8:07] » [clears throat and cough] >> We had some very uh
[8:11] short time frame I I learned a whole new thing where you can call people off the
[8:16] floor, and as long as they're not voting, they'll come out and talk to
[8:19] you, and then they rush back to go get their vote. But, we had the opportunity
[8:23] to talk to them about uh two of our legislative opportunities uh to 11
[8:30] different senators and representatives. It was nice to have that face-to-face
[8:34] and answer any questions that they may have. Um
[8:39] that was basically most of the afternoon yesterday. So,
[8:45] it was it was good to have those interactions and and have some face time
[8:48] with people that are you know, voting on or voting against uh
[8:53] whatever you're trying to get done. So, that's my report.
[8:59] No report from me. No report?
[9:02] Anything? Well, um for any residents that are watching, um
[9:06] for Arbor Day, we have our tree giveaway at Public Works this Saturday from 8:00
[9:10] to 10:00 a.m. And then following that, there's a couple park cleanups that uh
[9:15] residents are organizing, so they're looking for volunteers for Elmo's Pup
[9:19] Park cleanup, and then Shell Knob Park. Got it. That's the new one in the park,
[9:25] right? On Saturday. Saturday? Yep. And so, the park cleanups are after the tree
[9:29] giveaway. So, tree [clears throat] giveaway 8:00 to 10:00, cleanup at the
[9:33] parks 10:00 to 12:00. And what types of trees are we giving
[9:37] away? I don't know. Small saplings probably. I
[9:42] think I've heard. Right? Small. Both deciduous and kind of coniferous.
[9:47] Trees for like home residents. Green ones.
[9:50] » [laughter]
[9:52] » Clarissa. North Park. Sarah. North Park. All right. And with
[9:58] that, I am going to adjourn the meeting at 7:10.
[10:02] Oh my gosh, that's the quickest one ever.