We had some
more, huh. I don't know who yet. Oh.
Oh, well, I think we're close enough, huh?
The rash.
That's child porn.
Didn't be looking at that.
I see that.
That was too late.
Council, I will call this meeting to order.
and with those that wish to please stand for a moment of silent reflection, I see nobody
for a invocation tonight.
Thank you. Mr. Wallin, would you lead us in a flag, please?
please?
Two of the flag of the United States of America and two republic for which it stands.
One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.
So, Clark Davis, would you call the role, please?
Yes.
Mayor Jensen.
I'm here.
Council Member Boltero.
Present.
Council Member Hutchinson.
Present.
this is now the specifications.
New dumping.
The deputy manager Gregory a train here at today.
Now so you have the minutes of September 26, 2013.
What's your pleasure?
To approve your order and move them
Seconded to approve the minutes of September 26, 2013.
Any further comment or discussion?
Seeing none, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion carries.
Next is changes to agenda.
Manager Gregory, do you have any changes?
Council, do you have any changes you wish to make?
Seeing none, we'll go to presentations and awards.
Is there a handcock?
Are you here?
Oh, please come forward.
I thought I saw you out there.
from the emergency sports shelter.
Hi.
I have a proclamation I'll read and then if you come forward and get it and then if you have something to say, please help yourself.
This is a proclamation of the city of Longview, domestic violence awareness month, October 2013.
where as domestic violence is a serious white raging crime that affects people of all races, age as income level, sexes and society as a whole.
And whereas the crime of domestic violence violates an individual's privacy, dignity, security and humanity through the systematic use of physical, emotional, sexual, psychological and economic control and or drug abuse.
Whereas children who grew up in violent homes are abused and neglected at a rate of 1,500
percent higher than the national average.
And whereas domestic violence costs the nation between 5 billion, that's what a B, and 10
billion also with a B, annually in medical expenses, police and court costs, shelters and
foster care, sick leave, absenteeism, and non-productivity.
And whereas only a coordinated community effort will put a stop to this heinous crime
end.
Now therefore, I, Don Jensen, mayor of the City of Longview, Washington, do hereby proclaim
the month of October 2013 as domestic violence awareness month.
In the City of Longview, I urge all citizens to actively participate in the scheduled activities
program sponsored by the emergency support shelter to work towards the elimination of
personal and institutional violence against women and helps shed light on domestic violence
by actively reporting their concerns to the proper authorities. In wetness, I am here
to set my hand and cause a seal of City of Longview to be affixed this 10th day of October 2013.
Please come forward and get this
proclamation. Thank you very kindly for being here.
If you have something safe, please do.
Thank you so much, Mayor and council members.
I mean, just hearing you read that again is so powerful
to hear out loud and to say we as a city
and community commit to nonviolence in our community
and to recognize this as a system,
community church neighborhood and family problem.
So, yes, I'm Sarah from Emergency Support Shelter, and we serve victims of crime, sexual
assault, domestic violence, of course, long view, and as well as Callett's County.
Each day we see people who have been verbally, emotionally, physically, financially abused,
children, women, men, the cycle of power and control, and we hear their stories of tremendous
unimaginable courage and bravery to somehow escape every story is different.
And I'm always honored and humbled to hear people share their story.
And I honestly don't know what I would be able to do in that same situation.
It's very heroic.
And as we know, people die trying to escape.
People die stuck in the relationship of power and control.
And I saw something on the internet about that said domestic violence awareness month
and the awareness was crossed out and it said action, domestic violence action month.
And I thought that was really fitting, especially for tonight, that the leaders of our community
are saying, yes, let's take action, this is an important issue.
No more excuses, no silence.
We got to talk about this and start conversations about healthy relationships and non-violence
in our homes and our communities.
So I thank you for standing with us in the work we do every day and making that commitment.
And it says a lot and makes a statement to our community as a whole where you stand on
this issue.
So thank you very much.
Thank you very kindly for all that you do.
We appreciate it.
Thank you.
next
we have constituent comments let me get my little spiel uncovered here so
that we can do this. Constituent comments is a portion of the meeting council
set aside to take comments on items that are not on the agenda. Persons
addressing a council are not specifically scheduled on the agenda will be
requested to step up to the podium. Speak their name and city of residence into
the microphone for the city clerk's record. Individuals are allowed three minutes whether representing a
group or an individual viewpoint. The light on the timer will turn yellow when you have one minute
left, turn red when your time is up. The total time allotted for constituent comment is 30 minutes.
If there are additional people wishing to speak, we will take those comments at the end of the
meeting prior to adjournment. One of the cornerstones of democracy is the right of the
minority to speak to the issue. Because of this, we do not allow any clapping, cheering,
or any other form of demonstration during comment period. This could be intimidating to
those supporting the minority position. Curious and civil comments are expected. Drogatory
remarks and personal attacks are not acceptable and will be caused for the constituent's
comments, time to be revoked. Thank you for your understanding and for coming to the council meeting tonight.
Mr. Wells.
Oh,
I'm pretty well with a long view. Um, I've been here for a while. I heard what people talk about the coal that wants to come to
Longview. I want to say that if this does being 300 plus jobs to Longview, then I think that the city of Longview should really think about
a concerted because of the way up in the line with the Montana. He was dealing with
a cold place and he said there was no cold stuff in the air. I was born and raised in
this town and I love long view on my heart and we now know that this is in comedy right
now that it's not as used to be. It's going back to where it's supposed to be but I for
one if there is a chance for a 300-foot of jobs in this town then I think that the state
I love you to consider it.
I know a lot of people are against the coal,
but if it does not bring hazardous things to the air
and if it's clean things to the air, I'm for it.
But I think people realize that did they just study it
before they against it?
Because like I said, with this, this is a people town.
We were half in the coming to the mint farm already.
But like I said, if this coal terminal does come in
and it does provide clean air and three-inch jobs,
that's something the lobby needs.
And I know a lot of people have heard that they're against coal, but there's people all for it and people are against it.
I for one, what they have, people have 300 plus jobs in this town.
It's not going to hurt.
But if there's for the air, that's something that we should consider.
But if it's going to keep the air cleaner and be more jobs, I'm for it.
Thank you.
Thank you, Cody.
Mr. Fred Starkle.
Mayor
and council, by the way, Mr. Mayor Jensen and Mr. Gregory, I saw a couple of really big
yawns a couple of minutes ago, come from you too.
Once you'd be real careful, last time I saw somebody do that, that big of yawnt, they
fell it and I haven't seen him since.
Two things I have here, recently a situation rose where certain people acted without consideration
of the neighbors or Longview Municipal Code.
Their actions started to affect my health, and I contacted Captain Robert Huda of the Longview
police department, and he put a plan of action together using patrol officers and their supervisor
and resolved the situation.
So I want to command, not knowing whether Jim would be here or Captain Huda, I talked
to Captain Johnson earlier, so if you'll make notes, I want to command Captain Huda and
the other officers for a job really well done.
Secondly, I have a request of the council.
I would like you to review the Longing Municipal Code regarding fireworks.
Why not?
Why don't we have fireworks available 365 days a year,
to which I'd like some answers?
Normally council doesn't react to anything from constituent comments, so you'll see silence
a lot of times.
Should I throw a cup of fireworks?
Please don't.
I wouldn't say that. I'm just asking, why don't we have in 365? What are your thoughts?
I'm just wondering, are you saying you can welcome 365?
You're not answering my question. You're answering my question with a question.
The question is, why don't we have fireworks 365?
Pardon?
Mr. Starkel, because it'd be a nuisance if they were 365 days a year.
Any other thoughts?
No comments? No comments? No comments?
Okay. Well, that's only one of several reasons why we don't have fireworks 365 days a year.
And I'm well aware of those. Actually, my request would be for you to review
the Longley Municipal Code with the idea of drastically reducing the time that they're available,
that time they're allowed to be lighted and not cause so much of a nuisance. I myself
sit around my house on 4th of July and New Year's waiting for the other shooter to drop
nervous and literally have left my home the last three years during that time in an effort
to get some relief. And I hear lots of complaints from people I know about not only the nuisance
noise, the problems I talked to Jim Dutje about the problem with enforcing the code as
it is and so forth and it's just a real problem.
There are people with their dogs that take off and don't come back that they have to tend
to their dogs because of the noise, noise, noise, noise, noise.
And I just don't think it's appropriate.
I think about our veterans who are coming back from war and those kinds of things.
I stepped out of the Walmart store one day about two years ago on 4th of July and you would
swear that there was a war going on.
You could look at the hills around Kelsal, Longview and there was this flash, flash, flash,
flash.
It sounded and looked like a war going on.
So I would like you to consider that.
I do have some information that I will give to the clerk for reproduction so you can take
a look at this information about how many other cities have banned totally and at least major
your restrictions on fireworks.
Any way. Thank you, Mr. Starkle. I will say that we do have a system for reviewing this type thing and that's it. Two council members get together and sign on to want to bring that item to council. And then we would discuss it. If that didn't happen, it probably won't come before us. All right. Thank you. This was the clerk. Yes, please. Thank you.
The next one, two, three, four, five, six, seven,
eight are on water. We have towards the end of the meeting we have a water
quality briefing you can speak then or you can speak now whichever you
prefer. We do have been. Is there anybody that wants to speak now on on water?
Are you willing? Okay.
I just brought some laundry for you and some bottled water
that I got from my tap and my hose last night after the fleshy.
But it's safe to drink, so I thought I'd bring enough to share.
Anyhow, my name is Dawn White Campbell, I'm from Longfield.
I come here before you today again against the water, it's becoming a real issue.
My family, it's ruining my home, as we all know, the list just gets longer and longer and
longer.
However, the support and knowledge from and my close neighbors has been some emotional
English and stress relief does not take it away.
With all the research I personally have done is looking more like a legal matter sooner
than later, because the situation was allowed to get so severe out of control and our elected
officials were unaware. It's becoming evident to many people in our city.
It is in capable
of dealing with the issues at hand. This complex situation is out of hand.
I now personally
am suffering a topical yeast infection and being a type one diabetics. It's one dependent.
The option of infection and loss of a limb is not an option due to ignorance. I would take
off my coat, but it's kind of disgusting. So when my doctor was talking to me that
if I do get an infection and that is staring at me in the face, it's unacceptable.
Having to put in 13 to 14 more claims, which I have copies here, in regards that our
extra expenses due to the current city swamp water in which have taken away from my family
on small budgets. Where is the relief I haven't seen or heard of it yet?
Again, flushing hydrants weekly during morning hours, 15,000 plus gallons just rolled down the city streets.
Us residents having to walk through it to get through to our walkways.
With that being said, I would like to bring to the table that my neighbor on Monday, elderly with a cane,
was trying to get through to his sidewalk and he fell flat on his back through the
muck. As the city workers were sitting in their truck there just watching. I personally
watched somebody help him up out of the muck and across the sidewalk. Ridiculous. Now
that was last Monday, this last one. With as many neighbors far and close this is affecting
And with fighting this issue myself and now having my water is still stinky like metal with brown tint.
I want to thank the neighbors that have came aboard the ship to help me fight this and stand behind the issues.
It's not just affecting me and our animals but our families.
I don't know how much more we can take, mentally, emotionally, financially, it's ridiculous.
I'm tired of being told patience, patience, patience, patience, what's it's going to
take?
My hot water to go out, my hot water heater, which I just replaced the hoses last night.
Now my husband fell off a five-story roof roofing.
He shattered his left ankle, he shattered his right knee, and he just had his ankle fused
August 17th.
As he's standing up there trying to help me get those hoses on my hot water heater,
his
nasty brown stuff. Where does it end? And then having to go to the doctor to date
have X-rays to see if he did something to that reset fusion. It's not okay.
Could I get you to sum up please? Yes, I'm done. Thank you. Would you like to try water?
No, thank you.
Is there anybody else who would like to speak to water or wait till
the end? I'm only going to take your comment once, so it's either now or at the end.
Again, I'm Provi Vasquez and I live on the 500 block of 17th and I just wanted to add
a little bit from last meeting that I was kind of a little bit, I would say, hurt because
on the KLOG News, they mentioned something about horror stories that were giving the members
here and to meet our stories are not as horrible as or yeah horrible as the way
that the other people our our horror stories are truth stories as you say the
horror story I remember listening is they saw all the people saying about how
good the water how good is gonna be or mumbo jumbo and the bottom line was that
they can't fix the problem.
Today we had a nice visit around the neighborhood
and there was a Sierra water.
And it was wonderful because I got tired of changing my filters
and my little pictures that I have.
So I said, I got to start doing something else.
So they always on the shore up and I said,
wonderful, it's for me, it's a lot easier that way.
But it is expensive, I'm a single woman, I'm a widow,
and I decided to resign. Well, I kind of retired from my job and stay home and take care of my
great granddaughter. And I do not want my granddaughter, my great granddaughter, to drink this water,
because I do get sick with it. Also, I get nauseated, I mention, of course, this infection.
and I like like she said it's kind of a little bit tired and financially it's not easy.
Well for me I'm a single person so it's going to be a little bit more than.
Wait I'm kind of down and I still have a lot of time.
So I just thought I'd put that there.
Please help us.
Thank you, ma'am, and I think towards the end, when we do our report, you may see some
things that you like. We'll see what happens.
My
name is Ken Spring. I live in Longview. I'm going to have to hurry because I've got three
things I want to cover. One is I agree with this lady 100% over here. I brought some water in
myself and my water looks clear compared to hers. I have a brand new water main. They just ran
through my area, plus I live close to the wells. So I guess it doesn't have a chance to
get as clouded up as her water. I wouldn't drink that stuff. I wouldn't even water my
lawn with that stuff. Thing number two that I wanted to talk about was with what Mr.
Stark will talk about. I would like to see a stick a little different tacked and do like
Oregon. Oregon has a sensible fireworks law. They don't allow these things like they shoot
off down the lake that are dangerous as heck and smoke up the whole town and keep the
whole town for a week awake. Why don't you look into the Oregon ordinance? That is
a fair one. All the people of Morgan, they run over here because we're so liberal with
our stuff. I can't believe the stuff that we have. My third thing is, oh, I guess I still
We must have an ordinance of this, but I walk around the lake every day, and I'm so
tired of these yard sale signs being nailed to trees and telephone poles and stuff like
that.
Don't we have an ordinance?
When they decide to take them down, they just come rip them down.
I snag my arm on a nail on a tree that has a darn yard sale sign on it, and they don't
take them down.
so don't we have an abatement officer and it's easy to find out who put it up
there the address is right on the poster and there certainly ought to be
something why don't you make an ordinance free standing then that would do
away with it anything make a heavy fine for anything that isn't free
standing and give them a day or two to take it down. And most of them, they just leave
them there. And to me, that's just like throwing garbage along the road, expect somebody
else to clean it up. I clean up my dog crap down at the lake and I don't expect somebody
else to do that. And so I don't expect to have to pull nails out of trees and be careful
about leaning on a tree or a telephone pole. And I'm sure that you people have been out
around and seen all these things nailed up. Well, they don't pull the nails. It'd be fine if they'd
pull the nails and that. But anyway, I hope that you've listened carefully to these people,
especially of water. I didn't bring my water up here because like I said, mine is just colored,
but it's nothing compared. That looks like the water's in the slew behind my house only a little
And if I might Mr. Spring, we do have two abatement officers and do to the economy the way it is.
We're basically down to about half of an abatement officer to be able to.
We used to have Terry Kegler who was really an animal going out and chasing those signs down and making him take him down and pull all that out.
We're hoping that when the economy gets a little better we can go back to that and I appreciate your input.
Okay, you have alligators which are very good.
I volunteer to be a voluntary abatement officer.
Give me the authority to do it and I'll take them down and I'll pull the nails.
And I'll bring a list of the addresses so that these people can be contacted and told never to do that again.
Thank you.
We're still on the on the water. Do you want me to read the names?
Or is there anybody else that wants to speak on water that hasn't spoken?
There's several people here.
My name is Bailey Campbell. I live in Longview,
Washington, and I have some examples that I would like to bring to your attention.
When we were flushing out our water heater and our sink without the purification or the
screen on there, this is the water that we have got and this is the most severe example
that after you mix it up, there's still debris at the bottom and barnacles.
And I just don't know how this is safe if our schools are running off the same water, then I don't know I've heard kids say our water tastes like metal and kids will have cottonmouth when NPE and they don't want to drink the water because of the metal.
So I don't know how that is safe, but I would also like to ring to your attention.
and some of the questions that I have is when our water gets flushed,
when our water gets flushed, why would there still be barnacles in the water if our water is supposed to be clear and clean?
And when our water is flushed, how come when they say we flushed it and it's clean?
we go to run our water and either our water is being pushed and the yuck is coming
through from after they flush it or our water is just not getting clean. They were
flushing it down by the car lot around four o'clock today and we were seeing all
the water come out and from what we could tell it looked clear but it just doesn't
look as brown as our water over on 17th so thank you thank
you and and some of
that may come out and we have talked about the possibility of the in the line
the mains and and it might even be some of the lines going from the mains up
to the house but we'll be talking about that here later. Is there anybody else on
water that wants to talk.
Hi my name is Elizabeth and I have some water to what was filled
up from today and this was from my bath and I have to bathe in this. I get sprayed
with the dog hose and it is not comfortable. I have to use special soap from my hair and
my body.
And the special soap doesn't work either. My whole body gets really, really, really red when
I get really, put this soap on me, it just gets really red when I put the water on me too,
and I don't like the waters. And that's the reason my tummy hurts, and I had to stay home from
school today and since I had to stay home from school today my throat had been
hurting and I had to take two pills today and a special medicine my mom just
got and that's all I have to say. Thank you young lady.
Is there anyone else on
water that would like to speak?
Hi my name is Brandon Nicole Gisman and I live here
I love you. We have the brush of our teeth with a bottle of water. I could taste a metal in my mouth. Thank you.
Son of water.
Leon Colock along the Washington. I was wondering when your results on the workshop from last Thursday are going to be available.
Mr. Gregory?
That is going to be on the 24th, October 24th Council agenda.
Okay, and I talked the last time, I think on the exportation of thousands of jobs, I felt that the coal
terminal thing would be an exportation of a lot of jobs, boiler maker jobs. I got out my boiler maker, my
bench boiler operator training workbook, first page, pure water is colorless, tasteless and
Autolus, what if these people are getting pumped?
Mrs. Boilermaker handbook.
Thank you.
Please, please come forward.
Mr. Wallace, you'll be next.
I've got you down here.
I won't let you fall off.
Ray Van Tongren, in a great city,
live in the great city of Longview.
I have a couple of things.
I want to compliment the city of Longview.
I had a break in my neck of the woods on Jennifer
place area on Labor Day weekend. There's Sunday I come for church and saw this water run down
the street. So I went in and called this number. I guess it was in a what they call those
call numbers or call zone and probably within a half an hour I had a guy out there checking it out.
And he said it's not that big of a gig so we'll be back probably Tuesday to work on it and they
I guess it's a service line, so they're going to come back some day and fix it.
So I felt pretty good about that.
I called the city and somebody came on board right away, so I need to compliment Craig
or Jeff to do the job.
The second thing, my water is pretty good.
It's good.
I shower every day and press my teeth with it and comb my hair.
And so, and shower.
I don't have the smell course. I probably live in the good neck of the woods. I don't know
if that where I live that is behind print my or good neck of the woods. We have problems
out there also, but as I say, my water is pretty good. So my wife tells me, wait till it and
for a couple years till the water settles or the aqueduct gets hits the bottom of the pot.
So thank you for listening and have a great day or a great night.
Right. Thank you, Gray.
Mr. Wallace.
Thank you, Mr. Mayor. Chuck Wallace, 600 block, 22nd.
Could you help me understand the level of involvement the city had in helping the private property owners,
the former private property owner, the property that's known as Tri-County Trust and the current property owner?
What was the city's involvement in that?
Mr. Gregory, would you like to private, that was a private transaction between the Tri-County Trust and the new property owner?
Oh, okay. I just was wondering about that. Thank you. Thank you.
Is there anyone else that would wish to speak?
Thank you.
Oh, we do have a lady. I'm sorry. I didn't see it. I'm up around the corner there. I apologize.
My name's Melissa Davison. I live on the 300 block of 22nd. I was at your last meeting.
I've got here a little late. I was just wondering if there's been anything that you've thought about that you're going to change since everybody's telling you about their problems.
on the water problem water we are going to have later on in the meeting I report by staff and we have some ideas and
is that the one you're talking about this coming up on the 24th or something? Nope. Whenever this meeting gets to it it'll be towards
end of the meeting. And I was wondering too when I was here last time they were discussing that I'm not sure if the lady's here or not.
But how should her report on the where the waters did was a lot different than what they showed us on that
Projector up there. So have you checked that out or I don't well that be part of what we're gonna
I'm not sure. I don't believe so no because I believe when I was here you told her to give her information to the city clerk and that you would look it over
We've still not got that information
So we haven't gotten it.
Right, so how long does it take for you to get around to getting a chance to?
It's their information.
We can't require them to give it to us.
Oh, okay.
The lady that had the information was going to bring it in and it has to hit her.
Oh, she did not leave it here.
Okay, because.
Yes.
four
directions as to the most effective and expedient way to deliver this information. I've gone four days with no response.
That's what you don't have to do with it.
Thank you.
Anyway, so I was just curious if anything is getting looked into. I know I hear a lot of that we're gonna and we want to, but
that they're not trying to be rude,
but it just seems like it takes a little longer
than maybe if the people that,
if everybody else getting to have this problem
with their water, is it just certain areas?
Is it just down in on the other side of the lake
or is it on this side of the lake also?
Well, I'm sure that if when we do our report later
on a lot of that will come up in it.
And if you want to ask those questions later
to be fine because it'll have to be the proper time to ask those questions.
All right.
Thank you.
All right.
Thank you.
My name is John Craig.
I live in Longview here.
And the water is reasonably good.
Although I step ahead of everybody, I've put a filter in my system from a household 10 years
ago.
I wanted a cleaner water.
It was some segment coming through.
So I put a filter in and I change it yearly and I put a filter in my water for my refrigerator
for drinking and so I'm clean on water there except for my outside water.
Now that is kind of a problem.
My flowers and my garden hate it and if anybody has any idea that zucchini can look like this
and it should be very fruit. I'm going to leave these pictures with your folks to look at.
And I hope that the chemicals or whatever is in the water can be cleared up because it
sure is held, don't look good in the garden. And I love my flowers and I love my garden.
And a lot of soil folks do that. And I got two different gardens here. My garden and
neighbors guard and his garden zone same thing thank you sir you can give it to this city clerk
thank
you there anybody else we're reaching our half hour
okay we will move forward there's no
public hearings there's no ords and commissions the next thing on our agenda is an ordinance ordinance
and it's number 3254 authorizing indoor shooting ranges
in certain industrial zones, Ms. Davis,
would you please read the ordinance by title only?
An ordinance adding a new section 19.58.110
indoor shooting ranges and the mending table 19.58.020-1
permitted uses in industrial zones,
mending section 19.55.040, noise,
and provide a definition for shooting range.
Thank you.
Mr. Mayor?
Yes.
I would make a motion then we refer ordinance number 30254
back to the Planning Commission.
Do we have a second to that motion?
I'll second it.
Mr. Coacher.
Mr. Mayor, if I could comment on that.
Yes.
Direct some questions to staff about the proposed ordinance, it concerns me that the ordinance
does not address the retail use of an indoor shooting range.
Every indoor shooting range I've been to, they sell firearms, ammunition, other related
equipment and firearm related material.
The, as I understand from staff, this proposal would only allow that in an incidental and secondary
use.
And from my experience with indoor shooting ranges, that's a prime, it's more of a primary
use.
I wades gun shop and East Melvue there.
Their primary use is a gun shop and they have the indoor handgun range.
So it concerns me, and I know that Longby Police Department is wanting to have an indoor shooting
range, it concerns me that and I feel that the proposal here is geared towards that municipal
use indoor shooting range for the purpose of law enforcement and doesn't really look
at and encompass the market need for commercial indoor shooting range that would meet the needs
of the market such as we have in Portland or Vancouver, Bellevue, these areas where have
an indoor shooting range that for commercial use.
In addition, this ordinance limits it to the certain industrial zones.
And many of the other indoor shooting ranges around our state and Oregon, some of the
zones where these are located are more commercial like in nature, where there are similar other
business entities and are less industrialized than what's proposed here.
My suggestion would be that we send this back to the Planning Commission and have them review
potential zoning uses and also have them look at the commercial aspect of the
indoor shooting range in addition to this municipal law enforcement aspect
which it seems that this is really focused on.
Well we've got a motion on the floor to have any discussion by council on this
motion?
Is there anything prohibiting with this ordinance that's being presented? Is there
anything prohibiting commercial sale? John, can you help? You want to answer that?
Yes, Councillor Armon. As was pointed out by Councillor Wallain, it would be allowed
as an incidental use. An incidental use is not the primary use, but a use that is subservient
to the primary use. So it would allow for sales of ammunition and guns. What it would
not allow is for a wholesale or a retailer to locate a gun sales retail business in
an industrial district and then have a shooting range, ancillary to it. It would have to be
primarily for the shooting range and then it would allow for incidental sales.
Is that
Nope, yes, I understand the, and so can I have a follow up question?
So Mr. Rowland you're suggesting that we flip that around to make it more primarily focused
on the gun shop side of it with a shooting range aspect instead of the shooting range
with being able to purchase ammunition at there for that purpose?
The concern is that they're not exclusive of one another.
It's unlikely you'll find a commercial indoor range without the retail aspect because they're
selling the ammunition for the users, they're selling the targets to the users, they're
selling handguns and other firearms to the users of the facility.
And that's where the large part of their for-profit business comes from.
It's a matter of a business model.
The current ordinance sets up a great structure for, as I mentioned, a municipal or law enforcement
use if we want just law enforcement to have an indoor swing range an industrial park you know area
that would work well because they're not buying and selling firearms or ammunition they may
bring their own or have their own supply you know the department provides but if we want to encompass
the commercial aspect you have to recognize that the retail
So, it shouldn't be incidental either way. The retail sales be incidental to the shooting range or the shooting range incidental to the, but they go hand-in-hand. So, it's not a primary unit. You wouldn't have a commercial shooting range without the sale of those.
if I might Mr. Brickie did is what Mr. Wallen suggested is that work can not happen with
this ordinance? Not with this ordinance as written. I mean it would have to be an
amendment to it or as he suggested going back to the Planning Commission for further
consideration. Thank you. One one thing I might mention to the council for your consideration
as well as that allowing retail sales in the industrial districts could not be it would
be difficult to limit it to just firearms if we're allowing retail sales.
And that's precisely my concern.
Mr. Motero had his hand up here.
Well, I just have a question on this and I agree with you, Joe, if you can't limit it just
specific types of guns or whatever. But in the ordinance in section one, we're talking
about a shooting range and the noise from the shooting range. It means a facility designed
to provide a confined space for target practice with firearms, archery equipment, or other
weapons open to the public, open only to private membership or open to organizations with training
such as law enforcement or any combination of. That's just stipulating in there the shooting
range that they're talking about here is a building provided for practicing a firearm
that has nothing to do with the sale of firearms.
Yes, Mr. Mayor. So for all practical purposes, and I would encourage anyone in the public
who attends shooting ranges to speak up, is it most commercial shooting ranges that are
intended for the public to use, have the sale of ammunition and firearms.
So without those, it would be non-existent.
It's unlikely that a commercial operator would establish a shooting range.
I'll call you in just a minute.
Well, without this, you know, without the sale of the ammunition and
firearms, it's not likely.
So obviously, this ordinance works very well for, you know, law enforcement use.
There's you with that.
So the issue concerning the zoning, if we limited to industrial, as Mr. Brickie has said,
and stated, and if we're looking at opening up for retail, that creates complications.
That's why I suggested we need to look at areas outside of just industrial.
We have other zones that this may better fit and better suit with this commercial application
and flight as well.
This is very narrow and scope, and not to belabor the point, but this would work very well
only for law enforcement use and if that is the goal of this then it should be
plainly stated that this is not for public but it is for law enforcement use
only but if we want to allow commercial shooting range you know for the use of
the public then then this needs to be more broad and needs to have another look
at a further comment if not I'm in a lot of public to speak Mr. Spring please
come forward I
wish people let's spoke to issues new with the
we're talking about. I've been shooting at shooting ranges for years. Most of them are for
primarily public shooting ranges. There are some of them that do furnish ammunition. There are some
of them that supply a limited amount of guns for rent and so forth. What the hell is a big deal
about this? I don't know why people have to make such a big deal out of everything. I don't think
Have you ever been in a public shooting range, huh?
Well, did you see them shooting, selling guns and ammunition?
If you did, tell me which one I want to go see it.
I think you're full of bloney.
And I have a constitutional right to talk to you how I want to.
And I'm sick of all this jabber, dabber crap,
when you don't know what the hell you're talking about.
And this range, I know the person that has, this
is my constitutional right, did you tell her to set me this?
Yes, I did. I didn't tell her to set me this.
Okay, I got one.
I got one.
That's fine.
That's fine, Ken.
We're not going to have you going after people already but...
You took my constitutional right away, Don.
Okay, thank you.
Is there anybody else that would like to speak to this?
Chuck Wallace, 600 block of 22nd.
I think you're right.
Okay, I think they ought to consider the retail or commercial zoning.
Remember a few years back when we are the council re-zoned, that's parcel of, is everything going to be all right?
Yeah.
Okay.
That parcel of land between, I believe it's 36 and all of the way, there's a parcel of land that's close to the Mount Solo.
So that's zoned for commercial use and it's to have a regional draw.
So something like Bass Pro Shop or something that would have a regional draw here.
I could easily see that kind of business opening up in a parcel of land that's geared
toward that development in the future.
give future potential investors opportunities to really think big with their future business.
And that's what, and further one thing, Mary Jane Millink, councilmember Mary Jane Millink,
her remarks the last time the council discussed this was, I appreciate that.
It seems to me that maybe the city can't find people to occupy industrial land,
So now we're resorting to shooting ranges.
I mean, thank you.
I just, there's a lot of people that are questioning this move.
Thank you.
Mr. Starkle, please come forward.
Mr.
and Council, I have re-quited a number of shooting ranges in my 75 years
and most of them do sell retail, ammunition, guns, whatever.
It's a side-by-side thing.
you can go in and shoot with your own ammunition, your own guns, or you can go there by a gun,
rent a gun, buy ammunition, buy targets, buy other kinds of shooting, things, holsters, belts,
whatever. So I think that it probably, if you're going to put a shooting range together,
unless you're talking about a long-range shooting range, they all have retail outlets. We walk
in, I was looking in my wallet while you were talking to see if I sell my card for one out of
you all up where I used to live.
And the card says that I have been a member
or have gone through their safety regulations
and understand them.
And if I want to go in and shoot, I'm welcome to do that.
Or if I want to buy something like the gun shop
or over at Bob's at their sporting goods,
they know me that have gone through the regulations
and so forth.
So I think that Mike Wallin has a perfectly good idea
in making sure that they're side-by-side operations.
and I think they'll be very, very successful that way.
One question, do we know whether it's going to be a long range shooting range for the police officers,
practice, or most of the protesters?
I don't know.
What's that?
Okay, so this is an ordinance.
Somebody is trying to maybe develop one, and you need to have an ordinance to cover that.
Yeah, and it might be the city, it might be private enterprise.
We just have been asked to open the possibilities up, and there's another possibility, and that
That is that we have it not only in industrial but maybe in a commercial zone.
So I think where this is headed is back to the planning committee and that would really
be the place to debate where and how and what we do.
And I think Mike also has a good idea in terms of not just industrial land but in a commercial
area also.
And as far as the noise is concerned every one of the ranges I've been to about a half
a dozen in my lifetime, they are built so that there is no outside noise. In fact, I
actually left one range because my hearing protection wasn't adequate. And somebody in
the booth next to me had a very large caliber pistol, and I said, I've had enough of this.
So those things are, if they're built according to not only the city's code, NRA code, national
code, police organization codes, whatever, there's going to be noise outside. But I think
Mike has a really good idea to send it back to the Planning Commission and it should be
the retail and the shooting range together.
Thank you.
Any other citizens want to speak to this issue?
Please come forward.
Give your name.
Hello.
My name is Janice Barrera and I'm from Longview, Washington.
And I would like to say I'm in favor of the more commercial use of it because I see more
potential for revenue for our city.
and we have a history of hunters in this area so I think it would give an
opportunity for everybody to enjoy their sales it might even be a
recreational place. The other thing is if I remember correctly there was at
one time a shooting range underneath the School of Arilong High School and I don't
know if that still exists or not but you know it doesn't. Yes there was. You know
It was a time gone by but you know that speaks something about the history of our town and and the use of firearms
It was promoted in school. Thank you. Thank you
Yeah, people would roll over if they knew there was a small caliber shooting range down in the basement of very long
I know a guy that shot a 22 down there
Me
It's there, but it's full of pipes you couldn't use it. Yeah
Is there anyone else who would like to speak to this issue if not Mr. Gregory has something he'd like to make sure I understand the the question
I'm if we're gonna be if it does it refer to back make sure I understand what we're asking so is the concern that a
Person couldn't come in and just buy ammunition or a gun if they didn't shoot or
Because I'm on as I understand that's I think they could do that even though it's just because it's an auxiliary use
it doesn't mean that if they didn't shoot they couldn't come in and buy ammunition.
So I'm just trying to make sure how we would change this if we remanded it back.
What would we change and what the difference is?
And so, I mean, Councillor Wong could you just make sure I understand what your concern is.
So if we do remand back, where?
The question I asked of staff was would retail sales of firearms and ammunition
and related items be allowed in indoor shooting ranges.
Staff told me that as long as it was incidental, secondary to the primary use.
What I hear from that is no that an individual cannot walk in by their firearm and ammunition
and walk out without using the range.
The range as I've been to in for the record for my integrity, since college days was Wade's
East Side guns in Bellevue where I've shot on a regular basis for a decade and a half now,
Which, by the way, you can buy firearms, ammunition, holsters, containers, all number of things.
You can rent guns, you can shoot all these things.
The point I'm trying to make is, you know, what I heard from staff is it's incident or secondary use.
It's my understanding from the commercial side that, and I don't know the business that
well, but the ones I've been to at least have this commercial component to them.
Aside from just the renting or shooting of guns, they have the commercial sale aspect.
My reading and understanding of this ordinance is its narrow in scope that it is not intended
to be commercialized.
I think it's important to recognize that if this is directed for law enforcement use that that be what it's for
But if we want to open it up for the commercial and retail use that that we have the planning commission look at that and
Let's not fall up on it with staff and so to John Clark farming so even though it's incidental answer
We use could a person just come in and buy a gun or ammunition and not shoot. I don't know how we would regulate them
I mean, we wouldn't have somebody at the door waiting to see who was buying if they were shooting or not.
I mean, it's intended to support the primary use, which is the...
Okay, but...
But enforcement...
But enforcement, why? I mean, if we did do that, I mean, so somebody could not do that according to what the intent of the code is in.
That's not stated in the code. No.
You know, if you go there to buy your gun and go back the next day to shoot it, you're still being supported for the activity that is a permitted use.
that could be done. Okay.
Mr. Walland, the remand of that in Austin include to look
at not only industrial zones, but commercial zones.
Because as Mr. Brickie has stated, if you were to allow this
commercial retail secondary or incidentally used
in industrial zone, that could be, that could be
create complications, you know. Particularly like Tenantway,
you know, we've made some changes there in other places
where we're not allowing certain retail sales
that's kind of things. So it could be a complication to allow these sales if these are to be
zoned in industrial areas. And I wasn't questioning the zoning thing. I was just trying to make
sure I understood the one other question you had there. So, okay, I'm clear. Mr.
Otero, I'm still confused. Like, could you explain how would you amend this motion or amend this
resolution? My motion was to send this back to the planning commission. If I had my way with the
planning commission, it would not be an incitory or secondary use. It would be a
permitted use to do the retail sales of firearms and ammunition in related
Thanks.
And they would also look at other zones, including business and commercial zones that might work to allow the siding of the indoor shooting range with the cell of these additional items. But I guess I'm reading something wrong here then because in our charge. Under commercial industrial, it
states that you can sell commercial
industrial wholesale trade of durable goods, including but not limited to motor vehicle parts and supply furniture and home furnishings.
lumber and other construction materials, professional and commercial equipment and supplies, metal and mineral
except, electrical goods, hardware, plumbing, heating, equipment and supplies, machinery equipment and supplies.
Those are all permitted uses.
And what's known? Commercial and industrial.
So commercial and industrial would actually take in the whole city.
Is that material statement?
The commercial industrial district is a specific district, primarily the largest one is between
California way, Oregon way, and industrial way, and that is a mixed use commercial industrial
district. That I
might have, Steve Langdon is here, might have some speak to that. I don't
believe that that zoning district is included in the ordinance, but I would like for him to clarify
that.
on the ordinance talks about city industrial zoning districts. So maybe this will help.
Yeah, I'm Steve Langenham, the planning manager for the city of Longview.
Indoor shooting range is subject to the clause that Mr. Wallen referred to was the draft clause of 19.58.10
would be allowed in all three of the industrial districts, which is the
light industrial A and B heavy industrial district and the mixed-use
commercial industrial district. But not in commercial alone. But not in
none in any of the commercial districts. We had two people who were talking to us
about citing a gun range, both of them on property or not the police department, but the individual
was in a owns property and industrial district. So taking in mind those two folks in the
Longview Police Department has been looking at industrial districts, that's what the planning
commission was looking at, trying to take care of the needs of a couple of people who were
interested in locating a gun range.
What I would talk about incidental sales
is what I would do is I would compare it to a bowling alley.
OK, you go down to the triangle bowling alley
and primary people are there to bowl.
But do they have bowling balls there?
Do they have bowling gloves?
Do they have bowling bags?
Yes, they do.
So that is kind of the idea when I was brief sponge
to Mr. Wallins' question about incidental sales,
Those would be something along those lines.
And does someone walk into the triangle bowling alley
and buy a bowling ball and take it home
or go bowling someplace else?
Yes.
But it is not the primary floor space.
So what I wouldn't say is, so for instance, Bob Surplus
is a huge store that sells a lot of guns,
but they have an archery range that
takes up a small portion of their shop.
So, that is the other, the inverse of that, is there primarily sales and then they have
ancillary to it, archery range.
So, that helps clear things up.
Yes, and for clarification, how it's written here would allow for a business to set up
to be able to sell guns, ammunition, targets, all that, but the primary focus is still the
range itself is what this is stating. When it doesn't prohibit anybody from having any
temporary cell in a commercial zone. When we went through the process of updating
the industrial code, that question came up often. And the answer was, and the intent was,
is, okay, let's say you have a truck repair place. Are you going to be able to sell some,
even though it's a repair place, are you going to be able to sell some wheels or something
hang from your mirror or what have you yeah we're not going to go in there and say no no your truck
repair you can't have any sales so that that's kind of the idea behind it most services also have
some kind of sale are you saying the pubs or in goods can put in a shooting range no I'm not saying
that right now no they have an archery range I I hope I said that they're in a commercial zone
They're not in one of these.
Yeah, and they have an archery range.
They shooting range.
And we do, by the way, include archery
in this industrial one.
But we had a certain request in the planning commission
dealt with that request.
If you guys want an addition, that's fine.
It's a planning commissional look at it.
Mr. Hutchins, so your honor, it's
based on all this discussion.
It seems that this ordinance does cover what
Mr. Wallen is talking about it. I mean, as opposed to going out there and promoting big
time outlet for sale of more firearms. But I mean, anybody comes to this shooting range.
It sounds like they can buy a gun and ammunition. And I think the main thrust of this was to have
a shooting range for law enforcement. And that was my understanding the background. And
And I'm not that interested in promoting any more outlets for sales of guns.
I'll say that.
But I think this covers what I heard was the original interest.
I don't know, Mr. Waln, does that cover it?
I know that commercial industrial and commercial area was one that you talked about.
I don't think we'll ever get indoor shooting range for firearms at Bob's.
I just don't see that happening.
I wish I had gotten as clear answer to my question prior to the meeting that I didn't.
You know, I can't say I'm 100% satisfied, but I certainly wouldn't be opposed to the ordinance.
I wouldn't oppose the ordinance, but I don't think it's clear.
here. I don't know how we enforce the incidental use or whether we're measuring the square
footage of the range versus the retail area or what have you.
Still, I feel like the
commission could probably give a little look at it, but I could also go along with Council
moving forward if you felt compelled to, but we had one touch on this when we were asked
to have the attorney draft in ordinance. This is our first touch of actually considering
the language of this ordinance, and it's going to have substantial impact going forward.
We have at least three entities who may want to do indoor shooting ranges.
Mr. Moody, just for clarification, I think it's at the point. If the retail side per shows
has it's more profitable than the range side if it's still a second you know is
that is it no longer an incidental and secondary function because you could sell
ten guns and make a lot of money off of selling ten guns compared to running out
of lane to shoot out you know to for target practice through a hundred different
people. I mean, where's the line? How is that defined by code, by your rules that this is
from primary to secondary? Typically, it's defined when a building permit is applied for and
they're showing the primary uses of the building. We look at zoning at that time as well to make
sure that the use is permitted in the zoning district. And if they show, just for example, if they
shooting range, we would say I'm sorry that is not a secondary or ancillary use to the shooting range. Your shooting range is ancillary to your sales and then it would not be allowed.
Okay, so flip the numbers around. Yeah, but the numbers around and then there's no issue.
Council, can we kind of bring this to final decision here? Do we have any more? Mr. Wall, and what's your pleasure on your any
further comment or discussion?
So your other the motion is to send this back to the planning commission for further.
Further review and for them to look at commercial zone and commercial industrial and so on and look at expanding the.
I guess we don't have to expand because it sounds like that's part of it now after having it.
I believe basically we're sending it back to planning commission to
understanding to allow more preventable zoning areas to allow gun shooting
ranges at this time. Is that basically where we're at on this is my
understanding to allow more other than just the commercial because I'm getting a
little lost on some expectations here. Pretty convoluted. You have if you want you
You can vote this down past the motion and then amend it at some time, and yes.
I'm kind of with Mr. Hutchinson, it feels like this does everything.
Mr. Wall wants to do, except be located in a retail area.
I think it's adequate, I think it's what the people who are interested in a shooting range
want, so I don't believe I can support the, or will support the amendment, I think that the
planning commission is done what they've been asked to do.
Okay, the motion is to send it back to the Planning Commission. Any further comment on that?
Well, I feel the same way. I think it's adequate for the purposes at this point. So I don't
really see any purpose in sending it back to the Planning Commission at this point. I mean,
any ordinance can be adjusted amended over time. So I don't know, I think at this point,
and I don't see any purpose in sending it back to the planning commission.
Mr. Wallin.
As I said, Mr. Mayor, I can go along with the ordinance as written
but I expect from what I'm hearing that if said commercial
or shooting ranges installed and if an operator wants to sell
firearms and ammunition for retail that they be allowed to do such.
I mean that's what I'm hearing and I hope that the effect of what I'm hearing tonight
is actually translated into the ordinance it's before us
As we're being told it is and that they're actually permitted to do so
So if that were the case, you know, then I could go along with it
Let's
Any further comment call for the question you're under
All in favor say aye all opposed say aye
Please raise your hands for no
No, yes against for them. Thank you. Motion fails
Mr. Mayor I move we adopt ordinance 30 to 54. I'll second the move. Seconded to adopt the ordinance as presented number 32 54. Is there any further comment on that seeing none all in favor say aye?
Opposed
motion carries
Next on the agenda is
ordinance creating a public development authority for college County for the college County event center
Ms. Davis, would you read that by title only please?
An ordinance creating the Longview Public Development Authority,
granting a charter to the Longview Public Development Authority,
approving by-laws for such authority, and providing for an effective date.
Do I have a motion to accept?
I think I'm...
Second.
Okay.
That worked.
Don't get run over.
We have a motion to approve.
move? Do we have a staff report at all on this?
Well, just briefly, Council, we had a workshop on the public development authorities
and some of the applications of this a couple of months ago on this.
Again, this is a proposal that we would create a, it's a
be a municipal corporation that referred to as a public under the public development authority
statute. The purpose of this particular public development authority is to affect the implementation
of the Calitz County Event Center and Conference Center Master Plan.
We were a partner in that master plan several years ago.
And this is one of the vehicles that we think would be a good tool
to allow us to actually entertain and invite the private sector into seeing some
of those facilities, i.e. I think in particular we think the equestrian,
and the hotel and the indoor sports complex lend themselves very well to the private sector development
and in talking to the county having a public development authority, municipal corporation
and the ability to transfer property or convey property to a public authority
and then a public development authority having the ability to work with the private sector
this seems to be a real viable tool for that.
And so we have been working with Kalas County as well as the public facilities district
who are the main two users and tenants over there at the Expo Center and they have
encouraged us to create this and make this additional tool available to them
for the implementation of that. I know a representative of the Public
Facilities District and Calis County are also here tonight if you have questions
or want to speak to this too.
You have a question of staff before.
So we go to the, yeah, just a quick question from staff. And we talked about this before about this is a, a commission is going to be a point of five members to serve for your terms. Good. We do anything with the bylaws to set those split terms. We have not, the ordinance language hasn't been changed to do that. So, um, so they would be appointed for for your terms. Um, maybe see the attorney of McNamara, is there a ability? If we, when we appoint those to do those in staggered terms, how would that work?
Yeah, you could do that and stay in terms. Initially, the idea is to point them all for the initial four-year terms.
And then once they have adopted their bylaws, they can amend their bylaws to adopt mechanisms for, you know,
setting the, how the rotation of board members would come about.
But they're all going to be for four-year.
Initially, they would be for four-member terms, right?
Okay, into the four-year.
They could be reappointed or they could then have a by-laws in place by that point which would address the staggering of terms.
And we're not approving the by-laws that we have here.
You are approving an initial set of by-laws.
Yes, that's the exhibit say the charter and the by-laws are part of the ordinance as well.
but the public thought authority once appointed they'll have the ability they
can't change the charter on their own but they can't change their bylaws with
by by board question mr. Hutchinson your honor just looking at this article
seven board I need a little clarification so it says the existing PDA board members
shall recommend new board. I'm confused. I thought we were creating a PDA.
There's already an existing PDA. I don't understand.
I'm not an existing PDA. If you're looking at Article 7 of the charter, so you're saying
once it's created, then the existing PDA board members shall recommend new board members
to the City Council. Correct, one for their replacement.
Right, okay. Initially, once they are in place, Council will establish who those initial
members are, as time goes by, they can make recommendations for replacement of additional
board members.
And it also goes on to talk about an executive committee or something.
Five member executive?
They may provide for an executive committee basically just to handle management issues.
So the executive committee would be responsible for the operations of the PDA and not the
The board would just oversee this, is that all?
The board would be dependent upon the board how they want to establish it.
The board can have an executive director who could be one of the board members or they
can, as it's provided in Article 6, they can contract with the City of Longview to have the
City Manager or some other designee serve as executive director to do the managerial running
of the operations of the board.
So that was another question I had. So is there going to be a cost then to the city if we provide the executive director?
Is that a cost that
Comes from this city to support this?
The
Provides that the authority can contract with the city for longer. We don't necessarily have to bill them for that.
I mean we can make
Staff available to them at the direction of the city manager and that's up to the
The city initially how to how to make that provision. There's no
requirement that we be financially compensated for the support of it.
The contemplation is that initially getting the public development up and
running, they would have support from City Manager's Office and the City Attorney's
Office as they engage in their activities and are engaged in raising revenue they
might then have the ability to either contract out for the Road and Inhouse
council or have if they want to have their own executive director and a
non-board member they could do that on their own but initially I don't think
there's any provision in here that would require an expense or a cost to the
city because we this hasn't been really discussed as part of the budget so I see
this as a whole other enterprise I'm just I'm not against this I just see this as
a concern that this is a whole other enterprise and we're going to provide
support staff to get this up and run.
I'm just kind of concerned that they're
looking at we should have additional staff to actually do this if we're
going to do it the right way. Could I speak at that? I guess I'm envisioning
initially that you know part of my responsibilities and duties are public
economic development and I have already been working with the PFD in the county on
the Expo Center site in PDA. So I guess I'm right now I'm kind of looking at this initially
initial startup. I would probably if the if the new board asked for an executive director
or some assistant there I would offer and say I would be willing to do that as part of my
duties that I already have there. I think if they get up and running and have a whole
to a viable hotel and a comp you know a questionnaire facility and start generating some revenues
that I would expect that I would become a lot more than just a little bit of my time to support them.
at that point, they probably need to think about hiring an executive director, whether
it's contracting the city of Longview or they could hire their own executive director.
So once they got up and running, then they would probably bring a person, separate person
into that role.
That's how I envision that.
But I think initially, you know, I wouldn't envision I'm going to spend a whole lot more
time than I haven't already with the conference center and the PFD supporting them right now
with what they've been trying to do at the conference center.
Further questions of staff?
Mary Jane?
I see that long views bring some resources to the table with with the city manager
I'm assuming that the county is also bringing some resources from staff support to the table to help
I would hope that they have some mankind and possibly the public facilities district also as we begin embarking on you know
Whether it's the hotel of the indoor sports complex or equestrian
Initially yes because I do worry about the budget all the same
We've got executive direction. We've got staff support for a new board and you know that takes time
and staff time and staff energy.
Yeah, but this is only longer.
That doesn't include social or the county.
This is the long use.
What long is creating the PDA?
There are any other further questions of staff
before we go to the citizens.
And then we will go to discussion.
Is there anybody that would like to speak to this,
Mr. Eisner or anybody that can see Brian's out there?
and welcome permission.
It's great to be here.
Good evening, Council.
Mayor, staff.
Thank you all for this opportunity to come here.
Talk about the PDA.
We've been working on the PDA for several months now.
Great question.
Could I interrupt you for just one second?
Yeah, before you give your name and city of residence.
Oh, of course I can.
My name is Jim Meisner.
Calis County Commissioner District 3, live at Silver Lake.
Thank you.
You're welcome.
With the counties bringing to this particular PDA
from the office that would be the land, about 48 acres of fairgrounds property right now
that we have.
The PDA is a multi-win facet here, for long view what it could be is that whatever is built
on that property that is generating revenue, obviously that would end up back in long
view in great part.
For the county, you have to consider that we have all that acreage over there around the
conference center.
The conference center, the Expo Center events or whatever we want to call it, is hit
somewhat of what you might call peak performance. Since its inception every year the staff
stood a wonderful job of attracting venues to the event center. But because there's
not a hotel and there's not other amenities around there we've really hit about the maximum
that we can go. When we ask people why didn't you choose us you know they'll call up and
ultimately decide to go somewhere else but we ask them. Why didn't you choose is that there's
not a nearby hotel accommodation. There's not a restaurant or something with them walking
distance. So a master plan was written on the events in a property, overall that 48 acres,
of things that could happen there. And we spoke about an equestrian center, I think Mr. Gregory
had spoken about indoor sports complex and restaurants, hotels, actually have approached us in the
last year. We've reached out for them. With the PDA does, the PDA has the ability. And that board
has the ability to do something that we don't necessarily have the opportunity to do as council members
that is to reach out and engage with the development community to say, hey, this property is available.
We do have that master plan with the conference center and those grounds.
It's not to say that somebody with a developer with a great idea couldn't come in and say, hey, I got a great idea.
This would work really well here.
And then the conveyance of that, the county is unable to issue a portion of that property that they're looking at.
Turn it over to the PDA and the PDA negotiates that deal with that entity.
It's a lot cleaner way to do that.
For the county, it's great that we've got that property, but I'll tell you the fairgrounds and the fair and the rodeo, they're wonderful to have in the community, they break even.
They cost us about as much as they cost to run.
Taking care of those grounds costs about $150,000 a year.
The event center itself is the opposite. The event center actually receives less and less of a subsidy every year.
It's about to hit $1 million mark. It's very close right now.
So PDAs are successful, not all the time.
You want to watch your PDAs, but many PDAs are very successful.
They'll say a Pike Street market up in Seattle.
That's a PDA.
Very similar to PDA would be the Hilton Conference Center
down there in Vancouver to take a look at that one.
And that's how we helped to set the framework for this one.
So I'm here essentially just to say,
I'm very much in support of this.
Even getting to where we are right now,
it wasn't just a rubber stamp thing.
Actually several times we went back, looked at the language.
We did engage with the folks from Vancouver, the people who wrote the PDA around the Hilton.
How did you do this? How is it working? So we did that research before we got to the point we were at today.
So just look forward to your support on this and thank you all for your service by the way.
It's great to be here. I haven't been here yet with some of your new council members.
And since I was here last, it's nice to see you all.
Any questions have happened to answer them.
Thank you. You're wonderful. You bet. Have a great evening.
Brian Magneson, Longview, Washington, and I am a public facilities district commissioner
and we've been in existence for a little over 10 years and see as Commissioner Meisner
has said it's been a very successful.
I was looking back at our numbers that we've done from when we first opened it up and to
now and we're just about ready to go for a million dollars and that is why the four, there
was the P.F.D., the City of Longview, City of Kelsoon County, we put together 25,000 each
to put this study together. And you know, I want to make sure that the study doesn't
sit up in the bookshelf. I want to make sure that it gets exercised. And so I'm pretty
certain that you guys are in favor of this tonight, but I just want you to know that from
the PFD we are in favor we we voted to support it and we really look forward to
bringing more revenue. I'm pretty excited about a indoor sports complex on that
west side of seventh as well as the hotel and I think the revenue that that
will create will then put money back on the other side of the street to be able to
do more with the equestrian and it'll feed upon itself to finally utilize that 48
acres to its potential. Thanks. Any questions of Ryan? Yes. Just one clarification. What's the
difference between the public facilities districts in a PDA? So public facilities district does not have
the authority that the PDA does. We do not have the ability to attract or to have the land.
So in other words, the PDA public development authority has the ability to take land and sell it
and lease it and do things with it that the PFD does not have.
The other main difference is the public facilities district was created and has a certain
tax revenue that's been allocated by the state that generates a revenue source for the
PFD to do things like that.
The PDA, just because you create a PDA, doesn't come with a revenue stream to go along with
that.
So, one other question, so the PDA, if it goes and sells bonds for a project, is that that's
part of what you can do with the PDA?
I don't see it that way.
What I would see happening here is that,
so what the PDA does is it's a mechanism to be able to accept
land from the county.
So let's just say the aid acres, it's on the west side of
seventh, they would be able to, as you will,
deed that to the PDA.
And so now we would have the ability to go out and attract,
let's say, a Hilton Honors, maybe a 50-bed type,
and maybe it's somebody, maybe it's a public private adventure,
maybe it's something where instead of selling them the land,
you would have some type of a lease arrangement
and have some type of a share based on the revenue
or maybe you just sell it outright.
Same would go with the sports.
So what I was trying to get around to,
one paragraph here says the purpose of securing the exemption
from federal income taxation has to do here
with revenue code and that the interest that could be earned is tax exempt is what I'm
reading. I'm just trying to understand how that works. Is that part of the incentive
under a PDA?
Well, it says the purpose of securing exemption from federal income taxation
for interest on obligations of the authority.
I'm just trying to understand how it's going to be.
No, that's right.
That's a good question.
I can't speak to that exactly.
But what I can speak to is the ability for the PDA to be able
to receive properties and be able to utilize it to those types
of uses.
That's something that the city, that the county,
and that the PFD cannot do.
And that's the main purpose of the PDA is to be able
to take that property and utilize it for those types of opportunities.
If I might, Mr. Mack, be out of turn to his mic on.
Thank you, thank you, Mr. Mayor.
Mr. Hartzend, I was just going to point out that the provision of the charter merely illustrates
that four purposes, that is not the intended purpose of the PDA, it says four purposes of
securing income, it has the, it constitutes an authority and instrumentality of the city
of Longview.
So, under that definition of sections 103 and 145 the internal revenue.
That is the tax status of the PDA.
It is to the, to whatever extent, an instrumentality of the city of Longview has tax treatment, then that is, that is how the PDA will be treated. PDAs can issue bonds as well. They can do almost anything a city can do except for taxation and the power of eminent domain. That's what I was trying to get around to is to, you know, why this is a good way to go?
I mean, that's just a little extra benefit.
The main benefit, I think, that was visualized was the management aspect of it and having
the separate entity for managing things such as this property, which would have the expertise
and the freedom from the city from potential liability and free the city from the management
obligations of this property.
Thank you.
Any further questions of Ryan?
Thank you for all you do, my friends, if you'd like.
Any one else in the audience would like to speak to this issue?
Council, discussion amongst yourselves.
If not, will your honor?
Yes.
I think Mr. Botero mentioned about staggered terms which makes sense to me and so would we
We need to make an amendment to include that here because it doesn't say that.
No, because that comes from the governing body of the PDA when they get put together.
They set the a parameter for their bylaws, not us.
Okay.
And then one other question.
So the members of the PDA are appointed by the city council.
So I'm assuming would they be appointed in the same manner that we make other appointments,
there'd be no different than.
Right. I think I read where the where the mayor makes the appointment and the council ratifies or something like that effect.
Um, the committee gets together and picked up and yeah, bring it to council.
All the locations. The final point is by the city council. That's how the charter sets up. Right. So it's the same process as we would follow further. Right. Right. Right.
They can think the council can do whatever process they want as far as appointing those. Yes.
I don't even know that it's appropriate, but I just want to bring it to the attention
being a mom and coming from a family and group on a farm and a ranch and all that.
But my question is, is we're talking about all these hotels and revenue and such for
the city.
Have we thought about maybe bringing like a kids club or roller skating rink,
I guess they
to do or something for families to bring in revenue?
Well, I'm not at liberty to speak to that right now but there's something in the works.
That is great to know.
Sorry.
Thank you.
Mr. Mayor.
Yes.
Mr. Mayor and the master plan for the site
has the indoor sports arena and all that in the master plan.
miss Campbell and Mr. Mayor. So master plan clearly shows all these youth
activities that will be able to use that site.
There's yeah any further
discussion council.
Seeing none. One question. Yeah so the question so so this is
that the motion is that the PDA would commence operation there's even a date
November 10th, 2013.
The motion is to approve ordinance 3255,
creating the public development authority,
granting a charter to the public development authority,
approving bylaws for such authority
and providing for an effective date of November 10th, 2013.
So that's when it takes off.
So by then, this council would be appointing
the members of the PDA.
The ordinance doesn't go into effect to 30 days,
and there's a provision in there and the council has some time within that window
beyond that window to appoint the members and it's not going to go into effect
until the members are there and operational. They have to report back some of
their operational things to the council by April I think of 2014.
Mr. Mr. Hutchinson happened to actually have a coffee before he must have had a
espresso or something. Mr. Miller, two things. Where did you read November 10?
It's information I have says November 1st on the agenda under recommended action. It says November 10 no my agenda says November 1 the
The first agenda summary said November 1st
It's effectively a 30-day effect of date for our ordinances
So 30 days from today from today, which is when ordinances take effect
Okay, the typical 30-day effective date for it. Okay, so the 30 days for today is the 10th. Okay. I'm literally I'm looking at my agenda right here
It says November 1. That's the current one. Have you ever heard of the I legislated agenda? Okay, it's on there
So all right. All right. I just want to add something to it if I could miss my head. Yeah, I was recognized as a date
I just want to say this is something that's a long time coming. I think that our community's talked about the underutilization of our
our Expo Center and our fairgrounds and the right stuff we need to take for future development
and economic growth in our community, so I will be supporting this.
Any further comment, Council?
Seeing none, all in favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion carries.
Without objections, please show us that as unanimous, Ms. Davis.
The next thing on our agenda is an interlocal agreement for legal services, for
for stormwater, NPE, D-E-S, Promet, Appeal, Ms. Davis.
Would you read that by title only?
A resolution authorizing the city manager
to amend the interlocal agreement for participation
and an appeal of the Department of Ecologies,
phase two national pollutant discharge elimination system,
N-P-D-E-S, Promet.
Thank you, council.
Council.
I move that we approve resolution 20-28-3.
Here we have a staff report that you want to do.
We do not know.
I can address that real briefly.
This is an interlocal authority in place.
Council has earlier authorized the city to participate with a number of other jurisdictions
who are an intervener and appeal for the pollution control of hearings board currently ongoing.
And so you've already authorized our participation.
and as we've gone on, the litigation costs have gone up.
So this is an authorization to expand an additional $10,000
as our proportionate share of litigation costs
in this appeal.
Yes, Tom?
Do we have any idea if this, how much higher this cost could
go or that's pretty much going to cover it?
I mean, you know, billblowers.
This should cover it.
I mean, we are in the final stages of the appeal as we speak.
So this is, I can't make any promises, build flowers, team what they are these days, but
this was, we're not doubling, this is not, earlier allocated 20,000, this is only half
again as much, and the contemplation was that they should see us through to the end.
And the funds for this comes out of the general fund, or more.
Any further questions or staff seeing that, is there anybody in the audience that would
I would like to speak to this issue.
Seeing none, the motion is to adopt Resolution 2883 authorizing a city manager to amend the
interlocal agreement to an amount of $30,000 for the city of Longview's portion of legal
fees.
On favor say aye.
Aye.
Opposed?
Motion carries.
Ms. Davis, would you read Resolution 284 by title only please?
A resolution authorizing the city manager into an interlocal agreement with the association of Washington City's employee benefit trust to authorize the health care program created by the trust to provide self-insured benefits to participants.
Mr. Gregory, do you have a yes to like to ask the HR Director Keith Larson if he can give counsel or review of what this interlocal agreement does?
Thank you, Mr. Gregory.
Counsel, the AWC Trust was formed in 1970 by the Association of Washington Cities to offer affordable coverage for cities and towns.
Today, the trust serves about 275 participating entities.
The city of Longview currently subscribes to medical, dental, vision, and employee assistance
programs.
We have 173 employees taking part in the medical program and about 290 in their dental programs.
This trust has just recently formed a non-self-insurance agency effect of January 1.
There are cost savings and tax advantages to doing this, and this interlocal agreement
is necessary to incorporate the City of Longview into the program and provide the coverage
is available to the employees.
Yes, Mr. Moon. I like to make a motion that we approve resolution 2084.
Second,
then move and second it. Thank you, Mr. Moon. I like you keep me on my toes.
I try, Mr. Mayor. I try. Is there any further questions of staff on this?
Is there anybody in the audience who would like to speak to this issue?
Council, the motion is to approve resolution 2083 authorizing a city manager to amend interlocal
agreement, whoops, wrong one, move down, cancel.
The motion is to approve resolution 2084 authorizing city manager to enter into an interlocal
agreement with the association of Washington City's employees benefit trust.
Any further comment?
Seeing none, all favor say aye.
Aye.
I posed, motion carries.
Next we have the marriage report and council members report.
Do we have any reports from, yes, Mr. Plotero?
I had a private being gone for two weeks, so maybe an hour
and a half will be done here.
OK.
Just a couple of things I'd like to report on our airport work
meetings.
There'll be a special workshop on October 25th at noon
between Kelsa Longview, the port and the county commissioners to talk about the
future of the airport and what we're doing with that. The only other thing I'd
like to bring up is I don't know how long you came on on top of things, but we
have two of the most outstanding lobbyists that are around. I had the
privilege spending some time with Joel Rubenbach and DC and the guy is
amazing. We have gotten more and more money's worth out of Joel Ruben back in DC.
And then we come back to the state of Washington and one of the most outstanding
members of the team is up in Olympia, Mark Brown. And if anybody in this room
has tennis shoes on, think they can keep up with Mark Brown. I'd like to take you up
with me. This guy has just amazing how he gets around up there and gets things done.
But we're very fortunate and I would like to publicly thank both of our lobbyists and
our city manager and the council for bringing these two people on board.
We're getting a lot done and I think the DC trip turned out to be pretty positive.
He's the Joel's pretty amazing isn't he, he walk into anybody's office, any of the legislators
and they say hi Joel, what's up and that's what it takes, thank you for doing what you
did Ken.
Do you have any further report?
I do but I'm not going to do them. You didn't have the coffee. I didn't drink coffee when
Tom. You didn't invite me. Okay. There are any further council member reports that want
to bring forward. If not, you have the consent calendar. What's your pleasure? I'm usually
approved the consent calendar in its entirety. I'll second that.
But moving and seconded, is there anything anybody would like to pull off for separate considerations?
So just a quick question.
Is the McClellan Arch Center, is that part of the consent calendar?
I believe so.
I don't really have any issues with it, but so other than to ask, it's done, it's going
to last us now for 50 years.
Open for business.
Yep.
He said, well, maybe next week it'll last.
People are in it and meeting already.
Good. Thank you. In the consent calendar we have approval of claims. We have liability
claims and lawsuits set of public hearing for their proposed revenue source for the 2014
general fund budget.
And that, no, then it's set of public hearing for the home CDBG,
annual performance evaluation, the paper, project completion for the McClellan Arts Center,
Tom and that's what's on there. Is there any further comment on the consent
calendar? Seeing none, all in favor say aye. Opposed? Motion carries. Manager
Grigory. Thank you, Council. First item I have for you tonight is a notice of
intent to annex. This is from Pacific fiber products and Davis Brothers
investments and I'm going to ask community development director John Brickie to
give the staff report on this.
Thank you, Manager Grigory. Mayor,
The item before you at this time is a notice of intent to annex a request by by specific
Fiber products for the city to consider any.
In conjunction with PAC Fibers, notice of intent. There is another request by Davis Brothers Investments, LLC, and that is a small parcel up in this general vicinity, and I'd like to show you the next map, which includes that property and additional properties.
to be included in an annexation.
This map shows both the PAC fiber property which is in the hash marked area.
And the blackened areas are some additional parcels that were staff is recommending included as well.
Yes, the Davis Brothers property is right here.
There is a property adjacent to them that would be included as well
because it would be completely encompassed by city boundary if it were not included in the annexation.
The proposed area to be annexed consists of approximately 12 parcels and comprises about 263 acres.
The area primarily contains log yards, wood chip, bark dust storage, and vacant land.
There's also a 110 acre industrial log pond within this area.
So, the staff was recommending that three parcels and part of another parcel be added to the annexation area.
Those parcels, quick description of them all, but one of those parcels needs to be included to prevent islands of land being created.
For instance, this parcel is one of those that should be included so that we do not create an island of land.
and then also the port owns a rail cord or that splits the pack fiber property and that is a separate parcel which would need to be included so that we have contiguous parcels of land that are owned by pack fiber and no without a separation there both in this location and in this location here.
This map was generated and provided to City Council in the meantime, about a week ago, in the meantime, staff met with the Three Rivers Waste Water Authority, which is this larger blackened parcel here.
They had expressed interest through their board and manager that they were interested in being included in the annexation request.
and, however, when we met with them this week, the board was unable to forward a recommendation
indicating their desire to be in the annexation petition.
And so, PAC Fiber has asked or requested that the TURWA personal not be included
with this notice of intent, the reason being that if there were some reason why the TURWA could not
or decided not to be included in the annexation request, their evaluation would cause the notice of intent and annexation requests to become negated and pack fiber would have to start the process all over again.
And I will tell you that if the three rivers wastewater treatment plant wants to annex,
they certainly could on their own annex after a PAC fiber-complete cell annexation process
if council were to approve it.
There is a second option for the three rivers wastewater treatment facility.
They could also at the time that this annexation goes before the battery review board.
they could request, um, invoked jurisdiction and request, uh, inclusion in the annexation
at that time.
And so there is opportunity for them to, um, annex into the city, uh, in the future
if they chose to.
With that, uh, the motion before council, uh, the staff would recommend is to accept the
proposed annexation request plus the, the lock year parcel, which is this blackened parcel
here. And the Port of Longview parcels, which are the rail corridor along here with a slight
enlargement of that property there and then the rail corridor along this portion.
Each that
would be all the parcels that would be included. And then the second part of this motion would be to
transmit the annexation request to the planning commission for a recommendation on the zoning designation
for the subject property and the third portion of this motion would be to require the
assumption of any existing city and deadness by the area to be annexed and fourth direct
staff to coordinate with the applicant and preparing the 60% petition to be circulated
by the property owners. If you have any questions, I might have missed it but it isn't
before is that piece of property are talking about performance sheet metal that's
correct that's you know Davis brothers incorporated our property development
yeah thank you council I don't believe I have a motion yet do so move like it before
uh mr. Moon jumps me thanks for keeping me honest okay is there any questions
questions or staff before we move forward?
Is there anyone, yes, I mean, you want to public go ahead?
That's what I was going to do, ask if there was, that was my next question.
Thank you, Tom.
Is there anybody in the audience that would like to speak to this issue?
Chuck Wallace, 600 block, 22nd.
This parcel of land is zone heavy industrial, if I'm not mistaken, is that correct?
Well, it's in our comprehensive plan, the recommendation to zoning will have to come from planning commission.
Okay, but it's current use is heavy industrial for, okay, so there's probably zero likelihood it's going to be rezoned to light industrial or commercial or anything like that.
It's going to be heavy industrial.
So, does, do we know what kind of an impact this is going to have after the city starts to collect revenue and put it into the general fund?
What kind of an impact that's going to have on the pending crisis in 2018?
The fact that this, well, that's another point.
I'm just more interested and I would encourage a yes vote on this.
the more businesses, the more productive land that we have in the city, of course the city is going to reap the benefits and that's pretty much what I'm saying.
But it is interesting to heavy industrial land that a couple of agenda items we had to talk about shooting ranges so thanks.
Thank you. Is there anybody else that would like to speak to this issue?
if not the motion I believe is to approve the motion to approve the what
Mr. Frickie read it's about two pages long so rather than read it I'm gonna
see if there's any further comment from council yes Tom so your other I guess
That's my obvious question and I'm almost afraid to ask you more questions, Ken, but I'll
put that down.
Anyway, so why is it that they want to be annexed?
I mean, we spent a cruddle amount of time not too long ago, with all the other industrial
areas along the waterfront coming and doing everything they could to make sure they didn't
get annexed to the city.
So why, why, why does this group want to be in X and city?
Is this going to cost us money in the long run?
What are the consequences?
There are several reasons that they've expressed why they would like to be in the city.
One is that their office is currently in the city and the rest of their property is in
the county.
They have had some cross jurisdictional misunderstandings you might say during building permit process
where they wanted to build something that was partially in the city or partially in the county
and they think that the city is a preferred place for them to be at this time. Also it would reduce some
of their fire service contracts costs if they were all in the city and of course the city would like
to see them in the city because of proper tax revenues and those sorts of things.
so
they're willing to do this even though it may cost them more money. They've
canceled it out. They approached us. Okay. Sorry to. We didn't ask them they
wanted in. That's good. Any further comment? Comment from council.
Seeing
Council, next item you have for now.
We have a private manager Amy Blaine here tonight.
I have asked staff to provide a progress reports
at the council's business and we're here tonight
to talk about the work that we have done
since our workshop last Thursday.
And I'm going to ask Amy to do a council overview
and ask questions.
I got to move.
You're not.
Thank you, Mr. Gregory.
I'm here tonight to give you a follow-up
for the information that was presented at the workshop last Thursday and a status report
on where we are with water quality.
I'll start with a progress report on what was done this week to address the issues that
we've been having.
I'll give you a snapshot on the softening investigation and the results of the evaporation
testing that we did about a week and a half ago.
Talk about some of the recommendations that we have for expanding our flushing program
and rolling out a program to assist homeowners.
We'll talk about main replacement work projects
that were completed this year in 2013,
and then the list of potential main replacement projects
that we are looking at towards the future.
We'll talk about the phosphate treatment option
and recommendations that will be provided tonight
as well as at the council meeting on the 24th.
This week we flushed three of the problem areas.
St. Helens was flushed on Monday and Thursday, the Highlands on Tuesday,
and Olympic on Wednesday.
Two automatic flushers were installed on Monday for a water exchange.
We're not able to pass enough flow through those devices to get enough
velocity for a good scouring effect, but it is good just for water turnover
and it helps keep complaints to a minimum.
The unidirectional flushing was not performed this week, it was scheduled to be done next week
and the following and that will continue, it will be done on October 23rd in areas 1-4.
We collected samples as part of our distribution system monitoring plan at 9 sites
and expanded the list of things that are being tested for at those locations to include total and soluble aluminum.
That was because we had an indication that the album was possibly exacerbating the spotting effect that we've been seeing and hearing about.
We also added total and orthophosphates to the testing list so that we could establish a benchmark if we do choose to move forward with the phosphate injection option.
We also pulled a complete metal analysis at two of the sites.
One was a control site where we do see spotting issues, but no water quality issues, and
the other was site 17, which is in the Baltimore area on 17th Avenue where we do have the water
quality issues.
We wanted to compare the metals results to what we saw back in July.
And we are continuing with public outreach and issued updates to our citizen
sentinels, postings on our Facebook and updates to our website that we
maintain for the project.
I won't go through a lot of these graphs but I
wanted to point this one out. As I mentioned last week we did increase the
chlorine residual leaving the treatment plant to 1.4. We made some correlations
last week, as far as the trends that we are observing, that the problems that we are currently
seeing are due to a release of manganese scale. The way to keep the manganese down is by keeping
the ORP up. The way to keep the ORP up is by keeping the chlorine up. So we bumped up the chlorine
level, leaving the plant so that we could hopefully see that translate to an increase in chlorine level
throughout the distribution system. Now, this graph is really just showing the problem areas
There's just fewer lines so it's less confusing.
In general, throughout the distribution system,
we are seeing an increase in chlorine.
And you'll see this tracking up.
This blue one is leaving the plant.
These others are several of the problem areas.
The one thing that I want to point out here
is that at site 17, we see our chlorine is close to nothing.
and that's a problem. Site 18 you'll see is also decreasing, but that one doesn't necessarily
cause me a lot of concern because there was no
I believe it was October 2nd, and still the chlorine there is low. So there's a problem there. My best inclination at this point is that it is flow-related, but we still haven't determined the exact cause.
These are some photos of the evaporation test.
that we collected, two different locations.
On the right is a glass pan showing the white residues
that we collected from the treatment plant.
And on the left, what was collected in the 600 block
of 17th.
And basically, we're just pouring water into these pans,
two liters, and evaporating it off at about 200 degrees
overnight.
And this is what was left.
you can see a visible difference. The lab analysis came back on this at about
3 o'clock this afternoon, and it was expedited to us, so they have not completely
to see the data, so I didn't want to provide hard numbers, but we do have some
preliminary results, and the indications are that there is a variation between the
treatment plant and the distribution system.
There is evidence that Allen is contributing to the spotting,
but it is largely controlled by the calcium carbonate.
Silica is also present, but the calcium is the predominant factor.
Based on that, softening treatment should help
to address the spotting issues, but we do still need to verify
that our objectives will be met without any unintended consequence.
Moving
forward, we'd like to see our flushing program be expanded.
As we did this week, we'd like to continue flushing the St. Helens area
and that Baltimore main twice each week and flushing the other problem areas
on a rotating weekly basis.
So that includes St. Helens, Old West Side, Robins.
We want to also begin flushing some of the emerging problem areas
once the unidirectional flush is complete in late October.
It's important to not disrupt the sequence of the unidirectional flush
so that you're always flushing from a clean source out to your dirty areas.
So, we want to wait to flush commerce, for example,
and so after that unidirectional flush is complete.
In order to do this, we need additional staffing.
We're proposing three full-time employees to perform
Fleshing four days a week and the estimated cost of that is $20,000 a month.
Some additional costs are associated with obtaining decordation chemical.
Now it is possible to attempt to do this as we did this week using our own staff
And diverting them from other projects, it just means that there's other work that doesn't get done.
And if there are emergency main breaks or things of that nature that would pull those resources away, then the flushing work is done.
This is a preliminary look at what an expanded flushing program schedule would look like.
I cannot say with certainty that by the end of June, we can completely be done with this flushing program.
I think this will be a work in progress, but basically what you see in green is the
unidirectional flush that we have traditionally done in zones one through four occurring
in the fall and in zones five through eight occurring in the summertime and August in
blue this weekly flushing being proposed in specific areas and spot flushing what happening
in June and in December.
This is primarily for reference so that you can associate what zones it is that I'm
talking about.
There was a comment earlier or question earlier about where the problems are primarily
and it's in zone one.
Most of the issues are from Washington Way to Oregon Way on the south side of the lake.
We have had a few complaints on commerce, a few complaints in the Robbins area out 50th,
but predominantly we are looking at zone one.
We are also proposing to provide some assistance
to customers at their homes.
It is a logical extension to make that if we are experiencing
these problems in our main,
they are experiencing similar problems
in their own private plumbing.
So it's important to identify the problems
that are occurring between the meter and the tap.
We don't have any control over those things.
All of the sampling that we have been doing has been on the city side of the meter.
But we recognize that they are having similar issues, and there are things that we can do to help.
So we're proposing that city staff go out to homeowners houses, and assist them to flush the service line, assist them to flush their plumbing, drain and flush their hot water heaters.
look at their plumbing or point of use filters and provide some recommendations for changing
up filters or perhaps installing them if there is none. This again would require some
outside or an additional employees with some utility as experience. The cost of that
is approximately $8,000 a month. We're estimating six weeks to contact 100 customers assuming
that that can be accomplished into our appointments.
I use the number 100 because that's the number of complaints that we've had related to water
quality since we made the transition to groundwater in late January.
There would also need to be some criteria to establish how customers become eligible for
this service or to establish what priority they are served.
And the two that are considered to be simplest and could be done readily in the field are turbidity and color.
And then there would be some public outreach to be able to unroll the program.
The question came up last week about our main replacement program, so we wanted to present some of those costs.
We did several projects this year.
The first was Maple Street, from 30th to Northwest Nichols, Ocean Beach Highway, currently
underway from Northeast Nichols to Olympia, and the alley behind 21st and 22nd.
You can see the construction costs there, design and engineering costs, and total at 1.2
million for 5,300 feet of linear pipe.
This then is the list of remains in need of replacement.
They are in order of priority, and the beach street is at the top of the list there,
and
you can see off to the right the costs that are associated with those.
Those are all based on a construction cost of $270 per lineal foot, which is the average
of the bid tabs that we saw for the projects completed this year, plus an allowance for design
and construction management and contingency.
The
phosphate treatment option, this week we collected samples from each of the production
wells from the combined filter influence and the finished water to determine the background
levels of phosphates that was in the groundwater.
There is some phosphate in the raw ground water, but the green sand filtration process also removes
some of that phosphate.
So we want to make sure we know what those levels are before we head down the path of injecting
additional phosphates. We are contacting suppliers to determine what what
blends are available of ortho and poly mixes and how quickly we can procure those to
begin doing some testing. It will be necessary to do jar testing to determine
how effective this is, what different blends we want to use and that is sort of a
it's a very static test. In addition to that we would like to do a dynamic test so
So that we can optimize the process, we can vary the flow, we can stagnate the flow,
and we have the opportunity to do a pipe loop test by sectioning out a 4-inch pipe
from the Ocean Beach Water Main Replacement Project.
So we would propose to have two lengths of pipe, a 4-inch diameter and 10 feet long.
One would be a control pipe where there's no injection whatsoever and the other where
you would be using phosphate injection to compare the difference.
So a side-by-side trial.
We have also selected two homes where we could potentially conduct a full-scale trial using
of orthophosphates.
The first is in the 2,700 block of orgate avenue where they do experience a spotting issue but
no water quality issues.
And the second is in the 900 block of 15th or the 500 block of 19th, one of the other,
but it is in that Baltimore area where they are experiencing water quality issues.
So again, it gives us a snapshot of what the difference is for different customers.
We are working with Consulance Engineering to develop a work plan and a testing protocol
for all of those tests that I just talked about,
and working with Kennedy-Janks to develop a scope
for the phosphate injection system design work.
Recommendations at this point are to provide additional staff
to expand our flushing program.
Additional staff also to support this residential program
to assist homeowners.
We'd also like to investigate some alternative
main cleaning options we made contact with PNE
And they do have the capability of doing jetting and gave us some pricing on a trial in the area of ocean beach.
Primarily, at this point, we are still recommending time for the distribution system to stabilize.
But we will bring back recommendations on the 24th for the phosphate injection and the softening treatment, as well as a rate reduction proposal for
the 1100 customers that are in that affected area.
We also will present an option to install a water dispensing station at the mid-farm
water treatment plant.
It's not necessarily as convenient as some of the bottled water options that were presented
last week, but it can be controlled as far as the distribution.
and it's attractive to me to be able to demonstrate to customers who don't
necessarily believe that the groundwater is good high-quality water. It's a
very clear illustration that there is a huge difference between what leaves
the plant and what may be delivered at their tap.
And that's all I have is there
any questions?
Mr. Jensen, can you tell me just Calcine because Calcine appears to be
an issue with water moving the plant. Does Calcine build up in the pipes? Will that
down the road or something that we're trying to ice pig out? It will build up in the pipes as well.
Just like anything else, just like the iron of manganese and the other scales that we are seeing now,
we will see that in the pipes, but we are also seeing that the scale that's there dissolving.
So I don't think it will accumulate to the point that our pipes are plugging.
It's not a new issue.
It's just a different issue.
Thank you.
So I guess the big question is the huge elephant in the room.
Will we be seeing any improvement or difference for these folks that are having all the problems?
We will, with the flushing that we have been doing, we have been seeing clear water, the
reports that I had from the flushing crews, and I think I heard one of these young ladies
who spoke tonight say that the water from the flushing was clear water.
The chlorine is still a problem, but the results that I got yesterday for the manganese in
So 0.05, our goal should be less than that but it is below or right at that secondary
MCL.
We still need to address the idea that what we are delivering at the point of connection
could be different from what they are seeing at their tap.
And I think that's why we're recommending that we have the home flushing program available
to.
Again, it doesn't.
We've got to flush the main area clear water there but if we're not going all the way
to the into the faucet to there. We're not going to, there's, there's customers
are going to see that and that's why we want to add that element to it and
actually be out and trying to do those two things in conjunction with each
other. Um, so my question would be, have staff had a chance to check out the home
of the folks here that have that? Jeff Coleman, we tried to look at their
situation. I have not had any conversations with Mrs. Campbell but I know that
Jeff Coleman has on a number of occasions
and has been to her house.
And they did come out
this Wednesday,
toss it running in my home,
and my hose running out into the alley all night long.
And after all,
I got a clear violin, said it's clear.
It still stinks, but it's clear.
And then later, they came back and it was yellow tent.
So it's up and down. So one other question for you, Mrs. Campbell, that the posed interim solutions
to try to alleviate the situation, do those sound like that would be helpful to you? Do you
staffing and stuff. I don't understand the extra. When it's not already currently
it's up and down.
What about providing the clean the water? Well personally I can't
lift with my back and hips all this water coming back and forth. My husband's
down with two legs and casts. I can't do it. So is the city going to come bring it
to me and deliver it into my home. I don't have any way of carrying by a gallon
and buckets of water. Is that what you're asking? I'm trying to get it. What
would help you? You've been suffering with this and what do you think? What would
help me is clean water that doesn't look like this, tastes like this, that me and my
daughters aren't on medication to fade and my appliances and stuff replaced it's ruined.
And what about all the water heaters we just ran out last night for the second time
in three months and I have pictures on my phone of the corroded brass piping with all these
barnacles around it and I don't remember the correct wording for it's not the element
and it's something else in our hot water heater.
But it's so thick with barnacles
and seashell-type stuff.
Who's gonna replace my hot water heater?
I mean, these are things that are going
and going in my dishwasher and everything.
Any other?
I'm just going in our bodies
and I just don't understand how we don't have the money
to replace the problem, which is the pipes,
but what we have money to pay all these employees extra overtime
or not over time, or more importantly, it doesn't make sense to me.
Well we're trying, we're doing everything we can to try and solve this problem.
And that may be, but like I say, we're trying our best to try and solve.
You gotta admit, we're working hard on this thing, trying to.
I understand that I was the first complaint back in March
that I got in the shower and I thought, what in the world?
It's not like I was rolling around in dead blood. I mean that's the only way I can describe it and my walls
I have pictures out there of my walls and my shower and everything is just ruined. I mean it looks like I've never washed nothing in years
all my brushed
arms
Stuff is all room. I mean it's like the stuff has eat it. I don't know what else to say and as far as waiting and damn patient
And I think it's pretty logical to say that me and my family have been being patient.
And we're trying.
And if I might on a little different subject, I have never seen a family of young folks
that have been that great in a meeting this long, I'd like to congratulate you so much on
that.
But if there's change, they were a part of it.
Yeah.
No, they've been so well-mannered.
It's it's my grandson's would have eaten a couple of these chairs by now. So you've done a great job
Can we ever come to the microphone Mr. Mayor? I'm sorry, but Miss Campbell
Can we ever come to the microphone for public right here? So it's at home can hear what she has to say
Is this time we're gonna go because that makes me nervous
Go up safe. That makes you nervous. I'm gonna turn it on
Well that's just my concern, you know, I've already stated before regardless, my daughter
has immune deficiency disorders and then to have all these nasty sores all over her
and on top of it to be a six-year-old and have a yeast infection that is out of control
down below is unacceptable to me, and that's with a dog hose, and I have pictures of all
of that, but now I have topical yeast infections that aren't even under rolls, they're on top
of my skin. So this all sounds great in theory, but in logical, it doesn't make sense to
me. We could be taking all this extra money in putting it where the problem is, and the problem
is the pipes. That's the problem. And why add extra chemicals? I mean, we're already
getting chemicals. We're already living on the toilets. I put in a claim for extra toilet
paper because we've been fighting over the toilets. And as a matter of fact, call it what
you will, but while we were getting that water out of our tap after they flushed, they flushed
Monday, Tuesday, yesterday, they were testing with their little testers, and then today
they were out there. I bought a bottle out and I said, look, what I'm still getting
as you're flushing. He says, I don't know what to tell you. It's clear out here. Okay,
I have all brand new pecs plumbing in my home. They even came out and dug up the old meter,
put a new meter in and then came into the fence and dug into my backyard to make sure that
we were in fact telling the truth.
So it's all proven. I have all brand new pecs plumbing
and all this, all that, and it's all getting ruined.
And then after, like I said, deleting or diluting or draining whatever you want to call it,
our hot water heater, for the second time in three months,
it's so corroded my brass stuff, it broke.
And to see my husband in cast, it's not you most supposed to be standing,
trying to help put those fittings on.
It's just unacceptable to me.
And like I said, I've been dealing with this since March, but be patient, be patient.
I can't be patient anymore.
Everything's deteriorating, including our health.
Thank you.
I feel for you.
I just don't know what else we can do.
We're trying, trying, trying.
And today I have to say I came home from having a meeting and some coffee in this cute little
coffee shop.
I've never been to.
It was on Broadway somewhere.
And I walked up on my porch, and I saw a water station thing with little nozzles, something like what we had at the Credit Union with two five gallon buckets of water, two cases of 24 bottles of water.
I said, what neighbor sent this to me? There's no way. I opened up the door and my husband was in this wheelchair, and he said, that's for you and I'll see.
That's another bill, because he's on L&I, broken legs, well I'm limited income but that's
one more bill.
I don't know what else to do, it's ridiculous, and there's no way I can take those five
gallon buckets and warm them up by the wood stove to give my daughter a bath.
I guess hook up the air compressor and blow it out, I don't know what else to do.
None of it makes sense to me, absolutely none of it.
Thank you.
Yes, is there any way that we could deliver water to folks that are disabled or unable
to pick up the water?
The other part about their bathing, I don't know how you'd fix that, you know.
I do have pictures out there of my home in our pool in the filter, which that filter that
shows out there is two days.
My shower and everything pictures don't lie, they tell the truth.
As far as bathing, I am open to suggestions, like I said, hooking up the air compressor and blowing it in.
I don't know.
Manager Craig, would you?
Well, I think delivered waters and other options, dispensing, I mean there's several different methods we could do for that.
I think that's another one we can certainly show you.
We showed you some of those options last week and we can certainly do those two.
We could do a combination of dispensing station and that too if that's something council would like to do.
I mean, that'd be something to help them down as far as...
And what about water bills? I even have my water bills here.
As far as fluctuation goes, July,
I tried to vacuum the pool and clean the pool, but I was putting back into the pool,
what I was trying to take out of the pool.
So my water bill is up to here. Now it's down here. Then it's up here, down here.
Because I have to double wash everything.
I believe that was part of...
But is that going to be retroactive back to when I very first started complaining about this and taking pictures?
We're working through a proposal for that, yeah, and how we want to build a dress out.
As your Gregory and staff will talk to you about that.
Okay. Is that everything?
Thank you.
Is there anybody else here that would like to speak to this issue?
Okay, we're not going to, everybody's not going to speak again.
I told you that at the beginning, but you can, I'll give you a couple minutes.
I just wanted to say with what you were saying with her things breaking my water here is making really loud noises in the middle of 90 wakes me up.
And so I don't know what's going on with that either that might have something to do with that.
I'm single. I'm scared to mess with soft stuff. So I haven't done any of that stuff. I
don't know who to call for that. So somebody to drain that for me. So I just wanted to add that.
Thank you. Thank you so much.
Leon Cohen, I'm staying in the 600 block of 17th. There are over 15 patches in the alleyway between 16th and 17th.
in the 600 block, there are over 9 patches in the 500 block that everyone in the neighborhood
is complaining about the same thing.
In regards to the time of day and which days that you are going to do your flushing,
our water system goes down in volume and we don't know exactly what time of the day you
could say you are going to do it in the neighborhood and post things on the lake bank or post things
down on the beach, but we don't always know when the water level is going to go down.
my brother has worked as a plumber, he says, do not touch the hot water heater. If you draw the
water out of the hot water heater, you stand a real good chance of blowing yourself up, shut the
water off. If you're going to go higher low, let us know. You're going to shut off the water because
you've got a burner in there. And if you take the water out, you've got an explosion hazard,
and that could be the knocking in that lady's water problem. And is there some way we can
And I'm going to opt out of this system until it's fixed.
And about turbidity and color, I've got my boiler.
I'm not a boiler maker myself, or I work with boiler makers, but I'm not an operator.
I lock things out.
The boilers have to be shut down before I can work where I work.
And I'm thinking you've got people over warehouse and long fiber boiler makers or operators that
could probably do a better job than what's going on right now.
Thank you.
Anybody else?
Chuck Wallace, 600 block, 20 second, when the City Council and the other interested groups
endeavored in the mint farm water project, we had a taste test.
And during this taste test, it didn't look like that water.
Otherwise we probably wouldn't have voted for it.
Just a...
slide show that Ms. Blaint, I'm sorry, Amy, okay, I presented there, shows the pipe,
you know, the water going through the system versus right out of the source.
The other thing that I would, that I like about this proposal when I heard tonight
is the rate possibility of a rate reduction program.
According to my research, the number of latent disconnect notices have increased quite remarkably
over the last four years, and it's a combination of several different things.
Two major public works projects in conjunction with our economic conditions.
I think it's entirely appropriate that the city have this conversation, and Mr. Hutchinson,
and I appreciate your efforts and converse dialogue
to try and figure out and provoke a way
for people to get clean water.
So I know you guys are doing whatever you can,
and this is a monstrosity of a mess
to have to deal with right now.
And thank you so.
Thank you.
Hi.
I'm Raleen Agarri, and I live on six Monterey Place.
And my area apparently said it wasn't affected, but I can't wash my brand new car.
I know it's not sad, but I get spots all over it.
I have other neighbors that are complaining about the same thing.
So I know that you guys are talking about certain areas.
Can you guys look at my area too please?
Because I need my...
We are getting complaints across the distribution system from people about the spotting issue
and the change in hardness. What I was primarily focusing on right now because
you feel it's the paramount issue is the water quality that is in the area
of 1700 block of, excuse me, 600 block of 17th avenue. Those water quality issues
are taste, odor, color, but we are very much aware of the spotting issues.
not just thoughting my toilet it looks like okay so I love entertaining I
love having people over my toilet looks like I never clean it okay and I clean
it
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
Just a quickie.
Hi, my name is Bruce Smith.
In the bathroom here, I just refill this.
It's clear there, but it tastes like metal.
Yes, I thought you were coming forward, but I'm looking your way.
Oh, thank you.
My concerns tonight are regarding last week's PowerPoint.
Oh, I'm sorry. I should know my name.
I do, but not my name, but that I should say it.
No, Jim Matthews, Longview.
Thank you.
My comments tonight are regarding last week's PowerPoint
presentation, providing information
of Longview's current water situation.
It's a hesitation that I even approach this subject,
but I feel that it's critical.
I'm still in a quandary and have some concerns in regard to the information disseminated during
the last council meeting.
In my 30 years of professional appointed and elected positions is unprecedented to
have a presentation of that magnitude and technicality presented with no hard copy to refer
to, especially for our elected officials.
Whether intentionally, whether intentionally done or not, I believe it served a real purpose
in that with no copies available to refer to, fact check or dispute, no informed challenge
could be made or discussed.
However, the daily news was willing to put to bed their Friday's paper by 10 o'clock
by 10 p.m. that night, containing the bulk of the presented by the experts that night unchallenged.
I do know that there was at least one questionable contaminant figure according to the city's official figures
emailed directly from the water department approximately four weeks ago.
I find it mind-boggling that no one responsible for last week's presentation considered researching
the possible increase of retail water sales, yet by not doing so, it allowed the wide-eyed
proclamation that the numbers show that the current water situation has not led to any
significant increase in water consumption or usage.
I now know that a water retailer was indeed contacted by a long view employer to look
into the cost of providing retail bottled water delivered to affected households.
However, the prices stated in last week's presentation were top dollar retail cost for full
set up and extras to a single family dwelling yet used to illustrate how prohibitive, or
illustrate or infer how prohibitive this cost would be.
Illustrated by the fact that this option was not even included in the four pages, in
the 44 pages, a final hard copy that was presented to the City Council.
You might find it, you might be interested, and I find it disturbing that the discounted
price offered the city by the water retailer was never mentioned.
In good faith, I can't present the actual dollar amount that the city was offered.
But as of now, I'm currently waiting for confirmation from a second and third party source.
Oh, combine all of these concerns with the questionable prioritization, I'm sorry,
combine these concerns with I must ask just how much of a priority the situation truly
is throughout our city process if at the request of our city's highest elected official
to obtain pertinent additional information to be entered into council minutes. It was
not a priority to take the time approximately two minutes to text or simply call letting
me know the most effective way to get this information.
You have to, I'm really emotional tonight and I'm sorry.
I know, ma'am. And that's why I'm allowing you to speak for longer than I normally would. I want you to tell us what you think.
Well, I'm not going to tell you what I think right now. I'm going to go to what I feel and just leave it at that.
Mark Twain was quoted as saying, there are three kinds of lies. There's lies, there's damn lies, and there's statistics.
My
Angelo is quoted as saying, people will forget what you say, some people will even
forget what you do, but nobody ever forgets how you make them feel.
And though we are now 14 days into this process,
the lives of the people involved haven't
changed.
They still scrub their kids in the same dirty water. They still have little
ones and it inadvertently take a drink whether or not it's supposed to. And again, not
that I doubt the words you're saying, but I doubt sometimes if you understand the ramifications
of the words you're saying.
I was always taught that you can only know people by what
they teach you of themselves. And quite frankly, we are still at this in a situation where we have
been taught that it's not always reliable to trust what we are being told or being presented with.
And I simply encourage you to keep those words, not my words, but the quotes of those two well
established people in where proceedings go from here. Thank you. Thank you,
ma'am. And we're we've gotten a lot of time and man hours trying to fix this
for you and I know that it's very passionate that and I'd be jumping up and
down just like you. I do have some water problems and and the same as you do and
And council has told staff that we want this taken care of.
And as you can see, they are trying.
We're not there yet, obviously, but we will get there.
And it's due to people like you and this lady out here stepping on our toes and making
us do it.
We would do, I can tell you right now, I didn't know.
I don't know how many of the other council members knew of the problem I didn't and just
a short one, yes.
And I'm going to say to premise, a personal premise that may endear me or disturb you
for the rest of our relationship.
After the amount of time that I have spent in the field, need you in that muddy water with
the guys working, the research that I've done, I have to come to one of two conclusions
until proven otherwise.
There is either a total ineptitude of communication with the city of Longview to the point where
jobs should be lost and procedures should be changed, or there has been a conscious effort
to keep the severity of this problem not only from the people of long view, but most importantly from the members of the City Council as voted as elected representatives of the people.
Thank you.
We're moving ahead with those already and we're going to come back with some specifics
on the water treatment, water softening, 24th meeting.
I would look at it as unless you do not want it to happen.
Manager Gregory has the authority to go forward.
Thank you.
Is there anybody else?
Yes, Tom, excuse me.
Your honor.
I'm almost afraid to ask this, but I would be interested in hearing from Ms. Matthews
as to what she would like us to be doing because she's very concerned about this
and I appreciated all of her comments.
and she's very well educated and I would like to hear what would you you know
one two three what would you like us to do to address this problem in the
short term.
I believe that the only acceptable answer to that question is that
there be that the houses and the communities that are affected the worst be
contacted immediately, and within the next week that they are provided with enough water
that they know is not going to make them sick or blister their children.
I know ice, I spent an entire summer bathing in ten gallons of heated water in Alaska.
These people need help.
We're talking about Vietnam vets.
We're talking about World War II vets.
We're talking about diabetic amputees, we're talking about multiple people on SSI, and now we're talking about children.
The fact that people aren't...
When I hear a comment made, we're doing everything we can for you.
That to me indicates that you think it's our problem because it doesn't affect you behind your closed doors.
You may get spots on your cars. Your faucets might look yucky, but you're not
having to load the lives that these people live. Sometimes a dollar of vote and
a concern aren't enough. The most viable impact that we have as individuals is
about 36 inches.
It has to be people talking to people and people choosing to do what's necessary to fix it.
I used to have kids and I would tell them, did you clean the bathroom?
Did I clean the bathroom? I'd go in and say, no.
The bathroom's not clean so you didn't clean the bathroom.
I spent an hour in there. I cleaned the bathroom.
No, the definition of a clean bathroom is a clean bathroom, not that you spent an hour
doing it, or thousands of dollars, or thousands of flushings, or whatever.
So I hope that helps you.
If it were me and I were running the program, I would be doing full scale, but we have been
doing personally in our neighborhood.
Dropping water off on people's porches late at night because they're too proud to take it personally.
What, helping them bathe their children, taking them the places to get the water?
What are the things that you do every day to run your household?
find out what it's taking these people to now live their lives. It's down and
dirty and it's not pretty, but it's human.
Ma'am, here's a copy of tonight's presentation if you'd like to have it.
I sincerely appreciate it. Thank you. Yes, Tom.
Well, your honor, I would propose that the city supplies water to the most
most affected households. I don't know how we determine who they are or where you draw
the line, but it seems like if we are going to have staff go out and check the residences
cases in any case, that could be determined.
And then we provide them with fresh, at least fresh drinking water. Mr. Moon. I'd like to even bring that a little further. I want to find a way if there's possible to allow the citizens even to bathe their family. That's causing medical issues. Obviously, one was brought up, you know, having yeast infection, topical yeast infections and children eating antibiotics, just a bathe, special medication. Can we look at possibly setting up some type of
pass for them with the local YMCA. I know it's not convenient, it's not their home, but it's...
I just joined the YMCA.
There you go. I mean, again, for those... I mean, I don't know how to determine who's
qualifies for that, but we need to come up with something because
we're not providing them with safe, clean water for them to bait their drink.
This is not acceptable.
We may figure out a way to be able to provide this necessary resource, you know, a staple of life to these citizens.
And I can tell you that manager Gregory and staff are working on that, trying to figure out how you do that program.
Yeah. Well, you're honor if I may. Sure. Could be is maybe we advertise this in the newspaper
or wherever the people that are feeling hardest hit by this to contact the city. You know,
so you start with those folks, these folks have been here and check out what they have
and if it seems like we need to help them, we start providing them with assistance.
Oh, and the word will go out and we keep testing and checking those households.
And if we agree, yes, you need help, then we provide them with some kind of short-term assistance.
And I think we have that information, the people that have complained in that area that water has.
Because I fear up to this point that we haven't really provided them with anything.
We're just telling them what we're going to do and if you're living like this, I mean my water
I'd like to have it improved, but it's not, it's nothing like my water's fine real relatively,
but if I had that kind of water, I would be pretty upset.
I think your Gregory hears you and he will do something.
Just a small portion.
I just wanted to add if I didn't already, like I said, it's been such emotional English on everything in financial.
But when they come out in flesh and come right across the street to my house and run it
out of the same spicket that I run it out of, a little bit of color, not bad, much
better, then it's time to give my oldest otter, it's time to get a shower, mom it's brown.
So is the city supposed to sit there in my house 24 hours to spectate the water because
just because it's clear the minute they come check it and then last night we
it I don't know if you heard but we were up at the lake trying to inform
everybody of the council meeting tonight for the water wrote all over my car
came back and I ran those and I just couldn't believe it but what I got this
morning was we just flushed who cares it's still coming through my pipes and they
test after they flush, so that's not even fair.
Thank you.
Mr. Mayor, I'm just going to comment I agree with the comments made,
concerning providing the clean water that the people most affected.
I also think looking at the recommendations made by staff, I'd be interested at the earliest
opportunity to know with respect to the reprioritization of the water mean projects for
Beach Street and two alleys there which seem to be the most affected areas you know exactly
what we're going to be doing to add those going forward. I think I heard at one point
those were going to be we're waiting until the November rate workshop on water I think.
I think if there's some way we could hear about those at an earlier opportunity because
it seems to be that could possibly be part of the solution and I think a couple of comments
I think at a previous meeting, in this meeting, individuals have made comments about the
historic maintenance issues with these water mains.
I think one gentleman commented on the number of repairs made in just the last few months,
and I'm not aware of the facts or any of that.
Like, continually he concerns about the amount of time that our staff spends repairing those
pipes.
And I appreciate that these are moved up on the prioritization list, but it seems like we should
probably hear a little bit more about what we're going to do to get those done.
Yeah, let's talk about it.
I mean, at the end of the day, if you want to do them all at one time there, we're going to have to issue debt and raise rates.
I mean, that's the short answer.
And if you want to do, how far down do you want to go to the list and how many of those may as you want to replace?
I mean, we're trying to give you the context of the rest of the other capital needs we have in the system there, but I mean, can we do it on the 24th?
We probably can, but I mean, that's what you will hear at the rate workshop.
But it could move up two weeks earlier, a design process, I guess, if you want to start the design process two weeks earlier.
there. And Mr. Mayor, what I'm trying to get my mind around because I'm not an engineer
or a water expert is, and maybe Miss Blaine could speak to it, is the correlation between
the drop in the chlorine, the increase in the magnies and the scale and the water quality
issues in these areas where we hear these large amount of maintenance concerns and the need
for replacing those water mains. I've heard individuals in the community describe these
particular water mains as being held together with twine, and that's something they heard
from our staff, apparently, or something along the line. So what I'm trying to understand
is, I don't, maybe I need a little bit more education on this, how do that correlate?
The drop, particularly the drop in the chlorine, as shown here in this graph on page 4,
you
see an increase in the other areas and drop in 17 or 18.
I think there's a number of things going on in that area.
The age of the mains in that area is dating back to the 40s.
So we have a lot of galvanized service lines.
And I know that Don has does not,
apparently, have galvanized service line.
But there are several galvanized lines in that area.
The mains are all online cast iron AC pipes.
So that in itself, the condition of those mains is poorer than other areas, but also because
the city historically was on untreated groundwater, those mains have more accumulation of iron
and manganese inside of them, dating back to the origination of the city.
So the third factor that compounds it is that we had certain areas where there was the
flow reversal.
This is one of those areas, so we have a number of things coming into play that are all
adding up to this situation.
Look, kind of, I'm thinking maybe fast forward here two weeks when we hear the detail of
the phosphate proposal, but my understanding about this, the introduction of the phosphate
to the water. Is that'll just change the color of the water? And I'm trying to understand
how do we change the properties of the water and not just the color?
The phosphates hold, they sequester the the manganese, the iron, the calcium, certain elements
and hold them in suspension so that they do not precipitate out and form the color. They
still are in the water, but they do not, they don't precipitate out to deposit on things
and so that you see the, the, the, the color.
Um, they just were, they were made in solution.
Well, if, if I might, so if, if we did the treatment, maybe you don't know this, if we did
this treatment before that goes into the filter system at the water plant, would those things
that are getting in the water and now be filtered out in the filter system.
If you're putting them in suspension, it sounds like they can be filtered out.
Right, there is a certain level of phosphates in the raw ground water and some of that
is being filtered out when the water passes through the green sand filters.
So if we were to inject the phosphates ahead of the filters, we would then remove it when
the water is treated. So it really needs to be injected into the finished water supply
just prior to leaving the plant.
And I'm not an engineer and I don't play one on TV, so what I'm thinking is maybe those
things get filtered out, even though it takes phosphate out, everything's been put in suspension
and it's filtered out.
Well, in order to get them to filter out, you need to precipitate whatever's
in the water. And so that's why we dose it with chlorine that precipitates the iron,
the arsenic comes with it. And once you precipitate it, it's able to be filtered out through
the green sand. So I think it's exactly the opposite of what I heard you say if I understood
correctly.
So is it fair to say that one of the problems is the chemistry of the water that's dissolving
what's ever in the pipes, is to think that could be some of the problem.
That's fair to say.
Mr. Weirder.
Yes. Another question if I could.
Maybe I missed it.
But do we know how come the chlorine has continued to decline in these two test sites?
So I really think that it's just the one.
You do see site 18 in that graph that's also deteriorating.
But that area has not been flushed for quite some time.
It'll be flush next week or the following and I would expect in that area for the chlorine level to come up
But site 17 we we have done a lot of flushing and the chlorine level is still low
So in my mind that is the one that's of concern and it could be at 18
You know, we'll test it next week
Maybe that will be down as well and then you know my answer could change but at this point
I really think it's just site 17 that we're continually seeing that low
fluorine and maybe I missed it in your presentation but what contributes to a
low chlorine at that site? It's coming from the plant through the distribution
system. How does it decide in these other sites to have the appropriate amount
and then when it gets to site 17? What's causing it to drop off on the way there?
Do we know? It's the scale inside the pipes. So it's the build-up? Yep. And it's
coming off and it meets up the free chlorine that you have and then there's less
available. So aside from replacing the mains, once possible solution might be to completely remove the
scale from the pipes until they're perfectly clean and there's no more scale to come off.
Yes but once you come in with some aggressive main cleaning like jetting and things,
if you remove so much scale that you don't have any pipe wall left then you begin to have leaks.
And some of the leaks that they have seen in this area, we've experienced several pinhole leaks just after the picking, the ice picking that was done, which was a relatively gentle process compared to jetting.
So does the the picking in the pinhole leaks you're describing there, is that explained the number of repairs have been made in a couple blocks have been mentioned or those are pairs for some other issue?
The pinhole leaks seem to be, since the ice picking was done, I'm not familiar with all of the repairs that have been done in that area over the last several years, but they have had some recent leaks since the ice picking was done in July.
That they attribute to the picking.
I guess what I'm trying to understand is, with these mains on the, you know, 16-17 on the Alley's Air,
do we have a higher maintenance costs and maintenance demand on those than other areas? Is that why we have a higher
prioritization of those
I think those are on the list for water quality. I
Water Department really put together that list. I don't want to
It almost looks at some point and I think Mike's hidden that way that maintenance of
that might become more expensive than tearing it out and putting a new one in.
I think it's going to be a combination.
I mean, again, these are 90-year-old pipes and they may be replaced anyway there and I think
maybe a combination of some replacement as well as phosphates both and that and I think
is going to, you know, not one of them is going to fix everyone that they can have a combination of them.
Two, I forgot, I have two other questions here.
The contractors we're working with, confluence is, that's the group we decided to go with in July.
In Kennedy, Jinks, we work with in the past.
Are they the only groups that do this kind of work in the area?
Are there others that we should be consulting and talking with?
And how did we go about selecting these folks, or are there alternatives?
There are some alternatives. I know that CH2 and HDR both have some experience with
the designing of the phosphate treatment. So we could look at some alternative consultants
there. Confluence is really a leading expert in the area of the water chemistry.
So I wouldn't
I think they are absolutely qualified for what they are tasked to do, but there are other
firms also capable of designing the phosphate injection system.
Mr. Johnson, I just real quick, I think people are thinking that we replace the pipes and
the problems going to go away.
But if we...
We decide today, this minute right now, we're going to replace the mains in that area. That's a long term. You're still going to be taking duty showers for a year, for six months, for eight months. That's not a quick fix. And so in addition to looking at the mains, I think it's important to know that we're trying to figure out some alternatives to keep people healthy and safe until we get to that point. Because it's designed, I don't even know what's involved with replacing mains.
It's a good conclusion, I mean it doesn't replace the main decision tomorrow it's going to take some time to actually get the mains replaced.
Thank you Mary Jane.
Is there any further discussion from council on this matter?
I was going to bring up something that was brought up to me and I just kind of want to get it out there.
When the development and planning stages for this water treatment facility was being created.
Did we not anticipate these type of problems, and if so, what type of contingency plans did we have in place?
Was the plan just keep flushing and hope it went away, or what type, I mean, we needed to have some type of vision with this process.
We knew when this plant came in that there was going to be some flow changes to these pipes, which was going to cause some problems.
We're going to see some sediment distribution, but we're going on months and months and months of this.
What type of contingency plan did we have in place at that time?
Did we have anything? Did we anticipate this problem? Do we know?
Anyone address it? I want to know. I'm asking, what was the plan? Well, what was the fourth thought?
But, again, Amy, would you address, I'm getting the questions, that's why I'm asking the question, I'm getting those questions.
Sorry, Bob, go ahead.
Okay.
We did anticipate some of what is going on, but not to the degree that it is happening and not for this duration of time.
time. We did do a number of things in advance of making that transition to alleviate some
of these issues. I can go through them, but I think several of us are familiar. I can
list them if you want, but we did take steps to reduce these sorts of issues, but we had
under estimated how long this transition process would take.
Okay, thank you.
Any further questions, Council?
I think we're done for tonight,
unless Council has more questions on this issue.
I would have you look that our next meeting is October 24th.
Remember that November both meetings are moved November 7th and November 19th, which is a Tuesday
We will be having our council meetings. They will be special meetings
October 17th. We have a workshop in November 14th. We have a workshop
There any further business to bring before council meeting
adjourned