Note on date: The agenda and minutes list the meeting as Monday, November 24, 2025, but the meeting occurred on Tuesday, November 25, 2025, as provided in the source instructions. This discrepancy is noted.
The work session was called to order at 6:00 PM and adjourned at 7:39 PM. All four council members were present (Mayor Sean Fitzpatrick, Councilors Andy Davis, Andrea Mazzarella, and Elisabeth Adams) along with Acting City Manager Jonah Dart-McLean and other staff. The council discussed two main items: a public statement supporting the Latinx community following recent ICE actions, and a potential update to the City Charter.
We all ready? Yeah. All right. Well, good evening and welcome to the Monday, November 24th, 2025 work session of the Australia City Council. For the record, the time is 6 p.m. Director Dart McLean, if we could have a roll call, please. Councilor Davis. Here. Counselor Mozzarella. Here. Counselor Adams? Here. Mayor Fitzpatrick. Here. So 3A is a discussion of public statement of support for the Latinx community in response to recent immigration and customs enforcement actions in Classic County. Director Dart McLean. Right. So this is a statement that was drafted for council's review and potential acceptance if you'd like to issue or make uh edits to regarding the recent immigration enforcement that had occurred in Seaside. Uh and also just a general statement of the values of the council as it relates to uh the people who are in our community. Great. Thank you, Director Dart McLean. So we we've all had plenty of time to look at this. Um how does the council feel? Uh is this the kind of wording that we want to uh vote on in a week? Is there anything that councillors would like to change? Um amend, eliminate. I have a question, I guess. Counselor Andrea, go ahead. Um so this would be like a joint public statement from council, correct? So could that be released? Is that something we have to vote on, or what is the process for approving? No, so I think tonight it's your opportunity to discuss if this language is acceptable to all of you, and then you can just say that we are in agreement that this statement can be released on behalf of the city council. I don't I don't think it needs to come to another meeting or have a subsequent vote. Okay, because this is different than like a resolution, a formal or more formal. This is just us. Is that correct? Yes, and uh our city attorney is on Zoom too. So if he can if he's got any different uh perspective on this, we would welcome his input on obviously. Okay, thank you. Is that that right? Yes. Okay. Then um, I think it's I think it's a lovely well-written statement. Liz uh I just wanted some clarifying comment, uh clarify clarification around the the difference between our statement and an actual uh resolution or a ordinance. Just kind of really understanding what this is, and if there's the next, what is the next step to it? Yeah, I guess I guess my my thoughts are maybe similar there. I think um Andrea or Councilor Mazzarella especially had uh provided some action steps uh in the in the materials that she had sent, or well, that Blair ultimately had sent around the city attorney had sent around. Um I'm wondering if the vision is this is replacing that, or if this is just a statement, and we're also going to be looking at the action action items in terms of uh I guess that would be uh uh ordinance change uh for some of those anyway. So uh actually would we wouldn't be bringing an ordinance change, but I guess per our conversation for the previous council meeting, um, we provided the statement for this work session as a as a quick opportunity for council to have this statement that outlines your your values and perspective on this issue, and then at our upcoming regular council meeting on the first, uh staff would present resolutions related to the same topic um regarding land use and also the city's ability for enforcement or relationship with the state ORS for um immigration support. Okay.