Note: The agenda and minutes list the meeting date as Monday, May 18, 2026, at 6:00 PM. The date provided for this summary is May 19, 2026, which may reflect a later adjournment or a recording discrepancy. This summary uses the provided date but notes the conflict.
The Astoria City Council held a regular meeting on May 19, 2026, at 6:00 PM in the Council Chambers. The meeting began with a proclamation honoring National Public Works Week (May 17–23, 2026), accepted by Public Works Director Jeff Harrington. Reports from councilors covered shelter operations, homelessness coordination, grant-funded infrastructure, and community events. The consent calendar was approved unanimously. The majority of the meeting was dedicated to public comments on homelessness and public safety, with 11 speakers offering a range of perspectives. The meeting adjourned at 6:52 PM.
Yes, yes. Good evening and welcome to the Monday, May 18th, 2026 meeting of the Astoria City Council. For the record, the time is six PM. Mr. Spence, if you could lead us in the pledge, please. Pledge allegiance to the flag. Thank you, Mr. Spence. And if we could have a roll call, please. Council Davis. Here, Council Mozzarella. Here. Counselor Adams. Counselor Conklin. Here. So we're going to start today with a proclamation for National Public Works Week. And I will read the first whereas, and then I would ask Councillor Davis to read the second, third, fourth, and fifth, and then I will finish off. So the proclamation, whereas the City of Astoria's public works department is comprised of dedicated professionals who steward the infrastructure, facilities, and services essential to the health, safety, sustainability, and quality of life of our community. And whereas these critical public resources and services are maintained through the tireless efforts of public works professionals, including engineers, managers, operators, maintenance personnel, and administrative staff, as the largest department within the city, the Astoria Public Works Department is comprised of three divisions, public works administration, operations, and engineering, and whereas the public works administration division provides departmental oversight and coordination. Whereas these divisions work collaboratively to build, operate, maintain, and improve the city's transportation systems, water supply, and treatment systems, sewer collection, treatment systems, public facilities, and other essential public infrastructure serving the residents of Astoria and whereas the Astoria Public Works Department is responsible for maintaining 55 miles of streets, nine bridge structures, eight miles of shoreline, five miles of rail line, seventy-two miles of sewer collection piping, one thousand five hundred forty-six sewer manholes, ten pump and lift stations, eighty miles of water line, four thousand one hundred water meters, and four hundred and sixty fire hydrants and whereas it is in the public interest for citizens, civic leaders, and future generations to recognize and understand the vital role public works plays in everyday life, including the delivery of safe drinking water, storm water management, wastewater collection and treatment, transportation infrastructure, public facilities, and community fleet services. And I encourage all citizens to recognize and celebrate the contributions of our community public works professionals and express appreciation for their dedicated services to our community and witness whereof. I have placed the seal of the city of Astoria. And now for our public works director would like to meet me at the lectern. Oh yeah, right. So Jeff. You both would you like to share a few words with the council or thank you very much for appreciating this? I always say it really comes down to the people doing the work. There's people out there that work 247 on the call. We should call it out in the middle of the night to be some very, very hard work, especially when the ones are going to be trying to be one back of service. It's a lot of pressure. So we appreciate that people understand that to issues with us. So we're proud of that. We're going to keep that for a long time as long as we can. I'm going to let uh Cindy Moore tell you a little bit about. One of the our favorite things to do is spend some time with our students at Astor, our youngest in our education system. They can earn through sight graders. They do a coloring contest that highlights public works on the coloring sheets that the mayor judges, and he attends one of their assemblies and gives out awards. In addition, we do a very short um but meaningful parade as Aster. Most of you have been there or seen that. And we really uh enjoy those moments being cheered on. They chant public works to us and they wear a little plastic hard hats and just stand outside of Astor. Um we get to show off our equipment. So we really uh have the time with that. In addition to thanking our employees in various ways, and we do some outreach on social media to get some facts out there for them. Thank you. One thing we did this year was that we did who've hired uh C population supervisors and um there's some overall there for me. Um thank you very much. So the public works parade is a lot of fun. And um a couple years ago, uh John Edwards and I were there, and uh we were the last vehicle in the parade. Actually, we were the first vehicle in the parade, but we pulled over, and so we were the last to leave.