I'm gonna move this.

Sorry.

I'm gonna call the order this works.

It's Jesse's fault.

Jeez.

I was like, oh no, it's me.

Who's this?

It's turned out really loud.

Crazy.

That's okay.

Let me see.

Is it me?

I'm a little nervous.

Okay.

I'm gonna call to order this work session of the Forest Growth City Council.

In attendance are the city council members minus Councilor Marshall.

And the topic is council retreat wrap-up.

Just a friendly reminder that no public comment will be taken and the council will take no formal action.

And I will now turn it over to Jesse.

Thank you, Mayor.

Members of the council, I'll keep my report brief.

Um last Monday on December 1st.

Uh the council had their annual retreat and looked at the 2040 plan and focused on some priorities within the 2040 plan and some of the outcomes and the actions.

Part of that conversation was also mentioning our 2025 goals and objectives and kind of how do we reconcile those goals and objectives with the new 2040 plan?

And so this is an opportunity for the council to take a little bit of time and go over the 2025 goals and objectives.

Um if you'll look in the I have this that was attached to part of your handout here, and it gives an update on each of them.

This is also included in the packet.

So with that, unless there's any other questions, I'd be happy to answer any questions about any 2025 goals and objectives, um, where they're at, how they incorporate into the 2040 plan, and or if there's something that's on the 2025 goals and objectives that the council would like to incorporate into the 2040 plan, this is the opportunity to talk about that.

So with that, unless there's any questions of staff, uh yeah.

I just want a clarification question as well.

So in addition to going over these objectives from last year, can we also discuss how we continue to bridge council goals and objectives?

The vision together as we move forward.

Yeah, yeah, I think part of this conversation is gonna be like how do you kind of update the 2040 plan, right?

How do you maybe look at the actions that are within the 2040 plan and either consolidate them in some cases when they're very similar, or um, you know, maybe uh slightly modify them based on current information, uh those types of things.

So absolutely it's it's kind of a wide open conversation about goals and objectives.

So is there anyone dying to speak right now?

Any comments about the retreat or the objectives from last year or go counselor guffeson and then counselor founder.

I think it's turned down.

Is this new?

No, okay.

Um so the only thing that I'm looking at only because it just it popped out right when I opened this and now I can't find it.

But um the DEI section.

Um here.

Should that be carried over to the next this year?

And I I honestly I can't remember what Honor Ballsmith said this year.

But um, I know that there's a lot of interest at the university.

I've had a a few conversations with um well, Pierre's one of them, but uh about partnering with not just the city but other organizations to see if there's any sort of documentation education that we can their department at the it's very unspecific.

Right, and I think that that's I think yeah, I mean, does anyone have comments on that?

I think I'm open to that, but I would want someone who's like if for a long time we've had DI, we've had some training, but there hasn't been really like measurable actions that we've identified, and so I'm open to that, but I would want it to be really specific, like this is how we're going, like this is what we're gonna get out of it, or this is what we want to see from that partnership.

But I'm I'm open to having that discussion with city staff and Pacific University of how we can do that work.

I know that in some years it's been through the police department and some training with Pacific, and so I'm open to different options, but I would just want to make sure that it's there's an action item.

Um, sorry.

Well, is it about that one or about TI?

I was just gonna say that um Pierre's very good at finding help find those specific metrics so that we can actually have a whole well, and speaking to that, I Jesse and I did a Zoom with him at one point and talked about that, and he gave us some um ideas toward that, and it wasn't it was mostly about how do we speak to other, you know, handicapped and and do you remember that, Jesse?

Yeah, I do recall working with Pierre at Pacific.

Um and I think a lot of the conversation kind of centered on how do we incorporate DEI, those values into the organization.

How do you make it part of a kind of a cultural element of your organization?

What are some follow-on things you can do?

A lot of it also centered on some of the training.

Um, some of the DEI training has been incorporated into our employee handbook.

It's part of our employee orientation.

Um it is part of the organizational culture.

Um, and so that's where a lot of that conversation kind of focused on, and and wherever there's some parallels between the organizations and and kind of there were quite a few.

So it was some very straightforward questions and and approaches.

So counselor Feldner.

Can you hear me now?

Yeah.

Sounds like it's being okay.

Um, so part of the reason I wanted to have this conversation tonight, following on our goal setting, you know, our our retreat was because I felt like even from the stuff that we had um landed on in January as you know, 2025 for our goals, I felt like there had been a lot of conversation, and you know, we had we'd even limited that list from a longer list.

And so what I hate for this council to lose lose track of is you know that just because we prioritize certain things in a year doesn't, you know, and we drop other things off, not but not because they're completed, but because they just don't make the cut, those things shouldn't get forgotten and just cut from the list entirely.

And so I I was worried that that had happened.

And one example that I found was with a climate action plan.

A climate action plan did not rise to our goals for 2025, but it was on the list pre-culling.

And so there are things that I think, you know, in similar, you know, similar veins.

I think you know, they certainly speak to the vision, you know, and I've got a whole long list here of things that I think you know that we can do that speak to the vision.

Um, but as we're, you know, as we're as we're living through our vision document, I want to make sure that we're it's in a like it's an accumulation of ideas and not it's not a restricted list of ideas.

It's not it doesn't only that we're not necessarily cutting from it all the time, that we're actually expanding on this and and you know, and we're and I think it was a it's a beautiful document, and I think it really speaks to what the community hopes for us to achieve.

Sometimes it requires the expertise of staff and also counselors, you know, to refine those things and to make sure that you know the action items, you know, we're the sausage makers, right?

And so I think that it's really important that we keep in mind all of those actions.

Yeah, I really appreciate what you're saying there, and just to like elaborate a little bit more in my feeling, um, well, just like five different things in my head.

But I think that after the retreat or during the retreat, I was like trying to figure out why I was feeling a little frustrated.

And there was a really good discussion about downtown revitalization, and we're hearing from all of you, and we're saying, like, hey, there's all these, there's this list from the community that's part of the vision plan, but there's other, but we don't really know if those are measured or those are objectives or actions that can be measured and really are gonna do what we intend.

And I felt limited that we couldn't bring forth our ideas as a counselor as a council and staff couldn't say, hey, this is what I've learned at this conference, or this is what I know about you know, downtown revitalization.

And I think that's what I would like to see some work done.

And I don't I know we don't have the time to do it now, but if and you know, if we say it's a living document, one of the things, you know, and then going back to your point with the climate action plan.

One of the reasons I really wanted us to join the mayor's innovation project is that under that membership, they there's a climate action committee, they have a climate action plan that we could literally look at, adapt to Force Grove and use, right?

They have a climate action plan that we could literally look at, adapt to Force Grove and use, right?

Like there's things that there's resources we could use.

And that specifically stood out to me.

But even when we move forward with this visioning plan, I would almost like my copy of the vision plan to be more like a workbook.

Like where you have these four overarching goals, and then there's a list of things we can do, like the brainstorming list from the community from staff from council, but then I also want lines.

Like I'm really old school.

I want space with lines.

So that if I'm at a conference, if I'm in a meeting, and sure would say, like, hey, we did X, Y, and Z.

And I'm like, hey, that's a really good idea that I can write it in that document because we have public meeting laws and public record, everything goes in there.

And then when we have these like quarterly or however often we want to talk about our objectives and our vision, then I can say, hey, this is what I learned.

What do we is there consensus to explore this or not?

Like we can be doing it ongoing in smaller chunks instead of trying to remember all the things and sort it and filter it in a one council retreat.

I said a whole lot, and I'm sorry, but okay, counselor Martinez.

I want to agree with you, Mayor, because I felt that we didn't get enough input from our directors and the people who really do the work to know what's really valid to start with, or you know, approaches.

Um I know personally I get frustrated because management or somebody above makes decisions and not knowing what we really do.

Jesse, do you want to respond or do counselor Schumler?

Council present.

Yes, are good.

Either or you can talk to about the retreat or objectives that you would like to see us continue working on.

Anything I want.

Okay, so do you want to grab a microphone?

Well, just following up on the what I mentioned at the the retreat um and just in preparation, what I urge is that we we demonstrate our active state of emergency.

Um and I know it's important that we we reflect on the aspirations for 2040.

But in terms of how we administer the process, and given a state of emergency could be for the foreseeable future.

Uh, I want to make sure that we're demonstrating that through our our uh administration that it's it's gonna be a persistent uh context.

And so there's there's two thoughts that come to mind.

Uh one is regarding the decision making lens uh that that comprehends the federal actions, the increasing demands, the insistence for police intervention and the financial resources that are going to continue to grow.

So uh, you know, that's just gonna inherently gonna cross over with our priorities, the staff workload, uh resource commitments, um, any number of things.

So I just want to make sure that we as a council and the staff have capacity to be responsive and even further that the staff would have some discretion to be responsive to those needs, or as circumstances develop quickly because they you know they are developing quickly.

Um so I just want to make sure that we're we're nimble enough we're willing to prepare ourselves by by saying asking, you know, what should be temporarily slowed or stopped so that we can so that the right department or staff can be uh be nimble enough and that you know staff has a discretion to take some immediate action but follow up with some acknowledgement or recommendation to council on what has been installed and and for because of the state of emergency that I think other than giving you the procurement relief, it I think it needs to give some other relief so that particularly the police or other uh departments or staff can be nimble.

Um so that's that's one thing is the decision making lens.

Uh and particularly I want to uh consider more aggressive preparations and advocacy to our state congressional leaders.

Uh I I've heard the notion of no stone unturned, but there are stones, no one's unturning uh in any public forum that I hear, namely around that what that law enforcement intervention would look like.

You know, no one's talking about crisis intervention, no one's talking about uh an equivalent force to the group of the ICE group that is typically uh at the uh apprehension, whether that's a SWAT team or Oregon Guard, I don't hear anyone talking about that.

And that's a rock that needs to be unturned.

Um so I just I want to get more aggressive and particularly with given our law enforcement more of the authority legal protections and and the tactical resources, because that what the imperative that I keep hearing not only from folks here but out in the community as stop the suffering.

No one's mentioned anything that would stop the suffering.

That that in any conversation from uh regional or state level.

So that's that's what's uh printed on my chest about in terms of the being aggressive and getting our more senior elected officials to acknowledge the limitations and tell us what they're doing.

Um so the two things was the decision making lens and some additional work sessions where we can talk about it.

Uh so the specific question for the mayor would be what what specific input you need from us uh in order to schedule those, or do we need to just talk about how frequently uh or if we want to have us, I I think they was mentioned a standing 15, 30 minute on immigration response.

Yeah.

Yeah, I think I think there's two questions, and I I want you to hold because I think what I heard Counselor Schummel ask is like how staff's gonna manage moving the vision and the objectives forward and working within a state of emergency.

So I'm gonna answer his question, but come back to that if you don't mind, Jesse.

So I think I mean I I'm I'm gonna schedule at the wish of the council.

So there was a first regional meeting um with council Metro Councillor Gonzalez and others, right?

But that was scheduled for last Monday, and I already had the retreat.

So I think that you know, we if we want a standing meeting, we could maybe do it every other month.

I'm trying to think because we have to like manage our meeting load.

So every other month, unless um something becomes pressing, and then in my mayor's report, I could say, hey, there's this this is coming down, like we can we can get consensus to schedule it sooner.

I mean, I don't know.

I'm at I'm working at the will of you all.

So does that seem reasonable?

There's the if you don't mind me clarifying one thing, counselor.

Yeah, um the the reason I'm bringing this up here is because there's a extremely tight intersection between our goals and objectives and this immigration context.

And so the the two can be part of one and the same conversation that we're we're mod, you know, we're monitoring a very fluid situation as these activating these this 2040 implementation, it can also be fluid.

Yeah, agreed.

And and the two, you know, just trying to helping staff to you know wrestle with the things and acknowledge the things that you know we got to pause here so that uh we can get a more aggressive it let's let Jesse answer that portion of it, and so we keep it clear.

So I I think kind of linking maybe Counselor Schummel, your comment with Counselor Falconer's comment and also some of the other comments here.

The exercise is I understood it on December 1st was really to kind of do a prioritize prioritization exercise, but it doesn't mean that if something is the number one priority or something's under an emergency declaration that everything falls off.

There's going to be certain processes that you know it does mean that these are the top priorities, and to the extent that we can make progress on these, we will certainly endeavor to do so.

Um, but it doesn't mean that all of staff is gonna be fully allocated either, because if you look at the priorities that that you know the council looked at at the retreat, um there there might be some departments where it doesn't necessarily touch.

And as a result of that they might touch some other priorities if you will or some other action items in the 2040 plan that we can really schedule as part of the work plan.

I don't know if that answers your question, but I don't think we look at it as mutually exclusive.

I think we look at it as additive and so if it is a priority we're going to focus on those and it doesn't mean that it's going to be at the expense of everything else.

It just means that to the extent that we have to prioritize our work those will become the priorities if that makes sense.

Off oftentimes like one action item you know they'll you know make some progress on it and then you'll get to a point where you need to go work on something else because it's part of maybe it's out for an RFP and it's going to be six weeks till you get bids back or you got a TAC meeting that's that's already prepared for and you can move on to something else.

So I don't I don't look at it as just because these are the priorities everything else goes away I look at it as really this is what council really wants to make some progress on and so we will prioritize that but we're still going to work on the other things.

We're still going to try and make progress on those to the extent that we can I think part of this I want to prelude a little bit with we still have yet to kind of part of the prioritization exercise I understood it was really to kind of help staff start to put together a work plan.

And the work plan is not just going to be on the priority items I think we're looking at a work plan that has all of the action items and also the potential for capacity or adjustments to the 2040 plan whether that's additional items that come up whether it's things that are left over from 2025 and then those too can be prioritized.

And so as you mentioned mayor it's a living document and I think our work plan needs to be flexible enough that we can kind of as things get done they fall off as there's new things they get put on if that makes sense.

So I don't know if that answers your question Counselor Schimmel but from the emergency declaration perspective being under a state of emergency that's obviously a top priority.

Yeah.

And so if there's things that we need to do to address that priority certainly city staff will will endeavor to do so.

Okay I saw is okay do you have a follow-up because I thought counselor guys and counselor Falconer have okay so I'm gonna go counselor custom and then counselor Falconer.

So I I think since I've been on council which isn't all that long we have done it that way.

I mean sometimes something has to slow down for someone something else to speed up but um in regards to counselor shimmel what you mentioned I did mention at one of the recent meetings having a routine additional work session um and being able to drop it if we don't need it you know public meeting and then just canceling if we don't need it.

I would have a hard time doing it unless it was urgent um just because there's so much everybody is doing already but I I would love that.

So every other month is that okay like I'll still do my report out and then we can have a scheduled one every other month.

Is there a consensus for that?

And we talked about remote what was that counselor shimmel?

I would say understanding that it can be canceled if needed.

Okay.

So can you use the microphone just for people watching sorry.

I apologize I I might have interrupted the here it's fine we'll they we'll come back it'll be okay.

Well there are there are numerous inner intersections beyond just the the metro one is so far it not not a hasn't produced anything yet and and yet there's there's probably a dozen other connections that that have actual situations that we gotta we got to be nimble with.

I mean Mariana and I just got a text tonight about a situation that we're that we're we're being asked to be activated with it and there was another one on Friday.

So there's there's all these different uh circumstances going on that they're gonna just continue to um you know have wreak havoc on our ability to to do for at least particular staff or departments to to continue make progress on on actions as this fluid and persistent and escalating situation you know and it'll you know it's just particularly considering that it can it only takes either an ICE agent or a citizen to lose her life that just things just escalate significantly and there's you know like I said there's there's so many things that I want to wrestle with with this group on preparation for what I think is just inevitable.

Um so I think just at least having the opportunity early, at least early to to talk through things would I would suggest.

Okay, so I'm hearing once a month.

And did I cut like were you done with your comments before I go on to Counselor Falkner?

Yeah, yeah.

Okay, I want to make sure.

We talked about there wasn't a lot of back and forth, but having it remote if the convenience for people since it's uh but every month would be fine and again canceled if we feel there isn't enough.

Well are you piping in again?

Well, can I I want to invoke a council rule 3.3?

Okay, which is a coffee hour work session on a first Saturday of the month.

It's it's odd that that specific thing was has been in the council rules, but that's it could be some I know it could something of that nature.

Yeah, I think you know, what I try to do is, you know, I think the coffee hours like with constituents, uh, and we can do that if the council agrees, but I also in interest of like time and schedule if it could fit into a work session.

I think that's my first um, but um I'm gonna go with Counselor Falkner.

Um I just wanted to follow up real quick, so but not to get away from I think we're still kind of looking for consensus on this.

And so I just before I come back to my other point, I wanna uh Counselor Shermal, are you requesting that it be a standing item on the agenda every council meeting and then it can drop or are you are you once a month?

Okay.

Um and then Jesse, it's really helpful to sort of for me to appreciate that, you know, somewhere there's a compilation, there's a long growing list.

The what I found frustrating about, you know, sort of the goal setting um at our retreat was that we were, you know, we were limited to prioritizing only the things that were in the list that was in the vision.

And so it didn't include, you know, all the things that dropped off of the 2025 plan.

Um, and so I guess I would request, you know, if this if council agrees, I I mean, I I would hope that we would actually come, you know, to those retreats with the entire menu and not just you know be asked to prioritize a subset of those because that's how that's what I felt like we were doing.

Um, because I think that we might have come up with some different things to prioritize.

And so let's get some consensus here really quick.

Um, in the interest of time and just moving the meeting forward.

Um with our I'm gonna and I got it in my head.

I'm gonna come back to the the standing meeting or so with the council goals and objectives.

One of the things that would be helpful to me uh would be for staff to take some time to look at our 2025 goals and objectives, maybe maybe also the additional things that we have said and that have been on there persistently.

Um I heard the DEI, heard climate action, there's some other things, and just compile the whole menu of options and then also some space, like I just want to I want to step out of the box and say, like, how are we going to like how are we going to check off what we're doing?

I mean, there's a whole full circle thing we need to figure out.

And I would really like staff to work on it.

How are we gonna share out the successes we've had?

How are we going to leave space for new innovative ideas to be on there to meet our goals?

Right.

Um how are we going to then also learn from other people to add because here's the thing too is there has to be we have to be able to track our ideas so then when we have a check-in or a retreat, we can float the idea to our like our colleagues and see if we have consensus to put it on.

Right.

Like so those are all the things we're battling and it would be great.

Um I don't I know she hasn't officially been hired, but I I kind of feel there's an opportunity for our new assistant city manager to come with fresh eyes and say, like, hey, this and some experience from another municipality of like this would be a one approach to do that.

So I would I guess I'm just gonna be blunt.

Like I would put it out there maybe in three months for staff to bring us back something, some revisions to the 2040 plan with those things that you've heard from all of us in it and some space, and then we can assess and have a discussion about it.

Is there any thoughts about that or consensus for that?

Yes, Counselor Falcon.

Yeah I think that there's quite a bit that didn't make the 2025 cut too.

So I just want to be Yeah, and I think that maybe we'll actually then like maybe we should bring the those ideas first.

Let's have a work session in February, January or February about our additional items that we've felt like didn't get us there wasn't capacity or space at this last retreat.

Let's see if there's consensus.

So that way they can be added to the list if we want them or not.

Like you know what I'm saying in sequential order.

We don't want Kim to do all this work and then be like, oh, but we want to add this later.

Let's take a look at it.

Let's brainstorm.

Would it be also helpful if if we already have some ideas maybe to just you know not sending them to all of council, but sending them to Jesse to incorporate maybe then and if it's well, the only the my only like hesitant about that is we don't know if we have consensus from the council.

So that's right, but I'm saying like here's a list of ideas that we've heard to bring to so that we're not introducing the idea.

Yeah, so it can go in the staff report.

Yeah, okay.

So if you have an idea before the meeting, send it to Jesse so it can be included in the staff report so people can talk about it, think about it.

Okay, that's perfect idea.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think that there's gonna be many things that we are either, you know, having the exact same thing go to Jesse or something that's related.

So having having them kind of order them like that, so we can see okay, these three are all correlated to each other so that it's easy to get through.

Oh, okay.

Yeah, and just organize it.

Yeah, okay, perfect.

So then moving on to the other item is like, how do we operate?

Um, well, no, we know how we're gonna operate.

We're gonna leave space, react, but also drive the vision.

But how are we gonna make sure us as a council is staying on top of trying to find solutions to protect our community?

And um I think what I'm hearing is a once a month, like let's say the second meeting of the month or the first, I don't really care.

So I'll tell you the regional group is meeting the first and third Mondays of the month.

So by having it on the fourth on the second meeting, that's our we have it on the fourth meeting.

I would have two meetings prior to each of that.

Um, but we'll have a lot to talk about because we have an ordinance on the agenda tonight, and there's gonna be lots of things.

So there could be like a staff update.

That first meeting could be like this is what it's you know, Jesse's gonna be if it passes, right?

This is a lot of work that he's gonna be carrying out.

So what does that look like?

But anyways, it's once a month on the fourth or our second meeting, which is the fourth Monday.

Is that an okay block to hold for a work session on immigration response?

And do we want to title that?

I like just saying, like, I mean, I and I know we're not literally, I don't know.

How should we title it?

Does it matter?

Immigration response?

No, what do you want to put?

So in my conversations, yeah, being sensitive in in fact, even when the uh NLC groups that I've been in to rewrite legislation, they're being extremely careful about wording that they're using.

And that's kind of where we're at.

We don't want to take away what we're doing, but we want to think about the reaction based on how we have things titled.

That doesn't mean that what you just said shouldn't be it, but it's just something to Councilor Falconer.

Well, if we put if we have it be um federal, you know, federal activities, you know, because I I mean honestly, quite frankly, I don't, you know, this is the current chaos, right?

Yeah.

Before it was transport tailor transportation dollars that we weren't getting.

Um so it could be that this should be an you know, beyond right now the emergency, you know, we might be dealing with something different in six months from now.

And so we might want to just go ahead and keep this on the calendar as a federal higher up.

Federal responses or federal part, yeah, federal federal activities, federal activities.

Okay, go ahead, Counselor Schimmel.

That's cool.

I mean, just in with respect to Counselor Gustavson's uh suggestion, just the the language we used last week was you know, current organizational and community context.

That's that's at the the crux of what we're talking about.

That again slower.

It was current organizational and community context, or you said yeah.

So if you want to get avoid the the questionable language or the searchable language, that's that was the language you we use, but I'm good with yeah, uh you know, I want to it's like one of those things where I want to make sure it's clear that people know we're having the conversation, we're doing the hard things, we're trying to figure out without overpromising, right?

Like my problem with you know, I think Counselor Schumel brought this up.

Like my goal is try to is to try to protect our community, but I I mean I don't know if I can do that, right?

And so I don't want to overpromise, and I but I think you know, I don't like I think like that's the line is how do we communicate to the community that we are trying to work on this, that this is something we are focused on.

Um and calling it what it is.

I mean, we would not be having this the standing meeting if it wasn't for federal activities.

So I I mean I'm on with federal activities because then it gives us also flexibility uh within that title, I believe, in the council roles.

I'm looking at Mariah, like yeah.

Okay, so is there consensus for that?

Okay, so we're gonna have a one meeting a month on the fourth Monday about federal activities.

And we're gonna give our ideas that we didn't get a chance to share at the retreat about what we would like to see, some more objectives in those topic areas for the vision plan.

And then Jesse wants to say something, no.

So just feel free to send them to me and I'll keep a list for the next work session.

Okay, perfect.

When do you want them by?

Anytime before the next work session, hope a week before the next work session would be great.

Okay, let's have them by the end of the month in January, because we're the consensus was a work session in February.

Okay.

And I'm gonna adjourn this work session and we're gonna move to the conference room for the executive session.