All right.

Thanks for coming tonight.

We'll have a workshop to go over the um resiliency trust uh planning that has been discussed.

Um just a quick little backstory.

Um, as a as a city council administration, you know, we are tasked to find uh as best reasons as we can to find to find money to fix problems and things of that nature.

Um so in times like these, where a couple years ago we did a uh kind of like a uh house cleaning study where we found that we had about 500 million dollars in infrastructure needs, and we need to find and we don't have a piggy bank big enough to fit that kind of money.

So uh we try to find different ways of how to come up with this kind of um revenue.

And uh one of the plans that came up with through our police uh fire chief Harp Donnelly.

Uh I think Teresa, I thought I saw Teresa come in.

How are you doing, Teresa?

Welcome back.

Um Teresa Crean, our resiliency uh sustainability director.

Um, and some of the staff came up with uh an idea of a resiliency uh trust plan.

So um tonight we're gonna do a little uh education on what this actually is.

Um please uh keep in mind that this is just uh informational chance to ask questions, learn some things.

This is not a we're gonna vote on this kind of thing, and this plan can change tremendously.

It can be thrown into the trash for all I know.

So um, so that being said, I'm gonna turn it over to our uh fire chief Harp Donley and uh start the presentation.

Thank you very much.

We could cue up the the slideshow, that'd be great.

Uh I'd like to thank you all for giving me this chance.

I know it's tricky because we uh uh all this is presenting an idea.

Uh it's the council that establishes policy, and what this is a result of is kind of over the last two years listening to the council as they've described uh go on about the needs that the city has, particularly in regards to resiliency, unfunded needs that the city has, and then uh coming up with that we need a new way, a new revenue source to help pay for these needs.

We hear that time and time again.

Uh it's also been clear that uh we should not tack the needs on to our property tax rates, that whatever we could do is to keep maintain the property rates at that the level that they are and not exceed the property rates to do that.

And also the temperament of the council, it's been also clear that uh you don't want to burden the newport home, the residents in Newport, the people that live here year-round, the people that vote here, you're not looking to add an additional burden to them.

So with those things, those items in mind, uh two years ago, uh an idea uh came as a result of a um there was a department heads meeting where Laura Citron was the acting city manager, and we were discussing, I think then it was Elizabeth Brook and the mounting costs that that might that project might be.

And the topic that uh there are other communities that used a conveyancy tax on real estate sales uh to help pay for their specialized needs, uh, came to light.

And I think that's what started the process of thinking could we adapt that sort of uh alternative funding source to uh what we have, what our needs are in Newport, specifically the needs uh our resiliency sustainability, which uh it if the all of you that sat through or watched their presentation last week on Easton's Beach, saw there's mounting needs, you know, and that's just that's one specific uh one specific project.

So again, I I thank you all for the opportunity to talk about this and what the mayor said is absolutely true.

All this is with we're not trying to present policy to you, we're just trying to present an idea.

Uh it'll be up to the council to come up with a policy, and this is just uh uh a talking point of a possible tactic to uh to raise additional funds for the city.

Uh so what we're gonna talk to you about tonight is the creation of a resiliency and sustainability fund.

Uh I'd also like to thank we there's been a team working on this for a little over six months.

We've been talking about it for two years.

For six months, we've been getting together regularly to try to fine-tune it.

I'd like to fine-tune the clicker right now.

If we could advance this, do you have the power to advance the slide?

Oh Charlie, aren't you usually in charge of this?

That's oh, I see.

I would have a whiteboard if it was me putting this presentation together.

I had this from the last time.

There we go.

I got it.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

All right.

Starting from the scratch, I say thank you alright.

Yeah, I did.

No, uh thanks again.

Thanks for your patience with this.

So the creation of resiliency and sustainability fund.

So what is the fund?

So the goal is this is going to be a self-sustained revenue source that addresses the the future, uh, the current and future needs related to the tidal, uh, the increase of the high tides, the rainwater in our neighborhood.

Uh this these are ongoing problems that we had that exist today, and the idea, the whole goal of this fund is to start the process of solving these problems and work to the future to try to prevent uh more serious problems from arising.

Uh the creation of the fund, the goal is to give us the power to be make us more resilient ourselves and not be so dependent on uh on national funds or grants.

Uh two years ago, the climate in Washington was a little bit different than it is today.

Two years ago, they were we talked about uh grants that could help us with Easton's Pond.

Uh now things have changed, and what prompted this in some regards is for us to kind of roll up our sleeves and take charge of our own destiny.

If we could come up with a fund uh on our own and be to be ready to address the issues as they come up and to try to forecast other future issues, it wouldn't prevent us from going to the federal government or looking for grants, but it would enable us to have uh money on hand to be able to tackle these projects, uh, and then we could get the work done and then go for the additional funding afterwards.