Note: The agenda and transcript indicate the meeting occurred on August 3, 2026, but the provided metadata specifies the date as August 4, 2026. This summary uses the provided date.
The City Council met for a regular session on August 4, 2026, at 6:00 p.m. in the Government Center Council Chamber. The meeting covered a consent calendar of routine approvals, public comments, and two major reports and recommendations: wood debris management relocation and the Willow Creek Regional Trail feasibility study. Several votes were taken, including a 4-2 approval for the wood debris relocation and a 4-2 approval for the Willow Creek trail alignment with a directive to report on property acquisition.
Please rise as you're able for the Pledge of Allegiance. Welcome everybody to our August third, it's already August, uh City Council meeting. And we begin every city council meeting with our uh our open comment period, and this is an opportunity for anyone from the public to speak on items that we will not be taking public testimony on later in the agenda. Uh each person has up to two minutes to speak for a total of twenty minutes, and I keep track uh through two methods. One is the uh stop light here at the dais, and the other is the digital clock on the wall. Uh I'd ask each speaker to be concise to allow others to speak, and participants are also encouraged to limit comments generally to topics that are within the scope and jurisdiction of the council's ability to affect policy. Council members and staff do not respond to your comments during the public comment period, but will instead follow up on any specific requests separately. And if you have materials to share with the council, you may give them to the city clerk who is to my right there, Miss Caseel, uh, and she will distribute them to uh the council. With that, you will be invited up as you uh signed up. And first we have Samantha Loomis. Hello. You may have to turn the mic on. It pushed the button right in front till it turns green. You gotta push it hard sometimes. Harder. There you go. There we go. All right. All right, I'm Samantha Loomis. I'm coming to talk about H two, the Willow Creek Regional Trail Visibility Study. Um, and specifically about segment one C alternative one. That portion of the map is going right through the center of our family's property, which we've lived there for over fifty plus years, going back a few generations. Um alternative two goes on the border of the property, and I want it not have to go through the center for the bike path that they're recommending. Um I read in the report narrative that this trail will help provide access to jobs, food, and recreation for at least one thousand households within a half mile or a mile, and then twenty-seven hundred within a half mile. But those actually aren't even part of this project to put in this report narrative. Those are spurs that are unfunded and for years down the road. So I feel like currently that doesn't actually have a true purpose for this bike path with connecting the people to the jobs and to the groceries and activities. Um so basically my point here is wherever I wrote it. I asked the city council to vote nay on segment one C if it's possible to just take that and choose the alternative two option, which would include a bridge. So, but they do have funding for up to 5.5 million, so they just are needing to get 463,000 more dollars to achieve to cover for the bridge costs. Otherwise, everything else is funded. So my thought was the property tax. They did an error this year. I don't know if the 1.5 million error would go into parks and recs as far as for the project next year where they could cover that $463,000 to do the bag path through our home. We already have homeless people. In fact, I let some live at the end of our road because they weren't safe where they were. They actually helped me keep all the other people out. Who's gonna police your bike path? Who's gonna police everything that happens in this area? If you put it closer to alternative two. But if you go to two, maybe you'd have the option to do different things with your money to make it safer for people that are gonna use your bike path. And I don't even go under the bridge. I didn't study like my family studied more than I did about your bridge. I think if you went under the overpass, there's other options. You really need to study it. And you really need to save money. And fraud's a big thing. Spending money is a big thing right now. And I think you really need to look at the spending. You bought the piece of cost from us.