Mhm. >> Good evening and welcome to the NewportCity Council meeting. Today is Thursday, April 2nd, 2026.We'll begin the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of theUnited States of America and to the republic for which it stands, onenation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Will staff please call the roll?Council member Schmidt. Here. Council member Sumner. Here. Council memberEngeman. Yeah. Council member Taylor. Here. Mayor Elliott. Here. Next on ouragenda is to adopt the agenda. Do we have any changes to the agenda thisevening? I'm over the agenda. Second. I have amotion from Council member Engeman and a second from Council member Sumner toadopt the agenda as presented. All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed?The agenda is adopted. Next we have public comments. This is where membersof the public can address the city council about any local government topicthat is not included on our regular agenda this evening. This is limited toconcerns which are relevant to city of Newport affairs,policies, or practices. We ask that you come up to the microphone, state yourname and address for the record, and to limit your comments to about 3 minutes.Generally, the council will not take any action at this time, but will refermatters to staff if appropriate. Is there anyone who would like to speakduring public comments? No, I'm I'm seeing those. Okay. Withthat, we will move on to the consent agenda. Are there any changes to theconsent agenda tonight? Hearing none, I'll move the consentagenda. I'll second. I have a motion from Council member Sumner and a secondfrom Council member Engeman to adopt the consent agenda as presented. Anydiscussion? All those in favor say I. I. Thoseopposed? The consent agenda is adopted. Sergeant Leggett is unable to be with usthis evening, so we will move on from the Washington County Sheriff's reportto the fire chief's report. >> Good evening, Mayor and Council.Uh for April or sorry, for March, we had 21 calls of service, one mutual aid infrom Cottage Grove, Saint Paul Park, and uh M Health.And then we had three mutual aids out, one to Saint Paul Park and two toCottage Grove, all for structure fires. And thenexcuse me. Um This month, the fire department's goingto go visit the Kids Club at Newport Elementary for Career Day. Um probablygoing to be next week, but we'll see how it goes.And then at the end of this week, the fire department should have at least 10uh first responder inspectors all certified through the state. So.Of what? What's that? Of what? First responder>> inspectors. >> First responders, that's umWhat level Do you want to talk a little bit about what the kind>> Yeah, so they can go to uh complaints for fire codes stuff like that, inspectbuildings and stuff, you know, for any fire code complaints, any complianceissues and everything else, so. Okay. Thank you.I'll stand for any other questions. Do you want to speak to the hiringwindow that you that's open right now? Yeah, we did um put on the website thatwe are hiring for uh firefighters. Uh the window is open till April 27th.So, on the website, you'll see our hiring process, and you'll see thatthat's open for a month, and then we'll go through the interviewuh applicants. Um We'll look at their interview score themor applications andand then there'll be conditional offers made to We're looking hopefully to hireabout four people. Um once those conditional offers aremade, then they'll go through uh medical, and they'll go throughbackground check and a psych exam. If they pass all that, then they'll get tostart the recruitment or recruitment process in uh Newport and goto the academy in August. And then they'll have about10 months of schooling before they can be ready.Excellent. Oh, stop making it sound so fun.>> Yeah, it is.But really, what's the best part about being a firefighter?Well, all the time you miss>> The people. The people, exactly. No, just getting out there and in thecommunity, serving the community. And uh uhall the I mean all the fun stuff you get to drain out.>> Can I ask him? You know, big kids with big toys, pretty much.Okay. Do we have any uh questions for thechief? >> Can I apply? Next.So, the four hires that you have coming, umhow many of those are backfill versus net new?Uh right now, well, we're slotted to have 25, we're at 20.So, we're hoping to get four in now, and then, you know, maybe nextyear we'll hire, depending on how many stick around. So, usually it seems abouta 50% success rate. You get four, maybe two stick around,because schooling is a lot umwith a full-time job and uh family life, so it gets a little tough tobalance everything. So, we usually lose about 50%, and then we'll go throughafter that, you might keep them around for3 to 5 years, and whether they move on to another, you know, they move out ofthe city or move on to another department orit's just too much for them. It all depends, so.Is the 25 target um based on population metrics, or is there something else thatyou're targeting that from? Uh it's just response, you know, trying to get anaverage response of uh firefighters to the scene. So, we usually target 25. Iknow years and years ago we were slotted to have up to 35, but that was becauseof the Relief Association. So, it topped out by population andsquare miles, but now we're just targeting about 25people. Okay.Thank you. Yep. It's fun, Josh.You should sign up. You just have to shave. Thanks so much for your report.Uh next we have the engineer's report. Thank you, Mayor. Good evening, membersof the council. Uh two items for formal consideration. Uh first is a partialpayment application for Meyer Contracting. Uh Meyer is our contractorfor the 2025 street and utility improvements. Uh no active constructionduring uh during the the past uh few months, uh but we did get somedocumentation from Meyer uh that constituted some additional payment forwork items that was constructed last summer. Uh so the uh this will bepartial payment number eight uh based on the quantities that we've received andverified. They are requesting uh $65,803.04. We would be asking or looking for thecouncil to consider partial payment number eight.Okay. Do you have any questions on that? I'll move that.Thank you. Have a second? I'll second.So we have a motion from council member Sumner and a second from council memberSchmidt to uh approve the partial payment in theamount stated by our engineer. Any discussion?All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed?And the payment is approved. And the second item is pertaining to the uhwater system uh interconnection project. Uh the uh A1 Excavating has uh they'verecently installed the uh flow meter that's going to measure the the flowwater flow between uh Cottage Grove into Newport. And uh they also took uhuh receipt of all the control panels for both theboth the flow meter as well as the PRV valve, the pressure relief valve.So, installation of those control control panels started this week. Ithink their weather is is getting them a little behind, but they are working tohave that work completed in the next couple weeks, and we should have anelectrical service in from Excel by the end of the month. The last thingthat they'll need to install is a radio antenna for the SCADA system thatcommunicates the communicates with the control system at public works. So,hopeful that we will have the the system up and running probably about mid-May,but the item for discussion or the item forcouncil consideration tonight is an extension to their substantialcompletion date. The current substantial completion date is on April 16th. Andbecause we had to wait a little longer for the control panels as well asgetting that service from Excel, the contractor has requested to extend thatsubstantial completion date. They've requested to move that to June 5thjust to ensure that we don't go through this process again.The final completion date and the and the contract value is not going tochange as part of this change order, and we have until the end of June is whenthe term for our grant agreement with the 3M as part of the 3M settlement. So,again, we're we're pushing up to that that time frame. We do have somecontingencies if things if we if we don't get that antenna installed umin advance, but we're we're confident that we can get this work completedwithin that within the final completion date, butrequest the council to consider extending the substantial completiondate to June 5th. And that would be under contract changeorder number two in your packets. Okay. Any questions on this at all?I just Mayor. Yes, Council member Sumner. Thisis what we would call a supply chain problem. Yeah, I think you couldcharacterize it that way, sure. Okay, and we're hearing about that widelyacross all industries. Are we going to see that for anythingelse that we're expecting to happen this coming season?season? With most of our street and utility improvements projects, those arethose materials are pretty readily available and readily available locally.Uh it's these control panels that that get shipped fromum from different parts of the country. They're all domestic, but that's that'sthe lead time that that we're dealing with here. So, we don't expect any forthis summer. Okay.Okay. Yes, Council member Schmidt. So, for theflow meter, just just out of curiosity, since we're buying in bulk from CottageGrove, how often are those calibrated then, do you know? Orsomething of that significance? I I would say that we do we'll probably dothat at least annually until we get a good feeling for what those uh flowslook like and then we'll work with public works to just to make sure thatwe have we're comfortable with where that that level is. They can see that ona daily basis, on a routine basis. We can see exactly what flow water uh isflowing through there at any given time. So, I think it'll be a matter of gettingused to what that that normal be and then we can see if things are changinguh unexpectedly, then we can get in there and calibrate them. Perfect. Thankyou. Council member Ingemann.>> What's the status on the pipeline? On the uh pipeline on 17th Street?>> Yeah. Um we have uh unfortunately not made alot of progress. Uh the uh the owner of that pipeline is um umuh provided us an analysis on what the uh what the impact to their pipelinewould be uh based on the work that we need to do uh to install the utilitiesand they've provided us some recommendations that wedon't necessarily agree with. So, we're continuing that conversation.Mayor and Council, umthey provided a report. We were scheduled to meet with them today.Unfortunately, that fell through. Um we do have a a meeting scheduled onMonday. Uh we'll be able to share our feedback in regards to the report thatthey provided um and the impacts to their pipe uh ininstalling the infrastructure there. So, um it's been uh slow and frustratingum from from staff's perspective. Um but we're hoping to have some some movementsoon. I think just to provide some clarity,this just relates to a pipeline that's uh running along Is it 17th um Streetand we started work there uh for some of our influent infiltration on the sewersystems. UmI think the pipeline is uh not exactly where we thought it was located and sowe've just been working with the owners of that pipeline regarding um finishingup that work there and uh what all that would entail. So, that's uh that's thepipeline question. So, Well, we kind of jumped from watersystem interconnects, which is a pipe, toa different type of pipe. So, >> Uh I'd like to move to authorizecontract change order number two extending the substantial completiondate to to June 5th, 2026.Second. I have a motion from CouncilmemberTaylor and a second from Councilmember Sumner. Any discussion?All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed?And the change order is adopted. And then just a maybe a quick update. Wehad our neighborhood meeting for the 12th Street area improvements projectlast night. We we filled up the the fire trainingroom pretty well. We had it was it was well attended. I think there was a lotof a lot of good discussion, a lot of good feedback from from property owners.Obviously a project like a project like this is is a pretty is a pretty bigdeal, especially when it's happening right outside of your door.So there were there were a lot of concern. Hopefully we put some of thoseconcerns at ease, and I'm sure that not all of them are, but as we work throughthe project, we'll we'll try to continue to communicate thatwith the public. Make sure that they have an outlet to be able to communicatewith us as well. We are hopeful to bring those plans to the council for approvalat your next council meeting on April 16th,as well as 30th Avenue. We are race to the finish line here,and then we will advertise those projects, solicit bids, and thenhopefully bringing those bids back for council consideration at your secondmeeting in May. Thank you, and thank you to theneighborhood for coming to that meeting. It's always great to have sort of robustinvolvement and have people hear about these projects in advance rather thanbeing surprised when equipment pulls up outside your door, because I know youtalk to each other as well with their people who can't get there. Sothanks to everyone for coming out and attending that, and we we do this withthe hopes that the neighborhood will come with their questions and get someanswers. So thank you. Any council member Sumner?Mr. Engineer, do you think that these kinds of questions that you wereanswering are they going to apply to broadly any of the projects that wehave, or was there anything very specific just to this particularproject? Is it something we can learn and get a frequently asked questionskind of a dialogue and and just be prepared in the future?Certainly. Yeah, I think it's a combination of both. There's certainlythere's certainly certain questions that are that are posed each time that we dothese projects. There's there's information that we like to get out infront of each project that's very similar and then but there's alwaysthose site specific conversations as well. I think providing that frequentlyasked questions is a is a great idea. I know each project that we dowith the city, we put a page on the public worksite on the website and thenwe can we could develop something similar to for the for thoseinterested property owners. We could provide that at that forum. I think itwould be a a good outreach. Because we're going to have a couplemore projects. Certainly we're going to have a couplethis summer and they'll and but we also try to dolike bi-weekly newsletters and and get those in in folks hands and and post onthe on the social media outlets for the the city trying to reach people wherethey are. So Okay.Um with that I think we're done and we'll move on to the Superintendent ofPublic Works report. Good evening Mayor Elliott and Council members. I havenothing formal this evening but I do have two quick updates. UmWe've started street street sweeping for the spring so um if you have the abilityto park in your driveway um you know until till the till thesweeping is done that's appreciated. Helps us get a get curb to curb and do anicer job. Um and then alsoum we're getting to the age on our watermeters where the batteries are starting to die in the radios and that's how weread them. Um so if you get a hanger on your doorthat says we need to make an appointment um you know give us a call back. Ittypically takes 15 minutes to a half hour depending onum the how accessible it is and and what exactly we need to do. So,um but if we can uh you know, if we can go get by with justhanging hanging a notice one time, it helps us, you know, and not drivingback, dropping another one off, dropping another one off. So, um nothing nothingreally that you have to do other than call us and uh be there to let us in anduh and then we're back on our way. So, Great. Thank you.>> Councilmember Sumner? What is the battery life? Uh 15 years roughly iswhat they kind of figure. So, the the original ones were put in in 2011. So, Iwas going to say it's been a very long time since we made the switch over.This is This is one of those type of projects that I think has benefitedpublic works quite a bit by making this opportunity to read these thingsremotely. You can drive down the street and read them rather than have to gointo each house. So, this was a very big step forward for for the city.Yes. Okay. Matt, I I sent to you youresponded by email, but when are those courts going to be open at Loveland?Well, the the nets might be up uh right now,uh but uh I I didn't get a chance to check in with uh staff this afternoonwith all the meetings that were going on.>> certainly by next week uh it should be any day now. All right, pretty soon.Yeah. Get your pickleball fix going. So, yeah, between patching and uh sweepingand everything else, it's uh so, but yeah.>> want You don't want to get in the way of pickleballers, I've learned.>> Exactly. Exactly. And being outside. All right. That'sright. Well, and I think too, on the street sweeping, just so peopleunderstand, they're not really just out there tomake the streets look pretty. The street sweeping is really important to keepingour grit chambers more empty, not getting uh sand or salt or morechemicals out into the river. It's to get debris, leaves, branches, twigs, tokeep all of that from getting um down into the river. And that's that's it's areally important component of river health. And umI tell you I'm sure the watershed would love it if we would street sweep everyweek. I mean, that's how important they see this as being. So, uh it is a goodthing to get that done and um just want togood job getting them out there to do that. So, thanks, Matt. Thank you.Um next we have the administration report.Mayor, members of the council, no formal updates for tonight, but happy to uhstand for questions. Any questions? I think we're good. We'll move on tomayor and council comments. I just wanted to remind people that this sortof uh mini lawn link mini bus program issupposed to start in about a week. Um it'll operate on Tuesdays. It's a veryshort time frame, I want to say 9:00 to noon, 9:00 to 2:00, something like that.They have set pick up spots in Newport. One is at the transit site. Um that'sabout a block and a half uh north of city hall. The other is at Red RockApartments, which is over on 10th Avenue. But, if you live within a fewblocks of those pick up spots, they can swing by and pick you up and drop youoff. And it's a little bit of a personalized service. You can explainwhere it is you'd like to go, whether it's to groceries or a doctor orpharmacy or shopping. Um you just let them know where it is youwant to be dropped off and then, you know, schedule your pick up time to uhreturn back home. I'm pretty excited about this. They stay uh fairly local.So, it's basically from here down to Cottage Grove and we're in the cycle uhSt. Paul Park is part of our Tuesday operations. So, there'll be stops um inthat community as well. So, watch for information from the county on this.This is a program that's actually being operated by them, but it's one morecomponent of transit and transportation in Newport, and I'm really excited tosee us doing a lot more of that since we had that COVID break where wedidn't have anything going on to help people get around. So, that's myannouncement. Councilmember Engeman. I have nothing. Councilmember Taylor.Councilmember Schmidt. Councilmember Sumner. I attended a community advisorycommittee meeting, and we one of the one of the things we did was provide someupdated equipment availability for the city, and one of the things is a mowerof some kind, Matt. From community advisory. It's a themower mower adapter of some kind. We just asked fora a brush mower for like invasive species removal to split with thewatershed. And I'm happy to say that myself and the rest of the committeeapproved that, and then there was another another piece of equipment thatwe looked at, which is the street sweeper.>> The street sweeper, and they're going to look for a different source of fundingfor that, but we think we'll be able to provide that also. So, we talked earlierthis evening about street sweeping and the the com-the the county is so involved as the mayor mentioned that they'rehelping us provide some additional equipment for that. So, it's it is a bigdeal This equipment is more expensive thanyou could imagine. Yes. And they're helping us fund that, sothat helps all the residents of Newport. Yeah.Okay. Thank you, Bill. With that, I take a motion to adjourn.So moved. Second. I have a motion from Councilmember member Engeman and asecond from Councilmember Sumner. Any discussion?All those in favor say I. I. Those opposed? We're adjourned. Thank you,everyone for watching. >> Mhm.