##VIDEO ID:Mpkz52kVv2M## e e e e e e e e e e good evening and welcome to the Newport city council meeting today is Thursday January 16th 2025 we'll begin the meeting with the Pledge of Allegiance I pledge alance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republ for it stands one nation under God indivisible with liy and justice for all will staff please call the role council member Taylor here council member Schmidt here mayor Elliot here and council member suar and council member inamin are absent today thank you next on the agenda is to adopt this evening's agenda are there any changes to the agenda hearing none hearing none I move to adopt the agenda second so have a motion from council member Taylor and a second from council member Schmidt to adopt the agenda as presented all those in favor say I I those opposed the agenda is adopted next on the agenda is public comments this is where members of the public can address the city council about any local government topic that is not included on our regular agenda tonight this is limited to concerns that are um relevant to the City of Newport Affairs policies or practices we ask that you come to the podium and clearly state your name and address for the record and to limit your comments to about three minutes generally the council will not take any action at this time but we'll refer matters to staff if appropriate is there anyone in the audience who would like to speak during public comments no moving on the next item on our agenda is the consent agenda do we we have um any changes or anything that staff or Council would like removed from the consent agenda hearing none move to adopt the consent agenda second so I have a motion from council member Taylor and a second from council member Schmidt to adopt the consent agenda as presented all those in favor say I I those opposed the consent agenda is adopted next on the agenda is the Washington County Sheriff's Office report and we have um are you a sergeant as well I need to ask that Sergeant Le they didn't put your title on here I almost called you officer like it I was like no that's not right big deal thank you uh Madame mayor counsel everybody here it's good to see you guys again um as far as updates I don't have too many additional updates however uh we she fire chief and I were just talking the scams that are out there are going through the roof right now and AI is helping those scams I actually just happened to uh encounter a young kid who was scammed in Instagram they sent a picture of him it wasn't actually him but it was a picture of him naked they were trying to scam this kid out of money and uh a couple days ago he paid 90 bucks and today they were asking for 300 so it's that was a kid he didn't want something that looks so real to go out to classmates I explained to him the dangers of social media as well as some things he can do to try to keep himself safe and to let his friends know about about this scam so they don't get scammed as well there's multiple other scams out there for uh tax season now that that's coming up additional scams on I tell you what you just you name it there scams everything email scams with links there's email scams um voicemail scams teex scams you name it so I just would encourage the public if they see this to be extremely careful for any text messages they get any messages they get via social media especially if they don't know the names or phone numbers or if it's a track this package click this link I encourage you not to even click on that even on your phone be very very careful and as tax season does get closer those are going to start going through the roof I'll also add additionally that the sheriff's office is not going to send you a message pay this or we're going to arrest you uh We've also been told that messages have been put out there saying Washington County Sheriff's Office is going to do stuff like that that is not how that works so if you have any questions or something comes up please contact the sh shi's office so we can make a report and so that we know that that's going out there as well other than that I do not have anything additional well thank you for going over that I understand there was something going around about Washington County um emailing people about warrants um out for them and click here and pay your fines and um so I appreciate you uh touching on that today so thank you absolutely I stand here for any questions that anybody any questions for sergeant Leed thank you very much thank you very much next we have the fire chief's report and chief Wy is with us this evening good evening mayor council members um just uh um Carry On a little bit on Sergeant legats comment on scams we've from the fire depart Department perspective we've had a couple probably in the last 18 months of emails going out you know by a Newport fire department team t-shirt and then people order that T-shirt and they never get it it's you know not from us if you know we would ever do a fundraising event like that it' be very clear who that was from but yeah you know to Sergeant's point I mean it's they're everywhere so okay um other than that I really don't have anything this evening but I'd be happy to stand for questions great thank you any questions for chief Wy looks like we're good for tonight thank you thank you thank you next we have the engineers report we have John hergan with us good evening mayor members of the council uh uh no items for formal consideration but a couple updates uh we are uh working on the uh 2025 Street and utility improvements plans uh we are uh planning to have those about 60% complete uh by mid Monon here and then we'll work with public work staff to get their feedback on those plans uh the 60% stage will have the uh Road alignments as well as the profiles and grades for the uh for the Street surface as well as the utilities and most importantly where those disturbance limits are so that we can uh after we incorporate Public Works comments into those plans we would plan to have a uh a public uh information meeting uh where we would invite folks uh living along the project Corridor to come in take a look at the plan see what that's going to what impacts they may have in front of their home and then get some of those questions uh out of or answered and get some of that feedback and Incorporated the plans as well uh then we'd be looking at hopefully a late March bid so we' be in line to have a uh uh construction start in may um with my understanding we were going to have the benefit analysis done uh in January it was end of January that's a very good reminder for me to check in with them us you got it um thank you for the reminder mayor yes if you could have maybe Joe send out what just a paragraph on what that analysis comes up to for with the maximum um assessment so that we're aware of that before yeah and I think that would that's uh that's good information to have in advance of that uh neighborhood meeting so we'll we'll plan that accordingly with the uh with that uh once we have that in hand okay and then uh along those same lines uh the mpca has a storm water resilience grant program uh which uh components of this project uh uh would qualify the uh uh new storm sewer as well as enlarging storm sewer and some of those treatment costs would be eligible uh we've seen this program come up in the past but it's generally geared toward projects that are uh nearing the end of design the uh the grant money is for the actual construction costs so we're going to be I think well positioned to put in a good uh a good application there uh I want to say that's about 1.2 million in grant money available fantastic and then also the uh South Washington Watershed has uh about 600,000 in in grants available that we will will look to see how that may be able to incorporate into the project okay well all of that would help bring those costs down and hopefully help the homeowners as well certainly and then we also got a not notification uh this week that our Grant application for the water treatment plant feasibility study was uh was approved uh uh if you recall I think we submitted that Grant application back in October uh and we are also going to do um a portion of that study is going to be dedicated to um figuring out what our best options are for uh treatment of posos in the city's water so whether that's individual treatment at either well a combined treatment facility going over those options and how the uh how those costs would uh would would come out so we're hoping to have that uh feasibility study done in uh May uh so that we can then uh work with the the state trustees on on a plan moving forward for for long-term water treatment great can't move fast enough thank you any questions uh for John any questions okay thank you John thanks next we have the um superintendent of public Works report uh good evening mayor Elliot and council members I also have nothing formal this evening uh but I do have two updates uh the first one is we've completed our Emerald ashbo grant for the RightWay and public property end of it um a little bit of paperwork and uh the final payment to uh finish up but that's been a three-year process with uh 90 some trees removed and 120 roughly replanted um and uh yeah that that Grant will there'll be other opportunities uh coming forward uh regarding the emerald ash as well so and then the other announcement is or update would be we've had uh two water main breaks in the last week here the first one we feel like we were we think it happened last week and we weren't able to find it um wasn't coming to the surface and a lot of times um before we sealed up all these sewer services and manholes we could check our lift stations for increased uh flow coming into them well with the ceiling job that we did we're not able to do that anymore so uh I guess great great job on the ceiling end of it but uh makes a little more detective work out of finding our leaves so okay and were those water main breaks on some of our older lines then or um yeah they are um the original lines most of the most of the city was installed in the mid-60s so uh a lot of our infrastructure is all that same same age but yeah both breaks were were on that age okay okay and how long did people end up losing water for usually we're out for about four hours for for a normal Break um obviously anytime there's construction project there there isn't really a normal but that's what that's what we plan on for okay great do we know how many homes were impacted I don't have I think the first one was was only six or eight and then this last one I would say under a dozen so it's been relatively but still obviously if you're out line it's a pretty big inconvenience other questions for Matt okay thank you so much thank you um next we will move on to the directors uh of administration or our city administrator's report uh mayor members of the council the first item tonight is an interim use permit for Keller fence and we have a presentation uh by our city planner Nathan first thank you thank you Joe and uh good evening mayor members of the council uh as Joe mentioned we are looking at an interim use permit from Keller fence this evening I'll try and keep my presentation pretty brief but if you do have questions for me you're welcome to stop me and ask so I think everyone's probably familiar with the site of this uh this development project uh Keller fence received a conditional use permit from the city back in 2023 which has since been extended to allow for um the the applicant Keller fence to work through some environmental remediation um work in terms of identifying where contamination is on site and ultimately coming up with a plan uh to remediate or um mitigate the environmental conditions so uh that's a little bit of the context for everyone um as an overview again uh this site is zoned B2 which is the city's General business district that's consist consistent with the city's comp plan guidance uh this site's just under 4 Acres so an interim use permit what is this we don't review these a lot and I just wanted to provide a very brief primer uh this is a tool that cities are allowed to use and it's provided by the state statute um really they're very similar to a conditional use permit but they have a very set time or term at which they expire so these are generally seen as a way to approve a use that's currently acceptable but not necessarily in the long-term interest of the city so newport's ordinance does allow for interum use permits and we have a couple of guidelines first the use has to be consistent with what's Allowed by the zoning District um we have to um basically terminate iups within three years from issuance and the city can provide any conditions that it needs or sees necessary to mitigate issues that it foresees um similar to a cup if the terms of an iup are violated the city can revoke it in require the um you know property owner business whatever to cease operation so uh what's proposed here we have a mix of different things I'm going to um kind of skim over some of these slides but again let me know if there's questions so we have indoor and outdoor storage proposed uh storage would be propo proposed in the existing cinder block building on this site in addition to a 70 by 80t pad behind the building screened from public view access to the site would be using an existing access point along 7th Avenue materials would be screened from 7th Avenue in the public and lastly the duration of this iup is expected to be about one year which is on that same timeline as the Keller fence cup so a site plan was provided with this application and you can see it on the screen you can see the location of the storage area the location of where a new fence would be located to help uh provide a new gate to access the storage area and then screen all of this from public view there is an existing driveway and parking area in front of the cinder building yep can you use the arrow and kind of show where they are intending to run all the fencing yeah yep so I mean I see the red for the gate but then correct the red area is where that fence and gate would be located so there's a a segment of fence and gate there would no not be additional fence okay provided on site I'm going nor North or on the on the left side north side of the property or yeah I always have to really think hard of which way is uh which okay so it's really just putting a gate up and to help kind of screen it uh from people driving on Seventh correct and there is an existing wooden fence in this location where the red line is that's the that's the new fence that that fence is a little deteriorated and this would be again an interim U use that would simply replace that with something that's newer and can allow access to the the back area okay thank you yep all right keeping moving on so there these are this image was requested by staff just to help us understand kind of what are the nature of the materials being stored Keller fence is a fence company and you can see a lot of fencing related materials in this image that would be stored in that storage area or inside the building so in terms of analysis like what what have staff focused on we've focused on the use and ensuring that this is similar to what the cup was initially issued for um in terms of access you know we understand that there is already an access point on the site and so we know how the site will be used and how traffic and vehicles will access it we've gotten information about the vehicle type of the you know the nature of the vehicles accessing the site and the frequency they'll be there uh in particular they understand that they're only proposed during daytime hours and lastly again trying to understand whether the use will be fully screened uh and and ensure that it will be uh through the conditions of approval so the city held a public hearing on this request on January 7th at the Planning Commission meeting we did have one resident attend who voiced several concerns um about the project the some some of the concerns General to the area um such as traffic and other concerns related to the site lighting impacts and things like that in terms of a recommendation the Planning Commission did discuss this and ultimately provided a recommendation to the city council for approval they actually proposed to extend from a one to a three-year term for this iup and I'll talk about um staff's recommendation here in a little bit I had one quick question yep can we go back to T one more tab or one more screen sorry sorry the red box that you have open um so this I'm trying to get the aerial view if you could go back one before the Planning Commission uh so go the other direction towards towards where you just were to oh did you want the one on the yellow green go go to the Planning Commission that you just were on oh this one yep here we go sorry about that so that red box is representing what exactly so the red box is that storage area so this areal is sorry this areial is flipped from you saw in the site plan that was um kind of left and left and right were kind of North and South I see so there's homes to the South and then what is this so there council member there are um buildings in this you know area abing the site but they are not single family homes these are actually I believe business businesses isn't there one single family home 562 might be a single family home it looks like that is okay the one to the South is a single family home it and this is there is a single family home to the South however it is vacant and it's owned by the current owner of the property um IR Services I believe that that's working with uh the owner of Keller fence so that home along with the cinder block building which used to be a I think a garage service station would potentially I I believe uh Tim is working on purchasing all of it so this uh the 5 Acre Site but that home there is vacant no nobody lives there um and then I believe there is one home slightly to the North and then the Old City Hall got it thank you Joe okay thank you yep so just to narrate this slide again you see the access point here in the in the circle on the left in theid the circle in the middle here is that location of that new fence and then the Box on the screen is where that store outdoor storage area would be located notably um that outdoor storage area is screened by the cinder block building from view of 7th Avenue uh and staff are proposing criteria or conditions that don't allow the storage materials to exceed the height of the building effectively got it and this the fence that you're talking about is the little wooden one just to the south of yeah I'm with you know yep do you anticipate that when they're ready to construct on this site that there will be material stored there while construction is going on I think that's fairly common uh you'll have some type of material storage most often it's related to the construction and less often you know related to an ongoing use on a property sometimes there is a desire to balance though um you know if you have a existing property and you're using it and then you're building your your building there may be a desire to try and work through how we you know okay can can accomplish both business operation and building a new location okay so uh we are getting towards the end of this presentation here but we have uh three actions that count Council generally has related to this you can approve approve with conditions or deny um staff are recommending an approval with conditions so proposed findings to support that approval are provided in the staff report I won't dwell on them here uh they're very similar to those findings that are uh needed to adopt a conditional use permit so as I mentioned Steph our recommending conditions we are actually recommending 12 conditions um these are really intended to help provide some guidance on operation on this property in order to allow the you know Keller fence to use it in the way that they've requested but also make sure that we're trying to you know navigate the community's needs for um you know screening things appropriately um having the use be occurring during daytime hours and things of that nature so if you have particular questions about these conditions you can let me know and we can walk through them so this is my last slide uh again are recommending a conditional approval uh in terms of the planning commission's recommendation they did uh recommend a three-year term I would actually still recommend just one year and that is because we've got a conditional use permit uh that also expires one year approximately from now as well so having the iup and the cup on the same track will give the city the opportunity to revisit this in a year should there be a need so that is why I would recommend sticking to one year but of course there is an option to allow for three years and then truly give uh that maximum term great question the Planning Commission was really um trying to just understand the the business was you know trying to operate in this interim um time period between what now and when they establish their their business on the property and redevelop it and they were trying just trying to be a little bit more business friendly yep so I've got an example motion on the screen here that's actually that didn't get updated I apologize but we do have a resolution that the city council would uh look to adopt that is resolution 2025-the uh time frame as well I know we've allowed some temporary uses in the community on some other things and we didn't understand really the impact on the neighborhood and so I think um this gives us a chance in 12 months if we need to extend it and and that particular um issue had to do with the backing up of semi-trailers and it was um beep beep beep yeah it was just too much that was too much so um the vehicle's coming in and dropping off some materials and moving on you did mention an Isuzu flatb truck I I don't know how how big are those well we do have the applicant here this evening and I would actually encourage you to um hear from Tim directly on um his vehicles I mean is this 20 feet 50 feet 20 feet okay so it's not really that big of a no a vehicle oh can you step up to the microphone so that um viewers can hear the answers thanks Tim de hog the owner of Keller fence uh thanks for the time tonight um the intent is to secure get this lot purchased and secured and use it while we work through some uh findings from the phase two the pollution that's on the site we don't have a firm timeline on that right now so um I'm working with Joe on some options to get that uh addressed um but this is an overflow storage situation it's not something we're using on a daily basis we're going to uh Park basically our excess materials there and would access it infrequently really um I anticipate it more than a couple times a week at the most so um it's just a uh overflow storage for us oh okay so thank you that's helpful any uh questions for Nathan or Keller so does his iup go into effect before he acquired does it need to be closed upon to be in effect upon acquisition so the iup would be the the resolution is the iup and the resolution will be adopted this evening by the city council so it have today's date on it um so but according to your memo he can't store anything there until he owns the property so he can't start storing stuff there tomorrow correct we we would not do that correct we are waiting for the current owner of the property to execute the purchase agreement there's been some delays on his end for reasons we can't fully understand but I think we're close um he has an updated purchase agreement in his hand and we're expecting that to be returned within a week um to get that done which in turn will start the process for us of uh financing appraisals and all of that stuff so we would not actually move anything in there until um our 60-day period was up um council member Taylor is that something you would like to have added as a condition on this I mean I I think it's unlike I'm just you know it's just one of these things this is a little different use than you know we never it's kind of like a just trying to think about you know what only use that I a couple times and like I said last time we used it went bad so I'm just trying to understand like just understand the precedent that we set here and how how this you know works but I don't is so you anticipate probably closing the next 30 to 60 days is that 60 days I I would hope if not less than that um we're somewhat reliant on the bank but the goal is to get the property secured um um and then continue to work on the pollution that's on site as well as get our uh construction efforts underway again we're basically starting from Ground Zero at that but we want to purchase the lot so we control it and have uh some say in what takes place between now and then okay I guess you know the the big thing here for me is I mean so you're the intent is still to deliver on what the cup what was proposed with the C that's still nothing has changed with our plans we're not purchasing this lot just to use for storage our intent is to move into the city of pport um and get that done within a year um you know Joe and I have been working over the course of the past six to eight months on some of the uh pollution and we'll continue to do that we really don't have a timetable on that uh as of yet I don't show if you have any I mean I think there's a grant process that starts in April which would yeah uh mayor members of the council um so we uh did receive a grant through the uh Environmental Protection Agency to complete a phase one and phase two the previous work that was done on this site um allowed for use that would be just a parking lot um during that phase two there was some contamination found on the southern portion of the site uh in my understandings uh in conversations with engineers at stantech that work with the Washington County CDA um they are saying that we do need a clearance from the mpca in regards to building this particular product at the site with that said um the building would be very far away from where this contamination is however uh you know from their best uh management practices they do believe they have to do continued the NPC will require additional testing around where the contamination was uh uh found to find the limits and then a lot of times they do require it to to be uh during heating months and non-heating months um so we're going to have to walk that puppy down and find out what the results are I don't anticipate we'll have to really do much at all um but if there is much that needs to be done there are grants so um you know and we'd be happy to to work through that in order to get this site cleaned up and make it available um so been working a lot with the the current owner um and have had a lot of discussions with Tim in order to to do what we need to do to get this site uh ready for for some type of use in the future thank you other questions on this okay with that I would entertain a motion to adopt the resolution do you want to put the motion back up on that yep and it's going to be incorrect because that's I would suggest that the oops the council um make a motion to or move to adopt resolution 2025-the is adopted do you have any other items before the Clos session item mayor members of the council unfortunately with this Clos session item it's not an item that we can um uh vote on tonight uh to vote on that and approve the resolution it would require a four fifths vote by the council um so I would recommend we table the item until the next meeting okay do you have any other items then for uh the council this evening uh mayor members of the council nothing formal uh but I'd be happy to stand for questions any questions for our administrator no questions so we will move on to Mayor and Council reports um I just want to remind people that the winter family fund night is coming up on January 25th that'll run from 6:00 to 8:00 pm up at Loveland Park that's at 1500 uh Glenn Road they're skating uh games snacks bonfire music and the all important fire department tug of war from what I've heard the fire department is doing lots of uh leg work and arm work to Revenge their loss from last year so I encourage the kids to come out and defend their record um against the fire department so that's a fun night you get a chance to meet some of your neighbors and um meet some new people and the kids get to have a good time um also city offices will be closed on Monday uh for Martin Luther King Jr day and um I think that's all I've got Mark yeah I know a number of the fire fighters are working out at core right now trying to get buff and we've also been recruiting out recruiting strong you know people for the tug of wars we're fully staffed as the department we're ready for this event so yeah they're ready for the kids all right Josh anything nothing for me okay thank you with that I'll take a motion to adjourn second a motion we have a was that was that hand wait I move you adjourn thank you I have a motion from council member Schmid and a second from council member Taylor any discussion all those in favor say I I thank you all for watching we're we are adjourned e e