Bill Meyer Show Podcast - Sponsored by Clouser Drilling www.ClouserDrilling.com - 10-17-25_FRIDAY_8AM

Episode Date: October 17, 2025

10-17-25_FRIDAY_8AM

The Bill Myers Show podcast is sponsored by Klausur drilling. They've been leading the way in Southern Oregon well drilling for over 50 years. Find out more about them at Klausor drilling.com. It has been busy between Brad Hicks running for State Senate, and now we have the Creeksite folks, I guess the Creeksite Folk. I wasn't exactly sure who was coming up. I just know that the rep ended up saying, okay, well, someone's going to be coming in at 8 o'clock.

Well, Bill, I'm happy to be here. All right, good to have you here. And Nick Hart, of course, Metford City Counselor. Are you the main petitioner on this, on this, on the pack here? So there, we have two co-chairs of the pack. There's myself and Kevin Stein, who's also the other city councilor. And isn't he the treasurer? Yes.

Okay. All right. Very good. And you ended up having this, this creek side, you know, the creek side quarter development. We talked about this a few months ago when it first came in here. And yesterday you ended up having this town hall meeting. Give us your report overall what you were experiencing, what people were saying. Well, one of the things that we've seen with all the conversations we've had around Creekside Quarter is that I think one of the biggest challenges that a lot of the public has is a lack of information about the project.

And so I would agree. A big task that we've put before us is to try to make sure we can get out there and educate people. And so there were a number of people that I talked to before the town hall that said, you know, Nick, I don't think I'm going to be supporting this. This just doesn't make sense to me. I don't see where we're going to go with this. And then we got through the town hall. We were able to answer a bunch of questions, really talk through a lot of the details of the project. And those same people came back and said, you know, I see it now.

I see why you're so passionate about this. And I'm a yes vote. Yeah, I understand why there is passion to try to get something like this because there has, I'll be the first to admit that one of the challenges we've had here in Southern Oregon. It's like, oh, gosh, you know, we can't have nice things. Okay. You know, there's a little bit of that. And yet I'll also come out of it, is that Medford is in a very awkward position. Southern Oregon in general is too big to be charming, not necessarily large enough to be that huge financial magnet that is needed to make a larger project's pencil.

And I don't know if we're kind of teetering on that edge and this creakside quarter development is designed to kind of start, you know, knocking on the door of maybe, you know, boosting that a bit here. But really, that's not what the voters are being asked to vote upon. Really, it's whether the Metford City Council is allowed to raise the hotel motel tax. That's the transient lodging tax from 11% to 13%. And then part of that funding ends up being used as seed funding. And yet, we don't really have projects to look at. We have some conceptual drawings. and this, so there's a lot of, I guess, the concern of the vaporware.

Sure, sure. What are we really talking about? Do we actually have hoteliers who are signed on to this? And is anything being drawn up? Or is it, hey, you know, you get this part of the project that maybe we'll talk. Where are we right now on that? That's a really good question. So we are working with a developer right now.

We're negotiating what's called a pre-development agreement. And so that pre-development agreement sort of sets the framework for – they run the gamut, actually. A pre-development agreement can run the gamut. This developer is really interested. We're doing a lot of legwork up front, which usually is a sign of seriousness in terms of trying to do the development. They want to lock down a lot of points before we actually launch into the big dollar stuff, which is actually doing full designs and, you know, actually like feasibility. in terms of like, how do you move infrastructure around? Make sure you have all the traffic stuff.

Those are expensive studies that you have to do. It's part of any kind of construction. And so what we are sitting at right now is we have a developer who's very interested in moving forward with this project. And a big piece, a big question of that is what are going to be, how many funds are there going to be available from the city's perspective in terms of being able to help build one of the key components of this project, which is the conference center. And that's what Measure 15-238 is all about. It's about taxing people who stay in hotels. It's about our visitors that are coming in from Portland or California. How do we make them pay for this instead of it being something we're going after method residents for?

Okay. Now, here is where I start asking questions about what is the potential liability for taxpayers in the future? Because I said earlier this morning, when the Creekside pack ends up saying, will my taxes go up? It's absolutely true. It will not go up. your local utility fee is not going to be going up. All that is true. You're absolutely right.

And that is, but there's always that sneaking suspicion for right now. And the reason I bring that up is this would be a stadium. And would it be fair to say that most of this seed money is going to try to backfill the construction of the ball stadium for the Eugene Emeralds? Because the Eugene Emeralds are the number one donor in this. Political Action Committee, 50 grand. So one of the things, we did spend quite a bit of time last night talking about this at the town hall. And I would encourage anyone who wants to go through, we're going to post the entire town hall on the website, creaksheadquarter.com. So even if you weren't there, you can watch through the whole thing.

One of the big pieces of this for the Emeralds is building a stadium just anywhere doesn't make sense. For them, the stadium and the experience, it's about that kind of downtown. If you throw a stadium at the edge of town, it just doesn't make sense from a stadium perspective. That's not going to be a good model for the team. That's not something that they would be interested in. It probably wouldn't make sense for them to continue to operate if that was the only option they had. And that's why there seems to be this focus on having it downtown instead. Yes, exactly.

And so that's where why the Emeralds are really interested in what's going on with 15238. The money that we're voting on in November has nothing to do with the stadium directly. It doesn't. It's all been, so council has passed a resolution earmarking all of those funds specifically for a conference center and only a conference center. How much of it is given to travel Medford? Because there's usually some either 7030, 75, 25, or in some cases, 50, 50. I'm looking at six and a half million dollars projected over the next year in TLT funds here. So when, as of right now, all TLT dollars, 25 cents of every dollar collected in TLT money. goes towards, goes to travel Medford in order to promote Medford and bring more tours and more heads and beds to the valley. Does the increase, if it were to be approved by voters, 11 to 13%, does that

breakdown continue? Do they still get an extra 25% of that additional money? That's based on their current contract, that would be what would expect going forward. However, we know Travel Medford and the Chamber have been really good partners in this. And so some of the details in terms of what is the exact dollar amount that the city needs to provide to the conference center, for example, if that dollar amount gets higher, then there may be conversations with the Chamber and Travel Medford in terms of can we adjust that allocation so that we can ensure that those funds make it, and we get what we need. Because ultimately, if we don't get this conference center, if we're not building this conference center, we don't raise the TLT

and they get nothing. So, you know, there's a whole team work incentive here to make sure that this project gets off the ground. Okay. I had an interesting question from a listener about a week ago who called in and who claimed to be from the Lions Club. And this was just someone I have not had time to bird dog this, but they were saying, hey, you know, we donated Hawthorne Park and we donated the land for that. Same with Roxanne, you know, up there. And, you know, we didn't donate that land for use for anything other than a park. Has that been looked into or a problem? Yes. So the Lions Club did donate Roxanne, the city purchased the land for Hawthorne Park from, I think it was what is now Pacific Power, the precursor to Pacific Power, is where that land came to the city. So that was

the city purchased that land. I don't remember the exact timing of that. No restrictions on that? But no restrictions were part of that purchase. Okay, all right. So that was that was a misinformation then. Originally, the intent for that land was to be used for an interchange. That was kind of the goal was to have land for an interchange in downtown Medford. Oh, boy, that would have been nice. But, of course, with the viaduct, that became non-viable because you have such height elevation. You could never make it work. And so when the freeway system eventually got pushed through, because of the height of the viaduct, which was ultimately the federal government's doing, that land became useless for us in terms of kind of that possible purchase.

And so Hawthorne Park stayed Hawthorne Park. All right. All right. So there's no legal issue involved with taking that. Correct. Yes. We've looked through that. Attorneys have looked through that. All right. Okay. There are no legal issues with Hawthorne Park. All right. Let's say that, you know, you do your Hail Mary on this election. And let's say you win, okay? So you get a 2% increase in the TLT. Where exactly does that money go? So that money doesn't go anywhere until we actually have a conference center for that money to go to.

So the way that's going to look is that, you know, just because we have somebody who comes into town and says, hey, I think we can build a conference center, that isn't enough for us to go, oh, great, let's collect the money and cut you a check. Okay. We need a conference center. And so the exact timing of that money is, I mean, there's a lot of variables that go into that. But effectively, it's pretty much like, hey, when you give us that certificate of occupancy and we know we have a building, now you get your money. So we're not out a bunch of money in the beginning where suddenly we're left holding the bag if they walk. All right.

So if this is for the conference center, what is the financing looking like then to try to attract the Eugene Emeralds here? Good question. So that is definitely a different question, but it is an important question. The way we fund the stadium, part of the question of how you fund the stadium is what is the stadium going to cost? So right now we're working with the Emeralds, with Major League Baseball, and with our consultants and some local developers to try to make sure we can value engineer and understand what the actual right size cost stadium is for Medford. Depending on what that number comes back at, that's going to set a go-no-go position for the city because there's only so much money that we could possibly raise to put into this. And so where does that money come from? A big source of that funds is urban renewal dollars.

And so we have money from our first generation of urban renewal, as well as we're looking at a new urban renewal district. Because the numbers that are being talked about with a ball stadium, 90 million at least, right? It's going to be lower than that already. We're looking at the low 70s right now. We're hoping to get it into the 60s for the cost of the stadium based on the value engineering we're doing. Okay, well, that's interesting. That does make it a little easier to pencil because when I was talking about, well, yeah, it's true your taxes would not be going up right but what i could see what i'm thinking about

okay 90 million dollar uh financed a project here and then um and then even eugene emerald's proposal before the metford city council was talking about it taking about 20 years before they were really making money and that's a long-term role of the dice yeah you know of the economy here it's that's placing a lot of faith and stuff we know nothing about and i and i guess and then I get concerned about taxpayers being left holding the bag and then, you know, you know, your ball team leaves or something happens or there's a bankruptcy and people don't like baseball anymore. I don't think that would happen.

But no, those are great questions. And so, you know, the thing is, like, we don't just need a contract with the Emeralds. We also need a contract with Major League Baseball because part of the reason why the Emeralds left Eugene is because the stadium wasn't good enough. Well, we need protection if Major League Baseball changes their rules. You know, what if we build this stadium? And Major League Baseball says, ah, actually, we've just changed the requirements.

Yeah, and of course, people who don't care about baseball would then say, that's really nice Major League Baseball. You guys are multi-billionaires, build your own, you know, stadium. So, I mean, I guess why do we have to have any public dollars involved in something like this? Well, the... No, we are talking about dealing with millionaires and or billionaires. Maybe not necessarily Eugene Emeralds, but the far, but the, you know, the source, where this is all going, does.

And so, so part of the... of the reason why public funding is so common in these kind of things is because the strict operation of a stadium is not something that generates a lot of profit. There's not a lot of dollars that are in that. The value of the stadium is usually in the development that surrounds it. And so part of what we're trying to do, and especially with what Creekside Quarter is doing, is we're trying to build up a large development so that there's more private incentive to participate in the stadium. And so we already have commitments from the ownership of the Emeralds to put money into the stadium. There's opportunity through naming rights. There's money

from the state that's probably going to be available. I mean, that hasn't been locked down yet, but there was money that the state was willing to give out of lottery funds for the emeralds when they were trying to build their stadium in Lane County. Those funds, we expect those funds can be available for us. So, you know, you start to put all these pieces together, the amount of money that is specifically a Medford local contribution ends up being pretty small and those funds can be raised in ways that leverage like the people who benefit from the stadium in terms of fees on like concessions or ticket sales fees around you know basically creating like a mini property tax district on the stadium and capitalizing on that private development that's going

in there to help fund that and so there are a lot of tools that we have. that don't actually go out to the public and are not a utility fee. They're not a property tax fee. They're specific to the beneficiaries of that stadium. Now, the words, the city council learned it's lessed after Rogue X. Yes. Okay. All right.

So, just saying, all right. Nick Carton is with me once again. He's a Medford City counselor and, of course, also on the Creekside Quarter Pack. We know that the Eugene Emeralds want the ball stadium downtown, right? Well, I think that perhaps is a, is true, yes. but there's also the reason why they want it, and the reason why the city... And that's what he was wondering about, why. Yeah, and so it's because if you look at what makes a successful stadium,

the old model of doing stadium development that was super common was you'd build the stadium out in your urban growth boundary, you'd surround it with a sea of parking, and then you'd let your city grow up around it. Well, you had to have that sea of parking because there was nothing out there. That sea of parking creates an island that doesn't spawn other kind of economic development. And if you go to the stadium, you don't want to walk across a mile of parking spots to go to, like, a local pub or something that's right on the outskirts. And so what ends up happening is the stadium just sits out there as an island. On the other hand, building things like a stadium, and this is true of stadiums, conference centers, amphitheaters, all of these kind of entertainment venues. You put those downtown where there already is infrastructure.

Now you can immediately tie those with other kinds of local business, local restaurants, local bars, local commercial. commercial and people then gather and that becomes a space where people enjoy. You don't just drive in and drive out, but you come in early for a game so you can go to the local pub and watch what else is going on and then you walk over for a game. And then afterwards, maybe you guys go out for dinner. That kind of an atmosphere brings more people to the stadium. It gets more engagement and it causes fans to who, you know, participate more regularly. And again, this is true of any kind of an entertainment venue. So putting things downtown is how you make them the most successful. In fact, that's what cities all over the country are doing is they're taking their

outskirt stadiums and they're bringing them downtown as part of a tool for economic revitalization and it's working all over the country. Okay. So where would the parking be located? Do we know? Yes. So right now we have a large lot at the end of 6th Street. That would remain the primary parking. In fact, that lot would get expanded as part of this development, likely a deck, so it turned into some kind of a parking structure. Again, some of the exact details are still left to be worked out, so I can't tell you exactly how many parking spots are going to be there. But it's really not a lot. So for the stadium, as an example, based on the projections for size in Medford, you're talking about 800 parking spots, which isn't far off what we have in the 6th Street

spot right now. So that parking would then be tied into the state. through pedestrian infrastructure. So creek side improvements, pedestrian bridges, that sort of a thing that allows you to easily park on 6th Street or, you know, park at the 6th Street garage, which again, that's right off of Riverside, our largest street downtown. So that gives us good transportation infrastructure to get in and out of there. And then you can engage as a pedestrian with the rest of the space. Okay, does this, with this project then, and I know you may laugh when I bring this up there, but remember, we have executive orders that are talking about downtown Medford being the climate-friendly, equitable community deal. It's supposed to be a walkable neighborhood, and the car is not going to be very welcome. Does that not apply to this particular neighborhood or not? Yes, so the climate-friendly rules absolutely do apply.

What the climate-friendly rules, like what they say is as a city, we cannot mandate some amount of parking through our city code. But that doesn't mean we can't mandate parking as part of a contribution that we're making to the project. And so, like, we're not going to be contributing money to a project that doesn't have sufficient parking. Also, the people who are building this are very incentivized. Like, especially with a stadium, if you want a bunch of people to come to the events that are going on in your stadium, you've got to have places for people to park. This is a city, this is a community that's still very car dependent. I mean, we rely on people from all around the valley to drive into Medford. So you've got to make sure that you can accommodate them because if you're like, oh, no, everyone's going to come to the game on a bus.

Well, you're going to have, you know, 15 people at your game. Yeah, well, that's all you're going to get. Pretty much the case, yeah. And now, Fred Herman, of course, the former owner of the Southern Oregon Timberjacks, he was on my show a few weeks. And I was actually kind of surprised that he said he wasn't in favor of the location of this. I think he was concerned about destruction of housing is what he seemed to be bringing up. And could you address that?

What housing is being destructed, if you want to determine that? I'm wondering, could it be the Red Lion or some of these others? What would be swallowed up as part of this redevelopment if it were approved or moving forward? So based on the current proposal, the old Red Lion would go away. Today, that is the Merrick, which serves as housing for, it's some subsidized, low-income housing, including some of the fire survivors who were housed there. Access is who is responsible for paying for and housing the people who are at the Merrick. My understanding is that Access is working to relocate those people to somewhere else. I don't know all the details. Our mayor is on the board of Access, and so he's the one who, who's been involved in this. If access cannot come up with an alternative plan, that's going to prevent the project from moving forward. We're not going to put people back on the streets. That's not, I mean, it's neither legal nor ethical to do that. We don't want to add to our already existing homeless problem. And so that will be an issue. Now, my understanding, though,

is that Access is working on some of these solutions separate to this development. So even if this development doesn't go forward, Access is still trying to relocate people out of that. Okay. Now, I have it on good authority that City of Eugene and Lane County turned down the Emerald's plan because they didn't see that they could make this financially pencil, you know, up there. And yet they, Eugene Emeralds have been there a long, long time. And had a fan base, technically. What makes you and everybody who is supporting this believe that the Medford area, Southern Oregon, which is about half the size of what Eugene had? Eugene has, you know, much, much greater population than we do. What makes it pencil for us when Eugene couldn't make it work? Well, the reason why it didn't pencil for Eugene, they had like a, I think it was like a $90, $95 million proposal to build a stadium. Taxpayers said no.

And they had raised like $70 some million to do it. But they went to the taxpayers as a property tax to fund the rest. And I'll tell you if Measure 15-238 were a property tax measure, I'd vote no on it. I don't want to see my personal property taxes go up to fund some kind of a downtown development. That is not okay to me. But that's why what we're doing down here is we're trying to learn from the lessons and do, again, what I think is the right thing to do, which is let's tax the visitors who are going to benefit from these facilities. Let's tax the people from Portland and California who are coming into our valley instead of taxing residents.

And I think if Eugene had taken that kind of an approach, that might have been different. But also, Eugene has a very high transient lodging tax already. And so they've already sucked a lot of money out of that space. And that's what I was kind of wondering here. How would our 13% transient lodging tax compare with the rest of it? Because really what we're doing is making it more expensive to come and vacation in Southern Oregon. Absolutely. So, like, Grants Pass has a 12% transient lodging tax today.

So we're not that far off of what Grants Passes. Portland is 16 or 18%. And Eugene, there's a separate Lane County and a city of Eugene when you add those together. Eugene is over 15%. So these, you know, for us to be at 13%, that is not that out of the realm in terms of the way this tax looks in other places. And this is also a big reason why, as we've gone down this road, we've been really engaged with our hotel partners. Because the last thing we want to do is make it so expensive that people don't want to come here because our hotels are too much. And then that kills our entire tourism industry.

That's a bad thing for the Valley. And so part of how we're structuring this for 15238 is, while, yes, this increases the maximum that council can charge, counsel's already laid out its intent for how it wants to raise this money and the timing and the purpose for it so that the money is for a facility that's going to increase that tourism and not cause problems for our tourism industry. Nick, earlier this year, there was information that came out that was looking very positive about the conference business. And in the few months that has passed since then, I'm seeing all the experts within the conference business world that are talking about, hey, I don't want this to be right, but the business is cratering. In fact, they're talking about 20% down, you know, right now in our current economic situation. Is there a risk that Medford's getting ready to build a conference center or get a.

conference center put together as part of a major redevelopment plan that is, you know, you know, just in time for, you know, more people to Zoom meeting things and, and AI, you know, affecting things. I'm just kind of curious. Has this been war-gamed through the economic impact reporting? Absolutely. And so one of the things that you look at is this is not the city of Medford building a conference center, right? The still is the overwhelming dollars that are going to go into this conference center are private dollars. And so the private investor is far more at risk than anything that the public is at in terms of dollars. Again, 90% of this entire Creekside quarter is private dollars. And what is our 10% if we approve this paying for them? It's capital cost

for constructing the conference center. Okay. So we are essentially partnering with them. Yes. We don't receive any benefit in terms of there's no cash flow or profit or anything that comes back to the city. This is a... Do we have equity in it? No. This is a... Oh, we don't have equity in it.

So we're just giving them a gift then? Yeah. And again, that's why we're structuring this around the tourism tax piece. Because the point is, we want to make sure that people who come into the valley, which they would be drawn in for this conference center, they are staying in hotels. They're paying for that cost. And so it's not the city giving a gift. It's the city taking advantage of our ability.

to bond against future taxes, which is a very strong and protected bond. We can realize a really low interest rate on that. We can basically, we're helping them do a loan at a low interest rate, and we're getting that money paid back through their success through those taxes. Okay. I think I understand this a little better now. I understand in the economic report how it would be impacting the area, they are bringing up the people who wrote the report.

We're all bringing up how you're going to be drawing from up to five hours away, you know, is what they were looking at, a five-hour drive. And that baseball would increase tourism. And I'm trying to think, how does a minor league team, even for the Giants, draw people? Because, you know, even I have on good authority what the Eugene Emeralds were drawing from. there were their fan base were people who lived in Eugene Springfield mostly well that's part of why we're not talking about funding the stadium through tourism taxes because in my opinion that's not a

good deal that the I don't see a stadium as being a big driver for tourism nor does anyone that's not the the approach of this project the conference center these two are kind of connected well because they're they do work really well in terms of some of the shared facilities like the like parking works really well and I hate this word but synergy there's the synergy there um plus it's it's a shared development that you know conference centers don't attract any locals who goes to a conference locally it's it's a very small percentage of conference which is why i was concerned about how uh you know for years now conference centers have actually not been doing well unless you were in an area like uh Disneyland or a Las Vegas where there is a lot of

other stuff to blow your money on you know outside of the conference and so a stadium works really well with the conference center for a couple reasons. One is the stadium provides some of that fall-off attraction. Plus a stadium is a good attractor of locals. So now what you have is for businesses, the incentive to build around this and to invest their economic development dollars in downtown is, wow, I've got an attractor that's going to bring a bunch of locals in,

and I have an attractor that's going to bring a bunch of visitors in. And so we're going to get some of those outside dollars that are coming into our town, plus our local dollars, that provides a stable customer base to be willing to put up a restaurant or to put in services and, you know, whatever that might be around that space. The hope is that it's an economic rainmaker, in other words. Yeah. Okay. Nick Card with me once again, and we're talking about the Creekside Quarter, the Corkside Quarter Pack. Of course, you know, pushing this. This is Measure 15-238. Metford residents will be voting on this in just a few days.

Bob, you had a question here for Nick. Go right ahead. Good to have you on. Good morning, Bill. Good morning, Nick, Bob Shandin Medford. I keep feeling echoes from Rogex, where the promotion to raise the TLT tax was to let the tourists pay for it. Yet the city went ahead and raised the utility fees, Parks portion of it, also fund Rogue X, which I don't think is running in the black at this time. So can you assert that our utility fees through this whole process, whether or whether it be the stadium, whether it be parking, whether it be anything, that we're not going to see an increase in our utility fees in the future. So I can tell you, Bob, my goal is that we don't ever have that. I can't promise that because if we elect a bunch of city councilors who want to raise the utility fee, that is something council can do themselves. But I'll tell you, I don't think we're going to do that. I can tell you that in my conversations with our current council that we're not interested in doing that. And let me draw a comparison to Rogue X and help understand where there's some similarities and some differences.

With Rogue X, the utility fee, the Parks fee, was always part of the equation. And that was the case from day one. And that's because if you think about Rogue X, Rogue X is both an event center and the Aquatic Center. And the Aquatic Center is that public park space. And so that is why Council used park fees to help build the Aquatic Center. portion of that rogue X. But because the event center was meant as a way to draw in potential events and tourism, which we've seen it be very successful, we used some TLT dollars to help build that piece. But what we were comparing was an event center to draw for tourism and an aquatic

center that was a much needed amenity because we didn't have a pool other than Jackson, which was leaking like a sieve and we had serious problems with that. Contrast that with Creekside Quarter where what we're talking about here is not a bunch of, it's not an aquatics facility or another public parks facility. This is all about the tourism of that conference center. It's not conference center plus some little public park thing or a new pool. It's a conference center. And that's why we're using those TLT dollars for that conference center. Did I answer your question there, Bob? I think it did. I'm wondering, are they going to be saving money to relocate all the play structures and the splash pad and all that fairly recent

infrastructure at Hawthorne Park to shrink it over to the south side. So that's going to cost a little bit of money to do that as well. And that is a park's facility. Yes. So how exactly those are going to happen? I mean, if we're going to be putting in something like a baseball stadium, which is be what would likely impact those facilities, that's something that would happen as part of that construction process in terms of relocation of those facilities. Our goal is to bring those into the south end. That's where we have the most problems, the most problem behavior right now in Hawthorne Park is in the south end. That's really where we need the most help. And so, you know, part of this whole goal in this process is to try to address some of those problems with

Hawtham Park as well. All right, very good. Hey, Bob, thank you for the call, and maybe we'll grab a quick one. We're running out of daylight at this point, but it's been a good conversation. It really has been and trying to get and drill down deeper into this. Hi, good morning, calling. You're on with Nick Card. Go ahead. Good morning, this talk.

While I've been listening to you, gentlemen, talk about this project, I'm watching on my security cameras at the church I attend, which is one block from Hawthorne Park. you know, the usual routine of homeless drug addicts camping on our property. I'm watching the police move them along. The whole idea of bringing activity and clogging the streets down there, it's already very, very busy. It's going to be a nightmare for years. We're already considering moving if this is approved. Can you allay my fears? So in terms of issues around homelessness and other kinds of behaviors, the best cure for that is activity. We've seen this up and down, the Greenway, we've seen this in other communities in our city.

When you can bring people and activity into a place, that is the best sort of cure for, you know, people who are homeless. They want to live that lifestyle. They don't want to hang around a bunch of other people who are going about their day in a normal way. And so part of the incentive and attraction of the Creekside Quarter Project is to bring people into downtown in a way that will hopefully move people along. Just as a specific example, Alba Park used to be a really bad problem for homelessness, in part because of the growth of kid time right across the street, as well as the Genesis apartments right across the street. We've seen a lot fewer issues around homelessness in Alba Park. It's a much cleaner facility, and we just don't have the same problems that we used to. And so just bringing in that kind of activity can go a long way to helping with that.

Now, as far as the other concern about the busyness of the people, if that's going to be, you know, too much traffic or whatever, those are all going to be things that are studied as part of the process. You're not allowed to just build something that's going to dump a lot of cars on the road without mitigating and accounting for that process. So that's going to be something that will happen as part of the development that goes in. Yeah. Okay, thank you very much with the call there, Todd. I couldn't help but think about that. Isn't one of the streets around that area also subject to the road dieting that had been brought in? Yeah, Main Street.

So actually, we'll talk about Main Street for just a second here. I don't want to get too derailed off a Creekside quarter. I know. But we have been talking a lot about Main Street. And so at the end of this year, we are going to be beginning a town hall process to get public feedback on Main Street. We've heard loud and clear that there are community concerns with the way. Main Street was done and our goal is to try to fix it. But again, before we rush into fixing it and screwed up again, it's time to have a conversation as a community about that. So that's coming

up down the road. Okay. And maybe, and this is just a friendly suggestion. Maybe, maybe we don't let the undue influence of the Spandex Mafia. Some of who happened to be Metford City planners, in my opinion, from what I've heard, hold a little sway over what we do with some of these main arterials, okay? But that's just me and you, okay? Now then, I appreciate the call and stopping by, rather, here, Nick. Yeah, absolutely. And we appreciate this, and we'll find out.

We got a couple of weeks or so to go until we end up seeing what happens with this. And there are a lot of moving parts, but I appreciate you being a good sport and coming in and talking about this at the time. Absolutely. I want to make sure that, you know, I really believe that everyone would be in favor of this if I was able to help make sure. you understand the full thing. This is a big project. There's a lot of moving pieces. There's a lot of things that we don't have specific answers. And so that sounds really sketchy. It's like, are they

actually doing or what's going on? But really, if you understand the details of the process, you can understand the safeguards and the rails that we've put that are, we're going to make sure that Medford is taken care of in this process. This is going to be a good thing for the city. If you have questions about Creekside Quarter, I encourage you to reach out to us. We have an email address, info at creaksidequarter.com and I hope through the process, I hope you've learned something. Watch our town hall video and I hope

we can get you to vote yes on 15238. All right. Thank you very much. Nick. Nick Card. It is 854. We're just running out of time. This is the Bill Meyer show. This hour of the Bill Myers show is sponsored by Fontana Roofing. For roofing gutters and sheet metal services, visit Fontana Roofing Services.com.

One of each K4 of N202-982 MSRP 24-185. It's 857. Randy, you're here. We've got a few seconds left here. You wanted to make a point about something Nick was talking about a few minutes ago. Go ahead. I do, thank you. So I heard his comment about where the homeless might go.

But, you know, one, it is being placed right in the, where all the homeless are centralized. So one, I'm not sure that they would move. I mean, they did not move out of downtown Portland or they didn't move out of the Bay Area down in San Francisco. They're, like, still there. so where where would they go they're going to want to stay close because that's where all their so-called services are located so are they just going to move out around the perimeter if they do move which i'm not sure that they would move so anyway that's just yeah that i have yeah in other words we're we're squeezing the tube of toothpaste of homeless right in downtown in medford

with putting this development in and i think nick is right when he talks about it being a something which ends up, how do I put it this way, it is not as homelessness friendly, you know, when you have a lot of activity going around, it usually trying to stay in the shadows. I guess there would be new shadows being formed. Is that sort of where you're getting at, Randy? And where would these be, right? Look at the Wharf area in San Francisco or downtown Portland.

That's a busy industrial commercial area, and they're just still there. Yeah. I appreciate the call, and thanks for making that, Randy. Okay. It's 859 at KMED. We'll have more time for a lot of talk on this tomorrow, but Mark Lee Van Camp and Robbins coming up. I'm turning into a pumpkin. I hate to say this, but we will address this certainly on Monday morning show. And I'm also going to replay this talk with Nick as part of the Best of Bill Meyer on Saturday and Sunday so you can re-listen to it. I'll re-listen to it on the podcast, too, for that matter. Okay. All right. be coming up. This is KMED and KMED HD1, Eagle Point, Metford, KBXG grants pass. By the way, if you are in Medicare, the annual enrollment on right now, it is ending December 7th, and it can be really complex. Medicare Advantage and prescription drug plans are changing every year. Review your plan right now for the benefit changes, okay? It's very important for you to review your plan for price and benefit changes, and it doesn't cost you anymore to have an agent. suggest one of the best agents around here would be Lynn Barton at Skypark Insurance.

Her number 499-9558, 541-49-0-9-5-8. You can also find her at Skypark INS.com and help her and you make Medicare easy for you at Skypark INS.com. One of each K-4-VIN 20292 MSRP 24-185, Telluride, VIN, 6725-8 MSRP, 43-680, 359-959-99. Do it signing 10K miles per year. Zero security deposit, all incentives and discounts to dealer, plus tax, title, license, 150 registration processing fee ends 1031.25.

It's the full trade-off and Kia Medford.