All right.

It is six o'clock.

And as fun as this banter is, I'm going to call tonight's meeting to order.

Will the city recorder please call the roll?

Councillor Duggar.

I'm here.

Councillor Hartmeyer Prigg.

Here.

Councillor Hassan.

Here.

Counselor Kimmy.

Here.

Counselor Teeter.

Here.

Counselor Tivdon.

Here.

Mayor Beatty.

Here.

All right, colleagues.

Welcome to our first meeting after our recess.

I hope you made good use of your time, taking time off, or more importantly, reaching out to each other and having uh conversations.

Also Beaverton's first day of school.

So I know Counselor Hussen, Tivnot, and I are elbow deep with kids back in school in the process.

So it's hectic in my house.

I'm sure it's hectic in everyone else's house too.

Tonight's agenda is rather robust.

We do have a public hearing on a site development permit fee waiver, which is the first that I can remember this happening.

So we'll we'll take our time on that.

We have a presentation for the proposed levy for the countywide library services and the public auction levy.

We also have a work session for parks and open space.

So we will start tonight with visitor comment.

I see that Debbie's hand up.

Is that for me?

Or is she just okay?

Doesn't know.

Perfect.

We're gonna start tonight with public comment.

And I did get a list of a couple people.

Let me pull that up.

Let's see if we have people here.

Our first uh person that registered is Julie Martell.

Is she here?

Raise your hand if it doesn't look like she's in the on the waiting list, but it could be there are a couple people that have different names.

I don't know if it's easier for her to just raise her hand and maybe identify herself.

Doesn't look like it about Callen Miller.

Okay.

Uh looks like we have a person raising their hand.

You will have three minutes to address the council once you've been given rights to speak.

All right, it looks like you have talking permission, so go ahead.

Okay.

Um my name's Kayleen Miller, and I live on Southwest Laurelwood Avenue, right between uh Shoals Ferry and Beaver and Hillsdale Highway.

And when we moved, I had one son and was told this was back in January of 2021, was told that we were gonna get a sidewalk within six months of moving, which I got really excited about.

Um because with a small kid and a jogging stroller, it was always pretty chaotic to try to go on a jog with my child and feel safe while driving on that road.

Um it was told that it was finally happening, I think two years ago, and then it got put on hold because of funding.

And um I mean, first I'm I'm here today because I'm a little frustrated at the lack of communication.

There's been no updates on the website that says when they're gonna get started.

Um I don't even know how my neighbor found out that it wasn't happening the summer, two summers ago.

Um, but I personally have emailed um the city four times asking when it's gonna happen, if it's still gonna happen.

Um now I have two children and one rides a bike, and I am very eager for a sidewalk to be put on on that stretch.

Um and I'm also kind of shocked that it hasn't happened yet because there are three big schools in less than a three-quarters of a mile from that section.

Um, it's a busy neighborhood with a ton of active walkers and um kids and cyclists.

There's a school bus stop right on that road on Laurelwood and Homewood Avenue.

Um, the Jesuit cross-country team will often run by there.

Um, and there's only gonna be more pedestrian volume once the new Raleigh Hills Elementary School opens up and it's a massive school.

So I'm assuming there's gonna be a lot more kids than what there was two years ago when they had students there.

Um because I live on this stretch of road, I am very aware of how many cars go by.

I work from home and a lot of them are speeding through it.

They are not going 30 miles an hour, especially at dawn and desk.

I've seen cars that are probably going at least 40.

There's no speed bumps to regulate how fast cars are going on there.

And it's just really dangerous.

My neighbor also told me, because he's lived here for a few decades that there's been two pedestrian on par deaths.

So it seems at this point pretty negligent that there hasn't already been a sidewalk.

And so I am hoping that the sidewalk gets built very soon and that we get information about it.

Thank you.

Well, thanks for reaching out.

I will have PublicWorks reach out to you.

We talk about Laurel Hearst sidewalk all the time.

I've been trying to secure the funding to complete that project from our federal government.

The state government has also suspended safe routes to school and the funding piece of that.

I testified on it yesterday in Salem.

So we definitely have updates.

And so I'll have Public Works.

I know that you registered, so we have your contact information.

I'm pretty easy to find as well.

So if you send me an email, I will track making sure staff get out to you and we'll make an effort to get out to the neighborhood so people know what is happening with that sidewalk project.

Thank you.

All right.

And our last registered speaker is Doug, and I saw him in the Doug, you have permission to speak.

Go ahead and address the council for three minutes.

Thank you.

Good evening, Council.

My name is Doug Renault.

That's one of my dogs in the background.

I'm a trumpet player with the Oregon Symphony.

Mayor Beatty, you may remember seeing me play bugle calls at several of the Beaverton Memorial Day and Veterans Day events over the years with less and less hair each year.

Since moving to Oregon 10 years ago, I've been a resident of Central Beaverton.

I have two awesome kids who attend BSD schools, and my wife is a teacher who works in the district.

One of the things that drew us to Beaverton was the diversity here.

The many restaurants and local businesses owned and run by immigrants in Beaverton are absolutely essential to making this such a wonderful place to live.

With that in mind, I would like to know what the city council and other elected officials are doing to mitigate the myriad harms presented by the current federal administration.

We have a board of county commissioners trying to rescind DEI resolutions threatening loss of funding.

We have ICE agents kidnapping people off the streets, and that's all on top of the normal baseline level of racism and systemic oppression heaped on our immigrant neighbors.

I recognize that city and regional leaders here may be just as much in the dark as the rest of us when it comes to predicting things like ice kidnappings or other forms of federal overreach.

That's it.

I would like to know what concrete steps are being taken to protect and uphold the people of our fair city.

Are we keeping guard at courthouses?

So people attempting to immigrate, quote unquote, the right way, have the opportunity to safely do so.

Are we engaging community and institutions to protect students in our schools?

Are we promoting city support and programs to those most impacted by everything that's happening today?

Are we holding the Beaverton Police Department accountable for standing up for our sanctuary laws?

Again, I understand you may not have the answers to these questions, but I feel it is my responsibility as a citizen to ask them of you.

I hope that you are all doing everything you can to help those who need it.

Thank you.

Thanks for taking time tonight to talk to us, Doug, and I'll have staff work on a response.

Some of those things we have and can address in the city, and some of the things we cannot.

So I will have staff work on a response and get back to you.

Thanks for reaching out to us tonight.

Okay.

Uh city manager update.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh, we've got a couple of slides here for you.

We'll wait for the recorder's office to get those up.

All right, if we move to the next slide, uh, we have the Beaverton Community Survey, which you may know is now live, and we need to hear the community's voice.

Uh, all community members are invited to participate through Monday, September 15th.

Uh, we encourage folks to visit Beaverton, Oregon.gov backslash survey.

And this is your chance to share your thoughts and help shape the future of our community.

Uh, whether it's safety or housing or transportation or overall livability, we really want to hear from you.

So please check that out.

Our next slide is also survey related.

Uh, the city, as you know, is updating its transportation system plan.

It's a roadmap that guides uh how we improve our sidewalks and our bike lanes and streets and more.

Uh, we had the TSP project, which is what we call the transportation system plan, kicked off last fall in 2024.

We had two community workshops, and most recent recently in February of this year, the council shared their input with respect to visions and goals and priorities moving forward.

So now you have a chance to share your ideas about how we can make our system safer, more comfortable and accessible for everyone.

So again, we want you to go check out Beaverton, Oregon.gov, go beaverton and take this survey on the transportation system plan.

And our next slide is an exciting one.

We are thrilled to introduce the city's new street mural program.

This turns one of our city's biggest public assets, which is our streets into a canvas for creativity.

So here's how it works.

Community members can apply to create street murals at intersections or along neighborhood streets that meet the program's guidelines.

And since it is a community-led effort, participation will be around the collaboration of neighbors to design the mural, gathering together all the materials like paint, ensuring safety with temporary traffic measures, and then um doing the installation of the artwork together.

And while the city will review and approve the applications, it's important to note that there's no additional funding provided because this is a grassroots effort fueled by community passion.

And I do want to give a shout out to our public works department, particularly our transportation engineers for getting this uh program off the ground.

We're really excited.

So more information, of course, Beerton Oregon.gov factslash transportation engineering.

And then the next slide, of course, is our celebration for our parade.

You want to join us on uh Saturday, September 6th at 10 a.m.

We have lots of activities um planned, and the theme this year is Wild Wonders, which highlights uh amazing animals and plant life that make our world unique.

Um, more events, uh more information on events at our website that's listed there on the slide.

And then wrapping up with our last slide, we want to invite the community to come to our council learning session.

This is on Tuesday, September 9th.

And at this session, we're going to take a closer look at the progress that we're making on the city's fiscal sustainability plan about what's next and including a look ahead on options to address our uh projected multi-year budget shortfalls that are um affecting our general fund in particular.

Uh community members are welcome to listen in.

Uh, thank you for your time.

That concludes my report.

Thank you.

And the September 9th meeting is 6 p.m.

That's correct.

Right.

Uh all right, council president, consent, please.

All right, I move to approve the consent agenda.

Second, second.

I'm gonna give that one to Councilor Hassan.

It was moved by Council President and seconded by Councillor Hussen.

Any discussion on tonight's consent.

Councilor Teter.

Yeah, thank you.

I just want to give a quick thank you to the community and to our staff who work through the Traffic Commission decisions around our cohesion and Nimbus area.

I would appreciate the flexibility and the patience as we work through that.

Yeah, and I think to City Manager and I had a conversation today that, and we did get a letter from the school, but uh making sure that our staff follow up.

Um that way the school is having robust communication with the parents around what's going on.

Sometimes we work on these things in isolation, and the school uh staff is happy and it's not getting down to the parents.

So I think this is a joint responsibility and making sure that our community members understand the changes that we've made here.

All right.

See no other comments.

Will the city reporter please call the role?

Councilor Duggar.

Yes.

Councillor Hartmaker Prigg.

Yes.

Councillor Hassan.

Yes, Councillor Kimmy.

Yes.

Counselor Teeter.

Yes.

Councillor Tivnon.

Yes.

Mayor Beatty.

You say Mayor Bailey, yes.

Uh seven, yes, zero, no.

All right.

We do um our first presentation of the evening, agenda bill 25136, the proposed levy for the countywide library services and measure 34346, the local option levy.

What do we have here tonight?

Oh, good evening, uh, Mayor Beatty and Council.

Um, I apologize, my camera is not working, but um this is Marnie Kyle.

I'm one of the assistant county administrators.

Um, and yeah, I I wish I knew how to make my camera work right now.

But anyway, I wanted to let you know that we're here today to talk to your council and about the local library option levy.

And also want to let you know that uh Commissioner Pam Treese and Commissioner Jerry Willie are on the call along with Lisa and I.

And I believe they have until about 625, and then they have to join the county commissioner meeting.

So I will right away pump this to Lisa Tattersall and she'll go through the presentation.

And then I will be available with Lisa to answer your questions after the presentation.

Lisa, could we just give a moment of professional courtesy to the two electeds, Commissioner Willie and Commissioner Trees and see if they have any opening comments since they'll be jetting before the end of the presentation?

Thank you, Mayor Beatty.

Thank you, Mayor Beatty.

I know uh Commissioner Willie's right.

He just joined uh with this camera as well.

Thank you for taking the time, uh Mayor and Counselors to listen to this proposal.

I know I know there have been uh a lot, there's a lot of discussion with the city of Beaverton and the how we are constructing our uh WCCLS uh collection or excuse me, our contribution system.

And uh I want you to know that we recognize that and we're trying to work forward on a strong path.

Tonight is about the library levy, and we're looking for your support.

Um we appreciate the time, and we want to make sure that you understand that we are here for the entire county.

We're proposing this levy, and it will be approximately 45% of the overall budget of WCCLS.

Commissioner Willie.

Good evening, thank you.

Uh, thank you, Mayor, for giving us a couple of minutes because we do have to run to our own meeting.

But um, as you know, and as the conversations that you and I and Pam have had, uh Mayor, uh, they've been very good conversations.

You bring a lot of good questions and um and food for thought for future conversations once we get through this.

So uh I have a list of the questions that that we anticipated being uh asked tonight.

So I think you'll probably address those.

Lisa and Melani are certainly able and competent enough to answer those, but um, I really appreciated um the conversations we've had.

Uh I look forward to continue those.

And um I think my comment to you a month or two ago was um we need to make sure that whatever actions we take, we do no harm.

And we want to make sure that our libraries continue to flourish and continue community gathering places and all the wonderful things that we enjoy and certainly appreciate.

So um thank you for this opportunity to have this a couple of comments.

We look forward to future uh conversations.

So thank you, Mayor.

One right, Commissioners.

Go ahead, Commissioner Chase.

One quick note.

Um, our chair is not at the meeting tonight.

I'm vice chair, so I definitely need to leave at 625.

Commissioner Willie may be able to stay for an extra few minutes.

Thank you.

Oh man, I like how you just offered him up uh at sacrifice to the Beaverson City Council.

So I appreciate that.

Uh all right, Lisa, the floor is yours.

Thanks, everybody.

Um, I believe there's a slide deck, so I'm just waiting for that to pop up.

And um I will get started by sharing that.

My name is Lisa Tattersell.

I'm with Washington County Cooperative Library Services.

Here today to share educational information about a proposed library local option levy, measure 34345.

As a public employee, I am subject to political restrictions under Oregon Law, and so I'll be sharing neutral and non-advocacy information only.

Um next slide, please.

In this presentation, I'll be covering how public library service is delivered in Washington County and the current funding model.

I will also talk about what the proposed levy would fund, how much it would cost, and what would happen if the levy did not pass.

Next slide.

Here in Washington County, public library services provided through a partnership between Washington County Cooperative Library Services, also known as WCCLS, and nine cities and three nonprofit associations that all operate local libraries.

WCCLS is the primary source of funding for local libraries, and we also provide central support services that efficiently link these independently operated libraries together, creating a countywide system that is available to an estimated 600,000 residents.

Next slide.

There are 16 full service library locations in the county from banks in the northwest corner to Sherwood in the south.

In addition, our digital library is available 24 7 at WCCLS.org.

Next slide.

In fiscal year 2425, the local option levy represents 45% of WCCLS revenue, and the remaining 55% is a transfer from the county's general fund.

The majority of WCCLS total funding is directed towards library funding allocations at 67%.

The remaining 33% of WCCLS expenses is for the central services that link libraries together.

Next slide.

The levy would fund programs, resources, and materials that are designed to support student success with reading and learning.

Some of the events and resources available to kids and teens include book clubs, Oregon Battle of the Books events, makerspaces, and STEAM programs.

Libraries also offer resources for parents and caregivers, kindergarten readiness, test prep tools, and free access to fast and reliable internet.

Over 10,000 students participated in library programs designed to support reading, learning, and student success last year.

WCCLS has issued over 83,000 library cards to public school students since 2019.

Next slide.

The levy would also fund the central services that efficiently link libraries together.

Library users can use the shared online catalog to access over 1.5 million library items, reserving them for pickup at any of the 16 locations across the county.

Our courier trucks deliver 2.5 million books and other items to libraries in fiscal 23 fiscal year 2324.

In addition, WCCLS provides online learning tools such as job hunting resources, downloadable ebooks and audiobooks, digital newspapers and magazines in many languages, as well as streaming video, all available 24-7 to library users.

Next slide.

The levy would fund open hours at 16 full service public library locations across the county.

Most libraries, this most libraries in the system are open six days a week.

Last year there were over 2.4 million visits to WCCLS libraries, and total checkouts exceeded 7.2 million.

By borrowing items rather than purchasing them, library users saved 140 million dollars last year.

In addition to providing books and other materials, library buildings serve as cooling spaces for the community.

They offer public computers and Wi-Fi, and some offer study rooms and meeting rooms.

Next slide.

Some of which are included in multiple languages, including Spanish and Chinese.

All WCCLS libraries offer regular events and programs for kids as well as an annual summer reading program.

Libraries also offer interactive play areas that promote learning and social interaction.

In fiscal year 2324, WCCLS libraries hosted over 200,000 participants at 6,000 in-person events for kids and teens.

Next slide.

The annual increase in costs for the typical homeowner over the current levy would be just over $54 per year or $4.55 per month more than the current levy.

Next slide.

These reductions would include reduced open hours, fewer book purchases, fewer reading events, and a reduced level of services that link libraries together.

Some examples of the services that would be reduced would include fewer ebooks, a less robust online catalog, less frequent deliveries between libraries, and disrupted access to technology.

Next slide.

Great.

Thank you, Lisa.

So I know that you have some questions about both the levy and the funding and governance process.

So I just wanted to share that in our last levy cycle, so five years ago, our city and nonprofit partners all raised justifiable concerns about how the library funding allocation was handled.

And the county agreed that we needed to evaluate the system.

So addressing those legacy systems and working to revamp them, and it really takes courage and a willingness to have hard conversations, and sometimes we've had to lean into conflict.

So we wanted to start out by saying thank you to Beaverton and in particular to Elizabeth, who has stepped into this role for having those hard conversations with us.

We're proud of the work that we're working through together and really think that we are moving towards addressing some longstanding issues that have been identified by our partners.

Also wanted to let you know that your input has mattered after hearing initial concerns about the funding methodology from Beaverton and others.

We listened to those partners and we proposed modifications that we believe helped most partners to feel more comfortable moving forward with the funding allocation.

We also know that there is no perfect solution.

This is a complicated situation, but I believe that we're making progress and on this journey with our partners.

So with that, um I would like to Lisa and I are available for your questions at this point.

Right.

Well, thank you for your presentation.

I'll have a couple opening uh comments and then I'll let my council chime in.

Um I do appreciate the movement we've made in the last couple weeks, months that we've been talking about this.

And I keep coming back to the I think we're so off course because there's no elected oversight of this program.

And when I think about every other relationship that local government have with the county, there's this other level of check-in.

And I, you know, I know that's something we're not going to solve ahead of the levy, but revamping and having an understanding where where elected officials are brought into the conversation because a lot of the work that was done was um, you know, nonprofit library leaders are not appointed and they're not elected, and they have the same voice as our appointed and elected voices that are happening.

So I definitely think this is something that needs to be addressed moving forward because we're dealing with taxpayers that approve these levies, and taxpayers elect elected officials to be their voice in the building.

And it was a crucial piece, in my opinion, that is missing.

And Marnie, I wanted to ask you is there any other levy you can think about that directly funds nonprofit without oversight like this?

So um, Mayor Beatty, um, I appreciate your comments, and um, you're right, the current governance model um includes representatives that are city managers or their designee and um board members from the nonprofits.

Um in this summer, as you know, we've been really focusing on the funding allocation, um, but we did receive your letter and your suggestion to consider using um to consider engaging elected officials in the governance process.

And so we will be bringing that forward um for discussion with the with the um committee and um and then eventually with our board of county commissioners.

So we did hear your suggestion and we'll be um having that conversation.

Um I um know I would have to get back to you about whether or not there's other um levies um that fund nonprofits.

I know through our public safety levy that um there are some nonprofits that are funded downstream using those those, but um the the experts on the public safety levy are on this call and joining you next.

But um I do know that there's some nonprofits that are funded through the public safety levy.

I I just think this is a dangerous precedent that a voter approved levy is going to directly fund nonprofits without oversight.

Um the other piece that doesn't hasn't seemed to be addressed, that's not just the this mayor's opinion, it is the opinion of many mayors, but there is no um baseline contribution required from our partner libraries.

Is that something that's going to be addressed ahead of this council taking a vote on whether we support this levy?

So um, Mayor Beatty, a couple things in response to your um uh comments.

One is the Board of Commissioners is ultimately responsible and provides oversight of the funding.

So we do we do report to the board on a regular basis.

And you are right.

And if you're listening to this conversation and perhaps wondering what I'm talking about, I will tell you that every city contributes nearly 50% of the operations to their library.

The exception is the nonprofit libraries that contribute virtually nothing.

And as of this year, the county commission is no longer contributing to the general fund, which they used to.

And so there's a severe inequity here between what cities are contributing and what is not included in the resource allocation is our building.

Our voters paid for 20 years in a bond, not dissimilar to other cities.

And so while I do think we continue to use the word that we're the major that they're the majority of funding, I I simply think that's untrue.

Cities are the majority funders in this library system, and cities are the ones that are paying the price with this increase.

So I'll move on to the rest of the council so we can make their thoughts.

Mayor Beatty, may I respond?

Um I I do want to say that although there were general fund reductions over the past several years, um 55% of the revenue for libraries that was distributed to library partners came from county general fund.

So county general fund is still contributing significantly.

Um and although the nonprofit libraries may not be may not be contributing the dollar amounts that some of the cities, such as Beaverton, that's near five million dollars.

Um the for example, Cedar Mills community library raised 7% toward their operating expenses, and ALOA library association raised 15%.

So I'm not I'm not trying to compare that with the city contributions, but I just wanted to say that they are contributing to their operating costs and general fund continues to be a significant um contribution for um our library partners.

What what is the county's contribution to WCCLS?

I don't see it in the graph.

To the general fund or to the partner.

Is it the county contributing to WCCLS?

Yeah, if you pull up the slide deck, it's on the pie chart that's on one of the slides.

Thank you.

To the slide deck person, I appreciate it.

Uh that's the public safety one.

There's a different slide deck for libraries.

We can we can get back to that.

I'll I'll let Councillor Hartmeyer go.

Sure.

Thank you.

Um thank you for being with us this evening.

Um, I was kind of curious, how did you or how is it determined like the share of the funding that each library gets?

What are the factors that are considered in determining the share that each library receives?

So the um factors that went into the the methodology for funding the partner libraries, um, the first factor was um the population within a city's um boundaries.

So the entire city population um was included in the calculation, and then there were some areas that were outside of a city where we used um a factor of a 10-minute drive or less to assign that population to a city.

So there was a population within ALOA that um was assigned to Beaverton.

Um so that's that's sort of the how we describe the population.

And then the other factor was a factor we looked at the average um cost of FTE in within cities.

And so that's how we came up with the cost per FTE.

So based on the population, there's a formula for if you have a population, and Lisa may know this off the top of her head, but uh if their population is X, you get a minimum of four FTE, and then there's a cost per FTE that's applied to that.

Um so that's that's the basics of the formula.

It's also thanks, Marnie.

It's also scaled so that um by population size, the larger the population size um the more staff because we recognize the complexity of serving.

So it's not a one-to-one population count to staffing, it's a tiered model as the population size grows because there is a complexity of service for a larger population.

Okay, thank you.

And did you do this was is foot traffic or you know, patrons served part of the calculation, or is it purely population-based?

Because I just know that we were one of the higher circulation volume libraries, right?

So whether or not um you live within a 10-minute drive maybe may not actually weigh in, right?

Because of the services and the amenities, I guess, that we offer at our Beaver or at our Beaverton main branch library, especially.

Uh so I'm kind of curious, you know, how does maybe patrons serve factor into that.

Thank you for that question.

So we we did look quite a bit, the old the old funding formula was ribb really driven by foot traffic in the library, and um part of the feedback that we have been receiving over the last five years is that that was really driven by investments, and so where the investments made, the foot traffic increased.

And so we were trying to get to a formula that um provided a little bit more funding equity across the different partner um the part the different partners.

So it's it's not a perfect formula, but it really is looking at population and trying to bring libraries that have been serving large populations up to equity and pay so that they can offer um services that some of the libraries that have been funded adequately or better, I wouldn't say adequate is probably not the best choice of words, but for libraries that received more funding, they were able to do provide more services, and so they're getting more foot traffic, and so we're trying to provide those opportunities for some of the other libraries to build up to that.

Lisa, I don't know if you want to add anything to just that I think that um you know, our the goal was to look at um adjusting for historic um inequities, and so I think the uh it's really interesting to think about how libraries measure usage and how we measure what's valuable to our community and how those um measures can be really different depending on the community and their resource levels, their um you know uh their poverty levels, their literacy levels, and so using a formula in the past where we primarily looked at circulation, which is book checkouts, um, what that really did was um create a situation where the communities that were more affluent, more literate and had more free time and transportation to get to the library tended to circulate more books, and so that drove a higher level of county investment in those communities and in those libraries, and so communities like Cornelius, for example, where um the book checkout stats were just lower, and perhaps what people were making use of in the space was free internet access, um, playtime for kids, cool place to be, all of that kind of thing that it was not reflected in our historical methodology, and so what you would find is that a community like Cornelius was being underinvested in because of how their community chose to use the library, and so um that's something that we wanted to address in this new model.

Um, I think every model has its limitations, and we look forward to continuing the conversation about how we keep moving forward, but um, I did want to sort of highlight that historical um disparity um of investment depending on on historical use patterns and and why we need to be really thoughtful about about the data that we use.

And so how are you going to tell people their library is now shifted?

Like you're assigned to a lower, not B per 10.

How is that going to happen?

That's a great question.

I think that's something the library directors can work through on an operational level when we get the funding formula sorted out, and once we get through governance conversations.

And I I would add that we're not necessarily assigning individuals to a library.

Individuals can still choose to go to any any library.

So they're not going to be getting information that says you can now only go to X library.

So I do think it's important to continue to talk about counselor Kimmy.

Okay.

So about the library, which I thoroughly use during my school years.

The current levy that we're trying to pursue is to maintain the current service level.

Yes.

So the levy messaging, we have been pretty much crystal clear that we're not promising to voters that service levels would increase.

And so we're not we're not referencing local service levels within our county material.

The language in the ballot ballot measure says replacement of the levy would help maintain and provide.

So we're not saying increase, and we we carefully chose would help maintain because we know we can't make promises because each local library has to make their own operational and budgetary decisions.

So I don't know if that answers your question.

So when I go to voters, you could possibly say we need to vote this because we might lose half the funding, but then we might see the decrease of services for our P Return residents.

If they ask me that question.

Well, I you know, we are also happy to um work with and brainstorm with Beaverton staff about how you would like to frame your funding constraints with potential service impacts.

Okay.

Um follow up, uh, how much is the levy personnel cost staffing?

The levy staffing, are you asking the staffing that's at the central WCCLS?

No, the entire um library funding formula.

How much is the total budget?

How much is that for staffing?

Oh what percentage would you say majority?

The Lisa, you want me to take that on?

Yeah.

Um each each library has a different service model and different um because each library is operated independently, they all have their own classification and company compensation structures, they all have their own service models and different size buildings that they're supporting and different local service priorities.

So we actually don't have a concrete number of saying the levy will support X number of staff across the whole system.

Um I will say that for libraries in general, um, personnel does represent the bulk of their expenses.

Um just it usually is, and I don't want to say a percentage because I'll probably get it wrong, but it's it's it's quite a lot.

Um, I would I would guess that um I'm sure whatever your city is, it's probably something like 70, 80 percent, something like that at least, it would be personnel for the library.

If you look at, but I don't want to make claims about your city budget, but so I would say that a large amount of the funding that is going for the levy um will be towards staff resources just because they are the most um they're the service providers, the service deliverers, and the most expensive, usually expense for a library.

Yeah, thank you for that.

Uh just one last one.

Um we know that personal costs will keep going up.

Uh so then if if our current levy that we're looking for only serves the current current level of service, you know, cost will keep going up.

Um that we can decrease the size of the personal cost.

It's a great question, and it's something that um I think is a really important thing for us to consider.

Um, part of uh this isn't directly tied to the levy either, but one of the things that we will be doing as a system is centralizing how we do collection management.

And so um by having the county provide all of the physical collections to libraries that will reduce the amount of local staff needed to provide that service.

Now it's up to each and every jurisdiction to decide how they want to handle that, and so they can choose to allocate those positions however they like.

Um, but we will be um taking on that workload centrally, which is more efficient and we'll free up personnel resources locally for for local decision making.

Um so that is one um efficiency that we'll be looking at for this system, and then I totally agree in terms of looking at continuing investments on um how we can streamline materials movement um book sorting, delivery, um, and all of that is gonna continue to help over time.

Self-checkouts is another one.

Um so that's something we'll be definitely looking at.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Councillor Teter.

Thank you, and thank you, Lisa and Marnie, for walking us through some of this.

Uh I've got a few questions.

Uh, one is does the funding formula reflect the additional services beyond circulation that are offered in libraries?

And our libraries they act as cooling shelters, they act as um housing support locations.

We've got the bookmobile, or any of those services including the funding uh formula.

So um the the funding formula um in order to have a base that the county is funding, um the funding formula includes the um geographic service area, the FTE that serve that, and so that that's been called um basic operating hours, and so it's funding 45 um operating hours and the FTE to provide that for each library.

Okay, so thank you.

So the the model does not include um those the other things that you mentioned, cooling centers and community um centers, and those are some of the um services that some of our um historically underfunded libraries um are really interested in exploring.

And I can just add a little bit onto that.

Um thanks, Marnie, that um the concept of the base service level model, which is is what we're talking about, um, is that the county funding would provide those um funding to keep libraries open and then during that time when they are open, there's a lot of stuff that they can choose to do.

And so we that operational um independence is really important and it's a core value of our partners when we came into this process.

So it was really important that libraries could choose how they um chose to provide service during those open hours, um, and that um if they wanted to fund additional local priorities, they were able to.

So um also with the um centralized collections again, freeing up additional staff resources, it does free up um local capacity um to either um manage costs or to um explore other service opportunities.

Okay.

Thank you for that clarification.

Um if there is a way, it would be really great if the bookmobile and services like that could be included in the formula because those library services serve people and geographic boundaries that might not be captured in the current geographic distribution that that you all have because we go out to parks into low-income neighborhoods and we serve people who wouldn't be able to access our libraries.

And this is a really important service that we've set up just over the past few years, and it would be a real it would be a real shame to have to cut a program like that.

And that is a very real possibility that we're facing.

So I think that's part of the reason why we've got so much concern and frustration here as a council that we've heard so far, and that uh I would continue to have going forward.

Um, the question is our staff have asked for the county to guarantee an escalator of 4.25% in the funding allocation each year.

Um, can you all talk a little bit about that?

Um the escalation is really important and valuable.

Um I think we've only been increasing one percent each year, which is nowhere near keeping up with the the cost to actually do the work.

So if you all can touch on that, that would be great.

Yeah, and I'm just gonna take this moment, Marnie.

I'm not cutting you off, but um I know that um the person managing the slides has that um slide ready for us on the general fund um amount from the county.

And so since we're talking about money, I thought this would be a good opportunity if we could just pull that up, and then Marnie, I'll let you talk.

Sorry.

No, you're no thanks.

That's helpful, Lisa.

So um the 4.25% escalator was um based on um the county um central finance.

That is the um conservative estimate that they use um for annual increase in property tax.

Um, and so that was what was used in the model to see with different inputs using 4.25%.

What amount would we be able to fund the levy out, the levy and the general fund out over the five years and still be within our total dollar amount?

So it's just it's just um the 4.25% is a it's a model estimator.

It is our goal to provide um an annual escalation of 4.25%, but that depends on whether our funding assumptions are met.

So it depends on are we actually collecting um the estimated amount from the levy and um the the general fund um uh uh collection and um that um it also includes you know the the board has discretion and how they can distribute the general funds.

So that is our goal, but um we've been asked can we guarantee a 4.25 percent escalation?

And we just simply cannot do that because we can't predict the economy in the future, and we can't predict the funding that would be available.

So what I can say is that's a goal um to do that, but we cannot guarantee that.

Okay, thank you.

I've got one final comment that I'll just finish off my thoughts with.

Um I appreciate the the redistribute redistribution and the supporting of some of the more rural and smaller libraries that you are are aiming to do that the county's trying to do.

Um I do think that there is a basic reality that I really want to stay grounded in, and that's that like supporting base operations uh makes total sense.

Live or the libraries in Beaverton, Hillsborough, Tiger, these are flagship libraries that support the full system much more than uh some of the smaller neighborhood libraries.

And I think the funding increases and the allocation needs to reflect that we need to invest in these core libraries in the hearts of our cities so that the rest of WCCLS can be successful as well.

Uh, because if Beaverton libraries start falling in their funding, I think that harms the full system as well.

Um I think the mayor's points about cities contributing 50 percent is crucial as well.

Um I appreciate like Cedar Mill and Aloha are contributing 7% and 15%, but that's not anywhere close to the 50% that the cities are contributing.

Um I want a library levy, and I want to support this.

It is very hard to say right now that I that I would like I I don't know.

I think that there's more work that needs to be done over the next over this week before the funding formula is finalized before I'd feel comfortable supporting it.

Um I'm gonna be out for re-election next year, and we're gonna be talking with voters and telling our Beaverton voters that we're wanting to increase their library funding rates, but reduce services is a very very tough message.

Um very tough message, and I it would be hard to support it as it is right now.

I want to support it.

I want to see some changes over the next as over the next iteration, but I appreciate you all coming here and answering some questions and walking through it with us.

Thank you.

Um thanks for the slide.

And I probably should clarify the reduction that the county has made to the library services, is what I'm concerned about.

And so this is the current slide.

And you if can you talk a little bit about the reduction the county made and then continued uh projected reductions from the county general fund?

So um it is um true that the county general fund has been reduced the last four or five years.

And what I would say is that we had a goal of increasing partner libraries 3% annually based on county general fund.

And we were not able to make that.

So the last several years, it's been below 3%.

I think it was 1% and then 2% and then 1%.

So we have been able to offer partner libraries a minuscule increase each year.

And that was we we had that ability to do because we did not provide increases to the WCCLS centralized services.

And so we where we could we increased funds that go towards collection, especially the electronic collection, and passed the small increases to partner libraries.

But you're you're right, there has been general fund reductions each year for the past five years.

And of course, those reductions are being weighed at the board level against transportation, against jail capacity, against public health services.

And so there have been reductions to library services.

Thank you.

Councilor Duggar.

Yeah, thanks for being here.

I kind of want to start by following up on Councillor Hartmeyer Pigs Briggs questions around inputs to the funding model.

So how are you accounting?

Can you dig a little bit deeper into how you're accounting for the different costs of service providers, right?

We know government costs more because of benefits, wages, our unionized labor structure.

Like how are you accounting for that in your funding model versus the nonprofits?

I would say that the um probably the biggest change that we made to try and account for the increased costs that that cities have is we used um we took out the nonprofits when we looked at the average cost of an FTE.

So the average FTE costs was based on the average of the cities, and we took out the nonprofits because that that was the first fund funding formula, and that was um uh didn't meet the needs of cities.

Are you um are you so that's an interesting point because are you are you taking our higher level wages and now you're gonna fund the nonprofits at that higher level?

That's what I'm hearing, right?

Like I'm hearing you're accounted for, so isn't that beneficial to them?

It is beneficial to them, absolutely.

That's interesting, because that doesn't feel right to me.

Like we're actually increasing their funding based on our our higher cost structure instead of accounting for their reality.

Well, and part of it is um again getting to the to the equity of funding and trying to help those nonprofits have an ability to offer a living wage.

It's not, it's still not getting them close to the wages that um cities are able to pay, but that was part of the benefit um that our our nonprofits are seeing um it'll help stabilize their library services and helps them to um recruit and retain qualified staff.

One of the things just to jump on that, Marnie, um, and to talk about library wages, it's really challenging, right?

Because each library is there's 12 partners, each has their own class income structure, each has their own union agreements, they all negotiate those differently.

Um, and I think thinking about from the community service perspective and from a access perspective, I think one of the challenges that the nonprofits really struggle with in being um in the smaller cities for that matter, because they also struggle with class income in in terms of libraries, so it's not just a nonprofit versus city, it's really a small city and nonprofit situation.

But thinking about um, you know, access uh to culturally responsive service across the system, um, it is really hard for the smaller libraries to be able to pay um to recruit, retain, and pay staff that reflect the community that they serve.

Um, and so um being able to pay somewhat competitive wages at those small libraries and at the nonprofit libraries to be able to recruit and retain staff that speak the language of their community and staff that reflect the community is really important, and I think it's a great um win for um equity of uh service across the system.

you know access uh to culturally responsive service across the system um it is really hard for the smaller libraries to be able to pay um to recruit retain and pay staff that reflect the community that they serve um and so um being able to pay somewhat competitive wages at those small libraries and at the nonprofit libraries to be able to recruit and retain staff that speak the language of their community and staff that reflect the community um is really important and I think it's a great um win for um equity of uh service across the system so I just uh um there are costs to it and there are um concrete benefits to our community members in terms of access and culturally responsive service I I guess that's really easy for us to say right because Beaverton residents are subsidizing this in unincorporated areas because we also pay city and county taxes right like when I look at the back of the napkin actually before I do that so so the current rate at the current levy is 22 cents per thout per thousand is that correct and then it's going to 37% did I get that right so that's a 68% increase in the rate right what is Beaverton's future share of proposed funding will it go up 68% I'm guessing no right that's what I'm hearing.

No you're right.

Do we know what that percentage is I think that the um I don't have the spread sheet in front of me um but I believe um beaverton I don't know if you if you can pull it up quickly Lisa or not but it'll have that that's something we can follow it by email every every library every um system was getting a minimum of a five percent um increase um in year one of the levy.

Oh maybe Elizabeth has it pulled up so it depends on which version of the funding formula you're going with but right now um and this is from Lisa's email on July 31st.

Yes right now Beaverton's um allocation is increasing 90%.

I want to just also share that our process is not complete and so it is like Elizabeth shared it was that's from a couple of weeks ago um and so our conversations are continuing um and we'll be sharing a proposal with um partners um I think by the end of the month okay that's that's that's a really I mean I know that that a couple other partners also are facing the same or even lower increases and that's that's a really tough thing.

Because I know again you know Beaverton residents uh just back in napkin right like and I know we can't do this very easily because this is based on property value and not individuals but if you just take the total budget divided by 6000 people again not equal but it's like 67ish dollars annually for the system right so that's kind of what in my mind what an ILO resident pays but a Beaverton resident pays another five million is a city on top of that there's a hundred thousand of us that's another 50 dollars a year again knowing well that that some people might pay a little more and a little less we're already paying a significant amount more because you know again those beaverton residents are paying those county taxes too there's not a it's not like the sheriff's enhanced service district where there's a special tax on people outside Beaverton residents are subsidizing this for other in in you know like like it's just really difficult because the reality is if we want to talk about equity Beaverton is probably more diverse than the county as a whole right and so we're now we're asking diverse residents of Beaverton to pay for library service.

So so what really asking is just Beaverton to pay for other places right and and that's a really I'm just not there yet you know I I have issues around governance as is the mayor talked about um you know we've already had to cut our library I don't I don't think a single one of us ran for office to cut library hours and that's one of the painful decisions we had to make that was one of the first really really truly difficult decisions we had to make right and I it just feels like if we're gonna keep increasing our taxes in Beaverton to subsidize that then we're we're taking that decision off the plate of other people I had to make that decision my colleagues here had to make incredibly difficult decisions and it feels like other other libraries or other jurisdictions or their nonprofits are are being protected from having to make the same decision that I make and I'm gonna face the voters for that decision for cutting those hours already and now this seems to be compounding the problem even more.

You know I think it at its most basic what we're concerned about is Beaverton residents being asked to continually subsidize library services for unincorporated unincorporated residents.

So I can tell you that's that's one of the metrics I'm gonna be looking at I don't think we're there yet we all know that libraries in the county need more money.

It brings joy like to me to see her learning to read to hear the staff.

But the city cannot continue to subsidize unincorporated residents when we're we're literally having to lay off staff already because of funding shortfalls, and this is not going to get better for us.

So we've got to figure this out because this current allocation just doesn't work for me.

That's all I have.

Yeah, thank you for your comments.

Um I hope that this council um can find it to um come to a place where you're supporting the library levy because if the library levy does not pass, um that is um nearly 60% of the funding um that the county provides that would not be available.

And so I'm really hoping that we can all get to a place where we know we're gonna continue to work through these.

It's imperfect.

Um, but um I hope that you can get to a place of supporting the levy.

I think we're telling you how we can get to that place, right?

We need changes to get to that place, and I think you'll find a uh a strong council support for it.

But right now, I I'm not sure where we are because of that, because that and uh we're telling you very loudly and clearly that this needs more work because it's not where it needs to be.

And I hope you all are hearing that as you work through this, and I hope the county staff are hearing this because I can tell you this is not this is not just a Beaverton conversation happening either.

I have colleagues all over the the county uh elected officials and they're saying the same things.

Thank you.

We we are definitely hearing you.

Thank you.

Councilor Hussen.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation.

I'll try to make my comments brief.

Um, I think we're all feeling the stretch of the dollar, especially with the economy that this dollar is not going as far as it needs to go.

And so going out to voters and asking them to support a levy feels very scary and hard.

And I uh hear everyone's sentiment on that.

Uh, I will just say um that I do want to uplift, I think it was it was probably counselor teeter's comment about like these other services like the book corner and sort of these other things we're doing.

And so as you're kind of shaking out the funding formula, just really acknowledging what what what our library is doing and um the locations are doing, and I think thinking through how you're building that model in a way that really represents the the the service that we're doing in the community.

And I know that it sounds like this isn't finalized and and you're hearing feedback from us.

Um I encourage you to keep working with staff.

I know staff's been giving us updates.

I've not had a chance to like dig into where it is right now in terms of like the specific numbers.

Um, but as that gets closer, I look forward to better understanding that and um hopefully being able to support the levy.

So that's uh my comments.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Counselor Timon.

Thank you.

I'll be brief in my comments as well.

I echo a lot of the questions and concerns that fellow counselors have voiced tonight.

Um counselor Duggar, I think that you put it really well that there's there's just concern that's percolating amongst this council and frankly um from our residents about how much they are having to pay within the system of being a city within Washington County.

And we recognize that we are part of a larger system of interconnected services that transcend city boundaries and that we have oddities to our map because of all of the unincorporated within it, that people that might live in unincorporated, they identify as Beaverton, they use Beaverton services.

It is not black and white, and we recognize that, but I think there's also uh a lot of pressure coming our way because there's going to be other levies that are gonna be considered.

There's governments um of all shapes and sizes throughout the state that are all looking at these issues of how do we balance these budgets and what will the voters approve?

And they're gonna have a lot of different things that they have to weigh.

And I think they're also looking for their council to lead the charge and making really responsible decisions with what they're coming out and supporting and urging them to support and vote for.

So you've heard from the council, you've heard our concerns.

I'm hoping that that gets reflected in some of the number crunching and um that it does end up ultimately being something that we can support because I think you'll you've also heard that every member of this council supports the library, sees a lot of value in it.

I personally find a lot of value in it, and we want to find ways to make sure that it continues to thrive and that the people that work within our library system are paid living wages.

So um I'll I'll stop there because you've heard heard an earful from us this evening.

Thank you.

Uh perfect.

Uh I'll give you our closing thoughts and I'll start the same place that I've been saying all the weeks that we've met.

Beaverton residents cannot vote for a levy in which they pay more and get less.

And under this model, that is exactly what is going to happen.

Me as the mayor, I do not support the levy in this current model.

I told that to staff, I've told it to other elected officials.

And you guys heard from my council, they're in the same place.

I understand that we have lofty goals of creating, and I heard from Marney over and over again, these smaller libraries want to provide the services that we're providing.

We provide these services because we contribute over 50% of the funds.

These libraries are not contributing nearly enough.

And if they want to play in the big boy arena, they need to put big boy dollars up.

Our residents are not going to offset the cost.

And the reality is we served 500,000 people last year, 5x our population.

And this model gives us credit for 23% of those services.

If you're not going to tell people within a 10-minute drive that allows their home library, they're going to continue to use the library in Beaver Time.

And we're going to continue to subsidize it.

You guys have a week to come back with a funding model that is representative of our contribution.

Or you go at it with the without Beaverton's support.

We're at this critical stage where you need to hear it directly.

This levy does not work for us.

And we need a model that works for us when our voters are going to pay a 68% increase for services.

Because we will be in a position to cut services where our residents are paying for more.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

We look forward to hearing how next week's vote goes.

We appreciate you being here.

Thank you.

All right.

I think we have the second half of this presentation.

Uh that is the public safety piece.

So I don't know who is here for that.

Good evening.

Can you hear me?

Mayor Bailey.

Oh, yeah.

Hello, Stephanie Martin.

Join us.

Yep.

It's good to see you.

And I think under Sheriff Cook may be joining as well.

So he'll probably jump on as I'm speaking, but um, I know we're getting the presentation up and running.

While that's happening, I'll just I'll start.

I think the lesson I learned is next time I'm going to ask to go before the libraries.

Um it's good to see you all this evening.

Normally we thought about you, so hopefully tonight you get a pass, but we'll see about that.

Go ahead.

We'll see.

Yeah.

I'm used to doing the cross-examining, but um, I'm ready for it if it happens.

Um again, thank you for your time.

I have about a dozen slides um to run through.

Why don't we go ahead and start the first slide after this?

Um, we are here with a uh a replacement uh for the go ahead and advance to the next slide.

Thank you.

Replacement for um our public safety levy.

Uh just to level set, we've had this public safety local option levy for about 25 years now, um, starting in about the year 2000.

Uh, and this will be a replacement, meaning we're asking for an increase.

Uh the current amount is 47 cents for the assessed 1,000 dollars of property value, and the new amount is a significant increase up to 66 cents for the average homeowner.

That's about a six dollar um per month increase.

And I've got some slides later on that will talk more about that.

It will raise uh an estimated 337 million dollars over the course of the five-year period.

Uh, can we advance to the next slide?

Here's a uh screenshot or a summary of where the funding goes.

So our public safety system, when we talk about the ecosystem, there's really four main public safety county departments uh that we are referencing the sheriff's office, the DA's office, um, our community corrections department, which is our parole and probation officers, and our uh juvenile department, uh, which handles crimes um involving uh youth, so people who are under 18 when they commit the crime.

Um generally speaking, the local option levy uh funds about 16 percent of our public safety uh funding in the county, and it goes to serve all of those departments I mentioned.

Plus, it also provides support specifically for domestic violence survivors uh and actually soon-to-be child abuse victims in our uh soon to open family peace center, currently known as the Family Justice Center.

Um that is a nonprofit uh that does receive and will continue under this replacement uh to receive um some uh the levy funding.

Um, and for those of you that are not familiar with that model, it essentially provides one roof uh for a variety of different nonprofits to provide services for people who are experiencing trauma of some type, sexual assault, domestic violence, uh, and child abuse.

Um, and then those services not only help out uh the victims and survivors in those scenarios, but also work in close collaboration with law enforcement and public safety uh when there's a need to involve a public safety uh system.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

And under Sheriff Cook, if you're on, I I don't know if you are, so feel free to chime in if you're on.

Um so the next um couple slides are gonna talk about you know what will happen uh if this levy is passed, and so let's go ahead and advance.

This go ahead and advance.

So there are several slides.

I think there might be a delay.

Did you advance twice there?

We can go back one, please.

Thank you.

That's forward one.

Well, I'll tell you what, I'll just speak to the slide that's in front of us.

Uh, so let's not move for a second.

Um, what will this levy do?

Um, this slide talks, of course, about um our county jail.

And as I'm sure many of you are aware, uh, the jail is currently under some significant stressors.

Um, the levy will help ensure that we can get the jail back to full operational capacity.

Um, we can't predict as a certainty that if the levy passes, the jail will immediately back up be back up to full capacity.

Uh, but we know that uh passage of this levy will increase our odds of getting the jail back up to full operational capacity.

Let me talk with you a moment about what's happening right now.

So our jail under normal circumstances has roughly a 572 bed capacity built in the 1990s.

It's the second smallest jail per capita in the entire state.

And it's frankly just is not equipped to handle the challenges of Washington County in 2025.

Um during the COVID era, uh, jail capacity was reduced to accommodate for social distancing, and we have not yet been able, the sheriff has not yet been able to bring capacity back up to full capacity to the 572.

We're down to about 388 beds.

That started with the social distancing, and then there was a shortage of deputies, uh, and we did not have enough jail deputies to be able to operate the jail at full capacity.

And currently there are some infrastructure challenges that are preventing the jail from uh reopening back up to full capacity.

We're seeing a number of uh people who are released from jail uh weekly.

In fact, we're up somewhere around the neighborhood of 22 to 2300 people released so far a year to date in Washington County due to a lack of capacity, uh, which is why ensuring we have a fully operational jail will be a significant um assistance in our public safety system.

Let's go ahead and back up two slides to slide five, please.

Okay.

Well, uh, if slide five were in front of you, what you'd see is that uh the levy would help with our investigation and prosecution of some quality of life crimes, crimes like theft and car theft and break-ins and graffiti.

The statistics uh are pretty significant, and they show that there's an average of one vehicle reported stolen per day between 2021 and 2024.

And I can tell you the crime numbers are uh downward trending, so we're getting a better handle on that, but still we're seeing an incredible number of these property and quality of life crimes occurring, which are impacting our community members.

The levy would also ensure that we're enhancing the prosecution of child abuse and child pornography cases.

We've seen a significant uptick in reported child abuse and child pornography cases uh in the last several years.

From 2021 to 2024, we've had roughly 17% increase in reporting.

Now I want to flag for you that if you were to think about what's happened with child abuse, for example, we saw a dramatic decrease in reporting during the COVID years when the schools shut down, children no longer had contact with mandatory reporters.

So there is a precipitous drop of the reporting of child abuse, and then when schools opened up again, uh the reporting picked up again and it increased after that.

So we are seeing the tail end of that drop and then the increase after that.

Uh and we're getting back to the some of the numbers that we saw pre-COVID.

Reporting increasing uh for child abuse crimes is a double-edged sword because while we never want the volume of crime to go up, it always is a good thing to know that more crime is being reported, especially in areas where there has been underreporting like child abuse or domestic violence or sexual assault.

So seeing more reports coming in do uh are an indicator that we're uh we're being made aware more of what's happening in the community and the reporting is a good thing to have occur.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

What else this levy will do?

It will expand our victims assistance and our emergency programs for families that are harmed by domestic violence.

Um, and as you can see here, uh we are seeing an increase in reports of domestic violence uh from 2021 to 2024.

Um, this is uh a sustained increase, and I think it is a result not just of some stressors in the community, but also a result of a better outreach.

Uh and I will happy to say that the Beaverton Police Department is a leading um, a leading law enforcement agency when it comes to recognizing and engaging in victims and survivors of domestic violence.

A number of wonderful officers at Beaverton work side by side with the prosecutors in my office and our victim advocates to make sure that we're responding adequately to the domestic violence concerns.

It also will help with the combating uh the impact of the deadly drugs that of course are plaguing our communities, fentanyl and the drug trafficking organizations.

The numbers here are just staggering.

And the one in front of you is the sheriff's office has seized 1.3 million fentanyl pills in the last three years.

And I can tell you that is just the tip of the iceberg as to what's coming into our community.

It's almost like you know, trying to stop the tide uh reaching the ocean.

But with the sheriff's office and partners across the county, including Beaverton PD and my office are doing all that we can to address that flood of uh dangerous drugs coming into the community.

Okay, let's advance two slides now to slide eight, because we already did slide seven.

Thank you.

Um this will also help with our mental health response team, MHRT, uh, which I think many of you are familiar with.

Um, those are the specially trained deputies and mental health professionals that can respond out to the scene uh and help ensure that the police officers have another option when they're on scene, as opposed to just taking someone to jail and making sure that we're meeting people uh where they are when they're struggling with mental health issues.

Um let's go to the next slide, please.

Uh of course, the key question is how will this impact property taxes and please advance.

So if the measure does pass, what we're going to see, as I mentioned earlier, is the property owners will pay 66 cents per assessed 1,000 in value.

If the average homeowner has an assessed value of about 350,000, they'll pay just under 20 per month or about 230 dollars a year.

That's roughly a six dollar more per month increase, which will raise the 337 million anticipated over the course of five years.

Can we go to the next slide, please?

Let's go ahead and do one after that.

Um, so this is a summary slide here.

And I skipped over the slide that says what'll happen if this levy doesn't pass.

And I'm happy to answer questions about that.

But what I can tell you is if you think back to that pie chart uh with the allocation of roughly 16% of the public safety funding relies on the public safety levy.

Uh, if we're missing that piece of the pie, um it'll it'll be nearly impossible to ensure that we're maintaining the public safety system that our community members have come to expect.

We'll face some really difficult and um terrible choices to make.

Uh so I, for one, uh am very hopeful, both as the VA and as a community member raising my family here, uh, that we can ensure that this public safety levy does pass and that we have this replacement level to meet the current increased need and also hopefully enhance some of our services.

I'd be very happy to answer any questions that you have.

And if under Sheriff Cook is joined, I'm sure he would be as well.

Thank you for the presentation.

Uh, Counselor Hartmeyer break.

Thank you.

Thank you, DA Barton, for being here with us, and hopefully the under-sheriff is as well.

I think my second question might be better suited for the under-sheriff.

But um, in our last uh presentation, we were talking about um the levy funding nonprofits.

Mayor brought that up, and I'm curious because you did specifically share, and this would help fund the Family Peace Center.

Um, and it is a nonprofit.

And so I'm curious what does overall site look like when the nonprofit is being funded by a levy.

Thanks for that question.

And if if it's okay, can we take the presentation down so I can you're you're a very small square on my screen, and that way I can see a little better.

Um so uh what I can share with you is that the only nonprofit that would receive funds under the this new replacement levy would be the Family Justice Soon to be Family Peace Center.

It's a 501c3, uh, which has a governing board.

On that governing board, our number of members, including myself and counselor Fi, the PICI.

Um so we have that governing board oversight, and then of course, the county um has oversight over the disbursement of levy funds.

Um, and then every year as we proceed forward with our budget, um, there's opportunities, of course, for the county and the county administrator's office to check in uh on how the disbursement of funds is proceeding.

I hope I've answered your question.

Yeah, that was helpful, thank you.

And uh, I think that you know, maybe a difference there too, is that this you and Commissioner Pry are both elected officials.

I think that you know that we just have a different level of accountability, not that our city and county staff aren't accountable people.

Absolutely, they are, but we do have that kind of direct, you know, voter, I guess, accountability.

So I that's just helpful information for me.

Um, I was also curious.

Um can you help me understand?

I was a little bit confused in the presentation about if the enhanced sheriff patrol districts is part of this levy or if it's funded separately.

Thank you.

And he's he's two screens below me.

So I'll turn it over to him.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you, Kevin.

And thank you, uh, counselor for the question.

Yes, this is absolutely separate from the ESPD levy.

The ESPD levy comes during a different cycle, and that is for the urban unincorporated areas.

This public safety local option levy is really for our countywide public safety and justice system that provides kind of that over arching piece over all of the unincorporated and municipal areas of the county.

Okay, thank you.

Yeah, I had the opportunity to go to a um town hall with Commissioner Harrington a year or so back about the importance of this levy and also as um like hearing the conditions of the county jail and the needs to take care of the county jail because taking care of the county jail means we are taking care of the people in the facility.

And I think that that's something that we are responsible to do if someone is in our custody, we need to be taking care of them and having conditions that they are taking care of.

Um, so thank you.

I think this is it's there's a lot of important things as part of this levy, and I think that it isn't it's a it's an increase, right?

So I think it's important that we also address, you know, we make sure that's really clear, and I think your presentation was very clear on that.

My last question, um, and maybe under sheriff, this was for you.

Um I'm really curious.

We heard some really powerful testimony from one of our residents um during public comment.

And I'm curious, how are we ensuring that Washington County public safety resources are not being used in cooperation with ICE?

That's a great question.

So we have specific uh kind of rules for both not only the sheriff's office and our uh deputies of patrol, but also for the municipalities of where we can and cannot interact with uh federal agents with ICE.

Specifically, when it comes to non-criminal uh civil detainers, we will not engage in those activities.

And so if one of our federal partners came to us with a civil uh detainer, uh we cannot enforce that, we will not uh participate in that.

Now, if they have a criminal matter and they have a judicial order from the courts, that that moves it into the criminal realm that we will uh engage in.

But we really draw a bright line between the federal immigration civil side and criminal activities that occur here throughout Washington County.

Thank you.

And can I ask this a little more specifically too?

Like, should federal agents show up to the county sheriff and say we want help finding this person, is it like you get out of our building?

Like I can I ask a little bit like what does that look like?

Yes, we actually do training for other county departments and other uh businesses throughout Westing County.

Basically, if a federal agent, and let's just say an ICE agent showed up in one of our buildings and they had one of these civil detainers, they would be treated like any other member of the community.

If it's a public area of access, they would be able to sit there and wait.

They would not be allowed to come behind closed or locked doors, and we would not provide them any uh information that is not uh given out to the public.

Okay, thank you.

Uh thank you.

Counselor Hessen.

Yeah, uh someone's off mute, not me.

I don't know who it is.

Okay.

Um I will say kind of what I said before.

Um, we know now that the dollar is stretching, and so as we're looking at levies, we're having to really think about what we can and can't support and what that looks like.

So I do actually have a couple questions, um, and I'll try to be quick because I know others might have comments and questions too.

Um, the first question, uh DA Barton is around the cat center opening, because I know that we've had instances where a person is um maybe not able to go to the jail and needs like the cat support.

Has there been some thought around as you're building the jail to be bigger, whether CAT will be able to accommodate those needs.

Thanks.

Thanks, Councilor Howson for that the question.

Um, yes, is the short answer.

There's been thought about that.

You know, I think right now, when it relates to the jail, our first focus is to get the jail back up to full operational capacity with the current building that we have.

So that's 572 beds.

We also know that um down the road we will need to increase the capacity and frankly the services that the jail offers.

Um, and that is a needs to happen also, but that's going to be step two.

Step one is getting us back to frankly where we were before COVID.

Um, with the CAP coming online in the two different locations, it's just a wonderful new resource for our county at the perfect time.

Um I wish it were a little bit earlier, in fact, but it's it's coming online at a great moment in time.

Um, and I'm actually very excited to see how it will operate in coordination with our deflection program.

So for those of you that have heard about deflection, that's the ability to give people who are possessing a user-level level amount of drugs an opportunity to avoid engagement in the criminal justice system in a more traditional way and hopefully route them into some sort of treatment modality.

And I think there's a wonderful opportunity there with the CAD as well, so we can hopefully route people so they're not really interacting with the jail uh or the DA's office uh or the court system.

Okay.

And the enhanced sheriff patrol district levy, that's different, and that would not impact our community.

Yeah.

Yeah, counselor, that's absolutely correct.

So the enhanced sheriff's patrol district is just for about that 215,000 people that live in the urban unincorporated areas.

Bethany, Aloha, Cedar Hills, Raleigh Hills, uh, and they pay that separate uh police district uh service.

Okay.

And then the stat on a car being stolen every day.

Is that you're saying that in the last four years we've had okay.

So it's not every day, it's just an average based on the number of bridge.

No, and that actually it's a sheriff's office statistic, but um it it is an average and it does show that it's declining downward.

Um, and I will tell you too, the interesting thing about car theft is there's usually a difference between reported crime and actual crime.

I was referencing this with child abuse, where you know when child abuse reports go up, in some ways it's good that we're finding out more of what's happening.

That difference between reported and actual crime is uh less present for crimes like car theft because cars are so expensive that and you have to file a police report to get an insurance claim.

Almost everyone who has a car stolen will report it.

So car theft is actually a pretty good indicator, almost like a canary in a coal mine of what's happening with crime trends more generally in the community.

So we saw car theft go up in the last several years, and now we're starting to see it go down, which is a promising sign.

Okay.

Uh and then last question about like the child abuse reports.

It's helpful to see that data.

In terms of actual like what percent of those reports are founded, is that data that we have access to?

We do.

I don't have it with me.

Those numbers uh actually, under Sheriff Cook and I were talking about this just this morning.

Those numbers come from what are called the DHS um referrals.

Um, those are also known as cross reports or 307s if people are in the in the know.

And so that's when DHS finds out about child abuse and lets law enforcement know about it.

Um, and so uh ultimately those cases, DHS will go through an assessment process and determine whether it's founded from their perspective.

The law enforcement will go through an investigative process uh in many of those instances and determine whether there's uh a case that can be proceeded forward on.

Um we could get those stats for you.

I just I don't have them handy though.

No, it's fine.

Um I I only bring it up.

I've seen, particularly in communities of color where there's like culturally specific different kinds of practices where child abuse is often reported and not founded.

And so, what are we doing to heal the system and sort of um work on root cause issues and not necessarily cause more harm?

And so I've seen that happen quite a bit.

So, not a conversation for today, but just something that felt really important that I wanted to at least flag and make sure we're having future conversations about because if we are going to support this at least, or if I am going to support this levy, I feel like I need to be able to go in front of families who've had those instances with DHS and or police, not their fault, just a you know, part of the system on how we are looking to address more root cause stuff.

So thank you for presenting.

I will let others chime in.

And I may I just say wonderful question.

And um, CARES Northwest is a nonprofit we work very closely with, and we ensure that we have culturally specific um uh victim advocates and social workers who are able to recognize some of the dynamics that you mentioned.

Also, the phenomenon of ACEs, adverse childhood experiences is something that we're really trying to dig into more, and that is the family justice soon-to-be family peace center.

That building will have a huge emphasis on addressing ACEs so that we can address those root causes uh in a culturally appropriate way and hopefully stop some of the false reporting, but also increase the responses when we need to make sure we respond in the right way.

Great, thank you.

You bet.

Councilor Duggar.

Uh DA under Sheriff, um, both of you, thank you for being thank you for the presentation or for being here.

I just really have one question for the evening as I think about this topic.

Um, as you might, as you may know, Beaverton has been balancing a couple of years of deficits, right?

Some of the ways we've dealt with them are, you know, we we've minimal revenue increases, but we've changed some of our operating models, we've changed some of the way the ways we've worked.

We've we've had significant cuts to some of our positions.

So my question is essentially as we talk to the community about this.

Can you talk about or highlight some of the efforts of the county to cut costs and the public safety area and like what are the efficiencies, right?

So this isn't just balanced on the revenue side, like like how are we telling those taxpayers that we're we're spending their dollars wisely?

Just and I think that'll really help us as community leaders to go out and share that story.

If you could just share a couple of those, please.

Happy to jump in.

I mean, I can of course speak quite a bit about what we're doing in the DA's office.

So we have uh 47 attorneys in our office.

We ought to be staffed somewhere closer to 70 to 75.

Um our prosecutors carry about double the caseload as their counterparts do in Multnomah County, or victim advocates carry about double the caseload as their counterparts do in Multhoma County.

We have an incredible volume of criminal cases that come in in the front door to our office, somewhere around 11,000 cases a year.

Um and the just the what's happened is our our county infrastructure, the resources has not kept pace with the population increase that we've seen in the last 15 plus years.

Uh, but also the the pace of the complexity and volume of criminal cases that we've seen as well.

The same case today, um, it takes longer than it did 10 years ago.

Uh body worn cameras, for example, every case that we have has you know three or four police officers wearing body worn cameras with one to two to three hours worth of footage.

Someone has to watch and review all of that.

Um, also every case we have has uh uh an amazing volume of digital evidence.

You know, many of us have one phones.

I have two phones that I'm carrying all the time, and all the just other digital things that are out there.

So all of these things combined together to make for uh just a very complicated um dynamic, the increased prevalence of mental health issues, of uh addiction issues.

And so we are I'd say struggling to keep up and to keep our head above water.

So when it comes to you know, how have we looked to cut costs?

What we've frankly done is we haven't kept pace with the community need, and that's because of a lack of sufficient funding from the county, and that's created a greater reliance on the levy uh and a greater concern that if the levy doesn't pass, the results would be catastrophic.

Cool.

I don't know if it would be too much to ask, but um, if you or or your staff could put us some talking points together along those lines, I think that would be super helpful because we'll you know I know we'll have uh a number of community touch points and events, and uh I would love to be able to illustrate that and and you know anything else that we need to know because people you know they want to hear from us on these things, and and I just don't feel like I have that knowledge base.

So if you're if you would be willing to get that over to Jenny, I think she'd be she'd be willing to distribute that to us.

I think that'd be really helpful for us to have you to do it the word and I'll make sure it's broader than just the DA's office because it's a system-wide response.

So we'll make sure we follow up on that.

Thank you.

No, thank you very much.

Councillor Teter.

Yeah, thank you both for coming tonight.

I've got one question, it's about the mental health response teams.

Um can you all talk about how service levels could be expected to change or improve with the passing of a levy uh for Beaverton residents?

So for context, we had one Beaverton police officer on a mental health response team, but we had to eliminate that that role.

Um, we're staying able to get these services from the county, but curious how these service levels could change uh with the levy.

Thank you, counselor.

All hopping there.

Yes, as we all know, the uh mental health response team is a key public safety uh role throughout all of Washington County.

Thanks to systems like the public safety local option levy, we at the sheriff's office in the county have been able to maintain those services.

And so, as uh Beaverin's general fund, just like the counties has experienced struggles because of the public safety local option levy, we've been able to maintain those services.

And so we still have mental health response teams that are servicing the city residents of Beaverton as well as the unincorporated areas surrounding them.

And so uh this levy is really one of those key pieces for us to help provide uh and continue to provide a lot of those countywide services that are so essential to make sure that all community members are receiving that.

Okay, thank you.

So this is a maintaining service levels or is it increasing service levels?

I I do not believe that this is increasing any service levels to the mental health response team.

I'm kind of going through mentally some of the positions we talked about.

There are other countywide services that would be increased that the uh community, both in the municipalities and in and the unincorporated would see benefits too.

But it would for us it would maintain this and ensure that services uh continue to the next uh several years.

Okay, and then final questions on this topic too.

No levy would mean no mental health response teams.

Is that what would happen?

No, that's not completely factual.

It would be a reduction in those services.

We at the sheriff's office are committed to uh ensuring that that service is still continued uh through some of our general fund services and and in and I'll just say in the unincorporated urban areas because of ESPD, they would maintain those services as well.

But uh, it would just really help us ensure that we continue that solid countywide service to all members of Washington County.

Okay, thank you.

That's very helpful, and we appreciate you all stepping in as we've had to cut back there.

All right, gentlemen, uh thank you for joining us this evening and uh hanging out.

And I think you got some feedback from the council, and you also got some requests on some talking points.

So if you need help facilitating that, uh please reach out and uh I hope you have a good rest of your evening.

Thank you.

Have a good night, everyone.

Thank you.

Bye.

All right, crew.

I know um, I just want to say for the record, I know those are presentations and we went on quite a bit longer than we would normally allow a presentation to go, but considering that both of those organizations are asking for council support, individual support as we go to the voters, uh, making sure that we had time to really get to the crux of the questions that the council continues to ask was an important piece.

And so we don't really have a category that's not presentation and/or work session, that's ballot uh level uh conversations, but just so you know in the future we won't allow presentations to go on that long.

Jimmy is probably gonna kill me for letting it go on as long as we did.

Um all right.

The next item on the agenda is a public hearing for ordinance 4871 amending Beaverton code section 6.02.080 and section 6.02.390 related to parking permit application.

I now call to order this public hearing.

First, we'll hear from city staff, then we will take public comment.

Anyone wishing to speak at the hearing should follow the instructions included on tonight's agenda for those attending in person, which I don't think applies here.

Please complete okay.

If you are in the council chambers in Blue or not, please complete a yellow visitor card down at the table at the entry door.

There are staff in the building to help you.

Let's proceed uh with the staff presentation.

And I believe that is Andy.

Sorry, Mayor, point of work.

I don't know if it matters, but I thought we had the permit fee waiver before.

Am I am I am I out of order right now?

That is correct.

That is the way it is on the agenda.

Okay.

Um sorry about that.

Just skip that or pause that.

Um do I need to do anything for the record?

We haven't had any conversations.

No.

Okay.

You can just go back to the previous agenda item regarding the site development hearing.

Okay.

The next item on the agenda, just kidding, is the is an agenda uh hearing to consider a site development permit B waiver during this hearing.

We will hear from both city staff and the developer seeking the site development permit B.

We will ask questions both of staff and the developer before making our decision.

This is this is just cause hearing requested by the developer under Beaver Tin Code chapter 9.05.

And there is not public comment uh component of this type of hearing.

So first we'll hear from city staff.

Okay, good evening.

Megan, is there um any pronouncement you need to make before this?

No.

There is not.

Okay.

Sorry.

Casey Molly, I'm sure you were pumped to present, but wait for a few minutes.

Okay, uh, thank you.

And uh good evening, Mayor and Councillors.

My name is Andy Varner.

I'm the community development director for the city of Beaverton.

And uh joining me tonight is also COILA, COISER site development manager in CDD.

Um as you know, um, for the packet, we are here to entertain a fee waiver request from a developer or multifamily units in our downtown.

I will present um some of the information and a bit of a code backdrop for the request, and COI will be here to fill in if you have any technical details or uh process details as his division originally processed the intake and rather the permits.

Uh next slide, please.

Um so real quickly, this is uh the site location.

Uh it's located at 4920 South Pacific Avenue in Beaverton in our downtown, just east of Lombard Avenue.

And the development is being done by 1224 architects and assembly.

They're also the um the appellant for this this hearing tonight.

Next slide, please.

Uh so the reason for tonight's hearing is that um the developer that applied for and was issued a site development permit and originally paid the fees in August 2023.

Um with their permit lapsed and they paid fees a second time with a new permit earlier this year.

But their permit lapsed and they paid fees a second time with a new permit earlier this year.

And that's only for site development, not for planning, not for building, only pertains to site development permitting.

According to chapter 9.05 of the Beaverton code, site development fees are non-refundable except when the city has incurred no cost of the processing of a terminated or withdrawn application.

And we should note that the permit in question was not never terminated, nor was it withdrawn.

It simply expired with a lapse in time.

The developer requested a hearing because the fees are not refundable, and only the council may reduce or waive required fees on a showing of just cause.

The fee amount in question is shown here at the bottom of the slide a little over $38,000, and that's the 2025 value of the permit.

Next slide, please.

If the permittee is unable to complete the work within the year, they may present in writing to the city engineer a request for an extension of time stating the reasons for the requested extension.

If the extension is necessary, the engineer may grant additional time for the completion of the work.

Now, regarding the permit extension process, extensions must be approved before the permit expires.

Extension requests are accepted through email or a phone call.

And all extensions are granted by staff and documented by providing a new expiration date, which is typically one year.

And for a little historical context, permit extension requests and approvals are common.

The most recent examples include requests that were submitted by email from the Beerton School District for the Raleigh Hills Elementary School and a construction group recently requested an extension for another apartment development in Beaverton.

And to note, site development manages over 500 permits annually, including right-of-way permits.

And due to limited resources, that the city relies on permitties to manage their own permit expiration timelines.

Expiration dates are clearly noted on the permit.

The one-year permit duration allows the city to both ensure that permits continue to meet the most current and applicable codes and engineering standards, and it also allows us to allocate resources effectively based on open permits.

Requests for site development permit extensions after a permit has expired or request for permit fee waivers seem to be unprecedented for those on staff currently, and we've not found a similar request in the city's recent database records.

Next slide, please.

So on the left, you'll see the old and the new site development permit information with the dates and the amounts.

On the right is a timeline of the events associated with these permits as you go down the screen.

So I'll note a few things.

As discussed, the original permit expired in August of 2024, and there were six months between the permit expiration and then the request for the extension from the developer, which was in February earlier this year.

The initial permit review did take longer, and that's due to being at brand new information and the full routing of all departments because site development permits are routed through building and planning and engineering and public works operations full for the full plan review.

When the developer reapplied in 2025, the staff made sure that the developer paid the new fee and made it in before new engineering design manual standards became effective on March 1.

Without doing that, that could have impacted their original permit and their design due to having to comply with uh new standards.

And we also did what we could this second time around to process the second permit quickly through expedited permit review so the project can move ahead as quick as possible.

Next slide, please.

So as a reminder of chapter 905 of the Beaverton Code, only the council may reduce or waive required fees and the showing of just cause.

And here are the recommended actions and the options the council has at their disposal.

Option one is to deny the fee reduction or waiver, and we'll see there would be no financial impact, no administrative impact, and the policy implication would be to maintain consistency with the code.

Option two to entertain a reduction or a wave of waiver of the fee would obviously have an impact in a reduction of the general fund revenue because all site development permit fees or general fund revenue.

And maybe administratively there would be additional effort from CDD, legal and finance to process the refund.

And the policy implications would be setting a precedent after a permit expires, and it does weaken the incentive somewhat for timely permit management.

And with that, um I think that's all of my information and uh be happy to answer any questions.

All right, council.

This is the portion uh where you can ask questions of staff, then we'll hear from the applicant and you can ask questions of them.

Counselor Hartmeyer, Pray.

Thank you, uh Dr.

Varner.

So for the um the impact where it's stated that staff time and effort was expended due due to needing to generate the new permit.

Is there an estimated cost that comes along with that?

Are you talking when we issued the second permit?

No, for yeah, yeah, yes, I am for the second permit.

Thank you.

I I don't have the full estimated cost um at my at my fingertips.

We'd have to pull up pull apart some of the hours and uh in a time management um.

I'll say that not all our systems are integrated to to get down to that level of detail.

Okay.

Um yeah, I would have to I couldn't even can you ballpark it for the counselor?

Like we're trying to make a real life decision, and we can't wait for us to do that work.

I think she's looking for a ballpark.

Yeah.

Um, this is maybe where I'll uh see if COI has some input there because they actually process the the permits.

So Choi, if you're online.

Well, I think you'll have an opportunity to phone a friend.

We'll get through some other you're if you're all right with that, council Harmier.

We'll move some of these other questions so they could uh maybe call someone and kind of get an answer in a couple minutes because we could hear from the developer as well.

Okay, perfect.

Yeah, I need to have one more question for Ambie.

Please go.

Yeah.

Um, thank you, Mayor.

And so I'm curious um from the materials that were a part of the agenda bill.

I wasn't clear.

Did the city staff typically and in this case, did we notify that permit, you know, was coming up on expiration in advance of the expiration of the first permit?

We do not know in site development, we do not.

Like I said, there's we have limited staff and over 500 permits annually that uh that the department uh does manage.

Okay.

Um in the I believe it's from the developers documentation, they they noted that there was a call from city staff where we said it's gonna be expiring, like in advance of the expiration.

And so I was just curious like if we had um any record of us letting them know in advance of the expiration of the first permit.

Yeah, counselor, um, I believe he was referring to the building permit.

Um, they may have reached out to them.

And at the this is at the same time where the city was switching over from an older permitting system to the brand new electronic permitting system.

I think as they were kind of cleaning up some things, they may have been noticing that um uh as they're transitioning into a new system, uh, a permit may be expiring then.

Site development was not um in the state that stage at that point.

Um, but you do bring up a good point because they were contacted by the city that a permit was expiring.

I'm not sure if the developer was aware that they had multiple permits open with the city and other permits may be expiring as well.

Okay, thank you.

Thank you so much, Andy.

Counselor Tater.

Okay, this might be a question from Megan, City Attorney's Office.

Uh so our code has two different statements that I think are important.

Uh the first one is the one that says that fees are non-refundable, except when the city has incurred no cost.

And the second one is the council may reduce or waive the required fees on the showing of just cause.

Is there a difference in definition here between a we a refund and a waive and a waiver?

My interpretation is a refund comes after payment has already been made versus a waiver which would come in advance of any pay payment.

Is there any interpretation you all can offer?

So, what I would say is that it is correct.

If you choose to waive or reduce the fee, then a refund would be issued.

So that is how this the city would respond to the decision to provide a reduced fee or a waiver.

And then the other kind of component of this is how do you make that decision?

And that's kind of that's in the second provision that you discussed and the just cause requirement.

And that you didn't specifically ask this question, but I just want to provide this kind of framework as the council starts to think about this.

That really just cause isn't defined in the code, but generally that's going to require the developer to demonstrate some specific condition or reason that the council can then determine is justified to use to waive the permit fee.

So what you're looking for tonight is to see if you hear any specific conditions or reasons that can demonstrate whether that's through the written materials that the developer provided or statements that they make this evening that can support a decision to reduce or waive the fee.

And if you make that decision, then the result would be a refund.

Currently, because costs were incurred for both permits, it wouldn't it wouldn't fall under that initial provision in the Beaverton code talking about the refund if costs are not incurred.

And you also heard um CDD director Varner mentioned specifically that it also wasn't terminated or withdrawn before those fees were incurred.

So there already has been staff costs associated with both of these fees, which take them outside of that provision in the Beaver Tin Code.

Okay, thank you.

Um I might have one more question right now.

Um just for some other context.

Uh council did receive an email from staff and this applicant back in February 2023.

Um staff comments were that significant time admin spent on the permit applications back then beyond what was uh estimated be a beyond what was it beyond the permit application fee.

Um so that's just some context.

Um that's all my questions for now, I think.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um Ashley, I'm sorry, Council Hartmeyer Prague.

Uh can we get through the next questions while they research your question, so we'll have more time to deliberate.

Yeah, no, no problem.

Okay.

All right.

Um we'll now hear from the representative from um 24 architect and assembly and by the developer of the Pacific Department development.

Do we have them?

Hi, this is Gene Sempleton.

I'm I'm uh from 1224 architecture and assembly.

Um I I've been the applicant throughout the throughout the permit process, uh starting back um several years ago.

And this is winning.

Can you hear me now?

Yep.

Cool.

Great.

Well, thank you very much.

Um, that was Gene, you just uh heard from a moment ago.

My name is Rich Hannah.

We're both here tonight.

We really appreciate your time.

I'll note right at the top that we realize that you're dealing with very complicated things, and this is considerably more simple.

And uh hopefully we can move through this quickly so you can get on to other things.

Um I'd like to acknowledge uh both um the staff um member uh Mr.

Varner as well as Mr.

Lay, they've been very helpful to us through this entire time.

We actually don't really contest any of their presentation, and we'll just get to some of the points that help maybe to try to justify why we think we were entitled to some portion of uh of this money to be returned to us.

So if that's okay, why don't we go ahead to slide two?

Which does nothing more than to state what uh Mr.

Varner has already stated.

So we'll go ahead and move to time three, where there's a slide three where there's just um some amended um timeline information that I wanted to make sure you guys had an opportunity to see.

So all of the black type that you see is consistent, I believe, with what Mr.

Varner already presented.

The blue is just some additional um information which may be pertinent to our justification.

Um the first is that we we we see that uh roughly four plus months of time was dedicated by staff for our first permit.

We realized that was uh uh a lot of time, a lot of energy.

We were one of the first uh folks to come into the permitting system uh after the new design district was established.

And so it was uh difficult, I think, for uh a lot of folks to go through that uh that whole process.

It took a long time.

We acknowledged that it was difficult for both us and and and for staff.

We did get a notification as was referenced early from the building side of the house, and they did let us know prior to the permit extending the permit expiring that it was set to expire, and via that phone call, we were able to extend it.

The planning permit we have did not, of course, uh expire, and the site development one, which is what we're talking about tonight.

Did we were not notified?

I understand there's a lot of uh of things that go through the system, but also uh you know, the building department uh did help us with that, and through a simple phone call and a short conversation, it was extended.

There's a little inconsistency, I'll point out between how one department at the city and how other departments tend to handle these things.

Um, and we would expect there's an automated way for applicants to be notified that they're uh pending the the expiration date.

One of the things that came up, I think quickly uh by Mr.

Lay when we were first talking about this is why in the world did you guys let a permit expire?

And um that is 100% on us.

We we we were pleading you know full responsibility for that.

The code is quite clear what it says.

Um our particular circumstances that caused us to both pay the permit fee to actually begin get underway and begin the construction project and then stop it very suddenly, had to do with the regional bank failures.

You guys will all remember Silicon Bank and you'll remember First Republic.

Both banks went into uh into difficulty.

It was a few months after that time that our bank that was financing this operation called us up the day before all the documentation was was to be signed, and they let us uh know that they were changing considerably the overall um costs that we were going to have to bring to the program.

And it really broke the entire uh program from one that was marginally profitable to one that was enormously unprofitable.

And so it was during that time that we stopped development.

We pulled people off of site at that time, and we went into a hiatus situation and then eventually got back underway, unfortunately after the expiration uh had occurred.

Again, Mr.

Varner and Mr.

Lay were extremely helpful in moving us through the second permitting process.

Um we resubmitted the code base had not changed, so we resubmitted the application, we paid the fee, and they did a blue beam uh kind of analysis and perhaps other analyses too, just to make sure that the original set of plans that was submitted in our first application and our second application were identical in every way.

They of course knew the code base was the same as it was uh under the new application, and six days after our submission, we were notified that we had been through all the departments and all the departments had approved our plans.

Of course, they were identical.

It can be considered a rubber stamp, but I think we'll we should all acknowledge that time and energy by staff was put into that effort to get us through that process quickly.

Um Jean and I would be more than delighted to pay the city for that time and energy.

After all, it it would only be fair of us to acknowledge that we cost resources twice and we should pay for them the second time.

One thing I'd just like to add as well, just to make sure it's really clear is because of the um the horizon of our building.

We started the build, I believe it was on the first, sorry, the 5th of September.

We stopped operation on the 15th of September.

We were doing only private site work during that time, which means that there's nothing happening in the public right away or that pertains to the site development permit per se.

We didn't call in a single inspection, we didn't have anything but a single uh meeting to sort of get uh the site development um underway, and there was really no resources cost um by the city after the time that we started, after the time we stopped, and then of course, during the entire time that the permit was idled until the expiration and after, still no resources.

And it was only once we realized that we were underway again and we had lost the opportunity to simply extend that we had to go through the process, and we cost resources again to the city at that time, and those of course are the ones that we'd be happy to confiscate the city for.

Um, so six days, I think somebody was asking what was the amount of time dedicated and how much money.

I don't know how you calculate six days, but there was certainly time, there was certainly energy, there were certainly full-time employees who are working on it for a portion of those six days.

Um next slide, please, if you don't mind.

Okay.

Um yeah, so I think this simply states the two things.

You know why we're here.

Um we are we we we as it relates to executing the first permit after issuance, no resources were taken.

As it relates to getting the second permit, you know, through the process quickly, it only took six days.

A very small number of resources were accessed.

That's sort of the summary of how I respond to um Mr.

Varner's presentation, but I just wanted to do, if you don't mind, two or three more slides here, and I'll make it extremely quick.

So next slide, please.

I mean, we are aware, and you guys are aware, and I won't, you know, of course, you know, spend any time on this that housing is an important priority to Beaverton.

You know, we believe that's awfully important.

Next slide, if you don't mind.

These are some of the details of our project.

They are in the downtown design district.

We we do have a live work unit.

We are trying to deliver this 18 hour workday that you guys have spoken about.

Um, there's a many attributes here, which you know, in the simplest terms, uh, you know, for us, you know, you know, cost money when we do anything that's green or anything that's in favor of environment or residence in terms of livability, you know, which is what you can see throughout this entire slide, it costs money.

And the things that we have not done are because we can't afford to do more.

So we had solar intended, we cannot do solar right now.

So when we take money and we put them towards you know, one thing, it obviously means that we have to sacrifice elsewhere.

Uh, next slide, please.

So, just a reminder here, and this maybe lends itself towards the justification idea, is that one of the policies in the comprehensive plan, you know, clearly states that work with regional partners to develop measures that reduce upfront housing development costs.

And this is an opportunity, I think, for uh for the for council to say, yeah, the code is written strictly.

Uh, the uh appellate uh recognizes that they made a mistake, and we still have um you know an opportunity to try to work uh in in cooperation with our partners.

Um, and the last slide, please, if you don't mind.

Thank you.

So uh, lest anyone believe that we're not contributing significantly to the city in terms of the infrastructure we're doing.

We are in the downtown design district, but this particular street is not even remotely up to uh code in order to allow for seven-story buildings, which are which could be permitted up and down this entire street.

Uh, we have permitting costs, which are described there in the top line.

The right-of-way improvements, this would include sewer, water, um undergrounding electricity, undergrounding all of the uh Zipley fiber and the Comcast fiber.

Um the city has asked us, um, and we reference it a bit more to extend the right-of-way improvements even beyond our own property to make sure that the entire street all the way to the dead end has been sort of upgraded from an infrastructure point of view.

That would allow our future developer to develop on the the lots beyond ours and tap into this brand new infrastructure.

City asked us to do that, we said yes, of course, we'll do it, and the city is compensating us not for the soft costs incurred to make sure that's possible, not for our time or or oversight of responsibilities to make sure, but for the hard costs that that we um are being charged by our subcontractors that 45,000 dollars that you see there, the city is offering credits to the degree that the city can.

The city's also offered some incentive grants.

The planning department has been fantastic for us.

And the net result is that we are going to spend on infrastructure upgrade and all of the mandated costs for the city eight hundred and eighty-eight thousand dollars.

This, by the way, is all before we sit we put a single shovel into the ground to build the building.

The building is not built with this money, this is just the amount of money that needs to be spent in order to build these 13 units.

We're seeking some portion of the second permit fee to be returned, ideally, all of it.

Um, if you have to subs uh reduce that amount uh a little bit in order to accommodate the six days of uh staff effort, we would certainly understand that.

Um, and that's really what we're seeking.

The last slide, I said last slide before, but now I really mean it.

Um we are sort of a unique situation here, and we want to just make an invitation to to anybody who is interested.

Uh, we are a super small team, it's just me and Gene.

That's it.

Anything that has happened on this building from the very start to the very finish, it's it goes only through us.

We have seen all kinds of opportunities.

Um, we have learned a tremendous amount, and we can see ways that we can help the city with either some code changes or some opportunities to make this a little bit more of a friendly um environment for developers to sort of allow you to to see your housing vision come to life.

We would certainly be willing to take the time and energy to meet with anybody who's interested to open up that dialogue and also allow us to sort of share some of our insights.

And with that, I thank you very much for your time.

Great.

Do we have any questions of the applicant?

Okay.

Seeing none, I am going to uh gonna close the public hearing.

Um city attorney, could we have dialogue before a motion here?

Because I think this is new and we have some.

Um there's no there's not necessarily any dialogue.

The only thing that I would comment on is the the what I mentioned earlier, which is that what the council needs to do this evening is determine if there were specific conditions or reasons that would justify a return or a reduction of the fee tonight.

And so to the extent you can identify those specific conditions or reasons for staff so that we can draft up a final decision in order that's responsive and in line with your decision tonight.

That would be very helpful during your conversation.

Okay.

Well, I am the facilitator, so I can't make a motion, but my hope would be we do motion two because I'd like to have some conversation around that.

Uh Counselor Hartmeyer, Brig.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, and I just wanted to give a chance to see if my earlier question might have an answer.

And if not, um that that is okay.

I I think I I know where I'm leaning um despite, but I did want to give the chance if you had any idea on a ballpark of time spent.

Uh yeah, the uh good evening, uh, Mayor Batty and the member of council.

My name is uh Koile as um and mentioned.

I'm the uh CDD site division uh site development division managers.

Um there's several questions that I would try to address here um and respond to uh and respond to the appealans uh um comments.

Uh I would want to make sure that uh we have a good understanding, even though uh for the original permits.

Um the staff do spend some time doing um inspection for the site uh after uh the site has been uh hauled uh from constructions.

Um we wish that the um development team has called us and let us know that um they have decided to terminate construction, but without then uh notification to us.

Uh we still have to send out inspection to do erosion control uh inspection during that time until we realize that the constructions has been um no longer have any activity, then at that time we stopped the uh the inspections.

Um on the newer permit, I would say it's not uh um a six-day um our records show that the permit has submitted uh on February 27 and we issues the permit uh on uh April uh four.

Um during this time we uh site development development staff has reviewed the the permit uh the permit construction plan route it to engineer and build and plan in uh for them to review and also there's an update on the bond uh that we have to uh route it to legal for them to review, even though we don't have an have a tracking out hours.

We did spend uh time doing a review of the um site plan and also any uh additional document that we um require to review as part of the issuing of the new permits.

Thank you, Mr.

Lay.

Um Mayor, um I I see that Richard's hands raised, but I don't think I can because the public hearing is closed, take more information in, but the city attorney is gonna have to wait in on that.

It's the prerogative of the council.

You can open the hearing and take additional comment if you so choose, or you can proceed forward with what you know right now to make your decision.

Could I I'm the applicant, could I respond at least to well that's what I'm I'm trying to get it?

It's a we're in a public hearing, it's very technical, so I'm just trying to get some legal advice on where we're at.

And technically the public hearing is closed, so taking more information in outside of the record is a challenging position.

Um I don't know where the council's at, but I think you know, I I'm not particularly interested in a in a back and forth between staff of how much they worked and what the applicant uh counteracts.

I think you had a great argument, so I'm inclined to just move forward.

But if the council wants to hear it, like just raise your hand or we open the hearing.

Counselor Hartmeyer, pray.

Thank you.

Uh no, I I think I have adequate information to um put a motion before the council, and I would like to move that the council reduce the site development permit by $30,000 for promo for permit SD 2022-0025 because supports a reduction and authorizes the mayor to sign a final decision and order in support of this decision.

Second.

Um is there discussion on the motion.

Uh I would like to, I yeah, I can give my my reasoning for the motion.

Was there a second?

Did I miss it?

I seconded it.

Oh, you second it.

Okay, thank you.

Okay.

So my reasoning is I think that in normal circumstances, and given that our practice is to extend a site development um permit, like so long as the request is made in a timely manner, like that to me is part of my reasoning.

But hearing the explanation from the applicant, I do think it's important that we as a counselor take all the steps we can to reduce the cost to housing development in Beaverton.

Um when we talked about our our housing strategies and and things that we were looking for in future housing development.

This property has that.

Um the reason I think that there's just cause is there was a lot happening with banks.

We understand how tricky funding can be for housing.

Um I think that because we gave notice of the building permit expiration, it may have caused the applicant to expect that we would let them know of other permits expiring and just like hearing what was all going on.

I can understand there being a reason to have missed the opportunity to renew the site development permit.

Counselor Teter.

Thank you.

Um I'm going to vote no on this motion.

Um I love the project.

I have been excited about it, excited for it ever since I first heard about it a couple years ago.

Um I love the project.

But my decision has to be based under my interpretation of code and what the code says.

Um I'm not seeing the just cause.

Um the the date of expiration for a permit is pretty clear.

And our standard practices to rely on uh permit holders to follow through on their own timelines, and like as rigid as that feels.

That is what the code says.

Um that there needs to be just cause.

So I'm not seeing that here.

I think that if we were to grant a waiver or a reduction, it could cause some uh similar conversations, tricky conversations in the future as well, where people might let their permit expire so that they can uh come back in under different code changes, but at a different rate instead of or increased rates as time goes on, they might be able to file a permit before they're actually even ready to start construction.

I could just see some some doors opening uh for people to take advantage of this in the future, and I wouldn't want to be having the city accused of playing favorites with any personal favorite projects.

Um I'm gonna stick with my interpretation as closely to code as I can, and that's just not seeing the just cause.

Counselor Tikman.

Sorry about that.

I'm inclined to agree with Counselor Teeter on this one.

Uh I I think that the the dates are clear in there.

Um I don't think that it needs to be on the city to send reminders regarding it.

Uh if there's any thing in this, it might be a lesson learned is that the onus is on the permit holder to meet the requirements that they have agreed to in terms of dates and being aware of those and that the responsibility lies with them.

Uh and I'm also concerned about setting the precedent.

Um, I have sympathy for the just securing financials right now and just the overall turbulence in the development and construction world.

But to Counselor Teter's point, this could open the door that we we don't we don't really want to have to deal with some of the potentials that could come out of setting the precedent in this way.

So yeah, I'm inclined to vote no on this.

All right.

I appreciate that.

I I plan to vote yes.

And I will tell you, I when I read the applicant and this morning and talked a little bit with staff, my inclination was to tell them to pay the permit fee.

But I actually found the argument reasonable.

And I think you know, as somebody that's working really hard on middle housing and trying to make things work.

We if we want small smaller developers, they don't have staff dedicated to chasing timelines the same way that big uh companies do.

And I and I get that rules are are meant to be in place for a reason.

However, if they would have asked for it to be extended, it would be no fee.

So I do think they should pay something.

5,000 seems reasonable.

That's double what if we were doing back of the napkin math, and we found a difference between what Rich had said and what maybe Coi had said, and we met in the middle.

This would be roughly that without input from staff really on how much staff time they were doing, we don't really know.

And that was a question we probably should have anticipated the council asking.

Um I know this project's been around for a while.

They're waiting for our code development changes, and one of the reasons they were waiting for our code changes was because the parking minimum.

This project wouldn't have worked with on-site parking.

I know that we had discussions about it.

So should they pay something?

Absolutely.

My also hope would be this is like a type one decision that should be handled at the staff level.

The the fact that seven city counselors are debating $30,000 at 8 30 at night is ridiculous to me.

So my hope would be that staff in the legal office can come back in these incidents where this happened.

I mean, money is tight, interest rates are changing.

This isn't the you know, pre-2005 where everyone was loaning money out the door.

It's harder and harder to get when we see something like this happening.

It's challenging.

And just the fact that half of the house was calling about permits and the other half wasn't.

There's some internal work that we need to do on parity here.

So I know staff would not be happy with my decision for voting for a reduction of this, but um, this isn't really money that we were gonna we were gonna probably anticipate getting.

So, yes, you should pay something, and I'm gonna vote yes tonight.

Uh looks like counselor Duggar changed his mind.

Counselor Hussen.

Sorry, multitasking here.

Um it's all good.

I uh am uh compelled to also vote no on this um because of the reasons that were shared.

I do want to say that I support the idea of middle housing.

I support the idea of what what we're trying to do here.

Um and I have empathy towards the the folks that are here in front of us.

Uh, but I am also cautious and thoughtful of the precedent that we could set.

Um I could potentially be open to a different amount of reduction, um, but the reduction that was suggested in the motion to me was was too high.

So that's kind of where um my mind is at right now.

Okay.

Uh counselor Duggar.

Yeah, I'll I'll say what I was gonna say.

Like I I also think I'm a no, but that doesn't, I'm I'm not conceptually against this.

Uh I just think the amount is too much.

Like to me, I I don't know what I would do with it.

And I I share your sentiment, Mayor.

Like I think it's ridiculous that I have to think about this because I don't know what our costs were.

I don't, but like it feels like that's too much, or that just feels like visually too, like the message we're sending.

It doesn't feel like enough pain.

I hate to say it that way, but it's like like you, you know, conceptually I agree with Counselor Teter and Counselor Hartmark Priggan Huston, like they're dates have to matter and and rules have to matter and clarity has to matter, and like just because the bank failed doesn't feel like um a big error on the city's part.

Like that doesn't feel like a 30,000 justification.

If the number were lower, I could probably be convinced to just accept this one and vote yes, but I think I'm a no right now.

Okay, well, here's how this is gonna work.

We gotta take a vote on the motion on the floor.

We gotta have a new motion.

So while we this motion is open, do it like is there a number like if we want small developers, guys, you gotta realize big like deacon, they have somebody that does nothing but watch permitting timeline.

If we only want big developers in our city, we're gonna not reduce this.

If we want to say that we're developer-friendly and we want more housing and we want to be a concierge-level service, we cannot levy this full fee.

Like I just believe that in my soul.

So I want to vote yes, the votes aren't there.

For some of you guys that are like, I'm I'm warm water.

What's the number you could vote for?

Like, let's get this done.

I don't want to spend an hour talking about it.

If we're 50% we could, but like let's get a number so we know even no.

Like, is that 50% reduction enough to get the the votes over the line here?

Like, where are we at?

That's where I'm at.

I could I could be a yes for a 50% reduction.

Counselor Husson.

What uh sorry, what is that number?

Just so that I can be clear.

What's the total 32,000?

So that would be 16,000.

I thought that the fee was about 35,000.

35,000.

So 17.5.

I would be amenable to amending my motion to 50%.

Does that move you, Counselor Husson?

Where are you at, Counselor Kimmy?

No, I was gonna mention that um I'll be voting no on this uh because um we're gonna set the president and then every time this happens, then you might come to the council.

I'm gonna have to do it because again.

So that's the um issue.

So you're a no reduction, you'll only vote for the full fee.

Counselor Teter, is there room for you, or you only vote for the whole fee?

Uh yeah, I'm going to vote no on a reduction.

And the reason is because I don't think the code is cares about my feelings of how much I like the project and this type of development.

The code is just is there just cause?

And I don't think that there is.

And I I hate that, but that's how it is.

Counselor Tivnon, are you a no on any reduction?

I hate to be brutal about this, but we're this could have been solved with a simple outlook reminder.

I I understand that there are a lot of moving parts to a project like this, but down to dates that are very clear when you're when you're agreeing to them.

You need to stick to them.

If we're expecting this on a cellular level with a somebody who owns a home who wants to do an addition to it, that they have to also carry forward with agreements at such as permits.

Uh, I think that we need to have that cascading up and down the system, and we have to stand behind the the code as it is written.

All right.

Well, uh, will the city recorder call the vote?

Do we um sorry, point of order?

Do we need to make the motion to change the number?

No, because there's not a there's not enough votes here to make it.

Oh, I thought Counselor Husson said she was amenable to that.

Oh, are you amenable to that, Counselor Hussen?

Okay, yeah, let's make uh amendment to okay.

So I move to amend my motion to do a 50% fee reduction of the permit fee that was that was charged for the second site development fee, given the uh applicants what I interpret to be just cause for missing the extension request.

I'll second.

Okay, any discussion on the amendment?

Sorry, or I think mayor, maybe since you were my second, I think you have to.

Oh, yeah, I'm amenable to it.

I will stack in it.

Thank you.

Thanks for our little uh parliamentarian previous attorney.

Thank you.

Uh any more discussion?

Counselor Kimmy, is that you?

Are you you're good?

Okay, will the recorder call the roll?

Councillor Duggars.

Yes, Councillor Hart Mayor Prigg.

Yes, Councillor Hassan, yes.

Counselor Kimmy, no counselor teeter, no counselor Tivnon, no Mayor Beatty.

Yes, four yes, three no.

All right, gentlemen, thanks for appealing and coming to us and watching democracy live in real time.

It's messy, and sometimes we move the dial a little bit.

So thank you for joining us tonight.

Staff, my request is though that we let's have a conversation about potentially this not happening again.

Like we need to give some authority to a city manager to make these some decision making.

And so let's think about what a future work session or plan might look like around that.

Okay, so now we're on to the other public hearing that I tried to get us to do earlier.

The next item on the agenda is the public hearing for ordinance 4871, amending B Retten code section 602.080 and section 6.02.390 relating to parking permit applications.

I now call to order the public hearing.

First, we will hear from city staff, then we will take public comment.

Anyone wishing to speak at the hearing should follow the instructions included on tonight's agenda.

For those attending in person, please complete a yellow visitor comment card found on the table by the entry door and give it to the city recorder seated at the end of the dais.

Let's proceed to the staff presentation.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

My name is Casey Graziano.

I am the parking operations manager, and I'm here to discuss a code change.

I don't have slides for you, so I'm just gonna read my little script here.

But uh in section uh 6.02390B, we're seeking to remove language that caps the cost of parking permits at the cost to administer and enforce the program in a parking permit zone.

Uh and in section 6.02390E, uh we are seeking to remove the specificity of which department within the city administers the downtown parking permit program and remove language that caps the cost of the downtown parking permit program to at enforcing and administering the program.

Uh this code uh was adopted in 2002 and has not been adjusted since.

Um changing this code will help us adjust the program to current and future needs, including future potential price changes without legislative maximums.

Um and while this code does not fundamentally change the current program, we are coming back to council on September 16th to have uh more conversation around the downtown parking permit program.

And if there are any uh legal questions, uh Grace Wong is also here to answer those.

And that's all I have.

Okay, that's it.

No presentation.

Got it.

Um questions of staff.

Counselor Hartmeyer Prague.

Thank you.

Thank you, Casey.

Thank you, Molly, for being here.

I just had a question about if parking permits are for specific zones, or if they can be used in all two-hour parking areas that would allow the person, the permit holder to exceed the two-hour limit.

Yeah, they're for specific zones within downtown.

Um, the other section, the first section that I read as it relates to parking permit zones anywhere, that would be for anywhere, but for downtown, there are specific streets and zones that people can park in to park past the post-it timeline.

And to Claire to add to that, um, the first section where it's for any permit parking.

We actually don't have permit parking um in many other locations besides downtown right now.

It is a an application process that has to be done by the neighborhood.

Um, so this is something adjusting a program that was developed a while back that isn't really active at the moment.

Sure.

And then downtown the map is also prescriptive in code right now.

So being able to make these incremental changes to the code now would allow us to adjust the program to better meet the needs 23 years later.

Um, and that would include potentially looking at the map and where those permit zones are located within downtown.

Thank you both.

Yeah, and I'll just say uh this is something council's been asking for is the fact that in our cost recovery, we are not getting uh the value here.

So I appreciate the public hearing tonight on doing this, and that we'll come back to the council in the future for the fee.

Is there any other question of staff?

Oh, sorry, counselor Husson.

I was gonna make the motion.

Can I or do we need to please?

Okay.

No one else is in the comments.

I move to adopt the ordinance for 871.

Well, oh, actually, I'm sorry, do we have I need to do public hearing, right?

Or public comment first.

Yes, you do need to take public comment before.

Right.

Yes.

One more step.

Um, okay.

Uh is there anyone wishing to make public comment tonight?

There is no one in the audience or no one is rushing the dais from in the building where we're not in.

No one online.

All right, counselor Hussen, you're on.

Do you want to close the public hearing?

I will close the public hearing.

I move to adopt ordinance 4871, amending Bieberton Code Sections 6.02.080 and section 6.02.390 relating to parking permit applications.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded by Councillor Teeter.

Any discussion on tonight's motion.

All right, we are talked out.

Will the reporter call the role.

Councillor Duggar.

Yes.

Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg.

Yes.

Councilor Hassan.

Yes.

Councilor Kimmy.

Yes.

Counselor Teeter.

Yes.

Councillor Tivnon.

Yes.

Mayor Beatty.

Yes.

Seven, yes, zero no.

Perfect.

All right.

Thank you, parking team.

We are on to our last agenda item of the evening, which is a work session.

Uh 25139 parks in open space.

I think this is a dual presentation with THPRD and our staff.

So Jenny, who's how's this gonna work?

I believe perfect.

All right, she waved at me.

Go ahead, Lee.

Hey there, I'll wait for the presentation to get up, but as we do, I'll do intros.

Um, good evening, counselors and mayor.

My name is Lee Crabtree, and I am the assistant community development director.

This evening I'm joined by staff from the city and THPRD or Twalton Hills Park and Recreation District.

Uh from THPRD, we have Doug Menke, Aisha Panis, Peter Swinton from the City, Liz Jones, Alyssa Maxwell, Tammy Connolly, and M.

Hyatt.

Next slide, please.

This evening we will present some background on parks and open space in the city, share information on ways that we collaborate internally and with partners, and discuss Metro's 2019 parks and nature bond measure and ways that the city may choose to deliver projects for our community using bond funds.

This work session will also serve as an opportunity for city council to prepare for discussions with the THPRD board during a joint session that will be held on September 30th, where we anticipate to focus on metro the Metro Bond local share options, metro bond large scale community vision ideas, and housing partnership opportunities.

Next slide.

Option one that we've offered up is that the council could negotiate agreements with THPRD for them to acquire property within the city's urban service boundary and deliver projects within city boundaries.

Or option two, that the city could choose, city council could choose to allocate city funding and resources to independently acquire property and deliver projects.

Or option three, some mix of the two.

Next slide.

THPRD is the city's primary provider of parks and recreation services for the Beaverton community.

However, Beaverton is also provider of parks and open spaces.

The city owns, maintains, and operates many properties that present as parks, like the Petercourt Pocket Parks, City Park, and the Green in front of the library.

Plazas, like at the Reeser, the Round North and South, Lombard between Broadway and Beaverton Hillsdale Highway, and the Public Safety Center.

We have trails like the Crescent Connection and Hall Creek between 114th and 117th, and many, many, many neighborhood connectors.

And we also have open spaces that show up as preservation tracks for trees, wetlands, and stormwater facilities.

Next slide.

Across the city, property ownership, maintenance and programming varies by property.

City and THPRED staff are involved in community engagement, planning, acquisition, design, and construction, maintenance that includes resources like staffing, equipment, storage, asset management systems, and required certifications for arborists, playgrounds, and pool operators, and others.

And we all offer programming that can be staff intensive and may include classes, open recreation, events, and specialized customer service systems.

Next slide, please.

Various partner agencies own and maintain properties that serve as parks and open space in Beaverton.

Acquiring, developing, and maintaining these properties relies on partner agency collaboration.

Some of the most recent collaboration efforts have included plans like the Downtown Parks and Open Space Framework, and projects like the Lombard West Redevelopment RFP.

Next slide, please.

Switching gears to regional parks coordination.

In 2019, voters passed the Metro Parks and Nature Bond.

The bond provides funding across six programs shown here.

For example, the Protect and Restore Lands Program could help Metro acquire land, such as property around the city around Cooper Mountain Nature Park, or the Take Care of Metro Parks Program could help Metro maintain land such as the Cooper Mountain Nature Park.

The remaining four programs are programs through which the city may seek funding.

Three through grant applications via the Nature Neighborhood Grants Program, creating trails for walking and biking, and advancing large scale community visions, or through direct allocation in support of local projects, we short term call local share.

Each program has specific restrictions for how bond funds may be spent.

Access to bond funds may also be heavily reliant on local funds for community engagement, planning, design, construction, and completion.

Tonight we will focus on the local share program and touch briefly on large scale community visions.

Next slide, please.

So what is local share?

Local share program funds are to be used to protect water quality, fish and wildlife habitat, or connect people to nature.

Eligible local share investments are as follows.

Natural areas or park land acquisition, fish and wildlife habitat restoration, habitat connectivity enhancements, maintaining or developing public access facilities of public parks and natural areas, design and construction of local or regional trails, and enhancing or new learning or environmental education facilities.

The 2019 local share allocations included 5.7 million to the city and 8.6 million to THPRD.

While the city has not yet committed its allocation, THPRD has been able to move forward on agreements and projects to spend most of their allocation.

Metro is aiming for jurisdictions to commit local share expenditures via agreements by June 2026.

Corresponding eligible expenses and reimbursement requests must be complete within 10 years from the date of the agreement.

Next slide.

So I'm going to take a quick drink.

Any option requires commitment of city resources, including staff time.

The degree of commitment will vary depending on City Council priorities and direction provided by City Council and the THPRD board.

The most time-efficient way to use local share is through property acquisition.

Key considerations about acquisition include the location of the acquisition and what to do with the property once you have it.

Use of local share for projects will require upfront investment, starting with the decision making process regarding which projects to move forward with, and then following through on engagement and the balance of project activities.

A key consideration for projects is that the bond only reimburses for program eligible expenses.

Next slide.

THPRD is making decisions about where to focus their efforts based on the district's vision action plan that was adopted in September 2020, with the intent to serve varying communities within the district and deliver improvements that community members are asking for.

Within the local share program, THPRD is moving forward on four projects.

The district felt aligned well with the vision priorities and the spirit of the Metro Bond.

The dollar amounts shown with the projects on the slide are the Metro Bond Fund amounts, not total project costs.

That's almost 11 million dollars of 2019 parks and nature bond funds for efforts in and around Beverton.

Next slide.

As another way the city could advance city priorities.

This grant program supports innovative capital projects that bring together nature, job opportunities, affordable housing, and safe transportation.

Through this program, Metro is looking to support projects that inspire new ways to meet these challenges.

Staff recognize the number of overlapping efforts in central Beaverton, and we see an opportunity to coordinate the work of these efforts in a way that leverages them to deliver on community visions and plans.

The city and our partners have a strong story to tell about how we are working to knit together, create corridors and flick planes as a green spine throughout downtown, stormwater management as development mitigation and open space, parks and third spaces, recreation and entertainment destinations, commercial services and jobs, housing, and safe multimodal transportation options.

Downtown confluence is a strong concept that will require staff resources.

We plan to have this concept as an agenda item on September 30th when you meet with the THPRD board.

Next slide, please.

As identified earlier in the presentation, staff are looking for council direction on how the city should deploy the city's 5.7 million allocation of local share funds from the bond measure.

Next slide.

Staff recommend that the city utilize the city's allocation through negotiating an agreement with THPRD to acquire property within the city's urban service boundary or deliver projects within city boundaries or a mix of the two.

Staff believe that this path will be the most efficient way to deploy the funds and deliver results for the community.

This path will still require city participation in decision making and delivery as a partner to THPRD.

It is important to note that THPRD has SDC funds to use for capacity increasing projects within their capital improvement program, whereas the city does not have a funding source to commit to similar projects.

This path will allow the city to focus on city priorities and to work with partners on advancing ideas for large-scale community vision program project if council so chooses.

Next slide.

So next steps.

After this work session, staff will take council's feedback and direction and prepare for the council and THPRD joint meeting on September 30th.

After September 30th, staff from both agencies will advance work based on direction provided from the council and the board.

As a reminder, the city needs to provide Metro with the city's proposed approach to local share by June 2026.

Next slide.

Hopefully we can have a fun one now.

We look forward to hearing your conversation, and we're open for questions.

Awesome.

Thank you.

I'll kick us off tonight when people get their name in the chat.

As the historian, we have been trying to spend this money for a very long time.

We looked at the Lombard property.

We looked at the fountain.

We looked at the playground when it was blown over.

We looked at the dining commons.

We've looked at all of the things that are trying to move the council's goals forward.

I will also tell you collectively, the mayors have fought Metro every step of the way because it is so restrictive and very challenging to use.

And when Metro does stuff in the Ivory Tower, it doesn't often play out in real life on the ground.

And I was very anti merging this money with THPRD because a lot of times our goals are different.

When I look at that list, I mean it's really great project, but I don't think they're going to get a pedestrian bridge over 26 and spend 1.9 million dollars.

I was also surprised to not see any money for the Cooper Mountain expansion that they are constantly talking about.

However, I'm in a place where I think they have SDC credits.

They have the mechanism for community impact.

So I'm inclined to move forward in an agreement.

And you know, THPRD is one of our closest partners.

They're not going to do things or buy purchase property that the city doesn't agree with or do.

We're in a much so much better of a place than we were when this money bond issue is money.

So I'm I'm good moving forward.

I think about the SDC credits paying for something like the first street dining commons or um, you know, the the large-scale community project for the part of the loop that intersects with our rivers down and our undergrounded rivers and daylighting the creeks down there.

So I think there's a lot more exciting opportunities ahead of us to have an agreement than trying to go at it alone.

So that's where I am.

Uh counselor teeter.

Uh, can I actually let Counselor Hartman go first?

I'm interested in her experience and the park expert lawyer, Counselor Hartmeyer Prague.

Don't give me these titles, okay?

We better deliver something.

I know.

What if I have nothing?

It's like nothing impactful to say.

No, I what I said was impactful.

So go ahead.

I I I do think it is um given the work that we've done with THPRD over the last couple of years, especially.

We've we've built like our downtown plan together, right?

We've we've worked on cooperative strategies that I think it makes sense to like now actually have some money to work with together on implementing those strategies.

So I I think um in terms of the questions presented to us, I I think that yes, we should partner in a gotion agreement with THPRD um to acquire property and deliver projects, and I would just ask that as part of that agreement that that there be like checkpoints and milestones of how we are there so that we're you know that this is like all co agreed upon, but I know I think one of Mayor's favorite phrases is force multiple multiplier.

I think we have an opportunity here to be full small force multipliers for one another and for our community.

I just think that um, you know, now that we have these governing documents in place that we both agree to, right?

Both bodies have said these are things that are important, not governing, but strategies, right?

We have strategies together and vision.

So I think this is a really great moment and perhaps gives us a catalytic opportunity to to get something that works well for both of us because we serve the same community and and get it done in front of Metro within the deadline that we need to.

So that wow, your socks off, Counselor Teter, you can go ahead now.

Oh, yeah, my socks are off.

Thanks, Council Art My Print.

Uh yeah, I agree.

I would I I love the focus on the downtown confluence.

Uh bringing in the Creekside Master Plan, the loop and the downtown parks and open space framework plan that we've that we've done.

I think that there's a lot of uh structure that's ready to go for some of those downtown oriented projects.

Um I would also love it if we can factor in the active transportation plan, especially with uh bike or pedestrian access into downtown from some of the surrounding neighborhoods.

Um then I a couple months ago at a council meeting, Mayor Beatty and I were talking about the 125th non-existing street, and that's a pet favorite project of mine where it'd be awesome to get a trail through there that connects the neighborhoods.

Not with this money, Counselor Teeter.

We got a future negotiation there with them, but they're not getting they're not getting the easy two for here.

So Doug and Aisha, you're not getting the 125th extension and our money.

So just you have to come back to the table with more.

Okay, if they're listening here, yeah.

Um, so yeah, I love the downtown confluence and active transportation plan, including elements of that.

I do have one question.

We've talked about partnering with THPRD because they've got SDCs that can fund the upfront money.

Uh would Bureau be able to be the partner that funds upfront money or are they a factor because Bureau factor here?

We can ask Bureau for funds for certain things.

Um we have like we've used uh Bureau for inflation infrastructure, right?

So we've used some of that for the loop.

Um, I think for large-scale community visions, it's important to remember that they're looking for projects that are six million dollars or more in cost, and that two million of that can be from Metro, but the balance has to be from your match.

And so you're looking at at least four million dollars in match.

But if we can use the loop and Bureau and all these other things that we're doing, we probably have enough match plus to to move that forward.

Okay, thank you.

Uh so in summary, I definitely want us to use this money.

Uh, and I think part of THPRD is a great way to go at it.

So thankfully.

I will say I'll concede like 125th, that's a feature conversation.

But there is that trail over there by off of Minlo that goes the other direction by behind the school that needs a lot of work.

So that one I think when I rode my bike through there a couple weeks ago, there's like tree roots and it's unknown and we own it, but it doesn't, you know.

There's some other trails that I think we could we could work together on.

Counselor Duggar.

Yeah, um a lot of great comments.

And I I'll be honest, I hesitate a little bit to share this money.

Uh, but I can trust that we can work together with THPRD and figuring out this.

But the reason I hesitate is unlike most cities, I think our downtown is way under parked right now for the amount of people currently living here.

And if you guys remember right before the uh break, we had a presentation that showed the the where housing was being built in Beaverton.

Obviously, Cooper Mountain is going to be a big area going forward, but downtown represented, if I'm going off memory, something like half of new building permits or something.

We're adding a lot of new people downtown.

We're not adding a lot of parts.

We've we we've kind of done a little bit with the first rate dining commons, but like I think about the hundreds of units that have come online over the last 12 months and in how many interconstruction we had a discussion early in this meeting about new units that are coming under, and I think I think we've got to push really hard on THPRD that we need family parks, we need interesting urban spaces downtown.

And and that's I'll be honest, like I love the downtown confluence, but I just don't know that it's my highest priority for a park downtown right now, just because it's we have so many other very basic park needs downtown.

I can walk to to two parks downtown and I'm on the edge of it, right?

Like, or sorry, three parks right now.

But but that's you know, like if I look out west where some of my friends live and I go out there, they have a lot more parks.

And I think there's a lot of good reasons for that.

Like when the bonds were happening and when THPRD uh got that money, it was a lot easier and cheaper, you know, to buy undeveloped land and stuff like that.

So I totally understand why that's the case, but like I think we like like I can support working with THPD, but I'm gonna be really particular about the type of projects and where they are located because you know that we we have some very specific needs in one of the fastest growing areas of the city.

And and I I just don't know that that uh this is the best mechanism to go for it.

I can trust you guys if you feel that's the way, but I will be very particular about how what what investments we make in downtown, particularly you know, as we increase uh we need spaces for families and and and couples and young people and all this, but we also need as Councilor Teeter, like active transportation investments, those those um bike and ped pass are incredible movers downtown.

They're incredible moves everywhere, but if we're gonna pile a bunch of people at high density, uh it's not even nice to have anymore.

It's it's necessary.

So just just some kind of live thoughts.

Um I'm happy to, you know, if you guys trust that that's the best way, I'm happy to defer to you on that.

But well, I will just say it's five million dollars, not five cajillion dollars.

So we're what you yeah, you're asking for an awful lot for five million, but I think they hear you, and I would say their work that they've done on redeveloping downtown parks, right?

Because their old model was an acre or more, and so I think they're they're open to opportunities and the challenge, and this puts us help put a little skin in the game to make it happen.

Counselor Huston.

Yeah, I'll try to keep this brief.

Um, I support number one, the top recommendation from staff.

I will echo a couple things that I heard.

Um, I appreciated Counselor Teter's comment about using the active transportation plan and looking at other opportunities for connection.

Um I think that my experience with THPurity and and what they have done is that they know parks and that they should do parks, and I want them to be the lead and partner with them on parks.

So I feel really uh strongly that that I want their partnership and and and to work with them in that.

Um I know I see Director Moreno, I think is listening.

I I know others might be uh I think are listening as well.

Um I do want to say, and I said this, I think Lee in my briefing with you.

If I could just dream for a moment, um I feel really really privileged to live um walking distance to to not one but two parks.

One is a THPRD park and one is a school park.

But you know, my dream for for Beaverton residents and in this community is that that they have the ability to walk to those kinds of things, and I just really hope for uh the folks that are listening specifically in THPRD, and I'm sure we'll have this conversation in our work session that that that we dream that way because to me, parks are such a critical part of open spaces, and they're just like a next level economic development in terms of like the way they take care of the community.

So I wanted to make sure I said that on the record for the folks who are listening.

And um, thank you, Lee, for this presentation and and getting us to a place where we're working more side by side, holding hands and doing great stuff.

Council Timon.

Ditto ditto ditto.

So what everyone just said, um very excited about this collaboration and figuring out how to use this money most effectively and get as much momentum and magnitude out of it as we can.

Um I also did not um uh take the words of the mayor lightly around Cooper Mountain and the nature preserve, and still needing to think very hard about how we can preserve a lot of the land out there.

It's once in a generational opportunity, and one won't get that back.

Um, but it is a regional asset, it's not just a beaverton asset.

And so I think that conversation um is just one we just we have to keep pushing on.

Um, but yes, to the active transportation, yes to looking at making those like um fill-ins for gaps that we're experiencing right now in our uh networks.

Yes to keeping up with open space with increases in population and density, and very excited for future conversations around this.

Counselor Kenny.

Yeah, I'm excited about this.

Um, I'd love to partner with TH Purity, obviously.

Um, and I have a request that I want to beat water feature there.

Things are getting hot, so I think yeah, there's people around so for the future reference.

Well, if you didn't move out of downtown, we would have been a walking distance to our most gigantic water feature.

So that maybe you need an active transportation plan to get back to downtown.

All right, so after work.

All right.

All right, friends.

Uh, thanks for joining us this evening.

And our last agenda items council new business.

Nobody.

All right.

Great uh first uh council meeting back after recess.

I appreciate our spirited debate around the fees.

Uh conflict is um okay.

And I think this council's working really well together and moving towards decision making in real time.

And tonight I think will be a great example of uh what the next few months will look like.

We're gonna continue to be faced with the fiscal challenges, making hard decisions together.

We're not a monolith, we all don't vote the same way.

We change our mind on opinions and go back and forth.

And so I I would just say tonight I think was a really great example of the council when we work together in a positive direction.

So I look forward to seeing everyone in a week in person next week.

All right.

Tonight's meeting is adjourned.