Beaverton City Council Meeting - April 21, 2026
STREAMING COPY IN PREPARATION — RECORDING AVAILABLE FROM THE ORIGINAL SOURCE
Councillor Hartmeyer Prigg.
Present.
Councilor Hassan.
Here.
Councillor Kimmy.
Counselor Teeter.
Here.
Counselor Tivon.
Here.
My understanding is Councillor Duggar is absent tonight, and Mayor Beatty is running a little late.
Thank you, Sue.
On tonight's agenda, we will well.
I'm gonna I'm actually gonna pull, I think what is this called pull and audible when you change the order.
Okay.
I don't know.
Is that football?
It's not my sport.
Okay, so on tonight's agenda, we will start with visitor comments and then we will have our work session about the downtown parking program.
I'm gonna move consent agenda to come right after the work session, um, where we do have one item that um we are going to have a discussion on, which is the agenda bill 26078.
That one we'll have a separate conversation on as part of consent agenda.
Then we'll move into our presentation, which is the library advisory board's annual report.
We'll have a city manager's report, and then any council items.
Sound okay.
Okay.
All right.
So tonight we have visitor comments, and the city does require pre-registration for online and in-person visitor comments.
Registration closed at 12 noon today, and all registration was conducted through the city recorder's office via email or phone in preparation for this meeting.
And tonight we have three people registered.
As a reminder, visit or comment provide an opportunity for the community to speak about matters, whether they are not whether or not they are on the agenda.
Visitors may state their comments, but they should not expect to engage in back and forth dialogue regarding those comments, as this is a time for council to hear from the community.
The city council seeks to be welcoming and inclusive towards all speakers at public meetings, and we strive to create an atmosphere of mutual care and respect.
While community members may disagree with each other or the city on issues and may give critical feedback, they are expected to do so respectfully and without disruption.
Disruptions interfere with the ability of others present in person or online to participate fully in this meeting.
Council members will not interrupt community members during public comments, and we expect community members to offer the same courtesy to other speakers.
Visitor comments tonight will be limited to three minutes per person.
And if any follow-up is needed, our city manager and city recorder are taking notes.
So our first speaker tonight is Sandra Elliott, and then we'll have David Carlson.
So you can come and join us at the table here, Sandra.
And if you would push the mic button when you see a green light, and then when you start talking, the timer will start.
Oh, there we go.
Okay.
Um good evening.
Uh City Council members, I appreciate your time.
My name is Sandra Elliott, and I'm a proud resident of Beaverton.
One of the reasons that I moved here uh in 2008 was to be able to live my life more openly.
As someone who is ethically non-monogamous, um, I am someone who in the state of Texas, as a college professor, faced discrimination on many different uh fronts in a way that eventually led me to leave that area simply because I wanted to be able to live my life.
And I'm coming here today to ask you to bring forward protections for expansive relationship structures, chosen blended and multi-generational family structures specifically.
These protections matter because open's research, organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy, has shown that 60% of us report experiencing stigma and discrimination on the basis of their non-monogamous identity.
And I would like for that to be protected.
And this includes housing, it includes employment, it includes areas that are covered by these protections.
Those protections will ensure that all residents of Beaverton can be full members of our community, regardless of their family or relationship structure.
I believe all families, all forms of family deserve legal protection, and I'm here to ask today that this policy go all the way.
I've spoken with several of you about this policy in the past and I've put this in front of you.
Eight other cities have already done this, including Portland and Astoria here in in Oregon, Cambridge and Somerville, Massachusetts, Berkeley and Oakland, California.
They all pass the same language that I have shared with you, the full enumerated examples, and face zero legal challenges, zero controversy, and zero problems because this is going to work.
So thank you for your time and attention, and we look forward to receiving your support.
Thank you, Sandra.
Dave.
It's all right.
David, you're up next, and then Emily is after David.
Oh, look at that right there, not down there.
Uh good evening, Council.
Uh, my name is David Carlson.
Uh, while I do not currently live in Beaverton, I grew up in Aloha off 185th in Farmington, so I know this area very well, very uh connected to it.
Um I am the campaign coordinator for Open, the organization for polymarine and ethical non-monogamy.
I'm here tonight to urge this council to move forward on a family and relationship structured non-discrimination ordinance and to let you know that our community is ready to support it.
The reality is that Beaverton's family look very different than they did a generation ago.
Only 18% of households today resemble the traditional nuclear family model.
One in five Americans lives in a multi-generational household uh with blended families, chosen families, single parents by choice, and consensually non-monogamous families are everywhere, including right here in Beaverton.
I just heard from one.
Yet our local non-discrimination code doesn't reflect that reality.
People in non-traditional family structures can be and are denied housing, fired from jobs, and turned away from services simply because who they love and how they build their families.
There's a woman in a LoA, and of course she's not covered by Beaverton, but she is in a triad.
She's married to one person and they have a third partner who has a child.
She is a uh teacher uh for Portland Public Schools, but cannot without doing the full adoption legal adoption process, give that child health care right now.
Uh these are things that we need to expand to, and the first step is giving them rights, legal rights to be acknowledged for who they are.
Um, in the last two months, gonna say it again, Portland Olympia, Astoria and West Hollywood have passed this policy.
Uh Eugene, Seattle, and Halo Park, Michigan are months away from passing this as well.
Uh these ordinance require no new city staff, no new budget, just the political will to say that every family deserves equal protection under the law.
Uh obviously we've had conversations with multiple of you, we've emailed all of you to have conversations and would love to continue those conversations and get this across uh the finish line soon.
Um I didn't bring them today, but last year when I was at Pride, I collected over a hundred signatures from community members who live in Beaverton.
Um, so I would love to share those with you at some point.
Um, but that's to say that the community is ready to support you when you are ready to bring this forward.
Um so I'm asking you to take the next step.
Schedule meeting with the or hearing with us about this, meet with us, and help make Beaverton a city where every family is safe.
Thank you.
Thank you, David.
And Emily, hello, my name is Emily Techmas Koons, um, and I'm a proud resident of Beaverton.
I'm from California, and I'm from a lot of different backgrounds.
Um I remember when we used to call blended families broken families, and I've had to contemplate taking in my own sister and finish raising her.
Challenges like these can be really difficult for people of multi-generational blended or chosen families.
And I'm really excited to live the rest of my life here in Beaverton, and I'm very excited to raise a family here.
And I just want to make sure that my family structure happy together and protected.
I'm hoping that you will be able to accept that this is a way of life for a lot of people in Beaverton.
And regardless of ways of life, families staying together and staying happy is extremely important to myself and my friends who've also spoken today.
So um, I'll say this again.
Eight cities have already done this, including Portland and Astoria, Cambridge and Somerville in Massachusetts, and Berkeley and Oakland in California.
They all passed the exact language, the full enumerated examples, and faced zero legal challenges, zero controversy, and zero problems.
Because legislation like this does work, and the people do ask for it, are very excited to have it and are hoping that you're excited to accept it too.
Thank you.
Thank you, Emily.
Okay.
So we will move to our work session.
And tonight's work session is regarding the downtown parking program.
We'll start with the presentation by community development director Andy Varner and parking manager Molly Rabinovitz.
And when the presentation is done, oh it looks like we have Tyler.
And when the presentation is done, each counselor will have the opportunity to comment and ask questions from the presenters.
So staff, when you are ready, the floor is yours.
Okay.
Good evening, counselors and mayor.
My name is Andy Varner.
I'm the community development department director for the city of Beaverton.
As you said, tonight I'm joined by Tyler Ryerson, our development division manager for uh community development, and Molly Rabinovitz, the parking downtown parking manager.
Uh we're here to discuss the downtown parking program with you.
Um I want to thank Lee Crabtree and Casey Graziano for all of their assistance with tonight's presentation.
Next slide, please.
So as you can see, there's quite a bit of information to go over tonight.
Um before we dive into the details, um, I want to walk through what we'll cover here.
Um Tyler's here to provide some context, how downtown has been transforming, how development has changed parking needs, and the community goals that have shaped our approach.
And then we'll walk through the policy direction council has given previously given and the major action staff has taken in response, like the parking compliance pilot project.
Uh this includes program activities and how they align with that guidance.
Uh we'll recap the enforcement pilot project, which recently came to a close, and what we set out to learn, what the data showed us, and the lessons from that pilot and what those findings will mean going forward with the program.
And then finally, we'll talk about where we go in the future endeavors, adopting a downtown parking plan, engaging with businesses and the community, and evaluating cost recovery options.
And by the end of this session, our goal is to give you a clear picture of the decisions that have been made regarding parking, the choices ahead, and to get your feedback on whether council wants to pursue a parking enforcement contract, and if so, which version you'd like us to pursue.
So Molly will or Tyler, I'm sorry, will take us a little through history.
Good evening, Mayor, Counselors.
Um this is probably my favorite subject, downtown redevelopment and parking.
Um, as uh you have all been along the ride here for the last few years as a Bureau board member, counselor member, and um and proud to be in a downtown community that um is leads by being being diverse and being able to recognize all the different things that we have going have been going on, and we're gonna talk a little bit about the last 10 years and um and how um the work that we have all done together has transformed downtown Beaverton.
Um, a couple things that we we've got going on that I want to talk about tonight's division, accomplishments, parking as a program.
As uh we're all aware that um Beaverton is a regional center.
Light rail runs through it heavy federal investment over the years, state highway, heavy rail.
Um it's kind of difficult to get moved from one place to another, but we all see recognition.
There's a recognition of we we want to be um moving through central Beaverton to Old Town, and we have some projects that are lining up in order to do so.
Um we've had a strategy, the strategy um through community vision, civic plan, creekside master plan, downtown equity, um, restaurant strategy.
These all have kind of played a role of uh understanding where we want to be as a community, and we have been implementing, and those are kind of the fun pieces that we get to deal with Bureau each and every day.
Um resources with Bureau really can help implement the goals and the plans that we have strived for.
We've we've seen new redevelopment residential units of the number in the 830 just in um in one section.
1,300 total for the two areas.
Uh we did not have that kind of development prior to 10 years ago.
We did not have restaurants that we love.
Um Mike Williams, our economic development manager told me that there are 50 new net new restaurants in Beaverton in the last 10 years, and that does not include the food cart pod and any other um roll-up uh peak carts.
And that does not include the food car pod and any other roll-up food carts.
That's significant.
And we're on the map.
And it's super exciting to be able to talk about it each and every day.
Some challenges.
There's transit.
There's mobility strategies that we are trying to come to fruition.
And we recognize that the state has changed laws on our parking requirements that impacts development.
Our redevelopment strategy includes trying to continue implementing new development.
There is purchase nine acres across our downtown.
The reserve the garage with the research, the library.
Farmers market is expanding.
City Park.
There's lots of events that we want to contribute towards.
Our community wants to be here.
Parking's part of that.
Just just for context, this is today.
City decided to purchase this building and move City Hall here in hopes that redevelopment could expand upon this this area that was kind of hurting for a while.
The Westgate site with Arc Central, the carts, the garage.
We've put in some infrastructure along Rose PG built a new bridge, built a trail connecting here and the Beaver Transit Center.
Current project on Canyon to help pedestrian access.
Next slide.
Old Town.
Beaverton High School is under construction.
Two-year project.
Broadway.
We focus in on Broadway and those restaurants, those businesses in order to help build the platform that we all want in our downtown.
The red is binary brewery, it's restaurant row.
Farmers Market is the largest market that in the region, maybe in the state.
Parking management is here to help make sure that we continue to grow in our downtown home.
Thank you, Tyler.
And thank you, counselors.
So back in starting in around 2021, we envisioned a parking pilot program that would help compliance downtown.
It was a council-guided approach, taking a more community-friendly approach with zero dollar warnings as the first citation, really to supplement BPD's efforts throughout the city.
So BPD then and still remains the authority on parking enforcement throughout our city.
If you need short term, if you need long term, where are the best options to build?
It wasn't designed to change things.
It wasn't about writing citations, it was about teaching people to find what they really needed in parking or even alternate transportation methods.
We partnered with the BPD, with the courts, with public works, multiple divisions within CDD to come up with our plan, our signage, our messages that went out.
It was definitely an all-city effort.
Just to be clear.
So we learned some things about enforce enforcement and what we need in the city.
I'm going to go through these, and some of these are policy guidance that we received from council as we went through the process.
Some of it is moving forward where council would also be involved in policy decisions, and that we would, as staff need the guidance from council to push forward, whether it's through code change or new policies that have never been created before.
So around enforcement, like I said, the pilot was it was decided to be a zero dollar first offense, other than fire hydrant ADA, which are federally mandated safety issues.
And it was decided that we would use a third-party vendor instead of trying to use an in-house service, which after a lot of evaluation was less cost effective than going with a third-party standalone vendor.
In the future, we will talk about you know, council paused the program after the pilot, and we can talk about cost recovery options.
We can talk about the fact that the warnings were in place for two and a half years, and most people did learn.
And we can talk about other concepts that can come through enforcement that we learned from the pilot.
But we do have an MOA in place with the Beaverton Police Department.
We had one for the pilot.
We have a new one that would represent a permanent program, and we continue to work with our other departments.
We've moved to a digital format to make it more streamlined, and that includes license plate recognition, which also helps us collect data, which will inform future strategies.
We've had more than 10,000 hours worked in the with our vendor for the pilot, and we wrote more than 11,000 warnings and citations.
Approximately two-thirds of those were warnings.
So approximately two-thirds of that 11,000 were zero-dollar warnings.
We know that our permit program could use some adjustments.
It was a program originally managed by finance.
We integrated it into our digital system to take that off their plate.
But the program itself hasn't been changed since 2002.
And so we've made some code changes already to help us move forward with changing the permit program.
But one of the things the pilot helped us identify was that we really need something different for residents and employees.
They have different needs, they need different time limits, things along those lines.
So we really need to look at those as two separate programs instead of the current one large program.
We need to look at the locations.
As Tyler just mentioned, we've had 1,300 units come in in the last 10 years, and this program is 24 years old.
So it's not meeting the needs of our current residents of our current hot spots for employment.
Our permit fees are zero dollars for residents.
And to park on site at some of these developments that Tyler mentioned, they're being charged anywhere from 90 to 165 dollars a month.
So obviously a zero-dollar permit is very appealing, but it's also not a cost recovery effective method.
And we have created permit caps to sort of limit expectations on being able to find a permit in the current uh locations, as well as, like I said, made some city code changes.
We also identified through the pilot that we need some curb management adjustment adjustments, and this is part of a larger system.
The transportation system planning is also looking at some curb management.
Um construction teams, our building teams, our site development teams, everybody has some interest in how that curve is used.
Um the only way that we can effectively manage our curb is to enforce what we have out there on the curb.
And that can be anywhere from time limits to loading and unloading to temporary permits that allow pods or construction mechanisms.
Thank you.
Some city codes will need to be changed.
We've heard we heard a lot from the community about parking branding.
We are exploring that with both the BDA, the business or the Beaverton Downtown Association, as well as with our Reaper Graphics group, looking at how we can take what is kind of standard out there.
We've added some standard signage, but how can we how can we bolster that?
How can we kind of identify what is public parking for Beaverton?
We've installed additional lighting, that was a big thing from the community.
We changed time limits on Broadway and East and Watson in what we call the Broadway district as an effort to help the new restaurants that were there and with the new residents coming in, over 300 units built in Madeira Beaverton to try to take that very geographically confined space and make it work for as many people as possible.
We've added two new ADA spaces and have three more in design with public works right now on the street, and we are in the process of removing the tick marks at the request of the community.
So just a really quick hit.
Most of you have already heard me say that we have over 3.5 million points of data from the pilot.
So it would take me a really long time to really provide all of the data information, but we did see a shift.
We saw a utilization, so this is Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
Looking at July of 2023 when we started the pilot and July of 2025.
We have data beyond that, but we wanted to do a month to month, and since it concluded before July of 2026, this was the best comparison.
But we saw utilization and occupy occupation of the downtown spaces increase by approximately nine or 10%.
But we also saw the length of stay change, and this is specifically in areas that are time regulated.
So we have had two-hour parking posted for decades.
Prior to the pilot, we saw an average stay of over two hours, even in those two hour spaces.
And at two years into the pilot, we saw those two hour spaces turning over at approximately every hour and a half.
So along with things like tick marks and shared parking, which is an effort we're working on with the BDA, and more signage or better signage.
We're also looking at updating those regulation hours.
Like I said, we mentioned we've already done them on Broadway, but you know, there are other areas of downtown that really need them.
Um, looking at our permit program as we've already discussed, um, and highlighting the things that the pilot really highlighted the things that are ready to be changed.
And we'd like to work with council and the community to do those things.
Um we have some additional cost recovery approaches that can be taken.
We want to continue to provide the coverage that is needed for the regulations that we have and the regulations that moving forward could be appropriate for downtown.
Um so a permanent enforcement program would implement the lessons learned from the pilot priority number one.
Um would we would look at our community-based needs and deploy our community-based informed strategies using data in the community and best practices that best serve as many people downtown as we can.
I we want to continue to support the Bureau Plan as well as other plans that are out there and just have a holistic parking utility that serves as much of the downtown community as possible.
Many of you have heard me say that if one person is happy, another person is not with my parking management strategies.
Um there's no perfect solution here, but we we hope that through these objectives, as well as uh the downtown parking plan, which you'll be hearing about in a Bureau work session in May and here at council in June, that we can come up with a really good solid plan to move forward in downtown.
So we came in March with uh a contract from a selected vendor that was selected through the formal RFP process.
And I apologize if you're following along your own copies of this, these pages might be flipped.
Um LAS parking LLC was the selected preferred vendor through that process.
And so we went back to them after that meeting and talked to them about well, what you know, based on your professional experience, what kind of hours would you sort of predict?
We couldn't change the scope because we'd have to go through the whole RFP process again to do that.
But you know, if we're looking at hours, what could we do that would still really serve the city?
And so they came back with three options for us.
Option one that you see was what was in the original proposal.
Option two is sort of a balance.
It's a reduction in the number of ambassadors, but still provides some overlap and some opportunity for those ambassadors to be out in the street, engaging with the community.
Um it changes the not the enforcement hours themselves that are posted on the street, but the hours that they are out there enforcing.
So right now, uh or with option one and what was in the pilot was 7 a.m.
to 10 p.m.
Monday through Saturday.
Options two and three you'll see uh shortened the hours from 9 a.m.
to 10 p.m.
Um currently the regulations on Broadway are 8 a.m.
to 9 p.m.
So what this would do with options two and three is actually allow somebody to park on the street until 11 a.m.
without having to move their vehicle because they would be provided that two hours before as enforcement is is ramping up.
So option two provides um some overlap to provide really consistent coverage during the peak hours.
The peak hours are Monday through, or sorry, Tuesday through Friday, 2 a.m.
or 2 p.m.
to 8 p.m.
and then all day Saturday, farmers market being that big driver.
Um option three is actually more similar to what the pilot uh provided, which was two ambassadors and one supervisor with single coverage.
Um so not a lot of um opportunity to kind of really hone in on those peak hours with additional services.
Um so just a quick hit on the difference in cost for those.
So you can see that the number of hours worked per week would shift with each option based on that the number of ambassadors out there as well as the number of hours that are being enforced.
Um but the price changes accordingly.
And in a after having this conversation with Laz and looking at all of our options and having gone through the pilot, which is very similar to option three, in an ideal process.
I actually think that the parking team would recommend option two instead of option one, which was what we originally had proposed.
Um we did have some struggles with option three in over coverage and um the ability for the ambassadors to actually get out into the community, which is why we wanted ambassadors in the first place.
So go ahead.
Okay.
So this closes the staff presentation.
Thank you for bearing with us as we went over this information we thought that was important.
Um so we want to check whether council has any questions about the pilot program findings.
Uh we provided a lot of information here.
I know that um on enforcement levels and changes in behavior and lessons learned.
So if we need any clarification, we're happy to walk through that.
And then second, and most importantly, um, we're asking whether council wants to move forward with the formal parking enforcement contract.
The pilots concluded.
So we're seeking direction on whether enforcement should continue with a third-party vendor for the duration of a parking program.
Um the answer is yes, then Molly just prevented presented a few options there, and they those are meant to tailor and match the service levels we'd like to pursue in the community.
So with that, we'll be happy to take any questions.
Thank you, Tyler, Molly and Andy.
Um team, I'm gonna try to limit us to about 20 minutes, but that shouldn't prevent you from getting all your questions and whatnot answered.
Just want to, since we changed um the agenda up a little bit, I want to make sure to keep in mind our presenters.
So we're going to kick it off with Counselor Tibon.
And you touched briefly on branding and the wayfinding, and you mentioned that you're working with partners like business or sorry, the Beaverton Downtown Association.
Can you talk a little bit more in detail about what those conversations have entailed and how that's shaping up?
Absolutely.
So Mike Williams is the liaison with the BDA, and they actually just provided him with like a marketing strategy.
Um so we haven't had an opportunity to review it.
He told us about two days ago that he received, or yesterday that he received that.
So they they've been giving it some thought.
We have also been working with Rebra Graphics to bring back, we had a uh a specific parking symbol created uh with the BDA when we did after hours parking in 2018.
Um generally it's the blue P, but it's got the Beaverton colors around it, and so we are looking at how we can bring that back in and integrate it so that it's part of like somebody would see that and say, oh, this is public parking.
How do we integrate that into signage?
So we are working with public works.
Um we have learned that there are other cities that have actually adopted ordinances, so this is where council's involvement would come in that have adopted ordinances to allow cities to use other brand like other signage than the standard traffic signs that you find in the engineering manuals.
Um so if you think about cities when you go and you see like you know that the the blue is two hours and the green is three hours.
So looking at how we can integrate that and and essentially if feasible bringing an ordinance to city council to adopt the the opportunity to provide a totally different, more like friendly identifiable sign.
So we're kind of in in three phases.
Does that answer your question?
Um yeah, and just a couple of additional thoughts add on to it is um uh of course, like with this topic so front of mind, I've been looking at the existing signage.
The font is tiny, and it's really for pedestrians, it's not for people that are in their cars or at night.
So I I think the visibility, if you're kind of coming up with the order of priorities, it's like visibility, public parking, branding, it's like kind of nested into each other.
But I think about the spot where the farmers market is and somehow like really advertising that when the farmers market is not going on, it's a free-for-all, and it is right there.
And I don't even know the exact number of spaces that are in it, but that would also be helpful to know is um what what is the amount of um uh parking spots that are available in that that one spot, and then even like a frames like is there some sort of a solution where we could put something out.
I know that that requires staff time to do that, but it seems like there could be temporary signage that's also uh use like a peak peak time of day or peak time of year.
So yeah, I'm just very very interested in this part.
I do think it's a part of the placemaking, the sexiness of parking and just making sure people know where it is.
So hopefully that alleviates some of the the stress that's on the curbside parking for people with mobility issues and um that just have a tougher time walking a couple of blocks.
Thank you.
Mayor Beatty.
Uh man, this just really does not feel like a work session to me.
This feels a lot more about rehashing the same thing that came to us a couple weeks ago.
Uh the agenda package for me is is too light.
Um, it has a couple of near-term actions that we've been asking for, like removing the tick marks.
Um, but I did ask prior to this meeting for the historical data part like that, how much we've spent on parking minus the parking garage.
It's about 6.5 million dollars.
And when I look at the outcomes that we've accomplished, which is reducing parking by around 30 minutes a spot, it just doesn't feel like a great place for me to uh want to jump into parking enforcement.
I'm not anti-enforcement, I'm anti-enforcement out of more robust plan.
Like you talked about you know the fees for the parking permits.
We are approving apartments that have no parking and or ones that we were early in the process that required them, and they're they're charging a cost recovery, and we're charging nothing.
So I think working with those property owners to get more people incentivized and parking in the spots that exist.
And I think like right now, I would not choose any of these options, and I would vote against the contract until it comes back with a more robust parking strategy.
This is a very few blocks in downtown Beaverton, and the amount of money we're spending is and time talking about it.
And so I really hope either through the budget process or another way, we get something more.
This to me is not, I would not vote for any of these options, and I've given a lot of feedback, and I don't know why we would use license plate readers, like what data are we getting from that?
Why would we even start doing that?
Why would we do that in our community?
I think this presentation left me with a lot more questions and not leading me towards one of these options.
So thank you.
Thank you, Mayor.
Um, Councilor Hussen.
Yes, hi, thank you for the presentation.
Um just a couple questions, and then I can share my comments.
You shared the peak hours are between Tuesday and Friday from 2 to 8 p.m.
and all day Saturday.
Okay.
Um in terms of, and I think this was a little bit of what Counselor Tivnan was talking about, but the wayfinding and signage, what is the timeline for something like that look like?
So working with the BDA, um, I I think we're probably talking a couple of months of like coming up with a solid package and then um going through the ordinance process for approval.
Um, and I apologize, I don't know the exact timeline on that.
And and with council being out uh you know summer, summer and all that fun stuff.
So I I mean, I think we're we're talking like a three to six month timeline.
Where it would be considered a shorter term goal.
Okay.
Um and to clarify, and this is helpful with the wayfinding signage type work, because I feel like we talked about this in Bureau a year or so ago, there are some we do need to go through some ordinance process as well.
Okay, that's okay.
Um I you know, I feel parking is not fun or sexy.
I was gonna say that.
Um, we hear from the community about their concerns around parking, and to your point, no one's gonna be happy or not happy.
I think the information that's in front of us in this moment for me is enough to sort of start to give direction.
I mean, I think we've I know that I the wayfinding is probably the one thing that that you've probably heard about.
Um I am comfortable moving with parking enforcement.
I I want to explain why.
Um, I understand that this is an expense, and I want to watch every expense, trust me.
You'll hear from me a little bit later about that.
Um, but I think that there is confusion in our community right now because we have these signs, and we made a decision not to continue.
And so I guess my my hope is that we can give some direction because I do not want people struggling with what our parking enforcement is.
And I think we were very generous.
Um, I didn't want to charge for parking, and I didn't want to do a parking strategy three years ago.
It's one of the reasons we did a written warning for the first one, and we were very generous people.
I don't know who was here with me for that, but I remember it, and I was like, Oh, that's so sweet.
Like, we want to teach behavior that encourages people to use parking responsibly, and and we champion that and we're in this moment right now to say, okay, what does parking enforcement look like?
It can't be not no enforcement, and so I don't know that I can say like I love any specific option.
I think they're all great.
Um quick clarifying question.
It isn't the signage from 9 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
two hours.
So we have a lot of different time regulations out on the street right now.
Uh in April through August of 2025, Broadway was changed, like with through that process.
Broadway was changed to 9 a.m.
or eight sorry, 8 a.m.
to 9 p.m.
to better serve the restaurants that needed that very limited parking.
Um so that district is there.
We have two hour and one hour and 30 minute spaces between Farmington and Third, but it varies throughout the corridor between Stott and Lombard.
Um, and those are Monday through Saturday, 7 a.m.
to 6 p.m.
And then there's a couple of locations, like I said, it needs cleaning up.
Um, but there are a couple of locations that are only Monday through Friday, and then actually south of third, we have no time regulations.
Okay.
So do we have a future where we're making that consistent across the board and what does that timeline look like?
So, yes, we we do, and and Casey and I are already working on some iterations of what that could look like.
That would go through the traffic commission process.
So, and then so we would we we could absolutely have a work session with what we generally do and what we did with Broadway was we had a community meeting.
We got everybody, we had some individual meetings, we had a community meeting, went over the proposed plan, made a few modicate modifications to that plan based on the the business input and the residential input, and then we took a proposed plan to traffic commission, traffic commission went through it, made a recommendation to council, council adopted the plan through consent, and then it was implemented through our public works department.
Okay.
So I I think I I support option two, although I'm open to the other options.
I think that if we are moving away from getting closer to a decision today, my ask would be what do we want to put together?
What are we asking staff to put together?
And because I do think parking is very unsexy and still very popular, what are the ways in which we're engaging with the community on this?
And so if we don't land a contract tonight, I'd I'd say could can we do a parking town hall where all of us do get to hear from the community?
Because I think one of the things that I'm noticing is there's this the staff reach out, you do an excellent job, then a couple people might reach out to a couple of us, and now we are sidestepping what staff has put together, and I'd like us to try not to continue to feed that and find a more consistent way for people to give feedback.
Thank you.
Counselor Kimmy.
What was the reason for going with what option one in the beginning and why are you recommending three right now?
Two, sorry.
No problem.
Um so when we brought a vendor on, which we did the same formal RFP process for the pilot, um, this was new for all of us.
Uh and we spoke with them, we had the regulation hours of 7 a.m.
to 6 p.m., mostly Monday through Friday, and in some cases Saturday.
And we asked them as the parking professionals who do enforcement every day as part of their job to give us a recommendation.
And this based on the warning system, based on the geographic area, was the recommendation.
And we did make modifications to the um the program over time with staffing with hours of operation.
We heard from the community that they really wanted to know what was happening after 6 p.m.
because of the restaurants.
So we actually had them out there, had our ambassadors out there collecting data, not enforcing parking, but collecting data from 6 p.m.
to 10 p.m.
so that we could really learn what was happening in our old town and in our Beaverton Central area with all of our restaurants and everybody coming in and out.
And we could we could then support time regulation changes or or other modifications using that information.
Um the reason we are proposing a different approach is to actually provide more consistency than we were able to get through the pilot.
Um we had some staffing turnover and some gaps that needed to that option two would provide us with a little bit of a buffer, um, a little bit of an overlap, a little bit of an allowance to we heard from a couple of businesses.
Well, if you're enforcing every two hours, why do I only see the vehicles twice a day?
And so that would allow us to be able to provide that more consistent two-hour coverage.
Um, if we are looking at short-term spots like drop-off and pickup, how do we better enforce those?
Because we don't want to have an ambassador just sitting there.
Um so that's why there's we proposed an uptick in in the ambassadors.
We also want the ambassadors to have the opportunity to go out and actually meet the community that they're working in.
And because of the limited time that they spent just driving, or the maximum amount of time that they spent driving, they didn't really have that opportunity to get to know the community.
And we want them to be able to provide information.
Right.
Um providing one more ambassador will cover two-hour window.
Is that what you're saying?
It would help us cover the peak so that 2 p.m.
to 8 p.m., it would help us provide more consistency during those hours.
It would I don't like the word redundancy necessarily, but it would provide some overlap to to better support that peak time.
Right.
Uh, because one of the complaints that I heard, you know, since I own a retail area, is that as you said, some days they're there robust writing tickets or they're checking, and some days nothing for a few days, and then go back to that again.
So that's the inconsistency that you see.
Uh so people know pretty much like hey, you can just take a chance and see what happens.
So uh I want to see consistency, and we got summer coming along and downtown businesses suffering, so I do want uh parking enforcement to come, but at the same time, uh we we like to be cordial and be nice to people who get a ticket, hey, you know, change of behavior.
I guess it's not really working.
So I guess some pain might be good to significant enough that they will seek public free public parking, comes with the huge sign says public parking, so that if you overstay the parking ticket would be a little bit painful, and then that was uh that will ask them to maybe look for public parking that's readily available in downtown Peaverton area.
And my other follow-up is the issue is it's not really moving quickly enough.
Um what is the hindrance if there's any, but can you like make that happen, even going to Slummer right now, so that we will adjust this issue right away while we're working on other coding change or time change.
And then another thing is if the residents are paying, let's say $80 or $100 to park in their own building, and it's really incentive for them to park on the street because they don't have to pay anything.
Maybe we should raise it up so that they have to pay a little more than you know, their apartments so that they it's more it's better financially to park in their own spots.
So it's something to think about, but we want that to be done right away because we got all the buildings are coming along and businesses are coming in.
So we want to really address this issue quickly.
So I don't want to next six months or next year, I want to be done quickly and move along.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Um I have a couple questions.
Um we go back to the map slide, Molly.
Would you like um Beaverton Central or Old Town?
Either the one with all the colors.
There's two of them.
Well, the streets with all you know.
No, just give me one of those.
There you go.
Oh no, no, not these.
The parking map, the one where you've had like the lines like with the percentage of the oh, thank you.
Usage of the data data.
Sorry.
Okay, this one.
This one.
So yes.
Help me read the colorful street part.
Okay, absolutely.
So parking nerds use data, and 85% is our golden rule.
85% means that approximately 85% of the parking is in use at general and any general time, which generally leaves approximately one spot per block open for somebody to take when they come in.
Anything over 85%, somebody is hunting for parking.
Anything under 85% means that there's probably enough parking that you don't really need to change regulations.
So if you look at this map, um, and sort of if you focus in on the grid portion where you see a lot of yellow in the center.
So in the beginning of our program, that parking, which is where all of our restaurant row area is where all of our two-hour parking is mostly focused in that that's Farmington to third area.
They can't see that.
They can't see what I'm pointing at.
Can you see my it's good imaginable?
They can't see my mouse either because they're seeing it off of that camera.
That's okay.
Um, but in that portion, we were seeing approximately a 70 to 85% use, meaning that we're getting close to that 85% golden utilization number, but not quite there.
Um, but time to kind of consider what's going on and what might need to happen in that area.
If you look at July of 2025 in that same area, and some up in in Beaverton Central as well, around City Hall, um, the food cart pod, you start to see that red pop out.
And that red means that over the course of two years, we're hitting 85% with our current regulations or higher on any general day.
And so that was that was one of my one of our goals collecting this information was to say, hey, guess what?
Now is now now it's time.
Now it's time to look at what's gonna better serve the community.
And the downtown parking plan that's coming up has strategies in it that support adjusting that to better serve the community where those hotspots are in particular.
Um, but we are seeing more usage overall.
Okay.
And um in those the the southern area where you're seeing the blue and the less than 50% occupied, those are actually our areas that aren't regulated.
So they're not as high in demand.
Okay.
Thank you.
That's very helpful.
Um, and I'm curious.
You mentioned the downtown parking plan.
Like, when's our next conversation?
Because like today we've got some questions that are really specific, and I think we owe you answers on that.
But I think there's like a general feel for like, hey, we want to give you more policy guidance to we've heard some urgency, right?
We hear that the we have some emails from constituents, right, with some frustration, especially in this in this uh in this phase.
So I'm curious when when is the next conversation with council?
We have a work session with Bureau scheduled for May 26th.
Um and then we have a presentation of the plan.
We're actually in the community engagement, like this is the these are the strategies, what are we missing phase right now?
Um we've had four meetings with different communities and boards.
We have four more coming up between now and May 26th.
Okay.
And then we will have the conversation, a work session with Bureau.
And then it is scheduled for presentation and hopefully adoption June 16th.
Okay.
Great.
Thank you.
Um yeah, because I think that when I, you know, I I think that thank you for the reminder, pilot.
It's true with any pilot.
We like like learning is a huge part of it.
And we it looks like we learned a lot.
We see changes in behavior and we see like those indicators that it's time to adjust further, right?
And that's the goal of a pilot too.
Is like what else do we need to do differently?
So I'm really grateful to see that.
Um I'm gonna channel Counselor Hassan for a minute.
Umce we've now moved to license slate reading, I just want to make sure that all of that data is fully contained within our city and is not going anywhere else.
It is fully anonymized.
Thank you.
And contained.
Thank you.
We own the data.
Okay, great.
Um, and then uh this one's like a really technical question, but like if we started enforcement at nine in those areas that have a 7 a.m.
start, does that mean like I mean they could also stay till 11?
But like also part of the the parking strategy maybe that we're we're looking at standardizing times and whatnot.
Okay.
Um well, I'm in support of option two.
I think that um while I think there was good reason why we said pause on the contract.
I I do think that it um I don't want to lose all of the good behavior change that we've actually tried to instill.
I don't agree that it should be a little painful.
However, I think we have been very generous with the warnings, right?
And I and so I think it, you know, that we've part of the reason why we wanted to do that, and I wasn't I don't think I was on council at the time that like that would have been decided, but I do remember conversations about it being we think a warning's important because we've never enforced.
We've given two and a half years of warnings.
So I like I think it's okay to start moving into the next phase of of maturity in the parking enforcement.
Um, those are my questions and comments.
Counselor Teter.
Okay.
Thank you for coming back and for sharing with us some more information.
I've got a few questions.
Um let's work through them one by one.
There's not too many.
You talk about ambassadors being out in the community engaging with people.
Can you give me an idea of what you actually what you would hope that looks like?
What is an effective engagement look like from their side of things?
A couple of uh of options.
One is knowing the businesses, knowing the employees, um, making people feel like if they have a question, they can come up to them and ask them.
Also just helping the general community, hey, where do I park?
I I see you wearing a parking at you know, ambassador shirt.
Where do I go if I want to park for four hours?
Or can you point me towards the closest garage?
Um so providing information is or even we've had we had people stop ambassadors and say, like, if I park here, how long can I park here?
And so it was helpful for the ambassador to then be able to say, Oh, you can be there for two hours, or oh, if you have a permit, well, how do I get a permit?
So you know, and they they knew that information, but they to be able to kind of be out on foot on occasion and like like be a face for the community, be a representative to help provide in-person signage, if you will.
That's a funny way of saying it.
But but to be able to guide people to be able to help people understand parking can be confusing, especially when our regulations vary across the board.
So, you know, where can I park safely?
Where uh where is this where is this restaurant?
Things along those lines.
So that does that help?
That does help.
And did you say we would be able to have that under the second option where we have more ambassadors and not the third?
Is that what the trade-off is there?
Correct.
Okay.
Just the difference in service level.
Okay.
Um I think we need enforcement.
So a few of us have shared a few of my colleagues have shared not being opposed to enforcement.
I think it's needed, Counselor Kimmy mentioned during the last meeting.
Uh even students parking on the street for long periods of time.
I've had concerns about residents parking on the streets for a long periods of time.
Um I think as we start up more of our residential paid park on street parking permit program, we're going to need enforcement.
So that people will actually use that and not just park on the street anyways.
Um I did have questions about the start time.
But those have been answered.
I saw the start time being 9 a.m.
or 7 a.m.
And I was thinking, like, well, it's not very it's not always very busy in the mornings, but I was thinking, oh, what about a midday start time?
But this is kind of getting to that is what I'm hearing because you don't actually start the ticketing until 11 a.m.
or so.
Um can you talk more about the overlap and coverage for the busier hours?
Because I hear that.
I'm thinking, okay, so we'd be able to have more comprehensive coverage.
On the other hand, if we had less, then there's still the chance that somebody could get a citation, so maybe they would just obey it anyways.
Maybe not.
Can you talk more about that overlap, like the benefits or straight-offs?
I'll do my best.
Um so we're always going to have members of the community who are going to follow the posted regulations.
They're gonna see two hours and they're gonna park for two hours.
Unfortunately, we're also gonna have the flip side of the spectrum where we have folks who are just like, I don't care.
I'm gonna park here because this is where I want to park, and I'll pay the citation when I get it.
Um between there's the uh how do we kind of help create that lesson that that education around parking and if it's a if it's an unknown, oh am I gonna risk it today?
Um it becomes kind of a less on the I'm going to follow the signage and more on the I'm gonna take my chances.
By providing that additional coverage and having that consistency of they're here every two hours, I'm gonna follow the rules, it provides that.
The reason why you know we say that we needed we we recommend additional coverage during those peak hours is that there is more traffic, so even like circulating through that route takes more time because there's more traffic on the street, as well as the vehicle is traveling at a certain uh speed to record the license plates as it goes, and the more cars there are, the slower it takes, and the more time it takes.
We also do have a a rule that we worked with the BPD on on safe stopping.
So we make sure that our ambassadors, if they need to write a citation, would find a very safe and legal place to park.
They wouldn't block traffic, they wouldn't pull into somebody's driveway.
Um so that also takes time if they have to walk back to the vehicle because their their safe parking spot was maybe a block ahead.
And that's for the safety of everyone, the drivers, the ambassadors, um, and and other folks on the street.
Okay, I think I had the assumption that it was just all automated.
The license plate would be red, it would have some sort of something in the system where it says, oh, it's been here for more than two hours, and the driver doesn't have to go park and get out and walk.
No, the the driver would still have to park, get out, issue the citation, so put in the information.
It's actually two separate pieces of software.
The license plate readers, which are essentially digital chalk, and saying yes, there's a permit, no, there's not a permit, yes, they've been here for two hours, no, they haven't been here for two hours.
Um, yes, they're you know, parked in front of a fire hydrant.
And then we have the citation software, so there's no real information in that other than data.
For us, then they would the ambassador would get out, write the citation on the handheld, which is through passport, um, which is also the owner of parking kitty or the creator of parking kitty, um, and passport site is issues the citations, and that's where they get the owner information, um, and it's all through a locked portal, and they issue the citation, it goes on to the driver's window.
Then they, you know, they have to get out and put it on the driver's window.
Okay.
Okay, thanks.
Um, I think I've hesitated to ask this because it's a very Kevin question.
But it feels like they should just be able to be on a bike and pull over.
Um is that not feasible?
It makes the line it makes the digital chalking, if you will, very challenging.
Oh.
Um if you think about like where where would they keep a camera on a bike?
I don't know.
Um but I mean we it's if we pursue a a contract, if if council goes that direction, then something like that as an additional or as a supplemental, um, we could absolutely talk to the vendor about the feasibility of of all of that.
Okay.
I also try not to get too in the weeds with just telling somebody how to do their own contract.
Oh, is that what you're gonna say, Andy?
Well, it just depends on if they have the resources or what it, you know, how their parking arrangement is in a certain downtown, what what makes what makes sense as well.
Okay.
And ours is kind of a larger district because of our because the highway and the railroad that splits everything up, it takes longer to get around.
Okay, thanks.
Okay, one final comment uh from me is just that eventually we might not have Bureau running a parking program.
And so in my mind, one of the things that I think I would be looking for is building out some of the infrastructure for paid parking.
Uh while we still have Bureau around.
I mean, maybe bureaus always doing something small with program income like parking revenue.
Um but it might not.
And we might look back years down the road and say, oh, well, now the city's gotta build out the paid parking infrastructure when we could have done it with a bureau.
So that's kind of on my mind as like a next step with parking strategies.
I think looking at this, I was leaning towards option three just because it's the most cost efficient.
I think some of the peak hour enforcement you all have talked about is me leaning more towards option two.
So I'm kind of open there.
Andy, it looks like you're about to say something.
But that's all my comments, so I'm gonna stop talking about it.
I just think a major piece of information is if you if you value the consistency that overlapping coverage during the peak hours, we can work with Laz on kind of the the service that makes sense for us.
So somewhere between option two and three.
Um and and the beauty is too, when we collect data, we can always um kind of tweak the the hours of enforcement that we need to do as well, depending on the service needs.
Just to add to what Andy said, um, all of these are not to exceed amounts.
So the pilot did not ever go over our not to exceed amount because you only pay for what happens.
So if we go under contract for the not to exceed amount, for example, for option two, but then we shift the coverage, and maybe we're not using it as much after we've learned more, then we wouldn't be charged the additional, if that makes sense.
Great, counselor tipnon.
Back up on the board because I realized I didn't weigh in on the actual options.
Um but I also and I I hope this was okay, but I went on to Google Maps to just look at the parking lot.
And um, there's probably more because there's trees in the ways, but there's at least 105 spaces in there.
120.
120.
There you go.
120 spaces in there.
And so I'm just kind of throwing a curveball out there of something for people to consider.
This is a work session, so we're not making decisions today.
But I I I think it's imperative on us as fiscal stewards um of the properties that we already own and the assets they already have in place.
And parking is one of them.
We have 120 spots in an area that quite often will go by it at night and it's almost virtually empty while people are circling two blocks away, creating safety hazards and frustration and maybe deciding I'm not gonna keep coming down here when I can never find parking when it was right there all along, is to really put a lot of priority on getting the wayfinding, the signage, as well as utilize the ambassadors to make sure that they are also talking about that.
Um social media, your city.
There's so many different ways that we could get the word out, especially just handing things that business owners could put in their windows that would help in addition to hard signage.
Um, but I I I think there might even be like if we go with option three, yes, we get less ambassadors, but if we put them where I think probably the biggest constraint is, which is Broadway.
Broadway doesn't have a giant parking lot directly adjacent to it.
There are some serious safety concerns.
If we have people that are parking on the other side of Farmington and venturing over there, which we've talked about over time of wanting to see better safety passing across those major roads.
We're not there yet.
And I I have been in that position of going down to Broadway to visit one of the awesome restaurants and shops that have popped up there and given up.
Um I know talks are ongoing with the new apartment complex and that gigantic parking garage that they have and seeing if we can start to utilize at least some of that.
I hope that those um talks continue and prove fruitful.
But it it does seem like that's the place that we should really be making sure people are not overstaying their welcome.
And I am fine with getting past the nice stage and going straight to you're getting a ticket if you stay here too long because I think it does pose safety risks in that area.
So I'd say there might be an option for where we go with this one for now, less ambassadors that are primarily focused on Broadway but still extending out a little bit, and then fast tracking, getting as much visibility onto the existing free surface parking we got in that lot.
I'm done.
Thank you, Counselor Hussen.
I I just want to echo uh uh what counselor teeter said about moving us to automation.
Um I would love to see that in the future of using technology for parking in this area.
I know that's not gonna happen today, but as we were going down this conversation, I hope you have some direction on from us on on where we want to move.
Um I know I heard two, three, then I heard four, so I'll let uh Councilor Hartmeyer Prague wrap us up.
But um I I do want to say yes to using being fiscal stewards of our land and doing the wayfinding work and also what does it look like eventually to not need the people and to actually invest in the technology and whatever we can do to support that.
Thank you, Councilor Hassan.
I I know we're in a work session and I think we had good discussion, but you did ask us a very specific question about the contract.
And I like I I don't I don't know that I heard consensus on an option.
And so I'm curious you know city manager if there's something that would be more helpful from us.
So Andy you can chime in uh but um I think what I heard from council is the majority of council is interested in moving forward with the enforcement contract and I've heard Andy say that we could look at a blend between um option three and option four.
So um or excuse me sorry I just made up options option two and option three um and so we would return with a um proposed contract that is kind of a blend of those two options does that kind of give you the direction that you need Andy yeah I think so um we may even have the ability to do that with our existing contract um if we just do uh if we have some sort of um amendment with with them yeah we can bring it back yeah we'll talk we'll talk to Laz for the um for for a split between those two options I do think it sounds like I heard from everyone that at least having some of that overlapping redundancy and the peak hours would be important for the ambassador work um and then we can talk with them about what other enforcement adjustments we we may need to make great moving forward okay I'm looking for just like a uh a nod if and it can be a it can be a shake if you're still a no but just if you're a nod on what the summary we got from Elizabeth um mayor I'm I'm looking for uh and either way is fine I'm just trying to get a little count.
No I I am okay you I'm I'm a no on this contract I think too like I have a lot of reservations about an ambassador program who's training them what are they doing this is our our forward facing part of the agency we have staff and police are deeply trained to engage with this so I this uh worries me and the amount we've spent doing it I could get behind the I could get behind enforcement at some juncture but I we're gonna launch a bunch of people out on the city's behalf with not a lot of certainty on how they're training what they're doing this is a work session and so it also feels kind of inappropriate that we're driving a contract from the work session that like the public doesn't get to weigh in on we're not we're just giving direction for the the draft of the contract to come back to us with this guidance so there's no we're not adopting anything tonight.
Okay.
Okay thank you so much thank you thank you counsel thank you for those in the audience that had to sit through this yeah yeah really appreciate you all coming um okay we did adjust to consent um so if someone would make a motion on consent for us that's excluding agenda bill two six zero seven eight uh sure I'll make a motion to adopt the consent agenda with the removal of agenda bill two six zero seven eight is there a second second okay um so for the record I'll just state that that the remaining items in the consent agenda then are 26073 26074 26075 26076 and 2607 is there any debate on the motion seeing none city recorder will you please take the vote by roll counselor Hartler Prigg?
Yes sorry Counselor Husan Yes Counselor Kimmy Counselor Teeter.
Yes Counselor Tivnon Yes Mayor Beatty Yes yes zero no thank you Sue um then we have agenda bill two six zero seven eight which has been polled by counselor Kimmy so counselor Kimmy I will hand it off to you maybe I can ask uh Mike whomever to come in the front I have jumped just some questions there we go yeah thank you for coming today and I sent you some um I guess questions that you to answer and you was pretty quick coming back to the answer um my concern with this um proposal should I say that agreement is that um it's it's a loan uh that's backed by uh the OIC or nonprofit incubator and going through the bank and we're uh giving them a bridge loan I should say for their operation site the
My concern with this proposal.
Should I say that?
Agreement.
Is that um it's it's a loan uh that's backed by the OSC or nonprofit incubator and going through the bank and we're uh giving them a bridge loan, I should say, for their operations.
The concerns that I had was uh many of the nonprofits that I know and was part of or being part of right now already work with minimal operations.
Most of them really do not have employees either.
It's just one person operation doing hard work.
And they they're the ones who actually work with the local um residents that we have.
So the people that we want to target, which that was the consensus I believe that we gave uh when we handed over $100,000, uh hundred thousand five hundred dollars to the nonprofit incubator, is that we want to help out those small organizations that is struggling through because of COVID era, uh, that we want to give them tools, know-house, and and then um help them to be sustainable in the future.
Uh but if I thought about it, spent some some time thinking about it.
The organizations that can actually apply for a loan and work with breach loan are the already well established uh nonprofits that has already grants and other resources that in their pipeline to come in.
And because of that, banks are uh uh banks are willing to lend money or give out the loan.
So those are the concerns that I had.
Is it really true to what the nonprofit nonprofit incubator was founded upon and uh help that we were already help that we were trying to give are to the people and organizations that's already quite well established.
So that that was the concern and questions that I had.
If you could elaborate on that a little bit.
Correct.
Yeah, I I I think we can acknowledge there's all different flavors of nonprofits and all different states of of development and organization and and need.
Um that every program isn't gonna be right for every single one of our nonprofits.
Um we took this direction because we were on we we had the understanding that um it it was because we weren't gonna be doing a grant program anymore, and we wanted a program that we thought fit the mission of OSC well, um, that could also be kind of sustainable over the long term because we weren't expecting to get ongoing funding um for this.
We thought it was more likely to be a one-time or at least we were planning for that contingency.
Um we did do amount of due diligence um in terms of the program and that there is a need and that nonprofits do take out loans, and that there were multiple circumstances where this would fit, and these are more like micro loans that would be between sort of a regular standard loan and uh uh uh and a grant.
And it it's we thought it fit the Oregon Startup Center in that it was somewhat innovative and it sort of fit their mission of bringing um you know hard organizational I I don't want to say business skills, but organizational skills to nonprofits so they they can be more sustainable over time.
So we're hoping that this can help some of those nonprofits, but you're right.
I mean it won't be it we it's gonna be a pilot and it's not gonna be available or something that could help every nonprofit.
So I I think the question of the matter here is the deployment of the funding.
And and we we thought we had a good idea that that fit OSC that filled a gap that wasn't being filled.
Um and it could do a lot of good um good good for the for the community.
But but I'm not gonna say that you're you're not right that there are other nonprofits that do need that do that are smaller, need direct grants, need the organizational help with which we still would like to help.
Bill, do you have any other comments?
And you're right, that's that's targeting larger nonprofits that are more established.
The approach we're taking here, and all the details haven't worked that been haven't been worked out yet on it because we need to still identify a financial partner to actually issue and disperse the loans.
But we're thinking bridge loans specifically in the range are probably 2500 to a max of 25,000.
I mean, we have a hundred thousand dollars to work with, so we're not gonna be able to make huge uh you know, aren't gonna be support supporting large loans anyway.
But I mean the the idea was to specifically support smaller nonprofits that could use that bridge financing.
Let's say they had an identified source of funds already, they've received a grant, but uh it's either a reimbursement grant or the grant doesn't come in in time for them to want to start their program.
This would give them that working capital, let's say, to get started earlier.
Uh now we can we've always we've talked as well about adjusting interest rates.
It's gonna be a you know a below market interest rate, we don't know exactly what it's gonna be yet, but it's meant to be as easy and accessible as possible to nonprofits.
And it's not a grant program because we know we just came from where the Social Service Funding Committee didn't, you know, was disbanded as part of this last fiscal year.
So doing another grant program out of OSC didn't seem like the right approach.
So this seemed like uh you know a good approach and which is sustainable as well.
I I really appreciate that.
I I appreciate how you came about, how you wanted to sustain the funding, how you can help, right?
The issue I have is the majority of the nonprofits that I know.
Which directly works with the community.
Probably we're not gonna qualify for these kind of loans, number one, and then number two, um they don't want to sign for a loan.
Most of them somebody has to guarantee it, right?
And they're already volunteering, they're not gonna sign up for the loan.
And uh they're hesitant to sign up for a loan.
And then if if there's if they don't pay back, they default on a loan, then it's gonna be treated as bank loan.
So then now you would be more in trouble.
So that's the reason.
Um thing I know in Beaverton, there's yes, they're thriving nonprofits that's already well established.
Those people can tap into this kind of loans for programs and other stuff, but you're talking about micro.
Yeah, they're not gonna be able to do it.
That's why I think we either be paused on it, we'd rethink it.
Uh that would be my suggestion on it.
So that's the comment I have so far.
Thank you.
Counselor Hudson, yeah.
I don't have a questions.
This is more cut my comments.
Um I want to thank Councilor Kimmy for pulling this.
I actually printed out um something for those of you who are in the meeting and um mayor.
This is from the multicultural gap analysis on knowledge and capacity for belonging.
And it talks about what the community is looking for from us, um, and one of them is institutionalized community co-creation and just decision making.
Um I won't go through them all, but I looked at this and I thought we have this moment right now of some funding.
I've been really vocal about my concerns as it comes to nonprofits and the nonprofit incubator.
There are people who know how to build a nonprofit.
There are a lot of people who don't.
Um and the communities who are sometimes most impacted by a lot of what's happening don't have the capacity or the ability to to build a nonprofit.
And uh some of the work I'm seeing in Beaverton, particularly with immigrant and refugee communities, is being done by people who don't have a 501c3, who don't know how to make a 501c3.
And I know that incubator is a step to start doing that, but when I'm looking at what's happening in front of me right now, I'm wondering what we could do with this funding to make more of an impact in our community.
So I'm gonna vote no on this agenda bill.
Um I'm also gonna ask you all to think about in this moment as we are going through budget crisis and we're talking about money.
Is this what we want?
Is this how we want to share um community co-creation and decision making and help our communities understand how we're spending our funding?
So I I just I think this is an opportunity for us to take a moment and say we set funding aside for immigrant refugee communities.
Can we set aside more?
I understand why we did it in the moment.
We were trying to wean off social services.
Is this the time to be doing this?
I would I would say no, but that's my perspective and opinion.
And I really I missed this meeting where we had this presentation, and uh it was just so delightful to see this, and I I hope I know we're not gonna be able to use this all the time in our decision making.
Like I was like, how do I make this relate to parking?
That's tricky because different folks have different interests in parking.
I think with this right now in this moment, I just think this is a moment to pause and say, is this the right place to be allocating this funding?
Thank you.
Counselor Teter.
Thanks, Mike.
Thanks, Bill.
Can you two talk about your that you said you did the due diligence that showed that there was a need that nonprofits had right now?
Can you talk more about that?
The conversations or research that you had.
Right.
I guess starting at the top level, I guess I wanted to answer the question in my own mind.
Do nonprofits go out go for loans?
Do they do they take out loans?
And turns out I was actually surprised that they did.
There were quite a few instances that uh the nonprofits did that.
And then again, the next question we kind of looked at was are there any uh are there any local examples of that, you know, in Oregon in the metro area.
And turns out there's there's one C at F CDFI in particular, which is Craft 3, which does uh loans, and we talked about that a little bit in the one-on-one sessions we had with you guys.
There were a bunch of examples in the back of the types of loans they did.
Now, again, the floor for those loans is you know pretty high.
It's in the 50 to 100,000 dollar range before they, you know, before they will actually loan.
Because just it doesn't make economic sense for an organization that large to be to loan such small amounts.
So that's why we thought, well, there's an opportunity at OSC with a small amount of money we have to use that as a loan loss reserve to be able to support a lower entry point so we can support nonprofits that need smaller amounts of money.
And it also happened that just around that time there was a nonprofit that approached OSC with exactly this need.
It was like, well, I need I need some bridge financing to be able to uh support my operations.
What when I'm registering kids for camps in this case that uh that happened before the camp proceed the registration proceeds came in.
So it was like a chicken and egg sort of thing or a timing thing.
So with that in mind, we thought, well, this is you know, let's give this a shot.
Let's see if if this is something that can help smaller nonprofits get through those those financing gaps.
Okay.
Thank you.
And then my other question is uh we putting any I don't want to say requirements, but guidance for how OSC might or who OSC might distribute the funding to, or the types of work or outcomes that we'd be looking for, or is it pretty open since it's a pilot just to see who is interested at all?
Well, OSC is going to be designing the qualification criteria.
Uh so there's a partner, we'll have a partner with a financial institution to actually distribute the funds.
So we don't have those criteria yet.
We'll try to make them as open and accessible and flexible as possible.
But as long as they meet that loan criteria or that criteria, which we'll work on in partnership with a financial institution that's actually doing a loan, then we should be able to qualify quite a few uh smaller nonprofits.
Okay.
And suppose we approve this tonight.
Uh is that funding forever under OSC's direction?
Uh or is it our funding that we provide that like are we the owners of the loan, or is OSC the owners of the loan?
Um do you get what I'm trying to ask?
Yeah, the the money would be going to OSC, so it would be part of the budget for nonprofit programming, which I think was the intent when the money was allocated into the ECTA budget.
So it's it would be OSC proceeds.
They would use that as a loan loss reserve uh for for supporting and backstopping the loans.
Okay.
Bill, do you want to explain the loan loss reserve and how that multiplies it beyond just the the amount?
Yeah, it's meant to reduce the risk that the financial institution would take in issuing loan in the first place.
So it's not it's not typically one-to-one, typical loan loss reserves, and I'm not a financial expert, but you know, you can usually get you you can use the loan loss reserve or brown 30 to 40 percent, I guess, on the on the low end.
So you could get a doubling or tripling of the loan pool with 100,000.
We may be able to establish a loan pool of the, you know, in the 250 to 300,000 range.
So you can amplify that money, which is another benefit of doing it of doing this type of a program.
And as the loans are paid back, the the fund can grow.
And we can add additional money to that if we happen to have some in the future, or if they get money from another institution as well.
Okay, thank you.
That is helpful because I don't have that sort of background either.
Um I will say that I'm excited about this.
I think this could be really helpful for our community.
I'm excited, one because it's an ongoing funding mechanism for nonprofits, and my concern about just uh distributing the funding that we have right now through grants would be that we could do that this year, but then in future years that wouldn't be around anymore.
And we might have needs in the future where well we wish we could provide more funding for these nonprofits that could use support.
Um but we but we wouldn't be able to.
And this provides a little bit of flexibility there.
I do understand like there are some nonprofits who won't use it.
Um that's just the reality with some of our programming too.
But I do think this opens up some options for a lot of nonprofits.
Um as somebody who ran a nonprofit that worked with a lot of reimbursement-based grants, uh, this would have been really helpful for for me and for a lot of my programming, sort of trying to figure out how to make funding tie over at perfect time so that's in the bank when it needs to be pulled.
Um I do a lot of grant writing in my personal job with very, very small nonprofits and startup groups.
And this sort of funding could be helpful for them.
They're not in Beaverton, but uh this sort of program seems like it could be really helpful.
And if it works, great.
And if not, it's a pilot.
We tried it, and I'd be happy to reevaluate it then too.
But I think this is a good step.
I'm excited to check it out to try it out.
Thank you.
Mayor Beatty.
Uh thank you guys.
I think this is uh a pretty um exceptionally thought-out plan to use this money, considering the the funding that we have is a one-time gift.
I think it's smart for OSC to plan given the budget scenario we're in, that we're not gonna be able to do a gift like this again.
Having worked for a really large nonprofit, there are nonprofits that can access capital.
Having worked for a small nonprofit, uh, I worked for one called the Cross for All that went into Title I schools, uh, like King Elementary in Portland and taught kids lacrosse that would never be able to touch a stick.
I often had to manage buying equipment ahead of grants coming in.
Something like this would have been awesome.
We can't create something that's gonna impact everyone with a hundred thousand dollars.
But I do want to point to something else we did tonight on the consent agenda, which was approve our C DBG grant funds where we do give money directly to nonprofits.
We gave $30,000 to honor honoring our precious elders.
We gave $30,000 to Virginia Garcia Memorial Health Center.
We gave $30,000 for CASA for children.
We gave $20,000 to store for door, we gave $300,000 to a daytime enrichment activity.
We gave $50,000 to the Hispanic Metro Chamber.
We gave $47,000 to microenterprise services.
We gave $15,000 to the Oregon Association of Minority Entrepreneurs.
We gave 101,000 to Habitat for Humanity, 100,000 to unlimited choices.
And so we gave $532,000 of grant funding directly to nonprofits with our CDBG money.
So we gave a lot of money to nonprofits.
This is a way for us to help other nonprofits.
So I think we're doing the best we can with the resources we have.
We're not ever going to fill every need.
We can't give money to organizations that are not nonprofits that are doing community aid.
We have to help them get their 503C status so we can give taxpayer money to them.
And I think the nonprofit incubator is a great way to do that.
So I'm gonna vote yes tonight.
This is a limited amount of money that goes into a really important uh tool and a missing need that we have.
Thank you.
Counselor Chipnon.
I've been excited about the nonprofit incubator from the beginning and have really appreciated the thought that's gone into what exactly that means.
Um I think we're creating something really compelling in it that is going to capture the attention of both existing nonprofits that want to scale as well as those like the mayor was just saying that are doing the work out there but don't have the legal mechanisms to get that funding in the door to help them with their mission.
Um I also really like the idea of of taking a dollar and making a dollar and growing the funds, which was a great point that you made, and I appreciated that.
Um I also think that this adds just a little bit more tooth to what the offerings are at the incubator, which hopefully will be part of the getting the word out and making this feel really resonant and compelling to folks to get involved and learn um through the incubator and how to grow their um nonprofits.
That is not to say that I don't also um recognize that we we have a lot of work to do at figuring out how to find the funding to support the work that's happening in the community.
It's just I don't want this to come at the expense of that.
It's how can we do both?
Um so I'll be supporting this tonight and it is a pilot, so really looking forward to seeing how it goes and getting that information to help us make uh some informed decisions on um thinking about making it permanent at some point.
Thank you.
Mayor Beatty Uh Madam Chair, I move that we pass agenda bill two six zero seven eight.
Thank you.
Is there a second?
Second.
It has been moved by Mayor Beatty, seconded by Counselor Teters and any debate on the motion.
Counselor Hudson.
Uh I just I just want to make a comment.
I hear you, I appreciate everyone.
I just I want to say you've got two counselors who come from communities of color who are talking about immigrant communities and the way in which they navigate nonprofits and the nonprofit space, and I just I will be voting no.
I do hope that this feedback gets to leadership around how that is something that we're really hearing in our communities.
I can name so many nonprofits who are trying to get connected to these resources who don't know how.
So I respect the decision of the council, but I want to just call that out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Sir, any further debate.
Okay, seeing none, will you please take the role?
Councillor Hartmeyer Prigg.
Yes.
Counselor Hussain.
No.
Councillor Kimmy.
No.
Councillor Teeter.
Yes.
Councilor Tivnan.
Yes.
Mayor Beatty.
Yes.
Four yes to no.
Thank you.
Motion carries.
We will now thank you, Bill, and Mike.
We'll now move to our library advisory board annual report from Kim Carroll, our library director.
And the purpose of our presentation is to provide information to the council.
So counselors may ask for clarifying questions about the presentation itself, but it is not the time to engage in back and forth policy development.
So Kim, will you also please make sure your guests introduce themselves as well?
Good evening, uh, Mayor and Counselor.
I'm Kim Carroll, Beaverton City Library Director.
I am here with Kathleen Perry, our library advisory board chair, and Sarah Blatner, our library advisory board vice chair.
And we are here tonight to present the 2025 annual city report.
I'm gonna turn it over to Kathleen.
Mayor Oh, sorry, I'm not I'm gonna try to scooch up here.
I'm short.
Okay.
Hi.
Good evening.
Uh my name is Kathleen Perry, and I am the president of the library advisory board.
Um I appreciate that this council is pretty sold on the benefit of public libraries, and I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you all a little bit about the good work the library has done in 2025 and how the library advisory board helps.
Um as you probably already know, advisory boards are required for public libraries in Oregon.
And we are lucky to have board members who are passionate about uh public libraries and have great ideas um about how to get things done, and we also have lots of great comments from members of the public who are welcome to attend our meetings virtually or in person.
Um, that's me.
Sorry, I didn't realize I was running.
I apologize.
No, you're good.
Um of the things we routinely do are about levies that affect the library, so that we can go out into the public and be um ambassadors for questions and comments for them to sort of help them understand it and also bring their concerns back.
We review comments from patrons about how well the library is doing or ways that they can improve.
Um, and then we hear from Kim or other people about how they've addressed those things, which I've appreciated.
And we engage with City Council.
Thank you, Councilor Kimmy, for coming to our meetings.
Um it's always nice to have that communication.
We appreciate it.
And we hear from Teen Library Council about the interesting work they're doing.
I appreciate how passionate and engaged they are when they're thinking of new things to do.
Um they have art shows and writing contests and things like that.
They're creative with their activities they organize.
Oh, thanks.
This is all right.
Um this is where I want to be.
That's perfect.
It's perfect.
This slide includes metrics to help track how the library has benefited the community in 2025.
As you can see, there are over 10,000 new people were issued library cards for context.
That's just about the population of Lincoln City, Oregon, which is wild and cool.
Sexy?
I don't know.
Let's see where we're personally.
And how popular the design and make space is.
Though they recently limited the capacity in the make space, we have heard from the public that they could be open all day, every day, and people would come.
Next slide, please.
Thank you, Sarah.
I also love how library employees work hard to reflect the population that we live in with things like story times in different languages and programs that take into account different cultural events.
Almost 20% of Beaverton was born outside of the U.S.
And I think it's really important that we do things to show that we appreciate and honor them and are happy that they're here.
Next slide, please.
Talking of programs.
As I mentioned, I enjoyed hearing from Teen Library Council and our board meetings about the things like their art show and writing contests that they put on.
Next slide, please.
I've already spoken a bit about the design and make lab at the main library, but this slide does a better job of talking about the different offerings in the space.
Personally, I love my fidget toys, and the one I've brought today was made in the design and make space by the TLC, the Teen Library Council.
So that's pretty.
Thanks to the bookmobile and different programming.
One thing I want to highlight here is that last point about story times for WIC, which involves libraries and recording stories that children can enjoy when they can't make it into the library building itself.
So I think that's really important for folks who can't travel or just live too far away from a branch to ensure that more people get services.
This slide talks about the invaluable that mentions the invaluable resource of library volunteers.
With over 5400 hours of volunteer service in 2025.
They make all of the programming possible, and for context, 5400 hours of service equates to volunteers working for seven and a half months straight every year.
Again, wild.
Next slide, please.
This slide goes more in depth about services that you might not expect from the library.
Or associate with the library, sorry.
Things that the community has said they need, like shelter assistance, bus tickets, and ID support.
It is often said that libraries are one of the last remaining third spaces in communities where folks can go and spend time without needing to spend money and just be and be together and get supports and they're available to anyone, and I think that's really increasingly important for our community and others.
Next slide, please.
This slide talks about a few more milestones specifically regarding the Marshalls branch.
With 1.6 million people, over 1.6 million people visiting the branch since 2015.
Which as you can see is over one-third of the population of Oregon.
Uh during the last sentence.
Next slide, please.
This slide talks about the various ways that the library collaborates with other organizations to serve community.
I want to be sure to shout out the friends of the library and the book sale, which is coming up April 30th, and runs over two weeks this year.
The friends always do an amazing job with that, and the money they raise helps them help the library do a lot of other cool stuff.
They provide books and prizes for the summer reading programs, which are always really popular with both adults and kids every year.
Next slide, please.
This slide talks about the library is always looking ahead to understand what council's goals are and what the community will want.
I hope our report shows illustrates how the library supports goals like advancing diversity through a range of programs to make sure that all members of the community feel included and appreciated in our town.
That's what we have for you tonight.
Thank you for listening and for caring about libraries and willing to take any feedback glowing or otherwise.
Oh yes, we have a we have I don't know if I want to, I don't want to embarrass them, but we have other board members in the audience tonight if they like to acknowledge themselves.
They're so sweet.
They came to support.
Couldn't have couldn't do it without them.
Thank you.
Awesome.
Thank you so much for all of y'all for your service to our library advisory board.
It is National Library Week.
And so what a fitting time to have you here with us tonight.
Um I'm going to pass the mic to Councillor Kimmy.
Thanks for seeing you all here.
Um I enjoyed my conversations at the library board.
Um and then seeing also young kids and members give feedback.
They're very intelligent.
They are.
I don't think I I was that intelligent at that time.
Um library is a special place for me.
This is where I hung out after school in high school.
Kind of lame, but I also have to be placed back then.
Sorry, wrong wrong crowd to say lame, but I also also told my kids when they went to college that if you want to meet other Asian kids, make sure you go to library, that's where we hang out.
So this is I I feel very comfortable uh always around the library and the services that you do.
Library that just became just a library, it became community place like our living room of Beaverton.
That's what I like to call a family room.
So it's gonna probably do a lot more than just renting out books.
Um, but uh hopefully it will thrive and library will become our icon.
Um that it's been there for a long time, so thank you for coming in today.
Thank you, Counselor Kimmy.
Counselor uh Hasan.
Yes, I also grew up in libraries, and I don't think that was lame.
I think it was awesome.
Um I just want to put it out there.
Grew up in a small town, New Fairfield, Connecticut, spent all my days in New Fairfield Public Library.
It was a lovely place.
And as someone who at the time um I lived in a really small town and was very looked very different than everybody else.
The library was really a safe space to go and read books.
So I think lots of positive things.
I just want to give glowing reviews.
And um, my first grader got her library card this last year.
And that experience is it's it's everything to take a kiddo who gets a library card in the mail.
Um probably her first piece of mail, I think, and got the books, and so just such a pleasant experience.
So always excited and love having you and um when I was part of the leads on that was always a fun time.
So thank you for coming.
Glowing reviews.
Counselor Tifnon.
This is really gonna date me, but back in the day, I was probably younger than 10 years old.
My mom would drop me off in the summer at the library and hand me a quarter.
Say just call me when you're ready for me to come and get you.
Very 80s free range kid.
She'll be fine.
Um, and I was they knew me.
They barely I was like shorter than the desk when I would walk in and I'd go in and I would go all around the library, the biggest motley crew of books you can possibly think of, and I'd end up with stacks, and I'd go and sit on the floor in a quiet corner and just get totally lost in it.
In junior high, dealing with bullying and the pecking order and just how awful um that era can be for a kid.
I spent a lot of time hiding in the library and um probably reading a lot of YA magazines.
I think that was my reading material choice.
And then all through school, just quiet spot to do research to think through how am I gonna get this paper done, um, learning and having meetings.
I remember first meetings having with the other students and a space where you could do that together.
Just walking into one and the smell of it immediately is such a sensory recall.
And um, yeah, it's it's all those things, but then to just see this presentation and everything you're able to pull off and hitting it across all of these different needs within the community and and doing it um with so much care and so much heart is is just inspiring and a wonderful way to conclude the meeting for tonight.
But thank you for the presentation and for the work that you do.
Really appreciate it.
And just imagine a baby counselor Tibonon with your economic development books, you know, like designing future plans.
We're actually young adult magazines, it was like the Financial Times.
Yeah.
Um thank you so much for joining us tonight and for your service on our library advisory board.
I serve on the Mayor's Youth Advisory Board, and we did send some members over.
And oh, they're like I love spending time with those young people.
Um I heard them like excitedly talking about their experience this week.
And I know they're really eager to collaborate on a kind of like a third space night for young people, right?
Um and that's something that they're really interested and eager on.
They started working on this last year of like, you know, can we kind of create like teen nights and a space that it's safe to just play games or read books or hang out and not spend money, you know.
Um, and uh so thank you for for also like welcoming our young people, right?
And and I mean you always have, but then to also like be open to like being a partner um through like these two advisory boards to see how can we meet our youth in another way as well.
So it was really very sweet to hear them come back and give a very excited report this last week on um their experience.
So thank you.
And thank you for joining us tonight.
Thank you for your patience as we shuffled the agenda.
We really do appreciate you um being flexible with us.
All right, and happy national library week.
Thank you.
Yay!
Yay.
Yeah, we can clap our library team.
Okay.
All right, and our final agenda item tonight is council items.
Just oh, I'm sorry, yep.
Hi, hey Elizabeth.
Would you like to do a report?
I mean, we can skip it if you want.
I'll be brief.
No, I we're ready for this.
Thank you.
I think I just messed up all of the agenda.
So floor is yours.
All right.
Well, uh I have a couple updates for you tonight, uh, council.
Um, the first is that uh we have just launched uh Beaverton community assistance grants.
So this was at the direction of council to dedicate some of your own budget towards assisting community-based organizations that are delivering essential services.
And so organizations that are offering services from a Beaverton-based location that are helping Beaverton residents and are providing essential services like food and housing assistance, immigration assistance, medical care, translation and language support, etc.
The grant application is currently live and we're looking for applications by May 1st.
And so we have put the word out to our list of nonprofits and networks, but please feel free to spread the word to any organizations that you know of.
They can find the application at Beaverton Oregon.gov forward slash immigration resources.
Next slide, please.
We are working on fiscal year 26, 27 budget development.
And so we want community members to know that's coming up and how you can be involved and engaged.
May 28th will be our kickoff budget committee committee meeting followed by Tuesday June 2nd.
And then adoption is scheduled for June 16th for a city council meeting and public hearing.
And so we do have lots of resources on our website as well about our fiscal sustainability efforts and the work that we're doing around fees and looking at our services.
And so that's all available on our website as well.
Next slide, please.
And so it is also election season, and so we have an election coming up on May 19th.
And thanks to the League of Women Voters for hosting the 2026 Beaverton Voters Forum on Monday, April 27th at the Patricia Research Center for the Arts.
There is a reception where you can meet the candidates at 6 p.m.
followed by a voters' forum at 7, where we'll be they'll be talking about a variety of different issues.
And then a couple of helpful voting reminders.
And those will be due at no later than 8 p.m.
on Tuesday, March 19th, or excuse me, May 19th at the elections office or at a ballot drop box or postmarked that date.
Next slide, please.
Make sure to join us rain or shine to meet your neighbors, enjoy a leisurely bike ride, get bike safety tips, and more.
Whether you're a season cyclist or just starting out, this is a family-friendly event, and we are welcoming writers of all skill levels to come together for an afternoon of biking fun.
We have also updated our website at Beaverton, Oregon.gov forward slash events with all kinds of fun summer events and fall events too.
So if you uh like going to things like the volunteer fair, uh 10 tiny dances, national night out, our Beaverton Night Market Celebration Parade and Welcoming Week, those dates are all live up on our website.
So take a look and save the date.
You won't want to miss out.
We also just heard from our Beaverton Library Board, and we do have tons of events going all the time on all the time at Beaverton Library.
So check out their website as well.
Um and I wouldn't want to leave out our neighborhood uh neighborhoods as well.
And they have lots of uh neighborhood events throughout the year, like picnics, concerts, and tree plantings.
So that's all available on our website.
There'll be no shortage of things uh for you to do here in Beaverton.
Uh tomorrow is um Earth Day, but every day is recycling day here at Beaverton.
Uh just a friendly reminder that uh with recycling regulations can be kind of confusing.
And if you need a little bit of assistance, you can get a free recycling guide in the latest issue of our quarterly your city newsletter.
Um, so watch for that.
You should have that in your mailboxes.
You can also just email our recycling team at City Recycling at Beaverton, Oregon.gov, and we'll send you a free uh recycling guide sticker for your bin.
So when you toss things out, you know where they need to go.
Our final reminder is that April is child abuse prevention month, and that is a time that we uh promote safe, stable, and nurturing environments for every child.
Our police department encourages residents to stay informed, engaged, and supportive by attending local events, accessing resources, and taking small actions like checking in on families or supporting community organizations.
Pinwheels will be displayed at the Beaverton Public Safety Center as a reminder of the happy, healthy childhood that every child deserves.
And speaking of the Beaverton Public Safety Center, uh, just so you know, we the Beaverton Police Department is doing a diaper uh drive right now to help those uh families that might not be able to afford diapers.
Um, and so uh drop off uh diapers of any size and uncented wipes at the Public Safety Center lobby at 6125 Southwest Hall Boulevard.
Uh donations are going to be accepted through Thursday, April 30th.
And that concludes my report.
Thank you.
Thank you, Elizabeth.
And thank you, Councilor Teeter.
I wouldn't have wanted to skip that.
All right.
Now we will move to our final agenda item this evening, and that is council items.
Does anyone have something they'd like to share?
Um it looks like Councilor Teeter.
Yeah, just a quick request for us as a council.
Um it's nothing in our council rules, but it's something I've been thinking about for a little while.
When we ask staff to, or when we pull something from consent, if we can give staff the opportunity to give a presentation, a brief presentation first.
I think that would really help me because I feel like there are times when I have to ask a specific question to get information that might have come in a presentation.
Um, and if I wouldn't have asked a question, I might not have known that information.
Um I know this is something I've done before with the traffic commission issue of a few years ago, where if I would ask for a presentation, it would have saved us a bunch of time.
Um but I think we've done it a few times, and I think it would just help me out so um doesn't have to be under council rules yet because we don't need to update that, but just kind of a general practice would be helpful.
Thank you, Councilor Teeter.
I'll just give a quick response, but I think yes, and sorry I didn't ask for that to start tonight, but also I think um I think our council rules days do say we ask we tell city manager and maybe the chair, but um I guess that hopefully means city manager would tell the staff so they might be prepared, but I do think it would also be helpful for the council to know that that's coming off consent in advance, if at all possible.
Um, just because I think it would make it easier on us to like be as prepared as we can be for a follow-up conversation.
Anyone else have a response on Councilor Teeters ask?
Yeah.
I can support that.
I think my one comment, if and when it's possible for us to know that something's being pulled from consent.
I don't know how hard that is, but it is tricky when you're walking in and then you don't know what's being pulled from consent.
So I don't know if that's a big ask of staff.
Yep, that's what I was saying too.
Right.
Then yes, I think that it's helpful for the rest of council to also know when something's coming off because like we may have prepared ourselves like with different questions if you were expecting to ask a question, right?
So agreed.
Okay, any other consent um or follow-up to Kevin's sorry, Counselor Teeter's request.
Okay, thank you.
Um Counselor Hassan.
Yes, um, I just prepared a couple of things I wanted to share.
Um according to a recent study from the Center on Organized Hate, uh nearly a third of all posts, about 322 framed Muslims through the lens of terrorism and national security.
64 called explicitly for the deportation or denaturalization of Muslims.
63% used dehumanizing language labeling Islam and Muslims as demons, death cult, cancer, and the plague.
As issues happen internationally, this anti-Muslim rhetoric permeates into our community.
Some of you know that I have experienced it, uh, but others in our community have experienced it as well.
I was catching up with some of our boards and commissions uh members, old, some old, some new, um, and they had shared sort of a shared sense of safety around what's happening, uh, whether it's I subducting our neighbors or community members losing their family members abroad.
Uh, whether it's folks in our Lebanese community who I've been talking to whose family members are living in fear, or people here in Beaverton whose families are in detention centers, um the pain is just very real.
These are people in our neighborhoods in our community, and more and more every day they are losing trust in these very systems and then this very room and in this very space.
This report that I just quoted, it's called Manufacturing the Muslim Threat.
I'll share it with each of you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Counselor Kimmy.
Usually when we ask um questions to the staff before the council meeting, what Jenny used to do was to put the pull that together and then send it to all the all the counselors.
So maybe I can ask you to do that so then we know what's the what questions will all is being asked.
And another thing is I went to Revolutionary War Memorial Revealing, right?
And it was great event.
Um US American history is 250 years old.
Um not too older than I am, but then compared to thousands of years, but then uh it was awesome to see.
I met all of you there, the mayor.
I took a picture.
Um it's great that mark, and I think it's gonna put us on a map also and cool place to hang out.
So I really appreciated the singing by Councillor Hartmaprik.
She was very loud.
But it was it was great day.
I just wanted to share it.
Thank you.
Okay, I was gonna compliment your singing.
Um Counselor Kimmy can actually sing, y'all.
He sang the national anthem.
It was very beautiful.
It was yeah, it was very beautiful.
And then we learned about all four verses of Yankee Doodle.
And some of the syllables don't fit.
Can we see this somewhere on videos?
No.
No, there are cameras in the house.
There were.
But it was it was a really cool event, and it was really awesome to see.
I think, especially David's efforts, right?
He's been coming to see us at council for years, and just like the dedication to that memorial.
And I think like when I think about just like the turmoil of our of our nation right now, the like kind of reminding like there was plenty of problems 250 years ago, but just like you know, that we believed in our democracy.
And there was just like it was it was a cool event.
It was a cool event.
I gotta add in too.
I thought it it was really moving that normally when it's like, okay, we're gonna invite someone up to sing the national anthem, they sing it, everyone listens, and the entire room just burst into singing along with it.
And I don't think I've ever really experienced that before.
Yeah.
That was really, really cool.
And all the cosplay as well.
There was quite a lot of uh um Minuteman and and Davy Crockett.
Davy Crackett was there and and big dresses and bonnets, and yeah, yeah, it was a fun event.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Well, thank you to everyone who helped make that happen.
Um, and to David for his dedication, you know.
We told him he should still keep coming to council and visit us.
Um okay.
Any further comments?
I think I caught everyone's name in the all right.
So we are adjourned.
We'll see you next time.
Beaverton City Council Meeting - April 21, 2026
The Beaverton City Council met on April 21, 2026, to discuss downtown parking enforcement, a nonprofit loan program, and the library advisory board's annual report. The meeting began with public comments urging protection for non-traditional family structures, followed by a work session on parking, consent agenda, a debated loan bill, a library presentation, and council reports.
Consent Calendar
- Remaining items on the consent agenda (agenda bills 26073, 26074, 26075, 26076, and 2607) were approved unanimously.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Sandra Elliott, a Beaverton resident practicing ethical non-monogamy, requested the council bring forward protections for expansive relationship structures and blended/multi-generational families. She cited research showing 60% of non-monogamous people experience stigma and discrimination, and noted that eight cities (including Portland, Astoria, Cambridge, Somerville, Berkeley, and Oakland) have passed similar ordinances without legal challenges.
- David Carlson, campaign coordinator for Open (organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy), urged the council to proceed with a family and relationship structure non-discrimination ordinance. He stated that only 18% of households are traditional nuclear families and that one in five Americans live in multi-generational households. He shared that Portland, Olympia, Astoria, and West Hollywood passed similar policies in the last two months, and that over 100 Beaverton residents signed a petition in support.
- Emily Techmas Koons, a Beaverton resident, expressed hope that the council would protect all family structures, including blended and chosen families. She reiterated that the eight cities that passed the exact language faced zero legal challenges or controversy.
Downtown Parking Program Work Session
- Community Development Director Andy Varner, Development Division Manager Tyler Ryerson, and Parking Manager Molly Rabinovitz presented a work session on the downtown parking enforcement pilot program. Key findings from the pilot (July 2023–July 2025) included: over 10,000 hours worked by a third-party vendor, 11,000+ warnings and citations (two-thirds warnings), a 9–10% increase in parking utilization, and a reduction in average stay in two-hour spaces from over two hours to approximately 1.5 hours. The pilot also highlighted the need for updated permit programs (currently unchanged since 2002), improved signage and branding, curb management adjustments, and consistent enforcement hours. Staff presented three contract options with a third-party vendor (LAS Parking LLC) at different service levels and costs. Mayor Beatty opposed moving forward without a more robust parking plan and expressed reservations about the ambassador program and license plate readers. Other councilors (Hussen, Kimmy, Teeter, Tivnan) supported continuing enforcement, with Councilor Hussen favoring Option 2 for consistency during peak hours, Councilor Kimmy emphasizing the need for quick action and more painful tickets to change behavior, Councilor Teeter open to Option 2 or 3 but wanting consistency, and Councilor Tivnan advocating for prioritization of wayfinding and focusing on Broadway. The council did not vote, but the city manager summarized that the majority of council is interested in moving forward with an enforcement contract blending options 2 and 3, with overlapping coverage during peak hours. Staff will return with a draft contract.
Agenda Bill 26078: Nonprofit Loan Program
- Councilor Kimmy pulled this item from consent for discussion. The bill would provide $100,000 to the Oregon Startup Center (OSC) to establish a bridge loan program for nonprofits through a loan loss reserve, potentially leveraging $250,000–$300,000 in loans. Councilor Kimmy and Councilor Hussen opposed, arguing that the program would primarily benefit established nonprofits and not the small, community-based organizations (especially those serving immigrant and refugee communities) that lack capacity to take on loans. Councilor Teeter, Mayor Beatty, Councilor Tivnan, and Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg supported, noting the program's sustainability, amplification of funds, and the existence of other direct grant funding (e.g., $532,000 in CDBG grants). The motion passed 4–2, with Councilor Hussen and Councilor Kimmy voting no.
Library Advisory Board Annual Report
- Library Director Kim Carroll, along with Library Advisory Board Chair Kathleen Perry and Vice Chair Sarah Blatner, presented the 2025 annual report. Highlights included: over 10,000 new library card holders, the popularity of the Design and Make space (capacity limited due to high demand), 1.6 million visits to the Murray Scholls branch since 2015, 5,400 hours of volunteer service (equivalent to 7.5 months of full-time work), and services such as shelter assistance, bus tickets, and ID support. The library supports council goals like advancing diversity through multilingual story times and cultural programs. Councilors expressed strong appreciation for the library's role as a community hub.
Council Reports and Other Items
- City Manager Elizabeth reported on: the launch of Beaverton Community Assistance Grants (applications due May 1), fiscal year 2026–27 budget development (May 28 committee meeting, June 16 adoption), the May 19 election and voters' forum, and various community events (bike ride, Earth Day recycling, child abuse prevention month). Councilor Teeter suggested that when items are pulled from the consent agenda, staff should give a brief presentation first. Councilors agreed and also requested advance notice of pulls. Councilor Hussen shared concerns about anti-Muslim rhetoric and its impact on the community. Councilor Kimmy noted attending the Revolutionary War Memorial rededication event.
Key Outcomes
- Downtown Parking Enforcement: Council gave direction to proceed with a permanent enforcement contract blending options 2 and 3, with overlapping coverage during peak hours. Staff will return with a draft contract.
- Consent Agenda: Adopted unanimously, excluding agenda bill 26078.
- Agenda Bill 26078: Passed 4–2 (Mayor Beatty, Councilors Teeter, Tivnan, Hartmeyer Prigg in favor; Councilors Hussen and Kimmy opposed).
- General Practice: Council agreed to request presentations when items are pulled from the consent agenda and to provide advance notice of pulls.
Meeting Transcript
Councillor Hartmeyer Prigg. Present. Councilor Hassan. Here. Councillor Kimmy. Counselor Teeter. Here. Counselor Tivon. Here. My understanding is Councillor Duggar is absent tonight, and Mayor Beatty is running a little late. Thank you, Sue. On tonight's agenda, we will well. I'm gonna I'm actually gonna pull, I think what is this called pull and audible when you change the order. Okay. I don't know. Is that football? It's not my sport. Okay, so on tonight's agenda, we will start with visitor comments and then we will have our work session about the downtown parking program. I'm gonna move consent agenda to come right after the work session, um, where we do have one item that um we are going to have a discussion on, which is the agenda bill 26078. That one we'll have a separate conversation on as part of consent agenda. Then we'll move into our presentation, which is the library advisory board's annual report. We'll have a city manager's report, and then any council items. Sound okay. Okay. All right. So tonight we have visitor comments, and the city does require pre-registration for online and in-person visitor comments. Registration closed at 12 noon today, and all registration was conducted through the city recorder's office via email or phone in preparation for this meeting. And tonight we have three people registered. As a reminder, visit or comment provide an opportunity for the community to speak about matters, whether they are not whether or not they are on the agenda. Visitors may state their comments, but they should not expect to engage in back and forth dialogue regarding those comments, as this is a time for council to hear from the community. The city council seeks to be welcoming and inclusive towards all speakers at public meetings, and we strive to create an atmosphere of mutual care and respect. While community members may disagree with each other or the city on issues and may give critical feedback, they are expected to do so respectfully and without disruption. Disruptions interfere with the ability of others present in person or online to participate fully in this meeting. Council members will not interrupt community members during public comments, and we expect community members to offer the same courtesy to other speakers. Visitor comments tonight will be limited to three minutes per person. And if any follow-up is needed, our city manager and city recorder are taking notes. So our first speaker tonight is Sandra Elliott, and then we'll have David Carlson. So you can come and join us at the table here, Sandra. And if you would push the mic button when you see a green light, and then when you start talking, the timer will start. Oh, there we go. Okay. Um good evening. Uh City Council members, I appreciate your time. My name is Sandra Elliott, and I'm a proud resident of Beaverton. One of the reasons that I moved here uh in 2008 was to be able to live my life more openly. As someone who is ethically non-monogamous, um, I am someone who in the state of Texas, as a college professor, faced discrimination on many different uh fronts in a way that eventually led me to leave that area simply because I wanted to be able to live my life. And I'm coming here today to ask you to bring forward protections for expansive relationship structures, chosen blended and multi-generational family structures specifically. These protections matter because open's research, organization for polyamory and ethical non-monogamy, has shown that 60% of us report experiencing stigma and discrimination on the basis of their non-monogamous identity. And I would like for that to be protected. And this includes housing, it includes employment, it includes areas that are covered by these protections.
openpublica.com