The Forest Grove City Council met on September 8, 2025, at 7:13 PM. The meeting included public comments, presentations from state legislators, a public hearing on electric rate increases, and a contentious debate over rescinding support for the City Club's Main Street program. The council approved a 3.25% electric rate increase and voted down a motion to rescind the Main Street resolution.
Good evening. I'd like to call to order this meeting of the Forest Grove City Council a little bit late at 7.13 p.m. Will the city recorder please call roll? Councillor Gustafson? Here, Council President Valenzuela. Here. Councillor Shimon. Here. Councillor Falconer. Here. Councillor Martinez. Here. Councillor Marshall. Here. Mayor Wensell. Here. Forest Grove City Council meetings are located on the land of the Twilight and Calapuas, who call themselves the At Pilates. They are now part of the Confederate tribes of Grand Run. Will the audience and council please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? I pledge allegiance to the liar of the United States of America. Thank you. And whereas what began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Johnson was expanded by President Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period starting on September 15th and ending on October 15th. And whereas September 15th is the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua. Nicaragua, sorry. It is followed by the Independence Days of Mexico and Chile on September 16th and 18th, respectively. And whereas this year's theme, Collective Heritage, Honoring the Past, Inspiring the Future celebrates the deep cultural traditions and achievements of Hispanic communities while looking forward to the creativity and promise of future generations. And whereas we recognize and honor the many ways that Hispanics have enriched the cultural education, educational, and economic vitality of Forest Grove, while also rededicating ourselves to addressing the lack of equal access to opportunity that many still face. Thank you, Council President. We're gonna move on to item B on our agenda, public comment. Time provided for anyone wishing to speak to City Council on an item not on the agenda or on the agenda, but not scheduled for a public hearing. Comments are limited to two minutes unless additional time is granted by the presiding officer. The public comment period shall not exceed 30 minutes unless a majority of counselors present vote to extend the time. Zoom attendees may use the raise hand option to be called on. So we'll begin tonight with Mr. Jordan Miller. All right, so I'm here as a board member on City Club, and I came and spoke a couple of weeks ago at uh one of the city council meetings. So I'm back and hopefully reporting a little bit of progress. Um so given two minutes, only last two minutes. You proved me wrong right away. Um I'm gonna go through a few of these on just some progress that we've made and identified kind of some targets of where we're at right now, and since football just started, I'm gonna use a few football references to uh give some parameters on the progress. So um, and this is in regard to the 2040 uh plan. So section 1.6, uh local small business partnerships. I'd say City Club right now we're at about the 70 yard line. Um section 1.8 on the 2040, the long-term vision with the main street program. I'd say we're also at the 70-yard line. We're at the point where we need to have some communication with the city or other groups to make sure visions are aligned and all the work that we're doing is going in the right direction. Um events downtown. So we have six currently. If I wanted to be uh braggy, I would say we have twelve, because one of those happens six times. Um so we are currently doing six of those.