I would like to call to order this meeting of the Forest Grove City Council.

It is 7 05.

Sorry, we are a little bit tardy.

Will the city recorder please call roll?

Council President Vonzuela.

Here.

Counselor Schummel.

Here.

Counselor Falconer?

Here.

Counselor Martinez?

Here.

Mayor Winslow.

Here.

Forest Grove City Council meetings are located on the land of the Tualeton Calapuas, who call themselves the At Pilates.

They are now part of the Confederate tribes at Grand Ron.

Will the council and the audience please join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

Under God.

Invisible with Liberty and Just.

Thank you.

Moving on to item B on our agenda.

Public comments.

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, please use the raised hand option to be called on.

So I'm going to start with our hang on.

I gotta find I have a lot of piles of paper.

Let me find my list.

I have a sneaky suspicion, I know who's first, but I want to confirm.

Okay.

First stop for public comment is Mr.

Dale Feek.

Those keeping score, I was correct.

Well, let's not do that.

Oh, hopefully you have good insurance.

Never mind.

Former teacher.

Mayor Winslow, since you only have two people, may I have three minutes tonight?

You may.

Thank you very much.

I've sent you three at least three emails lately.

And in the what you have in front of you is kind of a summary of that.

Uh number one is Timothy Snyder's book on tyranny.

And I'm still offering it to you.

Uh Counselor Martinez, if you want one.

Okay.

Um tyranny, 20 lessons from the 20th century.

Snyder says in lesson number nine, be kind to our language by trying to separate yourself from the internet and read books.

Books are very important.

As you know, I have a doctor's green reading education.

That's my passion.

The following is not a book that I sent to you, but Snyder reads a lot of books.

And he has written many books as a historian who speaks many languages and has spoken with Zelensky in Ukraine more than once and has visited Ukraine over 20 times.

I'm asking you as I did the county commissioners, the mayor of Hillsborough, the Mayor Beaverton, and you and Councillors, and the Environmental Quality Commission.

The same email.

Please read this email and attached and learn more about what he says about President Trump and the likely next step.

Detachment begins with in certain ways.

That fall, the German police and the SASS rounded up Jews who locked up German citizenship and dumped them on the Polish side of the German Polish border.

This set off a chain of events which can give us a useful perspective on where we are now.

The family was deported for a provo provoked.

Refugee took revenge, the government organized a program and reorganized its police.

Second war follow.

Please read the entire document.

The other email I sent to you and those other people.

It's a podcast of conversation with Timothy Snyder, October 28th at the Schnitzer Concert Hall in Portland.

My wife and I went to that.

Conservation on tyranny and on freedom books, which Snyder and his experiences in Ukraine and implications for action.

The Timothy Snyder recording was aired on Sunday, November 9th.

I'm providing the link to the recording here for you to share with anyone you think might be interested in listening.

I also recorded on my phone, got a transcribe in about 99% accuracy.

You can read it if you read.

Thanks for giving me three minutes.

Have a good night.

Carol Allen.

Good evening.

I live over by that intersection, which is a very dangerous intersection.

But I when you know you have to cross, not so much from Pacific to the 7-Eleven, but from the 7-Eleven across to where the all the you know the carts are and stuff.

You have two lanes of human beings trying to cross the road.

And we need a people.

Because you go out halfway and you've got a guy going that doesn't know why you're stopping, and you better watch.

And you know, you have kids coming out of school.

There's a lot of that happening.

And one day we need we can have an accident.

So we should really be proactive.

And I know in a couple meetings ago, you guys, somebody in the city mentioned it, but we need to do more than mention this.

It's dark, not a good situation in that corner, anyway, because we've had enough accidents that keep happening there.

So I wanted to bring that up to you.

I uh so if anybody here knows anything where I should talk to somebody about that that you can't help me, but they can, please let me know.

I would appreciate that.

Also, I came to remind you that this is the season that God sent his son Jesus to us.

And to free man from darkness to bring light into this world for a need for a savia.

It was true back then, it's still true now.

Merry Christmas to each one of you and a happy year.

Carol, uh Carol, I can respond to your U Street intersection question.

So it is part putting a traffic light in that intersection on U Street and Highway 8 is part of ODOT's plan in their next budget cycle.

Um, but I think you bring up a good point because that's gonna take some time.

So I would be interested to hear if our public works department or engineering department if there's something we could do until then for a pedestrian crossing, because it is a really it is a scary intersection.

Yes, it's a very dangerous section, and it's getting worse.

And in another, just like another add-on to that is that our public works department did get a safe routes to school grant.

And so some of those um like what is it called when the sidewalk, like gaps in the sidewalks are gonna be fit.

Like there's gonna be some safety improvements made through that safe route to school federal funding grant, and then ODOT with the traffic light at U Street.

So those are some minor okay.

Thank you.

Uh, anyone in the audience who did not sign up for public comment that would like to give public comment, you may do so now.

Okay, is there anyone on Zoom who would like to give public comment?

Please use the raise hand feature.

Okay, seeing none, we're gonna move on to item C, which is the consent agenda.

Give me one minute, I'm having issues.

Consent agenda.

Items under the consent agenda are considered routine and will be all adopted with a single motion without separate discussion.

Counselors who wish to remove an item from the consent agenda may do so prior to the motion.

Any item or items removed will be discussed and acted upon following the approval of the remaining items.

What is the wish of the council?

So move a second.

Council President Valenzuela moved and councillor Falconer made the second.

All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, please say aye.

Aye.

All those opposed, same sign.

Hearing none, the consent agenda is approved by the Forest Grove City Council in a five to zero vote.

Okay, additions or deletions.

City manager, do you have any deletions or deletions?

No additions or deletions.

Thank you, Mayor.

Great, thanks.

Any proposed by council.

Seeing none, we'll move on to item E.

And we're right on time.

Good news, good news.

Uh, item E is presentations.

The council will hold questions until the end of each presentation.

A two-minute reminder will be given to the presenter to conclude remarks.

So we're going to start with Michael Skipper because it's 1015 in Washington, D.C., and we're going to be respectful of that.

So Michael Skipper is the vice president of CFM Advocates, and he's in charge of our federal product projects and lobbying.

Hello, Michael.

It's good to see you.

Hello, Mayor.

Good to see you.

Good to see you, Council members.

My name is Michael Skipper with CFM Advocates.

Thanks for having me tonight.

I, as the mayor mentioned, I am here to provide an update on Forest Grove's efforts at the federal level.

I do know Jesse provided an update to you all on your projects back in August.

So on that front, I'll be I'll be relatively brief because not a whole lot has changed.

But just as a reminder, uh Forest Grove has been very successful at the federal level over the past few years.

In 23, in 2023 and 2024, we secured $2 million in direct federal funding for infrastructure, public safety, and renewable energy projects in Forest Grove.

2025 was a little more challenging.

This was a tough year for federal funding for a variety of reasons.

We saw the Trump administration abruptly cancel dozens of grant programs, and those that weren't canceled faced significant delays.

Also, the full year continuing resolution Congress passed this spring essentially set the whole congressionally directed spending process back a year.

So what I mean by that is forcebro received congressionally directed spending or earmarks in both fiscal year 2023 and fiscal year 2024.

And earmarking, as you all know, I've said before, it's it's an incredibly competitive process.

Um your congressional delegation receives hundreds of requests each year from around the state, and they're only able to secure funding for a fraction of them.

Um in 2025, since we were not among one of the projects selected, and after receiving funding for two years in a row, that's not abnormal.

All of the projects that Senators Merkley and Wyden and Congresswoman Bonamici put forward in fiscal year 2025 were eliminated by the full year continuing resolution.

Um so when it came down time to submit projects for fiscal year 2026 this spring, um, it was clear the congressional delegation was going to try and make things right and prioritize those fiscal year 2025 projects they put forward that ultimately didn't receive funding.

So despite us submitting three really good projects this year, we were essentially locked out this round.

Um but the good news is, and I'll get to more of this in a moment.

Congress has already passed three of the 12 annual spending bills uh for FY 2026, and they appear on track for now to pass the remaining bills early next year.

Hopefully that means they'll avoid another uh year-long continuing resolution, and this would essentially clear the deck for Forest Grove to be competitive again for FY 2027, which will begin in just a few months.

Um just to zoom out a bit, I also want to provide a quick update on what's been going on in DC.

Uh the last time I presented to you all was February of this year, I believe.

So just over a month after President Trump uh assumed office.

There was a lot of a lot of uncertainty from that presentation, as you might recall.

Um I could only promise at the time that the second Trump administration was going to be a lot different than the first.

And uh, I think for better or worse, from your perspective, I think that promise has proved pretty much true.

Um he's been emboldened uh in part by a relatively acquiescent Congress to pursue some of his grander ambitions this term.

Um I don't need to tell all you all, for example, that he's gone much further on immigration enforcement this term than he did in the first term.

On top of that, he's withheld congressionally directed or congressionally appropriated funding rather, deployed National Guard troops to cities and and much much more.

So a number of these actions, uh the reality is just that uh these actions that are being contested by you know cities, counties, um, other entities, they're going to have to be settled by the courts.

Many lawsuits are already underway, but I expect the Supreme Court to either um dramatically expand or contract the scope of presidential authority over the next year or so.

I expect them to decide on things like sanctuary jurisdictions, but also the president's ability to impose tariffs or to um impound congressionally appropriated funding.

But until that happens, this is kind of the reality we're operating under for the next year.

So, in terms of what's next, we of course are relatively fresh off the longest government shutdown in history, where Senate Democrats refuse to support a continuing resolution without action first on the enhanced affordable care act premium subsidies that are set to expire at the end of this year.

Ultimately, they agreed to reopen the government with a continuing resolution until January 30th.

In exchange for that, uh Senate Majority Leader Thune promised a vote on a democratic written bill to extend the health insurance subsidies.

So that vote is likely taking place this week.

And as of right now, it is likely to fail.

This is really a non-starter for most, if not all Republicans who want to ultimately transition away from enhanced premium subsidies.

So three years is just too long for them to swallow.

So Republicans are expected to release and vote on their own proposal as well, the details of which have not been released.

But Speaker Johnson says it should come early this week.

There are also some bipartisan proposals out there that would extend premiums for one or two years along with some new income restrictions and measures to reduce uh fraud in the marketplaces as a way to buy you know Congress time to come up with a longer term solution to uh rein in premiums.

But we'll see if those start to gain traction over the next few days.

But they're really running out of time.

There's only this week and next that Congress is scheduled to be in uh session, and obviously the uh enhanced premium tax credits expire at the end of the year.

So uh there's a very real chance right now that Congress allows these hand enhanced subsidies to simply expire, which uh would dramatically increase health care premiums for millions of Americans and likely lead to millions more dropping health insurance in 2026.

Um but moving into 2026 in terms of congressional priorities um since the government reopened, uh we have seen a lot of good progress in the Senate, especially on annual appropriations bills.

For that reason, I do not see another government shutdown happening in January when this current uh continuing resolution expires.

The same uh the same incentives just won't really be there for either party to um to force it to the brink and um for another government shutdown.

On the legislative front, uh election years are almost always a lot more quiet.

Um there's movement on bipartisan priorities like uh NEPA environmental permitting reform.

There's talk of Republicans introducing another reconciliation bill, but with such slim majorities, um and uh like I mentioned in the election year, the um it just gets harder and harder to do as we hit closer to next November.

Um and speaking of next November, uh both parties are already laser focused on November 2026.

You've even got several states redistricting to gain a partisan advantage, with many more still considering it.

Um it's too, it's way too early to tell how that's gonna impact the balance of power uh in the House in 2027, but it's obviously going to be uh a major, major component.

Democrats right now uh have been uh you know emboldened by a series of uh special election victories to think that they're all but assured to take back the House and maybe even the Senate next November.

And I'm not gonna make a prediction, but um it's obvious, I think right now that Democrats are in a better position um politically than Republicans.

If the election were held tomorrow, I think you'd be hard pressed to find anyone in DC who would tell you Republicans were gonna hang on to the House.

Um but the election is not tomorrow.

Uh and there's a lot of time between uh now and November where that political dynamic could change, um, just as it has between this November and last.

Um Democrats do manage to flip, even just the House, uh, it dramatically changes uh the balance of power in Washington along with um Trump's remaining uh two years.

So that's all I have for you.

I know you have a lot on your agenda.

I just wanted to give a brief high-level update.

Um, but I'm happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thanks, Michael.

Any questions for Michael?

Counselor Schimmel.

Hey, Michael, thanks for being with us late.

Um this is maybe a question for anyone who might know as whether our contract with you extends to immigration reform.

Yeah, so it's um our contract is pretty wide uh widely encompassing.

Um what I was doing there is mostly just providing an update on the landscape in DC.

But our contract essentially reflects um advocating for the city's priorities in Washington, DC.

So we uh you know spend several months working with city staff and you all to develop those priorities and then we adjust as the political dynamic changes as issues arise.

But um our contract can reflect a lot of work of whatever the city wants to advocate for in DC.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Any other questions for Michael?

Um well thank you, Michael, and you know, good luck.

You're you're in it.

So thank you for, and I'm sure it's a difficult time for you all.

I we appreciate your the work you do on behalf of the city of Forest Grove.

And um, I think at some point we'll definitely be in contact with our direction moving forward, given the current climate in DC and nationwide.

Yeah.

Okay, sounds good.

Good.

Thank you, Mary.

Thank you.

Have a good night.

Me too.

Our next presentation is our farmers market update.

And we have Lorda's Caracina Carrasco, uh, which is Adelante Muharis, director of microenterprise programs.

And I'm sorry if I mispronounced your name.

I was trying my best.

Hi, I just wanted to take a second to introduce uh my team and obviously Bridget Cook, which you know is our executive director.

No, I said Jodi Monroy, our market access manager, the Lisa Arellano, our farmers market specialist, and I'm Lourdes Herencia, um, director of microenterprise programs.

But um I will let Jodi and Bridget go ahead and do the presentation.

But thank you so much for having us.

Thank you, Lourdes.

Hello again, Joey.

Hi, Bridget.

You guys can sit over to this feels like something light after that like update.

Yeah, that was that was brutal, right, Jody.

Yeah, that was a lot.

That's how I felt too.

I think so.

Are they both?

They're both on.

Okay.

Do they need to be on?

Yes.

Yes.

Okay.

I'm saying, can you hear me without them?

Is what I said.

Well, it's because that there's a streaming option.

So we have to.

Okay, yes.

Um hi everyone.

Thank you for your time.

And uh thank you for allowing uh us to be a part of uh the wonderful stuff that happens in this city.

I am new to spending so much time in Forest Grove.

I live in the Tennisbourne area, but um I uh I see I see what a golden place this is in so many ways.

Um so I I feel fortunate to be a part of it and thank you for your support of our work and our organization and all of that.

So the objectives of today is to sort of give you an update about the 2025 season um or some statistics about the season, um, as well as you know, uh the the couple of years before that to talk about the things that we did in 2025 that were kind of special or unique.

Um uh talk a little bit about I mean I don't need to read that, you guys can read it.

Talk about I always feel nervous when I do this.

Don't be nervous.

I'm like, just look at me.

Like that's why I told us.

Um yeah, just to give you all an update about where we're at with the farmers market.

Uh, this was my first year with Adelante Mohitez, and I'm super um excited to uh be a part of this markets are in my blood.

I love them.

Um and I and I and I love, you know, I love all markets.

All markets are special and unique.

This one uh from day one.

I saw what what great roots it has, and um it's just a really unique place.

Uh if you want to go back, yeah.

I just want to point out that um this season we had a number of special visitors to our market, including um representative, is that what it is, uh Bonamichi.

And um and a number of other ones, um uh elected officials as well as you know, other community partners regionally that uh whenever we as an organization invite people to come and see our work.

This is uh what we really like to showcase because it encompasses a lot of our values about community connection, about supporting, you know, um Spanish speaking families locally, about local um uh and about microenterprise and about you know just the sort of um the the connectedness and the and and all of the components that that comprise what it means to be a community and to support those that um have a lot of barriers.

Okay, so this is uh this is this is our data, some of it anyway.

Uh we have a report that we'll be releasing and we'll be sending out at the end of this year, but this is just sort of a uh uh a picture of what this year looked like for us.

Um we do know uh 2025 comparatively to 2023 and 2024.

Um we saw sort of a uh I would say not much growth in the market in terms of um you know vendor reported sales attendance was uh sort of static uh in spite of the fact that uh in September and October there was um uh quite a bit of change, you know, with the with the enforcement of immigration pol, you know, and all of all of that, plus the um, you know, the federal funding that affected everybody, the SNAP stuff, all of that things.

Um, despite that, we that I would say, you know, two months that that the market was affected, um, we still saw sort of the same level of uh attendance and um and spending as in 2025 as we did in in previous years.

Um the uh nutrition incentives uh you can see are a super important part of our work and uh something that we lost quite a bit of funding for, so we're you know, thinking about that in terms of next year.

That's a really important part of uh the community and supporting our community.

Um yeah, we can go to the next slide.

Uh we love our special events, they're a great way to promote the market.

Um last year we did the same number as the previous year, which jumped from from the year before.

Um, there is a lot of opportunity there to increase um the amount the the types of events that we do, who we collaborate with, um and uh and yeah.

So the vendor, the vendor reported gross sales.

I wanted to point that out because uh I think that September and October were really, you know, they they really impacted our vendors um quite a bit.

And uh but in spite of that, it is sort of known that in open air markets where there's a lot of cash moving around, um, sales are are are pretty underreported.

And even um, even though I couldn't really come up with a a number by which it's underreported.

I've worked in markets for a long time, and I know that you know, as a as a business person, um, you know, you never want to commit tax fraud or anything like that, but you know, sometimes folks don't report all of their sales, and that's just a fact, especially when you're doing cash transactions.

So the amount of economic impact that comes through our market um seems very significant, knowing that you know, I would I would estimate well over a half a million dollars, and and this is for you know, the businesses that are supporting families that are supporting mom, dad, and kids in our area, which is fantastic.

And we're very proud of that, right.

Um collaborations.

I love collaborations.

I think collaborations is the way that um that that leadership builds something larger than what it is, that communities build something larger than what it is.

You know, it's it takes um, you know, it takes vision, it takes a group of people to implement and build something, and then it takes you know, strategically aligning yourself with with you know, folks that such a city council that can support a project, such as um, you know, whatever the the uh this year it was the the what is it called the Forest Grove Festival of the Arts, the Arts Commission, um, the Artisans in the Grove.

Um this year we had a a really great partnership um with Omzi.

They reached out to us and they uh they ended up coming uh I can't even talk, I'm so sorry.

I know what I'm trying to say, but I feel like I'm not saying it.

So um what I'm trying to say is that the reach of this market is is very far already.

And um, and through uh intentional collaborations, the reach of the market is very far already.

Uh, the Lante Mujeres is an organization with an a fantastic reputation, a fantastic work ethic, and uh and a really big reach, a reach so far that OMSI approached us and said, we want to um do something about climate change or do a you know educational piece about climate change.

They came out, they filmed our farmers market, they filmed some of our vendors, they filmed our you know, our uh I can't even think of what what it's called, our garden.

Yeah, our agriculture program.

And um, and that's gonna be featured in Omzi for 10 years, you know, talking about the Forest Grove Farmers Market.

And and that is um that's fantastic.

And I look forward to more.

There's so much more opportunity for those types of collaborations, both locally and in particular.

I'm very interested in working closer with Pacific University and all of the students and all of the faculty there.

And um, and then you know, just seeing what else is out there and how how else we can reach and how else we can build and how else we can grow to increase that half a million dollars for our local economy for our you know, for the people around here that need it that deserve it, that you know, we like we can do that.

Yeah.

Um, so this is kind of a concept map for 2026 and beyond that um I would like to present.

This is in by no means this is what we're doing next year.

This is what I would like to do.

Um, is migrate a little bit.

Um, and it's not just what I would like to do.

This is what I think that the market needs.

Well, like I said, the the season um this the first season that I attended this year, and I've been doing markets for a very long time.

What I saw immediately was that it was sort of full.

It was very full.

And a full market is a good market.

You know, people come and they're just like, this is great.

There's so much to see, there's so much to do.

But there were certain times, and I hesitate looking back to the chief here because there were certain days where it was like it was too full.

It was too much.

The traffic was not okay, like the businesses were impacted in not they were not so happy.

And you know, it's a balance.

It's of course a balance that we want this event to support the businesses in the area.

We wanted to support the small businesses that don't yet have a brick and mortar.

We wanted to do all the things, and sometimes that doesn't happen.

Sometimes that rubber wrong, you know.

That's a lot of relationship building and communication, which has been done and will continue to be done.

But I think um knowing that this market is is very full, that vendors are selling out, um, means that it needs to grow.

And and knowing what intentions I have for the market, which is for it to grow, for it to attract more outside um folks to come in and come, you know, want to spend time at this market, um, because of all the amenities that we offer, because of the, you know, because of what it is, um, it needs it needs some breathing room to be able to do that.

And I think that it in conversations with Jesse and with you know, the businesses in the area and and everybody really, College Way seems like the smart place to do it.

And especially all and also considering the fact that um, you know, we want to connect closer with Pacific University and and maybe you know, even attract some uh some of their out-of-town parents to come and check out the market.

Um, yeah.

And so we did some research on the plan that we that had been developed, um, that we participated in the development of that plan.

And these seem like really uh clear alignments with what what we are trying to do with the market and what the Vision Plan 2040 is trying to do with the city of Forest Grove.

And um, and these are things that we are doing and would like to do a lot more of and feel like this is these are the the points where um it makes sense that that you know it's just it's very clear alignment.

Yeah, I don't I don't feel like reading them, but I don't think it's necessary to read them.

Sometimes I say the words and they come out wrong.

My daughter tells me, Mom, you're so offensive to people, and you're not trying to be.

She's like, she's like, you just need to learn how to say things in a different way.

I don't know.

It's like the microphone thing.

Like I what I meant was do you hear me?

Not like, do I have to have this?

Yeah.

Um and tourism goals, you know, everybody's talking about tourism, tourism, tourism, and you know, like I think uh personally I have a lot of thoughts about that because like you know, in I shouldn't go off on a tangent, but like in in tropical areas, their economies depend on tourism, right?

And we don't want economies to depend on tourism because that's you know, those are by and large low-paid wages and all those sorts of things.

So I mean, I'll leave that all up to you.

But in my sphere of influence, which is the market is most definitely a tourist attraction, and I've worked at um for years at destination markets.

Um, what I call I call them destination markets, where the reach is far beyond the local.

And Forest Grove already has the local, you know, it already has that.

So we need to figure out how it, if indeed this is our goal to to, you know, to reach into this perspective, which I think makes perfect sense, particularly with um, you know, the fact that the the farmers market is a summer market, and um and one of the uh the best one of the ways I grew up knowing Forest Grove was as a pathway from wine country to the city, and so I mean, this is kind of the reverse tourism, right?

But but that's but that's what it is, and that's how um Forest Grove can be activated in that way.

Plus, there's such an amazing gem of Hag Lake, which I think is being developed.

Um, and I mean it just makes sense to like tie into that and and collaborate with that development in marketing.

Um, we recently had a conversation with the folks from the Toileton Valley Explorers, is that what it's called?

The um sort of marketing branch of the the Walleton Valley, and um and just sort of sparked my my my thoughts thinking about you know, remembering how we which has been a few years back, but but how we promoted um big regional events to attract outside, and it's it's so doable, it's so doable with this event.

It uh it has all the framework, yeah, already it wouldn't be that hard.

Yeah.

Okay.

So now we're gonna talk numbers.

Yeah, but um, I I want to make sure that we have some time at the end.

So, how much time for discussion?

How much time do we have left?

I think you have about six minutes.

About six minutes.

Okay, so we're doing great.

Um so this uh the 2025 are actual numbers.

That's our closing beginning what we expended and the revenue for the market.

You can see a nice funding gap there, which we as an organization we have about a 12 million dollar budget at Adelante Mocrates, and we've never ended up in the red, which is great.

Um however, we did begin this fiscal year, or not this fiscal year, but this calendar year anyway, with um an $800,000 hole in the budget from three or from four multi-year federal grants that were either canceled or um withheld for a period of time.

And that was because they were either related to um diversity equity and inclusion for minority uh community or to climate change.

And those grants all impacted our microenterprise programming and most specifically our farmers market.

Um so we uh used uh we've used some of our unrestricted revenue to meet that gap.

If you um I know budgets are you know, this isn't full budget, these are just a few numbers there, but you are all familiar with budgets and uh you know that with an organization like ours, the the 80% or 83% of our expenses are always staffing, right?

That's always personnel.

And um I think we're the days be are behind us when we used to think, oh, nonprofits, they don't need to make much money, people are there for the love of it.

And people are there for the love of it.

But we also compete for with you know the private sector, we compete with government um for uh quality, high, uh highly committed and engaged and talented staff members.

So we do pay equitable salaries and we do have a um uh uh uh benefits package that we can be proud of because if we're supporting families and the well-being of families, we want our staff to be able to have vacation and know that they can cover their their expenses.

So most of that expense is is as I said, is salary and another key piece of that is you saw that 175,000 in nutrition supplements uh or supplemental uh nutrition vouchers that we're able to utilize at the markets.

That money goes directly into the hands of our of our food vendors, of our produce vendors, and so it supports the local economy, but it also supports food hunger and particularly um you know nutrition gaps for for folks.

So if we look at and this budget, we because we knew we had the shortfall in federal funding, we didn't rehire one of our staffing positions.

So these two right here, along with our temporary uh market staff that just worked during the season of the market, we're really doing you know, extra duty by covering everything um uh with one uh one FTE short.

And if we look at our 2026 budget, similarly, that reflects one FTE short, but it also it's less, considerably less because we do not include as much of those um nutrition uh incentives, which brings lower income people into the market who are then able to purchase and further support our farmers.

So we'll be looking at a way to make that up.

But all of that is to say that that while Forest Grove, um, we have been we're delighted, we're honored to be part of this community.

We as as Jody said, we love whenever we have a visit from our national delegation or our state delegation, Secretary of State.

We've had all three of our, you know, Kids Harbor, Brown, and Kotack have all come.

We always ask them to come on a market day when possible because we want them to see this is what Forest Grove looks like, this is what the community looks like.

Um but uh for for now we can't do this alone.

And as uh and we're not we haven't been doing it alone.

I certainly want to acknowledge that, but we will be this is the beginning of a conversation with all of you of looking at how can we think strategically about what other resources might the city be able to tap into or has at its on hand that could help support this market because if you think about this market, we are putting on four, I think it's 25 25 events, 25 or 25, 25 or 26 events every year.

That's a lot of events to be uh out on the street with between four and five thousand people at each event.

So it's bringing um uh a lot of attention to our local businesses.

So with that, I'm gonna hand it back to Jody just to con um open it up if if you have more that you want to say and then see what questions you all might have about um the future of of the market and where we can go together.

Jody, did you want to say anything?

I don't uh just just that um uh I think that would that was that felt like the perfect balance, right?

I'm here with a lot of vision, a lot of excitement and a lot of energy for what we can do and what we are doing and what is being done, and um and uh and and what can be, but the reality is we are a person short, we are a budget short, and none of that can really like you know happen without support.

Thank you.

So I'm gonna open it up to questions.

I'm gonna go with Counselor Falconer and then Council President.

I'm a little surprised that um, you know, when you were looking at you had a slide about um vision alignment with our 2040 vision, and one thing that I think the market does that maybe maybe I'm sure you think about.

Um, but one thing I was surprised not to see on your slide was 1.1, which is um conduct a feasibility analysis for a grocery store.

And I think that you all provide you know this side of town with um, you know, with with a with a major asset that it clearly wants um and desires, which is you know, geographic and also just diversity and choice of food and fresh food in particular.

Um, and so I suppose I might just also share with you sort of a dream that I have and a vision, maybe not for next year, certainly not for next year, but at some point, you know, I would love to see you talked about a destination market.

You know, I'm from I'm from a town that has a destination market, it's called Finley Market in Cincinnati.

Um it's been running for well over a hundred years and very popular, and it's an open air market, it's permanent.

Um, and I'd love to see maybe the conversation that this is this town is having about a grocery store, um, maybe evolve a little bit and keep an open mind about you know what is a grocery store.

Um, and I think the market, I think you're doing an amazing job of providing, you know, some of some of that gap that we have right now, and something that the community really thank you.

Yeah, thank you.

Council President Valenzuela.

Well, thank you so much for your presentation and for being here and for the amazing work that you have done, and you have changed lives on many people of many families, and uh, we're all very grateful for that.

Um the question that I have is here on the on your budget.

So 2025, you have total expenses of 379, correct?

And then your projected expenses for this upcoming year is 31.

So you know what is the right what are you going to have to sacrifice with.

So that's not the ideal budget.

It's kind of the one like, whoa, if we if we can't raise additional funding, okay.

This is the budget we have.

So that budget uh likewise is short one full FTE to support the market, which um you know, staff can only carry that extra burden for so long.

Um, and and then the other pieces it does not include um the uh nutrition incentives that we would like to have.

I don't a little bit, but there's not much there.

Yeah, and some of that is is both state and federal funds that we typically are able to acquire.

Yeah, and the the second question I have um on the map, the slide of the map, uh you have there um college way and uh some tents here on the canopies on the on Main Street.

So is the thought here is it expanding or transitioning to college way?

The thought is to migrate uh um part of the street, part of Main Street up towards College Way to make room for a future expansion.

All right, okay.

Um college way, correct?

So expanding in college way and kind of migrating through Main Street too.

Yeah, okay.

So um I think we don't want to leave Main Street.

Okay, yeah.

The uh Main Street is where folks know to come.

That's where a lot of the businesses are that um that appreciate and collaborate well with markets or with the the farmers market.

We want to be there.

Um what am I trying to say?

The the current layout of the market is um is really uh tight, like on our fullest days of the summer, it's very congested and there's no space to move out, and the market uh needs does need to grow.

It can't it there isn't a space for it to grow um north down Main Street um because of the businesses there and the impact on the business and the traffic there.

Um the um and plus with with the amenities and the sort of layout of the preferred layout of a market, which is sort of like a like a instead of it being like a straight line or you know, a a T, like for a for a market for folks to come through a market and feel like this is a place they want to spend some time at, this is a place they want to spend some money at, bring their family, do a lot of fun things.

The market has to have a lot of um different places and to like go to and like different ways for people to see it, and I don't know if I'm explaining that very well, but um, I don't know why I'm so nervous either.

But it's like if you just have one street, it's just kind of boring.

People just come through and then they leave.

But if you if you have it like here and then there, and then folks will spend more time there, folks will spend more money there, and there's more possibilities.

So the idea is never to leave Main Street.

We want to stay at Main Street, but we currently don't have the um the the resources, the capacity to fill Main Street and fill college way.

Yeah, so it's it's like a partial migration and expansion idea.

Yeah, I mean, either way, you know, it's uh it's nice to me that market is essential, you know, to forest growth.

Thank you.

Yeah, yeah, counselor Shovel.

Thank you, Mary.

Well, foremost, uh I'm always amazed at how resilient Ponalante is and uh Bridget for your organization to for your staff to not only be like um among families who are suffering from immigration enforcement, but they're all showing up, they're all putting themselves at risk.

Yeah, it's a tremendous certain amount of courage that uh really honored to have you in our in our community.

So thank you.

And and Jody, you are you are every mother and probably father too, you know, kids telling telling you how to speak, but I have uh I appreciate uh having just your candor and your genuine conviction and trying to make this market exceptional.

Thank you.

Um just in the interest of time, gonna try to wrap up like all my feelings I have right now.

Um just extreme appreciation to the work you do, you know, at beyond the microenterprise for Latina women for kids, Adelante Chicas meets in my classroom every Monday at 2 45 to the mental health work, and I and I wanna say what this presentation said, and I I don't know if anyone watches these council meetings, but Adelante is being attacked by the federal administration in funding, right?

So, like if you look at the complexity of what's going on right now, it's 400,000 being lost that provided food, right?

Resources, education.

It was like went directly to people, and then at the same time to attack the people that the organization's helping is wild to me.

It's so sad.

Um so thank you for standing up.

Thank you for continuing to do it.

I'm sorry to get emotional, but I just think like if you don't think this is an attack on a whole on a group of our community, um that this was an abuse of power, then I don't know what you think it is, because it's definitely not what this country is made of.

This is it's immigrant immigrants, is what our country's made of.

Um so, anyways, I don't want to go on and on, but I just want to thank you for doing the hard work when it's really hard and you're getting attacked by different levels and still needing to be calm and a safe place for the people who trust you.

So just want to say thank you.

And specifically for market and outdoor open air market, that is a definite consideration of you know that we need we are planning for, right?

And I was gonna ask you if you had a plan.

I don't want to know it, but just like you know, I mean, I'm sure that's the reality right now.

For sure.

Okay, so thank you, ladies.

Thanks.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Oh, sorry.

Yeah, have you on okay?

Yeah, what okay?

So our next presentation, CC is like, well, we have to follow this.

Don't worry, don't worry, I'm getting it together, Heather.

Come on up.

So we have our committee for community engagement annual report.

Um, so come on up, and I'm sorry, Heather.

We'll get it together.

No, you have like other members of your committee.

Either one there is fine.

I'm like, I have to follow that.

Oh my gosh.

Okay, don't get too excited because mine is not as cool.

Technically, technologically not as advanced, but oh, it looks super green.

Okay.

Okay, my name is Heather Finnegan, and this is Stephanie.

You probably know Stephanie, she's our staff liaison.

She's gonna hang out with me.

And then I do have uh two of my other group members with us tonight.

Uh Eva and Katie hanging out in the back.

So um supporting.

So um I am the chair of uh CCE, and this is our 2025 year in review.

Um, a little bit of 2024 in there because we didn't get a um present last year.

So um the end of 2024 and early 2025, saw CCE recruit three new board members, bringing us up to a full board of seven volunteers, which is awesome.

Um helped us out greatly with how we all CCE uh CCER moving forward as a partner with the city and how we envision engaging with our community members.

We don't just see our board as simply a group of volunteers that host a yearly meeting, but rather uh community members with shared interest in the future of our city and understand how best to serve those who live here.

Our board also values hearing from all voices and is committed to reaching out to all areas and is always looking for more informal ways to engage with our community members.

Tonight we're gonna focus on 2025 highlights.

So our group highlights and accomplishments.

Um of the things we started at the end of um, I think we have the is it the next one?

The next slide.

There we go.

Oh, I can read it.

Thought it was too small.

Um, one of our group highlights we started the end of 2024 was uh something we called board buddies.

Um, and it was a way of information sharing with all of the city uh boards and commissions.

We felt this was a great way to engage with our fellow volunteers on other boards and see if they were there were ways that we could collaborate, uh collaborate together and be stronger, or how we could assist each other on each other's boards.

Um several CCE members have picked um picked a group to buddy up with.

Currently we have buddies for historic landmarks, public arts commission, forestry, and the library.

Um each member attended buddy meetings and updated board members on our group's progress and what we were working on and seeing if there were any ways we could work together or share any information that we had.

Uh one of our board buddies even shared information um on how to get a better turnout for our ATM, which we kind of renamed the community open house.

Um we decided to, because of the information they shared with us, we decided to switch our ATM from a weekend morning from Saturday mornings to an evening during the week, and that turned out to be really successful, and that actually was the historic landmarks board.

So I was like awesome.

Um I think oh yeah, still the same same one, uh, getting involved our community.

Um CCE members were encouraged to attend um all the city's events and represent CCE.

Some of the notable events of the past year uh were the police station open house and tour, which I think was right here.

Um, and the summer kickoff party with parks and rec.

We also um attended the uh first Wednesday at the farmers market, which we all love.

That's a popular one.

Um I think my kids buy all the churros there or anything that has sugar or popcorn.

Um, so we love the farmers market, uh, so does CCE.

Um, we have gone to the uh every first Wednesday farmers market, assist the city, usually Joyce and Stephanie here um with getting out information like uh recently Civics Academy, uh the police station bond uh and forest grove uh forward project, the 2040 um things like that, and then uh several CCE members also attended uh several coffee with a cop events to help get the word out and support the police station bond.

And I think the next slide uh is our grocery store outreach.

Um it's kind of a funny thing.

Our grocery store outreach came directly from listening to our community and comments that were made during the 2040 community engagement process.

Uh whether sometimes it'd be at events that we attended or group members keeping kind of like an ear to ear to the ground in the online forums.

CCE, we feel like part of our job is to listen to the community's wants and needs and to address them if we can and to get in touch with the people who can assist them.

This grocery store topic kind of started out as something kind of fun that we used to joke at at our meetings, and then we kind of got serious about it and were like, hey, how can we turn this into like an actionable item?

Um, so we reached out um I have more on here.

Uh CCE, we reached out to the big one.

I know it's kind of a joke, Trader Joe's is the one that everyone thinks is coming here.

So we have reached out to Trader Joe's, Sprouts, Market of Choice, World Foods, New Seasons, Gelsons, Aldi's Sprouts, and Winco.

Um, and we have two group members.

Uh they're not here tonight.

It's Bill and Sarah.

They're using their own time, um, not just during our meeting or anything, using their own time reaching out to various grocery stores.

Um, their outreach outreach is consisting of sending emails to these smaller stores to introduce our city and what our needs are.

And um, obviously, our group is gonna hand this over to Miles if and when the store wants to proceed further.

It wouldn't be something that we're like, hey, we're gonna, you know, build a grocery store.

CCE is um, it's just we kind of think of it as like putting the line out, seeing if we could catch anything and then pass it on.

So um, so that was kind of one of interesting things that has evolved over the last year, um, kind of as the joke of Trader Joe's.

We're like, well, maybe they will come here.

Who knows?

Okay, so our next one is the community open house, um, which we just had not that long ago.

Um, it was kind of formally the annual town meeting shortened to ATM.

We I guess rebranded it as community open house.

It just kind of sounds more welcoming.

Um, our group took our time planning this year's event.

Our group is changing the style of the event from its more formal beginnings, uh, kind of like just sitting down in a room while presenters speak at attendees, uh, to a more informal open house style.

This year uh we decided to brand it 2040 in motion based on the 2040 project, um, which encompassed the entire city.

We switched to the normal Saturday morning to a Tuesday night event at suggestion of one of our board buddies on HOB that I was talking about.

And because of that, our attendance was more than double what it has been in the past few years, which was awesome.

Um, it was a great night.

We had a lot of participation in the open house.

Um, a great turnout.

We also extended the participation to uh the different boards and commissions in the city.

Um so they were encouraged to show up and they even had their own table for them to place packets and information, and then sometimes they had their chairs there, you know, going around.

Um, and some of the highlights from the open house were obviously we had a great turnout, and not just that, but we had a lot of new people that we haven't engaged with or we haven't seen um at the past events.

You know, sometimes we have the frequent flyers and we always see them.

So we had a lot of new people, so that was really encouraging.

Um, because it's kind of some hope for the future meetings.

And another interesting thing was we had really great feedback from our vendor attendees, and one even extended an invite to host us for next year's event.

So we thought that was awesome.

Um, so we're definitely looking forward to making that happen.

And then we did have uh our CCE, we had our own little booth there too.

We had a um 2040 interactive board.

I think we have a slide for that guide too.

Or maybe I don't have a slide for that one.

Oh, we do.

Okay.

Um we had a large display board with the 2040 vision plan uh with all the topics and areas of our highest priority.

We invited guests to pick their top three areas that they feel are the highest priority and they would like city and council to address.

Um, from our team, we learned that most people took this very seriously.

They're like, I've got three stars, and I'm gonna place each one properly.

Um they were really thoughtful with how they voted.

Uh, we had 10 areas.

We um asked the community um what was their highest priority, and it seemed pretty obvious to us that uh revitalizing downtown seemed to be something that we wanted to see occur first.

Um it had 25 votes.

Um, housing, recreation opportunities, and community safety was a three-way tie, and they had 15 votes.

Um, and then also going back to the grocery store.

We did have a small board with information about our grocery store outreach project, what we were working on, what CCE was working on.

Um and then also going back to the grocery store, we did have a small board with information about our grocery store outreach project, what we were working on, what CCE was working on, and there also was a small QR code on there so attendees could scan it with their phone, and it took you right to the recruit requested Trader Joe's in your city.

So about every attendee who did it, according to Bill.

Um so I was thinking like how interesting is it the Trader Joe's person opens their email the next day, like what is going on in Forest Grove.

So uh currently uh Bill and Sarah are following up with that with the QR code and seeing if they got our, you know, they probably thought it was like a virus or something.

So um, but we're kind of excited about that.

So um waiting to waiting to hear back from them.

So looking forward, I think I have one one last slide, my last one.

Um we know that we're a unique board.

Uh we spent many hours brainstorming how to better engage, inform and communicate with our community members.

Uh CCE, we would love to follow up um our discovery during the open house and work with any way with the city to better understand how we can assist in revitalizing downtown.

Um also a group would like to express how much we value our city volunteers, our workers, and elected uh city leaders.

If there's any matter where you see us where CCE can contribute in any way, please let us know because we're definitely here for it.

And then I signed it all of us, uh myself, Heather, Katie, Madigan, Sarah, Eva, Bill, and Sean.

So that's what I have.

I don't know if you guys have any questions for CCE.

Well done, Heather.

You did a really great job.

Okay, so sad green thing.

No, it wasn't sad at all.

You did a great job.

Um, any questions?

I have a like a question to statement, but I can wait.

What?

Okay, just comments go ahead.

Well, let's let your kill because you're like we know that guy.

No, I'll item sorry.

Well, I could be really smug, but uh because of how proud I am of the group, but uh I I think the group was already hitting a stride when I when I joined.

So it's it's really been an honor to work with the group.

I think there's several new members that you assimilated very quickly and easily.

And I I'll I'll give credit to my councils, council of the past who uh changed the recruitment.

And I I think that's a been a tremendous improvement and getting people motivated immediately into seats and and and people who are really uh taking action.

Uh so I I think between the the the council kind of loosening the reins and adapting, being more nimble with the process is has produced a very, very solid um C CE.

So well done this year.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think yeah, well said, and I agree.

And I think that Heather, you're a really good chair.

I think that you are driven, but you're also really like easy to follow, right?

And like you welcome everybody and inclusive, and it's been a joint effort.

So I just have a question and then I and then I'm gonna answer your question.

Okay.

So who is the who offered to host the open house?

Can I say we talked about this?

We'll talk about later.

Yeah, it was central.

Okay, cool.

Yeah, great.

It would be nice.

I think I think I was gonna say, so before you said that, the reason I asked is that I thought you should take the show on the road.

Like if we open a park, like we could have it at the park.

And if you go with to a partner, because one of the things I've been hearing, and I wanted our you know, chiefs in here, so I'm gonna plug it again, is like we do a public open an open house, like a public safety open house in October.

And like a lot of the people that live on the east side of Forest Grove just don't even know about it.

And like they like the little kids want to, you know, write.

It's just because it's like not there.

It's not like we I don't think the chief, I don't think we've done anything wrong with advertising and marketing.

It's just that kind of like grocery store, like you want something close and walkable, that's when people attend.

And so I'm all well, first of all, I forgot to tell you that you did a really good job with open house.

I thought it was great.

Um, but I am all in on taking it on the road.

I'm all in on us as a city, like moving to where the people are at and like switching the geographic area.

And I think that would be a huge thing for engagement.

So I've been all about that for a number of years.

So I'm super stoked.

Yeah, and then we agree too.

Yeah, I just think it like keeps it, keeps the energy up, like mixes it up a little bit.

It's just a little shift.

It people get like bored, it's always in the same.

I don't know.

Maybe that's just me.

No, yeah, it I totally agree.

And you want people to see other parts of the city and like the things we do.

So the move looking forward, how can CCE help?

You know, one of the things you got all can I would like help with, and I think, and I don't want to speak for the council is we need to figure out how a system or process of how we share the stories of the the vision that we that we do, right?

Like if we achieve something an action item out of the 2040 vision, like how are we sharing that out?

So I don't know if that's a blurb in our you know quarterly newsletter.

Like, I don't know.

I'm up open to all ideas, but that's what I would like help, you know, and CCI coming back maybe through Councilor Shimmel of like how maybe that group can help us do that, like share those stories of successes, what's going on.

Um, I think that would be one way.

So that's what I got.

Okay, cool.

Anyone else?

Okay, cool.

Well, thank you.

Thank you guys.

And thank yeah, thanks, members of CCE that came to support and show up.

Okay, we're gonna move to item F, which is our hang on, I'm gonna read my thing before I start my public hearing.

Public hearing ordinances and resolutions.

So here we go.

Yep.

Get informal.

The public hearing for ordinance two zero two five-04 is now open.

If approved by the city council, the ordinance would amend the forest growth code of ordinances to a chapter titled Sanctuary City that would codify Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act protecting forest grove from misuse of local resources for federal immigration law enforcement in violation of state law.

Do any counselors have a conflict of interest to declare?

City manager Jesse Vanderzannen will present the staff report.

Thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

Mayor, as you mentioned, we're here to give a staff report on ordinance 2025-04 protecting forest grove from misuse of local resources and violation of state law for federal immigration law enforcement.

A little bit of background on November 10th of 2025, the City Council passed resolution number 2025-61, declaring a state of emergency to address the community impacts of federal immigration enforcement and appropriated funds for community-based organizations to assist families impacted by federal immigration enforcement.

Two weeks later, on November 24th, the City Council passed resolution 2025-64, declaring Forest Grove a sanctuary city for all persons.

At that same meeting on November 24th, the City Council held a work session and reached a consensus to codify Oregon's Sanctuary Promise Act, which is contained in ORS 181A 820 through 181A 829, but also use Portland's recent codification of the same as the example.

Several other Oregon cities are actively considering following suit, and some U.S.

cities have already passed this similar type of legislation.

Portland is one, obviously, Seattle, Albuquerque, Boston, Chicago, Denver, and so forth.

All cities, regardless of sanctuary or inclusive declarations, follow Oregon's Sanctuary Promise Act, which prohibits state and local police and government from assisting in the enforcement of federal immigration laws.

Proposed ordinance 2025-04 closely mirrors the provisions listed in Portland's ordinance.

The proposed ordinance would create a new chapter 39 under existing Title III administration.

In addition to codifying the provisions in the Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act, the proposed ordinance directs the city manager to do the following.

One, it would create policies, training, and resources for city staff to manage interactions with immigration enforcement agents.

Two, it would require city staff to publicly report any exceptions to or violations of the prohibition on assisting with immigration enforcement.

Three, it would require city staff to submit freedom of information requests to the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Control Enforcement to gain insight into federal activity.

And four, it would define non-public areas and designate certain city-owned spaces as non-public, which federal immigration agents cannot access without a warrant.

Portland City Code included an emergency clause that allowed for immediate enactment upon passage.

Ordinance 2025-04 follows suit with the emergency declaration and contains an emergency clause to allow for immediate immediate excuse me, immediate enactment upon passage.

Additionally, 716, Section 16 of the city charter requires approval by a majority of the council at two meetings.

However, under the same section, council may enact an ordinance at a single meeting by unanimous approval, provided there are at least five members present.

And provided that the ordinance was available to the public at least seven days before the meeting.

That concludes my report, Mayor.

If there's any questions, I'd be happy to try and answer them.

Does the council have any questions for Jesse?

Yeah, go ahead, Councilor Schimmel.

Just comment.

Thanks for being extremely nimble on this circumstance and the resolution in the state of emergency before that.

I mean, these are things that were suddenly uh thrested upon you and your staff and uh despite all the other competing priorities.

So thanks for making it important.

Thank you.

Okay, so I I don't see any questions, questions.

Okay, so now I will now I will now call on persons who signed up to comment on the ordinance.

Comments are limited to three minutes.

Please state your name and address for the record.

Dale Feek, please come up.

3363 Levina Drive, Forest Grove.

I attended the workstation in which you, Mayor Winslow led it and had a big chart over here, and you went through what's legal and not legal, and you asked the attorney to go through that, and you eliminated one of the things, and I think that was eliminated from the proposal.

So and listening to you, uh City Manager Jesse Van Der Zannen.

I assume what in what you said goes whereas, whereas whereas was there before, and therefore I agree.

My wife and I were married, I lived at Rose Acre Mobile Lane, and in that has been expanded to Rose Mobile Park.

It's huge.

And so my wife and I are there Monday.

Well, I'm not because I go to county commission meetings on Tuesday, but Monday through Friday, she recruits somebody else to take my place.

So we're there from see eight 750 to 835.

And there are four buses that come to pick up junior, the Cornelius elementary kids, and then there's little preschool kids that also go to.

Big group of kids that get there, the buses go to high school, and teachers and the councillor volunteer, and they wear vests so that people know the ice people and the border control people know who we are, and we have whistles and we know how to use them if in fact there is a pickup.

And so then there's also a junior high faculty member that is there.

The staff under the leadership of a union, which I really appreciated being in the teachers' union when I taught, have really organized protection of the kids of the students that they teach.

Council.

It's really inspiring to see those kids.

Now, they didn't have enough this rain, they didn't have enough umbrellas.

We bought umbrellas and holds.

So we go, and what I'm saying is this sanctuary stuff is so important for the safety of these kids and for the security of these parents and of these kids.

So anything you can do in emergency, whatever, to make this immediate is really important for the safety and well-being in the mental health of the residents in forest group.

So I appreciate and support this emergency.

Thank you, Mr.

Feek.

Thank you.

Would staff like to respond to any of the testimony?

Oh, wait.

I'm sorry.

There's only one person signed up to give testimony.

Would anyone else like to give testimony?

Is there anyone on Zoom who would like to give testimony?

You can use the raise hand feature.

I'm sorry.

Okay, seeing none, would staff like to respond to seeing so the hearing is now closed.

Is there a motion from council to approve the ordinance in one reading?

In order to pass in one reading, it must be approved unanimously by the council members present.

If the ordinance is approved by a majority, but not unanimously, it will be passed in a second reading.

So is there a motion from council?

Move to approve uh ordinance 2025-04.

I'll second.

Okay.

Ordinance two, what should I read it?

Ordinance 2025-04 was moved by Councilor President Valenzuela and seconded by Counselor Falkner.

Uh is there any discussion from council?

Well, I want to be really clear about something.

So that was so there's an emergency clause in the ordinance.

That means once it's passed, it will immediately go into effect.

So that's always how it's gonna be.

Five of us need to say yes to this ordinance, and then it would be a one-reading ordinance, and it would be approved by and it would go into effect immediately.

If there is a majority, so if there's anything less than five, but more than three, three or more, then it would go to a second reading that would be on the January 12th meeting agenda for a vote.

I just wanted to make sure that was clear.

Any other discussion items, Counselor Schimmel.

Yeah, yeah, just an acknowledgement that um as a privileged male white man, uh, I take counsel from a number of exceptional leaders who have a direct impact uh our connection to those who are living in fear in our community.

Um have assured me that this ordinance matters, that our resolution for sanctuary city matters, that our state of emergency matters because we demonstrate that we we care for these people.

Um this is just one additional tool that we could use to not only demonstrate to those but but to show show them in our daily work.

Um, and I understand this is there's a lot of administrative things important here for for staff.

Um, but I think as a as a city, we're we're demonstrating that we care for those that are living in here in our community.

Counselor Falkner.

Um I want to reflect on earlier today.

Um my kiddo, along with 300 over 350 other high schoolers uh demonstrated and showed a lot of courage.

Some of those kids um did so at their peril.

Um some kids did not feel safe participating along with their classmates, and so some of them stayed behind and stayed in school um to ask questions and to talk to teachers and counselors.

Um so I think the biggest thing, the most important one of the most important things that this ordinance does is it it codifies our obligations to make sure that those kids feel safe.

And one of the the most important things is that they know that when they call for help, they aren't going to put targets on the backs of their parents or their grandparents or someone else in their household, maybe they live in a in a mixed documented household, and I can't imagine something worse than a kiddo not feeling safe, calling the police, the local police, because they're afraid that that might get their parents in trouble.

And the reason this is getting me really emotional is because um, you know, I've talked about my friend Jackie and um the fact that she spent four months in detention, separated from her four US kid, U.S.

I got to see them again um this past weekend, and they're doing okay.

Um but something that I know terrorized them, terrorizes them still, is that when they were taken into custody, they were separated from their mother and they were questioned by ICE agents.

And those ICE agents were asking very specific questions about their dad and their family members.

And the very next day, dad was apprehended, and he was very shortly after um deported.

For a long time, we didn't know where they were.

We couldn't get them the legal help that they were entitled to under our constitution.

So I absolutely will be voting yes, and I encourage all of you who care about the safety of our children to do so.

Counselor Martinez.

It's a travesty that there are innocent people being caught up in this.

It's wrong for our state or any sanctuary state or city to um the deporting of criminal elements in our areas, and by doing so, such as the four Honduran warlords or um excuse me, drug lords that were arrested near Salem in the last couple months.

Those people we don't need here.

So I that's my statement at this point.

We shouldn't be impeding the dispeople being taken from our communities and sent back.

So I'm gonna respond a couple things.

Uh okay.

ICE arrested nearly 75,000 people with no criminal records between January 20th and October 15th.

New data shows that's more than a third of the total arrests, which the Trump administration has stressed, are targeting the worst of the worst.

The data compiled by an internal ICE office doesn't distinguish between minor and serious crimes and the cases of those who do have criminal records.

And it doesn't include a risk arrest made by border patrol.

This is Katie Kirk Media Network.

Um, and I want to be really clear.

We are not this, I don't believe this ordinance is doing what counselor Martinez says it does.

I don't see us impeding and getting in the way of criminals, uh, creating a safe place for the city of Horse Grove.

Uh everyone knows because I like to brag about it because I have the best job, and I'm not talking about being mayor, even though I really really love being there.

I'm a school teacher.

I've been a classroom teacher at Neil Armstrong Middle School in eighth grade for 24 years.

It is the if you want to have the best job in the world, go be a teacher.

I am telling you that this is important when I look at my students who come to school crying because they don't know if their parents are coming home from work, or they've had a family member and they don't know where that family member is.

I have, and I don't really want to out then.

I have a young leaders' group called a mayor's youth advisory council.

I went to them last month and said, hey, the city council said that three or four of you, we're gonna sponsor you to go to NLC.

We're gonna sponsor you to go to this conference, you're gonna meet other student leaders, you get to go to DC, I'll take you around, you'll see the Capitol.

And it got really quiet.

I don't even it got so quiet.

And I was like, you guys aren't excited.

And they said, Wenzel, I don't know if we can go because we're brown, because we're legal, we're brown, and we don't know if we're safe.

That is what they said.

That is outrageous.

That is what our community is living with.

And so I am I don't want to wait a month.

I don't want to wait till January 12th for this to go into effect.

I am begging for a unanimous vote.

I am pleading with you knowing and standing on the constitution on due process on the fact that our police officers, our public safety officials are not trying to hide criminals.

We are trying to make a safe community.

That is, I think we can agree that what our community wants is livability safety.

And I believe that's what this ordinance does.

So I am begging you to vote yes on this.

Any other comments?

I respect.

Okay.

Well, I'm going to ask the city recorder for a roll call vote.

Please.

Oh, wait, do you need to read it by title only?

Sorry.

I caught it before.

Please read, City Manager, please read the ordinance by title only.

Ordinance 2025-04, amending Forest Grove Code of Ordinances, Title III administration by adding code chapter 39, Sanctuary City, protecting Forest Grove from misuse of local resources in violation of state law for federal immigration law enforcement.

Oh, sorry, I'm in my head right now.

Uh Maria of City Recorder, will you please call for a roll call vote?

Council President Von Zeyland.

Yes.

Counselor Schimmel?

Yes.

Councilor Falconer?

Yes.

Councilor Martinez?

No.

Mayor Wenzel.

Yes.

The vote is four to one.

The first reading of ordinance 2025-04 has passed in a vote of four to one.

A second reading will take place on January 12th, 2026.

Thank you.

Okay, we're going to move on to our next agenda item.

Hi, Chief.

Chief's already coming up.

Uh item F two on the agenda is resolution 2025-6, authorizing the city manager to sign an intergovernmental agreement, which is an IGA with the city of Cornelius for the provisions of fire related services.

Good evening, Chief.

Good evening, Madam Mayor.

Good evening, Council members.

Thank you for your consideration of this item tonight.

And yes, this um this item would uh authorize the city manager to uh sign an IGA with the City of Cornelius for fire related services.

Uh for a number of months, staff has been working on dissolving the current IGA for administrative fire chief services and the IGA for fire logistics technician services and replacing it with a new IGA that will benefit both the city of Forest Grove and Cornelius.

The current IGA for Administrative Fire Chief Services was established in 2012 and provided services to Cornelius, who in exchange paid for 25% of the fire chief position.

In 2025, council approved an IGA with Gaston Rural Fire District for the same administrative fire chief services, uh which paid 10% of the fire chief position.

In 2022, Gaston exited the IGA when they hired their own fire chief.

The current IGA for fire logistics technician services was approved in 2019 and included services to both both Cornelius and Gaston.

Cornelius paid 25% of the position, and Gaston paid 10%.

In 2022, Gaston exited the IGA when they hired their own fire chief.

During this time between 2012 and 2020, a fire task force was formed between Forest Grove, Cornelius, Gaston, Forest Grove Rural Fire Protection District, and the Cornelius Rural Fire Protection District to hold conversations with respect to potential consolidation of fire services.

These conversations stalled during COVID-19, and then in 2022, the task force reconvened discussions.

Shortly after that, Gaston Rural Fire District withdrew from the conversations.

And in 2023, the City of Cornelius increased their fire levy and hired additional firefighters, and in 2025, hired their own fire chief.

Since then, both cities have been working collaboratively to review what services fall outside the existing IGA and what services could remain in a new IGA.

Cornelius passed this new IGA at their December 1st meeting earlier this month.

The proposed IGA does the following.

Establishes the term review renewal and termination process, details services to be provided by Forest Grove to Cornelius, such as fire prevention inspection services, public information officer services, and shared incident command response services.

It details compensation to be provided for those services.

The proposed IGA is based on an hourly cost for services provided and is billed to Cornelius on a quarterly basis.

There's a flat fee of $15,000 assessed at the beginning of the fiscal year, and any expenses above that amount will be billed quarterly.

Actual time and cost of services will be reviewed annually to true up the flat fee based on actual costs.

Madam Mayor, that uh that completes the summary of the staff report.

Okay, questions for chief, and I'm gonna start because I have a question, I don't want to forget it.

Is there in the IGA is there um a portion a part of it that states like how when it's gonna be reviewed, like every five years, we're gonna review those for every yeah, let me take a look at it.

Sorry, I should have asked you before the meeting.

Peter saying yes, every five years perfect.

And thanks, Peter, for coming, Peter's the city manager of Cornelius.

Like making sure we get this done correctly.

I think it says five according to Peter.

Yeah, there's a review clause in the IGA, I believe it's toward the end.

Yeah, if you look at the bottom of the first paragraph for a five-year renewal.

Okay, thank you.

Any other questions for Chief?

Uh go ahead, Counselor Schimmel.

Comments tonight.

Well, Jim Gearing, I uh yeah, I'm coming in to this process late, but I I recognize that when you were hired when things were trending and and a very difficult direction, and and my sense is that you've you've handled it with with professionalism and uh in the interest of maximizing talents and what's in the best interest of those communities that wanted to establish their own departments, their own their own chief.

So I I just want to acknowledge you know your your part and ensuring that that the whole uh western Washington County had the best uh fire service available.

Thank you.

I appreciate that.

That a lot of a lot of help.

Any other questions for the chief?

Okay, I almost get to that.

What's the wish of the council?

Move to approve resolution uh 2025-66.

Second.

Okay, resolution 2025-66 was uh moved by council president Valenzuela and seconded by Councillor Martinez, opening it up for discussion.

I think Councilor Shimmel's comments are like spot on.

And I think too, you know, we have a great relationship with the city of Cornelius, and I just look forward to always like keeping that solid in.

So I appreciate that.

I don't have any other comments, any okay.

Will the city manager please read it by title only?

Resolution 2025-66 authorizing the city manager to sign an intergovernmental agreement with the city of Cornelius for the provision of fire-related services.

Thank you.

Uh because that's to do with financials, we're gonna do a roll call vote, please.

Councilor Schimmel.

Yes.

Counselor Falconer?

Yes.

Counselor Martinez?

Yes.

Council President Valenzuela?

Yes.

Mayor Wentzel.

Yes.

And a vote of five to zero, resolution two zero two five-six six is approved by the Forest Grove City Council.

Thank you, Chief.

Thank you, Peter.

Okay, we're gonna now move on to item G, which is counselor communications.

I'm gonna start with our council president.

Thank you, Mayor.

Uh so I haven't had any meetings, but we do have the policy advisory board meeting on Thursday.

This coming Thursday, and also the library meeting the following week.

Um, but just one thing that I would like to mention um is that I I attended the fire academy recruit graduation, and that was really amazing to see those five young men beginning, you know, such a great career.

Um and their families were here, you know, it was just a really, really nice ceremony.

It was great to be there.

Great.

I'm glad you guys you both attended, yeah.

Yeah, I'm like, because I'm all about the teacher thing.

James, one of the ones he is a former student of mine.

And he and him and I went to South Korea on the two-week like exchange thing to uh good fun.

Okay, but sorry.

Little side note.

Okay, Counselor Falkner.

Uh my groups are quiet, so I don't really have any reports other than um I know at least a few of us are probably tomorrow night.

Yeah, the night of impact.

Um, so I'll look forward to seeing you there.

Um I also just want to acknowledge that a community member lost their life.

Um this just recently um and so it and and and also when you know when Carol was speaking um about the dangers of crossing as a pedestrian, it just sort of reinforced to me that um you know I have on my list of things that I'll be sending to Jesse.

Um ADA um you know, adopting the ADA transition plan and also um really focusing our efforts on Vision Zero and figuring out a way to fill those um sooner rather than later.

Like it, thank you.

Uh counselor Jeffson's not here, Councilor Marshall's not here.

Counselor Martinez.

Uh I have nothing to report.

I had to work the night of the rural fire department meeting.

So okay.

Thank you.

Counselor Schimmel.

Well, I'm still a little smug from earlier.

Um it's just been fun to work with at CCE and just to see that group drive.

Um and um just want to reiterate uh just encourage past councils and and present for for allowing you know career professionals to express you know their conviction to our city um and in their own special way, you know, just giving them the space to do that.

Um and one of those groups is the economic development commission.

You know, they've this this season they've decided to take their own group out on the road and visiting the local businesses.

So this uh this coming Thursday, we're meeting at Takaria Corona on Main Street at noon Thursday, and it's a public meeting, so we make sure that we're we're choosing places that are accessible and have space for for people to join.

And this group in particular enjoys folk other business owners or property owners that actual actually participate in the discussion.

So it's it's been a good robust group of discussions that this group has and welcoming others to join.

Okay, I believe did I get calling everybody?

I'm like, I don't okay, Jesse, you're up.

All right, thank you, Mayor, members of the council.

Uh first and foremost, I want to give a big shout out to Keith Horman, our light and power director at Keith um in the interim has been serving as our GIS uh that's our geographic information system manager.

Um and just recently, last week, uh Keith put together an RFP, he bid it, they scored proposals, and we did select a contractor for our GIS system that is Gartrell.

Um and so a big thanks to Keith for not only putting the RFP together, but also kind of putting the scoring process together, etc.

So the assistant city manager, uh Kim Ezel will be onboarding part-time the week of December 15th through 19th, going through some internal onboarding with HR and meeting with some of the directors, and then she starts in earnest full time on January 5th, first week in January.

The annual holiday party raffle is this Thursday, December 11th from 11 to 1.

That will be right here in the community auditorium.

Of course, council is welcome to attend if they would like.

The planning commission will be meeting December 15th to review annual development code updates, including industrial development standards.

We scheduled a work session with the city council following that at the January 18th meeting to review the planning commission's recommendations.

Uh regarding fire, uh the Pierce One uh excuse me, the Pierce Type One fire engine is nearly complete.

Council is invited to attend a short ribbon cutting ceremony on December 15th at 1130 a.m.

at the fire station, pending the ribbon cut in.

The unit will be immediately placed into service.

And then last uh user groups were recently notified that the aquatic facility will officially close March 16th through June 7th to replace the 25-year-old pool deck material with a new non-slip deck coating.

Uh parks and aquatics is going to put a sample essentially on the deck to show what the new deck coding is going to look like.

During the time that it's going to be closed, uh the aquatic center will also complete the final phase of galvanized pipe replacement throughout the entire building and also update uh all of the locker rooms.

With that, that's all I have to report.

Thank you, Mayor.

Great.

Thank you, Jesse.

Um okay, I'll just keep mine.

I think it's pretty brief.

I attended the library event for holiday in the grove.

And that's just a really nice, we've talked about it before that the library tends to be the heart of the community.

So there was parks and recreation was there, um, the community outreach specialist from the police department, and then a some police officers were there.

That mayor's youth advisory council was there, and they were making Christmas cards for people in um assisted living facilities and then also families for Adelante and Centro.

Uh so just a really good event.

Later that evening was the parade that was really well in attended.

That's sponsored by the Western Wash, the Western Washington County fired.

I mean, that's a very long title.

I feel like I always mess it up.

It's like how I was with TV C T V at first.

But it they also did a really good job of acknowledging how many other people step up to make that happen, right?

From the departments in the city, I think Pacific basketball team helped, downtown association helped, numerous volunteers.

It was just a really good event.

And you know, some you never know what you're gonna get in Oregon with the weather, so it was a great evening.

Um I'd wanted to highlight the staff holiday lunch and raffle.

Literally, that's like one of my favorite things to attend, and uh this year I'm unable to attend.

I was like, who scheduled that without checking my calendar?

Um, I actually wrote Jamie right away, and I was like, I can't attend that day.

So if you if any of you can go, uh basically how it works, I'm just gonna give you is you buy raffle tickets and departments sponsor basket, and you can put your raffle ticket in the basket.

And all the proceeds this this year are gonna go to Gigi's house.

Right.

So they pick a nonprofit every year to support.

And it's just so fun.

There's like a fishing trip that I've tried to win every year for for Cullen and literally have never won it and probably should have just bought him one by now.

But it's all for the cause.

I tell him I'm like, dude, you only get it if someone else gets something too.

Uh the evening of impact is tomorrow evening.

Make sure you registered through the QR code or the Google form.

And um I don't know, like what oh, and then just a friendly reminder, we don't have another meeting until January twelfth.

Uh I think you know, we like my leaving words because I'm preachy and sometimes teacher-ish, is that you know the holidays are a time of a lot of joy from some people, but it's also can be very heartbreaking, especially with the things going on currently in the nation.

And so treat people with kindness, give people the benefit of the doubt, and you know, show up for one another.

And with that, I'll see you on January twelfth.

Thank you.

Good night.

Meeting adjourned.