The Forest Grove City Council convened a work session on May 26, 2026, to discuss the city's enterprise zone program, which expires June 30, 2026, and to review federal activities including a FOIA request to ICE and updates on police mask-wearing policy. No public comment was taken and no formal action was taken, as this was a work session.
That's work session on the form. No public comment will be taken and the council will take no formal action. Tonight's topic is on our enterprise zone. And before I turn it over to Jesse and Kim, I just want to state. This is a complex, there's a lot to unpack. And the goal, my goal is to, you know, just bring us all up to the same level because we need to make a decision. That's gonna, you know, that has a lot of implications. And so as we go through this, just listen. If you have a clarifying question, there's gonna be um spaces in between where I'll ask if you have questions of staff. Later on in the presentation, there's lots of policy questions. Those questions are there to get you to start thinking. We are not answering any policy questions tonight. But if you have additional information you need to help you come to an answer later, that will be the opportunity. You know, and then I also like to say to staff, don't rush through it. Don't feel like you have to get all through this. We all read through the packet, and there's a lot of policy questions, there's a lot of things. And so really I just want all of us on the same page. Okay, cool. So with that, I'm gonna turn it over to Jesse. All right, thank you, Mayor. Um, Mariah is bringing up the uh the presentation. As the mayor mentioned, this is it's multi-layered. You'll probably notice in the back that there were 12 different policy questions. Uh it seems if you kind of pull something over here, something pushes over here. And so we'll step through this. Um, as the mayor mentioned, uh, very just kind of methodically. Um, Kim and I are gonna um combine on this presentation. I'm gonna take it up into to the point I'll do some of the history and the purpose. Uh Kim will pick it up. Uh, what is an enterprise zone, and then I'll kind of pick it back up at the opportunity zone uh and take us through the uh through the end of the presentation. I think we have all the way until seven o'clock. So um if you would, Mariah, next slide. So as the mayor mentioned, the purpose tonight is talk about the economic development uh enterprise zone. I would note the program expires June 30th of this year. Um, one of the conversations that we had with Business Oregon is what happens if it does expire, the city can reapply if they would like to. Uh, for context, we're also going to talk a little bit about the opportunity zone. That program doesn't expire until December 31st of 2028. And so I don't want to spend a lot of time on it, but I did want to offer that just to provide that additional context about economic development incentives. So with that, next slide. So really I think probably of of import here uh is 2040 does recognize the economy as a principal goal area. The one part that probably stands out and is most connected to the enterprise zone is the outcome, which is create a balanced and diversified economy comprised of a variety of commercial and industrial businesses offering high-paying job opportunities. The enterprise zone will kind of touch on all of those in some way, and we'll get into that as it does. So next slide, please. A little bit about how the goal actions connect to the enterprise zone in some way. If you look at 1.2, the volume and diversity of commercial business development, it connects to that a little bit. An enterprise zone is very limited in the commercial application. It's mostly for the industrial application. We'll talk a little bit more about that later. Update the city's economic development strategic plan. This could be a part of that economic development strategic plan.