The October 21, 2025 Hillsboro City Council meeting featured presentations from the 2025 Civic Leadership Academy on proposed community flag designs, a recognition of arts and culture organizations, an update on the Hillsboro 2035 Community Plan, a presentation on the new Police Department Headquarters, a change order for an emergency water well at South Hillsboro Fire Station 9, and an annual update on the Highlight broadband utility. The council approved consent items, first reading of an ordinance, and several resolutions. The meeting concluded with a work session and executive session on labor negotiations.
You put in to making the recommendations you'll make tonight. So anything that you want to add around. Just to kick it off, just a little bit of context. Our Civic Leadership Academy is I think this is the eighth or ninth year. Eighth. All right. Sorry. Ninth year. Um, which is amazing. And ours is a little bit unique because we try to get people that want to potentially serve, right? And one of the beauties of our Civic Leadership Academy is to learn not only about the city, but you learn good governance. You know, learn what it means to compromise and to collaborate. And the city flag was a great opportunity to do that. So we're really looking forward to it. So with that, I'll turn it over to Michaela. Try and make this brief. Hi, everyone. I'm the APA City Council for the record, Michaela Kennedy. Thank you. City Management Coordinator and Project Lead for the Civic Leadership Academy. I too am very excited for this evening because you will be hearing from the 2025 Civic Leadership Academy, also known as CLA, as they present the first ever uh Hillsboro Community Flag Design Options to celebrate the 150 year anniversary of the city. Um before we get started, I did want to give just a very brief overview of what the Civic Leadership Academy is and a little bit of background to how we got here. Um, as Robbie said, the Civic Leadership Academy is just an opportunity for community members to get engaged with the city and also get involved in the community. Uh, this program is six weeks long and it's a hands-on cohort-style leadership training that's led by our instructors from Portland State Universities, Hatfield School of Government, and National National Policy Consensus Center. It's definitely a mouthful. Um, Yachi, um, Steve and Kristen Wright are our wonderful instructors from PSU, and they are incredible, and we're just super thankful for their partnership. Um, I also wanted to note that the CLA program offers supervised child play, transportation assistance, language services, and provides dinner meals so that members of CLA can participate comfortably. And I wanted to give a shout out to our city managers, office administrative support staff, Lisa, Ashley, and Jacob for making sure that the CLA room is good to go every single week for six weeks and that we are fed. Um, also wanted to give a shout out to Parks and Recreation staff, Billy Pender and Grace Lee for their support in providing supervised child play for this program. Um, after the completion of CLA, uh, we really hope that participants go on to do amazing things and be a part of boards and commissions, or in this case, city council and becoming mayor. Um, so no pressure. Uh, over the years, the CLA has focused on various topics, promoting volunteer engagement, supporting uh Hillsboro Entrepreneurs, to just name a couple, and this year is focused on developing three design options for the first ever community flag to celebrate 150 years of the City of Hillsboro. Uh, this initiative does stem from the Hillsborough 2035 community plan and is also identified in the Citywide Strategic Plan under uh Action 5.18. Um, to really help the help us guide this process. We looked at the North American Vexological Association, good flag and bad flag, um, which I believe is exhibit A in your staff report. Um, so go ahead and take a look at that. Um, we're also really lucky to have some amazing staff who participated in the role of City Buddy to not only support the CLA staff, but also to just be a part of the project team, um, helping design the flag options that you'll be seeing today. Uh Jenny Grenillo, Nick Baker, and Rachel Lanier have been instrumental in this project through their support of data analysis of community input, assisting the CLA by answering any questions that they may have, and integrating the feedback from CLA to designs. And honestly, a special shout out to Jenny, as she served as the lead designer of these flags that you'll be seeing today. Um, we're so grateful for her talent, her creativity and determination throughout this process. So please join me in giving a round of applause to our amazing city buddies. If y'all don't mind standing as well, Rachel Nick, right over there. Amazing people. Um following tonight's presentation, staff recommend that city um that the city proceed with a community vote to select the official Hillsboro community flag. However, there are at least two other options that the council can consider that's outlined in the staff report. Umce the final flag is selected, uh, the staff will develop a communication strategy that will include translation of the city's safe harbor languages to maximize community participation. And the final determination regarding how and when the community flag will be displayed will remain in the discretion and decision of the city. Um, when the final flag is selected, the city will prepare a formal resolution to recognize the Hillsboro community flag as an official civic symbol. And the intention is for the final Hillsboro community flag to be officially revealed at the 2026 State of the City event, which is on February 19th, 2026. The last thing I'll say here is before I hand it over to our wonderful CLA is just a huge thank you to them.