Welcome everybody to the emergency work session on uh November 24th.

Uh, I want to thank council for being here this evening uh for making the decision to have an emergency work session to discuss through to to discuss some of the solutions that we want to look at or some of the ways that we can respond.

I want to thank staff for the preparation that's gone into this and all the work you've done to this point.

Thank you very much.

Um and I appreciate you getting back to all of our questions so quickly and trying to resolve what you can before we got in the room.

So I just want to say thank you for that.

Also, want to thank everybody in the audience for coming out tonight to listen in on this work session.

Uh, just so everybody knows the uh purpose of the work session is to discuss various ideas that have been proposed by counselors and to decide what we'll have staff look into.

So there is no vote tonight.

We're not taking a vote on exactly what we're doing.

We're discussing ideas that the staff will look into and that we can vote on later.

I also wanna give guidance to the council in that we give guidance and intent to the staff, but not get too prescriptive, right?

Let them know what we'd like to see, what we'd like, like how we'd like to see these ideas pan out.

Um, and then they can come back to us with ideas of how we can meet that intent or the guidance put forth by council.

So just wanted to say that.

Um, let's go over some logistics.

So we are in a work session.

So for those of you who came to listen, that's great.

Um, but there tonight at the work session there'll be no public comment.

And also typically a work session is followed by a city council meeting.

We will not be having a city council meeting tonight.

This is simply an emergency work session.

And for good reason, emotions are high right now.

And I know that we're all here to find solutions, and we're here to serve our community.

We're all on the same side, uh, trying to find the best solutions for our community.

I ask that each one of us be respectful to one another and staff, and because of the volume of ideas, I ask you to be succinct because it there's we have a lot of ideas, which is great.

So please get to the point when you're when you are speaking.

I ask each of you to be open to all ideas, even if they're not your own, because I think the best solutions may be a mix of ideas, right?

Some ideas blended with others.

So I wanted to say that.

I do plan to have a break uh about an hour and a half into it, and then we'll take a check-in at 9 30 to see where we are.

Most great decisions aren't made after 10 p.m.

So I do like to check in at 9 30.

That's something we discussed as a council.

So we'll be doing that.

And I also want to let everybody know and just reaffirm for the uh the council that we are all committed to serving the city and making the best decisions, both operationally and financially to serve our community.

Thank you very much.

Robbie.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, council.

Um, so tonight is a continuation of last week's work uh session.

Uh, we got about halfway through that presentation.

So tonight we are gonna pick up where we left off.

I want to give a big thanks uh to the staff that you have here and especially Raheem for compiling all those ideas that we've gotten.

And um, and he'll kind of walk you through what our process is this evening and how we're gonna get through this.

Um, over the past several weeks, we've heard from hundreds of concerned citizens through public comments and emails.

There's been some very heartbreaking stories that have been shared.

Uh, we are committed to finding ways to help.

We are exploring all legal options to help and protect our community members.

And tonight we look forward to the council discussion and council direction to move forward.

So, with that, I'll turn it over to Raheem.

Thanks, Robbie.

Um, what you have in front of you is a version of the presentation we started off with at our last meeting.

Uh, I'm not gonna go through it, but for members of the public who are tuning in for the first time.

Um, last at our last meeting, we went over some shared values and goals.

Um, discussed a pathway to action.

We had a conversation about an emergency declaration, which council adopted.

Um, there were some edits proposed by counselor Harris, which were incorporated into the version that was adopted.

Uh, we talked about some community focused funding update.

Some more information about how we're um under helping understand our community's needs.

Um talked a little bit about promoting accurate information and some work we're doing there.

And uh Chief Coleman and the rest of his team, um, deputy chief leader gave some updates from the Hillsburg Police Department.

So, where we're gonna pick off is proposals from the council.

Um, so our goal for the work session, we're hoping to come out of this meeting today is with a plan, a clear plan on what the city is doing to um respond to the impacts of ice in our community.

Um, we've obviously seen over the last um few months our community is looking for us to take action and focus on the things that we can do as opposed to the things we can't do.

And we're hoping to present that today.

Um, we also think having a clear plan helps us um all of us as a communication tool um that we can share with our community, and we have a common place to direct to.

Um, I do think we can get there today, so I'll explain the process at a high level.

Um, I think I've already shared that with you by email, but I'll show you what it looks like.

Um, and then uh we'll go from there.

Um I will ask for um to assume positive intent from us because some of these might come across as like a good or bad idea.

We're not here to judge that.

Um so if you do feel like we are going down that road, please give us a little bit of grace.

We're just here to uh provide information on that.

And um, we're hoping to finalize a plan that obviously will be adaptable as things change.

So I'm gonna switch my screen for a second um to show you where we'll we're hoping to get to.

And Mark, um can I share my screen for a second?

So, like Robin mentioned, uh, over the last few weeks, we've been working on putting together um essentially what we're calling our our plan.

Um I know that's very general, but what we've taken is all of the feedback from you through the proposals you provided with us uh to us.

We've then taken those and put them into several themes and actionable items that we can do.

We've also put them in the category of items to gather consensus on.

These are areas where we need to talk about a little more today to then decide how you want to move forward as a bot.

Um and then we've also got some information if we ever need to go back to about the declaration that you you approved to just highlight some of the things that we're going to have to do anyways, because the resolution said we should do those things.

Um so I'll start off with um can we go back to the presentation, Mark.

So I'll start off with um going to Councillor Anbry's um proposals.

And um what I'll do is just go through what we think you're asking us for, provide some general information, and Council Henry, if I miss anything, please chime in.

Okay.

So Council Amory asked us to um look at just improving the way we make information available, especially around knowing your rights and translating that.

Um, and that's stuff we're uh looking at incorporating into our website right now and focusing on information that's already out there and not duplicating.

So that's something we're doing already.

Uh Council Ambry also suggested that we use um not just the 200,000 dollars you've allocated right now to the community focused funding, but look at an ongoing program where we are providing more funding as an East Star to all.

Um the other thing um she asked us to do was look at signage um and look at areas around the city where we can uh disallow ice in from public spaces.

We put some signage up, you might see it here in the civic center in areas that are not generally open to the public to just help with some of that.

Um the other thing she suggested we do is collaborate, collaborate with the organizations that are out there doing the great work and some of our municipalities and jurisdictions.

Um she suggested having an emergency declaration, which we did at our last meeting, um, focus on controlling what we can, like evictions and utilities, and formalizing what HPD does.

So for from the perspective of documenting incidents and calls, regular reporting.

She had a suggestion that HBD officers also be trained and be legal observers and have um and then also support legislation um at a state federal level, specifically around face masks and identification.

Councillor Henry, did I miss anything from what you'd suggested?

No, no, thank you.

Yeah, this is great.

You you you you did a good good summary.

Okay.

Yeah, cool.

And then I just can I just add something.

Yeah, so um so this is good.

I I have I have looked at um the presentation and the other other uh counselors' uh um proposals as well.

And uh for this meeting, I would really want to focus on uh getting to you know, getting to the work session um and really figuring out what we want the city to do, just giving that.

And so you know, I so I don't want to belabor anything here.

You've summarized it, you've taken it and put it in the other sheet to go over.

Um, so so this is good.

Um, and I'm I'm hoping that this is what this is how it will go.

Yeah, thank you.

But uh, thank you for sharing that, Councillor Andrew.

And I'm hoping that's how this portion will go to because we'll have a lot of time to discuss it when I shift screens back to that other document I showed you.

Yeah.

Councilor Salgado, um, onto your proposal.

So Councillor Salgado suggested a two-track approach.

Um, the first track would be to stand up an office, um civil and human rights office that had um generally three areas.

One was around hiring legal observers to record data, um, have a legal resource navigator to help connect people to the legal resources out there, and then the emergency fund coordinates.

Um before I go into track two, is that generally what you're looking for in track one?

Yeah, so just to clarify the first one is not plural, it's just one person that's gonna record the data that's being collected in the community by the legal observers that are already doing the work.

Okay.

Thanks for sharing that.

Um the second part was uh under track two was looking at some type of charter amendment where we would create um uh a human rights council or something to that effect, and um memorializing some of the things that we'd be doing in track one into that charter amendment, and um some other suggestions that uh counselor Salgado also had was continue to engage with organizations, create a community advisory committee, um complying with legal frameworks, and just make sure we have partnerships with um folks like HS the Hillsburg School District, churches and other nonprofits.

One other thing that um I did not put on there was just providing an urgent timeline on um progress and results that generally capture what you're looking for.

Affirmative.

Thank you.

Councilor Kerr, um, I'll go through your suggestions next.

Um, so um a couple of them were around uh putting up some boundaries in public spaces and say uh public spaces and safety barriers around schools.

Um we have done some of that internally, as you even mentioned around some of our facilities.

Um she also suggested having a position reporting to council that would focus on training and engagement with the public.

Um the other uh suggestion was having a root human rights council and staffing it.

There's some similarities to what Councillor Salgado had suggested, but um counselor Alcair also asked for something like that.

Um she also suggested enforcing the laws that were broken by ICE.

So if they are um doing things that we would typically arrest uh a regular person in our community for if they're breaking the law, um use those same standards against ICE.

Um there was a suggestion on canceling public gatherings, uh expanding family leave for impacted community, um, explain our fund distribution process, which I think we covered at our last meeting.

So I I should have said this in the beginning.

Um these suggestions were provided prior to the previous work session.

So some of the items in here we may have already taken care of.

Um, and then uh she also had a suggestion that in partnership with Centro and Adelante to track the you know the folks who've been detained and the impact family impacted families.

Um she also suggested that city staff volunteer at nonprofits, um, HPD have regular reporting on ICE activity, creating a forum for impacted community adjust council, um, and then following guidance from nonprofit legal firms and the Mexican consulate, and then also requested Oregon legislators declare a statewide emergency.

Council OK, did I miss anything?

I want to, yes, but I want to add for the human rights council, um, any community um group, if we create something like that.

What sort of oversight are they gonna have?

And are is this oversight within the city, or is this oversight outside of what we see going on in community?

Yeah, that's that's a great question.

And I'm hoping we can have some of that discussion um when I get to where I've summarized everybody's uh comments because that's one of the questions we like to ask all of you.

What is the scope?

What are you generally trying to accomplish?

That way we can take back that feedback and propose some options for you all to consider.

So we good.

Uh Counselor Case had a couple of suggestions around um having an ICE response page.

And like I mentioned before, you know, some of these suggestions were prior to us, uh, some of the work we've done.

So the city does have an immigration websites then stood up right now, which we're using as a central place to share all our information.

Um having a Citadel Hillsboro policy on ice.

Uh, we have one around immigration, but as we'll talk about, like just continuing to improve our policies, first procedures and practices.

We're always going to continue to look at that.

Um, and then having some more education around our surveillance technology that we're using, specifically um around the license readers and similar types of things that may be capturing people's data.

Um, and then expanding communication around know your rights, and then declaration of a state of emergency that had um comprehensive staff training, and then she had a suggestion to also incorporate codifying the city's sanctuary status into law.

Um, that wasn't necessarily done in the form of suggested by others in the declaration, but we did pass a declaration of a state of emergency that does speak to staff training.

So, Councillor Case, did I miss anything?

No, I think um those first two to three, probably really what I was thinking was more of um that ice response being an HPD ICE response.

So HPD having a specific ice response page.

Um, and so you know, we don't use Flock.

There was the email last week about um wait in my note here, sorry.

Uh Robbie said something uh that I read over the weekend automatic license plate reader that staff are continuing to work on redoing our use of these, and in an abundance of caution, we'll not be using them until the fuller analysis is complete.

So I was thinking like those kinds of things where we can just update the public and have a you know, we're getting a lot of questions in and Amber and Opera did an amazing job of responding to them.

So was thinking like something that makes it easy to share those.

So yeah.

So it was in addition to that amazing work on the immigration page.

Yeah, and I'll speak a little bit to that on some of the things we're hoping to do after this work session too, on centralizing where all our information is and having like some of those things like that.

Where did you know we've done this?

Um, here's where we are on that.

Um, having a plan again will help us accomplish that much much more clearly.

Okay.

Counselor Sinclair, um, I'll go through your proposal.

Um, Councillor Sinclair suggested that we codify the city sanctuary status and jurisdictional protections, affirm the jurisdictional scope of the proposed for proposed ordinance applying to all city controlled spaces.

Um, direct staff to prepare a detailed administrative roadmap that does those things.

And some of those things, while we have done it in the resolution, counselor sinclair had asked that we do it through um the codifying of the city sanctuary status.

Um, and then to come back and uh provide us with an implementation plan and um explore a long-term institutionalization of this work.

Um counselor St.

Clair, is there anything I may have missed uh from what's on the screen?

No, it excuse me.

No, it looks great.

Um there was a lot to fill in, and you missed it.

We'll be done by nine.

I can make the link by and uh counselor Harris uh submitted some comments.

Unfortunately, he wasn't not able to attend the meeting last time, but he had um started off with some suggested edits of the emergency declaration, which were incorporated into the final version.

Um, those added a little more stronger language to demand action from not just us locally but at a state and federal level.

Um, and had provided some general feedback on the two proposals, one from Council Salgado and one from Councillor Sinclair.

Um, it generally agreed to move forward with counselor salgado's proposal, but asked that the uh executive team develop some options uh for us to consider, which is something we were hoping to also talk about later in our in the work session.

And then um he was supportive of a charter amendment establishing uh human and civil rights commission.

Um he had also provided some feedback on um Councillor Sinclair's sanctuary code proposal.

I believe the um the suggestion was not to codify the state law since it already existed, um, but um had um some comments around um codifying policy decisions, and I'll let you speak to that, Councillor Harris.

Um, and then um also suggested a prioritization where we focus on the resolution, which we did, then work on setting up a human rights department that would be more of an internal department, and then focus on the sanctuary code, and that would be the sequence.

Thanks.

I wrote that a whole week ago, so things have changed uh immensely.

Um that summarizes the memo.

Uh my further thinking is probably on the charter and the human soul rights commission goes slow a little bit on that one and start step by step.

And we'll talk about that, I think more.

Um the codification.

I think I just mentioned there's like four different buckets that these things go into.

And I'm I'm a big believer in keeping city code um clear and concise and not repetitive.

Uh, and to put proper things like what are policies and policies rather than the code when possible, not always possible.

Um, but there will be some novel substantive provisions we should be discussing, and also to keep what I call non-operational, but intent and purposes sort of things brief and to the point.

So anyway.

And finally, the prioritization.

I'm not saying we should go all the way to the end in each one of these.

You should be working on everything at one time.

There is limited times or deadlines.

I think we shouldn't prioritize the most impactful things we can do.

Thanks for sharing that, Counselor Garrison.

You know, some of our suggestions on how to move forward too on this is the great suggestions you had.

Also think about that, right?

Because we can do all of this at once.

And some of these do take a little bit of time.

And frankly, some of these do need to be fleshed out some more on what we're what goals we're trying to achieve.

So if we could start from there, then we'll be able to back up into what it could look like from operations perspective.

And um before I go to the document I shared with you earlier, um, I know Mayor Pace also had some suggestions.

They're not in here too, but I'll I'll let you speak to them.

Yeah, uh, some of my suggestions were very similar to what you all had recommended.

Um, and then I made a recommendation uh along legal lines, and that will be discussed in executive session.

So at this point, I'm gonna switch over to the document.

I'm gonna apologize ahead of time because we'll be moving from section to section.

So I sorry.

No.

And again, as as I go through this, please thank you.

Um please feel free to interrupt me.

Um tell me you didn't capture what I was saying accurately, or just you didn't get it right.

But our goal is to have more of a dialogue today as opposed to um me talking.

Please pay attention.

So um at a high level, I'll start at that for a second.

Um as we went through the different areas that um you had suggestions on, including some of our own suggestions.

I I want to say that as well.

Like, this isn't just you told us go to explore these things, here's what they are.

We also had some suggestions we've thrown in here and hoping to complement what you're also suggesting and coming up with like an actionable thing.

So the different areas or different themes that emerged were around an internal focus.

So, what can we do internally to address the impacts associated with ice?

And this was more like policies, procedures, signage internally.

So that's kind of the general theme, and I'll go through each one.

My bad.

Sorry, the readers don't work up there, sorry.

Thank you.

So the uh the first area was I'll I'll zoom in into each area as we get into it.

The second area was partnering with community.

And because there's a lot of focus on making sure we have the right information, making sure we're recently to CBOs, making sure we're listening to people who are on the ground.

That requires us to partner with community.

Uh what's gray and white?

I'll explain that in a minute.

Okay.

The other area was around providing funding support.

We're doing that right now with the community focused funding.

That's putting 200,000 out into the community through our community-based organizations.

The other area, which was strengthened in the resolution, um, was calling for state and federal action.

And the um the last theme that emerged was declaring a local emergency, which we did.

And now we have to implement the local state of emergency and the things that were in there.

Um, it requires things like having certain types of training and signage and other things that we have to implement those things.

The area to the right is what we'll spend more time on here, I think, is some other suggestions where we didn't have general consensus on, but we have some suggestions on a path forward to explore these some more.

But that would require you as a council to tell us, yeah, we want you to go explore this some more.

Um, and we're hoping to get some consensus on an approach there.

So, for one example, is we had um uh suggestions around having a dedicated office, having a human rights commission, um, having a community advisory committee.

It was things that maybe accomplishing the same thing.

Maybe there's a stepped approach we can take, and we have a suggestion around that.

So that's how this document is set up.

Uh counselor Ambry, to your question around um the difference between the boxes that are gray and the boxes that are white.

So the boxes that are in white are um generally what you all have shared with us that you'd like to see.

The boxes in gray are suggestions we have to either enhance it or complement it, or how we can actually implement that.

So um I'll make more sense as I start going through some of these.

Um again, I think we'll be in general consensus on this area right here.

Um we'll need to spend more time on the area to the right, which is items we need to gather consensus on.

Any questions before I move forward and go through each one of these?

Is this she send this to us already?

Okay.

Is it possible that we get the signal to us so that we can like sit and like digest it?

Because it's a moving back and forth and try to like make sure we're catching it all.

Yeah.

So I would ask if you don't mind giving me a minute to go through one area, and I'm happy to send this to you all.

Sure.

Um, but I was actually hoping in this meeting we could make edits to this.

Okay.

So that we have a live working document.

If that's okay.

Counselor, you had a question.

So um there are a lot of things that we would like.

And there are some things that are already happening, and some things that you're recommending that we follow on this.

Um I think I would like to know more information about content, uh, information being shared, and in regards to um how that content is preparing people to know how to respond.

And I'm talking about staff to know how to respond to situations that may come up.

Um because this is such a sensitive topic and related to something that's not necessarily inside our jurisdiction immigration, but I think it would just be helpful to have that understanding, especially I'll speak for myself.

If I have community members curious about how our city staff exactly are being trained to understand how to work with people in the sanctuary city, they may want to know that level.

And I'm just curious, like it would be helpful to know that information compared to other things that the city does.

I really don't need to get into a lot of depth into areas that I'm not an expert in, and I trust the staff, but this one I am not claiming to be an expert, but it is impacting um a huge portion of the city.

Okay.

Yeah, so council uh council all care using that specific example, right?

Around how is the city training its employees to one understand the sanctuary laws.

I'm just paraphrasing, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Uh, how the city is um training its employees so they understand what the sanctuary laws, understanding um what the rights that immigrants have, generalizing again, and how to share uh information on um like things like know your rights and some other general things, right?

I'm just paraphrasing.

So we're actually having discussions right now because you passed the resolution.

I'll use uh how we're actually getting to action.

Last week you pro you passed an emergency declaration and resolution that said develop that training.

Um so right now we're having conversations with our HR team on that specific training.

Um you also said in that resolution that the training should be informed by a certain amount of things.

One is employees, um uh community-based organizations as well.

So right now we're taking what you passed in the resolution working with our HR staff to develop such such a training.

As we go through that process, we can come back and explain that to you on how we did that.

Um we haven't done that yet, um, but that's something that's in our our plan as some next steps.

Um, good.

I appreciate that.

And as you're saying that, I was thinking, yeah, it's trauma-informed training.

That um is what's needed.

And although HPE can't intervene, um how can staff be empathic?

Yeah.

Um, how can how can HB show up to a site of a detainment and say something?

Gee, we're sorry about what's happening.

Would you like us to get information to your family?

Um we're happy to tow your vehicle for you.

We acknowledge that this is a really difficult situation.

I'm just curious if that is something that HPD could say to resonance.

Yes.

So I I won't speak for HPD, but I will, uh, if you don't mind, Jim.

Um, so right now we are at that point to develop that training, right?

Council All Care.

I think some of the points you mentioned about eating with empathy at a time where our community is in fear, it's definitely something we have to incorporate into our training.

I mean, it's not just, I mean, it is definitely the community, it's but it's also our employees, you know, then and this is what the training is going to go to.

You know, then this is where the training is going to go to.

Many of them are experiencing this.

Um, so I I can say this very confidently that our HR staff will be able to help us develop a training that that does lead with empathy that has um a picture of what the community is going through because candidly we're going through it too.

Um, so I'll just leave it at that.

Counselor Sogata, you have a question.

No, yes.

Oh, okay, got it.

Yeah, and so to going back to the question, Councilor Care asks, like um, I'm not going to have an answer.

We are not going to have an answer for you for all of these today.

What we are asking for is again to your point or earlier, Mayor Pace.

If you could give us the goals you're trying to achieve, so that we can take that back and incorporate that into the training.

So the feedback that we just received today, like on the training, is something we can take back.

Um, but again, I'm hoping to not get very, very granular into the details because candidly we're not there yet in some areas.

So and so um just because counselor Solgato, you came in a little late.

I explained that we were looking for guidance and intent um today.

So I just want to make sure you're on the same page.

So guidance and intent.

Thanks.

So um before I go into these sections, any more questions?

Um anything else from the team you'd like to add before we start going into this?

Did you cover everything in this section?

No.

I haven't started, so I'm gonna go through each section.

So um around the general theme areas that we had um been been seeing emerge on your proposal and some of the ideas we had.

One of them was obviously around signage, right?

And making it clear to ICE and employees um what areas are generally open to the public and not.

And I think we had some conversation about some of the restrictions that we have or not um on bearing barring people, uh stopping people from going to places that are generally open to the public.

Now, what we're proposing to do is obviously sign the areas that are not generally open to the public and do that consistently across the organization, which we've done.

We just need to update the signs that ones that are just not papers that are stuck.

So just be so they look a little more professional.

Um, but what we're also suggesting to your suggestion is give us a little bit of time to look at areas where we can possibly put signs up in areas that may be open to the public and put some restrictions on the types of uses maybe.

We need to spend a little more time diving into that.

Um, so again, I don't have an answer for you today, whether we can or can't do that, but what I'm saying is we're going to go look at what we can do in that area.

Um the other thing that we um as conversations emerged was what if we explored what a sign could look like for a private business.

You know, there are a few businesses that I know of who put signs up and saying ICE is not allowed here, and they've got some language in there.

Um maybe that sign works for all businesses.

Um that might be something that we can work with some of our um business partners to or or the chamber or some other organizations to help distribute those types of signage.

That was just something we thought maybe we should explore some more.

Um before I go on to the next one.

Could I make a comment on that?

Yeah, specific to this issue.

I think that's a good idea.

I think you're gonna have to put some instructions with that judicial warrants, exceptions, maybe a hot pursuit exception.

Chad can work on that though.

Uh, but the people who work there need to understand the potential limitations before we just start handing out the signs.

Yeah.

That's a great point.

Um, Counselor Case and then Counselor Sinclair.

Similar to Councillor Herr, I was talking about in a business on Friday that had one of those signs in their front window, um, but looking at it and I've seen something from another business online that had some issues lately, um, speaking to that.

And so I went and pulled up the post and we looked at it together and they're like, oh, okay, I do need a private employee only sign in the back, is what kind of the prompt was looking like.

So I think there is definitely confusion for the business owners.

And so that had that as a note to talk about tonight as well.

So thank you for for reading my mind.

I really appreciate it, Raheem.

I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Um Raheem, with um defining jurisdictional spaces, it's for me, from my perspective, the whole purpose of colour, not the whole purpose, but a big priority is to define the scope of codifying what jurisdiction is uh pertaining to public spaces, not just private spaces.

Um my primary goal is to uh create systems of reporting uh that affect the public for what ICE activity is present, not just when uh the Sanctuary Promise Act is you know applied.

And Councillor Sinclair, we will definitely spend more time speaking, uh talking about that because it's one of the areas we need to get a little more consensus on, right?

Um but that's um to the right, uh the area to the right.

Counselor Alker.

So we can provide signage, and we're talking about our public spaces, maybe the same where.

Um and I'm wondering about our non-public spaces of where um social media reports where ice is staging behind some businesses around the city.

So um we can't educate people, we can't notify people of something like that.

But I am saying that we need to educate people what we're able to protect and what we're not able to protect.

Yeah, and um, that's a big one.

I um and if there was was a way to know besides stores and strip malls of other places potentially where ICE is staging to know what intergovernmental agreements we might have with businesses, Port of Portland, um, and who's allowing ice to be on their property, either to transport detainees or to sort of group and develop their plan for the day.

Um, and they did that over here at Winco.

And so um I think that we should acknowledge what people already knowing about where ICE is.

And Council Alcare, to your point, like you know, use like if they're staging in Winkle, right?

Um, and if Winco does choose to put one of these signs up that you know, are made available to them.

Um I also want to be clear, like to the public.

Like that's just a precaution, like that's a step we can take.

That doesn't necessarily mean ICE is gonna follow that rule.

I'm just setting clear, like I don't want the public to think now we're safe because there's all these signs up, which you've seen their interactions.

Um but you know, that's another layer of protection that could be added there.

That's where I think that our education about where people are protected and where they're not.

That's what we need to really highlight and make clear for people.

Yeah, definitely.

I'm glad you brought up that point.

And I know that you know we had two things that we wanted to focus on, but also I think it's important to focus on, you know, not giving people a false sense of security around some of these things.

So if we could be really clear to also provide clarity on what the impacts of these things that we're proposing actually do, I think it's gonna be really important for people that are listening.

It's a great point.

And what they don't do as well, yeah.

So um, I'll use this one as an example of what I'm hoping to go through.

Are you generally in agreement with what we're proposing?

I'm seeing general consensus here.

Cities are just thumbs up.

Yeah, that's fine.

So far from where we're at.

Yeah.

Well, if I could maybe sip in on that, this is gonna be really helpful.

And as a reminder, uh, in work session, we you know, we're not caving you a vote, but it is helpful to get kind of head nods and direction so we know what we can eventually bring to you as as a vote at some point.

So uh that's really helpful.

So I'm gonna stick with the um uh thumbs up, right?

So thumbs up, I'm not sure, and thumbs down.

And that way staff knows we can move forward.

Thank you.

Yeah, so the next one um is what you passed in your declaration, is training for employees, and that's something that we're working on right now.

Um it'll take us a little bit of time.

So I'm I'm in this one right here.

Um training employees on ice interactions, the sanctuary promise laws and immigration topics.

I've summarized it here, but the details are in the declaration you passed.

Um so we're gonna do that.

The other thing we thought might be good is Hillsborough's leading here, just being candid.

A lot of our neighbors are looking to us for some guidance and looking to us for like what is Hillsborough done, and maybe we can mimic that, which is great.

Also, the first one's taking the punches, so um half kidding there.

Um of the things we thought is sharing the training we develop.

There's no point in our our neighbors having to spend the the expense or the or the resources to do that, just copy and paste what we're doing.

Um, and then it'll also help like having consistent messaging, not just in Hillsborough, but across the county and across like I don't know how far this will go, but just don't duplicate resources.

So again, this is where you suggested something, put it in a declaration.

We thought let's take it a step right.

So we're good with this one.

Okay.

I have a question about that.

So are we talking about potentially stopper and get trained to be a legal observer, for example?

We haven't decided that, but is that potentially something that could be that is that could happen?

Something we need to talk about that we is one of the focus areas that we need to talk about.

So if we were to do something like that, I would recommend that we collaborate with people who are serving as legal observers right now.

They're doing that work for free and volunteering their time and really spending a lot of time on our streets and monitoring what's going on.

We'll talk a little bit more.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Um and we'll talk a little bit more about staff and the city participating in the role of being legal observers.

And what are your thoughts on that?

Um so that's going to be part of the conversation for the second.

Uh the other thing that um, you know, you suggested, and we also totally agree with is develop reports on ice interactions and document the interactions.

We already have guidance that we we provided to our employees about documenting interactions.

Uh the police department is also documenting their interactions.

Um, so that's something that we will do.

And um I was go ahead.

Yeah, and just to clarify, these are interactions with the city of Hillsborough.

Yes.

Okay.

So when they make a request or they come on property.

It would be any kind of interaction.

So, like those two examples that you suggest you you brought up would be a documentation of an interaction.

Um, if the police department is called out to a site that does have ice as an or they are interacting with ice officers, they're document, they're going to document them, and they're already documenting them, right?

So this one was just something you told us to do, and we're going to do that.

Cool.

Counselor Harris.

Quick question on this.

I I know there has been issues.

Maybe this is for the chief and the deputy chief.

Um where dispatches called an officer to a scene because a call's been made.

Um, and by the time you get there, just the scene is cleared, right?

And the question I have for you is when the officers dispatched, are they dispatched code two or are they just dispatched code one?

Can you tell me?

Um most of those dispatches are going to be um non-emergency is the probably the easiest way to describe them.

But uh I want to point out here, we've been called multiple times, and uh, you know, folks don't always know what's going on.

So um there are circumstances where you know, really um officers and dispatchers are evaluating incoming information continuously on the way to the call.

So you could bump into an emergency response or you could bump out of it depending upon what you're finding out on the way there.

Is there is there a reason why this just I'm not a trained officer?

Is there a possibility that may be appropriate in order to make sure that we get an officer on the scene within a timely manner that the default is a code too?

Or is that a bad idea?

Well, I I wouldn't dare tell you you had a bad idea, counselor.

Um yeah, there are a lot of uh liability issues and ramifications with emergency responses, and we um they're not our um they're not typically the default response because they uh require a high level of skill, and even then uh very dangerous circumstances present themselves with pedestrians and other motorists who are just doing their best to get out of the way and in danger.

So I would say, in all honesty, um it wouldn't be my preference to designate them that way.

Counselor Sinclair.

Very quickly, uh and just to be clear, last at the end of last month you said that we had 20 was it 25 reports uh pertaining to ice, and those are specific reports when ice contacts you or inquires with you, or or has interaction with H not you specifically HPD.

Uh great question.

It was, I believe it was 26 in the month of October.

Uh, but those are um there's a small variety in that.

They're um it may be a citizen actually that calls us.

It doesn't always mean that we've had interaction with ice, and actually that's the rarest type of situation we find, they're usually gone, or it's just a report that we can't or um a call that we can't do a lot other than just see that yes, they're here.

Um so but I think it's really important for everybody.

We don't we only go when we're called, or if we see it.

We're not trying to respond to every incident in the city that involves ice.

Uh we we have to have, or you know, they're usually a nexus to the police department.

Thank you.

And so Raheem, develop reports and ice interactions and document interactions.

What what how are we identifying what we're talking about with reports?

Yeah, so a couple of things.

So, like um, Chief Coleman mentioned, right?

Like the interactions his team are having with uh when they should when they're called to a scene, or or even you know, even after that they've left.

Um, if there is a dot, like if we know that there was ice there, we have documentation of it.

He just mentioned the number.

Um, if uh so that would be part of this reporting.

The second part is if I shows up to one of our facilities, like if they showed up to the civic center and came up to the fifth floor, for example.

Um, there are employees have specific policies and guidance they have to follow.

Part of that is documenting the interaction.

Um, so those are the things I was referring to as far as what we can document.

We can only document what we know.

Right.

And so I just want to bring up the word departments.

Does that cover all departments?

All city departments, yes.

Quick question of um I know you're getting a lot of calls.

And that um I'm just curious.

Um, based on what we know, are there some calls that you would ignore um non-emergency?

And some calls that would would be emergency, all this related to ice.

Yeah, we uh we don't ignore calls.

If it's completely unpolice related, we'll try and uh get them to the proper uh entity that can help them with it.

But in reality, speaking of calls that come out over the radio or mobile dispatch terminals, that would have been already filtered out by uh WACA, so it probably would never get to us.

But um, yeah, so we uh I'm sorry, I lost the original question, but um we we do not filter our um if we are dispatched to a call, we do not ignore it.

So I'll give you another example that came up that if somebody calls in and says they see men with masks and rifles behind the safe way off 25th and Cornell.

Um would that be a non-emergency?

And how would you know?

That that would be an emergency call.

It it's indicative of um a potential crime that's about to occur.

And so there would be there might be an emergency response.

It could play out a number of ways.

There could be an emergency response all the way there.

That's sort of unlikely.

There could be an emergency response part of the way there or none at all.

Uh that if we're talking very specifically to calls like that, there are tactics that police officers employ, and stealth is one of them.

So you would not want to alert uh in that situation that you had either you're either on the way, arrived, or where you were at.

So I think it'll be really important to be transparent with the public about that and provide some education about how we're gonna show up and respond.

Uh I I think education is always great.

Some of those things and I was purposely vague about them are uh protected police tactics uh for the safety of both uh the officers and the public.

Counselor care, but to your point about like making sure the public is aware that when you call, we answer and we show up.

I think those are the types of messaging we can be clear about, you know.

Yeah, to Chief Coleman's point about the tactics and how they may approach the scene.

We probably don't want to share that.

Um, but we can share that if you do call, we will respond.

I think uh I think I just want to be sure that we're encouraging people not to make the right calls, but encouraging to make calls.

Yeah, yeah, um, not get things sidetracked, but yeah, it's we would encourage people to tell us what they see and what they know.

Um there has been some encouragement to just call in and call it a certain thing, usually a very serious thing.

Uh please don't do that.

Just tell us what you see and what you know.

We'll figure out how we should respond.

Um, otherwise there are just too many things.

I would get a sidetracked on all the possible unintentional consequences.

Okay, any more questions on this before I move to the next one?

Okay.

So um this area, the next area is around having um clear city guidance and policies around ice interactions and continuing to review those policies and guidance for any updates.

I said continuously intentionally here because things keep changing.

You know, you're a year or two ago, we never thought that people will be yanked out of their vehicles.

Well, unfortunately, they are.

And how we may be having to respond and how we have to also not just be mindful about the community impacts, but also the protection of our employees is important.

So that's something you also suggested we do.

We totally agree with you all.

The other thing is that the moment is Bob Lick and Molly.

You are fast.

Our employees.

I'm gonna ask the audience to not comment.

There's no public comment during the work session.

Thank you.

So the other thing we suggested, um, we're not the only ones who are going through this, right?

We're not the only community that's being impacted by this.

So we would suggest that we also go research what other organizations are going through.

Um, because there's many of them who are going through the same thing we are.

Um, this is an area where we've learned just to be candid.

Like we talked about the um the uh employees videoing um and provide us more clarity around that and clarification around our intent and changing our policies and practices to adjust to to more of the intent of what we're hoping to get to.

Being candid, that will happen again.

Like we're continuing to learn as we go through this.

And again, just asking for some grace as we go through this, because this is new to us too.

Um so this is an area where um as we do these reviews, we can share with you like, okay, here's where it's where we're trying to meet the goals that you told us to meet, what our community is expecting to the level we can.

Just being candid, there are going to be some policies like um that we might not be able to change because that is state law, and we have to follow state law.

Um, so I don't want it to come across as we could just do anything here.

There's gonna be some legal bounds that we have to follow.

Um, just one question.

Whatever we decide and create with this, is the expectation that staff are going to if we put this forward that staff are gonna agree to it, or our staff is there's gonna be the potential that there are gonna be some staff who are gonna be neutral towards us, and some staff who may not like this at all.

Is that possible?

I I think it's possible, just to be candid.

Yeah, I mean, I don't think I I don't think I can sit here or we can sit here and be 100% certain that every staff member is going to agree with like the outcomes you want, and that's not put ice aside for a second around any major topic we talk about.

That being said, our training use training is an example.

Our training can be developed where you acknowledge we provided you the information.

And you so if um the things you've asked us to do to making sure employees know where they can provide people with information around knowing their rights, we can do that.

Now, I think a majority of our employees we would welcome that, but I can't speak for all of them because that wouldn't be fair.

Um, but those, I don't know if there's anything else you want to add, right?

Yeah, just to add to that.

I think you know, when we provide city services, we provide city services to everybody, and we expect our employees to provide them to everybody unbiased and in a non-discriminatory way.

So I have every confidence that when we set policy that we do these things, that our employees follow those policies.

And uh I know we have employees who care deeply about this issue and and want to continue to serve and help wherever they can, but we always emphasize the importance of doing it in an unbiased way, making sure we're serving everybody in the community.

Any more questions on this particular one?

Okay, I'll move on to the next one.

Something else that you know obviously is continued to be an area we look at is um how do we provide the staffing support to be able to do this, right?

Like this training requires staff, translating it into multiple language, especially Spanish requires more staff.

Um pushing a lot of that information out will require resources.

So that's one of the areas that we we believe we're gonna need more resources, specifically around bilingual support.

So that's something we'll come back with, and um you know, after we get a general consensus from you all that this is what we want to go and do, we may be coming back with resource requests.

Okay.

Um Sor Sinclair.

Um for the module that we're on right now.

Um, I know we're not voting yet, and it's gonna take time, but I think this is area of where jurisdiction would apply for scope.

Like we have a lot of city controlled spaces that I am hoping to advocate for.

Um that would not be part of that if approved for part of city guidance and policies around ice interactions because I'm hoping to gain more support toward reporting that benefits our community as well, not just us as a city for our buildings and our staff.

Yeah.

So Council Sinclair, when we talk about codifying the city sanctuary status, those are one of the things you've suggested we do.

I was hoping we have that discussion when we talk about that topic just so it fits with what you're separate.

Okay.

Yeah.

But again, if if you decide that this is something you want to do as consensus, then we would come back with like, okay, here's how you can achieve these goals.

Um, which then you know some of those goals might be putting in new policies.

Maybe can I just quickly quickly um would you rather just hold our questions and like so we can move it like where we can have opportunity to if you want to ask questions, you can.

Okay, yeah, I I appreciate you asking.

Thanks.

Um, but I think as we move, unless Raheem, do you want us to hold until we get I I think this is going great because it's giving us information that we can then take back and then say, okay, on this topic area, you're generally in agreement what we're suggesting, move to the next topic area because we need to get to the items and consensus.

Um, but this is great because it provide clarity, not just to you all, but to the public as well.

Great.

So as we're just going to keep going through item by item, thumbs up, thumbs down or medium or neutral, whatever.

We'll just keep going and questions are fine.

Yeah, totally cool.

Thanks for asking, Counselor Sinclair.

Through the green section.

Yeah.

Are we through the green section?

So actually, we're we're we're through the internal focus areas.

Again, there'll be some more discussion on areas that we may not have general consensus on, but these are areas that we have general consensus on based on what you proposed and conversations we've had.

And I shouldn't have said this in the beginning.

Our our suggestions are not just informed because you know we had a great idea one day.

This is also informed by the community's feedback.

I mean, we've had a lot of great community feedback.

Um, so that's what's informing what we're suggesting as well.

So I was going to move on to the section of partnering with community.

Is that okay with everybody?

Let's do it.

Okay.

So under the partner with community section, can you read that okay?

You want me to zoom in?

Or it's okay.

Okay.

So a lot of this was around like following guidance from our community-based organizations, CBOs, creating forums to continue hearing from our community and CBOs, and including HBD in those forums as well.

Um, I wanted to call that specifically because that was a lot of your feedback.

Um, creating and sustaining long-term partnerships with others, so the school district as well, CBOs and other municipalities and other members and members of the community, obviously, and then assess opportunities for um assess additional opportunities for pushing out accurate information.

This goes back to like um use the example of um police calls, we respond to every call, making sure that is extremely clear when we say uh when we put put information out.

Act in the role of an immigration resource connector.

So there's a lot of resources out there.

Um we shouldn't have to duplicate that, but we can serve in a role where we're um bringing people to that information.

Um, and then again, our city website, um, you know, proceeding this work session.

Once we have agreement on these general things that you want to do, we will update our website to then be very clear on this is the city's plan, and here's what the council's asked us to do, and here's how we're achieving them.

And obviously, that's going to be a live website, right?

As things get updated, we'll keep um updating it on the website.

But also as we get questions, we'll have a FAQ section uh similar to what we have for our internal staff.

Um, so those are the general things you asked us to do.

Um, and what we're suggesting on how to do that is doing exactly what you asked us to do, which is setting up ongoing meetings with community-based organizations that includes um team members from the city administration and HVD leadership to serve as a forum where we can directly hear from um our impacted community that does focus on developing solutions because we're gonna hear some other ideas that come back and we explore them.

Um, and then again, supporting each other and sharing accurate information.

It's great to put things out on our social media platforms to provide accurate info on our website, but not everybody goes there.

But some of our CBOs and like the school district, for example, also have opportunities to push out information.

So being consistent on that would be very helpful.

And then we can share resources.

So this would look like many things.

So this isn't just one forum.

Um, we might not be the ones who can mean everything.

So, for example, you've seen a lot of meetings over the last few weeks from partners at the chamber, partners at Central, partners at Elante.

Um, we're participants there.

That isn't our forum to convene.

But maybe there's a different forum where we can convene.

Maybe there's a different role we can play.

Um, we do think it's important to set up a place where we have ongoing meetings with our community-based organizations, similar to some of the things we've done with the CADS coordinating committee, Avenida Diaz coordinating committee, uh, where you have all partners at the table and an ongoing basis.

So we would set up something similar to that, um, but then also keep showing up at other people's meetings.

And in some cases, we might not be invited for rightful reasons, um, but still maintaining those relationships to get information.

Uh counselor Sogato and then Councillor Alcare.

Yeah, that sounds a lot like a community advisory committee.

What's the hesitation in calling it a community advisory committee?

There isn't.

Okay, because it's because I'm trying to follow your thought process here in developing this this work and we have should we set up a community advisory committee in the yellow section where we need to build consensus?

But to me, this sounds like a community advisory committee.

So it does.

Yeah, yeah.

And I think when we get to that section, it's a perfect example of um how we would go to the next section to talk about should we set up a community advisory committee?

Yes, is what our suggestion would be.

Cool.

And let's focus in on this and um start there.

Okay, thanks.

Counselor Alcare.

So, Rahim, I have a question about um that we create forums.

So, are we creating forums for community speak directly to council outside of public comment?

Or are they speaking to us and through CBOs?

How is that so which are we doing both?

Can we consider doing both and and for community to talk to us directly?

I think we can, yeah.

And um, so what I would suggest, and Simone might want to chime in here too, um, is give us an opportunity to come back to you now with okay, and here's how we can specifically do that.

And uh one of them might be creating a forum for community to be able to speak to you outside of work sessions or outside of council meetings because they might be more comfortable doing it in a different space.

Um, but those are the types of things we would then bring back to you.

Good Simone, anything to add here?

Um, I was just gonna go back to the community advisory committee and what's something that might look different, not negating the community advisory committee.

But so we're about to roll out this first 200,000 dollars in funding, and we convened community-based organizations prior to, so we did a pre-application meeting.

Well, the intent would be to have a follow-up meeting when we know there's additional funding and get feedback to community-based organizations about what we saw in the application process and what needs weren't met.

So that that creates another opportunity for dialogue.

So that's another example of meeting with community-based organizations to get input about how they're functioning and what's happened since the last time we spoke with them.

Thank you, Simone.

Um, and again, we would bring back more specifics on this, right?

But generally, the goal is to do this, and uh I'm sensing a general consensus here.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, and we'll bring back more information as we start forming these things.

Okay.

Um, the next part is just again building on existing relationships we have with CBOs and community.

We we do have relationships.

I want to go back to that.

Like the city does a lot of great work with our partners to support the great work they're doing.

So let's just continue to do that.

Um, you know, we're just in a much more challenging time right now, and we can lean on those relationships we have.

Oh, counselor Sinclair.

Um thing I want to really emphasize is that in seeing the CBOs and community work, the work that's being done right now is very different than what's been done in the past.

Um our community is doing a lot of heavy lifting and to have those opportunities to build relationships to understand graphic response, legal observers, and the work they're doing directly with the CBOs in creating reporting, that would be a really solid to build trust and uh relationships.

I'm glad you brought that up, Counselor Sinclair, because one of the things we need to talk about in the next section to the right when we get to like consensus items is what role do you want us to play in things like that around reporting and you know, do you want us to be the reporters or do you want us to support the community-based organizations who are doing their work?

A hybrid approach.

Do you want us to bring back some options and costing as well, right?

Um, we'll talk about that in the next section.

Um, so under partner with community, like um, are you generally in consensus with what we talked about?

Okay.

Anything uh else you see that's missing?

Okay.

So um I'll go to um these next two sections real quick, and then we'll go and um talk about funding support after that.

Does that sound okay?

Um, so per your uh resolution, the emergency declaration is advocate strongly for changes at the state and federal government uh federal level.

And um there was a question on uh statewide emergency declaration advocacy.

Um this is where I'm asking.

Is there general consensus on that on asking to do a statewide emergency?

Would you like us to bring back more information on this?

Uh yes, okay, counselor.

So I'm advocating for a statewide level emergency, though, so that cities and counties are not struggling like this to figure out well, what are we gonna do?

And that the potential that we thought that the declaring a state of emergency here in Hillsboro would free up some resources for us, and um, and I'm and I'm thinking that that's happened, but I think that's why I would give impetus to having a statewide and more cities and jurisdictions are looking to have this, and I want to support it, and I want to go on record that I want to support a statewide state of emergency.

In addition, I wanted to add as well to the um statewide state of emergency.

I would also highlight that in January uh we will typically have our government affairs manager Ariel Nelson come and present to the council, and we you know come up with a list of legislative priorities.

This is one we would advocate for having on there because there will be a series of bills that come up at the state level um during this next session.

And so having that direction from the council that the city wants to support those types of bills is also going to be important.

Uh councillor Salgado and then Councillor Harris.

I would just like to learn more about what that means because I'm not too familiar with what a state, I mean, I understand when there's like a natural disaster, what that means for state emergency.

I would like to know what it means for this specific situation and what it actually enables and what it actually does to protect people because I do want to avoid posturing, and I'm not gonna mince words here with and doing things that aren't actually going to help or actually protect people, right?

Especially if there's already legislation that's being considered at the state level that's gonna have some real impact.

I would like to know exactly what we're asking for from the state when they declare state of emergency.

And Counselor Sogado, to your point, we can bring back more information on what that looks like.

I think in your um emergency declaration, you have been very clear about um asking for changes at a state and federal level, and now what that looks like, we can bring back more information.

Counselor Harris.

I I would echo what uh councilor Salgado just said as well.

Um also wanted to note that I did see something recently where Councillor Juan Carlos Gonzalez is setting up a work group for regional, and that may be also an effective way to address it.

Uh if it can't be statewide, perhaps it's more of a regional thing.

Um, just something to lift for you up to take a look up.

Great.

Yeah, we'll bring back more information.

Thank you.

And then um, before we get into uh the funding support, um declare and implement a local state of emergency.

You declared it last week, um, and there were certain things that we have to implement.

Yeah, counselor Ambry.

Thank you.

Uh so just to be careful for the previous one, the the first sentence we're all agreed on, right?

And is the this is the second, yeah.

Okay.

And again, even to that point, um, counselor, like as things we this isn't just us asking the state, this is dialogue with the state.

Yes.

So um, as we hear on things that they're doing at the state level, we'll be able to, and at federal level, we'll be able to bring back more info.

Um I think it'd be um maybe it's reiterating it, but I think it'd be good to get more info.

I I agree with counselor all care that um we're in a state of emergency, but there may be other parts of the the state that don't feel that, but they may later, right?

Like Woodburn is a great example, how we were dealing with a lot in Woodburn had nothing, and that Woodburn has a lot going on right now, and so the state of emergency would apply to them.

So, yeah, I I would appreciate more info.

Thanks.

I mean, another example is Newport.

Yeah, Newport.

No, um City, Lincoln City.

Lincoln City, not Newport.

Okay, all right.

Yeah, a lot of other jurisdictions to that point of asking for federal and state support and doing something.

Thanks.

Um, and then the the part that you um passed last week um was declaring a local emergency.

Um, and there were certain things in there, training, signage, all those other things.

Um, we're going through the process now of we'll come back to you and saying here's how we're implementing the things you've asked us to in the in the resolution.

So it's just calling it out specifically.

Um so any questions on how we're implementing that, we'll come back with more info.

Okay.

Um programs that um we're getting funding requests on and what the amounts are.

Uh spoiler alert, it's not enough.

Just being blunt.

signage all those other things um we're going through the process now of we'll come back to you and saying here's how we're implementing the things you've asked us to in the in the resolution so it's just calling it out specifically um so any questions on how we're implementing that we'll come back with more info okay um programs that um we're getting funding requests on and what the amounts are uh spoiler alert it's not enough just being blunt so one of the things we wanted to talk about today was um if we as staff could finish the review on the community focused funding and then come back to you with a request to um provide more funding beyond that we don't want to do that right now today because we still want to go through the applications to see what they look like so that we can be a little more informed when we do come back is that okay you want a thumb vote uh yes we have more conversation around other funding options but specifically for the community focused funding if we it was okay for us to come back with a request of what that additional funding would look like based on the applications we're seeing okay yeah thumbs up thumbs up counselor Harris thumbs up thank you Simone anything to add on this particular one yeah the next one I'll Councillor Harris one question I want to make sure that all of the things we're covered because one of the things I don't know we've talked too much about a small business funding.

We'll get to that in a minute.

Okay so we will get two specific topics.

The ones that are listed on here yes and if uh counselor sinclair if we don't cover the ones that you had questions about we can circle back to that okay um so we'll come back on the community focused funding on um asking for um a potential increase in it and we'll tell you why based on the applications that we're receiving um I'll turn it over to Robbie because um Robbie's having has had some conversations with the school district about opportunity to support them yeah thanks Raheem I had a I've had a good uh couple of conversations with Travis Raman and some of his staff as we've been uh as you all know uh HSD has been greatly affected in the students and families of those students and as we were chatting there's been a couple of programs that have come to light um that we knew about but um it it kind of dawned on us that this is maybe an area that we could step in and provide some assistance one of them is a McKinney Vento program.

It's it's specifically designed to help um children that are experiencing um homelessness issues and and uh food insecurity that system is our that program is already stood up but there could be an opportunity where we could help bolster what's going on right now the other program uh is in regards to online uh learning so right now uh there are they're having a lot of challenges with students families that don't feel safe going to school uh because of what's happening and so they're standing up uh some more they're trying to send up some more online learning opportunities similar to what was going on during COVID um so they have some model for how that works and so I did approach him about the possibility of the city stepping in and helping with some of that and our proposal as of it's not on the on there yet but what we're looking at would be about 4000 to the McKinney Vento program and 4000 to help staffing with online that would allow them to staff up and and and have more students available to learn uh online at this time so you'll see more coming from us on that but that's another example of some proposals that I wanted to bring to you all the school district would be I think extremely receptive and grateful for that type of funding but I just wanted to make sure that's one that we can get consensus on from the council to continue moving forward to explore that.

You want a thumbs up though that'd be great.

Yeah or just general nods.

Thank you.

Counselor Harris and we'll continue like we've got a great relationship with our school district they're incredibly important partners um they're going through it really um significantly right now and so uh we'll continue to try to explore ways that uh we can partner with them and this is just another example of us bringing proposals for you to consider as well so um uh we have one more and I think it'll get we consensus on this as well um where we're suggesting to develop a grant program to help support our small businesses um we have had some ideas and uh we actually just spoke with um our internal team Dan and his team about some options here so what we'd like to do is bring back a proposal that has a little more detail on how we can support our small businesses um we um obviously won't do that tonight but we just are hoping for a general thumbs up on doing that okay we'll bring back some more information and um have some more dialogue about that and then um going to our last suggestion on this particular area this um goes back to a suggestion about controlling what we can what we can control our utilities um so we're hoping to um go through this sequence of providing utility support and I'll explain it and I'll explain why so right now we have a city program for utility assistance we've shared that with you before um our first step is if we know people experiencing challenges paying their utility bills we would ask them to first go down that road because that road is a really viable option should you be experiencing some challenges with the utility bills.

So that is another pathway they could that could go down.

And then if those pathways don't work, then we can look at evaluating shutoff delays.

And the reason why we're suggesting this sequence is making sure people one have the right resources to be able to go and meet this need and start what is already in place.

And then if you don't have that as an option, then we can have a conversation about it.

The reason why we are suggesting this approach is um I'm just gonna be blunt.

We have seen um some folks take advantage of some of our programs.

We do not want that to happen here by just doing a blanket.

Um you don't have to pay a utility bill type of approach.

That's why these pathways that exist already provide the support, and we can bolster those areas.

So for example, under the city program, we could bolster the amount of um funding or or a foregone revenue in that area because we can do that.

The city manager, you have granted the city manager the authority to do that.

So we'll do that.

Um and then the CBO support, we're actually going through the community focused funding applications right now.

Councillor Ambry.

What is CFF?

Oh, it is the community focused funding.

Sorry.

So that is the grant program that's out right now, the 200,000.

Yeah.

Um, and some of the areas that you had asked us to uh score high was on utility assistance.

So we're meeting that outcome through just this other mechanism.

Okay, Counselor Sinclair.

Um Rahim, with the utilities assistance, are we seeing funding depleted before P is it matching capacity?

The funding that's available is matching capacity needed.

I'll take that one.

So we have over the past few years actually increased that funding.

Um, I believe we have 100,000 allocated in that, and we're already um, I think it was 80% of the way there, and we're not even happy through the year.

So that happened last year as well.

And so when it gets to that point, then I do have the ability to uh direct staff to go over budget.

Um, and we can make sure the council's aware of when I do that.

Uh but yeah, it has not been enough.

Uh, and and and that's not gonna stop our staff from still trying to work with these individuals.

And I just want to give a a really important shout out to utility billing staff.

They're really good at this.

They work really hard with people that call with those general genuine needs to try to do whatever they can to get to a point where we shut off water, it takes a lot of steps, and really we just need people to communicate with us, right?

So we can talk to them, set them up with payment plans, make sure they're connected with all the right services.

So even though we do occasionally have to shut off water, it's not without a lot of process and making sure that we're doing everything we can for those individuals first, and our utility building staff do a really nice job with that.

Council, this is a perfect example of using the infrastructure and systems we have in place and just enhancing it, right?

Because if we were to recreate this or start from scratch, it would take a while.

So we're also looking at opportunities of things we have now and just candidly funding it more, um, which is one of the areas.

So under the um did you already cover um we're talking about utilities evictions in there?

Is there a way to prevent evictions?

Um, not in this section, counselor, but it's on one of the topics that we'd like to get some consensus from all of you.

So we will get to it in that in a few.

Okay.

So under providing funding support, these are the general areas we're we're asking to focus on right now.

Um there's some work we need to do with the small business side of the house.

There's some more information we'll bring back to you after we reviewed all of the applications from the community focused funding grants that are out now.

Um and then obviously, like Robbie mentioned, working with the school district to um see how we can help them.

Um Sinclair and Alcare.

Yes.

And uh counselor all care's question about if um evictions we'll cover in the next section.

So at least for this, are you okay?

My one uh question for uh verification.

Is this geared just towards businesses or personal needed for livability also for immigrant families?

Being in part does that make sense, is this only for business, or is this also for personal needs?

So I'll I'll back up a second to answer that.

Um so we have the community focused funding.

Simone, do you want to talk a little bit about the scope of that?

Yes, thanks, Raheem.

Um, so the community focused funding really focuses on utilizing community-based organizations to meet those individual needs.

There was some initial confusion for some of our community members who thought the city was providing funding to specific individuals.

Um and so we got some clarity around that.

So rent or mortgage assistance would be provided through a community-based organization working with an individual.

So there's small business support, which hasn't been built out, and we'll be working can work on that if you all have reached consensus.

And then the CBO community focused funding.

We would be able to build on that.

Cool.

So what you're talking about right here now is money to CBOs to help individuals.

Thanks.

Okay.

Cool.

So I can do thumbs up or thumbs down.

Yeah, I think we have general consensus.

That's great.

Yeah.

So I just want to take a minute, like, you know, we're gonna go in through having some discussions.

Um it's great to see we agree on all of these things.

I just want to point that out.

Like, um, even this alone shows like we have a plan.

Now it's the next part of okay, how do we enhance this plan, right?

Um, so I just thank you for having us go at the end.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you for being this way.

Okay.

I wonder who's the wonder who's the engineer on counseling.

Um so um, so this next section, um, there was um I'll tee this up and I'm hoping we can have some dialogue about this.

And um, some counselors who've made proposals on setting up something to the effect of this um would be a great opportunity to share your thoughts and uh what you're hoping to achieve.

Um, I will pull up some information on like general costs and stuff just to help guide you.

Again, this might come across as like us being judgmental here.

That's not the point.

It's just to give you the facts, okay.

Um, so one of the things that came up was setting up some type of office um to help with immigration support.

Um, as we start thinking about that, something that we're hoping to get from you is what else?

Right?

Right now we're we're talking about immigration because it's it's a needed thing right now, and the impact our community is facing is imminent and right now.

But as we start thinking about what this human rights office or um we'll decide what to call it, but what else do you want us to focus on?

So those are the types of things I'm hoping we can have a dialogue on.

Um the other thing was setting up some type of human rights commission.

And um, I think we're hoping to get some more guidance so that we can bring back some proposals for you.

Um, what are you hoping to accomplish with this commission?

Generally, what are the goals?

What outcomes are you hoping that they would be able to help further?

Um, the other question that came up was uh setting up a community advisory committee.

Um and this would be uh more of a similar to the suggestion about a convening group.

Um is that something you'd like to do?

Um, and then the other part was should we evaluate a charter amendment approach for setting up the human and civil rights commission?

So those are the general things um that came up in this category.

As you think through this, some considerations that we think you should think about.

Um taking a stepped approach.

Let's do what we can right now and then bring back options to you.

I think there was a suggestion from one of the counselors on this as well.

Um, because we can bring back examples.

We can have dialogue around what the goals would be.

Um, and we don't have to make that decision today, but we can make the decision, should you choose to, that we want you to go explore this some more.

Um also have to be very mindful of is focusing on the goals um to uh mayor face earlier comments.

If you can give us some clarity on what goals you're trying to achieve, then we can workshop this with you to be able to bring back options.

And again, developing options, right?

Um, this isn't something that uh we can do today, but we need to have a little more dialogue on the goals.

Um things to maybe consider uh about this is like um one second, sorry.

Actually, I'll stop right there.

Um this is where I'd like to maybe get some info from you or some thoughts from some of the counselors who proposed these ideas to just speak more towards what you're trying to achieve and what goals you're hoping we'd be able to accomplish.

Yeah, because I could start.

I mean, I guess we're just kind of starting wherever right now, right, with this conversation.

I guess I'll start with the setting up of the Office of Human and Civil Rights.

I think you know, one of the goals is to um, I think with both of them is to create something that's structurally sound within what the city already does, something that's long-term vision, right?

We're uh ICE and immigration enforcement, well, specifically ICE was uh created after the Homeland or the Patriot Act after the 9-11, right?

And so they've been doing these operations administration after administration, you know, there's been different numbers fluctuating depending on the administration, but what's different during this administration is that they're uh they're creating fear with the rhetoric, and we're also seeing video evidence and actual people saying out loud that you know the constitution doesn't matter when they're enforcing the laws, and so we're in what year one of four years of this administration.

So this is a really uh meant to be a long term approach, considering that you know the 78 billion dollars that got allocated to the Homeland Security for this for this work, it's not gonna decrease, it's gonna increase.

And the way that they're going about their recruiting, um, and this is all you know in reports for from verified journalists that they are cutting corners when they're hiring people, and the people that they're hiring aren't necessarily experts in how they should perform their duties, and I think there's evidence now that citizens are being impacted, people that have legal residency are being impacted, and they're being treated in a way that's not in line with our constitution.

And so that is really the point of this is to set up a long-term focus on protecting those rights that people should be uh should have within our city, and I think that is a role the city could play um in this.

It's we can't change federal law, we can't tell ICE what to do, but we can we can at least set up something that develops some sort of structure where we're we're pushing back and saying, you know what, we're keeping an eye on how you're behaving within our city.

We have somebody that's recording it.

We have some we're creating a database, we're gonna report it to the DOJ, and we have dedicated resources to it.

So that's really one of the main goals.

It's like we're we're serious about investing in this.

So counselor Salgado, if you don't mind, I'm gonna paraphrase it a little bit just so we make sure we documented what the intent is.

So having some way or some office, right?

I'll use the term office, but that can be you know, um, we can flesh it out a little more that has a way to document what we're seeing happening today, and then using that information in the future should the opportunities come to be able to then say, look, this happened then, and having clear hoping for accountability at that point.

Definitely, yeah.

And you know, that's I mean, policy development takes a long time, right?

It doesn't happen uh in one night.

So collecting this information that could inform future policy development at the federal level, I think it's part of this goal, right?

And I put that in the memo and in the draft proposal.

These things are detailed in there, right?

So yeah, and um, so one of the conversations that I'm hoping you all can also have today is um our role in this, right?

So having um should we be the place to document it?

Should we work with our CBOs who are already documenting it and have bolster their infrastructure or a combination of both, right?

Yeah, that's something that maybe you could.

I'll jump in.

Yeah, I think CBOs uh have a mission to serve the public, social service, other sort of community support.

Their job is not to protect people from the federal government violating their constitutional rights.

And I think any sort of work that we do here has to have institutional backing from the city.

I think it'll be taken more seriously uh from the federal government if they see that local cities are taking this uh seriously because I mean uh I've worked at a nonprofit, I've over 10 years of experience working in nonprofits, and although they're doing it because they feel like they have to do it, not because they want to do it, right?

So yeah, thank you.

Any other counselors want to speak to this counselor sinclair?

Um thank you, Mark.

Um developing a reporting system is I feel priority.

We heard last week from our Adelaide Moharis and Central Cultural, them pleading with the Lets for reporting, because that's an aspect of accountability in the future, and it's an aspect of public records that becomes a tool for the public.

And that's something that we're missing right now is providing tools to the public.

Um connecting specifically with these CBOs who work directly with rapid response and legal observers is primary, and to work with HPD.

Uh, because I think there's frustration because of misunderstanding of what we're all capable of doing and roles and responsibilities.

There's expectations that haven't been outlined, and it's important for everyone to be on the same page.

Um it's important for everyone to be on the same page and understand what we are capable of legally and then creating structure around that together because everyone has different roles, and we need to count to the fact that's the same.

Uh counselor all care and then counselor case.

So I think that the community advisory committee.

I actually think that this needs to be a collaborative office where CBOs and the city has equal investment in what's happening inside the rights commission, what direction it takes.

I think that it is about advising and guiding best practices, coming up with creative solutions, hosting forums, working with public safety to gain public trust.

And then I think that the biggest job that this office would have would be to listen to what public has to say about what they need and what directions we should take.

I don't think that I think that it should be collaborative.

And I think that that shows equal investment in what this office is about.

And I wanted to have some oversight.

Okay.

Thank you.

Counselor, Counselor Case and then Counselor Ambry.

Thank you.

So I'm trying to figure these things out.

Um, but I want to I want to back up really quick because what I wanted to say first was um pretty big concern about us managing data at the city because that is one public records request away from all that information getting out there publicly.

So my preference would be for a CBO to manage it, kind of uh as counselor Andrew was saying, excuse me, counselor O'Cara was saying there, um just that it would take a subpoena to get that in a little bit bigger challenge there.

So um as we're talking kind of through some of these things, and we've talked about other things tonight.

Um it feels like there's a lot of pieces of these that are already kind of set up at the city manager's office that maybe it makes sense to, I mean, as we're looking to to look at more of a stepped approach, um to get there and see what pieces we already have that instead of starting from scratch, what do we already have that we can move forward with?

Sorry, something I I'd be interested in with this.

Counselor Ambry and then Counselor Solgato.

Thanks.

Um so the yeah, so the biggest thing actually, uh case you you said uh just us collecting data, uh, this kind of data, city having this kind of data, uh, it's not something I would I would like.

Um so partning uh with CBOs, and then also with the larger um, you know, uh the the Washington County Metro uh commission, uh sorry, committee that has been put together, uh, being part of that and doing it at a wider um wider scale, I think isn't going to be more effective than then than a citywide.

Um I I do think that we should have uh resources here in the city, and you know, that could be whether people are already doing it and it might needs to be kind of collected together.

Uh that would help with immigration, but more as a do uh to direct and not not uh and not not doing uh immigration, you know, not actually helping with immigration, etc.

Um, because they are other organizations that are uh do that, and um, so yeah, that that's that's how I think about it.

Do a navigator type of position, which I think the navigator, yes, yeah.

So gotta have that.

Yes, the navigator, I think I yeah, yeah.

Thank you.

Counselor Sogato and then counselor Harris.

So I have two points and maybe two questions.

The first one's on the data collecting.

So this data that would be collected would be violations that ICE agents are making while they're arresting people.

So I'm trying to understand why you two would want to protect the public from seeing those violations from ICE agents.

Oh, that's not what I'm saying.

That's what I'm understanding from your concern.

Which witness names, witness locations.

Yeah, might be undocumented, their names.

We we don't we don't so the city doesn't do that.

The point is to collect actions from ICE agents that are violating constitutional rights.

So why would you want to protect them from the public from having access to those?

So to be to be clear, they're not talking about protecting ICE agents, but yeah, I I don't want to speak for you.

Go ahead.

Because that's the goal of collecting that data.

So not collecting the data would be that you don't want people to access that data.

Counselor case.

That's not that's how I'm understanding it.

That's why I'm asking the question.

Mike, what so no?

What I'm saying is I am concerned about personal information about uh undocumented and Latino community members and other community members who don't want their information out there.

If we were to be collecting from everybody, that's why I was thinking I think it's safer in those hands.

I misunderstood that you were talking about collecting information about ICE agents.

Um that's I I that I'm clearly not understanding something if that's what you were talking about.

Yeah, so I'll just give an example unless you want to go first over there.

Uh council counselor Harris, why don't you go ahead and finish your thoughts?

So I mean, just look at what happened over the weekend.

They or on Friday, they arrested a 17-year-old citizen that was driving his dad's car, they broke his window, he kept saying, I'm a citizen.

The ICE agent said I don't care.

That's the type of information I'm looking at that the city should have a hold of because we have the resources to collect it and maintain that data.

So why wouldn't you want the public to have access to that sort of data?

But we're asking HPD to document when that happens, and that's how we have a record of what happens during the detainment.

What you're suggesting is collecting information about citizens that they may not feel comfortable with the city having.

Counselor Harris, then counselor Sinclair.

I'm gonna go back a little bit.

Um the questions you have is what other issues could a human civil rights department cover.

I would say housing, employment, civil rights discrimination.

Um I agree that right now we're in a particular crisis with a particular kind of behaviors that we're having to deal with.

Um, and maybe maybe the department would flex up and flex down.

Um like I think Counselor and Segato I talked about this.

This could be a three-year thing, right?

Um, it's not just a hundred-year flood of two weeks that we got to deal with.

Um, but there are other issues that we could we could we could cover.

Some of the coverage, I'd like to look at as you're looking through this.

Some of the coverage, some of the issues we we're talking about could potentially be referred to state or federal offices that do this work, maybe housing, maybe employment discrimination is another one, but we could still have this office collect and help navigate our citizens through the state process, possibly.

These are just ideas.

Counselor Harris, I apologize for interrupting you, but uh just wanted to point to an example of that.

Last uh at the last work session, we shared the portal that the state uh um department of justice attorney general had created.

So to your point, yep.

Um I would like to see the ballot funding versus direct services.

What are the trade-offs?

Like how much funding could we get out to our CDOs versus how many services could we deliver for the same amount of dollars?

Um, I think that's an issue that we need to weigh before we decide which is best to do internally and which might be best to partner with advisory committee versus commission.

I think that I would probably prefer to start with an advisory council.

Um I think a charter commission, maybe down the road.

Uh, but at least we should we could actually start willing.

We sort of almost have them already going on, like with the pre-contract um meetings and things like that.

I think that one way to start this would be to fund a position or appoint someone or create a name of uh human civil rights officer for the city's group, gives some gravitas to that position, gives a point person, give someone to start doing the convening and direct some of this research within the city manager's office.

Could be an existing employee.

I talked to um city manager.

There's a funded and vacant position, I think, within the city manager's office.

So if we either use that funding position to add somebody, it would be less fiscal impact on the city, so we can accomplish some of these things without having these substantial uh additional fiscal impact on other departments.

Um and you might until you hire somebody and develop the name, the job description for this.

You could also name somebody the temporary person that could be happening right away.

There's individuals in that manager's department that are already doing a significant amount of lifting here.

Um, and it would give some gravitas and some commitment and some signal to the community that we're serious about this.

Okay.

Um, and they would also act the other thing the this uh individual could do our person or department recovery.

You end up going uh was coordinate all the city and grant funding.

So there's a lot of different things you could do, and maybe in three years we don't need so much commitment to one area because things have changed.

There's other I'm sure there's a lot of work in the city manager's office that this particular maybe assistant city manager, deputy assistant city manager, whatever the level they're brought into or determined to be.

I'm sure there's a lot of extra work they can be on.

Um I know you guys work 24-7.

I mean, I'm getting emails and stuff from every one of you guys all weekend, uh, late at night, early in the morning.

So I'm sure there's a lot of extra work.

Those are my general ideas.

Thanks.

Counselor Sinclair.

Um I'm hearing a lot about capacity, and I'm also in understanding who leads this um aspect of an advisory council or who has a responsibility of creating a reporting system.

Um again, it goes to scope, like what jurisdiction are we talking about because when you get CBOs involved, so maybe in Cornelius, some maybe in Forest Row.

What are we talking about?

What's our area, a territory that we're reporting on?

Um, I think that's why that's so important to outline our jurisdiction.

Um, another aspect is to bring on it's very important, everybody's at capacity.

Um, I think the city does have to play a role in the structure of this with our CBOs and with our community-based uh leaders who are the rapid response.

Um, I think it's important to consider having pairs of legal observers trained and um mandating certain areas that are decided upon.

Yeah, just for clarity, counselor sinclair.

Are you speaking of having city staff being legal observers?

Which is a question we have for later on.

I don't know yet.

Um, but um for you what you were suggesting is um playing a part in it, or I'm just trying to get a little more clarity.

I I I do think they have to play a part in it because I think Hillsborough Police Department has to be a partner with that when it comes to our data when it comes to reporting our data.

Okay.

Um I did want to make oh go ahead, Councilor Karen.

So I just want to say that people have already created a structure for legal observing.

I don't think that we can come in as and I don't think you're suggesting this as the people to establish that, and that's who we're gonna be.

No, we're going to be their partners and collaborate with them.

And I don't know.

I mean, I think we can make our city staff aware.

I don't think we can make them be legal observers.

Like I don't see that happening, and this is where I'm asking earlier that there might be staff who really want to support and some who want to be neutral and some that are pissed off and don't like this at all.

So I think I would like to have a structure that is collaborating with CBOs and the legal observers and other groups around our city who are doing that public safety work.

And I think it's important that we go in as a listener and as a partner and as a team player and not the authority as the local government because we're late to this game.

We are late.

Counselor Sergio.

Yeah, just I have a couple of points, but I want to give you some feedback.

You this has been great, but what I'm noticing right now happening is we're creating a web, and we're not really having a structured conversation around this that's looking like we're actually going to accomplish something because we're tangling up all different things in the response and not focusing on it one thing at a time.

So just you don't have to respond right now, but I think we could have gone a better way of doing that.

Um I like I I agree with Counselor Harris in placing somebody that's already here or repurposing the a position to a civil rights officer, human rights officer, and putting some of those responsibilities under them to actually stand up the office and work out all the details.

I think that's a good approach.

Um where do I start with the rest of it?

Um yeah, there's so I'll reiterate.

Um I have over 10 years of experience working in nonprofits.

The first time Trump was in office, I was working for a nonprofit, and our goal was to help people find jobs and develop the working skills like English, uh safety, OSHA standards, all those things.

And nobody else around was doing anything to help protect immigrant communities from the onslaught of this activity.

And we took up upon ourselves to work alongside other CBOs, and we managed uh over a hundred different volunteers that were legally observer trained.

We scheduled them, we heard all the stories, and nonprofits and CBOs are not the ones that should be doing or managing that work.

Again, they're doing it because they have to.

They hear so much, like imagine hearing story after story about families being torn apart, people being treated in violation of the law, and CBOs don't have the capacity to support their employees to process all that stuff that they're doing, right?

So I acknowledge that you all have relationships with CBOs and think that they should get credit.

Maybe we can highlight them and say thank you for all the work that you do, but there's a reason why I'm proposing that the city take leadership on this, and that's because we're an institution of the government, right?

And so what we're talking about here is protecting people from being having their constitutional constituent constitutional rights violated, and although we can't directly stop ICE from doing it, we can at least set up an apparatus to actually collect the information that's backed up by the resources and the systems that we have to actually have some sort of like we hold more weight.

If you think that a CBO holds more weight than the city when it comes to this work, I disagree with you wholeheartedly.

We we pull we have we hold more weight than a CBO when it comes to collecting data and reporting it upstream, right?

Because it's more verified.

We'll have a data person that's actually has some sort of verification that they're that they know what they're doing, and that this is not junk data that they're collecting.

It's actual real stories of violations.

Um, secondly, I think it does have to be separate from the Hillsborough Police Department.

It does have to be separate because one of the things that we need to do is uh give confidence to the people in the public that we're doing this apart from Hillsborough PD, nothing against Hillsborough Police Department, but they have better, they have more important things to focus on, right?

Then collecting data and creating a database and taking in these reports.

They have much more important work to do than that.

And I think we need to be aware of that.

Um, and then lastly, about the human rights commission.

I think the human rights commission intends to create a more permanent uh foundational structure to the city, support human rights in general, and we can align it with any sort of human rights law, international law, constitutional law.

I think that's part of the work that the staff would do.

I think you know, we could get an advisory committee to advise on what those details are.

I think there's a lot of people right now that would be more than willing to help out with that.

And also, it's not just the human rights commission would not be just the focus on the current conditions.

I mean, Hillsboro is growing, it's becoming more diverse.

I think last time I heard either six or seven out of 10 high school students at Hillsborough High School are Latino.

So we're gonna have a more diverse community, and with that comes more racial bias issues.

I mean, I just we're just discussing an issue where uh a group of white teens shot a nerf gun at a Latino family and started yelling racial slurs and nothing happened, right?

So that's a just microcosm of things that are gonna keep going and elevating and increasing.

So we need to have some sort of commission, some sort of structure that is independent of the city that can inform because we're gonna see more and more of these issues.

So the human rights commission is not just about dealing with the current state of the matter, it's about looking at the future of Hillsborough and what it's gonna look like and what type of issues we're gonna see at the city.

Thank you, Counselor Sinclair.

That was very well said, Council Sobato.

Um I want to be clear, I am not suggesting and to no offense to anybody.

I am not suggesting the HP lead uh this type of council.

I do think it's imperative that they give reporting though, so that everyone's aware of what's happening with complete picture.

Counselor Alcare.

I'll add that I have worked for years with underserved and underrepresented and underprioritized communities here in Oregon since the mid-80s.

And once they're supporting students who are undocumented by helping them get access to higher education and not with international student status to pay those rates and to get scholarships and the access funding and to persist in there towards our education and career goals.

Most of that work and a lot of it was with community-based organizations, it was with families, it was with students, it was with staff.

It was a combination of things.

But if we're not collaborating with those organizations directly that those people are reliant on, and especially right now, then I don't know what the point is of having an office.

And I keep saying that we need to listen to what those CBOs have said, what they've advised us to do, and we've been doing that, but in no way can we assume and sit here that we know how we can guide them.

We can provide uh government arm, we can provide funding, we can put more funding into areas that we feel that CBOs can be empowered to do more work.

Right now we have been relying on legal observers who aren't getting paid anything to watch the public safety in our community, and they are taking the risk for everybody sitting here.

So we are sitting here with the privilege of not having to hear those stories all the time to track where what's happening where people are showing up to try to prevent a detainment.

So offices are people are.

Raheem.

I I have a suggestion on a path forward um to maybe address some of the the comments that were brought up.

And again, it's it involves taking a step approach here.

Um so what I'm hearing that there's general consensus on setting up a community advisory committee.

Yes, right.

And I I'm gonna tackle one of these at a time.

So hopefully it provides a little more clarity on on how we're we can move forward.

So setting up a community advisory committee, what we can do is uh bring back some options to council on what that could look like, and we decide on it and then we implement it.

At the same time, I'm hearing some general consensus about um we can call it an office, we call a department, what setting up some type of internal infrastructure.

I'll use that as a term within the city to be able to take on this work a little more in a more dedicated form.

Does that generally align with what you're thinking?

And again, we would bring back some options to share with you and um get some feedback and then implement that.

Is that generally what we're getting?

Um I do uh comment on that.

I I do see some of the the work that counselor Solgado is proposing.

I I see where you're headed with it, but I do see it is duplicative duplicative in nature is that there are already CBOs that are doing this work, and um you said yourself that they're community-based organizations that don't have capacity, and I'm leaning toward can we help fund that capacity?

You talked about community-based organizations and people in the init who are having to continually hear these horrific stories.

Can we support their mental health?

Can we can we support getting those folks either more staff or um counselors, you know, to help that CBO do what they're already doing.

And I see your point about um reporting on violations, and really that's HPD is going to be taking those reports.

Um, they're already doing those reports, and so of the duplicative nature of the work, uh I'm not in favor of having a separate office or a or a person because I do feel like maybe a person, but not a not a department.

Um, because I do see those CBOs doing that work, and and I appreciate your time and nonprofit for 10 years.

I've been in nonprofit for 18, and the people doing that work are not there because they have to, they're there because they love it and they want to be there.

And and I think we should support them.

And I think the any funding that could that could go to or go to or supporting uh a staff member at the city could actually be a staff member or two at a CBO.

That that's my that's my the thing that I'm I'm dealing with.

I see where you're going, Counselor Sogato, and I'm just saying to her, what what more can we get um if we support the CBOs?

Counselor Sinclair.

Um I'm hearing there's a middle ground here somewhere.

Yeah, I think um it's not developed yet, but what I'm worried about is there's a skill set.

So basically funding equals capacity equals accountability.

So what I'm hearing is that the funding need and the skill set is needed through the city, but there needs to be the representation that's outside the city for the community-based organization organizations, the people who are boots on the ground doing the work day in and day out in a different capacity, but also there's HPD, who also is doing their role.

Um I I did we're not there yet.

I definitely think it's not a one or the other.

I do not think it's a one or the other.

This is a way complex situation, and it's gonna take some time to iron out, but I don't think we say one or the other yet.

And we could bring back options.

So great.

I just like this isn't the do it or don't.

Like we can bring back options based on the feedback we're receiving today that could look at what uh mayor face you brought up, right?

Option A could be you staff CBO to do it.

Option B is you staff it up internally to do it.

Here's what it looks like.

Here's the pros and cons to each option.

Then we can put some more uh meat on the bones here to be able to help you make a more informed decision.

We just today we're hoping to get some general guidance and dialogue about this to inform what we bring back.

So I apologize if I wasn't clear on that.

That's right.

Um that's the general purpose of today.

All right, so we have Counselor Sogato, Counselor Harrison, Counselor Sinclair.

I just want to ask, can we work with CBOs?

Yes.

And ask them what they think of our idea and plan.

Counselor Solgato.

Community engagement is accounted for.

I don't know if you all get a chance to read the proposal.

A lot of the questions that you guys are at that you all are asking have been answered in the memo.

So I invite you to go read it again.

Uh one of the things that's bothered me a lot about how government has handled immigration is that becomes political football.

And there's no actual practical things that get done, and that's what I'm seeing happen right now, because a lot of you are bringing up things that have been accounted for in the memo, and none of these things are duplicative of a CBO's doing, and I don't think you're listening to what I'm saying.

Thank you, Counselor Hirsch.

So one thing I would say uh two things actually.

I do think we need a point person.

I think you should name that this person, an officer, and uh just someone that people know they could pick up the phone and talk to, right?

Um, I'm not saying they're anybody's boss or anything, but I point person, right?

The air traffic controller.

Um secondly, I've I've worked in an industry for years, decades, that has both public employees and nonprofits delivering professional services.

Um there's an attitude attitudinal difference between the way judges and others within our business view the nonprofits versus the government employees.

And those government employees could be district attorneys, they could be state public defenders, they could be state appellate defenders who are W-2 employees of the state of Oregon versus the nonprofits.

And counselor Sogato is making a point that I have observed for decades.

Um the public employees are considered more trustworthy and have greater gravitas.

They're treated better, they're paid better, they're given nice benefit packages, they have more stability, they don't have the turnover.

Quite often they don't perform as well as the nonprofit lawyers.

I mean, literally, I've seen this where the nonprofit lawyers are better lawyers and um and they have higher caseloads, yet they're not necessarily recognized for it.

And I'm not saying that's right or wrong.

That's an observation I'm making.

Take with it what you will.

I think you still have to do the cost benefit analysis to figure out what kind of service could we get, who's going to deliver it.

But there is something to be said about having I'm not advocating for this, by the way.

I'm just making a point because I don't think we're gonna jump neck deep into this budget right now doing this, but there's value to having a government employee report these things and record them, just like there is probably a better police officer would be better than a security guard report.

You would expect them to potentially have more grammatos.

And so there are things like that to consider, and I think that I I believe that's a point that counselor Sogava was trying to make.

Yeah.

And I guess I probably just repeated what his point was.

But I I what I'm saying is I've seen it in my industry, and it is true.

Thanks.

Okay.

So Raheem, you want to come back with different options.

Yeah.

So I I do think just candidly, there's there's more commonality here than there is difference.

Yeah.

Just I want to point that out.

I agree.

So if you're okay with this, let us bring back some options for you to consider.

I definitely think that there's general consensus on setting up a community advisory committee.

It goes to a lot of your points around making sure CBOs are part of this discussion, right?

Um, it seems like there's general consensus about setting up some type of infrastructure.

I'm just gonna call it that for a minute internally within the city to be able to do this work.

Now, what that infrastructure looks like, let's bring back some options for you all to consider.

Um, does that sound like a reasonable next step?

Can you elaborate what you mean by options?

So uh I'll use an example.

Um it's gonna take us a little bit of time to go through this and bring some proposals back.

So um let's use legal observers, right?

As an example, I think Councillor Salgata, that was one of the suggestions you had in your proposals, right?

We can bring back and say, okay, this office had a person who's a point person.

Um I'll use the human rights officer as an example of a term that could be used.

Um in this office, they would have A, B, C, and D, one of them being legal observers.

Um, here's what it would cost to do that.

Here's what they would be doing.

And here's some of the pros about that.

Here's some of the challenges they'll be experiencing being in a government form.

If a CBO were to do that, here's what they're doing today.

Here's how much um resources we've heard from the CBOs that it's taking to do that.

And here's a funding option to do that.

Now, option A, you bring this person on board, option B, you fund the CBO to do this work some more, but still having a point person at the city to be able to coordinate the CBO or a hybrid approach.

Maybe they do some work, maybe they do some work.

That's kind of what I was thinking is the next steps.

Uh I think it generally aligns with some of the things you put in your proposal.

Yeah, and I would encourage you to read all the community engagement aspects that address some of these concerns that some of my colleagues are bringing up around collaborating with CBOs, getting their feedback on things.

And I also would like you to consider how many people each organization serves.

We serve 110,000 people.

CBOs don't serve nearly as much.

So we have more reach and we have more impact.

So I would like you to consider that in your analysis too.

Yeah, and I think you brought this up in your proposal too, counselor, like making sure we maintain those partnerships and we have this engagement.

It wasn't, I mean, it wasn't in this track one or track two, but it was in the further section in your proposal, which we totally do.

Yeah, and this is not like territorial or stepping on people's toes, because that's kind of what I'm feeling from the feedback is people feel like we're stepping on people's toes and doing things that other people are already doing, and that's not really the point.

And so I would just invite everybody to read the memo.

I would ask in the proposal.

Yeah, and I would to your point, counselor.

I think I would ask if you would give us some time to have a discussion with the CBOs about this to your point.

Like, let's make sure we're not stepping on each other's toes and we're understanding what they're doing and where the gaps are, so that when we do bring proposals to you, they're fully informed.

Is that okay?

I think that's the filling in the finding the gaps.

I think that would be excellent.

Um I would ask like for this particular section, right?

Um, let me just take a step back for a minute because there was also the the request for a charter amendment.

Yeah.

Um so we'll wait.

Are we good on the bringing back options before we move on to the charter amendment?

Yeah, what is the timeline look on that?

Um, can we get back to you on that?

I just wanted to make sure that we we can figure out what the workload looks like internally, and then we'll we'll do this as quick as we can, but we'll bring back a timeline too.

When can when will we hear back?

Let's don't provide a timeline.

When will we hear back about when we can get a timeline?

I I think the challenge is until after we go through all these other options, and then the council tells us what the priorities are.

It's hard to give a timeline, but we we'll we'll move as quickly as we can.

Um I just need to see what all the priorities that we're gonna be going through tonight, what the council wants us to do first uh before we can just like tell you what the timeline is yet.

So you can't tell me when you're gonna get back to us about this right now.

I don't I just I don't know what else the council wants to consider first on this, and so I just need to look to you over prioritizing.

Are you gonna communicate different pieces at different times to us, or are you gonna collectively update us on all the things we talked about?

Well, I would hope on specific to this, I would we could put together a plan and bring it all together back to the council.

I just don't know what day that's gonna be until I again we need to get through everything to see what you all want us to prioritize.

If this is number one on the list, we'll make it we'll go as fast as we can on it.

Counselor Salgado may offer a suggestion.

Please.

I'm going to ask you to not comment during the work session.

There is no public comment during the work session.

This is my second warning to you.

If if it happens again, you'll be asked to leave.

Thank you very much.

Council Salgado, maybe I can offer a passport because I know there's urgency on this, right?

So yeah, and I mean, just to be frank and up front, I mean, we we're having a conversation.

I feel like we created a web instead of actually progressing on it.

And now I'm asking you, when are we going to get a follow-up?

And I'm hearing, well, it depends on what we hear.

So it kind of seems like you're we're kicking the can down the road.

And that's what I want to avoid.

Yeah, and we want you back.

Um I mean, it should be really simple to say, next work session in two weeks, I can get back to you.

Yeah, I think it's reasonable to see them in two weeks to be able to give you a timeline.

Okay, thank you.

We just need to debrief after this and get some priorities from you all.

Counselor Alcair.

So I just want to make a statement and throw it out if you don't like it or keep it.

But when I came on the council, what I learned was it isn't about whether or not I'm gonna win something or lose something, but it's how do I come to consensus with the people that I'm serving with.

And so for me, what I have learned, and I'm just saying this.

You can throw it out, you can tell me I'm full of whatever.

Talking to me.

Yes.

But it is that you don't come in here to win a battle.

You come in here to work with people to find consensus.

And I'm not hearing that anybody is saying that they don't like what you're creating.

I am hearing that people have a lot of questions about what is being proposed, and that staff have to get together and take the ideas that we have shared tonight, put it together for us again so that we can continue to narrow down where we want to be.

I'm expecting that we won't get through all of this in December.

We will hopefully have something to vote on in January.

That's what I'm seeing that this process can take that amount of time.

Not every piece of this, but I think it's worth investing and making sure that we are putting together something that is structurally sound and that we have gained public trust.

I do believe we need to act on some things because a lot of things are immigration related.

People have expressed concern and frustration with kidnappings and people disappearing.

We have been hearing that, I don't know, since mid-October.

So this is not nothing new for us, but I think we have opportunity here, and I just want to point that out.

So now I'll be quiet.

Counselor Salgato.

I just want to remind everybody here that we're volunteers.

We don't get paid by the hour, we don't get a salary, we get a stipend.

So any work we do outside of the city council meetings, it's time that we dedicate out of our own that we could be doing something else.

And I spent a lot of time developing these proposals and this memo and getting feedback from people in the community.

So I would appreciate it if y'all respected that at least and not make screw it and turn it political, right?

This is a real effort that I'm trying to put forward, a real plan that's well thought out.

It's not bullet points, it's an actual plan.

All right.

And counselor Alcair, with all due respect, you need to make up your mind whether this is an emergency or not.

Because you go back from this is an emergency to wait a minute, we can wait a month or two.

It is an emergency, but it does not have to be confrontational.

And I think that's where you're trying to take it.

Nobody here is saying that your plan is bad.

I haven't heard that, but that's where you're going.

I'm not gonna be confrontational in this.

I just gave an example of what I learned as far as when you come here and try to get consensus to try to move things forward.

Yes, I believe people need protection.

I am advocated for a lot of things, including against public gatherings where people could be detained.

So, yeah, I have spoken up and I've spoken up for a while, and I have worked with community as well.

I'm the only one on this council that has lived with this fear.

I was undocumented until I was a freshman in high school.

It's unjust right now that my friend who's 30 years old, born in the US, is scared that her parents are gonna get deported and has to go and do all their shopping for them.

It's unjust that another person who got deployed to war in Iraq is also doing the same for their parents because they don't have protected status.

So go ahead and focus on my tone if you want.

If you want to misconstrue what I'm saying, this means something to me.

This is important to me.

You've had the information in front of you.

I'm not trying to be confrontational.

If you don't want to focus on the ideas and the actual plan, that's on you.

I can't help you do that.

If you want to focus on my tone and how I'm approaching it, I can't help you change your mind on that.

But the plan is here written on paper.

And you are not the only people that I've shopped this with.

And I've gotten a lot of positive feedback from the community about how much they support this.

So yes, there is a baseline that I'm basing your feedback on, right?

And there's collaborative approaches and there's adversary approaches.

And right now, from some of you, I'm hearing collaborative feedback.

From others, I am not.

So that's all I hope to say.

Counselor Sinclair, and then we can move on to the next topic.

Yeah.

Um I so appreciate, I know this took time.

I have to say, this process is super frustrating.

It is.

It's really frustrating me.

Um because I know we've heard so much from the community and we see real things happening.

And I know all of us feel this way, but this feels like it's slow walking us.

And I know you have to get to a consensus because all of us as a body, so it makes it difficult.

Um let's just get focused and keep on forward.

Well, Raheem has has orders to move, not orders, sorry, military, um, his direction to move forward and give us options.

Um are you good, Councilor Amory?

Okay.

So I think um we've all had our say in this particular topic.

You know what to do moving forward, and then we can move on to the next topic.

Does that work for you, Raheem?

It works, and I I'll move on to the next topic.

Just have to point out there's a lot of similarities here.

So let us come back with some options and there's some really good information that we already have.

We don't have to recreate it.

So and there's some great CBO partners we can check in to help form our options.

Yeah, that's great.

I do think there's a middle ground here that we can find.

Yeah, awesome.

All right, next topic.

Okay, and um the next topic is do you want to codify the city's sanctuary status?

Do we have to go into that one?

Um, I I I before before we get into um before we get into answering that.

Um, Chad's going to give me a break.

So that's right over to Chad.

All right, now's everyone's time to take a nap.

The lawyers talking.

Um, so when we were talking about this, we wanted to just sort of set a baseline of sort of where the city is at.

And and following up on Raheem's points, this is not meant at all to be any sort of negative approach about this proposal.

It's just sort of providing you with background information so that you're we're all starting from the same page.

And so when we talk about the overview and we're talking about the charter, the Hillsborough municipal code and the policies.

I just want to go into those three things a little bit and make sure that we all sort of understand the framework that we're currently working under.

Again, this doesn't mean that you, as the council can't change this framework, but this is just sort of the framework where we're at today, and just sort of again making sure we're all starting from that same baseline.

And so as we've talked about in the past, the city's charter is like the city's constitution, right?

And that is the sort of document that sets forth the framework of our form of government, which is the council manager form of government.

And in that council manager form of government, the city council sets the policies, and then the city manager is tasked with implementing those policies.

And so the city manager is deemed the chief administrative officer of the city.

Uh, that position has authority over all city employees, that position has uh authority over city property and city utilities and city contracts and all those sorts of things, those are all sort of within the roles and responsibilities of the city manager.

Now, the way the council sort of oversees all that and setting the policy, just like you did last week with your emergency declaration, you set a policy and you said this is what the policy of the city is, and here's the things that we expect out of you, our city manager to implement, i.e.

the training program.

And so you pass this, and then Robbie then went and implemented that, and as Raheem was already explaining, they're working with HR staff to come up with training programs and other sorts of things.

That already happened within the last, you know, we we passed that resolution last Tuesday, it's been six days.

Staff is already working on that.

So you all set that policy.

If you, as the city council set a policy and the city manager says, I think that's a really bad idea, and I'm just not gonna do it.

Well, you hold the ultimate power and saying, Well, you know what, you serve at our pleasure, and if you're not gonna implement the policies that we want, we'll find a city manager who will.

And so that's how that sort of framework of power that the charter sets up in the city's constitution of how that works.

And so once you get to the charter, then what we have is the municipal code and the municipal code are the laws of the city, right?

And those generally, if you look at the municipal code, for the most part, those those laws do two things.

One thing is they sort of further set up the administrative structure of the city.

So you'll see, for example, we have uh a section dealing with um the various boards and commissions that we have in the city and sort of outlining their establishing them and sort of outlining their roles and responsibilities.

And so that's one aspect that the municipal code provides.

And then the vast majority of our municipal code then are just laws that regulate the general conduct of the city.

And when I say the city, I just mean individuals in the city, property in the city, things of that nature.

So we look at our development code, for example.

Someone wants to come and develop property within the city, they have to do so in accordance with the laws in the development code.

And so it's really regulating the actions of the general public.

It's not setting our internal policies about how staff do their jobs.

And for that, we have our policies.

And so we have um, you know, just our general personnel policies.

As we've been talking about, HBD has a lot of policies about how they do their jobs.

Um, and we have all different kinds of trainings and other sorts of things that we do through through the city manager's office, sort of governing our employees.

And so through those policies, we we set up a system where we're sort of directing staff on how to do their jobs, you know, what we expect out of them, and when they um violate those policies, then they can go through the disciplinary process all the way up through termination.

Conversely, if you violate a law that's in the Hillsborough Municipal Code, that is basically a violation of our city code, and that has monetary penalties that can have a citation that goes into the municipal court.

And so when we're talking about setting up roles and responsibilities for staff, oftentimes, you know, we'll be concerned if we're telling staff here's a new law that you have to abide by in doing your roles and responsibilities.

So that's one of the things when we're talking about you know codifying some of the sanctuary laws that we're really sort of focused on, you know, which of these three buckets does that really fit in.

And so why when we did the emergency declaration last week, we really proposed some of these things as part of the resolution.

One, so we could implement them immediately and already start working on them like we have been, but two also because just in the structure that we currently have, it fits in that bucket better.

And so again, I'm not saying that you can't change the buckets, but just sort of saying the baseline of where we're at and sort of the structure that we're currently working under and why we've done some of the things that we've done to date.

Now, if the council wants to, and we'll have this discussion, if the council wants to codify some of these things, we can talk about what that means and and how we can implement that and sort of bring some of that back to you.

So, for example, if we are going to pass a law that our staff has to abide by, and if they don't abide by that in their in their official capacity as an employee, that they violate a law, that may trigger some other obligations for us.

So, for example, we may have to work with our labor employment attorneys and work with our union representatives and even our non-represented employees to talk about that impact on them.

And you know, depending on what the particular proposal is, we may have to bargain over that with our unions before we can actually implement it.

Again, this is not saying that you can't do it, it's just sort of saying here's steps that we may have to take before we could actually get to the finish line.

And so part of what we would like to, and I'm stepping on Radeem's toes a little bit here, but I think part of what we'd like to hear from you all is sort of like prioritizing of these things that you're thinking about codifying.

What are those things that are most important?

So, for example, if we want to really codify the city's status as a sanctuary city and mirror the laws that already exist under state law, that's something you know that all of our employees are already bound by.

And so by putting it in our local municipal code, we're not really changing anything, right?

And so we're not really running to the same situation that we would by imposing other requirements on our city employees.

So that's something we could probably do more quickly than if we are imposing something brand new on the employees, which we may have to go through the collective bargaining process to establish.

So as you're having this conversation to sort of try to direct us so we don't get the spider whips and everything else.

What would really be great is sort of looking at the different ideas that Councilor Sinclair and others have sort of proposed in their memos and saying, okay, of these things, here's things that I'm really interested in, here's things that I don't think we need to do, here's things that maybe we should talk about doing further, and really just giving us that guidance.

So then we can come back to you and say, okay, great.

Here's an ordinance that does these things that we which we can do immediately.

Here's these things that you told us to do.

Now we've got to go back and we've got to go talk to these other folks before we can bring it back to you.

So it may be a multi-step process, but getting that feedback from you about sort of where those priorities are and what's gonna make the most impact like you've been talking about, and and sort of where you want to focus staff's energies would be the feedback that we want to get tonight, so then we know how to do the work that you want us to do.

That wasn't a very long break, Rahim.

Counselor St.

Clair.

Um, right?

Yeah, you're on.

Okay.

Um so basically I want to remind all of us that Killsboro's number one 2025 city council guiding principle priority and goal is racial equity, followed by a strategic plan and public safety.

Currently, Hillsboro's municipal code contains no reference to sanctuary city, civil rights or human rights.

And that does go in, just explain to us.

I think it's important right now for the state we're in to have that accountability for it to be set in law for trust and accountability so that there's no uh discretionary aspects to it.

Because once it's law, it has to go through public process and go through council to be changed.

It's not, it's not um just it's not disposable to change.

Um not that we're going to, but people don't have these are the realities.

It doesn't matter if we like or not.

The reality is people don't trust right now and they want accountability.

Um to me, that's what the importance is because it allows us to implement procedure of state law locally.

So it it's it's unwavering when we codify it.

And that's why I think it's important.

Thank you.

Counselor Solgato.

Uh so I read the legal briefing you shared with us.

I thought that was very helpful in detailing it.

And so I just want to understand a scenario or what it actually means to codify something within the municipal code, right?

So in the municipal code, it says that if your dog poops on somebody's yard, you have to pick it up.

Correct.

And if if that happens, if somebody doesn't pick up the dog poop, does the homeowner call the city of Hillsborough and say, hey, somebody's dog pooped in my yard.

What happens after that?

So I I don't, you know, maybe I don't know that sorry, I don't know the number of no, no, no, no, it's maybe the team can talk to this more directly than I can.

This is a high school.

We have, yeah.

We have um we have code enforcement officers, right?

And so when people uh believe that there's a violation of the code happening, they call in, and the code enforcement folks are the ones who go out and sort of help with that.

And so if, for example, um, you know, someone has a ring camera or something and they see that if their neighbor's dog, you know, when the neighbor's walking the dog and continually pooping on the yard, and there's evidence of that, you know, maybe the code enforcement officer would then go talk to that neighbor.

If it's just some random dog poop sitting in their yard and there's no real way to follow up, I don't think the city would use its resources to try to investigate something like that.

But yeah, but in the sense of like, you know, here's this evidence and there's a code enforcement issue, you know, whatever it's whether it's some a dog pooping on the yard or any other sort of code violation, you know, a noise violation or other sorts of things.

We have code enforcement officers who go out, and and to be clear, their their first step, and again, you know, chief, let me know if you want to jump in here, but the first step is usually not to try to issue a citation.

The first step is to try to gain compliance.

And so we work with education, we try to like talk to folks and say, okay, here's what our code requires, here's how we can get you in compliance.

If you need help with that, let us figure out resources to get you help.

Um, and then we sort of use the citation process as the last resort.

Okay.

So in this situation, like let's say ICE goes to a city park or they come out here out front or in the hallway, and they don't identify themselves or don't provide any sort of issues.

Somebody's gonna call call the police or the city, and they're gonna set a code enforcement officer.

Is that how it's gonna play out?

So not necessarily, because I think you're you're talking you're talking about different types of things, right?

So there's there's state criminal laws, which are police officers also enforce.

And so a lot of those situations where we're talking about a kidnapping or we're talking about you know, a bunch of masked individuals with uh rifles that are gathering somewhere, and then the police need to figure out is that a crime about to be committed, or is that some other law enforcement agency engaged in official activities, they're gonna come out and they're gonna investigate that.

And the police officers themselves are gonna do that.

The code enforcement is really, you know, most of our code violations are not criminal in nature, they're civil in nature.

And so when you've got those sort of civil issues, those are the ones where the code enforcement officers are gonna come out and do most of the work.

Okay, so specific to this proposal and what some of the things that are being asked to get codified when it comes to how ICE operates on city public and private property, the police would respond.

And then if they the issue of code enforcement ticket, like I'm I'm trying to play up the scenarios in my head to see what the real impact and see if that matches counselor sinclair's expectation of codifying the sanctuary city status.

Yeah, I'll I'll try to explain that in counselor sinclair if I misstate this, please jump in as well.

So, under state law, currently, there's a lot of in the state's sanctuary promise act, there's a lot of uh restrictions on what public bodies such as the city of Pillsboro can do as far as assisting with immigration enforcement.

And so one of those things is we are prohibited from using city facilities for the purposes of assisting with immigration enforcement.

So I believe, for example, on some of those uh proposals and codifying that, what counselor Sinclair is proposing is that you would have information in the city's code that reinforces that state prohibition and then sort of clarifies what city facilities means because under state law it just says public facilities, it doesn't define what that term is.

So I believe what Councilor Sinclair against, correct me if I'm wrong, um, what's what the what council Sinclair is proposing is that we would re-codify the prohibition on using public facilities for immigration enforcement and then further defining what those public facilities are, for example.

Yeah, but if somebody violates those codes, what do we do as a city?

So that's where we get into situations if someone violates those codes, what authority do we have or not have?

And some of the issues related to uh the supremacy clause that we've talked about, and some of the issues related to uh, you know, our ability to regulate the actions of federal agents when they're engaged in official activities, and whether to what extent we could enforce that law is a separate issue than versus just codifying it.

And so the enforcement is a lot of questions.

And just um by way of example, and I emailed you all this earlier this week.

Um, the state of California, as you know, enacted a mask ban that prohibits law enforcement officers, not just federal officers, but all law enforcement officers from wearing masks, except in limited circumstances.

And the federal government came out and said that the federal agents are not going to comply with that, and they turned around and sued the state of California to basically say that that law won't apply to them.

And so when we talk about these kinds of situations and we talk about trying to codify something specifically against the federal agents engaging in those activities, whether or not that is more symbolic in nature versus something that we could actually enforce is a pretty big legal question that some of these cases may give us further guidance on in the future.

Okay, thank you.

Counselor Sinclair.

And to be clear, we have not had the opportunity to go over this at length with you to see what our rights are because of um whether it be uh police enforcement acts, that's not even clear to us, uh jurisdiction.

We talk about uh private areas of city facilities, but we don't talk about the public spaces and facilities and the reporting that has opportunity to be done there if it takes place.

And what I would like to see that go further than just serving uh our buildings uh and what staff does internally, what happens?

We have a lot of property throughout Hillsborough, and I know that that's a factor also that we have to consider for resources and capacity, but I think that that's a conversation that our residents deserve to have had.

I'm not that I'm just and I think that's that's what we're hoping you guys have that conversation tonight.

Um, counselor Harris.

Thanks.

A couple of things.

Having been the municipal court judge here in this set city for 10 years, um, I would extrapolate on sort of what Chad said.

If you codify, for instance, private places, private public, you sign it, you signage them, indicate that no one can pass this location.

Um, and then someone does, whether it's an IS officer or somebody, well, let's say an IS officer uh does that.

There's yes, there's a code section that says they can't, but in order to do anything, you have to have a penalty section.

So you have to decide what the penalty is.

And so the penalty is a hundred dollar fine, because it's all civil, it's all non-criminal, right?

You can't go to jail for this, gotta be a civil fine, like speeding or um burning and lawful burning, right?

That's one.

Um, and then they get a they go to court.

Well, they wouldn't actually, because they would intervene and they would say we were in the doing the function of our job while we were doing this supremacy clause applies.

This was we were on the job and this is reasonably necessary.

And so you've done a lot of codification work and you've got a penalty section, but how far have you gotten?

So that's something I think you have to weigh.

Um, secondly, even if you didn't codify it in that situation, if you had signage up, um, and I'm not saying anyone would do this, but potentially that's trespassing in the second degree, which is actually a class C misdemeanor.

Again, enforceable by the police.

In that case, there are additional penalties, custody up to 30 days in jail, various things would never happen because it never get that far because they didn't move the supremacy clause, say that they were um doing their duty and it was reasonably necessary for the course there's duty.

There's cases where police officers, federal officers, yeah, federal officers, um, were speeding in a car.

Um, but they were on duty.

And the ticket was kicked.

They said, Oh, supremacy clause reasonably necessary, go into a job, you know, they're in a hurry or something.

It was reasonably necessary.

So the only way to actually enforce these laws is to litigate whether what they were doing was reasonably necessary and related to their work, regardless of whether it's codification or whether it's a statutory violation.

So it wouldn't matter if it was codified.

Probably.

Well, some of the stuff might, and some of it not.

If it's not covered by state law, so it falls in one of those buckets I talked about, like, oh, it's not covered by state law, it's not covered by public policy.

Here's something we could look at.

Or and I was didn't realize this, but as Chad and Councillor Sinclair brought up, um, if it's unclear what public property was that the definition?

Public facilities.

Right.

So it could be it could be reasonable to codify definitions that clarify the state law.

If the state law has holes or makes it insufficient for us to identify some of these things, identifying in our code what that means could be helpful.

I think what would be really helpful, and I don't I don't mean to throw cold water on this whole process or anything.

What really be helpful is to is to take uh counselor sinclair's proposal, which was detailed and and pretty in-depth and covered, I think the issues she thought were important, and to have gonna give Chad some homework to do over Thanksgiving, maybe, but to go through and take each provision and say this is covered by state law.

This could be defined by state law.

This is covered by current policy.

This could be covered by policy.

Here's why it would be a good idea.

Here's stuff that's not either policy or covered by state law, something we should consider.

That was the fourth bucket I had talked about.

It would narrow the focus on what we wanted to focus on.

You might say this is really an important issue for us.

Or it's not that important of an issue, I mean, and you say, and it's covered by state law, so why let's maybe focus on stuff that we can do, right?

Not stuff just repeating what's in on state law that's not a high priority for us.

But there are issues like you guys just identified for me, which I didn't know as definitions.

You know, we want to codify it, we're incorporating state, you know, ORS, whatever it is, one eight zero into this law, because we've done that with the Hillsborough code.

We've incorporated the entire traffic code into the Hills around this report by reference.

We didn't repeat it, we just incorporated by reference.

So you can incorporate by reference and further line, we want to define these things this way.

Okay, so now you have incorporated, and you could say uh this is our sanctuary promise point codification, we're gonna name it that so it's clear.

We're incorporating by reference, we're clarifying these areas, and there's these three things we want to cover in addition, if you if you think if if council both so but anyway, if we knew going ahead with a detailed list, and of course I just thought of this, so sorry to spray the time.

Counselor Harrison, I'm so glad you brought that up because that was going to be a suggestion and a path forward.

Okay.

Well, then I'll shut up.

No, no, no.

Please keep going.

Please keep going.

Um are you good?

Are you good?

Um I want to talk about the dog poop.

I I think it's important though, the outline the scope of the jurisdiction, like he said, and then when I say scope of jurisdiction, I mean literal city controlled spaces, because the hope is to create reporting, not just for ourselves to protect ourselves uh legally, but also to create as public record for the community.

I really feel like it's important to provide a tool to the community to have accountability for the future.

They don't have the capacity to do that, and right now they're doing it by themselves.

Counselor Sinclair, so um, or maybe a path forward here.

Yeah, go for what counselor Harris said.

So maybe leave it at that, if that's okay.

Yeah.

Jokes aside.

What he said, okay.

I do think that, yeah, Chad do it.

Uh well, we'll do it as there's certain things that are within that would need to be within policy, and we can identify that.

Certain things that exist in uh other form that we can identify that, and then what what is left over, and what do we need to put into uh to codify essentially?

Is that a reasonable path forward?

You need a thumbs up.

Well, uh before I go forward, I I kind of saw Chad uh unmute, so I wanted to no, I I was just going to uh follow up and say that um I'm more than happy to work on that and how to work them out with the team.

Um I I do think that there may be some sort of follow-up clarification questions that'd be great to work with counselors declare on.

And so as long as the council is okay with that, I would love to be able to like have that sort of one-on-one conversation with counselor just to get more clarity on exactly sort of what some of these proposals are.

Yeah, if I um thank you for opportunity.

Uh you know, as the police department, we were quite upset and uh dismayed by the way uh ICE is going about enforcing these laws.

So uh when I I've been trying not to say ICE uh because I don't know what these who these teams are made up of yes it goes against if if it's fear that causes this high level of force and these aggressive tactics there's better ways to deal with risk in the job and it starts with try to gain compliance through other ways swap teams use crisis negotiators so they don't have to use the weapons that they have I would just respectfully ask uh that as we consider these things um to try not to put I say this because I don't want to diminish what people are going through they're certainly going through way more difficult things than our officers are our officers get to go home every night to be with our families um but please consider what position you might be putting an officer in it'd be a horrible choice uh to ask them to break one law to enforce another um and I I wouldn't want to put them in that position I don't think anybody is suggesting that but uh some of this sounds a little bit like quicksand to me and just I'm only asking for your um just your thought along those lines as you do this uh thank you if I could add maybe along with the path forwards so chat has a lot of work to do on this to have to go through and figure out what things and we could put together less of here's here's ones that are fairly straightforward and easy and then if there are ones that are going to be potentially problematic because there's gonna be things that we're not thinking of right now we can bring those back to you all as well we can share hey here's some of the potential with these specific ones don't know what those are yet so we'll we'll have a plan to move forward with the ones that are straightforward and then simple um and then we'll also have some others that maybe need a little bit more discussion at the council level if that's all okay with all of you.

Sir Sinclair one thing I want to make clear too is that I know I keep emphasizing the territory of city control spaces and reporting but if approved by council and it's doable uh for staff um I really think it goes parallel with council salvado's proposal in that reporting aspect because that is clearly a need in our community I I know I keep emphasizing that with a broken record but I think those two go together.

Thank you.

All right so we have general consensus on um using the proposal that counselor sinclair had and Chad taking a look at it and the rest of the team to propose a path forward.

Sound good thumbs okay thank you all right we'll go to the next one not a heck not a heavy topic at all um so should the city explore staffing legal observers um are we the right organization to do this should we support others instead maybe if I could kick this one off just really quickly based on because this has been brought up at multiple times throughout the night there's part of this that we can also do as part of uh coming back to you all with our plan of council salvada's proposal I would say a couple of things I think there's a difference between staffing legal observers and having employees be legal observers and just to be really candid I think we've tried really hard as we've talked about last time with our frequently asked questions that we have some employees that want to be able to film while they're on duty if things happen right we want to have them have that flexibility but what we cannot do is legally require them to be legal observers in their role as a city employee.

So I would strongly recommend we don't go that route but there are ways that we can propose at least maybe maybe we do have a position that that helps coordinate between uh or maybe we do even hire some people that can do this.

That's what we'll bring back to you all with some options.

I just want to make it clear that there's a difference between that and also requiring our employees to be legal observers that we just could not do that for legal reasons if that makes sense to everybody.

So maybe it's uh to to get a path forward here to Robbie's point we incorporate this discussion into the discussion we were having around setting up infrastructure an office and then we roll that evaluation into that and bring back some recommendations to you can we get a thumbs up or are we okay with that?

All right cool that was quick.

Yeah so they were moving the screen if I was okay so so there were some other comments that I didn't want us to ignore right so this is more of a a yes no go explore it some more type of thing we haven't just to be blunt we haven't spent a lot of time exploring this because before we did we wanted to get some guidance from you on so the first one was um I think counselor alcare you had a suggestion about canceling um public gatherings right so one of the things we we were suggesting is we do not want to tell private entities whether they should cancel or or not their own events because we really don't have control over that.

So one of the things we we were suggesting is we do not want to tell private entities whether they should cancel or or not their own events because we really don't have control over that, especially if they're doing it on their own private property and not getting permits from us to do that.

Um however, we do have some more control over our events.

Um that is a conversation we'd like to make sure there's consensus on.

Um so we put this on here for you all to discuss about do you want to cancel city-led public gatherings?

And public gatherings is very broad.

Okay, you could consider a council meeting, a public gathering.

You consider the holidays events, sorry, uh, as uh as a public gathering, or you know, it could be a smaller event.

So just opening up the floor for comments.

Counselor all care, uh Counselor Solgato was first in counselor all care.

I'm a hard no on this counselor all care.

So, what I want to say about this is not that I want to tell people what they need to do in their daily life and their decisions, and I thought about today what um life was like before and along Caethius where people would walk, people felt comfortable around the apartments off the side streets, going over to shoot park and engaging with the city and going to events that were hosted around there, and as detainments increased, I became more and more concerned about what are we doing.

We can have public gatherings, but we didn't have anything, nothing to provide people with safety.

And at that time early on, not even information about know your rights.

That was a new thing that was up and coming.

And so at this time right now, I guess I'm just wondering why and what purpose that the city would want to host a public gathering when the potential for detainment is possible, and we have yet to engage legal observers, right?

With our work.

So it's like we want to have an event and we're willing to take the risk, letting other people take a risk when I can sit in my privilege and I don't have to take that risk, and I go to that event.

And at this point, um people who are doing the detainment don't care about um whether or not you have legal rights to be in this country, they're just driven by racial profiling and skin color.

And even when they get people in detainment and they get them up to Tacoma like they did with Victor Cruz, meaning they knew they didn't have the right Victor Cruz, they went ahead and went through the process of detaining him, taking him, and almost um deporting him.

So I guess I need to hear the motivation from the rest of council about why you want to have events, why you want to have public gatherings where you are willing to let people take a risk that you don't take.

I guess I need to hear why.

But you know, I became encouraged when um Centro decided not to host El Brito out at Shoot Park, instead had something online to honor um the community.

And so I just want you all to think about what are people doing, what approach are they taking regarding safety and and where we are right now, knowing that um detainments are going to increase, those are going to increase, and this problem isn't gonna go away.

So I'm not gonna be able to stop you from hosting a gathering.

I guess I want you to be mindful and planful when you decide to do that, and when you're targeting a public at the potential that they could get hurt and you can't.

I guess I need to hear what your rationale is for that.

Uh counselor case, then counselor Sergato, and then Sinclair, Counselor Sinclair.

I appreciate your comments on this.

Thank you.

Um I you know, at first I had to be thinking, no, I don't want to cancel city events.

And what I'm thinking of is what if we have some language around safety and security, not necessarily front and center.

Not necessarily front and center.

Um, but you know, there's kind of a code of conduct when you show up at an event um that says, here's what we'll be, I think I saw it this week at Holidays.

Um, you know, if we add to that, like we are doing, you know, everything we can, but coming to this event is at your own risk, just thinking about ways that for community members who do feel safe, um that we continue to provide those opportunities, and you know, the thing with a lot of the signage that's going up in buildings and and not wanting to create create a false sense of security for people.

And so I'm wondering if there's some language we could put in that might be helpful if it's in, you know on the website for the event, on you know, in the kind of code of conduct in that kind of area seems like an appropriate place.

I would be curious for staff to look, maybe other jurisdictions are doing in this regard.

Counselor Sogato and then Counselor Sinclair.

Yeah, do you all know how many people were at holidays over the weekend?

Thousands of people.

So we're here to serve all of the city, right?

So city-led events are for everybody in Hillbro.

Nobody is forcing anybody to attend any city-led events.

Like people make their own decisions on what they want to do.

Like you imagine if we started closing grocery stores because some people could be facing deportation or fear, like it's just it doesn't make sense for us to do that because again, we're here to serve the whole city, and people get to make their own decisions about where they want to go and don't want to go.

And there's already people, people that are already afraid to go places, they're already staying at home, they're already having their kids going out and doing the shopping.

Those people are not gonna say, oh, there's a city-led event.

I should go to it.

That's not how people think.

So that's my rationale for saying I'm a hard no on this.

Counselor Sinclair, then counselor Anverie.

Um, this is a double-edged sword.

Um I see councillor cares.

Uh, this is real, that people are getting abducted, taken violently out of their automobiles, um, out of public spaces.

I this is real and the numbers are increasing.

Um, but at the same time, I had a two-hour meeting with uh the manager at Pizano's yesterday at Pizarro's Plaza, and they're out of a, I don't want to say the quantity, but they're 50%, they've lost 50% of business.

And they want people to show up because there are people showing up still vendors to come to work, and they do want people to show up, but I think two things can be true at the same time, and I think we can do a better job in supporting those businesses and creating uh events if they choose that to be done, and also to communicate with the public the realities of what is happening in our community.

Um I don't have the answer for everything on that, but the duality is that they need people showing up also.

Um counselor Anvery, then counselor all care.

Thank you.

Um yeah, I I think what one of the one of the things that's informing uh my my thinking that we shouldn't is because uh Ben Sats Ben Centro had their uh last meeting.

One of the things that came up was that um I believe it was the uh Hillsborough School District.

Um, and they they said that people uh you know, they had events and people were showing up, they want to go to events.

Um, and so that that is something that is informing uh my my inclination.

The one thing I would just want to um say is uh um I'm and this is a little bit separate, but but I am I would like to make sure that to access city services, nobody actually has to physically come.

That would be nice to just check.

Um are you thinking of like um let's say like permitting to get a permit or like to pay their utility bill?

Yeah, we can look at some of the services we provide to make sure that there is uh you know you can do it over the phone or online through teams meeting.

Much of what we do, you can we can check into that.

Uh counselor all care.

I think you can have all the events that you want to have, have as many holidays you want to have.

I would wonder how many people in my community showed up for holidays.

And I think about like um, so there's an equity issue that even though we have these things and not everybody is comfortable coming to them.

And I think do what you want.

When you are targeting a specific community and wanting to raise awareness, that's good.

As I say, that has happened with risk of detainment.

No thought about that.

And so I guess I'm really curious about why people aren't concerned about that.

Why am I the only one voicing concern about detainment at a possible event that the city is funding or partially funding?

And we don't have a concern about the public safety at that event.

I like the idea of giving a disclaimer that you could be at risk of coming to that event, but I don't know how that would make public feel either.

I don't know that would make them feel welcomed, but I think that that would be more realistic than saying nothing.

Counselor Andry.

I think I think one of the things, yeah, I think one of the things I think I was, I think it was in North Carolina um uh recently in the news that um one of the one of the ways that uh it was actually a deterrent for the kidnappings was just people being outside and and together.

Um so that's also something to think about, maybe I um I agree, and I also agree in my community shut down the 405 freeway in Los Angeles at a protest.

So, yes, in numbers.

I'm just saying I'm on the board of being a star.

Yeah, it's an organization that provides fair housing and a large um base of who they are serving are Latino and at risk, and they have been experiencing detainments on their properties, they've experienced ice coming on their properties, they've experienced ice destroying some of their property, um, and concerns of speeding through their property.

So do all you want to with public events.

I personally didn't come to holidays because I just didn't feel comfortable doing that.

If I know that people aren't feeling comfortable walking outside their house to go and shop where they used to like to go, that's disturbing to me.

And I do feel for the stores inside Paisanos and MM, but a lot of other businesses are struggling right now, not just those two.

Absolutely.

So I I'm just asking you to think about, you know, you can ignore what I'm requesting.

I am telling you what people are afraid of.

It seems very callous that you want to go ahead and have an event.

Brady, I'm just curious, is there any more feedback?

Because again, this is part of our consensus discussion, right?

We're not always going to agree on this um on a path forward, but any more discussion before I offer suggest Councillor Sinclair.

Just this, these are these are bigger discussions that are taking time.

Um we need to talk more with our CBOs and numerous businesses and new numerous community-based organizations and people who are boots on the ground doing the work, like the legal observers and rapid responders.

Because I think that we are grossly she's so valid in what she's saying, but there's other aspects too in everyday life.

Um, we need to know the realities at a close up and personal level of the objections that are happening and know how to adapt um and better serve our community.

Oh, counselor Harris, sorry.

Um I guess I'd like to say three things.

Number one, I think canceling events would not be fighting the fence, it would be catering to the fence in some ways.

Um, I also agree with counselor salgado that you know, there's 115 or 110,000 people here, many of whom would want to go to these long-standing events, and and I think canceling them could be counterproductive for a lot of folks who are potential allies if they all got canceled.

Thirdly, I don't think it would, I think it might be appropriate to go building on what um counselor case said um to go maybe a little bit of a step further in even if it were Mayor Pace or whoever from the city was gonna make a statement, a greeting, something like that, acknowledging there's a lot of people that cannot be here today because of these reasons, and folks who are at the ceremony at the event could hear that and understand the impact that's being held.

So those are the three things that I was considering rolling over my because I was listening to my fellow counselors, um, and why I would not cancel long standing city public events, counselor Alcair.

I am not suggesting canceling city public gatherings.

I am not suggesting canceling all city public gatherings.

I am suggesting canceling those gatherings where my community is asked to come and learn and and participate and engage.

And this is when you're hosting these at MM Market.

I understand why you want to do that.

I am telling you that people aren't safe.

And if we're not, if Jim's not out there with his group preventing ICE from coming in, we're not providing safety.

So if you want to put a disclaimer on all city events and we um you're coming at your own risk, go ahead and do that.

But just go on record with you all right now.

I'm not telling you to cancel all your events.

I'm telling you to think about the events that you want to invite my community to, that you are not inviting other communities to.

You are specifically targeting Latino community.

Can I offer a path forward here?

Yeah, go ahead, Raheem.

Um, so I thank you for the clarification, Councilor I'll care.

So if um I don't hear consensus on canceling all public events, I do hear some general consensus on making sure people are aware of like things like know your rights and information about you know how you can um access resources should you be in a challenging situation.

We can do that as part of our events advertising, and I also think that to your point, Councilor Alcare, around um let's say events that are more targeted towards the Latino community.

We can ask before we do those.

Thank you.

And I think um there's some cases even recently where we have and um more around smaller meetings with like uh community advisory committee.

Actually, a perfect example is our Avenida Ideas Community Advisory Committee.

Um our last meeting, they had requested it to do it virtually instead of meeting at one of the schools where we usually meet.

And sure, we can do that, we can transition to a high-peed forum where uh people feel more safe.

So, what I'm hearing is more of that kind of approach as opposed to a blanket canceling everything.

Are you okay if we take that approach as how we move forward?

Thumbs.

Okay.

Um you good?

Okay, okay.

Okay.

No, I mean, I think when we here's what I want to understand.

So when the city hosts an event at MM Market, are we literally just showing up and setting up shop?

Because that's what I'm understanding from the explanation.

So I'll use I'll use an example of a meeting we had just very recently at if I could just interrupt you.

We're talking about events.

She brought up events, counselor Alcare brought up events at MM Marketplace.

I was under the impression that those events were organized to try to increase business for all the small businesses that are within MM Market.

And now what I what I'm understanding is that the city just shows up and sets up shop because it seemed like Haime was the one asking for those events, right?

I I can provide a little clarity.

Um, so I'll use an event we just recently hosted at MM Marketplace.

It was actually at the Hittsbook Hillsborough footstock complex, where um for a couple of months we've been um the community advisory committee for uh the Avenida Deas were had recommended we have a resource there, and it's recommended certain topics that'd be covered in there.

So we um were talking about where should we hosted and uh what location more sense and uh we have a partnership agreement with Haime for the um foot song complex, and we asked him if he'd be interested in in doing this with us.

Um candidly, this was before all of the increased ice activities started happening, and um that was where a lot of CBOs who offer supports like um legal resources for immigration, uh housing assistance, variety of topics that were identified by that Kaidias community, I don't need ideas, community advisory committee, and we hosted that meeting with uh partnership between us, so that's an example of internet that we would okay.

So it's clear that it's already with like you're already partnering, the city's not just showing up and setting up so I just want to just reiterate the you're absolutely right.

Thank you.

You hit we're stuck, yeah.

Okay, so it's past 9:30.

I said I was gonna check in.

We still have to talk about the eviction moratorium, and we still have an executive session.

So I would like to propose it first.

Do we want to continue or do we want to move this over to another work session?

So continue thumbs up or not continue, thumbs down.

So we have eviction moratorium and then the oh.

Oh we do have another one.

That's the executive session.

All right.

Yeah.

So do we want to continue on this evening?

Thumbs up or thumbs down or neutral.

Like an hour, neutral.

Councillor Allcare.

So to discuss to do what?

Uh we what we have left to discuss is the eviction moratorium.

And then we have an executive executive session where I wanted to discuss my proposal.

So we can stop here and continue this conversation another work session, or we can continue on, but we would take a break before we continued on to discuss these last two pieces of an eviction moratorium and then the executive session.

Let's just talk about these two.

Okay.

I would like to take a break because we've been going for two hours now.

And then we'll come back and continue the conversation.

Thank you.

So we could continue the conversation.

Yeah.

I think so.

I'm gonna nine.

You want to get there.

I've got three other goodness.

Yeah, we're fast.

Yeah, then we have a ball of the computer.

I put that part again.

I agree too.

Yeah.

Okay.

Have a fine.

Okay.

Counselor Sinclair, if you could come back.

We're also missing.

Oh, yeah.

Okay, we're gonna get started.

Oh, she did.

I bet she did, yeah.

Okay.

We're gonna get started again.

What we have left is to talk about the eviction moratorium.

After we talk about the eviction moratorium, Raheem is gonna do it just a recap of how we're gonna move forward or how the staff will come back to us, and then we'll go into executive session.

All right, so Renee, uh, let's move to eviction moratorium.

Yeah, so uh one of the requests that we didn't want to ignore was um it was a request to consider an eviction moratorium.

Um so um I'd love to hear feedback from the councils.

We really haven't put like a lot of analysis on this.

Can can we legally do it?

That's why we haven't interrupted so we had some conversations about this earlier today, and as Raheem was just saying, we haven't done a lot of research into this.

Um I think one of the things that we were sort of focused on, sort of like your discussion earlier tonight about um utility bill assistance and being able to do things sort of in a progressive type of manner to make sure that any kind of moratorium we would have would be specifically targeted to the harm that we are trying to address.

And so I I think if this is something that you all wanted to look into and pursue, that we would sort of focus our energies researching it at that level.

So for example, uh, you know, if we would create some sort of financial assistance program for people uh who are in need for financial assistance for rent, for example, and if they were in that program, then we would have a moratorium on an eviction while they were going through that program, which we think most landlords may support anyways, because that means they're more likely to be getting paid.

Um, and then if they've gone through that program and for whatever reason they're not eligible for that type of assistance, then the moratorium wouldn't apply.

Um we think that would probably be much more legally defensible than just a straight out moratorium.

But again, this is just sort of off the top of our head analysis.

This is not we haven't done the research, and if it's something you want us to look into, we could further look into it.

Okay, thanks.

Uh Counselor Case and then Counselor Sugar.

Um, I would just say this is something I would be interested in in us looking into.

I serve on the community action board.

Um, and last week at our board meeting, we were talking about the amount of funding that they have available to help with people facing eviction, and it's it's a known issue that's just gonna get worse.

So I would be supportive of looking into this further.

Sorgato, counselor.

Would this support include businesses?

Good question.

Um that that'd be up to you all.

Yeah.

If you want to submit it for I would like to look into that also, counselor Ambri, then counselor Harris.

Yeah.

Um actually, I was just gonna ask the include small businesses in this.

So yeah, I'm gonna counselor Harris.

So I probably have a question here because moratorium is has a specific meaning to me.

Um I would be supportive of a program that was voluntary by landlords where they would enter into an agreement to stay any eviction proceedings upon payment of a certain amount of money, but it would be voluntary, so they would get to keep the same tenant, maybe a good tenant, maybe a discounted amount of rent for a period of time, whatever the program looked like.

And then you wouldn't really have to have a legal opinion because it would be voluntary, right?

Um I believe I'm generally opposed to laws that tell landlord that 100% of the burden is falling on them for this reason.

We already have expensive housing in this city.

Many of these people who could be subject to eviction because of immigration um processes are are probably likely many at least living in lower cost housing.

If a landlord and and many may be in more congregating into buildings where a certain percentage, higher percentage of them may be deportable individuals.

Uh, and a landlord who is renting to that population to go to that community is gonna say, well, heck, there's a moratorium.

Am I not going to collect rent for 12 months on these three, five percent of these units?

You know what I'm gonna do?

I'm gonna raise my rent.

I'm gonna raise my rent on the other people in order to make sure that that loss is covered.

If this is something we want to do, then if if we think that this is something that's that's worthy to stop evictions uh based on immigration proceedings, then the burden should fall not on one apartment owner or mom and pop who own five duplexes, it should fall on every citizen in the city.

And that landlord should be paid.

And so each of us is paying a little bit.

It's not 100% of that community cost falling on one landlord, which has a ripple effect on their neighbors who are just gonna see their rents increase.

So that I'm philosophically opposed to that, a more a blank moratorium where 100% of the cost falls on landlords.

Some landlords are pretty crazy, by the way, but some of them are fine, some of them are good.

Um but I think it sets up higher rents for people who are already probably living likely maybe living on the margins very with a high rent burden in the first place.

Um it falls disproportionately 100% on the landlord.

Um, and the community feels like it's getting something for free out of this, but it's feeling good about it.

Um if it is a good thing, then we should all pay for it.

Now, I think it's really worthwhile to look at a voluntary program.

And I think there are models on this.

I think there's models where you can say we'll give you 80% of the rent, and the taxpayer will pay for it, or or maybe it's split somehow.

Uh, or you know, maybe the tenant and the tax the city are paying for it in some combination.

Um, but I'd certainly be very interested in looking at something like that.

But a straight moratorium where there's just free rent uh for a period of time and the landlord uh is not collecting um the rents for a period of time, I would be against counselor Sargato.

I support totally support that approach that Harris is um putting forward because we don't want to have any unintended consequences, right?

If if they're gonna raise the rents on other people that are living on the margins, we also don't want to be responsible for that.

So I would even encourage looking to any sort of state support to set up some of these programs to pay for for rent.

So figuring out a way to increase in it.

I mean, there's a short session coming up, maybe that's the route.

So just get really creative and maybe avoiding having the just across the board moratorium.

Uh counselor Ambury, then counselor Alcair.

Okay, good.

Counselor I'll care.

Yeah, when I think about an eviction moratorium, I'm not talking about rich privileged people in this city.

I am talking about people who are in affordable housing and unable to afford their rents and directly impacted by ICE because they're afraid to go to work.

That's who I'm talking about.

And I think, can't we look at some of the models that we had during COVID with ARPA funding and what we did for rents for people and how we were helping them out?

I know that we did that.

So that's what I'm talking about with this.

I am not speaking about privileged people who have nice homes and may have somebody who is detained, but those people I'm guessing would have more resources to deal with an immigration legal case than other folks who I am speaking of when I say prevent evictions.

And preventing invictions.

So if we're going to give funding to Bionistar for beginner star to try to keep people housed in their homes, we would just be continuing to fund that as opposed to coming up with some other process that wouldn't be just cycling money, right?

So thanks.

Can I offer a path forward here?

Please.

Not necessarily a moratorium.

Because we can come back with a different approach to meeting this outcome that we're talking about that isn't just a moratorium.

It might be more assistance.

So you brought up a per a really good example, counselor, about maybe there's a partnership opportunity with Vienna Start.

Some of our affordable housing providers, I mean, they're already serving a population that needs that support that's focused on energy there as opposed to coming up with like some type of moratorium.

Are you okay if we pivot this to what I just mentioned?

Good.

Thumbs.

Counselor Sinclair.

And what and what does that look like for both business and for people who residentially need it right for their livability for their personal.

Yeah, I'm not sure to be honest with you, because um if we pivot away more from a moratorium approach to more of a um a rental support for business, small businesses and uh residential properties, and we can target a certain AMI level.

And um if we pivot this to that, I think we can meet the outcome much not easier, but more achievable.

Um, as opposed to then going on moratorium route and then trying to find a legal pathway forward.

And um, I just I would recommend the first part.

Yeah, my my first thought was rental assistance versus moratorium, that kind of thing.

Yeah, and it's faster, counselor Solgado.

Yeah, on the small business side, I would encourage engaging with um guess the building owners, the landlords, and see if there's any thing that they're willing to work on with the city.

Maybe there's a trade-off there that we're not thinking about that they might be open to because you know rents are expensive, so developing a program to help people pay their rent could add up really quickly.

So if there's other ways to have the same outcome, I think we should be willing to explore those, and you can discover those if you engage the landlords.

Yeah, and I think what will what could happen for the residential side would look different than the business side.

So yeah, we can come back with some options.

Great.

All right, I think we had consensus there, Rahim.

Yeah, sound sounds like it.

Yeah, all right.

So then you wanted to go into uh review.

Yeah, I just um so I want to take a step back for a second.

Accomplish a lot.

Yeah, and we're gonna go through executive session.

I just want to thank you for like the trying to get to consensus here, right?

Like that's what our goal has been.

Um Mark, can I shift back to the presentation for a second?

And uh, I think it's important for the at least the public to hear this part um because we're gonna go into executive session and they're not gonna be part of it.

So um I'll wait for that to clear up.

So, you know, in our last work session, we talked about the work being done, right?

So I won't cover that, but I just want to point out that we've left this work session with a plan.

I mean, I think we should be proud of that.

Um, the plan still requires us to do a lot more work and a lot more analysis, but what we're going to do is start taking what you saw in those general areas and let the public know that this is what we're focusing on.

So that middle column that was the areas that we had already had consensus on, our website will work with our communication staff to update our website so that we can push that information out.

Um, and then we'll come back to you and uh counsel Sergato to your point about timelines.

Um, we'll come back with some clear timelines on the other items as well.

And then uh before we uh go to executive session, I'm just gonna turn over to Robert.

Yeah, I was uh I'll just conclude with first of all a big thanks.

Um there was a lot of great things accomplished tonight.

Uh we feel like we have a good plan of things to really kind of sink our teeth into moving forward.

Um, as far as timelines go, um, because we're at a on a special meeting, we're kind of in the off week right now.

So our next meeting is actually on two a week from tomorrow, and it's during a holiday week.

So just being really um candid, it's gonna be really hard to get a lot of this stuff done over over the next week.

What I'm hopeful that we can do is come back on the second meeting in December, which is the 16th.

And I think we're gonna be able to have some to Councillor Salgado's point.

I think we can have some good leads by that point of what it could look like.

It may not be 100% fleshed out, but enough to have a good conversation uh with the council.

So that'll be our intent is to have uh the work sessions um dedicated on the 16th to this information.

Now that means on the second uh next week, we don't have anything specifically planned right now specific to this.

We want to make sure that's okay with the council.

Um, and then we could make sure the 16th is when we come back and have that we'll just dedicate that whole um in fact right now I don't think we even have a regular meeting schedule.

We just have work sessions scheduled.

So maybe maybe that's an option.

So open to feedback on that, but I'm just thinking timeline.

I think that's what we can accomplish as staff uh most effectively.

You said the 16th, which is the most effective.

16th, yeah.

Just because one week from tomorrow, I just don't just realistically don't think we can come back with um we lost half this week already.

Yeah, I just don't think it will be um as effective in one week as we is we have a little bit more time for the 16th instead.

So great.

Looks like we're getting head nods on on that approach.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, thank you.

And again, uh thank you again to the staff for those that are gonna be um leaving.

Thank you for attending tonight.

Uh we do have an executive session.

I'll I'll turn that over to the mayor, but it was it was a really uh productive night.

We appreciate it.

Yes.

Thanks.

And thanks everybody for attending.

Really appreciate it.

We'll ask you to leave now so we can go into executive session.