Being here in person or online virtually, appreciate that.

Appreciate your willingness to be involved and listen.

During this time, during the work session, there is no public comment.

But at 7 30, we'll move over to the auditorium where community members are welcome to speak.

And so just so you know, typically we have work sessions from six to seven, and then from seven to whenever we have the city council meeting tonight, we wanted extra time for the work session.

So we're going from six to 7.30.

And at 7 30, we'll move in to the uh to the civic auditorium, the Shirley Huffman Auditorium, and we'll have our city council meeting.

Uh, if you are here in person and would like to speak during public comment section in the city council meeting, please fill out a yellow card and give it to the city recorder when we move over to the auditorium.

And the yellow cards will be in on the left-hand side of the room when you walk in.

And I'll turn it over to Robbie Hammond, our city manager to start the work session.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, everyone.

Um tonight we have uh what I is our fourth city council meeting related to ICE and its impact over the past couple of months.

We have heard um a lot of feedback from our community, from our businesses, from our CPOs, and from the council.

Um, we have a great plan that the council um has asked us to move forward with over the past few weeks.

So tonight's gonna be an update for you all about where we're at with certain parts of that plan.

Um and so if we go ahead to the next, oh, I'm sorry, I didn't realize the PowerPoint's not up there.

Uh while he's pulling that up, I'll just kind of uh go through our agenda for this evening.

Um we were gonna be uh going uh Raheem's gonna review the plan that the city council asked us to move forward with um for the first several slides that'll just be kind of a quick review, and then we're gonna go into some um more detailed updates.

Um go back to the first slide.

There you go.

I'm gonna go ahead and go to the next one.

There we go.

Yeah, I got it.

So the first uh primary update is going to be on the community focused funding.

Simone's gonna walk through that uh as well as some proposals to move forward.

Uh, we were then asked by the council to look into small business support program uh funding as well.

Dan D is our economic and community development director is here tonight, so he's gonna walk through a proposal for that program.

Uh, we do have a program to discuss tonight with the human rights office.

Uh that Simone and I are gonna kind of tag team to talk about that one, and then we'll have hopefully plenty of time for the council uh for discussion and next steps.

Um next slide.

This is another one that we've already shown this slide in the past few meetings, but I did want to call attention to that last bullet moving forward as we talk about our shared principles and and why uh why this work is important, talking about our strategic plan.

We also now want to make sure to talk about uh the plan that we've adopted that we have on our website.

If you go to the city's website, we've been very open and transparent about what we're doing as a city.

And so um that's what is going to guide our conversation this evening.

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

Thanks, Robbie.

Um, so good evening, council.

Um, happy to be here again today.

Um, as we move forward, um, like Robbie mentioned, I thought it was important to just recap very quickly on how we put our plan together.

So, as you recall, um, at our last work session on this topic, we took a lot of what we heard from you all from your proposals and things you wanted us to do, what we heard from the community um and uh what we heard from city staff and some of our community-based organizations to take all that information and put them in these seven focus areas.

Can um just to clarify when you say community, are you saying the people who are coming to the meetings, sending us emails, and attending online?

All of the above.

Okay, yeah, especially including a lot of the public testimony we heard at the many council meetings that we had.

Uh, we didn't we wanted to make sure that they saw that their voice was reflected in this.

And many of their proposals or things they were asking us to do were also reflected in the things you all asked us to do.

Thank you.

Um, so to make sure we were clear on the things we were moving forward, we put together this plan, which um is now on our website.

Um, it is numbered, so there's a request to number them.

So I made sure they're numbered.

Um, but they're generally around these seven focus areas.

And the reason why you see two highlighted in green is because there was not general consensus on doing those things, but there was consensus on bringing more information back to the council.

Um, in those other four areas, which I'll go over very quickly in the next few slides, those were general, they were consensus from all of you to move forward with these items.

So under the internal focus areas, there were things around making sure there was appropriate signage, showing areas where ICE was or uh showing areas that were open to the public and not making sure that there was some training for staff, um, that we were reporting on interactions with ICE, and there was guidance and policies in place on what do we do when we do have ICE interactions.

Um there was a request to look at the internal staffing resources with a focus on bilingual support to be able to support this work, and uh Simone and Robbie will be able to talk a little bit more about that in the office discussion.

Um then website updates, just a big thanks to our communication staff.

They turn around the new updated website very quickly, and I think you'll see it does a very good job of explaining what we're working on.

And then um, you'd also asked us to evaluate more options for online or phone services for city services, which we're in the process of doing.

Counselor Sogato.

Yeah, can you hear me?

Yes, we can.

Awesome.

Thanks.

Uh the website looks great.

Um, just wondering how um where the information were the get was gathered from.

Because I noticed one of the pieces of information on there is a little outdated.

There's um you highlight an organization called CAUSA Oregon.

And they actually dissolved, I think back in like early 2020, 2022 or something like that.

So just an FYI.

I meant to send an email about this, but I lost track of time.

Thanks, Counselor.

Uh really appreciate that feedback.

We'll take a look at that and update it.

And um, similar to what Councillor Salgado mentioned, if you have any other feedback on the way the information is presented, please feel free to share that with us.

So most of the stuff I talked about uh previously was about internally focused, right?

How do we do things inside the organization to better support our community that's being impacted under the uh category of partnering with community?

A lot of this was making sure we're in sync with our community-based organizations that we're working with them and leaning on some of the relationships we have and creating and sustaining some more long-term relationships.

The way we were going to do it was setting up this community advisory committee, which Simone will talk a little bit about later on.

We still will continue to hear from other avenues, but that was the one main area we wanted to focus on.

And then under providing funding support, um, we talked a little bit about the community focused funding, and Simone will talk a little bit about it, a little bit about more about it today.

Um, like we shared with you at the last work session.

We were going to work with the school district um to provide them with 80,000 in support for uh two programs, which we've already done that.

Um, and then Dan's going to talk a little bit more about a proposal for a small business support program, and then we've um we also talked about a path to make sure there's utility assistance for um our community members who need it, and then under state and federal action, um you had asked for more advocacy for changes at the state and federal level, which Ariel will be talking to us about the state and federal legislative agenda in January, so you'll hear more about some of the specific things to have.

And and do you know if we she comes back, she'll be aligning whatever Dan Rayfield has set forth and what his office and what they're doing.

Are we gonna align with that?

We can certainly check into that.

Okay, I can add as well.

So the first meeting in January is when um uh Ariel will present to the council.

And uh, we haven't heard a lot yet from the state level.

We're anticipating hearing a lot more over the next month or two about what the bills will be.

And so our goal in that meeting in January will be to make sure that the council's on board with us supporting those types of bills when they come out, but we just don't quite know all the bills that will be there yet.

Thanks, sir.

And then um, you asked for us to bring back more information on what a statewide emergency declaration could look like, um, and we'll work on that.

And then um at a previous meeting, you all uh passed resolution 2906, which declared uh a local state of emergency.

Um many of the things that were in there kind of fall in some of those other categories, but we thought it was important to always remind the public and ourselves as well that uh these were the things that you'd asked us to do.

Um, and I think I've covered most of them in some of the other slides.

And then um you'll hear about a little bit more about this suggestion today.

Um, you had asked for us to bring back some options for what a community um what an office would look like and move forward with establishing a community advisory committee.

These are two separate things, but um they will be working with each other, and then um in the future, bring back proposals to establish a human and civil rights commission.

Um we had asked if we could take a stepped approach by uh first setting up this office, setting up the community advisory committee, and then come back with proposals for the human rights commission, and we received general consensus from you all to do that step to approach.

And then um the last one, the area that we are still have some work to do on is um look at options to implement the city sanctuary status and code and policy.

Um there were some very specific requests from Councillor Sinclair, and we were glad we were able to spend some time on Friday to just get a little bit more information from her.

Um so we're taking that information and also looking at some of our neighbors who are also doing something similar to come back and bring a proposal on some options.

So we're hoping to try to do that at the next work session on this topic.

So we're gonna talk about codified tonight or January.

In January.

I um that's fine.

I would like to have an explanation of what codify means for public present.

And I actually uh would like Councilor Sinclair to give us a very brief overview of why that's important.

Is that possible?

I'm not counselor.

I'm happy to.

Uh, with Chad's help.

Yeah.

Um wait, do we want to do this now or in January?

Yeah.

I actually think um a brief explanation of it now.

People are here tonight.

This is something that we're gonna approach in January.

I think it's important to just explain through definition why this is something that people want as part of our plan.

Not that we're voting on it, just sharing a perspective of it.

Thanks for council.

Um care and I have talked about codification and and the feedback we received from you, Robbie was very appreciated because it is confusing codification versus resolution.

And in myself, even in the last work session, I even made mistakes on uh trying to advocate for human rights and sanctuary city.

So in the outline ordinances are incorporated into the Hillsboro Municipal Code, which is searchable by index indexed by topics and used daily by staff, courts, police, attorneys, and the public.

Codifying this proposal ensures that ISAC TIB recording is visible, enforceable, and consistently applied across all city control spaces for what I had proposed.

So just to share why it's because it's easily accessible and easy for our public to access this when searching as to our resolutions, sometimes they get lost after meeting minutes and whatnot is quick and identifiable with transparency.

But this is like our parks and recreation, our roads, and other areas that we consider or not considered, but other areas that are city-owned properties.

Thanks.

Maybe I'll just add one quick thing to you about why to Rahim's and and uh count uh council sinclair's point, where it gets complicated is there's a variety of ways to codify, right?

There's the municipal code, some of it is to go in the municipal code, there's gonna be resolutions, um, there's city policy specific, and so that's what we're gonna be going through now, figuring out what makes the most sense where, so it's codified and and as Raheem mentioned, uh Beaverton's a good example of another city that also is looking at doing this, and so just trying to coordinate having similar approaches is helpful from a regional basis, and so that's why this one just might take a little bit of time because if we don't do it right, then it gets more confusing, and then which is not obviously the intent, but we we will uh work on this.

I promise I'll just take one more second.

Um, why codifying would be important is because of how we've seen people get disappeared, and codifying could be inclusive of making sure that there's police reports filed, and that's important.

So that um of impacted families that they're able to get information about what's happened um through police report and have that documentation of what happened to their family member, friend, loved one.

And so that's for public to understand that because this is what we have seen across our city.

So I just thank you for allowing time to give those definitions.

Thank you.

Okay.

Yeah, keep going.

Yeah, and uh so we plan to bring back um a more robust discussion on this at the next work session on the topic.

And with that, um, we'll go into the update section where we'll focus on those three main areas Robbie talked about.

So we will start off with Simone on the community focused funding brands and another proposal for a program to support eviction prevention and rent.

Thank you, Heen.

Good evening, Council.

So I'll go quickly through this table.

You are probably already familiar with it.

It displays the number of applications we received in total for the community focused funding, which there's 200,000 available in funding.

There also I outlined how many requests we received per service category and how many app how many applications were received and how many were funded.

As you can see, there were two service categories for which we did not receive applications.

This was a total of 54 applications with 35 different CBOs responding.

So it was a very high response rate.

Legal services and food services were ranked highest priority by council.

And if you'll recall at the time of that ranking, there was the government shutdown.

And so SNAP benefits were highly at risk and were risked at a point at a point in time.

So just kind of keeping in mind like this this is a situation that evolves, and that what you might have ranked then may not be what you would rank given that opportunity again today, which is why we have a different proposal for you on the next slide.

So four organizations were fully funded for a total of 115,000.

Seven organizations were partially funded.

And it's worth noting that while legal services and food services ranked highest rent and mortgage assistance and service navigation and case management, you ranked at the next level.

So on to the next slide.

Oh, question.

Oh, Salgata.

Oh Councilor Swan.

Yeah, I think you have these have this crunch of 200,000 been distributed already?

Yes, it has.

Okay.

And this is separate from the uh community service fund that the finance committee uh brought forward to the city council.

Correct?

Correct.

Yes, that's correct.

Okay.

And so did we end up funding the same organizations with both trunches?

I don't believe there were any repeats.

And as far as I know, there weren't any repeats.

I can't confirm that.

I can double check.

I don't recall any report.

I would just uh uh check the post that you all made on the Ciudad de Hillsborough Instagram page.

Uh where it connects the 200,000 that you know were passed in emergency funding and it lists the organizations that were awarded through the community service fund.

Okay, we can double check that.

Thank you.

We'll get that clarified.

Okay, yeah, next slide.

So based on feedback from council and the ranking that you did the first round of funding, um, we are proposing that there be an additional 200,000 that be used directly to fund eviction prevention and rental support for impacted community members.

Um the focus of the funding would be on housing.

A proposal for support of small businesses will be shared by Dan Diaz in the next section of the presentation.

Um an update that we received, the Washington County Board of County Commissioners received an update from county staff today regarding a proposal to use Metro Supportive Housing Services funding to restore eviction prevention funding and restart eviction prevention services.

Uh, this would be one-time funding to Washington County's Oregon eviction diversion and prevention program, which is operated by community action.

Um, and while this is good news for our community, this is funded, this funding that they will receive is still less than that was less than what was provided by the state before those cuts.

So it does not actually provide any additional capacity.

So this is why you see these particular four organizations and why community action is still included within this group.

So the city is proposing, city staff are proposing that these four organizations be potential recipients.

Um I have had sorry, have they already been contacted?

I have spoken with them.

I did not tell them that they were receiving awards.

Okay, thank you.

You're welcome.

Um, so I've had some preliminary conversations with each of the organizations.

Um, their concerns included the timeline for use of the funding, duplication of efforts, turnaround time of application to payments and ensuring the most urgent needs are met first.

And the example that was given is that households who are actually impacted actively by a detainment versus maybe someone who is not experiencing a detainment either by a family member or themselves.

Um, and so based on those conversations, um, that this is we are proposing that it not just be used for rental payments or late fees, but that we also consider using it for case management, which could include um the wraparound types of uh funding needs like utility assistance and phone bills.

Um, and so an example of that is like a post-detainment um service from Adelante Mohis might include um providing the rental assistance, but maybe trap transportation as well as um a gift card for food or something like that.

So um rental support, we're kind of coupling all of that together is the proposal.

Is it more than a recommendation that they don't support people directly impacted by I'm confused about the wording directly impacted by ice?

Um so the the concern that was expressed to me was that they wanted to ensure that funding was going to households that were impacted by folks who were detained.

That was one of the preferences that was expressed.

Okay.

So we would just so just a second, and hopefully this this may answer the question, but please ask me another question if I don't answer it.

Um so I'll be meeting with the organizations, assuming approval from council tonight, next after the new year to discuss what those specific scopes of work would be for each organization because they differ in how they provide their services.

Um and we want to make sure that it's a partnership.

So as we develop the partnership agreement and the scope of work, that that's a collaborative process, assuming that council wants to move in this direction.

Does that um yes?

Um it does.

Thank you.

Well counselor Falcado.

Yeah, sorry if I missed this.

Did we so did we get a list of the organizations that were awarded the emergency 200,000?

Yes.

That was the that was the slide that we just went through.

Yeah, um, you know, yeah, it's also which organizations it was funded.

Oh, did I miss that?

Yes, it was the email, and then we've also posted it.

We waited to post it out to community until the funding was distributed.

But I can't, I can provide you with that.

It shows what each of those organizations who got awarded and what they are gonna do with that award money, whether it's legal services or food assistance or I'm not sure if there were other things.

Was it just those two?

It was just food, rental assistance and legal services.

Okay.

So this was an email that was sent to us.

Yes.

Okay, I'll look for it because the only one I remember seeing is again the same list from the community service fund.

So I'll double check my email.

But if someone can forward that email to me again so that I can just be at the top of my inbox, I would really appreciate that.

Counselor if you're on the immigration um uh the Hillsborough's plan page and you click down under goals, you'll see news updates, and it's the first one, and the list is there with the payment amounts.

Can you repeat that?

If you're on the immigration resources, the ice response page, it's the first item on the news announcements at the bottom.

Okay, I will check it out.

Uh the awards 200,000.

I can also list them quickly if that would be helpful.

Yeah, and and so it's okay.

I'll have to double check the list of the community service funds because I I thought I they look identical, so it's it's my bad.

There's probably some that were awarded by both funds.

No, I I think the lists are separate and and distinct um awards that went to different organizations.

Uh okay, I was the double direct mind.

There was a set of organizations that were awarded, and then the emergency 200,000, there was separate organizations that were awarded.

Okay, my bad.

Thank you.

Yep.

Uh Counselor Anvary, then Counselor Harris.

Thank you.

Um what one of the things I I heard uh uh with uh with with this other um organization that I uh volunteer for is that uh um I'm gonna mess up the terms, but but basically what what what uh the the person who does our grant writing was she said was that uh uh a lot of uh the funding is now moving away from very specific um requirements because of the recognition that the money that that the organizations to which the money is going to, they know best how to use.

And and so I I kind of wanted to uh bring that up here uh as well.

So, you know, um, because they they know you know they know best.

Um, and and if there might be a way to make it faster and more efficient, it may be something uh you could look at too.

Thank you, counselor.

I I think we've heard that as well during the first um round of funding.

That's why we streamlined the application.

It was very broad questions that were asked, and it's one of the reasons why we're actually recommending direct funding, these four organizations who have a lot of experience in providing these types of services and can get the money out the door very quickly, um, and trying to be responsive in that way, and then having that meeting in January to work with them to make it a very narrow scope and actually Washington County's scope of I had a chance to look at their scopes of work for Adelante and Centro and SOAR immigration legal services, and they're very it's less than a page.

Um, and so that that would be our goal is to work with the organizations, make it something that um meets their needs and meets the city's obligations to make sure that we're expending the funding responsibly, but also um trying to address the needs in the community that exists right now.

Is that helpful?

Yes, thank you.

Thank you.

And I think the terms you're looking for are restricted and unrestricted funding.

Yeah, and so if we restrict it to let's say legal services and they could only use it for legal services, if it's unrestricted funding to an organization, they can use it for operations or whatever, uh, but maybe their main mission is to provide legal support.

So is that what you're looking for?

Okay, counselor Harris.

Thank you.

I'm sure you've thought about this, but I just wanted to flag it for everyone here is you know, we're in month 10 of a 48-month administration.

We're in month three of robust detention going on in our city.

Um, this is the second 200,000 dollar tranche that's being released, being used for services that we need.

Um we need to think long-term.

I mean, what's the long-term plan?

These seem to be short-term month-by-month plans because that's what you're doing in emergency.

I get it.

Um, but budgeting uh vision on what this is going to look like.

Uh, and the key to that, I would propose is some yes, we need to keep it flexible.

We need to let people use the dollars as their expertise tells them is going to make the most impact.

But we also we do need to require metrics and outcomes, measurements.

Uh, because if this is longer than a two or three month program, we're gonna want to know which is the most effective way to use our dollars.

And the only way to do that is know how effective, how many evictions did we avoid?

Uh, you know, various metrics.

Um, and I'm sure you know this, all this.

I'm sure you thought of all this, but I just think for um I think it's important to say that loud for everyone because we are stewards of money of the tax dollars.

We want to make sure it's used wisely.

You know, this is an emergency that's not a flood that lasts four days and then takes you know two months of cleanup.

It's potentially uh an emergency to last another 40 months.

So anyway, I just wanted to lay that out there.

So, yes, I'm supportive of having the flexibility to use these dollars as the experts see fit, but I I do think it's important to have metrics and outcomes and for us to start to think about how many tranches are available and how best to use them and effectively use them for everybody.

Counselor Harris, if I could also add on that, I appreciate that perspective and and we agree.

I think it's also important to call out that um, you know, as a city, we don't have a revenue stream to to fund these, right?

And um, and so right now, you know, we've identified ways to fund it, uh, but at some point it's not going to be realistic anymore.

And so our hope is I think by doing these types of programs is other jurisdictions will take note.

And you know, the state of Oregon, you know, could could take note about how some of these things work because uh it's just not realistic for the cities, whether it be Hillsborough or other cities to keep funding these things because you know, Washington County, when they did theirs, they were very specific that they were actually um digging into the reserves to do it.

Um it's it's a challenge, you know.

And so at some point uh one more thing I'll add is during COVID, we were able to do a lot of this, some of it came from city funding, but a lot of it came from ARPA dollars, right?

That came from the federal government.

Right now we don't have any of that.

That this is all city funding.

So I appreciate your perspective on the metrics, and as well, it's just important to recognize that at some point this tap has to be shut off, and there has to be some other tap at the state level or someone else that's gonna be paying for these things.

So yeah, nobody from the federal government's coming this time.

So I wanted to add uh on.

If you don't mind, counselor all care, I'd like to finish my thought.

Okay, um, thanks.

Uh I do know that um Governor Kotec was asked to help uh direct state funds for rental assistance for legal assistance as well.

I witnessed that request yesterday.

So I just wanted to let you along with that.

Counselor Alcare.

Thanks.

Um I was gonna mention that during the pandemic, we had an unknown and no idea how things were gonna end.

We didn't, and we didn't have ARPA money for a long time.

We just had struggle a lot of people were going through this.

I see this in the same way.

My push for having a statewide emergency is that we aren't struggling by ourselves trying to figure out how to fund and how to help people.

So that's my hope.

I don't see this as being long range either.

I don't see individual organizations being able to do that either.

But until there's some statewide interaction that oversees this to give us some direction, then we are still gonna be working with unknowns.

I agree, Counselor Harris.

Real briefly, I agree with everything that has just been said, and which makes it even more important to have good outcomes, measurable outcomes, and positive outcomes, so we can go to Salem and say this works.

Please give us funding.

Counselor Sargano.

I was just gonna say what Counselor Hurts just said.

I mean, you know, uh support what he said and Robbie said, and if we are gonna uh seek support from the state or federal, having the metrics and the actual impact of the dollars will be very important and demonstrating the need there.

Thank you.

All right, let's keep rolling.

Okay, thank you.

So did I hear general consensus then to go ahead and move forward with this round of funding?

Thank you.

Yes.

Uh let's do a thumbs up so it's very clear.

Counselor Sogato, thumbs up.

All right, wonderful.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you.

All right.

Thank you so much, Simone.

Um quickly um quickly with that money, how quickly will that money get out there?

Well, I'll meet with them in January, so some is their availability to meet.

Um, but we were able to given that it's a pretty streamlined process.

I don't want to promise for finance how fast they can get that out the door, but I would imagine before the end of January.

Oh, and um, I'm sorry.

Um the documentation, we aren't requiring um people to provide us with their information.

CDOs will be collecting through applications what documentation that they feel is gonna be important.

And is that the documentation that we're gonna be, we will not collect personally identifiable information.

No, we won't thank you.

Thank you.

All right, thank you.

Yeah, I'll turn it over to Dan to talk about how uh we're gonna send up a program to support our small businesses.

Thank you, Raheem.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Um, so in keeping with the theme that's already been presented, uh, we're before you this evening with the small business stabilization grant program, really in response to feedback that we've heard from our community and to the question asked earlier.

That is directly the community that's taking the time to come uh discuss and testify before you all.

It also is coming from feedback that our uh department staff are receiving from engagement with area small businesses, and it's coming from a variety of other stakeholders and community-based organizations that we are also conversing with.

Um, I wanted to flag that we have especially uh relied on feedback coming in from the Washington County Chamber of Commerce, uh, the LBEC, the Latino Business Advisory Council, who has been discussing this very topic, uh also feedback coming in from other partners like Central Cool Corral and others.

Um, and that we are in a situation in the small business space where right now there's very limited data, and so we have a lot of feedback and a lot of declaration of need, and as we try to understand what that need is and how we can be most effective and beneficial and impactful in our work, that is a piece we continue to work on in parallel with the establishment of this program.

And as you'll see in a minute, part of the suggestion of this recommended program is to help us continue to some of the comments just made uh a few minutes ago by some of the counselors trying to continue to understand that both immediately but also in time as well to help identify those needs and where can we be most effective and how do we also prioritize in those spaces?

And then the last thing um that is somewhat unique as we start to talk about the small business and economic impacts is this is first and foremost a responsiveness to the ice-related impacts on local business patronage and people and customers being willing to go out into the community or not and frequent and support those businesses or not.

But we also are facing a time in an economic space where, as you all are aware, we also have significant other economic challenges and headwinds between significant layoffs in our local economy, changes in inflation, uh variety of factors.

And we made reference to a recent Oregonian article that also highlights some of that.

And so we are trying to understand a multitude of economic impacts on our small business community and recognizing there are many impacts right now, but also doing um a very intentionally focused response here as well.

So when we go to uh the next slide, please, Raheem.

Um we first of all wanted to go to what infrastructure do we have in place and how are we leveraging that too?

Because we could start this complete in isolation, but we really think we can actually have more effect and responsiveness, understanding where we currently are in terms of some work that is already being done to try to support small businesses, some of whom might be uh in the area of concern we're hearing, some of who might not be, or might be adjacent to that.

And so when we go through, we look at the current partnerships uh with many of those community-based organizations already that are in place.

So you all have heard in many other work sessions the long-standing importance of Centro de Prosperidad that we partner with Central Cultural on.

Uh, that's an annual contribution of about 250,000.

And where that really becomes important is their connections to much of the small business community, some of which or many of which we anticipate might be in this affected group.

And in that work, there is business coaching already happening to our understanding there is financial literacy uh support and coaching.

And so think about how can we leverage off of that or use that as one access point.

I have a clarifying question.

Sure.

Um, so Centro Spider and the Chamber will be able to support small businesses that need help.

But um, is the chamber only going to help chamber affiliated businesses and centro is helping?

Is that the difference between the 45 and can you explain like exactly because I don't think that you're wanting businesses to double dip from both orgs?

So can you help me understand who's going to be helping which businesses?

Related to this program, just make sure I understand the question, Council Alcair.

Yeah, is the chamber only going to be helping chamber-affiliated businesses where they pay a subscription to be part of the chamber where Centro is helping other businesses who are not part of the chamber.

Got it.

Um I will do my best to try to answer that because I think there's two important parts of that answer, and then let me know if I I hit the heart of your question.

First of all, with these existing efforts, keep in mind these have existed pre-current federal administration, pre-ICE activities and responsiveness.

And so this is the ongoing support of small business activity and support in general.

And I believe the best answer to those questions really should come from those community-based partners, and we can bring that answer back to you.

But is our understanding that we do have a healthy degree of diversification in that same space where there might be some overlap, but there are also very different target audiences and constituencies for each of those two organizations, Centro and the Chamber.

Um, and so to our awareness, there can be some overlap, but there also is a lot of broader reach and different reach that those organizations and those partners give us.

I want to be sure that I was just at Rich's line.

I want to be sure Rich's line will be able to come and get a grant from someplace, or that um Sukasa or people at MM Market, you know, how will they be able to access and how will they know who they go to?

Sure.

And really quick, um, if I could just add just so all this slide is is showing what the city already does.

And so these are these have been in existence, as Dan mentioned for several years.

The next slide is where we're going to get into the new idea of uh, I think it will address your question about how we can potentially get funding out to different organizations.

This is just kind of the current tools that we use again, pre pre um pre-the you know, ICE activity and all of that.

Uh, but it's it's important to at least set the context of the tool that we're using now and then the things that we'll propose will come on the next slide.

And there are some resources and some existing reach here that we plan to rely on as we go into the more nuanced response to just build off what Robbie's point.

So to round that out, um, you can see with the the COSINAMLS program, that is very food focused, and so we'll come back to that as well because we are hearing that a lot of the food-related small businesses are some of those in the greater groups of impact.

Uh, same thing with the chamber, um, but again, as was noted and asked at times different targeted groups.

Uh, and then really within the downtown, this is again where we kind of are in an adjacent space, but there are other city grant programs for facility physical improvements that can help a company that doesn't really meet the need of the response that we're hearing right now, really to the ICE impacts, but we do want to keep that in mind that if an entity is trying to expand or invest or broaden its market segments or customer base, there's other grants too that we would be willing and looking to pair with this, not truly like in a double dipping format, but really in a complementary funding uh approach.

Uh, can you hold up counselor questions?

Yes, please, thank you.

Yeah, uh something that might help with Councillor Alka's concern is you know different from the, for example, rent assistance and other sort of emergency funding where uh we're not collecting per se personal information with business grants.

We can collect the names of the businesses that receive this funding, right?

So we would be able to have kind of that overview of anybody if anybody is double-dipping, and then on another point, you know, if there's specific uh businesses out there that uh that we know are struggling, we should have somebody that we can direct them to to direct them to some of these funds.

Um so those are just two points I wanted to make there.

Yeah, Councilman Sagada, thank you for those comments.

And and those are exactly right in terms of how we view these as their support services to small businesses already out there in some formats.

We will continue to partner and rely on those, and we're gonna look to add, which will get to the next slide.

And that you touched on a point about uh identification and personally identifying information.

This program will be a bit different than the others that you've heard about tonight and related to this topic because of the difference of supporting individuals versus supporting a business entity.

So uh as we transition into the business proposal, Rayan, if you don't mind going to the next slide.

Um taking the feedback we've heard uh and trying to put this together and really we also are leaning on something else that was mentioned earlier this evening, a lot of lessons learned during the COVID pandemic and how we tried to step in quickly, thoughtfully, effectively, uh especially with small business support.

We are learning from some of those lessons, in some cases building off of what we did there, but in some cases doing things different because there were productive lessons learned of maybe we should do things differently if we were in that situation again, and here we are.

So in the upper left here, I think it's really important from a starting premise and one that we need feedback on is we are trying to support Hillsborough small businesses that are being impacted by the ICE activity and that feedback we've received.

The goal of this program, maybe to compare or contrast with some of the other conversations is to provide direct financial support to retaining businesses within the community, small businesses that are here in our community.

This isn't necessarily like some of our other incentive programs elsewhere to bring in new businesses or necessary to help them expand.

That could be part of it.

This is really a business retention, helping them try to weather these impacts and adjust to perhaps a new norm.

Some going back, I think to Counselor Harris's point a minute ago, it's like this might not just be a week's or a month long response.

This is a how do they come ship business models perhaps for multiple years of survival.

Um, we also are looking to provide technical assistance for financial literacy as well, as we'll talk about more in a minute here.

We do recommend and believe that there is a fiscal accounting of impact.

That's important to both have that fiducial responsibility that was noted earlier in the work session.

It also will help us understand what is the degree of financial impacts happening within our community.

But we recognize not all businesses, especially small and micro businesses, have maybe that full financial feasibility currently.

And so we want to provide that to them with some of those other partners that are already running some of those programs, not just so they can apply for and hopefully be supported by this grant, but also to build some resiliency within their own business model so they can have a sense of what are their costs doing, what are their revenues doing, uh, and hopefully be able to adapt and survive uh this current environment.

And then lastly is a piece that we heard, but really was starting to be what's the next degree of impact is saving the businesses or trying to support the businesses, but also recognizing there are employees at some of those businesses.

So if the business is struggling, we also run the risk that if those businesses fail, now you have those business owners, but to the degree they have employees, we have more employees adding to our local unemployment rate that are also going to then be in need, possibly for rent assistance or other things as well.

And so we are looking to the employment side of the business component as well, not to directly support employees, but to support those employees in part by supporting their employer to keep them is employed as much as possible.

Housewell care.

Um, I don't know if you can answer this, but who is it that we want to inspire to go shopping?

At Belzatino businesses.

We already know who's already there.

Who else do we want to inspire to go shopping and support those businesses there?

Yeah, that that is a question that warrants an answer far beyond myself or our department, or dare I say the city.

Um, but we have to identify different market segments.

And that's where that is a bit adjacent, we believe, to this grant proposal.

That is along the lines of what some of the CBOs, you've heard testimony from some of them about going out trying to increase the market.

And that's that's where we run a bit headlong into the more macroeconomic environments.

We are seeing purchasing power across our community with and without the impacts of ICE starting to contract a bit for a lot of reasons.

And we don't want to let that be a distraction from the topic at hand here this evening, but we do need to keep that in mind and identify where those can be.

But that that's a part of some of the business coaching side.

This grant is, I think, envisioned and recommended, frankly, to help some of those businesses survive while they help, you know, not just from our inputs and suggestions or opinions with other experts as well, help to figure out how do they carve that because we can support them with the financial assistance now.

We cannot fully subsidize or augment their operating incomes and keep their businesses afloat single-handed by the city.

They we need to help them find that market and hopefully stay economically viable through transactions and customers coming in and their business activities.

We can encourage people, we can encourage people, and we have because we started doing that online, right?

That's right.

And um, I just want to say I want to encourage everybody here in this room, all throughout the crossland of Hillsborough, please go and shop.

There's cool stuff to go and buy, good food to go and eat.

Thank you.

Counselor Elker, if I could also add too, um, there was a great um just yesterday, one of our communication staff theatre's in the back actually, there's a post yesterday talking about shopping, you know, small local businesses and specifically calling out by Zalamus Plaza is a good example.

So I agree, and and that's an area we can step into as a city trying to help people know what awesome stores and businesses we have available.

So thank you for mentioning that.

And I just want to call attention to the communication staff that's also on that as well.

Yeah.

So great point.

Uh, and that's where again these different efforts run parallel and somewhat in conjunction with each other, but the marketing piece is somewhat separate from the business grant piece that we're talking about here.

So some preliminary goals that we came up with, and again, love feedback on this as well is to try to roughly prevent 10 to 12 businesses.

That's not to say that we believe that that's the extent of the need, but is to start to engage there, um, also seeking to preserve at least 50% of that workforce, again, kind of highlighting those objective pieces.

And and part of this, frankly, as we've already noted, is to continue to build upon better data as this environment, the situation for those businesses continues to evolve, perhaps for the worse, perhaps for the better, and make sure we're hitting needs as we go.

The funding options, uh, similar to what we've heard elsewhere, is that there would be 200,000 in grants that the city will directly award, very similar to what we did during COVID.

Um, and that is because we to Councilor Salgato's point a minute ago, do have to verify the validity and the accuracy of those businesses.

And what we have found is it's far easier for us to directly then award those checks to the businesses.

Now that can trigger tax implications and other things.

So we'll put all these caveats out there as we deploy.

Um, but we would be working um with our community-based organizations, and we need to follow up with them based on tonight's conversation, some of the feedback we receive from you when we do the evaluations.

But this would not, this is different than the other programs we've talked about, in that we are not giving funding to other organizations to then distribute funding out back to um binding or non-binding funding.

What we are really doing here is we are working to directly award, like we do with many of our other incentive and business grant programs, direct funding coming from from the city funds and accounts.

Um, in addition to our carrying, oh, sorry, and then elsewhere every um permits and um what am I thinking of?

Business license.

Yes.

Yes, well, that'll great segue the next.

Let me get to that in just a minute if I can, because we we call that out here in just a minute.

And again, that's an area that we have navigated similar situations and some of the complexities of that before.

And that's one of those areas where we are seeking to build upon lessons learned.

Um, but just to wrap up the funding options piece, uh, right now we would tentatively anticipate a $10,000 max award.

That is somewhat of an arbitrary number, in part just because we're looking at the funding available and being mindful of how much do we award into how many businesses can we support?

Obviously, the a lower max award amount means we could probably support more business entities, but then it gets back to what is really the impact of that grant uh versus much larger than that, we might have a far greater impact for a smaller number of businesses and being mindful of that.

And then in addition to that, we are recommending that we put forward and somewhat hold aside an additional $50,000 of financial uh literacy support.

This could go to augment above and beyond the work we're doing with Centro or the Chamber, and if we have businesses show up that might not have that capability, and if there isn't capacity within those partners, those systems to help them get there, we can provide and ensure that that additional assistance and skill is given to those businesses.

Um, if for some reason that wasn't fully utilized, then what we could definitely do is then roll if the council agrees and if city managed office agrees, roll any leftover funds into you know the latter stages of awards that $200,000 number could tick up slightly if we don't need the financial assistance.

We're just mindful that the financial reporting piece is a requirement and could be a potential barrier here, and we want to make sure we can compensate uh and mitigate that impact.

Counselor Ambry.

Thank you.

Um couple of questions.

Um I I didn't understand uh why why uh you I know you explained it, but I didn't understand why why are we why is the city doing this directly and not via CBOs?

Why is it better this way?

Well, we have found from a first of all a tracking and then an accounting standpoint, it's easier for us to know that the direct support is going in uh to the businesses directly.

They also can receive a direct check from the city to show like here's the revenues into their businesses, so there is a reporting component of that.

The other pieces is really trying to maximize the 200,000 dollars is we basically then assume some of that operating cost, the overhead of that.

And so what that also ensures is the full 200,000 dollars is going directly to the business's funds and accounts for their stabilization and their utilization.

Does that I hope that answers your question?

And um Councillor Henry, can I add one more piece too?

Uh one of the things Dan mentioned too was about the 50,000 and leaning on some of the CBOs to help us with, I'll go back to this slide for a second.

They're already doing a lot of work right now.

So helping to support them in their role could be continuing to do that in a heightened level with some of that 50,000.

So it's essentially both approaches.

Yeah.

Using the CBOs to help us and also directly funding ourselves.

And the other uh the second question was what is the timeline for the not timeline for granting, but like so it says prevent 10 to 12 business closure, preserve it, preserve these 50%.

What's the or how long?

Two slides ahead.

So great segue.

So let us segue into coming back to council of care's question, but we do have a rough timeline of how quickly we can mobilize and seek to deploy those funds.

We right now approximately from how we've done it also in the past, moving very quickly.

It logistically takes about a month and a half to two months to get the program fully funded and deployed.

And then if depending on how much upfront communication and awareness uh we want there as well.

But we have a timeline slide in about two slides that we will hit that in a little bit more detail.

And the the timeline to to fund, but also uh like what when would you when would you say the goal is reached?

So the funding is let's say done on month zero, and if the business is not didn't, you know, uh didn't close for a year, that's goal met.

But if it didn't close for a month and close right at the metrics, kind of an effect metrics.

Yeah.

Great segue, Raheem.

If you don't mind going to the next slide, also just to keep us moving.

Um if you don't mind, counselor Ambry, let me just cover quickly what we are recommending and proposing as kind of some of the program parameters, and we'll come back to that piece of it because right now there isn't a goal of duration necessarily of full survival, even though we are factoring that into some of the the evaluation criteria, which we'll cover here in just a minute.

Um, but based on the feedback we've received, um, and and again, similar to how we've done other programs in the past, we are suggesting that as if and as we deploy this program, we do focus it to certain industry categories for maximum effect and also maximum responsiveness to what we've heard, at least thus far.

And that would mean really focusing into restaurants, mobile food services, food markets, bakeries, grocery stores, retail stores, a little bit in a broader category.

Um, and also noting that they must not be part of a national chain or a franchise.

We find that sometimes those, while they can still be owned by a local franchisee who also might be struggling, sometimes there can be additional resources or things available there versus independent micro businesses sometimes are without a little bit less of that accessibility and opportunity.

Um and then in terms of business specific criteria, uh, and again, I'm happy to hit these briefly, but definitely can come back with some questions, is must be an active business in Hillsborough with the Hillsborough business license.

That gets back to some of the question earlier.

We can track that quite easily, and that also ensures that the funding from Hillsborough's public funds are going to those entities that are here, not to say a small business beaver to might be impacting, but we have to be mindful of what are we funding with Hillsborough dollars?

Um, we also are recommending that the business have at least two employees.

We this is one of those harder lessons learned during COVID where a lot of sole proprietors, both with personally identifiable information and some of the concerns we've heard in the space on that front, as well as distinguishing somebody's individual financial need versus their business needs can be particularly tough for a sole proprietor, not to say that they're not being impacted as well, versus if you have a business organization that at least has two or more employees, then it really I think to where Councilor Salgado was going a few minutes ago, it really becomes kind of a standalone entity unto itself where you're not at the human individual person identifiable information.

It really is that business corporation or that business partnership level.

Um so that's a piece that we would love feedback on, but that we've learned through the COVID grants as to how to manage that.

So we're all care and then counselor Embry and Counselor Harris.

So we're verifying um that they have employees.

Correct.

And um tracking wages, etc.

We're proposing to verify at least parts of those.

Okay, thanks.

Council, do they define who the second employee is?

Like if it's a small business, does that person define who the second employee is, and then they um like what kind of paycheck stubs you require?

Do people um have to go through a company to get that, or is it something that because some people get paid in cash?

Sure.

Yeah, so that's that's a question definitely a little bit for the next step.

But right now, I don't believe we are recommending or contemplating going into like full paycheck verification.

It would be more at the business level to confirm how many employees do you have that typically is part of within their registration or some of their structuring.

Um, and then we can get to that degree now or later on, even back to some of the counselor Anvary and Councilor Harris's questions earlier.

Um, but we would love feedback on that front.

But at this point, maybe we hear differently as we continue the ongoing engagement with some of the community-based partners in the business community at large.

Um, we are seeking to verify that they are a multi employee employer, but that we would probably stop short of asking for like individual pay stubs or some of that about verification at this point.

Yeah.

Counselor Andre.

Thank you.

Do we know um uh what is the percentage of uh within small businesses in Holesboro?

What is the percentage of civil proprietorships versus non?

Because it would be good to be kind of good to see that and have that because they will all be exempted.

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

I don't have that both top of mind earlier this evening.

We can try to follow up with some of that.

Um I would just like keep that in mind.

I I don't need the number, but uh this does exclude them.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Counselor Harris.

I would just I'm sure you know to stand, but I would just point out that you know, sometimes owners are employees, sometimes they're not employees, sometimes employees are household members, sometimes they're not household members, sometimes employees are full-time, sometimes they're part-time.

Um, and you need to decide whether or not it's two full time two FTE or equivalence.

Yeah, not as non-living in the same household as the uh owner.

I mean, there's just some criteria there.

If the goal is to make sure that we do job retention and whatever, whatever the goals are, I guess.

I it's it's a complicated issue.

Um, but it is things we need to think about.

I think that some of those requirements might be hard for a family-owned business.

Yeah.

And I I just want to flag within each of these, this is back to I want to be mindful of the time we were allocated also for this presentation and the remaining items to cover this evening.

We have a lot of lessons learned, not to say that we have a full understanding of that, but definitely in some of those spaces, and we were starting to ask some of those questions internally.

This type of feedback from the council is also much appreciated because as you have asked of us, but also as we have heard and are trying to respond to, it's a delicate balance of having just enough criteria and factors could also be perceived as bears to understand what it is we're doing and monitoring that impact and really trying to target the impact and making it also very difficult or impossible, depending on where they fall within criteria of some of these businesses and need accessing the services.

So that's why we're trying to frame some of these up and back to like the payroll and and the pay um employment status.

We it would help us, and we can continue to refine these pieces and come back as well if you'd like.

But this type of feedback also helps us know how deep and far can and should we go.

We're trying to bring forward a recommendation that we feel is balanced in that space, but are happy to skew it more one way or the other with council's direction.

Right.

I uh see, Counselor Sogato has a question.

I would also say that we have quite a bit still to cover and only 30 minutes to do it.

So if you have any questions that you feel need to be answered here, great.

But if they could be an email, that would be that would help us save time and help us get through everything.

Counselor Sogato.

Yeah, another question, more of a comment.

Um, you know, because what we're seeing, and I see the next slide is going to talk about how do we confirm that they were actually impacted by by these uh ice thing that's going on over you know just having a bad bad business for lack of a better terms.

Um of the things that we see a lot in the reports and that we're seeing across uh different news agencies is that what's impacting the business is people screwed to go out and shop at these businesses, right?

So the majority of the businesses that I've been reading about, and I don't know if there's an official report out there, but it's storefronts.

It's it's it's businesses that require people to come in and shop.

And so I don't know how that falls into the categories of businesses that we're looking at, but I just want to highlight that that that's one of the main reasons why we see businesses struggling is because people are afraid to go out and actually visit the location.

Thank you.

Yeah, noted, Council Sagata, and I think back to earlier, that's why we believe, and I think where Council Alcara is asking in some of our community-based partnership going is the best and the biggest thing we could do is try to continue to drive market activity and customer base to safely and comfortably go out to these places with the grants somewhat augmenting and supporting in some of the greatest areas of need because that's that's how they can keep their business model, whether strong or or challenged, um, moving.

Um, and then so just to the bottom part of the slide, sorry, Brahmin, just to go back to cover the criteria uh in that same vein.

Um, we are looking again with perhaps preference given to the two to 10 employee size, because again, small business by federal standards could be up to like 200 employees.

So this is back to narrowing some of the eligible industries, narrowing a little bit of the definitions of smaller micro business and having a gross revenue, really looking back to those last couple of years.

Again, our hope there was to try to track okay, where is a demonstrated impact or is there one to really try to justify and support this funding, but also hit the need that we're hearing conveyed to us.

The 2.25 million in gross revenue really comes from a small business threshold used for federal contracting.

But what is that maximum cap there of a business of size?

Um, and that reason why we're using gross revenues we received some of these questions up front is really because that's really the indication of how many customers are coming and spending money.

If we go to net revenue, then their expenditure side can flux and change.

And so that will be harder for us to really understand what's going on and what the needs are, or what would the impact of the grant be.

So if we go to the next slide.

Um I'll just take a second.

Yeah, but can we do things like increase the lighting there to make it more inviting for people to want to come down and shop in that area?

Absolutely.

And dare I say that that might be able to be done within existing programs and somewhat either negate or narrow the need or the focus of this program.

And so this is back to there's so many other things on that background side we didn't include, but that are out there, and we're happy to bring more context forward.

We do have a security lighting uh and and improvement type of grant that can absolutely hit that mark.

And those programs and funding opportunities are already out there, so we can look to continue to focus or support those or even bolster those using an existing tool and program rather than perhaps including that in this program.

Yeah.

So these were some proposed business submittal requirements, because as we noted, um, there is a degree of I think documentation and verification here that is different than some of the other programs we've talked about.

So we would be looking for financial information that somewhat demonstrates that decline, recognizing it could be for a variety of factors, um, but really tied back to what we've heard.

Uh, we would be looking for the business to be able to provide W9 uh from the previous tax years.

That's that comparative financial sheet.

We ran into this during COVID, and I want to again give a major thanks and shout out to our community-based organizations because our staff paired with their staff really worked with the businesses to figure out how to get that information, how to compile it and to submit it in.

And so while that has been a recognized, it can be a challenge and an impact for some, especially the very small businesses.

We have found ways and we have demonstrated success of helping them still access these type of programs and still be able to provide that type of documentation or help with it.

Um, and then also we would look for them to provide a description of how the funding requested would assist their business.

Again, is it going to help them with rent?

Well, maybe then that comes back to the rent conversation of is that a better program or should we be using these small business funds, or is it going to help offset payroll because sales are down or you know, cover shipping expenses or lighting?

So we will look for that.

Um, we also, and council outcare, coming back to your question from a minute ago, we will look for them to be current on all local, state, and federal taxes.

That has created issues with us in a financing situation in the past where if they've got delinquencies there, we're giving money here, it can create some problems.

Usually that is a very small, if existing at all, challenge, but we want to flag that it can be out there.

And if that comes up, we can take that aside and try to figure out some other resolution there as well.

Uh, and then also um once in a while we'll end up with businesses that might be out of compliance in terms of where they're going.

And so on its front, that would be a criteria, but that's not to say too, if we come across one of those with our partners with the business coming in, we would provide additional service in those areas to also try to help mediate or resolve those situations to make them eligible for this funding or for if there is future opportunities.

Um, and then data reporting.

Uh, this is one that as we seek, we've asked our community-based organization partners for data.

There's none available that's been provided to us out there yet.

Our internal staff have been pulling the data sources we have available to try to understand that.

Um, but really what we're hoping is as we do this more formalized engagement with the businesses, hopefully we can start to see some additional insights of if we are going to continue in the space even with future endeavors or discussions, helping to have this frame up a little bit more specifically.

So you all and we all can more confidently and targetedly uh respond to this.

Um, and what that would look like is really looking at uh reporting, you know, basically from a year out from when they would reserve of received the funding, what is happening with their sales?

Are we seeing effectiveness of directing them or them finding new markets?

Can they establish a web presence?

You know, we have programs with some of our community-based organizations where we'll even lend them interns who can help with a web page establishment, which can absolutely open up a new type of a uh customer segment that maybe they didn't have.

Um, and so we can see that one year out what's happening, and then also tracking the employment data.

Again, we're trying to also retain employees.

That's a secondary goal here, but having a sense of what else is happening in terms of the broader workforce and impacts there too.

Counselor Every and then counselor uh all care.

Thank you.

Yes.

Um does it make sense to also have a minimum revenue requirement.

Oh, interesting.

Um, we could definitely look at that.

Because I would think it should be like a viable business that is supporting someone.

Um, and that and the minimum revenue may be a good thing to look for.

But they've been in business for 2023 and 2024, they have to provide tax remote.

So we try to be paying $5,000 per year.

Then just it should it should just be something that is.

We'll pay that under advisory to see if we the thing we want to be mindful of is just paying arbitrary numbers sometimes of that.

Yeah, of course.

We will look at that.

The other thing we might be able to do, depending on how the council feels, is we could look at when we are doing the weighting the consideration, what maybe is the percentage of the company's revenues that have been locked or impacted.

So if I'm a making a million dollars a year and I've seen a 30% decline, well, that's a 30% impact on my million-dollar year business versus if I'm making $50,000 a year and I see a 30% decline or a 10% decline.

But that still might it might be a small percentage decline, but what's the overall impact?

So let us take that under advisement and see what we can maybe fold in.

Counselor all care.

Um, yeah, so I um just want to ask as part of the support that businesses would receive, um, part of the preparation for engaging more customers, hopefully, right?

Um I think that I would appreciate that kind of approach as opposed to um something like what I just said, randomly telling people to go to a business.

Because I think it's important um to understand what that business traffic is like, but what sort of support do they need?

And when I say that, I don't want to set a business up for failure.

Um for example, if I'm suggesting that this entire room go to the restaurant that's down the street.

I don't want them to go hire extra employees or for them to go get extra food.

I don't want the businesses to go out of their way to do all the extra stuff.

I think that they should rely on their foot traffic and in anticipation, hopefully getting more businesses.

But I think that we need to be strategic about that message so that some people won't get taken advantage of.

Thank you for that, Council Alcare.

I think that really comes back to some of the opening comments on this section, which is this is intended as a business, the grant at least.

I think we're talking both the grant and then these broader marketing efforts is a business stabilization, not a business expansion piece.

And so businesses have to operate.

I think to Councilor Socato's point, how they see best to operate.

We will try to advise that.

I know many of our community-based organizations provide a lot of business coaching and resources, but at the end of the day, they will scale up and do what they will.

We're just trying to help them stabilize them where they believe they have a need.

Mayor Peggs, may I interject for a quick second?

Um we are running short on time.

So um, just to keep us on track to make sure we get some critical feedback from you all, if we can just get some general consensus, are you okay with this generally?

And then we can come back and finalize these programs because, for example, with this one, we are going to reach out to the CBOs that are listed on the next slide to refine the program based on their input too.

But again, if it's possible to just get a general, we're good with this, and we can move forward is what I would have to thumbs up neutral or thumbs down the data.

This is the final slide, just in terms of what we've talked about, if there's general agreement there with a consensus, this is roughly how we would then plan on how do we because we are anticipating potentially a very significant response based on the testimony we've heard in the broader community feedback.

And so this is generally how we would break out the the kind of weightings and refine the methodology of how we would award and we would do that in collaboration with our CBOs, even though we would be the direct issuers of those checks.

That's a similar approach to what we took during COVID, and it worked, we believe quite well from the feedback we received from multiple parts of the community.

Yeah, and you got a pull thumbs up here.

So all right.

And then just to close it out, because I promise we'd get to all the questions, even if there are a couple slides out, if Raheem, you don't mind going to the next slide.

Um this is the rough timeline.

Now, obviously, we're middle of December, and so there is some refinement, especially with the feedback you all have provided this evening that we can start to fold in and continue engagement.

Um, but really, as I was stating earlier, it's about a two-month to getting the application going in about a two and a half month to like three months until probably checks are fully out and hitting the recipients.

And so right now we're showing December, January, February.

Realistically, by the time we get our staff, which are mobilized, kind of ready to go, but waiting for this final consensus and direction.

Um, that might start to slip in the generality, but we still think that kind of late February, early March time frame is feasible, and we are ready to prioritize this if that's the direction uh provided to our team.

Okay.

Let's keep moving.

Seems like we got general consensus on.

I'll turn it over to Robinson.

Thanks, Rahim.

Uh, so this is kind of the last big update uh for the evening.

So, but it's a big one.

Uh, this is uh one that's generated a lot of discussion among council.

So um we appreciate the feedback that we received about uh the idea of creating a human rights um office.

And so what I wanted to show you, I'll be brief on this, and then I'm gonna turn it over to Simone who's gonna walk you through the goals that we've come up with just because we want to make sure this is in line with what the council wants us to do.

So the human rights office, this first slide kind of shows what the current city manager's office looks like within the city manager's office.

You'll see there's a lot of different kind of sub-offices within.

It's where Amber and her staff will require's office, it's where communications lives.

This is where we would plan for the human office human rights office to reside.

So on the next slide, it's kind of zooms in on what we would propose.

So there's a couple new positions that we would propose here, and we also have a couple of existing positions that we can also kind of tap because they do very similar work, and that you can see that in the middle.

So, first of all, you in the blue boxes are new positions.

So the first one is we need someone to be the main manager over this.

And that position, a new human rights office manager would report directly to Simone.

Um, that position would also supervise some of the positions that we currently have, like our community engagement manager, our community uh services uh coordinator that do a lot of similar work, and we can actually reprioritize some of their work to match the the needs of this office.

Um the bottom one, you'll see some new positions down there.

Those are kind of to be determined because we don't know for sure what that need will be yet.

We need to get the manager on board, um, and then we can decide if we need to come back to council for for additional positions.

The other one that's tied to this, it's not directly tied to the human rights office, but um our communications team has frankly been slammed over the past several months.

Over the last few years, we've known that we need a little bit more assistance there.

And with the activity of the last few months, this is an area that will also have a heavy uh uh significant impact on the community by increasing the amount of communication that goes out.

So we're also proposing an assistant communications manager that would work with this human resources office, but also just provide more communication support citywide.

So those are the two positions that we would uh propose to begin with as we go through this, and then Simone's gonna walk you through what the functions and the missions of these departments are.

Can I ask a quick question?

Sorry, do we have are those two positions somehow already budgeted and funded, or is this new?

Okay, those are those two new ones uh would be new positions, and the ones in gray are the ones that are already funded.

Okay, okay, great.

Well, then I will take us through um the proposed goals of the human rights office.

So, what we're looking for here is if there's general consensus that these are the goals that you'd like to see, and these are the initial goals for the office.

Of course, it'll become more well-defined over time, but we just want to get as we decide to move forward, we want to make sure that you're on board with that.

So, in partnership with community-based organizations, the city will develop the priorities for the office that are complimenting the work we're doing.

Um, we've heard from the council about recording and documenting IC interactions, legal observers, et cetera.

So we want to just ensure that the city isn't compromising the work of CBOs and mutual aid groups who are already on the ground with this work and who have developed systems.

Rather, we want to ensure that the office is prioritizing actions and policies that improve the conditions of our impacted community members.

Um, then convene a community advisory committee, which I'll discuss more in an upcoming slide.

Provide education and outreach to support community members and creating a welcoming city.

Um, you'll notice that this is where we begin to address the topics that were brought up during the last work session, including fair housing and anti-discrimination.

Um, act as a resource connector for community members impacted by immigration enforcement activities and individuals and families experiencing homelessness.

Here again, we begin to speak to the broader human rights concerns.

And just quickly, um, I would like us to work with existing legal observers.

Who are already out there and doing the work.

I believe we should engage them.

And we can hire also through the city.

We can hire people, but those people have already been participating in an intricate network.

And they've been doing it on a volunteer basis.

And I would like to have their work recognized.

And in some way, I feel that they should be compensated for what they're doing.

Thank you, Councillor.

Okay, I'll keep moving.

Um next, oh, you've already moved that.

Thank you.

Um, so work with CBOs to identify emerging issues and assist in developing strategies to respond.

So this is obviously an evolving crisis that we um continue to be in.

Be adaptable to emerging community needs beyond impacts associated with ice.

Again, this goes back to housing, employment discrimination, etc.

Um, coordinate internally with our DEI manager and human resources department as well as other departments to ensure employee training is responsive to CBO recommendations.

Um lead and promote uh lead promotion of accurate information in English and Spanish.

Um, as Robbie pointed out, we've had a big communication need.

We recognize that.

Um we have two, two, three, three amazing bilingual staff who are in our communications team.

Um, but there certainly could be more capacity there, as well as we have other safe harbor languages that we do our best to address, but that is um can still use more work.

Partner with city departments and um external agencies to coordinate needs beyond immigration related items.

Um we know that addressing civil rights and human rights concerns, complaints, and violations cannot be addressed solely by the city.

Uh, in many cases, the city is not the final arbiter on these issues.

So coordination with other agencies and between departments is essential now and moving forward.

And then next steps um for the human rights office.

So finalizing the goals, so looking kind of for that general thumbs up if these goals are we're not missing anything.

Um, and of course, there is room to expand and adjust since we'll be working with the community um advisory committee, um which I will talk about in just a moment.

Um, and then we'll finalize the organizational structure for the human rights office, which Robbie just pointed out what we're initially proposing.

Um, and we would begin recruiting um the human rights office manager uh after the first of the year.

So we need to we need to build out that classification and get it through the recruitment base, but we could begin that as soon as after the first of the year.

So with that, I'll talk a little bit more about the community advisory committee.

But if you have some thoughts on if we have consensus on the goals as presented.

Um yeah, I I I know council well, Councillor Solgado, I see you have a question, if you don't mind holding up just one second.

Um, I like the idea of the human rights office, and I also know that this hasn't been budgeted, right?

That this money would have to come from somewhere else.

And my struggle continues to be could this money be better spent by giving this money to the community-based organizations that are already doing the work.

They're already, and I'm not trying to beat up on you, Simone.

I'm looking at you, and you're just doing your job.

I'll look at council.

That's my biggest concern is that we have people that are already out there doing this, that are already interfacing with folks that are being impacted right now.

And by the time that we would hire these folks and get them on board, that money could be distributed to nonprofit organizations or CEOs that are already doing the work.

It could have more impact.

So I'm not like absolutely not, you know.

I'm not, you know, and I I know this is very important to council, so I understand that.

But this is my biggest, that's my biggest concern is that is this money being used if we spend it this way.

Is it the best way to spend it?

I agree with you.

Thank you, Katie.

I think that we should give it to the orgs who are already doing the work.

Okay, thank you.

Um, Counselor, well, actually, Councilor Sergado had a stand up first, and then we'll do counselor case and then counselor Sinclair.

Thank you.

Um I'll speak to what you said first, Mayor.

I would I met with um Centro Cultural over the weekend, and I would encourage you to talk to them and have a conversation with them about this because they seem very supportive of this specific work just because they're so overwhelmed with what's going on.

Um, as you can imagine, Centro Cultural has limited funds, limited staff, limited capacity, but they're essentially covering all of Washington County.

And so any help that they can provide that we can provide is accepted by them.

So I would just invite you to have a conversation with them about this.

Um the other thing I was gonna add, uh, thank you for the work on this.

I'm really impressed how you all put this together and that you showed the diagram of how the different uh positions align with each other.

One thing that I I probably follow up with an email so that it's a little bit more coherent to understand.

But I think there's a pit a piece that I would like to add, or uh you know, that I think would be helpful is some sort of liaison or partnership with the Hillsborough Police Department to kind of ensure there's training around uh sanctuary city policy and what that means, and just making sure that you know we have an outside kind of person advising on that uh in partnership with the Hillsborough Police Department.

So I'll follow up with a little bit more coherent uh sentence on that.

But I think it's great work.

Thank you very much for putting this together.

It looks really good.

Thank you, Counselor Sagata Robbie.

And then yeah, thank you, Counselor.

Just a heads up um on two things on that last point.

Um, we agree, and that it would we we would need to figure out what that line is to the Hillsborough Police Department, but that there would be a that's a really important connection.

Um, and then also on the training piece, that's a separate piece we're also working on, not only with HPD, but for all employees.

So um, thank you for that feedback, and I'll I'll uh wait for your email as well on further stuff.

Thank you.

Um, Counselor Case.

Uh okay, thank you.

This is awesome.

And I I really do just want to say to Robbie and the three of you, thank you so much for all of your work.

You have gone above and beyond, and we we threw this all at you in the last two months, and what you've done is incredible and on so above and beyond the work that you guys are already doing.

So thank you so much.

We really appreciate you guys.

And we don't say it enough.

So thank you.

Um, I do agree with what the mayor and counselor all care have said, but I I do have concerns with how how fast this is moving.

I think this is really amazing, and I I want to make sure we kind of pause and pull back and pull up and kind of go, is this the right place for the right money at the right time?

Um, and so I'm I'm not ready to give it a thumbs up tonight.

Um, and I I don't know still what it will take to get me there, and it's not that anything is missing.

I think it's just this is all moving very fast.

Um, and so I know we originally talked about this, we kind of talked about like things we need to get done quickly and things that were gonna kind of be a longer term solution.

And so I feel like um, yeah, this is this is something that I think we should keep talking about.

Um, but I I want to make sure we're being thoughtful and not just reacting in the moment and and considering the long-term implications of this.

So uh councillor Harris and Councillor Allcare, and we're short on time.

Heads up.

Thank you.

I'll make this quick.

I was under the understanding that there was a funded vacant position available, it may need to be reset to a different pay level, but it was available.

And that was part of my thinking, honestly, that it wouldn't be a total 100% coming out of it wouldn't be a new budget, at least partially offset, if not fully offset by this.

Also, it's my understanding that you were gonna potentially add another management position someplace in the near future.

So rather than new spending, it could be accelerated new spending.

I understand it would be out of current budget.

But I guess the question is isn't there something already budgeted but not funded but not spent right now?

And I I guess regardless of the answer to that, it seems to me that given the legitimate and serious concerns raised by at least three members of this uh council here tonight that we would definitely need to get a budget estimate for this before we made a decision because it's clearly a vital piece of the information that everyone is gonna need.

So I guess those are two questions.

Sure, I can address both of them.

So the first question there is a vacancy that we've held onto for a couple of years.

It's it's a uh administrative assistant vacancy, so it'd be a pretty significant uh pay discrepancy, but we can put that together in a we can put um all of this to address your second question and email the council like what the costs would be for all of these things that won't take us too long to do.

We have a kind of a rest of estimate, but um we can put that together as an state council so that'll help in you to in your decision making.

Will you please show the offset on the current funded number that's vacant, right?

Yes, thank you.

Counselor St.

Clair and then Councillor Alcare.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I first want to start by saying thank you to staff.

I I know council's been shopping at the bit to come up with solutions and impatient at times.

And speaking for myself, I want to say thank you so much.

It makes me a little bit emotional because I see I was felt slow locked, and now that I see the way this is comprehensive and effectively laid out to where our ourselves, our community can understand.

Thank you for taking the time to go through the details.

It's very appreciated.

Um pertaining to the human rights um office.

Um I think we are seeing a major increase in uh constitutional rights uh that are being jeopardized for our immigrant refugee and Latino communities.

And I think this is a big picture thing, and I think it's gonna, in my opinion, I think it requires the city, HPD, uh central cultural R CBOs, like Central Cultural and Adelaide Muharis, um, and the advisory uh council uh or committee, um, because this is a big picture, and our rapid response uh teams that are have legal observ uh our legal officers who have per training, um they're holding the one in down as for HPD is holding a different hand down, and the city also is holding it down.

So this is a big picture full circle effect, and I would like to see us come up with transparent, accountable uh programming that we're all working together to find solutions to transparency to transparently record and provide public record for our community to be held as evidence in the future.

And I also want to further talk when we come back in the new year about what does potentially, if this is accepted, uh codifying reporting do.

And I think that's a bigger conversation uh in the new year, but I think this is a full picture, and I think it should include all entities involved, which is all of us.

Oh councillor Alcare.

Yeah, I want to further say that funding the CBOs because they are gonna hire the experts.

We are not experts in this, and they are experts in this, and I think that the better use of the budget can go towards the police and funding their budget because I know that we don't have we didn't account for ice activity and for the response.

And if we do documentation, if the police are able to do that, I'd rather fund that money towards that effort, ensuring that we are tracking people who are getting taken away from our city and making sure that we are aware and participating in the wrap around support that those people might need.

Thanks.

Thank you, Councillor Sogato, and then Councillor Ambry, and then we gotta cut you off.

So clearly, as you mentioned, hello.

Yeah, so clearly, as you mentioned, this is important to me, and on different fronts, right?

Uh, number one, because um I reached out to a lot of people uh individually, uh organizations, people that give testimony, and this is partly informed by those folks.

Um I mentioned Central Culturality, I met with them over the weekend.

I met with several organizations.

Uh this this has broad support from you know, uh local, state, and even national organizations, and there's even other cities that are adopting pieces of this, and I've been told that this is an innovative approach just because it hasn't been tried.

So I want you all to keep an open mind around this.

Um, and because this is such an important topic for me, I would really appreciate some clear communication on what could get you on the other side of supporting this.

Uh, I know you mentioned a few things here and there, but if you could just email the rest of us with like clear clear communication and clear reasons uh why you don't support this and what would get you to support it, I think that would be really helpful in progressing this because, like I said, there's broad support outside of the council.

The only kind of um uh like internally in the in the council is the only area that I'm seeing a lack of support for this type of type of programming.

So that would be really helpful for me and for the folks outside of the city that support this.

So council.

Thank you for going.

Councillor Amory.

Thank you.

Um I I'm wondering if we could maybe uh uh switch it where we do form the community advisory committee first, and then if they advise for an HRO, then go for an HIRO, that would kind of oh you guys are all smiling for us.

I think that wrote yes, I think we are all on the same page there.

I think I think we've already begun some of this work for the community advisory um committee as well.

We can continue to move forward with that um because it feels like there's a lot of consensus about bringing a new community together, and we can staff that internally now or uh start, and that would include our CBOs, and so we so we'll continue with that process, and then we will also continue with this other stuff about you know the budget and everything.

We'll put that information together, give it to the council so you all can can consider that maybe as a way to kind of conclude this.

Um, so our what I believe would be the best plan is for the second meeting in January to come back and have another discussion.

I say that because the first meeting right after the holidays just candidly over the next two weeks, a lot of people travel.

Um, so if you can give us until the second meeting in January uh to come back, we can talk specifically about this.

By then you'll have more information about the budget and everything, and then we can also talk about the codification of that second meeting in January as well.

Those will be the two main focus points if that works for everybody.

Yeah, and I just want to mention that um a few of us have had conversations with nonprofits.

I've talked to Central and been talking to Central.

I am a part of Latino Policy Council.

I've also been talking to the Annastar since mid-October and beyond that.

So I think it's important that people, when they want to understand what this office can do and what we are recommending that they get an idea of the whole picture and not a snapshot.

Thank you.

All right, Raheem, did you have anything else?

Yeah, there's uh final update, but just one thing for I'll say this for chat.

Please go and email each other.

Yeah.

Uh counselor's on I was going to please email Robbie any feedback on the goals so that we can pick it up at the next session.

I'll turn it over to Robby.

This is the last slide.

I'll wrap it up.

Uh, we did get that Hillsborough School is funding out very quickly.

They were very appreciative of that.

I wanted to pass it on to Council 2906 of the emergency declaration.

We're implementing that as we speak as well, as well as staff training.

Um, we are leaders in this space as Hillsborough, and we are doing our best to work with our other cities as well so that they can learn the lessons that we've learned as well.

I think that's very helpful.

And again, the codifying is things for a city is also in progress.

So that's that concludes everything.

Thank you.

Thanks, everyone.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh so um the council meeting should have started a minute ago.

And we're also human and need a break.

Staff, thank you so much for the work that you did preparing this.

I know it was a lot.

We threw a lot at you.

So thank you.

Um, and let's start at uh 740 in the other in the uh surly hoffman auditorium.

The recording has thank you for joining us this evening.

For translation services, please use the QR code on the poster on the left side of the room or on the front page of the agenda.

To begin this meeting, I invite you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America into the Republic to which it stands one nation under God and invisible with liberty and justice.

Amber, may we have a roll call.

Mayor Pace.

Here.

Counselor Alcair, here.

Counselor Sinclair, here.

Counselor Case, here.

Counselor Harris?

Here.

Counselor Anvery, here.

Counselor Sagato.

Here.

Thank you.

Thank you.

There are no presentations or appointments this evening, so we'll begin with public comment.

Moving to public comment, persons wishing to speak will be recognized at this time.

If you are here in person and wish to speak, please fill out a yellow card and hand it to the city recorder, Amber Rios, who is to your left, my right.

When I call on you, please join us here at one of the two tables up front and speak into the microphone so those on Zoom can also hear your comments.

Because of the translation tool, community members can speak in their language of choice, and the city recorder can display the translation on our screens up here so we can read what you are saying.

We have one person registered to speak virtually, and the deadline to register has now passed.

If you are unable to sign up to speak prior to the deadline, you're always welcome to email your comments to the city council at any time of day.

This is because uh this is called public comment because it's time dedicated for you to inform the city council about your views.

We will not go back and forth in a dialogue.

Comments are limited to three minutes, and we'll begin hearing from Luke Flowers online.

But then after Luke online, we're gonna hear for uh Aaron Palmer and Luce Gutierrez.

So Aaron and Luce, if you want to come up front, um you can be ready after Luke goes.

Mayor Pace, I do not see um Luke Flowers online.

Luke Flowers is not online.

Okay.

Luke Flowers is missing out.

Uh Aaron, you can start off.

Just press the little button there, and welcome, and you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Um, good evening, council.

My name is Aaron Palmer, and I recognize how exhausting this moment must be from a leadership perspective.

Um, and I believe that you care deeply about Hillsborough, and yet here we are.

And it's been months since the Trump administration and ICE started terrorizing our community.

And at this moment, right now, we need leadership that is brave.

We need leadership that models for other cities what human rights look like in action.

This is your real legacy moment for all of you.

We need accountability, and that means codifying jurisdiction into law, not press statements or reassurances, but real policy.

ICE must be clearly and publicly unwelcome in all city controlled spaces.

Real accountability also requires funding, uh transparent reporting of ice through our trusted community partners that we already work with and who work with rapid response.

In November alone, 373 ICERS in Oregon, and 130 of those were in Washington County, with an estimated 25% from Hillsboro.

Our odds of being kidnapped in Hillsborough are eight times higher than they are on average in other cities in in Oregon.

We don't really know who's been taken because we don't have good data, and we need to get that information.

What we're asking you is to do is to stand with us arm in arm to make the to use the authority of the city to protect us, and that those of us with white privilege use that that we physically put our bodies between ICE and our Latino neighbors.

That is the least we can do is nonviolently publicly and clearly show up and put ourselves between danger and our neighbors.

Your legacy hinges on how bravely you respond to the situation.

Your moment is now.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Um Luce.

Good evening.

Uh one moment, please press the button.

And Aaron, do you mind pressing your button again?

And if you Luce, if you press the button in the center of the console, that way we can all hear you, and those online can hear you as well.

Thank you so much.

You have three minutes.

Good evening, everybody.

Today I'm very emotional because I see the updates that you provide these uh tonight.

I am very grateful what they for everybody do for everything you have done.

I see that you um are doing a great job.

I was very emotional first time I came because I thought that the problem can be fixed, and it was geo responsibility.

I realize that they this is this is a responsibility for everyone.

So I've been helping my community, myself, and a few people from the community also helping me, providing them food since October with stores and restaurants in the area.

And the only thing uh I didn't um heard to date or tonight was that if we want to get some mental health for our people, um, mental health is very important.

I even myself initiate a group support and doing that virtually every Saturday, providing to my people two hours of my time, and also providing them food, like I said since October.

So I think it's very important.

I providing them uh resources and information through my Facebook.

I built a very trusted relationship with my community because I've been here for 35 years and they like me and I love them.

So um, and I respect my community a lot.

So they believe in what we're doing.

So I guess um we uh we should have some funding uh to provide them mental health and providing them with the mental health crisis lines, the uh 50329991.

Uh, I think it's not enough because there is a lot a lot of needs.

The other thing I would I really uh would like to see as an officer who's gonna be providing the reports and the the person who's gonna be in charge of um doing everything for our people who's been abused, abused by the uh physical or physical.

We see people in the hospitals, we see things that are happening like entire yesterday, and we don't have breakers of those cases.

So we want to see an officer who's doing that.

So those are my my my requests for my community.

So I wanna I want to say thank you so much for everything you have done, and I see the updates today, I see the change, and I call my people today for Facebook saying that today is a date.

Thank you so much.

Appreciate that.

Thank you, Luz.

Uh, the next two speakers we have are William and SM.

So the first one is William.

And the next one is SM.

Please come up.

And on deck is Jody Clark Lampa.

So, William, you can go first.

And just your button is already depressed.

So you can go ahead and speak, and you have three minutes.

All right, yeah.

Uh, welcome back, everyone.

It's good to see some of the uh familiar faces out here.

Um first a shout out to everyone who's delivered food, people who are out there with the whistles, staying on the street corners, uh, people doing legal work, students walking out, and people that are doing important work behind the scenes that um we don't know about.

From the last few meetings, I'm hearing people lose some trust in the Hillsborough police and the city government, which I think is the correct conclusion.

But that poses the question to us what do we do and who do we trust?

And instead of retreating, instead of retreating, people have taken up the responsibility of protecting and caring for each other instead of waiting for the government.

And it's working.

The people of Hillsboro are very creative and daring and they're taking action.

The ICE kidnapping in Oregon, it's not new.

As far back as the founding of Oregon, there have always been communities of immigrants who have made a living in Oregon.

They worked hard despite being exploited by their bosses and terrorized by the state.

The Chinese Exclusion Act, the Immigration Act of 1917, segregation of schools are just a few examples of laws used to exploit immigrants.

Today we have conditions with thousands of deportations every year.

These laws are like chains.

No one can replace, no one can replace their immigrants or our immigrant families or our students.

No corporations can replace their Latino businesses.

And finally, if immigrants can be dragged into a van by massed agents, then no one is safe.

An injury to one worker is an injury to all workers.

An injury to one student is an injury to all students, and an injury to one is an injury to all.

We must educate ourselves to learn why the Democrats have funded ICE, why the Republicans have funded ICE.

We must learn that the United States has a history of oppression, but more importantly, has a history of resistance and solidarity that everyone is a part of, especially in the audience.

And I'll be around in the lobby if anyone wants to chat.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh SM.

Hello, welcome.

You have three minutes.

Good evening.

Recently during an event focused on community impact led by Centro Cultural ACLU and PERC, it was shared at many large retail stores have flock cameras in their parking lots.

These cameras collect a lot of information about the people visiting these stores and others nearby.

Federal officials are accessing this information and using it for their work.

These stores are located in our city.

Has the city thought about creating rules or limits for these cameras?

I'm not a city official myself, so I don't know if you have the power to do anything about this, but I wanted to bring it to your attention.

Your efforts are important and appreciated, and the community is paying attention.

Thank you for what you're doing.

I also want to mention that it feels like the response is coming later than it should have.

We've known for months that as a city and state that welcomes immigrants, we could be targeted.

We saw what happened in neighboring California.

Action could have been taken sooner, especially since some of these changes can take a long time to put into place.

Please don't see this as criticism, but as a reminder that people's lives, families, and children are being affected now.

And these effects will last for many years.

I encourage you to continue to stay alert and ready to act quickly in the future.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Welcome, Joni.

You have just depressed the middle button there.

And you have three minutes.

Okay, thank you.

And thank you.

What you guys are doing is fantastic.

It hurts watching what is going on in our community.

But you're taking action.

But we're a little late on some stuff.

So I'm here to share that with you.

We need the police involved now, not in January.

We need that line drawn sooner.

And I we don't, we're not looking for them to jump the ice guys standing there.

They're the ICE people are being observed.

Little Kylie Delgado for sake scares them.

Do you think someone who's kind of a colleague might do a little bit more to influence them, not to misbehave, do their job, fine.

But police their add a strength to the community who is trying to do so much.

If we could just have them not hesitate to be there.

We're not asking them to impede ICE.

Um just asking them to make the agents uncomfortable.

Everything I've seen in national news says we just need to slow them down, make them uncomfortable, make them know they'll be accountable someday.

And I just don't think we can wait for January until we have that line that they were talking about at the very end of the work session to see where all of this comes together.

Just have a body in uh in uniform there to show that the city is not gonna stand back.

I know we're doing things like um letters to the legislature and we're getting together with other cities.

Great, but this is one more thing we can do.

I don't know if do you guys realize we have 12 to 15 people going out every single day between six and eight o'clock, where ice start out, pack up.

We have citizens going out there.

They're not making ice stop, but they're taking pictures just like we were told to.

But to have a cop there, how great would that be?

It would be great to have you there, but I want a cop in a uniform.

I want the cop to say, hey, I'm law enforcement here.

I'm supporting my community.

Anyway, um I think uh while we're planning on doing things with other cities, I think we can plan on uh pulling in all of our resources right now, even if we don't have a particular job for them to do, and I'm done.

Thank you.

Thank you, Jody.

Um moving to item four, the consent agenda.

The items on the consent agenda are normally considered in a single motion.

Any item may be removed for separate consideration upon request by any member of council.

Is there a request to remove any items for separate consideration?

Okay.

All right.

Uh do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Harris, second.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

Okay, may I please have a roll call?

Councillors Alcair.

Aye.

Case?

Aye.

Anvary.

Aye.

Sinclair.

Aye.

Harris?

Aye.

Salgado.

Aye.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving on to the motion passes.

Thank you.

Moving on to ordinances.

Moving all the way to item seven, first reading, 7.1.

Consider adopting an ordinance amending subchapter 11.28 of the Hillsborough Municipal Code to reflect amendments to the 2025 Oregon Fire Code.

Ordinance number 6511 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance 651?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second, Sinclair.

Is there any discussion?

Okay, uh may I please have a roll call?

Councillor Zalcare.

Hi.

Case?

Aye.

Anvary.

Aye.

Sinclair.

Aye.

Harris?

Salgado.

Okay.

Ordinance number six five one one is adopted.

Deputy Fire Chief Gersky and Division Chief Stapleton, thanks for being here to answer any questions in case we had them.

All right, moving to item 7.2, second reading.

Hillsboro Comprehensive Plan Amendment 001-25 Public Facilities Plan.

Consider the Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt an ordinance for Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan Amendment to incorporate the public facilities plan with Chapter 16 System Plan Materials, incorporating by reference adopted facility master plans, revise and reorganize Chapter 16 and edit other chapters of the HCP as needed to ensure clarity and consistency with the public facilities plan update.

Ordinance number 6509 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number 6509?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Second hand.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call.

Councillors Alcair?

Hi.

Case?

Aye.

Ann Vary.

Aye.

Sinclair?

Aye.

Harris?

Hi.

Salgado.

Okay.

Thank you.

Ordinance number six five zero nine is adopted.

Moving to item 7.3, Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan Amendment.

002-25 Regional and Town Center Boundaries.

Consider the Planning Commission's recommendation to adopt an ordinance for Hillsborough Comprehensive Plan Amendment to adopt Metro 2040 growth concept regional and town center boundaries by revising texts and figures in Section 2 Design and Development and Section 35 Design Type Designations Map.

Ordinance number 6510 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number 6510?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second Anne Vary.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call?

Councillors Alcair.

Aye.

Case?

Aye.

Anne Marie?

Aye.

Sinclair?

Aye.

Harris.

Hi.

Salgado.

Thank you.

Ordinance number six five one zero is adopted.

Moving to item nine, City Manager Report.

I'll turn the time over to Robbie Hammond.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, everyone.

Uh, just one item I wanted to share with you all tonight.

Uh, for those that were following the library levy uh last month, I wanted to call attention to a couple of things.

First, we were very grateful uh when a majority of Washington County voters approved the Washington County uh library uh levy.

It reflects countywide support for the incredible services and resources that our library team and our local libraries provide.

Since then we've been able to dig into the numbers a little bit.

And I wanted to call attention to this that we've learned that in Hillsborough, it was 5.5% higher in support even than the rest of Washington County.

Um sixty-four percent of Hillsborough voters supported the library levy, nearly a two to one margin.

And that's a pretty cool thing that I just wanted to show uh how appreciative we are to the to the community.

Um this demonstrates a deep appreciation uh that so many Hillsboro residents have for libraries, and it also demonstrates our library staff's outstanding work and commitment to serving our community and our we know that our community sees our libraries as a huge community asset.

Um a great example, another one that I thought was interesting.

South Hillsborough is such a new area.

In South Hillsborough, it was supported by 63% uh of our residents as well.

Again, wanted to call attention to this isn't just a localized thing.

Residents throughout the community uh recognize the importance of libraries.

So I just wanted to thank our our library director, Tammy Wallen and the entire library team for creating strong connections in our community.

Thank you.

Thank you, Robbie.

Moving to item 10 advice and information.

Community members who want to be informed and engaged on city council matters can sign up to receive happening in Hillsborough email newsletters.

And Spanish language updates are also available through our Cresciano Juntos email newsletter.

Please note the City Council will be holding two executive sessions following this session.

What question?

Oh uh Councillor Salgato, you had a question?

No, not a question.

I just want to make a statement before we close out.

I just want to make sure I can get a word in.

It'll be short and brief.

Go ahead.

Yeah, I just wanted to say uh, you know, I just I think given all that we've heard over the past month, I just think it's appropriate to acknowledge people in our community that are out there uh helping other people.

You know, we heard from Manny, he raised 40,000.

I've been watching his uh social media, they've gone out to Sulkasa and bought a lot of food to spread out.

Uh we saw a losing tier uh show up and talk about the work that she's doing in the community.

She's getting a lot of support from the Latino owned businesses, too many to name to actually put food boxes together and get them out.

We also have several mutual aid programs, so I just want to take a moment to acknowledge all the work that's going out there and say thank you for all that you're doing.

Um you're moving a lot faster uh and and getting some real aid to people.

So I just want to appreciate that publicly in a meeting.

Thank you for giving me the time here.

Thank you.

Okay, to continue on.

Uh please note the city council will be holding two executive sessions, the first under ORS 192.6602H, to consult and counsel to consult with counsel concerning the legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed.

And the second executive session is under ORS 192- or excuse me, 192.6602i to review and evaluate the employment related performance of the chief executive officer.

No action, maybe take it in executive session.

If action needs to be taken, the council will do so in regular session.

And with that, the city council meeting is adjourned.

We'll begin the executive session at 8 to 10.

Thank you, everyone, for coming out tonight.