Good evening and welcome to the July 21st work session.

Just so you all know, uh, Councillor Ambry and uh Councillor Silgato are unable to attend, and they are excused.

Uh there are and there have been several disruptions during uh city work sessions, and so want to begin by setting the expectation for everyone uh that we do not tolerate disruptions that preclude the council from being able to conduct its business.

Disruptions do have an impact on everyone in room and online.

Those who cause disruptions will be asked to watch the work session from the auditorium or to leave the meeting and the building altogether.

This is deemed this statement now is the first warning for all attendees in the meeting.

Any person who disrupts the meeting will be provided with an individualized warning.

Any further disruptions will then result in that individual being asked again to watch the work session from the auditorium or being removed from the building altogether.

I'll now turn the time over to staff to begin the work session.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Um, I'm wondering if you could review all of those rules when we're in the auditorium.

Beginning so that people are not finding out on the spot that they're breaking a rule.

For example, I was unaware that you couldn't have food in the auditorium.

So if you could explain those roles, that would be really helpful.

And then I think that people wouldn't be put on the spot when they have no idea that they're breaking the rule.

Uh thank you, Counselor Alcair.

Uh, at the last meeting, I did uh read those rules, and I'm happy to read them again.

And I was intending to read them again for the meeting.

Thank you very much.

I'll turn it over to the staff.

Uh Simone.

Thank you, Mayor.

Good evening, council.

Um, I'm actually going to hand it right on off to Tina Bailey and Teresa Gallon to talk about our transportation detail.

Did I just cut you off?

Um good evening, Council.

Um, for the record, Tina Bailey, the assistant director for the public works department.

And with me tonight is Teresa Galvin, our business operation manager for public works.

Um I'm going to try to breeze through this quickly, which unfortunately for you, I also speak quickly.

So if I am speaking too rapidly, that's an interruption, but I would really appreciate so I can try to slow it down.

Otherwise, if I could get you to hold questions to the very end of the presentation, we might be covering your questions as we go through in the interest of trying to save some time.

So I can get the slide to advance.

Um you've seen this slide before.

This is just a kind of a little bit of a reminder that we do not assess all the utilities that people are billed for on a monthly basis.

Um, the ones that we have direct control over management and billing.

Um we indirect the bill for waste management, but we are not responsible for any of the management or billing for some of the other utilities, broadband cable, etc.

You will also have seen, I think this slide before in a prior presentation, which is just some reminder that like all the other utilities, we conduct master plans, we do asset management, we put together a five-year utility plan, and we come to you on a every other year basis to look at raising fees if necessary to accommodate the needs to build uh to build the programs that we have.

What is unique about transportation over other utilities is that originally transportation was funded entirely by gas tax and vehicle registration fees.

So that's um an unique thing that we still receive revenue for that other utilities do not have, but also that we do not have direct control over.

And really, about the 1990s, um, we saw the buying power of that money deteriorate.

Originally, that money was meant for building not only maintenance but also building capital projects.

And that deteriorated so much that early about the 1990s, the county did the transportation impact fee, which is now the transportation development tax, which is assessed with buildings to help build capital projects.

Um, and yet another fee that we don't have direct control over, but we directly benefit from.

Early in the 2000s, we created the transportation utility fee because the gas tax and the registration fees were no longer even covering our maintenance costs.

And uh pavement management program, which is the biggest ticket item in our maintenance budget, was becoming the balancing figure, and we were quickly going behind in the program.

Um so TOF was created really to stabilize the pavement management program.

The story you're gonna hear tonight is that things have gotten a little bit more higher.

So, just to kind of cover what we maintain in transportation infrastructure.

Again, we TUF was really to deal with the roadway surface structure maintenance, but there's a lot of things that we're responsible for in the pavement or in the transportation world.

What doesn't come on here that takes up a substantial portion of revenue and time is dealing with traffic homing and also dealing with curb management and parking.

Those have become significant draws on the staff time today.

When we last adopted fee increases two years ago, we were very conservative in our approach to revenue generation because we knew that the state was considering increasing fees because they too, like many agencies, are in the same position we are.

Obviously, the state passed 3991, which generated would have at full implementation would have given us about $3 million worth of revenue annually, which would have had a significant impact on our ability to fund the program at the time.

In the interim, since we had the conversation about rates, the county is also looking at has been looking at doing a vehicle registration fee increase.

And I believe they're increasing that to doubling that, looking at doubling that rate.

Most of it, there is still a small fraction of it that exists for high mileage vehicles and gas and electric vehicles, then some of those fees still remain behind.

However, it's very minimal impact to the revenue that we're obtaining today.

The county vehicle registration fee is not dead at this point in time, but if it is to go forward, it will likely be at a far reduced rate.

County is required to share that revenue with us, and it would have generated a rate that they're originally proposing 2.1 million dollars per year.

They're still at last conversation debating it, but it would be a much smaller increase, potentially $10 for the first two years, 20% in the next.

I think the important thing here, the key is the bottom state, and adoption at these levels is both of these revenue sources would have come in today and this remained.

We would still be short revenue, roughly about three or four million dollars.

And the key thing is really is that we are now having a mismatch in our transportation fund.

The expenditures that we have going out to maintain the programs that we're doing today do not match the revenues that we have coming in.

You'll see on the orange bar that is the gas tax and vehicle registration fee revenues.

Those are relatively flat, even declining a little bit because of the decrease in fuel defeat, or the excuse me, the increase in fuel efficiency.

So you're decreasing the amount of revenue that's coming in or gas tax that is being gas that is being used.

And the blue, what the green line is our expenditures.

The blue line there shows what our reserve would be, and you can see that it goes negative in 2030.

We're losing it, we're overspending about 20 or 2 million dollars a year over what we're taking in.

This model doesn't include any new programs, it doesn't include any new staff at all.

Um, it's really the increases in costs that we're seeing across the board.

So all of our programs, inflation increases in benefits that are going out to staff, etc.

Going forward, um, state has not ended the conversation about future revenue.

Um we certainly will advocate for additional funding for our programs.

Um otherwise, we're gonna have to look at we don't make take some action and we don't get any state revenue.

We're going to have to look at potential reductions in programs.

And that would be a conversation that we would be having with you through the transportation committee.

And um, you know, you're looking at things that we have substantial amount of revenue going to Bushing Beacons that are you know, community really uh supports and the safety features.

We'd have to do things like reduce our ability to modify signal timing on a regular basis.

Um we don't do a regular paper signal maintenance that's a property owner responsibility, but we tend to have variety of revenue dedicated for that because we have to often contract that work up front and then try to recruit the payments from the property owners.

Um things like traffic markings that need replaced every year, signs that need to be revisited and replaced every year.

We would just have to drop back on our service levels across the board in order to be able to try to stay under budget.

So again, the transportation utility fee was put in place to really backfill the pavement management program.

It treats the roadways very much like your other utilities, and that you have a monthly use charge based off an estimated use of the roadway system.

We use the same data that is used in development for determining how the traffic characteristics of your property, so trip generation.

It goes in your monthly bill just like storm and sanitary and water do.

For residential customers, a portion of the fee is dedicated to a bicycle and pedestrian capital improvement program.

So from a budget perspective, the bulk of the revenue goes into fund 205 PMP, and for a portion of the residential, it goes into 206 bike CIP.

Everybody pays us because everybody, even if they don't have a car generates traffic, you draw the school bus, the laundry or the garbage man, Amazon, Uber, everybody's attracting tracting traffic, so there is nobody that uh gets a full pass on this particular fee.

Just understanding a little bit about pavement management, and this may actually answer some questions related to the previous um slide cutter presentations that we've had on utilities.

So, what you're seeing is what we call the deterioration curve on asphalt.

And we design asphalt, currently we designed it for 40 years, but we previously designed it for 20 years.

And we see that red line on the graph.

Um it starts up in this excellent condition, which we call TCI or pavement condition index 100.

That's brand new asphalt.

Starts that's where that's where we'll be on the curve.

Over time, if we do not do any maintenance, it follows that red line until it fails and needs to be completely restructuring reconstructed, and you can see that red line shoot up again with the reconstruction to an excellent condition.

Our goal is to maintain our maintain our network with the PCI 80 or above, which is a good or better condition.

And we try to achieve that by following the green line.

We perform preventative maintenance procedures at various points while the asphalt is still in good condition, and it will maintain the asphalt and that condition for a much longer time period, and you'll see that it's going to be substantially cheaper for us to do that over time.

The issue that we have, and this is why you will see that when you compare fees across utilities for any of our utilities, is that we often are all starting behind the A ball.

So we are all when we started asset management, we have many roads that were in that really poor condition, and we had some roads that were in good condition, and we had some that were in excellent, and we spent the bulk of our money trying to keep them in excellent condition while everything else is deteriorating expensive.

And so when you're in that deferred maintenance costs to bring that up, is very expensive, and every agency starts from a different place when they're building these programs.

So when we do comparison across rates in the last time, that was one of the questions is why are the rates different.

Sometimes it's the size of the network, sometimes we're all starting from a different place in the network.

One of the stories that we've tried to stay ahead of is one of the reasons why we originally passed the transportation utility fee was our massive 90s growth.

So again, maintenance roadways without any maintenance last 20 years with some maintenance that'll last considerably longer.

We had 62 miles of roadway built in between 1995 and 2004, which means that's all 20 years old.

Um, it's all coming due for maintenance at the same time.

And it's getting to be expensive maintenance, it's not seal maintenance, it's going to be expensive overlay maintenance.

That when we passed it, was the story that we were trying to convey is that this is all going to come due at one time and we are there.

And we are unfortunately when we adopted it, we hope to be well ahead of our deferral curve.

We're not.

We're still very much in maintenance referrals, and we are now looking at reduced revenue in order to deal with that.

Um good news is you'll see that we're also in a massive growth period right now, but again, we now design our roadways for 40 years, and um, which is pretty much something called perpetual pavement if we can stay on top of maintenance.

It should not have to have the massive reconstruction that our current old asphalt us.

Again, we like to stay in the maintenance because or in the preventative maintenance world because it is substantially cheaper, where you can see the costs that over have gone up over time.

So slurry seals are a preventative maintenance procedure.

It's like I use the analogy a lot of um painting the siding on your house.

If you can put paints over the top of it, we protect the underlying structure.

It's really what a slurry seal does for the roadway.

And you can see even at today's rates, it's $2.40 per square yard.

If we have to let the roadway fail or let our site run in my analogy, you're looking at $69 a square yard to do the same reconstruction activity.

So prior to 2009, again, what we're seeing, these are not to scale, just for everybody's knowledge.

We see in the blue fuel blue fuel tank is back through gas tax dollars being represented.

In 2009, we adopted the implement of the transportation utility fee.

So we started funding our pavement management program both with gas tax and the transportation utility fee.

In 2012, we were able to have some SIP money, strategic investment program money to the program to help fully fund it.

That revenue disappeared or was reallocated in 2024.

And so presently we fund the program just with the transportation utility fee and some small amount of gas tax.

Coming into the next budget year and the site and the models that we were showing you, we do not have enough revenue to put any gas tax dollars into the pavement management program and sustain any of our other maintenance activities.

So we would be looking at funding pavement management completely off the transportation utility fee revenue, assuming that we don't get any more revenue from the state.

So for future investments, again, we're not modeling any new FTEs.

We are not talking about any program increases in any of these scenarios.

For capital projects, those are largely different by development and SDC and TDT revenue.

We don't build anything off of gas tax or vehicle registry vehicle registration fee dollars.

If we don't have development, we don't get critical infrastructure.

The pavement management program right now generates uh needs about $8.5 million a year to maintain the PCI that we are striving to achieve.

Right now we're spending about this year.

We were able to spend, I think, close to 5.7 million ish future model years, though, right now show that we can only sustain about four and a half million dollars without any increases.

Our costs are going out faster than we can keep up with it.

Um the bicycle and pedestrian capital improvement program, again, we get revenue from the commercial residential customers, excuse me, uh, to fund some bike pattern improvements.

Right now, the revenue that we get from that to build one project every six years, we rely on all that revenue, and I would need some FTC or TDT revenues to deliver major project.

Something like abandoning, which the community has been asking for to be improved forever, is probably around the $13 million project today.

We would only have half that money really over the next five years with the bike pet capital improvement money.

So, like the other utilities, we have modeled several increased models.

Um the first model is a 5% increase, which is about 50 cents a month for residential customers starting out for the bicycle and pedestrian and the PMP program.

So this would generate additional revenue for both bicycle and PED and PMP.

You can see the PMP funding is about 24 million dollars over this model period.

Bike PET CIP is about 10 million dollars or $9.5 million.

Um, the second scenario that you modeled keeps that rate the same.

It slightly increases the non-resident credential customers' fees, and because in the second model that you were seeing, we are only increasing the pavement management program money on the side for the residential customers.

And that in order to stay with the formula and uh method of calculation for the program would cause a slightly higher increase for the commercial customers.

It generates around towards that 2.2.5 million, it can be the numbers.

2.5 million, 2.5 million, maybe 5.5 million, excuse me, uh dollars for the PMP.

So a little bit more revenue if it's just moving in the right direction.

Um, one of the models that we did consider would be if we still carried the revenue generation of 205 of the pavement management program consistent with the first model.

But we looked to the transportation utility fee to backfill our needs in the 200 fund, something we have never done before.

It's basically reversing the flow of the tough money rather than putting 200 into 205.

We put some 205 into 200 tobacco the piece.

We would need to double check our code to make sure that is still allowable to the code was written.

Obviously, if not, there's a possibility to change that.

But that does increase the fee from the current 1060 a month for residential customers to 11.64 cents a month.

And it doesn't generate any more revenue for the pavement management program than the first model scenario.

Staff continue under this.

Currently, the entire network average is considered to be a payment condition index of 82, and that's the yellow line that you see in the left side of the chart.

We've modeled each of the funding scenarios in through there.

If we do no maintenance, we'll see that we drop down to a 64, which is the blue dashed line.

If we fund with the scenario, the first scenario and the third scenario that we presented in the previous table, we get to a payment management or PCI of 69 at the end of this model run.

If we can come up with a little bit more revenue, so we just increase the payment management program, which was the middle funding scenario on the previous slide, we get to a PCI of 70.

It's a little bit more pronounced when we look at the graph to the right, and that is our deferred maintenance.

Presently we are about $8 million behind in the maintenance activities that we needed to complete this year, we're $8 million short of being able to meet home our needs.

If we do nothing in 20 years, we are 168 million dollars behind in our maintenance activities.

In the two funding scenarios, the colors matched.

So if we do the middle funding scenario on the flyer side, we would be 75 million dollars behind in 20 years.

If we looked at the first or third funding scenarios, um, we would be 83 million dollars behind in 20 years.

So not the direction we want to be going.

Staff these are modest increases that we're proposing.

Um we are recommending that we look at the middle scenario for the funding to try to move our payment management program in the right direction or in the right direction, hoping that the state and the county will come up with some revenue that will help us resolve the 200 fund level problem over the next couple years, um, so that we can continue to maintain the program rest of our programs the way that we need to.

And we would be back, obviously, in subsequent years, depending on what the state actions were taken looking for to resolve this issue.

Uh, just to give you an example.

So the first and uh the current scenario we are the orange bar at $10.60 per month for a residential customer.

The first and third scenarios that we presented on the table two slides back are the $11.13, the first white bar on the left.

Um, the rate that we are proposing, which is the recommending is the $1,164, which is the second or the bar on the right.

Not everybody does a correct flex transportation utility fee.

So these are the only agencies that we can compare it to, but again, a lot of this depends on where you start collecting this fee and where you are in that deferral cycle and maintenance cycle between how much you go we need as an agency.

Um so we have a commitment in our code to revisit the whole program every five years.

So, in addition to just these two-year rate cycles, we have a policy to go through and make sure that we're calculating it according to the weight methodology.

We've had some um requests, and you know, we've had this conversation about sidewalks and street trees and whether we want to try to include that.

Um, there's also some discussion about whether there's an equity between the fact that we collect five CIP only on residential and not non-residential.

So those are the kind of things that would likely be evaluated in our next funding cycle.

Um, really just looking at customer class and the bike pet allocation.

And then this is would be the comparison of all the utilities that we've presented to you over the last couple months with the rate increases, our current bill on the left, um, the proposed rate on the in the middle, and um the second year rate on the right-hand side.

Just like most of our utilities, we do participate in the utility bill assistance program for individuals who need uh payment relief.

And but unique to the transportation utility fee is when we adopted this, there was a recognition that some customers permit taking action to reduce the trips and the amount of traffic they put on the roadway.

Um even when we made the decision to participate in the utility bill program, we continue to leave the top discount and waiver program in place.

We don't have a lot of individuals who use that, and currently less than 10% participants are using it.

But if you are a residential customer who has no vehicle and will certify that you have no vehicle, you can get a 30% discount on the fee.

Similarly, we have non-residential discounts.

So if you're an employer who's buying passes for your uh your um employees, there's a sliding rate depending on what the percentages that you're buying passes for, up to 30%.

Um similarly, there are commute uh commute options where large employers are required to certify that they have programs in place that are reducing traffic, and there's a percentage usually calculated about how much they are actually reducing the traffic in their business by doing these programs.

If it's 15% reduction, they get a 15% rate reduction if they want to apply for this program.

So these do exist.

Um anybody can apply for them today, and they would still remain um if we had any future rated options, and then this would just be the sample bill that you would see in all the prior slides.

And then again, the timeline.

Um we have a last utility, I think, before you, and we would be going out to public engagement with all these proposed rate increases with the intent to um get to the committees both the finance committee and the transportation committee in October, hold a public hearing in November and adopt the rates to implement on January 1st.

With that, questions?

Uh do we have any questions?

Cancellor Sinclair.

Thank you.

Um Tina, thank you for the presentation.

Um can we go back to the slide that has the tough uh utility rates broken down in a chart for residential usage?

More.

And I did have a Anthony connected me behind the scenes.

I did miss big um one and two are the same rate for the the single family residential customers.

It is a different rate for the commercial customers on one on section two.

Option two.

So again, um so residential, you we talk about wear and tear.

So it's the residents that pay the PMP and the VPCIP.

Um but the wear and tear is new commercial and industrial on our roads primarily.

Is that not be correct?

So both commercial customers can not residential customers pay the transportation utility fee.

Um they pay for the pay management program, only the residential pay for the bike ahead.

Wear and tear is road, but it's also weather.

So if you had no structural loads on the roadways, you would still have maintenance activities for the use of the roadway by our vehicles because free saw and the weather impacts on them still cause deterioration.

And for for the um for the tax increment financing, which is for new development, correct?

Yes, correct.

That does that carry any percentage to help with programming or maintenance activities?

Yes.

No, no.

And then does the enterprise zone carry any type of mechanism to help with financing for the community for maintenance activities?

No.

Okay.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Councillor Harris.

Thank you, Gina.

I have a couple of questions.

Um, what is the closer to you?

Sorry, what is the total revenue for the transportation department?

Is it that slide six that shows about 13 million dollars?

I don't have it at the top of my head, so Anthony's probably going to supply me a number behind the scenes here.

That was what I was looking at.

It looks like it says transportation fund 200.

Yeah, so this is just this is just the gas tax and vehicle registration fees that we get for both the county and the state.

Um, it does look like it's about 12 and a half million.

No, he's giving me all across the board, I think.

13 is right.

That's my ball.

But what's so what's the total fund?

This is just a gas tax.

What's the tough fees and the other fees and stuff that are coming into your department?

Is that the 20 million you just gave me, Anthony?

Yes.

20 million total.

20 million total.

That's excluding that would be excluding the TSDCs.

Um, so your TV based that's just the other revenues.

That's just the other.

To be clear, it's really just 200, 205, and 206.

The other fund that you'll see in our program, which I really didn't address, um, but we kind of indicate here is they're all funded off of 200.

So when you see funded depreciation, that's not an additional revenue source.

That's a transfer out of 200 to pay for future equipment, make their replacement needs and things like that.

So 200, 205, and 206 are really where our maintenance revenue and well, 205 and 200 and 200 are really our maintenance revenue dollars.

206 is applicable.

So it's about 20 million for gas tax toughs and the other.

That's what Anthony's indicating.

Um, and you mentioned that in 2024, some money was allocated, some SIP money was allocated away from transportation.

Do you happen to know where that went to?

I do not off the top of my head.

It was not in my money and the public works fence.

Right.

Maybe I could get that information from staff later.

Um what happens?

So is the rate increase that is proposed, and I'm sorry, I don't understand the whole uh timing.

Is it just a two-year increase or are you looking further?

What's the question?

What's the passing?

Just like we are with the other utilities, we're only looking at two years at this time.

Um that gives us the state some time to figure out maybe whether they're going to do something, but we anticipate still meeting rate increases two years from now, but we'll be back in front of you.

Well, that's my question, because we're gonna have a legislative session, you know, in 2027, and we could solve some of this problem.

So what happens if we get a big influx of money?

Do you come back and ask for a reduction in rates, or should we wait and do a one-year increase in the middle of the year?

Well, just a reminder.

So again, had the state passed the full bill, 3991 in it has survived as it was passed, it would have been three million dollars of generation.

And had the county passed the vehicle registration increase, it would have been another 2.1 million dollars.

Even with that $5.1 million, we were still several million dollars in all in uh arrears.

We are still short.

So the chances are very slim that the state and the county are both going to pass fees of that rate or greater.

Um so we're not anticipating that revenue, but certainly if they surprise us and come back with the seven million dollars, then we would come back and look at a rate reduction.

Okay, and uh finally, how are commercial fees on this assessed on the top?

Is it square footage?

Is it how does that work exactly?

It depends on their use.

So for commercial customers, they're grouped together by trip generation of similar characteristics.

So there's seven different categories of billing for customers who generate between I think it's zero and seven trips per thousand square feet, they are assessed one rate, and it correspondingly goes up by the by the trips per thousand square feet that are grouped together.

Uh then for most customers, it does get calculated off of uh per square footage charge.

That rate is determined on a per square footage basis.

There's a group seven category for businesses that generate traffic that don't have a building, so gas station, for example.

Um, there's a number of categories in trip generation annals that are not based off of square footage, they're based off of pump um parks or acres of land, uh uh movie theaters, for example, are movie the number of movie theaters, and those are actually calculated by the number of trips they generate, capped at, I believe it's 1500 if I'm remembering my code correctly.

So how's that been modified and reviewed to see if it's still appropriate uh calculation or of the numbers in code?

Do you guys take a look at that annually or semi-annually?

How are we doing on that?

That's part of the five-year calculation that we do every five years to make sure that we are of uh that we are calculating it and according to the methodology that was developed with the community.

We have this cycle um to get through, and then the next cycle we will have to go back and do that.

We call it rebalancing to make sure that everything is collected in accordance with the methodology that we developed.

And finally, my last question.

Yes, um, the total amount of need that's not funded right now that you that the department has calculated.

That's that goes to, I'm assuming, you know, paying for payment maintenance contracts, doing various things.

This will also include uh your your staff salaries and benefits, everything, right?

So how much of that need is how much of your budget goes this is something you're not gonna be able to know how much this budget goes to personnel and and the wrap as we call it, you know, right?

Uh and how much goes to health source materials that sort of thing, um, and see where the growth is in those areas.

Um, and I would like to know that information.

So I'd like to get that from you at some point.

Thank you.

Are there any other questions?

Okay, I have a couple.

First, thank you for the briefing.

Really appreciate it, and thank you to Anthony Martin for your information as well.

Thank you, sir.

Um, you talked about the payment condition index or the PCI.

Yeah, we are currently at an 82.

Correct.

Uh, can I ask what most cities in the area are at?

Uh most agencies are much lower than that.

Um, our story has never been about a horrible average PCI.

Our our kind of situation has always been about our massive growth that we experienced in the 90s and other agencies did not have.

So maintaining the hold of that high PCI.

I think when we started the transportation utility fee, we were around 78.

Um, so we improved to out of 82.

There are other agencies that are slightly higher than us.

We are one of the strongest in the region because we were fully funding our program for a while.

Um, I think Washington County runs I knew somewhere in the six high 60s.

Um, which is not pretty.

Uh we have a lot of failed pavements as an agency at A2.

And you mentioned you're gonna have public engagement.

Can you talk about what that looks like?

That will be done with all the utilities.

Um it'll be the web page and uh the engaged page will have um a reach out of what is being proposed at advertisement of the public hearing uh uh dates, and then it'll uh likely be through the newsletters and the social media.

Thanks.

Um, and did you need anything from us today?

Is just informational great.

Thank you so much for the briefing.

Really appreciate it.

Um it's always helpful to have the backstory and understand how we compare it to others.

Yeah.

Oh, Council Oak here, go ahead.

Um, whatever reason, if public is not okay with uh recommended rate increases.

What is your backup plan?

I mean, the plan will be that we're we're looking at stop gapping maintenance activities to the best of our ability.

Like I said, we're already funding our pavement management program right now at about 50% of what it needs.

Um the activities that we'll have to do to hold our payments together will be stop gap activities that will buy us some time and we'll hold the roadways together, but they are certainly not going to be cost-effective over the long term.

But those are the activities that we'll have to do.

Um I can just recommend that when you have public engagement and you're explaining that to be clear with people about what those increases mean, and if they don't happen, what that also means.

Because I think um people might look at cities just having money available to what we need to do.

And if that's not true, I think we need to spell it out for people when we're not gonna be able to do some things.

Any other questions?

Okay, thank you so much for the briefing.

Very much appreciate it.

Uh, we will adjourn and we will um start our city council meeting at 7 p.m.

in the city council auditorium, the Shirley Hoffman Auditorium.

See you there.

Started uh welcome to the July 21st, 2026 City Council meeting.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

For translation services, uh, please see the QR code.

Should I back up?

Let me back up.

Uh welcome to the July 21st, 2026 City Council meeting.

Thank you for joining us this evening.

Uh for translation services, please use the QR code on the poster on the left-hand side of the room or on the front page of your agenda.

Uh, before we get started, I did want to talk about disruptions.

There have been several disruptions during city council meetings lately.

And I want to begin by setting the expectation for everyone.

Uh, we will not tolerate disruptions that preclude the council from being able to conduct its business and hear from the community.

Those who cause disruptions will be asked to watch the meeting from the conference room across the hall or to leave the building.

This this is a warning.

Any person who disrupts the meeting will be provided with an individualized or second warning, and any further disruptions after that will result in that individual being asked to watch the meeting from the conference room or being removed from the building altogether.

To keep the space welcoming, inclusive, and accessible for everyone to avoid disruption, we ask that all comments be shared respectfully.

Uh 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 and to the Republic for which it stands one nation undergo, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Aubrey, may we please have a roll call.

Mayor Pace?

Here, Councillor Alcair.

Here.

Councillor Sinclair, here.

Councillor Case here, Councillor Harris, here, Councillor Ambry and Salgado are excused.

Thank you.

Our first presentation is a proclamation celebrating Farmers Market Week, and I'd like to invite Councillor Sinclair and board members of the Hillsboro Markets to the podium.

It's an honor to share tonight's proclamation in celebration of Farmers Market Week.

Whereas farmers markets are important outlets for agricultural producers nationwide, providing them with increased opportunities to meet consumer demand for a variety of fresh, affordable, convenient, and healthful products sold directly from the farm.

And whereas farmers' markets play a key role in developing local and regional food systems that support the sustainability of family farms, revitalize rural communities, and provide opportunities for farmers and consumers to interact.

And whereas a tradition since 1982, the downtown Hillsborough Saturday Market is a seasonal open air market located in the heart of Hillsboro.

And whereas in twenty excuse me, in 2003, the Aurinco Station Sunday Market opened and has become a destination market for locals and travelers alike.

And whereas in 2024, the South Hillsboro Market at Reeds Crossing opened and contributes to the cultural and economic vibrancy of the neighborhood.

And whereas the markets celebrate the city's rich agricultural history by connecting the community with local farmers and artisans that provide fresh seasonal produce and products.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Kipplin Sinclair, on behalf of Beach Pace, Mayor of the City of Hillsboro, Oregon, do hereby proclaim the week of August 2nd through 8th, 2026 as farmers market week.

We urge all community members to support local farmers and artisans by spinning the day shopping, grabbing a bite to eat, enjoy featured musicians, and engaging in interactive programs offered at the Hillsborough Farmers Markets.

And Krista, president of our Hillsborough Farmers Market, we'd welcome you to say a few words.

I just wanted to say thank you to the City Council for all your support, and we really appreciate being a part of this community.

Thank you, Councillor Sinclair.

Uh, tonight we're also recognizing Parks and Recreation Month.

So I'd like to invite Sia Lindstrom, Parks and Recreation Commission Vice Chair, and Parks and Recreation Director Kendall Reed up to the podium.

Thank you.

Whereas Hillsborough Parks and Recreation is the largest provider of inclusive and affordable health and wellness activities in the city of Hillsborough, and whereas Hillsborough Parks and Recreation maintenance crews care for more than 38 gorgeous public parks and community spaces in Hillsborough with a variety of amenities.

And whereas there are seven unique welcome, welcoming recreation centers in Hillsboro that offer a wealth of specialty programming, and whereas Hillsboro is home to sports complexes that host a variety of recreational and competitive opportunities for residents, bring in regional and statewide tournaments and events, and generate sports tourism that supports the local economy.

And whereas special events showcase and celebrate the unique cultures and identities of Hillsborough residents, help us form a collective sense of community, and bridge generations and diverse backgrounds.

And whereas Hillsboro Parks and Recreation creates positive experiences for youth by offering free and low-cost recreational and educational activities.

And whereas Hillsboro Parks and Recreation encourages individuals and families to live rich, full, healthy, active lifestyles through engaging fitness opportunities, youth and adult sports, activities that encourage imaginative and creative play, artistic endeavors, and nature exploration.

And whereas parks and natural areas add beauty to the community, promote urban tree cover, help prevent flooding, improve air quality, and serve as a habitat for wildlife.

And whereas public art enhances the built landscape, creating memorable spaces and gateways to the city.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Beachpace, mayor of the city of Hillsboro, Oregon, do hereby proclaim July, hereby reclaim July as Parks and Recreation Month in Hillsboro, and encourage community members to explore local parks, participate in activities, and attend events with our parks and rec department.

Thank you.

I'd now like to invite Sue Liz.

I'd now like to invite C and Lindstrom up to give us a briefing on Parks and Rec.

Thanks for being here and take it away.

Great.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor, City Councilors.

My name is Sia Lindstrom.

I'm your vice chair for the Parks and Recreation Commission.

I'm here tonight on behalf of our chair, Forrest Huntington, and I'm happy to be joined by our director, Parks and Recreation Director Kendall Reed.

So we appreciate having uh this chance to share with you how over the last year Hillsboro Parks and Recreation has continued to enrich the lives of more than 150,000 people through parks, recreation, arts, nature, and community events.

And central to all of this work, equity and access remain at the heart of everything we do, shaping every program, service, and initiative.

And if you could give me the next slide, thank you.

So this is our chance to give you our annual report.

So I'm gonna walk through several topics.

And the first one is parks.

When it comes to Hillsboro's park systems, we continue to plan, build, and maintain spaces that improve the quality of life through our throughout our community.

In the last year, the Gordon Faber Recreation Complex has expanded its role as a regional destination for sports and community events.

In April, the new Hillsborough Hops Ballpark and Regional Entertainment Venue opened for play, and the legendary band Chicago will headline at the stadium's first concert this fall.

We're also thrilled that Hillsboro Ballpark is the new home of the Portland Cascade, bringing women's professional softball to our community.

And the GFRC continues to host youth sports tournaments and community events.

In May, the city finalized an agreement with Washington County to redevelop the fairground sports complex, expanding sports and recreation opportunities across Hillsboro.

New parks projects are also underway, including a new playground at Evergreen Park, set to open later this summer, which you can see up there.

And this fall, two lighted and fenced futsal courts will open for play at Derry Creek Park, providing new spaces for youth and adults to enjoy this very popular and growing sport.

And I want to do a big shout out.

We've got a picture of some of them up here to the parks maintenance team for their hard work caring for these spaces across Hillsboro.

Next slide, please.

Next is recreation, as you can see from the beautiful pictures.

Our recreation programs continue to promote healthy, active lifestyles while creating opportunities for connection across every stage of life.

Sports leagues have returned to pre-pandemic participation levels.

I'm grateful to report.

And Hidden Creek Community Center has expanded camps, enrichment programs, rentals, and activities for families throughout the year.

Shark is also a vital resource in our community, teaching life-saving skills through swim lessons, promoting health, wellness, and fun.

And at the senior center, staff continue providing meals, wellness programs, and social opportunities that help adult older adults remain healthy, connected, and engaged in our community, which I appreciate as I step into that stage of life.

We're thankful for the Hillsborough School District and our many community partners whose collaboration helps expand recreation programs in Hillsboro.

Next slide, please.

Now we step into the arts.

The arts continue to flourish in Hillsborough because of strong city investment and outstanding community partnerships.

The Walters Cultural Arts Center continues attracting audiences from across the region through acclaimed performances, cultural programming, and free and low-cost family matinees.

We provided 291 arts workshops, classes, and camps for 2,146 students of all ages.

This year we expanded our mural program.

I hope you've seen some of them.

They're beautiful across the community.

We've installed new public art and distributed nearly a hundred thousand dollars in grants supporting local artists and cultural organizations.

And our cultural arts district sponsored free programming at MM Marketplace to celebrate its 25th anniversary, Dia de los Muertos, and more.

Next slide, please.

Next is nature.

Healthy natural spaces are vital for a healthy community.

This year, parks and recreation staff secured nearly a million dollars in grant funding to continue responding to the Emerald Ashbore Infestation at Jackson Bottom Wetlands Preserve, and to advance habitat restoration efforts throughout Hillsboro.

Nature education programs like Tiny Tadpoles, World Wetlands Day, Wetlands on Wheels, and the Young Scientist Club continue connecting thousands of community members to nature every year.

Next slide, please.

This is about our events.

Community events continue bringing thousands of people together to celebrate Hillsborough's diverse and welcoming community.

Signature events like the Showtime Concert Series, Picks in the Park, Pride Party, Arenko Fest, and Winter Village continue to create memorable experiences for our community.

This year, Winter Village introduced additional programming and free fun to make the event even more accessible.

You're healing you're hearing this accessibility theme throughout.

These events are made possible through strong partnerships with community organizations, volunteers, businesses, sponsors, and dedicated staff.

Next slide, please.

So the Parks and Recreation Commission set new goals in 2025.

And tonight we've had a chance to highlight some progress on just a few of those current priorities.

One of the things I noted at the beginning, and then just a minute ago was that parks and recreation continue to focus on both equity and reducing barriers to access.

And we do that through thoughtful facility design, flexible programming, fair pricing, and community-centered practices.

The department's new strategic planning efforts are moving forward, so stay tuned for that.

This plan will help guide the future of Hillsborough Parks and Recreation by establishing a shared vision, identifying priorities, and shaping in the uh investments in the year ahead.

And last slide.

So I have to end this presentation with a shout out to staff.

Behind every park, every program, every community event is an incredible team of nearly 100 full-time employees and more than 350 part-time and seasonal staff.

The passion, creativity, and dedication of parks and recreation stack staff make all of this work possible.

So on behalf of the Parks and Recreation Commission, thank you for your continued support of Hillsborough Parks and Recreation and for helping make Hillsborough one of the most livable communities in Oregon.

And with that, I turn it back to you for any questions or comments you may have.

Do we have any questions for Vice Chair Lindstrom?

Councillor Sinclair.

It's not a question, it's just a thank you.

Absolutely.

Thank you so much for the great presentation.

Okay.

Thank you.

Thank you, Susan.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Thanks again.

Well, hang on.

Are there any other questions for Vice Chair?

Um I'd also like to say thank you to UCA and the Parks and Rec Commission and to you, Kendall, and your entire staff.

I love the parks here.

I I love the events that are put on.

Um I think my my favorite part is seeing people smile as they're engaging.

You know, whether it's a concert or just kids playing, you know, on the playgrounds.

Thank you so much.

You bring joy to the community of Hillsborough, and thanks for all the work you do.

Right on.

Thank you.

Um our next item on the agenda is considering an appointment to the Transportation Committee.

Uh we are appointing Councillor Olivia Alcair to uh to the Transportation Committee for the remainder term.

Um do I have a motion to approve this appointment?

So move, Sinclair.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second case.

Is there any discussion?

I just want to say thanks to Councillor Alcare for stepping in to fill this this role uh because it's been vacated by Councillor Salgado.

And thank you for filling out for the rest of the year.

Very much appreciate it.

Uh may we please have a roll call.

Counselor's case.

Hi.

Harris?

Hi.

Sinclair.

Aye.

I'll care.

Hi.

Excellent.

Uh, we do have a majority uh uh voting yes, so the motion passes.

Thank you again.

Uh 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 right over here.

Uh they're over on the desk.

And staff are collecting them and they will bring them to the city recorder.

So please just give them to the staff that are alongside the table.

Uh when you are called on, please use the microphone at the public comment table.

The microphone is live when the green light is on.

You will need to tap the little purple button at the base of the microphone.

We have four persons registered to speak virtually, and the deadline to register has now passed.

Uh this is called public comment because it's time dedicated for you, members of the public, to inform the city council about your views.

This is not a time for members of the public to address the audience or the general public.

Please direct all comments to the council.

Uh, each person will have up to three minutes, and if you exceed the three minutes, we'll ask you to stop.

And if you refuse to stop your presentation, it will be deemed a disruption of the meeting, and you may be asked to leave.

Uh, if you feel you've been uh if you feel you have to publicly express support for a comment or viewpoint, we ask you to use quiet and non-disruptive methods to do that, such as snapping your fingers, a thumbs up, or jazz hands.

Uh clapping or calling out or making any verbal outbursts not only interferes with people's ability to hear clearly in the room, but it also disrupts the audio for those attending virtually.

And those disruptions will not be tolerated.

Again, we're trying to keep the space welcoming and inclusive for everyone and accessible, and so to avoid disruption, we ask that all comments be shared respectfully.

Uh tonight we are pleased to hear from you and we'll begin hearing from Justin Simpson, and then we'll go to the folks online.

Mayor, I'm sorry, can you just clarify why you why there are so many police present at this meeting?

Uh yeah, to ensure the safety of council and also the people in the audience.

Thank you.

Mr.

Simpson, you did uh alert us to your uh limitations, and so yes, you have six minutes.

Okay, okay.

Right in front of me.

Thank you for calling ahead to arrange that.

Yes, yes.

Uh it's nice to finally meet the uh ADA coordinator that I've been trying to speak with for six years.

So, yeah, it was nice.

Okay.

Name is Justin Simpson.

I am a survivor of a traumatic brain injury, and I am now legally blind.

After my accident in 91, I had only the inside right side of my left eye for vision.

19 no 2019, about the start of the pandemic, I started losing this.

Um during this time from about the 2021 school year up to now.

During this time, from about the 2021 school year up to now, um, there's been instances of I've suffered a concussion uh from a tree branch that had grown over the sidewalk that the city refused to take uh responsibility for and then later found out was and your city uh manager, office manager, Cheryl Jensen uh slid it under the rug.

Uh it just I mean, and when your um neurosurgeon tells you the first time you meet him after being in a coma for six months, you come home eight months later, he tells you you watch out any concussion you have could be your could be your final thing, and for the city to not even give a damn, that was just wrong.

Uh and now I have I have asked numerous times uh since the pandemic if there is a virtual ability ability to do virtual meeting when I could actually still see um so that I could properly give all the information of everything that's happened.

I've had uh instances that it's taken over 10 weeks for something to be fixed when on your own placards it says that there's a 15 day, and then the the owner the uh the people who live there are supposed to pay a penalty if it's not done.

Multiple places, multiple issues that's never been taken, it's never been done.

They've always given a leeway to the person who's breaking the rules.

I've suffered a concussion on an RV that was parked illegally.

You had a police officer who got promoted from sergeant to lieutenant after not doing um anything about it.

They made him turn it around and it still jutted out uh into the sidewalk.

Uh and since I asked for the virtual meeting, I was told by the city recorder point blank that there was no virtual meeting.

That was a lie.

I also gave that information to um Gabriel Tepang, the risk management person that um that Cheryl Jensen shifted everything to his boss, uh Sue Ling, I believe her name is, and then the lady above her was somebody in HR.

I made mention to her that I was told that there was no virtual meeting.

And when I told her that, she was silent for like five, ten seconds and didn't didn't correct me.

Nobody corrected me when I told them all that there was no virtual, I was told there was no virtual meeting.

If your staff doesn't know what's going on.

Um I've suffered, like I said, numerous concussions from obstructions in the sidewalk, uh things not taken care of, and now being lied to intentionally by the city recorder and the other managers.

Uh that's just wrong.

How much time do I have left?

Three minutes.

What's that?

Three minutes.

Mr.

Simpson, you have about three minutes?

Okay.

I mean, shoot.

Across my street, by our mailbox, there's a neighbor who lives there that has two big rose bushes.

They grow out into the sidewalk.

It went 10 weeks before somebody actually came out, Jimmy McClure, who's the public works director or manager, uh came out, saw that it was there, and trimmed it for a few minutes, but then he got called away to an emergency.

I had to go over there.

I didn't I didn't know what was going on.

Nobody told me.

I went over there, tried to break it up so I could clear it up.

I lost the use of one of my fingers on one of my hands for a month because it locked up trying to get in a thorn or something stuck in it.

Uh and on Lois and Sentry, uh, there was a growing over on the sidewalk.

It made me it trying to trying to get around it, may I fell down, uh, suffered a um fell down on the ground, the jarring of the head with the brain caused a little bit of head injury.

I had lacerations all up and down my arm.

I had to walk all the way back to a gas station, and the staff came running out, like, oh god, your arms all cut up.

I didn't realize anything had happened.

Took them 10 weeks to get that cleared.

They actually, I was told by somebody who worked underneath Jimmy that they went out there, took pictures of it.

They could have cleared it then, but no.

Uh how that follows ADA law, I don't understand.

Please, please, thank you.

Thank you, but please, please.

Oh man.

Oh.

Okay, I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to stop.

I can't talk anymore.

Thank you, Mr.

Simpson.

I need help, please, to get back down to where I came out and out so that I can get home.

Please.

Oh, thanks, Travis.

Thank you.

Travis, do you mind hitting the mute the thank you?

I will now turn to be even a call by somebody on the gun.

Mr.

Simpson will have somebody call you.

Thank you very much.

Turning to the folks online who wish to testify.

The first person is Daniel Eisenbeis.

Daniel, are you there?

I'm here, Mayor.

Okay.

Uh you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Mayor Pace, Council President Harris, members of Council.

Good evening.

For the record, I am Dan Ivan's regional affairs manager with the Port of Portland.

Thank you for the opportunity to offer comments in support of resolution 2930, addressing the transition from leaded aviation gas use at Hillsborough Airport.

You also find written testimony in your meeting packet from Steve Nagney, the port's director of airport operations.

The port strongly supports and advocates for the transition from leaded abgas to lead-free abgas to reduce emissions from aviation sources.

Well, only the Federal Aviation Administration has the legal authority to mandate the aircraft operators to unleaded abgas or prohibit the sale of leaded fuel.

The port knows we have a role to play in the transition.

The port has been engaged in the FAA's eliminate aviation gasoline lead emissions or Eagle Initiative, which is working to finalize a plan aiming to eliminate the use of leaded abgas by piston engine aircraft in the United States by 2030.

In parallel, the port developed its own transition approach in 2025, focused on local implementation to support early adoption and prepare for fleet-wide transition.

We recognize and appreciate the strong community interest in this public health and environmental issue.

The port is committed to staying actively engaged with the FAA as well as with our neighbors to share updates, explain what is within our control, and be transparent about timelines and constraints.

Thank you for your consideration.

Okay.

Yes, we can, Blaine.

Okay.

And I'm very pleased that the City Council is considering this resolution, and I thank you in advance for voting in favor of it.

Uh, for the good of our children, our residents, and our community, especially those residents who reside within two miles of the airport.

I have been an elementary, middle, and high school teacher, school principal, and university professor.

From my experience, children have been affected by who have been affected by environmental factors, face an uphill battle in school academics and behavior.

One of the most egregious of these uh factors is lead getting into their bloodstreams and going directly to their brains.

There's no safe amount of lead for humans, and lead poisoning can affect people's motor ability, their ability to process information, their attention span, and their social emotional control in the prefrontal cortex of the brain.

In adults, lead can affect the functioning of our internal organs and our mental processing and behavior.

I'm pleased to see that the port and Mr.

Steve Negie of the Port Administration supports this resolution.

A group of us have been working with the port for 16 years to stop selling leaded abgas with no tangible results to show for our efforts until tonight.

The port talks a good game and says that getting rid of lead at HIO as their top priority, but in fact, the port commissioners and administration are working behind their public stances to subvert, deflect obfuscate, and delay a ban from the very beginning.

For example, in 2014, we were told that by Mr.

Nagy himself that not to worry because by 2018 there would be an unleaded ab gas replacement.

But we're still selling the leaded abgas.

I'm gonna run out of time here very shortly.

So you can find the rest of my comments, I am told on page 474 of your guidance.

And I would end by saying that I asked the council to see this resolution as a first step and set aside time each year to hear a report from the port about their progress or lack thereof and allow time for public revival.

After 16 years experience, we can tell you it is very difficult to receive a truthful fact-based response from the port.

Thank you for your time.

Thank you.

Next person online to speak is E.

Mazara Myers.

Are you there?

I can hear me.

Yes, we can hear you, and you have three minutes.

Great, thank you.

Mayors and counselors, thank you for the opportunity to speak today.

Uh my name is Elizabeth Mazara Myers.

I'm the executive director of the West Side Economic Alliance.

I've written uh excuse me, I've submitted written testimony that accompanies this oral testimony.

As you discuss the future of data center development, I encourage you to think beyond any single project or moment.

Our region, if you are state, has an opportunity to set a high bar for responsible community-aligned data center development that others can follow.

Across the country, communities are rightly wrestling with questions about energy use, water, environmental impacts, and land use.

Those concerns deserve real attention.

But the core question for us should not be whether Gator Center should exist, rather how we create a framework for this development that reflects Oregon's values of stewardship, transparency, and long-term planning.

Rather than reacting to this challenging moment with a moratorium.

I challenge the city of Hillsborough to use vision and leadership, which can lead clear expectations and best practices to guide responsible development.

That means bringing together residents, utilities, environmental advocates, business leaders, and data center operators to shape a shared standard.

A collaborative framework could include strong environmental and resource efficiency requirements, meaningful community-centered benefits, transparent accountability measures, and predictable processes that give both residents and industry clarity.

The economic value of data centers extends well beyond the facilities themselves.

They support skilled trades and local contractors.

They strengthen the region's business ecosystem, and they contribute tax revenues that fund essential public services like accessible parks and community-centered arts programs.

Importantly, data centers are.

Excuse me.

Importantly, data centers power the systems that modern life depends on.

Banking, healthcare records, education platforms, remote work, public safety communications.

They are now as essential as roads, bridges, and electricity.

Oregon has a long tradition of balancing economic opportunity with environmental responsibility.

We don't have to choose one or the other.

I've said it elsewhere, and I will say it here.

We can do hard things, and we can do more than one hard thing at a time.

I encourage this council to reject calls for a moratorium and said help shape a framework that sets a high standard for a region or state and maybe even further afield.

One that welcomes responsible investment, protects community interests, and demonstrates what thoughtful future focused development can look like.

I'm not sure how many folks you've had in front of you who've been willing to say data centers are part of our modern economy, but I will tell you I'm not alone.

West Side Economic Alliance represents hundreds of employers and tens of thousands of regional workers whose jobs rely on a stable digital infrastructure.

Know that we stand ready to engage in the hard conversations ahead and support well-thought policy that helped build our regional economy for our workers and our communities.

Thank you for consideration and thank you for doing this hard work on behalf of the community you serve.

Your time is up.

Thank you very much.

Uh the next person.

Uh next person up is Karna Sheath.

Uh Karna, are you here?

Karna.

Come on up.

You have three minutes.

Yeah, thank you.

Thank you, Mayor Pace.

Thank you, Council President Harris, members of the City Council.

I appreciate you giving me the time to speak.

I'm here to testify in favor of the resolution, uh, moving away from leaded fuel at the airport.

So I hope that you can understand and uh take in all the uh facts and science behind the uh ill effects of lead in our air.

There's a reason why we don't have lead in our fuel car uh for our cars anymore.

So I hope that you can uh, as the uh previous speaker said, make this the first step towards moving us away from this poison.

Thank you.

Next person is Andres Perez Leite.

Uh welcome, just press the button there, and you have three minutes.

Uh hello.

Okay.

Uh hello, City Council.

Uh considering this is all considering the previous news about new data center plans that have not been clearly communicated to the public.

Uh I almost got lost on the way here.

Uh I was here, but I thought I was actually at the invertebrate exhibit due to the utter lack of spines on display here.

Uh but luckily I'm in the right place.

Uh, you aren't.

You guys shouldn't be even remotely close to public office because due to recent events, it's been become abundantly clear that you value private interests over public goods.

And at this point, come on, guys.

Let's just own it.

Just be the bad guy.

Like be confident in it.

Come on, I know you want to be true to yourself.

As long as your mental health is okay.

To hell with Hillsborough.

Our local government is assaulting our city with data centers.

You didn't ask for consent for data centers.

You didn't, you took a rip, you did not take a repeated and desperate and pleading no as an answer.

That is textbook assault.

If you're not going to listen, what do you want us to do?

Really?

What do you want us to do?

Do you want us to just go into the woods and kill ourselves?

Oh, wait, the woods are gone because you're tearing them down for more data centers.

I am sick.

I am sick of being civil and not having that respect come back to me and my community.

You think, oh, if I sit up here and shut up and let everyone get their turn, that's civility, but it isn't.

Civility is accountability.

Listening and doing something for once.

I am truly uh since this is recent news.

I am truly impressed with you guys.

My expectations were at rock bottom at bedrock.

And you managed to find a shovel and polish it up and go to the dig site and dig and dig and dig and dig deeper into the earth until my expectations have nothing to do except burn in the molten lava that lies underneath.

I'm not perfect.

None of us are.

You aren't perfect, they aren't perfect, besides my mom.

My mom's perfect.

But there's a difference between you and the community you lead.

All of us, we're all going home after this.

We're all maybe watching some TV, we're all going to bed.

But the one difference is that we will be somewhat content with the job we've done.

Good luck with your political careers.

Next speaker is Terry Kaiser.

And on deck is James Schultz.

Welcome, Terry.

The uh mic is already on.

And when you start speaking, you have three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor Pace and Hillsborough City Councilors.

My name is Terry Kaiser, and I was born and raised in Hillsborough.

I have worked at Twality Hospital slash Hillsborough Medical Center, also known as HMC, as a nurse for 46 years.

I will be retiring in two weeks.

Imagine the devastation I felt upon learning that HMC would be closing the Jerry Psychiatric and Observation Units.

17 RNs and one advanced practice provider will be affected by the Jerry Psych Unit Closure scheduled to take place on September 4th.

HMC is one of three acute inpatient psychiatric centers specializing in geriatrics.

It has 21 beds.

Providence, Milwaukee, and Willamette Valley Medical Center in McMinnville are the other two.

Both of these units are said to be at capacity most of the times and sometimes have wait lists.

Oregon has one of the highest rates of mental health needs in the country and one of the lowest rates of access to mental health care.

We also have the nation's 11th oldest population.

Elderly Oregonians are already struggling to access appropriate mental health care and are often too fragile to be treated in adult units like Legacies, Unity Center for Behavioral Health.

Closing this unit would eliminate nearly half the beds in the state dedicated to caring for elderly patients with acute psychiatric needs and can end up boarding in hospital emergency rooms for days.

She stated that there were open shifts, but locums who temporarily treat patients at hospitals or clinics were able to step in and fill the void.

Patients have been heard asking the nursing staff where are we supposed to go?

Unfortunately, they cut wind of the closure when administration officials came to the unit at shift change to make the announcement.

Patients often need more than one hospital stay, and if they are already concerned they won't have a place to go, the outcomes could be devastating.

There is a saying that goes when one nurse is injured, all nurses are injured.

These closures will affect all the units in the hospital.

We are asking the city council to join us in condemning these actions.

Please contact Hillsboro Medical Center CEO Lori James Nielsen at 503 681 1111 or Lori.

James Nielsen at Twality.org.

We must hold HMC executives accountable and restore essential health care services to our community.

We also have had a petition circulating opposing these closures, and between nursing staff and family and community members, we have over a thousand signatures.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is James Schultz, and on deck is Brianna Ellenberger.

Good evening, Mayor Praise and Council members.

Um I'm also here from Hillsborough Medical Center.

My name is James Scholz, and I've been I'm a nurse at Hillsborough Medical Center.

On July 8th, Hillsborough Medical Center announced that it would be closing our observation and jury psychiatric unit.

Healthcare workers, patients in the community were blindsided by the this announcement.

These closures will have a real and lasting consequences for patients and families in Hillsborough and throughout Washington County.

The observation unit bridges the gap between outpatient and inpatient care, allowing physicians time to determine whether a patient requires hospital admission or can be safely discharged.

Observation units help prevent unnecessary admissions, reduce emergency department overcrowding, and decrease the risk of delayed diagnosis and complications.

Patients who would otherwise be treated who would otherwise be treated in the observation will instead occupy inpatient beds.

When those beds are unavailable, emergency department patients wait longer, ambulances are delayed in transferring patients, and ultimately our entire community will feel the impact.

I am also deeply troubled by the lack of transparency surrounding these decisions.

Hospital leadership stated that the observation unit is being closed because the hospital was unable to renew a waiver that had been granted during the COVID-19 pandemic.

When Oregon Nurse Association requested documentation regarding the waiver and the reasons it was denied, we were told the hospital would need time to locate these records.

Less than a week after announcing the closures of these units, the hospital was unable to provide the documentation it cited as a basis for its decision.

The hospital decided to close these units without a clear plan for what will replace them and without providing information about available positions for the nurses being displaced.

I urge the city council to stand with patients, health care workers, and families by calling on Hillsborough Medical Center leadership to pause these closures, engage openly with community, and explore every possible option to preserve these critical services.

Health care is not a luxury.

It is an essential public service and a cornerstone to a healthy community.

And our most valuable residents deserve vulnerable residents deserve better than to lose access to care without a clear plan in place.

The true measure of a community is how it cares for its most valuable members to members.

Tonight I asked for you to help protect them.

Please help us stop these closures before irreversible harm is done.

Contact CEO Lori James Nielsen, and you have the information there.

Thank you.

Next up is Brianna Ellenberger, and on deck is Laith Eccles.

Welcome, you have three minutes.

Hi, my name is Brianna Ellenberger, and my family and I live right next to the intersection of Century and East Maine.

Our community is continuously pushing forward for meaningful change to the stretch of the road between Borwick to 53rd, especially at the intersection of East Maine and Century.

We received an email from Susie, the traffic and roadway principal engineer that stated that this intersection is in the top 5% for crashes, and that one out of every four drivers are traveling 10 miles per hour over the speed limit.

She also stated that we would benefit from additional evaluation and adjustments to this road.

We're in requesting to look into the idea of adding concrete center medians with vegetation to visually narrow the road for drivers and therefore hopefully reduce speeds.

We received a little bit of pushback, and I would like to encourage us to look into that with a little more detail.

An email we received from Tina Bailey, the assistant director of public works who oversees all transportation related issues stated in her email.

Median islands are also effective for visual narrowing, and I agree that they can be a great solution for influencing driver speeds.

Unfortunately, due to the number of private driveways, uh any additional islands beyond what is already there will restrict access to those driveways and roadways by limiting site distance to safely turn or block the access altogether.

I want to encourage City Council to dive a little deeper on this possible solution of reducing speeds in the area from Northeast 69th Avenue to the start of the intersection at Century and East Maine.

There are no driveways or roadways at all that would need a certain amount of roadway to make a turn safely.

This stretch that I speak of is the exact stretch of the road that someone driving 70 miles per hour ran the red light and killed a 19-year-old boy legally crossing the crosswalk.

I encourage you to drive the stretch of road if you haven't already and check this out.

Make a turn into Northeast 69th Avenue so you can see for yourself the part of the road that needs to be there for safely turning, but also take a look at the rest of the stretch of road that isn't used at all.

I appreciate the mobile speed unit that was put up by police, but that was put up for about seven days.

And I strongly believe that our city can come together and make a permanent change for road and pedestrian safety in this ever growing area.

If and when the expansion project goes through, we will have even more teens from Century High and families walking and biking through to Arranco Station, and we would need to take this very seriously.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh next up we have Leif Eccles, and then on deck is Mr.

Brown.

Mr.

Brown, yes.

And then after that is Jenna.

Uh Leif, you have three minutes.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Leif Eccles, and I have concerns about the uh impacts of the Century Boulevard extension project as well.

I'm gonna focus my testimony today on the impacts to waterways and aquatic life during and after construction.

Uh the Twileton River basin includes North Rock Creek and Beaverton Creek that runs through Noble Woods.

Uh this waterway is home to threatened steelhead and freshwater mussels.

This area includes bottomland riparian forest, which is priority habitat in the Oregon conservation strategy.

Steelhead and Pacific Lamprey rely on shaded riparian forests, particularly during winter uh flooding events, which is a regular occurrence in Noble Woods.

The Willamette Watershed Council strategy for the Twelleton River Basin includes preventing storm off stormwater runoff and maintaining stream canopy cover.

These focus areas have been in place since the EQ designated this region as water quality limited due to low dissolved oxygen concentrations, which can be exacerbated by roadway runoff and loss of shade.

Construction of this project will require dewatering.

There is potential for significant significant harm to the habitat and water quality in Beaverton Creek.

Drying out the riverbed will cause loss of aquatic life and critical habitat for threatened species.

Pumping water back into the riverways and wetlands during dewatering can add sediment into waterways, clogging the gills of fish, destroying larvae, and altering water temperature.

Additionally, the removal of 267 established trees around the newly constructed road will also increase water temperatures in summer months, increasing the likelihood of toxic algal algal blooms.

The City of Hillsborough set a goal for this project to place the stormwater management facility or SMF outside of the floodplain to collect and treat runoff from the newly constructed road.

In an FAQ released by the City of Hillsborough in 2021, they said ideally the SMF would be located outside of the floodplain where the impact to habitat would be minimal.

Measurements from the recently released design maps for this project compared to the FEMA floodplain maps show that a portion of the SMF will extend approximately 65 feet into the floodplain.

Washington County is legally allowed to damage the wetlands at Noble Woods Park by purchasing mitigation credits.

Despite the fact that the Willamette Watershed Council's priorities and the Twellaton River National Wildlife Refuge Comprehensive Conservation Plan have identified the habitat within Noble Woods as critically important for conservation.

It's deeply concerning that decades of efforts to restore wetlands and riparian forest habitat will be a race to the construction of this project.

I ask that you reassess the location of the SMF in the design plan as it extends into the floodplain.

The study would need to validate the to that the total maximum daily load of discharge into the waterways will not exceed the established limits set by the Clean Water Act.

I ask that you work with DEQ to develop a stormwater pollution prevention plan.

Washington County must demonstrate how they will isolate your time is up.

Okay, thank you.

Next person is next person is Mr.

Brown, and after Mr.

Brown on deck is Jenna.

Mr.

Brown, I'm gonna ask you to not do the chair like that and face the council.

Mr.

Brown.

All right.

The only time our leaders have to why are you why are you using all my time?

Why did you start it if uh if that didn't count?

Why did you start the timer?

I see it's still going.

Mr.

I turned around.

Okay, I turned around.

Now start the timer over because you didn't you turned off my microphone.

Fine.

We'll start the timer over.

Please face the council.

The only time these leaders listen to we the people is when we've been is when they give us three minutes to condense all our thoughts and feelings.

It's funny that they never get limited to three minutes and nothing says freedom like a three-minute timer, huh?

Some of you may remember the police telling me they'd put hands on me if I didn't leave, and really think about it because they don't want us to use violence, yet they said they'd use it against me for not staying quiet when they tell us lies, such as we care about immigrants and brown people while doing nothing about ice agents because they're doing federal work.

She only reaches out to communities desperate enough to support her.

She, like other politicians, is an opportunist using us minorities to get her numbers, beach pace, because she has admitted that she won't make any effort to push back on the data centers or against the state.

If the 17 data centers she passed in secret tell us anything, it's that a read or a rich CEO making 150,000 annually, should not be put in charge of making decisions affecting the working class.

It's like Malcolm X said, liberals are like foxes.

Their hunger is the same as the wolves, but at least the wolf you can see coming.

For example, in 2018, she said Mayor Beach Pay said sexual harassment is not normal.

It's not okay.

It's not boys will be boys, it's wrong.

Eighty-one percent of women are sexually harassed.

When a woman claims she's molested by a man at almost any time, people strain to believe her.

They question her.

And yet, when Salgado was disciplined for live streaming, and yet Salgado was disciplined for live streaming, not for sexual harassment, which was what set the whole thing off.

You can ask Antonia, the police chief himself refused to take her seriously, and the whole city has yet to release any of the footage from the live stream of that day.

They've only released the aftermath.

But it's not surprising that the police are useless because they're the tools of the ruling class who are all over the Epstein files writing our laws but are still in charge of it.

Why are we upholding a system that would collapse without the exploitation of people and the earth?

If 60% of people are living paycheck to paycheck, that's not a personal failure, that's a systemic failure.

In 2005, the Supreme Court ruled the police are not here to protect and serve, they're here to enforce laws.

And for those of you who haven't heard, Stephen Miller, Marco Rubio, and Mike Johnson, as you know, have referred to MSPM7, which states anyone anti-police, anti-immigration laws, anti-ICE, anti-capitalism, adhering to a radical gender identity in favor of mass amnesty or against traditional family values.

Basically, anyone against tools of imperialism, they're domestic terrorists.

The police don't question their orders, and I was there at the city council meetings watching people beg and cry for leaders to do something only for them to say, oh, Sawi, ICE does fair federal work and we can't do anything about it.

In 2020, the Washington County Sheriff Office was hacked where a whistleblower used the department site to share a video of the deputy Ryan Alden with his hands around Aubert Molina's neck after slamming him into a wall, which is why Molina got a 625,000 payout.

Think about it.

If that hadn't been leaked, we would have never known about it.

And in 2021, Cindy Young Bolek, who worked 20 years in the Hillsborough Police Department reviewing body cam footage, was paid was placed on paid leave after sharing her notes, outlining her concerns of racism.

Your time is up.

Next person uh is Jenna.

Uh Jenna.

Uh the mic is on.

As soon as you start talking, you have three minutes.

Thanks.

I'm here to talk about resolution 2929.

For those of you not aware, that is in regards to changes to the uh parks department and also the library and their requirements for people.

I take a little bit of I want you all to take a step back as you consider this this evening at some of the rules.

Um, they want to have personal hygiene or belongings that unduly interfere with the ability of others to use the parks.

That's directly opposed to our houseless members.

And there's several other things in here that are the same way.

You want to pass, or the parks wants to pass a rule that you can't wash your hair.

Well, if we continue with the price of raising our prices, as you talked about across the street.

Um we'll all be over there washing our hair.

We won't be able to afford water.

You say they can't wash.

You say they can't use the bathroom for other instances.

I have my notes.

Um bathing or washing your hair, except for in the locker rooms, creating obstacles with the personal belongings.

I've spoken to people at the parks that work in the parks, and there's a very few people that are affecting the issues in the parks.

The majority of the houseless people that hang out in the parks are good citizens that pick up after themselves and take care of things.

The most concerning part about this whole thing is that you want to make it the enforcement of the parks and recs people.

They're the ones that have to do this.

They have to kick people out for not following all of these rules.

That's not why they're hired.

They're hired to take care of the parks.

It's the police's responsibility if there is an issue, address the issue and don't make blanket laws that affect everybody.

Think about the houseless, they have nowhere else to go.

It doesn't hurt for them to use the bathroom to wash their hair.

If they haven't showered in three months, move over and have your picnic somewhere else.

It's okay.

We can all use the space together.

Our parks department should not be responsible for monitoring the houseless.

That's not their job.

And when the police do it, they do it in an inequitable way.

I myself was trespassed at Shoot Park for 24 hours.

Another white woman who sprayed bear mace in somebody's face was shot.

Thank you.

Next person is Teresa.

Uh Teresa.

Teresa Say.

Okay.

And then on deck is Andrew Barker.

Teresa just press the button in the center of the console.

On that screen.

Is it green?

Yes, green.

Okay.

Sorry, allergies.

It's okay.

Okay.

I'm here to talk about the resolution for the aviation fuel.

Okay.

Good evening, and thank you for your time.

My name is Teresa C and I live in Joe's Farm in Hillsboro.

I understand that changing policies around aviation fuel is a significant decision, but I ask that we focus on one simple principle.

When a safer alternative exists, we should not continue exposing children to a neural, a known neurotoxin.

Lead exposure is harmful to children, and the most serious impacts are of developing brain.

Medical experts have repeatedly concluded that there is no safe blood level for a child.

The concern about aviation fuel is not hyper hypothetical.

The Miranda report identified airports using lead at 100 low-lead fuel as a source of lead exposure, and roughly five to six studies have found higher blood levels among children who live or attend school near airports where 100 low-lead fuel is used.

About 15 years ago, we tried to determine whether the same issue existed around Hillsboro Airport.

Our David Labisher consulted directly with Dr.

Lynn Miranda about her methods.

Oregon officials review blood data, but there was simply not enough records, children, to conduct a valid study.

Twelve years ago, air monitoring effort with Portland State University was launched, but equipment failures and project setbacks prevented meaningful results.

In conclusion, the absence of local proof is not proof of safety.

It m simply means we were unable to complete the studies we needed.

Today, we have an opportunity to act responsibly, with alternatives such as G100 UL available.

We do not have to choose between aviation and public health.

We can support both.

In addition, we should transition flight training away from residential communities for cleaner air and tranquil living.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Andrew Barker.

And then uh on deck is Tori Lewis.

Andrew, welcome.

You have uh is the mic on for you?

So great.

Uh you have three minutes.

Good evening, Mayor and Counselors.

My name is Andrew Barker.

I'm a Hillsborough resident.

I'm here to talk to you about the tragic death at East Maine and Century that a couple other speakers have already talked about.

The staff report that's an item 11.1 in today's agenda has a couple errors about this tragedy.

Um it is wrong about causes of crashes.

It seems to indicate that crashes only have one cause.

But we know based on our safe systems and level zero approach to traffic safety that there are multiple interlocking causes to crashes.

So in that staff report says that the crashes that we've seen before are attributed to human error, and that means the design is not responsible, that's false.

The human error of high speeding is of high speeds is influenced by the bad design of the road.

And in order to make our roads safer, we need to lower speeds.

In order to lower speeds, we need to change road design.

That is the only way forward for our community to reduce its traffic violence.

The other mistake that staff report makes is it's wrong about the safety record of East Main Street.

There was a fatal crash on June 14th, 2023 that is not listed on the list of crashes in that staff report.

And the fact that they missed a fatal crash indicates to me that probably there's other mistakes in that uh list of crashes.

Moving forward, I I would ask you.

I know this is a Washington County road, so you have limited ability to what you can do, but your ability to do things is not zero.

In particular, Washington County puts a high priority on the Century Boulevard extension.

And they can't complete that extension unless they have the cooperation of the City of Hillsboro.

So I'm asking you to direct your transportation staff to stop cooperating with Washington County until they have made East Main Street safer.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Next up is Tori Lewis, and on deck is Dirk Knutson.

Hello, Tori, you have three minutes.

Thank you.

Hello, Council.

My name is Tori Lewis, and I'm a resident of Hillsboro.

I come tonight knowing that this is a difficult time in our city.

There has been a string of contentious city council meetings.

I wanted to share a few words about things not related to the hot topics of the day.

I am a follower of Jesus Christ and aim to live by his word, the Bible.

I certainly do not do so perfectly.

In short, God has placed you in high positions, and it is Christians that are encouraged to pray for you from the Bible.

I and many others are praying for you.

These specific verses encourage me to be praying for you.

A church leader named Paul, around 65 A.D.

is writing to another pastor named Timothy and remarks about the importance of praying for all those in authority.

This is in 1 Timothy, the book of 1 Timothy, chapter 2, verses 1 through 6.

It says, first of all, then I, Paul, the main pastor, urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all those in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

That this is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth.

For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Jesus Christ, who gave himself as a ransom for all, which is the testimony given at the proper time.

End quote.

These verses say that Christians are to pray for all people, kings in a special interest tonight, all those in high positions.

Each of you as city counselors are those in high position.

The purpose is that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.

Uh every every day.

Dear Heavenly Father, I want to lift up each of the members of City Council.

We pray that you may give them wisdom and decision making, safety in their lives, and blessings on them and their families.

We pray this in Jesus' name.

Amen.

Thank you.

Next speaker is Dirk Kenudson.

And on deck is Kylie Delgado.

Good evening.

Um thank you for all the work you are doing and that you have ahead of you regarding data centers, data storage.

I'm grateful to have staff bringing that forward and having you all work on that.

Um, I have been trying very hard to get actual numbers on tax abatement and enterprise zone.

And I did not hear that that's going to be in this work you're doing.

I hope the promise of working on that enterprise zone is going to come through in that work.

That's what we were told.

Looking at QTS, five buildings.

They should have paid 20 million one hundred and eighty thousand last year.

They paid 599 staff showed that in one of the work sessions.

Now, Hillsborough should have, if we didn't have enterprise, Hillsborough would have made 6,265,580 to the general fund.

Because we have enterprise and because we have the community service fee, Hillsborough actually brought in 6.818 million.

Hillsborough brought in a premium because we have enterprise and have the community service fee of 552,000.

I'm concerned that those numbers put staff in some sort of conflict where it makes it difficult for them to want to go away from that.

Now I know it goes to workforce uh the first three years, and we still don't know what's going to happen with the 55 million, right?

In the year four and five, that money goes to economic development, which we love in this town.

But while we made more in 2025, that number was for 2025, Hillsborough School District went without 7.2 million.

Washington County went without 2.9 million, and a lot of other districts, like Twalton Valley Fire and Rescue and Twilight Valley Soils and PCC went without three million.

So that 20 million that disappeared did not take money away from Hillsborough because we made more.

And we make more in my suppositions and my numbers in every single enterprise agreement.

Now I have tried for five months to get meaningful numbers, and you need to get these numbers.

Somebody needs to be accountable for how much is the total.

Is it 140 million a year that we're going without because we have enterprise?

Because next year you all have to draft a new enterprise zone, or we won't have one by the end of 2007.

So we really need those numbers.

How are you going to have policy without numbers?

I have 10 email chains between the staff here in Washington County.

They're all kicking the ball back and forth, and unless I pay thousands of dollars, I can't get historical numbers.

So I like to have those.

And then as you move ahead on your very important work on data centers, I hope to God that our climate and sustainability work and our goals and initiatives finds its way into the code somehow, because none of that is coming through in what's happening here in Hillsborough.

And I do want to pray for all the people at Intel across the United States and across the world because 40,000 more people are losing their jobs at our biggest success story, hopefully not locally.

So thank you.

I know you have a lot of work ahead of you, and Godspeed.

Next up is Kyla Delgado, and on deck is Jacob Roloff.

This week we learned that the law enforcement council of Washington County adopted a new policy regarding retail theft, and tell them now misdemeanor and theft was handled via citation in a court date.

This allows the person accused of theft to schedule a day off from work, arrange safe child care for their children, and brief themselves and their lawyers on their charges.

This, along with restitution for the stolen items, is the appropriate consequence for a nonviolent crime.

With the policy change of arrest first, assess the damage later, we are further disenfranchising individuals who are already struggling to such an extent that they resort to theft in the first place.

Now, when a person is accused of misdemeanor theft, which includes theft of goods, less than a hundred dollars, they are immediately arrested and booked into county jail.

Some may spend multiple days waiting in a cell before they are released for later court date.

While they sit in jail, the foundations of their lives are liable to crumble.

They might lose their job.

They may lose access to ongoing medical care and treatment.

Their children may be placed in DHS custody.

And forcing folks to suffer in county jail is not free.

It costs taxpayers an estimated $2,000 to put a community member through an arrest and booking process.

It costs taxpayers an additional $173 per day that they remain in custody.

All this for theft of merchandise valued at less than $100 from mega retailers like Target and Fred Meyer that experience no actual profit loss once their insurance covers what was stolen.

Let us also acknowledge the fact that the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission audited 12 police agencies across the state and found that Hillsborough Police Department had the highest level of racial bias by a mile.

In Hillsboro, if you are Hispanic or black, you are two and a half times more likely to be cited or arrested for a crime than a white person suspected of the exact same crime.

In a city where we saw over 500 kidnappings by ICE agents working in tandem with the most racist police bureau in the state, do you really believe this new policy has nothing to do with holding our Hispanic neighbors in a cell and handing them off for deportation?

What if instead of spending $2,000 plus dollars of taxpayer money to um provide merchandise security for billion dollar companies, we instead use that money to invest in those who are struggling in our community?

Issue a citation, let the accused have their day in court, and provide them with follow-up care and access to resources that will allow them a secure financial footing and more effectively reduce property crime in the future.

Punitive arrests and jail time for misdemeanor theft is a cruel and frankly lazy and unstudied attempt at creating true public safety.

Putting nonviolent people in jail creates career criminals.

Countless studies have shown this.

And ignoring decades of research on carcerality does not mean we have a county that is tough on crime.

It means we have a county run by idiots who can't or won't do the math.

Is it your job as counselors to set police policy?

No.

But it is your job to ask where the money is coming from and where it is going.

Mayor.

Your time is up.

Next person.

Next person up.

Ms.

Delgado, your time is up.

Next person is Jacob Roloff.

Uh next person is Jacob Roloff, and on deck is Mickey and David Barnes.

Uh Mr.

Roloff, you have three minutes.

Um good evening, counselors.

Before I begin, it feels prudent to point out that Mayor Pace is on the board of directors of the West Side Economic Alliance, whose member publicly commented.

Uh is one of the few in many months uh in support of data center development out of hundreds against it.

Um the uh June 9th work session notes say that uh council directed staff to return with proposed moratorium procedures.

And I looked at the uh slides for the work session happening later tonight, didn't see mention of it as an individual item.

Uh I did see mention of it tucked away in resolution 2931, which says that the city is waiting until the other amendments to code uh are are passed in order to continue with moratorium recommendation options, which just seems uh uh super backwards.

Uh the time frame for the tinkering code amendments uh that the construction moratorium research apparently requires uh extend into mid-2027 or later.

And meanwhile, tonight's city manager report lists two new data centers in the last month, one of which neighbors uh Liberty High School.

While we wait for action, we see some people and alliances of people, including our mayor, new PACs, and so forth, try to say that never-ending development of data centers is necessary for survival or for everyday life and emergency services to keep functioning.

I'm sure all of you uh on on council and everyone in the audience even uh remembers life before data centers, or at least before their current proliferation, and also before yearly wildfires in the air.

Neither are inevitable, but the result of policy choices and lack of political will to challenge the status quo when there's an emergency looming.

The promise from those who own the data centers that their product will deliver us from dangers faster than they create them is ludicrous, and believing those promises is just stupid.

If there's a data center or a number of data centers that are critical for survival and civilized life, they should operate as a not-for-profit public service, have the majority of their profit taxed by the communities in which they operate, or be owned publicly outright.

The cost of their effects needs to be actively agreed on publicly, not just passively through you use the cloud, you use social media based on return of measurable beneficial services and not economic projections that may not survive the next investment bubble.

These data centers and the decisions about them seem to be made in the barren gold of economic logic as the warming communities across the state and country demand for it to stop.

It's just extremely myopic and very foolish to depend on these promises from the owners of this industry.

Um instead of investing into deeper resiliency of an actually existing community now surrounded by wildfire smoke.

We need a moratorium on construction right now so the public can engage in the review process without learning of more sites at every meeting with no recourse until Q4 2027.

Uh the emergency in the eyes of people who live here is right now.

Uh so we need to stop the deference to companies that destroy our world for profit and lobby our local leaders to do nothing.

Thank you.

Next up is Mickey Barnes.

Mickey and David.

And on deck is Danielle Sivir.

Can we get another chair for them?

Is there one available?

Oh, you just take turns.

Okay.

This is two sequential testimonies.

Oh, I see.

Okay.

That's fine.

We don't need another chair.

Thank you.

Okay.

So uh David, you have three minutes.

I'm David Barnes.

I live in uh banks.

Um Mayor Pace, President Harris, members of the council.

Thank you for this opportunity to present testimony.

For more than 15 years, Oregon Aviation Watch has advocated for a ban on leaded aviation fuel because the serious danger posed by this neurotoxin to human health and the environment.

OAW was proud to sign on as a petitioner in an earth justice organized effort, urging the Environmental Protection Agency to issue an endangerment finding on leaded aviation fuel.

OAW board members during these years included Jim Lubisher, Blaine Ackley, Theresa Say, and Patrick Conry.

The final determination was released in October of 2023.

In the words of then EPA administrator Michael Regan, the science is clear, exposure to lead can cause irreversible and lifelong health effects in children.

In adults, lead poisoning is linked with a higher incidence of strokes, kidney disease, miscarriages, reproductive problems in both men and women, and increased violence.

Dr.

Bruce Lanfear and his colleagues have found that lead is linked to 400,000 adult deaths in the U.S.

each year from cardiovascular disease and other causes.

Thus, it is with gratitude that we come before you today to express our appreciation for the considerating resolution number 2930, urging the Port of Portland and Federal Aviation Administration to transition to unleaded aviation fuel at the Hillsborough Airport.

Out of 20,000 airports nationwide, HIO ranks eighth in lead emissions.

It is the largest facility source of airborne lead pollution in Oregon.

Multiple environmental and health organizations, including the EPA, Centers for Disease Control, World Health Organization, American Academy of Pediatrics, and other medical associations agree there is no safe level of lead in a child's blood.

Yet, despite well-documented evidence attesting to the potentially irreversible damage caused by this toxin, the FAA and the Port of Portland continue to promote policies that contribute to the release of three-quarters of a ton of lead into the air by users of HIO every single year.

In fact, in their transition plan to unleaded aviation gasoline, rather than advocating for expedited elimination of leaded AV gas, the FAA promoted a market-driven approach, one that would allow airports to continue releasing this toxin indefinitely.

I want to concur with Blaine Ackley's testimony that in addition to approving this resolution, you should follow up and make sure that the Port and the FAA aren't just sitting on their hands waiting to be asked for the unleaded gas.

Alternatives exist, and the port should be encouraging its FBOs to offer that at HIO now.

Mickey Barnes is next, and on deck is Danielle Sivir.

Okay.

Um Mayor Pace, uh President Harris, members of the council, thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I also want to extend my thanks to Robin Strawn from the Sustainability Department and Ariel Nelson from government affairs.

They've been uh very gracious and very helpful in putting this resolution together, and I I sincerely appreciate that.

So I want to say there are now over five stuff, there are now five studies involving over a million children and more than 500 airports, all provide compelling evidence that children living in the vicinity of vicinity of airports that service piston engine aircraft are at a heightened risk of elevated blood lead levels.

One such study was done at Reed Hillview Airport in 2021 in California, Santa Clara County.

Uh, this study, well, Reed Hillview is 34th in the nation in lead emissions, Hillsboro's eighth.

That's according to the EPA.

In this study, what they found was, quote, under periods of high piston engine aircraft traffic, children proximate to Reed Hillview Airport experience an increase in blood lead levels in excess of what the children of Flint experienced during the Flint water crisis.

As pointed out in the Santa Clara County press release, quote, lead levels during peak airport hours were double, double the levels seen during the height of the Flint water crisis in Michigan, unquote.

In the words of Sammy, Dr.

Sammy Zaron, the lead researcher on the study, quote, the Flint water crisis from start to finish unfolded in less than a year, a year and a half.

By contrast, at Reed Hillview, the release of lead into the lived environment is a continuous, nonstop, daily, unabated flow of an undeniably harmful toxicant.

I remind you that we are talking about more than a thousand pounds of lead released annually on nearby populations, unquote.

At Hillsboro, we're talking more like 1,500 pounds a year, if significantly more than at Reed Hill View.

As a reminder, the Flint water crisis was declared both a statewide and national emergency.

This stands in stark contrast to the business as usual stance towards lead poisoning at HIO and other GA airports.

Following the release of the Reed Hillview study, in an effort to protect residents, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors unanimously voted to ban leaded aviation fuel at Reed Hillview, beginning in January of 2022.

Reed Hillview now offers two unleaded alternatives.

Gammy one, uh your time is up.

Next up is Danielle Siver.

And on deck is Jim Lubisher.

Good evening, Mayor Pace, Council President Harris, Counselors.

I'm here today as a longtime Washington County resident, a local employee and a gig worker.

I rent my home and I'm a mom.

Last year, my son was the victim and a witness of a violent crime in Multnomah County.

It took police and ambulance 30 minutes to arrive, and by the time they did, my son's best friend, a Hillsborough resident, had died.

The toll that has taken on our families has been indescribable.

I hate sharing this story, but these stories are now the norm across Portland.

I believe that this murder could have been prevented with a regional belief in rebuilding the Silicon Forest and the Bioscience Network.

Unfortunately, these efforts are met with much opposition.

It's going to take regional courage and investments in business development to ensure that we have a tax base that protects our social safety net and our public services, like Hillsborough's amazing parks and libraries and the criminal justice system.

As the financial engine of Oregon for decades, Hellsborough Council has a unique opportunity to consider economic development tools and opportunities that other parts of the state will never have.

Council can ensure that businesses will have well-trained and well-paid employees and guarantee other community benefits.

We've been doing that for 50 years.

Whether it's Multnomah County, Clackamas County, Washington County, Hillsboro, or Beaverton, the Portland, the people of Greater Portland will continue to suffer without this commitment to economic development.

I hope instead of no to development projects, council can dig into how we rethink revenue generation.

Please consider how to build an economy that will support our residents and how to have conversations that balance growth and our Oregon values.

Thank you for your daily work and for the time tonight.

Next speaker is Jim Lubisher, and on deck is Jody.

Let's see.

Good evening.

Okay.

Yes, I'm Jim Lubisher.

And uh wanna first, be sure to have the mic near your mouth so we can all hear you.

Okay.

Thank you very much.

Uh thank you for first.

Thank you for your interest first in the in ending the use of leaded fuel at HO.

Um there is good news.

There is uh FAA approved lead-free fuel that could be sent to HIO within a month or so, and that can be used for all fixed-wing aircraft.

And that all fixed wing aircraft makes up 97% of all aircraft, not counting jets, of course.

But we need your help.

Um why can't we get the port to bring G100 UL, the unleaded fuel, to the Hillsborough Airport, HIO.

My submission uh addresses this, and I'm not going to go through all of this, of course, but it's there for your perusal.

First, the first item is like only all of the items here except for the very last one, are um taken from the ports uh comments, and they give a reason uh that they can't do bring unleaded fuel here.

The first one it has to do with like coming engines threat that they can't uh um uh honor their uh engine warranties if G100 UL is used, and that's not true, and you can read about that.

The next uh I think there's seven or eight of them are kind of self-explanatory, but these are all items that were taken from the the ports transition, not a book, but it's just five or eight pages on their website.

These were all taken from there.

The reasons they can't do this, uh all of them are missing a few things, and um they're all not correct.

Um the very last thing uh has to do with um something that and a mistake the FAA has made.

And um, we're looking into that now.

So again, thank you for, I'm glad you are interested, and you're doing a resolution.

Uh if you wanted to amend that, that would be great in some ways, but I think it's just fine.

We can but I'd be glad to uh if you wanted, I could come back and talk with you and certainly Mickey and uh the others that have talked.

Um we do uh have some um contact, a lot of contact with the uh inventor of the unleaded fuel.

And he would have been here to well, not here tonight, but he was thinking of listening, he might be listening, but um he's in Oshkosh at one of the big uh aircraft um get togethers, and he's quite something, and he developed this fuel over 12 years ago, and he's been using it in his plane for those last 12 years, and I think it's a good deal, and we just we can work together and thank you.

Next up is Jody and on deck.

Uh next up is Jody and on deck is Sarah D.

Hi.

Hi doing.

Yep, go ahead.

Sorry, I'm just gonna say you have three minutes.

Um, to be here again and bring up petty grievances.

You don't want us to applaud, and yet you do when other people are speaking.

Maybe they're the ones you like well enough to applaud for, but I don't see the happy hands when you're up there applauding.

You have told me before base b pace that I can I can applaud, but I chose not to, and I brought Castanets instead.

But I chose not to, and I brought castanets instead.

I'm sure my applauding was much worse than the castanets.

If you want to listen to some of the videos, it applauding does not prevent you from hearing what's being said.

I think you just don't like hearing that people agree with certain people.

As far as needing extra security to protect you for Christ's sake, we don't need you with more protection.

We need you with more action.

Thanks for bringing the police in.

I I'm not gonna come, I'm I'm not gonna complain about police, other than there are places they could be used positively at Shoot Park at Pride, crap was going on, and people were standing there, cops from a variety of locations, Washington County, Hillsboro, whatever, and not doing anything when a lady was bare is spraying mace at a kid or other adults.

Why are they there if they're not doing anything?

And we have security here.

Why do we need police officers too?

Are you that afraid of us?

Are you that afraid of us who have been coming here and trying to talk to you and getting no response in return?

Just the little sad face thing.

And I'm tired of it.

No one's gonna rush you.

And if they do, we even protect you because we're that kind of people.

No one is out to get you, Beach.

We may try to get you out of office, but we're not coming at you personally or case either, who is so afraid to look at us, unless we're saying something that you approve of.

Um I want to know too why the money that we need for transportation that we talked that you talked about, we didn't get to talk in uh the work session.

Why couldn't they use some of the money from let's say the data center taxes that we don't get?

Look, I'm done.

Bye.

Next up is Sarah D, and then on deck is Pam Code.

Okay, I believe this is green, so I'm good to go.

Um I don't have anything written.

I am just gonna speak off the cuff.

I came here not sure if I was gonna speak, and then we got this, and then I decided, well, I kind of need to.

Um it's apropos that I'm following after Jody because um maybe I have some answers to her questions of why do we have all of these things?

Um I'm gonna recognize that it's probably pretty uncomfortable to be up there and to hear people speaking to you about things that maybe um uh make you have feelings that they have feel strong feelings about that they are unhappy about.

Um, but that is your job.

And our job is to be on this side and to speak those concerns, to tell you what we're concerned about, to tell the things that we want or we don't want in our community, and to stand up for ourselves in our community.

Um, and so I am really proud of everybody who comes up here because I am seeing how difficult and nerve-wracking this is.

It's very uncomfortable to sit here and to speak your mind.

Um, but we need that.

Um, I feel like this document and all of the presence that was pointed out tonight of more security.

Um, it feels like that intention is to chill public participation.

And to be fair, when I read this, I felt chilled.

I felt like maybe I shouldn't go up.

What if I do it the wrong way?

Um, and I get in trouble in some way, but that's why I should be doing this, right?

That's why I should be here and speaking up and speaking my mind, because if we don't do this, you're just making decisions with no input, with no idea what the community actually wants.

And that's what we don't want, right?

We want to be heard.

We are you are a part of our community too, but you have the power that we don't have.

Our power is right here, sitting here and saying, this is what we like, this is what we don't like, we have strong feelings about this, and um sometimes that message isn't sent in the way that you would like, but that doesn't mean you get to police how we give that message.

And sometimes that message isn't sent in the way that you would like, but that doesn't mean you get to police how we give that message.

Um that makes me really uncomfortable that we came in and automatically were like, hey, you can say things, but you have to say things in a really specific way and the way that we want to hear it.

Um and so I encourage everybody to continue to come to each meeting and listen.

And when you feel so called, speak up, say something, say what you feel strongly about.

I will say that I've heard about a lot of things in this room that I did not hear in other places, like lead in our community and data center stuff, and about the uh Century Boulevard extension and the concerns that are um around safety and uh the environmental concerns.

So thank you, everybody who has come here.

Uh next up is Pam Code.

And then on deck is Lindsay A.

Hi, Pam.

As soon as you hit the button, you have three minutes.

Or when you start speaking, you have three minutes.

Um so I'm here to speak about the Century Boulevard Extension Project again.

Um I would like to thank members of City Council who have requested info on this, C B E P following the tragedy at the intersection.

Um I did see the staff report, and I also think I do thank um principal engineer Susie Seras for that memorandum and the safety information it entails.

Um I just want to draw attention to some things and also share a little bit about my background that makes me so convicted about this issue.

Um to set the stage a little bit.

The um TSAP, um my apologies for not noting the what the acronym stands for, the transportation safety plan.

It employs the four E's engineering enforcement, education, and emergency response.

Something that's interesting is that um the day that I was sent this link, um I opened it up real fast and scanned through the page and found the four E's immediately in my head wanted to explode a little bit because it did include the word environment, which would be a fifth E.

And the reason that um my attention was drawn to that and that it meant so much to me that it that word was excluded, is that um I hold a master's of science and a master's of arts and clinical psychology, and I am a behaviorist by orientation.

So um a lot of that, you know, the lot of the thinking that comes with having been educated and that kind of um profession and background is um we we come to understand the importance of environmental cues on the way that people behave, and that would include drivers.

And so um we're I'm speaking today a little bit about how like we can build environmental cues into the environment at the dangerous intersection and main street.

Ideally, I know the memorandum clarifies that that is not under Hillsborough jurisdiction.

Um I just wanted to um in line with this uh highlight what Brianna said about concrete islands with vegetation and the visual narrating and the limiting of sight distance that that would um implement on that road if the project goes through.

I liked that she added that.

I would mention adding metal bollards and also complementing those things with paint.

So there can be there are ways to like implement simple and straightforward um design changes.

Now is really the time for that.

It doesn't really make sense to proceed with the construction of an already dangerous intersection without reassessing the safety and how we can elevate that.

Um I would also like to call for a work session or echo it if it has been called for already so that we can learn more and leaders who feel inclined to ask questions publicly can do so, as well as um aid and advocacy from our staff and electeds.

Thank you.

Uh next up is Tracy Schultz.

Sorry about that.

It's actually Lindsay.

Lindsay A is up next.

I'm sorry, Tracy.

Thank you.

Thank you, Counselor Case.

And Lindsay, I apologize.

Oh, that's fine.

All right, so Lindsay, you're up.

Good job.

And Tracy, you're on deck.

Okay, sorry about that.

All right.

Lindsay, uh go ahead, you have three minutes.

I'm here today to talk about tactical urbanism in relation to East Maine and Century Boulevard.

Uh, tactical urbanism is low cost temporary changes to streets to test and demonstrate and problem solve long-term ideas.

Um, one example is in Chattanooga, uh, Tennessee, they implemented traffic calming measures for safe pathways to school, and they used privately raised funds and volunteer labor.

All they needed was city approval, um, to create these natural traffic calming using paint.

Um, they painted bulb-outs, which are curb extensions that are used to narrow the street and shorten pedestrian crossings.

So at each of the curves they had painted in vibrant colors, bulb outs that visually narrow the streets.

Um, and then they also painted the crosswalks in a contrasting vibrant color.

So the crosswalks were painted vibrantly green and the bull-outs were painted vibrantly blue, um, which is visually narrowing the roadway, which naturally slows people down and improves crosswalk visibility.

Um ultimately when you're driving, if something feels off or feels different, drivers slow down and increase attention and awareness, which leads to safer intersections.

Um, ultimately, tactical urbanism like this example would be quick and temporary fix.

Um, they painted these intersections in one day.

Um we're not we're not waiting for red tape.

We're instantly being able to do things like they implemented.

Um, collecting data and seeing how these bulb outs and crosswalks affect the community and how drivers interact with it, then we can start implementing more concrete and steel, the things that take years to um fund and approve and construction and all of that.

It seems like immediacy is what is needed in the super dangerous intersection.

Um, so it could be painted in one day, and um ultimately your safety measures, if they worked, the intersection would be safe.

And um, it's very clearly not.

So systems and infrastructure dictate driver behavior.

We cannot rely on drivers doing the right thing or going the right speed limit or not wanting a ticket.

That is what we already have.

There are better things that other cities are doing that promote change and are safer for walkers, not just drivers.

Um, so we can and we must do more, and ultimately we have everything to lose.

There are three elementary schools within less than two miles of that, which in order to receive the grants, which Oregon doesn't have available right now.

Um, but starting in 201, it's possible to get it.

But for those grants, specifically for the safe pathway to school, you have to have a school within a two-mile radius.

Um we have three elementary schools.

Thank you.

Okay, Tracy, now you're up.

Thanks for your patience.

No problem.

Uh, your mic is already on, and when you start speaking, you have three minutes.

There's a topic that I haven't heard discussed, and I thought it would be good to bring it up.

Excuse me, allergies.

Um, this past weekend, I was doing makeup on a client.

She was visiting from Korea.

We talked about data centers.

I wanted to know what was happening in her country.

And she said that they have them, but it's not that big of a deal.

Although she lost her job to AI.

She went to school here, got her degree, went back home, went to work, lost her job because of outsourcing to AI.

So now she works as a hairdresser.

So it got me to thinking about the stuff I've seen in the news.

This week, Hyundai employees strike over humanoid workers.

An airport in Japan has humanoid workers working in the badge baggage terminal, and they have plans to extend that to other jobs.

There's a market in San Francisco that's completely managed by a chat bot called Luna.

Luna oversees the daily business operations, such as product selection and hiring.

Customers communicate directly with Luna via their phones, and they make purchases.

There's teachers now being replaced in upstate New York.

They're testing out a humanoid robot to replace classified workers.

That's huge.

We're going to lose employment taxes.

We need to come up with a plan to protect our community.

And not only that, but to protect them from losing their jobs.

So that's what I wanted to bring up.

Thank you.

Moving to 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 move any items for separate consideration?

Yes.

Okay.

And what is that?

Mayor, I'd like to remove agenda item 4.3.

I'd like to request the agenda item 4.3, the home consorium agreement be pulled from the consent agenda so the council can consider adding the following condition.

And would you like me to go over this now or for discussion?

Yep.

Any affordable housing project governed by this agreement that involves the transfer development of city-owned land must receive a final city council vote before any binding contracts are executed with developers.

Because recent state legislation, SB 974 and HB 4037 shifted housing permits to staff level approvals requiring council approval on final financial contracts, guarantees the council has the opportunity, excuse me, opportunity to evaluate deeply affordable housing projects that support 30% AMI units before transferring ownership of public land.

Okay.

That's correct, Mayor.

Under your council rules, any member can pull something off the consent agenda and it goes to new business.

Okay, so we'll move it to new business.

Correct.

Sounds good.

We will do that.

All right.

Um so the remainder items, the remainder of items on the consent agenda are item 4.1, the minutes.

Item 4.2, uh the three-year enterprise agreement, and I believe that's it.

Is that correct?

Just those two items.

Correct.

Okay.

Do we have a motion to approve the amended consent agenda?

So we moved case.

Thank you.

Uh, do we have a second?

Second, Harris.

Is there any discussion?

Maybe we please have a roll call.

Councillors Harris.

Aye.

Sinclair.

Aye.

Case?

Aye.

OKR.

Aye.

Okay, we have a majority of a voting yes, so the motion passes.

Uh and again, item 4.3 will be put under new business.

Moving to item 8.1, which is new business.

Um consider transportation committee's recommendation to adopt a resolution concurring with Washington County's resolution and order number 26-41 regarding vacation number 583, resolution number 2928 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number 2928?

Here are some moves.

Second case.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

Yeah, please have a roll call.

Counselors out care.

Hi.

Case?

Aye.

Sinclair.

Aye.

Harris.

Aye.

We have a majority, so resolution number two nine two eight is adopted.

And moving to item 8.2, consider finance committee's recommendation to approve a three-year agreement with Hillsborough Downtown Partnership for an amount not to exceed $360,000.

Before I ask for a motion, we'll be hearing from Carla Antonini and Harrison Butler.

Carla.

Sounds good.

Okay, so I invited two and I got four.

Yeah.

So when we uh when we speak, please introduce yourself for the record.

Yep.

All right.

Good evening, Mayor Pays and City Council Carly Antonini with economic development.

And as you can see beside me, I have brought representatives from the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership, and they will introduce themselves.

Hi, my name is Harrison Butler.

I'm the executive director of the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership.

My name is Umberto Munai.

I am the outreach coordinator for the Hisborough Downtown Partnership.

And I'm Darrell Lamaco, President of the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership.

Thank you.

Great.

Thanks.

So council received a packet which includes a staff report dated July 21st, a partnership agreement describing the contract details for the HDP funding, the HDP's three-year operating budget by program area and HDP's annual report for fiscal year 25 to 26.

The requested action before you is for City Council approval of a three-year agreement with the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership for amount not to exceed 360,000.

This agreement will be structured as follows.

For fiscal year 26 to 27, it would be for 100,000.

And then in fiscal year 2020 to 2028, it would be 100,000 with the opportunity for matching funds up to 20,000.

And then again in fiscal year 2028 to 2029, it would begin, it would be again a 100,000 dollar contract with potential matching funds up to 40,000.

The city's supplemental contribution in years two and three will be limited to a dollar-for-dollar match of eligible outside funds raised by HDP during the applicable contract year.

If HDP receives grants, sponsorships, donations, and our fundraising, then the matching funds will come into play.

Thank you.

Thank you, Carla.

And good evening, Mayor Pace, President Harris, Counselors.

My name is Harrison Butler again, and I serve as the executive director of the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership, and I thank you for the opportunity to be here this evening.

And I want to thank Umberto and Darrell for being with us as well.

Together, we'd like to share how last year's investment has strengthened downtown Hillsboro, how we've responded to the priorities identified by this council, and why we believe this partnership continues to create value for a community.

Downtown Hillsboro is more than a collection of buildings and businesses.

It's the historic heart of our community, a place where people gather, entrepreneurs invest, neighbors connect, and community happens.

Every day, HDP works alongside the city, downtown businesses, volunteers, and community partners to help cultivate vitality.

Tonight we'd like to show you how your investment has translated into measurable results throughout downtown Hillsboro.

Next slide, please.

Before you tonight is a finance committee recommendation for approval of a three-year urban renewal agreement beginning with a 100,000 investment this fiscal year.

This agreement supports eligible renewal activities, including downtown beautification, business support, business recruitment and retention, bilingual outreach along Avenida Diaz, placemaking and volunteer stewardship.

Downtown Revitalization is a long-term investment, not a one-year project.

A three-year partnership provides the stability needed to retain skilled staff, build lasting relationships with businesses, pursue grants and private investment, and deliver consistent results for the downtown community.

The recommended three-year structure provides stability while also encouraging HDP to continue growing private investment through sponsorships, grants, and matching funds.

Next slide.

Last year's urban renewal investment became the foundation of a downtown revitalization program valued at more than $340,000, which is about our budget size.

Through earned contracts, rental revenue, uh, volunteer service sponsorships, community partnerships.

HDP leverages every public dollar to create a significantly larger impact than any single funding source could accomplish alone.

The collaborative approach allows us to provide consistent support for businesses, public spaces, and the downtown community.

Next slide.

Behind every statistic on this slide is work happening every day.

During the past fiscal year, HDP provided nearly 2,430 hours of beautification services.

Removed more than 71 tons of debris, recovered shopping carts, safely removed hazardous materials, and maintained the public space that make downtown welcoming for businesses, residents, and visitors.

These are the everyday services that protect the city's investment while creating an environment where businesses can succeed.

Next slide, please.

Last year, uh the council expressed a desire to see stronger engagement along Avenida Diaz.

We listened.

Thanks to your investment, HDP hired its first bilingual outreach coordinator, Umberto, dedicated to serving businesses throughout that corridor.

And rather than hearing uh about the work from me, uh I'd like to invite Umberto to briefly share his experience working directly with our business community.

Good evening.

Good evening, everybody.

Since joining his world downtown partnership in Marge.

I have focus on building relationships with businesses throughout uh Avenida Diaz.

I mean uh 10, right?

We've established ongoing relationships with approximately 35 businesses.

And many of those relations include multiple visits because our goal isn't simply making contact, is building trust through consistent engagement with the businesses.

Every business uh has different needs.

Sometimes it's connecting, connecting owners with city resources, sometimes it's helping promote their businesses, or sometimes it's simply listening and being a consistent point of contact.

Those relations are straining the communication and helping ensure businesses know they have a partner invested in their success in our Hillsborough Downtown Partnership.

One of the most rewarding parts of my work has been building these uh relationships with the businesses along Avenida Diaz.

This isn't about helping one community separate from another.

It's been bringing our downtown uh community together in the same page.

Trust isn't uh built in a single visit.

It takes time, listening, and showing up consistently.

Our goal is to help every business owner, feel connected, supported, and part of the larger downtown Hillsboro community.

When businesses across cultures know one other, share opportunities and succeed together, our entire downtown becomes that way in stronger.

Thank you.

Thank you, Umberto.

Uh next slide, please.

HDP's greatest strength isn't any one project.

It's our ability to bring people together.

Businesses, volunteers, nonprofit organizations, community partners, and city staff all play an important role in downtown successes.

I'd like to now invite our board president Darrell Lamaco to share why the board believes the partnership is so important.

Thank you, Harrison.

I've had the privilege of serving this community in different capacities, including as a member of the City Council and now as president of Hillsborough Downtown Partnership.

What I've learned throughout these years is that strong downtowns don't just happen by accident.

They require organizations that can bring together public investment, private partnerships, volunteers, and community leadership.

Over the past year, I've watched our staff respond thoughtfully to the priorities identified by the council while continuing to strengthen relationships with businesses and community partners.

From the board's perspective, we're proud of the stewardship demonstrated over the past year, and we remain committed to ensuring that every public dollar entrusted to HDP is used responsibly and transparently in service to downtown Hillsboro.

Thank you for your continued partnership.

Thank you, Darrell.

Next slide, please.

On behalf of our board, our staff, our volunteers, and the businesses we serve, thank you for your continued partnership and your consideration this evening.

We'd be happy to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Carla Harrison, Umberto, and Daryl.

Are we do we have any questions?

Councilor Councillor El Care.

I don't have uh questions, but I appreciate the report that you presented tonight.

Because the last time that you came up, you were new in this role.

And a few months before that, I had asked the city manager for reports of what HTP had been accomplishing, and we were giving this money, and there were no reports.

To me, that showed a real lack of care.

If this program is so important, you should be reporting out every year on what you're accomplishing, just like what you're doing tonight.

So I hope that that's um gonna continue.

Not just hope, but I have the expectation that that's gonna continue.

Um person can't possibly do all of the work in connecting HDP with um the businesses around having the yes.

But it's important work, and I'm glad, Umberto, that you're uh there doing that, and that the HTB did not decide to wait three years to get somebody bilingual to start assisting you with this work.

So I wanna know want to let you know that I do appreciate what you have accomplished and I appreciate the presentation that you have given tonight.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Alcair.

Um, Counselor Sinclair.

Yeah, thank you.

Uh Council Alcair, I couldn't have said it better.

Um Harrison, what I want to say to you personally, I had the opportunity to serve with yourself and Humberto uh during uh service day, and it is no faint is not for the faint of heart.

That is for darn sure.

And the last time you all presented here, it was a different time.

You're in transition, and I want to thank you personally for quantifying data so that council can see the return on investment.

The reason that it was so important is that we see people invest their life savings as independent small business owners, and they give everything in their everyday lives to create the culture in downtown and provide meaningful spaces for our community to be together.

And I take that very seriously, and they deserve every opportunity.

And I have to say you all rose up to the challenge, and I very much appreciate uh the complete um detail that is in the annual report, and also to see firsthand the work that is demanded, and I thank you for that.

Good job.

Thank you, Counselor Sinclair, Counselor Harris.

I just want to say, excuse me, thank you to the staff to Mr.

Butler, to Ms.

Antonini, also the volunteers, including the board members that have worked hard over the last 12 months to put this together in such an excellent presentation and the work you've done.

I've seen you often down there since I live relatively close to the downtown area, and I value this community, the downtown community on the Avenue DS and the local businesses uh in all the locations nearby.

Um, and I just want to say that the presentation you made makes me feel like this is some of the best bang for the buck the city is getting uh with the dedicated people you have and genuine genuine care for the community and the and the organization you all work for.

So thank you all very much.

Thank you.

Um Counselor Case.

Thanks.

Uh we spoke last week at Finance Committee, and then the next day I had the opportunity to join you guys for the ribbon cutting at Franco's.

And so I just wanted to say I watching you guys in the community day in and day out and getting the opportunity to meet you last week, Umberto, and talk with you a little more about the work that you're doing on Avenida Diaz.

Thank you.

We are so grateful you're here.

Um I like I like I promised to Frank's, I went back with my husband on Saturday, and the line was out the door, and we there was no place to sit.

So, like business is booming in downtown Hillsborough, and that is uh in yeah, thanks to the work that you guys are doing behind the scenes that is often thankless, but we're very grateful you're here.

So thank you.

Yeah, so um Harrison, I I think this is a different meeting than it was a year ago.

Um I don't even remember.

It's probably good.

Um I want to say thanks to your staff.

I see them downtown all the time.

I appreciate the work they do.

Thank you.

I I appreciate the work you do downtown to include Evan A Diaz.

Gracias, Umberto.

Um Harrison, uh, I know how hard it is to lead a nonprofit.

Thank you for seeing it through.

Uh and for providing this report.

You had a report when you first came when you were just brand new, and you have you have this one again with updated information and increased uh impact.

And so thank you again for making our downtown a wonderful place to be.

Appreciate you all.

Okay.

And Mayor, if I may say one last thing.

Sure.

Um I Carla, I want to say to you directly also.

Um, in preparation of service day, I was able to talk to 26 different businesses throughout Avenida Diaz and on Main Street.

And even though small businesses want to see further investment in downtown, repeatedly they said that you were amazing to work with.

And I just wanted to let you know that.

Well, thank you.

Yeah, I appreciate that.

I wanted to let you know that because there is additional needs, but it's not to any doing of the teams.

And so thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Well, thank you so much.

Um, do I have a motion to approve this agreement?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second, Sinclair.

Is there any discussion?

All right.

May I please have a roll call?

Councillor Sinclair?

Aye.

Councilor Alcair.

Aye.

Counselor Harris.

Aye.

Counselor Case.

Aye.

The motion passes.

Thank you all again.

Thank you.

Okay.

Moving to item 8.3, consider parks and rec parks and recreation commission and library board recommendation to adopt a resolution adopting the rules for use policy and patron progressive discipline rubric.

Resolution number 2929 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number 2929?

So it moved case.

Thank you.

Is there a second?

Second, Harris.

Is there any discussion?

Okay.

May I please have a roll call.

Councillor Case?

Aye.

Counselor Harris?

Aye.

Counselor Sinclair.

Aye.

Counselor Alcair.

Nay.

Okay.

I'm so sorry.

Um so uh the resolution does not pass.

Resolution number 2929 is not adopted.

Mayor.

Oh, yeah, that's a good point.

So there was a vote, so you vote now.

I can vote now.

Correct.

Well, that's great.

Uh so I vote in favor of resolution number two nine two nine.

Aye.

So it does pass.

Um resolution number two nine two nine is adopted.

Thank you very much.

And moving on to item 8.4.

Moving on to item 8.4.

Consider adopting a resolution expressing support for Hillsborough Airport's transition away from leaded fuel in response to community concern.

Resolution number 2930 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number 2930?

So moved case.

Thank you.

Do I have a second?

Second, Harris.

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

Okay.

Counselor Sinclair.

Go ahead.

Oh, I just wanted to say thank you.

No, it's okay.

Sorry.

I was just going to say thank you to the staff that worked on this.

I don't know why we're getting reverb, sorry.

Uh to Robin and Ariel.

I know you guys have been working uh a lot on this and and work tirelessly on a lot of efforts around the city.

So thank you so much for your work on this.

Uh counselor Alcair.

I appreciate the people who have come forward and brought your information, brought your data, brought your concerns for the past, I don't know.

Longer than I've been here on this council for nine years.

Lead is a real problem.

Affecting children's health is a real problem.

So I appreciate you coming.

And I'm looking at this step as just hopefully just being a start.

Because this is a big problem.

You have been coming here.

And when I went through this and I saw this, I thought, okay, it is only a step.

And there's a lot more protection that needs to happen and addressing of health issues that have been impacting people for a long time.

Thank you.

Counselor Sinclair.

Yes, thank you, Mayor.

Um I also want to thank the community members who have repeatedly shown up in protection and efforts to protect the community from lead.

And I have a couple uh questions I want to ask.

Um is that okay, Mayor?

Okay.

Uh I like to understand what defines the perimeter impacted of the impacted populations.

Will a geographic proximity uh lead ground testing?

The second I I can wait actually.

Can we get yeah, can we get another chair for Robin?

Thank you.

Hi, counselor, thank you for the question.

Um, Ariel Nelson, government relations manager for the record.

Uh in the staff report, um, impacted populations is referring to what we understand from our public health partners.

Um, we've been working with Oregon Health Authority and Washington County Public Health Department that children and pregnant people are um predominantly affected by uh lead poisoning um because lead uh impacts the developing brain.

So referring to that, and then um those most at risk for lead poisoning, um, and both of those partners list um a number of um factors that can lead to lead poisoning, including living in older um homes with lead paint, dust, um occupational exposure, as well as airports without gas.

So uh the question I have is pertaining to the airport.

Will there be um when we say per will there be a perimeter established pertaining to communication with the public about the airport?

Like in other words, when we say there could be testing of soil, so you're just we're just putting a blanket statement, is what you're saying.

We're not gonna define what that is for testing of soil or people that live in a surrounding area, so they may have blood work testing due to the topics such as the airport, since it's such a big aspect of our community.

Uh thank you for the question, counselor.

So, in response to the community concerns and the conversations we've been having with the community members who requested this resolution again as a first step, um, we've also been um in conversations again with those public health partners as well as as well as with the Port of Portland who um owns and manages the Hillsborough Airport about potential options because as the city we are a partner um and this is a community conversation.

Um, with regards to testing, um what we do um have directly in our jurisdiction is um city owned and operated facilities.

Um so we are looking into testing at some specific facilities.

So I don't know if Robin, if you want to touch on a couple of those.

Sure.

Um Robin Strong, uh sustainability and resiliency manager.

Thank you for the question, Counselor Sinclair.

Um so we are going to be so we've done some testing already at some of the sites um that construction will be happening.

So testing has been done at the fairground sports complex as well as previous testing was done at the site where the police department is going to be built, and levels are below the background um threshold at those sites for soil.

Uh and we're looking at an additional testing for air and soil at three key sites where those vulnerable populations may be spending time.

So that would be the Brookwood Library, Hidden Creek Community Center, and the Associated Park, as well as Tyson Recreation Center and Associated Park.

And then in addition to that, Counselor, um, in those conversations again with with the public health experts, um, we're getting a better understanding of the uh current testing resources they already offer and how we might play a role in helping um uh publicize those um to the Hillsborough community.

For example, um we learned that OHA um regularly offers free soil screening.

Um they've been to Hillsborough Farmers Markets in the past.

That's something we could partner with them on again.

Um and also um in terms of accessing blood testing, um, our partners at Washington County Public Health strongly encourage that the best way to do that is for your health provider.

So we're learning about you know, for those who maybe don't have access to a health provider, don't have help have health care coverage, um, what are the opportunities there?

Thank you.

And I um I only have two more questions or comments because I know uh this is still developing.

I just want to make sure that the concerns that I wanted to bring forth are made aware.

Um how will the city communicate testing resources to residents in multilingual uh to residents?

Will this be done in multi-languages?

And will the city rely solely on digital communication?

Um in addition to that, will blood blood and soil testing resources be free to residents located and suggested parameters.

You've already um given some guidance on that.

And then will the Port of Portland provide public signage along the outer perimeter of the gate communicating the dangers specifically related to lead.

Sure, thanks for the question.

So on the last question, I'll I'll go backwards.

Our understanding is that the Port of Portland is focusing communications through community engagement, including hosting biannual Hillsborough Airport community forums and participating in a wide variety of community events and publishing information, resources, and updates related to the transition from leaded aviation fuel on the port's website.

And for your question for future city communications, we are still scoping that depending on events opportunities.

But we uh uh we will be doing that um in partnership with our public health partners and and following their guidance, but um you know to the extent that we are providing those communications will apply at the communities uh or the city's community engagement framework process and equity toolkit to any city communication efforts.

I understand and that includes language translation and non-digital modes.

Thank you.

Um it's an important this is a big important step.

Um so I thank you for the time that you've put into this.

I know there'll be more continued conversation.

Um thank you for the time.

I have a comment about notifying public because you mentioned you're gonna do testing, one of them is Brookwood.

I would like to have that done around the area of 25th and Cornell.

There are a lot of three strip malls there.

There's a lot of humans around that area.

I think it would be important to do that testing around that area.

I think it also would be um public health awareness that the city can do to inform people in extenuating areas that we that we belong to the city that we can inform the public of what they are gonna be exposed to.

I think that's our responsibility to do, as well as the Port of Portland.

But I don't want to rely on the Port of Portland to be the only ones to do that.

I think we need to have that work done by our staff and in those areas, and I want that maybe needs to be outside of those areas too.

I think notifying generally the public that if you go driving by this area, if you hang out in this area, if you go to the air show, what's the potential that you and your family are gonna be exposed to lead?

I think we should be upfront and honest about that.

Thank you.

Counselor, thank you for that feedback.

I just um appreciate that.

We'll take that back.

I do want to clarify that for the testing at city facilities, the city has engaged with an environmental consultant to conduct that testing, and that is a city-led effort.

Um we'll bring it up be bringing updates to the council and to the public when we have those.

Counselor Harris.

Thank you.

This is more of a request or a comment.

Um I was looking back because the the lead uh gasoline is one of the things that piqued my interest when I first took my seat here.

Looked it back in my emails, and it was back in January 29th of 2025, which would be the fourth week of my service on council.

I asked the executive team about this issue because I had done a little research on my own and found out that there was an Eagle program, which was the federal program to eliminate leaded gas, and there was some federal funding available, and I asked staff whether or not the Port of Portland had done anything on that, provided a link because they did have their own page on it, so I figured they must have done something.

And um the response was just we hadn't heard about it.

Um I got involved in other things, so partly that's on me for not following up with my emails.

Uh but based on that experience, what I'd really like to see is assuming this resolution passes, is I'd like to actually see quarterly ports from staff on what's been done, what the port has done, and there's anything we can do to help facilitate this right now.

There's no reporting requirements, we're just encouraging them, it looks like based on this.

So I would like to see regular reports from staff on their interactions with the port uh in their advancement of the Eagle program and seeing if we can eliminate this gas and get the other alternative fuels earlier than 2030.

That's my comment.

Thank you.

Any response?

No.

You don't have to.

It was a comment.

Yeah, we can take that back.

Thank you.

You got it.

Okay.

Any other questions?

All right.

So we have a motion on resolution number 2930.

We have a second.

We've had our discussion.

May I please have a roll call?

Councilor Alcair.

Hi.

Councillor Case?

Hi.

Councillor Sinclair?

Aye.

Counselor Harris.

Uh resolution number 2930 is adopted.

Moving to item 8.5.

Did somebody want to clap?

I understand.

Um moving to item 8.5, consider adopting a resolution creating a 180-day pause on any strategic investment program agreements with standalone data centers.

Resolution number 2931 is available.

Do I have a motion to adopt resolution number 2931?

Harrison moves.

Second case.

Thank you.

Is there any discussion?

May I please have a roll call?

Councillor Harris?

Aye.

Councilor Alcair.

All right.

Councillor Sinclair?

Aye.

Councillor Case.

Aye.

Excellent.

Resolution number 2931 is adopted.

And thank you, Councillor Harris, for bringing that to our attention.

So we moved item number 4.3 regarding the uh adopting an intergovernmental agreement with Washington County for the ongoing participation of the Washington County Home Consortium.

And Councillor Sinclair, you asked that things such as this come to a the count the city council for a final vote.

Chad, how should we proceed on this one?

So you should start off with a motion and then a discussion.

And then to the extent that there wants to be, you know, uh an amendment to that motion, you can have an amendment to the motion.

Um I would generally start off like with a motion to approve.

If you have a second for that, then you can have your discussion and you can go from there.

Great.

Thank you.

Uh so can I have a motion?

Hang on one second.

I get there.

Okay.

Um can I have a motion on the um intergovernmental agreement with Washington County for the ongoing participation in the Washington County Home Consortium?

Here, so moves.

Thank you.

Is there a second second case?

Is there any discussion?

Yes.

Um Councillor Sinclair.

Thank you so much, Mayor.

Um this particular aspect, any affordable housing project governed by this agreement.

Um I'd like to see that come before council do if it's a land that's uh transition, excuse me, I'm not even please forgive me.

Uh if it's land that is brought into the agreement by the city or purchased uh by the city, um I would like council to have that awareness so that we can understand the discounts that are being given for affordable housing and at what percentage.

Any other comments?

So counselor Harris?

A question on that.

Are you suggesting that when land is handed over to the organization that the city may own, that we then get their complete financial package and look at it and see what the rents are and see all this stuff before we transfer the land?

What I'm suggesting is that it could be a high level.

We've never went deep into those aspects, but to have a high level understanding that if we are transferring our purchasing land uh with public dollars, that since it's affordable housing, to understand what uh benefits the community is receiving and at what discount, whether it be 30 percent AMI, 60 percent AMI AMI, or 80 percent AMI for affordable housing.

So I'm the representative on whatever acronym is used for this particular program with the county.

Um so the but I'm relatively new on that.

So what I I'd like to know, and maybe you have the answer, maybe Chad or maybe uh Ms.

Brooks does.

Um as uh Affordable Housing is developed as a proposal.

Um would this need to come back to council and get approval, hold up the delivery of that housing?

And maybe that's okay, or would it kill it all together if they can't get it together?

And I I guess I'm not sure how far along the development has to be and the timing in the program to when we transfer property.

Is that the last thing that we do?

If it's the last thing that we do, this makes perfectly good sense, and I actually agree with I think what you're getting at here.

I'm just trying to figure out the mechanics of this and whether that would make it impractical to develop affordable housing through the home project in Hillsborough, and I don't know the answer to that right now.

I don't know if Mr.

Jacobs or Ms.

Brooks has any insight into that.

I don't know whether Ms.

Hawkins happens to be here.

Chris is here.

Um Ms.

Hawkins is right there.

Sorry.

Uh could you address whatever issues may arise on your end of this as far as delivery on of the projects?

I would be happy to.

So the issue for site control is obtained and the approval that you would be looking for would have been attained prior to these um developers going through and applying for the home funds.

So the affordable housing would have come before you to say this is a little piece of land that the city owns that's going to be addressed.

All of that would have been presented to you prior to the application for home funds through the consortia.

So then we would not under have the opportunity to understand.

My whole goal in this is if it is publicly funded land that this council has the opportunity to have understanding of what discount our community is receiving in the development for affordable housing.

It will come to you first.

So it will come to you.

You would go through and you would approve that and you would have a full understanding of those requests and those requirements.

Once that has been approved and there's site control that's given to the developer, they then would apply for the home the home funds, which would probably be in all reality six to twelve months after that they've gotten the approval from the city council to be able to go ahead and utilize that land.

And is does that process so that the process doesn't necessarily slow down due to it coming before council?

It wouldn't have even started until it comes to council.

Okay.

And it comes to council first, that's what you are saying.

That is correct.

Counselor Harris?

So are you saying that the proposed amendment by Councilor Sinclair would not be a problem on your end as far as processing this?

It would not, it would not be included in that request for the home funds because it would have already been addressed by the council prior to the developer applying.

So it's redundant.

Correct.

Okay.

So counselor Sinclair, may I ask what you what are you concerned about?

What I'm concerned about is land acquisition continues to evolve in our community and expand throughout the region, specifically for us, that being the number one goal in our state of having housing expand at a quicker opportunity.

We know lot where there's so much that's happening with land banking.

I would like to understand when public funded dollars are providing affordable house sourcing that we understand what the discount is.

Numerous times we've had projects come before us where Councilor Salgado, I remember a conversation a couple months back where this specific topic of land ownership, like what was the discount for the land, or was the land contributed, and why do we not have more units at a deeper discount is my point.

I want to make sure I, as a counselor, would like to understand how many units are available at that deep discount or not, because market rate housing is quickly becoming very close to what 80 percent AMI is.

And so I want us to have an understanding as things evolve and additional land banking happens for the purposes of housing.

And and you were saying that we do it does come to council and we are briefed on that.

That is correct.

Yeah.

And from what I remember um working with um Nueva Esperanza and Bienestar and then Hacienda CDC and the Dolores, it did come before us and it was discussed, including the number of units and the levels at which they would get 80 percent AMI, 60 percent AMI, and 30 percent AMI.

Yeah.

Then if this is redundant, then there's no harm, no foul.

I'm just bringing this up to verify before it goes forward.

Thanks for making sure.

Yeah, great.

Thank you.

I have a question.

Oh, Councillor O'Cierre.

That if determining the project, the housing project that is gonna we would vote on.

That um what standards are there that you have to follow?

Uh federal standards do you have to follow for affordable housing?

As far as with the application cycle and how of units dedicated to certain income levels.

So under the home program, you can qualify and serve households up to 80 percent of AMI in order to obtain home funds.

It is managed as part of the consortia and with Washington County being the lead agency, it's handled by the Office of Community Development.

They would go ahead and provide a notice of funds and accept applications.

Once the applications have been submitted and as indicated, site control is one of those conditions.

Once that has been done, then Washington County um OCD goes through and they will make a decision about um uh applicability and whether or not the project is a qualified project.

A representative from the policy advisory board, in this case, counselor Harris, would have the ability to go through and review score and um rate those applications.

The applications are then decided and recommended by the policy advisory board, and then it goes forward to actually to the Washington County Commissioners to be able to approve it because as a lead agency, it goes on their federal report and their annual action plan as far as a decision which how they would like to invest the money within the county.

Thank you.

And I know the council in the past has had conversation and influence over the kind and number of different types of housing units.

Even down to the parking and how many parking spots there are.

So we've had deep discussions about affordable housing.

I think it's important because this isn't a brand new council, but this is a new council, and we've been dealing with affordable housing for a long time.

So I think it's important to it wouldn't be a bad idea for us to have, if not at the next work session that we have on a housing project, that you provide some of those standard details that are always going to be a part of a project.

I would be more than happy to do that for you all.

Thank you.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second to move forward with the intergovernment intergovernmental agreement with Washington County for the ongoing participation in Washington County Home Consortium.

We've also had a discussion.

May I please have a roll call.

Counselor Sinclair.

Aye.

Counselor Harris.

Hi.

Counselor Alcair.

Aye.

Counselor Case.

Hi.

The motion passes.

Uh moving to item nine, the city manager report.

I'll turn the time over to our acting city manager, Simon Brooks.

Good evening again, Council.

Interestingly enough that you should be having this discussion because I'm going to highlight one of the items from the city manager's report that is in your packet, and that is the Dolores Project.

So that is in Tannisbourne.

Um nonprofit housing developer Hacienda CDC, which was mentioned, celebrated the grand opening of the Dolores apartments on this past Thursday.

The Dolores was made possible through a partnership with the city, Metro, Oregon Housing and Community Services, and the Housing Authority of Washington County with a development team that included new narrative, access architecture, and LMC construction.

The city worked with Metro to identify and acquire two land parcels for the project.

The city also led the developers selection process and contributed 10.5 million dollars from the Metro Affordable Housing Bond Fund funding to help fund the Dolores.

So you can read more about the Dolores in the full city manager's report, in addition to a few other topics, uh the PCC Future Connect, Hillsborough's Fire Station 9, which was recognized as a top project of 2026, as well as an update on the human rights advisory council.

In addition, we continue to report on ICE responses, enterprise zone applications, and data center development applications, and again, that's available in today's meeting packet.

And that's it.

All right.

Thank you very much, Simon.

Uh we'll move on to council comments item 10.

Counselors have up to three minutes to provide comments if they have any.

You are not required to make comments.

It's an option that we decided that we wanted to provide.

Should you want to bring anything up?

The council should not engage in any deliberation or debate over any comments or topics raised during this portion of the agenda, other than expressing general support for adding a topic to a future agenda.

If a majority of council supports moving an item forward, that item will refer to the city manager for scoping.

Do any counselors wish to provide a comment?

I do.

Counselor Alcair, you have three minutes.

So I have growing concern over public comment.

And that it's always been reserved to be a time for people to come and tell council when they're concerned about things, when they want change.

And in the past few months, they've been pretty angry.

And it's because of the way we've made decisions.

And I'm not comfortable.

I'm not used to seeing so many police officers at our council meetings.

I want to let you know that I'm personally concerned about that.

Because it's a democratic right.

And we're here to listen to you tell us.

And if it wasn't for you, a lot of things wouldn't have happened over this year.

Like the work session on ICE, the work session on data centers.

And so I just want to say that.

And I know that a lot of people have had comments and have hurled comments at this council.

And I think that's also a part of the job of being on council and being elected official.

You don't get to hear all of the good things you want to hear all the time.

But as a city counselor, I find a way to communicate with people so they don't have to get so frustrated with me as a city counselor, whether or not I can change things or not.

I don't like the tone.

The way the public comment has been introduced.

Because it's your time.

I want to be respectful of their time.

But I just have growing concerns about how this council is responding to public comment.

And I think we need to have a healthy discussion about that because I don't think public comment is going to go away.

And we don't get to control the narrative of what people want to say to us.

That's why we're elected.

So I really do think we need to have a deeper conversation.

And I don't think it's all right to fault people and tell them that they're breaking a rule when they don't know what the rule is.

I've asked this council, let's post them in the auditorium.

Let's have them as handouts for people.

And we still haven't done that.

So I wanted to address this with you because there is something wrong with the way public comment is going down.

Thank you, Councilor Alcair.

Any other public comment or counselor comments?

Uh Counselor Sinclair.

Yes, briefly, I wanted to ask that as an ongoing thing, I know this is new, uh, but can we on a regular basis convey the logging of our I of ICE report, ICE activity reporting that is on our website.

I know that Robbie does said that there could be a report that is shared online.

And I'm what the reason I'm bringing this up is because our public may not be aware of where that's located and what's currently happening, and so it can remind them verbally.

And then the second request is that any time there is a data center agreement submitted that that also be shared again where the public can find that and what has just a quick reading on what has been submitted.

Thank you, uh Counselor.

Sorry, are you asking for something different than is presented in the city manager's report currently?

Because that does provide an update on ICE activity as well as data center.

There's obviously no e-zone agreements um being signed.

There's a moratorium on those.

Um but any uh does development reviews are applications coming in that's indicated in the current report.

Are you thinking of a different format?

No, no.

Um it was my understanding that all applications, not just easy.

Is it just easy for the applications for data centers that's provided in the manager's report, or is it all applications?

For um enterprise zone, all applications.

But is it only in a print because we have some that came in that are not in the easy zone?

Is that accurate?

Yes.

Oh, the development applications, those are listed.

Those are listed in the report.

Yes, in the report.

Okay.

Then that's on me.

I didn't hear that.

No, that's I didn't hear that today.

That's quite all right.

I was clearly having a hard time understanding, so I I appreciate your patience with me.

No, I appreciate your patience with me as well.

Uh Counselor Harris.

Um thank you.

We've you know we've heard a lot about the Century Boulevard Main Street um project and the safety concerns and the horrible loss of a young life that we all suffered, but particularly the family as friends suffered.

As a father, I can't imagine how that would feel to lose a child like that.

Um I know our hearts go out to the family um the friends, those were involved in the incident.

And the entire community.

I drove up Main Street today.

I've driven that a lot.

I drive that street a lot.

My office was on Main Street.

Uh so it was a regular course.

I always thought that was like a big old um air strip, sort of.

I I particularly noticed it today.

With the mind is I'm gonna try and be very conscious and aware of what's going on and the roadway.

It's literally five lanes, um, two bike lanes and a buffer between the bike lanes.

I don't know how many feet that is.

It's got to be 60 plus feet.

Well, maybe not the roadway.

It's big.

And there isn't a lot of calming measures there.

And we could look at data.

We could look at maps.

We could look at aerials.

And the data and the best guidance may tell us that there's not much else we can do there.

But the facts may tell us otherwise.

Three years ago, maybe that wasn't listed.

And yes, there's probably other roadways that are worse.

There's other intersections that are worse as far as you know, some sort of a grade you give based on an engineering book or something.

But we do know that there was a loss of life recently and another one a couple three years ago.

And what I'd like to do is ask that we put on the Transportation Committee calendar a specific time session where we could ask for specific recommendations.

I heard a couple that I thought were pretty good.

The uh metal breakable ballasters, maybe that were reflective, particularly at night.

Uh I know that they have traffic islands uh not continuous islands, but they have traffic islands on Cypress Street.

They've used it there.

Uh so it's not a continuous thing, so maybe that would not harm or impede the driveways.

There honestly didn't seem to be that many driveways coming out of there anyway to me.

Um but if so, we could break those islands apart, I believe.

That was a potential now.

The other thing I wanted to say in the 30 seconds I have left was that in a way the redevelopment of the intersection is an opportunity.

Uh having some experience in public contracting, I believe that it's an opportunity to engage the city, engage the contractor who doing the work and get a change order and piggyback any additional safety work we could do uh and the city could pay for it.

So we have an opportunity actually to actually address this quicker than normal uh if we can utilize the current contract.

Um I'd like city staff to explore that as well.

Thank you.

Uh counselor case.

Uh following up with Counselor Harris's comments, um, as has been shared in a previous public meeting.

I actually live in the same neighborhood as as the young man who died last month.

Um and my husband and I both drive that road multiple times a day.

Uh since we moved to the neighborhood 11 years ago, um, it has been abundantly clear that people drive way too fast on Main Street at all hours of the day and night.

It wakes you up when you kind of have to wake up to go to the bathroom at two o'clock in the morning and keeps you up till four in the morning sometimes.

Um so much fun.

Um but there's a lot going on in the neighborhood.

And you know, I remember last two weeks ago at public comment, uh, a young woman came and spoke um and mentioned that you know the one of the first things family and friends told her when she got her license was to be careful of that intersection.

We know it's a dangerous intersection.

Uh Connor shouldn't have had to die.

We have known that.

Um so after many conversations and emails with city staff and my neighbors to discuss available options to limit speeding and what we can do.

Um, I just wanted to say following up from some of those notes that we've received from staff today.

I reached out to the Washington County commissioners and requested their support for the county because it is a county road to explore and install an advanced signal head to replace the signal advanced signage that is currently there.

It's something they were saying they would be interested in exploring, and so just asking for their support on that.

It's not gonna stop somebody if they want to drive 70 miles an hour on that road.

Uh but with the quantity of speeding on this stretch of road that we hear all hours of the day and night, I think this will be a helpful step in the right direction to protect our neighbors from another senseless tragedy.

And I want to thank this uh community members who have been coming and providing great ideas.

Um and and speaking their support um of doing more at this intersection and driving it every day, I promise you.

I am one of those people.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, counselors.

Um moving to item 11 advice and information.

We have a few items under advice and information.

Number one, a memo providing safety information related to Century Boulevard in East Maine is available in the agenda packet.

Residents interested in running for city council can file now through Friday, August 21st at 5 p.m.

And as always, community members who want to be informed and engaged on city council matters can sign up to receive a happening in Hillsborough email newsletter, and Spanish language updates are also available through our Cresciendo Juntos email newsletter.

And with that, the City Council meeting is adjourned, and we will begin the work session at 9.55.

Okay, um welcome to the work session on the data center update.

Uh before we jump in to hear from Dan and Rachel, I did want to ask, I made a commitment to council that if we went past 9 30, I would check in with council to see if we wanted to continue, or if or if we wanted a break for the evening.

Um, just based on you know being a human and having so much capacity.

So there is also an option that we could go through all the information as a review and then talk about the code amendment, or we can just talk about code amendments right up front.

So the first question is as I promised, do we want to continue or do we want to talk about this another time?

So thumbs up if you want to continue.

Thumbs up, thumbs up or no.

Yeah.

All right, so we have three or four.

And then do we want to just get right to the meet and talk about the um code amendments, or do we want to go through the whole thing, which is uh a review and then talk about code amendments.

Mayor, can I offer and please turn it?

Please.

Um we could go ahead and get through the code amendments and the you have the material available to you to be able to review, and we could also offer individual briefings at a later time to provide that since that is future work.

So that's also an option.

All right, great.

Um, so do you want to get right to the code amendments and then offer the one-on-one meetings if necessary?

Is that work?

That works.

Yeah, thumbs up, thumbs up, thumbs up.

All right, we have a majority thumbs up.

So um if we could get right to the code amendments, and then we can have this information already in front of us, and if we wanted more information, we could ask for one-on-ones.

Is that I understand that correctly?

Yes, or submit questions, whatever.

Great.

Okay.

Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Mayor.

I'll just jump right in for the record.

Dan Diaz, economic and community development director for City Hillsborough.

I'm joined by our code and project policy manager, Rachel Marble.

Uh, this was the full agenda that's included in the packet for this evening.

Uh, the purpose of tonight's work session, as you saw in your staff report, is really twofold.

One is to uh present to you and receive some initial policy feedback on the phase one code amendments that you all initiated at your last city council meeting, really related to definition of use categories for data centers uh as well as energy storage and energy generation.

Uh, and then the second part of it was really to give an update on the other feedback and direction we received from the council at the June 9th work session on the uh many other aspects and projects that will be implementing this work and just give a status update on that.

That's the piece that will be backloaded.

So once we get through the code piece, if you'd like to get into those in specifics, we can do that.

If not, we can cut it off uh at that point, as Simone mentioned.

And with that, I'll turn it over to Rachel to jump into the code amendment phase one portion.

Okay, good evening, council um Rachel Marble.

Um, so just uh again to clarify that the phase one code amendment is um limited to the use definitions and use allowances.

Um I'll different you a little bit as far as the phase one amendment here.

This is the code feedback that we've received to date, and it includes feedback we've received in written communications from you all.

Um there were a couple of different ideas and proposals submitted um in writing, and it also includes feedback that was given verbally at the work session.

Um it's been I'll break it into two different it's been broken into two different columns, but the items that are going to be addressed in this phase one amendment are shown here in red.

So um so looking at the limitations of where we allow data centers using Jackson East as a precedent, um prohibiting data centers in certain zones or limiting them in some way, um, allowing them as an accessory use in some circumstances, and then defining and classifying them based on the type of data center.

Um the items on the right um would be informed by work that we are starting to do, um, including the economic environmental analyses.

The items on the right would be informed by work that we are starting to do, including the economic environmental analyses, but they've been broken apart so that this first part can be moved forward on a faster schedule than if we were to include everything all in the same amendment.

So to and there's a lot of text on these slides.

Unfortunately, it's not really a way to make text code code text that more much more interesting.

So my apologies on that.

So our code has use categories for all uses in the zoning code.

And the way that those uses are structured, those use categories are they give characteristics of the use, give examples of the uses, give examples of accessory uses to those uses, and then give some exceptions or clarifications where it might be unclear what falls under this use category.

So there's two different use categories that are being proposed in the amendment, the first being data storage.

Data storage may also be referred to as data centers, but but this verbiage is consistent with language we already have in the code, which is why it's being called data storage and not data centers.

So the characteristics are listed there.

And then under examples of uses, this is where the different types of data centers are described.

In addition to this, the there will be some definitions placed in the definitions section, which is in 12.01, and I haven't listed those here.

They're still being kind of refined, but there will be some additional actual definitions.

These aren't these aren't definitions per se, these are characteristics of the use itself, and kind of describing the use as it is allowed in the code.

So I won't read through them the all of the text, but the more important pieces here are just that A, we're creating a data storage category, so it would no longer be included in industrial services, which is what it is today, and then getting clear examples of what we mean by data centers and the different types of data centers that we would would that exist.

Some examples of accessory uses for data storage would be offices, electrical substations or energy generation or storage.

And then this one has one exception to clarify that offices or other uses that have server rooms or storage of data on site that's used by them is not considered data storage as a primary use, it's an accessory use.

And I'll talk a little bit more about that in a moment.

This is the second category we would be defining.

Energy storage and generation is currently lumped in with utility facilities, and is more broadly described in utility facilities.

And I would say that these are examples of uses that are not necessarily anticipated by our utility facilities category.

So this is an opportunity to further clarify and define that use in our code where it doesn't exist today.

Some examples of energy storage and generation would be battery energy storage systems or best facilities, wind energy conversion systems, which would be like wind generation windmills, basically.

And then utility scale solar energy systems, which would be like a solar solar farm, solar installation, where that's the only use on the site.

And then this use category, once we start defining things in the code, we have to when they're not listed, they're prohibited essentially.

And now we're creating an energy storage and generation use.

So we want to be clear that that other energy facilities would fall under this, but we'll be clear about which ones we allow and do not allow.

And ORS defines energy facilities very broadly.

There's a lot of things that are included in the energy facilities category.

Some examples of accessory uses for energy storage and generation are like various equipment on the site, potentially offices, obviously storage of equipment and materials, potentially parking, potentially security fencing.

There's quite a few exceptions listed here, and some of these are repetitive, but the point of the exceptions here is to make it clear that where energy storage and generation is accessory to a use.

For example, a roof-mounted solar array on a building, that's not considered energy use generation as a primary use.

That's an accessory use to the primary use on the site.

And we see that on many types of buildings, you know, residential all the way up to commercial and industrial buildings that have solar arrays.

Would be classified as an accessory use to the primary use on the site.

And then the again, the best facility one is just clarifying when it would be accessory when it's on a site that has a primary use.

And then lastly, energy transmission, which would be you know, like transmission lines, substations, those is just clarifying that those still fall under utility facilities and would not fall under energy storage and generation use.

So that is the use categories as being proposed.

Some of this is some of this is actual code language, the draft version, which is obviously still being refined.

The next parts is not actual code language, but more looking at the concept and what policy we're setting, and then I'll be taking that and turning it into code language.

So just a reminder of what the existing data center use restrictions are and where we allow it.

These zones are the zones that we currently permit data centers as a primary use on a site.

One commercial zone, and then three of our urban center zones.

The IS zone does have some limitations, and those limitations are that it's not allowed in the Meek sub-area at all, and there's some acreage limitations in the Jackson East sub-area.

So based on kind of my analysis of the purpose of the zones and things that have been expressed, namely using the Jackson East sub-area and the legal precedent we set there and how we set that up as a as a tool to apply that across the city.

My proposal would be that we prohibit data centers in the zones listed on the left.

So and I'll also point out that all of those zones in the prohibit list do not, or none of those zones currently have any data center approvals in them.

All of the current data centers that we have are in the IP and IS zones.

So in addition to the prohibition outright as a primary use in those zones, we would be proposing to limit them by acreage in the IP zone and the IS zone.

And the kind of draft idea there is 205 gross acres total.

In the IS zone, we would leave the Jackson East limitations in place because they were already set in that sub-area and in that plan as that came into the city.

We would leave the prohibition in the Meek sub-area as a primary use alone.

And then all other sub-areas in Jackson East are in IS would be capped at 305 per sacres total.

How I arrived at those numbers is that our adopted economic opportunities analysis estimated that we in the future could need somewhere between six and 10% of our employment land for data centers.

And that methodology was what was used in the Jackson East Development Code Amendment and how the acreages were arrived at in Jackson East for the limitations there.

So obviously 6 to 10% is a big range, or it can be a big range.

Essentially in the IP zone, right now we have 203 acres of data centers which have vesting through land use approval or are built or constructed in permitting, etc.

Uh in the IS zone, we have 303 acres.

So these totals are offering a little bit of wiggle room, but we may want to look at that number a little bit harder to see how much wiggle room we want to build in.

Um but they're essentially accounting for what we have today.

So data storage would be, and that these uh limitations and prohibitions would be um for uh data centers as a primary use on a site.

So if a data center is the only thing that's being a standalone data center, it's being proposed.

So for data storage as an accessory.

Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm I'm very confused.

It sounds like the the 200 gross acres and the 305, but that's about what's already been taken by data centers.

So there's no room for more data centers.

Is that what I'm hearing?

That is correct.

Okay.

Not bad about it, just clarifying because that's what it was sounding like.

So that is correct.

Uh in this draft, yes.

It's fine.

Um there's no room for standalone data centers.

Okay, but what about accessory data centers?

Yes.

I'm sorry for the fatigue.

I it's the data right now.

Um so yeah, the accessory that those limitations would apply as a primary use, so standalone data centers.

Um, there would be separate um code language that would deal with data storage as an accessory use.

So if somebody was proposing a data center um on a site um where they had a primary use, like manufacturing or um uh any of these uses, um that is separate from those limitations.

It would not be uh included in that acreage cap.

Thank you.

So data storage as an accessory use would be allowed as an accessory use to the following primary uses.

And this list is based on uh partially based on where we allow it today as a as a primary or sorry, as an accessory use.

Um this list is a draft and something that we want to look at um a little closer to make sure that we're not missing anything that would ordinarily have a data center as a as a um accessory use on site.

Um, but this is kind of the draft of where we would be starting.

And then there would be some clarifications, additional clarifications around that.

What do we mean for it to be accessory uh to a use?

So the current definition of accessory use or structure is just that it's a structure or use that's um incidental and subordinate to the main use of the property, and it's located on the same lot as the main use.

So if you have multiple uses on a site, um you have a primary use, and then you have accessory uses.

Um, there's not really a current um code methodology or limitation on um square footage um and what you know uh in the code as far as saying like you know, an accessory use can only be 10% of the site or something like that.

We do not define accessory use in that way.

Um, it's a little bit more um broad and vague.

Um, and that has been helpful in circumstances where um there's accessory uses that um, you know, it's it's sometimes hard to quantify to say um you know you can only have X amount of the site, you know, is it accessory if your profit from that accessory use is less than the primary use, or is it accessory if it's less square footage?

Um is it accessory if you know that there's a number of things?

So um there's not generally a lot of limitations or structure on what does that mean for it to be accessory?

For data centers, we would we would add some additional clarifications so that it is clear what we mean when we say it's accessory, and the two things that are being proposed would be that um number one, the data center exclusively serves the enterprise functions of the of the on-site primary use essentially, and then number two, the data center doesn't lease data storage or processing services to third parties.

Um, so that means that um we would essentially be allowing data centers that are serving the business on site and not data centers that are um like retail or um retailer uh wholesale data centers.

So Rachel, I got two questions before we miss this on data storage as an accessory use.

Um those would be allowed in any of the zones where this other happened if they wouldn't be limited just to the IP or the IS.

Is that am I reading that?

That's correct.

Anywhere those primary uses were allowed.

And secondly, the on the clarification for accessory, the second bullet, the data center does not lease data storage for processing services.

Do people lease processing services?

Or are you saying like sell processing service?

Is that the right language?

I don't want to have any loopholes here.

See my question is there.

Just I understand what you're getting at, I believe.

I just want to make sure that we wordsmith this correctly.

So I'll leave it that I don't need an answer now, but just to flag it out a little bit for you.

Sure.

Yeah, we can look at the language and make sure that it is capturing what we wanted to be capturing.

Ultimately, uh, some of this, um, you know, there are quite a few other jurisdictions across the country that have adopted data center regulations, and there's quite a bit of uh research online about zoning for data centers.

So part of this um was um based on on that research nationwide of what other jurisdictions have put in place.

Um and data storage and data processing centers are often um kind of linked together um and just included as as one um item.

So that is where that language comes from.

But I will definitely take a look at it and make sure that it's captured and where we want to be captioning.

Rachel, can I just interrupt one quick second?

I think it's there's a great point to just remind the council of the process.

And so we're coming to you tonight to get feedback on what staff is drafting to make sure that we're sort of following what you all wanted to do.

Then there'll be a public process where there'll be a public hearing before the planning commission, the planning commission will go through this, but go, you know, tinker with whatever needs to be tinkered with, such as this language, and then it'll ultimately come back to you again for final approval.

So you know, this is the kind of feedback that's great where we can get that feedback and say, here's things that you may want to look at, but just know that these aren't the final decisions being made tonight.

There's an entire public process that's gonna continue throughout before we get a finalized document for you.

Any other questions, Councillor Sinclair?

Yeah, just for Purity because we we just got this today.

Yeah.

And I don't I don't feel comfortable having consensus on this beyond.

I mean, this is a lot to process.

This is new for us.

And I want to make sure we're allowing ourselves as a body enough time before we confirm anything.

Yeah, this is you know, I Dan and Rachel can jump in as well.

But this is really to sort of give you an update.

So we're saying, here's where we're at, here's what we're thinking.

Generally, are you on board with this?

It's not to like find to fine-tune the language, and then we will then go through that process with the planning commission.

So there'll be plenty of opportunity for you all to provide staff of input throughout that process.

Is it also possible for us to have a third work session and where we process this from tonight?

That's that's up to you all, just knowing that um, because this is a land use code amendment, there's very specific procedures and noticing requirements that we have to follow.

So the more work sessions that you want, that'll just delay the actual enactment of the code amendments.

And I don't know if it's I skipped ahead of a couple of slides, but just to because we're talking about the process, um, to but it's okay to put um to just give you the timeline of where where we're at and what this will look like moving forward.

So we're doing a work session right now.

That's the first thing, July 21st.

Um, the next um item uh the the would be the public notice, um, which will um go out to affected property owners and the affected property owners in this case is anyone where um the zones that we mentioned where the zoning is changing, uh the allowances, um, we would be mailing them a notice.

Um after that, August 12th would be a work session with the planning commission.

There has um, you know, I'm sure some of them are aware of the conversations that have been happening at City Council, but um, they have not had any of the previous, you know, kind of education and information that you all have had.

So um, we want to have a work session with them to not only give an overview on data centers and the work that you all have and the conversations you've all had this the thus far, but also on the language that's being proposed.

So that would be an opportunity for them to kind of you know do a little bit more workshopping on the language and give feedback on the language.

Um the planning commission public hearing is is currently tentatively scheduled for August 26th.

Uh, and then after the planning commission public hearing, which uh they will make a recommendation out of, it would come to city council for a first and second reading.

This timeline is and um process is kind of the baseline of what our code um requires or the process it dictates as far as a code amendment goes.

So the public hearing occurs at the planning commission, um, and then it comes to uh council for first and second reading.

Um there may be additional time, and that's something that we can follow up with afterwards about the schedule and you know when when that's available, but um between now essentially and um when it comes before you all, which is September 15th.

Um, obviously that's two two months, um, time for an additional work session if you all would like more time with uh the actual proposed language and more time to you know have a discussion about the language if we can get sufficient feedback tonight to be able to confidently move forward with um writing the code and then come back to you with that um additional text and language.

Counselor Alk here.

I think I'd like to have a third work session after August 12th.

Um well then it still has to go to the planning commission public hearing.

So after August 12th, though, I think that that would give us enough information from the planning commission work session for us to have a third work session and before it goes to the planning commission public hearing.

Well, the planning commission public hearing allows people to give their two cents.

Um and so I'm wondering if we had one, it would be after the public hearing.

So we come together after we hear after the planning commission hears from the public.

Is that enough time before September 15th when we have a first reading at council?

I don't think that's enough time.

But it it does take into uh account the public hearing as well.

So if we met um for a third time, that would take that would take after excuse me.

If we met for a third time after August 26th, then would be also taking into account the public's comments.

So it is tight up.

I hear what you're saying.

So um yeah, I also just wanted to offer that this schedule was based on not having a work session, and the schedule is not set, it's not a firm set schedule.

So um anything that you want to add to this schedule um is obviously up to you all.

It would potentially delay the adoption date.

Um so you know, obviously, based on the meeting schedule, there's there's there is overlap between planning commission and city council on the dates and getting that kind of worked out, but um I would have to look at the dates of the meetings now to see if there would be time without delaying the adoption or what the impact that would have on the adoption date.

And that feedback's welcome too, both on the general direction the policy is going, because what Rachel is presenting, and thank you, Rachel, for your work pulling all this together and getting it to this point really stems from direct feedback that we received with consensus from the council, especially on the June 9th work session, where there was the desire to quickly move forward with a code amendment with the use categories and definitions as Rachel's described, and getting into those zoning and use tables.

Um as part of that the the balance that staff has tried to maintain in this is doing the work as quickly as possible.

That's been a request of council, but also doing it within the required land use processes and with odd degree of communication and engagement there as well.

Uh the original requests and guidance from council consensus was to try to target an 80 to 90 day adoption window, which was about as expedited as we could typically run the land use amendment process.

If there is a desire to add that in there, we can try to update the schedule and come back to you.

I don't think that that warrants is a work session by itself.

We just wanted to highlight the direction we received from council that we're trying to respond to.

And if we do add in procedural or engagement components, that likely extends the timeline that you asked us to also be as expedited with as we can, and we're just trying to balance those.

But I'm I'm okay having a third work session and delaying if that's what's gonna happen.

I think there's already been stuff that's already been decided, right?

We're not stopping anything right now.

Things are in process.

That's correct.

So I I think that I would like to have that third work session, and I know that's a lot of meetings in August, but I want to have it before September 15th.

Wherever, however way that's gotta happen.

I feel like we um after that we should definitely engage public with whatever happens after that third work session.

I feel like we've gotten a lot of commentary from public about the data centers for a few months now.

And I don't know if a lot of people who've been coming are going to know that they need to go to that planning commission public hearing meeting in relation to this.

I just don't know if they would know that unless we're advertising that that meeting's coming up at you know, meetings before that.

We can do that, but I just I just don't know if that's gonna give us that time.

And I think after going through us, and then the planning commission and before the first reading, and if we can have that third session so that we have an impact on that first reading at City Council and definitely have public invite public at that time as well.

Yeah.

Mayor and council, just for the sake of responsiveness and making sure we're hearing also a consensus of general feedback to staff too to what we're hearing with the work session.

One thing I would like to check and confirm what Rachel and I are doing right here is we could look within the broader council agenda and schedules and priorities.

And Simone, if you don't mind, we'd love to work on this city manager's office and follow up officially.

But we could try to target the first council meeting in September, which I believe is on the first, which would fall after the planning commission public hearing.

So we would have a sense of what was heard there and generally what is the planning commission's likelihood in terms of the recommended policy package that would be coming to you in ahead of your first city council first reading and consideration of this.

Um I think that would help preserve largely the timeline that that Rachel has presented here that's trying to be responsive to the desire for expediency, but also allow that this discussion.

So that would just be one if we could get a general sense of initial feedback and Simona looking to city manager's office.

If you prefer a different approach, please let us know.

The second piece I just wanted to confirm real quick before I turn my mic off is to the point about communication of the public hearings.

I just wanted to reiterate for the council, but also for the public that are tracking these work sessions as well.

We will have to do mailings to the directly impacted properties of about 2100, as Rachel noted, and as is shown on the slide here.

So those property owners that would be affected by this zoning code change will receive a mailed notice.

We also intend to fully utilize the updated data center website, our other communication channels to communicate out with the broader public and the vast array of interested parties and stakeholders of all of the steps in this process once we get that general kind of consensus and feedback from you this evening.

So I just wanted to the question or concerns around awareness and engagement.

We seek to utilize all the communication channels at our disposal once that this is already somewhat in motion, but really once this is solidified.

Counselor Sinclair.

Yeah, Director Diaz, what would have happened if we tonight the mayor would have received consensus for us to not move forward with the work session?

We would have had to schedule that, correct?

The the work session being requested, the third work session being requested.

We started tonight, we got a consensus whether we wanted to move forward or not.

And so I'm not understanding why this is a conflict.

I'm also not understanding why we've gone through almost two months now since we started this conversation, and we just got this packet today.

That is just not enough time to adequately consume this information.

So I'm hoping for us to go through this so that we can hear your guys' expertise on this, and then we can come back to staff and email questions, uh, have further discussion with the public, and then come back and get a consensus then with any direction you would like us to, you know, suggest to us.

Um so, counselor sinclair, I appreciate your comments and um to your to your first point, what would have happened had the council decided that they didn't want to move forward with a work session, we would have looked to council communicated with council to find out whether or not you had any input, and we would do that individually, as we often do when we solicit information so as not to risk a serial meeting, and then we could have made a determination about whether or not we needed to schedule a work session, but that would have obviously impacted this obviously impacted this timeline.

Um, in terms of the turnaround time and receiving materials, I I wish I could say that we could have done it faster, but this team has been working very diligently, and we have been having meetings twice a week um to continue this work.

So I I do want to just let you know that it is not any lack of effort on our part to make sure that we're getting this information as quickly as possible and in a way that's digestible.

So that's definitely a priority for for us.

Yeah.

And Simone, I in no way am I trying to be disrespectful at all to say that this is easy.

I know it's not.

We have extra meetings, and it's just not even anything near what you are doing.

So I understand what you're saying.

And it's it's not to be disrespectful.

It's just a reality, like for the public.

You know what I mean?

I understand.

So uh when we're looking at the timeline, um, I feel like you know, there's a request of a third um work session.

Um, I think it's a good point, Counselor Alcair, that not everybody's gonna know to go to the planning commission public hearing.

We've served on planning commission, counselor sinclair and I.

Not a whole lot of people show up to that, right?

But if they know, we could let them know um that they can go to the planning commission to give their input that they've been giving to us.

And then we have the option, we could do, you know, it depends on consensus of council to have a third work session, or we could do the individual meetings as well.

Either way, this is not the last uh input that we get.

This is is we're just starting, right?

So and Mayor, just reiterate to what Chad said a moment ago and what we said at the thread of presentation.

The purpose of tonight is primarily to inform you of how the work is progressing given the direction you gave to us a little over a month ago.

Um, and so the specific language to councillor Harris's question, that is going to continue to be refined.

So what you're looking at tonight will not be the final language.

What we're looking for is is this along the lines in terms of a continuity of the discussion from what you were providing to staff in terms of direction last month.

Does this feel like it's still consistent with that?

And we will continue to refine that into the formal package that will come back before you absolutely to the mayor's point, and we'll also go to the planning commission and continue through the public process.

Right.

So there's still opportunity for input.

This is not the last time.

You just want to make sure that you're on track tonight.

If you were to come to us and say, you know what, we changed our mind, don't create a data center category.

That would be helpful to know before we go send public notice and continue to spend staff time drafting this and prioritizing this over housing code amendments and things like that.

Yeah, counselor all care.

Um I say turn the first September meeting one of those into a work session on data centers.

So the September 1st, you're you're is that what you're September 1st or 2nd?

Whatever that might be.

Okay.

Um anybody else support that?

Counselor Case.

No, I don't.

I don't need a work session.

I think we need I need a one-on-one after this because we just got this information late today.

Yep.

It's 10:30 at night.

I'm on the verge of cranky, sorry.

It's just been a long day.

Um, and so I think like I think what we need is time to process this information and then have meetings with the staff.

I think another work session, we have heard a ton of public comment, and when we have a work session, public comment doesn't get to happen at a work session.

And so I think the public hearing is a better option, and then maybe we put some time into the agenda at that September 15th meeting to do public comment after the first reading, or maybe it's before, I guess.

Something in there where they can give where there can be comment in that time.

Because well, the public hearing, the public hearing will have public comment.

Uh the first reading, we will have public comment.

We could also, you know, we could also have public comment on the September 1st meeting as well.

Yeah, right.

There could be public comment at the planning commission and again at City Council, right?

Go ahead.

Because I think public wants to have that conversation with us.

They want to have that work session with us.

Well, they don't have not with the planning commission.

Yes, they can go to that meeting.

I think we set a precedence that when they come to a meeting with city council and have a work session on it.

I think that's different.

And I don't know if I'm gonna be able to go to that public hearing with the planning commission.

I don't know if I'm available at that time.

So why not have one for set for city council?

And if people don't want to come to it because they've already heard too many comments or enough public comment, this is another opportunity where yeah, we're gonna hear public comment.

Council will have time to discuss it and in front of public.

I think that's important.

Okay.

Um, so we have a um somebody wants counselor all care wants a another work session.

Counselor Case does not.

Any other thoughts, Counselor Harris?

Um, I think what looking at this, and yes, we just get it relatively recently, but scanning through this stuff and looking at this, they marry may very well be that when we get the actual code text amendment, we're gonna look at this and we can say that seems pretty clear to me.

Um, and we don't have as many questions as maybe we do right now because of the way the format's being presented, and because we are sort of in the draft or pre-draft stage at this point.

That being said, I don't think I certainly wouldn't object to us not to have hold September 1st council work session uh as available for a work session.

Should we add it?

So just not put anything else on it, maybe at the after council meeting.

So that if we wanted to do a work session, we could.

Uh in the meantime, we could try and see if what we get looks good through the planning commission draft looks great to us.

We do one-on-ones, our answers are clear, and maybe we don't need to do a second work session.

I don't think we need to decide right now that we're gonna do a work session on the September 1st is the bottom point.

That's fair.

So you're you're staying neutral.

I'm neutral, but I think we should reserve either before or after council for a possible work session on this.

Okay, counselor Sinclair, are you feeling tonight?

I say we we go through the presentation and then decide afterwards, but I I just want to make sure that's open.

There's no expectation that this is it, and they'll not good about it.

Yeah, regardless of whether or not we have another work session, this is not it.

That is very clear.

Am I correct?

This is not the final say.

Okay.

In addition to the planning commission, we also have the first and second readings, right?

Like even if there's no work session, we still have these other opportunities.

Okay, so let's move forward because we are talking about another work session, but you still haven't been able to get through everything you want to get through.

Sorry about that.

We got derailed, let's get back to it.

Um, yeah, no, that's fine.

Um, there we're only there's only two other slides.

Um just to be more clear about the direction that I'm hoping to get tonight.

Um, is more is less about the language and the text and more about um you all potentially giving direction or or finding consensus on whether or not like um this generally captures the the conversation that's been had thus far.

For example, you know, the proposed data center restrictions.

If you all were to say to me, you know, Rachel, this this uh the amount of zones we're prohibiting in does not reflect the conversation, which I don't think is the case.

Um that's the kind of feedback I'm I'm looking for, not necessarily the language itself, but or the numbers or or that specific.

But does this generally capture the direction that and the comments that have been made thus far?

So you know, generally this slide is you know, yeah, it's it's got very specific uh language on it as far as the zones, but generally this is trying to capture that we're prohibiting we are we're moving towards prohibiting it in zones that we don't have any data centers, so maybe not necessary, uh zones where it's not appropriate to have a data center potentially like uh a commercial zone.

Um, you know, zones uh that are our station community zones, which would be SCI and SCPP that are um very proximate to the light rail.

Um those are the kind that's the kind of thing that I am looking for.

Um that when it's brought back to you as a text amendment, um, I can make those things clear, hopefully, that that that's what is is being reflected in the language.

Um I I did not want to put that full text in there, A, because I knew I knew you wouldn't be getting it that far in advance.

It's very hard to digest, and quite frankly, zoning code is is a different language.

Uh so um it's a lot, and so I wanted to capture and hopefully get direction from you all on do you feel like uh the kind of general concept for these things, the use definitions and or the category use categories and the kind of idea of the limitations, restrictions, prohibitions, um, you know, prohibiting it as a primary use in uh these zones, but allowing it as accessory for certain you know cases.

Like those are the kinds of things that I'm hoping um to get kind of yeah, yes, I think that was captured um, you know, in that was those, you know, that was reflected in previous guidance, um, all of those things, and I tried to take that those guidance um pieces and show you where those would be reflected in the code, um, not necessarily the text itself.

Okay, counselor case and then counselor Harris.

Um, I guess so.

Apologies for not having memorize the types.

Uh so the IP means industrial industrial park, it's a good chunk of the zones located in the northern hemisphere of the city, and a little bit along parts of TV highway.

And then the S is the IS is the industrial sanctuary zone.

That's the bulk of the newer areas in the North Hillsborough industrial area and some of the areas north of highway 26.

Mostly along TV Highway and in our downtown area.

Okay.

I think the only thing I would say in looking at these things is I would be I would be interested in and happy to have pushback on it.

On the data storage as an accessory unit as a percentage of the whole so that we don't get into something we've kind of talked about before.

So the additional clarifications like cannot be more than 50% of building usage.

And I don't know what that number would be.

And that you're expressing that limitation would be on like the square footage of buildings on the site or the square footage of land on the site.

Yep.

One of the one of those that's at home, but just like, yeah, I mean it's as when it's data storage as an accessory unit.

Yeah, that it's that it's not it doesn't take up most of the land.

Right.

Right.

You have the data set.

Yeah.

And then you have like three office buildings.

But it's that like the people in the work are, yeah, more than that.

So whether it's the unit or it depends, I guess, which probably is what's gonna make that a harder thing to say.

So just we can explain.

Yeah, I'm I'm that makes sense to me.

Uh, I'd like to know a percentage as well, or set a percentage.

Um counselor Harris, you had a question.

So why are we making decisions?

Yeah, looking at this, this is sort of, I guess maybe the type of fee.

Hope this is the hype of fee you're looking at.

Um the limits you put on total gross acres are 200 and 300 in the two.

And it sounded like the information you gave me also sounds like we're pretty maxed out at that point.

So if we adopted that, we wouldn't theoretically, there would be no permitted standalone data centers.

Now that's it looks like what'd you say, 6200 acres?

So 500 would be 7% or 8%, and you're looking at six to 10, is what you said would be sort of a potentially reasonable number for data centers.

Let me ask you this.

Um, if there's a potential manufacturer that wants to move into this area, wouldn't that require them then not to rely on any new data center capabilities like the co-location center?

Um, they would have to build their own data processing, data storage facilities on site as an accessories, because that would be a lot.

So is it and maybe Mr.

Diaz can answer this question?

Do we get prospective employers of high quality jobs who we would like to have in our area come say, yeah, we we'd like to do that, but we need data storage or data services.

We don't really want to put it on site.

We want to contract for that.

And if that does happen, that sounds like it could be a real deal killer.

I'll do my best.

Um thank you for the question.

And part of why I say I'll do my best is because some of this will be on data substantiated information that we receive from the industry, where we always try to make at least data informed factually defensible assertions.

So I just wanted to cave out that up front.

As we shared in the June 2nd and followed up on the June 9th work sessions, our staff are aware and regularly engaged with the industry in our area that have indicated that they rely on in increasingly so on data processing and data support that spans industries from biotech to high-tech and advanced manufacturing to outdoor athletic and apparel to financial industries.

Um it is very dynamic, it is very inconsistent across the board.

So that's where we will try to come back with square footage limitations and things like that.

It might be in the form of ranges or some options.

We can come back to that if we get consensus.

The point about the accessory uses, we have seen different industries and different business entities shift that model of whether they prefer to host and contain their data and information processing the data centers on their manufacturing site, or whether they prefer to maximize their site for manufacturing purposes and then have the data center off-site but very close by.

And so I think to your question if I'm understanding it, Counselor Harris, does the risk of an over reliance on accessory use of data centers potentially hinder economic development efforts to bring in manufacturers and some of those other target industries?

I think there is a very likely risk of that, both of new entities coming in because they would arguably need larger sites then to make sure that they have the data processing capacity on site.

And for existing businesses, we oftentimes will see them if we're lucky enough to have them continue to invest and expand here, they will actually kick parts of their operations off their site to go nearby.

That can be data processing, it could be warehousing.

And so what would happen is it could create a pinch point there of capacity on their site.

And we can seek to try to better understand that.

But I apologize, I don't know if we'll be able to get to fully quantifiable specifics or some consistency of findings in that regard.

And I think that's reasonable answer.

Um do we know what the current use capacity of usages of our current standalone data centers?

Like are they 100% full?

Do they have additional capacity?

Do you have any information on that?

We have some information on that, similar to what was shared in the prior work sessions done by third party entities.

We also are anticipating trying to get at some of that in the upcoming studies, which are part of the rest of the update tonight, and some of the question or the request you gave to us last month to conduct those studies.

We have heard that data center vacancies, especially for built-out facilities is in the low single percents in terms of vacancies.

So they are quite filled or in the process of being filled up as powers available as the computing hardware going into them can be available.

You all may also recall the uh study and analysis done by uh JLL, John Lane LaSalle that talked about the data center processing large in our area is well north approaching like 80% supporting technology industries in our area.

So I think that also speaks to a part of your question of how much of that is potentially being used by some of those other use types that you talked about.

Now that is third party outside data, but data that we do rely on because they that has come from industry inputs and then been aggregated.

Finally, my last question, and this is sort of off topic a little bit, but you know, in the healthcare industries, for instance, if you want to build another hospital, you want to do MRI, gotta get a certificate of need.

Is there such a thing as a certificate of need?

Could we come up with some sort of a ordinance development code that says that um if a data center developer can show a certificate of need, they would be allowed to build.

So that would probably require them to show that there's a need within our manufacturing base or a new employer moving in something uh that would allow us to give a certificate to a new standard, and it wouldn't be an enterprise.

Well, it might be an enterprise one or co-location, wouldn't be a hyper, right?

Yeah, I mean it would be something that was directly accessory too and used by our local.

Is there anything like that?

I'm not aware of a certificate of need, like formal process and requisition.

I am aware that we sometimes get insight into local companies using local data centers, but even that is very difficult sometimes because of their own contractual agreements or confidentiality agreements to get tangible uh information there.

Um we would be open to if if again there's a consensus of council to try to fold that in.

It would probably not be appropriate necessarily for this code amendment package, but possibly into some of the study work that we're finishing the scoping, just about to launch to see if we can get at a little bit more of that.

And if it becomes a certificate of need opportunity, great, we can bring that forward as an option.

If there's some other means that we discover, we would try to frame that and bring that back in a subsequent conversation.

I would be interested in that because I think that it's a situation where we could develop it in one way to restrict the type of developments that we prefer not to have in the city, but we may find an opportunity to have a large employer high quality job or a school or a university or some research facility, but we don't have that.

They could go through a process and we could say, oh yeah, there's 300 acres.

We can't expand beyond that.

And I I agree it it's complicated.

It's probably you could be informed by the healthcare certificate of need process, I'm assuming.

But I I would be interested in that if you think it's a viable alternative after doing some preliminary checking.

Go ahead.

Um, well, I was just gonna say that um uh first to just clarify the number.

So this acreage, the 300 or 510 acres, um, is 9.5% of our employment land.

Um the other thing, so um, and when I drafted this language, there was um essentially like 10 10% um capacity um excess capacity.

Um so there was more excess capacity.

There's about 50 acres that was built in that would provide a little bit of more level room.

Um that 50 acres uh disappeared um today when we got two new land use applications for data centers.

That's 50 acres.

So um there, you know, the wiggle room there may need to be looked at.

Um, but also what I would say about the idea for the kind of certificate of need, it sounds um sounds like something that we would potentially want to um look at during phase two.

Um one of the ideas or one of the feedback um pieces was um elevating the review process for data centers to a type three decision.

And um that sounds like uh something that you know we we would typically have like a conditional use for something where um it's not a use that's allowed outright, it's a use that would be permitted through a public hearing process.

Um, and that's something that we had on the list for phase two.

Um, and something certainly that I think the economic analysis that's going to be done and that's gonna inform phase two might help us better understand um that you know if we would be unreasonably restricting um other industries by restricting data centers.

Um the other thing I'll say is just that these limitations or these these, you know, we're we're we're setting a baseline because we don't have the data center use in our code today.

Um, so we have to set uh set if we're gonna define it, we have to set allowances or restrictions for it.

There's nothing stopping you all from revisiting those during phase two.

Um so you know, you could uh revisit these allowances during phase two.

Um if there's you know something that becomes apparent during the economic analysis that we've been you know too restrictive for some reason and you all want to revisit that, you certainly could.

Can I just appreciating that it's almost 11 o'clock and some of us have been at the 16 hours?

I don't know if this is maybe just one great final response to get councils feedback to this notion.

If the heart of Councillor Harris's proposal, and especially if this is resonating with Reset Council is to still try to ensure that there's localized data capacity to support those other target industries, I think is at the heart of some of that last question of that certificate of need.

If we are successful in coming back with some sort of this accessory limitation threshold that could go on site, we could put maybe this is just late and tired, but we could look at almost a transfer of development right opportunity that if I'm a manufacturing, I could have that 50,000 square feet on my site, or I could transfer that to go off-site and be a standalone and there's some connectivity of the direction of like that supporting so that manufacturer locally as well.

So that's early, it's immediately responsive off the cuff.

But those are the kind of general pieces without the specifics that if the council would like us to try to explore those a little bit more, either in the heart of this code package, but really maybe also a blend of this code package and those studies and looking ahead to phase two, think about that.

We can take some of now if there is consensus this evening, or if you want to follow up, we can think about that as well.

But I think that with those two things you've asked for almost tonight, those could almost maybe work together in something that we've not really thought of yet.

So yeah, just on that.

I think it's a really interesting idea.

And I would hate to lose out on jobs based on an arbitrary percentage that we offer or that we we put down initially.

So I'd love to have that on the table.

But I like the transferable development credits.

We look sort of like height restrictions, right?

Um it's complicated, but I like it both of them going forward in phase two.

Like I say, let's get this phase one done.

Yeah.

Counselor Sinclair, did you a comment?

Yeah, I I literally feel like maybe there's a separate conversation prior to this moment because I how are you getting so you just said for them to come up with some type of certificate that outlines the quantification of the land versus the need.

And is that basically no?

Well, well, I'm here okay then.

I'm not seeing what you guys are seeing in this conversation.