Good evening, everyone.

This September 2nd, 2025 meeting of the Lake Oswego City Council is now called to order.

Ms.

Owner, will you please call the role?

Mayor back.

Counselors Corrigan.

Here.

RAF.

AFKAN.

Yeah.

Maboop.

Yeah.

Gwenlin.

Verdict.

Here.

Thank you.

It's nice to have everyone here.

It's like the families back together.

Now, everyone, will you please uh stand remove your hats and join us in the pledge?

You know.

No, I don't know that there.

I pledge the late to the flag of the United States.

Well, September in uh the city of uh Lake Oswego is now well in our nation it is National Preparedness Month, but here in Lake Oswego we recognize that as well, and the city council would like to help raise awareness of the importance of the role that all community members and neighbors play to minimize the impacts of disasters by taking steps to develop emergency plans, assemble disaster kits, and stay informed about local hazards.

We strengthen our city's resilience and create a safer community by working together.

This month of September is National Preparedness Month, and we invite all neighbors to join us at the emergency preparedness fair, which will take place right here at City Hall on Thursday, September 18th from 5 30 to 7 30 p.m.

We will be uh signing a proclamation for National Uh Preparedness Month, and I do invite you all to come to the fair if you haven't been there.

There's lots of good resources and even some supplies that you get for free.

So it's great.

Okay.

Now is the time on our agenda for uh public comment.

If you'd like to provide public comment and haven't already done so, please fill out one of these light forms and hand it to Miss Ono.

But uh Edward Conrad, you are out first.

Just as a reminder, as Mr.

Carmen has coming forward, there's uh three minutes for public comment, and there's a little timer on the table in front of you, and we appreciate paying attention.

Good to have you all here.

Oh, let's make sure your microphone is on real quick.

There we go.

There we go.

Okay.

If you've been around Lake Oswego for the past few years, you can't help but notice more e-bikes and e-scooters on arterial sidewalks.

These vehicles are not supposed to be on sidewalks, but there is often no safe alternative.

I can relate to this understandable danger avoidance.

Because I I often use an e-bike to do errands in town.

When I consider using an arterial street to pass between neighborhoods, I have to ask myself the dirty hairy question.

Are you feeling lucky punk?

I often back down and choose a complex path on low speed streets to avoid our trivial paths.

Is my fear justified?

Well, to answer this question, I measured the stock of sidewalks and bike lanes on the major three major arterial streets in Lake Oswego using a bike, shoes, and measuring tape, low tech.

I looked at both sides of three major arterials in Lake Oswego.

And I'll bet the city has done a similar inventory or will in the future I encourage, because they have better resources, better machines, better knowledge.

But anyway, I don't I surveyed A Avenue from uh to Country Club, Cruise Way to Bangy Road, and Boone's Ferry from Kerr Parkway to Gene Road.

And what I found when there was a bike lane, most were about five feet wide.

National and local agencies now suggest six feet uh with an added buffer.

Uh a transportation project can uh go down to five feet bike pass if ODOT signs off a noncompliance document.

And I uh in the future I'd like to find some of the noncompliance documents here.

But difference between five feet and six feet bike lanes is a 40% risk of death.

Um over these 11.6 miles, noncompliance with standards was worse than I expected.

There was 49% noncompliance with ADA sidewalk standards.

If I use the six-foot standard, there was a 79% noncompliance, only 20% or so were in compliance.

If I used it at five foot width, which is the standard standard here anyway, it improves to about 35% still noncompliance.

So I concluded that my fear of riding an e-bike in Lake Oswego major arterials is justified.

And I'd encourage the city, even though I think the Transportation Advisory Board, and I'm out of the loop here, is no longer meets, but I encourage the city and staff to look at in the future, it has to be in the future, uh, to correct some of these dramatic deficiencies and prepare for a future which has more safe pedestrian and bicycle paths that will help do a lot of things, help improve safety and help business save money.

Um in the future, I hope bike riders don't have to ask the question I have.

Are you feeling lucky today, punk?

Thank you, Dr.

Connor.

We appreciate your comment and your analysis.

Thank you.

Uh Chris Turkey, sure next.

Good evening.

Good evening.

Mr.

Mayor, counselors, city manager, staff.

Uh I'm Chris Durkey, I live at 2356 Glenhaven Road in Lake Oswego.

I'm speaking as the chair of the Pass of the Palisades Neighborhood Association, and I'm speaking on be on behalf of our support for reducing the speed limit to 20 miles an hour.

One of the aspects of our wonderful town that I love is the sense of community.

Neighbors who are also good friends doing life together.

Lake Oswico had 51 national night out parties.

Wow.

Kudos to all the city staff, Bonnie Hirschberger, Battalion Chief Greg Barnum, and so many others who made this night a home run.

And if I may brag, eight of those parties were in Palisades.

One of the cherished characteristics of my neighborhood is folks walking with friends, with children, with their dog, or just their thoughts.

This contributes so much to building a sense of community, a cohesive and safe community, but safe communities need safe streets.

A challenge in our town with so many narrow streets, many without sidewalks.

Tonight you'll be making your decision on whether or not to proceed with your goal of reducing the speed limit on local streets and residential collectors to 20 miles an hour.

The Palisades Neighborhood Association board discussed this issue at some length at our August board meeting and voted unanimously to support the city's plan to reduce the local speed limits to 20 miles an hour.

Of course, discussion included questions of enforcement cost, questions like will the new speed limits just be ignored?

These are aspects of your plan that we know the traffic engineering staff and LOPD enforcement folks have thoroughly considered.

One question, one thought did resonate with our board that I want to pass on.

Perhaps streets without sidewalk should be the first priority for reduced speed.

So you have the full and enthusiastic support of the Palisades Neighborhood Association to reduce the speed limit on local roads to 20 miles an hour, and we're ready to help roll out this program in any way that we can.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Jerky.

Appreciate your comments.

Mike Perm.

Hello, council.

First of all, I want to thank you for the go slow campaign.

Lowering speed limits is a good first step to increase the safety of our neighborhood streets.

But it is still just the first step.

Our neighborhoods today are not vibrant.

Rarely do I see kids playing outside or people spending out time outside of their house.

Instead, our streets are dedicated to and dominated by cars, both parking and moving.

We planned our city 50 to 75 years ago to be suburban neighborhoods full of single-family homes, connected by streets for cars, and this is the result of that decision.

Every day now, our streets are flooded with cars at pick up and drop off.

Our farmers market and our downtown are full of parked cars and traffic because we've embedded car dependency deep into the land use rules for this city.

The go slow effort is a great first step, but I would encourage the council and the planning department to keep pushing.

What are the next dozen steps we can take to peel back this car dependency to make our streets and neighborhoods more vibrant for people?

Why do the majority of parents drive their kids to school?

Why do I have to drive downtown to get a cup of coffee or to eat at a cafe?

Why can't I do any of this in my own neighborhood?

Can we use our neighborhood street space for better purposes than car storage and movement?

Here's my request.

Please keep taking more steps to make our neighborhoods safer and more vibrant for all residents.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Perm.

Good to see you.

Kate Lufton.

Good evening.

Hi, my name is Kate Lepton.

Thank you for having me this evening.

It's great to see you all.

I am a new director on the Lake Oswego School Board, and I come here not as a school board member, but as a parent.

Today was the first day of school for my son James.

And I was so excited for him.

He's he just turned four and he goes to River Grove.

And he is the cutest kid.

He's so smart, and he also has trouble running away, unfortunately.

My oldest child didn't have this problem, so I didn't really understand what was happening, but unfortunately it's become a pattern where he just likes to run into streets, but he runs into danger, unfortunately, and we don't know exactly why.

The only thing he's been diagnosed with is sensory sensitivity disorder, and so maybe there'll be other things that come along, but he has a tough time following directions and staying safe.

And so I had a scare today, unfortunately.

I was really excited after a long summer to have him go into the public pre-K program at River Grove, and he's got a great teacher, and I had prepped everyone just so they knew, you know, James can be a little wild, but he's a good kid.

And he I got a call at one o'clock today and said, please come quickly.

Um your son ran uh at recess, he ran through the doors of the front front doors of the school and got out.

So the secretary saw immediately called me.

Um, and the principal had to chase him.

He's a fast kid.

So he ran all the way down McEwan to Pilkington, and fortunately his principal was able to stop him at Pelkington and then got some support, and I was there within about two or three minutes.

So everything's was fine.

He was totally safe, but when I think about um making our city safer for pedestrians, I feel like there's been so much that's already been done.

And I'm so grateful for all of the new sidewalks and pathways and the initiatives that are happening because they make a huge difference.

Um, and I'm already starting to see it.

But in times when he gets overwhelmed, um, as he did today at school, his first day at public school here in Lake Oswego, um, he unfortunately tries to run away to get away from whatever is overwhelming him.

Um I had a scary day, but I'm I was so happy to come here this afternoon and just say thank you for considering lowering the speed limit on our city streets because it makes a big difference for kids, and it's not just about whether the parent is keeping track of their kid, because I know my daughter Amelia doesn't run in the street, and neither does my third daughter Sophie.

It's really just my son James.

Um, and he's getting better, but lowering the speed limit will really help him out.

So thank you for considering.

Thanks, Director Lupton.

We're glad that he's okay.

Yeah.

Ginny Addershine.

Good evening, ma'am.

Hi.

Hi, good to see you.

Thank you for letting me come and speak to you.

Just let me find my little statement here.

I can find it.

Okay, here we go.

My name is Ginny Adelsheim.

I've lived at the corner of Cornell and Hemlock Street for 20 years.

I'm here to voice my concern about the very dangerous intersection I live on.

Even though there is a stop sign on Hemlock Street, there is no stop sign, slow sign, speed bump, or even a warning sign on Cornell Street.

That the intersection is a pedestrian and a pet crossing.

Hemlock Street has the most pedestrians of any street across Cornell because it connects Hall and School, Freeponds Park, and New Seasons Market.

Because I live on the corner of Cornell and Hemlock, I see what happens there every day.

Many kids ride electric bikes and scooters now.

Often they zip across Cornell without even stopping.

People push babies and strollers and pull them in small wagons.

Countless people walk their dogs, and many elderly folks walk along hemlock.

Because drivers on Cornell have no reason to slow down.

They often race through the hemlock intersection.

I've heard parents shout to their kids, run when they get to Cornell Street.

One little girl froze in the middle of Cornell intersection as a car appeared and her dad had to run and rescue her.

I've heard many parents explain to their kids this the need to stop and look before crossing.

But the view up Cornell Street is obstructed by a curve.

So you don't actually see the car until it's quite close.

That is a big problem because older folks and young kids take a lot longer to get across the street.

Many times cars have to suddenly slow down when someone is in the process of crossing Cornell.

On August 23rd, a young boy on his bike couldn't see a car coming down Cornell and started to cross the intersection.

He ran into the car.

Thankfully, he was not seriously injured, but I imagine he was traumatized.

I am uh I imagine the driver was too.

My daughter was the first responder because she was on that corner of my property gardening at the time and saw the accident.

She ran into the street to help him and got the bike off of him.

She stayed in the street and comforted him until the emergency people came.

One of the police officers said it should be a four-way stop.

The only way to avoid this kind of accident is to have a stop sign on Cornell Street, not just Hemlock.

The onus should not be on pedestrians, especially children, to protect themselves from oncoming cars and trucks that have the freedom to zoom up and down Cornell Street without even slowing, let alone stopping on Hemlock.

For over 20 years, this problem has plagued our street.

I am begging the city to make the Cornell Hemlock intersection a four-way stop before there is a serious or fatal accident.

Thank you so much for giving me this time to speak.

Thank you.

Thank you, Ms.

Adelsheim.

Appreciate you coming.

And then on Zoom, we have Sarah Ayana Roan.

Hello, counselors.

Thank you for having me here today.

I appreciate the opportunity to testify and thank you for making Zoom available.

It's quite hot out there right now.

So you save me a little bit of sweat.

I am Sarah Ian Rone.

I'm the executive director of the Street Trust, and I am here this evening to urge your support for ordinance 2966, establishing citywide speed limit reductions.

20 is plenty per rim in Lake Aswego.

The Street Trust is a membership advocacy organization.

We represent all street users, regardless of how they get around across the Portland Metro region.

We have just around 400 members and supporters who reside in Lake Asuaga who are members and involved in our organization.

We work hard to break the political gridlock and when the types of investments that you've heard your community wants tonight, saving lives, reducing barriers, making sure our young people can get to school.

We also serve at many tables in cooperation with Lake Aswego at Metro and beyond.

So we're excited to be here tonight and congratulate you on exploring the groundbreaking initiative of 20 is 20.

As you know, lowering speed limits to 20 miles per hour is not just about safety, but this is an economic investment in your community.

Studies across the United States have shown that walking, biking, and transit infrastructure projects create significantly more jobs per dollar than when we just built car-only projects.

When we calm traffic, we increase foot traffic, which straight which strengthens your local businesses.

People visiting your retail shops by foot and by bike are more likely to stop.

They stop more frequently, they linger and they spend money in places where they feel safe crossing the street or even letting their children walk.

We save money by preventing crashes.

Every avoided crash saves thousands of dollars in emergency response, health care and property damage.

Cities that have lowered their neighborhood speeds, saw reduction in crashes of up to 40%, which translated into millions of dollars in avoided costs, not just at the public level, but the household burden of these crashes, uh, not only on lost wages, but uh mountains of medical debt, as you know.

So any amount that we can reduce speeds on our local roads helps increase uh the amount that someone who is unfortunately involved in a crash, they can survive.

Uh it's a generally all around a positive thing that you can do in your community.

And they do help support economic resilience at a time right now when we know that household costs are rising.

We're talking about even increasing the gas tax uh at the state level.

Families can save on transportation costs when they feel safe walking or biking instead of relying on a car for every trip.

That means there's more disposable income circulating back into your economy in less time, wasted in costly congestion, especially around school drop-off and pick off, pick up when congestion can be very bad.

Uh, these points are explained in greater detail in uh the December 8th, 2023 technical advisory memo, which we submitted to your city.

Uh, I did try to resend it again today.

I encountered um uh uh a glitch with the email, but I'll work uh with Mizona to make sure that gets over to you.

Uh we wanna make sure that everybody using your sidewalks uh experiences fewer close calls, that children biking to school can gain confidence, uh, and that your whole city is prospering.

And this small change, while it may seem like change, uh reducing speeds from 25 to 20 on your neighborhood streets can pay off in huge ways for safety, livability, and prosperity.

So we thank you for your leadership and considering this important investment in your community.

We're happy to support you.

Uh, any initiatives in helping educate the community and a shameless plug, uh, if I may, for the first uh person who testified, the street trust is also host of the Oregon Micromobility Network, uh, which you can find at Oregon Micromobility.org.

And we are working on making sure we have safe uh enforceable policies uh for people e-biking and using e-scooters that we've been working in the state legislature uh to pass that legislation uh so that we have safe enforceable micromobility for everyone.

So I encourage him uh to go find out more about there because we want people of all ages and abilities rolling, uh, whether it's analog or powered with a little battery pack, we're happy for both.

So thanks again for hearing our testimony tonight.

Uh, congratulations on this groundbreaking initiative and we appreciate your time.

Thank you, Ms.

Adam.

We appreciate you being here.

Thanks for your comments.

All right.

Is there anyone else who would like to provide public comment?

Okay.

Next, we're gonna uh thank you to everyone who did.

And next for moving on to the uh consent agenda.

Um I've removed one item from the consented agenda, resolution 2996, item 6.5.

That's that's the um uh the uh the speed zone um ordinance.

And uh um, but what we have remaining on the consent agenda, resolution 25-31.

This appoints members to the foothills district community advisory committee, ordinance two nine five eight, uh, which is indexing 5450 Kenny Street, ordinance 2961, which is annexing 6210 Lakeview Boulevard.

Resolution 25-38.

This approves amendment number four to the sub-recipient agreement 24-006 between the city of Lake Osigo and Clackmas County Human Services Department Social Services Division for fiscal years 2023 through 2027.

Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Move to adopt the cushion IG.

Motion made by Counselor RAF and second seconded by councilor and boo.

All those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Any opposed?

Okay.

Motion passes uh seven zero.

Resolution item 6.1 resolution two 996 will consider separately.

Um at our the last meeting, uh the council had a uh discussion and a public hearing on this um on this ordinance.

But counselor RAF and Councillor Umbook, neither one of you are here.

And Councilor RAF, you asked for this to be pulled off the agenda, so we'll let you uh speak to it.

Thank you, Mayor.

Yeah, I think um over the last several uh gosh, three weeks since our that last meeting that I wasn't here for.

Um I have received, I'm assuming we all received a lot of emails from constituents within Lake Oswego both for and against the initiative.

And I just felt that considering this seems to be a little more divisive than we I mean, not divisive is not the right word, but maybe just um so many arguments for and against that.

I thought it'd be better for us to kind of revisit this in a more formal manner and and give people the time to kind of come and speak for against them the issue.

So um I thought it'd be better just to take it out of the consent agenda.

So I appreciate you doing that.

Of course.

Would you like to say anything else about we had the public?

Oh, okay.

Well, I don't know.

This would be because of why the word we're gonna we'll make a motion and and vote.

We had the public hearing the last meeting.

Yeah, okay.

Um look, I think um my personal opinion is that uh on the service 20 is plenty seems like a no-brainer.

And uh mayor and I discussed this probably over a year ago, we've been talking about this, right?

And and and as a father of young kids, I I totally understand and and uh I see how this can benefit the community.

On the other hand, as I've heard from many other people who have emailed me, they have raised some some raised some things and points of view that I didn't consider first, which is um it doesn't make a lot of sense for us to create ordinances that we can't police.

I think that's something we need to think about.

And also, I think we just went through a budget cycle uh where we were literally trying to pinch pennies and put pennies together to fund certain other projects, and so is this the right time to spend an additional 200,000 when there are other things we could spend without the city needs to spend its money on?

So I just think there uh I think it's hard for me to say one way or the other what I what I because I see the benefits of both sides, but um I'm sort of leaning now towards not the right time to do this when we could probably spend the money in more um um um constructive is not the right word, but uh better uses.

So thank you, Councillor Raff.

Yeah, um Councilor Brook.

Yeah, thank you, Mr.

Mayor.

And yeah, I I've received many people, some supporting others, not supporting.

And uh among the folks, folks are talking about like do you have data?

Yeah, the data and evidence that show that, and you don't even need this stuff that it's more rhetorical than you know, any sense.

Is it does it make sense that if someone is hit by a car going 25, is it worse than when they're hit by a car going 20?

So the answer is is simple.

We don't need the data is there.

And in spite of that, their data.

If you go to Europe that I know more, and as a cities, it's a 30 mile, 30 kilometers in all neighborhood.

No one is going more, and 30 kilometers is even less than 20 miles.

20 miles is 32 kilometers.

So we we should go 20 miles.

That's what is normal everywhere in the world.

That's where in all neighborhoods is 20, is 20 kilometers, 20 kilometers uh at the most.

So some even say 20 kilometers, which is less than the the 20 miles.

So that's you know, I respect everybody's opinion, of course, but uh in terms of safety, this is what we should do.

I work with children.

For me, anything that is safety is safety.

And also it's safe for our elderly folks.

It's safe for people walking, for people biking.

I just were in uh in Amsterdam.

There's like even the the roundabout, they made it that you can bike around.

So it's now a trend that people should bike, people should walk.

The car civilization is there's an alternative to that, especially when we are in our neighborhood.

We should walk.

People talk about 200,000.

200,000, it's nothing compared to the safety of our population.

We are putting 200,000 to other things that are not necessary, and we can name them.

We can name them.

There are many things.

It all what I the thing that I always try to figure out is why people, when they against something, they're using budget responsibility.

But when it's the things that they care about, they don't say that.

Like the lake, many people wanted us to continue for millions of dollars, but no one among those said, hey, this is a lot of money.

Even putting a guard over there on the summer, it's money, but no one questioned those as budget.

But when it comes to the safety of our people, some people find that 200,000 is a lot.

Come on, folks, we have some time to see what we want.

And what is like normal?

What is normal is we care about our population.

That's why we are elected.

Someone say, oh, if you voted, I won't vote for you.

Good.

Not many people didn't vote for us.

And we are not here for people who vote for us or who didn't vote for us.

We are here to make our community safer.

Like my council friend said, the blue zone.

When we want Lake Cosigo to be a blue zone, it's a place where people walk.

I was checking even the data.

Go to Chat GPT, which is not funny, like guys.

No, no, I I love Chat GPT.

Go ask them if they are data.

Ask them if going 25 and 20.

The five, the five miles, the fatality is higher.

And I was also shocked when they say our police don't like it.

Who said that?

When did our police said they don't want us to make our street safe?

So folks, let's all vote for that.

Speed 20 is plenty.

And as it is said, 20 is plenty in a neighborhood.

It's 32 kilometers.

It's a lot.

And anyway, people, when you say 25, they go 30.

So folks who say they want 25, they're gonna have it because they're gonna go 25.

I bet you that.

So this is it.

You know, I mean, honestly, someone should make a motion, we vote, and we move on, and we it's a good service to our population.

And thanks for everyone, those who pitch in that citizenry.

You say what you want.

You know, we respect that, but you know, we're here also to work for everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you, Councilor Mbo.

Uh Councilor Afkin.

Um, Mr.

Mayor, this is my first time being on the city council, and uh it a consent agenda is pulled.

Well, procedurally, what are we supposed to do?

So I can uh we should make a motion.

You can you can make a motion.

Make a motion and then we can have a motion.

Can I talk about it just like uh yes, you can tell yes.

Doesn't matter.

Just please say say your piece.

I can do either or go ahead.

Okay.

I have been looking at all of these data prior to the previous meeting that we voted for uh plenty is enough or plenty is uh I can take those data apart without any questions.

If I go deep enough, I can dismiss all of these data.

At the same time, if the Federal Transportation Agency, if the National Transportation Agency, if City of Portland who has looked at 26 neighborhoods and has 214,000 points that they say this makes a difference, I think we should consider that.

That's one point.

The other point is our city was not built with sidewalks everywhere, and we're trying to do that, and it's gonna take the next 30 years before we have sidewalk all over the place.

The 25 miles an hour is safe if there are sidewalks, if there are wide enough streets for e-bikes and regular bikes, but we don't have that.

So I live in old town, and I experienced this when I was walking in the area without the sidewalk, and a CSO, police uh community police officer who went by me at 25 miles an hour, it scared the G's out of me.

It's like this is too fast with a big SUV going right by me.

And if we're trying to promote walking, a city that you can walk if we're promoting, use your bicycles.

If we have kids who are going to use e-bikes, e-bikes are here to stay, then we must consider this seriously, whether it's 200,000 or or or so.

I move.

Oh, nope, okay.

Go ahead.

Move to adopt uh the resolution for ordinance, ordinance.

Ordinance enact.

Okay.

Everybody help me.

Ordinance 2966.

Thank you.

Second.

Okay, motion made by Councillor Afghan, seconded by counselor verdict.

Uh, discussion, Council Welland.

And thank you, Councilor Afghan.

Well, I did not support this before, and I'm still not going to support this, and I just want to tell you why.

Um, I think a couple of things that I found out from the number of emails that I received is that uh we put this in August recess, and then we're doing it right after Labor Day.

And I think when I look at all the processes that we go through as a city for um almost everything, uh a picnic shelter up at the new park at receipt.

We had three or four focus groups, we had inputs, we had all kinds of outreach.

Um I would say that uh while the conclusion may be that people have already made their minds up, I would say that we didn't have the type of process that we typically go through when we uh make a major change in policy, which is going to affect all of our residents.

So I'm disappointed in that.

Um the second thing that I wanted to say is that uh I really feel that we are putting a policy in that we don't have the resources or a plan to enforce it to make it happen to uh it sounds good.

I agree with all your um statements.

I think it's interesting.

Um we've looked at this as a city with real data, real traffic data from Lake Oswego.

Uh, not national studies, not local studies, but real data from Lake Oswego.

And when the transportation advisory board studied it for four years and and could not come up with the recommendation to move forward because there was no accidents and no issues in the streets that we are talking about.

The accidents and injuries really happen at major intersections, major uh thoroughfares.

And I feel like we're going to give a false sense of security to our citizens because we don't have a plan to enforce it.

We don't have any more budget in place.

We've heard that.

So there's not going to be any more enforcement from a traffic standpoint of view.

I think education is great, but I have to look at human behavior, and you hear something.

It's kind of like when there's a disaster or something happens, uh, everyone goes and gets their emergency um uh preparedness kits, and then six weeks or six months or a year later, people forget about it.

Um I just don't want to give the community a false sense that um all of a sudden everyone's going to be going 20 miles an hour.

Um I think um uh I would rather have a plan and a way that we're going to uh actually behaviorally and uh realistically change uh people to go to 20 miles an hour.

Um and I I just don't I don't see that happening.

Um so uh those are my main concerns.

Um I also think 200,000 uh from what I've gotten feedback from a lot of people in the emails um feel that it could go to something more productive like speed bumps that would actually be a way that uh might slow things down, or more um stop signs, or more um uh lines, um, different things that can we can do from a traffic standpoint of view to maybe solve some of these issues that are in the intersections.

So um that's my feedback, and uh I think it's unwise to uh just rely on um I mean I don't know who this lady was that she brought in uh for the testimony, but um she talked in generalities, uh didn't speak really specifics with changes from 25 to 20.

Um you can always say that when you reduce speed limits, traffic statistics and accidents go down, but that could be from a 50 mile an hour to uh 45 mile an hour or a 35 mile an hour.

I'd like to have more statistics as uh for my understanding, um the real data from Portland is that the effect of 20 is plenty reduced speed limits by one mile an hour after they uh did the post studies.

So I'm just saying um those are the facts that we have.

It's not just uh lots of words, it's it's statistics, and so that's what I worry about.

So, counselor Winland.

That's counselor verdict.

Well, as I stated before, I fully support this change.

Um we might not get more enforcement because we don't have the police to do it, but I don't think we're gonna have less than what we have now.

So I I don't buy that argument.

Um, I think it's weak.

I think speed bumps, I know when I look at them, people will slow down for the speed bump, and then they hit the gas between the speed bumps and they go faster.

So yes, that's an option in some areas it works, but again, it's not a solution.

And I don't think any one of us up here is saying that this is the end all be all solution.

What we're saying is this is one of the tools that we have in our toolkit that we can put in place to try to encourage pedestrian uses of our streets, whether that's walking, whether it's riding your bicycle or scooter or whatnot.

And one of our goals that we've had since I've been on council is all about pedestrian safety.

So again, and we focus kind of on the pathways part of that safety.

But I think the underlying tone is we want our streets to be safer.

We want more people to go out to you know, use their feet, use their legs, actually like physically move.

Well, we're not gonna get that unless the pedestrians feel safer.

And okay, maybe you know, the traffic studies all read things, but the traffic studies aren't looking at how does this impact and how does it make the pedestrian feel?

That is a different type of study.

And to counselor and boop stating, you know, the average residential speed in other countries being 30 uh kilometers an hour.

I know military bases.

The residential speed on military bases is 15 miles per hour.

I you know, it this just is common sense.

The other thing with this is we're gonna get more signs.

So we're gonna get more points that remind people what that speed limit is.

Because too frequently, I think all of us can probably have it happen that you're driving down the road, and all of a sudden you're like, oh geez, I need to slow down.

Well, we're gonna have some of those reminders because we're gonna have that many more signs up.

So I think that's also something to keep in mind.

And to the point that counselor Corrigan made in our last meeting.

We're only gonna have more and more people come to and live in Lake Oswego as we get more dense.

So again, let's act now.

It's only gonna be everything's just getting more and more expensive.

So waiting is just gonna increase the the cost to get more signs up and to do some awareness around it.

So let's just rip the band-aid, let's move forward and do this for something that benefits the entire community.

When we do pathways, that is great for one small portion.

And uh the amount of pathway that we're gonna get for this much money, uh what are we talking, a hundred, two hundred feet at best?

You know, we're not you know, a couple squares, you know.

So this is something that really helps anyone who lives or walks on a residential street.

So I am fully supportive of this.

I think we have we've had this as a council goal now for over a year, year and a half, I believe.

Um we've had different groups speak on it.

We've talked about it in March, we talked about it in July, um, and then we're talking about it again tonight, you know, per the request of Counselor RAF, which I think made a lot of sense to bring it back out so we could share once again.

So I fully support this.

Um I don't see that there's any data saying why we shouldn't do it.

Nothing says it makes things worse.

So let's not make things worse.

Let's make things better.

Thank you, Counselor Verdick.

Uh, Counselor Corgan.

Well, I think you the I think the that the um objection that we're hearing is financial.

Spending a lot of the emails that we receive it all at once.

So I'm I think that that is that to me is not a compelling argument.

I'd like to ask all those people do they really know how much a pathway costs?

The pathway that we're proposing to build from Upper Drive down Bryant is gonna be two and a half million dollars.

Do they understand what one year of a Lake Oswego police officer cost?

Just one year is pretty close to what we're gonna need to spend on these signs.

So that would only be one year.

The other thing that I that I'm not sure that everybody really understands, and maybe this will help if you can imagine yourself driving down your street at the speed limit and watching an Amazon van pull away in front of you.

We have a lot more traffic on our streets than we did just because of the way our commerce has changed.

And all of these things are really in the calculation as we think about the financial impact.

And then you have to go back and say, gee, that's money, what's a life worth?

You just to me that's really difficult, really difficult thing to to make to equivocate or whatever the word is.

And the other thing that I think has kind of been lost, we've had a lot of discussion about this over the last you know, this meeting and then last meeting, but there's an opportunity cost here that we're not taking, really not taking into account of what could happen if people felt comfortable walking.

And I know that I would love to be able to go up South Shore.

South Shore run up, South Shore.

It's terrifying.

Some of our pathways aren't even we have traffic that moves so fast.

I don't suppose I don't think South Shore is gonna come down on this.

I don't know if it's not.

But you can be really intimidated by fast traffic.

I am, and I go out, I run, I walk.

I think that the potential that this presents to us is worth pursuing.

And I'm sorry that's gonna cost almost 200,000, but I think it's a bargain for opening up our community and for pedestrian safety.

So I fully support this.

Thanks, Councilor Corgan.

Yeah, it's um I really agree with you.

I don't think there's there's nothing else that we can do that would for this amount of money that would have the same citywide impact.

You know, it's rather profound, actually.

You know, that for a um a couple hundred thousand dollars or less, you know, we can have an impact in every neighborhood uh throughout the city.

And I got to thinking, you know, earlier today just about like, well, how did why were the streets 25 to begin with?

How do we come up?

We talk a lot about words of data.

It's like, well, actually, 2020 is the first time that we're actually using data to come up with a number that's appropriate for the residential context.

25 miles an hour, that was just some round number that was based on the mobility of cars and control, not safety at all, that originated 70 plus years ago.

Is that really what we think we want to use as a context for today's you know, our community of today where people want to be out.

We designed um, you know, Mr.

Perman was here earlier.

You know, we designed this whole community, uh, like all other suburban communities with no sidewalks, because people thought that was a great idea, too.

Obviously, nowadays we think, well, no, that's not a good idea, and we all are on board with investing in in those things.

Um so I do think what we have right now is just is based on outdated thinking and thinking that prioritized moving cars really over everything else.

Um, and that really no longer represents the prevailing sentiments um of our community, the safety of of the residents and the type of healthy, you know, connected community that we we we strive to be.

Um just 20 miles per hour, it is it is rooted in science, um it's based on modern safety and survivability data, um, just not what looked you know reasonable many, many decades um ago.

Uh and it's not just symbolic, as we know that the survivability data at 20 miles an hour is profoundly different.

So even these small changes, even if it's a mile or two miles an hour, that is a a small amount of speed, is a small amount.

It's not gonna change the amount of your your trip time all that much, but when it comes to sort survivability, and it's huge.

It is huge, even just one or two miles an hour.

So even if that, and I we heard of two or two near misses, you know, in public comment tonight, and you think of just those seconds, and even if you know that that one or two you hate to, you know, tell those parents, well, gosh, you know, we just wanted to prioritize the convenience of drivers who arbitrarily want to just go a little bit faster.

I mean, it's just making sense.

So um, but I really do appreciate all the engagement, you know, the comments from the council, and of course, all the people who took the time uh to write in.

It is a big, you know, it is a big issue, and it will be noticed, and I think that's the point.

We want it to be big and to put that message out there with the additional signs that these are residential neighborhoods, people are out.

It's a nice reminder, and I agree.

I catch myself too in on streets, and you're like, oh, because we have lots of streets with houses, um, but some roads are designed to be more like thoroughfares.

I mean, even country club has houses, you know, on it.

Boons ferries has houses on it.

So um it does help to orient people to the environment that um they're in and to know just to to be careful um to drive a little bit slower, um, and then to to watch for for vulnerable road users.

So um with that we have the motion made and seconded.

Let's go ahead and call uh the role, Ms.

Ono, please.

Mayor Beth.

Yes, Councillor Corrigan, yes.

Rath?

No.

Afgan, yes.

Maboop.

Yes.

Wendlin?

No.

Verdict.

Yes.

Motion passes five two.

Okay, thank you, everyone.

Thanks, Ms.

Ono.

Okay.

Um, we are now going to move into our we have two study sessions tonight.

Uh, the first item 8.1 is a wildfire response and disaster preparedness.

Going to invite a battalion chief Barnum forward, and he has a couple of guests from Clackhamus County.

And chief, we'll have you in our introduce our guests here.

Good evening.

Let's make sure there's a microphone on.

No, no.

You can hear me?

There we go.

Oh, perfect.

So, mayor, counselors, city manager, and staff, and all those who are attending.

Thank you for having us.

My name is Greg Barnum.

I'm a battalion chief here at this wonderful city of the fire department.

Tonight I have Emily Merklin and also Jamie Poole from the Clackness County Emergency Management.

They have a presentation that they would like to do about evacuations and the safety of their city.

Yep.

Thank you so much.

Jamie Poole, I'm the deputy disaster manager with Clackamas County.

And really, I'm going to hand it over to Emily to go over the presentation.

Can you hear me?

Perfect.

Okay, awesome.

Hi, Emily Merkland.

I'm one of the community planners with the disaster management program at Clackamas County.

I'm here to provide some updates on our evacuation planning that we've been doing over the last couple years.

So I'll give some background first on why we've been working on evacuation planning throughout the county.

Some of the recent events over the last five years, y'all can remember back to the 2020 wildfires, which was also in the midst of COVID.

We really saw a need for refining our evacuation routes and thinking more about pre-planning for evacuation when it comes time because we know that evacuations do happen.

We really divided this project up into three phases, beginning with evacuation mapping, refinement of those maps, and then a public education campaign to highlight those maps that actually is wrapping up right now.

We considered lots of different hazards as we planned out our maps, and I'll talk a little bit more about that.

But I just want to appreciate the community and stakeholders that engage in this process, not only to come up with the maps but refine them and then push out the messaging through their communities.

So what you're seeing in front of you are the 21 evacuation zones that we created along with the evacuation map.

You'll see the lines in red here.

And then came up with our evacuation zones and routes based on that information.

In the second phase of the project, uh we refined these maps with our uh partners like the fire department here, um, along with local staff throughout the county, and we engaged with those partners to learn more about how their local roadways work, how they think evacuations might work, both in practice and in theory.

Um, and reached out to uh some community groups to get their input on these maps.

In the third phase of the project, we focused on community engagement, and we will do I'll talk more about the communications campaign that we're wrapping up right now.

But we sought engagement from all kinds of folks through focus group surveys, one-on-one interviews, and then we created a campaign after that.

So, what you're seeing in front of you is the timeline of those activities from this last spring leading into summer.

Um, this three-pronged approach really gave us a view into different community members' concerns about evacuation and and the kinds of things they were thinking about.

I'd like to spend a minute here to talk a bit more about these three approaches that we took.

So, for focus groups, we focused on the rural areas of the county that have fewer evacuation routes.

Um we've seen in real life, especially with wildfires that rural parts of the county have fewer ways to get out, and they have different concerns than our urban areas.

Um, so we completed six focus groups.

Uh 32 of the folks who were in those focus groups spoke Spanish, and those were conducted in Spanish.

It was important to us that we had an equitable approach to those focus groups and gave people a chance to share in their native language.

Um in the public survey portion of our outreach, we had 920 survey responses in total, which is fantastic, and 45 of those were in Spanish.

It was available to anybody who was living in the county.

Businesses and folks working in the county were excluded, but anybody who resides here could take it.

And then finally, in these one-on-one meetings, we had nine in total.

These are with community members and community leaders, five of those in English, four in Spanish, and we selected those through our network of connections throughout the county.

So from all of this, we gathered up all the information about what the community told us and considered how we might roll out a public education campaign that highlights the maps we worked on with our stakeholders in previous phases, and then also considers how the community wants to be communicated with, what their concerns are, what they think the county is responsible for versus what they feel is personal responsibility when it comes to evacuation.

We learned about their preferred communication channels when it comes to evacuation, where they're seeking their news, what kind of messages resonate for them, and what obstacles they might have in preparing for disasters.

So we came up with this campaign called Be CLAT GoPre.

You'll see some of the images here on the right hand side.

These are just a few of the social media posts that have gone out over the last 10 weeks.

And then the three simple steps are on the left hand side.

So the first one being sign up for public alerts.

We push out this messaging all the time.

In fact, I think there are public alert postcards on your back table right now.

It's a key way that we message and Clackamas County is responsible for sending out those messages when there's something going on to keep people aware.

It's a very simple sign-up process.

And in our community outreach, we found that most people were signed up, although they wanted to double check and wanted to make sure that they were in the know.

So we pushed out that existing messaging through this campaign.

The second is this mapping piece.

So for the first time, we released those maps that you saw, specifically the ones with the red lines and the evacuation routes out to the community in PDF form on our website so people could download those and print them, become more familiar with their neighborhood.

And if their neighborhood wasn't highlighted, we invited them to search their address on an interactive incident map that we host on our website all the time.

The third piece, building your CLAT Go kit.

I think it was mentioned earlier, those preparedness buckets or preparedness backpacks.

We all know those are important, but sometimes people feel like it's daunting or overwhelming to put those together.

And so we created a very simple checklist that was really just a combination of checklists that already exists from Red Cross and other partners, made it in a very digestible format, and again host those on our website for folks to print and prepare.

The idea being that with these three actions, people could be CLATGO prepared and feel a little bit better about being prepared if there was an evacuation in their neighborhood.

And again, all of this just kind of pulling together what we learned from our community members and summarizing it in a digestible format.

So I'm proud to say that we had 2.4 million impressions from all of our social media work.

I will say we did do some paid social media ads through TikTok, Instagram, iHeartRadio, Spotify, you name it, we did it.

We also have a YouTube commercial that's live.

So we had a number of ways we were trying to reach people through paid media.

We did organic posts too through the Clackmas County Instagram, but that's where those 2.4 million impressions come from.

And 15,500 clicks.

So those are click-throughs, people coming to our website and trying to take action.

We're really proud of that.

We saw an uptick in the Clackamas County web traffic.

So not only on our ClackGo prepared website, but also on our disaster management site.

As this campaign wraps up, I'll be able to give better metrics on that, but we have seen an increase in folks visiting the website.

And then public alerts have doubled in the same time frame.

So we've compared year over year data, both from 23 and 24 to 25 when this campaign is active, and we've doubled our numbers, which is exactly what we want.

And again, as this wraps up, I'll have more information about you know exactly city to city where that and where folks are signing up, so where we're seeing the most traction.

Oh, and here's a cute little video from our social media.

All right, so looking ahead, um, we plan to repeat this campaign every year.

One of the things that was important to us was to keep this messaging versatile and flexible to use it year after year.

So we'll do this again next spring, um, leading up to fire season specifically.

Um we would like to have some messaging or wanted to have some messaging that spoke to a wider variety of um incidents as well.

So you'll see through our social media, we have a hazmat message.

We have a message about recreating and being prepared if you go out to recreate.

Um so it's not just wildfire, but you know, that does capture the attention of our community members.

We're also currently working on an interactive mapping tool.

So those maps that you saw earlier are great to print and put in a go kit.

Um, but people like to kind of look through their neighborhood in an interactive way.

And so we'll have something that's uh more flexible on our website.

We're working with our GIS team on that right now.

And then finally, the information that we gathered from the phases of community engagement and outreach.

Um, while it helped us with this campaign to learn how people would like to be communicated with, I think that we'll learn a lot from that data as we continue to think about it over the coming year, and we'll be able to highlight ways that we can kind of change our message year over year.

That's it for me.

Anything you'd like to add?

Does anyone have any well?

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Um it is it can be overwhelming preparing for the emergencies.

And so just to clarify, CLAC go program.

This is really does because we talk a lot about emergency preparedness, but it's like being ready in your home, like stockpiling, you know.

We do a lot of the seven-day with everyone.

Yeah, we we made videos.

Yep, yep.

But it's not no one's leaving.

Everyone's staying played.

Yeah, yeah.

So this though is so you have to do both.

You gotta be ready to leave.

And unfortunately, ready to yes, we need to do both.

So this was focused more on if you have to leave your home.

What do you mean?

Yes, what would you take with you?

Yeah.

Well, maybe your family, depending.

Depends.

Depends on the day.

I wanted to so the emergency routes.

I mean, obviously, you're if you got to get out of dodge, you know, you're gonna you know, get out of dodge.

What do the routes do they mean something for the city?

Like, do we do something different on the emergency routes or I mean do they yell the the clear, yeah?

Yes, it is it 20 miles or 25 miles.

These are all these ones are all our materials, they're all our serious.

We'll let you figure that out.

Yeah, but yes, our the the purpose of the routes is really for community members to understand where they live and the ways in and out of their neighborhoods.

So a lot of folks have said, I only go one way in or one way, you know, and I don't really explore.

So that that map is to help folks actually take a look at ways that they can get in and out of their community.

Um I think similarly, people who are tourists here, maybe staying in an Airbnb might not know their area.

So something I didn't mention, working with short-term rentals to get these maps available to them.

So if you don't live here, again, giving context to where you are.

So I don't think it would change how we manage the streets on a daily basis, but it might affect what we do in the event of an emergency in terms of how we manage traffic.

And actually, one of the questions I have for the county is I know that in a lot of the wildflowers fires in California, they reverse direction on uh limited access routes, they let people use both lanes or both sides of the freeway to get out.

Is that also part of your planning process?

So I I'll say for this portion of the project, we're really focused on getting evacuation planning maps.

The next thing I'll embark on is evacuation planning at large.

Right.

So I think that would be our question during an emergency is whether we would allow folks to use the whole road as opposed to just their side of the road.

Okay.

Yeah, and I'll say along when there's an evacuation for whatever reason, we are working very closely with law enforcement as well as fire to make that determination of what what the hazard is, what is the correct action for the public to take, what is that size of the area?

Um, but then those maps help people take the direction that we're giving them with the incident information.

Yeah.

And a huge shout out to your fire department for their participation in this work and your your staff.

They've been fantastic at vetting these maps.

Thank you, uh, Councillor Verdick.

Yeah, I just and I know you're not there yet, so I think this is actually maybe more of a message to um our local.

It's just I've had to evacuate a hurricane, and it was so bad, and we couldn't move because traffic was so bad, we went back to our house.

So I guess that's one of my concerns is just really make sure that we are planning at a city level for, and it's hard because you don't know which way it's you know, if it's a fire, you don't know what way it's gonna come.

If it's an earthquake, you might not know what, but this that we're kind of planning those different scenarios so that we can keep traffic flowing and we don't have those the traffic backups.

And I know that's hard to do, but that's my two cents.

Yeah, and I'll I could add for our lessons learned out of 2020 were around um well, that year was very uh difficult, and that there were so many fires happening that we had to do a lot of go now level threes at the same time, but we have um worked a lot with our fire-in-law folks talking about really right sizing that go now level three and giving time before we actually do the level two or level one um add-ons to say get ready and then be prepared.

So uh that it allows that time for the folks that are in that three to get out before we add on those other layers.

Yeah, that that the uh the pre-planning is huge.

I mean, trying to get that ready set go out to everyone is is a key.

And every every single disaster is different, right?

So we have a little bit of difference because we have the water.

So when the flooding comes, our routes are gonna change when we do have the flooding.

We can't go across some of the bridges, and that might be the main route out.

Well, if you have a wild end fire, we might be going down to those bridges to get across.

So that it changes on every single one.

Mudslides, whatever it may be, windstorms.

I mean, it all it changes, so it's hard to Mike had to have the map for every single incident.

It'd be flexible.

Definitely.

Um are you all gonna be at the emergency preparedness fair?

Yes.

Oh, that's great.

Okay.

Well, thank you.

We're looking forward to having you there.

And then so, Battalion Chief, now you have a presentation, separate presentation.

Yes, wildfire related.

Perfect.

So thank you.

Uh this segues right into it on some of the preparation that we do here in the city.

Um, I wanted to give you some information about how the uh the program works.

So a lot of people they don't understand on how the process is uh how it happens behind the doors.

Um so if there was an emergency, so we'll talk about wildland fires because it kind of the the product we're talking about here is a fire does start and it only continues on growing.

So we have our local resources or four fire stations that we go out and we try to stop this fire from progressing.

Well, once this fire continues on growing, we're not able to stop it.

We need to ask for our mutual aid.

So mutual aid is the agencies who have a pre-agreement with us.

So Twalton Valley Fire and Rescue, Portland, and also Clack Miss Fire District One, they are mutual aid.

So if a fire begins, they come out, then help us out.

Well, if it goes past that where we can utilize, we need to utilize more resources, then we do what is called expanded mutual aid.

So we reach out even further out into the agencies around us.

We'll talk about Malala, we'll talk about Forest Grove.

We can reach out.

Well, as we know, fires usually when they get going, they're hard to stop because of the Mother Nature.

So as that continues on, then that's when we go to a state of emergency.

So statewide mutual aid.

That's when our local uh fire chief, the assistant fire chief notifies the fire defense board.

The fire defense board then notifies the Oregon State Fire Marshals, state fire marshal, and then they go to the governor and ask for a conflagration.

At that point in time, we deem that it's large enough where we have a conflagration, then we start getting resources all across Oregon.

Well, guess what?

Fires continue on growing, and so does the resources that we need.

I'll show you in another slide some of the reasons and on why.

But then we reach out to what is called EMAC.

It's the emergency management assistant compact, and that's whenever we utilize other states.

We did that in January, myself and the task force from Clackness County.

We were asked to go down to California, and we were down there for two weeks.

So that's how the EMAC works.

Now, funding, everyone always is like, how is this funded?

Well, that comes from when the when you go to conflagration, that configuration is paid for by the state.

So that's how we get reimbursed for all of our services that we have, and also when we go down to other states or help out.

All right, so here's where it really hits a lot of people wonder why are these fires starting?

Well, 70% of the fires that we have start because of us people.

Um that's either one someone's in the backyard burning, they weren't exposed to, they had a brush fire takeoff yesterday and today.

Yesterday and today, we actually had someone in our local areas who were mowing the lawn with a tractor and it sparked the fire and started burning multiple acres.

It happens, it happens all the time.

People driving down with trailers, the trailer chains hit the ground, spark and start a fire.

What about the other 30%?

You might ask.

Power lines also do cause, so we have a windstorm, a tree branch goes down to the power line, that power line catches the branch on fire, falls to the ground, and then we start a fire from electrical.

So why is this important?

I think this is one of the most important things that we need to realize that fires when they are on the ground, our firefighters can we can make a good stop.

We can get the fire to not continue on burning.

The problem is whenever you can see in the picture here, it's whenever those fires start to go up the ladder fuels.

Ladder fuels are what climbs up branches and trees and gets up into the canopy.

Well, imagine if a fire is on the ground, it's only two to three, four feet uh flame lengths, right?

The wind's blowing and it's just gonna stay on the ground.

Once it gets up in the canopy, um I've been on fires where the embers actually fly more than two miles away and start fires wherever those little embers land.

So it's important that we try to continue on educating uh everyone of why these houses burn.

So here's a great picture.

So it's a misconception.

A lot of people think that this big giant fire front, the big wall of fire that comes and burns all these places down.

It's not the fact.

The fact is 90% of homes are burned down because of these small little embers that go up in the air, transport those all the way across the land, and they fall into little crevices that catch on fire.

And then that's why these homes catch on fire.

So it's important for us to do some what we call home mitigation.

Home mitigation is what you'll see here, is on the on your right, you see a home that's prepared quite well, and then the one on the left, you can see a deck is on fire.

One of the things that we need to realize is, and this is also down in California, is that if I have one structure, just one house that's on fire, it takes 22 firefighters to go put out this one structure fire.

22.

So let's exponentially think about this.

When a fire comes through and it stays on the ground, if I can keep it from that structure, I can utilize more resources to put across the land.

But if I have a structure that's on fire, I have to decide if I'm gonna put this house fire out and try to stop it just this one with 22 personnel.

Now, if I have 10 homes, that's 220 firefires.

How many firefighters do we have in this local area?

We don't have 220 firefighters that are gonna respond right this right now.

So we have to be educated about why this is so important for all of us to work together.

When we work together, we want to make take a look at our our home mitigation.

So the zero to five feet.

If I can go out, all these numbers, we have zero to five, five to thirty, thirty to a hundred.

I look at the zero to the zero to five.

If I can have someone keep fuel from burning that's zero to five feet from your house, I can save your home.

I can have a firefighter stop by one apparatus, put out that small little fire, that bush, the bark dust before it gets to your siding and goes into your house, and then they bump to the next house.

They continue ongoing.

If that house catches on fire, like I said before, I need 22 personnel.

Or unfortunately, I'm gonna have to make that decision that I can't send all these resources on this one house.

I'm gonna now have to go down the road further and try to make a stop on these structures.

So being prepared, this is one of the things that we here in the city of uh taking a huge uh step towards a home assessments.

Uh anyone can have a home assessment, it's free.

The fire department will stop by, we'll do a 360 around your structure and take a look at what could catch on fire.

We talk about anything about furniture, the decks, gutters, uh screens, bushes around the structure, you know, the uh material that's next to your house.

All these things are when we go around, we will recommend that someone remove these things.

Um, a lot of times it's overwhelming.

People are like overwhelmed by what they have to do.

But I always tell them it's like it's just like everything else.

It's like if you're gonna eat an elephant, you eat one bite at a time, take one time one incident, one thing away from your house that's gonna catch on fire.

Your survivability of that home is going to increase.

So it just takes a little bit.

Um, there's a firewise program, which was put on by National Fire Protection Association.

It's a great program.

This is ran by homeowners, not the fire department.

We'll help them get started, but they run this, they do this on their own, and it gets the community.

Because if I don't take care of my house and my neighbor does all this work, my house catches on fire, what good is it?

Right?

So it does take a plan.

So, like we just got done saying with uh Emily and Jamie is we need to be ready.

If we're prepared now, uh we're gonna be so much more well prepared.

When I was in California, there was a firefighter who his house burnt down.

He came to me and goes, You're not gonna believe this.

I'm a firefighter.

I'm like, what?

And he goes, I wasn't ready.

I do this for a living, and I was not ready for this.

So it happens to all of us.

So we just need to all prepare.

How do we do that?

A lot of things we already talked about on social media, the social media, Facebook, Instagram, Pulse Point.

Um, if I can put out one app that I would say I'd recommend everybody to have is Watch Duty.

Uh, watch Duty is a great app that will give you information about evacuation routes, the ready set go, about where the fire is, where it's moving, and even shows you some of the wind direction of these fires.

So you can prepare way in advance before the announcements come out.

Uh merging alert the emergency alert system, very important.

We put this on most all of our flyers that we hand out that we try to get everybody to sign up for because this is definitely the one way of that people are attached their phones, and it's gonna give them that notification.

So here's a couple pictures that I have that we uh we we talk about um history, history repeats itself, right?

And so in 2018, the campfire in Paradise, California.

Take a look at this picture.

What do you see standing?

You see trees.

So is it the trees that catch the houses on fire?

Is it the trees and the vegetation that burn these homes?

No, it's the homes.

It's the homes that catch on fire and they burn the other homes.

Fast forward to January of this year, when I was down in Palisades Fire, California.

This is a picture that I took, which I was dumbfounded because most of these homes, they're gone, but there's still vegetation.

The homes that were standing when I drove around, they had a defensible defensible space.

They didn't have the wicker chairs and all that on their decks.

They were able to go in before the fire front comes, and they got their house prepared.

So it's really important that we all work together, educate one another of what's going on and how homes burn down.

So when I leave and I walk away from this the uh this table, I challenge each and every one of you.

I challenge everybody to go home and do one thing, not a bunch of things, just one thing to make yourself uh your house be uh saveable and protect yourself and the community that you live in.

Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

Yeah, that's an interesting thought because the wildfire I mean, they start in the vegetation.

They start in the trees, but then when they spread to these residential areas, it's the embers.

The embers.

Yeah.

Because we hear that a lot from folks concerned about the trees as as the the as the problem, if you will.

Correct.

I've I've gone around on these uh home inspections, you know, the 360s, and and they all say, I need to go and tell everybody, mow all the trees down, cut all the trees down.

It's like, well, no, if you trim up the trees so we can keep the fire on the ground, then we don't have to worry about the trees.

We can keep it on the ground, and it's not gonna continue.

And the structures, if we can keep the structures from catching on fire, we don't have to worry about these embers flying from miles away.

Well, that's a important lot.

That's the first time I've I've heard that.

That's great.

Okay, thank you.

Uh Councilor Windland, please go ahead.

Thanks for the presentation.

It's fabulous.

Um, and I'm excited about the next steps.

You've got a lot of work ahead of you to inform all of us.

A couple things.

So this is Clackmas County.

How do we um react because we're Metro?

So we have three counties all working together.

I mean, is there um I guess you provided a few things to look at, like the watch duty app?

Um, but is there something that when people get in their cars and they're all listening to their radios, is there going to be like a channel that everyone should go to?

Or is there a to get information to say, oh my gosh, because usually what happens is, and what I've observed in evacuations like the hurricane part is that tons of people get in line, they're all going, and then um they have no more information or um and they want to be informed that they don't know if they're going the right direction.

Obviously, if you go with the stream, that's the best way to do it.

But is there some sort of a coordinated effort in Metro?

Yeah, so I would say when we're when we're first doing a uh go now evacuation, there's some uh lag time between like information catching up.

So you're trying to get folks out, but then we're getting information on our website, we're getting information the county is um for wildfires, and we'll work with the city.

If it's something happening in the city, um you'd likely be putting stuff on your website, getting information there.

Um, but we would be telling folks where their shelters opening where they can go.

Um if they're if they've evacuated and they need assistance, we'll have um some resource and assistance uh set up for them.

And we do work across the county lines.

We have um we were very closely with emergency management in the city of Portland and Muttwama County, Washington County.

Um I'm just trying to figure out when people are panicked.

The last thing they're gonna do is try to figure out what a website is.

Um they may not even have their phones.

I they may have the radio in their car.

I'm just trying to figure out what the overall plan for um citizens would be if there's a big emergency and we've got you know, we have rivers in town, so it's gonna be bridges are going to be an obstacle, and if it says stay on the west side of the river, you're in better shape.

So, how do we get that message out?

Or if you need to go to the east side, I don't know, things like that.

That um uh people they have flash alerts that go on radios.

So do you know when you're watching TV, it was eh, they have those alerts that go off also that notify people, so you'll have it through you know the social media, your cell phone, and then also the um other radio.

Okay, yeah.

So we work closely with Locom, the dispatch center for like us we go as well, so they have access to send uh the public alert notifications out.

So I think that's really the main place where we're gonna try to push information, and then um, like I said, it will catch up on like the websites and more information coming.

Um, but those we have templates that have the websites and links of where to get information in those that go out.

Um and like you said, the um the public the integrated alert and warning system, the wireless emergency alerts and the EAS system, we have access to send those out too.

So lots of avenues.

And that's why it's so important to sign up for this because then that'll go directly to your phone.

And everybody knows nobody leaves their phone.

Yeah, they do with it.

It's attached to their right.

In your head.

So uh the other part um and more importantly, because when you hit the tree thing, because um I'm on a tree committee, and I just want to I think um it would be helpful to have guidance um from you to say what we should have for a criteria for a house.

Um and so that I don't want to get into long discussions with committee members going, well, I read that you know you have to take down all the trees, and then I read no, the trees don't start at it, and then you could burn up three meetings going through that dialogue.

If we could get some sort of a um I don't know, uh guidance from uh just to help maybe shape policy when we're talking about what should or shouldn't be if it's five feet away or if it's ten feet away.

Yeah, so Firewise has a really good program that's out there that actually gives you all the numbers.

So I mean we could go through all of the numbers, but it's 10 feet away from roofs and gutters.

You wanted more than you know, one third the height of the the fuel that's below it.

So there's there's a lot of numbers that are really good information that we can get to you.

Okay.

I'm just wondering if we I think it would help be helpful to have incorporate that with the case.

Here, let me just I mean, I assume firewise considerations are part of what we're gonna be doing with the tree code.

Yes.

Okay, good.

Good, yeah, it's a good point.

So much.

Thank you, Councilor Windla.

Uh Counselor Afghan.

Thank you very much for the information.

Very informative.

I also want you to know whoever I see, I say, hello, my name is Ali Afgan.

Have you signed up for this?

And this is what we've been using.

Megan, yes.

So I think we're doing a great job equating.

So I know that a year and a half ago we went through the same process at our house, and we said, okay, the city says you need to have all of this, and we bought these packages from Amazon and save them under this stairs.

So we're ready to go.

And then we get another list that says, well, if you're going, you gotta have this.

And it got started getting overwhelming.

So we said, we're not gonna pick and choose, we're just gonna take everything under this, there's shoving it into the car, and we go.

Now imagine similar to Palaisate fire, you get the go command, and you have to go.

And I think I'm the third uh counselor who brings this up.

What happens at that point?

I'm not going to start looking at app.

Probably my wife is gonna be looking at the app and doing this.

We we were actually driving up when Ashland area was in fire, and for some lucky reason, she had two iPads and a phone, and I was driving and we're going around the fire and got through.

But when you say go to 40,000 people, that's a different story.

And I remember seeing the uh news that cars are abandoned and bulldozer had to come and open up the lanes for the fire engine to come through.

So we're doing a great job.

Thank you so much for educating people, getting them prepped, ready to go.

But my anxieties right now is when everybody goes, what happens?

And is this going to happen to us just like uh what happened in California?

And if so, who, and I don't know what the agency was supposed to be working on this, who's going to work on making sure that bottleneck doesn't exist for us when it happens.

So I you may not have the answer, but at least I want to put it on the table that my fear is that when we say go, everyone is prepared, we're going, and then so that is an issue.

Let me just be clear.

That is an issue.

All 41,000 people in LO get in their cars and try to get on Stafford Road at the same time.

It doesn't matter whether there's an emergency or not, if that happens, you're gonna be stuck in traffic for a while.

We do, however, practice our plan, and we have practiced our plan with folks who've dealt with similar situations.

We had some experts from the Malibu fire from a few years ago help us.

They had the exact same issue.

All of their people left at the same time on constrained roadways.

And I do think it's really helpful to hear from the county that they've thought about that too, and that they're gonna phase notifications.

So they're not gonna tell all 41,000 of us to go at the same time.

They're gonna tell the ones of us who need to go to go, and then they'll let the rest of us know.

I will also say that the other thing we practice is we practice where are we gonna send, where are we gonna send people's house horses?

Where are we gonna send people's goats and chickens?

We practice not only where are we gonna send the people, but where are we gonna send all the other things that are part of people's lives?

If we have a disaster of the scale of the of the fire that they had in California, it will be challenging.

It will be challenging.

It will be challenging, but I think you also I know you're part of the emergency response team.

I know that, and I know all the chiefs are.

Uh, there are some things that we may be able to do, like before we announce this group of people need to leave.

Maybe there are things we can do to make sure that the roads are ready for them to take off.

Things like that.

We're not gonna be able to do that.

Absolutely, we won't send people down a road that we know is blocked, for example.

Excellent.

Well, I think and I think uh Chief Barnum talked about that a little bit.

Like if we know a bridge is out, we're not gonna send people on that road.

So I hear you.

But let me say again if all 41,000 of us get in our cars at exactly the same time and try to use the same road, we're gonna be it's gonna take a while.

No different than if you leave a football game in Austin Stadium, or if you go to Edgefield for a concert.

I mean, I actually think we all experience these kinds of emergencies all the time in our real lives, and we need to think about what do you need to be able to do to get to make sure you can get through that situation.

Yeah.

But don't go back to if we evacuate you for fire, don't go back to your house.

Counselor verdict, please.

And leave early.

And leave early.

Well, this um thank you all again for the the presentations and information.

I mean, this is uh I mean good information for us to have.

I think the appreciate the the city really working to get out.

I mean, at every event you know, we've had we've been giving out these cards, grabbing their at the meet all the meetings.

Um, as you know, we just this year started the uh community health and resiliency advisory board, and that group um is uh uh half focused on emergency management and um working to uh connect, you know, this information with with neighborhood associations and through those neighborhood associations really work to get out to that home by home because we see that I mean there's still some, I mean, a lot of people have signed up, but there's still so many people who have not signed up, and you know, that's it comes down to household by household preparation, and um you know, we're all fighting for the attention of everyone.

Because we see, I mean, there's still some, I mean, a lot of people have signed up, but there's still so many people who have not signed up, and you know, that's it comes down to household by household preparation and um you know we're all fighting for the attention of everyone.

It's a challenge.

So really appreciate all that you all are doing and the county and the fire department uh to keep this top of mind uh for folks and and to work with the community to spread the board.

So thank you.

And thanks for coming to the fair later this month.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You guys okay now?

Keep going.

Okay, I'm okay.

Yeah, go ahead and keep going.

Okay.

Yeah.

I know.

Okay.

Uh next item on the agenda is a how um uh housing production strategy implementation uh policy.

I have Eric Olson, our long-range planning manager.

Talk to us about the uh this implementation.

Mr.

Olson, how are you doing?

Good to see you.

Good evening, Mayor Buck.

Good meeting uh city councilor, or good evening, city counselors.

Um here tonight to give you a little bit of an update on the implementation of the housing production strategy.

Um of course, this relates to multiple council initiatives that are currently you know, um being undertaken for 2025.

Directly, you know, again implementation of the near-term strategies and the housing production strategy report, very very specifically what this has to deal with, as well as the initiative to begin a comprehensive review of the development code to uh find barriers to housing and economic development.

Uh so we're looking for some direction on the initial work plans for implementing these near-term strategies.

So, you know, this is going to be a six-year long um actually an eight-year long cycle for for this, but uh you know, we are just we can only do so much at once, so we're just looking at the things um that we identified to start in 2025 today.

Um the presentation is about 15 slides, so I just wanted to give you a heads up and I'll move quickly because a lot of this will be review.

So this is definitely review for you all.

Um, you know, we are of course talking about the state requirements pursuant to House Bill 2003 that are related to you know, generally speaking, Oregon's statewide planning goal number 10, essentially to provide uh housing at sufficient um income ranges and um different options for people to actually meet the needs of Oregonians more broadly.

Um so this was enacted in 2019, and of course, uh as recently as 2023, we here in Lake Aswego adopted our housing needs analysis in October of that year.

Um course that was intended to analyze what housing is needed for current and future residents.

We then um in November rather of last year adopted our housing production strategy, um which we were required to do roughly within one year of adopting that HA.

Um, of course, the housing production strategy includes a number of strategies that are designed to produce the type of housing that we determined that we needed in the HA.

Um, includes policies, actions, and implementation steps that are meant to encourage the production of that needed housing.

So even though this was adopted by you all um in November of last year, it of course needed to be approved by the state.

So um, you know, once it was submitted, there was a review period.

It was sent out for statewide comment.

Um after all that had been conducted.

We finally in April of this year got our letter back from the state indicating that it was approved by the state as well.

So um, I guess a little bit of uh congratulations for us there.

But um, you know, there were some conditions that were included in in that sort of letter of approval from the state.

Um so I'll just really briefly touch on those as we move through the presentation.

Um, before I do that, though, I would mention there were two conditions that were included in this approval letter from DLCD or the Department of Land Conservation and Development at the state level that were really related to the midpoint report.

As you may recall, after three years, we are required to uh submit to DLCD kind of a you know a report on how things are going and how um implementation has been um conducted here in the city and what type of progress we're making.

So really, you know, I won't get into too much detail there, but conditions one and five are really just about you know, we have to provide annual summaries.

Um so at a three-year point, we provide them with three annual summaries, um, as well as we have to sort of respond specifically to how we've progressed with respect to um the sort of sections within the HPS related to uh consideration recommendations and implementation actions.

So just a little bit of direction from the state on what to put in that midpoint report since we don't have a ton of direction from them on that specific subject yet.

And conditions two to four, I will touch on later in this presentation.

So this slide shows the implementation timeline that's included in the housing production strategy that was adopted last year.

Um as you can see, we're obviously in 2025, so gonna focus primarily on strategies one, three, seven, eight, nine, ten, and thirteen.

Also, we'll touch base on things that we've already completed because it's always good to take credit for things that we have are already done here.

So with respect to strategy number one in our housing production strategy, which is the code audit and amendments, um, as you likely recall, the idea here is to conduct a comprehensive review, an update of our code specifically to look at barriers to housing production as well as economic development.

Uh we are beginning that this year and uh intend to complete that by the end of 2027 per that timeline.

Uh what we um, just in terms of an update for you all, we have applied for a Metro 2040 planning and development grant as of the you know third quarter of the cycle.

It's now a quarterly cycle, no longer a yearly cycle, but that's the same grant that we applied for with the Foothills project as well.

Um we have sort of put in that request.

Um, if everything goes well and we do receive that grant, which we will know about in the coming months, I think either late September, early October is when we intend to find out about the decision here.

Uh, but you know, if everything goes well, we would issue an RFP in a few months here, still in the fall, um as quickly as we can really, and then attempt to get the project kicked off by early 2026.

So, you know, just a few things on this particular strategy that I wanted to mention is that uh there have been a lot of recent um pieces of legislation at the state level that are directly related to addressing barriers specifically to middle housing for the most part in HP 2138.

But of course, there are some other sort of land use related changes that get at um similar kind of uh potential sort of zoning changes that will be necessary for compliance with these state regulations.

This is all gonna overlap a lot with what we might discuss through this code audit and amendments process.

So really, you know, the biggest thing here is to make sure that everything is as coordinated as possible.

Um you will be hearing more about HB 2138 and SB 1537 in the coming months.

Um, but you know, essentially we had to apply for these grants before we knew exactly what the guidance is from the state on particularly HB 2138, which they still haven't necessarily provided yet.

Um so we're still kind of waiting for a little bit more detail, even though the law has been passed.

But um, this is something that is going to overlap with this work, so we'll have to make sure that everything is coordinated.

Um, and just would also mention that we're not just looking at barriers to housing with this particular project, we're looking also at barriers to business and economic development.

So it's a pretty, pretty large kind of undertaking here.

Um, and we've begun to scope that and intend to, you know, these are multi-year projects we're talking about here.

So as big of an effort as it was to even get the HPS passed, it will likely be a similar or you know, even more of an effort to get sort of this through by the end of 2027.

All right, and this is an easy one.

Uh reduce or remove minimum parking requirements.

We've actually completed this strategy.

Um, we adopted in December of last year amendments to the comprehensive plan and community development code to comply with the community uh, or I'm sorry, the climate-friendly equitable communities rules for parking reform or CFEC.

Um, and we did so by removing minimum parking requirements citywide.

Um so check this box off our list.

Just feels good to just kind of take credit for something instead of just talking about multi-year projects that we're about to undergo.

Speaking of multi-year projects that we are about to get started with, um, the RISO land strategy is strategy number three in the HPS.

Um, generally speaking, we intend to, you know, obviously initiate that this year, but the goal is to complete that by the end of 2028.

Um, you know, we receive direction from you all, and it's an HPS that we'll focus on non-residentially zoned properties.

Those kind of considered to be the first phase, but it's really what we're focusing on for the the the time being, um, and to focus on ways to uh better enable housing production within those areas, specifically uh multifamily housing.

So we are actually applying for a DLCD planning assistance grant for this particular strategy.

Um, this is something that actually was included in DLCD's um conditions or in their letter of approval rather.

They encouraged us to apply for this grant.

So I'm hoping that improves our chances.

But uh, this is a two-year cycle grant that we have again already applied for in early August when we were in um when we were required to do so.

So we're optimistic again about this.

Um project kickoff if everything goes well would start early next year.

What we're intending for this project is actually to um, and we still have options here, but to utilize uh DLCD appointed consultants.

So this is actually somebody that would be retained by DLCD to basically work on these types of projects for cities throughout the state.

Um this would sort of prevent us from needing to do an RFP process of our own to go out and solicit sort of our own consultant, but would be a very similar pool of consultants that we've utilized here for projects in the past.

So a lot of you know firms that we are familiar with that we know do this work that respond to RFPs when we do put them out, are on the sort of roster that DLCD has assembled for this work.

So we did indicate um when we submitted for this grant that that would be um our preference here, just for sort of um to simplify the process and to, you know, I guess uh the idea is also to utilize consultants as efficiently as possible.

There are a ton of um new state requirements and a ton of work that's happening at the state um just throughout the state related to compliance with the many different pieces of legislation that have been being passed.

So we're starting to get a little bit concerned that if we put out an RFP, then maybe all of the consultants are just going to be on this DLCD roster and kind of taking up um, you know, that could be taking up a lot of their uh workload.

So you know, we're we're thinking this would be the most flexible way to go about this, but um we think it would be a similar result than if we were to do our own RFP.

Um still, you know, this is something that we could um you know change.

I think that was something that we did clarify with DLCD is that we could indicate our preference at this point, but we could also kind of change course if we decided to do so.

Um one thing that I would point out is that this was initially conceived as a two-phase project where we would you know sort of eventually look at residential zones after looking at um these non-residential zones, but because of the timing of the grant, which again DLCD asked us to apply for, um, we're gonna have to adjust the timing a bit.

So basically, um, you know, instead of kind of um having everything completed in time to completely account for it in the three-year midpoint report.

Um, we are proposing to essentially outline some recommendations more or less, kind of take a uh citywide look really at areas we could focus on, develop a um methodology with the help of this consultant really um is is our idea to have a really sort of stream streamlined and um considered a thorough methodology to look at the entire city and select areas for um focus.

Once we have those sort of focus areas identified, do a little bit further work, but essentially we would have a uh a memo that includes those recommendations by the end of 2026, whereas the actual amendments would probably be adopted by the end of 2027 on this cycle.

So there has been a bit of a timing change due to that.

Uh this isn't just due to the DLCD grant, but um I would just point out that it is sort of so it would be about um a year, a little bit I think a year later to complete that residential, or I'm sorry, the non-residential phase one um portion of this, um, which is really I think where we are gonna want to focus the most in the first place.

So anyway, just kind of a change that it's part of the reason that we're here at council.

Can I, Ms.

Rose?

Can I ask just a couple clarifying questions here and then counsel if I don't ask your question?

You can follow on.

Um okay, just to clear drill down just a second.

First, on this this the consultant um work, if they're selected via this DLCD via DLCD, uh once they're selected, do they work with us just as if we had selected them?

Okay.

So it's just the selection.

Okay.

Okay.

Yeah, and we still are able to, you know, define the scope of the project and you know um the approval of the grant will still come to city council.

There will be a lot of different things that will still run through council, um, even if we utilize a DLCD rostered consultant.

Okay.

And I was always under the impression this this this residential rezoning is um kind of a surprise to me.

I thought we were specifically talking about non-residential areas, you know, that were kind of underutilized, that we don't where we don't even allow housing right now, that we could like the Southwest Employment area that maybe aren't doing so.

That's what I so this I I don't and I don't know, my call.

I don't know, that's what we were talking about residential.

Do you explain reasonable?

Yeah, that's that's what we discussed, um, what we did discuss with you all.

You actually told us to um rephase the project so that that was something that we did first, that the non-residentially zoned properties would be done first within many of your tenures.

Um but the whole time we did talk about doing both in a two-phase process.

But can you explain what residential rezoning is?

Well we're looking at ways we'd be looking at ways to add capacity within residential areas.

And I just want to point out really what I'm proposing here is to sort of de-prioritize that and put that on the back burner.

That's I think you're gonna take this out of the kitchen.

Yeah.

Yeah I just think that's going to be I mean we already have kind of a added capacity via the via the the middle housing codes which is great.

I think that a complete rezoning of the underlying base is going to be way it's just not going to go over.

It's not it's going to be a waste of time.

It's not going to pass.

It's not going to get through the community.

So I think we should just focus on the non-residential areas and pull this so if that's a part of this grant I think we need to clarify that this is not a that's not a part of this grant.

Okay.

That's why I'm that's what I'm trying to say here is that I am deprioritizing that second phase because I anticipated that you all would feel this way.

And that to be honest um you know I think uh that would be a very difficult piece of work and also HP 2138 kind of does a lot of the unlocking of potential capacity within these areas anyway everything that we done with middle housing I mean that's how you would do it right um so well so can we just clarify so how can we if if the how can we un just not even venture down that path how can we just put the lid on it right now we do not want to go down the path of the by doing nothing.

Yeah I I think that you that Eric's trying to create a path for you that by the time you get to that you'll probably have dealt with your housing capacity on the non-residential properties.

I don't think there's anything you could do right now to take you have an adopted housing production strategy that does include it that's been approved by the state so I don't think that today you can undo it what you can do is I I agree with you that it's going to be a non-starter in the community.

There are some residential zones though like the R0 zone where you could probably do some things that to encourage housing that won't disrupt the universe.

It's already the most dense.

Correct but there's there's stuff anyway all I'm saying is I think this is the best we can do for you at this moment in time.

And at the three year midpoint you won't have done this work yet.

And so if we're on the right track and we're already producing the housing without having done it, I think that would be the point at which you might say yeah we're not going to do that.

Okay.

Yeah and I think that's kind of the idea here is that by the end of 2026 we would know that increment and kind of the moves that we need to make and I you know as as Martha pointed out I think it's extremely reasonable to think that we would make the bulk of our progress with the non-residential zonings.

I also just want to echo what Eric said though when you see the changes that are in House Bill 2138 we're already going to have some of those conflicts with folks in the community and so I agree with you that we don't need to borrow trouble and it's quite possible that with this we're not going to need to okay yeah.

Thank you.

That's my intent at least with this work plan.

That's great.

Okay that sounds great.

Yeah so again the we we had though I just to be clear that is what's in the HPS and I do think you know we'll have to sell it to DLCD but I I think that when we show them the increment it'll be a good sell.

So well I to the mayor's point I don't know if there if we have to reappl or resubmit future progress reports but to submit it and take it out.

Because I I want everyone to understand what rezoning housing means.

It means that if you're uh R7 what is it R75 um means it's a 7500 lot square foot lot and they'll say we're going to do it R2 two 2,000 square foot lots and now all of a sudden you can subdivide your pro whatever I don't know.

Listen Salem has come up with to me some wacky things and some things that are um frankly I I mean taking most of our control out of local hands of how we want our community and telling us how to run our cities.

And so pardon me if we're a little sensitive to this issue but um I think it's it's fine to give us a goal to increase housing but to start telling everybody to reevaluate your land and uh and frankly it's uh for many residents here it's their biggest asset and for them to have that compromised or possibly compromised um uh just to get a state mandate in um I I think we will have upheaval and that's when we will see um people with their pitchforks and there's really you know I again I just want to be as clear as possible that we are not proposing that and that is that is what we are proposing to change.

But you know that is what was uh the direction that was given to me by you all last November was to you know adopt HPS that included that.

So I'm trying to propose a more uh reasonable path forward.

Okay.

There's a lot of things in there and well surprised all of us here.

But I think there is a lot of great opportunity in these non-residential rezoning for sure.

So it's great that we're focusing on that.

Of course, we are being forced to by the state, but this is something that hopefully we can take a bit of ownership and not just feel like we're getting um pushed around by DLC the whole time.

Well, but I mean we also had under the when we made those decisions.

Um we knew or we at that point, um, anyone that had a CCNR um outline that said that uh you can't you can't do that in in we have one.

That one move will probably do the bulk of the work within our existing residential zones, right?

Yeah.

Right.

But what I'm saying is that's a pretty huge drastic change.

And um I mean, there's a lot of people that I think felt protected and could go along with it.

And I, for one, made some decisions based on previous uh parameters.

So now they've changed, they're moving the deck chairs with um without telling us.

And that is very true.

I heard they're gonna rename the neighborhood clusters on the lake.

Neighborhood clusters.

Yeah.

I wouldn't put a past.

And that's just one of many things that I know we've spoken about House Bill uh 2038, 2138.

So I think that's a future night of discussion.

But I know there's a lot of us up here who have a lot of concerns about some of the and that that is very much a similar reaction that I had.

And I feel I'm hoping to, I'm hoping to sort of thread the needle through this work plan.

So I'm just like there's a lot of going.

Answer into you, but I do have to get this approved by DLCD as well.

But um, yes, I think we can I think again the non-residential zones are where we will make the most impact by far.

So I think that will um, you know, I think that will get us a long way here.

Um yeah, so again, you know, I I don't know um if there are any concerns about the sort of roster of consultants that DLCD has, let us know.

Um, you know, I think again, we we think that we'll get to a very similar phase or we'll get to a very similar place um with the work and the consultant and the type of work that they'll be doing for us.

It seems like they're trying to streamline these processes, um, offering more grants more often for just kind of to accommodate the fact that they are passing all these things that we have to respond to as a city very quickly.

Um so we're trying to take advantage of that.

Who pays for all these grants?

I mean, the taxpayer does, but is it the general fund?

General fund.

Okay.

Thank you.

And yeah, there's a lot of people from a lot of cities asking for for as much as possible for even more if we can't.

You've been doing a good job getting the grants.

We had the you know, the planning grant for foothills.

That's that's Metro Grant, but metro money.

Well, we love it.

But you can imagine, you know, somebody like the city of Malala might have less capacity to respond to the standard demands.

So they're trying to make this as easy as possible for jurisdictions that are um you know struggling with capacity.

And yeah, why don't they just send out new city charters with all the rules in it?

And I guess we could just sorry.

Okay, we're gonna keep moving.

We're gonna keep moving.

So, as I'm sure folks are aware, we are also undertaking a large project to uh revisit the previous planning effort in the Foothills district um to sort of take a comprehensive look at this area and come up with a set of recommendations, a new plan that reflects current community values.

Um, of course, that part of this project will involve a rezoning of these properties.

So this is related to the rezone land strategy.

Um the extent to which we will unlock residential capacity in this area is to be determined.

Um, but you know, I just wanted to mention it since it is related to this um consultant contract was finalized, of course, on June 17th uh by city council earlier today.

Um we appointed members to a community advisory committee for this project.

Um we're in the process of forming a technical advisory committee.

We have the public involvement strategy um sort of being worked on and um being discussed.

We had a uh work session at the planning commission recently on that, and we'll talk about that with the CAC at our first meeting.

And we are also starting to um analyze existing conditions in the neighborhood and just do a lot of uh sort of technical analysis or early sort of phases of the project.

So all this is underway.

And um I I will also mention the Foothills district in uh or with respect to the tax increment financing uh strategy, because there is some overlap there as well.

Um but yeah, just a reminder, I guess, that the Foothills plan does fit into this larger HPS sort of housing production exercise.

Um yeah, I I think that's about it.

And I guess I would just also mention that the timeline for foothills does align with the sort of three-year midpoint um timing where we want to be able to at least quantify and use some type of meth methodology to quantify added capacity um by the time we submit that report.

So this should all align with that schedule.

Can we get the DLCD to pay for the water treatment plant so it'll help our housing production?

Yeah.

Yeah, does the foothills um this red line is that a uh kind of uh just geographic like this is what we as a city consider foothills?

That I think um is it's not it's not even honestly exactly contingent with that, but generally speaking it is.

It's a very early um, you know, I think this is actually from a previous iteration of the plan, not even sort of this iteration of the plan, um, a very early idea of what that boundary could be, but the boundary is not set yet.

I think we're trying to be as um flexible as possible.

And so we do have a study area.

I would say maybe in the study area would be a little bit bigger than that.

Um we're still uh might jump that talking about that.

Yeah.

And of course we're talking about that with the project management team.

Of course, this is something that um, you know, obviously we'll have a little bit of public discussion about too.

When we withdraw the urban renewal boundary, it may or may not be exactly the same as this boundary either.

I I would assume that it would be a good idea.

That we'll want to capture some of the assessed value on the other side of the highway.

That's right.

And sometimes there's the project boundaries and then there's the urban renewal boundary, and they're not okay.

And and I um Mr.

Olson and I, you know, interviewed and put together this uh the group that we all pointed to, and I think we have a great advisory group, very good group.

Yeah, so thanks to those folks for volunteering on this.

It's a two-year effort too, so like half a council term.

I agree that seems to be a great group, and also you know, the public involvement strategy is exciting to look at as well and kind of gives you a piece of uh a taste of where we're going with this work.

So yeah, it's all coming together and becoming more real.

Um so that's always fun.

Great.

Um unfortunately I'm not here to talk about foothills.

I am here to talk about the HPS, so I will advance, um, although there is a lot of overlap.

Um the next strategy is strategy number seven in the HPS, and I just wanted to note this.

We're actually um wanting to begin sort of this larger project to modify SDC fees to tie them more directly to dwelling size, um, beginning in 2027 is when we had uh put that on our timeline in the HPS.

Cottage clusters though, we did uh make a commitment to revisit the fee schedule for cottage clusters.

Um we're looking at that starting this year, but um we'll probably make recommendations for next year's master fee and charges schedule.

So that's something that will be coming to you all later this year.

What do we do right now with the clusters?

That's a good question.

Oh Jessica Numano, the community development director.

Uh currently we don't have a good fit for cottage clusters, so we're charging the um and we're looking specifically at the transportation SDC.

We're charging the um single family um rate, which is more expensive than the multifamily rate.

So we need to find kind of a an in-between those those two.

So we're working with our engineering uh staff to look at um uh coming up with the methodology for determining it, and then we will put it in the fee schedule.

And then as um Mr.

Olson alluded to later on, we'll do a bigger look at the SDC structure as part of the transportation system plan update.

Right.

Okay, thank you.

Sorry, I meant I thought you meant that you wanted to change them right now.

It's like not sure we're ready to do that quite yet.

But sorry.

All right, so strategy number eight in the HPS is uh related to the nonprofit low-income housing tax exemption.

So this is a tax exemption specifically for um affordable housing that's you know sort of regulated affordable housing uh that's uh available at or below 60% of AMI, but specific for nonprofit developers.

Um this is something again that we've completed.

So um congratulations to us, I guess.

Um and we we did this actually very quickly last year um in order to make it available to the Mercy Green Bray development at Merrill Hearst Commons.

Um of course I would uh also point out that uh another development this year, the El Nito development at the Boons Ferry Road staging site is also um requesting to take advantage of this tax exemption.

So it's something that we're continuing to implement, even though it's and we didn't we already do that for them?

We did.

We did it.

Yeah, so it it's already done, but it's recent, I guess, as of this summer.

Um so yeah, it's something that I guess I'm just my point is that we're continuing to kind of implement this regardless of the fact that we've completed it for the purposes of our um overseers at DLCD.

Can you put other limitations besides just the 60% of AMI as we talked with the um with the Metro Housing project?

Um and the group that's running it, they were concerned about the um the right type of residence that would fit the community and fit the resources that we have available for assistance.

I think we could put it up below 60% of AMI if we really want to tailor the project, but I don't think that this is available for anything above 60% of AMI exemption.

No, I mean what I what I'm I think is this is two different.

Oh, you want and yeah.

Okay.

I know what you're talking about.

Yes.

But we put that in our housing policy that we want to we wanna provide the um, but you want the funds to go towards the meet the requirements.

I mean, of a 60%, but have criteria uh in a in addition to that.

No, I mean well, the other thing is the only the two, I mean the the all of these were requirements of the metro housing bond.

That bond is done.

So there are no more projects.

So we're right.

We're just looking at the future.

I mean there's no future money.

There's no future money for anything.

So this will be the last project, so we don't really need to do this.

Well, of these requirements it's already been done.

Yeah.

So I think these are the developers are not doing this of their own volition.

Oh, I know that part.

Yes, you know.

Okay.

Yeah.

I think we're check out here.

Oh well.

I believe that there is some capacity for the city to add what we call local criteria to these programs.

I think typically upon adoption, but yeah, I I'm not sure.

So I I guess that just I'm saying that because I'll talk about this other tax exemption that we have also committed to adopt, um, which is a low-income rental housing tax exemption.

Um again, it's very similar to the other tax exemption that I just talked about, but it would not just be completely available to nonprofits, it would also be available to for-profit developers that are building housing that meets the sort of income requirements and eligibility requirements that um uh you know we we're putting forward here.

So that's 60% of AMI or less.

Um this is something that we through the HPS committed to beginning and completing this year.

It's looking like um it might push more into early 2026.

We want to put together um some options for you and bring this to you um sometime in the near future.

Um so yeah, that's something that hopefully we will be discussing with you shortly here at City Council.

Um, but uh yeah, there's a few sort of implementation actions involved here, but um, you know, I think that we could potentially talk about local criteria, and I know that there are some sort of um sidebars or you know, sort of um there's some structure to what we can and cannot include within these tax exemptions, and it does get somewhat complicated.

So we will have that conversation, I suppose, when we get to that discussion, if that works for council.

Okay.

Sounds good.

Thank you.

All right.

And so um number 10, the 10th strategy in the HPS is to uh pursue public-private partnerships for affordable housing.

Now you might recall this is one of the strategies that we worded fairly broadly and relatively flexibly for ourselves in the HPS.

We didn't make any really super committal language because this is a really opportunistic exercise.

This requires not just action on behalf of the city, this requires a partner in you know the the private um sector.

So they're really um uh there's only so much the city alone can do.

Um so that being said, um, of course, this is one of the strategies where DLCD had provided us with additional conditions of approval.

Of course, um they want to make that more concrete.

So what they have conditioned um for the HPS is that it would um basically we were required to demonstrate in the midpoint report that our city has taken action on at least one of four of our recommendations that we did include in the HPS.

We didn't say, yes, we were definitely gonna do one of these things.

DLCD wants us to definitely do one of those things.

Um so these are donate surplus city owned land for affordable housing as it becomes available, uh work with faith-based organizations to utilize excess or underutilized land for affordable housing, and assist them with zoning permitting and financial incentives, um, continue to leverage federal, straight, state and regional resources, such as the Metro Affordable Housing Bond to fund affordable housing in Lake Oswego.

And specific to the TIFF strategy, they did um encourage us to use TIFF funds to support affordable housing partnerships.

Um so that could be with respect to infrastructure deficiencies or contributing funding to affordable housing more directly.

That seems like a you know, that sort of fourth um recommendation seems like it might have the most sort of synchronicity with the rest of what we're talking about here.

Um that would sort of overlap the most with what we're already planning to do elsewhere in the HPS.

Um but of course, this is all kind of contingent on establishing a partnership with some affordable housing developer.

So you know, I think just wanted to point out that this they did sort of encourage or not encourage the conditioned us.

They we we do have to kind of um uh comply with one of these um recommendations in order to show that we're making progress at that midpoint report.

Um I think uh another thing just on that condition is that DLC doesn't really require the city to fully adopt or complete any of those recommendations, but um they want it to ensure that the city moves beyond exploratory intent and that we commit to taking tangible steps for these um recommendations.

So they indicated that they would accept something like an MOU or a memorandum of understanding, uh council represent resolution or even council direction to staff to initiate um this type of work, or council approval of an application for or an allocation of funding or that type of action from council.

So there are some teeth, but I think that there is some there are some paths there that might be um more, I guess, easier to pursue than others.

Um some of them might be a lot more challenging.

So anyway, there's more detail on what we need to do to show progress with this flexibly worded strategy um that we had included in our HPS.

Well, we've already done the we've done two of them already.

So we don't get credit, we have to do another one on top of that.

That's true.

That's what they're we did a list of all the things that we had already done um right before we initiated the HPS process, so that we you know, we were trying to take credit for everything that we had done, but of course we can't take credit for it as part of the HPS because of that.

We did three actually.

Yeah, but that's the I mean, this is no problem.

You know, we we're gonna set up a new TIF.

And I mean that's yeah, I do think that you know it it's you know, it is getting a little bit at the you know, DLCD pushing a little bit hard at us kind of uh uh direction.

But you know, I do think that when we do look at the TIFF district within the foothills area, that that's a really feasible way to comply with this.

That won't require too much um difficulty on behalf of the city that sort of aligns with a lot of other things that we've been thinking about.

Um, but yeah, it is absolutely the case that we're we are not going to be able to take credit for things that we did before you know the HPS was adopted.

Well, uh, even the zoning one though, if we do the non-resident, I mean I really think you're gonna comply with this.

That's true.

Yeah, this is easy.

I mean, even if a church comes to us and says, hey, we want to don't, yeah, we're like, all right, great.

And then we and then it overlaps with other benefits we're already providing.

I mean, yeah, no big deal.

Easy.

Yeah, easy, easy to bristle at this one, but I think we got a path.

I think I think we can do it.

I I still want to know if we don't do this.

Are they going to take our keys away to the city?

I mean, I don't I I I think this is another one where I'm not positive there is an effective remedy for the state if somehow we fail to do this.

So I I don't really I wouldn't high center on this one.

So we can put check on this one.

Where more time is that?

I think it's more of a statement of intent and effort as opposed to actually requiring you to actually do anything.

And you're already I mean you've already you're already working on all of these things.

So even you know, there was something, you know, in the the language that was in the um condition uh for this particular strategy that you know it would just be council direction that would sort of show that we'd made progress on this.

So that's a pretty pretty low bar.

Not that we don't appreciate direction from you all, and that that means a lot to us.

Um but I guess moving on to the next one, which again is related to the as we were just describing, um, the tax increment financing piece here.

Um so the strategy is to use TIFF to support affordable housing development.

Um, you know, that's something that we had enumerated in the HPS as something that we would include as a quote unquote project within the forthcoming urban renewal plan for the foothills area.

Even that is pretty flexible.

Um, you know, it could be a project just that funds go to that um particular, you know, for affordable housing, or it could be within that district.

You know, I think there's a lot of different ways that this could look.

Um, however, um, you know, there it is an expectation that you know we will utilize TIFF to support affordable housing, and specifically that it will be related to foothills.

So just something to consider.

Uh of course, you know, that there were a few, I think it was a condition technically from DLCD to just basically clarify the scope of this, whether or not we did just want it to relate to foothills, or if we want to sort of think about TIFF elsewhere.

Um, I think you know, the the quick answer is we did just intend for it to be um to commit to using it in foothills, but you know, of course, there is a potential that we could utilize TIFF elsewhere within the city.

So we don't want to preclude that.

Um so if we do that, we should probably take credit for it from the state as well.

Okay, so can I ask a question with related to foothills?

We asked this group to go out and dream to figure things out.

And what if they dream and they get feedback from our community and everything else that they want, say like a south waterfront.

I'm not saying that's what they're gonna do, but let's just say they do that, and that doesn't include really any of this affordable housing part.

Um I mean, are we it are we are automatically making them?

No, no, and I I also think they that actually TIFF gives you flexibility to think about affordable housing in an entirely different way than just a project.

So, for example, you are actually using TIFF at North Anchor to create a mixed income product.

And so you may want to think about not like a specific dollar investment, but rather maybe you create incentives using TIFF to try to create and and candidly, I think in the long run, mixed income projects are gonna be much better for the community than standalone buildings.

So I don't think this it doesn't commit us to do anything, but it does commit us to talk about it.

Right.

Okay, yeah.

I just don't want us to basically tell this committee that you have to find you have to build affordable housing.

I want them to be able to dream and figure out their space.

Okay.

And we are, you know, bound to again consider this within the then and sort of include it as a project that is eligible for TIFF funding.

But again, I don't think that's means that we need to put affordable housing specifically within the Foothills district.

But again, incentives could be a great idea.

We might find another place to put it in, like as we go.

Somebody may come in with another project, whatever.

It doesn't mean that we can't do that either.

You know, I think we have flexibility.

So thank you.

Good question.

All right, and so this is the uh last one that I will be talking about with you all today.

This is fair housing policy and education, something that we uh recently held a work session or study session rather at council um regarding um fair housing policy.

Um specifically, the strategy is to amend the comprehensive plan to make affirmatively furthering fair housing and official city policy.

Um, but there's also an educational component um sort of and to take other actions to promote fair housing education.

We've already begun that to a degree, but there's a lot more work that we could be doing.

Um, one of the potential actions that we identified in the HPS is to conduct an analysis of impediments to fair housing.

That's actually going to be required through for the next HA cycle.

So DLCD actually told us to hold off on that, to not do that quite yet, just to do it when it's required for the HA.

Um, so there are a lot of other things though, in terms of education related to fair housing that we intend to actually probably, you know, we we we do intend to start that now, but we did put in the HPS so that it would be completed by the end of 2028.

So we got some time on this one.

Um, however, we did uh identify and sort of um want to forefront the adoption of a policy to explicitly make a furthering affirmatively furthering fair housing as official city policy um within this year.

So that's something that we are going to be discussing next Monday at the planning commission.

There is um, you know, uh currently we we've noticed this public hearing for such a comprehensive plan amendment.

It's something that we discussed at council not too long ago.

Um so that's something um on September 8th.

So uh next Monday again, we'll hold a public hearing of the commission and at council you will be considering this on November 4th at a council hearing.

Um so we're we're on track for this one.

Um if everything goes well, we should be able to uh complete this by the end of this year.

So, in terms of next steps, I just mentioned um those that are related to the fair housing comprehensive plan amendment, but um, I'm hoping to bring an agenda item to you all, uh, council business item, most likely to create the technical advisory committee in the near future.

September 16th is a tentative.

Uh it would be great if I could bring that to you all on September 16th, but this does take some time to sort of identify these folks and make sure we have the right group.

So um we don't want to rush that either, but that is what we're targeting for.

Um, we are going to be talking a little bit more about the rezone land strategy at the planning commission on September 22nd.

There are a lot of things happening, and these are just the sort of four next um milestones that I want to bring to your attention, but there's going to be a lot more.

We're talking about multiple multi-year projects here.

So you know, this is not the last you will hear of the HPS by any means.

Um, so yeah, that um with that my presentation is done.

Thanks.

No, I'm glad you were here.

This is uh very helpful to come and go through because I mean, even as we're seeing in the and there's a lot in in the plan, and uh really uh I'm sure all of us really appreciate uh you keeping us informed on the steps that we're taking.

Uh it's an important topic to the community.

It's a obviously a goal of the of the of the council, and um thanks for coming and giving the update.

Yeah, absolutely.

Um, you're welcome, and I'm glad that you're on board with my uh sort of idea with with regards to that rezone land strategy.

I thought I should at least come to you for approval, but I you know I I think that it's clear that you thought it was a good idea, so I appreciate that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And yeah, don't hesitate if you run into any you know roadblocks or concerns with the process.

Of course, we don't know the process.

We don't know these consultants, so we we're trusting you.

Call on you.

Absolutely.

Yeah, yeah.

I will I will come to you with updates as needed.

Absolutely.

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr.

Olson.

All right.

Okay.

Um anyone have any information they'd like to share.

No?

Uh oh.

If you have not purchased your wine walk tickets for the October wine walk, um sign up with the chamber.

It's uh it's going fast.

I think there's just a couple hundred tickets left, I think.

So make sure you're on it.

Over wine walk.

Council Brewer.

I just want to do one more shout out to Neighborhood Night Out.

It was really a great event.

And with the numbers, I mean the city staff did a phenomenal job with all the coordination and everything.

So shout out to everyone who helped that happen.

It was a lot of fun.

Okay.

I just have a couple things, and I want to do a big shout out to Parks and Rec.

First of all, highly successful concert season this year.

And I hope that you all you all got to at least one of them because uh they were a great time.

Although I did hear the ABBA tribute from my back deck, and it was super loud.

Um, so I apologize to all my neighbors for the ABB tribute.

Um, it was a lot of fun.

Um, I also, if you haven't heard, the city got a grant to extend the Saturday farmers market by three weeks.

So the Saturday farmers market in Millennium Plaza Park will go three extra weeks.

I cannot tell you who gave us the grant.

I don't remember.

Um, and then last but not least, also a huge shout out to the teen lounge record number of attendants this summer.

Um so providing a place for kids who uh otherwise would probably be hanging out in their own basements playing video games to go and be with other teens.

So good job, Jordan.

Good job, Sid.

Uh it was a great summer.

I have to say, Martha, whatever the farmers market is doing, it's working.

All my son who's 13 can talk about every week and is like, hey, can we go to the farmers market?

So I mean, at 13, I was not doing that.

But so it's it's turning into quite the hangout for the for that age group, which I think is kudos to to you and the team for putting it all together and making it fun and dynamic for everybody.

Well, the creativity of park staff is really off the top off the charts, and so I I appreciate them.

The food is great, the music is great.

Actually, the young entrepreneurs program where kids who are trying to start a business can come sell their wares.

It's really cool.

Um, and you know, for those of us who eat seasonal produce, it's also really awesome to be able to get yeah.

Doing a great job.

This is good.

Okay.

Um with that, we are going to adjourn the uh council meeting and call to order the redevelopment agency meeting.

Um, and we are going to move into executive sessions.

So we'll ask Ms.

Osinak to read the executive session parameters for us, please.

That's right, Chair Buck and uh members of the Laura board.

You're now going to meet in executive session for the purpose of conducting deliberations with persons designed by the governing body to negotiate real property transactions.

You're going to consider information or records that are exempt by law from public inspection.

Representatives of the news media and designated staff are allowed to attend the executive session.

Uh representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session is previously announced.

No decision may be made in executive session, and at the end of this executive session, we will adjourn.

Okay.

Well, this will conclude the broadcast portion of the meeting.

We're going to uh uh recess and then we'll reconvene in the side room.