Special City Council Meeting: Milwaukee Bay Park Negotiations (Nov 14, 2025)
Special City Council Meeting: Milwaukee Bay Park Negotiations (Nov 14, 2025)
This special session was convened to review the latest proposed terms for two intergovernmental agreements (IGAs) between the City of Milwaukee and the North Clackamas Parks & Recreation District (NCPRD) regarding the funding, design, construction, and operation of Milwaukee Bay Park Phase III. Council Staff provided a detailed update on negotiations initiated in January 2025, outlining the City's positions on capital asset capitalization, permit fees, System Development Charges (SDCs), and the transfer of project management responsibilities. Following public testimony regarding equity in funding and support for the project, the Council voted unanimously to authorize Staff to respond to the NCPRD Board with the proposed terms, requesting a response by December 2, 2025, to facilitate adoption before the end of the year.
Consent Calendar
- None; the meeting focused entirely on negotiation updates and specific directives regarding the Milwaukee Bay Park IGAs.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Dave Cadwalleter (Island Station): Expressed a desire for transparency and requested documented, "black and white" accounting of how System Development Charges (SDCs) have been generated and allocated over time to resolve ambiguity regarding equity and whether Milwaukee has been subsidized by the rest of the district. He sought clear documentation to support the negotiations.
- Gary Klein (Milwaukee): Stated a background of involvement in the Portland Park and Rec Board and the Milwaukee Bay Park program. He expressed full support for the continuation of Milwaukee Bay Park Phase Three (“100% for it”) and emphasized his community’s prior contribution of the Klein Points property to initiate Phase One.
- Mayor Beatty (Response): Addressed the comment regarding SDCs, clarifying that while an accounting of SDCs would be valuable, the narrative of "subsidy" cited by the NCPRD Board likely referred to the disproportionate cost of maintaining parks in Milwaukee relative to the district's size, rather than SDC allocation.
Discussion Items
- Historical Context: Staff outlined the history of the 1990 Cooperative IGA, the stagnation of Phase III design after 2017, the dispute over withdrawal terms in the 2008 IGA currently before the Court of Appeals, and the resumption of "two-on-two" negotiations in January 2025.
- Amendment to the 2008 Cooperative IGA:
- Capital Assets: Council position is supportive of a provision clarifying that the paying entity (City or District) capitalizes assets. In the event of future withdrawal, the City would pay the District the depreciated value of assets on the District's books. A depreciation schedule and a threshold (proposed at $5,000, indexed to inflation) were discussed.
- Construction Authority: Council is supportive of City-owned land improvements but rejected the District's request for approval authority over all construction drawings. The City seeks to retain approval authority while coordinating with the District.
- Programming: Council supports a provision granting preference and fee waivers for City and City-affiliated groups using Milwaukee parks.
- Milwaukee Community Center: Council is supportive of the District retaining programming and general maintenance, and the City retaining responsibility for capital improvements, repairs, and replacements, provided definitions of these terms are clarified.
- Funding Support: Council is supportive of language allowing either party to request a statement of support from the other for securing additional funding.
- Milwaukee Bay Park IGA:
- SDCs: Council proposed a counter-offer asking for the full Zone 1 fund balance at signing and retaining future accruals until construction begins or December 31, 2027.
- Metro Loan: The District's offer to loan $2.5 million in Metro Local Share grants is under review; Council positioned to wait for Metro clarification before formulating a counter-offer.
- Grant Reassignment: Council accepted the reassignment of approximately $658,000 in Metro grant dollars from the Trolley Trail to Milwaukee Bay Park.
- Project Management: Council accepted the transfer of design and construction responsibilities to the City.
- Maintenance Responsibility: Council accepted the transfer of maintenance responsibilities but requested a delay of the transfer date to the start of construction or no later than December 31, 2027.
- Permitting: Council rejected the District's request to retain rights for special use permits if the City assumes maintenance, arguing that operational control requires permitting authority, though District programming rights must not be unreasonably withheld.
Key Outcomes
- Motion Adopted: The Council unanimously voted 5-0 in favor of Staff responding to the NCPRD Board with the positions outlined during the meeting.
- Deadline Set: Staff requested a response from the NCPRD Board by December 2, 2025, to allow potential finalization and signing of agreements at the final City Council meeting of the year.
- Adjournment: The meeting was adjourned with five minutes remaining, with the Mayor expressing optimism about reaching an agreement by the end of the calendar year.
Meeting Transcript
Summer. Here we are coming up on the end of the year, but hopefully we can move this forward in the next month and wrap it up. So I'll turn it over to Ellen to tell us where we are and the decision points we have. Thank you, Mayor. Yes, we would love this to be a little holiday present. We can all conclude. Good evening, everyone. It's great to be with you. Thanks for attending your special session tonight. We wanted to transparently give an update with our constituents about the status of these negotiations on Milwaukee Bay Park, how the special session will run. Then we will be reviewing or recapping some council discussion on the latest proposed terms and some agreements we've been working back and forth with the NCPRD board of directors on. Once we've reviewed or walked through council's latest thinking on those terms, we'd like to invite anyone who would like to contribute some public testimony to do so. We'll limit that to three minutes each. And then at the end, we're just going to ask for some decisions and direction to staff on next steps from council. So again, this has been the mayor mentioned that we've been really at the table in the most recent round negotiations since January. But just in case you don't know the backstory here, I wanted to share a little bit about the history of the city's relationship with NCPRD and with Milwaukee Bay Park. NCPRD was formed in 1990, and that is when the original cooperative intergovernmental agreement, you're gonna call hear me say cooperative IGA a lot tonight was first signed with the city of Milwaukee. When that was signed, basically the city retained ownership of all of its parks, but NCPRD became the entity that operates and maintains those parks. So this IGA formalized that relationship. Going forward, you'll let me say Milwaukee Bay Park or MDT. Milwaukee Bay Park, I think it goes without saying to our constituents of jewel in the crown of our parks and green space assets here in the city. It's a beautiful stretch along the Willamette River, and it's been for a long time a goal of Milwaukee City Councils to see that jewel developed. So the city led uh the first two phases of development of that park, including acquiring land there and um uh getting it to be the park that it is today. The first phase was completed by the city in 2012, the second phase was completed by the city in 2015. Um so the park is wonderful, but it is not the finished product yet. And uh in 2017, um the city was kind of gearing up to start doing phase three. Uh and at the time, the board, the the North Pacamus Parks and Yock Department and CPRD requested that they take the lead on phase three of Milwaukee Bay Park. Um, and the city agreed to that. Uh that then ensued two years of public involvement. Um, and the designs for phase three, which have been seen by lots of guys all over the city of Milwaukee, uh, was unveiled in 2019. Um, that is sort of where the story gets a little more complicated. So once we had uh 50% designs, the two parties um attempted to come to some agreements about funding and constructing the park. There were draft uh funding and construction IGAs developed. The city approved them twice, once in 2020 and once in 2021. Um the NCPRD did not approve both of them. Um, there was several meetings where it was removed from agendas, and um uh finally a condition was placed that it would not approve the funding IGA for phase three until the city engaged in an update to the cooperative IGA. Um there's from frustration at that point, and uh a previous council was interested in looking into potential withdrawal from the district. Um that led to some dispute over whether the terms in the 2008 IGA regarding withdrawal method are valid. The city feels that what is written in the IGA is valid, um, and the board uh contends otherwise. So we filed a validation action to understand that that is currently being heard by the Court of Appeals. I should be clear that um while a previous council had discussed um withdrawal, this council has given no direction to withdraw from the district um or taken any votes on that topic. This brings us to 2025. The city of Milwaukee has adopted a parks and green space goal, and uh paramount in that goal is the delivery of this long awaited Milwaukee Bay Park. So in January 2025, the city requested a meeting with the new NCPRD board. They did a couple elections. And the board agreed to break the communication freeze that they had implemented in 2024 and come back to the table for what we call two on two sessions. Two representatives of the NCPRD board meeting with two representatives of the Milwaukee City Council. When it's two, it's not a quorum, so we can move a little a little more quickly. Staff are there to support those conversations. Milwaukee City Council appointed Mayor Beatty and Councillor Massey as the representatives of the city to be at that two on two table.
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