Mayor Beatty is taking a call right now.

And so we've got Quorum here.

I think we'll get started on staff introductions and then we'll move on to community grants.

And she should join us for that.

Get us started on this.

She's got a big call.

So we have it is a big call that she didn't miss.

She's actually, I mean, everyone is very excited to meet you.

But the mayor was the one who asked that we do this new staff introduction.

So we'll find another time.

Yeah.

Can I make a quick notice as it's first time we're hosting a study session in this room?

The camera is located at the front there.

So it's a little bit of a different setup than the one we're used to downstairs.

It does bounce a little bit.

So if you guys have watched the video back, it's currently not the best.

There's something wrong with one of the chords isn't great.

So that's it.

Okay.

Should we set it back?

I'm like the closest one to the game.

So you're right by the mic.

That was the goal.

With that, I think we can pass it to Emma to get us kicked off with our staff introductions.

Great.

Well, hi everyone.

So again, as I already said, the mayor requested this, but I think this is a wonderful idea.

But there's some staff that have critical roles that really kind of lead programs, um, move forward important policy and goal work, and uh we'll probably come in front of council at some time.

So that was a really important chance for you just to kind of share a little bit about your background and have them ask you some questions, very casual, very informal.

This is really a get to know you.

We missed the boat a little bit with Alfred because he came last meeting to talk about tree code and Arbor Day.

Um, but tonight can be a little more about who you are as a person, not just from the code perspective.

Um anything, Katie or Peter you'd like to say before we have our lovely new folks.

No, I I would add that I um asked them to share a little bit about um kind of what they're excited about about working here at Milwaukee and some of the things they were like uh passionate about moving forward in their position, but um that it's mainly kind of about them and not like their whole comprehensive work plan, so just some of those high-level things they're excited about.

Yeah, yeah, I I think the one thing that I would say is I'm just really delighted to have both of them as part of our part of our team, both Martha and Alfred, which is great uh just great experiences and and important uh important philosophies, one related to urban forestry, one related to resilience that I think really match and integrate well with uh where the city's headed.

So I'm glad they're here.

Thank you.

I think oh, yeah.

So hi everybody.

Um my name is Lata Pifftini.

Umright from Italy.

I moved to the US about seven years ago.

Um my background is in architecture, uh, but specifically emergency architecture.

So looking at what's disaster reconstruction, working working with the Hanause community to be able to uh tiny home villages.

Uh I was working in the Medicare Red Cross, uh in the shelter doing the Oregon Widefire.

So uh background in design, but through those lands.

Um and when this position opened up uh uh it was just really exciting because it was at the intersection of a lot of my interests and passions uh uh including like equity in inclusion in the built environment and emergency management and then community engagement.

So I was just really really excited to be here.

Um I worked at Portland State University and specifically at the homelessness, research and action collaborative.

Opened my own design studio, but just really excited to be here because yeah, this position again was just perfectly at the intersection of all those things that I love and I want to keep growing and start from.

Yep.

All right.

So nice meeting you.

Yeah.

I think this is uh the second time we're meeting.

Um Alfred Sali, uh enforced from the city of Milwaukee.

Um background, started out working on tree crew, and I'm working with various cities in Southern California, more from the consulting sites doing citywide inventories, making recommendations, risk assessments I like, worked a while for utility as a contractor.

So doing audits on their line, the work being done there, straight safety, ensuring that they're complying with all of the approach.

And um I'm excited to work with Milwaukee because it's a smaller city.

I'm able to feel an impact very strongly, I think.

And you're able to become very intimate with the city treaties, and Milwaukee is is finding itself in a position where we have a decent mature canopy, and at the same time trying to spur development.

So it's nice to be able to come in, have a positive impact at a pretty crucial moment.

Normally we like to give you know our new employees like a really gentle ramp up, like not throwing right into the case.

Um poor Alfred, I think came right in, like right when the that like middle housing tree code, everything was happening, and we were throwing tons of stuff.

And then Martha today, I mean, we're in a weather event, we're in an emergency event, and there's been an atmospheric river.

Marta's just doing a fantastic job coordinating with the county with our emergency response folks.

And I think it was you know, just right before you started that we invited CERT to be a city-sponsored organization, and we're like and to manage that relationship.

So they both just hit the ground running.

Um, and I'm really just so appreciative that you've you've given us great since we didn't do the softest of the recording, uh, but you dove right in.

Thank you.

Well, do you guys want to introduce yourselves and maybe ask them some questions?

I can take it away and then we can go around.

Um, my name's Will, I'm the council president here.

Normally we've got Mayor Beatty, but she's off on her Zoom right now, she should be back soon.

Um, I my day job, I work down in the legislature in Salem.

It's nice because right now we're out of session.

I'm able to be around the city a lot when we're in session.

I'm down in Salem a lot, and it's a little bit of a hectic balance.

Um, I'm certainly excited to have both of you on.

Like I've heard from CERT so many times that like we need a dedicated emergency management staff.

Um, and so you've made their dreams and tree code.

We definitely um can attest to it.

We hear a lot about our tree canopy.

And so you two are both just such great that there's so much work that our staff do that I'm really proud of.

That like customer service facing side of the city.

Um, and you two are such an important piece of that.

So super excited to get to meet you all.

Everyone, I'm Adam Classrotty, invented the tree planting.

It's another thing he had to do with as well.

Top of everything I'll plant a tree.

So take a tree.

And then we're talking yeah, great job though.

Fantastic.

Um city councilor, uh, been in Milwaukee since 2019.

Uh my wife and I bought our first home here.

And now we're raising our two children here.

Um obviously I don't have to tell you how special this place is.

You came from way across the world to be here.

So I appreciate that.

And you sound very talented.

Um I think you're you're you both are coming as as city manager Sagers at a really good time because everything right now is at an intersection.

Also a little bit of a crossroads with what's going on up in DC.

But welcome to Milwaukee.

I look forward to working with both of you, and please don't hesitate or be shy if if there's ever a question you have for us, you know, proper chain of command, she'll get it to us.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Um, my name's Robert Massey.

Uh I'm on the uh council for uh three years.

Uh before that I was on the planning commission for four years.

Uh so I've served as the uh uh planning commission chair and as the council president.

Um I I don't no longer have an eight to five job, um, but I'm just one of those annoying people who kind of volunteers provide things.

Uh this being one of them.

Uh in my uh in another life, I was uh a career naval officer.

I was a naval officer for 26 years.

Served in seven ships and was captain of two ships.

And uh we moved around a lot.

So I was very interested in finding a hometown, and I found a hometown of Milwaukee.

Um and that kind of thing.

And so uh very pleased to be here and uh just a lot to offer.

And uh and uh I know that you folks uh will uh offer a lot to the city as well.

Uh I do have one question for Martha.

Uh has anyone talk to you about the water consortium?

Yes, I actually was in a few meetings with them.

Very good.

Yeah, very good.

Okay.

So it was Emma that promised not to give you hard questions.

It was just Emma, not me.

No, I was gonna say we've got till 4:30.

So any more hard questions.

Oh, yeah, I'm actually half Italian by the way, too.

Say you again?

I'm half Italian.

Oh, really?

Yeah, my mom's size from Florence.

Um I've never been big Italian.

It's forense.

I know the bad words.

My grandma used them on me.

Um, Alfred and Marta, so you know, I'm you've probably already picked up on this, but a few things to know about council.

They set goals, um, and they adopted new goals the beginning of this year, and it'll run through 2027.

Those are economic development, affordability, and parks and green space.

And I really like what you said, Adam, about like you guys being in these roles in a very interesting and exciting time where I think a lot of the work, like you know, we we used to have a climate goal, and I don't want you to think that because we don't have a climate goal anymore, climate has gone away.

I think we we've kind of said climate is institutionalized or operationalized now as a value in the city, but I think you guys get to be at the forefront then of okay.

Well, what does a climate um adaptive and resilient city look like when we think about affordability?

When we think about managing green space, um, when we think about balancing economic growth, but also lovability and sustainability.

So um, I definitely see as in that constellation still.

We have um the whole council cares about all the goals, but we do have goal leads.

So Robert is the goal lead from Parks and Greenspace.

Uh Adam is our goal lead for affordability, and then she's not here tonight, but Rebecca Stavenjord is our goal lead for economic development.

So sometimes there might be like a topical specific thing on our goal action plans that touch your areas and might bring you in and love you that way.

And then the water construction question reminded me.

So initially their goal hats.

Um, our council gets asked to be on a lot of different boards and committees.

And actually, it's good timing because January will look at and refresh our big table of which of these folks sits at which table and represents Milwaukee.

And um, Robert is on a lot of spaces around natural resources, including the water consortium.

So we've talked a lot about the his excitement about this role, creating this role, um, and then our ability hopefully to engage even more at that table and other tables about um water and vitality of water and emergency effects.

So I would I don't think we've seen here we probably have enough water now.

Almost a year, yeah.

Yeah, we can't.

So yeah, Steve Steve goes to consortium meetings too.

Alfred, I do have one question.

Uh how concerned, well, maybe uh how concerned are you about this whole beetle infestation?

Emerald Ash.

Yeah, but very concerned.

What do you think is the impact for a place like Milwaukee with that?

A lot of cities when they were when it was first found in the you know, mid to north section was the reaction was hey, these are killing our trees if we don't treat them.

Let's go ahead and take out all of these trees now, which gets rid of that at risk aspect, right?

Because these trees are gonna die.

The beetle will kill 99.9 something percent of ash trees that are left untreated.

And um, as we've learned more about the beetle, we found that there's a fungus associated with it that makes them extremely brittle even before they're fully dead, right?

Which makes removal very difficult uh via climbing or you know, from ground, usually you're evolving machinery at that point.

A lot of cities there thought the solution would be just remove all ash trees.

They lost a major portion of the canopy, they spent a huge amount of capital, and they missed out on all of the benefit from those trees that they would have provided should they have just treated.

Um so Milwaukee doesn't have that many ash in our you know, you know, streetway, whatever.

We do have a lot on our aquarium treatment there gets difficult.

I think there has to be a metered approach to this.

I think you have to do an assessment to find out first how many ash trees you're dealing with, and then from there make judgment calls and hey, is this worthwhile of treatment?

Should we go ahead and remove these trees?

Should we let nature take its course, etc.?

Should we plan for future with under slowly planting to replace that ash?

There's a lot, but it's gonna have a major impact.

Um it's kind of forcing everyone's hands and I get to see more.

So is the infrastructure absolutely limited to ash trees?

Because I thought I heard that they were starting to affect the white oak.

No, not oak, that's a that's different beetle.

Okay.

So there's emerald ash, Rego, and there we go.

Emerald ash is the big okay, and then that's it's green, you know, about an inch, they leave D-shaped holes, you know, like pencil, I mean pen or pencil size.

They kill ash, and they've been found to have an effect on fringe trees and olive soil, uh, edible olive, right?

So but ash is the main one, and it's pretty much the whole family of ash minus one that uh evolved in the same natural area that's developed natural resistance.

I'll just share, you know.

Um this both keeps me up at night and I know only enough to be dangerous.

But in conversations I've had with Director Sally at NCPRD, I think this this point Alfred's making of like agencies kind of reconciling with just take them all out or try to treat is gonna come up in our parks.

Um, and in our fun relationship with NCPRD, we're gonna have some interesting conversations there.

Both about who makes the call and who pays for whatever the call is that gets made.

So Director Sally's starting to talk to me about our concerns about trees around North Blackamas Park.

I believe Alfred and Katie have been out there with NCPRD staff looking at that.

But shop that's have come as a surprise to you when that's that's probably gonna be a policy decision and sort of they maintain the park, but they may have a different approach than we would want to take to um how we address that issue.

Interesting.

So um we own the land, do we own the trees?

We do.

I think we would say they are our infrastructure.

I think that's our vote.

Yeah, I think they would just say then great, and then you get to pay for then, you know, it's gonna become about money more than I think it's even going to become about decision making path.

Okay.

I'll I'll I'll just mention like I I've had screen development back in the world.

We had shooting airport space and the air forks that was like their primary street tree that they told the current manage.

So we we found it going to seven or eight, and it was more spread, and we we did take down all of the trees, all of the ash trees that were within the right way on that work.

Um that we were able to, but it would it was significant change to the environment.

Uh, but they were to the point where uh they were not it wasn't treatable, and I don't think they had uh developed uh you know that those treatment options that may be available now that maybe that that may be yeah, that might be available now, but um we took down probably 12, 1300 trees.

Yeah, yeah.

Ohfred, you talked a little bit about how you see Milwaukee as compared to the cities in southern California you worked in.

We've got a pretty good tree canopy.

We've also got development.

We just had like a three two-hour bender of a conversation about our tree code and trying to find the right balance between people who want to preserve our canopy and the people like Emma who are building houses here, trying to find out how we model that around our tree code and the people who are struggling with maintenance of trees on their property.

Do you think as the one who like is doing this on the ground?

Do you think we've hit a good balance?

Or like what if not, what are the things that we need to do to balance these two that you maybe have seen in other cities you worked at?

I mean, if you want to take the decision of hey, we want to preserve a cat, right?

Where we want affordability, we want new plants to be built, but at the same time, we want to preserve trees that we have.

I think you need to tighten the screw a little bit in this case because you know, developing right now is you pay the fee, and then you're able to take out all of the trees and go from there.

And that's similar to the recommendations that we gave at the council meeting.

Cities that that do go full, you know, full tilt on the let's get every single house of what we can.

If the trees are there, let's take it or not.

You you lose a lot of the character of the community, right?

You'll lose all of those benefits, and then you're stuck with smaller trees that frankly do not usually make it.

And when they do make it, you're talking about decades before you get similar effects.

A lot of times they're under these warranty periods with development, and then from there, their maintenance and their care is kind of in the air, right?

Nobody wants to take, nobody wants to flip the belt.

So when you compare a replacement tree or young tree like that to something that's been established, is sustainable, is providing all of these benefits.

You're talking about a huge time sink, a huge waste of resources, and on top of that, unpredictability, right?

You can't plant a tree and be like 100%, it's gonna be there in 50 years and provide similar benefits to what we just yeah, yeah.

I think there's easily approach that balances those two.

Um I don't recommend going the full other way, right?

Where you prevent any kind of development, because then we're just gonna find where we're dealing with affordability crisis.

So it needs to be else.

I think right now we're leaning more towards that.

It's trees are inconvenient, so it's taken down.

Well, as I remember our code, our landscape bonds are usually for five years.

So are there other cities who go beyond it?

I mean, there are some, but it's not widespread.

This warranty is actually quite nice to be to prepare.

A lot of cities don't have that requirement for a lot of cities.

Um they just want to see the kind of coverage net, whether that's forecast or not, and then they walk away from it.

Exactly.

And then year two, year one, the right after people take them out.

The developers even, you know, multiple times come out and take in those trees because they are they're no, they're there's costs associated with them, and they're not really taking account the benefits that they would provide.

It's more of a how much I'm gonna have to pay to fix this for how many complaints I'm gonna have to deal with it, I'm getting leaves, etc.

I got a question.

Yes.

Considering all this that we just discussed, like emerald ash or potential policy decision of what to do with those trees, the development stuff, tree code.

Obviously, you know our tree canopy goal is 40%, right?

Like with all these does that seem realistic?

Does that seem over ambitious?

Do we need to re-evaluate that that or at least maybe the timeline that we're sitting on?

Like what are we looking at?

I think you will you should spend or you we will serve to to at least take some more time to reevaluate it and see where we are if that commitment is to 40%, maybe changing some policies like the recommendations that we gave.

I mean, since I've been on staff, I've seen quite a few large trees, relatively healthy, right?

Not every not any tree is is uh defect tree, right?

Every single tree has risk associated with it.

But trees that really shouldn't have come down, yeah, from an arbor standpoint, have quite quite easily, quite quickly and quite frequently since I've been talking about one or two trees here and there, yeah, talking about a significant number and they're large, these are these are really impactful trees from development, right?

Yeah, yeah, from development, and then you throw in the another aspect of this whole dash, which I kind of view as like a slow-moving wildfire, yeah, right?

And you're talking about a major significant loss.

Jeez.

Well, I appreciate that.

Yeah, of course.

I think uh a good way to try to strive towards that goal is starting to reply now, right?

Doubling down on that planting effort, finding out where we can find the funds for just saying, hey, we are committed to that growth, resting things.

Here's a good way to start going about it.

Yeah, true.

I think you want to say that Nicole told us to sit down here, right?

I did because I didn't want to do that.

So we don't normally do this, you know, summer camp style with the staff on there in the sole there.

So uh it's on the cult.

It's all my fault.

We don't feel comfortable in this setup, and we want to keep needing this room.

We can we can sit however feels best.

We can play musical chairs now if you want.

That was an invitation to dance, right?

We've got four more minutes on this agenda item.

Marta, I have one quick question for you.

Um, you're coming to us from Italy, and you bring all that experience with government there with your life there.

What are some things that you see happening in Italy that we're not doing here in the United States that you think at the local level we should be trying to do more or that you're missing?

Oh, I would say you're doing way more than it's okay.

Yeah, I think italy it's meddies, a little change happens, medi is low.

Um, that you consider about the country and Milwaukee, especially, I think they just had good uh rhythm, and at least conversations are happening, and as Alfred was saying, okay, maybe what else does that really good size that to just see the implementation also going pretty pretty fast?

So that's what excited me about being here.

Um so yeah, yeah, either we have some more to learn from the other way.

That's interesting to say because there's one thing that you mentioned.

I just want to ask you real quick.

You mentioned the tiny homes.

Yeah, you were talking.

Yeah, can you expand on that?

Yeah, so that was actually mostly through the um Parton State University, yeah.

Um, and the homelessness research and action collaborative that is over there.

Right.

I was part of the first uh CD supported the tiny home village that was created in Canton and North Portland.

And so I was part of that process, and it was just really interesting to see how that developed because you know, tiny home villages were first and foremost created by people experiencing homelessness, but then with the fact that the city supported the first one.

Um we kind of you know, we kind of run the risk of that model.

We weaponized the somehow against the uh Hanause population because now if there wasn't CD approved, uh it could not have happened.

Yeah, so it was just um really interesting.

Um but I was more on the design um side of it, and so just looking at uh um a zoning uh uh tiny home villages, so it's tiny homes with a specific uh square footage, they are usually like you're able to um lift them up with a forklift uh that is a mobile um yeah, shipping containers in the common utility use and so it's all within the frame of uh um the framework of them being a temporary, even though uh open they become a little bit more permanent.

Uh uh, but then yeah, worked in there was the veterans village that we opened uh um yes, yeah.

I'm a veteran.

I I've worked with them a lot in my day job.

Okay, yeah.

Um, so yeah, just different uh um different villages uh across the region.

So great model over there, yeah.

It's a great model.

Yeah, and we do have uh um an how-to guide, we call it where after a few years we did run a study.

Um yeah, for sure.

I'd love to study that we're interviewing residents and um just also getting the feedback learning lessons to see how we can improve the model.

That's fantastic.

I would love to expand more on the zoning stuff with tiny homes.

I'd love to learn more about that to make that work.

Well, now we have a problem because you've excited at Adam scared counselor mass off the trees.

So that makes it um thank you all for coming.

It's really nice to see.

I mean, we have staff that I'm just really really thrilled to work with, and I cannot believe the type of people that we get to come work for the city.

I know, I was so like yeah, it's really great.

So what do you do to get them here?

Secret songs, uh, you bring million, huh?

Yeah, yeah, it's gotta be so much.

Yeah, thank you.

Our study sessions are public.

So if you want to stay in mind about parts, you're welcome to watch online too, but I hear the video feed is pretty bad.

And I just see how from the work structure constellation, these guys are all on the same team.

So Adam, uh Fred and Marta all were 14.

And so it's a wonderful side from climate sources that came to that.

Well, we can turn it to your last team member.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Is there anything in this fridge?

Yeah, check it out.

There's over there.

No, no, they're in here.

They should put something in.

There might be something you guys can like.

There's a presentation, but it's a follow up.

Uh it's two-sided.

There we go.

Okay, and then one more thing.

I don't have a clicky click for you.

So if it's okay, we can do that.

Somewhat words.

This this room is not my favorite room.

Almost, almost time.

I only mean theory up.

You do it right, Nicole.

I feel like I'm doing really great.

Okay.

Now that we have I just need to be believed.

Never lost the faith.

Okay.

So just wanted to provide a little bit of clarity.

Uh community choice program.

And talk about the recommendations for how we move forward in this community choice program.

Um background.

Um just for everybody's benefit.

But I know it's been a little bit confusing.

So there are actually four Metro grant programs underneath the umbrella of nature and neighborhoods.

There's the community choice, which is what brings us here today.

This is a small participatory grant program from the community.

So all the ideas that you're looking at came from the community and made it through the first round of voting.

There's the capital program, which are for large public school improvements.

Uh next year, Metro will have $7 million to spend in that pot, and that those grants will be allowed up to $2 million.

They also do a nature education program.

Those are available every two years to build partnerships and to connect people to nature.

That's mostly through educational programming.

Um, although they will do some access or uh you know interpretive signage.

And then they have the community stewardship and restoration grants.

Uh those are to support and build partnerships.

Uh all of the programs here support restoration of wildlife habitat, improvement of water quality, and connecting people to nature close to home.

And the grants are uh specific emphasis on working with historically marginalized communities, and the link is there for folks.

So you may have heard folks talk about nature and neighborhoods, but this is just to provide a little bit of clarity.

There are multiple programs in there.

Right now we're talking about community choice, although the CAPO program will come up and has come up a little bit past.

So the community choice program.

So Metro, this is the second time Metro has done this.

They did it in 2023 in Washington County.

Uh participation has been well and above that that they did in Washington County.

Program is set up to invest two to three million dollars in total funding in either Milwaukee, Johnson City, Gladstone, Oregon City, and the unincorporated areas in Clark's County, served by NCPR.

These are expected 250,000 grants or projects, they can be larger, but all of them would require an 85,000 match from the city, and that would give us 165,000 in new grant dollars.

These are expected to be awarded next fall.

Although with all of the participation, we have seen the calendar kind of stretch out a little bit.

Um so that might also get extended, but even after award, you'd have two years to figure out the IGA, and then once that IGA is signed with Metro, you'd have three years for implementation.

Um the projects are developed and voted on by the community.

So there's three development stages.

We are gearing up for the third and final development stage.

So the community submitted ideas, they developed the ideas, they voted on the ideas, and that gave us the uh the list of 50.

And uh those 50, 19 were from Milwaukee, which we'll dive into in a second.

So as I mentioned, twice as much participation in Washington County, 178 projects total were submitted.

83 of them were going to the first vote.

Uh over 40 of those projects of the 83 that went to vote were from Milwaukee.

Um, and there was over 1400 people that participated in the first round.

Um because of all the participation and because of how popular the projects in Milwaukee turned out to be, um, probably thanks to um some door knocking operations that I heard about.

Um Metro had to increase the list of projects that made it through to the second round from 30 to 50.

Had they kept it at 30, poor Gladstone wouldn't have had a project on the list.

Um so as I mentioned, of the 50 projects, 19 of them are in Milwaukee, including in the top three.

Uh Metro's been very clear.

There's only going to be 15 projects that get funded countywide.

So already we have too many projects, especially when you consider the fact that these have an $85,000 match, and that we know that there's going to be some geographical distribution.

It feels like we need to insert into this process now a little bit of strategy and pare down the list of what will go to development in the second round.

And so that's what brings us here today.

Uh, the development in the second round will be done through will either be done online or through four public design workshops.

That includes a special pard meeting on February 18th at the Letting Library.

That would be open to the public and Metro will run it.

Um, and that development would include site plans, budgets, and basic designs.

And that would all be done before the second vote.

The second vote would be open to anyone over the age of 11 in the Metro region.

Um, how many votes people will get, I'm not sure about.

Um, but the bottom line really is we just have too many project models list right now.

So we received the results on November 10th.

Uh next day was holiday.

We met with Metro on November 14th.

We, as staff developed a recommendation list of nine projects that we felt should need forward.

That list of nine projects was based on project feasibility, relationship to larger projects and tools, availability of match dollars and the popularity of influence vote.

Um, there were some projects that we recommended would go better as perhaps not as community choice projects, but maybe attached to that larger project in the capital program.

At the park meeting in November, we went through all 43 projects.

PARP stayed late.

Um we had a really good discussion on the recommendation list, and PAR decided that they wanted to add a tenth to the list.

So what you are going to see now are our recommendations that are approved, and you have the full list to kind of follow through.

The first thing I'm gonna talk about is the projects that I feel we need to remove from community choice and instead apply for capital program grants.

And that is the number two project uh in the program.

Number two is activate Milwaukee waterfront.

You might be saying, well, hey, this received a ton of votes.

Why are we going to remove it?

And that is because if you read the project idea, it is essentially phase three of Milwaukee Bay Park.

Phase three of Milwaukee Bay Park is a is multi-million dollar project.

It's not a 250,000 dollar project.

I'm recommending that we remove number two from the list and instead apply for a capital program grant in 2026 for $2 million for Milwaukee Bay Park Phase 3.

That would achieve all the goals in project number two there.

Projects 23 and 27 were related to Kellogg Creek.

Um Creek has the restoration project.

Both of those hoof projects are well within the scope of project and the project area.

Kellogg is playing with uh, you know, a different budget than community choice as well, even a different budget than Milwaukee Bay Park.

So you know, another 165,000 for the Calon Creek restoration really isn't going to do a whole lot.

So for those projects number 23 and 27, I'm also going to recommend that we remove those from community choice and perhaps apply for a Capper program in 2027.

Or a couple of the projects, it feels best to combine and prioritize.

So project 42 with a Mintport Creek Restoration Project idea that was near the industrial area off Railroad Avenue.

Um the number 13 project was the Mentor Springs boardwalk.

I'm going to recommend that we put all of our eggs in the Minthor and Springs boardwalk when it comes to Minthorn Creek or Mentor Springs.

Let's prioritize that restoration in the number 13 project and remove number 42.

Uh, the number seven project, uh, I believe that we should just take what's useful out of that and put it into the number three project, which is habitat restoration at Elk Rock Island.

An accessible boardwalk out to Elk Rock Island is going to cost way more than 250,000.

It would be an engineering marvel.

And the amount of permitting that would require to get people out there is going to really be really make this project infeasible.

So while we supported this idea moving forward into the first round of voting to kind of, you know, uh gauge the community on how interested they were to feel like with the habitat restoration project being number three overall, let's put all of our eggs in that restoration on Elk Rock Island.

Uh, that's not to say that an accessible boardwalk out there or fishing pier at Elk Rock Island is a bad idea.

None of these ideas are bad ideas.

It's just in terms of what do we prioritize and what can we hope to get through the voting of the next round?

It seems like we should you know consolidate on the restoration of Elbrook Island.

Can you clarify here?

So with the grants, each grant allocation is for 250,000.

And there's an additional 85,000 of city funds or it's 1655.

Okay.

And there are 15 of those 250,000 grants that are going to be distributed more or less.

More or less, yeah.

Yeah.

Uh-huh.

That's for 40.

Uh projects that I think that we should remove.

Um the Ardenwald number 43, the Art North Community Garden and Food Forest.

This was very low on the list.

It would not have made the original cut of 30.

Perhaps more importantly, we are still having that discussion on how to have community gardens and food forests in our parks.

I think it's best that we develop that strategy and build a strong partnership to ensure that community garden food forests are a success.

Um given the kind of lack of uh popularity of this idea versus the other ones, I think we should just remove this one.

Um, there's a whole lot of projects that are on the backside of that handout.

They're all really good ideas.

They just don't fit, or they're just not going to work for this grant program.

That doesn't mean we need to throw them out.

We can work on developing those ideas and working with groups to develop them more.

So we're not saying we're not trying to kill the idea.

We're just trying to say, like, for strategy purposes, let's let's remove it from this round of community choice.

Now, uh Alfred left the room, which is probably a good thing because the number 12 project was increased tree canopy.

I didn't we did talk about this as a team.

Um the increased tree canopy project in this uh round of grants was suggested for the ODOT right away along 224.

Um while we're always looking for money to plant trees, the opportunity cost of getting one of these community choice grants for tree planting would take away from active recreation or access to nature project, which has a lot more limited funding than perhaps just finding money to plant trees.

Um, you know, we've talked it over with Katie, and we felt that there are probably other programs that we can use to increase our tree canopy and therefore make some space in this community choice program to allow for some of those access to nature and nature-based active recreation projects.

Just because the pro the funding available for these types of projects is much more limited than pre-planting money.

I hope I express that.

I think the other thing I would have it would just be it's probably a challenge to put trees on the land.

Yeah, a maintenance agreement with them might look something to the fact of, oh, you're gonna maintain the entire right-of-way along 224.

Great, thanks.

Now, there are multiple jurisdictional partners in this program.

Uh and NCPRD is one that decided to participate.

Uh, the number number 29 project on the list is to enhance the dog park experience at North Clackamas Park.

That would essentially move the dog park away from the creek, build a riparian area between the dog park and the creek, which would improve the quality of the creek and make for a better experience at North Clackmas Park.

We know that that would be very popular with our residents.

The thing is that given the city's current goals and the fact that NCPRD has been very clear that they have a short-term project at North Clackamas Park.

I think number 29 is one that we might want to see if they want to take the lead on.

I say that because that $85,000 match doesn't seem like it would fit our priorities as well as it maybe fits theirs.

Their priority project or their short-term project at North Clackmas Park could be the match in and of itself.

And this would you know allow for another 165,000 there.

Excuse me, is an accessible nature skate.

Don't ask me what accessible nature skate really means.

Similar to Nature Play, the idea being that we are encouraging people to go out and skateboard in one of our parks, not at a skate park, maybe a skate spot um that is close to nature.

We already have one on the list for Water Tower Park.

And at during the development of this, Project 41 got moved outside of our city limits.

So I think for our purposes, we remove Project 41.

If NCPRD wants to take it on because it's outside the city limits, it would be welcome to it.

But these two projects, I don't feel like the city shouldn't form, especially even as popular as number 29.

So here's the list.

So the first uh going from the bottom to the top, restore Fernburg wetlands.

We know that there's a lot of interest in Fernburg Park from the neighborhood association.

So you're going to see two distinct Fernburg projects on there.

Um we also know that we do have a number of ash trees in that wetland area and repairing area in Fernburg Park.

So this could be part of that strategy to address those ashtries there.

Uh project number 28 is to this is the one that PARB added in.

They felt it was too important to perhaps transfer over to NCPRD, and this would create a new accessible connection to North Clackamas Park from Casa del Rey Drive into the park.

You might be familiar, the north end of the park kind of has a bridge that goes over the creek, and then that's it.

This would be where that creek would go up to the street and provide access to the neighborhood.

It would be, as far as I am aware, the only non-car access to North Clackamas Park.

And for those reasons, PARP felt that we should hang on to that one and try and move it forward.

Number 26 is the railroad bike trail oasis.

So we have in our CIP releasing a design of a bike trail on railroad.

Um, this was put on the map down around 47th Avenue, which is a part of desert for us.

And so we're not a hundred percent sure that we could get this little oasis in the right-of-way, or maybe to line up with the bike trail well.

There is public property around there that we could perhaps create a pocket park that would be eventually connected to that trail or near that trail.

Either way, we feel like this project is kind of unique.

It fits in with a lot of different goals that we're trying to achieve, and we should move this forward for development with the community and see what happens in the second round of votes.

Fernburg Nature Plague, so that would be a nature-based playground at Fernwood Park.

Uh, Hermberg Park, we have tried to do updates to through ARPA, and that was not successful.

Um the neighborhood association was out knocking on doors and really pushing hard for a project at Fernburg.

We do feel like this is different enough from the wetland restoration to have both of them on the list, metro degrees.

Um, and we can essentially use the second boat as part of our keynote engagement process for that.

Uh, accessible nature skate at Watertower Park.

What is accessible nature skate mean?

Uh, as I said, I don't really know.

Uh, but this would be a skate spot at Watertower Park with natural enhancements around it.

Um, part was really interested in this.

They felt like the sort of things on the list.

This was the one that they had heard about from neighbors, you know, who have uh teenage children in particular.

And so there's a lot of complications at Watertower Park.

It's a very full park.

It has the water infrastructure, which can't go anywhere.

It has the water infrastructure that would take priority over recreational enhancements there.

But I think it's worthwhile to keep it in the development process and see what our residents really want to do with that and see what the landscape architects can do with that in the development process.

So we felt again it's it scored very high.

It's just fairly unique, and let's keep it in the program for now.

There's no reason to limit it.

The board walk at Minthorne Springs.

So we have a good neighbor grant with the and a relationship with the wetlands conservancy.

This would be focused on the public property around the wetlands conservancy land.

Metro's already talked with the wetland conservancy.

We feel like this is a really strong project that really meets a lot of the goals of the city and the program.

So we'd like to see that one stay on there and see what the community can come up with in the development.

We could use good neighbor fonts as the match should be needed.

The landscape architects are Gaga over project number nine, which is the Milwaukee neighborhood Swift Roost.

So you might know that we have in our capital improvement plan the deconstruction of the Bertman House.

This would provide additional funds for natural plantings and gathering space around that swift roost and then perhaps even funds for the Swift Roost.

So we feel like that one should stay in there.

Connecting the waterfront trails.

So if you're in Milwaukee Bay Park and you're headed south, you have two options on a trail.

You have the trolley trail along 99, where you have the west trail along the lamet.

We would take that west trail down the millamot.

You wind up in the island station neighborhood, and you look around and you say, Oh, where am I?

I guess I turn around.

So the idea for number six is to try to find some connection between the West Trail and the Trolley Trail.

The idea that was submitted online, I actually looked at connecting that maybe to Crohnburg Park.

I'm not sure if that's possible.

But we felt again that this was a project that was worth really considering and see what comes out of the development round of projects.

Number three, um, so we know there's a ton of interest in restoring the habitat at Elk Rock Island.

There were several projects for Elk Rock Island.

We recommend that we just group those into one, put all of our weight behind its habitat restoration.

Number three, we can use good neighbor funds for the match if we need it.

Um then number one was water access for swimmers at Milwaukee Bay Park.

Now this project is distinct from phase three.

And so the reason that we feel like we need to keep it on this list is not only was it the number one project out of over 1400 people voted on or purpose faded in, but also because Milwaukee Bay Park phase three does not go underneath ordinary high water.

It does not address getting people to the river itself.

That was intentional in phase three.

I believe you mentioned at one of our work sessions in the past about how we wanted to keep phase three above ordinary high water to avoid the different complications of permitting and costs that comes with working under those areas.

So no matter what this water access for swimmers at Milwaukee Bay Park project turns into through the development round, it fills in a gap of Milwaukee Bay Park phase three.

Um because it's under ordinary high water, we don't feel like we should roll it into phase three of Milwaukee Bay Park.

We think we should keep it outside of that, but maybe coordinated with it.

So think of it maybe as a phase 3.5.

Um I do want to be really careful in expectations.

I know a lot of people were pushing the idea of a swim dock.

Swim docks can be very, very expensive.

One similar to Sellwood Riverfront Park would be probably close to a million dollars.

Um because they have to be a length to float, they have to articulate, they have to take on the storms.

Now there are lots of things that you can do for 250,000 and still fill in that gap of getting people from the parking lot of Milwaukee Bay Park but to the water's edge in an accessible fashion.

So don't look at Selwood Riverfront and think that that's 250,000.

I'm not trying to kill the idea.

There's obviously ways that you could expand that and still do an um do a swim dock at Milwaukee Bay Park.

Um but I think that no matter what we do, we should leave this project number one in there, see what the community develops, see what the landscape architects can work with in that budget, and then we can have more discussions after that second round of voting.

Um and then as I mentioned, I recommend that project number two we remove, and then instead apply for a capital nature and neighborhoods grant for $2 million in 2026 for Milwaukee Bay Park, and then the Kellogg Restoration Project, I think we prioritize or we wrap in project number 23 and 27 into that project, and then a capital grant might be available in 2027 for that.

So these are the recommendations uh as brought to you by PAR through me.

So sorry, I missed the beginning, but um you put parv added on the one, so that was not your suggestion.

That was something par that was one that parv added, yeah.

So my it was on the bigger list.

It was on, but they wanted it to make the cut.

Yeah.

So that one is at North Clackmas Park.

That would be a trail connection from Casa del Rey Street to the bridge to nowhere in North Clackness Park.

From Cherry Farms, yeah.

Casa del Rey has a catch.

And it has a connection, it's from Cherry Vino Farms.

But it's yeah, I think they're really, I mean, they're right adjacent to each other.

Yeah, okay.

This is a trail connection from outside of North Blackmas Park into Clare Clackness Park.

We were going to recommend that perhaps uh NCPRD take the lead on that project because they have the short-term priority project in North Clackamas Park that maybe could be used for match.

We discussed that at the last part meeting, and part said we want to they want a pedestrian route to North Clack.

They want a pedestrian route, and they felt it was too important to give up.

They want to see us take this on and be the lead on it, should it move forward out of the second round of voting?

So and the ones that you had some other ones that like the dog park and stuff.

Have you had those conversations with NCPRD?

Uh, Metro would be leading those discussions.

Uh I'll follow.

I wanted to see what your recommendation was first, and then we'll we'll ping Metro and then we can reach out to our partners at NCPRD.

Um before we talk about the ones that are on the list, one more thing on the um increased tree canopy.

I do think um, just as we go into the next budget cycle, understanding how the tree fund is being spent.

There is like what does tree planting look like with these funds?

Um, and like Alfred was saying, like what is happening with our 40% tree canopy goal.

Um, I think it's a conversation that we can have separate from this.

I totally understand your rationale here.

Um but would love to continue that conversation.

Yeah, absolutely.

Yeah.

And just just very quickly, there's some you add on there.

There's an two years to develop an IGO, three years to implement so 2026 they rewarded.

So it could be as late as 2031 wrapping up the project.

Yeah, so we will have some time to spread these out in the CIP if we don't have a readily available project or perhaps good neighbor fonts to use as match.

Um, but we will have some time for this.

The city can remove a project from this list at any time.

And you know, we we didn't feel like we were going to kind of intercede into Metro's process at this point.

Um, but given that we've got 19 projects on a list of 50 and we know they're only going to fund 15.

And when we're talking about budget, people are looking at me like I'm crazy when I'm saying, hey, we're gonna put 10 projects forward for development, right?

Because that's $850,000 in match potentially.

Um but I think that this is a good healthy list.

There's a lot of variety, there's a lot that we can learn from this process that Metro was hosting.

know they're only going to fund 15 and we were talking about budget people are looking at me like I'm crazy when I'm saying hey we're gonna put 10 projects forward for development right because that's 850 000 in match potentially but I think that this is a good healthy list there's a lot of variety there's a lot that we can learn from this process that Metro was hosting and I for one am really excited to see what the community development process comes up with these 10 projects and then really interested to see in how popular they turn out to be um it's well I was just really thrilled with the the community you know uh participation we had in this project and which really speaks well of the you know sort of the community spirit of the city um but I think that this uh is a thoughtful list uh a thoughtful uh combination elimination prioritization list uh that tries to bring some reality to it because and I think Metro is uh you know it Myers Milwaukee's participation everything like that but at the same time we're not gonna get this many projects there Metro is a government entity and they're gonna want to spread out the awards okay and so this is a realization that we're we're not gonna get 19 projects or anything like that.

And so I think that uh I think it will be appreciated uh by Metro that we're not putting them in a hard spot of demanding that you know all of our projects be funded uh and that kind of thing and trying to we're doing you know some of the whittling down for them which I think is actually a smart strategic roof it's still a lot well yeah I mean we're not gonna get all of these projects yeah definitely not that um I will say the one that gives me a little heartburn that's struck from the list is the um treat stormwater above Kellogg Creek I mean I get that there's a bigger capital uh ask to go for for if the dam comes out but I think this is the project that this that the larger council put in and I hope we talked to them um about projects they have been studying irrespective of the dam out at Rao Middle School we have this project in our stormwater system plan as a as a capital project and I think I think in recognition of the work that's happening at Kellogg you know we we recognize the importance of it it's also on property that we don't own so it it poses some some challenges from that perspective in terms of getting you know access to that property and then we've over the years we've had discussions with uh the school I think I even mentioned to Emma this week about talking to them about the route middle school and our future um future desires to place some formwater treatment at that outfall there um I do think though the cost of the project that that the 85 the 250 000 isn't kind of anywhere close to what we need to do that to do that yeah so um so it's it's it's a small pot of money uh that may that could be useful perhaps to utilize i not to create not to to build but perhaps design but i don't think it fits like what we need to do there right now yeah does that make sense does that make sense well that makes sense i just hope somebody's talking the budget council because i know they've been talking to the school as well about doing it as an educational thing you know doing it for the stormwater benefits but also as a project to follow the kids which they you know started doing with their macro invertebrate work and all of that all watershed counselors are and our jurisdictional partners in um the community choice program and they are there as like the representatives for nature um and so you know we can I've talked with um about and we talked in meetings about the Calwalk project about how yeah the community choice program is really cool but we just don't feel like it's gonna support but this project was i i yeah I'm not talking about calaha I'm not talking about the dam I guess um this project has been in their watershed action plan for eight years nine in there's like this it's a it's a project they've had that's sort of independent this was keeping yeah and like I said we were it's it's an addition to our strong options so we've identified it as uh as a project to further develop I did the one thing I did I I would have heard I brought up about like the cone like some of these projects like like the Swift Roosevelt if we let's say that project moves forward under this piece that look we needly earning the the deconstruction of Burton House for several years because we would utilize that work as our match for that grant that to improve that so it's got to have

If we let's say that project moves forward under this piece, that will clean up probably the deconstruction of Burton House for several years because we would utilize that work as our match for that grant that to improve that.

So instead of being in next year's bienning on budget and the probably the following year.

So there's those impacts to some projects on the I think it would be helpful, it'd be a great project.

So I will say on the um I walked in when you were talking about the um nature skate, and I I don't have a good I never you know, I read what was on the voting thing, but it didn't, I don't really have a good sense of what somebody's envisioning there.

I know we have no skate park in Milwaukee, and so and and a setting partial something that was asked for in the very first uh time when I was a new counselor in 2015 when we did goal setting and we asked for community inputs, there was a big advocacy for skate parks.

So I mean, I I I put it in and it's one of my votes.

I don't know what it looks like, and I don't know how compatible it is with the play areas.

I have seen some Facebook comments from parents who use the play areas who are concerned about um you know it becoming dangerous because there's people skating around and the little ones can't play in their on their playground.

So I realize that one is gonna be complicated is what you were saying.

We did discuss that at the pardon meeting last month that you know there were in the initial idea collection, there were several ideas for Watertower Park.

This was one of them.

This is the one that made it through to the vote.

Uh we are recommending uh, I think PARP felt that the idea of NatureScape was unique and exciting, and just like you uh and I they weren't quite sure how it would work at Watertower Park, but that's what the team of landscape architects at Metro are available to do for us.

So for some of these projects, you know, the discussion at the par meeting was let's utilize the resources that Metro is bringing to the table in this grant process and try to work some of this out with the community.

It might be that any number of these 10 projects the community decides are uncompatible or need to look a little bit different, and the place to do that is in those workshops of February.

So I share a lot of your concerns about that.

Peter and I had a lot of talks about this.

Um, and that's something that our residents can let us know and let Metro know.

And if we feel like we need to move it out of here uh ahead of the second vote, we can do that.

But I think like let's let those landscape architects in the community kind of chew on this one a little bit and see what comes out of it.

So we're I'm sorry, I'm sure you said this before I got here, but we're expecting Metro to come to the meeting in February with kind of concepts on all ten of these.

So the development project or the development period for the second round is about developing site plans, basic site plans, budgets, and designs.

So that is something that they will work out with the community.

That's why I had to meet with Metro a couple weeks ago and start getting them documentation on all the project areas.

So Metro already has the uh comprehensive plan for Water Tower Park from back in the day.

They have our information on what could or couldn't be allowed there in terms of water infrastructure.

Um, and they've been working on that for along with the rest of the 50 projects for for weeks now.

Yeah.

In the design process, you've talked a little bit about the um swim dock in the walkway park.

I know that a lot of people really want to see a dock to be able to get into that deep water, not just having to wait through the course bit.

Um, I know someone like, oh, I hate touching the river bottom.

So I get it.

Just like how foreclosed is the idea of a swim dock in the design process.

If community members really push for a dock.

Not closed at all.

Okay.

Okay.

So and I I just now the question with all of these projects and all of these ideas is always going to be twofold.

How much are you willing to spend and how much time are you willing to spend on doing it?

You know, so if people come to us and say, hey, great, an accessible pathway and ramp that gets me down to the water's edge, which is not part of Milwaukee Bay Park phase three design right now.

That's all well and good.

But I want a swim dock, and I want to make sure that that swim dock um is safe from the boating access and doesn't have to be removed seasonally like the like the boating dock does.

Like if people push for that and say, hey, go find one point two million dollars in three more years to build that.

That's a decision for all of you all.

I think, right?

So from our perspective, I think it's really just a question of do you want to try and again assuming it stays like makes it through the second round, right?

Assuming it makes it through the second round.

Do you want to spend 250,000 on something that gets close to the community's goals?

Or do you want to say, hey, Metro, we want to spend a couple of years figuring this out and going out and finding the additional money to make a Milwaukee Bay Park phase four with a swim dock.

So to clarify, Metro in this next phase is going to work with applicants or work with the community at large to scope and design some of these elements.

Cost will be something that they discuss with people as they do this.

They'll arrive at a design.

It might not be constrained to 150,000.

It gets brought back to us.

We give our two cents and then they award grants, or do they award grants before we give our two cents on cost over runs over 250,000?

At any point we can give our two cents and pull the project.

We would have if awarded 250,000 to provide water access for swimmers at Milwaukee Bay Park, and we say, gee, we really don't like the look of that.

We really want to go for that swim dock.

We can say, Hey, Metro, we've got two years for that's IgA.

Will you give us some more time to see if we can we can work with this?

Um, we don't have to accept the graft.

Um do they queue up something that gets the granted if you don't?

Do they have a these are the granted and these are the wait list objects or something if a granted project falls through?

I don't know the answer to that question.

Um my understanding is that the process will go through development.

There'll be a second round of votes.

The top 15 projects would then be taken to the Met Council for a vote on whether or not to award those projects or not, and then at that point we would have decision to make on whether or not we accept the project or not.

We might get through we might find ourselves next summer saying, you know what, we were wrong about this project.

We don't think it's gonna fit.

We heard from the community and Metro, please don't put this out to vote.

You know, we can do that should we want to.

Um I think what Adam is just saying is that you know, in his understanding of what you know, he's here from the community and what they want.

It just may not be a good fit because of this 250,000 dollar cap.

We just, you know, it's it's it's not feasible.

I just can't get there from here.

Uh but it's on the list and we'll see.

I mean, I don't I don't think we want to close it off yet.

We want to, I mean, I think the landscape architects can, if nothing else, can uh inform us about what's doable and what's not doable for any other further actions of the world type layer.

Yeah, and I think there's a map of a coalition that got that to be number one in the voting that there are some people who would raise some money for that project.

Um and I think that's my question there.

I wouldn't want us I love that this is a community-led process.

Let the community decide with the fiscal constraints and make an informed decision about what they want the process to look like.

I would hate if we preemptively foreclosed that option, but it sounds like we're not doing that.

That sounds great.

Yeah, we're not gonna do that.

In fact, you know, the backside of this page is one that really kind of interests me because there's a whole lot of projects on here that are really great projects that fit our goals.

But none of these ideas were gonna throw away.

Um we know that these are things that people want, and we can find a way to achieve them just not through community chips.

Yeah, and I mean, I like there's 51 and 79 are both burning in Scott Park.

If they had been merged, we'll they might have made like a well.

So in that kind of comes down to how the consultants put it on the website.

So I've tried that adheses there.

So number 51 was about a boardwalk.

Um to see the ducks.

Oh, uh-huh.

And 79 was a Merlin kiosk, right?

A permanent electronic interactive kiosk near the line.

And so they were just like the firm bird, they were two very distinct projects that we didn't feel like could be production.

Um would it have gotten more than it would have been 49 instead of 51?

I don't know.

Yeah, you know, I was definitely disappointed um in that one, but yeah, you know, like I said, none of these are bad ideas.

I like 59.

Yeah, you're submitted.

One final one did that.

That had a nice description.

Some of them had you mentioned you read the description and you still didn't know really what they were uh proposing to do, but that one had a lovely description.

That came from one of our equity steering committee members.

Oh, did it?

Um and they did talk with us a lot.

I obviously put in a lot of time into that.

Um, I think that one probably would have gotten more votes had it been tied to an actual area.

I think if you look at you know the top of this list, and you can think about the fact that people in the first round had 10 votes.

Well, you can see a lot coalesced right around downtown Milwaukee and Milwaukee Bay Park.

So there's some some geographical bias here to this boat.

And I wonder if the Persian guards had been close to downtown Milwaukee as opposed to like you know, looking for a location, maybe it would have got again.

No, these ideas are bad ideas, they're just not going to move forward in development for the community choice program.

Let's see what happens in the next round.

Thank you for all your work on that.

You said you didn't know how many votes you were gonna get, but uh what will they be asking for?

I guess it's just open voting again, but anyone over the age of 11, and this time it's open to anyone in the metro area, and that's the same process that they took with Washington County.

Now, Washington County, they only had 600 people vote.

We've already had 1400 people.

So yeah, Metro is really excited and very pleased with the work that is going on from like the greater Clackens County team.

And gosh, did I feel weird talking with them when I looked at that list and saw 19 of the 50 on there?

So I think I think our residents have really set the bar high for us.

So what is this column?

Yes and no.

Oh, I tried to um it's more relevant to the first page.

Um is it related to that to a larger project?

Uh um the idea there being that either that larger project should be part of the capital program, or that that larger project might represent an opportunity for matched hours.

Um like the bourbon house uh deconstruction, um things like that.

So um, I think in some cases you might be able to make the argument that a lot of these are related to larger projects or not.

It was really thinking about what's in our CIP, what do we have funding for already?

We know it's gonna forward in that case.

We've got that 85,000 and we're adding 165 of the money to it.

Nothing else for me.

Uh we did to give this to Metro.

Oh yeah, yeah.

Thanks for coordinating all this with part.

Yeah, thank you very much for the process.

You know, Metro has Metro loves it.

And so I think you probably said at the beginning, like when they when the voting happened, they called him right away and went, okay, so what do you want to do?

Adam spent multiple hours in the funnel with them, but then I appreciate your willingness to also be like, and I'm not the only decision maker.

So we went a little slower.

We talked to Farb, we talked to you guys, but I mean, I think you you are in such great hands at that.

I mean he put such thought and careful attention into this stuff.

But I'm really glad we've done all this process.

This makes me feel a lot better about handing over these 10 too.

Yeah, I agree.

Totally.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Is that it?

Are you guys done?

Five minutes of course reports.

Nobody's jumping talking at the bit.

Well, I'll before Peter leaves, I'll ask, did we have sandbags?

Yes, we do.

Okay.

I think we put something that's covered.

Yeah, we did um coordinated messaging with Blackmost County um RC and diagrams from their communications channels, and then also the counties.

Oh, okay.

I haven't seen it, but it came up in the mayor's call.

Everybody was like, yeah, I like to say a steady streambook.

I get CSS.

I think the John Johnson Creek uh it's starting with the scrested.

Oh, has it?

Okay, that's good.

A lot of energy being produced in that creek there, Peter.

Yeah.

It jumps in.

I drove by that thing over that little bridge like two or three times a day.

I was like, look at all that energy.

Right?

Like it's for that creek man that both yeah.

Good night, friends.

Thank you guys.

Uh I'll give you a couple of uh notes from the mayor's and chairs call, which is where I was um a lot of it wasn't really that related to us.

Uh but uh Clackness Service Center is really demand for food assistance is up by 60 percent.

Whoa, um really definitely encouraging people that who can to make donations there, they really are networked with the schools, the Wichita Center, you know, other places, loved one in terms of getting food out to different points of disbursement in the community.

And so um do they prefer cash or or food?

Oh, I think they probably prefer cash because they have the way to buy wholesale stuff, yeah.

Yeah, okay.

But they will take donations.

Um SHS, uh, I think I told you before, I think I shared a memo about the reform of the oversight committee.

Uh, there is some concern on the part of Clacks County that um, and I've heard this from Washington County too, that the new uh makeup gives Multnomah County too much control.

Um, and they do foresee some uh some discussion next year about uh reallocating money, um, which is now allocated on a per capita basis based on who's paying the tax, um, reallocating more money to Multnomah County.

Um but the good news was the counties appear to one of the issues that had come up in the Metro in the SHS work group that I was on at the beginning of the year was that the different counties had collected data in different ways and use different metrics, and there's been an effort this last you know, this this year to kind of get them all on the same page and get them all using the same metrics, and that is apparently happening and with fairly well.

What data are they talking about?

Like how you measure uh, you know, they have this whole um, you know, how you measure who you're serving in what way, you know, sort of how you count people, um, and how you count the kinds of assistance you're offering people because some of them were defining uh different categories of rent assistance, like there's so many different rent assistance programs, and um so anyway, their metrics I'd have to go back to my those from the beginning of the year to get you some decent examples, but there were uh some pretty good examples about how different counties were counting things differently.

So before you go forward, let me ask you I I think on the am I hearing you say that uh county um uh collects probably more taxes because they have a greater concentration of high income earners.

Is that what is that what the disparity is?

No, I think the dispare, well, it depends on who you ask, probably.

Well, that was pretty simple.

Yeah.

I mean, I think uh the taxes are allocated.

Well, I you know what, I don't actually I should not say that because I don't know the answer to how the taxes are currently allocated, but I know since the SHS was set up, there's been a proportional allocation.

I don't know if it's based on who's paying them or just based on pure uh population numbers.

It has to be on who's paying them.

Yeah.

Because I I'm just I was just sort of taking that next logical step is that Multnomah County would have a higher concentration of high income earners.

But I'm not even sure that's true.

I mean, when you think about about Rebecca just raised her hand because she has an answer to this.

Yeah.

Um Rebecca, you can unmute your panelists, go for it.

Well, hello there.

Um, I just wanted to add a couple of thoughts.

So the tax is gathered at the Metro region level because it was passed um in the three counties.

So the whole pool of funding goes to Metro as the tax collector.

And then the allocations have been done based on population.

Um, and so Multnomah County has has but it's it's also based on um how many people you report serving.

And Multima County has over you know decades served more um people who are experiencing homelessness because Clackamus and Washington County send people into Portland.

Um they will give them bus tickets and send them in and say this is where the shelter is, go go go.

And so then that's where the service point has been.

So um, so the county is advocating for more of the um more of the like per capita uh tax allocation from the metro, like more of their uh portion because they are serving people from all three counties.

Does that help?

Yep.

Yeah, and I do think that's also part of the data uh cleanup that they've done is sort of tracking that, trying to track that.

Right.

Yeah, because I mean the other two counties haven't really had as robust a homeless service system.

Um and so they've been trying to increase their data collection um to be able to justify more of an allocation going to like Clackamas County saying, no, no, no, we deserve everything that you know that our taxes are paying for.

And I mean, there's a logical argument for that, but then also that all three counties agreed that the tax would be levied by Metro.

So um, you know, you're agreeing in that moment to have a share of a metro region.

There's an article in the Valamet week that kind of breaks down some of these by population.

What's the distribution by county by funding?

What's the distribution by county, and then also by homeless population based on homeless accounts, what's the distribution by county?

Um, and the big difference there is or Multnomah County is 45% of the population, or sorry, 45% of the funding, 43% of the population, and 87% of the homeless population in the region.

Glackham County for comparison is um 21% of the funding, 23% of the population, and just 4.7% of the homeless population of the region.

So anyway, I um Metro is expected to Metro Council is expected to adopt some of these um reforms uh before end of the year and and launch a new this new oversight body in the first quarter of next year.

Um yeah, yeah, I think that's probably all that uh warrants being covered in council's reports.

Anything else from anyone else?

All right.

My apologies, counselor Scowder.

I didn't see when you joined.

So if you had comments earlier, I'm so sorry I didn't add you as a panelist here.

Nope, nope, just customers.

No copy.

Thank you.

Good to see you guys.

Legwise too.

All right.

Ho ho ho.

I love your trees.

Who who are you calling a ho?

That's the second time I've said something naughty on camera.

Thank you, Robert.

Impeachment, bro.

We are okay.

All defined.

Uh uh.

Article.

We're gonna be in the uh