Milwaukee City Council Meeting Summary - January 6, 2026
Milwaukee City Council Meeting Summary - January 6, 2026
The Milwaukee City Council convened for a meeting focused on upcoming legislative priorities for the 2026 session, local land banking strategies, and the review of committee assignments. State Senator Mark Sorensen provided a detailed briefing on his two primary legislative bills for the 2027 session: a transport funding reform to separate maintenance from new projects, and a modification to the state "kicker" mechanism to stabilize the state budget. The council also held a strategic discussion on implementing a formal land banking strategy to address housing and park deficits, exploring the use of URA funds and partnerships rather than a full standalone land bank. Finally, the council reviewed and adjusted their external committee liaisons to better align with member expertise and current organizational needs.
Discussion Items
- State Legislative Priorities (Senator Mark Sorensen):
- Senator Sorensen outlined two major bills for 2027. The first addresses the state's broken revenue system by proposing to change how the state economist predicts revenues (using a high-end estimate for the budget and a low-end estimate for reporting) to prevent the "kicker" from refunding billions to the wealthy, thereby allowing funds to be used for bond redemption, PERS mandates, and emergencies. He noted that without this fix, the state is cutting services like housing assistance and mental health care.
- The second bill proposes a transportation funding model that separates maintenance/preservation from new project funding. This would establish a criteria-based revenue system (potentially including a sales tax on used/new cars at 2%) to fund a "rock road user charge" program updated every two years, preventing the need for sporadic, contentious tax increases for new projects while ensuring maintenance of existing assets.
- Sorensen discussed the "disconnect" from federal tax law as a critical goal for the state but noted that a complete disconnect is unlikely this session, with cherry-picking being the likely outcome.
- Senator Misslin is reintroducing a bill for Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) and transmission studies. Sorensen plans to co-sponsor this, noting that VPPs are a necessary short-term solution to rolling blackouts caused by a grid at capacity, though utilities are currently slow-walking the program.
Public Comments & Testimony
- Land Banking Proposal (Staff):
- City staff presented a proposal to create a "land banking strategy" rather than a formal land bank department. The strategy focuses on intentional partnerships with developers, creating a matrix of preferred parcels based on specific criteria (size, location, alignment with goals), and utilizing existing tools like ground leases, right of first refusal, and funding-linked agreements.
- Staff acknowledged the city's history of "ad hoc" land banking using utility funds or URA bonds for opportunistic purchases (e.g., Coho property) and proposed formalizing guardrails to ensure agility and accountability in future acquisitions.
Key Outcomes
- Land Banking Strategy: The council directed staff to refine the proposed land banking strategy document based on the discussion. They emphasized the need for specific criteria regarding parcel location (specifically targeting park-deficient areas and neighborhood hubs) and the use of URA/CET funds as potential sources for agile acquisition. A study session was identified as necessary to finalize the framework.
- Committee Assignments:
- The council decided to remove the following committees from their active liaison list: Milwaukie Bay Park (dormant), the Bond Advisory Committee (concluded), and the Homeless Solutions Coalition (restructured/focused on Caring Place).
- A request was made to recruit a Milwaukie resident for the Fire District board, which currently lacks one.
- Councilmember D. was requested to assume the North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce liaison role, with Councilmember E. acting as an alternate to mitigate perceived conflicts of interest.
- It was decided that the City Clerk's office would provide monthly summaries of Chamber meetings to the full council to maintain awareness without requiring full council attendance.
- Legislative Timeline: Members noted the bill drop deadline is January 9, with the session moving quickly following the budget adoption.
Meeting Transcript
Oh, no, no. And um asked. And more of our sessions. Okay. Yeah. What if everyone's playing? So we can do invaded way this session is gonna be the big thing is gonna be the disconnect. So I don't know if you know this, but our income tax system is basically a carbon copy of whatever the feds do, we do so when we did HB1, we get all those huge tax cuts for the millionaires and the billionaires. That also affects our state income because the same rules all that last year lock section. The house passed a bill that would have disconnected us, would have blocked us to the previous year's system. Um it did not pass in the Senate. Basically, it didn't get out of community in the Senate. So we we're gonna take another run at that because we have to disconnect to the greatest degree possible. I'm all for a complete disconnect. I know that the sound of not paying taxes on uh overtime or tips uh sounds really good, but if you actually read the middle, it's not gonna help those people much. There's very small windows, there's limits, there's all these things. So even that part of it is kind of BS. People, so I'd be fine with a complete disconnect. That is not what's gonna happen. We're gonna be cherry picking to disconnect. And early indications are not awesome. Forgetting for getting it connected as it should be the less disconnected we are, the more cuts we're going to have. The more connected we are to the federal or federal tax law too, the more we're gonna have the state level. And it's can it can't be retroactive to last year, can it? So if we're gonna have that year anyway. Yeah, so no matter what we did this year's um, and the the question is what will next year be like, and that's why the disconnect is really critical. So it's gonna be one of the top things that we do. What was the bill number last session? Do you remember? I can't even remember my bill number. Um I think there's gonna be a lot of conversation about transportation because in there's obviously signatures to put a recall for the recall. Uh referendum on ballot, and um the polling sets that uh which means that you know OER will not have the money to keep people employed to triple stand to cities and counties. So they have so far avoided transit agencies. They've so far avoided the 500 layoffs or whatever it was the governor was that point that's coming. There is some layoffs coming, however, they're looking at some ideas to try and maintain as much of the staff as they can. Not surprisingly, a lot of people are on their jobs because why would you wait around to get paid off? So as soon as they got the signatures, so we're losing a lot, which is not gonna hold well for anything, applying roads, striping preparing parts of theater in the highway that falls into the ocean, whatever. Um there's an idea of how you got functionally and then not only so um but part of what I think all of our job is is to help people understand that uh spite the noise that the Republicans are reading about how inefficient ONAT is they're certainly more inefficient than all of the dots are uh they'd be state or community or whatever, they're big organizations, it's complex stuff. A lot of people to be super efficient. Um problem is that they're underfunded. We have a lot of decades back when they set the gas tax, uh it was sufficient, and we have very rarely increased it, and always I don't know to keep up with just inflation, just inflation back in 2017 when we passed when they passed a little bit of increase that they did then, they knew that they needed to increase it 70 cents just to catch up to inflation, and they increase to their dime, and then they gave ODOT a whole bunch of projects to do, right? And then everyone wondered why ODOT is paid. So I think it's the job of leader leaders in our community to help people understand that yes, times are done. Yes, things are expensive, they're also expensive for agencies, right? The same inflation that we all see in the grocery store is the inflation that the agencies experience, right? You're trying to buy steel, you're trying to buy all concrete, all the things. Actually, inflation on construction has been going up 15% year over year since about 2010. So I mean, you know, it's it's part of why they look in out, because you know, we talk about a big project like um the rose quarter. We say, okay, it's gonna be 400 million dollars, and we're gonna pay the line 10 years later. We're going, okay, we need to do the rose quarter.
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