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.

Why is it 150% more than it was last time?

That's called inflation, and years at 15% year over year, that's 150% more.

So we have helps people understand that if we would like our system to continue to function, not have bridges fall into the river and things like that.

We are going to have to raise revenue for our transportation system.

Full stop.

Um brings me to one of the two bills I'm running this session, which is sort of a first step towards trying to make the maintenance and preservation of our system to behave more like a utility.

So, what I'm asking ODOT to do in this bill is work with cities and counties, come up with a set of criteria of what we want our system to look like.

All the way up and down.

What's what's our standard that we want to get?

How often do we want to restrict?

How often should we replace bridges?

Okay, what is that cost a year to do?

Second data point is how many miles a year are we driving?

That's a city.

That's a state.

All the people in the state drive one into the other, and you know what the road use of the art should be how's the use of the beauty of that if we use so that's it's it's a multi-step process.

First part is just establishing the database.

The second part would be 27, which would be setting up a rock road user charge program, and ideally creating a schedule decides who goes into the rock at what point.

If we can get that all to happen, then we won't have to continue to have these fights every four or five years about increasing the gas tax because it'll just be every two years ODOT will come out.

This is what it's cost currently costing us to keep the system at this level, divided by this is how many miles we drove, okay.

Then the rock charge is this every two years it would be, it will just update the charge based on criteria that we've all agreed to.

Then if in my perfect world, the way we would address new things, actually on 205 or any big projects, or say for us to school, or great street health projects, right?

New things.

If we do that, what was in the bill just before it died, uh we call it a privilege tax.

I will be straightforward, it's a sales tax.

Um it was two percent on new cars and one percent on youth cars for the value of more than thousand dollars.

That raised enough money to put a quarter billion dollars per biennium into big projects, a quarter billion dollars per biennium into great streets, so that's fixing the powers and the hollow marks and the laptops and the 80 seconds and all these streets that were built as highways but actually act as main streets, right?

Um, and then 50 million into say browse to school, and there was a little bit left over for EVE rebates just out of that part.

Sales tax at some costs that is the basics of our system going forward, it will be functional.

Then when we want a new thing, we say, oh, we want to build a freeway from Climate Falls to Ontario.

Cool, that'll cost one percent sales tax increase.

You're willing to do that?

No, okay, no freeway.

It won't affect this.

That's the thing right now.

The reason our system is so degraded is because every time we pass an increase in the property time or in the gas tax, we do it through making deals with legislators.

You get a freeway and you get a bridge, and you get a and so we end up spending more on those projects than we can to maintain the system.

So if we can separate those two things, we're never having to do that again.

That would set us up for the future of a functional system.

So that's one of my two bills.

The other bill is addressing what I think is a part-based problem here in Oregon, which is we have a broken revenue system.

We have, I would argue, the most broken revenue assistance in the state and countries.

Most states have a three-legged stool property tax, income tax, and sales tax.

We in our infinite wisdom chose not to have a sales tax.

That means you're gonna make that up with property tax and income tax, and then we got property tax thing back in the early 90s, right?

With measures 550, so now it's going into 3%.

You guys are steeped in that or know well what that's doing to running a city government.

It's also affecting education because it used to be 85-90 percent of the state's education budget came from property tax pre-1990, 85 to 90 percent last year when we passed our record of 11.1 billion dollars that the state put into the state education fund, we were well north of 65 percent of the educational fund coming out of the general fund.

Um so we have lived up completely on set, and we're underfunding education.

That's why we have the graphics for which we have and we're underfunding mental health care, it's why we rank last in the country for that.

You know, all the things we rank horribly on the go far enough upstream, oh, it's because we're gonna funding that thing because all of that wasn't stupid enough, called the kicker, which says that the state's economist is meant to guess what our income is two years in advance, and if they are off by more than two percent, everything above the number they guessed goes back to the taxpayers.

Most of it goes back to the very wealthy, so it's why we're in the bill addresses that last thing, it changes the way the economist predicts and reports the figure.

So it's gonna be a big lift, but there was every year to pull it off.

This is the year because we are going to be cutting all kinds of services that people get worse going forward.

So keep in mind this year that we're cutting a bunch of services, which is housing assistance, some healthcare things, all kinds of stuff.

This is all on the table.

It's not a done deal yet.

We're also kicking 1.4 billion dollars.

Were we not kicking 1.4 billion dollars?

This would not be a cut budget here.

We would be meeting the budget.

So it is literally the kicker is the delta between having a cuts budget.

If you go back a few years ago, we kicked $5.6 billion.

That same year, we bonded a billion dollars to pay for our portion of the interstate bridge.

And you all know that when you bond something, you can basically assume that it's going to cost you one and a half times what you just bonded.

So bonded a million dollars, we are all going to be paying 1.5 billion dollars ish for that bridge.

So think about it.

Had this been in effect, that 1.5 billion dollars or that 1 billion dollars could have come with your written check.

So this will not keep it from ever kicking.

It will kick occasionally when there's anomalies.

That year, it would have probably kicked something.

It wouldn't have kicked as much as it did.

Um the way it works is the state uh economist is back up.

The reason this works is because it's addressing their system.

So if you think about it, they gather all this data, they look at Wall Street, they look at all these other inputs to the economy, and they okay.

Based on all of this, our calculations are we're pretty sure that the state's not going to make this, and we're pretty sure it's not gonna be less than that.

But they always give us a number that's pretty close to their bottom end because they don't want us to over budget and claw money back, so we almost always kick.

So what my bill says is now you're gonna give the official upgrade is going to be the high end of your estimate, and you're gonna give the legislature the low end of your estimate.

The legislature will budget to that.

Now you have this delta.

It didn't get questioned for, and it didn't kick.

What can that money be used for?

The bond on the bridge, buying down debt, funded PERS mandates, and emergencies.

So the year we have to come in for a special session because of the fires, housing emergencies, climate emergencies, there's a lot of different ways that could be used, but it's one-time funding that you can put into a thing to solve a problem.

Imagine having two billion dollars to put in the solving housing.

So that's the second bill.

Um I think it's got a solid shot.

I introduced it last year.

This year people are paying attention.

Those are the two big things I'll be working on.

Senator uh near on Misslin is bringing back my bill on virtual power plants.

I chose not to do that one because it's gonna have a fiscal, even though the fiscal is to PSC and not on the general fund.

Um but she's gonna bring it back.

I'm gonna try and help with that.

So I I don't guess I don't necessarily need to.

So as I think most of you know, the last couple years I've been working really hard on transmission because we've got an expected load growth of about 30% over the next 10 years.

Our transmission system is broadly out capacity.

There are a few parts and pieces of it that have a little bit of capacity, but big picture we're at capacity, which means we can't put more electricity into it.

So if we have load growing, the need growing, but no way to put more energy into it, you've got a problem.

But that results in its rolling blackouts.

That process is still moving along.

I will be bringing back my transmission authority in 27.

The government didn't want to do it this year because of cuts budget.

Short-term solution, one of several.

We did some of the children stuff in the previous year.

We did our grid advancing technologies bill.

So that's a partial short-term solution.

VPPs are another short-term solution.

And there's a lot of deep thinkers in the energy world that are thinking that this is going to be a much much bigger deal than right now, the way people think about it.

But basically, what it is.

Maintaining average normal day, we're fine.

But it's the peaks, the really hot days, the really cold days.

That's where we get into trouble.

Let's say we have one of us coming.

An aggregator had met with each of you and made a deal that okay.

When there's a peak need, you will pull blue from your car battery, we will pull your you know, that's the wall.

We will your smart thermostat will turn that down two degrees later.

It doesn't sound like a lot, but when you aggregate millions of people into that system, it's a lot.

In a state like Texas where they have no rules, and they can build transmission like this, it's still a five-six-year process.

Right now it's taking Oregon 20 years working on fixing that.

But it's gonna be if we do it really well, we might be able to get it down to eight.

So we're going to need other things in order to keep from having building blackouts, and VPPs are really powerful.

And the utilities would do that work or some other kind of initable.

PGE will tell you that they are APP program, and they're working really hard on it.

Very exciting, you know, show you all these slides, tell you all the stuff.

They're slow walking it.

And doing we have one of the test beds here in Hawking.

We've had it for what six years.

The states that have been successful in really standing up serious VPPs have been the ones that have allowed third-party aggregators to come in and do the work with the public and get those deals, and then they sell the electricity to the utility, which is why the utilities don't want it, because they don't they want to make the problems on it.

So it's not utilities are opposed to control.

Unless they're setting it up.

PG is the only one that's doing any of it, and they're slow.

So that's did you say that that project has kind of been kicked to 27?

Is that what I heard?

The VPP?

Yeah.

No, VPP, Senator Misslin took my bill that I ran last year.

I got it out of committee, it died in ways and she's gonna take another room.

So we'll I'll be all co-achieve that with her, and hopefully we can get that this year.

If we can get the ways and means folks to understand that that money doesn't have to come out of the general fund, it literally comes out of the utilities.

So that's what I'm doing.

The big things again will be the disconnect, figuring out transportation funding.

The big package will be 27 coming back because I suspect that um one way or another, what we passed in the sh in the uh emergency special session, it's going away.

Whether we do it or they do it, it's going away.

But are you expecting any type of revenue fix for transportation this session?

No, no, other than we might figure out ways to borrow money from other places who got qualified for a year.

That's about all I can see.

I mean, I haven't seen none of our bills are published by another run.

There's another run for the study.

It's all the rage in the energy world.

So we may as well have the conversation.

So I'm not opposed to a study bill.

As long as it's an honest to God study and not beats for building SMRs.

On your transmission work and on the point you made about how long it takes to um build transmission here.

It turned out that Emma in one of her early jobs worked on the board money to the having like.

Oh my god, we're gonna have to sit down and talk about it.

And the articles now say, yeah.

And it's all not even serving the community, right?

It's all gonna serve uh.

So that's okay.

Yeah, but the space don't need the system, right?

Yeah.

Electrons don't know, nor do they care where they started or where they end up.

They would go in and you draw some, this all happens at light speed.

The reality is we need more electrons in the system.

Probably when they did the original paperwork for V to Hata Centers didn't exist.

Right.

So they probably talked about X number of houses or some communities or whatever, because that was what there was, and they knew they needed more transmission.

People have been aware for a very long time that we need more transmission, they're just not doing it.

Um so yeah, it's just a ploy by there's a woman who used to work for the state who was opposed to any new transmission, any wind, any solar, anywhere.

And so she's just smart enough and well steeped in government workings that she's quite capable of throwing walkie benches.

She's part of the reason it's taken B2H so long.

But that's a great Republican talking point.

See, it's not even for houses, it's for data centers.

Well, yeah, that's the big draw right now.

That's what's using a lot of electricity, so yes.

It's irrelevant.

The point is the load is growing, and we need more transmission and more generation.

And ideally, that generation is wind and solar and geothermal and things like that.

It's you know, I don't know if you know this, but Texas the last several years has built 10 times more wind and solar than Oregon and Washington combined.

Well why?

It's the cheapest form of new energy.

It's dollars and cents.

Um you said on transportation.

Your dream world is one where operation and maintenance is separate from project funding.

What happens?

Like I know Rose Quarter is proceeding, even though they don't have funds necessarily.

Like what's happening with those 2017 obligated projects, especially in light of the package not getting referred.

Excellent question.

I don't know that I mean an answer I would give you would be market this answer.

Sure.

Um there's a lot of people talking about this projects.

I mean, that like all the big projects, the inflation on that is out of hand.

It's what is it now?

Almost two million dollar project.

I can't remember what the latest.

We're about to hear an uh a change on the IBR in the state bridge.

So um I don't know, I'm not super comfortable making a prediction as to what will happen.

There's not we don't have the money to build full stop.

And the federal government pulled the grant that they had said they were giving us that.

So now we even have less money we don't have.

I know that that was part of the deal back in the day to get the tiny package that they got.

And this is the problem funding to projects.

Like it doesn't make sense because unless you're talking about a lot of funding, you end up spending more on the damn projects than you tax increase and maintenance and reservations for that's why I want to separate the two part of those negotiations.

Period.

Um we can have the arguments about new projects and whether or not we're willing to raise taxes to do new projects, but we can't do it.

That's it's not functional.

You know, and the reality is we're spending less than any other state on the West.

Just a little bit less.

The only state that we're spending a little bit less than is what with the six cent increase, we were gonna be either even with Montana or maybe slightly more than Utah and Idaho are spending twice what we're spending per capita.

That's capital because those tax and spend limitals and Utah.

Now the important thing to note is that about half of that money in all of those states is sales tax.

This is why sales tax is so important at some point.

We're gonna have to well certainly on cars.

I mean, it's like when I when the bill was up last year, I did some research, and the two percent that was in that bill is 45 states already charge that or more.

Some of them are as high as five or six percent, but all of the states that have a sales tax on cars, which is 45 of them, charge two percent or more.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, it's such a we were not asking for the mountain there, we were just sort of catching up, yeah.

California and Washington are well think to 10% of it if once anyone is six or seven, I can't remember that.

But it's a big deal.

Sales tax is really powerful.

If you can do it, if you design it, you can make it progressive.

Don't tax food and brokeries, don't tax, don't tax diaphers.

Don't tax the things that you have to have, just tax the things that are nice to have.

Mark, when you were describing the the the your transportation proposal, it was almost like um you know, you get a lot of smart people together and you kind of come up with this gigantic algorithm that sort of guides your your you know your investments, you know, um uh a lot of political oversight, you know, what should we do the mechanism, but what makes you think she can get from politicians so they go down you know what?

I don't base anything I do on what I think I can't get the politicians what I try and offer is the right answer, and then let them argue against the right answer.

I think I think there's enough people that recognize that the way we've been doing it for 30, 40 years is probably we can't keep doing it that way, so they're gonna be hungry for some new idea.

Um you know it's it's it's a low percentage, right?

Well, you know, the country was actually successful in sort of a similar endeavor.

What do you need for five years ago?

It was after the end of the Cold War, it's called base realignment in BRAC.

And basically, somehow they got the Congress to agree that they weren't gonna all fight to maintain these marginal bases in the districts that were given to a commission decisions, so it's kind of similar in approach.

I mean, it's obviously different things, but it it the politicians somehow said you know, we're never gonna get a coherent strategy if we're just all fighting for some little piece of things that we don't need, yeah.

Yeah, we'll see.

It's I mean this is the weirdest time that I've been through.

I just unprecedented things are happening on the wrong side.

So I'm hoping that we can make some unprecedented things happen on the right side of the balance a little bit.

Other topics people wanted to bring up.

Yeah, any questions.

Yeah, I guess we can if we can shift to the revolt, the mural.

Oh, the mural.

Yeah.

Yeah, I um so I would say voted for and supported that bill.

Uh and with a lot of as with a lot of things, um, I think the way it was the rule making made it not great.

I had a long conversation because I've been following the rulemaking closely.

Wasn't my bill.

Um it's I think they've got seven cities, if you are one of them that's even considering it.

Several have looked at it and decided not to utilize it because it's not a well-designed concept.

Um I think the projects that you all are wanting to use it for, they're doing it a little backwards.

The mural was designed to be the last money, it was designed to be everything else in place, but but for five percent of this project will move forward.

Okay, if the city and the county and everybody holds tax districts will be affected, agree, you can get basically this loan that you pay back via the tax increment.

On paper, that sounds great.

I think, and I I offered to the staff, right?

So, look, keep track of all the reasons why cities choose not to do it, and let's create a list of fixes that we could come back in 27 and do a fixed bill on this and see if we can make it it's it's I you know I heard that the city manager was like, this is gonna cost us a lot of money to run, and she's not wrong.

Because they they made it way more complicated than it needed to be so maybe we can fix it 27 and it'd be useful.

I'm not saying it's completely useless, I'm just saying it's and and also if if you let's say you had 10 projects or 15 or 20 projects that you were using that on, it would be less expensive because the same working work, all the stuff keeping up would be right nominally more, but like one person could handle 15 projects, but they're gonna be doing almost as much work as they'd be doing it for 10 or 15 projects for a while.

So let's see if we can get it fixed.

That'd be the first thing.

I know that doesn't help this current project, but I I think they were thinking about it.

Felt like they were wanting to use it to help buy the property, yeah.

That's not concept is that it's you've got every all of our other ducks are in a row is shy this amount of money.

Uh then the of the other jurisdictions that you mentioned, are any others considering the model that's been proposed here.

I don't, I haven't dug into that.

That'd be a good question for um staff you know it's the model that's been proposed here.

You mean buying the property, yeah.

Um yeah, I mean if with what you're saying is that it was proposed one way and now the the implementation proposal is I'm wondering other sections are when you say last money, it's not necessarily a timeline thing.

It's a you know you've got a financial stack between doing a development.

So it's it's the idea is that you've got you're almost there.

Whether you use that to buy the property or not is not necessarily the relevant part, but if you don't even have that part, right pushing the edges of the way the world is designed.

Yeah, because it doesn't really it it seems like the original intent was not that it would be catalyst funding on the on the front end on the front end, it would rather be you know almost like bridge funding or you know all like last mile kind of stuff.

Yeah, it kind of that's kind of what the concept was because there's a lot of projects that are almost gonna happen, and then they can't quite have and so the idea is good, and using the property and property tax increment.

That's pretty clever.

But it's so many good ideas.

Community solar was a good idea, and they figured that out in the so I wouldn't think I mean all the talk we've done about the mural and thinking about this idea that they want to use it to like robbery.

We actually have land banking as our next topic when you leave.

Um it does seem to me there's a place for a um that buying property is the one thing that you have some inherent value, and so you if there were a pot of money that could loan people money to buy the property, and then say you get instead of this 10-year do-it and increment, instead say you pay it back, you know, within a year of uh sale, like your your like your SDC bill kind of idea.

Um that would be a great tool for people, right?

Because there wouldn't be a risk for whether it was the city or the state or you know, whoever's administering this fund, um, there would be some security because of the property is the security.

Um I think where you would get in trouble on that, yeah, is that you would then have a hard time with the bankers because you would the city or whoever it's called first.

Yeah, now we're by reduced.

What is it?

First place in the everything goes.

Oh, and yeah, in the mortgage right, yeah.

Yeah, not for the other position in the first position, yeah.

Yeah, so I think that's gonna you would struggle to get the rest of your financing if that's the way it worked.

If you land banked, if the city were to land, I think I think the right solution in where you're thinking it's for cities and counties to land bank, and maybe set up land trusts build housing, whether it's affordable or or you know, middle housing or whatever, but do it on land trust.

This is so the I've got a work group functioning right now.

It's aiming towards setting up a program where we would mass manufacture uh thousand square foot homes.

That this is the this is the straw man concept.

It's probably gonna change between now and 27, but um mass manufacturing thousand square foot units, and the idea is to be able to sell them for $50,000 apiece.

They would be online across land.

So you would never own the land, but you would own your units after you live there 10 years, you would have full equity after 10 years.

The reason for that, and this is based on Singapore, how they're building most of the housing that the people in Singapore live in is you don't want private equity to come in and pick up 300 of your units that would be flip them for the idea is to start building generational wealth for the working class, which is uh Eastern market.

It's unlikely that most working class families will be able to afford a whole current trajectory.

But if we can break that, if we can produce 10,000 units a year, which is the goal, thousand square feet, 250,000 apiece, that starts to build generational wealth.

So assuming I get this bill passed 27.

I would be asking for a spot at LLC's conference and AOC's conference to go in and say, okay, start land banking.

Because as soon as these things start rolling off the line, you need workforce housing, and you're the idea is that these are stackable.

So you don't have to be cotton clusters.

It can be clusters.

If it's if we're talking about burns or something where land isn't a problem, it is in common home zone, but the units would be stacked.

If we do this, probably four or five factories might have one factory that's doing things that can be stacked a lot more for the Portland Metro area.

But right now, the current working plan is those units.

I mean, with mass plywood would be stackable three hours.

Those units are coming in at 450,000.

And then try and maintain.

Yeah.

So we've got to start solving for this a different way.

This is uh I put a lot of effort into learning when I was invited to be on a tour to Singapore and Hong Kong to see their housing programs.

There's a bunch of state legislators from all over the country.

It's amazing.

And Singapore is such a classic example.

Highest land values in the world, highest density in the world.

80% of people only in America were tiering around 50%.

Most people spend less than 20% of their income on their housing.

We feel like we're doing good if we're spending 30%.

Half the renters in Milwaukee are spending 50%.

And they have been all the most people.

Yeah.

So they cracked that.

I think it to the greatest degree that we can emulate what they're doing.

And I think if we did it here in Oregon, obviously, rest the West Coast would follow suit and start doing similar things.

But that's that's like that's a bill that you're working on, or is this just it's yeah, it's it'll be for 27 at the earliest 65 people in this work group.

Everything from where are we getting the wood to what are the units need to look like to what the manufacturer need to look like to wages to every aspect that's initial money gonna come from to start the ball rolling, and the reason for doing it as a sales piece instead of uh Vienna also has a really good program that they've been doing for decades, but they have a constant influx of government money, so those units of rent, renting your rent doesn't change your unit here, it's what the best you like, but that in order to build more, you have that money coming.

Whereas with this, once we have the pipeline flowing, the 250 that you pay for your house, you should pay to build the next house and so it just would be a self-titlement problem.

So before we let you go, I just wanted to um throw two other topics out there.

I know from talking to you that they're not if there was anything you might be wanted to say about them.

One is anything coming down on uh relationship to the ice and regular, you know, what we can do and sustain.

I mean, that you know, it's there's limits to what we can do for sure, but um, if there's anything you want to talk about on that, and the other one being uh the Oregon Government Ethics Commission and the serial meetings stuff.

I have a meeting scheduled uh with the legislator who's working on that, so I don't know anything about what how how hard he's gonna push on that.

I have been pounding the table in caucus about that since I got there.

You guys are breaking the rules that you hold city councils and kind of commissioners too right here in this room.

Yeah, well, thank you.

Thank you for doing that.

Yeah, um so I'm hoping he's pushing hard enough, but uh like I said I'm meeting with him, I think, next week or the week after.

It's actually next week because it's during the budget days.

As far as ICE, I know that there's these two legislators, and I've heard there's three bills to some degree, and I think um I think they're talking about masking, I think they're talking about identification question I have is can we enforce my personal feeling is how about we just enforce the laws that already exist?

You can't break into someone's house without a warrant.

You can't break into someone's car without a warrant.

You can't uh take somebody away without having charged them with a crime, hold them indefinitely, never read them directly.

Those are all existing laws that aren't being enforced by anyone.

Me personally, I would like to enforce those.

I can imagine that that would make the people who would have to enforce those things very nervous.

So in some cases, I'm not even sure who the people would be, right?

Yeah, well, you would be local law enforcement.

You'd be asking them basically our cops to stand out to ice.

There's seven different ways that you go really wrong.

Yeah, particularly considering the kind of people they're hiring.

So um yeah, we'll see what people have.

I know everyone's thinking about it and trying to figure out.

And so when will bills actually drop?

Is there a date?

There is yeah, bill drop deadline is the ninth, and I think it's a week after that.

So they get published.

The ninth meeting this Friday.

But that's to drop them.

So you have until that day to submit your bill back for I've got them on the calendar.

They're not gonna be public yet for a while.

Another week after that.

Yeah, so it takes a little bit for them to God bless all the folks in legislative council board track.

Yeah.

At least in short session, there's a limited number of bills.

All right, other final questions before we let Mark go.

How are things going with parts?

Oh well, we have a letter.

I can send you the link.

They're going great.

They're going great.

We had a special meeting in November, and then we spent our last meeting in December going through it, and we sent a letter to the county with sort of our thoughts on just you know, commit this much money, and we'll take over doing the park.

So that's where we are right now.

Um, there's a letter from Milwaukee Bay for Milwaukee Bay.

Yeah.

But yeah, we've been.

Well, the thrust of that ladies' communications are you're getting a good deal.

Yeah.

Because we're taking responsibility for maintenance of the Milwaukee Community Center, among other things.

So they are getting a good deal.

Oh wow.

Um, and so that's the cross thrups of this letter that's pending with them.

And uh, they have taken like a three or maybe four-week holiday, right?

They're like they were supposed to be back in the week, and now they're talking long way to be the kind of it must be paid a living wage, and you get the big long vacation.

Yeah, because they were supposed to be back today, and they're they're now not back till next Tuesday.

Um but I can send you the our letter, we put it out on our website on the city website, so I can send you a link, then that kind of lays it out and shows you the there's a graphic that shows like why you know what we're giving up, what we're getting, what they're giving up, what they're getting, why it's a good deal for them.

So good luck.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I just want to say thanks for spending the time with us to go through you give us the appetizer for 27 or 26, and then also a little bit of appetizer for 27.

You give us the appetizer for 27 or 26, and then also a little bit of appetizer for 27.

But I also really appreciate you talking a little bit more about your understanding of Merle.

Um just even talking about the financial stacking and where the intent was supposed to be in.

That's actually how I read when it first dropped was that's that was the intent of how to use it.

So yeah, I mean, I know I don't think it necessarily includes that money being used to buy the property, but you would have to show that you had the rest of the stack.

It makes sense in place.

I think it's a really there's a lot of yeah, I think there is too.

I I thought it was a good idea.

It's amazing that they can screw it away.

And I know we're gonna be watching the role making a big drop maybe later this month.

But I appreciate all the things.

Yeah, that'll be some.

Yeah, and I I told staff to keep please keep I said it's some of our conversation, but we can keep track of all the issues that people have.

Um it shouldn't be that hard, right?

It's it's a big night's we need all the tricks we can get to keep things functioning.

Well, thank you for everything and for coming and spending time with us and for representing us, and uh we you know let us know if there's you know, we love to write those letters, but let us know if there's something we can help with very much the short session moves fast, so it doesn't a lot of time for letters, but if there's anything.

Yeah, I mean, supporting both of the bills that I'm working on, it's yeah, we'll keep us and neuron missiles bill.

That's just having a hard time getting the rest of the legislature to understand just how important that is.

Until it's hitting them in the face.

What's the pushback?

Like general.

Um the pushback was that it had a fiscal, and I said, yeah, fiscal PC's budget PC discharges utilities for that.

And we're talking even if the utility raised everyone's rates to cover it, it would be a fraction of a penny to each household a month.

It's nothing.

That's what was 700,000 or something.

It's just for them to have staff to set up the BPP program because the actual work to gather all the people is gonna be third parties, it's gonna be people like that's what they do for a living, but it's working really well in some states that have some similar bills, and it's just it's yeah, we're we're behind the eight ball at this point on energy.

Well, I will count on the council president to keep us posted as your bills committee, and um help us figure out where to plug in.

Yeah, revenue goal will go to revenue, obviously.

Uh transportation rock bill will go to transportation joint.

So our joint, you know, go to the House Transportation Committee.

So I didn't say this, but I'm co-chair of the transportation over site.

Uh which is was part of the bill that we passed.

So we'll see if that committee stays in place, but I think it will.

Obviously, it's there's value in that conversation.

But on famine is my co-chair.

Want to utilize it to help people understand why things are as expensive as they are.

We need to fund them.

So, yeah, anytime you all know that you can reach out, and I'm happy to come out whenever.

Yeah, thank you.

Thanks.

All right, thank you.

Good luck.

And then uh next we have Justin and Mandy on land banking.

Um I might I might sit around and listen to the lab.

Okay, feel free.

Uh so this is a continued item.

Um, as you might recall a few months ago, we had this conversation.

It was abbreviated.

It was kind of fast-based for the whole agenda.

So I asked Mandy to rewalk us through some of the concepts and the things that we were trying to talk about in the staff report.

So she's gonna walk us through some of those items and then we'll have a broader conversation.

Hopefully, of some of your questions from last time, but um just a deeper conversation today.

We've got about an hour, and so we'd love to talk about committee assignments at least for five minutes then.

So you can just keep an eye on time for 15 minutes, 45 minutes of this bigger.

Good afternoon.

Um again, land banking is referenced in our housing production strategy as item A, and um kind of to frame this presentation discussion.

Um the HPS does reference land banking as a formal program, uh, but it also references a land meeting strategy for cities that it might not be feasible to run uh actual formal land bank.

So um that's just part of what we're gonna get into, and then we also included land making strategy as um part of our council goal action plan on the affordability goal.

So repressure on land banking is um typically a separate like its own entity that's run by um specialized staff and has an ongoing source of revenue and um also an ongoing uh property stream kind of in the pipeline for bringing in additional properties.

So it requires that upfront capital to purchase the properties, staff with expertise in real estate and the ongoing um pipeline of properties coming through.

So this is where in the staff report I kind of referenced how we can kind of be more creative with a with a strategy that's not a formal land bank, and I kind of put it in a side-by-side here on this slide where we show kind of different strategies that would make up something that's more realistic for a city our size that might not be ready for developing the formal land bank.

Um so we'll kind of go through some of these ideas, and then today we're just looking for feedback.

Um, crafting a document that's this strategy for land banking, and staff's just gonna use that as a guide to kind of focus our direction on what we're doing with land banking.

So the first item here is kind of the most critical one, which is the partnerships in what we're talking about, where yes, we all we already have relationships with a lot of these entities listed here, but including partnerships in our land meeting strategy would help focus that conversation.

Um help the city to keep a lookout, keep relationships going with these entities and know kind of what their priorities are, what their criteria is, such that if we hear of land opportunities coming up, we can kind of facilitate conversations that would allow those other agencies who are maybe more experienced in purchasing land and um developing it and doing the asset management to keep the city out of that role, but yet the city's still doing kind of matchmaking and connecting those dots.

Um we referenced uh also the city's building lands inventory, which is included in the housing capacity analysis.

But what I'm what we were getting wet ad with this item is just trying to make it more intentional, taking it a step further to where we have those actual criteria of what what would constitute a preferred or desirable piece of land that we could kind of create maybe a matrix or a database of parcels within the city that would be attractive for affordable housing or parks or economic development, things that like align with city goals and prioritize priorities.

And we could also include some of those antidotes from conversations with our partners about what priorities are for our partners so that again, as we're hearing of things in the community, people may be interested in maybe selling, we can jump on those conversations and try and get involvement with the appropriate entities.

Criteria that our partners would be looking at.

Stuff like that.

On the holding and disposition strategy, this is um it kind of goes without saying that we would be wanting to focus on a disposition strategy on acquisitions that the city has taken on, so that um it keeps us honest, keeps us accountable, make sure that we aren't um that we're taking steps towards disposition and not having sites that are sort of stagnant.

Um the land use agreements, um these are just some of the ideas that I that I came across in looking into this, um, a lot of which we are already using these some of these tools.

Um again, this document, this um banking strategy document will just be kind of a way to memorialize some of these tools and ideas so that it helps guide staff throughout.

Um, so ground leases is a tool that can be used to engage community land trusts.

Um we have we have used this tool at Historic City Hall and back parking lot, development agreements.

We definitely use this tool at Historic City Hall, we'll have a development agreement at Sparrow.

That's where we can spell out what gets built and under what conditions, deed restrictions and covenants, um, and some of these overlap with the development agreement and they kind of are related to one another, but the deep restrictions and covenants also we have examples at Historic City Hall on the historic preservation aspects, and we will have at Sparrow for the affordable homeownership.

Um option agreements or right of refusal is a tool that local jurisdictions can use on targeted properties, and in fact, we had included this at historic city hall to where if the buyer ends up wanting to sell in the future, they call us first to give us that right of first refusal.

Um the city is what I'm referring to.

So we have that in a in our DDA or in the it's on the subject.

It's on the D.

Okay, okay.

So again, and that's that's a tool that's kind of being loaded around in some jurisdictions of how we can use that in our affordable um housing with like an ordinance type thing, but it's to my understanding not been implemented yet.

So people, it's just kind of we're we're following it, we're tracking it if we're interested, but it's not like been implemented on a large scale yet.

And then the last one I have here is funding linked agreements, which again we already use this tool.

It's when you provide grants or heat waivers or infrastructure support in an exchange for specific land use commitments like Sparrow, where we're gonna potentially we're gonna have things from CET funds and transfer them the land in exchange for making affordable housing and right-of-way improvements.

Um the last one I have here funding, if we if possible, have a set-aside fund in case a land acquisition opportunity does fall in the lap of the city.

Um, this too good to pass up, and it made me think of this very building.

But it gives the city flexibility to act and be agile if something does come up that fits all of those criteria.

That we can help with gap financing to do an acquisition, that type of thing.

So with that.

So can we go back to that topic?

I wanted to ask a question.

So and I kind of gave you guys a heads up on this, but um the city a few times.

This was before I was on city council, but I was things I was watching.

Um the way the city got the Coho property, for example, was I think there was the city had in connection with ODOT and the improvements that were being made on McLaughlin.

There was going to be a taking of some property along the McLaughlin frontage, and then in the course of that, there was a conversation about oh, maybe the city should just buy the whole thing.

And they had, I guess, a willing seller.

I like I said, I was not on the council at the time, but they sort of in a fairly short order made the decision to buy that, and I think they bought it out of utility funds.

I think they didn't have a uh uh set aside opportunity fund uh or land acquisition fund, and I think they bought it out of uh utility funds and then afterwards figured out a way to fund it and pay back the utility funds.

How and I I think the city did that under a prior a few a few city managers back with a couple properties.

I think that's how they also bought the pond house, which was the house behind the library.

Um is that kosher?

Um I mean it was the way to jump on an opportunity that was there when you didn't have cash.

Um if I can try to answer it, mayor.

I want to say we have had kind of an ad hoc land banking strategy, and we've been scrappy with it because we've kind of seen opportunities as they come.

And uh Rev Gamba, former mayor gamba was part of that with Sparrow, obviously being seen the opportunity, and then we would figure out how to fund it somehow.

And yes, we did loan ourselves money through utility funds, which is uh as I understand up to the or ask that allowed.

Okay, okay.

Um the repayment process is something I'm less I don't understand this as far as how you how you make the utility whole again.

I wasn't a part of it before, so I'm not sure how we did that.

Um then we've also used other tools then too.

We've also used bonds.

Um we missed property, and you can I'm also guessing we've done that in the past as far as loaning utility funds to buy property because we had as much CIP work going on as we do now.

So I mean those those utility funds are um more accounted for, I would say at this point.

So this is a lot of projects.

Yeah.

So when you uh you said that uh bond was used for this building.

So I I just have this notion that bonds take a long time to set up.

So I my question is if you want to be agile.

Does that how well does that work?

Yeah, I think it was through the URA we did credit bonds.

Is that in the URA for this building?

Do you remember?

Yeah.

Um it can be fast for the government.

Maybe well, I was gonna say in this case, the seller was only talking to the city.

It wasn't something where somebody they were giving us some time to pull the money together.

Whereas in some of the other opportunities that may arise, there could be other like 60 days and then you know, yeah, yeah.

I know that land banking is one of the allowable uses or like set aside uses within our URA.

Would that take a separate meeting of the um MRC to be able to do the like distribution of funds, or I guess in some ways you're describing a pot of money that's agile.

Is our URA pot of money agile as is or yeah, it is.

Uh we certainly can require properties using URA dollars.

Obviously, only within the URA though.

Sure.

Uh so one thing that's helpful is that we create a strategy, we can at least um think about how to budget for that, especially as we go into a budget cycle here.

We want to budget funds from the URA for URA area acquisition of properties, we could do that.

Um what amounts make sense?

Uh US Milky Bay Park, Kellogg, Main Street, and those things.

So yeah, to answer your short short answer, yes.

Uh-huh.

I mean, CET is a pretty nimble one.

I know it's not like a consistent one, but with with as much as development, I mean we had that thing up to 2.7 million at one point.

And if we're talking about being targeted, I mean, we don't have to loan on our own utilities, we don't have to worry about I don't mind using the URA funds either.

As long as it doesn't pull away from some of the grants that we're fighting.

Yeah, but I think CET is a little bit more flexible.

CT is very flexible, it's just it's just not as much.

That's what you probably have to partner with the nonprofit, you know, some half and half deal or something like that if they you know wanted some of the funding if they didn't have all the funding, they could also be used for like that last mile funding we were talking about earlier.

Yeah, where it's like, hey, we got this much for the property, we're just short a few thousand.

Yeah.

And then that's where I think what Mandy was talking about uh leveraging those partnerships is really a big key to bringing the whole financial stack and the expertise that we don't necessarily have.

I want to talk more about the fund and how much we funded at, but first can you help just color in the proposal that you're describing?

Imagining we have some money set aside.

What is the process look like to acquire new sites?

Is someone looks waiting for a rumor that we might have a site that's available and we try and buy it?

Or I guess I understand in the formal end making process that there's staff dedicated to this.

What are we describing that's kind of separate or I guess what is that?

We uh we are so first and foremost, we're creating some uh we're creating some guardrails, some direction for staff through creation of the strategy.

So like how do we look at property?

How do you want us to look at properties?

What's prioritization uh look like for us uh when it comes to properties?

What do we want to use those properties for?

That's that's really helpful for us to like then we're not spinning wheels and just looking at everything and anything and you don't take new meetings, not that they happen often, but taking every meeting, uh we have some direction.

The second piece is really figuring out um I left my pocket there.

Um getting getting the sorry what was your can you ask the question again, council president?

I guess I was trying to say God making me repeat myself.

Uh I got you, I got you now.

Yeah, you got it.

Yeah, I got that.

Okay, sorry.

Um we don't have all the expertise and full-time staff to do this, but what we do have is we have an understanding, many and myself of what our capacity currently is.

Sure.

And we have been we have been able to have some of the basic data points with the building lands inventory, which gives us a basic understanding of what's out there as far as vacancies.

But even even that, even that data isn't isn't complete because the what would we say if you look at the the map, even where it says something is actually developed, it's not really true.

That could be just like shit.

That doesn't really mean it's developed.

Um so this would give us a little bit more aggressive staff time spending looking at these properties and really tracking them.

We're not tracking them right now.

Sure.

We're not we don't have to, and we're not directed to.

So this is kind of creating a strategy to help direct staff, but then also start tracking and following up on the data we already have.

So to make sure I'm getting this, we wouldn't have a formal like land banking department or staff, but all of the framework that we set up would the right staff time that we spend.

Trying to be confidence of opportunities for land banking within the firmware that we did.

There you go.

And then we have like an exact about property acquisition, which is exactly exactly.

That's well, and that's kind of how we we have have to do it.

That's why we're kind of saying this uh this midline, not the full-blown land bank makes sense.

That's something that's actually size to us.

We are again scrappy, but also we have you do have expertise.

And I mean, I think Mandy maybe undersells herself, but she does have expertise in construction and in affordable housing.

So um we do have some skill set.

That's currently on set one US for the stretch.

So I've talked to um too.

He has his own kind of wish list of the parcels within the city.

And so it's kind of like we own and CRO to you might, you know, we could just kind of formalize it and make it usable.

Yeah.

There's a well and would you write, I mean, would you try to like like you find all these parcels on this improved refined build buildable lands inventory?

And then would you like be in contact, like do a letter writing campaign to all the owners to say please let us know when you're thinking about I think that could be part of it, but it also depends on what what the you know what you're all priorities on.

And then would you like be in contact, like do a letter writing campaign to all the owners to say please let us know when you're thinking about I think that could be part of it, but it also depends on what what the you know what you're all priorities are because it wouldn't out when you want to write to everybody and have those conversations unless you knew that they had you know the a size that made sense for whether it's a park or whether it's affordable housing or um well I but that couldn't that could definitely be a part of the so I think you know maybe not in the near term but in the midterm, I think that what you would need for us is some directional uh you know how how would we that part of this might be size of the parcel, it might be the geographical city.

Um what the targets would be because I think you know target park acquisition would be different from other uh for uh uh an acquisition for uh uh modest income housing and that kind of thing, or even partial development.

So I again I think that this is probably too scatter shot.

I agree with you, but uh without that, I'm not sure how you focus your efforts.

And then it gets a little bit messy because you and I have talk about some properties that you know that we hear that you know an owner is coming here, the mic maybe uh do something with it, and then you know they got a business manager and they say no, we're not interested in you know, it's yeah, you know, it's uh it's not an exact science about how you uh how you approach these things.

It's just not as easy as writing a letter, right?

So yeah, I I actually I think you're spot on on a big piece of this is like the secret sauce on a lot of landmaking and really working with Professor is that relationship building.

And that makes a lot of absolutely does.

Yeah.

Well, and some of the formal housing developers have and they're doing out more, and they're keeping tapped into how we I'm gonna be on that city-based connection with those developers.

That way we kind of close the loop, and if it's within our jurisdiction, they haul us, I mean, you know, it it can it's just connecting the dots.

It's I mean it's a lot easier to ask the people who are gonna be building on it, right?

To to get that information.

I mean, it probably cut a lot of the that initial data gathering from us because figuring out what we're looking for, we should ask them.

Yeah, exactly.

What do you guys look for based on our land use rules and regulations like you know, minimum lot sizes?

What are you guys willing to build?

Yeah, what's the smallest lot size and kind of have a range?

Maybe already have formed.

Right, exactly.

Yeah, 100%.

So be part of the legwork of taking those relationships and partnerships kind of to the next level.

Do we know what the budget ask would be for the framework?

No.

I think the budget asked personal is there an interest in trying to create a budget ask.

And I think part of that's uh for up to staff to really figure out what makes um makes sense across the whole board.

Uh but I do think it's for my opinion.

I I do think there is uh it's worthwhile to at least explore and even if it's very very modest.

Because don't just think about it as the only dollars that you have some dollars in the bank, you can leverage those dollars with that's whatever matching, and then also um partner with folks when you have some dollars that makes much more we do, even if it is we wouldn't.

So sometimes they just have a gallery scanning it work throughout the last couple thousand thousand dollars.

Yes.

I think it I appreciate that we've got your A funds, CP funds, possibly funds to be set aside in the next bin names budget.

I think a conversation that I would love for us to have at some point.

Um there are some different density bonuses that other cities do that result in a lot of dollars for portable housing, Boston's in particular, the downtown density bonus.

A you can build an extra floor of housing, you set aside a certain percent is affordable, or you pay a fee and move that captures that exact dollar amount of a cost to build and operate the housing.

And a lot of developers have done that PMO of option, results in a ton of money and of all the density bonuses that I've read across the state, that one or sorry, across the nation result in about 7,000 units of affordable housing.

Um so something whether or not it's that or other things that offer fee and law of options or create things like the CET that is interesting, get more money coming into the city.

Um I think just would be really really helpful.

I appreciate that we have the CIT or CET.

I'm glad we had the foresight to do that.

But I'm also thinking, okay, what do we get?

Yeah, aside from just a one-time budget allocation reoccurring to capture it.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's a conversation to have when we're supposed to start at the high density, yeah.

And that's a place to maybe have that conversation.

I think one of the things I do want to hammer on a little bit too is you have some expertise on staff, right?

I do think it's worthwhile to put together some structure here.

Um, because I mean in Milwaukee, we've had very similar, it's been very similar.

We've had some expertise on staff, you know, staff they're gone.

We lose we lose that momentum and we lose some uh our ability to really be should be captured in terms of some properties and goals.

And so I just say that because I think you should kind of take advantage of the moment, so to speak, and at least create some scaffolding so that when there is a rate change, you know, God forbid.

You would uh at least have some ready for the next one.

We'll speak that in two since it's yeah, so um yeah, there's questions up there.

There's questions up there.

Um a couple times parks were brought up, and I guess I feel like um, you know, we're between Milwaukee Bay Park and whatever green space we have uh when the dam comes out.

Um we have a lot of well, I would get guess I would say in my mind this isn't parks, should not be a big part of this, but we do have a map.

Peter has it of park deficient areas.

There's also one in the um NCPRDs um uh system plan.

Um I mean, we should not be looking for opportunities in the places that are park deficient, um which is not this side of Milwaukee, which is not the western side of Milwaukee generally, um, but yeah, yeah.

But that's how you develop that that you know that target criteria, you know.

You know, size, geographic location in the city.

And I agree with you know, we know um, we got a couple big park projects that could take a long time.

Um but I mean we know that we have a known efficiency in at least one area of the city.

So I would say you know, that that would be a viable area to be other residents.

Yeah, I mean, there's a there's a few places where there's a mile or quarter mile, whatever it is, um circles around parks.

Yeah, there's definitely um multiple gaps, but it's not on the side, not on the western side of towns.

Yeah, I'll add a third voice saying, yeah, looking at that green space map that we developed, thinking about those properties for parks specific, I think it'd be great.

When I think about other lenses, um, we're gonna talk at council reports about the state of um TriMet and the cuts that they're experiencing.

Um there's a great PSU article or study that they just did that shows that if you build housing near transportation, you get a lot of ridership from that.

And if it's affordable housing, the writers even more than they would have expected.

And so I think about proximity to transit and especially if it's affordable housing, that would be really valuable.

Um, the other piece that I think would be helpful or a strategy to lay on is within our neighborhood hubs, thinking about land banking as a way to um catalyze that growth that we're hoping to see.

I think that we're gonna have a market strategy that talks about what does it take to see a neighborhood uptick off.

Um, but oftentimes we know that it takes public dollars first to encourage private dollars to come in afterwards, and so I think things about that would be a helpful as well.

So, what do people think on the specific questions up there?

I agree with staff's recommended approach.

I think we'll discuss this.

Um there's uh about one in four.

I think that's another good place to say settle for a second.

Yeah, I'm good with one in four.

Um search that one.

Um yes, making some faces over there.

Making some faces away.

Um, I'm just I'm looking at the at the map.

I I'd really love to see an overlay on this map with the hubs and um see where we have potential spatially to utilize the funds that we're talking about.

Yes, it's a good I would also love to see uh this on plotter size.

So we can actually you know dig into it a little bit more.

Like a larger size scale.

Yeah.

I mean, I think when I think about a study session, it's not just these policy conversations, but it's really kind of looking in at like you know within the realm of the things that we can take action on if we're talking about building, you know, or even entertaining um greater height density in downtown, how many of those buildings are structurally sound to do something like that?

What does that look like?

How many individual property owners are we talking about?

Um, and maybe that's the staff capacity where you know you're like those would be very active conversations to be able to move forward.

Um I think that you know, we had um we had a lot of meetings and um conversation around the housing production strategy around you know how we got to this the BLI, but um but where do you go from here?

Is council the advisory like body, or do you have some type of intermediate advisory body where you can have more in-depth like brainstorming conversations?

That's I guess one of the questions that's coming up for me.

Yeah, so but all of those questions are questions that happen after I say yes to one and four, and I and say yes to one or four.

That's great.

Um thank you all for that, those answers.

Um I think as far as I understand uh your question about the DOI and kind of are you talking about like a subcommittee here, or are you talking about like is there another agency that requires us to kind of I mean I understand that there's interest and capacity and um and skill at the staff level?

What does that implementation look like and what sort of timeline are we on so that when we get to the budget ask discussion?

How do we form something that gives us a quantifiable ask?

And then how do we as council feel confident in um you know weighing in on that methodology and the like I guess where do we roll our sleeves up on this?

Yeah, that's what I'm wondering.

That's good.

That's a good question.

I I think there is, I think you're you're actually hitting on something that is pretty pretty important, and that's kind of having more of those um getting two into the weeds with you all so that when we do create a budget ask that we know what the why a lot more.

And I don't as far as timeline goes, I would say that we're probably not in alignment with when we do a budget when this is coming.

So that's fine because we also can do budget adjustments on a quarterly basis.

So we always have a conversation about money a little bit later than that's correct.

Well, and you we're talking about two pots of funding that are not um you know fully expended in a biennium.

Um you know, and and it's and that's on purpose.

Um, but there are allocations that come out of those pots of funds.

So um like I guess my question is what's the development of the program offer like for the budget?

How do we develop an actual something out of this?

And I think that these questions get us to a conceptual approval.

But um, I think that we may have some more involved discussion on this that needs to take place in a study session.

Yeah, I I'd agree.

I thank you.

I think um I envisioned it, and Mandy, I don't know if I shared this with you.

I envisioned that it was getting more just like we're kind of starting to do this a little bit more and more.

I figured that we'd at least come back with something even a little bit more refined, not fully baked by any means.

Just taking some of the the flavor and direction from this discussion and then bringing something to you to look at, and then we can go over the map and we can talk about things in a little bit more refined way.

And then I think we might need depending on where you all settle at the end of the day, you know, we can come back a couple times.

That's that's fine.

Whether it's a study session or work session or even a regular session if needed.

I do think there should be an informal adoption at some point.

But I do think we can do this so you all are comfortable with that we're all seeing down a similar tunnel of what this should be.

Well, the question I would ask is I I agree that there needs to be more of a little up or sleep session or sessions to just have and really get into the weeds and that I think.

The question I asked myself is the full council needed for that, or should we have a subset?

I'm kind of of the opinion that maybe uh a subset of the council would do that, certainly you know uh support of anyone who wants to do that, or I I apologize to do it myself, but I just think it would be efficient.

Yeah, yep, agreed.

And maybe that's a good segue because we're talking about committee assignments, and so you know, maybe we can add this as uh council liaison sort of position in the discussion of our capacities and interests.

This would be a obviously just a term limited subcommittee.

But yeah, I guess my worry about having it as a subcommittee is we've got um.

I mean, I do think the at least the looking at the map and digging into the mapping is feels to me like something we all need to do.

Um, and that you know, and some of us have the blank mission background and some of us don't, and you know, looked at some of us looked at it in the context of that age housing protection strategy, and some of us didn't.

And I feel like we all need to kind of be on the same page on that.

I uh I agree.

Actually, I think I think you guys are all I mean if I'd be so bold, I think you all are interested in this topic quite a bit, and uh it might save time.

My worry is that we do a subcommittee and then we come back to council for work session or race session, everybody wants to talk about it as much as we probably would.

So I I don't know, they could be adding more time.

I appreciate my optimist that the council would uh yeah.

I think that got squashed.

Well, and I mean like we have a budgeting period that's breathing down our neck, and so while we have talented staff that have the expertise to put something like this together, you might not actually want a subgroup of us involved in that.

You might just want to put the proposal together and then have us weigh in on it.

That's what I would say let us see what you can do.

Let's next go and we get closer, and if you don't more often need more than maybe think that.

I think this is a place where um Milwaukee shines.

Uh a question like this or pondering of this, how you use the tools that are available to us in a really um creative and catalytic way.

This is this is where we do our best work.

So it's really exciting and I'm grateful that in you know, uh in the weeds of your existing portfolio that you have some excitement about something like this.

I think I think this can be really special.

Yeah, definitely.

That's nice to hear.

Yeah.

Thank you.

I don't know if there um other questions.

Good.

Yeah, it's in aligned with what you were saying about us seeing me taking a stab at uh skeleton strategy and getting a reaction, having something for you guys to react to.

Okay.

Awesome.

Thank you.

Yeah, right on.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, council.

Oh, take one and pass it around, please.

Play call sheet.

Yeah.

One call sheet, play call sheet.

I also decided we pick our fancy teams.

That too.

This is fancy committee.

And you all look at it.

Yeah, you can't let anybody think your lip let them see it.

That's the draft is live.

We're live on the draft.

Let's see what we were.

So we last time this was touched was back in October, and that was essentially just me adding um very last calls or last yeah, last row says Rotary City of Peace.

Um because we adopted in that resolution.

So now uh council president and council for their body.

What's the very last last thing happening?

What?

Yeah.

You don't remember that?

That was just I didn't I didn't hear what he was saying.

Sorry, they can wonder where you were.

So that's the only change since you probably last have seen this.

Um and obviously there hasn't been much change on the council, so there's been much need to really run, but this is your opportunity to take a look and see if you'd like anything.

Um little horse treating or so um a couple of questions and comments.

Um the fire district one.

I don't under as I understand that has not met really since Ann left.

And I've talked to Emma about a couple of times.

Um the concept was uh the fire chief and two members of his board, the city manager and two members of our council.

And I was part of that in my early council years, and um we did it about three times a year.

It was very informal.

Uh sometimes it was at the fire station, sometimes it's city hall.

Um maybe we don't need it.

Um, you know, sometimes there's a thing like they there were issues like we were jointly gonna spend money on some upgrades to the public safety building, you know, and that was a topic to have a conversation about.

They were going out for a bond, they wanted to talk about that.

Um I mean there are were occasional sort of medier topics, but a lot of it was just sort of um, I don't want to say fluff, but it wasn't um super um super important to you know, council what council was doing.

So I don't know if we need that one anymore.

Um, but I feel like we've been carrying it on the list for a couple of years without actually doing it.

So I'm happy to check in.

We should decide what the checkbook of fire chief and see if he's been missing it, because it hasn't been happening at our thing.

Yeah, I don't see because usually I would get yeah, yeah, we would meet with the fire chief, and it was me and Desi.

Yeah, it was you and Desi and I don't mind still meeting because it wasn't very often.

No, it was only two or two.

They call meetings when they need them, right?

No, there's no set meetings.

Like the last thing we talked about was more about the bond stuff that was going through and then some of them, you know, yeah.

I mean, more the bigger things that we talked about.

Yeah.

So I mean, we haven't really met in a while though.

Yeah, I don't think it's happened since Anne left.

And then it was happening, like I said, two or three times.

I mean, yeah.

I mean, I don't I don't mind doing that just because uh I mean, maybe change some of the discussion towards more of emergency response related, especially with the play that we recently had, it's kind of well, and now we're running the cert team.

It's interesting because they used to oversee the cert team, and now that we're overseeing, I don't know if that's less or more reason to uh maybe that other vacant members would be a cert member.

Oh, that's true.

Not if no other I mean that's honors, yeah.

Yeah, that'd be um I guess the yeah, yeah.

Well, uh or have a conversation with the fire chief and see if we want to start it up again.

Yeah, for some reason they're not gonna be.

Oh, well, I did want to bring up we do not have a Milwaukee resident on their board.

We have had at different times.

I mean, somebody has to run, so it's not like we get to a point it's somebody who has to for an office.

And we have had Milwaukee residents on it at different points in the past.

I do think they somebody told me that they have some openings, which I think are on the May ballot during the May or the November ballot.

We do have, but I think there could be an opportunity to recruit somebody if we thought we had local people who might be interested in serving on the fire district board.

I might know some people.

Okay, okay.

Well, I will try to pin down when that is um that's a little bit uh and to answer your question.

If the if the chiefs more up in there, like you know, we get to council.

I I it's it's public safety, so I'd rather I'd like to have something more to have updates and okay.

Yeah.

There's the there is the fire district side with it.

I think it's valuable to meet with us, there's also the sign of that's what I'm saying.

Yeah, that's something if he's like, you know, I don't have the time, I get it.

But if he's like, you know, it's up to council if they're still interested, then I don't think I would like to I like the doctors when they want to pull up on yeah.

When they want to photobon, they definitely want to talk to um and then the other one was uh I guess we can leave it on here with this Clackmas County Child Care for All has been dormant for like a year now.

Um I still want to do it if it ever comes to the case.

Yeah, yeah, I guess we can leave it on there.

I mean it may come isn't there a state uh like group that's working on that or a state task force, statewide task.

Very well could be.

I actually I know a nurse over at Providence in Milwaukee that says she's working on the child care for all but I think it's more of I'll find out because maybe that's something that I can redirect to and pivot towards that.

But I think that's more of a uh advocating statewide for it, which I'm still fine, obviously.

The other one to print the G S P A C the transportation button maybe update.

Yeah, absolutely.

You also came off the I was looking in the uh Milwaukee Omni thing that it disappeared on January 1st.

Thank you, Council President for this batting on that.

Thank you both.

I didn't get a frickin' up.

I ain't doing some of you, I didn't eat you that day.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

Um I would also call out the Oregon City's legislative committee.

I think both will be up at the end of the short session.

And there'll be a kind of thing they'll go through this spring and fall for getting things you know prioritized for 2027.

Yeah.

So apply and ticket on those.

Yeah.

So look at them now.

Yeah.

But I mean, I don't think they turn people away necessarily.

They do, yeah, there's a formal process and they will be away if you miss the window of that process.

Yes.

Okay.

I have a list of anybody who wants a committees of all of them.

I I think it's all because the the pot caucus we're trying to get people in from our caucus onto some of those.

So they're asking actually me to sign up for some of them.

So fantastic.

On the homeless solutions coalition.

Okay.

We can take that one off.

Okay.

Is that one that one gone?

Or just we're not.

I mean, it still exists.

I'm just no longer on the point.

There's a ton of things.

I was looking at the SAD.

There's so they have a network of um like information sharing.

And when I brought that uh to the council, and you know, it was early on as we were talking about, you know, theme work and there were various meetings that folks were possibly interested in.

I don't know how frequently those meetings are happening.

I think maybe quarterly, maybe not at all.

Because there was some restructuring that happened as they went from an informal body to a more formal nonprofit.

And then that board has been largely focused on getting um the caring place and the funding for the caring place up and running.

So a lot of what we talked about when this was added to the sheet has changed so much.

I think that gets out of date and um good to just keep connected to as an area of interest, but not in a formal informal.

So if you want to take it off or leave it.

I think we should take it off.

Which one is it?

Yeah, yeah, because I heard the same thing, like their focuses than that care in place facility.

Yeah, we're in city, which obviously we want to be supportive of too.

I like to bring something up.

Yeah.

And I enjoy it.

I you know, I don't mind continuing to do it.

The only thing I'm bringing it up is because I know you work with DAM.

Uh North Clackmas Chamber of Commerce.

Did you are again?

I'm happy with that.

Um I enjoy it, but because you're a lot more involved with dam and a lot of the other stuff you do with the businesses.

Do you do you want to take that one?

Yeah.

It's just on It was today.

Yeah, today at noon.

I can go.

Missed that one.

Yeah, missed that one too.

But uh you it's on Zoom or you can meet at the chamber and then um because I also have at the same time every Tuesday is my rotary meetings.

So usually I I sacrifice the rotary well and my job, but anyways.

I do like I said, I I don't mind doing them, but I figure since you have any other council liaison for that goal, the lane leader.

So that the commerce and the public policy teams is that this one?

Yes.

So it says first Mondays, but is it Tuesday?

It's the first Tuesday.

Okay, yeah.

First Tuesday of each month.

Uh it's it it's a good meeting.

Um but they they do tend to lean a little bit.

How we think our values.

Yeah.

I mean, like they came out in support of the mark meet there a couple months ago and they came out in support of the the transportation bill.

I kind of called them on that.

I'm like, the interests of most people.

Yeah, I don't know if they ever took a position, but I know that they did they did have hold that meeting to talk about it, and it seemed like they were more in favor of it than not.

And so on the public policy team, is there an expectation that you weigh in on the votes?

I I I weigh in, yeah.

I mean, we don't we uh since I've been there, we haven't really voted.

I mean they went through like the last session, they went through a lot of the bills that would affect them, and they were like, okay, do we want to do overall support for them?

And they don't really take like a formal vote, but um they do decide what to do.

Well, so yeah, they're hybrid.

I agree, hybrid.

But yeah, like overall that they they didn't they weren't in a green, they did not support the one about the unions of the workers who strike, obviously.

Um so but if if the majority of them do, then they're gonna most likely take that position.

Um but Jay is awesome.

Obviously, you work with Jay.

Jay's is a I've had no issues with Jay.

He's I've always been able to talk to them straightforward.

Okay, um, they kind of know where I stand.

So since this the short session is like lightning short, um if they have I mean they probably won't even meet again like to discuss any of those legislative concepts, or maybe I don't know, maybe they would.

But um, I feel like if it's not something that we've discussed um as our legislative priorities or bills that we're following, then I'd I I might provide my personal opinions, but I don't I don't feel comfortable weighing in the case.

I don't take a position about like if they ask my opinion, I'll tell them, but I don't take a position.

I just wouldn't vote at that point.

Yeah, you all feel comfortable with that.

Yeah, and I would into their meeting a couple times, and I I agree they don't, they rarely actually take a formal vote.

It's it's more like as want to support this, and if most people yes and they'll do it.

Like I just I stay out of it just because I know I'm not gonna say anything until I bring it up here.

That's why like I would write down the bills and let you guys know this is where they're standing, and I know it's an opposition of where we stand, so and and Jay knows where we stand on a lot of those things.

Okay, and you can send you I get the emails so I can send you the today so that you just get the flavor of what the phone okay, yeah, that'd be helpful.

Yeah, and I'll let Jay know because I also didn't confront him about the uh the uh press release.

So I don't want him to think that I'm backing out because of that.

Like I just and I told him like it doesn't change how I feel about him, but then he gets me so that's why I kind of want to be like, hey man, like just yeah, warm hand up.

I mean it and it does it's better fitting.

You got a business downtown, you worked with Dam, you do more with the with the local businesses, you're the lane leader.

It it just it just makes more sense for you to consolidate that feel.

And if it ever gets too much, I can jump back in and be your ultimate.

You can't go to a meeting, let me know, I'll hop in on a thank you.

Yeah, absolutely.

Okay, I could say that too.

Yeah, I think that would be really helpful because we are open during you know that meeting time.

And then I'll I'll tell Jay that too.

Okay, I'm gonna move as alternate.

Um because she's a lane leader.

I'll okay.

Sweet.

Cool.

Any other traits or changes?

Or um just want to mention that for the uh bond advisory committee, we're not able to attend the meetings when I spoke with Emma, and um she made sure that we had her presentation there, but um I mean I suspect since that's closed up, like that'll come off the list anyway.

I mean, I suspect since that's closed up, like that'll come off the list anyway.

It's the second from the last up the bottom there, the bond advisors.

Yeah, they're going for this fall, right?

So yeah, so I just want to make sure that that line comes off because that's concluded.

You're right.

You got their most representation.

Are they going for a neural or an increased rate?

I think it's a renewable model.

Yeah, I think it is a new is too.

Yeah, I can't.

Um other ones that people want to consider getting out of throwing on school here.

Well, I had a question along the lines of um groups like Dam.

I mean, do we actually want to have more council representative that goes to those meetings?

How do you how would you feel about that particular?

Would that screw up the five?

I wouldn't want to do this pretty freely speak really about it.

So yeah, I I mean that's why I kind of want to talk about it because like I think that it is helpful to have someone who understands the city, but Sierra goes to those meetings, and Sarah understands the city.

Um and anything that Sierra doesn't understand or doesn't feel comfortable talking about, you know, I think she's skilled in saying, like, let me look into that, bring it back to you.

So I think that there's more of uh I think there's uh a stronger connection to that organization.

Um I think they'd probably they'd probably really appreciate having a council member um really officially there because that it just makes things you know more formal for them.

Um but I I wouldn't want to necessarily be that I don't know, I guess that'd have to be it's hard, yeah, right?

Because you're gonna kind of like that beat in both sides.

Yeah, it's a little it feels like a conflict of interest for me to be the like a member as a business owner and one of the constituents of that group essentially, and then also someone who would help navigate them.

But that being said, like I I think that we should have updates about what's happening at that group.

And do they have do I understand correctly that they have an executive committee that meets more regularly and then they have their open meetings, which are uh open beyond business owners.

I know some of the neighborhood people like that, right?

Yeah, those are quarterly, so they they were monthly and now they're quarterly, but the steering committee meets monthly.

And are you suggesting a sitting reper up on the steering committee or on the no?

I think I think that um I would say just be so we have the way their bylaws are um we just have Sierra is on our steering committee as an ex officio member.

I don't know that we could have like a formal appointee on any one of their boards, but just someone there to go listen.

And maybe it's that Sierra is the point person, and then when there are things that should be reported out in committee, like maybe that would be you or Emma.

Um I don't want to make Sierra come to like all of our regular sessions.

When are those meetings?

Where are the day meetings?

Um Monday, second Monday.

Well, but it's quarterly now, so it's like it's not very often.

Um but there are a lot of things that come out of the work, you know, that would be of interest, you know.

Like I think council should know what's happening with the Milwaukee passport and how successful that was.

Um that I mean, we blew through all those passports.

Yeah, wow.

Yes, in short order.

Awesome.

Yeah, it was like a week and a half, and yeah, so Andy was talking about getting um he had some that were going to the industrial area.

Um, but he's I think he's gonna redirect some of some more downtown.

Um but we still get people coming in asking, and I've been sending them to all.

Yeah, I was gonna say there's a little stash.

Yeah, yeah.

I how can't I post I think I think I hear the need is you'd want to hear more what's going on with them like really understand once a month and what the key highlights are.

Um I would suggest since we kinda have the the scaffolding template for this through the CD report slash CIB, we can get more meeting reports month in that.

And so you get it every work session, every second work session of the of the month.

And if you want to talk about it at the uh council comments or I feel like that walks the line between you know things that I would talk about things that I see.

Cool.

Okay.

All right, I don't think there's any committees we don't have.

Yeah, we have the white.

We got the white space on the screen for the committee.

We might we might get the actually with the cuts we've made.

Yeah.

Can we have a baby naming committee?

Yeah.

Every one of us should be assigned an NDA.

Yeah.

There you go.

That's a good century spit on the side.

Well, I think we should all I mean I usually try to go to all the NBA's once a year.

Um haven't always managed that, but um, I mean I do think it's good for all of us to do that.

Oh yeah, we could have a sign and try to go to mine, but it's the same time as West.

Oh like every time.

And so my neighborhood thinks I don't like them.

Yeah, yeah.

I don't know.

I know I shouldn't I shunned West last time.

I guess I know Robert's planning to hit the NBA's on parks, right?

I've been planning that for a year.

Hoping that I would have some definitive news.

So we might want to add something more formalized.

Yeah, it wouldn't be good for us to do a NBA tour.

Yeah.

Like, hey, you guys take the east side, we take the west side, whatever flip up.

Rotate through just so everybody gets to see all of us.

Like you have time, you know.

Remember me in 2028, the belly and you're asking about what we're busy now.

Well thank you all.

I'll send it kind of nice job today, dude.

So we are till six thirty.

You have twenty two minutes for dinner.

So great.

I think they do his homework until then.

The reason I joined great work.

Yeah.