All right, good evening, everyone.

I will call this uh Tiger City Council meeting to order.

Uh Deputy City Recorder Bartholomew, would you please conduct a roll call?

Councillor Shaw.

Absent.

Council President Wolf?

Here.

Councillor Anderson.

Here.

Councillor Gaducey.

Present.

Use Councillor Halleck?

Here.

Mayor who?

Here.

Councillor Robbins?

Hair.

Councilor Schlag.

Here.

Will everybody uh stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance?

Uh City Council and Staff, do you have any non-agenda item?

None from us, Mayor.

And seeing none from the council, let's move on to the next item on our agenda, which is public common.

Public common period provides an opportunity for members of the public to address the city council.

While it is not a dialogue, either I or the staff will follow up to address the issues brought forward in these comments.

The calling number um tonight is 503-966-4101.

And those wishing to comment shall call now to get into the queue.

Anyone present wanting to comment should sign up on the public comment form at the back or at the front of the room.

First one is written common.

So let's move on to the in-person um uh public comments.

Uh so uh those sign up.

Uh I was ask those who sign up um to speak.

Uh, when your name is called, please come forward.

Um turn on the microphone and please state your name and where you live, what city you live, and then you have two minutes.

So tonight we have one person who sign up is Caleb Johnson.

Uh please come forward.

Good evening.

Uh please turn on the mic first.

Good.

My name is Caleb Johnson.

I've been a proud Tiger resident for 27 years, aka my whole life, and I'm here to express my concern about the presence of immigration and customs enforcement, better known as ICE in Tiger.

I've never considered myself a very political person, but when I saw what was happening in our country, I couldn't sit back and ignore it.

People are being violently detained because of their race or their accent, snatched off the streets by masked men in unmarked vehicles, torn away from their families, denied of constitutional rights, and shipped off to internment camps where they are best neglected and at worst abused and tortured.

People protesting this are being maced, tear gassed, and even shot dead in the streets.

And although it may seem like our hometown of Tigert is removed from all these atrocities, we can't be complacent because we have lost community members to ICE, which is operating out of a home base on McAdam, just 20 minutes from here.

And I've personally heard from employees of the Safeway, just five minutes down the road, that on multiple recent occasions there were ICE agents sitting in the parking lot wearing masks and ballistic vests.

ICE is here.

And because of that, we have community members living in fear every day, afraid to go to the grocery store or to go to work, afraid to walk their kids to the bus stop, afraid to take their sick babies to the hospital.

And we have children, children living with anxiety that no child should ever have to feel.

Kids who think they don't belong here because of the color of their skin or the way their voice sounds, kids who are terrified that they'll lose their parents or be taken themselves.

So what can we do about this?

I think the place to start would be to show these affected communities that the community leaders are on their side.

This could mean codifying into law tiger's status in Sanctuary City.

It could mean holding bilingual town hall meetings remotely, it can mean helping to provide resources to immigrant families and families affected by ICE.

And it can mean assuring everyone that when ICE is breaking the law and violating people's constitutional rights, that we can count on the Tiger police to come help.

As a member of the community, I believe we have an obligation to make Tiger a safe place for all of our people, regardless of their immigration status, and that there are reasonable steps we can take to ensure that happens.

And I'm hoping we can count on the city council to lead us in that.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Anyone else who want to speak but haven't sign up?

Seeing none, let's move on to public comment uh phone on video.

Uh Mr.

Wolt, are there any callers in the queue for phone or video testimony?

Mayor, there's one caller in the queue, and I'll connect them right now.

Thank you.

Thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I appreciate the compassion and motivations behind our communities opposition.

I'm sorry, caller.

Sorry, uh, can uh Mr.

Wolf, can you start a timer again?

Can you speak your name and where you live?

And you will have two minutes.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Um my name's Kyle.

I live on Maplewood Drive.

Um, but thank you for the opportunity to speak.

I appreciate the compassionate motivations.

Uh, like I said, to oppose ICE and what they're doing, protecting families, upholding human rights, ensuring no one lives in fear because of the background of the noble cause.

But it does have unintended consequences by not cooperating with federal agents to remove convicted criminals from our jails or forcing ice into riskier field apprehensions that endanger agents, immigrants, observers, and bystanders alike in creating situations where undocumented immigrants with no convictions are placed in a cost fire as well.

Among IS arrests over the last year, only a small percentage involved crimes like murder, kidnapping, robbery, assault, and sexual assault.

Less than 10%.

We can all agree that these kind of people are welcome here.

Cooperating safely would remove these dangerous individuals from our jails, keeping achieving the goal of enhancing public safety while getting ice off our streets and saving the taxpayers lots of money on the federal, state, and local levels.

These costs come on top of recent tax heights.

Uh the Washington County library levy increased 60%, and ironically enough, the public safety lobby levy rose about 40%.

Add to that the proposed 150 million dollar police and public works facility project that's set into the ballot box in May.

And now we're faced with federal funding being withheld from sanctuary jurisdictions such as ours on as of February 1st, impacting grants for transportation, housing, and more.

This leaves our leaders with a tough choice.

What what is your plan for this funding shortfall?

Will you encourage local law enforcement to partner with federal authorities on criminal removals?

Will you propose more taxes?

Will you make cuts and delays to current projects?

I'd love to hear your thoughts.

Thank you.

Thank you, Kyle.

Mr.

Wolt, are there any other callers?

No other callers, Mayor.

Thank you.

Let's move on to our city manager report.

Acting City Manager Trish will give a brief report.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor, Council, teammates, and members of our community.

I do have a slide if you don't mind, Mr.

Walt.

One moment.

Thank you.

Thank you very much.

I wanted to provide uh an update to community uh that as of now, as of last Sunday, rather, the uh Tiger Public Library is temporarily closed uh for our HVAC construction project.

This is how we uh care for our facilities at the end of uh the life of a component uh of our library.

We're replacing it uh as we did with the library roof.

Uh we're grateful to our library teammates for preparing uh express library services right here at Tiger City Hall.

Uh these services begin this Friday, February 6th, and will be offered every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, 10 a.m.

to 6 p.m.

Uh phone service is available every day, 10 a.m.

till 6 p.m.

That number is 503 684 6537.

And uh the library building is planned to reopen at the completion of construction work in May.

Uh on the slide here, you'll see some of the offerings that are available on the Friday, Saturday, Sunday Express Library, including story times, uh 10.15 in the morning on those days, as well as access to Wi-Fi, computers, and limited printing.

For some more information, I hope uh folks will check out our City of Tiger website under Library Services.

Thank you very much.

Thank you, Acting City Manager Trish.

Um, do you have any questions or comments?

Seeing none, let's move on to the next item on the agenda.

Uh so the next three items will be uh presentation for our Washington County um partners and friends.

And the first one will be uh our county commissioner, Jason Snyder.

Good evening, Commissioner.

Well, thank you, Mayor and Council.

Good to be back.

And I think as I've stated before, I really want to use this time as a dialogue and discussion around issues that are occurring.

I can certainly come give you presentations in the future if you want them.

But I think I've found so far with all of my fellow city council colleagues in other cities and in my first visit here that really having a discussion and dialogue about what's going on.

You may what things you may need help with is uh the most valuable or things that you want me to know.

So that's my intent tonight as we had done before, Councilor Anderson.

Welcome to the council since my last visit.

And um, so with that, I we can talk about I could give you um a little bit of update on what's what is looking like the county budget is gonna look like this year that may be of interest to all of you, and I can do that probably fairly quickly uh if that would be helpful, and then we could go from there.

Sound useful.

Yeah, yeah, please.

Okay, cool.

So just in a at a high level um with uh a number of factors that are uh at play.

We are looking at a uh five million dollar general fund shortfall this year.

Um in comparison, last year's general fund budget gap was about 20 million dollars when we were starting it.

So uh the gap is substantially less than the prior year, and there's a number of one-time things that are that are making that gap not as big as it has been in the last few years.

So we are looking uh right now, our uh leadership teams working on how to uh how to close that gap, and we'll be working through that in the budget process.

But at least as as far as the financial delta, it's about five million dollars for the general funds.

Uh so that's there with the county budget.

So, counselor, do you have any questions or comments?

Go ahead, Council President Wolf.

Thank you, um Commissioner Snyder.

I was just curious, and maybe um this is more that you can communicate as the process um gets a bit more uh finalized.

But um I I thought I heard you say great news, first of all, that it's 25.

So if we're all right.

I know it's all relative to say great news.

Um, but I think it's the world we're all sitting in.

What I'm curious about is I thought I heard you say that there's some assistance with one-time funds that kind of got the gap down to five million.

Did I understand that correctly?

No, what uh well there there are things that have happened that are more like I would say one-time event.

Okay.

So for example, um something that is impacting a number of jurisdictions in a very positive way with the roll off of some of the SIP agreements with Intel and other organizations over the last couple of years.

Um that has prompted uh benefits to most jurisdictions because they were not receiving uh significant amounts of property tax.

But for the county, the county was receiving more than it gets through property taxes for that.

So this year, the um the assessed value, and this is the main thing that's driving this.

The assessed value in the county is is uh typically up about four and a quarter percent.

But because of those adjustments this year, the countywide assessed value is up more like 11 or 12 percent.

Um but that's not gonna sustain, and they and that's really an artificial I mean it is factually true, but it is completely artificially inflated by uh in part the the roll-off of the SIP agreements, and then also a couple of data centers that were built uh at a at a particular point in time that is not going to continue in the same way.

So those are not like we don't view the trajectory as being changed.

There's a one year um sort of gift if you want to call it that, but it's not it that's not gonna be a sustainable change in the in the county's revenue or assessed value.

So um my understanding is that uh to address the five million dollar shortfall, there will be a combination of cutback as well as new revenue sources.

So can you just as a top level?

Yeah, for this for this year, uh it's really gonna look like you know, five million dollars of budget cuts.

What we're what we're trying to do to prepare for the following future years is is really trying to shore up um our revenue in a variety of areas to try to start to bend the the gap, I would say, between our revenues and our expenses and how much our expenses are going up.

This is a story that you all live too.

I mean, I lived it as a city counselor and as a budget committee member and tiger and mayor.

So I I know you all know this story and you've all lived it.

Um, but that that's where we're at.

So there are things that are being considered and significant analysis being put into other revenue options for the county that would then help offset um you know the the gaps in the future.

So while we we have a five million dollar gap this year, next year it'd likely be more because we're not gonna have 11 percent AV growth again.

Um we know that.

So if the let's call it this is me just sort of guessing 10 million dollar gap next year, if we can figure out and and our goal is to figure out some of the revenue options for um year starting, not this year's budget year, but the following year's budget year.

So examples of that include, and you're gonna start seeing discussion about it uh about an increase in the vehicle registration fee that the county charges now that's charged through your um through your vehicle registration.

That's got a long lead time.

If we were to make that decision soon, it'd be being implemented, you know, a year from now.

Okay.

So my understanding is that if the commission decided to go forward, that will come forward before adoption next January, and you won't go in fact until next June.

Is that June 2027?

Is that why you were I would have to get back to you on exact timing.

Okay.

Um it would be somewhere in that time frame.

Okay.

The uh ODOT uh like the DMV does not give a lot of options.

They tell you this is that they have very strict um what you can and can't do and what timing.

So I don't I am not the expert at that.

I do know enough to know that they're very rigid um and that it would be impactful for the following budget year.

Okay.

And so can you give us a little update on the levy that the the county voter just approved on the library and the public safety?

How would that factor into the long-term budget forecast?

Would that be enough or is just we're still gonna have shorefall eventually?

Well, the work the work that we did in public safety and library ensure that uh at least for the next five years, that we can maintain those services and the planning that was done there was to make sure that as the general fund um the amount of the general fund being spent in those spaces, uh we we couldn't keep up with the increases.

So the levies have been uh or will be very helpful for maintaining services.

Without that, you would have been seeing significant uh cuts mostly because the general fund level of support.

We we just can't sustain that.

Okay.

Counselor, any questions about county budget for revenue?

All right.

So um any other topic you'll be interested, Council President Wolf?

Yeah.

Sure.

Um you know, um, I think uh the mayor started um Commissioner Schneider with you uh launching um conversations with our friends and um and I appreciate that.

And so um I I do think our relationships are really important.

And the thing that I want to touch on, and I know this evening we're gonna talk about housing and homelessness, um, but I just feel like I would be remiss if I didn't do additional advocacy of just the challenges of a community that really has um stepped up in the world of uh providing shelter services and houselessness assistance.

So I just wanted to, I reached out to um um acting city manager Trich and who also reached out um to Chief McDonald.

So just to share um some January data points.

Um in January alone, our two community-oriented police officers took in 127 house list related calls for service, contacted 169 camps, contacted 159 houseless individuals, issued one exclusion and made one arrest while doing um their surrounding work around house houselessness.

Um they are working around the clock, and then just today, and um Tigered PD did a news release, uh press release on this um an unfortunate um uh event that happened where community houseless community member was stabbed by another.

This happened in a camp Southwest Cascade, not at public works.

And again, this was in a press release today.

Trying to help those that are in need, but the level of work I think extends well beyond Tigered community members.

And so I I just felt it really important to share that.

And I know as you kicked off with a budget cut, I know there's no magic bucket of dollars that assists for operating services, but it's a problem.

And so I just wanted to take this opportunity to just share that once again with you and would appreciate any feedback or thoughts.

So thank you.

Well, I appreciate you bringing that up.

I did see the unfortunate uh news release and obviously violence is not something we want to see in our communities.

Uh I do think that we all, you as elected leaders and the county board of commissioners as elected leaders need to be prepared for the reality of what is likely to happen from the sort of trickle-down impacts of the uh changes in the text, the federal tax code that occurred.

Um if you're not getting briefed or tracking that, um the Oregon state tax collections are pretty directly tied to the federal filings, uh federal tax filings currently.

I know there's discussion about changing that, but as of now, that is the reality.

And the reason that matters directly to the topic you're bringing up is the Metro SHS funds are the same way.

So the way they're calculated and what is owed on what amounts of money uh will be uh impacted unless changes are made with the way the state uh calculates its taxes and decouples from the federal tax system.

Um I I just share that because I think you know, for context, when we're talking about more needs, I think the reality we all have to face is that there's going there's potentially going to be significantly less revenue to even do what we've all already been doing, and that's gonna put us in a difficult position.

I don't um you know I want to continue to partner as best I can and have our our county team helping as much as they can uh solve the issues, and if you think there's more that we can do, or the the Tiger team thinks there's more the county can do, I certainly want to hear about it.

To be continued then, so thank you.

I I believe that will be to be continued until we're both out of office.

Um I agree.

Um and I don't have an answer right now, but I'll I'll certainly ponder it.

So thank you.

We'll keep at it.

Yeah, definitely.

I think we are really appreciative of county support, definitely.

Um I think I keep hearing this idea of you know if if everybody in the region does a little bit something, then one of us wouldn't have to do so much.

So that that's why I'm hearing.

So um it's not that we don't appreciate county's support, it's just you know, I you know, we I wish we had more around us.

Yeah, and I think I think that what Tigers experienced as well, and I'm gonna kind of put my former mayor hat on too, and community member and tigered um is that you know, there have been resources brought to Tiger to help.

And when you bring significant resources somewhere, uh people that need those resources come.

Yep.

And uh that's a I think a dynamic that's not uh fully appreciated or it may be understood intellectually, but it is when it's happening and you're watching it, and then sometimes the resources don't match the demand.

Right.

It's challenging.

Yeah.

And yeah, we are proud of what we can do, but again, yeah, what you say.

I mean, there is more need than there are resources.

Yes, that's a reality that we are all facing in that space.

Yeah.

Any other comments or we have about 30 seconds.

Wow, I'm on the countdown clock.

Yeah.

Wow.

I heard about your new facilitation techniques.

Now I'm experiencing them.

Well, obviously, if you want to talk more, I always uh special guests, you know.

Oh, uh youth counselor.

So one thing that didn't get mentioned that I think uh by public comment is pretty obvious should get mentioned.

I would love to hear what the county is doing in regards to ICE involvement within the area and how we're trying to prioritize that as an issue for our residents.

Yeah, thank you for that question.

And just very quickly over the late October, early November time frame and into mid-November.

Uh, we actually, as a county commission declared a state of emergency related to both food insecurity and also to um what was occurring with the immigrant and refugee community and took action by um really taking money out of our reserves to address that those both of those emergencies, which I classify as essentially you know, attacks on the most vulnerable members of our communities, which I found very troubling.

And that's the direct action that we've taken.

We actually just got reports in the last week about what the impacts of those uh we spent between those two, we spent 450,000 of reserve uh funds that our county administrator keeps reminding us we're gonna have to replace this year.

Um but we felt really um obligated to do what we could to try to help uh mitigate as much as we could there.

Um that's the action we've taken so far, along with having uh dialogue around how and taking action to make sure people know how to identify local law enforcement.

That's something that the frankly the police chiefs and the sheriff all took the lead on, and I think was uh well received and asked for by our community because they want to still uh they they still want to be able to use um and solve local problems with local resources, but when you're afraid, that's harder to do.

So you know, we had multiple actions like that, including engaging with a number of the uh community-based organizations that were asking for not just financial help to mitigate, but also um you know, having uh legal resources and really answers from our district attorney about the role of federal law enforcement and how it interacts from a legal perspective with local law enforcement.

Thank you.

Hope that's helpful.

Yeah, thank you.

Any other last comment or question for commissioners?

Well, this being very helpful, uh, Commissioner Snyder, thank you so much for um coming to our city uh hall again, and uh next sub will be one of your um housing department people.

So feel free to stick around if you have time and um we'll see.

I've got a basketball game to get to, but I will stick around probably a little bit.

Does this format still working?

I guess I just want to check in.

Do you want me to come with slides and give you big presentations?

Or do you I I prefer the dialogue for the future let me know.

This is great.

So thank you so much.

All right.

So next item on our agenda is Washington County Housing Department and your report.

And um presenting the item will be uh house less uh liaison cohen.

Uh from Washington Candy will be director of housing services, Rogers, and associate director of housing authority, Chen.

Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and City Council.

Uh I am just here to introduce my colleagues at Washington County.

Um, we have Molly Rogers and Jill Chen who lead the housing department at Washington County.

Um they are here to present the annual report for uh fiscal year 24-25.

I'll pass out physical reports to you as well.

Um the report uh they do their roadshow every year that we have had uh supportive housing services.

This is a little bit different and then it's broader um and doing the spectrum from sort of the streets to housing so that you get that full continuum.

And I think we all know that we've had a number of challenges um in this space uh throughout the last year, but also there are a lot of things to celebrate that came online in the last year and um some great work uh that they'll be able to highlight.

So I'm gonna turn it over to them and pass out reports.

Just next thing.

Yeah, thanks.

Great.

Good evening, Mayor Who and Counselors.

For the record, my name is Molly Rogers, and I'm the executive director of the housing authority of Washington County and the Department of Housing Services.

I use she, her pronouns, and I'm joined tonight by my colleague Jill Chen, the assistant director.

We're really honored to be with you tonight to share the progress we've made in addressing the housing and homelessness crises in our community together with you.

So these are achievements we've made in partnership with the City of Tiger, other cities, and the many community-based organizations that we contracted out with for fiscal year 2425.

Well, tonight's focus will be we'll have some talk about Tiger.

We'll see references to what really our countywide effort as we've continued to build a comprehensive homeless system of care.

Oh, you've already got my next slide up.

Um really what is grounds us in our work is our vision and our mission.

At the Department of Housing Services, we envision a Washington County where everyone has an affordable home with the supports and opportunities each of us needs to thrive.

And our mission is to create pathways out of homelessness, promote housing stability, and invest in affordable communities for Washington County and our residents.

Next slide.

And it's really nice to put a face to some data.

So this is Jasmine.

Two years ago, Jasmine fled her home with her two young children, and with very little savings in her bank account.

She shared with us a lot of the times when people are in their trenches, they want to give up.

Perseverance can get you where you need to be.

So I really showing a story, I think, of resilience and strength.

Next slide.

So in total, we served more than 20,000 persons across all of our programs.

And just to put that in context, that is roughly this population of Shortwood.

I did bring with me for your all reference is our capital projects report.

Oh, I think I might have given it to Megan who might be able to share with you if you'd like to review.

There it is.

Heather's got it.

Go for Heather can share it.

Feel free to share it around if you if you would like.

But it's really showing, and we've got a slide later of the map of where we're putting all the various uh infrastructure and investments really through geographically dispersed across the county.

The remaining metric that I want to just focus a little bit, each of these are unduplicated numbers of the larger subset of the of the larger number of 20,700.

And while I won't go through each of them, I just want to make a note that the majority were served through long-term rental assistance in permanent housing.

So we're really trying to promote the housing stability and permanent solutions.

Next slide.

So our first component of our mission is creating pathways out of homelessness.

Really, I want to just applaud and share that how much we've really appreciated our partnership with the city of Tigerd, and really want to express my deep appreciation for all of you.

And in particular, um your homeless liaison, Megan Cohen.

Megan is truly your boots on the ground, working closely with local partners to coordinate homeless response efforts in Tigerd, Twaleton, and Shirtwood.

Thank you for lending Megan to us.

Next slide.

In Washington County, we divide our area into nine geographically assigned outreach teams that proactively engage people experiencing homelessness.

Just compassion is Tiger's outreach provider.

So just last year, 80% of those supported by these teams found either shelter, housing, or were you reunited with their families.

Just compassion also led the way by opening the your first access center, the Just Compassion Resource Center, which is just the picture here you can see.

The center offers showers, meals, services, navigation assistance, and overflow space during severe weather.

Thank you to the city of Tiger for investing 200,000 in right-of-way improvements for this location.

And there are three more access centers being planned in Cornelius, Hillsboro, and Beaverton.

The Project Homeless Connect location just broke ground.

And the West County Access Center is slated to start construction in June.

And we continue to support the city of Beaverton in identifying a location for their planned access center with funding set aside dedicated for that.

And finally, our housing liaison program connects individuals identified through health care and community corrections to housing and support.

And just last year, 682 households exited the program to housing, care facilities, shelter, or with their families.

Next slide.

The next quarterstone of our homeless system of care is shelters and transitional housing, which are really temporary spaces of respite where people can find safety, warmth, and support while planning their permanent housing transition.

Last year we funded and maintained more than 400 shelter beds throughout Washington County, including the Just Compassion Resource Center and the Family Promise of Tualeton Valley's bridge to home shelter, which you can see in the picture above.

And beyond Tigered, we opened purpose-built shelters in Beaverton, and most recently in Hillsboro, really the first in those communities to provide year-round shelter.

And through this combined shelter system, over 700 individuals transitioned from shelter to permanent housing.

That's huge progress in just one year.

We also funded two transitional housing projects, one with a focus on mental health stabilization, and the other on recovery stabilization.

The site focused on mental health stabilization will be owned and operated by Transcending Hope in Hillsboro.

And the other one, the Cornell Road Recovery, it's located in the Cedar Mills area off of Highway 26.

It's really in close proximity to the Washington County newly opened center for addiction triage and treatment.

And we are an active community engagement with those neighbors right now.

And with that, I'll hand it over to Jill.

Thank you, Molly.

And for the record, I'm Jill Chen, Assistant Director of the Department of Housing Services.

And I just want to do a time check.

You have about five minutes left in your presentation.

Oh, and we will go there.

Okay.

Just for the record, my name is Jill Chen, Assistant Director of the Department of Housing Services.

Next slide, please.

Next slide.

I'll briefly touch on all the areas about housing stability.

As you'll see, one of the largest portions that we handle is rental assistance.

This is nearly to 1,500 landlords using $89 million from federal funds, local funds, and state funds, as well as the regional funds.

We're serving over 5300 households with the various different kinds of rental assistance, and over 800 households with short-term rental.

In Tiger itself, we're helping 800 780 households.

Next slide, please.

Quick overview as to who are we serving.

You'll see on the left side.

That is 4200 children.

That's almost 20% of our folks that we're serving.

Also a lot of seniors.

On the right side, you'll see the different demographics which reflect our community.

Over 97% are stably housed.

Next slide, please.

I'm gonna talk real fast.

Next slide, please.

Okay.

As Molly mentioned, this is the map of our, you can call it our whole uh homeless spectrum from homelessness to housing spectrum.

Everything from our pods, our shelters, our transitional housing, our permanent supportive housing, all the way to affordable housing.

Um, and there are a number of different um you can call it services that's already offered in Tiger that Molly mentioned, um homeless assets as well as the housing assets.

Next slide, please.

You'll see that a number of the portion of our home uh housing assets were supported by the Metro Affordable Housing Bonds.

This was 192 million that was allocated to the county.

We have exceeded every single target that we agreed with Metro.

This is for total units, total family sized units, as well as very low income units as well, and finally for the permanent supportive housing units.

The bond spans over 12 uh communities throughout Washington County and in Tiger Infus Pacific.

There's alongside senior apartments, Terrace Glen, and I think you already saw uh Jasmine earlier who's living in Terrace Glenn.

Next slide, please.

In addition to new affordable housing, we're also looking to expand and improve uh preserve existing affordable housing.

Um you all, as well as uh former mayor Snyder are very familiar with our Woodspring project that recently had a re-syndication, is actually being reconstructed.

That is 172 units of affordable housing.

In the map in the pictures here, you'll also see Bonita Villa as well as Rich Epple Mountain.

These were also re-syndicated.

We're using tax credits as well as commercial financing, as well as some monies from the housing authority.

So we have um in the we're in the process of renovating uh it's actually almost 800 units now because of Woodspring.

Next slide, please.

Next slide, quick summary of our financials.

Um see in the slides, we have a budget of 225 million.

A large part of this is from the supportive housing services measure from Metro, that is um 59%.

The other large portion of it is from the federal government, providing us funding for our rental assistance vouchers.

This is a housing choice vouchers, and then a number of smaller slices from various fundings.

What you do not see on the slide is all the funds that we are able to capitalize and leverage that puts forward our affordable housing developments as well as the preservation.

Next slide, please.

All right, just to move us quickly, the next slide.

We work very collaboratively with, especially in trying to integrate health care with housing in the work we're doing.

We're guided by four advisory bodies, and we do community listening sessions to help guide our policies and our programs.

Next slide.

But of note, I really wanted to highlight uh key collaboration, and that's really with our city partners and our first responders.

You have already alluded to the work that you're all you you see every day between this collaboration and the need you we need to see uh going forward.

We do work closely with your city liaisons to connect up with first responders, law enforcement, libraries, and other city departments to provide education and homeless services and ensure people are connected to the right resources.

And then that leads us to our emergency beds, our e-beds, they're reserved for first responders, and it allows immediate placements for individuals experiencing unsheltered homelessness without waiting for a standard shelter bed to open.

Critical part for our time place and manner enforcement.

Next slide.

Next next slide.

This is just um Commissioner Schneider alluded to there.

The need is still here among us in our community.

We do still see um incredibly uh high rents in this community, particularly in comparison to other cities in Oregon.

Um we know that we counted 940 people experiencing homelessness in the last 20 to 2025 point in time count.

Um we know that this is generally a reflection of an increase in those experiencing sheltered homelessness, and we think of that as actually a good thing.

People are getting shelter as they seek um as they seek assistance and they're experiencing homelessness, and we saw pretty much remained flat and steady in our unsheltered homelessness count, which was a 35% reduction from our 2021.

So we're we're holding ground um in our progress for those who are unsheltered.

They're getting into shelter is the key point there.

Next slide.

Um there's a lot of many things um facing us right now.

I think Commissioner Snyder alluded to a number of those as well at the state level.

Just wanted to elevate um that we're facing federal uh volatility and um some reductions in the programs we serve, and really just highlights for us the need for our jurisdictional partners even more than ever.

Um you will help us navigate through these very um uh uh volatile times.

Um and and one thing I want to note is we're going through a process of updating our supportive housing services local implementation plan.

It's really what guides um the investments into ending and preventing homelessness.

We're right at the halfway mark of the tenure measure, and we're looking forward to updating, recalibrating um from coming out of a gra um from a scaling up to now a stabilization of our system of care.

So we're hoping to update that for our next five years of of that plan.

And we've got two affordable housing projects underway and two transitional housing projects underway.

And next slide.

And with that, just wanted to end with a quick story about Pierre.

Pierre stayed at the Just Compassion shelter before moving into his own apartment and reuniting with his son, who also is living in Tiger.

Pierre participated in our workforce development program in partnership with work systems and URCO, earning his certified nursing assistant credential last year.

And as Pierre says, without this help, I would not have been able to get where I am.

And with that, we will be happy to take your questions.

Thank you so much, and thank you for the presentation for all the work you're doing every day.

It's really important.

And thanks, big thanks to our Megan Cohen for doing all this amazing job in this difficult time.

So, Consular, do you have any quick question or comment?

Council Robbins, please.

Thank you.

Um thank you for the presentation and for going over all of the resources you have.

You're doing some incredible work.

I appreciate that.

I have kind of a two two-part question or three-part question.

Um, for the affordable housing that is out there in Tiger.

Um, what is the average rent that we charge people as one part?

And the second part is um, and perhaps how that compares to market rate, or I can look that up myself.

Um, but the second thing is how much what percentage of vacancies do we have, and how long does a place stay vacant before somebody moves in?

I know there's a lot of steps to that.

Actually, can you go back to one of those earlier slides?

We had the rent, uh, the average rent, I think, on there.

The median gross rent.

That's right, the one before.

Oh you had it before.

There it is.

Yeah.

JL doan take this one or sure.

Um we have a number of different sized units for a two-bedroom unit.

Um, and those are usually at what we call a 60% area median income rent.

And that is required and regulated.

Um we regulate all the ones that we have investments in, and this state does as well.

Um but the average two-bedroom is much higher than that.

The average bedroom, I think, in the county um is close to 2,000.

1920 plus, yeah.

And compared to that, the 60 percent area mean income for household of four is about 75,000.

And you talk about the vacancy rates, sorry.

Um there's been a lot of news lately about vacancy rates.

We do see a little bit of some softening in the rental market in Washington County, but not to the degree that we've seen in frankly Multnomah County.

We still have high demand for those who are seeking uh affordable housing.

And as we just alluded, there's a substantial can be as much somewhere between 300 to 500 different differential uh between rental uh market rent rent and affordable rent.

Yeah.

And our current housing authority portfolio, our vacancy is around five percent, maybe even less.

That's excellent.

Thank you.

I appreciate it.

All right, Consul Galucy.

And a quick clarifying question in terms of looking at your uh impact map.

Uh where would like the good neighbor center fall on there?

Because I didn't see there, so does that fall under a different bucket of things?

There's a lot on this map.

The good neighbor.

And the good neighbor.

Should be in Tiger.

I'm trying to look forward one to number two.

Is there another one?

But they report to Washington County.

So they end up getting a lot of their people from Washington County's central.

So I didn't know if there was a subset that's not included in this map, or if it was if it was just an emission.

Oh, so our access center is number two.

We've got two number twos.

Yeah.

So we've got just compassion, you got your resource center with the shelter.

And because it's the same location, you've got under Access Center, we also have the resource center for just compassion.

So it's a double coded.

Oh, sorry.

Megan, do you want to do you know the answer?

You are you want to jump in really quick?

I didn't have a is it?

I don't.

Is that one supported by the other?

Yes, I think um, so the answer is there are additional shelters that are not on this map that are not supported by supportive housing services.

Good neighbor center does receive, I believe, some SHS funding.

I would have to double check on like the contracting um year to year.

Um but there are like um uh women's shelters, there are some other additional uh family shelters that um are not represented on the map that are not um supported by SHS.

And I think there's a few other um, you know, things are shifting so quickly on here.

So like the Hillsborough shelter is already open.

Um some of the um pod shelters are um uh sunsetting as a new pod shelter uh was recently uh announced um through press release from Washington County.

So there's a couple other things we can um work on getting an updated map and some additional information about other shelters um and how they're supported.

Thank you.

Yeah, I think one thing uh during our one-on-one with um Washington County's homeless uh uh what's I forgot her her name.

Um Katie and uh just compassion Vernon is and Counselor Shah, uh we express a strong desire to have a more comprehensive map like that.

So just to show even just the elected, right?

When we were asked question about it, you know, I I I heard that you know, people expert in this say you'll have a map in your head, but it's like that's you know that's great, but you know it will help us elected and the public to to see the picture, the whole picture.

So that's something that um thank you, Council Kazuci, for asking that question.

So that's something that you know I heard you like, you know.

My fellow counselor was being asking, so please consider having a more updated map.

So it'll be helpful.

So anyway, uh we are way over time, so but thank you so much for being here.

And uh we have your contact information, so uh counselor, please feel free to contact them, right?

So yeah, thank you so much.

Thank you for your time.

All right, so that's uh next item will be clean water services update, and it'll be presented by CWS Chief Utility Relations Officer Gall.

Um Good evening, Joe.

Nope.

There it is.

Thank you.

Good evening, Mayor and Council.

Uh for the record, my name is Joe Gall.

I'm the Chief Utility Relations Officer for Clean Water Services.

I'm really happy to be here in Tiger.

Um we have been making the rounds to all of our city partners over the last few months, really talking about our partnership and how important that partnership is.

So next slide.

So our acting uh interim CEO and GM uh has been accompanying me to these presentations, but he is on a well-deserved vacation.

He left today.

Um but I did want to uh just talk a little bit about Rick.

Rick uh has been in his role uh since last June.

And uh he is an engineer, has been with Clean Water Services since 2013.

Prior to that, he worked as a consultant for engineering firms.

Uh he's done a wonderful job in my opinion, kind of uh keeping things afloat as we move forward after what happened last year with our CEO resigning and the other things that you're aware of.

Um the recruitment for that position is uh uh about to close this week in terms of first review.

So we are anticipating that the board will be interviewing candidates in March, and hopefully we will have a decision by early April for a new GM.

So we are going back to a general manager.

We will not have a CEO like we had in the past.

We plan on coming to Tiger maybe in a few months to talk about rates, and hopefully Rick can come to that meeting so you can meet him personally.

Next slide, please.

Just a refresher for folks about who and what clean water services is.

We are the wastewater stormer utility for all of urban Washington County, more than 600,000 residents, including Tiger.

We have 12 partner cities and the county in terms of the work that we do.

You can see our budget up there slightly below 800 million.

One of the things that's unique about Clean Water Services is we hold what is called an integrated watershed base permit.

So before we had this integrated permit, we had a permit for the treatment facility in uh at Durham.

We had a permit for the treatment facilities in Hillsborough and Forest Grove, and then a separate stormwater.

This has all been combined into one permit, which provides tremendous flexibility for the utility.

Thing that I want to note, I know Director Snyder, not Commissioner Snyder, had to leave, but a lot of folks think we're part of the county, and we really are not part of the county.

We're a separate utility.

We operate under ORS 451.

When we were smaller and the county was smaller, we relied more on the county staff.

For example, we used to have county council provide our legal support.

We've obviously grown big enough and we have that our own legal team now.

The only really link to the county is governance.

And that's where I think there's confusion because the county board of commissioners wears multiple hats.

They're the housing authority board, they're also the Clean Water Services Board.

Just like you, in terms of being the Urban Renewal Agency, wear different hats in your roles.

We also have a very important advisory commission that has uh various stakeholders that we impact.

So that advisory commission has two representatives that represent the agricultural community, two representatives that represent the business community, the environmental community, and the development community.

And then each district for the commissioners has a representative.

And that committee uh is not a decision-making body, but it is an advisory commission and actually has been around since we were the Unified Sewer Agency in uh 50 years ago.

So a very important commission.

And you can see how many FTEs we have approaching 500 now.

Next slide.

So depending on the city, you get different types of services.

So the larger cities, including the city of Tiger, we provide the regional services.

And I'll touch on what regional and local is in a in an upcoming slide.

Um the smaller cities, King City, for example, next door.

CWS does both regional and local.

As a small city, they don't have the resources uh to provide the local services, so we do that.

And then the unincorporated areas, Bull Mountain, for example, we provide those local services in those areas.

And then we also have certain industries, close to 80 industries, the intel's of the world, Pacific Foods, Lamb Research that sends us uh certain types of wastewater.

They have industrial discharge permits that we issue and that we enforce the regulations around that.

You also see a sense of uh the watershed, which is in the green, and then the county boundaries, and then our service district, something that people don't realize.

We do also uh provide some service to parts of Portland and Multnomah County because of geography, and also over into Clackamas County into Lake Aswego.

So the area around where Dick's sporting goods is, that area on that side actually, their flows come to the Durham facility here in Tiger.

Next slide.

So I talked about regional services.

So the regional services uh are really um obviously all the four treatment plants.

Uh cities don't operate that.

You probably are glad you don't have to operate a treatment facility.

We take care of that.

Um of those facilities of four is located here in Tiger next to Tigerd High School.

Um we also do all the pump stations.

So cities do not provide pump stations.

We build pump stations and provide those uh pump station services.

The big pipes is how I describe it.

So pipes that are 24 inches and larger, those are the backbone of the regional system.

We're the responsible agency to take care of that.

We have a NPDES permit, national pollution pollutant discharge elimination system permit, and then our MS4 permit, which is our stormwater permit.

We do all the oversight, we do all the reporting to DEQ on that.

A lot of that information comes from cities.

Next slide.

The local services, this is where the City of Tiger team contributes to this partnership.

It's all the smaller pipes.

Pipes that are 21 inches are smaller.

Your teams are cleaning, inspecting those pipes throughout the city of Tiger.

And then you're maintaining all the local stormwater facilities, sweeping streets, maintaining catch basins and other types of things.

So it truly is a partnership.

We could not do this work without the city of Tiger.

Next slide.

I mentioned this five-year watershed permit.

So some of you may know I was the city manager of Sherwood before joining Clean Water Services.

And I really thought I understood CWS until I kind of got into the organization about five years ago.

And I did not realize how important this permit is.

And for some of you who have maybe taken CWS essentials, we really, every time I have a chance to kind of stress how important the permit is, it's kind of the backbone of the work that we do.

Everything we do is really tied back to that permit.

And it's a five-year federal permit that covers all the areas that are listed there on the screen.

Next slide.

So we've already kicked off the process to try to identify what it needs to go into that permit.

We don't do that in a vacuum, we do that in partnership with the cities.

So when we do our whole permit renewal, there's a lot of uh communication and information sharing with our cities.

So your voices goes into that process.

Um we're also planning not just for the next five-year cycle, but the five-year cycle after that.

Lots of things change in the environmental world.

You don't like surprises, we don't like surprises.

We are closely, as an example, following PFAS.

You probably have heard about forever chemicals and things like that.

We are very concerned about federal and state regulations that could impose some stringent requirements and potentially expensive requirements at our treatment facilities to deal with PFAS.

So we're constantly watching what's on the horizon in terms of legislation at the federal and state level.

This is a snapshot of last year investment in Tiger.

Uh most of that investment was at our Durham Water Resource Recovery Facility.

Um almost 9.8 million was uh invested in that facility last year alone.

Um, and then some smaller projects uh that you see there along Metzger and then Fannel Creek enhancement.

Some of these projects are multi-year projects, so you may only see $9,000 in one year, but that was the beginning of the project, and it could extend into the next fiscal year.

Next slide.

I want to talk a little bit about the planning that we do and how we partner with our cities.

So we just finished uh a multi-year project called the West Basin Master Plan.

And you can see on the map the two uh areas in green.

The West Basin is the green area.

Um Tiger doesn't obviously not in the West Basin.

Uh one of the unique characteristics of that is we have three treatment facilities in the West Basin, where in the East Basin we only have one.

Um this West Basin Master Plan is a 20-year plan for our regional wastewater system, and we're basically trying to develop that CIP just like you do in terms of what's the 20-year plan of investments to make sure that we are ready when our communities need infrastructure for development.

We do that very closely with your planning staff and your engineering and your public work staff.

Because we basically, when we started this process, we went to the cities and said, what are your aspirations for the next 20 years?

Where do you want to grow?

How do you want to grow?

And what do we need to do as your utility to provide the services and the infrastructure to do that?

Next slide.

So that West Basin Master Plan, you can see the numbers up here, about $920 million through 2045 on conveyance projects.

So those are pipes, pump stations, things like that that we will need to invest over the next 20 years.

And then almost 500 million on treatment plan improvements at the three facilities that are in the West Basin.

So that's 1.4 billion dollars in today's dollars.

Everything gets more expensive, unfortunately.

That's a hefty investment in our regional system over the next 20 years.

Next slide.

The East Basin, which we wrapped up a few years ago, which is part of Tiger's in the East Basin, $31 million on conveyance projects, and then only $101 million on treatment plants.

Of course, we only have one plant in the East Basin.

So that's $100 million.

So between the two, we're getting up to about $2 billion of investment over the next 20 years that we have to plan for to stay on top of growth and replacement of pipes and infrastructure.

Next slide.

Most of that is at the treatment facilities, but a big one is that Metzger Fannel Interceptor.

That's about a $15 million investment that we'll be making in the next five years.

And then the you can see the Fennel Creek Enhancement Project is nearly $2 million.

And then continuing the investment in River Terrace.

We've been very, very busy in River Terrace as Tiger has been growing and developing and seeing tremendous housing being built.

We've had to make those investments as well to stay on top of that growth.

Next slide.

So as you may or may not know, our billing, the way we bill around the district, can vary.

So you, as a partner, actually do our billing on our behalf.

So you collect the money and basically in your utility bill, and then you send us the regional funds each month.

That's been a system that's been operating for 20 plus years.

We also bill with TVWD.

So if you're in an area where Tueleton Valley Water District provides service, you get a bill from TVWD, there's a CWS portion for storm and sewer, and then there's the drinking water component.

And then there are parts of the county where we provide a CWS only bill.

It's a very fragmented system.

I think the question that we've heard is this the really the best way and most efficient way to do billing in 2025-2026.

So we have not looked at this issue since 2008, kind of overdue to take a deep dive to take a look at what are the different alternatives.

One alternative could be that we do all our billing and we don't have cities bill on our behalf anymore.

What would it cost to do that?

What are the pros and cons of that alternative?

Are there ways if we stick with the current arrangement to improve that system?

I certainly hear from city managers and elected officials' thoughts about our billing, and we're just gonna hire a consultant to take a really close look at billing.

We should have the feasibility study done at the end of this calendar year, and then some decisions moving forward early in 2027.

So I wanted you to be aware that that study is about to launch and we'll keep you up to up to date as we move forward.

And once we're done with that, happy to come back and present the results to the council because it's a big decision, especially if we do something different than what we've done for decades.

Next slide.

Two other things that certainly uh we'll be working with and already working with Tiger staff on.

So we have two deadlines as part of our permit, November 1st, 2026.

The first one is uh limited in scope.

DEQ is requiring us to update certain stormwater sections of our design and construction standards.

Again, we are doing that in consultation with our cities.

Very narrow scope.

We don't want to open everything up.

The development community would like to open everything up, the environmental community would like to open everything up, and we've already said we'll never reach the permit deadline if we do that.

But we are taking in information about what they think needs to be addressed in terms of those design and construction standards.

The other one that is very timely that we just started talking with Tiger is we have an operating IGA that is woefully out of date.

It was done about 2005.

That's really the agreement about how does the City of Tigerd and Clean Water Services cooperatively manage this system together.

So we have been slowly meeting with all the cities, clicking through uh we're close to wrapping up to all attention.

Tiger is next on the list in terms of really taking a deep dive and working with your staff.

We started that already I expect that to really uh kick in in the next three to four months again hopefully you'll see a new IGA on your agenda for action sometime in the summer period if not sooner.

And I wanted you to be aware of that.

And what's pushing that is a permit requirement from DEQ.

And with that, hopefully there's some time for questions, Mayor.

Yeah thank you and we have plenty of time enough for questions.

So good job.

And uh yeah and thank you for the reminder that Clean Water Service is not part of the county.

So why I mean um so you are still a partner I'm I was correct but I so sorry I was I apologize for grouping you with the Washington County because as you said the governor governor uh government is the you know governance is the same people but they wear different hats.

You're not the first or the last confuse us.

I would not make that mistake again.

So thank you.

You are a separate partner.

So um so there will be another presentation on rate right maybe we should focus rate question until that presentation but if if any counselor have question about rate right now still okay so counselor schlack one of the things on rates our chief financial officer Kathy Leader will be here as well as myself and like I said hopefully Rick will be here as well.

Okay.

Since he couldn't make it to that would be great.

So counselor Schlack please go ahead.

Not a question on rates if that's it's fine.

You can ask whatever you want I just wanted to uh first of all say um thank you for the offer to come and talk to us about the billing changes that could be coming up because I know that's how most people in our community interact with their local government is paying their utility bills.

So it would be great to be kept in the loop on how that could be impacting our residents in Tigered.

And then it's also awesome to learn that there's uh over 80 million dollars of investment plan for Tiger.

I'm just curious what some of the funding sources are for that and if they are if they're stable considering all the budget conversations that have happened among the council um in previous meetings and uh considering the county situation that was mentioned earlier.

So I will keep it simple in terms of where we get our funding from and to do that kind of work it's really two primary sources rates primarily are important to paying for those projects.

One of the things you'll notice certainly I noticed when I came from the city world is we have uh significant reserves um I think last year's budget we had over 300 million dollars in reserves and and um as a former city manager I was like wow you have a lot of reserves here.

Well one of the reasons we have those reserves is we do not collect property taxes.

Rates are really critical for us to do those kind of investments.

The other portion to fund those kind of projects are SDCs.

I don't have the breakdown but when we're back uh talking about rates or I can get it to you early I can give you a more definitive answer about percentage wise how much is rates versus SDCs.

It's significantly 80, 85% rates uh in terms of uh the investments and where the money comes from awesome thank you so much 300 million dollars in reserves is a very enviable amount I wish we had that amount yes yes and we constantly get the questions do you need that level of reserves and we're that's one of the things we want to make sure people realize is we do have this investment over the 20 years you probably all watch what happens when you don't plan for that not throwing our friends at the city of Wilsonville under the bus but last night they had council meeting and we're talking about 35% increase in stormwater rates and 25% increase for multiple years and part of the reason for that is they didn't increase their rates for 10 years.

And they have heavy investments in the future so now they're catching up and it's going to hit their ratepayers all at once and it's going to be very very painful.

So that's one of the reasons we have those those uh significant reserves for those projects in the future.

And it's really really very interesting and great to see the history.

You did briefly mention the events of last year, and I understand not wanting to bring those up and rehash that, but I feel like I would be remiss if I didn't at least make a comment that I think that public perception of clean water services might be that clean water services might lean towards overspending or being a bit of a spendthrift, which I'm not certain that that's the case at all, but that is what was in the news.

And so last year we had, I think, a two or three percent increase from clean water services when we were doing our budget, and we are facing a budget shortfall this year that we're going to have to figure out.

So I just want to strongly encourage Clean Water Services to really look at all the projects that are going on and the rate increases and whatever we can do to hopefully not have a rate increase this year to make sure that that everything that is being planned is not spendthrift because um you know we're residents are getting hit from all different ways with all different increases, you know.

So that's my comment.

Counselor, I appreciate that, and certainly we'll take that message back to Rick and our board members as we put the budget together.

So thank you.

I have a couple of questions.

So uh I appreciate you mentioning that uh for NPDS permit, you do not like surprises, and you are monitoring legislation.

So just uh are you are there any legisl upcoming pending legislation that worries you or you or come maybe a surprise to um be um an obstacle to your renewing process, or you don't see that so far?

So far at the state level, no.

Um it's a very short session.

We we also have Tracy Rainey is our um lobbyist governmental affairs person, and she um has been down in Salem monitoring things.

We don't anticipate anything on the PFAS or any surprises like that.

Um we also have uh a lobbyist in Washington, DC uh watching that.

And then we were members of uh national organizations that are also monitoring that.

So we've got a variety of ways to monitor what kind of potential legislation.

It's hard to predict what's coming out of the state.

I know I understand DC.

I just want to know if there's anything already on your radar.

So I appreciate I appreciate a no surprise uh mentality because we're going to discuss Council Guanru, and that that's my ruin there already.

No surprises.

So that's that's great.

Um so I and I just wanted to follow on Council Robbins.

I know it's unpleasant to talk about, but one of the things that I heard that was insisted on by the by the Clean Water Services that having a self-insure company in Hawaii will save us will save us money, but now I my understanding that you switch to a company on the mainland.

Oh, yeah, you still ensure selling shoring.

So we're still self-insured.

Uh the quick board made a decision recently um to shift where we're domiciled or headquartered.

We were headquartered in Hawaii.

Right.

We did a third-party analysis and was determined that uh Arizona was a better location for us for multiple factors.

So we're in the process of shifting our location of where that company is based to Arizona now.

Right.

Okay, good.

Well, again, like Council Robin, I'm you know, I don't necessarily agree with the public perception, but at least I don't know, maybe shifting it from Hawaii to Arizona makes it a little bit better from an optic point of view.

So uh finally, um I don't know if you know this top off the top of your head.

You talk about different city have different concern about the building structure.

So maybe that's a question about city member, city partner, uh team member.

Uh do you do you know what if Tiger has any concern about the current structure?

I don't want to put you on the spot.

No.

Okay.

All right.

So okay.

I I think as we look at alternatives, we have to talk to our city partners to find out.

Again, the alternative of us taking on all our billings.

Right.

What are the pros from your perspective?

What are the cons?

One of the things about if we take on all the billing, the seven large cities.

I don't I haven't figured out that's what the study will do.

They probably have three, four, five different billing systems.

Right, right.

So getting the information from all of the different billing systems into our system.

And we would probably need to invest in a new billing system because ours is not size to take on 600,000 customers.

That's a factor that we'd have to look at in terms of the costs.

Yeah.

And the timing of that.

Because you computer transitions from one piece of software to another.

I've never in my 40 years of working in local government.

They never go as planned, and they're never as smooth as you think.

There's always challenges.

Yeah, we we did a build water building system shift recently, and yeah, it could be challenging.

So yeah, but our acting city manager said no problem.

Yes, thank you very much.

Um so our finance team plans to join when when you come back with your CFO in in April.

Uh not with concern about the structure, but uh, you know, we we're always happy to uh communicate about changes uh to rates or anything going on with CWS as part of our bills, and uh we're also happy to extend any concerns we receive from customers uh over over to you all.

So I appreciate that we have a good uh relationship and communication.

We'll continue the conversation on on rates and cooperating together.

Correct.

Wonderful.

Any last questions or comments?

Seeing none, thank you so much, Joe.

Thank you for allowing me to spend some time with you tonight.

Yeah, thank you.

Always good to see everybody.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right, so let's move on to the next item our agenda, which is uh ground root discussion and consideration of res resolution.

Uh our city attorney Rihala.

Um would you mind starting the conversation?

Absolutely.

Good evening, council.

Uh so the ground rules by charter are adopted every two years, and so this is not a year to adopt them in whole.

Um, but there was a request for some tweaks around the edges, so that is the discussion before you tonight.

Um I received one piece of feedback uh when I solicited input, uh, and that was in regards to uh questions, uh directing when council has a question of staff on a policy level as opposed to administrative or scheduling, um, that there be clarification that those go directly to the department head or the city manager and not to line staff.

So uh there is a uh proposed language in 3D that adds that.

Um so that was really the only topic of discussion.

If you have others, happy to hear that.

Uh otherwise, Mayor, I'll turn it over to you.

Thank you, City Attorney Rahala.

And also just provide additional context, just you know, as we the council made a commitment to do better, right?

Um we we were going to do a respectful workplace training, but unfortunately the trainer was uh unexpectedly unavailable, I guess that's uh uh so um but it's just uh in addition this is just an additional piece to how I think the council could do better.

Just clarification.

Communication is important, right?

Everybody knows where we our lanes are and what we are expected to do.

So um so I'm so I'm opening up for discussion uh for this particular addition or any other thing you would like to add.

See now I will entertain a motion to I move to approve resolution number 26-05, the resolution amending the city council ground rules for 25-26.

All right, it's moved by council president Wolf and second by Anderson Council Anderson.

Is there any further discussion?

Good usi.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Sorry.

It's second by counselor.

I'm sorry.

Uh is there any discussion?

Uh Councilor Robins.

Thank you.

I I don't have any problem with adding this, but I thought this was what we were following all along.

So have we had any issues with this being followed, or is it just being put in so that it's clear going forward?

Um it's clear and maybe you know unintentionally um there were some issues, but I would prefer to discuss that offline if you don't mind.

I don't want to point anything um you know off on dias.

But but if you have any specific issue with the language, I will I'll be happy to discuss.

But if none, um well, youth council are given advisory vote.

Aye.

Thank you.

So those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Aye.

Oppose?

Very non-resolution number 26-05 is the adopted by uh unanimous vote of the council present.

All right, so we have no agenda non-agenda items, so there being no additional items.

This meeting is adjourned.

Good night, Tiger.