The Tualatin City Council met on February 9, 2026, to discuss a range of topics including proclamations for the Vietnamese Lunar New Year and the Employee of the Year, a presentation from TriMet on proposed service cuts and budget deficits, updates from Just Compassion and the Backyard Habitat Certification Program, the Juanita Pohl Center Advisory Committee annual report, and approval of the 2026 Council Priorities and Actions. The meeting also included public comment and council communications.
Good evening and welcome to the February 9th, 2026 Twilton City Council meeting. Please stand and join me while I say the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands one nation under God, indivisible liberty and justice fraud. Next we have a proclamation recognizing February 21st, 2026 is Vietnamese Lunar New Year Celebration Day. Okay. Well then we'll have Councilor Brooks read the proclamation. Good evening. Excuse me. The City of Twalton Proclamation, whereas the Vietnamese community of Oregon, VNCO is an organization whose mission is to unite support and foster pride in all members of the Vietnamese community in the city of Twalton and throughout Oregon. They act to ensure all Vietnamese Americans understand that they have a voice and a place in society. And whereas the Vietnamese community of Oregon achieves this by passing down Vietnamese culture and traditions from generation to the next generation while striving to strengthen relationships with other ethnic communities throughout Oregon and Southern Washington. And whereas the most important of those traditions is that of the Lunar New Year celebration, a celebration of joy, history, and culture for all Vietnamese, wherever they are in the world. And whereas this important tradition has been celebrated and organized by the Vietnamese community of Oregon in the city of Twalton and neighboring cities across Oregon for the last I want to say 50 years. And whereas we continue that tradition today by showing our support to the Vietnamese American communities, not only in Oregon, but across America to be an example of unity for future generations. Now therefore, be it proclaimed by the City Council of the City of Twalton, Oregon, that Twalton recognizes the 21st day of February 2026 as Vietnamese Lunar New Year celebration day. We encourage community members to join our Vietnam in celebrating. Introduced and adopted this ninth day of January 2026. And hopefully we'll see him later. Thank you, Councillor Brooks. Next we have a Ploy of the Year presentation and proclamation, and I believe that would be Sherilyn. Thank you. And it's a pleasure to be presenting this employee of the year award and honoring our employee of the year for 2025. So our employees here at the City of Tualeton are our biggest asset, right? And nothing can happen without our wonderful city employees who do everything from oh that's my bad. Oh, okay. It disappeared. Who who we they do everything from you know taking care of our technology to the parks maintenance and patrolling the streets and keeping us safe. And so every year we have an employee of the year program that I need a prompt. So it's they get nominated by their fellow co-workers, and no, it's okay. Um they get they get nominated by their uh their fellow co-workers and through in the month of November, and it's based on the employ of the city manager's seven values and how employees um performed regarding this city manager's seven principles. And uh, like I said, it's based on nominations by coworkers and is intended to recognize frontline non-management employees. So there's a committee that reviews all of the nominations, and that committee is made up of members of our employee engagement crew called EK. Um, the past two employees of the year and two supervisors, and they individually score all the nominations independently, and then um they turn in their scores, and um the employee of the year is produced out of that. So eligibility, uh the employee must work at least 32 hours a week on a regular basis. They must have worked here the full calendar year for which they are nominated, and they must be in good standing, so not in disciplinary status. So that's kind of a no-brainer. Umployee of the year uh comes with eight hours paid leave, $350 cold hard cash. Um we used to give it out in like a big check, but now we give actual like cash, and the finance department um like threatened to me that they were gonna give me 350 one dollar bills to give out, and but I didn't do that to Frank. Um there's a press release that we do, a proclamation. I this is probably the the favorite part of it, like coming down to council and hearing the proclamation. No, uh it's a little embarrassing. Uh, then their name and uh picture on our wall of fame, which is in city offices, and then they get a trophy, and it's a rotating trophy, so um Frank will keep it um for the year. So uh this is Frank Butler. Frank is our network administrator, and he's worked here uh for a number of years. I think the proclamation says that um how long Frank has worked here. Um, just some of the things that some of these are these are quotes from the nomination that I received. So Frank is the unsung hero who keeps our city's digital heart beating. He ensures we stay connected, protected, and productive, all while wrangling a citywide network that occasionally behaves like a toddler. Uh over the past year, Frank has flawlessly led major projects such as growing our badge access system, deftly migrating us to SharePoint, and defending the city from ever-evolving cyber threats. Without Frank, we'd face outages, security breaches, budget hits, and a serious loss of trust.