Good evening and welcome to the March 9th 2026 to Walleton City Council meeting.

I'll go ahead and call this meeting to order.

First item on our agenda is the Putch of Allegiance tonight, led by Councillor Sacco.

I think the United States of America for which it stands one nation, another God, individual with liberty and justice for all this.

All right, that brings us to announcements.

Our first announcement is a proclamation declaring April 6th through 10th, 2026, National Community Development Week in the City of Twalton.

This proclamation be read by Councillor Brooks.

Thank you, Mayor.

Here we go.

Whereas the week of April 6th through the 12th, 2026 has been designated as National Community Development Week by the National Community Development Association to celebrate the community development block grant program and the home investment partnerships programs.

And whereas the community development block grant program provides annual funding and flexibility to local communities to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing, suitable living environments, uh, and economic opportunities to low and moderate income people.

And whereas the home investment partnership home program provides funding to local communities to create decent, safe, affordable housing opportunities for low-income persons.

Nationally, over one million units of affordable housing have been completed using home funds.

And whereas over the program's history, our community has received a total of one million eight hundred and ten thousand six hundred and seventeen dollars in community development block grants.

Now, therefore, be it proclaimed by the City Council of the City of Twalton, Oregon, that the week of April 6th through 10th 2026 is National Community Development Week in support of these two valuable programs that have made tremendous contributions to the viability of the housing stock, infrastructure, public services, economic vitality, and economic vitality of our community.

The council urges Congress and the administration to recognize the outstanding work being done locally and nationally by the community development block grant program and the home investment partnerships program by supporting increased funding for both programs in fiscal year 2026, introduced and adopted this 9th day of March 2026.

And we usually have a really nice display at the library for people to check out.

So if you haven't been over there for a while, um check out the new siding.

Thank you, Councilor Brooks.

Announcement number two.

Stacy's going to introduce our new employee, our new volunteer program manager, Kate Griffin.

Welcome.

Yes, okay.

This is Kate Griffin.

Um and she's joined our team as the Volunteer Services Coordinator on February 9th, 2026.

Happy one month anniversary.

She made it.

A bit about Kate.

She has devoted her professional career to cultivating meaningful connections among people, nature, and the community through stewardship and education.

As an ecologist, an educator, and a retired midwife.

She brings both scientific insight and a deep uh commitment to community well-being.

She relocated to Oregon in 2024 and has been working as an educator at the Hoy Arboretum.

And prior to that, she was in San Antonio at the San Antonio Botanical Garden, where she managed conservation education initiatives and volunteer engagement.

So whether guiding stewardship efforts within our parks and natural areas or leading large-scale volunteer programs, Kate is dedicated to advancing environmental sustainability, fostering comp uh compassionate and resilient communities.

Her background and experience coupled with her energy towards the community's well-being have made Kate the perfect choice as our volunteer services coordinator.

So please join me in welcoming Kate to the organization.

And I know with council's involvement with our volunteer programs and our community, you'll be working alongside Kate and her passions in the near future.

Well, welcome, Kate.

Floor's yours.

You want to say some words?

Yeah, um, thank you so much.

I'm glad to be here to meet you all.

I really look forward to you all coming out, um, grabbing the shovel with me and getting busy busy in our natural areas and parks.

Um this is a great opportunity for me to sort of blend together the career paths that I've had.

I would love working with communities and people.

Um I'm passionate about our parks and natural areas and getting people into them and building those opportunities for stewardship, coordination, and becoming involved in communities.

So I'm glad to be here.

Great.

Well, welcome.

Uh, one of the things that is uh one of the highlights, I think, of this city is we have a lot of people who like to volunteer a lot of hours, uh be it from the library to tree plantings to cleanups.

So uh I don't think you're gonna have any shortage of volunteers, it's gonna be uh putting those people to work and uh keeping them engaged.

You know, some of these people, the amount of hours some people do at the library is unbelievable.

And um I know I'll be doing the Arbor Day celebration coming up here, uh planting a new tree as we do every year.

But I want to welcome to the city and wish you the best.

Uh and again, you walk into a department that's been very well run for years, and uh a city that is actively engaged in volunteering.

Thank you.

Yeah, I um have uh uh a big shovel or a small shovel to fill the big boots of Jackie.

So I'm glad I'm glad to be here.

All right, thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

All right.

Uh that brings us now to public comments.

This is an opportunity for anyone to address the council regarding an item that is not on tonight's agenda.

Please keep your uh comments to about three minutes.

If there's anyone here who would like to address the council, this would be the appropriate time.

I have one person signed up, but you don't have to be signed up.

So what I'll do is I'll take the person who's signed up first, and then other folks who are here in the room, and then go to Zoom.

Um the first person I have uh signed up is Robert Kellogg.

Good evening, council.

Do I still get my address as part of this?

No, you don't have to do that anymore.

Things are changed.

So uh I'm here tonight to talk to you about the uh food court coordinates here in Twalton.

I know there's been lots of conversations about making changes, part of the cora, part of some other places.

Uh I myself am looking at putting a food cart pod in Twalleton.

Uh, as part of that diligence, I went back through the ordinance we passed in 2017 and realized that it says you can only have one food cart per legal lot or parcel, which makes it very difficult to have a food card pod unless you can find 10 individual parcels of land connected to each other by a few feet, which again doesn't exist.

Um while I understand you're looking at a broader rewrite of the ordinance to cover different areas and other places.

Uh I would ask that you consider an expedited effort to get rid of the uh ordinance that says you can only have one unit per site.

Uh and again, I have a copy of the ordinance.

I don't know if those were distributed to you.

Yep.

Uh, but page four has the requirement highlighted.

Only one mobile food unit is allowed to be present at a site at any one time, and then two pages prior to that.

A site is defined as a lot or parcel of property on which a mobile food unit is permitted to operate.

So uh again, it's extraordinarily difficult, I can tell you from my diligence to try to find a spot for a food card pod here in Twalleton.

Um I did find the spot, I found that I could only put one unit on it.

So that doesn't make much sense to make that investment.

So again, uh just want to urge you to consider that uh on an expedited basis because I know it's going to change anyway.

Um, but it would uh be I think helpful for development in the city to have that change.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Just FYI, we will be in front of the council on April 27 to uh talking about the food card uh regulations and take that into account.

Okay, thank you.

Is there anyone else in the room who would like to provide public comment?

I don't see any hands up, anyone in Zoom Nicole or Bates.

Go once, twice.

All right, let's move on then to the consent agenda.

Uh the consent agenda is items that are considered routine.

They will be adopted by one motion unless someone on council would like an item removed and heard separately later tonight.

Tonight the consent agenda consists of item number one, consideration or approval of the work session and regular meeting minutes of February 23rd, 2026.

Item number two, consideration of resolution number 5943-26, increasing NIBER Creek Trail Construction Project Change Order Authorization amount with none of the corporation.

And item number three, consideration of resolution number five nine four six-26, authorizing the city manager to execute an intergovernmental agreement with Washington County for recycling contamination reduction education.

Would any counselor like one of these items removed and heard separately later tonight?

Seeing none.

I make a motion to adopt the consent agenda as read.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt a consented agenda as red.

Uh any comments, questions on the motions.

Seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Aye.

Opposed?

Abstentions?

It's unanimous.

All right, that brings us a special report or out say outside agency grant awardee right connection.

Welcome.

Is Paul doing?

Right.

Welcome, Paul.

Thank you, Mayor and uh Council members.

My name is Paul Marksbury, I'm the operations director at Ride Connection.

And I have with me Debbie Walkas, the program manager for the Twalaton area.

Um Ride Connection has been around for nearly 40 years, and yet only recently have we seen some exponential growth for a number of reasons.

The probably largest is the fact that we took on uh non-medical, non-emergent Medicaid uh transportation as the uh provider support network.

So the organization itself has grown because of that.

However, we still remain committed to providing uh a range of transportation services, not just in Twaleton but across the entire metropolitan area.

Um we wanted to start by saying thank you so much for your support.

Uh Mayor and Council members.

Uh we as a transportation nonprofit, it's it's not the easiest thing to raise money for.

Um, but uh it is incredibly important because of the variety of of improvements to folks' lives that we can make just by giving them a simple ride.

Um and I would like to turn it over to Debbie to talk about the range of services that we offer in Twalton.

Great.

Thank you.

Um I think as you know, uh transportation is such an important thing for people.

Um it connects people to their community, and it connects connects people to vital services.

And we offer a a pretty big range of um transportation options in the Twileton area.

Um starting out with um the community shuttles.

I think you're all probably from fairly familiar with the community um connectors.

Um we have the blue line, which actually runs right by this building and continues down to and goes um past like the um marine lumber and comes around to um the LAM uh research buildings, and we do quite a bit of service um taking people to and from work, um getting them to the MAC station or the MACs or the West station, um, so then they can connect with the MAC station.

Um we also one thing that you may not know about on the community connectors, um they are also used by a variety of people within the community.

It's not just people accessing work or going to work, it's getting to school.

Um, it's getting to the trains so they can they can connect and get to school or work outside of Twilighton.

It's also um we have an elderly gentleman that we pick up every um every morning, and we take him in to go to breakfast.

He and every time we take him in and drop him off, he's like he always says, Oh I don't know what we would do without you.

I don't know what I'd do without you.

Because that's again, that is his connection to the community to get out and get an opportunity to go out and have breakfast.

We also have the red line which covers the other side of Twileton, and it goes by like Far West Metals is a pretty busy busy place that we go to.

Kaiser, the Tualeton Elementary School, the Marquee, and then it loops back around from Marquee back around to the Juanita Pole Center.

And that was something that we did.

We were asked by the aging task force to put that into the community shuttle and make a way for people at Marquee to be able to get to the Juanita Pole Center.

And we we were able to accommodate that.

We also have the King City Shuttle, which is the King City shuttle comes in from King City and goes into the Bridgeport area and the Bridgeport Park and Ride.

And then it comes through Twalleton and it comes to the West Station.

And we do a lot of service picking people up at the West Station to take them back out to like Bridgeport or to the King City area.

We also have people that we're bringing in from King City that work at the Marquee.

And so they'll come in, they'll ride in to the West Station, and then they'll connect from the King City Shuttle to the Red Shuttle, and then continue on to the marquee.

So it's a neat, it's a really neat program.

We also on the red on the red line, we have the home school, the home school pod that uses the shuttle is using it once a week to get to the library, and then from the library back to where they meet at the Lutheran church.

So that's kind of a neat, it just shows what a range of community members that were serving with that.

And then a really special program that we have is the door-to-door program.

We have quite a few volunteers that help with that program.

And they're taking people from their homes, picking them up at homes, taking them to the senior center or grocery shopping or to doctor's appointments.

And that's a very vital service because again, it's connecting what would be home by homebound seniors or people living with disabilities, connecting them to the community.

And she when he got to her home, he realized that she wasn't doing well, that she wasn't her normal self.

And so he was able to talk her into calling 911 for her.

And so he did that, and she ended up having to go to the hospital and stay in the hospital a couple of days for an issue that she was having.

The Plambeck, if I pronounce it right, Plambeck Gardens.

And we're doing a we're doing service, we're doing more service door to door for people going from medical appointments from that building.

And then we are going to be starting a shopping shuttle from that location at the in the end of March.

We've talked with them, and we're going to be doing a shuttle.

We're going to be doing the first one, and then we're going to see how the timing goes and see if we can set that up as a regular regular program for them.

So just some quick statistics.

So last March 1st until the end of February, we did 8,194 rides in this area.

That doesn't include our King City service.

I wanted to keep this focus on Twalton.

And I was curious how many people we bring into Twalton from other places too.

And I found we gave uh nearly 1200 rides to folks who don't even live here to come here for various needs, shopping, uh doctors' warmings, what have you.

So I thought that was uh interesting.

About half of those rides are on our shuttle and half our door to door.

It's it's a rough split.

Um but it should goes to show the impact uh that we can have even on uh one of the smaller service areas out of our entire network.

Any questions?

Questions.

Council Brooks.

Okay, I well first I have a comment.

Um I just want to appreciate the work that you do.

Um there's a lot of conversation about transportation, and we have challenges here, obviously, with larger transportation.

Um but I have never had anyone complain or talk about this service in a negative way, always all positive things, especially people that I know from the Winita Pole Center and different areas like that usually.

Um then the second thing was with the um the ride together program.

So one of the needs that we've heard is for um transportation is school at a private school that doesn't have um bus lines and from Plan Beck Gardens and with parents that can't drive.

So if there was a ride share program or someone else that was going to that school, they could apply for the ride together if they were giving a ride to is that how it goes?

Our ride together program uh you do have to be part of our eligible uh customer base, which is uh 60 and over or uh disabled, so self-reported disability.

Okay.

So if the parent is disabled but the child is not uh could we take the the child to school then?

Uh it would have to be the the customer who's getting a ride would be the one who is eligible.

Um there any programs you can think of that would serve that need.

Um but you know we we've been around for 40 years because we're nimble and we're creative.

Yeah, so if you want to give me the information I can do some research and I can get back to you, even if we can't help, I might be able to connect you with someone who can.

Okay, thank you very much.

I I have a feeling it's not gonna be the only time that this is an issue at Plan Beck Gardens.

We we've had some heartbreaking requests, especially in the past year for transportation for folks who are afraid for one reason or another to use other forms of transportation, and I I wish we could we could say yes to everyone, but we have been able to make some good connections.

Yes, thank you so much.

Yes.

Other questions, Council Hillary?

Council Hillier.

Thank you.

I was curious if the ridership is increased to the one eat a poll center with the change in the food program that they've had there.

If you noticed that, or maybe that's I think it it has a little bit.

I think after COVID, though, of course, we know that things slowed down and uh but it has it has been going back up.

Great, thank you.

Council Raya.

Thank you for your presentation.

Um the you mentioned you will be you're starting a grocery ride share uh from Planbeck to other Is that what is that am I hearing it right?

Sorry.

Correct if I'm it'll be um a grocery it'll be a bus that goes out and picks people up to take them to probably to Fred Meyer for the first for the first trip that we do and then um taking them back home with their groceries.

With that is there a fee for that or just is that complimentary?

No, it's just uh we all of our rights are based on a donation basis.

And if people aren't able to, they don't have to donate also.

Thank you.

There's no age restriction now on that either, right?

The only well they would need to be they should be senior or disabled, or um, I believe we can open that up to other people as long as the senior, the people that are senior or disabled get the first.

First dibs.

Right, right.

All right.

Council President Pratt.

Well, my first question was how COVID affected you and how um but I guess percentage-wise, how close are you to where you were pre-COVID?

That's an interesting one because um during COVID a lot of our volunteers pulled back.

And um so and the rights kind of did slow down a little bit, but we are we have seen an increase.

Um we've seen an increase in the volunteering and then um the rights also are going up.

And as we know, we are the our population is aging, and we're the need is actually growing really fast.

Sure.

And then um on your little map here, I see this dotted blue line with an AM hospital trip, and I wondered if you'd just explain that a little more.

Well, that one is we had um when the line when the green line went away, um we had some people who were in that area that were taking early early rides into the West station and into the actually to this side of Tualeton for work.

And so there were changes being made to that schedule.

We um we put in an early run um going up to that area to pick people to pick a certain group of people up that needed transportation back to the West Station so that we weren't leaving people stranded.

Oh, that's great.

And then um finally, just um you've heard Plan Back Gardens mentioned and um we've heard from um people that live there, and there are a lot of people there that don't have vehicles.

So whatever you're doing, whatever you can continue to do to help people, but this going to the grocery store is a great start, and I really appreciate that.

Other questions or comments.

All right.

Well, I just want to thank you, uh, right connection uh for providing the services here in Twalton.

Uh you know, we're one of the few communities that does have a community shuttle.

We're very appreciative of it.

Worries uh we're always very supportive of it and uh given the ability to get more financial resources to expand your services.

Um but I'm a big fan of right connection and um I see your drivers all the time inside the chamber.

Um and you guys are you know working fanatically inside the chamber and your in your offices, so thanks again for being located in Twalton, providing the services, and thank you for your update.

Thank you.

Thank you for your support.

All right.

All right.

So that brings us to public hearings.

Item number one, consideration of ordinance 1454-26, adopting a city initiated code amendment to the 12th and development code to include the keeping of domestic foul as a permitted use in the low density residential district.

Uh since this is a public hearing, I have to read uh a required script.

This is a public hearing for the city council to consider ordinance number 1454-26, amending the Tualton Development Code.

The hearing will be conducted as follows.

First, the public hearing will be opened and the city staff will make a presentation.

Next, the council will hear from members of the public who wish to testify in favor of the ordinance, followed by members of the public who wish to testify against the ordinance, followed by anyone else who wishes to testify.

Upon completion of the public testimony, individual counselors may ask questions of city staff and any person who provided testimony.

After council questions, the council will close the public portion of the hearing to consider the resolution.

Upon conclusion of deliberations, the council will consider whether or not to adopt ordinance 1454-26.

I have a few more comments here.

Does any member of council wish to abstain from participation in this hearing?

I see none.

All right.

I'll now go ahead and open the public hearing.

Staff will now present, and we have Aaron and Teresa plan um giving us a presentation on this new ordinance.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Thank you, Mayor, and good evening, counselors.

My name is Aaron Ingman.

I'm the senior planner here at the city of Twalton.

And as the mayor mentioned, I'm joined by Teresa Montalvo, who is our planning manager.

I will be leading the staff presentation for PTA 26-0001 for the domestic file regulations.

So for tonight's agenda, I'll cover the project purpose and background.

And then we'll go into an overview of the code amendments and staff research that was used to inform this proposal.

We'll then review the approval criteria and we'll end the discussion with the planning commission recommendation.

So for some background, the city council passed an ordinance back in 2013 that established the keeping of backyard ducks in the residential low density zone, the RL zone.

And then recently this past summer, we received a code complaint regarding some strange animals which happen to be ducks in the RL zone.

The officer met with this property owner, and he just explained that he didn't know the ducks were prohibited in the zone, and later had a conversation with U.S.

council to review the matter.

And then at the end of the summer, you would ask staff to amend our chicken regulations to expand and include domestic fowls.

So that's why we're here tonight.

So uh the purpose of the domestic fowl regulations is to provide minimum standards for the keeping of domestic fowl humanely in urban backyards while safeguarding the health, safety, welfare of the citizens of Twaleton.

So what we did tonight was we expanded the regulations for the keeping of backyard chickens to include domestic fowl.

Our public engagement was limited to the legislation, excuse me, legislative process requirements, and we try to limit the scope of this project.

So the ordinance before you right now for PTA 26-001 will amend the Twalton Development Code, chapters 39 and 40.

And then later tonight, you'll be able to review a companion ordinance that will amend the municipal code, Title 615 for the keeping of backyard chickens, which will expand to be domestic fowl.

Um the reason we broke this up into two groups is because ordinances related to development and planning is codified under the Tewalleton Development Code, and the codification of general ordinances in the city falls under the municipal code.

So as some background, I wanted to highlight areas of the city which are zoned, low density residential and would be affected by the text amendment.

So it's the areas of the city shown in yellow here.

Um just a note too that some of this area is in our planning area but hasn't yet been annexed to the city of Twalleton, so that's particularly in the Basalt Creek area down here, and then there's some pockets up north and by Stafford.

I'm trying to use my laser pointer, but it's not working.

But if you have any questions about which areas are in the planning area but not quite annexed, I'm happy to answer those.

But I just wanted to give you a visual.

And now my pointer is not working.

Can we advance to the next slide, please?

So staff did some research looking at other domestic foul ordinances in the Portland and Oregon region, and we'll do a comparative analysis in a few different slides.

But generally, what we found is that there was some similar similarities with domestic fowl, and many cities were permitting certain types while excluding other types.

So under this proposal, we um include chickens, ducks, pheasants, pigeons, quails, partridges, doves, and similar birds for personal use.

And these birds share certain character traits which could control or could which could include sustainable sources of eggs, natural pest control.

They generally require minimal space needs, and they are able to adapt to human activity and environments.

Next slide, please.

Whereas some of the birds on our prohibited list include roosters, geese, guinea fowl, peacocks, turkeys, emus, and ostriches.

These birds can be loud, they can cause property damage, and they can be aggressive towards people and pets.

Next slide, please.

So this is our comparative analysis, and we've included Twiliton at the top.

And I won't go over the slide in its entirety, but generally on the right, you'll see our key.

The green dot means that these cities permit certain birds.

The dash just means that the bird is not listed in the code.

And then because Portland does things differently, they allow certain birds on larger pieces of property.

And then red just means that it's a bird that's not permitted in the city.

So I'll give you a moment here, and if you have any questions, I'm happy to address them.

Oh, for Brooks.

Thanks, Mayor.

I just had a um, I was just curious when there's agricultural land, and I'm not even sure if that would be um applicable to us, but if there was an agricultural land, is that considered low density residential, or is that rural?

Because I know that there's commercial uses too, and it's a different kind of property.

Yeah, so the way our code's set up in the low density residential zone is that there are certain properties on the northern end of town by the Twalton River.

Um that could consider agricultural animals under conditional use permit, but those animals are limited, I think, to cattle, horses, and there's one other animal that I'm drawing a blank on.

Um, but that's currently how our code is written in that regard.

Um, and then we have this separate section in our municipal code for backyard chickens, which we're reviewing tonight.

Okay.

And for for that particular group of people, um, are they allowed to have chickens?

They could if they follow the municipal code and get a chicken license with us.

Okay, so they're treated similarly to just a residential low density in a certain way.

Correct.

Okay.

So they wouldn't have to do the conditional use permit for a chicken license.

Okay, thank you very much.

Okay.

Thank you.

Um so an overview of what's in our municipal code is that we do have some licensing requirements.

So if somebody was interested in having backyard chickens and now domestic fowl under consideration, this license would be valid for five years.

It would permit up to four fowl on any lot, and these birds must be confined to a coop and a fence backyard or a run.

And then for the coop, we have some size limitations and some buffering limitations.

So the coop must be located at least 10 feet from property lines and 25 feet from abutting residences.

And then we also require that the coops be maintained in good repair and sanitary condition.

Um as I mentioned, we kept our public engagement fairly limited, but it will meet our legislative requirements.

So we did provide notice to DLCD, government agencies, our CIO groups.

We advertise in the newspaper and on the city website.

And as I mentioned, uh the ordinance for this item is limited to chapters 39 and 40 of the development code.

For chapters 39, we're updating how we refer to agricultural use characteristics.

So we're expanding that to include domestic fowl, and then in the low density residential zone of chapter 40, we're updating our permitted uses to include domestic fowl.

And then, like I mentioned, there will be a companion ordinance later tonight that will review the municipal code regulations.

But I have a slide that kind of provides an overview of what we're doing with that code.

So the approval criteria for tonight, um, we included a findings and analysis in your packet as exhibit one.

This addresses chapters 33.

Um that speaks to the legislative process and the plan amendment process, and we found that this project meets our approval criteria.

We had a very good robust conversation with them on the potential mitigative measures to address noise.

Sorry, tongue twisted.

Noise, odor, rooming complaints that sometimes arise with this domestic foul use.

And then it was um a few news articles from Eugene and their experience with domestic fowl.

So the commission requested some clarifications to our companion regulations, which I'll go over on the next slide.

And they also directed staff to consult with our code enforcement officer just to make sure we have the right tools in place.

And I was able to speak to our code enforcement officer.

His name is Brian Levine.

Um, and he assured me that we have the proper language to respond to Roman complaints in our municipal code, um, particularly when it comes to feed and compost.

He also confirmed that he was properly trained to respond to such complaints.

So while we strive to mitigate for these impacts, it's kind of inevitable that they'll come up, but at least we are equipped to deal with them.

And then they also directed us to research best practices and guidelines for minimum coup requirements since we're looking at a variety of birds.

So I did some poking around, and if the amendments are approved, I'll update our city web page dedicated to backyard chickens to include domestic fowl and some best practices that I found from accredited sources like the CDC, the American Poultry Association, and OSU.

And on this slide, I wanted to highlight the changes we're proposing to the municipal code, which is that companion ordinance.

The black and the red are the staff changes that were put forth to our planning commission, and the blue are the additions that they proposed that staff add.

They had some really great suggestions.

So you'll see that they clarified that the maximum of four birds is a combination of any of the four that we allowed on one lot.

Um they also wanted to clarify that we wanted to be silent on harvesting since that could include eggs, but specify that on-site butchering and slaughtering is prohibited.

And then there was also a clarification about our setbacks to abutting residences.

That was the intent of our original code, but this is just good clarifying language.

And with that, the planning commission did forward a unanimous recommendation for city council to adopt the amendments proposed under PTA 26-0001 and ordinance 1454 26.

Um, and I included a proposed motion for your consideration.

And with that concludes my staff report.

Thanks, Erin.

Uh, with that, I'll go ahead and switch over, switch gears a little bit.

And are there members of the public who wish to testify in favor of the proposal?

I have one person signed up, but you don't have to be signed up.

So I'll take the person who's first signed up and in person.

Uh, any other folks who are in the room who'd like to testify in favor than invited to do that after that.

And we'll also reach out to the folks in Zoom who are in favor.

So I have Kevin Vomolvaney.

Come on up, Kevin.

Hello again.

About three minutes or so.

All right, I'll try to keep to that.

Um, thank you all for discussing this um at length.

Uh as you know, we started this process back in June.

Um to me, into the outside world, this issue is a little bit silly.

It's birds in people's backyards.

So why would the council and the city and the staff spend so much time and effort discussing it?

Because it's just birds.

Like what is it really, you know, matter?

It's not talking about how to find places for homeless people or offer them rides or right.

Share folk they left.

Or how to grow businesses in Tualaton, our food car pods, or everyone getting liquor licenses because they can't make it elsewhere.

It's not that impactful to the grander scheme.

But to individuals, if you look a little bit deeper, it's more about how can we align Tualeton with what the residents want.

It gives plain, clear language that I think is why we're in this position in the first place.

It wasn't clear.

We weren't aware what we could or couldn't do from the research that we found.

So these changes make that very clear.

You were allowed certain birds with certain personalities, and you're not allowed those that are aggressive and messy and noisy and cause problems.

So that's really great.

And at the end of all of this, even if you didn't say that you know, we were expanding that making it clear would have been a win for us.

Um but when we look at it in a deeper sense, I see the city, the staff, our leadership showing that they care about citizens.

I'm one citizen asking for one silly request, and this is the fourth time that I've been in front of you.

Um so clearly you all deemed it worthy of your time and effort.

Um to look deeper, not stand on history.

We made this decision 13 years ago.

We're willing to look at it again, is what I take away, and I really appreciate that.

That we're looking at keeping Tualeton progressive with the trends of you know what's going on in life today.

Um the thing that I like the most about the way that the the staff presented it and the the changes are we're not asking to have more birds in Tualetin.

We can already have four birds per house that fit in our residential zone.

We're asking for a greater diversity, and that's always a good thing when we can include diversity in decisions.

If we all lived in a city with the same houses and the same families in them and the same cars on the same streets, I don't know that we would all live here.

I wouldn't want to live in a city like that.

So increasing the diversity is really important, and that's what why I really like the the language that's coming out of the staff recommendation.

Um thank you to everyone across the board for all the time and conversations that you've put into this.

Um it really really shows how much that this city cares about its citizens and moving forward how we can keep Tualeton moving in a progressive way without overarching and and doing too much to control the situation.

So thank you all for hearing me and for all your work on this.

Thanks, Kevin.

Uh is there any other folks in the room who like to uh testify in favor of the change?

We have anybody in Zoom, Nicole and Bates.

All right.

I'll then switch over to are there members of the public who wish to testify against the proposal in the room or in Zoom.

Seeing I have no one signed up in person, anyone on Zoom?

All right.

Is there any other member of the public who wants to testify on this issue?

Either in Zoom or in person.

Nothing, all right.

Uh does any member of the council have questions for staff or for Kevin?

Councilor Hillier.

I have a question for staff, please.

Sorry to have me keep.

Um so I really appreciate um all the questions from the planning commission and your transparency with us about the discussion and and the attachments.

And that the conversation around the enforcement officer, obviously you talked to that person about the language.

But I guess my question is more around does the enforcement officer feel like they actually have the capacity to navigate um going around and seeing if there are issues, you know, maybe people are in compliance who have chosen to have a license.

And um for those who haven't, or is this gonna only be complaint driven?

I mean, I drove around multiple times and saw chicken coops right up next to the fence of other people, and and I see there were no complaints, so that they stayed.

So I'm just kind of curious because when we see things in a community and you some people know it's against the rules, some people don't, it becomes the norm that it's not.

So I'm just curious about our capacity.

Thank you.

I appreciate that question.

Um, and to clarify, code enforcement in the city is complaint driven, so that might be why you've observed some of those things.

But I do have some statistics that might help with the conversation.

Um our code enforcement officer sure that we have currently 28 active licenses in the city of Twalleton, and that um since 2021, we've had a total of eight complaints that he's addressed and looked into.

Um of them refer to rats, some were just simply that someone had not obtained the chicken license, or that perhaps they had gotten chickens and they were in the wrong zone, so those issues had been resolved.

Um I don't know if that directly answers your question, but it might help kind of give you an idea of how often we're seeing complaints and how it might affect their capacity to review such complaints.

Thank you.

It addresses the complaints about this particular ordinance, but not all ordinances.

Is there any chance you have this crazy question that did I mean they that they have a full-time job addressing this, so even if it was raised to 10 a year, it would not negatively impact their capacity by the sounds.

Yeah, I don't believe so, but I can certainly look into it and come back.

Yeah, I wouldn't take the time.

I was just curious.

Thank you.

Other questions Council President Pratt?

I I'm trying to understand.

So I see that it um showed a maximum chicken coop or not chicken coop, domestic fowl.

Umpe size, but it in and then you're just saying um, but there's nothing about minimum size.

I kind of worry about people on the other side, just not you know, we hear all those horror stories about cattle and stuff.

So is that just something that you're gonna have suggested best practices, but it won't be in the ordinance.

So that goes back to our planning commission conversation, and they did bring up that concern about are we adequately considering the needs of these birds?

And in my research, I found that the guidelines and best practices are somewhat across the board, and I couldn't really find a universal um best practice that would suit some of these birds.

So uh where we left the conversation was that we would provide these guidelines and best practices on our website, and that for cases of animal abuse or neglect, the state has regulations in place for that, so then it would defer to the county or the police department to look into animal negligence.

Okay.

And then my other thing I noticed the um that was addressed somewhere by someone on the planning commission was um you know, you have in there they have to keep it clean and everything, but the actual um compost piles from the you know, chicken um poop.

Right.

Um, so um I just was wondering um why there was no wording about containing that.

So uh I looked into our municipal code and I found that we had a section in our municipal code that um is under the title labeled nuisances affecting public health, and its bullet is number two debris, and we do have some regulations in place around manure in the city.

Okay, so because we had that language in place, I felt that if we had something else, it might be conflicting or overlapping standard.

So the idea was that we just refer to this broad um debris standard and we would enforce it through code enforcement.

Yeah, those are the only two things that I didn't really see that word just, so thank you.

Other questions?

Sorry, and just a question that um when this goes on the website, making an well, if this were to go on the website and you list what the best practices are.

I just guess I would request that there is a link to then the debris ordinance to see that, like so that it could be referenced.

It's hard sometimes to find all the information, right?

And if we can make it easier, lower that barrier, I I'd love to see that.

Thank you.

Okay, that's great feedback.

Thanks.

Um thank you for the presentation information.

Um did you get an opportunity to receive feedback from um any like CIOs or any other um community involvement?

So we did send notice of this hearing to our CIO groups, and we hadn't received any direct communication back from them regarding the hearing.

Um and I guess they're maybe silence tonight.

There may not have been interest in the the ordinance, but we didn't receive any direct feedback from our CIO groups.

Okay, or yeah, that's kind of odd that not one person from our CIOs made any comment on it.

Just curious on that because I'm with um like uh counselor healer say a lot of people don't know that there's even an ordinance on foul domestic fowls or chickens, and people might not just they might see them, but they don't know if there's actually something that they that's out there that um you know, a lot of people don't like to bother with their neighbor because you have to live next to the person.

So I'm just I'm just curious.

I um I mean just I didn't see it, I didn't see anything maybe because I didn't see I don't know, but I I would I'm just really it's really strange that I don't hear anything from anyone after having a lot of buzz during the whole chicken um conversation in 2013.

So it's very odd that we didn't hear anything from anyone.

I appreciate that perspective.

I think because the intent of the project was to have a limited scope with limited public engagement, we didn't really do a robust community outreach, and maybe that could be some of it.

Counselor Brooks.

Um I just want to thank you for the work.

Um for me, um of the conversation around domestic fowl, I think was handled during the chicken decision.

Um for me, this looks like a way of improving it and making it more universal.

I just keep thinking about the people that are allergic to chicken eggs that might want to have quail eggs, and I look at the prices in the grocery store of things like that, and we all know how prices are going up, but when you start with something that's like eight dollars a carton for tiny little quail eggs that people eat that they're you know, forced to do.

I just think that um that looking at it with a more universal perspective is interesting.

I will say too, um I lived in when I lived in Michigan, I lived next door to people that were from Iraq, and they had um they were really good at pigeon, like they would do the carrier pigeon um training and work, and um uh I know that I had never really had exposure to that before, but I know that different cultures have different interests, so I think that having more um to look at this and look at what other cities are doing and have a more code that may make more sense than just chickens.

Um most of them are smaller birds actually than chickens, so to me it's um really good work, and I appreciate all the work that you did, and I appreciate the planning commission as well.

Thanks.

Thank you.

That's right.

Thank you.

Again, I I'm just thinking about like I worked in a place where we had um animals, wildlife, and one of the things that we would do, uh the bird flu was really big on even chickens, and um, so they would remove them from public because they were so and and we're talking about an area that's really um I mean they take care of these animals like better than anything.

And I'm just the reason they would move them is because just the sometimes in the air, um that would that flu that the virus would be carry on to the rest of the to the visitors, and so I I'm just looking at from that point of view from uh knowing that um I don't know.

I I just feel that it's that what we have in our ordinance isn't and I know we're changing language, but that also gives opportunities to bring in other um a need.

Like every time someone would complain, then okay, we're gonna change the ordinance, we're gonna do this.

But I think that I just I'm concerned about that too, about um viruses in the in the air that can um transfer around.

And that's just because I've been in a place that we would just completely remove the animals from public view and take them somewhere where they were completely away for like months, sometimes like a month or two months.

And so I'm just thinking about that because that is in the air, and we don't even know that it's in the air.

So I'm seeing it from that point of view, and I don't know if people are thinking about that.

Um that's just and I don't know, to me, the the other part is like I don't want people to think that they can also I know it's uh you said it clearly, no slaughtering and all that, but I would not want to like know that that's happening in my city, so of these animals to eat them.

I mean it's just um I don't know, just a little weird about that, and I don't know if it's good for our public.

Um that's all other questions.

All right, uh so seeing no other further questions, I'll go ahead and close this public hearing and we'll begin deliberations on this.

So deliberations or motions.

And it's one of the ones that it's first and second reading, all that good stuff.

There we go.

Um I motion to adopt ordinance fourteen fifty-four-twenty-six.

By first reading, title only by title only, I'm sorry.

Okay, sorry.

I motion for a first reading by title only of ordinance fourteen fifty-four-twenty-six, amending the twelve and development code, chapters thirty-nine and forty related to domestic file regulations, PTA 26-3001.

Second.

First reading of an ordinance one four-five four-26.

Councilor Sacco.

Aye.

Council Hillier.

Aye.

Council Brooks.

Aye.

Council Reyes.

Yes.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

And Chair Bossani.

An ordinance related to land use, amending the Twilight and Development Code, chapters 39 and 40 related to domestic foul regulations, PTA 26-0001.

Um I motion for a second reading of ordinance 1454-26.

Um by title only.

Second.

I have a motion second for second reading by title only of ordinance one four or five four-26.

Councilor Sacco.

I councillor Hillier.

Aye.

Council Reyes.

Yes.

Council Brooks.

Hi.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes aye.

Ordinance number 1454-26 and ordinance related to land use, amending the toilet and development code, chapters 39 and 40 related to domestic foul regulations, PTA 26-0001.

I motion to adopt ordinance 1454-26, amending the 12th and development code, chapters 3940 related to domestic file regulations, PTA 26 000 one.

Second.

I have a motion and second to adopt ordinance 1454-26.

Councilor Sacco.

Aye.

Council Hillier.

Aye.

Council Brooks.

Hi.

Councilor Reyes.

No.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Uh Chair votes no also.

So it carries.

Actually, it's going to have to come back for another reading because it was not unanimous tonight.

All right.

It'll be on the March 23rd agenda.

All right.

So that moves us to general business.

Uh consideration of ordinance number one four 1455-26.

Amending to Twalton Municipal Code, Title 6-15 regulations related to the keeping of backyard chickens to include domestic fowl.

I think you guys, do you don't have a presentation?

It's the last one was it.

All right.

So with that, uh let's see.

So this is a companion ordinance that amends the municipal code.

Uh we have the staff report with this included in the previous action.

There is no additional staff report.

This too, just like the last uh ordinance would require uh first and second review by title only and then an adoption of the ordinance.

So moved.

You gotta do the whole first okay.

You gotta do the whole first okay um which's the number ordinance one four five five twenty-six.

Yes.

Okay, so um I move to um thank you.

I move first reading by title only of ordinance um number 1455-26 amending the Twilight Municipal Code, Title Six Fifteen regulations related relating to the keeping of bag yard backyard chickens to include domestic foul.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to uh for first reading by title only of ordinance one four five five-26.

Councilor Sacco.

Aye, Council Hillier, aye.

Council Reyes.

Reading by reading, first time Councilor Brooks.

Hi.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes aye.

Ordinance number 1455-26 and ordinance related to keeping of domestic foul.

Amending title six-fifteen of the Twilight Municipal Code.

I move for a second reading by title only of ordinance number fourteen fifty-five-26, amending the Twalton Municipal Code, Title 6-15 regulations related to keeping of backyard chickens to include domestic file.

Second.

I have a motion and second for second reading by title only of ordinance one four five five-26.

Any discussion on those motions?

Councilor Sacco.

Aye.

Council Hillier.

Aye.

Council Reyes.

Yes.

Council Brooks.

Aye.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes I also.

Ordinance number 1455-26, an ordinance related to keeping of domestic foul, amending title six-fifteen of the Twilight Municipal Code.

I move to adopt ordinance number fourteen fifty-five-26 amending the 12th municipal code.

Second.

I have a motion and a second to adopt ordinance 1455-26.

Any discussions on those motions?

Councilor Sacco.

Aye.

Council Hilliyer.

Aye.

Council Reyes.

No.

Council Brooks.

Aye.

Council President Pratt.

Aye.

Chair votes no.

So again, four two, so we'll have to come back to the next city council meeting.

All right.

Thank you.

Next item on our agenda tonight is a pr presentation on the Towalton Sherwood Road Rail Crossing Study.

Mike and Abby.

Come on up.

Get that last swig in.

You're gonna be doing a lot of talking here.

Oh uh good evening, Mayor and Council.

I am Mike McCarthy, uh Twileton City Engineer.

And when last we talked uh back in about mid-January, uh we just the decision was to award the consultant cult contract to take a look at the area around the intersection of Twalton Sherwood Road and Boons Ferry Road and the railroad and recognizing the various transportation issues in that area.

And we talked about the first phase of the contract being to take a high-level analysis of the various grade separation options.

I think we heard let's make sure things are feasible before we start really talking about them.

And uh we're also talking about reviewing existing conditions, and yes, we did find that there were some traffic issues in the area to confirm that.

And the next step would be to present the high-level analysis to council, talking about costs, timelines, affected areas, special considerations, things like that.

And that's our plan this evening.

And so I'll introduce the rest of the panel.

This is Abby McFetteridge, Engineering Associate for the City of Twalton.

Um Amy Griffith, senior engineer with Kittleson and Associates.

And Mark Vitor with Kittleson Associates.

Go ahead, Mark.

All right, good evening, um, Mayor and Council.

I'll keep this presentation fairly brief.

Uh I believe it's in your packets uh as long along with a memo tonight.

Um so with that, um let's bring the mic over to you a little bit.

Just in case we have a we might have to slide over.

Yeah.

I'll slide over.

Just in case so folks on Zoom can be.

Yes.

All right.

So our presentation tonight, we're gonna talk first about the purpose, and then we'll move through um the alternatives and the viability of those alternatives, construction staging, what that will look like.

Um, and then I'll have Amy talk about the uh initial cost uh conceptual cost estimates and then time frames, and uh then we'll bring back uh for council questions and consideration.

So as we did into this, as Mike mentioned, is we wanted to make sure council understands kind of what you're getting yourselves into and how this might play out.

Again, this is a 10,000 foot view at this point.

We haven't done the full study.

So this is using the initial work and then experience on similar projects to give you guys a picture of how this may again play out.

So why do a grade separated crossing?

This for those that have been in this community for decades, a lot of the traffic on Tualton Sherwood Road dates back to a west side bypass not being in place, a 99 connector not being in place, and as a result, we have the de facto Twalton Sherwood Road connector that links 99 and I-5, and thus the traffic and the backups that you experience today.

Combine that with heavy turning movements and train movements, both uh freight and passenger, uh, you have a bottleneck in your city.

So not a big surprise from that.

So by doing a grade separated crossing, and when I say grade separated, that's when we're taking the rail and either taking it over or under the road or taking the road uh over or under the rail.

Uh so you're separating those those conflicts uh to do that.

So there's four potential benefits of doing this.

Um is increased multimodal circulation uh and safety uh in the area for pedestrians going back and forth across the tracks.

Uh same with uh bicyclists, and then also for uh surface transportation, trucks, uh passenger vehicles the same.

Um also reduce congestion, and we just talked about that that connection between 99 and I5 for both freight and uh regional uh commuter traffic, uh so we can relieve that.

Uh also opportunities uh for economic redevelopment, and you'll see as we talk about how this may need to be constructed and the impacts, it does open up other possibilities.

So as you look at this, you need to look at the transportation improvement, but also land use opportunities that it presents to the city from that standpoint.

And then finally, it minimizes both north-south and east-west connectivity barriers that you have today with the rail uh in Boone's Ferry east-west, and then obviously Towalton Sherwood north-south.

If you create some grades separated, it allows pedestrians to potentially go north-south or east-west without uh competing with some of those conflicts uh as we have.

So when we look at this, um we're gonna talk about scenarios, solutions, and alternatives.

So scenarios are the big big things.

So we either do grade separated, uh, we do at grade, which means we keep it basically as is today and we widen, or we do no-build alternative, which is we live with what we have out there and um we continue down that path.

So those are the scenarios, and then within those, especially the grade separated, we have a number of solution sets, and we'll talk a little bit more about those.

And then within those solution sets, uh more alternatives within that.

So there's a lot of ways to solve this, um, but some have uh impacts that are maybe not as desirable, and others have opportunities, uh, and that's what we're here to understand a little bit more tonight.

So with the grade separated, we'll start with the rail scenarios here.

Uh familiarize everybody.

So here's the McDonald's, uh, Boone's Ferry, Twalton Sherwood, uh, and then Dutch Bros.

Um the rail under, and you can see the rail line here is basically a trench and going underneath um Twalton Sherwood and continuing past the uh west stop and so forth.

So that would be a rail under scenario.

Uh so you sink the railroad approximately about 23 feet down, um, and that allows you to go under and bridge over the top.

Um the next scenario is rail over.

Um same sort of scenario, but now you elevate the rail line and go over the top.

Um this you have to rise about 23 feet uh in the other direction.

Actually, I have that wrong.

So when we went down, we would have been 30 feet down, 23 feet up.

The trains are taller than uh the trucks, uh, so that's the the difference on that standpoint.

So under both of these, the the um surface transportation stays very much the same.

You have a signalized intersection, you still have the turning movements here, and you just separate the rail uh from that type of scenario.

The third solution set is roadway under the rail.

So under this scenario, you're you're dropping Twalton Sherwood Road about 23 feet coming underneath uh Boone's ferry and also underneath uh the rail and then coming up at the other end.

So the question here is all right, we lost the intersection, so where does that traffic go?

There's a number of alternatives in this uh solution set.

This scenario basically across from the existing signal here, you'd uh potentially pop through and tie in to Tonka and traffic would turn at this intersection to come in to either Warm Springs, Tonka, and access Boons Ferry Road under that.

And we'll talk about other scenarios like like this, but that's an option that would allow the Boone ferry traffic to get to and from to Walton Sherwood and also separate the grade separation at here.

And then the over scenario, same thing, obviously going over the top.

And again, because you separate this intersection, you go over Boons Ferry and over the rail, you need to connect in some manner.

So this is one scenario again, you connect at this location.

Another scenario would be to uh have right in, right out.

So you you eliminate you you don't need to use the signal here, but you would have a right in.

Uh so it comes down to Nyberg, and you turn this way.

And if you're gonna go west on Twalt and Sherwood, you come up and turn right and go this way.

If you're coming from Sherwood and want to do on Boone's Ferry, take a right down to Tonka.

Um, and if you want to go to I-5, you come up and take a right at that scenario.

So there's there's a different combination, and as you see in this, all of them start to affect land use and affect buildings.

Uh that's one of the things that council needs to understand in this scenario.

All the scenarios are going to affect property, and they are going to have relatively substantial impacts.

Those impacts can be opportunities, and that's how you have to look at this scenario as this.

This is a you know, this is a generational type of uh investment in the community, and such you are gonna have changes such as that uh on a scenario like this.

So the other uh scenarios at grade.

So basically, as we have today, it may be widening and adding a right turn pocket and maybe adding another through lane, but basically keeping things uh at grade, and there's there's benefits there.

However, you're still dealing with the trains uh under that scenario, so you solve a little bit, but it's not incrementally going to move you uh in the right direction.

Uh and as Amy will notice, these are going to be cheaper.

The other thing you would add to this is what we call intelligent transportation systems or ITS, and everybody's like, what's ITS?

This would be upstream train warnings.

So as trains are coming in on your ways or on your Google, you would have connections that would say, Oh, there's gonna be a train here in two minutes, so maybe take a different route or uh re-detour yourself.

So if you're coming up, for instance, from uh Newburgh and you're going to Portland, you would have on your ways, if there's a train coming, it might take you up 99 and come across at a different location from that standpoint.

So that's what you don't have there today, but that would be an ITS type of solution uh to redirect uh traffic at that location.

So what are the opportunities that come with this?

Basically, it's those four things of I I described up front of the why traffic operations uh and congestion and safety, we can improve that.

We can reduce those conflicts between rail and freight because we physically separate those conflicts.

Um we enhance that local circulation both for pedestrians and bicycles, and we provide that economic uh redevelopment opportunities.

You're gonna see that here in a second as I go through potential impacts on the ability to construct these alternatives that we just looked at.

So, how viable are these alternatives?

A few things that we had to look at.

Uh, first and foremost, uh, has anybody ever seen a picture, not an AI generated picture, but a picture of a train in water?

Does that you see that too often?

Probably not too often.

The railroads back in the day when they first started doing they'd like, it's not good to put trains in water.

So trains are always elevated out of the flood zones.

Dropping the train tracks into a flood zone is something the railroads are not gonna really say, yeah, that's what we want to do.

And if you were even to do it, you'd have to have pumping systems and uh very expensive, but first and foremost, the rail lines are not gonna allow you to drop a rail line below the floodplain.

So that's gonna conflict out uh that rail under scenario fairly quickly.

Um there's also difficulties raising the railroad over the tracks.

To do that, we call it a shoe fly for those that read the memo, what's a shoe fly?

Ability to build a parallel track system so you can raise one and keep the trains running.

Unfortunately, in Tiger, because of the narrow right-of-way that the uh rail line has, there's not enough room really to build a parallel track and raise the other track at the same time.

You'd have to blow out buildings, probably about a half mile in both directions, and at that time, you know, is that really worth that?

So the two rail ones, viability-wise uh and their willingness to do that and keep both west running and freight running, um, is very unlikely at this point, and to go down that path, low odds.

And to go down that path, low odds.

Uh so you know, my my opinion is that's probably not where we'd end up.

Uh, it's going to be something with the road scenarios of over and under from that standpoint.

So construction staging, and we'll talk about this in a second, it's going to have sizable impacts on adjacent properties and businesses, and we'll talk about that in a second.

And that's where you, as a council, get to make the big decisions, but it's something I'm gonna warn you up front, there are going to be impacts, and we have to understand those impacts and be able to make the trade-offs on the economic benefits, the uh transportation benefits, and the overall community benefits of those impacts that will go through.

Um the other element uh there's another of a number of viability concerns.

If you went through the attached memo, it kind of goes in in detail in each one of these.

We won't go into those in uh significant uh uh points this evening.

So the flood planning considerations, most of you have been here, uh, it does flood.

So the scenario of where we're at here, we're either in the 1% or the 0.02% flood zones.

Again, that's why the rails probably not gonna work under, and also the roadway under, you can do it, but you have to have the pumping systems, and if uh electricity fails and gas backup fails, then you have yourself a bathtub effect.

Um it's it can be designed, not ideal if you have other alternatives from that standpoint uh to go forward.

So as we look at those original ones that we talked about, the rail under rail over, those are probably not viable.

Um the road under, still worth looking at uh because there are some benefits.

Uh you could do some tunneling and other things and have land use benefits.

So that one I would say you keep it in in play as we go through the process.

Uh the road over, probably at this point in time, the most viable uh from a construction impact and avoiding uh the flooding scenario, and then the at grade, obviously, we have it today.

We can widen, uh improve that that with the upstream train warning uh type of systems, and then the no build, obviously, uh we can stay as is uh from that scenario.

So, what I'm gonna do is dig in a little bit more on the um road over scenario so you understand these impacts, and we'll talk about cost, and then we'll open up for uh some questions at that point.

So, any one of the scenarios that we looked at to date, we were going to touch one uh and probably multiple of those blue parcels that you see uh on this map, either to the north or to the south as we go through there.

And as we look at this, um we have a large amount of traffic, and that's why we have the congestion.

So, when you construct a bridge on Twalton Sherwood, uh you can't just go out there one day and drop the bridge in and it's all ready to go.

You have to construct that.

Uh, if we took all the traffic and and stopped it and detoured the traffic for you know, nine months, we could actually do that.

Uh, but then where does the traffic go?

Does it come up here along Twalleton and Herman?

Uh, does it go somewhere else?

Not a lot of good detour routes.

So we have to, in essence, probably create the detour uh as part of the construction.

So there's really four scenarios that we looked at.

The old Twalton Sherwood Road actually is this is the remnant of it here.

Uh, you could come across here across uh Tonka and then come up.

So you could basically have a new realignment of uh the road in this location and build it all in that realignment.

You could build in place, uh, but to build in place, uh, we've looked at the modeling again without detours, that isn't feasible just building it in place.

Uh so if you were to build in place, what you would need to do is do a temporary road to the south, and that's the question.

If you're gonna go through the Mexican restaurant, the office, McDonald's, O'Reilly's, um, Chase Bank, and uh uh Dutch Bros.

If you're gonna go through that, then the scenario from an engineering standpoint, if you're gonna take all those properties to do a temporary road, you should ultimately probably build your ultimate road there.

It's easier to build a new road in that that vicinity, and then what would happen is you would have a new road, and that curvature basically you're using the old curvature of uh the old road would come through here, and then all this uh existing road would open up for economic redevelopment and enlarger parcels on the north side, which could create opportunities, for instance, to grid out uh Nyberg and other opportunities like that.

The only other opportunities that we looked at, um, which are probably non-starters, but just to give you kind of the creativity is you came on Nyberg and developed a temporary bridge across the lake and then came through this property, that would be a detour scenario that you could do as well.

Doesn't impact any buildings per se, but it does impact property and also would have a temporary bridge over your current lake feature uh within the community.

So it's all those you're probably as a uh policy makers like that's not a lot of great decision or dis opportunities there, but again, it's a generational type of improvement as we did into that.

So with that, uh I'm gonna have Amy talk a little bit about costs and how this would get funded, and then a little bit about schedule, and we'll open up to questions at that point.

Great.

So we did an initial preliminary cost analysis of both the grade separated alternatives and the act grade alternatives.

Um we know that this is a pretty wide range, but that's because there's quite a bit more analysis that needs to happen, but we just wanted to give a ballpark idea of what this type of cost of a project like this would be.

Um, and so we estimated 2035 dollars, it would be about 100 million to 200 million dollars to do an uh grade separated um option, and then for the accurate options, it would be between 10 million and 20 million and 2030 dollars.

So we used a different year for both of those, um, recognizing kind of the speed at which a project could be done.

Um so then that begs the question: how would a project like this get funded?

Because there's not 200 million dollars just sitting around to be used for something like this.

Um, and so we kind of outlined what some of those options are, and so there's the local regional funding sources that could be uh portion, such as a match, uh, you could have a transportation development tax, you could have a major streets apply for some of the major streets, transportation improvement program, MST funds, um, and then from the perspective of federal funding sources.

Um, there's a number of different options that we show on the slides, and including the packet.

The one that we think is the most likely to be a strong um option for this type of project is the railroad crossing elimination grant program.

And so in each of these, we show kind of the overall range of what people get awarded, uh what uh cities get awarded for these types of grants, and so the ones for that type of program is we saw them as high uh from the last the 2023-2024 cycle as high as 204 million dollars.

Um there's some other options of the consolidated rail consolidated rail infrastructure and safety improvements as well as the build grant program, the bill grant program isn't quite as high per grant award, um, but there's kind of other funding sources as well.

Um, and from a schedule perspective, so we're here talking to you today to give you the high-level idea of what you'd be getting yourselves into with this project.

Um, but as you can see, we'll be coming back.

Uh the plan is to come back three times over the course of the project before even the hearings phase to talk about a little more detail into the background conditions to go through and look at other ideas that you all have beyond the ones that Mark just shared today to evaluate those and then to make a recommendation on a preferred alternative.

Um, and then from there's multiple touch points with the public kind of throughout, but the plan is to have materials kind of shown to this group before we're promising anything that um isn't viable.

Um then from the general timeline perspective, uh, when would something like this actually be able to be built?

And so I think what we showed is around 2030 would be the expected time frame for just at grade alternatives, but then 2035 is kind of the uh typical schedule for the broader construction.

However, there's some opportunities to have a kind of um alternative delivery approach that could push that up to as early as 2032.

And so in this slide, we also talk about kind of what else happens even after you go through this type of study.

Um with that, I will hand it back to Mark.

So just kind of again summarize that the rail alternatives of route uh raising the rail, unlikely.

Uh Twalton Sherwood will likely go over, under at this point is more viable.

Uh several properties would have temporary or permanent uh easements or right-of-way takes and impacts to those properties.

And as Amy said, we'd be in that hundred million to 200 million range for those grade separated crossings.

Now, Towalleton would be very competitive in that that area.

Uh, our partners at HDR, Dell and ourselves, we've done a number of these grants in the uh in the past.

You have some things working for you.

Uh one, because of the urban type of scenario it is, the large amount of traffic on Twalton Sherwood, so that the railroads look at that, and that's just more conflicts uh when you have all those vehicles.

You have the freight on Twalton Sherwood, and then you have the freight and commuter line on the rail line.

So all that would add up and score really well from this scenario.

So it's not that this is not a pie in the sky.

Oh, you can never get this.

Uh this is this program um came through the IIJA uh and then through the federal rail uh administration, and we'll continue to see this program play out as um more and more conflicts with rail continue to grow over the years, you're seeing more and more investment on the rail crossings.

Uh so it would be competitive uh from that that standpoint.

And with that, uh we talked about the benefits, and we'll open it up to questions, and then um as far as potential next steps, you could say, hey, this is enough staff, you know, we've heard enough, we're done.

Uh, or understand how we're gonna move into this process and uh the feedback that you'll start to get from the community of oh, my building's gonna get uh impacted by this, there is gonna be a lot of construction, there's gonna be a lot of things, it's a big price tag.

How are we ever gonna do this?

Those are the type of comments that you're gonna get.

Uh, but again, we have to look back.

It's a generational type of project, it's solving a uh community uh issue that is going to continue to exist.

Uh we're not gonna have a 99 connector uh that I can see.

We're probably not gonna have a west side bypass of Twalton Sherwood Road as we've continued to widen out over the last 30 years since uh six corners got uh developed out in Sherwood.

Um it's going to exist, and as you all know in this community, that's a key infrastructure part.

So this is an investment to move that into the next century uh for service from that standpoint.

So with that, we'll stop, answer any questions you have this evening.

I don't know, Mike or Abby, anything else you want to add.

I think you covered it pretty well.

Okay.

Yeah, I think uh this as you mentioned, this does sell very well, I think at the federal level.

Um because of the sheer volume of traffic, the freight movement.

Uh the volume of traffic using the rail line, uh the crash data, quite a few crashes in these interceptions.

And then also it's been identified by the railroad as a problem area.

Uh so all of those I think would help it sell well, and the issues that would help it sell well, I think would sell well on both sides of the aisle.

Safety and mobility sell well to either side.

So, quick question before I uh open it to the council.

My remembering right, if you did get a railroad crossing elimination, you have to have a 20% match, don't you?

As a city.

Last time I checked, it was 20%.

They've been adjusting that back and forth.

That's generally what they go after.

However, we've seen some uh adjustments in that.

So what you can also do is dovetail it.

It could be, for instance, and this is um we've had a few projects like city has a park, you could have a RAFA uh funding through Metro, and you could have a state, and that could be your local match, and then the federal.

So it doesn't always have to just come from the one jurisdiction.

So it could be city, Washington County, Metro, and the state being the local match in this instance.

State and Washington County having no money.

Quick question.

Uh Council Rez had her light on first, and then Council Brooks.

You kind of went through it a little bit, but can you explain again why it can't go over the the train over?

Like I think that was one of your scenarios.

Yeah, so you explained that again.

I'm sorry, it went too fast, and I oh no problem.

Yeah, the 23 feet or something, 23 over.

So let's go here.

So to build this, again, if if we could go shut the railroad down for a year and then they don't use the railroad for a year, easy to build.

But they're gonna say no, we got to keep the trains moving uh and keep them on time.

So the only way to do that is what we call a shoof line.

It would be basically to build a parallel track about 30 feet off the center of the current track to either the right or left of it.

Well, if you go back, for instance, right through here, the right or the left is in all these buildings.

The other thing that's difficult is once you clear this, you have to get down quick enough to go to cross to Walton Road and did it under the other railroad, uh, which then makes it difficult for the west stop at that location.

You have an elevated west stop.

Understood, thank you.

I'll also add that if you do take the rail under or over, it is limit eliminating the um vehicle and rail complex, but you still have the major congestion at the intersection.

That makes sense.

Thank you.

And then I think the other issue with the rail over the trains are up higher, and that noise tends to project out farther.

So it would have more effect, and then we'd have you know a berm or a structure along the whole west side of the downtown.

And the under will be the flooding issue, right?

That you mentioned.

Okay, thank you.

Council Brooks.

Thank you for your presentation.

Um I've been thinking about this.

I had a I had a couple questions.

One is when I've been thinking about this, and especially if you were gonna sell it regionally, because right, um, what the mayor said was a concern.

Um however, we have this um big problem with congestion on I-5 and a lot of trap truck traffic.

So I just am curious if you know you were getting something like this going.

Is there a way to actually expand the rails for more rail?

Um like two rails.

So it uh expand uh train traffic.

Is that what you're briefing?

Yeah, or or mix of train and like max type.

Yeah, so the the rail line itself doesn't have a capacity issue.

We could add a lot more trains, it would have an impact on the vehicles because every time those trains come by, but from a pure capacity of putting more freight trains and more rail or more passenger, that's not gonna be your limiter on this.

It's really the the vehicle interface that's the limiter at this point.

Right.

So I just think when we're could especially since we're doing the Cora project right now, it's um something around consideration for me when I'm thinking through this, what's a real problem?

Um I'm glad that the rail lines identified as a problem as well.

My other question is if you were gonna divert traffic, um say you diverted traffic down Twalton Road, the other Twelton road.

Um, and just did a small widening there.

Is there is there a reason that we wouldn't do a diversion like that rather than cutting into all those buildings?

Yeah, so the probably the the simplest way to think about this is think of a uh of a pipe.

Right now you have uh we're gonna call it a four-inch pipe, just to all in Sherwood, you got four lanes.

You got Twalton Road that's a two-lane pipe, or okay.

So if we're gonna take all the traffic, the four and put it on that, we really need a six-lane pipe to detour, and then you just don't have the capacity.

If we were to put everything up on Towalleton Road, it would have to be 24 hours a day, as much capacity as we could get there.

So you'd have backups onto I-5 and all the way to Sherwood.

Um, because there's just not enough capacity to reroute on to a two-lane road, those those four lanes of traffic, plus the traffic that's already on Twalton Road itself.

I'm just wondering, even if about splitting the difference.

Um I'm from Michigan and I've seen things like that all the time.

They build out there without any problems and they divert traffic all the time.

So I just don't I have a different mindset around it.

Yeah.

Um, because I just have seen things like this happen before.

And if there's enough of a of a need for it, I just think the combined thing, if there was a way to involve metro and the state and the railroads, that that's when you we could be more creative about how we could integrate better design through the whole downtown planning and then utilize any widening that would be helpful or redirection that would be helpful to the the cora planning as well.

And my last question is with the ITS solution, why are we not just using that right now?

Uh there's nothing that prevents outside of planning design and implementation and cost.

But yeah, that's there's there's nothing that prevents that from occurring.

And and how much does that run usually about?

Uh full ITS out here, you're probably in the five to seven million range, roughly.

But that's not including the road widening.

No, no, that's just uh technology side of it.

Yes.

We have 10 to 20 million.

Five to seven million for the ITS element.

Maybe you should explain that.

Yeah, that's just the software.

No, it's the same.

The software alone.

You have to detect the you have to detect the trains like approximately five, ten miles upstream in both directions, so it takes detect detections along that facility.

So you need to understand when a train is coming and when it's going to get to this crossing, which means you have to understand the speed at which that train's arriving.

So there's a lot of detection that comes in, and then it's the communications with the Googles and the ways to make that that happen.

So it again, it can be done, but that's the reason it's not been done today.

Okay.

So they kind of just do some satellite thing with just okay.

So that was just that was one question that came to mind.

So that's a big if we were just going to leave it at is as is, but improve it, that's a big investment as well without any matching federal dollars or anything like that.

And then I just have a curiosity, just from seeing what's been going on here and you know, these ideas of putting like a major baseball stadium downtown and all these different kinds of things that they'd like to probably have season ticket holders from out this way to go down there and be able to get on the road and down through things or down to Salem.

Is there any like do you have a vision at all of you of something that you could see that would help to accommodate something that would be helpful to for people as well as for freight?

Are you talking about sort of like a transit service, like up towards arenas and down to Salem and something like that?

Yeah, there have been some discussions going on about extending west to Salem, and that's still being discussed.

I think getting into Salem is one that gets particularly difficult.

Um as you know we've been working with TriMed and some of their changes in service, and they at least had a really good direct bus line from Bridgeport into downtown.

Uh and I think those are some really good needs for us to be pushing in regional transit circles.

Because it would be interesting with their needs if there's federal programs that are designed around those types of things as well, especially because, like you said, both sides of the aisle, the commerce conflict that happens with all the landscape issues that we have with our I-5 and such limitations for up and down the coast that eventually we just have to keep thinking about these things.

So those are my thoughts.

Um if you have any thoughts about things that I've said that would be interesting to me, I'm always interested.

Thank you very much for the presentation.

Okay, thank you.

Other questions?

Counselor Hillier.

Thank you.

Well, I'm a little curious why you didn't lead with the funding process to be tolling over this bridge.

But just kidding.

Okay.

So what?

Are you thinking about it?

Huh.

It'd be five to seven million to put that in, huh?

All right.

So I have a couple questions.

Um this one is only adjacent.

So when they built the walking bridge in Sherwood, what kind of construction did you call that?

It felt feels like one day there was nothing there, and then it was beside the huge thing was beside it, and then they put it in pieces.

Is what do you what do you call that?

And is any of that an option as you're talking about building a bridge?

Yeah, or an overpass.

Basically, in that project somewhat familiar with you you'll build the structure off-site or adjacent to, and then you'll you'll lift it into place.

Um another example, I mean, for those that have been here a long time, uh the Fremont Bridge up uh in uh there, that got shipped in and they they lifted it up and put it in place.

And that's that's doable.

It's doable for new facilities, and like the Fremont Bridge, there was not anything there, so you were just putting it out in a spot that there is some point, maybe beyond our lifetimes when they have to replace the Fremont Bridge, that's when it becomes difficult, is when you have existing facilities in place.

And that's what you have here.

You have existing rail, existing Boons Ferry, existing toilet and Sherwood, and now you have development all the way around it.

And that's why you're kind of locked in.

If you if we had no development one side or the other, okay, yeah, we'll just build it next to it or build it one way or the other from that.

Okay, I was curious.

And that leads me then to kind of my question about I guess is the term imminent domain or what is it that would be impacted.

Could you um if if I understood correctly, either any any decision we make, including widening the road would involve that.

And I was just curious about kind of the just should I just guess at what it is, or is there a difference in the return of investment for what we would take and you know that sort of thing?

I I know that's not a very well thought out question, and I apologize.

impacted could you um if i if i understood correctly either any any decision we make including widening the road would involve that and i was just curious about kind of the just should i just guess at what it is or is there a difference in um the return of investment for what we would take and you know that sort of thing i i know that's not a very well thought out question as we did further into this study i mean we we looked at the cost we showed you tonight or the construction cost plus the acquisition costs of those properties okay uh so that's all in that that range um as we did into it we have to start looking at um what is the viability of those buildings and what's the lifespan of those buildings so not all those buildings are gonna be here in 50 years uh because they're gonna have to get redeveloped because of structural and and so forth and then what are the opportunities that it presents to the city so if we were to grid out that area and make it you know um like Bridgeford Village or something like that there's benefits from a tax dollar uh standpoint uh property tax and so forth in that so that's where we have to start looking at what is the benefit of this if we take out those six buildings yeah there's a negative there's a cost up front but what's that long term uh benefit of doing that both from a transportation standpoint but also from an economic redevelopment standpoint.

Yeah that makes sense thank you um I'd like to then now go to the funding sources that you um listed and live live in it sorry you you don't have to it's page 16 if that's helpful but um I'm just looking at the federal sources um I think we've talked about the local ones but we live in a um a very uh um a questionable time right now I guess and so I mean um to to me the reality of those funding streams is not a very real thing I'd I mean I'm my I work in my business life I'm federally funded and and I see those gone just like that.

Yeah so I wonder really I mean so transportation dollars at the federal level what you see a lot of is continuation bills uh so the IIJ uh that got passed back here what's it four four years ago now you'll continue to see that in both sides in to Mike's point uh projects that are freight jobs safety those play well be it red or blue um and so these these uh these three major uh uh fundings they've been in place now for about eight ten years in different names the uh bill was tigered at one point it was billed before that uh it may get rebranded but the same sort of grant is gonna sit the federal railroad administration it's all about safety so that um the RCE grant or the rail crossing elimination grants if anything you're gonna see more money go into that over time because uh back to uh counselor Brooks we're gonna put more and more trains on there so those conflicts are just gonna become more and more pronounced over time so eliminating those conflicts um you know every state we work in across the country is a rail crossing study like this is becoming fairly commonplace where 20 years ago it was more an exception now you see it all the time uh one is because it's just becoming so apparent to the communities the rail and um trucking administration trucking associations we have to solve this and the only way to solve it is great separated.

So you're gonna see these and I think you're gonna see them continue to grow uh more competition obviously but uh as we mentioned I think the city of Twalton is fairly uniquely qualified just because of the uniqueness of this uh location okay thank you and um I was gonna ask about the ITS upstream because I'll be honest with you an intersection uh that I'm worried about is that that same train uh is goes right in front of Twalton community park and it's you know everything stops right there so to me um I I'm concerned that that isn't part of the conversation and I'm not on the Cora um so maybe that is part of the discussion there that is a huge concern to me for kids getting to school to activities that the part like all sorts of people recreate there so I just wanted to put that out there and and I really think we should add tolling but that's just other questions that's President Pratt um on the funding I think I I think that federal is not my concern because that road crossing elimination program I know is out there but um I'm more concerned locally you know we're the mayor and I are on the committee with ODOT for the capital improvement projects for the next 10 years and this is not going to be on that list and um mistip funds are pretty much unavailable from the county so I'm concerned what they're getting smaller.

Well yeah I mean I'm concerned we get enough to cover our local share but I'm sure you could hope and patch things together maybe um I was wondering back on the um when you were talking the rail over on that map like um were you saying the old Twileton road there by Dutch Bros that you'd basically just build it there the new road over crossing was one of the options there you go well right here.

There, there you go.

Well through that way right here.

Yeah.

So what we would end up doing is the old road used to come in like this, like this, and then ended up like that.

Um so if you were to one option is to basically continue Twalton Sherwood down, cross here and parallel to the south, and then hook back in here.

So basically shift Twalt and Sherwood Road basically 80 to 100 feet to the south of where it's at today.

Obviously, you're impacting all those buildings, but what you can do then is you can build it all out of traffic, and then when it's ready, you just move the traffic over there and you abandon the the existing facility.

So that it makes it easier from a construction standpoint.

Um versus build a temporary road, build something permanent in the existing place, and then go back and tear out the temporary road.

That just finance much sense.

I can see how it could tie into the core everything except for there's eight or ten businesses there we'd be wiping out.

Yeah.

And then um to Councilor Hillier's point that that solves, I guess the traffic part of the train somewhat, but that it's so dangerous there by the park where that rail is too, and we're not really addressing that with this project.

Yeah, one of the things I'd mentioned, I think as Mark alluded to about if you know there's a lot of options for how it would get built that could be in his current alignment or farther to the south.

If it does move to the south, um the properties north of the new road, so like between Tonka and Twelfth and Sherwood, and the right-of-way of Twalton Sherwood, then becomes developable property in the Cora area.

So there's a fair amount of opportunity there.

I get that, except for what it how do you you just eminent domain the existing?

Yep.

I think the and then the federal processes that would be following yes, there's a huge disruption to the people involved, but they are very handsomely compensated and often relocated.

So projects typically then have to pay to relocate the business to a new often better property and pay them for their costs and purchase the property from the people.

No, I mean the the one with the changing that road like that could I think it could be a pretty interesting um interesting change to the Cora.

It could.

Yeah.

And a lot of those buildings that I mean, I've been doing this long enough.

I remember I did the impact study for the McDonald's right at the beginning of my career.

I mean, these buildings are now 30, 40 years old along that south.

So it's not, you know, they're not gonna fall down tomorrow, but they're the redevelopment of them isn't what it was 20 years ago.

It's it's different now.

Um and those property owners look at it differently.

But again, to Mike's point, you're gonna have to compensate and relocate.

Um, but it does open up opportunities that aren't there today.

And if there were this other than you know, we'll probably hear the most about is Dutch Bros, but that's another story.

But would you if if we if we were really looking at this, would you do like outreach to those business owners to see how much they're gonna be upset or if they're kind of more willing participants in this?

Yeah, if if we were to do this, there would be a lot of community outreach involved, and I think talking to the businesses would be really prudent before we start talking about that.

And then if we just did that um lesser thing where we put the sensors and everything in the road, how much is that gonna be different than now?

Because we're not avoiding that train.

We're just letting people know it's there, right?

Right.

So the if we did the at grade solutions um, you know, we've had a project in our transportation plan for a while to build an eastbound to right turn lane, which would widen the crossing a little bit, significant cost there.

Uh but then it will facilitate people turning right from eastbound boons or eastbound twelfth and sherwood to go southbound on Boone's.

Um another option is a northbound right turn lane on from Boone's Ferry to Twelfth and Sherwood.

It would be really tight to squeeze that in between the McDonald's drive-through and the road.

And once you've taken out the drive-thru, you've bought the McDonald's.

Uh so there's you're probably looking at a turn lane or two on one approach or another, and potentially doing some reconfiguration.

And if you did that, then the I I guess would the city buy all that land and then what would happen to the old Twalt, who would own all that, like Twalton Sherwood Road that currently exists, and then where we do the eminent domain, who would own all that land then at that point?

Um it would probably end up being city owned for a while and then could be sold by the city, depending on how it got done.

You know, if the county's delivering the project, it could become county land.

But if the city's delivering it becomes a city project, and then it can be sold as through some redevelopment activity.

Okay, thanks.

Council Brooks.

I have one more or two more.

Um one is when you're talking about expanding it, you're talking about uh building out south, right?

You build the second road south?

That would be one option.

Yeah, a new road.

Because there's a lot more external obsolescence there and roads to nowhere and all those kinds of problems in through that area, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah, there's some poor connectivity.

And it's old.

Um so they could actually have an improvement, the businesses would have could have an improvement, and then you would have a bigger area for the Cora.

Um and then my other my other question is with um with projects like these, if you were gonna have um improvements to the rail system, uh it seems to me that that would spur relief to not just us, but the connected communities around us.

And so if there were regional improvements, can there be regional partnerships and a regional plan that would help lift the project if it would like I think about Wilsonville for the same thing?

So this uh as I mentioned earlier, so uh the RAFA, the regional flexible funds uh that go through Metro.

Um this last round there was six projects that got anywhere from about eight million up to 40 million.

Yeah.

Um so those would be you would go after that because those the how those are voted on with would be your regional partners of Wilsonville, Tualeton Tiger, uh like Oswego saying, hey, this makes a lot of sense, so let's move that forward as a RAFA grant.

That to me is really an interesting concept because we've been talking about these issues with the bus service.

We've been talking about these issues with the lack of consistent transportation and um even with the tolling issues in the congestion, I forget some one of some of our reps called us like the congestion region or something like that.

So I I know that it's not a problem unique to us, and I also know the problem getting downtown for events at these stadiums and different events like that are not unique to us.

So that's where I keep thinking about Metro myself, but I'm also just curious about I I'd love to see what like I'd like to see a map of the rail, like of the how the rails all work a little bit more, because you know they just kind of creep behind the bushes, and there they go into the backyards of America.

Um so it'd be nice to like see it in a bigger way for me.

Yeah, I think there's some very interesting maps of it, and um and yeah, I think as Mark mentioned, there are some good regional funding sources mentioned the regional flexible funding allocation of the RAFA.

Um there's actually fair amount of dedicated state money towards eliminating rail crossings that could be used in this way.

And you know, I was thinking through kind of what would be some of our competition for some of these funding sources.

And maybe there's some out there, but I'm having trouble thinking of another crossing in the state that has this volume of traffic, you know, particularly including this much truck traffic over a rail line that's this busy.

Yeah, I'm working my way down the UP main line, and pretty much anything even close to this size is great separated.

And there's very few other places that have sweet go the safe way.

Well, what go.

Yeah.

What's it'cause that's a much smaller rail line.

Yeah.

But what I would say too is we always we always have feedback around like the number one concern from our community is this traffic jam that is our community.

So um for me, even though this is a big picture like you said, a generational project, um, with the interest that our community has and with the fact that it's not going to get better, um, and that the rails would be invested in as well as ODOT as you know, to alleviate some of this.

I think sharing the problem and sharing the wealth might be a nice change for Twalton.

And so for me, I'm interested in understanding more about possible solutions and uh appreciate understanding more about these funding opportunities as well and these programs that I don't know as much about as some other subjects.

So thank you so much.

Do you know I mean I know they're talking about increasing passenger rail up to Vancouver and someday hopefully down to Salem and Eugene.

So do you know do you have any forecast about uh and then the increase of freight rail, like if that's it if it's projected to increase over the next decades?

Um yeah, I don't know if or when passenger rail would expand.

I know there's still a lot of discussions, a lot of people who want it.

Uh freight well rail wise, the last decade or two have seen an increase in freight generally.

Yeah, it's a less expensive way to deliver goods.

It's getting harder and harder to find truck drivers.

Right.

Um other questions.

I've just got a couple.

So I just want to make sure on the L V and To Walton Sherwood Road over the um railroad.

So you're looking at basically everything from Martin Nazi Square down to Dutch Bros would be impacted uh for that reroute.

Under that scenario, yes.

Um and the Feds the Feds are gonna pay for all those properties?

It's yeah, it's part of the Martin IC Square is a mall.

I mean, it's a retail out you know, retail facility with multiple tenants.

Yeah, so uh if we went to the South, you know, um the Mexican restaurant, the uh office building, the McDonald's, uh O'Reilly's the bank, and uh Dutchborough's those would be the likely uh buildings that would be impacted by that song.

So not the vet, because the vet just put a whole new building in.

Yeah.

And I think there's a couple of these, particularly the vet and particularly Martinazzi Square.

I think we'd be looking at more like what they call a partial take.

Yeah, we would this this property here, you come probably most of to the north of it, like Mike said.

So it's it's really these ones, these ones are gonna likely be partial takes.

Yeah, because I just know the the vet's office just built a whole new building, probably right where you want to put the road.

I think Hiddlison's done a great job at the pr preliminary look at this, but we are still very high.

Yeah, yeah.

Um you know, seems to me we've got down to two options here.

One is you know, the widening option with ITS, and the second option, you know, we're spending a lot of time on here is the temporary reroute uh and the shift to the south of Twalton Sherwood Road, which would benefit Cora.

So just to get to where uh what you need as terms of direction tonight, what are you looking for?

I think what we're looking for is uh do you see enough potential to keep looking and to look further into Yeah?

It sounds to me from what I'm hearing is definitely you know widening an ITS since it's the cheapest.

And a second, there seems to be pretty much interest about the Twalton Shorewood reroute, you know, with you know an elevator crossing, knowing that businesses would be impacted.

Um digging the train into a moat's not happening, uh putting a bridge, putting a train on a bridge is not gonna happen.

Um it seems that also council is well I don't want to talk for you guys, but it sounds like we're all focusing in on that idea of you know moving to Alt and Shore Road, elevating it.

Yeah, and it's really it's kind of the subalternative end of a how do you connect it?

You know, do you connect on both sides?

Do you create a grid street system through there?

That's where you kind of get into that details, and that's where the public involvement process and engaging the businesses would come in at that point.

And then the road under be difficult with the water, no way.

Yeah, no, I've been here for two floods.

So I just want to make sure that you want like that we're hearing you that you are the the direction that we need is whether to continue to pursue a grade separ uh road over rail and all the impacts that potentially has financial otherwise and otherwise.

Okay.

And and we're we could do this in pieces like we're gonna take the next step basically.

We're not saying build it.

We just want to look further into if it's feasible.

Yeah.

Knowing that same timeline 2035 is probably when the core is gonna be hitting its prime, when development is happening or during that, and that if this could be incorporated into that plan, um, you know, our downtown actually might by be a little bit bigger if we do this generational change.

Let's also talk about let's also talk like when we're concerned about taking some of those buildings.

If you reduce if you get rid if you are able to do a grade separation, the value of every commercial building in the community is gonna go up.

So it it's not gonna I think that there's ways to work through those things.

All right.

So it sounds like what I'm hearing is it sounds like we keep going looking at the road over family of options.

That and the the ITS row winding.

Yeah.

And then we'll check in with you guys.

Yeah.

And I I think is as Mike says, if we keep going, we have to bring the public up to speed.

So you guys were able to understand all the things.

But you always have to understand, you have to be able to answer the why and the why not.

Why does this work and why not this?

So you have to all the stuff that we've gone through, you have to kind of go back through that story and get everybody up to speed on why you can't for instance put the rail underwater.

Um so that has to go through that, but we're just saying on the outside of or the outcome of this is probably something that we're talking about tonight.

Is it's likely mostly to come out of that process.

Can I ask one more?

Sure.

If we were going to I just turned it off.

If we were going to um do the grade separation, do we have any percentage of the congestion relief and the number of cars that are sitting, the number of cars that would not be sitting, and also I can kind of I'm also thinking through climate with carbon reduction um and some of the conversations around even older buildings and upgrading buildings so they're more um so that we could look at carbon um credits as well.

Yeah, I think if uh so if the road over option was built, this would no longer be a bottleneck.

We'd probably be looking at probably the I-5 interchange being the bottleneck of that after that.

Um but there would be quite a bit more capacity getting through here, and there'd be quite a bit more I think north-south travel on Boone's Ferry.

Um I think from what I've been seeing, there's been a lot of focus on moving to Alton Sherwood Road, and so a lot of people have decided to kind of just avoid Boone's ferry for this section and use other routes.

Yep.

So there'd be a fair amount of traffic coming back to Boone's Ferry, which I think would probably help walk ability of some of the other routes.

Um I think as far as the climate impacts uh removing all the congestion around this intersection of the day, I think is a pretty significant source of I think it's a significant source of greenhouse gas.

Um would argue that clearing this bottleneck might mean more people will drive.

Um I'm not sold on that, but I think removing the all the idling vehicles here would be significant.

And can we and also if we're gonna do this, Cora, we have sitting traffic, so it's not just greenhouse gas, but health and well-being of the community, right?

Yeah, okay.

There's also opportunities for um bike improvements, pet improvements that could take trips off of the roads.

Right.

So if if there is a bridge, you wouldn't have to worry about crossing to Alton Sure at a grade, you just walk a ride right under it.

Well, I'm sorry, yes.

Okay.

Sorry.

I think the rail improvements will help the freeway as well.

So I think I'll think or microphone.

No, you're talking quite.

Oh, I'm sorry, I talk quiet.

Anyway, I think you heard me.

Thanks.

All right.

All right.

So I think we've heard to keep going looking at the at grade options with the I the ITS coordinate coordination and looking at a road over option.

And then we'll go back and look more at existing conditions and some of our traffic modeling and start pulling that together.

We'd be pulling together an advisory committee of mostly technical people from the various agencies involved who we've been in touch with loosely so far, but we'll formalize that a little more.

Bring in some representation from downtown community.

And pull together a little more specifics about the road over family and kind of subfamilies of the road over what might what might work and what level of connections to make, whether it's kind of southeast corner or northwest corner.

Or even potentially like ramps up or something like that.

And we'll be bringing that back probably in the next couple months of for our next steps.

Right.

Appreciate it.

And anything else I should be covering or no?

Appreciate the study.

Nice work.

10,000 feet, remember that.

Oh, yeah.

Subject to change, but we'll be back.

So we'll be back then about 8,000 feet over the next week.

Exactly.

All right.

Thank you.

Thank you.

All right.

Thank you.

All right, that brings us to items removed from consent.

We had none tonight.

Council communications, we have two proclamations requested.

So the first one, we have a proclamation and pledge request for older Americans month.

The request is in your packet.

Do we have uh support for that proclamation and put it on the schedule?

Head nods.

Okay.

Then item number two is a proclamation request.

We've had this over the last few years.

Okay.

All thumbs up.

All right.

So with Go ahead.

So the only issue is time.

Yeah.

So on the all of those.

Now you gotta do your mic.

All of those are um uh they have resulted in a bit of congestion for um the first meeting of April.

And if all of them are read when they're they've asked to be read, we're gonna have six, I guess five now, on that on that meeting.

Um is that the March 23rd meeting, I'm sorry.

So we have Arbor Month, National Library Week, Transgender Day of Visibility, then the older Americans and the Military Child Military Child.

Just want to make sure you're okay with that.

Um each counselor can get one.

I mean, I mean it's not like we're doing that very often.

Well, your your policy says two with exceptions, so are we okay with that?

To five yeah.

Okay.

Thank you.

Yeah, be fast.

Yeah.

Uh so uh we didn't have work sessions tonight, so we'll do the council round table starting with our city manager Sherilyn.

Spring it on me.

All right.

Uh a few things have happened in the last couple weeks.

Let's see.

Um so our operating agreement with clean water services expires this year.

And um it's uh a long-term agreement, but um it's coming up to expiration.

And so we've been meeting with Clean Water Services.

Rachel Sykes, our public works director, has been in charge of this.

Um, and we're gonna be bringing that forward on a work session.

Um we have wrangled and it's very operational, but um we want to get in front of you before we bring it forward for final approval in the the intergovernmental agreement.

So there's been uh a bunch of work about that.

Um along with the mayor and our economic development team.

I was part of a meeting with Greater Portland Inc.

uh to talk about toilet and specific issues and opportunities and the economic development uh landscape here in Tualeton.

It was a really good meeting.

Um impressed with Greater Portland Inc., but I'm also very impressed with our our economic development team led by Sid.

Um our operating agreement with Wash with Washington County regarding the library expires at the end of June.

And um, of course, we've been working on this for a long time, the funding and governance portions of it, but that um now we're actually wrangling the IGA, and so we're gonna be bringing that forward in April for a work session to also talk about um the IGA language.

So we've resolved all the funding pieces of it, but this is more of the operating operating language.

And so Jerry Ann and I have been working really hard on that.

We're meeting tomorrow with the cities of West Lynn, Lake Aswico, and Sherwood regarding the transit study that we had talked about.

The um what are we trying to achieve?

Um better transit service and what does that look like, and potentially doing a study that gives us our options.

So a lot's already going into that.

You know this because we sent you emails about it, but we submitted the Riverfront Park into the Earmark process for both Selinus' office as well as Merkley and Wyden's.

So this is for an emergency preparedness mechanism that should a major um event happen, like the Cascadia, um, and folks are not able to get to their emergency operations center.

So, like for instance, Ben Bryant lives in or works for the city of Happy Valley, but lives here in Twalleton.

If he was not able to get to Happy Valley, he could come here and work in our EOC.

And so the stranded worker agreement would put things into place that would make that um like who pays for what, where's the liability, and and those types of things.

So we'll bring that forward and have you um have you take a look at it.

But um I I'm really excited about about that.

And then you also know this from the emails we sent, but um the property that the urban renewal district, the TDC purchased um across from the Grange, the Matthias property, um, we'll be going through the process of demolishing that and um preparing it for uh it's turned into a bit of an attractive nuisance, so um, we need to do something with it, or else put a lot of money into it to make it habitable.

So the cheapest option is to demolish it and to go through that process.

So that will be happening soon.

That's it.

Councilor Brooks.

Um, thank you, Mayor.

Excuse me.

Last um on the 25th, I attended the NBC LEO meeting, which was a moment in um Black History meeting.

So it's just a connection before I see people at the um National League of Cities Congressional Conference.

Um, and updates on what we're up to as a caucus, some basic changes about how they're managing regions, and then um, and then new um they have a progressive um leadership structure, so um their second vice chair is the first vice or you know, those kinds of things.

So um, so it's all in order, all orderly.

All the people that have been in leadership got re-elected, and they're moving through their um graduated um council uh program, and then um there was a policy briefing webinar on um energy microgrids and energy security that I attended that was interesting.

Um there was um a touch base with the mayor for the first time after surgery and had a nice call.

Um and then on the 27th, we had the LOC legislative update, which I'm sure I'm not the only one that was on that.

Um and then the 28th um Congresswoman, I think that was the day.

Congresswoman Andrea Salinas was in Wilsonville, so I was up there listening to what she had to say.

Um I think it was the Saturday that we had declared war, and there was she was pretty upset that there was no congressional power on that.

Um, and she also went through and explained a lot of injuries that people have been dealing with in the hands of ice, dislocated shoulders and terrible uh glass in kids' eyes and all kinds of pretty horrible things.

So she was upset about that and was talking about facing those issues.

Um then also was at the Chamber Awards Dinner and kind of pinch hit it in um presented award, and I know that um other people will talk about that as well.

And then on the fourth, I went to the LOC women's caucus board meeting where we discussed mostly our plans for the upcoming um conference in Pendleton, which is open for registration.

If anyone's interested in going, um, the women's caucus will be hosting a couple different things, um, for sure, one thing.

And um the other thing to say about that was there are a lot of women that were on or talking about other women that were so frustrated serving that they were just being talked over.

There was um they just were not gonna um run for re-election, and their leaders and people that I've seen for a long time.

So I just um whether you're a man or a woman, um if you are in meetings with women and um and they're not being honored with the conversation to help support each other, um, so that everyone feels like they're being heard.

I know that we do this well here, and we have a lot of women serving.

Um, and it was kind of heartbreaking really that people are so uh feeling very set aside in conversations and talked over.

Um then there, and it's also a lot of division.

So uh the LOC, another LOC ledge update, and then uh yesterday I was at downtown at the International Women's Day.

There was um the phenomenal awards, which was pretty cool.

There were uh five individual awards, um, and then one mission award, and um, like one of the women was there was a gal that was assaulted with a man with a knife, and he was, and she reported, and um and nothing was done, and he was the same person that wouldn't stab people at the MAX.

So she has a nonprofit that she um runs.

There were several really interesting programs there, and then there was a mission award for the women's center that's moved out of um Portland uh state, no, the University of Portland, and they're on their own as a separate um nonprofit now.

And um I think oh, and then today I was at yoga at the Winita Poll Center.

There's gonna be construction, but it's good news, and one of the things I wanted to mention is like they have Pilates, but it's you can have it covered by your insurance.

Um and the Silver Sneakers is also insurance covered.

There um is going to be their very first cheerleading pro the cheerleading program, isn't the first thing, but it's um part of this mid-grant that includes adults 30 and over.

So they're doing they're trying out programming that includes um an increased age range.

So if I committed to sign up, it's a free cheerleading thing.

And um, if anyone wants to join me, I challenge you to be the most enthusiastic.

Um, and there's also another interesting one that's called the Death Cafe, which sounds really morbid, but it really is kind of interesting because it talks about how they're doing snacks and conversation for free, where they're talking about um this is a movement that emerged in Switzerland and France.

It's not a grief support group, but a group directed discussion with no agenda to increase awareness of death in a view of in with a view of to helping people make the most of their finite lives.

So just a way of being more engaged with your day-to-day um while not ignoring um this time-limited event.

Thank you.

Councillor Sacco.

I don't have anything to report.

Thank you.

Councilor Hillier.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um, I um attended for Counselor Reyes, so again, Council Reyes, thank you for giving me such advanced notice to attend the regional immigration discussion meeting.

So again, Councilor Reyes, thank you for giving me such advanced notice to attend the regional immigration discussion meeting.

And we heard um uh apparently like usual from uh the attorney general uh Rayfield, and really he just went over kind of the current landscape of what's happening here in Oregon and um some of the resources that are on the state website.

They're really trying to do some innovative collective problem solving, and for people who might be looking for ways to be an ally or different things, it's um there are tool kits that are on the state website that you can go look for, and these are living documents, so they're being updated all the time with the input of our police force, like with all different groups of people.

So I encourage people if that's information you're looking for.

And then um one other thing that I thought was kind of interesting as part of the conversation is that a lot of people are calling in because they their um persons have been violated, and while it may not rise to the level of a criminal um action, it could be um uh still a violation that's um that they're able to take and move forward.

So they really encourage people to call the hype hotline, and I did not write that number down, but it is on the um attorney general's website.

So it was a very interesting conversation.

Thank you.

So thank you for bringing that up because it's something that I actually talked to um Sherilyn about on our call because I know that some of the information he's collecting is also for um data collection.

And I was just curious um if the police departments are involved in um recording or reporting to the attorney generals, not something that's gonna be um like uh prosecuted, but something for statistical information, like the um incident that I was um made aware of when I was over at the visiting the new playground.

I think it's just a reporting um encouragement to report.

So I don't know if we have any processes like that going on or unusual, you know, in for you know or if you're um asking me, I would defer to Counselor Reyes because she's I've only attended the meeting one time, but the civil acts was more of um people calling in.

It was a self-report sort of conversation, but that that's the limit of my knowledge, and I would defer to Councilor Reyes or the Chief.

I am not aware of there's if Twiliton has a process of uh these of what you're asking, Councilor Brooks, but um if the chief or Shirley would like to respond.

Uh the what we attend, it's a little bit different than what you're asking.

I think that's what's happening here.

I have no answer.

Well, I I mean I saw about the same program for individuals to report, but my thing was the only thing that I would have to report the our police department has better information than I do.

So is there a way that we're collaborating with attorney general to help make the um incidences um measurable for the the work at the level of the state?

That's my question.

And I think it might be something worth considering if anyone has any responses.

Yeah, I hadn't had a chance to check in with the chief about about your question as of yet.

That's right.

Uh no official meeting, uh, but thank you, Councillor, for going and attending that meeting.

Typically, what we talk about, we have presentations from like uh the state, the federal, uh what's happening, what they're doing.

Um so I was glad to hear that last time we had someone um talking about um resources that we can uh provide to people that are in a situation like this.

Um and then we had a speaker that was from uh the state, I think she was from the refugee um I can't remember the name of her agency, uh, but that's that's what we had.

Then we have we go back and forth and asking questions and clarifications, then we get an update from either counselor, I mean sorry, not counselor, congresswoman uh Salinas or Bynum or any any of our federal representations.

We sort of get an update what's going on.

Um so this time I guess it was the DA speaking.

That was really good to hear.

Sometimes he'll send someone to every attorney general, sorry.

Um he'll send someone to um, you know, just the representation.

We typically have a lot of people there from different um just different elected officials representing, including ourselves.

That's that's basically what happens in these meetings.

Um yeah, thank you for for our presenting.

I have no official meetings to report.

Thank you.

It's President Pratt.

Um start the um, yeah, the chamber wards may quit.

Um the mayor, councillor Brooks, and um Councillor Gonzalez were there.

Um and then the mayor and I were um attending a special meeting for R1 Act.

And it was to um the different jurisdictions.

The ODOT is going through a process of um changing to a capital improvement projects list of 10 years now.

And so we had picked our top five projects, and then we were tasked with picking up to ten more, and so all the jurisdictions were able to submit more, and so we heard their presentations.

Then um on the fourth, the downtown community advisory uh revitalization community advisory committee, and we reviewed the rest of the civilis recommendations based on our five criteria, and then from the U of O consulting group theirs, and uh I have to say the last two meetings, the conversations have been so great, and people have been bringing up just amazing points and a wide swath of the group.

So it's I think it's really great.

The conversations that are going on there.

On um the fifth, we had the Clackamas County Coordinating Committee meeting at the Malala police station, which is quite a drive, especially home in the dark.

Um, but it was really cool.

They took an um they had a 2,000 square foot police station and they replaced it with this giant structure like this building kind of, but two stories, and it would had been a bowling alley.

So they took the pieces of the carpeting and made a big carpet, and then they took um some of the wood from the lanes and put it along the wall with their sign.

So it was really kind of fun to see that.

Um but we we got an update on the capital improvement projects through ODOT, and then um the discussion that got kind of interesting was um, and I don't know that it was planned, but it was just that um you know we have all our issues with uh um urban growth boundary and dealing with metro and everything to expand housing, but out there they have a whole different set of issues and entities they deal with, and they get limited by DLCD and other groups, so it's it was just kind of interesting because they want to build out on one side of town, and they're getting pushback from these overriding entities telling them to build elsewhere.

So it's just amazing and kind of frustrating that it's so difficult to provide the housing we need in our state.

Um and the last thing I wanted to mention was that um I'm not able to go to the Clackmas County Coordinating Committee retreat.

It's up at Mount Hood Resort on um Friday, June 5th and Saturday, June 6th.

Everybody from the council is welcome to attend, but I'd really love if one or two or three or four of you could go because it's it's a really good day or so of really focusing in on the issues and helping set the agenda for the next year.

Done.

Okay.

On February 26th, the MMC met.

No surprise was all an update on what was going on at the legislature at that point, and getting our last minute plugs in for what we liked and didn't like in terms of bills.

Uh and uh before the legislature uh called it a day for uh for uh the short session.

Uh just want to compliment the Twalton Chamber on the business banquet.

Uh it was very well run.

They had about 150 people there, uh, very enjoyable, and congratulations to all the winners in the different categories.

Uh Washington County Chair's mayor's meeting was on the second.

Uh Chair Harrington discussed the resolution that I don't know if it's passed yet or not, but they what they're calling the rule of law resolution uh for Washington County, it's in terms of uh immigration.

She discussed that the sheriff um is evaluating, they do have one flock camera.

And what the flock cameras used for is for license plate recording, and they're mounted to trailers, and it's when they do their shoplifting enforcement.

That's the only time they use them, so they're evaluating that right now.

Uh cool thing, they were given a grant, a pilot program to uh be able to use drones as first responders, so the drone would go out before the sheriff got there.

Because it could take a you know Washington County Sheriff 30 minutes to get somewhere, but if the drone can be there in 5 or 10, so that that watched that deputy knows what's going on ahead of time and can report.

So they're gonna try that out for a little bit.

She mentioned the library IGA about the five-year IGA.

Uh it's due by July 1st.

Uh on 4 14, the commissioners to see a draft of the IGA.

Uh they plan to have that IGA out to the cities in May for our review.

All the cities have to approve the IGA in order for it to take effect.

Uh so they have to have it all done by the end of June in terms of cities.

Uh the R1 Act I attended along with uh Council President Pratt.

Uh attended the Quorum meeting with Council President Pratt.

Uh, and finally had a meeting with Commissioner Snyder to discuss the county's proposal to increase the vehicle registration fee.

Uh and the reasons for that are mainly you know the fund transportation in Washington County.

Uh it's getting tighter and tighter in terms of being able to fund misstip and other transportation items.

So by doubling the vehicle registration fee uh every two years, it would give them a source of revenue so that misstip wouldn't be as touched, if you will, every time, and funding so the funding and the projects could go through.

And finally, if you haven't registered yet, I don't know if it's too late, uh, or you could just show up at the door tomorrow morning.

Uh Senator Wagner will be at the uh country club for the uh Twileton Chambers um debrief from Senator Wagner on how he thought the short session went.

I don't envy him because I have a feeling he's gonna have some tough questions.

Uh but uh kudos to him for being able to, you know, he'll stand up and take questions and do his presentation tomorrow morning.

So if you didn't get a chance for this or you're interested, go to the chamber's website and I believe it starts at 7 or 7 30 uh to about 9 ish.

And that's it for me.

Do I have a motion to move to adjourn?

Second.

All those in favor?

Aye.

Opposed?

Thank you.

Good evening.

Have a terrific evening.