West Linn City Council Retreat: Priorities and Framing Our Future Planning - February 27, 2026
West Linn City Council Retreat: Priorities and Framing Our Future Planning
The West Linn City Council held a retreat on February 27, 2026, from 9:00 AM to 3:30 PM to review 2026-2028 council priorities and discuss the proposed "Framing Our Future" financial strategic planning roadmap. The retreat included facilitated discussions, staff presentations, and a visioning exercise. The council reached consensus on an updated priority list and gave direction to proceed with a community engagement process aimed at aligning city services with resident values.
Public Comments & Testimony
- No members of the public signed up to speak. Mayor noted receiving written input from Jim Edwards emphasizing support for waterfront project visioning and cautioning against using Vancouver Waterfront as a model.
Discussion Items
- Council Priorities 2026-2028: The council reviewed a redlined draft of priorities. Key changes included: adding "Financial Strategic Planning" as the top priority; modifying "Transportation Safety and Funding" by de-emphasizing tolling language and adding a multimodal transportation bullet; replacing the "Indoor Recreation Community Center" priority with "Explore Enhanced Use of City-Owned Property for Recreational Purposes" (specifically the Parker Road property); maintaining "Clarify Community Advisory Group Work Programs" with amendments to also address neighborhood associations; continuing existing priorities for drinking water, West Linn Waterfront Vision, Vision 43, Environmental Protection, and Diversity/Equity/Inclusion/Belonging. New future agenda topics were identified: annexation of unincorporated properties, indigenous place naming/wayfinding, city identity branding, and a civics academy.
- Framing Our Future Financial Strategic Planning Roadmap: Staff (City Manager, Finance Director, Police Chief, Community Relations Coordinator, and others) presented a four-phase community engagement plan: Phase 1 (March) – listening and general education; Phase 2 (April) – organizing priorities and identifying costs/funding; Phase 3 (May-June) – presenting draft priorities for community check-in; Phase 4 (July-August) – council decision-making and adoption of a financial strategic plan, with potential to refer a measure to the November 2026 ballot. Council discussed concerns about timeline, cost of the program, the risk of not reaching all residents, and the need to frame the conversation as proactive rather than crisis-driven. Council expressed general support but asked for additional clarity on costs and the alternative of inaction.
- Visioning Exercise (Victory Garden): Led by facilitator Sarah, council and staff broke into groups to identify their strengths (e.g., willingness to engage anywhere, digital skills, empathy), networks (e.g., schools, businesses, sports groups, neighborhood associations, Rotary, Lions Club), and engagement tools (e.g., social media, business cards with QR codes, utility bill inserts). Staff presented draft communication materials including a project website, FAQ, opinion piece template, and toolkit for council members.
Key Outcomes
- Council Priorities: The council achieved consensus on the updated 2026-2028 priorities list, with financial strategic planning ranked first. Staff will finalize the document for adoption at a future business meeting.
- Framing Our Future: Council gave direction to proceed with the community engagement process. The launch date is set for approximately one week, pending council review of the draft website and FAQs. Council members will meet individually with Community Relations Coordinator Danielle to refine their outreach commitments.
- Commitments: Council members committed to specific 90-day actions: Mayor Baumgardner will speak at Lions Club; Councillor Bonington will utilize social media and possibly video content; Councillor Breich will post materials at Robinwood Station and local businesses; Councillor Groener plans to attend adult community center and walking groups; Councillor Bright committed to digital outreach. Staff will produce the "Our West Linn" (OWL) newsletter article and business cards with QR codes.
Meeting Transcript
Are you ready to go in the back? Okay. Okay, we're ready to go. Call to order this city council retreat. Happy Friday, everybody. It's nice to have some sunlight coming in through the windows, a beautiful day outside, and we're in here doing the important business of the city. And so with that, uh, I just will note for the record that the whole city council is here along with many of our uh city staff, directors, and others. So I'll turn it over to our facilitator who will kick off the day. Great. Thank you. John, do you want to say anything before we get going? Sure as well. All right, great. Well, good morning, everyone. Uh, to those of you I haven't met personally, my name is Ashley Sanoff. I'm a member of the SSW consulting team, so I work with Sarah. Um, I've been supporting the work that's been happening with our firm and Westland over the past few months, but more in the background. Uh, but today I'm here in person to help lead the first half of the city council retreat. So I'll be guiding you through right now and through lunch, and then Sarah will be joining us uh during your lunch break, and she will take you through uh the second half of the agenda. So I'm really happy to be here. Thanks for having us. We're gonna have a really great day. It is a beautiful day, but it's also a beautiful day to do some awesome work. So we're thinking we're we're channeling that. Sometimes it's easier to do a council retreat when it's really rainy outside, but we don't have control over that. So we can with a nice natural light that's flowing in here. So today is really about taking the next step together as a team and as a city. Um, over the past uh several months, you've done a lot of work thinking about your financial priority, your financial realities, your priorities, kind of different funding options that you can explore together. And so today we're gonna continue to build on that. So specifically, we're gonna talk about your priorities, your council priorities for 2026-2028, and then we're also gonna talk about uh the framing our future with the proposed um work plan for the community engagement for this work. So um, so it's about building on that work, and our goal today is so by the end of today, we're gonna have clear direction on your council priorities for the next two years. Through through that process, we may identify some items for future council agendas. So that's what my handy flip chart is over there for, so that we can capture those along the way. And then uh we're gonna be uh discussing and providing direction on the framing our future program. Um and then if time allows, we can discuss is it's community advisory groups. I got that acronym right. Okay. Cities all overdo it a little bit differently, so I want to make sure I got that one. So community um advisory group uh work programs. So if time allows, so we have we've built a little bit of flexibility into the agenda. It's your agenda, and so we can flex as needed, but that's really outcomes for today. And so, in terms of how we're gonna get to these, um get to these outcomes together. We're gonna do a quick warm-up here in just a moment, which I'll explain. And then at 9 30, we'll jump into the council priorities refinement discussion. What that's gonna look like. Staff is going to uh provide updates on uh different priorities. We'll check in with council if they need to be paused, adjusted, elevated, um, and provide that direction. Again, that's an opportunity. If there's anything other topics that come up, we'll capture them for future agenda topics. We have a nice break at nice 15-minute break to look forward to at 1045.
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