City Council - Regular Meeting

Will the recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Duggar? Here. Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg? Here. Councilor Hassan? Here. Councilor Kimmy?

Here.

Councilor Teeter? Here. Councilor Tibman? Here. Mayor Beatty? Here.

Okay. Tonight, run a show. We have three proclamations, we'll have visitor comment. We have a presentation from the Washington County Sheriff. We have a pretty lengthy consent in three work sessions. So tonight will be long evening. With that, we're gonna start with a city council proclamation on Asian American and Pacific Islander month that councilor Kimmy will read.

Okay. Proclamation City of Beaverton, whereas Beaverton celebrates its its strength as one of the most diverse cities in the Oregon where one in three residents identifies as a person of color and one in five was born outside of The United States and whereas Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities in Beaverton represent over 16% of the population and include dozens of languages and cultures, and whereas we recognize the generations of Asian Americans, native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders who have enriched Beaverton's history, local economy and cultural vibrancy, and who are instrumental to our future success. And whereas the month of May was chosen for this heritage month to commemorate the immigration of the the first Japanese to The United States on 05/07/1843, and the anniversary of the completion of the Transcontinental Railroad on 05/10/1869, for which the majority of the tracks laid were by Chinese immigrants. And whereas Asian American, native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander communities have persevered over discrimination, exclusion, persecution, incarceration and disparities and continue to experience injustices today. And whereas AANHPI heritage month is a time to celebrate the remarkable achievements and pay tribute to the generations of Asian Americans, native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders that have contributed to cities and America's history, society, and culture.

Now, therefore, the city council of the city of Beaverton, Oregon, do hereby proclaim May 2026 as Asian American, native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander heritage month in the city of Beaverton.

Thank you, councilor Kimmy. Councilor Hartmeier Prigg? For the building safety one we're about to read, we do have a staff member here to receive the proclamation and photo. And for the third one, police Memorial Day and week, we do have a bunch of Beaverton officers here also for a photo. And I know Chief Jebson said she didn't wanna be in the photo, but it's a requirement of the mayor.

Okay. Proclamation from the office of the mayor of the city of Beaverton. Whereas our city is committed to recognizing that our growth and strength depend on this safety and essential role our homes, buildings, and infrastructure play both in everyday life and when disasters strike, and whereas our confidence in the resilience of these buildings that make up our community is achieved through the devotion of vigilant guardians, building safety and fire prevention officials, architects, engineers, builders, tradespeople, design professionals, laborers, plumbers, and others in the construction industry who work year round to ensure the safe construction of buildings. And whereas these guardians are dedicated members of the International Code Council, a nonprofit that brings together local, state, territorial, tribal, and federal officials who are experts in the built environment to create and implement the highest quality codes to protect us in the buildings where we live, learn, work, and play. And whereas these modern building codes include safeguards to protect the public from hazards such as hurricanes, snowstorms, tornadoes, wildland fires, floods, and earthquakes.

And whereas building safety month is sponsored by the International Code Council to remind the public about the critical role of our community's largely unknown protectors of public safety, our local co code officials who assure us of safe, sustainable, and affordable buildings that are essential to our prosperity. And whereas mission possible, the theme for building safety month twenty twenty six is built to last and focuses on simple actions homeowners can take to improve safety at home. Whereas each year, in observance of building safety month, people all over the world are asked to consider the commitment to improve building safety, resilience, and economic investment at home and in the community and to acknowledge the essential service provided to all of us by local and state building departments, fire prevention bureaus, and federal agencies in protecting lives and property. Now, therefore, on behalf of Lacey Beatty, the mayor of the city of Beaverton, I do hereby proclaim May 2026 as building safety month in the city of Beaverton, and I encourage our citizens to join us as we participate in building safety month activities.

And I should have flipped over my briefing sheet that said that the chamber of commerce's newly formed AAPI caucus is here to receive tonight's proclamation. So I will read the third one, and then we will rotate through for photos. Whereas the Congress of the United States of America has designated May 2026 as National Police Week and May 15 of each year to be Police Memorial Day in honor of the federal, state, and municipal officers who have been killed or disabled in the line of duty, where it is also known that police officers face serious dangers and too often those dangerous lead to serious injury, and unfortunately, some are killed in the line of duty. Whereas the city of Beaverton is proud of our law enforcement officers and wishes to recognize their commitment to public safety profession, and whereas the Beaverton Police Department is dedicated to preserving human rights, lives, and dignity, and whereas the Beaverton police are committed to the highest professional standards working in partnership with our community members to improve safety and quality of life for all. Therefore, I, Lacey Beatty, the mayor of the city of Beaverton, do hereby proclaim 05/15/2026 as Police Memorial Day, the week of May 10 through the 2026 as Police Week in the city of Beaverton.

So we'll start with our AAPI photo, then we'll move to building safety, and then we'll have our officers join us for the Police Memorial Day. All right. We are now we will now move on to the visitor comment portion of the evening. The city requires pre registration for online and in person visitor comments at council meeting. Registration closed at noon today.

All registration was conducted through the city recorder's office via email or phone call in preparation for this meeting. There is one person registered to comment at tonight's meeting. As a reminder, visitor comments provide the opportunity for community members to speak about matters, even if they are not on the agenda. Visitors may state their comments, but should not expect the council to engage in a back and forth dialogue regarding comments, as this is a time for the council to hear from the community. The council the city council seeks to be a welcoming and inclusive towards all speakers at public meetings, and we strive to create an atmosphere of mutual care and respect.

While community members may disagree with each other or in the city on issues and may give critical feedback, they are expected to do so respectfully and without disruption. Disruptions interfere with the ability of others to present in person or online to participate in the meeting. Council members do not do not interrupt community members during their public comments, and we expect community members to offer the same category same courtesy to other speakers. With that, we have Evelyn that's joining us this evening. You have three minutes to address the council.

There we go. Hi, Mayor Brady and members of city council. My name is Evelyn Coacher. I'm here to comment on a couple of things on tonight's agenda. First of all, I am very happy that we are considering alternative options to fix our, city's budget deficit, including transportation utility fee that has been implemented by many of our neighboring cities, including very recently, the city of Portland.

Beaverton is one of the largest jurisdictions in the state without one of these fees. I would be encouraged at, the implementation of this fee in a progressive manner by, making it cheaper for apartments and multifamily developments in order to incentivize denser development in our city. The second thing I had to comment was the interim city manager's agenda, which I am very happy to see that for the first time since the, declaration of emergency on immigration back in January that immigration is, in fact, on this agenda. It is mentioned that the interim city manager will be addressing immigration enforcement within the city of Beaverton as per council direction, and I look forward to the council providing appropriate direction for the inner city manager to keep our residents safe. Lastly, Councilperson Duggar, I want to unfortunately, we're not able to see the items brought for new business by members of the council in advance of the meeting on the agenda, but I look forward to hearing from you and what you had, stated at the Boto Latino at Centro in Forest Grove at proposing an ordinance that would, prohibit the city from doing business with any company that has signed contracts with DHS and ICE.

So, I look forward to hearing that from you, hopefully, if not in this council agenda, then at least in future ones. Thank you so much.

Thank you for joining us. Okay. I saw sheriff Massey in the back with a rather robust group of people. You're feel free. There's three chairs. So if you wanna bring somebody up, two. No? You don't wanna you don't wanna hang out with your boss at the table up here? Awkward. Weird.

The volume. There we go. I can't believe she doesn't want to spend more time with me. Trust me, I get it. Mayor Beatty, counselors, thank you so much for having us here again this year so that we can provide some much needed updates on Washington County Sheriff's Office and the exciting things that we have going on in collaboration with the Beaverton Police Department and all of our cities here in Washington County.

Each year, we really look forward to sharing updates with you all because public safety in Washington County works best when we collaborate. Whether someone lives in a city with its own police department, like Beaverton, or in an unincorporated community, our goal is the same, keeping Washington County safe. And so tonight, we just want to briefly talk about how public safety works generally for not just the council, but the rest of the people in attendance and highlight some of the services provided through the Washington County Sheriff's Office. And then I would like to spend the last little bit of time sharing how we are planning for the future. Next slide.

Good evening. I'll talk about this slide. I know we've all seen this. This is a map of Washington County as a whole. The key piece to this is besides, being the primary service providers to over 250,000 residents in the urban, unincorporated and the rural unincorporated, we also have an overlay of services that we provide countywide to all of our municipal partners. We couldn't do our jobs without strong partners like Chief Jepsen and her team. But when we look at the map, we see how intertwined we are in Washington County and how fortunate we are that our municipalities and the county government, we all work well together and provide a wide array of services to all of our community members. Next slide.

What I really want to highlight about this slide, just sort of breaking down public safety and how it works as a system, is that it's not an accident that our community members, our schools and our businesses are at the top of this diagram. City police departments provide essential local policing and services for their communities, and the sheriff's office provides that county wide infrastructure that supports agencies across the county. When complex incidents occur, those systems work together to ensure that our community receives the best possible response from all of us. At the foundation, you see that some of the other functions that are statutorily required of a county sheriff, for instance, the Washington County jail and court security staff who provide safety and security for critical judicial processes. Next slide, please.

Keeping Washington County safe takes all of us, every single one of us. As mentioned previously, the sheriff has statutory requirements beyond those of a municipality or a police chief, for instance, and those are the county jail civil process. The sheriff is required to provide functions to issue, revoke and deny concealed handgun licenses. We provide civil process, search and rescue and marine patrol. These resources, including specialty teams like our community violence reduction team, our air support unit and investigations, can respond anywhere in the county when additional expertise is needed.

Our awesome coordination and collaborative approach with the Beaverton Police Department allows us to respond safely and effectively to complex situations consistently because as part of those special teams that are across the county, we train together, we get to know each other, we work together, we know how each other is going to respond, and we can anticipate needs based on that. And then I want to touch base real quick on our investment in technology, and we'll talk a little bit more about it later. But I really want to highlight an example of our PSWeb GO app that is a law enforcement database that the Washington County Sheriff's Office built and maintains, but we allow for use throughout the county with city police departments. This allows for all public safety members to access resources that are available for pending calls for service, jail booking information, booking photos, as well as county wide resources with information that officers have in the heat of the moment when they need to provide those specific resources to people they're encountering on calls, like domestic violence resources and substance use disorder and behavioral health resources. Next slide, please.

We'll talk about some of the interagency teams and countywide responses. Especially in a time of kind of decreasing funds and strained general fund budgets, it's really important that we pool our resources together to provide excellence across Washington County. No matter where you live, we want to make sure that we provide consistent professional pay services. Our interagency teams allow us to do just that. For example, our interagency crisis negotiation unit just won first place at a regional conference for the Western States Hostage Negotiators Association.

This interagency team with members from Beaverton, the sheriff's office and our other municipalities in the county are able to train together to make sure that we all maintain a very high level professionalism, and that shows when they enter these competitions and come out with first place. It just should allow our community members to know that they're in good hands when we're responding anywhere throughout the county. Next slide, please. These are several of the units. I know the sheriff just talked, kind of mentioned about, like, air support unit.

If you get on the sheriff's office social media page today, we just happened to post on the air support unit. That is another interagency team that we partner with our municipalities to provide service to things like search and rescue tactical operations. But in addition, in a time where our population has become more congested and things like vehicle pursuits have become more dangerous by having air support when it is available is able to deescalate situations. So the post that we just had was a vehicle pursuit that we had air support up, and they were able to follow the vehicle. And that allows our police officers and deputies to back off and not put the community at risk.

And then when the suspect fled from the vehicle, they're able to maintain eyes on that suspect and then be able to call in the units on the ground, including canines, to make sure that they're safe and they can direct them safely to the location. So again, it's pulling those resources, some of those interagency teams that really help provide that professional service, especially for some of those calls that cross jurisdictional boundaries. We know most, of the community members and a lot of those folks committing crimes don't understand where one jurisdiction ends and the next begins. So Vias being able to provide that across all of the different boundaries really, helps provide that quality of service. Next slide, please.

We're going to highlight tonight the crash analysis and reconstruction team. This team has been around for over twenty years. This is a highly trained, complex team that started out coming out to major crashes and being able to reconstruct those crashes using mathematics and technology. As it has evolved, we also, have three d scanners. They utilize drones to help recreate some of not only the crash scenes, but they can go into major crime scenes.

If there's shootings or other major incidents, the CART team will respond as an interagency unit, and be able to recreate that crime scene and that assists investigators, whether it's with the police department or the sheriff's office in prosecution and helps the DA's office. So again, it's just bringing that, tools and technology together in an efficient manner to provide that service consistently across the county. Next slide, please. The mental health response team. This is a team that has just passed its fifteenth year of serving Washington County.

So we've been we were out in the forefront of this years ago in ensuring that we get mental health services to those in crisis out in the community. This team has again been an interagency team that has provided a high level of service in the, cities, unincorporated areas, rural areas. I know that as budgets get tight, Beaverton has been a long standing solid partner for the mental health response team. They had to pull back some of their resources due to some of the constraints that we're all facing. But we're able to still, by pulling resources, provide these services.

And then we know as funding comes back, we'll continue to grow this team and continue to provide that high level of services, all of our community members have come to appreciate. Next slide, please. This next team is our Mobile Field Force team. This is a team you do not hear much about in Washington County, and there's many reasons for that. We're very fortunate that we do not see a lot of public order and riots in Washington County, but we do maintain an over 60 member team that is prepared to respond to incidents.

Our team just was recently in Portland watching their team as they've had some incidents. Portland has really evolved over the last five years, staying up to speed on best practices to ensure that we allow people to exercise their First Amendment rights while protecting the rest of the community and, property. And so we're really learning from a lot of what's going on in Portland to make sure that our team here in Washington County is prepared to respond any place that this may occur. Again, we're fortunate we don't see this, but even when we do have information that these incidents may occur, this team is trained to respond, kind of be ready in the background and make sure that we're keeping all the communities safe, while allowing people to demonstrate.

Next slide.

Love to talk a little bit about sort of my favorite part here I will share is that this is a very exciting season as we continue to innovate and invest in technology to better serve our communities. Some examples include body worn cameras for deputies and coming up soon, jail staff. We just got those online, so our jail deputies will have body worn cameras issued as well. We are building expanded in car video systems for to take make sure that our vehicles also have the ability to have those cameras in there and see incidents from before they respond. And then license plate reader technology that is assisting with investigations into organized retail crime and other crimes.

Additionally, we have been participating in a couple of very exciting pilot programs with Drone as First Responder, or DFL, which began earlier this year and then Draft one. We have been in a Draft one pilot program collaboratively with the district attorney since last year. Essentially, that allows us to, test the effectiveness and efficiency of artificial intelligence to assist deputies with report writing so they can spend more time out of the office serving our community where they belong. Now there are many safeguards in place to ensure that the deputy is actually reading the reports and it is the language that they want to use, but it takes what the body worn camera saw and it gives you a draft of a report with a whole bunch of hidden things that are inaccurate so that you have to go in and review it and then change those things, thereby making sure that every word on there is your language. We've seen great success with this.

We began piloting our DFR earlier this year and have experienced incredible outcomes. Our current focus is now identifying funding to identify our scope of coverage throughout the county and working with our public safety partners like Beaverton to ensure collaboration and to maximize coverage across the county so that all of our Washington County residents can benefit, which for me is really embodying that sense of wherever you live, we serve you. Next slide. Okay. The technology is super cool, but I was incorrect. The jail is actually my favorite. Let's talk a little bit about the jail overview. I have some

I'm pretty certain you can't have a favorite. I can. It totally violates everyone's thing. I just want to save you. You love all of them equally. That's fair.

I better tell my kids. I've been miscommunicating for a very long time. I did just become a nana three weeks ago, so I actually have a favorite, and it's not one of my children. Yeah. Fair. Fair enough. When people think about policing, they often focus on, you know, the crime happening in the moment, right, the officers responding to a call. But public safety doesn't stop there. After an arrest is made, individuals must be safely housed while the judicial process moves forward. That's where the Washington County Jail plays a critical role.

Our Washington County Jail was built in 1998, and it serves every law enforcement agency in the county. It houses not just adults who are awaiting court proceedings or they also lodge people serving three sixty five days or less. Fun fact though, if someone's brought into custody and they are sentenced on five different charges and a judge decides to sentence them to three sixty five days, which keeps them from going to prison, which would be $3.65 plus 1,000,000 but he sentences them consecutively, they will spend five years in the Washington County Jail because each charge, if it's consecutively, is that $365,000,000 which would keep us from sending them to prison. So while statutorily, it's three sixty five days plus one to go to prison, depending on the circumstance, people could be spending years in the Washington County Jail. In addition to maintaining safety and security, the jail also provides medical care, behavioral health care, stabilization services, and these really help us ensure that the adults in custody transition back into our communities in a better space than when they arrived, whether that is specific services and resources that best meet their individual needs for substance use disorder or behavioral health needs or housing needs.

We are there to make sure that they have those systems in place so that when they transition out, they're not just left on the street with nowhere to go. When our jail opened in 1998, we were a different county than we are today. We were significantly smaller and today our county has grown to over 614,000 residents and the needs within the jail have become significantly more complex. We are managing a growing population while also addressing increasing behavioral health and substance use challenges amongst adults in custody. For some perspective, last year, the Beaverton Police Department brought 2,206 custodies into your Washington County Jail.

That is a significant impact to positive impact to the safety of the community members that reside and travel through the City Of Beaverton. Next slide, please. All right. Let's talk about what we're doing today and what we're doing in the future. Our focus is in operating the jail safely and responsibly.

As we continue to grow, maintaining safe jail capacity is essential to our public safety system. Over the past several years, we've implemented several improvements to ensure the jail continues operate safely and responsibly due to some of those changing needs. Some of these include suicide prevention improvements such as jump barriers that we placed on the upper tier upstairs to help adults in custody resist the urge from jumping down to the bottom in an effort to commit suicide. We are also looking at reopening housing units to support detox and stabilization and expanding our electronic home detention program to manage jail capacity strategically. So instead of just sending people out the door, force released or released on their own recognizance with no resources, we are expanding our use of electronic monitoring to pretrial so that we can get more people out the door that don't actually need to be in custody, but we can still monitor them for those critical release needs to include failure to appears.

Like I mentioned earlier, we have just introduced body worn cameras within the jail to enhance transparency and accountability. We are designing policy and they will be issued within the next month or two. I'm super excited about that. As we talk about planning for the future, I'm thrilled to finally announce that we are almost finished with our critical infrastructure repairs of a new roof, a new HVAC system, hot and cold water pipes and fire suppression systems within the jail. I know we've talked about this ad nauseam over the course of the last eighteen months or so.

Barring any unplanned issues, those last two housing units will be open June 1. And along with that, we will also remove all booking restrictions. So currently, we are almost all the way done with our booking restrictions, but there are a few lower level misdemeanors that we still are not accepting generally unless there are more officer safety needs. And so June 1, barring construction setbacks, we will be back to being a fully functioning jail. Another great bit of news that coincides with that is we are currently fully staffed in our Washington County Jail.

So not only can we open those last two housing units, but we can staff them. And so I think the season of of those really difficult conversations that we had over the last eighteen months in these same spaces are finally seeing some light at the end of the tunnel. I want to just take an opportunity to thank you all for your patience and support during that time because across the board, I've received nothing but innovative ideas, questions, support and offers of help. Another thing that we are working on is a jail expansion project. And so we just hired a company to come in and help us identify whether or not we can build in our current location or we need to go buy land for tentatively right now through year 2050, would almost double or about double the current jail beds that we have, which is $5.72.

So there will be much more to come on that. And I will look forward to your input and perspectives on how we might re envision a county jail here in Washington County. And it will not be enough for me to meet best practices. I expect us to set best practices here in Washington County. One last thing that I'd like to highlight with our jail is just last week, our jail staff were honored to receive the Founders Award from Safety Compass at the Child Abuse and Human Trafficking Summit for their pioneering efforts in combating human trafficking and supporting survivors.

Our team was described as leaders in the state on this front. And so that just gives you a glimpse into the nontraditional types of programming and focus that our jail staff have while they have people in custody. Next slide, please. Before we wrap up, I would like to take a moment to thank the voters of Washington Woah. Okay.

Maybe that was the most important thing I was going to say. Last November, the community showed strong support for public safety by approving the public safety levy. That investment supports critical systems across the entire public safety system, including the jail, mental health response, investigations and services for victims. It allows us to continue to work together to keep Washington County safe. For more than twenty five years, the Public Safety Levy has supported county wide services that maintain the safety and livability of Washington County.

The Public Safety Levy supports critical parts of the public safety system across Washington County. This includes not just the jail, not just the sheriff's office, but the district attorney's office, juvenile and our community corrections. Measure 30 four-three 46 passed November 25 at $0.06 6¢ per $1,000 of assessed value starting in 2026. This represented a 19¢ increase, and that is why our gratitude is so extreme because we know the sacrifice that it took every single one of our voters to prioritize public safety in Washington County. Next slide.

Public safety in Washington County works because our agencies work together, not just our police agencies, not just our sheriff's office, all of us. We appreciate the partnerships that we share with Chief Justice in the city of Beaverton, and we look forward to continuing to work together and serve our incredible communities in this next season. Wherever someone lives in Washington County, they deserve to feel safe. And wherever you live, we serve you. I do want to thank each and every one of you for your time tonight, and I want to give you time to please ask any questions that you might have of us.

There's always questions. Counselor Tipnon.

I know it's just a presentation, so I'll keep this brief. First, congratulations on the staffing. It seems like yesterday that you were in giving us the update and telling us that you were partnering with b p b BPD to think about candidates or cadets that might be a really good fit for the jail, and it sounds like that was part of how you successfully did this.

It absolutely is.

Very exciting to hear that. And I'm also very, very excited to hear about the progress that you've made on the studies around the jail, the ideas around either expansion or buying property, and and especially the part about we'd want to set the best practice for it. I can't help but think about our Be Sober program and how profoundly impactful that kind of hands on approach to it's not just about, okay, we're we're going to separate you from the population until you can be a better member of it, but helping them work through whatever it is that's Yeah. Making that hard for them. And so I'm I'm really eager to hear more about that and would love to meet and share all the ideas I've got because I I work with a lot of design firms that work in that space of behavioral health and Love this.

Detention and really trying to push it into more of a trauma informed Yes. Space.

I could not be more committed to that. And so I do look forward to getting together because the mission is going to be that while people have to be in custody, they do not it does not have to look like we're in custody. And our staff are also there, you know, twelve to sixteen hours a day. Spaces should be trauma informed. And they mean

Outcomes are better when Yes. When the the the the habitat that you're in is better. Agree. Okay. Well, TBD on that. So the last thing I have is back to the AI assisted report writing.

Mhmm.

Did did I hear you correctly that errors are intentionally put in there so that they have to be vigilant? That's really interesting to hear, because my big concern is complacency Right. As we move into this space, especially in the medical field. I didn't even think about it for this. So that's Absolutely. That's really interesting. It's like you're forcing them to scrutinize it and make sure that everything is correct. So I just wanted to make sure I heard that correct.

Yep. Thank you. Purposeful errors.

Counselor Husson.

Yeah. Sheriff Massey, it was great to see you at the Family Peace Center last last week. It was

last week.

Beautiful space. This is a bit technical question, but I'm curious if you guys can answer. For the drone as a first responder program, can you share whether these drones carry weapons to hurt someone or have the ability to eventually carry weapons in the future?

That is a great question. I'll let you answer it.

Yes. The drones that we utilize do not carry any weapons. They do not and do not have any intention to carry any weapons. And the other piece that we want to make sure that people are aware of, the the privacy interests. These drones are responding to calls for service.

So they're not out there randomly, surveilling people or anything like that. When we have a call for service, whether it's a crash, we actually had a robbery down on a shop down on Beaverton Hillsdale Highway that we were able to get the drone up ahead of time and see the suspect leave the store and get onto a TriMet bus. We were able to then capture that person, and that alleviated us from having to come in Beaverton and the Sheriff's Office and set up containment, bring in dogs, have property evidence, forensics. And so the efficiencies that we're seeing with that DFR program is already paying benefits. And so they are very specific in when they're deployed and how they're deployed.

Okay. And they don't have the ability to carry in

the future?

No. We're not doing that. And they do also, lovely, have red and blue lights so that you know that those drones are specific to law enforcement and public safety, and we don't deliver things with them or anything like that. Mhmm.

Thank you. We've we've had, in the international community here in Beaverton folks who've lost family members due to drones abroad, and so that was an important question for

me. That's a great question. Thank you for asking.

Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg. Thank you. I had two questions. Sheriff, you mentioned that, the PS Go software that it's accessible to

PS Web Go?

Yep. Sorry. What

it? It's called PS Web Go.

PSWeb Go. Yep. That it's accessible to other local law enforcement, but I just wanted to confirm that does DHS have access to that if they're operating in the area?

I don't I don't know the answer. Yeah. I don't believe they do. I think because of some of the CGIS requirements, they strictly public safety, but we can check on that and get back to you.

Okay. And then there's I also wanted to follow-up on the AI as assisted, assisted report writing. Just, like, making sure that the information is fully secure. Like, I work in technology, and we just keep hearing more and more about, like, AI itself is getting savvy. Right? And and can break into things. So just curious about, like, the precautions to make sure that the data, you know, is is really well protected.

Yes. Let me touch on that. So we utilize Axon as our provider, and they are a nationwide provider, and they have the kind of national kind of top best practices for security. So they're always checking that to make sure that our data is secure and protected in there.

And then

to go back let me hit your last question. You were speaking of the federal DHS. And no federal oh,

is that correct? I just wanted to clarify. You mean Department of Homeland Security, not Department of Sorry. Human I was thinking of if you could just clarify, please.

Yes. Thanks. Thank you, counselor. No. No. No. Yeah. Ready to Yes. Federal Department of Homeland Security.

No. There are no federal agencies that you

don't Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. I was thinking

DHS Sorry.

Response to child No.

No. I yep. I wrote DHS slash ICE on my notebook. I should have said that. Thank

you Absolutely not.

For the clarification. Thank you.

It's great.

Council president.

Yeah. Of the things great presentation. One of the things that I'm really proud of our BPD on is their commitment to, like, training for particularly for neuro diverse communities. Can you tell me what you all are doing to better serve those residents through through training or what whatever. And if and if and if the answer is not sure, maybe talk to chief Jepsen. She has some good ones.

We have a very robust training division with the sheriff's office, and we annually train on diversity, cultural competence competency, and other other training standards like that.

And this is very specific to neurodiversity. So like folks maybe on the autism spectrum. And there's other ones like specific to that.

We actually probably should be partnering a little bit more with Beaverton. And we made that training also part of our CIT training, so our crisis training for people behavioral health and things like that. And then we make sure that our folks are trained specifically on how to best respond and where to best respond based off of any of that, especially as it relates to our search and rescue team, by the way, because we've had several people, for instance, on the autism spectrum who've walked away from home, and it so often happens that our search and rescue team and our cadets, their kids from 14 to 19 that are out searching, they also start getting training on how to best respond and how to best relate and connect with people who are neurodivergent.

Thank you. And one other piece. I missed that first part of your question, so sorry. But we also infuse a lot of that into our scenario training. And so when we're teaching our deputies how to respond to different situations, we do infuse that into the live role playing scenario as well. And one of the benefits, we talked a lot about the inter urgency teams. It's not just the services those provide, it's partnerships that come out of that. So a lot of our key trainers are part of those teams and whether it's Beaverton, the Sheriff's Office, Hillsboro, our other partners, they get a chance to share some experiences and training, to make sure that we're all staying up to the best practice and standards.

Councilor Teeter?

Thank you both for coming to talk with us. I wanted to hit home this piece that Councilor Hartmeier asked about.

You all talked a little

bit about just the desire to keep people's personal data secure. So Absolutely. We are entering some new service agreements with Axon as well. Yeah. We've been very thorough in our own conversations and planning about that, making sure that that data is secure. So there's an element of trust that goes along with knowing that you all have those same services there

too.

You also mentioned the Dronus first responder program. We're starting up a program like that of our own too. Have you all been talking with Beaverton Police about coverage area? Like, you've got urban service area within or surrounded by Beaverton. Are you all talking about shared coverage or how to navigate all that?

Yeah. We're just starting to have those conversations, but we do have the interagency ROVT team that Beaverton is part of. So part of that training and standards that we utilize for our drones response is the same that Beaverton and Hillsboro are using as part of the interagency team.

Okay. Thank you. And go ahead.

Well, I love it. It speaks to a sense of in collaboration, we can cover most of the entirety of the county by working together.

Good. Thank you. That's all I had.

Thank you for joining us. And as always, it's a great update on what you guys are doing and how you're accomplishing it. I know that the mayors collectively about the booking in the jail has been one of the number one issues since I've become mayor is it really impacts local government, and it's really hard for us to always educate people on, like, we're not arresting people committing crimes because the jail that's run by another elected body is doing different things. So just kudos on up speeding that and I did think it was one of the most political answers I've heard from you in a while, like, well, wrap. Thank you for all the great ideas and inputs a k a, you've been up my ass for five years.

I appreciate it. So nailed that. I would say I I am a I'm a fan of AI and technology. I think I met with Oregon State this week trying to convince them to do an ethics in AI course for local officials. I've been also been trying to encourage them to do one for law enforcement on ethical use of AI.

And I would say, I was at Google with mayors a few months ago and what's really common when AI is used is that employees in the handbook understand that they are responsible for the outcome. Yep. And in environment with progressive discipline, it needs to be laid out explicitly that if you use AI for note taking or report writing that you ultimately, the officer or city staff or planning engineer, are responsible for the outcome. So I would just encourage you to make sure that your employee handbook reflects the reality. Sounds like you're putting some safeguards place into it as well.

But I think it's going to be a force multiplier for officers to get things done quickly. But I do think we're gonna have to go through some time figuring out the right use of it. So I appreciate you joining us tonight. Thanks for joining us on Tuesday. Have a good evening. Thank you. Right. Council president, we are going to move the consent agenda minus 7.2 that we are gonna pull for a separate conversation. Yep.

Thanks, mayor. I move to approve the consent agenda and contract review again ex with the exception of 7.2.

Second.

It's been moved by council president and seconded by councilor Hassan. Is there any discussion on tonight's consent agenda? Alright. Seeing none, will the recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Duggar? Yes. Councilor Hartmeier Prigg? Yes. Councilor Hassad? Yes. Councilor Kimmy? Councilor Teeter? Yes. Councilor Tivnan? Yes. Mayor Beatty? Yes. Seven yes. Zero no.

Alright. Thank you. I pulled tonight's parking agenda. I understand that the council is in a different place for me, but I didn't wanna vote down the consent agenda. I do wanna make a couple points before we vote tonight. You know, our BDA sent us an email, a plan. They hired an outside consulting company to offer a plan to the city council because parking is not working. I'm not anti enforcement, but the enforcement lacks a plan. And that's where I have a real hard I can't vote yes for this parking contract without a plan. I don't know.

We held, I held and invited all the council, three of them came in October, a parking round table where we invited all local businesses to come down and talk about parking issues. From that, I created a a list of low hanging fruit that staff could do and that was ten months ago. If we can't move with some urgency around low hanging fruit, I can't in good conscious vote for a contract. We've spent over $6,500,000 for parking. And I was probably one of the first meetings with Kevin when he was the downtown BDA director, and it does not feel dramatically different to me over the last ten years than it does right now.

That money could have been better utilized in sidewalks and lighting. I was at a new business that's operating on Broadway today, the Racket Club, and I looked out the window at an empty lot that we could have been using for parking. And we have chosen as a city not to use our own space, but we're acting asking other people to do it. There is copious amounts of parking in Downtown Beaverton. Our own library lot is a public lot.

People could park in. Our lot here that the taxpayers of bureau have funded also has parking for a cheap a dollar. I recognize not every person is able-bodied to walk from the round to Downtown Beaverton, but there are plenty of people that can. When I look at I'm in Downtown Beaverton frequently. I see a lot of owners and employees parking in important spots right outside their own businesses.

We have to have a community centered approach to parking in Downtown Beaverton that starts with the voices of the people utilizing it the most. I do think the timing, I don't know who decided that turnover during the day was the most important when the majority of our building and infrastructure and investment has been in date nighttime restaurants. Government sometimes has to stop when things aren't working. And so for me tonight, it will be voting no. And I think heading into an incredibly tough budget where we're going to be making very tough decisions about the future of Beaverton, spending this much money on parking enforcement does not sit well with me.

Let's see who's up first. Is it you? Go ahead, council president.

Thank you, mayor. Saw this on the agenda when I was doing the homework or preparation, and I too have struggled with this. And and let me tell you why. I fully, 100% enforce or support enforcement. I think that makes a lot of sense. But it needs to be in a bucket of tools that we have. I googled Seattle. I googled Portland, places that have much more demand than we do as far as their strategy for parking management. These are some of the things that I found and it wasn't just those two. There's an access management, demand management, supply management.

These are all components of a parking management strategy. Turnover management, residential and employee considerations, revenue generation considerations, data management, and enforcement. Those are the big buckets. I'm not comfortable just zeroing in on one thing when our businesses have been very consistent in asking us for a strategy and then a plan to back that up. I 100% support enforcement.

I just don't know that I support $400,000 of it without all of these other things being addressed too. You know, I I've been in this world for a long time because before I was on this council I was on CBNAC and I've lived in the neighborhood. I've known most of the business owners, many many residents. Parking continues to be a problem because famously famously is my husband at the at the NAAC. Some of you have heard the story but we're fighting at the NAC as usual over parking.

Right? And you you had your people that were like absolutely more of it and then the other half that was like absolutely less of it. And Quinn famously had us step back and said, what we're really talking about is access to downtown. Parking is one component of this. And that actually unfroze the conversation.

And it got people thinking very differently. And if we only focus on one part of this, we're not gonna think very differently. We're gonna miss a lot of opportunity to do this in partnership with businesses that have asked us to be at the table, With a downtown association that has presented us with some ideas. Like people are really ready to engage in this conversation. This it should be one component of it but I'm not ready to support it. And I encourage you all to to just give us a pause for this for a little bit longer while we while we figure out a strategy. Thank you.

Councilor Teeter.

I get I get where the frustration with a lot of this is coming from, and I feel a lot of it too. I do believe we need enforcement, and I'm not very interested in going totally no enforcement right now. I think what I would be looking for is a delayed start time. So I know we talked about this with our staff staff briefings and in previous council meetings, but I've talked with some businesses too. Just thought about it more myself.

I know we've got challenges with residents who have their own parking, who park on the street for much much longer than we would like, and that is a that's one of the core issues for me. We've got students in the high school who block businesses all around that area for a very long long period of time. And I don't think these issues will be resolved just by going no enforcement. So I'm I would be interested in having delayed start time that avoids those morning and lunchtime hours. Maybe it starts at 01:00, so ticketing would actually start at 03:00.

But then we get the busier time of the evening when we actually do want more turnover because turnover itself might not need to be a priority when people do wanna spend a long time working on their laptops or hanging out with their kids at the parking going to go get a chai at the same time and just spending the day in downtown. But my priority would be on the evening hours. We are looking at starting up the paid residential permit program for on street parking. I think that's a big part of this strategy. And I think if we don't I think if we just completely pause or don't move forward with any enforcement at this point, there would be no incentive for people to actually get a residential permit.

So I'm kind of seeing it as part of this puzzle. Last thing I'll say is that I've worked with communities of all sorts of different sizes, communities with just a few dozen people up to larger the size of our city, and every single one of them has complaints about parking and struggles with parking even if somebody could walk from one side of town to the other very quickly. So it's not a unique unique situation that we are facing. I also wanna see more progress. I would love to see us invest in more of the the sidewalks and walkability and curb ramps and lighting so that it's easier and wayfinding. So that it's easier for people to actually get to and from the public lots that we've got available. But I would like a delayed start time. I'm curious what you all think too.

Councilor Tipnon.

I was surprised to see this come back to us so quickly. I didn't think that we exited the last conversation with a really resounding this is the direction. I'd and I know some folks were leaning towards option two. I wasn't thrilled with it, and I think I mentioned an option four of of going with option three and then utilizing excess funds to go to the wayfinding. But where I get stuck, this is in alignment with what the mayor said, we've got a lot of empty parking space that the city owns and until that is full, I I I I think that this just feels premature and it feels imperfect.

And to counselor Duggar's point, there's a lot of other spokes in this, and, I don't feel like this is kicking the can. I think that it is just and I don't even see it as a pause, as a continuation of work that doesn't feel complete to me yet. But the the biggest sticking factor for me is driving by virtually empty lot at night while people are circling the block. There's a problem there. Until we solve for that, enforcement doesn't rise to the top of the list for me.

Councilor Kimmy.

I agree with all the sentiments. But for me, enforcement is part of a puzzle that we're trying to fix. And this just I believe this is not the answer to all, but this is the critical part of solving the parking issue. And I don't think we can wait until every component will be coming together and we're going to go all of a sudden have all these things working together in a sync. Meanwhile, while we are delaying the enforcement of parking, people are taking advantage of lack of enforcement.

And for business owners, they need some kind of help, but not having an enforcement is not the ones that they want to hear. They want a quick fixes, low hanging fruits, way finding, we quickly dispatched and installed and changed so that we can have people find the parking and go park to where the empty lots are. And those that I understand the frustration because that's one thing I asked for since I was elected with the big huge signs. And I specifically remember that night where Councilor Darger said, we have all these warnings and signs that people are afraid to park because they don't know it's too complicated. We want a huge one big sign that says free parking.

I still don't see that, right? So that is the frustration, but then I need to put yes on this because I think this is the critical part of the puzzle and this is the most critical part to fix the parking issues to enforcement and have people move to the empty parking spaces, free parking spaces that's lighted and that's a huge sign and everybody knows from coming from Farmington Canyon or Watson And Hall knows where to go. We don't have any way finding right now unless you know it, unless you go right up to the parking space then you go, oh, it's parking. And I don't know if you noticed there's a parking on Farmington, right on the Farmington next to the bank. There's so many warnings and red light that I'm afraid I can park there.

It says from this to this hour, you cannot park, but it's all red. Red means no, right? But it says free parking, but it seems like if I park, if I'm not careful, then I'm going to get a ticket. So it's a huge issue. So I hope staff comes up quickly as you have turned around this time, pretty quick turnaround that there's some changes that's happening right away. So business can have some kind of relief. That's my thought as of now.

Councillor Hudson.

I I lost my train of thought because I thought she's gonna go. I hear the concerns that everyone is bringing up, and I do think that we've had multiple presentations whether at bureau, whether at city council, around parking strategy, around parking vision, around just I think we've had a lot of conversations. I feel like what we can't fix is the lack of parking or the the fact that people feel like that there is a lack of parking. I giggled at one point because counselor Kimmy talked about people taking advantage because I know we're not enforcing parking, so people are taking advantage and parking in spaces and completely not moving their cars. And that's really not the behavior that we want.

So while I empathize with the need for potentially a conversation around strategy, potentially a conversation on bigger picture, which I I do feel that we've had in the past, I'm not sure that I can say that I'm gonna that I want to stop us from continuing our enforcement because I think that we need to sign a contract to continue our enforcement. So I understand we're in budget crisis and that there is some concern around that. This is just something that if we don't try to enforce soon, will create, I think, more consequences in Central Beaverton as it relates to parking because people are now starting to park ten, five, six hours, and that's also hurting our our core business. And so I'd like to see us approve some kind of contract tonight if it's if it's possible or some real direction for city leadership. I also think that enforcement's like a piece of the puzzle.

I hear the wayfinding. I mean, I would love to see that. I did see the BDA PR proposal. It's lovely. If that's something that we don't, within our own staff, have the capacity to do, I empathize with that. So then let's figure out how we can be more better ambassadors. But, you know, I'm ready to vote on this contract, and I would like to vote yes, not because I don't disagree with what people are bringing up, but simply because to not have parking enforcement as we come toward the summer does not feel like the responsible thing to be doing right now.

Councilor Hartmeyer Priggen. Thank you. City managers, is there anyone from South that can we can ask questions to?

I see that Dan is coming up to join the hot seat.

Oh, awesome. Thank you. Oh, Tyler, you're gonna come join the party? Cool. Thank you. Mostly just, like, I I agree, counselor Tivnall. Like, I wasn't expecting to see it so quickly back on. I do think we did give clear direction that we want to resume enforcement. Like, that was pretty clear the other night that that's where we wanted to go. So, like, I also can understand it being in front of us. When I look at where it's described as the not to exceed contract, like, the first thing is, like, there were lower value or lower cost options. Right? Based on our guidance, we have a lower cost option in front of us. I believe that the total cost of the contract is lower than it was, right, than the one we saw a month or so back.

That is correct.

Okay. And because it's a not to exceed, is that to create flexibility for us to kind of work out these final details around, like, when would enforcement start, or do we are are some of, like, the things, like, counselor Teeter brought up, like, already set, we know when those are starting?

Yes. So what we've got here is option one, which was what we brought to you in March. Option two is a combination of two and four as counselor Tidman was talking about. And option three was the lower end option. Option two has, I believe, it's three FTEs and one supervisor, but we would want to start at 2.5 ambassadors and one supervisor with the flexibility of increasing if needed.

But that would all depend upon what is needed and the analysis that would take place. So yes, we did actually took our conversation from a couple weeks ago with counselor Tivnan to take option four and combine that into this this proposed option two.

And that's in, like, the letter from Laz. Right? He talks about we'll start with two and a half and okay. So the two and a half FTE so it's it's option two, like, if if you went to the maximum not to exceed cost, but we're actually starting at kind of the hybrid option. Okay. That is correct. And so then that does give us the flexibility to figure out when an enforcement begins and the adjustment based on that.

Yes. Absolutely. And that's one of the things that we talked about the other night as well. It 11:00, noon? What does it make Because once the two hour starts, if it's someone is parked at eleven, they have until 01:00 that gets you to the lunchtime hour. If it starts enforcement at 01:00, that will then enforcement begins at three. But you have to have somebody on the street to make understand when that car stops and is parked. And start the clock.

If I can, just on the timing piece, because of the contract essentially a contract review process, We've got an agreement essentially. We had one that we brought forward. We went back to negotiate. We've got some flexibility, as we've talked about just now. But we also felt like we needed to kind of get resolution to the process for the contractor so that we knew whether because ultimately, with council recess and those kinds of things over the summer, we felt like we could be in a situation where we weren't getting back to them until July.

And so just really wanted to be thoughtful of the time and working with a partner. So that's part of the reason we're working to try to address the concerns that we heard and try to find that hybrid option, whether it's four or five or whatever option it ends up being, but trying to get there with some speed so that we're able to resolve this. But there are also because we do have an RFP process, we have limited things that we can negotiate at this point. So we're trying to look at ours and some of those things, look at the overall cost and try to reduce that, try to still meet the expectations of the council. And so it's a good discussion to hear those concerns and to continue to hear those things for this contract.

But I would also say just this is a small key, but a small piece of the overall parking program where enforcement helps drive a lot of the other activities within the program. And we do have in June a work session that we'll be bringing forward with the overall parking

Sorry to interrupt. Actually, it's May 26 at Nara. Sorry. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. I know that was one of the questions we kinda left last council meeting with was when are we gonna finish the conversation. Right? Because I we do know that this is only one part of the puzzle. Scott, I'm curious to just your thoughts. Like, do you feel like we have the flexibility that we need here, from the contract perspective? Like, I read it, I hear it, but I would love to hear your perspective.

The not to exceed aspect, it does give us flexibility on the costs. On the actual operational details, I haven't got into that and would defer to Tyler and to Okay.

Yeah. I definitely think we need to resume enforcement. So that's where I am. I would like to approve the contract where we're at. And I also hear I hear you all, right? And I I think that this is one though that we do need to get we need to the enforcement piece is important. It is part of the larger story and the change in the behavioral shift that we're aiming for. I I mean, we also said last time, like, we're we're kinda done with $0 warnings. Right? Like, we're ready to, like, really make this, like, a true enforcement program and that it's a mechanism we need. So thank you for coming up and answering my questions.

How long has this pilot been running?

The pilot started in July 24.

So how do you still not know

Or excuse me, 20 do not know. I'm sorry.

You're still not understanding when the hours of enforcement should happen.

Know. We but we need to make those changes, and we need to have the the plan adopted so we can make those changes. And and that's what's coming to you as the work session on the twenty sixth.

I guess for me, this is a you're you're presenting us with one piece of the puzzle here. And if we approve this contract, we don't know how much money is left to do the other things. And I do not believe that we need to be doing enforcement first. The count we have had so many meetings where we have directed you to do cost recovery on residents parking permits. We have get I convened a roundtable and brought you guys to it and gave you a list of low hanging fruit.

And you've not done any effort to woo me to your side by doing low hanging fruit. Business owners and counselor Kimmy is talking to different business owners than I am. I I went and talked to a bunch this week. They do not think parking is working, and some school is out in a couple weeks. And so the school issue is gonna be non avoidant over the summer. We do have issues on the weekends with Farmers Market, and I just looked up the con the SP contract started in 2022.

So Yeah.

Having four years of a pilot should have enough information for me. And I'm just I the council like, if you guys don't want to lead with enforcement, we can do that. And I would encourage the business owners to call you guys directly because there are other things in the plan that should be adopted first before we start doing enforcement. Enforcement confirms the plan that we're putting in place and you're asking us to do it out of order and this is a continual problem and it's very hard for us to manage from the dais as the people that fulfill and get all of the complaints that I would support enforcement if the plan was in place. So this is opposite.

So we it looks like to me, not knowing how you're gonna vote, it's either four three one direction or the other. So this is not and every time the council's been split like this and you guys haven't come back with any other solution. So you're the tie breaking vote, so what do you wanna do? Hear that residents of Downtown Beaverton? It's Kevin Teeter

that is just kidding. Go ahead.

Yeah. I could see the I was counting the votes in my head too. I think it's also important for us to recognize that there are different character areas of downtown with different parking needs. So what people feel in Old Town is not even the same as what people feel across the street on Broadway Mhmm. Versus what they feel in Central Beaverton.

As the contract came before us tonight, and looking at the contract just straight up with the hours of nine to nine, I wouldn't initially be comfortable approving those hours. Tied on Daniel's comments about it provides us the boundaries to work within so we can negotiate better hours or the hours that we want to enforce. Like, if we want to enforce just later hours, would we have that ability within the contract. Am I hearing you right with that?

That is correct.

Okay. So my my concern that keeps me right in the middle that I'm going to I'll get off the middle. But it keeps me in the middle is my concern is that if we approve this tonight, that we might not have a touch point to say what hours we actually want to be enforcing. And we would approve it, and then the contract would move forward, the the vendors could just start enforcing based off what our signage is. So what oversight

what Can we do that now?

Maybe. I'm

here to what

oversight But

the council is going to lose our ability to manage this if we go. What's our oversight? Because we continue to tell you things from the diocese that aren't being implemented. If we approve this pro this tonight, what is the oversight the council has? If we do not have to pass it tonight, we can refer it back and ask for to come back in two weeks to have a firmer understanding. But I think voting and hoping that that they understand and I haven't I haven't heard a consensus from council on what the hours should be. I I think we're premature, but

No. That's fair. I'm I'm curious from you two also. What what is our oversight for the hours of operation after if we approve it tonight?

Yeah. So so we have been, you know, having these conversations, and we appreciate it. I mean, this is obviously helpful. You know, there's there's the the the conversations we're having with the the the vendor that is for the Knights contract consideration, they there's they're listening as well. They understand where council sits. They understand where that that process begins. And we under we want to make this work, and we wanna make it work for our community. That's the first and foremost item. We can start then at whatever time that are makes sense through this process. It is not to exceed.

These are the hours that this option two plus is based off of is those hours. The hours can be modified. We have that right to give that direction to the vendor.

But you could even though I will vote no for it, you could make an amendment and have we only sign the like, the contract signing is predicated on enforcement hours that we negotiate right now. We can do that. Can we not, Scott?

Well, on the contract itself, it's kind of thumbs up and thumbs down.

But why does it have to be that way? We've done other amendments to contracts in the past.

We can amend a contract. And you could give staff direction to go back to the vendor and ask for an amendment. But the only thing we can do with this particular contract is either approve it or not approve it.

And we

could ask for it to come back and see it in the form we want. That's a lot of trust to vote a contract with the hopes that they'll negotiate what we want.

So if we approve the contract, when would the decision be made about when or when would enforcement start?

So enforce as far as the time or actually get them onto the street because there's gonna be a ramp up period with getting the team on board. And so if it takes forty five days to get them up and running, we're going to have a plan that hopefully will be approved on June 14 or June 16 when we come to counsel for approval of the plan, which has all the other items that we have been talking about. That's the The The broader plan.

Yeah. So enforcement won't start until after that?

No. We've got to get the contract signed and actually be able to get folks in here to do that work.

Okay.

It's not going to happen overnight.

Okay. Okay. So I think my point here is I I will vote to approve the contract, but I want to see this come back for us to say to for us to give clarity to staff about timing before the enforcement actually starts at the 9AM time. I think that's what I'm big most concerned about because otherwise, we'll just keep having the same conversation over and over again. Right.

From that the work session in June then?

You said there's also work session at the May '1. Oh, Bureau. Okay. Between the two. Okay.

Okay. I'll motion that we'll what's that?

Do you have a comment?

Oh, please. Go ahead, Ashley.

We sometimes at the dais dip our toes or maybe jump wholeheartedly into operations. And I am struggling. To me, it is not a policy decision to set the exact hours. It's we make a policy decision to enforce parking. And that is what I think we should be debating. I mean, we we can give that direction and say, hey, we think we need to adjust the hours. We've got the flexibility into the contract. And I do wholeheartedly trust staff. I'm not an expert in these things. And I I also don't think it's fair to say that you haven't brought us what we asked for.

You did. So I will be voting in support of this. I think that it is staff's job to set the operational hours. We've said as a council, our policy choice is to enforce parking. Our policy choice is to have a paid garage. Our policy choice is to not have enforcement beyond however many blocks we have, right, where we don't have posted signs. So I think that we I understand this is frustrating. It's a hotbed issue and we you know, those signs have been there as long as I can remember and us dipping our toes into enforcement is a new thing and I know that it's a change for our community and we've also given them two plus years to get used to it. It's time to go. We need the tool, and I think we need to move forward.

Councilor Cedar, make the motion. Oh. Is it gonna be about the vote? Because you can talk about it after the motion if it's a comment.

I mean, I just I wanna echo what I heard councilor Hartmeier Piggs say. I think we've had feedback. We've given feedback. We had the feedback when this was pulled in which I watched the meeting, and then we gave feedback in the last work session. And I think to council Hartmeyer Pigg's point, this is a policy decision.

I think if we are feeling some anxiety around supporting this, giving that direction here and asking staff to hear that direction. I I do trust that staff will will carry that, but I also don't want to be in the weeds. So I think I hear all the concerns, and I think that we've been moving towards enforcement and we've given the vision around moving towards an enforcement. So I'm gonna make a motion to approve agenda bill two six zero eight six.

I will second it.

It's been moved and seconded. Any discussion? Alright. And thanks for bringing us full circle back. I think this is an area of which policy and implementation is gray, but we you guys will own this policy that's not working. So just remember that our job is oversight And when it's not working, oversight is where we're at. And this is why this conversation has been difficult because the program is not working the way we intended it to work. And that is what's challenging is there's no opportunity for us if we're telling you it's not working. And this is a split council decision. It's gone back and forth four three multiple times. So this is not a happy council decision that people are making this evening. Alright. Will the recorder call the roll?

Councilor Duggar? No. Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg? Yes. Councilor Hassan? Yes. Councilor Kimmy? Yes. Councilor Teeter? Yes. Councilor Tivnan? No. Mayor Beatty? No. Four yes, three no.

On to the city manager's work plan.

Alright. Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Elizabeth Coffey, interim city manager. I'm gonna give a very brief presentation tonight. I know you've got a couple of other work sessions. And tonight, we're gonna talk about the interim city manager work plan. One of the terms of our city manager interim agreement is to reach consensus on the general work plan, that this position will focus on, during this leadership transition period. Next slide, please. So by the end of the presentation, council will preview the draft interim city manager work plan and have opportunity to provide feedback. The goal will be to return a final work plan, to you for approval on a future consent agenda.

Next slide, please. So why have an interim work plan? The overall goal is to really provide focus for this particular position on high impact initiatives that will help strengthen our organizational alignment, support council direction and maintain continuity during this leadership transition. I do wanna note that the work plan is just specific to my focus. It's not all encompassing of the work taking across, the city.

There's lots going on, much more than is on this work plan. So it's intended to be very high level and just represent those projects that will take a significant amount of my time and focus rather than granular detail on the day to day work. Next slide, please. And so gathering feedback from counsel and our executive team, the work that came up coalesced around three main themes, and the first theme is really aligning around strategy. So the first item on the draft work plan is to launch the citywide strategic plan.

This was soft launched at the council retreat this fall. Development of a strategic plan will take many months. Having this in motion or nearly complete by the time the regular appointed city manager is selected will help prioritize resources align projects with vision and priorities. This would also be accomplished within our existing budget. We're now asking for additional resources for this project.

The second item related to strategy is developing developing a a council council work work plan plan for for council's consideration. Council identified strategic priorities that you'd like to focus on at your winter retreat. And so as we work towards the completion of fiscal year 'twenty six-'twenty seven budget, the goal would be to develop a work plan in conjunction with you that would detail how those priorities could be accomplished over the next year. Next slide, please. The third the second theme that came up was really around advancing some key council priorities.

The first is around continuing efforts around fiscal sustainability. We've talked quite a lot about this, but that would be continuing that work, over the next year, per council direction. And so, currently, the focus has been around service reductions as needed, potential future levy, transient lodging tax increase and two fees that we'll discuss actually later tonight. The fourth item on the draft work plan is continuing the city's response to the impact of federal immigration enforcement activities per council direction. We are continuing to work on operationalizing implementation of sanctuary city ordinance, and we would address emerging issues as they arise, again, per council direction.

And then the fifth item is really focusing on strategic acceleration of opportunities on inactive inactive sites that we have here in the city, identifying actionable steps to move them towards activation and really making sure that we have the vision in place, are there barriers that need to be addressed, and how can we really enhance vibrancy, across the city. The final theme that came up is really around organizational health. It's really important to ensure that there's organizational consistency and transparency during this time. I have already started establishing a monthly email communication with the organization from the city manager, and I plan on visiting worksites for greater visibility and access to employees. We had really great results earlier this year on our citywide employee engagement survey, so I'll be partnering with our executive team to make sure that we're continuing to build on those strong results.

And then finally, the last item, we've talked a lot about communications engagement over the last year, and so really wanna focus on strengthening our communications and community engagement capacity in partnership with our communications and engagement team, really focusing on building that internal ability to create compelling stories and content that reflect the community that we serve. Want to make sure that we're supporting equitable engagement approaches to ensure that our community voices are heard and incorporated, and then really emphasize the early involvement of communications and engagement staff as strategic partners from the outset of projects, which will help improve clarity, alignment, and transparency across the organization. So this work plan is intended to be a living document and can certainly be adjusted as issues or priorities arise throughout the year. And we can have that conversation if that does end up coming up, but this gets us started with a draft plan to move forward with. And with that, happy to answer any questions or hear any feedback that you may Thank you.

Thank you for this, Elizabeth. It's refreshing to see a plan laid out this way. I know you spent a lot of time on it and talked to the council. I think maybe not everyone knows your background as well as I do, but you were the person in charge of communications in your previous role. So I am very excited that communication engagement has made it to a number on this list that's incredibly important.

Storytelling about going into this year of hard decision for us is in my opinion one of the most important things that we're doing. So thank you for bringing your expertise and putting this presentation together. A year is going to go by really quick And I think, you know, there's a lot of work on your plate. I recognize the diminished capacity since you moved from the ACM role to your role now and that you and Dan are covering the work of three people. And it's reflected in your plan to me.

And so I appreciate this and and understand. And I think sometimes the council also has to hear or given the opportunity when competing interests are coming together that we solicit some feedback to help you kinda make those operational decisions as they're coming forward. The other thing that you've been doing for the last six months is working as the interim finance director on top of it. And I do know we have our new finance director in the audience with us. But you kind of have to lead the budget conversation because you're the one that did it.

And that is the most important thing for the organization is to approve our budget to get going, and that has taken up immense amount of your work. So thank you for taking on this additional third duty beyond finance director, assistant city manager, and now the interim director, and I look forward to this year with you. Councilor Kimmy.

Thank you. I usually don't go first, but this is exciting stuff. So thank you all that and everything what Mayor said, of course, I concur. When you said the council priorities and you want to align the departments with that, my question is our priorities hasn't changed that much since I was elected four years ago. And it seems like we are doing every year retreat. And do you really mean by aligning department with our council priorities and why does it take few months to do so? I just wanted to understand that.

Yeah. And so typically when council meets and sets your goals and priorities, those do change a little bit from year to year. So the year that I got here, the only key goal and priority that had been selected was fiscal sustainability. And so this year in the retreat, the council did select some other focus areas. And one of the reasons that we've kind of waited to develop that work plan that helps align, staff with council priorities is that we weren't sure what resources we would have to work with after the budget decisions were done.

And so we did not want to come to you earlier and overcommit what we were able to do in the next fiscal year. So, as we're coming now to the end of the budget process, it's within our sites. We're able to now know kind of what staff capacity we have to work with, and we'll be able to better provide you with a realistic plan for what we can accomplish in the next year.

Okay. Thank you for that. I didn't really combine the budget side part of it. So I get that now. Another question is with regards to communication, just wondering what kind of plan do you have in your mind to communicate about levy that's going to come along in 2027?

Do you have a strategy and how to get there and also budget that's tied to it? I remember seeing lots of Facebook posts and YouTube videos regarding other jurisdictions promoting their levy and bonds. I mean, you got to you need money to promote it. So just want to see if you have a plan or if you don't, I'd like to see that because it's coming around pretty quickly next year And you need more than three months to promote it at least a year. So and you need money, let us know. So I wanted to hear if you have a plan for that.

Yes. And so we don't have specific plan right now given that council have kind of paused moving forward with the levy. However, when I'm back up at the podium to talk about the general services fee and the street maintenance fee, I think that will give you an idea of some of the things that our community engagement and communications manager has been working on. And so we do have a plan to really better communicate the value of city services in general, which is kind of a key component of our fiscal sustainability plan. And so we're going go ahead and start there and really work on implementing that plan, and really focusing on proactive storytelling.

And so again, we'll talk a little bit more about that in that next presentation. If counsel does decide, to revisit the levy conversation, that will help us develop a more, specific plan related to that levy, but we'll need a little bit more direction from counsel about just revisiting that conversation to ensure that the focus is still the right one. But we will come to you a little bit earlier in the process than what we had done the previous year.

Thank you.

Council President.

Thanks, Elizabeth. This as I was reviewing this in prep, I feel the size of this feels right. And then as I dug in the details, I hesitate to use the word delighted, but I think you got it. Like the priorities, felt seen and I felt heard. I haven't always felt like that.

I felt especially the focus on fiscal sustainability, communications, development, even the federal response is is spot on in what we've been saying. So I acknowledge I wanna thank you for that and and acknowledge the work here. Wanna recognize, as the mayor said, there is diminished capacity in this office, the city manager's office, just because there's now two of you instead of three. There's a lot of expertise in the city that I'm I'm sure you're gonna tap in ways that you're you're gonna figure that out. But I do wanna acknowledge other staff that has made this possible than a number of them, right?

Senior staff that are that are kind of picking up. So I acknowledge them too like this is your plan, but it is made possible by the cooperation and close work of others as well. So I acknowledge that and this feels right on. So I think you nailed it. Thank you.

Yeah. I should add that lots of thanks to my colleague, assistant manager, Dan Weinheimer, and also our government relations manager, Jocelyn Blake has been picking up some areas for us, and then really our entire executive team has been super helpful and supportive. So, yeah, thank you for reminding me of that.

Counselor Tivnan.

I'm so happy you're in this role. You know us. You've been along for the ride, and you can see it in the seven. The two that I'm curious about, number one, the strategic plan. So I do this in my day job, but for for profit.

So I know it's gonna be different, and I'm very curious, and I'm going to be learning along the way. And I think that one thing that would be really helpful for all of us, because I think this is kind of a new thing, is to be very, very communicative and clear at the beginning of it of what we can expect in terms of deliverables. Because I just I don't know exactly what how it's gonna differ from the work plan, and so that's an ask. I just wanna throw that out there at the beginning. And then the other one is, can you speak just a little bit more about the development focus?

I was excited when I read that. We do have a lot of properties that we're sitting on that currently have some weeds in them and not a lot going on as we're waiting and, you know, plotting our our course for each of them. What what do you mean when you talk about the focus there?

Yes. And thanks for your comments about strategic planning. I agree. We'd wanna make sure that we're aligned from the beginning of the project and certainly happy to be get some communication out to you and and some contact with eventual, consultant that's selected. Development focus was something that I heard from, more than one member of council just wanting to really, prioritize getting, activity going in some of those inactive, parcels.

And so that's certainly something that, you know, our community development staff and Dan have been working hard on over the last several years. And so it's really just putting a little bit of that extra focus on it and trying to make sure that we're kinda telling the story of what we have available, identifying where there might be barriers that are prohibiting that development, and so working in close partnership with that team to really see what it is that we can accomplish.

I would say that strategic planning is new for the city, but not new to cities. In most cities that are moving forward rapidly and and doing it, strategic planning is the path to do it. So I'm glad we're undertaking it. Councilor Hudson.

Yes. Can you give me, like, an estimate of, like, what a strategic plan from a cost perspective looks like?

So, I think you had this question, earlier, and I don't have a specific dollar number for you upon reflection because, we haven't gone out for that quote yet from the strategic planning consultant. And, in my experience when I worked on this before, the cost does vary from consultant to consultant because each one will approach it, differently. And so I don't have a specific number in mind right now, but, more likely than not, that contract will be coming before council for, approval in the future. So, there will be more opportunity to dive into that then.

Thank you. I think the city council the this whole work plan is lovely. I have some just hesitation, which I've already shared with you, but I'll share around strategic plan. I know we have so many strategic plans across departments. I understand why we're doing this, and is this the time to be doing this? So I'm not gonna move anybody. I just wanna kinda state that for the record. I think there's a lot of money that could go into something like this, so I just wanna be thoughtful. I do support counselor Tivnan's comment, which is to keep us, communicating to us. I I I believe I'll ask you. Is there any method to the madness of the order? Because I think that also gave me some pause.

No. It is not in order of priority.

Okay.

If I may share, just for the record, For me, like, three and seven and six, right, like, fiscal sustainability, storytelling and engagement, organizational consistency and transparency are just so critical. And I just wanna be able to say that, you know, for you to hear because, obviously, fiscal sustainability is gonna be continued conversation that we need to continue. As you shared couple years ago, it was our priority. We we're still a priority, so we still need to keep talking about it. Obviously, organizational consistency and transparency.

Just from my HR experience, when you have an organization that has so much change, not just within the city, but with the electeds. Right? Like, I think that that takes its toll. And I know we've talked in general about storytelling. You know, the development focus is great.

It's just very low for me in terms of, like, where the priorities are. Obviously, the immigration related response is also really important. My one ask or just sort of comment, and I shared this a couple meetings ago, I really appreciated the multicultural gap analysis that was done, and there were 13 recommendations. I don't think that we're gonna do any of these recommendations, but I appreciated the spirit of some of the the recommendations that were made. So, reform funding to improve equity and access, institutionalized community co creation and decision making. So I'm not expecting that to happen tomorrow, but I do think I would be remiss if I didn't take this opportunity in this work session to mention it to you. Thank you.

Councilor Dieter.

It's really good really good work, Elizabeth. As we go forward with you in this role, if it needs to be changed at all in the future, I think I would just open the door, have the door open for you to come back to us and say, we actually need a whole lot more attention in this spot than this one. And so maybe we need to set something aside for now. There's a lot that's kinda up in the air right now as we work through our budget and funding scenarios and leadership transitions and use an interim. So if there's if there are any changes that we can make as a council that can help make sure we're still moving forward and moving forward well and supporting you and our team is in these roles, I would be open to that. Level.

About

And excited next next strategic plan.

Good evening, mayor and city councilor. I'm Kim Carroll, library director of the Beaverton City Library. I'm joined tonight by Jen Gray O'Connor from Coragio Group. Together, we're here to present the updated Beaverton City Library strategic plan and to welcome any feedback or questions you may have. This plan will guide our decisions on prioritizing library services over the next three to five years.

It was funded through the generous an annual pledge from the Friends of the Beaverton City Library. Next slide. The library developed a new strategic plan in response to upcoming shifts. In July 2027, collections management will move to Washington County Cooperative Library Services, also known as WCCLS, changing core work processes and reducing duplication across the system. At the same time, the library is projecting a budget deficit over the next five years.

These circumstances mean important decisions about services lie ahead. The plan provides a framework for making those decisions by investing limited resources responsibly and transparently. The plan serves four key purposes. It establishes shared direction, moving the library from individual team or branch efforts to coordinated actions. It keeps us responsive to a changing community as Beaverton continues to grow and diversify, and it strengthens accountability by setting clear objectives and measurable metrics.

The plan directly shapes how we budget to prioritize funding and guides trade offs, giving us a transparent basis for deciding what we sustain, scale back, or defer when resources are constrained. In short, it is our roadmap, aligning our community needs and ensuring every service decision moves us in a deliberate, coordinated direction. Next slide, please. This plan was built on real community input. From November 2025 through February 2026, Coragio Group partnered with our strategic planning committee in a process that centered community member and community members and staff input.

The data behind this plan came from nearly 1,800 community survey responses, 38 library staff survey responses, 12 stakeholder interviews, and six focus groups and six focus groups. Staff had a seat at the table through surveys, focus groups, and on the planning committee itself. Combined with comprehensive background research, that input gave us a clear grounded picture of what our community wants and what the library is positioned to deliver. Next slide, please. The strategic planning steering committee was made up

of

library leadership, including myself, the managers at the library, the supervisors from Murray Scholes, our admin our administrative assistant, the chair of the library advisory board, and the president of the Friends of the Library of Beaverton, which are shown on this slide. At the core of this plan are essential elements including our mission, vision, and position statements along with the values that inform them. Our mission statement serves as our purpose and reads, Beaverton City Library is community. We welcome people of all backgrounds, ages, and languages to foster belonging, connection, and learning. Our vision reflects our aspirations for a future in which learning is lifelong, creativity is celebrated, curiosity thrives, and everyone feels supported through a spirit of service and a deep sense of belonging.

Our position is what our organization uniquely provides. The Beaverton City Library is a trusted and welcoming space where everyone belongs. Across identities, we ensure equitable access to to connection, knowledge, and resources. Next slide, please. Our values inform our fundamental beliefs and shape how we work together to serve our mission.

These are community centered service creating delight and hope in every interaction with a can do attitude and maintaining approachability. Compassion and care to foster positive relationships by showing up with empathy and responsiveness. Inclusivity and belonging happen as we welcome all voices, build consensus, and create courage connect courageous connections. Creative problem solving is how we approach challenges with curiosity, innovation, and a solutions mindset. And resilience and transparency means staying authentic, adaptable, agile, and honest through challenges.

These values shape how we serve and they will be especially important as we navigate transitions into the future. Next slide, please. The plan is organized around three imperatives. These aren't just priorities, they're the lens through which we will evaluate every service, program, and investment. The first imperative is to broaden community participation, reaching non users and underserved communities through intentional outreach partnerships and meeting people where they are.

The second is to expand the welcoming human centered experience positioning the library as a trusted, inclusive community anchor that fosters belonging, connection, and delight. The third is to invest in staff resilience and capacity, supporting staff well-being, adaptability, and professional growth so that we can sustain mission driven service into the future. Each imperative has supporting objectives, key metrics, and specific initiatives, which I'll walk through next. Next oh. The first, the first initiative, imperative is broaden community participation.

Next slide, please. Our community survey showed that many residents don't yet have a clear picture of what the library offers. This imperative focuses on being more intentional strategic in reaching people who are not currently engaging with our services. We will prioritize connecting with non users and underserved populations. We will track progress through new library card applications, outreach efforts, and active cardholders.

Our initiatives include engaging people in community spacing spaces, creating feedback loops, and forming partnerships for co promoted events, focusing on collaborations that maximize impact while reducing duplication of effort. We also plan to grow community awareness and engagement by developing a cohesive public communication strategy across print, digital, and in person channels. Additionally, we'll cultivate community ambassadors who can help amplify the library's impact and advocate for sustaining our services. Finally, we will continue to establish and deepen partnerships with key organizations businesses while being thoughtful about how we invest our time and capacity. Our approach emphasizes building relationships that create mutual value rather than trying to do everything for everyone.

Next slide, please. Our second imperative is expand the welcoming human centered library experience. Next slide, please. This imperative is grounded in our service philosophy, which centers on three themes, build connections, create spaces for hope, and lead with service. Our first objective is to increase the diversity and cultural relevance of library program.

Community feedback called for multicultural and age specific programs, as well as AI literacy training for both the public and our staff. We'll measure this by tracking the percentage of programs that reflect diverse languages and cultures and the attendance at culturally relevant events. Our second objective is to increase library visitation and utilization of library spaces. We'll continue to track program attendance, store counts, and meeting room use. We'll also continue working with the Friends of the Beaverton City Library to enhance spaces valued by our community members.

We'll explore evening hours and other ways to improve accessibility to our spaces. Our third objective is to improve the patron service experience. A key initiative here is implementing a connected desk service model, creating redundancy and ensuring patrons can access information and programs from any service point in the building. Next slide, please. Our third imperative is to invest in staff resilience and capacity.

Next slide, please. This imperative reflects the significant organizational change our staff will navigate over the next several years. As collection management transitions to WCCLS in July 2027, staff roles will shift. At the same time, budget constraints will require us to continue realigning resources to where they are most needed. Our first objective is to strengthen staff engagement and satisfaction.

We'll measure this through the Gallup Q12 scores, staff satisfaction surveys, and participation in learning and development opportunities. Initiatives include professional development focused on strength, well-being, and resilience, and building a team culture that celebrates our value. Our second objective is to build organizational capacity to manage change. This initiative includes aligning staff roles to shifting community priorities, evaluating organizational structure for adaptability, normalizing change through transparent communication, and identifying process improvement opportunities. Supporting staff through this period of transition is not just a priority, it is central to our ability to deliver on the other two imperatives.

Next slide. The Beavers Tenth City Library strategic plan charts a clear community informed direction over the next three to five years, one that reflects the voices of nearly 1,800 community members, dozens of staff members, and a wider range of community partners. This plan gives us a framework for decisions ahead on services, staffing, and resources, and a way to stay accountable to the community we serve. I welcome any feedback, and we're happy to answer any questions that you have.

Well, let's start with a little framing, because this is the first strategic plan the council's been presented with that I can think about. Given our just our conversation around strategic planning, the council wasn't one of the 1,800 in the survey results to give our input or perhaps set the stage on what would be helpful. So, what kind of feedback are you hoping we give you tonight? Because this looks pretty baked to me. So, if we give you feedback that's different, is that helpful or what are you hoping to hear from us tonight?

I think that would be helpful. Anything that you that you wanna give us feedback on.

Okay. Well, kick us off. What I really like about this plan is that it has metrics, it's trackable. I really like that you've thought about staff's role in this, particularly around budget stuff. Where I think I'm a little bit challenged is the first objective.

We are already the largest circulating library in the state. And we just went through a funding exercise with the county in which we have made arguments that we have the most participation in our library, we need funding to follow it from taxpayers. And overwhelmingly, the county commission rejected that. And so our funding is not coming to us based on people's access to the building. And when I think about the fact that voters approved a 68% increase to WCCLS, but we are not getting that full increase, having an objective that is expand library services, is this gonna be reflective of the budget that's presented to us?

Yeah. Yeah. It's not expanding library services necessarily. It's expanding how we do those services so that we're reaching so that we're more intentional and looking at what were the gaps that we have and maybe there's what we need to stop doing in order to doing more intentional work. So that's what the real mission the real ideas behind that imperative.

Well, I I think it might need a little bit for me, and other counselors can weigh in, of course. I just the way that I read it, expand access to library services among non users. It's already very difficult to get into the rooms to book them. They're very utilized. Maker space is very utilized.

The library is already often at capacity and so I'm just challenged with this knowing the fiscal things that lie ahead. For me, fortifying the this is our city's most important third space. To me, fortifying the hours of operation is high on my list because this is an access point that is the only for a lot of people. If you're a single mom in the community or you're stay at home mom, library hours are really important. Kids are open early.

We've already cut library hours over the time since I've been the mayor. This could be the only place that you're accessing OHP. This could be the only place that you're coming in from the weather. And so I would like to see some language around fortifying the the the hours of the building. So that way, when we're making budgetary decisions, we can do it.

I really do like the human centered library experience. We know loneliness is one of the most most talked about thing right now among people that COVID has really disrupted the way that we interact with humans and Internet has really has taken away from that. So I love the fact that you're talking about human centered library experience. This could be some of the only contact that people in our community are having. And I just think the investment in staff resiliency and capacity to meet the needs of our communities is a really important thing.

Libraries have changed so much since 2020. And really, we started the previous library director, Abigail Ed Edward Elder, I think, started really changing us towards the direction that the library could be something different than books. So I I really like the plan. I think it only needs a few tweaks in my opinion, but kudos. This was a great opening shot for our first exercise. Thank you. Yeah. Is I'm sorry. I'm kinda lost in here. Councilor Neha Thank

you for the library plan. It looks lovely. Although I was like, oh, can we copy paste for the city? Just bad joke. Elizabeth, no. Bad joke. I just think when we create strategic plans, there's a lot of similarities in how we create them when it comes to a city strategic plan versus a library strategic plan. So I I see a lot of stuff that I would imagine would show up in the strategic plan for the city. I think this is lovely. I think I I my comments are more like, if I'm an external community member or community organization, organization, how do we engage with you or how do we connect with you?

What is the path for community based organizations? Because I see the intentionality of wanting more of that, but I don't know like, if I'm out in the public and I'm telling people, the library wants to hear from me, what what am I putting am I giving them Victoria Campbell's email? Where am I sending them?

Yeah. You can send them to anyone. My email and my phone number is on the website. Like, I often get contacted by community members. And Okay. Another way is to reach out to the library advisory board. They're very great contact, but, you can reach out to just our general, library mailbox or the phone number, and they will they will put you in contact with me or whoever.

Okay. I guess what I'm trying to say is, like, I'm connected to a bunch of community based orgs who may not be in your radar.

Mhmm.

How do I send them to you? I don't I can share your information. That's fine. But, like, what is the right way to do that? And you don't have to answer on the spot, but I just wanna make sure like, I'm walking away going like, okay. Who do I need to send this in our community to if there's such an appetite for more partnerships with community? So get back to me. My other just general comment is sorry. Just give me one second. The tech piece.

As I watch my very lovely aging parents ask me to set up all their apps on their phone, which is something I barely know how to do for myself. When I was at the library the other day, there were all these tech resources. So I just I guess I just wanna elevate that in loneliness and in third space, the need for tech support is is great. So I just I appreciated seeing it says expand AI literacy training, but I'm just thinking tech literacy training, but that's fine. My last comment is is more towards the budget because we are coming to this budget issue.

I want to understand how we are moving with the budget. So not something for you to answer here today, but, like, what does the future look like with the fiscal sustainability challenges that we have? How are we rightsizing the library with the bigger budget. I do think the comment about hours is something that's been on my mind, like how are we setting up the library to be in the need of the hours of of of folks in our community because it it really is a for for many a place, I think, that they can only go once. I think if you can just let me know later, like, the best way to come connect community based organizations to and I assume this is already happening, but like working with the equity office who's also connected to some of those community based organizations.

I think diversity advisory board members, which is currently on pause, would love to are connected with organizations that would also probably love to partner with you as well. Thank you. Thank you.

Council president.

Thanks, mayor. Echo the kudos. I love this level of of engagement. I think it it also is what we should be doing. Right? Like giving you feedback on strategic plans instead of waiting too much in the operation. So I I I like this. The framework does feel mostly correct. And I think I'm starting to feel a a theme. The mayor used language around fortifying.

To me, the language in my my brain is stabilizing. Not just hours, but like services. Right? Like it seems like the library when I was a kid, it was a place to get a book. Now it's a place to get all kind of things and housing support and social services and all these things and like like how do we stabilize that long term and figure out where that fits in the overall plan?

And I I don't know if it needs to necessarily be there, but like I'm I'm starting to hear a pattern of like stability needing to be called out or or or some sort of maybe added to the framework or maybe it can just be a sub part. I don't know. I do wanna call out, I think, one area of an opportunity for the human centered. Our library programs for disabled people, like I I didn't see that at all. I think that's an opportunity for us because the way I look at it is like, if you don't know a disabled person, congratulations, you're probably gonna be one because ninety percent of us will face disability at some point in our life as we age, as we work through these.

And I think I would like to see us call that out because I think that's an area where of an opportunity for us to innovate and find particularly as we're thinking about virtual services or moving the operating model or things like that, like meeting people where they are. That might actually accomplish some of the expansion that we're talking about too because I suspect a lot of people aren't accessing the services because of physical, mental, social, those sort of limitations. So I think that might be an opportunity for us to think about it in a positive line as far as like, hey, is a challenge for us. This is this is a challenge waiting for us to solve, right, instead of a limitation. The other thing around staff, just based on some private conversations I've had, I do think about safety for them.

Not just development, not just opportunity. I do think about their safety. And I'm gonna use the same framework that I just used like mental, physical, emotional safety. Like they're they're exposed to a lot of things that I think are are different than maybe some other employees in city hall. I think about them a lot. I think about creating a stable environment and support. They're not necessarily first responders but they face a lot of this similar social ills and and just differ difficult things. I I don't know if it necessarily needs to be added but it's something that's on my heart, it's on my brain, it's something I think about when I think about the budget in in creating that stability and that safety for them.

Part of our when we do training and professional development, part of that is around de escalation and we've had training like from the fire department. We've had training from some professionals who work in mental health. So that when we think about professional development, we're also thinking about those wellness and those skills that people need. So I appreciate that you recognize that is important to us too.

Yeah. I definitely think training is a massive part of it. But I also think about incident response or kind of that follow-up afterwards too. Because I know it's difficult on people. It's difficult on community members, but certainly people that are exposed to that see that. So I think about it. And then minor feedback. I don't know if we need to call it out necessarily but we have an amazing Friends of the Library and like I don't know if they need to be part of this plan or called out as a functional part of the plan. Maybe not but And I couldn't even when I was looking at the framework, it felt correct. But I was like, I don't know where they fit in in that. But that might be some feedback as far as like a horizontal or under the I don't know. Just just like they're such an integral part of the storytelling of the library and the support. They even paid for the plan. Right? Like, I just I don't know if there's an opportunity to include them.

But again, thank you for all this work. This feels like a definite step in the right direction.

Counselor Duggar, they are friends of the library, are they? Just so

you know.

Is that what you said? Yeah. Yeah. Page It's okay. Imperative two, just so you. Imperative two number three, expand the welcoming human centered library experience. Work with the friends of the Beaverton City Library to explore grants and other funding alternatives.

Yeah. Like like, I'm I I meant thank you for that. But just, like like how they fit in the framework of of everything. But, yeah, I totally missed that. So thank you for calling that out. Cool.

Councilor Tipton on. Thank you.

I love Caragio Group. It's a really beautifully laid out plan. And I you can just tell from the enormous amount of outreach that was done on this that it's been very well informed. Where I my head immediately goes into his implementation, and I'm counting 23 initiatives over the a five year period. Right?

That's the the time Mhmm. For the plan, which is reasonable. It's like if you were to do it, like, cleanly, math wise, it's like about four year. But I looking at these, some of them seem like they're, like, a stand alone project, like, looking at the organizational chart and and the adaptability of the roles, which is not to say that it's a small thing to do. It's a that is complex, and then it's gotta have a a like a scope around it to figure out how you do that, who's doing it, and when.

But some of them seem more ongoing, like professional development for staff. I'm just on the imperative three one just for examples. And then some of them are a little on the vague side, normalized change through transparent communication and leadership modeling. It's like trying to figure out, like, what do we mean by that? And and how do we get to that? And is there training involved in it? Or so I imagine that there's there's scoping has to happen for these. And have have you explored that? Have you talked about like which get implemented and when and what has to happen before something else can happen?

Well, some of it will be based on, like, what is happening as far as, like, collection centralization and how that is shifting our our work, right? So we've already centralized interlibrary loan, and we used to have dedicated staff that were that just did that work. So what does that staff do now? So then we're looking at how we structure our service desks and that centralized service model where people can move fluidly between the different service desks. That's something that will happen sooner rather than later.

And then some of the other things that we were thinking about in the plan as far as the ongoing, building those relationships, that's gonna take time. Right? Creating a a really good, communications plan that's gonna take, like, some strategy as well as testing and then seeing what works and doesn't work. So it's gonna be really an evolving some of the things are gonna happen sooner, and then some things are gonna have to be more scoped out.

Mhmm. Okay. Yeah. I think about also just how do you track on it? Like, there a dashboard? And is it, like, is it a quarterly checking on? Is it by annual? Is it annual? Do you have a cadence determined?

That's the next step is to put all those pieces together and timeline things out, and, we'll work with the managers to do that and the leadership team and also with staff to build, like, what we'll likely be doing is build task force around different tasks and involve, like, cross departmental groups. So that's when we do our best work is in those kind of team moments and the best collaboration. And so that is what we'll look forward to implement some of those bigger things. But we haven't gotten there quite yet.

Got it. Okay. And just a final thought on it is, I know that all of this represents, like, if you were able to nail all of them, you would you would transform the library in ways that achieve the imperatives. And it's I mean, that's the goal of any strategic plan is strengthening, stabilizing an organization. But it's also a lot of work that happens in the margins of the day to day.

And so I would it's a beautiful document. It's easy to read, at least this version of it is. The onboarding of anyone who joins in, even volunteers that spend a lot of time and refreshers for people because it can also drain right out when you're in the in the thick of things. It's just keeping it alive, but it's it's a it's a great plan. I'm really looking forward to hearing updates on it. And also know that a lot of the weight falls on you to kinda be at the helm to make sure that it stays in line of sight as you're getting through each day. So thank you.

Well, I have really great staff, so I'm very fortunate. Yeah.

Councilor Kimmy.

Thank you. It's my favorite area or the part of the city. I I I don't like it where I always have to think about the budget all the time. Every decision I make for the city just hanging there, always thinking about it, like how can I do this, make it work with the limited or short budget, right? And I wanted to kind of see that on the plan, but it wasn't really addressed with the budget shortfall and possibility, right?

And I don't know how much thought you have given, but in reality, near future, we might have to face the shortfall. And I wondered what is your plan regards to keeping the services level with less staff or the space. And I wanted to kind of see that in the plan, but I guess it's not in there. Is it being talked about? Is it being discussed?

Because it is facing us right in the face in a short amount of time. You don't have to reveal details, but I just want to know that you guys are not caught off guard by all the reality that's going to hit us soon.

I also think about the budget all the time.

Yes.

So the idea is that what can we trade off? What can we stop doing? How can we make partnerships that are mutually beneficial? How do we connect with community members for support and just getting people to know what services we have? I mean, there will be trade offs. There will be, like, changes in organizational structure. These are all things that I talk to our staff about all the time. So but yes, I mean, those are things that we're thinking about and we're trying to build into our structure and also maintain the services that we have.

Right. And I also want to not just worry about all the services that we might lose, but then also we can evolve into something better, something futuristic not futuristic, but a lot of libraries are turning into something in different countries, different areas, different cities. Some of them I heard has like 20 fourseven just automated library, but I don't know if that's really even feasible, but they're really being inventive and innovative with the future library. And people involvement with the library, when I was growing up, I went to library to study or hang out with the friends, but now it's little different than before. A lot of people checking books online or checking out the books online.

But this is a great space for the city to have have people come and share the resources or get what they need. So hopefully we can provide something better with limited budget that we have and maybe we have to rethink, reimagine the library, how it's

going to

look like in the Beaverton. So maybe having a future conversations with that might be my interest. And I love to hear what you have to say in the later sessions. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Hartmeier Prigg.

It took seven times for me to turn it on. I'm really sorry. I well, I was actually gonna say that I think, I appreciated the call, like, in the executive summary about, like, this strategic framework is really what's needed also to kinda inform that next step on the financial side. Right? And we kinda need that guiding light.

So I'm also really looking forward to supporting through that fiscal sustainability plan for the library specifically. Specifically. But I think that this strategy around what we wanna be and how we wanna show up in community becomes that guiding light. Right? And so when you are we're having those hard conversations about the trade offs, we know that this is a very community oriented, a very human first, severe and that human first being for the community and the staff.

So just generally, I I really appreciate the document as it is, and I think it will be something to ground us through the next conversation that will be, you know, that will be hard and to, like, know how we can support in the setting up that financial stability for the for the library fund too.

Councilor Teeter.

I turned the mess with the mic. Thank you both for coming in and sharing this with us. The framework of it, I think, is really good. I had some more concerns as them or not necessarily concerns, thoughts that I was brainstorming, like, mayor with the first one about broadening community participation with the library. Just trying to I was just trying to think, like, is there wording that I could change with that?

Like, I want people to be able to access the services that they need, whether it's books or computers or the maker space or meeting spaces or whatever it is. And I I was struggling to come up with anything that was more fitting with than what you all had already put forward. I was also struggling with the final point about staff resilience resilience and capacity. I think the reason why I was struggling so much with it is because it is more squishy. Councilor Tivinan was saying it was a little bit it wasn't as as practical as a specific project, and it's a lot harder to it it's hard it can be hard to measure somebody's personal, emotional, or mental state of of being in their workplace.

Can either of you talk more about that staff resilience and capacity section? And do we have the metrics we need that you all feel like we need there, or is there anything we can expand on there?

Well, when it when we are thinking about staff resilience and capacity, that means, like, supporting staff through change. There'll be changes, like, are losing we'll just take collection centralization. Some staff select books, and and that is what a big percentage of their job is. That's why they became librarians. Well, now that is not gonna be part of their job.

So how do we support them through their that change? What what would you like to be doing? What we could do SWOT analysis, like, what are your strength opportunities, you know, and then, like, match those that ability to do that work. So how do you how do you support staff through those kind of change? Other staff that, worked in our technical service departments, they didn't work in front of the public.

So how do we how do we train and support them because the the back of the route, back of the door, like, jobs aren't there anymore, so now the only work is or the work you'll have to transition to is that public facing work. So comfortable with that? How do we, build capacity? How do we make sure that you feel comfortable using the tools? Like, all of those things.

And and technology changes super fast. We're doing AI training with staff just so they have some capacity capacity around it. And so it's all of the that kind of resilience, not just the resilience of being in a space that where you're working with the public all the time, but it's also providing that training so that you feel confident to answer questions. So that is kind of what we're talking about, and we build that into our work plans each year as well. So and we ask for staff feedback, like, what do you need? Do we need to bring in a facilitator to help with change management? Do we we partner with HR, so and they bring in, like, folks from wellness. And and so we do all of that as part of our work plan.

K. Thank you. I will say empathize with a lot of the back of house staff who don't wanna be in the front of the public because I don't either, and yet here we are. So thank you and thank you thank them for for being open to the transitions and the changing of roles. I do think there are opportunities for people who have had a role like picking out books and finding the things that will bring people joy to maybe find a role helping curate the experiences that pull people to the libraries or building out some of the community partnerships.

We do a whole lot of community program or a whole lot of programming on our own. And maybe we can help build out some of those partnerships where other people are doing more programming. It's not all on city staff all the time. But thank you all for this presentation and for the for the framework we've got here. I think it's a really good start and captured a lot that I would want to see. So thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We're going to take a five minute recess, and then we will come back to our last agenda item for the evening. Right. The next item on the agenda is a work session and presentation regarding the city's fiscal recovery and potential services and street maintenance fee. We will begin the presentation with our city manager, assistant finance director, Susan Cole, the public works director.

When the presentation is done, each councilor will have the opportunity to comment on presentation and ask questions of the presenter. Since the work session includes discussion of possible fees that the city would charge residents and city services, I'm declaring a potential conflict of interest. The potential conflict I am disclosing arises because I am a city resident and user of city services. So the enhancement of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation. A declaration of potential conflict of interest is required in this sort of situation, but does not prevent the person with the potential conflict from fully participating in tonight's work session.

I encourage each city councilor to make a similar announcement of potential conflict of interest before we proceed.

I am declaring a potential conflict of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city service fees. The conflict arises because I'm a city resident and a user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

I'm declaring a a potential potential conflict conflict of of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city service fees. The conflict arises because I am a city resident and user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

I am declaring a potential conflict of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city service fees. The conflict arises because I am a city resident and user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

I am declaring a potential conflict of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city service fees. The conflict arises because I am a city resident and user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

I'm declaring a potential conflict of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city services. The conflict arises because I'm a city resident and user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

And I am declaring a potential conflict of interest regarding tonight's discussion about possible city service fees. Conflict will arise because I'm a city resident and a user of city services, and the enactment of a city service fee could impact my personal financial situation.

I know this is relatively new in our council's history of of this type of disclosure, which is the direction of our city attorney to take. I think sometimes when you hear it as the community, it maybe sounds like we would benefit from this decision making personally, and that's not the case. We would also pay the fees that are enacted if the council decides to go that direction. So if you're watching it and wondering why we all have this, like, conflict of interest all of a sudden, we don't have one all of a sudden, but this is how we we need to proceed with tonight. But to make it clear, we would not profit from a decision made off of tonight's presentation.

Alright. Good evening, mayor and council. So, I'm joined here today by public works director, Tim Elsie, and assistant finance director, Susan Cole. And we're here to talk to you about, both the general services street maintenance fee. Excuse me.

Next slide, please. So tonight, we're going to cover, a brief review of the fiscal sustainability action plan, and then we'll talk about the general services fee, and then segue into the street maintenance fee and then go over, outreach and next steps. Next slide, please. So as you listen to the presentation tonight, keep in mind that at the end of the presentation, we're going to be asking you for feedback on, three policy questions for each fee. The general services fee, we're curious about, your thoughts around the fee structure, the revenue target, and the annual escalator.

And for the Street maintenance fee, we're going be asking you about the fee amount, the phase in approach, excuse me, and the annual escalator. So before we dive into the fees, just a brief review of the fiscal sustainability action plan. So we've been talking about this for the last several months. The city faces a structural deficit in the general fund and many of its other funds due to a number of factors, but key among them is that property tax revenue funds the majority of our general fund and that growth is restricted due to state laws, and our revenue is not growing at the same rate, as our expenses are. Excuse me.

My allergies seem to be kicking up just in time for this presentation. So a lot of people don't know that for every dollar in property taxes, the city of Beaverton only receives 21¢ out of that dollar to fund critical services like police, library, community development, and public engagement. And you can see here on the screen that there are many other agencies competing for that dollar. And other funds like our Street Fund, while not funded through property taxes, are also facing challenges with flatlining revenue and rapidly escalating expenses. Next slide, please.

So you can see here on the screen, we've shown this forecast before. This is our general fund forecasted out over the next few years. And you'll notice that on the top, there's an orange line for total expenditures and a dark blue line for total revenue. And it looks like starting in fiscal twenty three that there was not a problem. Those lines are pretty well aligned.

But in fact, together represent a lot of hard work and difficult decisions made by this city council and the city management team who've been working on fiscal sustainability for the last several years. And so the that those lines were brought close together and the gap was narrowed in our general fund, due to a lot of, expense reductions primarily over the last several years. And so what this forecast shows us, the forecast is agnostic and it assumes that we're not taking any action. And so absent any action, you can see that that gap between expenses and revenue grows significantly over time. Absent any action, we would be facing an operational deficit of $31,800,000 by fiscal year 'thirty, and we would be $90,000,000 below our target for our ending fund balance.

And the dotted line on the screen represents one of the tools in the fiscal sustainability action plan that we're here to talk about tonight, and that's the general services fee. Next slide, please. And so, you'll note that we've been talking over the last several months to update the fiscal sustainability plan. We've been talking about medium term and long term actions, but we're here tonight to talk about a couple of short term actions that are in play. One is the public services fee or general services fee and the street maintenance, fee evaluation.

But you can see here that there are multiple strategies on the screen that are listed, that are part of our fiscal sustainability plan, which do include, potential additional expense reductions. Of note, we have made $9,000,000 in reductions over the last, few years, resulting in the elimination of 32 staff positions, and the impacts of that have been numerous and include, reduction of our proactive police bike team that addresses livability issues. We've eliminated dedicated mental health response team resource, reduced community organization grants, reduced hours at our Murray Shulls library branch, and have overall slower response times and project completion time due to reduced staff capacity citywide. This slide shows you how all of the tools in the fiscal sustainability plan come together. And so as you recall on the plan, there is both a services fee, a potential, May 2027 levy, an increase in the transient lodging tax, and then some potential service reductions.

So I show this slide to say that, you know, as you saw in the general fund forecast, the potential general services fee doesn't, fully close the revenue gap, and that's because we do have other, tools in our toolbox that will go into this equation. Next slide, please. So now we're gonna dive into the general services fee. We came to city council in March, to do a work session, on the general services fee, gave city council four different options for how that fee might be structured, and we're here today to narrow down those options. City council had selected two that they wanted to remain on the table for further discussion, and that is where we are at, today.

And so as you can see on the screen, when we look at the other similarly sized cities here in Oregon and some of our neighbors here in Washington County, we're not alone, in our exploration of potential utility fees to pay for services. And so most of the, cities that, do have some sort of fee, on their utility bill either to pay for general services, or to pay for transportation or they may have both. And you'll note that those that, do not have that fee, are fortunate enough to have a local optional levy, which indicates that they have another tool that they're using for that purpose. The fleet the fees range widely, depending on the city depending on their needs. The total bills are ranging anywhere from $10 to $32 a month.

Next slide, please. So moving on to the three policy questions that we're looking feedback on tonight. The first policy question is, determining what structure, we would like to pursue for the potential general services fee. So you might recall at the March 3 council work session, we talked about one structure being the flat fee per EDU. And so the equivalent dwelling units or EDUs are units that are used by utilities to assess service charges.

And we are assuming that the more EDUs that an account has, the more city services might be needed. This works in that we set one fee per EDU, and then accounts are charged for each EDU that they have. So pretty straightforward, very similar to how we charge for, water and our other utilities. The impact for a single family residential, this is tied for the lowest, cost option. Most single family residential units only have one EDU, and it is the second highest for apartments, commercial, and public facilities just because they tend to have more EDUs.

The second option is a tiered by EDU fee, and this is one where tiers are set up based on the number of EDUs and then rates are assigned to each tier. And so you can see here on the screen, one EDU, equals, $13.75 per month. Then we have, tiers of two to four EDUs, five to 19, and then 20 plus. In essence, this particular structure, imposes a cap on the number of on that monthly fee, for some of those larger, properties. And so that's why when you look at the impact for apartments and public facilities, that's the second lowest option because for those, accounts that have a large number of EDUs, they benefit from this particular structure.

Conversely, however, for single family residential customers, multifamily, and commercial customers, this is the second highest option. In order to, set up the rate structure to reach the same revenue, target, that rate for single family residential customers does have to go up, as compared to the first option, to make up for the revenue that's lost by imposing that cap, in essence. So those are the two structures that we're looking for feedback on tonight. Next slide, please. Thank you.

So we have monthly rate impacts. Here you can see here on the screen, just get put some numbers to the impacts that we talked about, on the previous slide. So again, for single family residential customers, you can see option one, the flat fee per EDU is $9.50 per month. And then, conversely, the option number two, that fee is $13 and $75 per month. On this chart, we list the median number of EDUs for each, customer type, so that gives you an idea of kind of what the typical cost might be for that customer type.

Next slide, please. The second policy question that we are looking for feedback on tonight is the revenue target for the fee. Staff are recommending a revenue target of, $6,000,000. At the last work session, we talked about a fee or excuse me, a revenue target anywhere between $5,000,000 to $6,000,000 You saw an example of $5,800,000 We have rounded that up to $6,000,000 as the target to take into account the under collection that we might typically see with this type of fee. One important piece of context about this fee that's important to know is that, as we have been talking about through our conversations with fiscal sustainability, we are assuming revenue from this fee in the proposed fiscal year 'twenty six'twenty seven budget, with an effective date of August 1.

Implementation delays beyond that will have a negative impact on that proposed budget to the tune of almost $500,000 a month. So if the fee is delayed or council decides to take a different path, we would need to look at the impacts that that would have on our proposed budget. And then as I noted before, the fee is really critical in preserving services. $6,000,000 preserves a fair amount of really critical services, here at this organization for the community, but it does not solve the city's deficit. So the fiscal year twenty six, twenty seven proposed budget will still contain expense reductions and, some potential onetime revenue solutions.

And so the goal of the fee is really, as I mentioned, to preserve those services that really shape the daily life here in Beaverton, focusing on safety, connection, clean and safe neighborhoods, housing options, community support, and a vibrant and thriving business community. Next slide, please. At the last council work session, council asked for some examples of how the fee might be used to benefit the community. And so this slide gives you a of a high level overview of the types of services that we're looking to, preserve at some level, through this fee, and those are services that really shape the daily life, here in Beaverton and protecting the community, long term. And so, public safety, funding would help preserve, police response and investigations and mandatory safety functions that every neighborhood depends on.

We have a fair amount of community connection services, so we hope to preserve neighborhood services, that support our neighborhood associations, community events, volunteer engagement, and that, those local collaborations that help residents feel connected, informed, and involved. Clean and safe neighborhoods is another key component of services that are funded through our general fund that would benefit from a fee like this. Graffiti removal, abandoned car removal, and vegetation control are ways that we can help keep our public safes excuse me, keep our public spaces clean, safe, and welcoming for everyone. Our general fund also funds housing and affordable housing support, quality redevelopment, and vibrant communities. Services in our general fund also provide critical support to residents in need, and so we do help connect residents in need and crisis with resources through our safe parking program, through library services, access to technology, story times, the makerspace at the library.

And then finally, general our general fund also includes community vibrancy or economic vibrancy. It helps preserve our economic development services, which support local business retention and growth, new investment and helps expand the tax base that funds essential city services. Alright. That moves us to the final policy question for the general services fee, which is the annual escalator. And so, typically, when cities implement a fee like this, they have a decision to make on how much the fee might increase each year to keep pace with rising expenses.

And so there's two options to consider. The first one is to have escalate by a certain percentage every year, and this provides stability to for the fee as a revenue tool and certainty to our residents about how much the cost will increase. Our general fund expenses expenses, on on average average, increase increase anywhere anywhere from from 88% to 9% per year. And so that is staff's recommendation that we increase the fee annually by either 8% or 9% per year, that would be equivalent to approximately an $0.85 per month increase in year two as an example. And one of the reasons that we're looking at that general fund expense trends is that our general fund is unique as compared to other economic indicators that you might be used to seeing, like CPI, because our general fund expenses include biannual large increases for PERS.

They include, cost of living increases, that take place through our labor contracts, medical dental cost increases, and so on. The second option that council could consider is phasing in the fee over time, and so cities will often do this increase by a set dollar amount every year. And, typically, that's used when you want to make a deliberate choice to set rates lower than needed, when you're starting out with the fee, and Tim will be talking about that with the, street maintenance fee in just a little bit. Or sometimes, cities might use this if the fee funds projects, for just a set period of time and there's are some kind of some sharp escalations or sharp decreases, in costs due to that project. Those aren't, haven't really been part of our discussion around the fee so far, so that's why staff are recommending, a certain percentage increase.

And next slide, with that, I'm going to turn it over to Tim.

Mayor, counselors, thank you for having me back tonight to talk about this important topic. I'm guessing part of the reason that you have me back is because of the size of the crowds I always draw when I'm here. So, we spoke to you last September. You'll remember that Brandt Holiday and I came and spoke to you. And next slide, please.

And this is the most important graph that I can show you, And it talks about not only the life cycle of a street, but also how quickly the street starts to degrade once you start getting to the portion where you can no longer maintain the street and you start having to do more intensive maintenance techniques. I wanna point you to the colors on the left side because the graph itself is color coded based on the asphalt that you see in the street. So as you see, when a street is originally paved, it's in excellent condition, and then it starts for 40% or 75% of its life, you only drop 40% of the condition of the street. And then after that, the next 12% of its life, you drop another 40%. So as long as you're in that top 60 to 100% of its life, in other words, a PCI, a pavement condition index of 60 to a 100, there are maintenance techniques where, and these are ballpark figures, where you can spend a dollar on preservation, which will save you 6 to $10 on rehabilitation down the road.

And again, I'll point you to the colors because once you get to the PCI of 70 to 50, you start getting to a very steep slope on that graph. And so and I'm gonna show you some numbers later that are gonna indicate how quickly our street network is starting to deteriorate. Next slide, please. You'll remember that we have had a consultant that came in to rate our roads three times since 2016. And our current aggregate PCI for the entire street network is a 64 or it was when this was done.

Or I'm sorry, it's a 74. One more time. Our current aggregate PCI is a 71. And with our arterial PCI being 65 and our collector PCI currently being a 67, And you'll remember the steepness of the curve once you get between seventy and fifty. So what the consultant has projected with the next slide is that by 2030, our aggregate PCI is going to be a 64 with our collectors and arterials, which are the streets that get the heaviest traffic and the most traffic, will deteriorate to a PCI of fifty seven and fifty eight as we move forward.

Next slide, please. Further, what you can see with these two maps is that today we have 20% of our network that's at a PCI of 60 or less. And in 2030, we're going to have 32% of our network that will be at a PCI of 60 or less. What's really alarming is that by 2030, they're projecting that our collectors and arterials are going to have a PCI or 61% of the Street network will have a PCI of 60 or less. Next slide, please.

You may remember this graph from, the last time that we met, and I kept this in here on purpose because want to bring in what we're recommending to you with what we presented to you last September. So we presented you with three different options last September. One was a PCI control budget, a steady state budget, and a target PCI budget. You'll remember that the PCI control budget allowed our PCI to stay pretty close to where it is right now, to 71 to 70. It will drop down to about a 70 in five years.

The steady state PCI budget, it would go from where it is now to about a 72 in five years. And the target PCI budget, and that was if you wanted to target a PCI of 75 on the entire street network, would, go to a 75 over five years. And then the annual budget needed, the additional revenue needed for each of those is $6,900,000 $9,000,000 and $12,400,000 respectively. One of the things I also want to point out to you, and this will become important later as well, is the backlog number. The backlog is the percent of our streets that have fallen below a PCI of 40 or less.

So those are the streets that are gonna take a full reconstruction. So with each of these options, you'll see that it comes with a respective backlog. Now I'm going to take you to the next slide and just to show you that we are not the only city that is dealing with this situation. Many of our neighbors have dealt with this decades ago. You see that the city of Wilsonville instituted their transportation utility fee in 1998, and they're currently at $11.24 for a single family resident.

Tigard instituted theirs in 2004, Hillsborough in 2008. So we're decades behind our neighboring cities. And then I'm also going to bring you to I'd like, you to pay attention to the city of Bend. When we went to look at bringing forth a street maintenance fee to city council, we met and went we went and met with the city of Bend, and they were incredibly generous with their time. They talked to us about the challenges that they faced in, discussing this and communicating this to the residents, and they developed a phased in approach to their, transportation utility fees so that they started it off at $5 per EDU the first year, and it was built in that they would phase to $10 or very close to that the second year, and then $15 the third year.

They have a target PCI of greater than 80. What has happened is that they instituted the first two phases, but they did not institute the third phase. There are a couple of reasons for that. Part of it is that they were waiting to see what the legislature was going to do with the gas taxes, And but the second, and maybe most important, is they were seeing their PCI of their street network come up faster than they originally thought it would. And part of that was because they successfully went to the voters with some GO bonds.

And so they were able to do some capital improvement projects on their street and bring their PCI up sooner than they expected. I don't know if they're going to go back out and bring in that third phase, but it is still out there for them to do. The other thing I'd like to mention, and I know the council is aware, is that very recently the City of Portland also instituted a street fee and theirs is $12 per single family resident and $8.4 for multifamily residential and they expect that to bring in about $47,000,000 per year. So we are certainly not alone in being cities that have to tackle this problem. Next slide, please.

So now I'm going to take you to some recommended funding scenarios, and then, this graph, I'll talk you through it, but it's also meant to help you see around corners. And so I wanna, first of all, say that the bottom orange line is what do we do with our existing funding and what happens to our Street network. You'll notice, by the way, and I mentioned that we're in the steepness of that curve, this has been run several months after the original graph was run, So our projected PCI has already dropped from a 64 to a 62, but we're in the steep portion of that curve. The other thing I'd like to draw your attention to is the very top line. That top line, it equates to the PCI control budget.

That was a budget that I presented where it would allow the PCI to drop down to 70 over five years. The reason that I'm pointing that out is because what we're requesting of you tonight, and we'll we'll talk about the details, is we'll allow our streets to drop down much below where the PCI control budget is, but over time, it will come back up and it will catch up with that PCI control budget. I do want you to notice, however, that the backlog grows when we do that. And so as we continue to get that additional funding, we will have to tackle the backlog in the future because more of our streets will get to a PCI of less than 40. I also put the other graph on here because I wanted you to be able to see what happens if you only do one year, and then you just put an escalator on that per year, and what happens if you do it two years in a row, and then you put the escalator on it after that.

So the next to the bottom line is the street maintenance fee of five year five dollars in year one and no phasing in after that. So we're projecting at that point that the final PCI of our street network in 2030 would be a 65% and our backlog would be a 9%. If we institute we phase it in for the first two years, then we're projecting the final PCI over those five years to be a 68 and a backlog of 8.5. And then I already mentioned, if we do all three years, we would have a final PCI of 70 and a backlog of 7.5%. So what we're requesting tonight is that you consider a year one revenue of $3,600,000 and a single family residential rate of $5 per EDU.

I'll let you read through it yourself, but for multifamily, would be 3.61 and you can see what the others are. Next slide, please. But I've already mentioned that we're also going to ask you to consider phasing this in over three years. I mentioned before that we're decades behind our neighboring cities, and we're still asking that we institute this at about half of what they're doing currently, most of them. That will not catch us up.

And even though it would be a very difficult decision to even do that, I I have to say that we're in a situation with our street network that that would slow our deterioration, but it certainly would not stop our deterioration. And then the final thing that we're going to ask is what would you like to see as an annual escalator? What we're recommending is that we use the Engineering News Record Construction Cost Index for Seattle after the completion of phasing. We would get through the phasing first. We would not try to add an escalator to it during that time.

And then after that, we would follow the Engineering News record construction cost index. The next map that you have is so what happens for the money if you, approve this tonight? And we handed out a map that will show you the the slurry seals and then the priority overlays that we would take on and out to the year 3233. So So one of the great things about the software that we got from the consultant is that you can put in whatever revenue targets that you want, and what it will give you back are the maintenance techniques that will maximize your PCI while also trying to minimize your, backlog. So there may be different techniques that it would use for different funding scenarios.

As a matter of fact, there are different techniques that it would use for different funding scenarios. We put this in with the funding scenario of the, $5 phasing it in over three years, and so these are the streets that you would see, that would be improved over the next five years, well, out to fiscal year 'thirty two, 'thirty three.

All right. So I'm going to close this out and talk a little bit about outreach. So at our last work session, counsel expressed some interest in finding out a little bit more about what's our plan, for outreach for both of these feeds. Next slide, please. And so, I'll talk first a little bit about the general services fee, and I referenced this, earlier in my interim work plan recommend, presentation.

But we plan on really focusing on highlighting the value of city services through some new communication and outreach strategies. And so we would like to start an ongoing community education campaign to demonstrate how city services improve daily life while also making complex, fiscal and service delivery topics simple and relatable. And so we would still continue doing our traditional community engagement and communications channels, and we'd make use of our neighborhood association committees, boards and commissions, event tabling, New York City, e newsletters. But in addition to that, we will plan on focusing on a new social media approach, really taking our social media and adding a little bit of personality to it, making it more proactive and fun, visual, and focused on people first storytelling. And you can see an example of this here on the screen where we have caught one of our public works staff employees in the act of doing good work, and, they are, doing a leaf cleanup.

And you might not know that that's one of the services that the city, offers, and so we'd like to go behind the scenes a little bit and be able to show off the work that our employees are doing, and make it fun and, people first. We're also focusing on a new content driven website that better connects people with city services and also focuses on that proactive storytelling. And over time, we want to change the way that the content is framed on our website to really highlight how we're working, why the work that we are doing matters, and how that work really supports a livable and connected city of Beaverton and use that website as our digital hub in our communications, strategy. We would also want to specifically, for these fees, do a refresh of our utility, bill. The back of the bill can be updated to really clearly explain all the rates and the fees in the bill, and the associated, value of those services, and we would do that, online in the understanding your bill section as well.

And then we also really want to reinvigorate our volunteer experience to integrate, equity centered voices and increase our community engagement, and we would do things like reimagine neighborhood events and bring back neighborhood picnics. And so those are all, you know, not necessarily, like, fee specific in terms of promoting the general services fee, but they are ways that we can really continue to promote the value of the services that we provide and be out in the community connecting with residents where they are at and helping tell the story of what it is that we do, and why we need, these fees. Next slide, please. And so, regarding the street maintenance, fee, we would also have a Beaverton Streets Initiative campaign and focus on a very clear data driven public edging education campaign that would explain things like p PCI and why they matter, how projects prioritized by the fee would be prioritized, and why it's important to do timely maintenance on streets since that saves money in the long run. And so key on that is having an interactive web based story map that would have graphics and photos and videos, showing projects and timelines, what a a fee would fund, you know, when we're gonna be out in your neighborhood.

And you can see here on the screen, a static photo of one of the interactive features from another city that has a similar fee and has a similar, interactive web map. And you can actually go onto this web map and and the little, bar in between, you can actually touch the screen and, you know, move the toggle back and forth, and it'll show you the before and after of the street. So there's some really cool, digital things that we can do and, point folks back to this digital hub. Of course, we'd also want to feature project worksite signs. You've all probably seen those throughout the region when there's road construction, you know, this project funded by, you know, whatever the funding mechanism is.

So we'd want to have informational signs at those paving sites with QR codes that link back to this dashboard. We would have guided neighborhood tours to show existing conditions, planned work, how prioritization decisions are made. We will be developing printed materials, simple handouts and mailers explaining what the fee is and what it does and also doing an annual state of the street summary update on our yearly maintenance progress. Those printed materials will be used at presentations and event tabling, farmers market, library, etcetera. And then, of course, we would be using our traditional engagement and communications channels, social media, your city, talking points, and, fact sheets.

So with that, moving on to next steps and timing. And so the process to implement the fees is that, new Beaverton co language would need to be developed. Staff would draft an ordinance with proposed co language, to authorize collection of both of these fees, and then staff would draft resolutions for each of those fees, and those would specify the amounts that can be changed in a resolution such as the amount or the escalator. Our goal is to come back for a first reading in June 16, depending upon council feedback tonight with a public hearing and adoption, July 7, which would put us at that effective date of, August 7, thirty days after adoption. Next slide, please.

Okay. So as a reminder, we're looking for, feedback on, three policy questions, for each fee that you can see here on the screen. And I'll go ahead and leave that up on the screen so you have that as a reference, and then happy to answer questions that you might have.

Thank you

for the presentation. I'll kick us off this evening. You know, I was on the council that voted for the franchise fee, which was a very difficult, difficult decision for us to do. I was also on the council that voted for the TLT revenue. The ongoing fight between the city and the county to do that is a very, very difficult decision.

This fits in the same category. I woke up in the middle of the night last night, like, just worried about today's conversation because what I what I worry about the most is we haven't communicated the depth of the problem sufficiently enough for me to defend. And so I'm glad to see the communication effort and change. Sometimes my husband I tell my husband things that I want to be his idea, so I'm glad to see some of the communication coming back that we've been asking for, which is people focused, the value of the city, the fees that we're doing, why we're doing it. I would encourage you to use your city manager power to pull every communication person that's scattered across every division together to do this work right now because it is May 5.

You want us to vote and have a public hearing in six weeks from now and then adopt it. And so this communication strategy is great, but we've been I I don't wanna say we have been talking to the previous city manager for over a year about the need to do this ahead of hard decision making. With that, I think we have communication people in the building that could be utilized for this. Whatever it is, it's a special task force or something, but we need to give Nicole resources to generate content, and we need everyone in the building to be thinking about communication. So I like that we're seeing, like, signs and how we're doing it, and the tree guys are out in the community and and relying on some of our public facing parts of the agency, the library, public works, police, to help relay this message for us as well.

Because this decision is very difficult for the council to make, not because we don't think it's it's right. It's just we're we have constant priorities of the number one thing I hear about affordability. I feel it too. With that, the fee structure that I am I would like to support is one that is the EDU one across all of it. We know that property taxes disproportionately impact single family residents, where people in apartments tend to pay less.

I think it is also dangerous for the council to assume that if you're in an apartment, it's because you're low income. That is absolutely not true. We have a lot of market rate apartments in this community, and they require a lot more city services. So I like the one that treats everything equal. No.

The flat option e d u rate where you pay the same. Or I'm sorry, option one is the one that I want I would like to to go with. And then the street maintenance one, again, very difficult ahead of the legis the vote that's gonna happen, but I would support a $5 one, five year and then escalates after that. And so I think we also need to have annual escalators in this because we're going to end up in a very simple like our revenues only growing 3% a year now and that's part of our problem. To move this forward though, I need to make sure and see that the budget reflects the severity of what we're asking people to do.

We need to make sure that we have looked under everything that we have tightened, which I know we have, but we have to communicate to people that we have done everything possible before we got to this point. Councilor Tibnall.

Okay. I'm gonna work my way backward, start with the community outreach, excited about it. There's so much in there that I just as a resident, those are the things that I would resonate with. Public works, they're out on the streets every day. The the opportunity for great moments to be captured and shared is so high. And I gotta say, I'm sure the rest of the council agrees that when we get really happy positive emails, it's usually related to something the public works did. I always like getting those. You helped me with this. Thank you for doing this. This was so fast.

Under your leadership, Tim, the public works department has just shined. So I I'm excited about the the community engagement, especially the elevating the volunteers and and and really striking a tone with that and bringing back picnics and the ideas of just, like, conferencing again as a community. I think that's gonna spur additional volunteerism and inspire people to roll up their sleeves and help, and we we're gonna need it. Working backwards again, the street maintenance fee. So I think I've been pretty loud and clear.

This is one of my top priorities. I ran on it is to keep the roads here smooth and safe. I lived in every quadrant well, four quadrants of Portland. Now there's five quadrants, which is interesting and very Portland. And I I I rode a car. I commuted by bike. I took public transit in various years of that experience. It it it was not good there. And that was back in the early the the odds, and it's only gotten worse. I was I served on the city club board of governors back when they did a study on PCI and the the grave condition that the roads were in.

That was about 2,015, 2016. And the amount of money that they've quoted since then has just absolutely skyrocketed exponentially. They'll never get out in front it. And it makes me think back to they they had those conversations year after year after year and people kept kicking the can down the road. And the decision we're making around this, yes, it's for us now, but this is for future generations.

And it's our kids and their kids that are gonna really bear the burden if we don't do this now. Because all I need to see is this to know where the tipping point to no return on the cost. So it's not gonna get any cheaper. So I'm in absolute full support of this 100% get it going and I agree with the phase in on it, easing into it and then using the ENR cost index to just inform how we escalate it over time. For the general services fee structure, I'm in in favor of option one as well.

And for the same reasons the mayor cited, we also have a levy that's gonna be coming up. Property owners are gonna be hit hard. Let's try and level this playing field a little bit with this fee. And in terms of the escalation, I'm leaning towards percentage on that one.

Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg.

Thank you. Just a little admin request. When we have a long presentations, can we have slide numbers? Because I'm gonna, like, go through slides, and I won't be able to tell you which one I'm on. But on this one with the blocks and the math, that that, calculation is specifically just for this coming fiscal year. Is that correct?

It's really just trying to show you, you know, hey. If we have a $16,000,000 deficit, which is what we're working with right now, and we had all of these tools present in our toolbox, then what would that look like? And I just really wanted to show you the full picture of the of all the tools working together. So it's not, what's in our proposed fiscal year twenty six twenty seven budget. It's just showing you all of the tools together and how they work to close the gap.

Okay. Thank you. That's really helpful for me. And I know, like, we talk a lot about the the line graph that's a couple slides before, and I appreciate seeing, like, how the GSV can kind of, like, raise that line, but we see the gap is still there. Right? We're it's we're not in the clear. We still have more work to do. So thank you for that because I think we do have to keep talking about this is an ongoing challenge. We've continued to try to mitigate year after year, and there are bigger things that we're working through to get there. I also am in support of option one for the general services fee.

I think that the revenue target of 6,000,000 makes sense, especially seeing, like, when you put it into the calculation. Like, we still have a gap, but I don't think we can make it all up in this way. But I think if we do too much less, like, the the cuts become even deeper. And I think we've already made such a significant amount of cuts that it would be hard to cut much more. Okay.

And then for the escalator, I think percentage makes sense. I think if we can have just a predictable, what will it increase by, I think eight to 9% feels high, but when you see it against our that like, that's what's happening to our our expenses year after year, like, we can't continue to create a structural deficit. Right? We're trying to close that. So that percentage is hard for me, but I also think we have we have to look at it.

Okay. For street maintenance fee, I also think this 2030 chart gets really scary. I really appreciate on the slide where we have the maintenance needs and the lines. Oh, wait. And I have a question on that one. Okay. So the backlog being the parts of our roads that, like, have to go to the full, like, regrind. Right? Like, grind down, redo. That's what backlog roads are? Correct. Okay.

Everything with the PCI for you.

Okay. And in that backlog, is that gonna be like, is that are we getting that backlog under control with this fee, right? Like, so I know we're going to kind of always have an amount that is going to require that, but then how do we pay for that road that has to be ground and relayed, right? Is that a that a whole separate conversation of how we actually tackle the backlog roads?

And what we're projecting right now is that while the backlog will increase until we get to 2,030, after that, the backlog will start going down and we'll continue to maintain the PCI about where it is.

And that's because we'll be able to have the funds available to grind and relay those roads where they've gotten too low in PCI?

Yeah.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. I was concerned that that it didn't like, that that was just another thing waiting for us. So thank you for that clarification that the that the plan is to like, yes, we will have that backlog, but we're funding it as we go.

Correct.

Okay. So then on the the the next line one, the requested street maintenance fee, the dark green line where it kinda comes up and meets the PCI control line, I I need a little help understanding that with then the question of the phasing because I don't like, I'm conceptually struggling with the phasing to me is the brighter green line. I'm that's what I'm unsure of. Right? So two slides later where we talk about phasing and we say in '27, '28 so it would be first year would be five, then it would go 10, then go 15. Right? And it would stay at 15?

Correct.

Okay. But on then on this one, what example what line is that?

That is the dark green line that meets the dark blue line at twenty thirty.

Okay. So what is what are what's the, like, lime green and the blue, the darker blue? What are those?

That is so the green line is if we only institute $5 a first year and $5 a second year, then that's what we would expect our PCI and our backlog to be at 2,030. So that would be a 68% and an 8.5%. And then the blue line is if we only implement the $5 street maintenance fee and we don't do any phasing from there.

We

only do the escalator.

Okay. Okay. Thank you. Oh, I'm sorry. Okay. So then to answer those questions Hold on. I lost I lost the questions. Okay. The did we have an overall revenue target suggested? I mean, like, I I would like to move forward with the street maintenance fee recommendation overall.

I would think that that's the right way to go. I think you're right, counselor Tivnan. Like, we get past the point of no return, like, way too quickly if we don't start tackling this now. And then I think that the phasing of the as recommended makes sense. And then so then it would be after the third year, what is the way that we kind of keep up with that? And that's so that's kind of like in the other one, had a percentage.

That would be the engineering news record.

Okay. Alright. Sounds good. I support that. Then when it comes to communication and outreach, I thought we just did a website redesign. Is this about some specific pages that would have a content forward website redesign?

I think it's more about looking at the content that's in there and focusing it to be a little bit more storytelling. And so Great. You know, everything is so digital now Yeah. That, you know, while we'll have print materials, ultimately, at the end of the day, if we're gonna do a fun social media post with just the photo of the guy out in the creek doing the leaf cleanup, it's helpful to have that link back to the website. And then we need the website to reflect that storytelling theme also. So I think it's less about, kind of that visual redesign, which we might need at some point, but, more about what's content is on there, and does it reflect back the story that we're telling in our other channels.

Okay. Thank you. Yeah. And I think that videos with subtitles, right, people consume things like that all the time and they consume them on mute. So you get your subtitles on, people will read while they're watching, but I think that videos are going to capture someone a lot better than just that static image.

I know I had a constituent email me just the other day about that really great before and after of a trail cleanup that that was done. Right? And so the before and after, like, any sort of, like, visual change that's like I mean, this is a cool active photo of the guy in the water with the leaves, but the, like, the actual action, I think, is how we actually draw them into the story. And to your point of, like I mean, we've talked so much about the community does not know how rough this really is. Right?

Because we've talked about before that staff is just really caring so much. So, I just wanna emphasize that, like, in that storytelling, let's, like, really make sure we're capturing the community's attention. And then the last thing I'll say is, like, I do love those project worksite signs. I've been, out in the neighborhoods a lot lately, and, like, I saw one the other day about CDBG, and that was the first time I'd ever seen a CDBG sign. And I thought that was really cool. But I think that especially because we know that this is going to be hard to take on these new fees, we need to tell our community that fee, fix this road. That fee means the pothole's gone. Right? So I just I really appreciate that. I think those signs, like, are very, very helpful to the community to tell the story of what why it's important.

Councillor Teeter.

Okay. Thanks. There's a lot of good stuff here that I want to touch on. First, we'll start with the general services fee. I support the approach with the flat fee per EDU.

I think that fits in well with our current utility billing strategies. It's easy for people to understand. I'm good with the $6,000,000 per year target and the tying the percentage increases each year to the expenditure increases within our general fund. When I first read that, I was like, oh, why would we do that and not tie it to CPI West or some other index that our community feels? And I wanna share for any community members who might watch this now or later that we're not just willy nilly increasing our expenditures each year.

These are increases that we feel based off of inflation and outside forces where we have continued making cuts over the past several years to the tune of $9,000,000 and over 30 FTEs, and yet our costs continue to increase, and our revenues have not been able to keep up. And so, like, councilor Hartmeyer Priggs says, I I don't wanna create a funding solution that doesn't actually create a systemic solution. We will all only be on this council for a limited period of time, and after that, I don't want future councils having to make these same conversations, same decisions that we are. So I like the approach that you all staff have brought forth for the general services fee today. I also wanna touch on the street maintenance fee.

I hear a lot about affordability from people these days, and I I encourage them and I talk with them that maintaining our streets appropriately is the affordable approach. We can't keep off keep on putting off their required maintenance needs that we've got because of that dollar of maintenance that we fund now. The dollar of maintenance people contribute could be eliminating a $10 burden that people feel later on. So if we're doing a $5 street maintenance fee, well, if we don't maintain our streets, it could be a $50 a month and burden that people feel later on when we have to rebuild off of our roads. So we're trying to make the affordable affordable decision here.

So, staff, I appreciate that low request relative to a lot of our neighbors of just $5 per month. I was a little surprised when I first saw that in our on our staff staff briefings, but I appreciate the value that we've put on put for affordability for our community here. I do like increase or indexing it to the inflation Seattle new construction inflation index you all shared. And councilor Hartmeier Prigg also touched on the backlog question I had because I saw our backlog percentage increasing over the next several years. But Tim, it sounds like that will start decreasing after 2030.

So that makes me feel better. Would those road reconstructions be funded through the capital improvement plan? Or would it be the street maintenance fee itself that helps fund it?

It will generally be the street maintenance fee. Some of that could be augmented with the TDT fund.

Okay. Okay. As we keep as we increase the fee in future years, as we get up if we end up raising it up to the final $15 a month, I would be interested in some sort of reduced rate program that people can already apply to for our water bills and utility bills for people who need it. And then the last thing that I wanna share is something I think councilor Duggar will touch on a little bit too. I'd be interested in having it a little bit higher if it can help fund some sidewalks and and bike paths.

Do we see that funding it right now or do we would a little bit extra help with that? What are what's your current impression

or approach?

You bet. And the direction that we received last September was to not include sidewalks in this fee. So we did not at this point.

Okay. I'm open to that. We'll see what the rest of the councilors think. But thank you. This is really good. I like the approach you all put forth so far.

I would also just say that we know that the county is going to raise vehicle registration tax, and the city will get an allocation of that as part of our contract with them. And I think it would be wise of us to look at that for sidewalks. So just as a thought. Councilor Husson.

Yes. Lovely presentation. A couple questions, and then I can make my comments. Elizabeth, I know you're ready for this one. Can you just talk to me a little bit about tax abatements that the city may may or may not offer? This is just a common question that's happening out there, and I just wanted to cover it with you.

I will do my best. And if I get anything wrong, Dan can throw something at me and correct me. But, yes. So the city does offer, tax abatements through our enterprise zone, program. For example, if we eliminated our tax abatement program, that would not make a significant difference in our general fund, revenues that we receive.

In total, the tax abatements over the last eleven years or so, we have it has cost the city around 150,000 in property taxes, and that's over eleven years. So it's really not having, a super significant impact, on our general fund, to date, and so not really related to the fee. I think that also, you know, for every dollar that's invested through that, we see significant returns back in the community in terms of job creation and overall investment. And so during the last eleven years, participating companies in Beaverton have invested around $46,000,000 in new buildings, machinery and equipment, and then have added around three forty five new employees, at an average wage of almost $72,000 So, it's a little bit of a different tool that's specifically geared toward economic investment. Thank you.

I know

that Can I note one thing for you Because on the difference between us and maybe a city that's adjacent to us, when we passed the e zone policy, which I'm looking around and I think me and maybe three staff members were here when we did it, we we forced a higher minimum wage? Like, didn't accept minimum wage. It was double at the time that we passed so was $17 an hour and escalated after that. So for us, we use the e zone as a tool to create family wage jobs and the number one company that's invested with us has been near software.

Thank you.

You might have explained this and I apologize if you did. If you could explain again why by $5 every year increase, sorry, dollars $5.10, 15. Can you explain the rationale behind that?

The rationale behind it is so that we catch up with the scenario that we originally submitted last year so that we maintain our roads at a point where they don't continue to deteriorate.

Okay.

Was it a it was

a September work session where we said no sidewalks? I just am trying to bring that one back. Okay. Because I would like to have the flexibility to include sidewalks versus not having sidewalks, so I'll just say that for

the

record. I can support this I support the street fee. I think it's an ease it's uneasy. We've done a lot of work on this. We've talked about transportation utility fee. We've changed it to street fee to make it something that people can understand,

which I deeply appreciate it.

It is going right back into the street, so it's something that's really easy to make people understand. I do appreciate the way that it's being communicated and the communication strategy that you're all working towards. I would like that when this comes back to us in a public hearing, just more maybe a stronger written rationale around the five dollar increase, not for me, but for the folks who will be joining us that evening so that that rationale is written out. Because when I was looking back, I was trying to find it.

Okay. Thank you for that.

Yes. I think what the where the majority was going, I support on the street fee. The general services fee is where I struggle a bit, and I echo mayor's concerns around understanding our budget, the fact that we're gonna also vote on our budget. You know? And I think one thing when I think of the last session that we had around fiscal sustainability, like, there was this sort of, like, flower pot conversation toward the end, and I shared this I'll share this with you all.

I was listening and I was in urgent care, and I had one ear, with you all, and then I had urgent care. And as you were talking about this, I was getting ready to come off mute to just share, like, we gotta start like, if like, what are the things that we want to do? Like, we have to show that we're cutting. And I was worried that that conversation was going in a way that, are we really cutting everything? And, you know, from God's, you know, whatever, the doctor walked in, and, it was, like, a minute before the mayor adjourned the meeting.

So it just it just sat with me that, like, are we fighting, and are we doing that? So I'm not gonna get stuck on it. Like, I know that you've been continuously coming to us and giving us the information we need to to make this a rationale. I just think when I look at what's happening, like, is the number one issue for families. And so how we're communicating this, what we're saying it's going towards is very, very critical for me.

I also think that when we get to if and well, when we get to the levy conversation, really starting to understand from the community what they want and love to keep funding. And I think that's where we're gonna have to get, I hope, with enough of a heads up, like, more coordinated in the work that we're doing. And I am gonna refer back to my favorite little multicultural gap analysis page where people talked about adopting a fund and community navigator model as as a suggestion. There was a request to invest in nonlaw enforcement community safety strategies. And so this isn't for today.

I just wanna tee it up for this council to hear that if we're gonna continue to have to find ways to be innovative, I think we're also gonna have to find ways to be responsive to what we're hearing from our community. So I supportive of the direction of this council. Street maintenance fee feels very easy. If it's possible to incorporate sidewalks, I think that would be great or at least have the flexibility to that. And the general services fee, just really making sure that we're helping the community understand and then also starting to think like, okay. We've heard some stuff from you guys. Like, what are we doing about that in our general services to show that we should continue to have your trust to continue to pay those tax dollars. Thank you.

Council president.

Thanks, mayor. Trying to I have notes everywhere. I'm a mess tonight. One of the advantages of going later is you guys asked a lot of my questions, so I appreciate that. But I do have some general questions. How many people approximately are are on our low income programs now for our utilities? Like, is the scale? And and does I don't need an exact number. Just is it, like, a 100? Is it, like, 2,000?

So, the community assistance that we offer is through Community Action. So, it's not necessarily reduced rate. So we work with Community Action to forgive either the entire bill or a portion of the bill based on their, analysis of that household's financial situation. And so it can vary each and every month, just depending on those family situations. But I would say on a scale, it's probably closer maybe to a 100 to 200

Okay.

Families or households versus the 2,000.

Yeah. Because I I mean, it's gonna be hard already. You know, it's hard on everyone, but like anything that we can do to to make it less hard for particularly low income people like, know, I think I think that that is kind of framing my where my head is. Let me ask a question around the fee structure, and I'm looking at this slide. This is the help me understand that under under the tiered by EDU fee.

Am I reading it correctly in the how section specifically? So 20 plus is capped at $2.75. So if I have 20 units in my multi, then they're gonna be paying an average of $10 per unit. If I have 275 units, they're gonna be paying a dollar. Why? Help me understand that. Is that a billing limitation of us? Like, that feels like we're incentivizing really big complexes at the cost of small complexes.

The consultant kinda did a scan of how the fee can be structured, and so that's really why we're kinda presented you with those four different, you know, fee options, and that tiered option is one of those, where it just, really the key benefit for those larger customers is that it kind of softens that, that impact, for because of the number of EDUs that they have. So, none of these structures are going to be perfect options. Susan, I don't know if you have anything more sophisticated to add there.

I mean, that's that's single handedly. That alone is pushing me away from that even though I think I would naturally reside in in this section because that feels like to me, you know, some of the giant complexes are gonna walk away winners on this versus maybe the smaller, more affordable places. And which is where my heart is telling me to help. And so this doesn't feel like that accomplishes that to me. And so that that's where I what gives me pause and makes me almost lean to the other one because at least then it's it's consistently fair and you're not having a massive winner versus some other ones.

So I don't know if I'm not saying reframe that, but like I can't support that because of that right now. As far as let me go through the questions because I think yeah. The fee structure as of right now, I would support the flat one because of that if we can rework it because my heart is telling me to go there. That's what I wanna. I wanna support a tiered one because I I do think I think the $6,000,000 revenue target makes sense.

I think the escalator, the 8% to 9% feels a little high to me even though I think I understand why. But if I'm a resident looking at that, I just wonder if that's gonna be difficult for us to message particularly because I think of in I think in terms of incentive structures too, right? Like what is our incentive structure to bend that cost curve down if we're just guaranteed 8% to 9% per year? That just feels like the easy way out. So I don't have, like, a magic bullet there. I'm just that's where my brain is. Like, we we need some sort of escalator. And if that's what we said, Lon, I can support it. But, like, it just feels like the messaging is gonna be hard. Let's talk about the street maintenance fee.