Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Administrative Issues and Updates on June 23rd, 2026. County Administrator Gary Smith, would you please call the roll?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Roll call. Commissioner West. Here. It wouldn't turn on. Sorry. It's okay. Commissioner Schrader.

Here.

Commissioner Helm.

Here.

Commissioner Savas.

Present. Chair Roberts. Here. Thank you, Gary. I will now recess as the Board of County Commissioners convene as the North Clackamas Parks and Rec District Board of Directors. Gary, you want to introduce our first agenda item for that? Yes.

Thank you. This is an advisory board and commission appointments for the North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District. Andrew, please take it from here.

Mr. Chair, the District Advisory Committee, staffed by the North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District, currently has eight vacancies on their committee, two regular positions from term expirations, one from resignation, and five for newly created alternate positions. The recruitment was open to the public from March 30th, 2026 through May 14th, 2026, and included outreach via press releases, Facebook, Nextdoor, website, and county website. Of the six total applications received, four are being recommended for appointment. One is a new member, one is a reappointment, and two is alternate members. The recommendation is as follows. For regular members, Linda Newman to a second term ending June 30th, 2030. to a first term ending June 30, 2029. And the recommendation for alternate members is as follows. Isaac Sanders to a first term ending June 30, 2030. Benjamin cox to a first term ending June 30, 2029. And sasha griner to a first term ending June 30, 2029. The board could select other candidates or require further

I move to appoint Linda Newman and Vanessa Dane Slagle as regular members and Isaac Sanders, Benjamin Cox, and Sasha Greiner as alternate members of the District Advisory Committee. Second.

All right, Director Helm has moved to appoint Linda Newman, Vanessa Dane Sligo as the regular members, and Isaac Sanders, Benjamin Cox, and Sasha Greiner as the alternate members of the District Advisory Committee. Director Schrader has seconded that. Any further discussion or comments? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

Director West. Aye. Director Schroeder. Aye. Director Savas.

Aye.

Director Helm.

Aye.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr.

Chair. Thank you, Andrew. I will now adjourn as the North Clackamas Parks and Rec District Board of Directors and Convenience and Water and Environment Services Board of Directors. Gary.

Thank you. This is an update on a fiscal year 2025-2026 supplemental budget request. That's the current fiscal year. This Thursday is the last business meeting of the fiscal year, so you're going to see two of these. One is for West, one is for the county. This one is for Water Environment Services. Elizabeth Comfort is going to assist today because Greg is not able to be here. So Elizabeth Comfort is the county finance director. She'll explain what the West supplemental budget proposal is. Go ahead, please. Yes, Elizabeth.

Thank you. Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. Elizabeth Comfort, Finance Director. This morning, with Oregon Local Budget Law 294 requires a supplemental budget via a resolution to come before you for any changes to appropriation. Here at Water Environment Services, we do have a request to move contingency funds up to material and services due to an increase in utility rates we had an increase in water consumption due to the decommissioning of the code generation engine at the Kellogg Creek water resource recovery facility. This reflects the increase in those changes and the increase in water for $450,000.

It sounds like she captured it very well.

Thank you.

All right. Do any of my directors have any questions?

Yeah. Power PG Yes, okay. Can you just give us a thumbnail sketch how that's gonna affect the whole district here forward? I mean how much?

In dollars depends on how much it goes up Well, it's actually two things. It's it's rates going up which was 7% in March 2025 2% in January 26, 5% in April of this year. We also had a breakdown at our Kellogg Creek facility on the engine generator there, which was built in 1986. We realized that it wasn't worth it to fix it. It's an old, inefficient engine, so we're not using it to heat right now. So we're not running that engine until we come up with a different plan. But, yeah, I mean, the rates have gone up a lot, and as they continue to rise, we'll continue to struggle. Okay. All right.

Thank you. Any other questions? Go ahead, Commissioner West.

Is this an expense? that will be in the next budget cycle, hopefully be able to kind of bake into the numbers moving forward and maybe not have, I know that a lot of, including our rate payers across the board are feeling these increases pretty heavily, households and government alike and businesses. So going forward, we won't need another supplemental budget. We'll have a better framework or idea or forecasting into that increased cost for the utilities?

We only know what we know. And as you heard, the timing of these increases is not necessarily predictable. Okay. So we do the best that we can. But like I mentioned, the first... Increase was in March of 2025 But if I'm correct that was just after we had submitted our budget documents so we didn't anticipate that increase in this budget and

And if I may add, in the Clackamas County budget for our facilities, utilities, we also have in our contingency in the facilities fund anticipated cost increases for these that we couldn't anticipate in our budgeting. So this is unfortunately something that we're expecting to anticipate but unknown. So we could have in this coming fiscal year a supplemental budget for facilities. the Clackamas County utility rates as well. We hope not. We hope we have budgeted sufficiently, but we don't know that until January when those rates come out.

Okay. Thank you. All right. Not seeing any other questions. There's no objections. This will advance to our business meeting this Thursday, June 25th, for a final approval. So now I'll adjourn as Water Environment Services Board of Directors reconvenes the Board of County Commissioners. What do you have next, Gary?

Thank you. We're still on the topic of supplemental budgets. This is also a request fiscal year 2025 2026 the current fiscal year supplemental budget for Clackamas County Elizabeth finance director will present this one to go ahead, please.

Thank you. Yes. This is a Final supplemental budget for Clackamas County. We've already done you've approved for so far but sometimes our projections done earlier in the year in February and March are are not sufficient as costs come in. So we have three areas that we are requesting a resolution for supplemental increases to appropriations and they total $185,000 and again this is meeting the Oregon local budget law ORS 294. Two changes are, the first one is $125,000 in county administration, and that's within our general fund. It's recognizing this increase to cover an operating expense related to professional services. Number two is not an increase to appropriations, but rather a transfer in our special grants fund, recognizing ARPA transfers, and this is where we recognize those revenues as they're being expensed, and then those related expenditures. And that total is $192,299. And then last, this is just to ensure that we don't go over appropriation, but we have a $60,000 increase in appropriations for the treasurer's office. However, that revenue will be offset with higher fees, charges and fees that they didn't anticipate that are covering any interest. So that is a net increase to the general fund. And so this total is $185,000 increase for your fund, thanks.

All right, any questions, colleagues? Not seen any then. You didn't have anything, did you, Ben? I guess you want a motion. All right. No, it sounds like if there's no objection, this is the same thing. We'll be advanced to Thursday, June 25th, for final approval. But thank you. So, Gary, what do you have next?

Thank you, Elizabeth. Next, Clackamas County Fair and Event Center update and request. Dan Johnson, Director of Transportation and Development, will present. And there's a memo in your packet. Go ahead, please, Dan.

It's clear that I need to walk faster if you're saying go ahead, Dan. Chair Roberts and commissioners, I'm here on behalf of the Clackamas County Fair and Events Center located in Canby. All of you are very familiar with it. In 2022, the Board of County Commissioners and the Fair Board enter into an agreement Kind of stipulating roles and responsibilities as it relates to these facilities. In short, and this is more for the public's benefit, the facilities are owned by the county, but the fair board has statutory authority to operate those facilities. The agreement also states the county may, at an absolute discretion, choose to invest funds above and beyond the fair fund in improving the event center. In 2023, the fair board entered into a contract for construction of a Clackamas County Fairgrounds multi-use building. This is about a 45,000 square foot building in size with about 38,000 square feet of divisible main hall to house a wide variety of events. WHILE THE FAIR BOARD HAS TAKEN AN ACTIVE ROLE IN SECURING FUNDING FOR THE STRUCTURE, THE COUNTY HAS PROVIDED FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE IN THE FORM OF ARPA FUNDING AND SECURING A LOW INTEREST LOAN ON THE FAIR BOARD'S BEHALF FROM BUSINESS OREGON. ALL OF THOSE WERE MEMORIALIZED IN INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENTS WITH THE FAIR BOARD TO DATE. As construction continues, there are several unanticipated circumstances have resulted in a need for additional funding. I should note completion of the facility is in the best interest of the county. To provide a usable facility to support the annual fair and rodeo, provide leasable space, provide long-term financial stability to the fair board, and an occupiable facility to address the county's various disaster management needs. If you recall, as a part of that intergovernmental agreement, the county was afforded access to that facility at any and all times when a disaster was in place and was needed. Staff have met with four fair board representatives, and limited funding options exist, but primarily they result in the need to secure a private loan on their behalf, or pardon me, for them to secure a private loan. In lieu of this private lending option, I'm here to assess whether or not the board has interest in a one-time loan of lottery funds from the Office of Economic Development. If the board has interest, staff would envision this loan would be up to, and I say up to because if you think about the funding structure they have, there's a necessity and a desire to make sure all the ARPA money is spent first. They have other funding sources that would be spent in front of this loan, and then this would be basically final gap financing for those areas that are above and beyond those funding sources. So up to $700,000, we'd do a below market rate loan, and it has to be a maximum term of 10 years. That's dictated by statute. Essentially, this would be a one-time loan with annual debt service. That debt service would be paid back to the Office of Economic Development, and we would operationalize those debt service payments back into programs we are currently funding. Those are programs that the board has authorized. For example, we've been doing the... business loan program that's out there. We've been doing the investment and partnership and the workforce development with Clackamas Community College. So those debt service dollars would go back into funding those continuing operations. There would be conditions. We've contemplated conditions to the lending. We still have to discuss with the fair board, but the conditions would essentially require that the county moves into a more of a project management role. And we had designated Clackamas County representative to take more of an active role in this construction activity. This role will include, but is not limited to project management coordination, review and approval authority for all proposed change orders and payment invoices. So essentially they would have more of authoritative And I should mention, there has been much improved communication between our facilities folks and the fair board staff in regards to these issues. And they've been collaborating pretty closely over the last couple months. And that's been a welcome improvement. With that, staff would respectfully recommend the Board authorize staff to develop amendments to the IGA, essentially discussing these terms with the Fair Board and if there's agreement moving forward for consideration at a future business meeting. I should say that while there are dollars within the Office of Economic Development, this amendment, should the Board wish to do it and should the Fair Board need it, to finish construction would require a supplemental budget that we would process later in the year once we've been assured they've used all the other funding sources. So that doesn't need to come in front of you today or before the adoption of this next budget, but we'd be done over the next year. With that, I'd be happy to answer your questions you might have.

Commissioner Schrader.

Yeah, Dan, there have been overruns with this particular project with the fair board. What happened with that? Just management?

I can't say that. I can say that there's been, from the information that we've seen, there have been change orders that have been Some for some delay claims that aren't entirely have anything to do with the management of the project. Right, yeah. Some is permitting through Canby, things like that. Pardon me, the city of Canby where the property is located. Second are material escalation.

Okay.

You're seeing some material escalation in some of their elements. I've been working closely with Steve Bloomer down at facilities. We've built a number of projects together. We're reviewing all those change orders now and having discussions around what is reasonable and what is not.

So our expertise is helping them complete this project at this point in time. We are taking a much more active role. They needed to have a little more... aid in that department. I guess my other question is they're going to have to pay back the loan. Are we assured that they have contingency set aside in order to do that?

Correct. Essentially, an amendment to the IGA would require, similar to the loan they've taken to date, would require that they have a certain amount of money retained within their transient lodging tax that gets transferred from the county. So at any given time, we would be assured that we would have sufficient money to cover all those debt service requirements. I have talked actively with Brian Crowe, the executive director down at the fair board, to get a better handle on the operational. Because that annual debt service, that payment is always of a concern. It's like, how much is it? With this facility operational, the ability to get lease revenue from it on top of all the other revenue resources they're looking for, for example, the board authorized the ability to issue naming rights for the facility. Those are all ways that he's actively looking to get revenue to support the operations down there. And those revenue streams would also help offset the impact of the debt service that we're discussing today. But according to Brian Crowe, the executive director, this additional debt service shouldn't have any impact on their ability to operate the fair.

Okay. And the responsible party is going to be the fair board itself. Correct. That's correct. So those volunteers would be... you know, that would be their responsibility to make sure that this is, that we're getting paid back and so on and so forth.

Yes, we are holding back. They are agreeing for us to hold back money that is usually distributed to them to make sure the debt service is covered. Okay.

Yeah. Third and final, I know the rodeo is separate from the fair, essentially, but they've also been having some economic difficulties. Have we heard anything about that?

I'm sorry, I missed the first part of that?

That the... The rodeo is separate from the fair, in a sense. They've got a rodeo board and a fair board. And I know, Commissioner Helm, I know you've been approached for dollars for the rodeo as well. And I don't think those two things are connected, but do we have any information?

Yeah, I can. Actually, I've been in discussions with, again, Brian Crow, the director down there, regarding that ask. He is looking at very creative ways to essentially engage the assistance of possibly the National Guard to assist in some of those projects. Apparently, they're looking for more opportunities to engage with the community. They've done similar projects, so he's looking to hopefully engage with them to deal with some of the demolition costs associated with The rodeo and the replacement of the bleachers in those areas. If you recall, they got, I think it was $700,000 from tourism to help fund that. But the bids were coming in higher for demolition and construction.

And the guard loves to demolish things. I know that. They told us that, actually. They did. They did. So it's going to be a good marriage. Okay.

We're going to get there, yes.

All right, that's all I have, too.

All right. Commissioner Hill, you had a question.

So, question, Dan. So, the facility is owned by the county. The Fair Board has statutory authority to operate the facility, okay? So... Another gift from... Is it typical for us to not be in a project management mode on a facility even though it's new going in? Is it typical for us? I just don't know what's happened in the past. It would seem to me, since it's our facility, it's going to be our facility, they're in charge of operating that facility. But to give them the project management Authority at the very beginning of this seems like a misstep on our part. I don't know that for a fact, but I'm just kind of questioning, and then I have one other question too.

It is uncommon for us to not take more of a management role in any construction activity, especially with an asset that we own. Okay. We did get direction from the prior board, especially the prior chair, and a desire for them being the fair board to have the contract directly with the contractor versus the county. And roles were fuzzy at best. And I can't speak for the past. I can only speak for the future. And the intent is to hopefully with these conditions and the partnership that we keep growing and the work that we keep doing is to ensure it moves forward to completion in an expedited and efficient manner.

Okay, cool. And then my second question is, considering we're stepping to this midstream, are we doing an audit or review of the money that's been spent already to make sure... that it is what they say it is, it is change orders, it is more in materials charges and everything?

Great question. Yes, we've actually been working more directly with the contractor itself. And we have a complete list of all the change orders, the requirements of the change orders, what facilitated the change order that we're reviewing right now. Some we're taking exception with and declining. We are also, as a part of this effort, one of the conditions will be that we have a comprehensive list of revenue outside of revenue that we control. So if you think about the revenue, it's like stacking capital for a project. There's different capital sources that are there. Some of those capital sources, for example, are donations from the Fair Foundation and things of that nature. So it's important to make sure there's a sequence of how those invoices are paid and what source they are paid from. We are all responsible for the ARPA money. So ARPA is priority number one for all of us. Second would be the discussion around like foundation money, things of that nature. Third would be the loan from Business Oregon. And the fourth would be this funding. Last but not least, to try to minimize it. And again, I don't think it's going to come in as high as $700,000. I just want to be clear. I just, one... I want a number that gets the project done, and two, is the maximum extent of liability and financial commitment to the project. All right.

Thank you.

Commissioner Salas. I think a lot has already been said. Yeah. I won't say I'm tired of this coming back, but we've been here several times and throwing money at this. And I just want to make sure that the project we get is a project we anticipated we would get.

It is, with this. And that's actually a great question as well. We had talked to them about a couple things. One, whenever you're in capital construction and your costs are escalating higher than the revenue you have, you have the value engineering exercise. There weren't a lot of opportunities there because they had been proactive and had bought things ahead of time to reduce the liability on some material escalation. So there weren't a lot of areas to kind of change or create value savings from the project. Second discussion was a more challenging one, which was impacts of scope reduction. So what if we stop the project here? What if we don't get it occupied? What if what does that look like? The long-term ramifications of that decision were too painful. Obviously, we want a building that you can occupy, that the community can use, that can be leased out. Those are all commitments that have been made under the ARPA commitment as well. And so there weren't a lot of options there to kind of scope reduce at this point. If you've been out there, they're vertical with steel, the roof's on. They're going to enclose this thing probably, if it's not already enclosed, I've been down there in a couple of weeks, but they're going to enclose this thing in a matter of days. And it's going to be all interior work. And when that interior work hits, that's when the invoices are going to start coming in pretty significantly. So the project that was proposed, this will finish it. And we will be done.

Okay. So just in review, this was a – that footprint was formerly the livestock building, which was torn down for – all kinds of reasons of being tired, rot, whatnot. This is going to be, this new building is going to be partially a livestock building interim as well as an event center, right? So the HVAC element and all those things are designed to work in both those environments and then have something that is Occupiable. Occupiable.

It's divisible as well. I believe it's divisible into three separate areas. And actually, I want to make sure I highlight one thing. We are under discussions right now. There is a peer grant they received, and a peer grant is to assist with improvements to buildings that assist with disaster management, things like that. And it's around the generator. And because we want to make sure the facility has a generator and is occupiable if the energy goes out. We had talked, and I've been talking with Steve, anyway, facilities about pulling that out and doing that separately. And so there's still discussions underway if that, there's funding for it already. Hang on, there's funding for it already. Make sure we're clear about that. through a separate grant but you may see an amendment to the contract that either one adds it into the inline contract or does a separate contract for it but there's funding available okay all right thank you yep

Just a quick comment, Dan. I think that I just want to extend a special thanks for you for really your role in stepping up. I know you've been briefing a lot of my colleagues here on kind of what's going on and just the oversight that you've done, solutions that you brought to the table, and really also paying, I think, attention to those change orders. As I know, they can get very expensive and add cost to a project that... are not anticipated. So I just think that a big shout out to you for all you've done on this. I had one question. When is the total completion date or approximate date?

Right now, I think they're estimating October of this year. It's got to be shut down a little bit for the fair as the fair goes on. They were hopeful they were going to get it constructed by then. That didn't materialize. We've got to get the building done by the end of the year for the ARPA funding. And so there is no discussion. It needs to get done. And that's the dialogue that Stephen's been working. Stephen and Brian Crowe have been working on with the contractor to make sure it gets completed in time.

Okay, thank you. All right, commissioners, is there a motion on this proposed loan?

I move to direct staff to develop an amendment to the current intergovernmental agreement for the terms of a loan in return for final board approval. SECOND.

COMMISSIONER SCHRADER HAS MOVED TO DIRECT STAFF TO DEVELOP AN AMENDMENT TO THE CURRENT INTERGOVERNMENTAL AGREEMENT FOR THE ITEMS OF A LOAN AND RETURN FOR FINAL BOARD APPROVAL. COMMISSIONER HELM WAS SECONDED THAT. ANY FURTHER DISCUSSION? SEEING NONE, CLERK, WILL YOU PLEASE CALL THE POLL?

COMMISSIONER SAVAS? AYE. COMMISSIONER SCHRADER?

AYE.

COMMISSIONER HELM?

AYE.

COMMISSIONER WEST? AYE. MR. CHAIR? AYE.

Thank you all so much.

All right. Thank you. Thank you again. And Gary, what do you have next? Thank you. Next is personnel ordinance removal from the county code. Presenting is Elizabeth, I'm sorry, Evelyn Minor Lawrence, Director of Human Resources, and Nina Smith, Compensation Manager. You've already talked about this before. This is an update in next steps. Go ahead, please. Evelyn and Nina.

Good morning, commissioners. Again, I'm Evelyn Minor Lawrence, HR Director, and I have with me Nina Smith, the Manager over Classification and Compensation Division. And we're here to ask your approval to move forward with the phase-out approach to remove the personnel ordinance from county code and to insert those regulations into our employee employment and practices policies. We have in your packet, you have an outline of the changes, but the two policies that we want to talk to you today about specifically are related to our pay practices and our classification practices. Both of these policies have already been approved by the county administrator and they have also been vetted with the unions as well So we are ready to move forward with your approval to implement those policies into our Employment practices and we're here to answer any questions that you have.

All right any questions colleagues? All right. Seeing none, if there's no objection, it looks like we're going to put this on a public hearing at a future business meeting, and I want to thank you both for coming today.

Thank you. Okay. All right. Gary, what do you have next? Easy. Great. Thank you. Next is best practice governance committee membership update. This is one of your strategic plans. I want to loop back to you on this. Nancy Bush, county operating officer, will present. Go ahead, please, Nancy.

Good morning commissioners. So this is, as Gary said, one of the strategic goals that you have. And this is for the best practice governance. And in the last meeting we had with you, which was in February, my apologies, I'm just not getting this in front of you. It fell off my radar. It's all on me. But anyway, just to kind of remind you as well as the public, you had us look at several things for best practices for government, which included full-time or part-time commission structure, elected or appointed chair, district-based or at large, partisan or nonpartisan, and term limits or other eligibility requirements. And as we went through the discussion, you asked that we do pull a committee together that would take a look at certain things, which I'll talk about in a moment, and determine if there should be any changes or just have that discussion. So we would like to pull together a committee. You wanted to know what members we were hoping to bring to the table. So you have there in your paperwork, we are suggesting that we have a community planning organization members some business representatives, potential government officials from neighboring counties, prior former elected officials in Clackamas County and for Clackamas cities, local government attorney and special district elected officials that are current or former. And the specific things you've been asking, you asked us to look at is not everything we looked at, but with the elected chair, the districts, and the bipartisan commission members. So today we're asking you to approve the membership of the committee.

All right. Go ahead, Commissioner Salvas.

Yeah, well, I don't have a portal with... makeup essentially I just want to make sure that that the folks that we bring on this committee are pretty well seasoned if you will right they they've been around a long time they've seen how things work they don't necessarily I don't think it necessarily has to have a clock of his County spin but I think people that are You know, I know, for example, I'll just use a name here, who I have a lot of respect for. Vern Duncan was on this committee way back, and he was one of the guys, as well as Ernie Platt, our former friend who's passed away. So we had some people that had a pretty good understanding and relationships working with government and the county and so forth. So I'm looking for... I'm just one of five here, but I'm looking for folks that have that deep experience, right? So I think that needs to be sought out or somehow making sure that we, again, bring folks that have a lot of experience and ideally without any bias, right? I don't know what my colleagues think about that. But one thing I have learned, and I guess it's perhaps the advantage of being an older person, an older guy who's been around, but I've been involved in county stuff since the 90s. And I've learned a lot, and I've seen how things work. And I think that has given me a huge advantage, and it's nice to be able to talk with people that also have that similar experience. I mean, not the same thing as county commissioners per se, but just having that relationship, understanding. And Commissioner Schrader and I have had a lot of conversations about should we or should we not be districts and the pros and cons of that, which I think it's still a difficult conversation because sometimes people become too provincial sometimes. when you have districts. And you have districts that may have more of a wealthy demographic than other districts. That's going to be the nature of it. So that's, I think, the pros and cons. But I think that's the kind of discussion I want to see these folks take on.

Commissioner Schrader again just some more institutional memory I was here when it was a three-member Commission and this was the move to make it a five-member Commission with an elected chair and I think it's it's worked, but I also remember and Commissioner Savas does as well that again We're supposed to we were supposed to take a look at it after a number of years to see how this is working and again Vern Duncan is still available. I don't know if he wants to volunteer for something like this again, but he has the institutional memory as well. I certainly do have my biases. I prefer to have this nonpartisan because I think it sets a better tone. The other piece of this that one of the reasons I haven't been as big a fan of districts is because we I like being Personally, I like being elected as someone who has to represent every portion of the county both rural urban and suburban because Having been in the legislature and having districts Sometimes with districts you set up dynamics of who gets what when where and how in a way that that you know does it make you look holistically at the entire county and the needs of all constituents in the county but i'd be really uh interested in seeing what a new fresh look would uh bring to us for this all right there's no other oh commissioner sap she had another question yeah i just just something occurred to me um what's the number of people on this committee

We're looking at no more than 10 to 11 The the the previous committee was also around that size. So we were trying to keep it around the same size Okay, I agree with that.

It needs to be bigger than five. I mean it should be around 910 910 is the number I was just throwing around as the right size Okay, well, thank you Right

Is there a motion for the proposed review committee membership categories?

I move to approve the review committee membership categories and return with specific names for final approval. Second.

All right, Commissioner Elm is moved to approve the review committee membership categories and return specific names for the final approval. Commissioner Schrader is second to that. Any further discussion?

seeing none clerk will you please call the poll Commissioner West aye Commissioner Schroeder aye Commissioner Savas aye Commissioner Helm aye Mr. Chair aye motion passes 5-0 Mr.

Chair thank you Gary what's next a quick question for you would you prefer we run this like a normal advisory board and put out public notice and let people apply by categories or rather we staff identify people to bring back to you go ahead

I don't know. Go ahead.

Yeah, well, what I... I think that I'll just take the appointment of Commissioner Helm in that process. And it's not the same thing, right? But the anguish that I have over broadcasting a wide net and then picking people is you make a few people happy and you make a whole bunch of other people unhappy. In the case of Commissioner appointing a vacancy, you make one person happy and a whole bunch of people unhappy. So the same thing. And I think if we're looking for specific types of people with that experience level who understand the workings of government, then I don't know how best to do that. How do we solicit that, right? And I guess that's really the question. But I think we need to be clear. This is my point of turning my light on here. I think we need to be clear that this is what we're looking for. as opposed to someone who doesn't meet any of these qualifications and then have them be upset with us, I guess. So I just want to make sure we're clear in what we're looking for as best as possible. Beyond this, this is not enough, I think, to just broadcast out Castanet tomorrow.

Commissioner Helm.

I have a differing opinion. And you're assuming I'm happy that I was picked, right? That was an assumption you made.

You applied. I'm kidding.

I'm kidding. I'm kidding, of course. I think handpicking people, I think that's problematic. I think that you then are showing bias already by choosing people versus doing a broadcast out there. I think everyone should be able to apply based on certain criteria. This is what we're looking for and stick to that model of, you know, you need to have this sort of background. But I think trying to handpick it, I think that would be a problem. When we're trying to get a really good, diverse set of views, and I don't know, that's just, but again, I don't know how the process would work for doing that.

Commissioner West.

I agree with Commissioner Elm, however, these are very specific people that have been listed here. You can put out for community planning organization members But you have to be a community planning organization member. Former elected Clackamas County Commissioners or Clackamas City Electeds. Well, that's a small pool. I don't know if you're going to... You know, you could just call a few of us. Local government attorney. I mean... Mr. Williams could jump in. But I think maybe there should be a position that's at large, so that one you could put out to everybody, and you could hybrid it. Do a hybrid a little bit, because some of these are very specific qualifications that have small pools where you could just reach out to a handful of people and be like, the board would like to know if you're interested to serve in this capacity, and then have a handful of people that are just at-large community members that are voters. Just have them be eligible voters in Clackamas County and then have them able to apply at large as a couple of the positions might be a good fit.

Right. Or you could just actually send a separate notification out to the CPOs, right? We're looking for a person, a separate one to, I just worry too that we, some of the same people are on the same committees over and over again, right? And I just, there's people out there that may be interested that have never had the opportunity. So I don't know. The charge is on you, Nancy, to figure out how to do this.

I would argue that there is a unique amount of history to this that's carrying over unfinished business. So you want to not overly dilute the original intent either.

Right.

So that's where there might be some hybrid approach, in my opinion.

Yeah, I just want to add I think that some I agree with Commissioner Helm Just thinking put it out because you just don't know I mean in your position a lot of people applied that I don't think any of us had any idea of until then was put out and I think that's that that's good and it shows the transparency on it and I also hear what Commissioner West is saying some of these are specific in nature I would anticipate that you're going to have to do a little work and reach out to some people maybe ask them to apply because they are so unique but I think I love the idea of really just putting it out there for everybody and let's see who applies and not everybody gets it. It's like, I hear what Commissioner Savas is saying, but I also agree that having the variety of the opportunity to apply is important. Go ahead. I want to hear from Schrader and then back to Savas.

I'm okay putting it out, generally. I know that... I have to be careful how I phrase this. With institutional memory, it was a bit more hand-picked the first go-round. And I think it would be wise to put it out there to the general public, but with a set of criteria, you know, saying, you know, have you... had any experience in local government, that kind of thing. So that's the question I have. Are you looking to come up with some kind of a description of

we're looking for in people who can. So that was going to be my question do you mind if I ask that now? No go ahead. So I mean what we can do like if you know you say yes we want these certain members like the CPOs and then back to what Commissioner West said it's like do we do a couple at large so we would I would say we would recruit within these areas okay and like I would work with Laura on the business representatives those types of things and then we could do one just MEMBERS AT LARGE. I WOULD THINK TWO.

IT WOULD BE GOOD TO HAVE fresh eyes, maybe something that's not on four other ABCs. Yeah. Okay.

So that's my thoughts, if that's where you're going. Go ahead, Commissioner Sells.

Yeah, when I dropped the name of Vern Duncan, one of the reasons I did that was because, actually, specifically, he's not listed here. I mean, not he himself, but he's actually a former state official. Right, it's awesome. You know a school superintendent and by these particular categories not specifically mentioned, but the advantage I think is that Having someone who is elected by a district in the state and the state You know state senator or the house you have that experience and that provincial experience not that it's good or bad You know, but I think That was a little bit too limiting. And my major point, again, as I said when I turned my light on, was criteria, just having that criteria listed. Obviously, we have to broadcast this out, so I'm not opposed to that. But I'd like to know what that criteria or experience with governments, plural, is really important.

All right. Is that helpful, Gary? Sure. It is for me, and I'm sure Nancy. Nancy and I will talk. We'll come up with a proposal, and we'll enact it and then bring it back to you.

All right. What do you have next, Gary?

All right. Thank you, Nancy. Thank you. Next, advisory board and commission appointments. Andrew, go ahead, please.

Mr. Chair, the first of three advisory bodies for the board's consideration is the Clackamas County Library Advisory Board, which is staffed by the Department of Transportation Development and currently has two openings. The Library Advisory Board would like to formally recommend the reappointment of two members. The recommendation is as follows. Evan Griffith to a second term ending June 30th, 2030. Nancy Eichstead to a second term ending June 30th, 2030. The Board of Commissioners could select other candidates or require further recruitment, Mr. Chair.

All right.

Thank you.

Is there a motion?

I move to appoint Evan Griffith and Nancy Eichstead to the Clackamas County Library Advisory Board. Second.

All right, Commissioner West has moved to appoint Evan Griffin and Nancy Eichstead to the Clackamas County Library Advisory Board. Commissioner Savas is second of that motion. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

Commissioner Schroeder.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner West. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair.

All right, clerk. It looks like we have a second advisory body we need to do.

Is that correct? Yes, Mr. Chair. The second advisory body is the Planning Commission, which is staffed by the Planning and Zoning Division and currently has two openings due to term expirations. Recruitment opened to the public in February of 2026 and closed in March. through the application process six applications were received and to a recommended for appointments the recommendations are as follows Gerald Murphy to a third term ending May of 2030 and Tyler King to a first term ending May of 2030 the Board of Commissioners could select other candidates or require further recruitment all right thank you sir motion I move to appoint Gerald Murphy and Tyler King to the Planning Commission second

Commissioner Helm has moved to appoint Gerald Murphy and Tyler King to the Planning Commission. Commissioner Schrader has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, do you please call the poll?

Commissioner West? Aye. Commissioner Schroeder?

Aye.

Commissioner Helm?

Aye.

Commissioner Savas? Aye. Mr. Chair? Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair. All right, looks like we have a third advisory body, is that correct? Yes, Mr. Chair. The last and final advisory body for consideration today is the Traffic Safety Commission, which is staffed by the Department of Transportation and Development. which currently has three openings due to resignations. Recruitment opened to the public in January of 2026 and closed in May of 2026. Through this process, 11 applications were received and three are recommended for appointment. The recommendation is as follows. Hannah Johnson for a first term ending December of 2030, Simon Hsu to a first term ending December of 2030, and Joseph Gartzka to a first term ending December of 2030. The Board of Commissioners could select other candidates or require further recruitment. Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Is there a motion?

I move to appoint Hannah Johnson, Simon Hsu, and Joseph Gartzka to the Traffic Safety Commission. Second.

Mr. Schrader is moved.

Commissioner Schrader has moved to appoint Hannah Johnson, Simon Hsu, and Joseph Karska to the Traffic Safety Commission. Commissioner Helm has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll? Commissioner Savness.

Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Schrader.

Aye.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, and Gary what do you have next thank you next is review of your board business meeting agenda for this Thursday June 25th 2026 at 10 a.m. This is your last business meeting of the fiscal year and because of that you have quite a lengthy consent agenda you also have a public hearing which is the second reading of the code amendment for short-term rentals and a resolution to adopt fees and fines related to short-term rentals and He'll also meet as North Clackamas Parks and Recreation District, Service District Number 5, Street Lighting, and Water Environment Services for a consent agenda for those agencies as well. If you have any questions on these items, please ask me and I'll answer it for you, or I'll have staff in the room to answer it for you on Thursday. The final item today for issues is Commissioner Communications.

All right. I turn to my colleagues.

I know we have

Turn that off. I know my colleagues and I have another event to be at. If anyone wanted to say anything or hold their comments for another time.

I'm fine to hold comments.

We've got plenty of time. Go ahead.

We've got plenty of time. Do we? We don't have to be there until 1130.

Well, then, okay. I'll say it might as well. I just wanted to mention that yesterday I had a meeting with Senator Neron and Representative Jules Walters. They have a child care caucus at the state level. And we talked about legislation and possibilities that we could work together on in the next long legislative session to increase childcare capacity, not only in our county, but looking at it statewide. One of the particular things I mentioned was that As we're building affordable housing and housing for folks in the community, one of the things, and we oftentimes co-locate services, and my question was, why aren't we co-locating child care facilities at the same time? And one of the issues is it's perceived as a commercial activity, and so it's subject to prevailing wage, which makes it more expensive in order to build that kind of facility. And also there's regulations about, you know, how many children, spatial things, small sinks and toilets, play areas, all those kinds of things that need to be addressed when you co-locate that. So I did float the idea of looking at that and seeing what the legislature can do to maybe even supplement so maybe they might be willing to you know, help fill that gap with prevailing wage to enable counties to co-locate. It's just a concept. I have no idea if it's going to go anywhere. But we did talk about that, and I have a whole other list of ways that I've been looking at to increase capacity based on what I know from the National Association of Counties. We also discussed that. So I think hopefully this long legislative session will have an opportunity to really lobby and see what we can do, because we are treating it like an economic development model and issue, because if people don't have childcare, they can't get to work, and it's good for our businesses to make sure that they have employees that can do that. Also, we've been working on the Siemens issue, that Siemens is in the process of closing down their childcare facility, But we've been working with them as well as with economic development and our social services folks to see what is the possibility of keeping that facility open, who would run it, how would it be run. And so both the center and the representative have been working with the parents who are affected by this at the Siemens facility as well. the county as well as our elected representatives are trying to get on top of this issue in the particular, and then looking at it globally to increase capacity. So that was a really interesting conversation, and I want to thank my colleagues for moving this forward as a... as an initiative that we see as necessary for folks in our county. The other thing I want to remind people is it's going to be very hot the next few days, so make sure you get hydrated, make sure that you know where cooling facilities are. Gary, I believe we probably have that on our website. Do we not? It's on the county website, yes. Yeah. So if you get too warm, you have a place to go. Be careful with your pets as well. Make sure they're hydrated inside and not going to suffer from the heat as well. So take a look at that to make sure that you're safe. And finally, I'd like to announce that this Saturday is is the opening of the Lakewood Arts Festival at George Rogers Park in Lake Oswego. I'm a big proponent of that. I'm on the board of Lakewood, so I basically volunteer for that every year, and I will be there on Saturday greeting people as they come into the facility, and then actually I believe that... Friday evening, there'll be an event at Lakewood where they will have all of the board and other folks in the community for their big reception at the Lakewood. So please join us there. The art is beautiful. It's a fun weekend. Hopefully, it'll cool down by then. And then later that day, I'm working with the Braver Angels group at the Letting Library in Milwaukee from 3 to 5. I've been working with them specifically because We're trying to work together as teams across party lines to decrease polarization and bring civic discourse back to how we do things here locally and certainly necessary at the national level as well. So that's all I have for today.

Okay. That was a lot. Thank you. Yeah, it was.

I know. That was a lot. Commissioner Savas. Yeah. First of all, I'd like to kind of mention this in passing, but maybe I'd be a little bit more deliberate in asking to see if one of my colleagues wants to join us. in helping maybe put together a work session on senior... I think it's senior, but a tax deferral. There's a tax deferral program that was implemented statewide, and one has to go to the tax assessor's office. And I don't think a lot of people know about that, and I think it'd be... Perfect timing frankly for us to get a briefing and or me a work session with our tax assessor and talk about that program so that people are aware of it and especially those are struggling if people know they can defer their taxes and Keep their home at the same time. I think that's a value. So I'd like to see us again Put that together In the in the near near term the other one too that I'm curious about I don't know how it came about but it was announced here last two months actually and not and more than once that both Washington County and Multnomah County Institute of burn bans and knowing how much fuel we have here in Clackamas County and our potential for for fires and knowing that that's just taking place everywhere and it's a very very dry year thus far I don't know if we work with Clackamas fire to see but if the county's that's how it was reported took the action I imagine they did that you know with collaboration with Clackamas fire so I'd like to get that looked into and see if we too can't message out there that people need to be careful about burning, outdoor burning particularly, so that we don't cause harm to anyone inadvertently. So that's pretty much what I have, Chair. I'm hoping those two can be there. Gary, do you need a second commissioner to endorse that?

I either need the chair to say right now, it sounds great, or I need two of you to tell me to do it.

I'm interested in that. Yeah, it sounds great.

Okay, I got both. Sounds great from the chair and two of you. So we'll add it to issues. I do know it's the Clackamas, the Fire Defense Board makes a recommendation to you. They've not done that yet, but we'll ask them on the burn. But it's your decision after their recommendation. And on the tax deferral, yes, we can have a briefing for you. We'll schedule both of these for July. Thank you.

If I could just add one thing I just want to just mention. It's another concern. I'm realizing that ODOT is short on staff, and they are really, really late on really mowing a lot of their properties. So even things like sparks from a passing vehicle or exhaust and the fact that there's that dry grass, and they're working on it, but they're understaffed. So my concern is that we can actually – we're more vulnerable because we have a lot of state highways that – go through our county. So I'm just concerned about that we have maybe higher exposure than normal.

Thank you. Commissioner West.

Nothing this week.

Mr. Hill.

Yeah, I'm already hearing fireworks. I know I'm in rural Clackamas County, but I'm already hearing fireworks go off, and it scares the bejesus out of me. So please, everyone, I appreciate that this is a really fun time of year, but the outcomes of not being careful are detrimental to our neighborhoods. Since the packet went out last week on NCPRD before our meeting that's coming up tomorrow, I don't know about you guys, but my phone was blowing up. So a lot of conversation about the information that's out there. It's complex. It's a little hard to understand. There's a lot of legalese in the IGA. So I'm just forewarning that, you know, this is a... step-by-step process we're going through and I just want to tell people that you know this packet of information is not for everyone to digest overnight and we're gonna be deciding on things tomorrow but I understand how complicated it is because I've been doing this for a year and it's still complicated to understand right so And then we're on our way to the OCBA business in the county here very shortly, which should be interesting. And then tomorrow I'm attending the Portland Metro Chamber annual meeting at the Moda Center. I'm very interested in the economics of Portland and how they affect the rest of the region. So that should be a very interesting event. And I will report back next week after. Nope, not next week. The week after. We go, no, I can report back on Thursday. There you go. Okay. It's like my brain is going to end of the week already.

So that's it, Chair. Great. I'd love to hear your feedback after you attend that meeting. Just a quick comment, and I just have to give a big shout-out to our tourism folks. and really the economic impact of tourism in Clackamas County and what a great job they do. Just to give you a few quick numbers, tourism continues to be one of Clackamas County's largest industries, generating more than $704 million in visitor spending. That was in 2025. And just a couple other notes, and their partnership with the Office of Economic Development to fund $1 million in tourism business grant program. They had $750,000 investment to replace the Clackamas County Fair and Events Center wood bleachers. They made contributions there. They also over $15 million in direct economic impact from geolocation tracked digital advertising. And really just a number of other things. to encourage you to visit Clackamas County. I want you to go to MountHoodTerritory.com and they have just a series of things that you can do in wonderful Clackamas County from Timberline to the Tula Festival to many other places in our County and the other great thing that Clackamas County is also known for my dad was actively involved in that is cycling in Clackamas County they also provide a bicycle map and the county of great routes for those that enjoy cycling so shout out to our fabulous tourism team and what they're doing to really help economically improve Clackamas County. So that is all I had to say. And according to Gary, this is going to conclude unless you had anything else. No. Our updates, we'll thank you for joining us. We're going to be back here at 1.30 this afternoon for a policy session. So with that, we're adjourned. Well, welcome back everyone to Administrative Issues and Updates on June 23rd, 2026. Gary, will you go ahead and do the roll call for us?

Yes, Chair. Thank you. Roll call. Commissioner Savas. Present. Commissioner Helm. Here. Commissioner Schrader. Here. Commissioner West. Here. Chair Roberts. Here.

All right, Gary, you want to introduce our first item for today?

Yes, we're actually now at policy sessions, and your first session is Performance Clackamas Strategic Goal Update on the Jail Goal. And presenting is Nancy Bush, County Operating Officer and Under Sheriff Lee Eby from the Sheriff's Office.

All right, good afternoon commissioners. I know we just had some conversations about this at lunch so kind of fitting So we wanted to talk to the board today about this particular goal, and how it's going we have met several times We have looked at a lot of old information that we have plans. I think which were done around 2017 and how things actually have changed very drastically even between that point when chair Roberts was The sheriff at the time and now but as we start looking forward and what the goal is asking for There's gonna we need to make some decisions on funding and what kind of funding we may or may not have have a conversation around do you want us to hold for a little bit and maybe Push this off for another year because this goal is supposed to end at the end of 28 So we have some time to do that if the board chooses to do that. I So there's a couple of issues that we really need to do in order to really get started strongly. And one of them is the NIC, which is the National Institute of Corrections, which would play a role in a new jail. They would be able to help us out Work with us one of the things that they do require is that we have a training session Which I believe is three days at least And the requirement would be that all County Commissioners would have to attend people like the under sheriff and I and the sheriff would have to attend County Administrator and facilities management folks and it would be the commitment that you would be there for all of the training in all three days because they put a lot of money and time into this as well the other one is after talking and having some input to from facilities management in order for us to start looking at any preliminary planning and what we would be doing it's estimated at this time that that would cost around five hundred thousand dollars to in order to get some of those things moving So that is, I don't know if you want to add anything to that.

No, I think the NIC, as we've talked about in our last kind of meeting, is they really do want a commitment. And that's why, because if we apply and we get accepted, they're going to put in experts, they're going to come here, they're going to do a lot of training. And so they really want a commitment that something's moving forward before they push that forward.

So we're here today to ask the board, do you want us to slow down a bit so we can have conversations later about where some of the funding may come from? Or do you want us to try to forge ahead? And that's kind of where we are with this particular goal.

right go ahead Commissioner Salas yeah I'm gonna take that question a little bit farther with regards to the question being measure our commitment to move forward right and I I'm not talking about the 500,000 as much as I am as how we create a pathway or foresee a pathway towards actually funding the court, not the courthouse, but the jail. So that's, I think that is the $64,000 question, so to speak. And part of me is asking the question, should I spend $500,000, but I don't have a path towards actually building a jail and the way of funding it, I'm throwing away $500,000. And I don't know if they're going to simply look at the $500,000 as a Or if they're to look at the whole broad picture, which I would assume they would look at the big picture How do you get there from here? Right? So I mean, I think that's the question I want to You know throw to my colleagues. How do we get there? I don't think it's a question of whether or whether or not we need it. We need the jail clearly. I think we do and But how we pay for it and what horizon that is, is that 10 years out? Is it five years out? And I know that we've got a 30-year baked forecast that's just coping with the courthouse and everything else. So even though we have debt that's being defeased and we have payments that are – that's baked into the – to that 30-year forecast to make the payments. So that's what I want to hear from you all, unless staff has the answer to that question. Nancy, looking at you.

We do not. That is why we're here today, too, because we need that clear path as well, because we do not want to spend $500,000... and have to do it again in three years. So I know you're getting to say that.

Yeah, and that's something we discussed was that, as you mentioned, Commissioner Savas, is that you spend it now and then what, right? And then also we have to spend it again in what, four years, five, right? And part of this may be another path would be to start using our resources to start looking at what does that path financially look like so we have maybe a little better... Observation of what it looks like in the future and then bringing the NIC once we have kind of a better plan You know obviously the NIC would come in and really talks about planning and jail and size and all these type of things I'm not sure how much they talk about funding So that may be something that we need to do on our part to look at before we start stepping into that realm just a quick follow I'm I I assume that

around the country that are other jails being built and perhaps a similar idea of how to design that, right? The pod module. And if we have a rough idea of what the range of how many beds we want to have, I'm sure we can look at a model and say, oh, it costs so-and-so or this state X amount of money to build this jail, right? So if we can establish what the current... costs are to build a jail that we kind of envision, then the question really is not whether you build a jail. It's just really how you fund it, again, getting back to that funding question. And I don't know what that number is, whether that's 300. I don't know if you've done that work. Is it 300?

We have looked at it. I've looked at it, looked at some of my co-workers across the country and talked to some of them. And it does range wildly. Really depending upon what you're building and how you're building it and the size of it and obviously each region of the United States the costs are different So we have to take that into effect But I would say as a general rule you're probably looking at that three hundred fifty thousand dollars at least I'm sorry, million probably area based on the size that we would need here. But again, we wouldn't really know until we really start diving in and start really going to other places and seeing, okay, we don't need that. We do need this. What was that cost? And then we have to kind of determine what it would look like in our region because costs are different in the Northwest as opposed to maybe, you know, Louisiana or some other places. But I think as a general rule, that's it. And there's other agencies, even here in Oregon, that are starting to look also that we might be able to piggyback on some of their work to kind of see what that looks like, too. Okay. Thank you. Chair, yield back.

Commissioner Helm.

I think there's no doubt with any of us that we need a new jail. That is. But it's, I have trouble, and I'll use this. what's been called the CRC the Columbia River crossing or which is now called the IBR the interstate bridge replacement 27 years That they have been spending money on design on new design after new design And it's still not off the ground. Although Believe it or not. It's actually scheduled to start here in the next year. So They never put funding in place So they had to keep going back and doing new designs. So I'm worried about the funding. I mean, in light of the levy, especially. I mean, to talk about a new jail now is when we might not be able to have people put away, right? It's like I have trouble with that. I would like to know a path for the funding because... although we did it with the recovery center, you've made a policy to do that without funding in place, and somehow the money came around eventually, right? We're talking about wildly different numbers, 44 million versus 350 million. So I don't know what the path is for that, but I would have problems spending half a million dollars on design at this point.

Martha?

Yeah, I would agree with that as well. I almost think we need to look at the mid-sized counties, what Paul had suggested, across the country and see what they're doing and get a sense of comparables in the area. And do we have to do a full-blown design, or should we start looking right now at mechanisms for funding it? And that would mean... Talking to the communities, maybe some polling. I mean, I don't know if we could do another P3. That seems to be somewhat controversial, but what would it take to get a bond going? And again, how is that going to affect us? because we do have these payments we have to make every year for the courthouse. But I'm concerned that we've been talking about this since 2003, and it was even being talked about when you were first sheriff, when you first came on board, Craig. So it's kind of like we keep kicking this can down the road, and it's getting... I kind of feel about the jail the way I felt about the old courthouse downtown. I mean, it's at the point where, you know... And not just safe for inmates, but I think for our deputies, I guess, as well. So I don't know if we can do more research on that, Gary, or get a sense of where people would be on that to try and set the stage.

I think we have done research on the other jails. There's not a lot of new jails, if I recall, being built right now. Really? But we have done research on the ones that are being done. And that's where you're getting the $340 million? Yeah, the $350 million.

Yeah, that's what we've seen some of the national ones built on a comparable size. But again, you know, we'd have to go look at those and see what kind of design. There may be stuff that we wouldn't do. Maybe there's stuff that we would do, and that would obviously affect the price itself. Some of the other counties in Oregon are looking. Even some of our neighbors have been looking, but nobody has started going forward with anything yet. Again, cost is one of the reasons.

Is that Washington County?

Both Washington and Multnomah County have been in discussions looking at replacements for their main jails. But it's in the early stages with both of those counties.

It might be a good idea to talk to them too and see what they're coming up to. You have been.

I have talked to them, but they're all very early stages.

Commissioner West. It's a really hard conversation to have on the backdrop of a failed levy in which the voters voted no, which would cost a significant amount of just deputies to man jail beds. And then the next bill, on top of just maintaining the current law enforcement services that have been accustomed to Clackamas County, is a half a million dollar ask just to do the planning, which will be for a project more expensive than that courthouse that we just did, or around the same price. And that was... It took an old courthouse falling into the river and some political will, whether people agree with it or not, to get that done. And it would definitely have to be a bond or it would have to be some additional funding given by taxpayers in a climate where this might be one of the most difficult times to get that done since the 2008 era during that financial crisis. have a hard time getting there though it's a need and a necessity unless there's some grant funding or some special funding that will help fund the planning of it I think that the future jail system should look also much more like a hospital system in many capacities that's treatment focused along with that correctional piece and how do you blend those two things together so I don't think Corrections alone should be looking to have to bear the financial burden of a new jail I think that health departments and state agencies and legislatures are going to have to pitch in at this big of a ticket or an item. I don't know how we get there. I don't know the pathway. So, yeah, I share my colleagues' concerns on this.

guess I'm the one that got a little bit different view and probably just a little bit because of some of my experience and I am more inclined to move ahead and the reason is because it takes so incredibly long. I mean this process even is literally gonna take years and to try and get this thing moving. I believe there should be a separate path work group to look at funding options. And I think that the reason I encourage us to kind of move forward on this is, I'll give you an example. The part of the intake center over here in our old jail I ended up getting money from juvenile to do that and that was a grant. The courthouse on the entryway to the courthouse that was a grant. Part of that was grand. Part of it was also the courthouse fund that went towards that one. So the courthouse does have a set of funds that could be used. It's not going to cover the whole thing. I can tell you when we did this way back when, it was $80 million to build the jail, and the board made the decision to move forward on it. at that time, which Martha remembers. And so the other issue to point at hand is that we stand the potential risk for litigation just because of how old the jail it is. And it has just got challenge after challenge after challenge. And we can continue to dump money into it on facility upgrades and plumbing. And the one thing that I think is, first of all, I think the world of NIC, National Institute of Corrections. I've been to training there myself. They really talk about, you can also learn about other funding strategies that they've done around the country. And the other issue too is perhaps phasing this jail. And one of the issues that the jail is currently limited on is because of the kitchen. It's kind of in that center hub and that was constantly kind of a challenge. And way back when I asked, could we add a pod? Could we start doing a pod? And part of that issue was the crick. I don't really want to call it a crick. It's more of a ditch. And we really had to, at that time, had to kind of build on the other side of it is my understanding. So I do think, you know, I guess I'm being optimistic. I realize right now it's a horrible economic time. And at this point in time, no, I would say, you know, we're not going to go to the voters on this. But at some point in time, you have to come before us. If funding opportunities come up, you know, they want to know how far down the road are you? Do you have—have you done a lot of this legwork? So back then we hired Harry Munyon, TRG Consulting, and I know we paid him a chunk of money. And it was also, I think he was through the NIC as well, but he figured out the population study, kind of design, and I'm sure some of that could be upgraded and made more current. And I just think that literally, I mean, we're talking years to get this thing going. And I would encourage like, hey, we form another separate group that is more responsible for looking, hey, what are some of the funding options? And then when we have all this information and training that's put on, the question I'd be asking these consultants is hey can we phase this and then if we get some funding or we come up with some other ways to fund it we can make it happen we also recognize the enhanced law enforcement district is failing it's not keeping up And we've, through council, has brought in a special district attorney that has really educated us about what options we have and how can we move forward. So we're really spending a lot of money on council getting legal advice. At the very same time, we could be opening the discussion about, okay, what would be an option of funding this? But I think...

I look at it as a little bit two separate things one of which is making this decision the separate one should be also be looking at kind of that funding strategy is also Commissioner helm, you know, so I guess my question is And I know I've talked to both you and and Sheriff Brandenburg about this about we don't need to reinvent the wheel Kaiser Permanente Went to California or somewhere and they saw a hospital they wanted just like they could take that and just plop it right here. They didn't have to design anything new, right? They saved themselves millions and millions of dollars. Now, you start talking about the inside and what you want different and how you rearrange things. But there's probably ways to, I would think, save a lot of money if you're talking about design from the ground up. We want to build it. It's custom. That always costs way more than just taking an existing home plan or a building plan and using that. I don't know what the difference would be in that.

Well, it's one of the things I think we talked about originally was trying to, you know, whether or not the board would like to give funding for exactly that, which would be to go around to some of the best practice jails around the country, look at them, get the information, the idea, get it back to try to incorporate that into something potentially under the notion of maybe, you know, say, oh, this would work perfect here. Or we might get somewhere and look and go, that won't work here.

Right.

And again, I think that also kind of scales that number of how much will it cost. We won't really know until we really get into it and say, this is the building, these are how many beds, and then we'd get into it better. It may be a lot lower. I don't see it being $80 million like it was a few years ago, but we may be able to get it at a lower cost depending upon what we find out there. But we would have to invest to go out there and do that.

to kind of follow up on your comment I think which is really good point is things construction has changed so much right and as you just pointed out Kaiser is having their basically their pods built off-site and then they're just bringing them in and who knows you know maybe that's a possibility now or I don't know but I mean those are the some of the things that have changed dramatically and looking at other cost savings Commissioner Savas you had a comment

Yeah, well, I think what I wanted to hear from you all, I guess I just did. And so my response is, you know, I'm an optimist, but I'm also you don't have to be a realist at the same time, and striking that balance. So to me, I don't disagree. I think you all raised some great points. You know, if we took a design that was already done, we don't have to spend millions for design work if we were to copy something and just build it. I'd certainly like to know, to Chair Roberts' point, if there's a model out there that successfully phased something, then maybe that too is an option. So All that said, I'm still back on the track I was thinking of earlier. You know, whether it's $250 million or $300 million or $350 million, to me it's not about the jail. It's about how we actually fund that lump, the pathway to fund that. And I don't know if our... partners in this region and I say partners I' m talking about cities as well as the DA and all the folks in public safety realize that the Clackamas County tax base, the $2.42 if you're a city and the $2.97 if you're unincorporated, what that currently is paying for, right? It's capped and costs are going up everywhere. And I was a little bit disheartened to hear, you know, that one of the mayors thought that, you know, What are they getting out of the levy? And my response back, I shared with Chair Roberts was, well, geez, the cost of doing business, the courthouse alone is something that they're insulated from. There's no direct connection, anything ongoing that pays for that. So the cost of a jail is incredible. The staffing, everything's risen, but our tax base has stayed here. So at the end of the day, I think that we are in the process of trying to get the levy back on track and trying to get that work being done. And I floated this idea, too, to Chair Roberts on the same morning was that, you know, what if we asked the cities to be involved in a study just to talk about the cost of public safety, right, to make it aware, not only educate ourselves, not only to educate the cities, but also to educate our public on what is that cost today and how do we recalibrate? I'm not saying raise taxes, but if there is an ask, how would we do that in a way? And I would look towards, look at the college or the fire districts and the school districts who make big, huge bonds, right? And I know that They're a big chunk of our property tax statement, right? But I would like to see some funding models of how we, not about a jail per se, but literally how we actually fund a $250, $300, $350 million project and over what period of time, 30 years or whatnot. I had my ideas when it came to the courthouse and it looks like a similar cost. about, right, Gary, looking at Gary, the cost to build the courthouse, the cost to build the jail is about the same, and using the P3 model, that's $15 million a year, and accelerating, going up, actually, more like 17 and up. I just felt that if there was a way to generate or prove to the public that it would be cheaper to do a bond, to float a bond, than it would have been a P3. And people saw that delta, and the impacts, that perhaps it would have been a better message. But how we, again, capture all that, capture that reality, and then see if there's an appetite. But we gotta have our cities on board. We need to recover from this mess with the levy. and so on and I think maybe we can pull some of those resources together to get a taste of how do we fund a project of that size that dollar amount yeah, they just probably want to comment I think coming back that I

I would have never dreamed that the county could afford a courthouse at $17 million a year payment, right? And I hope that that isn't going to deter us for the next 30 years of not moving forward with the jail. And I think it's going to take some creative thinking. Work and financing and looking at what those options are even if we're kind of starting in some sort of phased approach I have talked to the chair of Washington County. She made it sound like they were expanding jails in Washington County And anyway, I mean so I mean their jail is like years ahead of us and they're looking to another jail and so I think that There's no two ways about it. It's a financial challenge, and I think we're going to have to... It's not going to happen overnight. It's going to take a lot of hard work. And to me, one of the first steps in it is educating this group up here as to what's going on nationally, what other things have they learned. And just to tell you, the National Institute of Corrections is in Longmont, Colorado, and I went there for four weeks on one particular training that they had, and they bring people from all over the United States, and then they find these experts that are really... I mean, I was impressed, and hopefully as a part of that, we might even find, hey, some different creative funding options, right? But I think it's a lot of kind of... head to the grindstone, work hard, and let's see what we can kind of come up with and kind of keep this ball moving is where I'd kind of want us to keep moving. As if not, and the other thing that when we talk about financial, my suggestion was Just like I would do at home, start a savings account. And we started a savings account. We had $10 million in it set aside for a jail. And unfortunately, it was moved somewhere else. But the financial plan should be, OK, well, we're going to move forward with the jail. We're going to make a commitment right now. so much a year and by such and such a year we'll have this much and at that time we might ask the voters for some support we are saying we're coming up with this amount of money but if we don't ever start that planning it never happens and so that's where I would just encourage us to kind of keep moving ahead I know it looks like an unbearable challenge particularly now in this economic time but I would really like to see us move forward if at all possible Go ahead, Martha. I won't make you turn the light on.

Well, I'm just going to ask Gary then. This is not in our overall financial plan at this point.

Is it we've not forecasted for the construction of a jail? Okay, but we know that it needs to occur So I'm gonna help wrap this up for you. So there's two paths here I'm hearing one is a analysis of how would you eventually ask you the voters or internally how to pay for it? That's not the purpose of this group. They're only focused on the design phase We actually had phased out your strategic plan This was kind of phase one but we can form a second group to study that now to advise you and we have a lot of people who are interested in what the public is looking for so we will work on that the choices are quite simple you have four or five choices the question is what your appetite is and what the public's appetite we can put those options together for you as far as what staff is asking for you today you can either wait until we come back to you on those options which should not take very long a month maybe or you can give direction if you want to move forward on a parallel path for the

Well, I would prefer that we defer this aspect of it and work on the financial path, and hopefully that's a lot less money than $500,000. I just don't want to see $500,000 go down the drain. I think that's – we just can't afford – I think we would lose – support from our constituency if ultimately two or three years from now that $500,000 didn't generate what we thought it would. I have no doubt about the integrity of the organization and everything else, but I think it's our responsibility to have a path to funding the project somehow. And I think that's the information I would need first to support. So what do you need from us, Gary, to make this?

I think it's basically just what he said. Either we make a decision to move ahead or not. So I hear where you're at, kind of where you lean in, Commissioner Helm.

So I was just going to make the motion to I move to instruct the implementation team to slow the process for six to eight months to work on other strategic priorities or other funding sources.

I guess I would add to the motion and come back on a options for financing the construction of a future show.

Second.

Okay. So if I get this correct, Commissioner Helm has moved to instruct the implementation team to slow the process for six to eight months to work on a, not really, on the financing plan and options. Working on funding options.

Funding options. Funding the construction of the new jail. Yes. Okay. Okay.

And it is, so again, Commissioner Helms moved to instruct the implementation team to slow the process for six to eight months to work on a funding plan and come back with different financial options. Been seconded by Commissioner Salvas. Any further discussion?

So where would that put us six to eight months from now? I guess I should count ahead eight months. In other words, when will we, what timeline will we use? Early 2027. Early 2027, okay.

Later on February, March.

Okay.

Or sooner, or sooner. It could be sooner than that.

Perhaps move that sooner? Yes. Okay. Even though it's listed as that, could we have that come back sooner?

Yes, we can.

Okay.

Before the end of this calendar year.

How's that? Okay, that would be?

Six months or less. Okay. After the levy passes. Please don't add that because you haven't decided yet when you're going to the voters on that This is a good. This is a good discussion to have in tandem with that too Okay, absolutely all right.

I think we're ready Andrew Commissioner West I Commissioner Schrader

Aye.

Commissioner Savas? Aye. Commissioner Helm?

Aye.

Mr. Chairman? Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chairman. All right. Well, thank you, everybody who came today. Thank you. Appreciate it.

Yeah.

Keep up the good job there.

Gary, what do we have next? Okay, thank you. Next is Clackamas Workforce Partnership Infrastructure Funding Agreement and Budget Update. Presenting is Laura Edmonds, Economic Development Manager here at the county, along with Brent Balog, who is Executive Director of Clackamas Workforce Partnership, and Amy Freud, who's the Board Chair of Clackamas Workforce Partnership. Welcome all, and go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Chair, Commissioners.

Good afternoon, Chair, Commissioners. Pleasure to be before you, Laura Edmonds with the Office of Economic Development. And before Brent, our guest Brent and Amy present, I just wanted to give you some really brief highlights of why we're here today. So we've come before you today requesting the board acceptance of the fiscal year 26-27 Clackamas Workforce Partnership budget. and authorization for Chair Roberts as chief elected official to sign the infrastructure funding agreement relating to the WorkSource Clackamas office in Oregon City. So as you know, Clackamas Workforce Partnership is our local workforce board, and... They are allocated Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act money, which is referred to as WIOA. That helps local civic business and workforce development leaders develop strategies leveraging the funding for resources to prepare a skilled workforce. So he's going to cover some of what's in the staff report, so I'm not going to dive too deeply into this. But what I want to explain specifically is there's usually two packets that will be in tandem in the consent agenda for July 9th. What we do is we coordinate this with both The Board of Commissioners and the Housing Authority of Clackamas County, both signatures by the Chair as the Chief Elected Officer will be required on both IFAs because of the tandem partnership along with HACC, the Housing Authority of Clackamas County. So with that said, today the staff request is is pretty much respectfully requesting that you support option one in your packet to accept the Clackamas Workforce Partnership budget, and again authorizing Chair Roberts to sign the infrastructure funding agreements as both the chief elected official and the housing authority of Clackamas County HACC board chair on a future business meeting, which again is July 9th. Okay, I'm going to pass it to Brent, trying to consolidate this to speed it up, Gary.

Excellent. Thank you, Laura. Good afternoon, Chair Roberts, commissioners. I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today. Hope you all have been staying cool. As a reminder, my name is Brent Balog, Interim Executive Director of Clackamas Workforce Partnership, or CWP, and I'm joined today by our incoming board chair, who I will invite to introduce herself.

Hello, board. My name is Amy Freud, and I am the branch manager at Citizens Bank and the incoming board chair for Clackamas Workforce Partnership. It's a pleasure to meet you all today.

Thank you, Amy. Quick shout out to Laura and the folks at Economic Development for helping arrange this afternoon. And just to verify, who is my slide clicker? Perfect. You can go ahead and go to the next slide, please. So as Laura mentioned, I'm here today to present and ask approval of our budget for program year 2026, as well as the infrastructure funding agreement for WorkSource Clackamas, which is our local employment and training resource center or one stop. Unfortunately, due to the complexity of workforce boards and the public workforce system, I am going to provide a little bit of a history lesson. So you all have some additional context around these requests. As Laura mentioned, the Workforce Innovation Opportunity Act is the federal law that's administered by the Department of Labor that governs local workforce boards and essentially serves as a central framework for the public workforce system. It provides alignment among some existing employment, education, and human services laws and policies. It also creates alignment and unified planning among local, state, and federal entities. One I will acknowledge real quick is in addition to the Department of Labor, the Higher Education Coordinating Commission is the state entity that serves as an intermediary between us and the Department of Labor in regards to WIOA funding. Can you, I love some animations and fly in. So as I mentioned, in addition to creating alignment and unified planning between local, state, and federal stakeholders, WIOA also requires that each state have a coordinated system of services that serves both employers and job seekers. So in Oregon, that is known as WorkSource Oregon. Some services available to individuals include job training, employment support services, as well as other supports to allow for career and wage advancement. Employers are assisted through recruitment and retention services, layoff and closure prevention, as well as business operations consulting. Thank you. There are a couple core components about WIOA that I'll touch on specifically today. One, of course, is local workforce boards, whose role is to oversee WIOA investments, compliance, and the delivery of services within the designated workforce region. And the other one is the WIOA One Stop, which is an employment and job training resource center that serves individuals and employers. So Clackamas Workforce Partnership is the designated WIOA Workforce Board serving Clackamas County, and we've acted in this capacity since 2001, and our local WIOA one-stop is WorkSource Clackamas. You can go ahead and click through all those animations. Thank you. And one more. Perfect. Thank you. So CWP is one of nine nonprofit workforce boards serving the state of Oregon. So we are designated as the workforce board for Clackamas County by what we call the Chief Local Elected Official, or CLEO, which is the chair of the Board of County Commissioners. So currently, Craig Roberts. And I just wanted to emphasize briefly that we, there is myself as well as staff members at CWP who administer and implement WIOA services. But the local workforce board also refers to our board of directors, which is a volunteer group of 51% private sector representatives. And this is to ensure that our work is informed and led by employer and industry voice and that funds are used to meet local workforce and industry need. Additional board membership is comprised of trades and labor representatives, as well as representatives from K-12, economic development, social service providers, state agencies, as well as local government. Commissioner Martha Schrader serves on behalf of the Board of County Commissioners as our ex officio, Cleo. A quick note, in addition to Amy, our other incoming board officers who will assume their roles come July 1st include Ivy Koch of QB Fabrication and Welding, who will be our vice chair, and Michelle LaCroix will serve as our secretary and treasurer, and she is with Rose Villa Senior Living. So quickly, I'm just going to summarize some of our core functions. What you might see before you is kind of a bunch of mumbo jumbo, so I'm going to avoid some of the industry-specific terms. Essentially, CWP's role as a local workforce board is to ensure compliance with not only WIOA, but any other relevant federal, state, or local laws or policies governing workforce investments. We also, we are not a direct service provider. We develop contracts and fund community-based organizations and education and training providers who then work directly with members of the public, including employers and industry representatives. And we assist them by providing oversight to ensure that they're meeting deliverables as well as technical assistance and professional development if that is needed or requested. We also support aligned approaches to service delivery among both the service providers that we fund as well as other providers who operate as part of our local WIOA One Stop. So as you can imagine and we'll see momentarily, multiple organizations, some local, some state level, a lot of different budgets, their own internal policies, opportunities to participate in training and professional development. Our role is to kind of come in and provide some of that information. SHARED TRAINING, ALIGNMENT AND DEVELOPMENT OF A COMMON VISION FOR HOW TO SERVE THE COMMUNITY. LAST FEW THINGS I'LL MENTION ABOUT THE ROLE OF WORKFORCE BOARDS. ONE OF OUR KEY FUNCTIONS IS TO FACILITATE COLLABORATIVE PRIVATE PUBLIC SECTOR PARTNERSHIPS WHICH INCLUDE INDUSTRY REPRESENTATIVES AND EMPLOYERS AS WELL AS K-12 AND EDUCATION PROVIDERS, SOCIAL SERVICE PROVIDERS, SOME OF THE OTHER FOLKS I MENTIONED WHO ARE REPRESENTED ON OUR BOARD. And can you click that one more time? Perfect. So as I mentioned before, local WIOA One Stop is referred to as WorkSource Clackamas. And this is a variety of organizations, some funded through CWP and others not, who work together under a single roof to provide coordinated services to individuals and employers. So I just wanted to make a quick note. Some of the service providers that CWP currently funds who operate as part of WorkSource include Clackamas Community College's Workforce Development Services Department, CTEC Youth Services, which is a part of the Education Service District, the Immigrant Refugee Community Organization, Children, Family, and Community Connections, who I should note, they are present at WorkSource. We do not fund them to be there. We fund them to participate in our expungement clinics. And then lastly, Northwest Family Services, Ant Farm Youth Services, and Todos Santos. Additional work source partners you'll see before you include primarily state agencies as well as some other local entities. Next slide, please. Thank you. In addition to the budget and IFA, I did want to do some quick program highlights and look forward to sharing this in more detail with you all when our annual report comes out at the end of the summer. But just wanted to make a quick note about our adult and dislocated worker services. So in program year 2025, we served 600 adults ages 18 and over through job training and employment support services. And we actually are proud to say through quarters one through four, which is not reflected on this PowerPoint, We were the number one overall statewide for WIOA performance for adult and dislocated worker services. Additionally, 347 adult community members received no-cost legal record expungements through our Clean Slate Clackamas Expungement Clinic, and that extends beyond legal record expungements to include eviction expungements, help reinstate in government-issued IDs, and other services including connections to employment supports. For youth services, we served 376 youth ages 16 to 24, primarily out of school, but that does include in-school youth who received employment support services and education and training-related supports. Can you click? Thank you. A couple more times. We also, in this program year, served 378 businesses and employers where we engaged with that many. Employer engagement can look a variety of ways, but some things that I'll note, and again, more information in our annual report, we provide a rapid response and layoff related services to the Oregon City School District, as well as the Canby School District recently, Intel, and... sorry, the third, the other one I wanted to highlight slipped my mind, but I'm sure it will come back to me soon. And the last thing I wanted to share about some program highlights was our community resource hub. So this was, these are flexible use dollars provided through the American Rescue Plan Act. And the concept behind this was to provide assistance to individuals so that they could enter into remain in and successfully complete a job training or employment support program, or enter into remain in or advance in employment. So we provided assistance to Clackamas County residents related to housing security and homelessness prevention, transportation assistance, personal technology, education, job training, and employment readiness assistance, as well as utility assistance. And these are all, again, to help people enter into, remain, successfully complete a job training program, or to remain or advance in their employment.

Next slide, please.

Which brings me to the budget. So a couple quick notes before we dive in. I did want to highlight for you all that this budget, our budget each year has multi-year grants. So some of them will begin one program year, but they extend it to one or more. WIOA is also something you'll hear a bit more about over the next few minutes, WIOA funding specifically. That is only a portion of our budget. It fluctuates from year to year, usually about 30% to 50%. So I just want to note that we do have other revenue streams outside of WIOA. And the last thing I wanted to mention regarding the budget is You know, I'll find that one in a moment. I'm just going to dive in. You may have noticed. Oh, perfect. You may have noticed a decrease in our budget from the previous two program years. And I just wanted to note that that is due to the ending of one time funding that was provided through the American Rescue Plan Act. Prosperity 10,000, Workforce Benefits Navigator or Future Ready Oregon might be terms you're familiar with. These funds sunset entirely at the end of this month. So we will not be seeing those renewed in future budget years or fiscal years. I also wanted to make a note that this budget before you was approved by our executive committee in May and then voted on and approved by the full board in June. However, this was prior to our WIOA allocations being given to us. We did find out after the May approval that the state of Oregon received a 17% increase in WIOA allocations. So that's statewide and does not necessarily translate to anything specific. for individual regions. After this budget was approved we did receive from the Higher Education Coordinating Commission our individual regions allocation and we actually did get about a $200,000 increase in WIOA funding. So that would put us for adult services about $450,000 for dislocated worker services about $500,000 and for youth services, about $450,000. Again, those are all specific to WIOA and do not reflect additional funding streams that can serve both adults and youth. Did you do? So I think the last thing I wanted to highlight regarding the budget before jumping into the IFA is although the budget has increased from the one that has been presented before you, funding allocations have remained the same. So 70% of our funds will go out to community-based organizations. including those service providers I mentioned earlier. And then the remaining costs cover CWP administrative and operations, which has decreased from the previous program year by about $100,000 due to some internal changes and staffing reductions. move on to the IFA, please. Oh, perfect. This is going to be familiar to a few of you, but the infrastructure funding agreement is a federally mandated component of WIOA and essentially determines the cost-sharing allocations for all one-stop partners. This is based on who is present in the center and their use of the space in that facility. It also reflects the size of the facility. So for us locally, about each of our partners pays $200 a little more annually. to help cover the cost of work source Clackamas operations. And that speaks to things like internet, phone lines, shared or communal resources within the facility. And I did want to note that Clackamas County does not pay into the infrastructure funding agreement. The reason why the CLEO or the chair of the county commissioners is a required signer is because the CLEO designates us as the local workforce board serving the region. and also designates us as the direct recipient of those WIOA funds for oversight and implementation. So the signature of the CLEO is required to ensure WIOA compliance and validate this agreement after all their other partners have signed. And then I will mention briefly that we do meet annually with Elizabeth Comfort to do a fiscal audit and ensure that funds are being used appropriately and that there are mechanisms and fail safes in place to prevent any misuse of funds. And I believe the board receives that report each year afterwards. So essentially the IFA identifies who's on the hook to pay what for the cost sharing with the WorkSource Center. It helps prevent conflicts of interest and operational overspending by one partner so others are not affected. And that's essentially the general summary of it. So we come before you today to ask for your approval of both the budget and the IFA. Okay. to answer any questions and of course if I cannot in the moment we'll work with the CWP team to follow up with you all.

All right thank you Commissioner Schrader has a call.

Yeah Brent I just wanted an update I know at one point we had talked about combining other with other workforce boards where are we in that process or is that given the fact that we owe a dollars came through on the not on the table anymore?

I would say the conversation is still continuing with fluctuations and what we were expecting from federal WIOA allocations and some federal and state policy. There has been a pause in that. Additionally, the neighboring workforce board work systems has gotten a new executive director. And in conversation with her, we agreed that having some time for her to acclimate to her new role, as well as our three incoming board chairs to acclimate to theirs or board officers to Acclimate to theirs that we would pause and then revisit at the end of the summer.

Okay So that's still a process we're looking at because we and I think Lane County to the Standalone workforce boards in the state. Am I correct with that?

We're the two single County workforce boards in the state, right?

So that's that's an interesting piece. The other question I had is I know you mentioned the Higher Education Coordinating Commission. I I was under the impression that the governor had moved some of those functions to the employment department. Could you discuss that or where is that in the process?

I can discuss that. I should note I was asked not to mention it when presenting to a Senate subcommittee last week. I will share what I know I can share. Essentially, certain aspects of HECS function as it relates to WIOA oversight allocations will move to the employment department. That does include adult and dislocated worker funds. Youth is still kind of in limbo as far as who manages that. And we did expect a July 1st. deadline for that transition to take place. However, we've been informed recently that that is a soft deadline, so summer or fall 2026. But over the next few years, there will be certain things that the HEC remains kind of on point for. One of them would be like our funding distributions. And that is just because the employment department needs to develop some of those internal mechanisms themselves within their agency to be able to do some of those distributions and reporting processes.

So basically you'll be working with two state agencies at this point.

Yes.

With the employment department taking over a piece of it and the rest of it remaining under the higher education coordinating mission.

Yes, we'll work with both OED and HEC. OED will assume, you know, WIOA oversight management, I assume for not only adult dislocated worker, but eventually youth. I should note that we also work with HEC due to other funding streams, one being like the Oregon Youth Employment Program. So we anticipate continuing to work with both agencies as far as like funding.

And this was a directive of the governor, correct, to have a movement, a little more involvement with the employment department. That was my understanding. Is that a correct assumption?

Yes. This comes from the executive office. It was not through the legislative body.

Okay. Well, thank you for that and appreciate it. All right.

Thank you. Commissioner Salas.

Yeah, I appreciate the presentation. Good to see you again. I would like in the future if you could include the metrics, the performance indicators in the material. I mean, I saw it on the slide. I don't have access to the slide, but I scanned the entire packet, 17 pages I believe, and there's no metrics in this. So it would be nice to see those metrics. The other thing that's interesting, just a question on the spreadsheet, if you will, it's not showing a complete year. It's showing from September to June. What's on the screen is July to June, but what's in the packet is...

me just see if I can specifically cite it here see I see that that may have been a printing error and that cut off a couple of months but I can certainly get a copy of this and send it to you all make sure that it reflects the full 12 month program here yeah because it looks like what you have on the screen and what's on here the numbers are the same but the months it looks like you got it broken down

I'm not sure I'm following. It's not a full year, but you just got some dates there. September 26th, December, September. Anyhow, you got my.

Yes, we can certainly make sure you get a copy of a rectified version of this that runs from July 1st to June 2027 should be the. year that it encompasses. Right.

And I know the last time you were before us, I can't remember what the exact request was, but you did follow up on it. Thank you for that follow up. But next time, like I said, those metrics could be included in the packet to be retrievable so we can see how you're all doing. It'd be nice to know, in 10 years of history, are things I know that COVID period was an anomaly, but it'd be nice to see year after year, some basis, tenure basis, if you will, of those outcomes.

Yeah, absolutely. That is an excellent suggestion. We will have in our annual report a more comprehensive breakdown of metrics for adult and youth performance. Did not want to get too in the weeds with that today, just given the robust agenda. To my knowledge, we have not done a year-by-year comparison, but that is intriguing to me, and certainly work with the team to get started on something like that. Thank you, Commissioner.

All right. Is there a motion on the budget and infrastructure funding agreement?

I move we accept the Clackamas Workforce Partnership budget and authorize Chair Roberts to sign the infrastructure funding agreement as both the chief elected official and the housing authority of Clackamas County. Board Chair, on a future business meeting consent agenda.

Second. All right.

I'm also assuming you'll get that additional information that Commissioner Savas asked.

Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure what motion you're reading, Commissioner, but the script is different.

Okay, I have... It's right here. Page 17. Let me do that because I read it directly from the packet. Okay, I move we accept the Clackamas Workforce Partnership budget and advance the infrastructure funding agreement to a future consent agenda for approval. Much more concise. Thank you, Martha. Okay.

And there was a second by Commissioner Savas. I'm correct.

Do you want to second that?

Yeah, second. All right. Commissioner Schrader has moved to accept the Clackamas Workforce Partnership Budget and Advance Infrastructure Funding Agreement to the Future Consent Agenda for approval. Commissioner Salvas has seconded that. Any further discussion?

Can I just ask a quick question, Brent? Yeah. On the spreadsheet that Commissioner Salvas was referring to, under dues and memberships, it's one of the highest numbers in there. What are the dues and memberships?

Well, I can speak to it broadly and then provide a bit more detail. Dues and memberships refer to a variety of different associations or entities that we're member of so that can include North Clackamas Chamber of Commerce, Oregon City Chamber of Commerce. Primarily those bigger costs are going to be the statewide or Oregon Workforce Partnership which is our statewide association representing all nine workforce boards collectively and the role of OWP historically has been primarily around advocacy and providing some alignment between the local regions that still allows for local control and flexibility. More recently, OWP has moved into the role of also helping to secure funding. So our dues for that typically range, depending on the program year, between at minimum $14,000, that's the lowest tiered membership, all the way up to $23,000. We have never paid that much, but.

Wow, that's bendy.

And then that extends to other nonprofit association of Oregon, as an example, or the National Association of Workforce Development Boards would be another example.

All right. So some of them are very necessary then. Yeah. And you see an ROI on those. Yes.

Those are our primary avenues for a major avenue for professional development and cross training, not only within the state, but within the region and nationally between workforce professionals. And then a large chunk of our advocacy at the state level and the federal level filters through OWP.

All right. Any other questions?

Just one last question. What's the FTE count? For CWP, that would be seven of us, including myself.

Okay. Is that part full-time?

Yes. Well, we have one individual who's at 30 hours. I'm not sure how you would like to count that, but I would say seven full-time individuals. Okay. Thank you.

All right. Clerk, you want to call the poll?

Commissioner Schroeder.

Aye.

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair. Thank you. Gary.

Thank you. Thank you to our guests today. Next is electric bicycles update, as the board has requested. County Council Billy Williams will lead this session today. Go ahead, please, Billy.

by introducing Scott, and Scott, you know, I'm sorry, I haven't asked for the correct pronunciation of your name. Hulscher. Hulscher, thank you, who's a senior planner with multimodal transportation within DDT and Anthony DeSimone, who's a transportation planner, and I'd also like to introduce Kate Bonk, who County Council's one of our paralegals who's Helped out a lot on this project. So thanks to all of you and the work that you've done Scott and Anthony Prepared in working with Kate and I in terms of the policy session worksheet So they're going to cover a lot of the details of that to bring you up to speed but I wanted to start by noting that, as you'll hear, this is timely because of what I see as the developing understanding and process of everybody in the country dealing with e-bikes, especially here in Oregon and in Clackamas County. I was surprised to learn that there are three classifications of e-bikes, the class one, two, and three, which are depicted in the handout that was, I believe, was forwarded. And then there are e-motos. It's my understanding, and Scott and Anthony will address this in more detail, but it's the e-motos that are the source of the problem, in particular in Happy Valley. And the only way to accurately describe an emoto and sort of in the banner of e-bikes is it's an electric motorcycle I'm using my terminology Because some of those as I understand it can go up to 65 miles an hour Which is a motorcycle and it should require licensing and I think that's something that the state needs to take up hopefully in the next session, but I was delighted to learn about the Clackamas County Travel Options Action Plan that Scott and Anthony will address because there's a lot of work that's gone on that has led to the Metro Regional Travel Options, RTO is the acronym. terms of funding for this to action plan that goes into effect on July 1st and it's a three-year project to June 30th of 2029 but as you'll hear the the staff is as has observed the emotes and those mostly young people writing them has created the frankly the unsafe conditions on sidewalks and public roads. And then also, in my view, this calls out the responsibilities that parents need to be educated on apparently in terms of watching out what their kids are up to. which isn't anything new in terms of managing teenagers, but Anyways, and also there's a Clackamas County pedestrian and bikeway advisory committee. It's a 14 member board who's looking at these issues, so I Think with all of this in mind that you're going to hear in more detail. There's some opportunities here I think a lot of opportunities for collaboration in terms of of working with other entities in addition to the committees. And I can outline for you just some thoughts on that in a moment. But I had a brief meeting with both under Sheriff Ebee and Ashby this morning to see what, if any, outreach they've done. And recently there was a meeting with local chiefs of police to get an idea of where people are at with it. And what they informed me is that Lake Oswego is reviewing the Happy Valley ordinance to see whether or not they would adopt something similar. My understanding is Westland passed an ordinance. Wilsonville reportedly hasn't had a significant enough issue to do that. Sandy is reviewing Milwaukee is reviewing and they weren't certain what Oregon City was doing but in terms of to answer my question to the undersheriffs this morning about what you know in terms of staffing and funding and to if they're involved in this of course if something happens in front of them yes but otherwise they don't have the staffing or the funding to to you know, have a separate detail dealing with e-bike issues. Again, unless it's something that happens in the vicinity. But they strongly support the idea of educational opportunities. So I think just in terms of what I view are additional avenues to address the issues presented, I think outreach to local bike companies, retailers who are selling bikes, to gain their assistance in addressing the public safety issues. I'm a big fan of summits, but to provide opportunities to identify in addition to these advisory groups, bring in the retailers, bring in law enforcement entities, and engage with them on how to facilitate this because ordinances exist like in Happy Valley State law exists on this there's some tweaks that need to happen to the state law and those those suggestions I think could be worked out through through the committee's in place and other collaboration and This morning hearing about the Traffic Safety Commission, I think engaging with them and the Pedestrian and Bikeway Advisory Committee would be really informative. I think all of this could be done to work with AOC in terms of legislative intent, hopefully for the long session next year. to see, to identify whatever laws need to be changed. And the other part that I think needs to be done is collaboration with school districts to educate students and their parents. My understanding was, you all know Creston Rice from our office, grew up in Happy Valley, lives in Happy Valley again, and he was telling me as a young kid, he was offered training. Law enforcement entities would come to the schools and provide training. I know it's maybe a cost measure, but that's something to consider. I just think education's the key. What I would suggest, my view is not to completely do away with the idea of a county ordinance. I just don't know that we need one at this point. But if we do, after assessing what is already at play, If we do go that route, then we'll have more information to provide that. But education is the key. I'm a lifelong bicyclist. I'm a recent convert to e-bikes, not to e-motos. So I'm a big fan of what the county is already doing on this. So kind of passionate about it. But I'll turn it over to Scott. And if you would, Scott, go ahead with your presentation.

Yes. Thank you so much. So my name is Scott Holscher. I'm a transportation planner in DTD. I've been with the county for 21 years. Thank you for looking at this issue. It is timely. As was mentioned, the Pedestrian Bikeway Advisory Committee has had this topic on a number of agendas recently. PBAC, as they're known, is a 14-member citizen committee committee. It's one of the county ABCs that meets monthly. Really a forum for bicycle and pedestrian transportation issues locally and regionally. PBAC advises the county staff on the plans and programs that we're working on, but also takes up other general topics such as the e-bike issue that we've been hearing so much about. So happy to talk more about the work of PBAC, but wanted to take a step back and outline some of the work that DTD has queued up surrounding e-bikes. So as Mr. Williams mentioned DTD recently developed a travel options action plan and this was a two-year project that looked at identifying travel option strategies for the county for the urban area of the county. It highlighted 11 priority strategies. Strategies are things such as marketing our Clackamas shuttles, perhaps travel support for seniors, a variety of different activities and strategies that the county can look at implementing in the future. So if somebody doesn't have a car or chooses not to drive, what are the resources and what are the things that they need in order to get around safely without a vehicle? So that project, which was before the board a couple months ago and was approved by resolution, did include a lot of public engagement. There was a robust public engagement component to that project. We formed an advisory committee specifically for that project. We held a focus group, conducted a survey on travel preferences, and held a series of stakeholder interviews. So during all this outreach, we heard of an interest in e-bikes, but also concerns, concerns of safety, some confusion on what are e-bikes legally, some confusion around the e-moto classification. So we heard loud and clear that the community wanted some education and some really, some clear understanding of what e-bikes are and how they work and what are the rules of the road for e-bikes. So following development of that plan, we have recently received funding from Metro to implement portions of the plan. This funding will allow the county to implement plan strategies, and we're in process of finalizing the scope of work, which is still in development. We're working on a grant contract with Metro, which will be before the board, hopefully in the next month or two. That grant contract will have the details of the scope of work, details about the project. This will be a three-year project starting July or August of 2026 and running for three years until June 30th of 2029. And part of this work that's upcoming is in the draft scope of work, we have some e-bike related activities, specifically addressing education and information about e-bikes. So first, we have scope to develop e-bike education materials for the public. rules of the road, information on the different classes of e-bikes. We've started a draft informational brochure, which is in your packet. We do have an updated copy of that. If you like, there was some factual information that was incorrect in that draft, and so we're happy to provide an updated draft informational brochure that we're working on. Secondly, we have scoped to do e-bike skills education and this would cover rules of the road safety in general how to ride tips and there's some potential to collaborate with the city of happy valley on these educational efforts the details and how many and how that will work still need to be worked out um since we haven't actually haven't finalized the scope of work But when we bring on a travel options coordinator, which this funding will support, bring in on a coordinator to help us deliver these, we'll work out the details of some of these activities. Thirdly is hosting bicycle and e-commuting 101 workshops. This would be more adult focused in covering tips and techniques for new bicycle commuters and also regular bikes as well as e-bikes. So this is all an opportunity to educate, as was mentioned, education could be a real angle here in terms of educating the community about rules of the road and the different types of e-bikes. So through this project, through the past three years of work, we learned a few things. We learned that e-bikes are a viable form of transportation. When distances are far or hilly, e-bikes really offer a solution for many people that wouldn't otherwise be able to get to work by bicycle. E-bikes allow a solution for very long distances or hilly terrain. So we learned that a lot of people want to look at using e-bikes for commuting to work or utility trips such as getting to the grocery store. We learned there's a number of health benefits. The new technology has allowed for fully integration of motors and batteries. So a lot of e-bikes look like regular bikes in that those bikes can be used for commuting. club rides, general exercise. So we heard a lot of support, but again, some education and some confusion around the e-bike issue. Having said that, Anthony will touch on some of the three classes of e-bikes and kind of the differences between e-motos and e-bikes.

Thanks, Scott. Hello, I'm Anthony Desimone, transportation planner with the county. Just going to quickly go over some of the information, the background and context on these e-bikes to help us kind of understand where these fall legally. The state of Oregon recently passed legislation, actually went into effect earlier this month, that defined e-bikes in a three-class system. First class is a bicycle that only reaches 20 miles per hour and is only providing assistance when the rider is pedaling. and those bicycles can be ridden by anyone as young as 14 years old. Then class two and three riders must be 16. Class two offers a throttle, so you don't necessarily have to pedal, you could just hit the throttle for a while. Those go up to 20 miles per hour. without assistance and then class 3 only when the rider is pedaling can provide assistance up to 28 miles per hour. It's important to note that if a vehicle or an e-bike does not fall into one of those three classes as defined it would be defined as a motor vehicle or a moped or motorcycle and not an e-bike and therefore the rider would need a driver's license or some sort of other registration. I will also call out that per this state law, motors can have a power up to 1,000 watts. That's the maximum for any of the classes. So to kind of call out a little bit of difference between those e-bikes and the e-motives that were discussed previously, some of those devices are kind of sold under the banner of e-bikes or marketed as e-bikes, even though they can often be more powerful than what's allowed by that law. That 1,000-watt threshold, I have personally seen some of these e-bikes or e-motos, I should say, sold online and marketed as a Class II e-bike, but one line below that, they'll state that they have 2,000 watts of power, which does not meet that criteria. Okay. And I'll just call out that it's important to kind of understand that distinction between those that are legal and those that really are not necessarily in that definition.

Again, I'll just call out a couple of the recent legislative actions. The city of Happy Valley, you're familiar with the new ordinance that was passed by the city. State Parks also conducted an analysis and public process looking at e-bike rules within state parks and along ocean shores. Those new rules went into effect about a year ago. And they really, what they found through their process is that e-bikes if they meet the classification system the class one two or three really act as Bicycles and should be treated as such in state parks in in state lands So that was something that the pet bike Advisory Committee tracked and followed and weighed in on state of Washington interestingly enough is also looking at this issue and They've done something that's unique from our research, and that's to set up, you know, convening a working group to look at this Emoto segment and how are they going to address that. They didn't under the recent legislation, but directed Department of State Licensing to set up and convene a working group to look at the Emoto segment. So I think with that, we'll have, we'll kind of open it up to any questions. That's what we wanted to present to you on this topic and happy to answer any questions.

All right, Commissioner Hill.

Yeah, thank you for the presentation, gentlemen. A, I am pro-bicycle. I've ridden e-bikes. They're fun. They're powerful. They are a great alternative to a car, right? Seldom do you see a manual pedaled bike anymore. It seems like everybody's on an e-bike now, which I think is fantastic, right? And one of the reasons I brought this forward based on my location next to Happy Valley is the amount of trouble that the city of Happy Valley is having with this. But they do want to make it clear they're not, they're just trying, their priority is to identify unsafe behavior and stop it. And they're not trying to eyeball a kid and, you know, the specific vehicle and stop them based on that. They're just trying to get a handle on the disrespect that's going on by these kids. And they are kids. It's generally not adults. And they also mentioned the legality of the vehicles. It's not always clear because there's actually more like five or six kinds of them out there. And you're lumping the e-motos and then the e-bikes. And how they're sold is very confusing. One of the reasons I brought this up is because Happy Valley is not all incorporated Happy Valley. There are sections of Happy Valley that are unincorporated just like there's unincorporated parts of Milwaukee that look like Milwaukee but they're really not. So I'm just trying to address it so that there is like a blanket rule for the places that are unincorporated. So that they're all following the same rules. So it's gotten really out of hand in Happy Valley. I don't know if you, I follow a couple of the Facebook pages. Parents are just, they're not just parents. People are very upset. Parents are upset. because they want to protect their kids from the people who are upset with them. It's a kind of an interesting dynamic. The kids are just being kids. Let them be kids. They're also endangering themselves, and they're endangering other people. So I just want to figure out the right way to kind of give the police the ability to stop someone with unsafe behaviors. So I just want to make that clear. This is about safety and also about risk. Because if we do nothing and there are problems down the road, we could be held liable for not having an ordinance in place that took care of that. Anyway, I'll open it up for more discussion, but I just want to make it clear that this is not about trying to punish anyone. And I don't know how you get kids in for training who simply think this is just a fun toy to ride down the middle of Sunnyside Road doing a wheelie. It's reached a point where kids can't even see where they're going. They've been hitting cars. They've been T-boning cars. Kid was taken away by ambulance the other day on Sunnyside Road because he t-boned a car. So, you know, I don't know. I don't know what the answer is. I just would like to know, you know, what process we put in place to make sure that no one is going to lose their life over it. Because that will happen.

Commissioner Savas?

Yeah. I think we... I'm compelled that... We need to do something. It's unfortunate that the burden is on local jurisdictions when I think we should have got ahead of this at the state or federal level to even allow these things in the country or to have them being produced. Because you can buy something and then you can modify it and suddenly it's got more than a thousand watts. So Easily modifiable and you know schools out right now this situation has worsened since girls been out I it's you you know you you're pulling out in your car you look left you look right and then suddenly here comes a scooter down the sidewalk they just went around the corner at a speed that never would happened right unless it was propelled and the ride down the sidewalk and you know I'm I'm doing my best to be alert and I've seen I've seen accidents already it's like they're everywhere it it's a really concern and I I just don't know what I'm concerned about, to some degree, liability if we do nothing. And I think the state ought to be concerned if they do nothing. I don't know how we enforce this, frankly. It's an enforcement nightmare, looking at Chair Roberts. You know, traffic controls look a lot different. Chasing e-bikes, right? And they don't have license plates. So you really, and then a lot of these people aren't wearing helmets. And maybe those who are not wearing helmets, maybe if they can get a picture of them, that's one thing. But how do you track this stuff? I mean, they're weaving everywhere. And parking lots, shopping centers, you name it, parks. And the worst one, I'll tell you, the worst issue is when they're on trails where people are walking everywhere. and their nature trails, or they got their dog on a leash, and some comes zipping by and snags the leash with the bike, right? It's out of control. And I know it's already been bad enough when prior to these things coming out, a lot of the people who use our trails, the one that's closest to me is highly used, the trolley trail in the Oak Grove, Jenny's Lodge area. And this issue with bikes, regular pedal bikes speeding down the trails and scaring people or shocking people, so to speak, or surprising them anyhow, when they're whipping by has been an issue for a long time. It's been over 10, 12 years this has been an issue. So the discussion about speed limits obviously that's a recommendation right we're not gonna there's not gonna be radar we're not gonna be able to enforce it I just feel that we're at this point where if they're sold somewhere they're sold right there's got to be a regulatory element of the sale of them like it has been in the past you couldn't buy a motorcycle that can be used on the road without a license, right? You have to register. When you bought it, you put your name down, your address, all that, you're registering, you license it, you pay a license fee. Off-road motorcycles, not so much, but my concern is really is the safety for everyone involved here. But I think doing nothing is not an option, in my opinion.

One comment I want to make, Martha, if I could, before I turn it over to you, if that's all right. I really also agree with the council that this is a nationwide issue. And I think they're also combining e-bikes with these e-motors. Everybody's kind of getting lumped into kind of one sum and identifying issues. Those issues to me. They're separately but just to looking at some of the national research and national White emergency room visits for e-bikes and I think it's combined injuries reached approximately 53,000 between 17 and 22 with nearly half occurring in 22 alone and the fatalities have tripled over the recent four years and it actually says that the most often crashes single vehicle crashes often caused by loss of control and so part of which I agree with you is some education and I believe you know that Legislature will be jumping on this Quickly, there's just too much safety issues going on on this. I think that I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if the those emotes are considered motorcycles and Prevent it all entirely because I agree. I'll see him flying down the road. That's really a motorcycle so Yeah, I think it's It definitely has got a lot of attention and unfortunately a lot of injuries as well so I mean I'm I guess, council, I mean, any other wisdom on this legislative session? Have you heard anything really as far as individuals at the legislature taking this on as a new bill?

Well, I didn't see it on the agenda for the legislative retreat, but I'm assuming... Other counties are looking at this as well, certainly in the tri-county area, but it goes well beyond that. I think it's a topic to try and bring up, even with NACO, to see what they're doing. And in terms of potential lobbying groups besides counties, it seems like to me this is something that the Oregon Association of Chiefs of Police would be very interested in, And given the conversation that Under Sheriff Ashby had recently with local chiefs, but also the Oregon Sheriffs Association, as well as the National Association of Sheriffs, that's a very powerful group. I spoke at their conference a year ago this week, on a totally unrelated matter, but what impressed me about being at that conference was just the variety of topics they cover. They have two conferences per year in different locations around the country. So, you know, it's clear that And that's why I think the committee that's already in existence is so meaningful. The work that you all have done thus far and will continue to do after the 1st of July brings attention to all this. And also to keep in mind with the option to when we get more information, Because I agree, Commissioner Stavis and Helm, in terms of the legal issues at play, the potential liability, you always want to look at that. And the other component, I think in terms of the outreach, are the retailers. When are they going to start being sued? They will be, because they're the deep pocket, right? And the manufacturers of these bikes, they're going to get sued. And that's what draws attention. That's what gets people collaborating is when they start getting sued. So I think this is a work in progress. And my understanding is with Happy Valley that their code enforcement will be authorized to find people in violation, cite them into court. That's the sheriff's understanding when I talked with him this morning. So I'd like to see how that works out and how effective it is. But Commissioner Helm, the point that you raised is also one of interest in terms of the unincorporated areas and what works. I mean, they're under the state law, under House Bill 4007, that... It's very extensive and detailed in terms of the violations there and who's at risk and potentially under ORS provisions charging parents for particular statute in terms of failure. I think if I look at it quickly the Failing to supervise a child is one statute at play. It's ORS 163577. And under ORS 419C.005, juvenile court has jurisdiction over any juveniles who get cited for any criminal conduct, obviously. So there's a lot at work here. I do want to continue to learn where this goes going forward and how best to address the issues in particular with the unincorporated areas so that we're I mean people can be cited in those areas under state law there's no question about that so but to the point where if if we see the need to recommend the county developed an ordinance. I don't think it's going to take us that long to figure that out with all the work the committees are doing.

Yeah, just to kind of follow up, Commissioner West and I were down at an event, and we were about ready to cross this crosswalk, weren't we? We were in a good spot, and all of a sudden, guess what? It was an electric bike, and I think I saved your life.

Oh, wait a second.

you know it was so quiet I think just like the electric vehicles you know they came out with some standards where now they kind of make a noise can't hear them coming and I would anticipate that might even be the future and some of these bikes because they they go so fast and they're so quiet kind of coming in stealth so so I think we're going to see a lot of these things that are going to come forward to try and improve safety and agree that

you know I echo a lot of my colleagues here concerned for the safety of these folks and Martha Schrader I just want to ask the question do we want to do an ordinance or not where are we on this we want to just continue that's the two things in front of us you just want to continue with safety education at this point and if we do an ordinance how will that affect the planning function of folks who are going to be delegated Gary to ask you We'd have to delegate it.

Who's going to enforce it? Who's going to pay for that? Make an ordinance for unincorporated. It's the entire county unincorporated, not just Happy Valley. So certainly I think you want to hear from the public what they think about that before you do that. A public hearing would do that. But yes, we're seeking direction today. What direction would you like to go on this, please?

I'm sorry. Are you done, Martha?

Yeah, I'm done. I just want to know where we're going to land at this point and what the consequences are and what's the best pathway forward. And I don't want planning staff to get overwhelmed because they already have things that they're doing that...

Exactly. Commissioner Salas.

So, yeah, I was going to mention that very same thing about when light rail first came out, the concern was it was so quiet that people were walking on the sidewalk, crossing the street, they didn't know light rail was coming, and then electric vehicles, the very same thing. So these things are also very quiet, so you can't hear them coming. And it's not, again, like a bicycle, because bicycles really don't make much noise, but The speeds are far excessive of what a bicyclist would typically go. I truly... There's a lot of laws in the books that we don't have the power to or the means to enforce, right? But I think it's a guideline. And once there is basically some kind of an ordinance, then people that knowingly violate that ordinance are subject to their own peril, right? Whether that's financial, they hurt someone, so on and so forth. To have nothing gives law enforcement or anyone else no tools. right there's no tools so I see this as both I see it as educational as well as having the tool as well as going all the way up to the point of sale where these are done where shoot you yeah I mean I'd like to know the incidences hate to say this but you know of how many people are being injured or killed on these things compared to that of gun sales, right? Or per capita, right? I would argue, not argue, but I would be concerned that if now we're exceeding what, that this is actually more dangerous to a number of people than, and of course it's not a weapon, but it's simply a means of people being hurt. So that's where my concern is. And I'd like to see some, maybe we can look at other, jurisdictions that have taken it all the way to point of sale and say, thou shall not sell or release a bike until there's been an education class. And maybe, I don't know, maybe there's people doing a, there's an age limit, right, or parental consent. But doing, I don't think doing nothing is an option. So I'm prepared, frankly, to move forward on both option one and two. And then bring back, you know, what those options are for a county ordinance. And again, whether or not it's enforceable is less of an issue than establishing some rules.

It gives the...

Commissioner Helm.

Yeah, and I was going to say, enforcing it just gives the officers a little bit of teeth. They don't have any right now because we haven't cracked down on the people who are the bad actors, and there's a lot of them, actually. So I think doing nothing is not right. based on what I've heard so far and if it is for all of Clackamas County and we need to have a public hearing, I think it warrants a public hearing. I would like to hear from people. I'm not trying to punish e-bike riders at all. There's room for all of us on the road. There's not room for people who don't follow the rules and who are putting other people on in harm's way based on their poor decisions. And I'm talking about 14, 15, 16-year-old kids, right, who are pulling out in front of other cars, who slam on their brakes, who cause accidents from people smashing into them. I mean, it's a... it has effects on anyone who's on the road. And if I were to hit someone, a child, a child on an e-bike who was being stupid, that would affect me for the rest of my life, right? So it's not just, we're trying to protect kids who frankly are not making good decisions. And I wish the parents would step in and do some education and put some ground rules in place. it's these are these are very powerful vehicles for the kids to be using and I I just think we need to be doing something And the city of Happy Valley has done, they did a town hall on this. I mean, they had a very good turnout. They had public come and speak, and the pro e-bike riders, again, I want to hear from everybody. I want to hear, I'm a good rider, don't punish me, but what do we do about the ones who are not? you know, following the rules. And that's the hard part right now, especially in Happy Valley. And actually it's happening in Damascus too, in a couple of neighborhoods in Damascus. So it's just, I don't think doing nothing is the right thing.

You know, one option I might throw out, and AOC has a meeting upcoming. And I think part of which is, I'm not opposed to doing nothing, but I know the city of Happy Valley looks within their city. And I think for us, wanting to look statewide. And I think we're going to have a lot of people around the table there. And I think we could actually be the driver of it at this upcoming AOC meeting and find out really what everybody else is doing. And maybe prolong it just till after that. I'm not sure, Gary, do you know the date of that AOC? It's next Monday. Next week. Oh, my gosh.

You're going to be there.

I'm going to be there. So I mean, could we put it off until after that and kind of see the input from what's happening on a state level? I mean, what are your thoughts about that, Diana?

Chair, the other thing I wanted to mention here, and I'll respond to your question, is that if you buy a motorcycle, you're required to get a license. You're required to take a class to pass to get your motorcycle license. I think it should apply here, too. Now, that's a state issue, right? So I think doing, again, we need to do something. I don't know what it looks like, but Gary, I guess my concern is that, I mean, yeah, we can learn something at AOC. Maybe we can suggest something, and maybe with the 2027 legislative session, we ask to do something. But I don't think waiting for that is... very wise. I think we should do something if our cities are taking that effort as well. I think we ought to do in kind, put something in place so it's countywide, and I think it will be educational. So therefore, Chair, I move that we move forward with option one and option two.

I'll second that for the sake of discussion.

So, if I get this correctly, Commissioner Savas has moved to instruct staff to continue education efforts already in place by DTD on the safe use of e-bikes and also to instruct staff to prepare a county ordinance of the use of e-bikes, seconded by Commissioner Helm. I... guess what I would want to see if we're headed down that direction is number one what is the cost and what is the financial impact and what is the staff time and implementation and all those things that go along with implementing an ordinance and is there what is that impact and and then also how long would it take I guess would be some of the things that they would be interested in seeing. As Martha kind of said, staff has got a lot of free time. No, I'm joking. No, so I want to be cognitive of your time and And that so Commissioner help me out.

Well. All I'm gonna say is that the city of Happy Valley ordinance is very short It's very simple. It's not we're not writing up a 10-page thing here. This is a It's regulating the operation of electric-assisted bicycles, electric micromobility devices in vehicles manufactured for off-road use, whereas the City Council of Happy Valley seeks to promote public safety and ensure the safe use of public streets, sidewalks, bicycle lanes, pathways, parks, and other public property, and whereas increased use of electric-assisted bicycles and electric micromobility devices has resulted in higher speeds, unsafe operation and conflicts within shared public spaces and whereas the city desires to align local regulations with the Oregon vehicle code while establishing Reasonable local regulations and enforcement direction. That's it. It's just it's very simple and It's just they're trying to get a handle on a problem. That's a bit out of control so It's a very simple ordinance that I thought we could adopt. It's not, we're not going after people, we're just giving a little bit of, this is education. This means we want people to please follow the rules.

And on that, I would say that if there's, again, my earlier comments about what other jurisdictions are doing, to me that could be really, I won't say cut and paste, but essentially, I mean, the work is maybe just taking the work of others and putting in Clackamas County versus whatever city or whatnot. At this point, I'm not well-informed enough to say which one we ought to look at, but I'm hoping staff could look at just research a little bit about what other jurisdictions have adopted already, and we just adopt that language. So it's a lot less work than we think it is.

And we could take something like this and make it our own. And based on what works in Clackamas County, unincorporated, yeah, I'm just saying I agree that we need to get a county ordinance ready. It doesn't have to be this one.

All right. Clerk, do you want to call the poll? Martha, did you have something?

I'm fine.

I think my light's off.

Clerk.

All right.

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Schrader.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair.

Okay. Gary, what's next? All right. Thank you. Thank you both.

Thank you, guys. Sorry to hear that painful.

And Chair and I need to leave at 4 o'clock, so we have 45 minutes left for the last session today. Syringe Safety Barrier Ordinance Research, Part 2. Staff is returning to you after an original discussion. Health, Housing, and Human Services will present Mary Rumbaugh, the Director of Health, Housing, and Human Services, and Kim LaCroix, Public Health Division Director. Go ahead, please. You can shorten your presentation as best you can.

Good afternoon.

I feel, oh, good afternoon, chair, commissioners. My name's Mary Rumba, H3S director, and I am joined here by Kim LaCroix with Public Health Division Director. Also, John McDowell with Technology Services is in the audience in case there are questions regarding the buffer maps, as well as Jeff Munns representing County Council. We do have a lot to cover today, so... I'm going to actually just jump right to a little level setting of what we discussed last time that then will outline all the materials that we brought forward today. At the last policy session, we discussed concerns related to public safety and community impacts associated with mobile syringe distribution and disposal practices. The discussion focused on trying to balance harm reduction and disease prevention benefits with concerns regarding syringe litter and syringe exchanges near children. So it's important to remind ourselves that currently we have no mobile syringe programs operating in Clackamas County, but we do have SSPs limited to two fixed locations operated by outside-in through a contract with the county, one at the Clackamas Service Center in unincorporated Clackamas County and the other at Father's Heart in Oregon City, which is incorporated. So you had a lot of requests of us to bring various maps forward to also talk about which jurisdictions are also looking at syringe service program policies. You asked for a draft ordinance, which we have also in the packet, as well as fiscal impacts. And then we are also going to be quickly talking about sharps disposal as an ongoing issue as well. So we're gonna jump right into the maps, which look complicated, but I think we have some quick talking points on how to explain these.

Yeah, great. Thank you, Mary. Kim LaCroix, Public Health Director. So I'm going to run through a series of six maps that really illustrate the different scenarios where mobile SSPs could potentially operate if a provider chose to offer mobile services in Clackamas County based on the various scenarios. So this first map here shows a 1,000 foot setback from both public and private K through 12 schools the two fixed sites the Operated by outside in are identified with the syringe icon and then those city boundary lines are purple and the 1,000 foot setback is yellow So we can jump to the next slide So this is a closer view of that 1,000-foot buffer. And you can see those two current locations with the rectangle there. So the Father's Heart, as Mary mentioned, is within the city boundary. So it's incorporated into Oregon City. It would not be impacted by an ordinance that would cover unincorporated areas or mobile areas. And then the Clackamas Service Center is in unincorporated Clackamas County and Both of the locations are not within 1,000 feet of a K-12 public or private school. And then this next map here adds child care centers to the 1,000-foot restriction. It's a little bit hard to see in the countywide map, so we can move on to the closer view. So similar to the schools, the fixed locations would not be impacted with the addition of a child care buffer but again if there was an ordinance Restricting where mobile services could be provided then we would know you know where they couldn't locate based on the buffer zones and then this last map series here shows a thousand foot setback from the schools as well as the child care centers plus parks and libraries And then, you know, similarly to the other restrictions, you know, there's the no mobile service providers operating, so it wouldn't impact any existing services. But again, it would show us where they could locate if an ordinance was adopted. We also researched policies in other jurisdictions and found policies for the city of Roseburg and Multnomah County. So about a year ago the city of Roseburg banned needle exchange and distribution on city property like parks and streets and sidewalks and the Roseburg Police Department and the code compliance officers enforce those rules and then they also collect the improperly discarded needles. and then Multnomah County is currently considering an ordinance they actually have a policy session this week their ordinance would prohibit the distribution of needles and syringes within a thousand feet of K through 12 schools by mobile and temporary syringe service programs. It would be repealed if state law subsequently prohibits the same activity or would sunset on January 1st, 2028. Enforcement is complaint driven and includes educational letters and the county is authorized, the health department is authorized to seek court orders and stop prohibitive activities associated and recoup associated costs for enforcement.

So in your packet is a draft safe schools zone ordinance that the County Council drafted, frankly, heavily borrowed from Multnomah counties, because it doesn't make sense to probably do things that are too much different. So the ordinance would apply to mobile SSPs and unincorporated Clackamas County, prohibiting operations within 1,000 feet of K through 12 schools with limited exceptions for public health or other emergencies. Enforcement would also be complaint driven and escalate from education to inspection notice and then citation with fines set by a board resolution and options for hearing or civil enforcement, including injunctions. Also in the draft ordinance, the suggestion to have the ordinance sunset one year after an enactment unless extended by the board. One of the other questions that was asked of us was the fiscal, and we could ballpark it when we were in front of you last time, but we've been able to do a better assessment. So staff have estimated startup and implementation costs approximately one hundred and seventy eight thousand dollars with ongoing annual maintenance costs around fifty thousand noting that because we don't have any current mobile SSPs operating again this would be that this is assuming maybe there are one or two you know mobile SSPs in in the in the county and we don't yet have a dedicated funding source available for ordinance enforcement activities. It's important to note that we did look at the appropriate use of opioid settlement dollars, and it is clear in the language that we would not be able to use those dollars for enforcement of this type of ordinance, although there are other things that we can talk about that would be appropriate for opioid. So really, without a registry or a license, there would not be a revenue to pay for enforcement costs. Thanks for watching!

and then a related public health challenge is a lack of sharps disposal infrastructure in Clackamas County so my department public health we do receive calls from residents looking for safe ways to dispose of used medical needles or syringes for example we did receive a call from the estacade a fire district they have folks showing up to the firehouse with sharps containers and they don't know you know how to dispose of them and what to do with it so. So the current landscape is that Oregon law does prohibit residents from placing sharps containers in household garbage. They have to be in those little puncture resistant containers and disposed of through approved collection programs. Currently the Metro household hazardous waste facility in Oregon City is really the only dedicated public sharps collection site serving the whole county. Other limited disposal options include those two fixed-site syringe service programs, Father's Heart and Clackamas Service Center, but that's really more intended for folks that are receiving harm reduction services and really isn't intended as a county-wide public disposal location. There are some mail-back disposal programs, but that typically requires the purchase of sharps containers and may involve some additional costs. Oregon does have free medication take-back programs and you can send back like injectors like for GLP medications or EpiPens but you can't do loose needles or syringes which is typically used for insulin. there are some waste haulers garbage services that do collect sharps but it's kind of all over the map and you really have to research whether or not your hauler will accept sharps and then lastly pharmacies are not required to accept use sharp containers. so we're aware that this problem exists and public health and DTD have been working with Metro they have a pilot program right now and they on the next slide I can show you what what these look like so there's two they'll kind of like mailboxes or like green mailboxes there's two that are going to be installed in Clackamas County soon Metro is currently covering all the pilot costs until 2030 one of them is going at the beaver creek health centers and another in happy valley. If you were interested in expanding those to address this problem, we would work with DTD and Metro and the cities to identify locations or cost-sharing agreements. We probably would want to identify locations outside of the urban growth boundary because that's what the Metro is only servicing inside the urban growth boundary, and it costs about $11,000 per box plus some FTE to manage that.

All right, so I feel like we pretty much covered all the areas that you asked us to come back in the second session for and so we continue to have an outline of some options for you all which include adopting a school buffer ordinance, which we've explained. We have some interest in expanding a syringe disposal, creating an infrastructure for that because we also believe that that is actually an unmet need in this community. There's also an option to just take no action because we also feel confident that we know that this issue will come back to the 2027 legislative session. And at that point, it would be ideal to have sort of really a statewide implementation. So at this point, I'm going to pause and open it for any questions.

Thank you. Commissioner Hillman.

So are we only talking about mobile SSPs? Correct. Right? So this would not apply. Can we go back to the map, Andrew, with the father's heart? Because the father's heart is moving to Caring Place. Is that going to affect anything?

Because it's unincorporated, she said.

Well, that is, they are incorporated and they are within a thousand feet of the school. So we will have to address that. Right now, it is not an issue. But again, the ordinance that we were asked to come back to was really about mobile versus the fixed. Okay, okay.

Just for clarification, because I thought I heard you say the unincorporated areas, what I thought you heard you say, that that's what you're focusing on, it wouldn't be within the cities.

That's correct, right, right. There are other concerns with the location of some other services within Caring Place being close to a school. Again, this ordinance would only have authority within the unincorporated. Okay, I see, I see. Okay, good.

then the Metro pilot sharps collection boxes when is that being implemented?

It's in process right now so they've like laid the concrete already for the one at the Beaver Creek Health Center and then the I guess the location for the Happy Valley one has been identified so and those costs are covered through 2030 but it's a pilot program and Metro has unfortunately said there's no more funds or SHARPS BOX IS AVAILABLE FOR EXPANSION.

DO YOU KNOW WHERE THE ONE IS GOING IN HAPPY VALLEY? I KNEW YOU WERE GOING TO ASK THAT QUESTION.

I THINK IT'S ON 82ND. I DON'T KNOW THE EXACT LOCATION, BUT IT IS, I KNOW STAFF HAVE BEEN WORKING WITH THE CITY OF HAPPY VALLEY ON THAT. WE CAN GET THAT INFORMATION, COMMISSIONER.

THAT'S IT.

ANY COMMENTS, QUESTIONS? GO AHEAD. DID YOU HAVE SOMETHING?

I CAN GO. Thank you. Good packet. Appreciate it. Give me a second here. I have some notes and questions. Okay. So one of the staff's recommendation is around we don't necessarily have the problem to the capacity to do something about it locally and I guess one of my thoughts is, I guess from the staff, it was no mobile SSPs currently operate in Clackamas County. And I would argue, the argument is that we don't need to do something because we don't have that same issue in Clackamas. However, it is incredibly rare. that in county government we have a chance to pass proactive policies before a problem gets worse or it arrives here in Clackamas County. I don't think we should wait until the mobile syringe vans are setting up near schools before the county plays catch-up in dealing with the public outcry that's happened not only here within the Portland metro area but throughout the state. I think we shouldn't retroactively try to displace operators but kind of have clear policy moving forward. I think it's probably legally harder at that point once the operators are here in larger numbers or we have more fixed facilities or whatever. I think it's much harder to act then. So I think being proactive is smart here. And we set that expectation for safety now in our community rather than waiting for it to arrive and become a bigger issue. Even without the mobile. providers or even limited SSPs we have. I've come across plenty of syringes in Clackamas County. I have reported them to staff. I have pictures of them on my phone. I've shared them with other commissioners about it still being an issue here since we're within that metro area. I am concerned, I guess I have a question around this is, let's say Multnomah County does pass this and they have that thousand foot barrier around, buffer around schools. Once our neighbors to the north pass that, could we be putting ourself Out is kind of maybe a welcoming map for the syringe services to come across the border here Is there any instance where they could cross in a Clackamas County to unincorporated unregulated communities? if we don't have those same regulations that Multnomah County has or are they bound to operate within specific counties and have certain regulations like what is the regulation I guess around those mobile providers

I mean, I think I first would start is reminding us that the ordinance that Multnomah County may pass really is the same limitation that we would consider, which is a thousand foot distance from any K through 12 school site. So that doesn't that doesn't you know, it's not like they're banning mobile. you know, syringe programs, period. So I don't think it would, it just is going to require them to find a different location that is not close to a school.

Would it be easier for them to find that location in Clackamas?

I mean, as they could in, you know, certain, you know, East Multnomah County too, right? I mean, so, yes. I mean, I'm not trying to be challenging at all. I just, you know, it's just hard to know. And I'm not even, you know, I don't know that we've even heard from any mobile providers providers that they're interested in expanding into to Clackamas.

Right and I think you know a lot of these providers do have contracts with the with Multnomah County and you know those contracts are intended for them to serve Multnomah County residents based on the need in Multnomah County so yeah.

Yeah that's right thank you. You guys brought up a barrier around the budget issue, and we're all very sensitive to that. I don't know if it feels a little inflated. I'm not saying it is. I'm not the one that's tasked with putting those numbers together. You are, Mary, and I trust your judgment here. But I kind of want to look at that fiscal impact a little bit. You guys are saying 178,000 to implement the enforcement of it. If it's not really happening here that much and we don't have the mobile units and we have zero operators, how is our actual enforcement cost that high?

Do you want me to take that? Yeah. So it's not so much the cost of actually, like, issuing a citation and enforcing it. It's all the infrastructure to set up the system to be able to do that. So it would be working with, like, technology services to develop the complaint system, communications, establishing, I guess, how to operationalize the ordinance, right, all the procedures and procedures operations to put that in place and so that's why you see that there's more costs in that first six months for all those startup implementation costs and then after all those things are in place and then it goes down a little bit.

If the board passes this and decides to move forward, how can the current staffing and resources within your department, Mary, implement the enforcement policy if we did not give additional budget items? Is there a way to look at what could be done within the current resources of H3S?

because this would live within the public health division and again you know when we do our budget presentation we fold up our our divisions up to to the department but what I will say is is public health is as is really the leanest of the group right now because of other costs such as disease response that has you know really exploded so frankly I would have to work with Gary to really look at and Kim to really look at what would we not be doing to be able to pick this up. That may be a short-term conversation, but we have leaned out the public health division about as lean as we can. They were also impacted by the fall and the July 1st layoffs again. So we're pretty lean with the group. So nobody's sitting around just waiting for a new assignment. So we would be looking at, okay, what can we put aside to go ahead and develop, really, the program.

Okay. Can I question about the maps? Please feel free. Anybody else wants to jump in. I don't want to monopolize all the time. The maps, some of them are, one of them is just schools, correct?

Correct.

And then because the board had conversations around other child-heavy populations that included daycares, libraries, and parks.

Correct.

Okay. there's a little bit of difference, but it's not, there's not like a blanket across the County as if, um, uh, we services couldn't be made available if, if, if in the future. Um, I guess for me trying to find, as we see these pendulums swing and policy wise throughout the state, it just often never swings towards families and children in this state. Um, And I think that there is a reasonable pragmatic approach to this policy that shows leadership and protects Clackamas County. I think it's legally defensible because it's not a blanket across all of unincorporated area. And there's also the cities. And. You know, it protects the vulnerable population. That's our children just walking to school without over-regulating any commercial zones. And I think this policy draws a reasonable common sense line in the sand. And right where it belongs, it's around kiddos. That line protects kiddos. And that's worth drawing a line in the sand over. I don't think we're reinventing the wheel today. Earlier legislative sessions, you know, this was brought forward by Senator Christine Drazen. She had Senate Bill 1573 because families across the Portland metro area and the entire state were demanding that we, for once, maybe do something to put the kiddos first. The bill recognized, I think, a glaring loophole in state law. While it strictly prohibits, state law currently strictly prohibits cannabis dispensaries from operating within 1,000 feet of a school, but mobile syringe vans are completely unregulated. And in Salem has refused to act. I don't know what they're going to come up with. They decided not to move forward with her bill. This is a this is, I think, even a compromise from that original legislative effort last session. The buffer is smaller. It's a little more tailored to Clackamas County. But I think that this brings a balanced approach. You know, Salem could pass this and then becomes unfunded mandate on us in the future. Anyways, there's a couple changes. Why would we not also, if they're doing the same service, why would we only target, I don't remember us directing it this way, maybe we did, I could be wrong. Why would we only target mobile services and not also brick and mortar? Is that how, were you directed in that or, I mean?

I think we were responding to the state legislation, which was only targeting the mobile service providers, yeah.

Okay. Why is, and then, I mean, I think that the services are the services. So maybe our ordinance looks at brick and mortar too. I recognize that our current services aren't directly impacted, so it allows us to still put these protective things forward without over disruption within our community. And then I don't, I mean, we could be involved in what's going on in the state legislature, but I don't know if I agree with Multnomah County that we would sunset it. We may look at that if the state legislature happens to pass something, but I don't think we should necessarily just put an arbitrary deadline and sunset on it. Those are my comments. I will yield back.

I'll make a comment and then over to Commissioner Savas. I think that, first of all, I applaud your... support for kids, so I'm and I Guess the struggles I have with it number one. We all set through the budget It's painful and what I think is if we had hundreds a hundred seventy thousand dollars seniors your other program some other ones that Perhaps that money could go to that's that's where I'm struggling with if we have to make our choices What are those choices because that's really where we're at financially So that's why I'm struggling a little bit about that cost. It's actually more than what I thought as well. I think the other question I kind of had for counsel on this is that when it comes to even bricks and mortar or mobile syringe distribution, say you have an established place where people all come to get their syringes right. And I'm Mr. New child care provider, and I'm putting a child care right next door. Who has to move? Right? Is it legally the new child care provider gets to keep that turf and push them out? Because I could just see where people get into a habit of coming somewhere, right? They develop trust in the place and location. And then suddenly, the reason I know this so well is because we used to put registered sex offenders in a particular hotel. a child care facility went up across the street right and they're not supposed to be within a distance so it creates this these unforeseen challenges down the road and I guess you know that would be one question I kind of want to make sure we looked at legally is Who would have the authority? I don't know the answer to it It might take some research to find that out, but that would be one of my concerns and I definitely get the point you're trying to do and I support that I think the challenge I'm having right now is just financially and staff resources in Mary's defense also I mean, I looked at it. If you lose 35 people or something, the numbers are just a lot. And it's just one more task. And I guess I've been where you're at, where asking to do more with less, and you're already maxed. So I hear that. But those are kind of my thoughts. Commissioner Savas, did you want to comment on that?

Yeah, I think I'm looking at this a little bit differently, and I shared some of my thoughts with Commissioner West earlier today, but I'm going to start out by saying this. I think it's a sad day when we are talking about the potential of a mobile SSP in Clackamas County, right? That means you have a concentration, obviously, of people that are using these needles for their drug use. And I don't think it's that dissimilar than the comments we made as a board way back when, you know, Willamette County was handing out foil. right, and lighters and all the stuff that people can just, you know, take fentanyl, right? So I don't see a difference here, that really, I mean, you're equipping, and yes, I do see, obviously, The one difference, obviously, is the spread of disease or someone being accidentally punctured by a deal. But the same token is anyone that's doing fentanyl with foil and a lighter is probably going to die from the overdose before they die of a disease. But either way, it's deadly or potentially life-threatening, period, either way. but I think it's really we're not one of the county we don't have a concentration I hope we don't have a concentration of where you know there's a it's going to necessitate or someone feels that there's a need for a mobile. ssp to pull up and distribute that mean that that's a bad day for clock was counting period. So I my thinking is and I I share the concerns that chair Robertson about the money right or enforcement or the cost. And again, we have laws on the books. We have ordinances on the books. We have code enforcement who acts based on a complaint basis. So I don't necessarily think that we need to, I think we can pass something. For example, could we pass something that says mobile SSPs are not allowed and distribution of these needles within near a school of its own and just pass that all by itself? Don't enforce it, just pass it. So now it's illegal to have a mobile SSP in Clackamas County and you can't distribute near a school, period. I think that does a lot, right? And if we learn of someone who's distributing that, then I guess the tools are whether it's a nearby business or law enforcement can say there's an ordinance or code enforcement and we can take action. So I'm for a practical solution here that doesn't cost us any money. I do like the idea, and if Metro's already doing this, and based on one of the slides I saw about the collection, have a collection box, I think that's a good idea in areas we know that are You know, it's more where there's potentially a need or where we have known activity that no one needs to staff it. You make a simple investment, it's done. And it's a one-time thing, and I don't know how this thing with Metro works, whether or not how they pick it up automatically for free, I don't know. But that's where my thinking is, to get... trying to thread the needle towards something that is the Clackamas way.

Just a quick comment here. I have an all-mayors meeting here in just a few minutes. I'm trying to wrap it up. Or I'm going to hand it over to my colleague here, Martha. Gary, do you have any suggestions before...

I know we're behind schedule, but I think the chair would like to be a part of this discussion. So unless you can wrap it up in eight minutes, I suggest you postpone this to continue the discussion, or Commissioner Schroeder will continue the discussion. With respect, you just asked staff to do an ordinance for e-bikes, and I heard you say we're not enforcing it. So go ahead and do an ordinance for this, and we won't enforce it. Problem solved. I'm being a bit sarcastic there, but there is a cost to both, the one you just did and this one. And we'll figure it out if that's your direction. Thank you. Commissioner West. A couple things.

I actually like combining two options here, and they're not totally the same. Your people that are using syringes for, that do not have substance use disorder, and there are many reasons to use syringes for all kinds of different, we don't need to go through the list, there's many. they do have a hard time and most likely are not legally disposing of their syringes and don't even know that they're just capping them and tossing them in their trash because there is like nowhere to do it in Clackamas. And you can't just, yeah, they did a good job breaking them, but they're not equivalent. Somebody who is really struggling and is maybe just contemplating maybe getting into recovery and they're starting in these SSP services around substance use disorder, they don't often have the same wherewithal to dispose of the syringe the same way my grandmother would dispose of her diabetic needle. And even the GLP-1 syringes, all of those things, they also come with inherent safety issues with them. So they're not totally comparable. So I would say, yes, we need more syringe opportunities to dispose of them appropriately. Maybe opioid dollars is a great way to look at that. Maybe we do our own pilot. Yes, on that. And if somebody is doing SSPs and is further down the recovery more stable and they use it, then maybe they will. And it's just more opportunities to get less syringes out of unsafe areas is good. But I don't think they're equivalent populations all the time either in how they handle their personal syringes. I think is important to look at. So I like the idea of both. I like the idea of going back to staff and being like, let's see where we can enforce. Let's do the best we can with the resources we have initially. See what the state does. But I don't hear... I see this as preventative. I see this as good balanced policy. I think our constituents would appreciate this measure. It is, I think there, it may not be absolutely perfect yet, but I think overall it is good public policy. And so I would encourage us to look forward, I mean, to look at moving forward with a combination of those two options.

Do you have a motion you want to make?

Well, I don't know if we're all...

I don't know.

Yeah, I mean just to respond to that. I mean, I would be okay, and I'm looking at staff a little bit too, moving forward with the option two. And I do think there are not good places to dispose of them. And you remember, Mary, we had the drug take-back program, right? which I didn't like either because they brought it to the sheriff's office, and we had to have two people because it's narcotics there. And it sounds like a cheap deal, but two people had to be there, two people had to go to witness each other, and then we'd have to go through a dole disposal process. So each one of these, I caution everybody, is each one of those can take money and time Resources, so I I do very much think that it would be you know We're talking syringes not drugs, and you wouldn't have to have two people But you still have to have somebody doing that you know I I would I think moving in that direction would be a great first step I And I believe the cost should hopefully be substantially less is that correct I?

Yeah, correct. And it's up on the screen. I mean, we've done a little initial analysis of that. I think we, it is certainly option two, which is expand the syringe disposal infrastructure is one of our recommendations for us to go back and do more work and continue to look at some of the map information. and come back to the board with a recommendation on locations and true costs, because we know what the cost is for, well, we know what the cost is, and that includes the servicing. So in that, we did confirm that opioid settlement dollars would be allowable for us to use for this type of program. It will continue to take a resource, but it feels a little bit better that there's a funding attached to that.

I think Martha's just put her light on. Did you want to say something? Martha's before me.

I'm inclined to do one and two because I, as a teacher, I have to be honest with you. I want buffers around schools. We have enough to handle as public educators. And then to have that as something that can happen is just one more layer of societal dysfunction. I don't want to. I just think we ought to. I have no objection to doing number one and two, actually.

Okay. I've got Commissioner Salvas.

Well, I'm looking at a way to... Modify one option one. I'm all in on option two, but Gary I do want to just Push back a little bit on we're adopting something But we're not enforcing it and we have a lot of things on the books that we don't enforce But we have code enforcement and we have there's a lot of books on there's a lot of code in the traffic code and in the legal world that we Don't enforce unless we catch someone in the act and whatnot. So it's not as though we're out there policing it, right? And we have someone, we're going to hire anyone in this case. It's on the books. And the action is reporting. And if someone's caught, you have that tool. It's a tool, right? Am I wrong, or do you have a different opinion about that?

I'm just a staff here, but why put something in the code if you're not going to enact it and enforce it 100%? In my opinion, you probably should revise your county code to remove those sections we just don't enforce because that's really giving a disincentive and it's not transparent to the public. That's just my opinion as a staff member.

If I take that argument, Gary, there's a lot of things that are on the books right now. That we don't enforce. Take it out. Resend them. It's impossible to have 100% enforcement.

Yeah.

I mean, it's like, I don't know. I mean, I don't know. Craig, you were a sheriff. You were part of enforcement. There's a lot of things on the books that maybe you've never, that the sheriff's office never acted on because it's a low priority, right? But it's still on the books.

It's just the same thing she's facing, is if you have these emergencies over here... It's not that you're ignoring them. You just don't have the resources. If I'm going call to call to call all day long and somebody's got expired tags, I'm probably not going to stop that guy with expired tags because I've got to get to the next birthday call. So same thing with H3S is they probably got all these other things going on and don't have a lot of resources to kind of do the very best. We're running out of time. I have to be in a meeting. I really want to be a part of this conversation, so I hate to do this, but I don't think we're at a conclusion. I think we got two down. I think there needs to be some more discussion, Ben. Is that right? I will bring it back ASAP.

So, if you do bring it back, Chair, I would like to see a modified option one that adopts an ordinance prohibiting any person from operating or assisting an SSP, period, and distribution of any sharps within 1,000 feet of a school, and that would include brick and mortar.

And I agree. My one concern is when you take... a legal entity that's legally able to operate, and you say you are prohibited from providing a mobile service if that crosses that legal line of, right now I think we're broad enough where it doesn't, but where you just say you have to have the buffer zones. I agree with you, but I am concerned then if we're getting into that, it gets precarious a little bit. And I'm not counsel, but blanket bans have been what have caused those concerns in other jurisdictions. It wasn't that buffer zones or something like that isn't implementable or legal, but an overall like, yes, but maybe you're right because one is brick and mortar and one is mobile. I don't know.

Well, yeah, and it's not blanket because what we're saying is it's not mobile.

Yeah, I'm going to have to interject because really, we've got to... I have another meeting to get to and the brick-and-mortar I don't feel like I've had enough information brought forward today on the brick-and-mortar issues and the legal issues surrounding that so I mean if we're going to talk about brick-and-mortar I believe council and because that wasn't really addressed here.

That adds more to it. What if we bring this back when you're next back Tuesday July 7th?

I was going to say I would like to have it brought back because I know where I'm feeling on this.

And I sense that. I think if we're modifying it to these other things, I just want to make sure we have everything in front of us. We'll bring it back Tuesday, July 7th and continue the discussion. Thank you. We'll go ahead and be adjourned then. Thank you. Thank you.