Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Administrator Issues and Updates on July 20, 2026. County Administrator Gary Schmidt, would you please call the roll?

Yes, thank you. Roll call. Commissioner West. Here. Commissioner Schrader.

Here.

Commissioner Helm. Commissioner... Sorry. Commissioner Savas. Right. Chair Roberts. Here. All right. Thank you, Gary. We want to introduce our first agenda item. Yes, thank you. First discussion today is public safety levy research and next steps. I will be presenting because Cindy Becker is on a well-deserved vacation today. I would like to invite to the table to assist me Jake Wigler and Megan Weaver, who are from Praxis, the firm that the county has hired to support the staff and the board. with determining next steps on a levy and educating and informing the public of such. So please come forward now, Jake and Megan, right here to this table. So a quick update, as you all know, commissioners, the Clackamas County Public Safety is a county-wide voter-approved funding measure that supports a variety of services in the Sheriff's Office, including jail operations, law enforcement, and public safety programs. It consists of approximately 20% of the Sheriff's Office budget, year this levy is a five-year levy that has been approved by the voters of Clackamas County four times over the last 20 years this year when we brought it to the voters in May 2026 they voted no by pretty strong margins 61 percent in June of this year you directed staff to hire a consultant to assist the board the staff and the sheriff's office and deciding when if or when to go back to the voters for round two on this levy After a competitive bid process, Praxis was the successful bidder, led by Jake and Megan, who are here today. They did conduct a series of interviews with each of you commissioners individually, as well as Sheriff Brandenburg before she retired, to seek your input. Those general themes are in the memo. That I will quickly share but then we're like Jake and Megan to go into more detail But the purpose of today's discussion is to hear your discussion and direction on if and when you'd like to go back Before the voters if you do choose to go to the voters this November Your decision needs to be made in the next two weeks because the filing deadlines are mid-august So there is a time crunch if you do choose to go in November Very quickly, some of the themes collected from the interviews I just discussed. We need to do clearer messaging, demonstrate the value of the levy funding to the voters, better coordination of messaging, engaging the community, including other elected officials like mayors, other local police departments and private businesses and chambers of commerce and other stakeholders. better collaboration between the board, the sheriff's office, and county staff, and clarity of roles. Who's in charge? Who's doing what for this levy? Those are really, really high level, but because they're here, I ask Jake and Megan, can you kind of share your themes, share your suggestions and thoughts for the board to consider, and then we'll have a board discussion. So again, welcome Jake and Megan. Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Administrator Schmidt, Chair Roberts, members of the Commission. I appreciate you making the time for us to talk a little bit today. My name is Jake Weigler. I'm a partner at Praxis Political. We are an Oregon-based firm that does advocacy, public affairs, and other communications work throughout the state. We're very actively involved in aligning and developing campaigns that will ultimately go to the voters for approval. We've worked around the state on numerous revenue measures, perhaps most relevantly working with Washington County to approve multiple of their public safety levies. And we'll try and use some of those lessons as we walk you through today. I'm going to let my colleague Megan do most of the conversation and then we'll be available for the Q&A because I know she's had the pleasure of talking to you all individually and we welcome her insights to share with you today.

Hi there, good to see you all again. I will go through the themes from the conversations we had. I think the first thing is there seems to be a big diversity of opinion around how much the amount should be for and when is the right time to refer it. Obviously, I know we're here today as part of that, but I think conversation will definitely need to continue about what is the right rate of the levy. and what exactly should be in that package. I think one of the big themes that came up really consistently is obviously affordability is a really big challenge for voters right now. And so making sure that our message is really clear about the value this provides, about the ongoing value of the sheriff's office, and really demonstrating that value to voters through both messaging and communications and support from broader stakeholders. I think one of the strongest themes that came up was around coordination, a desire for a clear plan of what is happening when and who is leading that work. I think that was pretty consistent and a desire for greater collaboration between the Board of Commissioners, the Sheriff's Office, and also the PGA office as well. Another big piece that goes into the messaging and the stakeholders as well as public trust I know over the years there's been some questions and conflict that's risen around the sheriff's budget and I think that may have eroded public trust a bit when they go to vote for something like this whether that's around the courthouse or other pieces so in that communications and stakeholder building working to you know, rebuild public trust so that when voters go to take that vote, they have confidence that their money is being well spent. So that is an outline overall of the kind of I would say and then taking that to what our recommendations are moving forward I think really important to have a clear structure for who is the who's leading this work as well as roles and responsibilities for the Board of Commissioners the Sheriff's Office PGA and a process for developing greater collaboration I think that will be really important moving forward. A plan with relevant timelines working backward you know the November elections right around the corner I think that plan would be very rapid as mentioned but you know especially if we give ourselves more runway planning backwards from a May election a lot of opportunity to you know be really clear about the timelines and the work the public safety levy and the work that the sheriff's office does and how important that is to the community and the many stakeholders that rely on it across the community and overall support this effort. The county has the opportunity to do more robust education-oriented communications, both before and after referral. I know that hasn't always been the practice of the county in the past, but I think that's something we do pretty regularly with local governments, and there's a lot of opportunity for more of that here as well. And then the last piece, as I mentioned, is just refining the message so that voters really understand the value of the levy, both the value the sheriff's office provides them and the value that this levy provides them. So those were our overall themes from the conversations we had and kind of diving in. Happy to answer any questions folks have about that or if there's any questions specifically about the referral date, which I know is kind of looming over us. Happy to talk more about that.

All right, thank you. Commissioner Savas, go ahead.

Yeah, just a question because there's been a change, and the change is the retirement of the sheriff. And the position is officially open today, right? The sheriff's retired. We'll talk about that next, but yes, there's a... Okay, but I think there's some interconnectivity here in the sense that I mentioned this last week. If there is now a race for sheriff, there'll be a lot of eyes and attention and energy on a potential runoff. I don't know if two people file or three people file, but... Typically, elected officials and candidates have the opportunity and freedom to speak their mind and advocate or not, right? But as employees, we can't do that. Public employees cannot do that, so we're restricted. And so I am just wondering two things, and one you can respond to and be the latter. I haven't touched on yet, but that is that with all this energy, it seems to me that maybe November might be may be more advantageous because there'll be spokespeople not just for the office of sheriff, you know, for running, filing for that office, but the energy of drawing attention to the sheriff's issues and needs. So there'll be an additional X amount of spokespeople that can speak to that. So I just wonder if that's an opportunity we ought to capture in a synergy once in a lifetime, so to speak. lifetimes may be an exaggeration, but an opportunity. So that said, turnout in a gubernatorial or a presidential year is significantly high in November, and an off year, like May of next year, it's very, very low. And there's always a difference between May and November, but on an off-cycle year like this coming May, the turnout's usually the lowest for any May, right? So how does the turnout... That's my question to you. How does the turnout play a role between this November versus a very low turnout in a May affect our ability to pass a measure, a levy?

I could take that one. Great. That's a great question. Thank you, Commissioner. You are absolutely right that a May of 2027 election will have significantly lower turnout than in November. And not only that, in a May election, you're likely to have an older and whiter electorate than in the November election. And we know generally that those are folks that are more skeptical of tax increases. So I think you're right that the voters that would be naturally more inclined to vote for a tax will be more likely to show up in November than in May. The counter argument, of course, would be that it's as much smaller number of voters, as you said. So it shrinks the task of a campaign to educate and convince voters to support the measure because there's just a lot less people you need to focus on talking to. And I think that's always one of the challenges in Clackamas County. As you all know, it's a brilliant part of the community, but there isn't like, you know, for instance, Washington County, where you have a couple of key communities that represent a lot of the population. As you know, you have a lot of different communities and it's a very spread out population. So there's an advantage if you just have to talk to less voters across the county overall. So I think you could argue it both ways. And of course, if we do choose to wait until the May election, we have the opportunity to do some additional polling in January or February, assess whether dynamics have changed, for instance, whether people's financial anxiety has decreased. And so therefore, they're more open to an option of a tax. I think there's push-pull dynamic here, and I'd say the exact same dynamic with the sheriff. I think we heard pretty universally from our conversations with you that there was an expectation that the sheriff, as kind of the public face of public safety in the county, should really be leading this work and be out there and visible to making the case to the public. If you have uncertainty in the November election because you have multiple candidates running against each other, And whoever you choose to select and appoint to the position would, of course, be having to run a campaign themselves to retain the seat. That's going to mean a lot less capacity for them to get out there and do the public work of making the case for the bond, or excuse me, for the levy. And I'll also add there's an additional dynamic there, which is I wish we didn't live in this world, but we have to accept that we are in a pretty polarized environment. And so anytime you have a competitive election for sheriff, You have a question of like, should we pay for more taxes or should we continue to pay this tax rate for the levy? It creates an opportunity, a political opportunity that one candidate can say, I like that. I'm going to support it. Another candidate says, no, I oppose that. And so you might actually have disagreement among the share of candidates that then would become a competing message with the public. But to your point, I think it will also having that election on the ballot will certainly focus people on public safety in a way that it may not be otherwise.

Yeah. Just a quick follow. I mean, you raise a good point. And you're right. It could offer a. A disagreement maybe with elements of the levy, but the elements in the levy will be crafted. They'll be, you know, established. There won't be an opportunity to tweak anything at a forum, right? It's there. It is what it is. It's really a yes or a no. It's either the candidates either support it or they don't, and perhaps at their own peril if they don't. I would assume. I don't know. That's his reach on my part, but... I think I'm more concerned about the point you made. We're both making it about the turnout in May, right? And I think the other one is more of a message to my colleagues, and that is that I'm just concerned that the uncertainty of whether or not it passes, we might lose people that are now, you know, great employees of the sheriff's office because they're not sure it'll pass in May. And maybe if it passes in November, there's less likelihood to lose staff. And we put a lot of money and investment to train people and bring them into the county. So there's risk there. And I don't know how we juggle that. But I have more to say, but I'm going to let other people speak. So thank you for your input.

Thanks.

Commissioner Hill.

So, I want to play devil's advocate for just a minute. I understand where your mind is going, but I would think that whoever is running for sheriff needs to focus on that. They can use that as one of their campaign goals, right, is to pass a levy. I think putting it on the November ballot is too soon. I think waiting until May gives us a bit of breathing room and gives a new sheriff the opportunity to gear up and get that message out and get everyone on board. Again, just thinking out loud here, my question is, if we were to go out in November, which seems too quick to me, especially based on, I know things have changed, but based on recommendation by you two, And it failed. Would we go back out again in May? I'm like, no, let's just wait. Let's just wait till May. I mean, they're going to say, read my lips. No means no, right? I think giving us that breathing room is better for us, better for a new sheriff, better for everyone. And then we have gotten some constituent communication that maybe meeting in the middle rather than dropping it back down to the 37 cents is rather than go to the 57 cents is maybe go 43, you know, so we're getting a little more and not, you know, I mean, those are things where people are saying, I could do a little more, but not 57 cents. So I just want to recognize that feedback from the constituents that early on came out and said, when we said no, we meant hell no. don't come and ask us again. I think we need to let it die down, and we need to work on that marketing for it, and let a new sheriff explain to people why we need this. I mean, I really think it's on that department to explain themselves and why, and I don't think that was out there before. I don't think there was a real strong effort. So... Yeah, my thought is to wait, but I know that's just, I'm thinking out loud as you're talking, so.

Thank you.

Commissioner West. I mean, even just a month is a lifetime in government and political life, so much changes so quickly. I did not see this on our dance card that we'd be having this conversation the day after our sheriff resigned. It brings such a new wrinkle to this and a difficulty. It's going to be a chaotic and wild midterm, and I just want us to be cautious about being overly reactionary. We don't have a leader at the helm. Unfortunately, we're trying to communicate stability, which we will do everything in our power to do. That is our moral and ethical priority as this board is to work with the sheriff's department to weather this together and to make it happen. I'm very concerned, though, that if we're reactionary, have different messaging that we can't control, that may or may not be aligned with this board. The groundwork was not laid last time, and the voters smacked it down, resoundingly said no to law enforcement, to the law enforcement levy. The sheriff and whoever else should have been involved, the campaign was little to non-existent while asking for more money in the May primary. Now, it was on the same ballot as Measure 120, which... that was a record resounding no to that tax increase and there was a lot of strong feelings around that and some people just turned out to say no to that and to all tax increases, we know that now. But I think one of the key reasons why it didn't pass in May was there was no law enforcement leadership front and center bringing the efficacy and the need and making the case to the voters. That badge was not out front saying this is why it's essential for public safety and for the essential functions of government. That didn't exist. That didn't happen. It was missing in action, to be frank. So I... And I don't know if we could go back again for a third time if they say no. And that costs more money. I think you just get annoyed voters. But there are fundamental principles and things in life that if you do the groundwork, if you do the fundamentals, if you lay the cornerstones in place, then you tend to have better outcomes. We've never done that in rushing in a way that doesn't give us the time to talk to the voters and to stabilize. I think we're asking for another beatdown. And regardless, I now want to revert back to doing the basics, just showing up, laying the groundwork, laying the bricks in the right way, making the case in a way that is able to, like, break through to the voters to see why they've had this, why it's made our county the most successful law enforcement county, I believe, in the state. I think the data is clear on that. I shared that, I think, in our interview, like how we're uniquely special in our law enforcement outcome and numbers and safety in our community. So I'm having a hard time. I want to get it done. I do see, like... But we can't control the messaging of different candidates. We don't even know who's going to file. Like, we don't even know their qualifications, their ability to articulate a message. You know, who's the leader? Who's making the decisions around the levy? Who is the public going to trust? We are in... It's more difficult now than it was a month ago to get this levy passed because we don't have a sheriff. It's more difficult now. And... I don't know. I'm not trying to rain on your parade, Commissioner. I respect your thoughts on this. But the last time we got this difficult levy passed, Chair Roberts, it was you. You stood it up. You know the work it took. You were out front. You were the badge. You told the community. They trusted you. You were the sheriff. And we don't have that. And to be frank, we haven't had that, it feels like, in a while. So... I don't want to do it without that leadership. So who fills the void? Who fills the gap? That's what we're dealing with today. I don't know if you guys professionally agree and see the tea leaves, and you just did these similar things in Washington County. You're in an unbiased way. You don't sit on this dais, but you're trying to help us achieve our goals. I guess my question to both of you would be, What do you think? Do you, strategy wise, we're kind of in a new predicament. We didn't even have this conversation when you met with us individually. This wasn't a thing. None of us knew this was coming. This is very abrupt. So I don't know. I'd be curious to like where your thoughts are based on the conversation you've heard.

Yeah, I mean, I would say, and I think Jake touched on this earlier, I think there was a strong desire, and I'm still hearing it now, that the sheriff is the one that leads this effort. That's what happened historically when it was the chair, and hearing that people felt like there was a gap in that in the last cycle. So I think having a strong, if the sheriff is the person that needs to be leading this, the sheriff can't be running for election themselves for the first time. I think for a variety of reasons, I think. they won't have name recognition, they won't necessarily have public trust, they could be in a competitive conflict-driven campaign that could be confusing. And so I think giving the space to elect a sheriff, know who that person is going to be, and then have them be the face of that effort, I do think, I think you were making this point, but to your point, You know, in the meantime, while that's happening, there might be, if we're looking at May, you know, there might be more responsibility on the commissioners to, you know, kind of do that work in the meantime. While if there is a competitive sheriff's race that's playing out and then, you know, ideally sheriff's elected, you know, and then that work begins toward May.

all right just a couple thoughts first of all thank you for your work it's very helpful I would just say there really is no perfect solution and we are where we are and we clearly have some challenges no matter which direction we go and I think that This is my personal opinion. I mean, I really lean towards Commissioner Helm as well, is that we have heard pretty resoundingly people are struggling financially. Everything from fuel to electricity is up. And I do think we have to really take a hard revisit on this of what to ask for. Secondly, I've heard from some mayors and other people about what is in the levy and why they're opposed to it, because they feel like it's a little duplication of services that they're having to pay for. I think that's a discussion we need to have with the mayors and really revisit that. And I think that it would be an incredible rush to try and pull all of this together by November. Having done levies in the past there's a lot of work behind the scenes and I know Jake you know full well what it takes to really particularly in these economic times to get things passed and as I told Gary actually when I first took office of working with PGA and we need to be telling our story regarding what we're doing with SHS funding right because that will a point come to an end and the same issue is with the levy and I know Gary's looking at how we can tell that story. So what I think is incredibly important is to make sure that we're listening to the public. I feel like we have more of that to do, followed up by a lot of education. I think a lot of issues that came to me were thinking this was a brand new levy and It was because it was an increase, but it was also a renewal so it's Kind of an oxymoron there you're you're reading doing it, but there is a slight increase so So I think all that really needs some work. And most importantly, I think it's real important that this board and the sheriff's office work very closely together to ensure we get this passed. I'm confident we can. I think we have just a lot of work to do. And I would be concerned about trying to throw this together quickly and then it fails, as Commissioner Helms said, then you're coming back a third time and what's it going to look like then? And as I kind of like to do the sports analogy is I don't think our team's quite ready for the tournament yet. I think we can get there with some hard work. So I'm leaning towards trying to go towards the May. I wish it could be sooner, but I think there's just so much work. Commissioner Savas, you had a comment?

Yeah, yeah, appreciate the conversation, and I think you're all making good points, and there's give and take, and I wish we were a month ahead, right? I wish this was June, right? And as you know, I was trying to advocate that we move very quickly, and it doesn't feel that that's where we landed up on. I do want to just say, just so it's really clear, And you kind of touched on it, Chair Roberts, and that is it was renewal. It was also more. And I think the discovery in our finances at the sheriff's office was such that we were promising a lot in the content of the levy, but it was mismatched with actually raising enough funds to actually provide that, which I think Actually was part of the friction we've had over the last few years. Why? Why can't we do this? There's not enough money. Well, now we know why, right? The calculations were off on the levy. So that said, you know, the other thing I think that was not there was the value statement. What's in it for the voter? Why am I doing this? Why am I paying more? It's one thing to renew it, but if I'm not paying more, what am I getting for it? And so we didn't have that answer. And everything you all said, Ben, you said it very well. There just wasn't, there was no one out there. We are all in the forums. There was no one speaking to the levy. And when we had a chance, we spoke positively for the levy, but there was no one there. There's not a badge there, right? to advocate for that. So, you know, I think it's compelling arguments, but my fret is, as Jake kind of responded to my question about who the typical voters are in May, is a tougher audience than, you know, so to speak. And a dollar of campaign money for a PAC will go farther for fewer voters, will go not as... It's less bang for the buck, essentially, in May, right? Because, you know, you're going to still do similar outreach, but you're only going to touch X amount of voters, and that's a smaller number. So it's going to take some work, a lot of groundwork. You know, I put it out there, and I appreciate your responses, but I do want to say that, Megan, when you mentioned the amount, it's the amount and also the content. I think you know that, of course. I mentioned that when you did the interview. We need to make sure that the... the package, number one, monetarily we can accomplish it. Number two, to Chair Roberts' point, is it offers something or sheds a light on what's in it for the cities. And I think the deputies for the courthouse, for example, should have been in there, right? That's a function that... Cities and the county everyone benefits from the courthouse the work at the courthouse the jail and everything else So there's and those costs have risen But there's not they're not tied to anything that the city's pay for so this indirectly helps offset that So I agree. It's complex so If I'm reading the tea leaves here, it's May Okay, come here to go to Commissioner Schroeder

Yeah, I just want to follow up on one of the things that you just touched on, Paul, because I was thinking that a lot of the feedback I got from cities, from citizens, is, well, why are we paying double for this? So there's a disconnect between the communication and work... that we do with our local cities and their public safety officers and our sheriffs. And it has to be perfectly clear that it's a continuum and that the sheriff's office is critical. And what rings to mind was the... Before I came back, I remember that shooting at the town center, Craig, and how that was handled. That's something that people need to remember and understand because there were multiple citizens from multiple cities and places there. There's a continuum that needs to happen between that. And I think if we have the time to do the outreach, particularly at C4, okay, to be honest, and you're heavily involved in that, I know, to get our cities on board as well as the other local cities police officers and forces that we're doing. I know we contract out with other cities, but I think Canby has its own police force. I think Malala. I'm not sure. But in any case, I think that kind of groundwork really needs to be done, and I think it needs to start now. But I don't see it... I think if we go out... This go-around, it would probably, my gut tells me, it would be highly unlikely to pass again because people, this November is going to be a referendum on a lot of things, right? So, I don't know, it's like six of one, half dozen of another. You're absolutely correct that in May we have a smaller audience, but... if we got the message out. And sometimes the geriatric folks like me, OK, to be honest, are very concerned about public safety at our age. So even if we're reaching a limited number of folks, they might be more amenable to that message of the public safety continuum that we're all providing for one another. I don't know. I wish I could read the tea leaves on this one. Thanks, Martha.

Commissioner West.

I think some of the issues with the city were certain actors and electeds. purposefully sowing discord and information that wasn't true. And now we have this big question that we have to contend with about double pay and do we get a benefit and there was a concerted effort politically while there was no campaign to undermine it. And that is very apparent to me. It's unfortunate because what it does is it makes all of our communities less safe. We have to champion the fact that we are the safest county out of all large counties with a population over 100,000 in the entire state of Oregon. There are 36 counties in the state of Oregon from frontier counties to rural counties to urban and rural counties that are quite varied. Some of these counties don't have a large population, but out of all 36 counties, we're the eighth safest by Oregon State Police data. That doesn't happen by accident. And so, though we're having these struggles, we have met the objective that is our imperative is provide safe communities. And we've done a lot of work around that. And there's a lot of pride to take in our sheriff's office. And they do an exceptional job, even compared to national offices across the country. They are an example of quality and good police service and local safety. Right. So that message isn't getting out. But one thing we also must do, historically, I do agree that we overpromised and underdelivered on the funding of the levy. I think there were political reasons or campaign reasons on what they thought they maybe could get passed and they wanted to get it passed. And so then you really sell it up, even though you don't have the money to cover everything. I think that's objectively true. We cannot over-promise and under-deliver. We have to be factual in what we can actually deliver with those monies and then deliver it. And then we probably are going to have to figure out how to do more with less and still provide the exact same outcomes that our residents expect. And they want us to continue to be the safest large county in Oregon. So it's a big lift, but whatever we do in that messaging, we cannot over-promise and under-deliver. We have to be factual and honest and pragmatic in our approach and then go out and do that work. And then we need to do the political work to push back against negative, untruthful, and harmful narratives to public safety that have been peddled by, I think, the least honest political actors in the county. And so we need to counteract those negative messages also.

All right, I'm gonna give you a little push back there and Respectfully, I think that what this board has to agree to as we look forward on moving forward on the public safety levy is During the course of that levy of that five years, right? is if we cut the Sheriff's Office budget right or have a significant reduction in the bottom line is you can't maintain the same level of service right and so for a number of reasons there was a pretty significant increase in allocated costs and overhead that when the initial levy was formulated those costs weren't included so what happened was that and a contract so as we move forward we have to project exactly okay kind of look ahead as If there is going to be an increase, what is that increase going to be? Ensure that that's kind of in what they ask us for. And then as we go into contract negotiations or whatever, we also have to stay within those parameters. If we don't, the bottom line is you've got to take somebody off the employee list to balance it all. So I think that... we just all have to be very careful as we kind of move into the budget to make sure that we're continuing to support it and which helps meet that need or the promise we really made to the voters that hey you will have this so I think We're working hard on it. We've learned from some of this, I think, and as we move ahead, I'm optimistic that we can all make that happen. I think that's what kind of brings me back to that message is we really need to work very closely with the sheriff's office and finance and and making sure that we're all together on the same sheet of music. We've made a lot of progress over the year. Patrick has done an amazing job over there, Lee, Under Sheriff Ashby, and I'm very proud of the work that we've made, and we've come a long way, and we're going to get through kind of this challenge. That's all I had to say. Commissioner Savas, you had your line on?

Yeah, great conversation. I think that I want to give credit to the finance team, both at the sheriff's office and our office, which brought to light some of the... shortcomings that led to, you know, the calculations for not just the levy but the city contracts as well. So I know that that's kind of created this question about, you know, what do the cities get? And I think, you know, I mean, the time would give us indeed opportunity to maybe And I suggest this, Chair Roberts, in your office way back when we first heard one of the mayors say, is that maybe we should do a study that demonstrates that the cost of the jail, the cost of processing someone, taking them for a pretrial hearing or a sentencing or whatever it may be, the back and the forth, all the work the courthouse does, all that processing, say parole and probation, right? So people get arrested not just in the unincorporated areas, but the cities. And who's to say which is more? That's not the point here. It's just that there's not a direct relationship between a dollar, tax dollar I pay, whether I'm in a city or not, to all those services that the sheriff's office doesn't really cover, but indirectly it covers some of those. So that... That needs to be better explained. And I think maybe if a study did do that, we could demonstrate to the cities that this is how we're paying for it, and the costs have gone up everywhere. That said, one thing I do want to correct for the record, not that anyone here in this room I don't think disagrees with this, I wouldn't think, but for others watching, and that is that it's often said that the Board of County Commissioners put this levy out there. It's our levy, right? But, you know, my 16 years of experience, and Craig, you've been around here longer than I have, at the county and as sheriff combined, is that the Board of County Commissioners didn't design the levies and we didn't set the amount. sheriff's the sheriff's the sheriff's office designed the levy and the content and the amount right and so with that said I think to Ben's point earlier a lot of what Ben said I agree with but there we need to have that strong relationship with the sheriff and make sure we get it right right and we get the amount right we get the content right we design in a way that's so if there is an opportunity for the first time ever for us to help be part of that thinking and understanding of making it right great but I just want to just say for the record that I've had concerns over the years about okay here's the promise and you know the money may be off and I know it's always better or easier to renew for the same amount, but you are getting, as with inflation, over the years, you're getting farther and farther away from over to the situation of over-promising and under-delivering, and that's what we've led to. I think that actually was part of the tension points we've had with why we haven't had enough money to provide the service, and now we know why. So that said, I'm just going to throw that out there about how we either study or evaluate the cost of the other sector of public safety, the courthouse, the jail, and the consequences of early releases and all of that. That just makes the system less effective. That said, Chair, I yield back.

Yeah, and I know Lee, for example, he has it down to the dime how much it costs to have somebody in our jail and can help provide some of that to the mayors to kind of understand it's very expensive to house somebody in our facility. But I think that we don't necessarily need a motion. I might need a head nod of going in May or November. So I guess I'll just look around first. Head nods for Mae. Mae. Are you there? Okay. With that being said, you know, one of the things that I really believe is extremely important right now, and that is urgency of getting some things done quickly. And wanting to move things ahead. I really believe that I would like to see the administrator create like a planning work group in advance. Obviously, the election to prepare the public safety levy. I'd love to have the administrator come back with kind of a membership in this scope of work. I think there should be like two commissioners on it and that we really kind of revisit these things together. So we're working, you know, obviously I'd have the sheriff's office and finance and really get to the meat of this quickly as to what do we want to ask for, what's our plan to communicate and outreach. And I even believe perhaps maybe we want to have some citizens on that or something. But I think it might start as a small group. Figure out the scope Gary. I mean if folks are leaning towards that I know I've talked to Commissioner helm She's she's always raising her hand to help Trying to recruit But I think that if we could move in that direction is that sound all right with folks here I

Well, yes, I'd love to have some kind of discussion about maybe one model or another model about what the scope is and how we do it in a thoughtful and somewhat expedient way. But that study piece, I think that speaks to the justification of what the cities aren't paying for in the levy, I think needs to be... lifted and more visible. And so I think that might take, I think some of that needs to mesh together. I don't know the timing of that, but maybe we have a discussion really about what do we need? What kind of information or studies do we need that, again, bring out that cost for the courthouse and all the stuff I listed earlier that are not spelled out in levy and aren't really in the sheriff's budget so much? It's a little bit of both.

All right, does that sound... Let me come back to you with a proposal. An internal group is a lot easier. If you want this to be more of an external facing blue ribbon committee, that's a little different model. I'll bring back both options for you. I definitely want to talk to Jake and Megan, who's still on contract with us, to assist us with this phase. So let me come back to you on this.

I kind of see it almost as a two really kind of one smaller group kind of trying to iron out some of these details and perhaps another group that is out seeking input and Talking about it might be a citizen. So come back with your recommendations. Yes, we'll do that Okay, any other comments by you two? No Well, thank you so much, and we sure appreciate it, and look forward to talking with you soon more about this.

Thank you.

What do you have next, Gary? Thank you. All right, sticking with the sheriff's topic, as you know, Sheriff Brandenburg has resigned from office. There is a state law on options when an elected county official resigns midterm. So Billy and I have been working together on this. So I'd ask Billy Williams, County Council, if he'll first give you what does the law say, then we'll tell you what options you have moving forward. Go ahead, please, Billy.

Thank you, Jerry. Commissioners, what it says, this is ORS 236.220, is that the chief deputy will fill the vacancy until the board appoints someone. So... Technically, that's why, as of today, the acting sheriff is under Sheriff Ashby. And then what happens after that is up to you. You have the authority under ORS 236.210. And I'll just read it to you It's brief But it's it's it leads the way on this when there is a vacancy in any elected county office other than the office of County judge or County Commissioner the County Court or County Commissioners Shall appoint a person to perform the duties of the office until the vacancy is filled by election So it's up to you You select who will be the interim sheriff until the election. There are different ways you can go about doing that. You can ask for people to apply, have interviews, do background checks, things of that nature, the normal hiring process. Or you have the authority to simply appoint someone to serve until the November election and then until the actual date in January where it would become effective. There are some specific statutory qualifications for sure. Pretty standard stuff. This is ORS 206.015. It's got to be somebody who's 21 years of age, someone who has either four years experience as a full-time law enforcement, officer or two years full-time enforcement with two years post high school education. You can't have a felony conviction or any other crime preventing certification and that's according to DPSST standards. And if you appoint somebody who isn't currently DPSST certified, they have a year to become certified. So that's those are the basic rules per ORS provisions Good Thank you for that.

I understand that and I called the clerk the day after I learned the morning after I learned of the early retirement of the sheriff and you know, got a better understanding of how the election process works. I was a little bit surprised. I had no idea that there wouldn't be a primary nomination process. So there is a compressed time frame. And I think that... not unlike the levy we just talked about. There is a compressed time frame to get the word out. So it's, you know, having someone who understands the agency in the interim I think is of paramount importance. But I just have a question, and that is, I learned about it. I can speak for me because I learned about it when I got a call from the administrator and said, look at your email. I read the sheriff's thing, so I learned about it then. But my understanding, I think nothing I can nail down, but how long was that discussion? How much contemplation was there? What was going on in the background? Because I'm hearing from people that said, well, we kind of knew it was going to happen, but don't share that kind of thing. So I'm just asking, who knew what when on this? I mean, I wish if it was going on for, let's say, 30 days, it would have been nice to know in advance. I do know... Chair Roberts, when you retired, it was recommended that under Sheriff Brandenburg become the sheriff. So we have that particular process, right, in which the board just followed. You know, the board at the time just followed that method of saying, okay, you know, will the undersheriff Brandenburg run for office? And the answer was yes. Okay, great. And so there was not, you know, it went pretty smoothly, right? You retired. She stepped in as interim and ultimately got elected. A little bit different here in that it's a compressed timeline. We have some challenges with the levy. We have a lot of things going on. So I'm just wondering if we need to do something a little bit more unique here and, frankly, a little bit more... expedient in light of all these things. If we're going to put together a levy and all these studies, we really need to have someone who understands the agency or the department. And so to me, I'm, in my opinion, someone who's willing to run. not just filled fill the position and have an open seat where two or three or more people are running for office so just throwing that out there I just like to know if anyone has any insight chair Roberts I know you work closely with with Sheriff Brandenburg Anything you can add to this? Because we haven't had that conversation. I was just surprised, and I just felt that maybe there could've been a little bit better communication with us, but there wasn't.

Yeah, I mean, I think that think she's got over 35 years of experience and I think I would anticipate anybody with that many years even a little bit less is at some point they're going to retire when exactly that day is I mean I was surprised as well as as I become to find that information but that's really that's up to the sheriff that's her as you know you know things can change actually under the county guidelines you have three days to retract it you can decide you're going to go and then you can decide you're not going to go So I think anything short of that is it's really in the court of the sheriff, whatever she decides. And I didn't file, and Angie had ran for sheriff, you know, and so she won by election. So there wasn't an appointment back then until the election. But I think that more importantly is kind of really, I think, where do we go from here is the big question. And... I think that It does create some challenges. But I think as I look at obviously running the organization of the sheriff's office, the goal is constantly, particularly when there's change, I'll just tell you a lot of employees are like, oh, my gosh, what's going on and what's next? And the more stability that we create in the organization, the calmer it is. Our goal and my message to all the troops at the sheriff's office is please don't leave. we're going to get through this. And there is a great leadership team at the sheriff's office right now. And I've had the opportunity to work with every one of them, Jesse Ashby and Lee Eby, and they're all, and Brad O'Neill, they're all extremely talented. And what many people might not realize is they're the ones that are running the organization. And, yeah, they come to us with decisions, but they're the ones that run it and do a fantastic job. So that's where we're under such a short time frame. I mean, if it was longer, I would say, yeah, probably look at some other options or do recruitment and post it and be transparent about, hey, we're doing this open recruitment. Yeah. But unfortunately, the timeline is so incredibly tight that I would really just lean towards continuing the operations with the great staff that we have and whoever wants to file runs for office. I think as you heard Jake said, you know, if we appoint somebody and they're going to run for office, also that becomes a big political issue as well. If somebody wanted to run for office and be the interim, I'd say, good luck. Because it's like, I mean, that's a major job in itself. So I can just attest that the work in a public safety levy is incredibly hard. If this county wasn't so huge, I mean, it's honestly trying to be everywhere. So with that, I mean, we're just trying to create the latest, the least amount of disruption in the organization. And everybody in the sheriff's office knows the leadership structure as it is. I believe they have confidence in the leadership. And we just say, let's just not upset the apple cart. Let's ride this out until November. And at that time, the citizens can make that decision. I know Commissioner West has a comment. Can I do a quick follow-up?

Yeah. First, so we close this out. So you're recommending we appoint someone today and not have a process. That's one.

I have two. Or we don't have to appoint somebody, as I understand it, from council because the undersheriff by statute is the acting. Is that correct, counsel?

Yes, undersheriff Ashby. That's correct. And Commissioner Savas, just to go back to your follow-up question, and I think I touched on this, but... That process, the other process other than appointing today, for instance, would be, okay, who's interested? How do we set up that application process, interviews, things of that nature?

Right, and I hear Chair Roberts. I want to say Sheriff. That's right. This is suggesting we appoint today, so I just want to make sure that's clear. The other one I want to follow up quickly. You said the three-day retraction. What does that apply to? And I think it's for any county employee. Okay, so what we're saying is that the retraction can be from the date of the notification that we received the letter or date of retraction from the date announced for retirement, which is a three-day retraction. It was yesterday.

This is state law for an elected official. When you announce your resignation, you have three business days to retract your resignation. Your announcement? The official written notice the sheriff gave last Wednesday. Yesterday was the third business day. Okay, so that's passed. That passed. Okay, that's passed.

All right.

Chair, you're back.

Okay.

Thanks. Commissioner West. Thank you, Chair. I had no clue this was coming. I think many in the county are gut-punched. The timing of this and the predicament it truly puts us in. The sheriff is not a small role in local government. They run one of the most important agencies that is the core function of public government. It is to keep our communities safe. They are the forward face of that. We rely on that every single day, 24 seven to provide that service. The taxpayers pay for it and we expect it and CCSO has provided that. I believe it is imperative based on the challenges that we're facing, not just coming out of a difficult budget cycle, but also going into now trying to deal with the levy. I think it's imperative that we act swiftly. Leadership's needed. A void has been created. Last week, that abrupt resignation is not anything that we should take lightly, or the reverberation that happened because of that resignation. members of the sheriff's office and the community at large right now needs stability and continuity. Law enforcement, fire, emergency, medical services consistently report that in the summer months, this is the truth, the calls are up, the activity is higher all over the county from the mountain past Wilsonville, south, in the urban areas, the rural areas, it's up. That's just the reality of it being summertime, and it's just a busy time for first-hand responders. And we already spoke to this quite a bit today, but we are at a critical moment within the levy. There's major concern with all of us on this board, the leaders at the CCSO, communities at large. We get stopped often to talk about that one issue alone at the grocery store in our communities. And now we get calls, well, since last week, a lot of calls and some anxiety around the sheriff resigning. I just think that we have... critical opportunity to appoint a sheriff to help lead why we address those issues specifically the levy. We need a collaborative partner in my opinion that help us get the work done immediately time is short that knows what they're doing they don't have to ask anybody where the bathrooms are and they're not beholden to any previous sheriff that they come in with an independent mind a fresh set of eyes to get this work done to build collaborative relationships across all elected positions in the community. We've learned that by law this board has the authority to appoint the sheriff to fill the vacancy until the next election. That means that sheriff would serve from an appointed time through December. We'd swear in a new sheriff in January. Like I said, we need somebody with experience, integrity, who's trustworthy We need someone who is completely familiar, the ins and outs of the sheriff's budget, who will tell this board the truth about what is actually happening within that department. We need someone who is ready to go. With that said, I am going to make a motion. I believe this deeply with much consideration. I have a letter I'd like to give to the board. Andrew, if you could pass it out from the POA in support of this effort. I think there's one clear candidate to make sure that we can get this done and to lead this organization right out the gate. With that said, I move to appoint James Rhodes as Clackamas County Sheriff effective August 3rd, 2026.

All right, is there a second?

I'll second it for sake of discussion.

Commissioner West has made a motion to appoint James Rhodes, effective August 23, 2026, as sheriff, seconded by Commissioner Savas. I'll open it up for discussion.

Chair, can I take first to have a discussion? Sure. Thank you. I just want to tell the public a little about who James Rhodes is. Many of you already know who he is. James Rhodes' resume is impeccable. He has 30-plus years in public service and almost 28 years in law enforcement experience. James has his degree in law enforcement from Western Oregon University. He first started his career in law enforcement with the OCPD, Oregon City Police Department, in 1993 as a reserve officer. He was hired by the OCPD as a full-time officer in 1995. James has served in various roles within the sheriff's office from under sheriff from deputy to under sheriff and all the different positions in between. He currently serves as a distinguished member of the Clackamas County budget committee. He is currently on the vector control board which is a special district here in Clackamas County. He also is a member of the enhanced law enforcement district citizens advisory board. I think he's clearly qualified and can help stabilize the department during this time. He has the trust of the governing body. This governing body, the communities that he has served abroad, and he has impeccable public service for more than 30-plus years. So as we go into discussion, I think it's important for the public to know who he is and to remind them. Thank you.

All right. Commissioner Hill.

I wish James was sitting here to ask if he wants to do this. Okay. Is this something he is open to do?

James has confirmed that he will show up on the morning of the 3rd to be sworn in.

I will say I only know him through the Budget Committee, and he does a fabulous job. It's interesting. He's one of those people that doesn't talk often, but when he does, he's very eloquent. And for all of those who want to hear his final statement when we were doing the budget process, he had some really great comments that kind of encapsulated, you know, our struggles with the sheriff's office over the years. So I really, again, I wish he was sitting here so we could ask him some questions, but... I think he'd be a great candidate for this.

Commissioner Service.

Yeah. Well, I would say that if we were going to do, and it sounds like we're not, but if we were going to do a recruitment process, it'd be nice to know what candidates are interested and not interested. And all I've heard through the grapevine is that some of the candidates that I think feel are part of the organization, that I feel highly of, and they're in the room, are not interested in running for the position. You know, hearing that Mr. Rhodes, you know, had a long time ago expressed that he's retired, retired, retired, not going to run, and I understand there's a change. He's changed. I think he sees the need, the need to serve. I have tremendous respect for him and his candor in the budget and his understanding of the organization, and he's demonstrated that. as long as I've known him. So I hold him in high regard, and if he's willing to step up to the plate, and did I take it, also run? Yes. Okay. I think that answers two important questions for me.

He would be here, but he is currently on vacation when all this went down and was also shocked by the news. He is in Australia. He's in the southern hemisphere right now.

Yeah. Well, clearly, it looks like you've done some work on this. I mean, obviously, this is a letter from the Peace Office Association. And I guess what I'm thinking of is, We really, from my position, should do a process. I'm not saying Rhodes can't be in that, but I feel like there should be some sort of process, really how we've done in other elected officials. I mean, if Mr. Rhodes is going to run for sheriff, right, then any other candidate that may run... the sheriff and they will be running as an incumbent and so I'm not saying that it can't be him but to me the fair and equitable way would be to do a process whoever wants to put in come in and then this board does a process and makes a decision based on that. Rhoads has done a lot for this community. I'm not going to, you know, he's stepped up. He's on vector control. He's been on the budget committee and has a lot of talents. But I really have to come back to kind of saying, number one, this is a surprise to me. And I would feel much better if we had a process I know mr. Rhodes is kind of like myself he's been out for five years or longer his certificate probably is lapsed I don't know and I will just say this and Gary knows this, is there's a lot of things going on in an organization. Everything from personnel to purchases to stuff. And we are talking three to four months of trying to jump in, get a handle on stuff. And so it's a lot. So I guess I would just say if you want to head in that direction, that we ought to open it up to all. and have a process and do that. To avoid the politics in this by appointing somebody who is not running, to me it puts a fair playing field for everybody. So I don't know of all the people that are interested. I know some are. guess that's where I'm leaning is if we're gonna head in that direction let's let's do a process so I see Commissioner Saba says yeah well it yeah just moments ago well not moments ago but earlier on that's what I was trying to get clarification you want to point someone today and your answer was yes and no I mean I what what we don't have to point somebody today I'm just saying that that the acting can remain acting until this board, if I'm correct by counsel, can remain in that position until this board makes a decision. So I'm not saying we have to appoint somebody today. It can continue with Mr. Ashby as the individual in charge. If we're going to go to a full appointment to the position of sheriff, then I would say, okay, let's do a process.

Okay, well, maybe I misunderstood. That's why I asked for the clarification. But nonetheless, I think if we did move forward today on Mr. Rhodes, he still has that same staff under sheriffs and knowledge and inside knowledge. So it seems to me that would still have a lot of seamless aspects to it. And that person would still have that same leadership in place to that person's avail. It seems to be checks the boxes that you spoke to earlier to quite a degree.

Well, I think that, as I mentioned, there's a variety of concerns that I have as not having the process and giving everybody the same playing field to come before us. And if they are doing a process for... If we decide to do a process as appointing a sheriff, that is a huge step versus just acting. There's a significant difference. And so I think that... If the board collectively says, yeah, we want to appoint a sheriff, then I would say, okay, do a process and let's make a decision. If we don't want to appoint somebody as sheriff, Mr. Ashby can continue as the acting as by law. Correct, counsel? Go ahead.

Thank you. Just to clarify, as I read the law and understand it, that appointment availability includes who's serving as acting sheriff under statute, right? So in terms of the appointment process, that's one of the options that you have before you, and you have the current acting sheriff under Sheriff Ashby

Here so yeah, that's an option It all three of those are options, okay Yeah, just if I just finished my thought and I'll yield back after this I Also heard and I think we all agree that The staff entire organization is extremely important and their morale and their relationships and I think are really really important we can't undervalue the morale within the organization and So seeing this letter today just saw today when Commissioner West just hanging I mean this means a lot and This goes a long way. So knowing that the POA, representing the organization, had some friction points with Sheriff Brandenburg, you know, I don't have any opportunity to know much of anything else, but this says a lot. It means a lot to me. This is... This is impactful. It's been a long time since there's been a strong relationship. Not to say that it would endure forever and ever. I don't know that. But this speaks a lot.

Yeah, and I think – and it does. It shows support. I think the one thing that I feel like we're missing in here, which is – The sheriff is elected by the people, right? And I've always believed in this position as chair that we should always give the public the opportunity to give input before we make critical decisions. And this is a pretty critical decision. And if we're doing a process, I feel the public has a right to come in here as well. We can do the interviews, we can take public testimony, and then we can make our decision. I feel as... just suddenly appointing somebody with really out a kind of a due process even for our state representatives that we've appointed there is a process and so Timmy in this I would just say let's let's let the process play out I'm fine with doing it and give Mr. Rhodes a chance to get back here and And have staff just work on that. I think that it would just create kind of a fair playing field for everybody.

My light's on.

Oh, okay.

Commissioner West. So a couple things. Angela Brandenburg, when she first became sheriff, was appointed to fill your vacancy, and that was your recommendation at that time. We have a commissioner that was appointed to do the work. Right now, she's running for election. The voters know the record. They can read the voter pamphlet statement. They can do that. We have a void in leadership. To be frank, we've had one for a while, even when she held that position. So looking at that now and how the abruptness of this and the lack of communication and the respect to this board and letting us know this was going to happen is very apparent. It's very clear. We're not the only people that feel this way, that the lack of collaboration and the timing of this, thank God she did it before the Tuesday meeting talking about the levy publicly. Thank God she didn't come here as the sheriff to help promote the levy and then turn around the next day and resign. Thank God that didn't happen. That would have been more chaotic. When there's a void of leadership and there's a vacuum and there's uncertainty, it's up to the other elected officials to come together to fill that void. And frankly, she could have still retired if she needed to. Just serve out until December. Just get through this election. Serve out until December. Serve until the election. And then make up and say, I'm not running. I'm resigning. I resigned as December 31st or until the next elected sheriff. She put us in this situation. And the electorate will have a say, and they'll also see stability within the organization as they make that decision. I don't know. It doesn't make a lot of sense how it happened. It's perplexing. It's concerning. It doesn't pass the smell test. What is going on? It was so abrupt. And for that, I think it's appropriate for this board that has been decisive and has never abdicated its role since I've been on it to step in and to make this decision today. It's unfortunate we were put in this situation, but this is what leadership looks like. And so, you know, I only have a few more months left on this board, but I'm not quitting my public service until the last day when there's a new commissioner sitting in this seat. I'm running till the end. And I ran to do so. I knew the job when I ran. Unless there's some giant extenuating circumstance that requires me to quit early, I'm not quitting. And so this is, I think, where we're at today. I'd like to call the vote.

Commissioner Helm had her light on. Oh, sorry.

That's all right. I was actually going to use myself as an example, too, that I was appointed, but there was a process. Well, I will admit that. It was a lengthy process and cumbersome and sorry and painful, Gary. And that's part of the reason why I'm okay with this, because of the swift action that's needed, the CCPOA. talks about and because I have such utmost respect for James Rhodes and his previous work in the county and especially he's intimately familiar with what's going on in the sheriff's office as it relates to the budget and I think kind of getting someone in that role and getting them like Initially, you know ready to run. I don't know I just think that there's I think action needs to be taken sooner than later. So I Reading through this the the POA letter is it's interesting because they are on board with this as well, which gives me a lot of Trust that they they think this is the right person. So I'll back to you. I'll Yeah, I know there's a lot of comments to be had here today Commissioner Schrader

Yeah, my concern, too, and I've gotten feedback. I'm going to be honest. I didn't expect it. I honestly didn't expect what I was hearing. I had people come up to me and say, what the heck's going on here? And this is in my hometown, Lake Oswego. And I thought, oh, okay, well, we'll get through this. We always do, I mean. And now we will. get through it. It was a bit of a shock. I have, you know, I've known Angie for years and years and years. But, you know, when you think when it's time to retire, she decided this was the time to retire. But I do have concerns that the speed of this also requires us to act And I have to say, because people are worried, they don't really... I was surprised that they were so worried, actually, to be honest. I was seriously surprised. I thought, okay, it's just another thing we're going to have to deal with after all these years of dealing with other things. And I have to say, I really think James Rhodes is a quality person. And I think because of the... This is the first time I've seen this. And I think given the turbulence we're facing on many fronts... It would be a better idea at this point to get somebody in there now and get it calmed down. And I would say that to my constituents because that's what they, like I said, I was sitting outside yesterday with my dogs having ice cream, and I had people come up to me and say, what's going on? So I think the sooner we act right now, given that whole response I've been seeing would be, It would be a good thing. And I don't take this lightly. But... And it's no reflection on the team at the sheriff's office. But I don't know what... You know, this is hard on them, too. You know, and... In any case. That's just what I'm telling you with what I've been hearing out there in the land. And...

And I guess my response, too, is that we could expedite this process and have it next week. I know that there is—I'll just say it. I've heard Mr. Brad O'Neill is going to run for sheriff. I've also heard Marcus Mendoza is considering it. And there are candidates that— that I feel like if we're going to do that, I feel like it is really incumbent upon us to evaluate everybody. I sense the urgency, but I can't emphasize this enough. that I've worked with Jesse Aspey. He is an incredible leader. He has got that organization under control. I have all the confidence in him that he can continue that until we make an appointment and we give every candidate the fair opportunity to put their name in. I just, to me, a week is not too long. I sense the urgency I'm hearing from everybody. And I will do everything within my power to basically work with Gary and get this done as fast as you want. So I do sense the urgency. So I guess those are kind of my thoughts. I think I had to go to Mr. Savas and then back to Wes.

Yeah, I'm ready to call for the question, but I do want to say that, you know, going back to earlier part of our conversation, recommendation that we make the appointment today. And I have, Chair, I agree with your assessment of under Sheriff Ashby. I don't have any quarrel. with that, you know, as an interim. But at the same token is that, to your point, anyone who's in that position has an option to actually file for office. So he might, he could change his mind. It's not unheard of where someone gets appointed to a position as interim, not with not the intention to run or intention to run, I don't know, because I haven't had that conversation with them, right? So no matter who we appoint or who the interim, even if we don't appoint And we just de facto, it's under Sheriff Ashby by assignment of the previous sheriff. That person's got the advantage. So we're not gonna be able to avoid an advantage, essentially. To me, it's more about, I think it goes back to this letter, which is dated today. It's dated this morning from the POA. I think that's what's got my ear right now. So I'm inclined to support Mr. Rhodes today.

I don't know when we even have a full board going into the rest of the summer. We don't have time. The timeline is crunched and compressed. I mean, I'm shocked we can even do an election for this in November. We had asked that question. This is unprecedented. We were put in this position. We didn't choose it. We would like, ideally, to be more of a process, but the timeline is what it is. The board schedule is what it is. I fully agree in everyone's assessment of under Sheriff Ashby. He's phenomenal at the work he does, and I'm sure that he will continue to be an excellent asset to the Sheriff's Office. And with that said, I am going to call the vote. Call the question.

Go ahead there, young man.

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Schrader.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm. Aye.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas? Aye. Mr. Chair? No. Motion passes 4-1, Mr. Chair. All right. Moving on.

What do we have next, Gary? The last item today is Commissioner Communications. Commissioner Schrader, what do you got?

This has been a tough morning and a tough day. decision with no reflection on the team that is here today and That's all I have to say. Thank you. All right.

Thank you Mr. Savas.

Yeah, I I concur with that it has been a thank you Mr. Chair. I think this is a surprise after surprise I guess to some degree. I did not have a chance to last week I didn' t think about it Sheriff Brandenburg for her service. As long as I've known her, we've always had good conversations. Some were tough, but I do have a lot of respect for her. And I knew that she served a long time, and I really enjoyed my conversations with her, most of them very constructive and positive. So I want to just wish Sheriff Brandenburg a great retirement and wish her the best. I think I'll leave it there. Sure, yield back.

Commissioner West.

I don't know if he's watching. It's probably around 3 in the morning or 4 in the morning in Australia, but congratulations to Interim Sheriff Rhodes. And I agree we're going to get through this as a county. We're going to get that levy passed. We're going to continue to be the exceptional county that we are, and that includes our law enforcement partners. Okay. I don't have much to add. It's been quite the morning, so I won't go beyond that, and I'll echo what my colleagues have said regarding the meeting that we just all endured. So, yeah, I'll leave it at that, Chair.

Well, then I'll bore you with what I've been doing. First of all, I want to... I want to acknowledge all of the letters we have been receiving from the Stafford Road people about the double roundabout. It has to be addressed, this question of whether we're turning Stafford Road into a truck route. And I'm trying to get some more information from our staff on where that roundabout ends and if we're putting semi trucks on Stafford Road and I just to the Stafford Road community I feel your pain Damascus is a two-lane road country road country bumpkin road right no shoulders and we have FRAIGHT TRAFFIC GOING THROUGH AT ALARMING RATES, BUT I KNOW THAT THEY'RE GETTING AUTO RESPONSES FROM OUR STAFF, AND I JUST WANT TO SAY I HEAR YOU, I UNDERSTAND YOU, AND I'M TRYING TO GET A LITTLE MORE INFORMATION FOR YOU SO THAT WE CAN HAVE MORE DISCUSSIONS ABOUT IT. I THINK THAT'S REALLY IMPORTANT BASED ON THE NUMBER OF LETTERS WE RECEIVED. THURSDAY, SOME OF US ATTENDED THE GROUNDBREAKING CEREMONY AT HILLSIDE PARK PHASE TWO. WOW, WE WERE JUST THERE A COUPLE MONTHS AGO FOR THE ribbon cutting ceremony for phase one and the amount of equipment there was amazing and they have they have really when I say broken ground there's there's a lot of work being done there for this is going to be 500 doors for SHS housing so it's it's pretty exciting Saturday I attended day in Damascus our little Our little celebration there at Centennial Park in Damascus. And it was very well attended. It was very fun. I ran into a lot of old friends. It was interesting because my kids used to go there when they were little and seeing the parents that we had in school, it was kind of cute because they weren't there with their kids or grandkids, they were there just to enjoy it. So it was a great time to get together. I went to the Oregon City, downtown Oregon City, first city celebration in the afternoon too, and then had dinner in downtown Oregon City, which is always a nice thing. to do and then last night chair Roberts and I attended the Mount Angel monitor fire district merger hearing in Mount Angel which we fully support so I just so that people know there's a little tiny portion of Clackamas County in that district so this is going to be on the ballot in November as well to merge these two fire districts to serve our citizens better so It's a great, there was no opposition, of course. And the one statement, and this is Jamie Karn's statement, right, is why would we support this merger? It's because seconds matter. And both in law enforcement and in the fire district and medical as well. On the worst day of your life, right, that's what he always says, on the worst day of your life, You want someone there as soon as possible. So we fully support that. And that will be on the ballot for voters in November in Marion County and in Clackamas County. So if you have any questions about it, you can call Chair Roberts or me. We didn't really speak much on it, except that I have been in support of the Clackamas Fire District mergers as well over the years, knowing that the economy of scale and how that benefits our citizens is number one.

All right. It was a drive, wasn't it?

It was a beautiful drive. It is. Google took me all the back roads. It was beautiful.

I don't have anything. I just wanted to clarify for the record, just so that it's perfectly clear, is just that this letter from the POA, that's from the president. It's not from the membership. So I just wanted to clarify that for the record. And with that, I just want to say thank you all for joining us. And we will return at 1.30, correct, Gary?

Yes, correct. All right. We'll be back here. Thank you.

All right.

Well, good afternoon, everyone, and welcome back to our policy session on July 28th, 2026. County Administrator Gary Schmidt, will you please call the roll?

Yes, Chair. Commissioners are rolling in, but there is a quorum present. Commissioner Schrader? Here. Commissioner Savas? Here. Chair Roberts? Here.

All right, thank you. I'll now recess the Board of County Commissioners, convene as the Water Environment Services Board of Directors.

And Gary, what do you have up first? Thank you. You're now meeting as the Water Environment Services Board of Directors. This policy session is Inflow and Infiltration Intergovernmental Agreement Renewal. Presenting is the team from Water Environment Services. Ron Waringa is the Assistant Director, and Jeff Stallard is the Capital Program Manager. Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Gary. Good afternoon, Chair Roberts and members of the board. We're here today to talk about West's regional wastewater inflow and infiltration program and to ask for your approval to renew the IGA that supports the program. As you know, West provides regional wastewater services to nearly 200,000 people in Clackamas County. There are over 1,000 miles of underground pipes that convey sewage from homes and businesses to West's regional treatment facilities in Oregon City and Milwaukee. West operates approximately 40% of that piping system, and our partner cities are each responsible for the portion of the wastewater systems that they own. Jeff is going to talk a bit more about inflow and infiltration, what it is, but I'll just note that all wastewater collection systems leak, and some just leak worse than others. And those leaks add rainwater and groundwater to our regional system that reduces capacity and drives up our costs. West's 2019 sanitary sewer master plan broadly reviewed the impacts of I&I, as we call it, inflow and infiltration at our pump stations and treatment plants. And the master plan identified I&I reduction targets in 19 priority basins throughout the regional system, not just the portion of the system that is directly managed by West. in an effort to implement the program recommended in the master plan and by West's advisory committee in 2022, the district and our partner cities established a pilot program to determine the long-term feasibility of providing funding to partners in support of projects that would help achieve the collective goal of reducing regional I&I. The original IGA created a cost-sharing mechanism to reflect the shared benefit of an I&I reduction and authorized West to make 33% funding contributions to support projects in our partner cities. We've been administering the program, the pilot program, for a little over four years and have some important updates to share. And so let's dive into it. With that, I'll turn it over to Jeff to talk about the program.

Perfect. Thanks, Ron. So I guess we'll define or kind of identify what is I and I it's inflow and infiltration And so this is water that gets into our system that we don't want in our system. It's rainwater Groundwater it gets in our system through leaky laterals root intrusion Every when you buy a home you get an inspection you look for those types of things manholes that that get cracks And cross-connects, somebody inadvertently connects a storm sewer to a sanitary system. So those are all kind of major sources of I&I. They occur right when the system is built. No system is completely watertight. But those are the types of things we're looking at. So when we talk about I&I, it is truly just a wet weather, a wintertime impact to our facilities, not in the summer generally. Next slide. When we embarked on studying reducing I&I in our system, industry standards we looked at, there's three kind of approaches to managing I&I. You can attack just your main line, so just the collection system, so just the lines that run down the street, and generally you would get about a 20% reduction in I&I. It's the least costly, but also the least impact on your system in terms of reduction. you can the second phase would be reducing would be addressing the main lines and then the laterals to the right away so all within the public area that generally bumps it up to a 30% reduction across these are industry standards that have looked at across the country and then the final would be the most expensive option which would be the laterals all the way to the house so all the way to the connection right outside the house on private property Generally, if you approach that way, you get 65% reduction. It's the most costly, but also the biggest bang. So from a cost perspective, the one thing I want to point out, the analysis that was done on our master plan assumed laterals to the houses. So we assumed kind of the worst case scenario of what you might have to do in a system to reduce I&I. And so when we compare the costs of building bigger or addressing I&I, we picked the most costly cost. INI reduction approach. So when we talk about a 65% reduction, it doesn't necessarily mean that we need to get a 65% reduction in our NI. It just means that it was as cost, it was more cost effective to make that massive investment in laterals all the way to property owners was still a better avenue than building bigger and bigger at the treatment plant. So just kind of want to paint that picture a little bit. Next slide. So this slide it really when we talk about I&I our master plan did the analysis we looked at 19 there was 19 basins within our regional collection system that had excessive I&I and the slide you see here those are 2040 projections based on our modeling of what it would be. So to The far right column is gallons per acre per day. So that's the metric we use. What we can say is a new system would be assumed at 2,500 gallons per acre per day. A leaky system in Oregon or a high inflow and infiltration impacted system would have 10,000 gallons per acre per day. So four times what we would consider a new system. And if you look at some of ours over there on the right side, we have a few that are closer to 50,000 gallons per acre per day. And so those are ones that obviously are conveying a lot of water in the wet seasons. And so those are the basins that we're targeting in our I&I reduction program. I'll call out the West owns and operates two of those 19 basins and the rest are in our member communities. Next slide. This is more just a graphical representation of those 19 basins. So the areas in red comprise the 19 basins, and so you can see they're spread out, typically along creeks where flow comes up in the winter really high, where we build at the low spots near and adjacent to creeks, and then a lot in Oregon City where the system is just older. It's the oldest system of our collection area. So those are... why you see the red where you see them, but those are the 19 basins. When we talk about funding and working with our member communities, those are the basins we're targeting. So just wanted to take a snapshot in time on what does an I&I project really look like? So really, we do the modeling. We say, hey, this basin is leaky. So then we go down and we look closer into that basin and try to identify where in that basin is this excessive I&I coming from. Because it might not be the whole basin. We might be able to isolate it to a smaller spot. So we have some project inception, takes us time to get a consultant or a contractor on board to help us implement the flow monitoring. Then we spend about a year doing field investigations. It would be great if we could be out there any month and do the field observations, but we're really we have to do it in the winter to see the rain. And so depending on when those get implemented, it takes a wet season to gather the data. Then we would take that data, put it into a design and identify, do we need to do more investigation or can we identify where this is coming from? About a year of design. one to two years of construction depending on the extent where it's at. Is it down a busy corridor? How quickly can we get out there and do that? And then again at the end we have to post monitor the flow in that basin and that again has to be in the wet season. So on average it's four to five years from inception to kind of a project being built and then another year for data collection and an analysis. The IGA that we are asking to extend here was approved in March of 2022, and the first two projects were approved by our technical advisory team at the end of March, essentially. And so just to talk a little bit about that approval process, we have a technical advisory team that reviews city proposals. So the city would bring forth a project The first level of review is, is it in the 19 basins? Yes, okay, that checks the box. And then we as a technical advisory team review what they're proposing to do, their costs, proposals, those types of things. And then as a group, every member community has a vote as well, but we all vote together to determine whether we're gonna fund that project or not. So it's not one person making the choice, it's a group collectively of the regional partners. Next slide. So, as I mentioned before, we really try to refine down the basin and identify, and I think I might have shared a little bit of this story in a previous conversation, but this is the Mount Talbert Basin. This is one of our leakiest basins we have in the West collection system. We embarked on a project. We went out and did some smoke testing and found that there was a storm basin that was smoking. And so we did some further investigation and found that there was a sewer lateral that was improperly abandoned when the hospital was built. And all of the drainage, they built their storm basin right over our sewer lateral, essentially, and it wasn't plugged. And so the drainage from that whole area was draining right to their basin and right into our system. And so we were able to cheaply plug that and properly abandon that lateral. Um, and while it's hard to give a definitive quantity of water saved, right? Cause it depends on the rain and those types of things. But if we do some pretty, uh, looking at just rainfall on the area and impervious, we estimate about half a million gallons on a design during a design storm that we from coming to our system that now goes into their storm sewer system. The thing I'm trying to convey is it doesn't always take going from main lines all the way to laterals to the house to get effective I&I removal. what we did the study and that analyzed the cost of doing that versus the cost stability and it was more cost effective to do that level than it was to build out our plan. So that's a key thing that I want to kind of point out from a cost perspective. And so the other thing is this didn't solve the issue for our Mount Talbert Basin but it got us a long way. The next step is going to be to go out and look at the manholes that are built along the creek side. And we're going to repair those manholes, and then that work and that massive basin that we have should get us down. And the line on the right, the flow tracking, the blue line is if we did nothing, and the dashed line shows kind of the results of our impact to date. Next slide. So overall, what have we accomplished in our time here? So in the four years-ish that we've been delivering these I&I projects, we've, as a collective region, rehabilitated 20,200 lineal feet of mainline sewers, 648 lineal feet of laterals. 98 manholes we found 38 catch basins that were cross-connected with sewer that were disconnected and and properly plums And the total West investment and this is through the end of fiscal year twenty four twenty five West invested five point three million dollars and our member communities invested nearly eleven million ten point nine three million so we are We're encouraging work, but they're also bringing two-thirds of the dollars to it. And so the answer from the pilot of could we work collaboratively and get projects going, I think the answer is this has been pretty successful of doing that. I think the question that we want to have an extension so we can do some more projects is to answer the question of is it effectively removing I&I? And we will have an answer for that. We have a strategic plan initiative to update our master plans every decade. And so this was a 2019 sanitary sewer master plan. And so we'll be revising or relooking at our master plan here in 2029 within this five-year window that we're asking for the extension of this program so that we can then take a closer look at these basins and make sure that the investments are paying off from an infiltration perspective but based on the work that's done to date it's just tough to have that answer today

Yeah, I think that's all we had in terms of presentation. So again, we we're looking for your direction to bring An IGA renewal forward for your approval and we'll answer any questions you have we can all right Commissioner service And indulge me on this one so my

History of this goes back in the 90s, right? Whether it's wastewater or whether it's the I&I or whether it's the surface water issue, all of that. And so in those conversations back before Mr. Weiss, or Greg was here, before Ron was here, I forgot how long you've been here, How long have you been here? I'm coming up on nine years now. Nine years. Okay. So before y'all, no disrespect is intended whatsoever. But I was told from one of the engineers at least 15 years ago about the big leak. And I guess the Happy Valley area or Happy Valley Intercept or somewhere in there, And I was told it's probably our biggest I&I problem at the time by one of our engineers who's no longer with Wes, okay? So I got behind this program. I'm still behind the program, but I really, when we're putting this kind of money in, I'd like to see metrics, how we are doing. And I think if you go back to, well, go back another slide. Yeah, there we go. So Where is that on this list?

In terms of the metrics in terms of what we're measuring?

Well, you're showing the reduction of 54,000. Let's just say the first one is Oregon City. So I'm just looking, what is the designation of that project for that big leak that is supposed to be in a creek or some kind of an alignment issue? Are you familiar with the INI problem I'm talking about?

I'm not off the top of my head, no. Ron, are you?

The one near Happy Valley? Yeah. I'm not aware of the specific point, but I think that is one of the basins that's probably the Mount Scott Basin or Mount Talbert that Jeff was talking about. You can see on this map in the upper right is a priority basin, and it is on that list. And as Jeff gave one example from the hospital, but we're still working on that basin.

Okay, go back to the other slide. So that would be number which one? Andrew, could you go back to the other slide?

So which one is that? Number 16?

16, yes, that's good. So that 18,900 represents the rate reduction to date.

No, that represents, that far right column represents what the model predicts in 2040 if we did nothing in the basin, what the basin would be at in 2040 if we made no investments at all.

Okay. The Oregon-Sydney number at the very top does not surprise me because of the history, and those lines have been in need. I'm aware of that. And West Linn's numbers are high, and Gladstone numbers are a little bit lower than I thought that they were described to me. So it's nice to see what that potentially would be is what you're saying. Yes. Andrew, could you back another slide? So the column to the right that says the typical INI, it sounds like this is all theoretical in a sense, right? There's no real metrics. It just seems with flow meters that we have in our system for this actually entering the sewer system, The rationale, the reason I got behind this was, oh, we don't need to upsize any of our pipes or reduce plant capacities. And ever since then, we've increased plant capacity. We've increased our lines, right, in the interceptor project that we're doing now. We did the big pipe project from the plant to the river. So we're doing all those things that I thought we would basically... mitigate or do less of. And we're still putting money in the I&I. I still today don't have any hard metrics for what these have really done. And that's my 15 years of struggling to get the answer as to is that fixed. But I think on that one page there, Number five, I believe, or four. That one there, that strikes me because, as I was told, it was as big or bigger than Oregon City's problem from an I&I standpoint, and it's not represented as such on this screen.

All I can speak to is what the flow monitoring that was collected in 2018 when we were doing the master plan update. We go through a winter cycle. We have 22 flow meters deployed in our system today that we're monitoring regularly to keep after our hydraulic model. And so I don't know. All I can speak to is what the measured data that we collected said. And our master plan, we assumed If you make no investment, your system's going to continue to degrade at a higher rate than if you make investments. And so the master plan has two basic assumptions. It's impervious area, right? Building out your facilities with the dry weather flows, but also houses and other things, right? Changes how much rainfall or runoff you're going to get. And the other one is As your system ages, it inherently becomes more leaky. And so our master plan made an assumption that there's no system that's watertight, and there's also kind of a higher end of degradation that our system would see. And so the thing that's hard to measure until we get more information, longer-term information, is what those impacts are. And I'd love to be able to say, we did this project, and we saved x gallons from entering our system, but it's That's a hard one without having more modeled data because the system's always changing with new development and other things that are impacting that baseline number that we measured. But to the question of what you heard 15 years ago, I can only speak to what our master plan measured.

Well, I appreciate the city of Oregon City being all in, right? I mean, they're making a huge investment. We're all watching it. We're seeing it. So I applaud them. Any inkling of a metric as far as... performance with Oregon City's investment?

So some of those, and I think that was the slide that talks about project duration, and we've been at this for only four years now. It takes four to five years to really implement projects. They're just now wrapping up some of their initial projects. I think that's the if we hold to what the industry has seen across other regions and other areas and investments, we're not the only a municipality or the only area of the country that's making these investments. And so I think what the industry averages is it's founded in reality of what people have seen in the cost effectiveness way of doing work. but we don't have good flow meter data like a pre and post from that specific area. Ours are much larger basins. We're looking at what we get from the Westland Basin, but not exactly that little stretch of work that they did or in Oregon City. We're looking at what's at the bottom most part of the basin, where they did the work specifically. And so Oregon City, as part of the agreement, they're going to be monitoring and provide us an I&I report, in which case we can pass that along. But we haven't gotten to the point where we've successfully got a project and got a wet weather season in that says, here's how effective that was. That's the crux of the nature of just the time it takes to get the projects done and then collect the data, because you can only collect it in the wet. All right. I'll leave it there. Chair, I yield back.

Commissioner Helm.

Ron, you were gonna say something.

Just quickly, just to add on that, the chart that shows that far right column of gallons per acre per year or per day, that is the metric and that comes out of the modeling from the sanitary sewer master plan that is it's math but it's sophisticated and we can only update that metric as we update our sanitary sewer master plan like Jeff was saying which we will do because while while we've been doing this program we've also been running flow meters so we'll be able to update it the the true test will be you know how those numbers come down that the particular basin and happy valley while it's 18,900 gallons per acre per day it's also a 1600 acre basin. It's the biggest basin that we're looking at. And so, you know, relative to Showing the the performance and and the result of our of our efforts to date It will be the the rerun of the full model and comparing new numbers to those numbers That's because because that's how we identified the priority basins was with that hydraulic modeling It's gonna take more hydraulic modeling to do that and we haven't had enough time yet So that's the number we're gonna look at when we come back to you. I

So the RD2 is the metric, but that column represents what the goal is in 2040, correct?

That is what it would be in 2040, not the goal. If we did nothing, this is what we could expect to see.

And so we're going to have to do, to your comment on capacity, which is a great observation, we're always going to have to do capacity improvements. We're just saying we have to do less capacity improvements if we bring I&I down. So you're seeing projects where we are increasing capacity improvements,

but we're planning to build um to a lower level than if we did nothing okay anything else okay so yeah thank you um back when i got schooled on ini when i was on the west ac um The way Lynn Chacoin explained it was the savings over, and Ron, correct me if I'm wrong here, it was a very large number, like, I want to say like $100 million or something.

RONALD DRAGONINGER- $120 million.

RONALD DRAGONINGER- $120 million savings for not treating, because we're not going to be treating the water we don't need to treat, right? So we're trying to keep it out of the system. And yeah, all the modeling that was done back then made a lot of sense and you're still working on it. What I saw happen at the time was how long it took IGAs to get going with the cities. Just to get all of this off the ground, it was very time consuming. So I have the same questions written down that you do about metrics yet. Like is there a percent of completion right now compared... to the initial timeline? I mean, are we halfway there? Is there ever a completion date on this, or an I&I is going to happen forever, right, as pipes fail?

Yes, I think from a West perspective, we have, we and our capital plan have a million dollars a year investments in This is across our whole collection system, not focused in these 19 basins, right? Just to manage and maintain and rehab our system so we keep it as tight as we can keep it. Our operations crews, our maintenance crews are out CCTVing. We use that information to then make pointed attacks and address areas where we find leaky joints and point repairs, line our collection system. So it'll be, it's really a forever problem, quite frankly, because as I mentioned, the system's always degrading over time. So if you did nothing, then you're not even maintaining status quo.

But I think, yeah, and I think to Commissioner's office's point is, just getting the cities on board and them recognizing this is a huge issue within their cities and that it was a collaborative effort between the county, between West and the cities getting this taken care of. It's made a huge difference. So I appreciate your efforts, but I think you answered my questions because they were related to metrics too. So I yield back.

All right, any other questions or comments? All right, is there a motion before us on this IGA?

I move to direct staff to submit a five-year renewal of the inflow and infiltration IGA to a business meeting for final approval. Second.

Excuse me, Director Helm has moved to direct staff to submit a five-year renewal of the inflow and infiltration IGA to a business meeting for final approval. Director Schroeder has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll? Director West.

Aye. Director Schroeder.

Aye.

Director Helm.

Aye.

Director Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes five to zero, Mr. Chair.

Okay, I'll now adjourn as water environment services board of directors and convene as the library district of Clackamas County board of directors Gary Thank you.

You're now meeting as a library district of Clackamas County. This policy session is 2025 library district task force recommendations implementation plan Tony Maranek policy advisor in the board's office and myself will present I will kick this off way back when way back when in 2025 last year January 2025 the board directed that the county staff put together a library district task force to review those vexing issues that have been impacting the district for 18 years such as service levels funding and governance. We did just that and formed a 10-member committee that met over five months and came up with recommendations to you. That committee included two mayors, two city managers, two library directors, two unincorporated residents, Director Paul Savas, and myself as a district administrator, and also library network manager Rick was there as well. thank you mayor milch I see you in the audience today and community members thank you for being here that group had some really tough discussions but ultimately came up with two recommendations which we brought to you as a board in December 2025 at that time the board of Accept both of the committee's recommendations, but merge them into one recommendation and move forward on implementation You directed me to put a plan together and come back to you. It is now seven months later That's not on purpose However, there's a lot of things you asked staff to do and I did my very best to get this before you but this was just Not a priority because it's not on this plan. However, we got the work done. We're here for you today I want to say no one is happy No one is happy. I've heard from city managers, from some mayors, from the unincorporated folks, that apparently everyone's forgotten what happened in this task force. I'm being a bit sarcastic, I apologize, but I've been doing a lot of work the last few days, and I know perhaps some of you as well, trying to calm everyone down and say the board's gonna talk about it today, but even though the task force came up with a recommendation that was unanimous, it seems to have been unraveling in the last seven months. So I just want to preface that with this is a tough work that we did, but I need your direction on what you'd like us to do next. So with that, Tony, I've teed it up for you, good or bad. Tony will take it away on what the next steps are, and then we'd like your feedback on how you'd like to move forward. Thank you.

Commissioners, Chair Roberts, I'm glad to hear that everybody in the room is here for libraries and not Wes' employed infiltration presentation. I am a card-carrying member of at least four different library systems in the Oregon area. I believe very strongly in libraries, and so I just want to set all of this up with, my recommendation is based on the work we've done, not because I am for or against libraries, but I'm trying to balance the wants, needs and desires of 10 plus cities, the county, the library service district, the 423,188 residents in this county and bring to you board a recommendation that we can actually do. Gary has covered a lot of the ground and so I'm just gonna sort of skip to the end and what options are before the board today. Out of that task force work, I was present for all of the task force conversations. The task force did a lot of dreaming, I will say it that way. There was a lot of what could be. What if the sky were the limit and we could do, let's, and there was even talk in the course of the task force discussions of library district 2.0. I'll say it out loud, that conversation happened in one form or another during the task force conversations. That said, clearly not everybody is on board with that idea for a variety of reasons, good, bad, or otherwise, trying to find a balance of that work. And so the options that are laid out in the staff report, the first option is the pie in the sky dream. Let's go look at all of the things, everything to do with the district. Let's look at service areas. Let's look at structure. Let's look at the idea of a levy or a reorganization of the district. Let's do the analysis. Let's have those conversations and come back to the board and the public along the way as we're doing the work and let's check in. Maybe at the end of all of this work, We don't go forward with Library District 2.0. We go forward to something smaller. But let's do the dreaming that would be involved in that work. So that's really option one. Option two is scaled down significantly from that. There is feedback we've been hearing. Gary's been hearing. I've been hearing. I'm confident that members of this board have been hearing about what various other parties to this system would like to see, let's go do that work. Whatever that narrower scope of things is, if it is adopting a framework for the current organization, permanent tax rate, structure of the district as it exists today, let's have that narrower conversation. And we could come back to the board with that work. And then of course, this board has the right, as they do all the time, to direct staff to take no further action. Set this on the shelf. I want to clarify that I am not paid for by the library district. The library district has no revenues to pay for any of this work. My time is paid for by the county, and every hour I spend doing this work, the county is paying for. And so that is something else to keep in mind as we're moving this work forward is the money for the work to be done has to come from somewhere. The library district distributes 100% of its revenue to the cities by intergovernmental agreement. There is no mechanism for the library district to hold money back to pay for this work. And so one of the options is we're working through either option one or two. One of the things to be looking at is how are the costs of that work being distributed? And what that will look like will depend on what this board's direction is on options one or two. Because option one is a larger number. In a previous discussion, we talked about it costing upwards of $500,000. I want to clarify. I'm getting some eyebrows. I want to clarify that that number is based on an educated guess. We don't reorganize districts very often. We haven't done it yet. We don't put new permanent tax measures reorganizing, terminating one district, starting another district. We don't do that work very often. And so the only work I have to base that $500,000 cost on is another county service district that is currently working through a system plan, considering a levy referral in the coming years, and working through some very similar structural issues. They've been fortunate that their number has not been nearly as large as they thought it would be. grateful recipients of some external funding opportunities. But when they were initially setting all of that work up and they were figuring out what it would cost, they were looking at a number that was somewhere in the order of $500,000. And so in the interest of making sure that this board understood the full cost of what that might look like, we didn't want to say, oh, it'll cost us 100 bucks. Option two is a little more scaled down. Option two is a little more narrower in task time and scope. We would be relying upon our partners to assist us with the effort. And so that cost is lower. That's the cost that you see here in the staff report, somewhere around $150,000. That said, no contracts exist, no documents exist. I don't know yet what that number will be. And so there's a possibility that it will be somewhere around that number. But it could be more, it could be less. And we won't know what that cost sharing looks like with our partner cities until we approach them and have those conversations once the sports direction has been given. Because some of them have indicated they might be on board with a smaller scope. Some of them have indicated they're not interested at all in funding any of this work. And some of them are okay with the dream. And we won't know until we have those conversations. So with that, I could wax poetic for another hour about library districts, but I will stop there and be happy to take any questions this board might have.

All right. Commissioner Selvis, go ahead.

Thank you, Chair. I know we already have acknowledged the participants that were on this task force, and Mayor Milch, thank you for your role, and Mayor Walker, who's not here from Sandy, I want to thank her and others and the city managers that were involved. I think we did some good work, and I think sometimes when that work stops, you lose momentum. And I think that in hindsight, if we go through a similar exercise, then maybe we need to continue on. And I respect the recommendation of option two, but I would say I would look at option two with the hope of moving towards option three, right? Just so people understand and people know how this came to be, the library was formed in 2008, right, Tony? Yep. Yep, 2008, Azure 3.10. Just like anything, any formula, and it is comprised of a couple formulas, there's some mathematical anomalies, and one of those was Gladstone, the plight of Gladstone, having to build a library to serve a huge unincorporated area three or four times their city at their expense, not the surrounding area. So that was an example of maybe one anomaly that was not foreseen. And we resolved that. There's a library today in Gladstone. It was just there last week. Saw some people in the audience that were there. We plowed through that. We got where we needed to get as far as building the library. But that was not the goal of the district. The goal of the district was to maintain our services and not see a slow degradation of services. So as the less-funded libraries are now cutting services and cutting hours, those are citizens of the district, obviously, and in the county, and some of the city libraries are in pretty good shape, really good shape. And so, you know, there's the winners and losers, the haves and have-nots, however you want to say it, and I will... say, and some of the people in the room know this, is that we can't do anything without the city's ultimate signature on a new IGA or a new formula or a new anything. Frankly, even going out for more money, the city's got to be cooperative. We all got to get together and be in the same place. So that's going to take probably a professional facilitator or consultant to do that work. I guess making the case by starting with option two maybe will help get us there, but it's really, really important. I do want to acknowledge, I also appreciated our C4 retreat that evening. I spoke with the new city manager of Lake Oswego, and we were tossing around some ideas about the library district. So I think that with that spirit of tossing out ideas on how we can move forward and maybe ways to fix this, we can get to the place where we need to be. But it's a sad day when working people who have kids come home to their home after work and the library's closed. And if they want to take their kids to the library on Saturday or Sunday, there's libraries in the county that are closed. I'm not talking about Gladstone or Oak Lodge. I'm talking about this particular case, Canby, as one example. So I threw attrition elected officials mayors city councilors everyone forgot how this all came together and you know by the time we get this group formed they'll probably be new city councilors and a new mayor or two somewhere maybe so this is a constant challenge to keep everyone going I am. willing to bring this up at C4 or a like forum or help with this to get to break the ice with the with the cities to try to make the case again. I know Shelly Perini retired. This was her last project. She's moved out of state, but she was part of this task force, so she did a lot of great work. So again, I want to thank everyone who participated in that work. And reluctantly, we're not moving on option one, but I suggest colleagues as your liaison of sorts on this one to direct staff to move forward to option two.

All right. I wanted to invite Mayor Melch up here if you had anything you wanted to add.

Thank you. I hadn't planned to testify because I didn't think the public could, but I'll just throw in a few comments. As we've considered this, I've heard about the talk, and I'll go back to something that was said earlier this morning in one of your meetings about how there are some advantages to Clackamas County being a county made up of a lot of medium-sized cities, various jurisdictions that work together and solve problems each in their own way. The library is unique in that it is one of the only programs where the county gets some revenue has cities operate programs that are meant to serve a designated segment of the unincorporated population of this county, which is pretty substantial. And so if you look at a map of, like, the Malala Library service area, there's a very tiny city of Malala in the center and a very large area made up of... fairly low density population of unincorporated residents that that library is meant to serve. And all citizens can go to any library in any community. So we all are serving everyone. But the funding structure, which I think was well thought out and well designed 20 years ago, is one where, again, cities have an obligation to serve unincorporated populations. And as you reminded us, although I represent Gladstone, which was sort of unique in having four times as many unincorporated people in its library service district as citizens, other cities had various proportions of people that they were also responsible for providing services for so it's it's a very complicated way of doing any kind of a service that we don't do we all have parks and anybody can come to our parks we all maintain streets anybody can drive our streets but we don't say. These streets in your community are meant for the people who live outside of your city limits adjacent to you and you've got to serve their needs. It's not the way we do business in most ways. But it's a way that has worked. and but it but we are subject to all the limitations that any property tax based program is subject to in that we have a permanent tax rate that has not increased and while the assessed value of the properties have gone up a little bit they haven't kept up with inflation and that's the story for any kind of government sponsor programs in our community so We have to think about how we will fund getting more hours We will have to think about the difference between cities that are able to kick in from their own budgets and provide much more funding to their library and cities that are not in the position to do that and and every city is different and we have a system that tries to work for everyone but that that was part of the challenge of doing this we had so many different opinions among cities that feel like they're bending over backwards to to serve unincorporated residents and unincorporated unincorporated residents who felt like their voices weren't being heard but we've always made a good effort to make sure that the decision-making level local library advisory boards that we have proportional representation of the communities that are served. So I think there's a lot good that's really good about the system that we have. I think it was great to have this conversation. We tried to start this conversation with a much larger task force at the beginning of 2020. And then when the pandemic came, we canceled that and brought it up five years later. But it's a challenge to all of you as decision makers to work on this because it's a difficult issue and it is unique in the way it's structured. But I think the conversation was productive. I'm glad that we have all the representation that we did because cities who pay the bills look at it differently from librarians who do the work. um at a library board meeting we were just at one of the things we discovered that there's a national company that for 200 years has been helping libraries order books and bring them and put them on their shelves and that company because it was acquired by someone else and then economy things it went out of business and libraries across the nation are scrambling to find a new service to order books. They don't just go down to Barnes & Noble and pick up a stack of books and put them on the shelves. They have a very structured system that keeps track of how their collections are organized and balanced and all of that. And we have librarians working to get through this crisis, you know, and trying to build libraries and expand libraries and serve the public and offer programs all at the same time. So there are so many people involved, volunteers, staff, elected officials, and city administrators that it's a real challenge to address this problem. And I don't envy the position that you are in, but I trust that you will work together to find some good solutions and some good options going forward.

Thank you. So do you have an opinion about option one, two, or three?

Well, I think it's always helpful to have someone consulting and helping. When Shelley was helping with the task force, that was good. So there's value in option one. Certainly we need to engage with the cities to do it. And so I would say one or two have to happen. But a lot of these conversations are going on behind the scenes already. City administrators get together and talk. City library directors get together and talk. So, you know, it's not going to come as a surprise to any of these people if you engage them in conversation.

All right. Thank you.

Martha, you had a... Well, I just... Yeah, I was going to say something, and then I thought maybe not, but... I'll just do it. So the history of this, because I helped run that campaign in 2008. And what had happened was that Dan Zinser went around to each of the cities. And one of the reasons we did those geographic maps, when you look, there's a reason why cities are where they are. And so when you really look at where they are, they're usually central locations. where the unincorporated area can get to to use a facility. And yes, it normally is, a city function or it was a county function actually we ran the entire library system and the goal of this was because we were going off a fiscal cliff so we felt if we could engage the cities in a more substantive way here and come up with a district it would keep the district whole And then what we did was say, but our real role in this is to keep the link system going. In other words, that whole computerized system is our responsibility, but being responsible for The libraries at that, we couldn't afford the whole thing either. So that was where that partnership between the cities and the libraries are. And we still have one county library, our new one, which is in the unincorporated area that is run by the county. but our our task at the time was to see if we could partner with our cities to make sure everybody had access to something because that's what librarians do and I'm one okay, and That that map seemed to be the good solution And it's it's obviously old like I am okay at this point And I do think that we should look at it Again, I I would be interested in option two however i'm going to look at gary because he's right this is not on our strategic plan so do we do it immediately or just start having informal conversations with our cities and our partners with the intention that when we revise our strategic plan that we're ready to go with this as a priority that that's kind of where i'm going with this you know i don't I hate to put staff in this position because, you know, like I said, we've got a tight budget. But, yeah, it does need to be revisited. But the timing of when it needs to be fully revisited based on a strategic plan, our strategic plan, and prioritizing this would be the way to go. And, Gary, when's the next time we're going to go through our strategic plan is the next question.

In January 2027. Well.

then something's going to have to drop off of our strategic plan, but we could revisit it and do it in that way. And then if we decide it isn't a priority, we're just going to kind of keep doing what we're doing, then we'll know then. So that would be my suggestion.

Yeah, kind of to echo on that, I do like your suggestion. I know that we... We expect so much out of staff and and I can just validate in talking with staff about the magnitude of work that they have on their plates currently and the fiscal tightness that is that belt is squeezing tighter and tighter and and you know at some point you have to say i i can't do more with less and we are trying the best we can to manage everything i think this obviously libraries are important uh coordination and how effective they are and really planning is is definitely important to us i think that um it would be helpful to have a lot of this information already in our strategic plan so we can have a much more in-depth conversation, perhaps a more fiscal look at really what is the cost, and then perhaps if that is something we decide to move ahead on is how do we plan in our budget to kind of come up with that money. So those are just kind of my thoughts. I think Martha has a good suggestion. Commissioner Helm and then Commissioner Sattler.

Commissioner Sattler is first. That's fine. It doesn't matter.

Go ahead.

Yeah, so just to be clear, I think the goal is not for the general fund to fund this project. The goal is to... One idea was floated out there was, what if, like every new distribution of funds, like a new tax year, there's an increase in library district funding. What if we just took off the top, if it's a half a million dollars, $500,000 off the top, and then distribute the rest to the cities as we normally do? That way they're not feeling any reduction from their current funds. That's being dissipated over the 15 or so cities that participate. That's one option, but there's no intention or ask for the general fund to do this. I do want to clarify, just for anyone watching who's not familiar with, so the unincorporated area by formula is paying, but everyone's paying for this. Yes. And the other misunderstanding that's been out there, and Martha, you and I have been at C4 when this first cropped up before the district was even in place, and this misunderstanding, it's a myth, that the unincorporated people aren't paying their fair share. And I have to remind everyone, the city rate... for the county tax rate within a city, it's $2.47 per thousand. It's $2.40 per thousand. In the unincorporated area, it's $2.97, a delta of 57 cents. So the unincorporated area are paying more for the county tax rate than that of people who reside in the cities. And then, of course, on top of that, everyone's paying for the library district. So I think the myth was, and I think some electives, no one in this room, have the belief that the unincorporated areas are not paying their fair share. I remind them, no, they're paying $0.57 per thousand additional.

Oh, no, I don't feel that they're not. Yeah, I agree with you on that.

So I just thought it would be worth mentioning that not only are they paying on top of that, but they're also paying the library district. And by formula, they're also paying in for that halo around every city, as the mayor kind of described, for that number of population. Those are revenues that are going to the city to operate the library. And, of course, anyone can go to any library in or out of a city or another city library, whatever they want. So it's a system. It needs some adjustments. I don't think there are any radical adjustments. I don't think anyone's ox will be gored. but right now there are certainly libraries that are struggling. So if it doesn't make it, that's fine, but I'm going to make a motion to approve option two, but I'll wait until Commissioner Handel has her comments in.

Well, comments or questions, just because I'm not fully aware of all the history. I do know that this was Shelly Perini's final... final task before she split the state but remind me the task force was unanimous correct in their in their recommendation yes and yet since then the cities are not on board yeah because when you say unraveled it's just like Based on a couple emails I saw, there's a lot of misinformation going on out there. And so because they're not happy with the status quo, but they don't want to come together to fix it, I say do nothing. We can have conversations at C4 or throughout the region, but to put more time and energy into this seems... until people can come to the table again and have good conversations about it. Don't you feel like you're just redoing everything, which is a complete waste of time? When you have a task force that was unanimous, I mean, that's the way to say, correct me if I'm wrong, but that's from my viewpoint, because you started this before I came on last year, and we voted on it in December. And here we are talking about it again. And people wonder why government works so slow. So there you go. I don't want to put more time, energy, effort, or money into something that people are not willing to come to the table and talk about.

I would just say that the scope of our recommendations on which we were unanimous was not very specific and detailed. It was more general that this was something that the county and its staff should address in the way that best... I mean, we could have talked ideally, oh, yes, the county should put more money into it, make sure that we all can have hours... as long as we like them to be but it' s not our it wasn' t the place of a task force to dictate that policy so the recommendation was that it come back to you for attention and for to look at those fine details. Do we need to redraw some of those boundaries to better serve our communities as things have changed over 20 years? Do we need to have some different goals about the services we provide? The libraries in some communities provide a lot of services that are supportive of people who have mental health issues or who have economic issues. And maybe that has changed over 20 years too. So the idea of looking to, you know, Library 2.0, if you want to call it that, another 20 years of growing and changing and broadening the way we serve the community, that was not meant to say that there was anything wrong with what we've done. It's just an acknowledgment that things change. And if things change to a significant degree that involves the need for more revenue, then that's another decision that the county has to make. But you have to make that decision about the sheriff's office and levies and other kinds of things as well. So, you know, it fits into a lot of things that you are responsible for. So, yes, we had five months of great meetings, but we didn't want to tell you how to do your business just to give you some guidance and, you know, and send you on and let you make the hard decisions.

Okay. That helps. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you.

I want to answer your question. So the recommendations were unanimous. And yes, you're right, Director Savas, it's been seven months. We lost a lot of momentum. I'll take responsibility for that. What I'm observing is the city managers would like to see the intergovernmental agreement done ASAP. The library directors want to see the strategic plan for libraries done ASAP. The community folks are wondering what the heck's going on because no one's talking to us. So everyone still is in line with the recommendations, but a different piece of it and wondering why that's not being done first.

That's my observations.

So I do feel, I say unraveling because the unity we experienced almost a year ago because of the void is starting to unravel. I see.

And by way of clarification, I'll read recommendation B and you can understand perhaps some of the interpretations that have occurred. Direct staff to initiate the creation of a strategic framework for the district that would prepare it for its 20th year of service and beyond.

Mm-hmm.

I have heard 15 interpretations of that, and they're all correct.

Oh, no. Oh, no. That's hard. Okay.

It was high level. I'm optimistic. Maybe there hasn't been enough pain yet where expenses are being outpaced by the distribution formula revenue. But I... I don't know. Just to get it off the table, there's a hand up, so I see another light on.

That's Gary's. Gary's made his comment.

So, Chair, I move to move forward to option two. I'll second.

Can I make an amendment, Bill? Again, I'm more concerned. I think we should do option two. I'm concerned about the timing. Should we make it part of our strategic plan? We could. That's the only thing.

I think we could actually do option two and then bring you back a progress report when we have our retreat because right now we're not going to spend any money. We're just going to be doing the outreach. Okay. Because the goal is to get to option one, and we're not there yet. We're way far away from option one.

But the outreach is money and time. I guess that's the point I hear Martha making.

Well, that's what I'm asking. If it's for us to do the outreach, we could spend our time doing it, but we would still have to have some staff time. That's the thing.

Are we in discussion?

Yes.

Just to clarify. Yeah, because there was a first.

I just wanted to know. So we're in discussion. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, sorry.

I mean, do you think is that reasonable for me to just say the timing? No. Okay.

I guess just to reiterate, make sure everybody knows where we're at. Director South has moved for option two. Commissioner Wells is second to that. And we've engaged in discussion. Commissioner Schrader, I want to allow you to go ahead and add anything else.

Well, do you want to, for the time, do you want to do that? Or if you're not, then I'll just withdraw.

Well, I think a small thing that won't cost anything, staff time necessarily, maybe a little bit, would be if we raise it at C4, for example, or a like forum, right? Something to get, to not lose any more momentum. I mean, we've lost a lot, but to try to give it a shot in the arm and see what we can develop.

Yeah, because I want to go forward with something. We have to because this has been going on for a while and the underlying assumption was that the cities would be contributing their own money. to operational and buy their books and expand themselves. And as we're seeing with some of our smaller rural cities like the Cambys and the Malalas, their budgets are extremely tight. So I know that there is a solution. I mean, everybody wants to have their libraries open the whole weekend and have that. I mean, that's our goal. So where was I going with this? I would say if... For the legislative record, if that's how you're describing it, that this could be something taken up under the umbrella of C4 and continue under that?

As a form, as a conversation starter.

Right. Okay. I wouldn't necessarily change the motion, but I'd like to get it on the record that maybe... there's an umbrella that already exists that we can really keep going after this issue.

Yeah, if this work is done, I'll say this, and maybe that's why timely, if we can get the electives of the jurisdictions to buy in, this will take staff time. It's going to take staff time at the cities, both from the city managers and the librarians. So this is more of a workload for all staff, right? I recognize that. A little bit of work on the elected side. lot of work then and there's if and again if we can get to the point of taking something off the top it won't really cost them real money out of their budgets all right

I agree with option two. There's been a lot on our plate as a board. We have done a lot just in this one year alone or even this half year. So I think moving it up the priority ladder is appropriate. You know, Gary would have loved to bring this forward sooner, but, you know, we have to kind of triage these things as we look at them. So I do support, too. You know, it's also been my observation, and it's my observation, so somebody may not agree with me, is that the unincorporated area has an equity issue compared to libraries also. I don't know if their representation is fair in this conversation. I'm concerned about that. You know, in some unincorporated areas, yes, within close to the city area, like Gladstone, they can get to that library. But I have, it's a big county and a lot of it's unincorporated and a lot of those libraries are not clearly as well resourced as other parts of the county. That is glaring. I'm not pointing fingers. And I don't know what it comes under representation, prioritization, strategic planning, how we do that. But that is very apparent to me and concerning. As long as I'll be here for a few more months, that's the lens that we'll continue to look at it. so i do think two is the right direction i do support c4 as a forum um and uh that's why i seconded the motion ready to do that so uh those are kind of my thoughts and how i've seen this kind of play out and gary thank you for still you know keeping this on the burner even though we've had a lot of things to work on and i know that wasn't easy because what does gary say to us Well, cool, we can do that, but what's not getting attention because our plates are full. And, Mayor, I know in your own city you guys deal with the exact same thing at the city level, and we're trying to get to these things. So I don't know. With that, I'm ready to vote. I'll be supporting option two, but just wanted to share my thoughts.

Any other comments?

All right. Clerk? Clerk? Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Schroeder.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

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

All right, thank you. Now adjourned is the Library District of Clackamas County Board of Directors and reconvenes the Board of County Commissioners. Gary.

That is your final piece of business for today.

All right. Excuse me. So... It looks like, just as a reminder, we will not have a business meeting Thursday, July 30th, and our next business meeting will be August 6th, correct, Gary? Yes. Is there any other comments by my colleagues? All right, seeing none, we'll be adjourned, and thank you all for joining us.