Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone, and welcome to Administrative Issues and Updates on August 4th, 2026. County Administrator Gary Schmitt, would you please call the roll?

Yes, thank you, Chair. Commissioner Schrader is out of the office today. Roll call. Commissioner Savas. Present. Commissioner Helm.

Here.

Commissioner West. Here. Chair Roberts. Here.

Thank you, Gary. Before we begin, I want to remind my colleagues we have a land use hearing that must begin at 11, so we'll return to finish the issue agenda after the hearing if necessary. Gary, you want to introduce the first agenda item for us?

Yes, thank you, Chair. We have several general updates for you that are items that will come to you on consent agenda for your business meeting. The first is Federation of Oregon Parole and Probation Officers contract. Updating you is Evelyn Minor Lawrence, Director of Human Resources, and Heather Pedersen, Deputy Director of Human Resources. Go ahead, please.

Good morning, commissioners. As our county administrator said, we are here to ask your approval on the FAPO contract. The contract was voted on on June 30th. It was ratified by their members. contract covering from the period of 2025 to 2028 and We're here to answer any questions that you may have All right.

Thank you, Evelyn colleagues any questions as I look to the left and right I All right. Doesn't look like there's any questions. There's no motions necessary since this is already on the agenda of our business meeting this Thursday, August 6th, for our final approval. Gary, do you have anything else to add?

Well, everything we've already discussed with you, we just want to publicly say it's coming this Thursday for your final vote. Thank you both very much. That was an easy one. Well, there's more. So the next one is the Clackamas County Peace Officers Association Single Year Extension Memorandum of Agreement. Evelyn and Heather will present as well. Go ahead.

And again, we've discussed the items, and we're here to get your consent to move forward on that. The contract was ratified by its members, and again, the union is asking for a one-year extension, the contract to expire on June 30th of 2027. All right, questions?

seeing none again there's no motion needed on that we're coming back on August 6th yes thank you and then finally is for HR county employee health insurance and pharmacy benefit services agreements Evelyn and Heather will present as well can you go into a little more detail on this one because this is your first public discussion of this major change for us here at Clackamas County go ahead please yeah happy to do that thank you

GOOD MORNING. GOOD MORNING. GOOD MORNING. ALL RIGHT. ALL RIGHT. SO AS YOU LIKELY KNOW, IN MAY SO AS YOU LIKELY KNOW, IN MAY OF THIS YEAR, PROVIDENCE HEALTH OF THIS YEAR, PROVIDENCE HEALTH PLAN ANNOUNCED THAT THEY'D NO PLAN ANNOUNCED THAT THEY'D NO LONGER BE PROVIDING INSURANCE PLANS LONGER BE PROVIDING INSURANCE PLANS TO COMMERCIAL CUSTOMERS. TO COMMERCIAL CUSTOMERS. AND AS SUCH, YOU KNOW, KIND OF AND AS SUCH, YOU KNOW, KIND OF SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL A LITTLE SAW THE WRITING ON THE WALL A LITTLE EARLIER THIS YEAR WHEN THEY EARLIER THIS YEAR WHEN THEY ANNOUNCED THEY WERE FOR SALE. ANNOUNCED THEY WERE FOR SALE. AND SO So they did go out to RFP. They requested quotes from four major providers in the area, UnitedHealthcare, Aetna, Moda, and Regence. Of those four, we received proposals from three of them. UnitedHealthcare did not make a proposal in a timely manner. And so the information provided in your packet includes those three, information about those three proposals, the differences, and our recommendation So I'm going to go through that really quickly. You were going to see that on the second page of the document, all three carriers were asked to submit proposals using actual claims processed by Providence for the year 2025. And so the three providers reprocessed those claims. Using their own discounts and then giving us proposals based on those discounts they have with providers and their administrative fees Of those three and it came in the lowest which would be probably the most equivalent in cost to Providence and then Moda and Regents came in a little bit higher than that so Aetna was a projected increase for 2027 of about two six point nine percent and where Moda and Regents were just over 21% increases over what we're seeing, what we would be seeing with Providence. Because we're also using Providence for our prescription coverage, they also went out and did RFPs for five pharmacy benefit managers. And of those, we were We were pleasantly surprised to see that all five of them provided some cost savings in comparison to what we're receiving with Providence, again, using all of our same claims for prescription coverage. And that information is included as well. Obviously, the most significant cost is with medical claims. There were a lot of things to consider. We've had Providence Health Plan for over 20 years. This is a huge change that we didn't go looking for. And the majority of our employees are covered by Providence. The county offers just for some context, they offer Kaiser, which is fully insured. And then we offer Providence, which is a self, we're self-insured, which means that the county pays the claims rather than Providence. They just process the claims for us and we use their network. And so we've got, probably about 35, 65% Kaiser versus Providence. So the majority of our employees will be impacted by this on one of them. I think Evelyn is too. So this is really important to us as well. We're recommending Aetna and the reasons are, there are several. Obviously the finances are a big concern and they showed the lowest impact in financial cost. Not only that, they also showed the least impact in disruption, provider disruption. So, you know, we don't want employees to have to go and find new providers with new health insurance. And so they also showed the least disruption in their providers. One big concern that our employees had that our benefits team had was with alternative care. Clackamas County employees and their dependents use alternative care. So that's chiropractor, that's massage therapy, it might be acupuncture. And we saw a change in late 2025 and 2026 with Providence's coverage of alternative care beginning to use the ASH network. And we did see some disruption there. We made some changes because we are self-funded. We made some changes on our side to accommodate the providers that employees were seeing so they weren't impacted by that. As part of this process, we learned that Aetna also uses the ASH network. So because of that, we also talked with Aetna about the concerns that we saw with Providence. And they said that they could accommodate the same type of relationship we have currently with Providence with alternative care providers that our employees are currently using so they would not see a disruption in their alternative care providers. which means that they use the ASH network, but they can also contract with alternative care providers separately. Aetna said they would, and they would also process claims for providers that were outside of their network that the county would then pay those claims for. So those I think are the major reasons that we're recommending going with Aetna. Obviously Providence was a concern We heard concerns about our employees who have Providence providers currently, them being possibly out of network with Aetna. What we also learned is that Aetna and Providence did come to an agreement at the end of 2025. Providence is now in network with Aetna, and they have a three-year agreement with Providence, so at least through 2028. we would keep that stability with the Providence network of providers that would be covered under Aetna if employees choose to stay with that plan. So with that, I will open it up to questions.

All right. One of the questions I had, I think that a lot of employees would also be curious about is their primary care provider. For example, if they were Providence, is the likelihood, as I understand what you just explained, the likelihood they'll be able to continue with that primary care provider. Is that correct? That is correct. Okay, that was, I think, a lot of issues that employees have concern about. Commissioner West, our nurse over here, had a lot the other day, so go ahead.

Yeah, thank you, Chair. So I think the other third part just helped insure in Oregon.

is closing its commercial doors for health insurance, probably to help shore up the issues they're having with the expenses around their hospital system. I know they're separate entities, but I think they're having to consolidate. It's a little alarming. It's a massive disruption for this county, but the third largest insurer in the state means there's probably hundreds of thousands of people that were reliant on this service. That's more of a regional entity than a national entity. I don't know if they, I don't know, I mean, I don't know their business plan or what restructuring they tried to do or if this was kind of the last thing they could do to kind of stay economically viable with Providence as a whole. I don't know. And I guess my question is, we have a shrinking competitive market with insurers, right? Then we have more risk. The risk pool is not as diverse anymore with the insureds in Oregon. So is there a future destabilization scenario with that. And then, you know, the chair got to it, like care defragmentation, and we, the least amount of disruption, sorry, I can't talk today. Disruption was with, you know, was with Aetna. How are we, is there a way for us to be forward thinking and look at those risk factors and the changes, these abrupt changes in the market? So stabilization also matters along with cost. And we're touching on a little bit when we're talking about someone's primary care provider, someone's specialist, someone's pediatrician. Everybody knows how hard it is to get a pediatrician, I promise you. Any parent knows how hard that is to get a pediatrician. But I guess my... Are we looking through that lens, and then how are we doing that? And do we have any concerns about some market disruptions in the future? And out of these three choices, who's the most stable and why do we think to partner with? Because I know Regence and MoTA, I believe, are both pretty regional. MoTA has PEB, correct? Correct. is kind of a unique benefit for them to have to be stable um i don't think i'm i just don't want there to be five years or two years down the road another oh gosh moment so i don't know if you could help if you could speak to that sorry i threw a lot out sorry but yeah we brought the subject matter experts here and our benefits folks so if we can have one of them come to the table sure okay Thank you.

Well, I'll speak first. Introduce yourself.

My name is Cynthia Kodachi. I'm the benefits coordinator. I was the former benefits manager for Clackamas County. And Rachel can introduce herself.

I'm Rachel Forsland. I was the benefits coordinator, and now I'm the benefits manager.

Congratulations. So Cynthia retired. That's why the switch. OK.

So regarding your question regarding stabilization, I think that Aetna really provides that for two reasons. One, they are not only provide regional coverage, but they also provide national coverage, which is great for our retirees. Also, when you look at MODA, they're taking on a new book of business, a large book of business, because PEBB had regions, excuse me, Providence, and now they don't, and so they're having to bring on that large book of business. Whereas with us going to Aetna, I believe that they will be able to provide us with a better customer service relationship than maybe we would with Moda. And I think that the relationship that Aetna has with the Providence Network, that's going through the end of 2020, it's through 1-1 of 2028. Correct. um again provides that stabilization so i really feel that that is going to help um clackamas county provide the best benefits for our employees um follow-up question which one of these and i'm and i work at ohsu for full disclosure um

We're not we're ending a relationship at OHSU with one of these is it regions are united Regents, right so that has been a massive disruption also within the healthcare system that we're all acutely aware of where I when I'm not sitting at the styus Which is a major I mean the health care provider really in in Oregon that most prominent one so and so that to me that gives me pause too with regions just so you guys know that that's a major fracture also happening is with regions um uh okay i think that answers my question um I know we've had some internal labor issues that are having some red flags or previous or anecdotal concerns with Aetna. How have those concerns been addressed with our labor partners?

Well, yeah, you're right. We have one of the unions, the Peace Officers Association has a separate benefits review committee than the rest of the county. So our other unions and our non-rep employees are part of the general benefits review committee, and then we have a separate group. with the Peace Officers Association, and they have expressed concerns with Aetna, and I think perhaps more of a preference for MODA. We do have a large, within the Portland metro area, MODA does cover a lot of public sector groups, and so there is some familiarity there. Etna will tell you they don't have a large foothold in Oregon with public sector. They are looking for that. We did ask, hey, do you have other public sector agencies that are self-insured that we could reach out to and just call them and see what their experiences have been? We did learn that there is the city of Seattle. Etna covers the city of Seattle. They cover Kitsap County, which is up there in Washington, up north. Alaska, I think their State of Alaska AFSCME group, which has about 17,000 members. We were given this information, I think, early last week, and Rachel did reach out, was able to speak with Kitsap County, the state of Alaska, and just to learn about their experience. And they've been with them, I think, the least amount of time was five years up to 20 years. And I think, all in all, their experience is good. They did recognize that any time you change coverage, there's going to be some confusion. There's going to be some, you know, a little bit of... just getting used to the new system. And I do think that we can prepare well for that with communication and partnering with MRSA. I think we experienced, just to change the subject, but not really, the dependent eligibility audit earlier this year. That involves a lot of communication to our employees and explaining in a variety of ways, I think, We are committed to that communication again, so there is the least amount of disruption and alarm moving forward.

Does that audit carry forward to the new, or do we have to go through the whole audit again?

No, we don't.

No, that is transferable in our knowledge of what we learned from that.

Yes, and I think the fact that we did that is helping us in this process as well.

You're getting more accurate numbers based on that audit because you really cleaned up whatever our rules were. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I'm just concerned. I think, like, we only have three choices. That's crazy to me. Like, we're, I mean, we're a guaranteed great client or customer, right? Like, I mean, you would think that insurance companies, if they could, would be vying for our business. This is a huge delta between Aetna and Regent. It's massive. Um, and Regents already has some issues showing. I think that's, we can see that with their own eyes, with their relationship with OHSU. That's, that's an issue. Moda Health is regional, but it's stabilized by PEB. And then Aetna is national. So are we only going to have big national players in Oregon anymore based on the business climate that we have? Like, this is a real concern in this impacts care. We already have the least amount of hospital beds per capita in the nation. Um, So these are real concerns with how health care is going to be delivered in Oregon. I am concerned as a nurse. I see these things trickle down to the bedside. It does. And how patients interact with the system. I mean, I don't think we have a choice. We have to select Aetna. The Delta is so huge, right? And it's a known name. We're going to have to work with it. You know, I wish we would have had more options or choices, and the market could have provided more for us. I think this is a little bit of a scary indication of where we are through economic times. So you've answered my questions, and thank you for doing all the hard work. I know this has been a massive lift and a shift, and it was unexpected and another shock. So thank you. Your team, Evelyn, has been fantastic on this issue. So I appreciate it. Thank you.

Thank you for the presentation and I again I don't in view you having to go shop this it's it's been I'm sure it's been a real challenge Heather you mentioned in 2028 they're going to do something like re-look at the Providence providers? And so what does that mean then? They're going to, we're going to renegotiate whether they'll still let us use Providence providers?

Etna, so yeah, that's what I mean. Yeah, I think they re-upped their agreement with Providence in December. And so my understanding, it was a three-year agreement with Providence providers. the Providence Health System. And so, I guess, plausibly, they could, like Regence is renegotiating with OHSU, and there could be a gap there. It's possible that Aetna could try to renegotiate with Providence and have a gap. Obviously, that would be a huge disruption for us, and we would want to re-look at that if Aetna wasn't to have Providence Network anymore. in service, but at least we know for the, for 2027 and 2028, they will have Providence in their network. But we could have an upset a couple of years. We could have an upset.

Okay. Our broker has indicated that it's normal for contracts to be multi-year, so two to three years at a time. So it's just a normal process that they would renegotiate every two to three years. Makes sense.

Okay. Commissioner Savas.

Yeah, I got a few things to say and a couple comments, so I'll start with whether it was the two previous items with the labor contracts, which I do want to say we've, understanding the finances with the county, we held a line on those, so... in kind. We have control over that, but it's not in kind here where we don't have control over the market on health insurance, right? So we have limited choices here. So that's the part that is a little troubling in a way. And I think almost everything out there, any commodity out there, is going up in price. But before I get too far off on the money, I just want to ask a question. What's the cadence with the employee review board on the benefits? Do they look at this simultaneously, or is it a parallel process to negotiating with Aetna? When do we hear from them, or have they already done their work?

They've already met.

benefits review committee yeah we've been meeting with them regularly I think we've met with them at least three or four times since we've had this information maybe two sorry, two or three. We're meeting with them weekly now. Once a provider is selected, they will have more to do because of the way the union contracts are worded. Depending on the increase year over year, it could have more of an impact on the employees who have a higher premium, out-of-pocket premiums. And so, at least for the general counties, so that's your AFSCME groups and your Employees Association groups, they might make plan design changes. Again, once we have a carrier selected, they can make plan design changes to potentially reduce the cost in premiums to the employee.

Okay, so going forward as they're reviewing this and we're negotiating with that, now those are parallel processes where there's communication?

Yes, absolutely. Okay.

Thank you. That's what I was after. Okay. Yeah, so we'll be monitoring all that up. So thank you so I this is more of a financial question and maybe I'm looking to Gary on this and that is knowing what inflation is out there we have no control over, and then also the COLAs, which are based on inflation to some degree, and then our tax base, and knowing that delta, right? Our tax base increases three-ish, four-ish percent, less than four, I believe. And knowing that our employee costs are one of the highest costs on the county across the board, all departments for the most part. Do you know what the calculated, anticipated inflation rate is or what's baked in the forecast years going forward that we're using, not on what we're expecting to receive on revenue, but what we're expecting to see on increases for employee contracts and benefits?

We do, excuse me, I don't have the exact percentage, but we do anticipate a health benefit increase each year. It's like 10, 8 to 10%, higher than a COLA, because we know it's going to go up. Do you actually know? Because I think you might provide that number to Human Finance.

Yeah, I think I provided the finance, I believe it was 9.6, I think. I'd have to go back and look for sure.

So we do forecast generally 8% to 10% increase every year. Sometimes we're lower, sometimes we're higher. But we do anticipate that in the forecast, but we're... It's usually sometimes higher than we anticipated, but we do forecast that.

Because our plan has kind of like two parts to it. We're self-insured, so we have actual claims expense. That's the cost that, you know, it's for going to the doctor. Then we also are charged an administrative fee. That is the fixed cost. And so part of it is with that claims cost, That's the unknown. It just depends. We could have high claims. We could have low claims. And that's why with going with Aetna, they have provided us with the discounts that are very similar to what we're already paying with Providence. And so that's why it's a really good match for us, the Aetna plan.

Right. And then thank you for that. Ideally I guess my comment. I'll just no response needed on this one But ideally we get those all those different rates as aligned as possible, right? So we know we're not going underwater even though I think with those some of those baked in numbers with is underwater So you have to be really really careful, but as far as the choices here going forward with those numbers that you just shared with me, what are we, do you have a rough idea what the increase of the out-of-pocket per employee will be as we walk through this? I mean, I'm sure that's a factor, right? Is it going to come out of their paycheck for their out-of-pocket? So is that going up substantially or just a range of what that might look like?

We do have numbers projected on no plan changes. So just apples to apples at this point, which does have quite a dramatic increase. So part of the benefits review committee's role is to make those plan design changes to reduce those premium costs for employees. So I believe this year to get it to a 5% increase is where we want to see it. There would need to be $1.6 million in changes to decrease

Okay. Well, I guess the good thing here is that the committee will be opining on that, and they'll be aware, and hopefully they get the word out to their membership what's at stake. All right. Well, thank you. That's all I have, sir.

Can I ask another one? Can I piggyback on that because you got to that question? Yeah, go ahead. So when you see plan design changes, that means reduction of access to care. Or you're going to have more out-of-pocket expenses for that access to care. Am I right?

Potentially. Okay.

So you're scrolling all over my friend. Slow down, Andrew. So right now, the 5%, if they were to reduce, to get to match that, they would have to... increase out-of-pocket expenses somewhere else within the plan. That's increasing deductibles, that's saying we're only paying 50% of out-of-network labs or something like that, correct? Okay. And all these plans have that. This is the one with the least disruption towards that. So you're making really tough decisions about this is really hard decisions because this will impact somebody in our community here at Clackamas County about how their health care is delivered. Someone is going to be impacted in a way that they don't like. I am curious to understand what your apples to apples increased number. They were like, no, we want to have the same. We expect the same. This is regressive for us. What does that look like? Do we have those numbers on this slide? Can we see them?

You do not have them on your slides. So Mercer was able to provide us with what the premiums would look like for all of the plans with the various pharmacy providers for each of the groups if nothing changes. If there are no plan design changes because the proposals we received were for the exact plan design that we have with Providence for each of those plans. And so just for an example for... And we're also seeing increases with Kaiser, anecdotally. But with Aetna and using the Optum RX plan, which was the one pharmaceutical plan with the least disruption.

And that's the one we're currently using, correct?

Optum, no. No. We are using Providence. We are using Providence. That's right. That's right. Right. So for the represented groups in the general county, again, that's the AFSCME groups, that's FAPO, that's the EA, Employees Association groups. For an example, their representative employees pay a composite as opposed to the tiered rate, which would be single up to family. They pay a composite rate. So with the personal option plan, which Providence has a personal option plan, the equivalent with Aetna would be $153.00. and 54 cents per month.

Per month, okay.

And that is about $62 more than they would be paying now for Providence.

No, I have a short memory. I can remember yesterday when we were in contract negotiations and there was a temporary similar monetary value increase and our hearing rooms were full. They were full and it was temporary until we got to a negotiation. I see you looking at me. I want to be sensitive to that, but I want to be sensitive also to how we're communicating this ethically and in a way that's transparent, in a way that the people who work there that are going to have these increases have an ability to prepare. I know we're working with these boards. You've been meeting with these different review boards, so thank you for that. I hope we have a good strategy around that communication. you know, for the level of insurance these individuals are getting, that's still incredibly affordable compared to the rest of, like, the private, even close to the private sector. It's incredibly affordable. But it is a big shift or change. That's, you know, some, well, that's a, you know, that can be a week's groceries or even, like, you know, the week's gas just to get to work. So that does impact real budget. So I think, thanks for sharing that. I know it wasn't in our packet, but I'm sensitive to that. And then I'm sensitive to how i hope it's delicate and surgical no pun intended on how those adjustments are made when people for the um to make the plan maybe not be above that five percent i hope it's done really smart i mean i just want to say i think the benefits review committee the one thing that they do

that i think is so great is that they are looking at the population and they take into consideration how these are going to impact the employees because what we have to look at is an example like maybe changing a deductible from a thousand dollar deductible to a one thousand one hundred dollar deductible so what we've asked our consultant mercer to do is to tell us how many people does this impact so that way the benefits review committee can look at all these different adjustments to find out where can we get the biggest bang with the least impact? So that way we're making sure that our employees are able to access healthcare affordably. And then the other thing that we do is through education to allow our employees to understand how they can use our other benefits like the flexible spending account so they can have those pre-tax dollars available immediately if they have a need for care. They're not having to find the money to pay for that deductible. They can use the FSA.

Okay, last question, I promise. We talked about that 8% to 10% that we kind of put in a buffer. Sometimes we need it, sometimes we don't. Do we have the ability to help a glide path to gradually, like, if we have to have increases, is there an ability? Do we have that set aside? Do we have a contingency with those monies that we collect, that 8% to 10% that we were just talking about or something like that? Is there a glide path possibility for these changes? Just because it's still an abrupt change. We've had that interest for 20 years, just being cognizant of, like, where people are at.

You mean to offset the cost?

Yeah, like even for a year, we're just kind of gliding into it, or do we have some wiggle room because we haven't had maybe the increase? Maybe we have had them, and which direction has that gone? Do we have any ability to kind of soften the blow?

The relationship or the, I guess, the cost sharing is contractual, so it's outlined in the CBAs. That would be something contractual. Different that we would have to bargain if we were to do that. I mean the county covers 95% of the premium Which is already more than which is already high And the employees cover five now for most of the bargaining units anything over a 5% increase year-over-year the employee absorbs anything over 5%. And so that is why they're so focused on making plan design changes because the employee sees that increase on their side. The county's still covering 95%, but if you see a 10% increase, that remaining 5% is covered solely by the employee. And this isn't unique. I mean, it happens quite often, as you can imagine, increases year over year. So they are used to making plan design changes to address that.

Thank you. I know more questions.

All right. Not seeing anything. There's no motion needed today. This is set up for our business meeting this Thursday and for our final approval. So if there's no more questions, we'll go ahead and move on. And I want to thank you all for coming today and all your hard work. Thank you.

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

Mr. Chair, there are two advisory bodies for the board's consideration today. The first is the Public Health Advisory Council, which is staffed by the Public Health Division of Health, Housing, and Human Services and currently has seven vacancies. Recruitment for these openings began in January of 2026 and closed in March of 2026. Twelve applications were received and seven are recommended for appointment. The recommendation is as follows. These are the recommendations. The board could select other candidates or require further recruitment as you wish, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Colleagues, is there a motion?

Can I just ask? Okay, I'd second on that. But you'd said, Andrew, you said there's seven, but the packet says eight. We're recommending eight for appointment?

Yes, Commissioner. That is because there are eight that they would like to have added, but it would require expanding the body, and that would require amending the bylaws, which is planned for, with Gary's approval, future issues potentially next week. So the materials reflect an earlier version. Until you expand the bylaws, you could only add seven. So as of right now, it's seven, and there will be another name if you approve changing the bylaws to add another slot as they would like next week. Staff got ahead of you is the answer.

Well, that's right. Thank you for the clarification. I just wasn't sure if we were missing a name.

All right. So as we have it now, Commissioner Salvas has moved to appoint Michelle Savanich, Bishop Dixon, Tanya Kindertruck. Georgia Ullman, Lindsay Ost, Sunny Olsen, and Shi-Rou Shi-Yang to the Public Health Advisory Council. It's been seconded by Commissioner Helm. Is there any further discussion? Hearing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes four to zero, Mr. Chair. thank you. thank you. clerk what do we have as the second advisory body for today' s consideration? the second advisory body is the clackamas county local public safety coordinating council staffed by the clackamas county sheriff' s office and currently has one opening on the commission due to an incumbent departure from the clackamas county juvenile department. Clackamas county suggests the appointment of michelle has a requirement under Oregon revised statute that allows her as juvenile director to fill a specific reserved position. So the recommendation is Michelle Barrera to a first term that would be ongoing as long as she serves as the director of the juvenile department at Clackamas County. The board could select other candidates or require further recruitment, Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Any questions, comments?

Chair, I move to appoint Michelle Barrera to the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council.

Second.

Commissioner Savas has moved to appoint Michelle Barrera to the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. Commissioner Helm has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

Commissioner West.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 4-0, Mr. Chair.

Gary, what do you have? Thank you. Next is review of your board business meeting agenda for this Thursday, August 6, 2026 at 10 a.m. You will have public communication, reading and adoption of a previously approved land use ordinance, two public hearings, which are both boundary change proposals, a consent agenda for the Board of County Commissioners, and consent agenda for Water Environment Services. If you have any questions on any of these items, would you please let me know and I will answer your question or have staff in the room to answer it for you on Thursday. Next is a data center update. Commissioner Helm asked to add this. Go ahead, please, Commissioner.

Thank you, Gary. And just for colleagues and anyone who's listening, a few weeks ago I brought up data centers and the fact that we have not talked about them at all. And in light of what happened with our neighbors to the west out in Washington County, I thought it best we talk about it. We have gotten a lot of constituent engagement on this. I've gotten calls, I've had a couple of really good phone calls with people, interestingly, who have been in the AI and data center businesses, Highly recommend we don't allow them in Clackamas County. So I want at this point, just so that we know, we're listening to everyone who is getting ahold of us, and we wanna make the right decisions for Clackamas County, because there is a lot to protect here. My goal today is to put a motion, to put a moratorium on data centers in Clackamas County until the 2027 long session at the legislature is done because the state will be making more rules in February or during the long session, whenever it ends, but I think it's on us to get something in place, whether it's a moratorium or a pause, whatever it's called. I understand there may be a temporary code amendment necessary Because it does conflict with our zoning laws So anyway, my point here is that we have heard from people that this is something they do not want in Clackamas County So I think it's on us to go ahead and get something put in place to make sure it doesn't happen Okay any comments Commissioner service

Yeah, well, I appreciate Commissioner Hellen bringing that forward. I just want to build on that. And I know that, was it next week, Gary, we have this topic coming back to us?

I was planning on it next week, yes. But if you want to take action today, you have every right to do that.

Well, I guess I would, I think the word moratorium is a technical word that can be misunderstood. So not that it's bad or good, but... I would like our staff to be prepared to say what are the ramifications of a pause versus a moratorium? What' s the most appropriate mechanism? As I stated back when we first Maybe I didn't use these words. I can't remember exactly, but I know what I was thinking is that I'm more anxious to do something rather than do nothing. At the time, the state was only looking at the aspect of whether or not to give tax benefits or not. Now I'm hearing that there's potentially a bill that's going to be introduced in 2027 that might We'll say solve, but maybe put state restrictions in place or regulations, and maybe that's great, but I think that at least expressing our interest in those areas is important. So I just want to be prepared to put sideboards or guidelines, guardrails on whatever that might be and have something, language, and we don't have that, I don't believe, where folks for certain, for example, groundwater, which is not always, there's not always a district around groundwater, right? A district can say, hey, we don't have enough water to supply a data center, for example, or a bottling company, whatever it may be. So, But in the case of areas that are district where they use groundwater and there's an adjacent well that uses groundwater that maybe is a supply in a nursery, I use that as an example. Those are the kinds of things that may or may not actually have an authority to say this is going to be a challenge or an issue. So it's very complex, but I want to make sure that we are not Creating any negative outcomes for our for the county at large And there's certainly this is growing Nationally as a national concern. It's like taking a life of its own all the while prior to this AI was taking a life of its own and this is a byproduct of that essentially or they're obviously related to one another but I'm more anxious to do something rather than sit back and and get an application where that we're not prepared for I

Commissioner West. Thank you, Chair. Yeah, I have so much to learn, and this is going to far outlast my tenure here on the board. I think maybe giving Clackamas County a timeout so that they can pause, study, review, get their handle around something new and large. Land use laws are already complicated here. It's a massive piece of technology infrastructure. Those facilities do consume critical local resources. To what extent and how that can be mitigated or adapted to, I honestly have no idea. And so... Showing that restraint to also work with the state and be partners with the state on like what direction they're going in is is I think is going to be smart here. You know, we don't really want zoning loopholes that that were unmitigated. We don't. We want to protect our local water resources. That's all important. What's the impact on the grid? I don't know. And I know that there's a lot of local concern around that. Our utility rates in the state are already too high because of policies that have impacted the utility rates for working families in the state. What makes us competitive? What is smart? What's the Oregon way of doing things? We have a long history of being very environmentally conscious in the state. It's part of our DNA, all the way from the bottle bill to the Oregon coast to I mean, we have a long storied history on those types of policies, and it's kind of a little bit of who we are. So I would be supportive of that. But yeah, I think we were just hit with like a 29, 30% utility rate increase, right? So what does this do to rate payers? I think a lot of people are rightfully concerned by that. I don't have the answers. And so if this board wanted to step back and just study, learn, assess, and prepare, I can totally support that. I don't know. I would love an education from our staff that also is doing research to help us understand the nexus with the county. And so... Yeah, I don't know what that looks like, but I'm probably repeating what everybody is already saying. I see Gary saying be briefer, Commissioner.

You already had a policy session on this.

Yeah, we have a policy session coming up on that. So, yeah, I support that. I think thanks for bringing up, and thanks for kind of spearheading this and helping us be more aware of it, Commissioner Helm. I know it's been on your radar, and you've been doing good work with this, so thank you.

So we will have a, wasn't there one scheduled I was told for next week? Right, so you had a policy session. I asked you, let's come back to you on what it would look like to change the zoning ordinances. So staff was prepared to come back to you next week at issues with kind of an update on what you could or could not do. I did share that memo with two of you in advance because Commissioner Helm you asked me about this you can make a motion today you don't have to wait till next week or you could wait one more week there's been no application so far there's no urgency today but whatever you direct we can either do it today or we can come back to you next week.

I just a suggestion I perhaps wait till next week and make sure we have all the information before us nobody's applied unless you saw the urgency for it.

I think if we're stating some of these newer concerns and ideas, stating that now so staff can come back next week and touch it, I don't think there's an urgency to do it today. But I think the benefit of today is that here's what we're thinking. Make sure you address those. Is that fair, Commissioner?

That's fair, and I agree. There is no urgency, but there is an urgency. Not today, but knowing I just want people to know we are addressing this and that we are going to come back and make a decision next week on it. Okay.

Okay. Council, you had a comment, sir?

I just had a wave from Assistant County Council, Caleb Hugel. So, he's our land use expert. Billy, I can't hardly hear you. Sorry. Sorry. I was just wanting if you had something to weigh in on the issue.

It sounds like it might be moot now. Just something to add is that state law governs moratoria, and there are procedural requirements. We can't just adopt it in one day, but it sounds like we can explain what those procedural requirements are to you next week when this comes back up.

Okay.

Thank you.

The Hillsboro pause example is one I'm looking at, too, by the way.

And Salem last night.

Oh, last night. Was that right?

They paused last night. Hillsboro has adopted a moratorium for 120 days city of Salem said staff bring this back to us for us to adopt Okay, so same so this it's trickling throughout the region as like we got a look at this people are doing it But there are procedural requirements before it can happen different findings and stuff. Okay. All right.

Thank you Thank you for that update. That was important

Gary, do you want to continue right on, or do you want to take a short break? Thank you. You have seven minutes until your land use hearing, which you must start at 11, and then after that you can come back to issues or wait until the afternoon at issues, whatever your choice is. All that's left is commissioner communications, but I do want to give an update on the wildfire.

If you guys wouldn't mind, how about we just do this kind of one important update. We'll take a short break and come right back here at 11.

Will that work? Yeah. Yeah, okay Gary go ahead.

We have an update on thank you.

This is not on the agenda, but breaking news though There is a wildfire currently in Wasco County by Mount hood called the grasshopper fire that's been in the news quite a lot The wind has changed we knew this was coming, but is coming today the fire is now moved into Clackamas County and our Sheriff's office and our disaster management agency is activated and And this is all public, but I want to share it. It's now a level one evacuation notice for Clackamas County. It is the rhododendron area east to government camp. Andrew's putting up the map here online. Level one just means be ready. It's not evacuate now, but be ready. But based on the wind conditions, the dryness, the heat, we're concerned. So this is the county website. Again, as the chair mentioned the last meeting, public alerts. It's Clackamas.us backslash DM backslash public alerts. It shows the evacuation levels, but also you can sign up for public alerts, which we strongly encourage. Everyone in Clackamas County, please sign up because that way you'll be notified when there's an event like this through your cell phone, your dial phone, whatever, email, whatever you submit. But unfortunately, this has now moved to Clackamas County and I think it's also a great opportunity to have a prepared go kit as they often call them and not wait until the last minute.

If you're in one of those areas, that oftentimes includes your medication or other important things you might want to take with you. Would just encourage folks to just be prepared there's not intent to alarm everyone, but preparedness is Helps if you do get notified so once again Thank you for the update Gary, and we'll keep you informed as we kind of move ahead so with that being said we'll take a very short four-minute, 45-second break, and we'll be right back here. So with that, we'll be adjourned. All right, welcome back again, everyone, to Administrator Issues and Updates for August 4th, 2026. And County Administrator Gary Smith, will you please call the roll again?

Yes, Chair, thank you. Commissioner Schrader is still out of the office today. Roll call. Commissioner West? Here. Commissioner Helm?

Here.

Commissioner Savas? Present. Chair Roberts?

Here. And I'll turn it back over to you again, Gary.

Thank you. So we're going back to issues, and we're going to finalize the last item on issues, which is Commissioner Communications.

All right. So that was... So we're going to go to Mr. Savas on Commissioner Communication.

Yeah, well, I'll just start with last night. We've been working for about... County staff assisting ODOT with and also Multnomah County, Hood River County and Washington County assisting ODOT staff in preparing the Region 1 Act materials because of the layoffs and the exodus and the financial situation that ODOT is experiencing they are having staffing issues which has been affecting us for over a year now and they're multiplying, it's just getting tougher and so our meetings have been struggling because they haven't been properly prepared and are adequately prepared as well as adequately staffed so We had a lot to do. I didn't think we were to make it through it, but we did have a good meeting last night, and we were able to, again, with everyone's help in preparing for the meeting, was able to pull it off. The R1 Act has got quite a few people at the table. Two and a half dozen people are on the board. and uh... from all around the region so it was a good conversation but I just want to let you know that we are working together I've been on the phone with a lot of the other county commissioners and city councilors around the region trying to figure out how to influence ODOT to adequately staff us apparently as I were learning is that we're the only act that's having this challenge so Commissioner Baker, who was appointed by the governor to the OTC, was present at our meeting last night. We've appealed to him over time. We've appealed to certain members of the OTC. So I think we'll be actually formalizing that in a letter signed by as many members of the act as we can to forward that to the state and see if we can't get some action. That's what took up a lot of time, you know, this last two or three weeks on top of all the other stuff we've been dealing with. But I'll leave it at that. That's really all I have that I think is relevant for today. Chair, back to you.

Thanks. Commissioner West.

Well since we were last here, a lot has happened in the county. We did the groundbreaking for the recovery campus, Clackamas County Recovery Campus. Governor Kotick was there. All of us were there at the event. Senate President Rob Wagner was there. Many of our delegations, members of Congress, fellow commissioners from neighboring counties, staff, friends, family. It was a really great event. That project is a county project. It is the crown jewel of what we've been working on. I'm building on a recovery-oriented system of care, the whole care continuum. And it took some funding to get Breda from other sources, but that project doesn't happen if the county doesn't do it. It's a county vision, county dream, county response to local issues that are impacting us that we all see every single day. It was bold. It was innovative. And so I just want everybody in the county to be really proud of what we were able to accomplish over the last three years. A lot of people were there also, and we appreciate their ability to help us fund it. We also used Clackamas County money to help fund that project, opioid dollars and our grant blocks and other funding, too. So we all had skin in the game. But why it's and how and the governing behind it and those policies and the vision around that, that's all county. And so thank you to every commissioner that sat on this dais over the last few years to make that happen. And it was really an amazing event and it was a little bit surreal. and thank you for Gary and your team for making that event really really quality and so I just wanted to highlight that go to the website there's a lot of great information on the campus and the groundbreaking and what ground breakings are they lead to ribbon cuttings so there's another celebration coming hopefully in the next year and a half which I look forward to as we begin to really help thousands of people get access to treatment and care that they did not have prior in this county With that said, congratulations to Sheriff James Rhodes. He is the 34th sheriff in the history of Clackamas County. He was sworn into the courthouse yesterday at 1 o'clock by Judge Wetzel with his wife and his daughter by his side. There were there was a great showing by the CCSO. Much of the command staff was there and they were all at the end there took amazing photos with great solidarity and support behind our 34th sheriff. That was excellent to see. And there were people that drove from all over the state to participate and out of the state. who knew James and who he was and wanted to be a part of that celebration also. And so that was really neat to see. It was a good celebratory moment for the county. And yeah, it's been a busy week. So I will yield back with that.

I don't have a lot. I will say the Recovery Center groundbreaking was a very touching moment, and I know it's been long awaited by you, and kudos to you, Commissioner, for being the dog with the bone with that. You know, when I came into this last year, and I thought it was so strange that there was a policy to build this thing, and we didn't have the money, but dang it, we found the money. We didn't quit. You and Commissioner Salvas cornered the governor at the stadium. Literally. literally cornered her at the Stabilization Center, and we're able to get an additional 10 million. So it's very exciting, and I just, a lot of the words spoken, some are re-spoken, but they all are very hopeful, and that's one of the things that I want people to understand, that there is, we're trying to fix a very big problem, and I have been doing a lot of meetings regarding my campaign. So I visited Central City Concern in downtown Portland the other day. I went up to the mountain on Sunday morning for a breakfast. People wanted to hear about the Recovery Center. They wanted to talk about data centers and voice their concerns. So anyway, that Mount Hood... CPO kind of group. This was a different group of people, but they're all very interconnected. A lot of them had their radios there, which was so cool, GSMR radios, so they can all connect with each other. The cost of those radios, it's pretty fascinating. They're about $110 each online. You have to have a subscription, which I think is another $30, and then you have to be licensed to use it which is another thirty dollars but there's well over a hundred of them up there so people can connect to each other they're going to work in the event of power outages um they're using them today right now um to contact each other because the home i was at on saturday morning actually has ash on it uh from the from the fire that's uh like getting near the top of the mountain. So anyway, my deepest concerns for those that are in that area, I just hope everyone is okay and I hope we can get a handle on this fire. So other than that, I yield back. Chair.

Okay, just a couple quick comments. Today's Recognize National Night Out, an annual event that reminds public safety and the importance that having law enforcement know their local neighbors is a tremendous enhancement to recognize who's in your community. So there's a number of events around the county, and some of them might be canceled.

Double check. Some of them are getting canceled because of the air quality, so...

So you might check on that. But I also think it's a great time to thank not just our law enforcement folks, but the firefighters that do their job and paramedics and those on first responders to take the time to thank those. Commissioner Hill and I were out at Mount Angel Fire Department. They had a meeting with... joint meeting with the Monitor Fire Department, and I'm always just blown away about the number of volunteers they have out there. Well, these folks have farms and businesses, and the sound goes off, they drop everything, and they respond. And so, anyway, a big thanks go out to those folks that volunteer. It's a tremendous benefit to our community, and we appreciate it. And lastly, as Gary had mentioned earlier, you know, updates on the fire season and encourage residents to sign up for the emergency alerts and also make sure you have a prepare a go kit and take steps around your home to also help reduce the risk of fire. We have a few days of some extremely hot weather winds and low humidity which are unfortunately a catalyst for Fires so with that I'll conclude my comments and turn over to Gary. What do you have next?

Thank you chair and commissioners now We're moving to your policy sessions for the afternoon. You have two policy sessions. We're on page 17 of your script now first session is file ZDO dash 294 fiscal year 2027, minor and time-sensitive comprehensive plan and ZDO amendments. Presenting is Cheryl Bell, Assistant Director of Transportation and Development and Jennifer Hughes, the Planning Division Director. Go ahead please.

Good afternoon Chair Roberts and Commissioners. I'm playing the role of Dan Johnson today to introduce this long-range planning policy session. Since 2020, a package of amendments has been developed annually or biannually to focus on relatively minor changes to our comprehensive plan or zoning and development ordinance. These packages are known in minor and time-sensitive, present changes to our codes to comply with any new metro, state, or federal mandates, clarify existing language, correct errors, or adopt optional provisions that require only minimal amounts of analysis. We have kind of referred to these as our governance packages as they allow us to make updates to conform with state requirements and make changes to streamline our codes. I think it's also important to note that minor amendments packages are in alignment with the board's development review goal, which is to streamline regulations and make changes to our codes to ensure that they are modern and fit the needs of our communities. So today we're here for file ZDO 294, which is the fiscal year 2027 minor and time sensitive amendments package. Staff are seeking direction on what items to include in the package and approval to move amendments forward for public hearing process with the Planning Commission and then with yourselves, the Board of Commissioners. You may be thinking you just approved a minor and time sensitive amendments package. That is also true. The last package was considered in June and is scheduled for adoption this Thursday at your business meeting. But we're advancing this next package now because there's some state mandates that must be enacted by January 1, 2027. So there's some time urgency here. So with this introduction, I'm actually going to step back and let Martha Fritze, principal planner, come forward to support Jennifer Hughes, our planning director, in this discussion.

Thanks, Cheryl. So Martha's the project manager on this one as she was on the last one. So she probably knows more about it than any of the rest of us. We're gonna talk primarily from attachment A, which is the table we prepared of the items that we have identified for inclusion in the package. And Martha's gonna speak first regarding the first couple of items and then she'll hand it off to me.

Thank you, hello again. I will make it pretty brief. think that Cheryl introduced everything that I needed to introduce. I just wanted to touch really quickly upon the amendments that are required under state law based on recent legislation. We did just look at some of that as you are aware. This was intentionally left out of that last package because it had a later effective date or implementation date and so we're putting into this package things that need to be implemented by January 1, 2027. It's a couple of big things. There are more changes coming to middle housing in the urban area. These are mandated changes. I will talk in much more detail with you about them as we put these together. But it includes more allowances for middle housing in more areas and sort of different configurations of middle housing. There's also an allowance for bonus units for accessible and affordable units. Our code already has an allowance for affordable housing. Density bonuses, you can get extra units. This accessible is a new idea and so we'll need to really figure out what that definition means for us and how we're gonna incorporate that in. and then just some additional allowances for single room occupancy SROs at a different density than we currently allow them right now. That's sort of the high level. Really what it means is just more housing in the urban area potentially, more allowances. And then the other one was a big rulemaking effort that happened at the state recently. It was a cultural areas rulemaking, excuse me, I believe is what it was called. And essentially what it does is requires additional notification to tribes for certain land use actions that involve ground disturbance. But then, interestingly, it also allows a local government, which could be a tribe or could not, to apply for the designation of a... Oh, I don't have my glasses on. significant cultural landscape feature on any property. It does not require property owner consent. And so this essentially would then go through a goal five process to determine if it was significant enough and needed additional protections. This is something new for us. We don't typically allow members of the public or other governments to apply for legislative comprehensive plan amendments to add things to our goal 5 inventory so we're thinking through how to piece that into our code typically those need to be initiated by either you or the planning director or the planning commission so those are a couple big pieces that we're making changes that you'll see in the coming changes these again are mandatory under state law and so We do have to implement these in some way, shape, or form. We'd like to put them in our code, again, for ease of administration and to streamline and make it easier for staff and the public to understand what the heck can happen on their property now. So Jennifer's gonna move on to the farm and forest changes that need to be made.

So I do know that the board, or at least some of the board, was following this legislation, House Bill 4153, and was supportive about adding farm stores provisions to the county. It would apply in the county in our EFU and Ag Forest zones. For many years, there have been allowances for what are called farm stands, but because of some complexity in the law regarding those, it's been... I would say largely unclear exactly what those authorize. Um, and they have been fairly restrictive, um, to the point where a lot of the agritourism activities that you see occurring, not just in our County, but around the state really have not been in compliance with, uh, with the law because, um, farmers are interested in, you know, more expansive business opportunities than what that farm stand legislation really permitted. So in this last session we saw, um, legislation introduced for what they are now going to call farm The farm stands still exist. They did not repeal that, but this is an additional allowance. The use must be allowed. So we're not really asking the question of whether Clackamas County should allow farm stores based on how it has been incorporated in the statutes. It's mandatory that we allow it. The question is whether we want to regulate the use at the local level. So I did, we attached attachment B in your packet is the actual legislation. So there are some sideboards on this use at the state level. And of course we must apply those maximum size of permanent enclosed structures of 10,000 square feet, a cap of 25% of that 10,000 square feet or If it's a smaller amount of square footage that they have, then 25% of that can be devoted to the sale of retail non-farm products. So it's the idea of you're maybe selling jams and jellies and syrups and fresh produce and Christmas trees and all of that. But then in addition, you want to sell greeting cards and tea towels and things that are gift items, those kinds of things. And we've all seen that, of course, with farm stands previously. So that's capped at 25% of the square footage, which would mean a maximum of 2,500 square feet if they went for the maximum. The other really big change is that the allowance for agritourism activities is very broad. So there's a list of what I would describe as examples of the types of events, often things that we're familiar with. in terms of could be hay rides or corn mazes and those types of things. But it is really very broad. It does say like other seasonal activities. So I think you could have concerts, movies, anything really that is a promotional intended to draw people to the farm stand to sell products from the farm stand to promote the operations of the farm. would be permitted there is no cap on the number of attendance of attendees the number of events the duration of those events really no standards at all with regard to that and that is the guidance that the state land use agency has been giving so I think it's it's what the planning directors are being told and I think we should assume that that is in fact the case so the question is does the board want to put some sideboards on the use, and if so, what sideboards. There are limitations. The statute specifies what we can regulate, and those are listed in attachment A under number three. So we are allowed to regulate access, egress, and parking, traffic management, noise management, hours of event operation, sanitation, and solid waste. any or all of those. And so when we get to the end here, I'm assuming that might be a source of discussion for you all to let us know, do you want us to bring you a draft that includes standards for all of those, some of those, thoughts initially on maybe what that might look like? Staff is certainly recommending that we consider them in particular. I just think that Particularly things like amplified music occurring late at night. You know, how many is this 24 7 365? I don't think we really think that that's going to be the case but But you never know right somebody's gonna probably push the limits a little bit one example to on the Traffic management question, I'm sure you're all familiar with Wooden Shoe. They moved to a timed ticket entry, which really helped alleviate the traffic management problems that they had had out there previously. And that's the kind of thing I know some other jurisdictions are considering. It's like at what point, it wouldn't be necessary, you know, if it was a fairly small scale thing, but at some point, if you're drawing hundreds or thousands of cars, potentially that would be a traffic management tool that we might want to consider requiring some. That's probably the big one for discussion today, but just quickly, there's some new state legislation related to replacement dwellings in farm zones, just a different allowance for dwellings that are lost due to disaster and being able to replace those through a slightly different set of provisions than what exists currently. We do need to add that to our code. There are a couple of items that have come from public input to the board's office. One being a question regarding our setbacks for accessory structures in our future urban 10 zone. There was a code enforcement situation with a shed that had led to some interest on the part of that property owner to have the standards changed. We have subsequently our recommendation in the packet was to consider using our urban setbacks because this is a future urban zone meaning eventually the area will urbanize whether it happens in the county or in a nearby city and so potentially we could look at setbacks in similar to what we allow in the urban area rather than the larger rural setbacks, which is what the FU 10 zone has currently. In looking at their submitted plans, it appears they actually are going to need something that's even less than what we would allow in the urban area to accommodate that particular situation. So I think the question is, would you like us to bring you that proposal? Again, it doesn't mean that you will be necessarily adopting it, but do we want to include that in this package? The other public amendment that we're considering came from a constituent that reached out to your office related to the size of flags that we permit on property. We have a cap of 40 square feet for the size of a flag. That's part of our sign code. And that is not quite large enough to accommodate military casket flags, which are actually 47 and a half square feet. And so that would be an amendment that we could consider as part of this package. And then finally, I'm going to turn it back over to Martha to just talk briefly about number seven, which is kind of a regulatory streamlining proposal that we'd like to consider.

Thanks. So under this category, we have sort of the typical things of any housekeeping items, incorrect citations, typos. I mean, hopefully there aren't very many because we just did this, but we always end up finding some. We already have a short list. But then we decided we wanted to try to tackle one of the items that came out of a project that we had talked about, our ZDO diagnostic report. We had hired some consultants to take a deep dive into our zoning code and make recommendations about things we could do to make it more efficient, more understandable, just better in general. And so one of the items that we would like to put in this package is looking at design review. and design review is a process that is required for all commercial, industrial, multifamily, institutional, and some other types of development. The way our code currently reads is that it's required all the time for every development and it is Sometimes when you have a very small improvement, it seems kind of silly to send them through the time and expense for design review. And so what we would like to look at is a tiered system. We're not entirely sure what that's going to look like yet. There may be a tier where no design review is required if you're under certain thresholds. There may be even sort of a minor design review if it's under a different set of thresholds. And then when you have a bigger development, it would require just the full design review that we do right now. And so that's something we wanted to take a look at in order to, I mean it seems like it's making it more complicated instead of streamlining, but honestly it's gonna streamline the process for a developer in a lot of cases, whereas now it's a little more complicated and expensive. So that's one of the items we wanna put in there. We may find a few other sort of low-hanging fruit things that we want to fix in the process as we move forward.

So with that, the options we have for you today would be to direct staff to draft amendments consistent with attachment A and initiate the amendment process. Alternatively, you could direct staff to make board-identified changes to the proposals in Attachment A and initiate the amendment process. Or finally, you could direct staff to take no further action at this time, recognizing that the mandatory state legislation would still take effect. Staff's recommendation is option one, direct staff to draft amendments consistent with Attachment A and initiate the amendment process. And we're happy to answer questions.

All right, Commissioner West.

Thank you. I was following that farm stand legislation pretty closely. Thank you for that update. Now, it's my understanding that there's something called a farm impacts test. Can you explain that, and does that apply here? Because you said weddings, and I was like, wait a second. Like, maybe I'm thinking around my neighborhood even. Maybe, like, a corn maze in the fall. But that's different than a wedding venue, and that is clearly agro-tourism, and a wedding isn't necessarily its venue. So, like, what is that farm impacts in that surrounding area? How is that balanced?

So the farm impacts test, and I'm not going to be able to quote this exactly, but in essence it requires that an applicant for certain uses in a farm zone has to assess the impact of their non-farm use, what the statute would call a non-farm use, on farming by evaluating does it make it basically harder and more expensive for farmers to farm in a nutshell. So they might have to look at things like the likelihood that people are going to be trespassing on someone's farm, the likelihood that traffic is going to prevent farmers from moving their equipment efficiently on the roadways, the likelihood that trash or some sort of pollutant is going to blow into someone's crop or run off into someone's crop. That's how the Farm Impact Test works. that is a requirement of state law for a subset of uses that are allowed in the efu zone farm neither farm stands which is the use that's been allowed and farm stores which is the new use require us to consider that farm impacts test that will not apply so this use is basically but for want of a better term, a farm use that essentially the statute has said farm stands and farm stores are a farm use. They belong in farm zones and you don't have to consider that impact on farming in order to use.

Okay. So it kind of makes it easier.

Yeah, for sure.

So I know a lot of these were operating in my neck of the woods of the county and it was complaint driven and then they would you know, have to stop, but there was quite a few of them. So currently farm stands, there's no permitting process, right?

Um, there is a permitting process because the standards that the state has are not completely clear and objective. There's a little discretion. And so actually the courts have previously said, yeah, this requires a land use permit, but it doesn't require that farm impact test. There are kind of different standards that apply. And so with farm stores, they're going to need some kind of a permit for the same reason, that the state legislation is not 100% clear. But it's not going to be a conditional use permit. It's not going to need to do the farm impacts test. They're not going to have to go to a hearing. We wouldn't have to do any of that. But they will have to apply to us and explain their use and make sure that they fit within the parameters.

Okay, so does a farm stand include when I drive down the street and they're selling their eggs and you put the honor system, like is that a stand or you drive by seasonally and you grab some cherries? Can you define a stand?

Sure. You can do direct, honestly I wish it was a little bit more clear in the statute, but a farmer can do direct sales of what they grow. So if I have chickens and I want to sell my eggs, if I harvest Christmas trees and I just want you to come buy a Christmas tree, you don't need a land use permit for that.

Okay.

where it passes over to becoming a farm stand is, okay, I'm going to build this structure. I'm going to have the public coming into this structure. I'm going to be selling not just my farm products, but all of these other, like the farmer down the road is going to bring his, you know, berry syrup to the, starts to grow. And at that point you need land use approval.

Okay. Um, next thing you talked about was the shed, the famous shed issue.

Correct.

Um, that area doesn't feel very rural to me at all. That property is not at all. It's like, it's like suburban total neighborhood. It's not even, it's already feels urban.

It's just South of Oregon city. Is that right?

It might be technically in Oregon city or right on the edge of Oregon city. It's very suburban neighborhood. It's like a big, it's a really big lot. Um, and, uh, like a subdivision is, yeah, it's a really, it's a really well constructed, beautiful structure. Um, and,

uh is so can you touch on that again what you did just that what you just said yeah absolutely so currently the future it's called a future urban 10 zone meaning that new lots have to be 10 acres certainly all the lots in the zone are not this isn't 10 acres yeah no way And so it's intended to apply to land that's in the urban growth boundary, but hasn't urbanized yet, typically because there isn't sewer yet. That's the reason.

They're on septic.

They're on septic, correct.

And so then over time, the idea was these FU 10 zoned properties would get sewer service either from CCSD or from a city. in which case they would annex and then develop at a higher density. So maybe that lot could be divided into two or three or who knows, depending on what Oregon City would have planned for it. And I assume for that reason, because it's not urban right now, back in the day, they gave it the same setbacks that they would give to rural residential property anywhere in the county. And so the side yard setbacks are 10 feet in those zones.

Okay.

So our initial thought had been, okay, it would make sense if we want to make the setbacks smaller to make them match the urban, what you'd have like in Oak Grove, for example. And so... Those setbacks are a little complex. It's a sliding scale based on the height and size of the structure. So at some point when the accessory structure is very large, it has to have bigger setbacks than if it's a tiny 100 square foot shed. So Martha and I just looked at the plans today for the shed in question, and it appears to be three feet from the property line. That's what their plot plan shows. And the issue is that in the urban zones, you couldn't be larger than 200 square feet with that setback. and they're like 288. So we're not gonna fix that problem by aligning it exactly with the urban area. We also don't have to align it with the urban area. I mean, we're not under any particular requirements to have certain setbacks in this zone. It's entirely the board's choice.

Okay. So I've seen the shed, I've been on the property. what they want to do and we know the story. I'm going to advocate that we do come back and figure out what would be appropriate. As you showed us, what could be an option and then consider that. The property actually does remind me a little bit of properties you might see in Oak Grove. And then right across the street are newer suburban homes. And then this is an older home in the area now that they built up around it. And I don't know, it might be, it's not even an acre. I don't think the property. I don't think so. Yeah, I think it's like maybe three quarters of an acre-ish size. So I'll throw that out there. And then you've answered my questions about farm stands and things that we need to do to comply with the state. Land use, terrific. And then I have no other comments.

Commissioner Helm.

Yeah, I just wanted to make a comment, too, that when the farm store bill was being passed, the question or the, I would say the ask from the proponents to pass it was at least get something on the books. There was nothing on the books. and that we could tweak it later if need be, kind of like we're doing with STRs. We're giving them six months or a year to find out what needs to be adjusted once it's been in effect for a while. So they knew it was not perfect going in, but at least it was something. They had a guidebook, and that's exactly what they got. And then, Jennifer, as far as the policy options go, I do think those need to be addressed, but my question would be, where do you start? Are you going to use somebody else's playbook in that? Are you going to, I mean, I think all of those things would end up being brought to our attention for one reason or another, but I think they all need to be addressed, so I don't know how in the world you even begin that process.

So, of course, all the other counties are in the same boat, right? The legislation takes effect January 1st. If we want it in place, we're all sort of scrambling. So I did reach out to a couple of counties. Multnomah County hasn't, at least as of about a week ago, hadn't drafted anything yet, but was interested in sort of like following our process as well and kind of, you know, sharing notes. Marion County has a draft. I haven't read it yet, but I plan to. So, you know, we're potentially going to be able to get some ideas because everybody's going through this process right now. And I think too some of these things, even though maybe this particular collection of options, you know, this particular combination maybe doesn't exist, we have other examples. So for instance, we have noise standards that apply well generally to the county, but we also have noise standards that apply for our event venues like commissioner West mentioned. So we might start with something like that for, you know, it shouldn't be loud after 10 in the evening or, you know, something like that. Um, traffic management, I think Martha and I would want to consult with our traffic safety folks in DTD engineering to talk about you know, they've done these traffic management plans, they've helped wooden shoe. So I think we can get some idea of, of, and bring you a solid draft. And again, you don't have to adopt the first draft we bring you, but we should start with something that you can kind of chew on.

Right. And, and in addition to that, so we could also cap like, so for noise management, yeah, they can't have a concert every weekend, right? Because that's going to Annoy all the neighbors, but maybe a cap on like four per year or something. Or if they want to have more than that or something, then there is because we do give noise variances out to when people are having an event. But I would say maybe a cap on it or something just so that people kind of are aware. yeah, you can do it, but here's a few rules to go with it.

That fall is a super busy season for harvest. We're talking like pumpkin patches and corn mazes potentially. It's a lot.

Yeah, it gets crazy, right? And they love it. They love it. I know. But that's traffic. That's noise. That's access to aggressive parking. It's hours of events or operation. It's sanitation. It's all those things, right? Yeah.

All right, Commissioner Savas.

A few questions. Believe it or not, I know we never talk about parking, but we'll talk about parking. So I'm looking at number one, for example, and I guess I wish there was a column that had the consequences of some of these changes that are, again, top-down to us, not that we created. But before I go there, I really want to talk about what triggers a traffic study?

So that's a great question. And we're actually right now, well, not me personally, but they're looking at that exact question. The traffic study requirements are in the county's roadway standards rather than in zoning code. Now the requirement to demonstrate that you meet our like standard for traffic is in the ZDO. But the sort of technical ways that you sort of deal with do they or don't they need a traffic study are not in the zoning code. My understanding is that traffic studies kick in when you're going to generate at least 20 trips at the peak hour through an intersection that's in the impact area of whatever the development is. Is that sort of your understanding? So for instance, a single family dwelling, I believe it's like 10 trips per day, not even at the peak hour. So if you were just doing a simple, say duplex or a two lot partition, you're not going to hit that traffic study threshold, but you start talking about some larger subdivisions, apartment buildings, larger commercial developments, you will.

Okay. Um, So 20 trips or whatever per hour, is that what you said?

At the peak hour. At the peak hour. Again, I can't tell you the exact times now on our roadway system, but it's probably something like 4.30 to 5.30 in the afternoon or something like that.

So if it's a subdivision, it's just really a question, is it enough, right? And so is parking part of that traffic study? I mean, it's got to relate to it, right? I mean, in a way, if you think about it, if there is no parking, then is there not really trips?

I don't. That's an interesting question. Do you want to? I'm happy to talk, but I thought maybe you were about ready to.

I really don't, but I think that's something interesting to factor into the conversation that's happening right now, because as you're aware, we cannot require off-street parking for any use in the urban unincorporated area. But it's an interesting question to think about, well, what if they're not? How would that affect the traffic? Right, and so I don't know the answer to that, but that's definitely something we could ask the engineering folks.

I think the theory would go with this not requiring parking, right? The fact that we're not allowed to. The idea is people will stop driving, right? That's the idea, and use transit. Therefore, they would be generating. But I don't think we're seeing that at this point, right? We're seeing either that they are providing parking or that there's more street parking happening. But, yeah, are they not generating? They're still generating trips. I don't think it would really change that. And the modeling, you know, they use – Manual that well when they used to print these things that was you know this big Telling you what all the different uses are and it takes into account not just the people who say live in the house but also deliveries and guests and all of that is statistically in these models of what's being what's being generated so I Bring this up because it's as though and here we are we're reacting and we're trying to comply with state law and

At least locally in this region Transit is contracting contrary to the big picture of the big design and I see the way it seems to be playing out. I do not see a financial path to Get us even anywhere close to what that vision is for you know, a transit everywhere. As a matter of fact, I don't even see how we get back to where we were, which was woefully insufficient in the first place. So I'm sitting here thinking, I really don't want to do this. I'm looking at number one particularly. I really don't want to do this without having a responsible parking plan, but yet I know we all can't do anything about that other than maybe dig in and fight. But I'm hearing, I mean, they're all over now. I mean, there was just more and more of these high density just down the street, just down on... Pardon?

Maple Lane.

Yeah, well, yeah, that Maple Lane area, but that street going out there is Flores. Beaver Creek? Beaver Creek Road, thank you. Beaver Creek? Yeah. I wanted to say 212, but I knew it wasn't 212. I think I'm tracking with you.

I think I'm tracking with what you're talking about.

Well, yeah, so just down the street, yeah, you got the Maple Lane one. I mean, a lot of complaints there, a lot of complaints down over there behind, off the freeway, behind the Oregon City Shopping Center where that new development went in with more complaints there as well. And it's a sea of cars, especially on the weekends. It's literally a sea of cars. And... We've got other neighbors that are complaining that nearby they're living in either an old subdivision or nearby that they're absorbing the parking consequences of that, which is, you know, fights and disputes about, hey, you're blocking my driveway, so on and so forth. And there's, again, transits contracting. So I'm struggling with this one. I mean, I just really want to just protest. I didn't bring a sign. I'll have one made. I might go down to Salem with a sign. Shirts that say the same thing. But I'm at the point of just really protesting because, you know, it's one thing to sit there, you know, maybe in the big marble house and make all these decisions. But if it's not really working out in real life, I think we need to readdress it. So a traffic study has no relationship to parking. You know, a traffic study... So... I mean, I'm just going to borrow this time here for another issue that was kind of related to this. Let's say it's a non-housing use. It is, let's say, it's an event center or it's a park or whatever it may be. That's going to trigger a traffic study, yes?

If it trips that trip count, the 20 at the peak, yes, correct.

Okay. Now, is that statewide or is that more local?

That's our standard. I don't know how that stacks up against what other jurisdictions do for that threshold.

Okay. So is a jurisdiction like Clackamas County can just waive that entirely? Like some jurisdictions do?

So... With the exception, there I think are, there's layers to that question. So do we have to have a congestion standard? Let's call it that, because that's normally what we're doing with the traffic study. It's safety, but also congestion. Do we have to have a congestion standard? Not really, we don't for like current development. There is a requirement to do a traffic study for zone changes to demonstrate that it won't significantly affect, I'm looking at Martha here, But even that, I think there's the ability to sort of for the county to set its own like congestion standards. So over time, we've accepted greater amounts of congestion as a region and said that that's acceptable. So there does tend to be ways to not have to require that. But so far, you know, we've continued to require traffic studies for non-residential development even for residential we can in some cases, but the state has started chipping away at the ability to do traffic studies even traffic impact for certain housing developments because again, it's Housing above all, you know regardless of the rest of it Okay, I'll leave it there.

Thank you Anything else? I mean, I just totally agree with Commissioner Savas. Do we have to adopt those amendments?

Do you have to put them in our code?

Yeah.

Not necessarily, but it gets back to that same question of like it's so hard to administer it if it's not in our code, and then we have to apply it anyway.

The only way to protest is to change the law.

Yeah, we need to be protesting with the legislature. Changing the law and our legislators.

We're not happy.

All right. Well, is there a motion on the amendments?

I move to direct staff to draft amendments consistent with attachment A and initiate the amendment process.

I'll second for the purpose of discussion. I have a question.

Okay, Commissioner Hillman has moved to direct staff to draft amendments consistent with the Attachment A and initiate the amendment process. Commissioner West has seconded and further discussion starting with Mr. West.

Clarification on the motion. Does that include us coming back on ordinance changes for the issue that prompted that with like the shed in Oregon City and the other items in which we wanted to have more detail or nuanced or... Just a. Regarding setbacks. Yeah, regarding setbacks, but you know, just making it more tailored.

So you'd like to have a policy session once we have a draft? Is that?

Yeah, more tailored to those specific needs that we have concerns about. If that motion includes that.

November 9th, right? Do you need an amendment to the motion?

I could try.

Any commission hearing is early October. Right, so we could do a policy session, absolutely.

Okay, so can I make a friendly amendment to your motion?

Yes, you may.

I'd like to make a friendly amendment to the motion to bring back a policy session in the next, do you want a time frame? Do I need a time frame, Gary?

No, just before it goes to the Planning Commission.

Before it goes to the Planning Commission to bring tailored options back on dealing with shed setbacks. And there was another issue on here that I think that was kind of a choose your own adventure.

Probably the farm store.

The farm store one, too. Standards, I'd say. Yeah, farm for standards. I guess I can't second my own amendment.

I second this amendment.

I'll ping pong back. You can't second your own amendment. Can I second? I can? Okay. Well, Helm did, so we're okay.

All right. I'll take my best. Go ahead. Were you drafting or should I take a best stab at it? I can. No. Sorry. Go ahead, please, Chair. Okay. So I'll just repeat the whole thing, make sure I get this straight, hopefully. Commissioner Helm has moved to a direct staff to draft amendments consistent with attachment to initiate the amendment process. Commissioner West has seconded it with an amendment indicating to bring back policy session before going to the policy session on the farm store and setbacks. For sheds. For sheds. Yeah. Is that close? Yes. Yeah. All right. Did you get it? We got it. And Commissioner West seconded his own motion, I think. Or Helm did. I did. I know, sorry. All right. And so is there any further discussion based on that?

Didn't we or can't we write a letter about the parking issue that we keep talking about? I know I've been talking to our state legislators about it and about addressing this in the long session because, like you said, what had been mandated to us is not working in reality and it needs to be addressed at some point. So I kind of thought we had... talked about sending a letter to our state reps or something.

I thought we did for this piece of legislation when they were considering it. I think we're on the record with the concerns.

Yeah.

I might be wrong, but Trent's not here, but... Yeah, I think we did.

I thought we did too. But anyway, yeah, it's an ongoing issue.

You were part of that, Commissioner Savas, right? I remember, but I don't think we drafted a letter per se. I remember having the conversation. I remember trying to lobby for that, but I don't recall a letter unless Martha.

Are you talking about the original back? the rules related to the climate-friendly and equitable communities.

Yeah.

I don't remember if you wrote a letter. There was some litigation, and I know that the county, I'm not going to use the correct terms, signed on in some way, shape, or form indicating their objection and may have submitted a letter through that process.

Okay. Okay. I remember something. like a little more formal, so.

Okay. Commissioner Sebbins, do you have anything else?

Well, I just have my light on. I just, I mean, it's not, I don't think it's applicable today. Maybe I will abstain from this, but I just want to forewarn you all, if this comes back in a package, just be prepared because of, I'm so passionate about number one, I'm inclined to just dig in and vote no. I don't want to vote no on everything. There's some good stuff in here, right? So I'm just giving everyone advance notice that when it actually comes to us for approval after it goes through all the processes, I don't want to have to vote no and reject all the good stuff that's in there when there's one item there that I particularly have an issue with. I don't know. I'm inclined to say I just can't. build something when you're trying to put a square block in a round hole. And that's what I see here. I don't want to build any more square blocks in the round holes, and this is a problem that is not congruent with reality. Sorry.

I'll leave it there. So with that said, because I also feel like it's in state statute and then it's just a kind of a reality nightmare for planning staff to not be incongruent. However, if we were to separate If this motion was to fail and we were to make a different motion, do you have a different idea, or should we just move forward with this one? Do you want to have something where this separates out, where you can protest publicly on this one issue? There's other really good stuff in here I'm sure you'd like to be on board with, like farm stands. And farms, you care about that. So I don't know. I'm trying to find a place with you here.

Yeah, there's more in here that I like than there is I dislike, right? So I don't think it's today that we need to make that exception. So I don't want to belabor this anymore. I just want to give you all a heads up that come in processes going forward. I'll abstain today for simplicity's sake. Okay. You know if I just I just don't want to have this package together in a way. I need to vote no on it, okay?

All right clerk call home Commissioner Helm hi Commissioner West hi Commissioner Savas same Mr.. Chair hi motion passes three to zero with one extension Wow, thank you very very much I

Gary, what's next? All right. Thank you. Your final policy session is as the Housing Authority. Chair, if you'll please convene as the Housing Authority.

Absolutely. Now recesses. Board of County Commissioners, convene as the Housing Authority of Clackamas County.

Thank you. Commissioner Lienstra is not able to join today, so it's just you as the Housing Board. This item is... Let's see, sorry, Housing Authority of Clackamas County Facility Naming Policy. We are doing this to mirror the county's naming policy by having all your special districts approve a policy as well, although there are some minor changes to this one. So this is the Housing Authority's version, presenting is Mary Rumbaugh, Director of Health, Housing, and Human Services, and Shannon Callahan, the Housing Authority Executive Director. Go ahead, please.

Good afternoon, Chair Roberts and commissioners.

So this was a previous board request that the Housing Authority develop a proposed naming policy for Housing Authority affordable housing buildings and communities. In developing the policy, our goal was to be as consistent as possible with the county's naming policy while recognizing that affordable housing communities serve a different purpose than most county facilities. County buildings are generally named per our policy to reflect their function, while housing authority properties are places where people live. Their names help shape a sense of identity, dignity, and belonging for residents. The proposed policy, therefore, does follow the county's overall governance and public process, but includes a few modifications that better reflect the unique nature of affordable housing communities. I'll now turn it over to Shannon Callahan, Executive Director of the Clackamas County Housing Authority, to walk through the proposed policy, highlight the similarities and differences, and to seek your feedback.

Thank you. Good afternoon. As Mary mentioned, this policy was developed in response to your request to bring back a formal naming policy for the Housing Authority. We did use the county's naming policy as our foundation to ensure consistency where appropriate while adapting it to the unique nature of affordable housing communities. The intent of this policy, as proposed, is to establish a clear, transparent, and consistent process for naming and, where appropriate, renaming of Housing Authority-owned buildings and communities. This policy identifies appropriate naming categories, including geographic or neighborhood references, historical references, cultural or indigenous heritage with appropriate consultation, and natural features and environmental characteristics. This policy does not include function-based naming, as that just doesn't work for an affordable housing community, or naming properties after individuals, keeping the focus on creating welcoming residential communities. The board retains final authority for naming and renaming all properties, where HACC, the Housing Authority, is the managing partner or the majority owner, so sometimes we fund affordable housing communities, and we're not the owner or managing partner. For each naming, staff would first come to this board to request authorization to begin the naming or a renaming process. A naming committee would then be convened including Housing Authority leadership, at least one resident representative from our housing communities, and where appropriate, a community representative. The committee would then solicit and review name suggestions, consider public input, evaluate names against any proposed policy, and bring one recommended name back to the board for its consideration. While this policy as proposed mirrors much of the county's policy, there are a couple of key differences. One is it is specific to obviously affordable housing buildings and communities. It includes a resident representation on any naming committee. It brings one name to the board as opposed to three names to the board under your county policy. However, the board has the choice to either approve that name, request additional names, or name the building as a name of your choice. So all of those remain options and possibility under the way that this is currently drafted. So today we are requesting your feedback and suggestions on this proposal.

It's me this time.

Commissioner Stavis, go ahead.

Did I hear that right, that the way it's crafted to bring back one name, not choices?

The way it is currently written is we would bring back one proposed name and you could request additional names or you could rename the building a name of your choice.

Yeah, it just seems from a process standpoint that having, I wouldn't want to have a name maybe that maybe we weren't, you know, enamored by to, you know, belabor the process and have to go through another process, right? So it just seems that that's not necessarily a, I don't know, I struggle with that one. That's just me, one of the people up here on the dais. I do have a, put that aside for a moment. I brought a couple issues to Gary, but that hillside project, that's a HACC project, correct? That's ours, that's Housing Authority project?

Yes. the housing authority owns all of the underlying land and all of the, um, uh, however, the only properties, um, as envisioned communities, buildings are the hillside manner, uh, building that's existing that is owned by the housing authority, um, and blossom in community. Every other property under that development is, um, uh, owned or managed by another managing partner. but the land is retained by the housing authority.

Okay, so the Blossom, what was that?

Blossom Inn Community is the first parcel to open closest to the railroad tracks.

We cut the ribbon on here earlier this year.

Yes, yes, correct.

In May. Correct. I believe it was May. Okay. No.

No. So, I'm sorry, without a drawing, closest to the railroad tracks at the back is the first building to open that's Blossom and Community. I believe that you and Commissioner Helm came to that property in November of last year for an open house. And then Hillside Manor, of course, which is existing, is also owned and operated by the Housing Authority. The two front buildings that you just went to, the ribbon-cutting in May, those are actually owned and managed by Related Northwest under a long-term lease provision for the land. And the structure of that... acreage and campus was decided long ago when the board made, I think, metro bond allocations. So it's been underway for some, that structure has been the same for some time prior to my joining the Housing Authority two years ago.

Okay, so we own the land underneath it. Just real rough, what's the percentage of funds from all the jurisdictions that braided all that funding together?

For the whole development?

Well, the ones that are forward toward the street that we cut the ribbon on in May.

I apologize. I would just throw a number out that I wouldn't be ill-prepared to support right now. I can't remember.

I'll just say this. I'll just keep it short, and I'll just yield back here in a moment, and that is that it seemed that at that ribbon-cutting in May and also the groundbreaking here a week or so ago, it feels as though that... Maybe we were just not, had nothing to do with this. It just felt as though we were, and I would say probably our staff, but it just felt as though it was not our process. So I was a little bit put out by both processes, by the way, frankly. The ribbon cutting and the groundbreaking. I just thought that we were an important partner, but it didn't feel like it.

I'm sorry about that. I would take that feedback.

Seriously, and yeah, so as it relates to the naming policy. I'm just concerned that you know You know are we a partner or not?

We don't have the authority to name the those buildings on the campus We have the ability to name the campus hillside park, and we have the ability to name our buildings We do not have the authority or have not retained authority to name any of the buildings that we have funded with Metro bond resources or on those developments to the state we could reserve naming authority for ourselves in future developments like Short Stack Milwaukee and the anticipated Bridge Meadows development. But as the development deals stand, we did not retain naming rights.

Commissioner West.

I am so excited about Bridge Meadows coming to Clackamas County, but that is not what we're here to talk about today. But I am super jazzed. They are so awesome. They do great work. Sorry, I got distracted. So I think you mentioned something. Just clarify. So I think of public names, naming public buildings, and I often think of them being named after somebody. I mean, most schools are named after somebody. But these are housing authorities. So is there something unique to a housing authority that individuals or historical names aren't used where on many public buildings on every sector of government it is? Why?

You know, I think, Commissioner West, I think that, thank you for raising this question, because this is unique in this policy, and I think you've hit on exactly kind of the crux of why we're proposing not to name affordable housing communities under this policy after individuals, because it is really only public entities that name buildings after individuals, like schools, like libraries, like other public facilities, and it others the families and the children that live there, and we had... discussions about this on our team and many times if you're living at Blossom Inn Community, that has a different tone than I'm living at like Harvey Scott, right? People know, it just, it's kind of a known thing that government tends to name after. And it's not to say we don't want to acknowledge the government connection, but it is, it does establish that you are in a public housing community. And so there was one, I'm glad you raised it because it is a discussion point for this board.

Okay, can I have a follow-up? I want to make sure I heard it. Sure. Historically, if it was named, I'll use Ida B. Wills because it's a school, but I could hear something like, I live at Ida B. Wills, but that doesn't sound as mainstreamed or as... as mainstreamed as somebody who says, I live at, you know, something that's named after, sorry, I'm losing my words, that's named after some type of, like, landmark, right? Because most private sector entities are named in that capacity when you're making it overly obvious that this could be public housing by saying a name, and then that can bring stigma. Is that what you're saying?

That's exactly why we propose not to name after individuals.

I agree. I thank you for clarifying that. Yeah. Sorry, I was tired. I'm getting tired. Spit it out. That's right.

I have one more question if I could. Is there a reason why you would not bring us three names to choose from rather than just one?

No, we're happy to make that change for you. I think to be frank with you, it's creativity in housing buildings can sometimes be a challenge to come up with three. I'll just, you know, like variations of different names, but we could definitely do that and bring you three options and then a recommendation for what But if you're amenable to that, what we would recommend.

Well, and only, yeah, only because like even with the recovery campus was three or four very similar names. And it was just, it was just a matter of the words. And even if they are similar, it like kind of helped. I like menus, choices, you know, where you can go, oh, that's an option. But then, you know, if you don't see the other ones, you're, you're not sure what, what might've been out there that, and for reasonings of, of like just a simple word choice here and there. one word in front of the other or something. Yeah, I prefer choices.

Mr. Salas. Yeah, well, I would advocate for changing that to, you know, more than one at least, you know, maybe at least three. I don't recall a time, I'm sure it happened somewhere where people struggle to name something and there's only one name submitted. Typically, it's too many names and you're trying to narrow it, right? Exactly. And just for the record, I think having some relationship to the community is important. I do have heartburn when a person is recognized or names on the building. That's not... That's not usually my preference at all. I think it needs to be more community and broader about the culture or something reflective that's unique. But naming buildings after, especially public buildings, after people is, I don't know, I think people outlive that and it's forgotten, right? And it doesn't have a real connection to, again, the community. So I just want to put that out there. All right.

Is there a motion?

Chair, I move that we approve the Housing Authority naming policy as presented with the change to bring a minimum of three names forward in the naming process.

I second that.

Commissioner West has moved to approve the Housing Authority naming policy as presented with an amendment of bringing three names forward. Commissioner Helm has seconded that. Any further discussion? Clerk, will you please call the poll?

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

Aye.

Mr. Chair? Aye. Motion passes 4-0, Mr. Chair.

All right, I'll now adjourn as the Housing Authority of Clackamas County Board and reconvene as the Board of County Commissioners. Gary, anything else before we wrap it up? That is all for today. All right, with that being said, we're adjourned. Thank you.