Planning Commission - Regular Meeting

one and welcome to administrative issues and updates on August 11th 2026 County Administrator Gary Schmidt will you please call the roll yes thank you chair Commissioner Schrader is out of the office today roll call Commissioner West Commissioner Helm

Here.

Commissioner Savas. Present.

Chair Roberts. Here. Thank you, Gary. Well, everyone, we have an extensive agenda today, so I'm going to try and move us along and can use your help as well. So I'll remind everyone you have time budget this afternoon if we don't get through all the issues that we have. I will now recess as Board of County Commissioners, convene as the Water Environment Services Board of Directors, and have Gary introduce our first agenda item this morning.

Yes, thank you, Chair. This is, as always, a request for consent agenda, but it's something new, different, or unique. We bring it to you first at issues to see if you're comfortable moving it to consent agenda. This is such an item. It is approval of a contract with CONNELL CONSTRUCTION AND DEMOLITION CORPORATION FOR EMERGENCY TEMPORARY PIPE PROTECTION ON THE SANDY RIVER LANE FORCE MAIN PROJECT. CONTRACT VALUE IS $524,513.05 FOR ONE YEAR. FUNDING IS THROUGH WATER ENVIRONMENT SERVICES, SANITARY SEWER CONSTRUCTION FUNDS. NO COUNTY GENERAL FUNDS ARE INVOLVED. RON WERENGA IS THE ASSISTANT, THE DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF WES. GO AHEAD, PLEASE.

Good morning chair members of the board Ron Waringo with Wes. We're here today to ask to for your authorization to move this contract to the business meeting agenda for this Thursday. The project is related to the Sandy River Lane pump station force main. I think we've spoken to you in the past about some flood events in December of last year that there was some significant channel migration and bank erosion along the Sandy River up in our hoodland service area. that exposed a portion of our force main. We're doing a longer term project to replace that force main now, deeper and wider in the river to avoid future issues. As part of that project, we've determined we need to stabilize the force main that is exposed through the next wet season and high flows to make sure that it doesn't get damaged and create a water quality issue by releasing sewage into the river. So this particular contract is for a temporary STABILIZATION MEASURE TO PUT ROCK BARBS IN THE RIVER ABOVE AND BELOW THE FORCE MAIN. THE CRITICAL PATH FOR THIS PROJECT SINCE WE'VE BEEN WORKING ON IT WHICH IS EARLIER THIS YEAR HAS BEEN PERMITTING. WE DID RECEIVE ALL OF OUR PERMIT APPROVALS INCLUDING DOING WORK IN THE IN-WATER WORK WINDOW IN LATE JULY. And we've worked to get a contract turned around with Connell Construction to do the work as soon as we get approval. We got that contract on last Thursday. And so we'd like to try and advance it to the business meeting for your approval so that we can get going on the project. The end water work window ends on August 31st. So we only have a few weeks to get this project done. We'll request an extension, but there's no guarantee on that. So the sooner we start, the better. And with that, I'll take any questions. All right. Go ahead, Commissioner West.

On this project, you talked about timeline just a minute ago. Can you get it done? Do you anticipate needing that extension that's not guaranteed, or what is expected as a timeline on a project like this?

I think we can get the project done if we start next week. The contractor needs to start mobilizing and acquiring materials, and we're pretty confident we can get it done. We'll request an extension regardless, just for an added margin of safety, but we'll be able to get it done.

Are you confident that the contractor's ready to start next week, that all the ducks are in a row? Yes. Okay.

Go ahead. So my iPad is being worked on, so I'm a little bit of a disadvantage. right now at this moment, but Ron, you kind of mentioned, could you just expand on it if you could? I know you kind of, this came before us here a couple months ago or so, right? And then it's got a lot of other history that goes way back, right? I've been here a long time, so I know we keep on throwing money at this, and I know it's because of the storm issues and the water and all the things that are happening and the migration of the river and all these things that affect that. West comes to us pretty regularly for a lot of money, right? You know this is a small one and compared to some of the ones that are millions of dollars I would just like to Maybe have in the packet I'm just one person here today But at least show some history of how what day we approve what and all the collective investments we have made here and the reason I say this in particular on this one is There's not economies of scale in the sense that the, cost for these projects is being fully supported by the local community, which is not. It's a big, big, big disparity between what that cost and what we're doing here. And I think it almost, at some times, makes me think of a policy question of whether or not what is, in the long run, are we going to continue to be throwing money at this with such a disparity as far as what we're collecting for services out there? And there's nothing in here that speaks to that. So I'm just making that request for consideration. And maybe it's something we talk about at a retreat or a policy session. But we have been very generous in approving millions and millions and millions of asks that the West makes to us on a regular basis. And I just think it may be a little bit more preparation and ability to kind of look forward about how we're going to tackle this because it's just constantly we're throwing money at this and there's no end in sight.

Yeah, I understand and it's a good point, Director Savas, and I think we are still proposing the longer term fix for the force main. I think that's a good opportunity either through policy sessions or other discussions to have that longer term conversation and we're happy to do that.

Yeah, and I will just make the request, at least personally, personal request to maybe get a list of how much money we've put in this in the last 15 years. I know it's substantial.

Okay, I can put that together for you. Thank you. All right, Commissioner Hill.

Thank you, Ron. Yeah, and I know we discussed this last time. The folks up at the mountain are happy to get this fix. Is this just really truly a Band-Aid?

Yes.

It is just a Band-Aid. It's another Band-Aid. That's right. And it's such... The river is... It changes every year. It changes every winter. And we have to do fixes. I am looking for the longer-term solution myself. I don't know what that is. I know it's going to be in the millions and millions of dollars. But in the meantime, this has to get done to fix a real urgent need. So I will be supportive of this. But I also... would love to see a long-term solution, although this river has like a mind of its own and does something different every year. So it's a little hard to gauge. All right.

I just wanted to highlight, and maybe you could talk about that. It does sound like, from the information I've read, that you're making it much wider. That gives us room for maybe some crazy flood conditions that might change it. Maybe you could talk about that.

In the long term, the project we're working on now that's part of this temporary stabilization will be to construct a new force main from Sandy River Lane that goes over current, the Sandy River Lane pump station that goes over to the Timberline Rim pump station and back to our wastewater facility in Welch's. The idea and what we're working towards on that is deeper and wider under the river to move out of the channel migration zone. We have some options to be able to locate that pump station to where we don't ever expect it to get impacted by the river in the future. And we're also going to look at the configuration of Sandy River Lane pump station along with the Timberline Rim pump station and to see if we can come up with a more sustainable long-term solution there and we'll have that conversation with you about that project and how we think we're going to stabilize it going forward. We're also doing a facility plan for the Hoodland treatment facility that's wrapping up and we will come to you in a policy session and talk about what that looks like as well. So I think there's plenty of opportunities coming up where we can have the conversations you're asking for.

All right. Well, thank you for your hard work. If there's no other questions or objections, we'll move this to our business meeting agenda for this Thursday, August 13th. And seeing no other comments or concerns, so I'll adjourn as Water Environment Services Board of Directors and reconvene as the Board of County Commissioners. Gary, what's next? Thank you, Chair.

Next is Recovery Campus Monthly Update. Presenting is Cindy Becker, Project Manager in the Office of the County Administrator and one of the co-leads of this Recovery Campus Project.

go ahead please so thank you all for being there I think it was a really really special event so thank you again so I don't have a lot to update but just a few things I'm the first is the SHPO the state historic preservation We do have a signed agreement with them and essentially what we're going to do is take, we already worked with a salvage contractor who went in and is looking at taking out things that are salvageable and potentially historic. Our contractor is going to also take some of the wood that's in really good shape, and we're looking at maybe remaking it to a piece of furniture for the recovery campus. So that's on its way. The third part of that is we'll be working to develop some research information, historical information about the school, and we'll be posting that on a variety of different places. Anyway, we both come to agreement and that's all good. And so as you recall at our last meeting, you signed or you approved the contract, the lease agreement, and then Gary approved a temporary easement for staging because their staging is going to be technically still on county property because it's around It's around the actual project site and so we just needed to technically give them a temporary easement to allow them to put their staging there. So that was all taken care of. The abatement of the school began on July 24th and then demolition will occur over the next two to three weeks. I was very disappointed because there is no kaboom. It's just going to be like a Pac-Man, I think, piece of machinery that comes in and eats the building and does whatever with it. So that's it on the property. But we're underway, and so it's still very exciting. We submitted our application for the federal earmark. And it's kind of interesting, because even though it was a non-competitive, a federal earmark, we have to fill out a 20-page application, and it still has to be approved. And so that hasn't happened. Their process hasn't approved yet, and we're not supposed to begin construction until we have an approved application. And so we told them, well, that's not going to happen. So it's at our risk. But nonetheless, we did approve it. They're supposed to distribute the funds in September. We haven't heard anything except for the fact that they received our application. So it's a little bit of a strange process, but we're working through it. And then we have had a couple of meetings with our external bond finance contractor for the loan amount. Remember, we told you we still need a loan for cash flow purposes. And so they're going to be presenting us kind of a table of options, whether we do a straight bank loan or whether we do some kind of bonding. And that will show us what the compare and contrast interest rates, what types of hoops we have to go through or not. And so we're in the process of that. And we have a meeting with them later this week. So again, our goal is to close on that funding by October. And we're fine. We've done a cash flow. H3S, Rebecca's done a great job. and a cash flow analysis, really taking all the various funding sources and braiding them and figuring out which dollars come in where. So we're fine. We don't, quote unquote, need to loan right away. So we'll be plugging that in. And we're also, since we have so many different funding sources, they all unfortunately have their own little quirks about reporting. And so we want to make sure that as we get invoices from our contractor that we are showing our funding sources the appropriate information that they need. So we're putting together a matrix. Actually, Rebecca, again, is putting together a matrix to make sure we don't miss anything on that. In terms of communication outreach, we are, I think you're on the list now, we're sending out weekly or biweekly updates to the neighbors. And we're trying to get as many emails as we can. So we're sending it out to anyone in that area who has given us their email, we're sending that out to them, and we're asking them really to share that with other people, because we know we're gonna miss somebody or somebodies, but we wanna make sure that the neighbors are up to speed on what's happening in terms of traffic and noise factors and things like that. So I think that's working well. And then obviously since we met last time, you did adopt the name of the campus as Clackamas County Recovery Campus. So that's all I have. Questions or comments?

Commissioner West, go ahead.

Thank you. On the financing, so I know previously we had, I think recently we refinanced some bonds and some different debts that the county had and we got a phenomenal interest rate. It was to our advantage.

I can't hear you.

Oh, can you hear me now? It was to our advantage when we refinanced and so with our credit rating being as stellar as it is, will the board find out or how, you know, of course we want to do what's most financially expeditious for the county and what makes Will the board see that financing option that's chosen between bank loan or a bond? Does it rise to the level that it comes before us to make that choice or is that done at the staff level?

Well, when we actually come to the, we'll be making a recommendation, I'm assuming, in a staff report on this issue, so you'll see what we saw. And so we are looking at, again, the main one is what's the interest rate going to be, what are the payments going to be, and then also what's the administrative burden, for want of a better word, that goes along with that. So we'll be comparing both of those, and we'll come to you with a recommendation. Okay. Yes, you can see it.

Okay. And on the historic, so you have some wood. Is there any, I'm trying to like add a question around the things that you guys, oh, the kitchen items. Some of the kitchen and that commercial kitchen seem to be relatively newer and probably reusable. We had a very expensive ask to include a new commercial kitchen. Are we salvaging as much as we can to save our cost from the commercial kitchen that exists already for the new property that will be built with a commercial kitchen? Are we taking that into consideration and trying to salvage as much as we can? And is there anything there that we should use and not buy new?

Commissioner, it's my understanding that we're not. We have offered to NCPRD to see if they are interested in any kitchen components for the Milwaukee Center. They were not.

Okay.

So I don't think they're as good a shape as you, either they're not as good a shape or they don't fit into the new kitchen. So, yeah.

We've looked at that, though. I mean, I just saw it from like, oh, this seems like a nice commercial kitchen. I wasn't like down there expecting the appliances and whatnot. But, you know, it's nice to see when you're doing a tour of the property, like, oh, maybe, you know, you think maybe this is salvageable. I was just hoping there might be a cost savings since the new commercial kitchen is not a small price tag.

So I will double check. I know we've had this conversation. I know they've looked at it. The contractor brought in someone who specializes in kitchens, which would not be me. So the answer I would give you is yes. And they didn't say anything. If that's different, I will come back to you.

Okay yeah if it's salvageable I mean a fridge alone a walk-in fridge is crazy those gas stoves and ovens are expensive so if possible and it makes practical sense I think we should look at that before we just discard those items.

Well and I think that contractors I mean they're pretty meticulous on everything that they've been looking at so if there's anything more to that I will come back I'll send you an email.

Great job, by the way. This is still super exciting. By the way, I want to remind everybody that this is a county project. There is a lot of people that are also excited by this, so they're jumping on the bandwagon as they should because it's such an awesome project that we're getting done. This is county-led stuff here. This is a county initiative. This is local government in action. I want to preach that from the mountaintops. Good job, Clackamas County. It's something so good that all the other leaders in the state want to jump on and be a part of it, too. which we appreciate all comers and all people that participated in it. We appreciate all of it, but good work at a local level, everyone. Thank you.

All right, Commissioner Hilton has a comment.

Thank you for the presentation, Cindy. So I know that this comes up, the good neighbor agreement that you're working with for and the neighbors. What's the timeline on that, getting that done?

Commissioner, the good neighbor agreement doesn't really need to be technically done until it opens. And so we have a year. The good neighbor agreement is when the campus buildings are up and running, it's really how it operates and then what is the role and responsibility of the neighbors, what's the role and responsibility of FORA. So it's not something we have to do today.

During construction, okay. Correct. It's not during construction. All right, thank you for that clarification. And then are the construction updates only by email? Are we doing any other type of reaching? Is there any other way to reach out besides like door hangers, business to business or anything?

We're just doing it by email. If you have some suggestions, we'd be happy, you know, we would just try to, anyone who came to the community meetings, you know, we're just trying to, and the email list that we have for the invites, we will continue to add to that. If you know people or if you come across people that haven't gotten it, send information to me and we'll add them to the list. Okay, perfect. Thank you.

Right well that being said if there's no other questions. This is information only and we'll move on to our next agenda item And thank you Cindy for coming today

Can I add one quick thing?

Yes, of course.

Commissioner West, you'll be happy to know that we are in conversations with a nonprofit that fosters dogs on a long-term basis.

Oh, yay.

So we had a great meeting with them. Martha will be happy. They're very excited about our interest, and we're excited that they really serve typically marginalized populations who have pets. And so I'll keep you posted on that, but I thought you'd be happy to know that we're starting those.

For the public certification, I've been championing some type of pet services for individuals that maybe don't have a home at the time and they're living on the streets with their loved furry one. And sometimes that is a real barrier to getting into care. and other models have had really creative solutions, and we wanted to have one also. So thank you for continuing to work on our furry loved ones. Thank you, Kishore West.

And thank you for being willing to foster 12 of them.

I don't think my husband understands that. You might want to call him for me, Cindy.

All right, next is revised housing for success legal services solicitation. Presenting is Mary Rumbaugh, Director of Health, Housing, and Human Services. and Vahid Brown, Deputy Division Director of Housing and Community Development. Go ahead, please.

Good morning, Chair Roberts and Commissioners. So we are here today to bring forward a proposal to solicit legal services for the Housing for Success program. In March, we brought forward a contract for legal services and the Board of County Commissioners raised questions and concerns about the contract's scope, duration, and cost at that time. The solicitation we are proposing today is responsive to that discussion and seeks to resolve those concerns. I am joined here by Vahid Brown, our Deputy Director of Housing and Community Development Division, who will speak to the changes made as well as the impact the services will have for Housing for Success participants.

Thank you, Mary. Chair Roberts, commissioners, good morning. The Housing and Community Development Division launched the Housing for Success Economic Empowerment Initiative last fiscal year. We've now enrolled 127 households in this economic kind of empowerment program. It comes with a package of supportive services, and through this revised solicitation, we're seeking to add legal supportive services to households served in the Housing for Success program. The legal services we propose to solicit, I'm going to list those. These are critical for kind of housing stability and removing barriers to ongoing housing stability for folks in this program. Those include driver's license restoration, which is important for employment, eviction defense, eviction expungements, pre-eviction dispute resolution, housing denial appeals, and reasonable accommodations, which are critical for ongoing housing stability. and probably most importantly debt negotiation. This has to do with arrearages with previous landlords and so forth and can be a big hit to household income and debt negotiation with the support of an attorney can be successful. The solicitation proposed specifically removes criminal record expungements from the scope of work. We've reduced the anticipated or expected contract amount to be $150,000 For the scope of the contract year and limited the contract term to one year With the understanding that after that year we'd be able to assess and if deemed appropriate Extend the contract for further period I'm happy to take any questions questions.

Go ahead so Maybe um, maybe you said it I'm looking for this is gonna be paid for with which funds Supportive housing services funds. All right. Thank you I appreciate the adjustments and I did sit in on some conversation with these folks to better understand what it is and I know there was some confusion. Was it Commissioner Hellman who joined us? Yeah. The two of us. So I'm with a new scope. I'm comfortable.

Yeah. Any comments?

No, I move to direct staff to proceed with a solicitation for legal services to Housing for Success participants as proposed.

Second. Commissioner Elm is moved to direct staff to proceed with solicitation for legal services to Housing for Success participants as proposed. Commissioner Savas is second of that. Any further discussion? Clerk, please call the poll.

Commissioner West? Aye. Commissioner Helm?

Aye.

Commissioner Savas? Aye. Mr. Chair?

Aye.

Motion passes four to zero, Mr.

Chair. All right, Gary. Thank you. Next is Continuum of Care Programs Grant Application. Mary will also present this item.

Good morning again. So today, Vahid and I are bringing forward the FY2026 Continuum of Care Notice of Funding Opportunity, or NOFO, which is our annual application to the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, or HUD, for federal homeless housing and services funding. HUD released this year's NOFO on June 1st. after a later than usual release with applications due August 26th of 2026. As Clackamas County's designated collaborative applicant and lead agency for the continuum of care, Housing and Community Development coordinates this application on behalf of the county and our community partners to secure funding for homeless housing and services throughout Clackamas County. including our rural communities. This year's NOFO includes several important changes. In addition to the delayed release, HUD placed new emphasis on expanding street outreach and engagement with people living unsheltered, strengthening transitional housing opportunities where they are paired with effective housing pathways, continuing to prioritize permanent supportive housing for people experiencing chronic homelessness, improving system performance through coordinated entry, data quality, and equitable access, and strategic reallocation of existing funds to projects that best align with HUD priorities and demonstrated local needs. The application reflects those priorities by maintaining successful renewal projects while strategically reallocating funds to support new projects focused on veterans, youth, domestic violence survivors, street outreach, and transitional housing. I will now turn it over to Vahid Brown, our Deputy Director with HCDD to walk us through the process, recommended projects, and funding request in more detail.

Thank you, Mary. As far as process, the Housing and Community Development Division convenes our steering committee, our Housing Services Steering Committee, which oversees the local competition, which is a series of applications provided by homeless service providers, which are scored and ranked. That ranked of proposals is then submitted to HUD as part of the consolidated application. This process this year produced a consolidated list of ranked and scored applications totaling a little over $8.6 million in funds to be requested from HUD. And it's a mix of renewals of long-existing projects in many cases and some new projects reflective of the priorities established by HUD for this funding round. The renewal projects include, and I'm going to briefly summarize in the interest of time, the Homeless Management Information System funding, some funding for our Coordinated Housing Access, or CHA, program, Six permanent supportive housing programs which had previously been funded by HUD to rapid rehousing program projects some supportive services only with the Clackamas women's services programs and the annual CoC planning grant The new projects in alignment with HUD's current priorities include an expanded veteran street outreach program, two new transitional housing programs in partnership between Social Services Division and Northwest Family Services and Clackamas Women's Services, a new youth transitional housing program to be operated by 4D Recovery, providing recovery-oriented housing for young adults, new transitional housing with Parrot Creek, and a new domestic violence coordinated entry project with Clackamas Women's Services. Now, as always, the HUD application comes with match, and the local match required in this application would be $2.1 million consisting of approximately $115,742, well, not approximately, specifically that much money in county general funds and more than $2 million from other federal, state, and local funding sources. A bit of a wrinkle. This is the process as we've come to today. We have completed the application and we are ready to submit. On Friday last week, a district court vacated HUD's notice of funding opportunity for this year. They found that HUD violated the congressionally required administrative process which was to include a public comment period for a significant change to the HUD priorities. The significant change specifically was HUD earmarked or set aside $1.3 billion of the total appropriation for transitional housing and supportive services only programming. We incorporated that priority in our process and ranked our applications accordingly. The court found that in making that change, HUD should have engaged an administrative process, including a public comment period. Because they did not, this NOFO has been vacated. It is now up to HUD to either reissue a NOFO, conduct the required engagement process, and then reissue the NOFO. In any case, we're prepared to apply to funds from HUD. which is why we're here today to request your approval for that. But it's going to probably look a little bit different. We're not sure exactly how, it's a little bit unknown at the moment, but we're ready to respond as usual with HUD and its pivots.

All right. Commissioner West, go ahead. You already got into my question. Yeah. So it looks like we had been funding a lot of permanent supportive housing under a previous model that was more traditionally the housing first model. There has been a shift away back to transitional housing. We know all of this, right? Yep. And so my first question was, are we backfilling previous policy priorities for permanent supportive housing and then made the shift to fund priorities and there's many that we value also with the new kind of hud structure around recovery systems and traditional housing it looks like you've made kind of that you could see the shift in how you presented it to us a lot of hud funding has been locked up in the courts like there's been a lot of political and legal battles in the courts so not shocked by this um So my ask, I guess, is how does this impact our ability to carry out our local plan here? What's the environmental impact that we're facing because of things outside of our foreseen, you know, ability to control?

Totally. And this, I just want to give a tremendous commendation to the community providers, to Clackamas County for coming together again. We did this last year, came up with a plan. We're prepared to maintain the stability and continuity of our system of programs. And we are this year as well, Commissioner West. I'm not concerned with this court order at the late date. It was anticipated that this was pending litigation. We knew that there was a decision pending. It happened to come the day after we submitted our initial applications, as did every other continuum of care, but that's okay. We have done the planning with our community partners to, regardless of the outcome of our funding application to HUD, we will maintain the continuity of our programs and systems as a balanced system of care. So the COC NOFO this year did allow us to request maintain funding for all of the previously funded permanent supportive housing programs and still meet HUD's new priorities. So those would continue. Where some shifts to transitional housing may have impacts is on rapid rehousing programs. That's also a priority of our system and we can support those programs with supportive housing services dollars.

Okay. So you don't see any funding cliffs we're facing because of the drama at the federal level?

No, I don't have any reason to think that's the case. There is a possibility, of course, that there is no HUD funding this round. I mean, I don't have a crystal ball, but given our relationship with HUD, the reputation of our continuum of care, we're a very high-performing continuum of care. We've never had significant loss of funding.

Just to be, like, watching how you guys have made the pivot here and the different services and Bravo. Great job. And you did a really good job making that pivot and still prioritizing things that are important within our care system. So, yeah, these are environmental things that we just don't always control, and you're making do with what reality is. So I appreciate that. Thank you for answering my question.

Thank you, Commissioner. We're doing our best.

All right, Commissioner Salas.

Yeah, more of a comment, not specifically about this, but just seeing the array of different programs and services here that are out there. And I know that our budget cycle is very compressed. There's not a lot of opportunity to talk about KPIs, metrics, and so forth, and what these programs are about. But it does strike me that there's a lot here and might be an opportunity in the future maybe list, maybe how many FTE we're retaining or adding. I'm assuming retaining. For the most part, I know some of these are outsourced, so that maybe it doesn't apply, but it's still jobs. As well as, again, the KPIs, how are these performing? I think in light of the other funding cliff coming around the corner, which is the SHS thing, I think it might be to our advantage to highlight that and have a deep understanding of where these things are being, I won't say backfilled or matching, but how they integrate with supportive housing services dollars. Knowing this is federal, I get that. But just how that's all weaved together.

Yeah, great comment. We do have all of that information available. That's really part of the application process.

Okay, great. Thanks. All right, since there's no objections, we'll advance this to our business meeting agenda for actually Thursday, August 13th. So can I confirm that? Are you still going forward this Thursday on a consent agenda?

I mean, I believe yes, in the sense of the portal is currently paused, so we're not able to submit. But in light of just needing that approval, Gary, and then there may be some additional changes I BELIEVE THAT THERE'S A PARTICULAR CERTIFICATION OF CONSISTENCY WITH OUR CONSOLIDATED PLAN THAT WOULD BE THEN A FOLLOW-UP THAT IF THE BOARD REMAINS ON RECESS, WE WOULD REQUEST YOUR AUTHORITY TO ASSIGN. BUT I THINK FOR JUST ENSURING THE PROCESS, TO ME, IT WOULD MAKE SENSE. WOULD YOU AGREE TO JUST BRING IT FORWARD TO CONSENT?

Yep. Okay, very good. All right. Thank you. We'll work on making that happen.

Thank you both. Thank you. Gary, what do we have? Okay, next is the Willamette View Revenue Bonds Authorization. The formal title is Authorization of a Revenue Bonds Issuance from Willamette View to Finance the Southeast River Road Campus Expansion. Bond value is approximately $155 million. Funding is through Willamette View. There are no county general funds involved. This involves the hospital authority of Clackamas County, which you are. You've already been briefed on this topic. This is on your agenda for this Thursday. We're briefing you here to prepare you for that and see if you have any questions before Thursday. Presenting is Dan Johnson in his role as interim finance director and Sandra Montoya budget manager. Go ahead, please.

I'm not sure where to go from there, because that was going to be part of the introduction. Good morning, everyone. Essentially, Willamette View is looking to do a development, essentially a large project known as the Skyline, 92 apartment complexes associated with it, and certain amenities. I believe the clerk has or has passed out information regarding the project, so you have that at your disposal. And we have representatives from Willamette View here, should you have specific questions about the project. PROJECT BUDGET IS $155 MILLION, THAT INCLUDES CONSTRUCTION COSTS, INTEREST, FUNDING EXPENSES, ET CETERA, AND CONSTRUCTION IS SCHEDULED TO BEGIN SEPTEMBER OF 2026 TO DECEMBER OF 2028. The partner essentially is looking, Willamaview is looking and desires to be issued federally tax exempt debt to support this development. And to do that requires two actions from this board. And there's gonna be two public hearings scheduled this Thursday. The first public hearing is as the Board of County Commissioners and essentially is required by the Internal Revenue Code 147-F requires that the elected officials over the jurisdiction essentially allow the issuance of the bond. So the first public hearing that you will be having this Thursday, unless the Board desires to change course, is to allow this lending to occur. The second, and I guess I want to reiterate the comments that the county administrators mentioned, which is the fact that This is granting approval for the debt service. There's no liability or prepayment or payment associated with this particular lending that will be assumed by the county. I want to make sure that's clear to the public and to the commissioners here today. The second public hearing will be acting as the hospital facility authority of Clackamas County. And essentially that will be a hearing which will be very similar in nature, but you'll be wearing a different hat in that role. and with that different hat, you will be authorizing the issuance of the debt for this debt-free lending. I have Sandra here. If you have specific questions, she and the rest of our finance team, our other members of our finance team have been intimately familiar with this project. We'll be happy to answer any specific questions you might have, but we are here at your disposal.

All right. Any comments? Well, I have one, I guess. And that is, first and foremost, I see Craig Valkenberg here, the CEO of Lama View. Thank you for coming today. And also just that what I'm so excited about is additional senior care living. And I just see this as a huge need, not only for our county, but really for Oregon and across this country. And the addition of... facilities such as this which I'm also very impressed with just the continuum of care that they have you know from independent living to assisted living to memory care to all those things that I think are so important to help support our seniors and probably what I I just looked at your mission and vision statement, which I really love because it's short and succinct. A lot of them go on forever and ever. But the mission is to inspire the art of living well. And the vision is to transform the experience of aging. And I think we all so much believe in that. So I am completely supportive of this. I think it's something that is a dire need in our county and beyond. I want to thank the nonprofit, Willamette View, and the board for moving forward on this. We're excited to have it in our county. Thank you for the information. With all of this that was presented today too, and I think that it's also interesting, I'll just highlight a couple of things. where folks there's 13 additional move-ins from the greater Clackamas County, 39 additional move-ins from other Oregon counties, seven additional household couples from across the country who will contribute to the local economy. And so it's creating jobs, additional consumer spending in local economy, additional tax revenue, and just a series of economic impact to our community that I think is very exciting. So just a big thank. Thank you for bringing this forward. I know Commissioner West has a comment.

Yeah, great project. I'm just, you know, one of our big concerns as we see the rising demand housing insecurity within the senior population, not just in Oregon, but many places. And that's been a concern of this board is about seeing that demographic really suffer with housing options and availability. It's a very beautiful facility. It already is a beautiful facility. There's lots of opportunities there for individuals. My question is, is there any units available to those that are lower income seniors that have at more risk for housing or homelessness issues than than others in that community and is there any focus on that population in this development? We have to bring Craig up to discuss the specific set request.

Good morning. Direct answer to your question is no. The way that these types of senior living communities, the continuing care retirement communities, the way they're structured and licensed operationally, they focus on age, income, and assets for people to live there. What's affordable is the range of housing that is offered not specific to a population that would be considered to be low socioeconomic. So if somebody has the assets and income to live there, they're eligible.

Yeah. And we need all ranges and all types of housing. I just know that one of the big primary concerns as seniors that are living on the edge literally facing homelessness and strong housing insecurity and I assume that it's a pretty wealthy community that lives here in your property at Willamette View. And I don't know our role in that, but I know that's a major concern. Has there ever been any thoughts or opportunities about developing any type of housing that would take care of this population in our community that is lower income?

Yes, it's actually a topic every year of our strategic planning process. From the business side for us, that would be a diversification of the type of aging services that we would provide. That is something that we're looking at. Our first plan is to get our campus reoriented, updated, and then look at opportunities outside of that. So we're very specific. in terms of the way that our business model is structured, which is somebody pays what we call a community entrance fee and then they pay rent for the living expenses. Um, from a economic perspective, um, somebody could pay a hundred thousand dollars or $125,000 interest fee all the way up to a million. So it's just really based on the size of apartment where it's located on the campus, the amenities and services. So when you look at the population, I do this every day. You cannot tell who has money and who does not. But when it comes in the percent of the population that moves to a community like ours is about 3% to 4% of the eligible senior population. So it's not a large number. So that does leave room for a lot of other alternative services in the aging arena for housing. So we look at it and say, um, there's an opportunity to balance our product mix and offering, uh, which could be the mid-level housing, which would just be rental only for that mid market. That is a lot of talk in the industry because that's a lot of the baby boomers are in that, that kind of sector. And then you've got the low income housing. supported housing services that the seniors need as well. So it's kind of a spectrum.

And it seems like it's a thriving business model that you guys have. I don't begrudge you that whatsoever as a private entity. As a commissioner with this population with all types of housing, but my primary concern is with those that are on the edge of homelessness right now. And many, many, many, and probably the vast majority of Clackamas County residents could not and would not be able to afford to live at a Willamette View property. But we'd love to maybe partners with you in the future about how to develop more housing for those that are on the margins. Good leverage of the nonprofit structure. And partner with you guys on ways to do that for sure. I know we share that same concern. Thank you.

Great. Commissioner Salvas?

Yeah, I have a question about is the funding model for this similar to affordable housing where all the costs are basically covered or amortized or calculated in over the period of the bond? Looks like it's 35 years. Is that about right?

I'm not familiar with the affordable housing model of financing, but I can tell you how this works for us. So you have 155 millions and not to exceed, that's where our board is approved. And as Dan was going through it, what that includes is your construction, your funded interest during construction, all your pre-development costs, your fees of issuance and so forth. So you have a number. So let's just say that's $100 million. Then as we had pre-sold the apartments, so that was part of the requirement for us to come to the marketplace and issue debt is to have pre-sold apartments. So of the 92, we have 85 of them that are spoken for, which means people have paid a deposit. Once those people get to a place where they've selected their finishes, then they pay a portion of their entrance fee that goes into a pool. So that pool sits there and then when they move in, they pay the additional money. That money goes to pay your short term debt on your bonds. So even though we're issuing $150 million, you're going to pay half of that off with those interest fees and the balance is your long term debt. So you end up with about half of that spread over the 35 years. Okay, well, the reason I ask... Short-term and long-term debt.

Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Maybe an offline discussion maybe in the future for a coffee. We're overdue for that, by the way. But if I divide that $155 million... by, you know, 92. It's a pretty high number. But there again, in affordable housing, you know, they calculate it and bake in literally everything for that term, let's say 30 years, you know, including utilities and everything they need to pay, maintenance and everything else. It doesn't sound like that's the same model here. So I'm just curious how this model works. And again, conversation for a different day. I do want to say or ask a question and it's come up from members of the community about This kind of touches a little bit on what Commissioner West is, but not quite exactly. And that is that around Willamette View, there is a lot of naturally occurring affordable housing, right? It's privately held, right? People own their individual single family home. It's affordable in its condition, whether it's 30 years old or 50 or whatnot. And as Willamette View has been acquiring these, it's taking some of that stock out. So my question is more along the lines, is that still part of the long-range plan? Does it continue to acquire even more beyond the scope of this project?

So you want me to... like give my strategy to you, is that what? No, I'm kidding, Paul.

Yeah, I think you understand where I'm coming from with the question.

And I think the other side of the coin is that, well, first of all, we actually get a lot of phone calls. We get phone calls from people in the community saying, hey, We're interested in selling our house. We know you guys buy houses. So we actually have quite a few of them that are just straight rentals in the market. The flip side of it is that when we, and as Chair Roberts noted on that list, the people that are moving to Willamette View are selling a home somewhere. So they actually turn over housing in the community. So we've got quite a few of them from the local Milwaukee area. Greater Clackamas area that those homes are all going to turn over now when people are moving to us. So even though we might build some cottages or duplexes across the street where we've taken a couple of homes down and then we've added four, we're actually adding density into the neighborhood. But yes, that's part of our strategy is the wide variety of housing options that we provide to people. Everything from a studio apartment up to a cottage so Okay Thanks for that again.

I think it my question. I think Commissioner West is it's really that you know that What income levels of what housing remains and the long in the long picture right yeah? No, no response needed

Yeah I think we we need all levels of housing for seniors and I can appreciate that and really trying to be creative and partnerships with you and other entities to kind of help expand that and so I think any movement in this direction to me is exciting and just need to continue to work hard on this issue that we're trying to face on those that are on the edge so with you that so if there's no other questions this is already going to be on our Thursday meeting correct Gary yes all right so we don't need any other action thank you Craig for coming in today and what do you have next Gary thank you next is data center review we're back again on data centers

Presenting is Dan Johnson, now in his role as Director of Transportation and Development, and Cable Hugel, who is Assistant County Counsel. We brought back, as you requested, all the options for your consideration, and we're seeking your decision today what you'd like us to do. Go ahead, please, Dan and Caleb.

Thank you so much. Chair Roberts, Commissioners, we are here to build off a conversation that started on July 7th, which was just basic information sharing. and then was expanded upon, that was a policy session, and then was expanded upon on issues on August 4th. The materials before you contain, especially page one and page two, contain a lot of the information that we shared with you initially on July 7th, and I'm not going to go back and kind of rehash that. Essentially, that was discussions around our role, the county's role in approval or denial of facilities of this nature. I do want to highlight, because we had some clarity around it, on page two provides a summary of the state activities related to data centers. I'm highlighting this because I just want to make sure we're clear about your awareness of the efforts at the state level and what those are happening because it sounds like I wasn't clear enough in our last presentation. So I want to make sure we're clear with one. There is a current pause with the enterprise zones. Enterprise zones are a tax deferral program, which are done statewide. Clackamas County has an enterprise zone, essentially a three-year tax deferral on real and personal property associated with expansion. You're familiar with all that. In 2025, the state legislative session passed a House Bill 4054, which allowed a one-year pause. That one-year pause started on June 6th of 2026, essentially prohibiting the authorization of enterprise zones for the next year while policy discussions go out and are taking place in regards to the long session for 2027. In addition, there was the Power Act, essentially House Bill 3546, which allowed for the bill created a new classification of facility or data center or large industrial user, energy user. Essentially, that bill allowed utilities to set rates for these types of uses, which were subsequently done on, believe it or not, July 7th, 2026. The Oregon Public Utility Commission approved an adjusted rate, approved PGE to approve an adjusted rate for data centers of RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO THAT'S RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO THAT'S GONE RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO THAT'S GONE ON RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO THAT'S GONE ON AS RECOMMENDATIONS FOR THE FACILITIES. SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. AND SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. AND LAST SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. AND LAST BUT SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. AND LAST BUT NOT SO THAT'S GONE ON AS WELL. AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST SO THAT'S GONE ON AS which will if adopted by the state will be required to be adopted into our particular code and we were required to comply with any of those standards are established. So we are here to essentially seek your guidance on next steps there's a couple of items in here we discussed some of them at the last meeting but I want to be clear there's some additions and the additions additions that are here have Caleb speak to but I want to revisit two of them one of which is the ability for the board to direct staff to revise our zoning and development ordinance you have the ability to do that we have a zoning development ordinance that guides and dictates how development occurs throughout Clackamas County be it urban or rural You're very aware of this. You've done amendments in the past. That is at your fingertips should you wish to direct staff to change the current long-range work program, add this, which would require the removal of something else based on current staffing levels, but that is an option that we'd be glad to talk to you in more detail about. The Enterprise Zone Program, I want to highlight again the fact that we do have this program. It's operated through our Office of Economic Development. But again, I want to highlight the fact that the ability to apply for a Dana Center through that program is currently paused, even at the county level, because we have to follow state requirements as it relates to the Enterprise Zones. And then last but not least is the discussion that was briefly had regarding moratorium. And with that, I'm going to hand it over to County Council to go into a deeper discussion around the ability and restrictions and limits associated with that.

Thank you, Dan. Just a little bit of background. We mentioned on the fourth, state law does allow you to adopt moratoria on certain land uses. Moratorium is we're not going to approve any applications. It's also we're not going to accept any applications for this sort of a use. And there are some procedural requirements for any sort of moratorium you want to adopt. We have to provide notice to the state 45 days in advance. We have to have a public hearing. The moratorium has to be justified by findings, which have to be prepared in advance of the public hearing. Normally, you have a land use hearing on proposed code amendments. You approve or disapprove. If you approve of them, we go back and prepare the findings and bring them to you after the public hearing. With a moratorium, findings have to be ready during the public hearing. so folks can talk about them. And what the findings have to provide depends on what kind of moratorium it is. In Oregon, there are two kinds of moratoria. There's a shortage of public facilities moratorium, And there's a compelling needs moratorium. In a compelling needs moratorium, there are slightly different requirements depending on whether the moratorium is for an area inside the urban growth boundary or outside the urban growth boundary. But basically, the justification is that there has to be irrevocable public harm if the moratorium is not adopted. and the harm is not addressed by our current regulations, and there are no alternatives to addressing it other than adopting a moratorium to give us time to study the issue or adopt code amendments or whatever it is. So if that is the direction that you plan to give, some considerations might be, do we want this to be only within the urban growth boundary in the county's jurisdiction, outside the urban growth boundary, countywide? Maybe it's not for this meeting for the board to decide whether we want a public facilities shortage moratorium or a compelling need moratorium. Maybe that's something for staff to figure out and come back to you with later on. I just wanted to provide some background that depending on how you want to do this, there are different requirements and there are procedural requirements in any event.

So we have provided five options for the board to consider. I'm not going to read them out loud. They're in the report that you have. Essentially, we have a recommendation for you, and the staff is respectfully recommending option five, which is direct staff to delay amendments to the current code and programs at this time or report back to the board following the 2027 legislative session to discuss any adjustments to state requirements. and optional or mandatory amendments to the county code and or programs. We'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Thank you for the information, additional information from the last session we had. We've gotten a lot of constituent feedback since the July 7th policy session and I just want to bring up that the reason I brought it up in the first place was because of what happened on the west side of The Portland area, and that we wanna take into consideration the community impacts, both the environmental, the amount of water, electricity, energy, this is gonna, would affect Clackamas County and whether we want them here. I'll talk about the moratorium thing here in just a minute. the economic impact, whether it would help the local economy or be a detriment to the local economy. There's things we have to kind of all take into consideration and just transparency that our citizens deserve to know where data centers are built and to know all the facts about them. So I just want to make sure that we have a really good dialogue with everyone and My question about the moratorium, and I understand it's a process and I think You talked about, too, Caleb, I think this would maybe qualify for the second one.

Compelling need.

The compelling need, obviously, because it is, we have resource issues. We have water, you know, right now, the Clackamas River, I've never seen the Clackamas River this low in my lifetime, and it's pretty frightening. But I will say, too, is there a way to put a pause on this now? while we put a moratorium in place. I mean, my, okay, you're shaking your head. So that's one question. It wasn't one of the options, so I kind of figured it wasn't. But what I'm hearing, and this is, I want to be very responsive to our constituents, is they want to make sure nothing happens at all until we have guardrails in place. So putting a pause on it until we can do something I think is in our best interest. I'm just trying to find out how what that looks like and if there is a process for doing that so Right now I know with the pause at the state level which is on the It's a different issue right now a data center could come into Clackamas County right period and we're just trying to put a pause on anything happening until we have done our research so that that's what I'm trying to figure out how we go about doing that and

The explanation that I would provide, it's not just no because I think it's a bad idea, but there's a state statute that applies to counties and an equivalent for cities that says if someone applies for land use approval, unless you've adopted a moratorium, you have to process the application and either approve or deny it within a certain amount of time, and it has to be based on the criteria that are in your code and your comprehensive plan.

All right, so we had to start that process because what happened over in Washington County is I mean There's an application that went in like hours before their moratorium went into place, right? So I mean they are out there sniffing around and you know Getting in under the gun and it's it's tough because I want to I want to make sure this happens as quick as possible. So We'll talk about that then.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Savas Okay

As you stated, and in the report here, it states that, you know, there is that enterprise zone pause. I'm using the word pause. Focus on that for a moment. So that's in place as a result of HB 4084. And so that gathered my attention. I realized that only applies for the tax exemption. So if someone wants to act today and they want to forego the tax exemption, they can go forward today. So I want to make that perfectly clear in my understanding. And then what sparked my interest on this was Hillsboro, because it was on the news that Hillsboro put a pause, not a moratorium at the time, it came out as a pause. And so last week and prior, my request was, what are our options? What is a pause? And I already know what a moratorium is to some degree. I appreciate some information I didn't have before, so I'm learning. But I do know from my water district days what a moratorium meant because at times we were facing, let's say, a drought and we would have an issue with outdoor watering. What could we do legally to act? Is there a moratorium on outdoor water use and so on? We visited that word and that criteria and realized it was complex actually to do it in a way that you don't get sued, right, for falsely declaring something if you really have the means. So I understand there's vulnerability. You just can't openly declare a moratorium without having a real justification. You can be taken to task for that. We don't want to get there with that regard. First question is, is only the state can do a pause or can we do a pause? That's not a moratorium.

The statutes don't say that local governments can do a pause. A moratorium is a temporary stopping of some activity, whether it's accepting applications or approving applications. I think a moratorium and a pause are the same thing. And you just mentioned the state has put a pause on enterprise zones for data centers. I've heard it in some articles. They use the term moratorium on enterprise zones for data centers. So I'm not sure that there's a difference between the terms. If we want to stop accepting or approving applications for data centers, That's a moratorium, and we have to follow the statutory process. I get that.

As I'm reading that, drill down a little bit. I'm going to get a little bit technical. It uses the word pause, and it says in June 6 of this year, the moratorium took effect. But on what grounds? Because it was economic relief. It was not about infrastructure.

So I'm not sure what grounds the state can put a moratorium on approving enterprise zones for data centers, but the state has adopted separate statutes saying when local governments can put a pause, a moratorium on approving land use applications for these uses. They're separate. I don't know where the state's authority to pause enterprise zones comes from, but we don't have that authority when it comes to land use.

Okay, so you're saying that pause and moratorium in our context is the same thing.

Yes.

Okay, we've established that. It's not the answer I wanted, but I appreciate it. My concern about this, relying on maybe the state who's only looking at the economic effects, I've watched this play out in the housing emergency where the state or the governor institutes a housing emergency. They seem to provide the funds and the resources for housing, changing our land use laws so that we eliminate, you know, the time clock or barriers, and so they're foregoing a lot of the mechanisms. And there's a lot of local pushback on that. Wait a minute, I don't get notification? I know it's in an effort to block NIMBYism. I understand what they're doing. Not necessarily agree with it in full context, but I understand what they're doing. My challenge with this is that they don't seem a proven to me, the state, to really care about the infrastructure. On the housing, they have come extremely weak. I don't care if it's transportation, I don't care if it's water, sewer, anything, electricity, they don't care. So my guess is if they look at this and we rely and we stall and we wait for the state to take action, my guess is they're probably not going to look at this as closely as we are. I do know from my water district days when I was in those positions that there are limits in our water. There's water rights. There's all these complications. There's surface water. There's groundwater. There's water you can use. There's water reuse. There's a number of complications. But what I do know is that there's not an abundance of water. So I am concerned about that. I'm also concerned about some water districts. I know who they are. they will use their surface water, but under peaking, like in really dry weather where there's a lot of outdoor watering, they'll tap the groundwater. They'll use the groundwater well to backfill. They don't like to, but they'll do that. And I also know, unless something's changed, that for farming use, nurseries, everyone else that use groundwater, that the groundwater table's falling. So if you are impacting... let's say you're a district, or you have a need in your geographic area as a district, and let's just say it becomes a data center, and they tap into the groundwater, they're also probably tapping into unregulated, tapping into aquifer groundwater that is outside their boundaries that can impact farming even further, right? And local use, local wells. So there is... The only people or the only agency that can step in this space and talk about it is Oregon Water Resources, I believe, who administers all of that. So I think that we need to look at that to some degree and find out what is the status of groundwater in Clackamas County? Where is there restrictions or challenges? Are we meeting the needs currently? And Dan, I'm looking at you on a couple of this with, you know, it occurred to me that we are doing this land use work in the background for economic development. What land is available? What infrastructure is available? It seems to me, isn't there an opportunity to tie this together on infrastructure? ASPECT?

WELL, WE KNOW, I MEAN, WE WELL, WE KNOW, I MEAN, WE HAVE MAPS THAT IDENTIFY HAVE MAPS THAT IDENTIFY GROUND LIMITED AREAS FOR GROUND LIMITED AREAS FOR GROUND WATER IN THE STATE. GROUND WATER IN THE STATE. THERE'S TWO DIFFERENT THINGS THERE'S TWO DIFFERENT THINGS YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE. YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT HERE. ONE OF WHICH IS THE DISTRICTS, ONE OF WHICH IS THE DISTRICTS, AND YOU'RE RIGHT, THE DISTRICTS HAVE AND YOU'RE RIGHT, THE DISTRICTS HAVE WATER RIGHTS THEY CAN TAP INTO that's different from the individual user. You talked about the state of Oregon as a regulatory authority for groundwater, the ability to use wells and things of that nature. We know where those groundwater limited areas are. We have maps of those provided by the state. And they have certain regulatory requirements associated with them. Essentially, if I recall correctly, they require preliminary authorization from the state of Oregon through their water resources department to affirm the fact that they have available water rights to serve the particular need that they have. That's closing the loop on that discussion around the groundwater. The second discussion you had was around the work that's going on with our economic development group and our regional coordination group regarding looking at at certain areas for industrial land or conceptual plan expansion or industrial areas that's a more that's a higher level conceptual assessment around what the opportunities and viability of certain areas are to develop at what cost and to what benefit it's not going to take i think the the detailed look that you're you're thinking about for these particular uses that that level of analysis will not be associated with that particular effort. Because you're talking about a detailed, what I hear all of you talking about is the establishment of specific criteria around these data centers. And the establishment of criteria is going to be around, you already talked about it, noise, which we're going to win them in our industrial zones, people. That's where all the noise is at. Second is around the resources. That's a big question for us. How deep do we put our foot in that discussion around resources? Right now, we leave it to some of the districts because they're the experts to district-driven discussion, but are we going to require recycled water and things like that? I don't even know what those options are that are out there regarding industrial facilities of this nature. And then last but not least, it's the impact on the electrical impact. What is that? I mean, I can't even begin to articulate to you what we would do within our zoning development ordinance to establish certain criteria that would require, is it requiring standalone power supply associated with these? I say that without even knowing the negative repercussions of what we're talking about. And so that goes into the depth of the discussion that I think that you all want to have regarding these particular items. And so that's a lot deeper analysis than the work that's going on with our EcoDevo work.

Yeah, I appreciate that. I just want to say really my point here is that I don't have confidence that whatever the state's going to do, that they're going to look at these local issues as carefully as we would, right? And I'm not sure it's even on their radar, right? I think it's more about is it a tax incentive or is it an opportunity? Maybe they'll look at it from a power utility standpoint. I just don't want to see the burden of the impacts. And I brought up water before. I'll be consistent with that. There are a lot of domestic wells. The only source of water is their well. And I do know that people have had to tap down and drill deeper because as a groundwater goes as his table goes down They're having impact so that's a real issue And I again knowing that there's not a lot of there's not an abundance of water out there waiting to be tapped out there in Clackamas County and the water districts that I'm aware of and I could be wrong and I'm sure they'll call me if I am wrong That said, I just want to make sure we have, my goal here is really have adequate safeguards. If we can't use the word pause, then I think it's incumbent upon maybe our districts and the county to at least look at some of these utility factors like water. I'm kind of leaning towards option one, but not really as far as a ZDO, but more on the infrastructure. So We can't speak for PGE, but maybe we can get a report from them on what's available. Transportation, this is my last one. I'll stop here shortly after that. I remember when we used to have, before volume over capacity, Dan, you remember this, it was a level of service, right? Level A through F. And we had a lot of road facilities that were level F. And apparently that wasn't good. Now, do we declare a moratorium? I think that was a conversation I had many, many years ago. Then they changed the rules and went from volume to capacity. And pretty soon, that problem went away. But the problem really didn't go away. The real problem on the ground was still there. We just covered it up with this volume to capacity formula. That's my opinion. It seems to be my experience. I'm just concerned about we're going to forego. No one's going to step in the space of saying, hey, we really don't have enough water or we really don't have enough land or whatever it may be and not step into that space because of the complications and the legalities. I don't think a small water district has the capacity to actually go through the legalese and the hoops that it would take to actually declare a moratorium. So I don't have confidence at the state level, and I don't have confidence at the local level. I think it really requires us to step in that space and maybe partner with all those agencies to get a better understanding. So again, my goal is make sure we have the right safeguards. I think there's water and neighborhood impacts. All those things are a big issue, and I'm just concerned that the state's not going to give it that level of attention. And, Chair, I yield back.

Again, I have a couple questions here really kind of comes back to you kind of really did touch on it kind of code restrictions the regulatory authority that you have or don't have and I will just say one of the big things I looked at was at NACO National Association of Counties meeting with a lot of counties really across this country that are dealing with this and one of the issues that in one city in particular I talked to that They warned me on some of their concerns, right? One of the big ones they had was noise having to do with the fans, which was causing some problems. And some of the other things that they changed and made requirements are, one of which is requiring the recirculation of water, a system that they were not continuing to tap into water sources, reusing the water that they have on source. And then second, which is I'm sure controversial in a number of ways, was really advanced fusion reactors, small reactors that are able to supply, not tap into the power source, and setting up really code restrictions and guidelines around that area. And so my question to you, right, which maybe that's a whole other field you're getting into, but I guess I'd like you to talk about that is, Do you have that ability, and what would it take to come up with those kind of regulatory guidelines that you think would be appropriate, I guess?

The only thing I'll say, I don't know about advanced fusion. So the state regulates battery energy storage systems on farmland. There's legislation that's been passed addressing those. And I know a lot of data centers in Hillsborough are relying on battery energy storage systems. They're called BESSs to keep their data centers running in. When Hillsborough recently adopted a moratorium on data centers, it didn't just limit it to data centers. It included battery energy storage systems, because while the moratorium is going on, they're going to develop regulations for those. I don't know. I mean, as I understand it, we haven't received an application for a data center, let alone a battery energy storage system to support one. It's possible that, well.

So let's go back to the original question. Do you have the ability within our code to adopt certain design criteria associated with a data facility that will dictate and or require some of those components? I believe the answer to that question is yes. I don't believe we sit in a position right now where we could give you an educated guess on what the best direction would be regarding those particular elements because I can't even begin to discuss the nuance associated with everybody. A good answer to a question is perceived as a good answer until you get far down the path and you research it. And so it takes time to do that and to really assess that. There are simple ones like the recirculation of water seems like a pretty simple one. It's kind of a higher bar and a desire to kind of reduce limits on our natural resources and it seems kind of reasonable. The energy one is the one that just has me perplexed. I just don't know the pros and the cons associated with that. And that would really require us to send our staff down that path to really kind of do a deeper dive on what that might look like. That is something, though, that, you know, you talk about the state. Maybe they are looking at the land use component. Maybe that is something they're looking to consider statewide. I don't know if the board wishes us to dive down that path. We can dive down that path. I do want to go back to the original question, though, regarding the pause versus the moratorium. You can apply for these things right now. Yeah. Okay? And the only way to stipulate that and to stop that is to go down the moratorium path that Caleb has been discussing earlier. in the interim basis. And then we can look to adopt, if should the board desire, additional standards. I do want to highlight the fact, though, if we start going down this path, we take something off the long-range work program, we put this on the long-range work program, we adopt something, and the state of Oregon comes back after the fact, we may have to revise the work that we already did. We can be more restrictive. We just can't be less restrictive on the state.

All right. Commissioner Hillman, then West. Go ahead.

Right. I agree. And I think there's a lot of information out there that we can find. I mean, between AOC, NACO, you know, there's the old data centers, right, that were the large football field size ones that are, you know, they use up a lot of energy and water. And there's newer ones that don't. I haven't done my research either. But I... do want to say that I think we need to do something sooner than later. I don't want to wait for the state. The state has not addressed our natural resources, especially in light of their housing rules and the burden it puts on us and what we have to end up doing to kind of help mitigate some of their rules. I will wait for Commissioner West but I would like to make a motion that is a kind of a combination and I appreciate the option five waiting. I don't think we can wait. I think we need to do something sooner than later. And I think this gap between now and the long session and the end of the long session, I just think that we have to do something now versus later. So I would like to hear from my colleague and then I would like to make a motion if possible.

Oh, go ahead, Commissioner West.

Thank you. I agree. There's a lot I agree with. Learning that there's a big learning curve for this. There's a lot to this I don't know yet. There's a lot that's happening. I am by no means ready to make big policy decisions on this issue. There's a lot of moving parts, and it's moving quickly. There's a lot of changes in the industry. And I also don't have a lot of confidence in the state in 2027 for them to make sure that local governments are protected, local communities are protected. And so I see Hillsborough Act in other jurisdictions. And so I wouldn't be opposed to what is permissible under the law, putting forward some type of restrictions or protections temporarily, if that's a memorandum or something like that, then I'm open to that. What are the standards that we can adopt? You know, there's a lot of education to happen. And this is a big topic, but I just don't have a lot of confidence that we should kind of sit idly by and wait for the state to take action because they've been so great with policies and local governments. And I wouldn't be surprised with some new unfunded mandate that actually never protects natural resources because they're lobbying in a different direction. But we shouldn't wait or put our destiny in their hands to control. And so there are real policy gaps. There's gaps within regulations. So we can work with the legislature. I'm sure this will be part of PGA's advocacy going forward as a county when we deal with the legislative session in 27. But I don't know what your motion is going to be, but I... That's kind of where I'm landing is barriers, boundaries, pause. education, what is the role of the local government, and then getting not too far over our skis and figuring that out, and not just relying also on sitting back and waiting for the 2027 session to be a victim of whatever comes out of that. So that's where I kind of fall today. Yeah, it sounds like the board is kind of united in that front, but yeah, that's all I got.

Commissioner South.

Yeah, so I'm going to ask you a question. I don't know either what Commissioner Helms' motion is going to be, but where should we start? If the big question is we want to put safeguards in place or guardrails in place, whichever way you want to word it, if we want to get ahead of this and make sure that Should an application happen that we adequately have the right criteria in place to allow or disallow it? However, it doesn't seem like jumping into moratorium without really knowing if it is really called for is the right step. It does not seem. So is it more the exploratory aspect, or is it actually having a broader... policy that a applicant for a data center would be required to demonstrate adequate water use. There's three different ways to approach this. What would you recommend? You guys are the experts, not us.

What I hear you saying, and correct me if I'm wrong, is you want an immediate stoppage to any application that comes in regarding this type of use. The only way to do that, I don't hear all of you saying that, but I hear some of you saying that, the only way to do that is to do a moratorium that I'm aware of. Okay, well. Versus the adoption of standards, which will essentially is a long-range planning effort to change our zoning development ordinance to develop standards associated with this particular use.

Yeah, well, but we can't do a moratorium, but we can. I appreciate you summarizing, but those are not my words. My words were, again, I want to, maybe I'm nuancing this, but I'll be very clear. My is putting safeguards in place. I think safeguards is not a hell no, right?

Yeah, you, one of the things that you had talked about is kind of that modification of number one. And what I see the modification of number one, I'm trying to think I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Is it having a forum or some dialogue with, for example, the water providers in the water districts around the area about what steps are you taking? What is your awareness of this particular issue, number one? Number two, what are steps or thoughts that you have about the provision of service, water services to these particular uses? And then educating that dialogue and bringing back the findings from that analysis for the board to kind of chew on and decipher a little bit. And also an engagement with PGE. I mean, you saw the action by PGE. PGE has recently raised the rate on those particular uses. So I think it's pretty clear about they're trying to make them pay their fair share for the particular use. That's kind of what I envision. You talk about safeguards, because we talked about the role of these service providers and the services they, for example, water that they provide versus the county and the role that we have with the codes that we have in place. Because we specifically ask them because they are the experts, do you or do you not have enough water?

Yeah, I appreciate that. And the reason I'm really careful with using the word safeguards is I think that there are, and we're here, and I think you even shared at one of our sessions that there are very small data centers that people don't even know about that are not having any great impacts, right? We know that they're so small they're inside existing buildings, right? So... It's, I think that some of the concerns are people think about these football or two, three football-sized data centers, which I can't even envision, which, you know, I would have an adverse reaction just even knowing that somebody applied for that. So I think that's where a lot of concern is, right? So that's why I'm really focusing on the guardrails or the safeguards that address it in a way that is not hell no to something that might be very small and practical versus something that might be just completely out of limits for us.

A discussion around moderation and what that looks like. All right. Commissioner Howell.

Well, I think the whole point of a moratorium is a pause and gives us a chance to... kind of do our research and I think that's what you're saying right is we can do we can do a little research so let me I'll throw this out I'm open to amendments but this is what I've come up with so I would like to move direct staff to initiate the fastest legally permissible temporary moratorium and concurrently determine if there is any interim development standards that can legally be adopted before the moratorium is effective. See what I mean? We would be closing the gap of the gap.

My initial reaction is that we can only apply criteria to land use applications if they are in the zoning and development ordinance or the comprehensive plan. And there's a process to put them into the zoning and development ordinance or the comprehensive plan that would take more than the amount of time that it would take to get a moratorium in front of you to adopt.

OK.

But there are no interim.

Yeah, there's no work around that.

There's no amending the zoning ordinance before you amend the zoning ordinance. Can we put a moratorium and just pause until the legislative session figures it out?

Well, that's what I'm saying. It is a moratorium. It is just a moratorium and then gives us time to... What is the definition of a correction program?

A correction program is what applies. That term applies if you adopt a public facilities shortage moratorium. It's saying this is what we're going to do to get our public facilities up to speed everywhere. for everyone who needs it. If you want to adopt a compelling needs moratorium, you just have to adopt findings explaining that you'll be able to correct the problem, adopt new zoning and development ordinance regulations to properly regulate these uses during the moratorium period. So not every moratorium you adopt would require what is called a correction program, but really it's the same thing. It's while this moratorium is in place, we're going to come up with a solution so that we don't need it.

Okay. Okay, yeah, because the clock starts ticking, right, as soon as it's put in place?

With the possibility of extensions.

Okay, oh, okay, all right, all right. Well, then I will revise my motion to just say then that I move to direct staff to initiate the process to adopt a moratorium on data centers.

Could I make a friendly amendment?

Yes Open to doesn't need a second first Yes, you need a second first.

Yeah, so I will give it a second so we can go through this process Second Commissioner West so like me I'm gonna ask a question of Caleb again I think I know the answer but I want to make it clear so what I'm what I am suggesting that for a edit to our amendment to the motion is that do the research right elements of that in the motion somehow. Maybe it's already in there, is the intent in there, Commissioner?

The intent is in there because that's the whole purpose of a moratorium.

Well, it's what comes first, is the cart before the horse? Which starts first? What is the most important thing from a legal standpoint so that we don't get ourselves in trouble?

If you tell us to initiate the process to adopt a moratorium, the first step will be providing notice to DLCD. and setting a public hearing. And notice has to be 45 days before the public hearing. And during that 45 days, staff, I don't know whose office it would be, would be preparing findings that would be ready at the public hearing justifying the moratorium. This is what's going to happen if we don't adopt the moratorium. During that time, or as soon as the moratorium takes effect, you could say, and now, staff, you're going to go back and come up with the regulations that are going to properly regulate data centers so we don't need a moratorium anymore. In adopting the moratorium, you'll have to adopt a finding saying, and we have rearranged staff's work programs so that they have the resources to do that research. But you could tell them to start now. Dan is in charge of his staff's resources, but you could have them thinking about the moratorium and the regulations to address the moratorium at the same time. Okay.

I'm good with the intention. I just wondered if the 45-day window is adequate to do that research.

maybe to start it.

That's why I was thinking the cart before the horse maybe is the research then, if necessary, which probably so, you know, a moratorium or criteria about, let's say, water usage. I don't know. I'll leave it there.

So we have a first and a second. I don't believe there was really a modification to it.

Do you want to modify it or not?

I'm just thinking that maybe to make sure we're prepared, I'm not sure 45 days is enough time, so I would say that if the amendment was to research it and bring it back to the board as options or criteria needed for the moratorium, then it leads the path in a way that is thoughtful.

I guess if I come back to this option three, I'm just bringing that up.

Commissioner Helm, I mean, does that... Well, that's why I asked about the correction program. Yeah, yeah. I don't think that applies here to this.

So if we look at option three, would that help us accomplish this goal that we're all kind of talking about?

Option three would. As correction program, we could interpret that to mean... So you're still thinking about the regulations, even if it's not a correction program to address a public facilities shortage, you're still thinking about the regulations that we will put in place to address data centers, effects on public health safety, whatever. Okay.

Okay. Then I will amend my motion to move to direct staff to initiate the process to adopt a moratorium on data centers and a correction program.

Still seconding. All right. Are we still discussing?

Just to recap where we're at, Commissioner Helms moved direct staff to initiate the process to adopt a moratorium on data centers and a correction program. It's been seconded by Commissioner West. And I'm going to open it up again for discussion. Is that correct? Did I get that right, Gary? Yes.

And just for clarification, that correction program is to research and bring criteria back to the board so we have more information when this goes into place. Simple. Yep.

permission to speak yes I just want to make sure we're clear about the timing the 45 day window is the establishment of the moratorium right after that it goes for 120 days that's when that effort that effort would be taking place and can be extended another 120 days So that is the time that which staff will be looking, we'll have to get guidance from the board, specific guidance from the board about adoptions and changes and things of that nature. But I'll make sure we're clear about the 45 days is just the establishment of the moratorium, not the adjustment of the code.

Well, that's why I ask about an interim development standards to kind of, I want to put a wrench in it. That's what I'm trying to do to just stop the wheels, right? It's... this process is, it's a long process. So if there's nothing that can be done in that arena, then I guess we just move forward with the moratorium.

Gary, go ahead. Sorry, I'm your wet blanket. So even to do a, the words we're using here, a criteria options is significant staff time for Dan and his staff. They will have to stop something else on their long range plan to do this work. I just want you to be aware of that. So really what I'm hearing from you is the moratorium is your first step. But 45 days will not be the time Dan will do all this research. It cannot be done. That's right.

And I want to say that we do understand that, but I think this issue is urgent enough that it moves to the top. This is what we do is we have to reprioritize on a daily, weekly basis.

We'll come back to you on what you take off the list. Absolutely. Thank you.

All right. One more quick comment, and we'll go to a vote.

Yeah, so I'll ask the question. When does a 45-day clock start? Does it start today, or does it start after we adopt the moratorium?

We could send it. It starts when we send an email to DLCD saying we are going to be bringing a moratorium for our board and findings, and we tell them the hearing date is on this date, at least 45 days out.

Okay, and then when... How does that correlate to the correction program where the research is done?

When does that start? It could start during that 45-day period. What I'm hearing is that it may be a staff issue of whether it starts during that 45-day period or as soon as the moratorium is in place during that 120-day period that follows. It seems to me the research needs to come as soon as possible.

That's why I said concurrently.

Dan, you want to say something?

Staff. Tell me the type of things that will come off the list, Dan, so the board is aware.

I can't even begin to tell you. All the state-mandated housing work that's been dropped in our lap, the adjustments that people want on farm stands. You have a farm stand issue dropping in your lap January 1st. It's got to be established that staff are working on. There's UGB expansions in certain cities that we're working on. I mean, there's no like, yeah, we don't need that kind of stuff on there. And so it's a difficult decision on what exactly we keep and what we don't keep. I appreciate the fact about one. I think there's got to be a little bit of research in that 45-day period to really get a better handle on the establishment of the moratorium. That's where I think our offices will work together to kind of understand that. The bigger decision is what you want to take off because that work will really start happening once that moratorium goes in place and we take a look at the long-range work program and figure out what can come off of it and how we establish a process to establish that new criteria.

I think it's on us to actually do some of that work for you, Dan. I mean, I said there's a lot of information out there available. We're not reinventing the wheel. Other counties, other states, other jurisdictions have gone through this. So if we can glean something from someone else, I will promise right now I will do that as much research for you as possible so that we don't start from scratch on this.

All right.

How about calling for a vote here? Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Savas.

Aye. I'm hoping that if you see any red flags, you bring them to us for consideration. Again, I'm more on the process. That's my hesitation is the process and the timing.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Mr. Chair.

Aye.

Motion passes 4-0, Mr. Chair. All right.

Thank you both. All right, Gary, what's next? All right, you are not going to finish by noon today with this list, so my question is, how much longer would you like to go this morning to help me judge what to give to you next?

How's the team holding up? Want to go till noon?

Okay, great. Okay, so my preamble, the next four items are all asking you for money, money that is not budgeted. So I want to quickly remind you at the budget committee meetings in May of this year, I told you all then, and I've reminded you after the fact, you have approximately $984,000 of call it the cushion funds that you have available that you can spend ongoing funds not one time only that will not impact the 30-year forecast at all you will remain in the black for 30 years even if you spend this 984,000 cushion so I advise you if you want to move forward on any of the funding requests you hear today you can take it from that cushion However, when the cushion's gone, it's gone, and after that, you will start using county contingency, which will mean cuts for the following fiscal year. So that's my preamble. Happy to talk further with these requests. With that, the first next item is community planning organization, CPO, liability insurance update. This has gotten a lot of attention and it's caused unnecessary alarm so we want to update you on what the status is and where we're at. First to do that is Nancy Bush in her role as interim director of public and government affairs and Trish Bafas who's the interim risk manager in human resources. Go ahead please.

All right, good morning commissioners. So this is a topic that is moving very quickly. We even have an update this morning that is not in your packet which Trisha will talk about in just a few minutes. But to just give you a little bit of a background, we found out late in the fiscal year, last year, that the insurance that we always cover for our CPOs has always been a group policy. And so it included all of the CPOs. We paid, I think, around $3,500 annually and then we also have SLAP, which was also about $3,500 annually. We just paid SLAP today, and that goes through August of 27, though next year we may have the same issue there. But the liability insurance is where we're starting to see some issues, and our insurance companies are not wanting to cover the CPOs as a group, which means we have to move toward the CPOs getting their own insurance, which we can reimburse, we've always paid the insurance for CPOs for liability, but they will have to get their own insurance and then have to come to us for reimbursement and those types of things. Right now the cost we have in here is just an estimate and Tricia did find something out this morning that could actually change that cost dramatically as well because as it turns out they don't really want to do it for each individual either. and we're looking at TULIP policies. So several things has happened over just the last few days with this. And Tricia's been working on this I think since like May, trying to get this figured out. So I'm gonna turn it over to Tricia to talk a little bit about what she found out this morning and then we'll open it up for questions.

So again my name is Trish Bafas and I'm the interim risk manager and just a quick correction so there are two policies for CPOs just to make it clear. There's the one that's the general liability which is the one that's up on discussion and then the other one is basically our directors and officers or what's considered professional management that covers basically the cyber and And the professional liability that one is on the side burner because that was a two-year policy and does not expire until August of 2027 So the most current need is of the general liability policy now both of those policies together are the total of $3,500 so I just wanted to make that quick correction so as we're talking about costs moving forward and and able to have the inclusiveness of all CPOs under those two policies, that's what the total is. We have a hard market. We have two brokers. Laporte is who has provided those two policies. They notified us in a very short time period that the underwriter was no longer wanting to insure. And they are having difficulty going out and finding other insurance carriers that want to even provide individual policies which would require each CPO to apply under their own application and provide their own data loss information. So as we've gone through this, even as of today, it looks like using either LaPorte or our primary broker, Brown and Brown, that helps the county with all insurance policies that we have for general county, we just cannot find an underwriter that wants to provide insurance for CPOs. What has been given to us as guidance is event insurance, which uses the acronym of TULIP, which Nancy mentioned, and that stands for tenant user liability insurance policy. Essentially what that is is the CPOs would go out to a website, they would enter information in like date of event, number of people, series of questions and it would spit out an insurance policy for basically a short-term event specific liability which could possibly be more useful for these CPOs because if they have periodic meetings they could just get the insurance policy for that and then for some of the other CPOs I believe that have reached out to the board they're trying to do a specific event like at a park or a fundraiser then they could also input the information for that. Just doing a quick query without having all the information it looks like if a CPO was going to enter information to just do a meeting it'd probably be about $70 and then for those more extensive events anywhere from $125 to $400 or $500. So that's kind of where we are at pricing. Again, I can't ensure that I can find underwriters for each of the CPOs, but what they were quoting at that time, which is listed in the memo, was somewhere between $300 and $500 per policy. So if you times that out, that's where we were way beyond the initial $3,500 of what we've been paying annually.

All right, questions. So we multiply that, is that in that 6,000 to 10,000?

That's roughly utilizing 20 CPOs because as in the memo, we have a lot of CPOs, 40 plus, but that's the other part that we're finding is that so many of them are inactive. And that's also the challenge is... always reaching out, trying to activate a CPO through the insurance underwriter or then inactivating. So we're constantly in communication with the underwriter. And I think underwriters is just finding this is a lot of administrative work for a very low cost.

Gary, suggestions?

Just a quick history. I've been at this county a long time, and I used to work in public and government affairs. You've received a lot of feedback over the years, decades, over this issue of insurance. There was a time when we did not insure, but then we did insure them. The CPOs were concerned that they individually had to find their own policy, even though we reimbursed them, which is why we went to the group policy on their behalf. It sounds like that's no longer an option. The slap coverage, we did not provide, but we did after they explained the reason and the rationale why. So I am recommending we find a way to make this work for our CPOs. But there is a cost to it that we did not anticipate. And I do want to say you've gotten a lot of emails, even this morning. highly concerned members of CPOs that they feel they're stuck in a lurch. So I want to acknowledge that. You haven't seen them yet because it's while you're meeting right here today. But I do advise we need to do something. We can't just do nothing. And prior boards have directed staff to do something about this. Thank you.

AGREED, YES, WE DID GET A COUPLE BEFORE THIS MEETING THAT I WAS ABLE TO READ THROUGH AND JUST TO EXPRESS OUR, I WOULD SAY OUR GRATITUDE TO ALL THOSE, WE HAVE SOME VERY STRONG CPOs IN THE COUNTY AND THEY DO REALLY, REALLY GOOD WORK AND I APPRECIATE ALL THAT THEY DO. THEY ARE OUR BOOTS ON THE GROUND IN THEIR COMMUNITIES AND ADVOCATE FOR THEIR COMMUNITIES AS WELL. I agree, we have to find a way, but what I'm hearing you say, there are no other options as far as a group policy. Everyone will have to go out. We've explored everything, correct?

Yes, especially for the immediate need right now. I mean, we can continue to explore and explore, but I don't think I'm going to be able to get any answers back. I'm already really... pooling for the brokers and the underwriters to get me any information. I think it's going to be extremely challenging, whereas I think right now PGA could immediately send out an email to the CPOs and say, here's a link to event insurance policy, and somebody could go out right now today and get the policy insurance that they need and have it applicable for an event immediately.

Okay, wow. The question I have, Gary, is since we are a county that's self-insured with excess carrier, I mean, is there any way they could fall under the umbrella of us if there were specific guidelines drafted? I'm not sure if that's a good... It's kind of putting you in a tough spot to answer that because perhaps it's maybe not.

That's also a long history where CPOs, they like their independence. They are not formal agents of Clackamas County like Hamlet's are. Hamlet's are official agents you created. We do have a different insurance coverage for them. So I think, I don't want to speak for them, but they might say, well, we want you to cover this for us, but give us our autonomy, right? But Trish, can you add to that answer?

Yeah, I was... And the other piece is that we really don't have any ownership over like the other facilities in which they're using and where the general liability comes in and how they're interfacing with the general public, right? Whereas for the rest of the county, we have safety and loss and corrective action and all those policies and procedures that are in place for training. Whereas we don't normally have that kind of relationship with each and every one of the CPOs and oversight on how they're holding their meetings and in the environment in which those are happening. So I don't recommend that the county would be taking these small groups that might be providing more liability to the county.

And so what would be your recommendation for next steps?

Based on my findings and the struggle and looking at the insurance market on where they're at, I think we're at a turning point that in order to support the CPOs, we need to tell them that we've done our best, we're willing to still support them, but really finding TULIP policies is the best. and if the board agrees is then they submit those recommendations and then we figure out some form of a reimbursement plan through PGA. Again, you're gonna have those that are really active CPOs that might be utilizing it, that might be over the normal threshold, but also thinking about the inactive CPOs and those that maybe are only holding a couple board meetings every year, I think are gonna balance and not make it so where it fluctuates.

All right. Is there a nod to continue with that direction?

With the dollar amount we earlier talked about, I guess, right? For the reimbursement?

Yeah, I mean, this number was determined before we knew that we had to go to TULIP policies. It could be higher, it could be lower. I mean, I guess we could, you know, keep a watch and say, and then come back and say, can we get to this 10K mark? we can come back to the commissioners this is an estimate and we did not look at that through the lens of the tulip policy because That was this morning.

We just found all that out Okay, so I'm gonna recommend the county continue to pay the insurance coverage for both policies for all active CPOs It's not gonna be that much. It's not gonna make ten to twenty thousand tops Maybe if it's higher, I'll tell you but my recommendation is that I'm just gonna ask the question Can the county do the applications for them? What do they have to do it themselves?

The risk management team would not have the bandwidth to do all those applications. So I would default to Nancy on if PGA could do that. I really think it should be the CPOs because they're the ones that can really answer those specific questions. We're going to be serving more as an interim because applications will be asking, what's the primary facility? What's the square footage? What are the hours of operation, location? I just feel like the onus put back on the county, even though we'd like to be helpful in that, we're gonna be acting more as an interim of trying to go back and forth versus directly being able to answer those questions.

All right, Commissioner West.

What is the risk? I mean, what are they doing? Why is this insurance totally necessary? I don't totally like.

Sure, let me give you an example. So I believe one of the, might have been Glen Oak Lodge that was requesting our certificate, their certificate of insurance to provide. One, entities won't go into contract to allow them to have events or use their spaces unless they're able to hand over the certificate of insurance showing that there's some form of liability.

So somebody like falls and breaks a leg, falling on the steps during a meeting.

So say someone came in to present their application and maybe the carpet was snagged and somebody trips and falls and they end up breaking their wrist. that insurance would cover that claim that came in the other pieces that again where we aren't taking ownership for corrective action versus like for our own county picnic or stuff we're looking at liability right they're doing an event out in a park and they have a bouncy house so they have all these different things where now you've got adults and patrons and everyone using those and someone gets hurt again that's what the insurance or the certificate of insurance is used for.

And it's that's that's I'm learning here. That's common practice of the facility you're renting from it's not their insurance that covers you have to provide your own. That's correct. This is for events a common practice for events period. Absolutely. Weddings, bar mitzvahs, CPO meetings.

Yes.

Okay.

Common practice.

Okay, but they're independent totally of us, but we cover them.

Please clarify.

So they're independent of the Board of County Commissioners. They're independent entities that provide insight and advise us as community members, you know, concerns or things they care about.

That's correct.

But they're totally independent of us, but we are paying for them to be insured.

That's correct.

That's been a prior agreement.

Okay.

They advise us on land use.

Yeah, I know. Yeah, I know, but...

It's not, they're not having parties out there on, you know, our time. Oh, I know, I know.

I mean, I guess I'm just hung up on the piece that full independence, we pay the bill.

Okay.

Sounds like there's some history there and it looks like we're going to direct staff to go ahead and follow up and see what we can do to make it happen. Yes. So we'll support the CPOs as best we can. We're going to ask them to fill out their own insurance forms. That does make sense. They have the data. We don't. We will pay for the insurance premium for the two policies, the general liability and the officers and directors. I will continue.

Can I add something because I want to make sure everyone understands the CPO will have to pay for it. We reimburse. Yes.

Right. Yes, and if they have difficulty they need to call me or you, Nancy, and we'll see what we can do. all right thank you okay um hey I think that's it unless you need anything else and then Gary I was gonna ask you if we have folks that are here if we do one more I was gonna say I've been waiting patiently jumping ahead two items this is funding requests for employee positions so I'm gonna ask Nancy to stay and treasurer Nava and under sheriff EB I'm just gonna ask you to come up because I know there'll be questions so what page are you I'm sorry I am and the script I am now on page 13 okay page 13 of the script. I've just jumped ahead one item I will be the main presenter on this so commissioners per county code chapter 2.16.202 budget development any new requests for county general funds that has not been budgeted comes to you first right at the start before any further progress is made to see if you agree before we move forward on the processes and implementation. I am proposing to you funding for four new employee positions, two of them for the sheriff's office, one which is actually an internship for the treasurer's office, and finally, a position in the county administration office. Quickly, they are, and I'm gonna go really high level and then let the experts talk about it. For the sheriff's office, this is an opportunity with TriMet for TriMet Transit Police Services. within Clackamas County, and the capacity for those folks to do a little bit more, that helps us as an agency. TriMet will pay the full costs of two deputies, except there are some, there's a limit, I think, which, under Sheriff Eby will tell in a moment, we do need approximately 44,000 each for the two deputies in county general funds to finalize the entire funding package. So we would only have to pay $88,000 total for two deputies, all the rest paid for by TriMet. A bargain, however, there is some impact there of the county general fund. The second is for the treasurer's office, an internal audit internship. We've been talking about the internal audit office, how they could desperately use some more staff. They only have two. This is simply an internship. But it is not budgeted, and it would come from county general funds. Approximately $15,000, not very much, to support an intern to support the internal audit function. Finally, for county administration, a privacy officer position. This is required. I think it's federal law to have someone who reviews the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, HIPAA, that we're following the law. We've done this work actually part-time, cobbled together for many years, and it has simply grown so much by federal law requirements. We need a full-time person to make sure Clackamas County is in compliance, not just Health Housing Human Services, every department that deals with confidential private health information of an employee. This would be a full-time position of approximately $203,000 fully loaded, which we would then move to our allocated cost model going forward. But to start, we would need unbudgeted general funds. So the total cost for these four positions would be $305,564, and $0.55 in unbudgeted county general funds. We've looked, and there's not really other sources of funding. This would have to come from general funds. And as I mentioned at my preamble, you have approximately $980,000 of the cushion where you could take these funds from if you chose to go forward. I'll stop talking. If you have any questions in particular, the three experts are at the table here right now.

All right, did you guys want to say anything before you move to questions?

Or clarify anything I may have missaid?

All right. All right. Commissioner Savas.

Yeah. First of all, if these are going to be ongoing funds versus one-time funds, I would like to see how that looks in the forecast. Okay, so that's my hesitation here today. I would like, you know, I appreciate the internship in the treasurer's office for the internal auditor, so I support that. I know that's a one-time type thing, but we talked the other day, and I'm still advocating at some point next year that we consider how we actually put in a, because we're lacking a position there. It's not that it's vacant, but we need to create one. We're understaffed in the internal auditor function. So that's my position there. So I got a question for Under Sheriff Eby. We've done a lot of great work on the budget. I'm hopeful that you will see opportunities and funds opening up. I know that a good chunk of your budget is general fund. I'm imagining that with vacant positions, there's a way to absorb this, I think, within the sheriff's office on the general fund part, or are you advocating that the only way to do this is by an additional contribution from us to the general fund for this?

Well, one, thank you for all the work. And part of this, actually, this idea came out of our work group that we talked about, you know, looking at outside funding sources specifically. And that's when we've been engaging with TriMet to find, to get some more resources, and that's where that came from. This obviously, this fund is looking at, again, like we've just discussed, both indirect and allocated costs. And so we're showing you, being very transparent, this is what is outside what TriMet would pay for. And is there a possibility that we could absorb some of the share? Sure, there could be. But, again, we want to be transparent and open. If there doesn't and all of our funds are utilized for other people, this would be the excess that we would need and also be an ongoing issue with both direct and indirect. And, again, as you guys already know, both direct and allocated costs. Change year to year as we look at it And so there could be less or more depending upon how we would look at next year But overall we are as mentioned by the county administrator Quite a deal to get two more officers on the street specifically in Clackamas County in the tri-med area.

Okay, so One quick follow-up here. So knowing that the board adopted the budget by by program and by What's the other term? Category. Category. Do you already have a program category where this would be, knowing that there's supposed to be like a monthly report of some sort, right? How would you do that in a most seamless way?

It would fall under our patrol division currently, that program. We would obviously, because they're two new positions, we wouldn't call them out. We'd line out it very specifically so that way it can be... observed. You would see that as what it would be, but it would be under our patrol program.

I appreciate your response to the first part of my question, so thank you. And maybe if there's a point in time where we actually need to transfer funds to make up for that, I could strongly support that, but I do know that a lot of work's underway and there's a lot of opportunity to find more efficiencies within the Sheriff's Office without compromising service.

Commissioner Hummel.

Yeah, thank you, Under Sheriff Eby. Can you kind of give me specifics on what that funding gap is? Is it add to pays? Is it...

No, so the gap is really both indirect costs, specifically around services that we supply internally, and also allocate costs from the county. And so that's how it's calculated to determine what the difference is because TriMet, under their contract, has a limit to administrative costs. They will cover the base wages and add to pays for the individuals. Okay.

All right. Thank you for that.

Yeah, that was one of my question was, you know, so it sounds like it's overhead. They have a limit on it, correct? Yeah. And that's what you're required to pick up. And then the, I think the other thing, maybe you could just talk about the benefit of having these two deputies and really the response to calls in the general area. Maybe you could just talk about that.

Yeah, so as a general rule around both on TriMet and around TriMet adjacent properties, we take those calls now. Obviously that pulls resources from the rest of the county to get to those. And we know we have a good amount of calls. As we put in the document over the last six quarters, we've had 338 calls and on adjacent properties to TriMet, about a little bit over 1,000 calls. So that's a good amount of resources. These individuals would be specific for the triumet in our county, so they'd be able to pick up those calls and really just get safety for our county and those areas around it and pick up those calls. Therefore, our other officers would be free to do what they're supposed to be doing in the rest of the county.

Yeah, I had met with some TriMet officials some time ago. I think it was this past winter, basically. Really wanted to reestablish that partnership. And I do see it as a huge benefit of additional deputies out there helping take calls and being back up for other calls in the area. So, yeah, I'm 100% behind it. Commissioner West?

Well, it seems like a really good deal for two deputies. So is TriMet looking to enter this agreement indefinitely to pay for these costs? Is this for five years, two years, one year? How long do we get these officers at them footing the bill?

So we've had a kind of a contract with TriMet for quite some time. It does end in 28, and we will have to discuss with them where they want to go. But this has been an ongoing commitment by TriMet in the whole region. And part of this one, the two we're asking for them, Sheriff's Office. There are other cities also within Clackamas County that are also going to be participating. So there will be kind of a Clackamas County contingent amongst this TriMet line. So that's really what we're looking at is, again, in our county. So Milwaukee PD may be participating because it goes through Milwaukee individually?

Oregon City. Oregon City. So TriMet has these funds available to help basically local law enforcement afford these deputies or officers?

Yes, and that has been a priority of TriMet for quite some time. In fact, even under Sheriff Roberts, we did that for some time too. So it has been a priority and it has been ongoing. There will be further negotiations, obviously, when the contract gets up, which may or may not up it, and we may be able to get a little bit more back, but that's where we're at currently in our discussions with them.

So these deputies would become eligible to be full-time employees, members of the CCPOA, by all other purposes, they look like any other deputy, right? And this is just the funding source for that FTE?

Yes, we would hire two new deputies, but we would put this out and existing deputies could apply for the TriMet position.

We've had issues with some heavy use of overtime. Could could the budget be blown beyond like what we're expecting here if this?

Specific deputy starts to take advantage of large amounts of overtime or that come from a different pot of money try my pace for overtime Unlimited, uh, they have different they have specific kind of like the language around it Yeah, but we do not for crime at overtime time that would pay for that Okay, if it necessary to if necessary and they would yeah deal with that.

Okay and Gary, can you refresh me really quick on what was, again, the administrative position? Oh, the privacy officer. The privacy officer for HIPAA compliance. So was that privacy officer dealing with all of our clinics, all of our public health, and all of our screening with vaccinate? I mean, it's a lot.

Everything at Clackamas County, everything.

We don't have a designated FTE to do this already?

We have not, no.

Didn't we have somebody in county council?

County council's office was supporting it, but that was originally part-time work of an existing attorney. It grew into more than a full-time job for that attorney. That was not the attorney's job. We had contractors prior, but it's so enormous. And it's not just for health, housing, human services. It's for any department that deals with social security numbers, employee records, health records, because many departments do that.

And this will have to be ongoing. Ongoing, yes. And... Mary, you could probably attest to this. A violation is way more expensive, and the exposure politically is way more expensive. I can't believe we don't already have one, actually. I didn't know this. This is like, oh. I mean, we're talking about a HIPAA violation can be as easy as you left that on the printer, right? I mean, it could be... you, um, inadvertently tried to look at your spouse's records because they told you to look at them because they didn't have access to, but you work for the County. And so you looked for your wife to say, Oh yeah, those labs were in or whatever. Like that, that is a HIPAA violation. It is really easy to have one. It is quite technical. I am going to totally say yes to this because this exposure is real big. I can't believe we haven't had one already. Um, the exposure could be really bad for that private information and all the legalities around that. So these are gonna have long-term impacting impacts on, like you said, Commissioner Savas, because these are not one-time except for, am I correct, the intern for you is a one-time thing.

So do they are they they're temporary they're not fully benefited right correct, so this is just a temporary employee for an internship I mean and I think Commissioner Savas it on the head we were looking and working with County administration on the most kind of efficient and effective way to get some Resources in as we're continuing to kind of discuss potential permanent resources in the future, okay I'm gonna support all of these today All right Commissioner service yeah one other

opportunity, just to put it out there, and I'm looking forward to sitting down with the new sheriff, Sheriff Rhodes. I know he's got something scheduled with each of us. And we're talking about money, we're talking about budgeting, and one of the things that came up was the million dollars plus that the sheriff's office is paying for for the vacant positions and allocated costs. which could be a revenue source if there's new eyes and a fresh start of looking at that. So that might be an opportunity to not only enhance funding on both sides of that, whether it's directly to the sheriff's budget or the general fund, a little bit of both, but it's a million dollars, right? And I think that if there's a savings there and how that impacts the allocated costs, it again requires work on the forecasting and recalculation But I will be, I am requesting, you know, not today, but that we get that information as far as what this looks like on a long-term, based on the forecast, and maybe if there's an opportunity for the new sheriff to look at this or the sheriffs thereafter to look at capturing that million dollars plus in savings.

Commissioner Howell.

Yeah, going back to the privacy officer salary and benefits, is this person, because it's been done out of the county council office, do they have to be an attorney to do it?

They do not have to be an attorney to do it. We do have an attorney that's assigned to this, which is Andrew Naylor, and he does all of the legal work for us at this time. So, no, they do not have to be an attorney. They need to have the background of what a privacy officer is and what it means, but they don't have to be an attorney.

Okay. It just seems like a really, really high number to me.

There's no federal funding for the HIPAA person? No.

No, because it's beyond just health centers or... where that federal dollars will come, it's countywide. And again, this will become an allocated cost in a year, which means all departments will pay for it, some of it general funds, but others we could use, yes, federal grants and so forth.

And then I have a follow-up question. How many people have we added to the county council office in the last year?

None.

None? Okay.

Two years ago, three years ago, we added one attorney.

Okay. All right. Thank you. Yes, go ahead, Cal.

Commissioner Helm, just to fill in a little bit here, and I don't have my folder on this, but this came about in part because the privacy officer doesn't it's not required to be an attorney okay because it's it's not necessarily all legal work do some advisory advisory work which is what Andrew has been doing but quite frankly this is one of the reasons Ryan Hammond left is because he was just being overwhelmed with non-lawyer work trying to do his regular lawyer work and that's when I approached Gary and said We need a temporary privacy officer that went to Nancy. But I agree with what Commissioner West said. This is a full-time job. Huge exposure, too.

But it's not a temporary position, right? You just said temporary, right?

It's got to be funded.

It's got to be funded. There was a temporary position that I believe, Gary, correct me if I'm wrong, that you filled for a period of time, correct? Correct.

We hired an external contractor to support us in the interim. And yes, Nancy, of the 10 other things she's doing, she's also interim privacy officer for the county. We have a contractor that's helping Nancy in this interim.

Can we just have a full-time contractor on contract? It's more expensive to have a contractor than an employee. It's a huge exposure. All right.

I think we're going to get a motion on this.

13.

Somebody.

Move to approve the positions. Move to approve, well, I'm reluctant to use that number, so I'm going to go with, I move to approve funding of the two deputies, an internal audit internship and a county policy officer to be paid from a combination of county general fund contingency and other sources as needed or possible.

Do you need a direct number, though? Does he have to have one?

In the way I'm interpreting that, what I mean by that, that's my motion, what I mean by that is that if some of that can be funded with already budgeted funds that is general fund support, but in a department, that'd be tapped first. I'm looking at Gary. Do we need a specific amount?

Yes, I'm asking for a specific amount for the record. I totally get what you're saying, Commissioner Savas, but we put such constraints on the Sheriff's Office already by category and program. They're tightly budgeted, so I would recommend my approach to start. We can reevaluate it, certainly in future fiscal years, but that would be my suggestion to you.

Okay, well, I'll withdraw the motion and let someone else make it.

All right. I move to approve the $305,564.55 in general funds for two deputies, an internal audit internship, and a county administrative privacy officer to be paid for from the county general fund in surplus contingency. I'll make that motion, and I'm sure we will be adjusting this potentially in the future.

All right, is there a second? Second. So Commissioner West has moved to approve $305,564.55 in general funds for two deputies, an internal audit internship, and a county administrative privacy officer to be paid from the county general fund surplus contingency. It's been seconded by Commissioner Helm. Is there any further discussion?

I mean, yeah.

Go ahead.

I mean, I think... It may look different next year. We're going to have to, we've got to make a decision today. This is not necessarily what it looks like even in the near future. So I'm willing to make this motion as recommended. But I do share the same concerns as Commissioner Savas. I just don't know how we got to the, you know, with the specific motion, Commissioner. So I'll be supporting the motion that I made. And I do think that these are pretty important investments being made by the county.

Chair, my comments before the poll here is I'll be abstaining. I don't think it's out of realm to have pre-prepared here how that would look in a baked-in forecast. I guess that's my... I support what we're doing here. I just, you know, knowing that there's a million dollars that the Sheriff's Office is paying for in vacant positions and allocated costs, there's a savings there. I think there's a creative way of doing this and not putting us in a situation of ongoing, this ongoing burden. So I'll be abstaining for that purpose.

All right. Clerk, please call the poll. Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm. Aye.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Abstain. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes three to zero with one abstention. Mr. Chair.

All right. Thank you all very much. Gary, can we take a recess?

Take a break. Would you like to come back at 1.30 or extend the break?

I'd like to be sooner than later. I'd like to get going. I have a doctor's appointment this afternoon, so I want to be present. Back at 1.30? Sounds good. Okay. Back at 1.30.

All right. Adjourned. Back at 1.30. Good afternoon. Welcome back, everyone, to our policy session on August 11th, 2026. County Administrator Gershman, will you please call the roll again? Yes, thank you, Chair. Roll call. Commissioner Savas.

Present.

Commissioner Helm.

Here.

Chair Roberts. Here. All right, Gary, what do we have next? Thank you. And Commissioner West is on his way. Commissioner Schroeder is out of the office today. We're going to start with your policy session, and then we'll move back to the remainder of the issues list. Your first and only policy session today is opioid settlement, unallocated funds, spending requests. Presenting is the team from Health Housing Human Services, Mary Rumbaugh, the Director of Health Housing Human Services, and Kim LaCroix, Public Health Division Director. Go ahead, please.

Thank you good afternoon chair Roberts and commissioners so back during the policy session on November 12th of last year you awarded an additional three point five six three point five six million in opioid settlement funds to continue internal and community grantee projects investments for one year you'll probably remember that there were It was a big policy session that we had across an array of various things. Because the amount of the approved funding exceeds the total amount needed to continue these projects for a one-year timeframe, most projects had actually been on a two-year funding timeframe, there are actually unallocated funds remaining in the amount of $728,397. Today, we would like to highlight a few outcomes from these projects. and bring forward a request for a portion of the funds that have not been yet spent to support some additional initiatives as identified by my department and our leadership. As a reminder, the currently funded projects support the priorities of this board to address urgent needs related to substance use and alignment with a recovery-oriented system of care. Funds have been allocated to 13 projects, seven to external community partners, and six to internal departments or divisions. These projects cover the entire continuum of care, including prevention, treatment, warm handoff, and recovery programs. Another thing that we want to note is that many of the internally funded projects are working together to provide a coordinated network of services. In looking at January through June of this year outcome data for some internal projects, we know that 875 adults in custody have received medication-assisted treatment, or MAT, for their opioid use disorder through the jail-funded project. 363 patients at our Clackamas Health Centers have also received MAT, as well as much needed assistance to recovery supports. And 120 individuals were referred to Project HOPE and connected to much needed services including housing, treatment, and peer support. With around half of these referrals in coordination with the Sheriff's Office and our own health centers. A few outcomes to highlight from our community grantees. CODA, one of our providers here, is expected to launch their methadone medication unit in partnership with our jail any day now. This project is the first of its kind in Oregon and will not only allow individuals entering the jail to continue their methadone prescription, but it will allow individuals to begin the life-saving medication while incarcerated. Todes Juntos, a prevention-focused non-profit organization has engaged 660 youth through their school-based substance use prevention activities in our Estacada School District. And through rural-based outreach efforts carried out by Parrot Creek Child and Family Services, 91 individual treatment sessions were attended. So we have identified some additional needs that we would like to propose that the board approve for the original amount that is not now being spent on some of the contracts, including we have a gap in the work that the Public Health Division does to support the administration planning and grant support and oversight. That amount request is 125,000. We are also really interested in hosting with other partners a Clackamas County pain summit in the amount of $11,000 and as you have heard previously from previous policy sessions we are proposing that we expand the syringe disposal box program that is being started by Metro but we would like to add three additional boxes. around the county and the cost for those boxes including purchasing and servicing for one year would be just a little over forty three thousand forty three thousand one hundred and sixty five and That would just be for one year beyond that we would have to identify some future funds so the total amount that we are requesting is a hundred and seventy nine thousand one sixty five So if approved, this would leave a remaining balance of $549,232. We would actually recommend just holding that in the budget at Fund 230 so that we can have a little bit of cushion for any future needs that might come up. And per County Administrator Schmidt's request, as additional payments come forward through the opioid settlement, we would come back to the board for a policy session to really talk about the current balance in the budget and some recommendations. beyond what has already been committed and modeled for the loan specific to the Recovery Campus. So as we've spoken previously, we have a good plan for what the loan and the payback would look like using opioid, and we believe based on the payments that we are to receive that we are hopeful that there will still be a remaining amount that would allow us to do some of the important prevention intervention and treatment work that really will support then the true recovery oriented system of care and not just a focus on the recovery campus. So to date our current county balance for the opioid settlement PAYMENTS ARE JUST A LITTLE OVER 461,000. BY THE END OF THIS YEAR WE EXPECT TO RECEIVE ANOTHER 1.4 MILLION. AND EXPECTED IN 2027 ANOTHER 1.5 MILLION. 1.5 MILLION. WE ALSO KNOW THAT THERE'S A WE ALSO KNOW THAT THERE'S A PURDUE SETTLEMENT THAT IS PURDUE SETTLEMENT THAT IS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN SOMETIME THIS SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN SOMETIME THIS FISCAL YEAR. FISCAL YEAR. ALL WE KNOW IS IT'S A TOTAL OF ALL WE KNOW IS IT'S A TOTAL OF 2.7. 2.7. IT'S GOING TO BE NINE SEPARATE IT'S GOING TO BE NINE SEPARATE PAYMENTS BUT THE AMOUNT IS NOT PAYMENTS BUT THE AMOUNT IS NOT YET KNOWN AND ALSO THERE ARE YET KNOWN AND ALSO THERE ARE OTHER EIGHT OTHER MANUFACTURERS IN OTHER EIGHT OTHER MANUF but we've identified a more immediate need in this current fiscal year for the original amount that you all had approved back in November. So I will pause and see if there are any questions. And I do have Kim LaCroix with me if you have any specific program questions.

Right. Great. Thank you. Commissioner Helm has a question.

Thank you, Mary. So talk to me about the Clackamas County Payton Summit. Is that already on the books? I'm fascinated. I know a lot of people with chronic pain, and it is a huge problem. And I know depression is a really big reason. The people with chronic pain, I know my mom suffered from it. It was really, really hard on her mental health. I'll let him answer that.

Thank you for that question. Thank you for that question. We're in the planning stages right now for the pain summit. So we're going to work in partnership with, of course, our health centers and also Quest. And really, you know, the purpose of the event are to share resources about chronic pain management, substance use disorders, and mental health. and then increase awareness of opioid settlement funded programs with a goal of improving coordination, referrals, service utilization. So I think we're planning for either late fall or early winter, but we can, we'll definitely have some communication materials to get the word out. Okay.

And I know there's a few places are called like chronic, I don't know, the technical name, they're like chronic pain centers, right? And I don't know if they are, if they work or not. Do you have any history with those kind of centers?

So we are partnering with Quest Integrative Health and Quest actually is a leader for alternative pain management. And so that's why they're actually a great partner. So all those alternatives, WELL, WE WOULD LIKE TO PARTNER WITH THOSE ALTERNATIVES. WITH THOSE ALTERNATIVES. WHETHER IT'S YOGA, ACUPUNCTURE, WHETHER IT'S YOGA, ACUPUNCTURE, THERE'S A WHOLE ARRAY SO THEY THERE'S A WHOLE ARRAY SO THEY REALLY ARE KNOWN FOR THOSE REALLY ARE KNOWN FOR THOSE ALTERNATIVES SO THAT'S WHY WE WOULD ALTERNATIVES SO THAT'S WHY WE WOULD REALLY LIKE TO PARTNER WITH THEM. REALLY LIKE TO PARTNER WITH THEM.

ANYTHING ELSE, COMMENTS? ANYTHING ELSE, COMMENTS? IS THERE A MOTION? IS THERE A MOTION?

I MOVE TO APPROVE THE THREE I MOVE TO APPROVE THE THREE SPENDING REQUESTS FOR UNALLOCATED SPENDING REQUESTS FOR UNALLOCATED OPIOID SETTLEMENT

Commissioner Helm has moved to approve the three spending requests for unallocated opioid settlement funds as presented. Commissioner Savas is second of that. Any further discussion?

Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll? Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes four to zero, Mr. Chair.

All right.

Thank you.

Gary, now we're going back where?

Now we're going back to the remainder of the issues list. This is page 11 of your scripts. Page 11.

Page 11 now.

Page 11. We're going back to the issues list to wrap this up. Page 11, which is funding request for performance Clackamas implementation teams. Again, remember, four funding requests. You've done two already. This is the third one.

What are we up to right now?

You're now down to approximately, let's see, $680,000 still available. We're moving down six hundred approximately six hundred eighty thousand left Presenting this will be Nancy Bush Clowney operating officer and Dan Johnson director of transportation and development.

Go ahead, please All right good afternoon commissioners so as Gary said this is a funding request for two of the implementation teams for the goals that you have set and and I know when we first started this process we did say there could be some requests for funding depending on how things would move forward. So today we first have the transit team and just to read that goal is by 2027 the county will provide a plan for what efficient, accessible and affordable transit looks like in Clackamas County. That particular ask is for $70,000 and it's for professional services to contract to identify alternative modes or models for providing transit service that align with the affordability component of the board's plan strategic plan the other one is the development team goal and that is by 2028 the county will conduct in a review of all development regulatory processes to minimize burdens providing and effective and timely permitting processes for the county. That request is for $30,000 to hire a contractor to facilitate and manage customer focus groups. And also there's a description there on those groups, and there would be three focus groups for that particular team. So the total ask is $100,000. And Dan and Mary is here too to answer questions as well, but we think most of this is probably... going to be Dan answering some questions. So we're happy to answer any questions you may have about what the request is for.

Questions? I kind of, I guess I have one of Gary perhaps, and that would be, I guess I'm trying to understand why was that not in the budget process that we had earlier in the budget season?

That's a great question. probably should have you know when you approve your performance Clackamas plans you know with the facilitators Marvin Jeremy reminded you as a board this means this is where your funding priorities should be now part of it is I think the implementation teams may not have been that far along back in January when they prepared their budgets because remember this was budgets were prepared in January sounds like that was the answer and came up later and they didn't realize it at the time ideally it would have been budgeted but again my opinion it should not be budgeted in the departments It should be budgeted in county administration because I am responsible for the implementation of your plans that I've assigned to departments to assist. But if you want to add to what I said, please do. No, okay.

All right, Commissioner Salas.

It doesn't apply to this, but I do want to just state again that if there's a spending proposal, of that remainder for ongoing expenditures, I would like to see it accompanied with the forecast and how it impacts the forecast. I know that does not apply here. This is one time I recognize that, but I just have a little bit of heartburn knowing that we're only two months in on this budget. And we're depleting those funds. And the budget or that the fiscal year does not cease until June 30th of next year. And we're only two months in.

All right, Commissioner Helen.

Okay, help me out here. All right, the purpose of the focus groups is to gather customer feedback on the development. All right, don't move the screen, Andrew. I'm reading from it. The development process and the community's perspective on opportunities and the challenges of the current development regulatory environment. So give me an example on the, and then it says, this is confusing, it is anticipated that the three focus groups will be conducted. Conducted.

As a part of the effort that we have for your implementation objective is to engage the development community, or to back up part of it. Number one is to look at ourselves and to look at our processes and figure out ways that we can make those processes less onerous on our development community.

Yay.

Which they're not, you're pretty good now, but we can get better. Okay. And we're doing that. And we've done it, Cheryl and her group have done a very thorough analysis of group of our current codes, including the ones that we have most of the control over, the land use ordinance. We're going through the ZDO diagnostic effort. We've got bylaws that we've changed to make sure they're consistent with other elements of our code, et cetera. All that work is underway and ongoing. Okay. One of the thoughts was, you know, it would be helpful to engage in a discussion with our development community to some extent. I know we all know what they're going to say. In all honesty, they're going to say, you know what, I want it quicker, faster, cheaper. And some of those things we can control and try to get better at, and some things are kind of out of our control. But that was the intent, was if basically we have talked to a consultant that's on call with PGA, We have identified a general scope of services we look to see for them to provide to us that has a cost to provide those services. And it would be basically a focus group discussion around your thoughts about you work with our development process on a generally regular basis. What are your thoughts about it? What do you see as obstacles? What do you see as issues we should be dealing with?

I think that's a great idea, especially involving the development community, which they all have different needs and wants, but you'll probably hear a resounding kind of maybe major theme from that. But you probably already know what it is. I'm curious. You're in that department. So when you say community education, is that what you're talking about as a development community, or are you talking about the community at large?

I believe this is targeted outreach for the development community who does work with us and knows our processes at a more intricate level. For example, I can tell you right now there's going to be concerns with digital access and how we work and things like that. We're always trying to improve that format because we moved to a digital platform. after the pandemic to try to get quicker, faster. I mean, we're open 24 hours a day, people. I mean, they can submit plans, all that kind of stuff online. But you'll have concerns and comments about that. I think you'll have some praise that comes out of it. I know some of these people personally, and they love the work that we do. But I think it's important to at least provide a framework for that discussion to occur. I'd also just briefly like to talk just for a second about the transit one, if I could. The nuance around the transit requests, we've already issued the RFP. It's already out in the marketplace. What we did is we put a contingency, and we've got grant funding to fund the accessible and efficient portion. We put a contingency task in that RFP. If we're able to get the money, then we'll activate the contingency task, and that's around the affordability. We don't have a funding source, a grant funding source for the affordability component, and so hence the ask today, so.

Okay, thank you. All right.

Looking for a motion there.

Chair, I move to approve the $70,000 for Performance Clackamas Transit Team and the $30,000 for the Performance Clackamas Development Team for a total request of $100,000 to be paid from the County General Fund Surplus Contingency.

Second.

All right, Commissioner West has moved to approve $70,000 for the Performance Clackamas Transit Team and $30,000 for the Performance Clackamas Development Team for a total of about $100,000 to be paid from the county's general fund surplus contingency. And that has been seconded by Commissioner Helm. Any further discussion? Seeing none. Clerk, will you call the poll?

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner West. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes four to zero, Mr. Chair.

All right. What page are we on now? Thank you. We're now jumping ahead to page 15. Page 15, because we already covered the next item that was on the agenda, the funding request for employees. We're jumping ahead now. Page 15. This is Association of Oregon and California Counties litigation invoice. This is your last funding request. A copy of the invoice is in your packet. So you are being asked to pay a litigation assessment. All members of this association are being asked to pay this. Clackamas County's portion is $8,325 and $1,583.36 to pay for the other counties who said they're not paying this. So you've been assessed to cover those counties who said no. The counties who said no are Josephine County, Benton County, and Multnomah County. Now I want to be honest with you you paid this I thought a year or two ago and I thought it was one time only I was not aware it was an ongoing litigation request so I have not budgeted for this so if you choose to pay this bill of nine total nine thousand nine hundred eight dollars and thirty six cents it's also coming from the surplus contingency because I thought this was done and was not expecting this so it's not been budgeted but with that seeking your direction if you'd like to pay this bill or not.

And Commissioner West might have some insight.

So as you guys know, I've been representing the board for the last, A year and a half now on this specific issue. There's been a number of different heavy lifts that have been done, including the legal work to get to where we are today, where we just voted to take timber receipts and not SRS funding for the first time in a long time. And so working through this, these legal efforts with AOC, this is specifically around ONC lands type stuff. natural resources and working with that group to get the movement that we've gotten not just with lobbying but also with the legal efforts and working with the federal government and getting some of those wins that's partially why this is still ongoing I recommend that we pay this and get clarification on what this will look like the next year, but I do think these are valid charges that we have seen significant benefit from their legal efforts.

Is this our final one?

We need to clarify that, but I think we should pay this one.

And is this the second?

This is the second.

Go ahead, Commissioner.

I'm not sure it is. Second or the first I think it's actually one of several Historically, so I don't quote me on that but my recollection was when I used to sit on those meetings way back that This discussion about paying those legal battles was something that this group Regularly try to spread across the board Clackamas County picked up their fair share I You know for a while I think the board at one time expressed collectively that they weren't seeing the value in it. So we ultimately pulled out of participating because of no progress. So, you know, I'd frankly like, I don't know what the deadline is to pay this, but I think question number one, is this the last one? My guess is probably not. And is it the second one? You know, let's clarify that my recollection is that we have paid this on an annual basis. And it seems to me that You know, maybe there's been progress recently. I don't know. But I don't know if that progress will continue. But I think having the history so we know this is going to be an ongoing thing or not is something we ought to get clarity on.

I agree, Commissioner. Some of this also is, I mean, recently because of some of this effort, we've seen significant progress. when dealing with these timberland issues. Significant. And it's a different climate than it was previously. I remember last year's. I don't remember before that, so you may be right. I will admit that. But this is a pretty significant... Considering what we just are going to get in return after all these efforts, this is... less than a drop in the bucket and i think that supporting our rural counties and especially the 16 western counties some of that movement has happened because one big county didn't quit and continue to engage and i really appreciate the effort coming out of douglas and curry county and specifically also and klamath county with the work that has been done So I think we should still move forward. I mean, it's been maybe at a snail's pace, but we did just see some big breakthroughs working through these legal efforts. That has been part of the tools in the toolbox to get it done, to get the movement that we've wanted. We've seen that. It's undeniable. The revenue we're going to get is significantly more than we've gotten in the past, in the right direction. So...

like us to pay it and then we can continue to maybe be like what does it look like in the future now I think that's a fair question but I think that this is a valid expense Gary so I apologize I did not do this homework in advance we're gonna go checking right now otherwise I'll get you a history of the litigation invoice but remember you also pay annual dues of approximately 30,000 a year this is separate from the annual dues that you pay two different invoices here yeah but we'll check for you on the litigation invoice

Yeah, I'd also be remiss to say it has nothing to do with this organization, has nothing to do with these fees, but it's a shame to see us reinvesting while a lot of our forest is on fire right now. Exactly.

Unrelated, but it's just a shame. We're getting increased timber production to manage those forests moving forward because of some of this advocacy, and this has been long an issue for many years. You know, and I agree with you. I just... They have been good allies in trying to fix the issues that we're dealing with today. And these increased timber production and timber receipts is going to go a long ways to protect those federal lands in our local communities. So I think it's a small dues overall and expenses to pay for the importance of the issue and the movement that we've gotten.

Is there an urgency to do it today?

Well, the invoice was from two months ago, so I'm sure a few more weeks may not be an issue.

Maybe before it goes to collections. I move to approve payment of the Association of ONC Counties invoice in the amount of $9,908.36. I'll second with a little more discussion.

All right. Commissioner Helm is moved to approve the payment of the Association of ONC Counties invoice for the amount of $9,908.36. Commissioner West is seconded. Any further discussion?

Totally. I'm going to vote yes, of course. But, you know, what was the history is important. And then what's the expectation moving forward so that we're. BUDGETING FOR IT OR AWARE OF WHAT THAT PROCESS LOOKS LIKE NOW, I THINK IS APPROPRIATE, AND I'LL BE VOTING YES.

I WANT MORE CLARIFICATION ON IF THIS IS AN ONGOING LITIGATION. IS THERE AN END TO IT?

YEAH.

OR ARE WE DONE?

OR IS THIS JUST LEGAL WORK THAT GOES ON IN THE PROCESS OF DOING THIS WORK PERIOD?

I WOULD THINK THAT WOULD BE BUILT INTO THE $30,000 A YEAR IN DUE. JUST SAYING.

Chair, council.

I'm sorry, go ahead. Just had a question. Commissioner West, do you know why the three counties elected out?

Some of that's political. Yeah, I think Multnomah County is political. I don't know Benton specifically, but I think that's also political. Josephine shocks me a little bit, considering the amount of ONC lands that they have. But I think Benton and Multnomah County are, that's a political statement. But And I it would be interesting to know if this is ongoing litigation or these are just expected some legal costs that are occurred because of You know the environmental side the environmental justice side that stops our timber production and our collection of receipts And what you know doesn't want us to manage our forests, you know, they have much deeper pockets And legal firms to help them advance their cost for so this is I think probably part of cost of doing business. I

All right, Gary. All right, our incredible team member, Celia, already looked it up. So you paid one litigation invoice previously in 2003, three years ago, for $17,130. This is the second litigation invoice, and the last was three years ago.

Oh.

Interesting.

Okay. 2023.

It was the last invoice. You said 2003 or 23? 2023, sorry. Okay. It was the first invoice at $17,130. This is the second invoice three years later. Okay.

So I have a question.

How far did she look back? She's going, this is, we have a snapshot that's probably five years back, so we'll look further than that. My memory is you've only paid it once, and we're still checking.

Okay. I do remember sitting in those rooms and talking about this very thing.

And so... All right, we'll call for a poll. Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm. Aye. Commissioner Savas.

I'm gonna abstain because I think this is an ongoing, and I abstain on the earlier ongoing expenditure.

Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes three to zero with one abstention, Mr. Chair.

All right, Yuri.

All right, we'll still get the data back for you on the invoices we paid and all of that. All right, next is review of your board business meeting for this Thursday, August 13th, 2026. At 10 a.m., you'll have a presentation on the wildfire situation update. two public hearings both one is a boundary change proposal the other is the issuance of bonds for willamette view as you heard earlier today you'll meet as a hospital facility authority board to also have a public hearing on the willamette view bond issuance and you have quite a lengthy consent agenda for the board of county commissioners street lighting district and water environment services if you have any questions on these items please let me know and I'll help answer them for you. Next, advisory board and commission appointments. Andrew, go ahead, please.

Thank you. Mr. Chair, there is one advisory body for consideration today. The local public safety coordinating council by the Clackamas County Sheriff's Office currently has one opening due to the previous sheriff's resignation. The board has appointed James Rhodes, sheriff of Clackamas County. The Local Public Safety Coordinating Council recommends appointment of James Rhodes as sheriff to the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. He will fill the seat prescribed as in Oregon Revised Statutes 423.560 and in the group's bylaws. The recommendation is as follows. James Rhodes to a first term ongoing. The board could select other candidates or require further recruitment. Mr. Chair.

Thank you. Chair, I move to appoint James Rhodes to the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. Second.

Commissioner West has moved to appoint James Rhodes to the Local Public Safety Coordinating Council. This is seconded by Commissioner Savas. Any further discussion?

All right, clerk, will you please call the poll? Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Commissioner West. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes four to zero, Mr. Chair. All right, what's next Gary?

Thank you. Next Commissioner Savas would like to discuss boring park irrigation issues.

Yes, earlier this year Commissioner Helm was invited to speak at the boring CPO and she had a conflict so I attended in her stead and they County Park staff made a presentation and for that nice presentation went through the whole issue and what I gleaned from that was that there was some issues with the piping of the irrigation or where it was going and maybe something in design or an error, whatever that was, and that it was going to be corrected. However, there was also funding challenges that related to the amount of water. But I thought that I had gleaned out of there that there was probably a way to remedy whatever that irrigation piping or challenge or failure was and to irrigate part of the park. I did not hear much in the way of And maybe it maybe it did occur and I didn't hear it, but I didn't hear much in the way of landscaping challenges where that might be Limited so I did also learn that the boring water had made substantial reductions to their to their billing for the for the park and So I just want to say I've heard that consistently, so I wanted to say I appreciate the boring water doing that. I don't think they obviously have waived the entire fees, but I heard they made a substantial reduction. It's a pretty small water district. But I'd like to better understand or at least have an update or – Maybe there's someone here that can speak to all the ins and outs, but are we not landscaping all the park facilities that the county district, not NCPRD, but county parks? Are we not irrigating all of them, or are we selectively irrigating some, like the golf course, I don't know, landscaping, is that across the board? I mean, how do we do that judiciously, and should we or should we not be at least aware of those reductions as it comes to that, whether it's landscaping and irrigation? So those are my questions for today. I'll add one thing, is that since the boring, dull day was created, I've had the pleasure of attending all of those. And I learned the middle of last week commissioner Hellman for me That they're not having it this year because of the condition of the park apparently at least that's what I was conveyed to me And that they're gonna have a car show instead at another relocation I went to that location on Sunday. It was actually in Multnomah County and So neither boring nor dull, but it was in Multnomah County. A nice event, actually. There's quite a lot of people there participating in that. But I did have a chance to drive through the facility, the boring park location. the park out there and the trail. And I did talk to Steve Bates and others on Sunday. So again, I just caught by surprise. I thought it was going to be remedied. If there's anything anyone can add, I'd like to hear it. You know, I'm not here saying, because we're all dishing out money today, that we dish it out. I remember that Mr. Bates came here with a $500,000 request earlier in the year during budget. I thought that was probably more than what was needed for that particular park. And I do recall, in all fairness, that it wasn't solely $500,000 for the Boring Park. It was for the park's board district, not the district, but the county district. agency across the board everywhere. But any kind of update would be appreciated. I just want to just let you know that there's obviously the boring dull day that whole event is something that is through state legislation was recognized as a holiday of sorts and a day. So the facilities that go along with it and the private investment that has been made there on the park, private investment, not county investment, is insignificant. And I did talk to others, and they're going to try to figure out a way to do some workarounds. But I guess the question might be, is it or is it not okay for volunteers to... you know take care of some of the facilities or are they going to be disallowed to take care of the facilities so I think there's some policy questions in there so any kind of update I would appreciate.

All right Commissioner Hill.

Yes and I've been in communication with Tom Riggs about this it's been an ongoing issue I will say and if I remember correctly and anyone correct me if I'm wrong I believe this park was set up initially by volunteers a number of years ago. And I want to say I was on Damascus City Council when it happened and they made this Big, beautiful park, because it was the trailhead for the Casador Trail. And a lot of effort, volunteer effort, went into it. It's a beautiful park. It has a lot of ornamental shrubs, trees, grasses. It takes a lot more maintenance than one of our typical county parks, which is a little more au natural, right? They're not so landscaped. And I think that's part of it. This is a very small park. I went there earlier, actually probably last fall, when they were having issues with the parking and paying for the parking. We got that all resolved. And, of course, over the winter it was green, but it's hot and dry right now, and the park does look awful. I would not disagree with them. I don't think it's going to take a lot to get it back, but I think it's the green grass that's kind of the biggest problem because, as you saw, how kind of overgrown it is. It's not pretty. I don't know how to make this fair for this little park and boring and for all the county parks in general. There is maybe a disparity there we need to address. But I'd like to say I'm working with Tom on this, Tom Riggs and Steve Bates and the community. And I don't know, can Dan come up and speak to the volunteer part of it? Is that allowed? Because I would like to know, too, about how much people can volunteer at the park. is that covered by insurance, county insurance, all those liability issues. They do have a small but mighty volunteer group there in Boring, but this is their part, and I would love to... find out how we can.

Wait a second. So if it's okay with the chair, staff have been waiting patiently. They're happy to discuss this with, give you an update. Is that okay? Yes. All right. Thank you. All right. Come on.

I would like to add one more thing and that is, um, I think it's important sometimes to be good neighbors, and I do know sometimes when weeds go to seed, and there's neighboring properties nearby, and there are weeds on our park, and they're blowing into the neighbor's property. That's another factor that kind of bothers me, and they're pretty tall weeds.

And Tom's going to give us the history and how this park was built. Am I wrong? Was this done by volunteers?

I'm happy to share as much information as you want.

So Sarah Ackman, Assistant Director of Transportation and Development, Tom Riggs, County Parks Manager. Go ahead.

All right. Did you want to start or you want me to?

Tom's really our subject matter expert. He has been working with Steve Bates and some other folks out there. So he can give you that background.

Yeah, so obviously, yes, the park did have significant volunteer input for its creation, county investment as well, but very collaborative with the community in building and ongoing maintenance of that park. We do use volunteers up there. We're in talks with the community about expanding that. And I've been talking with Steve Wiggy from the Boring Water District, as mentioned they have in the past applied a credit to our bill that enables us to reduce our water bill a little bit for irrigation up there we're now talking about the possibility of working with them more directly on you know potentially them doing the irrigation so they're putting the amount of water they want and they're responsible for the amount of water. One of the issues comes up anytime you green a lawn is it keeps growing and they're actually rallying volunteers to potentially do weekly mowing if we provide the mower as to the liability volunteers yes we do have volunteer insurance we work with a lot of volunteer groups in County Parks our rough estimate for last year was over 12,000 hours of volunteer time so when you look at the work that county parks accomplishes uh percentage wise by our our volunteers are actually a larger slice of the pie than our parks admin staff so that gives you a sense of you know how how reliant we are on volunteers to get work done in our parks And so, yeah, the ongoing conversations with the community, how do we structure it? How do we get the equipment that's needed, the tools that are needed? And, you know, who's going to maintain the calendar for, is it Bob's week tomorrow or Jim's week tomorrow? You know, that kind of thing. So a lot of conversations going on there.

And in that conversation, do you mind if I go ahead?

No, go ahead.

In that conversation about the mower, if they will take care of the mowing, are we providing that mower then?

We can, yeah. We can. And we need to train them on it, obviously.

Right, because it's more of a commercial mower, not your average little John Deere tractor.

Although there's a threshold there in terms of... how complicated you want the mower for your average volunteer versus what's most efficient for the turf, and we'll figure out what works.

Okay.

Okay, thank you.

Great. Commissioner Savas? Yeah, so a couple questions. What parks are being irrigated?

Currently the only irrigation that is done is one picnic area at Eagle Fern Park and that's one where it's on our own water system we don't pay for it and it's Eagle Fern is a very shady park so it doesn't require much irrigation none of the rest of our parks have irrigation I mean they have irrigation systems but we don't run them.

Okay so the this is a golf course considered a park?

The golf course is considered a park, but it's managed by our management company, so I wasn't thinking of that. They obviously, yes, do have an extensive irrigation system. In fact, we're going to be working on a project on that coming forward. There'll be a contract coming for you, all that. But yeah, so the golf course does irrigate. It is considered a county parks, but county parks doesn't maintain the grounds at the golf course.

But we pay for it.

We, yeah. Yeah.

We pay through it through the management contract for that, for the golf course. And so the management company handles all of it. They handle all the bills, but ultimately, yes, the county pays for it.

Okay. So how about landscaping? What parks are being landscaping and which ones are we not landscaping?

All of our developed parks have some nominal landscaping. As Commissioner Helm was noting, they're more of a natural area feel and less of a formal gardens, formal landscaping. But, you know, at every one of our parks, we do mowing, we spray for weeds, we address basic landscaping issues, you know, beauty bark, that sort of thing.

When was the last time you were out there? At Boring Park?

I was out earlier this week. No, sorry, last week. Last week. He sent me pictures, yes.

So you saw the northeast side of the park with the weeds with the neighboring property? Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, and there's an engineered bioswale at the end of the parking lot that I noticed does have a lot of tall weeds growing in it that should be addressed because bioswales, obviously, you can't mow them, and so they sometimes get overlooked. So that was on my list. I noticed that one there.

You know, it's a highly used park as a trailhead, and when I was there on Sunday, the parking lot was full. People were loading off their bikes and whatnot, and again, as a trailhead. So it does get a lot of use, and I know we made the investment to build the trails, and that's frankly part of the trail system. I assume, I don't know, but, you know, what role is, and I'm actually kind of raising this a little bit, with Metro, but what role does Metro play or can they play in any kind of future bonding to help pay for the facilities that they keep on acquiring and having us build, right? I mean, because it's one thing to build it and pay for the capital, but it's another one to maintain it. And it does not seem that we are in a situation where we can absorb more cost for new parks and everything that they want to you know it's it's nice makes a great picture cutting a ribbon on a new park and everything but oh by the way that's for you to pay for and yet we don't have the means to do that so i i'm just kind of concerned if there's any mechanism at all that metro um will maintain their parks because they do and are paying for maintenance on some of their facilities. I don't know what their policy is, but they've acquired some properties and they maintain, they even police it. People don't know this. They have a police department that goes through some of their properties for people that are trespassing. So have they had any interaction as it comes to trails? Do they take any responsibility for the trails?

Primary interaction we've had with Metro related to trails and specifically to the Spring Water Trail, which is what heads out of the north end of Boring Station Trailhead Park, is in sort of interagency cooperation regarding signage. So they've produced some centralized trail signage and shared with all the local jurisdictions. So the section of Springwater that adjoins the park is owned by City of Portland and then passes through City of Gresham back into City of Portland and then eventually ends up over NCPRD, ties in with Talley Trail, all that stuff. But so in terms of Metro responsibility for trails, we don't currently abut any trails that are actually owned or operated by Metro. but they do work at the regional level about sort of signage and information and that sort of thing.

Well, let me ask the question a little bit differently because I think you were close to answering my question, but I'm not sure you got there. And that is that, so who maintains the spring water trail in Clackamas County? Whose responsibility is that?

The 2.3 miles between Boring Station Trailhead Park and Rug Road, which is within Clackamas County, is owned by City of Portland and is currently maintained by us, by Clackamas County Parks.

Do we see any remuneration for the city of Portland or we just we just have an agreement to maintain it?

We we are in the process of renewing an IGA that has expired and one of the things we discussed was How we could see revenues from that so one of the revenue sources we do have is special event permits and And so like the boring marathon is something that's held on the spring water trail and goes through the park. We charge a special use permit fee for that. So we're able to recoup some money that way, but we do not receive any direct funds from City of Portland or Metro for our maintenance on that trail.

Okay. So going back to when you were presenting at the boring CPO, you mentioned that there was a hiccup or a sprinkler system problem that needed to be remedied. Was that remedied?

It has not been. I checked into that and we had a plan to get that worked on. One of our volunteers actually is the person who put the system in, a now retired County Parks employee, is still volunteering. And there were some issues that we were not able to get him on site and get those repairs done. So I talked with my rangers about making sure that that moves forward. Commissioner Helm.

um, just, I know I'm, I'm advocating for this. This is in my backyard. Right. And, uh, I, I feel for these people is that I, you know, what I do around my house, uh, once a year typically is like a cleanup crew. Like you just bring everybody in and get it all done. And just that show of goodwill for just, you can transform it in a day. All the shrubs can get cut. You can get the grass cut. You can take care of the weeds. You can do all this. And just, I know it's, an awful time of year to do it because it's so hot and dry out right now. But it would be so nice if we could go in and show them that we're trying to get this done. That meeting was in January. That meeting was in January about the irrigation. So, I mean, we're mid-August now. So I'm hoping we can get on some of these things. show a little more urgency because I would love to see something done sooner than later.

Yeah, and certainly in terms of the cleanup crew, we also do once a year bring in for one day or two through our agreement with Department of Corrections, we bring a crew in to do a lot of landscaping cleanup in the spring and get things ready for the season.

Okay, good. Thank you.

So I can't, Commissioner Helm, thank you for mentioning January. I wasn't sure what month it was, but it was a long time ago. And I think I left the room and others did too with the feeling that it would be something that has to be remedied in a reasonable amount of time. And it's, you know, it'll be a year just in a matter of months. And, you know, the season has passed for any kind of irrigation. So I, you know, what is it? Maybe you can sit down with me and show me what it is and I can get some volunteers and get out there and fix it. I, you know, I'll find a way.

Yeah, and I left that meeting with the same impression because I was the one who gave that impression. And I'm just being honest with you, it didn't happen. And I own that and my apologies for that. The person who used to oversee that area, our park ranger coordinator, retired. And we have not been able to afford to refill that position. So we're a little thin. And when I checked in on the progress of it, Like I said, we had a plan, and then I was unaware that plan fell through. In recently looking into it, I became aware of that. So we're talking about, yeah, let's get it done.

So just to cap this off, the golf course is irrigated, correct?

Yep.

And there's a sprinkler system. All that irrigation system is in place, right? And we have somebody who maintains that today, right?

Yes, through our management agreement there.

Okay. So we have the resources. I guess we have the expertise. I just can't imagine why this park was neglected. Sorry.

I think it's able to mobilize their contractor providers that true Gary I'm sorry the golf course is not paid by County money It's that's it's a fee the golfers pay for the golf course that pays the management contract. It's not general funds It's no other funding sources. I'm sorry money is important respectfully commissioners You did not you have not directed staff to do anything whether it's January And I have not yet heard you direct staff to do something if you want this a priority We'll drop everything and make it a priority. I just need three of you to tell me to do that, please Right now go ahead

I just don't think that characterization is fair. I mean, I don't think that we, you know, when we walk away from a meeting thinking it's going to be taken care of and staff from the Parks Department says it'll be taken care of and it's not taken care of. I mean, we find out later. I don't think that it was proper for us in January to come back here and say, by the way, you got three votes. Go fix it. I don't think, I think there's quite a bit of room in between. And again, the fact that I learned about it this late and it's created that much friction with the community, it's, I don't know.

Your concerns with staff, start and stop with me. I will address it with my staff. Thank you.

Do you need a motion right now?

If that's what you wish to do as a board, sure.

Well, if it's going to take a motion to get it done, I move that we clean up Boring Trailhead Park.

And fix the irrigation system.

And fix the irrigation system.

I'll volunteer if need be.

Me too.

Look, I apologize, commissioners. I'm frustrated because there's so many things you ask of staff, and I know you know that. But again, it's as priorities. So we're happy to make this a priority, but something else will not get the priority in the park system. And I'll work with Dan and Tom and Sarah to reflect that. So respectfully, you don't need a motion. I've heard your feedback, but again, something else will pause and you'll get feedback from that community and then we'll come back to you then.

Well, I don't remember what month it was, but Mr. Bates was here a number of months ago bringing forward the same issue. So it's not like it hasn't been on the radar since January. We have heard from the boarding community and it's still not been addressed.

Yeah, and that's not the only park you maintain.

True, true, but they're the ones coming forward, so.

And if I may, I am optimistic about the conversations we're having with the community and the plans that we have in the works for how we better manage this park moving forward. Do with that what you will.

It is a different park than all the rest of our parks. I understand that.

I just think there's an obligation that the Water District, on behalf of the community, waive fees or reduce fees in the... guise of maintaining and irrigating the park, and we had a hiccup with something mechanical, the system, it seems that we are not fulfilling our end of the deal, right? And now the park has gone to brown, it's dead, right? The grass is dead for now. It'll come back with rainfall, but the weeds and everything else are out of control. And so, you know, I think we need a fulfill our end of that deal, whether we look at it that way or not, I do. I look at it that way. They made a commitment. And if the system's not fixed, if the irrigation system's not fixed, all the water in the world isn't going to make it work, right?

Right. And I share your position and opinion on that. And that is why I did not renew the water credits when we made the choice not to continue irrigation, because I felt that we would need to live up to our end of the deal. So the water system credits we were receiving have expired as we figure out this new approach, because I did not want to sign up and say, yes, give us the credit and we will irrigate everything because we knew that we weren't going to. We had over a five-year period, we had $11,000 worth of water bills at that location. And that was with the credit in place for some of those years. So we knew we needed a different approach, and that's why I did not want to commit us to something that I knew we were not going to deliver on.

Go ahead. What are the...

Yes, we all want it fixed. What is the... What is the man hours or the scope of the job for you right now if we prioritize that? What do you see the impact and practicality being for your department?

Part of that is still to be determined. I would say... If it were a concentrated effort, we could probably get things whipped together within a week, but we don't know where all the breaks are. We don't know where all the sprinkler heads are. One issue that commonly comes up at that park, and we don't have surveillance cameras, so we don't know if it's malicious or accidental, but a lot of our sprinkler heads get kicked off And at that park in particular, maybe because it's the only one where we worry about the irrigation, but we find routinely that there are breaks in the water lines and missing heads that when we try to activate the system, there's something not working. So some of it's going to be diagnostic time, and then it's just, you know, glue and pipe.

Do you have the bandwidth or the expertise to fix it?

We have the expertise to fix it. The bandwidth has been the problem. Okay.

So you have the knowledge and the skill set to get the job done. Yeah. In your assessment, can you tell us whether or not this is the best way to irrigate this or this is going to be an ongoing problem of breakage and equipment or infrastructure not working right?

The current system has shown that it has repeated vulnerabilities. So in terms of is this the best way, there may be a better approach. But in terms of holding together what we have, it's the best option we currently have. I do know that the other issue at that location is as a former railroad depot the soil is very rocky and that was one of the concerns and one of the things that the water bills brought to our attention is the amount of water you dump onto that property so much of it runs through because of the substrate. that it becomes an issue. Now, that's not universally true throughout the property, but there are definitely patches of it that very thin amount of topsoil was placed on an old railroad exchange grade.

So would we ever, I mean, maybe we should consider gardenscaping in a way that doesn't require gas or heavy irrigation. There's many things you can do for beautiful outside landscaping that is going to really reduce the use of the water if it's going to be a constant repair problem, if it's going to be wasteful because of just the makeup of the topography and the soil. And, you know, are there plants that are drought resistant that aren't weeds? Is there hardscaping that can be done? different things that we can do. Is it more effective to put turf down that looks like grass, right? But that's very expensive and it's probably more, I don't know how big the space is, but we should probably assess what we can actively do with man powers moving forward and what that cost is and how do we mitigate those future costs if we're gonna have to spend some money upfront, especially if you have less resources, that would be interesting to me to maybe pivot and go in a different direction. I'm totally fine with voting to prioritize this today at the concerns of my colleagues, but I would maybe have a better understanding what a long-term solution looks like.

Yeah, and certainly drought-tolerant plants, native plants, and limits on landscaping have been part of the conversation. I hadn't thought about artificial turf. We try to avoid that in parks, but it would be green.

It's not cheap, but I can tell you a lot of suburban neighborhoods don't want to mow their lawn anymore, and they have very beautiful backyards, and they put turf in now. And guess what? It's dog-friendly, pet-friendly now. It is.

If it's done right.

If it's done right. If it's done right. Sorry. But you know, it can be quite fantastic. I don't think it's the solution, but there are ideas out there and innovations that we should look at.

Yeah, and I think, you know, my concern comes down to, and you briefly touched on it, is bandwidth. And usually, you know, When you take something new on, something else has to come off the end, unless we're adding staff. And I recognize that. Second component or concern I have is budgetarily, right? How much is it going to cost for the water? And I do know a lot of parks that they mow it and get it all nice and trimmed up, but they don't water during the summer for that very reason. So I do see that you can come in and just as Commissioner Helm said, you know, get it all cleaned up, mowed and looking nice. I think that obviously you guys run your budgets and try and figure out how to make it all work. So. How big is the space that we're talking about?

It's three to five acres, something like that. Oh, that's a lot of space.

It's not all turf. And I will say, I have ornamental shrubs around my house. But I let my grass go brown in the summertime. It's like the amount of water it would take to keep it green and the amount of fertilizer to keep it green. I want my shrubs green. I want my trees green. I want my flowers to be bloomed. But the grass can go brown. So there's a trade-off, right? Could you just paint the grass green? You could do that, too. Some people do that.

You can paint the brown grass green. There's special paint for it. Let's get creative.

All right. So moving forward, I guess trying to figure out if you feel like we need a motion or... No. Okay. All right. So then I think we have clear direction.

Tom, so I'm directing Dan, you and your staff to reprioritize this project. What is the timeline of when you feel you can address these major concerns? How long?

I think we can get the... Irrigation back up and running within two weeks. Okay. And I had staff go out just this last week to do a fresh mow. I'll have them take a look at the bioswales and the other edge of property stuff.

Okay, great. Would you please report back to the board and email us fine with what you've been able to do. Sounds good. Thank you. Thank you, Tom and Sarah, for sitting here for like four hours today. I can't see you here for a long time.

Thank you.

All right, what's next, Gary? Next, Commissioner Savas would like to discuss Library Task Force Potential Mayor's Summit. Go ahead, please, Commissioner.

Yeah, after our last library discussion that was convened here, We made a motion to, and it was approved by the board, to act and convene a meeting, whether it be C4 or something like, I think I used those very words, or something like C4. I have contacted a number of the mayors, and I heard that they felt that that myself and perhaps Commissioner Schroeder in because we have been pretty well the point people on libraries and I know that Commissioner Schroeder is pretty passionate about this as well essentially help be the conveners for this meeting and the mayor's expressed interest in that and not using C4 as a venue because there's not, some are councilors, some are mayors and it's not fully attended but I think there's agreement that if we convene something that it be as much mayor participation as possible and make sure that there is a plan for their city council agendas to help direct their staff, city managers, librarians to engage in a process or consider engaging in a process to take the next steps. So acting upon that last motion that was made here and passed, again, I've been in contact with not all the mayors. I got another meeting with another mayor here on Friday, Thursday or Friday morning. So I'll be contacting that mayor. But I've learned that the city managers, and Gary knows this, city managers have an opinion or a position on this, and that's not even known by the council or the mayor, and sometimes the mayors have an opinion, and that's not necessarily, makes it down to the librarian, so there's a that communication loop that we need to resolve. But because the decision makers are the decision makers, it seems to me that giving direction for the staff to follow the lead would come from the councils. And so starting with the electives to have that discussion and discuss some of the disparities and opportunities. But at the end of the day, the reason it's so important is because any changes to the IGA require agreement with all the cities, pretty much. And that is the barrier right now to moving forward. So I just want to give you the update. Unless, Gary, you feel we need to do something different. I saw this more as an update. But I think we can get something convened when Commissioner Schroeder is back. It's going to take a month or two to make that happen. I don't know when that's, September or October. I won't say there's no urgency, but I think we've got to work with the hand we're dealt, and when it works for everyone, that's what determines our time frame, is when it works for all the mayors. So anything else we need to do, Gary, or you want to say?

Thank you. You don't need a motion, but Director, Commissioner Savas is informing you he intends to convene this group. So you're informed. He is one of your library liaisons and officially with Commissioner Schroeder. So we're going to do it unless you have concerns or speak otherwise. He was just informing you today.

Go forth and do libraries.

Yes. All right. Gary, what do we have next?

All right. The final item today is Commissioner Communications. So I would ask each one of you. I got somewhere to be.

Thank you.

We can pass.

That's kind of where I was at.

Love all of you. Did you have something to share?

I have frustration, but I'll leave it there. Very frustrating couple weeks. Do we need to listen? We'll listen.

We'll listen.

We've got a few minutes. I just hope we can work together. And I know for the most part we do. We work together pretty good as a team. But I just think right now that when the board makes a decision... and sometimes one of us doesn't like it, maybe we're one of the boats that didn't support it, that we don't take efforts to undermine it. I was asked about the recovery center And actually, a couple days ago, about one time when a former commissioner was at one of the public meetings and was turning the crowd against the board and taking the side of one upset neighbor about the recovery center as an example of that. So I was asked where we are with that, for example. And I just think that, have I been on the losing side of a vote? several times but I think it's important that we don't take steps to undermine it or exploit it and I live by that so I just hope that we can all acknowledge that and hopefully a discussion for a retreat that is not oriented towards managing for results, but more about policies and relationships and maybe some big picture things that don't fall under the guise of managing for results. I yield back.

All right. Any comments? All right. Thank you for all for joining us this afternoon and have a great day.