City Council - Regular Meeting

Before we get into tonight's work session, I wanna thank everybody for being here, both in person and online. Thank you for taking the time. During this time, this work session, there is no public comment. But at 7PM, we'll move over to the auditorium where community members are invited to speak. If you are here in person and would like to speak during the public comment session, please fill out a yellow card and give it to our city recorder when we move over to the auditorium. Our city recorder is Amber Rios right there. So now I'll turn the call over to Robin Hatt, our city manager, to begin our session.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, everyone. Looking forward to tonight, we have with sanctuary status in the city of New Next slide. So just a reminder, this is the next slide. It's kind of just a reminder slide about the shared values that we all have on this.

It goes back to adding principles and equity statement that the city has adopted. We have our our strategic plan and our low focus areas. This council staff is united in our goals to support our community that's being impacted right now. And then, again, the council has a goal this year, promoting accurate information, and we take that role very seriously as the city and make sure that we're providing our our community with transparent and accurate information. And then finally, the the the plan that our city council adopted a few months ago. In fact,

if we

go to the next slide, it's

And so with that, I'm

gonna turn it over to Rohin to begin talking about sanctuary status. Thanks,

Ravi. Good evening, council. Rohin, our chief deputy manager. We've we've had a couple of conversations about codifying the city sanctuary status. The direction that council gave us going all the way back to November was review specific items being requested from council of Sinclair.

This is when all of you presented your proposals that we was the starting point for us to start putting our plan together. You suggested well, you asked us to provide a recommendation on which items belong in the code versus other areas and bring back a proposed codification. We did that, and when we brought it back, you suggested that we review a community member's proposal that was submitted at the time and engage with CBOs to gather input. So we've done those things, and we wanna give you a quick update on how how we're doing.

Can I just say one thing? I wanna thank, counselor Sinclair for providing a structured plan for codification and explaining why you think it's important. So I just want you to know thank you for doing that research, and thank you for pushing counsel to want to explore this as a possibility for our community. Thank you.

Cool. Alright. So, again, just kinda how we got here. I think it's important to look back for a minute as we present what we we hope is the final version of the codification proposal. So, again, like I mentioned back in November, there was a qualification proposal presented.

At the same time, we had declared the state of emergency that Ravi had mentioned and resolution twenty nine zero six was adopted. It included certain things that were in the proposal at the time, but there was a desire to strengthen some of that. So it helped us with some of the work we move forward. In November, on the on the twenty fourth, we had a special work session where we discussed many proposals, this being one of them. We met with councilor Sinclair in December to just gather a little more information on her proposal, and then we brought a codification proposal for council to review.

I'm gonna say codification a lot, so just throwing that out there. And at the meeting, council asked us to review a proposal from some community members and request feedback from CBOs. Well, we went ahead and did that. We met with our the community members who presented the proposal in February. And in February as well, we spent quite a bit of time meeting individually with all of you as well to get any more feedback.

And Simone was very helpful in asking the CBOs who we work with quite a lot on a lot of our ISO related work to give us some feedback on the proposal that we are presenting to you tonight. So we'll be able to share some of that feedback. And we're here today. So I'll turn it over to Chad who will talk a little bit more about the specifics on how we incorporated the the various things into the proposal we'll see today.

Good evening, mayor and council. Chad Jacobs from the city attorney's office. So this is one of those slides, and then the next couple slides are gonna be one of those things that look familiar to you. It's it's stuff we went over during our last work session and just sort of wanna go through it all again just to make sure that we're all on the same page. And as we've talked about, what staff was really focused on is is outcomes more than process, so to speak.

And what we were trying to achieve is saying, okay. Well, what does the council want to do through codification and how can we get there? And so what we've done is we've looked at the various aspects of Council St. Clair's original proposal, and we've we've gone through and we've outlined where and how we've implemented these through the codification process. So the first one, affirming the jurisdictional scope of the sanctuary ordinance applying to all city controlled spaces.

That language is in the new proposed municipal code as is integrating resolution twenty five fifty two into the HMC, which is the resolution that declared the city as a sanctuary jurisdiction. So all that is in the proposed ordinance that's before you tonight. We've also fully implemented language related to state law and the state sanctuary promise act, which you'll see in OS one eighty one a eight twenty through eight twenty six. And that is also you'll see basically that language verbatim in the draft ordinance that's before you again tonight. There's some other aspects that we've had training and public signage and mandatory logging reporting advice activity.

And, Raheem, if you can go to the next slide. We'll talk about these a little bit more on the next slide. These are all aspects, and then we've got the training, the public signage and basically reporting. And these are all things that we've had lots of conversations about and that we do have language in the draft ordinance to codify this, but codifying in a way that it remains consistent with the city's processes and practices related to allowing city manager to do the administrative aspects of the city and the council setting the policy. And so as you'll see in the proposed ordinance, we have language that talks about training for city employees, public signage and reporting.

And all those aspects are in there because they, I think, achieve the outcome that we're trying to achieve, which is transparency, making sure that we are being transparent with the community about what we're trying to achieve and what our goals are. And then sort of having it in a more permanent location and more easily accessible location in the code as opposed to a resolution that is, you know, that you'd have to contact the city recorder's office to get a copy of. You know, the code's online. You That's know, one of the things that we talked about is making sure that it's available and there for everyone to see. So we do have that language included in the ordinance to achieve those results.

And I think more importantly, all these things are actually being implemented today. And so we're already in the process. As we've talked about. There's training for city employees. The HR staff along with other city employees have really put together a training program that's going to be rolled out for all city employees that really goes through the provisions in Resolution 2,906 as well as the State Sanctuary Promise Act.

We already are putting up public signage and access protocols and training related to those items are in the training for staff. So everyone sort of understands what's going on there. And as you've seen, we've put together and released our first public reporting system that goes beyond the scope of what's required under state law for reporting purposes. And so we're in the process of doing this. I do want I see Councillor Kerrest has a question.

Before I turn it over to Mike, I just do want to say that this is a process as we've been doing for the last six months, what I'll call an evolving process. And what we put out today, we're not necessarily saying is the absolute end all be all perfect scenario, and this is something that will continue to evolve as we get feedback from you all, get feedback from the community and our CBOs about what is most helpful to everyone. And as we sort of go through this process, continue to update everything and make changes as necessary. But I think we've got a really good start to sort of achieving all the things that we wanted to achieve.

Councillor Ralk here.

So my question is, do this council have access to the same training that city employees are gonna get? I personally would like to have that because I wanna understand what I what expectation this sets up for employees.

Yeah. It's it's all a public record, and and, certainly, I'll defer to Raheem and Simone and and Ravi on this about the best way to achieve that. But it is an online portal that that the employees can go through, and so I imagine that it would be absolutely fine for you all to have access and do the same thing. Unless someone corrects me, we're just going leave it at that. Okay.

So next slide. So the the in addition to the codification, at the last meeting at our work session, we got a proposal from members of the community, and the council asked us to meet with the members of the community who set forth that proposal. And as Rohit mentioned, he and I had a great meeting with Barry and Blaine to discuss these issues. And as why don't we actually go forward two slides because I think it's instead of just repeating the same thing, we can have it all on one side. Go forward one more slide.

So the community members proposal, you'll see on the left in white and to the right in blue is sort of how we're addressing these things. And first, I just want to say thank you to Barry and Blaine and everyone that they work with. They worked really hard on this. They took time out of their personal schedules and demonstrated a strong care for the community and strong leadership. And it was from my perspective, right, I think Blaine sent you all an email confirming this as well. It was a really great meeting. And I think we really got some important feedback that really helped us as we're sort of doing those policies and trainings and reporting and everything else that we're working on. It so we're

of

working side the with the community. So we're it was a really good opportunity.

Road. And

partner proposals related to public safety and traffic enforcement, you can see on the left. We are working and continuing to work on our current policies to address these issues. The and we're working on additional guidance for staff and employees to be able to do this. And as you we've already talked about, we've updated our reporting formats to provide specific information related to immigration, and we've added up language to the proposed codification, sort of all in response to partially in response to the community members' proposal as well as the feedback that we've heard from you all. So all of sort of the first aspects of their proposal is is truly being worked on and implemented as we speak today.

Likewise, with their second proposal, community centered response, That is an ongoing process where we're working with our CBOs to further evaluate how we can achieve these things and sort of what makes the most sense. And and here's another situation where I think we got some really good feedback from the community about ways to sort of look at things, and we were able to share information with them about things that we're already doing that are consistent with exactly what they were saying. And I think it was a a good dialogue in that respect because it provided an opportunity for for individuals to see and and representatives of the community to see, hey, we are actually doing a lot of these things. And so for example, we have a good conversation about what happens when officers have a vehicle that was abandoned because of an ICE detention and how do we approach that and ways that we can take steps to to do what we can to make sure that the car isn't towed, you know, and putting another burden on the family. And there's stuff that we already have in our policies about officers trying to identify the owners and reaching out to people that already exist in our policies that we're able to share with them as an example of how we are achieving these things that they're bringing to our attention and then how we're further fostering those ideas as we continue to work on these things as they evolve.

Thank you. And thanks. You have been providing really good overview with this. So is there a question about public safety and the union and this plan?

I'll address that one, counselor. We've had, good meetings with our police union, and, we've shared with them everything that you all have seen as well about this plan as well. Our understanding is there is no intention on their part that, that would, change anything about tonight's vote on the on the codifying this information. There's always things that we're still working with them on. They they have as we all know, our police officers are really put in very challenging situations a lot of times in these.

And so those are conversations that are ongoing about how we can support them as well and provide them the training they need and the clarity that they need. So those things continue. But as far as what we're proposing to the council for adoption tonight, there's as staff, we don't have any concerns about how the union is approaching

that. Thanks.

And it's also, I think, worthwhile just to reiterate the point that some of these things are things that we were already doing, our officers were already doing. And so I think it was great for the community to be able to hear and see sort of in the policies that here's things that are already happening. I think they I I wouldn't want to put words in mouth. I won't say whether they were surprised by hearing that, but I think they were very happy to hear that, that we were already doing those things. So next slide.

There are a couple of other things. We already talked about reporting. That was a big topic of conversation, and we've already shared the updated reporting format with Barry and Blaine and gotten feedback from them about that. And as I said, as we continue to get feedback from you all and members of the community and CBOs, we'll continue to evolve that reporting as necessary to address any concerns that are being raised that that aren't already addressed. From what I've heard so far, and and certainly, you know, staff can correct me otherwise, but I've I've gotten I've heard really good feedback so far about the reporting that people are really pleased with it.

So I think that's a good step. But again, that'll continue to evolve as necessary. And then the last proposal that they had is a data privacy and surveillance and safety policy. And we thought this was a great idea, and staff is already working on it. Greg Mott has already put together a draft policy that we're working with the rest of staff to sort of review and go through.

And making sure that as we adopt new technologies, we're taking a a a thoughtful approach to that and sort of addressing some of the issues that they've raised. The one area that we've informed everyone, including Barry and Blaine, that we may not fully implement is conduct public vetting to allow for community feedback regarding proposed technology. And that's really something that we have to do on a case by case basis. And there's some technology that we're going to use that because of cybersecurity and other reasons that we just can't sort of put it out there publicly. But it's not a blanket no, never, but it's we also don't want sort of create a false expectation that that's something we're gonna do when that could jeopardize the cybersecurity systems of the city.

And so that's the sort of one area of all the areas that we're not actually implementing, but I'm confident to say that all the other areas from the community proposal are being implemented. And so, again, I wanna thank Barry and Blaine and then the folks they've been working with. I really appreciate the fact that they took that time and energy to do that. And, you know, I think it improved the process, and that's our report back to you about how that meeting went.

I have another question. Yeah. We don't rely on flock. Is that right? Which okay. We don't rely on flock.

Correct.

I don't have any notion or confirmation that the county doesn't rely on flock. They have flock. They have not come out and said anything that they don't use it. They're in our city. I'd like to know what the deal is between the county and the city and whether or not flock is being used by the county. Thanks.

Counselor, we can certainly bring back that information, obviously, because we don't have it today. But any any time somebody uses our information, they have to sign on to an MOU that specifically says they cannot use it for immigration enforcement. That was something we covered at a previous work session when we shared the results of our automated automated license plate reader LPR devices that we have that are not flock. Jim and chief Coleman and his team did a pretty thorough audit on it just to validate that we don't inadvertently share information with folks who may use it for other purposes.

That's good. I think the community is gonna feel good about that. Thank you.

And just to add to that last point, it's also right now, our sharing is limited to only Oregon entities. And so, obviously, all those Oregon entities are covered by the state sanctuary promise act as well. So it's not just the MOU that enforces that, but it's also state law.

And before I go on to the next slide to talk about some of the CBOA engagement, just to further point Chad made, one, thank you to Blaine and Barry for all the support and sitting down with us to walk through what their perspectives were. It was very helpful to to be able to have that conversation. One other thing that came up at a transportation committee meeting, I think some of you who may be on TC may remember, we brought an item forward about traffic cameras that don't record license plate reader license plates or things like that. There was a comment at that meeting about please make sure the technology is not used inadvertently for, you know, unintended purposes. Yes.

So going back to what Chad mentioned, Greg Monta, our chief information officer, is working on a policy that is all encompassing, not just related to, like, license plate readers or things like that. It is a surveillance policy that applies more broader. So just we're taking counsel direction and not just applying it literally to one thing. We're broadly applying it to other areas. So it was just a big win for us.

I'm sorry. I'm actually getting a little emotional on that because that is important for him. Our community listening to our community and when us as representation bring these questions forth, I very much appreciate the staff all up and go above and beyond to make those efforts for the public to gain that to ensure that that trust remains solid. Thank you so much.

Yeah. Well, that's why we're here. So I'll go and talk a little bit about some of the CBO engagement. So just candidly, we weren't fair to our CBOs because we asked them to provide us feedback very timely. Someone, please chime in if I misrepresent anything.

So we asked them for some feedback on our proposed codification that we were bringing to you tonight, but we didn't just stop there. Chad brought up some some language previously about working with CBOs to identify, like, how do we support impact community members on things like when there's an ICE detainment. So, actually, we're meeting on the fifth on Thursday with three of our CBOs over lunch just to have a conversation about what does response look like from your perspective when somebody is detained. We just wanna start there so that we can and our chief Coleman and and deputy chief leader will also be at that meeting as well just to better understand, okay. Here's how you handle handle the situation.

Is there a way that we can maybe find some synergies here that we can better support our community? But we're having that dialogue. So we received general feedback on the codification that they didn't have any concerns about that. There were some other other things that were brought up, like, similar things that you brought up. Like, we don't want ICE just, you know, driving radically through our community. Yeah. Same thing. We don't want that. But we're hoping that this turn well, we know this will be more of a long term conversation, how we can better partner together. So back to the quantification approach, we heard from two of the three that we had reached out to by the time of this meeting.

Again, we didn't give them enough time. It's just being fair to them, that they didn't have any major concerns with what we're proposing. So just wanted to put that out there.

Councilor Salgado has a question.

Yeah. Hey. Good afternoon. Thanks all for the work on this. Can I request the notes from those meetings with the CDOs? Can you share that with the council?

Councilor, we're having a little bit of trouble hearing you. Did you request to see the notes from the meetings from the meet with that we had the city had with the CBOs? Is did I hear that correctly?

Yeah. I was requesting that those, minutes or those notes get shared with the council.

Okay. Is it possible?

Thank you.

So the the meeting that, Raheem is referencing, that is March 5, so that hasn't happened yet. But the email exchanges asking for, for feedback, we can certainly forward those on to counsel if you're interested in seeing those. One was a phone conversation, but other than that, the the rest of the exchange was via email.

Yeah. No. I was talking about the upcoming meeting.

Okay. The the the meeting that hasn't happened yet.

Okay. Yes.

Is that possible? Yeah. We'll take some notes and Great.

Share back with counsel what the what what those were.

Happy to do that. Thank

you. Thank you.

So any more questions before I move on? So what we also did to the to the quantification approach that we're taking, you'll see in section two point six eight point zero five zero, we added two things from the previous version you saw. The first one is maintaining a reporting structure to keep council and community informed. I won't read the whole thing. But if we have time at the end of the work session, I'll be able to pull up the reporting platform, which you've all seen, but it'd nice to share with the community who may not have seen it.

That was the intent. The second thing we added was implementing policies and coordinating with CBOs to counteract any negative impacts that federal immigration enforcement activities are having on the community. We thought it was important to call that out because you have all shared that's important to call out. So we put that in in the proposal that you'll be voting on later tonight. Case in point, we're meeting with them on Thursday to do just this, and we'll continue doing that.

So we thought it was important to call that out. So these are the two additions from the last version you saw. Just wanted to call that out specifically. So like I mentioned, the city is meeting with the CBO, specifically Adelante Nuejaris, Centro Cultural, and Vienna Star on March 5 to just start exploring opportunities to aid impacted community members. Separately, Chief Coleman and I were in a conversation with staff at Bienistar and they suggested that we come out and have more of a a conversation with the community at some of the properties.

We thought it was a great idea. So we're actually in the process of setting that up where a chief Coleman and some folks from his team, Simone and myself, will be at these meetings at their four properties four properties, yes, to be able to just answer any questions that may come up. So that's being scheduled right now.

Can you go back to thanks. Can you go back to the prior slide? So, Robbie will take actions as necessary. But how feasible is it, Robbie, for you to contact counsel? You do contact us in a you would contact us in advance of whatever action you would wanna take. You would you would consult with counsel and CBOs. Right?

Are you talking about a c or

d counselor? Yeah.

I could maybe answer that, Ravi, if that's okay. Yeah. Yeah. So we've written the this language, going back to Chad's point, right, of focusing more outcomes rather than like the specific process or or steps because that may look different depending on the outcome we're trying to get to. But what this language is specifically doing is saying that the city manager is authorized to take all actions necessary. So it's given that additional layer of you have the authority to do this and you're asking him to do that. So Chad, maybe you want to add to that?

Yes. And I think I just want to reiterate the point that I was making before is that, one of the outcomes that we're trying to achieve here two of the outcomes we're trying to achieve here is transparency because we've heard from you all that that's very important. And so by having this in the code, it becomes more transparent to the community that this is a priority for the council, and this is a priority that you're sort of directing the city manager to engage in these activities. He has authority to fully implement the ordinance and above and beyond these four things, but you're specifically calling out these four things as being important. And then the second aspect of it is is that then it is because it's codified, this language is codified, it's on the municipal code online, easy for people to find.

And, again, sort of goes back to the transparency point, but that's also feedback we heard from you. So that's why we wanna make sure that this language both relate to reporting and the CBOs was in there because it then has that sort of transparency and and codification aspect of it that we've been working towards.

And I'll just add as well. I think, councilor O'Karen, I think you all know this that I, I always strive if there's gonna be some kind of new policy or something that is gonna be just something that I feel like the council needs to be updated on. I'll always try to keep you updated on these things. So we have hundreds of policies in the city, so I guess I I you know, I'm never able to update you on all policies nor should I because some of them are really in the weeds. But I try to do a good job of understanding what policies or counsel are gonna wanna know about, what, you know, impacts or what, decisions we're making as a city, and I try to

share those with you as well.

I'm I'm asking about this because this we're stepping into a new relationship with these CBLs where we are taking their guidance on this. And it's a little bit more organic because this is gonna have to change depending on how things go over this year, over the next three years. And regardless of whoever is in council, the city has to maintain that good relationship with those community based organizations on the behalf of the communities that we're representing. Thanks, Robert.

Councilor Sinclair?

Thank you. Manager, these four a, b, c, and d, with the language being changed in our municipal code, will if the language is changed if approved by council tonight, will the public be required to receive notice, and will there be a recorded vote if language has changed?

Well, that Chad, you can correct me if I'm wrong here, but that's what happens tonight. Right? So tonight is the recorded vote. So the council will vote on this yes or no. If it's a yes, then that is essentially the the process that we use to notify the public. I don't think there'd be anything in addition to that.

Yeah. But to the extent your question is about a future change Right. Then the answer is yes because this is in the code. Yeah. Anytime if you would amend the code, we have to through go the public process, and the council has to amend the code. You know, Ravi or any other staff member has the ability to amend the code because it's a city ordinance, and only the council can do that.

Thank you. I just wanted that clear that clarity. Thank you so much.

Any more questions? Move on. Okay. So just going back to the point of HPD staff and city staff are going to be meeting with staff from BNSTAR and some of the properties just to answer any questions and and just continue our engagement with them. And then, you know, Simone is and her team are working really hard on setting up the community advisory committee. The goal is for that to be the forum for our long term coordination. You know, these are some steps we're taking in between, but that is the long term strategy to get the community advisory committee set up so that we're not doing these knee jerk things. We have a form to have the discussion. Simone, anything to add on the CAC?

Maybe just touch on, what you were bringing up, counselor Alcair. I agree that our relationships with our CDOs is incredibly important, which is why we started with a planning committee in terms of developing the CAC and making sure that the charter isn't unintentionally creating harm, trying to make sure that there's clarity. So if a CBO reads it, that it makes sense to them. And so we're going through that phase first, and then we'll be able to be more confident moving into the next phase knowing that CBOs are buying into the process and feel like they have a voice. And also being really clear about at what point what level of engagement we're doing because at some points, they'll have more input, and then other points, they may have less.

So we've started about the consult level, but recognizing that there are some times when we're gonna have them at an involve or even collaborate level. So we're trying to be really transparent about that so that we don't set expectations that then are false.

Yeah. That's really helpful, and thank you for that because this is a hard time, and people have expectations. And the solutions that we have been coming up with are not sustainable solutions. This is a sustainable solution, this codification of our sanctuary city. And I'm saying that because I I think that community needs to be aware and understand that these conversations are not gonna be us telling them, but that these conversations are gonna be fluid conversations between the city and these organizations.

And I think that needs to be explained to the community. I think community needs to understand what does that mean and why are we doing this approach. I think an explanation about that would be helpful.

Councilor Harris?

Thank you.

Can you

tell me who or how the planning committee for the community advisory committee was selected?

Just strong relationships that we have with community partners who so we selected Alente Mujeres with two different areas of their organization as well as this I'm gonna get it wrong. Somali association. Somali council of Oregon. I'm gonna I'm sorry. I'm forgetting the acronym.

But they are they offer very different perspectives. Even the two individuals from Adelante offered really valuable perspectives thus far in terms of the number of people on council, where the language was unclear, where they thought there were opportunities. If it was a larger committee, that there should perhaps be subcommittees. If there were subcommittees, we're reconsidering how much time and involvement that would take from community partners. So they've already started asking some really good questions.

We have two more planning sessions available where we'll be identifying areas of of the, like, social services and other community based partners that might not we may not have already thought of. Right now, we thought in terms of broad categories. And so they'll be helping us better understand how do we get a broad enough expanse of the services that are provided across our community, knowing that having a committee of 50 individuals is just not realistic on a staff side or even for community based organizations. So the

planning community the plan the planning committee is sort of a a work in progress a little bit then,

you said? Yes.

We have two more sessions.

Okay. So you're still potentially adding new experts or new community members for different communities?

Yes.

Well, the planning committee is established, but the in terms of who will be on the community advisory committee itself, that's to be determined.

So I'm talking about the planning committee. Is that just city staff then?

No. It is two individuals three individuals from community based organizations, a member from HPD, our community services program coordinator, myself, and Marcus Ford, who's our community engagement manager.

Alright. Thank you. You're welcome.

Councilor Councilor Sinclair. Oh, sorry. Raheem, you had something for councilor Harris.

I just wanted to reiterate, like, they're putting a lot of thought into how we even set up the committee. So the the point Simone was making about just being thoughtful on every step, we're just being very mindful of that.

Yeah. I think that I I

appreciate that, and I I understand that is really important. I was it sounds like there was a planning committee to set up the advisory committee. Sometimes the planning committee is one of the most important pieces because you're designing the architecture. That's why my question is specifically towards the planning committee. Thank you.

Councilor Sinclair.

Thank you. Simone, will there be any community members that aren't affiliated with any type of CBO or organization that will be a part of this advisory council?

Not not at this phase.

Okay.

So the human rights community advisory committee was kind of, I think, initially thought of as having community members. But given the urgency of the crisis that we're facing at this time, trying to get community members who are not first in city government, state government, local, federal government, how all of those phases work together and how CBOs provide services and the the interconnection, we thought we can move much more quickly if we work with CBOs to begin with. Mhmm. And then this can evolve over time. So that's why the charter you're we're revisiting the charter at least every two years to make sure that we are adjusting to the times and what is happening.

Thank you. You're welcome.

Counselor Allcare? I think

when we have an HRO office, I think that's where that person who begins it would, engage in those conversations and would also be connected with the CBOs to understand community. And I think that I'm thinking that, it would be good to involve, community members. But, like, I don't know if I could pinpoint a community leader for the Latino community of who should be there. So I think the CBOs are a way to start. I think they can identify people who might be good to include on that.

But I think what I think that could be is in a future forum where people can let us know how things are or aren't working.

Okay. Councilman mayor, we've got some really good feedback on the CAC. I'm just gonna respectfully ask if we can go back and finalize the codification piece.

Yeah. I know we gotta get to it.

So, yeah, let's move forward. Because we'll definitely have more conversation about the community advisory committee as we move forward. So is it okay if I just move forward? Please.

Yeah.

So you tonight, on your agenda, you have an option to implement the proposed qualification languages we had shared with you throughout the week. I'll turn it over to Chad for a minute to talk a little bit about process here.

So as you know, typically, when the council enacts an ordinance, we do it in two readings and two separate meetings. And so there is a process, as you know, under the charter where the council, as long as we provide a notice to the public, can adopt an ordinance in one reading at one meeting, it but has to be unanimous vote. So we've set it up tonight. So if the council wants and there's a unanimous vote that you could actually enact the ordinance in one reading. And so that is an option for you tonight.

If it's not if it passes but it's not a unanimous vote, then we'll bring it back at your next council meeting for a second reading during the normal process. Under either scenario, if the ordinance passes, the ordinance has an emergency clause. And what that emergency clause means is that the ordinance will take effect immediately upon enactment. Typically, an ordinance doesn't take effect for thirty days. But if we declare an emergency, the ordinance can take effect immediately, and we don't have to wait that thirty days.

So that emergency clause is also in the ordinance so that it can take effect immediately upon enactment. So if the council votes unanimously to enact it tonight and it and we only need the one meeting, it will go into effect, you know, as soon as the mayor signs it. If it's not a unanimous vote, but it's still adopted, we'll bring it back in two weeks for a second meeting, and then it'll go in effect two weeks after the when the mayor signs it. And then, obviously, if it doesn't pass at all, then now that's kind of a mood issue.

Thanks, Jen. We thought it was important to share that additional context with you as you make your decision tonight in the regular session. You obviously don't need to make it today. You have to make it today, not in this work session. Yeah. Sorry about that.

Our central electricity

vote wasn't a unanimous vote. How did we decide that this needed to be a unanimous vote? I'm just curious.

It it doesn't need to be a unanimous vote. We we just wanna provide the option because there's been this as as Raheem showed you at the beginning, this has been a bit of a long process, and we know that there's a desire. We've at least we believe we've heard a desire for the council to get this implemented as quickly as possible. So we wanted to provide the option to the council, which we don't typically do for an ordinance by posting under the charter. We have to post the ordinance in advance of the meeting to the public, which we did, to provide you that option.

If you wanted to have a unanimous vote and enact it in one meeting, you could do so. You're not required to do so. And if it's not unanimous, it'll and there's still a majority who votes for it, then it'll just come back in two weeks like it normally does and can still be enacted. So it doesn't have to be unanimous to be enacted, but what this does is it gives you the option to actually do it in one meeting instead of two meetings.

If we're missing one person tonight, then we can't do that.

No. You can't. You still can. It's just the analysis of who's here.

Everybody's here.

Yeah. All right.

Great. And councilor Alcare, everybody is here on online. So we have councilor Emery and councilor Sagato. So we're all together. So,

mayor Pace, that is the last portion of the quantification discussion. If we had time, we had some other updates to share with you, which we have a few more minutes. But if there's any questions or any thoughts you wanna pause here, might be a good time. Any other questions? Councilor Sinclair.

Thank you. I do, but I'd rather let give you guys time. And then if we have to, I can maybe go over this on the the next meeting. But I do want us to quickly go over the procedure for four zero three, HPD procedure manual for reporting ice activity.

Are you wanting to do that in the meeting?

I I prefer you to give you all time. And if there's time afterwards, go over this.

Respectfully, there won't be. Okay. Because that procedure is very detailed and requires a lot of experts who are here. Okay. But it will take quite a bit of time to go through that. Okay. However, if there's specific questions, we can always follow-up and I'll be able to answer them.

I don't have questions.

It was

just more for the public. Yeah. Thank you so much.

And that is I'm glad you brought that up because the police department has done a really good job in documenting how they are responding to ICE related calls, and they have that for for the members of the public, four zero three is HPT's policy on how to document isolated activity. They've just done a really good job on that, which I can show you what the outcomes are in the reporting platform if we have some time. Okay.

Any other questions? Okay. Raheem and Simone, you have seven minutes Yeah. To go through the other information. Small business grants.

Robbie, anything more to share on that? We shared a update and cancel. So that's

you all. We're excited about being able to expand that program a little bit and working with other partners. So the the first small business stabilization grants window closed for the first program. That program closed last week. Our staff, we're working with a couple of other CBOs to go through those applications this week. We're also looking at working setting up a program for our sole proprietors and also some of those, other businesses that work in facilities like Pisonos and Eminent Marketplace. So I think I've shared all that, with you all as well. And then monitoring state legislation, I'll just tackle that really quick as well. Ariel Nelson has done a great job of keeping track of that. This is the big week.

Right? This is the last week of the session. And so, we do have Ariel scheduled to come and speak to the council, I think, at the next it's a meeting in April, and so she'll be able to give a a much more in-depth briefing then. But she she did that last, I guess, two weeks ago and shared those with you, so I don't think there's anything really new to add there. And then, Raheem, if you wanna go over this website, that'd be great.

And so this is the last piece of the work session. So just a reminder for council and the public, we've done a really good job. Our comps team has done an amazing job of putting all of our isolated activity online. You get to see all of our focus areas, the goals we're working on, and all of our work session material, which this work session will also be uploaded. What we were hoping to show you today was the reporting platform. So members of the public, if you go to internal focus and you go click on view incident reports, and I hope it doesn't crash.

It just worked.

But as you can see, we have this new reporting platform on. It has data going all the way back to November when HPD started implementing their policy four zero three that you mentioned, counselor Sinclair. They're documenting what the calls are related to ICE, even if ICE is mentioned, whether there was federal immigration involved or not, it is documented. So I will just walk you through the first one. The primary concern was to assist a person.

The location was at 7500 East Main Street. It was not on city property. After confirming the issue, there was no federal immigration involved. And for this particular one ICE protesters were blocking a business access. Whether you this isn't intended to be good, bad or indifferent, it's just documenting the incident that has happened. So you members of the public can go look at this. And if they have a question about any one of these, the incident numbers are your point of reference, and those are documented at Waka. So we can share more information later, but this is just another way of us operationalizing what you had asked us to do.

Thank you very much for doing this work.

Yeah. I do wanna give kudos to the HPD staff because they are leaders in documenting this work and the way they've put out their procedures and policies. Just impressive to see the work they've done.

You. I was just gonna add really quickly. You'll notice the location, maybe sorry, Raheem, if you already said this, but, we're really careful about what we put on there. Right? We don't wanna put an exact address, because there's security reasons for that. Right? But what we do is we put the the general area, which is the block, essentially. So you'll see kind of broader blocks. Just kinda shows you the area of town, but we don't wanna put, again, someone's specific address on there for obvious reasons.

Go ahead. Councilor Case.

Thanks. Hey. I noticed the we're about a month behind. Are these updated on a monthly basis? It hasn't been up. Yeah.

Yeah. We upload month because this is a little bit of a manual process too because we have to go through all of the data. Every month, you'll see an update to this reporting platform.

Is there no way to know by ward where these are happening? No. Okay. Why?

It's just not a filter we put in there, but if you'd like, we can explore putting that in there.

I think I'd like to know where the activity is happening around the city, where it's the highest and where it's the lowest. Okay.

Yeah. We can look into maybe trying

to add that in there.

Councilor Harris.

Quick question.

Where if I go to

the home page, City Of Hillsborough home page,

where would I find a link to this, or how do I get to there?

Let's try it now. If you go to the Hillsboro web page, this is what it would look like. Yeah. And I I hope this works.

It's on the slider.

Oh, it is? Perfect. So it's on the slider.

There it is.

And you go there, and it takes you to the page. Slider. And then the control. The slider is this thing right at the front. So there's some of the key things that are going on in the city, and ICE continues to be on there.

Any other questions? Councilor Sinclair?

Yes. Ebrahim, procedure four zero three, where will that form be found? So if the public wants to see what the guidelines are for our internal policy on calls and what they fall under, where will they find that?

I believe that's all on HPD's site, but I can verify that and and get back to you.

Is it possible to put to put that here on the same site so that our public can understand what qualifies for the logging?

Yeah. We can explore that. Yeah. Yeah. And I can circle back with you after we've looked into that.

Thank you.

Yeah. Similar to the word it's worth saying.

Yeah. Thank you. Great. Alright. Any other questions?

We're good.

Okay. Rahim, Suman, thank you very much for the briefing. Really appreciate it. Chief Coleman, thank you to you and your team as well for your response in getting these reports up. Really appreciate it, and for all the work that's gone into it. Thank you all. Appreciate it. I will convene in a city council meeting at 7PM in the civic audit the Shirley Huffman Auditorium.

The recording has

Okay. Welcome to the 03/03/2026, City Council meeting. Thank you for joining us this evening. For translation services, please use the QR code on the poster on the left side of the room or on the front page of your agenda. To begin this meeting, I invite you all to join me in saying the pledge of allegiance.

Thank you. Amber may we have a roll call?

Mayor pace here. Councilor all care? Here. Councilor sengler? Here. Councilor here. Harris? Here.

Moving to item two presentations and appointments item 2.1 a proclamation for Women's History Month. So welcome to March. It's Women's History Month. And guess what? I'm a woman.

So I'm gonna read the proclamation. I know that may be news to some of you, and that's okay. So whereas women of every race, class, and ethnic background have made historic contributions to the growth and strength of our nation in countless recorded and unrecorded ways. And whereas women have played and continue to play a critical economic, cultural, and social roles in every sphere of the life of our nation by constituting a significant portion of the labor force, and whereas women have served our country courageously in the military and in other ways, whereas women have been leaders at the forefront of every major progressive social change movement, not only in securing our own rights of suffrage and equal opportunity, but also in the abolitionist movement, the industrial labor movement, the civil rights movement, the environmental movement, and other movements which create a more fair and just society for all. And whereas, despite these contributions, the role of women in history has been consistently overlooked and undervalued in the literature, teaching, and study of American history.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that I, Beach Pace, mayor of the city of Hillsborough, Oregon, do hereby proclaim March 2026 as Women's history month in Hillsborough, and I urge all community members to celebrate women and their impact on history and society today. Thank you. Alright. Moving to item three, public comments. Persons wishing to speak will be recognized at this time.

If you are here in person and wish to speak, please fill out a yellow card, that's what what they look like, and hand it to the city recorder, Amber Rios, who is right over there. When I call on you, please join us up here at one of the two desks in front of us and speak into the microphone so those on Zoom can all your also hear your comments. Because of the translation tool, community members can speak in their language of choice, and the city recorder can display the translation on the screen. Amber Rios. We have one person registered to speak virtually, and the deadline to register has now passed.

If you are unable to sign up to speak prior to the deadline, you are always welcome to email your comments to the city council at any time of day. Please know that this is public comment because it's time dedicated for you to inform the city council about your views. The city council will not respond to the comments that you make. Comments are limited to three minutes, and we'll begin hearing from our person online who's gonna speak, Barry Johnson Smith. And then the people on deck, we have Blayne Soleimani Pearson and Jacob Roloff. You two, Blayne and Jacob, can come up to the front here on the desks. Please don't hit the mic, and we're gonna have Barry Johnson Smith speak first. Barry, you have three minutes.

Alright. Can you hear me?

Yes. We can.

Good evening, everyone. My name is Barry. I'm a community organizer that worked alongside with my colleague, Blaine, to strengthen sanctuary policy in Hillsborough. I would have loved to be there in person tonight, but, unfortunately, I was in the ER last night. But I just wanted to make sure I showed up in whatever way I could because this moment matters.

I wanna express my strong support for the current draft ordinance six five one three. I'm grateful to Raheem and Chad from meeting with us in February and to Raheem for sharing last week that several of our recommendations were incorporated. In particular, I appreciate the the inclusion of a public face reporting structure for ICE activity in the city and the commitment to work with community based organizations. These changes build trust and public transparency around activity and essential collaboration with community partners. Helps residents understand what is happening to their city and how the city is supporting immigrant communities.

I urge you to vote yes on this ordinance and establish a clear legal foundation that the city will not collaborate with ICE and will stand with immigrant residents. As this orders move forward, community engagement will be essential. Residents need to know how the reporting structure works, how to use it, and what information they can expect from it. Educating and socializing this tool will ensure people get the transparency and accountability they deserve. This is an opportunity to enhance your community engagement initiatives.

Also, I want to take a moment to recognize the community members in person online. And just wanna say thank you for sharing your fears, your frustration, and your hope for Stronger's sanctuary protection. Your courage is the reason to do this as possible. Blaine and I could not have been able to advocate these policies without your trust and your willingness to push the city to listen. I really appreciate that that trust in us.

And this one is your win. I hope you take, you know, the moment today or later to sit with this win and really recognize the power that you have to really shape your community. Looking forward, I'm really grateful for the progress made today, and I look forward to continued collaboration between community members, city staff, and elected officials as we navigate this challenging moment together. Strengthening sanctuary protections is ongoing work, and I'm honored to stand alongside those most affected as we continue pushing for safety, transparency, and accountability. Thank you.

Thank you, Barry. The next speaker is Blaine Soleimani Pearson. Blaine, press that button in the center so your light turns green. When it's green, you are live, and you have three minutes.

Thank you, mayor and counselors. I'd like to save my first minutes to or first minute to address the war in Iran and just ask anyone listening to this to center Persian and Iranian voices and community members as you're reacting to what's going on. There's a lot of conflicted feelings about what's happening. There's sadness. There's fear.

There's celebration. There's a lot of things happening, and this group of people is being talked past right now. And I just it's a unique moment right now happening, and I just want to address it and bring light to it. With that, I want to thank, the work of the city and specifically, deputy city manager Raheem Harji and, city attorney Chad Jacobs. Hillsborough took a real leadership role in addressing the community's input when it comes to adopting this ordinance.

And I say that because I've worked with other, other city and other agencies, and this has by far been the most inclusive and and collaborative experience. So I wanna thank you. I wanna thank your leadership as the council, and I wanna thank the city staff for taking this seriously, taking the community's input seriously. Because you could have passed an ordinance back a month ago without any input, but you took that input and you adapted it. So thank you.

As Barry said, it shows true leadership. And I hope you'll take this moment to grow from this moment and take this into future moments of community input. Obviously, no one document is perfect. And there could be more. But I'm convinced after working with Raheem and Chad that more will come as we see what we can do to adapt.

But this is the first step to making community members rebuild their trust in city systems, in city government, and hopefully, feel safe calling the police when there's an emergency if they think it's ICE, potentially ICE. We know that the city can't do everything. We know abductions aren't going to stop, but this will provide a little bit of solidarity, a little bit of comfort to the community members that are hurting. They're just asking for something to be done. So thank you. Please please vote in favor of ordinance six five one three. It really is going to mean the world to this community. And, again, thank you. Thank you. Thank you for all your work.

Thank you, Blaine. Next up is Jacob Roloff. Jacob, you have welcome. And you have three minutes. Oh, actually, wait. Don't I wanna make sure we get the clock set. We're good. Now you have three minutes. Jacob, go ahead.

Yeah. Good evening, Jacob Roloff. I'm out in Helvetia. I was pleased to hear this afternoon that the 1,700 acres of Hillsborough farmland, the bill has for now been dropped or rescinded in the state senate. And also that the data center tax breaks were removed from HB4084 again for now.

I think it's worrisome that the bill has got so far and with so much support locally in leadership and businesses. Also worrisome that there's a lot of information regarding general operations of the data centers and other tech companies in the area, lack of information. And that information is not readily available or published more widely by the state or city. Dirk Knudson at the Hillsborough Herald has, I think, filled that gap in a way, but it shouldn't be up to him. But much appreciation to him for that.

I think he got a lot of people involved in the swell of resistance against those two bills. But again, Hillsborough is at the center and our policies make it so attractive for these companies. They're taking up these data centers are taking up a lot of land and they pay very little in taxes. And they enjoy extreme discounts on power usage, which is driving bills up for others. Water use is also an immediate concern.

A medium sized data center can use up to 5,000,000 gallons of water per day. And on my farm, we have a pretty powerful well. We grow tens of thousands of pounds of produce and fruit, and we rarely exceed 1,000,000 gallons for the whole month of July, for instance, or August. I think there are easy comparisons for how food is valuable and data centers might not be giving us the value or benefit that we are claiming at the state level. These are all worth intense local government attention.

I think capital flight can't be a valid threat for forcing these companies to pay their fair share of taxes and comply with land use, water and pollution laws or listening to the community, the community in general. I think that while these bills SB fifteen eighty six and HB 4,084, they're dead for now, but the local political malaise that allowed them to uncritically and even deferentially get so far and need serious consideration by voters and reflection by our electeds in the coming year. These bills in one form or another will probably be reconsidered in the next session and I hope we can have clear government response to protect the land and the environment and also the city budget and state budget from the tax losses. I guess final twenty seconds I think you should vote yes for the sanctuary city codification as well. Thank you.

Thank you, Jacob. Next person is Denise Care. Welcome, Denise. If you press the center button, your mic will be turned on. And it is on, and you have three minutes.

Mayor Pace and city councilors, my name is Denise Care, and I've lived in Hillsborough for thirty nine years. And thank you for the good news about the 1,700 acres. I mean, part part of what I'm saying is to do with that, but it's a little different perspective. I appreciate you listening to my perspective on SB 1586. For fifteen years, city officials have tried to change the land designation of 17 acres north of Hillsborough.

It has failed six times and cost Hillsborough a million dollars. From 1999 to 2014, twenty one twenty two twenty five and now '26. This reminds me of how the wealthy baguan rajinis invaded Antelope to take over the city council and build a town for the baguan and all the rojhenishis his followers. Intel wants to do the same. The executives want to convert and transform historic Hillsboro into their own Intel campus in oregon like Santa Cruz or San Jose Southern California but bad business decisions have until in

a

tailspin. Have the sponsors of this bill considered the shrinking Intel workforce? What is it called when the company has 131,000 employees in 2022 is down to 87,000 in 2025 and is forecast to lose 22% in 2026 reducing the employee count to about 75,000 at the end of 2026. That' 43% fewer employees in four years. From here I can' see where tens of thousands of jobs can materialize except in the pipe dream of unicorns, the sales pitch fabricated by sponsors of SB fifteen eighty six.

Beyond the nonexistent jobs, there's a lack of research on the impacts industrializing this acreage will have. Only economic studies were done par for Hillsborough. When the conditional three twenty three passed for the Hop Stadium, Hillsborough promised there would be a robust traffic impact study if any more venues were added and studies that have been absent for too long such as environmental study ecological health, more. There's none to be found. If s b fifteen eighty six is passed skip that part.

Washington County has has lost lost 50% of its farmland in twenty five years. These acres are class one soil, best on earth, can never be replaced. America imports 50% of our food and add the tariffs, living will get expensive for the average family trying to eat. IC fabrication expels toxins into our air, water, soil that contaminate our environment and affects our health with loss of vision, reproductive issues, birth defects,

breeding and

cancer even death.

Your time is up. Moving to item for the consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved case. Second?

Second Harris.

Is there any discussion? May I please have a roll call?

Councilors all care?

Aye.

Case? Very? Sinclair? Harris? Salgado? Moving

to item five public hearings item 5.1 annexation one twenty six so high central rise well homes that ordinance will be considered as item 7.1. Item seven point five point two zone change two-twenty six so high central rise well homes Consider approving an order for a city initiated zone change on six parcels toe totaling approximately 45.88 acres in size with a concurrent annexation. Order order number 30 is available. I will open the public hearings concurrently on items five point one and five point two. Do any members of council need to declare any ex parte contacts, bias, or conflicts of interest?

Anyone online? No. Okay. I'd like to invite planning staff, thank you for being here, to come forward and give a brief staff report.

Good evening mayor and councilors. My name is Ruth Klein. I'm with the planning division and I'm here to present a brief staff report tonight but first we're going to do the ORS video.

All public testimony and evidence submitted must refer to applicable approval criteria which are listed in the staff report or other land use regulations or criteria you believe may apply to the decision.

Any testimony or written evidence needs to be specific and detailed so the city can understand and respond to each criterion or issue discussed in the testimony.

Failure to raise an issue before the record closes prevents an appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals based on that issue.

Failure by the applicant to raise an issue before the record closes prevents an action damages in circuit court based on that issue.

All testimony and evidence that addresses the approval criteria will be responded to prior to the closing of the record.

So that ORS video laid out the process for a land use public hearing, and the applicable approval criteria for the annexation is found in our metro code chapter 3.09 and for the zone change in the Hillsborough Community Development Code in section twelve point eight zero point one six eight e. As mentioned, you received two staff reports both dated 01/07/2026 for case file number annexation one dash 26 and zone change two dash 26. They' both for so high central rise well homes and this is an applicant requested annexation. The concurrent zone change is city initiated and the request is for those six properties that are 45.9 acres in size total. In addition to the annexation the properties are going to be brought into the clean water services district and removed from the twelten valley fire and rescue service district because they would be provided with city services such as water, sanitary sewer, and storm sewer.

All of these were part of the conceptual planning for South Hillsborough and this is a logical progression of those utilities as they get built out. And I'd be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Any questions?

Councilor Harris. The the zone proposed are consistent with the historical documents. Are they plans the original plans for South Hillsborough?

Yes. There is a zoning concept map that's within the document that they can fly conform to.

And there's no changes from that to what you're proposing here today?

Nope. Completely, matched up for GIS.

Yeah. Thank

you. Okay.

Any other questions? Is there any testimony from the applicant?

Are listening online, but there is no testimony from them.

Okay. Just to be 100% nobody is trying to get okay. Alright. Just wanna make sure. Alright. Is there any testimony in favor, neutral, or in opposition to this? Thank you, Ruth, by the way. Thank you. Okay. Public hearings are now closed. Do I have a motion to adopt order number 30? Harris so moves. Second case. Is there any discussion? May I please have a roll call?

Councilors l care? Aye. Case? Aye. And very? Aye. Sinclair? Aye. Harris? Aye. Salgado? I.

Thank you order number 30 is adopted moving to item seven ordinances item 7.1 annexation one-two six so high central rise well homes consider approving an ordinance for annexation of six parcels approximately 45.88 in size into the city limits with a zone change. Ordinance number six five one two is available. Do I have a motion to approve the first reading of ordinance six five one two? So moves. Do I have a second? Second case. Is there any discussion? I please have a roll call?

Councilor zalker? Aye. Case? Aye. Anbury? Aye Sinclair aye Harris aye Salgado aye

thank you the first reading of ordinance six five one two passes the second reading and consideration of final adoption of the ordinance will be on April 21. Moving to item 7.2, consider adopting an ordinance adding sub chapter 2.68 to the Hillsborough municipal code codifying Oregon's Sanctuary Promise Act and declaring an emergency. The ordinance was posted one week before the meeting according to the charter requirements and will be considered in one reading. Ordinance number 6,513 is available. And before I ask for a motion, just wanna make a note here, per the Hillsborough Charter, to adopt an ordinance in a single reading, it must and have it become effective immediately, the ordinance must contain the clause declaring an emergency.

So if you're in the audience and you're wondering why I've just declared an emergency, we're okay. It's just to get this done in one reading. Okay. Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number six five one three?

Can we have discussion?

Yes. We can after the motion. Do I have a motion to adopt ordinance number six five one three?

Sinclair so moved.

Second Alcare.

Is there any discussion? Yes. Councilor Alcare. I want

to thank many people over the past year who have come here and shared their concerns about public safety and wanting our city response. If you hadn' come here we wouldn' be here tonight having this vote. I want you to understand that you have power.

Is there any other discussion councilor Sinclair?

I would also like to say a word thank you mayor. It is much gratitude to the people of our community who all showed up and shared their voices to advocate for human rights and safety within our community. And I am so proud of our community for coming together. I also would like to thank our community members that went above and beyond with their best efforts in protecting our Latino immigrant and refugee communities. To our Negro watch members,

to

our legal observers, and to the community based organizations like central cotaro and adalante mujeres and so many others and mutual aid workers who have stepped in the gap on their personal time and resources to provide. I' also like I' so sorry and this is I say this I know this is long winded but I say this on behalf of our council because we all have been united on this matter. I would also like to say blaine solemnani piercing and berry johnson smith of human mutual aid thank you so much to the entire team and yourselves for taking the time to create a proposal and dive deep with staff. And then last I would like to say to our staff, thank you so much. I at times was difficult to work with and I want to give my apologies and I want to say thank you for this wonderful step forward to create these tools for our public and to our council thank you for all being united on protecting the human rights of our residents.

Thank you.

We haven't voted on it yet, so hold the applause. It would be a total bummer if we didn't vote for it at this point. Counselor Salgado, I see you leaning forward. Did you wanna make a comment as well, sir?

Yeah. Just one more kudos, and thank you to counselors and Claire for staying on top of this and just staying with it. I mean, I think it was very important. A lot of back and forth, a lot of voices in the room. I mean, feel a lot of a really steady hand and just to stay on top of it. Kudos to you, counselors.

Right on. Alright. Any other oh, counselor Case.

Like we' been saying thank you. I want to start saying thank you for the community engagement. We listened to every single public comment and read every single email and every written comment that came through. Thank you to everybody who took the time. It really did help us influence and and figure out what what we needed to be doing here in Hillsborough.

So Thank you and a huge thank you to the city manager' office specifically reheem and simone and the staff there and all of the work they have done. I also want to shout out to chief Coleman and the police department for all the work they have done and the reporting and the dialogue. Thank you to everybody who has participated and thank you since councilor Sinclair.

Any other comments? Let' roll this may I please have a roll call.

Councilor zalcare aye case aye and very Sinclair aye Harris aye.

Aye.

You. Ordinance number 6,513 is unanimously adopted. Congratulations. Moving to item eight new business. Item 8.1 plan unit development two-twenty five synopsis west consider the planning commission's recommendation to approve an order for consolidated plan unit development, a development review with major adjustments, a preliminary partition plat, and mandatory adjustments from senate bill one five three seven for a 610 unit multi dwelling complex in the SCRMD zone.

The proposed development consists of 578 units across seven four story multiple dwelling structures and 32 units across four townhouse style structures. Order 31 is available. Do I have a motion to adopt order 31? So moved case. Do I have a second? Second harris. Is there any discussion? May I please have a roll call.

Counselors all care aye case aye and very aye. Sinclair? Aye. Harris? Aye. Salgado? Aye.

Order number 31 is adopted. Moving to item nine the city manager report I will turn the time over to our city manager robbie ham.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, everyone. Before I start, I I just wanted to kinda call attention to something tonight. Tonight, obviously, the codification was extremely important. Congratulations on that. Second thing though is another really important council goal was addressed tonight with housing. If you think about the amount of land down in South Hillsborough that was annexed in or the zoning that is in process with that and then this one that you just voted on as well, that's potentially hundreds, if not more than a thousand units, right, that are gonna be brought in because of that. So I know as we continue to try to increase our housing stock, the actions that the council took tonight were really important. Just wanted to say thanks and thanks to staff for preparing all of that. Three things I wanted to share tonight specifically.

First, a big kudos to Mayor Pace and the City Council on a terrific State of the City event last week and a great update to our community. We have had thousands of people who have caught some of the livestream video on Facebook. The final video was featured in happening in Hillsborough yesterday and on our YouTube channel and has been viewed more than 500 times just in the first twenty four hours. Thanks to everyone including Patrick Preston and his staff for helping that all come together. Second is reminder that we are excited to share that Hillsboro Reads, the Hillsboro Reads program with everybody starting this weekend.

Hillsboro Reads unites our community around reading. This year's book is Tilt, which counselor Case told me apparently is amazing. It's it's set in Portland during a massive earthquake.

So, you

know We sell it

like that. I know. It's it's supposed to be really good even though it sounds

a little scary. Local author, Emma Patti, will discuss the book in person this Saturday evening at the Brookwood Library. The event is free and you can all get the details on our city website. And finally, we are excited to invite everyone in Hillsborough to celebrate the opening of Fire Station nine, our first city facility in the South Hillsborough neighborhood. Fire and Rescue Department is holding a community open house on Saturday, March 14 from 10AM to 2PM. While you're there, you can meet firefighters and tour the new station. It should be a great day of connecting with our neighbors. That facility is a facility that we can be proud of as a community. Thank you.

Thank you, Robbie. Moving to item 10, advice and information. Item 10.1, utilities and commission quarterly report is available in the packet. For those interested, you can find the packet online. Item 10.2, sign up to receive Happening in Hillsborough or Crecyendo Vuntos email updates from the city of Hillsborough. And with that, city council meeting is adjourned, and we will begin the work session back in the other room at 07:45. Thanks so much for We're talking about land use, and Raheem's gonna kick us off. We're looking forward to it, Raheem and Dan. Yeah. Thanks for being here.

Thanks, Maripaes.

Yeah. I'm just kicking this off for Ravi because this is a very boring topic and he didn't wanna be here for it. I'm kidding. He is gonna be right back, but he asked me to kick this off. So in one of the items on your agenda tonight was setting a public hearing for a case that you're gonna be looking at in the next few meetings.

We wanted to make sure you don't step into it inadvertently as you try to make a decision on that item. So Chad and Dan are gonna walk you through a training specifically focused on land use appeals. And if you have any questions, please please reach out to them during the meeting. But there's also some scenarios they wanna walk you through, like real examples that might give you a real world example of what you could step into if you if you might. So with that, I'll turn it over to

Dan. Dan? Yeah. And now just so y'all know from planning commission, the the examples, if they're the same examples, are so good. So buckle in. Alright. Go for it, Dan.

No pressure, dude.

Mayor and council, thank you for the time this evening. This presentation will have a few slides up front that I will be somewhat co presenting with our city attorney. And then there is kind of an exercise or an example appeal project that we can run through with you just to kind of give you some real time context of how it

will work.

So before we get started, we thought it'd be helpful to run through a couple of key summary terms that are gonna come up in this type of a training conversation. So one that you'll hear used quite a bit is a type three decision. You will have this PDF, so you can refer to it later as well. But that is a land use decision that requires a public hearing and a decision by some sort of a public body. It can be the planning commission, the planning zoning hearings board or the city council or similar.

And it also is an application that is applicant initiated for a specific development project either on one site or multiple sites. And so that's what we'll be talking about, in the example appeal, a little bit later in the presentation. You will see terminologies used around a de novo appeal and an on the record appeal. A de novo appeal means that, basically, you were considering the appeal with a blank slate. New testimony can be submitted into the record and considered in addition to what had been considered as part of the previous decision, whereas the on the record appeal means that you would be limited in terms of your review and what you can consider only to the things that were in the prior decision.

We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. The applicant is somebody that is appealing the city's decision. Sometimes that can be the applicant for the development project or sometimes that could be somebody opposing that application. The applicant is the party that submitted the original development application, that type three application. We'll use the term quasi judicial decision.

That means that it's an application that involves a single project as I noted a minute ago. It also requires that the city make a decision on that application. We can't not decide on it and there are certain time parameters. We'll get to that at the bottom of the slide. And the decision must be based upon the evidence presented into the record and into the consideration, and it has to be aligned and demonstrate that it meets pre established approval criteria.

Those are often almost always found in our community development code. Sometimes it may reference out to other codes as well, like metro annexation code or things like that. Approval criteria are hugely important. Those are the criteria that in our code that you are evaluating the project proposal and the testimony against. So the project has to meet that either with what's being proposed or as we'll talk about in two bullets through a condition of approval or multiple conditions of approval that you're putting on a project.

The decision has to contain findings. Those are the reasons and the justifications and the factual basis of why you are giving the decision you are and how you believe the project either does or doesn't meet the approval criteria and also why you believe a condition of approval if you're applying one is warranted and appropriate or not. And then lastly, as you may hear us refer to the one hundred and twenty day rule, an application has to be receiving the local final decision that includes an appeal to you as the city council within a hundred twenty days of a very specific date called the completeness date. And that is when we make an official decision as a staff that all the application materials are in and that's what starts the formal process. That day can be extended, but exclusively and solely at the discretion, in authorization by the applicant.

The city cannot force the applicant to extend that. If we don't issue the decision within that hundred and twenty day window, it can lead to other legal proceedings and requirements that actually takes a lot of the authority for that decision out of our hands. And we can talk more about that if there's questions, but hopefully, some of this is review from your last, legal training last year. Chad, team, anything you wanna add before I move off of the key term slide here? Okay.

I will turn over to Chad to talk about some of the responsibilities you have as decision

makers. So you just did a land use hearing tonight. Right? And so you went through that process. And a lot of the land use hearings that we see come through the city are just like tonight, not contested, staff testifies, there's no other testimony. It's it's pretty simple and straightforward. When you have an appeal, like we're gonna have on April 21 that you scheduled tonight, that's really when we have a contested situation. So you have people who are appealing the the decision from the planning commission saying we don't like it for whatever reason. You've got people on both sides of the issue, and you're gonna go through the process, and you're going to act as a judge. Because under the city's charter, as members of the council, you basically serve in three different capacities.

One is legislative capacity. Like, you adopted the ordinance tonight. You're that's just serving a legislative capacity. Second is in an administrative capacity. So when you adopt the budget and do things of that nature or adopt other policies for the city, you're acting in administrative capacity.

You usually do those by resolution. And the third is in a quasi judicial capacity, and that's where you're acting like a judge. And in a quasi judicial capacity, there's additional limitations or requirements that apply to you when you're sort of serving as a judge that don't apply to you when you're acting in a legislative or administrative capacity. And and a couple of those key things that we'll talk about next really relate to this idea that in a quasi judicial setting and when you're acting as a judge, you need to be an unbiased decision maker. You need to provide for a fair hearing.

You need to base your decision on the record that's presented at the hearing and not bring in outside information. And so the idea is really related to due process and, you know, having due process and affording people a fair opportunity to be heard and have the decision to be made in an unbiased manner by someone who hasn't predecided the decision. And so when we talk about these things and we we say, okay. What is bias? What are ex parte contacts and conflicts of interest that we'll go through on the next couple slides?

The reason that we're talking about these is just to make sure that you are that truly unbiased, open minded decision maker when you're acting as a judge because that's a different role than when you're acting in a legislative capacity. So for tonight, for example, when you're voting on a sanctuary codification, you're allowed to be biased. You could go into that decision saying, I fully a 100% support this. I want this to move forward. That's absolutely fine.

When you go into these quasi judicial situations, you can't go in with a predetermined you can't come in there and say, I want this to pass no matter what. I 100% support this because you're biased in that situation. So you have to come in and say, I'm coming into this with an open mind. I'm gonna hear all the evidence that's presented at this hearing. And then based on that evidence that's presented, I'm gonna judge that against the applicable criteria, and I'm gonna make a decision based on that information and only that information.

And so that's sort of what we wanna really stress to you all tonight. One of the major things that we wanna stress to you tonight is sort of that different role that you're playing in these appeals hearings. And it really applies to any clause like judicial hearing, but it's just more heightened. Scrutiny is more heightened when you have this sort of contested situation, which is why we're walking you through these things tonight. So when you're as as Rohit said, so you're not stepping in it when we get to the hearing on on the twenty first.

Okay. So bias, I'm gonna start with bias. And so bias is just exactly what you think it is. It's when you basically have a strong feeling about a particular issue or have a strong relationship to an applicant or to the project or something that is not allowing you to be a neutral decision maker. And so this can come in in lots of different forms. You know, it it could be a situation where you just, you know, oppose the developer. You have a history with this developer, and and you, you know, oppose that person. Or it could be a situation where, you know, maybe you're a lawyer, and the developer was a previous client of yours. And so you have a strong, you know, affinity towards that person. It could be that you're related to that person.

They've been your best friend since you were 12. All sorts of kinds of close relationships could create a bias for you. And so when you have a bias, basically, that creates an unfair process, and it means that you have to abstain from participation. There are situations where, you know, there could be a perceived bias, but not an actual bias. And a perceived bias isn't enough to say that you have to abstain from participation.

But what we urge people to do in those situations is is if there's a situation where the public could perceive a bias on your behalf, we urge you to disclose that and say, yes, I know the developer, we've been friends for a long time, but that friendship isn't strong enough where I can't be an unbiased decision maker, I'm and to go ahead and participate in the process tonight, and sort of disclose that on the record. And then as you go through the script, when we go through this scenario a little bit, you'll see that when the mayor calls for declarations of bias and you say that, you go through the process, there's an opportunity for the public to object to your participation based on that disclosure. And if people don't object based on that disclosure, it provides a stronger argument for us that there's a legal challenge down the road that they sort of waive their ability to object to your participation because you fully disclosed that potential bias. If you don't disclose it and it comes out later, then it looks like you're trying to hide something, and that creates a more difficult situation for us to try to legally defend that.

So we highly encourage you to disclose perceived biases, you know, even though you're not gonna abstain from participation just because it puts it on the record and sort of gets that issue off the table. But, again, you only have to abstain from participation if there's an actual bias. And if you have questions about sort of your relationship or or sort of feelings that you have about a particular project or a particular person involved in the hearing process, please ask staff, ask our office, and we can sort of walk you through whether or not we think based on previous court decisions and land use court of appeals decisions, whether that would actually rise to the level of an actual bias as opposed to a perceived bias. We're happy to walk you through that process. The other way and and and the other way to sort of think about this is, you know, whether or not sort of the information you have is forcing you to sort of prejudge the application or the appeal.

And so if you have all this outside information where you've sort of already made up your mind and you don't really come into this with an open mind and the ability to judge the application on the on the evidence presented during the hearing process, then that's another form of bias that you'd wanna sort of be aware of and say, okay. Well, maybe I shouldn't be participating in this process because I just really can't put my sort of previous determination aside to have an open mind here. So it's really about having an open mind. And to the extent that you can have an open mind, that's great. You can participate. To the extent that you're really not sure you can have an open mind, then that's probably a bias that you have to abstain from participation. Any questions about bias? Okay. Next slide. Ex parte contacts.

So this one's often confusing for folks. But one of the other things that the mayor will do is ask for if anyone has ex parte contacts that they want to disclose. And an ex parte contact is basically any information that you've received about the application pending before you outside of the scope of the public hearing. So it can be someone who walks up to you at the coffee shop or the grocery store and says, hey. I understand you have a an appeal on this development.

You know? Here's why I think you should support the appeal. And so that conversation is an ex parte contact. And the idea behind an ex parte contact is that you need to disclose that on the record so that everyone else participating in the process has an opportunity to respond to the information that you receive outside the public hearing. And so when you disclose an ex parte contact, you need to actually disclose it with enough information so that people actually have a meaningful opportunity to respond. So you can't just say, yeah, I ran into chat at the coffee shop. He told me he supports the project and wants me to support it as well.

I mean, if that's all I said

to you, then that's great. But if

I said, you know, you need to

support the project because it's going to provide economic development, new jobs, it's not gonna increase traffic, you need to sort of explain all that into the record as part of your ex parte contact disclosure so that then anyone who disagrees with what I just told you has an opportunity to refute that, or anyone who actually agrees with it has the opportunity to support that. It's really providing them with that, again, that sort of fair hearing process and a meaningful opportunity to respond. If you've done that and if you disclose those ex parte contacts, then you're allowed to go ahead and participate. It doesn't preclude your participation. What we often tell people, though, is to be careful of ex parte contacts.

Really try not to have them because, as I just explained, it's sort of a burdensome process to have to go through to explain in that level of detail what those ex parte contacts were. And if you have too many of them, that gets difficult. And so if you have too many of them, we may actually say, well, maybe you should not participate because, you know, you've had too much information. And that all that extra information also leads to the question of, well, bias and whether you prejudge the the applicant in the first application in the first place. So to the extent that, you know, you are having ex parte contacts, it's really best to, you know, maybe take some notes so you know what you're talking about, to be able to disclose it on the record, but it's really best to try to avoid them. So if come I up to you at the coffee shop and say, hey. I wanna talk to you about that. Redirect them and

say, you know, I

really can't talk to you about that outside the public hearing. I encourage you to show up. Here's the date and time. You know? Or if you can't make it, you can submit written information. You know? Here's staff's, you know, contact information and things of that nature. Councilor McLaurin?

What if you do have high a high level conversation, but you don't go into detail and then you participate because you don't have a bias, because you don't have deep knowledge of it and you participate in the vote? But don't disclose ex because there's no intent to have a bias.

You should still disclose. Any sort of contact that you had, you should disclose. And even if it's just a high level, you know, I I talked to Chad. He said he supports the project, and that's really all he said. You should still disclose that because when you don't disclose ex parte contacts, that can be a procedural error that requires us to then remand the decision back to the the city from a loop appeal to redo the entire thing again. So it's better just to over disclose. Over disclosure is better than under under disclosure. Over share. Yes.

Oh, yes. Counselor Case. Sorry. I was making a joke in my head. I always overshare, so that's never an issue. But, communication I'm wrong. Communication is tough. Communication before boards. So like this is a planning commission issue. Can I talk to planning commissioners about this or no? That goes out of the ex parte. Right?

Yes. So Okay. So let me just sort of like

Let you keep going.

Get you some exceptions to ex parte So when you're having communications with staff, those are not deemed ex parte contacts. So if you're talking to staff about an application, a pending application, or talking to our office about that, that's that's okay. You don't have to disclose those conversations. But to the extent that this is an appeal from like the planning commission, for example, if you're having conversations with many members of the planning commission, you would need to disclose that. And honestly, we advise you sort of not to attend the planning commission hearings when there could be an appeal, not to talk to planning commissioners about that because that does sort of create the bias issue and from ex parte contacts and other sorts of concerns about whether or not you prejudged the situation.

Especially if you have a close friendship, for example, with a planning commissioner, and they're talking to you about it, then, you know, it really creates the question of whether there's a bias there or not. So just real quick, ex parte contacts, you know, can also include things that you don't necessarily think of. Know, the easy one is, you know, me approaching you in a coffee shop. But, you know, it could be a social media post. It could be a newspaper article. It could be a site visit. You know, oftentimes, people drive by locations and aren't familiar with that. You'll hear elected officials disclose that they in fact, I drive by this every day, so I'm very familiar with the site. Again, oversharing. It's better to overshare and get that information on record to the extent you have any question.

Overshare is great. And, you know, obviously, ask staff, ask our office, and, you know, we will most likely take a conservative point of view and say, yeah. Go ahead and disclose it, because there's no harm in disclosing it as opposed to keeping it quiet, you know, could create potentially create a problem. Next slide. So conflicts of interest. This is, you know, just the exact same thing that we've always talked about. There's nothing different. These are just conflicts of interest under state law, actual potential conflicts. I'm not gonna go into too much detail. We've we've had you've had trainings on this.

We've talked about this with all of you, but it is a part of the process. And they are sort of related to to bias because if you have a conflict of interest, then that is gonna create a bias for you. And so even if it's a potential conflict under state law, you can as you know, once you disclose the potential conflict, you can go ahead and participate in the process. If there's a potential conflict, you know, please talk to our office or staff about that in advance so we can sort of analyze that under the bias realm as well. Because even though you may be able to participate as a potential conflict under state law conflict of interest laws, the bias aspect of this may actually preclude your participation. So we'll wanna analyze that on both those fronts depending on what that particular issue is that's creating the potential conflict. Any questions? Alright.

So these next couple of slides get pretty text heavy, but, really, this is just to prepare you and ground you in Hillsborough's land use appeal policy and what we look for and require because the two major factors, as Chad noted, in an appeal is we can make a sound decision or we can make a risky decision both on the technical merits of the project and how we address things like findings to support the decision or not and or we need to not create a procedural error. Both of those things can lead to our decision if it's appealed up further being kicked back to the city to correct. So the process and the requirements for appeals are laid out in the municipal code, more specifically, the community development code portion of municipal code, which is in section twelve seventy. We lay out a whole host of procedures. Our staff will address this in the course of their staff report, both the written staff report and touch on it briefly during their oral staff report during the appeal hearing.

That, code section contains a table that talks about all the different types of land use applications and who makes the initial decision on them and then who makes the appeals decision on them. And as we noted earlier, city council is the appeal body for most of the decisions made by the appointed boards and commissions that support and serve you in the community. Planning commission, planning zoning hearings board being the two most prominent ones that hear and issue decisions or recommendations on land use applications. Public hearings are required for all appeals, and we need to conduct those both in accordance with our community development code called for processes as well as state law lays out how land use appeals have to be handled. Our staff seek to facilitate and ensure that that happens.

We'll call that out too in the finding of materials and include that in the record. Public notices, for appeal hearings are required, and they often, will follow the same process for notification as the original application. So what does that mean? We have different notice radii, for different types of applications. Oftentimes, they're either 200 feet from the outside perimeter of the the project's boundary, or 500 feet depending on the type of application.

When we notice for the appeal public hearing, we use that same notice radius again to notify. In addition, we notify anybody who participated or has standing from the original process as well. We also typically will put things on our website and have other notification channels that go above and beyond state law minimum requirements. At the conclusion of an appeal hearing, the hearing body must either reverse or affirm the decision. They can also modify that, but that's you have to make a decision that can include conditions of approval if it is getting to an approved state, or the hearing can be continued to a date certain.

Now that's for especially in appeal, we have to pay attention to the hundred and twenty day rule because most likely, we've already been in three, two and a half, three months worth of process time already in the original hearing. So we will watch that, and our staff will track that and report to you as well. But you can continue it to a date certain, which would mean we held the first hearing on March 3, and we're gonna come back and pick up the hearing if there's a packed house or there's something that is unresolved so long as we're within those time frames. And you could schedule that to your next council meeting and say at 07:00 at our next council meeting on March 17, you know, we will pick this hearing back up. If you do that, we do not need to renotice that public hearing.

It just would continue at that next meeting, and we'd pick back up. The third option is and typically, we don't see this too often with the appeals, but it can happen is that you would continue the hearing without a specific date. That just means there seems to be worked out. We don't know. A hundred and twenty day would still have to be monitored.

But in that regard, once we are ready to bring it back to you, we would have to go through another notification period. So we just wanted to flag those procedural steps. After the hearing and the public record is closed for the appeal, the appeal body must issue a written decision. Our staff support the council in doing that oftentimes on an appeal with city attorney's office support, but the city and you as our deciding body have to have a written decision. That decision has to have a statement of conclusion saying you approve the appeal.

You deny the appeal. You can go back into the decision itself and modify it slightly depending on how the appeal is is is being considered. It also must have findings, and our staff will do extensive work with city attorney's office and stakeholders on this, but as to what is supporting your decision. And so you have to justify the statement of facts as Chad, highlighted, and as I highlighted in some of the defined terms. Have to have demonstrations of the reasons for the decision.

This is a good time during deliberations to articulate, especially if you're not just taking the staff report of the record as it is, to articulate that so that way we can help update findings as staff or modify a condition of approval or modify the decision as it's been drafted. Oftentimes, there'll be a resolution or an ordinance, but most likely a resolution also coming to you. And then an ex explanation of any changes to their earlier decision. So if you're going to go a different route than say the planning commission decided why. And so that's part of building those findings in. Staff, Chad, anything on that or any questions from the council before I move on?

I just want stress two quick points. First is, when we're talking about the findings and everything that Dan was just talking about, it all has to go back to the applicable criteria. And so as you go through the process and as you saw tonight, you know, when when staff does their introduction, they're going to say, you know, here's what the application is for. Here's the criteria that exist in our code or the metro code or whatever that applies that we're judging it by. And so you may hear testimony about all sorts of issues about why people support a project or oppose a project.

But unless it relates to that criteria, it's really kind of irrelevant. So when you are making your decision and you're saying, we want to fine need to support this or we want to oppose this condition or whatever, it still has to relate to that criteria. Because if a project meets all the criteria and you deny it for some reason that doesn't really apply, then that's going get appealed and we're going lose. And so we're gonna come to you and say, well, we can't really base it on that. We gotta base it on these factors.

So it's really important that when we talk about that criteria, that that's sort of what you're paying attention to and sort of keeping that slide in your mind because that's sort of the the standard by which you're judging the application through this process. Even though you may hear lots of testimony, we've we've had hearings where you've had, like, two hours of testimony about something that really didn't matter at all, And it's really hard to ignore when the community, you know, feels strongly about that. And we try to explain to them, and and you all will explain to them as well, like, here's the criteria that we have to base this on. And while that's an important issue, we really wanna focus your attention on this criteria ask you to testify about that criteria. So when you hear staff say those things or the mayor say those things, that's why because that's what our decision has to be based on.

Counselor.

And, Chad, when you say we have to make that decision, you need as a body. If you have a majority, then that's what it is. And and Correct.

We have a solo okay.

Thank you. And that's why, especially if you find yourselves as a deciding body on appeal and where we're up against the maybe a decision date as well. If you are going to start to go a different direction, especially what the extensive package and record and staff report that staff and the city attorney's office put together, we may call for a recess after, like, your deliberation or or during that discussion just to make sure we're understanding what you're capturing, and then we would come back onto the record to clarify that to make sure it gets folded into the decision appropriately. So the last of kind of the text heavy slides, the procedural requirements for an appeal, all type three applications can be appealed by an applicant or any person who participated by providing oral or written testimony during the formal process. We refer to that as the record.

The record contains the application materials. It contains the public notice materials. Some people say I did or didn't get the notice. We can point to that and say, here's who did get it, here's who didn't get it. It will contain the full meeting minutes and record of what was discussed at the planning commission over the planning zoning hearings board. It will also contain that decision and the findings and conditions of approval if it's approved. It would also contain the decision with the denial if it's denied. Both of those could be appealed up to you. And so all of that will be, in the package that comes to you coming out of that. The types of appeals as we talked briefly about earlier will be a de novo on the record.

There are certain things in the code that will direct what that is. In some cases, that can be requested by the person appealing it. They can request a I want a new I wanna be able add new information that has come up. That would be a de novo request, versus I wanna just keep it what's on the record. We think something was misstated or there's a procedural error that needs to be fixed.

That's where it'd be a little bit of a more focused or a narrow scope. The hearing requirements do require the public notice in advance, again, of the appeal hearing just like of the original public hearing. Touched on that. You will receive the staff report and the full record as we talked about, but that staff report will summarize the record and also seek to make a recommendation of where we believe the council should consider going based upon the arguments from whoever's appealing the decision. But, ultimately, the the proposal of the project has the obligation to defend their application, but we as a city have to defend our decision.

And so those two things sometimes can work together or sometimes they might work at odds with each other. During that hearing, we'll run through if the council would like a kind of a a mock script of this. You will receive the staff report after you call for any biased ex parte contacts or conflicts of interest. We will highlight the project. We will highlight the original decision that's being appealed, and we'll highlight the reason for the appeal.

And then we will give our assessment of any key issues or considerations in there. But we do encourage that you review the full packet and record at least within a reasonable context so you you have that full basis. Then you would conduct a normal public hearing as you did. You would ask, for whoever's appealing it to come up and make their case of why they're appealing it. If that is the development applicant, then usually we would go just straight into testimony.

If it's somebody appealing the approval that isn't the applicant, then or then we would give it to the applicant to defend, and then we would open it up to testimony. There's a cadence there. Much like in normal process, if you have staff questions after that is that public testimony is received and there's been a rebuttal then by whoever's needing to defend their appeal or defend the application or both, staff would be more than happy to weigh in or answer any questions that counsel has. Then you would move into your closing the public hearing, move into your deliberations, talk about why you agree or don't agree or have concerns with it, where do you think you wanna go as a deciding body, and then make your decision as we talked about with the appropriate justification and any additions or changes if if you make them. And then staff would take that work with city attorney's office to come back to that final written decision, and reflect that in in the full packet.

Any questions on any of that before we move on? No. K. In talking and preparing preparing for this meeting sorry. There's a delay. We did create a rough script on a mock project, project fund, to kind of run through this to kinda highlight what are the roles of council, what are the roles and the flow of of conversation in it. If you would like the city attorney and staff to run through that,

we're more than happy to do that. If you want to role

play that, we can sign out some some roles. But, either way, we do have a a copy of that script if you'd like to walk through it, I'll defer to the counsel and to Ravi as to how you'd like to proceed at this point.

Any thoughts?

Any feelings about this? We did, by the way, have a candidate run for counsel who thought that Hillsborough needed to be more fun.

I remember that.

Yeah. And wanted to install roller coasters in the parks.

I see.

So this is remember?

Yeah. Well, I apologize. We were trying to do this so that way this one could assuredly not be appealed further than any sort of negative ramifications.

So this is awesome. So would you like to run through this?

If so, I will volunteer to be counselor b. Big fun. Alright.

You know what? Let's have some fun. Let's go through

it. Alright.

We have any take so we already have counselor for the role of counselor b tonight will be played by counselor Harris. Counselor Sinclair, would you like to play counselor a? Sure. Yeah? Okay. Would anyone like to play the mayor just for fun? Yeah? Sure. Yeah?

Yeah? Why not?

Okay. So counselor Case is gonna play the mayor. Counselor Sinclair is gonna be counselor a, and counselor b will be played by counselor Harris.

There's a counsel there's a d also.

Is there a d? Yeah. Alright. Oh, there's a Counselor Solgado or counselor Embry, would you like to be oh, we won't have oh, they won't they don't have the scripts. Okay. Sorry. I was trying to get you guys part parts in this amazing play. Sorry.

Yeah. I I wish I was there.

But

I I can yeah. I'm missing this, but, yeah, I'll I'm watching.

Yeah. Okay. So Robbie's gonna be counselor, d as in delta. And then so I'll just give a moment for all of you to review the script and get into your character, find your motivation. My my daughter is in musical theater, so please do find your motivation. And and maybe a backstory if you'd like to come up with a backstory of what motivates this person, where they come from.

So that that did we get the awards for after for, like, best actor, best supporting actor?

We can do that.

Yeah. And, again, we can take it that little, or we can just kinda run through it, but just to highlight of the different five or so parts of the curing process, what are the pieces to be aware of and call out

again. Okay. Well, we just you know, you presented this opportunity to us, Dan, this is amazing. So, let's start off. Ready? Okay. Mayor? Readers are on. Alright. We now move

to the appeal hearing for land use approval for project fund.

It's a

terrible name. The appellant is the applicant for project fund who is Development Engineers LLC. The site is located at Tax Lot Number 100 And is for a 50 acre amusement park. I will now open the record and ask if any counselors wish to state any ex parte contacts contacts or declare any conflict of interest or bias.

I think she should do sound bites for a living. Counselor A. I would like to state for the record that I visited the site last week, and this is a form of ex parte contact. It was helpful for me to see the site, but it does not impact my ability to objectively evaluate this decision.

Mayor, I'd also like to declare for the record that I live next door to the site, and, actually, my niece owns that site. You should own a built you said it belonged to my grandmother, but she passed away many years ago. I see it every day. I wanna see the project get approved be because of that, I'd like to declare an ex party contact, a bias, and a conflict of interest. As a result, I will recuse myself from this decision.

Well, thank you. If there are no others, Mark, can you please play the ORS video?

Yeah.

Thank you, Mark.

We're not gonna play the video.

We're not gonna play the video. We already played the video today. We know what it is. Thank you, Mark. You're amazing. We don't give you enough credit, But, man, we couldn't do this without you. Staff, can you please provide the staff report? And the part of staff is being played by Ruth. I love this for you tonight.

We didn't even give her a sneak peek at the script.

Careful about giving me power.

Here we are.

Thank you, mayor. Here is the staff report. The initial decision, the summary of the process, the basis of the appeal, staff's recommendation to deny the appeal. It would actually be, in this case, likely, the Planning Commission's recommendation to deny the appeal or the Planning Anzillion Hearing Support recommendation.

Way to make it your own. I love it. Alright. Thank you so much, Ruth. Again, we couldn't do this without you. You're amazing. I'm so glad you're here tonight. Does the council have any questions for staff?

Councilor c? We don't have a councilor c, do we, Beach?

No. That was great, man.

Nailed it. I couldn't agree more. That's what I just said. At this time, I'd like to call for the appellate to please come forward, state and spell their name for the record. I cannot wait to turn the page and identify how much time you will need for the presentation.

Thank you, Mayor. My name is George G. Fun, G E O R G E G F U N. Our project is a fun project. It meets the criteria and should be approved. But we are frustrated that we're being required to do one, two and three. The reason we shouldn't have to do this is because of A, B and C. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Fun. The council have any questions for the appellant?

It was counsel

No, that was great too. That was awesome.

I would like the appellant to clarify why they think reason two meets the approval criteria.

Thank you, counselor. It meets the approval criteria because it's fun and that is what matters the most.

I am not sure I'm convinced, but thank you.

I'd like I'd now like to ask for any public testimony. I'm looking at you in the peanut gallery in the back just in case we need more. If if you would like to testify on this item, please come forward, state and spell your name. I'm so excited. And provide your mailing address for the record. We don't ask that much anymore, but, hey, for this game, we will. You will be given three minutes to provide your testimony.

Thank you, mayor. For the record, my name is Jack, j a c k, and last name is Pace, p a c. And I like fun and support the project. The pictures are great, and I would love balloons included. Also, just wanna say thanks to mister Funk for being here tonight. I really wanna have some fun.

Thank you so much, Jack. Is there any other testimony? Yeah.

I don't have testimony. But just a point of clarification, one thing with the testimony on these back to the mailing address is we do have an obligation to send them notification of the decision. And so while we are mindful of personally identifiable information, if they want to receive the decision, which gives them standing, the ability to appeal further, That is why on these, we do typically have to ask for some degree of contact information to share the decision with them, especially if they've not been part of the mailing notice or or radius. So just wanted to flag that for a a nuanced piece.

Thanks, Dan, for keeping us on track tonight. Perfect. Okay. Cool. So thanks, Jack. By the way, just make

sure that you, give us

your address if you'd like to continue to be, held abreast of future app applications discussion on this and the outcome and other things. Is there any other testimony?

Thank you, mayor and council. Community member two, that's c o m m u n. Just kidding. I oppose project fun partly because I don't like fun in any form and also because it doesn't meet the approval criteria because of x, y, and z.

Well, thank you. And if there's no further testimony, I'd like to invite the appellant back up for a response and rebuttal to the public testimony. Rebuttal testimony must be limited to responding to the evidence and testimony presented without introducing new evidence.

Mr.

Application meets the criteria and should be approved without being required to do a, b and c. The reason we shouldn't have to do this is because of one, two and three. We disagree with the community member two because of x, y and z is is not supported by your plans, and we don't want to have to pay for that.

Seems totally legit. Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions from the council? Not seeing any. I want to shift and see if staff has any final comments. Who is the staff? Oh, Ruth. Sorry.

Duh. Sorry.

Staff's only final comment is that I have I'm important, and I have a name.

Thank

you so much, Ruth. Honestly, couldn't do this without you. Thank you. Are there any other council questions for staff? There's a counselor e. The game just keeps getting more and more exciting.

Hi. I'm counselor e, and I would like to ask staff if we can modify a condition of approval associated with a, and I support an end to support with the finding, please.

That can definitely be accommodated. And which approval criteria do you want it linked to, counselor e?

A. A. Okay. Please. Yeah.

Okay. Thank you. Are there any other questions for the greatest employee of the City of Hillsboro, Ruth? Seeing none, do I have a motion from the commission to close or continue the hearing?

Councillor C?

Oh, I move to close public hearing.

And I second that motion.

I have a motion by councilor c, and I have a second by councilor d to close the public hearing. All those in favor, please say aye. Aye. All those opposed? You guys will have to play the complete game. You don't get to stop now. All in favor? All opposed? Any abstentions? Motion

Well, there was the one.

You recused.

Oh, that's why you recused yourself. I forgot about that. Alright. The motion carries. Now is the time for the council deliberations. Thoughts, comments, or questions on this

item? I support the decision because it meets all the criteria. Or I, any criteria doesn't meet, I don't think it should have to meet. I don't support this. I don't support decision. I know. It's, like I'm just, like, so crazy tonight. It's just nuts. I don't support this decision.

Cool. Because Is that what?

Because really? No. He's the I don't support the decision because I don't think it meets the criteria.

I support the decision because it does meet the criteria, and Hillsborough can always use more fun.

Thank you so much, counselors. With that, would anyone like to make a motion on our decision?

Counselor C.

I move to deny the appeal, but to modify condition of approval a to propose condition w and support with the findings that we just deliberated.

I second that motion. Can we get a

roll call, please? Okay. Thank you all.

So well done. Just very quick breaking the fourth rail

or whatever it is, talking to the camera. I

just want to point out that last issue there. So when you are changing things, so staff is going to present the findings and have a proposed sort of approval, denial, whatever the case might be. But when you're changing that and you're linking it to the criteria, it may mean that we have to go back and draft new findings. So it may mean that we're not gonna actually have you vote on the final decision that night, but you're gonna vote to basically direct staff to do that report and come back, and we'll bring it back to you at the next meeting depending on how detailed that those new findings have to be. But then that's also gonna be influenced by that hundred and twenty day rule.

So to the extent that, like, we're butting up against that hundred and twenty days, you know, we may be sort of, like Dan said, asking for a recess to sort of work with a person who wants to sort of make that change to see if there's a way we can work that into the existing sort of findings so we don't have to actually come back. So just know that there's gonna be situations where there's gonna be some some nuances and some flexibility there that we're gonna ask for you because of the hundred and twenty day limit. But, you know, in most circumstances, as long as we got time, if you make those changes and it's related the criteria, we'll just go back, redraft everything and then bring it back to you for final approval.

And let's say you're deliberating and you're like, I do want to change approval a and make it to condition w. But I'm not quite sure how I wanna word it. Staff, can you come up with some language? This is kinda what I'm thinking, and then we'll draft something on the fly. So you can ask us during the deliberations, like, things that are technically specific, but we can't give, like, new information anymore.

Awesome. Thank thank you, Luis.

Well, you survived that appeal well. So now the from here on out, it should be

easy. Yeah. Dan.

The the last thing I just wanna reiterate is that, like, if you have questions during the process, you know, ask. And so, like, sometimes something will come up and, you know, you know, can we reopen the record, you because someone wants to add something in addition or, you know, sometimes random things come up. And it's better if you've got that question, just ask the question. You've got really knowledgeable staff. They've gone through lots of these situations. They're really smart people, and they'll be able to walk you through that. And so definitely ask the question as opposed to just trying to wing it.

Okay. Any other points that we want to bring up tonight? Do you have anything else for us, Dan? Leslie, staff member number two. Otherwise, you know, is

I think it might have been on the first slide, but if it does come to a point that you someone recuses themselves, I think you have to leave the room so that your glowering presence doesn't further bias.

Can hold you.

Right. Yes. So just half

a character. Then something that came up not Yeah. You're a little bit

Wait. Say that again, Leslie. I didn't quite hear

Something that came up not in this city, but in a different city, and it was a part of ex parte for the most part. But the discussion was about design and what is design and what is modern arts and crafts. And one of the council members said, well, I googled it.

Oh.

And this came up. And the city attorney just about dropped out of his seat. You know? What exactly did you Google? What were the exact terms? What did you see? So you can't go searching for things too. Some of the ex parte and and bias stuff was, you know, what's coming to your plate, but don't be googling things either and bringing those records in.

Thank you, Leslie. Councilor Sinclair?

Yeah. And that that's why on planning commission, you guys always said, don't go to the site.

Don't Yeah. That was a hard time for me when I was on planning commission. I would drive out to the site until I learned this, and then I didn't. It's really boring. But, okay. Anything else?

Thank you.

Yeah. Mhmm. Yeah. The last thing I'll add, it was already brought up by Chad, but, sometimes, at least for me, there were times I didn't wanna approve anything. But I didn't wanna approve something, but it did meet all the criteria, and it just broke my heart to approve it. You were there too. Right? But you have to because it met the criteria. So, anyway, I just wanted to hit that home because it was hard sometimes. Okay. Anything else? Anybody else? Councilor e? Councilor d? Alright. Thanks so much, everybody. Dan, Ruth, Leslie, Chad, Robbie, thank you very much. Have a good night.