City Council - Regular Meeting

I am now calling to order a regular meeting of the Beaverton City Council City Recorder. Please call the roll.

Council President Duggar.

I am here.

Councilor Hartmayer Prigg. Here. Councilor Hassan. Here. Councilor Kimmy is absent. Councilor Teeter.

Here.

Councilor Tivnon. Here. Mayor Beatty.

Here. We did not hear you, Mayor, although I saw that you moved your voice.

Can you hear me now?

Very low. Very barely.

Now?

Yes. Better. Thank you. On tonight's agenda, we will begin with two proclamations and move to visitor comments. The city managers report the consent agenda, a public hearing, an action item, two first readings, and wrap up with council items. First up, we have a proclamation regarding Hispanic Heritage Month. Councillor Hudson, will you please read the proclamation?

Sure, thank you. This is a proclamation from the City of Beaverton. Whereas each year Americans observe National Hispanic Heritage Month from September 15th to October 15th, and whereas the observation began in 1968 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon Johnson and was expanded to Hispanic Heritage Month by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, and whereas Beaverton is home to many people whose ancestors come from Mexico, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Spain. And whereas September 15th is significant as the anniversary of independence for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, and Nicaragua, and whereas Mexico and Chile celebrate Independence Day on September 16th and September 18th, respectively, and whereas people of Hispanic descent have contributed to our shared prosperity and culture throughout the history of Beaverton, the state of Oregon, and the United States, and whereas Hispanic Americans continue to be crucial to the vitality, hometown livability, and growth of our community, It is through their support and contributions that our city has continued to become more culturally diverse and a welcoming city for everyone. And whereas the city of Beaverton champions respect for diverse voices and ideas as a core civic value, and whereas Beaverton is proud to join the nation in celebrating the rich history and culture of Hispanic heritage in Oregon as we dedicate ourselves to working together to address the challenges that still face our Hispanic population. And now, therefore, the City Council of the City of Beaverton hereby recognizes September 15 through October 15, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in the City of Beaverton and encourage all to observe this month.

Thank you, Councilor. Next up, we have a proclamation regarding Bee City USA. Councilor Hartmeyer-Pring, will you please read the proclamation?

I will be doing the honors tonight. Oh, Councilor Tivnon. Thank you. Whereas the Beaverton Downtown Association is a historic preservation and community development nonprofit that supports Beaverton's physical environment and commitment to ecological and natural vitality, especially in its effort to earn a Bee City USA designation. And whereas pollinators play a vital role in our ecosystem, ensuring the growth of flowers, fruits, and vegetables. However, habitat loss and pesticide use threaten their survival in urbanized areas. And whereas Bee City USA recognizes municipalities that commit to improving landscape for bees, butterflies, and other pollinators, which are critical to biodiversity, food systems, and environmental health. And whereas the pollinator pathway is a vital step forward in Beaverton, earning a Bee City USA designation that connects existing downtown green spaces with vibrant pollinator-friendly plantings. And whereas the City of Beaverton recognizes these initiatives as powerful economic and cultural development tools that create a fun guide connecting the community with nature, public spaces, and local favorites. And whereas earning and maintaining a Bee City USA designation enhances sustainability leadership, community engagement, and alignment with Beaverton's environmental goals without creating an operational burden. And whereas the Beaverton Downtown Association is committed to leading this effort with volunteer plantings, partnerships with local businesses, and community education initiatives, elevating and connecting these efforts with a nationally recognized framework. Therefore, on behalf of Lacey Beatty, Mayor of the City of Beaverton, Oregon, I do hereby proclaim the City of Beaverton's commitment to supporting pollinator conservation and proudly recognize Beaverton as a Bee City USA community and encourage the Beaverton community to join in creating and protecting healthy habitats for bees and other pollinators throughout the city.

Thank you, Councillor. We will now move on to visitor comments. This city requires pre-registration for online and in-person visitor comments at council meetings. Registration closed at noon today. Registration was conducted through the city recorder's office via email or phone in preparation for this meeting. There are four people registered to comment at tonight's meeting. As a reminder, visitor comments provide the opportunity for the community to speak about matters, even if they are not on the agenda. Visitors may state their comments and should not expect the council to engage in back and forth dialogue regarding the comments, as this is a time for the council to hear from the community. City Council seeks to be welcoming and inclusive towards all speakers at public meetings, and we strive to create an atmosphere of mutual care and respect. While community members may disagree with each other or the city on issues and may give critical feedback, they are expected to do so respectfully and without disruption. Disruptions interfere with the ability of others present in person or online to participate in this meeting. Council members do not interrupt community members during their public comments, and we expect community members to offer the same courtesy to other speakers. Visitor comments are limited to three minutes for each person. If follow up is needed, our city manager and city recorder are taking notes. The first speaker is Jacqueline Leedy. You have three minutes. And Evelyn Kocher, you're on deck.

All right, I am ready. I am speaking tonight in regards to the Downtown Business Association's decision to block users who spoke out against their use of AI for their marketing materials and social media posts. I understand City Council is already looking into updating contracts in regards to usage of AI. but there has been no mention of doing the same for general conduct of the board and the ethics of how those contractors respond to community criticism. I also acknowledge that BDA is a nonprofit, so the city can't directly make decisions on behalf of BDA. Tax dollars, however, make up a large portion of BDA's funding, and the BDA has a close working relationship with city government. The board chair speaks directly to you via email, and most of you attend BDA events. Some of you were also very active with the BDA board before moving into an elected position. this association is unequivocally treated as a principal partner to the city this connection is important because publicly i have not seen any of you denounce the bda's practice of blocking community members for having disagreement i estimate over 30 accounts have been blocked but interestingly enough some users report that they have now been unblocked I assume this to be because of the continued backlash from the community. Kirsten Ager, the board chair, went on record in a recent interview with the Beaverton Valley Times denying the blocking of accounts belonging to community stakeholders and said, quote, the decision followed an ongoing pattern of interactions that we determined had moved beyond constructive criticism and were inconsistent with the BDA's community interaction standards. The decision was based on conduct, not viewpoint, end quote. Here are some of the comments that got community members blocked. Quote, why won't you guys acknowledge that your community is against your use of AI? It keeps getting called out and I haven't seen a single response, end quote. Quote, crazy how you are using AI to make a flyer that says support local on it. Are artists not included in what you consider local businesses, end quote. Quote, AI usage is really horrible here. Why couldn't you utilize a local artist? Busy doesn't cut it. This community deserves better. We just had a contest for beer labels run by the research center. Why not reach out to them to help with organization of a contest or getting the word out to hire an artist? Seriously, end quote. Quote, it is so great the BDA helped coordinate the supply giveaway. Some of my concerns I heard from families were the long lines and lack of varied supplies. In addition, many families that are seeing services for school supplies do not want to be filmed. Was consent received before all the filming of kids and family, end quote? All of these community members were blocked shortly after leaving their comments. This is just a small sample. If these community members sat before you with these same concerns, would you cut their mic or have them asked to leave City Hall?

Evelyn Kocher.

Hi, Council President Duggar and the members of City Council. For the record, my name is Evelyn Kocher. I use she, her pronouns, and I'm a lifelong Beavertonian. I'm here to also comment on the blocking of various community members and downtown businesses by the Downtown Business Association. This is an organization that purports to represent the very center of our community and is really the front face for our city when it comes to interacting with the public. The abdication of responsibility from city staff and city council when it comes to the behavior of this nonprofit is really incomprehensible to me, considering that the nonprofit gets nearly $100,000 of funding from the city of Beaverton, and the nonprofit is almost 90% publicly funded. I WOULD LIKE TO ASK THAT ESPECIALLY BECAUSE THIS CONTRACT WAS JUST RECONSIDERED AND RENEWED LAST MONTH THAT EVEN IF WE DO HAVE A NEW PROPOSAL FROM COUNCIL ON THE RESPONSIBLE USE OF AI FROM COMMUNITY PARTNERS AND NONPROFITS THAT THE CITY DOES CONTRACT WITH, THIS WILL NOT COME INTO FORCE WITH THIS EXISTING CONTRACT SINCE IT WAS JUST RENEWED UNTIL THE CONTRACT COMES UP FOR RENEWAL AGAIN IN 2027. This is absolutely imperative to be considered in this contract renewal if it is still in process. In addition, any organization that receives a substantial portion of public funds from the city of Beaverton needs to be responsive to the actual needs of the community and needs to have set forth a specific social media policy for the interactions that it has with the public. It is unacceptable for an organization that is supposed to be representative of the city to block the very people and businesses that it does purport to represent. In addition, it's really awful to see that the leadership of this organization is not very representative of the downtown businesses that it is supposed to support in its actual mission statement. The only criteria for serving on the board of this organization is donating to the organization and being able to attend the meetings. There's an axiom in organizing that has been around for nearly 40 years that is nothing about us without us. How can this organization purport to serve downtown businesses while blocking the voices of those it's supposed to represent and having those folks dramatically underrepresented on its actual board? the other two things that i have for tonight are slightly unrelated first of all i noticed that we have an annexation on the agenda for tonight this annexation is across the street from the recently remodeled rally hills elementary school in beaverton um with the closure of mckay elementary school this will be a catch i'll have a large catchment area and have nearly 700 students in it and the city of beaverton has ownership over the entirety of southwest laurel drive however um Running contrary to Beaverton's stated commitment to safe routes to schools, Laurelwood Drive does not have sidewalks running down its entire length. So we are going to be funneling more students into this area without actually giving them the ability to walk to and from their school. So this is something that we absolutely need to be considering while making future annexation decisions. Thank you so much. Thank you.

Tyler? Okay, one more time. There you go.

Hello, I am also speaking of dealing with concerns from the partly tax-funded organization BDA, which actually receives 90%. The last, they've had a long record of blocking folks not listening to community artists and small businesses who they are supposed to uplift. They are meant to, these are people that are just trying to engage in meaningful conversations. Refreshing concerns ranging from use of AI to create characters and posters to folks simply advising they don't show pictures of kids during a school supply drive. to folks just asking about how events they are doing are not equitable to all small businesses downtown and how the planning of events actually hurts small businesses they don't favor. In closing, an event that does, an organization that doesn't listen to the community they are said to uplift that blocks and blacklists small businesses should not be getting tax funds. The idea of a downtown association is great, but the current firm of this group isn't working for everyone, just a select few. At the bare minimum, change in leadership and how they conduct themselves, use AI and runs events needs to be addressed before they should be Equitable for more tax funding and since you guys are going through with the contract right now. I think a detailed Investigation and what they're doing as many of the other speakers said would be very much so needed.

Thank you Thank you And our last speaker is Alicia are you here oh there you are I

ALICIA BURMEES, MANY OF YOU KNOW ME THROUGH THE CHAMBER AND THAT HAT IS FIRMLY SITTING OVER HERE TODAY. THIS IS JUST ME TALKING. AND I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT THE BDA. MOST OF YOU ARE PROBABLY AWARE OF THE ACCIDENT THAT HAPPENED A COUPLE OF WEEKS AGO ON ALLEN AND MURRAY. A drunk driver came through, three cars over there, another car over there, ended up crashed into a tree. My daughter was involved in that accident. She thankfully is fine, other than being the owner of a new used car and a new monthly car payment. She came through it unscathed. But tonight I'm here to talk about the Beaverton Police Department. The accident was crazy with a lot of moving parts. The officer that was ultimately assigned to keep track of my daughter was Ruby Estrada Vega. My daughter lands most often in the defund the police camp. And I've talked to her about it. We've debated about it. We've talked about how Beaverton is different. And during this incident, she got to experience the difference firsthand. Officer Estrada Vega was kind, compassionate, thorough. She spoke to my daughter with care and empathy. When I shared this with the Deputy Chief Chulips, he said, oh yeah, Ruby's homegrown. She started with us as a cadet and moved up to a CSO until she became an officer. And that was really great to hear, because I was able to bring that information back to my daughter And she said, okay, so you've been telling me that Beaverton can and is implementing systematic change that is necessary in policing now, and now I see it. So this is a testament to the Beaverton Police Department for the amazing work they do, and especially the systematic change they are obviously able to enact in policing. So thank you.

Thank you, Alicia.

I will acknowledge that we received written comments from Mr. Reese and Mr. Perog as well. The next item on the agenda is the City Manager's Report. Interim City Manager, the floor is yours.

All right. Good evening, Mayor and Council. just have a few updates for you tonight and we'll start off by talking about our building improvement program this is celebrating its 20th year of helping downtown businesses unlock the full potential of their spaces so small businesses can receive up to a 75 match on project expenses and landlords and larger businesses can receive up to a 50 matching grant So applications are open now through September 29th. So we encourage businesses in downtown and on Island Boulevard to visit the website address that you see here on the screen to explore what might be possible through this great grant program. Next slide, please. So you'll remember that we did have to postpone our annual night out celebration this year due to unhealthy air conditions. So we're excited to have it rescheduled. It's coming up next Tuesday, September 22nd, starting at 5.30 at Evelyn Schlieffer Park. This is a chance for neighbors, families, police officers, and community partners to come together, build relationships, and celebrate what makes Beaverton such a great community. So bring your family, meet our police officers, check out some police vehicles and equipment, and enjoy a nice evening at the park on September 22nd. We hope to see you there. Next slide, please. So just in time for fall rainy weather, the library's annual book and media sale is coming up on Thursday, September 24th through Sunday, October 4th at Beaverton City Main Library. You can shop thousands of vintage and current books, DVDs, CDs, and much, much more. This event is brought to us by our amazing partners, the Friends of the Beaverton City Library, and the sale proceeds do benefit our library. So come and shop and get your Christmas shopping done early. Next slide, please. We're not one to be left out of the mini tote craze. And so if you have not signed up for your library card, September is library sign up cards month. So while you're at the book sale, sign up for a library card if you haven't already. And you can be entered into a drawing to potentially win a cute little mini tote to keep your library books in. Next slide, please. And so we mentioned this last month as well, but it's worth repeating that we are currently recruiting for our boards and commissions. We also use this time as our primary recruitment tool for volunteer opportunities across all of our city programs, including our neighborhood advisory committees, our CERT emergency preparedness group, and other opportunities citywide. And these volunteer groups all help guide key decisions that shape our daily services, long-term planning, and the future of our city. So we'd love to hear from you. Welcome your application. Those are due by October 5th. And then the terms will begin in January of 2027. And you can see the website there on the screen or the QR code if you're interested. And with that, that concludes my report. Thank you.

City manager, how are we communicating about the business grant opening?

So we. I'm gonna let Andy come up and share a little bit more about that please. Thank you.

Council members, for the record, Andy Varner, I'm the Community Development Director. And for this question, the Beaverton Urban Redevelopment Agency Executive Director. uh the the building improvement grant program is bureau funded and so our program administrator has had a couple virtual sessions with folks and before the funding round opened in september that latter part of august a few of our folks in cdd including those that are spanish speakers did a lot of canvassing of businesses around the bureau district So they've done that, a couple virtual information sessions, and then we have kind of news, new email blasts that we do as well from folks that have been either applicants in the past or, you know, I've been interested in the program so we have like a sign up for that I really appreciate hearing about that especially the canvassing and the multi-language I think that's a really we've given you that feedback and just to hear that you guys are doing that I really appreciate that and I do want to make one small correction to the to the announcement which I thank you very much Elizabeth for plugging the program there is there will no be no funding for Allen Boulevard this year that was a general fund funded area so it's it's just in the in the bureau district so we didn't have the the funding

for that thank you councillor Duggar I was actually sitting here and writing the city manager an email asking if you could email that out to us so that we can share like I'm thinking of some of the organizations that are doing small business support that could be in our region so just getting an email about that would be great yeah absolutely thank you okay

Anymore? Cool. If no councillors have questions, we'll move forward. We will now move on to the approval of the consent agenda. The agenda includes the City Council's consent agenda and the Contract Review Board's consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve it?

I move that we approve the consent agenda as listed.

I'll second. I have a motion by Councillor Hartmeyer-Prigge and a second by Councillor Teeter. Is there any discussion? City Recorder, will you call the roll, please?

Council President Duggar? Yes. Councillor Hartmeyer-Prigge? Yes. Councillor Hassan? Yes. Councillor Teeter? Yes. Councillor Tivnall? Yes. Mayor Beatty?

Yes.

Thank you. Six yes, zero no, one absent.

Thank you. The next item on the agenda is a public hearing regarding ordinance number 4885, amending the zoning map for five parcels in Shoals Heights and Shoals Valley Heights, PUDS, LU 3202600094, Shoals Heights and Shoals Valley Heights, PUD mods ZMA 32026-00081. If approved, this application would change the zoning for five parcels, those at 2S201AA22500, 2S201AA22, sorry, AA21100, which is at 18510 Southwest Snowglade Drive, and 2S201AA21800, which is at 12470 Southwest Trask Street, 2S106B002200, and 2S106B002400. I will now call to order the public hearing. Before we move to the substance of the hearing, I will ask the city attorney to cover some preliminary matters.

Thank you. The hearing will proceed as follows. After the preliminary legal matters, city staff will make a presentation, followed by the applicant's presentation, which will be limited to 15 minutes. Then members of the public will have an opportunity to speak for up to three minutes each. Council will take testimony first from those who are in support of the application, then from those who are in opposition, and finally from those who are neither in support nor opposed. After members of the public have testified, the applicant will have five minutes for rebuttal. Council members may ask questions of staff, applicants, or anyone else who testifies this evening. Anyone wishing to speak at this hearing should follow the instructions that are included on tonight's agenda. Now I will cover the preliminary legal matters. The applicant has the burden of proving that the applications are consistent with the Beaverton Development Code, the Comprehensive Plan, and the applicable Beaverton Code provisions. The criteria that must be addressed in this hearing are Beaverton Development Code Chapter 40.97.15.41. Any testimony that speakers present must be directed at this criterion or at some other criteria in the Code or Comprehensive Plan which the speaker believes should apply to this application and this decision. Failure to raise an issue accompanied by statements or evidence sufficient to allow the council and the parties an opportunity to respond to the issue precludes appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals based on that issue. In addition, failure of the applicant to raise constitutional or other issues relating to proposed conditions of approval with sufficient specificity to allow the city to respond to the issue precludes inaction for damages in circuit court. Anyone who submits written comments or gives oral testimony will have standing to appeal this decision. And because state and local law require council members to make certain disclosures, at this time I'm going to ask you a number of questions. First, do any council members wish to declare a potential or actual conflict of interest or bias? Let the record show there are none. Do any council members wish to report any site visits or ex parte contacts? Again, let the record reflect there are none. Does any member of the audience wish to question impartiality or ex parte disclosures, of which there weren't any tonight, of any council member? Let the record show there are none. And does anyone wish to challenge the jurisdiction of the council to hear this matter this evening? Given that there are no objections, that concludes the legal matters.

Thank you. Is there a staff presentation?

Yes, thank you. Good evening, Councilors and Mayor Beatty. My name is Elena Sasson. I'm one of the associate planners here at the City of Beaverton. And the proposal before you this evening is the quasi-judicial zoning map amendment associated with the Shoals Heights and Shoals Valley Heights PUD mods. Before we get started, I would just like to zoom out a little bit and provide some broader context for where this site is located within the city of Beaverton. It's located within the South Cooper Mountain Community Plan area, which is in the neighbor Southwest NAC in the southwest corner of Beaverton. More specifically, the proposed zoning map amendment is part of a larger application package that was submitted by the applicant Holt Holdings Oregon LLC to modify a shared boundary between two existing planned unit developments or PUDs in that South Cooper Mountain Community Plan area. The proposal adds two new lots to one of the PUDs and reconfigures property lines of existing to facilitate better development on those lots. The proposed zoning map amendment is being requested simply to reflect the reconfigured lot lines. And the proposed zoning map amendment is really limited to five existing parcels, some of which are identified by address here on this slide and others by tax law just because they haven't received an address yet. The area to which the proposed zoning map amendment applies is identified or kind of highlighted in the yellow here on this slide, which you can see is a very small limited area within these two PUDs. The whole application package was brought before the Planning Commission on August 5th, 2026, who approved all of the submitted applications and recommended approval of this zoning map amendment to City Council. Although the Planning Commission is the final decision-making authority on all the other applications, including the preliminary to create two new lots and the replat two, which allows the reconfiguration of the flats. City Council is the ultimate decision-making authority for a zoning map amendment. A quasi-judicial zoning map amendment application is required when a proposal includes changing the zoning designation for a specific property or a limited number of specific properties, which is the case here. Staff found and Planning Commission agreed that the applicant's proposal demonstrated compliance with all of the applicable approval criteria for the zoning map amendment. One of these approval criteria requires that the zoning map amendment conform with all applicable comprehensive plan policies. In this case, all of the proposed changes to the zone and the existing zone, they're all located with or classified under the same land use designation of the lower density neighborhood land use designation, meaning that a lot of the same comprehensive plan policy is applied to the existing zones and the proposed zones. So the proposed changes can continue. Another approval criteria requires that when changes are made to the zoning map, it considers the critical and essential facilities and services that are necessary for the zone changes. And in this case, the proposal changes a very small area of zoning for a development that was already anticipating this kind of development, which is single detached dwellings. And in a lot of the area, the critical and essential facilities are actually already built out or approved for development and can handle. And with that, to summarize, staff reviewed all of the applicable approval criteria in Beaverton Development Code Section 40.97.15.1C and found that the proposal met the approval criteria for the quasi-judicial zoning map amendment. And additionally, staff would just note that the Planning Commission also recommended approval for ZMA 3-0008. Staff is open to any questions. You might have Thank you.

Are there any questions put them in the chat? You're not seeing Let's continue with the applicants presentation, which is limited to 15 minutes. Please give your name and city of residence for the record I

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. MY NAME IS MELISSA. I LIVE JUST OUTSIDE THE BEAVERTON BOUNDARY. I'M WITH AKS ENGINEERING. I DON'T HAVE A PREPARED PRESENTATION. IT'S A PRETTY SIMPLE APPLICATION BEFORE YOU. WE'RE MOVING A STRAIGHT LINE TO A SQUIGGLY LINE TO FOLLOW THE NEW PROPERTY LINES. THAT'S BASICALLY IT.

ARE THERE ANY QUESTIONS FOR THE APPLICANT? Now we'll hear testimony. You're good. We will hear testimony from the public, starting with those in support of the application city recorder. Is there anyone wishing to speak in support?

We do not have anyone in person or online for testimony this evening for this hearing.

Okay. For, or against, or neutral? Is that what I'm hearing?

Correct.

Okay. So I think we can skip. Give me a second. Yeah, just a second. 15. Okay, we will now move on. Thank you, Councillor Teeter. We will now move on to comments from staff. Staff or the city attorney have any further comments on the application? Does the council member have any questions for staff? Public hearing is now closed. Is there a motion?

Sure, I approve the zoning map amendment application and adopt the ordinance. Sorry, I move to adopt ordinance 4885 and approve application ZMA 32026-00081. Is there a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Mayor Beatty?

I JUST WANT TO POINT OUT TO YOU GUYS THAT IT'S MUCH HARDER THAN IT LOOKS TO FACILITATE A MEETING, COUNCILOR DUGGER, SO GOOD JOB ON THAT ONE.

JUST A LOT OF PAGES TO SKIP. WE ARE READY FOR A VOTE ON THE MOTION. WOULD THE RECORDER PLEASE CALL THE ROLL?

COUNCILOR PRESIDENT DUGGER?

YES.

COUNCILOR HARTMEYER-PRICK? YES. COUNCILOR HASSAN? YES. COUNCILOR TEITER? YES. COUNCILOR TIFFANAU? YES. MAYOR BAILEY? YES. 6 YES, 0 NO, 1 ABSENT. MOTION CARRIES.

Thank you, recorder. If you would like to appeal this decision, you must appeal to the Land Use Board of Appeals in accordance with LUBA's rules and any applicable provisions in the Beaverton Development Code. Let's see. We now have an item regarding the city manager hiring process. We will begin the work session with a presentation by Assistant City Attorney Kirsten Rush. When the presentation is done, each counselor will have the opportunity to comment on the presentation and ask questions of the presenter or any other staff present. Please begin your presentation.

Thank you, Councillor Duggar, Councillors and Mayor Beatty. I think presentation is a little bit of a strong word, but I am here to walk you through the resolution before you and answer any questions. So what you have in your agenda bill is an updated resolution for the city manager hiring process. This is sort of our kickoff and first step for the whole council in terms of moving towards hiring a permanent city manager. So if you, some of you may remember back in 2021, when our first city manager was hired, there was a resolution that was adopted that outlined the hiring processes for all council appointed employees. Now, I think all of us, counselors and staff, the mayor, everyone has learned a little bit since 2021 in terms of what works best for this council. So when we hired for city attorney, We made some changes to that process. We also made some changes back in 2024 and removed associate judges from that process. So this process has been updated as needs have arose. So here we have an opportunity to update it a bit with regard to hiring a city manager. What you have in the proposed resolution is actually very similar to the changes that we made when we looked to hire a new city attorney, what, a couple of years ago now, a year and a half ago, which is updating just how we do these types of recruitments. It includes that the city utilizes an executive search firm. The city is already contracted with Heather Gantz at Ross Ellis, who some of you may have remembered. We've worked with her on some of these high-level recruitments in the past. The change before you from the city attorney hiring process and the city manager hiring process in 2021 is based on just sort of seeing how those have gone, seeing how maybe what some things improve. The proposal in the resolution contemplates that you, contemplates that instead of having the whole council in executive session conduct the first round interviews for that you could delegate that to your subcommittee, which already exists. And the idea being that that might make the process run a little bit more efficiently. It would make it perhaps easier to schedule, because hopefully we have a lot of great applicants when this recruitment goes out. And it might take some time to narrow those applicants down to who wants to be in the first place. Obviously, the executive search firm who we are using is going to A LOT OF ADVISING THERE, AS CAN YOUR INTERIM CITY MANAGER, AS CAN I. BUT THE IDEA HERE IN THE RESOLUTION IS THAT THE SUBCOMMITTEE WOULD LOOK AT THAT FIRST GROUP OF APPLICANTS, THEY WOULD WORK WITH THE SEARCH FIRM TO NARROW IT DOWN TO whoever they think should come in for a first round that might be something like six or eight people hopefully and then they would conduct the interviews the subcommittee is basically working as an information gathering arm for the whole council after they do that work they would then come back to executive session with the council report back on what they've learned A recruiter would be part of that as well, so that the entire council and executive session could determine who the finalists are, who you want to meet in person, who you want to bring here to Beaverton, have meet with staff, have meet with the entire council as you kind of work. That's what's before you contemplating the idea that I think it's a little bit more involved to hire a city manager than it is to hire. and that's by law, that's part of the public meetings law. So the idea is to maybe make that process run a little bit more efficiently and help kind of move us through the timeline a little bit more quickly. That is it, if anyone has any questions.

Anyone have questions? Let's see. Councillor Husson.

I mean, I think this is to the subcommittee. I mean, are you, I'm assuming you're comfortable with taking on the interview process and you guys have the capacity to be able to do that. Okay. Okay. Well, that's awesome because that's a huge time suck and I'm happy to help. But if you're willing to do it, thank you very much.

Thank you. Councilor Hartmeyer, please.

Yeah, also just a comment of gratitude, but I think that this will hopefully help make for a better candidate experience as well. And I think that we want to recruit a great city manager and also want to make sure that all the folks that go through the process have a good experience. And I think this will help streamline some of that because corralling seven calendars is very, very hard. So just gratitude and thank you for making the changes because I know that It's important that we also make it really clear on the record like the intention and the like the change that we want to have happen. So thank you for coming back with this change.

Thank you. Councilor Teeter.

Yeah, thank you. I wanted to give a little bit of context to some of my concerns that I had going into this process that I'm that I'm happy with how the process is playing out. I think we saw with our city attorney hiring process, it was very difficult to coordinate all of our schedules because we didn't empower the subcommittee in a way that we had hoped or that we had intended to. And so it really relied on all of our schedules aligning in order to keep the process moving forward. And I don't want us to miss out on great candidates because we're not able to move efficiently. For any community members who might be watching, each of us as individual counselors, IS HAVING INDIVIDUAL CONVERSATIONS WITH OUR RECRUITING TEAM SO THE RECRUITMENT TEAM KNOWS WHAT WE ARE EACH INDIVIDUALLY LOOKING FOR. BUT AS A SUBCOMMITTEE, WE ARE NOT TALKING BEYOND THE GROUP OF THE THREE OF US BECAUSE WE DON'T WANT TO VIOLATE PUBLIC MEETING LAWS, BUT WE WILL REVIEW THIS FIRST ROUND OF CANDIDATES AND KIND OF DO A FIRST VETTING PROCESS. The purpose being, or the hope being there, if somebody isn't going to make it through that first round and get the support of the three of us, then they're not likely to get the support of the rest of council. So we're just trying to kind of keep things moving along. I've got a lot of confidence in this process, and I think staff have done a good job preparing it. And if you all have any concerns as we keep going forward, please let us know, but we'll keep you updated as we keep moving along in the process, too. Kirsten mentioned we will schedule executive sessions later on. to actually do the interviewing. I know it's hard to keep our schedules all coordinated and all fit together. So we'll try to schedule those when everybody's free. But if somebody has something that comes up and it's just there's one of us is gonna be missing, we might have to do it anyways. We're just gonna try to keep the process moving forward. So thank you for trusting us with this.

Councillor Husson, you had.

I just want a really quick clarity. So to be clear, the proposed recruitment plan and materials will come back to us, and then the subcommittee is responsible for the interviews.

Yes, that's correct. So with this, public meetings law would require the recruitment materials to be... by the council before the vacancy can be posted. So those will come to the whole council pretty much once we are done approving the process tonight, then Heather and her team will work on putting those recruitment materials together. I think the subcommittee might take a first look at them and give some feedback, but then it'll come to the entire council to vote on before the vacancies.

Thank you.

Thank you. Seeing no more, do I have a motion?

Yes. I move that the council adopt resolution amending resolution number 4702 and establishing a hiring process for the position of city manager.

Do we have a second?

Second.

Thank you. Any discussion?

Okay, point of clarification. I thought Councillor Hartmeyer-Prick said 4702, but I see 4971, or am I reading the wrong one?

Yeah, clarity on that. Kirsten, the agenda is different than the script.

Oh, dear. Well, so the resolution that you are voting on tonight is the 49...

7-1.

Thank you. So it's a different question. The prior resolution is 4702. Can you restate that?

I'll try again. Thank you, Councillor Hudson. Okay, so I move that we approve resolution number 4971, which is amending resolution 4702. And it is establishing a hiring process for the position of city manager.

Thank you. Now do I have a second? Second.

Second.

Discussion? Nope. We are ready for a vote. City Recorder, will you please call the roll?

Council President Duggar?

Yes.

Councilor Hartmeyer-Prigg? Yes. Councilor Husson? Yes. Councilor Teeter? Yes. Councilor Tivnon? Yes. Mayor Beatty?

Yes.

Six yes, zero no, one absent. Motion carries.

Thank you, recorder. Next, we have a first reading ordinance regarding ordinance number 4886, an ordinance annexing one parcel of land at 5200 Southwest Shoals Ferry Road and a portion of Southwest Montclair Drive. On October 6, 2026, during the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, a public hearing will be held regarding an ordinance annexing one parcel of land at 5200 Southwest Shoals Ferry Road and a portion of Southwest Montclair Drive, withdrawing the property from the Washington County Enhanced Sheriff's Patrol District and the Washington County Urban Road Maintenance District. and adding the property to the Denny Whitford Raleigh West Neighborhood Association Committee LU 32026-00291 5200 SW Shoals Ferry Annexation ANX 2026-00283. Next, we have a first reading ordinance of ordinance number 4887, an ordinance amending the comprehensive planned land use map and zoning map for one parcel at 5200 Southwest Shoals Ferry Road that is currently annexing into the city of Beaverton. On October 6, 2026, during the regularly scheduled City Council meeting, a public hearing will be held regarding an ordinance amending the comprehensive plan land use map and the zoning map for one parcel located at 5200 Southwest Shoals Ferry Road, LU 32026-00291, 5200 Southwest Shoals Ferry Road annexation comprehensive plan and zoning map amendments, CPMA 32026-00297, So I think that takes care of that. And now we are on to council items. Does anyone have anything else they wish to share? Well, let me see. We'll start with the mayor.

Thank you. I have items. So I'm going to start with the first one. To ask the council support in directing the city manager to ensure that our contracts require consultants and contractors working on the city behalf to follow this AI policy or create their own. Our standards are responsible. Sorry, Mayor.

It's cutting out like every other word. I'm sorry. It's just hard to hear what you're saying. Again. Thank you.

Okay. Can you hear me now?

Much better.

I'd like us to ask for the council's support in directing the city manager to ensure that our contracts require consultants and contractors working on the city's behalf to follow the city's AI policy. Our standards for responsible AI use should apply to work performed for the city regardless of who performs it. And so we have a policy on this so they could take language from our own. or create their own. It's already part of the city's, when they sign contracts, that people have to follow the city's rules. But we don't often say what they are or what it is. So I would like us to add into the contracts this specific language around AI. Can we go with that?

I'm seeing. Yeah.

It's all right to go on to the second one.

I was just going to make a comment. Thank you, Mayor, for bringing this. I do support this, and I think it's a good idea. I do just want to say in general, and I don't think this is a policy comment, but I think it's one thing to have the AI policy. I think there's another concern I had around blocking accounts. So I'm not saying this is a policy. It's just a general comment around around how we're allowing folks to engage with us. So I support the policy, and I'm supportive of the policy. I'm just curious if there's an avenue there to talk about that or just be thinking about that.

I mean, I think my concerns are, you know, we contract with a lot of culturally responsive organizations, and I worry about directing people that if they receive city funds that they can't block people. I mean, I think... this incidence is very different and it's one-off, but like a blanket policy from the city. And like, where does it end? If you get $5,000 per storefront improvement and you're a local restaurant, do you no longer have the ability to control your own social media? And I worry about a violation of the first amendment here and that we're trying to direct things. And so this is not a comment in support of what is happening right now, but the realistic expectations of a government putting those kind of restrictions on people that receive our money.

And to be clear, I'm not suggesting it as a policy. That's just a general comment. That was like my one sort of sense of how we move about that. So I just want to kind of flag that for us to be thinking about. So I support the policy.

Thank you. Oh, Kevin. Councillor Teeter.

Yeah, thank you. So this is a question for the city attorney or city manager. My understanding is that our AI policy is mostly internal facing. Is there anything in it that would be applicable for our contractors or consultants, or is there something we would need to add to it?

Thank you, Councillor. My suggestion is that we would come up with an ethical use of AI policy independent of our internal policy, which as you say, a lot of it is directed to sort of internal approvals. there are some important things in there that we'd want to use. But I do think it would need to be a separate policy. And just while I've got the floor for a second, because this is, it would take a fairly substantial amount of work, there would, I think, need to be a vote to direct staff to proceed with this.

Okay. I want to chime in here as the person driving this. I've already talked to our IT director about researching best practices for nonprofits that aren't us. And so I guess I'm confused from the city attorney on how much work it would be required to add sentencing to ongoing contracts.

Well, First of all, whether we can actually add them to existing ongoing contracts, that could be problematic. If we're going to change all of our contract templates, that is a fair amount of work both for the city attorney's office and for our purchasing department. In addition to mayor, as you say, the IT director is going to have to have something to say. The city manager may have something to say on that.

So I asked the question, like, I am interested in this. Like, I do think we need to expect ethical use of AI with the people we work with. I just want to make sure that we're using the best pathway to actually do that and that the policies we apply to them are actually applicable and meaningful. So that's the line I'm trying to figure out here.

Do you want this one?

Yeah, hearing from the city attorney's office that this might be a pretty big lift, I'd kind of like to balance that against other existing priorities that the attorneys are working on. And before we give the green light to do this, have a better understanding of what we might be trading to make room for it.

So, Mayor, are you okay with that if the city attorney comes back with... Yeah, I'm real interested because I just don't understand the city attorney's pushback about adding a sentence to contracts going forward. Like, this is routine. We go through every contract as it's coming. So, I guess I don't see this as a massive lift. It's already... in our policy that they have to do this. So I would welcome back a worksheet from the city attorney on the workload expectation because I'm not seeing his concern the same way. So maybe him and I can, I'm interested in him coming back because I think this is really important. AI is here. It's in everything that we do. It's really important that we have expectations with people that are getting city funds. And so, yeah, I think for our next meeting, I'd like a little more information from the city attorney.

Thank you, Ashley.

Thank you. I think that was an important distinguishing factor, Mayor. I did not hear you initially say going forward. I definitely think to audit or retroactively apply to contracts is probably, to me, that's too big of a lift for what we've got going on right now. I think that US CONSIDERING WHAT AN ETHICAL USE POLICY IS FOR FOLKS THAT RECEIVE CITY FUNDS AND THAT WE CAN INCORPORATE GOING FORWARD. I'M DEFINITELY ALSO INTERESTED IN THAT BUT I'M WITH COUNCILOR TIPNAN THAT THERE ARE OTHER THINGS THAT I THINK WE HAVE ON THE DOCKET THAT I WANT TO TALK ABOUT WHAT'S THE TRADE-OFF THAT WE WOULD BE MAKING TO CREATE SPACE FOR IT.

Thank you. So we'll hear back from you next meeting. Cool. Yes, Council President. Thank you. Going back, I think you're up again.

Yeah, I have two more things.

That was only the first one. You are up again.

Yeah, the other thing I'd like us to think about is a religious and cultural observance. Members of the council in our community have raised concern about city meetings and events conflicting with important religious and cultural observations. These conflicts can create real barriers to participation. And I'd like to ask for the council's support in directing the city manager to develop a policy to help avoiding, to avoid scheduling council meetings and major city events during significant observations whenever reasonably possible to avoid reasonable accommodations when conflicts cannot be avoided. And I don't think like the school district policy created this policy. And I know Councillor Husson was already involved in the creation of it. And so I don't think it's a massive lift of starting from zero. I think it's taking something that's already been created for one of our partner agencies and making sure that we're using it here as we're starting to come into a lot of holiday time this year. I think it's important that our council meetings and stuff follow this cadence. And this has been a request I've heard a lot over the last couple of years.

Thank you.

Yeah, I'll respond really quick just because I think it's important for us to talk about these things. So thank you Mayor for bringing this up. I've gotten these comments from community members as well. This one feels more straightforward, especially if the school district or the county or THPRD has an example that we could follow. And at the very least I think it helps for council to share that this is something that we value even if we don't give the policy right away. Because I think the community cares about this too.

uh thank you for bringing this mayor as someone who had to miss the budget meeting because it was scheduled on the week of a religious holiday i certainly appreciate that we would consider some sort of more formal policy i did get to work with the school district on the one we worked with a lot of folks in the jewish community in the muslim communities i think the calendar is out i think it was the celebration parade that also which caused a lot of issues for different family members. So I support this as long as it is within a reasonable amount of work and don't want to put any more or risk other projects if it is majorly in the way.

Cool my last item is earlier this week or earlier this year I brought an intern a PhD level intern from osu to work in our office. He worked with finance and the city manager's office to research a potential fee for ride share trips beginning or ending in the city of beaverton. The report provided a good starting point, but additional work is needed. I'd like to ask the council's support in directing the city manager to continue evaluating this option and return to council with a more reliable revenue estimate, policy considerations, and staff resources and timeline needed. I know as we're struggling with a lot of our financial decisions, we brought an intern in to research all of these things. This one seems like the most straightforward. The city of Gresham and the city of Portland have one. I've already talked to the city manager about this. And so I think we just need a little bit of time from the finance team to do a deeper dive. It's not an astronomically large amount of money, but it is a couple hundred thousand dollars of revenue potential every year for something other cities around us are already doing and created policy on.

Cool.

Anyone?

I don't have to go first again, but I will. I like this, and I think this is a topic we need to be talking about more, just given how severe our budget crisis and our budget deficit is and the actions we've taken to produce some more revenue. I think this is an area where we can get some revenue from people who are using the streets more that might not be captured by our street maintenance fee, for example, or might not be paying the gas tax directly. So I think this is a good next step.

Councillor Hartman, I'm afraid.

I agree that it's important for us to explore some sort of rideshare charge that goes on. I think I would really like to see those funds go towards street purposes, like if we're going to implement specific fees or charges on things, that it has a very specific intended use.

Thank you.

Councilor Hudson? I just want to be mindful of staff and what we're asking here. So city manager, do you have any thoughts you want us to keep in mind?

I think happy to look into the number of staff hours that are required to kind of come back with a more comprehensive work session and an estimated timeline of when we could make that happen. I think that's probably a good first step. So happy to talk a little bit more with our finance team about what additional research is needed and how many staff hours that would take and report back to council. I should be able to do that at our next meeting. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Cool. Councillor Hartmeyer, please.

Okay, so I wanted to bring an ask for counsel and to ask staff to help us build an ordinance around transparency of our contractors and subcontractors working in the city of Beaverton. Multnomah County recently adopted a labor compliance ordinance and other cities are considering transparency ordinance as well. Ultimately, our community is being harmed by bad actors, subcontractors or labor brokers who aren't ensuring safe working conditions. and potentially aren't ensuring their workers are paid a fair and timely wage. I recently met with a local worker who shared his stories of wage theft, that he and dozens of other workers were not paid, yet they had to continue working in order to have any chance of getting paid the wages owed to them. Those bad actors have taken advantage of people in vulnerable positions, and as a city, I would like us to use our power of policymaking to help protect workers in a more meaningful way. I think over the year we've talked about this a little bit. I know we've all had members of the North Coast state carpenters come give public comment to us. I have individually met with them. I think some other counselors have as well. And they've come and asked us to take action to protect our workers and our community members. So I would like to ask us today for consensus to direct our city attorney to draft an ordinance that helps ensure contractors Contractors are providing safe working conditions and pay their workers their earned wages on time for consideration in the ordinance We could there's examples that we can use from city of Portland from the city or I mean Lima County in the city of Chula Vista and which has information about when you're applying for permits. Essentially, you have to provide information about who you subcontract with, what are your DBAs. You have to disclose things like government enforcement action against you. So if you've violated employment laws and whatnot, you have to provide this transparency in your permit application. And then... from the city of South San Francisco, they actually had a requirement that before you're issued your certificate of occupancy, you have to certify that all your subcontractors have been paid. So those are a couple of the things that I think that we could do and put into our own policy. And provided these examples to city attorneys so that we have something again, hopefully a little easy to actually pull together and draft and bring for our consideration. But tonight I'm just looking for consensus to give that direction.

I am supportive of the spirit of this, but I am curious again about staff's perspective on putting something like this together.

Councillor, I mean, as with the AI policy, I mean, if you direct us to do it, we will do it. And it just means other things are getting moved around. I wouldn't call this a large project. It'll take some time. If you'd like a formal estimate, I can certainly put that together.

If I may add from the operational side of things, I do think this will have impacts on a potential community development department and other areas of the city. So I do think I would encourage that we pull together a little working group here in the city to talk through kind of what might be needed both from the city attorney side as well as the city manager side of the house and come back to you with an estimated if you're interested in pursuing this with estimated number of hours and where this would fit in our current work plan.

Okay, I mean, I want to signal my support for it with the understanding that we're being thoughtful.

So I see Councilor Titor.

Yeah, thank you. Councils Hartmeyer, Prage, Council President Duggar and I got together to talk about this a little bit more in some detail. I know we've each talked with the city attorney and city manager through it some more individually just to make sure we're on the same page and not catching anybody too off guard. So we have had some of these conversations. I would be supportive and interested in a general estimate of workload and timing and how it fits and how we can make it work. So I think that's a good next step for us. And I think it's important for us to bring it to this point so that we can take that next step. So thank you.

Thank you. Mayor Brady.

Yeah, I'm supportive of it going forward. My concerns have been, and this isn't anything that I haven't shared with the Northwest Carpenters and other people. I've talked about this. It's the enforcement capacity that I'm really worried about with staff. And so in that workload subgroup, I'd really like to understand what it's going to do to the permitting process. And yeah, when Councillor Duggar talked to me about this, I encouraged him to reach out to developers too. And like, we need to have a full understanding of, you know, what will this do in the process? And then what happens? Like, we continue to hear there's a shortage of labor. So if somebody switches a contractor, midstream or subcontractor, like, are we going to make it easy for us to be notified? So those are some of the ways I don't want to create like a barrier to good actors, and make it really difficult. So I just, I need to understand what we're saying yes to, and I'm less concerned about the attorney's time drafting an ordinance isn't that long. I'm more concerned about the enforcement side and then how are we going to do it? So if we can get those questions answered, I want to signal going forward and that coming back in a report.

And you're comfortable with that? And did you have any other? Cool. Anyone else? I do have a couple that I would like to bring up. I have two items for new business. The first is the ask of council and staff to consider updating our ordinance banning discrimination around relationship status, as well as for multi-generational households. Other cities in the region have similar ordinances, including most recently Portland and Olympia, Washington. I've been working with a few folks engaged on this issue in the past few months and have talked extensively with the city attorney about the workload around this. But in speaking with those community members, we've heard stories of people of various and various expansive relationship structures. For example, poly or multi-partner relationships, asexual, aromantic partnerships, being targeted or denied housing. This affects the queer non-binary community disproportionately, although it is not limited to members of those communities. And we know that multi-generational households are an important way of life here in Beaverton. This ordinance would also protect those families and those households. Although I won't speak much for the city attorney, and he's welcome to add anything, the initial concerns that I had around a potential ordinance were primarily around any benefit changes for staff and of any ordinance enforceability. As this is largely focused on housing, we have determined that this would entail no benefit changes or substantial cost to the city to enact. For the enforcement piece, the solutions other jurisdictions, notably Olympia and Portland, have is civil in nature. We can essentially empower them to act via the court for any remediation. This solves the problem of resourcing for the city while expanding the circle of inclusion right here in Beaverton. I'd like Scott to bring back an update to our anti-discrimination ordinance with these new classifications, specifically listing out forms of expansive relationship structures, and I believe Olympia and Portland named them, as well as that multi-generational housing component. To me, it feels like the right thing to do. It has minimal cost to the city, and it should be easy to draft. And the legal staff to update should be easy for the legal staff to update and shows how Beaverton is continuing to think about and operationalize our inclusive policies. Yes, sir. Teeter.

Thank you. So Councilor Duggar described it pretty well. So this is a pretty straightforward. wording addition to our non-discrimination ordinance, just adding family and relationship status to one of the areas where you can't discriminate against somebody around the issues of housing. One of my concerns was the enforcement piece. I didn't want us to have to figure out how we dedicate staff time to do it, but the solution there is just figure it out in the civil courts. I've spoken to the city attorney and city manager about this too, and Councilors Duggar and Hartmeyer-Prigg as well. confident that this would be a pretty straightforward adjustment that could mean a lot to some people. Thank you.

Councillor Tavenon?

Just a quick clarifying question. When you talk about the courts, and this is really just because I'm learning about this, is that any court? Is that the Beaverton Municipal Court? Where would the enforcement take place? What level of court?

We looked at the Municipal Court.

Okay, so it would be within the city. Okay. All right, thank you. Yeah, I'm in favor of this as well, especially hearing that it's something that's fairly straightforward in getting done. That sounds nice after everything else we've been talking about tonight that requires a lot more time. This seems pretty level-headed and logical to do this.

Mr. Husson?

Yeah, actually, I think we talked about this in our last one. I've had similar folks reaching out to me. So I think David and Sandra are the two advocates who've been advocating for this. So I'm glad we finally are putting it on the docket. Also being mindful of staff work, but I am supportive of the spirit of this.

Thank you.

Mayor? I just want to confirm that you talked to the judge and the court staff about adding this and, like, their capacity to do this.

We've talked. It's been a while, yes, but it's been a long time, like six months maybe.

Yeah, I'm supportive of it going forward, but I think we need to – I think, you know, as the council, we tend to focus on, like, the attorney side of the house, like draft – We need to consider the impact to the rest of the organization. And we're down a judge. And like, do we actually have the mechanism to do this kind of like hear these kind of lawsuits? And so like, I'm supportive, but I need that when it comes back from the judge to know that like our court can actually handle this because this doesn't match the language of Foley and their fair housing. So if we can't handle it here, If we pass this ordinance and our court can't absorb this, how is it enforced at a different level when the language doesn't match what the state is doing? So I need a little bit of clarity on those two things, but support a tweak in the language, of course, but just that the impact of the work needs to be accounted for.

I will reach out again to Judge Britton and speak with her.

Council President, I do believe there's a good likelihood that it could also be enforced in Washington County Circuit Court. So if the municipal courts have authority over them, it may be that the injured person would then have a choice of where to go.

Well, we can at least have the conversation with Judge Britton on our side, and then if they have capacity, then we will feel safe moving forward. And then, Councillor Hutmeyer-Prigg?

Yeah, I just want to recognize that we brought up a lot of topics and work tonight and I think a lot of the ask was also to kind of hear like the impact and what it would be. I'm curious if y'all would be interested in like a prioritization exercise when we see that list, right? And kind of helping to sequence and lay it out so that it's not all hitting at once and you know, like maybe make it fit into the workload a little bit more manageably. I'm seeing head nods, Mayor. Sorry, I wasn't looking at the screen.

Yeah, I mean, I think we're going to have to rack and stack based on the workload and timing. And I think we need to rely on the city manager to kind of help us with that since we give her the work plan for the year coming back with a timetable and agenda. And if we don't like the timetable and agenda from the team, then I think we should move the priorities around. But I think relying on our professional staff to give us a timeline and what they can do when I think would be a good step.

Cool. My second ask is an ask of the city leadership, city manager's office, to evaluate adding a gross receipts tax to our fiscal sustainability plan and bring back that estimated lift with potential for a fall work session, depending on what that information shows. I think it's our responsibility to evaluate all options and discuss them in public when we talk about fiscal sustainability, particularly in regards to a potential levy or something like that. I'd just like to see multiple revenue options. So when I spoke with the city manager in her office, this is not an ask to bring back a work session. It's an ask to evaluate what the lift would be for them to provide the information. So just want to clarify that. I'm not asking for a work session. I'm asking for them to say, hey, this would take us 20 hours or 10 hours or 50 hours, however much, in order to provide that information to where we can have a work session. Is anyone? Is that you? Mayor. Mayor.

In the same vein that I brought in a PhD-level student, we did send to the council quite a lengthy document on gross receipt tax. We are hitting some walls with the state on releasing some money. This is a monumental lift of staff time. The city manager and I have talked about it. I've talked about it to the council president. I don't think this is something we can turn around for the fall. I mean, we just had a PhD-level student spend an exorbitant amount of time researching this, and it's really difficult with our borders, and we need to have a legal opinion if we can even do this, because after the city of Portland instituted theirs, there is... THERE WAS A STATE LAW CHANGE NOT ALLOWING OTHER CITIES TO DO IT. SO IF WE WANT TO MOVE FORWARD, IT NEEDS TO HAVE A LEGAL OPINION. IT HAS TO HAVE AN OPINION FROM THE CITY MANAGER A LOT OF TIME. AND WE HAVE TO PROBABLY HIRE OUTSIDE COUNCIL TO WORK WITH THE STATE TO GET THE DATA THAT WE NEED. WE'VE BEEN TRYING TO GET IT FOR MONTHS AND WE CAN'T.

NEW SPEAKER SO MAYBE I'LL ADMIT THAT AND SAY NOT A FALL. IT WILL JUST BE WHENEVER YOU CAN BRING BACK THE INFORMATION ON WHAT THE LIFT WOULD BE. IS THAT SATISFACTORY, MAYOR?

I think it's a monumental ask. So I think we need to hear from the rest of the council. And I think you guys got the report and the concerns previously from the city manager. And so I think removing the timeline of the fall is easy. I think this is a pretty big project.

I'm thinking about our work session last week and that we want to use a lot of our retreat time to kind of look at our fiscal sustainability stuff. So maybe part of it is like exploring these different policy ideas and revenue streams as part of that without going too far into what it would take to implement or things like that, like what are actually viable things for us to talk about and I don't know if that's like the right timing or if that would you know I know we're just starting to formulate retreat but especially since we the the ride share one was a revenue and then this is a revenue one so I'm just curious if like it kind of fits there.

I do not think that we have enough verified information to provide you accurate revenue estimates for what a potential gross receipts tax could bring in. And as the mayor noted, we would need to do some legal analysis on if we can even implement this tax. So I do think we have some work to do as staff. So I think a number of new requests tonight so I think we have some work to do in the next couple weeks to kind of figure out how all of these puzzle pieces fit together but then in particular to potential new revenue tools where they might fit in with you know your TLT potential increase the potential for a levy balancing the budget and all that so we will come back with specifically around the revenue, where that might fit in with our fiscal sustainability plan and the work that we already have calendared. I do agree with the mayor. I think we would need for the gross receipts tax to hire some outside assistance. So we will kind of look at some past projects and see if we can give you a ballpark number of what we might need to seek assistance for with that particular project.

Councillor Husson.

Yeah, Councilor Dunbar, I actually wanted to thank you for bringing that up because I keep imagining dreams of ways that we find revenue to help not have to do some of the hard decisions that we are all struggling with equally. I would actually love to support some space if it's possible and staff capacity exists for more conversations around different ways of revenue, whether it's gross receipts, obviously TLT, we still need to have that conversation. And are there other levers? I know we talked about this several years ago, I think mostly in the Fiscal Sustainability Subcommittee, but if there's any ability or capacity to bring some of that back, I think I would really, really appreciate it, and I think it'd be a good refresher for all of us, even if we're just touching kind of the outside of some of these issues, so that we can walk into 2028 with a little bit more, 2027, sorry, with a little bit more confidence.

i'm supportive under those circumstances but thank you for bringing that uh counselor yeah echoing at the beginning like i love the idea of having conversations around ways that we're bringing in revenue instead of constantly talking about losing it um as part of this at least for me i would also need to have have a really good understanding of what the potential impacts of this are. Anecdotally, I think like others, I've read about gross receipts taxes in other states and other cities, and there's a downside potentially to it. You can't pick and choose. that broadly. So it impacts both big national or international corporations as well as homegrown ones. What kind of impact could that have on Beaverton being an attractive place for larger businesses to site themselves, to create local jobs? I think it's something we would have to face head on if we were to consider this. And so I'm just putting it out there now that I'd want to know what the other side of the coin really looks like because that would definitely be a sea change for us.

Thank you. Councillor Teeter.

Thank you. I'm not surprised you brought this up. Councilor Duggar and I have talked a lot about this. He's been dwelling on it for a while and trying to figure out how it could work. So there's been a lot of thought that's gone into this and I appreciate that. This is a lot of work and that's that's what gives me some pause especially as the direction we've given to city staff to this point despite how cautious or hesitant we may be is to move forward with the levy and we haven't given direction otherwise to not do that and I'll admit like I'm not feeling very optimistic about a levy. I'm not sure what we will actually end up doing. I think this could be an option that we move forward with if we end up not doing a levy or if a levy fails. We need to look at all of our options. It would be nice to have the legal analysis done earlier so we at least know if it's possible. But I think those are some of my concerns. we need more revenue streams and we need to diversify our revenue streams. So it's an option there if it's actually legally possible with the state. So I think there is some more information that I would need, but I think it's a worthy conversation. So I'm glad you brought it up. Thank you.

So I think I'm hearing at least agreement from the council that that we'd like you to bring back what the lift would be and then we can decide whether we want to if we want to move forward or allocate the the prioritization to that at that point cool i think that is everything anyone else before we close cool thank you all let's adjourn this thing