Board of County Commissioners - workshop

LET'S HAVE A MORNING TOPIC LIST. SO THE FIRST ONE IS APPOINTMENTS TO THE PROPERTY VALUE APPEALS BOARD. WELCOME TO OUR TEAM. ALL RIGHT.

THANK YOU. GOOD MORNING, CHAIR HARRINGTON, BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS. DIRECTOR OF ASSESSMENT, TAXATION, RECORDS AND ELECTIONS AND JOINING ME It's Fred Ramstead, managing manager of cartography and records. We are here today to present candidates that we are recommending for appointment to the Property Value Appeals Board, also known, also referred to as PBAB. We are pleased to announce that we have four returning members and one new member for a total of five board members. The Property Value Appeals Board meets for a brief period of time in late winter, typically February or March. and when appeal hearings are held in a public meeting setting. The hearings are an important part of the assessment taxation process, providing taxpayers with a transparent avenue to contest their property valuations. This process is key to maintaining a fair and equitable property tax system. Board members must be residents of Washington County who do not work for the county or any other taxing district within the county. And they should have knowledge of real estate appraisal or Oregon property tax law. And board members serve two-year terms. Community engagement conducted a recruitment for this board that ran from April 7th through May 19th of this year. And we received three applications. One from a new applicant, Arun Palatetka, and two from returning members with expiring terms who we are recommending for reappointment, Anthony Mills and Eric Squires. We also have two other board members who will be serving the second year of their first term, Spencer Hatch and Jody Kellogg. If your board appoints the three applicants we are recommending, it will allow us to maintain a five-member pool of board members, which we have found to be an ideal minimum number of board members, and it allows new members to observe for their first year. Next steps are that if your board gives a thumbs up to move forward, we will return for approval at the regular meeting on October 6th. Do you have any questions?

Any comments or questions, board members?

I have one real quickly. I know for this board, this is probably not a crucial element, but it looks like none of the members would be from District 3. Am I reading that correctly?

THAT IS CORRECT.

NEW SPEAKER I WAS ON MY MIND. DO YOU HAVE ANY CONCERN AROUND GEOGRAPHIC COVERAGE OF THIS COMMITTEE?

NEW SPEAKER THAT'S A GOOD QUESTION, COMMISSIONER SNYDER. FOR THIS PARTICULAR BOARD, THE DISTRICT DESIGNATION ISN'T REALLY PERTINENT TO EVALUATION. NEW SPEAKER I WOULD AGREE. I WANT TO HEAR That is a good question. Thank you. Okay. Thank you.

And to that point, we do always appreciate the efforts of the Board of Commissioners in helping recruit community members to serve on our boards and commissions so that we do have geographic representation, even if it's not necessary for the function of the board or commission.

And the description, I realize that some tools restrict the amount of words you can use in the description. But it's my understanding that this is a board that meets in a concentrated time period. And I think that that should be worked into the description because there are some folks who might be interested in serving in just a limited time. It's not year round. So I think we need to look at all of our BOARDING COMMISSION DESCRIPTIONS AND REALLY GIVE A SENSE OF DO THEY MEET YEAR ROUND, IS IT FOR A SPECIFIC TIME, DO THEY MEET ON A REGULAR BASIS OR AD HOC, DIFFERENT THINGS LIKE THAT.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS OR COMMENTS, BOARD MEMBERS? NEW SPEAKER THUMBS UP FOR ME.

NEW SPEAKER THANK YOU. NEW SPEAKER I WILL ADD THAT It is with reservation that I will be supporting continued service of Anthony Mills, as noted here. He has served on this committee since 2012. So I do realize that it's only for a two-year basis, which, who knows, maybe in two years I'll apply for this as a means to continue to have additional representation on this board. I realize he's been a dedicated volunteer through many committees at Washington County. It's essentially his hobby. But I think 2012 is a bit long. But I see that we've got a good mix of newer applicants. It's Not so much that I would hold it up this time, but I think in the next two-year cycle, it's time to cycle off. All right. So we'll see you back at the business meeting for the actual appointments.

Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. And now on to the various road committees, the Rural Road Operations and Maintenance Advisory Committee and the Urban Road Maintenance District Advisory Committee.

Good morning. Todd Watkins, Operations Manager with LUT. And with me is Sherry Gray. And she's going to talk about our two advisory committees within LUT. operations.

Good morning, Chair Harrington and Board of Commissioners. We are here today to share information about two, one appointment and one reappointment to our operations and maintenance roads committees. ROMAC and ERMDAG each have a nine-member possible board, and they are, there are two members cycling out of ROMAC, and one of them, before he left the committee, made it a point to recruit someone to replace him, which we very much appreciated. So that would be Matt Traverso coming into ROMAC. He has not served on a Washington County board, and Matt has a, he is a cyclist, and he travels all Washington County roads, and he has a really cool website of photography of different gravel roads and rural roads. So we're excited to have Matt come on to the committee. And then Meredith Cook, who is the current chair of RMDAC, she is seeking reappointment to her second term. Both members' terms would expire in 2030. And there you go. That's the entire presentation.

I tell you, Dan Morgan has had a great run at ROMAC. And one of the things that I also appreciated about him is his motorcycle experience and exploring different roads, not just in Washington County, but all over and bringing that knowledge in. So I'm going to miss having someone who is a motorcyclist person. serving on Road Mac, but I do know a couple of people, so I'll have to, I'll have to, but I don't know, yeah, one of them lives in the rural area, but anyway, I'll have to put a bug in their ear because I think that's a good constituency to keep going as well.

They certainly recognize things we may not.

Yeah, exactly. And just as a reminder, someone doesn't have to live in the rural area. Really? Really. They could reside in the rural area, own a business in the rural area, or have a special recreational interest like cycling. Got it. Okay. That's good to know. Whereas RMDAC, they're required to live. Yeah.

Okay. So even just like riding through the rural area every day as a commuter?

Or just on a regular weekend riding.

Yeah. The bylaws mentions recreate. And so that's where the cyclist or someone that does, you know, motorcycle touring or if they like drive to, let's say, Egg Lake to kayak or to paddleboard or whatever. So recreates the connection. Thank you for that reminder.

So we are on the agenda for September 22nd to come back.

Perfect.

Great.

Board members all set? Yes.

Thank you very much. Great.

Terrific. We'll move then to board and leadership communication and formal agenda item discussion. Let's start with the business meeting agenda. Do any board members have any questions on the items that are on today's agenda? It's pretty straightforward, consent agenda and a proclamation. Okay. And why don't we go to leadership communication next? Annie, would you like to start us off for a change?

Yes, Chair. Thank you very much. I'd love to start. Good morning. I wanted to give you an update on a story you probably saw in the news or heard in the news about the Supreme Court ruling yesterday in the realm of elections. So this matter, as you recall, has a complicated procedural history, and I'm happy to go through that. But the bottom line is that the court has upheld a lower court's decision to put a stay on the USPS rule changes that were implemented by the administration via executive order. So what this means for us is that voted mailing will go on this midterm unchanged. And so no change to our process. I also want to mention here that Elections Office and Deputy County Council Jason Bush have been in regular contact with the Secretary of State's office. And this is also the advice they are getting is to follow the normal process. So I just want to give you all an update on that.

Terrific.

That's it for me.

Ms. Angie. To build on what Courtney had shared with your board this morning, Ms. Kyle and I will be sharing that information with city managers and special district managers, and I'll forward that email to your board. This is good information for you to share with other elected colleagues and also community members when you are in conversation because just, I will say, social media becomes very confusing in terms of our community understanding what is happening during election time. I do want to follow up on a question. that Chair Harrington had posed at the September 19th roundtable specifically to the courthouse. Do we have the dollars in hand for the courthouse from the state? Washington County has not yet received courthouse planning dollars directly from the state. The Oregon Judicial Department provided draft master and phase one funding agreements in June and we're in the final stages of clarifying a few items with OJD so the agreements can be executed. This is an example that sometimes between jurisdictions, I will just say especially the state, it does take quite a bit of time to get contracts and intergovernmental agreements in place. Once in place, the state will reimburse the county for the eligible phase one planning costs rather than issuing the 1.25 million upfront. So it is a reimbursement model, not an upfront grant model. As confirmed by OJD, planning costs, including the NCSC space needs assessment, are reimbursable on a 50-50 cost share basis. The county pays invoices initially and then submits reimbursement requests to OJD using the standard funding agreement form. We're finalizing the consultant RFP for the remaining Phase I visioning and feasibility work. and coordinating with OJD to ensure alignment with their expectations in recent legislative changes. With those final clarifications pending from OJD, we anticipate moving quickly to execute the agreements and begin submitting for reimbursable expenses. I will provide this email in a written email so that you have this for your records as the courthouse will be a long planning process to get us to an execution phase, a new courthouse. Continuing the theme of public safety and justice, happy to share that we will be starting the recruitment for a new community corrections director this week. I share that because community corrections is an important department as part of our public safety and justice ecosystem. I want to highlight just the work that our community corrections department plays as well as our juvenile department in reducing recidivism. And that is the focus of the services they provide as well as restorative justice. So just want to commend those two individual departments within the public safety and justice ecosystem. And I continue to be proud and just in a degree of admiration of the work that all of the staff and leadership in those departments play and how they partner with our other public safety and justice departments. Moving on to animals now and animal services, DocuPet partnership. Animal Services is launching a new dog licensing partnership with DocuPet on September 15th. On or around that date, DocuPet will send emails and letters related to licensing to dog owners in Washington counties. Animal Services is sharing information about the partnership through their website, a press release, social media posts, their monthly animal tales newsletter, and HHS's internal buzz newsletter. The move to DocuPet has many advantages for animal services and will create a better, more modernized licensing experience for dog owners in Washington County. Still, any discussion around licensing fees or system changes may prompt comments from the community as we go through this change. And that concludes my update. Terrific. Thank you.

And now to the board, who would like to go first?

You go first. BE HERE. LAST TUESDAY AFTER THE BOARD WORK SESSION I WENT TO THE SHERIFF'S OFFICE FOR THE EMPLOYEE RECOGNITION AND SWEARING IN QUARTERLY EVENT WITH MANY OF YOU. IT'S GOOD TO SEE REPRESENTATION FROM OUR GROUP AS WELL AS THE STAFF THERE. SO THANK YOU. WEDNESDAY MORNING I HAD A WORK SYSTEMS EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE MEETING. And then I had the state of the county film screening, and that went really well. Thank you, Sarah and Darren. We were in the Bethany area. Thursday was our roundtable, and following that, I attended a screening of No Place to Grow Old at the Cedar Mill Christ United Methodist Church. This is the film that many of us have seen. There was a panel discussion afterward, which I was a part of, And Sunday, I was at the National Night Out event hosted by the Oak Hills. It was rescheduled due to the heat and the smoke from the original National Night Out. So there were many different block parties. I went to one that was three people and one that was 75 people. So there was quite a variety, but there were a lot of people out enjoying late summer, early fall time. This week I had, just last night I had an ACRE meeting where we had the vice chair election and Tanya Macedo will be the vice chair moving forward. We also had Lucy Hammer there from Espousal Strategies. She was there to kick off the process for the annual work plan development. So that'll take several meetings and it's a sausage making process and we're just right in the early stages. Tomorrow, I'll be attending the AOC District 8 meeting, I believe, with just about everybody else here. And on Thursday morning, I'll be speaking at the Northwest Association of Community Development Managers at their fall conference on a panel discussion themed around cultivating stronger community partnerships. The moderator is going to be Steve Dickey, the CDBG and Home Grant Program Manager in Marion County. Then after that, I have my urban services framework interview with the consultants and a follow-up meeting with Michelle Rios. In the evening on Friday, oh, no, in the evening that night, I'll be attending the WA Mayor's Forum and a reception at Parallel Construction in Tualatin. And then on Friday, I'm going to be attending the Policymaker's Bike Ride. Nice. And last but not least, on Friday night at 9.15, I have another patrol briefing. at LAC. That's my report. That's great.

So last Wednesday we did have our SHS RPOC meeting. I did want to report that the key performance indicators and key environmental indicators were approved by the committee to move forward. There were four FOR NEW OR KIND OF LATE TO THE GAME ONES THAT WE AS WASHINGTON COUNTY WANTED TO BE ABLE TO VET AND WORK THROUGH A LITTLE BIT MORE, I GOT TO A PLACE WHERE, AND THIS IS A NEW INTERESTING VOTING SCHEME, WE COULD VOTE ONE, WHICH WAS NO, A TWO, WHICH WAS YES BUT WITH RESERVATIONS AND YOU COULD VERBALIZE THEM, OR A THREE. THEY USE THAT FOR THIS PROCESS. VERBALIZED CONCERNS AND ENDED UP SUPPORTING IT BUT WITH RESERVATIONS. WE TRIED TO MAKE AN ALTERNATIVE MOTION AND THAT OR I DID AND THAT IT WAS MESSY. LET'S JUST PUT IT THAT WAY. INCLUDING I FELT LIKE THE METRO ATTORNEY NOT UNDERSTANDING BASIC PARLIAMENTARY PROCEDURE. BUT IT IS WHAT IT IS.

NEW SPEAKER SO THESE FOUR NEW PARTICULAR ONES. Would you say they are pretty, are they very different items, or are they similar to some other things, or are these brand new that we've never had to gauge before?

I wouldn't say they're brand new concepts, but they just were not worked through at the same level of rigor, and that's exactly what I said.

Yep.

WITH THE STAFF TEAMS ON WORKING OUT EXACTLY HOW CERTAIN THINGS WOULD BE MEASURED AS PART OF THEM. THEY WERE JUST NONE OF THEM ARE UNIMPORTANT. THEY JUST REALLY DIDN'T HAVE THAT LEVEL OF RIGOR. WHAT METRO IS COMMITTED TO IS THEY'RE GOING TO TAKE EVERYTHING WE SAID AND TRY TO WORK THINGS ANYWAY. LIKE EVEN THOUGH THAT EVEN THOUGH MY RECOMMENDATION DIDN'T PASS. they understood that those needs a lot more work. And so they're gonna try to do the work immediately after the meeting between now and the next meeting.

Well, one of the concerns that you heard me air, and if we could pause this for a moment, please, the clock. This is a little, thank you. The concern that we've had for at least five years, a set of metrics. that have been used. And in having spent time on the prior committees and the oversight reports, it's quite a volume of information. And so if this new set of information isn't smaller than that, I mean, we still want to make sure there's accountability, transparency, but it can't be as voluminous. Commissioner Fai, could you stop getting in the way of my sightline to Commissioner Snider? Thank you. If it continues to be voluminous, then that's not going to serve us well. Is your impression that it's at least meets the accountability metric, but isn't as voluminous as before?

These are, I would say, first of all, there's been a lot of work done to try to pair the metrics and get to... Could you pause for a second?

Did you see the finger? Did anybody saw that? No? Okay, go ahead. Continue.

I just wanted to pause. Maybe I can help by moving this.

Yeah.

So... What I would say is that the four things that were being added were really in response to members of the committee's concerns and things that they put forward. So here together, put forward some concerns about sort of job satisfaction and retention of employees in the sort of workforce that is serving

Well, I have no doubt that there are reasons why people are propagating different things. But I remain concerned that no one has looked at the number of metrics. I still haven't heard back how it compares. Staff, at a minimum, I'd like to hear some response to that. I raised it a few weeks ago. Still no response.

Okay. Yeah, I'm sure the staff team can follow up on that. Why don't I just finish by saying that there were four that were raised. We expressed concern about the lack of robust rigor on these four compared to the others. They were added. They're going to do the work to try to get them to the right rigor.

I have a question about that. The motion you mentioned, was it to add those four or was it?

The motion I made?

Yeah, the one you said.

I made a motion to adopt all of the ones that had been presented and worked through prior and then to direct staff and teams to give the same rigor to the other four and bring them back at a future meeting. That was my motion.

those get time.

Yeah. I mean, my feeling is that doing the work correctly is more important than doing it fast, especially in that kind of stuff. And the committee as a whole just feels like they need to get things done. See, last Thursday was our roundtable. Yesterday, Monday, I had a one-on-one with the Clean Water Services General Manager. And then we also, in the afternoon, had an ESPD levy steering committee. We were working on finalizing the first survey questions. So we're just about there. There's some very fine detail Phillip's working on, and then that will be in the field pretty soon. Let's see, tonight I have a Sherwood City Council visit. I think we thought it was Tualatin last week. It's actually Sherwood. Tomorrow I will be at the AOC District 8 meeting. Thursday is a very busy day for me. I start with an Explore Tualatin Valley board meeting. Then I have a meeting to work on the annual review process for our direct reports. I have a Region 1 Act Executive Committee meeting, the WEA Mayor's Forum, and then I'll be leaving that on time or early to get to the first District 3 SPARC meeting. So it's going to be a wide day, followed by the morning at the The next morning, the Oregon Walks Policymaker Bike Ride, and then a DSCC meeting in the afternoon on Friday. So it's going to be a busy few days.

Well, you have a lot of committee assignments, big meaty ones, because you follow up and bore us. So thank you very much. Commissioner Fai, you're next.

Thank you. I'll go next. Two things that... I wanted to report back from last week besides the Thursday is I did complete my filming. So that's check mark for the State of the Union. And then I did my urban frame services, urban services framework interview that went really well. I really appreciate it having the same consultant to track down what I said in the first interview. And then the other thing that's happening this week, I'm just going to go through the list. I will be attending the AOC District 8 meeting. There could be... So I will be attending that. I don't think I will attend the happy hour scheduled on the agenda, but I will attend the full meeting. And then... I think I said yes to the West Side Economic Alliance Mayor's Forum. And then I do have a meeting with constituent Jen Asher. Tanya, the thing that you mentioned about the animal services is very helpful because I think my meeting with Jen Asher is with concerns about the animal shelter. But I'll keep you posted and document any new questions that she has. And then I have a one-on-one with Rahim and then I'm doing my constituent coffee, monthly coffee with Town Hall this week, I think. Maybe the Town Hall is next week. And then I wanted to give you guys a quick update on J-PAC because there's a J-PAC meeting this week. Nothing to... board discussion or input needed so far. But there is an informational agenda item. So J-PAC transit workgroup report out is going to be done by the chair. And the chair is Christine Lewis this year. And then also, speaking of J-PAC, we did cancel the trip. Because this week I was actually supposed to go to a trip in DC. But members of Congress are not in session. So it was unanimous or group decision to not attend that since it's not going to be cost effective. And we will postpone. And then one agenda item is we're going to have to review and move forward approving the work plan for the 2028 regional transportation plan update. And then we're having informational discussion items around draft regional event full action plan presentation. And then I think I've given some board information about this specific agenda item, but they're going to come back with the recommendations for the Community Connector Transit Study Report and recommendations. And I think I reported a while back that this was a project that they were wrapping up, And it outlines actions and recommendations supporting implementation of community connectors and mobility hubs. And it's sort of outlining forward-looking actions rather than prescribing specific projects or service decisions. So I'm looking forward to that. Nothing board input related. And I think that's it. I'm not going to list the rest of the laundry list of where we're attending and what we're doing, but those are two things I want, three things I want to do, appraise you on. And that concludes my update.

Great. Last week, three of the four of us attended the Sheriff's Office employee swearing in and recognition. I just want to note that the Sheriff's Office has, through help with HR, of course, has made a very big push on recruiting over the last year and a half. It was a very large class, but they've really been hitting their recruitment goals. The jail recruitment is now complete, training continues, and it's really exciting. Last Thursday night was the PAB meeting. I'll be forwarding a very nice letter that REACH Community Development Corporation sent in response to a public hearing that we had with regard to needs and the CAFR. So I'm looking forward to the District 8 meeting tomorrow. We shouldn't have any trouble with I-5 traffic detours because it's essentially not very deep or impacted by that, but we shall see. And then, like Commissioner Snyder and Commissioner Treece, I also have a meeting with Michelle Rios regarding executive reviews as well. So the work that I had done previously on the calendaring for the three reviews I think is serving us well. But we have a lot of work to do between now and the end of the year. So she'll be very busy with us. Yeah, it's good work. All righty. I believe that's it for the work session today. And we do not need to reconvene later in the day. So that's it for today's work session. See you next Tuesday. Thanks. Bye.