City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you.

All right, good afternoon, everyone. This Tuesday, July 21st, 2026 meeting of the Lake Oswego City Council is now called to order. Ms. Hawkins, will you please call the roll?

Yes, Mayor Buck?

Here.

Councillors Afghan and Maboub are excused. Councillor Wendland? Here. Councillor Burdick?

Here.

Councillor Corrigan? Here. And Councillor Edmonds-Manz will be joining us shortly.

Thank you very much. Now, everyone, will you please stand, remove your hats, and join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God.

Okay, switch positions.

A very special presentation to start the meeting tonight. We're going to be presenting community service awards to three Lake Oswegoans who went above and beyond. So I'd like to invite Mike McNary, Jason Leong, and Kana Wakamatsu to please come forward. Mike, no Mike. Two of the three are here. Mike is not here. So on May 24th of 2026 at the Mountain Park Racquet Club, which is located at 3 Botticelli, a mountain park there, these two and Mike demonstrated extraordinary courage, awareness, and decisive action in response to a life-threatening emergency. While playing tennis, they observed a fellow player suddenly collapse on the court. And within seconds, they assessed the situation, called 911, and immediately began life-saving measures. They administered chest compressions and retrieved and used the automated external defibrillator, AED, that was mounted on the wall. After delivering a single shock, the individual regained consciousness and was able to speak. Their ability to quickly recognize the signs of cardiac arrest and respond with calm efficiency was critical. Without their swift and knowledgeable actions, the outcome could have been far more severe. Emergency medical personnel transported the individual to the hospital, where care was continued in the emergency room. Remarkably, he remained in good spirits, even making jokes along the way. We commend these two individuals and Mike for their outstanding service, presence of mind, and willingness to act in a moment when every second mattered. Their actions exemplify the very best of community responsibility and heroism. So please congratulate Jason, Kana, and Mike for the Community Service Award. Let's give them a big round of applause. TO KIND OF TALK A LOT ABOUT THE EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS AND TRAINING. FIRST, YOU KNOW, IN LO AND IT'S NOT TOO OFTEN THOUGH THAT RESIDENTS ARE REALLY PUT TO THE TEST, YOU KNOW, AND YOU THINK LIKE WHAT WOULD YOU DO WHEN THAT REALLY HAPPENS. SO IT'S VERY COMMENDABLE HOW THOSE THREE WERE ABLE TO ACT SO QUICKLY. OKAY. Now we have another special presentation from the Willamette Falls and Landing Heritage Area Coalition. And I'd like to invite Britta Mansfield, the executive director. Forward. And Jeff Goodman. All right.

Is this on? Perfect. Good afternoon, yes. Great. Good afternoon, Mayor Buck and City Council. Thanks so much for having me today. I'm joined by Jeff Goodman, whom I'm sure you all know. He's the treasurer of our coalition, a wonderful board member, so he's here to support and maybe answer questions or say something nice, one of the two. I'm here for our annual update. I think most of you have heard a presentation from me, so I'll try to be brief. A lot of this is probably repeat information, but we do have some exciting new news to share, some new progress, and then some asks about how Lake Oswego can continue to support us. So we'll just kind of dive in. Key takeaways, there you go. Just reminding you guys who we are, what we're doing over at Historic City Hall in West Lynn, and then looking at upcoming advocacy. That's a really core piece of what we're doing and where most of our progress is coming from this year. So as I'm sure everybody here knows, the coalition is a nonprofit umbrella organization that's working to establish a national heritage area right here in Oregon along the Willamette River. We'll see a map of our boundaries in a few slides, but we follow a 56 river mile stretch of the Willamette, stretching basically from Lake Oswego all the way up to Kaiser and Willamette Mission State Park. We're a nonprofit board, so we're composed of representatives from that entire region, both other government partners such as yourselves, private citizens, and other heritage sites as well. And we're working to enhance, assist, and promote the heritage area with this overarching goal of becoming the national heritage area. NHAs are wonderful programs. Just as a reminder, they're designated by Congress, but they're actually under the management of the National Park Service. They're a great way to bring that national parks branding to local communities, but retain local management of the lands and the resources within. So we'll eventually work to further the mission of the National Park Service, but keeping everything local and telling a cohesive story about the national significance of this region. So here's that map that I mentioned. You can see that kind of light shaded green area that stretches all along the river and encompasses quite a few cities. We currently have, I think, seven partners that are at a level similar to yourselves and would love to see all of the municipalities within our boundaries come on eventually. But regardless, we're presenting and promoting the history of this entire region because it does tell a pretty cohesive story. Moving into that story, here are just a few of the major themes that we like to focus on whenever we do outreach or presentation and even over at Historic City Hall. These are the themes that we want to present to the public. Largely focused on the Willamette's influence. That is our defining physical feature of our region and that has touched pretty much every facet of history from time immemorial. So you have Native American peoples that have lived here forever and they thrived because of the river. This region itself was carved out by the Missoula floods, so we like to touch on that history and promote it whenever we can. And then we move through history, through western settlements, looking heavily at the influence of agriculture and industry and how those were really born here in that falls region and then spread upriver because the river was a major transportation corridor. These are the key themes that we focus on. This isn't a comprehensive history of the region, but these are kind of the high-level highlights that we want everybody to know about and why we qualify for this National Heritage Area program. Moving into our current work, we have a handful of ongoing projects, our biggest one being federal advocacy to achieve National Heritage Area designation. This has been a very long process for the coalition. We were founded in, I think, 2006. And lots of people have been talking about the idea of an NHA in Oregon for even longer than that. But we've had some major milestones in the last 10 years, and most recently, a lot of progress towards this designation. So the first step to really becoming an NHA is having a feasibility study approved by the National Park Service. That happened in 2018. And since then, we've been working on a draft bill that will eventually go to Congress. We have what I think is a very strong draft bill now, and we've actually brought on an advocacy team. We're working with Greg Leo and the Leo Company, I'm sure some of you have crossed paths with him, to do some local and federal advocacy to hopefully move this bill forward. Our goal is to have our draft bill introduced to this Congress and hopefully actually passed next Congress. There's at least one other national heritage area that has a bill moving through committees at the federal level right now, so we do think the outlook is very good. On top of that, we're doing a lot of local advocacy and tribal outreach as well. We've met with and will be meeting with a handful of the other tribes that have very strong ties to this region, and we think that that outreach is going very well. So that's the biggest bulk of our work right now is that federal advocacy. We're also operating Historic City Hall as a cultural center. We have a really cool set of exhibits over there right now. We have nine exhibits from different heritage sites and organizations throughout the region. One from your very own Lake Oswego Heritage Center, talking about the iron industry and its influence in the whole Willamette River region, so we're very excited about that. We continue to operate Old Oregon Photos. This is actually a business that we run. We have a very dedicated volunteer who is selling and printing historic photos. And then we like to support regional events as much as we can. And we have been hosting, roughly quarterly, a book club entitled Rereading History, where we're taking a new look at history books that have been out for a while, but inviting the community to come in and have a very casual conversation about them. Here's just a brief note about Historic City Hall and some of the work that's happened there. We formally moved into the space in March of 2025, which was another huge accomplishment for the coalition. This was at least a decade in the making of getting Historic City Hall open. So we're very excited to be operating out of there. We have office space there for Not only the Coalition, but I believe four other organizations as well. We share space with the Willamette Falls Locks Authority, the Willamette Falls Trust, the Advocates for Willamette Falls Heritage, and the Westland Chamber of Commerce is using some of our space as well. So there's lots of opportunity for partnership there. And the Cultural Center has been open for, what is that, about eight months now. We'll be coming up on a year in October, and we're really excited to look at our year one visitor numbers and see how we can improve our marketing and get some more people through the building. We'll have new exhibits opening hopefully in March 2027 that give a really good overview of the whole area and our goal with the building is not just to keep people in Westland but it's actually to send them out. We want people to go to the museums and heritage sites here in Lake Oswego and all throughout the region. So using the building itself as a marketing tool is something that's really important to us and we'll have more to share about that in the future. We kind of talked about our NHA designation already, but just to recap, we are working with a lobbyist, and I think that's going really well. I do think the outlook is better than it has been in the last few years, again with some other NHAs throughout the country also coming up for approval. I think that means our chances of getting this through in the next two years are very strong. We're very excited about that, and we're looking to reaffirm support from all of our local governments. That's a great way to keep Lake Oswego and all of our partners involved. I think it will be helpful in the very near future to have a letter of support or a resolution from Lake Oswego Council reaffirming that this is a priority for the city and something that you support and that will help us move that federal advocacy needle farther to the finish line. There's other ways to get involved. We always, if you know of heritage events in the region, we'd love to promote them. We'd love to encourage you guys, encourage other community members to volunteer with our organization. Our Historic City Hall is currently all volunteer run, so we always need help there. And then again, that last piece is updating the support letter. We have had a letter of support from Lake Oswego in the past. We'd love to have another one And we'd love to just renew and continue the financial contribution from Lake Oswego and make sure that we are still fulfilling those desires and that you guys are supportive of what we're doing. We are excited to bring you a national heritage area within the next two years is our goal, and I think that's realistic. So I'm happy to answer any questions. I think Jeff would be happy to share anything as well. So thank you so much for your time and look forward to your continued support.

Thank you, Bretta. Jeff, do you have anything? Just to encourage all of you, if you have the opportunity to come to the Historic City Hall and visit the exhibition that's there now that Lake Oswego is a part of, as Britta mentioned, nine different community groups have an exhibit there showing the history of the region. You're welcome at any time. Great. Thank you. Colleagues, questions?

Would you all like to?

Great. Thank you.

Thank you very much. We'll follow up with you on that letter of support. Wonderful.

Thank you so much.

Thank you, Jeff. Great having you here. Folks, now is the time we're going to, for public comment. If you're here to provide public comment and have not already done so, please fill out one of these white comment cards that are located on the back table. We do have one public hearing tonight on the Tree Code, and if you're here and would like to testify about that item in particular, please fill out one of these blue cards and hand either one to Ms. Hawkins here, and then you'll participate during that portion of the meeting when we have the hearing. But for public comment, when I call your name, please come forward, speak into the microphone. Just start by telling us your name, and you'll have three minutes to provide comment. There's a little timer on the table there to track your time, and thank you for being mindful of that. Great to have you all here. The first up is Sandy Zeronski. Zeronski. It's great to have you here, ma'am.

Good afternoon, City Council and Mayor. My name is Sandy Zarosinski. I'm a 37-year resident of First Edition, 61 years in the City of Lake Oswego. Well, here we are again, pleading for our beloved First Edition neighborhood and our beloved library. First, I want to mention the last debacle that the Council supported, the decimation of 28-plus trees and building of cottage clusters. The residents of first edition were not listened to. Our city council did not have a spine and stand up for us. And the result is 16 empty units. No one wants them. One recently sold at auction. They have unlivable floor plans, a common courtyard that has a fire pit six feet out the back door, and no parking off the street, and nobody wants them. Now you want to take our library away, using the land to make funds for a new one. Does that mean selling to the highest bidder and more cottage clusters that no one wants? Fix what we have. We are not in a race to keep up with the Joneses. Taxes in LO are already ridiculously high. new rec center, new sewage treatment unit, sewage treatment, new fire station, new schools. Some of these are necessary. Some are not. Please don't add another huge debt to our city and the taxpayers. My home was built in the 50s. Because of meticulous maintenance, it is in great condition. Sure, we've had to do some upgrades, new roof, new deck. They've been purposely done. But you all have halted maintenance on our library. Nothing goes from chaos to order. By itself, one must maintain order. Fix our library. Don't tear it down. Please, I beg of you to listen to the people who put you in those seats. First Edition is a special neighborhood. I have lived there for 37 years. Don't ruin it more. It has already been ruined enough. Thank you.

Thank you, Sandy. Donald Mattersdorf. Good afternoon.

Good afternoon. Donald Mattersdorf. I live at 930 Bullock Street. And I'm here today because I got an email from Mayor Bucks, which touched on the library and invited people who had something to say to come down and comment. So I would like to echo some of the things which I just heard from Mrs. Zielinski. I ran for office in Lake Oswego. It was a while ago now, 2017. And one of my issues was the library. And I lost that election. The library issue didn't seem to gain much traction. So I'm a little surprised to find it on the agenda now. But I agree with her. We don't need a new library. We need a branch library on the western side of town. It's quite a ways out there. And I think that opening a branch library to relieve some of the pressure on the main library is like Multnomah County does, like many other library systems do around our country, is by far the more sensible and cost-effective alternative. Before I move back to Lake Oswego, I lived in Alameda, California for a while. It's a nice town. It's somewhat larger than Lake Oswego. They had a nice main library in the middle of town. And they had two small, beautiful libraries, branch libraries, at either end of the town. It was an elongated town that was kind of hard to drive around through, just like Lake Oswego is. And that worked really well. These branch libraries, they were rented space in commercial shopping centers, maybe 1,000 or 2,000 square feet. They had a corner for kids with a few beanbag chairs and a lot of kids' books. And they had a somewhat limited space selection for adults. They had a computer or two. They had one person in there manning it and helping people check their books out. And it was really easy to get to the library and really easy to get your book. So that's the model that we should work on in Lake Oswego, in my strong opinion. We're a pretty large town. It's crazy not to have any branch libraries and just this one main library. And we would relieve our pressures on the library in so doing and make it a lot easier for people who live at that end of town if they had a branch library. As to the reasons that I read about why you want to tear down the library, you know, they weren't very compelling, I've got to admit. Our oldest civic building in this town and our most beautiful one also is the Lakewood Center for the Arts. It's 100 years old now. You know, I challenge you to prove to me that that building is seismically up to standard and up to codes. There is no way. And if the elevator doesn't work too well or they need a new roof, they get a new roof. And if you propose to tear it down for the reasons that were cited in the case of the library, I think you would get laughed out of town. Thank you, Donald. Thank you. Okay, thank you. Thank you.

Diane Schweiss-Goth? Sorry, I might be... Hi, Diane.

Hi, my name's Diane Swiceguth, and I live on Fifth Street, and I've been here for 20-some years. Two libraries are better than one. I think that's the phrase that we all should be talking about. And that was the recommendation from the Barry Dunn Community Engagement Report, which recommended a dual library model for the city. In its report, it states that Model A is the optimum model. This model includes the renovation of the existing library with improved parking and pedestrian access, as well as the establishment of a full-service library on the west side of the city. It also goes to state this investment in a dual library model aligns with a shared vision for the future of the Lake Oswego Public Library to facilitate an inclusive, connected, and thriving community. HOWEVER, COUNCIL IGNORED THE RECOMMENDATION IN FAVOR OF A LARGER SINGLE LIBRARY MODEL. IN A POST CARD RECENTLY MAILED TO THE COMMUNITY FOR VOLUNTEERS FOR THE LIBRARY SITE REUSE TASK FORCE, THE ONLY STATED CRITERIA FOR SITE REUSE WAS THAT IT GENERATE REVENUE FOR THE NEW LIBRARY. IT IS MY HOPE THAT THE TASK FORCE REMEMBERS THE DEFINITION OF REUSE Reuse means to use an item again for its original purpose or for a completely new function without significantly altering the object. It does not mean demolishing the current library or selling the property for residential development, which is implied in the generate revenue for the new library. Council should revise the criteria for the library site reuse task force to include, evaluate how the existing library site can be reconfigured within reasonable cost to meet the dual library needs of the community. Again, two libraries are better than one. Thank you.

Thank you, Diane. Deborah Link. Good afternoon.

Hello. Here we are again. My name is Deborah Link, and I'm a resident of First Edition. I have six requests regarding our library's future, and I request that they be answered publicly and in writing. The library is the heart of first edition. The city plans to rip it out, ignoring the importance to our community. We now live with the effects of two terrible city decisions on cottage clusters, and now we're facing an even worse one. First point is the city's consultant and citizens, 1,000 of them, identified an optimum recommendation to construct a second public library incorporating modern amenities. At your July 18th, 23rd meeting, firm guidance was given that it should be ignored because the city could not afford operational costs for both sites. I request that the financial analysis be provided to the public to justify that guidance. Second, the city says our 40-year-old library is beyond its useless life because it needs seismic upgrades, roofs, and an elevator. It seems the city deliberately allowed increasing deferred maintenance, creating the problems. The estimated fix for the problems is about $10 million, maybe a little more. I requested a public accounting of deferred maintenance be provided and how allocated maintenance funding has been spent during the last 10 years. Third, the city conducted a survey that identified space residents want in the new facility. Most of these items are already available in Lake Oswego. I request a cost analysis be done to compare those items to the cost of using existing facilities. Fourth, the reuse task force chartered at this meeting is to evaluate and recommend the future and reuse of current library site. First edition is represented by a number of our neighbors on this, and I'm grateful for that. The recruitment for the committee was clear that you plan to demolish the library. The only stated criteria, as mentioned before, is that we need to generate revenue. I request the charter be modified to include other factors such as character and environment. With the single requirement being revenue, the highest bidder will win and welcome to more high rises, no parking, and no trees. That's not acceptable. Fifth, I request a third task force be created to evaluate how our library could be reconfigured to meet the needs of the community, keeping costs reasonable and using agreements to bolster and shelter better use of existing services and facilities. A cost estimate for that option, including a satellite branch in an existing facility, is requested. Sixth, I would like a written financial justification of why it is necessary to spend over $100 million potentially to solve a $10 million maintenance problem. Finally, this comes with the same time that Lake Oswego is replacing its wastewater treatment facility, an estimated cost of $700 million. It's likely that our city will also need to improve our water resiliency.

Between the wastewaters- And I hate to interrupt you, but you're over your time. Thank you. I have one more sentence. We got your six questions.

I have one more sentence. Between the wastewater library and fire station projects, our city could be facing an addition $1 billion in debt when water resiliency is added in.

Thank you, Deborah. Thank you. Appreciate you being here. Thank you. Is there anyone else who would like to provide a public comment? Okay. Thank you everyone for your comments. We are now going to move on to the consent agenda. We have on the consent agenda, just one item, resolution 26-41. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Move, please. I move to adopt the consent agenda. Second.

All right, motion is made by Councillor Corrigan and seconded by Councillor Manns. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay. Motion passes unanimously, 5-0. Now moving on to council business. First item is the approval of an owner's representative contract for the South Shore Fire Station. So I invite our assistant fire chief, Chris Arman, to please come forward, and she'll be introducing the coming management group.

GOOD AFTERNOON. MAYOR BUCK, COUNCILORS, MY NAME IS CHRISTINE ARTMAN. I AM YOUR ASSISTANT FIRE CHIEF. TODAY WE BRING THE OWNER'S REPRESENTATIVE CONTRACT FOR THE DESIGN AND BUILD PHASE OF THE SOUTH SHORE FIRE STATION. but I wanted to give a moment to introduce our owner's representatives and provide any opportunity to ask questions if you have any questions. Through the RFP process, the Cumming Group demonstrated significant strengths in budget and schedule management with a long history of construction management experience, and they're also local, so. To my left, I have our principal in charge, Sam Egger, with 20 years of experience in project management across municipal, public works, public safety, and commercial projects. And then our senior project manager is Shane Moffitt, and Shane brings 18 years of construction management experience, which importantly includes extensive experience in occupied 24-7 workplaces. ENVIRONMENTS SUPPORTING EMERGENCY RESPONSE, RELOCATION, AND PHASED OCCUPANCY EFFORTS. ALSO, THEY HAVE AN EXPERT FIRE STATION COST MANAGER WHO IS ALSO A CIVIL ENGINEER. HE COULDN'T BE HERE TODAY, BUT HE IS ALSO PART OF THE TEAM, NICK MATTA. SO I'M GOING TO KIND OF BACK UP AND ALLOW YOU TO ASK ANY QUESTIONS.

Yes. Would you like to introduce yourselves further? Give us a little bit about your experience. Not a problem.

My name is Samara Ager. Everyone calls me Sam. Please do. We are local. Our office is on Meadows, 6000 Meadows Road off Cruise Way. So we're part of the community as well. I'm born and raised Oregonian. I don't know, construction is kind of my passion. Been super excited to become part of a project regarding a fire station. And Chris has been wonderful so far to work with. So we're excited.

It's nice to meet you. Shane Moffitt, again, born and raised Oregonian. My background is with zero downtime transitions. That is a huge piece that this part of this project. We don't have the opportunity to not be up and live. We don't have the opportunity to be reactive. We have to be go, go, go. So what we bring to the table, excuse me, What we bring to the table is we do what we do so that Chris and team can do what they do. They don't have to worry about this project getting completed on time, on schedule, and in budget. Yeah, I was just, I got the opportunity for this project and I was really excited to do just an amazing project with an amazing team.

I had a chance to look at your submittal, and I was very impressed by the company's background and all the various projects that you've worked on. And we're glad to have people with your experience here. One of our concerns has been kind of the close nature of the relationships between owners, reps, and then contractors, just because of the nature of the work. You all work together over time. But that was to be, to speak frankly, we were seeing just too close of a relationship for our comfort. And we really want to be sure that we have an owner's rep who is looking after the best interests of the city and the taxpayers and making sure that we're delivering a high quality project in the most efficient way possible for the folks here. And we have all the trust and confidence that you'll be able to fill that role.

We're clear our mission is to look out for the best interest of the city of Lake Oswego. While we do have relationships with the GC or the architects, because Portland's a very small community. Willamette Valley is a very small community as far as that goes. While we do have those, and they are to your benefit a lot of times because we can help ensure it's the right people on the right project when we're brought in that early, but We are a peer play owner's rep. Our allegiance is to the client first. And we always want to make sure it's fair and that it is what's best for the project. It isn't necessarily what's best for a specific person or a specific part of the team. It is truly about looking out for that. And that isn't just cost and schedule. Is this a project that the client can live in when you're done? And that's really important to us. Is this a project that is going to be around for 30, 40 years? We know you can't replace a fire station every other year. So part of being that representative is looking out for the big picture and cost at the same time.

Councilwoman? Great to have you on board, and I fully support it. I think... Mayor Buck pretty much summarized the feeling of council that we do want an efficient program and under budget. That's one thing he forgot to say. Just kidding. That's my part. I've served in the public for many years, and I think one of the disadvantages we have is that we always have to publish all of our budgets and everything else. And it becomes very ironic that bids come in with about $5 less than what you've allocated. I guess my take on that is that let's not go through the motions, let's challenge and if we can bring the project in under budget or add value to it so that maybe we get something else that we weren't anticipating or that we had to trim back on, As you said, my goal is your goal to have a facility that our firefighters are super excited to go to work every day. And they have great facilities. And it's going to be a long-term home for them. that is great quality and wonderful professional and livable space. And we do things right in Lake Oswego. We don't do things exorbitantly. But we want things to be the best value. And so we've asked for updates, as we normally do on bond projects. I guess our expectation of Council is to have glowing remarks about how wonderful the market is and how they're under bidding or the bids are coming in right where we think and I guess don't take the contingency for granted in the budget. That's another thing that's a pet peeve of mine is that Oh, we've got contingency. Well, no, that's really for if we find a gigantic boulder that we weren't anticipating. I get that. But I don't get it where we just go, oh, yeah, we're over and we can cover it with contingency. To me, that's sloppy. So anyway, pretty much everyone on council is, has, or currently runs a business. And we know the value of dollars. And we're very cognizant of the fact that it's an open field out there. And part of it is how we manage it. And if we manage it, Chris is a top level firefighter. manager. And she's done an exceptional job at getting us to the gold line already. And she didn't know that she was part contractor, part developer. But that's just something that comes along with unique opportunities, right, Chris? We hope that your expertise will really help bridge that gap, and that we really want to listen to the firefighters as far as their professional needs and expertise. But we're excited to have you on board. We expect a great project, and we're excited to cut the ribbon.

Thank you, Councillor Winland. Colleagues, any questions? Okay, all right. Would someone like to make a motion to approve the owner's representative contract?

Yes, I will make a... I would move to approve the owner's representative contract for South Shore Fire Station.

Second.

Okay, the motion was made by Councillor Winland and seconded by Councillor Burdick. Is there any discussion? Okay, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Opposed? Aye. That motion passes unanimously, 5-0.

Thank you so much for this opportunity.

Thank you. We're looking forward to working with you. I WOULD NOW LIKE TO INVITE LIBRARY DIRECTOR MELISSA KELLY TO COME FORWARD. WE ARE GOING TO DISCUSS TWO RESOLUTIONS, THE CREATION AND COMPOSITION OF THE FUTURE LIBRARY TASK FORCE AND THE CRITERIA FOR THE FUTURE LIBRARY SITE SELECTION. DIRECTOR KELLY, GOOD AFTERNOON.

GOOD AFTERNOON, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. THANK YOU FOR YOUR TIME AGAIN TODAY. MY NAME IS MELISSA KELLY AND IT'S MY PRIVILEGE TO SERVE OUR COMMUNITY AS THE CITY'S LIBRARY DIRECTOR. ON THE COUNCIL BUSINESS AGENDA TODAY ARE TWO RESOLUTIONS, AS JUST NOTED. Resolution 2642, to create the future library task force. And resolution 2643, to formally adopt the criteria that council has established for future library site selection and reuse of the existing site. These resolutions relate to the council goal to develop a strategy for an expanded and modern library facility, prioritizing west side of town and urban renewal funding options, allowing it to serve as an all ages and all activities community center. Background information on the condition of the building, the constraints of the site, and the needs we've heard from the community have been shared in the last three study sessions at council meetings on May 19th, June 2nd, and July 7th. And recordings of those recent meetings can be viewed online. The public process that council has approved to begin long-term planning for the library facility replacement was also covered in those meetings. THIS INCLUDES FORMING TWO COMMUNITY TASK FORCES AS WELL AS CRITERIA TO GUIDE FUTURE RECOMMENDATIONS AND DECISIONS, WHICH AGAIN BRINGS US TO THE TWO RESOLUTIONS ON TODAY'S AGENDA. THE FIRST RESOLUTION 2642 WOULD CREATE THE FUTURE TASK FORCE. The Community Task Force would be charged with analyzing the community's current and future needs to develop recommended priorities for the facility and site, presenting recommended building and site priorities to Council and fine-tuning them based on Council input, evaluating and ranking potential site options utilizing criteria developed by Council, presenting an initial analysis of the top ranked site options to Council, And then based on council feedback, conducting a deeper study of top sites and then returning to council to present those additional findings to support you in determining your preferred site and backup site. And the task force would be comprised of people who bring diverse perspectives to the process, including teens, parents or guardians of school-aged children, older adults, people with lived experience with a disability or professionals who serve people with disabilities, local business owners, arts and cultural organizations, the school district, the Friends of the Library, the Library Advisory Board, the Sustainability Advisory Board, and other city boards and commissions. The second resolution is to formally adopt the criteria that council has established over the last two study sessions. Future site criteria includes the must have requirements of a site that is financially feasible and equitably and accessibly located. Additionally, it's important for a future site to be adequately sized and in a location that is appropriate to be zoned for a public library. Existing site criteria includes the must have requirement to generate some revenue to support future facility replacement. Plus evaluating applicable zoning code restrictions and any other requirements that impact potential future reuse of the existing site and local residents on that task force will help shape those recommendations. And just want to thank you again for your time and for considering these resolutions today.

OK. Thank you, Director. So do we have any questions about the task force? I know we talked about it the last time, the criteria, composition. Any feedback? OK. Would someone like to make a motion on 2642, the creation of the future library task force?

Move to adopt Resolution 24-42. No, sorry, 26-42. Oh, 26-42, sorry. Second.

Motion was made by Councillor Murdoch and seconded by Councillor Corrigan. Is there any discussion? All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes unanimously, 5-0. Thank you. And then we have Resolution 26-43. Does someone like to make a motion?

Move to adopt Resolution 26-43. Second.

All right, motion made by Councillor Mann, seconded by Councillor Burdick. Any discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes unanimously, 5-0. Thank you, Director Kelly. We appreciate it. Okay. We are now going to move into a public hearing on the, these are on two ordinances, 2974 and 2978. These are treat code regulation amendments. This is LU26-0014. We are going to first start by a review of the hearing procedure by our city attorney, Mr. Toyin.

We will now open the legislative public hearing on the treaty regulation code amendments for LU 26-0014, starting with a presentation by staff and followed by public testimony. Wonderful.

Thank you so much. All right. Director Nemanalu, good afternoon. Hello, sir.

Well, good afternoon, Mayor and members of the Council. My name is Jessica Numanalu. I am the Community Development Director. And I want to start off by introducing some folks with us that's going to assist in answering questions, including Brandon Nam. He is our Tree Task Force Chair. We also have Sarah Goldstein. She is our project consultant with Cascadia Partners. Morgan Holan, who is our city contract arborist. And then Daphne Sissel, who administers our tree code. And before I get started on the presentation, I would like to invite Brandon to just say a few words about the tree task force process. So please go ahead, Brandon.

Okay, well, I'll start with introducing myself. I'm Brandon Nam. I was volunteered to be the Tree Task Force Chair. I'm a local consulting arborist and principal consultant at Laurel and Tree Consulting. And the Tree Task Force was a group of volunteers. We were charged with reviewing work products and providing input to the city project team. We reviewed proposed amendments to the city's tree regulations and ensured alignment with general scope and intent of the tree code changes identified in the 2024 urban and community forestry plan. Our recommendations focused on enhancing the long-term sustainability of Lake Oswego's urban forest and incorporating best management practices in urban forestry, while also ensuring regulatory efficiency, clarity, and effectiveness. We also had to make sure all of our recommendations complied with state law. And the committee was made up of neighborhood committee chairs, local certified arborists, local home builders, home designers, and architects with experience applying Lake Ocega's tree code and development regulations, and also local community members that were interested in tree management, natural resources, and sustainability. And the Tree Task Force included a variety of stakeholders in the process to get everyone's view, who may be affected by development, urban forest policy, and Lake Oswego. Understanding different parties' motivations helped us to make policy recommendations. For example, Understanding the value and time and expenses related to permit delays helped us recommend changes to review processes for compliant applicants. We also had some foreign members of the Urban Forest Council on the committee who could speak to the potential value of an independent commissioner making decisions about appeals rather than it going to a whole committee. Even within the task force we faced some challenges and disagreements we had to work through. Most of our disagreements were pretty minor. For example, we discussed the correct percentage of total trees or tree diameter developers should be required to retain before having to pay mitigation fees. We were provided with a range between around 45 to 55% and only one person said it should be below that range. One more, a little bit more contentious disagreement was a discussion about how the tree code should regulate golf courses in relation to the forest management permit requirements. This brought up some passions as some participants have been active participants in the local municipal golf course and felt they had been responsible stewards for decades. It also brought up some interesting discussion about what constitutes a forest in an urban environment and in what context it should be regulated as a stand rather than as individual trees. One takeaway I found from my participation on the task force was my role as a liaison between the committee members and the consultant, Cascadia Planning. They used a Zoom app to poll members on each topic during our virtual meetings, and some task force members brought me concerns about the process. I communicated that to Cascadia to make sure we had the exact questions so members could review them before the meeting. I also asked her to focus on the pros and cons of each choice. I felt that the process was much smoother by the end and that all the task force members felt better that their opinions were being heard. Overall, I really valued my time on the task force. It expanded my experience in municipal urban forestry. And hearing from other stakeholders gave me new perspectives on other people's relationships to the tree code.

Thank you, Brandon. Appreciate it.

Thank you.

So the presentation today is gonna focus on a bit of a introduction and purpose on the project. Then we'll talk about the process and public engagement. I'll provide a very broad overview of the proposed amendments and focus most of the presentation on the key issues, particularly that the Council had discussed at your last study session. And then we'll end with a discussion of the Planning Commission recommendation as well as public comment and next steps. So the request before you this afternoon is the tree regulation amendments. This consists of amendments to both the tree code as well as the community development code. This project advances the council's 2025 and 2026 goals to update the city's tree regulations and implement the recommendations of the Urban and Community Forestry Plan. I just want to remind you that this is not a comprehensive rewrite of this code. These are targeted amendments to address issues identified both in the Urban Community Forestry Plan as well as during public outreach and to assure compliance with state law. The proposed amendments, as recommended by the Planning Commission, are included in attachments to two ordinances, Ordinance 2974 and 2978, one which contains the Community Development Code amendments and the other is the Tree Code amendments. And staff is recommending approval as proposed by the Planning Commission. Overall, this project reflects background review, technical analysis, stakeholder input, public engagement, and policy discussion over the past 14 months. It started with the project kickoff in May, and since then we've held six TREE Task Force meetings, seven stakeholder focus groups, We conducted an online survey with 118 responses, as well as community outreach events, multiple council planning commission and advisory board work sessions, as well as, of course, the planning commission public hearing and recommendation in June. As I mentioned, well the objectives of the project are to implement state law, to improve regulatory clarity efficiency, as well as support sustainable urban forest management. And so I'm going to kind of give a very high level overview in context of these project objectives. So in terms of compliance with state law, there have been recent changes in state law that require specifically that tree codes have clear and objective standards for housing. In addition, HB 4037, which was just passed a few months ago, changes our notice and appeal procedures for applications that are subject to clear and objective standards. So the proposed amendments do comply with both of those bills. In terms of improving regulatory clarity and efficiency, some examples of the amendments are reducing the comment period so that the overall process for Type 2 applications is reduced from three weeks to two weeks. It creates a clear and objective definition for significant tree for under the discretionary track. And while we aren't required to have clear and objective standards under the discretionary track, It is going to be a significant improvement to have a clear definition of significant tree because right now it is very, very broad and open to interpretation. So I think that that is a pretty significant improvement for that aspect of the type two process. It also streamlines the appeal process for all type two applications, provides a path to removal of moderate risk trees through the type two removal process. I'm going to talk about those two here under the key issues here in a minute. It creates a programmatic permit for public agencies and utilities, which allows our parks and our park staff, for instance, to manage our natural areas more efficiently for routine maintenance that expands many properties and includes like dead, hazard, invasive, EAB trees, they'll be able to manage those easily and more effectively through this programmatic permit process that is proposed in the amendments. And then we made a number of technical updates such as updating code references, clarifying definitions, and other minor housekeeping changes. For sustainable urban forest management, the proposed amendments create tree preservation incentives under the clear and objective track, and it provides bonus retention credits for high value trees such as Oregon White Oak and Doug fir. So building in that incentive to try to encourage the retention of those high value trees. It also expands mitigation requirements to include Type 1 permits, which is the second most common permit type that we have in the city. So that should significantly increase the amount of mitigation that we see in the city. It streamlines the permitting process to address emerald ash borer, so it's essentially now an over-the-counter permit for the removal of an ash tree, regardless of what its condition is. The amendments would also require street tree planting for all new single family and middle housing dwellings. And this helps address the issue that now that we allow middle housing and there's a lot less room for planting on the site, let's make planting in our rights of ways let's utilize that space to plant more trees to try to make up for that loss in tree canopy. But it also includes amendments that would address concerns about conflicts with our utilities or other infrastructure in the right of way. So we do, for instance, have minimum setback requirements and spacing standards to assure that we don't have those future conflicts. And then we are adding criteria to the minor forest management permit that would tie tree removal to urban forest management objectives. And this is another one that we'll talk about under the key issues next. At the May 5th Council study session, your last Council study session on this, Council did discuss several policy issues, some of which there was some mixed feedback. So I just wanted to spend a little bit of time talking about those issues here to provide you a little bit more context as well as what the Planning Commission recommendation was. So the first issue is the type two appeals process. And what we heard during public outreach is that the current appeal process is pretty lengthy and can often be pretty contentious. And just to kind of outline the process, we have three separate touch points right now TREE REMOVAL APPLICATIONS. THE FIRST ONE IS STAFF REVIEW AND THEN A DECISION BY STAFF. AND THEN THE SECOND TOUCH POINT IS A POTENTIAL APPEAL TO THE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW COMMISSION AND THEN THE FINAL IS AN APPEAL TO THE CITY COUNCIL. THIS IS QUITE A RIGOROUS PROCESS FOR A TREE REMOVAL APPLICATION AND IN FACT IT MIRRORS WHAT OUR LAND USE APPROVAL PROCESS IS. And so what the proposed amendment would do is it would reduce the process to two touch points. So you would have your staff level decision that could then be appealed to a hearings officer rather than to the development review commission. And there would be no further appeal to city council. At your study session, the council asked what that hearings officer process would look like. And the answer is that it would look a lot like, it would look basically exactly like the DRC process is today. If it's appealed to the hearings officer, we would hold a public hearing, and where both the applicant and members of the public could testify. The staff would make a recommendation to the hearings officer, and then the hearings officer would make a final decision issuing findings, conclusion, and order, but that decision would then become final. So there would still be opportunity for public testimony AT THE APPEAL HEARING. THE DEVELOPMENT REVIEW COMMISSION, PLANNING COMMISSION AND TREE TASK FORCE ALL RECOMMENDED THESE CHANGES TO STREAMLINE THE PROCESS. The benefits of this, of course, is that it will be a shorter review timeline and it would be reviewed by a professional hearings officer who is someone who is, typically it's someone who's an attorney who's used to applying criteria. They read all their reports and they read all of the, they take into account all of the public comments. received either writing or at the hearing of course the trade-off is it does reduce the public participation over what is today so you're going from three touch points to two touch points with the public and of course eliminates the council from the tree removal process review process after considering these trade-offs the Planning Commission did recommend approval of the proposed amendments The next issue had to do with minor forest management permits. And minor forest management permits are for parcels of land at least one acre in size with at least one acre of tree canopy. And this permit essentially allows the consolidation of a number of permit types, including dead, hazardous, and invasive tree removal, along with the removal of up to six trees per calendar year, or not per calendar year, sorry, per forested acre. that can be removed under one permit, and there's no public notice or appeal as part of this permit. We had heard concerns during public outreach that allowing the removal of those six trees per acre, which you don't have to have a particular reason, you can remove them for any reason, even if the tree numbers are limited, does not align with the intended purpose of the permit, which is to facilitate forest management activities for managing trees on large parcels. At the Planning Commission and DRC study session in April, and during the Planning Commission hearing, we did receive quite a bit of public testimony, particularly related to the Seagull Lake Country Club, basically advocating to keep the code the way it is. And they argued that, or they felt that the minor forest management permits were being used responsibly by the applicants who were applying for these. But what the proposed amendments would do is add criteria to the minor forest management permit that would basically require the removal of those six trees per acre to be tied to a forest management purpose, including things like thinning for forest health, wildfire risk reduction, and pest management would be some of those regions. The benefit of the addition of the criteria is, of course, it better aligns with the intended purpose of that permit. And the tradeoff is, of course, reducing flexibility under the current criteria for those applicants that use it, which allows for limited tree removal that's unrelated to forest management permits. I do want to note that initially when the Planning Commission discussed this topic at a joint session with the DRC, their initial recommendation was just to keep the code the way it is. They felt that there was not very many trees that were removed under this and they felt that it was working okay. However, after considering feedback from the City Council's May 5th study session, the Planning Commission ended up ultimately recommending adding those criteria, tying the forest management purpose to that tree removal. And they basically found that the approach appropriately distinguishes between forest management activities and other tree removal quests, such as for development or landscaping, while preserving permit pathways for both types. Because for those development or landscaping type reasons, you can still apply for under a type two permit. So they're eligible for both permits. The draft amendments originally included changes restoring city authority to enforce removal of dead trees that pose a hazard to neighboring private property. And we had similar enforcement authority prior to 2013, but it was removed because investigating and resolving these types of private disputes required a pretty significant amount of staff resources from our code enforcement staff. Following discussion at the Council study session and review by the Tree Task Force, the Commission recommends removing this amendment and retaining the existing code provisions. And the ordinance before the Council reflects this recommendation. I would say the benefit of if you were to keep this in the code, which is actually not recommended by the commission, a benefit of course is that it can address what could be a very legitimate public safety concern because when you have a tree on an adjacent private property that someone is not dealing with, people are asking the city to kind of intervene and help them on that. But the trade off is that we're relying on the city to basically to resolve these private disputes and it takes away from our ability to focus on other enforcement priorities. I will say that our current practice today is when we have these issues come up is that we do refer people to private mediation, which the city offers as a free service through Clackamas County. And then another issue was clarifying maintenance responsibility for public trees in the right of way. At the study session, we found that this really brought up broader policy issues that were beyond the scope of the tree code project. And so staff elected to withdraw that from the current code amendments and we will return to the council early next year to discuss this in more detail. So it's not included in the proposed amendments. And then finally, with regard to key policy issues, I just wanted to touch on moderate risk trees. At the last council study session, several council members asked why staff proposed a new exception within the type two process to address moderate risk trees, rather than expanding the hazard tree permit to include moderate risk trees. to back up a minute, the issue that we found from the public was people were concerned that they had trees that they were very concerned about. They were large trees, maybe near their house, but they weren't a high enough hazard to, because we require a risk assessment of a high or extreme risk in order to qualify under hazard tree permit. So they weren't able to remove it under a hazard tree and often they weren't gonna qualify under a type two. And so they really felt they had no options to address these trees. But the reason why staff is recommending that we retain the existing hazard tree criteria as it is and not try to expand the hazard tree criteria to include moderate trees is that it's not consistent with industry best practices to do that. And this approach of focusing hazard trees only on high and extreme risk are, that's the approach that most other jurisdictions use. Hazard permits are really intended for trees that present an imminent and significant safety risk. And as such, that's why they're reviewed administratively or basically over the counter, no public notice, nothing. There's nothing else considered other than whether it's a hazard. And we allow a very prompt removal of those trees. However, moderate risk trees are different. They represent a much broader and more subjective category. If we expanded the hazard tree permit to include all moderate risk trees, that could significantly increase the number of trees eligible for administrative removal without considering their contribution to neighborhood character or the urban forest. Instead, the proposed amendments create a narrow exception within the existing type two process. It will allow removal of qualifying moderate risk trees when a qualified tree risk assessor determines the tree poses a moderate risk. And this is in a five year time frame. This is not a moderate risk over 10 or 20 years. And there is a documented history of failure of similar trees on or adjacent to the site. This approach responds to concerns raised by the council and the public by providing greater flexibility to remove qualifying moderate risk trees while preserving the city's ability to evaluate the impact of removing significant trees. And the Planning Commission also supported this approach. The Planning Commission held their public hearing on June 8th and at that time we did receive a number of public comments related to wildfire concerns as well as minor forest management permits. All of this was addressed in the Planning Commission findings which is included in your packet. We did receive additional written comments that were received after the Planning Commission hearing and actually some just in the last week or so. We weren't able to address them in the Council report for this hearing, so we ended up addressing it in a separate memo which was forwarded to the Council separately. Of course, I'm happy to address any questions Council may have regarding this public testimony after the presentation. The Planning Commission's recommendation, they adopted their findings on June 22nd and recommended approval of ordinances 2974 and 2978. The amendments are pretty significantly detailed in the Planning Commission staff report if you want a very detailed summary there. And then of course included in the amendments in your packet as well. If the council tentatively approves the code amendments this afternoon, staff will return to the council on September 1st with final ordinance and findings for adoption with the effective date of the ordinance in around early October. If you also tentatively improve tonight, the staff will begin work on updating our administrative forms and procedures as well as preparing public information so the public understands the changes being made to the code. I DO WANT TO NOTE THAT THERE IS ONE IMPLEMENTATION ITEM THAT THE COUNCIL WILL NEED TO RETURN TO SEPARATELY FROM THE TREE CODE AMENDMENTS TONIGHT. AND THAT IS SOMETHING WE'RE CALLING THE TREE RETENTION DEFICIT FEE. ONE OF THE PROPOSED CODE ESTABLISHES THE REQUIREMENT FOR A FEE WHEN PROJECTS UNDER THE CLEAR AND OBJECTIVE TRACK FALL BELOW A MINIMUM THRESHOLD OF 45% TREE RETENTION. THAT FEE AMOUNT IS NOT INCLUDED IN THE CODE BECAUSE OUR CITY FEES ARE ESTABLISHED THROUGH OUR MASTER FEE SCHEDULE. AND SO STAFF WILL HOLD A STUDY SESSION WITH COUNCIL ON SEPTEMBER 1ST TO GET DIRECTION ON SETTING A FEE AMOUNT and will return on September 15th to adopt the fee by resolution, which will be effective before the tree regulation amendments go into effect in early October. I do want to note that this fee is not a substitute for tree mitigation planting. The applicant will still be required to plant mitigation trees, however, This fee will provide additional mitigation for the loss of the retained tree canopy that falls below that minimum 45% tree retention standard. So it's essentially addressing the additional impact resulting from falling below that minimum threshold. And I also should note that the applicant can avoid this fee altogether by just going through the discretionary track. They always have the option to do that. So in conclusion, the staff recommendation is to tentatively approve LU 2614 and the associated ordinances and to direct staff to return with final ordinance findings and conclusions for adoption on September 1st. And I would just close out by saying, you know, this project represents more than a year of collaboration among the Council Planning Commission Tree Task Force Advisory Board stakeholders, as well as the broader community. And the proposed amendments are intended to implement the Urban and Community Forestry Plan, comply with state law, and improve clarity, efficiency, and effectiveness of the city's tree regulations. I really want to thank the Tree Task Force, the Planning Commission, the Development Review Commission, Sustainability Advisory Board, and Parks Board for all of their time and efforts on this project, as well as the Council for your guidance. And a special thank you to Councillor Wendland for serving as the liaison and attending every one of the Tree Task Force meetings. It was very great. to have you there, so thank you so much. And with that, I'll have our project consultant and staff come up, and we're happy to answer any questions you have.

Okay, yes, we will take the public testimony, and then we'll do the questions. Thank you. Thank you, Jessica. So now it's going to be the time for folks to testify on these amendments. And Karen Sampson, you're up. You're the only person that has signed up. If there's anyone else who wants to testify, now is your chance. But Karen, great to have you here. And you are here representing the first edition neighborhood. So you'll have a full 10 minutes.

That's right. I won't need 10 minutes.

Have at it.

Hello, everyone. My name is Karen Sampson. I'm the land use liaison for the first edition Forest Hills Neighborhood Association. I'm commenting on one aspect of the proposed tree code on behalf of our neighborhood association. This is regarding the proposed appeals process, or should I say lack of appeals process, for the discretionary type 2 tree removals. As background, as Jessica explained, the pass code allowed for an appeal of staff tree decisions, both approvals and denials, first to the DRC with a second level appeal to city council. At your May 5th meeting, staff reported that between 2020 and 2024, the number of average annual appeals to DRC was three. That makes 15 total appeals over five years. Eight of them were further appealed to city council, and one of the original staff decisions was overturned by the hearing body. I don't know which one. In the proposed new code, for the clear and objective track, the simple one-level appeal process by the applicant to a hearings offer makes total sense, and we don't have any objection to that. But for the discretionary track, the proposed code only allows for appeals to a hearings officer. The officer's decision is final. There's no option for applicants, neighbors, or neighborhood association to appeal either approvals or denials any further. I understand that the DRC and Planning Commission didn't feel that the current appeal process was necessary. But it doesn't matter what those groups want. Now it only matters what the five of you want. At your May 5th council meeting about the Tree Code, I heard several councillors state very clearly that you felt it was important that an appeal option continue to be included. Sadly, I think two of those strongest advocates are not here today. but you felt that ultimately an elected official, which is all of you, should have responsibility for final decisions on escalated cases. Without hearing appeals, how else will the council even know what is going on with tree removals in the city? How will you know what concerns residents have with the new process? How will you monitor if the hearings officer is making reasonable decisions? Remember that these code changes today are not carved in stone. You could keep the second level appeal process now and take it out later if it becomes burdensome. Based on that past data, it shouldn't be. Frankly, if it is burdensome, then that would tell you there's some problem with the hearings officer process, which you'd probably want to address anyway. It's fine to have a hearings officer take the place of DRC for all first level appeals, but we believe it's important for the voices of residents to be heard by you, our elected officials, not just a hired officer. You're the ones who are ultimately accountable to voters. I'm asking that you revise item 44 of exhibit A2 in today's code amendments to add back a second level appeal to the city council for discretionary type 2 tree removals it's a very simple change that would be greatly appreciated by residents thank you for your consideration thank you karen i appreciate it is there anyone else who would like to testify okay then we're going to close the public hearing and jessica

And team, come on back up. Colleagues, if you have any questions. Questions? We'll start with Councillor Corrigan.

So, you know, it's probably in here, but I went through all the summary from the Planning Commission. I still didn't see it, so I think other people might be interested in this, too. And what I don't really understand is how these amendments work with the requirement for defensible space with wildfire, which is, I think, five feet from your house is what... recommended insurance companies are certainly asking for that. How does that work in here?

So our we consulted with our fire marshal and our guidelines are that they recommend that the tree branching be kept 10 feet away from structures and that's both horizontally as well as vertically. So the if someone came in and they had a tree that was five feet away from their house, and if trimming the branches to meet that 10-foot vertical requirement, and essentially if it's that close, it's really just gonna be a vertical requirement, would cause the tree to be disfigured or topping or just was not feasible, then they could apply under a type two permit to remove that for defensible space reasons. But it's not just that automatically if you're just within five feet that you get approval for removal. But if you aren't able to sufficiently trim the tree to meet those guidelines, then we would allow that for a type two removal.

I did have another question. How does ignoring dead trees on neighbor's property, does that bring any legal liability to the city? How we choose to handle that?

There we go. We, um, I guess it depends on, um, if the city has denied a permit to remove a tree and then there is an issue with that tree later on. And so we knew and didn't allow its removal. Um, but otherwise I think it's a private property dispute.

Thank you. Thank you, Councilor Corrigan. Councilwoman.

WELL, I JUST WANT TO DO A COMPLETE POSITIVE SHOUT OUT TO EVERYONE INVOLVED IN THIS PROCESS. I OBSERVED AS A CITY COUNCILOR, I THINK WHAT LAKE OSWEGO IS BEST KNOWN FOR OF GETTING THINGS DONE AND HAVING A WONDERFUL GROUP OF PEOPLE THAT BETWEEN THE TREE TASK FORCE our DRC, our planning commission, just members of the community, people got involved. And I think people were heard. And I think the biggest thing that I took away from this is that we had a very simple process of figuring out one of the most difficult subjects that cities face right now, especially Lake Oswego. Other communities have other issues. We tend to put our bullseye on trees as oftentimes a contentious issue. And I just wanted to say that complete professionalism, complete honesty that came out of discussions. And I commend the staff and everyone else for stepping up and asking all that, answering all the technical questions and with knowledge When people had questions there were really good answers And I think as the council knows we're in a moving target with housing production nuances and new regulations and I think We were thrown a couple curves during the 14-month time frame of the legislature continue to go. Oh by the way. We just changed the rules again and We pivoted and moved forward and figured things out. So the process that this went through, I have a couple of questions, even though I was there. On the minor forest management, I guess my question is, We as the city, we own a golf course. And a lot of the forest management questions were from Oswego Lake Country Club as well. But to me, if a golf course wants to make remodels or whatever, is there a different designation that golf courses can take since they're the landowner? that it would be out of the forest management alternative. I don't know if that makes sense or not, but I look at it as, we took out a lot of trees when we redid the municipal course. I mean, a lot of trees, and a lot of those trees were planted when it first started, and we didn't have one one complaint, one comment from anyone, because we did it responsibly. And I think in the same token, I think Oswego Lake has done the same thing. How do we get it so that if we wanna remodel the golf course in say 20 years, because little trees became big trees and it became a hazard to the play of golf, Is this, are we changing the policy that will allow them to manage their resource to the best use of a golf course?

Well, for the municipal golf course, when they did that significant remodel, that was part of a broader land use application. And so the tree removal was processed as part of that. And so it was under sort of the type two standard. So they've never used the minor forest management permit. But if that should come up again, they could use that same process or they could apply for a type two. So it's not that they aren't able to remove trees for those purposes. We don't expect our public golf course or the Oswego Lake Country Club to all of a sudden turn into a complete forest. I mean, it is a golf course ultimately in the end and they are able to maintain it as such. It's just that they won't be able to use the minor forest management permit. They'll need to apply for a type two.

Okay. So you feel we've got long range things in place with this code that we can manage our property, they can manage their property? Yes. OK. So on the moderate tree risk, when somebody goes out to evaluate it, is that us or is that somebody that you hire? As I've observed in this world, if you don't like the answer from the first person, you'll go down three more things and you'll find somebody that finally gives you the answer that you want. And then who bears the cost of that evaluation?

So it is the applicant's responsibility to submit the assessment from a tree risk assessor qualified arborist. And so they would take that, they would incur that cost. They submit that to the city and we have our consulting arborist, Morgan, who will review all of them. Unless it's something that's very, very obviously a hazard, but those are actual hazard trees that are like an extreme or high risk, but she will peer review those to make sure, because you're right, there are some where you can shop around and get the answer that you're looking for. So she will review those applications.

I mean, I kind of, I equate it to the medical marijuana cards that people got, and there was two doctors that basically did, I think it was 60 or 70 percent of the permits uh... or whatever the authorizations that they could do that in the state of oregon because they just uh... we're making money uh... and i don't want this to be a process where people can as long as we have a Whatever an overview to it. I'm okay with that then last one on the tree mitigation if somebody does do a type 2 and they They want to mitigate it, but not necessarily plant the tree on their lot Can they still make a contribution to the? The general fund and we would the general mitigation fund and they can plan it plant a tree somewhere

If they can show that there's not sufficient space on the site to accommodate the tree, then that is an option. It is something that the city has to approve, so they can't just say, this is what I'm going to do. We will go out there and we will make sure that, yes, okay, you don't have sufficient space to plant, in which case then they could pay into the tree fund.

Okay. All the questions I have. Thanks, Councilwoman. Councilman?

Thank you. I don't know if you'll be able to answer these questions, but it's been on my mind. Taking out trees, large trees in particular, appears to be extraordinarily expensive. I mean, for an average homeowner, and I would imagine for a golf course or any other group that is taking out dog furs or large big leaf maples, whatever it may be. Do we have any idea, and I don't want to put you on the spot on this or hold anyone to it, what the range for taking that size of tree out is?

No, and it's really going to vary depending on the tree's location and how accessible it is, how they'll have to rig it to get it down. IT REALLY DEPENDS ON THE CIRCUMSTANCES.

OKAY. OKAY.

THAT'S FAIR. I WOULD JUST ADD, THERE WERE SOME ESTIMATES THAT WERE PROVIDED AS PART OF THE EMERALD ASHBORN PLAN THAT THE PARKS DISCUSSED. SO YOU MIGHT REFER TO THAT AND THAT COULD GIVE YOU SOME, I CAN'T REMEMBER OFF THE TOP OF MY HEAD WHAT THE RANGE WAS THOUGH.

THAT'S GOING TO BE VERY DIFFERENT THAN A LARGE DOUGLAS. THAT'S TRUE.

THAN AN 80-FOOT DOUGLAS FOR SOMETHING. IN BETWEEN TWO HOUSES. RIGHT. THE SECOND QUESTION I ALSO HAVE IS FINANCIAL IN NATURE. I UNDERSTAND THAT ON THESE MINOR FOREST MANAGEMENT PERMITS, THEY'RE RATHER DIMINIMOUS IN SO FAR AS THEY ARE NOWHERE NEAR THE VOLUME OF A TYPE 2, JUST A STRAIGHT UP TYPE 2 APPLICATION. How much staff time is spent on minor forest management currently? It's kind of hard to say for DERC or Planning Commission. or council for that matter, but does anyone have an estimate? I know it's kind of a tough, again, it's a tough question to dive into.

Well, I do have data. I mean, we know that since 2015, that was when we first adopted the minor forest management permit, we have had 14 permits, so not a lot. It averages to about 19 trees taken out annually, and it represents less than, it's like .65% of all tree removal annually. So the answer is not a lot of staff time goes into it. But I can't tell you exactly, but it's very, it's de minimis.

No, no, but that paints a picture for those who may be watching and for myself as well. Thank you, thank you.

Thanks, Councilor Manz. I had a question. I have two questions. One was also about the moderate trees. That's the slide. So there's the two criteria. It has the risk assessment by the arborist. And is it that there also has to have been and a documented history of failure of similar trees on an adjacent site? Yes. Oh. Well, one's always got to be the first, though. That's the thing. So how did we land on this?

Yeah, I can speak to that. So I think it really came out of the big ice, snow, east wind storm that we had when a lot of trees did come down that were healthy and wouldn't have been rated high risk. And then in the aftermath of that, having type 2s, not a lot, but a handful of type 2s come in where trees, the removal would have a significant negative impact on the character or aesthetics of the neighborhood. the applicant couldn't meet the type two criteria. But I think that those same people could easily demonstrate that there was failure of similar trees in their neighborhood. And so if they could get a tree risk assessment that called the trees moderate risk, they could now meet that criteria. So that's how it came about. And so to do that, you would look at aerial photographies, or a lot of people have pictures of the tree failures that happened in their neighborhood.

Neighbors could have proof that they've gotten, that they got the tree removed afterwards. After it failed. Somebody came, the city could also have evidence that teams came out to remove debris from the street, if it was in front of a street.

In the hazard tree evaluation form, and in tree risk assessment in general, one of the steps the Tree Risk Assessor takes is, is there a history of failure of the site? What are the site conditions? And a lot of times when the assessor is filling out that form, they just blow by that line item. They don't really even consider it. So it's really making them focus more on that. What are the site conditions? Is there a history of failure in this neighborhood? Is this tree similar? Does that mean it is a more substantial or elevated risk?

And this really did come from the period of tremendous public engagement and stakeholder engagement. We heard from residents that it was really important that, you know, because of these windstorms and because they've seen trees fall over the years, that they wanted to be able to feel safer and they wanted to be able to, because of these wind storms and ice storms, remove trees that were very likely going to fall. Again, there's a lot of fear around that and so it's pretty dangerous just to open the door to allow anyone who's fearful of a tree falling, just remove it. That would result in a ton of tree removal. So this was kind of the balance we struck There is documented history of trees falling all over Lake Oswego, and we don't have the exact date of where, but we felt like this was kind of a fair, these two criteria were pretty fair and would be able to address the issue of people who are scared of their trees, and then also the trees are actually at risk of falling.

Right. Well, I just wonder if it's too if trying to show the documented history that you get them, if you have the risk assessor classifies it as moderate risk within a five year time frame, which is kind of what we were going for. Like it's on the and there's and there's no treatment, you know, so it's going to die. Being able to remove it before it becomes hazardous even to remove, we think is a is a good thing. But then if they come up on saying, well, there might not be a documented history of failure, or maybe there are no similar trees around. I don't know. It just seems like then we're going to run into the same frustration we face now, where people are like, the tree, except they'll have the risk assessor saying, hey, they said it is risky, but I just can't show this documentation. So I don't know.

Could I just add one thing about thinking about moderate risk and that risk rating? It's in a five-year time frame, but when we rate a tree moderate risk, it doesn't mean that failure is likely. It doesn't mean that it's probable within a five-year time frame. It's a lower risk than that. So I think, you know, we were, our objective was to try to resolve the issues that we saw after the ice storm. And this was the solution without opening the door to allow all moderate risk trees to be removed.

Do you think it might moderate, just moderate risk alone would encompass too many trees?

In my professional opinion, yes.

I see. But now this says moderate risk within a five-year time frame.

It is within a five-year time frame, but it's...

The difference?

I mean, when you rate risk, you have to assign a time frame to it, right? Because otherwise, all trees would be high risk if you look 100 years from now. So five-year is how we define it when you're assessing risk. and which is a common standard. It's sometimes three years, three to five years. But it needs to be defined, and so it is. But moderate risk is still not a likely failure potential. When you rate a tree high risk, the likelihood of failure is probable. It's likely to fail within the next five years. When you rate it moderate, the likelihood is Yeah, it could happen.

It might not I mean that's a lot of trees that could be possible so Well, perhaps it's something we at least monitor as folks are applying and track because yeah, we hate to go through the change and just for people to run into the Frustration you know I mean because I could see that being I mean, who is the aerial photographs? I mean, you're running like a full on investigation here into like tree death. It's like.

Can I just speak from experience of the person that takes in the applications and reviews them for type twos. When I get hazard tree applications, often I will get accompanying photos from neighbors and things because they've, it's the reason they're applying is because there's neighbor tree has fallen, their tree, maybe they haven't had it evaluated by a TRAC certified arborist, because we don't always require that if the photos are enough. But I often get that information already. I don't think it's a lot to ask. And so when this was presented, I thought, I think that's a reasonable thing to ask. And it doesn't necessarily mean that they have to have the documentation. If I'm aware, I can look and see what hazard permits have been issued or what has been removed. All I have to do is look in our record system. If it's neighbors, lots of neighbors in the last couple of years, that might be enough for us to show. So I just wanted to.

That's very helpful. Present that. Thank you. My next question is about the street trees. So I'm just thinking about the different kinds of environments we have around the residential neighborhood. So we have developed right-of-way, we have the undeveloped right-of-way, and we've been talking a lot about how we dedicate the right-of-way in certain developments and whatnot. So how does the street tree requirement play into that conversation, the dedication of the right-of-way? Or if it is a redevelopment along a urban environment that has the sidewalk, then are they putting the tree into the sidewalk? Where's the tree going?

Yeah, so it will be on a case-by-case basis. So we have written in here standards for siting street trees and we require one tree for each 30 linear feet of frontage. We require setbacks from fire hydrants, water meters, other things. We require certain setbacks to street lights, to traffic signs, intersection approaches. If there is no curb line, then trees have to be planted a minimum of 15 feet back from the edge of pavement. So it gets very specific. I mean, I won't read everything here, but there's a whole list of requirements just to try to assure that we're – Making sure the right tree in the right place is happening and if they can't in cases where there's not enough space Then they're allowed to pay into the city's tree fund in lieu of planting the street tree where there isn't enough space.

I So if the right-of-way is being taken up by roadway and, let's say, sidewalk, and then you've got the private property, that street tree would go onto the private property because the sidewalk wasn't made for the tree, right?

We could do that as well, yes. They are allowed to, but it needs to be within a certain... When planting street trees in the street, right-of-way is not feasible. Street trees shall be planted within six feet of the street right-of-way and recorded with a street tree easement.

Okay, now in these situations where we don't have the, where we don't take the right-of-way. Yes. Okay, how does it work in that situation where the property owner retains the future right-of-way?

Well, again, if there's sufficient space to plant in the right-of-way, we would have them plant there. Otherwise, they would need to plant on the property within the parameters here.

But how do you factor into the future right-of-way? You know, like, you know what I'm talking about, these situations where it's future right-of-way, sometimes we make them put a three-foot strip in the gravel strip. Right.

I think that's a good point. I think that would be part of our engineering review of the plans to assure that if we know that at some point we're going to get the future right-of-way that we would want to make sure the trees were located.

I'm just thinking about the future infrastructure, and we know now as we're retrofitting the streets, one of the main issues that comes up is we've got the trees in the streets, and we love, the street trees are great. I mean, it's a great thing that we've got in here, just thinking about that so we don't, down the road, the community doesn't run into like, oh, now we've got these trees abutting the roadway, and it's another excuse of why we can't put safe infrastructure in.

Right.

Thank you. When you spoke to site conditions, when you're evaluating a site condition where there may be a dangerous tree or a hazardous tree or a tree being taken out, does that take into account the amount of ivy on trees and how long that ivy has been on those trees in that five-year period that you're talking about? heavily IV'd tree areas?

Yeah, I think we would look at that as part of the health and condition of the tree in that rating. And a lot of times when a tree is completely overgrown with IV, they're just going to apply for a dead permit anyhow. And there may be opportunities if it's not too far advanced. Oftentimes, IV is a limiting factor in a visual tree assessment. So we might want to pull some of it back just to get a good look at the base of the tree.

Sure, sure. Final question, I promise. Many of our older neighborhoods have street trees on non-sidewalk street, on right of way, in front of houses, that are large cedars, doug firs, large trees, not what we would consider a nice street tree that we would plant. Do you think that there should be any, or do you think, that it would be valuable to have an inventory of those trees. I know we're doing an inventory, but putting that onus on a homeowner, for example, could be a lot, especially if the tree is I don't know, a significant tree has been there for more than 50, 60, 70 years. Has there been any talk about that with right away?

I'm sorry, can you explain, when you say put the onus on the property owner for what?

For tree removal, should the tree fail or need to be taken out for any reason, sorry.

Yes, so that was a hot topic at the council study session on May 5th, and that was the one that we tabled because it brought up broader policy issues. So we'll be, no, it's fine. It's a fair question, and I don't think we're consistent in how that's applied today, which is one of the issues. So we will, we meaning Eric Haruni, our public works director, and I will come back to you early next year and we'll have this broader discussion.

DARN, I WON'T BE HERE. THANK YOU. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I APOLOGIZE. I WAS NOT AT THAT MEETING. I KNOW WE PROBABLY TALKED ABOUT IT, BUT JUST WANTED TO GO THROUGH.

THANK YOU. COUNCILOR WENDLER. From a legal standpoint of view and from a policy standpoint of view, do we think we've met the clear and objective standards that the state is requiring with this proposal?

Yes, we have vetted this with our consulting land use attorney, and she does believe we are meeting the clear and objective requirements. Of course, the applicant, when it's involved with housing, always has the option to opt into the discretionary process if they want to, and that doesn't have to be clear and objective, and that is allowed by state law.

Okay. So all these, all the hoops that we've gone through, currently under the current legislation they they meet again next year so who knows what will happen but as of today we believe we comply with state law good because I know that that was one of the biggest criteria of doing this whole revision is to meet the clear objective and I'm glad that I knew the answer that question but I just wanted to have it publicly stated that we do really feel that we're now up to speed and we're clear and objective and we've got good policy in place That's right.

Thank God. So Councillor Corrigan.

So I just, I wanted to take a second to shout out, make a shout out to all the people who contributed to the urban community forest plan, because we could not be here today talking about this had not all those people who worked on the committee and all the people who contributed their opinion made that happen. And so we're doing what we're doing with confidence that we know we're proceeding in the right way. We are shifting now to a canopy health outlook. And I think that's what's enabling us to do these things. But we had so much community feedback for that. It's just, I got to come back to this again. And that is shutting out community voice with not allowing final appeal. to the City Council, I think it seems counter to our city values around community voice and community engagement. I understand we are where we are, but I think to me that's, that's, that's still sticking in my craw, so thank you for listening.

I think that, you know, there is so much, it's a great point, there's You know, the code, the work that has been done on the code, the task force, the folks who worked on the urban and community forest plan by our team here at the city, Brandon, the team that you led in the community, thank you, Morgan, Sarah, your firm, has been great. And the code is very important. But, you know, the work of building a healthy urban forest and continuing to build grow the health of our urban forest, you know, goes beyond just this code, you know, and it does require a lot of active engagement of folks and we need more of that and that's work out in the natural areas. That is taking the time to understand how to maintain the health of your own, you know, property, how to maintain your own trees. I think there's a lot more attention that folks can give in learning all the great resources I think we as a community provide and lots of our community partners especially provide the Watershed Council IN PARTICULAR TO REALLY HELP FOLKS UNDERSTAND HOW TO BEST WORK TOGETHER, YOU KNOW, IN COMMUNITY AND IN PARTNERSHIP TO MAINTAIN OUR FOREST. AND THAT'S GOING TO BE ALWAYS MORE REALLY IMPORTANT THAN WHAT WE HAVE HERE IN THE CODE. BUT OBVIOUSLY THAT'S WHAT WE'RE HERE TO DO. Tonight, but it is it is true, and I think there's ample room and and needed space for all those those Not just voices, but action. You know we need we need more than just speaking We need more than letter writing that doesn't do much to maintain the health of the forest we need people who can kind of roll up their sleeves and get out there and and and join those others who do the work and maintaining all the great space we have here in this in the city and But this work has been wonderful and proven great. Yes, we entered into it because we had to. But there are some good side benefits to it as well. And there's been a lot of, I remember we did this 10 years ago. It was pretty contentious. This is much better than that. So good job. It was kind of crazy. And I feel really good about the changes that we have here in place. We're able to clean up. a couple of things as well and put some provisions in that have been really responsive to things that we've heard from members of the community that are hopefully win-wins all around for both the health of the forest and just ease of navigating the process and whatnot as well. Can I make a motion? Yes, please.

I would like to move to tentatively approve ordinances 2974 and 2978 and direct staff to return on September 1st, 2026 with the final version of the ordinances including findings and conclusions for LU26-0014. Second.

All right, motion's been made by Councillor Wilman and seconded by Councillor Verdict. Is there any further discussion?

Can I just, to Councillor Corrigan, I understand that and I think it's, I feel like the whole urban forest thing, why do we even do that? Because there's no big, huge thing. I mean, I think there's things in this that maybe, good policy has everybody slightly, they pissed off, but agitated that they didn't get their way. And I think this does it for everybody. So anyway, I hear you. But I think with all the work that everybody's done, I think it was a lot of compromising and tree policy we found. As long as you have people that both sides that don't like it, you've got good policy. Thank you, Councillor Wendland.

Okay, let's take a roll call vote, please.

Mayor Buck?

Aye.

Councillor Wendland?

Aye.

Councillor Burdick? Aye. Councillor Corrigan?

Aye.

Councillor Edmunds-Mans? Aye.

Thank you. Motion passes unanimously, 5-0. Thank you, everyone, very much. Well done. And we are going to take a short recess. OKAY. WE ARE BACK. IN ORDER. OKAY. WE'RE NOW GOING TO HAVE A STUDY SESSION ON AN ORDINANCE WE'RE GOING TO CONSIDER IN THE NEAR FUTURE ORDINANCE 2980. THIS IS ON E-BIKES AND E-MICRO MOBILITY. SO WE HAVE POLICE CHIEF GEORGE BURKE AND CAPTAIN CLAIDON SIMON HERE WITH US. HELLO.

GOOD EVENING. GOOD EVENING, MAYOR, MEMBERS OF COUNCIL, GEORGE BURKE, CHIEF OF POLICE. CLEARLY OVER THE LAST AT LEAST TWO YEARS WE HAVE HEARD A LOT OF FEEDBACK FROM OUR COMMUNITY ABOUT SAFETY CONCERNS CENTERED ON E-BIKES AND THE EMERGENCE OF E-BIKE USE THROUGHOUT THE CITY, ESPECIALLY IN SOME SHARED SPACES AND ROADWAYS. I think we've seen a lot of evidence from calls for service as well as some crash data that helps to support that there is a realistic concern for safety, especially for some of our younger population as they've been utilizing the devices. So it kind of goes beyond just the e-bikes. It goes to all e-micromobility. And I think when I turn it over to Captain Simon, he's going to have a lot of data to support some of the conversation. I think it's really important to highlight the fact that what we're bringing before you today is really open for discussion. It's a proposal to get some feedback from Council as direction as to where we want to go with the proposed ordinance and how we can help support the safety concerns within, I guess we go. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Captain Simon.

Thank you, Chief. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, Councilors. My name is Clayton Simon, the captain with the Lake Oswego Police Department. As the Chief was talking about, you know, so why we're here, as you can see, just looking at some recent data here, since April 2026, we've had 158 service calls related to e-bike or micromobility device usage, and more than 52% were actually related to juveniles. There's probably more calls in there. These are just the easy ones that we can pull right out of our CAD system. So we know that it's not just an anecdotal thing. We're actually getting a lot of calls about the use. And again, as the chief talked about, tonight's discussion is not intended to walk through every line of the ordinance. Council will have a draft of the amendments that you guys were provided. The purpose here is to frame why the city is addressing this issue, what the proposed amendments are intended to accomplish, and where we're seeking council direction on the proposed Chapter 32 amendments. So we recognize these devices help people get around. They provide enjoyment. They can be a positive part of the city's transportation network. I actually got to ride one for the first time, you know, visiting some national parks, and it was a blast. It was a whole lot of fun. The goal is to encourage safe and lawful use. That's what we're hoping to do. THE POLICY QUESTION IS HOW DO WE SUPPORT THOSE BENEFITS WHILE ADDRESSING THE UNSAFE OPERATION AND REALLY WHAT AT TIMES IS UNCLEAR RULES FOR USE. NOW, A MAJOR CHALLENGE FOR US IN THE RULE MAKING IS THAT NOT ALL DEVICES ARE THE SAME. Some are essentially bicycles with pedal assist. Others are self-propelled, heavier, faster, or even modified in ways that place them actually outside of the lawful use categories altogether. The city code needs enough clarity to address the devices we are seeing now with enough flexibility to respond as the technology continues to change. So with House Bill 4007, Oregon law moved toward a clear framework for e-bike and powered micromobility devices. And I really appreciate the work that they did there. The bill defined powered micromobility devices. It updated some age rules. It consolidated the helmet requirements under state law. And it addresses vehicles sold or represented as e-bikes that don't actually meet those definitions. So these are the truly modified devices that are out there, the Frankenstein devices that people are doing in a garage. When you look at this slide, you can see why definitions matter. A device may look like an e-bike or scooter, but its speed capability, throttle operation, motor output, weight, or modification may place it in a different category or make it noncompliant and ineligible for operation on our roads, sidewalks, paths, trails, or other areas. Under our current law, a Class 1 e-bike, which is pedal assist only, can have a motor assistance up to 20 miles per hour. And right now, only people that are 16 and up can actually ride these. Class 2 e-bike is the same on the age, throttle assisted, motor assistance up to 20 miles per hour. You get to that class three e-bike pedal assist with a motor assistance up to 28 miles per hour. Again, same age. And the motor assisted scooter, electric or gas, can have a max speed of 24 miles per hour, and again, has to be operated by someone 16 or older. The electronic personal mobility devices, the Segway type of self-balancing devices that you see there, there's no speed cap right now under the law. So I think you've probably seen some of those unicycles that can go as fast as cars out on I-5. That's what we're talking about here. And those can actually be ridden by people that are 14 and up. Here you can also see which devices by statute are and are not allowed to be operated on the sidewalk. And when we get to January 1 of 2027, that's when that House bill goes into effect.

So just to clarify, that's by state statute? That's state statute, yeah. Nothing we can do about the sidewalk there?

Correct, so far. So far, well, we're gonna get there. Once we get into the new year here in 27, class one e-bike, the minimum age changes from 16 to 14. The motor assisted scooter minimum age changes from 16 to 14. The motor-assisted scooter max speed actually decreases from 24 to 20 miles per hour. The new powered micromobility device category is created in statute. It's also a set of devices that's allowed in bike lanes, paths. The law is silent on whether or not you can actually operate those on a sidewalk. Just talks about bike lanes and paths. The helmet statues, as I mentioned, are consolidated under one of the ORSs, and essentially anyone under 16 has to wear a helmet, regardless of what device that they're on. And so the state is really helping us create a helpful framework, but local communities like ours still have questions about where and how these devices should be operated in the areas. Thankfully, the state has also given local communities the ability to answer those questions for ourselves with the ability to create local rules and ordinances, and that's actually spelled out in the House bill. But what we've provided for you in the proposed chapter 32 code amendments are intended to create a practical local framework. Definitions are the foundation, which are consistent with state law, but the most important policy work is in the operating rules, unsafe operation provisions, non-compliant device restrictions, and the potential remedies. Some of the proposed chapter 32 amendments have language similar to other local city ordinances, so a lot of our neighbors, Oregon statutes, or are already in our existing city code. For example, rules around bicycle use. Following the updated definitions, the city manager's office retains the ability to regulate device type use on sidewalks, bike lanes, shared use paths, trails, parks, public property, all via signage, traffic control device, or administrative rule. Also, if these devices are left on a highway, public property, or right of way for more than 24 hours, they can actually be impounded. Now, when it comes to the operation, the key message is predictability. And so I'll ask you if you need to take a look at the draft amendments if you need some details. But riders, parents, pedestrians, the officers, our courts, we should all be able to understand what lawful operation is. And this is designed to be in line with the House bill as well. Some of the highlights here are e-bikes are still not allowed on sidewalks. Motor-assisted scooters and those personal mobility devices, micro-mobility devices are okay on a sidewalk, unless we as the city, through the city manager, decides we want to maybe change that in some areas. If they are operating on a sidewalk, they must yield the right-of-way to pedestrians, and they must provide an audible warning prior to passing. cannot obstruct pedestrian or vehicular traffic when leaving a device. So you can't just drop it in the middle of the roadway or some of the scooters that you can see, like the Rent Me scooters, you can't just leave them on a sidewalk. You cannot leave a device on private property without consent of the owner. Many of these proposed rules simply roll these new devices into our existing code. And like other sections, there are some additional chapter options to consider. So you'll see that within there, we have the proposed language, and then we have some like kind of a la carte options in order to kind of make these a little bit more robust that you can take a look at. The city is not only defining devices, it's also identifying behaviors that create risk. And the goal, again, is to address the conduct that endangers riders, pedestrians, drivers, and property. And some of the highlights here include sunset to sunrise, lights are required for all types of devices when operating on a highway, alley, or public place. There's no tandem riding on the highway, alley, or public way unless the device is specifically manufactured or made for that. So parents can still, if they've got the car seat for their kids that they put on the back, that's still OK. But when we start seeing three kids riding on one e-bike, it's not designed for that. Can't do that. YOU'RE NOT PERMITTED TO HOLD ON TO THE VEHICLE OR HOLD ON TO A VEHICLE WHEN YOU'RE ON THESE DEVICES SO YOU CAN'T MARTY MCFLY IT. YOU MUST RIDE IN A SINGLE FILE LINE WHEN OPERATING ON A HIGHWAY, ALLEY OR PUBLIC WAY. NOW WE UNDERSTAND THAT OUR CODE MAY NOT MATCH UP WITH STATE LAW HERE. AND SO WE'LL WORK WITH THE CITY ATTORNEY'S OFFICE AND ALSO YOUR DIRECTION TO MAKE SURE THAT IT DOES AND SEE WHAT NEEDS TO CHANGE ENTIRELY THERE. unsafe operation is prohibited, and that means that you have to operate with due care. You can't follow too closely. You can't be swerving unexpectedly, weaving unexpectedly. Sudden direction changes when movement is not safe and likely to endanger a person or property. You can't operate the devices at an unreasonable speed, and what that means is It's got to be prudent for the conditions of where they're being operated. So if the traffic doesn't allow for it, if the visibility doesn't allow for it, weather, surface condition, width of the travel area, pedestrian presence, et cetera, any of those things, much like a vehicle, right? Even though the speed limit on State Street might be 25 miles an hour, if it's covered in snow and ice, 25 might not be prudent for the area. Non-compliant devices are prohibited, and parents might not know this, just based on what it is that we see out on the road. You've got to think throttle-driven. Those e-motos, they look like a dirt bike. They're really operated like motorcycles or mopeds. They don't have any pedals. You can see them in the picture. Those are prohibited for use unless you're out on private property. You can't use those in the public space. That's actually already true right now. It's just that no one, I think, really knows that you can't do that. Many of these devices, with the speed that they carry, you'd actually require it to be titled, licensed, and have a motorcycle endorsement to ride them. These devices have a ton of power, and the associated speed creates real safety issues, especially for young riders. In this chapter, some of the chapter amendments, they do allow for enforcement. Right now, the base fine for any of these violations is consistent with what's already in our code, and that's a C-level violation, or $165. which can include issuing citations to parents or guardians for permitting the unsafe or unlawful operation of these devices, essentially the manner in which it's used, not necessarily the age. That is not anything new. There's actually ORS that already governs that. It's very similar to if I let someone drive a car and I know they don't have a license, I am permitting the unlawful use and I could be cited for doing that. So that's where that's taken out of and actually pretty consistent in some other cities as well. What's important to remember is the city can still emphasize education especially with juveniles and right now we're working with our jurors We're figuring out kind of those jurisdictional details trying to coordinate with our municipal court judge To look for options around education diversion or other appropriate remedies, so not just citations Here's where we also need your help We're seeking feedback before bringing these final amendments forward for adoption. Remember, when you're looking through the proposed amendments, there's some optional language to consider as well for noncompliant device definitions, if you want to get more specific. Careless or reckless riding examples. Some cities are doing that where they're clearly spelling out, like, hey, you can't do a wheelie, or you can't endo on the front in the middle of the road. They're getting real specific there. Option for increased penalties when you have subsequent violations. It's kind of like the cell phone statute, right? You know, first one is this, second one is this, third one is so on and so forth. And so as you think about what's been proposed, really some questions to consider are, are the safety concerns adequately addressed in what we're trying to bring forward here? Are the definitions and use restrictions clear? Are impoundment remedies appropriately framed? What are some recommendations for community engagement before adoption? Once council is comfortable with what it is we have and the framework that we have, we can engage with the school district, neighborhoods, community groups, and that outreach can help refine that final ordinance and prepare the public for enforcement before enforcement becomes the focus. Yeah, please.

Yeah, so one thing that I'd really like to reiterate is we're focused on behavior and safety. And that is really what we're interested in is the safety of our community and especially some of the youth that we've seen operating these devices. As we take a look at it, we've already started some engagement with the school district as to how we can, you know, what's available for us to be able to enforce ordinance on school district property. What kind of agreements do we have to have? How can we work together? We continue to focus on education. We've been educating I will say we've been educating for the last two years, and there is yet to be, whether I go to coffee or I go to a neighborhood associate meeting or I go someplace where somebody recognizes who I am, I have yet to have somebody not come up and start talking to me about e-bike issues. And so this has clearly been identified as a safety concern for our community, and I think moving forward, LOOKING FOR SOME DIRECTION AS TO HOW FAR WE WANT TO GO. A LOT OF OPTIONS HAVE BEEN PUT IN FRONT OF YOU, A LOT OF DIFFERENT THINGS WHEN YOU TAKE A LOOK AT THE PROPOSED ORDINANCE ALONG WITH THE OTHER LANGUAGE THAT THE CAPTAIN INCLUDED. GIVES YOU A WIDE VARIETY OF WAYS OF LOOKING AT TRYING TO RESOLVE THE PROBLEM.

THANK YOU, CHIEF. SO I THINK IT'S IMPORTANT TO REMEMBER THESE DEVICES CONTINUE TO EVOLVE. And so we should be prepared to evaluate what works and what doesn't, and know that this is kind of a living process that we'll land somewhere to kind of get started. And once we'll get into it, we'll figure out if everything's working perfectly, wonderful. But if there's things that we can do to adjust along the way, then we will come back before you and say, here are some of the issues that we're seeing, and this is where we think we could maybe make some headway in continuing to improve upon safety issues. So know that it's just an ongoing process. With that, I thank you for your time and would appreciate your thoughts.

Thank you. So that out-of-class bike, okay, the non-conforming, I mean, that's the issue bike, right? And so just to reiterate, you mentioned that is not allowed on any roadway, pathway, trail. You just can't be using it on your private property, right?

Private property, you're fine. Just like if you have a farmland and you want to go ride a quad, you can go do that. There's nothing we can do about it.

So that's really, so I guess I would ask you, what do you need? Because those are the things. It's not just like, well, you're using it, but it's unsafe. And if you only used it safely, or you're using it, but you shouldn't be on the sidewalk type of thing. It's just like you shouldn't be using it period i i mean this is just anecdotal but i rarely see kids like on an actual e-bike you know you can tell what an e-bike is easy you know um so what do you you need to deal with these non-conforming devices do you feel like what you have here in the base provides the the team with what they need to yeah quite honestly i think what we've proposed within the chapter uh amendments

works with state law well. It's a nice kind of harmonious blend there, and I think that gives us the tools that we need in order to address these things. There's obviously the component of where if we're catching folks that are on them and they're not supposed to be on them, that they could be issued a citation. And we can also bring the parents into this, too, and the guardians into this, too. In a lot of ways, we do want to start with a lot of education, because I do think that there's just plenty of folks that they don't understand. They go, I didn't know that my kid couldn't ride this, or I didn't know that we couldn't operate this here. And so there'll be a fair amount of continuing education there, probably in the schools or where we can go, neighborhood associations, those types of things. But just because we can't enforce doesn't mean that it was our initial thing. And I know that having seen some of the feedback from our municipal court judge, she's very passionate about the education piece. So whether we cite them and gets them into some sort of education program that removes that off the record once they do that, those are all really great options that we're looking forward to tackle in. Some of it, like I said, I think this, we think this gives us the framework. We appreciate we've worked with the city attorney's office. We've talked to a lot of other folks. We've gotten good feedback and help and I'm so grateful for everyone that's been talking with us about this. But know that if we see that there's a shortfall somewhere, we'll be right back here and I'll have another presentation for you saying, hey, we need this.

If I could just add, I think I want to make sure that I'm clear on something, because the unclassified, restricted, I won't even say e-bikes because they're not e-bikes, they are a problem. And the behaviors on the class 1s, 2s, and 3s are a problem. So what we're proposing is to cover all aspects of it, not just those that are unclassified.

Okay. All of it's a problem. Yeah. It's the behavior.

It's not the device. except for the unclassified.

Well, except the unclassified, which does seem to be prevalent. Yes. So some might ask, like, well, why do we need this? Why can't, if the unclassified, for instance, aren't even supposed to be out there now, why, what is this allowing us to do now, or what will this allow us to do that we can't do right now?

Well, I think, again, it goes back to Dealing with the behaviors and being able to take a look at how the device is being utilized how it's being used What dangers is it creating for other people it just gives us an ability to to go beyond just The education piece and it also You know as much as we've been educating over the last two years the issue continues to grow and so I think we've gotten beyond just the sole education phase. And I think we're at a point where people can no longer say, I didn't realize or I didn't know. And so we will continue to focus on education and work with the school district. They've been great partners as we've been doing this over the last couple of years. But I also believe that we need to have some tool and some mechanism to deal with the real issue because these are costly. And I don't know too many 14-year-old kids who are going out and buying a $3,000 e-bike

So to answer your question, Mr. Mayor, part of that, too, is so, for instance, the new powered micromobility device language is going to go into Oregon law here at the end of this year, which is super helpful. It's going to govern a lot of those other devices that we see, the hoverboards, the unicycles that go just as fast and can be just as dangerous. You know, because you fall off your bike generally unless you're road racing, right? It's going to hurt. You're going to have some injuries, but you're probably going to walk away. But these things are going 40 and 50 miles an hour. I mean, that's a car crash. And they're wearing just a little helmet and no rash guards, nothing, you know. And we don't want people to be seriously hurt. And some of the crashes that we've gone to with both kids and adults are not the – non-compliant devices it's the as the chief mentioned it's class one two and three e-bikes just because i mean they're fun i get it and you just kind of hey i'm going pretty fast this is easy and you just you you don't necessarily necessarily have a respect for that speed just yet but uh like i said so earlier these devices right now are allowed on those powered micro mobility devices are allowed on sidewalks because the law is silent doesn't mention anywhere in there but the House bill does allow us in this community and others to go, well, let's decide where we want to say that those are okay and where maybe that they're not okay or under what conditions we will allow them to be in these spots versus when now they're no longer allowed to be in there. So that's what a lot of these chapter amendments do is they just give us a little bit more teeth to address some of these issues that are maybe a bit ambiguous in the law.

Yeah, okay. So that's very helpful. Thank you. Councilwoman?

Couple things. One, I think your strategy is good, and I'm glad we have a good relationship with the school district. I think making it simple is going to be a key thing because I understood most of what was in your presentation, and I've been looking at this for a long time. I think one of the things that we need to do is say, I mean, and I'm not saying that this is what I want, but you can buy your kids a class one e-bike. And I think they need direction of what they can and can't do, because you get into all these different Thanks. Parents are going to be so confused. The kid's going to sell their parents and go, oh, yeah, no, no. Because Jimmy, he got one. And his dad's a lawyer. So I mean, he knows the law. So oh, we can get one. That's how the tribal sort of communication goes through the community. I liked it when you went up to the junior high and said, you know, there should be no junior high kid riding an e-bike. And all of a sudden, I think it kind of backed off, right? I mean, they were looking for direction. I mean, at Christmas time, Parents go, what do you want? I want a such and such. So if we give the parameters a little bit, that might help. I do think class two, because it's motorized, why is that even a bicycle? Because that is really an electric motorcycle or mini bike, right? I don't get that.

The Class II, if it's got a pedal, it's still considered just an e-bike. So if it's got a pedal, it's still considered just an e-bike. Yeah, but I mean, it's not an e-bike. You're not pedaling.

So I know, I understand that, but I didn't understand that. The one thing I would say, I think in the notes that you were going through, there could be paths that say no motorized vehicles or whatever. Correct. But if you do allow bicycles on it, because Sun River, Black Butte, everybody went through this whole thing. They've been actually, and they're kings of this whole subject because they've got thousands of people going around. They allow type ones on the path and I've actually heard from a lot of older people that I mean this has gotten them remobilized to go out and and use so I I know we're looking at kids behavior sort of but the older people they're now looking at type ones as being a lifeline to exercise and everything and I think those should be included in the in the non-motorized, that would be the one exception. Because I've heard a lot of feedback from seniors on that. But I want to go into the educational piece and the penalty piece. One wake-up call is if... You can do your one-two warning, whatever. But I think you have to put teeth in. And it's not the kid who gets the ticket. It goes on the parent's record. I think that will get the attention of parents trying to control their kids. I just, there's a, and there's a vulnerability with kids that if they get something on their record, that could totally screw up their parents, well, their insurance, right?

I mean, it's a great question. So I might defer to the city attorney here, but my understanding is because it's an ordinance, it actually doesn't impact your driving record. So it's not going to increase insurance. It's not going to do any of those things. Okay. But it just hits the pocketbook.

But it what? It hits the pocketbook. Right. Yeah. And it's, I don't know, to wake up parents, because parents are the ones who are the enablers of all this. I don't know what you think about that. But there is something you can, I just don't want a kid to get infractions on a record that could cost them getting into a college or getting their license. So it's not an infraction. So if they're out, they get caught. What if they ride a motorcycle?

If they ride a motorcycle and they're not permitted to ride a motorcycle, they would be committing the infraction, operating vehicle, no operator's license. And that is an ORS citation. That is an Oregon statute that does go on their driving record.

But not an e-bike that goes 28 miles an hour? What about the non-classified one? Well, if you say yes, then yes.

But not under the city ordinance. I think that's a clear distinction.

All that I know is I think we need to put some parameters and teeth in it and give guidance to the parent community so that they know what's going on. But I've seen 10-year-olds going on type 2 up Iron Mountain down at 20, and they modify them at 28 miles an hour. And then we have a gang that goes through it, and they have their, I won't say gang, but they're really cute. They're cute kids, but they get all in their little uniforms, and they black out with all black clothing and helmets. And there's like four of them. They zoom around at 30 miles an hour. And I know they've modified their devices. And those are the people where the parents need to have an educational come to whatever Jesus time frame meeting, because that's just so dangerous. So anyway.

I'm all for it. To follow up on Councilman real quick. So if it's an e-bike that's being improperly used, and then it falls under this, they're riding on the handlebars of an e-bike. OK. It falls under this classification. But what if it's one of these non-classified, out-of-class bikes? Same thing? Same thing. OK. So it has to be a legit motorcycle for it. So if it's one of these e-micromobility devices that isn't an e-bike, but it's going 50, let's just say. Not a motorcycle, though. Correct. Not a motorcycle. What makes it a motorcycle?

And what does make it a motorcycle?

I say it's like a motorcycle. From a motorcycle. It's like a motorcycle. So, I mean, really the issue that we have is this is such a fast-growing technological front, right? I mean, they've got... e-skates now, right? That you strap onto your feet and you can skate down the roadway at 30 miles an hour. You've got the skateboards, the one wheels, the unicycle. I mean, it's never ending. And this is where some of what our chapter allows us to do, right? It's, you know, we're sticking, we're following the state statute. So whatever the age is, is what the age will be. So we're not doing anything different when it comes to age, but we're able to really kind of get into what those behaviors look like, the areas in which they are. That's really where a lot of the teeth comes in. So to answer, kind of talk, to speak to your question, Councilor Wendland is, you know, We may decide certain areas shouldn't have e-bikes and other areas can if we determine that, hey, the way that they're being used is going to create some of those problems. I agree. I mean, they are super helpful. My mother has one, lives out on the coast, and uses it all the time to get out to the beach, and she loves it. Now, she's not doing wheelies. At least she hasn't told me she is, so that's good. Yet. Yeah, I hope not. But so we certainly don't want to take that away right now, but anecdotally, we've had complaints of people just on regular bikes on our pathways that are going by pedestrians way too fast. So we would have some of that built in here and it kind of, it applies to all of it, really.

If I could add one quick thing, because I want to make sure that we understand these things are not mutually exclusive either, because if the behavior is so bad and the conduct is so bad, that may fit into another statute. So I think it's important for us to keep in mind that we're trying to give us a tool to deal with this at the lowest level, with the least impact long-term, with the greatest solution in the short-term.

Thank you, Chief. Council Verdick, and then... Councilor Manz is after me.

She's having problems with her.

Oh, I see. Button problems. You broke your button.

So first, thank you for your work on this. I think the community, all of us, are excited to see progress on this, both at the state level and here. So thank you very much. And I concur with Councillor Wendland. I think we need to make sure we have some teeth. I'm not sure what that should look like, but again, I'm all for upping penalties if you have multiple citations. But we need to get some teeth into this. I'm also concerned about... use on sidewalks and pathways. And right now it sounds like, well, they might not be here, but they might, you know, it kind of depends. And I think we need to have something very consistent. Otherwise it gets really confusing with the exception of someone who, you know, again, if you have an elderly person in like one of the little scooters, I think we need to carve that out so that we're looking out for people who truly are having mobility issues, but I think that's also different than the person who's using the e-bike, maybe a class one, to kind of get around to go pick up groceries is a little different than the person who has true mobility issues. So I just, that's my biggest thing. I don't know, and I'm not sure the best way of what that should look like, but I think more consistency, or having it more consistent is probably better, because otherwise it does get very confusing. But I can just see, especially like, and we might have a sign for the new Greenway pathway that says, you know, no more, but that's when I can see kids just flying. And not just kids. I shouldn't pick on kids. But then again, in our business districts, you see some interesting behavior. So that would just be, again, I think consistency would be really good. And then making sure at the same time that we are, our code at least isn't completely in conflict with the state code. So I know we have some, I think it's written in regards to like bicycle that they can't, the state says you can be too abreast, but our code I think says you can't. So if we could just kind of make sure we clean up some of that. I think that would be helpful.

Absolutely.

But great work. Thank you.

Councillor Manson.

Thank you. Thank you. And thank you for all the work on this. We all know it's a problem. Like the rest of my colleagues, I'm concerned about pathways and trails. FOLKS WHO RIDE REGULAR BICYCLES, AND IF YOU WANT TO CALL ANYONE OUT, WEAR KITS, AND ARE ALMOST SEMIPROFESSIONAL BIKE RIDERS, WILL SOMETIMES FORGET TO CALL ON YOUR LEFT WHEN THEY PASS YOU ON A TRAIL. I don't know how you can educate a kid. If they do it to me, I yell out as loud as I can, yell on your left, as they go by me. It probably goes in one. It probably doesn't make a difference. But that sort of education, I think, is super important for anyone sharing our pathways and trails. We have a finite number of them. We all use them for walking, mobility devices. I'm sure you both remember the days when skateboards were just the bane of everyone's existence. And now it seems quaint. in that way. But I do want to point out that it's important that kids are out. I'm happy that kids are out. I just want them to be safe. I want them to be aware of other folks using our resources. and that no one gets hurt. But I think you have done a fabulous job of pulling this together. And if it needs to be modified as we go along, it needs to be modified. As you pointed out, the technology will change. We could have hoverboards. I mean, back to the future. We don't know. But thank you. Thank you both.

Thank you for that. I think something just real quick to kind of put in the back of your minds that's important is right now all these devices, including the e-bikes for whatever age, they can be ridden on pathways. And so none of that has changed, and nothing has actually changed with the proposed amendments to the chapter. It just gives the city the ability at some point if we determine, hey, this area is probably better served to just be foot traffic only or something along those lines to say that we could do that. It doesn't mean that that automatically prohibits people from being on those. The only place that some devices are not allowed are sidewalks.

And I will be monitoring that and letting you know with my tally book how that's going okay. Okay.

Council Corrigan.

Thank you for your work. Hallelujah. It's high time. I'm really happy, happy, happy to see it. My question is, so I live in a neighborhood where we don't have sidewalks. We have these separated pathways. And if you're a runner or you're a biker, you are so vulnerable to somebody coming up behind you at 20 miles an hour and would just take you out. I had that experience just last week. If I'd moved just a little bit to the left, I'd be pasted all over the road. So my question is, how can we keep, we need to do this so that we can, people can, this is the only place people can safely walk in our city. We've worked so hard to get these pathways. Can we, are there places where we can just prioritize people first, pedestrians first?

I think the thought behind this is that it's very flexible. And I think it gives the authority and the ability to the city to determine what's appropriate in what place.

Just a quick follow-up, not to act as your city engineer or your city traffic engineer, but if we were to consider actually putting some of those pathways off limits to some of these types of bikes, there's a lot to look at. First of all, it would be the behavior that we're seeing out there, right? Second, it would be if there are any incidents, actual incidents, collisions, and then I would also want to look at Are there alternative pathways? Are they safe? So a pathway next to the roadway, there's a roadway right there. Is it a collector? Is it a low volume? Is it low speed? So we'd have to look at all of these different factors in the community. It would be a big decision. And so I think having the flexibility in case we start seeing specific parts of our pathway system being abused, then I think it's certainly something to consider. But I think we'd want to take into consideration the context as well and what else we'd have to do if we were to say, no, you can't be here. Where can you be? Sorry, I'm losing my voice again because of the smoke.

Part of the chapter amendments, they really get into the unsafe operation side of things. So to kind of speak to what you were saying, Counselor, is they still have to, again, they have to provide that audible warning if they're going to pass you. They have to do some of those things. But in addition to that, they can't be operating at an unsafe speed as they're coming by. That would be considered a violation, right? They can't be weaving suddenly. We've seen videos of people doing the wheelies and coming up close to folks. That would be a violation under these chapters. So It does have some teeth in order to address it, even if we don't designate a particular area. So it gives us some enforcement options there as well.

Yeah, I kind of agree with my colleagues. Like, having some consistency is already so confusing. I mean, the diagram, all the different devices, and I think that's been one of the communication challenges is people just don't, the industry is not helping. I mean, they don't, it's not like there's a big sign on them, class one, class three, out of class, you know. So, but having some consistency would be, throughout town would be helpful. Otherwise, I mean, how are we going to tell them all this pathway, but not this one, or if it's a sidewalk, you can do it. I mean, how do you, you know, so it would be something definitely to, to, to, to look at. I think too, as we put this ordinance together, just one thing, even maybe in the, in the recitals of the ordinances, some of the feedback I've heard in general in response to this, which is an important ordinance, it's just like, well, we don't want to be unfriendly to bikes and other, and we certainly don't. We are a city that is promoting all modes of transportation. And maybe if we could weave some comments into the recitals that kind of speak to that. Honestly, as we've been going through our own code, we have this bike code, which none of us really were aware of. and it's very anti-bike. We have a very anti-bike code that was written way back in the day. Before bikes. Yeah, apparently. They were very... This city, it's kind of funny, was very afraid, apparently, of bikes being left all over the place, just errant bikes. There's even a provision that you can be cited if someone finds it annoying that your bike is left on a sidewalk. I mean, it's just... subjective crazy kind of um code um that i don't think that the community would be on board with uh today and certainly it's nothing that's being enforced you know i mean ridiculous stuff um so there could be an opportunity we clean that up because some of the things i think we just get rid of them you know like you have to tie your if you're within 200 feet of a bike rack you have to use the bike rack or you're going to be i mean like that's no one's enforcing that right i mean if EVEN THE RIDING OF BREASTS, I KNOW YOU SAID YOU'D LOOK AT THAT. THAT'S ANOTHER ONE.

NO ONE'S GOING TO LEAVE A $3,000 BIKE SITTING THERE.

IT'S JUST KIND OF SOME OF THE STUFF. BUT IF WE COULD MAKE SURE THAT AS WE ARE TRYING TO PROMOTE THE SAFE USE OF ALL DIFFERENT DEVICES, WHETHER YOU'RE A PEDESTRIAN, WHETHER YOU'RE RIDING A an analog bike or one of these micro devices, I think you two have just been great emphasizing it's all about the behavior. We just want safe use of it. When people don't use the devices safely, then it puts a cloud over them. And then folks start to begrudge them, and they develop animosity towards the use. And we don't want that. We do want the road users to exist in harmony. I think this code is a way of moving us forward in that direction so that drivers and pedestrians and bikes and micromobility device users can all kind of exist on our little challenged infrastructure in a safe way. So I think that would be great if we can weave that in there. And then the communication, it would be great if we were kind of citywide coordinated on it. I know PD has its own channel. which is great, and has done a great job of putting out information, but you have a small audience, fortunately. I don't know why you're not more popular. We're working on it. It could be. But the city has a big channel, and this is information that And I think I'm echoing my colleagues' comments here, too, is that communication is good. But like you said, Chief, we've done two years of communication. And the district has done. So it needs to be like communication. It's not going to be we're going to communicate. And then if we catch you doing it, then we're going to communicate with you more. It's like we're communicating, but if we catch you, It's enforcement. I mean, I think that's where we need to go. I don't think we're all interested in just another years of Chit chats, you know with people and I think council wins spot-on like you get the parents I think that will help Take a lot of the weight off because you give out a few of these Then I think the word starts spreading and behavior start.

Oh, yeah as soon as you get yeah That's one of the things that people have to write checks. They all sudden wake up and If you did want some help on the communication part, it would be a good, I think, channel to do it would be to get city council school board officials with the police department and school officials to the back to school nights in September. And they're always looking for somebody to give a quick little blurb. And you can talk about, hey, this is the quick e-bike fact sheet. And this is what we're living by. And just so you know, when your kids come up, I know parents who have come to me and they said, John, you've got to give me guidance because they're telling me they can get a frickin' Type 3 bike that goes 28 miles an hour and their kid's in sixth grade. I said, no, you can't. They have to be 16. Well, where does it say that? They're clueless. So if they get guidance and we put the law down and say, hey, here's the parameters that we're working in, Let's make sure that we are all on the same page. I think then it will start to get around and parents will start to say, great, here's the rules. If Bobby or Johnny or whoever comes up and says, this is what I want. You have to be 14 to have a type 1. You have to be 16 to do this, period. And I think... We just have to give clear direction. Now, stupid is as stupid does. And when I was on school board, I mean, there was kids that would come before the school board, I mean, with stuff that they did. And I'm like, dude, what were you thinking of? And they weren't thinking. And so I know oftentimes the syntax is not exactly fused yet. Sometimes it never fuses, but for sort of reckless behavior. And we want kids to be kids. We want them to have fun, things like that. But I do think that there is the opportunity to give a nice box that people can work in. And then we just all have to go out and promote it like crazy and say, this is what's happening in Lake Oswego.

I think those are great ideas. And I'm just envisioning a YouTube video with you on a hoverboard and just explaining to people. I see it.

I think it looks great.

He's going to be our type 1 model.

I'll be the type 1 model. If seniors are OK. If seniors are OK. Yeah, really. But the bike, what's the thing with the bike helmet? I mean, is that like a citation or is that a? Correct. OK. I mean, that is the one thing, because I would even say that we probably have four or five emergency room physicians, probably two dozen in Lake Oswego, that would be more than happy to come talk to schools about emergency rooms, because I've talked to several of them. And it's not a good site. I mean, kids that don't have helmets on, I mean, even with a helmet on, IT CAN BE A MIXED RESULT.

I THINK SOME OF THE KIDS RECOGNIZE HOW DANGEROUS IT IS. THAT'S WHY THEY ARE WEARING FULL FACE HELMETS. THEY UNDERSTAND HALF SHELL IS NOT GOING TO DO IT.

WHAT ABOUT HAVING SOMETHING DIRECTED TO THE KIDS in our parking lot, for example, with pizza or ices. No, no, I'm not joking. And, you know, tell them to ride their e-bikes. Take a look at their e-bike.

Lure them.

I did not say that, but, you know, kind of tell them, hey, you know. that you can ride this, but you can't ride it in an inappropriate way.

But it felt like an ice cream truck that is operated by the chief.

Yeah, right.

With a one-way door.

Give me a break here, okay? Give me a break here. Kids like food. Kids will show up for food, okay? But having an e-bike roundup rodeo, I don't know which one.

I think much like the plethora of devices that we have, there are a ton of good ideas and things that we could do to try and get THE RIGHT LEVEL OF OUTREACH AS BEST AS WE CAN FOR FOLKS. NATIONAL NIGHT OUT IS RIGHT AROUND THE CORNER AS WELL. SO THAT'S ANOTHER OPPORTUNITY FOR US TO EDUCATE FOLKS.

I THINK THAT IS THE BIGGEST CHALLENGE. WE MIGHT HAVE TO SIMPLIFY IT BECAUSE WITH ALL THE DEVICES, THE SINGLE THING, IT JUST

Honestly, even just the slides it was a great presentation, but you're looking like oh my god It's just I didn't know there's that many I know and this is just today like you said this is like future who knows Thank you for the great recovery for me so my colleagues would

You're like OG counselor. Thank you. Appreciate you. And then if there is, if you're working with the judge, you know, I don't know if the judge does any kind of community service things, but to Counselor Whitten's point, I mean, you know, a financial penalty on a parent, you know, is good. But community service, it's good to have accountability for the kids, too, you know. And there's no shortage of service. projects out there in the community out there in the natural areas some ivy pulling and things like that ivy pulling ivy pulling oh my god i don't know i don't know if the judges even do community service type things but sure you know that's

The impression that I got and just some of the correspondence that we've had with our court is they want to be creative in ways to kind of figure out how we can address this in a fair way, but that allows for that. So whether it's community service, whether it's some sort of diversion program, education program, piggybacking off of some of these other cities that have ones already in place that we could send our folks to, there's a lot of things that she's really good about looking at that. the most pressing thing that we're figuring out is just the jurisdictional aspect of it because there has to be some orders in place that say at what age that you have to, where things can stay here and where they have to go to the county and whether or not the county will accept a Lake Oswego ordinance. So we're figuring out some of those details right now too.

And just so I'm clear, so kind of what I'm hearing is create some level of engagement, get some feedback, some community feedback, sharpen the pencils, create some clarity, and then come back. Yes.

Is that? Yes. And to check state law on that bike code and even clean up. Like if there's provisions that you know, it's like no one's going to.

Yeah, I heard clean up the bike code. I heard make sure it has some teeth. Yeah. And I think maybe providing some examples of what careless writing beyond just what we've described here would probably be helpful. Right. At least for my officers. Hey, they did a wheelie. That's careless writing. I can go talk to you.

Also, what I heard, just to add to that, is an option for a graduated fine.

Yeah. Yeah. Give us some outs. But I love this thing. It goes $165 to $500. That gets you. That wakes people up a little bit. When I grew up in Lake Oswego, they called it the cookie judge, the municipal judge, because people would write checks for the $25 or whatever fine that you would get. And he said, screw that. He started making people make cookies for the adult community center, do other things. And that just killed people because they actually had to work and do something instead of just writing a check. So I like your community service idea, especially for kids. It's like a... engagement that they get to participate in. Right, that's right.

And then we'll add, we can add some language to just the recitals, you know, on the, to the effect of the type of community we want to be when it comes to transportation and whatnot. So it's not an anti, you know, micro, or not a anti-multimodal type of ordinance. Okay. I think this sounds... Good, clear direction?

Clear, yeah.

Okay, thank you for your work on this and bringing it forward and working with the other jurisdictions and to the city team then for working with you on the communications plan and yeah, it's not easy. And in the end, we really don't want to be giving out any citations, right? You always, the goal is people are just complying, you know, that would be great. That would be great. Compliance is great. Let's hope that we communicate so well.

But in general, we're a compliant city, but there's always noncompliance.

Sorry, my head tipped, too. We have enforcement options.

Thank you for your time, and thanks for the direction.

We appreciate all your good work on this. Thank you. Thank you very much. Okay. Colleagues, information from council. Do you have anything to share?

OH, THEY ARE DECOMMISSIONING THE THING, WHAT DO THEY CALL IT, FAIRY TAILS? FAIRY TREE. FAIRY TREE. AND SO YOU PROBABLY WILL HEAR SOME COMMUNICATION ABOUT, I DON'T KNOW, HAVING SOME, LETTING GO OF IT.

THE PUBLIC ARTS COMMITTEE HAD SOME GOOD IDEAS ABOUT KIND OF HOW DO WE

Honor?

Honor it. How do we just kind of recognize its contribution to our community? How do we in some ways at least preserve its memory within the community? So they're having a very good discussion around that. And also not just that piece but other pieces as they kind of have to be put aside or are no longer able to be in the public eye because of safety reasons or whatnot. Like, how do we continue having those still visible or known within the community? Like, how do you create that archive, that library? And what does it look like? Yeah, preserving history. Exactly, preserving history. Because there's so many new ways to do it. So really good discussion yesterday. Cool.

OK. OK. Okay. Then we are now going to enter into executive session and we'll ask Erica to read the statutory basis.

The Lake Oswego City Council will now meet in executive session under ORAS 192.660-2F to consider information or records that are exempt by law from public inspection. Representatives of the news media and designated staff shall be allowed to attend the executive session. All other members of the audience are asked to leave the room. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the deliberations during the executive session, except to state the general subject of the session as previously announced. No final decisions will be made in executive session, and after the session, we will adjourn the meeting. Okay.

Thank you very much. We will go ahead and recess and then reconvene in the side room for the executive session, but this will conclude the broadcast portion of the meeting. Thank you.