Board of County Commissioners - Special Meeting

Good morning, everyone. Welcome to the Tuesday, 04/07/2026 Housing Authority Board of Directors meeting for Washington County. Clerk Hodges, could you do us the honors, please?

Absolutely. The Board of Commissioners for Washington County is convening as the Housing Authority Board of Directors' regular meeting on 04/07/2026. Director Savar? Here. Director Snyder? Here. Director Trease?

Here.

Director Fye?

Present.

Director Willey? Here. Chair Harrington?

Here.

And Director Roper is absent.

Thank you. First item on the agenda or next item on the agenda is public communication. This is an opportunity for members of our community to come and share their thoughts related to the housing authority, whatever is on your mind. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone who wishes to do so?

We do. We have one sign up ahead of time for Weah.

Welcome.

Good morning. I wanted to make a public statement about the family sufficiency program that's in Washington County Housing. The Family Self Sufficiency Head Section eight program, the Public Housing Authority Washington County, needs to promote and open more funding to the program coordinators by spreading information on the benefits of this program in Washington County. There needs to be an open dialogue about the disconnect of information about this program and stress the importance of this program to promote participants to graduate from Section eight into self sufficiency. The power to change participants' lives with the FSS program is well documented with a 25 history and multiple success stories from across The United States.

Coordinators work with participants to set reachable starting goals with the end goal of graduation into permanent housing. This program has a big disconnect or lack of information about the program itself. If you have thousands of HCB holders in Washington County with only around an average of 70 FSS participants, that is not near enough participants. Because the goal of Section eight participants should be to eventually graduate off the Section eight voucher to open new vouchers for other populations in the community, coordinators need more funding to open waitlists and create new coordinator positions within the program. HUD would have to invest in new applicants and coordinators, which I believe could benefit HUD's overall budget issues and promote positive success stories within Washington County.

Family self sufficiency coordinators are so important in this program because they set long term goals for participants. There is a huge correlation between higher education and self sufficiency. Many HCV participants need to learn financial education and need help to build skills to accomplish self sufficiency. The FSS program coordinators offer job training, referrals to county services, higher education information, financial coaching. These are just a few examples of what coordinators can assist a participant with acquiring.

This is a program worth advocating for because it is so vital to the Section eight program core and the PHA participants toolbox to graduation off the Section eight program and self sufficiency success.

Thank you. If you could wrap up, please.

Yes. Fam quote, the family self sufficiency FSS program is largely responsible for helping thousands of lower income families make successful transition from welfare to assistance to independence, unquote, from the article Family Self Sufficiency Program, a promising low cost vehicle to promote savings and asset building for recipients of federal housing assistance. And thank you for your time.

We're conscious. Do we have anyone else, please?

That was all that we have who signed up ahead of time for this slot. Is there anyone else in the auditorium who wishes to make comment on any housing authority or any housing related topic for up to two minutes? Please raise your hand. Not seeing any hands, are there anyone online via Zoom that wishes to make any public comment to the housing authority? Please utilize the raise hand function. Not seeing any hands, Chair Herring.

Thank you, Clerk Hodges. Next, we'll move

on to today's consent agenda which consists of two items, minutes from our March 3 meeting and then the adoption of the Housing Advisory Committee Advisory Body Bylaws update.

What are the wishes of the board regarding today's consent agenda?

Motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Directors any opposed? The motion carries six to zero. Next, we have a presentation, from our housing team on the proposed United States Department of Housing and Urban Development or HUD rule change on mixed status households.

Good

morning, directors. For the record, my name is Molly Rogers and I'm the Executive Director of the Housing Authority for Washington County. I am here today with M. Nichols, the policy coordinator.

Hi, I'm M. Nichols, the policy coordinator for the Department of Housing Services.

And? Good morning, Board of Directors. I am Erin Doyle, the county's Policy and Government Affairs Division Manager.

Great. Next slide, please. We have two goals for this presentation today. First, we want to provide you an update on a proposed federal rule that will change the U. S.

Department of Housing and Urban Development that will impact family eligibility with households with mixed immigration statuses. If finalized, this rule will end a long standing federal regulation that allows families with mixed immigration statuses to live together, forcing these households to choose family separation or risk losing housing stability. We believe this represents an unnecessary change that undermines proven housing policy, puts American children at risk of homelessness, and penalizes law abiding immigrants. Ultimately, this change will reduce our ability to serve eligible citizens and increase our overall program costs. Our second goal with you all today is to gauge your Board support in submitting public comment opposing this proposed rule change.

And with that, I'm going to turn it over to M. Nichols to share more about the proposed rule.

Thanks, Molly. Before we discuss the proposed rule, we should establish exactly what we're talking about when we're talking about mixed status households and what HUD means by that. Mixed status refers to households that include some family members that are eligible for federal assistance based on their citizenship or immigration status and others that are not eligible for assistance based on their statuses. Under current rules, mixed status households receive prorated assistance based only on the proportion of eligible family members in the household. This allows families to live together regardless of their immigration status and housing assistance to be paid only for eligible individuals.

This is not a discretionary or recent policy. It's based on Section two fourteen of the Housing and Community Development Act of 1980 and has been fully codified for HUD policies and programs for over thirty years. HUD program eligibility is based on Section two fourteen of the Housing and Community The of was was They The largely limit assistance to citizens, permanent residents, people who have been granted formal status as refugees or asylees and migrants from freely associated states such as the Marshall Islands. It's important for us to note that ineligibility for assistance does not mean a person's presence in The United States is undocumented or unauthorized. Individuals can be lawfully present in The United States and still ineligible for assistance if they have temporary authorization as a worker, student or visitor, are an applicant awaiting determination of their refugee or asylee status, or if they're protected under deferred action for childhood arrival provisions.

The current rules support program integrity for all members of a mixed status household. Every household member, regardless of their immigration status, agrees to follow program rules related to income reporting, criminal background screening, lease compliance and other participant obligations. Every household member's income, regardless of their immigration status, is counted when calculating the amount of rental assistance. However, while all the income is considered, households receive that prorated assistance based only on the eligible household members. This means that Americans and eligible immigrants can live with their family members with different eligibility status and pay proportionally higher tenant rents than households that have only a single status.

The proposed rule ends eligibility for all members of mixed status families unless the ineligible members leave the household. Mixed status households, as Molly said, will have to choose between keeping their family together or continued housing stability. Nationally, this is expected to impact 24,000 households, 80,000 individuals and 37,000 children. The local impact would be 39 families, 168 individuals, mostly people who are eligible for assistance and 75 children, all of whom are individually eligible for assistance. The proposed rule impacts are not limited to immigrants or people indicating ineligible status at admission.

The rule creates additional citizenship verifications for all applicants and for all current program participants. This includes currently participating citizens in single status households. Citizens who cannot provide additional verification may be denied assistance or have their assistance terminated. Under current program rules, citizens are required to verify eligibility for assistance. They do this by signing a certification form, providing their social security information.

That information is validated by housing authority staff and against social security databases. Household members also provide a valid and current government issued photo ID. The proposed rule adds additional requirements to this, so we keep all those current requirements. There's an additional consent form required for additional verifications, validation against the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements database, we'll call that SAVE if we have to mention it again, and in some cases documentary evidence of citizenship such as their birth certificate The proposed timeline and public comment period is shown on this slide. I'll hand it over to Erin to speak about the public comment period.

Thank you, Em. As your Board may know, the process by which the federal government updates its rules requires a set of steps. And we are halfway through that set of steps. The agency has to develop the rules. There is an internal approval process and then they have to go out for public comment which has to be held open for a period of time.

The publication of the proposed rule on February 21 gave us ninety days that will run therefore through April 21. Those public comments will then be collated and there is a requirement that there be a response to all comments and then turn that into a final draft, which could be go back out for further comment if they make significant enough changes based on those comments. However, they could just go through their internal processes to review and revise the final rules, which then would be published once they've completed that process. After that, the rule could become effective or it could be challenged in the courts. It could be challenged by the legislature or a and goes through that congressional review as well.

So this is the point in time in which the public and all agencies have the opportunity to voice concerns, make recommended changes or ask that the rule not be implemented. How quickly they respond to comments is up to them. How robustly they respond to comments, how many changes they make as a result of comments is strictly up to the department and their administrative process. So if they go on the fastest timeline, I'll let Em walk through that.

So this is only a projection, what's shown on this slide. It assumes the final rule is published very shortly after the end of the public comment period without significant changes. We can't project how likely that is to happen. Actual implementation would be based on the final rule publication date, final provisions of the rule, any legal challenges and the outcome of those challenges. But of course, it's our responsibility to prepare for the rule as written.

If it is finalized as written, we will be obligated to begin notifying participants in mixed status households and collecting additional verifications within thirty days of its effective date, which could potentially be as early as June. We would allow households the full timeline and maximum extensions for eligibility verification. These extensions could run out as early as September. At that point, we would be obligated to begin issuing termination notices for families that had We the session. Of The The rule does, however, include significant provisions for deferral of termination.

Using the full eighteen month deferral period and allowing time on either side of that deferral period for participant hearing rights and making sure that we're processing any program exit properly. We could avoid seeing program exits potentially until 2028. So that gives our PHA and our region and housing authorities across the country a lot of time to work with households to support continued housing stability. While that goes on for mixed status households, of course, we would have to concurrently be taking on those additional citizenship verifications for all households. Our timeline for that would be one year.

So during each household's next annual recertification, that's when we would have to pursue those additional verifications. The rules are currently unclear about how that will impact PHAs like ours that use triennial recertifications. So I'll leave it to Molly and Erin to discuss some of our next steps here.

The first step would be for your board to consider the letter that was submitted for your consideration on Pages twenty eight and twenty nine of the packet. If can if there are any changes that need to be made, we can make those changes and then submit the letter on behalf of the Board of Directors and then wait for their response at the federal level. In the meantime, I will also note that we are talking with our federal delegation because they do also play a role in this conversation. And

we

will be meeting with individual staff to staff to discuss the potential impacts, not just here in Washington County, but across the state. From there, I turn over to Molly.

So we're hoping our next steps really start here with this discussion with the Board and submitting public comments if you so support that. We do believe then we would have to if it does go into effect, we will go through a full community process understand the impacts and whether other community partners can help assist with those households. And then of course, working directly with the 39 affected households and what it could mean to them. We are starting to have conversations and exploration with, say, state partners around could there be are there other opportunities for rental assistance or other funds that could potentially support a transition plan for those particular families affected if they so if they end up if their assistance ends up being But it's all very early stage in that work, and we're just bringing you into that bringing elevating this opportunity for you all to be a part of some solutions with us and have those conversations with our various funding partners and of course, all the stakeholders in our community who will be concerned about these households as well. And with that, we would love to get Erin is going to help facilitate.

Good at facilitating for public comment. You all, I believe it's in your packet of a draft letter that we have proposed and would love your input on that.

Directors, who would like to go first? Go ahead, Commissioner Atrees.

Thank you for bringing this forward. As I have provided to my fellow Board of Commissioners, I support I supplied personal public comment several weeks ago about this issue and made that available to all of you. I am in support of providing this letter moving forward. I have a question, and that is, I'm not sure that I heard the whole bit on the radio this morning, but my question to you is are there other counties in Oregon that do not adhere to the concept of prorating the charges that as we do. Can you answer that question for me?

Yes.

So our neighbors at Home Forward in the city of Portland, their housing authority, They are also like us a moving to work agency and one of their previously approved moving to work waivers was a waiver that significantly modified the proration for mixed status households. I don't know exactly the calculation that they used, but it brought them almost to a full subsidy. Basically, it almost eliminated the proration. So those households were getting very close to the 100% subsidy level. And I understand that HUD has recently rescinded their authorization to continue that activity.

Okay. I wanted to make sure that we were highlighting that as what's happening right now. We are just for clarification, we our prorated schedule is based on status and it's 100% for those who have citizenship and nothing for those who do not. Is that correct?

That is correct. So in a household, for instance, where there are three household members that are eligible for assistance and one household member that is not eligible for assistance, that household would receive 75 percent of their calculated rental subsidy.

Great. Thank you. I just wanted to make that clear and delineate what's happening in Washington County versus other areas close to us?

Thank you. We believe Home Forward is the only housing authority in Oregon that does has that additional waiver. No other housing authority has applied that level of assistance that have an alternate proration. Okay. Thank you.

Commissioner Schneider?

Thank you. I'm supportive of the plan to submit public comment. I believe this is continued targeting of the most vulnerable members of our community with the goal of apparently increasing or maximizing suffering as much as possible. I don't support that. This has been a well established past practice, that from my perspective has been working well. And the final comment I would make is that this appears to be a solution in search of a problem.

Anyone else? Director Sankara.

Thank you, Chair. Yes, thank you so much for the presentation and breaking down the context. Full support of us submitting, public comment and continue to engage. And, just Director Rogers really appreciate have appreciated your and I's conversations about, thinking about the state level context and really trying to think about where we as state partners kind of in my day job can continue to support the conversation. So we're ready and willing partners to continue to think through the impacts.

And I've really appreciated your thinking about the overall system here. I think one thing I wanted to explore a little bit that you briefly touched on is around potential litigation. So you all kind of dug into this a little bit. But as I understand it, Section two fourteen of that is really at the crux of this, the law that was passed in the '80s, outlines this proration strategy explicitly. It's not something that was added through rulemaking.

It is in the law. So eliminating proration strategy, I'm curious just from like a legal analysis and this may be more for county attorneys. Have we done that analysis in terms of is this a legally vulnerable policy and sort of where are we at with the procedure to kind of consider that as a further down the road path? Obviously, don't know what the final rule will be, but I'm just curious where that where those conversations have been so far.

Yes. I'll jump in, Director. Thanks for the question. We're certainly talking with our partners, especially in our immediate metro county jurisdictions at the legal level to find out kind of what thoughts are moving forward. It's a bit early. Go back to Slide eight please. As you noted, this is a proposed rule, right? And that timeline. So that would be the most aggressive timeline, right? And I'm in particular looking at final rule published.

And the reason I say that is under the Administrative Procedure Act, governs federal agency rulemaking, Agencies have to show that their actions are not arbitrary and capricious. And one of the reasons one of the ways that they do that is by considering public comment before they adopt a final rule. This rule is this proposed rule is likely to result in a significant amount of public comment. So what that means is in order to for HUD to protect the rule, they're going to be forced to take the time necessary to at least establish for a court, if this is challenged, that they have considered those comments and are not being arbitrary in implementing the final rule. That's a long way of saying we're very early and we need to look at two fourteen, which you referenced more closely with respect to whatever final rule is published by the agency.

Commissioner Fai? Thank you,

Chair. Quick reaction to some of the comments Commissioner Snyder made. Commissioner Snyder, I appreciate you saying those words and very welcome remarks. So thank you for your leadership. Staff, I appreciate your presentation.

I did have two comments for you all, not necessarily a question. But to start off, I do support the questions that you posed, Erin, submitting some comments. And the second question around edits, I do not have any edits, and I don't foresee edits that I will have in the future very well put together and go forth. And may the force be with you on that. The quick comments I wanted to make is one of the slides you talked about the new requirements and in parentheses, were sort of the documentary evidence of citizenships.

You talked about birth certificate is called out and passport is called out as well. And since we're talking about immigrants and refugee, one category you might include in your articulation is naturalized citizenships. I could talk about my own process when I became a naturalized citizen. Not many of us had passports quite yet, unless you have a pending trip or but we are very familiar with the naturalized citizenships and carrying that, and many of us do not have birth certificates. So I would include in your articulations to the community members so that it's in their forefront that, oh, this is what I need to bring if I don't have a passport so that you're not going back and forth.

And then the other is, Molly, comment that I have is you've addressed this, and I really appreciate it because that was as the presentation was going along, I was kind of wondering what is the local response to the 39 or the 75 children impacted, 39 families or 75 children. And I appreciate what you laid out. But one thing that I didn't hear is could you quantify the number of Washington County residents of the 39 versus and the 75? Do we know exactly how many of Washington County residents is embedded in that 39?

Is the Washington County. The Washington County. Households exactly. The local impact is 39 households in Washington County that would be affected by this rule if it goes into effect. And of those 39, 75 are children and there's a total number of 168 members of those households.

Member. Okay. Yes, that's what I was wondering. I was like, is this a local, like a statewide since this is going Okay.

It is a statewide issue. We are right now calculating the impact the number of households across all the counties. We have a survey going out that we're participating in. And as Director Savara mentioned, the state also has participants that they directly that they subsidize through their multi family Section eight program also affected by this. So it is a statewide issue. It's why we do need to talk to our congressional delegation and all the partners across the state on how we're going to address this together.

I was very comfortable, comforting to hear your address on the local response. Okay. Thank

you. Director Willey?

I don't have any comments. I agree with the ones that have made some good presentation. Thank you.

Thank you. I join my colleagues in supporting this letter for public comment posing the rule, the proposed rule. I believe that the Washington County, the Oregon, and The US economy does better when more people are able to participate. These proposed rules cause more housing instability as well as the burdens to the housing authority as a government agency. So these proposed rules in this version of the federal rules helps no one.

So let's get our comments in and hope they have an effect. Thank you. Do we need to take a vote for that? No, I think you've got audio.

No vote needed. We can just use board direction.

Thank you. Great. Thank you. Next, we're going to move to a public hearing. Over to you, Em.

You get to

hear more from me.

Let's see. Thank you. I am now here in my capacity as a well, I am the housing policy coordinator. I do work under and program coordinator. Speaking about our housing authority annual plan submission for 2026.

Oh, yes, you have the clicker.

And

we're be sense '21. Then

seeking your approval for submission of that annual plan by the Housing Authority Executive Director and for the Chair to sign any necessary certifications that will accompany the submission. The annual plan and the MTW supplement are strategic documents that describe our mission, our use of our moving to work flexibilities, and they do both require a public comment period and a public hearing. They are due to the U. S. Department of Housing and Urban Development on April 17.

The annual plan describes our housing authority operations, programs and services. It reports on our goals and progress, towards our mission. The MTW supplement is an attachment to the annual plan. It describes our use of our MTW flexibilities, new waiver requests and modifications to current waivers. These documents exist in the current policy context, which at the federal level includes reduced field office staffing for the HUD staff that support our work, changing federal priorities, procedural uncertainties, administrative funding constraints that we're projecting, new funding conditions, and as we heard about Home Forward earlier, review of previously approved MTW waivers.

For our agency, it's a milestone year for our tiered rent demonstration. It's we're pursuing our ongoing Section 18 disposition. We also have ongoing MTW implementation in progress, especially as respects our family self sufficiency program. And we want to make sure that we're ready to respond to program changes that come down from the federal government. So what that means for our annual plan priorities that we're focusing on sustainability and performance.

And our approach to that is it ends up being one where we're focusing on foundational policy maintenance. For sustainability, we're making sure we're maintaining our work in our goal areas and making sure that we do what we can to preserve and protect our current MTW flexibilities. For performance, we're trying to model strict compliance with HUD program rules as we always do and maintaining our operational capacity so that we can respond to those changes that might come down. The overall approach is making sure we're focusing on where we are aligned with HUD priorities and avoiding taking on additional administrative burden. We want to make sure we're optimizing our 25 approved MTW flexibilities and we are not currently seeking HUD approval for new MTW waivers.

We do have plan updates, however. Those include updates to our statement of housing needs, reflecting the updated consolidated plan, updated point in time count and current waiting list data. We are reflecting on our progress in the last year, especially in Hawk operations and our development activities. We're reporting proudly on our clean audit status for fiscal year twenty twenty five, and we're making sure our plan reflects continued compliance with all applicable fair housing laws and overall alignment with the county's access and opportunity priorities. The plans require significant engagement and public participation.

The public comment period ran from February 6 to March 23. It was advertised in The Oregonian and on our website. No comments were received at the time of this posting. There was one that got misrouted that will be reflected in our final submission, and that was related to our family self sufficiency program. The Resident Advisory Board consultation took place on November 17 and January 12 and March 16.

At the March 16 meeting, the Resident Advisory Board voted in support of the housing authority submission. Our housing advisory committee reviewed the documents on March 19 and voted to recommend the submission. And here we are now, April 7, presenting to the Housing Authority Board of Directors and hosting our public hearing. And that announcement was included in The Oregonian and on our website. So our requested action today is, conducting a public hearing, approving the submission of the PHA annual plan and moving to work supplement by the director and authorizing the chair to sign the required certifications.

Directors, do you have any questions on this topic? Okay. Seeing none, thank you, Ms. Nickel, I'm going to open a public hearing. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone who wishes to testify?

There was no sign ups ahead of time for this public hearing. Is there anyone in the auditorium that wishes to make comment on the staff report that was just presented? Please raise your hand. Not seeing any hands, is there anyone online via Zoom? Please utilize the raise hand function. Not seeing any hands, Chair Harrison.

And with that, I'll close today's public hearing and ask for a motion to approve the submission of the PHA, Public Housing Authority, annual plan and moving to work supplement for 2026 by the Hawk executive director and authorize the board chair to sign required certifications in accompanying the submission.

So moved. Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you directors. Thank you very much.

Thank you all.

It's approved unanimously six to zero. That takes us to our second public comment period of today's Housing Authority Board of Directors meeting. Clerk Hodges.

There are no more sign ups for this public comment section. Is there anyone in the auditorium? Yes, sir. Mr. Feek, go ahead.

Chair Harrington and Commissioners, Dale Feek. I wasn't going to make public comment, but after listening to the presentation to you regarding the proposed United States Department rule and change in mixed status, I decided I needed to make some public comments. I really appreciate you, Director Savara, your comments and your Jason Snyder, your comments and the rest of you, and especially Alex Barnett's reply based upon the legal status of this proposed rule. We are in big problems and I forgot to do something. I know this is part of my time.

And clerk is handing out to you partially what I'm presenting to you when I'm going make my two minute public comment during the regular commission meeting. Timothy Snyder, as you know, all of you have this book on 20 Lessons from the Twentieth Century. You have that book. And he wrote on April 4, Next Coup Attempt, How to Stop It by Timothy Snyder. I sent you an email, but I only did part of it.

You had to open it up. I'm giving you the whole document today. We are seven months away from the most consequential midterm election in the history of The United States. Meanwhile, we are fighting a war. These are the structural conditions of a coup attempt which a president tries to nullify elections and take permanent power as a dictator.

If we see this, we can stop it, overcome the movement that brought us to the point and make us turn towards something better. President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Pete Hegseth are stuck in the logic of escalation, according to which the feeling of defeat today can be reversed by doing the first thing that comes to mind tomorrow. Trump is surrounded by people who are making money from the war. Each day of war strengthens a warmongering lobby with with personal access to the president. As the war lengthens, the chance that we will be exploited by a coup, a coup attempt increases.

Trump tells us that he is chiefly concerned with the permanence of his own comfort and power. Think about ballroom and bunker, much of which he will lose when his party is defeated deciphally in the midterms, my hope. He regularly declares his attention to meddle the elections. His party backed a bill which would have turned elections to a sham. Trump wants to increase the defense budget by nearly 50% while without any review of what that money is for.

This is strategic nonsense and has to be understood as a payoff for the men who, as he imagines, will help him install a dictatorship. Hagsef is meanwhile purging the highest officer ranks of the people of principle. It's up to us, I'm saying this, us, you, everybody else, to put two and two together. Trump will seek to exploit the war or the next one to alter the elections. We bear responsibly for what comes next.

The eventuality can seem frightening, but Trump's position is weak. The gamut of turning a foreign war into a domestic dictatorship is complicated and difficult. Its success depends on us. If the possibility of such a coup is not anticipated and the variants of the gamut are not called out, as they emerge, he can succeed. He has attempted a coup or technically a self coup once in January 2021.

There is no reason to think that he will not try to do so again. He's fallen to my point. He's fallen to dictatorial way they become dictators. As always, and I'm quoting now, as always, history can help us to imagine the immediate future. History does not repeat, but it does instruct, and Timothy Snyder has said this many times in his good books. That was my editorial comment. We know that war offers at least five kinds, five kinds of opportunities for aspiring dictators. Let us consider the moves that Trump could make and how they could be stopped. Offer them as five, Snyder asked them as five clear types. In practice, of course, they would be mixed and matched from day to day.

But we have the concepts in advance. We can recognize the threat and turn any sort of coup attempt against Trump. We are not spectators in this unfolding drama. We are actors inside every scenario and we means journalists who report, judges who follow the law, servicemen and servicewomen who follow the constitution, and above all, citizens who organize, protest, and vote. If we know the coup scripts in advance, we know when to take the stage and where to take the rage. So here are the scenarios, and I'll go through those in my two minutes comments next time. Thank you for listening.

Thank you, Mr. Feek. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone else who wishes to testify on matters of the Housing Authority Board of Directors?

Are there any other members in the auditorium wishing to make any public comment on the Housing Authority matters? Not seeing any hands, is there anyone via Zoom who wishes to make any public testimony or comments on any housing authority matters? Please utilize the raise hand function. Not seeing any hands, Chair Harrington.

Thank you. With that, I'd ask for any board announcements. No? Nope. We don't have any for today. So with that, I would ask for a motion to adjourn the Housing Authority Board of Directors meeting.

A motion to adjourn, Hermie.

Second. All those in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously six to zero. And we'll take a quick break, and then transition to our county commission meeting.

Welcome back commissioners. We are now live. Over to you chair Harrington.

Welcome everyone to the Tuesday, 04/07/2026 Washington County Board of Commissioners meeting. Clerk Hodges, could you do us the honors, please?

Certainly. The Washington County Board of Commissioners also meeting as the Board of Directors for all other county service districts is meeting in regular session on 04/07/2026. Commissioner Snyder? Here. Commissioner Trease?

Here.

Commissioner Fai?

Present.

Vice Chair Willey? Here. Chair Harrington?

Here. Thank you. Would everyone who's able please rise and join us in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you. Next we have our first public comment period for this meeting.

This is an opportunity for members of our community to come and share their thoughts with the board on any topic they wish for up to two minutes an individual. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone who wishes to do so?

We do. The first two will be Dale Feek and Mary Hockeyopoulos.

Chair Harrington, Dale Feek, you already received a written comment. I'm going to elaborate on that just a little bit. But I want to let you know when Board Director Savaro left, he thanked me for what I did and he said he has already read On Tyranny book. He wasn't aware that Snyder also had a substack and he's going to subscribe to Snyder's substack. So that accomplished part of what I tried to do in giving public comment to the housing authority.

And then the person who made public comment to you and the housing authority came up to me and she said, you are very brave to do that. I said, I'm trying to do it. Timothy Snyder says in the book, Be as Courageous as You Can. That's lesson number 20. Stand out.

I don't try to stand out, but I try to say things as it is and seek truth and have people think. And as you know, I have a degree in reading education. One of the things I did is try to have people analyze things, take a look at concepts and come up with action plans, analyzing the pros and cons of every action you take and see come up with the best solution at the time. You never know what the best solution is, but you have to try it and get the best. So what I'm saying is keep up your good work.

Government still needs to happen no matter what Trump and his regime does. We have to have city government, county government. We have to have actions taken so people have services. So whatever you do, and I know two commissioners running for chair, I don't care, I do care who gets it, but I really care of working together to provide the services that people need and protect us against the regime and dictators. Thank you.

Me. Ms.

Halkiopoulous, the floor is yours.

Good morning, Chair Harrington and Commissioners. I'm Mary Halkiopalos, a Washington County resident. It's election time again. Overseas and military ballots were sent out on April 3. Featured on the State of Oregon website were the words quote military and overseas voters can access ballots and the voters guide online.

I clicked on the link to view the voters guide and was surprised to see no positions or ballot measures for Washington County save one for Kevin Barton, our district attorney who appears on both state and local, county guides. The explanation offered by the, elections office was that the counties that print their own voters' pamphlets are not represented in the state guide. Instead, overseas voters are given a link by which they can access their county specific pamphlet. This doesn't explain how the DA position is on the state guide which warrants further investigation. However, there's a much bigger issue at play.

That issue is the false assumption that everyone overseas has access to the Internet. Anyone who's been outside the country knows this is not the case. Without Internet access, a person may be able to cast a paper ballot through the mail, but without the ability to read a voters guide and for that matter have access to news, do they know who and what they're voting for? I spoke with a friend who served in The Middle East who said, while it may be possible for those in the military to get to an Internet cafe on occasion, it's not convenient and may be very difficult. Again, while they may be able to cast a paper ballot through the mail, without the ability to read a voters guide, do they know who and what they're voting for?

The current system works for those who are in large cities or work in positions that afford them ready access to the Internet. Otherwise, the system is deeply flawed, wide open to fraud, and in most cases, disenfranchises the very people who are putting their lives on the line to defend our way of life, including our right to vote.

Thank you. Thank you. Clerk Hodges.

Is there anyone else in the auditorium wishing to make any public comment on any county related matter for up to two minutes? Please raise your hand. Ms. Hoffler?

Morning, counselors, commissioners. Here I am. Wrong. Wrong. My name is Ayla Hoffler. I am a Washington County resident for fifty years. And I'm I'm gonna go with this two minute thing because there was no five minute sign up sheet. Evidently, was all filled before we came, which seems a bit odd. So anyway, I'll try and make this short. I'm testifying on behalf of Ordinance nine twelve today.

My concern is that our affordability and availability of housing continues to be limited to only certain people. Geographic inequity continues. We're denying a dwelling on farm and timberland continues. EFC and EFU land is continually ignored in all of your policies. Secondly, it's not inclusive.

You're not including everybody that lives in the rural areas to make comment. You don't have developmental forums for rural people. And basically, people that live outside the UGB and unincorporated areas feel like they are actually shunned, like we're doing something wrong by living out there. There's no scientific evidence at all to prove that a house on Timberland or farmland is compromising the activity there. In fact, it enhances it.

You're not helping rural economic development by continuing to make EFC and EFU land uninhabitable without outrageous regulations and criteria to meet it. 160 acres is necessary for one house on Timberland. And you are not being diverse. You are not recognizing that our rural lifestyle is very different than our urban lifestyle. We are all not going to live in middle housing. You need to recognize that our lifestyle is just as important as all of these other houses that are going in this county.

Thank you, Ms. Hoffler. Mr. Cudges?

Are there any other members in the auditorium wishing to provide any public comment? Please raise your hand. Not seeing any hands. There is one hand raised in Zoom. Jeff, can you

hear us?

Yes. I can.

Perfect. Please, state your full name for the record and go, with your comment for up to two minutes.

Sure. My name is, Jeff Foer. Good morning, commissioners. My name is Jeff Foer, and I am a resident of the Oak Hills community. I'm going to be direct today. The Good Neighbor Agreement meeting on March 31 was disappointing and did not feel like a productive use of time. It was structured as an open house, not a discussion. There was no shared dialogue, no accountability, and no opportunity for the community to hear consistent information or get real answers to serious questions. We showed up expected engagement. What we experienced instead felt more like a box checking exercise.

The issues we care about are not surface level. They are not about aesthetics or preferences. They are about safety, security, oversight, and long term accountability. Those topics were not immediately addressed. If this process is intended to build trust, it is having the opposite effect. It is creating frustration and growing, a concern that decisions may already be made without meaningful community input. We are asking for something very simple, a process that includes real dialogue, clear information, and accountability. Right now, we don't have that. And until we do, calling this a good neighbor agreement does not reflect the experience of the community. Thank you.

Thank you for your input, sir. Clerk Hodges, anyone else?

Is there anyone else on Zoom wishing to provide public comment? Please utilize the raise hand function. I'm not seeing any hands, Chair Harrington.

Okay. Thank you. And with that, we'll close this public comment period for this meeting and move on to our consent agenda. It's a long one. Consists of 22 items today. One set of minutes, three items from facilities, fleet, parks, one from emergency management, one from human resources, one from housing services, one from county council, and 14 from land use and transportation. What are the wishes of the commission regarding today's consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Second. All those in favor, please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Commissioners, any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. Next, we're moving on to proclamations and we have three of them today. The first one is to proclaim April 2026 as community development week in Washington County.

Good morning, chair Harrington and commissioners. My name is Shannon Wilson, I'm the program manager for our office of community development. Thanks so much for your time this morning. I'm joined by the chair of our Community Development Policy Advisory Board. If you'd like to introduce yourself.

Hi, I'm Kim Young. I'm Sherwood City Council President and current chair of the Policy Advisory Board.

And we are excited to be here today to talk with you about Community Development Week. Oops, sorry. Haven't used this new advancer yet. So I have a brief presentation that I'd like to walk through, and then, Pab Cheryong has some brief comments, and we'll read the proclamation. So community development week is celebrated nationally.

This is the fifty second year of the community development block grant. And really, community development week is celebrating the investment of federal funding in local jurisdictions around the nation for the benefit of community development activities. So there are three main funding types that our office administers, that are recognized in this Community Development Week, and that is the Community Development Block Grant, the Home Investment Partnerships Program, and the Emergency Solutions Grant. And so the Community Development Block Grant, also known as CDBG, is the largest one of those and the oldest one. So that's the one that's been around for, over five decades.

And here in Washington County, we began administering it in 1979, so coming up on forty seven years. So as a part of that work, we really organized it into five year increments, are tied into our consolidated planning process. And the consolidated plan really consolidates a lot of community engagement work, a housing needs analysis, as well as our goals and priorities over that five year period. And so I have some project highlights I wanted to share with you for the last consolidated plan period. And so they're organized into the five categories of goals that we had during that period.

And it is the twenty twenty to twenty twenty four consolidated plan period, which does run through July 2020 through the full fiscal year of 2024, so really through June 2025. So we administered just over $31,000,000 during that five year period among those different funding types. So you also will see that many of these projects and programs that are funded with these federal dollars are also supported by local and state and regional resources. So I know your board is familiar with many of these projects and programs. And really what we work to do with the federal dollars is to be some of the first funding and really to be that that seed money to help build momentum and help these projects be more competitive, in other local and regional cycles.

So in the last five year period, under the category of homeless services, we served nearly 8,000 people were assisted. The two projects highlighted there on the slide are the Homeplate Street outreach for homeless youth, which that photo is actually a photo of staff. And they're really showing off their backpacks, which they used to carry around some basic needs, resources and supplies so that when they go out and meet youth where they are around the county, they already have some resources and items to share with them. And then the other is from Project Homeless Connect, their one day event where haircuts are just one of the many services provided on that day to people experiencing homelessness. Under the next category is public services.

So nearly 8,000 people were assisted during that period. So that includes a variety of other services that serve general community members as opposed to those people experiencing homelessness. So that includes on-site resident services at affordable housing communities, fair housing, health, and youth services. The next category is housing. And so nearly 900 households were assisted through the production of affordable regulated affordable rental housing as well as our housing rehabilitation program that our staff, directly work with low income homeowners to provide safety and accessibility upgrades to their home that help them remain in their housing, as well as weatherization programs and a small homeownership program.

The third category where we supported projects in this five year period was neighborhood and community development. So those are primarily supportive public facilities and public infrastructure projects. So serving, over 30,000 people assisted because a lot of these projects are really serving whole, neighborhoods that have a higher, population of low and moderate income households. So with the Just Compassion Access Center as an example, nearly $1,000,000 in CDBG funds were some of those first dollars in and help Just Compassion buy the land that that resource center is now located on. And then the other example, the city of Cornelius, we funded several sidewalk projects there.

So really enhancing the public walkability and public safety in those lower income neighborhoods. And finally, fifth category of funding awards that were made were in the category of economic development, so supporting just over 300 individuals, with job training and micro enterprise support. So as a part of our, our work, we are I'm as I said, I'm happy to be joined by our by our PAB chair, counselor Kim Young. I also wanted to highlight the other members of our policy advisory board, so including chair Harrington as our current primary member and Commissioner Trease as our alternate and former primary member. So thank you both for service.

And then also want to recognize the other elected officials from around the county that really provide thoughtful and supportive leadership for this work as we administer these federal dollars and then provide recommendations to your board for approval of related items. So with that, I will turn it over to our PAB Chair, Kim Young. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. I've had the honor of serving for nine years on the Washington County Community Development Policy Advisory Board, helping guide investments in critical programs like CDBG, Home, and Emergency Solutions Grants. This week is National Community Development Week, and it's an important reminder. These federal resources are essential to meeting local needs. They support affordable housing, prevent homelessness, and invest in the infrastructure that keeps our communities strong.

At a time when these programs often face uncertainty, continued local leadership and advocacy are more important than ever. The needs in our community are real and growing, and these tools make a measurable difference in people's lives. I recently had the opportunity to highlight this work on an episode of the One Washington County, Oregon podcast, where we discuss the impacts of community development with the importance of strong partnerships. I encourage you and the public to listen to learn more. Thank you for your leadership and for continuing to champion these vital investments in Washington County.

And with that, we have a proclamation. National Community Development Week. Whereas the week of April 6 to 04/10/2026 has been designated as National Community Development Week by the National Community Development Association to celebrate the Community Development Block Grant Program, the Home Investment Partnerships Program, and the Emergency Solutions Grant Program. And whereas the CDBG program provides annual funding and flexibility to local communities to provide decent, safe and sanitary housing and suitable living environment and economic opportunities to low and moderate income people. And whereas the Home Investment Partnerships Program provides funding to local communities to create decent, safe, affordable housing opportunities for low income persons, nationally over 1,000,000 units of affordable housing have been completed using home funds.

And whereas the ESG program provides annual funding to assist people experiencing homelessness to retain stability and permanent housing. Whereas our community has received a total of $31,867,031 combined in CDBG home and ESG funds over the past five years. Now therefore, be it resolved that Washington County designates the week of April 6 to 04/10/2026, as National Community Development Week in support of these valuable programs that have made tremendous contributions to the viability of the housing stock, infrastructure, public services, and economic vitality of our community. Be it further resolved that this community urges Congress and the administration to recognize the outstanding work being done locally and nationally by the Community Development Block Grant Program, the Home Investments Partnership Program, and the Emergency Solutions Grant by supporting increased funding in future years.

Thank you, President Young and Chair of the Policy Advisory Board Commissioners. Any questions or comments? Go for it.

I just thank you for the work that you're doing here. I want to call out the PAB board. Thank you Shannon for identifying who those folks are. I had the opportunity to serve for many years with you and the work that you all do, Chair as well, on identifying and going through the process to select the winners, if you will, of the grants. It's arduous and you do great work and I just wanted to express my appreciation.

I also want to take a moment to welcome and appreciate the staff and the work that you do in making sure that the PAB board and all of the decisions are supported and that the information is available to all of those that are serving and making those decisions. So Shannon, you have a great group. Thank you for everything that you do. Thank you for the work to get those funds out. I think it's incumbent upon all of us to continue to advocate at the federal level to make sure that we continue those funds. So again, Councilor Young, thank you for being here today for this.

Council President Young, I just want to recognize you for the significant number of years contributing. This is not a committee or work that you just show up for an hour or once

a

month or every other month and get the work done. There's significant amount of contribution of your own time, and I just want to thank you for that. I would thank other members of the committee if they were here directly, and certainly the staff team works very hard. But for you to commit nine years of that is significant and serving as chair. So thank you.

I would like to add my voice to the shout out to the staff that help make these programs possible. County staff as well as partner staff whether they're at cities or nonprofits do a lot of work to seek these grant opportunities, put the project information together, and then working with the county staff to make sure that the projects deliver to the plan. So job well done. At this juncture, I would like to ask for a motion to adopt the proclamation National Community Development Week, April 6 through 04/10/2026 in Washington County.

I'm honored to make that motion.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you commissioners. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. Next, we'll move to a similar but different proclamation. This is to proclaim April 2026 as fair housing month in Washington County.

And chair Harrington, before we start, we do have fair housing post ers that we'd like to share with you. So I'll give those to the clerk. Thank you.

Good morning, Chair and Commissioners. For the record, my name is Molly Rogers and I am the Executive Director of the Housing Authority of Washington County as well as the Director of Housing Services. And combined with the Office of Community Development, we are all here in support of Fair Housing Month. I'm joined today by

Shannon Wilson, Program Manager of the Office of Community Development.

And I'm John Miller, the Executive Director of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon.

So fair housing is really a core principle that guides all of our work here really to ensure that every person has the right to housing free of discrimination. And the irony is not lost on me. On the heels of our mixed status household conversation at the Housing Authority Board of Directors, we know that these very fair housing tenants are under attack, particularly those households with national origin protections. In honor of Fair Housing Month, this actually seems like a great time for us to unveil our new housing services fair housing statement that we've been developing to be in aligned with our access and opportunity resolution. And I just would like to read a portion of it now, although the longer version is on our website.

The Washington County Department of Housing Services is committed to advancing fairness in access and opportunity to housing under the principles of the Fair Housing Act. We recognize that many residents in Washington County continue to experience discrimination based on race, color, national origin, sex, familial status, religion, disability, immigration status, age, domestic violence survivor status, and source of income. These populations face barriers that limit access to stable housing, economic mobility and personal well-being. To advance this work, we apply intentional strategies and accountability frameworks to identify and reduce disparities in housing outcomes. And by strengthening fair housing protections and improving access to housing opportunities, we aim to build a universally accessible county and prosperous future for all Washington County residents.

And with that, I would like to turn it over to Shannon.

Great. Well, you, Molly. Fair housing is one of the key components of our work in community development. We work closely with our partners in the Department of Housing and definitely appreciate the new statement that you have. I want to highlight our work with the Fair Housing Council of Oregon.

So we work with the council really throughout the year on a variety of community outreach events as well as training events. And one that we had earlier this year, we had the opportunity to gather a large group of property managers. So we work we invest in affordable housing projects and then have some compliance over the years. And so we offer training sun for the property managers on that compliance work. And this year was the first year where we also added in a fair housing training as well, and just as an important way to stay engaged with those property managers and specifically with regard to fair housing.

So property managers, I'm sure as you know, really frontline staff working directly with individuals and providing access to housing and applications to housing. And so and also it's a hard job, and so there's a lot of turnover. And so having these this adding in the fair housing training and now continuing to do that periodically will be a great benefit. And it's just one of the examples that we work together with the Fair Housing Council of Oregon, and with our partners in housing as well to advance fair housing throughout the county. So with that, I'm very pleased that the Executive Director of the Fair Housing Council of Oregon is here with us again this year for the Fair Housing, Proclamation, and he has some comments and we'll then read the proclamation. Thank you for your time.

Thank you, Shannon. Chair Harrington, Commissioners, great to see you again. I think this is my third visit. And so it's always fun to come back out and talk about our work. So at the Fair Housing Council, I think last year when I sat in this seat, we had just learned that we had lost a significant HUD grant.

We appealed that several times through a couple of levels of appeal and unfortunately were unsuccessful. And so that's had an impact on the Fair Housing Council of Oregon for sure. That represented about 40% of our contract revenue for the organization. In the meantime, thankfully some jurisdictions have set up and stepped up with additional funding including Washington County for the next fiscal year. So thank you for that.

But we still have struggled to keep up our efforts. We've actually had to lay off a couple of folks that has been difficult, but we're still at it. In spite of HUD changing guidance around affirmatively furthering fair housing requirements, disparate impact requirements, now the mixed status household that we just talked about this morning is on its way. Lots of changes are coming from HUD, but thankfully the state of Oregon has lots of duplicate laws in place. And so and they supersede the federal laws.

And so we are working hard under all of Oregon laws to continue to enforce all the fair housing laws that we have been enforcing for a long time. So we're again, thank you for the support here. As I always mentioned, we always have a poster contest each year and I think we do that to engage kids from around the state and to learn about fair housing law and then also they have an opportunity to develop a poster and win a cash prize. And so it's exciting to share this year that the artist that you have there, well, maybe I'm not sure if they distributed the posters yet, but Washington County resident is the winner this year. So pretty exciting.

So with that, I'm going to go ahead and read the proclamation. And I should have brought my glasses. I've got the small version. No, it's okay. I can do it.

So fair housing month, April 2026. Whereas the year 2025 marks the fifty eighth anniversary of the passage of the Federal Fair Housing Act Title VIII of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 as amended and whereas this law guarantees that housing throughout The United States should be made available to all community members without regard to race, color, religion, gender, familial status, disability, or national origin and whereas Oregon's fair housing law guarantees that housing throughout the State of Oregon should be made available to all community members without regards to marital status, sources of income, sexual orientation including gender identity and survivors of domestic violence. And whereas barriers to diminish the rights and limit the options of any community member diminish the rights of all community members. And whereas addressing the barriers to fair housing can be achieved through the cooperation, commitment and support of Washington County community members. Now therefore be it resolved that Washington County Hereby Claims proclaims April 26 to be fair housing month and encourages all community members to support and endorse fair housing throughout the year and reaffirm their commitment to fair housing for all.

And when this thereof, I have here to set my hand and cause the seal of Washington County to be affixed to this April 2026 signed Catherine Harrington Chair.

Commissioners, any questions, comments or motion?

Move to approve the proclamation.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. And at this juncture, I'd like us to take two pictures. I'm grateful to see council president Kim Young still here. I hope that CDBG staff, or the office of community development staff will join us to memorialize the first proclamation on community development week, and then we'll also take one with you on fair housing month.

Otherwise, your last one's a little blah. Angle angle your bodies a little bit.

Look at Meta first. I

got one just in case. You can never be too careful. One, two, three.

Okay. Now, memory serves me right, yes, indeed. We have one more proclamation, Arab American Heritage Month. Wonderful. Welcome.

Good morning. Good morning, chair Harrington and commissioners. My name is Ica Folstrom, and I'm the community engagement lead with the office of access and opportunity. I'm honored to introduce this proclamation as well as offer a few introductory remarks. Washington County Cultural Heritage celebrations and resource pages are an important starting point for our collective organizational engagement and learning about the community we serve, the diversity of lived experiences, equity, and inclusion.

They offer an opportunity to enter and strengthen relationships with staff and community who recognizes the important role that Arab American Heritage Month offers. The Arab American community, like all cultures, is not monolithic. It encompasses a range of diverse lived experiences, contributions, and opinions. Even with a wide range of Arab American experiences, the one thing we know to be true is Arab American history is American history. It is essential to understanding the nation's full story and how Arab American heritage is an integral part of our great nation.

Thank you to all of the planning committee members for their hard work and dedication to help educate the community. And with that, I would like to turn it over to staff members Hamid Al Nassar from Housing and Mira Norris from Health and Human Services to read the proclamation.

Thank you. Pleasure to be here. Whereas for over a century, Arab Americans have made valuable contributions to every aspect of American society in medicine, law, business, education, technology, government, civil and military service, entertainment, arts, and culture.

Whereas for generations, Arab immigrants and their descendants have shared their rich history and traditions with our community while being emblematic of the entrepreneurial American spirit that makes our nation free and prosperous and

Whereas nearly 32,000 Oregonians are of Arab descent and more than 6,700 of them call Washington County their home. And their resilient family values, strong worth ethic, dedication to education, and diversity in faith and creed enrich our great democracy and.

Whereas Victor George Atiyah served as the thirty second governor of the state of Oregon from 1979 to 1987, giving Oregon the distinction of being the first with an elected Arab American governor and.

Whereas despite their achievement their achievements, the history of Arabs in America remain neglected and defaced by misconceptions, bigotry, and anti American hate in the forms of crimes and speech.

And whereas Arab Americans have faced civil rights abuses, harmful stereotyping, and bullying that must be combated in the forms of education and awareness. And

Whereas the incredible contributions and heritage of Arab Americans have helped us build a better nation and they join all Americans in the desire to see a peaceful and diverse society where every individual is treated equally and feel safe.

Now, therefore, be it resolved that the Washington County Board of Commissioners does hereby proclaim April 2026 as Arab American Heritage Month and invites the people of Washington County to join in celebrating our rich and diverse culture, honoring the past and inspiring the future, to educate others as we move to create a more inclusive, just and prosperous world for all.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Commissioners, comments or a motion?

I'd like to move to accept this proclamation and thank you for the presentation.

Thank you. Second.

Thank you very much. We have a motion and a second to adopt April 2020 or proclaim April 2026 as Arab American Heritage Month and encourage the people of Washington County to observe this month with appropriate programs, activities, and ceremonies. All those in favor, please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you, commissioners. Any opposed?

The motion carries unanimously five to zero. And commissioners if you would join me and members of our employee base who would like to participate in a photo honoring this proclamation, please do so. Next we'll move on to public hearings and today we have two different public hearings and this is the opportunity where if people want

Excuse me, Chair Harrington, believe Boards and Commissions.

Oh, you're right.

Right

here in front of me. Announcing vacancies and authorizing the recruitment of applicants through 05/19/2026 or until all vacancies are filled for Washington County Boards and Commissions. I'll just briefly summarize. It's also in our packet, and there is information available on our website. The Aging and Veteran Services Advisory Council, the Civil Service Commission, the Columbia Pacific Economic Development District known as COLPAC.

There's some residency involved with that one. Developmental Disabilities Council, the Enhanced Sheriff Patrol District, ESPD Advisory Committee, residency required for that. Fair Board, Garbage and Recycling Advisory Committee, the Metzger Park Local Improvement District Advisory Board, residency required there. North Bethany County Service District for Roads Budget Committee, the Northwest Transport excuse me, the Northwest Commission on Transportation also known as Northwest Act, the County Park and Recreation Advisory Board, the Property Value Appeals Board formerly known as BOPTA, the Rural Roads operations and maintenance advisory committee also known as ROMAC, the county transit committee, the urban road maintenance district advisory committee also known as IRMDAC, and the Washington County and service district for lighting number one budget committee. What are the wishes of the commission regarding, posting these vacancies?

So move. Second.

All those in favor, please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Commissioners, any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. Now we're moving on to public hearings. And public hearings are the place where if you want to be part of the record for things like ordinances, this is the place where you provide those comments. So we're going to move to our first one which is on ordinance nine twelve with a staff report. Thank you.

Thank you Chair Harrington, members of the board. I'm Carol Johnson, Planning and Development Services Manager for the Land Use and Transportation Department. I'm joined today by Todd Borkowitz, Senior Planner, who will give the staff presentation.

Hello, Chair Harrington and Commissioners. For the record, I'm Todd Borkowitz, Senior Planner in LUT's Community Planning Group. And so we are here today to present A in gross ordinance number nine twelve, which would allow accessory dwelling units or ADUs in rural residential areas of the county outside of an urban growth boundary. We provided background on this ordinance to the Board in a Board work session on February 17. And at the Board hearing on the filed ordinance on February 24, the Board directed engrossment to reflect a small but needed change.

As you may recall, state law now enables counties to allow two types of rural accessory dwelling units. Counties can allow rural historic ADUs or the conversion of a historic home in the rural area to an ADU when a new single detached dwelling is built. Counties can also allow rural ADUs, which are the creation of a new ADU in the rural area that is accessory to an existing single detached dwelling on the same lot. So AIM gross ordinance nine twelve would allow both types of these would allow both of these types in Washington County subject to certain requirements. So, engrossment of the ordinance was needed to specify that rural ADUs and rural historic ADUs would only be allowed in rural residential districts outside an urban growth boundary as provided in state statute.

The change would be in addition to the rural ADU types meeting all other requirements in the filed ordinance. So today, we ask that the Board conduct a public hearing on engrossed ordinance nine twelve and then continue the hearing for the engrossed ordinance to April 28. And we have no we are happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Commissioners, do you have any questions from staff on this ordinance? Okay. Seeing none, before I move on to the public hearing for ordinance nine twelve, was I supposed to have you read it by title only?

Probably.

Yes, sir.

Yes. Could we have a motion to read a engrossed ordinance nine twelve by title only, please? Second. We have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please raise your hand or say aye. Thank you. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. If you could please read it.

Certainly, Chair. A. Engrossed Ordinance nine twelve, an ordinance amending the rural natural resource plan and the community development code relating to the allowance of rural accessory dwelling units and rural historic accessory dwelling units.

Thank you.

And I also have a point of order, Chair. So at the outset of our meeting today, you had public comment from a member of the public on this item. As Clerk Hodges helpfully pointed out, Section nine of your Board's Rules of Procedure, Section A1A state no comments are allowed on items on the agenda scheduled for a public hearing. The purpose of that is to protect the record for the public hearing. So I see two potential solutions for your board.

One, you could offer the opportunity for that individual community member to re offer their comments here during the public hearing or you can invoke Section 21 of your rules of procedure by a majority vote of the Board to suspend that rule for the purpose of that comment and accept the comment as part of the public record for the public hearing on Ordinance nine twelve.

Board, what would you like to do? I think we've already heard the comments. We have them in the video record. So, given the number of items still on our agenda for today, but it's up

to I would move that we invoke the

section 21 of your board Move rules of

the testimony into the public hearing and recognize it therefore.

We have a motion and a second. All those in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you commissioners. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero.

Thank you, chair.

As such, Ms. Hoffler, your comments will be included in the public record, for this public hearing. Okay. Now at this juncture, I would like to open a public hearing and invite anyone in audience or online who wishes to testify to please come forward.

If there are any members in the audience, please raise your hand and move forward. Yes, ma'am. Please state your name for the record. No.

No. This is a public hearing on one of the ordinances. Sorry. Okay. There anyone else in the room that wishes to testify on ordinance nine twelve A in gross ordinance? How about online, Clerk Hodges?

Are there any members in Zoom that wishes to provide public comment on the staff report on ordinance that we just heard? I'm not seeing any hands, Chair Herrington.

Thank you. And with that, I'll close today's public hearing and ask for a motion to continue the public hearing on 04/28/2026.

Move for continuation.

Second.

We have a motion and a second. Clerk Hodges, could you take the roll call, please?

Certainly. Commissioner Snyder? Yes. Commissioner Therese?

Yes.

Commissioner Fai?

Aye.

Vice Chair Willey? Aye. Chair Harrington?

Yes. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next, we'll move to our second public comment period. Me, public hearing. This is with regard to a resolution and order to levy modified assessments within the Mountain Creek Road Local Improvement District. Welcome Ms. Gray.

Good morning, Chair Harrington and Commissioners. Let me grab this. My name is Sherry Gray with Land Use and Transportation Operations, and I'm here today to discuss Mountain Creek Road Local Improvement District Assessments. There we go. Mountain Creek Road is located in Southwest Washington County.

And they have existed since 1986 and went for a very long time without changing their assessment. So a local improvement district, it is not a county road, and they have formed a district to fund their own, maintenance. In 2013, they did their first assessment change and then not again until 2020. In 2024, based on increased inflation, looking out at the horizon of the maintenance they expected and we expected them to do, they wanted to increase their assessments to make sure they had enough funding. But now that things have started to level out, they are requesting in 2025, they requested a decrease.

And then coming now in 2026, they're requesting another assessment decrease. One, because prices costs have balanced somewhat, but another issue or another reason is because the road is in terrific shape. It's not degrading as quickly as they expected. So, they want to reduce their assessment to 300 for a full share and 150 for a half share. There are 39 properties in the Local Improvement District and the half shares are for those property owners that own two or more properties.

The first share is charged or assessed at the full the first property is assessed at the full share. The second property is assessed at the half share. I seem to be tongue tied today. I apologize. So on an annual basis in October or November, the district meets in an annual meeting and they voted unanimously in favor of decreasing the assessment.

This information is correct. It says June and three hundred. It's actually March and one hundred fifty. No feedback or responses have been received as of today, not just even March 23, but even today. And so, we ask if the Board is ready to approve the R and O to levy the assessments as proposed.

Commissioners, do you have any questions on this staff report? Seeing none, I would ask for a motion to approve the resolution and order to levy modified assessments within the Mountain Creek Road Local Improvement District.

We

have a motion and a second. All those in favor, please vote by

Point of order, chair. This was public hearing.

Oh, golly day. Thank you. I need to open a public hearing. Clerk Hodges.

We did not have anyone who signed up ahead of time. Is there anyone in the auditorium that wishes to make public comment during this public hearing on the staff report that we just heard? Please raise your hand. I'm not seeing any hands. Is there anyone online via Zoom that wishes to make any comment on the staff report we just heard? I'm not seeing any hands. Chair Harrington.

Thank you. And with that, we'll close today's public comment. And because of the order, Commissioner Fye, you made the motion. I believe Commissioner Snyder seconded it.

Oh, you

did? Okay. Great. All those in favor of adopting this resolution in order, please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Any opposed? The motion carries unanimously five to zero. Whew. That brings

you, us

Ms. Gray. Excuse me. That brings us to our second public comment period of today's meeting. This is an opportunity for members of our community to come and testify before the board of county commissioners on any topic they would like for up to five minutes an individual. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone who wishes to do so?

We do. The first two will be John Woods and David Ogle.

Good morning, Chair Harrington and commissioners. My name is John Woods, writer, journalist, contributor to the American Thinker, Oregon Tax Groups and assorted news blog Oregon news blogs. I have a substantial group of inquisitor subscribers that want information so they can be informed. First of all, hearing about the $6,100,000 you want to give to Portland, I think I want my tax money back. I want a refund.

You can give the money away to Portland, you can give it back to me. Second here, I am here doing a fact finding visit so I can inform accurately my subscribers who has asked exactly who voted for giving their hard earned money away. These stories, fortunately for me, will be easy to write and distribute during your campaigns. I find it very interesting that in the middle of campaigns with affordability mentioned so many times, there is talk of giving away the money Washington County has levied on the taxpayers of of Washington County. I'm here for the people who can't be here because they work.

This is my job. I will listen, write, and inform those subscribers I have in Washington County. They will know where you stand and how you voted. Portland is a self created train wreck looking for others to help them climb out of their mess their policies have created. Portland city budget, which now sits at $8,600,000,000 increased by roughly 132% over the last decade.

My question is, what have they done with the $5,000,000,000 and why did they want Washington County taxpayers money to help fill the hole? I'm gonna ask that again. What have they done with almost $5,000,000,000 And why do they expect the Washington County taxpayers to give Portland their tax dollars? And I have a link to the article and the data, and I'm more than pleased to mail you the link. And I will send in a link to my Washington County subscribers.

Washington County has an obligation to the taxpayers of Washington County to use their taxpayer money wisely for Washington County residents, not rewarding bad economic policies to other counties or cities outside of Washington County. You are Washington County commissioners. Now act like it. Protect the Washington County taxpayer money. And I'm Italian.

That's that link is gonna go out. And I am going to know how you voted, and I'm gonna make an issue of it. And I'm going to go in in front of my subscribers, and I'm gonna tell them exactly how you voted. I wanna know what they did with the $5,000,000,000 that they need my taxpayer money for. Thank you.

Thank you, mister Wood. But to be clear, there is no vote on this matter. We by Oregon state law, public meeting laws, a letter with an ask has been submitted to the board. And in order for us to discuss that as a group, it has to be done in a public meeting, hence our work session this afternoon.

This is a public meeting and I want it on record, 132%,

5,000,000

The time is yours. The floor is yours.

Thank you very much. Good morning, Chair Harrington and Commissioners. It's nice to see you all again. And thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is Dave Ogle, and I'm here today to discuss the Cornell Road recovery transitional housing project.

I'm here today, as I have in the past, a concerned citizen, not as an opponent of recovery housing, but as someone who wants to see this project succeed while protecting the safety of our community, especially our children. The Cornell Road Recovery Center is planned as a recovery focused transitional housing program on Cornell Road and Beaverton. We all share the goal of helping people overcome addiction and homelessness. The work is compassionate and necessary. However, over the last year, our community of concerned citizens and local business owners have repeatedly expressed our desire for reasonable, common sense safety measures at this facility.

Specifically, we have asked for background checks and categorical exclusions for individuals with histories of violent felonies and sex offenses. These are not extreme requests. They are basic protections that many similar programs across the country already implement to ensure the safety of both residents in recovery and the surrounding neighborhood. We have attended meetings with various Washington County officials to discuss these concerns. Unfortunately, those conversations have often left us feeling dismissed and ignored with statements like, will not be performing background checks, You should temper your expectations.

Our questions about safety protocols, screening processes and clear exclusion criteria have not received the serious consideration that they deserve. Let me be very clear. This concern does not come from just a small handful of people. Hundreds of Washington County residents, parents, grandparents, business owners and neighbors share these worries. We are especially focused on protecting our most vulnerable, who are our children.

Schools, parks and family neighborhoods are nearby, and we have a fundamental responsibility to ensure this recovery program does not put them at unnecessary risk. To demonstrate the breadth of this community sentiment, I have brought with me approximately 900 signed petitions from like minded citizens. These petitions demand that county officials put in place the reasonable safety protections that we have requested. This is a clear and substantial voice from the community that deserves to be heard. Commissioners, we know that you have the authority and the power to enact these measures.

We are asking you today to direct your staff to implement criminal background checks and categorical exclusions for violent felons and sex offenders at the Cornell Road Recovery Center. These steps would allow the program to move forward responsibly, build greater public trust and truly serve both those in recovery and the families who call this area home. We are not asking to stop the project. We are asking you to strengthen it with smart, responsible safeguards. Doing so would show that Washington County listens to its residents and balances compassion with common sense safety.

Thank you for your time and your service to the county. I have provided copies of the petitions and happily give them to the county. We urge you to take action on these reasonable safety measures. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Ogle. Clerk Hodges, who do we have next?

Next will be Ginny Camprath and Jill Litre.

Go ahead,

Hello.

Good afternoon, Chairman Harrington and Commissioners. I'm Jenny Camperath, a Washington County resident and current candidate for the position of Washington County Chair. I was compelled to come before you today to raise my voice in strong opposition to an action you are considering during this afternoon's work session. On Sunday, 04/05/2026, The Oregonian ran an article stating Portland Mayor Keith Wilson is turning to other counties for cash to fund the city's homeless shelter system as its usual partner Multnomah County faces a financial cliff in its homeless services budget. Wilson recently sent letters to both Washington and Clackamas Counties asking for millions to support city run shelters.

The Washington County Board of Commissioners will hear out this request for 6,000,000 today according to the county agenda. Wilson has asked for the county board to commit funding by Wednesday, April 8, according to county documents. Mayor Wilson's letter to Washington County, which is not dated, is found in the agenda packet for today's work session. It outlines requests for funding for two shelters and an outdoor day space. Total annual operating costs for all three is $5,800,000 How can that be?

Only two short months ago on February 6, OPB ran an article stating that Portland City administrators had discovered roughly $106,000,000 in housing funds that went unspent and $70,000,000 of those funds were specifically allocated for affordable housing and homelessness programs. In addition to the discovery of the unspent 106,000,000 in May 2025, OPB reported Metro pledged $15,000,000 and Multnomah County pledged $10,000,000 to Portland to fund shelters. A report by Eco Northwest published July 2025 found that Portland spent nearly $5.00 $1,000,000 on homelessness during 2024 alone. Portland is an insatiable financial black hole of incompetence, a vortex where money seems to pop up then disappear just as fast, but mostly disappears, where money is spent programs that further destroy the city instead of improving the business climate and increasing public safety. They have destroyed their city in every possible way then have the gall to ask neighboring counties to bail them out.

How can Washington County even consider taking this request seriously? Washington County has its own struggles and our own issues with homelessness. Policies adopted by this board are inviting the problem to our county, so we better take heed least we become as dysfunctional as Portland and the next laughing stock of the nation. As it stands, our own five year general fund forecast shows a structural imbalance of expenditures increasing increasingly surpassing income over the next five years. We don't have the money to spare.

The OPB article stated Mayor Keith Wilson had previously proposed using the untapped newly discovered housing dollars to backfill the city's operating budget gaps, a $67,000,000 anticipated budget shortfall. That could be Washington County's future unless sanity prevails. The only thing worse than the ridiculous financial aspect of this request is that is the way it is being handled by you, the board of commissioners. The story broke Sunday, 04/05. Mayor Wilson wants an answer by four eight.

What's the emergency? And you're going to take this up this afternoon on Tuesday 04/07 in a work session after the public meeting. How can this and how is this coming to the work session through a special request sponsored by you, Chair Harrington. How can you know who how can you, who know very well the financial situation in Washington County as well as the financial incompetence of Portland, recommend that it's the best that it's in the best interest of our county residents to throw our hard earned taxpayer dollars down this black hole. Further, we are sick of the lack of transparency of the Board and the way you make decisions behind the scenes without public input, then present them at a later date as done deals.

You are supposed to represent the residents of the county. I speak on behalf of the residents of Washington County when I say not another dime for Portland. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Camprath. Ms. Lutre, the floor is yours.

Good morning, Chair Herrington and Commissioners. My name is Jill Lutre. I'm a resident of Washington County. This morning I'd like to bring to your attention something witnessed by citizens during a ballot inspection exercise via public records request and also during the public logic and accuracy test. During these activities, citizens discovered that the tabulation machines, the machines that scan ballots and tally our votes also have the ability to and do print on the ballots.

During inspection of the ballots and envelopes from the February, a team of 10 people hand counted the entire election eighteen oh six ballots with 100% accuracy in a matter of hours. Two four person counting teams were formed and two others assisted the process. An election office employee was always present. The ballots were brought in one batch that is one box of ballots at a time. As we had two counting teams and we're splitting the batch, we wanted to be sure to keep the ballots in the order that we received them.

At that time, the teams noted that each ballot had the ballot sequence number printed across the top of each ballot. The sequence number had been printed on each ballot by the tabulators. The printing capability of tabulators was witnessed again at the logic and accuracy test performed at the conclusion of the Sherwood Special Election on 02/06/2026. During the public test, observers are allowed in the board's tabulation room unlike the actual elections. Generally, the observers are not allowed to get close to the tabulation machines and the test ballots.

However, we can watch the process, hear the election staff, look at test reports, compare them to their control reports and even take pictures, which I have. We have requested and have seen ballot samples during some of the test. During the public test on February 6, election manager, Dan Forrester asked the election supervisor, Michael Richter, if the printer and Tabulator two had been turned off. It was discovered that all the tabulators except Tabulator two were printing on the ballots. We were allowed to look at and took photos of the ballots and the numbers printed on them by the tabulators.

I have a picture right here. The printing is in the corner. I want to make very clear the tabulators, the machines at Washington County election office that our ballots are run through, the machines that tally the votes for each election have printing capabilities. The King City election ballots had the sequence numbers printed on each ballot using a light brown ink and small font. The Sherwood special election public test numbers were printed in black ink and a different font, all in different spots on the ballots.

During adjudication, observers have witnessed that the tabulation software captures and stores a repository of hand marked ballot bubble images. In the board's tabulation room, the Washington County election staff do not allow blue or black ink pens to be placed on tables where the ballots are being opened. Instead, green pens and highlighters are on the tables. This measure is being taken to prevent election workers from tampering with ballots. However, at the same time, the six tabulators each connected to an off the shelf Dell laptop with Ethernet capabilities per Washington County purchase contract and a repository of hand marked bubble images have the ability to not only scan and tally the ballots, but also the ability and do print on the ballots.

I want to stress the following points. No one tallies the ballots before running the ballots through the tabulator printer. No one inspects or tallies the ballots after they are run through the tabulator printer. No inspection, comparison or verification is performed to ensure that the ballot or vote count was not tampered with or altered during the tabulation process. Electronic images of the ballots are captured and recorded, but without any knowledge of what was on that ballot before it went through the tabulator and was printed on.

There's no way to verify the ballots have not been altered. If the tabulator printer happened to alter the ballot in any manner, how would that be detected? No one would know. This tabulator printing ability is a huge vulnerability and it poses a great risk to the veracity of our elections. We ask that this board take measures to eliminate this vulnerability in our election system. This could be done by hand counting the ballots just as we did at the King City General recall election as allowed by ORS 254.485, which states ballots may be tallied by accounting board. Thank you.

Thank you, Ms. Lutre. Clerk Hodges, do we have anyone else?

Bob Terry.

Welcome Mr. Terry. It's in our work session packet.

What? Thank you. I cannot allow to use yours because I've asked. So this is the best I can do. Well, good morning, commissioners. First of I wanna let you know that I am speaking as Bob Terry under the second amendment or first amendment rights of our United States constitution and on the constitution of our state of Oregon. This is my opinion. Portland? No. Real simple.

And mister Woods should get his two and a half minutes back that he was cut out of. So what is the you know what what is this all about with Portland? I I don't understand why you'd even consider this should have just been a flat no. What is good about Shamrock Run And Kings Rally? Nothing. They certainly had their right to do it and they did do it better than they typically have in the past. Thank goodness. The top four priorities as listed on this screen here. What else consistent about them? The only thing consistent about them is they're bad, bad and worse and getting worse.

I think they are making some improvement with under the new mayor down there Wilson to try to improve them. But I still don't see where there as there is not in this county when we are spending millions of dollars for housing. Where is the preventive preventative suffer asceticism? Now where is the training for these people and the medical care for these people go into our new hotels and our our pod housings to come out of there as citizens to be able to pay taxes and fees like the rest of us do. I don't see where that is.

I don't understand that. Where's the rehab? You know, the board provided from the mayor letter, which is here, is it's just unbelievable. There's no progress to be reported where it really does. Multnomah County is like Washington County.

It has a product of home rule. That should be explored and look at as to how it may be implied and put here by our counsel over here because it is very possible. City of Tualton showed you that. In addition to that, Chair Harrington made a comment to me in this session about ninety days ago as to the mess she inherited and you inherited from the previous term when it began. That's not true.

The truth is you received a $2,000,000 excess in the budget. The budget at that time and these are approximate numbers because it would cost me too much to do a FOIA because you charge me every electronic second, but you charge it by the page. So I'm going to give you from my memory. That budget was a $1,000,465,000 budget with over $2,000,000 in cash reserve, which amounted to about 22% to 24% of the budget. There was zero general obligation debt at that time to this county.

And and the Fair Board had a reserve cash reserve to complete its construction at no bond measure of any type. What happened to all that money? Then we also had a cash and then we also had a road budget to make our roads the pride of any county in the state of Oregon. What happened to our MSCIP program? And and in addition to that, we had a SIP program, strategic investment program.

Did we fight to keep that program? That was the program that helped make this county very profitable in the cities around it where those beneficiaries were to those SIP programs. Those were not programs that were budgeted or cost our county residents anything. The SIP program allowed us to have a rebate from the tax income to the state of Oregon off of their off of their earnings that was rebated to the county for increasing the businesses in this county that provided more taxes to the state and to us on those developments. It's all gone.

Where did it go? We did a $100,000,000,000. Mister Willie signed it with me to to continue that program here in this county. Mister Willie at that time mayor well our commissioner Willie was mayor of Hillsborough at the time and he signed that with me. Where did that program go? And what did we do to fight to keep that program in place for our expansions and money into this county and growth? Unfortunately, I only have four seconds. I have a lot more to say, I'll just skip to the end very quickly. It is in the media that missus Harrington should be suggested to resign, is very broadly in the meeting as to the results what has taken place. I would suggest that we don't have a part time chair in this county.

We have a full time chair and you should accept and request and do their their request of resignation. Thank you very much and good morning to you ladies and gentlemen.

Mr. Kodges, do we have anyone else who wishes to testify during the second public comment period?

Do you have one more who has signed up ahead of time? That would be Charlie Henderson via Zoom. Mister Henderson?

Mister Henderson, can you hear us?

I can hear everyone a okay. Am I coming through clearly?

Yes. You are. Please go ahead.

Let me lower my hand first. Okay. Good, afternoon, everyone. For the record, my name is Charlie Henderson. I wanted to start by saying that, one of the things I I do, testimonies now, is to share the Center on Conscience and War's phone number.

So if you are a veteran or if you know of anyone who's active duty or currently serving the reserves, please get this number to them. It's (202) 483-2220. Again, that is (202) 483-2220. The Center on Conscience in the War works exclusively with active duty, service members in the military to basically, help them walk through what their constitutional rights are regarding being a conscientious objector. It's important that members of the military understand, as I wish I had when I was serving, that this is a constitutionally protected right and that, you can get out of the military with your full benefits and an honorable discharge.

So please, board, anyone listening in the audience, anyone listening online, please get this phone number to as many active duty service members as you know because that is the one of the most effective ways that we can gum up this, operation. So I didn't have anything, written down. Typically, I've I've got things scripted a little bit better here, so bear with me. But, this morning, president Trump tweeted out or truthed out, a whole civilization will die tonight, never to be brought back again. The this is, you know, obviously, genocide.

This is a war crime. And I wanted to point out a a number of things, and I'm hoping that this board can hear me and actually tie it together. So on March 17, this board put out the, approval and resolution order for respecting the rule of law. It's approving rule of law resolution order. And, essentially, in in so many words, you basically were calling out the fact that the federal administration is engaged in a plethora of illegal activity both domestically and abroad.

So point number one. Point number two, we can all see what is going on right now. This is an illegal war of aggression waged by The United States and Israel on Iran. The, reasons given have ranged dramatically. For some, it's to avoid blackmail around, you know, child rape.

And for others, it is to pursue a greater Israel, right, and everything in between. This is nonsense. I think we all know that this is nonsense, and the poll shows that most of Americans believe that this is nonsense. So I had reached out to this board at the March with a draft resolution to stand with, Iran in this case. I took the draft resolution that had been approved by this board, just over four years ago with regard to Russia's illegal war of aggression on Ukraine.

Now at that time, the Washington County Board of Commissioners, correctly addressed the fact that this was an illegal war of aggression. Human rights were being, violated, war crimes were being committed. You have no problem being very prescriptive there. But I brought to this board now, I think, five or six different times with other community members that there's nothing been said by anyone on this board publicly about Israel's genocide of the Palestinians. Now nothing is being said about the genocide in Saudi Lebanon, the West Bank, East Jerusalem.

And what is so damning, and I didn't plan this, I promise you this, you just did an Arab American heritage proclamation. So what we're saying is Washington County has the moral understanding that we need to call out wars of aggression on a federal or international stage. We respect the rule of law. We see the value of Arab American Heritage Month, and every humanitarian rights organization on the planet has called this a genocide, has called this war illegal, but you're not gonna say anything. You're not gonna put anything out.

I just want to leave that with you that it rings hollow all of these other proclamations when one of the most egregious things we've ever seen isn't addressed. And when it's brought to your attention, it's ignored again and again and again. Please do better. Please consider this. Put something out. Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Henderson. And that brings us to the end of the second public comment period of today's meeting. Next we'll move on to board announcements. On Monday, April 13, we'll have a budget committee orientation meeting that starts at 06:30, 06:00. It convenes all of the budget committees that we have. That would be the Washington County and Service District for Lighting number one committee. The Urban Roads Maintenance District, URMD, and ESPD, Sheriff Patrol District, ESPD. That's committee number two. And the North Bethany County Service District for roads.

Committee number three will all be convened together for that budget orientation. On Tuesday, April 14, we will convene as the Clean Water Services Board of Directors starting at nine then convene for the CWS Board of Directors work session immediately following. And then once that gets done, we're able to convene as the Washington County Board of County Commissioners work session, later that day. On Tuesday, April 21, we'll convene as the Washington County Board of County Commissioners in work session at nine. We'll pause that like we have today and go to our board business meeting at 10AM and then reconvene the work session afterwards.

On Monday, 04/27/2026, it's a big day. It's the day that our budget officer and county administrator will be releasing her proposed budget for next fiscal year. We'll be convening all of the budget committees at six p. M. That evening to hear the overview of that proposed budget.

And then we have budget committee meetings throughout the month of May. On Tuesday, April 28, we have a board of county commissioners work session starting at one p. M. Then a work session, will follow, for clean water services after that. All of that needs to end by 05:00 because we have a Clean Water Services Board of Directors meeting at 05:30 p. M. And the Board of County Commissioners Board meeting at 06:30 p. M. Any other board announcements? Okay.

We have at least a forty five minute lunch break. Do you want forty five or an hour?

Forty five is fine. Forty five.

Okay. So we will reconvene at work session at 01:15. I would ask for a motion and a second to adjourn today's business meeting. Move to adjourn.

Second. Thank you. All those

in favor please vote by raising your hand or saying aye. Thank you. Commissioners any opposed the motion carries unanimously. Five to zero. We're hereby adjourned. Thank you.