Commission Meeting Agendas - Regular Meeting

Flag salute.

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible,

Roll call. Commissioner Fawcett, Kaiser, Buble and Ward, sell for all present. And we are passing the gavel on to our next elected president. In order. In order. So I'm going to hand this over now to our new president, Commissioner Ward, and I'm gonna let her continue on. And thank you.

Well, and thank you very much. Thank you for all you've done in this last year. You've actually accomplished quite a lot. We appreciate it. Absolutely. So now comes the next part of the election. I guess we start with vice president.

Who's up next to be president after you? Because I think that would be... That's interesting.

I think it would be you, Robert. No, actually, what the rules say is that the first choice for president was Chip because he's not served. But I believe you're declining that. Yes, that's correct. So then it would pass to Commissioner Ward and then you would be the first choice for vice president as well. Same rule. So you decline the president and you become the vice president unless you decline that.

Okay.

Maybe you want to be treasurer. I'll say

Okay. Holding office, Chippus. Got it. Okay. And then we need to do the stop vote for Secretary Treasurer as well. Right. Currently the Secretary. You're doing a really good job. We'd like to keep you there. It's hard to find good help. To find good help. That's right. Actually, Brian does have work to do with the Treasurer, you know. Yeah, I'm good to stay, or if you want to. I needed a break, guys, so. Yes.

Okay, so Robert is going to remain secretary, and Brian's going to remain treasurer, and you will become the second vice president. That works. There we go. That was easy. Okay, any additions to the agenda? Any comments from the public? Nope. Any comments from anyone online? No. All right. Consent agenda. Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

So moved. Second.

It's been moved and seconded. All in favor? Aye. All in favor? Aye. Old business. Airport update. Morning, Commissioner. Good morning. Morning.

So here's the update you've all been waiting for. Yes, construction on runway 1533 continues to move forward on schedule and we're seeing noticeable progress the last few weeks and we are officially one third complete with the project. We are at 31 days out of 90. These are calendar days, not construction days. So there we go. Slide. So week one, Northeast Electric began removing old lighting and conduit while Western United installed silt fencing around the project area, slide. Okay, week two, all the barriers got finished getting set up and Northeast Electric continued removing the outdated airfield electrical equipment, began installing sign foundations and preparations for the adjacent taxiway connector demolition began. Next slide. Okay, this is a busy week, week three. Significant progress by TFT with excavation of the south 800 feet of runway 33 and taxiway connectors alpha four, five, and six. In the top left-hand corner, you can see they're about halfway done. They being TFT is halfway done with digging down 21 inches of the runway. On the top right, you can see that would be Connector 4. Alpha 4 was dug up. There's some more pictures of work they were doing and on the bottom right hand corner is columbia commerce center um the question of the film material or was the material being recycled and yes it is being recycled as film material over on the columbia commerce center did you get that was cement for them no we don't no um that was just what was in the within the project or they would be removing it and um tft Or Western Civil set that up with them because it had to go somewhere. So it is being filled in the Commerce Center. There was never discussion of payment. It was just waste material using this bill. So there it is. Next slide. Week four, so more progress by TFT. They completed their excavation of the South 800 feet, you can see there. The trucks on the field are Northeast Electric, and they are working on the Pathy system. So the two pictures on the right are the South Pathy system, bases being poured, and on the bottom right is the I'm sorry, top right is the north PACI system and the bottom right is the south PACI system. They're pouring those bases. This was last week. You can see all those nice cracks in the old pavement. Next slide. Oh, go back one. Yeah, I got ahead of myself. So crews completed the excavation in the several areas, installed new underground electrical conduit throughout the entire perimeter of the runway, which is over 10,000 feet, for the lighting system, installation of the concrete foundations report for the PAPI system, and progress is moving along. And we continue to work closely with Century West, Western United Civil Group. And we have continued to provide, you've received my weekly updates. Those go to you guys. They go to the City of Scappoose stakeholders, all of our tenants, all of our commercial tenants, and anybody else who's asked to be a part of that. The information is also being updated on our website weekly, the same information by Lindsay. So it's been posted on social media to push people to our website. So we are We're one third done. And I would say it's been great working with both Central West and Western Civil United group. Slide. So this is the next topic of Eastside Pavement Maintenance is scheduled to begin this summer. We do not have a solid date yet, but Western Civil United did the job and was awarded. We have no additional closures for this project. We will be doing paving, doing pavement maintenance on the South 30, I would say 3,800 feet of the taxiway, taxiway alpha. And then we are going to extend the work into this very professional drawing that I created with the yellow lines. That apron, you can see the weeds growing. The cracks are quite large as well. So the port has extended the work contract to facilitate pavement maintenance on that area there. So again, that will start this summer and we'll go concurrently with the runway rehabs. Any questions about them? So do the lines represent actual lines that are gonna be put in? No, those are just my drawing of like, that's not your area, dedicated area. 92,000 square feet, I think. Additional pavement maintenance.

So that's not covered by the grant?

Oh, I was going to say that is at a cost of $97,000.

So that would be like chip sealing?

Yeah, it will be the same project as the east side pavement maintenance.

You mean we're not going to preserve all those weeds that are coming out?

We're not even going to have maintenance go mow them. until I'm gonna let the project team do that. So yeah, we are adding that and we'll be doing painting and striping on that as well. Other things, on June 16th of this year, the FAA paid us a visit, which was a surprise. I mean, it wasn't a surprise visit, but they haven't been here since before Craig was here. I can't recall any. Yeah, so they came. It was a good visit. We took a tour of the site, the entire facility, the airport. We took a tour of the project. They asked some questions. They took up their own tour and they left. So I have not heard much back from them yet.

And then lastly- We do, sorry, we do expect a report from them, right, with their findings.

I would expect it, but I haven't received it yet.

Um, so they're like going through and checking for anything that is out of order.

It's not called an audit. It's called a visit. And it's, but I would expect an email from them at some point. Um, but I will see, do they actually go in the hangers?

No.

Okay. It's just an outside visual.

Yeah. Yep. Lastly, the port in partnership with NWAC, Northwest Antique Airplane Club, is planning a grand reopening event on September 27th. Yesterday, Lindsay and I met with NWAC to go over the details of that event. uh it's i'm very excited about what what we're thinking of doing um plane rides um potentially we're having the 99s club there which is a women's a non-profit um pilots around the world And WAC will be there. They'll do their annual pie-in where they fly pies in from the Lambert Valley. They fly them in. So this is exciting. And we're going to brand it as a grand reopening. We will have a new runway. We will have a new taxiway. We will have new apron. It's exciting. Very exciting. Any questions for me?

So I think you mentioned we're at, what, 31 days out of 90, so about a third of the way on the timeline. Does that line up with the amount of work that's been done? Is it right at a third? We're not seeing enough progress to open early?

We are on schedule. We are not ahead of schedule. We are on schedule. Part of that schedule is the holds that are required for testing and evaluation. So they're on schedule.

But not looking like we did it that early.

Probably not.

And I guess another question, how are airport tenants and whatnot doing?

There's been a shift, I would say, and there's a lot of people that come out and walk around and walk kind of out and look at what's happening. I think there's been a shift to, you know, we're not stopping, we're not changing anything, which is a big mindset shift. And I've gotten a lot of, like, it's going to be great when it's done. That's so nice. It's been a big shift for a while. It's going to be great when it's done.

And I'm like, that is not excited about it right now, understandably, but when it's done.

Yes. So that has been nice. And this was, is, you know, from our T hangar tenants who I see quite often out there. And then obviously I work in the air sense building and Brian has been, you know, is my shift has, has also shifted. It's giving him an opportunity. This is just an example to really revamp his aircraft. instead of spending the summer you know fine he's like i'm grounded so i might as well make some really good upgrades um to my aircraft so that's nice and other people are doing that as well sure yeah it's going to be great when it's finished it's going to be great witness

That's the understatement of the year.

And there's a possibility with the improved runway surface, we may get more traffic as a result, you know, just for smoother landings. And well, we already know we're off the beaten track. It's nice for touch and goes and a lot of that happening out there. So maybe that'll increase as well.

I believe we will have a lot of travelers coming to see the runway. With this brand reopening, we will be reaching out regionally all the way to Idaho, north, and people will come to see. We'll like new pavement.

When we drive, the minute you drive on a new piece of asphalt, it's like, oh, my God, the difference.

Yeah.

So, yeah.

Yeah. It's only four in the county. I don't know where you found that. Oh, go ahead.

Just $97,000 out on the separate contract. I discussed this with Bob and we're going to do a change order.

instead of a separate contract with the same company. We'll just do it as a change order. We will put it through the FAA. The FAA will say, we'll deny it, and then we'll just pay it. It's the same Western United who will be doing the additional work since they're out there.

For that...

It was a topic of conversation over the last year and a half since this project came to be while they were out there. We did the same thing with the west side pavement maintenance. There were two fingers that were left off of the project during its previous planning, and so we added that work as well to the project. of the contract when we did the Westside case.

So what the rule says is we can't artificially subdivide or segregate a contract. So after we kind of looked at it because it was the same contract or the same project, it looked to me that it was an amendment to an existing contract.

I'm assuming since all the equipment there, there's a cost with moving that it was a heavy reduction. It was. Have them do it while they're there type of thing.

Yeah, mobilization costs remained under the federally funded portion. They're just moving the project a little further south. Gotcha.

That would come to commission eventually or not?

Yeah, we're working on it. Yes.

Very good. Yeah. And that would probably be, what, at the August meeting?

Yes. I thought it was June for a second. Yes, the August meeting.

I did have a couple other questions. Are we, I'm trying to remember what all we're able to support while the project is going on. Are we able to support like helicopters taking off and landing? We have a zone for that. Have we had any?

Yeah, I had quite a few. We had a really great trainee. I think I might have shared it with you a couple weeks ago. They came in. I don't know if they bought fuel. I can't speak to that. And we've had Hillsboro Aero Academy ask if they can come while they're in closure. And I'm like, yes, you can. We are open for business for helicopter traffic. Mr. Vanik has been using the taxiway daily.

My other question, so we can still move planes around and Yep. But that's obviously closed to any sort of landing. Yes.

Maybe you could speak to that because the question has come up. Why can't people land on the taxiway?

Well, it's a safety issue. It's in the project documents that the FAA is paying, and there is a safety area from the construction zone required. I think it's... 25 to 30 feet, it's on, you will correct me, I'm sure, but there's a required safety zone. And if we are taking the federal money, we have to go under their project document, their project rules. And that is the safety zone is a certain amount of feet and it's close to the workers and our construction workers are all over the field. I mean, you took it, they're all over the field when they are working.

So is the safety zone only have to be in place when they're working?

It's supposed to be in place at all times. Okay. Because the contractor, this is now their work site, and they, you know, if something happens and their equipment is on the field, who is liable for that damage that could be done. So they leave the equipment there overnight?

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that makes sense. It's also important to note that while it may look like at some times there may not be as much going on, there is sequencing that's happening. So, I mean, obviously the excavation and TFT, we've seen them out there pretty consistently, but I think they closed down for a couple of days near the holiday, obviously weekend stuff, but it may look at sometimes like there may not be very many people out there, but some of it is the sequencing of things. Yeah.

And one of the things we talked about back in December and January was that extended work time, which we chose not to fund over time out of the port's pocket. So they work 40 hours a week. So when they hit their 40 hours for the week, they're finished. So while, you know, on a Thursday or Friday, typically it's been Fridays. They're not out there because, you know, we did not fund overtime or accelerated timeline. So, you know, they're out there usually seven to four, seven to five or six Monday through Thursday. It seems like the pace has been so far. And there are lots of giant holes around the runway. So again, I know that comment doesn't, it might not feel like there's a lot, there is a lot. happening. And if you would like a tour, I would happily take you out there to see.

I think one of the most interesting things are the trucks removing the dirt. I mean, that's just constant. There's constantly trucks just going in a circle. And they've got these big flags on top of them. And it's like, it's really almost comical. It's like, wow, this is just like a merry-go-round.

Yeah.

And there's not much time in between each truck.

So it's down to a science. CFD's been doing a good job. Yeah. All right. Okay.

Thank you. Thank you. Lignetics update.

Steve, this morning I wanted to update. You probably saw in the report that there was a fire. They got things put back together. They are shut down currently because they're doing the transformer replacement today through Friday, which will lead to in the next two weeks, the bag house will be installed. So things are moving along. We decided with Mal Foster talking with them that it would make more sense to have them come out once these changes have been put into place to see what the output is too. I will tell you that I talked to, oh shoot, I'm forgetting his name, Phineas, I think his name is, one of the gentlemen from the city. Can't remember, is it Phineas? Phineas? Again, that's a goodness. Finest. Talked to Finest at Cozy the other week, and I just walked over and I said, how's the dust this year? And he said, it's as bad as ever. And I said, I'm really sorry. We have these other things we're doing with the transformer and the bag house and the hammer mill. Hopefully we'll see some improvement after that. So he already said that he wasn't seeing any improvement. And then some other folks that we've talked to have said they have. So I really have to wonder if Clearwater's pile, it's been pretty big. A couple of times I've been down there just checking it out. It's pretty tall. And to get it up that high, we know how the wind rips through here. I just can't help but think that we have some debris coming from that pile as well. It's just...

Unfortunate to when we have the worst winds is in the summertime when everybody's outside and that's when the West wind is really bad on the river right here. So.

So we will we will work with more foster once these improvements are made and work with on doing some monitoring and seeing what the what the particular matter is.

So, when would you expect that's going to happen?

Most likely if it's for July now, I'm. It's gonna be August, September, late August, September. I mean, as far as when we start doing the monitoring, I mean, they'll get this, hopefully, installed in the next couple of weeks. The bank house is then next after the, or the hammer mill, or the bank house and the hammer mill.

But wouldn't we wanna have a before and after?

I think we have a pretty good indicator of before. It's bad, right?

Well, but we don't have any measurements.

But we have this issue because doesn't the DEQ technically have to take the measurement? We can't hardly get them out. So that's the issue.

And I think that's what your point was, was were we going to do that ourselves?

Right. Is Mal Foster going to do it or is DEQ going to do it?

We may have to shift from Mal Foster potentially because they already work with Lignetics at another site, which could be good for us actually, but they want to avoid a conflict. So when we find out a scope of things that we want to do, they may or may not say, yeah, proceed with us or they may refer us to another consultant.

So are you also in talking to DEQ and have alerted them?

Yeah.

Let's do that.

In regards to the clear water paper pile, have we gone over there and kind of taken a look at downwind? I would imagine if that is bad, there would be an area where it would be really bad if it were drifting into town. I'm curious if there's trees or something like that we could look at.

Are they full of dust? It's going to be hard to judge, because the sand is kicking up. I would have to assume there is, especially when they're unloading.

I would just have to guess. Yeah, I'm just curious to take a look. Maybe it's nothing, but I imagine it doesn't take long to walk out there and see if there's anything going on. They're both thug fur, right?

So we can... Jan.

Yes. Do you have anything to add? Yes. Would you like to come up here, please? Sure. Get a haircut.

Yes.

Good hope. to a couple of things that have already been said. So I think it's really easy for the neighborhood to hopefully would walk out and see nothing on their car windshield. And no, that has to happen. Is it as bad as ever? I'm going to say no. There is improvement. So that's from my standpoint. Do I see things on the windshield of my car that sits out? Yeah, I do. I'm hopeful that the bag house And that improvement, the hammer mill, will take us, you know, that 5% to 10% to 15% further along. So is it disappointing? You know, when we talked about this six, nine months ago, we said, not another summer like this. It's all going to be done. And I'm not harping on lignetics. DEQ has been, I think, a major part of our timing problem. And I don't know what we can do about that. I think you all have made calls and tried to push things along as best you can. We could always hope for better. With regard to Clearwater. I have walked along the banks all the way down there several times, numerous times. There are times when that stuff, when they're loading barges, you know how that thing works. It's dropping and there's a lot of air space between where it's being pumped up there before it hits. And is it airborne? Yeah. Now, there are times, if you all are out there, that you can actually see it piling up, where if the tide is coming in and it pushes it up against the banks, you can see a line of stuff. And it does extend quite a ways. Now, does it extend to right down here? Not normally, no. So could there be some stuff coming from there? Yeah. Yeah. When the wind is really blowing, I think, and it's dry and they're loading, it certainly could. It's kind of the unspoken participant in this problem.

I think one easy experiment we could possibly do, and I'm sorry, I haven't thought of this before. If they have a knowing, like a doubtage that they're going to close for three or four days or over the weekend, it'd be nice to say, okay, neighbors. How does it look? Let us know, you know, over the weekend, how the dust looks, you know?

Yeah.

So I'll talk to Steve about that. Maybe he could send something out and. So we can just check on that, at least on that side of it, to see if it's there or not.

I'm still optimistic. We're moving in the right direction, obviously. If we look back two years ago, how it was in the summer, I will guarantee you it's better. It's not...

I would have to think that they're going to probably be moved pretty quickly with that transformer because I'm assuming when they go to do the install, they're going to have to be in and out with it so they're not without power. Right. In the bag house, you would sure think that would be kind of the game changer where you're really going to know where you're at. Yeah.

I don't want to speak for Steve, but I think they have said that that should provide some significant improvement on top of what's been done.

Do you find that you can sit outside?

and not be, not have your eyes irritated. You know, you can certainly smell it in the air and it's my old windowsill test. You know, how much comes in on the windowsill. Again, you know, when I do this, am I piling up a nice little pile of brown coming through the screen? No, it's small.

That's great.

Yeah.

It's better.

Yeah. Yeah. It's not perfect, but some of my neighbors would probably shoot me for saying this, but in the summertime when it gets dry, I mean, even when you guys, you know, have mowers going or school has mowers going or that sort of thing, kind of get a little dust.

Yeah. And the wind, the vast few days it's been.

It's been very windy. Yeah. So anyway, thank you for letting me speak. Thank you. Absolutely.

Not been as productive.

And Marina updates. Morning. Good morning.

All right, I've got two things for you guys today. I'm going to update you on the Travel Oregon RecReady Grant process that we kicked off when we had a site visit. And then last night we had the Scappoose Bay Advisory Committee meeting, and the team that was present there prepared an update on that. Mr. Buble, I know you were there also, and Wella is here also, but I have something I'll read to you about that. Okay, so I'll start with the RecReady Grant. Slide, please. The grant awards 100,000 planning, and that feeds into 100,000 in seed funding. So the Travel Oregon team came out, about, let's see, six people from their team, and then six of our committee. Commissioner Sorber, thank you for attending. It was myself, Elizabeth, Miriam, also Commissioner Sorber, Wella, and Cody James-Face. We did walking tours of the docks and a paddling tour of the marina and the bay, but we also paddled around to show their team the marina footprint, the boathouses, and the private morgue side, the motorized components. And Commissioner Sorber let us peek in a boathouse, which was really neat because I hadn't had the opportunity to do that yet. Thank you for that.

We did a full-day planning workshop here in the commission room, as you can see there.

We shared info on our struggles, our challenges with the site, the conditions, the sediment, all of that, and worked together to identify opportunities on the best way that we can feasibly use this relative to the marina, small amount of money to advance you know, things that are important for the site. So number one was obviously the ADA launch, the transfer bench. And it's interesting because, so this grant is really about, so it has an accessibility focus, make it accessibility for all users. And that encompasses a lot of things, not just someone in a wheelchair. But we did have Ashley from Empowering Access on site. And that was really interesting to see what that experience was like for her. The transfer bench when installed will be really helpful, honestly, for people with bad needs, you know, anything from any mobility issues whatsoever. So that's really neat. And they have some ideas to retrofit that. So I think that for the seed money, we can use some of that money to retrofit that launch into our existing footprint because we're not replacing all the walkways and the docks and the gangway, you know, anytime soon. We also talked about some little improvements throughout the whole Marine Park. that are within the scope of that $100,000 seed money. And the other thing we talked about, which I'm curious what you guys think of, is a master plan for the whole marine park. So that's important because I noticed that on some grant opportunities, it's really helpful to have a master plan in place. You know, we have the study, but that was something that they suggested. And I know that there's a lot of unknowns about the future, but that's something that we could work on. And I'm curious if you had thoughts on if you felt that was valuable.

Is this something we can do in-house or do we have to?

Well, it would be part of this grant that they could develop, take what they learned from us and develop that to create a master plan, you know, a vision for the future of the Marine Park. Travel Oregon. Yeah. Yes.

It would be... I think it certainly would be helpful for a vision. I mean, a lot of things up in the air. It certainly wouldn't hurt, I don't think. I don't know what the timeline they would expect for that. I mean, that's just me speaking.

I think that shift, I mean, we just had the study done. We've done the shift from understanding that we've got silting issues. It might be a great time to master plan it.

So I'll keep you posted on that. The process for this grant is we'll be in this planning process through the end of the year. And then at the beginning of the new year, it opens up the second 100,000 of seed funding. And basically they just put what we did in this first process and we click, yes, we want that extra money. So that's pretty neat. Also, it ended up being really a $200,000 grant. Yeah, that's all I have on that unless you have any other questions.

No, they're coming tomorrow or they're sorry.

The meeting tomorrow. We're here on June 16th. A Tuesday and Wednesday.

Oh, okay.

It was when you guys were, I can't wonder. Oh, oh really? Oh, that's for an update. Oh, that is, they included you on that because originally I had you on the committee. You are welcome to join that. Um, it is a, that's a zoom and that's, it's a recap of what we did when they were on site. So I would love it if you, if you wanted to join that. Sure. Yeah. Great. Okay.

This is just recapping what it's a recap.

Yeah. It's going over everything that we did on site after both sides, them and our committee digesting it. And then talking about kind of, you know, what, which priorities we're going to move forward with. Yeah. So that'd be a good one to join. Yeah. And the site visit was when you, you two were at PNWA in Newport, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, so it's really, they're a really neat team. Yeah, we had a little bit of fun and a lot of work got done. And yep, so let's see, I'm going to go over the, now move to the Marina Advisory Committee meeting update, and I wasn't there, so I'm just going to read this.

What'd you say? Take it down. Oh yeah, you can take the PowerPoint down to these. Thank you.

Okay, the July 7th Marina Advisory Committee meeting update. The Marina Advisory Committee met yesterday evening. New officer appointments took effect July 1st. The committee received an update on ordinance 2026-1 regarding the newly approved no fishing regulations and designated fishing zones. Members were informed that conversations with a potential third party marina operator are ongoing. However, no decisions or timelines have been established. Peter Etro came as a guest. He introduced himself and he engaged with the committee. He also asked the committee about their role in the marina. A brief discussion was held about no wake violations. Miriam and Wella shared a positive update about the Travel Oregon RecReady phase one site visit. The committee currently has one vacancy. Application information will be shared with committee members as there is potential interest. That's all I have, unless you have any questions, Marina, related.

I was curious how the no-wake zone discussion, I think there was something in the department about that we had with CCSO. I'm curious what came from that and how do they plan to enforce it? Do we need to enforce something?

I would defer to... I think the challenge of actually getting... Evidence of the wake and getting good evidence of actually who did it. In some cases, it's very difficult, apparently. And I mean, it is available for people who happen to be there right then. But then how does that get translated into an action? So we're interested in it, for sure. But it seemed like hard not to...

Did the CCSO, I can't remember the officer's name, talk about what they consider a wake or how they actually enforce that? I'm very curious because I think that there's a pretty gray area as to... Defining a wake was very gray.

Just from literally sitting down there here recently, there is a lot of issue with people. said five miles an hour on a 28 foot boat compared to a 12 foot is a little different weight right and it is it does it's really hard in the docks and there are some people that are pretty egregious with it from the little time i was down there i was like there are some people going in there's a pretty good cliff made an angle at five miles an hour so but then we're you know that we're throwing a big swell so i don't enforcement. I'm sure if you had law enforcement sit down there a day or two, it probably changed people's minds, I'm sure.

And how about the no phishing? That's a good question.

Yeah, I was going to follow up with that, but you go ask your, do you have any?

No, I just wanted to know what's new. I think

Yeah, it sounded like that got put through, and I think there's still some issues down there. Has there been, have we tested the waters on how this enforcement is going to work yet, or does anybody know?

Do you want to jump in? No, there were citations and trespass notices that have been updated and are venting right now. We have, we're creating a script for all the staff and arena operators and Metro Watch security. So they have specific content that they will say and referring to the new ordinance. We will put permanent signs that state the ordinance number, if there's fines imposed, et cetera, on this sign that will be posted around the arena with the notification. say there is, they can issue a warning and citation or trespass. They have those forms.

So the staff will be issuing the citation?

And whoever the current arena operator will.

Understood. So not to get too far in the weeds and get off topic, but how will that look? Let's say you have said person right at the line and the vessel staff is engaged with this person. Are they just going to take the numbers off the side of the boat, write them in, turn them in to somebody that can enforce this type of?

Okay.

Understood.

Okay.

Awesome. Thank you. Thank you. Coming to new business. Oh, this is such a good one. Who's taking what? Are you taking what? Oh, you'll hear why. Reserve the credit. I was going to say, are you going to take all the interloper?

Yes.

All right.

So as you've probably heard last week, the port was notified that we were awarded a $4 million EPA Brownfields cleanup grant for the former Pope and Talbot creosote site. Good. There's the official letter. This was the second time that we applied for this grant. I wasn't here for the first round, but I was for the second. Then we built on a lot of work that they did, including a shout out to Gina Sisco for being very organized that helped me with my component of this. And it represents, I think this is the, is this the first federal grant that we've received other than FAA? It's certainly the first federal grant we've received for this site. It's a big deal. They're a big lift. The total grant project budget is $5.5 million, including the $4 million grant award and 1.5 local match, which is the DEQ orphan funds. It's a huge win, draws on years and really decades of work by current and former port staff who've helped move this forward. that we are going to wait until the final agreement is executed and in place before we officially congratulate he who shall not be named for this win. And I'm just the lucky one who gets to announce it. I think there's a statue should be in an award.

Question on that. So when, I know we haven't, it's not inked yet, obviously, and it sounds like we're in good shape on it. When would, what are we expected to start?

So the, I think the work will start this fall. Well, let's see. So we have to execute the agreement and we have about until the end of the month, essentially to do that. And then from there, you know, we already have a plan in place with DEQ. I think that will change now that we know that we, now that we know we have the federal money. So I can, yeah. I have a very superstition.

So at the end of the month, we have to produce our work plan to DEQ. Then they will review it. Once that gets finalized, the agreement will be entered into. That might fall into the end of this year. So then work would start, say, Q1, Q2 of next.

Gotcha. So it would need to go out for a bid.

Yeah, we're going to have to do RFP for a lead engineer, and then eventually we'd have to do it for the contractor. picture asphalt and then some swells to capture stormwater and control the runoff. That's it.

You're doing all the design of this?

It's interesting because you would logically think, oh, that would be a job we'd do for CURT, but if CURT's involved in the work plan, He can't bid to be the lead engineer. So he won't be. I started drafting the work plan last week, and I will tell you, it was going very, very slowly. So I talked to the person who did the grant writing yesterday, and she sent us a proposal that was like $1,000 worth. up that by a few hours to help us, if necessary, respond to EPA comments. So I'm expecting to do a purchase authorization with them for about $1,770, and that way we'll be more efficient in getting this work plan together. Yeah, I mean, when I saw the number versus how much time I had spent last week, it was very good use of our money.

And thank you. I mean, it's really quite remarkable for anyone to get federal money and to get federal money in that lovely amount of force. It's like, wow, that's really an accomplishment.

Thank you, Scott. Very exciting. I think it's important to note that Katie Daugherty from DEQ and the lady from EPA, I can't remember her name, were very helpful throughout the process we were i mean a well over a year ago before we were even looking at this pot of funk money um they were trying to find a worth of money it's been contrary to what you may hear uh the folks that we're working with have been very helpful so that's been very nice to work uh with that factor that section of deq for sure that's very exciting get out of here so you don't jinx it

I also want to, I don't think either of them are on, but Scott Jacobson and Lucas, why can't I think of his last name, the St. Helens Parks and Trails Commission were really helpful because the first time we applied one of the holes based on our feedback from the EPA was not enough community engagement and partnership organizations to work on the reuse possibilities. So those two engagements, and actually John Walsh, rest in peace, you know, was very helpful with that too. And that really, ultimately Ellie and I have talked about this, it filled a hole that, you know, could have made a significant difference this round. So thank you to them. Slide. And I just wanted to put this up here for everyone's information. Obviously, this is a cleanup grant for Pope and Talbot, former creosoting site of Pope and Talbot. And it is, you know, it's used for cleanup, essentially. I don't need to read those off. Slide. You don't have to go back, but going back to that. So it's a cap and then the permeable barrier essentially is what the money is used for and everything that goes into creating those. Okay, so here is He Who Shall Not Be Named Grant Tracker for Port Westward and Pope and Talbot. And just wanted to put that up there. Unfortunately, we did find out yesterday that we did not get the federal build grant for It was a bit of a long shot as it casts a very wide net in terms of types of projects, but we decided to go for it because they did have some poor projects in their last round. we are really hopeful about connect Oregon 10. We have a 75% match and only 25 is required. So it's inverted. That's a neat one that we hope to hear back on. And then PIDP we submitted recently. We didn't get 2025, but now we've submitted for the second time. And again, improved upon our application based on feedback. So that one we are hopeful for as well. And EPA Brownfield awarded. It's creating a nice, hamburger there. So I hope we're going to fill in the orange ones into like a keto lettuce wrap bun.

Take it. I've gotten some questions on Connect Oregon recently, and it was more around eligibility if we hadn't completed or started construction with Connect Oregon 9. Is that true? I'm just curious.

And are we on track to the next Oregon 9? We are. Okay. One of the reasons, the timing that we chose for that was to have those funds available for the federal grant. Some strategy involved with that. We've already started the design work and permitting work for that project.

And that work will happen, is it October? Is that in water work window?

In water work window, yes. But our schedule with our transportation is in the water window, not this coming October, but the following. Okay. Oh, wow.

The nice thing about these federal grants is they do an after action. When you don't get it, they set up these meetings and they tell you where you need to bolster your application or improve or what you were deficient on. So that's always helpful for coming up with the next application.

Remind me, when did we submit that federal grant request? Which one? The federal. The EPA.

The EPA. It was January. End of January. Yeah. Okay. And then build was end of February. Just thought about that. Yeah. Okay. And then PICP just recently.

Yes. Okay. You can slide it forward again.

Yeah, so as I alluded to, we have to execute on the agreement, come up with the work plan and execute the agreement, and that is taking place over the next few weeks. And then we'll work with our regional brownfields contact to execute that agreement, and then moving forward, work with them and coordinate with DEQ and DSL. And that is all I have, unless you guys have any other questions. Oh, wait, no, I don't. We still have a lot of work ahead of us, but this is a huge win, and my recommendation to you is to celebrate.

And yes. I just have a quick question for both of you, or I guess for all the staff. A lot of our staff time is spent in grants. Do you think that this is time well spent, or do you think, because of course it's all very personal to us, and to me that's an advantage, but I also see an advantage of having outside people who do this for a living, if you were to balance those two, which would you say you feel is the more successful approach?

I mean, I'd be curious what Elliot has to say. I think it depends on the grant. So the smaller ones, like the state ones, Recreation Ready, Connect Oregon, we did in-house, whereas the federal grants definitely require a professional grant writer who has experience in that area.

that the federal grants are tremendous. The PIDP, as we'll think, oh, in 26, you just have to modify the notes. There's still a lot of work involved, and we had to update our BCA because Columbia Pacific changed from renewable diesel to ethanol, so we had to update that as well. It's a lot of effort.

And we had no outside help with this?

We did. We did. Okay. Because we needed a professional. One used a grant writer, but we also had to have someone do the BCA. Okay. That's beyond my consent to do that. Gotcha. They have very definitive federal protocols on how to do the BCAs.

Well, and if you look at what we spent on those services relative to when we actually get a huge amount of money like that, it's certainly worth it. But it's tough for the ones. We just are selective about the ones that we do apply for. That's what I've seen in my mere 10 months. But yeah, the other ones, state ones and smaller grants, they're definitely doable in-house.

Yeah, thank you. Appreciate that. Thank you for your help. tourism discussion.

I'm just gonna stay here and invite up Wella Nagelspott.

Welcome Wella, welcome Wella. Great slide.

Question before us today is, should the port serve as the interim tourism host for Columbia County? Following the dissolution of CET, tourism efforts in Columbia County currently don't have an organizational home. As a result, a significant amount of tourism funding allocated for Columbia County is being held at Travel Oregon or Travel Portland. And without an eligible organization stepping forward to serve as the host, the funds are at risk of being lost. At this time, the county is not in a position to take on that role. They've made that clear at this time. That might change in the future, why we say interim. Today, we're looking to gain consensus from you after hearing from both of us, gain consensus from you, the commissioner, on whether you would like the port staff to further pursue this interim tourism host role. We've invited Wella to join us today and share her knowledge and perspective on the current situation of the funding and what the role could entail.

And with that, I will turn it over to you and slide forward, please.

So, journalism as economic development, it's sort of sometimes the forgotten one in the industry, kind of call it the Toys R Us of the economic development. Toolbox, but it is small businesses, really, because it's your restaurants, coffee shops, your tour guides, river guides, shopping, retail. Every visitor who eats a meal, buys coffee, rents a kayak or shops is supporting our local economy. So currently the DMO has been shut down, as you know, since January 1st. And so no one is consistently interacting with Travel Oregon and Travel Portland, updating our small businesses in Travel Oregon's Otis system. They have a database that writers and others used to kind of look for stories to write about and send magazines that come in. So nobody's pitching story ideas at the comms meetings for both Travel Oregon and Travel Portland. And so our businesses are losing visibility. And as mentioned, maintaining the funding partnerships, we're in the second biennium of Travel Oregon's funding cycle. And typically when the funding cycle, when the fiscal year is over, whatever's not spent must be given back. And so currently there's approximately about $90,000 sitting in an account at Travel Portland that belongs to Columbia Accounting. And it would also, one of the things we need to do is maintain eligibility for maintaining business grant, going after some of the grants that become available. And staying engaged, Travel Oregon's new CEO just started on January 1st for a state agency having a CEO for 30 plus years. There's big changes probably about to happen. And so staying engaged, making sure that Columbia County is at the table as a lot of those changes happens is also important. And so if the work continues to be paused for a year or two, we're not simply going to just pick up where we left off. This isn't about creating anything new. It's about protecting and not losing the relationships, partnerships, and momentum that took us years to build. And so serving our small tourism businesses is probably the biggest priority out of that and not losing the visibility.

I thought it was interesting when we went, when the Travel Oregon team was here and we were down in St. Louis, they were, they, most of them had not been there and their comments were things like, this is so cool. This has hood river vibes, like a lot of very positive response. And it's, you know, it, I think the more people that come out here really have that type of reaction to the progress that has been made in the momentum, like you said. And the other thing too, with some of the smaller businesses that aren't necessarily, you know, on port properties, those businesses make the quality of life better. you know, having good food, having good coffee, those types of things. I mean, it's attractive to people wanting to live here and people want to have their businesses here. So I think that's, yeah, something that I have been thinking about.

And tourism is also a good, you know, part of the cog of industrial recruitment because when you've got great trails and places to recreate for their employees, it's easier to, you know, it makes it a benefit to lower industry out here.

What questions do you have for Willa?

Well, for me, it's just like, well, what would the obligation of the port be other than just being the umbrella?

Do you want to speak to that?

Yeah, I think what we would like to do in an effort, you know, it's the second year of the biennium for travel, is engage with them. And I think there is... There's some inertia with the Columbia Business Alliance, or sorry, the Columbia County Coalition, the folks that were meeting later this afternoon. They're willing and ready to write a letter of support for the poor being the interim. Like I said, I tried to make it clear to anybody who asked. I'm not trying to empire build. We just want to secure this funding. Well, it's been instrumental in getting some of this... all of this money, essentially. She's like the one word, she's like Madonna in the travel place. You know, everybody knows her. When you go around, and Lindsey can attest to that too, everybody knows who she is. She's done a great job getting money for Columbia County. My plan would be to try to bring her on as a 1099 consultant and help us navigate through keeping and maintaining some of this funding. Only until, again, until and if the county is ready to bring that in-house. Like I said, I don't know that this is, you know, we're not a county-wide port, and there's no real big issue with us trying to represent, if we were to take this on, represent Vernonia. But it does probably make more sense for the county once and if they decide they want it, and if they get their transportation lodging tax implemented, which It could be a long shot. We don't know. November, is that when they plan to, the county plans to?

That's going to be the proposal at today's work session.

That would be, if that goes through, they get that, the voters approve it, that would bring a lot more money to the county for tourism. And that, you know, once that point is reached, then hopefully they would say, okay, thank you for, you know, holding this up. We'll take it and we'll finally handed off. But the whole idea is to not lose the 90K, keep some inertia going with the funding that she's been able to bring to the county.

And before CET was the DMO, there were several iterations before them where it was city-based, South County Chamber-based, and they just found that it never, Travel Cortland had a problem seeing it served county-wide because the money is collected county-wide because it's the state-run analysis.

So I have a number of questions. But first off, I'll say I very much agree with the place-making aspect of tourism and how important that is to economic development. Whether the port is the right fit, I think probably TBD. And I'm curious, I didn't hear an answer as to how much the port would have to spend in this to maintain the 90K. I think that that's important. What sort of resources do we have to expand? Who's managing the contract if we go forward? And then what does the process look like with Travel Portland and Travel Oregon to get approved as the DML? It sounded like from the memo or the staff report that it was pretty simple, but I'm just curious if we'd like... Looked at those steps, feel confident in it. What all do we have to do? So number of questions there to help me better understand it.

Yeah. Yeah. Before I got too crazy with it, I want to make sure that I was going down the right path and I can get some more answers on that. But, yeah, the idea would be to bring bring her bring her under professional services agreement and not to exceed a certain amount under my spending authority and have her work as needed on. you know, working with the travels and securing that funding. As far as a full scope, I think we probably need to talk a little more about that while let's have some ideas. But yeah, it's not a full-time, you know, job. I'm not sure you weren't doing full-time before with CET.

No, tourism's always been kind of, well, I did tourism like probably 10% and did operations, the rest. And then in the last year I was part-time.

So does the 90K funding pay for Welles' time?

No, 80 of that is set aside in the strategic investment project fund, and that's for asset development.

Okay.

So an example of that is like the Bernoulli sign project that we did.

The portion of available for?

8,000.

Okay. And that is that similar?

Exactly. It's exactly what CE2 was working off of.

So if you thought of it as 50,000 minus 15, basically, approximately, we haven't worked out the details.

Funding it to the tune of 50,000? Minus the 15.

Minus the 15.

Okay.

So it sounds like you would you be able to get some more answers today from your meeting on how the funding would look or it's. I have a question. I think it's I'd like to start. I mean, I think it's really important. Obviously, we continue on working and securing these funds for tourism. But echoing what Brian said, I think we have some things to sort out here between you know, between Scappoose, St. Helens, the Port, whoever, you know, this funding to keep it going, right? I mean, that's just me it sounds like here, but I don't know how everybody else feels.

Of course, I don't know how these things work, but as far as the funding goes from Oregon, is there any reason you couldn't set up your own company and do this yourself?

They typically DMOs are 501c3s. So there's the nonprofit aspect of going to something like that. But with that, there's not sustainable funding for it, which is why we're kind of waiting to see where the county is going to go with it. Typically counties, Clackamas County, Washington County, they have two different ways of funding it. Clackamas County, all of tourism is in-house. With Washington County, they outsource it to a big 506.

That kind of leads to a question I had, which is...

So this is just being the interim spot while leadership, you know, while countywide leadership figures out what type of DML it wants for Columbia County.

Personally, I would much rather see a nonprofit than Columbia County taking this on. I hear you on the funding thing, and it would be nice if there's an agreement in place so that that long-term funding could go to a non-profit. It gives me a lot more faith to have a non-profit.

The county goes because House Bill 4148 just passed, and now the TLT, which used to be a 70-30 split, tourism took 70%, and then jurisdictions took or municipalities took 30%, and now it's a 50-50 split. So it would be if the county were to pass something, they would have something more beneficial. And then it would also leave for a pretty extensive budget for tourism.

And that's up to them. That's how they would want to. Because to me, what we're saying basically is we're doing all of this for $75,000. So the grant is 90 minus the 15. So that leaves $75,000 at work. We're working towards spending $75,000. That doesn't seem like a real good return on investment.

And we're potentially spending $35,000 of our own money to enable the return of $75,000 to the community.

And just to point out that... strategic investment plan agreement with port westward that has about three years left on the 15-year plan there's about five hundred thousand dollars a year i believe spokes been going to the county for economic development that's what worries me about anything to do with columbia county is it ends up getting used to other places

Well, that's interesting.

That might be off on the number, but there's a lot of money there specifically designated for economic development and the payment of taxes for the improvements of Port Westward. And they've been getting it for about 12 years now, I think. There's three years left on it. Who's been getting it? Columbia County. The county? The county itself, correct, yes.

Which is the same thing we learned during the urban renewal process, if you remember.

Yes.

Not the same money that we all split. There's a second pot of money that Tony Hyde would not budge on, that only Columbia County can get.

To your point, Brian, I'm not sure our role or whose role it is to initiate or engage or try to get a nonprofit to take over tourism for the county. It seems like that would be something somebody would go to travel, one of the travels forward to have them decide, travel to Portland. Yeah, I'm not sure what the mechanics of that would be. There obviously has to be interest. I mean, we could find out what the other county you mentioned, Washington County, outsources. I'm thinking about this and given the kind of the,

return on investment for just getting the money. Thinking out loud here, I somewhat would rather see us maybe invest our time in helping to set up a nonprofit resource and a little bit of funding to make this like long-term, find a long-term home for tourism. But that's just me thinking out loud a little bit. I think that would be maybe a better return on investment for us spending $35,000.

I'm just curious. What do you think about that?

Well, based on what, you know, travel Portland, I think they're well, they're definitely open to that because they, they definitely don't want to see a demo bouncing around to different entities.

That's a conversation, I think, with the county leadership, because that long term.

you know whether they're going to be willing to um give that money to an outside source because um you know after not you know having a bad taste in their mouth about how the ct dissolved um and so i that's a conversation kind of higher level i think than i am have we had conversations with leadership at travel portland and travel oregon about this and what they might want to see i'm very curious the person that left yeah So yeah, that's the person I'm talking to. The person who's kind of stepping back into the role. Who is the one that we worked with in the beginning?

And yeah, they're very open to having a 501c.

Take that on, but they also know that it's up to the county if they're collecting those TLT dollars.

Step one would be get the county to commit to that sort of thing. Then conversation with them.

I think there's been various conversations and different opinions right now. And so I think pinning that down is.

What am I also likely delay it? Because they're going to wait until November to see what happens.

I was literally going to say, yeah, what's our timeline for the county to take this over? I mean, I know we have aspirations on when we think it's going to take over, but the reality of this can be quite a while, right?

They haven't decided to put it on the ballot yet. So that's not official. And then there's also, to get it to November, the CET was in the middle of a value of tourism project that we had done and we had just done a lot of photography and we were about to roll out this big value of tourism project to show people what the value that tourism dollars bring.

Well, you've been in this business a long time. From your viewpoint, what do you think is the smartest way to go about this? Do you think forming a 501c3?

I think it could be. And that's the thing. It's around the state. It's different. I mean, every county has its own model. Currently, Columbia County is only one of 11 counties that doesn't have a countywide TLT. And so in a lot of cases, it's city run. You know, Lincoln City, the DMO is the city. In some cases, it's countywide. And then there's the regions as well.

And are you willing to do this, to form a 501c3 in order to make this happen and run it? I think so, yeah.

I'm getting kind of old and I want to do it forever, but... But I do want to, but this is something that I've helped build for the past seven years, and so I just don't want to see it, you know, all the photography that we've recently had done, the brand, you know, really proud of the brand, and just to have it sitting and not doing anything right now is...

I would act on some of what Brian says, especially with the uncertainty of the county, and nobody's given anybody any answers, and if you set this up, then we're going to be good to go for a while, it seems to me. I... I couldn't agree more with, yeah. I don't know what everybody else feels like. What would that look like commitment-wise from you or anybody else setting this up? I have no clue.

I've never set up this 501c3 before. Probably just paperwork.

Paperwork and then you need a board with officers. It can take a few months.

It sounds like it was going to take multiple months to get this decided anyway, correct?

Is this something that... I'm not going to call it the South County Coalition, even though it's South County. So the Columbia County Commission would be able to, like, there's obviously multiple entities a part of that that might be able to offer some support in establishing a nonprofit.

And you're meeting today, right? That's kind of what I was getting at in the meeting today. That should be a discussion to be had, certainly. That would be a great use of that board.

I'm less concerned about maybe losing out on a little funding in the interim, personally, especially when it takes a good amount of money on our side to get that funding. I gotta have a long-term view. So I think having those conversations, see what's the best possible way to do this, maybe talking to folks around the state, who's been most successful, what type of structure has been most successful, what does Travel Portland like, what does Travel Oregon think is good, and what the heck our county wants to do, but that starts the conversation too.

on understanding what it would mean if you come in either under us or under the county, you would have oversight. you would not be free to do what you think is the right thing to do or the organization.

Correct. And yeah, and there's pluses and minuses. And there's pluses and minuses.

But especially because we're only talking, and I don't want to poo-poo $90,000, but I don't think that that is the end all and be all. It's the vision of what we need in this county, which is something that is... sustainable and something that is standalone. I believe in standalone rather than, because I think you have what it takes. You've got the experience, you've been doing this forever. It would really be nice to see you be able to set this up and get it going. So shall we table this?

We're going to need a separate funding idea if the travel tax is not approved by the commission and approved by the voters.

Yeah. I think we would have to table it at this point.

Do you guys have a chip? I'm good with tabling it. Maybe more to come with following some of the conversations with the entities mentioned.

Especially because it's happening today. So coalition meeting.

Oh, I'm sorry.

Yeah.

You can talk about it. I thought you mentioned something about travel. No. Yes. We'll bring it up at that meeting today. Yeah. Okay. Great. Thank you, guys. Thank you.

I love working on this and trying to keep it going.

Yeah.

This must be extremely frustrating. Resolution 202621.

Ready? Ready. OK. Good morning. Good morning. I'm recommending adoption of Resolution 202621, which authorizes our executive director to execute a contract with Talbot, Corvilla, and Warwick for auditing services. And we have historically contracted with Kern Thompson since 2011. There's some internal changes in their firm. They're no longer doing municipal audits. So we reached out to five audit firms on an informal basis seeking quotes for audit services for a five-year period. Two firms responded. We assembled a committee of four people consisting of myself, Commissioner Buble, Bob Gadotti, and Sadell Cotton. We interviewed both firms. We checked references on both of them. And we believe TKW would be a good fit for us going forward based on the references, their existing experience, their location in Portland. They're well respected in the industry and are actively involved in the Oregon Government Finance Officers Association. And transitioning to a new audit firm will involve a lot of additional effort on our part as they learn our work and our finances and we learn more about what their expectations are. And so just building that relationship will be really important. They're tentatively planning on starting some field work in July for the fiscal year 2026. So again, I'm recommending adoption of the resolution and would just open it up for any questions.

I would move approval of resolution 2026-21. Second. It's been moved and seconded. All in favor?

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First one. Morning commissioners. So yes, we are now in the exciting part of the program between the policy book and your annual ethics review. Nothing? It's not working? All right. A couple of months ago, you asked me to take a fresh look at the Port Policy Book, which is from 2006. So we're at the 20-year anniversary. And to bring it back for our discussion at our commission retreat, which is scheduled this fall. During that review of the Port Policy Book, one simple question kept coming up. What belongs in the policy book and what doesn't? At that point, it became clear that I needed commission direction before going any further. So let's start at the beginning. This is not supposed to be up there right now. So basically, if you look at policy 01 in the current policy book, the first thing it says, the first sentence of the policy manual is that the Port of Columbia County will have a policy manual to orient new board members and act as a guide for conducting public business. So We've got orient new board members and act as a guide. That's a good mission for a policy book. A little further down on the first page, and I have it here, it's 28 pages, the policy book. It says that the language should be easily understood by the layman. So the idea is if a brand-new commissioner picked up the book, that's exactly what it should do. Then I turned the page to page two, and that's what you see on your screen now. This talks about the organization of the policy book, and I said, wow, basically – Back in 2006, we envisioned a much larger policy book. You're talking about 500 different policies. I don't even know how many pages that would be, basically covering every aspect of port operations. So where are we today, 20 years later? Slide. We have done 15 policies in 20 years. That's what the port policy book is. So for me, the obvious answer to this was, let's add more policies, right? In fact, I emailed Krista right away and said, let's add more policies. I am a lawyer after all. I do. Public records, public meetings, public contracting, our collections ordinance, our brand new employee handbook. Let's get them in. Let's have hundreds and hundreds of pages. Then I said, excuse me, where do you stop, right? And you start doing that. That was when it became clear that we needed commission direction, you know, for what is this book going to be, really. So what should the policy book be? Brings us back to the original question. What belongs in the policy book and what doesn't? One idea kept coming back to me throughout this review. If a newly elected commissioner picked up the policy book, what would be more useful? So it's not about the size of the book, it's about the usefulness. A concise governance manual that they can actually read and use, or a comprehensive manual covering every aspect of port operations. The goal isn't a shorter policy book, Goal is a more useful policy book. So I recommend that we focus the policy book on governance. You can slide. The commission, the executive director, public accountability, keep it simple, keep it short, make it easy for new commissioners. In many ways, this brings us back to the original purpose of the 2006 policy book. It should orient new board members and be easily understood by the layman. So my question to you now is what direction should the new policy book take? Do you agree with that approach or do you have some other idea?

I would sure think it would be helpful if you could easily understand it and make it simple for anybody, any, anybody new coming that is unfamiliar with the government and don't need an attorney to sit through it.

It's just me personally.

I strongly agree with your approach to governance aspect of it.

Public meetings, in the original scope with like westward policies and that sort of thing I think that's separate from maybe a governance type policy but so you're saying the shorter the governance only one yeah yeah okay I mean, anything that maybe there's a law that we have to follow. So I think public contracting kind of falls in that too. Like that would make it very big, would it? Yes.

You'd be adding, you know, you'd be doubling the size of it if you added that alone. I mean, our employee handbook, Oh, public contracting is in the employee handbook already? No, it's a separate public contracting. So what I'm recommending is we separate that out and we keep it shorter and not have all of that stuff in it. Because I'm just, as I said, I think a brand new commissioner coming in is not going to want to read a hundred, is not going to read a hundred pages, but if you give them 20 or 30.

They might read 10 of them. They might read 10. Perfect. As a, fiduciary, I do think understanding the public contracting part and what the laws and rules are around that is really, really important to know. Should we be voting on that spending amount? Should we not? Do we need to get certain quotes and bids and all that stuff? So I don't know if it needs to live in that book, but I think that's a really, really important policy for us to have a good understanding of.

And what we've done, well, I think you were the latest when you came in. We did a lot of work around that. We had a notebook for you. We did trainings on that kind of thing. So there are ways to teach it. So I think that, again, my recommendation is we focus kind of on the big stuff, really, which is commission, executive director, relations, public accountability, that kind of thing. And we keep the policy book at that. That's my recommendation. Because we'll use it. Go ahead.

I think for me, I agree with that. However, I also think as commissioners, you're responsible for everything, whether you know it or not. And what I would like to see is an ability to easily find all the policies. Like right now, I have no idea how to find all the policies. And I think that's important. I think we should have that available to us should we at 10 o'clock at night decide we wanna check something out, that we should be able to find that.

We have a lot. Fortunately, we have in-house legal as well. I think we're kind of a unique thing. We do have Bob present, and I do agree with you. We need to have access to it. I do agree with the approach of a smaller document that you can easily gloss over, and then if you have further questions, then we would be coming to you and looking for, and having probably you, I certainly would follow you and have you walk me through the document. So I'm crystal clear on something. We're a unique thing because of Bob being present. I understand the want of not putting a 1500 page document together that nobody's going to want to look at. I understand that.

Well, and I do. And plus I won't have that done by the time of the retreat. That'll take me a long time to put that together. Yeah.

I do remember going through orientation, Chip and I together seven years ago. I don't remember a thing that we talked about. I shouldn't say that. The only thing I remember, I only remember a couple of specific things. So, yeah, I do think that keeping it short and keeping it readable, especially when you're at the new. But I do think finding or having a way for commissioners to be able to find things online, you know, find things available to us. I think just knowing that we can do that because you don't always want to ask for help. There are reasons why you don't want people to understand or you don't want to have to explain everything that you're doing in the way of research. And it's kind of like, well, we've got a gatekeeper. And in a way, that's good. But in a way, being independent and being able to research these things yourself is I think has a lot of advantages for the individual commissioners.

It's almost like maybe a separate document that's like a commissioner's user's guide or something like that. Yes. Would be helpful. There you go. Right. It happens if we get a construction contract or a professional services agreement or a public record request. Yes. It's all on a page that you just look at.

Can you, like a contract put together, not a contract, sorry, a handbook put together where... Certain policies are broke out and then it can be referred to addendum A, B or something to where there's footnotes on it to where certain, you know, then you could go from there to find. So I'm just trying to think of a way you can do this and not have this thousand page document. We're trying to, you know, I get your want. There has to be a vehicle to do that and not have that in there. I mean, you could certainly have. you know, your basic handbook stuff we're looking for. And then if you needed to take a deeper dive on some type of governance issue that you could refer to, you know, item X, Y, or Z, I would think that would be sufficient. I mean, and point somebody in a direction. Right.

I can create this user's guide. I think it would be separate than the policy book, basically. But it's actually what I really enjoy about this job is taking really complicated things and making.

Distilling it down. Yeah. And I don't think that part would be, you know, wouldn't be high on your list of things to do. Shouldn't take precedence over day-to-day work.

Seems to be plenty lately. But you get the gist.

Yeah. I think you're looking for direction from us point to point, so we need to take a...

I think we've done that. We've already got it. We have a short policy book, and then we have some kind of user commissioner's user's guide that I will kind of talk to you and figure out what you're looking for and create it out of that. And maybe we talk about that more. Put something together for the retreat and then we can really talk about it more then.

Yes. Great.

Sounds great. Thank you, Bob.

And guess what? It's our annual code of ethics acknowledgement. Now we're all going to get up and go to the bathroom.

exciting stuff. In fact, it's on the, in the Oregonian today.

Hey, page news online.

Okay. So one thing I've noticed over the years is that ethics problems usually don't start with bad intentions. Sometimes they do. And I'm sure the examples come to your mind right away. The wind wave for tomorrow, the governor, governor Kitzhaber stuff. Right. But I, Based on all that I've read, most often I think that they start with people doing things that seem reasonable at the time when they start. That's one reason this commission makes time every year for an ethics review. Not every board does that. The fact that we do this every year says something important about the port. We take ethics seriously. Slide. Slide. So for your 2026 ethics program, today we're gonna talk about use of office for financial gain, which put simply is you can't use your public office to make money or avoid losing money. Gifts, we all know the $50 gift rule. You generally can't accept more than $50 in a gift in a single year, single calendar year from someone doing business with the port. Conflicts of interest. Does the decision affect you, your family, or your business financially? And then every year, I usually do a review of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission cases, the OGEC, from the past year. What happened this year was I got about six months into that annual review of the cases, and I realized that I wasn't really finding anything that was going to teach us much this year. And I think that's not only the kind of the types of cases I was zeroing in on the Eastern Oregon, Greg Smith stuff, and then they dismissed his case and that went away. But but also a commission who's been here for a few years and has, you know, has experience and really does a great job with ethics and declaring conflicts and that sort of thing. So I shifted gears and I decided to spend our time on the one issue that is confusing public officials all over Oregon. It's really a hot button issue and it's called serial communications. And lo and behold, I show up today, Nancy texts me that we have an article in the Oregonian about this. There's a big fight going on about this issue. Elliot brought me the newspaper article. It's not really a great name. To me, it sounds like something Comcast would sell you basically. But the basic idea of it is that Commissioner A, let's say Commissioner Ward talks to Commissioner Buble, then Commissioner Buble talks to Commissioner Kaiser. Somehow Ward and Kaiser have never talked to each other. And somehow that's a public meeting. So we'll come back to that in a few minutes. I'm gonna give you examples of that and how I think you should approach it basically. Slide. So the first big point that I make every year and I even have the words blow up is that you are personally responsible for complying with the code of ethics. It's the most important thing to remember. And I often use the city of St. Helens example. We've talked about that before, so I won't get into too much detail about it, but it teaches this lesson of personal responsibility. They went into executive session with two lawyers in the room. One city councilor even got up to leave, but the lawyers convinced him to stay and said it was okay. And then another city councilor reported it to the government ethics commission. And even though they had the lawyers, they had the experts in the room, they were all found in violation. So the guy that got up to leave got in trouble. The one that reported it got in trouble. Um, and actually that was thanks to me. I was the one who pointed that out to them that they're all on the hook for that basically. But, um, The lesson is pay attention when you're in executive session. At the end of the day, it's going to fall on you. So if you're in here talking in executive session, you feel like, well, this is really kind of not on the point of this topic. That's your responsibility to bring that up. I mean, I will always help you and say that because that's my job as well to keep us on track. But my point is it's your personal responsibility. Slide. So the goals of government ethics, the statute says public service is a public trust. And I think that's actually a very good way of looking at it. People need confidence that we're doing the right thing. Appearances matter. Slide. Now, before we move on, this is the actual acknowledgement part of the program. The code of ethics is on the screen. It was also in the agenda packet and you have a copy on your desk in front of you as well. I'd ask each commissioner to acknowledge that they reviewed the port's code of ethics and understand their responsibilities as public officials.

Acknowledged. I acknowledge.

I see acknowledgement from everyone. And I'm going to go through this briefly, but I want to make sure we do the actual acknowledgement that we're here for. Okay, we're gonna talk about financial gain. You see the words up on the screen. What I've already said, I would say it again, is public office isn't supposed to make you any money or make you avoid losing money. That's the rule. It's an absolute prohibition on financial gain. I think you, as I've said, this commission is very good at ethics. So I can move through these fairly quickly, but please do let me know if you have questions. Slide. The rule doesn't just apply to you. The rule applies to relatives and members of your household. Slide. And it applies to your business, business of your relative or a member of your household. Slide. This is an interesting one. Lawyers call it the but-for test, and I've never been sure why lawyers insist on using words that require people to take five seconds to think about it, instead of just saying, would this opportunity exist if I wasn't a port commissioner? That's the way to look at it. Slide. GIFs, you can see how quickly we're moving. We all know about the $50 rule. And in previous years, I've showed you all the exceptions because I created that chart of all the exceptions and it's just massive. There are a lot of exceptions to this, but we'll go through it just a little bit here. Slide. So the key question is not only how much the gift is, it is who gave it to you, right? It's a single source. Slide. Oh, I left that out. They have to have a legislative or administrative interest in the business of the poor, right? So the who has to have some kind of interest in the poor. And, you know, if anything, as I've often said, if anything ever comes up, just call me. You know, if you have something that you're thinking about. And this is. Conflict of interest. So this is the World Cup of Ethics. I do have the cards over there, but I haven't passed them out this year. Basically in the, yeah, there they are. In a community like ours, conflicts happen. That's reality. Having a conflict isn't usually the problem. Recognizing it and disclosing it is. So if you have a conflict, announce it before you take any official action. And if the issue comes up again next month, announce it again and again and again, every time, as we see with, we've seen that with Robert, you do a great job of announcing potential conflicts. Slide. There it is. It's a version of the World Cup of Ethics conflict of interest card. So when in doubt, disclose, basically. Does anyone have any questions about this slide? I don't think I need to go back through the would versus could and all of that. Okay. When in doubt, disclose. Nobody, and I mean nobody, that I ever heard of ever got into trouble for disclosing too much. Okay, any questions so far? Okay, serial communications. Super interesting topic that's just really heating up right now. I didn't have much time to read this newspaper article today, but it's resulted in complaints being filed against the executive director of the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. And that Part of that is a little side note because I watched the testimony on the bill in the legislature this past session. Yeah. And the executive director testified, and I remember thinking, like, that doesn't seem right. Like, why are they testifying for a bill that they're involved in? You know, there's some issues there, and sure enough.

Conflict of interest. Yeah, exactly. Exactly.

are really up in arms about this. So again, just to review, this is outside of a public meeting, basically. Commissioner A talks to Commissioner B, and then Commissioner A, and then B talks to C a few days later, a week later. A and C never talk to each other, which you would think You know, that can't be a public meeting, right? But in some situations, they're finding that to be a public meeting now. So that's why it's become such a controversial issue. Does everyone understand what we're talking about right now? Yeah.

It makes no sense.

I have some ideas. Okay. Slide. So this is the case that really brought it all to a head. In Salem, the issue on the Salem City Council was whether the city manager should keep their job. I won't get into the details, there were a lot of them, but as the pressure mounted, the mayor started having all these one-on-one conversations with different counselors outside the public meeting about whether they supported keeping the city manager. um the ethics commission ultimately included uh concluded that the mayor had acted as an intermediary on the serial communications and that a quorum deliberated through serial communications like this even though they haven't they hadn't accord hadn't actually spoken to each other in this time off

Your ringtone was cool.

Mind the shame.

So as I said, the discussion between all of the city councilors in Salem occurred before the public meeting ever happened. It was all in private, okay? And the city manager resigned before the public meeting happened. So nothing happened in public in that fact pattern. There was no public deliberation. Most public officials around Oregon looked at that case and thought, that doesn't sound like a meeting, you know? That's exactly why the case received so much attention. So, how do we get here? Oregon has required public business to be conducted in public. forever, since they enacted these rules back in 1974. But what's changed is how these serial communications are being interpreted and enforced. A few years ago, about three years ago, the legislature transferred public meetings law enforcement over to the Oregon Government Ethics Commission. And the Ethics Commission adopted rules interpreting the law, basically, which there's nothing bad about that. They just put in a bunch of definitions and said, this is how this is going to happen. And then came the Salem case. Slide. So after the Salem case, local governments started pushing back. Their argument was simple. How are elected officials supposed to do business or do their jobs if they can't talk to each other? The legislature agreed and passed a law in this past session, in the 2026 session. And the goal of that bill, which was to allow more information gathering, those were the key words, information gathering. Then the governor vetoed the bill after the session. Why? Many people thought the exception was so broad that it swallowed the rule itself. The concern was that almost any conversation could be described as information gathering. So everybody agreed there was a problem. They disagreed about the solution. So today the rule remains in place. Just last month, the president of the Portland City Council publicly called Oregon serial communications law rippling. And as we said, we're seeing articles in the newspaper about it. I expect we'll see this back before the legislature in the 2027 session, the next session. Slide. So can you talk to each other outside of public meeting? That's the big question. The answer is yes. but let's be clear on that. You can talk to each other outside of public meeting. If the answer were no, local government could not function. The question really is, where is the line? So let's use a lease in the agenda packet as an example. If you call up a commissioner in these fact patterns of talking to each other, did you read the lease? I don't see a problem with that. If you ask, do you think section 4.10 is strong enough? Getting a little closer to the line, I would say. I wouldn't say you're across the line there, but it may depend on where the conversation goes next. If you ask, do you support the lease, or I think we have three votes, and you start talking about that, in my view, you've crossed the line at that point. Those in the public meeting. So the issue is not talking, the issue is what is being communicated while you're talking. Slide. Know where the line is. Gather information, but be careful when the conversations become about building consensus or vote counting. That's where you've kind of, you may have crossed the line in those conversations outside the public meeting. Slide. I was trying to come up with a phrase that perhaps you could use, but when I came up with this, let's discuss it at the meeting. So a simple test. Are you talking about the project or where commissioners stand on the project? See the difference? It's not a perfect test, but I think it's a helpful one. If you start talking about who supports it, who doesn't support it, whether there's enough support to pass it, that's different. That's the public meeting stuff that should be in the public meeting and when your antenna should go up. So what do you do? You're not going to hang up or be rude to yourself. let's discuss it at the meeting. You know, when you feel like that line is being crossed, you say, let's discuss it at the meeting. You move the conversation back to the public meeting. So any questions about this? Doesn't seem so hard when it's explained this way, does it? By the way, thank you to Lindsay for helping with these slides. As you can tell, there's been an upgrade. And thank you to Sam for running these slides. Most problems don't start with bad intentions. They start when people stop paying attention to where the line is. As public officials, that's your responsibility. Know where the line is. Thank you. Thank you.

And keep us up to date with what's happening and

going to be interesting.

Ms. Myers.

Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Where are we now? Executive director report.

Thank you, Commissioner. I was off last week. I had a nice time staycationing here in the foothills of the Coast Range and had a good fourth. A nice meeting with Betsy yesterday. And, sorry, that was Monday. And then yesterday we had, Elliot was presenting at the ODOT Marine Mode Transportation Committee on the Connect 10 grant application, which he did a great job on. Here we are today, Columbia County Coalition today. Peter and I and Clint are going to walk the dock today, this afternoon. And are you going to join us for that? Yeah, I can, yeah. It's like 145 are going to be down there. And then tomorrow morning, Lindsay and I are going to meet Senator Merkley's energy, senior energy strategist. He wants to see the site, the next site out of Port Westward.

So he's going to be spending some time with us out there in the morning.

A couple things I want to highlight, too, coming up at the OPPA business meeting on the 23rd. There's a push for the next session in February 1st to possibly get a marine transportation study in front of the legislature for them to help fund that. a little look at what's happening with Oregon courts. We tend to get overlooked a lot for infrastructure funding, and we're all having a lot of similar issues. So we're going to try to go at the legislature with hopefully a bill that will support some funding for courts. Nice. Stay tuned on that. We'll be heading down. We'll be spending some time down in Salem this next year for sure. Also with OPPA, we're working on getting a video together about ports in Oregon, something that can be shared with the legislature. There's a lot of unknowns, so you get a lot of new people coming into the legislature. It's good for them to have maybe a quick 10-minute video or something. So we're going to probably put something together for all Oregon's ports as far as showcasing what we're doing here in Oregon. Other than our past interim and Executive Director Paula, she hosted PNWA's annual summer meeting down there in Newport, had a nice tour of her facility. If you haven't been on one of these fishing vessels, you know, you see them from a distance. My gosh, some of these things are huge. And it had been since, gosh, I was probably in my early 20s since I'd been out on one, a lot of deep-sea fishing trip. But you walk down there, I mean, it's obviously commercial fish is a big deal on the Oregon coast. And she has her hands full with a lot of that activity, a lot going on in Newport. Let's see here. The conference was great. Go ahead. Next slide there, please. You see it said that there's 13 nights, port hosted 13 nights on the river last on the 2nd of July. Acoustic flash mob didn't play. No conflict. We did the St. Helens show, act one. I already said those things. Okay, next slide, please. Is that it? Oh, we didn't have that cool picture? Oh, there was a, we had a historic photo of Pulp and Talbot that was quite impressive. Bob and I were comparing it yesterday just to make sure we understood the orientation of it. Armstrong used to be a massive, much more massive facility there. That's, the bottom facility is Armstrong and the one up to the right, the next on the right is Pulp and Talbot and you can see Boise right below Mount St. Helens with Mount St. Helens top. That talking thing is covering Mount Adams, which is right there. So you can see that it was quite a thriving waterfront at one point.

The Columbia County Museum has some of their collection, and Les Waters sent me a bunch of pictures of Pope and Talbot. So we're going to work on gathering those for all of our sites and putting together, like the airport board we have in the hallway, one for each. I know Commissioner Kaiser and I talked about this, which sites we need to have one of those for. They're doing a great job of it.

Nice.

That's great. Some of those buildings in the bottom left there, at least that one, the bottom, that photo was still there at Armstrong, and maybe the one right next to it could still be there. I didn't know about that.

Yeah, I didn't even know if it was Armstrong. I couldn't have been. Yeah, the site looks completely different.

Well, it's a cold. Armstrong wasn't there yet, right? No. We'll find out.

Something like tax and fur, maybe? It was called text for part of the description of the photo. I couldn't find out. Yeah.

Any questions? By the way, we currently don't have any business for a second meeting, work session, unless there's some topics that you'd like to just have on the 22nd of this month.

Haven't even thought about it. Okay. I'll think about it. All right.

I'll be out of town, so no issues.

I'll have to check my calendar as well.

Any questions for me? No.

I will, you know, ask her as well. We have a sign-up sheet for, I'm sure we do, for the Rainier Days in the Park and the fair.

We did just report an email I sent this morning.

Okay.

Anything else now? We'll be there Friday at the booth with Lindsay as well.

Well, I can tell you, so I just sent an email before the meeting, but Rainier Days from 3 o'clock to 7, and then And then we just have a Club Bay City car show. We sponsored the two events in class that I have with brand presidents, but they told us we did not get a booth. I think we came last year and had a booth and they didn't have the heart to tell us. That's what's happened. So yeah, it was interesting.

So we would have- Not aware of that. That's too bad.

I don't think you missed out on much with the weather there. Remember that Saturday will be the Seattle to Portland bike race.

It's Saturday.

It's been rainier. It's been rainier.

We have Commissioner Orr has signed up for a few of them, but I sent an email and VCC to all commissioners. If you would like to join or you have the capacity to stop by any of those places.

I can stop by Rainier Days from 3 to 7, you said? Right next door. Try not to make a quorum there. I'm your booth. A couple feet down. No communication. No talking. And I certainly can for the fair as well. Awesome. Thank you.

All right. Brian, got any updates?

I don't have any huge updates. I was curious if there's any updates on strategic property sales. If you had any conversations on that and how that's gone.

I have a meeting with the first prospect actually this Friday on actual sale. Also, I should note that the county is very interested in the property right next to the transfer station that currently we're just using for waste management to store empty dumpsters. um there may or may not be some wetland issues but they need to expand the transfer station so we've been talking with them in theory makes decent sense uh it's kind of an orphan piece there um so that one and then uh and talk to keith foresight about a parcel behind his lot there on uh rover um the uh transfer station one is the reason the question came up in my mind uh i'm assuming those conversations have have happened at staff level yes okay i would encourage uh

further of this yeah in fact mike just had put it on the um yeah agenda for the their their budget had changed that's why casey called oh there you go we reached out about that like last month there was a handful of properties and we didn't go further but um has there been other inquiries on other some of the other parcels we discussed no uh not that i'm aware of okay

No, and one of the things we discussed was, you know, find out which ones we want to put some signs on and, you know, focusing on those where there's visibility and where there's some guidance.

Okay. Understood.

A few things going on, but I would just like to acknowledge the hard work of the Schellenberg, the Columbia City, and Lignetics on that problem. When that first came up many years ago, it looked like it would be headed for litigation and a big fight and nothing would get done. And the opposite has been true. So that's because those folks have all been reasonable and willing to work. And that's good for us. We don't need our property embroiled in controversy. We need to solve it and move on. I do think there's a chance, though, that if lignetics is not 100% of the problem, they can't fix 100% of the problem. I think they acknowledge that, but we'll see. Time will tell.

I agree. That's it. Yeah, I agree with your comments. Steppen's Bay Watershed Marina meeting last night. That was about it.

Okay.

Travel Oregon. You guys seen the slot. It was a good, it was, had a great time. Um, I've spent a lot of time of when I was younger, um, around the whole Scafus area and it is a hidden gem. Certainly. Um, great organization. We had lunch and stuff and, um, a lot of interesting ideas. And I think, uh, when we get set on what we're doing there, we can put our best foot forward and make that a very unique place. It already is, but even make it better.

Mm.

And great job on all the grant work, whoever was involved in that, unnamed people, all kinds of whatever staff is involved in that. We love it. Appreciate it.

Yes, absolutely. And I just want to thank you for the last year. I thought you did a really good job of keeping everybody apprised of what was going on, and I will try and follow in that mode.

Thank you.

PNWA conference, always good. Had an interesting meeting afterwards about the... the continuing legal issues over salmon. And we agreed to participate further in the study that has been done. I assume that's all been, it's all happened now. And so it'll be interesting to see. I mean, salmon, of course, is very important to all of us. And if there's a way that we can maneuver The benefit of salmon along with the benefit of commerce, I think that's what everybody's after. And I will say that I'm very impressed with the approach that PNWA has and their concerted effort to continue to see improvement in the area, both of commerce and of maintaining the salmon in the river. And with that, I think we are done. but we are going into an executive session and we have a lovely speech that our counselor will love as you read the script.

I always say that because it's fun. We'll say you have to delegate it, basically. That's why I always ask. The Port of Columbia County will now meet an executive session pursuant to ORS 192.660, Section 2E, to deliberate with persons designated to negotiate real property transactions. F, to consider exempt public records, including written legal advice from Port General Counsel. And H, sorry, I, to review and evaluate employment-related performance of our executive director. Representatives of the news media and designated staff are allowed to attend. Representatives of the news media are specifically directed not to report on any of the discussions or deliberations in this or any executive session. Commission will return to open session after the executive session and will announce any decisions that are the result of the discussions held in executive session. Any persons excluded from executive session are welcome to return to open session when it is resumed.

Thank you.

And there being no action coming from the executive session, this meeting is closed.