City Council - Regular Meeting

Oh. Oh, I just lost it. I don't see Promote to panelist. Alright. Taylor is in.

Ready? Okay. Alright. I'm gonna go ahead and call to order our Sherwood City Council 02/17/2026 regular meeting into session at 07:05.

All rise

for the pledge of allegiance. 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, with liberty and justice for all.

All right. Thank you, everyone. Sylvia, roll call.

Mayor Rosner?

Here.

Council President Young? Here. Councilor Brous? Here. Councilor Stankey? Here. Councilor Mayes? Here. Councilor Giles?

Here.

I believe Councilor Scott is absent.

That's correct.

Thank you.

All right, approval of the agenda. Do I have a motion?

Move. Second.

I have a

motion and a second. All those in favor of approving the agenda say aye. Aye. All those opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, counsel. Alright. On the consent agenda tonight, we have five items. Item A is approval of the January minutes, and item B is approval of the 02/03/2026 City Council meeting minutes. Item c is resolution twenty twenty six dash zero zero nine approving the city recorder's canvassing of the Washington County election returns of the January and directing the city recorder to enter the results into the record.

And item d is resolution twenty twenty six dash zero one zero, amending the City Of Sherwood home rule charter as approved by the city electors at the January. And item e is resolution twenty twenty six dash zero one one, approving approval of a memorandum of agreement between the city of Sherwood and AFSME local one seven seven seven, extending the current collective bargaining agreement through 06/30/2028. Do I have a motion?

I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

Second. I have motion and a second. All those in favor of approving the consent agenda, aye. Aye. Opposed? Motion passes. Thank you, counsel. Alright. Citizen comments. Sylvia, do we have anybody?

Mayor, I have no one this evening, I do want to introduce to the record the letter that the city received from councilor former councilor Jennifer Kessler.

Yep. Did everybody get the letter? Great. All right.

We have the Bruckers want to talk? Did you guys want to say anything?

I'm sorry. Renee, what do guys

Did they want to say anything? The Bruckers? The Bruckers?

Oh, I'm getting there. So we had no forms there, no one online. Did you guys wanna say anything ahead of the meeting? Or is there anyone in the audience who would like to give public comment?

Yeah. Yep. Yep. Remine's on.

Sit here. Right?

Yep. Just hand it to Sylvia.

Hand it to Sylvia, and she'll pass

To it

the woman right down there.

So

can I can I speak now? Yeah.

Yeah. Just yeah. You got the mic on. That's great. Yeah. Just just say who you are and

I'm Brad Bruckford. This is Anne Bruckford, my wife. Welcome, Brad and Anne. We've been here since 1999. We've done a number of projects in Old Town, built some buildings, renovated a few buildings. We're in the process of renovating 16017 Southwest 1st Street. That's where Anne has her business, Mosaic Arts Loft. It's basically two buildings. We renovated the front part interior of the building. We are currently almost done running the back part.

Actually, it's a second building, which runs from, you know, the edge of the symposium parking lot all the way to Washington Street. Our portion is about 1,600 feet in the back end. The whole building that we own is 4,000 square feet. That building laid dormant for about forty years or so. So

in fact,

it was slated to be torn down by a number of people, that's what they thought, but we got a structural engineer in there and we did a lot

of

work. It's a big task for anyone as small as us not named Schnitzer, you know. So so we we worked hard on it. We've done it pretty much out of pocket. We saw those five items that you guys put forth in there. We snuck into that session. I don't know if we're supposed to be there or not.

Oh, yeah.

So that's an meeting. At any rate,

forgive us if that's the case. But so honestly, I like them all. I think they're it's a great move forward. And I I know somebody said something about the facade enhancement. Now we're at that stage with that building. We replaced that entire old tin rickety wall that's been there for about a hundred years. It was very unsightly. It was right in the heart of Old Town. Our heart is to enhance Old Town. That's really our heart. And we've done a lot out of pocket. And so but we could use a little help. So that's kind of what we're here for. Two things in particular, that facade enhancement grant, we want to replace the facade. We've already submitted to a plan that has been approved.

Front has been deferred a little bit because of an awning we want to put on too, but we just don't have the money for it. So we're doing everything else to finish the back end. We have a potential tenant on the hook to move into the back end, so we're really excited about that. We want to put we really want that alleyway paved. And we know the whole what would cost to pave the whole thing, which is over the top for us.

So we've asked the city and particularly the engineering department to make some concessions for us to maybe go four foot or five foot wide paved, and it would be about 140 feet long. That's probably 15 to $20,000. So any help we can get, what I saw in one of those things, I can't remember number three I believe it was, I saw some potential help from the city in number three, I think it was. So if you know what I mean. Anything we can get help with would be wonderful. Also a thing called

the Community Enhancement Grant Program.

So the only issue with some of these grants that we run into, we actually applied for a big grant from what's it called? Main Street. Main Street. And, you know, we we didn't get it. There was, like, 300 people around the state trying to you know?

The the other the other issue that I see, and I I a pastor so I'm four non profits, don't get me wrong. We built that building, Epic House, in 2005. We actually helped the city with, in fact, was my idea to come to, this is the last time I was behind this mic, to propose that parking lot down there as a trailhead and all that. The city took it in, a year later they said, hey, are you still interested in contributing? So we contributed $100,000 to that project in the church.

So this is a very public thing, excuse me, private thing we're doing now. And what I see sometimes is these grants, they're open to nonprofits. I don't know how many takers there are for nonprofits. I really don't, honestly. This we couldn't participate in that with this particular project because this is a for profit entity.

So I would just say, think about that. What's wrong with a for profit? I mean, a lot of people moving into town that are business owners, they're for profit, and they're trying to get some help, any help they can get. And so that's I think that's if we could move a little quicker on that alley, I think my wife said five years for the whole thing to be done, but we want to get it's going to cost about $20 just to put a 140 foot by four to five foot swath of pavement that would be four inches thick, would stand up to what the engineering department of the city sure would approve. I think they'd approve. They've indicated would approve an alteration of sort.

Anything else? So I hand out a paper just to show you we do have 14 businesses now that are on our block, which I was shocked when I actually walked around. So I have paper I handed out in his photos. And so we've been working with Eric and Eric, and they've been guiding us, telling us what meeting to go to and what to do. And so they approved to sharing it with you.

So just the request would be that as the the first 40 feet proposals are being considered that our alleyway, which on the little map, you can see we're the only alleyway when you first enter Old Town. Everybody's paved but us. And so with all of our businesses getting that paved, we have now a new storefront on the alley facing way, which, you know, was also the first 40 feet meeting, that whole conversation which I noted in there. And so our request is just could that be considered to happen sooner? And then any, like as Brad said, any support from the city on a sort of a first step just to get access in.

It is a food and beverage that we're we can't say who, but it's looking at it, which would be really fun if it works out. But just to be able to start bringing some traffic, foot traffic coming in down the alleyway, be able to have that nice for the the tenants that are they'll be leasing the building. So that was kinda main thing was just to have that considered. I know there's other alleys and everything, but just we're right in that very first entryway to Old Town. And it'll be a so, basically, from symposium, we could walk on a pathway that's paved, not the gravel mud, to the back of the building to

And the lighting thing in

there too. I saw that. Oh,

yes. We need to add light. I guess there's no street lights on that alleyway. We didn't realize how dark it is on that alley, so I'm not sure where the lamps are street lamps, but

yeah. So Well, thank you so much for coming in. And and I and by the way, I forget as we just talked about, I had a chance to tour your building with congresswoman Celine Salinas, and she was blown away. That was a lot of fun. And I can't tell you how much we appreciate your commitment to Sherwood and all the work you're doing to help us, you know, revi I shouldn't say revitalize. We have a great downtown, but make it even better. Brad, as we talked about, I'd love to meet with you offline. And, also, I wanna make sure you're aware of every single program that's out there. Like, Keith just talked about the CEP program. There might be a lot of avenues that we can look at for that. You know people.

There's some creativity that could

Yeah.

My wheels are turning on

that one.

Yeah.

That would definitely help. Thank you.

Awesome. Well, thanks for coming tonight. My project. Yeah. Appreciate it.

Thank

you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. And I don't think still don't have anyone online, so we'll go ahead and move past citizen comments to city manager report.

Evening, mayor and council. I just have a couple of things tonight. I want to let you know we're getting ready to launch a Sherwood Broadband customer service survey. It'll go out soon. Also, another survey will be going out early March on the solid waste food scrap survey that we talked about. Last year, we did solid waste annual review. State of the City, it will be is scheduled for Wednesday, April 15 at the Center for the Arts. And as you mentioned, the Community Enhancement Program grant application opened the February 1 and is open till 05:00 on April 15. And we also have a finance committee meeting scheduled for March 5, Thursday night, the fifth. So that's all I have tonight, unless you have some questions for myself or any

of the leadership team that's here. Thank you, Craig. Any questions for Craig? Taylor, any questions? Awesome. Nope. All right. We'll move right to council announcements. Taylor, you want to go first?

Sure. We have a meeting next on the twenty fourth for planning commission. Anybody, one of the things they're gonna be discussing is a potential code variance for a food cart pod, within a thousand feet of in Sherwood that they've made an application for. So if you have feelings on that, please come make them known, to the planning commission next week. And I think that's it for me.

I'm gonna stop talking so that I don't hurt my voice. I I I'm also very glad, by the way, mayor, that you said the things you did. A thank you to everybody who wrote in, expressing concern and and frankly engaging on any topic in the city. It always I get more less feedback than I thought I would in this job. So please speak up if you have thoughts about things. Thank you.

Thank you, Taylor. Dan. Okay.

Library board is meeting tomorrow night, so I'll have an update next meeting. And the traffic safety board is meeting next week, so again, I'll have a update for that. The school board met last week. They talked about graduation rates, ninety six point seven percent, which is top in the metro. Not the top, but one of the top schools in the metro.

And then the other big thing that came out of their meeting was that they are restarting the Bowman House program. It kind of shut down during COVID, and so they have approved funding for that, and it'll be back up and running, which is a great program. We've got houses this way that the students have built there, which are just a great thing for the community. The library is hosting a plant seed sharing and plant cuttings events this coming up Sunday from two to four. You can bring seeds.

You don't need to bring the seeds. There'll be plenty to go around. It's looking to be a pretty good event for people who are into houseplants and just planting in general. And I think that's what I got for that. And then I just wanted to address the people who had written in as well.

Over the past week, many residents have written in to us about the governor's February 5 letter to the Department of Homeland Security. Their messages were thoughtful and heartfelt, and they reflected deep concern for the safety and well-being in our community. And I wanna acknowledge those voices tonight. The letter is signed by 31 mayors across the state, responds to a series of alarming actions by federal immigration officers, including lethal lethal force in Minnesota and violent incidents here in Oregon. It explains that those tactics are eroding public trust, undermining civil liberties, and creating fear among families who are simply trying to live their everyday lives.

It describes parents afraid to take their children to school, families avoiding health care, and workers staying home. The sanctuary portion of the letter resonates with the values I'd like to see Sherwood uphold. Oregon's sanctuary law has been in place for decades, strengthens by bipartisan support, and it ensures federal immigration enforcement remains federal while local officers stay focused on keeping our neighborhoods safe and addressing local criminal activity. And I wanna be clear about something residents, have often asked me is that sanctuary protections do not give anyone a free pass on crime. If someone commits a crime in Oregon, they can be arrested, charged, prosecuted regardless of their immigration status.

Oregon law specifically allows local police to work with federal agencies in criminal matters and to arrest individuals when a federal judge has issued a criminal warrant. Many residents also raised concerns about how federal enforcement has been carried out. Recent reporting and multiple lawsuits have alleged racial profiling during federal immigration actions this year, including suspicionless stops and warrantless arrests targeting Latino residents, including US citizens. This is important context because Oregon's original sanctuary framework was, created to prevent exactly that kind of racial profiling and to preserve the trust between communities and local law enforcement. For me, this all comes back down to trust, the trust that helps people report crimes, seek help when they need it, and participate fully in our community.

That sense of safety and connection is something that I want for Sherwood and something I believe strengthens our city. The police chief has done a great job with that cohesion between the community and local officers. He's done some out of the box thinking to, you know, improve that, and I really appreciate the risk that you've taken with some of these ideas. Anything to improve that, is only better for the city, and so I wanna thank you for doing that. And I'm hoping that we can continue to build on that to get to a place where all citizens feel that way about our officers.

The letter also offers a simple yet powerful message that we stand with our immigrant and refugee communities. You belong here. That message is humane and reflects the values I believe Sherwood strives to uphold. To everyone who reached out, urging action, thank you. Whether or not Sherwood was included among the original sanctuaries, or not, we can still speak clearly about our values and our commitment to a safe and welcoming community.

And actually, at the end of our work session, the mayor just, formed a subcommittee for councilors to, address this and craft a statement to our citizens here from the council and mayor, which I really appreciate. My hope is that we continue building a community grounded in trust and compassion, where every person feels safe, supported, and welcomed. That is the short I believe in. Thank you.

Thank you, Dan. Well said. Keith.

Tough to follow that. Job. Appreciate it. Cultural arts commission met last night. Even though it was a holiday, got updates on art efforts for the wrap of the Lou in Canary Square.

We got a little update on, we'll see stuff later on medallion project in the bridge. We discussed potential community enhancement grant application ideas. Oh, I wanna be appreciative of city staff and the mayor for hosting a meeting between friends of the refuge and a local developer just outside of town, bright night. They are working on a green energy battery farm project and the friends needed space to meet and they both sides invited other folks. I really appreciate the city and the mayor helping to facilitate that and because there's a problem with their plan as it stands, they need to transmit this energy from the substation to their facility, proposed facility, and their preferred route is high elevated high energy power lines in floodplains which will kill birds adjacent to the refuge.

So I appreciate the efforts of the city to help them find a safer better alternative to help protect our refuge that we helped create and we're very proud of. And it looks like they collectively agreed to move forward in trying to find an alternative solution with the city's assistance. And it's a project that I don't know how ultimately it gets if PGE buys the project after it gets approved or if they get contracted or whatever. But equally, I hope that our friends PGE CEO Maria Pope, would take the stand of supporting good projects. We are supportive of this project, but also protect wildlife sensible thing and a viable alternative out there.

Thank you, mayor. Thank you, Craig.

Alright. Thank you. Renee?

Super excited to hear about the Bowman House. My son was actually in the first class that started the Bowman first Bowman House, so from start to finish. So happy to hear that it's back on again. Great program. I want to reiterate what Dan and Taylor has said about the emails received.

We're very grateful for the community's involvement and sharing their passion and their desire to stand up for those who are maybe not being treated how they should be treated. And I just wanna reiterate, our police officers are badged with Sherwood police officers, so if we're stopped and you're stopped by a Sherwood police officer, you can trust that they are representing our city and not to be fearful of that. But, Dan, that was a very well written letter. Thank you for putting the time and energy into it. Last week, wanted to well, last week, Maya hosted the chamber breakfast at the senior center or the Marjorie Stewart Community Center.

She did a fabulous job. She spoke about her passion for seniors, her passion for the the center itself and also the Age Friendly City, and there was a lot of people who were excited to hear what she had to say, and I had some really good positive feedback about the age for Lee City and how the business could businesses could be involved in that. So well done to Maya. And to the senior advisory committee who pretty much every single one of them were there to help support Maya and to share the work that we've done as a committee. And we did meet last week as a committee.

We heard from Megan, the homeless representative that's working with Tigard in Tualatin and Sherwood, shared an update about the status of homelessness specifically in regards to the seniors. And the numbers are, in my opinion, pretty staggering. Although I left my notes at home, I don't wanna misspeak the numbers. Let's see. The other thing that I had thank you, Lydia, and your team for inviting us to the coffee and chat that took place, I believe it was last week or no. Yeah. Last Wednesday. It was great. I was only there for a few minutes, but to see the staff by sharing and having conversation and sharing coffee and snacks and just the bonding that took place was amazing. So kudos to you guys for doing that.

I think that is all that I have. Oh, the YAC, the the youth advisory committee meets this coming Thursday. So that's all I

have. Thank you. Kim.

I don't have much. Our police advisory board meets on Thursday. Last this past Thursday, though, we did have our community development policy advisory board where we learned of the grant recipients that came out of our recent application process. Some really good, unfortunately, never enough money for everybody, but some of the just to highlight a few that came out of it since we just had a housing update. Well, CASA for children, which is court situations.

Project Homeless Connect, which is helping our houseless friends. Family Promise of Tualta Valley, which also helps with that. And then WorkSystem Inc, which helps with legal challenges of people going through eviction courts. So that's just a a few of the things. On the facility side, one of the ones that interested me the most was the Good Neighbor Center getting a full bathroom update and additions of some new bathrooms that, I guess, they've desperately desperately been needing for their facilities.

So just a few things that comes out of the community development block grant grant application cycle. It's federal funds that flow through the county into our communities. So and I think that's it. I too was at the chamber breakfast, and I reiterate my yes. Maya did when doesn't Maya do a great job? She's so passionate about what what she does. So and I think a lot of people that were there didn't really know everything that goes on at the senior center has to offer our seniors.

Thank you. Just real quickly, as Dan mentioned, we talked about this at the end of the work session. We're going to form a small group, non quorum group of counselors, to work on a statement to address actually, the way I look at it is a statement to our make sure that everyone in our community knows what their rights are and if they are at risk, how to prepare and and be safe and what the opportunities for help are in our community. We have some wonderful organizations that are doing a lot of yeoman's work on that right now in our community. So more to come on that in the future.

Can I just add

something to

that Yeah? Real

quick.

I also on Sunday attended a session that was put on by Resonate. Resonate Church with Kevin Bates and Jake. And they had some speakers come in to talk about immigration, talk about some circumstances in our own community, and then have some table talk sessions where those that were there could chat with each other. It's pretty good information.

Good. Yeah.

Awesome. So with that said, move on to a couple other things and some fun things. I briefly mentioned this before. Congresswoman Salinas was here for an afternoon, and we talked about we're working on some federal earmarks for some major sewer infrastructure projects that we have in in the city. Craig and I will be traveling out to Washington DC to meet with Wyden and Merkley staff and Salinas' staff to try to get those over, hopefully, maybe this year, get them over the fence finish line at the federal level.

But part of that, I did have the chance to give her a walking tour of our downtown core. We stopped in just about every business that was open, and she loves our downtown. And actually she wants to do some retreats with her staff here. So she was so impressed with our downtown core. So that was kind of that was a lot of fun to give her that tour.

A lot of my time recently has been with Salem in their short session. In the charter, it says the mayor is the political head of the city. I'm not sure what that quite means. But one of the things I think it does mean I guess we'll get you some training. But one of the things it does mean is I do a lot of advocacy work on behalf of cities and the state legislature, not just as the mayor, but as also on the executive committee of the MMC and on the executive board of the League of Oregon City.

So a lot of I think I'm testifying every day this week in Salem on issues that are important to cities around preemption, housing, jobs, and ethics reform. So are the main focus that we're taking a look at down in Salem. So that's that's kept me pretty busy on that side of it. And then the last thing I'll mention is Thursday night is the annual it used to be called the SIP and spell. It's a fundraiser for the Sherwood Education Foundation.

There are still a few tickets left online if you want a ticket. But this year, they're doing a sip and sing. So think mask singer. I can't say who the singers are, but it's gonna be pretty entertaining. So but they do a lot of great work. They raise money for education programs at our high school. They kind of fill the gaps. They really focus on programs that don't have booster clubs in our city. So they do a great job and raise a lot of money every year. So it's sip and sing through the Sherwood Education Foundation if you're interested.

See if you can pick up the mayor.

I when they came up with that idea, that's one of the first things I said is I am not singing. That's what he would

say if he was gonna be a participant in a mask.

Not not gonna happen.

Hey. Hey, Tim. I have one more thing. Yes.

Go ahead.

I I don't know if somebody said it, but fantastic lantern, new year Chinese New Year event

Oh, yeah.

Done by the Cultural Arts Center. It was so well attended. And, like, the dance groups that I saw, the drumming, it was really, really remarkable. And, our representative Salinas was also there at that and, again, talked so much about how important that art center was, and they and all the staff got a picture. But please pass along, Craig, to our and Kristen to the staff, that it really it's one of those ones where I wish more people knew about it, but then also I know that it's already kind of at a capacity. So we, as a city council, have to decide if we're gonna put a tent up or, you know, because we just I it was so fun to see, and we may just need a bigger venue next year.

Great. Thank you. Well, unless there's anything else for the good of the order, I'm gonna go ahead and close out our meeting. We're going to adjourn to executive session in the conference Room. Thank you, everybody.