City Council - Regular Meeting

to the June 16th work session. I'm going to turn this time over to City Manager Robbie Hammond to begin and introduce the panel.

Thank you. Good evening, everyone. Tonight, we are going to be giving the Council an update on our Avenida Diaz work that we've been really working on for a few years. You're going to meet, I'll let them introduce themselves, but we have staff that have been working very hard on this for a number of years with their community. We're excited to present tonight an update to you all. Tonight is more of an update. We will be coming back in a couple of months. You'll see that in some later slides after going through some more process where there's going to be some more action items and direction for the city council in August. So with that, I'm going to turn it over to Dan.

Thank you, Robbie. Good evening, Council President Harris and Council. I just want to echo what Robbie said, take over the team here in a minute to present, but I want to also thank our community advisory committee members that have worked on this. Ed will speak a little bit more to that later in the presentation. Many of them will be joining this evening too in this work, and rounded out by their participation. I also want to acknowledge Rahim's leadership as a lot of his projects as well, even though he's not in water services, but he too is a key player and part of this team. So with that, I'll kick it over to Justin Edma to present. And tonight, as Robbie mentioned, is primarily informational. Please do feel free to ask any questions as we go. We do have some break points as usual, and then we should have ample time at the end for questions and conversations.

Great. Good evening, City Council. My name, for the record, is Justin DeMello. I'm a Senior Project Manager in Economic Development, and I'll introduce myself as well.

Good evening, Council Members. My name is Emma Castillo, and I am a Project Manager also in Economic and Community Development.

So we're happy to present an informational update here tonight. The agenda is relatively light. I think the presentation is a little bit light on content and that is a little bit by design because we have actually so much content It really lends itself more to reading than an hour-long work session. So as Robbie mentioned there at the outset, following this work session, we'll provide quite a bit in terms of written materials for City Council. And then over the coming month or so, especially through the month of July, we'll be receiving more that we'd like to share with you directly as drafts. Of the equitable development strategy, which is the centerpiece of what we'll talk about tonight. So, tonight is light on specifics, but. Please bear in mind that there's there's lots of specifics that are that are coming. So we just wanted to use tonight as an opportunity to provide a little bit more just a general program overview, especially for some of the city counselors who may be relatively new compared to when the program began. uh share a little bit about what we've done over the past few years and then really just set this table uh for our pathway toward adoption of uh this document that we'll be sharing with council here in the coming months so that's the general uh sort of feeling and thought process behind the work session tonight but we'll skip up next to the actual agenda just to give a little bit of structure for the coming few minutes We'll kick it off with, as I mentioned, an overview of the program itself. So we'll talk about the geographic area, what we're talking about in terms of the map when we talk about Avenida Diaz, why this program was set up in the first place, what policy basis it was built upon, and so really the why in terms of why we have a program here. And then the program framework will talk a little bit about what the program is because it's pretty wide ranging in its scope. And so sometimes it's been a little bit challenging to articulate. So I think this presentation does a better job maybe than what we've done in the past in terms of what is Avenida Diaz as we talk about the program. And then really the meat of the presentation tonight, especially as we think about the months ahead, and as we're going to come back to city council in August, is to really just share with you the equitable development strategy which is a document, a pretty concise deliverable, which we'll be presenting for your consideration in the coming months. We don't have a draft of it ready tonight, so really we're just kind of trying to set the table a little bit so that you know why it is and what it is when it does come into your inboxes here in the coming weeks. And then Dan, I think especially will help us as we move through the last phase and talks about the logistics of next steps and the pathway to adoption for this equitable development strategy. I'll take a quick pause right there if there's any questions on the agenda. I have a habit of running on at the mouth as I get up to speed, so I'm trying to be better about taking pauses here every couple of slides. So we'll take a look at the next one here. So where is Avenida Diaz or 10th Avenue? Well, as you can see, we do have a map there of a project area that's from about 5th Avenue and downtown Hillsboro, extending to the east to 13th and 18th Avenues, respectively, generally following Main Street, but not exactly on the north. and following the railroad track and TV highway on the south. So the driver for this geometry is that it really is exactly the east end of the downtown urban renewal area. So it certainly wasn't arbitrary, but it's tied to that with an eye on potential funding for some of these actions that we'll talk about. We have been cautious and thoughtful about not being very forward about saying this is the boundary of the neighborhood, because we want to make it clear that anybody that feels that they're part of this community is part of the community, and there's no arbitrary boundary. But as we talk about some of the demographic analysis and just the technical pieces of the work, we did need a project area for that. And so that's the boundary that was established. A big part, too, of the why. a development strategy and particularly one focused on equity is needed for this part of our downtown is there on the right hand side of the slide. Just a couple of data points that really talk about really the unique quality of this community as being really very predominantly Hispanic and also home to a great many of the Hispanic owned small businesses. And so that really makes, especially the commercial corridor there, something super unique and very, very special to the city of Hillsborough. And so that was really rooted, or this program was rooted in the desire to support the community and to help it to thrive going forward. So there's just a couple of data points. I won't read them there. Of course, you can see them visually. But I would like to point out that we do have one of the first deliverables of this work which we can make available in any format you like. It's actually available on our project webpage already, is the existing conditions report. So in terms of just getting familiar with this work and understanding a little bit more about the background and the need, that might be a very good resource to get familiarized as we come forward in the coming weeks with actions that are more forward-looking. But I certainly recommend that as homework for your spare hours when you don't have others to do your report to lead through.

Just a quick question with the previous site. When I was reading it, I was wondering why it referred to past tense. Were Hispanic or was household income was?

They really are. It's just a function of when Eco Northwest, you know, they collected the data. And then by the time they put together the report in their minds, they're starting to use the past tense just because of the time lapse of writing a report. But it's not, I mean, none of the data is current as of yesterday, but it is the most current data that we have. So in terms of data science, it can really be relied upon as present state information, despite the past tense. Yeah, just a linguistics thing, I think.

Yeah. I have a question. um how many what percentage of the people who are participating on the committee community advisory how many what's percentage compared to this it's just in terms of of who's participating how many latino community members based on this of those people are participating out of this percentage, what would that percentage look like?

Very, very small. I mean, we got, we were very happy with our survey count, which still is very fractional of the overall population of the community.

Would you say it's 0.1 or higher?

Oh, I wouldn't. It's, I mean, I'd have to go punch some numbers, but I mean, it's not... I don't know. We haven't directly heard from a wide swath at a population level. No, it's been a very, very sample.

Yeah. And maybe this will come up later, but is your intention to include more people, more input? Based on these numbers that I'm looking at, are you going to consider widening that opportunity for more people who are in that community to give input? about how Calle Diaz, Avenida Diaz is gonna develop.

Yes. So once we get this draft, uh, we're going to do another round of community engagement this summer to try to get some feedback on it. Once we actually have actions to put in front of people so far, we've talked about the Wilson and things along those lines, but now we're getting to the point that, um, as we bring first, this first draft of the EDS forward, now we're talking about actual actions that we're proposing. So we will do a round of engagements this summer to try to get, um, feedback on on the actions as well i realistically i still don't think we're going to reach you know the preponderance of the population in an area this this big but we're we're certainly trying our best to reach as many people as we as we can and so um sorry just one more um question um are the new people are they also going to have an opportunity to give input on the goals for this project

Because I was thinking about this as I was looking at the presentation and I was wondering, do you rotate community members to participate in this? I know early on you were sticking with a specific group because you wanted to sort of ferment this project with them. But my curiosity is at what point are you deciding when you want to open this up to more people to participate and give input and including the goals?

Oh, go ahead.

So we are not planning on rotating the CAC. We did expand it about halfway through to increase the representation, especially from business community. But in terms of the community advisory committee specifically, it was. set up and run and organized and financed through the scope of the project. So it's actually running to the very end of its course now as a standalone committee, but that certainly doesn't necessarily require that be the end of the engagement. And we do seek to get out this summer with the draft into the community to receive feedback. In terms of the high level goals, I think it, it is difficult to change it at this point that they were based very much on existing policies that were in place and community informed and then. We got some specific neighborhood level feedback on it through this process. So, in terms of the overarching goals, it is. very late in the project life cycle to make a big change in direction but obviously whenever a community member shares with us their goals for a neighborhood or their vision we we're going to listen to that and document it as part of this work and just one more but um i know that this has had a life to it um and things have changed since this started and so i would wonder

how would you, what would public safety, how would that be presented on Avenida Diaz at this time? I'm just curious of how that safety, and I'm asking this because the community is dealing with ice and they were not dealing with that when you started this project. And I just want to be mindful of the community who might have some expectation about What does this mean?

Yes, I really appreciate your making that point because it's hugely important. As we engage with the community, we hear, especially in this neighborhood, this community, we hear about the impacts of ice a lot. I mean, we also hear a lot about the impacts when it comes to safety as it relates to the homeless population in the area. Truthfully, most of the one-on-one engagements we've had either with the CAC or with community members, those have been the things that they've mentioned first. So they largely fall outside the scope of what our project was tasked to do through the planning and development grant that we got from Metro. But a lot of this work really was also rooted in just actual community engagement, listening and documenting what we're hearing. So as we come forward in the coming weeks with the community engagement report, even within the equitable development strategy itself, that feedback is gonna be really documented and acknowledge that the answers to those issues fall mostly out of the scope, but there are, we have worked with our consultant team to look for as many possible ways as trying to get at them through the actions that we are proposing. So you'll see that in the in the draft that some of the actions, even though they may be related to land use planning or, you know, support for small businesses or giving some framework to city private public partnership redevelopment that we're trying to the extent we can to include their feedback even on those issues related to safety and security. you know, related to all the things that they've mentioned. So sometimes it's a little bit modest, I think, in terms of where we're able to really make a dent in those big societal issues. But to the degree that we can within the policy tools that are part of the scope of this project, we're really trying to incorporate it as best we can all.

Yes, I agree. And I'm thinking informational. So I'm thinking of the Latino who's coming from Woodburn and lands in Hillsborough, and is on Avenue the DS, if there is signage, just like you have across the street from the library, that kind of signage showing police, fire, emergency, I don't know, whatever would be included on that, but that is something that can be up and part of information to the community and in a culturally responsive way. as we want to continue to make sure that the community is connecting with public safety.

Thank you. That's excellent feedback. I mean, we will definitely take that. And as we go back to the drafting table for this next draft of the document, consider ways to strengthen that, because that's exactly the feedback that we're hoping to get from council.

Yeah. Councilor Seagal.

Thank you. So a couple of questions. So I moved here in 2018, and I think Like within the first month that I moved in the area, I knew this about Avenida Diaz, right? So my question is, you know, why is it helpful for the people listening in and for the people in the crowd to know this information? And how does it inform your work? So that's the first question. I just want to know what this data means to you and how it informs how you work. And I have a couple other questions. I don't quite understand the question. Why are you sharing this data with us?

Councillor, maybe if I can respond, Justin. Thank you all for the questions. And so at the heart of the question, Councillor, is this gives the geographic area, as Justin was mentioning, of what the policies and some of the efforts that are coming up, where it's being considered and where the engagement is happening across is to give the physical framing of it. Keep in mind, we're in slide three of the presentation. We have a lot of sections coming up with more substance. I think that is where the council is seeking and wanting information. The demographic information is one that, while widely known to some of the community, may not be widely known to all the community. And it's a very important basis that really informed a lot of the engagement work that Edna will talk about at slide 11, answering some of the questions that have already been asked. So that really is the framing piece of this slide of why it's important as it we're doing and really watch and inform the more tough and tough slides that are immediately following.

Good. Thank you. I think it's important for the public to know how we use this data and to say, well, it informs how we engage, what language we use, what mechanisms we use, who we reach out to. So I think that's really important to cover just generally anytime we cover data. And also, I know that we're not talking about specifics, but I'm just wondering if you have heard anything from the chute park library about any needs that they're seeing there. And if you're hearing any of that feedback through this engagement, like one of the things that I keep hearing about, and it's a concern that's constant, right? Kids aged middle school to high school are kind of just hanging around chute park using the library. there's not really like a sports court nearby within that area, right? They have to walk to a school to play basketball or futsal. And so one of the librarians there was asking me, you know, what's the possibility of us investing in putting some sort of multi-use ball court there, like a basketball slash futsal court, because, you know, there's a lot of history in that area. And she feels like the youth in this age range needs some sort of activity, something they can do together physically. And I'm wondering if you're creating some of that in the engagement that you're

doing in that community because that's what i'm hearing that's what i've been hearing constantly yes we do hear it that specific um recommendation of a sports mobile court i don't specifically recall having discussed that one but oh i get deep in this conversation yeah we get like what do you want to see uh but that's the main concern is like we need something here so they can have some sort of sports engagement with the community excuse me has made the general point very often in terms of especially the family-oriented nature of the community and needing more infrastructure for kids and youth. So that has come through consistently and loud and clear from the engagement. And that is one where it is genuinely shaping the direction that we're going on things. Like, as we look at a potential redevelopment of the police department block on Temple and Washington, for instance, straight to the top of the community wish list that becomes very important as we start talking about public benefits and trade-offs with potential development partners, playgrounds, sports courts, go straight to the top based on that engagement. Library is involved. We'll talk a little bit more about it with, oh, thank you. We have a quarterly coordination team where we get together a pretty good sized group of both our community benefits And city staff from the wide variety of departments. So that's where we get together on a quarterly basis with parks and library and everybody to share exactly those kinds of notes specifically regarding 10th Avenue. And so parks and library, of course, usually with all the news and notable information about what's going on at Shoe Park. So I haven't heard about the specific one about the multi-use court yet, but I imagine we probably will at the next one.

Well, because I threw out basketball court. I was like, basketball court? They're like, no, maybe basketball, maybe futsal. And I was like, maybe multi-use. But one thing I want to ask is, as I'm trying to figure out how to get this done for that community, one of the things that I did was reach out to the Army Engineer Corps Group. I forgot the actual title. And they have a program where they actually partner with nonprofits, local governments to help prepare sites for So they take care of all the costs. The only rule that they have is they can't leave anything behind. So they can't leave anything they purchased, any equipment, but they essentially prepare the land for free for construction. And they're open to partnering with the City of Hillsborough on this specific project when we're ready to move forward. So I don't know who I need to connect to that program. But they're saying that we need to get in there ASAP if we want that help. And so that's like over a million dollars in savings. And it's going to be completely free if we do decide to do it. Sounds great. I'm eager to learn more. Yeah.

I'd be happy to connect. Army Corps? U.S. Army Corps?

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Yeah, they have like a yearly training where they do multiple types of training, right? They do like transportation. They do. They build certain things, they do housing. I mean, it's just so they can prepare for when they're actually in action, I guess. I don't know how else to say it. And so they just, that's why they use it to train their people. I'll get the name of the program to you specifically. It's blank in my mind right now.

No worries. Thanks Dan for jumping in, yeah. All right, so the next slide. we'll cover relatively briefly here to try to move things along. Um, GOING A LITTLE BIT TO COUNSELOR ALKER'S QUESTION, I THINK A FEW MINUTES AGO AROUND THE GOALS. WE'RE ACTUALLY KIND OF AT THE TAIL END OF THIS THING. THE WAY THAT THE PROJECT LIFE CYCLE WAS STRUCTURED WAS VERY HEAVY COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT AND NOW WE'RE GETTING INTO TURNING THAT ALL INTO A PLAN, WHICH WILL DO MORE ENGAGEMENT TO GET FEEDBACK ON. BUT THE PURPOSE AT THIS POINT AND REALLY THE the rails of what the project are have largely been set and a lot of the most of the budget actually been spent too. So, um, but, uh, it's builds upon a lot of previous work. So when we came into looking at, uh, the Avenue Diaz, the Calle Diaz neighborhood as a, as a standalone effort, you know, it was very important. We realized pretty quickly not to reinvent the wheel or work, um, You know, in In some ways, against the the flow around all the work that had already been done and was underway in this area. So the purpose was to build on the existing plans and the prior work that the city had done. It was to respond to the direction that we received from Council at that time. To create a community informed vision for this area with a higher degree of specificity that had been done before for a smaller geography. And to make community engagement really at the heart of it. So, I won't list all the names of the documents there. But there's nothing in this equitable development strategy, which is really. very, very new, it builds upon and complements all of the plans and policies that are already in place. So for instance, I'll do a quick example here. One of the main areas that the EDS touches on is housing and how to incentivize the production of more housing. But we didn't reinvent the wheel because the city was already concluding a very thorough housing production strategy. So rather than come in with conflicting set of tools we cooperated with that project team to say, well, let's instead look at this specific geography. As we think about the housing production strategy, how does it impact at a neighborhood level for this neighborhood? And are there any little nuances that we need to make to some of these policy decisions to be responsive to the neighborhood level feedback that we receive? So that's a little bit of sort of the general thought process again around this document where it's not reinventing the wheel. What is the Avenue Today program? I'll touch on this one relatively quickly, too. I think for some of our counselors who have served for some time, I apologize. Thank your patience. You've seen all of this before, but we wanted to make sure that we level set for everyone. Really, the program is composed of four main pieces. One is to deepen and sustain community engagement. engagement. We have had community engagement events where we did not propose any projects or policies. We just listen and talk as part of an effort to strengthen the engagement with the neighborhood. One of the second goal that was mentioned here was to strengthen coordination with partners. We'll talk about that a little bit in the next slide. But a few years ago when this effort really got underway, a lot of organizations were working in the same area. Washington County Chamber of Commerce, Centro, Washington County, TriMet, all had things going. And so that we realized that there was a need to coordinate so that we didn't all constantly engage with the same group of citizens on different projects every other week, but to be more coordinated in that. So that's a big part of this work, too, is really just our inner agency and inner organizational cooperation. We'll talk briefly about that. As we have engaged with the community, we've heard about things that we could act on quickly opportunistic projects that are relatively small in scope that the city could just do to respond to some of the community needs and we've been. doing that as time has gone along. These projects are quick, so they tend to be small in scope and relatively small impact. But still, it's with the goal of being very responsive to the feedback we get. And then the big one is the equitable development strategy, which we've talked a little bit about already. It contains, and you'll see it in the coming weeks, proposed policy adjustments, proposed projects and the proposed programs, all with an eye toward long-term shaping the development pattern of this neighborhood. Stimulating investment, yes, but also balancing it with a real set of measures toward anti-displacement, so it doesn't cause a gentrification rush. Those pressures, the gentrification pressures are already in place. But we're certainly including measures to try to be responsive to that to mitigate the negative impact. It's just not worth noting that the city spent $250,000 on this work, some of that coming from ARPA funding. But the bulk of this work was funded with the very generous support of our partners at Metro with a $400,000 planning and development grant that we were successfully awarded as finance this work. I already kind of mentioned this, and I know we're running a little bit short on time. So I'll touch on it just briefly. As part of that second main bucket of work, The goal being to strengthen our coordination with our partners. We've accomplished that in two ways. We've stood up two standing meetings. One is a monthly meeting with the group of organizations you see there on the slide, where we just share information and coordinate. This has been very, very helpful. I know it's not very glamorous to the community, but in terms of just the day-to-day functioning of how these organizations are working together, it's made a big, big difference. For example, TriMet and Metro are moving forward their bus traffic transit project for the TV highway corridor. And so now we have this opportunity, all those organizations meet once a month with representatives specifically focused on 10th Avenue. So it's a great opportunity to talk about bus stops, transit service, anything that these organizations are working on. So I won't touch on it too much because I know it doesn't move the needle for the community, but that behind the scenes coordination is drastically important. uh improve through those two meetings the other being the quarterly which is a little bit larger of a group of attendance uh and it's just a little bit more of a show and tell that we do quarterly to keep everybody generally informed I'll touch on this one too, relatively briefly, because I want to save space for the EDS at the tail end of the presentation and the pathway toward adoption, which is really probably the most. Meaningful part of what we're presenting here tonight is that, but. We did want to mention again, some of the counselors that have have been sitting on the council for some time. These are probably not new for you. But as we have heard from the community through this engagement process, we have tried where possible to be responsive in a very quick way. So there's a short list of some of the things that have been done. We've already increased street lighting in the neighborhood. Again, not the most glamorous project in the world, but we went out and replaced a bunch of luminaires so that the level of lighting is better. with an eye toward improving safety in the community as an example of rapid flashing pedestrian crossing was installed on 12th and main just as examples of how we've tried to be responsive to some of the specific feedback that we've heard all right now i'll get into the main piece of this which is the pathway toward adoption of the equitable development strategy which is forthcoming, but not available tonight. So this document contains 20 specific actions that are aimed at those goals that we mentioned at the outside of supporting investment in the area, but also with a lens towards action pressures that might be associated with development so for each of those we follow the same simple formula we took our existing plans and policies that might be in the downtown urban renewal plan the downtown framework plan started from that basis took that to the community shared that with them so here's what the city goals are we'd like to get your feedback on that in terms of how that relates to this specific area and i'll illustrate this in just a second Then we did a technical analysis with the help of our consultants to produce a tangible action, whether it be a policy adjustment or a creation of a new program or the chartering of a new project. So you'll see that in this document once it comes forward. We've got 20 right now, these tangible actions. So, for instance, as we talk about one of the main actions is putting together a plan for the redevelopment of a police department block. We did a whole series of engagements around this. And we went through all of the plans that we had and pulled out every item that would guide the development of the blocks. And what has the city already engaged the community upon and established as a goal for this block? And we found the city wants a higher density development. It wants multi-use development. It wants a range of housing incomes. It specifically has already called for a public amenity at the corner of Tenton Baseline in the form of a plaza of some kind. So we took that to the community and said, well, that's what we already know. Please share with us what you want to share with us about the redevelopment of the PD block. And what we heard was you need to think about families. All these housing developers come in and they build studios in one bedrooms, maybe a handful of two bedroom apartments. We need to think about three and four bedroom apartment. Okay, so we took that feedback in. Similar to the point about the sports court, we heard from the community, we need to think about families again in terms of amenities for kids and youths. We include some sports courts or playgrounds, but with an eye toward young people, as this area increases in density, we need to make sure make it a place for young people to have places to play. And we heard also a lot about safety and security. So we gave all of those pieces then to our architectural team and said now you have the city policies, you have some specific community feedback. give us some designs that we can look at. And those designs are included in this equitable development strategy that we'll present to you. So that's the one action within this plan, but I think it's a good example that kind of demonstrates the general thought process of how each of these actions was developed.

So the owner, property owner, where the police department is, Are we engaged in a partnership with that person, too, if we want to redevelop that area?

The neighboring property there?

No, the property where the police front is sitting. We own the building and two rows of parking spots, but somebody owns that property, and I want to know, are we engaging with that person in a partnership to develop that area?

Yes, we're engaging at this point to explore interest.

partnership. We're not to partnership yet. There's nothing been formalized, but we are talking with them. And this is where kind of this engagement came in so handy because all of what I just shared with you in terms of here's the existing city policies and goals for the area. But here's also the really block specific feedback that we got from the community. And also here's some designs that our architectural team put together with only that as their input. We didn't steer them any more than that. We just said take those policies, take that feedback, give us some designs. All of that we've shared with them as part of that negotiation. So it's very helpful to say as the city comes forward with a potential partnership where we have assets to bring to the table in the form of the property or whatever other tools that we can bring, that we have this really well-prioritized list of really vetted community goals for that block. Not that we can achieve them all with one project, but at least we can really be clear in saying, here are our neighborhood priorities. How many of them can we get in a partnership with you given what the city may be bringing to the table? So the PD block redevelopment, that potential partnership with our neighbor is I think probably for me personally, the most exciting and immediately tangible opportunity to turn that feedback into something that the community can see, you know, in a relatively short period of time. Obviously that redevelopment's not going to happen tomorrow or next year, but, you know, it is on the foreseeable horizon.

Councilor Sinclair. Thank you. Over the past five months, I've had the opportunity to engaged with multiple businesses due to a volunteer service day that took place last week. Myself and a couple of counselors were present that we did with the Leadership Hillsborough Program and the Hillsborough Downtown Partnership. And what I learned is that these small independent businesses are giving tens of thousands of dollars to make upgrades to the infrastructure of the buildings. that they're leasing. And beyond the storefront and tenant improvement programs, they are really struggling to want, they're craving additional programs that help support further invest in that because I heard outstanding input when it came to relationships with the city. outstanding, when there is engagement, they love it, but they want to see more consistency, and they want to know people by a first-name basis. They want to know, they want to have specific information of who they can contact in case of an emergency, and they want to see additional work-live opportunities. They want to see more housing infrastructure there to activate the community, as well as safe, pedestrian, multimodal places in the downtown corridor. They have very much seen a difference in security that's been extended over the past couple years. That's been observed, but it's just not consistent with the groundskeeping, the landscaping aspect, they want to see greater investment by the city in the corridor. And that's something I just want to bring your attention. A final aspect I wanted to share, the volunteerism day, the service day allowed us to want to pressure wash the area. There is not adequate access to water to pressure wash throughout the Avenida Diaz community. And there is the sidewalks are badly, badly stained. And with human VCs and whatnot, there was praise for Parks and Rec, their ongoing relationship. Parks and Rec has done an outstanding job with the local businesses. That is one thing I consistently heard praise on, but they would like to see that go deeper and that greater investment show in the landscaping. And the last thing I'm going to say, I know that myself and Councilman Kerr had talked last year pertaining specifically about Avenida Diaz. It says there's a lighting study and that there's been investment in there. Can you share more about what that specifically is? What type of lighting investment has taken place?

I certainly can.

Yeah. If I could, just because we only have about 15 minutes, what we can do, though, is provide you a council with an email with all of that so we can be much more in-depth in our response rather than take the time, if that's okay with you. Great.

There's a lot on the lighting. There's a lot. So to Robbie's point, I can definitely share what's already been done, the study that's already been done, the lighting that's already been done, and the plan in place. That actually is one of the 20 actions is to implement The phase 2 of the lighting plan, so there's a ton of information there, but yeah, we can follow up with without online offline. Yeah, so the other points that you made the general comments that you made about needing to see. More consistent and sustained engagement from the city, but when we do engage, it's favorable. I'd say that very much aligns with what we've heard as well, consistently. And we're trying to get out there as much as we can. But the specific ones you mentioned, some of those are new to my ears. So that's exactly, again, the type of excellent feedback that we'll take back and see to what degree we can incorporate in some of these actions. Like water for pressure washing, I hadn't heard that before. Your point about the small businesses, There are several actions in here, I think, which are responsive to some of those concerns. So we'll definitely be eager to get your feedback and obviously their feedback, too, on once we get a draft of those produced, if they need to be tweaked or strengthened in some way, we'll be eager to get that feedback.

The last thing I'll briefly mention is the tenant improvement and storefront improvement programs. Those are wonderful tools, but it's not enough for the age of these buildings. I'm hearing a lot of frustration about plumbing and ventilation specifically and having a hard time with permitting because of the additional costs and the size of the projects. And that's a great frustration when businesses have already invested and they feel stuck because they can't go further to complete the projects that they want to complete to further serve the community.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Thank you. Can I quickly point out we're really running short of time here. We've got like 15 minutes. so um if people can hold questions till breaks that's although counselor has a question pending if we could hold questions or summarize or just you know if there's follow-up you can just email it to counselors so we can get through the important parts to tasking priorities thank you come for so god you just all right thank you thank you for that yeah well i think we can move pretty efficiently through the remainder so i'll kick it over to edmund for the engagement somebody

Yeah, as Justin mentioned, community engagement was a cornerstone of this effort. And one of our greatest accomplishments was the relationships that we were able to build with our community through the community advisory committee that was very diverse and comprised of homeowners, renters, public transit users, people with disabilities, parents, business owners, and many other groups. This process really created a meaningful exchange of information where we, the city team, were able to come to these CAC meetings and share how city processes work. And in exchange, they were able to share with us their lived experiences and perspectives and opinions and really helped build that relationship. It was also really meaningful to see how this group of people cares for this community. And many of the CAC members are here tonight. Some of them couldn't find parking, but I would like to just recognize them and say thank you. De parte de nuestra ciudad, muchísimas gracias por habernos acompañado durante los últimos dos años en este proyecto. Agradecemos profundamente su tiempo, compromiso y dedicación en nuestra comunidad. Gracias. In addition to the CAC, we had five focus groups which focused on youth from our local high schools, young adults, business owners, commercial property owners, and developers. We also conducted a bilingual intercept survey where we received more than 150 responses. These surveys were administered in high traffic areas along Avenida 10. We also facilitated two open houses. One of them was in person, and then we moved one virtually due to the fear and awareness of the heightened ice activity in our area. So we moved that one virtually. We also held three in-person design workshops where we focused on gathering input on the Hillsborough Police Department site. And then we also held three virtual technical advisory committee meetings with city staff where their combined expertise with the community feedback, we were able to inform and shape some of the potential redevelopment options for our current people.

I think one interesting note for this program is that all of our communications with the public have been simultaneously bilingual. So any material that we've put out has been Spanish and English simultaneously, with the Spanish actually first. And all of the community advisory committee meetings were held in Spanish, but with a translation for us English-only speakers. I think I've already kind of touched on this, so I'll only spend just a few seconds on it. Again, just really kind of whetting your appetite for what is to come in terms of reading material. But you'll see once you get a draft of the document that it's organized into those five sections. So I won't read them, but that's generally how you'll see it organized into those five sections and with a total of 20 actions spread over the five. I'll kick it over at this point to Dan to take us maybe through a little bit some of the plan and policy relationships with an eye toward where we're going over the coming months, which is a pathway to adoption of this document in the fall of this year.

So three slides left in the presentation. As Justin noted earlier, this work is guided by many existing policies in the city shown on this slide. The equitable development strategy you'll see really surrounded at the bottom that really aligns with the downtown framework plan, really builds off of many of those components. And so from a council action and the next step standpoint from a policy in a process, we will be bringing the Equitable Development Strategy back before you ultimately to amend the comprehensive plan and incorporate the Equitable Development Strategy documents by reference there. So that way there's a solid policy basis that continues to give us a means also by which to, as Justin noted with the urban renewal plan, potentially tap into funding for certain programs and projects and just to continue the implementation as we move forward. It will sit similarly as you see there in the downtown urban rule plan in the downtown plan district itself. Those will be like pure components that all mutually inform each other. Go to the next slide, please. The adoption process will look like this with some pieces happening in parallel. So we will come back to you with a follow-up work session really to get into the details of that draft equitable development strategy that Jetson spoke to and that you will see version of well ahead of that work session. The planning commission would create a recommendation because this is an update to the city's comprehensive plan and land use policies. And then that recommendation to the comprehensive plan amendment to the downtown plan district would come to you for an ordinance approval and adoption as well. That's what you see in the green. In the blue, in parallel to this, we will be doing a minor amendment to the urban renewal advisory, or the urban renewal plan for downtown. So that way there are eligible projects listed as an outcome of this work that urban renewal dollars could be expended on in future implementation efforts as well. That process would look like, on top of the engagement that Edma talked about, also going to the urban renewal advisory committee because this would be a plan amendment. to that urban renewal plan as well. They would likely then make a recommendation to you as the Hillsborough Economic Development Council to amend the urban renewal plan. So those are two separate policy actions that you would take pretty much in the same meeting. And then we would move forward with the adoption and implementation of the Equal Development Strategy. As Justin noted, there will be multiple programs and projects that will come out of this work, some of which are starting to be identified, others of which we may not even know yet. We'll get into those as the work progresses. So you'll see what I shared, I won't read those just for the sake of time.

Go to the next slide, please.

And this is really the timeline, the color coding here, try to color code with that. So the black are the kind of informative steps. The green are the land use plan amendment steps that you would be taking in your roles as city council. And then the blue are these steps that you would be taking to amend the urban renewal plan in your role as the Hillsborough Economic Development Council. You can see how those will again run somewhat in parallel, but also the chronological steps that will be taken here. And with that, and you can see the months of trying to wrap that up really going through the summer and into early fall, but we're happy to take any final thoughts or questions with the time remaining.

Just one addition, August, I think it's the second meeting in August is when we are planning to come back to the council. So you'll have about two months to, you'll see a lot of information coming over the next two months. And then that second meeting in August is when we'll come back to that final adoption or final work session to talk about.

So we'd see ordinance adoption in the fall of 2026. We're looking at, depending on what the work session comes up with, September, October timeframe. Yeah, exactly. All right, thank you. Do you have any questions? Thank you for the presentation. Very informative. We look forward to seeing you shortly in August, I guess. Thank you.

Thank you.

The recording has stopped.

Welcome to the June 16th City Council meeting. Thank you for joining us this evening. For translation services, please use the QR code on the poster on the left of the room or on the front page of the agenda. To begin this meeting, I invite you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance.

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

Aubrey, may we have a roll call?

Councillor Harris?

Here.

Councillor Embry? Here. Councillor Salgado?

Here.

Councillor Alker? Here. Councillor Sinclair? Here. Councillor Case? Here. And Mayor Pace is excused.

Our first presentation is a proclamation which Councillor Ambry will read.

Okay, whereas for generations, black and African American communities have shared their stories to expose and challenge systemic racism and injustice in the pursuit of equity and freedom. And whereas Juneteenth commemorates June 19th, 1865, when more than 250,000 enslaved people in Texas finally learned of their freedom over two years after the Emancipation Proclamation and has long been honored in black communities despite its omission from mainstream history. And whereas early Juneteenth celebrations included family gatherings, food, prayer, and reflection honoring ancestors who endured the horrors of slavery. And whereas we must remember and confront the injustices of American history from slavery and segregation to racial violence, mass incarceration, and the ongoing dehumanization of black lives. And whereas Oregon and the nation continue to grapple with institutional racism and its lasting impacts on black communities across education, housing, health, and economic opportunity. And whereas the Juneteenth flag created by the National Juneteenth Celebration Foundation symbolizes a new freedom, a new people, a new star with red, white, and blue representing the American flag and the birthplace of Juneteenth Galveston, Texas, while the arc signifies hope and a new horizon for descendants of American slavery. And whereas, Juneteenth reminds us to reject revisionist history, challenge racism in all forms, and continue the fight for justice and equity. And whereas, freedom is not guaranteed, we must actively promote freedom for all to achieve equity for black Oregonians in all communities. And whereas, as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stated, No one is free until we're all free. And whereas in 2021, the United States established Juneteenth National Independence Day as a federal holiday. Now, therefore, I, Sabah Anwari, on behalf of Rob Harris, Council President of City of Hillsborough, Oregon, do hereby proclaim June 19th, 2026, as Juneteenth. And urge all community members to observe this day with celebrations, reflection, and action toward building a more just, equitable, and inclusive future for all. Thanks.

Now's the time for public comment. Persons wishing to speak will be recognized at this time. If you are here in person and wish to speak, please fill out a yellow card and hand it to the city recorder over here. When I call on you, please join us here at the table and speak into the microphone so those in Zoom can hear your comments as well. We have one person who is registered to speak virtually. The deadline to register for that has now passed. And I want to remind people, this is called public comment. It's time dedicated for you to inform the council about your views. It's not for a conversation. Sometimes it feels weird for you to say something and us just to sit here, but that is what public comment is. It's for us to listen to you. Each person will have three minutes and that timer will begin when you start speaking. Aubrey, do we have someone virtually?

Yes, I have Monica and I'll able your microphone now.

Hello, I just want to make sure I'm easily heard. Good evening. My name is Monica Shane. I have been a resident of Hillsboro for nearly 15 years and currently I am trying to sell that property. I am elevating a complaint with the city's inability to performance duties to homeowners. For nearly three weeks, I have been waiting for the city of Hillsborough to issue a permit for completed sewer work. So that way we can move forward with inspection and house closing. I have had an insanely long, wide, and deep trench on my front yard for nearly three weeks because Hillsborough refuses to issue a permit. This trench reaches out to the street. The buyers, my family, our realtors, and the sewer company have inquired a total of three times in nearly three weeks about the timing of this permit and inspection. We were not given any information until Friday last week when we were told a permit would be issued this Monday. Well, Monday has come and gone and no such permit was issued. And yet again, no communication as to when we will receive this permit. We have already delayed the closing of this house and most likely we will need to delay again because Hillsboro will not issue a permit. At this point, Hillsboro is actively acting as a barrier to the sale of my property. This is costing my family hundreds of thousands of dollars. The city is solely responsible for delays in my property's closing and for my property currently being unlivable for its future owners. It is also costing my neighbors potential sales because the unsafe eyesore on my yard deters their potential buyers. If the sale of my property fails, it will solely be because of the city of Hillsboro. Permits and inspections are a civic service for the homeowner and permit fees go towards public funding and infrastructure. Clearly, something is broken in the city's process. If it's been nearly 3 weeks in a homeowner cannot get a permit for sewers. Sewers being a needed infrastructure for functioning, modern suburbs. Frankly, it makes a person question where your priorities lie, and where the process is breaking down. One starts to question if the breakdown of civic services to residents is happening because data centers are taking up Hillsborough's infrastructure plans, and you no longer wish to invest in Hillsborough community, homeowners, small business owners, farmers, and everyone who lives here. Hillsborough counted the attention it received as being one of the best cities to live in the United States. That ranking will diminish as national news highlights how this city invests in data centers and not its residents. So many people are telling you what they want, so please listen to them. And for God's sake, get me my permit and inspection, please. Please don't be another barrier to homeowners selling their houses in this current market. Thank you.

uh thank you mr shane i'm gonna ask i'm gonna ask staff to follow up with you on that one okay thank you Now we're going to do in-person comments. If you feel you have to publicly express support for a comment or viewpoint that's being expressed, we ask you to use quiet, non-disruptive methods such as snapping your fingers or a thumbs up or jazz hands. If you clap, call out, or make any verbal outbursts, that not only interferes with people's ability to hear clearly in the room, but it also disrupts the audio for those who are attending here virtually. So I'm going to call the first two people up. One take one seat, the other is the other. When you get up there, you push the button in the middle of the console, the light turns green, and you can begin talking in your three minutes. We'll start then. The first two are Joshua Harden and Pamela Code. Mr. Hardin, you're first, so if you'd like to push the button and get started, at your leisure.

Hello, Hillsborough City Council. My name is Joshua, and I'm here to ask that City Council request Washington County to put a pause on the construction of the Century Boulevard expansion project. I believe the public was not engaged enough in the decision making process, which is a theme I'm hearing a lot today. And I believe that the environmental impacts of the expansion have not been properly investigated. Again, a theme I'm hearing a lot today. When I walked the path designated to be bulldozed, I saw an abundance of wildlife including rabbits, insects, native plants, deer tracks. We heard owls in the bushes on the sides of the trails. It's been extremely hot and the path is a refuge for wildlife as it is much cooler there in the surrounding area. As you walk towards the creek that would be heavily disrupted by the construction project, animals and plants become even more abundant. Building this road would not only fracture habitats but degrade the local ecosystem as a whole. When investigating this construction project, only the positives that I was being told was that the road would be a multimodal pathway that everyone could use. I'm here to say that people and animals are already using that path. And animals have carved that path into the dirt over years of use. Bike trails litter the area. And when I was there, the abundance of people and animals were staggering. The only mode that is not represented currently is the car. If a road is built there, I imagine we will see a dramatic increase in animal deaths due to car and traffic collisions. I do not think that this natural area should be bulldozed to accommodate the car. We have enough car-centric infrastructure already. To test the need, I drove where the road is projected to start, towards Maine. This trip took me two minutes. This is an unacceptable use of taxpayer dollars for a road that is not going to dramatically reduce the commute time. When talking with the people who lived along the project path, they either had no idea the road was being built, or they knew and felt angry and sad about the loss of the green space. My understanding is that this project has been planned for a number of years, but that the people and needs of the community here and now have not been taken into account. Again, another theme I'm hearing a lot today. If you want to make this area even more accessible, build designated pedestrian and bikeway paths. This area is already used as such. Why not make it more comfortable for them? With the millions of dollars projected to be spent on this path, a bike and pedestrian walkway would be cheaper and more helpful to the community. Again, I'm asking that the council ask Washington County to put a pause on the construction so proper environmental impacts and public engagement can be done. Thank you.

You can go ahead and take a seat. We're going to have our next speaker up. Thank you. Simone See, you can take that seat, and Pamela Code, you can begin when you're ready.

I am here again to speak against the Century Boulevard Extension Project, which after continuing research seems only more problematic. My ask tonight is for the city council to appreciate the fact that the permanent negative impacts to a neighborhood and a forest because of a road without sufficient community input is actually a serious land use and public engagement issue. The Century Boulevard Extension project is set to begin this month, and when it does, it'll be $50 million spent on a wide county road that will decimate habitat for owls and deer, degrade Rock Creek, and permanently alter the walkability of the streets for residents. One of my main reasons for opposing the road extension has been lack of public engagement with residents. Since my last public comment, I dedicated time to figuring out if I am incorrect on my complaints about poor public engagement and no. After doing more research and speaking with city council members, it turns out that my impressions were correct. Not enough steps were taken to get residents perspectives on having a new road go through their neighborhood. After realizing that my complaint still stood, I decided to petition my neighborhood and park goers. I got 36 signatures very easily. A number of people did not even know that the road would destroy forest. One man said that he did not attend the open house because it would just be the contractor saying what they're going to do, not asking what anyone thinks. And that is one of my sticking points too. The county should be notified for future reference that an open house with a contractor is not a way to engage the public. It's a way to make people feel inferior and unwelcome. Here is the problem as I understand it now. The public is not adequately informed of major alterations to their living environments. There are not sufficient regulations to safeguard the environment and pedestrians from overdevelopment in Hillsboro. This project is not a case of we must do what benefits the majority because it decreases traffic for the city or county. First, the majority may actually agree that permanently altering a neighborhood in green space to save minutes while driving is absurd. Neighborhoods need to be treated like stakeholders whose perspectives could actually supersede broader agendas. I stand with any city council member who calls for land use decision making processes to be posted publicly in a clear way for residents. The progress of every land use project should be posted and the city residents and residents need to figure into decision making at multiple points. It unsettles me thinking of habitat being destroyed without convincing justification, and it should unsettle you too. I cannot yet view this construction as acceptable. The city council must start asserting their support for and passing land use regulations that curb over development for pedestrians and habitat, and the same goes for data centers.

Thank you, the next speaker would be Paige Mendocino. Paige can take the seat over here, and Simone, see it is your turn.

Hey folks, happy to be here tonight. Council, here's why Hillsborough doesn't trust you. Let's see, Oregonian said, Hillsborough will investigate data center moratorium after residents outcry. And guess what? You didn't. Councilor Salgado on Facebook, you said, I'm grateful council voted four to two to move forward with exploring a data center utility affordability fund. That's a mouthful. Let's break down that vote, shall we? Vote number one, Case, Anvery, Salgado, Harris. Vote no on synchronous moratorium. No on legal review of 17 data center deals. The Herald said, that did not happen. Vote number two, same four, vote yes to explore bill credits. And so you can see the contracts. You can't see the contracts, but you know, you might get a coupon. Who knows? Council President Harris, you used an AI label when you posted, what did Hillsborough City Council achieve? A lot. And you posted AI construction workers laying bricks. stamped with knowledge, plan, work, insight, legal, policy. And the caption was, if you cut corners, your buildings will crumble. Well, you cut the corner called legal review. Then you used AI to build a post about not cutting corners. You outsourced work and insight to a bot because you didn't do them on the second. Counsel Salgado, sir, at the work session, you showed up 20 minutes late. And then you kept trying to push the meeting along so you can have your points made. Like, see what I did? See what I did? I made a picture, everyone. At that work session, after you showed up, let's just move on to Facebook, Counsel Salgado. I have printouts. You got one. Resident asked, what about noise and power? And you said, why is a physics teacher commenting on municipal finance? Like, what does that even mean? Yes. Press on impacts that I want to provide accurate information and then post the fun slide with a party wave emoji. Like what is that? I don't even know. Is that government? George Carlin said it's called the American dream because you have to be asleep to believe it. Hillsborough's dream back in 2006, the grand bargain, 1100 acres enterprise zone, one job for a five-year tax break, 2026. Vote down the legal review. Vote yes on bill credits. Dismiss the physicist. Post emojis. You have to be asleep to call that accountability. Councillor Andrew, darling, you're an engineer. Dan Diaz is explaining zoning, the 20-year plan, and you ask, can we lease the land use like it's a damn Honda? Come on. Mayor Pace, I talked to you, but you're not here. Gone for weeks. Promised to be at that work session you didn't show. Promised to talk about legal review. The Herald says it didn't happen. Empty chair. Voted with the four. Heroes, Sinclair, trust lost, Eclair stood with her. Two candidates for transparency, four votes for AI generated transparency. Oregon Live called you scrambled. In 2006, we drew maps to get data centers. In 2026, you urged AI drawing. You're using AI drawings to pictures.

Your time is up now. Is it?

Okay, well you got the picture. All right.

That is, Antonia, I see you in the green shirt. You're interrupting this. Your actions are causing a disruption and precluding the council from conducting its business, impacting everyone attending this meeting. If you continue to cause this disruption, I'll ask you to leave the meeting. This is your first warning. Your actions continue to cause disruption, Antonia. This is your second warning. If you disrupt the meeting one more time, I'll ask that you leave the meeting.

I want to say something. I don't think it's okay to taunt the audience. So can you please say something about our behavior up here?

Councilor Sinclair, or Alcare, excuse me. This is legally required if someone starts disrupting it. I have to say these words. These are the words that legally I'm required to do to take order of this meeting. If I don't do this, I cannot maintain order. That's my job.

And I think it would be easier. If nobody up here was taunting the audience.

I am, with all due respect, I don't know what I did to taunt the audience other than read the legal.

It wasn't you, it was not you.

It was not you. Pardon me?

It was not you.

Thank you for that. If anyone up here.

If I could get some order.

If I could get a little bit of order, I think we can get on with this. People can have their opinions. I would like to ask, just have a seat. I would like, would you please be quiet? I'm asking you quietly, with all due respect.

He was sexually harassed.

I'm just going to ask. Counselor Salgado, is there something you did that irritated these people or taunted them?

Do we have council rules around not being able to live record what's going on? This is a live stream to my council page. I want people to understand.

I want people to know what's being publicly commented. Everybody, please be quiet. I don't understand the rules. Councilor Segalo, please be quiet. You don't understand the rules? I'm asking everybody to be quiet. If everyone have some respect for each other while we could get through this. Let's treat each other, whether you're sitting up here or sitting down there, can we please treat each other with some respect and listen to each other for a change? I understand the complaint, I get it. And I just, yes, because I just directed people not to taunt them from up here, and I will deal with that later after this meeting. Everyone can maintain some order.

Excuse them. We're adjourned. Adjourned?

You guys.

We'll reconvene at 735 and we'll hope for some order at that time. I apologize for everyone having to wait through this.

No, no. You guys.

So after some discussion, I think the consensus of council is we're not going to be able to accomplish anything here. I apologize for people not being able to speak and telling us what they think. But with tensions being so high as they are, my recommendation to council would be to adjourn this meeting and just set business over to the next meeting. Without objection. Sorry, Councillor Andre, you have a comment?

I do have a comment, yes. So as a Hillsborough City Council, we have committed to behaving in certain ways. And I would like to bring up points nine and ten, Councilor Salgado, where we acknowledge and navigate power dynamics with responsibility and intent. And that we address conflict with care and professionalism. We have all committed to this, and I would encourage all of us to do that. We are in this position, in these seats, and that does come with responsibility. Thank you.

Thank you. I am not- Counselor Alker.

Yeah, I want the meeting to continue. I've never had this experience on council. And I would just say that I don't care that this is a public space. If you want to film people, you have to get their permission. That's not something that I would do. So if that's the behavior that's going to shut down this meeting, I'm not okay with that. I believe we need to get on with this meeting. And it's unfortunate that Councilor Sinclair didn't stay, because I believe that she has good input to give on this council. So that's my opinion.

Is it my turn? Yeah. So when I saw this come in front of us, I don't know if any of you have ever been stalked or harassed before. But this is what I consider, right, I'm a public figure. But the fact that somebody's combing through every little word that I'm saying, every little word, right? So, and then I hear the things that are being made up about me. And then I look at the council rules. I look at the council rules. Is anyone going to ask the people to let me speak, because it's my time, right? Or is respect only one way here?

I would like you to be extremely brief, because really what's happening now is it's exacerbating the situation. Yeah. And I would rather not do that.

Okay, I'll say the last thing. All I did was pull out my phone to record the lies that were being said about. There's no council rules that say I cannot pull out my phone and record. This is a public meeting. You all are being recorded. The fact that I pull out my phone and record it is not against the rules, that's all I say.

I'll reclaim my time. Is there a motion to adjourn?

Motion to adjourn.

Is there a second?

Salgado seconds.

We'll be here next time. Let's have a roll call.

Councillor Harris?

Aye.

Councillor Salgado?

Aye.

Councillor Case? Aye. Councillor Ambry? No. Councillor Elker? No.

The motion passes. We're adjourned.