City Council - Special Meeting

Music Music

I call to order a meeting of the Wilson City Council, the special meeting for August 5th, 2026 at 1, 101 p.m. Will the city recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Shevlin? Here. Council President Berry? Here. Councilor Cunningham? Here. Councilor Scholl? Here. Mayor O'Neill?

Here. Please stand and join us 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. City Council President Berry can have a motion to approve the following order of agenda.

I move to approve the following order of the agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motion approved. The following order of agenda has been made and seconded. All those in favor say aye. Aye. The motion passes five zero. Um, unless I'm going to, there's nothing on mayor's business tonight. I'm going to for anything I have to say to, um, to the resolution we're going to be discussing. Um, are we okay? That's why I'm asking to for all city council comments until after we get to the rest of the resolution. unless there's something unrelated. Is that okay with you? Okay. And for citizen citizens input, I would ask the city council to consider a motion limiting further testimony on roulette resolution three, two, seven, nine. If the person has already presented oral testimony, in other words, And it doesn't include people that might have sent emails in or written testimony, because I think if they want to appear and give oral testimony, that's fine. But I'd like to, given the time we have, want to give us enough time. So is that acceptable to counsel? In other words, anybody that has already given oral testimony, I would ask them that we refrain from allowing them to go again. I will want to reserve the remaining communications for people that haven't had an opportunity to communicate if it's applying to the resolution that we're going to talk about. If you have concerns, let me know. It's going to make a potentially long meeting, but ask us to consider that. And we want to defer judgment until we see how much time we have. That's fine. But I want to throw that out there in case we have some people that want to talk again.

Mr. Mayor?

Yes.

To clarify, you mean they gave oral testimony at our last meeting?

On August 3rd, on the resolution. If there's other committee input unrelated to the resolution, of course they can testify. But if it's about specifically this resolution, I want to give those people that haven't had an opportunity to say something orally.

Since the last meeting? Right.

I think that caveat there is questionable. We can't police what people want to state during their testimony, even if it's a restatement of what they already said. I think that runs afoul of the First Amendment.

Okay, so let's see. Go ahead. I'd like to propose probably what you're going to say is anyone that has not had the opportunity to give oral testimony, they would be first, and let's see how much time that takes up, and then if there's others that would like to give oral testimony, then we... That's fine.

I'm not... That's fine. Let's wait and see. I just don't want to limit everybody, and we need to have conversations too, right? So, okay.

Just to clarify, you're just trying not to have Redundant statements from our last meeting to this meeting on this resolution.

Yes, that's correct. But anyway, we can hold off. I'm going straight to citizens input and community announcements. We will now move to community input and announcements. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the city council on matters concerning city business. or other matters within the council's authority, including items not on tonight's agenda or agenda items that are not scheduled for a public hearing. Please limit your comments to three minutes. When speaking, please address the council as a whole. You may use the podium or the table in front of council, whichever is most comfortable, but please speak into the microphone. If you wish to speak in person or virtually, please complete a speaker card or use the raise hand feature in Zoom. When you begin, please state your name for the record and your address or indicate that your address is listed on your speaker card. Community input is a time for the council to listen and receive feedback from the public. To ensure every speaker is treated equally, council members generally do not respond to individual comments during this portion of the meeting. If follow-up is appropriate, staff or council members can connect with you after the meeting, and councillors may also choose to address topics later during councillor comments or, in this case, this resolution, if that's what we're talking about. Finally, we welcome differing opinions and recognize that people may feel strongly about the issues before us. I simply ask that comments focus on the issues and decisions before the council rather than on personal attacks. We can disagree passionately without treating one another with dignity and respect. That standard applies to everyone in the room.

With that, I'll call John Ludlow.

Thank you.

Hello, Council. My name is John Ludlow, former mayor and 50-year resident. Well, you've got ready to send something to the public, and it doesn't tell the maximum indebtedness. It doesn't tell about the density that you're proposing. But you hired somebody special to come up with a special wording that would not fulfill those needs to know And that's really at least sad, you guys. And now you're treating this like you're promoting urban renewal and the vote. Even though you're charged with informing, it looks a lot like you're campaigning, which is against the law, but you guys have pushed the envelope a lot and now you're gonna do it a little bit more. It just feels like the public, is not at the table. Even though they've testified, you said you appreciate both sides, there's been a side here testifying a lot, and it's little help to get any conversation going with the council. So again, the public is not at the table, and you know what they say, if you're not at the table, you're probably on the menu. Thank you.

Thank you. Tim Knapp.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. I'm Tim Knapp. My address is on my speaker card. I'm a 40-year resident of Wilsonville. The Wilsonville Town Center Task Force was created to gather input and to develop a consensus vision. Consensus doesn't mean everybody gets what they want. It means there is an overall agreement. They engaged citizens, both interested and concerned, They engaged businesses and retail interests, professional business and development specialists. They gathered lots of information. They spent over two years. They worked diligently to discuss every aspect and idea that came up for a town center plan. They took thousands, literally thousands of inputs from citizens through workshops, meetings, community events, focus groups, surveys, polls. It was the most robust community project ever done in that nature. We now have a plan. Let's not nitpick it into something that is unrecognizable. Some backers of the May Charter Amendment portrayed that amendment as just let the people vote. To me, it seems a bit disingenuous now to oppose sending this to the public to vote. There are more than 6,000 active voters in Wilsonville. More than that exist, but active-wise, we've seen that repeatedly. I think it's time we let those 6,000 people have their say. Thank you. Thank you. Wade Keenan.

Thank you. My name is Wade Keenan. My address is on the speaker file. I actually did speak a little bit on Monday night, so I hope I'm not jumping the gun here. Be brief, if you could. I will. On Monday, I heard a lot of complaints about an apparent lack of transparency and bias in connection with this proposed ballot title and the summary and whatnot. After that meeting, I went back last night and this morning and read through the entirety of today's agenda materials, the ballot title, the plan, everything else. For the life of me, I can't figure out what those complaints are about. The ballot title... It is as concise and direct as it as it can be they just simply ask Should the city adopt this plan through an urban renewal district the summary does what the summary should do? The explanatory statement provides details about the plan both of those things direct voters exactly to websites where they can find all the information they need Rather than seeing a lack of transparency and bias. I want to commend the city attorney on and anybody involved in preparing those materials, because I think they did an excellent job. We also heard complaints about the plan itself, lack of housing, traffic problems, all that. Those are legitimate, and I'm sure people have those concerns, and those are possible reasons for people to vote against this plan. But those are not and cannot be reasons not to have a vote or to delay it or to avoid it somehow. I urge the city council as a whole to just adopt this resolution. And I hope it's unanimous, because I don't see a legitimate reason to put this off for another two years till the next election.

Thank you. Klaus Gibson.

My name is Klaus Gibson, my address is on the speaker file. Thank you Mayor O'Neill and Councils for this special forum here today and all of you Councilors here who have spent hours and hours and so much work on this issue of the Town Center.

I think the residents of Wilsonville are very grateful.

I'm a 30-year resident of Wilsonville. Coming to council meetings and following Facebook, I've heard accusations of innuendo, libel, and slander spouted by some speakers and posts regarding the future of our town center that has been so rancorous, creating an aura of chaos and doom and gloom. From my understanding, we are the crossroads here. and we citizens of Wilsonville have a definitive choice to make. One choice is a town center with one or two mega retail stores and strip malls interspersed with large parking areas which typifies most large U.S. suburbs. I've been around for a while. I've seen major retail chains like Woolworth and Kmart, Montgomery Ward and Sears and Roebuck hit the dust. Here in Wilsonville, we've had similar experiences with Incredible Universe and Fry's. They leave behind them blighted and commercially decaying areas. They did not go out of business because of government bureaucracy or restrictive government regulations. They went out of business because their business model became antiquated to the new times. The other choice is a model that has successfully existed in Europe for the past hundred plus years. It consists of town centers that have multi-use buildings with the ground floor occupied by restaurants and specialty stores. Above, which are three to four stories of residential condos or apartments with surrounding green spaces. This model utilizing urban renewal financing has been successful in enabling small U.S. communities to revitalize. This Wilsonville Town Center plan exemplifies this model. In the last primary election, there was a powerful slogan demanding that the citizens of Wilsonville should have the right to vote. So let's finally get the show on the road. Let the citizens of Wilsonville vote this November. Thank you.

Amanda Harmon.

Good afternoon. My name is Amanda Harmon. My address is on the speaker card. I want to clarify that I'm speaking on behalf of myself and my family, not related to my position on the Parks and Rec Board or my employment by the state of Oregon. I'm speaking to express my strong encouragement of Resolution 3279 to put the Town Center Development District On this year's ballot, I've been a Wilsonville homeowner and resident since 2014, and I've been participating in these online surveys and in-person idea gathering projects at various community events, as long as I can remember attending community events here in Wilsonville. Each time I leave thrilled by the creativity and inclusivity of the project's vision, and I'm eager to see it come together so my family can start using that. However, we haven't seen any of those plans really come to life for myself and my kids to experience for ourselves. Instead, we see a vacant lot where a vibrant community should be gathering and thriving. I understand that a lot of the delay has been in refining the plan to make sure it's the best it can be for our city's future. And I also understand that voters recently declared a desire to be consulted and included in these funding decisions. I've been participating for years and I want to see some action now to wait an additional two years for something that we've been eagerly anticipating for so long already would be to deprive voters of the opportunity that they just demanded in the last election. And it would also deprive our current residents and families of the rich community experience we've been long anticipating. So please put the Town Center Development District on this year's ballot. Thank you.

Christine Mayer.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Council. My name is Chris Mayer. My address is on the file card. I support Resolution 3279 and putting the Town Center Development District before voters this November. The urban renewal charter amendment that passed in May created a process. It requires voter approval. It requires specific disclosures. It dictates when and how those disclosures must be distributed. The city has followed that process, met those requirements, and provided more than the minimum standard demands. Voters will have a ballot title that identifies an urban renewal district. They'll have an explanatory statement, the ordinance, the full plan, the financial report, public meetings, mailers, a project website, and several ways to ask questions and provide comments. The financing is disclosed. The maximum indebtedness is disclosed. The 28 year duration is disclosed. The development assumptions are disclosed. Nothing is being hidden. The city has listened. The residential assumptions were reduced by nearly half. The borrowing capacity was reduced. The pedestrian and bicycle bridge was removed. The ballot question was revised to expressly say, quote, an urban renewal district.

There have been concessions.

Yet some who wrote or advocated for the new charter requirements are now objecting to the very process they created or endorsed. They mandated the disclosure language. They prescribed the distribution method. That's the mailers. They demanded a public vote. The city is complying with all of it. They're entitled to oppose the plan, but it's difficult to accept continued objections to rules they wrote, promoted, and asked voters to adopt simply because following those rules has not produced the outcome they'd hoped for. The ballot summary correctly focuses on what tax increment financing would fund, public infrastructure, streets, utilities, parking, gathering spaces, economic development programs, and traffic mitigation. It doesn't say the district will build 2,381 homes because they won't. Those would be privately funded, just like the projected retail and commercial spaces. Those assumptions will go out in the mailers Wilsonville just voted for, but they aren't construction projects. The proposal has been studied, revised, reduced, and openly debated. Every legal requirement has been met. The public has the information. The required safeguards are in place. This decision now belongs with Wilsonville voters. Compromise cannot mean that all must concede while a small group keeps inventing new conditions. The cold posts have moved enough. Please pass resolution 3279. Put the town center development district on the November ballot and let the voters decide. Thank you.

Jason Jones.

Good afternoon, counselors. My name is Jason Jones, and my address is on the speaker card. I'm here today not so much to talk about the wording for the ballot. I think that it's fine the way that it is. I don't think that there's anything that needs to be tweaked about it. I do think that it's reasonable for people to not accept their city as the sole source of information. I think it's great to dig into various websites to look at how urban renewal has been used in different parts of Oregon. and then decide for yourself if it's for you. So I would encourage anyone to do that. But I do like the city website. I think whoever's been working on it has done a great job in recent months. As far as the traffic goes, I live just a few blocks north of the post office. I work in Salem. And my commute is about 30 minutes, typically, down to Salem. But my commute from the post office to I-5 is always five minutes. during rush hour. I sometimes go on the east side of Town Center Loop, sometimes it's on the west side of Town Center Loop, but it's always five minutes. And I just don't think that adding another apartment building is going to change my commute that much. I drive past Sundial and it's not really, there's tons, I don't know the numbers of people who live at Sundial, but there's a lot of people If it were something like a Home Depot, I could imagine that people would be coming in and out and in and out, and that could cause traffic problems. But I just honestly don't buy that some apartment buildings are going to cause huge traffic problems. And as far as the parking, I've lived in cities up and down the West Coast. I have never lived in a city that has as much parking space per capita as Wilsonville, Oregon. It's hard for me to believe that parking is going to be an issue any time in the near future. If it does become a problem, I think we could follow suit with Beaverton or Lake Oswego and we could build a parking garage. But I think parking also is a non-issue. Housing, I think, is interesting to talk about. I've read about different housing projects in Clackamas County. that I think could appeal to some people in Wilsonville. A lot of times from both the left and the right, people will say, we don't want more renters. Well, everybody's a renter at some point. I was a renter and I think most people here were renters at some point. But I do think that there's a value in looking at ways to build equity in the city where you live Milwaukee has done it already with the Milwaukee short stack, their cottage clusters. Gresham has done it already with Oak Row and Gresham. And I think that Wilsonville should be able to do something along those lines too. I think that most people would agree that building equity is part of the American dream for many people. And I'd like to see the city of Wilsonville find a way forward to make that happen as well. Thank you.

Thank you. Brad Williams.

Hi, I didn't speak last time, but I won't say the same things that I did last time. So I just wanted to follow up with what I did say about the bias. So what I did is I looked at it and I'm like, okay, this seems a little biased to me. So I took the text, didn't alter it in any way. I dropped it into copilot and I said, can you point out any bias in this document? Here's what copilot said. The ballot title and explanatory statement appear to present the proposal in a favorable light. emphasize benefits more than risks, or omit information that critics might consider important to voters. As far as the executive summary, this is what co-pilot said. The ballot measures are written in a generally professional and factual style. However, they contain several examples of framing, selective emphasis, and omission that could reasonably be viewed as favoring approval of the measure. The overall narrative emphasizes benefits, redevelopment opportunities, and the absence of new taxes, while giving comparatively little attention to potential costs, trade-offs, uncertainties, and criticisms of urban renewal financing. So, and this is what it concluded. The strongest potential biases in resolution 3279's ballot title and explanatory statement are the following. One, positive framing of benefits. Two, repeated, Reassurance that TIF is not a new tax without equal discussion of revenue diversion effects. Limited discussion of financial risks and debt obligations. Heavy emphasis on redevelopment projections and desirable amenities. Omission of common criticisms of urban renewal financing. Use of aspirational language that may encourage support. Presentation of future economic benefits with relatively little attention to downside scenarios. This is also what Copilot said. A critic could reasonably argue that the material functions partly as explanatory information and partly as a persuasive case for approving Ordinance 905 rather than presenting the proposal and its potential consequences in a fully balanced manner. Okay, so then I went back. Got a little, 40 seconds here, okay. Can you write, I asked AI, can you write a new document for resolution 3279 for proposed ordinance 905 that removes any potential bias? Of course it did, which I sent to you, and hopefully you got that. Here's what co-pilot said, it summarized what it did. I've created a neutralized draft document that aims to present the measure without emphasizing approval or rejection and includes both potential benefits and common concerns. Key changes include removed aspirational and promotional language, reduced emphasis on projected benefits and growth forecast, added discussion of potential concerns and trade-offs, explained TIF in a more balanced manner, avoided characterizations that assume redevelopment outcomes will occur, and presented both supporter and opponent perspectives. Thank you for your time.

Thank you. Andrew Engel.

Good afternoon, Mayor and Councillors. Thank you for your time, especially those of you sacrificing time off work to be here. It's a lot. My name is Andrew Engel. My address is on file. I also spoke last Monday night, but I'll try and summarize this as quickly as I can with some new information that I've also provided to you via email. In 2015, Wilsonville approved Coffee Creek Urban Renewal. I've sent you all the voters pamphlet for that. I hope the attachment came through. It thoroughly discusses how urban renewal works and the benefit to the city, including 1,800 new jobs and $730 million in new tax base. The debt level doesn't appear until paragraph three of the explanatory statement. During the election cycle for that, in the voter pamphlet, there were no other statements filed, either in support or opposition. It's hard to get more neutral of a situation than that. If somebody had a problem with it, they would have said so. If somebody felt like it left out positive information, they would have said so. Coffee Creek is a baseline for the ballot information for you today. You must reject pressure to skew that information. Now it's nice to see that our population is sacrificing their reading comprehension to AI, but if you ask AI to point out bias, it's going to do that for you in a non-neutral way. AI takes the question you ask it and comes up with an answer that supports the question you're asking it. It's not going to challenge you back. That's a fundamentally flawed use of AI. So I do want to point out that there is existing baseline on ballot measures for what constitutes a neutral statement. And I do want to move on a little bit and talk about taxes briefly quoting from proposed ordinance 905 quote Absent the completion of urban renewal projects the area will could fail to contribute its fair share of property tax revenues to support city services unquote If we choke off urban renewal if we don't say what urban rule is going to do well for us Then all the Wilsonville will pay for fixing town center via general fund operating funds or bonds drawing resources away from the miles of pipe and pavement to that sprawling single-family neighborhoods demand. If we got housing from town center funding assumptions, then the future economic value of town center is severely diminished, leaving massive funding gaps. A mixed-use core in town center can provide a self-sustaining tax base. A purely commercial core can't. The homework has been done, and the plan has merit. If we don't fight for our future now, we deserve the atrophy coming at us. For decades, Wilsonville has been a city that punches above its weight. Now is not the time to towel off, hang up the gloves, go home, and rot in the armchair, staring at a dusty trophy case and dreaming of glory days. We are still a young and growing city. We are still building our muscles day by day, hitting harder, moving faster, outperforming heavyweights, dominating the ring. Nobody said quit. I didn't hear no bell. Approve resolution 3279. Thank you.

Thank you. Valerie Boucher.

As per the mayor's opening comments, I withdraw my... We have time if you'd like to give them.

I prefer not. Thank you.

Okay. You're welcome. Bill Bagnall.

Hello, my name is Bill Bagnall and my information is on my speaker card. Somewhere in heaven, old Wilsonville farmers probably used to curse about their farmlands built over by Daydream Ranch, Landover, Frog Pond, Meadows, Villebois, Maury's Landing, Maryhill, and all the other neighborhoods in town developed over the decades. Now they probably laugh at the very same homeowners in these neighborhoods who try to lock the gate behind them. Thanks to the old farmers who sold their land to become new neighborhoods, we have plenty of sprawling homes available. The thing Wilsonville doesn't have but needs and wants is a thriving and walkable downtown. Times change and needs evolve. One compact area of manageable density is just fine. And even the old farmers would agree. It's time to vote. I would like to add one other item to my comments. Trust in public institutions is a cornerstone of democracy. Our representative form of government relies on this. When antagonistic people make frivolous claims about councilors being on the take or city staff working against the community, it's disgusting, demoralizing, and only intends to destroy public trust. I want our city council and our city staff to know that the vast majority of Wilsonville residents have trust in you and appreciate your dedication to serving Wilsonville. Thank you.

That's all I have. Oh, you do. Okay.

Have George, George Dunn online.

Okay. Mr. Dunn, go ahead. No, he's not there.

He's showing online, but he's not accepting.

Can you hear me? Has that worked?

Yes, go ahead.

Yes, there we go. Sorry. New to the whole Zoom thing here. Missed the invite. Anyways, thank you for having me. My name is George Dunn. Address is on file. I just want to take the opportunity to encourage you guys to send a town center plan to a vote. The plan is nearly a decade old. When it was first drafted, I was 19. Since then, I've graduated college, moved three times in and out of Wilsonville, built a 10-year career, gotten married, bought a home here in Wilsonville, and welcomed a child into the world. In that same span of time, the town center plan has barely inched forward. At the rate this thing is going, I'll be gray and testifying from my deathbed before it's finished. This plan is part of why my family and I chose to make Wilsonville our home. I like to see this thing done in my lifetime. I like to see my government executing on its promises and our community deserves clarity. Either people want this or they don't. So let them vote. A decade is long enough to wait. The back and forth at this point is just divisive and counterproductive. We need a decision, so let's send it to the residents who actually will live with the outcome. Please send the town center plan to the ballot. Let the people of Wilsonville decide our future. And before I go, I just want to say we shouldn't be relying on AI tools or automated summaries to make decisions for our community. They're inherently biased by the data they train on. The judgment that matters is ours, the people who live here. Anyways, thank you. Thank you.

Okay. We'll go to continuing business, and this is a continuation of considering resolution number 3279 from the August 3rd, 2026 council meeting. I'm going to turn it over to the city manager to get from here.

Thank you, Mayor and Council. Tonight in front of you is a resolution 3279. You have received a lot of information about this at work sessions and council meetings. There's a lot of information in your packet tonight that provides you with some background on this. And staff is here to provide you with a, we've got a few slides for you this evening, and then it's open for the City Council to have a dialogue after that I WILL LET MATT KIND OF LEAD INTO THE FIRST SLIDE HERE. IF YOU WANT TO CLICK THAT FIRST SLIDE. SO THE QUESTION BEFORE YOU TONIGHT IS, DOES THE CITY COUNCIL WISH TO ADOPT RESOLUTION NUMBER 3279, WHICH WOULD REFER THIS TO THE VOTERS FOR THE NOVEMBER 2026 BALLOT. SO WITH THAT, I'M GOING TO TURN IT OVER TO MATT AND AMANDA.

Thank you. Mayor and council, my name is Matt Lorenzen. I'm the city's economic development manager. I'm going to give you the same spiel I did the other night. You've seen this slide before. I just want to, for the public that may be watching either in person or online, briefly summarize this packet of documents just to sort of set the stage for the discussion that will continue here or that we expect to continue. So the resolution itself is really just what is going to initiate the voter referral process. It does provide a legislative history and rehearse a lot of things in the recitals about where we've been and how we get here. But the effect of the adoption of resolution number 3279 is to refer this question to voters. The voters will be considering proposed ordinance number 905, which is an exhibit to the resolution. they'll also be uh... looking at and making their decision based on the ballot title which has uh... three components which the city attorney will discuss in a moment as well as an explanatory statement which will appear in the voters pamphlet so those are the exhibits to resolution number three two seven nine going one layer deeper the proposed ordinance would um... allow the council to CONSIDER THE ADOPTION OF THE TOWN CENTER DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT PLAN AND THE TECHNICAL REPORT, THE ACCOMPANYING REPORT THAT SUPPORTS EVERYTHING INCLUDED IN THE PLAN ITSELF. So a couple of layers there. It's a lot of pages, but it's a full packet that voters will be considering here in November if the council so directs. So with that, I'll pass it to city attorney to review the ballot titles components.

Thank you, Matt, Mayor and Council, Amanda Geil-Hinman, City Attorney. So the next graphic that is before you describes the ballot title. The ballot title can be somewhat confusing to understand because it actually consists of three different components. So there's three parts to the ballot title. There's the caption, question, and summary. So the caption is limited to 10 words. It has to identify the subject of the measure. The question is limited to 20 words and it has to state the chief purpose of the measure. Basically where an affirmative yes to the question would mean also equal an affirmative vote, yes. And then the summary is limited to 175 words. It explains the measure and its major effects if approved. The ballot title in these three components are different from the explanatory statement.

So that's where it can get a little bit confusing.

under oregon law it's up to the county clerk the elections officer to decide whether all or a portion of the ballot title is included on the ballot at a minimum the caption in question have to be included in the ballot but the entire ballot title can be included it's up to the county to decide whether or not to do that typically it's done basically based on how much space there is on the ballot to include the summary or not. So I know there was a question that was raised about what appears on the ballot. At a minimum, the caption and question appear on the ballot. The summary may also be included, but that's not up for the city to decide. That's up for the county to decide.

Next slide.

And then I just want to briefly go over the charter amendment requirements. As the council's well aware, this is our first effort doing an urban renewal vote under our new charter amendment where previously it was an advisory vote of a conceptual idea of a potential new urban renewal district where now we have specific guidelines of what has to be included. So under the new charter amendment, we are required to provide a proposed ordinance for electors to vote on. That's why ordinance number 905 was created and all the attachments including the full draft plan and report were created for the voters to vote on. That is required under the charter amendment. The charter amendment also requires certain financial disclosures to be provided. It includes the duration, the maximum indebtedness, the estimated interest payable, assumed housing units, assumed commercial square footage, and assumed industrial square footage on which the financial analysis for the plan is based. That financial disclosure, how it's described, is in the introductory paragraph before the disclosures that are required, states that it must be posted on the city's website for a period of time ahead of the election and also mailed to city electors. So that's the default. That is the instruction that is given before the financial disclosures. After the financial disclosures, the quoted language that we have to include, at the very end there is a sentence afterwards that says that in lieu of doing the mailing to voters, it can be included at the beginning of the explanatory statement. Those are the options that are available. I will note that in the explanatory statement, with the exception of the estimated interest payable, every single one of those financial disclosure figures is included in the explanatory statement and it is bolded. So from city staff perspective, we do anticipate an absent direction from city council that a mailer will be included, which means that this will be posted on the city's website, it will be mailed to city electors, and the financial disclosures are bolded in the explanatory statement as drafted as well. With the exception of the interest, estimated interest payable. So an item for discussion, if council wants that included in the explanatory statement, we do have a little bit of room on our word count, which is 500 words for the explanatory statement. We can easily include the interest payable if that's something that council wants to see. And I think that's the last slide. So Matt and I are here to answer any additional questions that council may have. Otherwise, we'll leave it up to council to debate the resolution.

Any questions or comments? Councillor Cunningham.

A couple of questions. First, can you describe what would happen if there was a challenge to our ballot title?

Yeah, so this is prescribed by Oregon law that any once, if assuming that council votes to move forward with resolution number 3279, the city recorder puts out a notice for anyone who is interested in challenging the ballot. They have seven business days to do so. They file a complaint, a petition with the circuit court. So that would be in Clackamas County Circuit Court. And then the circuit court is required under Oregon law to have to essentially have process through that filing before the deadline to submit the ballot title to the county. So generally what happens is a hearing is held prior to the deadline, so the court can issue its decision on what the ballot title will be, and that would be required to be done by September 3rd, I believe, to meet the deadline for the filing with the county. And the circuit court is the one who ultimately decides what goes what is the ballot title doesn't prevent anything from going on the ballot It will this measure will go on the ballot if the county if the council refers it But the circuit court is the first and last stop for deciding what ultimately goes on the ballot. So the circuit court can Revise it accept it as is as it sees fit And then my second question

What are the city's options if there is a no vote in November if this is referred?

Um, uh, well on urban renewal, it's required if, if council has a desire to move forward with urban renewal, it has to be in compliance with the charter amendment, which means that, um, the council could not do anything on urban renewal until 2028. Um, there need to be another vote in 2028 on it. Um, but as far as the, if you're talking about the town center plan, the towns, it doesn't affect the town center plan. The town center plan is still an adopted document, um, absent, uh, direction from council to change. the town center plan, it is still in effect and still our regulatory guideline.

So if the answer was no in November and council did direct to re-examine the town center plan, it would be possible to reopen that plan and make modifications in line with community expectations?

Um, that's probably a hypothetical question that I'm not prepared to fully answer, but the council can absolutely direct for, um, you know, an update to the town center plan, what that entails, the scope of it and what it might mean for looking at other documents and ensuring continued compliance with, um, state mandates. That would be a question depending on the scope of what council is, is seeking to look at. But yes, the council could direct staff to update the town center plan.

I think regardless of what happens in November, I hope that, you know, either way we listen to our voters on that.

Any other comments? Oh, sorry, Councillor Shevin.

Thank you and thank you for the information today and thank you everyone who has testified both today and at our previous council meeting and also sent in your written testimony. We've received lots of information which I really appreciate. I support resolution number 3279 as presented today. I believe that we have made the change to add urban renewal to the title and that's vitally important. so that we're not hiding that issue, dodging that issue. We have it front and center. I found it of particular interest to know that in 2015 on the Coffee Creek Urban Renewal vote and voters pamphlet that the remaining information about and the urban renewal expenses, et cetera, was in the supportive documents, explanatory statement, and I believe that's what we were planning on doing. So I believe that having the information available according to what was passed in May and having it in the explanatory statement is the appropriate place to put it. Thank you.

Thank you. Councillor Schell. No, Yari.

Yeah, I appreciate it. Question and a comment. Follow up to Councilor Cunningham's question regarding if this was not to pass and if the TCP would continue and we could make changes to that plan at that time, how many other plans does that affect if we had to make those changes?

It all depends on the scope of what types of changes you're talking about. Depending on the scope, we would be looking. At a minimum, we would need to at least confirm whether or not probably the following documents, especially if we're talking about housing, our housing needs and capacity analysis and our housing production strategies that were adopted in 2025 would need to be. at least examined, potentially updated as well. Our transportation system plan, our sewer master plan, our water master plan. Again, if housing is touched, potentially Frog Pond East and South master plan and our comprehensive plan off the top of my head. I don't know. There might be others. It depends on the scope.

Okay.

So with that said, I support moving this resolution 279 forward. I think that with all the, and I want to thank everybody for their input. I've reviewed everything, went back and watched the videos, read all the submittals, all 70 some of them, and for the most part, and then also have spoken with residents about the city and also business owners about the city over the last couple weeks. I think that we're at a point now where we've had these discussions for 10 years, the plan's been in place, and I understand the documents that we need to approve to move the urban renewal forward. I think we're at a point right now where it's kind of what I would call the analysis paralysis state and I really feel strongly about the fact that we need to take what we have in terms of the ballot measure and move that forward to vote in November. And let's let the community make a decision and let's get the town center plan moving forward. And there's an opportunity cost here, and we really, I think, on the flip side, I think we have a great opportunity to develop a really nice town center. So I would say that we move the 3279 forward. Thank you.

Councilor Cunningham.

To clarify, on the question, is it required that we include the verbiage of ordinance, quote, ordinance number 905 on there? Is that a requirement of having that in the question?

There's, so I would say there's no requirement on outside of the general requirements that it described the chief purpose of what the measure is. There's no, you know, magic language that is required in your question. That being said, the charter amendment does say that the voters are voting on a proposed ordinance that that is what we need to put. The city is required to put forward as a proposed ordinance.

Yeah, I guess, um, You know, looking at that, to me, I mean, if we go back to May of 2024, when that vote failed, there was a lot of discussion that occurred. And people said, you know, since then I've heard, I thought we already voted no on the town center plan. And people are very quick to correct those people and say, no, we weren't voting on the town center plan. We were voting on funding the town center plan. So to me, the entire central piece of this entire ballot title is captioned in question surrounds funding. That seems to be the chief purpose of what we're putting to the voters. And if you look at the caption, I don't see any words in the caption as it's written that speak to funding. If you look at the question It took me two meetings of arguing we should include the words urban renewal, asking are we afraid of the words urban renewal, to finally get those words put in. It's a footnote at the end of the sentence, and there's two words in there out of 20 that actually speak to the funding. I think that's where we're missing the mark here on this ballot title. I'll talk about that more when we get into our Discussion about it, but if we're talking about the chief purpose of the measure the chief purpose is funding We know that we've seen that we've seen it when people have Made a claim about measure 3605 of May and the failed vote of May of 2024 And I think that's that to me is where people are having the biggest heartburn it seems like It seems like there's also this idea of that I've heard repeated many times in these last couple of meetings that there's a group that doesn't want a vote on this. I haven't heard that up here. I don't know if anybody else on the die is listening, trying to hear what our community is telling us. I have not heard anybody on, we'll call it the right side of the room since this is a pretty divided room these last couple of meetings. I haven't heard anybody say, don't let our citizens vote on this. I've heard can we please modify this ballot title so that it's fair and it's not biased so that it actually addresses that chief purpose of the measure. So to me, the question, it doesn't require some of the languages in there that doesn't speak to the chief purpose. It, it could easily be modified in order to speak directly to that funding. Just like our ballot titles about urban renewal have done. in May of 2024 for Town Center, just like in 2015 for Coffee Creek, and just like 2003 for the West Side Project. They all spoke directly to the funding that it was urban renewal, and it was there to fund infrastructure. So I think that's where the heartburn lies. I think that's where a common sense, middle of the road solution that actually listens to what I've heard is a very divided room and very divided comments on this could occur and this council could show that we are listening to both sides of the room and we are looking for that common sense solution that serves both sides. The left side gets the vote that they want, great, perfect. I want that too, believe it or not. And the right side feels like we are not hiding the lead and we're not trying to sell something with their tax money to the community.

City Council President Berry.

Thank you, thank you again to everybody for taking your time to participate in city government and in this important topic. I also support the moving forward with the resolution 3279. We've had, historically we just have had a very, very robust outreach and citizen input, business input. There's been so much input and so many meetings that people have already pointed out today. I'm really excited that if we are able to move forward with the urban renewal, that it's going to address traffic concerns. We hear a lot about people complaining about traffic. Our city engineer has been on record since as early, I'm sure it's been before, but there's documents with his comments saying that it's mandatory that we improve our traffic so that we can move ahead and attract builders and then create the spaces that the citizens want for families and residents and business people that are coming to our city have place to congregate and enjoy one another. I'm concerned that if we don't move forward with this, we're going to have significant delays. And we've seen just in the past few years how delaying construction costs with labor and materials have gone up significantly. In the past few years, just in one or two years time period, those costs have gone up 53%. And I just, I don't want to take that risk. with our city that we're going to have extra costs. It's already expensive. But I'm very excited to see a nice town center that will be the heart of our city where people can come and enjoy and support local businesses and enjoy their neighbors and their families. So thank you.

Thank you. Anybody else at this point? Okay. Seeing none, I guess... Any further presentation by staff at all?

No, Mayor.

Okay. With that, any further comments at this point? Do you have a comment? What I would like to do, if I can, is reserve my comments to after a pending motion during discussion, if that's okay with the council. Okay. Okay. So you wanna have a further conversation right now? Okay, fair enough. Then maybe I will reconsider. But go ahead, Councillor Cunningham, excuse me.

I just think that delivering these comments at this point in time gives us the opportunity to, should my words be persuasive enough, look at some other options with staff still in the conversation. I will give the statement that I've prepared now and see where it goes. Go ahead. So I'd like to begin my remarks on this matter today by stating something clearly. I want to refer this to our electors. Our city deserves to have an answer to this question. Although this question was asked just two and a half years ago and the voters rejected it, we are asking once more. I'm hoping that the results of this election will create decisive and meaningful action regardless of whether the answer is yes or no. As I said, I want to refer this to the voters. My desire to allow our citizens to have a voice has been well documented over the past two years. I gathered over 100 signatures in the effort to support the state gas tax referendum. I stood in the cold and the rain to help ensure that our citizens had a chance to have their voices heard at the state level. 83% of voters in that election, over 1 million Oregonians agreed. I believe in the power of the ballot. I also vigorously supported measure 3-632, which guarantees our citizens right to vote on urban renewal in a binding election because projects requiring $150 million in public debt are certain to change the character and qualities of a community. I did so because I believe changes like that should always be brought to our taxpayers, the people who have built this community, so that they can have the final say. But I'm struggling with saying I today. And that's because I do not believe we are being as clear and transparent in the ballot title as we can be. It's one thing to refer a question to the voters with commonly used plain language that clearly clearly describes the outcome. It's quite another to put new verbiage on the ballot developed through poll tested phrases. Do you have that first image? So it's been suggested that we use the words town center development district because that is how our citizens would best understand what we're doing. As I mentioned, this comes from the polling that was conducted last month. In that poll, respondents were given six options and asked to pick which two best described districts that could fund improvements in and around the Wilsonville Town Center. The six options were the Town Center Development District, Urban Renewal District, Wilsonville Economic Improvement District, Wilsonville Community Investment District, Wilsonville Gateway District, and Community Investment Area. Interestingly, and only shown in the raw data, quote, I don't know or refuse to answer actually had the most responses to this question. But here's what stood out to me about these options. The top performer based on this poll included the words town center. That creates specificity which would lend itself to be a good descriptor which participants would naturally gravitate towards. It's kind of a foregone conclusion when you put the most descriptive specific words in that option. Why wasn't Town Center Urban Renewal District pulled? To be clear, I'm not suggesting that there's some sort of nefarious conspiracy going on here, but the option, including the words urban renewal, could have and probably should have also included the words Town Center for a fair comparison of recognizable terms. Of course, we all know that word choice matters. Plain and common but specific language should be used to ask a precise question about a well-defined outcome. Even to me, as someone who has been deeply involved in these conversations for the last two years, a quote, town center development district is nebulous. Is that the urban renewal agency? Is that the town center plan? Is that an amalgamation of many things? I would need to refer to the supplemental documents to give you a decisive answers to those questions. Given the newness of this phrase that just appeared since July 20th. One important supplemental document is ORS chapter 457. It refers to urban renewal agencies and plans, but it makes no mention of development districts. Our own city documents refer to urban renewal on a consistent basis. You can search the city's website for a phrase through Google, not AI. This is just a straight Google search. So don't get him. Nobody get mad at me on this one. When you search for urban renewal, there are about 260 results on our city's website. When you search for urban renewal plan, there are about 160 results. When you search for Town Center Development District, there are two results. Both of those results have appeared in the last two weeks. Why are we putting brand new poll-tested language as the operative wording on our ballot? Additionally, in the planning, outreach, and development of the Town Center plan, we did not conduct a Wilsonville Town Center Development District feasibility study. We called that and still refer to that as the Wilsonville Town Center Urban Renewal Feasibility Study. We did not convene a Wilsonville Town Center Development District Task Force. We simply called it the Urban Renewal Task Force. Furthermore, the last three times that we've asked voters for this type of funding approval, the term urban renewal has been used freely and generously. Additionally, references to funding were explicitly made. Measure 3-107 all the way back in 2003 for Villabois had captioned, advisory vote on formation of a Westside urban renewal district and question, shall a West Wilsonville urban renewal district be formed to fund transportation and other improvements using tax increment financing? The question got to the chief purpose. By using the words urban renewal, a phrase people are familiar with, and described that it was there to fund infrastructure improvements. Measure 3-107 was approved in a landslide. I think it was 83% of voters approved of that plan. Not a problem. Measure 3-468 in 2015 for Coffee Creek, caption, vote on forming a Coffee Creek urban renewal district with the question, shall Coffee Creek tax increment financing, parentheses, urban renewal district be formed And here's the funding to fund the district's streets, utilities, and infrastructure improvements. Measure 3-468 was approved by the voters, and we continued to use this same type of wording. When just two and a half years ago in May of 2024, measure 3-605 included caption, advisory vote on forming a town center urban renewal district. Question, shall an urban renewal district be formed Here it is, to fund infrastructure and facilitate new development in Town Center. This measure failed. And now we're not using these words anymore? Each ballot title clearly and obviously mentioned urban renewal and stated that the purpose of the district was to fund infrastructure. That is plain and common but specific language asking a precise question about a well-defined outcome. So why are we going in a completely different direction now? I think we're afraid of the term urban renewal because just two and a half years ago we asked our citizens this question and they rejected it. The entire plan sat on the shelf for over a year and nothing truly significant has changed to address the primary concerns our electors have about the nature of development and the outcomes it guarantees. I've heard a lot of conversation about, oh, it's only 1,600 units, oh, it's only this, it's only that. There are some guarantees, and if you read the code, you can find those guarantees. Because, for example, the minimum acreage, or the minimum number of residential units per acre, anybody know what that is? 40 residential units per acre, minimum, minimum. start adding in the developer incentives, like a vertical housing development zone that gives developers 20% tax abatement for every floor of residential above a ground floor retail up to a maximum of four levels of residential. That's an 80% tax abatement for 10 years on that property. So why wouldn't, why would they stay at 40 units? Why wouldn't they go as high as possible and take an 80% tax abatement on that property? By my math, it's about a 10% tax credit. or about a 10% rebate on the value of that building over those 10 years. And we know our electors don't like being asked the same question repeatedly. They find it obnoxious. When we asked them in May of 2024 and we ask them now, I feel like maybe we're changing our wording because we're afraid that they'll feel like we're pestering them. We saw that when the last city council, we saw that happen when the last city council asked for a second bite at the Apple surrounding term limits and were shot down. But we're asking for the same thing we asked for in measures 3-107, 3-468, and 3-605. We're asking to form an urban renewal district to fund infrastructure in town center. Plain common language. I do not believe that changing the terms that we have traditionally used, whether intentional or not, is the optimal approach that reflects transparency. I'm once again going to ask on the record for this council to direct staff to place the disclosures mandated by our city charter at the beginning of the explanatory statement so that they appear in the voter pamphlet provided by Clackamas County to each registered voter. This action will cost our taxpayers nothing and provide financial disclosures that help ensure voters have all the information they need to make an informed decision. If the council refuses to do this, mailers will be sent to each elector in the city at a cost of $5,000 to the taxpayer. As our citizens tighten their financial belts in these difficult economic times, and our city manager convenes an effort to find savings in our bleeding general fund, I urge the council to take this opportunity to be fiscally responsible in such a simple way. To summarize, I'm asking my fellow council members in the interest of building and maintaining the public trust and transparency to direct staff to do the following. One, remove the newly coined phrasing town center development district from the ballot title and replace it with the legally recognized and commonly used term urban renewal district. Two, similar to past measures seeking urban renewal funding, ensure that a reference to infrastructure funding is actually on the ballot. Remember that the ballot itself might be the only thing that some voters have to reference when they vote. And finally, three, we get stewards of our taxpayer money, keep $5,000 in the city coffers, and do the simple, simple act of placing the required financial disclosures at the beginning of the explanatory statement in the voter's pamphlet. I would love to join the rest of you in referring a clear and transparent ballot title to the voters. And I hope that it's something that reflects the stated values of this council.

Thank you. I've changed my mind. I'm going to go ahead and talk. I provide as a courtesy to council a copy of my prepared remarks I anticipated making. So I'll go ahead and I'm going to go through it. Over the past two years, I've carefully reviewed the staff reports supporting materials, public testimony, legal advice, and other materials comprising the record before this council. I've also met with regional and state leaders, businesses, and members of our community. My understanding is further informed by more than a decade of civic involvement with the city prior to being mayor. I'm appreciative of the testimony we've received over the last two council meetings. It is important, but only one part of the record. I believe my responsibility is to consider the best interest in the entire Wilsonville community, including those who are not in this room. Our city attorney, Amanda Gall-Hinman, has an independent ethical and professional duty to provide legal advice that serves the best interest of the city and our community, not any particular individual on council, a council member, or outside interests. I have confidence in the professionalism, expertise, integrity, and legal judgment of our city attorney, as well as our city manager and city staff. No public institution, either at the local, state, or federal level is perfect. But our democracy would not survive without these institutions. They provide critical services to our communities and their expertise in what they do helps policy makers make informed, thoughtful decisions. This measure is being referred under a different legal framework than prior advisory votes on urban renewal. And it's appropriate for the city attorney to recommend language that reflects the current charter as amended by measure 3-632. Drafting ballot language is a legal responsibility that requires careful consideration of the city charter, Oregon law, and this specific resolution before this council. The decisions today will help define how our charter may be interpreted moving forward. That possibility is inherent in municipal government and does not alter my obligation to decide this matter based upon the record before me and the legal advice provided by our city attorney. As mayor, I begin with the presumption that the work of our professional staff has been carefully researched, thoughtfully prepared, and presented in good faith. While council ultimately exercises independent judgment, I believe that presumption is both appropriate and necessary to effective local government. Reasonable people can propose different wording, but the existence of alternatives does not mean the city's proposed language is legally or professionally deficient. The town center plan has been part of Willsville's comprehensive plan since 2019. It represents approximately 10 years of discussion and planning, including probably, excuse me, including approximately four years pre-adoption planning work and approximately $1 million in documented public investment through 2019 alone. The documented financial investment represents only part of this community's commitment. It does not include the thousands of hours devoted by city staff, the planning commission, city council, volunteers, legal counsel, public outreach, and implementation efforts since adoption. The true investment is substantially greater than documented expenditures alone. Since adoption in 2019, there have been another seven years of reliance on the plan in city decision-making by the city, property owners, business developers, and public agencies. The plan was developed through extensive public involvement, technical studies, planning commission hearings, and city council deliberations. Based upon this record, I conclude that the town center plan represents one of the city's most significant long-term planning investments, both financially and in the countless hours devoted by staff elected officials, volunteers, and members of our community. Why this plan matters. The adopted town center plan advances many of Wilson's long-term goals, including housing, economic development, infrastructure, private investment, and a vibrant town center. The plan supports Wilson's future workforce and educational partners. For example, the Oregon Institute of Technology and Clackamas Community College are preparing the engineers, healthcare professionals, technology workers, skilled trades, and other employees our community will need for decades to come. Housing opportunities created through the plan help make it possible for our children, grandchildren, students, faculty, workers, first responders, healthcare professionals, seniors, young families, and others to live in the community they serve. I conclude that Wilsonville's ability to attract technology companies, advanced manufacturing, innovation, and family wage jobs depends in part upon providing housing opportunities in order to maintain a growing workforce and further strengthen economic development here at home. My understanding of reopening the town center plan since it was raised. Some have suggested this beyond just addressing the height waivers that we are in the process of addressing. Based upon the information I've received and reviewed, I conclude that substantially reopening the adopted center plan is not a minor revision, especially if we're talking about housing. is a major planning effort that would fundamentally restart years of planning already completed. Staff have advised that this process would require approximately seven more years and approximately $1.5 million in today's dollars for any thought of changing the existing plan. That figure does not include other collateral costs to the city. Any effort to reopen the plan would also have to wait until completion of a transportation system study, transportation system plan, urban renewal task force, and other related needs. It will require additional public outreach, technical studies, consult work, planning commission hearings, city council deliberation, and substantial additional staff resources. It also has a significant legal and planning implications that future council will need to address, including updates to the housing needs and capacity analysis, housing production strategy, transportation system plan, water system plan, sewer distribution master plan, the comprehensive plan, and other related planning documents. As I understand the record, Much of that work would likely require general fund resources in addition to the direct cost of reopening the plan itself. I want to discuss broader community impacts. I conclude that reopening the plan would delay critical infrastructure improvements and postpone the community's benefits the plan was designed to achieve. As I understand it, engineering staff would need to redirect significant time and resources to this effort. Charbonneau's planning work would likely be deferred. The Stafford and Advanced Road projects would likely be delayed because of the time required to redo any proposed redo of the town center plan. Those delays would in turn slow development in Frog Pond. I conclude that reopening the plan creates uncertainty that discourages private investment while that process is underway. I conclude that reopening the plan places a city's competitiveness for certain state, regional and federal funding opportunities at risk. I conclude that it may ultimately leave the future of town center to be shaped by outside interests rather than through the shared vision adopted by this community. I see no evidence that reopening the plan would produce greater community consensus after another seven years of planning. Every community eventually reaches the point where planning must give way to implementation. Based upon the public record before this council, the information provided by our city manager and city attorney, and the materials I have carefully reviewed, I believe Wilsonville has reached that point. Ultimately, my decision rests upon three principles. Stewardship, understanding consequences, and creating opportunity. Stewardship requires respecting the years of public planning, technical work, community involvement, and substantial public investment that produced the town center plan. That work has guided city decisions from the beginning, and especially since 2019, and has been relied upon by the residents, businesses, developers, and public agencies. Understanding consequences means looking beyond today's debate. Based on the record before me, substantially reopening a plan will require years of additional planning, significant public expense, Updates to numerous city planning documents and delays to infrastructure and economic opportunities that our community has been working toward for more than a decade. Creating opportunity means planning for the people who will call Wilsonville home in the future. Students, teachers, healthcare professionals, first responders, and all the individuals, especially seniors and young families, A successful town center should create opportunities for them all. Many Oregon communities have continued investing in vibrant downtowns and town centers that have become destinations for residents and visitors alike. Wilsonville deserves that same opportunity. Based upon the record before me, I believe Wilsonville has reached the point where years of thoughtful planning should now give way to implementation. Stewardship requires that the respect, that we respect the extraordinary public investment that has brought us to this point. It also requires that we recognize there comes a time when planning must be followed by action. The remaining question before this council is not whether each of us would make precisely the same policy choices. It's whether the people of Wilsonville should have the opportunity to decide whether to move forward with this urban renewal district. I believe they should. For those reason, I will vote to refer the measure to the voters of Wilsonville. Further, after reviewing the materials and considering the advice of our city attorney and staff, I'm satisfied that the proposed ballot measure as drafted by the city attorney accurately describes the measure before the voters as required by the current charter and I will vote in favor of it. I will vote in favor of resolution number 3279. Nothing in these legislative findings that I've presented should be interpreted as suggesting that reasonable people cannot agree. Rather, they reflect my independent evaluation of all the information properly before me and my capacity as mayor, including the public record, the advice of our city attorney and professional staff, and the testimony and materials presented to this council, together with the conclusions I've reached based upon the record. That's all I have. Councillor Shetland.

Thank you, Mayor. And thank you also to Councillor Cunningham. I appreciate his statement and sharing his reasons behind his proposed wording change. Matt, could you please put up the slide that shows the... There we go. Thank you. I'D LIKE TO HAVE AT LEAST MAKE A POINT AND PERHAPS SOME OF MY FELLOW COUNSELORS WOULD LIKE TO JOIN ME IN WHY I LIKE THE TERM TOWN CENTER DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT EVEN THOUGH IT WASN'T USED PRIOR TO JUST THE LAST SEVERAL WEEKS OR MONTH. I BELIEVE IT MAKES A MORE CLEAR STATEMENT TO OUR CITIZENS ON WHAT WE'RE DOING IN THE TOWN CENTER. the town center. We're developing the infrastructure. That's why I believe that even though it hadn't been used prior, I believe it captures in a better way, in a more comprehensive way for our citizens. Oh, that's what they're doing there. They're developing a district. We added urban renewal based on suggestion, comments, I suggested it two city council meetings ago. Our city attorney did some wordsmithing to make sure that we could get it into the 10 word limit. And I believe that under exhibit A, that captures what we're looking for. I don't believe that using the term development district is in any way misleading. I think it makes it more clear as to what we're trying to do. So I wouldn't make any changes in exhibit A or any of the remaining proposed wording for the resolution. I invite my other councillors to comment on the development district in their opinion if they so choose, thank you.

Councillor Schell.

I AGREE WITH COUNCILOR SHEPHERD AND JUST FOR THE RECORD, ACTUALLY IN THE LAST TWO TO THREE MEETINGS I HAVE SOMEWHAT STATED THE SAME THING. I THINK THE TOWN CENTER DEVELOPMENT DISTRICT STATES WHAT THE NEXT PHASE OF THIS PROJECT IS AND HOW IT WILL CARRY THROUGH OVER THE COURSE OF THE NEXT 20 TO 30 YEARS. Essentially going from a plan to a development district where we can actually take action and develop the district and become a destination spot for not only locals but for the region too. So I also believe in the title too. Thank you.

City Council President Berry.

Yeah, so I'd like to Say thank you for your comments mayor. I hadn't had a chance to read them prior to and as I listened to them the comments that you said going through the history and whatnot, I agree, I stand behind all of that, so thank you. For me, you articulated it really well. And then on exhibit A, for the title, Town Center Development District Plan, to me that also captures what we're doing, that this is the next phase that we are developing an area. and the development includes the infrastructure and how we're gonna pay for it, so I like the title. And I'm glad that Councilor Shevin had asked the city attorney to add the urban renewal plan on exhibit A. To me, I think the words capture what we're doing, so thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Cunningham.

Yeah, I'd like to clarify something that I bring up the question of what happens if the answer is no in November because, at least in my background and my training, you always learn to go into a situation, go into a fight with a plan in mind, and the second you get punched in the face, you need a new plan. So we do need to be prepared for whatever that answer is in November because our voters do get the final say on whether or not they are going to choose to fund town center using urban renewal. And if the answer is no, you know, yeah. Will it take more time? Yeah. Will it be expensive? Cost money? Yeah. But, or I guess the other option would be that our plan is to just wait two years and then, Ask again and see just how obnoxious we can be with asking the same question repeatedly about the same topic without addressing those top concerns. Because yes, we had this poll back in June. That's great. I love to see community input. I love to take that in as a data set in the decision making and the thought process. we've run away from the surveys and the focus groups that happened last year. Those aren't part of these conversations. And I think they're not part of these conversations because they shine some lights on some very large community concerns around this plan. And so now we just tend to ignore it and go with the newest polling. And this newest polling, as I outlined, yeah, we selected the number one, well actually the number two answer response in that poll was town center development district the number one answer was i don't know or i don't want to answer that question um but we have to be prepared for what happens in november either way i think that was a big miss back in may of 2024 that the city wasn't prepared for the no in 2024 that's why our community sat and watched nothing happen watch this council Watch the previous council do absolutely nothing with it for over half a year and watch this council do nothing with it regardless of what had been explained and expected to the community that there would be robust conversations and town halls and things like that. And we've had zero town halls on this matter since. I think we're afraid of really listening and getting that feedback. It seems like when we get the feedback that we're not looking for, like the surveys and focus groups last year, we just try to find the next thing that's gonna answer that question in a better way that will allow us to move forward on that. Yeah, this plan costs money to put together, it costs time to put together. But you also can't hold yourself in the sunk cost fallacy that, well, just because we spent money on it means that it's still this thing. I'm not here today. If you noticed in my statement, I stayed pretty far away from going and trying to dissect the plan as much as possible. I mentioned the 40 units per acre, and I mentioned the VHDZ, the Vertical Housing Development Zone, because those are important for people to know about. But besides that, I'm not asking for the council today to rip this plan apart, to reopen the master plan, anything like that. We're just focused today on this wording. And if you all choose to put the wording forward as is, of course, that's your prerogative. I don't think it's a good look in the community. And as much as I want to refer this to the voters, and I want the voters to give us a final yes or no, that makes it a lot harder for me. And there's going to be a lot of flack from the community on that. We've heard a lot on both sides of this issue, in support, opposed. I have my paper up here, and it just goes back and forth between opposed and support, opposed and support from these last two meetings. We have a pretty divided community on this, and if the ask is something so simple as a word change to get further community consensus, why are we afraid of that? Just give the common, clear and common verbiage that we've used in the past that have been part of the conversations in the community that people are used to hearing and using when speaking on this. And ensure that, take away the argument in the community that this is a bait and switch. Take away the argument in the community that this is biased. It's not, these are very small very small changes that still speak to what we're doing. They still explain, I think it better explains the chief purpose of the measure. It actually does explain that we're paying for infrastructure A town center development district, that doesn't tell you what the money is paying for. It doesn't say infrastructure. It says development. So when people say things online, maybe because they're misinformed or because they read this and they go, oh, so the city's going to develop all these houses? And then there's this back and forth and people are fighting because, well, no, we're not developing the residential units. We're developing the infrastructure. Well, that's not laid out in here. It's not laid out in the caption or the question. So when people are confused, I don't blame them. Because if we put this language forward, we're to blame for that confusion.

Councilor Shevlin?

Thank you. I respectfully disagree with Councillor Cunningham that we have not listened over the last two years to our citizens. I disagree that we have not given them the opportunity to tell us their concerns. I also disagree wholeheartedly that we have not taken any action to respond to the concerns that have been expressed to us. We have said over the last two meetings, the changes that have been made. They are obvious, but I will repeat them. We have reduced the number of housing, the density, the number of housing units. We have reduced the building height. We have reduced the maximum indebtedness. We have talked about this so many times, I can repeat it without looking at any notes. We removed the bike ped bridge from the funding from the urban renewal plan. and where we have offered a food cart incentive program because we've heard from our citizens, why can't we have a food cart pod? The only thing we haven't done is totally removed housing from the plan. We need the housing. I'm not going to go into detail here now why we need the housing, but many of you in the community have expressed the importance of why we need the housing. But we've reduced that density. So I believe we need, it's time to move forward. We've heard from our citizens. We've got the wording down. We've added urban renewal. It's time to put this to a vote.

Before you, I'd like to add something.

I respectfully disagree with Councilor Cunningham's thoughts, which he's entitled to have. We all have our own opinions. And my view is when the council as a body votes and that outcome has been made, we as a council support that outcome. whether we agree with it or not, because it's the final legislative decision that's made either gives direction to staff or to move forward. And we own that no matter where we fell on that vote. My thoughts. Number two, I'm the one that will tell you quite openly that when I ran for office, I wanted town halls. And I stand by that that was a thought process that I want. I like that idea. I was informed by staff and the folks that provide these communication recommendations that town halls standing alone generate exclusion of others who may not otherwise be able to be there And you want to have to define on how they are, the expense, and how they would go. So we as a council agreed the communication strategies. And we voted on them. And we instructed staff to operate within those communication strategies as a body. So whatever was said, two years ago, while it makes sense, for me it was not what this council decided. Also, I really respect everybody's thoughts on things. I'm really concerned that if the outcome is as Councilor Cunningham would suggest it could be, that we're really going to deserve the future of our community. Um, and the reason for that is I'm all about local control. I think one of the most frustrating thing I have seen as mayor is how lack of control we have now. It's usually dictated by Salem. Um, and, uh, Maybe that's a good thing. I don't see as such. I think as a mayor and as a council, I think we want to retain as much control of our community as best. But if we choose to not move forward with the town center plan as presented, we run in a terrible risk that the state will dictate to us how our community should be. And they're already trying to do it, and it's going to get worse. I'm really concerned about funding being deprived, funding we need for things like the Boone Bridge, by other infrastructural needs that may be less divisive, if you will, but could terribly impact the future of our community. And I've spent a lot of time on this. I've looked at other cities, what they did when they chose to ignore some of these regulations. If you're upset with Salem, in my view, you should take it out in Salem and make decisions on who your legislature or governor represents should be. But for us as a community, we really have to do the best we can with what we have. And I respect everybody on council's thoughts. We just have things that we see things differently. We offer a lot of good things. And as I said last week, two evenings ago, by and large, us as a council, as a body, we agree on a lot of things. And we really do a good job on that. Then we have those things that are big issues that we might sit on a different side. But I value everybody here and what we try to do. And with that, that's all I have on my thoughts. Councillor Cunningham.

Yeah. So this is another thing that's been thrown around the community a lot and there's some disagreement maybe on the semantics of it or what we did or what we didn't do. But, um, you know, since we have Matt here with us today, um, and we should dive into this a little bit and make sure that all of us have a good understanding of this. So, uh, this council, reduce the number of assumed residential development units from 4,179 to 2,381, right? In the urban, the town center urban renewal financial feasibility study.

We decreased the inputs that created that output, yes. we made different assumptions this time around guided by the council's input. And that led to in 2023, an outcome that said 41 79 in 2026, an outcome that said 23 81.

And in, in reducing that, does that reduce the maximum number of units that can be built in town center?

So one thing that I've tried to take the opportunity to clearly state when I've had that opportunity is that from 2019 until today, that is from the time of the town center plan and the town center development code, the town center zone was adopted until today. What remains true is that two to five story buildings are what are allowed. we're left to speculate about how many units will fit into those two to five story buildings, how large those units will be, how wide the hallways will be. Will there be amenity spaces? They're just, there's a lot of variables is my point. Um, and so we used a certain set of assumptions when the town center plan was drafted. We used a different set of assumptions when we did the 2023 exercise. And yet again, used a different set of assumptions that yielded yet a different, uh, forecast in 2026. The constant is what the development code says.

And I'm just going to jump in just to make sure it's abundantly clear. There's only one sub district in all of town center that allows five stories. All the others are either three to four stories as the maximum height.

If this council removes height waivers.

Correct. And the height waivers only apply to the mixed use and commercial mixed use sub districts. It doesn't apply to the main street district or neighborhood mixed use currently.

Meaning what?

Meaning that you can't get a waiver to increase building height in Main Street district or neighborhood mixed use district currently.

Okay, so given that we change those assumptions. When we change those assumptions, we increase projected square footage for each of the unit types as well, right?

Right, yeah, in the intervening period between 2023 and 2026, we had seen several pre-application requests come through for development in town center. And as a general trend, we were seeing more surface parking being proposed, even though the city doesn't require it, and larger unit sizes than what we had originally assumed. And so when we went back in 2026, it seemed intellectually honest to account for that new knowledge.

Right, but nothing in our code mandates a certain square footage size and says that those things will occur or will not occur. It's not prescriptive to that level. These are just our educated guesses based on the market trends that we've seen, right?

I'm gonna say yes to that.

I think it was a fair question. I'm not trying to got you here, Matt. What I'm trying to get at is, I guess the question is, did this council reduce density in town center? by changing our financial feasibility study estimates? Did we reduce density?

We did not change the development code.

Right, so in town center development code 4.132, was I correct earlier when I stated that three out of four sub-districts have a minimum residential density of 40 units per acre?

I'm going to be honest with you. I don't know the code. I'm not a planner, and so I don't know the code at that level of detail. That's fair.

And I apologize for getting into kind of the technical questions right here. I didn't mean to get into this far today. That's what the code says though. The code says that it's a minimum of 40 units per acre and three out of four of the sub districts. The city council did not address that number at all. We did not lower that number to allow for less residential units per acre. That number still remains the same. Nothing was touched in actual requirements that the city has for development in town center. I didn't even mean to get into it today because that's not even a question before us today, but I think it's an important point that needs to be understood. And also that we do not have a cap on development in town center. We cannot stop development getting too large as long as the infrastructure exists or can exist within a couple of years, the city will allow and permit that a development to move forward. So, We do not have a cap on it, but we do have minimums. And those minimums will ensure that we have significant density of 40 units per acre in three out of four sub-districts in town center. More dense than anywhere else in the city. Urban level density development. So we need to be very clear about that. We need to stop talking around that issue and let people know that this is going to be a high density development that they should expect to see if this plan moves forward in November.

I don't particularly agree the plan with your assessment, but I appreciate that that's your opinion, Councillor Cunningham. I'm not, I'm not, no, no, I'm just saying I have a different opinion. I'm not going to, uh, uh, and we're also voting on an urban rural district in November. So any further discussion before we call for a motion, anything further of staff, city manager, do you want any additional time?

No, nothing further on my part.

Okay. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion regarding resolution number 3279?

I move to approve a motion to move forward with resolution 3279. Do you want me to read the rest?

Yes, go ahead.

A resolution of the city of Wilsonville referring to the qualified electors of the city, the question of approving this town center development district plan, approving a ballot title and explanatory statement, submitting proposed ordinance number 905 to the electors, and directing the city recorder to take such actions as are necessary to conduct the election.

Is there a second?

Second.

Motion's been made by City Council President Berry and seconded by Councillor Skoll. Is there any further discussion? Councillor Cunningham.

Not really discussion, but I will explain my vote on this. I think the most important thing today is to refer this to the electors. we need to have our citizens make the final decision on this. If measure three dash six, three, two had not passed and this was an advisory vote, I would have, if, if the citizens said yes in November, I would have approved a town center, urban renewal district, whether or not I might personally like it or agree with it. It doesn't matter. Um, what I have had, what I, If it had not passed, would I have to do that? No. I could have just said, no, I know better than you. I'm from the government and I'm smarter than you. I'm not. I'm just some guy who was elected to help and serve and try to look at this fairly and neutrally. And if the answer was no, then my answer would have been no as well. But under this charter amendment, we have to abide by whatever our citizens say. And I was ready to do that regardless, and I'm ready to do that now. And so with that, because it's more important than anything else, I will vote yes to refer this to the voters. But I don't like the wording and the language being used.

Thank you, Councillor Cunningham. Any further comments? All I will do is put for the record, I'll give it to the city recorder, my legislative findings and conclusions. I kind of went through the ball, but I think it's important that they state my position on the record, so I have nothing further to add. With that, let's call the vote. All those in favor of adopting resolution number 3279 as presented, say aye. Aye. Aye. Those opposed okay the motion passes 5-0 I have no other business