Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone. I will now call to order the Clackamas County Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting for August 6, 2026.

County Administrator Gary Schmidt, would you please call the roll? Yes, thank you, Chair. First, our staff support today, County Council, Billy Williams, Clerk to the Board, Andrew Jiraki. Roll call. Online, Commissioner Schrader. Yes, she's online. Commissioner Schrader.

Here. Here.

Thank you. In the room, Commissioner Savas. Present. Commissioner Helm.

Here.

Chair Roberts. Here.

Thank you. And if you're able, would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, before we start our regular public comment portion we have some important public safety updates we want to talk about having to do with the wildfires and And I am going to turn that over to Gary. You want to give us some updates, sir?

Yes, thank you, Chair. As you know, there is a wildfire near Mount Hood that is impacting Clackamas County. To give some updates to you, Commissioners and the public, is Jamie Poole, Deputy Director of Disaster Management, and Dr. Sarah Present, who's the Medical Health Director here at Clackamas County. Please come forward.

And thank you for showing up on such short notice.

Absolutely, yes. Is my microphone on?

Yes.

Okay. Excuse me. Good morning, Commissioners, Chair Roberts. I'm Jamie Poole, again, Deputy Disaster Manager with Disaster Management, here to give an update on the Grasshopper Fire, which is located in Hood River in Wasco County, just east to Clackamas County. The fire is currently at 43,244 acres. The fire is 23% contained, which is an increase of 3% since yesterday. And that containment is really on the south and southeast portion of the fire. There's currently no loss of life or property within Clackamas County. On Friday, the 31st, the EOC activated to a level one monitoring and assessment due to the increased fire activity. There was a red flag warning, but there was west winds, so we were concerned with that fire activity, though, due to the red flag warning. Tuesday, the fourth, the EOC moved to a level two partial activation, bringing more staff on to assist because the winds shifted to coming from the east, which was increasing the fire growth. We were worried about it moving to the west. Staff from Disaster Management, H3S, DTD, Tourism Finance Facilities, HR West, CCOM, all of our county departments have been really engaged in working within the EOC. We also have community partners, the Red Cross, the Clackamas County VOAD, Ant Farm Live One, Father's Heart, partnering with us and working. On Tuesday, the fourth, we issued a level one evacuation alert, which is on the map that's showing right now. This area is actually broken down into eight different zones that we've worked with the sheriff's office and the search and rescue folks to look at how long it would take for us to clear those zones. And they've worked with the incident management team working the fire to set some management action points so if the fire got to a particular place of concern, they would have conversations about shifting those levels in those zones to increase the evacuation level. Right now, there has been no change to the zones since we issued those on Tuesday, but we do have plans in place if we need to do that, including a plan for shelter, for livestock, all of that. Let's see, so for weather, the warm hot conditions continue through Friday with low land temperatures in the low to mid 90s. However, the major heat risk properties has decreased for today and tomorrow. And onshore westerly flow is increasing today, which will improve the wildfire smoke and haze through today and into tonight. Those wind shifts have reduced fire intensity along the west perimeter of the fire, creating favorable conditions to further strengthen containment lines along the Highway 35 corridor and west towards Clackamas County. So over the weekend, that's really good news. That cold front coming in is not only lowering the temperatures on Saturday and through the weekend, but it's bringing moisture air, which is really favorable for the firefighting efforts. For utility impacts, we have been in close contact with Portland General Electric, PGE. There are currently no public safety power shutoff events planned. However, they actively monitor the weather and fire conditions always. So if there were something to arise, we would be notified. And while there's no PSPS, PGE has implemented an immediate power de-energization, it's hard to word, in the limited area to support response to firefighting efforts and operations. However, that outage is impacting 10 customers that are in Hood River County, not Clackamas County. But we're monitoring that too if there's any impacts We would be notified from them if there was any impacts to Clackamas County. The public information that's been going out. So at the level one evacuation alert, we sent that to the people that have opted into our system to receive those notifications. But we also issued what's called a wireless emergency alert because there is a lot of recreating in that area, a lot of hikers, campers. So that gets pushed to cell phones in the affected area. We actually ran that for a longer period of time than we normally do. so that campers and folks that are moving around in the area, if they came into cell service, they would get that notification. We've also activated 2-1-1 info, so individuals that are looking for assistance either for information on the evacuations levels, they can call 2-1-1 and get assistance with that in addition to the heat and the wildfire smoke as well. We are asking folks to not call 911 unless there's a life safety issue. The non-emergency line is also available. That's 503-655-8211. We want to make sure that we're keeping those 911 lines open for emergency needs. Our website is updated. You'll see here on the screen, there's a banner. So anywhere you land on our Clackamas County website, you can click the link to come back to this Clack Co Alert site where we will update any changes to evacuation levels. There's also the updated evacuation map. There's a link there to get to that. And there's also some resources for Hoodland Fire and the Incident Management Teams Fire Facebook page there. Let's see. Tourism has also sent out messages to vacation rental property owners and lodging properties in their mailing list to help spread the word up there because it's a lot of tourism up there. The incident management team has also put information up along the corridor at the post office in Welch's, the Mount Hood Cultural Center and Museum, Mount Hood Meadows, Timberland Lodge, and the Thriftway in Welch's. They're updating those daily. We're really encouraging folks to go to clackcoprepared.org. And if you scroll down on this page, you'll see that we're asking folks to sign up for public alerts. Note a couple different routes in and out of your area. And there's maps to help you with that. And then build a go kit so that you're prepared if we needed to issue a level two or level three evacuation. And I just want to mention that we're not out of the woods yet for the summer. We might still have east wind events, then we'll track all of that. So we really want people to be prepared and take these three actions. Are there any questions?

We might.

We might have Dr. Prezant go and then I'll open it up for questions for both probably. Thank you. Okay.

Thank you. Hi, everybody. Good morning. I'm Dr. Sarah Prezant. I'm the Health Officer for Clackamas County Public Health. I'm preventive medicine and family medicine trained. I was asked to talk a little bit about the health effects of poor air quality and wildfire smoke. I could talk about this for quite some time so I'll just give some high-level and then answer of questions you may have. We know that for the last two days much of the county has been in hazardous or unhealthy for everyone air quality levels. What that means is that immediate hazards of poor air quality or wildfire smoke can lead to respiratory irritation, so coughing, sore throat, eye irritation, runny nose. The particles of the air are of course getting into our respiratory systems and causing inflammation and irritation. That can be irritating, but it can also lead to increased dehydration and with the heat we have, everyone is at risk of increased dehydration and what comes from that is dizziness and low blood pressure, potentially confusion. The main issue with wildfire smoke is the small particulate matter that gets deep into our lungs that can be prevented by wearing an N95 mask. Ideally right now with the air quality and the hazardous or unhealthy for everyone, people should be avoiding that air and wearing the masks if you have to be in it. But working on getting out of the poor air quality, and I'll talk about that just in a couple of minutes. There are always questions around the other sort of chemicals or other gases that might be in wildfire smoke, and there are a lot of unknowns there. We do know that ozone is one that can be effective in the very hazardous air quality or for our wildland firefighters, ozone itself can have some other health effects. So for those who have underlying conditions like cardiovascular disease, if you've had a heart attack or a stroke or you have high risk for that like diabetes, or people who have underlying lung conditions like COPD or asthma, this level of air quality can trigger exacerbations of all of those. We know we can have increased asthma and COPD exacerbations and hospitalizations as well as increased risk very short term of heart attack and stroke. These are, so the respiratory illnesses are things that we in public health do track with our emergency rooms. We're about two days behind in our data, but we are seeing Some increase in fire and smoke inhalation visits in the emergency rooms from Tuesday that showed up today. Heat-related illness have been steady, but we might expect that to increase the next few days. And then the non-infectious respiratory illness visits, so it's sort of a blanket of respiratory illness visits in the ER, are at a yellow level, which is... greater than our normal threshold. So we are seeing the effects in our emergency rooms and we expect that to increase in the next few days as data comes through. I also want to just point out that over multiple days to weeks of air quality at this level, it increases the risk for all of all of these things, but also we think about our elderly and young children and prolonged exposure to air quality like this can actually increase your risk of getting these chronic diseases that can be exacerbated as well as poor pregnancy outcomes with potentially increased premature deliveries. and hypertension in pregnancy. We did also in public health send out an alert to our WIC families to try to ensure them to know how to be safe in the poor air quality. So how do we do that? We get to clean air, whether that means leaving and going someplace that has clean air. If you're in your home and you have air conditioning or you have a fan, closing all of the windows, putting your air on recirculate, And then there are ways of making sort of personal box do-it-yourself air filters by getting a box fan and an air filter and taping it onto it and just circulating air through that. You do need to have your windows closed so that you're cleaning the air inside and not bringing in more poor air. And that can also be a challenge when we're hot and we have hot days. So if you're unable to maintain a temperature, you know, that is reasonable in your home with the doors closed and having some filtration, then we would recommend people move to a safe place where they can have cleaner air. Luckily, it does look like the air quality is improving. I think it's better today than yesterday and the winds are shifting. So ideally, some of these more chronic issues are gonna be averted. And I'm happy to take questions.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Savas has a question.

Yeah. First of all, thank you for all being here today. And I appreciate the map on the screen. And I'm sure if we saw one that had the topography, you know, lines on there and showed the topography, people would realize that, you know, where fires accelerate often are hilly and raises up hills and the wind can exacerbate that to quite a degree. There has been some confusion as early as Tuesday when I started hearing from people calling me saying, it's level three, what are you doing? What are you doing about it? And I said, well, I didn't hear that. Everything I heard was level one. Well, there was actually a level three alert for Hood River and Mount Hood Meadows And so I think this map kind of illustrates where Highway 35 there is, and that's Hood River County right there. And so the mountain is shared by Mount Hood as Multnomah, Hood, and Clackamas Counties. So we certainly have a concern about that, but I don't know how the communications got out to so many people that we were level three. And I know we're neighbors, right? But that did happen, so I don't know how. But it would maybe be advantageous maybe somehow to, and I didn't see much on the news, right? That shared, it's level one here, it's level three there, but that was like not really in the media. So I don't know how we do that without, I don't want to, alarm people unnecessarily, but still, knowing the topography of the mountain, I don't care if it's Hood River, that's bad for Hood River, yes, and for all the neighborhoods there as well, but we're neighbors there too, and so it's a travesty for all of us to have this happen. So I'm glad the wind shifted, and it looks like maybe things are improving, so I'm glad to hear about that. Lastly, knowing that this is also alarmed, the intensity, or maybe it's dissipating somewhat as the winds are shifting the other way, but could you speak to, I think there's always been confusion about who's in charge, because the calls I took, people were expecting the county to do things, and knowing the hierarchy of authority in emergencies, And I know Nancy's in the back. She knows that pretty well. I think some of us who have been here a long time know the hierarchy that we are way down on the totem pole as far as these emergencies. And could you talk about that a little bit? And who's the first in charge when there's, in this case, a fire emergency? I know it's the fire officials, right? And all the different tiers, local, state, and then federal. Can you talk to that, please?

Yes. So when a fire starts, It depends on where it's started that has jurisdiction for the local fire agencies there. So if it's in the US Forest Service, the Forest Service has authority in firefighting resources, which is a federal agency. There's also the Oregon Department of Forestry that has lands that may respond to a fire. And then there's also your local fire districts or fire departments. So when a fire starts, those are the first responders on the scene that would go and try to take, they'll take command of that fire incident. But if it grows to where they need additional resources, they'll call in mutual aid. It'll all be under their authority. Once they are requesting additional help, They will delegate authority to an incident management team that comes in, which is what has happened here in the U.S. Forest Service in coordination with local districts. They are working with the Oregon State Fire Marshal's Office Gray Team, as well as California Interagency Management Team 6, who has come on to work. to work that fire. So we are working in coordination with the incident management team. We are not working on the fire management of this fire, but we have authority within Clackamas County, the Sheriff's Office, to issue notifications and evacuations within our jurisdiction. But that's also within coordination of the US Forest Service. We cannot do a Forest Service closure. So there's some regulation and rules around that. So there is a forest closure that's out there, but it is east of our county. It's not right now within Clackamas County. And I did want to mention, so this is our county evacuation map. If folks go to other maps like Watch Duty, there's a nonprofit organization that has a map that actually pulls in the evacuation zones from multiple jurisdictions. So that is one area that you can see all of the zones there, if we could pull that up. However, our map, we have worked really hard for ADA accessibility. So there's reasons why we would ask folks to go to our map over that map for that reason. There's translations there. But this is the fuller picture here from Watch Duty, where you'll see that there are level three, level two, and level one evacuation zones within the Hood River and Wasco counties. So that said, we are working very closely again with our sheriff's office. Every day they're attending an evacuation meeting at 10 o'clock with the incident management team, working on different thresholds for when they might change those evacuation levels. So it's not that every day at 10 they would get maybe issued those notifications. It's that they're trying to work on establishing what their process would be. And then if there's a need to quickly change, they know who to contact. to make those changes happen with that authority.

Right, thank you for that. I know there was, and again, going back to 2020 fires when we were here, I was on the board at the time, and we learned a lot, right? But also there was the issue of who's in charge kind of a thing, and I know that when we talked about the board roles or in an emergency, what those are, when we crafted language or revised that, I had some concerns about how we or what our authority really is and how the board works in that mode. Because again, people expect a lot out of us. And one thing in particular that I found, it was a very compelling argument. People said, we were told to evacuate. I don't know which way to go. I don't know where to go north, south, east, west. I got a road that only takes me one or two ways. I got another road. So I think having those evacuation routes clearly communicated for a particular area, because every area is going to have a different route. But I don't know how we do that better. I'm not saying we the county, but all of us, right, all the agencies. You know, if the sheriffs are out there, and they did a great job in the 2020 fires with helping people evacuate and knowing. I know one of our things that we did was make the fairgrounds available for livestock. So livestock was being transferred here and also in Malala and different places where it was then safe. We set up areas like the Clackamas Community College and the Elks Lodge and other places for people to camp in while they're being evacuated. So we do a lot on the ground, but I think maybe having a better explanation of what maybe our roles are would help, I think, educate people so they know who to call. I just took a lot of calls asking the county commission to do things we can't do.

Sure, yes. I think the main thing here is that you're our policy advisors and leaders, right? So Gary could probably talk about our process for our declaration. So if we got to a point where we needed additional authorities or additional help, then we could put in that piece into action. And Gary, if you want to...

If I may quickly now, so state law and county code authorizes actually me. I'm the disaster management director for the county. Here, I delegate that to a national department director who's Daniel Neibauer, and today is Jamie Poole. If you as a board feel that the emergency, whatever it may be, threatens the public safety so greatly, you can declare an emergency, a state of emergency for Clackamas County. you as a board have the authority to do that also per county code really that you have and you have like 10 things you can choose to do in such a case like enact a curfew close bars or seriously close streets but most importantly you can redirect county funds to help support the emergency and redirect county staff and do mutual aid agreements that's really in my opinion the benefits of declaring an emergency. You as a board must do that. However, if we are in such a dire emergency, the code allows the chair of the board to declare the emergency first and then ratify it with the board at your next available opportunity. If the chair is unavailable, then the vice chair. If she is unavailable, then commissioners in order of seniority If you're all unavailable, then the county administrator. All this is in the county code, but you declare an emergency if you feel the situation is that dire. We are not recommending that today. We're not that dire yet, but that is something you as a board get to do.

Yeah, and I'll just end with this, is that when this came up about how that process worked, you know, I had heartburn because I really felt that it was ambiguous to some degree about the declaration, should that become. So I want to just personally announce that I am available to meet as a board should there be an emergency so we can declare that or not and then what actions we take thereof, right? So I appreciate the authority that you've spelled out in your capacity, but if there is a declaration, you know, I am available. So I just want to announce that, and I'm sure my colleagues will make themselves available for any kind of discussion about any action we take on declaring.

Agreed. Thank you, Commissioner Savas. Well, I feel also fortunate that Chair Roberts has quite a bit of experience dealing with this. Also, we have a chair who is well-versed in managing public crises and different events. So, I think that gives me some hope and some reassurance. Some questions around the public health aspect of this. There's a number of technical questions I could ask, but when we see the AQI spike like this, and then you spoke to different vulnerable populations that don't have access to clean air, beyond like meetings like this, where does the county step up? Do we have access to more N95s, which by the way, to be effective, they generally need to fit correctly, am I right? But it's probably some barriers better than none, but those particles are really small. So, like, if someone can't afford the filtration, like, where can they learn more about these different ways to clean the air that you just mentioned? Are there sites for individuals to go to that are currently open? What are those looking like? How are responding for clean air sites if somebody just has nowhere to go and they need to get out of this low air quality? Can you speak to that? And where are those resources? Or do we need to stand something up? Is it funded? Where do we, like, what are your thoughts around that?

Yeah, so we do have a lot of public messaging on our Clackamas County website. The EPA and the CDC both have some good information that's linked on our county website to how to protect yourself at home. We also have worked with our health share partners and the CCOs have some direct outreach to vulnerable populations within their within their members, and they do some communications as well that have all been coordinated in the past, sort of in preparation for poor air quality days like this. So I think as far as how to protect yourself, we, yeah, our Clackamas County air quality webpage is up there on the screen now. N95s, we're... you may be able to speak more to the distribution that has been done.

Do we have, do we have them? Can they get them at a library? Can they make sure they're fit correctly? Like it's a, yeah. Right.

Um, like you said, I think with, um, with N95s, it's important for them to fit correctly. Um, but they're still going to be helpful even if they're not perfect. Right. We're not looking at, um, like a viral respiratory disease where you really need to have it all clear, just having some filtration is going to be helpful. Again, you have to balance that with being able to breathe comfortably. And for people who have lung conditions, really finding places that do have clean air, whether that's coming down the mountain to an alternate location, friends, family, sort of evacuation-type planning. And we encourage everybody to have a plan on evacuation routes, whether it's for needing to go due to imminent fire danger, or if they need to go for their own personal health. And I'll let you speak to more shelters.

So there are resources for relief. There is a relief page as far as getting to a cooler location that has better air quality. And again, people can call 2-1-1 to find those locations. We also have worked with social service or social services has worked with service providers that they work with to identify those that may be very at high risk that have additional needs that may need additional supports to get them into a better situation. But that's through service providers, a direct contact there. So there are some mechanisms and some ways that those service providers can elevate those needs through the county to help. get resources. I have heard public health also distributed some N95 masks to service providers that are doing more of that direct outreach to folks that are unhoused or outside, but it is limited with the resources.

But there's not like a stockpile where somebody can go to their local library and get one or go to one of our clinics?

So can we have Kim answer that question? She's right here. Thank you, Kim. Kim LaCroix, Public Health Director.

Yeah, so Public Health worked with DTD to get some masks out to the Sandy community. So we distributed about 3,000 masks at 95s. We gave about 2,000 to Ant Farm, who distributed them to the community. We gave about 500 to Love One. And then, like Jamie said, we did give some to departments who are working with vulnerable individuals. And then we also had some for county employees who are working outside.

Okay. Do you feel like you have enough resources for that immediate response, that intervention?

For this response, we pulled it together, but I do think we need to do a little bit more planning.

Because they're not reusable, so do we have some for the next fire? It's middle summer, right? It's early. And so I guess part of my question to the board and everybody is, You know, we have the authority, if we have to, to delegate and triage some some maybe funding to make sure that we are prepared, you know, or, you know, what is it going to take to get somebody out of the elements? Do we have resources to emergency resources to landlords and to renters and low income people that don't have the ability to have filtration and they need it? What if that person has a comorbidity? They have emphysema, severe asthma. other respiratory illnesses um and so i'm just kind of trying to think about that public health response we're responding the best we can now but it do we see a need where we need to be prepared for you know if that crests over right so um that's my thought just as like a provider like where are we like rolling that out do we have another three thousand because honestly, they're not supposed to be used all, you don't use them day after day. That's not how they work. So I don't know what your thoughts are around how we could be more responsive or if we need to augment anything. Is there any asks you should be asking us as a board for funding or to be prepared to talk about? I guess is my big, my, is where I want to get at.

We're not asking for that today, commissioners. I'll be the first to come to you if we have any.

Right. But these are the conversations we should be having right now. Like this is we're in level one. That's it. That's to get ready. That's a get ready question. So that's my I would pose that to you to say if you do see something on the ground, if you do see any, you know, we're all ears.

If I might interject just I think that just in the 2025 N95 masks were critically important and that's actually where we worked with the state really well and there was a distribution hub we had in Wilsonville and so it's a much larger scale so if it does rise to that I'm confident that we'll be having conversations with the state about the needs to fill our void in those masks so It was quite complicated I can just tell you being a part of it every day we would have a meeting just on N95s and making sure that we were kind of getting those out there so I would think at this point as far as financial ask or anything like that other than I think it's great to have a conversation about it. Did you have anything else to add on that?

Well, I would just add that you're right. During, when an EOC is activated, there are structures in place to make those resource requests. And, you know, if we can't fulfill that resource with our local resources, then it, you know, goes to the next level of jurisdiction. Yeah. Can I ask another question?

Yeah, one second. Martha's on mute.

Mr. Schrader has her hand raised. She's had her hand up.

Go ahead, Martha.

She's on, you're on mute, Commissioner.

May I just quickly respond just a little bit more? I agree with everything. Some of the things to be thinking about that we have been thinking about in our public health emergency preparedness planning is medical needs shelters and transportation for high-risk medical needs individuals to these medical needs shelters. Again, that would go through incident command and is something that I think we still need to continue to plan on. Okay. And the other sort of place of communication that I would like to improve is camps, schools, outdoor activities, a lot of them are being canceled due to the poor air quality, which I fully support. We don't have any jurisdiction to cancel things like that outside of an emergency, but more communication on not having those outdoor activities when we have hazardous air quality. I think there's some communication on there that we can continue to work on improving.

Thanks. Great point. Martha, go ahead.

Yes, I just wanted to let you know that I have been following this extremely closely. I'm just learning there's a level one get ready evacuation in Moscow County, for example. But my concern was, as I was receiving all this information through our emergency sites, what I learned was, for example, government camp in Mount Hood Meadows said, I also heard that there was a level or found in the reading as I was collecting the information about what was happening in our county, that it was a level three go now evacuation. And that the be ready is Timberline Lodge government camp and the rest of the mountain to Rotterdam, which is level one ready. So am I to understand right now? Is Mount Hood Meadows and government camp still at an evacuation level? Because that's the information that I found that I believe was technically correct from the websites.

This is Jamie with Disaster Management. Again, if we could put up the map with watch duty again, that might be helpful. So Mount Hood Meadows is actually not in Clackamas County. So we have the level ones within Clackamas County. Okay, so that's basically Mount Hood. Am I correct?

It's backside.

Okay.

The back side, yeah, it's the west side from kind of Timberline Lodge down to like Wapanisha West.

Okay. Am I to understand that the wind has died down and 35 is no longer in danger of any kind or it's burning? But it's calm down.

There is an onshore system coming from the west that's pushing in a cooler moisture air that will help the fire behavior over the weekend so the fire behavior will be favorable for the firefighters to make progress on their containment lines on that west side.

Yeah, and the last time I checked, it was 20% contained, but I heard you say right now it was 23% contained.

The update today we received from the incident management team is that it is increased 3% from yesterday. It's 23% contained today. Okay.

Well, thank you for that. I wanted to I'm visiting family right now. But when I I always track what's happening, even when I'm not at the county. And I think that this is something that I want to make a comment based on something that Commissioner Sava said. One of the things I've continually heard as we move forward with these kinds of emergencies, which seem to be getting worse and worse every fire season, do we have coordinated maps of some kind that give people evacuation routes? And how do you come up with that on the spur of the moment? That's a concern for me. How do we get them out of there? And how do they know where to go?

Right. So we've asked folks, if you go back to our ClackGo prepared, we have developed the Know Your Routes. So we have developed some maps with Maine arterials, but we're asking folks to study those maps for what the Maine routes are in and out of their area. learning a couple different routes in and out. So we always kind of do our normal routine day to day in and out the same way. We're wanting folks to really get prepared to maybe have to go a different direction. And in those emergency alerts that we would send out, if there is a preferred route with a sheriff's office to tell them to go, if the fire is going a certain way, that's where we would have the opportunity to, to issue some of that information. And we don't want to tell people one direct way always because it could change, right, during the incident. So that's how we're working with that.

Anything else, Martha?

She's muted again.

Yes, I don't have anything else, but I felt it was imperative that I be here given the, you know, this is a very difficult situation and the fact that some of our constituents could really be in harm's way at this point. And I do have a process question. Andrew, I can unmute myself, but I'm assuming that you can also unmute me. Is that correct?

No, Commissioner. I don't have the power to unilaterally unmute you.

All right. Well, then I will make sure that I know that next time. And now I will unmute myself. Thank you.

All right. I thought Andrew had the power to do anything. Me too. Commissioner Helm.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation and for giving our citizens an update. Kim, you mentioned dispersing some of the N95s up to Sandy. Did any go to the Hoodland Fire District as well?

I don't know if any went directly to the Hoodland Fire District. We distribute them to Sandy through Ant Farm, who is community-based organizations and works with many other community-based organizations. I CAN SEE IF THEY DISTRIBUTED I CAN SEE IF THEY DISTRIBUTED SOME IN THE HOODLAND FIRE SOME IN THE HOODLAND FIRE DISTRICT AREA. DISTRICT AREA. I WOULD ASSUME SO. I WOULD ASSUME SO.

I'VE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE I'VE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE PREVIOUS CHAIR OF THE CPO UP AT PREVIOUS CHAIR OF THE CPO UP AT HOODLAND AND THEY HAVE SUGGESTED HOODLAND AND THEY HAVE SUGGESTED TO ALL THE OLDER FOLKS UP THERE TO ALL THE OLDER FOLKS UP THERE THAT THEY JUST GET IN THEIR CARS THAT THEY JUST GET IN THEIR CARS AND COME TO PORTLAND AND TRY TO AND COME TO PORTLAND AND TRY TO GET OUT OF THAT AIR QUALITY, but it would be handy if they didn't have to drive into Sandy to get a mask. So I'm sure Ant Farm is probably distributing up there.

I do know Ant Farm did give some to a community center for older adults. So it might have, I think it was Welch's. I don't, yeah. Okay, perfect. Thank you. All right.

Just a couple comments to kind of reassure people about kind of the, I would call it the incident command structure. And there really is a lot of experience in how those are operated. Oftentimes the incident commander is kind of the first on the scene. They eventually move to a unified command. And then when the federal overhead team comes in, they provide this next level. And I will just say it's really getting... all the right people around the table in making those decisions. They have what's called a JIC, a Joint Information Center, where they're also working closely to kind of get the information out. And I guess what I want to do is reassure people that we have people from across the United States here helping with lots of experience, and they are working diligently to get their arms around this fire and make sure that people are protected. With that being said, one of the concerns I had, and maybe, Jamie, you could talk about this, one of the historic landmarks of this county is obviously Timberline, and I know there was an evacuation there. Maybe you can just talk about that condition, plans to preserve that building, which is incredibly important to Clackamas County.

Sure. Right now, Timberline is within that level one zone within Clackamas County. And the Oregon State Fire Marshal's team that is on the fire, they're actually there for structural protection. So they've been doing a lot of work on the south and southeast side. PROTECTING ALL OF THE RESIDENTIAL STRUCTURES OVER THERE. BUT THEY HAVE DONE A FULL ASSESSMENT. I'VE BEEN TOLD THROUGH THE IMT UPDATES ON THE WEST SIDE FOR STRUCTURE PROTECTION. SO I CAN'T SPEAK EXACTLY TALL OF WHAT THEY DO, BUT MY GENERAL UNDERSTANDING IS THAT THEY DO GO CHECK ON DIFFERENT STRUCTURES, MAKE SURE THAT THERE IS WHAT THEY CAN DO TO PRESERVE THOSE AND MAKE SURE THAT THERE'S ACCESS ROADS AND DIFFERENT THINGS THAT WOULD HELP THEM FIGHT THE FIRE FOR THOSE AREAS. WITH THE FAVORABLE WEATHER ON THE WEST SIDE AND THE GOOD SECURE CONTAINMENT LINES ON THE SOUTH SIDE, I'M HEARING THAT THE OREGON STATE FARM MARSHAL'S TEAM IS PREPARING TO DEMOBILIZE, WHICH IS A GOOD THING. THEY'RE NOT AS CONCERNED WITH THE STRUCTURES THERE. able to call those resources back if needed. But those are additional resources there that would be specific to help with those structures if they were in harm's way.

And another question I wanted you to maybe reiterate is talking about the air quality and the forecast for the air quality. You project it to get better in that area. I mean, can you help us kind of understand, is it going to be like it is down here, or is it JUST TRYING TO, I THINK FOLKS OUT THERE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHEN DO YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO GET BETTER BECAUSE ONE THING, AS LONGER IT GOES ON, I THINK THE MORE RISK AS BEN'S BROUGHT UP IS KIND OF MORE HEALTH ISSUES START TO PROGRESS. YEAH.

SO BASICALLY THE ONSHORE THAT'S COMING FROM THE COAST PUSHING THE AIR TO THE EAST, THAT WILL HELP IMPROVE THOSE THROUGH TODAY AND INTO THE WEEKEND. We could get you more information from the weather service. There's models that kind of show the important thing to I think people You know the fire that's there is contributing to the poor air quality, but it's not just this fire so with the air Pushing from the east it's actually bringing air poor air quality from fires in Washington and the rest of Oregon as well so A lot of Oregon was in poor air quality not just Clackamas County over the last few days But that system is pushing that wind Somewhere else which will have also poor air quality right in the United States, but it's pushing it to the east And in one last question, and this is Commissioner West and dr. President just helping families out there trying to understand this question.

I think the dilemma is oftentimes is is Should I take my child into emergency room or urgent care or a senior? And what is kind of that threshold you would see as like, I probably ought to take them in now or do something? Because I think that's a lot of times a struggle that honestly we all have sometimes. It's just, should I go or not?

Yeah, absolutely. And I just want to reassure people that our hospitals are open and have capacity and low threshold for bringing people in at this point, especially small children. If they're having difficulty breathing, that can progress pretty rapidly. And coming from Sandy or higher up the mountain, it can take some time. So if you're concerned, I wouldn't hesitate to bring a child in. But really, if they are not staying hydrated, so not drinking water, not urinating as frequently as normal, any sign of confusion, any sign of kind of physical difficulties taking a breath, if they look like they're using their chest muscles to try to get that air in or out, those would be times that you would want to go to the urgent care emergency room right away.

Okay, great. Thank you. And Jamie, I'm going to ask you to do this one more time. You talked us through a whole bunch of things, calling 211, don't call 911. Can you go through your list one more time for everybody?

Yep. For information on where to get resources, if you need help with figuring out if you're in an evacuation level, 211. And if you... have a non-life safety but urgent need for law or fire, you can call CCOM non-emergency at 503-655-8211. Or if you have a life safety or very urgent emergency, please do call 911. And then our website, Clackamas.us, anywhere on the website, you can get to that banner to click for more information to go to our alerts page. And there you can find our evacuation map and resources on the fire as well.

Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming in again on short notice, and we'll probably have you back again soon. All right. Thank you. Anything, Gary, before we move on? No, that's all for that item. All right, now it's public communication portion of our meeting. Testimonies are limited to three minutes per person. I'd ask comments to be respectful and courteous, and as a reminder, you can email submissions for public communication at bcc.clackamas, at clackamas.us, and they'll be accepted for the public record. We're going to take in-person testimony first, and I'll ask our clerk to help us moderate that, and along with the virtual testimony.

Thank you, Mr. Chair. This is a reminder that if you're attending this meeting in person and wish to speak during general public communication and not for any other item on the agenda that has its own specific public hearing today, please fill out a blue card and deposit in the box and be found by the center doors. First, I have John Kribeg. John Kribeg. Excuse me if that's my pronunciation. Please come forward and introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes. Yes, please.

Thank you. I'm a resident of Clackamas County out in Eagle Creek area. I know you folks. I'd like to ask one question pretty much of everyone in the room, if that's all right.

Well, first of all, would you state your name for the record for us? John Krieg, K-R-I-E-G. Yeah, this is really the opportunity for you to kind of talk to us and really not a timely response. We can have staff get back to you. Some of my colleagues might want to make a comment or something, but go ahead.

I'll be quick. I'd just like a show of hands in the room who knows what Tansy Ragweed is. Okay, maybe half of the people. There is a epidemic in Clackamas County right now with tansy ragweed. I pay $20 a year for vector control Excuse me. I called the vector control office They said they don't have anything to do with tansy ragweed. They do mosquitoes They referred me to the soil and water. I called them they said well the kind of the commissioners got rid of any control of tansy and they recommended me to call the commissioner's office, which I did. I asked for Craig Roberts, your secretary called me. She was very polite and kind, listened. I've lived in Clackamas County for 76 years. And my dad was a turkey farmer out in Beaver Creek. And I spent many days pulling tansy, getting rid of tansy. Because my dad got a letter from Clackamas County every year saying he was going to be fined if he didn't remove the tansy from our property. That being said, if you drive on any Clackamas County Road right now, there's beautiful yellow flowers everywhere. It's a very noxious, poisonous weed that kills animals, cows and horses specifically, and something needs to be done with it. They said that the commissioners got rid of the Tansy programs in the past, and it's getting worse. There was a tansy worm that was brought into effect that ate tansy, and they virtually cleaned it up. After the 70s, it was gone, and now it's coming back. The Clackamas County told me that you're responsible for removing the tansy that's from the center of the road to your property line. meaning the ditch on the side of the road where it's profusely growing everywhere. And I said, what does vector control do about it? And they said, we don't do anything. So I hope you guys, as a commission, can do something about it. The plant, one plant that goes to seed in the fall, right almost now, will spread that stuff. One plant right here will fill this whole area next year. It's a danger to us. Something needs to be done. I'm just a little guy out in Clackamas County and you know, help me. It could go away. Thank you. Thank you very much.

We appreciate you coming in. And I've, go ahead and have a seat. But Gary was going to make a comment. I know Commissioner Helm has one too. Gary.

Yes. Well, first, I'm sorry, sir, that you get what I call the referral merry-go-round, where everyone points their finger. Oh, it's them. Oh, it's them. Oh, it's them. Government does that quite frequently. I don't like when it happens in Clackamas County. Unfortunately, you got bad information, and I'm going to call Soil and Water Conservation myself. They are the weed-controlled district on behalf of Clackamas County. You delegated that to them 30 or 40 years ago. So that is not a function of county government. It's their function, and I'm sorry they told you otherwise. There is an issue also like where it occurs. If it's on your actual property, unfortunately, that would be your responsibility. But if it's in the right-of-way... or public property, that's Soil and Water Conservation District. So I'm gonna get to the bottom of this with Soil and Water Conservation District, and we'll get back in touch with you, but I'm sorry the misinformation's flowing here. All right, Commissioner Allen, you wanna say something?

Well, thank you, and I feel your pain, John. I have a lot of it on my property. I have gone out, it's, In tansy, as you know, tansy ragwort, it's pretty easy to pull. It's got a very shallow root system. But the best way to take care of it is to take clippers out, cut the flowers off, put them in a garbage bag, seal that bag, throw it away, and the bugs will take care of the rest of the stalk. So it's a lot of work, and I don't think I've ever seen it this bad before. And it is in the ditches. Everywhere I go, I see entire fields of it. And I was looking into maybe youth volunteer groups or nonprofit groups that would go help people get rid of it on their property. So I'm trying to get some lists of some people who may be able to come help. But I have your name and number, and I will get back to you if I can find anyone who can come help with that. Because I will say, even though it's in the ditch, it very well could be on his property. but it's also very dangerous trying to work in the ditch along your property and along a busy road. There's a lot of it along Foster Road right now, and trying to work around Foster Road is taking your life in your hands. And I know that I would love to stop and take care of the Tansy that I see growing, but I'm not sure, and I'd lose my life over pulling it. But we'll look into it and get back to you with some more information.

All right, thank you. Commissioner Westmoreland. It's, yeah, we're all aware of it and we've heard the issue before and it's a difficult invasive species to control. I think the worm you spoke about was the cinnabar larvae. We've all seen the larvae. It's that striped one, that orange and black striped one. So are we still deploying that? Is that something? I don't know. You might know, Commissioner Helm, if that's been still an active natural deterrent because it voraciously eats it.

It does. And there's other bugs that eat us.

Like natural bugs. Yes.

But I know there was a call many years ago when they just like everyone said, everyone go pull the tansy. Let's get rid of it. And there was a huge effort to do that. And it took care of it for quite a long time. But it's come back and people haven't been doing that. So I would be curious if our soil and water conservation department could help with that too. Okay.

All right. And just a comment. Before they created child labor laws as a young kid, that's what I had to do is go potency. And yeah, they'd hire me to go out and work in the fields doing that. And I actually have some on my property currently. And Actually, you just told me something new that I didn't know about cutting the top off because I have been worried about the seeds, right?

Just cut off the flowers.

So anyway, I do want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to come here and to bring this to our attention. And we're going to follow up on this and see what we can do. So thank you. Okay.

You can bring it over here to give it our...

Thank you. All right. Andrew, you want to go ahead and continue then?

Yes, Mr. Chair. This is a final call. If you're attending this meeting in person and wish to speak during general public communication, not about any item that already has its own public hearing on today's agenda and have not yet spoken, this is your opportunity to please fill out a blue card and put it in the box found by the Senators. Seeing no further in-person commenters, Mr. Chair, with your approval, I'll move to those attending virtually. If you're attending this meeting virtually and wish to speak during public communication, this is your opportunity to please raise your hand. This is a final call. If you're attending this meeting virtually and wish to speak during general public communication and not about any item that has its own specific public hearing on today's agenda, to please raise your hand. Mr. Chair, I see no other members of the public, either physically or virtually, present or should speak during general public communication today.

All right. Thank you, Andrew. I'll now close the public communication portion. Turn to Gary, and you want to introduce our first item here.

Yes, thank you. Next is reading and adoption of a previously approved land use ordinance, which is adoption of previously approved comprehensive plan and zoning and development ordinance amendments in Ordinance ZDO-293. Caleb Hugel, Assistant County Counsel, will present. Go ahead, please.

Thank you, Administrator Schmidt. Good morning, Commissioners. The item this morning is to adopt Ordinance ZDO 293, which is a package of legislative amendments to the Comprehensive Plan and ZDO, which makes relatively minor changes that are necessary to comply with state laws, clarify existing language, correct errors, and adopt optional provisions that require only minimal analysis. The Planning Commission held a public hearing on May 11th and voted six to one to recommend approval of the amendments. The Board held a public hearing on June 16th and voted five-zero to approve the amendments as recommended by staff. The ordinance before you today would adopt the amendments previously approved by the board with minor corrections for numbering, formatting, citations, consistency, and typos found in staff's final proofread. Findings are attached to the ordinance. It is staff's recommendation that you adopt the ordinance. Planning staff are here today, and we would be happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Okay, thank you, Caleb. Any questions for my colleagues? Seeing none, may I have a motion?

I move we adopt ordinance ZDO 293.

Second. I'll second.

All right.

Okay. Thank you, Martha. Commissioner West has moved to adopt the previously approved comprehensive plan and zoning and development ordinance amendments in the file ZDO 293. Commissioner Schrader seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, you please call the poll.

Commissioner Schrader. Aye. Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm. Aye. Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0.

Mr. Chair. Thank you. Gary, what's next? Thank you. Next is our public hearings. There are two of them. The first is approval of a boundary change proposal for sewer services to territory located at 12720 Southeast Callahan Road in Happy Valley. No fiscal impact. No county general funds are involved. Jeff Munns, Assistant County Counsel, will present. Go ahead, please.

Yes, thank you. This is an annexation into the Clackamas County Service District number one, which is a component of Water Environment Services. This property is eligible for annexation into that district. There is a sewer line adjacent to the property, or actually this one's already installed in the property, to serve future development at this location. All proper notices have been sent out and posted. I've received no comments or objections of any kind, and staff recommend approval of this annexation.

All right. Any questions, colleagues? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing on this item. So clerk, you want to help us moderate that comment section?

Yes, Mr. Chair. If you're attending this meeting and wish to comment on this specific item only, this is your opportunity to please fill out a blue card and deposit in the box found by the center doors. Seeing none, I'll now move with your assent, Mr. Chair, to those attending virtually. If you're attending this meeting virtually and wish to speak on this specific item only, this is your opportunity to please raise your hand. Mr. Chair, I see no other members of the public, either physically or virtually present, wish to comment on this specific item.

Thank you. I'll now close the public hearing portion and check with my commissioners, see if there's any comments. May I have a motion then?

I move we approve boundary change proposal number 2026-005. Second.

All right, Commissioner Helm has moved to approve boundary change proposal 2026-005. Commissioner Schrader has seconded that. Any further discussion? CNN clerk, please call the poll.

Commissioner Schrader.

Aye.

Commissioner Zavis.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner West. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes five to zero. Mr. Chair.

All right, Gary, what's the second public hearing we have?

Thank you. Next public hearing is approval of a boundary change proposal for sewer services to territory located at 17560 and 17580 Kirkwood Road in Gladstone. No fiscal impact. No county general funds are involved. Jeff will present as well. Go ahead.

Yes, thank you. This is an annexation into the Tri-City Service District, the other component of Water Environment Services for Sewer Services. This property is located in Gladstone, and it is appropriate for annexation as it complies with Metro Code, the City Comp Plan, County Comprehensive Plan, as well as the ORS 198 requirements. Again, all proper notices have been sent out and posted. We receive no objections, and staff recommends approval of this annexation.

All right, any questions? All right, part of the process, I'll open the public hearing on this item as well. So clerk, you want to moderate that again for us?

Yes, Mr. Chair. I've received one blue card from a member of the public physically present who wishes to speak on this item. This is a reminder, if you wish to speak on this specific item, to please fill out a blue card and deposit in the box down by the center doors. Mr. Daniel Garcia, Daniel Garcia, please come forward. Introduce yourself. You'll have three minutes.

Hi, I'm Daniel Garcia. I am a resident off of Ridgewood Drive, the next street over from Kirkwood Road. When we received notice of this boundary change proposal, everything seemed fine other than one concerning thing that seems to be what was planned for with this. It stated in the notice that It only stated the sewer line coming off of our road and made no mention of the sewer line that was already started and installed on Kirkwood right after where it intersects with Webster Road. In order for a sewer line to connect from our street in our neighborhood up to Kirkwood, it has to go up the hill cutting through people's personal properties would require you know instant instituting an easement for it for the county that could you know add undue cause restrict the personal property owners use of their land and it could just and with the temporary inconvenience that could be caused by digging, destroying whatever installations we may have on our property, whether it be retaining walls, fences, gardens. I feel that with this current proposal as it sits, the intention is to connect it to the sewer line on our street, and I wouldn't want that kind of inconvenience or potential cost to be imposed on us or our fellow neighbors, whereas a sewer line itself could also be run just up Kirkwood where it's already partially installed. So as of right now, as this sits, I would oppose something like this.

Thank you. This is a final call after you attend this meeting in person and wish to speak on this specific item, to please put a blue card in the box found by the center doors. Seeing none, Mr. Chair, with your assent, I'll move to those attending virtually. If you're attending this meeting virtually and wish to comment on this specific item, this is your opportunity to please raise your hand. This is a final call. If you're attending this meeting virtually and wish to speak on this specific item, to please raise your hand. Mr. Chair, I see no other members of the public, either physically or virtually present, wish to comment on this specific item. Thank you.

I'll now close the public hearing and check with my commissioners. Any questions? And Commissioner Savas, go ahead.

firsthand what it's like to have a neighboring property or a subdivision put in and the inconveniences that go with that. So I've experienced that. I understand that. That's, I guess I'll say part of life, but it is a consequence of the development that happens nearby. If you could just nod to me up or down, is your property higher than this new property or is it below? Okay. Um, all right. Thanks for that information. I, I will, I'll, I'll drive out there and look at it, but I, hopefully there won't be any inconvenience. Mr. Mons, have you cited anything that I know there's, is anyone here from Wes?

I CAN SPEAK TO THIS. I THINK WHEN THIS HAPPENS, I THINK WHEN THIS HAPPENS, FIRST OFF, THE IDENTIFICATION FIRST OFF, THE IDENTIFICATION OF THE SEWER LINE IS SOMETHING OF THE SEWER LINE IS SOMETHING THAT THE APPLICANT PUTS IN THAT THE APPLICANT PUTS IN THEIR APPLICATION. THEIR APPLICATION. THE WEST LOOKS AT THIS AS FAR AS THE WEST LOOKS AT THIS AS FAR AS IS IT FEASIBLE, CAN WE PROVIDE IS IT FEASIBLE, CAN WE PROVIDE THE SERVICE. THE SERVICE. IT IS UPON THE APPLICANT WHEN IT IS UPON THE APPLICANT WHEN THEY CONNECT TO WEST AND THEY THEY CONNECT TO WEST AND THEY DEVELOP TO GO THROUGH THAT BUILDING DEVELOP TO GO THROUGH THAT BUILDING PROCESS AND DEAL WITH THE CONNECTION AND THE IMPACTS AND OBTAINING EASEMENT TO PROVIDE THAT SERVICE AND SO ON. THEY MAY IN THE END CONNECT THROUGH A DIFFERENT ROUTE LIKE THE GENTLEMAN SUGGESTED. THAT'S NOT SOMETHING WE KNOW AT THIS POINT. THIS IS COMING INTO THE West can serve the property the actual connection is going to be upon the applicant to do so in a way that is you know they have legal access and deals with those other impacts potentially to neighbors and cost and all of that so the other process is in place to catch some of those as well as to hear additional comment from the public potentially and try to mitigate some of those impacts but this doesn't by approving this it doesn't mean it's going to connect in that manner

Yeah, well, it's likely by grade. For example, sewer follows the grade, right? Correct. It's typical, but water does not, and nor does natural gas or other utilities. So I do know that one agency could come by and put in a sewer line. Another agency could come by later on and do a water. It's inconvenient. I know that. I get that. But this action doesn't impose any easements on other properties, right?

No, of course not.

Okay. Thank you.

Any other comments? Is there a motion?

I move we approve boundary change proposal 2026-007.

Second. Commissioner Allen was moved to approve boundary change proposal 2026-007. Commissioner Savas has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, you please call the poll.

Commissioner Schroeder. Aye. Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes five to zero, Mr.

Chair. Gary, what's next? Thank you. Next is the consent agenda for the Board of County Commissioners. Andrew, would you please read the consent agenda?

Consent agenda for the Board of County Commissioners. Item A, elected officials. One, approval of previous business meeting minutes for the Board of County Commissioners. Two, approval of purchase order to DOTEC for durable field laptop computers. Purchase order value is $172,250 for one year. Funding is through budgeted county general funds. B, County Council. One, approval of an amendment to a real property conveyance agreement with the Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission for acquisition of property located at 9900 Southeast McBroad Avenue, Milwaukee. Amendment value is $50,000 for one year. Funding is through budgeted county general funds. Two, approval of an amendment to a lease agreement with Oregon Liquor and Cannabis Commission for the community corrections facility at 9000 Southeast McBroad Avenue, Milwaukee. Amendment value is $1 for two years. Total agreement value is $2 for two years. Funding is through budgeted county general funds. Three, approval of the transfer of the dormant property to Hoodland Fire District number 74. No fiscal impact, no county general funds are involved. C, human resources. One, ratification of the labor agreement with the Federation of Oregon Parole and Probation Officers for represented employees. Agreement value is $15,380,724 for three years. Funding is through Oregon Department of Corrections funds, grant funds to the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission, and approximately $10,981,837 in county general funds. Two, ratification of the labor memorandum of agreement with Clackamas County Peace Officers Association for represented employees. Total agreement value is $69,903,060 for one year. Funding is through the public safety local option levy, contract city funds, enhanced law enforcement to district revenue, Oregon Department of Corrections and Oregon Criminal Justice Commission funds, concealed handgun license fees and traffic fines, and approximately $1,000,000 $51,448,652 in budget county general funds. Three, approval to initiate negotiations with Aetna and OptumRx for employee health insurance and pharmacy benefits service agreements. Estimated agreement value with Aetna is $32,746,000 for one year. Estimated agreement value with OptumRx is $5,052,000 for one year. Funding is through contributions and fees paid by county departments, retirees, and COBRA beneficiaries, as well as approximately $10,583,440 in budgeted county general funds. D. Transportation and Development. 1. Approval of a grant agreement with Metro for a regional travel options grant to implement portions of the Clackamas County Travel Options Action Plan. Grant value is $225,000 for three years. Funding is through Metro and a required match of $25,752 in staff time paid through the County Road Fund. No county general funds are involved. 2. Approval of board order accepting a right-of-way easement and vacating an unused portion of Bornstead Road. No fiscal impact. No county general funds are involved. 3. Approval of board order correcting the description of previously vacated Whiskey Lane. No fiscal impact. No county general funds are involved. 4. Approval of funding agreement with Clackamas County Arts Alliance for a non-competitive grant. Grant value is $70,000 for one year. Funding is through Oregon Lottery dollars. No county general funds are involved. Five, approval of an intergovernmental agreement with Clackamas Community College for a workforce development grant. Agreement value is $100,000 for one year. Funding is through Oregon Lottery dollars. No county general funds are involved. Six, approval of funding agreement with Clackamas County Historical Society to support the Museum of the Oregon Territory. Agreement value is $70,000 for one year. Funding is through Oregon Lottery dollars. No county general funds are involved. Seven, approval of a contract amendment with Consor North America for the Sunnyside Road and 142nd project curb ramps. Amendment value is $182,830 with no time increase. Total contract value is $2,238,758 for two years. Funding is through county road fund. No county general funds are involved. Eight, approval of a public improvement contract with Eagle Elsner for the Beaver Creek Woods Paving Project. Contract value is $553,640.70 for four months. Funding is through the Community Road Fund. No county general funds are involved. Nine, approval of a contract with Ingram Library Services for book and digital media purchasing and processing services. Contract value is $795,000 for three years. Funding is through Oak Lodge and Gladstone Library District Distributions. No county general funds are involved. E, Health Housing Human Services. One, approval of an amendment to a personal services contract with Mercy Housing Northwest for property management and resident case management at Mercy Greenbrae Apartments. Amendment value is $580,000 for one year. Total agreement value is $1,740,000 for three years. Funding is through supportive housing services measure funds. No county general funds are involved. Two, approval of an amendment with Ant Farm from Alala Resource Center Building Improvements. Amendment value is $120,000. Total agreement value is $1,540,524.80 for 30 months. Funding is through Oregon House Bill 5202 funds. No county general funds are involved. Three, approval to apply for United States Department of Justice grant for staff positions and training to improve sexual violence response. Grant value is up to $1,250,000 for three years. Funding is the United States Department of Justice. No county general funds are involved. Four, approval amendment to an intergovernmental agreement with Oregon Department of Human Services for the Senior Health Insurance Benefits Assistance State Health Insurance Assistance Program funding. Amendment value is $21,090 and no time increase. Total agreement value is $41,418 for two years. Funding is the Oregon Department of Human Services. No county general funds are involved. Mr. Chair, that concludes the Board of Commissioners consent agenda.

Thank you. First question is, does any of my colleagues want to remove an item from the consent agenda?

Yes, Chair. I think it's item C3. Is that correct, Gary?

Yes, C3. Do you just want to ask me a question or do you want to remove the item?

I want to move it for discussion. I intend, I think if my understanding is clear on moving forward with C3 today, but I just want a clarification in advance of that. So, Chair, I move we approve the consent agenda minus item C3 and then deal with C3 next.

Can I second for the sake of discussion and questions around that, your motion? I'll second so we can discuss. Okay.

Okay. Commissioner Salvas has moved to approve the consent agenda minus subject to item C3. Commissioner West is second to that. I'll open it up for discussion. Commissioner West?

So you should not discuss C3 now. You're going to discuss the rest of the consent agenda.

Yeah. Okay. I don't know if today I want to pull C3. I have questions, again, that I need to ask. And I see we do have some staff in the room. And I would like to discuss that and then make a decision. I don't know if that is the intention of your motion. Or do you want to pull?

It's my intention to pull it for discussion only, right?

Okay, today.

Today. Okay. And then if we choose to act on C3 today, I'm ready to do that too. Okay, I agree. But right now what's on the table is the remainder of the consent agenda.

And just focusing on what we have questions. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

So do we want to have them come up right now? No, no. So the motion is to approve all the other consent agenda items. That's your business right now.

Okay. So there's a motion on the table, and we've had the discussion, so clerk, would you call the poll?

Commissioner Schrader.

Aye.

Commissioner West.

Aye.

Commissioner Helm.

Aye.

Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes five to zero, Mr. Chair.

Okay, so now we'll discuss. Yes, so now as a board discussion item on what was under the consent agenda, I'll read it. Approval to initiate negotiations with Aetna and OptumRx for employee health insurance and pharmacy benefit service agreements. Estimated agreement value with Aetna is $32,746,000 for one year. Estimated agreement value with OptimumRx is $5,052,000 for one year. Funding is through contributions and fees paid by county departments, retirees, COBRA beneficiaries, and approximately $10,583,000 $440 in budgeted county general funds. I'll invite, please, Evelyn Minor Lawrence, HR Director, and Heather Pedersen, Deputy Director, who've been patiently waiting. Thank you for being here to please come forward. We're happy to answer your questions.

So I'll go ahead and start with Commissioner Savas when they get up here.

Thank you all, our staff, to be seated. I guess in a sense, this is a continuation of the conversation we had on Tuesday. And following that conversation, I received some phone calls and I was... I was invited to a group of people last night, as were others, and this came up again. So the way I characterize what we're doing here is like, okay, maybe we picked the bakery, but we haven't ordered the cake yet, and we can shape the cake, so to speak, or make the cake. And I see the language in there. Can you go back up to the top? the topic that we are initiating, right? We haven't decided, but we're initiating. And my question and confirmation on Tuesday was, we're working in parallel with the, is the CRC or the committee?

The Benefits Review Committee.

The BRC. Yeah, the BRC. So we're working in concert, so if there's a building to negotiate elements of that, I imagine, right, between that bidirectional conversation, if there's heartburn over a particular issue or whatnot, is that correct?

That is correct. Okay.

What was the other note I made here? I'll stop there, and I know that Commissioner West has some comments as well, or questions.

Yeah. So there is, I got the same comments, the same over the last few days, multiple phone calls. What is the process when we, because there's multiple BRCs, right? So there's, I know that doesn't, is, I guess my question is, Is the POA, does it have its own board that you work with? Am I right? Separate from the one that I sat on, like when we were talking about other healthcare coverage issues when I represented the board. Is there more than those two? No. No, so it's those two. Am I understanding correctly for everyone's knowledge? Okay. Is it required to have input from both those boards on this decision process that we're making today before we make it? And have they fully had their opportunity to weigh in in a way that allows them to feel like they've been heard?

So the general county BRC, the one that you sat on, the unions that are represented within that BRC include the the Employees Association groups and the AFSCME groups and their contracts, their collective bargaining agreements are pretty clear that the county is authorized to select a carrier and then with feedback input from the BRCs or the BRC and then what that BRC is really in charge of is the plan design. So once a carrier is selected like Providence or Aetna, then the plan design is up to that benefits review committee. The POA's contract is a little different. It doesn't outright specify that, so there is some more partnership and agreement that needs to be made from both parties, correct?

Can I ask a question about that? Yes. Just clarifying, because we're in the weeds a little bit here, but it matters to these groups. Does the POA have, by contract, the right to give their input on this decision we're making today? And have they had that opportunity yet?

I would say yes. We have been meeting as, when I say we, our benefits team. So the POA Benefits Review Committee is two POA members and two members from the county, which right now include two members from benefits within HR. So it's four people. And we've been meeting for several months and weekly, most recently, and the Peace Officers Association has had lot of questions and addressed or voiced concerns about Aetna and I think you know as you know you've seen that the price difference is significant and so the benefits review committees on both committees are looking at not only the plan and providing employees good benefits and access to healthcare, but also looking at cost and being fiscally responsible. So I think early on, because there was such a difference in cost, it was, I think we were focused from the county perspective, focused on Aetna because of just the significant cost difference. And so the Peace Officers Association have certainly addressed the concerns that they have that their members have voiced and have asked a lot of questions. And I think we've talked about that earlier, about alternative care, Providence being within the network. And we've answered those questions as they've come up. They've asked for additional costing from Mercer, our insurance broker, about, well, what if we wanted to go with a different plan other than Aetna? What would that look like? And what we've learned is the claims are the claims. We're self-insured. But the administrative fees are what the carriers can increase or decrease. And so the costing based on the proposals that they shared were based on the total county of about 1,450 employees that would be losing Providence if we're pulling out a section of those employees we went back and asked Mercer to reach out to Aetna Moda and Regents would your costing look different if we were to separate out this this group from the larger County group in the answer at least from Moda and I think Regents as well was yes our administrative fees would go up because now we're you know providing a proposal for a smaller group Aetna said no you know it would be fine with us. Moda and Regions said, yeah, the cost would go up.

Yeah.

Go ahead.

Can I add something to that to also answer your question? Because in the POA's agreement, it specifically mentions providence, and it doesn't go into specifics, it doesn't quite work like the general BRC, that would be a mandatory subject for bargaining, and so they would have to, they can bargain Once we put it in place, but their current contract that's on the table for the board to consider is to stay with status quo. And so this once this contract is in place, then they can submit a mandatory subject or bargaining over. the medical benefits, so that door is not closed.

Okay. So here's just what I'm feeling on the ground, and then there's probably a lot of communication that has to happen. A phone call, a couple phone calls, and then in-person conversations. I talked to my provider, and they said, if you go to Aetna, I can no longer take your insurance and no longer will. You will most likely need to find a new provider. So that comment automatically, like, raises some alarm bells. I don't know what kind of communication happened when Providence went to ASH and we saw the change and we are prioritizing some alternative care here. That's something that we've prioritized. Um, there wasn't, I don't think an understanding about how, what it means to be self-insured and how it picks up that difference and make sure that you don't have that disruption and you don't necessarily see that and how to communicate that to your providers and how is that not, you know, they're concerned, well, is that going to further make more difficulties with our already stressed budget? So these are the types of questions that we're fielding and, you know, and I personally believe, here's, I'm taking this into consideration. Out of the choices we have, the only other maybe alternative we would consider is Moda because it has PEB, and I think that gives it some stabilizing factors, a regional provider that Regency doesn't have, and you lose OHSU as a provider. Right now, if you'd go with Regents, that makes me real nervous, and it's expensive, and we're seeing some real kind of alarming trends happening with what just happened with Providence. So you have to think about all of that holistically. I'm thinking about that. But it's hard to answer that question. I don't know if they, I don't know what our communication is like. I'm getting some feedback that there's still some confusion about how this rolls out and what it looks like. I'm not pointing any fingers to that, but I think that that's contributing to why we're polling and talking about it again today. And so when we talk about being self-insured, when we talk about filling that gap as being self-insured and prioritizing alternative care, what does that look like practically? I go in to see my provider. They say, that's Aetna. Sorry, loved you as a client for 10 years. Not going to work with that provider. Can you publicly talk about, like, no, please do, and this is the reality for my specific insurance? How do we manage that moving forward?

That's a really good question. I know from my own... I can only speak from my own personal experience with the provider. When we did have that confusion last year with Providence going to the ASH network, there was a lot of providers that said... that told their clients that very thing. It's like... We've heard you're going to ASH. We're not interested. We're not interested. So I do think it is, you know, I don't know that the county benefits team can reach out to everyone's individual providers, but I had a conversation at the desk as I was checking out and talking with them about it because they knew They happen to see a lot of, and I'm talking about my chiropractor, they see a lot of county employees. They knew what was going on. I talked to them about the fact that we're self-insured and here's what is happening here. And the relationship continued and it was fine. So I'm not saying that employees need to go out and speak to each of their providers. But I would be working with mercer and aetna and finding out um before they send out id cards is there something that we can put on the id card that identifies a different option um so does it work like let's say they say i my billing is 200 for this hour hour and a half of service

It's $200, $250. Does Aetna come and say, we only pay 50 and that's what we pay, and then the county just picks up from our own coffers the difference of whatever that billed amount is? And is there only a certain amount that we'll go up to for certain services? Because it can get really expensive real fast if we're just like prioritizing this and clearly our members want it, but that sounds expensive.

So my understanding is that if they are already in-network with ASH or with Aetna. And again, Aetna uses the ASH network, but unlike Providence, they can also reach agreement with a provider outside of ASH network. So you could be in network with ASH, you could be in network with Aetna outside of ASH. And if neither of those are true, then what you just shared would be the, the county would pay the bills as, or the claims as billed.

As billed? Right. Okay. And we've budgeted for that?

We have budgeted for that.

And that, is that included? That's not included or it is included in the six or over 6% increase through Aetna?

That portion has been, Mercer is, they're the ones that are doing these calculations for us and recommending the premiums going forward that would cover that.

That would cover that, okay. Thank you for indulging me. I hope that helps me. And I do love the analogy. It's a fantastic one, Commissioner Savas, that we are buying a bakery, but the cake is not done being baked. And so that's going to be more tailored and custom to our needs.

Right, and that is the BRCs are actually decorating the cake with the plan design portion of that.

Well, I hope it's chocolate. I love that. Commissioner Salas, go ahead. Yeah, so I didn't... plan on getting this level of detail, but I'm glad we're talking about it. I do want to say, I think there was some confusion, especially when the email came out yesterday. It painted the picture as though it was, and I read it, you know, after the phone call and made no mention of the BRC, made it as though it was decided, right? As opposed to, you know, that it's really, we're still going to decorate the cake and figure out how to shape it or make it So that's one that's one thing and maybe that could be worked on in the future. So people know secondly we did discuss it and broached about the You know part of the rationale and thinking on this consideration is that we went for something really expensive that 95-5 split would be meaning that the cost per employee for that hire would be more so I want to make sure that's they understand that's going to happen anyhow, but the degree of that Depends on the on the provider and also the package so we don't work We're still negotiating that so I know that's something the BRC will we will consider the other thing that is I Heard was really the quality of service, right? I think it was more along the lines of you know, we'll have to fight for a reclaim or so forth so I See it's a one-year a one-year commitment, it looks like, one-year contract. And, you know, normally I wouldn't say, well, we have an off ramp, right? If, if it's not working out, if it's really, let's say the, the quality of service is really poor. Um, if it was a three year contract, I would really be insisting on a, um, on an off ramp, but our, you know, when we talk about this, I just want to just plant the seed, not discuss it today. You don't need to respond, but I want to make sure that, that we are seeing, um, a quality service and it doesn't, um, make us all jump through hoops trying to get our medical needs I do know from because of the issue of my back here recently and all the stuff that even though I my wife's plan I'm on is a Cadillac plan everything is more difficult than ever and I do know particularly with not acupuncture, but massage and chiropractic because of some scandals in that industry in some areas where that has been, alarm bells have gone off and they've been more restrictive and a little bit more difficult to get approval. My wife is dealing with that as well. So I do know what it's like when you think you have insurance and then you gotta resubmit and call and resubmit and call and that just takes time and grief and it gets back down to quality of service. So hopefully it's as seamless on the quality side as possible.

Yeah, can I make one, just one clarification? So this, when you're talking about one year, we're talking about the value of one year of Aetna. we would Likely be Signing a three or five year agreement and what that does is lock in the administrative costs that they've they've Quoted us and I verified this because I had that exact same question I talked with Mercer and said what if it's we have horrible experience Can we get out of this are we locked in if we sign a three or five year agreement and the answer is no and What I learned from Mercer is that if we go through 2027, and I hope this isn't true, but we need to plan ahead. If we have horrible experiences, the customer service is terrible, and we want an out, we can get out. We'll have to go through this process again. And what we would lose is the, I think, for years one and two, they're giving us a $50,000 discount. rebate. If we signed a three or five year agreement, they'd be giving us a rebate for the first two years and we would lose the $50,000 for the first year or $50,000 for the second year. But there isn't a larger cost of breaking a contract. Okay.

Well, it's all on the table. That's all I wanted to do. And just make sure that we're all of an understanding. And thank you for sharing that. It's really a three out of five. So therefore, I think some kind of off-ramp. If the service is very, very poor and there's very challenges, I think that we have to have an off-ramp. Thank you. With that all said, I feel comfortable moving forward with

initiate negotiations engage the brc and it's also nice to know that the um that there's a second door for the poa with a contractual language so with all that uh chair i i one more one more go ahead go ahead one question i'll bring it up because i heard it um i think with any of these if you use the google machine you'll find out all kinds of things about all these providers especially large national um providers like aetna any of them. So some of the things like just Google them, just Google them, right? That they're, it's not, you know, kind of that alarmism and very anecdotal. And we have no idea what all that entails. Um, do you feel comfortable or should we be concerned about the overall reputation and the way they do business with, with this, this person or about this entity we're about to get, um, have a contract with a longterm contract? Um, Have you thought about that? Has that been looked at? How do you vet the fit beyond just the price tag?

Again, very good question. I think we talked about this earlier this week. We talked to the public sector entities that we know that Aetna provided us that they're contracted with. Like Seattle. City of Seattle, Kitsap County in Washington, the state of Alaska, trying to do some due diligence. We also have had face-to-face, well, screen-to-screen conversations with Mercer and the representatives from Aetna. Anecdotally, one of the project managers with Aetna just left Providence and went with Aetna. Her name is Cash Stevens. I don't know if you remember her from last year, but she's well aware of Clackamas County. She's been with Providence for a long time. Now she's with Aetna. So that made us feel good because she knows the county and has worked with us for a long time for Providence. So I feel like we've done our due diligence. Would I stake my reputation on it. It is a cost savings to the county, and I feel as comfortable as I can with our benefits team and making a recommendation from Mercer, who is our broker and has been for many, many years.

I appreciate that, and I think that's just an important message to get out, that you have worked with similar partners that are apples to apples and did that due diligence, like a reference background check, like when you're going to engage with somebody in this capacity or another entity. So I don't know if that's totally known, right? And it's hard to always get these messages out. And sometimes the negative spreads much faster than the positive or what work you've done. So I would just encourage that we need to have a very solid, good, robust communication with how we roll this out and how it's going. But I agree. I'll be supporting moving forward with this option today when we get there. And thank you for answering my questions.

board that we do have a communication plan to communicate with employees throughout this process.

Good. Okay. So is there a motion to approve the health insurance item C3?

Yeah, Chair, I move to move forward with agenda item C3 today.

I'll second that.

All right. Commissioner Savas has made a motion to approve the health insurance item C3, seconded by Commissioner Schrader. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

Commissioner West. Aye. Commissioner Schrader. Aye. Commissioner Helm. Aye. Commissioner Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair. Thank you both very much, and thank you for your hard work on this.

We appreciate it. I will now recess as Board of County Commissioners convene as the Water Environment Services Board of Directors.

Gary? Next is the Consent Agenda for Water Environment Services. Andrew, would you please read the Consent Agenda?

Water Environment Services Board of Directors Consent Agenda. Item A, approval of an amendment to an intergovernmental agreement with partner cities for renewal of a regional inflow and infiltration reduction program. Amendment value is $11,975,000 for five years. Total agreement value is $19,580,000 for nine years. Funding is through Water Environment Services Sanitary Sewer Construction Funds. No county general funds are involved. Mr. Chair, that concludes the Water Environment Services Board of Directors Consent Agenda.

All right. Do any directors wish to remove an item? All right, I'm glad no one wants to remove one right now. So may I have a motion?

Chair, I move we approve the West's consent agenda.

Second. All right, Commissioner Helms moved to approve the consent agenda. I'm sorry, Commissioner Savas has moved to approve the consent agenda. Consent, and it's been seconded by... I got that all backwards, didn't I?

It was backwards. Our names were both wrong.

Commissioner Helm moved to approve the consent agenda. Director Savas is seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please call the poll.

Director Schrader.

Aye.

Director West. Aye. Director Helm.

Aye.

Director Savas. Aye. Mr. Chair. Aye. Motion passes 5-0, Mr. Chair. Thank you.

I will now adjourn as Water Environment Service Board of Directors and convene as the Board of County Commissioners. Gary. Aye.

Thank you. Next is county administrator update. You just had a West consent item. Today my recognition is for West. Water Environment Services received a national award, the 2026 Watermark Award from the Pacific Northwest Clean Water Association. The award recognizes West's work on the Tri-City Outfall Project in Oregon City. This award honors association members who create outstanding education, public outreach, and communication programs that support the water resource industry in the Pacific Northwest. As you recall, commissioners, the Tri-City Outfall Pipeline will accommodate anticipated flows to the facility through 2080. Wes invited the community to name the tunnel boring machine, and after 600 suggestions, the title chosen was Clack-A-Mole. And several of you have pictures next to that. So, Water and Environment Services received this national recognition for the project and our communication and outreach efforts related to it. Thank you to the team at Water Environment Services for the outstanding work. That is my update today. Back to you, Commissioners.

All right. Commissioner of Communication, I'm going to start with Commissioner Schrader. Go ahead.

Well, colleagues, I don't have much to add. I am going to wish all of you well. I am with my family right now, so I am going to get back to them. Rest assured, I'm keeping up with things, particularly my concern over, you know, the fires that we're dealing with in the area. So with that, I'm going to wish you all good day, and I will hopefully will see you in the next few weeks. Thanks very much. Cheerio. All right.

Thank you. Commissioner Salvas.

Yeah. Yesterday we had our audit committee meeting yesterday, and we adopted the new bylaws and the new structure. And I want to just give a shout out to Jody Cochran and Kathy Young for their work. And The treasurer, Nava, was not able to attend. He's out of town currently. But, you know, they do great work. They're a small team. And in that discussion, I think Chair Roberts made and expressed, you know, some reasonable concerns I agreed with with regard to it's a lot of work for a small team. And our independent auditor said, based on the counties of equal size we are understaffed they really need at least one person if not two more and I know that's something that we slowly grow into so you know I will continue to advocate for that for next year's budget so I appreciate chair Roberts bringing that up The other thing that came up I think that was interesting and I think maybe a work session or a presentation by an outside agency to assist our independent auditor is really about the sanctity of the independent auditing not the policy, but the program, but really the office, right? How independent it must be, especially in the realm of an organization like the county, which is political. It's a political subdivision of the state, so therefore we're always supposed to be mindful and make sure that there's no political influences that are ever taking place in any of the processes. So not unlike our judicial system and others, you know, there's just lines we don't cross and I just want to make sure we all know and protect the sanctity and the independence of the internal auditor's office and also be mindful that you know, I feel very compelled to make a stronger argument for another FTE because if we are understaffed there, I think that it doesn't allow us to do the hard work that we ought to be doing. Not that they're doing very hard work. I mean, they're working tremendously hard with their short staff. I don't want to undersell that whatsoever. But if we're going to meet the need for a county our size, then I think we need to step up to the plate. And I think that's the right thing to do. So I'll be advocating for that next year. So, Chair, I will leave it there. Well, actually, one other thing that came up, I guess, over in the last week, and I would just encourage people to listen to the July 28th meeting at about the 40-minute mark with regards to the process that... initially was ascribed for the appointment of the sheriff. It was clear to me that what was asked for us at the beginning of the meeting was to appoint someone that day. And I sought clarity. I got that clarity. I think that both the chair and legal counsel made it clear of what those were early in the meeting. And I know it changed. I know the process was desired after the fact to actually flip it to a different process. But I just want people to know that we followed past practices, and that was the initial instruction we got at the beginning of the meeting. So I was just following that, and that's why I sought clarity. And so I just encourage people to, if they need to, to look at about the 40-minute mark of the July 28th meeting, and they can watch it and see what took place there. But I'll leave it there for today, Chair. I yield back.

The Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District is highlighting this month that July's weed of the month is tansy ragwort. Go to the website. It's actually super informative. The pictures, it's not just a beautiful yellow daisy. It's actually not that beautiful, but it's not a yellow daisy. It's a noxious weed. And so there's great information there. So since that came up and we spent some time talking about that, like why you should actually care about this thing and why it's a problem and how quick it can spread and how we fight it effectively and how that kind of ebbs and flows depending on our engagement, that's all on there on the website. So yes, we want to be mindful of that, but it is July's weed of the month here in Clackamas County. So please check that out. We will always strive to do better, but there's good information there. I am going to be engaging again with SHS oversight here this month and then upcoming week. I am becoming more and more concerned colleagues that the precariousness of this future funding. with our public, and maybe it's a little early but not that early, to start honestly having a conversation about how we go about it ourselves. And I am, if I was reading the tea leaves, and despite the work trying to be done by this oversight committee, I am not confident that this tax would pass again. We've spent an enormous amount of money to effectively build the best care continuum in the state, And then what is it going to take to operate that moving forward? don't think it's necessarily the same dollar figure that we are used to getting now but I am very concerned that we will see an explosion of homelessness and substance use disorder and go backward immensely in a catastrophic way if we don't start really making this a top priority that is also going to be the task of a future board so I'm going to put that out there now We are doing good work on that oversight committee. I put forward a letter. I worked on it closely with staff to talk about KPIs and KEIs in a way that allows us to do better risk management and what that should look like and safeguards that were never in place that should be put in place. I'm also going to put forward next week required 40-hour training for case management workers on how to manage this population and to make sure that that mandatory training is done so they can provide the service in a way that's effective how do we get ahead of it so we don't have providers end up in the news over and over again and how are we vetting these these organizations that have this these resources that to be frank we have spent an exorbitant amount of money and we do not have the outcomes we should have within the portland area and clackamas county is drug through that because of our tie to it Now, we just did the groundbreaking, which we've all talked about. That is an absolute success story. Traditionally, part of the problem has been since 2013 and through much of the policy work, it has been all promoting permanent supportive housing. That has been the drive. around building treatment tied to transitional housing, which is vastly different, has been divested in since 2013 in this state and by mandates of the federal government. that has been part of the problem. We're starting to see a shift there. And I think the recovery campus shows that treatment with transitional supports was much needed in the region. And so I think the governor and the legislature sees that too and has, because of our good work, trusted us to put that together. So I just want to bring that forward because that conversation is still happening. We're trying to do what we can to stabilize SHS regionally. We need to be very ready to make a hard pivot. And that future board, I'm hoping most, I hope the three of you moving forward will be making that decision. I will not be here. But that is going to be a serious concern moving forward. So I'm still working on that. Wanted to bring that forward and plug you guys to be very aware of that. Keep your finger on the pulse. Are you all back?

Commissioner Hill.

Yeah, just real quick. You and I have to leave for another meeting here shortly. I know most of the national night outs were canceled on Tuesday due to the smoke in the air and the air quality. I know Happy Valley had already moved theirs to tonight. They're supposed to be making the call at noon today whether they're having it tonight. For those of you who may be going there, we're coordinating it with their concerts in the park every Thursday evening. So it should be posted on their website any moment, whether they're having that tonight. The only other thing is I got a good news phone call this morning from AMR, from Rob McDonald, that AMR has added their very first helicopter to their fleet. And they afford better response times and... They will be working out of the Hillsboro Airport. But anyway, it's really big news. They've never done that, and they have their very first helicopter here in the Portland area. So taking care of our citizens. We'll call 911.

That's good news.

It's interesting. I'm just thinking about Life Flight, and they probably transport less life-threatening cases, perhaps, than Life Flight might do. It's interesting. I'll have to learn more about that. Me too.

I got the call literally walking to this meeting.

No, it's interesting. Just a couple points I wanted to make. This week I had the opportunity to meet Brett Belog and Amanda Wall from Clackamas Workforce Partnership. And they talked about the expungent clinics they do here on campus in partnership with Clear Clinic and the county's Children and Family Community Connections Department. And I think Andrew's gonna put something up on the screen for you So the clinic offers free legal services for criminal record expungements to people in the county the goal is to reduce barriers to employment housing education If you're interested and there's more information can be found at the website which Andrew has up and I just want to give a shout out to to Amanda Wall who's been a part of this for years. You might remember Keith Wilson actually gave her a comment when he came before us and she's done some incredible work in the county. So I wanna just give a shout out to her and say thank you. And just a quick reminder, Don't call 911 if it's a non-emergency. You can call 211 for information about the evacuation levels. You can call 503-655-8211 if it's non-emergency. And please sign up for the Clackamas County Alert on the website. And the other thing which Commissioner Helm just talked about is one of the things, encourage folks to consider canceling outdoor activities while this... air quality is so poor. And I think it's, I know some individuals are kind of trying to make that decision, but as you heard today, it is unhealthy. So with the current condition we're facing. So that is all I have. And on behalf of the board, thank you for joining us today. We're officially adjourned.