City Council - Regular Meeting

Session. I wanna thank everyone for taking the time to attend either personally or virtually. Just as a reminder, this is a work session and there is no public comment. But at 7PM, we will move over to the auditorium where we're going to have the city council meeting, and that's where community members are invited to speak. If you are here in person and would like to speak during the public comments section of the City Council meeting, which again begins at 7PM, please fill out a yellow card.

You'll be able to find those yellow cards in the auditorium on the left hand side of the room. And when you do, you can give it to Aubrey right over here. And then you'll be able to speak during the city council meeting, again at 7PM. But again, we're in the work session right now. Okay, so I'll turn the time over to Robbie Hammond to begin the work session. Thank you.

Thank you, mayor Pace. Good evening, everyone. Nice to see you all. Tonight, we are, going to give you all some updates on our plan to deal with the impact of bias in our community. So if we can go and go to the next slide, I'm not sure. Is gonna be managing it. Thank you. So here's the agenda for tonight. I'll I'll address a couple of things that we've gone over a few times in the past, talking about our shared values and goals. We'll go over Hillsboro's plan.

Then there's two areas of that plan that, we're seeking direction from the council on tonight. The first is, implementing the the city's sanctuary status in the city's code and policy and also talking about, the human rights office and getting final direction from the council on that. And then I do have a slide at the end with some other updates just to, keep keep keep you all updated on some of our progress that we're making. Next slide. So a reminder, I know I show this each time, but I think it's important to remind ourselves, why we're doing this work and that we have shared values and goals as we seek to try to help our community right now.

These goals come from the council's guiding principles and equity statement. We have our strategic plan. We have heard from our community, at length about this. We know how important it is to them. Our council's goal of promoting accurate information, and then that last one is the new Hillsborough plan that the council has, brought forward over the past couple of months. This is kind of the that plan in box form. You can see the ones in blue. Those are the areas that we have either already begun or made substantial progress in some case consist cases we've actually finalized. Those two in green are the ones that we're gonna be going over tonight, to seek, direction from the city council. And so with that, we'll begin talking about the sanctuary status in code policy, and I'll turn it over to Chad Jacobs.

Good good evening, counsel. Chad Jacobs from the city attorney's office. So tonight, I'm gonna go over the, the proposal to codify the city's sanctuary status. And before I begin, I just wanna say a couple of things. First, I just wanna take a moment and thank councilor Sinclair. She took the time to meet with staff and myself and really demonstrate a strong partnership and leadership on this issue. I just wanna acknowledge that publicly and and for spending the time with us. I really appreciate that you took that time to do that. I also wanna say that I I know we've got a lot to talk about tonight, so I'm gonna rely heavily on the staff memo that sort of went through everything, and I'll just go over it a a high level overview. If you have specific questions, please let me know.

I'm happy to answer those. And and then finally, I just wanna say that I I I think if you look at what we're proposing, what staff and myself have proposed for codifying the sanctuary status, that what we've done is try to truly implement everything that's in the proposal. We're just doing it in different ways than necessarily codifying everything. While we're we're seeking to codify as much as possible, there's nothing in the proposal that we're not actually implementing. We're just implementing it more some of these more administratively than actually putting them in the city's municipal code.

So I think on a on a grand scheme, it's not that there's any disagreement about doing the things that we're talking about tonight. It's just how we are doing those things that we're talking about. So I just wanna make sure that we're all clear that on on that front that for the most part, we are all on the same page. It's just a difference of opinion about how we do that is is the issue that we're talking about tonight. And so what we want to do is review the specific items that were presented, provide recommendations of what we believe our staff believe should be in the municipal code versus implemented through policy.

And then based on your discussion and consensus, bring back something for a codification at a future meeting or not if you decide not to. Obviously, this is ultimately the council's call as a body to make, not staff's call, but what we've done is provide you with a proposal that can codify things as necessary. So the ordinance that we drafted does three things three basic things. It mirrors the requirements set forth in the state sanctuary promise act. It defines certain terms that are left undefined in state law, and it expressly authorizes the city manager to take certain actions necessary to implement codification, including providing training to staff and creating signage for city properties and city facilities.

On that last front, providing, training to staff and and signage, this is something that the city staff is already working on. It's something that was in the emergency resolution that you asked. So it is stuff that we are already working on and and currently implementing. So I just wanna make sure that that is obviously known to everyone out there. And, staff is, today, emails are floating around about finalizing training for staff. So that is it's not just the beginning of the process. They're they're deep into that process already.

Can I ask you clarifying questions? Just the process. And, Simone, you probably or Rahimi may be to answer to this. Will you also let us know when you were contacting CBOs about I know you were in communication, but I'm curious. We've gotten here to the January 20.

Have we gotten feedback from the CBOs that we want to partner with, which is what I read, partnership and clever. Have we contacted them to ask them specific input about our plan and what they propose?

Yeah. I can take this one, if you don't mind. So I'll go back for a second to the first slide. When we met to talk about what our plan was, back in November, at the November, Robbie mentioned those different boxes. I think it's important to see kinda just remind us how we got here. The direction that we got from council at the time was to review the specific items requested. There was consensus from council to review the things that councilor Sinclair proposed, provide recommendations, bring that back to you all for review. And that's where we are in the process today. And Chad is probably going to mention some of these points. This is the timeline on how we've got here.

That doesn't mean we can't do what you suggested and have conversations with CBOs. That can happen at your direction, or you can decide to go in a different direction. Our goal was to just follow what you had requested of us. So that's how we got here today.

Okay. Thank you. I'll be brief. Now we're at this point, and we have a proposal that we're gonna consider and talk about tonight and maybe vote on next month. We didn't have this put together back when we talked to those CBOs. I think it's important to have them in the room to let us know what they think of our proposal and to make recommendations. That's what I'm suggesting. So is that possible to do before we actually vote on this in February?

So we we're not proposing to vote on anything today. What we're just introducing to to you all today is based on the direction you provided us, and this is a draft based on that. Like Chad mentioned, we have generally done all the things you've asked us to do, which is memorializing counselor Sinclair's proposal in different ways. Now if there are new things you want us to do or different things you want us to do, like, that's part of the conversation today. So the intent today was have to have a dialogue about, like, what do we do next? Right? Because this is the first time you've also seen this first proposed codification. If we need to take more time to digest it, if you're looking for input from others, happy to do that. That's what we're looking to to discuss today.

I I would like to. And I personally wanna be vulnerable and open to what others might believe and think about what we should be doing, not inside the city organization or in the council, what people feel we should be doing. And I feel that doing that will give those orgs a level of transparency from us, establish some trust. And I think that community would appreciate it if we had that kind of conversation about our proposal. That's just what I'm going to recommend.

Yeah. And thank you, Raheem and counselor Alcare. To this slide, you know, and this is the history of how we got here. Back in November, when we had this discussion, the direction from council was for staff, including myself, to work with councilor Sinclair to come up with a proposal of things that we think you could codify, things that we think should be done through policy, and then bring that back to you for discussion. And that's where we're at tonight.

And, certainly, based on this discussion tonight, if it's the will of the council that they wanna move forward with this and they wanna get input from the public before you all vote on that, that's absolutely something we can do. I mean, at the end of the day, we can basically do whatever it is that you all want to do. We just need direction from the council as a body. And the direction we received previously was to work with council Sinclair to come up with a draft proposal, which is what we brought to you tonight.

Yeah. And I and I wanna recognize, yes, you have done exactly as we as we have asked. You have done that. I'm pushing us to take a different kind of step.

Yep. Which is a 100% fine. Yeah. Absolutely. And so tonight, we're gonna have the this discussion. And and then depending on what you decide to do, we'll we'll move forward. So we've got the proposed ordinance, and a couple of things that I wanna point out about the proposed ordinance is we work closely with the city of Beaverton. And Beaverton also has an ordinance that is almost identical to this ordinance. We and they first reviewed it at their meeting two weeks ago. And as I understand it from their city attorney's office, they are planning to vote on the ordinance tonight.

And so well, we we did that for two reasons. One is to sort of have some regional consistency. And two, I think going along the lines of what councilor Arcare was saying, we we don't think that we know everything, and and with more minds together, create a better work product. So we figured to the extent that they're working on the exact same thing, that it made sense to collaborate with them. So we we collaborate closely with the city of Beaverton in coming up with what we thought would make the most sense, in codifying, proposed sanctuary status. And so

I just wanna, say that every city is figuring out what to do. Nobody has a blueprint. No public safety has a blueprint and a way to go forward without having some conversation on how do we do that safely. And I would urge us to look at a city other than Beaverton. We already have that.

Let's look at another city. Let's look at Forest Grove. Let's look at Cornelius. Let's look where these activities are happening a lot. And there's an unfortunate social media post that was shown on Beaverton Police Department building when an officer said he wasn't aware of ICE activity, and so people showed a video of ICE activity on the wall. And I don't want that. I don't want that here in Hillsborough. So I'm just saying, really, to think about how we're gonna move forward.

If I could just add one really quickly, just so you all know too. I I meet pretty regularly with the city managers that you mentioned of those cities and others all in Washington County. We also meet on larger, regional basis at times. So we are coordinating. I'm not specifically on the codification because I think to my knowledge, at least in our region, we're the only cities working on that piece right now. But we are always happy to share notes and work with other cities and and learn as well.

And for what it's worth, our office also represents Cornelius and Forest Grove, and I am in constant contact with the attorneys over with them. So but we're all on the same page there. And and and, honestly, they are following Hillsborough's lead quite a lot. I mean, Hillsboro really is the leader in this area, frankly, the entire state as opposed to not just Washington County. Okay.

So going through the proposals real quick, because I want to give you all time to talk about this. So there's various proposals. The first is affirming the jurisdictional scope of the sanctuary ordinance and applying to all city controlled spaces, and we believe we fully implemented that in the draft ordinance. We've completely although it's not set out to as specifically as state law, it basically captures everything that's in state law. And we additionally, we define, city owned property and city facilities in certain ways.

So it's very clear what types of spaces we're talking about. We've integrated resolution twenty five fifty two into the municipal code. Resolution twenty five fifty two, if you recall, is the resolution that was passed in 2017 declaring Hillsborough as a sanctuary jurisdiction. We've, moved basically that into the municipal code with this draft ordinance. We've imposed enforcement limits consistent with ORS one eighty one a 20 through a 26, and that's basically basically the city's sanctuary promise act.

So that is included within this draft ordinance. That is also fully implemented. And then finally, the training and public signage that I was talking about before, we believe we partially implemented that in the code by having language in there authorizing the city manager to take those actions. As I mentioned, we are already working on that and implementing that based on the resolution the emergency resolution you passed late last year. And so that's why I say partially because we have that language in there, but it's not codifying it as a requirement.

It's just authorizing the city manager to do that. And for the reasons set forth in the staff memo, we think that is the the better process to follow here. So the the aspects of the proposal that we recommend implementing via policy are mandatory logging and reporting of ICE activity, training for all city employees, public signage, access protocols, and language access standards, like compliance tracking and quarterly reporting system. And then there was finally a request about continuing to explore long term institutional institutionalization, which we will do. For the policy issues, again, you know, for the reasons set forth in the staff memo, staff and I believe that it's just a better process to be able to implement that via policy just based on the city's general overall structure, some of the hurdles that we would have to get through such as collective bargaining to actually codify those things.

It's just for the reasons basically set forth on staff. We think it's better to implement those through policy. Again, they're all being implemented. It's all being done. It's just not being required in the municipal code. It's just being being required by policy as set forth in your resolution. And so you've already set that policy. It's already being implemented. And so the overall structure of what's happening, everyone's in full agreement with, and it's happening just the difference of opinion is whether or not to actually put that in the municipal code versus leaving it in policy. So tonight I think the next next slide.

So tonight, what we're really asking for you all is to have a discussion about should we implement the proposed codification language as presented? Should we modify the proposed codified language and bring back another proposal? Or do you all just not want to codify the city sanctuary status? So

that is Can

you go back a slide?

Well, you can.

I can't. Sorry,

I appreciate this, but I'm going ask a question that asked you and Robbie, and here we go. Right now, when volunteers are showing up out of the town and documenting and taking video, they're being told, you know, you could be arrested for interfering. You are but it's it's subjective to who is deciding that. And I asked Robbie and Jim, whatever we decide with HPD, will they also have a challenge showing up to entertainment and documenting what's happening and, comfortably that they can do that without threats, being arrested, etcetera. And, I think, Ravi, you and Jim were still exploring that conversation.

I'm bringing that up because if we decide to do this, it would be important to know the commitment of HPD staff regarding this. And I'm bringing it up because all of us could be perceived as not supporting whatever this initiative is. But when it comes down to in the moment when something is happening, I wanna understand what is possible that can happen. And on the other side of this, and I don't know if this happens, if a call comes over the dispatch and there's a hesitancy to wanna take a call related to ICE. I don't know.

I don't know what goes through people's minds. I don't know. I'm not in a police officer's job, but I wanna have some clarity around that first bullet.

I will take that, first crack at that, Jim, and then please give any more detail you want. So back in November, and I think this might be in your packet, you you all received the actual directive that the police chief gave to the entire police department. And that is when you show up, it clarifies specifically what they're supposed to do in those moments. So it's recording. It's it's, logging that information into a system so that there's a record of what happened.

So I think to answer your question, our police officers, if there's ever a call and I know chief Coleman's been very adamant about this. If there's ever a call, even if it's unknown if it's asked or not, if there's a call, they will go, and they will be there. And then when they get there, they'll assess the situation, but they we don't have officers that are that are, concerned about, witnessing and being there to see what happens. So they when they do go, they they will always document it, and there's a police directive that they will actually record that. And there's so there's an entire record of that. Jim, is there anything else you wanna add to that?

Yeah. Just a clarification. I'm not aware of any circumstance where our officers have threatened people that have been bystanders with arrest. As a matter of fact, we have been present at very few detentions.

It's just

the nature of when we find out.

Not you guys. Not you guys. Nice.

Thank you. So, yeah, we make it very clear. I I will say, I mean, nobody looks forward to getting the call about this because it's very politically charged and emotionally charged. And they know it's an important situation, and and sometimes it's it's not the easiest call to handle. But we have taken all calls related to ICE. We have not declined to take any of them, even calls related to immigration that don't have ICE necessarily involved.

Just one more, and I promise. There are times when HPD doesn't show up. There are times.

I am at oh, sorry.

And and I think, we talked about capacity and where we are. ICE has definitely added on more onto you. But I guess I want to have that clarity.

Yeah. Thank you, counselor. We suspect that there is a lot of immigration enforcement activity that, we never are, made aware of, and don't respond to. Yeah. It we certainly are not capturing all of it.

Councilor Sinclair, then councilor Solvado.

Thank you. Chief Coleman and and Robbie, the mandatory logging and reporting for ICE activity, in my perspective is so important because all of our codification of jurisdiction in support of ourselves as a sanctuary city, it's geared internally towards staff. And it is the one tool reporting that we can provide to the public to create accountability, oversight and future tool for litigation. And seeing this, I'm concerned. The reason I want that codified is for greater aspect of public record as a tool for the public.

And so in looking at this and I've had to learn to through numerous meetings and it's continually evolving. I'm wondering if things are unreported because there's not clarity with with how things are classified in code when calls come in. Are we teaching the public what to say when they see a masked man that's unidentified, that's armed, that's pulling people over? Because they're we have a right as a public to understand, to create clarity on who this

is

conducting enforcement on our residents. And so I'm wondering is that a barrier to the way things are coded in our clarification when nine eleven calls come in because Iran is criminal, is based off criminal and public safety concerns, not civil. And is that narrowed down our nexus enough to understand the needs of our community to get proper reporting?

Counselor, if I could just step in really quick and then Jim, whatever you wanna add as well. I think it's important to distinguish the difference between the coding that happens, like, with the the WACA, which is the Washington County consolidated communist communications agency. Right? That's the 911 system for anybody else listening. When someone calls 911, it goes to WACA. WACA then distributes that call out to the relevant, jurisdiction and, reporting agency. That coding is not what we're talking about. And so our coding Right. Our municipal code, if we put this into the code, I think that's our point is it doesn't matter if it's in our code or not. What matters is it's in policy.

Like, our our officers and our employees, they they, they're expected to, obviously, they they adhere to all municipal code as well, but it's the city policies that determine how they work, how they do their job. And so that's why to us having it in policy, is what chief Coleman has done, is much more effective in making sure the employees are doing what they're supposed to do, and that's why we're confident in this approach. Jim, anything else you wanted to add?

Yeah. It's an extremely complicated operation over there at Wacker, and they they do a very good job. It's essentially to be very short about it, it's a filtering system. So a call can come in nonemergency or can come in 911, and, you know, the first thing it gets filtered for is a police, fire, or EMS. And so in that process, sometimes they can answer a question or or they can start to send it down the proper avenue, but they don't I don't think calls are getting lost over there.

It's just at what level they come out. It's a lot of the filtering has to deal with how already engaged the field units are. So sometimes things hold because there's a higher priority call in situations like that. But I have I don't really have any reason to believe that when somebody calls in, it isn't getting handled in some way or another. That's not to say that all of them make it to us because sometimes people just want the answer to a question. And it's, again, a way of filtering it and getting those folks an answer as quickly as possible.

And the reason I read that because it comes up to policy for a walker numerous times as we refer to that as who creates the policy for intake and dispatch. And so can you give I'm I'm

I don't wanna go in

the weeds here, but how do we provide better reporting to the public on our end for for records?

Yeah. Quickly, WACA does report to user groups and governing governing board, so they don't have an arbitrary power to dictate policy. It's it's again, it's many, many agencies, both us and Hillsboro Fire belong to it. We we have done a lot of education in the community over the years about reporting, and some of it has been focused on communities that don't have English as a first language and have unique issues. So we even sometimes see that some of our crime stats are higher than other communities because we have a higher rate of reporting than other communities.

That's not to say that we're 100% successful in that, but all that education and push has not been related to ICE because this is a relatively new era that we're in. It's been related to being the victim of a crime and and not being afraid to report a crime because of some kind of repercussions. So we're we're still adapting to that. And right now, it's kinda boots on the ground. We're going to community meetings. We're showing up at functions. We're making videos, things like that. We're trying to help people feel comfortable about what a Hillsborough police officer looks like. It's those are the ways those are the roads that we've traveled before and have proven fruitful.

And counsel, if I may add one more thing. Just Chad mentioned, like, some of these things are already happening. So perfect example is in the emergency declaration resolution twenty nine zero six.

Mhmm.

You asked us to report. And the first time in Us reporting was the memo you received and and the information that's in the packet. So if you look at the memo that the HPD staff put together, they also documented the number of incidents that had interactions with ICE. So if there's a different format or or a different place you want us to share that information, we're happy to take that feedback. But we've already started doing that.

Right. And I and and please forgive me. I'm so sorry, Mary. Yeah. You're fine. Please forgive me for side pressure because I am in in having all these weeks that are now months that we've had discussions of this, and to now see that, like, this isn't part of our role to create this codification due to it being an internal policy aspect. I find it frustrating, and I and it's due to the legalities of it. And I just regardless of being able to codify or not, I wanna be able to provide the best ample amount of reporting as public record as a tool. And that is the greatest piece, this tool for our public. And that's why it's so important.

Thank you. Councilor Salgado.

Wait. I was gonna recommend that we adjust the sanctuary status. But before that, I wanna get some clarification from Chad. So on the third page of the memo under codified mandatory logging and reporting of ICE activity, you wrote various members of staff expressed safety and other concerns with having to perform such duties. Can you elaborate on that? What are those fears? What are those concerns? And if you can share what departments those are coming from?

Yeah. Sure. I I don't know that I can share which departments they're coming from just to be able to protect the employees themselves, but we have a couple of issues.

Protect them from what?

Well, so that's let me let me explain. We have a we have some employees who are not US citizens. They are here legally working, and they they have their work visas and and other sorts of documentation that allow them to work. But given the fact that they're not US citizens, they are they've expressed concern about if they are involved in certain things, what repercussions that could have on their ability to stay in the country and whether or not they would be targeted for removal because of those kinds of actions. So that's one of the issues that has been expressed. Another issue

Can we pause it for a second? Yes. So the memo is, citing an Oregon law that we are required to report. Right? So help me understand how if if is that a real concern that they should be concerned about? Because it sounds like it's like there's contradicting information here. One is an Oregon law saying as a as a local jurisdiction, you are required to do this. And then an employee saying, well, if I do this, I could be at risk of deportation. That doesn't make sense to me. So can you just help me understand that a little Yeah.

Absolutely. And and I think it goes to what we mean by reporting. And so reporting under state law, what we're required to do is when we have a direct interaction with federal immigration officers. So a federal immigration officer comes to a city employee and presents an administrative warrant or a judicial warrant trying to get information or they just frankly request information from us. When we have that direct interaction with them under state law, we are required to report that. What we've been talking about otherwise as far as reporting goes beyond what state law requires. And what we're talking about is anytime you see or notice ICE activity, you should record it, you should document it,

you

should even if there's not that direct interaction. So we're not required to report that under state law, but it's sort of taking the next step and saying, okay. What should we be doing as city employees to be out there and sort of documenting these things in a way that goes beyond what's required under state law. And that's where there was concern expressed.

And where are we saying that? So can you remind me where we state that that that's what we want as as a council? Is that in the Well, that's what we're century prop proposal that's being made?

That's the was part

of the

proposal is to have that additional reporting and have that codified.

So from your understanding, we're ask what councilor Sinclair is asking in the Sanctuary City proposal is that if you see a a car that might look like ice that you report that, is that what you're understanding from what she's proposing?

Well, I can defer to councilor Sinclair.

But I can tell you

what my understanding is that it may not just be a car that looks like ICE, but it's more like you actually see some sort of activity that you believe is immigration.

Yeah. What we've been saying and correct me if I'm wrong, but what I feel like what we've been communicating is when we see an actual detention like in against one of our residents to record that that's not a random reporting device. That's a very specific thing that we're asking for. So that's why I'm asking to clarify on what No,

that is what I'm asking for. Because the reason I brought up WCA and the classification of code since we run our criminal aspects and public safety, this with the ICE agent enforcement is civil. And so I fear that we are I want any activity because when we first started this conversation, we implemented through state guidelines that if ICE were to contact us, we were not doing what we see. So we could have legal observers, rapid responders be out and and reporting things. And it sounded like those aspects weren't getting reported initially when we first started this five, six months ago.

And as it's evolved and we've all worked together to better ourselves and creating better policy, I want to ensure that it is classified correctly so that when any person calls and says, there is a armed man with a mask that we don't just assume it's an agent and nothing's happening and we're not gonna report on this and we're not gonna I want as much documentation lobbying of this as possible. So yes, I am referring to that because we did not talk in those words that we were creating reports or dispatch to those types of reporting.

Yeah. And I I think it's important to to clarify a couple aspects of this. First is what was required under state law? I think councilor Sinclair is exactly right. When back in January and February, when we were creating training materials and initially training staff and supervisor and everything else like that, we were focused on the reporting that was required by state law that I just explained. And that's where all those materials you are a 100% correct. That's what those were focused on. Since those since those training materials were created and and and implemented with staff, obviously, things took a drastic turn. And, you know, the federal government started taking actions that I don't think most of us expected that they would be taking in in a manner in which they're taking them. And so we've had additional discussions about, okay, well, what else can be done?

Just as Councillor Sinclair was saying, can there be observers? Can there be other sorts of things? And how do we report that? And what do we do with that? And so far, the way we've implemented that mostly is through HPD. So HPD has a new policy, which has been shared with you all, which talks about how you document those things. Because previously, we weren't documenting those in the same way that we are now. So we have evolved in that manner to make sure that HPD was doing that. What we're talking about for the codification proposal is requiring all city employees to do this. And so whether that's a member of you know, an officer from HPD, it's a a library employee, it's a maintenance worker for parks and rec, you know, having all those employees do that sort of observation and reporting.

And that's where there's concerns raised by members of staff about their vulnerabilities and their ability to to engage in those activities without putting themselves in a in a position that could potentially result in ramifications for them. There's also been some safety concerns expressed by people who weren't trained to do that, such as police officers are, to to be able to say, you know, is that really a position I wanna be in because that's not the job I signed up for? And although it hasn't been expressed, at least that I'm aware of, I'm sure given the the size of the city that we are, there's some employees who just feel that, you know, opposed to that kind of situation. And so these are all sorts of, you know, policy considerations for you all to decide. That's not necessarily a legal issue.

The legal issues are sort of, you know, the collective bargaining and being out able to actually implement that type of codification and whether or not we can do that legally, without you having to go through bargaining and everything else. There are some legal aspects there, but most of this is the policy decision. And for the reasons that, you know, I'm talking about now and so forth in the memo, staff and myself are recommending from a policy perspective that we just implement this through these policies in the way that we're already doing instead of codifying them. And part of that reasoning is this idea that when you codify something, it becomes a law. And so our municipal code, for the most part, regulates the general public and says, general public, here's what you can and can't do within the city of Hillsborough.

It doesn't necessarily regulate how staff does their job. Policies regulate how staff do their jobs. And if staff doesn't do their jobs correctly and violate policy, they go through the disciplinary process that we have within the city. If you violate the municipal code, that's a completely separate process. You can be cited. You can be brought into municipal court. And that's just not something that, you know, we think we should be doing with our employees, you know, citing our employees and sending them municipal court for not doing their jobs. We think we should stick with the disciplinary process. Again, that that's a policy call, and that's a policy recommendation that we're making, but you all as the body get to decide that policy decision.

Thanks for explaining that because I was misunderstanding. I thought the I thought what councilor Sinclair was proposing that if there was ICE activity in other buildings or questions from ICE agents, for example, they come and ask a librarian that that would get reported. Not that they would be forced to randomly go out there and look for ICE activity Exactly. Which I think is what I'm hearing the fear is from from the staff. Correct. So is there a misunderstanding on the staff side of what we're asking? Or is it under misunderstanding on mine and what we're asking?

Can I offer some clarity? Yeah. So as we sit today, there is guidance already to staff. If use that example, counselor. If if an ICE agent shows up to the library and has an interaction with the library employee, or even if they just show up and the library employee's there, they're supposed to document that through a process that we've already set forth. Mhmm. Now that's guidance right now, and we can strengthen that through formal policy. But that exists today to get to the same outcome that you're hoping to get to. So we document the interaction. We have the information. So at some point in the future, should we need it for whatever purpose we have. So that exists today.

Okay. I wanna keep us on track. We have quite a bit to cover still, and we need to let staff know whether we want regarding, city sanctuary status and code, whether we wanna do one, two, or three. We've only heard from one counselor so far. Counselor Sogod Yeah.

I wanna add to that. So thanks for answering that.

Yeah. Well, hang on a second because counselor Alcare wants to make a comment as well.

I still I thought I think it's still my time because I said I wanna modify and I wanna talk about

One other thing. Okay. Go ahead.

Alright. So I just wanna say it's very quick. We saw the this proposal that came in by Barry Johnson.

Yes.

Looks very well thought out, and written. And so I would just like to recommend that we review that because it highlights some points that we've discussed as a council in regards to what the like, what's left behind after, like, an ICE agent breaks a window and leaves a car on the side of the road. Right? I feel like it addresses some of those things. So I would recommend or ask the staff to look into that and see what things we can incorporate into it from that suggestion. That's it.

Great. Thank you. Counselor Alcare.

So, in relation to the staff and the memo and all of that, I think that memo came out, and we heard, prohibit, not require, and other language. And, so I guess I'm wondering, are we allowing this to be subjective for people and whether or not they wanna report and do that? That's that's just a question. You don't have to answer that right now. Oh, it's okay.

Look at it. Okay. But the other thing that that I'm wondering is we you know, Perk and MeekerWatch already do a good job. We know where ICE is around in our city. And so why aren't we partnering with them?

Why aren't we collaborating with them? PERC is gathering data from the state. Why aren't we collaborating with them on their data? Why why are we sitting here thinking that we need to start from square one and because as a city, we're gonna decide process? I think, as I mentioned earlier at this meeting at the beginning, we need to do some listening, have a discussion, and hear from CBOs before going forward.

What I'm hearing about reporting and documenting is I want, right now, HPD shows up when they're called. I kind of would like HPD to be before just getting called, be aware of where ICE is. So like if men have rifles and are behind the Albertsons or the Safeway or the Target area that you are aware of that. And that as a safety, you're aware of that. And that I will just say that inside Sunset Esplanade at one of the stores, I showed up and it was chaotic in the parking lot.

So we know where they are. Why can't we be ourselves a little more transparent about understanding movement and activity and a little bit more prevention for people? Those are just some of my thoughts at this point, but, I'm urging us to sit down with the CBOs and hear what they want about this.

So, counselor, you recommending number two to modify with with the intention to meet with the CBOs?

CBOs and stronger language around reporting and documentation. Okay. Thank you. And counselor Sinclair?

I second both, counsel Salgado's and counsel of care's suggestions, specifically around Blaine Saldamani Pearson and Jesse O'Donnell, along with Barry, Johnson Smith's proposal that they submitted around the, the city will publish HPV's federal interaction log, and the city will publish a report summarizing emergency 911 calls reporting suspected ICE activity and the subsequent result.

Thank you. Counselor Amberee?

Thanks. Thank you. Yeah. So yeah. So I I I don't think we should have it in the code. And then so so what would the timing be? So that means if we were we wouldn't be doing anything this meeting, like, the actual meeting.

On this.

Yeah. Yeah. So it would have to be February?

Mhmm. It would it probably be the the not the next meeting with the following to to do what what I'm hearing now just so we can do a a good job with it. Right?

Yeah.

The the memo that was referenced that we received last night, there's just a lot of some of that we're already doing. There's some of it that we could do. There's some of it that may have some legal risks. That's just gonna take a little bit of time to kinda work through all that. So I would say it's gonna take us a little bit of time to, to get to that point. And, also, to councilor O'Kara's point, meeting with the CBOs and and involving them just to do a good job with that, it would be a number of weeks. And

I I think we should have an emergency meeting with the CBOs. I would I would like to ask February.

Work session. A special work session with CBOs like PERC, Black ACLU.

They'll send Centro Jutera

Yes.

Alente Mujeres, PERC, ICO, Migra Watch, Bienistar.

And are you talking about a meeting just with the staff of them?

Council and CBOs and staff can be present. But I think it's an opportunity for them to tell us what they think of this plan.

May I offer a suggestion? There's obviously a need you've expressed a desire to make sure that the CBOs get to weigh in on this. Right? So if it's okay with you, could we reach out to the CBOs and see what works for them?

No. I know that you do that, but no. I want us together in in a room and having this conversation.

Just just for clarity, I wasn't saying we wouldn't do that.

I know.

I would just suggest, like, before we formulate some next steps, maybe the first step is for us to have a conversation with them. And, obviously, you've shared your desire to have a conversation with them as well. But if your goal is to make sure they get to weigh in on this, so let's talk to them and start with that. That being said, to Robbie's point, that does take more time, which is legit. Like, we do if you want to go to that engagement process, engagement does take time. Mhmm. So we might not be able to bring this back next week oh, sorry. The following meeting. It'll depend on their schedule as well when they're available.

Well, we can have an emergency meeting before that before February. I'm just saying.

That yeah.

That's it. Saying it's we can do that. It's not February yet. And I think we can do that and have that information from those people and consider that and be mindful about it with the proposal that we wanna have and do the right thing and not just have something to be fast.

I would just say, yes, we can do a special meeting if that's what the council wants to do. And even with a special meeting, I'm just saying it it's still gonna take some time because we have a lot of analysis on our own end to do besides what we hear from the CBOs as well. So

Yeah. And then so so if if we do that between now and whenever we pass, this has the will the reporting what has the reporting has already changed. Right? And so what will be the difference between now and at that point?

No real difference. Everything that we're talking about doing, we're already doing. Yeah. It's just not in the actual code. Right? So that's the difference.

So Either policy or or Correct.

Yeah. We've already made policy changes, so we're already doing these things.

Yes.

So I think that's the important point is while we don't wanna delay it, Right? I I don't think there's a reason to rush on this because we're already doing the things we're proposing. It's just really a matter of putting it in the code or how to put in the code and whatnot. So I think we have time to do that because we're already doing those things.

And with the reporting, we are doing this? Yes. What we're asking for is more. Can

we get everybody a mic next time? This gets annoying to kind of go back and forth and seems kinda rude trying to interrupt. Couple of questions. So I think there's a point here that we brought up that I feel like the staff need direction on. Right? And that's the question of whether the direction for a staff to report is a policy or codification. I feel like that's a very easy one we could all answer to right now because I feel like that's a very clear answer. Right? And I feel like we don't have that yet. The second part is I would actually the first question to the CBO should be, do you wanna come and talk to us about codification?

We need to know if they're interested in coming and and giving us their feedback. And number two, I'd like to know what the goal would be because, you know, we do have our attorney looking it over. We've had a lot of feedback in a couple of work sessions. So I would under I would like to understand what the goal is because the time of CBOs is very valuable. They're performing a service to the community and coming in and sitting for three to four hours to kind of inform us on things that we should already know what to do seems a little bit unreasonable to me. So I think understanding the goal would be really important for me before we call a special emergency session on that.

Don't think that we would be wasting your time. And I have heard from people and they would be interested in coming and have this conversation. And we cannot go forward with this until we talk with them about our plan. We can't do that. That wouldn't be right. It wouldn't be right. It's not democratic. It's not the process we wanna do, which is tell people we're gonna do this and then seek out their support. I think that's the wrong way to go. They are working with communities who are in impacted and in need right now.

And we really need to understand and listen. And like I said before, open ourselves and be vulnerable to their guidance.

So, councilor, you saying that you've talked to all these CBOs and they've told you they wanted to come and talk to us about this? Is that what you're saying?

This specific question tonight, I've talked to them about codification and reporting.

No. I'm asking about coming to an emergency work session. You haven't?

I haven't talked to them about coming to an emergency meeting. I'm proposing that here with my counsel.

Okay. And what I'm proposing is that we ask them first if they wanna come in.

Okay. Well, when we call them on the phone and we can ask them, do you wanna come to a special meeting to discuss our plan and the impact they can have on your communities? Yes. Let's listen to what they wanna respond to.

Councilor Sinclair.

Thank you, mayor. We have so much to get through, and we haven't even hit the tip of the iceberg yet of what we need to get through. Yeah. I do think it's important. I think the reason the CBOs are being brought up right now for a special session is because of the letters that we received today from the different CBOs. And so we are still working out the details, and there is a little bit of confusion. And I think they provide some clarity potentially as long as we have clear goals.

Okay. And, counselor Case and then counselor Harris, I'd like to know where you stand on one, two, or three probably or anything that's been discussed.

I I think we're gonna hear a lot in public comment tonight. So I'm not I'm somewhere between two and three. Right? I'd like to hear from the community this evening, and then I think there is some information that came in today from some, some CBOs. And so, I would need to propose I would need to kinda hear all that before I'm sure where to where which way to move forward for to move forward or to or to not move forward.

And so a 2.5.

2.5. Councilor Harris?

Thank you. Excuse me. I've had a cold, so I apologize. After going through the memorandum provided by the city staff, I'm largely in agreement with that. In general, I'm not for codifying things that are already in state law because you're just repeating the same things over again.

I my concern is it gives people a false sense of security if we just put it in a code when it's already in state law anyway. I like the idea of putting things in policy because it's more flexible. State statutes change, codes change, policy elect gives the staff and the the police chief and other folks, the managers in the city, more flexibility to change policy when conditions change. So I like that. That being said, I have no particular objection to what's being proposed largely.

I could see there's lot of support for it here. Those are just simply concerns. I I do wanna get more information as councilor Alcare mentioned. There's probably some more information we should at least check-in with our partners and see if they have any additions. I also, however, understand we are the elected officials. Ultimately, it's our decision, and we're largely gonna be probably informed by the city lawyer here as to what we can and cannot do because this is managing a a code. It's not necessarily managing policy for us. But I don't think it's ready today to give a thumbs up or thumbs down on is what I'm saying. I agree we need more time to gather more information, make the best decision we can for everybody in this city.

Thank you. Regarding this particular topic about codification, and then we'll have to stop and move into city council. So I I don't think that we should codify. Respectfully, councilor Sinclair, I love your passion for this community, and I I know that we are all trying hard to find solutions. And I think what we all really want is to stop ICE, and we can't do that yet.

But codifying restricts us. And, if somebody is not following policy, we put them on an employee improvement program, and then, you know, you mentioned disciplinary action. And so if we codify it, the only thing added to that is a ticket. It's a municipal ticket. And and that doesn't I don't I don't think that helps. I do agree with the reporting, and I'm glad we're doing it. With the, training, I'm glad we're already doing that. The public signage, I've already seen that. That all makes sense to me, and I think that's a great idea. But codification doesn't get us what we really want.

And then regarding bringing CBOs in, I think personally, counselor Alcare, I think it's a phone call, about does the CBO think that we should codify or not. I I don't think there should be a a work session regarding that. I respect your opinion, though, too, in wanting to bring people together, as we're going around the room. That's my opinion. So did you wanna make a comment, counselor Ochre?

I think it's important for all of us to know where we stand

Mhmm.

And for the public to know where we stand because that's who we answer to. We don't answer to Chad. Chad just provides some guidance and recommendations, but he is not overseeing us and telling us what we should do. He's letting us know our options of what we can and can't do. And I think it's wrong to make an assumption that making a phone call, we don't even wanna give them a little more than that, than more than a phone call, our partners who we wanna have trust in this, I don't recommend a phone call. Thank you. Councilor Sinclair.

And I'll make this brief. The reason in my mind codifying jurisdiction is so important, this has erode trust and accountability within our community for us as a city. And there's no way to slice it, but it is eroded. And that's not to our doing, is to the federal administration's doing with ICE enforcement. And we have done such a good job at serving our community so often.

It will speak volumes to continue that when there's no mistaking as local government in affiliation with state government and federal government who we have intergovernmental agreements with to provide that certainty that this is law. And that's why that's so important because people want transparency and they want accountability. And then we eliminate that when there's been so much conflict in other cities, in their city controlled spaces, who's reporting what that wasn't phoned in. I don't want that for our city, and I don't want that for our residents, and that's why I suggest that.

Thank you. Alright. Let's oh, Raheem, go ahead.

May I offer just a path forward so we can Yep. Please. Maybe get closure on this particular topic?

We seem pretty divided on this.

Yes.

Yeah.

So what we've obviously heard is not one today and not three today, but somewhere in two where you're asking us to maybe get some more feedback and review the material that was submitted to us over the weekend, that could at least be our next steps so that we're not just waiting. Is that seem like a reasonable approach where I'll be more clear? Review the material that was submitted to us Mhmm. And get in touch with, obviously, the folks who submitted it to get some more clarity. And then find a way to get some feedback from our CBOs and bring that back to you, whether it's a special meeting, whether it's some other form.

We can obviously have those conversations via email. I just don't wanna just leave us in a point of stagnation. So I'm I'm proposing something as a next step. Does that seem reasonable?

Thumbs up, thumbs to the side, or thumbs down, please?

Break it down one more time.

Sure. I'll be

more clear. I'll be more clear. So we will take what we've presented and share that with our community based organizations. At the same time, we will also review the material that was presented to us. Okay. And we will reach out to the community based organizations to gain some feedback from them, and then we will start there. And that might result in a special meeting. That might result in some other things, but at least for us to move forward with something, can we just agree on that today?

Absolutely. So we are not agreeing on what we're striking, whether it'd one, two, or three. We're agreeing on what you've proposed to move forward. Yes. Yes.

It works for me.

Okay. Yeah.

Thank you. Okay. So there's a second half to this work session to discuss councilor Salgado's idea. We'll do that after the meeting tonight before the two executive committee meetings. And we'll on bus. Yeah. Excuse me. Executive sessions. Sorry. Not executive committee, executive sessions. So we'll hear from councilor Salgado or actually from the staff about councilor Salgado's idea after the city council meeting. Thank you. Six city council meeting.

This meeting is being recorded.

Thank you for joining us this evening. For translations thank you. Hello everyone, welcome to the 01/20/2026 City Council meeting. Thank you for joining us this evening. For translation services, please use the QR code on the poster to the left of this room or on the front page of the agenda.

To begin this meeting, I invite you to join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Thank you may I please have a roll call.

Mayor pace here. Councilor harris here.

Councilor Sinclair Here. Councilor Salgado?

Here.

Councilor Ambry? Here. Councilor Alcair?

Aki. Councilor Case? Here. That's awesome. There are no presentations or appointments this evening, so we will go straight into public comment item three.

Persons wishing to speak will be recognized at this time. And if you are here in person and wish to speak, please fill out a yellow card and hand it to the city recorder right over there. When I call on you, join us here at the tables in front of the room and speak into the microphone so those on Zoom can also hear your comments. Because of the translation tool, community members can speak in their language of choice and the city recorder can display the translation on the screen. We have zero persons registered to speak virtually and the deadline to register has now passed.

If you are unable to sign up to speak prior to the deadline, you are always welcome to email your comments to the city council at any time of day. This is called public comment because it's time dedicated for you to inform the City Council about your views. And per our City Council policy and charter, City Council will not comment during your testimony or after. And I would ask all counselors to abide by that. If you have signs, you are welcome to have the signs, but I ask you to keep the signs low so everyone can see.

And I ask you not to yell out or to clap because that will interrupt people who are doing testimony, and then we cannot hear that. If you would like to snap to show support, that's fine. And we'll begin by hearing from Callie Peters. And the next one after Callie is Sandra. Sandra can also come up. And then Sam or Samantha Richards is on deck. We have Callie, is that you? Welcome. Just hold on one second. Do you prefer to testify in English? Yes. Okay. Great. And Sandra, is that you? Yes.

Hi. Welcome. Would you prefer to testify English. You got it. Okay. Callie, welcome. You have three minutes. Oh, hang on one second. I'm sorry. I forgot to give you one bit bit of information. Press that button, and when the light turns green, then it's live. So press that button there. There you go. Hello. Can we reset the clock? We're good? Okay. Okay. Go ahead, Kelly.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor Pace and City Councilors. My name is Kelly Peters, a resident of Hillsborough. I'm here because I care deeply about the safety, dignity, and well-being of our community. And I strongly urge you to adopt an ordinance that codifies the Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act officially declaring Hillsborough Sanctuary City. Today, fear dominates daily life for many of our neighbors. Immigration enforcement actions have caused real lasting harm. Immigrant families, particularly Latino, Hispanic, and people of color are terrified to leave their homes. They avoid work, grocery stores, school drop offs, and even medical care. That last one really hurts as a PA in the community.

Volunteer groups that try to help are being tracked by federal agents turning humanitarian aid into a tool for immigration enforcement. This climate of fear has led to severe financial hardship, food insecurity, and emotional distress. Parents are being violently taken from their children, leaving families without caregivers, stable housing, or food. Loved ones disappear without any way to locate them. On 01/08/2026, Luis David Nino Moncada fled a traffic stop by US border patrol in the Adventist Hospital parking lot in Southeast Portland.

He and his passenger, Yolanes Bezabeth Zambrano Contreras, who was the intended target, were shot and wounded. Border Patrol used lethal lethal force to merely charge her with illegal entry, a federal misdemeanor. When incidents like this occur in Hillsborough Hillsborough, not if, but when, will our leadership respond reactively or proactively? Is this city prepared to take unprecedented action in unprecedented times? Resolution twenty ninety six was a crucial first step towards protecting hardworking residents.

However, emergency powers must be paired with immediate accountability, not delayed until a charter amendment, state law, or congressional bill passes. Historically, city policy defers to state policy, which in turn defers to the federal government. We must recognize that an immigration reform bill is unlikely to succeed in congress, and we cannot rely on federal action to safeguard our community. Passing this ordinance is not the end of the journey. It is an essential beginning. It affirms that Hillsborough will stand up for its residents when higher levels of government, excuse me, government fail to do so. Thank you for your time and consideration.

Next next speaker is Sandra. Thank you Kelly. Next speaker is Sandra hold one second. Sam can come up and take Kelly's seat. And then Vanessa is next is on deck. Okay. So Sandra, you have three minutes.

First of all, I wanna thank Christian for all of his work with and for putting immigration reform at the front end because you're right, it has been on the back burner for way too long. I do want to remind everyone that immigrants are not the issue and that they are your neighbors, your friends, and people you love. Immigrants have been demonized for way too long and it really is because of misinformation and lack of understanding. Immigrants are are not the issue. My name is Sandra and I have been a resident of Washington County for six years. And I do want to mention that I have two jobs and I'm fucking tired. I'm really tired. The little hours I have left

in my day not use explicatives, please. But I understand that you are tired. Please continue. Yeah.

Okay. So you took ten seconds of my time. In the little hours I have left in my day, I spent trying to make my community safer. I don't tell you this because I want pity. I tell you this because this is the reality of commune of a community member that deeply and genuinely cares. I actually briefly searched the supremacy clause and from what my understanding is, is that when the state and the feds go at it, federal power always wins. And to me that sounds like complicity. And I don't have the power yet, but when I do I will make sure that we do something to make sure that we are safe. You have the power to make us safe. I don't.

Use it. I also want to bring up something else. I do work at a school and my focus is on student social and emotional needs. And there was a project today where students were working on drawing Martin Luther King Junior in court part of his speech where he says, I have a dream. Do you have any idea how heartbreaking it is to see 10 year old children say that their dream is for to leave their city, for ICE to leave their families alone.

It is so heartbreaking that this is the dreams of 10 year old students. Do better. Do better. Their dreams should be going on roadblocks. Their dreams should be getting v bucks. Their dreams should not be for their families to be torn apart. Remember, you guys all have the power. I don't yet. You do. Use it.

Alright. Next up is Sam. Sam, is that you? Yeah. Okay. And then Vanessa Samoano. Is that you Vanessa? Great. And then on deck is William. Sam, go ahead. You have three minutes.

Thank you. Is this on? Okay.

Yes.

Good evening, counselors, and thank you for being here. My name is Sam, and I'm a resident of Hillsborough. Mayor Pace, you say you can't do anything about ICE yet. What does yet mean? What are you waiting for?

What needs to happen for you to do something about ICE? What harm does codifying sanctuary city status do? It's literally the bare minimum you can do to tell your citizens that you stand with them are you worried about funding being revoked because it' probably on that way anyway because we' in a sanctuary state and I don' know that we need to be worried about funding when we are looking at what's happening with Minnesota. So I just I'm asking you to stand with your citizens and your neighbors and your constituents and the people who put you in power today and codify sanctuary status. Thank you. Okay. Vanessa.

Again, if you could stick to snaps, that would be helpful. Vanessa, you are next. William? And then on deck is Dirk Knudson. Vanessa, is your mic on? Yep. Alright, you're all set. You have three minutes.

Alright, great. Thank you. Good evening. My name is Doctor. Vanessa Samuano. I'm a licensed clinical psychologist and research investigator at the Portland VA Healthcare System. My role as a psychologist at the VA is helping veterans with post traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. As a member of the Latino community myself, oftentimes many Latino veterans elect to work with me because of our shared cultural understanding that can bolster, you know, stronger therapeutic relationship. A key part of my work as a trauma therapist is to help veterans relearn in their minds and their bodies the difference between safe environments and dangerous environments. To learn that a Saturday at Costco is not an ambush in the desert.

It's no small feat to go through this kind of a treatment and it takes months of hard and emotional work. I felt compelled to share this today. One Latino veteran that I've had the honor to work with since May has made some huge improvements in his functioning. Up until very recently, I had a check-in appointment with him and unsurprisingly his symptoms are back in full blown PTSD because of the increased activity of ice in his neighborhood. And sadly, as his therapist, I could not give him reasons why his hyper vigilance is unjustified.

I could not tell him that his fear is not aligned with a relatively safe reality because for him it's not. I could not tell him to not isolate. I had to tell him to stick with his instincts because those are on point right now, sadly, for him. In our streets right now, there is a real threat to him, his family, and other Latinos in our community. I know that this veteran signed up to serve and protect the rights of civilians in this country.

And I would be remiss not to speak up for him right now for myself and for all other Latinos in his same situation and urge our elected officials to do the bare minimum and codify sanctuary status in our cities and protect our communities from this reign of terror that is in our streets, our grocery stores, our schools, our churches, and on our front doors. Thank you.

Excuse me. Durkin, come up. William? Yeah. Are next. Yeah. Hold on one second. And then Barry Johnson Smith, you are on deck. William, welcome back. You have three minutes.

Yeah. Thanks, guys. Everyone, my name is William, and I live near downtown. I drive school buses for Hillsborough School District, bus 32, so you can wave at me, and I'll probably wave back. I'm really excited to be here with everyone tonight and listen to the public comments.

I missed the start of the work session, but my friends are well educated and engaged in civil work and have told me about the ordinance to codify the Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act. And I totally agree that you need to pass it now. And I'm not familiar with the legal processes in Hillsborough, but what I and everyone else can do is compare reality to the Hillsborough mission statement for the city to provide city services that support a safe, sustainable, and inclusive growing community while cultivating Hillsborough's hometown livability. So that's a great promise, but for the past few months, the news and public testimony, know that the city hasn't been living up to its promises. The explanation between the gap of your promises and what's actually happening is that the explanation is that it's slow.

It's really hard to listen to, that it's uncertain, or we need to make sure make sure before the next step. And maybe even like wait some time to document things now for justice in the future. But that doesn't work for me anymore anymore. We need action now, and we need justice now. If you delay justice, that is denying justice.

Delayed justice is denied justice. What justice is there for families who have already left, who have already been deported, or for people who have been killed? There's no justice for them, but we have justice for people who are here now. And personally, I like to follow-up any criticism with advice and to clearly state the purpose of the criticism. When I see the city council drag their feet to help their citizens, it makes me think that you're using legal processes as cover for an action, which makes me furious.

When you encounter any procedure or policy that slows you down, bend it. If there's any policy or procedure that stops you, break it. I want you to have the same audacity and creativity that the people out here have. Think of the audacity it takes to bring a three d printed whistle to go toe to toe with an ice agent. That's the kind of audacity and risk taking and creativity that I need to see all of you do.

And that means stay late, work late, get to work early, cancel brunch. I don't know what you all do in your spare time, but it's canceled. This is what you need to work on. And as a specific idea, since you all are asking about ideas, use all the city resources that you can, publish the hotels that ICE stays at, publish their cars, publish their names and their addresses. And I promise you, ICE will be ran out of town the next day. No one wants to serve ICE. People will spend their food till they get out of the restaurants. And running out of time, I talked to some of my students and I said, if I can tell city council anything, guys, what should I tell them? And it's that they're scared. It's that they're scared.

And I forget who wanted a goal, but the goal is to get ICE out of town. ICE agents equals zero. It cannot be more clear unless you are refusing to see. Thank you.

Thank you. Barry Johnson Smith, you can come up. And Myra Contreras, you are on deck. Right up there, Barry. Then Mr. Knudson you have three minutes.

Thank you mayor pace. I think we have to codify you guys. This thing is a freight train coming at you just like the emergency declaration. I'm not hearing good reasons not to codify. I'm hearing these kind of excuses that would make it difficult for us. We got to do it. But I'm here to talk about the Oregon Jobs Act. You're gonna all be hearing lot about this. Everybody in the room is gonna hear a lot about this. It really should be called the Expand Hillsborough's Urban Growth Boundary Without Public Input Act.

It's the biggest UGB expansion that has will ever happen, if it happens, outside of the systems we have, which are time tested and make Oregon special. We did this once with the grand bargain. We brought in 1,100 acres because we needed high paying jobs for something called Project Azalea. Everybody was in a panic. 10,000 jobs, do it now, and we did it. And guess what? Project Azalea didn't come. They weren't even real according to people in New York City working on this. But 1,100 acres came in, 50% of it's gone to data centers. We screwed up.

We didn't get the high paying jobs. This act would also extend the enterprise zone to ten years from five. I mean, how badly are we gonna get fleeced as a city or a state? This is ridiculous. The process is also not legitimate.

For Hillsborough to be involved in this process with no public input, not so much as an open house, not so much as maps or master planning or, hey, guys, we're gonna triple the size of Hillsborough's industrial footprint, which is already massive. It's not legitimate for you got for you, any of you, to push this. I also think this process is conflicted because those of you leading this took money directly from landowners for your campaigns. These landowners stand to make $1,700,000,000 when your work moves that boundary. And you're gonna have to own up to that.

You should step back and let somebody else take the reins on this one. Data centers have taken our water. They've doubled our power rate. They've taken all the land we could have put high paying jobs on it, so now we're screaming we need more land. There's 30 now, there's another 10 in planning.

Jeanette Solman said there'll be no standalone data centers, but what she didn't say is if you put a little tiny workforce training center up, you'll be able to build another huge data center and we lose more farmland. We're losing our sense of place out there on Jackson School Road. We're not going to recognize it just like we don't recognize Old Oranco or the Tualatin Plains where the data centers are now. We have to do master planning. Mayor Pace, you said when you went to Salem last week that we've invested a $120,000,000 in infrastructure to make this work.

How about we invest 3,000,000 in what's going on in this town? Okay? It's not always about industry and jobs. I know you're working hard on this and I know we need to be in that space where we have land, but let's have public process. We have to. Okay? Thank you, guys.

Next up is Barry Smith and Myra. You can Myra Contreras, you can come up. There you are. And then on deck is Luis Gutierrez. Barry? Yeah. Yep. You have three minutes.

Alright. Cool. Alright. Good evening, mayor and city councilors. Glad to be here today. For those who don't know me, my name is Barry Johnson Smith. I've been a resident of Washington County for six years. Before I get into my testimony, just do wanna give a huge shout out to Christian Salgado for organizing the assisted puede rally yesterday for MLK. I had an honor collaborating with you. It was really inspiring to see the youth there and you inspired them to want to address the interest they're facing today. So you should tip your hat off for inspiring the youth yesterday for what you did. And I also want to thank Councilor Claire for attending there as well. But yeah, I'm here today to talk about my support for the codification of the Oregon Sentry Promise Act

here

in Hillsborough. But I just want to preface that like codification is not enough. We need to make sure our sanctuary law is enforceable, transparent, and paired with real accountability. Like Christian still got a reference, I sent a proposal to y'all last night with policy that I worked with some attorneys and, in fact, the community members of how to do some of this work while being consistent with supreme with the supremacy clause. They are practical safeguards that protect public safety and civil rights.

I said the documents I shared were outlined by another attorney, Blaine Selayman Pearson, and here are some of the policy recommendations. First, traffic safety must be enforced and partially reports of unmarked vehicles driving recklessly or aggressive boxing drivers should be treated as part part priority public safety hazards. Officers are verified that these situations are safe and that drivers are properly congenital regardless of federal status. Public safety law applies to everyone. Second, the city must investigate excessive force.

The Oregon attorney general has made clear that the supremacy clause should not shield federal agents who insult or endanger the public. If city staff or other or officer witness or receive reports of windows being smashed or mace using its nonviolent individuals, those incidents must be investigated as potential violations of the Oregon criminal code. Third, she should document these incidents and refer them to the Washington County district attorney for review, consistent with the attorney general's intent to evaluate cases for prosecution when appropriate. Fourth, we need transparency. I urge the city to publish a monthly federal interaction law documenting calls for services related to suspended federal activity.

This law should include the date and location, the nature of the support, such as an unmarked vehicle or suspected abduction, and how the police department responded. This data should be in a report easily accessible by the public and consistently reported in city council meetings. The public deserves transparency about when and how city staff interact with federal agents regarding immigration. Finally, codification must include mandatory training for all city staff, develop with legal experts and community organizations on know your rights, proper handling of immigration enforcement requests, and correct application of the sanctuary ordinance. Passing a sanctuary ordinance is a central beginning, but it cannot be the end. Sanctuary law only works if it's enforced. Accountability protects public safety and transparency builds trust. Thank you for your time and your service to our community.

Okay. Myra, you are next. Luz Gutierrez? Luz? I

think I'll do fifty fifty. Is that okay?

I don't have

to pick. Is that okay, Aubrey? Can we do that?

You're welcome to do that. Just know that the language on the screen, it will take a moment. So as you toggle back and forth, it there will be hiccups, but it will do it. Okay.

Yeah. Thank you. Okay. You have three minutes.

Alright. So tonight, I didn't write a speech or anything like that. I just came in like somebody said tired. We're tired. But that doesn't mean we're giving up. Know? There's so much to be done. And you guys do hold the pull on this. And whenever you guys make a decision we' here to back you up too. Just because you go out and approve something don' believe that you' going to receive retaliation everywhere.

You will have at least the community support, the community that put you here. Today I want to basically thank all the micro businesses that followed me in. I honestly I I never thought I' be here never thought I' make this movement. To be honest I was scared. The first night I couldn' even sleep I was I was kind of juggling in my mind what did I get myself into.

But then more people started coming coming to me asking me questions asking me how things work. Questions some some questions I didn't even know the answer, but that didn't mean that I was just gonna, know pitch about something that wasn'92t true. I did my diligence and I gave them the right information. But I do want to thank bear with me. Do want to thank El Potrillo, Patty Jumpers, Tipicos Valides, Rolitos Toys, Rolitos Wireless, Latia.

I also have other people from Pisonos, and we're here. And please see us because we'92re are a lot of businesses here that need the support but micro businesses have a long ladder to climb and sometimes that ladder better yet most of the time that ladder is lathered with oil. That makes it hard for us to climb. With your guys' help, we will climb that ladder. But please, please help us be the rag in between us and that oil. And I know you guys could. Again,

Andres Perez Lete. Andres Perez Lete. Come on up Andres.

I do.

Yes. So we're gonna switch.

I want them also to be able to understand what I'm seeing right

here. English is fine. English? Okay. You'll go after Luz. Okay. Thank you. And then on deck is Maria. Okay. Are we good?

Yeah. She can go ahead. It'll catch up after a sentence or two.

Okay. Luz. Andres, you are up. Maria? I'm Andres Perez.

One second, Andres.

Yeah.

I'm sorry. Abigail Ramirez, you are on deck. Okay. Andres,

go ahead. I'm Andres Perez. I'm a senior at Glencoe High School and I wanted to talk about the encroachment of data centers in our community. As you know and as many people know, data centers both before and after this recent AI boom over the previous years are in won an eyesore on our beautiful Oregonian fields. And as seen as under other cities, will lead to higher power bills and problems with water pressure and supply. I ask you to think about how you plan to monitor and or regulate this encroachment on our land to make sure that the priorities lie with your constituents and not these with large tech companies. Thank you.

Abigail Maria Ramirez. And then on deck is SM. SM is on deck. Okay. And then are we ready to switch?

Yeah. Okay. Maria Estamos Listo. Go ahead. Abigail, do you want to testify in English or Spanish?

I'll do English. English. Okay. Thank you. One second. And SM, you're next. And then after s m is Erica Via. Abigail, you have three minutes.

Hello, city council. My name is Abigail Ramirez. I'm Manny Chavez's sister. Yesterday, I attended a protest on Martin Luther King Day for two important reasons, to support my brother as he spoke and to stand up for the right of my people. The protest was supposed to be a peaceful gathering of families and community members honoring doctor King's legacy.

We came together for justice, equality, and dignity. My family and I participated respectfully holding signs standing together, lending our voices to a cause greater than ourselves. But peace was shattered that day. A man arrived not to join us, but to provoke and intimidate. From the moment he appeared, he directed racist slurs at me and others creating fear where there should have been calm, where there should have been a safe, honorable gathering quickly turned into chaos because of his aggression and refusal to respect the rights of those around him.

During the incident, he tried to take my mother's Mexican flag and waved it in a way that struck her, yet she was blamed. At one point, my brother Manny was punched in the face. And I know this man has multiple felony convictions, yet his actions went largely unchecked by law enforcement. This isn't the first time that I felt the racial sting. Over the years, I've been judged, threatened, and marginalized simply because of the color of my skin and the heritage the heritage I carry with pride.

Each time, it leaves a mark, fear, and frustration, a sense that even when we do everything right, we are still vulnerable. And yet, I continue to stand, speak, and fight for justice, not just for myself, but for everybody whose voices has been silent. During the protest, I watched in disbelief as my brother Manny was the only one held aggressively. At least 10 officers surrounded him while the man who was attacked faced little to no restraint. I couldn't help but wonder if we were white, what would we have?

What would the situation have unfolded to? Would the officers have responded with such overwhelming force against a peaceful family or would justice have been applied fairly and equally. The fear and confusion and pain that of the movement were overwhelming and it highlighted deep troubling disparities in how people are treated based on the color of their skin. I'm running out of time, but so I asked this court, how can we claim to protect justice if those who peacefully exercise their rights are treated as the aggressors? How can we honor equality and prejudice still decides who is safe and who is blamed.

Every voice deserves to be heard, every right deserve to be protected, and every person deserves to be treated with dignity. Thank you, court.

Thank you, Abigail. S. M, you are next. And Erica Villa, please come up. I'm gonna speak in English

and Spanish, if that's okay.

Yeah. Just one second, please. Yeah. That you are more than welcome to do that. And just know that when you're speaking in Spanish, some of us will be looking at our screen, and it takes a minute to switch over. Okay? And are you Erica?

Yeah.

Great. So you'll speak after s m, and you'll have three minutes to speak. And do you wanna speak in English or Spanish?

I'll do Spanglish.

Spanish. Yeah. Okay. So just I'll

do English and they'll

English.

Yeah. Okay. Sounds good. Okay. SM, go ahead.

I'm gonna switch to English now. In the work session, I heard a city official say that this is a politically and emotionally charged time. No one looks forward to getting that call. Trust me. You don't have to remind us. Yet the community is in the front lines and is responding. Why aren't you? Release the data from WACA and show the community how many ICE related calls have come in and how many have been handled by sending an officer out. Trust begins with honesty. One last message for everyone.

Our children are watching. Hate will not make us great. Immigrants are humans, and like the back of my shirt says, immigrants make America great. Thank you.

Carter Calhoun. You can come up. Calhoun? Carter, you can take a seat at the left side and then you'll speak after Erica. Erica, you have three minutes.

Okay. My name is Erica and I'm here for the second or third time coming here to advocate for the community of Hillsborough. Coming here with all the eminent marketplace members. Them like me I have a small business and it is you know, heart heartfelt that they're losing their businesses. 80% of them are they've lost 80% of their income. And I'm here to advocate for them. You know, I come from Salem. I try to come here every Sunday or Saturday, twice a month to help them, not only to do content with them, to get their business going so people can know they're still working. Lot of people don't wanna come. They don't wanna show up.

They're scared that they're gonna get detained in the meantime from their house to the M and A marketplace. I am like them, you know, Hispanic Latino person, and I'm here to advocate. You know? We need to do something. They are scared. They're frightened. They don't they wanna change. We've been waiting since November. We haven't seen anything. They're here. I talked to them in person on the weekend, and I told them, hey. You guys need to come. You guys need to be heard. The more of you guys here, you know, maybe changes will come. Changes will, you know, eventually come one day or another.

And I am I'm also here because yesterday, Monday, we went to the march in Salem, which was a peaceful march. There was a MAGA guy, about forty plus years. He decided to hit two teams. I was there the whole time when the incident happened. By the time the guy was trying to get away, Manny was trying to be arrested by three to four officials. When my me seeing it from the background, as I was there, I was seeing everything. I was screaming in my speaker, you know, two teens just got hit. The police didn't show up till later. When they show up, they try to arrest money. And I'm like, what is happening?

He is the victim, and there's the MAGA guy forty plus years just, you know, out there loose. They don't wanna arrest him. They don't wanna put charges on him. After forty minutes, they did tell him to leave, that he wasn't allowed there. After forty minutes that we were there advocating for money when he was already surrendered by eight to 10 police officers. And like I said, they were trying to arrest him. I did tell them he's a minor. I was there speaking up. A lot of people weren't there. A lot of people didn't care. He was a minor. So I did tell the police, what if this was your kid? What if this was your kid? And he got kicked he got, you know, hit by a 40 year old. Would have been different.

They were just laughing at us. They didn't care. It was Salem police and state troopers from Salem. So we need a change, and we need it now. I have a hair salon, you know, and I closed it three times, and I know how hard it is to reopen.

We need a change, you know. Most of them won't be able to reopen. I myself have opened three times my business here. And most of them can't. We need to change. You.

Next up is Carter Calhoun. Carter, just press that button in the middle when your light turns green you' on and you have three minutes to speak.

Alright. Thank you. Go ahead. I'm Carter. I'm a junior at Glencoe High School. And, I think that Hillsborough's codification as a sanctuary city is the absolute minimum you can do to help immigrants in our community and you're refusing. You saw the turnout at the school walkout in December just made of students. Imagine if that were everybody who was standing with the cause. Students whose parents, family members, and friends parents have been affected and taken by ICE. It's breeding fear in the minds of everyone from elders to children in elementary school.

They're killing people across the country like terrorists. How long will it be before something like that happens here? By not passing this, you're basically just telling ICE that they're welcome in our city, and they're absolutely not. They're not welcome in Hillsborough, they're not welcome in Oregon, and they're not welcome anywhere. And we may not be able to change it across the country, but we can make the step forward by making this a sanctuary city.

You're putting our entire Hispanic community in danger. Codify our city as a sanctuary for all immigrants, documented or undocumented, and most importantly, enforce it. Use force in response to these armed federal agents spraying tear gas on unarmed protesters and shooting people in the face. Do you have the guts to tell everybody in this room right now that you're not gonna protect them? You are complicit, mayor Pace. You serve the people and you serve the citizens of Hillsborough. And I urge you, please, to never forget that. Thank you.

Okay. Thank you to everyone who came in tonight. Moving to item for the consent agenda the items on the consent agenda are normally considered in a single motion. Any item may be removed for separate consideration upon request by any member of council. Is there a request to remove any items for separate consideration?

Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda? So moved the case. Thank you. Is there a second? Second, Anbury. Alright. Is there any discussion? No. May I please have a roll call?

Councilor

Anbury? Yay. Councilor Alcair? Aye. Councilor case? Aye. Councilor Harris?

Aye.

Councilor Sinclair? Aye. Councilor Salgado?

Aye.

The motion passes. Moving to item eight we have no other business to consider this evening so I will turn the time over. Want to be clear we have no other business to consider this evening in this city council meeting. We will be going back to work session after this. So I just wanna be clear. Alright? So I'll turn the time over to Robbie Hammond for the city manager report.

Thank you, mayor. Good evening, everyone. Three items that I wanted to announce and share with the council and with the public tonight. We had an exciting announcement last week that Hillsborough is the home of the newest women's professional softball team, the Portland Cascade. The Cascade will be part of the athletics unlimited softball league or the AUSL and will play their first home game at Hillsborough Ballpark on Thursday, June 18.

Other a s AUSL teams include the Carolina Blaze, Chicago Bandits, Oklahoma City Spark, Texas Volts, and Utah Talons and some games are gonna be aired on ESPN. This is gonna be a great draw for our tourism as fans of softball players of all ages visit Hillsborough and watch the only West Coast team in the AUSL. As mayor Pace said during the announcement, the cascade, the thorns, the fire will make Hillsborough a regional hub for women's sports. Thanks to the parks and recreation director, Kendall Reid, and senior parks and recreation manager, Dorel Singleton, for all of their hard work in Hillsborough to secure this opportunity. Second, I thought it'd interesting to share and thank first of all our public works department staff for another another incredible job serving our community through the annual street leaf collection program.

In 2025, our crews removed more than 5,000 cubic yard of street leaves. They also collected about 600 pounds of food during two food drive events. This program helps everyone by keeping more than 300 miles of city streets in the storm water system clean and reliable. It also reduces flask flooding and can be which can be caused by street trees leaving clogged clogging catch basins. A big thanks to our Parks and Rec team excuse me, Public Works team led by Tom Arnold, our Public Works Director, and all of his team.

And then finally, I wanted to share with community members that are watching tonight. We are excited to invite you to join us again here in the Shirley Huffman Civic Center Auditorium for the twenty twenty six State of the City on Thursday, February 19. Mayor Pace will lead the evening with a speech that begins at 6PM. Once again, we are offering free supervised child play at Outdoors Inn for those who attend the State of the City, and we hope to see you there. But if you cannot make it, it will be live streamed both in English and in Spanish on the city's Facebook channels. Thank you.

Thank you, Robbie. Moving to item 10, community members who want to be informed and engaged on city council matters can sign up to receive the happening in Hillsborough email newsletter. Spanish language updates are also available through our email newsletter. Please note the city council will be holding one executive session. Is that right, Robbie?

We're gonna switch it. So there were two scheduled. So we're gonna do one on legal action and the one on safety we will push off because we are going to be continuing our work session. So the city council will be holding one executive session after the work session under ORS one nine two point six six zero two h as in hotel to consult and counsel to consult with counsel concerning the legal rights and duties of a public body with regard to current litigation or litigation likely to be filed. Let's see.

No action may be taken in executive session. If action needs to be taken, counsel will do so in regular session. So immediately after this meeting, we will be going back into the other room to continue our work session, and you are all welcome to be there. After our work session, we will be going into executive session, and that's when only the city council and certain staff can be there. Alright. With that, the city council meeting is adjourned, and we'll begin in our work session at 08:10. Thank you.

From the council to we will come up with some options to how we can hear more feedback from the CBOs regarding codifying, and we'll get back to you all about how best to do that. We'll try to do that soon and come up with a good plan for you all. The second part that we wanted to talk about tonight is the human rights office. So we've had discussions with the council a couple of times. This was a proposal by councilor Salcado. We put together a plan of how we could put bring this forward, which I shared with you all a couple of weeks ago. Oh, actually. Yeah. There we go. Thank you. So a couple of parts of that just as a reminder. Some of this will be repetitive, but I think it's important to set the context. One of the the those proposals was to establish community advisory committee, which, by the way, we've already done. We're we're doing that now. We have a charter set up.

We've invited, CBOs. They're excited to be a part of it. So, that's gonna be something moving forward that's gonna be really helpful for the city. We have, options to bring back. We wanted you asked us to bring back options to form this kind of human re rights I keep calling it a human resources office. I apologize. Human rights office. It would be staffed by a human rights manager position, and I'll go over the, the organizational chart in a second. And I'll go through the goals as we go get into that. I have other slides that will go through those goals. And then also bring back proposals, which would be kind of phase two of this to establish a human and civil rights commission. Next slide.

I have a question.

Yes.

For the for the CSC, what is was the Charter sent to us?

I'm sorry. Was it sent to you?

Mhmm. If not, could could could you send it?

We certainly can. Yes. Simone has it, and we can send that out. I think we talked about it the last time, but I don't think we actually sent

the Charter.

So happy to do that. And we've tried to make that flexible as well. Right now, obviously, we all know the main purpose, but three years down the road, it could be a different purpose that we would wanna use that CAC for. So we try to make it flexible and and, you know, have CBOs come and talk to us whatever the the issue is that we need to hear from our community on.

And I

don't I'm a Oh,

yeah. Go for it. Yeah. Sorry. I gotta get back in the habit. Yeah. Go ahead. Counselor Sinclair.

Okay.

Pertaining to picking and, connecting with the CBOs for to participate in community advisory. Is there will they be acquainted? I know you just have talked about sitting out the charter, but I think it's really important that council's aware of who that is because we all this is new for all of us. We all have perspectives of what we're hearing in the community and whose boots on the ground. Should you aware of who that is before committing to who that community advisory committee is?

Yes. We can share that. We have we have who those CVOs are. That that they will probably fluctuate too, right, depending on what issue we're talking about. So, it's not necessarily an appointment by counsel. It would be just we we're proposing a a wide variety of different voices and CVOs that would come so we can share who we're

talking to. Simone, you want?

Yeah. I can talk just

oh, there

it is.

Just a little bit about it. So we're developing a planning committee first. So Avalante Mujeres has been invited along with PD and CMO to just develop the planning committee, which talks about, like, meeting length, meeting location, just some of those how is it going to function? The charter outlines the response purpose, scope, responsibilities. But in the the resolution outlined kind of the categories of types of organizations like immigrant rights advocates, social service providers.

So, obviously, a lot of our CDOs, even culturally specific CDOs, provide a number of services related to housing and food assistance. And so there's various categories, and you'll see that in the charter. But the committee itself can be up to 30 individuals, and we've kind of outlined that by category. But we'll have we'll be working with kind of the planning committee to try to focus that a little bit more. So it's still very much in the development phase.

Okay. Thank you.

So you mentioned one organization, Ada Anto Mogeddes. Right?

That's been our first outreach. But we have been meeting, as we've been working on the partnership agreements for the funding. We've talked to Centro, Adelante. We're meeting with the NSR tomorrow. Mhmm. We've met with Community Action. So this is still the very early phases of, like, who do we, in terms of planning, who do we need to be talking to Yeah. In order to continue the conversation. So they're not, by any means, the only voice that will be in the room.

And could you share what you're communicating with them about? What the purpose of the community advisory committee is? Because we did get a letter from Adelenta Mujeres that essentially says they don't agree with us moving forward with the human and civil rights work. So it kinda feels like there's contradictory, priorities. There's a what are the things that we're communicating to them?

So we haven't sent sent we've only sent the charter to two staff at Adelante. So, when we met with Bridget and two of her other staff, our meeting was actually a pretty packed agenda, and the CAC was at the end because we were really focused on the partnership agreement so we could get the funding out the door. And we told them that we would follow-up with them once we were a little further along. So we're really still in the early phases of this work, and I think you'll have a better sense once send the charter over. And I'm I'm gonna do that while we're here in the meeting as well.

So Okay. Thank you. It just Yeah. Seemed like a little conflicted information. So

Yeah. I clarified it. Thank you for bringing that up because I sent her a clarification that the community advisory committee happens regardless of the human rights office. Like, we've already taken that direction from counsel to move that forward.

Okay. Thank you.

You're welcome.

Did we get a copy of her email and this packet of testimony? K. So I just want because I read it. I read it. And she was supportive of what we're proposing, but she also is recommending, a pause as others have stated with us, about the purpose of the human rights officer for human rights office.

And so I think it's important to remember, and examine what it is that they're telling us in these testimonials and in relation to what it is that we wanna do and what we think is right compared to what they are saying that community needs now. Thanks.

What I heard was, or what I read was that, they wanted the money. That's what what I was taking from it. So

And I think at the last council meeting where we were all together, we had talked about who's already doing, quote, unquote, the work. I believe what they're saying in relation to the money is to consider what the needs are right now. Emergency needs are needed by people right now, and that's basically to pay rent and to get food. Those things are not sustainable, but that is what they're asking for. Put this funding towards food and rent for people first.

Some people are saying, postpone developing an office in a year. In my opinion, I think that we can develop a commission throughout this county and that we can be working with people who are already pioneering this work and that we go in as a participant to this work and that we contribute to this work and that our contribution, our stake is that we fund a part of that commission and all cities that wanna participate fund that commission and that they work together for communities.

Yeah. I mean, I think they have the right Bridget Cook has the right to share her opinion on it. But my question was about the construction of the community advisory committee, the purpose of the community advisory committee, and they're gonna be members of the community advisory committee, but they're already coming out before we even met

Exactly.

To say, I don't I don't approve of this. So it just seems like it would be counterproductive to have somebody like that on a community advisory committee if they outright don't already support our approach to this.

I I don't know that they don't support this. I see that they have questions about what we want to do, and I don't see anything wrong with the proposal, but I think we need to be informed and that we need to, for me, when I think about the city, I think about our collaboration with our partners. And I believe that we need to go in and listen and understand because they literally are on the front lines. We aren't, except for maybe Jim sometimes with detainents. But I think that we need to consult with them, and I think we need to listen to them.

Well, I mean, I'm not disagreeing with you. What I'm saying is that's part of the purpose of the community advisory committee, right, to get that feedback from the community in a structured way that's consistent, that's tracked, that's documented. And so if from the jump they're saying we don't support what you're doing, to me it just seems counterproductive. And so that's how I'm reading the letter. And we don't have to spend too much time on it. I was just voicing that concern with how we're going about selecting members for this and what we're saying, what the purpose is behind the CAC. Because I I think there needs to be alignment and maybe Bridget Cook is speaking for herself and not Adelante Mujeres. And maybe she's speaking for Adelante Mujeres. I don't know. It just seems like there's

I I don't know.

I I want this to be done right. I mean, we've heard a lot of testimony. It's a real issue. We need to do something and we need to do it right. You know?

I would give some grace to the CBOs and out here because they have been doing the work and I believe, partnership's important. One thing that I'm worried about as I'm worried also about HPD is that the city staff report to Robbie and Robbie makes decisions based on what we want and consulting with Chad. Robbie's going to follow through and do this. That person still has to report to Robbie and is gonna meet requirements within their job, within what the city is gonna require to participate in this. I would like to see this staff member going to a coalition, a group, you can call it coalition or a commission, but they go to a group and they have reporting to do.

And they come back and they inform counsel about what is going on. I don't believe that. I I I just think, like, the amount of money that we're considering right now in this next batch is gonna be, what, 200,000? Well, that's what we're considering, and it's not sustainable.

I don't

I think we're

too far ahead right now in in speaking off about this. I I think

I I just wanna finish my thought. Yeah. So I would just like to be considering what this amount of money that we would do for this office and what it could do for people.

If I might suggest that Yeah. I've got, maybe five slides, and you've seen some of these slides. I'll try to give all the background, and then there'll be plenty of time maybe to to discuss among the council. If you go to the next slide, Raheem. So this you saw this, a few weeks back. So this is kind of a zoomed out version. If you go to the next one, you'll see what we would propose here. This would be a a an office created within the city manager's office, essentially. And so it'd be a new position, a human rights manager. The position would port directly to Simone Brooks, the assistant city manager.

We do see there would probably at least need to be one more position, some type of community services coordinator position that would kinda be phase two. We wanna get that manager hired for again, this is all if we did this, we'd hire the manager first, then they could be involved in hiring, you know, a a staff member. The second part to this that we also talked about would be a a communications assistant manager. We've talked about that as a city for a while. It's a it's a need already. And if we were to add this Right. We would have to do we'd have to add more, kind of oomph to our our communications team because that would be a really critical part of this human rights office. At the last meeting, the council next slide, Raheem. The council asked us well, let me go through these first. We showed these, again, last last meeting.

I just wanna show just to remind everybody, these are some of the goals, that we had kind of pulled from councilor Salgado's proposal in partnership with the CBOs. We'd be complementing the work that they do to record and document ICE interactions. We'd be working with their legal observers to try to make sure we're documenting those, convene a community advisory committee, which we just talked about, which, again, the council last meeting asked us to move forward that anyway regardless of what happens here. So that's why we're pushing that forward. Community education outreach to support community members to create that welcoming city, training on know your rights, anti discrimination, fair housing, accessibility, language access.

Again, that's because right now, our focus is ICE. Right? But a couple years from now, it might be something else. We don't know. So we want this office kinda set up to be able to adapt and and handle those types of areas.

Act as a resource connector for community members impacted by immigration enforcement, activities, and individuals and families experiencing homelessness. And then on the next slide, to wrap up this kind of goals of the human rights office, working with CBOs to identify emerging issues and assist in developing, developing strategies to respond. What I just mentioned about being adaptable, right, as we as we hear new things come up, because there will be new things come up that we are anticipating now, coordinate internally with our DEI manager and human resource department and other departments to ensure employee training is responsive to CBO recommendations. They'll lead the promotion of accurate information in English and Spanish related to the activities of the human resources office, and then finally, partner with other city departments and external agencies to coordinate these beyond immigration related items. So at the end of the last meeting, the council asked us to talk about, the the costs.

So we had sent this out to the council earlier. I wanted to just include it here.

Hey. Sorry for interrupting, Ravi. I just wanna before we move ahead, I wanna hear from the rest of the council if you can you go back a couple of slides? One more. So see right there, the second big bullet point, Convene Community Advisory Committee. So I wanna hear from the rest of the council what they think about what I brought up because we've had Bienistar, SOAR and Alejandro Mujeres write in testimony saying they don't support us investing money in this office yet that's one of the goals of the office is to convene a community advisory committee. So am I off the rails here? I'm thinking that that's kind of contradictory that we're recruiting people that are actively, like like, providing testimony against it. I'd like to hear from the rest of the council on this.

Well, can I just urge you to talk to all those organizations and ask them directly? You don't have to wait for staff

to hear that. A testimony.

They wrote this You wrote this testimony. I wanna talk to you about it, and I wanna explain my idea about having this and ask them. Don't assume that they aren't because this got submitted. I think you should talk to them.

I I I would like to give input. So we received four letters today from community based organizations. I'm a little frustrated because we as a council don't know what the charter is, but yet and it's very clear to me on one of the one of the testimonies we received, I think there's confusion even understanding that there is solely a committee versus actually a human rights office. So it's not fully baked, but yet there's clearly communication going out to these CBOs that have been completely informed since we're still developing this as a council. I think that that creates a bias and I think that it's, it's it's not starting out with all of us, having accountability each other and how we process this.

And that's where the frustration comes in.

Certainly. Council, councilor Sinclair, thank you for that. I, so my understanding is at the last meeting when the council gave us direction to move forward with the community advisory committee, I think everybody knows that. We've reached out already. So we're moving forward with that because that was council direction.

Yeah.

I think at least the way I interpreted the the memos, or the letters that came in over the past couple of days, they're talking specifically about the human resources office, and not. I did it again. I'm sorry. I was HR director for several years, so it's gonna just keep happening. That's what I think they're talking about in those in those memos and not specific to the CAC. We I don't think we've had any pushback. Simone, please chime in about the CAC. That's been, everybody likes the idea of gathering everybody together. It's the human resource the human rights office that, people at least that's how I read those memos.

Mhmm. Robin. But but but for us as a council for a check

oh, I'm so sorry. I just I apologize, councilor. No. This is on me. This is a typo, and I just have to own it because I just copied and pasted the slide from the previous work sessions. I did not take out community community advisory committee because you'd already given us direction on it. So I just don't wanna misconstrue that the goals of the human rights office would include that because you've already told us to do that. I just wanna add that context.

Yeah. But thank you for that. But but rather regardless whether it's in the bullet point or not, it's part of the work related to the human rights office. Right? So Right. I wanna hear from everybody how they feel about that because I feel weird because I don't have any other words to describe this feeling that we're asking them to jump on this, but at the same time they're providing testimony against it. You know? So I just wanna hear from the rest of the council.

I wanna say that we have the Latino Policy Council here tonight. We have the council council president. And they are part of Centro Cuttera.

They support it. They sent in a Maria Maria Rubio sent in an email in support of this office. So I'm not talking

about Central. Yeah. I am gonna talk about that. And I think that they all had something to say about the office. Some were saying to delay, postpone. Some said this isn't the right time. So we can sit here and talk about all we want to and our ideas and our influences. I'm saying, here's a nonprofit sitting here in the audience right now. If you're saying it seems unclear, like people are contradicted, we can ask them, are you contradicting this? Do you believe this or do you believe that if we're not willing to ask those questions of the people, well then we need to, we need to.

If I may see, so I hear both my counselors, both Salgado and Alcare, I think that we just haven't worked this out yet. I think we're too far ahead of ourselves. I think we need to work through this as a a body and complete the information we have in front of us. And I do think it's important to talk to the CBOs collectively and openly because it does seem like there is a narrative prior to us even developing this. And so I said go forward, learn more about it to where we can make decisions, counsel how to go forward, and then we'll talk about the CBOs participation.

Okay. I'll I'll reword it. So one of the reasons we wanted to convene a community advisory committee is to get their feedback on the work that the human rights office. We're already getting that opinion. So why why convene them if they're already giving us that opinion?

Because because I asked Ravi for a timeline about what we're doing right now. So I don't know how many of you started to ask questions that ultimately led to, yes, we're gonna have a work session on ICE. It has taken time to have that. It's taken time to get to this point where we're now talking about a plan. At no point did I hear that CBOs are disinterested, don't trust us, don't wanna work with us, don't wanna collaborate with us.

And I'm not saying that that's being suggested here. But they do have an investment, and they are reliant on us just like they're reliant on the county that they need that support. But it's not just businesses. It's not just projects, etcetera. We're talking about people who are struggling right now, fearful of opening their doors, won't go to the store. I'm in schools. I can see fear on parents' faces. I see kids. I see it's hard to concentrate. I see my neighborhoods.

I we had businesses here at night. I've gone around and around and asking people, how do you feel about things? And, honestly, we are not the leader in this. It took us a long time to get to this. I'm glad that we're here. I'm glad that we wanna do this. I'm glad that you have this passion to wanna create this. I just I'm looking how much money you flashed up here, and I'm thinking, wow. I wonder how many rents that could cover. I wonder how much food that could buy.

I wonder how, we can enhance our capacity for HPD to respond and provide more safety and document what's going on. That's what I'm thinking of. I would love to have this office. But right now, I'm agreeing with these people, and it's not like they came out of magic. They've been following us. They've been listening to our conversations, our meetings. Right? And they have talked to us. You have gone around to them. I've gone around to them. I've asked, what do you need? Right? You have talked to people. You've talked to people. Right?

They're seeking us out. It's not like they're hiding and and and disinterested in wanting to work with us. They want us. They need us. We need to be there, and we need to respond in a way, and we need to do in a thoughtful manner.

Real quick. So, councilor Sinclair, you wanna make a comment and councilor Salgado, but we haven't gotten to the end of where you wanna get to, which is the point you're trying to make. Yeah. So did you wanna say something and then

Yeah. I mean, this isn't a a zero sum game. Right? It's not a zero sum game. Like, we can do both things. We've we're already investing

Yes.

Nonprofits. We're already investing in small business. I think we're getting close to a million dollars. Counselor, I'll care on that. Yeah. So we can do both things. And then, you know, last, the first work session, we're making good progress on, codifying. And, you know, we're obviously, it's taking longer than expected, but then you throw in another process that is going to extend the timeline on that work. And you've heard the testimony we heard today, we need to move with urgency. And you threw in another process that's going to extend it, and you're trying to do the same here. And I'm trying to understand why you're doing that. Like, you're extending the time that it's taking to

accomplish I think I need to understand what your reluctance is to wanna work with CBOs. I need to understand that. If I can understand that, then I can be on board with you.

Did you

get these Let me finish mine.

Did you get them?

Let me finish.

No. Did you read them? Did you get them? Because this has turned

into a dishonest conversation because this clearly is You're interrupting me

right now. Testimony.

I don't come here, and I'm not speaking like this without having reviewed material. I'm not, but I am gonna say this and I'll leave it. And you can act the way that you want to with CBOs, and you can have your own opinion about this. And I believe this conversation right now is exposing a lot about what we feel and not what we hear from what they have to say. And I believe that we are working in a vacuum and that's not a comfortable place for me. So I am gonna speak up and I am gonna speak up.

Councilor Sinclair. And then and then let's finish up with the. The

objective here is to create municipal code. That is what we're talking about. And this is an outside of the box thinking where we wanna lead our community. I know it's not gonna protect them from ICE, but we are trying to create solutions that create tools for our community outside of internal staff. And I don't want us to get off topic here. We let's go through the process. Let's get on the same page. And I wanna serve our community. I come up with solutions that serve our community and we can bring CBOs. It We want the same objective.

Okay. And I just want to say before we get going, we're all trying really hard. All wanna serve the community. I just wanna acknowledge that. Mhmm. I've talked to other mayors in other cities where the council is very divided. And so just I would encourage us all to take a deep breath I know that we're all trying to help and which I really appreciate. I just wanna say that out loud. Okay. Robbie, keep going.

If you can

go to the next slide, Remo. I think this is actually the last one, and then we can get into more discussion. So I sent this, to the council. We were asked to kinda, quantify how much this would cost. You can see the human rights manager, which we put at essentially the same level as, like, our, your DEI manager, annual salary of 154,000 a year. We always include benefits and taxes that are, included because that's also expense. So it's about 250,000. The second position that would be higher would be the community services program coordinator. That total would be about 190,000, so a total cost of 440. I was asked to also include what it would look like if we we do have a vacancy in the city manager's office.

We've been holding on to that position for a little while to try to we have other clients for it that if the council wanted, we could put that in here, which, we could essentially reclassify that position, which would have some savings that you see up on the screen. And if we did that, it'd be a total of about 321,000. That other position I wanted to include separately because, again, it's not technically part of the human rights office, but that communications position. I just I'm trying to be realistic. It would be necessary, and that position would be about 231,000 if we did that as well. So the total for those three positions, after they were all hired would be about 553,000.

Quick quick question on that. Yes. So the assistant communications manager is a from what I understand, is a position that was already planned for. Yes. And you would just move it over to the responsibility of the

No. Kind of. It's a position that at some point we need to ask for, but we don't have it planned. It's not in the budget or anything. Okay. Something It's that in the last couple of years, our communication staff has been very tapped, and then everything with ICE has just obviously made it even more impactful. Okay. So if we were to add this, it would just maybe bring up the urgency for us to add that position.

Yeah. Because what I'm trying to get an answer from here is what what was already budgeted for for this year and what's not budgeted for. So what's the extra move that we have to make if you have that?

So if the council wanted to move forward with this, there would be three new positions that would need to be added. The first two, the human rights manager, the community services program coordinator. Now if you wanted to use we do have that vacancy, the admin support position. That's a vacant position we have now. We could also take that vacancy and reclassify it to one of those other two, if that makes sense.

So it's it's, it would be more money that we need, to have the the council approve. But that's where you get that 321,000 is those, it would be essentially, either two new positions or one new position on reclassification. And then the third position down below is the assistant communications manager, which also has not been budgeted. It hasn't been actually requested by the council at all. It's just one that we I'm just trying to be as transparent as possible that that's probably, coming down the line as well as something we would need as as a result of this.

So this office could cost us as little as 440,000 or as much as 553,000?

As little as 321,000. So if we didn't hire the communications position and we used that vacancy to reclassify it, then it would be approximately 321,000. 21. Okay. Thank you.

And this is a year?

Correct.

Yep. A year.

Oh, just

Half a little over half 1,000,000 a year.

If we did, the three of them, yes. That's correct. So that was the last slide. I just I again, that was the council that had requested that we kinda show that. One thing I just wanna clarify again, the the community advisory committee, I understand the confusion there. We're moving forward as staff because the council said, yep. Go go put that together. Councilor Sotkow is correct that it it was originally specifically about the human rights office, but we're trying to use it really just as a way to talk to CBOs more in general about whether it be this or other topics that might come up. So that's moving forward. And unless the council wants to change that, let us know.

But, otherwise, tonight, really, what we're looking for, Raheem, if you wanna go to that next, next slide, is just feedback. If you want us to fully, fully fund and organize that new human rights office, or do not establish the office and give us other direction about, working with CBOs or however you all wanna do it. With that, I'm happy to answer any questions, or open to any conversation you wanna have.

Okay. So and I will go down the line to ask if you wanna do one or two or you can modify or whatever. But, I see counselor Case and then counselor Sinclair have a question.

I do.

Thank you. So I just want to clarify. So we're gonna, we can start the, community advisory committee with existing staff, and it won't cost us anything in our budget. So we could move forward with that right now, and I think we already are moving forward with that. Okay. And then, I guess, for me

yes? Minus the stipends.

Minus the stipends. Yes. Right. We would include the stipend option for

the Yes. Of course. Relatively minimal.

Right. Thank you for that reminder. And then, I mean, it seems to me that we need the CBOs, especially the ones that reached out to us specifically with their thoughts already on the potential for this office, that they need to be a part of that group and those conversations. And it feels to me like we can't move forward with an office until we have a community advisory council who can give us some recommendations on that. And I will say I have big concerns about a half $1,000,000 being spent on an office on an annual basis when there's nonprofits that seem to be CBOs doing a lot of that work already, that could get started tomorrow.

So, but I just wanted to I think that was kinda what my thought process right now

with this

is community community advisory council. There's so many acronyms. I'm sorry. Community advisory committee and then and kinda take their lead on conversations around the office.

Would it be helpful for me just to I know you all haven't aren't looking at your email because you're discussing. Would it be helpful for me to read the purpose in the charter of the community advisory committee that we're that we're already staffing up? Great. And have capacity for? Okay.

So the Human Rights Community Advisory Committee is a multidisciplinary advisory body to the city manager that will use community informed feedback, perspectives, and recommendations to inform the city's human rights initiatives, including opportunities to further address current and emerging impacts of federal immigration enforcement actions and to remove barriers and create accessible opportunities for all in alignment with Resolution 2,906, the city's equity statement and strategic plan. So that that's the broad purpose and then their responsibility. So when you actually have an opportunity to look at the charter, we outline the responsibilities. And then the broad participation includes Hillsborough staff, immigrant rights advocates, which I mentioned previously, CBOs that work on eviction prevention, food assistance, service navigation, health care, homeless service providers, immigration legal service providers, educational institutions, business representatives, and Washington County is listed as optional. Just to give you a sense since I know you can't read this right now.

Yeah. Is there any way we can pause that until we get to review the charter? Pause the work on the CAC until we we can see it? Because we did give direction, but we didn't get the charter until now. So I'd like to take some time to look at it and get feedback on it.

We can. I I it's that's the process that we typically follow when we create a new committee or a council. So we just, the staff, wanna put together a proposal to how to do this and and, feel like it was a strong proposal. But if the council wants us to stop and, review the charter before we, meet with them, we can we can do that.

I mean, to me, it seems like it's obvious to bring back the charter for us before continuing with the work. Right?

Yeah. I guess maybe an important distinction, though, is this is not a a committee that we had planned that reports to the council. And so because it was a staff led, committee, that's why we didn't think that we would wanna bring the charter back and have the council determine the charter. That that's why we did the way we did it. But if the council would like to have time to review the charter and make changes, we could certainly pause.

So yeah. So I I I don't think we I I I don't think we need to pause it, but it would be good if we could include as one of the one of its deliverables that it does give direction on the on the human rights office. That that would be, that would be good.

So I can just clarify. So we changed the language to human rights initiatives in case council did just decided not to move forward with the human rights office. That way, we can continue advancing the work without there necessarily needing to be an office. So that's easy enough to update the charter, but that was the language shifted from advising the human rights office to advising on human rights initiatives. Yeah.

Yes. So I so yeah. So I I was I was saying yes. And before that would be advise on the creation of a human rights office to this like, give give their opinion on on whether a human rights office like, give us give the council feedback on whether that will be useful or not.

I feel like human rights initiatives covers it. If you get too specific, then you're

No. It though that's just work that the city is will be doing, but this would be the committee giving us at some you know, maybe a month, two months coming back to this council and and telling and saying that we think if the city does have a human rights office with these with, you know, with with these with this r and r, that makes sense or or not.

So

I I would like to so it's kinda more more formally, listening to what the committee says. But, yeah, the the creation and, of course, the initiatives, yes, that's ongoing. That's great. That that should continue, but just adding that, would be my suggestion.

Counsel, for for the benefit of all of you, I think we can take your feedback and then discuss next steps. But to your point, counsel Anbury, that could be something that we could ask them if you all decide not to move forward with the human rights office. If you decide to move forward with

the human rights office,

then, you know, we wouldn't do that. But that's where we're seeking consensus, right Yeah. On some next steps. Yes. That definitely can be one of the next steps. Yes. I will add as we as you look at the charter for the community advisory committee, you'll see, like, goals and things in there that were not just informed by councilor Salgado's proposal, but also the discussion you all had at that work session in November. There were other things around, like, how we coordinate with community based organizations that we said we would do to the community advisory committee. That's what also pushed that one forward, as well.

Very cool. Yep.

And, counselor Sinclair, you've been waiting very patiently while everybody else cut in front of you. So I appreciate

your patience. Appreciate the emphasis. Yeah.

You can take it up with them.

Thank you. I I wanna start by asking two questions and then continue forward. Robbie, as a what does it mean if because I know you'll say this better than I can, to be a full service city, and can you break down the departments that envelops?

Oh, sure. So full service city means that we provide all municipal services on our own. We don't rely on other service providers to do that. As an example, you can compare and contrast Hillsboro and Beaverton. Hillsboro has our own fire and rescue department, whereas Beaverton contracts it out to Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue. We have our own parks and recreation department. They have a Tualatin Hills Parks and Recreation District. So it's just the form that we have as a city. We do all of the services with the exception of Clean Water Services, for example, does it for the whole region, so we don't do our own kind of sewer treatment. We don't and then the other one would be garbage collection.

We have waste haulers that do that. So those are really the only two outliers. Beyond that, though, we do our own library services, fire, police, parks and recreation. We do all those services ourselves.

Thank you. The reason I asked that and asked for clarity is because to me, this is an extension of the services from the city of Hillsborough. This serves our community as a whole and stands behind our values and our priorities. And in looking at Simone was gracious to align to provide stats today to counsel and correct me Simone on what this envelops. But it's all the conversations that we've had pertaining to promoting our small Latino and immigrant businesses like Posano's, even in marketplace who have received thousands and thousands of views and inputs directly with the city.

Hillsboro awarded $200,000 to support community member impacted by ICE. And that got, oh, like almost 20,000 views collectively in shares and in Spanish and it got actually more than that got almost 30,000 views when you include English and Spanish. When you look at council meeting recaps pertaining to additional approvals of grants an additional another 16,000 to 17,000, actually almost 20,000 when you include English and Spanish. And then when you look at our website, the views it gets for main ICE response and so on and so on. My point that I bring this up is, is that clearly people are looking to us for a one stop shop.

We have less time, we have more demands on us. And I think that it is important that we lead funding and capacity so that we can be preventative rather than reactive as we go forward for our community who's fearing for their lives, fearing for their livability, feeling for their public safety. I think we have a responsibility, and that's why this should be looked at as part of an extended service for our community.

So you're advocating for, number one, fully established the office?

Fully established the office.

Okay. So thanks for starting us off. Counselor Alcare, do you lean toward one or two? Two. Okay. Counselor Anvary? Two. Oh, sorry. Councilor Salgado.

We have more than enough money to fund this. This is not a question about budget or not. It's about values. It's number one.

And the last thing, Mary, I'd like to say, I I do not in any way because I vote for one push off the CBOs. They we are at the ground level. They can help us shape what this is.

Mhmm. Yeah. Okay. Counselor to counselor Case is option two.

Oh, May I please?

Yeah.

So I would like to see the committee give us advice on the creation of the office.

Okay. Yeah.

So I've I've heard a couple. Let's wait and see what the committee does. Okay. So we have it to councilor Harris.

So I have a couple of questions. Or just to throw them out there, I don't expect anyone necessarily answering, but they're questions in my mind. Is there any similar community advisory council in this county, another city or the countywide or something similar to that that weaker the model or partner with. Do you know, Simone?

Not the way we have it formulated, but there are other cities we've had. One of our staff, Mikaela Kennedy, did some research on various offices that exist across the state.

Okay.

So that that did help inform this, but the focus at that time was really on human rights commissions Right. And not so much a committee that's informed staff on how to advance these particular kinds of initiatives.

So picking up on counselor AllCare's suggestion, I think, or at least an idea that she had was can we reach out to other cities or the county to see if they'd like to participate in our CAC as we're convening it. Most of these CBOs are regional or countywide anyway. And possibly that could lead to either a county based or a cooperative based office that's most of these things are regional anyway, immigration issues. I mean, ICE doesn't care whether it's Hillsboro or Cornelius or Forest Grove. And most of the CBOs we're working with are likewise operating outside the city limits as well.

So that was one of my questions. Which of the possible areas of oversight regulation human rights office would be tasked with doing already covered by the state attorney general. They do have offices. They've talked about this area. I think that would be worth exploring before we decided what to do here because we don't want to be duplicating things.

If something should be centralized and at the attorney general's office, for instance, potential prosecution, that would make sense to me. Also, if we're looking at human rights going forward longer distance, what's covered by state housing bureau or BOLI, Bureau of Labor and Industry, which talks about labor rights and things like that. There's other issues out there that we may not need to cover because they're already being covered by state agencies. So I guess where that leads me to is I think that we should continue with the CAC, maybe bring some other people in and some of their ideas in to make it regional as councilor Alcare suggested possibly if that was her suggestion and explore oversight. I'm generally in favor of setting something up like this.

I don't know where where it should be housed. Probably should be housed in Salem or maybe the county because these things cross city boundaries quite a bit. If we have to be the leader, we should. But the first step is to get the CAC together, get the people on that council. What do

we call it?

Committee. Committee that have the expertise and the knowledge to give us good advice on this. I think we may come up with a great product down the road. Councilor Sagal is correct, if money were no object, probably wouldn't be a bad idea to pursue this. I've been generally supportive as we've chatted back Money

is not an object. Pardon me? Money is not an object.

I I understand. And I'm sure if we told the CBO it wasn't an object, they would probably they would probably maybe be more supportive. We have money in the budget for it. Okay. Those are my questions, but where that leads me to is I hear a lot of people on the council that have still have some questions. And what I'd like to do is build a broad based unanimous support for whatever product we have here, not only with the council with the CBOs. And boy, if we could expand this to the county or other cities, think that'd be real positive outcome here. And now would be the time to ask them.

I can clarify that I am talking about a regional county commission.

I I think that makes some sense.

Thank you. So it sounds like we have, three people who wanna fully establish the office and two that want to is that right, you? So who wants to fully establish it? One, two. Okay. So two wanna fully establish it. And then those who wanted option 2123. Okay.

You got something?

Yeah. Yeah. Where were you?

Yes. 2, but but I want them to tell us

what to do. Okay. Great. Thanks. I I agree with different parts of it. I'm leaning toward two, and, here's a couple of reasons why. The conversations or the the conversations that we've had have been very informative, and I really appreciate everybody's input. I like the idea of having the counsel advise on, you know, which way to go on this human rights office. I think that's great. Reading the emails, they seem to want to, have the investment from the city.

And I I you brought up, Maria Rubio's. She wanted to establish a human rights commission, and so she she may not be saying commission or office. But she also was talking about funding from the city of Hillsborough will allow us to serve more families.

Because you're gonna call out the communication call out the other ones that were that seem uninformed about what the human rights office is because Yeah. Even the opposing emails are not accurate in what the human rights office is. So just be fair with both of those.

No. That's fair. The the other ones I read seem to count to want money, right, from the city to go to the CBOs. That's what it that's what it read for me.

But they also shared that there would be a duplicative effort, and it's not a duplicative effort. So they're they're misinformed about what the human rights office is. So if you're gonna call out saying, hey. They didn't say human rights office. They said human rights commission. Mhmm. Technically, they didn't accurately describe what the human rights office would do in their in their testimony. Okay. Thank you.

May I can you discern it so let's say that money doesn't go towards a human rights office. Are we just gonna give are we giving that money to CBOs? Is that what we're saying?

Well, I no. No. I I don't think

that's what we That's what I'm

trying to clarify because

That's what

that's what we've misperceived.

Yeah. That's what we've been talking about. And I you know, I've I've made the comment that and and, I'm gonna say, you know, I lead a nonprofit. Right? I understand, from that point of view. Right? I just wanna call that out and say that. I have stated that when I'm looking at half $1,000,000 and what that could do for really, to your point, counselor Allcare, rent, utilities, food, they need that now, right now. And the time it would take to set this office up, to recruit them, to train them, to get them together, to connect them with CBOs. CBOs are already connected.

They're already talking. They're already the legal observers are already out there. They're already doing the work. They're already talking to people. And so I feel like that money, if we if we redirected that half 1,000,000 toward the community based operations, they could have more legal observers. They could have more rent assistance. They could have more utility assistance right now. It's not do more than what we can do.

As a nonprofit, they can respond more.

What counselor Sinclair what counselor Sinclair is saying, you're given a false expectation that that money is gonna be diverted to nonprofits, and that's not what we're saying, but that's what you're communicating.

Right. I'm not hearing that that money I you know, it's amazing that you came up with that money in the first place. Right? Annual. That half $1,000,000. Wow. Where did that come from? Right? Budget. We have And now now now that my concern is that we're gonna lose that money. My concern is that we need to work with them. And if they're gonna have access to funding, I'm not saying we're giving them a half $1,000,000. No. But that office requires a half $1,000,000.

Irresponsible. But if that but if that's an option, then that should be number three out there as an option. It should not be a narrative that we're using to not do something. I that is false. It is. And does that change?

No. I I would say what

I'm saying. Okay. Council of care, if there's no money gonna go to those CBOs that equates that same cost, are you willing to take away those services to those CBOs if they can't get that money? I haven't don't win all the way around.

I haven't heard that they're not gonna get funding.

I have I have heard.

But let me talk. I haven't heard that they're not gonna get funding. I haven't heard that we're giving out $500,000 right now. I heard we're trying to figure out how to establish this

Yes, ma'am.

And and how to get it going. I'm not saying that we're not gonna do it at all, but it's a lot of money. It's a lot of money. And to do this every year, I would bet that there's a more efficient way to run that office every year. It doesn't have to be a half $1,000,000. And if we are working true in partnership with the CBOs who have been doing this work, remember, we're coming in late. This money isn't gonna just disappear, and this money was never dedicated to the CBOs. That money was dedicated to an office, not CBOs, not for services to people, not to pay rent and not to buy food.

No. I I I think we all want to provide that. If that money is available, that is a different topic altogether. This is a different conversation. Is that the case?

Yeah. So that it's a let me provide a little bit of context. So when we put this together, it was because you all asked how much would this cost. Right? So that was what we went in. It would cost those numbers. Right? 500,000, let's just say, for ease sake. If the council decided to move forward with the human human rights office, then it would be incumbent upon us, its staff, to come back and say, okay. Here's how we're gonna fund it. We could find ways to fund that. We could. We could do that. However, it's important at that point that we start talking about trade offs. What doesn't get done instead of it?

We we haven't got there yet. We're just proposing this is how much it would cost. Now if the council takes the other approach and doesn't, approve a human rights office and says, well, then we wanna increase our funding to it, then that's another discussion, and that's something that we would go back. And we've that's something we've already done to some extent. Right? The council has wanted to do this a couple of times. We've done $200,000 programs a couple of times. If the council says, we want you to go find other opportunities, or or we have our community service grants that we do every year for $200,000. Right? What if you told us, let's bump that up to $300,000 annually? There's ways we could do that. We have not done that analysis, though, so I'll be really clear that that has not been a part of this. We were just asked to brief forward what it would cost to a human rights office.

Can I say something?

Yeah. And I I wanna acknowledge. I appreciate the the point of a false narrative. Thank you. That I really do appreciate that feedback.

Mean that towards you there. I just mean in

general to serve our community.

I just mean that.

Yeah. No. I I'm not we're trying to again, we're all on the same side here.

Yeah. Yes.

Right? And I think it's sometimes it's hard to remember that, right, because we're trying to make the best decision. My thing is is that if this city is gonna put out that kind of money, I think it should go to CBOs. That's what I'm saying. So, counselor Ambere.

Thank you. Yeah. I think the the the cost is a big number. However, from what I'm hearing, the the the four counselors who who have not said that they are behind one, they're not talking about that it's a budget issue. They're saying, let's think about it. It is a large number. Let's let's give it some thought. Let's let's let's do it that way. So I so so I think there's, like first, there's a false dichotomy of if we don't like, there's not just two choices, first of all that. And then the second one is I I've not heard that anybody has said it's a budget issue.

It's just like, hey. Let's be thoughtful about this. And I think that's very good that the you know, that that's good.

Yeah. Councilor Sinclair and then councilor Sargada.

Robbie, what happens if council decides to not move forward with the human rights office? How do we serve our community? Do we only serve our community through another advisory council and that is all we're offering them?

So if the council decides tonight not to move forward with the human rights office, at least based on what I'm hearing, there's a couple of things that would happen still. We're still moving forward with our community advisory committee. That would continue to move forward. That is we figured out how to staff that in the city manager's office so that continues to move forward. If the council wants us to continue to explore to to a couple of couple of people have said, have the community advisory committee explore what a human rights office or human rights commission would look like, then that's what we would put on one of the first agendas, you know, that they that they meet with. I wouldn't the way you characterize it, can't remember exactly how you put it. It's not that we would not serve the community in this. We would figure out ways to do that.

But we're talking about municipal code. Right? We're talking about bringing things in to become a part of our charter or a part of municipal code.

Yeah. I I I don't think this is a municipal code decision because the council can decide this regardless of the code. Right. Because we have we have multiple boards and commissions that are not part of the code.

Right. I know that, Robbie, but tonight for our work session, we've talked about municipal codes

Yeah.