City Council - Regular Meeting

All right. Good evening, everyone. I will call this Tiger City Council meeting to order. Acting City Recorder Bartholomew, would you please conduct the roll call?

Councillor Gaddousi?

Present.

Mayor Hu?

Here.

Councillor Robbins? Absent. Councillor Schlack?

Here.

Councillor Shaw? Here. Councillor Wolf? Here. Councillor Anderson?

Here? All right, thank you. Will everyone please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance? All right, council and city team, do you have any non-agenda items? All right, seeing none, let's move on to public comments. Public comment period provides an opportunity for members of the public to address the city council. While it is not a dialogue, either I or staff will follow up to address the issues brought forward in these comments. The calling number is 503-966-4101, and those wishing to comment should call now to get into the queue. Anyone present wanting to comment should sign up on the public comment form at the front of the room. Those calling in for agenda item numbers five or nine should wait until that item is announced and then call in. First one is a written comment. We see one written comment by the deadline with comments about citizen participation at city council meetings. The second one, we'll move on to in-person, those who sign up. Two, okay. So when I call your name, please come forward. And you have two minutes to speak. And there's a timer. Mr. Walter, would you please put? Oh, there's a timer. That's good. All right. So I would first invite Chris Dart to speak. Chris? Hi. Yeah, please. Yeah, please turn on the microphone.

Yeah.

No, it's not on. There we go. I'm mute. You have two minutes.

Okay, good evening. I'm Chris Dart. I live on Pathfinder Way at the end of the cul-de-sac. And I'm here to talk about the Parks and Natural Areas section of the conversation tonight. My property is bordered by a cyclone fence, which is mine, and I'm on the creek side of the fence is a slight incline or a slight flat area and then a hill which goes down to Derrydale Creek. On the other side of the creek is the walking trail. This area is the subject of my problem that I'm trying to solve. The issue I wish to discuss is the overgrowth of trees in this area between my fence and the walking path, the maintenance of this area, and the trees which have been falling into my yard for years. Also, I've discovered with the bends in the fence that it was happening before I even bought the property. So, for example, currently I have the trunk of a tree that fell three years ago into a rhododendron and azalea in my yard. I cut off all the branches in the tip of the tree just to save my plants, but the trunk is still protruding into my yard. I also have in the corner of my property now two trunks that are about 8 to 10 inches each of the willow trees from the Tigard side lying on my fence and another trunk about 8 inches above the fence. The rest of those trees, about 35 feet of trunk branches and foliage, are lying in my yard over three shrubs with the branches holding up the trunks of the tree in the air. So it's a bit of a dangerous situation. The end of the fence has been destroyed by these trees. I believe it's a rather isolated problem area. I know it's not typical of all the other houses along the creek.

If you can wrap it up, please. Okay. Two minutes up.

So I've just requested of the city that they clean up the mess and they do something about the maintenance of this area. Thank you.

Thank you, Chris. All right. So next item is Roger Potoff. Hi, Roger.

My name is Roger Potoff. I live at 11710 Southwest Anne Street. It's been my wife and my home for 27 years. And I'm here tonight in furtherance of the topic of code enforcement with respect to the conditions that we're living with. But more to the point, to show you how this has degenerated over time. And I'm not talking about the property now. I'm talking about code enforcement. My neighbor sent an email to Ken Ross using her email handle, hotmesshomesteadnorthwest. Hi, Ken. I'm attaching a photo of the tent in my neighbor Roger Potoff's backyard. I believe the person living in that tent is Justin Potoff, but I cannot confirm that. My main concern is that when I looked up this person, I immediately found him listed as a sex offender. Having kids here and the history of River Pot-Off, I'm sure she meant Roger, AI to the rescue, Roger Pot-Off filming our property and family, I can't do nothing. To my knowledge, this person has been living there for three or four weeks, and they are only allowed 14 days per city code. Now, the individual that she cited is a person unrelated to I or my wife. And his name is Justin Potthoff. He is indeed a registered sex offender. However, he lives in Missouri. And the fact is that this is what a Google search will do. And consequently, this information was put forward to the city with the picture not of him on the property, just the picture of a tent.

Can you wrap it up, please?

Okay. That concludes. I will leave these documents with you, and I thank you for your time, and I ask for some consideration of justice.

Thank you, Roger and Chris, for your public comments. So let's move on to phone in or video public comments. Mr. Warder, are there any callers in the queue for phones or video testimony?

There's one caller in the queue.

All right, so please patch in the caller. Hello. Hello. Welcome to Tiger City Council meeting. You have two minutes to provide your public comment. Thank you.

My name is Jim Long, and I want to read to you the Climate Action Tigard mission statement. And it ends up, the last bit of it says, for positive habitats for humans and wildlife of all species. Commission statement says to inform about consequences of changes in weather patterns, educate, encourage, and empower meaningful actions by local individuals as well as by all levels of government globally, particularly the city of Tigard, for positive habitats for humans and wildlife, all species. And our vision statement says supporting human actions to maintain a healthy environment for future generations of all species. Thank you.

Thank you, Jim. All right, let's move on to city manager report. City manager Rager will provide a brief report. Good evening.

Good evening, Mr. Mayor and Council. We've got a slide that will show up here any second here. We're looking forward to the return of the downtown Tigard Street Fair that's coming to Main Street on Saturday, September 12th. from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Hosted by Tiger Downtown Alliance, this free community event features over 100 local artisan vendors, a great lineup of food trucks, kids' activities, and live music starting at 11 a.m., following a dedicated sensory-friendly quiet hour that starts at 10 a.m. It's one of the great examples of our downtown coming alive, and we encourage everyone to come out. local businesses and enjoy all that the street fair has to offer. We hope to see you there. I also want to share a quick update about the Tigard Senior Center. The center is temporarily closed from August 31st through September 20th while roof replacement work is underway. We know the center is an important place for connection, wellness, activities, and meals for many in our community, and we appreciate everyone's patience while this necessary work is completed. While congregate and other activities will be canceled during this time, the Meals on Wheels delivery service will continue. That's it for my report tonight.

Thank you, City Manager Rager. Council Member, do you have any questions or comments? No, okay, let's move on to next agenda item, which is consent agenda. The consent agenda is used for routine items, including approval of meeting minutes, contracts, and intergovernmental agreements. Information on each item is available on the city's website in the packet for this meeting. This item may be enacted in one motion without separate discussion. Council members may request that an item be removed by motion for discussion and separate action. Tonight we have a resolution to approve the Comcast Cable Franchise Agreement renewal. Any questions or motion?

Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented. Second.

Thank you. The motion be moved by Councillor Schlagg and second by Councillor Guddusi. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, those in favor please say aye. Aye. Those opposed say nay. The council agenda is adopted by a unanimous vote of the council member present. All right, thank you. Let's move on to our next item on our agenda, which is quasi-judicial public hearing. Consider approval of Summer Creek Bridge Stabilization Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment and Sensitive Land Review. I will open the public hearing. The calling number is 503-966-4101, and those wishing to comment for this public hearing should call now to get into the queue. Anyone present wanting to comment should sign up on the public comment form for agenda item number five at the front of the room. Council members may ask the staff and witness questions throughout the hearing until the record closes. After the record is closed, the City Council will deliberate about the request. During deliberations, the City Council may reopen the public portion of the hearing if necessary to receive additional evidence before making a decision. So City Attorney Rehala will read the hearing procedures.

GOOD EVENING, COUNCIL. THIS IS A QUASI-JUDICIAL LAND USE PROCEEDING. STATEWIDE PLANNING GOALS 1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 11 AND 12. METRO'S URBAN GROWTH MANAGEMENT FUNCTIONAL PLAN TITLES 3 AND 8. TIGERED COMPREHENSIVE PLAN 1.2.1 2.1.3 2.1.8 2.1.16 2.1.17 2.1.22 2.1.23 5.1.1 5.1.8 5.1.10 5.1.12 6.2.1 6.2.4 7.1.4 7.1.7 7.1.8 7.1.10 7.1.14 7.2.1 11.1.1 11.1.6, 11.4.2, 12.1.1, 12.1.2, 12.5.1, and 12.6.1, and Tigard Community Development Code Chapters 18.140, 18.510, 18.710, 18.790, and 18.910. Testimony arguments and evidence must be directed towards the relevant approval criteria described in the staff report or other criteria in the plan or land use regulation that apply to the decision. Failure to raise an issue clearly enough so the council understands and can address the issue precludes an appeal to LUBA on that issue. Failure of the applicant to object to a condition of approval may preclude an action for damages in circuit court. Members of the city council will be asked whether they have any conflicts of interest. If a council member has an actual conflict, the council member cannot participate. Council members must declare any contacts about this case with a member of the public. Council members must also declare if they have an independent knowledge of relevant facts, such as from a visit to the site in question. A council member who describes ex parte contacts or independent information must state whether the contact has impaired their impartiality or ability of the member to vote on the matter. After the discussion of conflicts and ex parte contacts, any person may challenge the participation of a council member or rebut any statements made. The council member in question may respond to such a challenge.

All right. Thank you, City Attorney Rahala. Are there any declaration or challenges? ONE OF MY MEETING WITH THE MAYOR EVENT, MR. ROGER AND I BRIEFLY DISCUSSED THIS, BUT WE DIDN'T GET INTO ANY DETAIL THAT I REMEMBER. SO I JUST WANT TO MAKE THAT DECLARATION. SO ASSOCIATE PLANNER WILL PROVIDE THE STAFF REPORT. GOOD EVENING.

GOOD EVENING. SHOULD I PULL UP MY PRESENTATION? OKAY. I'll just give one minute here.

What's the slide called?

It's 5D.

All right. Okay. Good evening, Mayor Hu and Councillors. My name is Jenny McGinnis, Associate Planner. The item before you tonight is the Summer Creek Bridge Stabilization Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment Public Hearing. Next slide, please. All right, so the project area consists of property within the southwest 121st right-of-way between Mairstown Court and Catherine Street and the tax lot east of the right-of-way that encompasses the creek. The total project area is approximately .07 acre and is zoned Parks and Recreation. The project area within the significant wetland and associated vegetated corridor, which is the piece that is associated with this hearing, is .03 acre. Next slide, please. So this application includes a comprehensive plan map amendment to remove protection from significant wetland areas, as well as a sensitive lands review for work within the FEMA flood hazard area. Next slide. All right, so on the left you'll see a photo that's taken of the project site showing the northeast bank of Summer Creek as well as the guardrail that is proposed to be replaced. And then the project includes replacement of the bridge guardrail, stabilization of both the north and southeast creek banks, replacement and extension of the wing walls, replacement of the storm sewer pipe, installation of riprap stone around the existing manholes, and clearing all debris from the culverts. Next slide. And then here is a map that shows the location of the proposed improvements, as well as the significant wetland area and the vegetated corridor. The permanent impact area includes .03 acre of area within the significant wetland and vegetated corridor.

All right.

And then the yellow is the wetland and then the green is the vegetated corridor. And then you can go ahead to the next slide. This project was identified on the city's CIP as a needed project as the banks are eroding, which is creating dangerous conditions for the adjacent property to the north and creating undesirable conditions for the creek. Additionally, city utilities, including stormwater and sewer facilities, are deteriorating and the guardrail on the bridge is failing, leading to unsafe road conditions. Next slide, please. So a requirement of the comprehensive plan map amendment process is to justify the amendment through an environmental, social, economic, and energy analysis, or by demonstrating that the wetlands are not significant. In this case, the applicant chose to justify the amendment through an ESEE analysis. So that evaluation involves identifying the consequences of allowing, limiting, or prohibiting conflicting uses in the resource area. And the conclusion of the ESEE analysis is that allowing the conflicting use will avoid many of the negative consequences that would be attributed to prohibiting the conflicting use. And also will allow the benefits to be realized, which include improved creek health by stabilizing the banks, which leads to less erosion, sedimentation, and plant loss. Repairing city utility facilities, which will prevent costly repairs in the event of failure. as well as providing safer facilities and decreasing the city's liability in the event of a crash on the roadway or a failure of the adjacent property's driveway. Next slide, please. The proposal provides detailed information on how the development complies with all applicable comprehensive plan policies, statewide planning goals, and Metro Titles 3 and 8. All applicable development code criteria and standards are met or can be met through conditions of approval. and staff finds that there are adequate public facilities to serve the proposed development. And next slide. And on August 3rd, 2026, the Planning Commission made a unanimous vote in favor of recommending that the City Council adopt by ordinance the proposed Comprehensive Plan Map Amendment and Sensitive Lands Review, thereby removing Goal 5 protection from 0.03 acres of locally significant wetlands from the Tigard Wetland and Stream Corridor Map Inventory. And that concludes staff's presentation. Thank you.

Thank you, Associate Planner, for the staff presentation. Next, I will invite applicant to testify, and our project manager, Bowling, will present the applicant testifying. Yeah, go ahead.

Excellent. Good evening, Mayor Hu, members of the council. We do have a presentation that will be brought up with some photographs that I think will be helpful to describe the project. I'm Matt Bolling. I'm a project manager with the Department of Public Works Engineering Division, and it's a pleasure to be here this evening. This project was one of the first projects that I got when I got to the city, so it's been on the books for a little over a year now. It's a part of RCIP, as was mentioned by Jenny, and when we're ready, we're ready for the next slide, please. The project location map, most of the work is on the east side of the bridge there, which is delineated with the red hash. Next slide, please. And so, Jenny just talked about this, but there's nine work items which are proposed or are part of this project. The North Creek's gonna be stabilized with riprap stone and geocells with plantings. Root wads, six feet in diameter, will be installed in the creek bed itself to slow down water flow. and to provide some stabilization to the creek itself. The north wing wall, which are those walls that extend off the bridge that you can see in the photo within the circle there, that will be replaced and extended by six feet. And there will be a new storm water pipe. And you'll see why here in a second with the photograph. That'll be a part of that. That'll direct flows from 121st a little bit more efficiently into the creek rather than right back into the stream bank. The north culvert will be clean. Now if we move to the south culvert, which is the one at the top of your screen, if you're looking at this photo, it's gonna be stabilized with rip-rap stone and geocell and plantings as well. The south wing wall will be replaced and extended by six feet. We're gonna rip-rap around that sanitary sewer manhole that you see in the photograph there on the far bank. And then the road guard well will be secured with new footers. And there's a photograph upcoming that'll show just how exposed that was and really one of the reasons this project was so urgent. And the south culvert will be clean. Next slide please. So this was identified in the city, CIP, and really it was brought to our attention, it's my understanding, by the residents at 11790 Southwest 121st that slowly saw more and more of the land abutting their property get washed into the creek during high water events. And it doesn't look like it in this photo, it doesn't look like it on a typical summer day, but when the water comes through there, it comes through there. It flashes really quickly. and it's been leading to a lot of erosion to the point where it was presenting a life safety concern. You can see where the North Creek has been eroding within 17 inches of the driveway foundation at the home. You can see where the manholes have been exposed and that's been totally eroded away and soon you'll be able to see in a better photograph where the footers of that guardrail for the road have been exposed to again during those high water events. So next slide please. One thing I failed to mention on the previous slide, that unmitigated stormwater flow is not great for the creek biodiversity either, or the health of the stream. It leads to erosion, sedimentation, plant loss, high turbidity, which is not good for a species, it's not conducive to a healthy stream, so this should slow those flows. Where the arrows are pointing, you can see that's a concrete footer that is totally exposed on that right guardrail, if you were to count them, one, two, three, four, the one with metal. So that's a concrete footer that's just totally no longer in the soil. It's exposed. You can see parts of the other footers where those other arrows are pointing. That was a measuring tape that we took in November from the foundation of that driveway, which is 17 inches to a drop off, pretty precipitous drop from the driveway into the creek on the north bank. Next slide please. These photos are recent photos during the rains we recently halved, which came a little earlier than expected. And it's indicative of the type of soil that's out there, very soft soil. Right now, in that photo on the left, I mentioned that we're gonna have a storm pipe that's replaced. That's one of the pipes that's gonna be replaced. Maybe it's not clear in that photo, but it's currently not connected on the bottom pipe. PVC is totally not connected to the stormwater pipe. There's a gap of an inch or so. That's not great for stormwater flows. It's not how you design it. It's not the way it really should be. We're going to fix that as part of this project. You can see where water flows how soft that soil is and just a little bit of water has washed away beyond the shoulder of the road there just right there at the head wall where those culverts all are and one of the reasons we're putting in strengthened culverts one of the reasons we're putting these wing walls is to to remedy that to ensure that that soil will be held in place next slide please HERE ON THE PROPERTY NEAR THAT HOME, YOU CAN SEE WHERE SOME OF THE SHORING AND LAGGING HAS BEEN PUT IN PLACE. IF YOU NOTICE THAT LITTLE BIT OF A GAP ON THE RIGHT SIDE OF THE PHOTO, THAT LITTLE CRACK THAT KIND OF RUNS BETWEEN THOSE TWO WHITE PVC PIPES, THEN LOOK ON THE LEFT, SO THAT WAS LIKE EARLY ON IN THE RAIN, MAYBE GOT A LITTLE BIT OF RAIN, AND THEN AS THAT RAIN PERSISTED, LOOK AT HOW WIDE THAT That settling occurred and again, that's just that soil is extremely soft So there's riprap stone that we're proposing that we're going to put in It's going to help stabilize that creek bank to ensure that that driveway doesn't go anywhere to ensure the home doesn't go anywhere And really it was of a life safety concern next slide, please We did do an EC analysis, which Jenny touched on, and evaluated the consequences of allowing, limiting, or prohibiting the conflicting use in this resource area, and it's not lost on us that this is a greenway. And so we wanna make sure we do everything absolutely by the book in above and beyond reproach. So the benefits of allowing this conflicting use, it would alleviate the life safety concerns at 11740 Southwest 121st. Provide safer transportation facilities for residents and visitors by repairing that guardrail. If a vehicle were to hit that guardrail in its current state before we started work, That vehicle could very well end up in the creek. This will fix that. It'll improve the creek health by stabilizing those creek banks. It'll lead to less erosion, sedimentation, and plant loss. And it will repair utility facilities owned by the city. It will also better protect that sanitary sewer line, which is a clean water services facility, preventing costly repairs in the future. Next slide, please. That's all I had as a thank you, and I have to say thank you to the residents, Mr. Jim Long and Joe McMahon and Roger Potoff and Kanika Ong and Amy Chamberlain have all provided valuable feedback throughout this process and more. Those are just the names that I was jotting them down before this meeting to try to make sure I thanked everyone, and thank you for their feedback and it shaped this project. In addition, the construction crew, real credit to them, they were out there yesterday on holiday doing work because that rain came in on Sunday. They were out there on Sunday doing work because the rain came in on Sunday. They were out there on Friday. They typically work 410s, but they were out there Friday because they recognize that... the urgency of the situation and the need to get things stabilized out there to return things to normal as soon as possible. So a real credit to them as well. So I want to say thank you to them, Braun Construction. And that's all I had for you. Thank you.

Thank you, Project Manager Bolling, for providing the applicant testimony. Let's move on to public testimony. There were no written comment received for this item by noon Monday. So when I call your name, if you sign up, when I call your name, please come forward to the table. Please state your name and spell your last name and give us your full mailing address, including zip code. If you can, please do not repeat comments made by other people. So, do we have anybody, so we have nobody sign up. Okay, Mr. Walter, are there any caller in the queue to testify on this item?

There's one caller in the queue.

All right, so good evening caller. So before you begin, please give you your name, spelling your last name, and give your full mailing address, including zip code. After that, you have two minutes. Thank you.

My name's Jim Long, L-O-N-G, 11755 Southwest, 114th Place. Tigard, Oregon 97223. I did submit some testimony, both by email. I see the mayor talking, but I can't hear him.

We can hear you.

Can you hear me?

Yes, I can. Mr. Walter, can you stop the clock and start over again? Please, we can hear you. If you can hear us, please start.

Okay, I guess the broadcast on TV is delayed. I did have trouble. I did get cut off on the phone already once this evening. I did submit testimony. Did you receive the testimony?

Some council members say yes. Not by noon, by Monday noon, but please go ahead. I'll give you more time.

I also saw on the website it said by 4 PM and I got some in by 4 PM and some in at 5 PM. But first let me start with some facts. I have, I know some former employees of the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife and they have seen painted turtles, western painted turtles and western pond turtles living in Mearstone Creek, Summer Creek, Summer Lake and Fano Creek. and all of these are listed for state protections. Western pond turtles are proposed to be federally listed either as threatened or endangered and hence also need protections. Does the City of Tigard have an official biologist? Shouldn't there be something more than the culvert put in there? and why was construction started before the city council approval of this item you're having a public hearing and it's already the construction has already happened one of my offices is near summer creek and during the seasons i can see it and sometimes it's flooded will the city be restoring protect conference plan map is amended to 05 safe harbor protection Did the city or property owners remove the huge dams that created the pond on Mears Stump Creek west of 121st? Why was the earth moving equipment working on the creek or the quayside judicially? Was the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife contacted? And when? And who was contacted? And what was their advice? What was their consultation? We would ask that you keep the sandbags until being to build the dam. Beavers are beneficial in many ways, creating habitats without and turtles need permanent water. I request continuation of the public hearing until we, meaning the council and the public, get answers to our questions. Thanks for attention to our questions.

All right. Thank you.

I'm ready for questions for me. Thank you.

Thank you. All right. Do we have any Yeah, I will give you an opportunity to respond. Go ahead, yeah.

Pardon me. I received Mr. Long's correspondence. Oh, okay, good. And I did some research to answer many of those questions. Okay. And I'd be happy to answer them.

Yeah, so please do, yeah. So please respond to testimony by staff. So please go ahead.

Absolutely. We did. We received a permit from ODFW in July to go ahead and give very specific directions if we were to encounter one of the turtles described by the, Mr. Long and his correspondents have been on the call there. We have not run into those turtles or captured any at this point. The POC, if we were to encounter one of those turtles, is Regional Wildlife Conservation Biologist Susan Barnes. We did a full report that I shouldn't take any credit for. WSP, our consultant, did a full report by Ingrid Larson, a wildlife biologist, on Summer Creek and Mearstone Pond and the species that would be present. And I can testify on behalf of those crews that were out there over the weekend dealing with rain, they were cheering for the beavers. And not just because they went to Oregon State, but they were cheering for them because those beaver dams were helping them with the rain. So they wanted those dams to hold as much as they could, hold as much water to keep it upstream. So those beaver dams were left intact and not damaged by the crews. And they did note that they have not seen beavers, the crews, but they've seen river otters, believe it or not. So they've seen river otters up there. But they have not run into any beavers yet. We think we saw one snapping turtle, which is an invasive species, but it was not captured. Had it been captured, it was while we were driving away from the job site. Had it been captured, we would report it to Susan Barnes. And that capturing really should be done by a trained biologist, to Mr. Long's point. But if you report it to Susan Barnes, and I believe they're euthanized humanely, the snapping turtles that are invasive. We did receive specific instruction as well with a certain type of bullfrog, should we encounter those bullfrogs again to be captured and then euthanized because they're invasive as well. They did do fish capture in full accordance with the permit conditions, and they were warm water fish species that were encountered, which I believe it was a smallmouth bass or a largemouth bass, if I'm not mistaken, a number of different types of minnows, and then a lamprey, I wanna say. But I don't remember off the top of my head. I think that answers all of the biological related questions, and the question about protections returning to land, I'll turn it over to Jenny.

Yes. So the answer to that question is, so a comprehensive plan map amendment is very specific to a specific development. So this comprehensive plan map amendment, if approved, would allow this specific project to be done. If additional work were to be proposed, let's say five years down the road, a new comprehensive plan map amendment would need to be approved. So protection is not removed from the area indefinitely. It is removed for a specific purpose, any specific project.

And I believe he asked about why the work has already started before the hearing.

Yes, and that is really because of the urgency of the road guardrail and the erosion on the home. We have a limited in-water work window for in-stream work that runs from July 15th to September 30th. If we don't finish the work within that window, the work is effectively postponed to the next in-water work window, which would be next year. And that was just a risk that when we better understood, when we got kind of our boots on the ground and went out there and looked at it and did some measurements, that we were just not ready to live with that risk and that liability, to be very candid, knowing that that bridge guardrail was perhaps not secure and that this driveway was within 17 inches of us. I found where cars are parked and people are living. So that's why we moved forward with the project ahead of the timeline. But we got full permitting from DSL, ODFW, Clean Water Services, and now we're going through our process here in the city as well. And we were in full consultation with Jenny and her team throughout the process. It was not by any stretch to circumvent anything. It was really just because of the urgency of what we determined to be life safety concerns.

ANYTHING ELSE YOU CAN REMEMBER? OKAY. SO COUNCIL MEMBER, DO YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS? COUNCIL SHOCK, PLEASE GO AHEAD.

THANK YOU. REALLY APPRECIATE THE REPORT AND THE ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS SO THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I DON'T KNOW IF I HEARD THE RIGHT DAY. IT WAS JULY 15TH THROUGH SEPTEMBER 30TH?

SEPTEMBER 30TH.

YES. THANK YOU. I REMEMBER THERE WAS A WINDOW BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THE EXACT TIME SO THANK YOU. NOW I KNOW. I APPRECIATE THAT.

Councilor Anderson, please go ahead.

Yeah, so if this is approved, you will be done by September 30th with all the construction?

Let's hope the rain holds off, Mr. Anderson. If that rain holds off, yes. That rain makes it really difficult. Now, I got good news. I was out there this afternoon at 4.30, and they just finished pouring their first concrete for the wing wall. It's a huge step. There's more rain projected this weekend, going into this weekend. We're hoping it can hold off, but if we can just stay just dry enough to get this concrete poured, we will be done by September 30th. And I asked the site superintendent, I was like, do you think you're gonna be on track? And he says, I think I'm gonna be on track. We're gonna make it. So, yes.

All right, seeing no further question, I will close the public hearing, and now we're going to council deliberation. Any comments or concern or motion?

Just comment. Thank you, Matt, for following up and responding to the questions that were submitted as well as in the testimony. But with that, I move to approve ordinance number 26-14. I'll second.

Thank you, Council President Wolf, move the motion. Make the motion and then Councilor Shah second it. Any further discussion? Will the Acting City Manager Recorder read the number and title of the ordinance?

ordinance number 26-14, an ordinance approving comprehensive plan map amendment CMA 2026-0001 slash C-SLR 2026-0001 to remove goal 5 protection from 0.03 acre of locally significant wetlands from the Tigard Wetland and Stream Corridor map. INVENTORY ASSOCIATED WITH EMERGENCY REPAIRS TO THE SOUTHWEST 121st AVENUE BRIDGE AND SUMMER CREEK BANK STABILIZATION.

THANK YOU. WELL, ACTING CITY RECORDER, PLEASE CONDUCT A ROLL CALL VOTE.

COUNCILLOR GADUCCI.

THANK YOU. THE PROS OUTWEIGH THE CONS, SO YES.

MAYOR HU.

YES.

COUNCILLOR SCHLACK.

YES.

COUNCILLOR SHAW.

Yes.

Council President Wolf?

Yes.

Councilor Anderson?

Yes. Ordinance number 26-24 is adopted by unanimous vote of the council present.

26-14. Hmm? 26-14.

Oh, did I say that? Oh, so yeah.

Okay. 26-14.

Thank you.

All right. Thank you so much.

All right, let's move on to public hearing. Next item is public hearing. Consider ordinance for street name change. And this hearing is being postponed. The public hearing will be noticed again for the council meeting on October 6, 2026. Does anybody have any question about the postponement? No? Okay. So let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is photo enforcement program update. And I will invite Lieutenant Carson and Sergeant Dulty to provide the staff report.

Hello.

GOOD EVENING. I WAS ASKED TO PUT TOGETHER A PRESENTATION FOR YOU REGARDING PHOTO ENFORCEMENT BECAUSE IT'S BEEN QUITE SOME TIME SINCE WE PRESENTED TO COUNSEL ON THE ISSUE.

IS THE PRESENTATION READY?

ALL RIGHT. NEXT SLIDE. THIS IS FINANCIAL.

THIS IS THE WRONG PRESENTATION.

Hey, Robert, it's actually going to be item eight on this one. I forgot to switch it.

Okay, item eight. Hold on.

Thank you.

There we go. Okay. We're ready to go? All right. Next slide, please. There we go. Okay. We came here to talk to you today, sorry, a little nervous, about what we've done. You may remember that we updated to a new vendor last year. Last year was our partial first year of using the new vendor, and end of this year we have the data to show you regarding that. But to give you kind of a breakdown as to how we do this, I wanted to make sure that the Council knew that currently we're reviewing all citations with sworn police officers that otherwise would be on the road. It's taking quite a bit of time because of the number of citations that we're doing, and I came to ask the Council to consider at some point, not today, creating three half-time non-sworn positions that could not only approve the citations and then prepare and testify in court for those citations. Next slide, please. Kind of an overview of what we have. We have three locations total in the city currently. First one is Southwest Pacific and Hall Boulevard. Here we have both photo red light north and southbound on Pacific Highway as well as on northbound Hall turning right onto Pacific Highway as well as speed enforcement. Next slide, please. Durham Road is only photo red light and that is straight through on both sides. Again, that's Pacific and Durham. And then the next slide is 72nd. And then here we also have both photo red light and speed enforcement only on Pacific Highway, so none of the turns onto either off of 72nd onto Pacific or Fred Meyers is caught. All right, next slide please. Currently how it works, We determine the rules that are set by ORS. The vendor will capture the citations, or rather the potential violations as they occur. They will match the photos of the license plate, the vehicle, make sure it's a clear image, the driver, make sure that's a clear image and that a violation may have actually occurred, and they'll send that to us. At that point, it is reviewed by a police officer that goes through, observes everything I just said, make sure that a violation occurred, and then they verify that the driver matches the registered owner of the vehicle, which takes three to four minutes, I'd say, per citation. If there is a violation to be issued they approve the violation and then the vendor prints out and mails the proof citations to the citizen and We then prepare for court and we show up here in court Sometimes once a week sometimes twice a week and now starting very soon three times a week again This is a sworn officer that otherwise would be out on the road Okay, next slide please Just to give you an idea of what we see on our side This is an example of a violation occurring. You can see the vehicle vehicle going through the intersection The license plate and then the driver we also get a close-up photo that we did not include for obvious reasons of the driver that we then would take and then match against their driver's license photo next slide This would be an example of what a video clip looks like that we observe of the violation. If you push play, you can see what we're talking about. So the light turns red. There it goes. Car goes through. It's flashed a couple of times by the photo enforcement. And then a violation would then be generated to send us to approve. OK. Next slide, please. So this is kind of the interesting stuff from my mind. These are all the red light intersection violations. And like I said, 25 is kind of an odd year because we had two vendors working and a down period through the center of the year while they were switching vendors. But if you look at 2024, you can see like, for example, in Durham, we had 381 total violations captured with 313 citations issued. And then we go to this year, just to July, 1,294 and 981 violations issued. So very considerable. Looking down, Hall's next slide. And then we go on to Speed, which is the next slide. We noticed on Hall Boulevard, going from 2024, they had 1,554. This year, 578. We did notice a decrease there. We believe it's due to the congestion of the area, but we're still looking into that a bit. But moving on to 72nd, 6,601 for the entire year. So far this year, we're at 9,597. So we're probably going to be up around 14,000. Yeah, 14,000 by the end of the year. Okay. Next slide, please. This is what we're trying to avoid. This is the whole reason we're doing this as the PD. This is why we're interested and involved in it. It's because we can't be everywhere. And you push play. These are the types of things that we're catching. So red light, right through. Misses, drives around, misses again. goes through. I personally have seen multiple very serious crashes at this intersection, all involving speed. We all drive it every day. Coming down 99 from I-5, people were going very, very fast and going through that light and T-boning people. And so moving on to the next slide, we did some research and believed that photo enforcement would reduce crashes in the city of Tigard. That's why we were in support of it. Here's some of the data that we found to support that. And then lo and behold, next slide. This is the data. So from 2016 to 2019, Pacific and Hall, 90 crashes averaging 22 and a half a year. So once we started photo enforcement, 2020 to 2025, split in half. Granted, COVID was in there in that time period. I'll be interested to see what this looks like from 2022 to 2027, but the numbers seem to show that there is a dramatic decrease in crashes at the intersections that are involved. Next slide, please. So again, council may want to consider at some point expanding the program to intersections that would be valuable to reduce crashes. And then from our side, please do consider at some point maybe adding some traffic safety agents which are now allowed by ORS to do the approvals and the court testifying related to this. There's a follow up presentation after, Mine, talking about the numbers and the money side of it. So we're not involved in that. That concludes my presentation.

Thank you, Lieutenant. Council Member, any questions? Councillor Shaw.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. I APPRECIATE THE PRESENTATION. A COUPLE OF QUESTIONS. ONE, WITH THE VENDOR DATA, DOES IT SHOW, AND I'M LOOKING NOT FOR NAMES OR VEHICLE TYPE, BUT DOES IT SHOW IF THERE'S REPEAT OFFENDERS LIKE TWO TIMES, THREE TIMES, FOUR TIMES SO THE SAME INDIVIDUAL IS GOING THROUGH AND WE'RE SEEING MULTIPLE INFRACTIONS ON ONE INDIVIDUAL?

THAT'S MY FIRST QUESTION. NOT CURRENTLY. We talked with the vendor about adding that feature because another agency in the state that uses that also asked that question. So currently we'd have to run the license plate itself to see those violations, but if your plate showed up, I wouldn't know how many times you had gone through it.

It made me think of that when Police Lieutenant Clarkson, hopefully I pronounced it correctly, had mentioned that there might have been an increase in traffic. And I'm not sure if you get traffic reports from ODOT or if they're tracking if there has indeed been an increase. And again, the reason I'm asking is because we've seen such an increase in violation. And I'm wondering if we just happen to be very popular in the area. Everyone wants to come to Tigard. And that's what we're seeing. And if indeed, are you able to track that increase in traffic via ODOT? on Pacific Highway.

I believe engineering does track that data. I don't have that data specifically. However, anecdotally, as we drive all day, every day in Tigard, it is extremely crowded, extremely busy, extremely congested. So I don't have specific data. We wouldn't be able to provide that based on the information that we have.

ONE LAST FOLLOW-UP. DO WE HAVE AN EDUCATIONAL OR COMMUNICATIONS CAMPAIGN JUST TO LET PEOPLE KNOW THAT IN THOSE THREE LOCATIONS WE DO HAVE ENFORCEMENT CAMERAS AND IF WE DO, ARE THE SIGNS IN ANY OF THOSE LOCATIONS BLOCKED BY TREES THAT MAY HAVE GROWN OR IS THERE REMEDIES FOR SUCH?

Every major entrance into the city of Tigard has photo enforcement signs that were put up beforehand, and those are still maintained by the city. We did an extensive both social media outreach, council presentation outreach. We did an open house where we also spoke about the same community academy, reaching out to the community, letting them know this was coming. That was, of course, six years ago. So now I think most people are aware. I can just tell by the driving behavior when people are coming down the hill how much everybody slows to exactly 35 as they come to 72nd. Does that answer your question, Councilor? All right, thank you.

Council President Wolf.

Thank you both for the presentation. And just to confirm, I appreciate the recommendation for the three half-time non-sworn. Any downside, anything that would be missed by replacing sworn officers with non-sworn individuals or FTE? Just kind of confirming. I know that that's allowed. In my mind, it makes sense. But I feel like just to ask that question,

They would be trained by us and these very well may be retired police officers that we'd end up hiring to do this. That is typically what other agencies do for these positions. So they would know very well the rules and the law. And they'd actually in some ways may be better in some ways because this is all they're doing. So they get very, very proficient at doing it, very, very proficient at preparing for testimony, coming into court, knowing how court works here and how we do it. And kind of the most important thing are actual badged up police officers are on the road answering calls. And that's where we want them. I don't want them inside approving citations.

Thank you both.

When you talk about consider program expansion, are you ready to give us a preview of what you're thinking about, or you would rather wait until come back later? I'm definitely not ready.

Okay. However, I have spoken with engineering. We've gone over a very extensive list of possible locations that might benefit this service, and there are plenty. I mean, offhand, I can think of Guardian 99. Guardian could probably use some of this. 121st and Shoals Ferry. I see a lot of crashes up there. Hall Boulevard and Bonita, for example. Lots of serious crashes there as well. There are all sorts of locations that I think this may help, but I'd rely on the data to show that to you.

Okay. And one final question. I think earlier on with this new vendor, we received concerns or comments about test bright lights. Yes. A little bit test flash that are a little bit too bright. Do you think you have addressed those concerns?

I personally do. I observe them myself. Okay. That is how the system calibrates and makes sure that it's all within the state of the guidelines. Okay. Is what I've been told by the vendor.

Okay, great. Any other questions? Hearing none, thank you very much for the update. Have a good evening. All right, so let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is also photo enforcement program, but this is financial updates. And now we invite our finance director, Ken, to provide the staff report. Good evening.

GOOD EVENING, MAYOR AND COUNCIL. FOR THE RECORD, MY NAME IS ERIC KING AND I'M YOUR FINANCE DIRECTOR. TONIGHT I'M PROVIDING A FINANCIAL UPDATE ON THE CITY'S PHOTO ENFORCEMENT PROGRAM AND FOCUS PRIMARILY ON THE RESULTS FROM We've talked previously about some of the financial challenges with this program, particularly declining revenues over the past several years. However, in fiscal year 26, we've seen some fairly significant changes to that trend. So tonight I want to walk you through what's changed, what the current financial picture looks like, and what it means going forward. If you can go to the next slide, please. SO I'LL KIND OF JUST START AT A HIGH LEVEL. SO FOR FISCAL YEAR 26, THE PROGRAM HAS ESSENTIALLY REACHED BREAK EVEN ON AN ANNUAL OPERATING BASIS. SO FOR FISCAL YEAR 26 WE'VE COLLECTED APPROXIMATELY $1.6 MILLION IN REVENUE AGAINST $1.59 MILLION IN DIRECT EXPENDITURES WHICH HAS RESULTED IN A MODEST SURPLUS OF ABOUT $11,000. THIS IS, HOWEVER, A SIGNIFICANT IMPROVEMENT FROM THE PRIOR YEAR. HOWEVER, ONE THING TO DISTINGUISH WITH SURPLUS IS THAT WE STILL CARRY A NEGATIVE ACCUMULATED FUND BALANCE OF 715,000. THAT'S JUST THROUGH THE PAST SEVERAL YEARS OF ACCUMULATED DEFICITS. The timeline at the bottom of the slides does help explain what happened during the year. So a new photo vendor began operations in August 2025. We began seeing the financial ramp up in September. And by January, the program has moved into a consistently positive monthly position. So from January through June alone, the program generated approximately $376,000 more revenue than direct expenditures. So while the full year results only show a modest surplus, the second half of the fiscal year does look considerably stronger than the first. So next slide, please. So this slide here puts the improvement to some perspective. So in fiscal year 2025, the program had an annual operating deficit of about 492,000. In fiscal year 26, that became a $11,000 surplus. So year over year, we improved the operating results by, were improved by approximately $503,000, and the primary driver was revenue. Revenue increased by approximately 49%, while direct expenditures increased only by about 2%. And that distinction is important because we've made some intentional efforts for cost containment over the past several years while we saw revenue declining. However, the program has financially improved primarily from the revenue side of the equation. And again, I would characterize fiscal year 26 as essentially break even. The $11,000 surplus on a $1.6 million program is not particularly significant, but compared to the nearly half million dollar deficit from before, it represents substantial improvement. Next slide, please. SO I THINK THIS CHART RIGHT HERE IS PROBABLY THE MOST USEFUL SLIDE TO UNDERSTAND WHAT OCCURRED DURING THE YEAR. SO ON THE LEFT-HAND CHART, WHICH IS THE LINE GRAPH, YOU CAN SEE THAT THE REVENUE AND DIRECT EXPENDITURES BY MONTH, AND AS YOU CAN SEE, IT'S KIND OF HARD TO TELL FROM THE SLIDE, BUT THE GREEN THAT STARTS AT THE BOTTOM, THAT'S THE REVENUE, AND THE OTHER SOLID BLACK IS THE EXPENDITURE SIDE. SO YOU CAN SEE IN AUGUST WHEN WE HAD A TRANSITION OF A NEW VENDOR, WE BEGAN SEEING REVENUES RAMP UP BEGINNING RIGHT AROUND SEPTEMBER. AND SO THAT'S CONSISTENTLY INCREASED THROUGHOUT THE YEAR. HOWEVER, ON THE RIGHT SIDE, THAT CHART IS THE NET MONTHLY RESULTS, SO THAT'S YOUR REVENUE MINIX EXPENDITURES THROUGHOUT THE MONTHS, AND YOU CAN SEE THAT THE LOSSES PROGRESSIVELY NARROWING THROUGHOUT THE FIRST HALF OF THE YEAR, AND THEN FROM JANUARY ONWARD, IT'S A POSITIVE TRAJECTORY. So that's encouraging because it tells us that the surplus for the year doesn't fully describe what the current trajectory is. The program for the last half of the year is considerably better than the first half of the year. However, at the same time, I would caution against extrapolating six months of performance data to extrapolate the future of the program. And we'll continue to monitor whether or not this run rate is sustainable. Next slide, please. So this slide provides some additional context around what makes up the $1.6 million on each side of the ledger. So on the revenue side, about half of the revenues come from photo speed, and then about 42% comes from photo red light, and then the remaining 9% is from bond conversion, which is primarily from light diversion. ON THE EXPENDITURE SIDE, THE LARGEST DIRECT COST IS POLICE AT APPROXIMATELY 840,000 OR 51%, AND THE MUNICIPAL COURT IS ABOUT 710,000 OR 45%, AND THEN THE REMAINING OTHER IS RELATIVELY SMALL OTHER COSTS. AND SO FROM THE PRIOR YEAR, EXPENDITURES DID INCREASE BY 28%, BUT THAT CONSTITUTES ROUGHLY ABOUT A 2% INCREASE. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. So I wanted to step back and do a comparison to show council more of a long-term history of the program to kind of see what it looked like from the start of the program to where it is today. So you can see that in the fiscal year 21 to 22, the program peaked right about $1.87 million in revenue. And then the revenue continued to decline quite substantially over the next several years. WHERE IT REACHED ITS LOWEST POINT IN FISCAL YEAR 25, ABOUT 1.07 MILLION BEFORE REBOUNDING BACK UP TO 1.6 IN FISCAL YEAR 26. THE OTHER THING I WOULD DRAW YOUR ATTENTION TO IS THE EXPENDITURE LINE AND SO WHILE COSTS DID RAMP UP BECAUSE IT TOOK SOME TIME TO RAMP UP THE PROGRAM, GET STARTED AND STAFFED UP, IT HAS FLATTENED OUT AND YOU CAN KIND OF SEE THERE'S A LITTLE BIT OF A DIP BECAUSE WE DID IMPLEMENT SOME COST CONTAINMENT STRATEGIES WHILE REVENUES WERE DOWN DURING THAT TIME PERIOD. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. SO THIS SLIDE SHOWS THE CONSEQUENCES OF THAT HISTORY MORE DIRECTLY. THIS IS A CHART THAT SHOWS THE NET OPERATING RESULTS, SO AGAIN YOUR REVENUE MINUS EXPENDITURES, AND WHAT THE DEFICIT OR SURPLUS WAS FOR ANY GIVEN YEAR. So you can see there were a few years of positive results, predominantly in fiscal year 21 through 23. However, over the course of the ramp up time in fiscal year 19 and 20, and then of course in fiscal year 24 and 25, much of those gains were wiped out during those years. And with fiscal year 26, we've stabilized or at least appears to be that operations from a financial standpoint has stabilized. However, we do still have that accumulated $715,000 accumulated deficit. The positive thing is that we don't, we're not anticipating that that is going to grow substantially in the near future. NEXT SLIDE, PLEASE. SO IN CLOSING, I WILL LEAVE COUNCIL WITH A FEW PRIMARY KEY TAKEAWAYS. SO OPERATING PERFORMANCE HAS IMPROVED SUBSTANTIALLY IN FISCAL YEAR 26. THE ANNIVERSALS IMPROVED BY APPROXIMATELY 503,000 FROM THE PRIOR YEAR, WHICH HAS BEEN PRIMARILY DRIVEN BY STRONGER REVENUES. SECOND, THE PROGRAM'S CURRENT OPERATING RUN RATE IS POSITIVE. WE DID SEE APPROXIMATELY A $376,000 SURPLUS IN THE LATTER, IN THE CURRENT CALENDAR YEAR FROM JANUARY THROUGH JUNE, AND WE DO EXPECT THIS TREND TO CONTINUE. And then lastly, we do still have a large deficit, accumulated deficit. We ended fiscal year 26 with an accumulated deficit of about $715,000. ONE THING TO NOTE ABOUT THE DEFICIT, SO WE DO TRACK THE ACCUMULATED DEFICIT FROM A TRACKING STANDPOINT JUST TO SEE THE PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM FROM THE START SINCE WE HAVE THE DATA FROM THE START OF THE PROGRAM UNTIL NOW. THERE'S NOTHING BINDING US TO ACTUALLY REPAY BACK THE DEFICIT. IT IS A GENERAL FUND OPERATING PROGRAM. SO SHOULD COUNCIL CHOOSE, WE DON'T HAVE TO REFER BACK TO THE DEFICIT FOR THIS PROGRAM JUST TO KEEP THAT IN MIND. So staff will continue to monitor the program closely, particularly revenue performance under the new vendor, and whether the positive monthly results that we saw during the second half of fiscal year 26 will continue into fiscal year 27. At this point, we suspect that it will. But again, as you can see from the data, there's been a lot of variability over the past several years, and it hasn't been very certain. Our goal at this point, first and foremost, is to see that we see positive outcomes from a public safety standpoint, such as reducing dangerous crashes, and then our secondary goal is to make sure that the program remains financially sustainable long-term. We are seeing potential for long-term sustainability with the possibility of a surplus, but again, at this point, as we have seen with the data, we have not had enough years of definitive data, and so we do remain cautious in terms of planning for the future. And with that, I'm happy to answer any questions.

Thank you, Finance Director King, for your presentation. Any, Council President Wolf? GO AHEAD.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. THANK YOU, FINANCE DIRECTOR KANG FOR THE PRESENTATION. VERY INTERESTING STUFF. I JUST WANT TO MAKE SURE I'M UNDERSTANDING BECAUSE I'VE BEEN ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT WHAT WE CAN USE THE PHOTO RED LIGHT REVENUES FOR. THIS IS A GENERAL FUND OPERATING PROGRAM SO THERE WOULDN'T BE ANY LEGAL CONSTRAINTS ON HOW THAT MONEY COULD IN THEORY BE BUDGETED. IS THAT ACCURATE?

THAT IS ACCURATE, YES.

I guess my question, you know, I understand this is a very volatile revenue stream as the charts have shown. Obviously there's no point in really having a discussion of where that revenue can go if we're still running, you know, over $700,000 deficit for the program sort of on a running basis. Once that's paid off at some point in the future in theory, is that the point when we would want to start having a discussion about what that revenue could be used for?

So the reason why I made the comment about the accumulated deficit is because there's THERE'S NO OBLIGATION TO REPAY THE DEFICIT IF THE COUNCIL WANTS TO DISREGARD BECAUSE THERE'S NO LEGAL RESTRICTION AROUND IT. IT IS PURELY FOR INTERNAL TRACKING PURPOSES BECAUSE, YOU KNOW, JUST LIKE IF WE HAD A CAPITAL PROJECT, IT WOULD HAVE BEEN CONSIDERED CAPITAL CONTRIBUTION FOR LIKE A CAPITAL INFRASTRUCTURE. FOR THIS PROGRAM SPECIFICALLY, THERE WAS A LOT OF UPFRONT CAPITAL THAT'S BEING CAPTURED IN THE ACCUMULATED DEFICIT.

I APPRECIATE IT'S ALMOST AS IF YOU READ MY MIND ABOUT CAUTIONING THE LAST SIX MONTH WE WILL WIPE THE DEFICIT OUT AT THE END OF THIS YEAR AND WE WILL BE GOOD TO GO. IN A PERFECT WORLD THAT HAPPENS. I APPRECIATE ALL THE SLIDES BUT WHAT KEPT GOING THROUGH MY MIND IS forecasted scenario. And if I remember correctly, part of our challenges over the last couple years was the performance of the cameras themselves operationally. So have we been able to kind of protect ourselves maybe from incurring high operational costs where our revenue pretty much becomes almost nonexistent because the cameras aren't performing? I'm just kind of curious, what are the risks? What are we looking at moving forward if revenue kind of stays where it is? What in the expenditures are we concerned about that we don't anticipate? I hope that makes sense.

And I'll do my best to try to answer your question. So I mentioned during my presentation that there are some cost containment strategies that we implemented during the time. A significant portion of the operating cost for this program is fixed. And so like our cost to the vendor, that's a fixed amount. We have a contract with them. That's not, we can't modify that. The things that we can modify really come down to things like PERSONNEL, WE HAVE HAD TO HOLD ONTO SOME VACANCIES WHEN WE HAD SOME TURNOVER AND WAIT TO FILL CERTAIN POSITIONS BECAUSE WE SAW THAT THERE WERE LESS WORK AND LESS CITATION COMING THROUGH. THERE ARE SOME MINOR THINGS LIKE THAT AS FAR AS LEVERS THAT WE CAN PULL, BUT OTHER THAN THAT, MOST OF THE ACTUAL PROGRAMMATIC COSTS ARE FAIRLY FIXED. AND JUST TO KIND OF MAYBE HIGHLIGHT SOME OF THE OTHER RISKS WE HAVE SEEN IN THE PAST. I KNOW IN PAST YEARS ONE OF THE CAMERAS WAS TAKEN OUT BY A DRUNK DRIVER AND IT WAS DOWN FOR SEVERAL MONTHS. THAT WAS COMPLETELY OUTSIDE OF THE CITY'S CONTROL. THERE WAS NO WAY TO REALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT THE SITUATION OTHER THAN TRY TO ENCOURAGE OUR VENDOR TO QUICKLY REPAIR AND REPLACE THE CAMERA. WHILE AT THE SAME TIME WORKLOAD DOES NOT STOP FOR THE CITY BECAUSE THE CITATIONS FROM THE MONTH, IT TAKES SEVERAL MONTHS FOR CITATIONS TO FLOW THROUGH. SO WE STILL HAVE TO HAVE STAFF TO PROCESS THOSE CITATIONS.

THANK YOU.

Thank you, Mayor, and I appreciate Council President Wolf's question. I had something similar along the lines. Given that and this program had started in 2018-2019, I wonder if it also doesn't make sense for this Council to reaffirm the purpose of this program, because for me it would be the goal is safety. In this case, it would be to reduce the deficit, but third would be, in my mind, to break even and that there isn't an intention to increase nor have this as a revenue source, but that's a discussion we have not had as a policy amongst the council. So, Mayor, just look to you, that certainly could be done at a later date or if folks are willing to this evening, but I know that hasn't necessarily been on the agenda item, but just wanted to raise that. Thank you.

Thank you. I think the previous presentation sort of hinted that we always want safety to be a priority, but I understand all this discussion about deficit and make-up deficit could definitely, we might have lost track of many goals. I appreciate your bringing that up. So yeah, but definitely happy to bring that up in a future agenda item, so thank you. Any other questions or comments? All right, thank you for your presentation, and I guess you will stay on for the next one. All right, so let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is public hearing on proposed fee resolution on credit card fees. And I will open the public hearing. Anyone may testify by phone, video, or in person on this item, and if you want to do so, Please call in now by calling 503-966-4101, and I will invite our finance director, Kane, to provide the staff report.

All right, I will wait until the slide is up.

All right, thank you.

All right, good evening again, mayor and council. Again, for the record, my name is Eric Kang, and I'm your finance director. And I'm here tonight to follow up on a topic that I first introduced during the adoption of the fiscal year 27 fees and charges schedule on June 9th. If we can move to the next slide, please. So tonight's discussion is really about one policy question, and that is, who should pay the costs associated with credit card transactions? The city can continue to absorb these costs or pass them directly to customers who choose to pay by card or take a hybrid approach. They recover some of these costs while maintaining a no fee payment option. So today in many cases the city absorbs merchant processing fees as an operating expense and it shows up in our annual budget. And that means that these costs are ultimately supported by the broader customer or rate payer base. The alternative is to recover these costs from the customer who chooses the payment method that generates the processing fee. So that is the policy decision I'm asking council to consider tonight. Next slide please. ONE OF THE REASONS WHY I'M BRINGING THIS FORWARD IS BECAUSE OUR CURRENT APPROACH IS NOT PARTICULARLY CONSISTENT. IN OUR ADOPTED FEES IN CHARGE OF SCHEDULE INCLUDES A CREDIT CARD FEE OF 3% WITH A $1.95 MINIMUM AND $1.95 E-CHECK FEE. HOWEVER, IN THE UTILITY BILLING DIVISION, WE CURRENTLY DO NOT CHARGE CUSTOMERS DIFFERENTLY BASED ON THEIR PAYMENT METHODS. THESE PROCESSING COSTS ARE ABSORBED FULLY BY THE UTILITY Municipal court is another example. In-person credit card payments do not incur an additional fee, while online payments through site pay do include a vendor processing fee. So depending on which city services a customer is paying for, and sometimes even which channel that they use, they may receive different treatment for their credit card payment. So part of this discussion is therefore creating and establishing a more clear and more consistent policy framework. Next slide, please. So you basically receive three alternatives. Option one is really maintaining the current status quo. This would mean the city would continue to absorb the credit card processing cost for utility billing. It is the simplest customer experience that are paying by card. However, of course, the card costs are spread across all customers. Option B is to fully pass through the costs. This would mean customers using any sort of electronic payments, such as credit cards or e-checks, would pay any sort of associated processing costs. And the only free payment method would be cash and check. Last, option C is a hybrid approach. And under this, we would pass through credit card processing fees, but maintain e-checks as a no-fee alternative, along with cash and check. Staff is recommending option C because it provides a meaningful cost recovery while still preserving a convenient electronic payment method that is much cheaper for the city to absorb than credit card fees. Next slide please. So this slide summarizes the trade-offs for the three options that I'm presenting before council. So if you absorb all the fees, that creates the highest cost to the city, but the customers paying for the card, they would not see any sort of fee, and that's the way they operate today. If we pass through all merchant fees, we would maximize cost recovery, but customers will have fewer no-fee electronic payment options, which is actually not what we would want to see. We would prefer to see more electronic payment methods from our customers. AND THEN LASTLY, THE HYBRID APPROACH, IT SITS SOMEWHERE BETWEEN THE TWO. IT DOES NOT ELIMINATE ALL THE MERCHANT FEE EXPENSES FOR THE CITY, BUT WE WOULD CONTINUE ABSORBING THE E-CHECK FEE, WHICH AGAIN IS A LOWER COST PAYMENT METHOD FOR THE CITY, BUT THEN SIGNIFICANTLY REDUCES THE CITY'S EXPOSURE TO THE HIGHER COSTS OF CREDIT CARDS WHILE STILL PRESERVING SOME CUSTOMER CHOICE. There is also an equity component to consider. Under an absorbed model, customers who do not use credit cards still participate in funding these costs, because under a pass-through model, the customers choosing the higher cost payment method bears that cost. That balance is one of the primary reasons why staff recommends the hybrid approach. Next slide, please. SO I WANT TO SPEND A LITTLE BIT MORE TIME ON THIS SLIDE BECAUSE IT KIND OF GOES INTO MORE OF THE DETAIL AND WHAT THE BREAKDOWN IN COSTS WOULD BE FOR THE CITY. SO UNDER OUR CURRENT PRICING MODEL, WE HAVE WHAT'S CALLED AN INTERCHANGE PLUS STRUCTURE, AND SO THE CITY PAYS THE ACTUAL UNDERLYING CARD COSTS, WHICH IS CALLED THE INTERCHANGE FEES, SO THOSE ARE THE FEES THAT VISA, MASTERCARD, DISCOVER ALL CHARGE THE CITY BASED ON SWIPING THEIR CARD, PLUS A 75-CENT TRANSACTION FEE FOR TYLER. WHICH IS OUR MERCHANT VENDOR. SO FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES, IF WE HAD ABOUT $1.5 MILLION IN ANNUAL CARD VOLUME OVER THE YEAR AND ABOUT 10,000 TRANSACTIONS, ASSUMING A 2% BLENDED RATE, THE CITY WOULD PAY ABOUT $37,500, WHICH EQUATES TO ABOUT 2.5%. Under a payer paid service model, so if all the fees are passed on to the customer using the same volume assumptions, the customer would pay about 2.95% or about $44,250. So while the pass-through method is not necessarily the lowest costs from a transaction standpoint, the total fees are about, you would see a small increase in the costs. However, from a policy standpoint, the biggest difference is who pays the costs. So as I mentioned earlier, under the current model, ultimately the broader rate payer base bears the expense, and under the payer paid service fee model, the customer choosing the card bears the expense, and the city receives the full amount. And then one last thing to, just anecdotally, this is just illustrative, the actual interchange fee can be between 1.5 to 2.5%, so it could be more or less, so it's not exact in terms of what the difference is. Next slide please. So if we're looking at an actual utility bill, so to provide a more tangible example, so assuming that your average utility bill is about $163.81 a month, if a customer chooses to pay by card under the proposed service fee model of 2.95%, that would be about $4.83. And a customer, they could avoid that fee entirely by paying with an e-check, cash check, money order, or bill pay. On the other side, if the city continues to absorb the same card payment using the same 2% interchange fee plus 75 cent transaction, that comes out to about $4.03 of how much the city pays for every utility bill per month. So for that one payment, the difference really is about who bears the cost of that $4 a month. Next slide, please. and I know I keep going back to the repair equity and so this really gets to one of the more important policy considerations and so when the city absorbs a credit card fee as a utility operating expense as I mentioned before that becomes part of the cost base supported by the broader repair population so customers paying by the ACH or any of the lower cost payment methods are helping support pay the cost of those who are choosing to pay by credit cards Passing through the card fees reduces that cross-subsidization. It does not say that customers cannot use credit cards. They still can. It simply aligns more of the incremental cost of that payment choice with the customer that's making that choice. Next slide, please. Now, we recognize that any change in payment practice needs to be implemented carefully. So just as an example from a customer communication standpoint, what we would focus on for any sort of change that would happen. First, transparency. We would make sure that any customers would see any sort of fees before a payment is made, before completing that transaction. Second, we would encourage customers who do not want to pay a fee would choose one of the free payment methods, which is the ACH, e-check, cash, or bank bill pay. And lastly, anyone that's currently enrolled in AutoPay, we would provide them with any sort of notification encouraging them to switch and that there's a fee coming if they choose to stay with the credit card. Next slide, please. SO THE FINANCIAL IMPACT IS SIGNIFICANT ENOUGH THAT WE BELIEVE THIS WARRANTS COUNCIL CONSIDERATION. SO THE CITY CURRENTLY SPENDS ABOUT $600,000 ANNUALLY ON MERCHANT FEES AND THAT'S ALMOST ALL UTILITY MERCHANT FEES. UNDER THE HYBRID APPROACH, WE ESTIMATE THAT THE CITY PAID MERCHANT FEES WOULD DECLINE BY ABOUT $300,000 PER YEAR. We would still incur some costs, particularly for the e-check, because while that is a lower payment method, there's still a cost associated with that. But that would still be the recommendation for customers who want to use electronic payment method. I ALSO WANT TO PROVIDE FOR ILLUSTRATIVE PURPOSES, THESE ARE NOT COMMITMENTS OR RECOMMENDATIONS, BUT THESE ARE EXAMPLES OF WHAT WE MAY PROPOSE WITH THE POTENTIAL SAVINGS. So from a operating standpoint, reducing the merchant fees could help mitigate the inflationary pressures and reduce future utility rate pressures. Council could also consider using some of that savings for increasing the financial capacity to support customer programs such as the LEED credit program as well as emergency utility assistance. And then And then the last thing I would just point out is that the primary point of reducing these costs is to provide some level of cost savings for the utility system as a whole and create some financial capacity for the utility system. Next slide, please. SO AGAIN, JUST REITERATING KIND OF WHERE WE STARTED WITH THIS PRESENTATION. ALTERNATIVE A, AGAIN, TO CONTINUE THE STATUS QUO AND CONTINUE ABSORBING THE FEES. ALTERNATIVE B, THAT'S THE FULL PASS THROUGH WHICH WOULD NET THE CITY ABOUT $600,000 IN SAVINGS BUT AGAIN, THAT WOULD MEAN ELECTRONIC PAYMENT METHODS WOULD NO LONGER BE FREE FOR ANY CHANNEL. ALTERNATIVE C, THE STAFF RECOMMENDATION, THE HYBRID APPROACH THAT STILL PROVIDES A NO COST ALTERNATIVE ELECTRONIC PAYMENT METHOD. WITH THAT, THAT CONCLUDES MY PRESENTATION. I'M HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS. WE ARE LOOKING TO COUNCIL'S DIRECTIONS ON WHICH ALTERNATIVE YOU WOULD LIKE STAFF TO IMPLEMENT AND IF COUNCIL IS READY TO MAKE A DECISION TONIGHT, STAFF HAS PREPARED THE RESOLUTION WITH THE FEE SCHEDULE THAT REFLECTS STAFF RECOMMENDATIONS.

THANKS, FINANCE DIRECTOR Uh, Councilor Guzzusi, you haven't spoken much today, so I'll give you the first chance.

Thank you very much for the presentation. One of the biggest things that I noticed with this that I like is we're trying to change overall behavior. And by sort of leaning people towards things like the e-checks, those that end up being lower fees, I think that's the way I really like the hybrid approach overall. Thank you.

Were you also seeking direction on us about how We could use the saving utilize, or is that for another conversation?

We can certainly open it up for conversation, but I'm not sure that the scheduled time allotment is enough for that conversation.

OK. All right. So let's settle the first question first. Go ahead, Councillor Schlag.

Thank you, Mayor. What would the communication program look like to notify rate payers of this rate increase and how they can avoid these increased fees under the hybrid approach?

Well, I would be very careful to characterize it as a rate increase, because this is really about changing the behavior of customers to choose a lower payment method option. I believe the resolution has stated that it would be implemented as administrative AS ADMINISTRATIVELY FEASIBLE. WE WANT TO START WITH AN INFORMATION CAMPAIGN TO LET CUSTOMERS KNOW WITH AMPLE LEAD TIME TO GIVE THEM TIME TO SWITCH. THAT INCLUDES A FLYER AND AN INSERT IN THEIR BILL AS WELL AS ANY SORT OF EMAIL BLASTS THAT WE CAN DO. I will admit that we do get feedback that people don't open their utility bill, so they might not see an insert. It might result in sometimes we will have customer complaints and we'll address the situation when it arise. But we would have a targeted approach to let customers know that this is coming before we implement anything.

I will hope you would consider something like give... at least for the first couple months, people who ask question, you will refund the fee, no question asked, right? So, you know, so that will just ease the transition pain, so. Any other question?

Thank you for the answer. I apologize for the mischaracterization.

So, Councilor Schlage, which approach, ABC, would you? would you go for?

I mean, I'm fine with the hybrid approach, but yeah.

Councillor Anderson, any question, comments?

No, I like the hybrid approach. I think people are used to the ACH is more of a free type of thing, at least at this time, so. Councillor Shah.

Thank you, Mayor, and following with Councillor Gudusi, I too appreciate in Councillor Slack the communication to help change individuals' behavior of how they pay in order to save that credit card fee. So I too would go with staff's recommendation of Alternative C with the hybrid approach.

Councillor Preston-Wolf.

Thank you, Mayor. Eric, so I support the hybrid and my only question is I'm assuming the 300,000 is an assumption that a bunch of the credit card users will convert to ACH so that bucket of people will dramatically increase.

YES, THE ASSUMPTION IS, I MEAN, THIS IS AN ESTIMATE, AS I WILL CAVEAT WITH THAT FIRST. IT'S AN ASSUMPTION THAT ALL OF OUR CUSTOMERS THAT USE CREDIT CARDS WOULD TRANSITION TO ANOTHER ELECTRONIC PAYMENT METHOD. IT'S MORE LIKELY THAT SOMEONE CREDIT CARD TODAY WOULD CHOOSE SOME SORT OF ELECTRONIC PAYMENT METHOD.

THAT'S WHAT I WANTED TO CONFIRM THE 300 FACTOR THAT IN WHICH MAKES SENSE AND I SUPPORT HYBRID BECAUSE I AGREE PEOPLE WOULD BE FRUSTRATED IF THEY HAD TO PAY FOR AN ACH.

Yeah, I also support the hybrid approach, but I have a question about, you know, in your staff report in slide number seven, you said under this approach, the car user will have to pay $4.83, but if we kept the status quo, the city will only have to pay $4.03. So it seems like, so where would that 80 cents, it seems like the city is getting extra 80 cents under the hybrid approach, or am I reading that wrong?

No, so just to clarify that, Mayor, if the customer chooses to pay, so if Council were to choose the current status quo, THE CITY WOULD PAY THE $4.03. IF WE'RE TO PASS THROUGH THE COST TO THE CUSTOMER, THE CUSTOMER PAYS $4.83. THAT'S BECAUSE THE MERCHANT PROVIDES A DIFFERENT FEE IF IT'S THE CITY ABSORBING THE COST OR IF THEY'RE PASSING THROUGH THE COST. And so the cost from our merchant vendor, if we absorb the cost, is interchange plus 75 cents.

Okay.

And then if it's passed through directly to the customer, it's in that earlier slide, it's like 2.95%, which is just the flat percentage.

Okay. All right, so thank you for answering that question, for clarifying it. So yeah, so I have no further questions. So it's unanimous, we prefer alternative C hybrid approach. Oh, okay, yeah. Thank you. No written comment received for this item by noon Monday. Mr. Walter, are there any callers in the queue to testify on this item? There's no callers in the queue. OK. We have Dennis Worsnack. Dennis, hi, good evening. So just make sure the microphone is turned green. Yeah, push the button.

Yes?

Yeah, there we go.

Dennis Wozniak, I live at 13493 Southwest 75th Place, Tigard. Good evening, Mr. Mayor, council, staff. I'm here against the proposed charges or make the ratepayer pay for the charges. First of all, I'm talking strictly about utility bills, not anything else. I'm probably neutral on that or almost positive for charges on those. But for utility bills, this would be an immediate rate hike of close to 3% for taxpayers or for the ratepayers. AND AGAIN IN TODAY'S TIMES EVERYBODY DOES NOT WANT TO SEE RATE INCREASE AND SINCE THE OVER THE YEARS I BELIEVE WE'RE REALLY NOT TAKING ANYTHING AWAY FROM THE BUDGET BECAUSE THIS $600,000 WAS ALREADY COMING OUT OF IT FOR A NUMBER OF YEARS SO IT'S NOT LIKE SAYING WE HAVE TO DELETE SOMETHING IN ORDER TO KEEP THIS GOING. THE PROGRAM WILL JUST CONTINUE AS FAR AS THAT GOES. ALSO THE $600,000 THAT'S GOING TO BE SUPPOSEDLY SAVED RATE PAYERS MONEY, IT REALLY DOESN'T BECAUSE WHAT HAPPENS I'm going to have to pay, or at least the people using credit cards are going to have to pay that fee. So you're not really saving the individual rate payers any money. They're going to still have to pay that 4% or 3%, whatever it is as far as that goes. But even more importantly, it's almost like a PR issue also. Because every time you get a bill and you see at the end you buy something, Amazon, whatever, you see, okay, now it's 3% service charge. And when these rate payers get their bills, every month they're going to get this, and at the very end they're going to see that 3% for the service fee. And again, it's just not going to leave a good taste in your mouth. The city wants more money, more money. A lot of times, my wife pays all the bills, and it's by check, so this really doesn't affect us. But she'll say something like, boy, the rates went up a little bit higher. And again, if we happen to have an election coming up at a particular time of the year, people get the rate bills. You want people... not to be happy about what they're paying, but eliminate all those negative feelings. Again, when they get that rate charge, you're thinking, because Tigard's a great place to live in. We all know that. But you want to keep all those negative things away out of their mind. Again, if you want to charge other people for anything besides the utility bills, that'd be fine. But every citizen or every household in Tigard gets a bill. That's probably... THE MOST DIRECT CONTACT A PERSON HAS, A VOTING CITIZEN HAS WITH THE CITY OF TIGER. TWO MINUTES UP. CAN YOU WRAP IT UP, PLEASE? OKAY. WE'RE THROUGH.

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR COMMENT. YOU'RE WELCOME. ERIC, DO YOU WANT TO PROVIDE A RESPONSE?

THANK YOU, SIR, FOR THE PUBLIC COMMENT. I JUST WANTED TO REITERATE THE FOCUS AND INTENT BEHIND THIS STAFF RECOMMENDATION IS REALLY ABOUT INFLUENCING OR CHANGING CUSTOMER BEHAVIOR TO USE A LOWER COST PAYMENT METHOD TO SAVE THE UTILITY SYSTEM THE APPROXIMATELY $300,000 THAT WE WOULD SEE ANNUALLY. You know that goes far in terms of when we're looking at annual rate pressures, and we we are about to start a Rate study here pretty soon And so we'll be looking at our operating costs, and so you there could be a direct Influence on what rates look like over the next couple years as a result of this cost savings From a individual payment standpoint, we're very cognizant in recognizing that we need to make sure that there is a no fee payment method for customers. And that is the reason why we are not recommending passing through all of the costs for every payment method for the customer, and that we have to maintain some method of free payment option, such as the ACH check fees. And that is the intent behind that hybrid approach.

All right, any further question? Councilor Hsu?

I mean a question to comment so it's not a rate increase and if an individual pays their bill with a credit card currently they don't pay that fee with this change they would pay fee but the goal is not to to get the revenue the goal is really to reduce the fee the city pays and the individual would pay and so to thank you so much too for your public testimony so at the end we don't want anybody to have to pay a fee hence why we have this now and alternative fee approach which is the e-check is that correct director finance director king that is correct really the the only person that is benefiting from the credit card fees are the the credit card companies so the city does not retain these fees

IN EITHER PAYMENT OPTION, SO IDEALLY NO ONE PAYS THE FEE AND EVERYONE JUST PAYS WITH AN E-CHECK, CASH OR CHECK OR BILL PAY, SOME SORT OF FREE PAYMENT METHOD AND THERE'S NO FEE INCURRED BY ANYONE. THAT WOULD BE AN IDEAL SCENARIO.

ANY OTHER QUESTIONS? All right, seeing none, I will close the public hearing. Yeah, thank you, Councilor Shah, for asking that question. That's the reason I asked why, you know, car user will pay 483, but the city only pay 403. It's not because the city's pocketing the extra 80 cents. We're just paying the fee that we are required to charge, right? So any comments or motion? It's time for council deliberation.

Mayor, I would like to move to approve resolution number 2630, a resolution amending the citywide fees and charges schedule to amend convenience fees, which would be adopted under resolution number 2619.

Second the motion.

It's been moved by Councillor Shaw and seconded by Councillor Patterson-Wolf. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. Resolution number 26-30 is adopted by a unanimous vote of the council member present. All right, thank you. All right, so let's move on to the next item on our agenda, which is discussion on public works service levels. work level of service. And Acting Public Work Director Wisniewski and Asset Manager Ricko will provide the staff report. And I just want to quickly say that Councilor Schlagg and I request discussion along with briefing on service level across many of our departments because these standards drive both the services residents receive and costs included in our budget. As we prepare for the next budget, I want Council to understand which services are essential or legally required, what results residents are receiving, and what it costs to maintain those results. We also need to understand the consequences of reducing a service level, including whether saving money today will create greater costs or risk later. My goal is to protect reliable core services while making sure every public dollar is being used carefully and effectively. Having said that, Asset Manager Rico, welcome.

Thank you very much, Mayor and Council. I appreciate the introduction much better than I could have done, and I'm really pleased to be here tonight to talk to you about Public Works in our programs and services assessment. If you can go to the next slide, please. So I'd like to start with an overview of who we are in Public Works as a whole and then talk about sort of what guides us as a department and what guided this assessment before we move into the programs and services of each individual division. So we are under public works. We have a variety of services that Well, they're not just services but also programs and infrastructure systems and they're all crucial for Providing core services that make us a community that people want to live in work in and play in So then if you go to the next slide While the day-to-day operations of each of these divisions might look different, we're sort of all guided by the same commitment to serve this community in a responsive, reliable, and professional manner. So how does the work get done in that way? And it really has to do with how we align with industry standards and best practices. There are lots of different industry standards for each of our infrastructure systems, but we wanted to highlight two in particular that sort of cover each of the the different parts of Public Works and so the American Public Works Association and their accreditation process is one and and then IIMM, which is essentially the international standard for asset management. And so these two organizations provide a framework for how to deliver these services in a way that we have high-performing assets, we're more strategic, which makes us more sustainable and ultimately fiscally responsible in delivering these services. services that our community relies on. And I'll talk a little bit about asset management in particular. So we started this journey back in 2020, and we formalized the program in 2023. And our program is very much, we pride ourselves in being like a bottom-up approach in the sense that we want to support the services that Public Works provides every day, learn from the folks that actually do the work, and utilize the data that they produce to make proactive data-driven decisions and also implement more strategic processes for that work. And the reality is that we have been doing asset management for a really long time, but the leadership in Public Works, this managers group, has been committed to making this a part of our culture, and that's I don't want to miss this opportunity to acknowledge that there are a lot of public works managers in this room, and it's because we are all very aligned. This is a group project, and I just get to be the spokesperson tonight, but that we know who we are, we know how we operate, and this is just an opportunity for us to tell you more about that. Next slide, please. So this should look familiar to you. We came to the Budget Committee and shared a little bit about asset management. I won't go into details about the different sort of elements, but the one in particular is levels of service. This is a key component of asset management, and I'll talk more about the criteria that makes up an asset management level of service. But it's right-sizing what we do and at what level and why, like what drives those decisions. And so you want to pair that with the cost of delivering those services as the mayor mentioned before and then you layer in the risk factors and so those things need to align and balance and if they don't ultimately you need to make trade-off decisions and we think that having this information gives you transparency in making those decisions that If you were to adjust the level of service or you were to add additional resources, what that might look like. So if you move to the next slide, we'll talk about levels of service. So the sort of broad umbrella that they should all fall underneath is council goals and the strategic plan. They should always align with those things. But then in asset management, really levels of service is guided by three things. It's your legal requirements. What are we mandated to do? The community values. So what does the community expect from us? What level of a service would meet their expectations for a place that they want to live and work in? And then the technical requirements. So that's oftentimes those best practices, the how that you need to perform that work. And so those three things are what really guides us in setting what we're doing. Next slide, please. The last thing I want to talk about briefly, I will not go into great detail about this matrix, and I certainly won't share any of the particular scores, but we recognize that this IIM asset management framework is really designed for infrastructure. It's not necessarily a one-size-fits-all for all city services, but priority-based budgeting is, and these sort of basic program attributes are a way that you can evaluate your programs and services in a way that's kind of an apples-to-apples comparison with other city departments. So we use our levels of service framework and then these basic program attributes when we looked at the services in all of our different public works divisions. And so you'll see we obviously don't have time to go into all of the different attributes or the math behind how we arrived at some of the scores, but you'll see some of these concepts in each of the slides. And so that's why we sort of wanted to set the stage when we talk about our levels of service, what all went into determining them. So with that, if you'll go to the next slide. We'll start with streets. And for the next 11 slides, I get to go through a whole bunch of divisions. And forgive me, I think I could spend 30 minutes talking about any one division and all of the amazing work that they do. So I'll try to be brief. And I won't read the slides word for word. Good thing that you have them. But they all will look and feel the same, right? So we talk about our core services, and this is truly just the services and programs that each division has. And then how we determine our levels of service, that's some of those criteria. And then the last question that you brought up is how do we adjust those levels of service? What does that look like to... maybe add something or reduce services. So with streets, they are predominantly governed by MUTCD, so those are Department of Transportation standards in terms of traffic devices. But they also are largely driven by community expectations in terms of traffic and pedestrian safety. And that contributes to not only do we measure it in terms of pavement condition, but also in our service request response time. So that's something that our streets team prides themselves in as they often get to something before a service request even arrives and they've already resolved the problem. And how would they adjust their level of service? So this is something that will be a pretty consistent theme is that Knowing the criteria of how we determine those levels of service. We basically operate at a minimum service delivery It's what are we legally required to do? What does the community expect us to do and how do you have to do it? And so really for us adjusting level of service is probably increasing service by to align with added regulatory requirements or increased or like additional expectations of the public and Next slide, please. So moving on to, we'll go through all of our utilities back to back here. And they are largely regulated, mandated by OHA, EPA, our intergovernmental agreement with Lake Oswego. They're entirely rate funded, which means that they have 100% cost recovery. And really adjusting their level of service is to keep up with changing mandates. So for instance, in water quality, there'll be increased water quality sampling and testing requirements. And so then we'll add those additional sampling requirements to lab results and so we'll make sure that our water meets and exceeds all of the standards and as they grow and evolve and then something I want to talk about briefly that this would be true of many of our systems is that growth and maturity of the system can impact how we might adjust levels of service and just because the system grows doesn't mean we suddenly change the way we deliver the service and But growth, as you can see, so like a 23% growth in the total number of assets that our water system maintains in the last 10 years, you might have to be more strategic. You either might need more resources to perform that same level of service with just more things, or you need to be more strategic in the way that you approach that work. And so that is often what we have done in public works is figured out ways to be more data driven, to be more strategic in our approach. And then that way when we come to you and ask for more resources that it's because we have done everything we can do to provide that service that the community requires of us and that our mandates require of us well and to complete them. Next slide please. The sanitary sewer system is the same their sort of regulatory agency is different, but they are nearly Nearly every activity that they do is mandated and I think what tells their story the best is the little pie chart in the corner so this is all of their work history for the last year every activity that they performed and and the costs of all that work, the resources that go into it. So 94% of the work that they tracked is mandated activities only. And so there is very little room for them to be doing anything but meeting the mandate, especially with a system that grows every single year. If you want to go to the next slide, I'll talk about stormwater. They're governed by the same CWS agreement and the DEQ permit, but I want to talk about them together because it's a good example of that need to be more strategic and efficient in our service delivery. I don't think maybe everybody knows that Sanitary sewer system and the stormwater system are very different they perform different functions but the the mandates against them are similar and so it is the same group of people a very small team of people that does that does all of the mandated activities for both of those systems and That's efficient because then They have the same certifications and training and are able to operate the same pieces of equipment, and we use them for both the sanitary system and the stormwater system. That is a more cost-efficient way than having two separate teams do the same function or do many of the same line cleaning, TV inspections, minor construction. So it's a good example of how that work is approached. Next slide, please. So the surface water management team, we call them the swim team. They also work on the stormwater system, but work on those water quality facilities. So from the largest regional detention facilities to the little flow-through planters as you walk down Burnham, the mandate is the same. And so they have a really amazing story that I want to highlight. So they're required to maintain every single one of those facilities twice a year and inspect it once a year. That is the mandate. You shall. But the folks that do that work every day know that some of those facilities, if you only went twice a year, it wouldn't be enough to keep up with the vegetative maintenance. And they know with maybe the amount of stormwater runoff it's treating that it would end up degrading the quality of that asset and needing to be rehabbed. So they know which ones need to be maintained in excess of the mandate. And so they do that. We can quantify the cost. So the average cost of one of those maintenance visits is about $100 all around. So over 30 years, call it $3,000. The cost of a major rehab on average is $40,000. It could be upwards of $100,000. And so you think about that major rehab and being able to proactively maintain those assets and defer the need for a major rehab, push that further into the asset lifecycle, it would be 14 times more expensive to rehab it instead. So by that sort of like strategic asset management lens and how they perform their work, It doesn't seem like in the short term, you're like, oh, you only have to go twice and you go three times. It's an extra $100 per facility. But it is significant cost savings to the city. And so I think it's an amazing example of good asset management and also good stewardship of these resources. And they're up against kind of an interesting predicament because their system has grown by almost 200% in 10 years. And so I think that they do that because they have no choice but to be more strategic with the resources that they have. Next slide, please. So moving out of our utilities and into our parks and natural areas, these services are the ones that community expectations are maybe one of the driving forces of their level of service. And so we know that the community highly values them. And where does that data come from? So the National Community Survey benchmarking across the whole country, our parks and natural areas scored very highly in that people value them and also are satisfied with them at the level at which we're providing the service. So that is the indicator to us that we have sort of right-sized our park maintenance. And how they do that and how we might adjust those level of service is the parks categories. So our parks team has done a tremendous job of sort of knowing what parks based off of their amenities and what makes up those spaces, what they require. And so being able to maintain the parks differently depending on their park categorization is a more efficient way to maintain all of that acreage. To the standard at which our community is asking us Next slide please So our recreation team this is another one that community expectations drives how we have sort of right sized our level of service, and this is a great story too because ten years ago I think recreation was cut and so then we Council and the community made the decision to fund recreation and we have a very small rec team and so to look at the amount of events and programs and camps that they have been able to implement and program and offer the community and with pretty limited resources is is a testament to the demand right and so we always want to right size what we're providing with whether or not the community wants it and many of the ways in which they have adjusted their level of service over those 10 years have come from the request for increased program offerings classes that reach different age demographics or have a different topic and so They have done a lot in that space, and that's how they have changed and adjusted over time. Next slide, please. Okay, fleet maintenance. So we're sort of making this shift now to the part of public works that is not external facing, but I call them like essential service enablers. So the police, public works, building inspectors, all of those folks cannot respond in a timely manner and do their work if they don't have vehicles and equipment that are appropriate for the work and are well maintained and operable. And so our fleet maintenance staff not only do they do the preventative maintenance and the repairs, but they also manage the acquisitions and the eventual decommissioning of those assets. And so how do they determine their levels of service? They are largely tied to what the other core services need and the technical requirements of that equipment. And then they adapt also with Council goals, so moving towards technology changes and different like electric vehicles is a good example. And so they have adjusted their levels of service so that they know an electric vehicle has different preventative maintenance schedules than a diesel truck. And so that's one example of how they adjust their levels of service. And a story that I like about fleet and how the level of asset management that they are doing, It's sort of like a maturity. Asset management has no destination. We're sort of just always incrementally trying to do this work a little bit better. But they have such a good understanding of that cradle to grave concept of procuring the right vehicles, upfitting them, maintaining them correctly, and then planning for their eventual replacement and decommissioning to the point where our fleet technician will do extra work sort of like repair and cleanup and maintenance prior to auctioning an item just so that we could maximize what we get from the auction to put forth to the next piece of equipment. And so that level of care to our fleet is evident in the work that they do.

Next slide, please.

Facilities, so property management, this is another essential service enabler. So their levels of service are largely set by the requirements of our external facing services. They need to be able to have facilities to work out of. And the other key factor for them is the technical requirements of those facilities. So you think about the HVAC maintenance and their assets are vertical. So the systems, the component parts of these structures and so making sure that they are in good condition and that they're resilient and that there's adequate space now and into the future. And so this is one where it's certainly a hot topic for how they would adjust their levels of service and manage the repairs and the maintenance of our existing facilities while also planning for future space considerations. So they very much adapt with the growth and maturity of our city services. Next slide, please. So our engineering division, they could easily be embedded into all of the infrastructure systems. Most often in asset management, you actually do that. You just embed it and talk about capital improvement projects as a part of the water system and the sanitary sewer systems. But in terms of the way that we're structured as an organization, having them in their own division is sort of an efficient service delivery so that those project engineers and the inspectors can work on projects across our infrastructure systems and coordinate together. And so that ultimately leads to better project delivery. But they support and perform work. in each of the other divisions that you saw on these previous slides. And the adjustment to levels of service for engineering, there's sort of two pieces depending on the program that you're looking at. So system plans, that's that long range infrastructure planning. That really guides what do the infrastructure systems need to be able to support this community into the foreseeable future for 20, 30, 40 years from now. And so that's what drives the projects that need to be delivered on on the capital, the CIP side. And then development demand is sort of like what influences the private development side. So all of the inspections, the permitting, and the plan review. So that is influenced and addressed with sort of development.

Next slide, please.

Lastly is our Public Works Administration. This is another one that if you look at it through an asset management lens, it doesn't exist. It's just sort of embedded into each system. With maybe the exception of Emergency Management and Safety Coordination, they could easily be their own slide, but 12 divisions would be a lot. But Emergency Management, this is not just a citywide, like as an internal city staff function, but this is a communitywide program. that really prepares our community, prepares staff for those bad days, as our emergency coordinator calls them. And they also provide all of the public work safety coordination, so making sure that all of our operators have their certifications, their licenses, and the trainings that they need to perform their work safely. To go home to their families and be in compliance with all of the rules The other functions that we have so business management community engagement asset management and public works administration so these are all the sort of enablers so that the the folks who do the work in the field every day can focus on those things and we can manage all of the reporting and the Finance side and the community engagement and so they can truly focus on the mandated work that needs to be done and And similar to engineering and fleet and facilities, an adjustment to the levels of service here is largely in response to growth in the majority of our systems. So as they grow and change in their processes, we would need to grow and change with them potentially.

Next slide, please.

Okay, we made it sort of to the end. I realize it's a lot across all divisions, and so we didn't have an opportunity to take maybe a deep dive in any one of them. So if you ever want to know some of the amazing work that they're doing in any one division, we'd love to talk about it. But hopefully this at least gives you an understanding of who we are in Public Works and how we approach right-sizing the services that we provide. Thank you.

Thank you, Asset Manager Rico. That's a very... very comprehensive view of the entire public works. So, Council Member, any comments or questions? Council President Wolf?

So comment and then I guess a request as we look to budget. So first, Samantha, I just have to say how much I appreciated your sense of pride as a team and the work you do and the passion that you demonstrate. And it just shows and just the respect you have for your colleagues. And I just wanted to call that out. AND JUST REALLY APPRECIATE THE WORK YOU ALL ARE DOING. SO THANK YOU. MY REQUEST AND WHAT I KEPT THINKING ABOUT AS YOU PRESENTED, AS I LOOK FORWARD TO WHEN WE GO INTO BUDGET SEASON, KIND OF THIS IDEA OF TAKING THIS PROCESS AND THIS SYSTEM AND THEN HOW DOES THAT REFLECT ITSELF IN DOLLARS? SO BECAUSE AS I LOOKED AT HOW WOULD WE ADJUST, A LOT OF THAT LENS IS THE GROWTH SIDE. And what's interesting obviously is a lot of this is not driven by general fund. It's driven by its own revenue system But to understand often is that that balance of what is the fee adjustment look like? What is the demand look like what has been our asset efficiency? And then what's the decisions that we have to make around appropriate rates? and I would love to kind of see that analysis as we make decisions as a council and Because you've done an outstanding job of defining who we are in the systems that we use. And so to see that employed from a financial perspective would be fabulous for our budget season.

So thank you both, Mayor and Councillor Schlack, for bringing this forward.

It was a great presentation. Thank you.

Ditto to Council President Wolf's comment. I really appreciate every time I have meeting with you, talking with constituents, I can see the pride you have in everything you do, so thank you so much. I also want to also have the similar request of as we go into the budget season, I would just appreciate some more clear options, like how you present to council on what are the service level, what are the options, what are the trade-offs, if we increase or decrease certain service level, what are the long-term consequences to the budget? So just bring us along a little bit more, I think. I would just appreciate a little bit better understanding of the decision-making process.

THANK YOU MAYOR AND THANK YOU ALL FOR THE WONDERFUL PRESENTATION TONIGHT. I THINK IN ADDITION TO THAT I WOULD LOVE TO UNDERSTAND THOSE FORECASTS FOR GROWTH AND MATURITY BECAUSE JUST GOING THROUGH IT AND I RECOGNIZE A BIT UNIQUE IN TERMS OF THE FACT THAT WE HAVE A ROAD SYSTEM THAT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE. WE HAVE A SEWER SYSTEM THAT'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE. IT'S GOING TO GROW AS WE ANNEX OR EXPAND OR DEVELOP ADDITIONAL HOUSING AND SO ON. AND IT'S GOING TO NEED TO BE REPLACED. SO I THINK IT WOULD BE HELPFUL SORT OF LIKE HOW WE HAVE WITH REVENUE FORECAST OR EXPENDITURE FORECAST UNDERSTANDING THOSE LEVELS OF SERVICE AND HOW WE EXPECT THEM TO CHANGE OVER TIME WOULD BE HELPFUL GOING INTO BUDGET SEASON IN ADDITION TO THE DOLLARS.

Okay, thank you so much again. Really appreciate it, have a good evening. All right, so we have no non-agenda item, but we do have an executive session. So the Tiger City Council will go into executive session to discuss the performance of a public official under ORS 192.6602 . All discussions are confidential and those present may disclose nothing from the session. Representatives of the news media are allowed to attend executive sessions as provided by ORS 192.6604, but must not disclose any information discussed. No executive session may be held for the purpose of taking any final action or making any final decision. The Tiger City Council will adjourn at the end of the executive session.

All right, good night, Tiger.