City Council - Regular Meeting

Hartmeyer Prigg? Present. Councilor Teeter?

Here.

Mayor Beatty? Here.

Edward Kimmy is here.

Councilor Kimmy.

Sorry. He wasn't seated, and I didn't see him. Councilor Kimmy?

Here.

Here.

Alright. Pursuant to well, sorry. Let me look at the script. The first matter on our agenda tonight is an executive session that will be closed to the public. With the executive session is done, we will reconvene in open session.

We are holding the executive session in another part of the building, so you may remain here in council chambers until we return. I cannot give an exact time when the open session of tonight's council will begin, but I will expect it to be twenty to thirty minutes from now. And now I'll read the formal announcement for executive session. The city council will now meet in executive session pursuant to one nine two dot six six zero two d to contact, conduct deliberations with people designated by the governing body to carry out labor negotiations. No final decision will be made in executive session by Oregon law, members of the public, and the news media may not be present for deliberation regarding labor negotiations.

Therefore, members of the audience, including members of the news media, may not attend the executive session. Only the council and designated staff are allowed to attend. We will be back. Already in order, so no need to call the roll. We do have a bit of an agenda shift today.

We are gonna move agenda bill two six zero three four up underneath the consent agenda.

The work session.

The work session. Okay. We are now resuming the regular meeting of the Beaverton City Council following an executive session. We will continue tonight's agenda starting with a proclamation. We will move then to visitor comments, a presentation, and everything else that we moved up. All right, we will now move on to visitor comments. Nope. Sorry. Can you read the proclamation? Thank you. Sure.

Whereas in 1926 Harvard scholar, doctor Carver g Woodson, established the recognition of black and African American history to acknowledge accomplishments and active participation of African American people in shaping the development of our American democracy. And whereas black history month provides an opportunity to recognize the leadership, creativity, perseverance of African Americans across all fields, including civil rights, education, business, the arts, science, public service, and community building, and whereas black communities have made numerous valuable and long lasting contributions to the history of The United States and to Oregon's economic, cultural, spiritual, and political development, and whereas the presence and contribution of black communities continue to enhance the quality of life in the city of Beaverton, and whereas Black History Month calls our nation's attention to recognizing and celebrating the essential contributions and resilience of black communities while acknowledging injustices that remain. And whereas black communities continue to be the targets of discrimination, exclusion, and violence based on identity, which conflicts with our core values as a community. And whereas black history month is a time when all Americans are encouraged to reflect on our collective history of slavery and oppression of African and black people, and to recommit to acknowledging the harms and to prioritizing belonging, justice, inclusion, and respect for human dignity in all we do in all that we do.

And whereas that we celebrate Black History Month in February, we affirm that black history is American history and recognize it as an ever present part of our collective experience that we must pass on and learn from. And now, therefore, you, Lacey Beatty, mayor of the city of Beaverton, Oregon, do hereby proclaim February 2026 as Black History Month in the city of Beaverton.

Thank you, council president. I would also I do see our chamber CEO in the audience, and it would be awesome if you guys could produce a list of black owned businesses this month so we could use our money to elevate businesses in our own community. So we'd love to partner with you to make sure that gets kicked out the door. Thank you for coming and getting a task from the city council. Alright.

We will now move on to the visitor comments. The city requires pre registration for online and in person visitor comments at council meetings. Registration closed at noon today. All registrations was conducted through the city recorder's office via email or phone in preparation for the meeting. There are eight people registered to comment at tonight's meeting.

As a reminder, visitor comments provide the opportunity for the community to speak about matters even if they are not on the agenda. Visitors may state their comments and should not expect the council to engage in back and forth dialogue regarding the comments. At this time for the council to hear from the community. The city council seeks to be welcoming and inclusive towards all speakers at public meetings, and we strive to create an atmosphere of mutual care and respect. While community members may disagree with each other or the city on issues and may give critical feedback, they are expected to do so respectfully and without disruption.

Disruptions interfere with the ability of other persons other presentations in person or online in the meeting. Council members do not interrupt community members during their public comments, and we expect community members to offer the same courtesy to other speakers. Visitor comments are limited to either two or three minutes based on the time for each person. If follow-up is needed, our city manager, our recorder are here today. Since we do have time for three minute comments today, first up is Jacqueline Liddy.

Okay. Kylie Delgado. Evelyn Cochlear. I did see her in the back.

I'm a lifelong Beavertonian. I am here today to urge you to take urgent action regarding councilor Kimmy and councilor Hasson's proposed amendments to last week's codification of Beaverton sanctuary city laws. Last week, this council unanimously passed an ordinance codifying our sanctuary city laws in the city code, which I applaud. However, the only two councillors from immigrant backgrounds also brought forth a much more comprehensive document with necessary changes, among them enforcing traffic laws impartially, referring incidents with federal officers to the district attorney's office, keeping a log of nine eleven calls relating to Federal activity, and formalizing procedures for ISO documentation and interaction for City staff, including police. These changes were voted down by every other council member with a promise that a subcommittee will be formed to review these changes and the findings will be brought forward to reconsider at today's meeting.

I know that neither the mayor nor any other council member sets the agenda for these City Council meetings, without responsibility falling to the City Manager. I am nonetheless extremely disheartened to see that the revisiting of this amendment is nowhere to be found on tonight's agenda. As I have said multiple times before in front of this body, we cannot wait any longer to take action to protect our immigrant neighbors in Beaverton. The same sentiment was expressed multiple times in debate during the last council meeting by the councillors themselves. If there has been progress on this item in subcommittee, the public deserves to know.

And if there has been no progress, we deserve to know just the same. The policy positions brought forth in this amendment are common sense reforms brought forward by the community. We must track federal officials in our community, especially those breaking the law and using excessive force while performing their duties. We must enforce our traffic laws impartially. We must report these things to the Washington County District Attorney, as he alone has the power to charge these officers for breaking the law that the city does not.

I am disappointed to know that addressing these changes, which been fought for tirelessly by the community, is not on the agenda for tonight's meeting when it was promised that it would be. Whether left off intentionally or not, Beaverton still stands alone as the largest city in the Portland Metro Area to not allocate rainy day funds to families who have been affected by ice kidnappings. Last week, I was tear gassed in Portland when I put my body on the line to protest ICE's presence in our city. Friends and neighbors here have spent their time, money and effort chasing ICE out of our town and helping protect our neighbors. Just as I did two weeks ago, I once again ask all of you, can you look me in the eyes and tell me that you have done all that you can to protect Beaverton's immigrant community? Thank you.

Alyssa?

I press start?

I'm ready. Okay.

Hi. My name is Alyssa Cuellar, I'm a resident of Beaverton. I'm also the great granddaughter of first generation immigrants from Norway and Sweden. I'm here to speak for the nearly 20,000 Hispanic neighbors I have who call this city home, a quarter of our entire population. Also, I'm here as a mother. I have a seven year old son who was blessed to be half Mexican, and he is a part of this community. Right now, he's afraid. He's afraid to go to school, he's afraid to go to the park, he thinks he's going get kidnapped and taken away from me simply because of the color of his skin. He's afraid for his family, he's afraid for his friends. When a seven year old boy in Beaverton views our city as a hunting ground, this council has failed its primary duty to protect its people.

What we are seeing nationwide is innocent citizens caught in the crossfire of brutal immigration enforcement operations. When American citizens like Renee Goode, Alex Pretty, Keith Porter Junior are murdered in cold blood, or our neighbors are disappeared into a system without due process that is not law and order, this is state sponsored terrorism. When we aren't and we aren't talking about statistics, neighbors. We're talking about Victor Cruz, a long time Washington County resident and grandfather who was wrongfully profiled and detained despite having a work permit. We're talking about Paulino Martin, a Beaverton businessman and father of thirty years who was arrested while going to lunch and deported in three days without a warrant.

We're even seeing the unthinkable, a father arrested by masked agents in a preschool parking lot here in Beaverton dropping off his daughter and if we aren't safe in a preschool parking lot where are we safe? In October alone there was a 135 documented ICE arrests in Washington County accounting for half of the entire state's total. When our local police are seen as compliant with these operations, public safety collapses and trust is lost. Our government's primary mandate is the welfare of this community. You are not federal agents. You are our representatives. Every cent of our local tax revenue and every hour of our officers' times should go towards protecting our residents, facilitating destruction of our own community. This is no longer about politics, being not about being a democrat or republican. This is about being a human being and a community. If we can't agree that children should feel safe and families belong together, then we have lost our way as a society, and anyone who isn't angry isn't paying attention.

Oregon is supposed to be a sanctuary state, but the reality in Beaverton right now is that families are too scared to go to the grocery store, they're skipping doctor's appointments, they're staying home from work, and they're keeping their kids home from school. And when 25% of our city is forced to hide, our local economy suffers, and our moral fabric is shredded. A sanctuary that only exists on paper is not a sanctuary, it's a lie. In Leviticus nineteen thirty three to 34, it says, when a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native born.

Love them as yourself. And as our government, one nation under God, to claim the name of Christ while dehumanizing our neighbors is the height of hypocrisy. You can't love the creator and hate the people he created. You don't get to indulge in the culture's food, the traditions, the holidays, the music, benefit from immigrant labor, rely on immigrant communities to hold up entire industries, and then support systems that terrorize, dehumanize, and destroy the people who make these possible. I'm I'm asking Beaverton police and city hall whose side are you on? It's not enough to simply say you don't coordinate with ICE. Silence is permission. Non intervention is not safety. And if local police allow federal agents to operate without challenge, are complicit in the trauma of thousands, including my son and people like him. Reaffirm our sanctuary values, make it unmistakably clear that Beaverton will not look the other way while residents are profiled or brutalized.

Trust is only restored when people see their protectors actually protecting them, and every family in this city deserves to live without fear. Don't tell us your hands are tied while families are being untied. Thank you.

Mimi Dukas. Is she online?

Yes. She's online.

Good evening. Quick sound check.

We can hear you.

Great. Good evening, mayor, members of council. Appreciate your time this evening. I'm here on agenda item 10.1. First and foremost, I wanna thank the council and particularly the mayor for giving more consideration to this item, and we took you up on your offer.

We met with staff and walked through detailed recommended recommended revisions to the cross sections and why. So that was a helpful dialogue. Many of those comments did not make it into the staff report, but we do appreciate the four bullet point options for you to revise the cross sections. Those are mostly related to removing the frontage zones. The frontage zones still don't have a clear purpose, so I do think that is a way to get some efficiency back to those cross sections without a community loss.

So I do request that you incorporate those four four bullet point revisions into the proposed cross sections with one correction. Bullet point three should also include the community access collectors. There's two different types of collectors, and that, was missed. It also has the front end zone, so that would be consistent. The one,

piece

of feedback that we are a little frustrated with that did not get incorporated into the feedback was the neighborhood routes. The neighborhood routes for Cooper Mountain have added bike lanes. Those bike lanes are not included in South Cooper Mountain, so we've got local streets or neighborhood routes that are started in South Cooper Mountain, extend into Cooper Mountain, and won't have a consistent cross section. Those bike lanes are on low traffic streets with the neighborhood routes, and it limits access and driveway opportunities. So it's changing how the neighborhood is designed in exchange for those neighborhood routes.

So, again, there's there's an efficiency. There's a community design component to it, but that was one of the things that we had talked about that is important, particularly to Metropolitan Land Group. But we do thank you for your time and consideration, encourage you to adopt those four revised, bullet points outlined by staff with the one correction. And again, thank you for your time and leadership on this item. Thank you.

Thank you. Antonia? David?

Mayor and Counsel, I'm David Witter from the Lewis and Clark Chapter of the Sons of the American Revolution. I think you have in front of you a brochure and announcement of the dedication of the Revolutionary War Memorial that will be occurring on April 19, a Sunday afternoon. That's the two hundred and fifty first anniversary of Patriot's Day that that sound heard that sounds heard around the world with the Battle of Lexington and Concord. The memorial has been in the works for seventeen years and the city, the Legion Post one hundred twenty four and Tualatin Hills Park and Recreation District have all supported the construction of the memorial and it's finally happening. We dedicate we finished the pad for the memorial in October and on November 14, we had the President General of the Sons of the American Revolution here and Mayor Beatty was kind enough to join us for his site visit, but this is a very unique memorial for a number of reasons.

One, it's so far west, There are many memorials of course in the colonies, but we're out here in the wilderness. So this is very unusual in terms of its placement. It's here because the Veterans Memorial Park is dedicated to all veterans and some of our members seventeen years ago asked the question, where are our first veterans? And so that led to the construction of the memorial. We will be installing the three tablets and three benches that are part of the memorial at the March. And we'll look forward to having you all join us on April 19. Thank you.

Mark?

Good evening, Mayor, members of the council. I wanna start by saying, as a native New Englander, it's taking me everything I have not to talk about Sunday's game with who just spoke in front

of us.

But I'm not gonna do that. I'm here actually to talk as a representative of the Metropolitan

Especially Land if you're not gonna

be I know. Seen I know. Know.

What what the hell, man? One minute for this guy.

Just I couldn't I couldn't resist. The the outfit and everything. I mean, jeez. I'm here as a representative of Metropolitan Land Group. Several weeks ago, you directed staff to meet with members of the the business community, the builder and developer community, to talk about the design standards, Mimi Dukes just also spoke about.

So I just wanted to come back and, first of all, thank, the council for giving us that opportunity. The staff for meeting with us, Alyssa and team took time to meet with us and hear out feedback that we had. And while staff, was not interested in going the full length, of the path that we'd love to see, which would be to have the streets and the sidewalks and the bike paths in Cooper Mountain be just the same as South Cooper Mountain. What we do appreciate is that in the memo that you have on Page two, as Mimi suggested, there's four bullet points that staff offered up that if there was going to be potentially some shrinking of those design standards on the street cross section, that those would be four ways that you could pursue some type of compromise and show, frankly, to the builder and the developer community and the property owners of Cooper Mountain who that right of way is going to come from, a gesture of goodwill in maybe tweaking those design standards. And so I'll just end it there, and again, not talk about the Patriots, Mayor.

But we appreciate the time, appreciate staff's time. And later on the agenda item 10.1, you'll have a chance to hopefully adopt those recommended four bullet points. Thank you.

All right, next agenda item presentation from the Beaverton Downtown Association. And following that will be the consent agenda and then the work session for fiscal sustainability.

Sorry about that everybody. Is

this your first time in here?

Good evening, everyone. Thanks for having us. Mike is going to take the first slide.

Yes. I'm going do one quick slide here. Mayor Beatty, City Council, for the record. My name is Mike Williams, and I'm the Economic Development Manager for the City of Beaverton. Today, we're here to hear from the Beaverton Downtown Association, which has been a long term partner of economic development in the city as a whole.

I'd like to put the BDA's work in the context of our Economic Community Development Program. First and foremost, the BDA, helps fulfill many important aspects of our placemaking strategy for Downtown, which is their focus. Their presence as a national mainstream organization and focus on historic preservation, placemaking and economic development benefit both downtown businesses and Beaverton residents alike. I also think they have been a great partner in helping us to achieve many of, Bureau's numerous goals as well. So I think that's enough for me for now. And so let me introduce Christian Agard, board chair of the BDA.

Hi, everyone. Okay. So tonight, I'm gonna talk about our, achievements and impact of from this year, current projects, and then our upcoming events, and then we'll talk about some organos organizational changes that we went through, and and discuss why, and then touch on our new board members and leadership and why this matters to all of you. So it has been a wild, year. We achieved national accreditation from Main Street America.

We were the third city in Oregon to achieve this. They changed the standards, last year, it was very hard to reach, so we were very proud of that. Took six years. We also completed our second state historic building grant at the Fisher Rossi building, so we're happy that that is done. We did not have COVID during that one, so it seems like cake. And we also won two awards from the state of Oregon. Carina's Bakery won an award, then I won an award. So we actually were the we had won the most awards from the state of Oregon at that conference. It was great. And then we also completed the pollinator pathway.

We have 12 stops. It essentially connects public spaces with pollinator plants. We went a step further and chose all natives. So we started at the Beaverton library and worked our way over here. We also helped the streetlight.

We I think we submitted this proposal four or five years ago, and it finally happened. So we're very excited about the streetlights in Washington Street. Things don't move fast, of course, but, you know, we have a lot of volunteers that really spent a lot of time making sure that that happened, so thank you for working with us. Rapid response, so the snap food drive, we had a couple of businesses reach out to us that were interested in trying to do a food drive, and amazingly, we ended up with 12 businesses, and we collected 4,000 pounds of food in a week, which was amazing. And then our community events.

So we have won awards for our community events, and many, cities in Oregon are now copying our, kind of how we're structuring them and building them with volunteer led events. K. And these are our current projects. So under economic vitality, we have, really focused on technical support programs. We are launching a Google business profile support.

So our goal is to help 50 downtown businesses update their Google profiles, but also they're gonna get a three sixty photo of their business. Our long term goal is to have all of downtown businesses have three sixty photos. We have a three sixty downtown. So we are very excited about this. We have our first pilot group of 10 starting, I believe, next month.

Well, it is next month, February this month. So that is going on, and, we have two downtown business owners that are also help leading that project, so it's it's nice to have that leadership from other businesses, so it's not just BDA driven. We have been connecting downtown businesses to city programs, so a lot of times when something is gonna be rolled out or the city wants to talk to, you know, get business feedback, we have been connecting them, most recently for the loop. We connected them with six or seven different businesses, but we also made sure to advocate and, have them speak to businesses on Broadway Street who just went through the construction. So we made sure that that is hopefully gonna be taken into consideration when they kick off the loop.

Community engagement, we had 3,000 volunteer hours last year with about a 100 volunteers, including our youth council. We have 16 high school, students on our council currently. They go to five different, Beaverton area high school, and they are self driven, so they kicked all the grown ups off of the youth council, which is great. And they're they're currently building a continuity plan, so we're interested to see what that looks like because, of course, they graduate and move on. Dining Commons activation has been something that we are really passionate about.

We are going to be doing the beer games at the February, and we're having the closing ceremony is going to be at the Dining Commons. We also are planning on some really small activations like library is gonna come and do story time, so we're hoping to kick that off in March or April, and and just kinda see how that goes. Place and design, so the pollinator pathway was completed, but we would like to continue to expand on that. We are the sixth city in Oregon to have a certified pollinator pathway, and, we would like to continue to grow. Downtowns are perfect for this because, of course, we're in Oregon also, and we're lucky we have lots of plants.

The business owners were actually very excited about this, and, we had, I think, 10 of them asked to be part of it, so we didn't have to actually go after them. This year, we have a committee kicking off to try to get BCity USA. This has been on the BDA's plan for a while. It is not a small undertaking, but we have some amazing experts leading the the committee, including the b trainer for the state of Oregon. She lives in Beaverton.

So this is something I'm sure you will all hear about more soon. And then we are relaunching the after hours parking. Pre COVID, the BDA, did the after hours parking program. Our goal, is to relaunch that. It'll probably look a little bit different, but we want to try to get 50 additional parking spaces in downtown for after hours.

Okay. Upcoming events and activation. So I already kinda touched on Bureau Olympics. We're gonna benefit HomePlate. So all the proceeds are gonna go to HomePlate, which is important to us. We are really working on partnering more closely with them. They are struggling as probably most of you know. So every event, we're trying to figure out how we can tie work together and support them. So that's this is our first go with that. We have the downtown business mixer, so we're hosting that fly try in March, and that hopefully we have a good turnout for.

June 6 is Bovedash, so this is our fifth year of Bovedash. We had we sold out the last three years. Last year, we think we had about 3,000 people. It's pretty hard to tell, but that's our estimate. So it's gonna continue to grow every year, of course.

We are launching new small scale business led events, and so, we're gonna we're building out a process so the businesses can reach out to us in a more formal way to ask for support in, an event that they're planning. So an example would be the holiday market that Kinder home or they changed their name. Sorry. Kinder put on in November. The BDA really helped support by connecting with promotions and finding volunteers if they needed them and those types of things.

So we're gonna continue to do that. I already kind of touched on the expansion of focusing on how we can support our nonprofits and and businesses. So right now, our committees that make sense, we we do have a business owner on every committee, so that's been nice to see, and it was not easy to pull off. So we're really happy about that. And then we're really gonna continue to just focus on inclusive family friendly programming, which is what we've been doing the last five years.

So okay. We changed our structure this, I guess, January is when it was official, and I wanted to kinda talk about why. So the work has grown a lot more complex, and it's it's more project based. The last three years, we have gone through four different executive directors, but we still finished all of our projects and hit all of our goals, and we did not miss any deadlines. And I think that says a lot about why it makes sense to just go project based, probably not just a whole large organization on one person.

And the volunteer in board capacity has been used a lot more strategically in the last, I would say, year or so. The board part of the new board recruitment was, you know, we we really made sure that the people who wanted to join knew that they were gonna have to actually do things, not just show up to meetings and vote. And so every, board member currently is a sponsor for our projects that are going on, which has been really great and worked out amazingly. The executive director model is not sustainable long term in my opinion. Many cities in Oregon are struggling with this.

There has been major turnover in pretty much every city, and if not, it's because the person running, or in the executive director role, tend to be people who are retired and are not doing it for money. So, I think part of the challenge is just the pay is is, low for a nonprofit. Of course, it's gonna be low, but I think that's part of the the challenge is that it is a huge job, and I don't know that very many people could do it successfully, except for maybe one, Kevin. So, yeah, we really needed to restructure because it was just not working, and we spent a lot of time work working with Main Street Oregon, National Main Street USA because this is actually going on everywhere. This is not just a Beaverton Mhmm.

Issue. This is happening across across the nation. And so people are really trying to figure out what makes the most sense, and so this is what we came up with. City staff also worked with us tirelessly, so thank you, everyone. So this is the previous structure.

So we had the board of directors. They oversaw the executive executive director, director, and and then then the the executive executive director oversaw all the programs, all the operations, four committees, volunteers, all the things. It was way too much for one person, unless you're special like Kevin. And so now we have the board of directors is overseeing the business outreach role, so this role is really gonna focus just on supporting businesses, building relationships, and being their sound sound box hopefully. We just hired Marilyn, She is here.

She's great. And then we also have an admin role, and so they're gonna do more of the reporting, those types of, you know, all the admin things. And we just hired him also, so he's also here, Robert. And and the committees and projects. So every committee has two two project leads for every committee and, like I said, a board board sponsor. So it is pretty well structured in my opinion. We will see how this goes. Everything has been documented really well. We have, you know, clear handoffs, and we've really been working on continuity planning for probably two or three years. So that's where we're at with that.

These are our five new board members, and then Ruben has been on the board, previously. I've been trying to get him to be the vice chair for three years. He finally agreed. So, yeah, I I'm really excited. They all have really strong backgrounds. They're all very diverse. They all are very committed to Beaverton, and they all have jumped in and are already, like, taking on projects, and it's been amazing. They started pretty much, they were all voted on for in January. So okay. So the reason why I think this matters to the city, we are the the nonprofit that could.

We we don't have a lot of money. We don't our budget is not huge, but the things that we've pulled off, I I think, are incredible. We could not have done it without, you know, partnership from city councilors, the city, Beaverton police have helped us with a lot of events. So, you know, this is not us doing it on our own. I think that we could not pull off what we could without, the support of everyone else.

We really are strong stewards of public and grant funds. We have done a great job, I think, in getting, grants in a time that is very hard to get, and of course, it's gonna continue to be harder. But I don't think that that's gonna go away. Our our board is really committed to continuing to find ways of diversifying our funding, so that's one of our goals this year. Increasing capacity without increased overhead, which is almost unheard of.

We are still doing we're still gonna be doing the same amount of events. We still have really active committees, and we continue to find incredible community members willing to give their time and energy into making Downtown Beaverton better. Clear communication execution. So this when we did the restructure, I I met with multiple partners just to kinda talk through, like, this is what we're thinking, this is why, including the city manager, city staff, city councilors, a couple of you. You know, I think it's important that we talk about what we do, and we do not thrive on that.

I would say we really are trying to support other people, so I I think that the BDA has been a secret for kind of a long time. So we're we're gonna really try to communicate more about the achievements that we accomplish and, and better alignment with our city goals. So when we restructured and made the the two roles, we, really made sure that, you know, what what their job, titles are gonna be and and their responsibilities fit within, you know, different projects that the city is working on. So okay. So yeah.

So our commitment which has not changed, this has been our commitment since I started six years ago, accountability, sustainability, partnership, and and really helping build an inclusive economic vitality. Thank you all for your support.

Questions? Awesome. Thank you. We also thank Kevin's special. I know. So thanks for pointing that out. Sorry I can't be at the Beer Olympics, he's gonna take my place because it's my kiddos first slumber party that we've heard about every single day since we've been planning it. And I do appreciate that you're gonna throw a boba dash on my birthday. My favorite cake is chocolate, and I will see you there. I guess you guys wanna talk too. Alright. Kevin. I'm sorry. Comes to president.

Thank you. Thanks for this. I wanna acknowledge there's been a lot of change. I mean, I've been on the ground level with you on a lot of these conversations. It's hard. You you you guys put the turnover in the executive directors. I just wanna acknowledge that. Like, it has been hard on board members. It's been hard on staff. It's been hard on our businesses. Right? So I wanna I wanna acknowledge the work, and I wanna thank you for being receptive to change. That is that can be a hard hard thing to hear. And you guys have approached it with grace. And I'm I'm particularly excited about the business outreach coordinator.

And I see you back there. Hi. Yeah. Welcome. I think that's gonna be really critical because for me as a city councilor, there are thousands of businesses in in this city and there are probably more than a 100 downtown. And so I I try and show up for everything but I cannot be everywhere at every time. And I one of the critical links, and I think that you all will provide, is input to us on what is working and what is not working. And I'm super excited about that. I think that's an opportunity and that feeds into a lot of the other things you're talking about on connection, clear, clear channels between the city and between this. So, I'm I'm super excited about it.

Really appreciate all the work. You know, this is this is a hard reset for us in in the BDA in downtown and and as a resident of downtown too. You know, I I stumble onto events sometimes that I, you know, that that are happening. It's a really exciting time to be downtown, but I also know it's also a difficult time to be downtown. A lot of our businesses are hurting, Right? This is it seems like it's a really good economy. It's not. Not downtown. It really is. Some of our our small businesses are struggling. And I think this is the right time to bring in this outreach coordinator and to really align because I think that's an opportunity for us to really really start working directly with these businesses, get feedback and work on this as a city too. So again, thank you for all the work and and I'm really excited about it.

I know you were looking at Allison when you said the economy was really bad. I think she she knows. Councilor Dieter.

Thank you, Christian, Mike, BDA team for being here. I also wanna acknowledge the changes that happened over the past several years and turnover in staff and organizing, like, that was a harder role than even being on city council because there was so much to it. And so we are working on our economic development strategic plan right now, and a big part of that is place making. And so I'm excited that we have the BDA to work through this. And as long as we're meeting our goals with our with our place making economic development part of that strategy.

That's what I'm looking for, so, like, creative ways that we can do that. I I welcome this. Mhmm. I've seen mainstream programs across Oregon that are struggling, like you said, just struggling to retain the staff to do the work. We do have current board members here and staff. We also have previous board chair, Rhonda Reister, the back, CU. There's there's a lot of legacy for people who have served and supported downtown over the years even if they're not in downtown all the time. There are a lot of people who really love it. I think that's about all I wanna say. I just wanna lean to the that place making aspect of it.

Like, we have the the chamber and Impact Beaverton for economic development support. We have a nonprofit business incubator with the Oregon Startup Center. But the BDA is filling a different hole. So I'm excited for how we can keep working together to move a lot of that work forward.

Councilor Tipnon.

Well, you two just took the words right out of my mouth. So I'll just reiterate a couple of things. The very first time I met Councilor Teeter was in his role as executive director and it was my first introduction to BDA. And and did a very good job of articulating exactly what the mission was, but that mission evolves over time. And the constraints, I think, that the way that you're pivoting is really smart.

Though having served on boards, it's that's it's a lot to to ask of the board members. So my hats off to you for everything you've been able to pull off on a very small budget with a lot of impact on the other side of that. I would also say that this area, it's the oldest area of Beaverton. It's got an old footprint to it, smaller streets in some cases, and smaller sidewalks in some cases, and really unique architecture. And there's so much vibrancy that comes with that, but there's also constraints, and there's a whole lot of development happening in that area.

So I'll just double down on what they said that we also you know, you're a convener of some of the most critical people in the area, which is the businesses. And hearing from them is always always valuable as we're making decisions and and love that that you can be one of those conveners to help help us get clarity on the issues, make sure that we're making good choices. Thank you.

Councillor Kimmy.

Thank you, Kristen. I think this is the first time I've seen you or met you. I think first time I came across BDA was when Kevin was also executive board. That's when I first heard about it. I know I had business in downtown for over twenty three years, and I've never heard never heard of a PDA until that time.

But then at the same time, I I didn't hear about PDA until we have a budget cycle coming along. So, and I'm the only person who has a business in downtown, used to live in downtown. I really want PDA to be successful. And every business over there about three years ago, when we had bars coming in and restaurant world coming in, people started coming there talking about how how people are changing. We got awesome restaurants.

But I don't hear that chatter that much anymore. I love to see future activation of how you're to bring the crowd on the nights and weekends. Would love to see that happening and love to be engaged PDA a lot more with the small businesses you have. One thing about PDA Downtown businesses is that many of them are minority owned and how minority build relationship is different. They don't come just because you announced and have email blast.

You have to have build relationships And then when the bill when you build a trust, that's when they engage you, start helping out. So I hope to see that in in the future. Many years to go go along. Thank you.

Thank you for joining us today. Oh, I'm sorry, I was just done with the comment that Edward's never met Kristen, so.

I just really

wanted Kevin's name.

That's all. Okay. We're playing Kevin bingo

today. Sorry.

Hope you have

your card.

Thanks.

Awesome. Thank you.

Thank you.

Council president, consent, please.

I move to approve the council consent agenda and the contract review board consent agenda.

Second. It's been moved by the council president and seconded by councilor Tipton. Any discussion on the motion? Seeing none, will the recorder call the roll?

Councilor Duggar?

Yes.

Counselor Hartmeier Prigg? Yes. Vannia Counselor Hassan?

She's excused.

Vannia Okay. Counselor Kimmy?

Yes.

Vannia Counselor Teeter?

Vannia Yes.

Councilor Tivnan? Yes. Mayor Beatty?

Yes. Six yes, zero no, one absent. Alright, thank you. Will, the fiscal sustainability people. You're up. Thank you.

Alright. Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Elizabeth Coffey, assistant city manager. And I'm here tonight to give you an update on, fiscal sustainability efforts, specifically, the local option levy. And next slide, please. So tonight, we're gonna give a quick overview of our fiscal sustainability action plan. I know you're all very familiar with it. We've had several conversations, but just for anyone who's in the audience or watching tonight who's kind of joining us, midway through the conversation, we'll give a quick recap and provide some context. Then we'll go over public safety levy research and then talk through options for next steps. Next slide, please.

So the policy questions that, we're asking of counsel tonight, we're looking for feedback on two proposed options. The first is to delay the local operating levy that counsel's been discussing to May 2027. And the second option is that we can continue, as we had planned towards the May 2026 operating levy. Next slide, please. So but first, we'll go over a quick review of our fiscal sustainability action plan, starting with, why is this needed?

So we've talked a lot about, property taxes here in the state of Oregon, and property tax revenue, makes up more than half of the city's general fund, income. In Oregon, measures five and fifty greatly restrict our property tax growth, which creates pressure on local governments to maintain funding for essential public services. As you can see here on the screen, each dollar of property taxes is divided up in several ways, not only between the city and Washington County, but also the variety of special districts that we have here in Beaverton. And as a result, many folks don't know that Beaverton only receives 21¢ of every dollar in property taxes. Over time, city expenses beyond our control, such as health care costs, retirement costs, and cost of living increases have grown faster than the property tax revenue that we have coming in, and that has led to a structural deficit in our general fund, which provides, the funding for really foundational city services like public safety and many others.

Next slide, please. So recognizing this in 2022, council approved a fiscal sustainability action plan to address the city's, deficit in the general fund. Over the past three years, most actions have focused on expense, reductions rather than revenue generation. To date, the city has reduced general fund expenses by $9,000,000 and eliminated 32 staff positions, meeting 90% of the expense reduction goals that were set out in the plan. Next slide, please.

So over the last few months, we've been talking with City Council updating the fiscal sustainability action plan, to focus on short, medium, and long term actions. You can see here on the screen, there's several options that we are considering in the short term, including the local option levy, which we're gonna talk more about tonight, a potential, services fee, transportation utility fee, transient lodging tax potential increase, an evaluation of our business license fees, and then a soft hiring freeze, and some budget balancing strategies, including looking closely at our service priorities and reserve targets. We do have a note here on the screen, why are we exploring revenue? And some sometimes we get questions, from members of the community about, hey. If you have a deficit, why don't you just tighten your belts, and why don't you just cut your expenses?

And expense reduction continues to be a very important part of our strategy as we talk about fiscal sustainability. But our deficit is very significant, and the breadth of that deficit means that just cutting our way out of it is problematic. We're looking at both revenue and expense reductions. As an example, our staff are funded in a variety of different ways. Some are funded 100% through the general fund, and, others of us are funded their the cost is spread out through a variety of different funds across the city.

And so depending on how staff are funded, a $10,000,000, cut, could be anywhere from 42 to 75 staff positions. That would have a significant impact on the services that we deliver to the community. And we know, thanks to a recent community survey and some voter engagement that we've done, that our, residents really highly value the services that we provide. So, again, we will be looking at budget reductions, but just wanted to touch on briefly for those members of the community that might be tuning in, why we are also exploring revenue options like a potential local option levy. Next slide, please.

So speaking of the levy, moving on to public safety, levy outreach. Next slide, please. So, we in January 2026, we did voter engagement with likely voters here in the city. And the results of that we that we found is that satisfaction with city services is very high. 73 of respondents are satisfied with the quality of city services, and the majority of respondents, rated the city highly on response times for nine one one calls and enforcing laws against crime.

So that's great news. On the other hand, voters seem to feel like things are going well, and they are unaware that the city is facing a financial crisis. 57% of voters feel like the city has enough funding. When we specifically asked likely voters about, a potential levy, the initial support was, pretty lukewarm at about a third of voters, that expressed some level of support. We then talked, to voters about some of the different things that levy funding could be used for, such as just our general 911 emergency response, mental health crisis response, and, increasing our transparency through keeping our body worn cameras, up to date.

But even with those convincing messages, the support did not move significantly. Our final support at the end of that outreach remained low at 42, percent. Next slide, please. So we engaged with a political consultant who is experienced in, this type of voter outreach as well as strategic communications. And their recommendation upon reviewing the results of our outreach is that the city should consider to, pause our efforts and try again in May 2027.

So their assessment is that the base of support that is demonstrated through the outreach that we've done is not strong enough to guarantee passage of the levy, and that we have a little bit of an uphill battle, and that we should focus instead on education. They recommended to us, May 2027 as opposed to November 2026, because in November, it's a more crowded, political landscape, which makes it more, difficult to educate voters. There's a lot of competition. And, our voter outreach shows that those kind of less consistent voters are the most supportive, and so there's really not a guarantee of unfavorable turnout versus May 2027, likely would have less competition. And while it is difficult to predict the turnout for May, the consistent voters are the most supportive of the measure in the outreach that we've done so far, which leads us to believe, we might have a more favorable, audience at that time.

Next slide, please. The consultant also had a number of recommendations for us to focus on as we move forward, with outreach. They suggested that we really focus on quality services, so, protecting our emergency response services, supporting the mental health response team, and emphasizing transparency through body worn cameras are all things that voters expressed, interest in. Our consultants also suggested that we should really clarify what a levy would mean, in very tangible outcomes. So whether it's maintaining response times or up to date equipment, being very clear, and then acknowledging the impact, acknowledging that times are tough, there might be some economic uncertainty, and this decision has not been made lightly.

The consultant also suggested that we really emphasize the value of the investment, and the monthly household impact compared to the value of services is helpful context to emphasize. And then storytelling, using real and local stories and scenarios is also a helpful strategy, and then really stressing accountability, ensuring that those funds will be used in the way that we say that they will be used, and then really considering the messenger. I'm using trusted messengers like the folks that, are delivering, services directly to the community is typically an effective strategy. So next slide. We've given that, research, we're here to talk to counsel today about options for next steps.

So I'll walk you through two different options. The first, is to delay the local operating levy to May 2026. In terms of our fiscal year twenty twenty six, twenty seven budget strategy, we were not going to be assuming a levy revenue in the, proposed budget, due to the uncertainty around its passage, to begin with. So it doesn't really significantly change our budget strategy. We would still be exploring the monthly services fee that council has expressed interest in, and I would anticipate being able to come back to you either later this month or early March with a work session to give you more information about that fee.

As I mentioned, we will still explore strategic reductions, and then we will be looking at what onetime revenue would be prudent for us to use as we continue to work on these complex challenges. We would still continue our community conversations, as we had planned, for the levy, but we would just focus them generally on fiscal sustainability. We actually had one of those forums, last night, and we have two more coming up. If folks are interested in attending, those dates are on our website. And then we would develop an ongoing outreach campaign based on consultant recommendations, to really build awareness around the city's financial situation and challenges and the value of the services that we're delivering.

If council chooses this option, the next steps, as I mentioned, we would be coming back to you for a work session around the services fee, continuing that community outreach. In March, we have already planned to come back to you, for prioritization workshop to talk through the services that we offer, what are required, what are operationally necessary, and what the impact of potential reductions on services might be. In April, we will be targeting council adoption of a services fee so that we could plan on that in the 'twenty six, 'twenty seven budget. In May and June, we would do outreach around the fee, and then in summer, start to really, work on developing that community support for a potential future levy if that's the direction that council would like to go. Next slide, please.

So as you think about option one, there's some things to consider. There are some positives. Levy revenue was not forecast in the fiscal year 2627 proposed budget. This does allow more time for community education. We have heard from community members through this voter outreach that they've are not necessarily supportive of this at this time, and it does also phase in the impact of the two revenue tools that council is considering.

For considerations, we will need to rely on some temporary one time revenue, rather than a structural solution for this fiscal year. And then we will also, in the future, we'll need to consider what our strategy is if we embark upon this enhanced outreach campaign and, the future voter, outreach results remain the same. Moving on to option number two, a council could consider moving forward with the May 2026 operating levy. This really doesn't change our budget strategy because, as I mentioned, we'll continue to build the budget around, not having the levy. And if we were to move forward with a levy and it did pass, that's a great problem to have to have to add some revenue back in.

If we were to move forward with the levy, we have talked with counsel, at a previous work session about a couple different options for how to focus the levy. Given the results of the, voter outreach we've conducted, the mental health response team that provides crisis response and the, body worn camera, investment are things that, resonated well with voters. So we would recommend including those in the, package, and that would bring net revenue to the general fund of $3,300,000 We would still be continuing to pursue the monthly services fee and the things that were mentioned on the previous slide with option number one, but we would need to add in some additional next steps. February 17, I would come back to counsel with a draft ballot measure. We would have a vote on that February 24.

The reason for that tight timeline is that we do have to allow for a challenge period, once calend council adopts, the draft ballot measure, so that we can send it to the county by March 19, which is the filing deadline. After that, safe harbor restrictions begin. Staff can certainly continue to do outreach, but it does need to be informational in nature and needs to be signed off on by the, secretary of state elections office. So there are some considerations, for option number two. The positives is that, the polling has certainly provided us some data and what messages resonate well, and that's very helpful to have.

And then, of course, the obvious, positive, if it passes, revenue will be available for fiscal year 2627. Things for council to think about as we make this decision, the legislature at the state is in their short session right now, and there are discussions about a possible straight state transportation ballot measure in May 2026, which would provide us with, some additional noise in the election season. One thing to think about also is that if the levy were to fail, most jurisdictions that then go out and try a second time, do decrease the amount of the levy in the hopes of getting it passed. Doesn't mean that that's what we would have to do if the levy were to fail, but it is something to think about. There the biggest consideration is really the time crunch that we're in.

There is a significant time commitment that's required from staff, from council, and from the community, given the voter outreach that shows us we have a lot of education work to do to really build up support for a potential levy, and there's a very short time period ahead of us to write the draft ballot measure and conduct that campaign. And if the levy fails and there's no noticeable decrease in city services, that may impact future passage, of a potential levy. So to sum it up, we're looking for your feedback on those two proposed options about whether we should, move forward as planned with the May 2026 levy or if we should consider delaying until May 2027. And with that, that ends my, presentation today, and I'm happy to take your questions and hear your feedback. Thank you.

Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg.

Thank you, Elizabeth, and everyone that helped put this together with you. So we, at our annual retreat, we felt pretty aligned and pretty clear right where we're heading. We had lots of great work sessions specifically designed around our fiscal sustainability. And I at the at the time, we felt really strongly about moving forward with this May. We didn't have polling at the time.

And given the polling information and just everything laid out in tonight's agenda packet, I am in favor of option one of delaying the local operating levy to May 2027. I I also think that it's fascinating to me to see the polling say that this that our residents are genuine genuinely really impressed and happy in the the service levels. And maybe for us local government nerds that live it day to day, and we know how hard it is, and we know that we've been living this challenging budget environment for years that's kinda hard to believe. But that also tells me that staff has been just phenomenally showing up through this really challenging time. So an acknowledgment to city staff for taking care of Beaverton through this really, really hard time.

And, additionally, we have a lot of storytelling to do because we have reached the bottom of the barrel on what can be cut. We, you know, we really don't have much more that we can go in that direction. I think we've really exhausted our resources, and we know that increased revenue is a really, really important tool right now. I wanna see us have the most success and, like, have the best chances of passing this and knowing how expensive it is for a city to run a ballot measure and the effort that it will take given the short amount of time. Think it's our best option is to delay until next year.

Council president.

Thank you, mayor. I'm in agreement with councilor Hartmeier Prigg and I hate that. Absolutely. Not not that I hate that I'm in agreement with you. I hate the the fact that I'm recommending that we push this back. I wanna first acknowledge, because I think councilor Hartmeier Prigg, this sucks for our staff. They deserve better. They deserve all of my you have all of my respect. And and it's it's not fair. You know, I if I could just pay for myself, I would.

I I I can't. There's a lot of uncertainty in this one. You know, I don't it's really easy for me to sit here and say, let's delay it and work on this. But like, I haven't seen the budget and I know it's gonna be ugly. Right?

Like, it's gonna be it's been ugly. It's gonna be even uglier this year probably. We can fill what we can with one time one time monies and maybe stop some of the bleeding, but this is a revenue problem. And for those folks out watching this, the two of you or the three more who might watch it in the next couple months, I think I've gotten a reputation of being someone here who's, like, fiscally concerned. I've been on budget committee for years before I came on this council.

We've cut and we are gonna cut some more, but this is painful And this will be for staff that do not deserve cuts. These are hardworking professionals that that deserve our support and our investment, and we're gonna have to make more cuts. And that is is not a not a decision I wanted to make when I ran for office. I think I speak for all of us when we say that none of us signed up to cut cut positions, and we've already cut thirty thirty something, and they'll probably likely be more. And these are good public servants that do not deserve this. But the polling is what it is. You know, it is like our residents. I I want us to take the next year and be really, really intentionally serious. Like, we can't talk about talking to people. We have to do the work.

I'm signing up for every bit of outreach that I can do. I think that's incumbent upon all of us on this dais. It's incumbent upon everyone out there that cares about this. We've gotta do this work because we I don't think there's a scenario where we can delay this more than a year. I just do not think that's a possibility. I'm also I'll be honest, I'm nervous about our special district partners. Right? They've gone for every single one of them have gone for operating levies because the League of Cities has said 90% of cities in Oregon, nine zero, 90% are facing structural bankruptcy in the next ten years. This is not a low this is not a problem unique to Beaverton. It is not something that that that frankly the state has given us many tools to solve.

Right? We we get constant and I don't remember the exact number, but for the five of you who will watch this over the next few months, like our health care costs are are outside of our control. Our PERS costs are outside of our control, and that's probably half of our deficit every year. Comes from things that are outside of our control, maybe even more. And so this is not a spending problem. This is not Beaverton building beautiful build buildings and doing stuff like that. This is this is a structural problem, and we need your help, and and we need community engagement to do this. I'm willing to delay it one more year. But it is painful, and I just acknowledge to to staff that that the the pain of this is gonna fall on you, and I'm I'm genuinely sorry for that.

Councilor Teeter.

Yeah. I've got several comments. Thanks. Elizabeth, you mentioned during the presentation some of the external factors that we're working with, such as measures five and fifty of the state that limit the property tax revenue that that local government can collect dating back to the rates set in the nineteen nineties. And so we're feeling a lot of the pain and pressure that's been building up for thirty years.

I really wanna emphasize that a lot of what couple of my colleagues have already said. We've made a lot of cuts and we're working with dramatically increasing costs over the past several years, and we've been able to do a very good job preserving services for the most part. We have cut about 30 positions. I do wanna say that most of those have not been filled at the time of their cutting, and even when they have, we've usually been able to find positions within the city to to keep those people on staff. Our staff and management have worked really hard to to make that to make that happen.

I also wanna say that the funds we do receive at as a city, a lot of them are dedicated for specific purposes, so I think there's some confusion in the community that we'll have to work on with our storytelling. So, like, our water rates has to be used for water infrastructure. Our street maintenance is primarily funded by the the state gas tax, which is continually dwindling and is under threat of being just withdrawn entirely by the state. So we can do our street maintenance, but we're gonna have to do do some sort of transportation fee to actually be able to pay for our streets, especially if the state keeps cutting what we need to do that. Our general fund is the is the area of the most flexibility, but we've made a lot of the cuts there.

And and so we're really really digging deep. I just wanna acknowledge that and I think when we're doing our storytelling and and messaging with the community, just really hitting home with that, like, we wanna be able to keep these services that people really care about. I will also say, I fully believe we need a levy. I will back a levy 100%. If there was a majority of counsel right now that said we needed to go for a levy this May, I would say, okay, I will back it 100% because we need it and I we cannot afford to lose it.

Don't wanna go out for a levy this May. I wanna do it next May. But I say that just stressing the urgency, like, we can't afford to fail with this. Only have so much energy and and time as an organization and as a community to really digest this sort of information. And so I I don't feel excited about spending that on what looks like a losing levy campaign this May, but we need a levy. And I wanna go for the one that has the best shot, which hopefully is next May.

Councilor Tipnone.

Remember when I was running for this seat the first time, the best advice that I got, because I was really intimidated by the whole process of campaigning and all of that, was what it really comes down to is having really good endorsements from people that the community trusts that back you and say, yes. You should vote for this person and a really good voters' pamphlet statement. They're like, all the yard signs in the world can't replace those two things. And it just gets me back to this idea of what is really good communication. And I think I I think it was, councilor Hartmeyer Priggs saying, like, we've been talking about this for so long.

And to us, it's like, how can people not know about this? Don't doesn't everyone tune in to the city council meetings? But they don't. And most of our residents are in the dark on a lot of what happens in here. Even during visitor comment, we hear a lot of, feedback to us, and and then we move on to other parts of the agenda. And as soon as it starts to get a little dry, you start to see people leave and you're like, no, stay. So you can really really get the full picture here. I am the the one saying I I think we should do it. And the reason why isn't because I think we can win it. I think we can.

I think that there is a pathway to winning the levy in this year. But I think it has to happen through being very bold in our language. And I don't mean inflammatory or alarmist or having crazy flyers that are going into people's homes that are meant to scare them. But I think that we have been a little softball in the way that we've described this. We've been very academic in it.

We've broken it down into the statistics. And I think for a lot of people, it kinda goes right over their head. And then they walk out their front door, and they're like, well, the streets are smooth, and it's safe, and it's beautiful, and we've got a thriving business community, and what's the problem? But there are some really big things that we're gonna have to get rid of. And even if that levy passes in the next cycle, those are things we might not get back even with the money restored, if that's the right way to put it.

I don't know if we would win, but what kind of message does it send if we don't? There's an urgency here. It's vitally urgent. We are we are losing dollars that really do go someplace right now. And and those places, once we lose them, do they get restored is a question that I don't think any of us have the answer to.

So if if the majority of the council wants to wait on this one, my only ask would be that we start campaigning tomorrow and we start getting really good at graphic design because I think a lot of people are gonna get the message through infographics and and and a lot of really good messaging that just talks turkey with them about what this means for us. So I'll stop there.

Thank you. Councilor Kimmy.

Well, I thought I was gonna be the only one who was gonna say we should go for it. But, know, surprise. When you hired a consultant, did they consider our financial situation?

No. They were really looking at, you know, what is the voter sentiment and what is the likelihood that the levy would pass or or not pass. And so that was really what we had kind of tasked them with is is really analyzing that voter sentiment and and looking at the potential electorate that might be turning out to vote.

Right. Actually, that's what I was wondering, where if they actually knew our financial situation right now, maybe their recommendation might be a little bit different. They could still come up with the same thing, but not many people know our full context of our situation. And also, on one of the slides said November 26, that's not right, right? It's May 26.

I'm sorry, say that again.

One of the slides in the presentation had November 26 on it.

Yeah. So, when the consultant recommended that we take a pause on the efforts and delay, we did ask them, well, should we delay to November 2026? Or would we be better off delaying until May 2027? And so they had looked at the potential turnout for November 2026, and May 2026 and recommended that May would be the better option in terms of the turnout and who typically shows up to vote and what's typically on the ballot. Financially speaking, that would not make a difference.

We will receive the revenue at the same time. And that's also, you know, if the council, decides eventually, you know, to delay the levy. You don't have to decide tonight if it's November or May. We're just looking for general direction on go or no go at this point.

Right. There's a reason why I said we should go for it early as possible is that because of of our financial situation in a way that where where is the one time funding coming from?

So we typically have some level of underspend that we are currently analyzing with a different consultant who's looking at our general fund forecast. And so we do tend to be a little bit conservative, right, when we're building the forecast and budgeting as you should be. But we are analyzing if there's any kind of wiggle room in there, in terms of underspend, or do we really have some trends going back some years that would indicate we could maybe utilize a little bit more underspend than we typically do? So, for example, last year, we assumed about a $5,000,000 underspend, and we used that to whittle the deficit down. They're also looking at our revenue sources and flagging some areas outside of property taxes where maybe we've come in a little bit more than we have anticipated to see if there's some potential there.

And then we do have some other potential, kind of different layers of reserve where we could potentially pull some of that onetime money from there and also, still meet the target that we have set for our ending fund balance. So, I don't have a specific dollar figure, but those are all of the things that we're evaluating right now is what would be a responsible use of those onetime funds, versus what kind of reductions might we make, and also what could we bring in through the monthly services fee.

Okay. Reason that I was going for this May or possibly November is that if if it doesn't pass, right, we still have to go through reductions. Maybe one time will buy us a little bit of time. But if you fail but if we wait and then fail in November '27 or May '27, then we really have to crunch down and downsize and have drastic measures. Right?

Right. And so the budget for this coming fiscal year will contain cuts as if the levy did not exist. Right, and some onetime revenue. And so, you know, if council does adopt a monthly services fee, for example, this spring, and let's say in May 2027, we decide to go out for the levy and it fails, and council will need to have some hard decisions to make, whether we need to make further, cuts, do we need to evaluate other revenue tools or existing revenue tools? And so that would be the conversation that we would have with council at that time.

Yeah. Thank you for that. We kind of knew when I first got elected that this was going to come. We talked about levy since about two, three years ago. Right? And then we've been working at it. We decided that we should go for levy last retreat that we had. I mean, it's a short amount of time and but we were waiting for others others to go first and we thought this May was our time of your crunch with the time. We weren't prepared, I should say. We had two, three years to get this ready, but we weren't ready.

And now we're to delay it because we are not ready for it, right? And we have no way to know. Do you expect certain levy or certain bond to come along in May '27?

It's a little bit early to tell. It's possible there may be some, bonds or levies from the Beaverton School District because the those are coming up on their expiration date. That's not anything, you know, official. That's more just speculation at this point. We will also have competition this May, right from THPRD, and then potentially the state. And so there's never really, I guess, I would say a perfect, time, to go out, and that's one of the reasons we've really been using the kind of voter outreach data to say, hey, what are our odds of success look like at this moment in time?

That that that's why we're we are cutting we are raising fees. Right? Raising all the business, water, utilities, whatever, right? We're raising fees and state is coming up, we're coming up with raising fees again. And on top of it, if you wait and everybody start paying, they're getting upset, And then we come up with 27 with levy, more property taxes, I think people will be more upset.

So, and our final situation cannot afford us to fail in basically. So that is why I was going for this May or possibly November. Right? I don't know the political what the political story would look like, but and I explained that I'd rather get the beating now, get prepared, get better prepared for the future because we never get the we we can never get the time right and then nobody's willing to just, okay, raise my taxes and raise my fees. School is a really big competition because everybody loves school and they want to help out the school, but city has a different story.

So, that is why I was trying to say I want to go for May or November of this year because we want to really have a big push and like what Councillor Tiblon was saying, people respond to infographics more than lots of words. I know a lot of city staff want to see read it through, but people like to see big signs dollar. Right? Big, huge message. So I think we if we push now, people who's gonna vote yes, we vote yes.

People who's gonna vote no, they're gonna vote no. Right? And then we have a second chance coming along in in the next year. So, that's why I was proponent of our favor of this year going off a levy.

Thank you. There's a couple true things. Beaverton is an amazing place to live. Livability just ranked us the number two best place to live in the entire Western United States. Beaverton is solving problems like on street homelessness We are Helping create a thriving business community We have gone through massive transformation of change of government, and people are paying attention to Portland because they're bigger, but we had the exact same issues, and probably broader felt here with a staff that had worked for a strong mayor that transitioned city management.

And we have done a lot in five years. We have focused a lot internally on building staff resiliency, getting our counselors to a place of understanding of their roles and responsibility, hiring our interim city manager, first full time city manager, and helping us through those transition. And then in the middle of that, COVID. Ice storms, both from the federal government and from God, and, heat domes, and every other crisis that we have felt in this moment. We have built a homeless shelter at no cost to Beaverton residents.

We have created a nonprofit incubator. We have raised 100 almost a $100,000,000 of federal funding to fortify our water system to make sure that water is drinkable for not my daughters and their children in the future. What we've not done well is communicate the value of our city to the residents, And I have long felt that way, which is why I worked with Bloomberg Hargford to bring as a communication expert paid by them for two full years. There are two people on this dais that have run incredibly racist incredibly hard racist. There are these two right here.

I've ran against two incumbents. Ashley ran four times in a row in three months and barely squeaked it out. So while I I appreciate my colleagues' desire to just toss it on the ballot and hope for the best, My discernment and judgment of running races in Beaverton and the polling and where we are, we can't move forward and just haphazardly throw something on the ballot. And I agree with you on infographics. You know how much I like them.

There is no infographic in the world that is gonna demonstrate the value of this city and the time crunch we are in right now. And so as much as it pains me, we're not ready to move forward with this. We need to bring our community alongside of us. To those that just think beaver like, the government needs to tighten their belt. If your expenses could only grow 3% a year, how many years could you just tighten your belt? We're beyond that. There's no pork. We're at the bone. We've cut positions, and it's gonna be harder. It's why Elizabeth and I fiercely fought on the library budget to make sure that every penny that taxpayers put into that came back to us.

Our residents paid 60 voted for a 63% increase on a library, and we're still losing $2,000,000 because it's going somewhere else. And so these things along the way matter. This council has to come along shoulder to shoulder and help the staff do the work. We are going into an intense budget cycle. We are under extreme distress in our community with our federal government.

Every single day feels like a million years right now. So lobbying this on top of our council and just hope our staff and hoping it will pass is irresponsible of this council to do that. But we are gonna be faced with hard budget decisions. And if we thought the last couple years were rough, buckle up, this is going to be rough. We are going to have to explain to our employees the decisions that we've made.

We're going to have to explain to the community the decisions we've made, and we are going to have to face really, really hard decisions. And I understand, people email me all the time, just do this instead of that, like Counselor Teeter said. We get money and funds that are not easily move aroundable. We can't take money from the Water Fund and pay library staff with it. That's not how it works.

We have a lot of responsibilities and we have a lot of political challenges in a city that is not a full service city. We have our special district park going out for a second ballot in two years and they have legitimate reasons to to wanna do that. But if parks were under our jurisdiction, that is not what we would be focusing on right now. And so we have to work with our partners that are getting things done and this city is hard to govern and manage for reasons beyond the federal government. But we do have to have a really intense conversation with staff about communication because it is not the elected officials that is that is in administration side of the house.

We need to better communicate the value. We have to tell the story about why Beaverton feels safe, while why there's no on street homelessness, why we have a thriving restaurant community. We've just been doing the work. Now we have to talk about it. So I do think it's hard. I'm the one who was pushing us to move forward in the ballot measure, but the the voters are telling us something right now in this moment. They are telling us that they are feeling taxed out, And we have to recognize the moment we're standing in. And it will get harder, counselor Kimmy, in in future years to pass something. I don't I don't disagree with you. The difference being, can we communicate it?

And having served on the council, when we went for the police bond and it failed, the number one lesson we learned when we went back out was communication. And so I don't need to live that nightmare again. I've lived it. I can tell you right now, the lesson is communication. So my agreement to not go to the ballot is a contract between us and our staff that communication is gonna be a top priority. We have communication staff all over. We have one in the library, one in police, one in the mayor's office, one on city staff. We have Harvard Bloomberg people. We need those communication brought under one umbrella with the sole focus of making sure that we're communicating value. Now I don't want us making up stories, but we sure need to tell the story about Beaverton.

Even our own policies that we're doing all the time, we gotta we gotta be better at this, and it's a skill. For a city this size, with how much rad shit's going on, we gotta get better at telling the story. So thank you, Elizabeth. I know you you came to work for us a few months ago, and you thought your job would be one thing, and all you do is talk about the budget and finances every day, the next year will be wonderful for you to talk about the budget and finances every single day. I do want the community to come and listen to Elizabeth and her staff in these fiscal sustainability meetings.

We are getting into the brass stacks. We are talking about measure five, measure 50, structural deficits, health care costs, everything else. So come and listen and participate over the next year. We're gonna be having to make hard decisions together, and I think this is one of the harder decisions I've made as the city councilor, but it's the right one to do. And tonight's decision's hard.

The next three months are gonna be hard too. As the city manager has been preparing her budget to come to us, she's been talking about the issues. And so I I am in it to have a year where we make hard decisions on the budget and move forward. And if we have to tap into the reserves to save some of what we're doing, I'm only doing it in agreement that we're moving forward together. So that's where we are. And I think you have the council direction this evening. Do you need anything else from us?

No. Thank you very much for your time. I appreciate it.

Thank you. I do I got a quick out of agenda item, and then I'm gonna be passing it over to the council president to finish the meeting this evening. I know there are many of you that tuned in tonight both in person and online expecting to see an ICE policy on our agenda. Let me explain why it's not and what we're doing about it. I, we, will not accept a federal presence that uses deadly force against the people we're supposed to serve and protect.

I understand the urgency. People want us to use every tool we have to push back against what's happening in our community, and I want that too. But we have to do this right. We're navigating real legal constraints around what cities can enforce through code and how we can implement policy without creating unintended consequences for our employees. If we act fast and lose in court, we don't just lose the fight, we lose the battle, and we lose the war.

Actions that hold us under legal scrutiny actions that hold up under legal scrutiny take time, and we cannot afford to get this wrong. And so I do wanna give the city manager a couple minutes here to address it, but I want you to hear from the the from me and the council. We are we hear you, and we are taking this seriously, and we are ready to use every tool we have, and we have our legal team and our city manager working on it. So, Jenny?

Thank you, mayor, for that. As a follow-up to council's January 20, approval of the sanctuary ordinance, I wanted to let the community know that staff is actively working on policy language that reinforces our commitment to the Oregon Sanctuary Promise Act. As you know, a council subcommittee comprised of council president Duggar, councils Kimmy councilors Kimmy and Husson, is working with our legal team, our police leadership, and other staff to ensure that our policy framework does three things. It's clear, it's enforceable, and it's trusted. Our goal is simple.

We want to create a policy that truly reflects our values and supports both our community and our city organization. So my plan is to keep you updated as we progress forward, sharing the policy with the full counsel. We can't, come out with a timeline at this time. We have some legal parameters that we need to work through, but we are going to endeavor to get this, to you and to the community as soon as possible. I appreciate your patience.

We're going to take a brief five minute recess so we could reset, and then we will be back for the public hearings.

Relate to transportation. The first item relates to an ordinance amending Beaverton code chapter three point o seven relating to transportation system development charge. The second item relates to a resolution setting transportation system development charges for Cooper Mountain. Since the ordinance and resolution are so closely related, we will combine the two into one staff presentation. Following the staff presentation, we will combine the two into one public hearing.

Anyone who wants to speak to the ordinance or the resolution or both may do so at the hearing. Once the public hearing is closed, the council will consider the enactment of each ordinance and adoption of of the resolution one at a time voting on each separately. For those attending in person who wish to speak to either or both of these matters, please complete a yellow visitor card comment comment card found on the table near the doors of the back of the council chambers and give the card to the city recorder seated at the end of the dais. Each member of the public will have up to three minutes to speak. When you speak, please give your name and city of residence for the record.

Council members may ask questions of the presenter, city staff, city attorney, or staff. Do we not have a legal portion of

this? Okay.

Staff, you may begin your presentation. Do we have staff? Yeah. Cool. We do have staff. I like that. I'm good at this already.

Name is Alyssa Maxwell. I'm a capital planning project manager, and I'm joined by Susan Cole, our assistant finance director. Mic is on. We have additional staff in the room and virtually to assist tonight. This public hearing is covering two related actions. The first is an ordinance to amend Beaverton code chapter three point o seven related to transportation system development charges. Sorry. Next slide. And the second is a resolution to adopt Cooper Mountain transportation system development charges specifically. That includes adoption of the TSDC methodology and project list, sets the Cooper Mountain TSDC rates, and sets policy through administrative rules.

And we're gonna focus most of the presentation on the, the second piece, the resolution, and then touch briefly on the proposed code changes at the end. Next slide. The Transportation System Development Charge or TSDC is a supplemental charge on new development to fund growth related transportation improvements. We first discussed infrastructure funding options for Cooper Mountain at a work session in April 2024, and then the infrastructure funding plan for Cooper was adopted December 2025, and that included the recommendation of a TSDC for Cooper Mountain. A TSDC will help us close some of the transportation funding gap in this specific area.

It is a way for development to share the cost of infrastructure that's needed to support the growth. This approach allows us to fund capital projects that are needed to facilitate further housing development, and finally, with consistency, we have a TSDC already for growth in South Cooper Mountain. There's also TSDCs in most of the growth areas of the county, and so this is a known method and provides certain more certainty for developers because they know upfront what their transportation funding obligation is going to be. Next one. So since we adopted the funding plan, staff have been working with a consultant, SCS, to establish the methodology, the rates, and the policies for the Cooper Mountain TSDC.

The methodology study establishes the legal basis for the SDC, consistent with state law. The TSDC must be based on a specific project list and growth projections for the area, and that together establishes a total improvement fee. And then that fee is then allocated across all the future land use based on trips to establish the rate for each type of housing unit or commercial use. Okay. Next one.

So on this map, a quick orientation. South Cooper Mountain, where we have growth right now, is at the bottom. The area all the area in color is Cooper Mountain Community Plan area where we're talking about today. Cooper Mountain Nature Park is at the top. Tile Flat and Grabhorn Road are the arterials on the right left side, and 1 75th runs down the right side.

There are dashed green lines that you cannot see because they're covered in pink, that highlight the collectors that form the backbone infrastructure through this new area. So specific to tonight's proposal, this is an area specific TSDC. It will apply only to new development in Cooper Mountain and fund projects directly related to that growth. The list of projects that we'd be including in this TSDC are those highlighted in pink. So that includes all of the collectors and portions of one seventy fifth that are not already in Washington County's, Transportation Development Tax Program.

So we can think of this list and the highlights in pink as the shared infrastructure. This is infrastructure that everyone in this future area will benefit from and will utilize, and so everyone then shares the cost of it. The project list includes key projects that will likely be led by public agencies, that so includes the McKernan Creek Crossing, project those projects along 1 75th, and then, all the collectors are on the list so that we could build capital projects if there is needed to fill gaps between neighborhoods. Here we go. Next one.

So then this is that, the details of that specific project list, the improvement plan. This is what forms the cost basis for the TSDC. Again, all the collectors and arterials from the last slide that were highlighted in pink are listed here. And so these are the list of projects that we can, utilize TSDC funds to pay for capital projects. The methodology then looks at the growth impact from new development and the number of new housing units to distribute the cost of this shared infrastructure across the growth and across the growth area so everyone pays their share.

Next slide. So what does that mean? What are the proposed rates? So the project costs are allocated each land use based on average daily person trips. So the proposed rate is $11,800 per single detached dwelling unit.

Townhouses, duplex, and other middle housing would be 8,400. There's several other rates listed here and then the resolution includes the full list of proposed rates for all uses. The TSDC is a one time fee that is charged with the building permits, so these are charged at the initial building permit for individual units or other uses, it's not an ongoing charge. Alright, next one. When adopting the rate, it's important that we also establish policies and procedures.

So the resolution includes a new Administrative Rule, Chapter 20 dash zero one. Some of the highlights in the policies and procedures, the rates would include an annual adjustment based on inflation, that's how we do all of our SDCs. And then the credit policy, this is important. So we are adopting a credit policy that is consistent with the other growth areas and with the county's TDT program. We know that development will end up constructing significant elements of that backbone infrastructure.

So when one developer is required to build one of those collectors or arterials, that's a significant cost for them. If that project is one of the projects on our list of TSDC list, then they get TSDC credits for the cost of the street that is wider than a local street standard. So the idea is that if you're building one of these specific projects, that's how you're meeting your transportation funding obligation for the area, so then we're not charging you the same fee on top of it. Developments that don't have a major road running through them, they pay the they pay the fee and, to offset future projects. And then finally, related to affordable housing.

The administrative rule includes a 50% rate discount for up to 450 regulated affordable housing units. That four fifty is our goal for this Cooper Mountain area, and that discount will have a minor impact on the total revenue that we would collect from this area, but we do not anticipate that it will impact our ability to fund any of the needed capital improvements. Next one. Okay. Quick summary of our public review process.

We have discussed this TSDC with Cooper Mountain developers, engineers, and property owners, during numerous meetings over the last two years that we've been working on this plan. As far as the official process, the public comment period has been open since 10/17/2025. The methodology report has been available since November. We provided additional email notification to interested parties in November and again in January. You all held held a first reading on the ordinance January 6, then we have our public hearing tonight.

While we did not receive any written comments on the methodology report when it was posted, We have heard kind of two general questions from folks when we talk about the TSDC. The first is how does this proposed rate compare to South Cooper Mountain and other growth areas? And then the other is about questions about the credit policies that I just went through in clarifying those policies. So next slide. So this slide, it compares our TSDC rate.

So on the left, our proposed rate is nearly the same as what we are currently charging in South Cooper Mountain. It's $39 difference on a single detached dwelling. This rate will be lower than most of the other growth areas in Washington County, and again, that's set based on our specific project list. But we also know it's not just one charge or fee that impacts and makes a difference for housing development, but the total cost of infrastructure. So on the right, this is, from a City of Hillsborough study from 2024, it shows the total cost of SDCs or infrastructure fees for growth areas in Washington County.

So these chart bars include the one time fees for utilities, transportation, and parks, so it gives us a bigger picture. You can see highlighted, that's the South Cooper Mountain total, and our proposed rate for Cooper would keep that right in line for this area. So, even with this fee, we would still put us in the bottom half of growth areas within Washington County. Okay. And then shifting gears on the proposed ordinance tonight, this is a separate separate but directly related item, amendments to Beaverton code chapter three point o seven related to transportation system development charges.

For the most part, this is primarily clarifying language around authorized expenditures, the timing of payments, our relationship to the Washington County, Transportation Development Tax Program, so basically clarifying which projects and credits apply to each program, and then, reimbursement of excess credits if funds remain at the end of the project list, when we're done with the project list. The proposed changes also authorize the exemptions for affordable housing and give the city authority to establish t s d c policy through administrative rules. Okay. Last slide. So our recommendation is that, you conduct the public hearing and receive all public testimony related to the proposals, consider the public testimony and information presented, and deliberate on issues raised identified by council or by the public, and then adopt the ordinance amending Beaverton code chapter three point o seven and adopt the resolution setting transportation system development charges for Cooper Mountain.

We are here to answer questions for you.

Thank you. Are there questions for staff from council? Oh, councilor Teeter.

Yeah. I just have one. I appreciate the the additional clarification on the credits. That was helpful for me. There was a a note in the in the presentation and in the agenda bill that said that credits are available when the developer builds something anything that's larger than a local street. But looking at the list, it looked like it was just for collectors and the special projects. Would a neighborhood route not count as being credit eligible?

Yeah. So the that's right in that the credits can only come when someone builds one of the projects that's on our list because that's the basis of the cost of the TSDC. So neighborhood routes are not creditable because but we are also not charging everybody else for the neighborhood routes. So if we were to try to add those in, we would have to be redo the methodology and distribute then distribute that additional cost of neighborhood routes across all the other all the housing units as well. So the rate would probably pretty dramatically increase.

Okay. So is our code language good then, or is that con or is that confusing to say if it's larger than local street, but neighborhood streets are actually not included?

Right. So the code language itself and the policies go through and explain have a long list of what's credit eligible and explain all of those policies.

Okay. Thank you. That's good for me. Thanks. Mhmm.

Go ahead.

And I have a question too around so if if you're a developer and you build one of the TSDC eligible projects, but say you're only building a 100 houses, you're probably going to spend more than the total fees. What is the mechanism to rebate that? Where would that money come from before the money is available? Because I know it's available at the end, but can you explain that a little bit?

Yeah. So we still would issue credits to developers and then so if you only have a few homes but you had a large road to build, you would still have those credits and those credits are transferable market. So developers can transfer sell those credits to someone else that's building within the same within anywhere within the community plan area.

Any

other questions? Cool. Thank you. I will now open the public hearing. City recorder, is there anyone here to speak on the proposed ordinance or resolution?

There was a gentleman who was here, but he had to leave. I've handed his testimony to counselor Hartmeier Prigg, and we do not have anyone online.

Would you like to read his comment? Thank you.

Yes. Sure. Alright. 02/03/2026, mayor and members of the council. My name is Kim Vandehay. I live at 17207 Southwest Silver Ridge on Cooper Mountain. A portion of your system's development charge is made up of sewer and water charges. When Murray Hill was being developed, we were assessed for s d d SDC fees for water and sewer. I therefore ask that you compromise the fees for Mount Adams and Siler Ridge since we also paid for Murray Hill. Sincerely, Kim Van de Hay.

Thank you. Well, there appears to be no additional member of the public who wishes to comment. So I will now close the public hearing on both the ordinance and the resolution. First, do I have a motion regarding the proposed ordinance?

Go ahead. I'll make a motion. I move that the council adopt resolution number four nine four one, a resolution setting transportation system development charges for Cooper Mill.

Nope. I skipped four. You skipped one. Yeah.

I wanna do them at the same time. And wait. Can I? Can I do them both at the same time? No. Just one at a time. Yeah. I will reverse them. I will retract what I just said. Okay. I move that the council adopt ordinance four eight seven eight, an ordinance amending the Beaverton code chapter 3.07 relating to the transportation system development charge, and I'll stop there.

Do I have a second?

I'll second. Second.

Any discussion? We are ready for a vote with the city recorder. Please call the roll.

Council president Duckerman?

Yes.

Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg?

Yes.

Councilor Kimmy? Yes. Councilor Teeter? Yes. Councilor Tivnan? Yes. Five yes, zero no, two absent.

Next, do I have a motion regarding the proposed resolution?

I'm ready for this one. Yeah. I move that the council adopt resolution number four nine four one, a resolution setting transportation system development charges for Cooper Mountain.

Do I have a second?

I'll second.

Any discussion? So you're recorded. We are ready for a vote. Would you please call the roll?

Council president Council president Duggar? Yes. Councilor Hartmeier Prigg?

Yes.

Councilor Kimmy? Yes. Councilor Teeter?

Yes.

Councilor Tivnan? Yes. Five yes. Zero no two absent.

The next item on the agenda is a resolution that would amend the city of Beaverton engineering design manual to support implementation of the Cooper Mountain Community Plan. Is there a staff presentation? I'm presuming there is. You're coming up.

Am I on this time? Okay. Good evening, council. I'm still Alyssa Maxwell. And with me now is Brian Martin, our long range planning manager.

We are here representing, engineering and planning staff that are here and online. In your packet, we've included the proposed resolution to amend the engineering design manual with Cooper Mountain Street cross sections. There is also a staff memorandum that provides some more detail about our recommendations, options to narrow the cross sections if desired, and a summary of the public comment. And we would like to take a few minutes to go over that staff recommendation and discuss some of the public comments. So staff recommend that we adopt the Cooper Mountain Street cross sections and amendments to the Beaverton engineering design manual.

These cross sections implement Cooper Mountain Community Plan goals, such as safe and comfortable options for walking, biking, rolling, and driving motor vehicles, tree canopy, and the trail network. The cross sections are aligned with the transportation system plan update that's currently in progress, and these, cross sections will set standards for new streets in Cooper Mountain, but there is still a design modification process that will provide flexibility throughout the development. Next one. K. You know where Cooper Mountain is, and we covered some of this in the previous item.

So all the colors on this map here represent different destinations or transportation connections in Cooper Mountain. So that large green area at the top is Cooper Mountain Nature Park. There's other future parks that are shown as kind of green squares, and then all that light greenish blue area are, different natural resource designations. For zoning, the light yellow is all mixed residential, the orange is basically zoned for apartments and middle housing, and then the purple and the red are the mixed use with red being areas where commercial is required. The slide also shows the transportation network that allows people to move through and around all of these destinations by walking, biking, bicycling, taking transit, or driving motor vehicles.

Again, like previously, the black lines are the arterioles. Those primarily carry traffic passing through the area. The green dashed lines are the future collectors, and we do have one unique design called the community access collector that applies in the commercial areas. So that's the highlighted area near the through the two red zones, So just for small portions where that collector will go through commercial. The neighborhood routes are shown in blue.

Those provide that local connectivity. And then trails are shown as dashed purple lines. Some are parallel to collectors and neighborhood routes, and others are separate from those facilities. This whole network is essential infrastructure so people can access the goods and services, the parks, the schools, the nature areas, and visit their loved ones and friends. What's not shown in this map is the network of the local streets that will be designed by development. Next one. So quick look at these proposed cross sections. This is the local street that will be the majority of the infrastructure. It's a standard 54 foot wide cross section which is consistent with our current standards that apply citywide. So it's what you're seeing in new new neighborhoods now.

A quick note, your packet includes the actual engineering standard drawings for all of the cross sections including some alternative options. But for the graphics tonight, we're covering the most standard ones that we expect to see most often. Okay. Next one. For neighborhood routes, we do have two options for neighborhood routes.

The top is the, on street bike facilities, and then the bottom one, has on street parking, where the bike facility would be provided nearby while making the same connection from point a to point b. So these two options give development, flexibility in their layout while still providing protected bike lanes and the eight foot planter strips that we are looking for for tree canopy. Also, a quick note, so during this last round of review, staff noticed some inconsistencies between the development code and the EDM language when it was related to neighborhood routes. So since you saw on January 6, we have revised the EDM language so that these two options are now available on each of the neighborhood route segments. And we do intend to propose some minor development code modifications in the next year to make sure everything is all synced up with us.

Next one. Okay. So for the collectors, again, most will be the community mobility cross section on the bottom. The top section shows the wider community access that will apply in those commercial areas. It has that parking strip added.

This is a wide cross section, and each element of the right of way is doing important work. So the bike lanes and walking areas are above the curb separated from motor vehicle traffic. The bike lane and sidewalk themselves are separated by a tactile strip buffer to reduce conflicts. This is especially important as people will be going different speeds, especially in hilly areas, and when we're adding more and more e bikes to our transportation network. I will note in our previous meeting, the buffer between the bike and peds at the on the top section was at three feet.

We're recommending that that be down to two feet, it's consistent with all the other sections. On the outside, there's been some questions about the frontage zone. So the frontage zone on these sections provides space for things like survey markers, meters, lighting, cafe tables, planters, merchandise displays, so that all those things can be there without, impacting the sidewalk space. The frontage can also be helpful for maintenance, and in hilly areas, I would expect that the frontage is gonna be sloped to help with the grading. So it's flat on here, but it'll be designed to match the area around it.

So moving toward oh, can we go back? Sorry. More notes. Moving toward the middle, there's an eight foot planter strip that creates separation and provides a place where larger trees can thrive and help us meet our canopy goals for Cooper. That top section includes the parking lane, again, that's in commercial or mixed use areas to provide easy quick stop parking for people who want to visit businesses.

The vehicle travel lanes are 11 feet, so they're large enough for buses but small enough to discourage speeding. And then, finally, that median in the middle provides additional safety with physical separation between travel lanes, and they provide visual cues to drive more slowly. That median would become a paved turn lane at intersections, but in other areas, it would be landscaping or trees. The arterioles are similar to collectors in that they have the safe and separated bike facilities and the other feet many of the other features that I just discussed. The lower section is how the arterial would look on the rural edge.

So along Tile Flat and Grabhorn Road, state law requires that the edge be rural because it's not in the urban growth boundary. So, in that area, we would move all the bike pedestrian facilities onto the urban side, so we have that wider bike lane. And those are the proposed cross sections. Next one. At the January 6 meeting, city council asked staff to conduct additional outreach with the development community.

We've had a series of meetings, and staff have appreciated the opportunity to learn more about the concerns, regarding the EDM changes. The staff member includes a summary of what we heard, but I wanted to address a couple of the topics here tonight. So the first three are fairly related, housing production, housing affordability, and the required right of way. This generally comes down to the total width of these proposed cross sections. With housing production, Metro required at least 33,760 housing units for in Cooper Mountain.

Our zoning code is set up to require 4,500 units and will likely result in more. We do not expect that these proposed cross sections will prevent us from meeting our housing production goals and targets. Some of the cross sections, particularly the collectors, are wider than Beaverton's existing standards. Your packet does include a comparison of how these cross sections and widths are, in lined up with recent multi multimodal cross sections in other growth areas in nearby cities. As we've discussed, these facilities make it possible for safe travel for a variety of people using the streets.

They're also consistent with the city's complete streets policy and the Cooper Mountain Community Plan policies. When it comes to cost and the required right of way, we do acknowledge that wide cross sections will cost more to build and maintain than narrower cross sections. And as we mentioned earlier, when developers build one of these major streets, one of those collectors, they can receive TSDC credits for everything they build and for the right of way that they dedicate that's beyond the width of a local street section. Okay. On natural natural resources.

During the planning process way back when, the alignments for collectors and the neighborhood routes were selected to minimize impact to natural resources. But, in addition, the proposed standards include constrained and restricted cross sections that will automatically allow for a narrower section when roads must cross natural resource areas. And then lastly, design challenges. So Cooper is a hilly area. There are going to be additional design challenges.

In our meetings with developers and property owners, they identified situations on specific properties that we will need to consider. The design challenge was different on every property, so everybody's got a slightly different challenge that they're facing. So the city has a design modification process so that we can consider changes based on-site specific constraints. That's where we might, look at narrowing elements to address challenging grading, maybe avoiding significant trees, reducing other conflicts. We have made recent changes to the design mod process, but both developers and city staff agree that we can make further process improvements.

One of the things that we've identified, for example, we've started discussing whether we could make design modification decisions earlier in the development process so that provides more certainty for developers as well as city reviewers about what's gonna be required, and they can include that in their neighborhood layouts. Your packet includes more details about each of these topics and some several others. But this time, our staff recommendation again is to adopt the Cooper Mountain Street cross sections and amendments to the Beaverton engineering design manual. We are here to answer additional questions.

Thanks for the presentation. Councilor Tidnon.

Just making sure I'm doing this correctly. There we did receive some commentary both written and during visitor comments. Should we hold off on asking staff questions about that until after comment today? Is that

Counselor, there is no public comment section on this Okay.

Is it okay to from the written comment that was submitted, just ask a clarifying question based on it? Yes. Yeah. Okay. So we received a comment earlier about amending. This is on page two of the report, the memorandum that you sent to us, the four new bullets that were incorporated under bullet three to add in community mobility collector and then add in and community access collector. Can

you

give your feedback on that suggestion?

Yeah. Sure. So that, was intentionally not included. The community access collector is that short segment that's gonna go through the commercial areas. And so, these options to reduce frontage, the recommendation, if you do wanna make things narrower, would be to reduce frontage on all the other cross sections, but to retain it on that community access collector because that would be the space between the sidewalk and businesses, and provides that additional frontage space.

In one of our meetings with developers, we did have someone identify. They asked, can we make our sidewalk wider? We wanna put in, you wider than what's required, we wanna put in businesses here, and we want we wanna have eight or 10 feet. So we're recommending that we keep that frontage because it becomes part of the pedestrian space. Again, tables, planters, sandwich boards, things like that are good options in frontage.

Counselor, Brian Martin, Long Range Planning Manager. I just wanted to clarify, it may be obvious to everyone already, that the staff recommendation was to not, have counsel choose those four bullets. But those are available if counsel decides to narrow the cross section. The staff recommendation is to adopt the original ones from the previous meeting.

Councilor Hartman Prie.

Thank you. So, Alyssa and Brian, in like, I'm kind of following onto your comment about someone wanted to make it wider. So as long as it meets this minimum, they could go wider as part of their own design process, and that's not a concern.

Right. Right. I mean, it it rarely happens. Right? Generally, if we're talking about design modifications, it's gonna be to provide something less than what city is requiring as a standard. But that example of someone looking and saying, hey. In commercial areas, we want to have more sidewalk space, you know, that's kind of help that's one of the reasons that we're not recommending that that frontage be removed from commercial areas.

And and that's discussing in the right of way. So on private property, they could still put their buildings back a little farther and put pave that area for additional space or have a courtyard in some cases. So the your answer is, like, right on for the public side, but the private side has options as well.

Okay. And then if, I wanted to make the road one of these roads narrower, I could apply for, like, an a design review exception. So this is what we're aiming to have our designs look like in this area, but we do have processes by which developers could seek an exception to the process.

Yes. Yep. For sure. And so and the, the recent code maintenance work, is did some cleanup on that design modification process to try to remove there's no longer a specific application for a sidewalk design modification, for example. So those process, we're hoping to streamline it as well. And like I said, to move it earlier so that we can be making those decisions if possible early in the land use process.

Okay. Thank you.

Councilor Teeter.

Councilor Tivnaan, did you have something you wanted to throw in really quick?

Yeah. Just on the design exceptions, thank you for letting me jump in here. I was trying to think of what that would look like in reality of, like, sidewalk being certain width and then going down to a certain width and then going up. Is that basically what it would end up looking like if a design exception was approved and for a specific area. It just it doesn't seem like that's what would we would want that more that staff would be open to because of just this inconsistency that it might provide in the experience.

So do you think design exceptions are actually likely to be approved?

We I did talk with some of our engineering partners and asked sort of how are things going in South Cooper Mountain? And generally, we had considered design exceptions for most of the larger developments. So a good example is generally a design modification would not be for, like, one individual, like, house area. Right? You'd be looking at this whole area and saying, okay, the slopes are incredibly steep here, and in order to build this wide cross section, we're gonna have significant walls, cuts cuts and fills.

How can we adjust that? And maybe that means for a portion, maybe the planter strip is a six foot instead of an eight foot. Right? We'd be looking at things that we would narrow, in probably the landscaping areas first as opposed to reducing, say, the pedestrian or the bike experience because we wanna prioritize prioritize those those facilities.

Councilor Teeter. I

do that all the time. Okay. Yeah. The design exception processes are process is important to me. Know in our briefing and tonight, you also mentioned moving it earlier. Is that a staff level administrative change you all can easily make on your own? You don't need to come to us to go through a lengthy process to do any of that.

Yeah. We actually had started having meetings last week about what can we do? How how could we move this earlier? And staff internally were saying, well, this would be helpful for us too. We'd like to make those decisions early in land use if we can. So we need to work with legal and make sure we're doing it at the right time, but that's not something we'd be coming back to you all.

Okay. Yeah. Good.

Yeah. Wanna fun as it is.

I wanna keep things moving along. The the design exception process is a big piece of this for me, like the big part of why why I'm comfortable with the designs. You mentioned developers could go wider on certain aspects when you responded to councilor Hermayer Prigg's questions. Like, if they wanted to have a wider frontage or sidewalk, they could. Is that limited to just wider sidewalks or landscaping strips? Or if they wanted to add a whole another lane or a much wider lane, would they be allowed to do that or not allowed to do that?

So my understanding, not being a transportation expert, is that, like, the number of travel lanes and such is dictated by the need, the particular need, and the traffic need that comes out of the transportation study. So I would have a hard time imagining that someone's gonna add travel lanes and add that cost

Sure. Okay.

Unless it's required.

Yeah. No. I would have a hard time imagining it too. And then the frontage zones, you mentioned they're most important in the community access commercial areas.

Mhmm.

Are they just as needed in the other zones too? Like, they're if they're for meters or I don't I don't know what else. Other random things. Or is it reasonable to have them go down to half a foot? I've had some people ask me about that. Or should we keep them as staff recommendation? Just kind of looking for some thoughts there.

Yeah. I mean, staff recommendation is to keep them through those areas. They provide a better pedestrian experience, especially in some of these larger roads where you're gonna have like, wherever that frontage is the distance then between the back of a sidewalk and the property line. So in some areas, that's gonna be fencing. So if you're imagining walking down the sidewalk, if we only have half a foot, that's how far you're gonna have in between you and the fence. So that frontage gives us that space and then to put in some of those other facilities. I really do think we're gonna see that space used for grading. And again, on those wider cross sections, if it's part of right of way, then we would give TSDC credit for it in those collector on those collectors and arterials. If it's not part of the right of way, then it's not creditable.

Okay. Thank you. That is that's all the questions I had. Thanks.

Councilor Kimmy.

Design exceptions. That's that's what that's what was on my mind. I asked this question to Brian a long time ago. When I'm walking the streets on South La Perle Mountain, one area has eight foot sidewalk and another one is four foot. And then once you cross certain line with the different developer, it goes to like four feet four feet. So there's major changes to arterials or collector streets depends on the developer who develops it. So I was just wondering, is that the process that we have used to oscillate per mountain? Exceptions?

Well, we did not adopt, to my knowledge, we did not adopt a set of street designs for South Cooper Mountain like we're proposing for Cooper Mountain. And the process there has been quite a bit different because of the way and the pace that development was done and the way that it was approached. So we didn't take this comprehensive approach for South Cooper Mountain like we're proposing for the next areas.

So then if the developer wants to to some exceptions, what is the leeway here? Can they just really shrink it or make what much bigger? Like, what is the how many percentage of the design can they change?

Yeah. I mean, by setting the standard, that's what we are setting as our minimums of what we would what we would be requiring, and then they need they do need to have to go through a process to apply and demonstrate a reason and a need to make a change, and then that gets reviewed by, engineering staff, as well as, I assume, planning staff, and they work together to determine if it's gonna if that makes sense, if there's an actual reason to change it, not just, don't want to build something.

I think the other part of that is, there are other regulations besides Citi that we have to comply with. So the Americans with Disabilities Act is going to require certain with the sidewalk, for example. Think the other difference with Cooper is the original policies have a modal hierarchy in there, and pedestrians and bicycles are at the top. Those are the most important modes, mostly because they're most the most vulnerable travelers. They're not inside of a vehicle.

And so they you know, we want to make sure we have comfortable and safe routes for them. So we can keep those in mind that they're the priority as we're making decisions about what to narrow and what to leave. Okay.

Thank you. So it's not going be drastic difference like South Cooper? Okay, thank you.

Cool, go.

Okay, I think it's my last question. I appreciate that staff is committed to upholding the vision that council directed you to develop over a very long period of time as well as with a lot of community input and just a lot of time and effort that's been put into it. And so I can see when an instance might roll around where there is a design exception that there could be differences of opinion on the relevancy of it, the need for it. And we've heard very clearly from members of the development community that they they would like us to to adopt those four bullets. They'd like us to make things.

I don't know if easier is the right word for it. But in the case where there maybe you get to loggerheads during the design exception process. What does that look like? Is it just staff says, no, we decided not to do this. Do they have recourse to bring it to us? Like, wanna know what the what it looks like if there's disagreements that happen at that stage. There's an appeal process.

I'm on

a friend.

I'm on a friend.

Oh,

you're gonna run away. There's

a third seat.

Oh, that's the Brian seat.

Oh, it is. This is Brian Vincent, our city engineer.

Brian Vincent, city engineer. Yes. There is an appeal process for the design exceptions. So if city staff disagrees and we come to Loggerhead, they can appeal to council.

Got it. Okay. That's that was what I was hoping to hear too. I I not that I want that to be the scenario. It's just I think that that provides a little bit of

Yes.

Something back to the development community because I think this is a hard pill to swallow where this is going.

Actually, I have a couple questions around the exception process. You talked about slopes. I think that one's really easy. What other exceptions are common, would you say? And and and do we have a published list, or is that sort of whatever you want? Like, help me understand how that exception process is defined.

My understanding is that most of the modifications tend to come we had a lot of sidewalk modification requests. I don't know if that that's what I hear, but having not been through it myself, I think in some of the things that we've heard through in this particular area did have to do with slopes and cross slopes in particular. So that's probably one of the bigger ones that we'd expect to see. And then other questions could be related to where we have maybe, natural resource constraints and restrictions that are squeezing us on one side. Right?

So are we going to narrow up something because we need to be able to fit in minimum minimum lot dimensions, for example, between the road and a natural resource area? That's another area to consider. Our hope in setting some standards is that we are not doing design modifications over and over and over again because people understand at the beginning what we're asking for and what we're requiring of them to do.

So, I think I heard a little bit of this, like housing production isn't necessarily one of the exceptions, but like that would be affected by this potentially or or something you could consider depending on the placement of the lots and things like that. I think

some of those especially in a in a layout case. Right?

Yeah.

But not just to we wouldn't be looking at a design exception simply to give every lot two additional feet.

Right.

Right? That's not But there

was a situation where with an exception, we could build 10 units versus eight on this parse parcel, that would be something you would consider.

So we don't have a set of criteria for doing the design exceptions. And so we have talked about doing that, but, of course, the challenge in doing that is, you know, you start listing a bunch of criteria. And if you don't meet if you don't so when you're evaluating it, if it doesn't fall into that criteria, then what? Right? Like, so if your decision says, well, we're not gonna approve this because of the of this reason, and that reason is not a criteria item, then it becomes challenging. So I would say that I have talked with site development and asked them, like, how the process has been working as far as the design exception process, and it it does work very well. And also wanna make sure to note that in the design exception process, they're one time exceptions. So it's not like that exception gets to be applied everywhere. It's only for the instance in which it was applied.

I see.

And then tell me, how long does a exception process how long does that take if I fill out the paperwork? Right? Like, I'm a developer and I I wanna move. Like, what is the staff time and and what is your timeline for rendering a decision?

Yeah. So it's the process the timeline is consistent with the other land use and site development processes. So it's not like an extra step. It's Okay. Embedded within our overall land use and permitting process.

Okay. And then my last, you may not know this. Do we know our neighbors like I'm specifically thinking of South Hillsborough, their exception process. Does ours align relatively close to that? Do we know? Do not know.

Yeah. I don't know the answer to that.

Okay. In the future, I generally, you know, I like to know those things just because I think it's helpful for us to know what other jurisdictions are doing and kind of aligning with those because a lot of developers build across jurisdictions. And I think it, you know, we don't have to align, but like it's it is nice. So I really love the feedback on the earlier meetings. I think that's helpful for everyone. So I would encourage us to continue to go down that way. Right? Develop close partnerships in areas where we can. But I I appreciate everything tonight. It's been super helpful.

Any other before we cool. Let me see my paperwork. Do I have a motion regarding the proposed resolution? Anyone? On your paperwork? I think it's page 11, maybe.

Sorry. It's late. I'm here. I move that the council adopt resolution number four nine four two, a resolution amending resolution four nine zero four related to the 2025 engineering design manual to incorporate Cooper Mountain updates.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Any discussion? Councilor Tivnan?

I think I know where we're all voting on this one. I'd just throw out there that this is this is my first rodeo in some ways when it comes to something this big. I've been on the the other side of it on the consultant side when doing this level of comprehensive planning around one particular area. And what we are envisioning for this area is gonna be beautiful. And it's gonna be something that wasn't a guarantee at front end.

I was really worried about the natural resources in this area, and I'm less so now because of all the hard work that staff has done and the feedback from council and what we've heard in the community. But in order to get all those houses built and everything, we we need to continue to have really strong trusted partnerships with the development community. And we heard pretty loud and clear they have significant concerns. And I just like to keep an eye on that as we're going and and listening very carefully to them. And especially, like, to that point about being early, like, early in this just, like, don't wanna get into a a position to where it the pace at which things can get developed is really long and drawn out, or there just ends up being a lot of hard feelings around it.

So I'm I I would love to continue to get updates on that both from staff, but also from the development community on how it's going, especially around the design exception process, and to make sure that things are getting resolved in a way that feels feasible to both sides of the table.

Thank you. I think we're ready for a vote. City recorder, would you please call the roll?

Council President Dugger?

Yes.

Sorry. Late. Councilor Hartmeyer Prigg?

Yes.

Councilor Kimmy? Yes. Councilor Teeter?

Yes.

Councilor Tivnan? Yes. Five yes, zero no, two absent. Motion carries.

Thank you, recorder. Anyone have anything else they wanna share? Let's do it. We're adjourned. Oh, shoot. I should have

Do you break it?

No. But I