Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Good morning commissioners we are now live.

Good morning everyone sorry about the delay this morning we had rain across tracks that was backing up traffic all over the place so that's why as presiding officer I decided that we would start at 9 15 and give everyone a chance to get here so hopefully no one was too panicked this morning Thank you. So, Claire Codges, could you take the role, please?

Certainly. Commissioner Fai?

Present.

Commissioner Treese?

Here.

Vice Chair Willing? Here. Chair Harrington?

Here.

And Commissioner Snyder is excused.

Yes, he is indeed. And I probably forgot to mention that today is Tuesday, August 18, 2026. We have two executive sessions later today. But the first thing today is our board and leadership communication and formal agenda item check in. So let's do the check in on our Business agenda first. Are there any questions? We have 12 items on the consent agenda, boards and commission vacancies, one presentation on the affordable housing bond and supportive housing services quarterly update, one public hearing, and then that's it.

Good. I have one item to pull from the consent agenda. That is agenda item number eight, approval of data rules of procurement. And may I ask why? I have general concern about the collective impact of some of the changes. And I have some questions that I'd like to ask the staff. Have you asked staff prior to today's meeting now I've been on vacation, so I'm back. Even yesterday, yeah. I've been. I thought you were only on vacation last week. Yeah, I just been trying to catch up to things yesterday so I wasn't able to get to the staff, but I do have a.

Could you please give staff a heads up as to your questions now.

Yeah.

So that word they're not just surprised in the meeting. Yeah. Please go over your questions now so they can be prepared.

Yeah, I'd like to know, too, just to see what your concerns are.

Yeah, I will.

I think the collective impact of some of these changes, like we're increasing certain contracting thresholds. I'm not. And in some places, we're moving authority that previously rested with the board to procurement manager. At the same time, this board is approaching significant transition. So I just want us to be cautious and to ensure that we do not take this step without strong requirements, both for either thinking about requiring annual reporting or some accountability for public transparency. And then in terms of the fundamental questions that I have, and I have a couple of emails that I've got from the community that I'll forward to staff. is some minor discrepancies in what is in Exhibit A versus what's in Exhibit B. Some language discrepancies, what was deleted in one exhibit didn't get deleted in another area and vice versa. So without that, some of the fundamental questions that I have is I'm not sure I understand the why behind delegating the changes and the threshold increase. So why now? That is one question I have. And then the other question I was wondering for staff to entertain is, what operational problems are we solving with some of these changes, both to the threshold and the delegation? Yes, I understand the statute gives us, but why now? And then what contracts have been delayed or impaired under the existing threshold? I just would like to understand the analysis or the evidence supporting these changes before the board gives up the oversight it currently exercises and makes these changes to the current threshold.

So, Commissioner Fai, there are significant questions there. I'd like to remind the board that staff has previously sent your board an email with this information. asking for feedback before if there were any questions. Staff have already informed your board we would be coming back to your board with procurement changes. I am not prepared to answer some of the detailed questions that you have posed. just in this moment because I didn't have a courtesy heads up prior to this. I will indicate that some of the changes that we have needed to make have been because of the federal grants and contract changes. And that is the information we previewed before with you. We have been very intentional about working with our community-based organizations prior to this procurement change coming to your board for consideration and asking what the impact would be on our contracting partners. We had three different sessions with executive directors, and they provided valuable input that is incorporated within the procurement process. information given the question staff are listening right now staff can be prepared to answer some of those questions however we are now approaching like half an hour before the board conversation so I would actually suggest that staff take these questions we reschedule this for the next FOR THE NEXT MEETING IF YOU WANT A PRESENTATION, BUT I'M NOT GOING TO BE PREPARED TO ANSWER ALL OF THOSE QUESTIONS. AND I WANT TO REMIND YOU, I PREVIOUSLY ASKED FOR INPUT ON THIS AND HAVE NOT HEARD BACK FROM ANY COMMISSIONERS ON THIS.

NEW SPEAKER SO I HEAR YOUR SUGGESTION, BUT THAT'S UP TO THE BOARD. NEW SPEAKER CORRECT. NEW SPEAKER SO I'M I'll just say I'm very comfortable moving forward. We did have this information in advance. We also knew this was coming through the rolling agenda. And quite frankly, it's a lack of due diligence on your part that puts you in that situation. You're entitled to your opinion. Will you please stop interrupting? I did not interrupt you. Please follow the rules of procedure. Go ahead. Please follow the rules of procedure. Yeah, go ahead. So I recommend that if the two of you are also comfortable in moving forward, not causing any further delay in the work that our team needs to do, that we move forward today.

I think from my standpoint, most of the questions that Nafisa has concerns about are just questions of impact. I doubt we're going to change anything in this, but explain the impact, okay? The only thing that I heard was that there might have been a change that should have been done in two areas and was only done in one areas. Yeah, but again, we can do that.

No, we're delegate, we're shift. Would you please let him finish? Yeah, let me quickly. Please let him finish. May I?

Commissioner Willey.

Just let me finish the sentence. Yeah, and so if that was the case, Tonya, if we had changed something that should have been in two areas and one area again, you don't have to bring that back to us to fix that, right?

No, and if I may remind the Board, Clerk Hodges did send an update to your Board with updates to the agenda. There were to what commissioner if I raise there were a couple areas that I will call screeners area where there wasn't matching that staff had corrected that yesterday afternoon so that is corrected in your formal agenda packet that would be part of the action.

So go ahead and I'm sorry if he's ahead.

Commissioner Willey, the delegation authority going from the board to the procurement manager, I'd like to understand why behind that change. And then the threshold is changing from 750,000 to 2 million. And another place is going from 250 to 500. I just wanna understand the analysis supporting those changes before we make those changes. And also some minor changes is in the language, which I'm not gonna debate and we can always come back to it is that The statute says shall, and now we're changing it, may hold public hearing. So there is a bit of a concern about transparency and accountability. Like how do we clearly for the public and for the bear, for this board and for the public to have visibility into accountability and the reporting of the procurement manager to this board. Since we're delegating what is the loopback information so those are some of the questions that i'm having, but if the board feels comfortable I like to pull that item out, so I can vote accordingly yeah.

it'll be on. will have a section H action and we'll. take care of that thing, that item then.

Are you prepared to do that? I mean, there's pretty significant stuff that she's talking about. And as far as the numbers, the approval rates from 750 to 2 million, it seems to me we had that conversation several months ago and we all agreed to moving to those things and the purpose for that. So I guess my preference would be we would not pull it, but in deference to Tanya, I mean.

We can try to answer the question. Okay.

In the board meeting.

First, turn it over to Ms. Angie, who will give at least the same overview that we've gotten here, and then she can choose to have for staff up to the table or not.

And just for members of the board and members of the public, when this occurs, last minute, as a reminder, I do appreciate when there's courtesy information ahead of time or heads up. Staff will just be responding to this verbally. There is no presentation that staff have developed on this. So I just want to be clear on expectations.

And also pulling something off the consent agenda just moves it to the action agenda. It does not move it off of the current agenda.

Yeah, for some reason I was thinking we were going to pull it off the agenda and readdress it in a week. So, Nafisa, do you have all that stuff written out already?

Yeah.

Okay. Why don't you put that in the form of the email to give it to Tonya so she has at least 35 minutes to deal with the specifics.

I'd just like to say that, first of all, thank you for your flexibility here to Tanya. I am perfectly comfortable with it staying on consent. I've done my reading about this. We did get the update. And as we move through any issues, what you've been doing all along is improving our levels of authority as they meet the the experiences in the marketplace, whether it's in the HR marketplace, whether it's in procurement, wherever it might be. And to be able to work efficiently, we have to do that. So I am in support of this moving forward.

Great. Any other items on today's? I have none. Great. So why don't we turn it over to leadership communication.

Good morning, Chair Harrington, Board of County Commissioners.

As Chair Harrington noted, we do have two executive sessions today. We'll be spending some time talking about some legal issues with you. Also just wanted to highlight one of the updates that we provided last week about the resolution of the Willowbrook right-of-way acquisition along Walker Road. I don't usually talk to you about right-of-way acquisitions, but this one was particularly thorny, as it often is when we're dealing with condo associations, because we're dealing with issues of common ownership and individual ownership. So I just wanted to give a shout-out to Deputy County Council Jason Bush and the LUT team who really supported getting us to an acceptable resolution on that complicated acquisition.

That's it for me. Thank you.

Ms. Angie.

Good morning, Chair and Board of Commissioners. As a matter of scheduling, I will be traveling this week to Washington, D.C. again, this time for ICMA. Board orientation, this marks what is the sunset of my board contributions as I orient help support orientation of a new class coming into the ICMA board. As a reminder, Washington County does not pay any cost for travel, lodging, food, et cetera. All costs are borne by ICMA or my personal funds. for this travel. During this time, Marnie Kyle will be serving as acting county administrator. I will have a bit more flexibility and your board always reach me should you need me during this time. I do also, I know yesterday I remarked to a few people, I can't believe we're already in the midst of August, and we have the school year right around the corner, and also September marks national preparedness month. So staff are gearing up for annual activities for National Preparedness Month. So please watch. You will receive an all county email today or tomorrow marking some of the activities that we have planned for this coming month. And that concludes my update.

Great. Board. I can go first. Right. Mine's. Pretty short. Last Wednesday, I had a lunch meeting with the new Work Systems Inc. Executive Director, Miriam Holliday. There's been significant changes that when you have a new executive director coming on board, we're adjusting organizational changes and goals in relationship to cutbacks from the federal government and funding for workforce development work. The other thing that I'm working on with them is the potential merger of the Clackamas WorkSource Board and our WorkSource Board so we can move together efficiently into the future. Tomorrow, I have a check-in with Interim Chief Deputy Chris Ellis. That's been going well since Chief Deputy Officer Wheaton is back at the FBI Academy. And on Thursday, I have a lunch with some Work Systems, Inc. folks again, and this is to celebrate the retirement of one of our previous board members, Karen Lilly, who's been on the board for very long. So that's a celebration that's underway under the Work Systems, Inc. banner. That's it.

Great.

You want to go or you want me to go?

Yeah, I can go next and say I'm back from vacation this week. So I've been on vacation last week, so I have nothing to report back from last week.

Oh, shoot. I was on vacation last week, too, but I got a lot to report.

Oh, you're – well –

You didn't drive 3,100 miles for five days, 45 hours of driving. Oh, my gosh. It was very interesting to drive across the country because you totally see the country. You're not seeing it from 40,000 feet. So, yeah, we went from Hillsborough to Sarasota, Florida. Took us five days. some fun facts that you pick up on the way. I didn't know the highest point in the trip would be in Wyoming. I thought it would be in Colorado. It's actually in Wyoming, 7,200 foot elevation. Florida's highest point in the entire state is 345 feet. So yeah, it's quite a different, well, you get to Wyoming, I guess it's downhill all the way from there. Temperature variation, we left here, it was in the low 90s. Across Wyoming, again, we hit rainstorms and it was 58 degrees. And Kansas warmed us right back up again with 106. So at about a 30 mile an hour wind. So essentially, the whole trip wasn't as boring as I expected. And so, yeah, it was just interesting to see the different parts of our country that you don't normally see. We never ate. We never stopped at one fast food restaurant. My son is adamant about healthy food, so we packed our lunches and packed our breakfast every day. So anyway, that's what was going on there.

Really good to go pastries, though, I bet.

No, pastries is not on his list.

Oh, got it.

But no, there's a lot more to it. But it was interesting. There's construction all the way across this country. And as you get into, I think it's Kansas and Missouri, they allow billboard signs. And if you remember several years ago, I think Oregon outlawed highway billboard signs and certain things. They have them all over the place. 90% of them are injury attorney's SAYING IF YOU'VE BEEN INJURED, IF YOU'VE BEEN IN THE CAR WRECK, BACK TO BACK TO BACK TO BACK. AND IT WAS ALMOST A COMPETITION TO SEE. ANYWAY.

COMMISSIONER WILLIE, COULD YOU TELL US WHO THE THIRD PASSENGER IN YOUR CAR WAS?

NO. OTHER THAN MY SON AND I WAS 150-POUND DOG. SO WE GOT TO THAT'S THE REASON WHY WE HAD TO DO IT BECAUSE YOU CAN'T SHIP A DOG. So yeah, that's the reason why we had to drive because we had to take the dog and yes, getting her in and out of the back of the vehicle and taking potty breaks. Then we spent five days unpacking stuff and getting them because they are moving to Florida permanently. So, okay.

Miss the grandson stories.

I tell you, I know that I can still watch him on a, Game changer. But anyway, it won't be the same. Um, So this week, tonight, I'm going to Gaston. I haven't been to Gaston City Council for quite some time. I'm going to give them a Washington County update, but also talk to them about the CDB. I'm going to give them a Washington County update, but also talk to them about the CDB. So thank you, Shannon. You're giving me, Shannon Wilson's giving me lots of information, and she's going to be accompanying me tonight. And I talked to the mayor yesterday. The mayor is for the program. But for some reason, his counsel is against. So we'll see if we can talk him into that. Tomorrow evening is the Clean Water Services Board Paddle. I will not be at that because of a personal conflict with that. But yeah, so that should be fun. I don't know how many of you are going. Salmonberry Trail Executive Meeting, we've got lots of lots of information that we are working on right now and salmonberry trail coming to this group next week and so yeah i'm sure you'll get a complete update at that point in time i have a forest trust lands meeting on friday a meeting i have a forest trust lands meeting on friday a meeting going to uh corneas for their national night out that was POSTPONED, AND SO THAT WILL BE HAPPENING. AND I DOUBT THAT WAS POSTPONED, AND SO THAT WILL BE HAPPENING. AND I APPRECIATE CERTAINLY COMMISSIONER SNYDER STEPPING IN FOR ME WITH THE SHS RPOC MEETING LAST WEEK, AND SO I'LL GET AN UPDATE FROM YOU ON HOW THAT WENT. AND THEN CERTAINLY STACY COVERED FOR ME AT NORTHWEST SACS. I'LL THANK YOU, STACY, FOR DOING THAT AND THE OTHER THINGS THAT WAS GOING ON. SO BACK AT IT.

Welcome back. Great. So thank you, Commissioner Fai, for letting us know that you'll be doing the CWS CWAC board paddle if staff assistants could let them know because that wasn't in external communications. Also missing from there, I've got a meeting that Rahim wants coming up. On PAB, I'll fill in more of the story behind Gaston. So, Gaston is looking to not renew their participation in the consortium and the PAB anyway, which is fine, but they'll no longer be part of the consortium. It's a really small population base, so it won't affect the consortium dollars in a significant way. That means if they want to pursue CDBG dollars, they have to go through the state program and compete with everybody else. And then there's the question of, for competing for grants at the state level, where will they be handling their comp plan if it's required? And so that will be on them. And so it wasn't known at the PAB meeting if the city council really understood the shift for them. So we'll see. The long and short of it is it's not a major impact for us, but it would mean that we'd no longer have that portion of Gaston that is in Washington County. That's the PAB report. We were also working on the policy document. So everything's going pretty smoothly there. Otherwise, I won't be going on the CWS paddle as I have another appointment and CWS knows that. They've known it for a long time. And I mentioned the Rahim thing and I think that's it. Great. All righty. Well, unless there's anything else, we'll see you at the 10 o'clock board meeting. And then we will come back here probably after the lunch break for our first executive session. But we'll see what happens with time in our board meeting. Thank you.