City Council - Regular Meeting

I am going to. No, no.

I'll be up in a second.

Thank you.

Good afternoon, everyone. This Tuesday, August 4th, 2026 meeting of the Lake Oswego City Council is now called to order. Ms. Hawkins, will you please call roll?

Mayor Buck?

Here.

Councillor Maboub is on Zoom. Councillors Wendland? Here. Burdick?

Here.

Corrigan? Here. Edmonds-Manz? Here. And Afton?

Here. All right. Thank you. Now, everyone, will you please stand, remove your hats, and join us in the pledge. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. Okay, we are going to start off with public comment. I don't have anyone that's signed up in advance. Is there anyone here to provide public comment? I think we just have staff. Okay. Okay. Seeing no one, we're going to move on to the consent agenda. There are six items on the consent agenda. We have a contract for a screaming deal on interim city attorney services, an amendment to the pavement management program, Resolution 26-46, which is an update to some council liaison assignments. We have meeting minutes and then resolution 26-49, which extends our economic development subcommittee term, the ad hoc subcommittee term. Is there a motion to adopt the consent agenda?

Approve. Second.

All right, motion is made by Councillor Mance and seconded by Councillor Corrigan. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? All right, motion passes 7-0. Okay, first item of Council Business is consideration of Resolution 26-39. This is the Emerald Ash Borer Readiness and Response Plan. I'll invite Assistant City Manager Megan Phelan, and we have other members of the City team here as well. Just talk to us about that. As you know, we all had a study session on this at our other meeting. It's good to have you all back.

Good afternoon, Mayor, City Council. I'm Megan Phelan, Assistant City Manager. And yes, as the Mayor just mentioned, back in June, we came to Fort Ford Council with a study session on the Emerald Ash Borer and appreciated the discussion and the direction we received that evening regarding some allocation of fiscal resources for us to begin addressing the EAB in this calendar year. With that, we have prepared a readiness and response plan as well as a communications framework, so I'd like to turn it over to the staff to introduce that. With us, we have Courtney Wilson, Caleb Simpson, and Madison Thiesing. I'll turn it over to Courtney.

Good afternoon, Council. My name is Courtney Wilson.

I'm Caleb Simpson.

And we're here to give a brief overview about our Emerald Ash Borer readiness and response plan, as well as a quick refresher about what Emerald Ash Borer is and how it will impact Lake Oswego. So a quick overview. Emerald ash borer was first detected in 2022 in Forest Grove, Oregon. And it has been confirmed in five counties, which include Clackamas, Multnomah, Washington, Marion, and Yamhill counties. And once a tree is infested with EAB, it has about a 99% mortality rate. With EAB being permanently established in Oregon, it'll inevitably spread to Lake Oswego, and it cannot be eradicated, but a proactive plan can minimize the ecological, economic, and safety impacts to our community. Ash trees are also widespread in our city, in our parks, natural areas, rights of ways, and on private property, making this a citywide risk, not just an isolated one. So what is emerald ash borer? Emerald ash borer is a non-native invasive wood boring beetle that feeds on and kills ash trees, including our native Oregon ash, as well as fringe tree and cultivated olive. It is also considered to be one of the most destructive pests in North America since its 2002 discovery near Detroit, Michigan. There are also no effective natural predators in North America and EAB kills healthy and stressed trees alike. Adult EABs live for about three to six weeks and the entire life cycle from egg to adult takes about one year or two years in colder regions. A single female can lay up to 200 eggs that hatch in about three weeks and the larvae spend about one year growing and feeding beneath the bark. A common misconception is that adult EABs are what kill ash. It's actually the larvae that destroy the inner tissues and feed on them that disrupts nutrient uptake for the tree. And infected ash trees typically die within three to seven years after initial attack.

To give a brief summary of the 2025 parks inventory, in the summer of 2025, we hired two interns to conduct a ash tree inventory on parks' own property. And we did these in areas that we considered to be hazard zones. So this would be a 100-foot buffer on the park borders that bordered high-value targets such as homes, utilities, and roads. And then we did a 60 foot buffer on park trails and pathways. The inventory 2711 trees with 1528 being potentially hazardous. Those are the ones that would be large enough with a high value target within range in those hazard zones. Approximately 80% of the ash trees are located within eight of our parks, which are listed on the screen below. I want to put a reminder in there that we did not inventory more interior ash trees. So most of the park area for our parks did not get inventoried and there are plenty of ash that are interior and then will not be considered for preemptive ash tree removal as the trees do not have high value targets within range. And then we did do a kind of triage into four different tiers with the first three tiers being ones that we should potentially remove.

So we are currently expanding our citywide inventory. So currently, we're having two interns inventory our public rights-of-way for ash trees. They're inventorying approximately 180 miles of right-of-way along our streets. As of this morning, they've inventoried about 350 right-of-way ash trees. We split the city into seven zones based on our street sweeping routes, and they've completed about two and a half of those zones, so they're about 35% of the way through that right of way tree inventory. The purpose of this inventory is to just quantify the amount of ash that we have in our right of way since we don't have those numbers yet. Once we have this information, it'll guide our treatment, removal, and replacement decisions. We are also in the early phase of developing a request for proposal or an RFP for a citywide public tree inventory that will inventory all of our right-of-way trees, not just ash trees, as this was a goal outlined in our urban and community forestry plan. Once we have this data, it'll be used to quantify the amount of trees that we have within the city, as well as species makeup, since we only currently have a canopy estimate in Lake Oswego. SO THERE ARE THREE MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES OUTLINED IN THE READINESS AND RESPONSE PLAN, THE FIRST ONE BEING REMOVAL, PREEMPTIVE REMOVALS OF HAZARDOUS TREES NEAR HOMES, UTILITIES AND ROADS BEFORE AN EAB INFESTATION TAKES PLACE AND CREATES HAZARD TREE CONDITIONS. as well as chemical treatment. Treatments would be used to slow the spread of EAB and would prevent a surge of hazardous trees in the right of way in our parks and natural areas, as well as no action. So this would be for trees that are away from targets that are in our interior natural areas that will be left in place as habitat snags. And we do also want to mention that staggered removals combined with chemical injections will limit large-scale tree canopy loss in the urban heat island effect in our ash-heavy neighborhoods. The urban heat island effect is when urban areas are warmer than surrounding rural areas due to developed surfaces absorbing and retaining heat, and that is made more apparent when there is a lack of tree canopy. Our plan also outlines replacement and canopy restoration. So within our public right of ways, replacement trees will be evaluated for every removed tree based on safety, funding, and site conditions. Species diversity will also be required so that no single species can dominate the public tree population. We'll be following the 10-20-30 rule for tree diversity, which is a diversity guideline that's been designed to prevent mass canopy loss from pests and diseases by limiting the population of a single species, genus, or family. For example, the urban forest should contain no more than 10% of a single species, such as green ash, no more than 20% of a single genus, such as all fraxinus, and no more than 30% of a single family, like the Olaceae family, which is what ash falls under. New trees will also be planted as close as practical to the original site to preserve tree canopy and character, and alternate sites will be considered within the same corridor when replanting isn't feasible in the same spot.

In parks and natural areas, we're going to follow OSU extension guidance for native alternatives to ash in the spaces. In the plan, we do have a I guess, graph showing the different alternatives we can do based on soil moisture tolerance as well as the clay tolerance of the different species. Ash is pretty unique in that it's a very tall canopy tree that can deal with high clay soils or high clay tolerance as well as high moisture tolerance. And so moving forward, a lot of our riparian areas are going to be moving towards kind of a shrub-dense canopy tree. to make sure that we're still cooling off the waterways, not having high water temperatures, but you won't have that really tall canopy like you do with ash. All of these natural area and park plantings will follow the LO Tree Code. This will be the current tree code as well as the future updated tree code, as well as our sensitive land standards. And then a lot of spaces near park borders where we've done a lot of shaded field break work, we will follow fire resistant plant species that are prioritized in the CCWPP, which is the Clackamas County wildfire protection plan. This way, we're not kind of going backwards on some of the shaded field break work that we've done over the past few years.

So this is my section. I first, before I dive into the communications and outreach, I really want to give credit to Bonnie Hershberger, our public information specialist in the city manager's office who developed this plan. So I only have the luxury of talking about it, but there was a lot of work behind the scenes. One thing about our approach for the public education as it comes to this project is it is a citywide initiative. The city manager's office will be serving as air traffic control, if you will, because it's touching public works, parks, planning. And when we are talking about this project, the EAB is an abstract thought for a lot of people. They don't necessarily know what this beetle is. And so we want to be consistent as possible throughout how we talk about it. what the city's role is, and then what residents' role are. And so I just want to name it, but it is going to be led by the city manager's office. However, as you've seen through this presentation and the past presentation, it's all hands on deck. So with our communications and outreach, we are calling it a framework. It is a living document as we learn more about the spread that will if and when happens in Lake Oswego. The living document is we are going to continue to talk about it, to introduce the idea, for this first year parks will be out removing trees and so it's the first time we're going to really be feeling the impact of these tree removals and then as the the work continues but then as the framework follows if and when the infestation happens in Lake Oswego we will continue to ramp up But then we also know that the questions are going to evolve over time. The initial questions that we need to be ready to answer this year is what is EAB? What is the impact to parks? What does it mean if I have these trees on my property? And then as we continue to educate the community, there will be more questions of what mediation is. And so a lot of this is having central talking points, FAQs. As you see, it's having this information everywhere. One thing I would like to call out in the framework specifically is while we talk about this in a general sense of how do we educate and through this public education campaign, As we start to do these removals within trees, we know that's when people are going to notice it the most, the trees in the parks near their homes. And so we have in their plan a lot of outreach with the friends groups that are associated with these parks, postcards. We also know that it may not be city staff who's doing that work, but contractors. So providing them the information to be able to talk to our community members. And then likewise, as residents are starting to remove trees, having that information for landscaping companies, tree arborists, as well as everyone who's doing work in the right of way. And so a lot of this is not only how we talk about it, but when we talk about it and making sure that the community understands the why we're doing this. Why are we removing these trees and what is our efforts to mitigate and replace as well. What you'll see for the next few years, because this is a multi-year project, you'll see it frequently in the HLLO when the work is taking place through the fall during that dormant period. You'll see it in social media. You'll see it in the parks guides. You'll see it on the website. We have a central website. We'll have a central email as well. So it's not that people or residents know they can go to one source of information, one source of truth for their resources. And then lastly, with the tree code adoption and updates, we know we're going to have a lot of questions about permits and how it relates to people's private property. And so we'll have more and more information with that. But again, the number one goal for the framework is to have consistency, one message for one team as well.

Thank you, Madison. ALL RIGHT, BUDGET AND FUNDING DIRECTION. FIRST OF ALL, WE WANT TO THANK COUNCIL FOR OUR LAST MEETING IN THE INITIAL 500,000 THAT WAS DEDICATED FOR THIS FIRST YEAR OF ASH TREE REMOVALS AND WORKING WITH THE ASH IN THIS AREA. WE UNDERSTAND THIS IS A VERY DIFFICULT DECISION AS MONEY WAS NOT ALLOCATED FOR THIS PROJECT DURING THE CREATION OF THE CURRENT BUDGET AND SO THAT'S ALWAYS A DIFFICULT DECISION TO BE MADE. MOVING FORWARD, WE ARE DIRECTED TO ALLOCATE BETWEEN $300,000 AND $800,000 FOR THE 27-29 BIENNIUM BUDGET. PART OF THIS WITH THE RIGHT-OF-WAY ASH TREE INVENTORY THAT'S CURRENTLY BEING DONE BY INTERNS WILL AID OUR BUDGETING FORECAST FOR THE NEXT BIENNIUM SO WE CAN INCLUDE THOSE NUMBERS WITH THE PARK TREE INVENTORY THAT WE DID IN 2025. All right. So to give you some information about the year one allocation of the $500,000, the first ash tree work will be done in 15 park properties with approximately 151 trees being removed. And these removals include wood removal and hauling of the wood debris, brush chipping, traffic control. All those things are already considered and are considered for the QUOTED COST THAT WE HAVE FOR THE TREES. ADDITIONALLY, WE WILL BE PERFORMING STAGGERED INJECTIONS ALONG PARK VIEW AND BUNICH DRIVE BECAUSE THOSE ARE KNOWN AREAS OR KNOWN BOULEVARDS THAT HAVE A REALLY HIGH ASH TREE POPULATION AND WE WANT TO KIND OF HIT THOSE AREAS EARLY WITH SOME OF THE INJECTIONS TO STAGGER FUTURE REMOVALS. We also will be continuing injections in Foothills Park and then adding some more park properties such as Bryant Woods, West Willuga, and then also the ACC. These will be more significant and like large stature ash trees, especially in the frontage areas where it is essentially all ash in those spaces. So we maintain some canopy for the future years. A LOT OF THE TREES THAT WERE PICKED ON THESE 15 PARK PROPERTIES WERE ESSENTIALLY CHOSEN BECAUSE WE'RE TRYING TO BALANCE THE MULTIPLE NEEDS OF HAVING PICKING TREES THAT HAVE THE HIGHEST NUMBER OF TARGETS AND SO LIKE ONE TREE HAVING THREE HOMES AS A TARGET AS WELL AS A LOT OF THESE PARK PROPERTIES HAD A LOT OF DAMAGE ON THE ASH TREES DURING THE 2024 STORM AND SO WE'RE TRYING TO HIT THOSE TREES FIRST SINCE WE SUSPECT THAT THEY'LL BE KIND OF THE INTRODUCTORY TREES FOR EAB. As well as trying to prioritize, like if we're going to a park and two of those trees are kind of damaged, but there's three trees in the space, to decrease on entry costs, we're better off removing all three of those trees in a given open space or park property, just to kind of lower some of the entry cost fees. While we're doing this work, the price can fluctuate while we're on site performing a lot of the tree work. And so we may decide to snag a lot more trees in different areas based on the amount of fuel load that's in the area. So if we have space to leave some debris for habitat value, we can choose to do that and that will decrease some of the costs. With that said, we will also choose to chip and haul a lot of our own debris in park settings where we can access it a lot easier, also to decrease costs. With these things being decided on site, we will then add more trees in the future to meet our budget as we progress and do this work.

Lastly, it is our recommendation to adopt Resolution 2639 to approve the Emerald Ash Borer Readiness and Response Plan. This would minimize impacts of our ash tree losses across the community, protect the community as ash trees start to decline from EAB, as well as preserve and restore canopy aesthetics and benefits for future years. Are there any questions?

Thank you all very much for this presentation and all of your combined work on this. Okay, we'll start with questions. Councillor Afghan, go ahead.

Thank you so much, Mr. Mayor. The injections, I think last time we talked about the bigger trees would get the injections. Are we still talking about the same thing?

Yes, so we are prioritizing injecting larger trees as well as trees that are culturally significant or providing a significant amount of canopy coverage. One thing to note is that the injections are just kind of a way to reduce the amount of canopy being lost at one time. Eventually, the trees will succumb to EAB, so we're going to inject trees as well as take a hybrid approach with a combination of injecting large trees and removing others.

Okay, thank you. I have three comments. You don't have to answer. I just like you to keep this in mind when we talk about alternative Native alternatives if we're going to plant something near pavement Let's consider trees that their roots go down and not out because we don't want sidewalk or then we go back and fix sidewalks or pavements and That's one. Two is, as part of communication, as I walk the city, I notice that people go talk with the crew. So maybe a QR code or maybe a handout so they don't have to stand there and either say, go check out the website, or they just hand something to them. Last one, can I request that we change the word target or high-value target? Every time you said that, I tensed up. I thought I was sitting in a situation room. So maybe we'd be a little more sensitive to those words. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Afghan.

Councillor O'Byrick?

May I? Oh, you're sharing.

Oh, it's working. It's working?

It's not lighting, so I don't know if it's working. Is it lighting? Yeah.

My question is, as part of that, part of all the communication that's going on, is there going to be some sort of dashboard where people can see where these Emerald Ash trees are?

in their neighborhood or, you know, like we have our map so you can click on where road work is. Would there be something like that?

Right now, I know the parks has inventory. There's in GIS. And so we could look into finding a way if we could embed that map with that layer on the website. I would have to work with IT to find out, but I definitely think we can find, if it's static maybe, maybe not as live as GIS, but we could definitely find an option. especially to show impact. I think, you know, when we're talking about parks, we know the scale. What we've talked about as a team, when we start talking about the right-of-way trees, it's going to be, I'll just use the word jarring to see the scale of it. So, yes.

I think if people have that, are able to go and go, oh, my neighborhood really isn't impacted, or it is, and I have questions, it could further drive the conversation. We definitely explore that. Thank you. Thank you for that suggestion.

Thanks, Councillor Manns. Councillor Corrigan.

So I want to preface this by saying I know Parks is very thoughtful and careful about the things that it injects and the pesticides that it uses to manage our lands, but could you tell us about the chemical that you're injecting, the name of it, and what its mechanism is? I'll start again. Great, thanks.

I'll start it, and then Courtney can pick up if I miss anything. So I think our primary choice will be emamectin benzoate. It's a trunk injection system that essentially goes right into the xylem and phloem portion of the tree. There's no chemical being sprayed on the tree, pushed into the soil, none of those different systems. Those are possible systems. But for us, the tree injection is the safest way with the least amount of ecological impact for the tree, as well as insects, bacteria, anything around the tree. When it gets injected into the root collar of the tree, it gets absorbed upwards into the tree to get towards the entire trunk and then the branches and then into the leaves. We do this during kind of that like one, one and a half month time in spring. So it was May to June. This is also primarily because that is post pollination period of the tree. And so when you're initially putting in the emamectin benzoate. It'll be after it's pollinated and ash trees are wind pollinated so it's not having bees or birds but there is the possibility that then if it was in pollen it could wind pollinate and get onto something that could affect them. So we're doing it after the pollination of a tree and then essentially I don't know the exact like science behind it. Essentially it creates like a barrier to where it kills larvae that are inside the tree already and then kind of makes it UNINHABITABLE AND WILL KILL FUTURE LARVAE IF THEY TRY TO SURVIVE IN THE TREE FOR THE NEXT YEAR OR SO. THAT'S WHY I HAVE KIND OF LIKE A TWO-YEAR BUFFER.

OKAY. GREAT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

COUNCILOR MILLER. GREAT PRESENTATION. CONCISE. ALL TO THE POINTS. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. I KNOW WE'RE DEALING MOSTLY WITH THE CITY TREES AND I THINK YOU'VE GOT A FABULOUS EXCELLENT PLAN. As that continues, the rollout of the public resources or public messaging, I think it's going to be interesting to find out what the total tree inventory and just how many trees we're actually talking about on private land too. I guess we need to be very, I think, proactive about telling people, hey, if you're going to, as soon as they find out that They should be taking their trees out. People are going to start to act. And I don't know if we've got a list of... sort of approved contractors that can do work in the city, or I don't know if it's right to give suggestions, but just so we don't have people coming in to the city that are not insured and not contracted. I know it's buyer beware to a certain extent, but I'd love to have a safe process that we have. And then on suggested trees to replace, That's where I think the real guidance has to be so that people know not to replant the trees that we think may be affected in the future. And maybe there's some really popular trees that we actually I love the idea when we did the forestry management plan that we're looking at really cultivating an intentional program. And when you look at all the private properties that we have, if we get them on board with the intentional program, I think we're just going to be a much better outcome 30 years from now. But we need to be the incubators of the ideas and direction. And then the last part on the replacement trees, are these going to be pretty big trees that we're putting back in? Are they going to be like little trees that we hope are going to grow? I mean, I guess I'm trying to figure out the strategy. When you take out some of these trees in our public places, it's going to be a, I guess, a conscious decision on our part of fewer bigger trees or lots of little trees. And I didn't know if we had a strategy for that or not.

Yeah, so for our right-of-way replacement trees, we're going to take in a variety of factors when deciding on what trees to replace. So we'll be looking at planter strip width, as well as utility impacts, whether they're underground utilities, overhead utility wires, because there's lots of places all over the city where the incorrect tree was planted in the wrong spot. And that's what causes sidewalk issues or repeated tree topping due to overhead power lines. So with all those factors taken into consideration, that will ultimately determine the species and the size of tree that goes to be replaced. So for example, we wouldn't plant a large form tree in a three foot wide planter strip because we don't want to cause these future infrastructure impacts. So it'll be site specific, but we do want to ensure that we're maintaining a good tree diversity so that in the event that another pester disease comes through, we won't lose a large amount of the tree population. But once we have the comprehensive tree inventory, which we hope to have a consultant onboarded and performing that summer 2027, we'll get a better idea of the current tree species makeup within the city and that can also help guide our replanting recommendations once we see what the species diversity currently is so that we ensure that we're maintaining good diversity.

No, I think this gives us an opportunity. And I mean, it's a horrible situation. Don't get me wrong. But you always have to look at the nice things that come out of it. And one of the nice things is that we can do some planning and guidance to our community on how we want, like us, we're going to be 20, 30, 40 years from now once we're all grown up. At one point, don't forget, all this area was one flat, big, huge flat space. Westlake was flat space. I mean, there's a lot of places that didn't have trees. And we intentionally grew some great trees. Maybe we picked the wrong species because this little pest came in. Do we also have a list of potential species evader or invaders that are out there? Is this the only tree real big problem, or are there other problems that other species that we have?

So on the horizon, there is what's called Mediterranean oak borer, which is a boring insect that has been known to attack oak trees. Fortunately, they tend to attack oak trees that are already in decline or stressed. So a way to keep an oak tree... prevent it from getting Mediterranean oak borer would be to just keep it healthy. If you start noticing signs of decline, it'd be great to consult with an arborist that could provide proper care recommendations. We don't foresee Mediterranean oak borer being as widespread of a problem as EAB. Good.

Well, that's a good sign. Thank you. Thanks, Councillor Woodland. Councillor Murray.

answered one of my questions, so thank you, and that was making sure that we do plant a diverse range of trees so that we don't kind of get in this situation again. But my other question, and it may be that you've already kind of addressed this in the marketing and it's just not spelled out, but also depending on where kind of we're concentrating our efforts, making sure we reach out to the neighborhood associations and they can also help spread the words to neighbors. So we just don't want to miss that resource.

Council Vertica, Councillor Atkins. Councillor Wedlund said something that triggered something that I wanted to make a request. Could you talk with the planning department and see if it makes sense to have a streamlined pre-cutting permit for this species only. So if I'm a neighbor and I hear this is what the city is going to do and I want to do the same thing, make it easy for them. We can charge them, but we can also make it easy for them.

So with the upcoming tree code updates, they're actually going to be doing that. Any ash tree or species that is susceptible to emerald ash borer will qualify for a free tree removal permit. So that will be one of the upcoming code changes in October.

The mayor is gonna buy all three of you lunch for that answer. Thanks, Councillor Afghan.

At one of three restaurants in town. No, I'm just kidding. In talking about the replanting, one challenge we could have is just ensuring the survival of these mitigation trees. Do you have a plan for that? Kind of procedures, a process in place to monitor the replanting? How will we ensure the survival of these trees?

Yeah, so at least on our city right-of-ways, that will ultimately be budget dependent. Typically, at least when our Public Works Department replants trees within the right-of-way, our landscape contractor does have a watering schedule on the trees. So trees typically need supplemental watering for the first three to five years for proper root establishment, as well as regular monitoring. I'd imagine that we wouldn't just let all of our trees die and we'd want to make sure we provide proper care after investing the time and money into replanting these trees.

We'll have to, oh, Caleb. And I can say in the parks and natural area properties, it kind of goes in slightly two different directions. So in a park setting that's pretty easily accessible, we do a similar thing to right away where we'd probably be watering the tree, monitoring it over the first few years of establishment. In natural areas and especially spaces that are like there. We tend to do bare root plantings and so you over plant and then you don't water them but you're putting really small plants that then once they survive the first couple years they're more better they're better established for the space and so you tend to not water them but then you'd over plant expecting to have some not survive the first couple years.

OK. Do you think it'd be possible to put in a system of monitoring as we're doing the reporting on the removal of the ash borer, just such a large project, to also report back on and monitor the ongoing health of the mitigation trees?

What was the first part of the question?

We're going to be talking about the trees that are removed each year. We're going to be setting a budget for it. I mean, Courtney's got a good point. We need to contemplate the cost of not just planting, but ensuring the kind of long-term health of these new trees, but including that kind of just the health of these information on the mitigation trees in the ongoing reporting on this program. Would that be possible?

Yeah, we should be able to do that. That's pretty common for a lot of natural area contractors when they plant. You just kind of ask for them to keep up monitoring so you get percentages of what all survived, species specific and everything. Okay, yeah, that would be great.

And I think we have, does Councillor Booth have a question on Zoom?

Yes, I do. Hi, Councillor Booth. Hi. Hi, Mr. Mayor. Hi, dear Councilman. and i am you know i think it's a very good presentation and it reflects what we talked about in june i'm very happy that you folks are taking the lead on this and honestly i don't have a lot of questions the only Thing that I would like to see is the involvement of the community, like the watershed council. In the school district, so the groups of students that are very involved in ecology and. Staff, I just think it would be great that this thing is not only the path question and the city question, but it's just. Like the whole community they know, and it will solve even the question of information that Madison talk about of coming communication. The more people are involved with the more they know what we're doing, what we're talking about and. It's a, you know, the terms we use, this is sort of a war we are fighting against something that's coming to destroy. What we have, and there will be more things like this in the future. The good news is we have this plan and maybe even. like talk about plans of other attack like the ash borers there will be and i didn't even know there was something against the oaks and as it trees but i'm glad i'm very proud of our city and of the park that i represent that i am a liaison of you guys are doing a wonderful work and That's my suggestion, and I'm sure you are doing it. I talk with Mike Buck, with most of the watershed members. It would be very important to involve them. They know replacement trees. We have that problem with our property when we were doing replacement there were some trees that was not adapted and that are in the code maybe it will be changing the new code but it's good to talk to those folks thank you so much and great presentation thanks counselor

Make a motion to move. I just have one more question. Just to clarify the process here. Will there be, so we have kind of a general budget set for this. Are we going out, like putting out a, you know, RFP for people to, how are we kind of managing the work? How do we select who's doing this work? Oh, there's like a tree going up.

Yeah, so we currently already have three tree care contractors for public works in our parks departments. So they will be the ones performing the removal work as well as the injections.

So how are we, how's that working? You know what I mean? So it's not competitive?

We've already gone through that competitive process. We already have tree care companies just on contract at all times for the city for various reasons, for various different things. The staff has met with them to allocate the first 500,000 for this calendar year's work. We certainly have the accompanying goal setting with council in January, February of next year. We also have the budgetary process to go through So if council has more direction or further alignment or refinement of how we proceed with that, we would welcome those conversations at those times too.

So between the three contractors, how is the kind of cost determined of this specific work? Like how do we go about getting the, we got these ash trees we need to remove, are they individually submit Do they have kind of like an a la carte menu they've provided, like ash tree removal that we knew about when we brought them on?

YES, SO INITIALLY WE HAD BACK IN JUNE'S PRESENTATION WE HAD A TABLE SET OUT TO WHERE WE HAD ESTIMATED PRICES BASED ON THE SIZE OF TREES THAT WE GOT FROM THE THREE CONTRACTORS. AND THEN FROM THERE WE HAD THEM GO EVALUATE A PORTION OF WEST BELUGA WHERE IT INCLUDED PARK SPECIFIC TREES, TREES NEAR ROADS AS WELL AS TREES THAT ARE MORE IN THE NATURAL AREA. to get essentially where they're giving quotes per tree for I think an estimated 50-some trees. And then from there, we had one contractor that was significantly cheaper for most of the natural areas and park properties. So we've gone for them to get a more extensive quote list for the 15 properties that are on our year one allocation. And then we're using another contractor for a lot of our tree injections because they've already initiated some of that work over the past few years.

Okay. So we kind of had the three, of the three that we work with, they provided bids, estimates, and then we went with the most cost effective. Yes. Okay.

Well, that's good.

Okay. Thank you for clarifying that. Okay. Okay. So I move to adopt resolution 26-39. Second.

All right.

The motion was made by Councillor Winland and seconded by Councillor Burdick. Is there any further discussion? All right, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Okay, motion passes 7-0. Thank you all very much. We really appreciate your work on this. Good job. Good presentation. May the force be with you. Or the chainsaw.

Or the chainsaw.

Taglines for this program.

Don't get hit by a tree.

Next, we have a study session on pedestrian facility prioritization. We have Public Works Director and City Engineer, Eric Rooney, and our Assistant Public Works Director, Will Farley, as well as Mort. Mort is not coming up. Good afternoon to you both.

Good afternoon, Mayor, Councillors. I'm Erica Rooney, Public Works Director and City Engineer. And with me today are Will Farley and Mort Anishavrani here in the front row. Both of them are our Assistant City Engineers. Will has been instrumental over the last six years in working with our Transportation Advisory Board. He's been the one implementing the council goals for the pedestrian improvements. And with the kind of the, when we dissolved the Transportation Advisory Board, we no longer had that process in place for determining what the next set of pedestrian projects were. So what he recently did is he led us through this process that was similar to what we used with the Transportation Advisory Board, same criteria, all of that. We looked at all the same projects which we've presented to you before and we did an internal conversation about it with Will and with Mort, myself, and even Stefan Broadus, who you all know, is the Director of Special Projects. And then we came up with the next set of recommended projects, and that's what Will's going to talk to us about today. He's going to share with you kind of a supplementary information that goes well with the council report. And then Mort is here because he is the fortunate one to take, hopefully, your recommendations and ensure that we get them into the next part of our future CIP process that we'll start this fall. Internally, we'll start putting together the capital improvement plan. And in the spring, we'll incorporate that into the budget and bring that all forward to you there. So these are the first steps in making sure that we get the right projects lined up for that process. And the three of us are a part of that. Now I'm going to turn it over to Will, though, to give you a presentation on the recommendations we have for the next pedestrian pathway projects.

Good evening, mayor and city councillors. My name is Will Farley, assistant city engineer. I'm here to give a quick presentation on our pedestrian pathway program and ask for your approval for the next set of priorities to include in our 2027 capital improvement plan. So I know we're all wanting to get out for National Night Out, so I'll talk at my normal, quick-paced speed, and run us through this agenda. We'll touch on the background of how we got where we are, speak to the current project status that's in the CIP, and where projects were prioritized by Transportation Advisory Board, and I'll give details on the recommendations by staff, and including a couple alternatives. So for a quick recap, over a decade ago, we adopted our transportation system plan that had nearly 200 projects identified to help traffic patterns in Lake Oswego through 2035. Pedestrian bicycle infrastructure was of concern at that time because 132 of those projects were to help people walk and bike around our city. In 2019, City Council decided to start working some of these projects off the list and charged the Transpatient Advisory Board to come up with a methodology to prioritize projects near schools for kids to get to the school safer. So TAB, the Transpatient Advisory Board narrowed that 132 projects down to 43 projects, and then they began to work on a methodology that listed those projects based on the roadway functional classification with arterials being the most important, school type with elementary school being more important, proximity to school, of course, closer was going to be rising up to the top of that list, and if we could complete a gap with a project. So this prioritization have brought these projects forward for recommendation for funding. This map has a couple colors in it. Projects identified in green have been constructed or are planned for construction in our current 2025 capital improvement program. Projects identified in blue have been recommended but not yet funded. Reasons these haven't been funded yet include having a prohibitively high cost, such as the project of number one, which is Boone's Ferry Road right there behind Lake Oswego High School, or project number two, which is Bryant Road, which is basically sidewalks, bike lanes, all the way from Boone's Ferry Road down to Childs. Other projects like that on number 14 is on Atwater Road, which is a road that the county has jurisdiction over. And 15 is one that already has a separated pedestrian connection on it. A couple other notes I'd like to point out on this slide that are asterisks. McEwen Road was one that was brought forward with opportunity with Lake Oswego School District to fund. This was not in our TSP, but we had that opportunity. And that one is working on construction as we speak. Another one was Fernwood Road, which was in the original 43 projects reviewed by TAB, but they had a concern with the cost that they were proposing at the time. So that one didn't make to their formal recommendation, but it was one that they had scored. The single asterisk is Fernwood. It extends from South Shore and all the way to Marjory. The double asterisk is McEwen. I kind of went backwards on them. Okay, make sure we go to the right one. Moving forward for our upcoming 2027 capital improvement plan, we're carrying forward the funding for the projects identified previously. Bryant Road between Lakeview and Upper, this is that windy area that goes over the railroad tracks. This is expected to be constructed sometime around 2028. Goodall Road between Hazel and Country Club Road, We're going to fill in some missing gaps to make a complete segment on the east side sometime in 2029. And then Fernwood Drive, that single asterisk, between South Shore and Marjory Drive, we expect to have constructed sometime around 2031. But since the upcoming update to the 2027 capital improvement plan looks at the next six years, we want to look at what projects we're going to put in forward for 2032 and 2033. Gosh, we're almost getting there. So to start way up high level, here's a map of projects staff is bringing to council for recommendation, along with a couple alternatives identified with an asterisk on this one. Most of these projects were scored high by the Transportation Advisory Board and considered for recommendation, but didn't rise to the level of being included due to various concerns. I'll give council some details in the next slide in the order they're listed through on this map. So start us off, relatively small project on Corey Road that would help us help walking to Lake Grove Elementary School. Corey Road is identified as a neighborhood collector that carries about 2,300 vehicles per day on average. People were seen driving about 25 miles an hour with a speed limit of 20. I want to make a side that our count data was collected right in while we were implementing the 20 is plenty, so it won't reflect some of those. This project is described in our transportation system plan as doing 600 feet of improvements, including filling in about 50 feet of sidewalk. It will involve several driveway rebuilds for some of the properties there. Estimate cost is about $300,000.

Sorry, real quick. Are there sidewalks then from Boone's up to where that is? The project is on Quarry?

Correct. There are sidewalks that go all the way up. There's a driveway on the west side where there's kind of a gap on the east side in red. There is no sidewalk in that segment.

Perfect. Okay. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you.

Next recommendation by staff is a small project on Sunningdale Road connecting to Forest Hills Elementary School. Sunningdale is classified as a local street in our transportation system plan. And while I don't have count data or speeds available for this road, I'd estimate it to carry about 500 vehicles a day, with most people driving between that 20 and 25 mile per hour speed limit. With a 20 mile per hour speed limit, they're going to be pretty close to that. The project, as described in our transportation system plan, is constructing 575 foot of sidewalk and 275 foot of asphalt pathway. And the estimated cost is about $1 million. This project was held off by the Transportation Advisory Board due to the expectation of Forest Hills Elementary School coming in for remodel. As of March of this year, they were approved through land use to begin that remodel, and they're expecting to break ground this summer. They are conditioned to do the portion in blue, so they will be constructing that 575 foot of sidewalk. We will want to go in and complete that red section to 10th Street. which is likely going to cost much less than the million dollars.

I hope. I hope too.

Adjacent to that project on Sunningdale and still serving the Forest Hills Elementary School is a project on 10th Street. 10th Street is also a local street carrying probably, I didn't get counts on this one, but it's expected to carry less than 800 vehicles on average a day with speeds between that 20 and 25 mile per hour range. It's described in our transportation system plan as constructing 750 feet of a six foot wide meandering sidewalk with a landscaping strip on the west side. The estimated cost for this one is $700,000. Moving to a different area of town, staff would also recommend working to fill in a significant gap on Bryant, this time between Lakeview Boulevard and Jean Road. Bryant is a major collector that carries upwards of 4,600, some segments up to 7,000 average vehicles a day with speeds of about 30 miles an hour. The project would be a segment of that larger identified project earlier that was recommended in the transportation system plan and by TAB, that segment between Lakeview and Upper expected to be built in 2028. Compliment that one from 2028. This project would be about 1,900 feet, a five-foot-wide sidewalk, and would require some stormwater improvements in this area, too. Estimated cost about $1.5 million.

How will that project relate? Like, there's some pathway there right now.

It's kind of a shoulder pathway in some of it, some that separates off. We've looked at making a more comfortable pedestrian facility. make it consistent for that whole segment. I know some areas around the hill, it gets kind of a little dicey that we get some concerns about, but we would give a separated facility either vertically or horizontally.

I see. So where there's already horizontal separation would that stay? That would stay. Like build a sidewalk? Yep.

And we'd either improve it or... We'd make it one consistent connection. Yeah, that's great.

Sorry, I have a question on these two in general as we're looking at them. All of the roads that we're looking at are Lake Oswego roads or are they shared with Clackamas? Correct.

All are within our jurisdiction.

Perfect. Thank you.

All these projects are also identified in our transportation system plan that we're putting right here.

Gotcha. You just answered 20 of my ending questions. That's what I'm here for. Thank you.

All right, and the last of staff's recommendation would be West Lake Drive between Amberwood Circle and Amberwood Circle. That little segment on the west would help kids get to Oak Creek Elementary School without having to cross West Lake Drive at an unsignalized intersection or a non-stop controlled crossing. This would be about 700 foot of five foot curb tight sidewalk with an estimated cost of about a million dollars. Going back, Westlake's about 4,500 ADT and travel speeds are about 30 miles an hour. And then wanted to bring a couple alternatives just in case. Jean Road is one that is not identified in our transportation system plan. We have received a few concerns about people wanting to walk from basically the Polkington area to the school. Jean Road's a major collector, carries about 9,000 ADT up to about 31 miles per hour. of speeds. We would need about 1,600 feet of six foot wide sidewalk. This would be a little bit expensive because of the private property impacts and some utility conflicts we have in those segments. And there are some properties in the county along this. The road is ours, but the fronting properties are in the county. And our other alternative is on Overlook Southside over by Stafford Road. Overlook is a neighborhood collector, carries about 4,500. Speeds are about 28 miles an hour. We've received some concerns from residents wanting to be able to reach the Lake Swiggo Recreation Aquatic Center or Resika Park, that they have to cross somewhere on Overlook where there's not a great crossing. They would like that complete connection to get over to the traffic signal. This is not identified in our transportation system plan because it has a complete pedestrian sidewalk on the north side, but we would need about 250 feet of a five foot wide sidewalk There would be some possible private property impacts, including some significant trees that would have to come down that are either in or really close to the right of way. Estimate it costs about $250,000. And with that, I go back to the high-level map so you can kind of see where these are located. These are the five that we were recommending forward. And then I'll turn it over to questions with the greater map.

Thank you both so much. Yeah, it's great to see this this list all the good work been doing I mean It's really a remarkable all these projects and a great job kind of locating all throughout the city You know here and and in the past projects as well Questions

My light doesn't work.

At least mine works. So I'm just curious, why did the Maluga neighborhood not want that little quarry, those little quarry improvements? Do we know what their objection was?

The objection at the time was that they wanted to see the other priorities brought forward in the city. It was such a small segment that they thought there were other important things to take care of before that one. It is a relatively small and easy project to construct, though.

Yeah, to me it looks like it's probably worthwhile. I kind of had a couple thoughts here. Have we looked at the changes that might be needed for pedestrian improvements with regard to all the new housing on Boone's Ferry Road, the Habitat for Humanity, and El Nido? Are those pedestrian facilities in good shape for the influx of new people that will be coming?

I think there's a complete connection, at least on one side of Boone's Ferry. I know there's a gap that was evaluated on the north side, I think between it's Washington Court and Pilkington Road. TAB looked at that back at the time that they were evaluating, but it was never recommended forward because of that complete connection on the south side that they could get to through a signal.

But... Yes, they can go east or west from both of those two new developments.

Okay, great. Thanks very much. The other thing that occurred to me was that big connection on Bryant Road all the way through. That is a really, really busy street. That's almost like Highway 43 for the West End. And I don't think it's going to quiet down. I think it's going to get busier and busier. So I guess I would prioritize trying to keep people off those really busy, really busy streets. These other ones are great, but I would really like to see how we can fit that together. I know it's going to be expensive, but I think it's going to be worth it. Yeah, the Jean Road. Oh, the Jean Road? Yeah, so coming from, yep, well, so we're going to do a little section, a little section we're going to do down Bryant Hill, which is what, number 12?

Yep, a little piece of number 12.

So I guess I'm talking about number two, completing that whole section.

They're completing the whole one. So we separated out that gene.

Yep, yep, the whole thing.

So we separated out, not the gene, from gene to Lakeview just to make it a more appetizing segment that captures a lot of it. There are kind of broken, not broken sidewalks, intermittent sidewalks south of there. This was just the next segment that we thought we could bring forward to kind of get to that full build out, hopefully in phases. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that makes sense because that is really where the traffic moves from one side of the lake to the other on the west end, so I would support that.

Yeah.

Yeah, so thank you.

I kind of had similar thoughts along, you know, with that same logic that Gene, on the Gene Road, I mean right next to a school, high average daily trip volume. And again, the other projects are great, but maybe if we had to pick and choose between what to delay. I know that's an expensive one, more expensive. I mean, I would prefer even delaying the sidewalks around the Forest Hills just because it's such a low traffic count, 500 versus the thousands to do the jean. But I know that it's more expensive even than those two projects. Projects so you know, but if there was a way to do it You know and I know that there's some some neighborhood opposition first and first addition to those projects to which in general You know there's well There's a reason why there's no sidewalks first edition because of neighborhood opposition, and we don't want to perpetuate that but at the same time You know, if there's other places where they are asking, you know, and very, very supportive of the infrastructure, you know, with higher trip volumes and whatnot, then, you know, I would prioritize that. I don't know how you all feel about that.

We were thinking of bringing those ones up by Forest Hills because the school is going through a significant remodel right now. The concern in the neighborhood that was brought up to TAB was please wait until the school's done.

Oh.

This would set it up. to finish what the school's starting, because they have to build their frontage improvements, complete that connection that they have, and then maybe look on adding basically that full loop around the school on 10th Street. Oh, so these were like past concerns.

Was that? These were past concerns.

Those concerns also dealt with some other streets.

I see.

That would be a leverage of EFFICIENCIES? YES. OKAY. YES. YOU KNOW I LIKE THAT.

I KNOW. I KNOW. GO AHEAD, COUNSELOR MANSINGER.

OH, NO. I JUST DON'T KNOW IF I'VE BEEN CALLED ON OR NOT. YOU HAVE JUST BEEN CALLED ON. SORRY. IT'S AN ONGOING THING. KEEN ROAD IS HEAVILY TRAVELED. I WALK AROUND THERE. I DON'T KNOW WHO ELSE WALKS THAT BRYANT AREA. AND KIDS DO WALK ALONG THERE, ESPECIALLY AFTER SCHOOL. THEY'RE TEENAGERS. walking or talking, cars are whipping by. People who live in the neighborhood have told me that it is become exponentially worse. Part of that's probably because of what's going on on Stafford and some of the bypass. But then again, it's always been that street that people blast down. So I do like the idea of doing what we can along that route, even if it's to fill in the gaps. So there's some safety.

That's Jean Road that you're talking about, right?

Yeah, Jean Road, I'm sorry. And then quickly, one other question about the houses that we own the road, the houses are in county. Is there any way of leveraging with county funds to help complete that portion of the road or we own the road and that's it?

Those, Gene Road is 100% our responsibility. I don't know how we would be able to get county funding for that.

Decide that.

No, it's good. I think our bigger challenge will be if we have to acquire right-of-way from some of those, which I think we do on that one. There might be some interesting challenges.

That might involve the county.

Yeah, yes.

Okay.

But I don't think we can get funds from them to answer your question. Thank you. I don't think they're allowed to give that money to us.

I'm done.

Thank you.

Do we have to acquire the right-of-way just doesn't have to do it because they're in the county or just in general the right-of-way isn't there?

The right-of-way is pretty narrow. It kind of bounces back and forth. I don't know if we have enough detail on this one. It's really hard to see. This isn't enough detail, but it does zigzag. You won't be able to see it with that, I don't think.

No, I use my red lines, unfortunately.

Yeah. There's a couple properties if I recall correctly that on the south side that may need acquiring like three to five feet. But we won't know until we get into more of a design phase. To the extent we can avoid that, we like to, but we also want to make sure we don't impact the roadway as far as the width and things like that. But we've done that before for other projects. It just makes this one, this is why this one's a little bit on the spendy side. I think this one was up to three million estimate at the moment because of potential right-of-way.

If we delayed one or two other projects, would we have the funds to? consider this project?

So what we haven't done with these five projects that we've presented to you, we haven't figured out how they'll fit with the rest of the spending that goes on in the street fund for paving, intersection improvements, McVeigh improvements that we're talking about doing in the next biennium, all of those. So we'll have to lay these out. And to be honest, these aren't necessarily the order we would do them. the availability of resources will dictate the order a bit. So we're gonna have to lay that out. That's part of the process that we go through in the fall. Morton gets to help us do that, which is, FIGURE OUT THE TIMING OF THESE. THIS AT LEAST JUST TELLS US WE WANT TO TRY AND GET THESE ON THE LIST. SO WOULD 10th COME BEFORE COREY POSSIBLY? SEE HOW IT FITS IN WITH EVERYTHING ELSE. AND WE DON'T HAVE THAT FIGURED OUT YET. JUST WANTED TO HAVE A GROUP TO WORK WITH AND THEN WE CAN WHICH WAY THEY GO AND PRIORITIZE BASED ON FUNDING.

THAT MAKES GOOD SENSE. COUNCIL COURT GENERAL.

I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION AND THAT IS THE SECTION OF THAT SAME CORRIDOR THAT CONNECTS WITH between Upper and Boone's Ferry on Bryant. That's kind of partly done. The Upper. Yeah.

Between Bryant and Boone's.

Okay, up above where it crosses the railroad. North of Upper Drive. Yeah, right. North of Upper to... Boone's Ferry. Some of that's pretty good. Some of it's pretty hit or miss. If you happen to be on the west side, you're kind of cheating death. But the alternative to that is to cross the road, which is not a good idea either sometimes. I'm just kind of wondering what your assessment of that little section has been, because we did all these wonderful improvements on Boone's Ferry. Have you guys looked at that? Do you have an opinion on what it would take to complete the pedestrian facilities on that little section? You're talking Bryant, right?

We've heard a concern about that gap there. I know with like Meadowlark, we identified a gap in design for Overlook that said, oh, it's only 200 more feet. Let's build around the corner and connect. So when it gets into design, we'll start looking for opportunities to make sure it's connected and better usable. But I have heard from a couple of people that that gap is they would like to be able to walk from upper to the shopping center to the north of there. Because the sidewalk ends, I think, at West Sunset. Not West Sunset. Sunset.

I think that's right.

Yeah. But we could look into that further when we're designing that pathway.

That'd be great. That's good. Yeah, thanks.

Yeah, that's a good call there. It's still residential, kind of right next to the commercial there. It's never been redeveloped. I was thinking more on Boone's, too. There's the broken... There's just portions, but I think soon they're going to be developed, and I think the private development will then make the improvements.

Oh, there's the two or three lots on them. Yep. What maybe I call the north side. Yes. The north side, yeah.

Between Madrona and West Sunset. Probably only a matter of time.

And when those come in, those will have to match the Boone's Ferry Road. Right. IMPROVEMENTS THAT WE PUT IN, BE OF SIMILAR DESIGN. I THINK THERE'S SIGNS UP FOR DEVELOPMENT ON THOSE. ONLY A MATTER OF TIME.

WE DON'T NEED TO SPEND THE MONEY IF OTHERS WILL DO IT FOR US, RIGHT? THANK YOU, MR. MAYOR. SIMILAR TO MY COLLEAGUES, DID WHAT THEY SAID, HIGH HAZARD, HIGH TRAFFIC, SO IT MAKES SENSE TO DO THE PROJECTS THEY BROUGHT UP. MY QUESTION IS, DOES IT MAKE SENSE, I THINK, DIRECTOR ROONEY, YOU SAID THESE ARE GOING TO BE INDIVIDUAL PROJECTS DEPENDING ON WHAT'S HAPPENING IN THE CERTAIN AREAS, IF I HEARD YOU CORRECTLY. Does it make sense to look at this as one big project and see if there is an economy of scale to get more for our money? That's just the question. And can you please consider it?

And I'll tell you, we've done a couple, just as an example, we have done it a couple different ways. Sometimes we've done them as individual efforts, and sometimes we have combined a few projects together, like Tree Top and Meadowlark. When they're super close to each other, that's been very efficient. When they are physically not in the same neighborhood, I don't know that we've gained much other than maybe a little bit of time regarding design. So we'll look at that if it's better to put them together. Some of the smaller ones sometimes can be done from a design perspective. Construction, not so much. We really don't see much savings from a construction standpoint to put them all together when they are physically different. But we'll look at that. Yeah. Thank you. Yep.

Mayor?

Oh, yes.

Just to add to that, I think it makes it more difficult for small contractors if we combine these things. So we're able to get, grow smaller businesses to be bigger businesses if they have this opportunity to bid on small projects as well. So just another reason to think about that, yeah.

It also plays, a little bit that plays into it for us too is the timing of the resources. So I could put these all together and do a $4.5 million package. that can be quite a bit of a resource balancing challenge.

The reason I brought that up, one is because of the fiscal responsibility that my colleague keeps bringing up. And the other one is these are so tough to prioritize because they're all important. And it's like, how can we get more for our money? So sometimes some contractors will give you a discount if you can keep them busy for a whole year. Don't know if this is the case, but that was just a request you guys are the expert in Contracting and efficiency we will certainly look at different options on how to either combine or if they need to be separated We will do that.

Yeah, thank you I look at the red line on between Lake Ridge and then up to Boone's Ferry with the little the green hash marks, that's a that's going to happen, right, the 12?

That is funded in our current capital improvement plan and we're carrying that one forward.

Right, and I'm kind of under the, I know we have to do this piecemeal because we just get money each year or whatever. I would say to go bold and make sure that we get from Boones Ferry all the way down to Lakers Junior High all fixed and I would say that that would be one big project so that we have, I mean, it'd be great to see what that would be and I would maybe, reprioritize things because from what my colleagues have said and what you said, I mean, I always look, Will has taught me about, what is it, average daily traffic, whatever, trips. And I mean, it's exponentially big on that corridor. And I think it makes sense to me to, to have it like done, just all completed. And yes, it's gonna cost some money, but it would be interesting to find out if you take two years worth of money, which would be $4 million and see what bold things, maybe you do that and you can do Forest Hills. I don't know, maybe that's too much, but do two bold projects and knock them all out. But I agree that the... It makes sense with Forest Hills because it's a new school. And you kind of want to, there's nothing worse than going back and digging stuff up after a project has just been done. So I kind of support that. But I guess I would look at the bigger picture of things and say borrow future money, I mean one year's worth of money, and get it so that we're looking at maybe a $4 million block for a project. I don't know. Alternative you might say since this is study session. We don't have a big decision tonight, but but to look at that And to the point of if it if it is a slightly bigger project Maybe it will be less expensive If you do the whole thing or unless I know what if it was D and the gene? D and gene gene well yeah, right the exactly the Yeah, no, get that whole thing so it's all, be bold, I guess, once, is all I'm saying, is that it might be worth it to get it. Because that's, there is so much.

Well, so 12, I'll just say a little something about 12. 12 is not an easy project.

Right.

And as a matter of fact, we'll see if we're ready to stomach what the cost of that could be because there's this thing called a railroad involved with it. And unfortunately, that's going to be scary to figure out how we're going to get across there technically and with the grades. So what we did, the reason we broke this apart is there's Yes, we absolutely need sidewalks all the way from Bryant down to Childs. There's no question about it. The easier parts are the gene to Lakeview and even south. Those are easier. The part going across the railroad and through that Bill? Chicane, that's a great word for it. Where we've got very steep slopes is going to be quite challenging. And so what we're doing right now is we're going to be putting out an RFP in the next several months to do the analysis and come up with some designs for that. But I'm a little hesitant to say that that isn't its own beast in and of itself. And we didn't want to hold up the rest of the projects WHICH ARE NOT SIMPLE SIDEWALKS BUT EASIER BY FAR THAN THAT LITTLE PIECE RIGHT THERE. IT COULD DERAIL THE WHOLE THING IF IT WAS PART OF THE BIGGER PROJECT. I WANT TO DO THAT. YEAH, THAT'S WHY IT WAS SORT OF SEPARATED OUT LIKE THIS.

COULD YOU REMIND US, SO THE NUMBER 12, YOU HAVE THE SHOPPING, THE COMMERCIAL SIDE OF IT. YES. RIGHT, AND THEN THE OTHER, IS 12 ON THE OTHER SIDE, ACROSS FROM THE COMMERCIAL? IT'S ON THE WEST SIDE ACROSS FROM THE COMMERCIAL. No improvements on that commercial side. We haven't designed it yet.

We're looking at, that's why we wanna have somebody come and look which is the better side to be on even. Because it is very challenging and again, getting across the railroad, be it east side or west side, it's just gonna be.

We kind of already have the path on the other side to the railroad and then it gets a little dicey and then it disappears.

But building anything new is going to trigger the railroad. in the grade? Oh, the grades are a challenge, yes.

You got basically a hill on one side, part of it being a county property on that corner on the west side, and on the other side you have a retaining wall.

Very limited route way. I'm just thinking if it was more cost efficient to say like go on the side where we already have the path.

Yeah, we'll look for the less expensive. We're open to looking at both sides. There's no question about that. We have not solidified it's one side or the other, but we're looking at both of them. That's why we want to take the time to thoughtfully go through some design alternatives for that to see what our options are because I think either option is going to be quite expensive. Not to mention challenging to get across the road.

My last point was we did give sort of Gene Road. Maybe they could, Forest Hills could swap because it's a new bond. The Forest Hills, do they have enough money to do the whole thing?

To do what? Can the school district cover all of the improvements around Forest Hills? I don't think we'd be able to get them to do that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, okay. They're complaining already.

They've got quite a few improvements to do at the school. Updating Andrews Road and the sidewalk to complete to the property line on Sunningdale.

All new sidewalk.

So we've already stretched that leverage point? Okay, thank you.

We've been working with them diligently.

Is there a new, isn't on Bryant and the corner of Bryant and Lakeview, Isn't there a development taking place right there?

There is an apartment complex that was conditioned with building up their frontage, connecting the sidewalk from west of Bryant to the intersection, and they're going to go north to their property line. So they will have their corner completed, hopefully, by the time we're looking at this.

Okay, so up Bryant along their frontage. Yeah.

About halfway up to the railroad. Okay.

but not to the railroad. I know. Well, I was kind of thinking, like, could you tell them, like, just give us the money, and then we'll apply it to the other side of the street. We'll trade.

They're doing their frontage improvements as part of their development.

Okay. So in all this, will we be able to do that little space on upper that goes where it's kind of – there is – Sidewalk space along all of I guess upper out to the Let's see to the left of on the There's just a I know when you walk up, but if you walk on upper there's that one place where those Apartments are that it's kind of like a no person's land. Do you know what I'm it's on On the other side after you you cross over Or is it Lakeview? Maybe it's Lakeview.

Lakeview has that little no man's land between the apartments and Bryant.

Right, yes.

This apartment complex that's being built on that corner is covering that gap.

Okay, so that's going to be taken care of. Great, okay.

That's why they're building their frontage. They need to be able to walk down Lakeview to the intersection.

Right, okay, good, wonderful.

Well, it sounds like overall we are there's some support here for this Bryant-Jean mega project.

We love mega projects in Oregon.

Or at least a prioritization because we understand like you know if you can combine it and it's efficient and fundable, great. But if nothing else what I'm hearing from the council is a prioritization of these higher ADT roads we already have Bryant. It's on the you know on your your to-do list But I'm also hearing a prioritization of gene perhaps over some of the other smaller Projects, but we understand the comprehensive, you know view, but if that would be possible it'd be great councilman because we're

IF THIS IS GOING TO TAKE AWAY FROM FUTURE PROJECTS, NOT THAT I DON'T VALUE THIS, I'M THE GUY THAT PUSHED THIS FORWARD IN THE FIRST PLACE, BUT I WANT TO BE SURE THAT WE'RE REMEMBERING IN THERE THAT WE HAVE MCVEY AND OTHER AREAS THAT ARE HIGH TRAFFIC, HIGH PEDESTRIAN, High speed, hopefully the speed will change over time with control devices. So I just wanted to put that caveat in there. This is so valuable. I cannot believe how far we've come on this project. It's exciting for me to see this. It truly, truly is. But that's my only comment. And the work that you've done is ABSOLUTELY FANTASTIC. AND YOUR MAPPING IS SO GOOD. THANK YOU. VERY EASY TO FOLLOW. THANK YOU.

I THINK WE HAVE A QUESTION OR COMMENT FROM COUNCILOR ABU.

Yes, thank you. Yeah, Miss Rooney, I was just asking. I think you talk about it, but it's something I've always raised. It's like on Lakeview, Brian, starting at the end, like from the apartment, there's sort of a hole. I lived there now, I moved, but it's one of the most dangerous place in Lake Oswego. And I think that's what you were talking about, that is it part of the project we are talking about?

So if you go out there right now, it's under construction, what I call the northwest corner of Lakeview and Bryant. There's a new building being built. And there will be sidewalk along the entire frontage and up part of Bryant.

Yeah, because the sidewalk comes to the poles and that's where it stops. Yeah, okay. Yeah, thank you. This is something that will help a lot. It's... Yeah, other than that, you know, as always, Miss Rooney is, you know, the engineering is one of our best departments. You're doing a great work. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you, Councillor Mood.

Yeah, we hear lots of positive feedback from folks throughout the community on the pedestrian improvements and also just the general, the curb cuts and the crossing improvements. Two huge, you know, great things.

We've got a busy season going right now. Ward's got You know, a lot of things torn up on the west side, if you will, but in a nice way. And we'll be finished. If you haven't been down Pilkington as of just yesterday, they started taking down some of the trees so we can get the sidewalk in there. And we'll be finishing that gap probably in the next two to three months. And that'll be wonderful. You can walk all the way from Jean and Pilkington. all the way to Boone's Ferry Road on the side, the east side, where we also have high pedestrian activity from the senior center there, the senior housing there. So we're looking forward to getting that gap finished. That's great.

I mean, it seems like, you know, it's like each year it's like, oh, we do a few projects. But I mean, it really has made a big difference in just a short period of time, in just a few years. So you think, wow, in another few years, I mean, it is a noticeable difference, especially We're talking about these key roadways with the gaps. And even filling these little gaps can make a huge difference. It really improves the experience for the road users.

On Boone's Ferry, is there any? I mean, we can't afford that. We'll never be able to do that one by the high school. Isn't that like a 50?

I think last I saw it was about 18 million, and that was in 2022. Yeah.

And we have that on our regional, I mean, we always, it's on the RTP, Regional Transportation Plan.

Yeah, so we look for grant opportunities with Metro, but it's very expensive, and I think even the share of 10% of it's going to be one we'd have to come to council for.

District also has a responsibility to pay for the left turn lane to go in there on the back side And it's a long time agreement that's been around for a while And so even with that it's still going to be multiple multiple millions of dollars Because of the terrain yeah, yeah Yeah, it's just a trick you still see the kids walk along the shoulder there sometimes you know But there is that back pathway that we've been encouraging them to use yeah, Alpha Toma, but

but that's still not the surest route.

It's not obvious to a lot of people.

To get their Chamba juice or whatever they go over for.

To even go home probably. Okay. Well, thank you. Does this sound good?

So what I think I just want to clarify what I think I heard you say is that you would like us to do something a little bit more to bring Gene up into the mix and maybe reprioritize a little bit here and see if we can accommodate it in here, maybe pull something else off. Yes. And so we'll have another chance to talk about this, obviously, when we come during the budget cycle. to talk about these things with both the budget committee and with you all when you go to approve it. If you want us to come sooner than that, we can, but typically we would present all of these projects along with everything else in the fund as a part of the budget process. Is that sufficient?

That sounds great. Does that sound good? Yeah, it sounds great.

These will look familiar to you, but we'll kind of reorder things here a little bit and see what we come up with.

Great. OK. Thank you for bringing these to us. We appreciate it. It's a good process. Thank you. Thank you all. Have a good evening. Thank you, too. All right, folks, any information, any updates, information to share? Yeah, Councillor Mates.

I am now the liaison. DEI thanks to my colleague, Councillor Afghan. And we had a very robust meeting. It's a great group. I was highly impressed with the diversity of opinion. I asked a very specific question of them that had been plaguing me because people had asked me about it and they were able to give a variety of very succinct and honest opinions of what they felt, which was wonderful. They are engaged. They're ready to start working. I think it's going to be a good group.

Great. Thank you for taking on that assignment.

Oh, my pleasure.

We wanted you to get the full council experience.

Absolutely. Absolutely. In addition to which, I do want to give a shout out to Parks for the final concert at Foothills, which I was able to announce. I loved doing that. It was fabulous. 2,300 people approximately were there with their picnics, with their parties. I had the... honor and fun to end up joining Councilor Afghan and his party of folks. People were dancing, there were children playing baseball in the front of the stage, or catch, not baseball, let me rephrase that. All in all, it was one of the most beautiful community events. Perfect day for it too. Right.

Thanks, Councilor Mance. That's great. Councilor Abboud.

I just, I, you know, I am, it's clear that I am away, but as a member of Lake Oswego and being in the minority of the community, I saw some concern that I received so many emails from our constituents about the marquee stuff that was in the movie. And I just, in most of those people, they seem to hint that the city of Lake Oswego is tolerating the attack of some members of our community. And I just wanted to voice it, and I'm pretty sure what I am saying. will be supported by all the members that are on the bias there that lake oswego will be forever against racism anti-semitism homophobia and any kind of discrimination that we know that most of our response to those members, and I want them, if they're listening, that, of course, the city has to respect some rules that are rules in our constitution, among right of people doing things but at any time the city of lake oswego will tolerate an attack on any members of our communities like any kind of attack Some people are against the police. We will never allow people to attack our police forces. Some people are racist. We will never accept them to attack any member of our community. Some people are anti-Semitic. We will never fight against any act of anti-Semitism in our community. And it's very clear. Like there's no doubt that the city of Lake Oswego is opposed to any kind of discrimination. And but at the same time, the city of Lake Oswego respect, you know, the First Amendment right of folks you've seen on State Street, someone who was treating Obama of any kind of names. You remember that. Those are things that are unfortunately guaranteed by our Constitution. But as a city, we are very clear. And I'm repeating it. It's good to repeat that the city of Lake Oswego condemned any kind of anti-Semitism, of Islamophobia, of homophobia, of racism and any kind of discrimination. We are clear we are the only city that have among the only city that have a diversity like Council members just talk about it. When we talk about DEI, it's about that. When we talk about our ADA, all of our city, is equipped to fight those discrimination and i wanted to be very clear i've been reading from far away i just want to reassure which the man did in emails that are very clear and it has to be said loud that i echo what the man said that our jewish member of lake oswego has to be you know, assure and reassure that the city will stand with them to fight any kind of discrimination towards them. And this is also the same for our black community, our Asian, our old community, our gay and lesbian and the queer community, any members of our community the city stand with them to make sure they feel safe in this community and that's something that i really wanted to echo i could not you know it was i'm far away and i just see that i of some of our members are like that i saw the mayor start to respond the city manager responded but it seems that People maybe needed us to say this very loud. Thank you very much. If the words are not correct, it's me. If they are correct, it's because all of us contributed to that.

Thank you very much. Thank you, Councilor Boob. Thank you for helping us recommit to the safety, security, and welfare of all members of the community. It's an important thing to do.

Mayor, may I? Oh, I'm sorry.

Well, Councilor Afghani and then Councilman.

I wanted to thank the city staff and city attorney as well as our recorder for doing a great job for coordinating all the meetings for the city manager interviews. Those were not easy to get us all together and having those meetings conducted. So thank you very much. Nice job. Thanks, Councillor Afghan. Councillor Rance.

I THINK COUNCILOR MOOP HAS SIGNED OFF, SO I WAS JUST GOING TO THANK HIM FOR HIS WORDS AND RECOMMEND THAT WHEN HE'S BACK, WE HAVE A TALK AND PERHAPS HE HAS SOME IDEAS ABOUT WHAT THE DEI COMMITTEE COULD BE LOOKING AT OR DOING WITHIN THE CONTEXT OF THE CITY.

Great. Thank you very much, Councilman. Thank you. City Manager.

We have several announcements this evening, so bear with me. I wanted to bring you up to date on Republic, our waste management service. Staffing levels at Republic drop down below the number of routes that they have in Lake Oswego, as well as backup people this spring. So they did not have enough staff to actually run efficiently. And because of that, we had increase in missed pickup reports for garbage and recycling. We have been working directly with them over the last month and a half. They have created their return to excellence plan. They have been working very hard at staffing back up. And in fact, they are working to have more staff than they had last time to have enough backup. and all i would say is please give them a little grace because now they have about eight new operators who have to learn these routes we had operators for a very long time that knew our routes they knew us individually they knew and have been needed to be you know picked up for those who could not get it out we have had amazing service for many many years decades even But if you do have an issue and your route does get missed or a portion of it, your garbage is not picked up, we have a very specific number just for Oregon and just for Lake Oswego. So don't call the number on their website. It's on our website and it's 503-636- And that gets you directly to the local Wilsonville customer service, and they know like Oswego, like the back of their hand, and they will make sure that your garbage and recycling gets picked up. If it does not, do not take it back in. They would really appreciate that we leave it out for them, because if they come back and it's gone, they can't go get it. So public service announcement number one. Second, you all know I'll be out on vacation and delegating authority to Megan Phelan, our assistant city manager, for the time that I am out, which will be about two weeks. You guys have your events. There's a lot of events on the calendar now coming up, and the one that I would love to get your attention to and then I will show up as a resident. It's September 30th for the Clackamas County Stafford Roundabout project opening. I am a Roundabout fan and will be there with bells on. The air quality. This is the bad news of the day. Unfortunately, the air quality index is now at a level above 150, which is considered unhealthy. And so per city policy, all outdoor work will cease except for emergencies or public safety operations. Therefore, we are not sending out any staff this evening. um the parties may still proceed they may still be going forward in the neighborhoods and that's fine we just cannot have staff out there so bonnie is i've been working diligently to notify all of the parties that are going on tonight so just be careful out there if you're going to go out for national night out thank you thank you

Okay. Any updates?

Any what? Any other PSAs? Oh, Erica.

Looks like she has an update. Okay. Well, then, with that, we are adjourned. Thank you, everyone. Have a great night. Be safe.

Don't breathe. Don't breathe out there. They called it.