Board of County Commissioners - Regular Meeting

Well, good morning, everyone. I will now call to order the Clackamas County Board of County Commissioners Business Meeting for August 6, 2026.

Thank you. And if you're able, would you please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Okay, before we start our regular public comment portion we have some important public safety updates we want to talk about having to do with the wildfires and And I am going to turn that over to Gary. You want to give us some updates, sir?

And thank you for showing up on such short notice.

We might have Dr. Prezant go and then I'll open it up for questions for both probably. Thank you. Okay.

All right. Thank you. Commissioner Savas has a question.

Yeah. First of all, thank you for all being here today. And I appreciate the map on the screen. And I'm sure if we saw one that had the topography, you know, lines on there and showed the topography, people would realize that, you know, where fires accelerate often are hilly and raises up hills and the wind can exacerbate that to quite a degree. There has been some confusion as early as Tuesday when I started hearing from people calling me saying, it's level three, what are you doing? What are you doing about it? And I said, well, I didn't hear that. Everything I heard was level one. Well, the

Right, thank you for that. I know there was, and again, going back to 2020 fires when we were here, I was on the board at the time, and we learned a lot, right? But also there was the issue of who's in charge kind of a thing, and I know that when we talked about the board roles or in an emergency, what those are, when we crafted language or revised that, I had some concerns about how we or what our authority really is and how the board works in that mode. Because again, people expect a lot out of us. And one thing in particular that I found, it was a very compelling argument. People said, we w

Yeah, and I'll just end with this, is that when this came up about how that process worked, you know, I had heartburn because I really felt that it was ambiguous to some degree about the declaration, should that become. So I want to just personally announce that I am available to meet as a board should there be an emergency so we can declare that or not and then what actions we take thereof, right? So I appreciate the authority that you've spelled out in your capacity, but if there is a declaration, you know, I am available. So I just want to announce that, and I'm sure my colleagues will make

Agreed. Thank you, Commissioner Savas. Well, I feel also fortunate that Chair Roberts has quite a bit of experience dealing with this. Also, we have a chair who is well-versed in managing public crises and different events. So, I think that gives me some hope and some reassurance. Some questions around the public health aspect of this. There's a number of technical questions I could ask, but when we see the AQI spike like this, and then you spoke to different vulnerable populations that don't have access to clean air, beyond like meetings like this, where does the county step up? Do we have ac

Do we have, do we have them? Can they get them at a library? Can they make sure they're fit correctly? Like it's a, yeah. Right.

But there's not like a stockpile where somebody can go to their local library and get one or go to one of our clinics?

Okay. Do you feel like you have enough resources for that immediate response, that intervention?

Because they're not reusable, so do we have some for the next fire? It's middle summer, right? It's early. And so I guess part of my question to the board and everybody is, You know, we have the authority, if we have to, to delegate and triage some some maybe funding to make sure that we are prepared, you know, or, you know, what is it going to take to get somebody out of the elements? Do we have resources to emergency resources to landlords and to renters and low income people that don't have the ability to have filtration and they need it? What if that person has a comorbidity? They have emp

Right. But these are the conversations we should be having right now. Like this is we're in level one. That's it. That's to get ready. That's a get ready question. So that's my I would pose that to you to say if you do see something on the ground, if you do see any, you know, we're all ears.

If I might interject just I think that just in the 2025 N95 masks were critically important and that's actually where we worked with the state really well and there was a distribution hub we had in Wilsonville and so it's a much larger scale so if it does rise to that I'm confident that we'll be having conversations with the state about the needs to fill our void in those masks so It was quite complicated I can just tell you being a part of it every day we would have a meeting just on N95s and making sure that we were kind of getting those out there so I would think at this point as far as fin

Yes, I just wanted to let you know that I have been following this extremely closely. I'm just learning there's a level one get ready evacuation in Moscow County, for example. But my concern was, as I was receiving all this information through our emergency sites, what I learned was, for example, government camp in Mount Hood Meadows said, I also heard that there was a level or found in the reading as I was collecting the information about what was happening in our county, that it was a level three go now evacuation. And that the be ready is Timberline Lodge government camp and the rest of the

Okay. Am I to understand that the wind has died down and 35 is no longer in danger of any kind or it's burning? But it's calm down.

Yeah, and the last time I checked, it was 20% contained, but I heard you say right now it was 23% contained.

Well, thank you for that. I wanted to I'm visiting family right now. But when I I always track what's happening, even when I'm not at the county. And I think that this is something that I want to make a comment based on something that Commissioner Sava said. One of the things I've continually heard as we move forward with these kinds of emergencies, which seem to be getting worse and worse every fire season, do we have coordinated maps of some kind that give people evacuation routes? And how do you come up with that on the spur of the moment? That's a concern for me. How do we get them out of

Yes, I don't have anything else, but I felt it was imperative that I be here given the, you know, this is a very difficult situation and the fact that some of our constituents could really be in harm's way at this point. And I do have a process question. Andrew, I can unmute myself, but I'm assuming that you can also unmute me. Is that correct?

All right. Well, then I will make sure that I know that next time. And now I will unmute myself. Thank you.

All right. I thought Andrew had the power to do anything. Me too. Commissioner Helm.

Thank you, and thank you for the presentation and for giving our citizens an update. Kim, you mentioned dispersing some of the N95s up to Sandy. Did any go to the Hoodland Fire District as well?

I'VE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE I'VE BEEN IN CONTACT WITH THE PREVIOUS CHAIR OF THE CPO UP AT PREVIOUS CHAIR OF THE CPO UP AT HOODLAND AND THEY HAVE SUGGESTED HOODLAND AND THEY HAVE SUGGESTED TO ALL THE OLDER FOLKS UP THERE TO ALL THE OLDER FOLKS UP THERE THAT THEY JUST GET IN THEIR CARS THAT THEY JUST GET IN THEIR CARS AND COME TO PORTLAND AND TRY TO AND COME TO PORTLAND AND TRY TO GET OUT OF THAT AIR QUALITY, but it would be handy if they didn't have to drive into Sandy to get a mask. So I'm sure Ant Farm is probably distributing up there.

Just a couple comments to kind of reassure people about kind of the, I would call it the incident command structure. And there really is a lot of experience in how those are operated. Oftentimes the incident commander is kind of the first on the scene. They eventually move to a unified command. And then when the federal overhead team comes in, they provide this next level. And I will just say it's really getting... all the right people around the table in making those decisions. They have what's called a JIC, a Joint Information Center, where they're also working closely to kind of get the inf

And another question I wanted you to maybe reiterate is talking about the air quality and the forecast for the air quality. You project it to get better in that area. I mean, can you help us kind of understand, is it going to be like it is down here, or is it JUST TRYING TO, I THINK FOLKS OUT THERE WOULD LIKE TO KNOW WHEN DO YOU THINK IT'S GOING TO GET BETTER BECAUSE ONE THING, AS LONGER IT GOES ON, I THINK THE MORE RISK AS BEN'S BROUGHT UP IS KIND OF MORE HEALTH ISSUES START TO PROGRESS. YEAH.

I think the dilemma is oftentimes is is Should I take my child into emergency room or urgent care or a senior? And what is kind of that threshold you would see as like, I probably ought to take them in now or do something? Because I think that's a lot of times a struggle that honestly we all have sometimes. It's just, should I go or not?

Okay, great. Thank you. And Jamie, I'm going to ask you to do this one more time. You talked us through a whole bunch of things, calling 211, don't call 911. Can you go through your list one more time for everybody?

Fantastic. Well, thank you very much. We appreciate you coming in again on short notice, and we'll probably have you back again soon. All right. Thank you. Anything, Gary, before we move on? No, that's all for that item. All right, now it's public communication portion of our meeting. Testimonies are limited to three minutes per person. I'd ask comments to be respectful and courteous, and as a reminder, you can email submissions for public communication at bcc.clackamas, at clackamas.us, and they'll be accepted for the public record. We're going to take in-person testimony first, and I'll ask

Well, first of all, would you state your name for the record for us? John Krieg, K-R-I-E-G. Yeah, this is really the opportunity for you to kind of talk to us and really not a timely response. We can have staff get back to you. Some of my colleagues might want to make a comment or something, but go ahead.

We appreciate you coming in. And I've, go ahead and have a seat. But Gary was going to make a comment. I know Commissioner Helm has one too. Gary.

Well, thank you, and I feel your pain, John. I have a lot of it on my property. I have gone out, it's, In tansy, as you know, tansy ragwort, it's pretty easy to pull. It's got a very shallow root system. But the best way to take care of it is to take clippers out, cut the flowers off, put them in a garbage bag, seal that bag, throw it away, and the bugs will take care of the rest of the stalk. So it's a lot of work, and I don't think I've ever seen it this bad before. And it is in the ditches. Everywhere I go, I see entire fields of it. And I was looking into maybe youth volunteer groups or no

All right, thank you. Commissioner Westmoreland. It's, yeah, we're all aware of it and we've heard the issue before and it's a difficult invasive species to control. I think the worm you spoke about was the cinnabar larvae. We've all seen the larvae. It's that striped one, that orange and black striped one. So are we still deploying that? Is that something? I don't know. You might know, Commissioner Helm, if that's been still an active natural deterrent because it voraciously eats it.

It does. And there's other bugs that eat us. But I know there was a call many years ago when they just like everyone said, everyone go pull the tansy. Let's get rid of it. And there was a huge effort to do that. And it took care of it for quite a long time. But it's come back and people haven't been doing that. So I would be curious if our soil and water conservation department could help with that too. Okay.

All right. And just a comment. Before they created child labor laws as a young kid, that's what I had to do is go potency. And yeah, they'd hire me to go out and work in the fields doing that. And I actually have some on my property currently. And Actually, you just told me something new that I didn't know about cutting the top off because I have been worried about the seeds, right? So anyway, I do want to thank you for taking time out of your busy day to come here and to bring this to our attention. And we're going to follow up on this and see what we can do. So thank you. Okay.

Thank you. All right. Andrew, you want to go ahead and continue then?

All right. Thank you, Andrew. I'll now close the public communication portion. Turn to Gary, and you want to introduce our first item here.

Okay, thank you, Caleb. Any questions for my colleagues? Seeing none, may I have a motion?

Okay. Thank you, Martha. Commissioner West has moved to adopt the previously approved comprehensive plan and zoning and development ordinance amendments in the file ZDO 293. Commissioner Schrader seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, you please call the poll.

All right. Any questions, colleagues? Seeing none, I'll open the public hearing on this item. So clerk, you want to help us moderate that comment section?

Thank you. I'll now close the public hearing portion and check with my commissioners, see if there's any comments. May I have a motion then?

I move we approve boundary change proposal number 2026-005. Second.

All right, Commissioner Helm has moved to approve boundary change proposal 2026-005. Commissioner Schrader has seconded that. Any further discussion? CNN clerk, please call the poll.

All right, Gary, what's the second public hearing we have?

All right, any questions? All right, part of the process, I'll open the public hearing on this item as well. So clerk, you want to moderate that again for us?

I'll now close the public hearing and check with my commissioners. Any questions? And Commissioner Savas, go ahead.

firsthand what it's like to have a neighboring property or a subdivision put in and the inconveniences that go with that. So I've experienced that. I understand that. That's, I guess I'll say part of life, but it is a consequence of the development that happens nearby. If you could just nod to me up or down, is your property higher than this new property or is it below? Okay. Um, all right. Thanks for that information. I, I will, I'll, I'll drive out there and look at it, but I, hopefully there won't be any inconvenience. Mr. Mons, have you cited anything that I know there's, is anyone here fr

Yeah, well, it's likely by grade. For example, sewer follows the grade, right? Correct. It's typical, but water does not, and nor does natural gas or other utilities. So I do know that one agency could come by and put in a sewer line. Another agency could come by later on and do a water. It's inconvenient. I know that. I get that. But this action doesn't impose any easements on other properties, right?

I move we approve boundary change proposal 2026-007.

Second. Commissioner Allen was moved to approve boundary change proposal 2026-007. Commissioner Savas has seconded that. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, you please call the poll.

Thank you. First question is, does any of my colleagues want to remove an item from the consent agenda?

Yes, Chair. I think it's item C3. Is that correct, Gary?

I want to move it for discussion. I intend, I think if my understanding is clear on moving forward with C3 today, but I just want a clarification in advance of that. So, Chair, I move we approve the consent agenda minus item C3 and then deal with C3 next.

Can I second for the sake of discussion and questions around that, your motion? I'll second so we can discuss. Okay.

Okay. Commissioner Salvas has moved to approve the consent agenda minus subject to item C3. Commissioner West is second to that. I'll open it up for discussion. Commissioner West?

Yeah. Okay. I don't know if today I want to pull C3. I have questions, again, that I need to ask. And I see we do have some staff in the room. And I would like to discuss that and then make a decision. I don't know if that is the intention of your motion. Or do you want to pull?

It's my intention to pull it for discussion only, right? Today. Okay. And then if we choose to act on C3 today, I'm ready to do that too. Okay, I agree. But right now what's on the table is the remainder of the consent agenda.

And just focusing on what we have questions. Yeah. Cool. Yeah.

Okay. So there's a motion on the table, and we've had the discussion, so clerk, would you call the poll?

So I'll go ahead and start with Commissioner Savas when they get up here.

Thank you all, our staff, to be seated. I guess in a sense, this is a continuation of the conversation we had on Tuesday. And following that conversation, I received some phone calls and I was... I was invited to a group of people last night, as were others, and this came up again. So the way I characterize what we're doing here is like, okay, maybe we picked the bakery, but we haven't ordered the cake yet, and we can shape the cake, so to speak, or make the cake. And I see the language in there. Can you go back up to the top? the topic that we are initiating, right? We haven't decided, but we

The BRC. Yeah, the BRC. So we're working in concert, so if there's a building to negotiate elements of that, I imagine, right, between that bidirectional conversation, if there's heartburn over a particular issue or whatnot, is that correct?

What was the other note I made here? I'll stop there, and I know that Commissioner West has some comments as well, or questions.

Yeah. So there is, I got the same comments, the same over the last few days, multiple phone calls. What is the process when we, because there's multiple BRCs, right? So there's, I know that doesn't, is, I guess my question is, Is the POA, does it have its own board that you work with? Am I right? Separate from the one that I sat on, like when we were talking about other healthcare coverage issues when I represented the board. Is there more than those two? No. No, so it's those two. Am I understanding correctly for everyone's knowledge? Okay. Is it required to have input from both those boards

Can I ask a question about that? Yes. Just clarifying, because we're in the weeds a little bit here, but it matters to these groups. Does the POA have, by contract, the right to give their input on this decision we're making today? And have they had that opportunity yet?

Okay. So here's just what I'm feeling on the ground, and then there's probably a lot of communication that has to happen. A phone call, a couple phone calls, and then in-person conversations. I talked to my provider, and they said, if you go to Aetna, I can no longer take your insurance and no longer will. You will most likely need to find a new provider. So that comment automatically, like, raises some alarm bells. I don't know what kind of communication happened when Providence went to ASH and we saw the change and we are prioritizing some alternative care here. That's something that we've p

It's $200, $250. Does Aetna come and say, we only pay 50 and that's what we pay, and then the county just picks up from our own coffers the difference of whatever that billed amount is? And is there only a certain amount that we'll go up to for certain services? Because it can get really expensive real fast if we're just like prioritizing this and clearly our members want it, but that sounds expensive.

As billed? Right. Okay. And we've budgeted for that? And that, is that included? That's not included or it is included in the six or over 6% increase through Aetna?

That would cover that, okay. Thank you for indulging me. I hope that helps me. And I do love the analogy. It's a fantastic one, Commissioner Savas, that we are buying a bakery, but the cake is not done being baked. And so that's going to be more tailored and custom to our needs.

Well, I hope it's chocolate. I love that. Commissioner Salas, go ahead. Yeah, so I didn't... plan on getting this level of detail, but I'm glad we're talking about it. I do want to say, I think there was some confusion, especially when the email came out yesterday. It painted the picture as though it was, and I read it, you know, after the phone call and made no mention of the BRC, made it as though it was decided, right? As opposed to, you know, that it's really, we're still going to decorate the cake and figure out how to shape it or make it So that's one that's one thing and maybe that coul

Well, it's all on the table. That's all I wanted to do. And just make sure that we're all of an understanding. And thank you for sharing that. It's really a three out of five. So therefore, I think some kind of off-ramp. If the service is very, very poor and there's very challenges, I think that we have to have an off-ramp. Thank you. With that all said, I feel comfortable moving forward with

initiate negotiations engage the brc and it's also nice to know that the um that there's a second door for the poa with a contractual language so with all that uh chair i i one more one more go ahead go ahead one question i'll bring it up because i heard it um i think with any of these if you use the google machine you'll find out all kinds of things about all these providers especially large national um providers like aetna any of them. So some of the things like just Google them, just Google them, right? That they're, it's not, you know, kind of that alarmism and very anecdotal. And we have

I appreciate that, and I think that's just an important message to get out, that you have worked with similar partners that are apples to apples and did that due diligence, like a reference background check, like when you're going to engage with somebody in this capacity or another entity. So I don't know if that's totally known, right? And it's hard to always get these messages out. And sometimes the negative spreads much faster than the positive or what work you've done. So I would just encourage that we need to have a very solid, good, robust communication with how we roll this out and how

Good. Okay. So is there a motion to approve the health insurance item C3?

Yeah, Chair, I move to move forward with agenda item C3 today.

All right. Commissioner Savas has made a motion to approve the health insurance item C3, seconded by Commissioner Schrader. Is there any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, will you please call the poll?

We appreciate it. I will now recess as Board of County Commissioners convene as the Water Environment Services Board of Directors.

All right. Do any directors wish to remove an item? All right, I'm glad no one wants to remove one right now. So may I have a motion?

Chair, I move we approve the West's consent agenda.

Second. All right, Commissioner Helms moved to approve the consent agenda. I'm sorry, Commissioner Savas has moved to approve the consent agenda. Consent, and it's been seconded by... I got that all backwards, didn't I?

It was backwards. Our names were both wrong.

Commissioner Helm moved to approve the consent agenda. Director Savas is seconded. Any further discussion? Seeing none, clerk, please call the poll.

I will now adjourn as Water Environment Service Board of Directors and convene as the Board of County Commissioners. Gary. Aye.

All right. Commissioner of Communication, I'm going to start with Commissioner Schrader. Go ahead.

Well, colleagues, I don't have much to add. I am going to wish all of you well. I am with my family right now, so I am going to get back to them. Rest assured, I'm keeping up with things, particularly my concern over, you know, the fires that we're dealing with in the area. So with that, I'm going to wish you all good day, and I will hopefully will see you in the next few weeks. Thanks very much. Cheerio. All right.

Yeah. Yesterday we had our audit committee meeting yesterday, and we adopted the new bylaws and the new structure. And I want to just give a shout out to Jody Cochran and Kathy Young for their work. And The treasurer, Nava, was not able to attend. He's out of town currently. But, you know, they do great work. They're a small team. And in that discussion, I think Chair Roberts made and expressed, you know, some reasonable concerns I agreed with with regard to it's a lot of work for a small team. And our independent auditor said, based on the counties of equal size we are understaffed they reall

The Clackamas Soil and Water Conservation District is highlighting this month that July's weed of the month is tansy ragwort. Go to the website. It's actually super informative. The pictures, it's not just a beautiful yellow daisy. It's actually not that beautiful, but it's not a yellow daisy. It's a noxious weed. And so there's great information there. So since that came up and we spent some time talking about that, like why you should actually care about this thing and why it's a problem and how quick it can spread and how we fight it effectively and how that kind of ebbs and flows depending

Yeah, just real quick. You and I have to leave for another meeting here shortly. I know most of the national night outs were canceled on Tuesday due to the smoke in the air and the air quality. I know Happy Valley had already moved theirs to tonight. They're supposed to be making the call at noon today whether they're having it tonight. For those of you who may be going there, we're coordinating it with their concerts in the park every Thursday evening. So it should be posted on their website any moment, whether they're having that tonight. The only other thing is I got a good news phone call

It's interesting. I'm just thinking about Life Flight, and they probably transport less life-threatening cases, perhaps, than Life Flight might do. It's interesting. I'll have to learn more about that. Me too.

I got the call literally walking to this meeting.

No, it's interesting. Just a couple points I wanted to make. This week I had the opportunity to meet Brett Belog and Amanda Wall from Clackamas Workforce Partnership. And they talked about the expungent clinics they do here on campus in partnership with Clear Clinic and the county's Children and Family Community Connections Department. And I think Andrew's gonna put something up on the screen for you So the clinic offers free legal services for criminal record expungements to people in the county the goal is to reduce barriers to employment housing education If you're interested and there's mo