City Council - Regular Meeting

I'll call to order the work session of Willisville City Council of August 17th, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. I'll start by asking council members to review the agenda and items on consent. Are there any comments? Seeing none. Are there any councilor concerns? Councilor Cunningham.

I just wanted to throw out a quick clarification to, I guess it would, maybe it was Thursday. It was one of those meetings that we had, well, a bunch of meetings we've had recently, but I stated that there was a, in the town center code, there's a minimum 40 units per acre. I wanted to clarify that that is for residential only developments. and that based on the financial feasibility study and the assumed 2,381 residential units in 56 acres of redevelopment, that that would average out to about 42 units of development per redeveloped acre. So those are those numbers surrounding 40 units per ac

Thank you. Any further concerns? OK. Turning now to our pre-council work session. First up is the Salt Creek Master Plan and implementing amendments.

And ultimately that reaches city council if necessary for an appeal decision, as I'm turning to a city attorney. Because I particularly have a concern about data centers myself, so I want to know if we're going to be an opportunity to weigh in.

I personally would like it. considered to somehow get to us, because it is a highly charged thing. I also think that it's fairly complicated on those data centers that work for the community, maybe, and those that don't, because there's an argument that they create employment, but if they're a huge complex, they create temporary employment to get it in place, but then it drops to little, but then something like Siemens, I can totally understand, but I envision it'd be neat to have at least council be having an opportunity to weigh in, but that's my thoughts. Sorry to interrupt.

Okay, I just wanted before I, if you don't mind, before I call on folks, just make a matter of record that I think it was last Thursday, and I alerted staff that would do this. I met with Brian Shera, who I think is in the audience back there, of Schnitzer Properties, and we had a conversation and I would like to give to the city recorder documents he provided to me. Um, that if we can make maybe by the end of the meeting copies to council, I think if serves me right. And I hope he can give me a nod in the audience that it was stuff that he already submitted to the planning, uh, commission, uh

Okay. Thank you. So, With that, Councilor Cunningham? Oh sorry, Councilor Skoll, my apologies.

A couple questions. Actually, I watched the Planning Commission meeting. It was a great meeting and a great discussion. They did a very thorough job in discussing the data center issue. And I am very concerned about it in terms of how they can tend to get out of control. Can you define accessory? A little bit better, does accessory have to be adjacent to the user or can we have pods of accessories that feed users outside of the zone? Can we further define that?

So with that said, does that mean that, okay, I think I'm concerned about infrastructure and scaling infrastructure. If you have multiple data centers in the neighborhood, are we able to scale the infrastructure to feed, it would be data lines, electrical, water, whatever, scale that the first time without having to go back and rework it at a later date?

So to be determined. To be determined, yeah. Through Planning Commission. Okay.

Okay, my only concern with that is that technology changes so fast that we're thinking about it in today's world, but what's it going to look like in two or three years? It could require more electricity and more cooling, or it may not, so we have to find that happy medium.

Just wanted to say thank you so much for your report. From what I've heard and what I've read, I think that we should proceed with the plan. I like the idea of what the data centers being a conditional use. The problem with it being on site, somebody could buy a lot next door and then do a boundary lot, you know, a lot line adjustment or something. So it is on site, but just having that layer of review I think is really helpful.

Yeah. And then the other question is, I didn't hear any discussion about the railroad. If we have to, you know, like we're still thinking about how are we going to handle that railroad bridge?

Thank you, Mayor. Just for clarification in regards to Mr. Shearer's documents and discussion he had with you, Mayor, and you're probably already aware of this, so I apologize, but we also received, the full council received documents from Mr. Shearer today. And so I don't know if those are the same as what you submitted.

I haven't had a chance, to be honest with you, to compare the two, because I didn't have a chance to look at that this afternoon. I'm just making mine. I felt it uncomfortable. I got these documents in a meeting, and I want to share what I received.

And I just wanted to share that we all have some documents that hopefully there's quite a bit of overlap, and I read through them, and I found them very interesting, and I look forward to further learning more about it and further discussion.

Yeah, I believe Mr. Scherer is scheduled, along with two colleagues, to bring testimony in the city council meeting. I think we've addressed that, so they'll be able to present.

Yes, so... To clarify, this is largely what we're looking to do here. We're largely looking to take the existing Coffee Creek code. It's going to now be called the Northwest Industrial, and that's going to be applied to Basalt Creek. That's correct. Okay. You know, on the communication front with Mr. Schera, as Councilor Shevlin mentioned this morning, Council received I think it's 63 pages of documents from Mr. Shara. Um, and they outline concerns, um, that he, uh, represents regarding this code and the way that it, uh, is currently written, uh, what that means for development in basalt Creek

Yeah, and it's been tough to find somebody to take the rest of it, it seems like. It's sat unoccupied for a couple of years now.

Sorry, I don't, Council Cunningham, I don't want to interrupt your frame of mind. It's just that none of the councillors, I haven't seen your questions. So it would be helpful that we have those questions as a council. so we can look at them, because right now I'm operating blind list. Did you get a copy of this?

Sure, would you be okay with providing your questions so we'd see what the questions were? So we can have a better discussion. That would help me to understand it.

I mean, I suppose if you have any, we can ask the question, council can hear the question, and we can go through that exercise. But I'd be happy to submit these for the official record to the city recorder and have them distributed.

Thank you, Matt. I mean, please, I would love to have more understanding around this.

Thank you for that. You know, kind of looking through Mr. Scherer's things and trying to think through this, you know, what's been offered is, you know, apply for a waiver. Okay? But to me, if an industry standard, if a proven model requires a waiver under our code, then our code isn't very good. Because the proven model that works, that gets the job done, that enhances the value of that land, that would enhance our ability to draw tax increment financing. that shouldn't require hoop jumping. That should just be to me, a given, um, you know, some of these issues that are being brought up in he

Thank you. I spent probably about two and a half hours going over Mr. Shearer's documents this morning. I did find them to be very interesting and also very compelling. But I also know there's two sides to every story. So I'm interested in learning the other side to the story before I suggest we make any changes. Thank you.

So there's a couple of things that Councillor Cunningham raised. And one was the West Hills development. So I'm going to turn to the city attorney because I think there's a distinction here. between that ask, their participation in the work session, versus Mr. Shero's request. And so I would ask the city attorney to clarify that for us, if she will.

Thank you. The only other, I just want to make a comment. Maybe I misheard. Councilor Cunningham's statement about West Hills. I mean, from my perspective, when West Hills came, we all asked very constructive questions and inquiries as a body, and I had a set of questions that I submitted to be answered, and that's where we're at. I don't think there was any council sway one way or another as to a final decision. So the comment that suggests that we weren't I guess entertaining West Hills concerns really is premature because we as a body haven't spoken yet. So, and maybe I misunderstood Counci

I'll just clarify that. I agree, I don't believe that we did come up with any kind of final decision on that by any stretch of the imagination. But I did hear the sentiment some concern that, you know, well, you know, if we make a change on this and they come back later and they want another change, you know, kind of if you give a mouse a cookie.

I liked that analogy. It wasn't. So I just think that, you know, we're here in that stage now that it feels like we're getting some information. And I think that I saw that the staff recommendation was to kind of just to push this through so that changes could be made later. But I just struggle with that, that I question whether those changes will be made or whether or not the answer will be, hey, you had your chance for input. I also really struggle with saying like, okay, yeah, there, there are three minutes of input for a 63 page document that was delivered to us today. That's, that's not a

I need a little bit of clarification on the process. So has the Schnitzer properties been participating in conversations with the planning commission with their wants?

I think that's a really good point that you just made. Thank you.

Well, thank you for the explanation. You both answered my primary question and I too am a big fan of the waiver system. I sat through a lot of the planning sessions with West Hills, had many discussions during those sessions with West Hills about how everything was being coded out per se. Had a couple offline sessions with Dan Pauly so I could understand deeper about how that process works. And my question to Dan constantly was, we're gonna set code in place now, what's gonna happen in five years? What's gonna happen in 10 years and how do we maneuver that? You either go through a legislative

I would just point out that I think that we have about 10 years of looking at what this code has produced, and it's not an exceptional amount of development in Coffee Creek. And so, I mean, that fact right there, to me, it kind of speaks to that definition of insanity, trying to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. We've seen how it's worked in Coffee Creek and it hasn't. And maybe there's some other issues there with lay down yards and we're trying to address that. But one of the things that Schintzer has presented us in their Johnson economics report was that given

Process. I'll turn to the city attorney. Right now, where are we at in the public process where... Schnitzer can participate moving forward. I mean, they're going to testify, or not testify, but offer committee input in the city council meeting. But after tonight, what are the processes for them?

Okay. And then I'm all about process. Sorry, it's the lawyer in me. You know, it's making the process consistently applied to everyone is important to me. And so... Offering one particular developer something that others don't get to me. There's a concern there When we're in a open legislative process, it seems like a hoop has been jumped or a process has been jumped and My worry is if we do it for this particular developer how does it impact down the road and I guess I I turn to the city attorney, get some guidance on that.

The discussion of waivers, it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, because I've been involved with the city for a number of years. Have we ever denied a waiver that you know of?

Okay. And then correct me if I'm wrong. To the extent the DRB were to deny the waiver, the developer has an appeal right to the city council. Correct. Correct. Nothing has changed.

One last thing. On Coffee Creek, you know the mental health facility that was contemplated, that was going in Coffee Creek, wasn't it, initially? And the governor killed that through, I think, isn't that correct? I was on the development review board that approved that. So one of the reasons why we have some vacancy in Coffee Creek is because of something totally out of control of the city. Would you agree?

We could have had some really decent development, but for Governor Brown at the time.

The governor, but I'm saying that you're not saying, okay, fair enough. Counselor Cunningham.

Uh, going back to the question of, of denial of waivers, uh, has, has staff ever, you know, had worked with a developer who has asked about what waivers they're, they're contemplating and been told, don't bother. We're going to say no to that waiver.

So it does sound like there are some cases where there's, maybe they're on the edge and they're told that there's a chance that that'll be turned down. That's kind of what I heard. I don't want to be misstating your words and twisting them or anything.

Thank you. Just to give you time, it's 10 minutes to 7. We have one other item which we need to get done. So do you have what you need from us?

Yes. So I'm going to turn to counselors to give, their final comments and input.

I'm seeing nods at the head. Council President Berry?

I would like to move forward with going forward with the code and the zone amendment, especially if that encourages developer to come in with some projects. Absolutely.

Did the city manager have something to say? I'm sorry, I didn't see your light in time.

And that sounds like something that would be in a goal-setting conference. Would it not be where staff would give us a more detailed deep dive?

I'm in support of what Ms. Bachel said defined as far as moving forward as long as we have several opportunities to come back and visit any concerns that we have, including a larger project if we set that as a council goal next spring.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Scull? Same here as Councillor Sullivan and Councillor Berry. Councillor President Berry.

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like we're on a deadline by the end of the year. So if we have a deadline, we have a deadline. But I would be very much interested in having this conversation and seeing what we can do about bringing our code to a place that gets things cooking.

Thank you, Councillor Cunningham. I concur with what Councillor has just said. And can I make a comment? This is me, no one else. It would help me when someone provides testimony as detailed as the packet that I understand we received that would be given to me so I can look at it over the weekend. So I love great input, but we're going through staff materials usually during the weekend. And just to pass it on to anybody, a member of the public, if they really want us to all be on top of information being submitted, the sooner we get it, the better. As a trial lawyer, I used to remember someone

So, um, you have a staff recommendation, um, which you've laid out, uh, council, um, any input or, uh, council president Barry.

Yeah, thank you, Amanda. I thought your report was really good, and it makes sense to me, and I'd like to move forward as you recommended.

Likewise, I think it's a great plan. It's well laid out, easy to understand. I look forward to the upcoming work sessions. Thank you.

Good plan. Let's move forward. Thank you.

Councillor Cunningham. Ditto. And you got a double ditto here.

And you spoke fast and we understood you.

Okay, with that, can we adjourn until, are you guys okay to start at 7.10? Is that all right with you? Okay, we'll adjourn until 7.10 p.m. I'll call to order the meeting of the Wilson City Council for August 17th, 2026 at 7.10 p.m. Will city recorder please call the roll?

Here. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. City Council President Baric have a motion to approve the following order of agenda.

I move to approve the following order of the agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. The motion passes 5-0. Good evening, everyone. It's hard to believe that we're already approaching the end of summer. By the time we meet again, our students will be heading back to school and families across Wilsonville will be settling into a new school year. So as we enjoy these last few weeks of summer, I want to ask everyone to start keeping an extra eye out on our roads. We will soon have more children walking and biking to school. Buses will be back on their routes, and our school zones will on

I move to ratify the appointment of Cameron Mesbah to the Planning Commission for a term beginning August 17, 2026 to December 31, 2027. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? I would just like to say I personally don't know Mr. Mizba, but I did do a small amount of research, and I also support this appointment. It seems like he's done a lot for the city, and I'd like to have him continue.

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you explaining your reasoning. I think that... Mr. Mesbah served on the DRB. Now there's going to be a position that's extra, so I support the idea of moving him into this position. I do know Mr. Mesbah. I'm very familiar with his work and his resume and his experience. He's a very dedicated citizen to the city of Wilsonville, and I support the appointment.

I also support Cameron for the selection. It was not my first choice, but I am familiar with Cameron's work and have a brief engagement with him early on in my DRB career, so I'm familiar with what his knowledge base and everything, so I'd support the nomination. Councillor Cunningham.

I do have some reservations about, you know, just the message that it sends to the other applicants, um, that we're solving a problem. And that's the reason why Mr. Mesba is being chosen here. Um, I think it could be seen that way. Um, with that though, I did review Mr. Mesba's, uh, resume or his application. I did some further research. Uh, he also serves on a couple of Metro bodies. Um, Personally, not a big fan of Metro myself, but he has a lot of experience and hopefully that is well used in the city.

Thank you. I mean, just to clarify, Councillor Cunningham, I appreciate every Councillor's comments. I didn't pick Mr. Mesbah just because it solved the problem. I just want to clarify. It just happens to be that it does solve an issue that's important. I know Mr. Mesbah, he does serve on Metro Future Vision Commission and Metro Technical Advisory Committee. I serve on the Metropolitan Mayor's Association and that was set up by and large to counterbalance Metro's influence a bit. So when you don't have a seat at the table, Uh, with Metro creates some issues. So I'm, I'm really glad that Camero

Let's see, Malinke Sundstrom with Will the World Will Share the Outcomes of Tourism-Related Project led by the Will of the World Organization. which assesses catalogs and promotes accessible travel destinations for people who use a wheelchair. And I hope I did pronounce that name correctly. Assistant to the City Manager Zoe Mombert will kick us off with a brief overview.

Do you have a problem, folks? We see the video. How long is it? It's about four minutes. That's fine. I mean, I ran through my end, so we have a little bit of time. So go ahead and play the video.

Thank you for sharing that video. I will just note there's a very special person that's no longer with us that Something like this is a long time coming. I used to serve on the DEI committee and I really appreciate seeing this video and this communication, but Mr. Sundstrom, continue.

I really want to thank you for the presentation. I think that there's a definite need in our community to address, as we move forward, disability needs. Especially, I've noted discussions about wheelchair accessibility. We have some people that have that different transportation ability and need our assistance. Another discussion and goal setting is how do we incentivize some of the businesses we have in town with the existing buildings that predate some of our code to encourage them somehow to put more accessible access for those folks who are in wheelchairs. My building, before I retired, th

I have to chuckle when I see snow removal. Yeah. I mean, when's the last time? I mean, we do have snow removal.

Councillor Shevlin. Thank you. Really, really good report. We obviously have some work to do in regards to trust and transparency. But you didn't have a slide on this one, but I did read the report in the packet about, despite everything, I'm paraphrasing, would you move away? And people said no, they were going to stay. So I can't remember the exact wording, but do you remember that one, Bill?

Yeah, so people want to stay. They're looking to us to get the work done to bring that vibrant downtown to them. I'm proud of the responses where we have shown, shined, where we shine, and again, I believe every single one of us as council members own the responsibility about trust and transparency, and we should all look inward about how we are promoting that. Thank you very much.

Councillor Schell. Thank you. Good survey, actually, overall. I think the information is very valuable, and it basically shows that Wilsonville's doing the right thing for the overall community. With any survey, the areas of concern are the governance, and I think that Councilor Shevlin was mentioning that, the economic health, and then I also noted the overall health questions about the lack thereof of healthcare or whether that be services or insurance, I'm not really sure how that's packaged, but I think that's, and then mental health on top of that, so I think that's something we should ki

Yeah. So thanks for the survey, thanks to the staff for taking care of this. I think we're showing well. But we do have work to do.

Yeah, thank you again for this report. To me, this is such a valuable tool, and I agree with what both the other councilors have just mentioned. I think this tool's really important, because we have people who come to city council and share their comments, we receive emails, we get information from different ways, but this is a statistically sound way of providing more information, And I think this tool, well I know in the past it's guided us and I expect it will again with the upcoming council for setting goals on what we need to tackle and keep moving forward. But I just want to note that I

Any other comments? Thank you, Mr. Evans, for this. Of course, thank you. I concur with what the other councilors say. I guess when it comes to some of those tough areas of the survey, I wonder how much influence the national dialogue has on this. I mean, I can see people, when it comes to the expenses You know, in the grocery store, you know, we had to raise, of course, the sewer rates and things like that. The utilities have gone up, garbage and some of those things. I can understand that there's some things that influence the reactions that people may have towards the city that are not nece

I have a slides attached to Mr. Shura's testimony, but that's just something that was presented to the mayor. So you can go ahead.

Thank you. Next is on line is Mimi Dukas. And I apologize if I mispronounced the name.

Thank you everyone for your comments tonight. Now turning to councilor comments, liaison reports, meeting announcements. Council President Berry.

Thank you, and thank you again to everybody who's taking their time to attend and join our meeting. I appreciate everyone's input. So tonight, what I'd like to do is just highlight three fun events that are coming up, including the Skate Jam, the Frog Pond Park opening celebration, and the Reading and Writing event. So on August, Saturday, August 22nd is the Skate Jam. It's the annual event presented by the Wilsonville Skate Park Association. It's going to be at Memorial Park Skate Park down just south of where we are right now from 1 o'clock to 4 p.m. There will be sessions for beginners. thr

Thank you. In addition to just regular duties, probably the highlight of my last couple weeks was on August 4th, I had the opportunity to attend a drug endangered children's meeting. It's a meeting of folks involved in Taking care of kids who have been exposed to environments with drugs present, access to drugs and things like that. And there was representatives from CPS, prosecutor, multiple law enforcement agencies, some of the social services that support kids in situations like that. And it was a really good opportunity to, there was a young lady who came and told her story. She's 17 now,

Thank you. And thank you everyone who is attending tonight and those of you that are online as well. I think we're entering the dog days of summer. That's what this time is known as, the Shadows are longer across the lawns, and it's a little darker in the morning. So there are, as we wrap up the month of August, a couple of events celebrating the culture in our community through our diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. The first one is very near and dear to my heart. It's Friday, August 21st, is National Senior Citizens Day. It's a day to honor the wisdom of our senior citizens. Thank y

The city is trying to keep Trader Joe's out of Wilsonville. It's not true.

I hope we get one, and I hope we get one in our town center. Thank you very much.

Councillor Schell. I'll have my meetings, my forward meetings and my past meetings on file with the city recorder. For public comments tonight, I'll continue with the city events for the rest of the month here going into September. The city's annual emergency preparedness fair is backed with an opportunity to learn basics like how to build a go kit, what to know about wildfire season and how to sign up for emergency alerts and more. Come on over to the Steinbooser Barn at Memorial Park from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, April 29th, with questions for experts from the city and several partner

Thank you. Next is our consent agenda. I'll ask the city attorney to summarize the consent. Items on consent. Excuse me.

Thank you. City Council President Berry can have a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Now we turn to new business. Tonight council will consider resolution number 3279. I'll ask the city attorney to read the resolution summary.

Thank you. I'll now ask staff to present their report.

Seeing none, I appreciate the report. I do hope that if we pass this, which I hope we will, that we can work it out with TriMet. It's been a struggle for a long time, so thank you for all that. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to approve resolution number 3278? I move to adopt resolution 3278.

The motion to adopt resolution number 3278 has been made by City Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Shevlin. Any discussion at all? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Any city manager business tonight?

Thank you. Next, turning to legal business.

Thank you. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to approve the settlement release agreement with Zurich regarding the public works complex?

I move to approve the settlement and release agreement with Zurich regarding the public works complex.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made by Council President Berry and seconded by Councillor Skoll. Any discussion seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five, zero.

Thank you. Uh, city council president, uh, Barry, can I have a motion to authorize the city attorney to file a petition for review with the court of appeals and land use board of appeals final order day of July 29th, 2026. in the matter of Schaffer et al. versus Marion County et al.

I move to authorize the city attorney to file a petition to review the Court of Appeals of the Land Use Board of Appeals final order dated July 29th, 2026 in the matter of Schaffer et al. versus Marion County et al.

Okay, is there a second? Second. Motion's been made by Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Shevlin. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Is there anything else tonight?

Anybody have any questions? Okay. Seeing none, I will adjourn at 8.49 p.m. Thanks, everybody.