Remarks by Paul Savas
128 remarks on the record, newest first · Page 3 of 6
- Play at 1:14:10
“Thank you. Thank you. Chair, I move we approve the West consent agenda.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:19:12
“Commissioner Salvas? Yeah, I would concur, and I'm going to expand on this, but I do want to say one thing. Being here for my 16 years now and seeing clerks, I don't know why that position draws in talent, but every clerk that we've had has brought in something new and innovative. And so I want to just say shout out to all the clerks past. But Andrew, you have raised the bar as the others. But you raised it, and Gary spoke about it. I think that your ability to track the meetings and then put on the screen and highlight the areas that are being spoken to You are articulate. You are a great…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 1:21:56
“Yeah, last week I made a mention of the Office of the Independent Internal Auditor and made a request that we bring back maybe an educational work session to talk about the role and the guidelines and and how their code of ethics are typically how they're adhered to what they are and you know our role or not our role frankly as a political organization when it comes to allowing again the independent internal auditor and I I didn't foresee that when we had our retreat and we established our priorities I didn't foresee Consideration, but we did a pass a goal or not a goal but a priority of…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 13, 2026
- Play at 4:06
“Go ahead. So my iPad is being worked on, so I'm a little bit of a disadvantage. right now at this moment, but Ron, you kind of mentioned, could you just expand on it if you could? I know you kind of, this came before us here a couple months ago or so, right? And then it's got a lot of other history that goes way back, right? I've been here a long time, so I know we keep on throwing money at this, and I know it's because of the storm issues and the water and all the things that are happening and the migration of the river and all these things that affect that. West comes to us pretty regularly…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 6:44
“Yeah, and I will just make the request, at least personally, personal request to maybe get a list of how much money we've put in this in the last 15 years. I know it's substantial.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 23:49
“Go ahead so Maybe um, maybe you said it I'm looking for this is gonna be paid for with which funds Supportive housing services funds. All right. Thank you I appreciate the adjustments and I did sit in on some conversation with these folks to better understand what it is and I know there was some confusion. Was it Commissioner Hellman who joined us? Yeah. The two of us. So I'm with a new scope. I'm comfortable.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 33:30
“Yeah, more of a comment, not specifically about this, but just seeing the array of different programs and services here that are out there. And I know that our budget cycle is very compressed. There's not a lot of opportunity to talk about KPIs, metrics, and so forth, and what these programs are about. But it does strike me that there's a lot here and might be an opportunity in the future maybe list, maybe how many FTE we're retaining or adding. I'm assuming retaining. For the most part, I know some of these are outsourced, so that maybe it doesn't apply, but it's still jobs. As well as,…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 46:02
“Yeah, I have a question about is the funding model for this similar to affordable housing where all the costs are basically covered or amortized or calculated in over the period of the bond? Looks like it's 35 years. Is that about right?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 47:42
“Yeah, thanks. I appreciate that. Maybe an offline discussion maybe in the future for a coffee. We're overdue for that, by the way. But if I divide that $155 million... by, you know, 92. It's a pretty high number. But there again, in affordable housing, you know, they calculate it and bake in literally everything for that term, let's say 30 years, you know, including utilities and everything they need to pay, maintenance and everything else. It doesn't sound like that's the same model here. So I'm just curious how this model works. And again, conversation for a different day. I do want to say…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 49:06
“Yeah, I think you understand where I'm coming from with the question.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 50:24
“I think it my question. I think Commissioner West is it's really that you know that What income levels of what housing remains and the long in the long picture right yeah? No, no response needed”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:02:12
“As you stated, and in the report here, it states that, you know, there is that enterprise zone pause. I'm using the word pause. Focus on that for a moment. So that's in place as a result of HB 4084. And so that gathered my attention. I realized that only applies for the tax exemption. So if someone wants to act today and they want to forego the tax exemption, they can go forward today. So I want to make that perfectly clear in my understanding. And then what sparked my interest on this was Hillsboro, because it was on the news that Hillsboro put a pause, not a moratorium at the time, it came…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:04:41
“As I'm reading that, drill down a little bit. I'm going to get a little bit technical. It uses the word pause, and it says in June 6 of this year, the moratorium took effect. But on what grounds? Because it was economic relief. It was not about infrastructure.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:05:23
“Okay, so you're saying that pause and moratorium in our context is the same thing.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:05:29
“Okay, we've established that. It's not the answer I wanted, but I appreciate it. My concern about this, relying on maybe the state who's only looking at the economic effects, I've watched this play out in the housing emergency where the state or the governor institutes a housing emergency. They seem to provide the funds and the resources for housing, changing our land use laws so that we eliminate, you know, the time clock or barriers, and so they're foregoing a lot of the mechanisms. And there's a lot of local pushback on that. Wait a minute, I don't get notification? I know it's in an…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:11:39
“Yeah, I appreciate that. I just want to say really my point here is that I don't have confidence that whatever the state's going to do, that they're going to look at these local issues as carefully as we would, right? And I'm not sure it's even on their radar, right? I think it's more about is it a tax incentive or is it an opportunity? Maybe they'll look at it from a power utility standpoint. I just don't want to see the burden of the impacts. And I brought up water before. I'll be consistent with that. There are a lot of domestic wells. The only source of water is their well. And I do know…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:22:40
“Yeah, so I'm going to ask you a question. I don't know either what Commissioner Helms' motion is going to be, but where should we start? If the big question is we want to put safeguards in place or guardrails in place, whichever way you want to word it, if we want to get ahead of this and make sure that Should an application happen that we adequately have the right criteria in place to allow or disallow it? However, it doesn't seem like jumping into moratorium without really knowing if it is really called for is the right step. It does not seem. So is it more the exploratory aspect, or is it…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:24:03
“Yeah, well, but we can't do a moratorium, but we can. I appreciate you summarizing, but those are not my words. My words were, again, I want to, maybe I'm nuancing this, but I'll be very clear. My is putting safeguards in place. I think safeguards is not a hell no, right?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:25:37
“Yeah, I appreciate that. And the reason I'm really careful with using the word safeguards is I think that there are, and we're here, and I think you even shared at one of our sessions that there are very small data centers that people don't even know about that are not having any great impacts, right? We know that they're so small they're inside existing buildings, right? So... It's, I think that some of the concerns are people think about these football or two, three football-sized data centers, which I can't even envision, which, you know, I would have an adverse reaction just even knowing…”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:29:08
“Yeah, so I will give it a second so we can go through this process Second Commissioner West so like me I'm gonna ask a question of Caleb again I think I know the answer but I want to make it clear so what I'm what I am suggesting that for a edit to our amendment to the motion is that do the research right elements of that in the motion somehow. Maybe it's already in there, is the intent in there, Commissioner?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:29:38
“Well, it's what comes first, is the cart before the horse? Which starts first? What is the most important thing from a legal standpoint so that we don't get ourselves in trouble?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:30:46
“I'm good with the intention. I just wondered if the 45-day window is adequate to do that research.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:30:54
“That's why I was thinking the cart before the horse maybe is the research then, if necessary, which probably so, you know, a moratorium or criteria about, let's say, water usage. I don't know. I'll leave it there.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:31:24
“I'm just thinking that maybe to make sure we're prepared, I'm not sure 45 days is enough time, so I would say that if the amendment was to research it and bring it back to the board as options or criteria needed for the moratorium, then it leads the path in a way that is thoughtful.”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026
- Play at 1:34:47
“Yeah, so I'll ask the question. When does a 45-day clock start? Does it start today, or does it start after we adopt the moratorium?”
Board of County Commissioners · Aug 11, 2026