City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Today is Wednesday, June 17th, 2026, and I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the Oregon City City Commission. We'd like to start with the roll call.

Commissioner Rocky Smith is excused. Commissioner Adam Morrow? Here. Commissioner Scott Wilson? Here. Commissioner Mike Mitchell? Here. And Mayor Denise McGriff?

Present. For those who are able, would you please stand and join us in the flag salute?

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.

That's what I forgot to do.

Now I'm just thinking of it. All right, so tonight on our agenda, we have two proclamations. And the first one involves celebration of the Pacific Lamprey. And you will have to forgive me. There are some native words from the Yakima tribe. I will not be able to read those because I don't know how to pronounce them. So, but it's in the proclamation. So whereas Pacific lamprey are an ancient jawless fish that holds immense cultural and ecological significance at Willamette Falls, and whereas one of the last major harvestable runs of Pacific lamprey is in the Columbia Basin, in the Columbia Basin is at Willamette Falls. And whereas celebrating the Pacific lamprey emphasizes their cultural value and the need for preservation and habitat restoration. sure I'm reading and whereas despite being a cultural stronghold A Pacific lamprey are a species of concern due to population declines caused by dams, habitat loss, and climate change. And whereas Pacific lamprey, who have existed for over 40 million years, are only collected using traditional methods, including hand, small mesh dip nets, and gaffting hooks. And whereas there is a goal for one million adult Pacific lamprey to pass Willamette Falls annually by 2035. And whereas June 25th, 2026 will be recognized as Love of Lamprey Day. Now, therefore I Denise C. McGriff and the City Commission of the City of Oregon City do hereby proclaim June 25th, 2026 as Love of Lamprey Day and all citizens and civic organizations to celebrate the Pacific Lamprey by attending and participating and the Lamprey Festival to commemorate the remarkable life and contributions of the Pacific Lamprey. That will be happening on June 25th at Clackamas Park. And I will sign this on the 17th day of June, 2026. And I wanted to add just a little postscript. So in my travels throughout Oregon City, I had the opportunity to meet Chief Yellow Wash, who is with the Yakima Nation. He recently passed away on May the 1st, and this was a proclamation that he had written and given to us, and he thought he would be with us to hear this. but he just didn't make it. I had the opportunity over the last five, six years to have conversations with Chief Yellow Wash. I also went on the boat tour two years, a year ago and my companion on the bench was the chief himself and we had a great conversation and I was really delighted to, he's got a great sense of humor. He also recently spoke at the Willamette Falls event we had earlier in the year. And it's just very sad that he has now passed and is no longer with us. So this was from him. We also have a proclamation celebrating Juneteenth, which is actually on Friday, but our program will be happening on the 20th at 2 p.m. at the end of the Oregon Trail Center. Whereas President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1st, 1863, declaring the slaves in Confederate territory free, paving the way for the passing of the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in the United States of America. And whereas wording about the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation was delayed two and one half years to June 19th, 1865, in reaching authorities and African-Americans in the South and Southwestern United States. And whereas June 19th has a special meaning to African-Americans and is called Juneteenth combining the words June and 19th and has been celebrated for over 150 years. And whereas Juneteenth centered activities have taken place to promote and cultivate knowledge and appreciation of African-American history and culture. And whereas Juneteenth is a day of reflection and a day of renewal, it is a moment in time to appreciate not only the African American experiences, but is inclusive of all races, ethnicities, and nationalities. And whereas Juneteenth is a day we can all come together as a community to listen, to learn, and to refresh the drive to achieve, it is a day where we can come one step closer together to better utilize the energy wasted on racism. And whereas the annual Juneteenth celebration in the City of Oregon City will be held on Saturday, June 20th at 2 p.m. at the end of the Oregon Trail, now therefore I, Denise C. McGriff, Mayor of the City of Oregon City and the Oregon City City Commission do proclaim June 19th, 2026 at Juneteenth Day in Oregon City and urge all citizens to become more aware of the significance of this celebration in African American history and in the heritage of our nation. And it will be signed on the 17th day of June. Do we have any slips for item number four?

Just the one that I'd given you.

This one is for later in the agenda. Right, okay, so nothing for item four. Okay, so we're gonna skip number four. We don't have any public comments for items that are not on the agenda. I'd like to call up Josh Plankton, who's going to give the annual report for the Oregon City Arts Commission. Did they make you come by yourself this time?

It's looking like there's a person in the crowd that would like to do a public comment. Is that correct? If we wanted to do that.

Was there?

Yes, it appears there is a person that would like to do a public comment. Oh yes, come on up Stefan.

I thought I looked at that and it looked like a nine. So I thought, okay, you're gonna talk about number nine. So just give your name and city of residence for the record. Yeah.

So my name is Stefan Varga. I've lived in Oregon City for about 23 years. And I'm here, I spoke with the mayor a couple days ago. But it's a concern of some of the city's agencies, departments being weaponized by certain neighbors. And I'm dealing with last six months with a neighbor that has called code enforcement, police response, building department, zoning department on various issues that he obviously felt strong about, but has caused chaos in the neighborhood. He's also the one that is berating my family, kids, family members come over, they're not allowed to be out on the sidewalk or on the public street. And the concern I have is that Somebody is going to get hurt in one of these responses because they might be having a bad day. And what is the city doing? Recognizing maybe there's a mental issue. Maybe there's something feeding this type of attitude. And I don't think I'm the only one in the city that is dealing with this. I don't know. of other cases, but it is something that I think we are dealing with. It's the times we're dealing with. And sometimes it's the Citico zoning laws that are being basically weaponized. And my concern is that similar to a swatting incident where the police get called out, code enforcement gets called out or the building department. And I want to bring that awareness that we're dealing with this on a daily basis. It might not hit the news. It might not get called into the police because it's probably something that police, I have done that, but say, well, it's not criminal yet, but it is affecting our livelihood. And that's all I had to say.

Thank you very much, Stefan. I know that, um, The police department is aware of this particular situation and also our code officers. Thank you. Now, Josh.

Well, Josh didn't come up completely alone. I'm Anne Griffin. I'm an economic development staff for the city. I did want to take the opportunity to introduce Mr. Planton. Josh has been very actively engaged in the Oregon City Arts Commission. since the Arts Commission was reorganized in 2021. He's been serving on the Arts Commission since that time, and he's now serving in his second year as the chair of the Arts Commission and as a staff liaison to OCAC, to OCAC. I'm happy to introduce Josh.

Thank you, Anne. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, Mayor. Thank you, City Commissioners, for having me. I believe in your packet tonight there was a write-up of our update. I won't read through the whole thing, but I will make some highlights. Please, if you have any questions, feel free to stop me. The order of the report kind of goes chronologically. So ending, we gave our last update in May of last year. At that time, we were just in the midst of planning a six by six art show, which we believe went terrific. We had participation from over 50 artists in that event, over 200 attendees, and we were able to give over $3,000 to the Oregon City School Foundation for art-related supplies. We also at that time announced the Art for Every Heart contest, which was geared towards K through 12 grades, identifying winners from that. And from there, we have been promoting those pieces of art We have since that time decided to restructure the Art for Every Heart program, focusing more on adults and various smaller projects that are geared towards people who don't normally engage with public art. We're still in the midst of reviewing that proposal and that project or program outline, but we're hoping to launch that in the next few months. Um... We also, starting in the second half of last year, reviewing the code related to the Oregon City Arts Commission, so chapter 2.26 and 15.28.09, which is covering the mural applications process. Both of those went through numerous reviews by the Arts Commission, trying to identify ways we could simplify, clarify, and improve the In October, we met with all of you during work session to review those changes. And then you provided feedback to us on the proposed changes with legal counsel input. And ultimately those were approved in March of this year. And then I believe ratified in April. So they are in effect now Following that, we have been making updates to our bylaws related to those changes in the municipal code. Those changes we're hoping to finalize at our July meeting. We have a final red line version right now in front of the group that we'll be reviewing tomorrow night. And then also we started a process of a five year strategic plan. Just given the kind of the resourcing we have, we wanted to make sure we're starting to think long term for our goals and our objectives. So this strategic plan outlines four goals that we will focus on over the next five years. Those goals are strengthening the Oregon City Arts Commission Structural Foundation, forging community partnerships through art, focus on projects that support the city's placemaking efforts, and enhance regional awareness of the Oregon City brand and placemaking. Though the strategic document right now is in its final state, we're hoping to approve it tomorrow and have it launch July 1st of this year. And then for the next five years, we will be following that. So as we come back to you with updates, we'll be using that as kind of our guidepost to giving you progress as we move through our objectives. We also launched our website in March of this year. That was a big feat for us. There was a lot of work that went into that. It was delayed somewhat due to the municipal code changes and wanting to make sure we had a lot of our other details sorted out first before launching that. That website will be a tremendous tool for us to promoting art in Oregon City, promoting artists in Oregon City, promoting the various projects that we're working on and also sharing information about RFQs and RFPs that we hope to enact in the next five years. Tied to that, we are working on a marketing plan that we also will incorporate the website as well as other means of communication we're hoping to improve upon as we move forward to, again, promote public art in Oregon City. We've been working heavily with a few different organizations the last few months. We're hoping to build upon that number as we build partnerships focused at public art projects. The biggest, maybe the most important one we've had so far was with Travel Oregon City. The work we've done with them has been tremendously helpful at us getting the word out and communicating with others in the community about the projects we're working on and what they would like to see. We have a, what we call a creative action lab that we organize with the help of the Oregon City, Travel Oregon City group. That is to bring people together from the community, businesses, public, and brainstorm ideas about public art. That's where our Pacific land prey statue proposal that we had submitted for the enhancement grant and I'm not getting, but that's where that came from was a group of about 30 people brainstorming what projects they wanted to see happen in Oregon city. In addition to that, we also have the, we've been working heavily with the Museum of the Oregon Territory. They seem interested in doing several art related projects. They also have space within the museum to do a art gallery, maybe something that is quarterly updated. So we were working with them on identifying and helping draft what a program could look like there, giving opportunities to artists in Oregon City showcasing their art to the public. And that is pretty much it in terms of the report. I'm happy to answer any questions that you may have.

Well, before we get to questions, I want to acknowledge that the Arts Commission member, who is also the secretary, Amy Wilson, is here. So just raise your hand. So someone else from the Arts Commission did come to support you. You're always here for support. So when I said he's all alone, I meant other arts commissioners.

So she is here to support. Commissioner Morrow. Thank you, Mayor. For those of us who were on the commission when we reestablished the Arts Commission, I think there was a hope that there would be a strong emphasis on the installation of more public art. And I think going through these and thinking of the work that you've outlined for us, which I think is great. The art show, I really enjoyed that and I purchased a couple of pieces myself from that event and I really enjoyed it. However, when I think about what we were envisioning when we reestablished this was I was hoping at this point to see more public art along along buildings and along the streets. And so I was hoping you could give an overview for me of what you have done thus far. Coming to mind specifically, I know that there have been some mural restorations. I know that there is the the cat toy sculpture close to City Hall. And I know that you were working on the Pacific Lamprey installation, but I was hoping that you could talk more about what you have done thus far and what you see yourself doing in these next five years with that strategic plan.

So before you start, so I think what we have also heard out in the community is that we should meet they i've been asked about where the timeline is for at least one to two art physical art projects that are going into oregon city will be happening you know so that there's always something going on

Yeah, so thank you. Besides the art pieces that you mentioned, the statue on 7th Street, the murals that we have approved and the ones that we were able to restore, we have also recently been in work with Soul Flags on Their mural, which was approved by the, or funded by the enhancement grant, that one is supposed to kick off on July 6th. We still have to approve the application, which we are planning to do at our next meeting. Other than that, we have a potential mural application coming in from the Elevator Plaza. The Oregon City Arts Commission is looking at doing a mural at the other end of railroad Avenue. We're just in the early phases of the RFQ RFP process for that. So we're hoping to get that done in the next year. Moot also is looking to do a mural on their building as a kind of highlight of the the older facade and a facelift for that. And then we have another business that has reached out to us and we've been in initial communication with about what the process is for doing a mural. And that's at the Trails End Saloon. That piece of property is being purchased and gonna be renovated. And then they would like to do a mural there as well. So those are five murals we know of that are possibly come to fruition in the next year. Additionally, like you mentioned, the lamprey statue, that was kind of our goal for the statue piece because going forward as part of the strategic plan, our goal is to get one new mural and one new statue every year in addition to performing art pieces and things like that that we hope to organize. In addition to that statue, we've been contacted by the, well, not directly, One of our commissioners who was on TRAG, the Three Rivers Artists Guild, has been contacted by the daughter of Lee Kelly. Lee Kelly is the artist who did the statue that's on the railroad avenue right now. She has several pieces that she would like to donate to various organizations, Oregon City being one of those. So we're working with her to try and identify what piece that she would like to donate. We'll need to work with the finance department on what a donation policy would look like for the art, because I don't believe there is one right now. And then we would identify a potential location where that piece could be placed. So that would be one case where we don't have to actually create the art. It's just more of finding a location and putting it up. Additionally, we've talked about other smaller kind of grassroots ideas. For example, the Lamprey Festival. We were looking at an option to have, I think, like a thousand tiny lampreys 3D printed that you could put around the city kind of as a way for people to kind of come in and look around and find those. as a contemporary installation. But those are the main ones we have right now on our list to do. But yeah, like to your point, we do want to see more art coming in. We just had to go back basically to square one and reconfigure things to make sure we had a clear path forward and we had a good foundation to start from. Thank you.

I'd just like to, going back to the conversation that you referenced for the Metro Enhancement Grant, I think that at least for some of us, the expectation is similar to what we communicated there, which is that having tangible assets coming as a result of this work would be really great to see, which isn't to say that I'm not supportive of the events and the performing arts. And in fact, I think my comments at the Metro Enhancement Grant that I feel that's very important. But I also think that given that the Arts Commission is the most well-resourced of all of our committees in terms of budget, that we do have high expectations for what we would like to see produced out of that investment.

Yeah, that is understood. And I will add too that the Lamprey statue, just because we didn't receive the awarded funds at that, at the enhancement grant committee, doesn't mean we're not going to go forward and try and look for other sources of funding. So there, I attended, Amy attended as well, a event, a forum of organizations brought together by the Oregon Cultural Trust that offer different funding sources for our projects across the state. So our goal is to look at which ones are coming available this fall and reapply with the same project to see if we can get the funding that way and bring those to. On the budget side, yes, we do have a healthy budget. We were able to roll over some funds from last year that we weren't able to spend in time due to a number of issues. But we ultimately, you know, a statue placement, all that will cost roughly about half of what we would have received this biennium for a budget. just given the cost of everything, metal, transportation, labor, all of that. So we do realize we're appreciative of the resources that were given. We also know that to spread it as far as possible to hit the most citizens of Oregon City, we also need to supplement that.

So just a quick clarification, you mentioned a place that Moot wanted to put something and you said- A mural.

They would like to do a mural on their building.

You said something about Alder and I was like,

Well, they're talking about doing some mural to kind of give a facelift to the building itself since it's kind of an older, seen as an older building. The concrete walls are pretty bare. Pretty bare as well, yes. And they want to kind of highlight that they're there and hopefully attract more people to stop by.

Well, hopefully it won't be all advertising. But I would think, too, in terms of if Lee Kelly's daughter, who's, I'm sorry, her name is escaping me, is interested in donating a sculpture, I think that depending on what it is, will determine a lot about where we might be looking. And I say we collectively as a community, because there may be a park that might be totally suitable, but then, you know, we want to make sure we work through our, a little bit of our process so we can get input. We're not saying we're asking people to tell us where they think it should be that we'd like some, you know, some suggestions and then make some decision, you know, down the road. And I'm assuming the, this group would be involved as well. But yeah, again, the heart of the McLaughlin neighborhood sculpture that's there was basically already in process because it was an insurance claim, but you guys got it over the finish line and got it done. And so, but we need some more wins like that. And I know it takes a while. So for instance, if you get the funding and I will have to say that as I was joking with Commissioner Wilson, that that is one of the most attractive lamprey if that artist will let us reproduce that same statue. I mean, it's perfect because kids can climb on it. Kind of reminded me of some of the statues they have in Klamath Falls, and they are using a geese theme, and there's a huge one they have in a couple of their parks. Its wings are out, but the kids can kind of climb on it, and it's very... Very much touchable. And there were two or three of them. And when I was there for a conference last year, there were just kids all over. It was just a lot of fun to see the kids enjoying and interacting with that piece of art. And the artist was there and he was telling us about how he created it and made it so that kids could kind of, and adults too, be on it.

I guess I'll add one other thing, and this is preliminary conversations, but I had a conversation yesterday with the Confederate tribes of the Grand Ronde. They are going to be donating, as you might well know, about 50 Mantle covers that are designed that have a design on top. So when those come in We're going to be working with them to help promote that In addition to that they're talking about doing prints off of those to give out as t-shirts and things again just kind of a added promotional element We talked briefly about some other projects they do one with Blue Heron Temporary Art in Milwaukee, and they were talking about maybe doing something similar here in Oregon City along the river as well. So we do have a lot of, I think, projects in the early stages that we're starting to get around, but not until now were we ready to do most of this work, so.

Anybody else?

Okay, thank you so much.

Thank you for being here, Amy. All right, so it's my pleasure to call up the Executive Director of the Water and Environmental Services, Greg Geist for our annual report. And I've probably seen some of this before because I serve on the West Board. And congratulations on getting the budget adopted and congratulations to Clackamas County for making it through the budget.

All right. Thank you, Mayor and Commissioners. This is Greg Geist. I'm the Director of Clackamas Water and Barbecue Services. This is our seventh year. an annual report and kind of what we've been up to and what to expect over the next year. And I will say this year, particularly, we've been focused on connecting with the community and collaboration and partnership, in addition to building a whole lot of vital infrastructure. I'll talk more about that. I'm gonna start by tooting our own horn a little bit. In 2025, last summer, we were awarded the Member Agency of the Year Award for the Oregon Association of Clean Water Agencies. And there's a lot of clean water agencies in Oregon. There's Bend, Eugene, Clean Water Services, Salem, Gresham. You know, I don't know, over 100. So we also won the award in 2019. So to win it twice in six years is pretty cool. I, of course, didn't know we were receiving the award. It's awarded kind of at the end of the conference, and we had to creatively crop that picture because I was wearing shorts. I'll just read our vision. Our vision is to be a collaborative partner in building a resilient clean water future where all people benefit and rivers thrive. So we're living the vision. Just to remind folks of our service area, we serve about 200,000 customers in the urbanized area of Clackamas County. If you're in Happy Valley, you get three things from Wes. You get you get wastewater conveyance and you get surface and stormwater management. So, and for those that may be watching or don't know, we do, we make three things with what goes down in your toilet. You flush your toilet, it arrives at our treatment plant. We make clean water that goes back out to the river for downstream uses. We make electricity that we can power up to half of the power to, consumption of our very large industrial facility here in Oregon City. And we make a natural fertilizer called biosolids. So those are the services that we provide. We do different things in different areas of our service area for Oregon City. We just provide wastewater treatment. So you folks take care of your own storm water, surface water, and own and operate your own pipes and pump stations that get the waste to our facilities. We are governed by the Board of County Commissioners, but we do have an active and well-respected and very functional advisory committee. It's 20 members. We have elected officials from each of the cities that we serve. Mayor McGriff serves that for Oregon City. We have business owners, we have environmental group representatives, and we have ratepayers. And William Gifford, who's in the audience tonight, is Oregon City's ratepayer representative on that advisory committee. Just kind of by the numbers, we actually have five water resource recovery facilities. Our flagship is here in Oregon City. We also have a significant facility in Milwaukee called our Kellogg Creek facility. If you drive by that these days, we are remodeling our administration building, so it's basically gutted right now, but it's going to be really nice when it's done. We also serve some smaller communities in Clackamas County, about 900 people up on the mountain at Hoodland. We have a small facility that serves boring, and we have another facility that is essentially a large onsite septic system that serves a small community in the county. I like to say that WES is different from organizations in that every organization does planning documents. We follow the plan. And back in 2016, when WES essentially kind of consolidated what were three different service districts and seven separate advisory committees to the West entity that exists today, and a single advisory committee. What that did is it allowed us to do long range planning. Before that, any large, capital project that impacted the two sanitary sewer districts was a negotiation between those two districts in a long drawn out process. I used to call it mother may I. Once we consolidated, we could do the long range planning, the capital or the facilities plans looking 20 to 40 years out for both condition and future growth needs. collection system master planning that would again assess the condition and the need for future growth. So we paired that with long range financial planning and long range capital planning. And so I feel we're very, very fortunate in Clackamas County and at West to know what we need to build, when we need to build it and how we're gonna pay for it. If you read the newspaper and pay attention at all to utilities, even in Clackamas County, there's multiple utilities, both water and wastewater that are looking at double digit multi-year rate increases in order to catch up and build the infrastructure that they need. So we're in a very, very fortunate financial position at West. Just by the numbers again, 62% of the rate dollar goes into operations, 11% debt payments, and 27% infrastructure financing and reserves. Speaking of financial stewardship, we... consistently get awards from the Government Finance Officers Association for our financial achievement, distinguished budget, which we started doing a few years ago. And this year we are putting together what's called a popular annual financial report or PAFR. And so we will submit that to GFOA. I have some copies here and what it is, it's a 12 page document that's designed for the average rate payer to understand Wes's budget. So we are gonna submit that for the award and they call it the trifecta. So if we get all three of those, Wes will be one of only nine public entities in the state that has all three of those financial awards. So fingers crossed and we're proud of our folks. So down to the numbers, we have had very, very consistent rate adjustments over the past several years. And we were looking at a very, very steady and predictable rate adjustments for the foreseeable future. This year for Oregon City is 4.7% per household per month. That's about $1.45 again, per household per month. And you can see previous years where it's been a very steady and very predictable adjustment. And just to look at where we're at regionally, if you, we are well for the West provided services are below the regional average. If you look all the way to the right there, The green portion of that bar is what we charge for wholesale treatment. The blue part is what the city tax on for the wastewater conveyance and stormwater management. So the cities that we provide wholesale treatment to or just treat the wastewater have varying rates depending on what the city councils or commissions, how they evolve over time. A big win this year. It was a multi-year project. The new outfall at Tri-City, which will give us treatment capacity or the ability to release that wastewater out through at least 2080. A massive project. We had a lot of fun with it. We had a lot of community engagement and involvement. We had the Clackamo tunnel boring machine and we brought it online permanently in December. So that project is complete. And I'm proud to say that it was both on time and on budget. That was a $58 million project, which is a big one for West. So yeah, that's great. And we may have a video if it plays. Do we know how to play the video?

See if it'll work.

bear with me i'll have to get to the open this in a different way okay it's just three or four minutes it'll be fun i only have it in powerpoint or a pdf so okay we'll send the link

But it's really cool. It's an animation that shows how the tunnel boring machine worked. And this picture, this image of it, just before it reached the bottom of the river, we built a pad. And you can see there's a barge floating above it. So the machine literally drove itself out onto the bottom of the river. We picked it up with a barge and shipped it back to Germany, where it came from. Again, I said focus on partnering and collaboration, and I'm gonna stick around for the inflow and infiltration presentation tonight. But yeah, this has been a wonderful partnership with Oregon City and with several other cities that we serve. Several years ago, Wes did a study that said if we could collectively invest in our collection systems, not just within West, but within all the cities that we serve. And we know, well, we did a lot of evaluation and as did the cities and cooperation and partnership and identified 19 of the leakiest sub basins or pipe sheds in our collection system. And then we set up a partnership with the cities where West would pay 33% of approved I&I projects within those 19 pipe sheds. And so we have our engineering staff working with the city engineering staff to identify those projects, submit them for funding and see them through. So I'm excited to see the presentation later tonight. And I'll move on. Another good example is the Good Neighbor Program Partnership. This was created in 2019. Over the years, we've given 1.4 million and that's put $940,000 in the bank for the Clackamas Park Project. So we're excited about that. Again, continuing on partnership, Oregon City Parks and Rec Movies in the Park, Chamber of Commerce, Business Alliance, and Rotary Club of Oregon City, we're all sponsoring and participating in those events. And as I always say, if there are other events in Oregon City, that you think you would like some sponsorship help or participation support in any way. We love to get out in the community, especially in the communities that we don't directly bill, which is Oregon City. We're a pass through to them. So getting the folks in Oregon City to know who we are, what we do, and why we matter is really important. So if there's any opportunities, please let us know and we will take those. And that's all I got for tonight. Happy to answer any questions.

Are there any questions? I just say that, you know, our cooperation and collaboration on the INI program, we're gonna hear more about it in just a few minutes, has been our past public works director and our current public works director have been instrumental in moving those projects forward and making sure that they happen. And I think, you know, John Lewis would be very pleased to know how well it's been doing. Maybe he's even watching tonight. But it's been a good project. Okay, thank you, Greg.

Thank you. I was able to get the video if you want to watch it.

Okay, go ahead.

Okay, here we go. The Tri-City Resource Recovery Facility Outfall Project is a vital step forward in protecting water quality in the region. Clackamas Water Environment Services, or WES, launched this project to expand outfall capacity and ensure compliance with Oregon water quality standards and federal requirements, while benefiting the river, the community, and the environment. The new system will provide greater dilution and reduced discharge concentrations by relocating the primary outfall to a deeper section of the river. It's also equipped with a multiport diffuser to provide rapid dilutions that help protect water quality year-round. By moving the discharge point farther from the Clackamas River, the project helps preserve seasonal cold water refuges crucial for fish and aquatic life. Other benefits include enhancing the protection of beneficial uses in the Willamette River, maintaining nearshore and offshore fish passage, minimizing construction impacts by using trenchless methods beneath the riverbed, and installing an integrated outfall system that includes a new 90-inch diffuser with 18 risers, while retaining the existing 72-inch outfall for peak wet weather events. All together, it's a comprehensive solution for long-term environmental health. Designing the alignment for the outfall was a complex challenge. The project had to work within the footprint of the old Rossman landfill and avoid existing critical utilities along Agnes Avenue and deal with poor ground conditions, all while minimizing disruption to public infrastructure and private property across several key areas like Agnes Avenue. Main Street, Interstate 205 and its ramps, Highway 99, Clackamant Drive, and John Storm Park, which required a special easement. West worked closely with stakeholders, including local residents, property owners, the City of Oregon City, and ODOT to limit construction impacts. The alignment used a combination of methods. About half was open cut along Agnes Road. The other half mile section was constructed using microtunneling, launched from a 28-foot deep shaft and ending in the Willamette River. Challenging soil conditions required a specially designed micro-tunnel boring machine imported from Germany. And as is common on tunneling industry projects, West promoted a contest for naming the tunnel boring machine, with the community selecting the name Clackamel. Construction kicked off in July 2024 with the excavation of the 28-foot launch shaft. By the end of August, Clackamo was launched, slowly advancing underground by cutting through the soil and pushing pipe segments forward with hydraulic jacks and lubrication systems. To avoid disrupting John Storm Park and the riverbank, the tunnel includes both vertical and horizontal curves. Tunneling was completed by December 2024. In January 2025, the tunnel was cleaned out and flooded. Then, using a crane on a barge, the boring machine was lifted from the bottom of the river, disassembled, and shipped back to Germany. Meanwhile, open-cut installation along Agnes Avenue began in May 2024. Over the course of a year, crews connected the new pipe to the Tri-City Treatment Facility and prepared it for integration with the tunnel. The final step was installing the diffuser in the Willamette River. Scheduled for completion between July and October 2025, the diffuser will feature 18 risers. Though the main outfall pipe is buried below the riverbed, the risers, equipped with tide flex valves and breakaway joints to protect the main diffuser pipe, will extend slightly above it, enabling rapid mixing of treated water with river flows. Once complete, the new outfall and diffuser will serve as the primary discharge point for the Tri-City treatment facility, ensuring clean water in the Willamette River for generations to come.

So you see, that's incredibly impressive. And I think especially on time and on budget, equally impressive. I think maybe you should do some... Sam says that the average ChatGPT query uses around 0.0000... Oh, Hank Green. Anyway, I think maybe some consultation work for ODOT could be in your future.

Yeah, well, okay. We'll move that along anyway. Okay. I'd like to call up staff for the inflow and infiltration program, fiscal year 2025, 2026. And we're going to get introduced to our new city engineer, Kurt Krueger. So why don't you just say hi to everybody. And I don't know if everybody on the commission has had a chance to meet you. So.

Good evening, Commission Mayor. I'm pleased to be here, Kurt Krueger, the new city engineer, about two months on the job. I'm excited to be here with this presentation. I've met a couple of you and looking forward to being Commission President here soon. I'm pleased to be here to make this presentation tonight. Very timely to follow a very exciting video and presentation from Wes. I'm used to seeing our former project engineer, Kenny Kennedy-Schultz, who recently took another position, a promotional opportunity at another agency further down the Willamette Valley. But a lot of the work that he did, I want to give recognition to over the last couple years in putting this position, this program in a great position today. So this is our annual report, looking back on where we've been in the last year and where we're going to be going in the next year or two. Also in the audience, if needed, I've got supporting role cast members of David Brokaw and Jim Montgomery from our program management consulting team, Wallace Engineering. So the current program status over the last five years, we are now reaching the five-year mark of the program. We have completed three projects that came in under budget. So not to be outdone by our friends at West, but we are doing equally well on our budget requests and staying under those dollars. We've completed one of the basins of the seven in the program. We've also completed rehabilitation of 213 manholes to date. So we currently have two projects that are in construction and five projects that are in design. While completing all this work, we've also been working with our operations team to identify emergencies that have been coming up through the course of the year and opportunities to be able to tap into our contractors that are in the area to fix and repair emergency situations where appropriate. So we're doing a lot of cross collaboration with our operations team.

Can you give us an example of an emergency?

I may have to call in and phone a friend here for that.

I see the friend he's sitting there.

Happy to tap into Dave, if you would. Sure.

Dave Brokaw with Wallace Engineering. One of the example emergency repair projects would be, we did a sewer rehabilitation on Jefferson Pathway, I believe it's called. There was a large break in the pipe that was discovered by the ops crew. We were able to take our contractor, get a price to rehabilitate that line and incorporated a couple of laterals as well, but that pipe was leaking into the hillside. I think it was very wise that we addressed it quickly.

Nice, thank you. May I ask you just to stay up just more questions. We also had the opportunity to make a significant manhole rehabilitation repair at our Cook Street pump station. It was identified that we had significant infiltration happening at that location. to that effort while still staying under our project budget. Moving on to some of the specific projects that you should be familiar with. We have completed the Linn one last year, high priority area, leeway engineering, Atlantis and Atlantis construction where our engineering team and contractor, that project was approximately $4.2 million and it came in approximately $416,000 under budget. Following that, we had Malala Avenue in late 2024, early spring of 2025. We were coordinating with our WFPIA Waterline project as well. That project was a little larger at $4.5 million, and we were able to come in under budget about $118,000. And finally, we were able to complete work here recently on the river crest project. That project came in significantly under budget as well. The original project scope was 3.1 million and we came in just under 900,000 on that project. Currently under construction, as you're probably aware, are McLaughlin one and Linn two areas. These are high priority areas as well. Again, we've got leeway engineering, Landis and Landis construction and Wallace engineering and more excavation performing that design and construction work. Those are combined projects of approximately 5.8 million. This is probably the slide I would draw your attention to the most. This is showing the progress to date. It's a little tough because when we finished these projects in the spring, summer, we're past sort of the inflow and infiltration area of the season, out of the wet season. So we're kind of looking back at where we were, expect much more significant improvements next year when we can make this presentation. But it's important to note that LIN-1 had showed a 35% reduction in flow into the pipes. Rivercrest showed a 12% reduction at only 34% of the construction project at that time. And then Malala Avenue showed a 29% reduction with nearly 60% of the construction project completed. So we are seeing great gains working toward our goals of I&I reduction throughout the city in these basins. More importantly, the projects that are coming up here in the near future, we have a couple challenging projects, both with NROD, Geological Hazardous Areas, and some very challenging soil conditions. Lint three, we will have completed with historic sets of sewer lines and laterals. Windsor Engineering will be doing that work in the next year. Newell Basin One, again with significant N-Rod and geologic hazard overlays requiring planning involvement in that project being performed by Keller and Associates. And then a portion of Main Street will be repairing and replacing a portion of that sanitary sewer between 10th and 15th. Wallace Engineering will be the lead on that. And then McLaughlin Two, located between McLaughlin One and Malala, this project has biological hazard areas, and another type two land use permit that will be required in Century West as our prime engineering consultant for that. And then we will be looking to extend the manhole rehabilitation project the following year. So we have a lot planned. This is kind of the core of the overall program, probably the most expensive and the most involved projects that we have, but we've got the benefit of a great team, contractor, excuse me, engineer, engineering consultants, and the history of where we've been in the project so far, informing the work going ahead. Excuse me, of note, approximately 75 jobs with our contractors and engineering firms are being provided as a result of this work as well. So we're creating a lot of give back to the community with this work. And we're reducing potential costs down the road for rate payers in the city. by this program and keeping future wastewater treatment plant expansions from having to occur as a result of the inflow that we're taking care of. So that should conclude my presentation and happy to field any questions.

Well, I don't have a question, obviously. As I said last year, I have had the experience of participating in the project on the private side, and I can't say enough about the staff from Wallace Engineering, particularly Jim Montgomery. Kenny was great in helping us get what we needed, and I have told Greg this over and over and over again about how great the program is, and I even spent some time bending Commissioner Savas's ear about how great it was. The one thing, though, that we probably should clarify that we talked about last year, it's been five years for the project, but you know, you got the first year when you're getting ramped up, we're not doing any construction, then you have to do the bidding and that's year two. So we've really basically had three full years of construction versus five years. So we're not quite to five years, but we have five years in the program. And I think that was clarified last year because we're all thinking, well, no, we haven't been constructing for five years, but it just takes time to ramp it up, but it's been a great program. We have a great partnership. Any questions or comments you want to make? Okay, fantastic. Keep up the good work. Keep that water out of the sewer. So let's move on to the adoption of the agenda and under item number seven, I need to have a motion to pull item E because they are not ready to have their liquor license presented. So we need to take it off the agenda, but I need an official motion to do that. Yes, it's for the 927th Street. That's the Olsen building.

I'll move to remove item E from the consent agenda. Second.

Roll call. Commissioner Adam Marl. Aye. Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. Mayor Denise McGriff. Aye. Motion passes.

So just, we have the items on this particular agenda. I did say I looked up some stuff on item number D, because I wanted to know what a family fund center was, and I didn't find a whole lot of information. And then on item F, I was trying to figure out that location, and I think it's going where coin toss was on first street, just at the other end of the building that the bottle redemption center is in. So that clarified that. So are there any questions about anything on the agenda A through N? And thank you to the library folks for recommending replacement for David Goldberg. We need to be represented on that group. Is there a motion to approve the consent agenda?

I move to approve the consent agenda. Is there a second? Second. It's been moved and seconded. And just for clarity, that is minus item E. Correct. Commissioner Adam Morrow. Aye. Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff. Aye. Motion passes.

So we have no public hearings on the agenda item number eight. And I am going to take a little bit of prerogative and we're going to take a short 10 minute recess. I'd like to call the meeting back to order. And before we go to general business under item number nine, I'd just like to say a few words before our library director walks out the door. So this is Greg Williams' last city commission meeting. I believe your last day is next week. So we just all wanted to take a moment to thank you for all of your wonderful work, your collaboration, your innovation, your creativity. I mean, where would we be without the bicycle, tricycle mobile, the outreach vehicle that is coming? I hope you'll be there for the christening or whatever we decide to do with that. So I just wanted to go down and have the commissioner. So Michael.

Year after year after year, the library ranks absolutely at the top on the survey of city residents and their happiness with what our various departments do. And that's due a great deal to your leadership. And I'm sorry to see you go, but I'm happy for you. As I told you the other day at the thing, I recommend retirement highly. So I'm glad that you're getting to experience that. And once again, just thanks for everything you've done.

Congratulations and thank you so much for your service to our community. Working with you the last five years has been a privilege and I will never forget how welcoming and helpful you were when I was getting onboarded into this position and it was just so clear to me your passion for your work and we were lucky to have you in the position and we'll hope to see you around with all the great developments that are happening at the library because of your leadership and we hope you won't be a stranger.

I mirror the words of my fellow commissioners. Just thank you so much. I was at the library last week or so when I bumped into Greg and I was just sharing my kids. I came home from work and my kids were like, dad, dad, dad, take us to the library. It's gonna close soon. We wanna get there and get some books. And that's really cool to me that my kids are excited to go out, to go to the library, to utilize the services there. And I think that, again, is just a testament to the staff, the facility, the services, everything that you do. Thank you so much. Genuinely appreciate everything you've done for the city. Thank you.

and i'll just echo that i got to say a few words yesterday at the going away event but i met greg when he was still working in governmental affairs for clackamas county and he helped me navigate some some challenging con not confrontations with challenging content that i had to deal with through clackamas county when i was working on a project when he applied for the library director, I said, I didn't know you had a background. Anyway, it was like, just absolutely delighted. And I know that our previous library director, Maureen, was just absolutely delighted that you were going to succeed her because she just knew that we were just gonna keep going right up through the stratosphere. And I don't think she's been proven wrong at all because it's just been great. And you're probably happy you didn't have to go through the construction project like she did. but you've had to deal with the maintenance issues after that. So, you know, there is a silver lining to all of that, but just, you know, you have, you have provided great leadership, but then again, you've picked fabulous people that work with you and the library staff, I mean, they're just, they've just followed your lead and you've let people be creative, all the fun things that happen at the library and people should feel like they can go in, it's their place. But I think you've also been very conscientious about safety and security as well, which is also important. That's not something I think when people were in library science that you ever even thought we'd be dealing with. But is the reality now that you've been able to pivot and Garth has been such a great addition to the staff. I mean, he's very knowledgeable in library and everything else. So he's been great, but the staff and the programs and just this last one with the one book, one coast. I just hope we continue to do things like that too. kind of unite libraries across the west coast and even you know through the library association and i know they're working really hard to try to solve this dilemma with ebooks but i think it's going to take a little bit more but we'll get there eventually so but just thank you for everything on behalf of a very grateful city

Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you very much, Commissioners. If I may take 30 seconds, I would be remiss. Thank you for the nice words. Thank you for recognizing the efforts of our staff. I was privileged enough, any director gets to be privileged enough that they get to sit in a seat and they get to come to meetings like this and talk to the community and get the accolades and bask in the glow of great community reviews and being at the top of the survey. And it's the staff who are there every single day, having every single interaction with members of the community and really making that positive environment, creating those relationships and building that trust with the community. So I can't say enough about our staff. I also want to thank you all. I don't think, I think you all know that, you know, I pride myself in that I only have to come to commission meetings every so often, you know, and we like to do our thing and just kind of be the department that does, that provides great service. In many communities, libraries are a very controversial topic and intellectual freedom and the ability to be exposed to different types of materials is very contentious. I have always been so incredibly grateful knowing that whoever was on the dais here in the City Commission of Oregon City always understood the importance and the value of libraries, not only to our community, not only to our city, but basically to our democracy and our civic functioning. And I commend you all for being such strong library supporters. I told many of the candidates who expressed interest in the position that of all the things that libraries are challenged by, at least with our community and with the city of Oregon City, in my experience here, intellectual freedom difficulties were not high on my list of things to worry about. And that is an amazing testament to you all, an amazing testament to this community, and it's been a great honor to be able to serve and be part of the long, long history of the Oregon City Public Library.

Thank you very much. It goes way back.

It does. I also take very much pride. I'm the type of person I just like to build things and leave them in good stead for whoever's gonna come. I know I am but one little blip in the long history of the civic institution and I think I've been able to, I'm proud of what I've been able to accomplish in setting it up for the next person.

And so just, you've been in the position how many years? Six years. Right when COVID started.

I always tell Tony he had a hell of an onboarding process for new library directors. I don't recommend it, but.

No. I'm not sure if it's COVID or construction, you know. We don't get to choose those things. But anyway, thank you so much. Have a good evening. All right, tonight on our, let me flip all these pages. On our agenda, we have item number nine, which is first reading of ordinance 261008, adopting amendments to the Oregon City Municipal Code, Title 13, updating public utility service billing code. That's very long.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners, Dana Webb, Public Works Director. So on your June 3rd meeting, I did do a PowerPoint presentation of these code amendments. I did not prepare a PowerPoint tonight. Essentially what I've brought back to you in a red line version is the small amendments that were requested during that June 3rd meeting. And then we have also added in one additional small red line requested by our utility customer service or utility billing group related to allowing enforcement when the water meter box is obstructed by a customer. So those are the changes from the June 3rd meeting to tonight. I did also just kind of want to share a little bit of background information. As we looked at the stormwater exemption and the discussion around residential and commercial use, we looked back at our 2021 stormwater utility rate study. And so that study provided us some information and some recommendations related to stormwater credits. As a reminder, our stormwater utility fee not only addresses our piped system, but also our surface water program, supports our development review and inspections for new stormwater infrastructure, maintaining our public piped system, inspecting privately maintained stormwater systems, monitoring our natural waterways, permit compliance and providing stormwater education and outreach. So again, just a reminder that the program isn't just those piped network. It's the multitude of items that are supported by this funding. Additionally, in that 2021 rate study, we had a whole review of rate credits. And so the code that we've brought back to you is based on the recommendations in that 2021 work. So our consultant worked with us and helped us identify essentially the recommendation that the rate credits apply only to commercial properties. And it kind of walked us through that process. So again, this is something that was recommended back in 2021, and it's just kind of now got brought up for the code amendments. And that's the conclusion of my presentation. Are there any questions?

Okay, we have one person that's interested in making some comments, Jim Nesita.

Thank you, Mayor. Jim Nisito. I live in Oregon City. um so i had sent you uh the email the sheets versus el dorado county case um a couple days ago and since then i've learned that after the um supreme court decided its case um they sent it back to the california court of appeals and in july of 2025 the california court of appeals issued its this is going to have to remand. I haven't had the time to go research that. I will, and will probably may have some comments for you before the second reading two weeks from now. But I want to express my concern regarding what the city has done regarding the whole questions raised by Sheets as it pertains to the development of these amendments. So as I indicated in my email, Ms. Richter in September of 2025 said that the Cheats case was very relevant to our stormwater utility fee ordinance. That was in September. And in February, there was a work session where the basics of this ordinance, these ordinance amendments were presented to the commission for comments. And there's nothing in the agenda packet that I could see, maybe someone can point me to some, I can't see anything in the agenda packet from that work session in February regarding any kind of analysis of these ordinances under sheets. Very important constitutional questions. So what I would like to see if we can establish somehow is, One, whether or not between September and February, the city manager had the city. Whether the city attorney, city manager had the city attorney draft kind of a sheets analysis for the upcoming code amendments. That's kind of like a yes or no answer. Secondly, if there was an analysis by the city attorney to review these code amendments pursuant to the constitutional requirements of the Sheets case, were you shared, was that legal analysis shared with all of you? It's not in the agenda packet for the February commission meeting. So did you get that ex parte? And did you use any type of sheets analysis for your deliberations on these ordinances, these proposed amendments? And if you got something, can the public see what you saw? I think the basic question is, was the analysis done? And why wasn't it included in the February work session packet?

Ms. Richter? Yes. Does the commission have a question?

Well, I guess I would say that nobody's hiding anything. We did not see anything like what you're alleging. So I'm not sure how to respond to that.

The reason why Ms. Webb talked about the 2021 stormwater plan, it's because that is what provided the basis for the $15.61 a month charge for residential properties. That plan assumed that there was no exemption for residential properties because of the reasons that Ms. Webb stated. That there are a number of benefits to residences even if their stormwater isn't directly entering into the city's pipes right off of their property. And it is my view that that 2021 stormwater plan, the city's consultant allocated the costs among all the users, just like all of our master plans do, that that is what provides the basis. So what we have set forth in the code here, the effort was not to take away a right of somebody, it was to memorialize what we always had planned. As you know, these code amendments were to make uniform some ambiguities. And so that's how this code came to be. And I have not hidden anything or, you know, provided the commission with any special information. Everything that is in the record is there. I would urge Mr. Nesita to take a look at the 2021 master plan because it does talk about these allocations and it does talk about residential being excluded from the credit calculation. And so I think that that responds to what he's looking for, but That's my response. I'd be happy to answer any other questions. We don't have anything, anything additional.

It is, I guess maybe a question is my understanding that this is now the second time this request is being made. It was previously made under the administration of former public works director, John Lewis. And it was denied for, specific reasons?

We're not, we're not, that's not what we're doing tonight. Tonight we're looking at code amendments. Mr. Nusita has filed a request for credits and that it will be, is on appeal and will be before you, but that's not what we're doing tonight.

All right. Are there any questions of Ms. Richter or Ms. Webb? Go ahead.

Thank you. So you would say that not only the amendments as presented to us meet the essential nexus component, but also the rough proportionality component of the decision?

As best as I've calculated it, yes. I'm not an engineer.

Right.

Any further discussion or questions? Okay, so our next step is to determine whether we want to do the first reading of Ordinance 26-1008.

I move to approve the first reading of Ordinance number 26-1008. I'll second.

Okay, go ahead, you second it.

Sorry, ordinance number 26-1008, an ordinance adopting amendments to Oregon City Municipal Code Title 13, public services.

Commissioner Adam Laurel. Aye. Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. Mayor Denise McGrath. Aye. Motion passes. All right.

And now for the exciting, super exciting, more exciting than everything else on the agenda tonight, Let's call up our public affairs manager, Mr. Jared Lyman.

Good evening, mayor and commissioner. Sorry to keep everybody waiting back there as I came up. We're gonna take another look at, Okay, it moved on its own. We're gonna take another look at the three flag designs that came before the commission during their last meeting. Again, just kind of a reminder of the process. We did a public survey called the flag poll, asking residents what they thought would be most important to be in a flag. Received more than 230 responses to that flag poll. Willamette Falls was the most common response. Is that a pun? Yes, 100%. Okay. With the elevator also being at the top, the colors blue, green, and white were the most common colors chosen by residents. I think you'll see that in the designs that came through. The blue to represent the two rivers that the city sits at the convergence of, the green for our parks and our forests, and the white for Willamette Falls. We sent that information to the North American Vexillological Association. They're the go-to flag experts. They took that information, sent forth, More than a couple dozen designs. Staff looked at those designs. We also sent those designs to one of our partners at the confederate tribe of the Grand Ronde for a cultural review. That gave us the five that we brought before the commission last week. The commission then whittled those down to three. We put those out for public review on social media before. I wanted to touch on this again real quick. The purpose of a flag is, it's symbolism. It's not supposed to be a direct depiction of something. It should be symbolic. It uses colors and shapes to represent things. If you look at the American flag, for example, it is, you know, the colors of the stripes represent bravery and loyalty with the red, the white with purity and honesty, and the stars, obviously, the 50 states. These are symbols for representation. It's not, you know, direct depictions. So it needs to be simple, has the symbolism, two to three colors, generally no lettering or seals, and something distinctive, something that people can look at and draw from memory. Touching on the survey results again, like I said before, Willamette Falls had the highest response on the initial flagpole, end of the Oregon Trail second, Municipal Elevator third. The reason you don't see, you know, Oregon Trail represented in any of the flags is what was submitted had a lot of iconography that was kind of representative towards pioneers, which obviously there is a sensitivity there when also with our tribal partners. So that was something that ended up not getting, making it to that next level. And again, the colors that were the most common colors from everybody. The second survey, we didn't get nearly as many responses. We had almost 300 on the first one. This one, we only had 65 come through the website. Everybody commented on social instead. But of the options, Actually, I need to reverse that. I just realized that switch when I was moving my lines around. Option two was the most common, was the most popular option. That one had the 33 votes. Option one, the elevator had 15. Option three, six. The designs again, the municipal elevator, stylistic representation of the elevator. This one was probably the most polarizing of the three. People either loved it or they hated it. As you can see, though, it's not just of the elevator. This was something that was brought up by our tribal partner that it's also for them evocative of the fishing platforms. We made a slight change from the first portrayal of the meeting, last meeting, adding the green stripe at the bottom, the green square, as Commissioner Smith pointed out, works to represent our parks, which were initially thought of as town squares by the founders. And then the green stripe on the bottom representing the promenade. This one again, option two, received the most positive results and comments. Simple stylized representation of Willamette Falls. Again, oriented to represent the angle of the falls as seen from Oregon City. Blue for the water, for the rivers, white for the falls, green again for our parks and nature and so forth. This one was not, was the least popular of the three. What a lot of people did say though, was that for them, it also brought up imagery of the bridge, which was another issue that during our tribal review, the bridge brought up some negative connotations from our tribal representative. So with the bridge being something so many people saw here, that may not be a direction we want to go as well. That is for you to decide that it's just me passing on the information. So with that, are there any questions? Gentlemen, your thoughts?

No questions, but thank you. You put a lot of work and time and energy into this, and I really appreciate everything you've done to try and do as best what the commission has asked. So thank you. Thank you. I very much appreciate it.

Well, do we have, do we want to do a drum roll and take a, or how do we want to do this?

I have a comment. Perfect. So I, my preference is option one, the elevator one. However, one thing that was going through my mind when I first saw it, which I didn't really want to talk about because it had already been stated that it went through the cultural review process. But after seeing that there were a couple people on social media who had similar comments, that if you look at it a certain way, it could be reminiscent of a swastika. I just wanted to bring that up. I don't even see that. And I know that's a stretch, but after having had that initial thought and then hearing that repeated a couple of times in the social media comments, I just wanted to bring that up. And maybe there is a way, if this is the option we choose to go with, which would be my preference, that maybe there is a way to alter it.

I also strongly prefer option one. I think that as a person that appreciates flags, and I'm the one that initially said, hey, our flag is terrible, we need to do something different, right? Well, I believe that you said it before me, but regardless. It is just incredibly unique. And again, when you look at just the symbols of what it means and what it represents, you know, it's... I mean, yeah, option two, the Falls, I realize that one had the most public support. To me, I think it's just very... basic, very, it could be anything, right? This is the elevator, this is Oregon City. I struggle with, I read through the comments, it was interesting reading through many of the comments. I don't see it. I'm really stretching my mind here to understand, even in the loosest of interpretations, finding a swastika in this. And I just don't see it. I personally don't feel a need to amend the flag. I think the addition of the green line at the bottom was great. I was a little bit skeptical at first. But once I saw the post where it had the amendment on there, I think it's a great design. I think it communicates some fantastic iconography of Oregon City. I think it better represents the city. I would be in favor very much of option one.

All right. Time for the weigh-in. I've tried really hard to find that imagery in it. you know look sideways squint whatever and i can't find it either from the beginning i was in favor of something more literal more along the lines of some of the elements from the logo or the seal but i realize that's not uh it's probably dated to do it that way so then i'm looking for something with with the symbolism that represents our city. And to me, the only one that really does is option one.

Absolutely.

And I just want to, I appreciate what you both said about that because when I first saw it and had that initial thought, it took me a second to get to that point, but it was only after seeing it brought up several times by community members that I wanted to flag that for us. And I think where it gets into that the most is with the vertical line that bends downward. And I think when I was talking about potentially altering that, maybe just having the two intersecting lines, because I think going back to the past discussion we had on this about making that green line thicker, I do have concerns about that just not translating well to a waving flag And you think it should be thicker? No, I think if I were to alter this, I would just have it be the vertical line and the horizontal line intersecting without it going to the right edge of the flag. And I also struggled with the I appreciate that flags are open to interpretation from other people. And I appreciate Commissioner Smith's comment about the green, the thin green line being representative of the promenade however given the literal location of the elevator iconography and the green strip being below it.

Oh isn't the promenade below? I mean it's here's the elevator and the promenade goes right along the base of it and goes on out to the to the end. we didn't when we didn't have the green strip in it it was just the white that went all the way down to the bottom yeah see that just it it it didn't frame it very well that's that's what i was i agree with that yes to be clear what you're suggesting is that the blue would just go all the way down to the bottom correct what if i if i throw out an idea here because this might actually uh

get two birds with one stone is instead of perhaps the green line at the bottom, the green line kind of bifurcates the horizontal line in the middle of it. So that way, that possibly might get rid of any of the questionable interpretations that some people have and also then kind of break that up a little bit like you're talking about. Instead of being at the very bottom, the green line would be kind of like in the middle of the white lower horizontal line.

I would not prefer that personally. I think that this is simple in a way that communicates what it is. Yeah.

What I was suggesting to get to Commissioner Mitchell's question was the one going horizontally and then the vertical line ending without the second one heading towards the right. Because that just makes it even more simple. And I would prefer to avoid having a white strip.

Oh, taking the thicker rectangle and cutting it off.

Of the white. And it would just be blue on the side? Yes. Because I think that gets to the concern that when I'm trying to think of what people were seeing in that, I think that gets to the concern that was brought up.

Does your vision, the vertical white line, does it go all the way to the bottom or does it, okay, so it would just be from the bottom to where it stops now and then the other one and then no lower white horizontal line?

Right, because I think by us trying to address the thick white bar being along two-thirds of the bottom, that it just makes it even more difficult for me to see that working on a flat. I know, I put that in front of it.

Oh, that makes it really short. Well, the blue would keep going. Well, no, but he's talking about taking this... Taking this off and then taking the blue all the way down.

Correct.

Yeah, but this would still be here.

Yes, it would still be the elevator. And no more thin green line. Correct. It would just be blue. That's how I think we could get at that concern and also just make it more simple.

What do you think? I don't prefer that. I think that, again, this is a very uniquely designed flag. And just to be transparent, I don't think that, I don't think it's a concern that we necessarily need to address.

Yeah, and I'm saying, I'm not talking about necessarily that concern specifically. I'm just talking about design-wise. Oh, sure. Yeah, I'm not even... I just wanted to bring that up again as a flag, if you will, for this conversation. But the reason why I'm bringing it up for design-wise is because I have concerns with how thin the Green Line is at attempting to get to an issue that we identified at the last meeting. I just think we could possibly be making it worse. And that was something that was identified in some of the feedback we received.

So just not to make a suggestion, Shane, so we've got the line going this way and the line in. So the other line that's going down on the bottom, what was that supposed to be?

That was just more of a stylized representation of the elevator.

It wasn't trying to represent any, whoa, there we go.

Somebody just wants an elevator with a top line and then we have a lower line, that representing the upper and lower parts of Oregon City.

And that still exists with removing that, because there still is a top and a bottom to it.

I mean, I'm not against seeing it. I'm visualizing it. We were trying to work on seeing if we could get this ready for the 4th of July.

I mean, if we can't, we can't. That was just, it would have been something fun, but yeah. I want to make sure that we get something that everybody's happy with.

Well, I... I'm okay with it as it is. As am I. But I can see the, I can see when Rocky was proposing the green line on the bottom, I kept telling him, I said, don't you think it needed to be a little bit needed about twice that size. I think it's off proportionally. Yeah. If it was twice as wide as it is now, I think it would be more proportional.

So what would happen when I was designing that is if you made the green then, which is fine, but then we'd have to shrink the size of the white stripes as well because then that lower one is smaller than the others. And for symmetry, which is fine, we can shrink those all if you want. They're proportional right now.

Yeah. which is something I love. I understand the July 4th thing, but I want to do it. I want to do it right.

Yes, absolutely.

And I would also like Commissioner Smith to have an opportunity to weigh in. So I apologize. I think I've apologized before for extending this, but I would like to see the version that Commissioner Marl has suggested with the blue, just all the way straight down. It makes a very clean, the parts of this that are a little glaring to me is that horizontal white bar and the green. Did you just do that? Wow.

But with the white going all the way down too.

So let's have a motion to adopt option one and come back with the minor revisions because we want to basically set the set the bar and say okay we're gonna we're going with the option one and then rocky will have a chance to look at it and make it what i see it it almost looks too plain yeah i don't yeah i don't prefer that that's that there's too much blue there and if you put green on the bottom then it isn't proportional

I mean, I can also bring back a version like that where the white lines are narrower to match the green line. We can make that all proportional. So we can have a couple of different variations of this to look at at a future meeting.

Well, I think we've got consensus that we all like option one. We're looking at some minor revisions.

And to Commissioner Mitchell's point, I would like Commissioner Smith to be able to weigh in on this. Well, he was happy with this.

He said, well, if you're going to vote on it, he said option one. Okay. I thought that's what he liked all along. So are we good with that? We're going to move forward with option one. Subject to some revisions.

What we're doing is eliminating two and three.

Yeah.

As I said, we're moving forward with option one.

We're not moving forward in terms of accepting it.

No, I didn't say that. We're moving forward with it subject to revisions.

Okay.

We need a motion or you know where we're headed. I think there's consensus. I can work on that and we'll bring it forward in another meeting. Great. Thanks again. Okay.

Do we have any communications?

Mayor and commissioners, I just wanted to say that we're excited to have our new library director coming on board July 6th. And that was really all I had this evening. Thank you. Commissioners?

I'll just say so everyone knows, I will not be present in person or Zoom at our July 7th work session.

Okay. I think three of the five of us will be here. I will not be here either because I will be across the pond. All right, being no further business, we are officially adjourned.