City Council - workshop

All right. It's July 7th, 2026, City of Oregon City Commission work session. We'll go ahead and call the order.

Commissioner Marl. Here. Commissioner Smith.

Here.

Commissioner Wilson.

Here.

Commissioners Mitchell and Mayor McGriff are excused. All right.

Thank you. All right. So general business 2A, flavored nicotine ban follow-up.

Thank you, Council President and Commission, Carrie Richter, City Attorney. You will recall at your June 9th work session, there was a discussion about moving forward with some research on a flavor ban, flavored nicotine and tobacco products. We set out, Ms. Troutman and Chief Davis and I set out to sort of collect information and find out more about how this would work. So we met with the staff from Clackamas County Public Health. We met with some folks in Washington County who were involved in the Schultz case. And we started, I started drafting an ordinance for a nicotine ban. And it was all going along smoothly until I got to the enforcement part, you know, as will happen, right? And so I sent a draft to Chief Davis. He came back to me. He said, well, this is all going fine until the enforcement part, right? Like, how are we going to enforce this? And so my hope today was that we could talk a little bit about that, but also in our conversations with Clackamas County, we learned some interesting things. We learned that the Board of County Commissioners has not in recent history been asked to adopt a ban. There has been no formal request. We learned that during the 2027 long legislative session, we should not expect a bill similar to SB 702, which was a statewide ban to be on the ballot. So I think we're either on our own or we're with Clackamas County on that. What we also learned from just talking to folks who are in this space and do this all the time, they really thought that if we could get Clackamas County to move forward with the ban because they are covered within the licensure statute, they are in a better position to avoid litigation. I mean, everybody we talked to, the initial response was, if Oregon City does this alone, they're gonna get sued. So if we could avoid getting sued and still achieve the end, that's really, to me, the goal. And for that reason, I put together a draft memo or letter or something that I was hoping could come from the mayor or from the commission that would introduce and start a dialogue with other cities in Clackamas County and Clackamas County Board of Commissioners. So I drafted that letter as sort of a general coverall to identify some of the important facts that I thought were telling, most notably that the highest rate of flavored nicotine use among 11th graders is in Clackamas County by a long ways. And it's higher in Oregon City than in Clackamas County. So Lake Oswego, for example, has one licensed tobacco shop per thousand people. Oregon City has 0.45 per thousand people. And what I got today was a map that shows where these tobacco stores are in red and the schools in blue. The reason we started with this map was because the idea was could we use zoning instead of a ban as a way to limit these and limit access to children and what this map shows. is that many of these shops are a distance away from the schools. And so a 500 foot ban isn't going to have much effect. We found out that there are 30 licensed tobacco shops in Oregon City and three of them are exclusively vape shops.

Can you clarify, I'm sorry, can you clarify the per capita figure that you just gave? Because I think maybe you may have reversed them.

I think you, yeah, I think it's, it was one shop per thousand people in Oregon City and .45 tobacco shops per, what is it, thousand in Lake Oswego.

I think you just flipped the numbers. So Lake Oswego has half as many tobacco shops per person as Oregon City.

Okay.

So I don't want to belabor the point and you've got the materials, you've read them. I'm happy to go through my draft letter in more detail. I'm happy to go through the staff report in greater detail, but the thing I really wanted to, I was hoping we could accomplish since you are less than a full group, maybe tonight, was to talk about some of the things that I raised in the staff report, some of the questions having to do with the scope of an ordinance, whether or not that ordinance comes from Clackamas County or Oregon City, what that scope might look like and what enforcement might look like. One of the things that, ideas that we had as staff was could Clackamas County adopted ordinance and then the city help enforcement. One of the things we learned from Washington County is the way Washington County's ban works is that they are funding it through a surcharge on tobacco licenses. So in order to get a tobacco retail license in Washington County, you have to pay a license fee. And that license fee is some X dollars. You're going to pay a surcharge on top of that in order to pay for the enforcement of their flavor ban in Washington County. And that money is going to be collected by the Department of Revenue and given back to Washington County. The distinguishing feature about the Washington County enforcement mechanism is that it is going to be complaint driven only because it is going to be local. So right now in Washington County, if you want to get a license, the state does all the licensure and they do all the inspections and everything. But the enforcement of the flavor ban because it is exclusively Washington County will be complaint only, right? So it will be the code enforcement people who will enforce it. They will walk into shops and they will see if flavored nicotine is being sold. And if it is, then there is a citation that goes to the owner of the business. In Multnomah County, in contrast, Multnomah County does all of their own licensure. And so they serve as the sort of Oregon Health Authority for Multnomah County. So if you wanna license in Multnomah County, you file it with Multnomah County and Multnomah County does the inspections. And what will happen as a result of that is that their enforcement will be not just complaint driven, but also inspection driven because they do inspections regularly of businesses. And so the feeling of the Clackamas County Public Health staff is that having that inspection piece is a much better mechanism to ensure compliance, that if we're regularly going into these businesses, then we're much more likely to get, you know, to have good enforcement rather than if we're complaint driven. So, you know, how that shakes out in Clackamas County, if we were to get Clackamas Board of Commissioners to adopt a ban, how would enforcement look? Could it be that the enforcement happens in partnership with some surcharge license Clackamas County funded enforcement, maybe in the unincorporated areas and then enforcement at the city level happens by the cities? I don't exactly know what that structure looks like, but it seems like that's possible. And it's might be worth talking further with the Clackamas staff to see if we can figure out a way that that works. If that's something that you are interested in exploring further. Thoughts? And then sort of another question we've got that we, sorry, I mean, I can keep giving you all the questions and then we can talk about them all at once. You have seen that a lot of the public testimony that we've gotten during meetings has been with regard to ZYN, Z-Y-N, which I understand is a synthetic nicotine pouch. that is marketed as a sort of alternative or safer alternative to cigarettes and nicotine. And I am no expert on this, but what I have learned from the public health staff at Clackamas County is that the FDA has not approved Xen as a smoking cessation aid. You're nodding your head like that is true.

I am aware of that, yeah.

Okay, good. All right. That the average consumer consumes eight to 12 pouches per day about the nicotine equivalent of 1.5 packs of cigarettes. And this is again, reading from their report. While local data on youth use is limited, the CDC foundation study showed that use of these products quadrupled among youth and young adults between 2022 and 2025. This study included an oversample of those in Oregon. Of those under 21 in the last 30 days, about 94% used a flavored oral nicotine product, mint, fruit, coffee, et cetera. Nearly 75% reported using additional tobacco products alongside oral nicotine products. about 25% reported using oral nicotine products at school. So that would indicate that this Zen use is pretty popular and it doesn't seem like it's very safe. In terms of nicotine consumption, we could do some more research on that. But if the goal is to get nicotine and tobacco flavored products out of the hands of kids, I think it ought to include Zen. Washington County and Multnomah County do both include them.

That was when we initially had the discussion when the Youth Advisory Commission came and talked about a flavored nicotine ban. It included the request of synthetic nicotine products. My understanding and intention would be that it would include all flavored nicotine products. So whether it's zen, whether it's vapes, whether it's anything else that that would all be encompassed in a ban was my understanding and intention.

What do you think about the other component parts of the Washington County ordinance that go beyond the flavor ban, the single cigarettes, the coupon sales, the movable vending, self-serving vending, are these things that are critical to the commission or would you wanna just keep it on, keep the focus on the flavor ban? I haven't done, I have no data on, this being an issue for youth, but we could.

I'd like to know more about it for sure. I think I'm more concerned about the flavor and kind of surprised and not surprised by hearing the Oregon City. with our police report last week or last month, you know, Oregon City's high in so many different things because that was, sorry. Our crime, et cetera, is very high in Oregon City. And so it's kind of, I think the connection between the amount of, you know, shops that we have connected to the amount of students using is probably connected in some way. We see that with so many other things at the school level. I guess I'm wondering, what do we think the likelihood of the county really focusing on this at all? If they've clearly said, oh, well, no one's even talked about it. They've obviously heard about it. I mean, is there, do we know what any other cities are talking about and whether or not going to the county with multiple cities together is an option? We know that could be an option, but I don't know if anyone else is talking about that. And would that take, would that, what would be the, how likely would the County Commission even look at it if we did come by ourselves with this information or would it, I mean, obviously it would be better to have multiple cities saying this, putting pressure on them to do something. I think if we're on our own, it's gonna be, A lot harder for us to deal with it. The enforcement piece, as we know from the fireworks discussion, is the make or break of it. If the police department doesn't see a way to do anything to enforce it, then we don't even want to waste the time in putting an effort into it. So I think we have to get that information from the police department, but also from the other cities to see what we can do as a partnership to do that. But the more information we have, the better. I mean, we're gonna have public that we've clearly gotten emails from public already. We're gonna get emails about it plus, you know, pro and con either way. So the more information that we have to really kind of think about how we go about this and what it's targeting. I think most of us are really concerned about the use within the community for kids. Is there a way that we can kind of, you know, Is there other ways that we can deal with it besides a flat out ban? Is a ban part of it or is it piecemeal or something? I mean, what are the resources that we have that we know in this city that are addressing other similar issues? I can think of OC Together and some other groups that are working in other ways with alcohol and other substances that we could do some education pieces through the school too. So there's a lot of things we can talk about.

Adam? I would appreciate more information, as Commissioner Smith said. However, just hearing everything that you mentioned about enforceability, I think that really reinforces where I was leaning in our last meeting, which is that if it's going to be effective, it's going to be something that's more than just the city. And what I'm concerned about isn't passing something that makes us feel better. I'm concerned about passing something that's going to work. because we all agree that this is an issue. But if we go ahead on our own, which I don't have a problem being the first, I think that's a testament to our leadership. What I have a problem with is not only the fact that it's inevitably going to be delayed because it's going to go to the courts. And granted, there is case law, but they still need to determine how it applies to a city versus a county. And so that will take time. But then we have to figure out if we do get the green light, how we enforce this. And just knowing the work that is going on in our police department right now, I don't know that I believe that they are currently staffed at a level to do that. I don't know if they're currently staffed at a level to handle traffic as it is right now in Oregon City. So I would be hesitant to add something to their plate that we have a feeling we can't enforce in the first place. And then again, it gets back to just being something that makes us feel better rather than something that's enforceable. So I would rather not go it alone, not because I don't want to be the first, but because I want this to be effective. And I think it will be most effective when it's done at a county-wide level There are blueprints out there in Washington and Multnomah counties. And we know that other cities are supportive of this moving forward because of all of the other letters that have been sent to the county commissioners. So now it's, I think it's a lot easier for us if we were all to get together rather than attacking it separately to all get together with the memo that Ms. Richter wrote and try and present a more unified approach to our county commissioners that maybe there is another opportunity that wasn't there previously.

Yeah, I agree with that. Again, a countywide ban is going to be much more effective than just at the city. My question kind of along the lines of what Rocky is saying is I just don't know where the county commission is at. I don't know if it's something they would entertain, something they would move forward, something whether they would look at this year, next year, 2029, who knows, right? So my concern would be just if they're not at the point of ready to take action, then what? Then would we look at it at a C-level or working within a group of our surrounding communities to say, okay, Clackamas County isn't gonna do this. We are still gonna move forward. But I would be curious with a directed formal request to the county, please enact a ban to see what the response would be.

We're also in the situation where, like other issues, some of the other communities in Clackamas County are like, that's not an issue for us. And so trying to get other cities that don't have the issues that we're having, at least what's showing in that study that Oregon City has, they're gonna be less likely to tackle something that we clearly know is an issue in our city. So that's the other thing is how do we, you know, if there are other cities out there that aren't having as many issues with this, will they really step up?

Well, I don't think that's necessarily true because with the figure that Ms. Richter presented to us about the per capita amount of establishments in Lake Oswego versus Oregon City, Lake Oswego passed a resolution way before we did. So I don't think it's a question of... I mean, it's impacting every city, whether the person wants to acknowledge it or not. But I think even in the cities where it is maybe less pronounced than Oregon City, that there is still that level of concern from those elected officials and councils.

I think all that makes sense. Again, just my concern would be... I wouldn't want this to just fall by the wayside saying, hey, let's go to the county and let's make a request. And then it's a hurry up and wait situation. And I'd like there to be some level of if we don't hear back or, you know, asking the county without actually enacting a ban, can you at least give us, like, is this something you're even willing to entertain? And then...

Yeah, right. I was thinking, what if we, if you're in support of this letter, what if we had Mayor, what if we asked Mayor McGrath to email fellow mayors in these cities with our draft letter, assuming you're okay with it, or you want to revise it, with our draft letter, sort of, this is what we're thinking. Are you interested in joining us? Because it seems to me that the strongest position that the city could be in with respect to the county would be partnered, right? and we included Lake Oswego and Happy Valley in this memo just because we know they passed resolutions just like Oregon City did. Clackamas County suggested that we include Gladstone and Milwaukee because they think there may be some interest and so I was thinking if Maybe Mayor McGriff emails this draft memo to these mayors and says, we're gonna make a formal request to Clackamas County who wants to join us. If you're interested, let us know by X date.

Please go ahead. Thank you. And getting to your concern about not just letting, not just pushing it to the county and saying like, we're done with this. I agree with that. And I think something we could think about if that were to be the case is recognizing that all of these cities have passed these resolutions in the past that maybe they would be willing to pass a substantially similar policy to us at the same time so that there is that, power in numbers sort of effect that I've really been trying to get at, where it isn't just, okay, well, I'm just gonna go over to the next city and get something.

No, I think that makes sense. And I mean, it goes back to when we had this first discussion about it, just pulling as much from, you know, Washington County and Multnomah County to not start from scratch when talking about a ban and then having almost like a blueprint that we can work with other cities on if the county is not interested in proceeding. But I do like the idea of almost like a deadline saying, hey, we are going to be making this request of the county on X date. If you are interested and supportive, please notify us before then.

And the additional benefit beyond just having less access to these is that whenever the lawsuit occurs, having that as a group would be a lot easier to deal with. Yeah, agreed. And again, it's not because I don't think this is an issue, it's because I want to make sure that anything we pass is enforceable and going to actually lead to the policy outcome that we're seeking here. We need to recognize that the locations where this is happening right now and which are still relatively new are two very large counties with a lot more staff than a small city. And that's where the heart of my main concerns lie.

To your question on enforcement, I don't know if I have an answer. I mean, I do of course think that actually checking in is a better mechanism than just being complaint driven. But to Adam's point in terms of resources, cost, I mean, I don't know, right? I don't know what that would actually cost. I don't know that we would have the resources to do it. So again, working with the county I think is a better option. And then to the point that you asked about like the individual sales and the coupons, I truthfully, I'm not educated enough to say, you know, what was the reasoning behind that being in the ban? I would be curious to learn more because I have to assume there is a reason with some level of evidence behind it. I just don't know what that is.

Didn't we read some information, Carrie, correct me if I'm wrong, that the single cigarette sales, the self-serve machines, the coupons, that kind of thing, that the cheaper the tobacco was, it effectively... there was more draw to it, or basically it would entice youth more to try it because it was cheap. I think that was what I read when I was reading through some of the different materials. And I think maybe even the Washington County ordinance, sorry, it's all blending together a little bit in my head. There's a lot of stuff I was reading, but I believe I was, cause I was curious of the same thing. And I do remember seeing a kind of a specific answer that essentially the cheaper it was, the easier it was to get the more they were willing to try it kind of logic. whether or not they base that on any kind of hard data. I can't say, but I do remember reading it in the materials.

I would just want, you know, whatever, I don't know, mechanism we were to support or move forward. I'd want there to be a level of evidence. Like if we're, if we're going to the community saying we are in affecting, we're affecting a band and this is why I want us to be able to speak to the reasoning behind it rather than it makes us feel better.

Sure. And to follow up with your point about cost, I do think that if we're, in order to get Whether we're building a partnered enforcement mechanism with the counties and other cities or not, it seems to me we're gonna need to get more information about how much the surcharge is in Washington County, what that pays for, how much Washington County's budgeted for the service, how many inspections they think they're gonna do. And if that's okay with you, I think we'll continue to sort of carve out how enforcement might work. I have heard you about the police shortages and can we do this with code enforcement maybe instead of police? I don't know that, but we can flesh that out a little better. And we can do that in tandem with the efforts to collect additional forces and support. if that makes sense.

Okay. So sounds like, I mean, it sounds like the request is more information on the pieces tangential to the flavor bands. So the coupons, the single sales, the self-serve, right? How do we feel about the letter going out to the communities asking for support?

Yeah, I'm fine with it. I don't know if that's something that we sign off officially on our next regular meeting or... probably would make sense since there's not a, well, there's a majority, but not the whole commission. It'd be nice to have the whole commission on the board before sending a letter like that.

Yeah, agreed. My request again would just be some kind of date included in there saying, hey, we're reaching out to the county on this date. So that way, again, just doesn't get lost or kind of sat by, we'll eventually get back to them. Adam, to your point, you know, these cities have already looked at resolutions, so I don't think they're just going to not respond. But I think just instilling a sense of urgency, hey, we actually mean business. We want to get this done. So a deadline for the cities to respond or for the county to respond? I mean, initially for the cities. Okay. I don't know how well... in the county and didn't like to respond. I mean, I don't know.

What would happen if we, you know, we identify the cities that are going to join us, right? And then we revise a memo, whether it's this one or something different that is sort of the collective's advocacy piece for the county moving forward with the ban, and we submit that memo, letter, joint statement, and then we go to a meeting. And we asked the question and we asked the commission to instruct their staff to work with these city staffs to put together an ordinance and an enforcement mechanism that is fair and equitable and accurately reflects the cost.

maybe we have a work session with the individual, the other cities that are working with it too before we, I mean, the dialogue could have changes in the direction that we go to the county, whether it's the enforcement piece or whatever that these other communities may have input on.

I did have one clarifying question. How long would you want to give the cities to respond to this letter?

I don't know if I have an answer to that. I don't know. Two weeks? Three weeks?

Two weeks. I'm just throwing it out there. I would say at least a month.

I'm sure there are councils that are in a similar position that we are in now having a lack of people because it's summer and people are doing stuff. Maybe a few months.

My sense is that folks are not going to be on the fence. No. You're either in or you're out.

I don't feel like we need to go longer than a month, but I do think we need to give enough time to allow a public meeting to happen.

Or how about this? As long as they get back to us and say we're interested and we're going to talk about it, I'm assuming we're going to let them take the time they need then to have those conversations and come back to us. We're not going to be like,

Well, and it isn't as though we know that their schedules are wide open enough to include it on their next public meeting either. Right.

Right. Exactly. I mean, we don't know. But as long as they're responding to us that they're interested and they're working on it, I'm assuming we're willing to give them. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Because again.

So really a month just to get any kind of response.

Well, I mean, we can work on the wording, but yeah. Yeah.

I do wanna go back to the policy question about other flavored nicotine, so like Zyn. And again, having never tried any of these, I've had to do my research so that I'm up with the correct vocabulary and all that. And I'm still, it's still gonna take some convincing for me to go to that next level simply because, and I was worried that when we started this discussion that it would expand to include other things and getting back to what I said at the first meeting about how there still is that tension in my mind philosophically about telling adults what they can and cannot do because we do know that adults partake in these activities and they were the ones who were emailing us, which isn't to say that it isn't a problem for the children and who they're targeted to. However, at what point do we stop? I think there's a case to be made if we talk about it like this, that we should be looking at fruit flavored alcohol drinks because those make it easier to go down for children as well. And the interesting thing that we don't talk about enough is that alcohol is deadlier and causes more deaths than any of those drugs. So I would need more convincing about taking that next step to Zins. And even if the FDA hasn't acknowledged something, that doesn't mean that people aren't taking it as an alternative to smoking.

Well, I think... I think people are using it as an alternative to smoking. And I think as the numbers you were showing, looking at average nicotine use, the pouch like Zin users are consuming more nicotine than folks who are using cigarettes or smoked tobacco. And I don't have it with me, but I was on the internet the other day, just kind of like browsing through and I saw an ad. It wasn't Zyn, but it was the same type of product. And I literally thought it was an ad for Sour Patch Kids because it had the little kids and it looked like a candy ad, but it was for nicotine pouches. And I don't think anybody could convince me that that ad was targeted towards adults.

Right.

It looks like candy, right? And I think what you're saying is fair. Fruit flavored alcohol probably does have more of an appeal, you know, to kids than, you know, non. But I think given the precedent and the support that the other counties already given for this nicotine ban, the other counties, it does include Zin correctly. They do. I think.

I think a lot of Zin is flavored.

Yeah.

So yeah, it would fall under that.

Yeah. So I think having, again, a similar ordinance for all three of the metro counties, I think makes a lot of sense. Rocky, you have any thoughts? Lots. I'd love to hear them.

I mean, I really just need to know more about it. I don't know a ton about it. other than what I see at school, which is a fair amount.

But everyone is still comfortable moving forward with the letter going out to other cities and okay, pursuing something with the county. Okay. Okay. Cause I have just kind of to recap, Carrie, let me know, I guess if you, since you've been taking those, if you miss any, if I miss anything, but There's interest in having more information about, you know, the single sales, vending machines, coupons, anything like that. It does seem like for the most part, there is consensus around the flavored products being banned. And you're okay with the letter going out to the cities and initially that we pursue a county-wide ban, but then we would look at doing something at a city level if Clackamas County is not interested. And you want to approve the letter in a regular meeting.

and possibly jointly doing something with other cities if the county doesn't do something.

And I think on my list I had, I think Commissioner Morrow has a good point about whether or not whether or not there is consensus for including or excluding Zen, it's clear that there's gonna be a lot of testimony about that. And I think the more we know about it and the more we understand about its connection with youth access, I think the better off we'll all be. So I have that on the list. And then the enforcement piece, right? We've got to figure out the cost of enforcement how that will work practically. It's unfortunate I think that we don't, Washington County hasn't unfurled their enforcement yet. They're still waiting for a final ruling from the circuit court judge. So we don't exactly know all of the nuances of how their enforcement is gonna work and Multnomah County is a little further behind Washington County on that. So we don't have a template in the same way like we do for the ordinance itself.

uh so i i'd like to uh have that on the list to do a little more research yeah i think that makes sense okay all right we good yes all right thank you thank you all right moving on uh let's see item b presentation of ada transition plan for the right-of-way

Am I going first? It's been a while. Go ahead.

All right, so this evening we're presenting on the city's of right away ADA transition plan. Part of this process is that we are required to do a public component. So we have gone to several different committee meetings at this point, and now we are here before you all to show you a draft of the plan, which is included in your packet and walk through our presentation. So this is our agenda. Oh, that was up, that's okay. And we'll go ahead and move on. All right, so what is an ADA transition plan? So this is going to provide an evaluation of our services, policies, and practices. It's gonna prioritize and evaluate implementation of projects that will bring us up to current ADA standards. It will provide a schedule of implementation, the public participation piece, which we're doing right now, and a grievance process. The city already, actually, I wanted to note, does have the grievance process in place. It's already online and available. We've had a few folks submit information through that process. So the ADA is the American with Disabilities Act of 1990. So it first had issues, excuse me, regulations issued in 91. And then in 2010, the DOJ issued revised regulations and we adopted the ADA standards for accessible design, which we're using today. 91 regulations also require that all cities start following ADA requirements. And so for any entities with 50 employees or more, they were required to develop a transition plan as part of Title II. So we're here because the adoption requires public participation, as I've mentioned. So these are some of the other committee meetings we've been to. And again, we've had information on the website as well, and also through Trail News. So the ADA coordinator, this person is available to address any grievances that come in and direct concerns to the appropriate department. And also if there are say, for instance, a request comes in and denial is issued, then that can be essentially appealed to the city manager within a 30 day period.

And so what we're talking about more specifically tonight is the Oregon City ADA transition plan for the public right-of-way. So we started this process prior to an overall transition plan due to, we had already made a lot of work on that. We'd done a draft plan a few years ago and then a draft written plan, I should say. So we have been, implementing a transition plan for many, many, many years, it was just never written down what we were doing, how we were doing it. We have been replacing ADA ramps per the ADA law when we're required to. We have been assessing ADA ramps or lack thereof. We have an entire webpage that was set up. It's not a webpage actually, it's an app that's internal to the city staff that show the status of a, and you're gonna see that later, status of if it's a good, a not inspected yet or bad ramp area. And then we've been implementing sidewalk enforcement as you've heard in past meetings that also relates to this plan. But this specific plan that's gonna be for the public right-of-way is only that right-of-way. Right-of-way being that area really between the back of sidewalk and the other back of sidewalk on the other side of the road, including the curb, the roads itself, mostly about public sidewalk. Although it does cover some other things, which you'll see. And so it does those things that Alex talked about of a self-evaluation, an action plan, the public outreach, which we've been doing, you're the last step in the process, and it provides that grievance process. As of the creation of this document, because these numbers change weekly, and so it is a living document, I want you to understand that as well, As of the creation of this presentation, we have around 3,368 ADA ramps in the city limits, but not all of them are the cities because there's county and state roads as well. We have inventory a little over 3,000 that are the city and about half of those is what have been inspected so far. Based on that inspection, how many have failed? Close to 60%, so that's our failure rate, which means that many need to be replaced and upgraded or created. In some cases, there is no ramp. And so we're assuming out of that 3,026 that at the end of the day, we're gonna need to replace almost 1,800 ramps over time as we can. Inspections are ongoing, which is why I said this will be a living document. We can do about 20 per month. It's done with one staff member who's responsible for franchise utility permits, the sidewalk program, private development inspections, some CIP inspections, and we used to have two inspectors. We only have one now. And so we just fill that in to a part of his responsibilities, and that's the most that he can do on average. That means that out of the other 1500 that need inspected, it's gonna take us at the rate of 20 inspections per month, about seven years to finish a full inspection of the entire city. This is that map that is that internal map for staff that I was speaking of. Red is bad, green is good. What you see on the map are some little Xs or dots that are in red and green, and that's telling us if that ramp area is bad or good. And so we know where we need to target when we're doing different projects. What does good and bad mean? So back in 1991, the upper left corner was a reasonable okay ramp, but as the standards changed between 1991 and 2025, that became the bottom picture. And so now you'll see what's called the detectable warnings, which are those little bumps, which also have had their own metamorphosis over time of what they're supposed to look like and how they're supposed to be made. And then in the upper right-hand corner, you see a ramp with no sort of friction grating that a visually impaired person would notice, and then no ramp on the other side. Those are all in Oregon City, by the way. But sidewalks are not the only thing, they're just the majority of what's in the right of way that is an ADA issue. We also have traffic signals, power pole locations can be in the way of our sidewalks, and so, because you need four feet of clearance space, and some of those don't have the full four feet. Light pole locations, same thing. Pedestrian signals, you have to have the push button at a very specific elevation for people to use it. You'll notice that the work on Malala right now, we have been moving a couple of pedestrian signals at Pearl and Holmes. That was because the signals were not ADA compliant anymore. Rectangular rapid flashing beacons, RFB, crosswalk signals also have where is the button to push and all that. Intersection flashing signals have some optical things that need to occur as well. But please note that we are only evaluating the sidewalk right now for the next seven years. Once that's done, then we will move to an evaluation of the signals, which we would probably need to work with a special consultant or Clackamas County on because we do not have that skill in-house, at least at this time as we speak today. One thing you need to do in these transition plans is prioritization and the law does direct what that's supposed to be. So this comes straight out of the law. Priority one of what we do in the inspections and what we do in the construction side of things. is state and local government public use areas, such as government buildings, hospital schools. Your priority two, you start to go to big centers, large apartments, shopping centers, and then priority three is your single family neighborhoods. That's how we're supposed to prioritize it. And we've done a prioritization map that we're using as our guidance. I know that's probably pretty small, but we have some red dots is number one, blue dots is number two, gray is number three. just gives us a guidance of where to go next and gives us a plan of how to do it instead of just kind of willy-nilly wherever we choose. Then we need an action plan. So after you're prioritizing what you should do, then what are you gonna do? You're gonna plan the self-evaluation, which is that seven years of completion of those ramps and corners. You're gonna continue improvements on private development. So if private development is building brand new, they have to build the current standard and we inspect that at the end. And if it does not meet the right thing, they have to redo it. You'll see those redone from time to time. If they're on private development on existing roads, they have to upgrade. If they're impacting it, if they're next to any corners that are non-compliant, they are required to upgrade them. The PMUF project in most cases is your CIP projects where this happens. The law says that if you are changing the, oh, I'm gonna forget the phrase now. If you are impacting the crosswalk, that's the way I'll say it this time, which means touching it, changing the elevation of it, then you have to fix the ramps. you'll notice that slurry seals and crack seals do not trigger ramps and that's because you're just putting a nice slick coating over it you're not changing the elevation of the crosswalk taking out a couple inches of asphalt and putting it back potentially at a different elevation but as soon as you take out elevate elevation so two inches of asphalt you have to do the ramps which is why you see on Malala right now more than 70 ramps being done before we can pave because Most of those ramps, although they were done not that long ago, unfortunately, don't meet today's standard of the ADA. And that is really heartbreaking to us because they were really beautiful. But the cobblestones and things that you saw there before, we had to take out because they don't meet the current day standard, even though they were beautiful and pretty. That one kind of hurt us a little bit. But we had to. We didn't have a choice. The other thing that you'll notice sometimes, and we've done this in recent years and we'll be doing it next year a lot is our staff, our street staff can pave roads themselves, but they can't pave unless we get the concrete done beforehand. So my project, the PMUF often will take those ramps and do them the year prior. And then the next year, the street department crew will pave next to those. So that's how we do that. And ultimately we need to keep these maps updated. That's why I said this is a living document. How do we fund these things? Well, we have all these options, but those are just money that you're allowed to use. It doesn't mean that we actually have those monies. So the state highway fund, the city's gas tax, we're allowed to use that for ramps. That money is maxed out in other areas. Vehicle registration fees, if we had a special project, that would be a way to use it, but through budgetary processes, we discuss with you how we're gonna use those fees and that is not how they're currently being used. PMUF, absolutely are being used that way. We don't have a choice and that's the best use of those. I'm not sure it's the best use of funds. It's the required legal use of that project and therefore needs those funds. STCs can't really be used for it unless you're upgrading the road. If you're just paving it back, you can't use STCs for that. Grants are really rare, and that's unfortunate since it's a mandate, but not uncommon in the world of government. Private development contribution, absolutely, they're doing it on their own dime when they're required to. as I mentioned before. And then there may be an example of a public private partnership. I guess I would look to the roundabout on Maple Lane Road. That was a bit of a public private partnership where we put our funds together and we're able to do that. And actually at a cheaper cost than normal. So these ramps, they cost around 10,000 a ramp, not 10,000 a corner, because sometimes a corner has two ramps. There's a lot of reasons why it's one or two. If you're interested, let me know. but it's 10,000 a ramp. And I checked the bids for this year's PMOF project and it came out as like 10,245, something like that. So that is the number that really is how much they cost. And I did say that right there. And so at $10,000, if we have almost 1800 ramps to replace, which is our projection, that's $18 million. And we are currently spending around $100,000 a year, although much more this year, because we try and do 10 to 20 ramps a year. In that 100 to $200,000 range, it would take us 89 years to fix the whole city. Well, the good news is the standard will change before 89 years. And so we were just joking about that in the field today with a concrete contractor.

Yeah.

So the point of a transition plan is that the word transition is not a moment in time. It's within time. And so Until such time they say you must do it, we're gonna keep doing it as we can, as we're able, just like every other city is too. What we want to try and prevent is being any sort of mandate like ODOT and Portland are currently in. But time will tell. So what are the next steps? Two things. We gave you the draft plan here that has some things not filled in yet because they need filled in before they go to your adoption. But this is our last public meeting. And so, and our public online stuff ends today as well. So as soon as you're ready, we can bring this back for adoption. It's adopted by resolution probably later this summer or the fall, depending on the council schedule, commission schedule. But then separately, Ms. Trautman is working on an overall city transition plan that this after adoption will get inserted into. And if it needs slight adjustments because some of the work we're doing on the overall, then we'll make slight adjustments and then adopt the overall plan potentially in 2027. So I believe that is our presentation, yeah.

Yeah, I don't really have much to add to that. I would just say that, yes, we are working with MIG on the larger ADA transition plan for the whole city. And right now we just kicked off that project and we are gathering documents so that they can review everything the city's currently doing and what our policies are, et cetera. So that's the part of the project we are in right now. We do expect that we can finish in June of 27. essentially as long as we're able to get through the materials in a timely manner, which I don't see why we wouldn't. So they will, as I said, or as Josh said, they will certainly take the right-of-way ADA transition plan and they will have their engineering sub-consort review it and then fold it into the larger plan to bring the city fully into compliance with that requirement.

Thank you, learned a lot about ramps from that. Questions, comments, Adam?

Sure, and thank you for the presentation. I've seen this one a few times now. And I'll just say, just to comment, I'm generally not a fan of, unfunded mandates, we're dealing with them all the time. However, when it comes to someone's civil rights, it is very much a worthwhile thing for us to be doing. And I think that despite the extended timeline, it shows an effort on our part to be extending those civil rights to folks who have not had it for quite some time now.

Rocky? No comments.

Yeah.

Again, appreciate it. Yeah. Sounds like we'll see it at a future meeting. Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Moving on. 2C, Oregon City Municipal Code Chapter 17.44, Geologic Hazards Code Commission Discussion.

I brought the big guns with me on this one. Hey, we all need support sometimes.

Sorry.

I chose the wrong seat, apparently.

It's okay. If you don't want to sit next to me, you can just say so. It's fine. I'll try not to take it as a personal attack.

Now I feel bad.

Okay, sorry, I did not introduce myself last time, but Josh Wheeler, Assistant City Engineer. Tonight I have with me Kurt Krueger, our City Engineer, and Kelly Hart, our Community Development Director. We have a presentation here for you about geologic hazards and we're gonna provide a brief overview of geologic hazards and then a history of the code and then provide a summary of specifically code section 1744-060L, which we are seeking some direction on As you see the reason that we're discussing this has to do with a recent land use decision to understand how to implement the code or Revise it if needed going forward So I always like powerpoints generally to start with some fun and so Geologic hazards is a heavy topic with a complex history. As the years have toppled away, the city has experienced landslides which have caused concerns for safety. These slides have displaced some of our citizens temporarily and in some cases made structures no longer habitable. Over the years, we've had Forest Ridge Apartments, they've changed their name many times, over off of First Street and Beaver Creek Road. Trillium Drive, the closure of that near the hospital. Water Board Park, the walking path, which is no longer terribly accessible. They've all experienced closures, changes, removals, and pretty much unusable. costing the city financially as well. Most recently, this past December, we had Applegate Terrace near Barclay Hills Road, which also experienced a slide. All of these examples were constructed prior to 1990, which was before any major landslide code existed. I believe the goal of the code and its continued enhancement over time is to reduce to the maximum extent practical possible future landslides in future developments. So as I said, this is our agenda and we will jump into it. So the standards for geologic hazards are found within Oregon City Municipal Code 1744. However, they're defined in 1704. Two different phrases there. Geologic hazards overlay zone and geologic hazard areas. They have very similar definitions. Ultimately section 1704 of the code is one of the biggest parts of the code we look to when a term within the zoning code, which is chapter 17, has a term which we can have various interpretations. I'm bringing it up one because I want you to know where the definition of geologic hazard overlay zone comes from, but also at the end, you're gonna see one of those fluffy words in section L that does not have a definition 1704. But in general, how our geologic hazards define steep slopes of 25% or greater and their buffer, which is a 50 foot buffer and landslide deposits, glacial deposits that have been there for a long time, but are what moves most of the cases, which has a 200 foot buffer. This is a general map of Oregon City with the pink line being the city limits, the purplish line being the urban growth boundary, and then the yellow is the general geologic hazards, which combines the slopes and the landslide deposits. I'm gonna show those a little more specifically. On the left-hand side, you'll see the slopes of 25% or greater, which is the darker red color, and then their buffers with the lighter pink. Often these are near streams, rivers, but not always. Slopes are obtained by topography that's generated through aerial photography on what's called LIDAR data. On the right-hand side, the dark orange represents historic landslide deposits and the lighter orange is the 200-foot buffer. Landslide deposits are obtained from data that comes from DOGAMI, which is the Department of Oh, Department of Geologic and Mineral Industries. Yes. It's been a while since I've talked about geologic hazards. Landslide, it's important to note that landslide data and lidar technology did not exist when our first geologic hazards code was created. Now we have some exemptions that even if you're in those zones, within the zone, you sometimes do not need to go through a process. And these are the basic exemptions, although there are more. If you cannot meet the exemptions and you need to meet them all, then you have to go through a type two land use process. And that could be something as simple as fixing a retaining wall, replacing a deck, doing a foundation repair or something substantial like building a development. You can see them there, less than two feet, fill of two feet, structures of less than 500 square feet, so a small addition, a shed. Working the right-of-way because it's an already disturbed area. That's why that's there. And removal of noxious vegetation, that generally refers to blackberries most often, invasive blackberries at least, because that's surface work and it doesn't really affect that underground area. So the history, the original code was established in 1991 and it was called the Unstable Slopes Overlay District. It was a very small code section compared to today's code. It was only a few pages actually. In 1994, the city adopted a new code which defined a slope as 25% or greater. It also had landslides but didn't have any constraints with the landslides. It just said that that's part of a geologic hazard area but didn't really have constraints. The code was renamed at that time, unstable soils and hillside constraint overlay district. And this was when section 1744-060L was added. It was actually letter K at the time, but what is now L. And in your packet tonight, we gave you ordinance 94-1001. With that codes, you could see what it looked like back then. I reviewed the staff report and discussions at the meetings from the meeting minutes. There was lots of discussion about the 25% slope. There was zero discussion about letter section else. We don't know why it was put in and what its purpose was. The 25% slope criteria was adopted because this was Metro's criteria for what was defined as a buildable area. And so there was, they didn't pick the number out of the sky. They actually came up, found out, why they used it. Even though other communities do use a different slope criteria, but many use 25. Continuing on to 2010, the code was completely rewritten. Sometimes it was semantics. They added the exemptions in at that time. They added liability requirements at that time. Lots of clarifications. And that's when they changed the name to its current name today, Geologic Hazards Code. And the areas of concern were we had the definitions defined as Geologic Hazards Overlay Zone. And then in 2021, we came before this, I came before this commission with the public works director and others. And that's when we were doing lots of other code changes at the time. And it seemed like a time that the whole code was open. Let's just address all the things that we're struggling as staff to use. And at that time we added clarifications to assist with the implementation of the code. But commission had asked for a review of the slopes constraints asking, should we make them more constrained? And at that time we did a review of the slopes, a review of landslides and found that over the last 20, 30 years, the reason we've had slides was due to the impact to the landslide deposits, not because there was a steep slope. The steep slope may have been helping the problem, but the actual issue was the deposit moving. And so we had to figure out a way to prevent the deposit from moving or building something on top of it that was going to fail. And so what we ended up adding in 2021 was landslides being constrained as part of a type two process and limited to density and disturbance, which you're gonna see about in a minute. But first, we wanted to tell you about some of the public education that had gone on. In 2019, Dogami created their Landslide Hazards Guide. We're actually mentioning that, which is pretty awesome. Dogami did a presentation of the commission at that time. We also had a community forum that we did online and is still on the website for view that people can learn about geologic hazards. And then we had one of these processes here with work sessions and commission meetings to adopt that 2021 code. And that's the code we're using today. So what are the development standards? A through K, This is a general summary of what they are. You've probably heard about many of them, but we'll go through them just briefly. This is what staff reviews to determine what needs to happen to a project that has the map geologic hazard overlay zone on it. It first has to avoid unnecessary disturbance. Now this is subjective and it's determined by an agreement between the city and the developer's consultant of what it means to be unnecessarily disturbed. That's usually not an issue. Earth disturbance is another item. It can only occur between May 1st and October 31st. And a lot of people say, what is earth disturbance? What I tell them is put a shovel in the ground. That is earth disturbance. I'm touching the ground. You are allowed to put a foundation in before October and then work on the frame because you're not touching the ground after that. It must minimize cuts and fills. That's also somewhat subjective. However, if the development could be done differently with fewer or smaller cuts and fills, then that's what determines if cuts and fills were minimized. Again, we haven't really had an issue implementing that. Everyone seems to agree on that, the consultants, our consultant staffs. Another item of criteria is if a cut or fill is greater than seven feet, you have to terrace it into a series of steps and walls. If structural fill is brought to a site, it has to be certified by an engineer. We have retaining wall standards about how to make sure the retaining wall is not going to fall over after it's built. Roads, if you're gonna build them in a geologic hazard, have to be minimized, and so that allows us to shrink the footprint of the road. That's done through a separate modification process, but in line with the geologic hazards code. Then we have density standards, which I'll mention in a minute, and disturbance standards, which I'll mention in a minute. And then the other standards are a written conformance letter that comes from the consulting engineer of the developer to us that says we've certified that everything that was in our land use and our report was done per the report in the land use. And then... Currently, we do not have staff that are geologic engineers. We're only civil engineers and do not have that separate licensure. So we hire a consultant for that. For years, we used... foundation engineering, but our representative retired and they did not have a replacement representative. And so we went out for quotes a few years ago and ended up with Pally Consulting who we use to this day. Tim Blackwood, he owns some property here in town, which is nice. He's a local person, his office is in Westland. And so density and disturbance. And generally density standards refer to how many dwelling units are allowed on a piece of property which contains a geologic hazard. Now dwelling units, two single family houses is two dwelling units. One duplex is two dwelling units. Quite often when we talk to the public, they think that one building is a dwelling unit and that's not correct. It's the number of habitable units inside there's actually a definition of dwelling unit, what it means in the code. Disturbance refers to how much dirt you can touch while doing construction. So generally the standards constrain development in areas where there are slopes of 25% or greater or an existing landslide deposit or the landslide buffer. The density standards allows a maximum of two dwelling units per acre when the lot is less than an acre, then it's only one dwelling unit. A single family house is one dwelling unit as example, which I already gave you. The disturbance standards allows for a maximum of 4,000 square feet of any geologic hazard area of 8,000 square feet or more. If you're less than 8,000 square feet, then it's 50% of the size of the constrained area, which may be the whole lot. So for example, if it's a one acre lot and it's completely constrained, the mapped area is completely over it, you can only disturb 4,000 square feet of that entire one acre lot. You go to 10 acres and it's completely constrained, you're only disturbing 4,000 square feet. So it hurts you the bigger that you are. But if you're smaller, you're a 5,000 square foot lot, the maximum you can serve is half that 2,500 square feet. But it's only if you're constrained. So there are properties out there that are one acre and have 5,000 of the area of the lot constrained. You can do whatever you want with everything but the 5,000, as long as it meets zoning code. In the 5,000 square foot area of that lot, you can disturb 2,500 of it. Does that all make sense? All good, okay. It can be pretty confusing. That's one of the hardest things to explain to the citizens. Note that the buffers of steep slopes, while it triggers the geologic hazards review, it does not have the density or the disturbance constraint. So that's something that is more for review and not constraining. So 1744L, what does it say? In general, the code section, as I mentioned earlier, was a subject of a recent land use appeal. The applicant, city staff, and the city commission all had different interpretations of this code. In short, it says the review authority determines, and it's the review authority, and that's why it's in quotes, determines if the project is feasible consults with the city's geotechnical engineer, may allow development if findings are provided, and may impose conditions, and that the cost for the geotechnical engineer that the city uses is paid by the applicant. But as I mentioned earlier, 1704, the definition section of the zoning code does not define review authority, and 1744 does not have a separate definition section which defines review authority, so who is it? There is a term decision maker in 1704, and it's defined as the community development director, public works director, or city engineer, or their designee, or the planning commission or city commission as designated by code 1750, which says in certain sorts of hearings, they're the decision makers. So at a minimum, I might recommend that we change that term. we might be interested in a little more. You might be interested in a little more. So as I said, the purpose of Section L is unknown, and there's nothing in commission meetings or staff reports which explain the inclusion in 1994. And the purpose might be defined as one of two things, and I'll read them here. And you may have another idea that I haven't come up with. one it might be to state that a development in a mapped and defined geologic hazard area is allowed as long as the standards are followed in a through k that we just went through and findings and conditions in a land use staff report are made that would be staff's current interpretation or It may mean that the review authority, more decision maker, may supersede the standards A through K if the review authority believes the intent of the standards is met, including proposed geotechnical remediation methods are feasible and adequate to prevent landslides or damage to property and safety. Those are quotes because that comes from section L right now. So we're asking tonight, does the city commission wish to proceed with a code revision? If so, what portions of the code should staff work on? Should we only focus on section L or should we open up all of section 1744? Or if not, we shouldn't do anything. Staff is seeking guidance on how to implement section L. And we are here for any questions. And there's some links for those that may not have been around at 2020 to see our presentation, information that we have online for citizens, et cetera. So thank you. All right.

Thank you, Mr. Wheeler. Thoughts, questions, Rocky?

Can you go back to the, couple more right there so it seems so in our last our last meeting that that talked about this the Commission's point of view seem clearly to be bullet point two yeah right I think one of the things that what we're unfortunately dealing with tonight is we have two members of the commission that aren't here this evening in this work session, two of which are probably the most educated in terms of land use. And so therefore, in a lot of things, conversation that we have as a commission, I've listened to those two quite frequently in terms of trying to make the right decisions on these matters. So without them being here, that's a little bit more difficult to have their debate with it. So definitely before we make any decision, we want to hear their input on it as well. Staff's interpretation is still pretty much the same.

Yes, nothing has changed since then. we would hold the first item and that's how we're still implementing it until controversy occurs and that's kind of why we want to prevent the controversy that if if Commission directs us that based on how you voted then based on your feelings now from hearing some additional information you would like staff to interpret based on the second bullet then you know we would take that direction and I would look to the directors here to Let us know how to proceed.

Well, if I may too, I think that we have a fundamental question that we can try to get some guidance on today and recognize that this is a first of likely several. From staff's original interpretation of this section, there was no discretion in the geologic hazard code. So I think where we're trying to get some interpretation, and I think no matter what we're going to be coming forward to you guys with code cleanup, at least to address section L, to make sure that those that are here 10 years from now aren't in the same place that we're in now. That being said, I think the fundamental question that needs to be sort of guided tonight, if possible, is does the city commission feel that it's appropriate to have a discretionary path to modifying our standards in a method that would make sure that the development is safe? but go through the process and thereby sort of amend where the buffer lies and how much of the buffer is intruded upon. Or do you take the hard line and say buffer is the buffer and there's no discretion in it and that's it. And so if the determination is to come forward with a discretionary path, We at staff will want to do so in a manner that will ensure that there is appropriate review, that there is appropriate analysis and that the decision making authority or review authority is at a type three level so that it is planning commission, appealable to the city commission response. Staff does not want to take on that level of discretion. And so really we're, We're here to bring forward the start of a conversation to figure out which path would you like to go on? No discretion or discretion. And then we can come back with clarity of what staff feels from the technical standpoint of how we're going to do that safely.

Thank you. Just to add a little bit more meat on the bones. In 2021 we amended the code, the one of the driving factors was this idea that we have to review housing application through clear and objective standards, and so we were working really hard to sort of slice out all the discretion and. So what we're talking about here is an alternative path. When we say that, that means you still have the clear and objective path, which is mandated by law for housing applications. If developers don't want to comply with that, they take the alternative path. So just to be clear, we're going to still have the clear and objective path. We're not giving that up. we can't under state law and then the question is how much discretion do you want to have with these um safety conditions that really take a lot of expertise to evaluate the city doesn't have a geologic hazard expert on staff. They contract that at work. And so I think that in 20, my recollection of the discussions in 2021 was we need to take the discretion out, not just because of state law, but because Oregon city has a lot of steep slopes and we have recent experience with with this because we have relied on expertise of engineers who've told us it's safe. And so that was fresh in everyone's mind. So I just want to point those kind of additional things out about the 2021 review.

Thank you. Adam. Thank you, Commission President. When we were going through the appeal, the second interpretation is obviously how I read it to be when I went through and replaced the term review authority with the city commission, given that that's where the venue we were. that's how i interpreted that part of the code and so i would be in favor of moving forward with that and i feel comfortable saying that even without two of our colleagues here because that was the majority decision for that appeal i would also of course be interested in hearing if they have additional items they would like to look at but just looking strictly at this one i would be supportive of moving forward with the second interpretation and agree with keeping it as a type three rather than putting that in your hands, I wouldn't want to do that. So I just think that there's going to be a way that this is spun that we're trying to make it less safe. And for me personally, I think the problem that I have with how the interpretation was from the planning commission is that we weren't taking into account ways that would actually make it more safe. That's what those reports were showing to us from the applicant was that if we were to do this, it would actually be safer at this site than if we were to do nothing. So I think that we should be allowing that opportunity, especially when it gets to the overarching question that we all agree on, which is that we don't want to be dealing with these catastrophic landslides every single year.

Thank you. And I understand, Mr. Conkle, you have something you want to share?

Yeah. Thank you. First off, I want to say, hey, this is a really complex topic. So thanks, everybody, for the presentations. I think staff's done a great job of trying to explain some of the complexities of trying to write clear and objective standards for something that And I think Kelly, I think Josh did a great job presenting the information as well as Kelly and Carrie trying to explain kind of the history and where we want to get to as staff is, you know, having gone through the update that we did, you know, I don't think the intent of the commission at the time was to allow staff to have the authority

to go down this subjective road of waving

know the 4 000 square feet of impact or reducing the buffer so i guess my only ask would be you know trying to clarify how you know that staff sticks to the clear and objective standards and if if a developer wants to deviate from that that like like commissioner marl just said you know if we create this second process that it's a it's a higher review authority than a type 2 staff decision And I really don't feel comfortable with staff exempting things that are in the code, especially around geologic hazards, just because of the complexity associated with them. I think the other component is I just want the commission to be aware that, you know, you can probably engineer anything. And so just keep that in mind, right? if somebody owns property with steep slope on it, they're gonna find an engineer who's gonna build and design something that their engineer is gonna stamp. Now we have a third party engineer and while the applicant pays for it, they work for us, right? They're representing the city's interests. I don't have any worries there, but just know that these standards that were put in place around steep slopes and densities, amount of impact and buffers, right you you can probably engineer around anything um so just just keep that in mind when you think about you know how much authority uh is given in that type three process because you know it's the type two process if we stick to it with clear and objective standards is as good as we can get around you know how much disturbance where development can happen you open up the type three process where kind of everything's on the table. And so if there are minimums that you think should be in place that can't go beyond, you should think about that as well. So just wanted to pass that along. Like I said, I think staff's doing a great job. I appreciate this. This is a hard conversation on a really, really technical topic. So that's all. All right.

Thank you very much.

Thank you. And yeah, I would, if we were to move forward with this, I would insist that we retain that third party engineering review. I think that's a very valid concern. And it's something that I think we often feel whenever we're presented with a traffic engineering report where it feels like, you know, You can hire someone to do anything. So I would feel comfortable retaining that aspect of the code requirements.

Yeah, I agree. And I agree also with being a tight three review. Like I don't want city staff to deal with exemptions or where I'm at is... I, it sounds like the two of you really see it as that second bullet point, and I just have a hard time with having a standard that says no matter what you can demonstrate, no matter what you can prove, there is no alternative. It is what it is what it is. I just struggle with that. I think that, I cannot say that there is not a situation or a case where an alternative engineering option is not sufficient, and I don't want to shut that conversation down and say there is no option so i i would also be fine understanding this is the beginning of the conversation even without our colleagues being here i would also be comfortable saying hey based on those, that previous meeting sounds like the majority does view it as the second bullet point and kind of starting the discussion of the process of clearing up communication, or sorry, clearing up wording in the code to make it more clear what the intent is.

That sounds great. I think what we want to clarify as well on our end is, we would see something to the effect of some very clear criteria and some sidebars to make sure that, to the state manager's point, you can engineer anything, right? There's lots of examples to it. But I think that we, as a community as a whole, are going to want to make sure that there is some level of sense and permanence to it rather than a really fancy engineering trick. And so we would be looking and I'm not the subject matter expert on this. I think we're gonna have to rely heavily on our consultants and these two gentlemen here to help us through it. But I would be looking for us to create a more lengthy subsection L or maybe a new section all of itself that's besides the alternative path, as Carrie is talking about, that really gets into the level of additional support that you need to create for it. So I think that would be our next step, but welcome any additional comments as well.

Yeah, I think that makes sense. Rocky, I see you nodding your head. Yeah, I agree with that.

Okay.

Yeah. All right. Okay.

Perfect, anything else? I'm just gonna ask one question. From all the discussion that I heard was that we're focused on L and creating clarity and process within L, and there's no need to open up the rest of that code, at least by these three representatives here at this time, that we can focus on L. If a future meeting opens it up, great, but at this time, come back with L.

Thank you. All right, thank you. All right, moving forward, future agenda items.

All right, I'll jump back forth here. So yeah, before you tonight, so our next meeting is in august we have a legislative affairs uh preparation so you know preparing for the long session uh the legislature um miss hart's going to give an update and presentation on where we're at with that as well as looking at some of the loc priorities august 11th which is our usual tuesday work session we'll have our city commission goals update retreat at the museum of the oregon territory One thing to be thinking about, this is our year to go out for our citywide community survey. Talking with Mr. Archer that we may be able to incorporate some of the questions that we use historically around willingness to fund the pool improvements or redevelopment. or end of the Oregon Trail. But if there are other survey questions that the commission is interested in looking at, please start thinking about those and we can discuss those at the goals retreat when we do that in August. And then the second regular Commission meeting right now we have proposed the system development charge code amendments. And this was really addressing how we look back at the most intense use within the code for what gets credited as a pre existing new development happens as it relates to SDC credits or what is owed with the new development. I will say that for the 5th and the 19th, these are tentative, just a little bit of unsure if there's gonna be additional urban renewal commission meetings that might be necessary. So one, these may slip if there's a need to have an urban renewal commission meeting on the 5th or the 19th of August at six o'clock rather than a work session. But right now we don't have anything scheduled for urban renewal. I would just say, I also, we added the marijuana zoning code review. So the discussion about how our zoning code addresses marijuana manufacturing, retail sales, and then the center street property zoning discussion after our last meeting, we've added this for a work session. So we'll get that on as soon as we can. As the commission's aware, we're doing the phase two environmental on those properties.

should be.

Any questions on that? Questions? I think we're good. Appreciate that. So believe you also have project updates for us.

Let me click that one real quick. And obviously I won't go into too much detail here. If there are questions, please let me know. I just talked a little bit about phase two for the public works facility at Center Street. The second item is the quiet zone. Last meeting with your renewal commission, I informed them that we'd be working with whatever contractors identified for using that property for a staging area. And we would be negotiating a lease agreement or a rent agreement with them to use that property. I think the other thing here is that the costs of that project continue to rise. So we think we're nearing the end of any changes to the scope of work or the design standards associated with the quiet zone project and we'll be bringing that back for the commission for their awareness as to what the costs associated with that project are um for charter parks i think staff's been doing a great job uh we've notified the property owners out there about the changes that have been happening uh we have uh pretty much you know quite a bit of compliance with the agreements that have been reached with the property owners at front uh problem park uh those that haven't we've turned them into code enforcement uh we've also been working with code about addressing some of the parking out there right now we're not ticketing people but we are informing them that they need to remove and not park in the park. So that'll be a gradual process as we move to putting in the bollards that have been approved by the commission to restrict access within the park. And then we've also worked on, I know Ms. Richter and Ms. Troutman have come up with an ordinance to make that a charter park as well as all the limitations that are in there for such as utilities and whatnot that are there. I don't have an update on Cayuse 5 Memorial, the courthouse. The property owner submitted the land use application for the redevelopment of the property, which is currently in the completeness stage. We've been working with a system development charges consultant. And I think I informed the commissioner before that Liberty Plaza, because it's not a city park, would be eligible for 100% of SDC reimbursement. We've had verbal communication with the, developer about what to do next. I think the big thing here is that Boley limits how much public money can put in before providing wages are required. And so really it's a question of do upon completion of that project that they just dedicate Liberty Plaza as required by the purchase of the property and the city does the improvements. Does the developer do a portion up to the bowling minimum or go above, which I'd be surprised if they would do just because that kicks in minimum what are preventing wages. So I'm still ongoing with that, but moving forward. For Tamata Village, we did receive, we put in a request for proposals out for bid in coordination with Confederate Tribes of Grand Ronde. We did receive, we only received one, but it was a very good proposal. So right now we're in contract negotiations for the design engineering and planning of that project. A lot of credit to Kelly and Alex and Scott. They've been doing a great job of trying to keep that project moving forward, reviewing the materials and working with Grand Ronde to make that a successful project. But yeah, the canine went right away. We haven't done anything with that for quite some time. So those are the updates that I have.

Thank you. I just have a suggestion because as I was reading through this the other day, I realized that I was a little confused when I got to item six and it may be more appropriate for that to be named Riverwalk rather than Tumwada Village because as I was reading about the block two, I was like, oh, they're already moving forward on the block two of their development. So I wouldn't want that to be miscommunicated. Thank you.

Rocky, anything? On committee reports? Oh, yeah, any questions for Tony? No, nothing on that. Okay, appreciate it. Thank you. Moving on then, committee reports. I don't have anything relevant for the group. Me neither. No? No.

Only a couple of things. The DMMO has sent a report to the commission. I think we've seen that, but I think they'll make a presentation about that. The Clackamas Heritage Partners is working on doing a lot of policy change or policy upgrades and things, rewriting various policies, communication, financial policies, et cetera. The only other thing... I was with the mayor in DC for the American Water Works Association Conference, attended a lot of sessions. A couple of things that were highlights, I guess. One of the sessions was, that I went to was about fire protection and water loss control and everything associated with wildfires. And it was actually focused on Portland Water Bureau and Bull Run and all of the other areas. So it was very applicable to our area. There was, Let's see. A lot of talk about water reduction and education, which is all something that we talk about a lot at South Fork, and especially going into this upcoming summer season. One thing I thought was really interesting, we attended the Public Officials Breakfast and Caucus, which is basically elected officials representing different water agencies from all around the country. And the American Water Works Association is having kind of a conversation about whether or not to create a separate membership for electeds, essentially, because they have some programming within the AWWA conference, the ACE conference, but it's very limited in terms of tracks for public officials. But they're also wanting to expand this ability to have a communication platform I think to have a dialogue with the federal level on how things can work better at city levels and locally. And so I think they're wanting more input from electives and creating a membership as a venue to possibly do that. One of the things that stood out to me, the mayor went to a different table on a different, I can't remember what topic she was talking about at their section, but The section I was sitting at was focused on infrastructure and WIFIA. So the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, which shockingly at a table of 10 representatives from different cities, I would say we were definitely a middle city. There was some that were, you know, agencies that were operating for, you know, 1,000 households, you know, providing water for 1,000 households or less, some of them there were 150,000 people or more, 200,000. Oregon City was the only one at the table that had any projects that we could share about with you. None of them had done anything. and talking about some of them sharing about why they had not, you know, both South Fork is going forward with some WIFIA projects, but also the city has itself. So it was kind of interesting to hear some of the other cities talking about their, their, I guess, view of the roadblocks and the red tape or the hoops they have to jump through to go through this, which is extensive. And thankfully we have some public staff that have gone through that and now are pretty good experts in Oregon City on that, that I think can be assisting self-work in the future too. I guess we were kind of shocked that, You know, we were the only ones to really share a couple successes, or at least, you know, one that's finished and a couple other projects that we hope to see in the future. I guess that was the one thing that kind of surprised us, that we're kind of ahead of the game on that. So that's a great thing. I took a moment to walk to the police officer's memorial during the weekend because that was within a mile or so from the hotel. So I went and walked and saw our two lost police officers listed there and wanted to spend some time there. And then I walked the mall in the area of D.C. But it was a good trip. We got some good information and got to have some dialogue with some of our representatives from some fellow cities, Canby. This young man with this long beard came up to me and we started talking and it was one of my students. in dc so who works it can be water now um so it was it was cool we had a good time and uh learned a lot and um we'll be reporting uh self work some of those things that we we got to talk about so that was that all right thank you um having said anything else all right let's join the meeting