City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Today is July 15th, 2026 and I'd like to call to order the regular meeting of the Oregon City City Commission and we will have the roll.

Commissioner Scott Wilson? Here. Commissioner Adam Marl? Here. Commissioner Rocky Smith? Here. Commissioner Mike Mitchell? Here. And Mayor Denise McGriff?

Aye. So just because it's already been advertised, I just want to say that we will be, at the adjournment of this meeting, we will be going into an executive session, and that is shown on the agenda. So next on our agenda is the flag salute. So if you are able and can stand, please join us in the flag salute, please.

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. You look fine. You look good. All right. So one of the fabulous things that we get to do as a city commission is that when we have new police officers come onto the force, we make a really big deal out of it. And we're very, very proud to be always adding to our police force. And we are so fortunate that we have two new recruits that are going to be part of our family. And I'd like to turn this over to Chief Davis.

Good evening, Mayor, Commission. Thank you. Tonight, I have the honor of introducing two of our newest officers. Additionally, they're both veterans of our armed forces. So first, I'd like to introduce Elijah Nashand. You can come forward. Elijah grew up in Harrisburg, Oregon. After high school, he joined the United States Air Force, where he was assigned to security forces, which is a the military police for the U.S. Air Force for just over six and a half years. After he got out and prior to joining us, he worked in construction. He enjoys hiking, fishing, off-roading, and anything outdoors. He started with us on June 15th, and with him tonight is a lot of his family and friends, but I'd like to introduce his wife, Haley, his mom, Stacy, and his dad, William.

Raise your hand so we can see who you are. No, not the family. You have to raise your hand later. They have to raise their hand. So who's the family? Raise your hand.

There's a lot of them. They can all raise their hand.

Yes, all of you raise your hand. All. We want to see. Okay, thank you.

Next, I'd like to introduce Ryan Paschal. If you can come out forward now. His last name should sound familiar. He is the son of retired Sergeant Matt Paschal. Ryan grew up across the river in Westland and graduated from Westland High School. After high school, he attended Oregon State and chose to join the United States Army. He served for four years in the United States Army, three of which were served as the guard sentinel at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Most recently, he worked for a United States House representative as a congressional aide. He also enjoys hunting, fishing, and spending time in the outdoors. Ryan started with us on July 6th. With him tonight is his mother, Kristen, his father, Matthew, his girlfriend, Lauren, and again, many family and friends.

Okay, next group of family.

All right. And you'll notice, as with tradition, with a parent being in law enforcement, after Ryan is sworn in, he will invite his father to pin on his badge. So we're ready. Let's do it.

He'll make it go faster if we're not always in the same town.

We'll just introduce this, and then you say your name, and we'll do the rest of it, and we're all good. Okay, so you ready?

Let's come up a little further. All right, would you please take the oath?

Raise your right hand. I, Elijah Nashon, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the state of Oregon, held by the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics and the Department of Rules and Regulations, while faithfully performing my duties as a police officer for Oregon City, Oregon.

Congratulations. Congratulations. Come on up. There you go.

And then same thing.

Here's your right hand.

I, Ryan Paschal, do solemnly swear that I will support the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State of Oregon. I will abide by the law enforcement code of ethics and the department's rules and regulations while faithfully performing my duties as a police officer for Oregon City, Oregon.

Congratulations. And can we put these away?

Thank you.

So how many officers have we sworn in to date so far?

To date, 10. And those two are over hires. So we're working with the city manager and finance. We're actually hiring for predicting for future retirements. Awesome.

Great. That's fantastic. Yes, it's definitely a good spot to be in because our other neighbors are not in a good spot. So we don't. Okay, I do not have any slips, so we will skip item number four and we'll go right to item number five. We have the Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act, WIFIA program update from our very own Patty Nelson and our fabulous finance director, Mr. Matt Zook. And guess what? We talked a lot about WIFIA at AWWA. Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Yes, we did.

All right, well, Matt and I have been a team since we started the WIFIA program. So we came to about 18 months ago, actually, February 25 with an update, but we've had a lot of work completed since then. So we thought it'd be a good time to come back. We'll provide a little background for those of you who don't remember, we'll take you down memory lane of how we got here. The scope of the program, our project updates with some fun pictures on Malala. And then Matt's gonna wrap up with financial update. So kicking the can down the road, if you remember when I first got here, there's a number of master plans that were completed. I was working on the update for the water master plan in 2021. And what was evident is there was a lot of large projects that were not being funded simply because we didn't have the revenue to support them. And so part of the scope of work was to do a water and rate study. And at the time, the commission had prioritized water infrastructure in particular. The rate study demonstrated that we actually needed to raise the rates above the 3% charter limit, regardless if we borrowed. We also were recommended to borrow money because in borrowing, it required less of a rate increase. So we went to the voters, required voter approval, Oh, well, I'll get to the next slide, sorry. Anyway, what's the story behind insufficient revenues is the large expense of projects were deferred, and then we had increased risk and failure. And just I wanna highlight, the more you delay a project, right, costs keep going up. So the master plan identified $81 million worth of capital improvements. The rate study, as I just mentioned, recommended raising rates as well as water SDCs. The commission moved forward with raising our water SDCs in July, 2021, that significantly helped us, but the rates required voter approval. So we did have the two ballot measures in November, 2021. The borrowing measure was approved, the rates were not. So the question for us was, what do you do when you're given lemons? We tried to make lemonade. So we looked at the federal loan program, Water Infrastructure Finance and Innovation Act as a borrowing measure. With that program, we had to come up with $20 million worth of projects. We were forced to prioritize the projects because we have so much work to get done. Where do we need to focus? And we knew we needed to work on our transmission system, which is basically pushing more water in our upper system that serves 70% of our customers. Basically, our one pump station can't pump enough water to fill our reservoirs and meet our demand. And if you recall, we had the wildfires that were blowing through. We had the ice storm that came through. It took down power. We didn't have water for like three days. So really important. So that's where our focus was. At the same time, we knew we had to update costs. So the planning documents are older, so we updated our project costs. Another factor is COVID hit, and I think we all remember that. Lots of unpredictability, construction costs were all over the place, supply chain challenges. And for us, the insufficient revenues for 51% match. So to get the loan, we have to have 51% of the money to match. Without the rate increase, we didn't have that. And I call it the stars aligned because as part of COVID, the city received ARPA dollars and chose to, defer by point million dollars for the general fund made available because they had ARPA dollars for public safety towards the water improvements. So that helped us fund our 51%. Next was strategy for the program. In the program, and you'll see this pretty quick, we built in some flexibility. So as costs go up on the projects, we have flexibility to change some scope. And then I've never had this happen, but working with federal government, with the WIFIA program, at the last minute, they were seeing other cities with WIFIA programs having costs escalating because of the timing. And they actually recommended to us that we add in a contingency. And they said, you don't have to borrow it, but have it just in case, because it's harder to come back. So we did that.

We closed on the loan in July, 2023.

We got a 3.94% interest. And I think that's pretty good, right, Matt? And it's $33 million worth of improvements. One of the benefits of the loan is the long-term loan, so we have longer to pay it off. And one of the really attractive features is that you don't have to start making payments until five years after you complete the work. So even though we're drawing money against the loan right now, we don't have to actually make payments till later. Interest does not accrue as well until the loan funds are drawn. And Matt, I think part of your strategy was to use our dollars first.

One of the things that we decided to do is to spend the city's money in both rates and SECs first to reduce the amount of borrowing until the last possible minute to defer interest costs that we would be incurring. Of course, we're measuring that against our own cash flow. We have the ability to do that. So there'll be a slide here in the future that'll talk a little bit about that. And I think by doing that, we were able to save some money on the interest costs.

And then all of this work needs to be substantially complete by June 30th, 2028. Matt.

So this slide here is a table just of the funding sources for the projects. And you'll see that there's $33.2 million worth of projects. The city's portion was 49% of that, so roughly half. And the WIFI alone was approved up to the 16.3 million. and the city's funds actually came from three sources one of those was just mentioned about the arpa funds that came from uh the general fund that were freed up for the general fund 5.6 million about 70 17 of the project projects uh water rates uh 2.9 million uh nine percent and then uh Several of the projects were STC eligible. And so some of those were 25% STC eligible. One was at 41%. So the money that is spent between the rate funds and the STC funds can shift over time. But we, at this point, are going to hold our projects within the scope of the approved loans. And Yeah, so we're about halfway through at this point.

The one thing I'd like to highlight is these numbers, you know, vary and they have varied. So in terms of the percentage of the water rates, how much in the percentage and that water SDCs, there's some fluctuation and a lot of that has to do with the project costs. And then as we change scope, if we have to drop some of the rehabilitation projects, we'll talk back in a minute, that also changes the SDC and rate distribution. So the program is made up of three different projects. All three projects had to be related. So we were approved based on improving our water system for water rehabilitation resiliency and improving overall system. The first project is a SCADA isolation project. The second project is a pipe rehabilitation project. And the third project focuses on the transmission mains. The program overview, I kind of did it then and now. When we first signed the loan, this is where we thought the budgets would be for the three projects. You'll see that we have that program contingency, 8.4 million in the original column. You'll notice that it's not there on the current column because it's allocated. We also had money in there for additional staffing to support the program. We also chose to not fill positions or hire additional help and to use that money to get the projects done. So more with less. Things I would like to highlight, when I talked about flexibility with the program, there's two things, two projects that we have to get done. The Skate Isolation Project was focused on cyber security. It was a small project. As part of our approval with WIFIA, they were looking for a shovel ready and cyber security. And so that project has to get done, which it's complete. The second or the third project, the transmission projects, right now our Mountain View Pump Station operates below its design capacity because we have pressure issues. And so one of our metrics alone for us to be able to meet our metrics alone is that we have to be able to pump more water with our bigger pipes and the transmission system. So we have to complete all those projects. The variable and the flexibility that we've built into it is the water rehabilitation program. So every year without the loan, we've been nibbling away, taking a bite of the apple and replacing old pipes. That's what this program is. And so we originally planned eight projects. We're now currently budgeted for five. And so that's where we have the flexibility to drop projects if we need to. This is where we stand right now. Looking at the dollars, we're about 43% spent. Our largest project, which is our Henry Sioux project, the $10 million project, is currently out to bid. That is affecting our ability to move forward with our remaining project two projects, because we're waiting to see where those bids come in, and confirming we can afford moving forward with those. Again, all the projects have to be done by June 30th, 2028. It's for a rehab project. We're focusing in on replacing old mains. That's actual pipe, one of Oregon City's old water mains that we removed. The water break is not from Oregon City, but I wanted to illustrate that when you don't replace your aging pipe infrastructure, you're living with risk, risk of interruption of service to your customers. So we're working to tackle that. We've completed three projects. replacing 9,000 linear feet, that's about 1.7 miles of pipe, and 61 new services. InDesign is our McLaughlin neighborhood project that will replace 2,300 linear feet of pipe and replace 41 services. That's hopefully going out to bid shortly after we get our bids for our Henry C. project. The last project is a project in Kenema Court. At this point, we're not sure if we can afford building that, so that's in the queue.

What's the situation at Kenema Court? Just old infrastructure?

It's all, we have miles and miles of old pipe. And what we sat down to do is to kind of prioritize them with operations. And so literally as projects have dropped off, we're working from the bottom up and that's the next one that we would not be able to do. So our upper system transmission mains, I think I mentioned, we're focusing mainly on delivering more water to our reservoirs at Boynton and Henrice, as well as to our customers. We have three projects within that. The first project, again, we're putting these in order of priority. Our number one issue right now is pressure up by the pump station, which is off Mountain View near Grocery Outlet. And so we are actually replacing the 16 inch transmission main, the big pipe, with a 30 inch, so quite a bit bigger. We're connecting into the pump station and then running 4,500 linear feet of that new transmission main. At the same time, we took advantage of, there's an existing six inch distribution main, that's where all your services come from. We decided to replace that as well. So we replaced that with an eight inch pipe and 32 new services. The second project is the Henrice project, which is scheduled, is out to bid right now. Construction will be starting in fall and then going into 2028. And I have more on the scope a little bit later, so I'll hit that. And then the third project is a smaller transmission main, which is 1400 linear feet of 18 inch and then 700 linear feet of 16 inch. And that'll be our last transmission main to finish for this. I forgot, what does a transmission mean? So I put this on here. Transmission is just a term for larger pipes, and I put this picture in here with me in there just because I'm five foot tall, and that's trying to illustrate that's one of our gate valves, so much bigger pipe. This is a Malala project. I think everybody in the city has been living in this for the next last year. We're done, thankfully. It started at the Mountain View Pump Station. We had to make a connection there. As I mentioned, a 30 inch transmission main replacing the 16 inch. We also had to cross Beaver Creek. So the street scape project that finished right at Beaver Creek, we needed to connect into the 18 inch there. So we had to cross there. and then we replaced the eight inch distribution. We had a great consultant, W Water Systems Consulting, and then Emory & Sons Construction. Work required work at Holmes Lane and a lot of light night work to work through signalized intersections, so it took a lot of patience with that. some pictures from construction, Mountain View Pump Station. I want to highlight some of the challenges. To connect into this pump station, as I mentioned, it serves 70% of our customers. To take it down out of operation required us to not only think about the lowest demand period, but actually to closely monitor our reservoirs, because when the pump station's not pumping, we're depending on the reservoirs to provide the water. So we worked very closely with operations, monitoring the system as they were making the connection. It went very well. One of the other challenges is we replaced, the 30 inch pipe was in the same alignment as one of our main transmission mains. And so that meant we had to take it out of service. prioritized a smaller project in Holmes Lane. I think everyone remembers construction in Holmes Lane. Well, we pushed along the water main project replacement of the 12 inch because we wanted to make sure we had a really good pipe when we're only depending on it when we took down this larger 16 inch. So that's why we pushed that project ahead. Beaver Creek Crossing was another challenge. There's two 48-inch culverts that we actually had to cross under. There's a number of utilities. That required night work, and it also required a weekend closure. That went remarkably well. I'm very happy. It took a lot of time to come up with the design and the approach, and working next to the rehabilitation center there, they were great, but of course, access was a big concern, and that also went well. Malala Avenue, one of the things I wanted to highlight is that with replacing two pipes, normally you'd have two trenches. Our consultant came up with a design where we'd have one bigger trench and put both pipes in the same trench. That actually minimized the temporary paving that we had to struggle through, kept it in one place. And actually I was concerned about production rates. So I think we planned on say 90 feet a day. I think Emory & Sons at one point was up to 190 feet a day. putting both these pipes in the trench. So it went very well. Some of the biggest challenges were traffic control. We had to make connections and services across the road. So that was a challenge. And the temporary pavement, as we all know, I think became one of the biggest issues. And one of the challenges is once we get the main line in the ground, They have to come back and then dig it up again and connect into it to do all these street connections. So they couldn't put the permanent pavement in until they were done. And then we also have to test the water main. So I will give you a heads up. On the next project, we have special provisions regarding temporary paving that will hopefully keep it in better condition. But I thank everybody for their patience.

It was a good traffic control, lower speed device.

Okay. I don't want to relive it. One thing I want to highlight is that this project was planning to tie into an old 16-inch main in Beaver Creek Way. And while we were building our project in Malala, the city experienced a failure on that main. And the picture on the lower right is a picture of the crews responding to the emergency as a repair. We had customers that were out, I think, for five days scrambling to do repair. And the picture in the middle is the section of the pipe that they removed. Once we saw the condition of the pipe, we made a decision to replace the remaining 500 feet down Beaver Creek Way as part of this project. Matt came up with some money outside the WIFU program, thankfully, and we made it happen. I think that was a good investment. So for teamwork, I just wanna highlight, because I think people don't realize, they see contractors out on the street, but to get any of these projects done, it takes engineering up front, it takes operations, operations was integral to this project, not only in design, but in construction. Every time we make a connection to the main, any time that we have to test those new pipes, our team is out there day and night. So it takes everybody. Our next project is the Henry C. Pump Station Project Transmission Main. This project starts at Beaver Creek and Glen Oak. So we have a 16 inch main right now that feeds our Henry C. Reservoir, it's too small. We're gonna be replacing it with a 24 inch pipe that will tie into the 16 at Glen Oak and the 16 at Beaver Creek. And that'll deliver more water to the reservoir quicker and faster. We're gonna repurpose that 16 inch so we have some infrastructure there to reuse. We're gonna reuse that to deliver the water then back to the community. So we are making use of what we can. More importantly, we have an old pump station. That's the picture in the middle. It's called the Fairway Downs Pump Station. That was supposed to be temporary. I forget how many years ago that was, but it runs all the time. It has a hard time meeting the demand. So we're replacing it with a larger pump station at the Henry Seath Project site, and we'll be abandoning the Fairway Downs Pump Station. And when we're done, right now we have a temporary Timberview complex, a Timberview development off of Beaver Creek Road is temporarily served right now from Clackamas River Water. This project will allow us to transfer all of those services to Oregon City. And so we'll be making that as part of this project. Design is complete. We're out to bid. We had our pre-bid on Monday. We had a great turnout. Bids are due August 4th. And construction's planned to start in fall and then finish in spring. All right, Matt.

So you mentioned earlier, we mentioned earlier that this was a federally funded program. Some of the benefits of that, we already talked about the lower interest rate. The closing costs on this loan was only $308,000 for a $16 million loan, which when you go to the open market, it's a lot more. We did use all the professionals that we needed to. bond attorney and the financing team, but it was relatively low cost. And these are some of the requirements that we have just that we do to monitor our progress. Patty does a quarterly CIP update and I update the financial model quarterly. We have been receiving a couple, we've received a couple drawdowns to about 5.5 million thus far. We have quarterly and annual updates to WIFIA. It's been a good experience. I'm curious what you learned at your conference with WIFIA, but working with the feds is not always easy, but it's been actually, they've had a great team. They've had a little bit of staff reduction at some points with just the federal fluctuation, but our reporting and our process has been good. And we are getting ready to submit the annual financial model again. And I'm pleased to say that our financial forecast looks great. So.

Oops. Any questions?

Go ahead. Thank you, Mayor. Are there any plans for the property where the Fairway Downs Reservoir is and what's going to happen once it's gone?

So we, the existing pipe that runs through there to serve the subdivision behind it will remain. There's no use for the building. We don't have any money at this time to do any demolition or anything. So we're gonna simply cut the connections to the pump station and abandon it as it is. And I guess as money becomes available, maybe that can be demolished and something else be repurposed for that project, for that property.

Okay.

Anything, Michael?

No, I just say it was good to see on the earlier page where you would forecast expenses in the different categories and $517,000 or something that was going to go for staff positions that you didn't do. So that's a half a million dollars that goes into the ground. So thank you for figuring out a way to do that.

Anything else?

No questions, but again, I really appreciate the report. It was really helpful to understand how this project is coming along and where it's going. And again, very, very informative. So thank you very much for taking time to come present to us.

I just wanted to thank you both and all the staff involved. One of the things that surprised me at the ACE conference, so the mayor and I attended the ACE, the AWWA, America Water Workers Association National Conference in D.C., on behalf of South Fork and one of the events that we attended was the public officials breakfast slash caucus and so it's presenters and then they broke each, they broke the room of elected essentially, it was mostly elected. So it was people representing either water districts or cities and into multiple groups. One of the groups was infrastructure focused, which a lot of it was, but the table that I was sitting at was probably, and I mentioned this at our work session last week, The table I was sitting at was about 15 different representatives for different cities and water water agencies and. I was shocked to find out when the and they're trying America waterworks association is trying to get input from. cities and local agencies to figure out how to advocate for changes at the federal level on various things. And so one of the reasons, one of the things that they're trying to do is get maybe a membership ability for electeds to get as a way to funnel input in. But what stuck in my mind is a kind of a shock was at the table I was sitting at of 15 or so people representing agencies that served anywhere from 1,000 homes to 150 to 200,000 homes, not one of them had done a WFIA project. And they spoke to their concerns about the hoops and how complicated they thought it was and various reasons why they didn't go forward in proposing projects. So out of all that group, Oregon City was the only one that really could speak in any way to doing a project. So I think that that shows so much. I was shocked, but I was very surprised by it. And I know that that will be a huge asset asset for South Fork as South Fork does projects because we have some really, you know, becoming experts in Oregon City staff that are working on these projects. So I was proud of Oregon City in that sense. So thank you for that.

Yeah, I just wanted to say real quick, I don't think our residents are ever going to realize how big of a deal this is. The success of this project for most of them is going to look just like the status quo. And that's a good thing because we want people to be able to have access to reliable water. And so I just want to thank you both for your work on this project. Right when I started on the commission was when we had the initial conversations about going out for the vote, which didn't go as we had hoped. But at the same time, you were able to create something out of that situation. And your presentation speaks for itself with just the ability to do some great work on finite resources. So kudos to both of you and the teams that you've been working with.

Yeah, I just want to reiterate what Rocky said about being at the ACE conference. We were not at the same table. I think what I was mentioning to Wyatt was that there were three hands that were raised when they asked the legislative lobbyist, his name was Nate, and I can't remember his last name, but he asked how many cities or water districts had experience with WIFIA. So you raised your hand, I raised mine. So one of us was a city, the other was South Fork. So, and then there was one other jurisdiction that not a city, but a water district. The thing that I found shocking, not that they hadn't used WIFIA, was that so many of them had thousands and hundreds of thousands of dollars of deferred projects. So they were just waiting for, you know, on pins and needles that something wasn't going to happen. And one of the sessions I attended was with the water district in DC, which had a big long name, but they showed a project in Anacostia where a pipe that was probably 30 inches around broke and uh it was well it was a hot mess so to speak but uh that session was all about how you when you have a situation how you do the messaging how you uh respond to the community what sort of outreach do you have and how things are going so when i've had opportunities you know to get emails and i say i've had opportunities to get emails regarding the STATE OF MALALA AVENUE, WHEN ARE WE GOING TO FIX IT? I CAREFULLY EXPLAINED ABOUT THE WATER LINE PROJECT AND I SAID, YOU TAKE IT FOR GRANTED THAT YOU TURN ON YOUR TAP AND IT'S THERE. We are investing in our future of water infrastructure to make sure that these pipes will last longer than the you know crappy ones that we've had in the ground forever and ever because we weren't able to do it but. I also was very proud of us because we've been we have been extremely proactive in terms of understanding the fact that our. infrastructure you know some of it does date from you know the 1800s and when somebody uh in the neighborhood pulled you know had the contractor they pulled out a piece of wood you know that was their pipe and you know who knows how long that had been in there and what condition it was in and their water was running through it i went like aye aye aye so um everybody on our water team um as well as the both of you deserve kudos. And again, the project is, I wish there was just a way that we could help the community understand that the road is going to be torn up because it's part of a investment they are making in ourselves. And that's kind of what I've been trying to tell people. So, and as South Fork, you know, jumps into this themselves, you know, again, we are ahead of the game, which is really, really exciting. Thank you. Thank you. Great team, finance, public works. Hey, well, before we go on, I just wanna make a note. I just, not that I ignored it, but we had a, we did receive some public comment, not at the meeting, but before the meeting. So I just wanna acknowledge because the person may be watching that and says, oh, they didn't mention my letter. So yes, we did receive some correspondence from a couple of people regarding another issue that was public comment. And then also before, cause I'm gonna embarrass her now. Morgan, would you stand up just for a minute? I don't wanna leave it till the end of the meeting. So this is our new library director. We're so glad she's here. Yay, thank you. Welcome again to Oregon City, the best city ever, as I like to tell people. All right, so Mr. Perno. So more water, more water, more water. And just for the record, Rocky Smith and I and Mike Mitchell serve on the South Fork Water Board as representatives from the City of Oregon City.

You sure do. Thank you, Mayor McGriff and city commissioners. It's really nice to be here and follow this presentation from Patty and Matt. So I'm a huge fan of both of them. Patty deserves extra special recognition for the work that she did pulling all that WIFIA application together and all of those projects. It's fun to see those going and also see how fiscally responsible the city's been in working with those different programs. And she's only a phone call away for, advice we call her all the time the other thing i noticed i walked into the room and it was packed and i thought there's so many people excited about water turns out elijah and ryan are our new police officers for the city so it's all police oh yeah it's okay yeah they're pretty amazing so great job from the chief well my name is wyatt parno and i'm the chief executive officer of south fork water We are the drinking water treatment plant that provides water for the city into the pipes of distribution that Patty just talked about. I'm here this evening to provide an overview of a water management and conservation plan for Oregon City's drinking water system. And my primary focus is going to be on water conservation and water curtailment. Before talking about the plan, I'd like to briefly introduce South Fork Water for those watching and might not know about it. South Fork Water was formed in 1915 through a partnership between the cities of Oregon City and West Linn. following a severe typhoid outbreak in 1913, the community leaders in the two cities, they sought to find a cleaner water source, and they constructed approximately 26 miles, much of which was wood, like the mayor had mentioned, a pipeline from the South Fork of the Clackamas River, hence the name South Fork Water. So for 111 years, the two cities have worked together to provide safe, reliable drinking water. Now, as Commissioner Smith would tell you, the two cities are fierce rivals when it comes to football, but they're outstanding partners when it comes to water.

So where were we getting our water from before? God knows. The Willamette. It was the Willamette River. Yikes. I wonder why there was typhoid.

Yep. And I'd like to take a minute to just recognize Mayor Denise McGriff. Commissioner Rocky Smith and Commissioner Mike Mitchell. They sit on the Board of Directors for the South Fork Water Board, and they have done amazing work this last couple years, and I'll be back to tell you more about that. They're great leaders and great heroes for water for your community. So all that said, onto the Water Management and Conservation Plan. It's required under Oregon law, and more importantly, it's a good resource for us to use water resources responsibly. South Fork Water developed the plan this spring in partnership with Public Works staff from Oregon City, many of which are here, and from West Linn. And the draft of the plan has been submitted to the Oregon Water Resource Department, and we anticipate their approval later this summer. There's four major elements, water supplier description, water conservation, curtailment and supply. And I'm just gonna focus on conservation and curtailment this evening, especially because of how relevant it is going into the summer, the weather conditions. One important distinction is between conservation and curtailment. These are the definitions under the state law approximately. But curtailment means basically temporary measures that people take in response, or I'm sorry, eliminating waste. So conservation is eliminating waste and using water wisely, ongoing. It protects our resources. And curtailment, the big one that we're thinking about this year, is a temporary measure in response to a short-term emergency. Conservation includes using water wisely, reducing leaks, being good stewards of our water. Curtailment's different. It's used when there's a specific system or river condition that requires a temporary reduction in water use. As of today, our drinking water supply is fine. We're not under any curtailment. There's no restrictions, no special actions required. But if conditions require it later in the summer, because of some of the things we're seeing with weather, the city is prepared to give notice for a curtailment, and I'll explain that. First, a quick talk about conservation. So under the Water Management and Conservation Plan, South Fork Water and Oregon City are required to implement ongoing conservation measures. These include things like annual water audits, meter testing, leak detection, and a lot of public education. annual water audits account for all of the water coming into and leaving the system. So we really have a tight system. And with the work that we did with the cities this year, both cities distribution systems and self-work system are pretty tight. So we're using water wisely without a lot of loss. Community members also play an important role in conservation. So while the cities and South Fork are required to do certain things in the plan, the community recommendations that I have here are a couple of things. Members of the community can water landscapes efficiently. And I like to keep things simple. So there's some different guidelines out there, but generally watering your lawn one inch per week is the recommendation. And if you water between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m., that's a good idea because you don't have evaporation of the water. So it's good use of the water. and finding repairs to leaks and making those and then installing water efficient fixtures is a good idea and just using water wisely. Now this is a little bit of a tricky one, but it's a requirement under state law. So curtailment is South Fork Water and Oregon City's response if there are emergency conditions that require a temporary reduction in water use. There's four stages of curtailment. Most of them are based on whether we have adequate storage in our system for public health and minimum fire flows. Stage one is voluntary. Stages two through four become mandatory if conditions require them. And one important exception is that under stage two, That trigger can be brought on by a fish persistence requirement that's established in state law. So all of the stages are related to our storage capacities and we're not very concerned about that even this year. The fish persistence requirement for a mandatory curtailment in stage two is something that we're watching closely.

Is that something that they had issues with down in the Klamath Basin? a few years back they were having to curtail water use because it was threatening the fish?

Yes, there's different requirements based on what OWRD places on different water bodies. So the Clackamas River's requirements are specific. Other water bodies are a little bit different. And here's a nice slide about fish persistence. So South Fork has that unique trigger in stage two related to fish persistence in the Clackamas River specifically. So as a condition of South Fork's senior permitted water rights extensions, Stage two mandatory curtailment is required if river flows fall below established fish persistence thresholds. During the summer, it's very specifics. The target flow is 650 cubic feet per second. And that's what I'll focus on now because it's the summer. But during the remainder of the year, it's under 800 cubic feet per second. This requirement's based on river conditions, not our drinking water supply. So depending upon the flows of the river, that determines whether there'd be a curtailment. And then if those conditions occur, South Fork will coordinate with Oregon City and Westland, and the cities have been preparing to communicate effectively with the citizens. So conditions are a little bit unique this year in the summer of 2026. You may have heard that we had very low snowfall and precipitation this winter so there's a very low snowpack on the mountains. What snowpack does with those winter conditions if it's heavy is it saturates the water and provides a lot of snow that will melt and feed the river during the summer. But since we didn't have any snow this winter, we're starting with kind of a low natural reservoir of water. Also, we're expecting a warm, dry summer, and that could reduce river flows a little bit more this season. And it's an important message that we're prepared, and it's really not to be alarmed. It's just that we're gonna ask residents to do some things if we go under those thresholds set by the river. I didn't put it on the slide, I think I put it on the last really busy slide, but basically if we enter that stage two curtailment, that's gonna be mandatorily asking residents to water between the hours of 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. So the city would issue that curtailment requirement. And I'll wrap with my top three easy recommendations. So I really like hiking. I had to sneak in this little picture, but there's three things that we could ask community members to do. And I also like keeping things kind of simple. There's probably lots of answers to how you should water your lawn and you can look into that deeply and be a good conserver of water. But what I would ask for folks is first, just water your landscapes efficiently. So like we said, most landscapes need about one inch of water per week, water during the evening or early morning hours so you're not wasting water. Second, use water wisely. So if you're watering, washing your car, maybe turn off your hose between lemonade breaks or what have you, I remember when I was a kid, I think my mom told me to turn off the faucet when I was brushing. Now the kids all tell their parents because of the education that we're doing. But third is just watch for these curtailment notices. So if stage two becomes necessary this year, you can do your part to support the city and your community. And that's that. Really quickly, I just want to thank the City Commission. It's nice to see Commissioner Wilson. Happy to give you a tour of the plant at some point. We'd love to see you. And Commissioner Morrow has been to the plant several times and helped us on a lot of discussions related to legislative issues and communications, as I appreciate you. And I also want to thank City Manager Conkle and some of his team who've come and visited South Fork within the past few months and are very helpful with a lot of questions that we have. And really quickly, the Oregon City Water Department staff that you have is amazing. You got Dana Webb, you got Vance and Patty and Kevin and Scott and Mallory. And I also want to thank Jared for his great communications. So with that, I'll open it up for questions.

Questions, gentlemen? And you'll be back with some other fantastic news that I'm assuming is coming. Also, we also appreciate the fact that we've been able to get information about what South Fork is doing into the trail news. I think it's really important. And I'm just gonna say it. I don't know if people have noticed, but we have a nice new crisp updated logo. So look for that symbol and that will tell us what's going on with South Fork. Thank you very much, Mayor. Thank you, commissioners. So have you already done the presentation to Wes Lynn yet? No, I came to Oregon City first.

First city.

Well, we are in the first city. That's right. Yeah, since we already annexed them, so it's over. I heard about that. Yeah. Yeah. There you go. You only have to do one.

All right. Thank you.

When are you going to Westland? Next Tuesday. Next Tuesday. Okay. Awesome. Thank you so much. We appreciate it. All right, next we have the adoption of the agenda, item number seven. Is there anything that anybody has concerns about or do we have a motion?

Move to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Okay, it's been moved and seconded. And I do want to commend the chief for getting item number 7C completed. I know that's been not a long time coming, but we've had to work through some issues. But it's something that's absolutely necessary, and I'm really happy to see that happening.

So let's have the roll. Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Adam Morrow. Aye. Commissioner Rocky Smith. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff.

Aye.

Motion passes.

Okay. Does anybody need a break? No? Okay. All right. So the next item on our agenda is item number eight. It is a public hearing. It is an appeal of systems development charges for 20282, Chanticleer Drive. And who is... Mr. Wheeler, thank you so much for coming on up. So since this is not a land use hearing, I don't have to do any ex parte and we'll, should I just open it now?

Okay.

We're opening the public hearing.

Hi, good evening, Mayor and Commission. Josh Wheeler, Assistant City Engineer for the Public Works Department. Tonight we're here to talk about the appeal of system development charges that we assessed for the address 20282 Chanticleer Place. What I'm gonna do is gonna summarize the staff report. We thought that was easier this time than a PowerPoint. There was not any additional information that we could provide during a PowerPoint. So we assess SDCs all the time when an application comes in. In this case, we assessed SDCs for what's called a residential treatment home. The amount was $22,558.60. The property at 20282 Chanticleer was originally built as a single family residence and it's being converted or proposed to be converted into a five room residential treatment home.

And what is that?

A residential treatment home is defined in our city code and it's defined as a residential structure that has up to five units that are for people who need assistance and are choosing this as their facility to get that assistance rather than a larger facility. There are other types of homes out there and styles that use larger facilities. So pursuant to OCMC 13-20-070, an applicant may appeal the director's decision as to the amount of the SDC or the amount of an SDC reduction. by filing with the city recorder and notice within 14 days of that decision. In this case, that all has occurred. Within your staff report, there's a chart that shows all the different funds, so five different SDC funds. Three of them were fully credited or reduced, and that's water, parks, and stormwater. The transportation was assessed at almost $18,000 and then was reduced by almost $14,000 with a due amount of $4,026.10. The sanitary sewer was assessed at $30,887 credited or reduced 12,355 with a due amount of 18,532. So 18,532 plus 4,026 gets you to 22,558. A big thing to note here is $14,000 of that $22,000 is actually an assessment to water environment services for the sewer treatment. Our city code does not have language that gives us the ability to waive any fees for them. And so we can only, the only portion that we can talk about tonight is out of the 22,558 is $8,496.10, which covers the 4,026 of transportation and 4470 of sanitary. As you know, system development charges are assessed by the city as allowed by state law and based on adopted methodologies. ORS 223.304 describes the scope of SDC methodologies in detail, including the cost of facilities, available capacity, and so on. The transportation SDC methodology states that SDCs are to be assessed based on the peak trip generation as listed in the ITE manual or Institute of Transportation Engineers. It's important to note that residential treatment homes are not a use in the ITE manual. Now that is not uncommon that a use is not in the ITE manual. It happens for many type of commercial projects. And in those cases, staff relies on the closest use to the situation or to the use. And so in this case, staff used assisted living as the closest relatable use. And that's ITE code 254, which has peak hour trips of 0.22 vehicles per bed. So when you multiply that times five, you get 1.1 peak hour trips. And then, so we charged 1.1 trips times, and then credited the 1.0 trips. And so that 0.1 trips ended up with that $4,000 number. According to a memo back on April 7th, produced by FCS group, recounting data from the US Census Bureau American Housing Survey, it concluded that the average number of occupants in a single family home is a maximum of two and a half occupants, even when the size of the house grows. Residential care homes should be noted to have five occupants at maximum. Of course, you would assume they would max that out. And that may have various types of transportation uses associated with those or may not. But it also at least has one employee because it must be staffed 24 hours a day. And so now there's six occupants there 24 hours a day, which is more than what the average single family home is. moving from transportation to sanitary. Our sanitary methodology states that we are not based on fixture count, we are based on use. Use is defined as an equivalent residential unit or ERU. We also used assisted living or rest home, convalescent home as our use for this case. One ERU is every two beds, and so that totals two and a half ERUs in this case. And we credited the single family house of one ERU, so they were charged one and a half ERUs. Back to the front of my page. Ultimately, We feel that this residential treatment home, which is other parts of the staff report talk about is something that is becoming a use. It's becoming very common statewide and citywide. There's a big growth in this industry. And we believe that a residential treatment home, while in a residential structure by building code, allowed to keep building code residential standards, is still a business. And that business use will demand staffing support that places a greater demand on city streets, sanitary sewer systems, and the assessments are calculated using those city adopted methodologies. along with a survey of customary approaches in other jurisdictions. We've talked to Water Environment Services. We've talked to Oregon Health Authority. We've consulted with our city attorney. And so for that reason, we recommend tonight that the appeal be denied. I am here as staff to answer any questions. Our city attorney is here for any legal questions. And the appellant is also here tonight.

So thank you very much. Any questions? No. I thought the report was very thorough and very clear. Do you want to come up and say something? The appellants? So I know this is probably your first time, so just your name and city of residence for the record. That's all you need to do. And then turn the green button on. Josh will help you. You can turn the green button off on the other one.

Good evening, Mayor and members of the city commission.

So just, you can move it. It moves around. There you go.

Good evening, Mayor and the member of the State Commissioner. My name is Chaltu Akitra. I am the owner of the home located at 2282 Chanticleer Drive. I am a 21-year United States veteran and licensed healthcare professional. I am here tonight because I believe the system development charge assessment applied to my property is inconsistent, disproportionate, and does not accurately reflect the nature of the proposed use. My appeal rests on one simple principle, consistency. The city of Oregon's classified this property as residential R3 occupancy for both building code and zoning purposes. I accepted that classification. I paid for permit under the classification. Yet when it comes to time to assess system development charges, staff applied a rate methodology based on a commercial assisted living facility. They use that barely no resemblance to what I am proposing. An assisted living facility has commercial kitchens, full-time medical staff, institutional laundry, high volume visitor traffic, and a large delivery operations. My residential treatment home would have five residents and one or two caregivers per shift. It would not have no commercial kitchens. Currently, there is no modification to the existing buildings. Operating exactly like large family household. THE CITY CANNOT CLASSIFY THIS PROPERTY AS RESIDENTIAL FOR EVERY OTHER PURPOSES AND THEN APPLY COMMERCIAL BENCHMARK FOR SDC RATES. THIS IS NOT CONSISTENT. THAT IS A DEFINITION OF AN INCONSISTENT STANDARD. ON TRANSPORTATION, STAFF SELECTED ITE CODE 254 ASSISTED LIVING AS THE COMPLIANCE USED BECAUSE RESIDENTIAL TERMINAL HOME DOES NOT APPEAR IN THE ITE MANUAL. But the manual contains other categories that are far more accurate, reflecting small staff residential homes such as foster homes, group homes. The difference in infrastructure demand between a five-bed care home and an institutional assisted living facility is not marginal. It is substantial. Staff acknowledge in their own report that the level of required support at my facility will be less. If that is true, the assessment should be reflected. On sanitary swear, my property was assessed at 2.5 equivalent resident units, two and a half times the rate of the single family home currently is. This multiplier is designed for convalescent hospitals with commercial grade water consumption. Five residents sharing a home do not generate a convulsant hospital-level swear demand. A rate of 1.0 to 1.5 ERU would be far more appropriate to actual anticipated use. What I am asking for tonight is not a waiver. I am not asking to avoid my obligation. I understand and accept that there is a legitimate increase in demand over the single family use, and I am prepared to pay a fair and proportionate SDC. What I'm asking is that this commission exercise option two approve the appeal with amendments and direct the city's portion of the SDC be recalculated using a methodology that accurately reflect a small state licensed five residential care home operating in a residential structure. THE WATER ENVIRONMENT SERVICE PORTION IS OUTSIDE OF THE CITY'S COMMISSION AUTHORITY, AND I ACCEPT THAT. BUT THE CITY'S PORTION, APPROXIMATELY 8,496, SHOULD BE ASSESSED ON A FAIR RESIDENTIAL SCALE BASE. I ALSO WANT TO NOTE FOR THE RECORD THAT THE COMMISSION HAS AN OPPORTUNITY TONIGHT TO SET THIS RIGHT PRECEDENCE. Oregon Health Authority received over 100 residential care home application this year statewide compared to 10 prior years. These are home serving organs, most vulnerable residents, mental ill individuals, and this individual are better cared in home like environment and where they can be rehabilitated and integrated back to community. However, this commission treats this appeal will matter beyond this property. I respectfully ask for your support and thank you. Any questions?

Nope, okay. Thank you very much. Did you want to add anything? Okay, so we will... Do I need to close the public hearing? Sure. For deliberation? Sure. So I will close the public hearing and ask the Commission for their opinions. Any thoughts, anyone?

Well, my first question that I'm thinking about is, in Oregon City, do we have any other residential care homes? And what was the methodology for SDCs assessed on those homes? I think you said in the staff report that we've had several. And they were assessed using this methodology that's proposed?

Yes.

That's my understanding from the staff report. That's my understanding as well.

Yes, over the past year, we've had approximately 10 or so, which have been the same methodology was assessed.

So from a consistency standpoint, the methodology used in the past would be applied to this setting as well.

Yes, this site was assessed the same as all the others and yes.

Okay, thank you. And also the staff report talks about consultation with water and environmental services and so that we try to be consistent with our partners. I think the biggest issue for me is, again, while it's stated, this is a business. This is not a single family residential occupancy as we know it to be in the generic terminology. It's a business. People who moved into that subdivision to begin with were all living in single family residential homes. They were not operating businesses. doing anything other than having single family occupancy. So in changing the active use in the residential structure, it puts it, in my opinion, in a different category. And while I sympathize with the applicant, this is not unreasonable in my opinion. It's a business that has residential components of it. And I think that it is similar to other things that are occupying that area. I think, you know, people, I think she's correct, and she says it's probably better to be in a smaller environment, but, you know, you move into a development, and you don't expect a business next door to you. So I'm, you know, assuming they're going to be great neighbors, and there's not going to be any issues, but it's a business, and that's kind of where I come down to it.

Yeah, I... I don't find it inconsistent that it's for building code purposes or for zoning purposes that it's residential. But by our development code, it is a business. It's an allowed use in a residential zone, but that doesn't make it a residential use.

No.

So given with that information and the fact that we've been consistent in how we've dealt with similar situations before, I'm in favor of denying the appeal. Is that your motion? I move to deny the appeal.

Second.

Any other discussion?

Nope. Let's have the vote. Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Adam Morrow. Aye. Commissioner Rocky Smith. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff. Aye. Motion passes.

All right. Let's move on to item number 9, 9A. Is that Ms. Hart? Aye. Oh, okay, can we, we've just been asked for a slight recess. So let's take, let's come back at 20 after eight. I'm thrilled and excited to hear about the GOLD V cultural areas rule tech implementation. I'm glad you're excited. Well, I've got to be excited for the rest of them, you know. Somebody has to be excited. Thank you.

Well, good evening. Kelly Hart, Community Development Director. Before you tonight is mostly just an informational item on recent state rulemaking regarding cultural resources and tribal notification requirements. Just for a really quick, brief understanding, I'm going to talk about three different areas of the rulemaking. One of them results in us having to do some very minor code amendments. The other two are really just informational as opportunities that are now available, but really would require tribes and the city to work collectively together to identify the benefits, opportunities, and whether or not to pursue them. So one is something we have to pay attention to. The other two are just options that are available. So aren't we already doing that now? Short answer is yes, but with slight modifications. Slight modifications. Yes.

So you're going to explain what the possible implications are?

I mean, this is all a positive. It is all a positive. And so, yes, I will explain the differential. So on December 4th of 2025, the Land Conservation Development Commission adopted these rules as part of the statewide planning goal five. And this is really just to ensure that there is clear and available knowledge and notification provided to tribes and protects cultural resources. The new rules set procedures for land use notification and engaging with tribal governments when cultural resource designations and protections are proposed by the tribal governments. And there's also a requirement that's actually already adopted and effective as of the spring that requires as comp plan amendments or UGB expansions that we specifically include outreach to identified tribes at the beginning of our process. So really quickly for the first amendment, for the first item that actually requires city action is the tribal notification process when projects revolve around ground disturbance. So really quickly, it's basically anything that is a type two application or above for development that results in ground disturbance. ground disturbance, the state rulemaking has now established that we are required to provide notification to tribes during the public notice process. And so our recommendation is the state has put together a very simple, very clear, concise model code, but we would suggest adopting that model code and then offering to do kind of what we already do now. So what we already do now per our municipal code is require notifications to our identified tribes as part of the completeness review of applications. So this is earlier on in the phase of the application. By practice, what we actually do is once we complete a pre-application process is when we actually trigger the notification to tribes. The state law now says to do it later in the application process as part of the general public notification review process. And so what we would suggest doing is adopting the model code to demonstrate clear compliance with the state. But also we would be intending to reach out to every single tribe to identify whether or not they would also want us to retain our existing process that they would have notification earlier. So what this ultimately does is we provide code to meet state law, but we would actually potentially double the notification procedures for tribes as part of land use applications.

So are you talking about notifying all nine of them or just the ones that we think are affected?

So the state has a requirement there as part of, you might have to help me with the organization that does it, but they identify the tribes that have an interest in our jurisdiction that we actually recognize more than that. So we would plan on reaching out and notifying those that we recognize and already have on our notification list.

So what does the law define as interest? That's a great question. I know we planners we're just we're just so persnickety.

Mayor McGriff I don't know the answer to that. I would have to look into it further. You know I think because the city has an established practice of providing more robust notice I think that that will be sufficient and if The planning department also complies with the later part. I think we think it will be sufficient, but I don't know the answer to that question.

What do you think? I saw you move your microphone closer, so I didn't know if you wanted to say something. You don't have to say anything.

I was just going to be a little snarky about, now that we can't do public notification to our residents and no citizens can come in any residential land use, Or are we just noticing?

I was going to go there, but anyway, I was thinking the same thing because, you know, what if the Chippewa tribe, who's not been in this area that we are aware of, says, oh, I have an interest. I'm not trying to deny anybody from participating. As you know, my goal is everybody gets to participate. So... That's just how I feel about it. The word is very particular because I read it and I said, okay, well, what do they mean by interest? I mean, if I say, oh, I'm interested in something you're doing, is that interest? I don't know what interest is. Anyway, you don't have to look it up or do anything. It just came to my mind as a... Land Use Planner, and I said, what does that mean?

I think I would just go back to what Kelly and Kerry were saying. I mean, we've been doing this for several, several years.

We're way ahead of the game.

I think we have a pretty good process in relationships and contacts at the tribes that have historically had an interest in this area.

And I would say the reason that we can say that is that a year ago, I participated in a panel on how to get along with your tribal government and we found out that a lot of the cities at the league meeting really did not pay any attention in particularly in southern Oregon where there is a lot of I would say interest and they were not doing that and so I was explaining kind of what we did and it was kind of like oh you know we were we were an outlier at that time in terms of being more open in our process. So, I mean, I think we're doing the right thing. I don't have any issue with this at all. Just, you know, sometimes, you know, your guys' legal influence on me, you know, those words come into my head and I think, okay, legally, what does that mean? Because things have been adjudicated for less that I'm aware of. So thank you.

You're welcome. This is great. So yeah, we will provide notification based off of the state legal requirement while also maintaining our existing relationships with the tribes and doing the pre-application process as they wished and desire. So what that results in is us coming back to you sometime in late fall with a basic code amendment to adopt the model code basically into our code. And that's the only thing that we have to do as a result of these Goal 5 rulemakings. The other two items, which are cultural landscape designations and an optional local archaeological survey overlay, these are something that are collectively considered. We would recommend that we allow the tribes to step first and identify that they have an interest in pursuing something. And then we would work through perhaps a memorandum of understanding between our two organizations of how to move forward with that and be a participant in it. But basically the process for the cultural landscape designation This really is to allow for tribes to identify areas within the city that they find to be significant to them, and then we would have it as a designated area. It is a process that we would have to work through. Key component of this in terms of the land use side of the equation is that this process would not be subject to the 120-day rule. So we have time to work with them and make sure that we get it right. For the archeological survey overlay, I'll just be a little flippant and say pretty much our entire city would fall under that. And it would require, as part of moving forward with something like this, it would require pre-construction surveys rather than doing discovery protocols for archeological artifacts. So it would add an additional layer of regulation on a city that has lots of historical areas but we would basically still have this as a recommendation of this is something that that we hear from the tribes that they want to pursue we would do it at that point in time um so again just information that's what happened we'll come back to you in the fall sure so i just want to add for the record that uh

when we were doing the working with Wes on the work at Clackamas Park, they went through a process and did some art. We talked about it at the Wes board meetings that they were gonna be doing some archeological work and they were consulting with, I think a minimum of two of the tribes. So that was before your time. But again, we have a long history of participating in this and being quite open about those relationships and, you know, like I said, we are way ahead of the game. So thank you so much. Any questions? Pretty straightforward. All right. Thank you so much. Let's move on to item five, which is flavored nicotine ban follow-up. Excuse me, not number five, number B, 9B. I'm looking at five on a different part of the paper.

All right, mayor and commission, yes. So this is a follow-up from the work session we had on the 7th. During that work session, there was review of a letter that was drafted by Kerry Richter, the city attorney, that was for distribution by the mayor to neighboring cities in Clackamas County. basically encouraging Clackamas County to do a countywide ban for flavored nicotine. And there was consensus at that session to bring this forward for formal adoption with all members of the commission present. So we have brought just the letter forward for approval this evening. And then you'll see that there is a copy of said letter with a proposed red lines from Commissioner Marle that's been included in the, or placed on the dais for your review this evening. Do you want to add anything?

Sure. Mayor and Commission, as Ms. Trautman said, at the work session, we briefed the Commission on some various alternatives to moving forward with the flavor ban. And one of those alternatives was to formally ask Clackamas County to pursue a ban which we think would be more effective given that Washington County and Multnomah County are moving forward with their bans as well and so We understand that Clackamas County has not formally been asked this question. The idea was that we could garner more support from other cities first before we make that ask. And so when I drafted this letter, it wasn't intended to be the formal letter. It was intended to sort of presents a draft of some ideas. I understand that it's a little too Oregon City focused. And at the time, when I first drafted it, I didn't have the Clackamas County data, so it was very Oregon City focused. I understand that maybe we don't want to list all the mayors. I mean, maybe we don't want to keep our list to four mayors. Maybe we want to leave it open-ended and say interested mayors and city council, and then you can send it to every Clackamas County city.

So anyway, this was...

much more drafty than I think that I may have suggested during the work session. So I welcome changes and I'd be happy to make any changes you might identify.

I don't have any issue with listing the jurisdictions. My thought was we were going to send it to all of them.

Please. So one of the things that we discussed at the work session, and I'm kind of curious where we're at now, is not going immediately to the county and first starting with the cities around us, going to Gladstone and Milwaukee and whatnot, and asking for their support first with a time limit, a, you know, we'd like a response within X amount of days, and then sending a letter to the county from not only the city of Oregon City, but any cities that also were interested and in that letter specifically formally requesting that they ban flavored products. So that was kind of my thought rather than say, hey, let's send this out to the county and the cities. starting with the cities, garner some support, and then drafting a letter from all of the interested cities to the county.

We already have a support. As you know, Lake Oswego already has a resolution. Milwaukee has a resolution as well. So that's two we can tick off our list. I know that, I don't know if Happy Valley has a resolution, but I know that they, I watched it. If they had about a year ago, they had a presentation from their youth advisory commission, similar, very similar to the one that we had. And they were asking the city to, you know, move this forward. But I think that's a great idea that that was my, that was my thought that reaching out to the other cities. And I've mentioned this at the metropolitan mayor's meeting that we were going to get back to,

back to folks. Yeah, and I would request, well, I understand that they have passed resolutions. I wouldn't want to send a letter to the county on their behalf with that formal request. No, we need to go back and touch base with them.

Michael?

So I listened to the work session, and I'm looking at Commissioner Warrill's notes, and I've just got some thoughts. So First thing to Commissioner Wilson's comment, we wouldn't want to address this to Chair Roberts and the Board of Commissions. And I'm wondering why Wesleyan and Wilsonville aren't on there.

She said it wasn't a comprehensive list. I had mentioned in my comments that we would list all the, we'd have all the cities, including our friends at Johnson City. Okay, so we're going to list all the cities. Okay.

I think the letter should start with what we're requesting, which is in the last sentence. Of the second page? Yeah, but I think it should start with that. When they get the letter, they should know what we're asking for. And then as Commissioner Smith pointed out at the work session, including the Oregon City statistics make it look like our problem. So I would just pull all of the Oregon City statistics out. And only talk about the county statistics. Talk about the county statistics. Yeah. Which was shocking, to say the least. Disappointing, but I have to admit, I really wasn't shocked. Right. It's unfortunate, but I wasn't shocked to find out we're at the top or bottom of the list, however you want to put it. Yeah. But I like all of Commissioner Morrow's. edits and with those suggestions that I made, get the request to the top of the list and eliminate the Oregon State statistics. And I think this is the right way to go at it. It's similar to what C4 did a couple of years ago with common common goals related to a transportation package. And all of the cities have their logo on there. And I think that just carries a lot more weight if we do it that way. So I think we're going at this the right way.

Thank you. The other thing that I wanted to highlight from our work session is we were briefed on how difficult it would be to implement something alone. Not only how difficult it would be, but how costly it could potentially be for us as a small city, looking at the two largest counties in the state as something that we would like to follow, but certainly do not have the same resources to allocate towards something. So I agree that looking at a letter addressed toward all of the cities and trying to build that level of support prior to going to the county commission is the right path. If I may, could I just go through my red lines?

I thought they were fine. I don't think we need to go through page by page. So I know I just wanted to highlight a few.

Okay. So I don't think that we need to list every set. The reason why I underlined those two is because they just didn't include the first name like the other ones did for consistency. But if we're going to send it to all of them, I think it could just say Clackamas County City Council or mayors and city councils of Clackamas County. I think that that just makes the intro needlessly long. So that's what I would suggest. The reason why I crossed out that one on the first page is to what Commissioner Mitchell said is that we're trying to convince them that this is all of our problem, not just Oregon City's problem. And then I will skip through some of the smaller ones. And the last one is I underlined Clackamas County on the last page because what it says is, It says, Clackamas County should partner with the other two metro counties and similarly move forward with a flavor ban ordinance akin to what is in place in Washington and Multnomah counties. This will not only significantly contribute to curbing youth and young adult access to flavor nicotine products that will keep youth from other areas from seeking out these products in the only place that they are available in Clackamas County. And that's not a factual statement. It's a factual statement if we're saying that, if we're assuming that these people only engage in commerce within the metro urban growth boundary. But I'm not going to I don't believe that someone out in Forest Grove who's living under a ban is going to say, well, my only option is Clackamas County. So I would not include that because there are probably options in Yamhill County or Columbia. I don't know what the other neighboring counties are.

You're close. So those were my main suggestions there. I would say one of the things that I looked up today just because it crossed my mind is whether or not these products could be obtained through the mail and they cannot apparently. So I said, okay, they can't just, you know, call up and get something delivered by, you know, you know who. So that was good to know.

Okay, I was just going to say, so as far as that language, what if it were something more along the lines of seeking these products out in neighboring Clackamas County, because we are a neighbor to both Washington and that would be factually accurate.

I don't mind that.

Um, the other thing I wanted to add to commissioner Mitchell's point, which about, um, moving the request, I understand that, but it also in the, um, in the subject line, it says banning flavored tobacco and synthetic nicotine sales. And then right after it has the bolted, the adoption of an ordinance, banning the sale of all flavored tobacco products in Clackamas County. And so I think. I think I would prefer to keep the problem and then request, but maybe make it a little clearer with what's already there in the subject and the bolded line under that to clarify what the ask is. Because I think it's already there. It can just be strengthened while maintaining the logical flow of stating what the problem is before getting to what the solution is.

Yeah, I am. So she wasn't writing this in particularly in my style, but there's a certain sort of protocol that I like to have in my letter. Obviously that would not be the from first, it would be the to. And I think we can figure out a way. I would just like to have a little discretion to work with staff to make the formatting of the letter something that I'm comfortable with.

in my you know luckily there was no as start no prepositional phrases starting any sentences which was so nice so can i ask a follow-up question about the concern about oregon city specific on the top of the second page there's a discussion about um where miners are buying tobacco and that um are flavored um flavored nicotine is is that you want to remove that too because it's too Oregon specific I mean I kind of like it because it talks about you know how how the failure how the failure is occurring we maybe could get some we could maybe get some data from Clackamas County to change this data and make it Clackamas County focused rather than Oregon City but what do you think about that paragraph at the top of page two.

My comment on the side for me was I put, for example, that we're making a point and then this is an example. And I liked it there.

I guess I don't have the problem with the first part of it, but... comparing our sales to minors to the others troubles me a little bit you're talking about the second sentence yeah yeah well we know they have because our youth advisory commission has told us right in so many cases i don't know that we want to point out to everybody that 22 of our shops fails compared to 9 and 8 and 11.

It's a known, it's a fact.

I mean, it's, yeah.

I think the other thing, too, on the very last paragraph where it says Clackamas County should partner with it, that we would like Clackamas County to partner with the two other metro counties.

Or we are asking.

Yes. Or we request. We request, yeah, Clackamas County, we are asking or requesting Clackamas County get on the stick and do it.

I'm also just reading the first page right above where it says, the line above where it says the problem. It says the adoption of an ordinance banning the sale of flavored tobacco products in Clackamas County. This encompasses more than just tobacco products. Some of the synthetic nicotine products aren't derived from tobacco.

I also got asked about that other substance that you see. I don't know how you pronounce it. Kratom? Kratom, yes. Does that fall in this?

No, it's not tobacco. It's a...

concern for sure yes that's what i understand it's not a tobacco yeah i've had several people express that concern so commissioner uh wilson what you're saying then is we need to if we're going to refer to it as flavored tobacco we need to include the synthetic nicotine reference as well yeah yeah thank you

And you know, I'm too warm. Okay, I think we got all the comments. We'll fix it up. And so we've identified revisions. We have a consensus to move this draft, clean this up and move this forward to communications with the other cities.

Oh, excuse me. I'm sorry to interrupt.

Am I moving too quickly?

No, you're not. In a revised version this afternoon, it occurred to me that I didn't include in the request that they respond within 30 days. We talked about at the work session that we were going to ask cities to extend their interest. in joining and I put by contacting Ms. Troutman within 30 days. And I didn't say it had to be a formal council declaration, but just express interest in further discussions with Ms. Troutman within 30 days of the date of the letter. And I had forgotten to put it in the draft and it's my fault.

So. That's what I'm wondering. Wesleyan takes August off. So if they want to have a commission discussion of it, that wouldn't happen until September. And I don't know if any other cities takes August off.

Not that I'm aware of. I did speak to Mayor Bielostoski about this, and he said he was going to try to get some discussion about it on at least preliminarily on his next agenda, which would be next Tuesday. So I can follow up with him and see what's going on there. Hopefully see him shortly because we have another meeting coming up.

So regardless whether it's 30 days or 45 or whatnot, I would be very much interested in setting a time frame on this as we are communicating our imminent intent to formalize a request with the county. Right.

having sometimes received these. I think a little more time would be helpful. I mean, we're trying to build consensus. There's going to be a lot of questions. Some jurisdictions have taken actions. Some jurisdictions have talked about it. Some probably it's not even on their radar. Just trying to bring staff up to speed, to talk to their commission, to even bring them something. I guess I know we want to move, but I do wonder if maybe a little more time, especially over the summer, in order to build the biggest group we could would be beneficial. I just, because I agree with Commissioner Minn, I mean, some of them might not even be meeting over the summer. And, you know. What time frame would you suggest? I would say 60 days. I mean, that gives you two months.

I like 45. I think 60 is fine. This is the same thing that I brought up, which is not only that they may not, councils may not be meeting, but even if they are still meeting, that doesn't mean that all of the councilors or mayors are going to be in attendance, which was the case at our work session when there were only three of us there. for a variety of reasons because it's summertime. So I think that 60 days seems appropriate.

So even for us, right, it was brought forward. We took it to a work session. We're bringing it here. You know, I don't know if the commission wants to see the final version or you just want staff to work directly with the mayor. You're comfortable that we have the corrections and we all understand them. I mean, right there is, you know, three meetings going on, four for us.

I'm fine with 60.

Okay.

I will be bugging them in the book.

And then would the commission like us to staff to work directly with the mayor? Or do you want to see the final version again before it's sent out?

I'd like to see it. I'd like to see it. And I suggest instead of saying 60 days, put an act date. 60 days sounds like here's your deadline. We'll come up with something. By September 15th or something. Sounds a little less harsh to me anyway.

I'll make a point of getting together with you guys right away so that we can move this along.

Well, I'll put it on a commission.

I mean, for the draft, I'll go come and work with Alex and say, okay, this is good, and then bring it.

Okay.

So I guess just clarifying, you know, the mayor wants to kind of put it in her voice a little bit. Commission's fine with staff working with her to do that. And then once we've got that, we'll put it back on an agenda. Commission will see the final version. We'll know what date that is. And we'll just add in plus 60 whenever that goes out. That'll be the, you know, our next meeting is in August.

Come on down. Or come on up. Yes, you. Moving on to item 9C.

good evening mayor and commissioners uh before you right now are the alterations to the designs of the flag that were requested at a prior meeting um the commission had requested a few different looks at some options namely making the uh green stripe at the bottom uh thicker making the white stripe the same thickness as the green stripe and then also playing with the uh keeping some stripes, removing some stripes, and so forth. So we've got three variants for you, and then also some slight color palette changes as well. Just in response to there have been some comments about the color palette being similar to some of the other city flags in the region, so just play with the colors a little bit as well.

Okay, let's have some comments. Let's start at the other end. Going to Adam first.

That's not the end. No offense, Commissioner. I appreciated the public comment we received about this, about just what was most popular, but at the same time, I think looking outside of the options that were given, what seemed to the most popular was the AI slop that people were putting in the comments. So I just wanted to acknowledge that. But at the same time, I feel that variant two with the color palette on the left is what I would be in favor of.

Every time I look at it, I have a different opinion.

Stop looking at it.

I know. I read the letter from the citizen letter that commented about the Falls piece and how that was a main... I feel like we did talk about it a little bit, if I can't remember in detail. But I do know that at least with this design, we talked about the... opinion that the tribes believe that this was reminiscent of a fishing platform which does it does have some connection to the falls but I think I mean if we wanted to add a component of the falls then that was a big public piece I think that could be done but

I thought one of the comments was that by adding the green stripe with the white stripe, it kind of symbolizes the falls and then the promenade along it. So there is some with variant two. Right.

Also wanted to point out that this was not an official vote. It was advice and comment. Right.

I kind of like the lighter blue as opposed to the dark blue. And yet I was like, well, there's no version of the light blue and the light green. There's the dark and the light and the dark and the light, which, I mean, I'm sure the part of that is having a contrast. I mean, I lean more to the ones on the right in terms of the color and... i kind of thought that the first and third are my favorite but the sec i mean all all three of them work in my mind um i like the simplicity of variant three with just the just ending it with the the focus the green um but i i can go i mean i'm pretty open to it all of them

Thank you. After reviewing the submissions, the flags, pretty immediately was drawn to the same option as Commissioner Mario variant two, the option on the left. I think that by... Is it this one or that? This one. The one on the left, yeah. So the first one there. I think that by getting rid of the horizontal white line, it just kind of loses a piece of character on the flag. And I think that this is...

yeah it's it's unique it's it's reminiscent of the fishing platform kind of everything we've talked about i i am very strongly partial to variant two well and honestly if you look at that the what yeah as you were saying the white line following from the left to the right to the to the elevator and down and then across that's the balls too with the platform so The blue represents the water and the sky.

I came in tonight with a slight preference for three over two, but it was very slight. And hearing the comments from my fellow commissioners, now I got a slight favor of two. But definitely the colors on the left, to me, the blue is just too washed out on the right. And I don't remember. My color theory, whether it's tone or intensity, but the ones on the right, the intensity doesn't match. The green is very intense and the blue is not. So variant two on the left works for me.

My first choice was variant three on the left. And my second choice was variant two on the left. And the reason I like three is because I still go back to the town square idea and the idea that we've got lots of those. I liked that. Once you talked about that, it was like, oh yeah.

But I also, and I varied, but yeah, if you don't know what she's referencing, I was referencing the city's history of starting out with city parks as public squares, which I thought, I mean, that was not the intent in this design, I don't think, but having essentially a green square as, as representing that history. But then when we see the strip along the bottom, I see that as our public squares and the promenade.

Yep.

And so to me, that's very symbolic in the green, two parks and multiple specific things with the parks.

So I like it. Looks like we've got a consensus for variant two on the left.

I think technically we need a vote from the commission in order to make this.

Make it so.

So.

Who would like to make the motion? We need to come back with an ordinance. Well, we need to make the motion that we're going to pick that one and that we've been coming back with an ordinance.

I move to go through with variant two, left option, creation of an ordinance to adopt that as the city flag. Second.

Commissioner Scott Wilson. Aye. Commissioner Adam Marl. Aye. Commissioner Rocky Smith. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff. Aye. Motion passes.

All right. We'll have that at our next meeting. I have a question.

Sure. Could you tell us when you expect to have the seal? You really had to push it.

We need to give him a little bit of a break.

It depended on what you did with the flag tonight. If we had to bring back another one, it was just going to be a white flag.

I thought as much.

I am working on the seal. It has just been a challenge with the perspective change to get it right, but it hasn't been on the front burner with the flag and then some other projects, but it'll be coming soon.

Thank you. All right, let's move right along. Do we have any communications from the city manager or the assistant city manager?

Can I ask Chief Davis to give a quick update? Mayor, Commission, good evening. I want to talk to you real quick and get direction if the commission is interested in moving forward with an ordinance on electric bikes, electric scooters, and mobility. I can go into a lot of the details if you guys want. House Bill 4007 was passed this year in the short session and went into effect in June. Some of the key things were defining a powered microability device, talking about different classifications of bicycles and head year and when ages when they have to wear helmets.

I thought the law already said that they had under age 16 or something, they had to be wearing helmets when they were operating.

Correct. There were some changes to now 14 for certain, like a class one bicycle. And it also changed the age for electric scooters. So there was some changes there. It also had a section in there that gives local government the option to regulate by ordinance, additional rules. So that's what we've seen our cities around us doing. Camby is producing, proposing one tonight with their council. Happy Valley and Westland have already implemented theirs. Essentially, they defined the laws that were passed in House Bill 4007 specifically to like age restrictions, classifications of the different vehicles, the helmet laws. And then they incorporate, which isn't in the House Bill, some prohibited dangerous riding behaviors like riding wheelies, that kind of stuff. I've seen that. Yeah, we're seeing it quite a bit. Parks gets daily complaints about these vehicles. Most of them are e-motorcycles, which are 100% illegal, and several of our staff have stopped them. We're trying to educate the kids, educate the parents of the dangers of these things. I stopped one just last week that was riding... He was riding with the traffic. He was 13 years old. Riding an e-motorcycle in between two cars. It's super dangerous. He wasn't driving erratic or anything like that. I stopped him. It was weird. He had been stopped before. He had been given a citation. He had also been in that crash with another juvenile. And we're grateful, but it was a very serious crash that both of them are lucky that they weren't killed. And that was earlier, either this year or last year.

Were they wearing a helmet?

When I stopped? Yeah. Yeah, he was wearing a bicycle helmet on a motorcycle that was not strapped. So we're seeing the dangers. They're just the kids don't understand. One of the other things that they're also adding in there that isn't in the law is that guardians can be cited if they're allowing the kids. So that's one thing that we would like to explore. So with that, if I have the consensus, I'd be more than happy to bring something back as an ordinance, very similar to the other cities that would address that. I've also talked to the Ms. Richter about the possibility of, I don't even know if she's exploring it, if we could seize one under safekeeping, if we can't get ahold of a parent, if they're under a certain age, because if this 13 year old would have took off, give him a citation, right? drives off and gets hit by another, it's by a car, right? What's the liability the city then has? So we're exploring that, more to come on that, but if the consensus is, I'll bring forward an ordinance very similar to Cambie, Westland, and Happy Valley.

Yeah. If you could just describe real quick, just for everybody, there is a difference between kind of e-bikes with pedals. Correct. Versus...

motorcycles right in the my understanding is the motorcycles are not allowed on public roadways correct they're 100 not allowed they would need to be licensed they need to be insured um they fit the definition of an off-road vehicle so they can't even be on the road those are the ones that we're seeing that the kids are driving more erratic more dangerous putting themselves at risk putting motorists at risk I mean, when you're driving down the road, you're not expecting to see these kids or individuals on these things. So we're trying to, we're taking the education approach. We contact the kids when we can get them stopped or located. We're also then educating the parents and that's what we're gonna continue to do. But if that doesn't work, We've had one officer that's talked to a parent multiple times, and the child continues to ride that. So with that, we want to be able to have some sort of enforcement mechanism if we get to that point.

And I guess I asked Chief Davis to bring this up under city manager's report. I feel like this is one, we've got really good models from other jurisdictions. This is really giving us some enforcement tools. And so if the commission's comfortable, instead of coming, writing an ordinance, bringing it to a work session, coming back for adoption, we kind of just wanted to have a discussion tonight and then hopefully be able to just bring it back as an ordinance to be considered by the commission rather than going through the work session process. And then if the commission's comfortable, we are seeing these activities and numbers pick up, especially as the summer goes on, we would propose to adopt it as an emergency ordinance so we can put it into effect right away rather than two readings in 30 days after that. That's kind of what we were hoping to get tonight was a little bit of guidance if that seemed reasonable.

I'm getting regular communications from people about the parks, you know, getting run off a sidewalk. I see a lot of them in the Gaffney Lane area. That's where I see a lot of them. It's just like all of a sudden here they are. But the other thing is, is this ordinance in any way going to, I really think that the parents need to get excited and find because they're the ones that are letting them do it.

I think, yeah, I think we could determine that by talking to the parents if that's the case. I think we might be seeing some of these kids that have these that their parents at work and maybe are sneaking them out. And they don't know. Right. So, I mean, we would like to use our discretion. We would like to educate both the kids and the parents. I know that Gardner has outlawed all scooters. and bicycles and stuff like that that are electric. They don't even want them at the school. So they made that rule last year because they were seeing the dangers of kids riding them in the underage and stuff. So working with our schools and try to educate everyone of the dangers. I just don't want to go to some parent and say your kid was hit and killed because they were out there trying to have fun on something that's probably pretty fun, but it shouldn't be on the road. There's places to ride these and they're not on our city streets or our sidewalks or our parks.

And then the other thing I have a question about is that we need to do something about, not that we can enforce anything, but we need to get information out to the retailers that are selling these things. I mean, it's just information. I'm not saying we have to go door to door, but, you know, we can make... whatever we pass available.

I think a lot of these are probably getting off of Amazon and big box stores that, you know, they're being advertised as off-road vehicles, yet kids and friends and stuff are doing them, and so we could certainly try.

We can only try. I mean, I look at this in the same way with these companies that dump these pods on the street, you know, at an intersection, or they're just putting them anywhere they want, and people in the community don't you know they think they have a right to throw one of those things in the street and you know until somebody well they already have run into one and you know a few years back and because they had it in a nurse they couldn't see the car coming around and because they just yeah anyway thank you yes i think you've got a consensus from us so let's move i do actually have a couple quick questions so

The ordinances we're talking about, it's not an outright ban. It's about restrictions on age and speed.

It's following the current laws, but it's also with the commission's direction. I would like to add, similar to Canby and Happy Valley and Westland, the dangerous driving behaviors are like riding wheelies. reckless driving, riding multiple, you know, children on them, right? I'd like to add that in there. That's not necessarily in the house bill. They're very common. Everyone's using those. So we could stop and talk to those kids and explain the dangers of those and then talk to the parents too. So if we do the warnings and they continue to do this, or if we've done it multiple times, then maybe enforcement is the way to go. And that's through a citation.

My favorite the other day was a child on the handlebars, a child driving the thing and one holding, he was standing up and the other one sitting on the seat holding onto that person. And I was just like, and that was on Malala Avenue. I just literally almost flipped out when I saw that.

Yeah, they're wearing bicycle helmets right around cars, and it's just those aren't designed for the... Only one of the three are wearing a helmet.

The one on the handlebars.

I appreciate it. I ride an e-scooter to work every day, and I wear a full-face motorcycle helmet. That's wild to me, seeing some of these kids. Mine doesn't even go that fast. Seeing some of these kids flying at, you know, 30 miles an hour plus... and wearing no helmet yeah or a bicycle helmet at best and and i think that there's just this lack of uh education understanding on parents like this is not a bicycle this is effectively a motorcycle yeah um yeah okay thank you thank you yes go ahead i i i did not hear it at the beginning did you say that this was requested by the police department

So we've seen a lot of complaints and I know that other cities around us and I've heard from, I've got emails from the mayor saying, hey, this is going on in other jurisdictions around us. So I am in favor of this just for an enforcement tool because we could cite potentially a parent for failure to supervise, but that only goes to 15. So if you have a 16 year old, which we're not, I don't think seeing as many 16, 17 year olds, we have no enforcement mechanism on a guardian. So yes, that is to make, The city, the police department is also recommending this move for you. Okay.

Commissioners, any? Sounds good. Okay. All right. Are we ready to adjourn? Okay. We adjourn this meeting and we will go into executive session. Thank you, Jared.