City Council - Regular Meeting

Good evening. Today is Wednesday, September 16th, 2026. And I'd like to call to order the regular, one of the two regular city commission meetings for the month of September. And we'd like to have the roll call please. Commissioner Adam Morrow.

Here. Commissioner Rocky Smith. Here. Commissioner Scott Wilson is excused. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Here. And Mayor Denise McGriff. Present.

Right. Next on our agenda, we have the, um, flag salute. If you are able and feel up to it, please stand and join us in the flag salute. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all. And while I'm up here, we have our new flag. Yeah, there you go. There we go. All right, tonight on our agenda we have two proclamations and I will go through those. So all of you know that for those who are fans, 60 years ago we had A specific situation happened in the universe. So in 1964, a freelance writer named Gene Roddenberry created Star Trek. And whereas on September 8, 1966, the original series, Star Trek debuted on NBC, whereas Star Trek followed the voyages of the Starship Enterprise and its many incarnations, a space exploration vehicle. The mission of the Enterprise was to explore strange new worlds, seek out new life and new civilizations, and to boldly go where no one has gone before. And whereas Star Trek has forever changed the genre of science fiction as we know it, whereas Star Trek has featured a multi-ethnic crew, and whereas Star Trek canon includes original series, nine spin-off TV series, and a film franchise that doesn't seem like it's ever going to end, Whereas Gene Roddenberry was the first television writer to receive a star on the Walk of Fame, and whereas Star Trek is noted for its cultural influence beyond the works of science fiction, and whereas 2026 marks the 60th anniversary of the original airing of Star Trek, many celebrations are still being held across the great expanse of the Federation. Now be it therefore be resolved that the City Commission of Oregon City does hereby proclaim September 2026, and that would be star dates 26668.5 to 26747.9 at Star Trek Month. And we call upon all of our citizens of Oregon City to join their fellow citizens across the Star Trek universe in recognizing and participating in the special observance. And of course, the famous saying, live long and prosper. And we will sign this on the 16th day of September. There's all sorts of stuff still going on. And then the other one we want to acknowledge is that September 15th through October 15th is Hispanic Heritage Month. And in honor of Hispanic Heritage Month, the City of Oregon City is pleased to celebrate the Hispanic and Latino and Latina X and Latinas community throughout our city. And National Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated in the United States from September 15th to October 15th. The observance was introduced in 1969 as Hispanic Heritage Week under President Lyndon B. Johnson, and it was expanded by President Ronald Reagan in 1988 to cover a 30-day period. Whereas Hispanic Heritage Month celebrates the history, traditions, and culture of the Hispanic, Latino, Latina, and Latinx residents of Clackamas County, admire the invaluable ways they contribute to our city by bringing a rich diversity and growth to our community and whereas we strive to continue to commemorate this month by recognizing and dedicating ourselves to working together to address the challenges that still face hispanic and latino latina latinx populations now therefore the city commission of the city of oregon city does proclaim september 15th through october 15th as hispanic heritage month and we call upon the citizens of oregon city to join their fellow citizens across the united states and recognizing and participating in the special observance. And as typical, our library generally has literature and information about these special commemorations so that our residents and users of our library will learn more about these particular areas. Next on our agenda, we have some presentations. AND I'D LIKE TO CALL UP THE REPRESENTATIVES OF THE OREGON CITY GLADSTONE PARTNERSHIP FOR, OH, WAIT A MINUTE. SORRY. JOHNNY, I FORGOT YOU. DIDN'T WANT TO PISS YOU. SO WE HAVE ONE CITIZEN COMMENT. AND, JOHNNY, SO IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO COME UP TO THE TABLE, THERE IS A GREEN BUTTON ON THAT MIC, AND WHEN YOU PRESS THE GREEN BUTTON, YOU WILL BE ON. SO JUST NAME AND YOUR CITY OF RESIDENCE. and we received your correspondence and we appreciate your being here. Oh, thank you.

And thank you city commissioners and mayor for allowing me to speak. My name is Johnny Bags. I live off of South White Lane, one of the few remaining farms off of Central Point Road. Let's see, I've created a memorandum for you guys, but the issue is the fact that my family has been living on a farm off of White Lane for almost 50 years, and we have seen how the farmlands have pretty much been redeveloped into residential neighborhoods off of Central Point Road. And off of Central Point Road, there's an intersection off of Partlow and South McCourt Road that has not been updated in decades that doesn't suit the needs of the residents. as in there's very few sidewalk accessibilities, no crosswalk signs or anything. And from that, and also there's people's properties that obscure a good section of line of sight between traffic. So a lot of cars get really close to the roads than they should. And The issue is that even a few days ago, we saw a cyclist got hit by a car, but it's almost common to see people have a lot of near misses off that intersection. I don't know particularly what the bureaucracy is and the standards and processes, but we're just addressing the claim is that I think it's time that that intersection has some kind of development to meet the needs and safety for the residents around that area, whether it could be while you have civil engineers that could come from that, but whether it could be some sort of warning lights or whatnot, I'm not too sure what would be particularly the best option. We've talked about a four-way stop, traffic lights, some kind of pedestrian crosswalk marking lights or something, or even a roundabout. that would be even more ideal although probably a little bit too much but the issue is still at hand is the fact that that intersection and from that road it used to be a farm road a lot of people going through it and it has not had any sort of civil engineering development from it as long as i've lived there for almost 50 years and my family we've lived there for almost 50 years so nothing's been done and we're just seeing, because of the more residents and the more traffic, we're just seeing a lot more hazards and near misses and just requesting if it's possible that we could have some kind of development to increase the safety of that intersection. And that's pretty much it. Thank you.

What I wanted to do, and I wrote it down, We would like you to get a hold of Audrey Meeker. She is the staff person in charge of the Transportation Advisory Committee. We have one for the city. And as I was talking to you when we were sitting there together, one of the things that will be important for us to know whether who has the jurisdiction of those intersections that you discussed, because unfortunately, even though it looks like it's in the city, some of those streets are not, as I mentioned, are not ours. That doesn't mean that we can't take a look at stuff that's going on there. If there, you know, we could, the TAC can look at I HAVE STAFF LOOK UP AND SEE WHAT THE ACCIDENT COUNTS ARE THERE, ANYTHING ELSE THAT WOULD BE INVOLVING THOSE ROADS, AND IF WE HAVE TO GET CLACMAS COUNTY INVOLVED, WE CAN DO THAT BECAUSE WE HAVE CORPORATIVE AGREEMENTS. THE OTHER THING I MENTIONED WAS WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE IN OUR TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS PLAN, AND OBVIOUSLY I DON'T HAVE THAT MEMORIZED. we have an outline of where the city is going in terms of the next five to 10 years about where improvements are going to be. But that doesn't mean that this is no less important than anything else. I WAS JUST TRYING TO LOOK UP TO SEE WHEN THEY MEET. I THINK THEY JUST MET ON SEPTEMBER 10TH FROM WHAT I CAN TELL BY THE INFORMATION, BUT THEY MEET ONCE A MONTH. I THINK THEY'RE STILL MEETING ONCE A MONTH, BUT WE'LL HAVE YOU GET A HOLD OF AUDREY SO YOU CAN GET SCHEDULED TO COME TO THEIR MEETING, AND I THINK IT WOULD BE HELPFUL IF YOU HAD some of your other, like your parents or some of the other neighbors around would be very helpful, but it's a citizen committee and this is exactly what they do. They will investigate kind of what's going on with that. And the public work staff is there at their meetings. So you'll get some instant information like right away. No, thank you.

Thank you.

Do we have any other slips? Okay, anybody else? Nope, okay. Let's have the Oregon City Gladstone Partnership for Youth presentation coming up. I see Anne and Mary Ellen. It's always nice to see you again, Anne. Thank you. You too.

And currently I have on my Oregon City Together hat. Okay. Because I did want to say one thing while I had a moment. And that is, again, my name is Ann Haines. I'm coalition director for Oregon City Together. And with me is Mary Ellen Winterhalter. She's the facility, facilities, facilitator for our Communities That Care project with Oregon City Gladstone Partnership for Youth. But I wanted to, on behalf of Oregon City Together and all of our members, we'd like to commend the commission for your leadership and advocacy in support of a flavored tobacco ban in Clackamas County. It's an important step toward protecting youth and strengthening prevention efforts across our community. We look forward to hosting some of the members of the Youth Advisory Commission and some of you if you're available to join us for our October meeting on the 20th to offer further assistance on how we might be able to help with this advocacy. So I just wanted to take a moment and say that while I was here before we go into the Oregon City Gladstone partnership.

We appreciate it and we will be asking for your help.

Absolutely. We are happy to help. I just saw some data today that we pulled that's going to be presented at this meeting that shows that vaping is a huge problem. as we already knew that, but now we have some good research that backs that up. Perfect, thank you. That's just the kind of information we need. A lot of you probably know about the Oregon City Gladstone Partnership for Youth, but just as a review, a couple of years ago we were We were notified of a great funding opportunity through SAMHSA, a federal grant that for the strategic prevention framework grant, which is a proven evidence-based prevention process to build up community prevention efforts. And of course, Oregon City Together has been around for a long time, but Gladstone does not have a prevention coalition. And so we decided to make a proposal to the federal government where we brought Gladstone into this effort and build a really bigger prevention system, maybe even help them stand up their own prevention coalition. And the way we're doing that is using the Communities That Care process, which is an evidence-based prevention process. And so we had a couple of hiccups because the federal funding as you all know kind of went away for a minute and then it came back and went away again and so we were able it seems pretty steady right now so we were able to hire Mary Ellen to come in and be our CTC facilitator and take Robin's place who left and we have really we also hired our new data research firm about six months ago So we have just been chugging away at gathering data and getting through this process. And so we're at a phase right now where we could really use your help and the community's help to determine our priority risk and protective factors. So I'm going to let Mary Ellen talk a little bit more about that.

Good evening, Mary Ellen Winterhalter, Oregon City resident and longtime passionate advocate for youth. So I am here very proud to be a part of this new organization that is the Oregon City Gladstone Partnership for Youth. As Ann just mentioned, it is based on a Communities That Care grant, which is a program out of University of Washington with long longitudinal studies of effective research and effective testing programs that they know work to help prevent youth problem issues and create stronger supports for youth opportunities so we are it's a five-phase process and we are smack dab in the middle right now we are at the beginning of phase three and the kind of exciting part this is the developing the community profile so this is where we are looking at all of the data that we could pull for the last six months actually It's data from the last couple of years, but we've been pulling it with our subcontractor. They've been looking at it for the last several months throughout this summer. So that analysis is just coming through as of today. Actually, we received it in an email this afternoon. So we will be having a big data reveal coming up on September 28th. And that's really what we wanted to share with you tonight is an invitation to join us. learn at where the issues really are, where the needs are greatest. Once we have this data, we will be prioritizing those greatest needs. And then we will be developing, we'll first be looking at resources that are already in the community. They're built to address those needs. And then we'll be creating a plan in the next phase to how we will address the greatest issues that are facing our youth today. So this is kind of like I said, we're in the middle of it. It's deep. We've been very, very busy on our little bit of a roadshow. And when we get this prioritization of these greatest needs developed, we will come back out and we want to let everybody know what we're going to be working towards for the future for our youth. So I hope you will be able to join us. It is September 28th at the Development Services Building at Clackamas County. The meeting will start at four, but we'll do a little networking at 3.30. If you can come early, we'll have some cookies and coffee. But we would love to have anybody who can come from the commission. We have a invitation there in front of you that has a QR code to RSVP. And we would love to answer any questions.

So we're not getting any... You just gave us the teaser about some new statistics. Yeah, we're not doing that yet. We just literally... Give us a hint. You've now baited us. Well, at least me. They literally just came today. I want to know one thing. So tell us one thing.

What?

What you were saying about... The vaping?

Oh, so I didn't read it all, but I did take a look at Oregon City's outline, and there were some really interesting things. The substances that were listed that kids felt like they, that were an issue and or were easy to access were alcohol, marijuana and vaping. And then there was lots of protective factor things around family structure and family health. that we could maybe address. And this is literally just raw data that we're not yet knowing if these are our priorities. But these are the things that kind of bubbled up. And then about the schools in Oregon City, there was some concern about bullying and then and this huge amount of strength. I think it was like 91% of kids said that they had an adult in the school that they could go talk to, which was super because that's really a great protective factor. So yeah, it was really good, but I've only- That's okay. That's very helpful. Yep. But you have to come see because once you come learn all this, we'll give you a chance to vote on these priorities and let us know how you feel and what direction we should go in.

So how does this new work dovetail with what the fantastic program that already exists with Oregon City Together? That's a great question.

I think it will definitely inform the way we move forward, obviously, and it probably will reinforce things we're already doing, which I think is great. There certainly was also some information there about mental health, which, you know, we're covering in the enhancement grant work. So to me, it looks like we're kind of on track, but it's sort of be sort of a interesting, you know, new direction maybe, but also just feeling like we're getting some validation of what we're already doing. Because it's definitely data from all different areas. We got some law enforcement data. We got student health survey data. We got some parent data. Attendance in school type behavioral things. So it's a great, it's a very comprehensive look at what's going on in the community.

That's great. And the communities that care, the CTC process, it has... a very, very scripted milestones and benchmarks, kind of a step-by-step process of how we can build both of these coalitions into something really, really strong for both communities. So I think it will also impact OCIE Together in that way that we will keep adding to both communities with this work. And it's intended to keep going. It's a five-year grant, but it's a process that will just repeat itself as you go through the process of getting oriented, data collection, creating a plan, and then immediately implementing and evaluating the plan and continuing on.

So I'm also assuming there'll be, you know, one of the questions we always like to ask, I mean, I say we collectively, is, you know, what does success look like?

Well, the success would be we choose our priority risk and protective factors, and then we decide where the gaps are in the services in the community already, and then we choose programs and practices and we implement them. And in the implementation of those, we make goals, right? If one of them is to... help parents or families with their management, then we have to have some kind of goals that we look at. And then we evaluate it afterwards. We have an evaluation company that will help us with all of that. Set goals and then check it every year and see how it's going. And then we recalibrate. If it's not doing what we want, then we find another evidence-based. And it's all evidence-based programs that we'll be implementing. Yep.

That makes sense. Success will depend on each and every goal. We want to see a reduction of usage of all of those things.

Decreased risk factors, increased protective factors. That's really the goals. Questions, gentlemen?

That's great. Glad to see it. Thank you so much. Thank you. And I presume there's some of our fabulous supporters of the program in the audience. So would you just raise your hand so we know that you're here? Brian raised one finger. So I saw the one finger. Okay. All right. Awesome. Thank you. Next, we have courthouse redevelopment update.

I'm gonna go ask him to give us his emails.

Good evening, Mayor and Commissioners, Seth Henderson, and my information is on file. So when we last met in March, we made the commitment to come back in about six months at the end of the fall as we were wrapping up the entitlement process. And tonight I'm gonna give you an update on where we sit today. I've got a lot of good news, some challenging news, and some things that I really appreciate your input on. So if it's acceptable to you as I go through this, as long as I take the mic along, can I go stand behind Jacob so I can point at that screen at some elements? Great. This should look very familiar. So we have been building off each presentation, adding information as we've progressed through this development. So I'm gonna fly through the first few slides pretty quickly. The only reason they're in here is to remind you of what the baseline is. What did we submit to the county? What did we review in our pre-app? What have we presented to you to show that, again, we're not moving the target. committed to developing specifically what we told you we would. Not a lot to talk about here. I think by now you guys are probably fairly familiar with what exactly the mixed use narrative is and what we are trying to achieve. All the information about the process is still up on the county website if you wanna go back and look at it in your free time in the middle of the night. I did that. There's all the information regarding the borings that we talked about. Just confirming that that building does indeed sit on 10 feet of fill and either side of that building basically drops off. So it's sitting on a basalt outcropping right there. information about SHPO, State Historic Preservation Office, what they wanted us to preserve, which I don't know if you had a chance to see the giant crane that was pulling all the statues off the building. We are coordinating with the Museum of the Oregon Territory. We're going to put one of the eagles up there in front. And then the other components we will have in the new Liberty Plaza.

What do you mean up front? What do you mean, up front it moves?

So if you know right where the ADA parking is, that first row of parking right in front of that, there's about eight feet deep of plantings right there. Yeah, right by the building.

You got it. There's an angle right there.

Yep, and so went and met with the director and staff there, and we talked about the size of the eagle and where it would make sense. They're working on a plaque that will show a picture of the courthouse and some of the history of the courthouse to put with it. So this is what we submitted to the county. Again, should be fairly familiar. Liberty Plaza, the building, underground parking, the things that specifically the businesses downtown asked for and retail on Main Street. So those were the four things. I believe this is what was included in our pre-op. So same as what we gave to the county. The only difference is kind of behind the building we were looking at, is there a way to do some kind of recreational area or what can we do with that space as we've thinned up the building to kind of increase the size of Liberty Plaza, have a really efficient double loaded corridor and open up some of the view corridors downtown. All right, and then we got to the schematic design. You'll now see, again, it's very familiar. We're just adding some additional detail to what Liberty Plaza could be, the parking lot, in front of McMinneman's has now extended a bit. So I think we're adding about 14 stalls there. And then where we have the rec area, that's all storm water now. So the previous site was not treating any of this rainwater before it went to the storm system. So we are now addressing all of that for the site. And this is our entitlement submission. So I'm just gonna step up with the mic here and just quickly run through a couple of things. Thank you. So you can see, these are all the existing stalls. So you can see the additional stalls we've added. The previous transformer was pole mounted. So we now have a pad mounted transformer. You can see where the trash room is. and where we'll be staging it. We had to coordinate that, the ramp for the different elevations, the stormwater planner, Liberty Plaza, and this kind of shows the current layout. So there's gonna be a slide that I'd really like you guys input on, which is some of the ideas around what Liberty Plaza could be. Scott has been great to work with and I appreciate him being here this evening. We can break retail up into three separate areas that you can see. This entrance to the building is for the residential side, so we tried to minimize the residential use on the first floor and increase the size of the retail there.

Do you have a pointer on that thing? Is there a little red dot or whatever? I think that might be easier for the... We don't have a red dot? Okay, sorry.

Sorry, no such luck. So I think that is most of what's included in the entitlement package that we submitted. So hopefully you agree this is very similar to what we've been working against for the last year and a half. Okay, let's talk about Liberty Plaza. So we've sat down with Scott and Tom. We've also gone before Brack. Looking at this space, when you guys were discussing Clackamitt Park during the work session, there was a very astute comment, which was, are we trying to do a little bit of everything in each park Or should we have parks that are really for a specific focus use that makes sense? So when we went to BRAC, they said, well, what about a water feature? And we go, okay, well, water feature, long-term maintenance costs, eventually it breaks like the fountain that used to be here, and then you shut it off. The other thing that was brought up was a kids' play area. And so if you think about how Liberty Plaza is used today, it's specifically for events at first city celebration trick-or-treat tree lighting and so what we've shown here is these are your standard 10 by 10 tents those squares so you can kind of see how they lay out We've added some additional lighting. The property line is right about here. So retail, we've got some seating outside to try to activate that area. Back here in the corner, that is a stormwater planner, because now we have to treat all the runoff that currently is not being treated from the hardscape. Where are you putting the Christmas tree? So we actually have a location for where the tree would go. We've got multiple seating areas. Everybody has seen, and this joke's probably getting old by now, but everybody's seen carolers in the middle of the pouring rain, and it's really hard for them to be merry. But this is a covered stage. We also have electrical... We also have an ADA ramp. We also have access for if bands are bringing their stuff in, so access off the back area. And then you'll see all the historical elements that we have as backdrop and around it. And then we also have retaining the existing trees that are there today.

Jacob, can you please move the floating box?

Okay, so I'm gonna move forward to a rendering and then I'm happy to go backwards so we can have a discussion on this. So now you can see how that space kind of opens up. The brick that you see, that is the Liberty Theater brick that currently exists in Liberty Plaza. We're gonna take those off and wrap the planners so we keep those there. Comments, thoughts?

Well, I would just say that, yes, we did talk about that parks need to have specific design features for that particular use. And we can't be everything because that's not what they should be. I mean, if you want, if you want to, you know, go on the log structure, you're going to go to Tyrone woods park. We're not going to see it there, or we're going to see it someplace else. So I, I totally support your agreement with us when we were talking about Clackamette, because we also talked about, did it look like we had too much stuff there, which was the other issue that we kind of, I think we had talked about in the past that yes, this is basically the living room portion of downtown and it has primarily been, since it came into being, it's been a place where people gather for different events.

Can you go back one slide? I think it's easier to see there. What I really like about it, it really opens up to the sidewalk and the street more than it does now with that gazebo that's out at the street. Oh, you mean the pergola? Pergola. Yeah. Pergola gazebo. Yeah, they're not quite the same thing. Potato, potato, whatever. And I like the fact that the stage is oriented out to the street and there's a lot of seating available, but you've kept the center open. I think that checks all the boxes for me. It provides a nice open space. It provides a great stage and still provides seating areas and room for tents and so forth. And I'm really glad to hear you talk about electrical and lighting because... watching groups struggle under their tent at the Christmas tree lighting with a candle. So I appreciate all that planning going ahead of time. I think this looks great.

You should know that back when it was being developed, the city asked the county to put that stuff in. That doesn't surprise me. Yeah, I know. That's what I figured you'd say. It just did not happen.

I really appreciate the intentional placement and planning for the Christmas tree, like Commissioner Mitchell said, and I'll also just add that I appreciate that you labeled it as a Christmas tree. It's always puzzled me that DOCA calls it the holiday tree lighting and then includes a big picture of Santa Claus. on the poster and says come meet santa claus as if they're taking away the mystery for which holiday it's for so thank you for labeling it as such it's seth could you talk a little bit i think i think part of what we're looking at right is that there's a limited amount of funding available

if any gets done with Mr. Henderson's development, how much do we do, right? I mean, the SDCs aren't gonna cover this project. So like when you're thinking about this, this isn't gonna be built concurrently 100% what they're seeing on this picture with the building, right? There's just not enough money to go around to make that happen up front. And could you talk a little bit about that? Because I mean, I don't want them to think this is gonna be there on opening day.

Right, so there's a few things to discuss about there. First of all, what are parks SDCs? They're about $350,000. Parks did look into whether all of those could be contributed. So do you guys want us to give you a check for 350,000 and the land, and then you take care of it? Do you want us to get a jumpstart on it? And what we talked about with Scott was we can execute faster at a lower price point and in sequence, with the rest of the project and also get economy of scale when we're bidding out our project. So if we have $2 million worth of electrical work in the building and we bid it out and it's an extra 20,000, right, to run that, if you bid that as a separate scope, the city does it, you know, that's probably 35, $40,000. And you're also coordinating When we're doing it, we can coordinate running. Most likely PG is going to come off that pole that's in the back of the property. How are you getting across the parking lot? And so just there's a lot of efficiencies to us executing it. You're going to get more for less.

I think mobilizing at the same time makes total sense in any construction projects I've been involved in. Economies of scale matter in terms of dollars and cents.

So the estimate that our general contractor put together was about half a million dollars. We don't know what that is until it's actually bid. Right now, we are scheduled to go out to bid in about November. So... We can make a few changes after the fact, obviously change orders are more expensive than it's in the bid docs. So what our hope is, is that we can get to something which is close to the final vision bid it out, then come back and have a discussion around a developer agreement. And are we going to use the full 350,000? Do we have the ability to do that? And what does that get us? So I'm shooting from the hip here because we haven't bid. And we don't have a finalized set of drawings. I would guess that you're getting the demo, all of the MEP infrastructure probably all the hardscape you're probably not getting the cover for the stage area you're probably not getting any of the plantings so what we're trying to do is set up the infrastructure so it's easy to finish the project at a future date the other thing that we talked about was um The city, if you own it, have access to a lot more grants than we do as a private developer. So we can get it to a certain condition, then dedicate it to the city. And then you guys, now that you own it, can qualify for a bunch of grants. And hopefully you can get the majority of that work done without expenses to the city's budget.

Adam, would you like to jump into this? Yes, thank you, Mayor. What's the latest on BOLI and the oppressive application of prevailing wage law on this project?

As long as we stay below $750,000, we're fine.

I actually think this is pretty well thought out. I'm sure I could pick some things apart, but I actually think the way it's listed, all the things that I think anything that I can think of has been thought about. I like how the stage is oriented and the lighting. It's in, you know, the plaza was in pretty bad shape towards the last, I don't know, well, there was, for a while. I agree with the water feature issue that has been kind of an eyesore in the plaza for a long time when the county neglected it, and also the little pieces. I'm curious... Um, other than the, uh, historical artifacts from the courthouse. Um, and then I see this and I don't know what the interpretive paving, what's that mean? Uh, it's whatever you want it to be or nothing at all. Okay. I like that originally in Liberty Plaza there were little hints to some of the city's history. I'm assuming rather than the way it was done before with lighting, that's kind of doing some interpretation in the tiles or the pavement in the plaza side. That's a possibility. I think this is great. I like it. I wish the string lights would go all the way down Main Street like we had all envisioned at one time. But bringing some of that feel back to the plaza might be a great idea. I kind of love how... I'm not sure in the rendering about the top of the... I know it's very conceptual. The top of the stage in the way it's rendered is not fantastic, but I love how the steps of the stage kind of are reminiscent of the courthouse steps. So that's kind of an interesting connection to the original building too.

Mike, did you want to add anything?

I think the, if you want to go back to the previous, I think what is compelling about this is it's simplistic elegance. I think the simpler it is, the more it will focus in on whatever the event that's going there. So it's not trying to be super fancy, but it's very functional and it's simplistic. But again, I want to add the word elegant. And I think that that's kind of what we're looking for. Originally, the pergola that's in the front was supposed to have A planting going, you know, something growing up on the top. I don't know what happened with that with the county. And as far as the fountain is concerned, a well-meaning citizen unfortunately filled it with barkle mulch, which has led to its demise. I don't know if they thought it was supposed to be a planting area, but when it was first conceived, it was a lovely little, you know, sort of a little drip fountain with kind of monolithic looking like basalt columns. And then there was a cleanup downtown and it didn't work after that. I will tell you that. But I think if we can work out an agreement by which you are able to use all of the systems development charges, getting the infrastructure in there will be the best way to go. And again, it's the mobilization and the setting things up. And, you know, like you said, bringing the power off that line to go back in and try to put that in later is it makes no sense to me in terms of construction management. So if we are able to do that and we're able to work that out, I would totally support that. I don't know what kind of direction we need to make that happen. Do we need to make a motion or we can just say, yes, work with staff.

I think it'd probably be good for us to come back and have a discussion. means from a timing standpoint you know I think the original estimate was what was it like 1.2 oh what's that for the Liberty Plaza development I think your consultants had an estimate about 1.2 million it was less than that it was it was somewhere I think around a million dollars

If you like this design, that's thanks to Kurt Lango, Lango Hansen, excellent landscape designer. It is somewhat conservative in his estimating, whereas the half a million is R and H, but they're also filling in gaps. So that's why there's a giant asterisk, which is until we bid anything, we don't know what that number is.

And I think, you know, there's some question, is the commission gonna make the decision on the design or, you know, usually we would go through parks and rec advisory, some type of an open house. If the commission's going to say, this is it, you know, I think we should probably have that discussion and we need some motion and direction on what that would look like.

I wanna try to do what's best for the community. in the most expedient way. And so if we, let's just say, for example, I'm not saying this is the way it will be. Let's say that we think that this is a really good design. And if we can get concurrence from PRAC, that's great. But if it's going to take months and months and months, I don't want the bidding process to get held up by waiting. I think it's one of those strike while the iron is hot type thing.

What Scott and I had discussed is if there's a potential to use this, assuming it's 90% right. Sure. And we can incorporate that to the overall bid. And then once we have a development agreement completed, then I think we talked about going back to PRAC, doing a little bit more process as necessary to hone it. And if there is a change in design and addendum that we do after the fact, I still think that is a more efficient path and makes sense.

I mean, they're advisory to us, so we can give them some direction. I would like to add one little tiny thing. Knowing... that if there is something out there that may potentially look like it's climbable, I would like to see some fence around or some sort of thing around the historic artifact because I don't want to see it get damaged by somebody that goes, hey, watch this, or jumps off of it or tries to climb on it or

Yeah, they would be walking through plantings. It doesn't mean they wouldn't do it.

We all, many of us have had children or have children. We know children. We have been children. So I would just say that just put a little, maybe Kurt has an idea about how, so it's still visually accessible, but not accessible for somebody to be doing something with it. Because they're not making those anymore, and we wanna make sure that it's around. Does that help?

Absolutely, yeah. Okay. A question about Christmas. There is a coordination, I assume, with downtown about how to work with the tree lighting for this coming December.

Yes, and Public Works, Ryan's been, The three of us will be having many a discussion. We're actually looking at how do we start construction, if possible, right after first city celebration and be done by the next tree lighting.

We're talking about the one now. I'm talking about December. Correct. So already got the insurance certificate from the police department. The place that the tree normally goes and just make sure it says stop at the plaza and will be basically the same as it was for this Christmas and then.

We're actually having our electrician pull a line off the parking lot lighting so that we can get the outlets in the back working. So, yeah, I mean, one of the commitments we made to DOCA was it can continue to have the events there as long as it's safe. Okay, great. Okay. Thank you. Moving on?

Yes, thank you.

um tony did that answer everything we were looking for scott anything you can think of thumbs up okay thumbs yes getting up yes okay okay so uh now we look at the schedule that we committed to challenge number two There's no challenge. That was fun. Isn't designing fun? Hold on.

Okay, I just thought we had a challenge, so I was wondering.

Yes, that'll be at the very end. I'll give you all the good stuff, and then we'll have a challenge. Okay, all right. So this just shows the schedule again of everything we've done. I believe tonight is the 18th presentation we've given. So if anybody says they're unaware of what's going on, it's not due to lack of trying on our behalf to get this information out there and get input from the appropriate individuals. We did submit our land use application, as we said we would. Christina, as I've mentioned before, one of my favorite planners in all Portland Metro. She's awesome. Every code section, black and white, you abide by it or you don't. And she's very easy to work with in that way. Kelly's been great. That was excellent hire on behalf of the city. So we were deemed complete, first go-round. Anka Moisen did an excellent job with the narrative. I don't know if you guys have ever met my partner before, Jenny Jenkins, sitting out there, but she originally worked with Anka Moisen. Yep, everybody's waving at her. Just love embarrassing her. Excellent land use application. And not because I'm involved. I didn't write any of it. But Ancrum and Jenny did a great job. Deemed complete first go around. 60 days. And that was two weeks ago, and that's what we will talk about at the end. So as it sits right now, we are almost done with our permit set. So we could submit by the end of September if we had our entitlements, and that would have us starting construction in about the March timeline, assuming that the city's engineering was comfortable with us doing work prior to May 1st. Our geotech engineer writes a letter. And then we would be open summer of 28. So every date we've given you guys, we've met and continue to track in that direction. Any questions there? All good? Good.

Everything that was reclaimed, salvaged, can be reused.

One of the really cool things, the eagles that came off of 8th Street, All of those were hand carved, right? We're not talking precast. You can see on the bottom of them the chalk lines. I'm sorry, the charcoal lines as they were setting the grid to make sure one side matched the other. So some really cool elements to that. And then Jerry's team came and reclaimed like every plant they possibly could and have replanted out at their new location. Okay. I've spent six years walking up and down Main Street looking at every single building, a lot less than you guys have, I realize, but the last year we have spent a tremendous amount of time analyzing every building in the downtown. And there are some commonalities among the buildings. My favorite part of downtown Oregon City, and you guys have probably heard me say this, is the authenticity. And so no building is the same as the next one. And it's different materials, different time periods. But again, there's certain things that you will see across many of the buildings. So one of them is the transom windows. So if you look right above... You'll see there's an extra line of windows in a lot of the buildings. So transit windows, building base, middle, top expression. So you've got a base, a middle, a top, a base, a middle, a top. Recessed entries, so you're looking at the entries and it's not a metal canopy sticking out like you see a lot of the time in Portland. It's all historic recessed entries. That's how you're delineating where the entries to the buildings are. Building entry sconces, so you'll see sconce lighting around the entrances to the buildings. Strong column lines, so you're looking at this vertical line in various places, right? All different forms, different materials. Single hung windows. So throughout the downtown, you'll see, I mean, there's some anomalies, but for the most part, you've got the single hung windows. I assume everybody knows what those are. You got two panes of glass, one slides down the other.

I'm surprised you didn't put the commercial club building in there because it was restored to its authentic, what it looked like in 1923 when it was designed. if we put every relevant building on here. No, no, I'm just saying, you're talking about authentic, so the one building that Bridgeview was in was a redo. Yes, they had to do the elements from downtown when they did the rehab with Metro.

So the other thing we're trying to show here is some of the buildings have gone through a maturation. And how do you keep some of the... We know our building is going to seem more modern. We are applying to today's code. And so there are certain elements, like for instance, the double door vestibules, right, for energy code. You don't have that in buildings downtown because they're... were built after the current energy code. So what elements can we incorporate to a modern building to fit in with the much older buildings that are there today? And then window groupings. So how are windows grouped in certain areas? And how are we replicating that? Okay, you guys ready for the first Showing of a rendering, our only rendering we've done, first time showing it to anybody?

Yes.

Here we go.

Do you need a drum roll or, you know?

No screams or anything, so that's a positive.

I can hear Rocky saying, we can't see the front elevation.

So let's walk through what we just talked about, right?

One of the things that I think is the coolest element is that these buildings are actually the same structure.

So this structure line goes all the way through. And what we did was this building is set back a little bit.

It has a higher parapet. It has reclaimed brick. It feels like a separate building. It's actually the exact same building.

So when we looked at those two sections of retail, they're right here in what we're calling a retail sidecar. We also pulled it back so that you could have some seating outside of the public right-of-way you can see the liberty plaza that we talked about you can see the sconces at the entries this entry is for the retail this entry is for the multi-family you have your columns you have your top you have your transom windows so everything that we talked about this is a modern interpretation of the elements that we were just looking at in terms of the elements for this building it's a tile system called saraclad you can look it up the gray here and the gray on top is called charcoal so it's got a texture to it and it's a dark gray color the tan actually has a slight non-uniform horizontal texture to it and at the base we've got one that looks like black and steel with a running bond so it's the half offset similar to what you do with brick You guys are scaring me right now. You're really quiet and very intensely looking at this. Well, I will just say that...

I think you've got to be a little bit careful. If there's an appeal, you are going to be hearing this.

I'm going to make a general comment about a book that influenced my professional career, which was called A Pattern Language. And I will say that you have hit most of the points in that document. You talk about articulation, you talk about a pattern. When I look at buildings, I see that. When I'm looking at them, I can make those connections to the patterns, and that's what we have downtown.

Is that good?

Yes. I will loan you my copy of A Pattern Language. It's a very fun book. But anyway, yeah. So how much more time would you like to have?

How much more time tonight? Yes. 10 minutes. Is that acceptable? That's fine. Do you want less? No, that's fine. And in regards to an appeal, only the applicant can appeal. So as long as we don't have any issues, we promise not to appeal. You're not going to appeal yourself.

That's not how that works. Okay.

so um if there's nothing else i will give you guys a quick update on our conditions of approval you want me to leave it up there and you can see how it sits with you okay thank you i am really really gonna yeah because we're still you're still in your appeal period right decision notice of decision has been issued on the conditions no

Again, because I also have a background in land use planning, I am a little concerned about you going over those conditions of approval because you need to work that out with them. I don't believe that we have any role at this point in time in discussing them or making comments about them. I feel a little nervous. And I understand why you want to bring it to our attention, but I think we're gonna run afoul of statewide land use planning laws. And I don't want that to happen. I don't want that to happen to you.

I'd like to hear from Ms. Richter.

So my understanding is that staff is working on a decision, a type two decision that is appealable. It is only appealable by the applicant, but we can't, in this public hearing, talk about the substance of that decision. You mean in this public meeting? Because we're not in a public hearing. Public meeting, sorry. You're right. we can't talk about the substance of the application in this public meeting because we haven't noticed it. And when we're talking about the park, that is going to be a public amenity. The design itself and the conditions of approval, those are private,

land use application um so i my preference would be not to talk about what the conditions are draft or otherwise until we're through the land use process well what i said you said it more articulately so yeah if that's okay seth we really can't um that's all right i was just trying to head off and appeal but i understand i think once the notice of decision is issued um and that is I think you have to work through staff right now. I think that's your best option to move that forward. I appreciate your wanting to share that with us, but I think we can't. Okay. Any additional questions?

I'll just say that the longer I sit here and look at it, the more I like it. I think it is, as you said, it's going to look more modern, but in the same way that our library addition speaks to the rest of the building, this speaks to the other buildings downtown in terms of all those key elements that you talked about. I like it.

Even the building we're in right now. I think it gets to that.

Yeah, like I said, I long to hear those words when I was on the planning commission and when I have sat here as well, talking about articulation, talking about bringing in the elements that exemplify our downtown and that are key to downtown and make it what it is. And again, YOU HAVE RECOGNIZED THAT. LIKE YOU SAID, YOU SPENT A LOT OF TIME WALKING UP AND DOWN. I SPENT A LOT OF TIME WALKING UP AND DOWN, TOO. THERE ARE THINGS THAT I'M SURE THE REGULAR PERSON DOESN'T LOOK AT. BUT I LOOK AT THOSE THINGS BECAUSE THEY SPEAK TO OUR STREET CAR COMMERCIAL DISTRICT, WHICH IS WHAT THIS IS CLASSIFIED IN TERMS OF DATA STORIC PRESERVATION OFFICE AND HOW downtowns exist. And I think you hit the nail on the head by talking about the authenticity. And that is always been something that I've said about Oregon City. You come to Oregon City because you're going to see something that's authentic. It's not something that somebody has tried to fake or make look like something else. You got the real deal there. And I think that the uniqueness of our architecture in downtown is a bonus and brings the rest of the town together, helps knit the rest of the town together because town did start down there and then moved up. But you see that in some of the commercial corridor on 7th Street as well. It's doing that same articulation of the buildings. Thank you. I appreciate that. Well, if there's nothing else, we will let you go. and move on to our next exciting topic. Not as exciting as this, but exciting nevertheless. Thank you for your time and input this evening. And we appreciate your coming and showing that to us. Thank you, Jenny. I think I'm moving the agenda over to, is this your item, Alex? So we're gonna talk about the Oregon City ADA Self-Evaluation and Transition Plan Overview.

Yes, so Mary.

I was very well written, very understandable.

Okay. Yes, so Mayor and Commissioners, I do have a representative here this evening from MIG, John Finis, and he is one of the primary folks helping us with this particular project. I did wanna point out, and I apologize for this, there was an error on the staff report, the options auto-populated, and I didn't see that, so I apologize. We're not asking for any action this evening. This is purely for informational purposes only. We're at the beginning of this project and wanted to just give you an update we're doing currently and where this is going to go in the next approximately nine months or so. So John, take it away.

Great, good evening, everyone. I'm John Finis with MIG. Thank you for having me tonight. I am a principal and a community planner with MIG. We're based out of Portland. And MIG has been hired by the city to help with the ADA self-evaluation and transition plan. And so the presentation I have tonight, it's really just an overview. What is this all about? Some of you may have some familiarity. So what is it that we're doing? What's the process look like? And what is the resulting plan? So I'm gonna talk a little bit about that. And then of course, I'm here for questions. We're just getting started in this process, so. Happy to share more. Quick disclaimer, as I said, I'm a planner, not an attorney. We are talking about the ADA civil rights law, but what we're gonna talk more about tonight is the process for the plan and looking at some of the barriers that we'll be looking at throughout the city. So first, just some context. This statistic is a little dated now. I believe this is from 2022. But just giving some context about just how many folks out there in the community live with a disability. Some visible, some invisible. But across the country, about 30 million people have some sort of disability. And one of the most common forms of disability is ambulatory. So some physical disability that prevents you from getting around, from opening a door, from getting from your car to the front of your house, et cetera. But there are lots of other disabilities, vision, cognitive, hearing, and speech. as well as a lot that don't always get seen, self-care, people that have challenges taking care of themselves, independent living, taking care of yourself, getting around. So lots of different disabilities that we're thinking about when we think about barriers in the physical environment. Second access is a civil right. It's not a privilege. This is very important. We're not just trying to do these things and thinking about them. We have to, it's imperative. And that's because in 1990, George Bush Senior signed into law the ADA Act, Americans with Disabilities Act. It's a civil rights law and it requires equal opportunity for individuals with disabilities. That has resulted in standards of the 2010 technical requirements for ADA, as well as some other standards that we'll be looking at throughout this process. There are five titles in the ADA. We're specifically looking at Title II for this process, and that's looking at basically public facilities, services, transportation, state and local government agencies that are required to comply with this law. So we're looking at Title II. And Title II is really looking at equality and access. And so the first step, which is what we're starting with now, is looking at how the city carries out its programs, activities, and services. So how people interact with the services and programs that the city provides. Once we find out what those are, we're required to modify those practices for accessibility. We're looking at potentially relocating some of those programs and services as needed, if we're finding that there are barriers that are provided. Providing accessible equipment and tools for members of the public, such as this meeting, and then providing for effective communication. Some administrative requirements we'll be looking at. Notice of non-discrimination, and a lot of these the city already has. So providing a notice of non-discrimination, developing an ADA grievance procedure, and then designating a person who's responsible for overseeing Title II complaints. Okay, so here's where we get involved. We're gonna help with the plan. And I'm gonna talk about what's included in the plan, the self-evaluation of services, policies, and practices. The transition plan identifies structural modifications. I'm gonna talk about what those are. And perhaps most importantly, we're involving people with disabilities into the process, into the plan, and obviously into the outcomes of that. There's a saying in the disability community, nothing about us without us. That is built into the ADA law that again, we are involving people with disabilities into the decisions that directly affect them and their lives. So the process, this is kind of an oversimplified process that we're gonna be following. We're really already pretty well into the first two steps in this, evaluation of programs, policies, and activities. You may see folks on our team out with measuring tapes and wheels doing some of the measurements for public facilities, parks, buildings. We just launched an online community survey to hear from people throughout the community about what they're seeing, some of the barriers they might be seeing, so we can hear more about that. And then later on in the process, we're gonna come back and find out what those barriers are so that we can prioritize and start to schedule those with the city team. And then we'll have a resulting plan. Okay. Yes.

So over the last few years, we've had new construction and rehab. So our public works facility, the library, this building, additional improvements to city hall. So how do the things that, so let me ask back up. So has the law substantially changed since we built those buildings? I'm talking over the last five to six years. because it doesn't seem like we have a lot of additional work to do because we already tried to incorporate and did incorporate all of those things into those buildings.

understood uh the short answer is yes and of course it varies wildly i mentioned the ada rules there are also all sorts of other rules for outdoor facilities developed facilities um parking streets so in a lot of ways they have changed over the years in some ways they're they may be really small you know like measurements for a sign for example uh 10 years ago, a sign had to be at such a height, such a distance from a door. Now it's changed slightly. So in some ways, they could be subtle. Some ways, they could be a lot more than that. You know, moving a toilet over is costly. So that's what we'll be looking at. And we're looking at standards as they exist today with any of those, you know, remodels that happened at that time. Because more than likely, a lot of those, the rules have changed since they've been built. All right, just talking a little bit more about what we're doing now as far as looking at the self-evaluation. The rules talk about requiring no qualified individual with a disability shall on the basis of a disability be excluded from participation in or drive the benefits of services, programs, or activities. So again, looking at those policies, the services. And this is pretty comprehensive. I won't go through all of these, but these are what we'll be looking at. We'll be looking at basic civic processes. So how are people interacting with local government, with public facilities, community events? We talked about some of those earlier. So how is the community involved with those community events, advisory boards, and then getting information. That's a very important one. How are people getting that information? And is it two way? How are they getting that back to the city?

Is qualified individual defined in the statute? It is. Yes, it is. I would like to know what that is.

Not right this minute, but in the future. Yes. Feedback and reporting problems, as I mentioned, that's part of that. The grievance procedure programs, parks and recreation, of course, that's where there's a lot of interaction with the public. Permits and licenses, police department programs and special programs and grants. So again, any time we're interacting with the public and with buildings and parks, it's any place the public has access to a building. And I'll talk about that in a second. So our methodology for doing this, as I mentioned, we're just kind of getting into this step. We're reviewing all of the city's policies. So these are things that have been adopted or formalized. And then we're asking a self-evaluation. We're asking the city team and staff to respond to a questionnaire, things that they know or don't know, things that they have questions on. And in turn, that helps us understand, okay, where are we with this? updating these requirements. I listed a couple of the requirements to the right. Again, not gonna go all over all of these, but really it's comprehensive and we've got some pretty clear rules on what we can and can't do. So that's very helpful when we're basically doing an audit of those policies and procedures. So that's really behind the scenes or in terms of the things that you're most likely gonna see. So let's talk a little bit about the facility evaluations. And again, as part of the scope of this project, we're looking at public facilities, buildings, parks, as well as taking a look at what the city's already done in terms of the public right away. So crossings, curb ramps, et cetera. So similar from the statute, we can't exclude people from public facilities. We can't make these inaccessible. So a list, the city has a lot of great parks and public facilities. We were just talking about one of those. So it is comprehensive. We will be looking at all of these. We've already started doing measurements and surveys, but again, pretty comprehensive, everything from city hall, the pool, public works facilities. And a lot of these, we get a lot of questions, you know, things like this building, for example, it's only those spaces where the public are allowed to go. So it's not the private, you know, behind back office type spaces. Unless there's an employee. Unless there's an employee and unless they're invited, the public's invited to go back into those spaces. A list of parks, lots of parks. So we're one by one ticking those off the list. And a lot of these, what we typically find is some of the common things. So next time I'm here and we're talking, we'll start to talk to you about what some of those barriers are and what we're seeing out in parks. But I do wanna mention, we're looking at the public parking and then the municipal elevator as well. Those are also public facilities. I mentioned the city has has already drafted a transition plan for the public right away. So as part of our scope of work, we have a sub consultant consular engineering, who is specifically looking at what the city's done to help with any updates in changes in that. And that in turn will be folded into the citywide self evaluation and ADA transition plan. So we'll have one cohesive document for public right away and for public parks and facilities. And just some highlights of where we're heading next. I think you all will be very interested in this. We'll be working with Alexandra and her team on developing criteria. So you imagine having a whole list of barriers that we're gonna find in parks and facilities. We'll then need to know, okay, now what do we do? How do we prioritize these in terms of a phasing? Because we can't do them all. And that's really what there's a lot of flexibility in what the city is able to do in terms of what should happen now, what should happen later. And I just have a couple of these criteria just for us to think about. The number one, probably the one that's on top of mind for most people is complaints or requests. So if we are hearing complaints or requests, more than likely that's gonna be higher up on the list. um level of use by the public you know a popular park or facility library that's probably going to rank those those barriers a little bit higher program uniqueness citizen rights and responsibilities uh barriers or projects that are another master plans transportation parks Geographic distribution that's important if there's only one of these types of facilities anywhere in the city or it's located somewhere that's a priority. recognized user groups and then planned obsolescence and that's maybe in terms of what we just heard about in the previous presentation there's a facility that's going to be deconstructed or changed will need to know that that'll change the ranking. All right, so that was a pretty quick overview of the process and purpose. As far as next steps, and I'll turn it over for questions, the survey is live. And again, this is a community-wide survey. We wanna hear from everyone, in particular people that could benefit from telling us what they see and what they perceive as barriers. That's really the point of that. So we have- That's the link there? That is the link. I believe it's on the website now, Alex.

Yes, so it was just posted to the ADA page on the city's website. And I'm currently working with the communications department about how to share that out with the public. And we are encouraging responses by October 31st. That gives us the most amount of time to be able to take the responses and actually incorporate them directly into the draft. However, that being said, we will continue accepting responses through April and we'll do the best we can to respond to those. But if someone would like the input to be reflected in the plan, we do say please turn it in by October 31st.

Great. And as I mentioned, we've got a great head start. We're evaluating policies. We're out in the field doing a lot of the survey work. We're trying to time that with, who knows if it's El Nino, but we're definitely trying to do as much of that as possible before the rains come. And then we'll start working on a draft plan. And there's a lot that goes into that, as you can imagine. So we'll be working very closely with the staff team. We should have a draft sometime around December, end of the year, beginning of 2027. We'll have a public review draft opportunities to share what we found, review the draft plan. And tentatively right now, we're looking at having a final plan. It's been vetted, we've talked about it and having that ready for June of 2027. Questions?

Well, they seem to not have any questions. All right. Thank you so much. Thank you. Appreciate it. Next on our agenda is the consent agenda. We have one item. Personal Services Agreement with Century West for 2027 City Roadway Reconstruction Project, the PMA.

Move to approve the consent agenda.

Is there a second?

Second.

It's been moved and second. Roll call, please.

Commissioner Adam Morrow. Aye. Commissioner Rocky Smith. Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell. Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff.

Aye. Motion passes. All right. Um, we do not have any public hearings on our agenda tonight, but we do have one item under general business, which is the review of the second reading of ordinance 26, 10 street tree penalties, modifications to chapter one and chapter 12, the Oregon city municipal code. And I don't know who that is. Is that the dynamic team over there?

Yes. I think we're just recommending the second reading of the ordinance for approval.

I have. Go ahead. So this is a comment in response to one of the amendments that was put forward in the last meeting where I was unable to attend. And for the record, to correct the record, when the roll was called, it was said that I was absent, but I was excused and had given...

the notice for that.

But the change that was made, I understand the reasons why Kelly gave for reducing it from 1.5 to one and a quarter inches. But I think that adding the language that it has to be one and one quarter to one and one half inch as a minimum is confusing. I understand what the mayor was trying to get at with trying to include the 1.5 to try and make sure people are aware that there's an opportunity to go above and beyond. But I think that putting in a range for a minimum when the one and a quarter already does establish that range, is just needlessly confusing and so like the way i think about it is like going to an amusement park and it says you must be 36 inches tall to ride or 40 inches tall and it's like well that's already inherent in in the you have to be at least 36 inches tall to ride so that's where i'm coming from i just think it confuses it a little bit

You'll see it's up on everybody's screen and it's up there because I asked Mr. Wiley to have it available because I had exactly the same comment that range isn't a minimum. And you could read this to say that, well, I can only plant between one and a quarter and one and a half. Whereas if I was going to replace the street tree in front of my house, I'd probably plant a three-inch one and baby it and make sure it grows. So I agree with Commissioner Marl. It should just say one and a quarter.

Well, the word minimum is the part that's confusing.

No, because are you saying that we want people to only plant from an inch and a quarter to an inch and a half? Because that's what this would say, especially if you take the word minimum out.

Most people are going to go with the least minimum.

Yes, they are, but some people want to be able to plant something large.

I agree, and I have gone out and purchased trees over the last five years, and sometimes what you have that's available is a one and a half, and I don't want people to feel like they absolutely can't do that. I mean, you can always do more.

If it says minimum one and a quarter, that includes one and a half.

You know why I wanted it in there, so I'm not going to say any more.

Well, I'm going to make a motion to change this wording so that it reads shall have a minimum one and one quarter inch caliber trunk. I'll second that.

It's the second reading.

This is the second reading. So if we're going to, if the commission's preference is to amend the wording, we can amend it tonight through a first reading, and then we'll come back at the next meeting for a second reading. So the motion I think you'll make is that you move forward with the first reading of ordinance number 26-1010 with an amendment to 12-08-035. B. Oh, A, two. And B, to remove. The reference to one and a half inch caliber trees.

And you think I'm going to remember all of it. This is setting us back another 30 days. Another two weeks.

Yeah, well, but then it takes 30 days for it to come into effect after we do the second read.

Yeah, but it delays it two weeks. So moved. Second. And I just want to agree with what Commissioner Mitchell said about potentially sending the opposite message of what we want to communicate, which is potentially that someone could read this and be like, oh, so it has to be between one and one quarter and 1.5 rather than going even above and beyond that.

So I'd like to proceed with the reading by title only go right ahead. Ordinance number 26-1010, an ordinance of the City of Oregon City amending Oregon City Municipal Code Title I, general provisions, chapters 1.16, general penalty, 1.20, civil infractions, 1.24, code enforcement, and Title XII, streets, sidewalks, and public places, chapter 12.8, public and street trees. Go ahead.

Aye. Commissioner Mike Mitchell? Aye. And Mayor Denise McGriff?

No.

Motion passes.

All right, so we'll come back in two weeks with the second reading. Are there any communications?

No, just two things. On the dais before you at our... We were at our last, I can't remember if it was a work session or our last meeting, we were talking about the two options, the question that we can have that's kind of open-ended in the community survey. There was a desire to kind of have a little more and the end of the Oregon Trail. So just confirming that this captures what the commission was thinking, that Oregon City Parks and Recreation has been doing substantial community outreach regarding the future of a pair of facilities that have reached or exceeded their lifespan. The Oregon City Pool and the end of the Oregon Trail Interpretive Center. Replacing or improving one or both facilities would require more financial resources than the city currently has available. Question one, or whatever it's going to be, part A, would you support a tax increase through a bond or increase utility fee for the construction of a new pool and recreation center? Second part, would you support a tax increase through a bond or increase utility fee for building improvements and site enhancement to the end of the Oregon Shore Interpretive Center? Just confirming that is what you were intending.

So just a correction for that last sentence of the first part, it should replacing or improving one or both facilities, not one of both facilities, I assume is what we were trying to get to. It's just a grammarical. Correct, thank you. And I guess the wording would you support a tax increase through a bond or increased utility fees Utility fees are not a tax increase. So would it be, would use the word tax increase or increase utility? I mean, I don't, I think something about a bond should also be in there, but the way it's written implies that a utility fee is a tax increase.

It could be, it could be implied. Yes.

Do you just believe out? the word through a, so it says, would you support a tax increase, a bond or increased utility fees? Yeah, I think that works. Yeah.

Okay. So would you support a tax increase, comma, a bond, comma, or increase utility fees for the construction and have that repeat in the second question as well? Yeah. Okay. All right, any other questions on that one? I think the second thing is that our work session last week, we talked about looking into data centers and the Oregon city municipal code. I just want to make the commission aware that we have started the discussions with department land conservation and development. We were required to give them a 45 day notice. We plan on giving that no later than Friday, which would put the 45 day window for the hearing city commission meeting. If there are concerns, please let me know. We do plan on coming back to give informational updates as we go through that process. And then obviously that public hearing would be, you know, really be the time when we have direction from the commission about what to do related to any moratorium changes to the code, et cetera, that would happen. But I just wanted to make you aware since there was a discussion in a work session that the staff that we've started that process based on what appeared to be consensus to have further discussion about that opportunity moving forward and really our limiting factor right now is the 45-day notice period to DLCD.

So what type of a hearing would this be?

It will be a public hearing on November 4th.

A land use hearing or a regular public hearing?

It'll be a regular public hearing to consider a moratorium on data centers and battery storage. systems and um it would there are two types of moratorium allowed in state law there's the public facility shortage type and then there's a public need and you'll recall that in 2018 the city adopted a public facility shortage moratorium for some water lines that is not what this would be this would be a public need moratorium, which imposes additional criteria. So the fact that we've got 45 days in order to develop a little bit more about the limitations in the zoning, how the zoning would analyze data centers when they've never been, they were never contemplated within our zoning code. So we've got to develop findings. And so by having this 45 days, staff will be able to put together the findings in addition to an ordinance that will come forward for a public hearing. And then you can decide whether to move forward with the moratorium adoption. Moratoriums are only good for 120 days and then you have to renew them. Unlike public facilities moratoria, public need moratoria can only be extended one time.

So they have very short shelf life. We had one for the, I don't know what basin it's in, but the long homes lane, we had a sewer moratorium there.

But that was the facilities type and that can have a public facilities plan that gets adopted.

That can go on for about three, four years. That's what I was just reminding in case they, I think you were here, but we had one in the past. I believe when I was on planning commission and I think we had, I think it was about a five-year one because we needed to get the plan. We needed to get the... We did it. We hit them basin by basin. Basin by basin, yeah. So we have done this before for public facilities.

So you're saying we can do it for 120 days and renew it one time for another 120 days? For six months. Oh, for six months.

Six months is the limit? Yes. So it'll get you through the legislative session of 2027 about...

Okay. That seems very short. So the first one's four months and the next one could be six months. Okay. And then that's it.

Okay.

Thank you. I just want to thank staff for moving quickly on this. And I also want to, just as it relates to the timelines, the reason why I had brought this up isn't so that we could indefinitely have moratorium, it's so that we can have the time for staff to get our code in good enough shape for us to adopt something that will give us the ability in the future to regulate them as we would like. the need for an indefinite moratorium is not here yet. And I'm glad that you highlighted that it'll get us through the legislative session because there's no doubt that they are going to be taking action on this and possibly expanding our ability to regulate these facilities. So I think we are in a good spot. I don't think it hurts for us to move ahead of that. Absolutely. That's what we're doing now.

Yeah. I think it's, I think we're trying to be not trying, we are going to be proactive. And to me, that is, What I have found in the last five to 10 years is that we spend a lot of time having to react to stuff and it doesn't help.

And that's what a lot of cities are having to do right now. And so being prepared with our code amendments will put us in a strong position.

Any communications from the commissioners? I WAS GOING TO ASK MR. ARCHER, BUT HE'S NOT HERE. SO IT'LL BE BEFORE OUR NEXT MEETING. SO ON THE 3rd OF OCTOBER, WE HAVE THE, IS IT THE FALL FEST? I FORGET. THAT'S COMING UP AT THE PIONEER COMMUNITY CENTER. SO LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING EVERYBODY OUT THERE FOR THAT. I THINK IT'S GOING TO BE ANOTHER VERY SUCCESSFUL EVENT. SO LOTS OF BOOTHS. I THINK WE'RE LOOKING AT OUR YOUTH ADVISORY COMMISSION TO DO SOME TABLING THERE ALONG WITH our county clerk. So that'll be kind of fun. All right. Anything else, gentlemen? We are adjourned.