City Council - Regular Meeting

All right.

Welcome, everybody, to the Sherwood City Council Work Session, June 2nd, 2026. It is 536 in the evening. We got two items on the table today. We have a round table with our round table. Can't speak tonight. Hey, Brad. Hey, Brad.

All right, thanks, Brad.

Anyways, we've got two items on the agenda tonight. We have a round table with our Sherwood Police Advisory Board, and then we're going to talk about housing in Sherwood after that. Super excited about this first session. If you don't know this, we're going to do this with each of the boards and commissions all year long as we work towards the end of the year, but we have our meeting with all the chairs so we can... look at our budgets and our goals and stuff like that are going to be for the following year, but we thought it would be really good to do this earlier in the year with the board. So we're kind of creating the full circle, right? We want to hear what's going on, what you guys are thinking in terms of Police advisory board, but we also want to hear if you need help from us. Right. You know, what are some initiatives you're thinking about, you know, so we can be a little bit more collaborative as we work through our mutual agendas throughout the year. So With that tie your names on here. So I'm going to kick it over to you.

That works for everything. But perfect. Yeah, I'm thankful because we have a majority of the police advisory board here just speaks to their investment and their commitment to, you know, what's going on specifically related to law enforcement. So Richard is actually the, we'll call it the chair. Amanda is not here as our vice chair, but I'll just give them a quick opportunity to introduce themselves before we get started. We'll start with you, Mike. Hi, everybody. My name is Mike Smith.

I've been at Sherwood for about 23 years now.

And I'm Richard Mucci. I'm the chair, as Ty mentioned. I've been on the board since the end of 2022. And I've lived here, gosh, around seven years now. And love the community, love being a part of it.

Lawrence of the retired firefighter been on the board police advisory board for a 2 and a half years and just react right and looking forward to more volunteering and thank you.

Laurie's when we've been on the case by 3, 4, 2, 3, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, It's been a while. It's been a while. This is going to be my last year, but I am still going to harass Ty whenever I see anything that he needs to be harassed about.

So just to make sure everybody knows everybody, Renee, you want to go ahead and go? No?

Renee Brass, City Council.

I'm Chris West. I've been on the Police Advisory Board with Lori and Diane since the inception. I'm not up for renewal or extension this round, so you're stuck with me till the next year or something. And we've been through a lot over the years. We've dealt with a lot of issues. And I think the biggest one right now that we're wrestling with for the department and for the city is staffing.

We'll get to that.

Yeah. Yeah.

I'm Ryan Adams. I'm the city attorney. Tim Rosner, Mayor. Doug Scott, City Council.

Dan Stankey, City Council.

Kim Young, Council President.

Youth National Council. Craig Sheldon, City Manager.

Kristen Schweitzer, Assistant City Manager.

Anybody else? So I guess, thanks for the segue, Chris.

As Chris spoke about, I mean, there's been a lot of things on the table over the years, and it's been great to navigate them. Obviously, Jeff, my predecessor, had a lot of great things, and we're just picking up with that. And in particular, right now, as you know, just staffing levels, and more importantly, just the sustainability of where we're at is probably the biggest thing on the table right now, how we fund it. It's not a secret. You look at any agency across the state or the nation is struggling with that and, and how we're navigating it. So, uh, I know we've talked a lot about that. Obviously city councils, uh, had discussions about it. So aside from that, obviously, uh, we have two members that segue into the traffic safety board, which they will show up. I don't know when they're scheduled, but they'll be here as well. So it's kind of cool to collaborate on some of those things and some of the issues that we're facing, but, um, Am I missing anything else? That's really kind of where we're knee-deep in this thing. So if there's anything as board members you want to bring up, feel free.

Or obviously, counsel. Other than staffing, the topical thing is the new mobile cameras. That's caused a lot of discussion. And it's interesting, too. I saw a lot of comments of people making mention of, well, why don't we just have more police officers? It's like, well, Okay, let's talk about that. So, yeah.

You do vote for that.

Yeah, just comment when I get asked about that. I usually talk about two things. One is we're just trying to change behavior. That's the main goal of this. It's not a money-making scheme, as I'm sure you all know. And then the other thing I talk about is it actually enables our officers to I don't want to say it's a force multiplier, but we do get some benefit out of that as well. And that seems to resonate with folks.

You don't want technology to do the dumb thing or the simpler thing. Change behavior and empower the officers to do the thing that needs their cranium, needs their skill set, the skills that they've been trained for and

which isn't just writing tickets.

I think a lot of the, as Richard said, a lot of the comments online are simply just focused on the money generating machine that we're all going to get these millions of dollars and tickets. And it just, I find myself explaining to people about, it's not a trap. It's, It's a tool so the police officers can do the things they're supposed to do.

Well, and the cost is, it costs somebody then to go review the ticket, and then to write the ticket, and then it costs our court time. I mean, so by the end, what's left out of the ticket amount is, you know, expensive.

I will not mention most of the money in that ticket goes to the county and the state.

Anyone who pays the ticket on it. enforcement chose to pay that ticket. Nobody made them drive over the speed limit.

Yeah, Edvin said it and I will continue to say it's violator funded. when those cease to exist, the program will as well. So we just know historically that people forget and we have to continually remind them and educate them of that. So I think it'll be a great program. So obviously we had a lot of discussion about that and the impacts and the benefits of it and how that collaborates with the personnel needs we have. We've talked a lot about technology, as Keith mentioned, and even our drones and what those bring to us. And then the challenges that come with that, because as great as technology is, there still has to be people behind it. This is still a people business. We have to show up and we have to address what's going on. So we're going to have to still be there. It just helps us become a little bit more efficient and effective in what we do. So we're continually exploring that. And I've appreciated a lot of the insight and a lot of the perspectives. And as I alluded to or spoke to at the start of this thing, how are we going to fund that? We spoke about the levy. We spoke about a fee. We spoke about a commercial component of it, all those things that we're navigating right now. And we just got some great experience and insight that hopefully can help. May didn't look really good for the state. So what that looks like moving forward, we don't know. But I think it's going to be a great discussion to have. This is public safety.

Yeah, the sheriffs went down. I think it would be 7 or 66%.

It's been around since 2006, so it wasn't anything new. It was pretty established.

But there was a component, if I remember right, of an increase to what they were having. But still, the commission is right now in the throes of figuring out how they're going to deal with it and what's going to happen to jail and sheriffs and you name it.

Yeah, I looked statewide. I just kind of went through quickly and looked at and it seemed like the majority of public safety bonds that

There was a few things like the fire station in Lake Oswego and a few other little things like that, but across the board, everything went down. The school levy in Newburgh. Yeah, and a 911 in Columbia County to fund 911.

I mean, that's just telling you that the citizens, the residents, they're just tapped out.

So I was looking to some stuff this afternoon that I wanted to share on that. There's an initiative petition that is circulating in Portland to... They've got to collect by early July 71,000 signatures, but it's to... shorten 911 responses to add 400 more officers to reinitiate community policing and something else. And I was in a meeting at the Portland Metro Chamber about something else and this topic came up and The polling on that, it's not asking for money, but the polling on that is 70% positive. So that goes to show you that public safety policing is still a high priority.

So is it worded that they're wanting to redirect city dollars?

That's not included in that. It's putting, as I understand, it's just putting it on the council that this is what... A priority. Right. So... which there's an election for half the city council this November and a bunch of other stuff. So those sorts of things are in play too. But the fact that the polling today shows a 70% approval for improved policing in Portland is significant. And I had a lot, and many of you know this, I was very involved for years trying to figure out how to build a new Tiger Police Department and Public Works, and that failed horribly. The polling on that this winter was barely passing if all the stars lined up. It was like 51 or 52 or 53.

Then everybody's costs went up.

And then the referral of the tax and the war just, you know, that we haven't seen the precinct breakdowns or the demographic breakdowns. We won't get that till the 15th of this month. But how... Much it went down was a bit of a surprise, even for me as a pacifist on that effort.

I won't say what city it was, but one of my mayor peers, they were looking at a police levy. I know what he wanted to do. And the polling was very favorable, and they did a second round closer to the election, and it went negative. So they pulled it, which I'm smart.

Yeah, so that'll be a long conversation for us.

And who knows what 27 is going to look like. How quick things change this go around. But I think one thing that's important is talking about the issue in the community, still raising up the PD that everybody loves here is critical. And then when we have to do the hard ask,

it's thoughtful and you've looked at all the options and and stuff like that that that will help vote you well but i wouldn't do anything this year just yeah and we're i'm sure most of you followed our work sessions on this we've got several options on the table and it may be that there's certain things we can't do without going to voters we can't raise any kind of residential fees or levy without going to the voters we can't raise commercial might have some short-term options and then longer-term goals too, you know, or options as we look at this. But I would agree with you. I think going this November, given the rat, would be a really bad idea.

In the environment today, the average American is squeezed. They're squeezed in a significant way. That's why Lots of restaurants are starting to fail because people are staying in, going more, or just don't have the free cash. So they're hunkering down until they see things starting to reverse. We don't know when that'll be.

On that clock, Ms. Levy, I don't know how much intel you have, but was there an active no campaign on that?

Not that I know of. But they had three of their five positions up. And those have been controversial. Yes. One was a flip from the previous four years, and the other two had, there's runoffs in those. But anybody that knows Clackamas, they go one way and the other way on a cycle, and that's pretty terrible.

get a little bit, but the costs, the inputs on housing are going crazy because of all of the elements that are connected to oil and the price of oil. In my world, people are seeing 30, 40, 50% increases on oil goods that go into a piece of plywood or make glue and resin and wax.

And even just delivering it.

And then the deliverings that if you do any shipping, the truckload and less than truckloads in the last month. So we have to be careful in what we try to do and do what we believe is important to our community.

I think a big part of what we're going to be facing is Education. But the problem I see there is that people are so inundated by information. Social media. Who's doing this? Who's doing that? You can't turn your head in one direction without getting five different things thrown at you. And I think a lot of people are just saying, I don't want to hear anymore. And then I think you need to show people responsible spending. The trick to that, though, is you don't have very many people. I mean, when we first started, our first question was the marijuana question. We got out there at Robin Hood Festival and started talking to people and trying to get interest drummed up. And I think, what did we get, 400 people to return on the survey? People just don't care. Enough to look into. I'll put it that way. I mean, they care when you ask them, okay, I want more of your money. But by then it's too late because that's at the voting poll and they don't know enough about what's going on. And I think that we need to find a new way to reach people, to talk to people, to help them understand and see. Because you're right, people are tapped and they want to know where is the money that I'm already giving you going? And why do you need more? And every time I turn around, I keep hearing, oh, Salem's doing this, Salem's doing that, or this much money was, you know, wasted here, or they want more money to be able to fix the roads. Well, what are you doing with the money we're giving you? You know, where's that going?

Yeah. And it's difficult to, most people are, are busy. They focus on their hobbies. So it's difficult to have them pause to understand the different elements of what we do as a city versus what the state does, what the county does, what the feds do. And not easy.

No, it's not easy. And it's kind of, I mean, it's worrisome for me because I know, because I've worked with the advisory board and the Sherwood Police Foundation, I have more of an inside view of what our officers do, how our officers rely on surrounding towns when we've got something going on or they've got something going on. We'll tap into each other, but they're all growing. They're all changing. you know, getting more of a population increase and they're having difficulty getting the finances to fund their police too, we can't continue to count on them to be able to support us when we need that support.

That's not going to go away. It will continue to be the nature of our proximity and the sizes of us. I believe for my lifetime, there will still be support between us.

And I hope so. The problem is, outside of this room, how many people know that that's what happens?

Absolutely.

And that's the kind of information that I think needs to be disseminated so that people understand, so that people realize, here's what we're working with, here's how we're trying to make this work for you.

Here's where every dollar goes, every cent of every dollar. Right.

And here's why you need... We need more.

To that point, though, I wonder, with the city changing to a two-year budget cycle, if we're not communicating where the dollars are spent as regularly as they should. You know?

You know, what's interesting about that is for the longest time, we had a budget transparency portal. Anyone could go to the website and drill down to line items in our budget and see what... Four people used it. Four people used it. You know, we have... I think part of our challenge is we have, everyone's heard me say this a million times, but we have one school-age kid per household in the city on average. We've got a lot of families and soccer games and football games people. It's really difficult to kind of break through that just day-to-day. I'm raising my kids, dealing with family stuff to get them to pay attention. I totally agree education is critical in this. The trick is how do you do it and how do you get them engaged?

Another thing is, I'm not saying we don't. The educating part is people confuse where money comes from. And so I've heard things like, well, if the city needs money, why didn't we just build a bridge? Not realizing the money that we use for the bridge could never have been used for police or staffing or anything else in the city. They just don't understand the buckets that money can be used for.

I think there's also a little bit of, information fatigue. It's directly in our faces all the time. So trying to decipher out what's important, what's not important, what to listen to, not to listen to how to be bombarded all the time. So somehow trying to fit in there.

And if we're going to have input on ways of doing it, but you have the low tech is How can we put more information, different information in our regular mailer? We've redone the website and it's going to evolve into an app. Eventually, as an app on someone's phone, as more people use it, there are other ways of being able to... They can go there for facts instead of the noise that is the social media world, which I don't... I've got the garbage app. I know exactly what I need to do for garbage every day. If I have any questions, I've got the garbage app. I want the city app. So that same thing, I can turn around and we can provide facts.

I will say one thing we're doing really well on that is the Crimey Chronicles. Because that does... I remember my, I don't know, third or fourth week on council back in 2017 or 18 and met with the old chief, Jeff, because at that point we had the local paper would just post the funny stuff, right? It was just the joke, really. You know, someone was dressed as a clown or whatever it was. And I remember having a conversation with them. We need to get the real stuff out there so people... me we don't have serious calls that are going on on a regular basis so i think the crimey chronicles have been great and i think that's really lifted the profile of the police department even higher and maybe that's a mechanism that we can use to talk about some of this stuff because people pay attention i will say though as soon as if at some point we do a levy or have to have a vote on some at that point the staff can't after referral after referral the Information is always back-based information. They can't lobby. But that might be a way of maybe expanding the scope of what they're covering. Just throwing that out there. Well, we're not.

We're a bigger city today than we were when those older folks moved here. You looked at me.

I've been here longer than you.

Oh, but you called out your number of years. But historically, you know, I've always, for me, I've always had some different nicknames, and one of them is Copland. I have a lot of public safety professionals that live here from other jurisdictions. And there's always been a really good support base of what we do locally. public safety. So that always makes you feel good. And so from a, hopefully for me, my perspective, if a year from now or less, and by the end of the year, hopefully things are changing and improving and people's general mood improves and then more opportunities in 27 will stay.

the big thing is that we saw in may you know what i'm seeing in polling is people want change positive change that's what they're looking for and um filling that desire is key to success whatever initiative you're working on so um i think we've got a lot going on um i think that future with Sherwood West will bring some of these discussions up in terms of services that are needed with the expanded and activity and that can prime but that will be new prosperity to the city and if it's if it's talked about in that way, I think you can build off of that. If it's talked about farmland being taken and all those sorts of things, you got to package it right and talk about it that way. And you can build off of that. But because I've sat in the work sessions that you've had on staffing and funding for that, I think, at least as another long-term resident, I think you guys... If the citizens knew that you were looking at a commercial fee first and those sorts of things, showing that you're addressing the issue in a thorough and complete way instead of just going levy, levy, levy.

Okay. Maybe a little section in the Archer that says, you know, did you know, with just some, some quick little bullets, you know, easy to digest, not this whole big article, but just quick little soundbite bullets about, Hey, did you know that there are multiple buckets for the, you know, for the budget and certain things come out of certain things. Did you know that when, when, um, when our, our, um, My words are escaping me right here. This is called brain fog. Menopause is real. When our utility workers or, you know, our landscape crews are working, we have to have a certain number of people because I can't tell you how many times I've driven through town and seen two people doing work and somebody else is just standing there watching. And I'm wondering why, why, why is that happening? And who's paying for that person to stand there and watch? Or, you know, just little things like that that could help educate the public and open their eyes so that when you start talking about a levy, they've already got this background information. out there. I don't know who would write it. I'm not volunteering to write it. I'm just saying maybe something short and sweet.

I like the bullet point. I think the articles, people just, yeah, it's just too much.

Like small doses of information, important information that people could digest, think about, go home, tell their neighbors.

People realize we spend more on police than we collect in taxes. Property taxes, which is true.

We're looking at ways to make the Walmart- Did you know that we only get a 3% increase in property taxes each year when our expenses are going up 11% to 12%?

Yeah, that's important.

Yeah.

That's important to get out. That's a nice little bullet point. Well, what do you mean? Where can I find out more about this?

Yeah, the buckets. Money is a utility bill that all those dollars go to the utility.

It can't be used.

The water bill goes to the water. It's a sewer. It's a sewer.

Yeah.

So one of the issues, size marijuana, that we as old timers dealt with was the thought of having Washington County do a graveyard shift. Yeah. But I bring that up not for- But to say that it was studied. Right, yes.

Because you, yes. Anyway, I think- Not just by me, but it was studied in somebody. Yes.

But I think what we found in doing our work under Jeff's guidance, what we found that really resonated with the public was the fact that staffing at night was one or two. And if we had a DUI and had to haul somebody to the county.

Or just serving a warrant. Yeah.

So that really, when we were out either at Police Night Out or Robin Hood Festival, we said that and people went, what?

No clue how long it takes to process those things.

So those are the sorts of things that have always resonated with the citizens. They want to know that there's Enough help when they call 911 that somebody's going to be there. And even at the current staff, it's not guaranteed anymore.

You know, our community supports our police because when there was talk about outsourcing to county for the evening, they were up in arms and there was no support behind that. I don't like that at all. I have one question.

Local control. I want to be able to know the officers. And the officers know Bill. The officers know Bill.

out of our police.

Half an hour for someone to come from halfway across the county.

A question about the commercial fee. Is that something that if there's a new fee that gets put in place, it impacts all businesses or can it be directed towards over this much revenue or over 20,000 square feet? Is it something where basically without targeting where it can impact the big box stores and not run the small restaurants out of business? Because I know the big box stores take a lot of our police resources because of all their retail success.

Yeah, some of the initial, at a minimum, it needs to scale. If you're a large box retailer, obviously you have a different impact than if you were just a mom-and-pop restaurant, right? So a lot of the modeling that they're doing so far scales it. So I can't remember the exact numbers. I don't want to get in trouble for quoting the wrong ones, but pretty affordable on the low end, and still affordable for a a large box, not for me, but for a large box to be affordable. So it's, it's, but that's one of the questions we're wrestling with is how do we make that, we want to create an environment where we can't get small business to come through it either.

Yeah. And, you know, we have movie theater needs to be rented out. You know, we've got space that needs to be developed and it needs to be attractive to everyone. So it's, it's definitely a balance, but I think, the people, the residents, would be more comfortable, I feel, down the road. Like Chris was saying, maybe voting for something knowing that other avenues have been addressed and utilized as best we could. And again, if the police department spends a big chunk of their time supporting the, you know, those corporations and the retail theft issues, then it's only fair that they would pay a proportion of founders that so that's a very fun sound commercial side.

And then when if we go for a levy, that levy aspect need to be as large as much.

Yeah, yeah, sure. I think not so leaning into knowing how how a lot of other cities work. And we have some really bad role models, ODOT, at the state level. But just looking at what Shore does, I mean, our fiscal processes are very thorough. And I think most of you know this. We do. But I'll say it for everyone, say it for the public that's listening. When we do our budgets, we do a realistic five-year forecast. And if we see that it's going into a territory which is not sustainable, we fix it now. Because a dollar saved today is $5 saved in five years, right? So in its last cycle, we actually had to reduce overall city that serious trouble down the road so and then there's a lot of stuff to your point about education there's a lot of stuff that i don't think the public fully understands like the water fund which we can't use police dollars on for can't fund police with it that's state law but the way that was set up when we built the new infrastructure was we were tucking away a little bit of money every month so we could pay for the capital improvements we needed and we just did a Major expansion to our treatment plant in Wilsonville and expanded the capacity 30%, right Craig? Our capacity? Yes, our capacity 30% for growth, and we didn't have to go talk to the voters.

Where we have a surrounding city.

Surrounding cities, and that's frustrating for me. Like when Salem had their crisis with water, because they hadn't taken those fiscally prudent measures, they went to the state, and the state bailed them out. For cities like us, it's like, hey, we're doing it right, you know, and we don't get those bailouts. So it's frustrating all around.

But the connected story, as Tim has said many times, is be able to tell the story that what the city's done with water to give us our whole infrastructure and our neighbors, which is the most larger population, but they did their, I don't know what the final tally is, but a billion four, a billion six, still counting. They had to, thankfully, it would have been much even uglier if it wasn't for the low bond rates during COVID. made it even less, otherwise the numbers were really crazy.

I think talking about some of those success stories, even the bridge, you know, when that was originally looking to be an ODOT project, you know, their estimated costs were 30% higher. So we figured out how to make it a city project and we were able to save money. Two, three years off the project and saved 30% plus. So I think advertising does successes and that we are looking for ways to be more efficient, save money, get outside money. We're on the list this year to get an earmark for some sewer improvements in downtown Sherwood from the federal government. How many years have we been asking for that one, Craig? Three or four. But we have been very successful also in bringing in outside money for

We've never put a tax on the ballot in the last 25 years, 24 years. Boston was the PD which rolled off. That was the last time we asked the community to tax themselves. Never done an operating levy. We didn't ask for them to help with the library or the art center or the bridge. or roads. That's a good thing to be able to do.

Everybody else has got a levy for this, a levy for that. I think that's important to shine as well.

I didn't know that. That's great. I think if people heard that, they'd realize, oh, I'm lucky to live here and I don't mind paying in.

And we also do with a lot less revenue than cities around us because we don't have the business

Being a residential community is, we're diversifying our tax base, which is helping.

So when I was talking with the now announced retiring police chief in Tigard, it was right after our gala.

And I was saying, you guys got to get a foundation and stuff.

while he didn't disagree, they're still writing the bank on their, it's not foreclosed, when they've gotten vehicles and cash from seizures. Seizure money. And they still are writing that to fill those equipment needs and stuff that the foundation provides.

The thing with the foundation is... Laura, you can correct me if I'm wrong from the last time I read that 501 the funds aren't supposed to be used to fund anything that the city should be funding. It's to fund over and beyond things. The needs, the wants, the improvements, the upgrades on certain things, but never to fill a hole that the city was supposed to fund.

One, there's Jamie was explaining that there's limitations of the funds because I was talking about the shields and those sort of, and he says, that's what we use that fund to do. So, but that he says, that's not going to last forever. So, but that's, they've got a levy. They just renewed it two or three years ago for strictly police funding.

Well, if they want to get a foundation up and running, they should do it sooner rather than later because it did take us a couple years to start.

I guess there was a police chief's convention or something in Pendleton a couple weeks ago, and somebody made a presentation about foundations and stuff, and whoever was there with him from Tiger, he said he told them, this is something you need to start working on. So they're thinking about it, But, you know, that's the uniqueness of this community and the city, how you guys have managed stuff. You get community support because of that.

And that's why, you know, we talked about all this stuff over the last 10 or 15 minutes. I think that... The Clackamas County levy certainly provides a cautionary input. I wouldn't want to over-index on it either because I think there is a difference, first of all, between a county sheriff's office levy and your local police department levy, and especially in Sherwood with how well this community supports the police department. I'm not suggesting we change our timeline or anything, but I think that we don't want to draw too much conclusions from that because I think we're in a very different situation. I do think that there's a lot of support in this community, especially as we tell these stories that we're telling about. We haven't taxed you. We haven't come after you, nickel and dimed you across 25 years. And here's what we've been doing with the resources we have. Here's how efficient we are. and here's what we need and we're asking now because we haven't asked for so long.

I think that's a good story. In addition to just talking about all of our accolades, I really like when I see on social media people comment about, oh, I can't believe that that's happening. And the PIO or whoever writes it says, we only have two officers on at any one time. I think that's a message that just needs to get repeated over and over and over. And at least to that audience who's- Make sure the criminals don't know that. And it's not always, it's, you know, minimum two per shift and shifts overlap. So there's more than that, but just kind of putting that message out there to that audience that, you know, we run very lean. Then when you finally come to find out, we have a gun as well.

So we've focused on funding and staffing, which is important. So I'm glad we focused on it. But are there other topics that you want to talk about, concerns, initiatives?

I think it's great. Our technology is growing. The drone program using AI to write the police reports or to assist in the police reports, it kind of transcribes things that the officers have a head start. Things like that helps get our officers out of the back rooms and back on the streets quicker. So they're not just doing admin work. So that really needs to be embraced. And that's another reason. for additional funding is that it's not just about staffing there's more components to it that's making the police force more expensive but technology is a huge part of it and you know we can't tuck our tails and run away from it you have to embrace it and move forward completely well i i'm going to throw out that caution again um

You can't completely rely on AI to write the reports. And we've had this conversation already with the PAB, but that's not going to hold up in court if the computer is writing your report. The officer has to do it.

Well, ours are the transcription.

I know, I know. But I just want the council to understand that too. We've talked about this quite a bit in the PAB that one night. It gave me heartburn.

And it required them to review it because it throws in some...

random random words right yeah sentences and words that they need to correct i think the the big and i get where you're coming from on that laurie it's always going to be a concern but the beauty of the technology that we have uh it's a double-edged sword and i've said it for quite some time we know who the company is, but this community expects us to have it. They want to know that we have body-worn cameras, less lethal technology that is up with the times. So to your point, we just have to figure a way out. With the report writing, it does, it's a great advantage because now as these evolve, and I'm pointing to my camera, but it transcribes it word for word, verbatim of the interaction. So it's really nice. It just takes that over into a report form. Nothing's eliminated. other than they just require that you review it because they'll throw in like you know purple dragon you know and you know just goofy little names in there so that you have to pay attention to ensure the validity of what is being said and done because you're right it could put an officer in some serious jeopardy if they sign in and say this is true well they're going to look like idiots on the stand and that's we don't want that well before remind me before we started implementing this like

Our VA was involved in.

Yeah. So it's so yeah. And just for clarification on that, we don't use it for hiring criminal investigations at this point. It's all for low level report taking of cold theft information reports, crashes, those kind of things. probably over the next year we'll get there, but the DA has been very cautious to ensure that we are following these rules and have standards that don't put us in a funny position.

The other point that I want to bring out you you mentioned that you know the public wants us to have wants you to have um the cameras and everything so they can you know we're up to speed and all that it's also a protection for you guys against liability you know which is something that also needs to be kept in mind yeah i mean it's and it's we've evolved enough that now it's if it's not on camera it didn't happen kind of thing

And so we are in a tricky place because these cameras, who knows where they're going to be facing at all times. And it's just specific to that angle. So we've had to navigate those challenges because there's still that human component involved. But it's still a great tool, exactly to your point, because there's a lot of things that are said and done accusation-wise against us that we can clear an answer. Flip side of it, we know that there's it helps identify and address that as well. So it's, I think it's a good thing.

That's interesting. I was going to get my morning coffee one day and I saw an officer in there, but sitting at his computer. So I chatted with him for a bit. He said he was doing reports. So I just like, what's the average time that takes you off the street, you know, and it can be a couple hours. And then we started talking about the AI assistance stuff. And he's like, yeah, that would get a lot of us back on the streets much much faster and have that much more availability. So the tool is great. Caution is good.

I just hope it's better than my voice to text is.

I'm sure.

I just want to do a quick time check and just ask counsel real quick. So we have one more item on the agenda. Unfortunately, Taylor, Can't be here because of a family emergency. And this is one.

Is he not able to come in now?

Well, this is one of his passion areas.

Yeah.

And I was just thinking as a counselor, we want to just delay this to another meeting. And I don't think there's another rush. There's no rush to get it done now. So Taylor can be here. Cause I know, I know he's would want to be here for this conversation. So I'm good with that.

That's fine with me. I just said goodness. I mean, if that's what you guys want to do, we'll put it on.

Okay, and they said, Okay, are you if he's not available calling like you thought, well, I guess he's just rather me I think he'd rather yeah or he can concentrate on what he has going on. Yes. Yeah.

Back to anything on timeliness of conversation. I don't think so.

Do we have room in future agendas? So on July 7th right now, or yeah, July 7th would be, we can just add it to that. It's just a book session only night.

Okay. Great. That's the work session of the commercial.

Yeah.

So July 7th, if you guys aren't busy.

Yeah. Mike and I were the first liaisons to the traffic safety committee. And that was Jeff's idea because other communities were doing something. And we had traffic was a number one issue in this community, speeding, parking, you name it. And we dealt with a lot of stuff in those early years and stuff. And now... Richard and Larry are on the committee, and it's a full-blown board now, but I want to applaud the council for, one, having it as a, approving it as a subcommittee of the Police Advisory Board, because I think it did provide a service to the community, and we happily dealt with a lot of issues the best we could, but it was a good back and forth. When the city couldn't deal with something, it was nice that a citizen group had reviewed and was able to communicate why.

Instead of beating the head against the city hall door and complaining to Greg and Greg not responding, they're going to a many of the peers from the community are volunteering to help on the issue. They're nearing them out and, yeah, be able to voice their concerns. Because it's true. As you learn, you can't do everything or what they want because it's for whatever reason. Right.

Well, and what times that I drive on Sunset now and with the new traffic function thing that's there. I mean, that was, that crossing was an issue way back when we first were on that committee.

Many complaints on that.

And many issues and many, you know, it was in the, it was talked about in the capital improvements, you know, years out, stuff like that. But for me that has been involved with those old issues and finally seeing a result now, I'm not totally sure what I'm going to do when the lights are flashing and stuff. Even though, as I was saying at the last police advisory board, there's one on Durham right near the Tigard High School that I go by. And if anything's flashing, I just stop. That's what I do. And I'm sure that's what I'll do on sunset. Is that wonderful? I just applaud the council for taking something that Jeff and the police advisory board said we're willing to take this on and you endorsed it and now it's grown and it's solved a lot of problems in the community.

Yeah.

I mean, otherwise, before that, it was calls to City Hall, routed to some staff member who then has this problem on their desk, and they're like, well, now what do I do with it? I don't, you know, the time to take it. Now you have a committee that can handle that, granted staff still has to be involved, but at least the right staff is coming to have the conversation. And citizens are feeling heard, I think, is really the...

I think probably the biggest takeaway I've seen from it is just the educational component, especially on the traffic safety board. You have engineers in there talking about what you can and can't do because otherwise everybody has a great idea of how to resolve a problem until you're faced with, well, there's a lot of legal hoops to jump through and this can't happen. Case in point, like a fire engine, you know, the humps, you can't put those out there, you know, and

We don't.

Tearing up their undercarriage.

Yeah, I mean, the risk. I just don't want to, I'm not encouraging you. No, yeah, thank you. We'd make the choice not to because of that.

First responder friendly speed bumps there, too. Whereas fire engines can straddle them, little low riders can't.

And that works, seems to work really well. But it's, yeah, I mean, I'm learning something new. Every time I go there, I'm like, oh, so it's good. So I think- It lets you go. I'm the last week.

Yep.

So I have a question. So I don't know, it was three or four years ago, the state allowed cities to lower speed limits in residential areas to 20 miles an hour. Portland, I think, was the first that did it. It's their goal zero program. There's a lot of statistics that say that a car on pedestrian accident, the outcomes are drastically better when you're going 20 versus 25. And we have, getting into my opinion world, we have some streets in our residential area like Dewey, some other streets that I just think are real problems. So one of the things that we put in our council goal was looking at reducing residential speed limits to 20 miles an hour. And I'm just wondering what you guys think about that.

Put it on the agenda of the traffic safety group, right? It's on the traffic safety group. But yeah, but always love people.

Just talking about this before the meeting, I don't disagree that there's some streets in Shorewood that should be 20 miles an hour. Collective streets, and I live right down the street from Piners and right down the street from Woodhaven. I think those are 25 mile an hour things, but like, Finch, Heather, all these cut-through streets, I would agree that those could be 20 miles an hour with a minimal impact other than

Well, you're going to have to pay for signage. Well, and I think it's going to have a minimal impact on drivers because most are parking at least on one side. So you're going slow anyway, trying to see around a corner, waiting for another car as you're kind of pulling over. In my mind, I can't fathom that people are going... you know, 35, 40 miles an hour in our residential zone. So... A newly minted 16-year-old was... Anyway, we've all seen that, yeah. So I feel if the limits did go from 25 to 20, it wouldn't be too much of a burden on people because... I feel a lot of people kind of meander through their neighborhoods anyway. But like you said, roads like Woodhaven and Pinehurst, which are residential, but they're more, what do you say, collector streets or arterial kind of, not as arterial as Sunset, but they still are a pass-through neighborhood. Yeah. So it's like those, I wouldn't, you know, I wouldn't see it necessary to move those down. So I don't know if there's different tiers rather than just a blanket, all residential. It's something that comes up in our traffic meetings a lot. Whenever we're talking about putting a stop sign up at a T intersection or something, and we're going, gosh, well, if we say yes here, is that going to set the precedent to where we have to do it at every T intersection? Yeah. If everyone wants a yellow curb leading up to the stop sign, that can be every stop sign now, every curb. That's the thing. Does it have to be a blanket thing? Can you target interior neighborhoods but not all the connecting streets?

I think those are some of the things that traffic committee and I'd love your committee to weigh in on it too that we have to struggle with on that. I'm not advocating any solution here, but I big sign I'm sure they had more instead of having it all throughout the neighborhoods because I'm just playing devil's advocate if you have it different neighborhood streets at different speeds that creates confusion too more confusion that's true too yeah but uh I just I mean we had a rollover accident on duty which is crazy remember that wow yeah whoa yeah so certainly the messaging is is a good one which I didn't say hey you know neighborhoods are

for families to make sure we're lowering the speed.

I would just ask how it's going to be enforced with our two officers on the road. Because I don't see a whole lot of officers on those little side streets very often. And if you're only reducing it from 25 down to 20, how is that going to be enforced?

I mean, I think Obviously, it's enforced like any other speed limit, right? It's if there happens to be an officer nearby at the time. But really, it's more about self enforcement, right? A decent percentage of people will just obey the lower speed limit. And that's what you're getting after. You're not going to get 100% compliance. But if you get 80% compliance, that's significant.

saying it's just another tool for the officers. So when they do happen to see it, obviously we can't perfectly enforce everything everywhere. Who knows, maybe we'll put a camera on it. Yeah, mobile cameras.

Is this a bad time to bring up my idea for fake Photo cameras. We just copy those ones that we just bought and make little boxes.

I already put in the request with the staff. We can get the kids in high school to build them.

That's right. If you, you know, you literally get them from the vendor, you know, next to nothing and people don't know, if you put the signs out, give them the same warnings, treat it like it's an active valid, then people won't know the difference between the ones that are real and the ones that are fake. move the real one around. Well, they set it off. Don't get a ticket, I guess. But, you know. The good idea.

The airport, the empty police car sitting there.

Yeah.

Awesome. Shit was put on every street. Anything else? I just had another thought, but now it's gone. My 60-year-old brain is failing me. We all know the boss. Wow.

They've probably been here.

Well, thank you so much. We're all available if you want to have conversations and chat offline about what's next. But I appreciate everything that you guys do and the time and commitment you put in to the work on the PAB and the benefit it brings for our community. So thank you so much for thought-faring and great conversations.

Thanks for having us.

Chief, what was going on Sunday? There were so many sirens. Police sirens.

All day. Yeah, here in town.

Oh, I don't know.

I don't know, honestly. Nothing that I heard about the significance. Okay. I think there's a lot of...

I know there was a lot of TVF in our absence. But there was a lot of police cars. Responding in support of the fire.

It could be.

Yeah, that's a good point. It sounded like they were chasing somebody.

Sometimes they'll do that with the perimeter, right? They're trying to corral somebody. Yeah, I didn't hear it.

Awesome.

Awesome.

all right officially adjourn us we'll uh uh seven o'clock on the hour we'll start our counseling thanks everybody