City Council - Regular Meeting

All right, good evening, everyone. It's 6.31, so I will call this Tiger City Council and Local Contract Review Board meeting to order. City Recorder Crager, would you please conduct the roll call?

Councillor Anderson?

Here.

Councillor Gaddousi? Mayor Hu?

Here.

Councillor Robbins? Here. Thank you. Councillor Schlack?

Here.

Councilor Shaw. Here. Council President Wolf.

All right, so will everybody please stand and join me in the Pledge of Allegiance. Council and staff member, do you have any non-agenda items? Seeing none, let's move on to public comment. The public comment period provides an opportunity for members of the public to address the City Council. While it is not a dialogue, either I or staff will follow up to address the issues brought forward in these comments. The calling number is 503-966-4101, and those wishing to comment should call now to get into the queue. Anyone present wanting to comment should sign up on the public comment form at the front of the room. First item is written comment. We received two written comments by the noon deadline Monday. One suggested including the Tiger Historical Association in downtown reimagined project planning. And another was in support of the spot microtransit item on tonight's agenda. Let's move on to in-person public comments. When I call your name, please come forward. After you speak your name and where you live, you have two minutes to speak.

All right, first we have Elise.

Please, good evening. There we go.

Excellent. Hi, my name is Elise Laubach, and I am a resident of the City of Tigard. However, I am here tonight in the capacity of my role as Executive Director for Family Promise of Tualatin Valley. I submitted a letter to the Council in this past week, and I'm just here in person to kind of reiterate that concern. It's my understanding that in the June 23rd meeting that the city presented a proposal to the council to change the allocation for CDBG infrastructure funding so that the city of Tigard would retain the portion that was previously combined with the Washington County amount and that the City of Tigard then would be able to use that amount. What is perhaps an unintended consequence of this proposal would be that non-profits from the City of Tigard would be ineligible to access any of the Washington County funding. I just wanted to state that from my evaluating of the proposal, it looks like there will be an addition of $40,000 per year. However, the Washington County pot of money is usually between $600,000 and $800,000 a year that's accessible to nonprofits for critical infrastructure projects. Family Promise of Trolleton Valley was planning to apply for that this year and would make potentially a large difference in our being able to support the capital needs of our facility. I do understand that budgets are tight everywhere in this environment. I just would ask you to weigh the potential cost benefit of this as an impact on one of your nonprofit partners. Thank you so much.

Thank you. All right. Let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is phone or video. Mr. Walter, are there any callers in the queue for phone or video testimony?

There are no callers in the queue.

Thank you so much. Let's move on to the next item, which is Police Department's 4th of July update. And we have Police Chief Rogers and Assistant Police Chief Sutton to give a brief report. Good evening.

Good evening, mayor and council. I'm Bob Rogers. I'm currently the interim chief of police. And Brad Sitton's with me. He's our interim assistant chief. We were asked to come in and talk about fireworks. Fourth of July marked our 250th anniversary in our country, and it was very well celebrated in the city of Tigard. We had, as you all know, a large event, one big fourth. The celebration took place centered around Tigard High School, that campus, and then also down into Cook Park. We estimated about 4,000 to 5,000 people were on or around that area enjoying the event. It started off around 6 o'clock. We were present, trying to do as much visibility as we could. And our basic plan was to call in night shift early, so we had extra additional officers all on overtime. That allowed us to use those folks to go ahead and take care of calls that were going to be emergent during the evening. And the calls were multiple. We ended up having 138 calls during that period of time from 6 o'clock until about 2 in the morning. And that's a high call load. Of those, we had about 60 fireworks calls. The swing shift focused on the event. They were out present to be seen in and around the event. And we also had two vehicles that had two peoples in them. One of the vehicles contained two officers who were prepared to respond to fireworks calls solely. They weren't going to be assigned any other types of calls. They were going to respond to congregate major fireworks calls. Many of the calls we got, we weren't able to respond to accurately, but I'm going to go ahead and turn it over to the Assistant Chief to talk about the operational details and also the outcomes of what took place with those in Focus Patrol.

Good evening, Mayor, Council. Again, I'm Brad Sitton, the Assistant Chief of Police. From 6 p.m. to midnight on the 4th, there were about 60 firework-related calls, which is in line with previous years. Of the 60 calls, 30 of them were area info calls, which basically means there's no specific address, but officers would respond to the area to see if they could find any of the fireworks that were being launched. Officers did speak with 13 different locations and individuals at those locations, and they issued warnings and gave some education to the individuals. And additionally, three formal warnings were given based upon the response in the CAD program itself. There were two separate calls where fireworks were seized under ORS 480.120. Additionally, officers located two fires. One was in a vehicle that they extinguished themselves, and one was in a tree that they notified TVFNR, and TVFNR responded and put the fire out before it went to the residents associated with that tree.

So part of the evening, we wanted to share with you guys the dynamics of call volumes during holiday events. It's similar to St. Patrick's Day, where we know we're going to have lots of gatherings with folks, and alcohol ends up being a base of most of those types of events. We do increase DUII patrols. We try to advertise that we're going to be doing that to the community and ask them to comply with clearly what's enforceable laws of DUII. Same thing with this. We tried to get the message out that we were going to have enforcement of fireworks. Then again, people are going to be using fireworks. We're so close to Washington state and the availability of obtaining illegal fireworks and the magnitude of those is pretty stunning, actually, what you can buy. We did some research earlier today to see what you could have shipped and what you can purchase. It's amazing what you can do. But we wanted the officers to focus on specifically responding and engaging with the community with firm compliance. And we had that in many of the instances. We were able to gain compliance with folks, whether they believed they had legal fireworks or otherwise. We tried to do that as much as we could. The dynamics of enforcing this violation is complex. We have to actually see the violation take place. Unlike other statutes we're able to enforce, like at a traffic crash, We're unable to do that without physically seeing the incident take place. And many of the calls we got were loud noises in my area. I have fireworks falling on my house. And the officers would transit across the city to get to that location and then try to determine where it's happening. It's very difficult for us to be able to look upon somebody who's Engaging in fireworks now if you were out during that event we were you could see them happening It's just hard to get to the location where it's actually taking place Anonymous callers make that more difficult as well where people call in and just give us redundant information and keeping in mind that as we begin to wrap up this presentation, we spent quite a bit of money from the city to make sure presence was occurring out in the community and making sure that the event that was lawful was safe and people were able to come to that location and feel confident. I heard nothing but positive remarks from folks about us being out there in the community as best we could. We've received complaints as well. I know the council's also received those from constituents out there. Troubled by the fact that we weren't doing anything, and I want you to trust me, we were doing the best we could. The call volume during that period of time ranged from assisting motorists, we had a death investigation, we had multiple vandalisms that had taken place in other parts of the city. It was a busy night for us anyways. So although fireworks are emergent and they are important, and we dedicated time and resources to it, the city was still doing many other things to include celebrating the 250th of our country. So we're available for questions if you guys have any. Thank you.

Councilor Shah.

I just want to say thank you. I appreciate the efforts towards enforcement and knowing how difficult that is and the myriad of other activities, of course, that still go on. So thank you very much. You had mentioned you thought it was about 4,000 to 5,000 people. There had been estimates there was upwards of 12,000, so I wasn't sure if we actually had an accurate headcount number or not.

No, that was purely my estimate. So if you had a better on-the-ground counter of people. We had estimates of up to 10,000 is what we expected, but it looked comparable to events in the past. It was good. It was packed.

Any questions? Yeah, the reason I requested, thank you so much Chief and Assistant Chief for this presentation, the reason I requested just because we, as you mentioned, Council received concern and somewhat frustration about maybe we're not doing enough, but as you mentioned, we are, you know, I don't say we, but the police department is actually doing quite a bit during one of the busiest nights of the year, right? And you do have to prioritize many calls, so I appreciate you coming and explaining to us. So, yeah, is there anything the council can help you in the future with this kind of situation or...

July 4th actually happens a little bit earlier in the evening than January 1st that's going to be coming up. That event right up until midnight. So we're going to do some type of a communications mode again. And we're probably going to staff up based on what we've learned through the years to do, again, additional patrols and go out and insist that folks beforehand or after. There's usually a moment in time where society basically has a vote and they just decide they're going to go ahead and do it. And that happens right around the moment of New Year. So we just ask for you guys to echo what we're going to share about the safety concerns we've had, the fact that it is illegal, the fact that it's up to a $1,500 violation or a criminal action, which is our last effort. The last thing we want to do is engage in a criminal action if we don't have to. It's obviously about engagement and making sure that people are being safe. So if we have the opportunity for councillors to also echo that message. Coming up, we'll prep it up and use our different communications modes.

Yeah, okay. All right. Thank you again so much. Thank you for everything you do. Thank you. All right, let's move on to the next item of the agenda, which is City Manager Report. Acting City Manager Kirkman will provide a brief report. Good evening.

Good evening, Mayor and Council. Let's see if the slide goes up. Perfect. July is both Parks and Recreation Month and the 10th anniversary of Tigard Parks and Recreation, making it the perfect time to celebrate the people and places that help our community thrive. For the past decade, our Park and Recreation team has created opportunities for residents of all ages to connect, play, learn, and enjoy Tigard's beautiful parks and public spaces. Whether it's concerts and movies in the park, fitness classes, youth programs, special events, or simply maintaining welcoming parks and trails, they help make Tigard a vibrant place to live, work, and play. We invite everyone to join us this summer and experience the many programs and activities happening throughout the season. Looking ahead to next Saturday, July 25th, We also encourage the community to attend our Community Preparedness Fair at Cook Park Family Park from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. This free, family-friendly event offers hands-on activities, demonstrations, and presentations designed to help residents prepare for emergencies before they happen. Visitors can learn hands-only CPR, explore the Map Your Neighborhood program, see amateur radio in action, build emergency preparedness skills, and discover simple steps to create emergency kits and family communication plans. Preparing isn't about expecting the worst. It's about building confidence, resilience, and stronger neighborhoods. We hope you will join us for a fun and informative day that is truly of all ages. Those are our two items.

Thank you. Councilor Shah.

Saturday is July 25th. So you think you said that in your talking points, but on the slide it says 26. Oh, good. And I just know the date specifically. So I just wanted to point it out.

That is a good thing to point out, and we'll make sure our media is updated.

That's great. It's a terrific event. So for community members who have not been before, I highly recommend it. It is really helping you get prepared for a number of either personal emergencies or just natural emergencies. So I'd recommend it.

Yeah, I concur. That's where I learned how to build an emergency kit for my pets and how to build an emergency toilet. Those are very helpful. So I highly encourage everybody to check it out. It's a lot of interesting and educational activities there. All right, thank you. All right, so let's move on to next item on the agenda, which is consent agenda. The consent agenda is used for routine items, including approval of meeting minutes, contracts, or intergovernmental agreements. Information on each item is available on the city's website in the packet for this meeting. These items may be enacted in one motion without separate discussion. Council members may request that an item be removed by motion for discussion and separate action. On tonight's consent agenda, we have a contract amendment to the pavement management program slurry and crack steel services contract and review of a post-project evaluation for exemption from competitive bidding for the reservoir 18 and pump station improvement project. Do you have any questions or motion?

Mayor, I move to approve the consent agenda as presented.

Seconded. Any discussion? I have a, actually I have a question about the item B, the post-project evaluation for exemption from competitive bidding for the reservoir 18 and pump station improvement project. I just want to clarify this item before us is for review and public record purposes. And we are not being asked to adopt finding or anything, right? Because it's already approved by council in 2021.

Good evening, Mayor, City Council. My name is Ross Horton. I'm a senior project engineer with Tigard Public Works. The Reservoir 18 and Pump Station project was my project, and that is correct. We are not asking Council to approve anything. This review of, the review of this exemption from competitive bidding is a state requirement that we're required to do for any project that is delivered with an alternative delivery method.

Yeah, I really appreciate your detailed report on this. There's many great things about this progressive design-build process. And there are some, you mentioned there's something that could be done better. So from this process, did you learn anything that could be useful in the future if we go forward with this kind of progressive design-build again?

Yes, I think we did learn some good lessons as part of the project. This was, the Reservoir 18 project was Tigard's first progressive design build project. There were many benefits with it. I think with a very complex project like this, progressive design build was a great way to achieve all of the city's goals. while maintaining a fixed price on it. Some of the things that we learned where we could do better, I think there's some minor things in the contract language that would help us out in future projects, just defining exactly what counted as project savings versus what the contractor could charge us for. But all in all, it was the correct delivery method for a project of that size and scale.

Yeah, it sounds like a great project and great process, so yeah, so looking forward to more of that in the future when it's appropriate, so thank you. Great, thank you. All right, any other discussion or question? No, okay, so all those in favor say aye. Aye. All those opposed say nay. The consent agenda is adopted by a unanimous vote of the council present. All right, let's move on to the next item, which is SPOT Microtransit Pilot Project. Principal Transportation Planner Gerke and we'll introduce Washington County Senior Planner Farhudi and Mara from Ride Connection. Good evening.

Hello. I am just going to sit up here just for a moment just to introduce our visitors and presenters today. My name is Tiffany Gerke. I'm the principal transportation planner for the city of Tigard. And I have the pleasure of introducing our speakers. We've got Reza Faroodi with Washington County as well as John Mira with Ride Connection. And I will have them come up to grace you with their presence.

Hello.

Hi, good evening, Mayor, members of Tiger City Council. I think I've mentioned, I'm Reza Farhoudi. I'm Transition Planner of Washington County, and here today is John Mira, Planning Supervisor for Ride Connection, and really happy to be with you today to talk about the SPOT Southwest Microtransit Service. Next slide. Next slide. So just to provide a brief overview of the presentation, we're going to talk a bit about Ride Connection's role as a transit provider in Washington County. We'll then discuss the project background and the purpose of how SPOT came to be. We will do a brief overview of what is microtransit exactly, and then go over the service area and the connections that the SPOT provides in City of Tigard and beyond. And then we will do a brief overview of how to use the SPOT service, and then we'll go over the next steps.

Next slide.

So Ride Connection, Washington County, we contract with Ride Connection. They're a private nonprofit to provide public transit service in areas of Washington County that lack sufficient fixed route transit service. So one of the areas that they... SERVE IS WELL THEY SERVE WITHIN THE TRIMET SERVICE AREA THEY SERVE SEVERAL CITIES AND COMMUNITIES AND THEY PROVIDE A VERY USEFUL FIRST AND LAST MILE TRANSIT CONNECTION FOR THE COMMUNITY YOU CAN SEE ON THE MAP THERE ABOVE WE ALSO Rye Connection also has a very important role serving the rural area. They operate a intercity shuttle that serves the communities of North Plains and Banks, and they also provide a door-to-door demand response service as well for those in the rural area. Next slide. So the idea with SPOT came about from our transit development plan. So we're responsible, the county, developing a plan every two years to identify transit service needs and as well as a budget to address those needs. So we receive payroll tax revenue from ODOT, as well as from TriMet to operate these services in the county. And so within the transit development plan, we identified that there was a gap in transit service in the communities of Beaverton and Tigard, specifically in Southwest Beaverton, so South Cooper Mountain, Progress Ridge. We also identified River Terrace as an area of transit need. And we felt that microtransit could be a near-term step to address this need. We know that TriMet has long-term plans to serve this area with fixed route service, but we thought this could be an opportunity to deploy service faster for those in need. We know that there's several affordable housing developments in the area. There's obviously a major high school in Mountainside and a lot of jobs and commercial development as well. So we applied for a stiff discretionary grant, a statewide transportation improvement fund grant to not only operate the service, but also to purchase the vehicles and the software needed to operate the microtransit. And John will get more into how that works. And this pilot was obviously in partnership with Ride Connection. Next slide. So with the spot service, the two main goals are to connect to key destinations within the service area. So again, with the high school, with the Progress Ridge, Murray Shoals, there's a lot of different commercial developments in the area that lack transit service. And obviously there's been an explosion of growth in the last 10 years in the area. And so this obviously was an area of important need for the community. We also wanted to help connect folks to the TriMet system at large, so whether you want to connect to Washington Square to go to the mall, or if you want to connect to other transit services to get you to Beaverton, to Tigard, further afield, you're able to do so. We're hoping that with this pilot we'll be able to monitor how the service is being used and see what travel patterns are being formed and how that could inform future transit investments, whether it is by ride connection in the county or by TriMet one day eventually expand service into the area. We're also hoping to potentially adapt this microtransit model to other areas of the county that are in need of service but don't necessarily have the requisite population or job density to support fixed route. Microtransit could be that perfect in between solution to allow folks to get where they need to go at a lower cost than providing a full fixed route service. Next slide. So now I'll pass over to John and he'll go over how exactly microtransit works.

Thank you, Reza. So yeah, a little more about Microtransit. It is a flexible on-demand service, not unlike ride-hailing services you might be familiar with, say Uber or Lyft. I think the key difference is this is public transportation. The software we use, the algorithm behind it, really emphasize the grouping of trips wherever possible to make this efficient, cost-effective service. So somewhere between those ride-hailing services and the bus. Like Uber, also it is app-based. Customers will download an app. They'll be able to request a trip in that app, track their vehicle in progress, eventually get picked up. They might pick up or drop off other riders on the way to their destination, and then they will arrive. The vehicles we use, with our statewide transportation improvement fund grant, we're able to purchase two Ford Transit vans to operate the service with. They can accommodate up to eight passengers and then up to two wheelchairs or other mobility devices. And Ride Connection has a really strong 40-year history of serving older adults and people with disabilities. Our vehicles are equipped with wheelchair lifts rated 1,000 pounds. That's well above and beyond, I think, ADA requirements. And our drivers receive extensive training in transporting, safely securing people in mobility devices, people with other disabilities. We can also accommodate up to two bicycles on racks on the front of the vehicles. We know this is a first last mile service for a lot of people. And it might be a multimodal trip for those same people. Even to get to our service or get from our service to their destination, they might be using a bicycle. It's free to the public. The cost of the service is entirely covered by the state grant, and there's no eligibility requirement, unlike some microtransit pilots. Anyone can ride. It doesn't have an age requirement, a disability requirement, or an income requirement or anything else. Next slide, please. Um, so we, uh, uh, back in summer of of 2025, a year ago, did a extensive public outreach. In the communities, Beaverton, Tigard, uh, unincorporated Washington County elsewhere in the service area. so that we could sort of define the parameters of the pilot, the service area we would serve, and other considerations when designing a transit service. We tabled at several events during that summer, including the Tigard Farmer's Market, New Seasons, and Progress Ridge, Murray Shoals Town Center at the library, as well as a few Tigard Parks pop-ups at Summer Lake Park. Blueberry Hill Park heard a lot of great community feedback. We brought a map along so that people could place stickers, sort of notate where they were coming from, where they needed to go, especially if they were transit dependent or didn't have a vehicle. We also hosted a summer survey on an online open house and were able to get a fair amount of community feedback that way as well.

Just a quick note, we also came to the Tiger Transition Advisory Committee and got some really helpful feedback from them as well. Next slide, please.

With all of that community input, we then went ahead and designed a service area that spot vehicles would operate within. So microtransit, part of the reason it's efficient, something that's viable for a transit agency to operate, is it typically operates within a pretty narrow, small service area so that we can reach customers PROVIDING PRETTY GOOD ON TIME PERFORMANCE, PICKING PEOPLE UP WITHIN 10 OR 15 MINUTES OF THEIR REQUEST. AND ALSO BETTER GROUP TRIPS. SO WHAT WE CAME UP WITH WAS A SEVEN SQUARE MILE SERVICE AREA, INCLUDES ABOUT 33,000 RESIDENTS AND 5,000 TOTAL JOBS. 1,500 OF THOSE RESIDENTS ARE IN TIGERED AS WELL AS 400 OF THOSE JOBS. And we serve parts of several Tiger neighborhoods. That includes River Terrace to the very south of the service area, as well as parts of Bull Mountain and the Shoals Summer Lake neighborhoods. And then some of the key origins, destinations we had in mind, Mountainside High School, of course, pretty large, large in student body high school with no TriMet service, as well as the various shopping centers in the area, Progress Ridge, Murray Shoals, Cooper Mountain Nature Park. We are really interested in serving that outdoor recreation need. And then the affordable housing going up around, especially Mountainside High School, the Alter and Amity Orchards developments, and as well as grocery stores in the area, which are both employers, but also sources of groceries and other shopping needs for residents. Next slide. And we wanted to serve not only the service area, but being that first last mile service and with the stiff goal of connecting people to the wider transit network, we knew we had to connect to a TriMet transit center so that people could access other key destinations in the region using TriMet. We considered a couple during our planning and outreach phases. including the Merlo Max Station, Tigard Transit Center. But what we heard, especially in community feedback, was people wanted to get to Washington Square, not just because of the number of transit transfers they can make at Washington Square, but also because the mall is a destination in and of itself and a major employer in the area as well. There are a number of TriMet lines served there, including the 45, 56, 62, 78. We are aware that some of TriMet's plant service reductions later next month will impact those connections, but at least with an additional transfer, people will still be able to make it to, say, downtown Portland and some of the other key areas Routes are being left largely intact. So it's still. It still makes a lot of sense for us to connect there. We are interested to see if ridership coming out of Washington square mall has improved. Since implementing this pilot, and we'll work with to evaluate that. And there's a couple of nearby destinations in and around the transit center as well that people could connect to with a spot trip. That includes the Hall Nimbus West Station, a three-quarter mile walk, a kind of challenging walk, I would say. And then also affordable housing in the area as well. Next slide. And then a little more on how to use Spot. We operate Monday through Friday, 6.30 a.m. to 9.30 p.m. People must request the ride same day. It's a completely on-demand service. Like I said, we hope to fulfill that demand within 15 to 30 minutes, if not sooner. People can request to be picked up as soon as possible, as soon as they request the trip. Or if they need to, say, plan a trip for later in the day, they can select leave at or arrive by times. They're able to specify the number of riders. So we have a lot of riders who might travel with children or high schoolers traveling with friends. People can specify mobility devices and bicycles they plan to bring. as well in the app, and that way they have that assurance that they'll get on the bus with their bike or mobility device. It's not going to pass them up due to no available capacity. Next slide. And we're really happy with initial pilot performance so far, especially ridership. It's kind of taken us by surprise within the first five months. We saw nearly 5,000 rides. Looking at June data, we're actually surpassed 5,000 rides. I think we're at about 6,500. And ridership was really quick to increase. This caught on way sooner than we expected. 250% increase in ridership between January and March. And within the first couple months, almost 1,500 customer accounts being created. OUR INITIAL GOAL WHEN WE'RE LOOKING AT PRODUCTIVITY AND EFFICIENCY OF THE PILOT WAS TO GET TO TWO TO THREE BOARDINGS PER HOUR. THAT'S NOT A LOT IF YOU COMPARE IT TO TRY MET FIXED ROUTE OR OTHER HIGH CAPACITY TRANSIT. FOR A MICROTRANSIT PILOT IT'S ACTUALLY PRETTY EFFICIENT. WE'RE AWARE THIS IS A SMALL SCALE SERVICE MEETING COMMUNITY NEEDS. AND WE'VE ALREADY BLOWN PAST THAT GOAL. WE'RE AT ABOUT THREE BOARDINGS PER SERVICE HOUR. LOOKING AT THE FIRST FIVE MONTHS, LOOKING AT JUNE, ALMOST FOUR BOARDINGS PER MONTH, THAT TRANSLATES TO I mean, four boardings per hour, that would translate to less than $20 per trip, which is a pretty good transit subsidy. It might still seem like a lot, but it's actually a fairly low subsidy for public transportation. So we're interested to see where this goes. If ridership rises too fast, we might have challenges maintaining good on-time performance, meeting that 15 to 30 minute goal for trip fulfillment. But so far, customer feedback, other key metrics, they've pointed to a successful service. Next slide, please. And then I will hand it back to Reza for next steps.

Thanks, John. So we currently have funding with our existing discretionary grant to operate the pilot through June of 2027. We're continuing to monitor ridership behavior, and we might make small changes to driver shifts to accommodate demand in terms of when the peak hour uh usages it's typically been in um weekday afternoons um especially right after school lets out at mountainside but we're open to making small tweaks as needed to adjust we're continuing to do outreach with mountainside high school and other underserved populations we're looking uh forward to getting the word out and making sure people are aware of the service we've had uh we sent out postcards and we're open to meeting with other with groups as needed to help them get more committed with the service. And then we're actually exploring funding opportunities to expand or extend the pilot. So we received a letter of support from your city, which we're really appreciative of, to extend the pilot to June of next year. So it's a one year extension that we're hoping to receive. And then we're also hoping to possibly add weekend service as well. It's been something that's been requested from the community. Right now we only have funding to operate on the weekdays, but to be able to extend the weekends would be great to help people, you know, accomplish errands or if they want to go to Cooper Mountain Nature Park, more recreational opportunities. It'd be great for that. And we're also opening to, like John said, address some of the challenges we're facing with increased demand and lower reliability by hopefully being able to add more service in the weekday peak hours to accommodate that demand and hope that people don't have to wait as long for a trip to be fulfilled. And so we're hoping to hear back by early next year on that grant and hope that we're successful and be able to keep this service going. So we'll wait and see for that. But in the meantime, we're really excited with the progress that we've been seeing with ridership and community support has been really great. So yeah, we're looking forward to keeping this going. Next slide. And I think that's all we have. So if you have any questions, we're happy to take them as well. Thank you so much for your time.

Thank you for the presentation. Council member, any questions? Councilor Robin, please go ahead.

Thank you. Hi. This is a really exciting program. I'm glad to see it's been so successful. I am wondering, and you probably answered this by saying, you know, you're just sticking with the areas you are, but Are you considering at all expanding up Bull Mountain? Because it looks like where you are is really focusing around Bull Mountain down by River Terrace. And I think there's a lot of non-driving teenagers and probably non-driving adults up on Bull Mountain itself and Bull Mountain closer to Pacific Highway that don't have access to any sort of metro transportation. And this would be a great way to get those people out and about.

Yeah, thank you, Councilor, for that comment. And I think we're approaching this pilot with a very open mind. We want to meet as much of the community need as we possibly can and are very open to making tweaks during the pilot phase. At the same time, we know, and we're already seeing this sort of tested or strained, we want to ensure reliability of the service, so we have to be very cautious when considering expansions of the service area, for instance, or changing any of the other service parameters. I think if the county is awarded an additional year through June 2028 of funding for the service, and there's the possibility of expanded funding for the service, we will absolutely consider changes to the service area, expansions to the service area, especially if we are able to INCREASED CAPACITY AT THE MIDDAY OR EARLY EVENING PEAK. SO, YEAH, THANK YOU FOR SPEAKING UP ABOUT BULL MOUNTAIN AND THE NEEDS, ESPECIALLY IF HIGH SCHOOL IS THERE. WE'LL CERTAINLY LOOK INTO IT.

THANK YOU, MAYOR. SO IS LINK CONSIDERED THE SAME THING AS SPOT OR ARE THERE TWO DIFFERENT SERVICES BECAUSE THEY'RE BRANDED DIFFERENTLY?

Yep, so LINC is the community connector shuttles. So those operate on a deviate fixed route basis. So they operate on a fixed route, but they're able to deviate up to half mile off the route to meet requests. SPA is completely free floating demand response. It doesn't follow any sort of set schedule or route. It is a free floating service. So that's the main difference between the two.

Thanks. I just saw it was on that first slide, so I just wanted to make sure the community knew they were really two different services. And the second, and appreciate the pilot and hopefully it gets funded beyond June of 27, and I have some ideas for you, which you probably are due with the Climate Protection Program and maybe even electrifying your fleet. But in the meantime, you had mentioned it's similar to what Council Robbins, I think, was also asking. But River Terrace, you mentioned there's a tremendous transit need. And how do you determine where that need is? Because in Tiger, it's about, you mentioned 1,500 residents, 400 jobs. So just wondering how you chose that service area.

So one of the first things that we were looking at was the Mountainside High School boundary because we understood that students lacked any other transportation to get to or from school. And so that was sort of the first kind of pasture we did. And we recognized that a lot of River Terrace, most of River Terrace doesn't attend Mountainside, they attend Tiger High School. But that was kind of the first kind of pasture the first pass we took at establishing the service area. I think we wanted to make sure that all of our terrace was covered, so we tried to extend as far south as we could. That was of major importance to us. And then we were just trying to avoid duplication with TriMet routes. So we serve Murray Boulevard. We're at the very eastern edge of our service area is Murray Boulevard, and that's where TriMet operates through 62. We really wanted to make sure that we weren't duplicating service to the extent possible. Obviously, on Shoals Ferry Road, they have buses on that street. spot on there as well but for the most part we've tried to make sure that we're not duplicating service and that's one of the reasons why we haven't yet looked at expanding to north either we've gotten requests from folks in community like could you take me to beaverton transit center could you take me closer to the max and that's one of the things where we would love to if we had the available resources we would love to look into that but one of the things we want to make sure is that we're not necessarily cannibalizing trimus service our main goal with this is to feed trimit and not necessarily compete with them so those are some of the factors in mind Do you have anything else?

No, I think that's a really good summary. We did actually look at the service area at first with like a link style shuttle in mind as well. I think in studying it, what quickly became apparent is the need for transit. It's kind of all over the place. It's on an east-west axis along Shoals Ferry Road, on a north-south axis. It'd be really hard to design a fixed route that served all of that, plus River Terrace, plus Cooper Mountain. So that's part of the appeal of microtransit, is you get... quite a bit more coverage while still being able to maintain pretty good reliability, pretty good span of service from 6.30 to 9.30. But I think eventually we'll find this place has proved itself for a fixed route service from TriMet. What that looks like exactly and how many years off, we're not sure. But it could probably benefit from some combination of fixed route and microtransit feeding into it.

Thank you, yeah. Thank you for your presentation update and I was at the ribbon cutting and I think I and other speakers all used the word innovative, right? So it's great and just so wonderful to see, it's so popular and now you have to worry about not wanting your customer to wait more than 30 minutes. So that's a good problem to have, I guess. So hopefully, as fellow councilor mentioned, hopefully we can get funding to continue this and hopefully even more to expand the service area. This is a great success. So thank you so much again for the update.

Thank you very much for having us. Thank you.

Thank you. All right, so let's move on to the next item on the agenda, which is legislative public hearing. Ordinance to amend Tiger Municipal Code Chapter 10.30, residential parking zones. And I will open the public hearing. Anyone who may want to testify, please call 503-966-4101. And you may also testify in person by signing up at the sign-up sheet in the front. And first, I will invite Police Administrative Specialist Hal Strom and, again, Assistant Police Chief Sutton to give the staff report. Good evening.

Thank you, Mr. Mayor and Council. My name is Michelle Hellstrom, and I'm a police administrative specialist for the police department. I am here this evening to speak with you regarding TMC 1030.050 for residential parking zones. Currently, the code states a resident must reapply each year for all parking permits on or before July 1st. We would like to amend the code to after July 1st to align with our current practice and the school year. Staff recommends that council approve the proposed council ordinance change.

Thank you. So let's move on first to public testimony. We received no written comment on this item by noon Monday. Mr. Walter, are there any callers in the queue to testify on this item?

There are no callers in the queue.

Thank you. City Recorder Kroeger, has anyone signed up to provide testimony?

No one has signed up.

All right, so thank you. And so there's no response needed. So before I close the public hearing, council member, do you have any questions? Question only.

No? Oh, Council Anderson. Yeah, so you're going to start it on July 1st, and you want them to apply after July, right? So there's going to be a pretty big rush at the 1st of July. Are you expecting that?

Yes, that is what our current practice actually is, because it makes it easier to wait until July 1st to have the new sets of permits, because the other ones are actually still current until June 30th. So it's easier and cleaner just to do after July 1st.

Any other questions, councillors? Go ahead, Councillor Shaw.

And this also aligns more efficiently with Tyler, or we're calling it EPL system, so it's efficiency as well.

Correct. We're in the process of transferring our software over to Tyler, so.

All right. If there are no further questions, I will close the public hearing, and now we move on to council consideration of Ordinance 26-13.

Mayor, I move to approve ordinance number 26-13, an ordinance amending chapter 1030 of the Tigard Municipal Code residential parking zones to change the date for reapplication submittals.

I'll second the motion.

Thank you. The motion being moved and seconded. Are there any further discussions? Seeing none, will the city recorder conduct a roll call vote?

Yes. Councillor Anderson?

Yes.

Mayor Hu?

Yes.

Councillor Robbins?

Yes.

Councillor Slack?

Yes.

Councillor Shaw? Yes.

Ordinance number 26-13 is adopted by a unanimous vote of the council member present. Thank you so much. Thank you. All right, let's move on to the next item on our agenda, which is received briefing on proposed Southwest Barn Street, Southwest Cherry Drive water service area transfer with Tualatin Valley Water District. And we have Senior Project Engineer Horton to give the staff report. Good evening again.

Good evening, Mayor. Good evening, Councillors. It's nice to be up here again. So I'm here tonight to provide a briefing on an intergovernmental agreement that's going to be coming your way at the next City Council meeting on the 28th of this month regarding transferring water service responsibility in the Southwest Varnes and Southwest Cherry Drive neighborhood from Tualatin Valley Water District to the City of Tigard. Next slide, please. So first off, just stepping back and taking a big picture look at this, there are two drinking water providers in Tigard. The first is City of Tigard, which provides what we call the Tigard Water Service Area, which serves about two-thirds of Tigard, King City, Durham, and unincorporated parts of Washington County. This is the area that was formerly served by the Tigard Water District. Now, North Tigard, north of Greenberg, Tigard Triangle north of 217, that area is served by Tualatin Valley Water District, and that was historically served by the Metzger Water District. Next slide, please. But you'll notice that there is a small area south of 217 that's served by Tualatin Valley Water District. Now, there's kind of a long story about why this areas still served by TVWD when all the areas around it are served by Tigard. Back in 2002 Tigard and TVWD were updating our urban services agreement and Tualatin Valley Water District transferred most of its areas south of 217 in this particular area to Tigard but there was a board member at TVWD that lived in this neighborhood and did not want this particular area transferred because it meant he would no longer be part of TVWD's board. So he convinced TVWD to continue serving this area. So for over 20 years, TVWD has been serving this very small area because of actions of one of its board members many years ago. silly thing to do but we're finally getting around to to rectifying it it's a relatively small area currently there are 73 connections 71 of those are residential there's one commercial connection and one fire service connection and all of those connections are served by a single pipe attached to the overpass on 72nd avenue that goes over highway 217 So it's a single pipe that serves this area. And this area is also at the very south end of TBWD's kind of larger service area. So there are TVWD has to make extra efforts to make sure that the water quality meets all the state standards, just because the water, by the time it gets here, is sometimes relatively old. So they have a flushing program in the area to flush new water in. Again, it's also not a very resilient area, just being served by one single pipe. So late last year, TVWD approached Tigard to develop an IGA for Tigard to assume Service responsibility for this area. It's something that we've done in the past So when when TVWD has had to do maintenance on that pipe that serves the area there are valves in place and Ways that Tigard has served this area in the past so we know that it can be done Now we're just kind of making that next step to officially transfer this this water service area Next slide please So when they approached us, the first thing we did was do a technical evaluation of what impacts this was going to have to our water system. So just based on the number of customers there and average water consumption, we expect an additional average demand of about 20,000 gallons and a maximum daily demand on a really hot summer day of 38,000 gallons per day of water to be served in this area. Now that may sound like a lot, but Our average daily demand for the Tigard water service area is six and a half million gallons, and it peaks at about 13 million gallons on our maximum demand day. Overall, this would be a negligible increase to our water system demands. So from a supply standpoint, there's no issues with serving these people from the TWSA. We looked at pressure changes and how Tigard's water system and TVWD's water system in the area compare. Only a couple of pounds per square inch difference of pressure between the two. So the impact from that standpoint is negligible. No impacts to customers from a pressure perspective. And again, there are not any major piping modifications needed to serve this area. There's already valves in place between TVWD and Tigard system. So to start serving this area with Tigard water would just take some coordination between our two utility crews to open and close valves. Next, we looked at this from an administrative evaluation. Not only are we going to be serving water, but we have to bill these people for water. Luckily, this area is already within Tigard city limits, so residents in this area already receive a Tigard utility bill for sewer and parks fees, street maintenance fees. So everybody in the area is already in our utility billing system. I've been working with our utility billing group, and the consensus is that it's a very small effort to add water billing to these customers. So from a utility billing perspective, it's very feasible for us to start billing these people for water. Next slide, please. So from a operations perspective and an administrative perspective, this works. But we also wanted to take a look and see how customers would be impacted. So this chart and table here is a comparison of what Their current rates are under TVWD versus Tigard rates. Now, as part of a water bill, there are two kind of main components to it. One is this flat fee that you get charged every month for your water meter, and that fee is based on the size of your water meter. Now, most... Residents in this area all those 71 residential connections use a 5 8 inch water meter and the flat rate for Tigards is a couple dollars more expensive per month than What TBWD currently charges, but we also charge a consumption rate for every hundred cubic feet of water every 748 gallons You are charged a fee for each CCF that you consume Tigers rate is actually lower than TBWD so If you look at this chart here, or the graph, you'll notice that For small consumption, if you're consuming relatively small amounts of water per month, your water bill with Tigard will be slightly less than what you'd see at TPWD. The larger users would actually see a greater cost savings. So from a residential rate comparison, I think that most water customers would be excited to see a small decrease in their water bill. Next slide please But there are costs involved with the transfer in order for tiger to start serving this area There is no there's going to be no money exchange between Tigard and TVWD but from a operations perspective tiger needs to install our own water meters and and that's gonna cost some materials and equipment. We estimate that cost to be about $22,000 for new meters and radios and miscellaneous parts that we need to make those connections. We also estimate it's gonna take about six days of staff time to go out and change all those water meters, plus an additional about 20 hours of administrative time in the utility billing department to take all of these customer accounts and add water service to them. But those relatively small costs would be offset by approximately $75,000 a year of revenue. That's based on our water rates and TVWD's historical consumption data. So within a couple years, we'd be even on the cost. Next slide, please. So Tigard and TVWD over the last few months have been developing an IGA to transfer this service area from TVWD to Tigard. And here are the main bullet points of the IGA, the main takeaways. The first is that Tigard would assume water service responsibility for this service area. And TVWD would transfer all of its water system assets to Tigard. That includes hydrants water mains valves Anything that they use to operate the water system that would all be transferred to Tigard now there is a Concern with that in that That water system infrastructure is relatively old. It's an older part of Tigard built in the 70s So that water system infrastructure that's in there is is older and not unlike many parts of Taggart's water system, but because of the potential for age, because of the potential for assuming aging infrastructure and the repairs that aging infrastructure might need, as part of the IGA, we are having TVWD go out and inspect any assets that it can inspect. So you can't go in and take a look at the water main but you can go look at the water meters, you can go look at the hydrants, you can go turn valves and exercise them and make sure that they're all working. So that's what TVWD is doing, is going and making sure, to the best of their ability, that the water system assets they'd be transferring to Tigard are in good working condition. If they find anything that needs repairs, TVWD is on the hook to make those repairs prior to the transfer date, and they also need to provide us with an inspection and repair summary to make sure that We know everything that they did and all the repairs are made to our satisfaction before we take ownership of those items. TVWD would also provide us with all the customer utility billing information just to make sure that their utility billing information matches with ours so that we can make sure the switchover process to bill these people for water is as smooth as possible. After the water system assets and responsibility are transferred to Tigard, Tigard would go in and install our own water meters. And as part of this IGA, we also specify that Tigard and TBWD will maintain a connection there at 72nd Avenue to be used as a potential future intertie between our two systems for emergency use or for any other time that Tigard might need water. Now, when I made this presentation a couple weeks ago, there were two items in that IGA that we were kind of going back and forth on negotiating. But since then, and since I submitted this presentation to Carol to present to you guys, we've actually made a lot of progress on those two items. One was... Changing some of the language regarding dispute resolution if there ever was a dispute between the two entities We've simplified that language quite a bit in the latest draft of the IGA and then the last part that we were negotiating was there is a equipment vault in 72nd Avenue near the northbound ramp for 217 that's it's would become obsolete after the service area transfer was completed. So we've asked TVWD to go in and abandon that so that it doesn't become a maintenance problem for Tigard in the future. And they've agreed to do that. So from an IGA perspective, I think both Tigard and TVWD are satisfied with the latest version of the IGA. And we'll make sure to share that with you before the next council meeting. Next slide please. As part of this, there are 73 customers that are going to be affected by this transition of water service providers. TBWD and Tigard have also been working on a communication plan to make sure that these customers are well aware of what's happening and what impacts it's going to have to their water. next month in august we're gonna start communicating with all these affected customers uh... and the communications will first come from t b b d followed up and more information from tiger and the communication will include information about what their current water rates are with t b b d and what they'll be with tiger information about where Tigard gets our drinking water, where our source is, and kind of our latest water quality reports that they know they're getting good, high-quality drinking water, letting them know kind of the schedule and what they can expect after the transfer date. Next slide, please. So just schedule from now through the transfer date. In June, this subject was brought up with the Tiger Water Advisory Board. And back in April, we also gave a briefing to the WAB. And in June, they made a unanimous motion recommending that City Council move forward with the the IGA and also late in June this item was brought up with TV WD's board And they reviewed and approved the IGA This month you're talking to me tonight. You'll be talking to me again on the 28th at the next council meeting just regarding the IGA and assuming that City Council approves. In August, we'll start communicating with these customers, and we're targeting for a transfer date of October 6th. That date aligns with TVWD's at the end of their billing cycle, and from that date, Tigard can start serving water, and then we can start billing the customers in that area to Tigard Water Billing. And then looking out in the future, 2027 and beyond, We'll be switching around some valves to change the water provider, but there are some minor permanent water modifications that we'd like to make just to make sure that the pipe that's going across 72nd Avenue over 217 is properly abandoned and we don't have any issues or risks of that water main breaking at some point in the future. And we'll also be looking at developing that connection between Tigard and TVWD's system into a permanent usable connection as an emergency intertie as part of our next water system planning efforts. Next slide, please. So just a quick review. Tigard can absorb this area into our water system with negligible impacts to our system overall. Our utility billing system is already in place for these customers. It will take relatively minor efforts on the utility billing group to include a water bill for these customers. And the customers in the area would likely not see any increases in their water bills. They'd likely see a small decrease. So we think that the transfer of this water service area from TBWD to Tigard is going to benefit both TBWD, Tigard, and our customers in the area. So the next step is tonight, if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them. And if you have anything that you'd like me to do further research on, I'm happy to do that and come back at the next council meeting and answer any questions you have before we ask you to approve the IGA. I think the next slide is just asking if you have any questions.

Thank you, Ross. Councillor, any questions or comments? Councillor Shaw?

Thank you, Mayor. Thank you very much for the presentation. I have a question, and perhaps this is for City Attorney Rahala. With regards to IGAs, I'm assuming they just go through you for review, but I never thought to ask you that question. Yes.

Typically, I do review all the IGAs at the City, and Ross and I have worked on this when we've reviewed multiple drafts together.

Thank you. I was just like, you're incredibly busy of late because we've had lost lots of IGA.

So thank you.

Thank you both. And the second question, I think you answered it, but you mentioned the abandoned infrastructure that was going to be there and then later possibly removed. And my question was, is it something that's obvious? And I guess at the end, it wouldn't become something that would be then vandalized or be harmful to anybody.

No, all of the water infrastructure is underground. So the main things that we'd be abandoning are the pipe that goes across the highway, making sure that's not pressurized anymore so that there's no risk of a main break. And also there's an underground utility vault, and that would be abandoned and essentially filled so that there's no chance in the future of it causing any roadway issues.

So you mentioned there are additional work to be done in 2027. So doing those work, so the cost you mentioned in slide number six, $22,000 plus 72 hours of staff time, are they part of that work that's going to be done in 2027, or is that additional to the $22,000?

So it would be additional. The piping modifications, essentially what we would do is dig down. Tigard's Water Utility Division would go out with a construction crew and dig down to the pipe that's to be abandoned and essentially cut it and cap it so that there's no chance of damage. Any anything bad happening to it essentially disconnecting that pipe from our water system, and I did not include the cost in that that's a Relatively small cost okay, just for a day's work of our utility crew.

Okay.

Just Kappa some yes Okay, and it's it's probably something that I know they like working on construction projects So it's probably something they might look forward to okay, but if need be I assume That cost would be absorbed by the utility operations division budget. But if need be, we have a water system major maintenance CIP that they could use to help pay for that.

Okay. And you mentioned their systems over there is quite old. Do you know how old it is? Or is it reaching the end of its life, useful life? Do you have any idea? It was installed in the 1970s.

So it is old. The design standards that they use, like the materials, are similar to Tigard's water system. Expected useful life on pipes like that are about 100 years. So there is still time to use that before it needs replacement at some point in the future.

Okay, so it's about 150 years left, or 40, 50 years?

About 40, 50 years left, yeah. I think 100 years is kind of the... standard replacement interval for water mains. But if you go back and look on the East Coast, there are cast iron water mains in service that are 150 years old and still working fine.

Okay, thank you.

So as part of this, we also got TVWD's kind of maintenance history for the area. So we've reviewed the main breaks that they had and the condition assessments that they did when they repaired those main breaks, and it was nothing out of the ordinary. So we assume that that infrastructure is in decent shape.

And they're going to do a final check before transfer?

Correct.

Yes. And they're going to provide inspection report. So is our city staff going to independently verify those report, or are we just going to take their words for it?

Yes, we will. So our water operations division, we have leak detection equipment that we use to go out and we'll go through and we'll make sure that there's no active leaks in the system that we'll be acquiring. And we're... I think between the combination of the report that TVWD is going to give us and our independent kind of verification to make sure that there's no pinhole leaks or anything in the pipe, we're pretty confident we're getting pipe that's in good condition.

Wonderful. Because the contract says they will provide the equipment as is. That means there's no warranty. Correct. So I just want to make sure we do all our due diligence before we take over ownership. Great. Great to hear all those great answers. So any other questions? Good. All right. So, yeah, we have no questions. So thank you so much for your presentation by answering a lot of questions. Have a good evening. All right. So we have no non-agenda item. And we have no executive sessions. So there being no additional items, this meeting is adjourned. Good night, Tiger.