City Council - Regular Meeting

So everybody please stand and Councilor Reyes will lead us. Next is public comment. I don't have any slips here. Do we have anybody in the audience that would like to speak, even if you haven't signed up? And do we have anybody online?

Okay, then we'll move on to the consent agenda. This will be enacted with one vote. Is there anyone that wishes to have any of the three items on the consent agenda removed for further discussion? Okay, I will read them. First is consideration of approval of the regular meeting minutes of 02/09/2026.

Next, consideration of resolution number 5,940 four-twenty six, exempting specific affordable housing developments from property taxes. And finally, consideration of resolution number 5,940 five-twenty 6 authorizing the city manager to execute a grant agreement for Metro Area Communications Commission grant awards appropriating special purpose revenues in the city's general fund during the fiscal year twenty five-twenty six budget and rescinding resolution 50 nine-forty two-twenty six. Any discussion?

Motion? I move to adopt the consent agenda as read.

I second it. We have a motion and a second for the consent agenda. All in favor say aye. Aye. Okay. Oh, mayor. Okay. Special reports. We have outside agent grant presentation for CIPOR communities, community partners for affordable housing from Lindsay. It'll turn red.

There we go. Hello, so I'm Catherine Moore. I'm the Director of Programs with Community Partners for Affordable Housing. Thank you for having us tonight.

Good evening. My name is Julie Luna Dominguez, the Resident Services Coordinator for Plant Back Gardens.

And I was here about just over a year ago talking about Plant Back Gardens, which was to come. So we were still navigating through construction equipment and kind of still envisioning what this place was going to become. And since then, we've had we filled up. So we have fully leased up Planbeck with 116 families calling it home. And focus has been on really building that community and bringing folks in.

We have about just under 300 residents and over 100 of them are kids under the age 18. So SIPA not only builds affordable housing, but we provide the services in those buildings to support housing stability. And one of the ways we do that is focusing on services to residents, bringing resources online, and as well as community building, helping households root in and build connections with each other to increase stability. We also have a lot of youth residents, and so we focus on providing youth services as part of our eviction prevention work. So not only addressing notices and rent assistance needs, but thinking really like how do we help people develop community here.

And so that's been happening at Planbeck since then. We have some pictures up there that just to show you kind of some of the different events and things that we've been doing. So our youth services that they happen across our buildings. And we're here tonight to thank you for your contribution to support our youth services at Planbeck Gardens. And we're in the development of what this is going to be, but it has kicked off and things are happening. And Julian's gonna talk a little bit more about what's been going on at Planbeck and, plans to come.

Yeah. So it's been a really, great year so far to start off with just a whole new community and so many families and so many kids. So I think in the slide, there's a couple picture of, you know, the kids out on the field during a session with Play Fit Fun where I invited them out to, you know, kind of get together to play together. And more than anything socialize because these are a lot of kids and families coming from different backgrounds. So I think one way was really to get them engaged in team sports activities and just games where they get to know each other's name, participate, and, you know, kind of just, you know, be part of the community.

One of our biggest events that we had so far was our Halloween party. We had about over a 100 residents attend and a lot of kids. I took it upon myself to buy 50 pumpkins for the kiddos, and they were absolutely just painting and drawing everything they could on that. There was a bit of a mess, but it was honestly a really great time. And from what I got from a lot of the families and the parents that they were really grateful to have something like this to where, you know, the entire community of the apartment complex can come together and, you know, just share some time together with friends, families, food, and activities like that.

One of the things we're really continuing to go on with that is youth events. So that's events where we just focus on the youth engaging together, socializing, doing activities, eating, and just kind of getting to know more about each other. But also, you know, hearing each other out with, you know, stories of school or friends or anything like that where they get to get to be themselves in our community building space. One thing where I'm asking a lot of the kids and the families right now is where they would like to go for our first field trip. The two main things are kayaking and a trip to the zoo, and the kids and the families are absolutely ecstatic of what that would look like.

And just to give you a bit of the previews, we would more likely get a bus together, get all the consent forms and everything signed, get all the lunches packed and organized, and then, you know, get on the bus to from Plumbach to the zoo, get off and just have an amazing time. I was actually just one on one for last year with a couple of different properties, and it really made me really excited to what I could see with my own kids and the families at Plantback Gardens. So seeing this is kind of, like, getting me really excited, but I'm also very, like, just proud of seeing what, the kids will kids and families will look like in that time, and what it would do for our community, especially just, you know, unifying it within the first couple years and just continuing with play fit fun, youth events, then also anything that would improve the, I guess, the community engagement with all the families there. And I would just like to give a quick shout out to Cindy Councilwoman Hiller with Twalton Together because I've been a part of the Twalton Together coalition since also joining with SIPA.

And it it's giving me really engaged with youth activities or events going around at Twalton and gives me that opportunity to post up flyers and gauge families with any activities that are relevant to youth in Tualatin specifically.

Kind of that focus on not only integrating and building community at Planbeck, but really intentionally trying to help families connect with the larger community. And some partnerships that we've really been working on is a partnership with Sherwood School District. They're they've been pretty present. Some have provided some backpack school drives kind of stuff. We're also working to get Neighborhood Health Center will be coming out to do a mobile dental clinic soon and hopefully soon ish to some physical health or PCP services.

But first focusing on with the dental clinic for youth. And Horizon Church, which is right nearby, is also doing some regular on-site activities and bringing resources on-site for families as well as in some some kids go to their youth group on a weekly basis. So there's definitely connections happening across across our community.

Yeah. It's wonderful, and I'm really proud of what to get what I get to do and most most of all thankful for the city of Tarleton for support providing support and, you know, enriching these children's lives as well.

Are you done? Yeah. Okay. We have Sorry.

I have to say I love your smile when you talk about

Oh, thank you so much. I I'm an introvert at home, but with the kids, I'm absolutely extrovert. And one of the things that I think really helps them connect with me, also connect with others is just always being that smile even if it's a tough conversation that we're having or a serious moment because it kind of reinsures them. And even speaking on one of the partnerships that I do with Sherwood School District is I pick up the food bags every Thursday, and I try to meet the kids at the bus stop with their own food bags, you know, label it with their unit numbers and then meet them at the bus stop because it's literally like the bus stop and then the apartment complex right there. And it kind of gives to them that that feeling of like, someone's waiting for me and I have a task, you know, grab the food bag, take it home, give it to my parents and be like, here's some food, know, them, their siblings, know, anything like that.

And it just makes me really feel wholesome. But my face also hurts at the end of the day from spelling so much. So it's a lot of it's a lot of work, but I'm really grateful for working with CBOE and especially the youth. Did

you have something to say, councilor Rose?

Oh, yeah. I was gonna say thank you. It's really nice to drive by and see the the apartments, the activities going on. So it's something that we're very proud of as people from Tualatin. I do I was just curious. Do you guys connect with the I'm I'm sure you're connecting with local nonprofits like the the free clinic that's on the other side. I don't know if you're aware there's a Totetan free clinic down Berlin. Rolling Hills?

Oh, at Rolling Hills or?

Rolling Hills. Yes. But the yeah. So just things like that, I think it'll be good for the community to know that. I'm I'm Yeah. Hopefully, they're aware of that. And also, when growing up in in as a recipient of a lot of support for my family for housing and food, there were also opportunities of us to give back. Mhmm. Are there any, like, volunteer opportunities that are offered to the kids there or people that can give back?

In the sense of giving back

So it can feel.

Yeah. No. I and this is where I always ex really am proud when I see the kids want to engage. And not there's nothing necessarily them be able to give back right now. But I always have the kids wanting to help out with volunteering set up, you know, cleaning up, anything like that. And actually this recent, event that I had last week, which was our friendship and community party, instead of in lieu of a Valentine's Day party. A couple of the girls had helped me or Joey just, you know, expressed their expression of wanting to help, or plan this next party. So, you know, they just kind of I gave them a notebook. I gave them a pen. They just had them write out their ideas of what what friendship would look like.

Mhmm. Write down friendship bracelets, cupcakes, anything like that. And it just seeing them kind of just sit in my office for five minutes just writing down everything and then having that, like, joy of excitement like, oh, we helped plan something. And then, you know, them telling all the friends of the party and what it's gonna look like and how it goes and, you know, just makes them feel really ecstatic. There's a lot of kids out during because of the flu, but other than that, it was still a great party.

And I'm always looking to try to encourage the kids also to give back or, you know, help each other in their own community even if I'm not there. Even if I don't see it, always told them like, hey. I know you guys are doing great things. I'm not always there to see it, but, like, if you tell me about it, I'm gonna be really, really proud of you guys and you know, give them a high five or a little snack if it's you know, I have I have that in my power. Thank you. Yep.

Anybody else? Councilor Brooks?

Thank you for all of your work and enthusiasm and passion for the community at SIPA. And I mean it's a beautiful building and but it's really the community and so I appreciate you bringing that forward here today. And then as far as, like, kids, like, you were gonna do a trip to the zoo or kayaking Mhmm. How many kids do you think you would?

Oh. So I think historically at SIPA, I'm gonna have to defer that to Catherine because at Planbeck, we have a huge number of youth Yeah. For one property. So I think for at least in my hopes, would hope that all of the kids and all of the families could attend.

So how many people live there? About

There's about two based on the last report I saw, there was about 275 people that live there, and about a 110 of those are youth Mhmm. 18. And this the focus of the service of these services is kind of this, what, like, mid elementary or young elementary to, like, early middle school Yeah. Is the kind of focus. And so our other places where we've done field trips, we've done up to, like, maybe 25, students. So I'm not sure. It'll be kind of a figuring out what resources we have and who we can get to kinda help volunteer. And sometimes parents will attend. So, yeah, it's kind of in the early planning stage stages.

Think elementary wise, we have about fifteen eight school age elementary, about 20 or I guess 30 because it's Sherwood school district, middle and high schoolers. But when I asked the group of 20 of them, they all, you know, raise their hands for kayaking or zoo. And I'm like, okay. But I'm like, that's also including their siblings and their families. So I'm really hoping to, you know, the maximum number of kids, so I'd say 30, which is a lot of kids, but I think the memories and time and engagement that they will get from that is really what I'm striving for.

Yeah. So as far as for reaching out to the Tolleson Riverkeepers you can also reach out. We work with them. Then what was the other oh, and then now that you're full well, I'm going to reach out to you guys. Will you be sure to leave your card?

Thanks.

Yes. Yeah. Anyway, I'm really excited that you're there on-site and being such a great part. Oh, what the other thing I want to ask you about was, we've had a lot of conversations around the bus service over And I'm just wondering, are there thoughts about other ways that people are getting to services or getting around or is there any

Currently, I did submit a request to Ride Connection. I'm really hoping that they have the availability and funding to support you know, a shuttle either once or twice a month specifically for our senior and disabled residents Yeah. Either to get to a local shopping center, possibly Mar Martini Plaza Plaza, or just any other plaza that they feel like they would be most beneficial of accessing or getting transportation to. You know, as we know with funding and cuts, it's really hard sometimes. So really hoping that we get, traction on that and look always looking for other solutions and methods of getting you know, eliminating transportation barriers, especially for all my residents.

It is it is a bear I mean, it is more of

a barrier,

especially because people have, like, just moved here. And so some people still have their services in other parts of the county, and it's so it's, it's a track. And, you know, like, we've had some a little bit of funds to assist the people in the permanent supportive housing, units with some transportation assistance, and that cost is it goes fast. You know? Rides are expensive. So I appreciate you looking at kind of what are those other options. And I think, the kind of, like, how do we help people a grocery store that's more affordable or something that they can purchase things at is kind of a big focus at all of our kind of properties, helping people get to those. So, yeah, hopefully

No. Thank you. That's why I just I thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Thank you.

Counselor, you're looking at it.

You. Thank you for being here. Thank you for sharing. And you do so many great things. But will you also share with this body, like you continue to ensure that resources are in so many different ways are brought in for all of And your I know you have an upcoming event on May 7. And would you mind sharing a little bit about that, please?

Yeah. So our event is a little far out, but it's May 7. That would be co hosting a community services networking event co hosting with Just Compassion. And we're that's already live, so you can if you want to go to CSM network and then look for the specific page and then register. And we will have a limited space because, you know, although as great and and big of a space planned by Gardens Community Building is, we you still wanna make sure that we get enough partnerships and other organizations there to mingle and connect with.

And that's one of those events where I'm really excited for because it gives to bring partners and organizations to directly to Plant Back Gardens to really see what it looks like and then, you know, kind of make more ideas of what we could do there with local partnerships or events.

And Julian's held a couple of resource fairs at Plambeck that have had great turnout and some, you know, partners from across the county. We've had we have a connection with LifeWorks to provide kind of direct referral if folks are looking for behavioral health services. And what else? I was gonna say one

more doing a data party tomorrow and Wednesday night for 12:10 together. So we'll have be having that. And, yeah, I'm currently planning for our winter, which more than likely gonna be spring resource fair, which is gonna be March. Still have don't have a firm date for that, but it's been really exciting or exciting and also empowering to the residents there because they're being able to, like, see all these organizations come directly to them where, you know, they're able to kind of, you know, go to the community building, get some food, and then check out all the resources, and then directly talk to them, and then also talk to me continually throughout the rest of the time, in the following days or the weeks, and then just following up with any resource there. And then flyers posted everywhere, me spamming them with links to websites and resources, and just constantly networking with other organizations.

Thank you. I just love the way you empower your community, and I hope we can all do as well as you. Thank you.

Thank you, councilwoman.

Well, thank you thank you for giving us the update and, for helping make this a community that cares about its people.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much.

Okay, next I have a couple familiar faces from Clackamas County that are going to update us on supportive housing services. Welcome, Vahid.

Center. There we go. Now it's on. Thank you, council president, mayor, councilors. My name is Vahid Brown.

I'm the deputy director of the housing and community development division of the health, housing, and human services department of Clackamas County. I know that not too long ago, Washington County staff, my my colleagues in Washington County gave an update to this body about supportive housing services and we talked with city staff about kind of reciprocating and doing the same. So I'm here tonight to talk a little bit about supportive housing services implementation in Clackamas County since the beginning. Just to frame the slides I'm going go through, the data that I'm going talk about, so a lot of this is kind of a by the numbers update. The numbers are for through or for the twenty fourtwenty five fiscal year.

So we have kind of annual reporting cycles with Metro where we do kind of a comprehensive data evaluation, outcomes evaluation and report those. So they're not as of today when I say since the beginning we've housed this many people. That will be as of 06/30/2025. And the other thing is this is a kind of by the numbers slide deck, but I'm talking about people, you know, hundreds and really thousands of human beings in our community who are suffering, who are living outside, who are not doing that anymore, who are housed, who have support they need to remain housed. So it's a brief presentation, but these are about people even though the slide shows numbers.

This is a picture of the Mercy Greenbrae affordable housing community in Lake Oswego that was built on land donated by the the folks who where it used to be Merrell Horse University, and it's a 100 units of affordable housing. 40 of those beautiful units are permanent supportive housing, which is just long term housing support with services for folks who are coming from homelessness. And, you know, I I'm sure you are are very familiar with the support of housing services measure, but it was a a tax measure that was passed by voters in the Metro region in 2020. It collects taxes on high income earners and businesses that earn more than $5,000,000 in gross receipts in the metro region, and 21.3% of that tax revenue is distributed to Clackamas County. We have the smallest share, but we do a lot of mighty work with it.

Let's see. I think I'm gonna try this clicker and see if I can do it myself. Andrew, could you help me with the next slide? Thank you. Let's see. I can see it over there. So this is a these are numbers. This is a lot of people. So since 2021 when we we began implementation, 2871 people have been housed in Clackamas County. Now that's that's five times the largest point in time count, you know, number of the in that period.

So this is a really significant number of people for Clackamas County. Without support before supportive housing services, our entire system wasn't really a system. It was a some islands of of HUD funded programs that altogether including all sources, had less than $10,000,000. And I was working at Clackamas County at that time. I've been there for more than a decade. $10,000,000 were the third largest county in the state. We have at that time in 2019 we had almost 2,000 people experiencing homelessness in the pit count. In the last pit count we had about five forty. So that number has gone down significantly. But we had no outreach programs.

We had no year round shelter programs at all. We had a couple of very small permanent supportive housing programs and the list of people who are chronically homeless who had been outside for years and were really suffering with with chronic health conditions. There were four to 10 openings for that list of hundreds of people a year. And we have been placing over a thousand people who are experiencing chronic chronic homelessness in permanent housing programs a year with SHS. So it's it's night and day.

It's a completely different system of care that we've been able to build. As I said before, we we didn't really have a system of care. We had some isolated programs of care. Eviction prevention, this is a really important and critical intervention. I'm sure that the the Washington County folks talked about the significance of this.

You know, 7115 people were able to remain housed with eviction prevention resources from from SHS over the the course of the measure. Just It's super significant because without that support those folks would have become homeless, they would have been on our wait list and we would have been looking for beds for them in a shelter system that is rather limited. So we're really happy with the outcomes with the eviction prevention investments. Next slide please Andrew. So this is a very busy slide, sorry about that.

But this is the $73,500,000 SHS budget in the twenty four-twenty five fiscal year. I'm going to kind of start on the left side of the pie chart. The bulk of the funding from SHS, you know SHS as a tax measure was really focused on what's called population A in the language of the measure. People who are experiencing long histories of homelessness and are really vulnerable living on the street. So 75% of the of the tax resources are must be dedicated to programs that serve folks that meet that criteria.

25% are must be dedicated to folks who are at risk of homelessness. So the lion's share of our resources are on the left side of the pie, the regional long term rent assistance and the housing retention programs. Those together make up our PSH investments, permanent supportive housing. So PSH is the ARLA, regional long term rent assistance voucher, paired with those specialized supportive services that look like a case manager or peer support and sometimes specialized MSW or clinical social worker care. So that's almost half of our budget and that has grown every year and it will continue to take up a larger kind of bit of the pie year over year and that's as intended.

So we intend to continue to enroll people in permanent supportive housing. Rent goes up about 10% a year so there we have 1,800 our, you know, households on our vouchers and that's a really high rate of inflation year over year for those. So we are committed to maintaining that and that means maintaining a balanced system which is a complicated dance year over year. So that's the the text boxes to the right and left of the pie chart kind of key to the some of those things. So the 1,829 people on ARLA or regional long term rent assistance vouchers, those are recipients.

All ARLA voucher recipients in Clackamas County also receive supportive services. We don't have a ARLA only program. Washington County does, but we we dedicate all of those vouchers to support folks who are coming out of chronic homelessness. 95% of those households do not return to homelessness. So the the retention rate for for permanent supportive housing in Clackamas County is exceedingly high.

That's that's bananas high in in this in this work. So that's that's due to the great work of our community partners. Down towards the bottom of the pie, the county admin, that's the planning, the program planning data and contract administration, that's staff on my team. The small 5% is the regional strategies. This is the 5% that's mandated by the measure that each county sets aside and a tri county planning body kind of plans how to use those funds to regionalize the system of care.

So some examples are the landlord recruitment goal of the tri county planning body. We have a landlord hotline and we have health and housing alignment program which is also coming from the TCPB, the Tri County Planning Body and the use of those regional dollars. System investments, these are many things. These are system wide programs or infrastructure that really are necessary to support the whole system, like coordinated entry, our coordinated housing access program, the homeless management information system HMIS and built infrastructure. So capital investments to build shelters or create new short term housing villages come from that bucket.

And then outreach is rather self explanatory. That's reaching out and finding people where they're living, where they are, and getting connected with them, providing them with survival supplies in that initial encounter, and getting them enrolled in in our by name list of people experiencing homelessness. Shelter, we have 238 shelter beds. Those are all new with SHS. So that's 238 new shelter beds as of 2021.

The those that program in the fiscal year 2425 served 1,426 people. And then rapid rehousing is a shorter term rental assistance with services type of program. This is a really good intervention for folks who are just just lost their housing. There there maybe it's a family that has a every kind of Murphy's Law thing has gone wrong. The car broke down. I lost my job. My partner got, you know, hospitalized. Crap. Now we're in the car, that's where we live. So rapid rehousing is getting that family back into an apartment up to two years of rent assistance and support to help them kind of stabilize.

Rapid rehousing served four twenty three people in that year. And then homelessness prevention, already talked about that. That's a $7,300,000 investment. This is important for us and fairly for Tuala and then Washington County in the region because the state cut eviction prevention funding, which is for many communities the largest funder of eviction prevention by 74% in this biennium. So we've been able to sustain that program and the staff that administered that program with a large amount of support from SHS.

Next slide please Andrew. So just a few program highlights, some things we're really excited about that have kind of come to be and are brand new or new and improved. The Native American Youth and Family Association also known as NEEA in with s support from SHS funding, they opened the first culturally specific family shelter serving indigenous people in The United States, which was really a surprise to me. I could not believe there's not an culturally specific family shelter in Alaska or in Minnesota or in New Mexico. No.

This according to our partners, are culturally specific partner experts. They were the first one. So they're also the first one in Oregon. So it's a it's a beautiful family shelter in the city of Milwaukee that I love that mural at the bottom it says, never homeless before 1492. So that's that's really a successful program.

Coordinated housing access is our coordinated entry program. This is administered by the county. We staff it. It is, I think, one of the best coordinated entry systems in The United States, some but a little bit biased. But in in 2024 in this fiscal year, we did receive a National Association of Counties award for our our CHA improvement per project.

We were the only county in Oregon to receive a NACO award for 2024. So that's the that's the community and the commissioner celebrating that award. What happened there is COVID kind of, well, we all know what happened with COVID. A lot of disasters and and economic crises and a lot of people reaching out for assistance and a lot of rent assistance being available, and so folks were scrambling trying to access it. So where we had hundreds of calls, you know, in a in a given month or whenever we would have thousands.

And we didn't have we had the staff to manage a pre COVID amount of of folks calling CHA. So we got behind and we were not okay with someone calling, leaving a voice mail saying I'm about to get evicted and not getting a callback until six weeks later when the call the number has been disconnected or something because they've lost their home. So we got a lot of temp employees. We got on top of that backlog within a few months and we got ahead of it and now we're answering that that phone number live. All calls are answered live. Clackamas Village is a new pod village in in Clackamas County that was built with supportive housing services funding. It was opened in May of last of of twenty twenty five. Yeah. Last gosh. It's already almost March.

It's a 24 unit village. It's up to two years of residency, has on-site supportive service, 20 fourseven on-site staffing. So it's it's, meant to serve folks with kind of more complicated needs, behavioral health needs, substance use disorder needs. So that does have clinical behavioral health staff on-site and as I said it's 20 fourseven staffed, also been very successful. Next slide, Andrew.

Another couple of local innovations that we're proud of in Clackamas County. The health housing system alignment team is a new staff team in the housing and community development division. Lots of great stuff has come out of that but I think one of the most basic things is being able to coordinate care and do what we call case conferencing where our staff come together with staff at our nonprofit agencies and staff at Care Oregon or HealthShare or the plans to and with the consent of a participant we can look at their health data and their housing data and match that together and and you know kind of facilitate the coordinated delivery of care for folks who are needing housing and also needing their health conditions addressed and have you know there's a very obvious nexus between those two things. So that's our health and housing case conferencing. This this picture is of a community paramedic, which is an out one of our outreach workers.

She is an employee of the county with the public health division. That's that position is funded with SHS. So she's able to do wound care and and triage and and really be a paramedic on the street in the camps. City led initiatives, this might be familiar to this this council. We in 2024, we issued a notice of funding opportunity for cities in Clackamas County, and Tualatin has a part of part of the city in Clackamas County for funding for for city city derived solutions.

So we especially in the the rural parts of Clackamas County, we know we had learned well that it wasn't always welcome if the county came in and said, here's what you need in your community. We're gonna bring this. That that often led to some pretty significant opposition. So we said, well cities, you you know what your problems are. You know what your community needs.

What would you like to see funded? And so that's that's what we did and every every city that proposed a program received funding. The rural communities received non SHS funding because those are not in the metro service district, so half of our county is outside of it. Tualatin did receive a $250,000 grant award to the Tualatin food pantry to replace their HVAC system and upgrade their refrigeration in the time of dramatically increased demand for food resources at the pantry. That's the city led initiatives program.

Next slide, Andrew. There were two main goals or ten year mandates of the voter approved measure of the sport of housing services. One is that 5,000 people would be placed in permanent supportive housing. So 5,000 households experiencing chronic homelessness would be served with permanent supportive housing. And Clackamas County's share of that goal is 1,065.

In 2425, we exceeded the ten year goal. We had placed eleven eleven households by 06/30/2025. The other one is that over a ten year period supportive housing services aimed to serve 10,000 households with to stabilize them with permanent housing. So this is not chronically homeless folks. And in '25, Clackamas County exceeded its share of that 10,000 goal.

So we received 21.3% of the funding, twenty one thirty is our share of the 10,000 household goal. That was also exceeded significantly last year. By this point now all three counties have exceeded the 10 goals of the support of housing services measure. So it is really kind of doing the work of housing the people. And next slide, think I'm getting close to the end here, thanks for your patience.

A few components of kind of ways that we've continued to improve our system. We have a you know this new and robust continuum of services from outreach to permanent supportive housing, but we still had people you know more people on the by name list. So that's our list by name of everyone we know of who has reached out to us to say I'm experiencing homelessness or I'm about to experience homelessness. And so that by name list is how we we know who we need to serve and we're able to prioritize by vulnerability within that list. And prioritizing by vulnerability you know is the right thing to do.

It's the triage way of you know really making sure that our folks aren't dying on the streets. But there are lots of folks that aren't being served because they're never at that top 50 or that top 75. So we instituted a resource navigation program which is kind of an outgrowth of our coordinated housing access program. So when someone calls CHA, coordinated housing access and they are placed on the by name list or they're already on the by name list and they're calling to say hey what's what's up? Any new updates you can tell me about my my place on the list?

We have a team that works with them with problem solving conversations and sees if with a light touch they can move off of the by name list. So what I mean by that is resource navigation is resourced. It has funds. It's not a long term voucher but it's if you know you're in a Murphy's Law situation and you lost the job because you the car broke down. Okay, we have the resources we can get your car fixed.

If we can do that that might get you off the by name list. So that's an example there's I could you know go on and on and on. Resource navigation is quite successful in in moving folks off of the by name list with a quick light touch intervention to see, okay, what what you need is actually not ten years of rent assistance. Something more specific limited and we can do that right now. The we have a twenty three hour crisis stabilization center that opened a few months ago at the 2025.

This also has 13 beds of up to ninety days of short term. It's kind of a transitional housing program in a stabilization center. So one side of it is a is a psychiatric stabilization program. So we partner with law enforcement. It's not appropriate for someone to go to jail because they're having a crisis in the moment, nor do they really need to be hospitalized.

This is where they can spend a day in a comfy chair with on-site peer peer staff and clinical support to kind of work through that. If they're experiencing homelessness, they can access one of the 13 beds on our side. I think of the, you know, the house the people side of the stabilization center. But we also refer to the stabilization center for folks experiencing homelessness who aren't in a behavioral health crisis, but are, you know, being noticed by law enforcement or the behavioral health resource officers of various police departments as struggling on the street in a specific way, and those folks can go in there. Inclusive engagement, we have lots of venues where we engage with our community partners and community members.

We have a housing services advisory group, is new, it just kind of started in the last year. It was a well, I won't go into the backstory. We have a consultant that facilitate helps facilitate that organization or that group. And we have a lived experience group that informs our system and our coordinated housing access program called the core team that's a part of our inclusive engagement. And then housing for success, this is a new as of this year or 2025 economic empowerment program that's also meant to contain costs of the PSH program as I mentioned the ARLA voucher rent goes up 10% a year.

So you can imagine that that would kind of quickly exceed our ability to do anything else if we have to spend 80%, 90% of our resources on permanent supportive housing three years from now, well that means we're going to have to cut shelter programs or something. So we looked across our PSH or ARLA recipients and identified the lowest acuity households with lengthy data analysis and then engage it with all of the case managers that serve that entire cohort of 1,800 people. So we're looking for our folks that aren't 65 or older, aren't permanently disabled, have an income, or have the ability or interest in in in accessing income. And those folks were enrolled in housing for success, which is a three year rent assistance program with intensive three years of supportive services focused on economic development of the household. So that's employment specialists with the community family and CFCC.

Children family and community connections division. Its legal barrier buster support services with the Metropolitan Public Defenders, its mental health navigators, it's a lot of things. It's really intensively focused on helping folks increase their ability to earn an income and and support their own housing needs independently, and it comes with a matched savings account. So whenever the household increases their income, that increases their their share of their rent because the rent is a is pegged as a percentage of your overall household income. So if you make a thousand dollars, 28% of that goes monthly to your rent.

If you make $0, 28% of zero which is zero goes towards your rent. So if you go from zero to a 100, we put a $100 into the savings account up to $12,000 and at the end of the program the household can take the 12 that whatever saved. So that's the housing for success program and I've kind of gone at length. I'm going to go to the next slide and hopefully that's the last one. No more, that is the last one. Okay. So I was in tune with my slide deck. That was a lot of information, a lot of numbers. I'm sorry. But I'm we're very excited about the progress of this of this program of this system of programs. It's changed the world for us.

Thanks Faheed. Any questions or comments? Councilor Brooks.

Thanks so much for coming and I sit on the pad for the Washington County housing. So I've heard much more about their work than about Clackamas County. So I'm really glad that you're here and excited to listen to you. I also have been a licensed clinical social worker and have done work in community practice as well. And I'm curious if you interface at all with universities for either data or practicum experiences?

Yes.

Thank you, counselor. We do in a number of ways. So with data, we partner with the other two counties with PSU's homelessness research and action collaborative HRAC on the point in time count. So the point in time count since 2023 has been done as a regional count. And so that's with support of PSUs HRAC.

We've engaged with HVAC in the sense SHS was implemented in a number of other ways too. They were our partner on our first FUSE analysis, frequent utilizers of I forget what FUSE stands for. The frequent utilizers of the emergency room, of jail. So we're looking at folks experiencing homelessness who are frequent utilizers of emergency services and then quantifying the costs and then saying this is the savings to the public when we end someone's homelessness. We also work with Clackamas Community College on curriculum development.

We have a lots of trainings. So most of the services delivered with these dollars are through contracts with community based organizations. And so we provide a lot of training to the case managers and outreach workers. And so we have a relationship with Clackamas Community College to help develop curriculum. But we also have had a number of interns, is that the right word, I think, from folks that were working on their practicum and they work with us to get through that Okay.

And I guess my other question right now is with the changes in funding, like especially the supportive housing services, like talking about those two different buckets of money, think people in the public don't necessarily understand those differentiation between those two funding

sources. So

I guess as far as providing services and having more of an infrastructure, would you if it's all programs, even if we have it right now, it can be choppy, right? So is there a way that we're systemizing it? And is there a way that you see that we can support a stronger infrastructure here in the state? I mean, came from Michigan, from Detroit. So I'm here, and I just can't believe it sometimes.

Yes. Mean, Clackamas County, think to an extent as well, Washington County have been pretty fortunate in the extent to which SHS kind of dwarfed our other sources of funds that we'd rely on, which as you said are especially choppy. I mean as a volatile tax revenue measure, it's a little bit choppy. We're looking at a dip in revenue in twenty seventwenty eight in the fiscal year after the one that we're just entering. So that happens and we had a year where there was this anomalous pile of cash that came in from the tax measure that wasn't forecast.

It was a $100,000,000 more than was forecast and that the county's budgeted against. So that's an example of how volatile that is. That volatility was great because the three counties were able to say, okay, well, that will hold on to that for one time uses and we have made good use of that. City led initiatives is an example of what we had all of this extra money. Let's ask the cities how they would like to spend some of it.

So we've been able to use supportive housing services to kind of stabilize the floor of the system and whether the, you know, we just went through an experience of not knowing whether the COC was going to continue to exist, right? This very unusual scenario where the courts had to sort of tell HUD to do a thing or they weren't going to do the thing. So we were planning and preparing for a loss of $11,000,000 in our system. But when we had 75,000,000 in SHS, we were we had a plan, you know, we would lose some programs, but we wouldn't lose our system as such and that's true of the state funding from Oregon Housing and Community Services as well, OHCS. But that volatility is much more impactful to communities that don't have SHS or that communities like Multnomah County where SHS is not the lion's share, it's maybe half or three quarters maybe.

But Multnomah County is talking about $68,000,000 deficit for the next fiscal year for the homeless services department. That's almost the entire SHS budget for Clackamas County last year. And that's not from SHS losses, That's from state funding cuts, federal cuts and then some other things as well. I mean, yes, there is a need for with Governor Kotak's declaration of a housing emergency on her first day of office and the institution of a lot of new housing programs. That's been a boon but I think there have been the ideal and the intent was to create ongoing programming funded by the state and the challenge there is that that is funded on a biennial basis by legislative you know kind of deliberation and voting and so we create long term rent assistance programs and enroll people and make a promise.

We sign a contract with their landlord and make a promise. And we only know we're going to get two years of funding for this long term rent assistance program. And that was cut. It wasn't cut out but it was reduced. The funding for that was reduced.

I already mentioned the 74% reduction in eviction prevention dollars for OHCS. Every one of our OHCS programs were reduced this biennium and that's a greater challenge than many might realize that when we're relying on biennial legislative decision making to kind of continue what need to be long term social safety net programs, We're making promises that I feel uncomfortable about, you know, to families that we'll we'll be we'll be supporting you with your rent for a long time. Oh, maybe not. That's a that's a challenge.

Thank you very much. Thanks for your work. I appreciate it.

Yeah. Thank for

your presentation. I think that in spite of everything, it looks like your your program at Clackamas County has been tremendously successful, especially the 95% retention rate, which I have never heard of. And I've been in human services nonprofit for twenty five years. So I I commend you for that. What do you think that is?

What do you think it is that keeps people from going back? That's very unusual. I hear other stories that people tend to go back. What makes you different from other counties, organizations to retain a 95% to your best of your knowledge? Yeah. Because I'm sure there are different stories.

I mean, I think a a a large part of it counselor is Clackamas County system is very coordinated and so it's a it's a family effort right it's a team effort and so while it's it's a few dozen contracts with nonprofits I have a monthly breakfast with all of those executive directors. All of the case managers in those organizations are meeting with my staff regularly and not just once in a kind of a general update meeting but training meetings, new resource meetings. We do a lot of collaborative case conferencing so we don't we don't let a case manager kind of try to solve a problem or work through an obstacle with a family on an island. They come in case conference. So we have our experts and healthcare experts and others talking about what can we put into place to support that family.

So I think the coordination is a big part of it. So there's a standard that everyone is aware of, we're kind of being held to the same standard. With support of our Board of County Commissioners we negotiated against ourselves in contracts. By that I mean early in SHS I think we would receive responses to our solicitations for programs with budgets that were really low on staff salaries and I would ask them to to increase the salary and resubmit and so that's what I mean by negotiating against ourselves. We were looking for you know not poverty wages for folks who are serving the families coming out of homelessness And it's not a great thing when you're relying on on public, you know, public services and you are someone else's public service.

I mean, that's that's a challenging place to be and unfortunately that's where a lot of folks in human services are as you know. That's a part of it. You know I think the culture of so what what SHS allowed us to do is approach things differently and with flexibility and a fresh kind of a fresh perspective. It's not it's not a very rigid rule based tax measure. It really allows the counties a lot of flexibility and so every single one of our program partners that is you know that is working with folks that are on that 95% retention statistic has a really healthy budget of flex funds.

So flexible client service dollars that they can just use at their discretion kind of. The guidelines for flex fund utilization are pretty broad. I mean they don't we don't say you can spend this much money a month on food and you have to they have to prove you don't go over. You can only spend this much a month on transportation. What we said instead was here are some examples of reasonable limits and things you don't want to buy a thousand dollar mattress necessarily.

So we would provide some guidance. They weren't caps, they were you know budget guidelines and we had three rubrics for the use of flex funds. Is it supporting someone's entry into housing from homelessness? Is it supporting their retention of housing and not losing their housing? Or is it part of an outreach, you know, encounter and you need to provide them some supplies?

If you can answer yes to one of those three questions, it's eligible use. So that gave our partners the flexibility to do a lot of things that HUD contracts or OHCS contracts just don't give. And the voucher itself, the regional long term rent assistance program, we build a brand new team to administer that program. It's not a HUD voucher at least for Clackamas County, I can speak for Clackamas County only. It's I on boarded every one of those those occupancy specialists and I said we are screening people in, we're not screening people out.

That's we're not looking for the infraction to get them the notice that they're gonna lose their their voucher, that's not your job. Your job is to make sure that doesn't happen. And so the the philosophy and the culture of that team was very different than a HUD voucher which is very compliance based. You know those occupancy specialists have the job of making sure that we're administering the HUD funding according to the very narrow rigid requirements of HUD funding. SHS doesn't have narrow rigid requirements so we didn't impose any. Right. We have a very much a problem solving mentality and really the goal is not compliance, the goal is housing the people. That's the mission.

Well, thank you. I think that many other counties or agencies with that same mentality of unity and getting those solution versus creating more problems We'll follow that. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Hilliard?

Thank you, Councilor President. So I thank you for your presentation. I have just two questions, and really one is just kind of a highlight. The Housing for Success seems really innovative and exciting. And I'm curious, was that community informed?

Yes.

And so you just launched that this last year? Yes. Not tonight, but I'd love more information about that. That's really exciting. And number two, could you speak to the impacts for our Toowalton residents in all these numbers? I mean, are all big, great numbers. And you reckon we all recognize about a third of our community is in Clackamas County. So could you help us better understand how you're serving our residents please?

Thank Yeah, mean the with the coordinated housing access system that is our front door for all of our programs and services One of our our questions we ask when folks call us is, do you have a meaningful connection to Clackamas County? And we don't we don't prioritize folks that don't. That's so we're we're really trying to serve our community first with the resources that our community has. And so folks in Tualatin who are calling us are our community members and they're going to be, you know, we're going to assess their needs and put them in, you know, match them with the appropriate program as we can. So we are serving folks in Tualatin with all of the programs that I spoke about from street outreach to eviction prevention to placements in permanent housing.

But I think we're also like my colleagues at the at Washington County, we're building a system in our suburbs, in our communities out here where ten years ago someone in Tualatin or someone in Lake Oswego or someone in Milwaukee who was experiencing street homelessness and really just could not spend another night outside. They needed to go to Portland. And we knew that and my colleagues in Washington County knew that and we would a lot of it was about making connections with those programs, finding if there's a bed open and trying to facilitate them going there. And so we're also helping people in the community of Tualatin and and in our communities across Clackamas County and Washington County get the services they need where they are and stay in the community.

That's awesome. Thank you. And so do you have a worker similar to our Megan colleague?

You know, I was I I heard Megan say a little bit about her role out in the hall, and I was very curious. I want to learn That

would be great because

it feels like there are a lot of, opportunities for community members to learn more about resources that Clackamas County offers. And, hopefully they're sustainable, like I, can appreciate questionable budgeting or budgets and funding. But, I think it's really important that we get to learn more about, how we can best support our residents. So thank you very much.

Well,

thank you for coming, Vahid. I've heard your presentation before, not as in-depth, so this was really great. The one thing I've always been impressed with Clackamas County is it seems like once you get a person in your system, you do all you can to keep them and help them. Yeah. And that's a really great thing. I do have one question for you. If someone's in need of services in Clackamas County, who do they call or who do they contact?

They contact the Coordinated Housing Access phone number.

Okay.

Which is (503) 654-8575. Oh, I'm going to

put you on the spot.

That was right. 503655, no, think I said 654. (503) 655-8575 is Coordinated Housing Access.

Yeah. Keep up the good work and I hope we have some SHS funds into the next decade.

Me too. Thank you, Council President. Thank you, Councilors.

Okay, next on general business, we have the consideration of recommendations from the council committee on advisory appointments. I just wanted to make one statement that this will be our last time that going forward all our meetings will have minutes that will come to council. So you'll be receiving those going forward. And then I'm going to hand it off to councilor Reyes.

Okay, thank you very much. So we had, we met, gosh, I forgot already when we met, February 3 or So we met the three of us, councilor Sacco, councilor Valerie and I, we we interview, some folks for different committees. And, like always, we always get more and also a lot of qualified qualified candidates. But unfortunately, there's only a few spots, and but we're very proud of the people that come in front of us, and we always encourage volunteerism around the community and to reach out to the city. There are other ways to support the city, but these are the selected candidates for, the following committees.

I'm just gonna read one, and then councilor Saco is gonna read the rest. So for the budget advisory committee, Gerardo Sanchez Velasquez, and I believe he came to one of our meetings already. So you have met him, a great guy, and we're hoping that he brings in a lot of great insight to that committee.

And then we have Teddy, and I was going to try to pronounce his last name, but I think I'll just Say it one

more time.

Shefnardis. Thank you, Nicole. For the budget advisory committee, who is our student representative, and Teddy was also on the budget committee last year and attended our summit as was very engaged there. We have Beth Dittmann, the Tualatin Parks Advisory Committee, Nisha George, the Tualatin Parks Advisory Committee, and then Gary Harborman for the Core Area Parking District Board. So if there aren't any questions, I would like to make a motion to approve these folks for the boards and committees outlined.

Second that. Those in favor? Aye.

Aye.

All right.

Okay, next items removed from consent agenda. There were none. So we're on to council communications. I'll start with Cherilyn.

Let me find my place here. Well, Heidi already mentioned it and, stole my thunder, but the wrap on the new rec van, really excited about seeing that around town as a backdrop for, I don't know, programs or whatever. It's, just so playful and engaging. So I'm really excited about that. We're out to bid on the linear park that is down by Planbeck Gardens.

We expect to start construction in the spring, although that contract will come before you for approval. So you'll see it before before we start construction. Tigard Sand and Gravel, they sold to Knife River and Knife River is taking over operations. They are they have met with us. They have they're engaging in kind of what the city plans are.

That area is part of the Southwest concept plan. And so we're excited to engage with them and see what's next for that area. Last week, we had a supervisor meeting. All our supervisors came together. We have a new purchase card policy, very exciting, that was revamped after things in the region, and it blew up and, Clean Water Services went through a forensic audit and that we learned some things from.

So we revised our P Card policy and rolled out a training. So that was productive. We also did the fourth module, and the last module, in the trauma informed care series that the chief has led us through. Module four was about workplace wellness, and it was very it was a really good training. We're going to be rolling that out to the council, I believe, in the first half of this year.

So I don't have a specific date, but we'll get one on the books. The library, we're participating in a program called One Book, One Coast, and it's a collaborative program uniting West Coast Libraries, so Oregon, Washington, and California, in a shared celebration and dialogue around literacy. So activities will be occurring March through May, and it's exciting to you may have heard like one book, one Beaverton, one book, one Lake Oswego. So this expanded that to be the whole West Coast. So it's it's really cool.

So you'll be seeing more about that. We hired a new volunteer coordinator, and her name's Kate Griffin, and she started last week, I believe. And very exciting. She's just jumped right in. We'll have her in front of you for an introduction.

And then I sent out an email earlier today about SoulSmart. So SoulSmart is a a program through Energy Ready, which is a national initiative supporting local governments that take proactive steps to support new energy technologies, including solar, electric vehicles and energy storage. So we as soon as we got Amanda on, that was one of the items in our climate action plan that was seen to be as a high producing or like a high priority. So anyway, we got the bronze designation and we got a plaque that we'll put out in front in the lobby somewhere that just designates that we had to have like an online permitting and that we're supportive of our planning and permitting processes that reduce costs expand opportunities for residents and businesses to use solar energy. So very exciting that we got that.

Unfortunately, the funding was cut. It was impacted by the U. S. Department of Energy funding cuts and so currently isn't providing technical assistance to local governments anymore as they were, but they we Amanda attended a webinar that gave us lots of good ideas about pursuing our own kind of technical technical skills. So that's what I've got.

Councilor Sokka.

Thank you. I attended the WRWC where we reviewed the Willamette intake facilities update, the water supply system updates. And so if you want any additional information on those, be happy to share. We also reviewed the water and drought report. And this gosh.

I think it was February 10 was our meeting, and it was not a very great report, but I guess I'm hopeful with the snow and the rain as of late that the outlook will turn around a little bit. We also reviewed and approved next year's budget, which ends next year's budget ends 06/30/1927. We did not have an idea committee this past month. We did had a we did not have a quorum due to all the sickness going around, but we did have a special training to discuss meeting rules similar to ethics training that trainings that all of us have been have attended, and it was presented by Kevin who did a great job. Thank you for your your work.

It was terrific. I think everybody learned a lot.

That's it. Thank you. Councilor Hillier.

Thank you. So I attended the Washington County consolidated communications board meeting. We had a budget meeting on February 19. And we went through, of course, budgets like for this big operation for fire and police. And I continued I know I've mentioned it before, but they continue to be understaffed by around 80 employees.

And there were a lot of questions, or at least some questions regarding that in the prior to approving the budget. So I want to encourage people to apply for jobs there with the nine eleven and a variety of other things. But also note that the million plus dollars that they have for those employees are most of that's being paid in overtime because the employees that they do have are getting, you know, overtime. So it's kind of a worry about, like, the mental health and strain and on those really important services. So kind of is is something that I think that will be brought will continue to be brought up and many of the chiefs are concerned about.

Another thing that was very telling in the budget discussion is that they continue to increase the city's portion of the amount. And it's made very clear that most communities like ours cannot continue to afford these massive increases and because they're we're having to make cuts in our own local budgets. And so that, I think, is gonna get discussed further, and I look forward to those discussions. But, anyway, the currently that will move forward. I did want to report that I was able John with TriMet Chief, do you have anything to add to that?

Good. Yeah. I mean, I know there was a lot more, but that's where we are for now. John with TriMet, one of the folks that were here last meeting. So I I he left his card as probably most of you got one.

And I was able to connect with him, and he has done some education, and they're working really hard on doing some additional conversations with the Plambeck Garden folks. And so I was really, really pleased and just wanted to say publicly thank you to John at TriMet for being so responsive. I thought that was great. And I'm also doing something very unique. I I'm not sure that I'm representing the city, but I do wanna mention it here that I'm a an essay judge and then will be participating with the Tiger Chamber of Commerce as they bring forward the civics bee.

It's a national thing done by the chambers of commerce, United States chambers of commerce, and so I'm madly reading essays from middle school students across the nation. So that's kind of fun. And then also, I think we've you want me to that now or like okay. Thank you. So we've all been reading the emails regarding the Hundred And 3rd And IBAC Streets, intersections, stop signs, or the suggested the suggested stop signs that seem to be in that area.

And because it is literally iBack runs is literally in my backyard. I just wanted to see if we could maybe make a request to have staff look for more preventative and forward thinking solutions on that. I think that part of my beef with the whole thing, to be quite honest, is that bicyclists don't follow the rules either. So the cars aren't following the road, the bicyclists aren't. And a lot of them are well, they're all different ages.

And so I really think that this is not necessarily a unique issue in our community, I'm not so well, in my opinion. But I do think that we need to move forward on some sort of proactive solution and I would like to volunteer to be part of the team that works on that. Thank you.

Councilor Reyes. No

official meeting in the last couple of weeks, so skip today. Thank you.

Councilor Gonzales.

So no official meeting either. Been very quiet out there.

Councilor Brooks.

I'm going talk about transportation at the end. Don't let me forget. So my meetings. There's a lot of meetings, so I'm going to go to the National League of Cities congressional conference next month. And as I mentioned before, I was appointed to three different committees for that organization.

And oftentimes, right before those conferences happen, there's a lot of webinars that we look at. So some of the topics of the webinars some of these are webinars, and there's information I can share if people are interested. So the first one was how rural leaders are creating economic opportunity, which sounds like it'd just be for rural leaders, but it's really not. It's for all of us. And there was a lot of good information about that.

I also have been volunteering with the Titanium Committee for, I don't know, a long time now, a year or more. And so we had our monthly meeting. Annalea was sick too, so we did have some updates from the chamber and then looked at the program, which is going really well. So just congratulations to the chamber on starting that new level for manufacturing. And then we had the REAL REAL Council kickoff, which is the Racial Equity and Leadership kickoff on the twelfth.

On the twelfth, I also saw Secretary of State Tobias Reid speak about the state of a lot of it was about elections. And then on that evening, I met with the PAB, and we went through the awarded cities and nonprofits, and Twalton was part of the awards. So there's a full list. If anyone's interested in that, just reach out. And then we had the on the seventeenth was the Arts Advisory Council.

And we selected the finalists for the new box wraps that will be happening in the next Arts Advisory Council meeting, it won't be here, but they will be doing a bus trip and looking at all the sites that are possibilities for the new wraps and selecting the sites. And a lot of times, they'll select the sites that go kind of with the art in some way or another and also visually appropriate. And then on the seventeenth, also, I met with a small group for the women's caucus for the LLC Women's Caucus. And we are working on helping create a checklist for women that are interested in running for office. So if you know anyone, we will have resources.

And I'm looking forward to helping make that happen. And then also on the eighteenth, went to an early childhood leaders peer network series through the NLC. There was amazing speakers. There were two women that were from Minneapolis talking about the long range impacts of the trauma early childhood kids are going to be dealing with for a long time in some very innovative ways that they have been working to meet those needs for the last forty years through intergovernmental coordination. And that's something I'll probably write something up about.

Health care updates in Oregon, I also looked at that one. And then there was another one all about the basics, which I sent out that information about the new transportation act that we're going to be supporting. Prevent and protect was one about supplemental insurance. They started off with law enforcement and needs, so I'll be forwarding that information to Stacy. It's a new partner at the NLC.

And that's Innovative Wellness. And there was a lot about prevention. And then the Titanium Happy Hour, which I also saw Councilor Reyes at. And there's wonderful, great people in our community. And then with the transportation conversation, I feel like we forgot about it.

But one of the council goals that we had talked about and maybe dropped off the list was doing a committee for transportation, like a advisory committee for this issue of transportation since it keeps being the number one issue to voters, there's community voices that I think can be lifted up. So I don't know if we want to if there's any agreement to kind of look at that and talk about that at another meeting.

Clarification. Are you suggesting that we should have one on the advisory committee for transportation?

Yeah. Yeah, we had talked about it on the dais and kind of liked that idea. But then we kind of let it go. And I just, you know, with Councilor Hilliard's conversation and a lot of the regional issues that we're facing with bridges and buses and all kinds of things.

I would support that, looking into having a committee on transportation. I think other cities have something similar, recall if our conversation. And yeah, I mean, it's our number one issue. And so I think resourcing it would be appropriate.

Councilor Riaz? Would it be like a just I don't know if we wanna brainstorm right now, but I'm thinking would it be another one just because we're starting also like assessing our transportation and then once we're done or do we want it to be So I think that's something

is remember something else correctly, we had talked about this and we said we were going to look at it again after the new TSP was in place, which it is.

Oh, okay. Mayor Bubinec. Are you awake, mayor?

I'm awake. No. I just agree with council president Pratt that we did discuss this, that once the TSP was done, that possibly looking into the formation of a citizen advisory committee on transportation.

Yeah. It would be like an ongoing one.

Yes. It wasn't it didn't come up as part of the goals. That's true. We've never had a conversation as a part of the goals. It did come up in context of community group around the TSP, but then it never got legs from there. I wouldn't I there's a lot that goes into making a new advisory committee. And I would suggest that if you want to put that on our plate that we come back and have a conversation about scoping that and staff resources and all that. Because it's no small lift.

No, I'm not I don't think it's a race or a rush, but we did talk about it and then we just totally forgot to bring it up during the and I apologize. I should have brought it up during the advance.

Is that something you could bring back to us with kind of scoping what it would take?

We're happy to come back with a listening session perhaps and thinking about what I don't know, not every city does. I know like there are some cities that do and like I don't know how that fits within our our the context of what is on the work plan. So we can come back in a work session and if you so direct, if there's four of you that

So who would be in favor of that?

Well, would be interesting.

I mean,

back in a

work session.

Just take your time. I mean, I I don't think it should be but it's something to be considered in the future. Yeah. So nothing. That's what I'm for.

Okay. Great. Mayor Bubinek.

Just two meetings of note recently, both on the same day, attended JPAC on the nineteenth. A couple items so that you wanna keep aware of is there was an amendment made to the Metro's 2023 RTP. They had to amend it to include the 82nd Avenue, TB Highway, and Montgomery Park streetcar extension projects because their current RTP isn't done yet. And so in order for any these projects getting kind of federal funding, it has to be in your r your current RTP. So that was approved.

Metro also just passed their review from the US DOT. Every four years, the US DOT will come in and do an evaluation and audit of metropolitan planning organizations. They were found to be in compliance. They did have two corrective actions that they've already taken, and US DOT had five recommendations which are discretionary for Metro to complete, but they are looking at those. There was an update on the high speed rail projects.

Some of us remember this from several years ago that there is a dream to have a high high speed rail corridor between Portland, Seattle, and Vancouver, BC. Metro along with Oda, Wadah, and British Columbia are working collaboratively on this. It's, supposed to be a 345 mile corridor, that has dedicated tracks to allow the train to do up to a 160 miles per hour. So they're envisioning you could be in Vancouver, BC in two hours if this ever gets built. So right now, between now and 2028, they're in project planning.

They have 45 deliverables that have to complete in that time. Some of the questions that were brought up was, you know, is this feasible? You know, can we get this done? What will the cost be? But for now, they're just doing basic project planning. More to come on that. They have federal funding for next couple years, but then they'll have to go back for federal funding after that. The second item at JPAC was the Metro is kicking off their future vision update. They're gonna look out fifty years. They stress that this is a vision, not a plan for Metro.

Their last vision was completed in 1995. They've convened a commission of 23 members that represent different constituencies across the region. They anticipate in April '26 that they will go public and gather what are our regional values. Then December '26, what should be our regional priorities based on those values. They do have a youth committee that is part of the the vision update, and that is comprised of 20 16 to 24 year olds.

They will be start meeting in March. My second meeting of note on the same day was the Washington County Mayors met, and we needed to select the two member the two city representatives for Metro's regional policy and oversight committee. Mayor Beach Pace was selected as a primary, and mayor Lacey Beatty was selected as the alternate to represent Washington County on that committee. That's all I have, chair.

Thank you. K. Well, I rode the time at Line 96 New Testaride, and it was interesting. And I got off at the first exit in town because that's where they were talking to people for the reactions. And one thing that wasn't really true to how it will be is that they made no stops along the way.

So it really didn't show you the time difference. And what I heard from the people that got off the bus, that is overwhelmingly used for people to commute to Downtown Portland. It was an express line, and they're very concerned about the time and the extra time it's going to take to get to work. So that's what I got off that ride, but it was a nice bus. And then I went to Clackamas County Metro Subcommittee, and they talked about the regional transportation options program, and their grants they're small grants and loans for communities.

And one thing I really did like, though, that they in their different goals, they really wanted to be open to different communities' needs, not just having kind of a blanket solution for everybody. So it was kind of a neat program. And then we had a presentation from Metro about supporting the regional economy, where they pointed out, which some of us already know, that the Portland Metro Area is one of only five of 50 metro areas in The United States that lost jobs over the past year. So it's not great. And their big promotion was increasing the industrial lands.

And I know Councilor Brooks has been on too, and probably the mayor, but I've been listening to the Lake City legislative updates, and those have been kind of interesting. Think the TLT one, the people that didn't want the funds to go to the cities and were promoting jobs, they were at a conference or something, and they actually had robots instead of people serving food. So that got pointed out as a little ironic, I guess. And then, the last thing I have is that we received, I think today, the city, an ask from ODOT that we support, I'm going to read this, funding for the Interstate 5 Boone Bridge Environmental Planning and Pre Design Project. And, you know, the Boone Bridge is there in Wilsonville.

And they would like us to sign on this letter that goes to Senators Wyden, Merkley, and Representative Salinas. The mayor and I talked with Mike McCarthy earlier today, and this is a project that will help Tualatin, but I would like to suggest with after a discussion that we add in an additional paragraph asking for auxiliary lanes from our exit to least to Wilsonville, but because if I don't know if you've ever driven to Wilsonville in the afternoon, but you know where that lane ends, it's terrible. So anyway, I'm just asking if the council would support a letter with that paragraph added. Okay. I think we're good.

And our last item is adjournment. I move to adjourn. Me too. Second. Have a good night.