City Council - Regular Meeting

I'll call to order the meeting of the Willsville City Council for February 2nd, 2026 at 7:04 p.m. Will the city recorder please call the role? Councelor Chevlin here. Council President Barry here. Councelor Cunningham here. Mayor O'Neil here. And councelor Skull is excused. Please stand and join us for the pledge of allegiance. I pledge algiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for it stands. One nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

Council President Barry, can I have a motion to approve the following order of agenda? I move to approve the following order of the agenda. Is there a second? Second. Motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor say I. I. I.

The motion passes 40. Welcome everyone. Later in today's meeting, we will hold a public hearing to continue the December 15th public hearing regarding proposed fee increases to support the city's sewer and storm water systems. At our prior hearing, the city council heard clearly from residents about the impact that higher utility fees have on households and businesses. In response, the council continued the public hearing tonight to allow additional time for staff to assemble and present further information and to ensure council has the opportunity to fully understand the issues before any decisions are made. That additional information will be presented as part of the agenda item later this evening. At that time, staff walk us through the material and respond to council council questions so we can continue our deliberations in a thoughtful and transparent way. At this point, I'll continue with my business report. In a recent hearing before the House Committee on Transportation Infrastructure, Congresswoman Andrea Selenus, who represents Wilsonville, Washington DC, testified on the need for infrastructure investments in her district. I want to thank her for highlighting the Boone Bridge in [clears throat] her remarks. As part of our recent Wilsonville delegation visit to Washington DC, the Boone Bridge was our central focus and top priority in meetings we had with our federal legislative partners, including Congresswoman Selenus. She underscored both the bridgeg's critical role in interstate commerce and the very real risk of catastrophic failure in a matter

in a major seismic event. concerns we have consistently raised on behalf of our community. With that, tomorrow the joint committee on ways and means at the state legislature is holding a public hearing on proposed agency reductions to balance the state budget. Part of the proposed reductions including clawing back $108,000 from the 1 million Senator Courtney Neuron Mistlin secured for the project last year, specifically the Boone Bridge. I will be down in Salem testifying in support of keeping that funding whole since it is crucial to our effort to secure federal funding. All members of the public are welcome to testify at the hearing and I encourage Wilsonville residents to show their support for the Boone Bridge Replacement Project. The meeting will be in hearing room 40 in the Oregon State Capitol in Salem from 5:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Testimony is limited to 1 to two minutes and can be done in person or virtually. You can also submit written testimony. You can also in doing so visit olus that's ois.orggonle legislator.gov and select the joint committee on ways and means for information on how to register or submit testimony for the balance of my report. I'll just briefly note some of the regional local meetings and events I attended since our last city council meeting. I attended the Clackamus County coordinating committee, the Washington County coordinating committee. I have presented along with city council the whistle

civics academy and I had tour the Aurora State airport with councilors Cunningham and Skull. I also attended the Metropolitan Mayor's Consortium to discuss regional issues impacting Wilsonville. I attended the Clackmus County Mayor's meeting with Chair Craig Roberts, again highlighting city priorities and discussing the counties. And I attended town halls this past weekend with Senator Courtney Nuron Listen and Representative Sue Reky Smith where I raised Wilson's priorities and needs. Our next city council meeting uh will be on Thursday, February 19th, starting at 700 p.m. as Monday, February 16th. Uh the city is closed in observance of President's Day. With that, I'll turn to uh since there's no communication uh piece this evening, I'll turn the citizens input and committee announcements. We will move now uh into that. This is an opportunity for visitors to address the city council on any matter concerning city city's business or any matter over which the council has control. It also the time to address items not on the agenda. It's also the time to address items that are on the agenda but not scheduled for public hearing. So if you have we have a public hearing later this evening, two of them. Please reserve those comments until that public hearing. Staff will make every effort to respond to questions raised during community input as quickly as possible following the council meeting. Please limit your comments to three minutes. Please, when conveying your remarks, whatever [clears throat] they may be, please speak to the council as a whole and not directly to any one member of council during your comments. Also, please note you can use the podium or

sit at the tables in front of council. whatever makes you feel more comfortable. Please make sure you talk into the microphone at either location. To comment before council in person or virtually, you must sign up either by completing a speaker card at the side of the room or by using the raise hand feature in Zoom. You'll need to provide your name, address, and topic you will be discussing. Information on engaging with city council can be found on the city council's web page, wilsonorggon.gov city council. As a reminder, when you begin your comments, state your name for the record and state your address or state that your address is provided on your speaker card. Please note that this is not the only way to communicate with council or me. You are welcome to submit information writing or via email. Additionally, I encourage you to schedule a meeting with me or any of the other counselors to discuss your concerns further. With that, I will call John Budo. [clears throat] Good evening, everybody. My name is John Bado. I live at 8164 Southwest Edgewater West. Tonight, I want to talk about business. business here in Wilsonville. We need to attract bigger businesses here to Wilsonville. Since I've been here, I've seen Xerox Park disappear and shrink in its usage. Not much is happening there. I've watched Cabela be considered for here and yet it never came. I watched Home Depot get turned away. And one of the big concerns that I was told was that it was going to have a big traffic impact and yet we have a bike lane that's 99% never used. One representative told me that it's [clears throat] because more we want to be more metropolitan like DC and New

York. Well, the news flashes I've been there and the bikers use the sidewalk instead of taking up a lane. These money problems that we are having could have been mitigated to a point with more business here in Wilsonville. Each of you represent Wilsonville and at these meetings each of you go over your schedule and events, meetings and travel. The second part of that should be return on investment. I did like what I heard about the bridge and things that are going on there, but when you go out and about and you meet with people, it should be I met with soand so to further the city's plans for X or I spoke to a whole group about the future of Wilsonville. I went to, you know, something of those natures. Speaking of schedules, attend a high school football game, baseball game, even the robotics for the high school. Some of our future here in Wilsonville will come back. I find it sad that our chamber of commerce has dwindled over the years to almost nothing. We just don't have the business to support it anymore. Here are some answers that I've come up with just just in the small time I've been here this evening. Cultivate businesses for what they what they are still here. Go to the restaurants and find out what is their worst day and say, "Hey, come have dinner with me. Let's support this uh small town business. Support our local car dealerships with signage that they've been asking for forever. Subaru, Toyota, Nissan are huge contributors to our community as I've seen. We should try to see how we can help these businesses and not stifle their sales. Boston Pub and Vanguard over the years, two businesses that could use a boost in their in [clears throat] their business by just having canopies for the rainy season or even the hot season. I know if I drove by and saw a bunch of people eating there, it would probably would attract me to their business.

[clears throat] These these small things make a big difference in our area and we entrust in each of you that represent us to support our small businesses and even beyond that attract other businesses here. I was asked not too long ago what business would I attract here specifically I'd attract allegiance flags to come make their flags here in the United States. God bless you and thank you for your time.

Thank you Ken Rice. [clears throat] My name is Ken Rice. Uh my address is on file. I was here to talk about the process that uh we're dealing with with this this evening. I attended the December meeting. My alarm goes off at 5:00 a.m. I can't stay until 10 11 o'clock at night. I sat here through the last meeting listening to city councelor saying, you know, there's a lot of people here to speak. I'm going to keep my, you know, what I have to say short. And then they rambled on for 20 minutes about some pancake breakfast they went to. The city sat here and went presented for over an hour telling us, you know, how they mismanaged and got us into this position. And I never got to speak because I had to go home and go to bed so I could get up and go to work. Okay. I live alone in my home. I don't even use the minimum amount of water. I'm already paying more than my share. So, thank you, Elizabeth Peters.

[clears throat]

Mayor and Council, I'm Elizabeth Peters and my address is on file. Um, and I'm giving you a handout that has all the data that I'm referring to in uh my testimony. I was looking through a city presentation from last December that included population projections for Wilsonville. It showed our population growing to a little over 34,000 by 2030. Since we're currently around 27,000, a little bit more, that number caught my attention. It seemed very optimistic. So, I decided to take a closer look. I ended up reading some recent OPB coverage on Oregon's population trends. Th this led me to data from Portland State University's population research center. Now, that data shows that Oregon is now seeing more deaths than births. So, any population growth we have is coming entirely from people moving into the state. When you look specifically at Wilsonville, PSU's more recent estimates don't really line up with the numbers that were used when some of the city's master plans were put together years ago. The reality is we're just not growing the way we were 20 years or even 10 years ago. Between 2000 in 2010, Wilsonville was growing at nearly 3% per year. Since 2020, that growth rate has been much slower, closer to about a half a percent per year, with the most recent year around 0.6%. That's a big slowdown compared to the early 2000s. So, if we take our current relatively flat growth rate of 0.6%. And projected out to 2030, Wilsonville's

population would land at just over 28,000, not 34,000 as earlier projections assumed. So, I'm sharing this because I felt it was important for you to have this as you think about projects and possible rate increases this year. I think it's worth clearly separating projects that are based on future population growth from those meant to serve the people who are already here. Things have changed a lot in the past few years. Our growth outlook isn't what it used to be. Taking a new look at those assumptions now can help assure we're not putting unnecessary financial pressure on our residents. Thank you for your time.

Thank you,

Paul Bun. Good evening. My name is Paul Bunton and I live at 7251 Southwest Lynwood Court in Wilsonville Meadows. I would like to speak tonight about Mayor O'Neal's January 22nd presentation related to the appointment process for city boards and commissions. First, here's a short history of my time in Wilsonville. My wife and I moved to Wilsonville in 1990 and raised our three children here. Since moving to Wilsonville, I have provided over 19 years of volunteer civic service on both the planning commission, six years as chair, and budget committee, two terms. My comments tonight reflect perspectives that I developed over those 19 years. First, I found the process outlined by Mayor O'Neal in his presentation as specific, relevant, balanced, and attainable. Here are some examples of what I found commendable. Mayor O'Neal outlines different section criteria based on whether an applicant is applying for a tier one budget committee, planning commission or development review board or tier 2 DEI tour promotion committee. Mayor O'Neal's designation of tier two and tier, excuse me, tier one and tier two committees based on their potential for direct impact on the business and planning of the city is new to is new to me. makes perfect sense as he defines tier one committees as those who potentially most are most consequential to how the city functions. His tier one selection criteria criteria reflects this important. Consider the following. Readiness to serve, which includes both technical and soft skills,

which includes evaluation of an applicant's judgment, temperament, ability to listen, and finally, a commitment to serve the whole city rather than arrive with a specific grievance or agenda. Please note that based on my 19 years of civic service, especially as planning commission chair, I fully agree with the above criteria. Mayor O'Neal also makes clear that any applicant must complete participation in the Wilsonville Civics Academy. Finally, Mayor O'Neal makes clear that he is obligated by the city charter to assume responsibility for the overall selection process while at the same time he outlines a process whereby there are opportunities for review and input throughout the whole process by senior staff and city council members. Some might question the value of some of the selection criteria that I discussed above but no one can say in my opinion such criteria lack specificity or transparency. Now to give further cl to give further perspective when give now to give further perspective when I applied for the planning commission late 1990s in the budget committee mid 2000s I had to complete an online application but nowhere did I recall were the selection committee selection criteria so clearly defined. Finally, it's my belief that the application se selection criteria outlined by mayor by the mayor on January 22nd provides a high level of transparency which I highly applaud. Thank you.

Thank you, Lee Barkman.

Good evening. I'm Lee Barkman. I u my address is on file. [clears throat] Excuse me. I want to u thank the mayor for uh recent comments supporting uh the people at risk uh for detention by ICE. And I hope that the city council will take a further step in that regard. And I'm saying this because I think it's mostly because I respect police. I um I lived through a time when that wasn't always true. If you um recently saw on CNN, they had a documentary called 1968 where the Chicago police um um unprovoked beat the heck out of uh hundreds and hundreds of people in this in the park in Chicago. I watched that high school and uh basically the whole for the next decade police were disrespected in this country. Um they were called pigs. Um movies were basically filled with corrupt cops and brutal cops and stupid cops. And um this had a huge effect. I'm sure it had even a worse effect on our police uh policemen. Um but we don't feel that way anymore. Certainly I don't and I I think everybody here basically has a a deep respect for what the police do. Um but now we're in a situation where um we're seeing law enforcement quote unquote ICE brutalize [clears throat] people and um and I think it's incumbent on the city council to basically take further steps to make sure that uh we're in line with the constitution and u with the civil rights of the

people who live here. Um that basically Uh Beaverton recently uh had a resolution that they're not going to cooperate with ICE if they come in. Um the governor has a task force putting together uh uh ways that we can basically help mitigate this invasion by unconstitutional um force that's a personal militia of the president. Finally, I'd like to just basically read a statement um by uh the Minnesota Police Chief O'Hara recently. He said this. Police have an absolute duty to intervene uh uh if they witness federal uh immigration officials using unlawful force or violating civil rights amid an ongoing operation. Police will face termination if they fail to intervene. I don't know if you want to go that far, but I think you should basically let our police know that they have a responsibility to protect us. Thank you,

Andrew Engel. Good evening. My name is Andrew Engel. My information is on the speaker card. Earlier is the Urban Renewal Agency. You voted for an urban renewal plan amendment that would grant the Urban Renewal Agency the ability to buy and sell land in the Coffee Creek Development Area. I think that sounds great. I assume that you are going to vote again as council to approve that council approved amendment by the urban renewal agency. I assume that is in the interest of best policy in order to bring in more industrial development in order to get businesses building out our northwest corner of our city. And I assume that's going to pay itself back in taxes, in future payrolls, in activity in the city coming in economically. That sounds great. Today, you can do that and that policy change can take effect immediately. But if the urban renewal ballot measure succeeds in May, this sort of motion would receive an automatic 90-day hold. and the possibility that just 5% of Wilsonville voters, just a few hundred people, could tie your hands on this measure, force it to a ballot vote, and potentially, depending on what time of year this type of a movement came around, you would be waiting for a measure up to a year and a half to find out if the voters would or would not let you take this kind of administrative change. I can respect your efforts and intentions to stay neutral and and let Wilsonville voters decide regarding the ballot measure, but one of you already put a ton of weight behind the petition in the first place. So, that ship has kind of sailed. I'd be delighted if you shed your passive approach and engaged with your full voices in this important conversation about the future of this

city. The ballot measure doesn't have to block urban renewal outright. It just has to stack the deck. Stack it against substantial changes. Stack it against minor changes. Stack it against elected officials successfully implementing long range civically minded plans for the city. Stack it against renovating blight. Stack it against fixing underperforming areas of the city. Commercial, industrial, residential. It doesn't matter what the plan encompasses. It's in the best interest of Wilsonville to kill this ballot measure. And I would love to see you having this conversation publicly with the citizens of Wilsonville about what this measure means for our city. Part of the reason our growth has plateaued in the past few years is because we're not seeing the buildout that we should be seeing either in Town Center or in Frog Pond East and West. Those developments have slowed. Frog Pond is not subject to urban renewal, but Town Center is. We've been waiting eight years for that proposed plan to get funded and start getting built. Yeah, you're going to see your population drop off and then you're going to see your funding disappear for the future infrastructure improvements that you need when those uh rateayers are not present in the city. So, please um figure out what you need to do to have this conversation for all of us. Thank you. Thank you, [applause] Nancy Anderson. Hello, my name is Nancy Anderson and my address is on file with the speaker card. I just want to say how blessed I

feel to have our mayor and that I stand with him and with DEI in Wilsonville. Thank you. Thank you. Paul Dillard.

Hi, my name is Paul Diller and my address is on file. I live in the Wilsonville Meadows neighborhood. First, I wanted to thank Mayor O'Neal. Uh this was a couple of months ago, but thank him for attending the Kaneka celebration that was at uh Memorial Park Moras Plaza uh that came a day or two after the horrific uh Bondi Beach massacre in Australia and it meant a lot meant a lot to uh people in the Jewish community here to see an elected official there, our mayor and the first lady as well. Uh so I wanted to mention that. Um, I was going to speak mostly about uh transportation and transit. Uh, I commute to Salem. My wife commutes to uh Portland. Uh, we both try to take public transportation when it's convenient. Uh, I have actually because of the Beckman Dip started biking from my neighborhood to the transit center. And boy, the Beckman Dip has been just outstanding. Uh I can see uh kids I know through my kids school crossing the dip the other way going to school and uh just to have that kind of connectivity in the town is just fantastic. If I have one one suggestion it would be maybe the city could think proactively about graffiti prevention because there's a lot of kind of blank canvas there. Uh maybe some kind of public art or planting or something just to get ahead of any problems. I haven't seen any graffiti but we want to make sure we don't get any. Uh, we also might want to reach out to some of the drivers in town through maybe the Boon's Ferry Messenger about how you signal when you go through a circle. Uh, [laughter] I remember once in Sun River in my uh the place I stayed had a little some instructions on, you know, signal when you leave the uh circle. So, I'm not sure everybody has gotten that message. I didn't know that until some years ago. Um, transit center looks great. The VUA is really coming along. Looks fantastic. I know or I hear a couple people have moved in. Um, looking forward to that opening and I hear there's supposed to

be a business or two in there. That should be great. Uh, the 1X service that I take to Salem is generally very reliable. Um, the service is very professional. There are bike racks on every bus. Um, one thing the city might consider if it ever uh replaces the buses is to have more of a long-term or uh long-distance bus like Salem Chariots has with reclining seats and reading lights. Uh, I'm not trying to be spoiled or gild the lily here, but sometimes I try to wait to take a Chariots bus back because it's a little more comfortable. So, if we ever upgrade our fleet, that's one possibility. Um, the last thing I want to say is, as councilors may know and the mayor may know, uh, TRAT, with whom we've always had kind of a testy relationship since we pulled out as a city in the 1980s, uh, is threatening, uh, once again with budget cuts, to reroute the 96, which is the only bus that comes to Wilsonville and have it be, uh, you know, a long winding bus through Lake Asiggo. That would take probably two or three times as long as it does now. So I urge you to reach out to try about concerns about that. Thank you.

Thank you. That's all. Uh oh. Do we have someone online? Okay. Jennifer Constantine, you can go ahead.

Hi, my name is Jennifer Constantine. My information is on file. Uh, I just wanted to thank Mayor O'Neal for coming out to our protest on January 25th. Despite what some say, we are protesting to maintain every person's rights as granted in our Constitution. The right to peacefully assemble, the right to have a free press, the right to due process for all people, not just all citizens. With the unlawful killings of Renee Good, Alex Prey, and many others, we can no longer stay silent. You are either on the side of our constitutional rights, law and order, or you're not. It doesn't take a moment's thought for me to decide which side I'm on. I thank the mayor for standing up for those rights as well. I will continue to speak up for everyone's rights, even if they choose not to. I encourage everyone who believes in the United States Constitution to do the same. So, if you us out there with signs, just smile and wave. After all, we are standing up for your rights, too. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Is there any more for citizens comment? Okay, now turning to councelor comments, liaison reports, and meeting announcements. Council President Barry,

thank you. And thank you to everybody who takes their time to come to our meetings and uh that sends us emails with their opinions. We do listen. I don't always get a chance to reply right away, but I do value your input and I I think my colleagues here also do. Um let's see. Uh you mentioned the civics academy earlier. Um I also attended it with all my colleagues. The civics academy is an opportunity that the city puts together, I think once a year for about 30 applicants that are selected to learn about the city operations. They meet all the different department heads. They get to do tour of some different facilities. I think the smart transit facility and coffee creek and go down to the state. It's a wonderful opportunity to learn more about how the city is run and to learn how you might want to engage a little bit more. Um I uh attended the very first civics academy. It was back then in 2015. It was called the leadership academy and it was just it was really a great experience. I met some fabulous people and I learned a lot and then I started getting active in the city and I invite you to also. Um so one of the things that I was planning on doing last Saturday with counselor um Skull is to have like a coffee connect uh to invite people to come and meet with us and just chat with whatever's on your mind. And then we were advised that um we have to be really careful these days about the Oregon's serial meeting laws um that prohibits um that let's see what does it it prohibits members of public bodies from using chain or individual private communications to discuss public business. So our coffee connect was postponed. Hopefully, we'll

do it sometime in the future, but we're waiting for the legislature to kind of smooth out those rough ends. And um I really believe communication is really important. And um and I I think civic engagement is really important. Of course, that's why I'm here. Um so, there are some upcoming activities that I wanted to highlight. Let's see. Um, on February 4th, there's the walk and roll to school day. And it's a winter walk and walk, it's a tongue twister, walk and roll to school organized by SMARTT, which is our our local transit system, a partnership with the Oregon Safe Routes to School. So, I hope that you encourage your children or your grandchildren to participate and maybe you can join them, too. Um, on February 10th, there's going to be an open house for the new roundabout that is being planned for Stafford and 65th and Elegen um intersection. Clackmus County in partnership with Washington County and the city of Wilsonville is undertaking this project to design and construct roundabouts in the three-way intersection. Um, it's also going to widen some travel lanes, add some bike lanes, replace the culvert at the Beckman Creek for the fish safe uh passageway and other safety improvements. So, if you're interested, you can find out more on the website with the city of Wilsonville and and please participate. It's it's a good opportunity and maybe they'll teach us how to signal when we're going through the roundabouts. Um there's also an open house um let's see on Tuesday February 10th in the upstairs Wamtt River conference room

here at city hall to learn more about the project. Then DEI is offering some different events on February 17th. They're celebrating the Lunar New Year. It's going to be over at the community center in the afternoon. There's more information on the website. I hope you can come. Um, February 17th is the beginning of Ramadan, which is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar, so you can learn more about that. Uh, February is Black History Month, and there's different events. And then also there's a daughter daddy dance on February 20th. So, lots and lots of different activities. The website's full of information. So is the Boon's messenger. So, please please participate. That's my report.

Thank you, Councelor Cunningham.

Thank you. Uh, just a couple updates over the last couple of weeks. Um, on January 16th, I was able I accepted an invitation to go and tour the Children's Center in Clackamus County. Um it's a center for uh children who have been abused to go and it's a kind of a one-stop shop to come and um be interviewed, forensic interviews, um physical interviews, whatever those things that are needed. It's no cost to those who utilize it. And it's a it's an amazing service. Uh it's an amazing setup. Um it it doesn't feel scary and clinical. It feels like a little house almost. Um, and they have a lot of wraparound services that go with that and help out a lot of families. Believe if I remember the number correctly off the top of my head, last year they helped uh about 540 families uh and children. Um, a really good resource that's here in our county. Um, I'm sure that it's it's something that has been utilized by the citizens of of our town before and um and just something to be aware of as as we go forward. um they just like everybody else, they're facing funding issues. Um they're trying to figure out how to close some of those gaps and keep some of those services going to be able to have all the services that they currently offer maintained. Um so something to look into if if if it's of of interest or a passion of anyone um to take a look. It's called the Children's Center here in Clackamus County. Um then on January 20th I also attended that uh Aurora airport tour with the mayor and counselor Skull. Uh it was a very enlightening tour. It was very interesting to see some of the operations down there. We toured uh LifeFlight uh an amazing resource that we have right here in our backyard. Some of you might be aware of that uh collision that occurred on the freeway a couple of weeks ago with the wrongway

driver. Lifeflight came and was there within minutes to airlift the most severely injured to the hospital and and probably saved a life. Uh an amazing resource that we have right here in our backyard. They're able to get off the ground and heading uh heading your way in about 10 minutes um and then zip you to whatever hospital they need to get you to. So um that can't be understated. We also uh toured the helicopter transport services facility out there. an amazing huge facility of uh firefighting helicopters also uh large utility construction and transport. Um another amazing uh resource we have right here in our backyard when it comes to firefighting and the ability to deploy these large uh helicopters. I believe do you remember it was uh was it 2500 gallons they could suck up in 45 seconds.

Pretty pretty amazing equipment out there um that they have going on. And then uh we were also able to tour a small uh one of the small businesses there at the airport uh called Aerrow Metal and uh they're actually currently working on their biggest project ever. Uh they're working on General MacArthur's plane from World War II called the Baton and doing a full renovation on that. Uh very cool operation they have there. They do a lot of old fighter planes and things like that. and um a lot of a lot of cool stuff, a lot of business going on down there and a lot of resources that uh rely on businesses here in Wilsonville as well. Um so those were kind of the big highlights from the last couple of weeks. Um and that's all I have for my comments tonight.

Thank you, Councelor Chevron.

Thank you. And thank you for everyone that's here tonight and anyone else that's watching uh online. I'm out of respect for the gentleman that has to get up early and would like to be able to speak tonight, I'm not going to talk about flipping any pancakes. Um, but I I'm going to just curtail my messages. I went to 12 different meetings over the last uh four weeks, so that's a lot of meetings. Um, I'm representing your community. I'm not sure if the gentleman that asked that we talk about what we talked about when we go to our meetings, but I always represent your interests. I represent the city as far as you the citizens and your concerns. So the coffees that I have, the meetings that [clears throat] I have with small groups are always about what are the priorities for our city? How can we best communicate with one another? How can we make the right decisions? Meaning all of you and all of us together make the right decisions for our city. So that's what my efforts are in all the meetings that I've been at. Um, I will share some, I believe, exciting news because we worry about blight and we worry about buildings that are uh closed and look run down. Matt Lorenzan, our uh city economic development manager, shared with me last month that the Sher's restaurant is due to be torn down this year, uh, probably May through summertime right in that area. It'll be completely raised. The, uh, property owner is going to be starting to build a building there. uh in January of next year, he found out the property owner that he has some significant tax advantages that are available to him if he starts building next year rather than if he starts building this year. So, that is an area that we can look forward to seeing the building come down, the empty building, and the weeds go away and um flat and then next uh winter, next January, we'll be able to see some uh uh some growth in that area. So, I look forward to that. That's all I have for tonight. Thank you.

Thank you. The next item is our consent agenda. Will the city attorney please read the items on consent?

Resolution number 3217, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville acting in its capacity as the local contract review board approving the bid process accepting the proposal which will best serve the interest of the city and what awarding a contract to Green Sweep Asphalt Surfaces LLC for the project known as Street Sweeping Services. Resolution number 3233, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville ratifying approval of a grant agreement between Wilsonville and the Oregon Department of Land Conservation and Development, DLCD, for the Housing Statutory Compliance Project. Resolution number 3236, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville approving a council approved amendment to the Coffee Creek urban renewal plan which allows the urban renewal agency of the city of Wilsonville to acquire option prepare including but not limited to pursuing land use actions, aggregate, hold, sell, resell, and/or encumber real property in the urban renewal area. and minutes of the December 15, 2025 and January 5, 2026 city council meetings.

You did that all without breathing. I'm impressed. I'll catch my breath now. Kenny G. City Council President Barry, can I have a motion to adopt the consent agenda? I move to adopt the consent agenda as read. Is there a second? Second mot. The motion has been made and seconded. All those in favor say I.

I. The motion passes for zero. Tonight there is no continuing uh new business or continuing business. So we'll go right into the public hearings. Tonight we'll have continued public hearings on resolution number 3229 and resolution number 3230 which were continued from December 15, 2025 meeting. The continued public hearing will first be taken up as it relates to resolution number 3229, a resolution establishing an imposing just and equitable sewer user fees and repealing resolution number 2325 and resolution number 1987. The order of the procedure for tonight's hearing is set out in detail in our city code. In brief, we will start with a staff report. Next, the public will be asked to provide testimony. I will ask everyone who signed up in advance to testify first in the order in which they signed up. Then I will ask if anyone present in council chambers would like to testify. And then I will ask anyone who is on the Zoom meeting who has not testified but would like to testify to do so. For those in the audience, please fill out a speaker card and provide to the city provided to the city recorder. For those on Zoom, if you want to provide public testimony remotely during this meeting, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or press star 9 or your telephone to notify the city recorder you wish to speak when the time for public testimony is called. If you're having difficulties, excuse me, if you're having if you're having difficulties with these instructions, you may call 16699006833

and when prompted, enter webinar ID number 81536056468. Both numbers are shown on the screen. When you begin your testimony, please state your name and address for the record. Or you may state that your address is as provided to staff. After each person testifies, counselors may impose, excuse me, may pose questions to me to be addressed by the person who testified or to staff to clarify any information that was conveyed in the testimony. Once the city council has heard from everyone and the city council is satisfied it has all the information it needs to render a decision. The public hearing will be closed. Council deliberates and I'll announce the result. We wish to hear from everyone who wants to testify. However, we request that you refrain from repeating testimony already given by someone else. If you agree with what someone before you has said, please provide your testimony indicating that you concur, excuse me, you concur with what has been previously said. Public testimony will be limited to three minutes. We will time the testimony and provide you with a visual warning when there is one minute remaining. And I have one question to our city attorney. when we have public testimony that's been sign up that's been presented to me it's generic on things

so it's because someone's gonna be called on one resolution when they may want to speak on the second vice versa does it matter and how do I I think you can just ask each person at the beginning particularly on this first item since staff is requesting a continuence okay thank you okay with that I'll Now open the hearing on resolution number 3229 at 7:51 p.m. Mr. Wagel and Mr. KCO is there. Is he here tonight? He's in the back.

He's in the back or is he hiding? Okay. And they'll continue their staff presentation on resolution 3229.

All right. Good evening, Mayor O'Neal and council. My name is Zach Wigle, the city engineer, and um first item tonight is the um resolution 3229. And um staff is recommending that council continue this resolution to the March 16th city council meeting. This will allow staff more time to address council's questions that were raised at the December 15th public meeting or public hearing. Uh as an update, staff are uh currently reviewing the population growth uh projections and we're using data that um is more recent uh specifically using the housing needs and capacity analysis that was adopted last year um to uh see what um more current population projections for the city are. With that population projection, we we may be able to push out some of those larger wastewater treatment plant projects. Um, and that will allow for longer implementation of that sewer uh utility fee implementation. We're also reviewing uh utility assistance programs to get uh to address the council concerns that were raised at the last uh public hearing as well. Um we're uh taking a look at thuh what other cities and agencies are doing and uh we'll have more information on those programs for your consideration also at the March 16th meeting. Um that concludes the staff presentation. So, so when I'm understanding that uh in the the March meeting, you need more time to deal with the affordability analysis that we presented as a key issue of the council and the issue about project timing and sequencing after you capture

what the population is to see if we can uh push some projects out. Is that correct? And Okay. And what about a less burdensome way to pay for these necessary improvements? Other ideas?

Uh there's there's basically utility fees and system development charges. City council adopted the maximum defensible system development charge in October. And um as far as other uh utilities um or other uh funding sources um I'm not sure what those would be. Uh we can bring Keith up if he has ideas, but um okay, those could come up in the March meeting as well. Well, what we'd be looking at is rate assistance programs. Okay.

Not affordability programs are different than rate assistance. So it' be more um incomebased programs that other cities have implemented. That's what we would be bringing back to council. Okay. With has does any counselor have any question at this point? Only that I'm not sure your mic is um loud enough. I want to just make sure that those in the audience are able to hear you as well. Okay. I'll better just have it closer. Thanks, city council president Barry.

Yeah, I just um really appreciate that um the staff um listened to the council and the council was listening to all the comments that we received that there is a concern and that we want to revisit the population and how we're calculating and what projects, you know, the priority list. And so I'm really excited to come back on the March 16th and hear what staff has to say. It sounds like there could be some good stuff.

Anything else? All right, folks. The public hearing on resolution 3229 will likely be continued to March 16th, 2026 with new information from staff. We have to formally do that later in the process. But if anyone wants to comment now for public testimony on the sewer rates, they may or you can hold off until that later hearing. So, um, just let me know if I call your name, I guess, whether or not you want to reserve your time. Uh, for public testimony, we will start with the people who signed up in advance to testify. Please remember to include your name and address for the record. staff, if people have signed up in advance, who is our first person to testify this evening? I think I have one at least. Uh Steve Steve Gashler. Mayor and counselors. Uh my name is Steve Gashler. I'm a Wilsonville resident and my uh address information is on my speaker card. Uh I'm actually speaking to both items and I guess I would be an opponent of both items as they currently stand. Um it's more general comments on both items. So, I'll get with it and start reading this. Thank you for the opportunity to speak tonight regarding the proposed storm water and wastewater rate increases. I want to begin with the simple truth. Elections have consequences. The decisions made by city leadership today will directly affect

every household in Wilsonville for years to come. And the burdens of these decisions will fall squarely on the residents who pay the bills. The rate increases being proposed are extreme. Many families are struggling with rising costs of housing, utilities, groceries, and fuel. A roughly $33 per month. Wilsonville's proposed storm water fee would likely be among the highest in the Portland metro region, far above comparable communities such as Clean Water Services and Gresham. To now ask them to absorb a dramatic increase in storm water and wastewater charges raises a serious concerns about fairness, planning, and accountability. What makes these especially troubling is that many of these replacements and infrastructure requirements have been known for many years. They are not sudden discoveries, not or unexpected emergencies. City staff and leadership have understood the deficiencies in the storm water system for a long time. Likewise, population growth was no surprise. Wilsonville has been growing steadily for decades. Development has continued and expansion has been planned. These future demands should have been anticipated through responsible long-term financial management. The reality is the moderate rate increases implemented years ago could have reduced the need for this kind of severe shock today. A gradual, predictable approach would have been far easier for residents to absorb while still allowing the city to make steady progress on capital improvements. Instead, we are now facing a proposal that feels rushed, urgent, and disproportionate, almost as though past delays are being corrected all at once,

the expense of today's rateayers. And that brings me back to the larger point. In the end, we the people bear ultimate responsibility for the choices made in our community. We elect the leaders, we approve priorities, and we live with the consequences. Ultimately, a community will have the leadership that it demands and the leadership that it deserves. I agree. I urge a council to slow the process down, reconsider these extreme increases, and pursue a more balanced and credible path forward, one that reflects long-term responsibility rather than short-term financial shock. Thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you,

Mayor. Mayor, if I may, for any community members who want to speak on both items, I would recommend that you wait until the storm water item is discussed because there is additional staff information that's being presented at that time, but it's up to you to decide when you want to testify. Okay. Thank you, Patrick. Tom, uh, you have both storm water and sewer rates. You want to wait till the storm water. Does that work? Okay. Thanks. Uh, Ruth Webster, uh, would you like to wait until you're next, but would you like to wait until storm water? Okay, feel free.

I'm here. Well, you'll be able to speak a little bit later. I just didn't know if you wanted to be heard during sewer rates that we may postponing later tonight as opposed to the All right, then I'll wait. Okay, fair enough. Uh Karen Bradley, same question. Always. Thank you. Okay, Tim Warm.

Okay, thank you folks. Is there anyone on Zoom at all? Okay, with that, does any counselor have any comments of staff or any of the testimony? Okay, great. Does the city council wish to further continue the hearing on resolution number 3229, a resolution establishing imposing just and equal sewer use or fees and repealing resolution number 2325 and resolution number 1987 to March 16, 2026 at 7 p.m. Please indicate by making a motion to do so. Please state the specific date and time to when the hearing will be continued.

I move uh to continue the sur rate uh resolution number 3229 to March 16th uh when we have more information. So just to be clear, it's um to continue the public hearing on resolution number 3229 to 7 p.m. on March 16th, 2026. So moved. Thank you. Is there a second? I'll second. Okay. Any discussion? Okay. Seeing none, all those in favor say I. I. I. Motion passes 4. So that concludes that hearing at 802.

Oh, it's not concluded. It's just continued.

Excuse me. Gosh, police are doing it a lot earlier than we did last time. So, the the hearing on resolution number 3229 is continued until 700 p.m. on March 16, 2026. Now, turning to resolution number 3230. We'll now proceed with the continued public hearing on resolution number 3230. resolution establishing imposing just deductible storm water user fees and repealing resolution number 2325 and resolution number 2353. The order of procedure for tonight's hearing is set out in the detail in our city code. In brief, we will start with a staff report. Next, the public will be asked to provide testimony. I will ask everyone who signed up in advance to testify first in the order in which they signed up. Then I will ask if anyone present in city council chambers would like to testify. And then I will ask anyone who is in who might be in the zoom meeting who has not testified but would like to testify to do so. For those in the audience, please fill out a speaker card and provide to the city recorder. I know this is redundant. You've heard it before, but I have to do it because the city attorney will get mad. So I it's just the process. For those on Zoom, if you want to provide public testimony remotely during the me this meeting, please use the raise hand feature in Zoom or press star 9 on your telephone to notify the city recorder you wish to speak when the time for public testimony is called. If you're having difficulties with these instructions, you may call 1669 uh 1669-900 uh 6833 and when prompted, enter webinar ID number 81536056468. Both numbers are shown on the screen. When you begin your testimony, please state your name and address for the

record or you may state that your address is as provided to staff. After each person testifies, counselors may pose questions to me to be addressed by the person who testified or to staff to clarify any information that was conveyed in the testimony. Once the city council has heard from everyone and the city council is satisfied it has all the information it needs to render a decision, the public hearing will be closed. Council deliberates and I will announce the result. We wish to hear from everyone who wants to testify. However, we request that you refrain from repeating testimony already given by someone else. If you agree with what that someone before you has said, please provide your testimony indicating that you can that you concur with what has been previously said. Public testimony will be limited to three minutes. We will time the testimony and provide you with a visual warning when there is one minute remaining. The continued public hearing on resolution 3230 is now open at 8:05 p.m. Mr. Wel, please proceed.

All right. How's that? A lot better. Okay, great.

Uh, good evening, Mayor O'Neal and council. My name again is Zach Wel, the city engineer. And uh tonight before you is resolution 3230, continuation of the public hearing on December from December 15th um and uh consideration of adoption of this resolution tonight. Uh the res resolution will establish storm water utility rate adjustments uh and an an addition of a annual inflation adjustment and will discontinue the uh storm water utility rate exemption. Um, I thought it would be uh helpful. Uh, I know so at the December 15th meeting, council had asked staff to take a look at the uh the projects in the storm water plan and see if any of those could be eliminated or or pushed back. And I just I wanted to um you know show you this is the storm water master plan that was adopted in 2024. Um, and this plan represents $530,000 worth of engineering work um to develop this plan and hundreds of hours of um uh of modeling the storm water system, of putting in gauges and streams and pipelines and measuring flow, of reviewing videotapes, of inspections of pipelines, interviewing community members interviewing businesses, going through records of uh of uh repairs and issues with pipelines, interview with public works staff, all to arrive at that map of projects that are priorities

for uh the system. And I would say that all of those projects represent a um either represent correction of deficient pipelines, addressing localized flooding areas, or improving water quality uh runoff that is required of our MPDS permit. Um so when we take a look at those projects, there's really none that can that can be eliminated completely. Um they're all very important projects that are needed over the next 20 years. Um so as far as like can we push some of those projects out uh this is a list of the the highest cost priority projects that are needed over the next five years. Um when we look at those projects, you can see that there's a couple of them that support uh fixing existing um uh flooding issues that are in the Coffee Creek area. Those projects also have a SDC component because they not in addition to fixing additional flooding areas, they also provide additional capacity for future industrial development in those areas. So uh development helps correct those those flooding areas. There's also a number of projects um for Charmano that you can see in there uh Miley Road and Charbano consolidated plan storm water improvements. So uh I'll have some slides later on about you know the condition of those pipelines and why it's so urgent um that those projects be addressed. So when we looked at these at these priority projects these are the ones that are really driving the need for that uh increase in the rate on on a short schedule and we

don't see a way to move these projects out further. They're all u key projects in the next five years. Oops. One of the things that council requested of staff at the uh December 15th meeting was to to bring some alternatives um to look at some uh rate alternatives. And this screen is a little bit uh difficult to read. Hopefully, it's easier to read on the screen above me, but um so we we created three additional alternatives for your consideration and um had a number of listed what the impacts of those alternatives would be. Uh just for uh explanation, the this is the increase in what's called an equivalent residential unit. Um so that's the m monthly increase on each of those uh years. So uh an eru one single family or one residential home pays one eru and all other uses pay a multiple of the eru based on what their imperous surface of their site is. So that first option is the option that was presented on December 15th um in terms of the rate. So you see $422 increase on that first year up to 775 in the third year. Option two, we took that same kind of rate structure and tried to flatten it out over those same three-year period and that ended up with 575 um increase per month uh each of those three years. Uh what that does is it it has a slight increase in that first year but also helps mitigate that 775 increase in the

third year. The benefit of this option it doesn't in have a negative impact to any to the revenue that's generated and it doesn't result in the delay of any of those priority projects. Uh option three that we looked at was keeping that flat um implement implementation uh schedule and uh but but spreading it out over five years instead of three. You can see that ends up in at $4.15 increase each of those five years. What that does because the revenue uh is less in that first four years is you end up with about $2.8 8 million in lost revenue. And what that does, it results in about a three-year delay in some of those priority um uh storm water projects. Option four also um was looking at if you wanted to reduce have a reduce rate in that first year and then slowly escalate by 50 cents each year uh over a fiveyear period and what that would do that result that has pretty significant impacts in the revenue $4.2 $2 million loss in the first four years before it evens out and then uh about a four to fiveyear um delay in priority projects. When we look at that list of what priority projects can be can be delayed, it really is about deferred maintenance and and it really comes down to those charbano consolidated projects uh are the ones that would probably have to be delayed. And I'll have some slides on to why that presents the uh city some risk and and for your consideration. Uh one thing I did want to point out is on all four of these options, you can

see that just a slight difference in the um in the the rate increase or uh for each year does have significant impact in on the on the revenue that's generated. So if you change it by 90 cents to a dollar, it does have a pretty big impact. So um so I want to talk a little bit about risk and that's associated with delay of storm water projects and why there's such an urgency to uh go forward with a utility rate adoption. I know we touched on this uh last meeting on December 15th, but this is a real world example. It's right here in Wilsonville um that demonstrates the impacts of a deteriorating storm water system. These photos are from Charbano in 2019. Uh the photo on the left is inside of a storm water pipe, an outfall there on the WMA River uh near Old Farm Road in Charbano. That picture was taken as part of the initial design kickoff for the uh replacement of the storm water outfall pipe. Uh it was unders sized and we knew it was in in pretty bad condition and it was part of the Charbano one of the priority projects from the Charbano consolidated plan uh to replace that pipeline. Three weeks after that pipeline picture was taken uh during a heavy rainstorm, the the uh bank of the Wamtt River collapsed right at that pipeline location and you can see the emergency repair that was occurring in the photo on the right. Uh so city council had to declare an emergency uh

and we had to get contractors and uh engineers out there immediately to to make that uh repair. That repair was temporary. We did have to come back later and uh do the final replacement of that pipeline. So, when you think about what the impacts are of deferred maintenance or deferring some of these um project re uh replacement projects, uh you're talking about doing these replacing the same pipe two times, once in an emergency and then doing the final one. And then you also have, you know, that you can see the impacts to the properties in that photo. uh those properties lost land um that they did not get back. And luckily in this case, nobody was injured uh when that landslide took place. So you know what is the condition of some of the pipelines today? Um I thought that would be helpful to show and why um you know the the need for additional funding in the storm water um capital program is needed. This is an example of um this is a existing storm line that's uh that runs through uh the Charbano Golf C course. Um you can see that it runs from about the clubhouse um to uh French Prairie Road and it goes it's pretty close to the some residences that are along the golf course there. This project was uh was number 36 of 37 in the Charbano consolidated plan. So when you think about when this project was uh originally scheduled for replacement,

it was there's about 20 years left in that plan. So year 19 years from now, this pipe was supposed to be in the schedule being replaced. uh in um last year or in 2024 uh there the residents there started noticing some sink holes developing in the ground outside their their uh residence and uh the public works came out to inspect that pipeline and that's a video from inside the pipeline in 2024 and you can see that the the bottom of that pipe is completely rotted way. So that's a that's a significant concern. Um that's what leads to sink holes developing and collapse ultimately collapse of that pipe which can then cause flooding. So this project is currently under design right now. We do not have construction funding available to construct this project without a utility rate increase. Um, so the um, so what I wanted to point out is there were supposed to be 35 storm water projects in advance of this one and by delaying or going through deferred maintenance. We're not able to make all of the sharp no consolidate plan improvements efficient and um, cost effective as was planned. We have we start having to raise these other projects in priority and instead of replacing the water, sewer, storm, roads all in the same area at the same time, we end up having to do this peace mill which adds cost and has additional impacts to those residents

and that was the purpose of the plan was to avoid that from happening. The other op the other example I wanted to show you is the um Miley Road storm water improvements project. This is an 11.3 million project estimated cost. It's about a mile long and serves about provides storm water service to about a third of the Charo area. So back in 2021, we did have a section of this pipeline collapse and had to be constructed under an e reconstructed under an emergency. You can see in the picture on the left that started with a sinkhole in somebody's backyard. Again, luckily nobody was injured, but if somebody had fallen into that, it'd be very serious. Uh the picture on the right is the emergency reconstruction. You can see that the brick wall had to be removed. There was significant impacts to the adjacent residents backyards and there was some significant tree removal. Um I you know I can I I wanted to point out that this work was just temporary. That pipeline still is under that brick wall uh because it had got the brick wall was put back. people's yards were restored. When we come back with this Miley Road project, that pipeline's going to get replaced. So again, we're doing the same work twice. Once under an emergency and then once for the final fix. So here's some photographs of kind of the issues we're dealing with out on Miley Road right now. The picture on the left is the outfall that's near I5. Uh you can see where that outfall has

eroded a pretty sizable hole uh in the ground to the point where it's starting to undermine the outfall pipe and that pipe is actually hanging in the air uh right now. If that were to collapse, we would again be in an emergency situation having to fix that outfall and uh and uh because if it were to collapse, it would start backing up water. uh and possibly causing flooding. Uh the picture in the center is from inside the Miley road pipe. That picture is from 2021. And again, you can see the condition of the pipe is very poor. The bottom of the pipe is rotting away. This is the same conditions that led to that pipeline collapsing earlier uh in 2021. And then the picture on the right is from December 18th uh after heavy rainfall. uh Miley Road was flooded and uh there were a number of cars that were from what I understand were stuck in that that got stuck in that uh flooding. People in Charbano were not able to get in and out. Um so significant impact um from that storm water pipeline. So I hope some of those uh they give you an example of the the urgency that we're facing with the condition of some of the storm water pipelines. uh within Wilsonville. And um and to finish up uh you know, the staff recommendation is to adopt resolution 3230 uh option two, which would establish the new storm water rates. It'll implement an an annual inflation adjustment and discontinue the storm water utility rate exemptions and then repeal res the old resolutions establishing the rates. uh 257 and 2353

and these are a summary of the options that were considered for your discussion. So just Oh, I thought I thought you city council president Barry um just to clarify uh staff is changing the recommendation from option one uh to option two. Yeah, cor correct. From the conversation on the December 15th meeting, we didn't feel we didn't think that council was um liked option one. So, um it's still a choice, but yes, we are now recommending option two.

Thank you, Councelor Cunningham. I don't think city council liked any of these options, but uh we'll get into that. um specifically mentioned in the staff report, it it says that if we were to go with option three, option four, that Charbano's projects would be delayed. Why why is it that Charbano, who's been paying rates for decades, that their projects specifically would be delayed and not look at delaying other projects or rerouting funds to ensure that they're getting what they've paid for?

Yeah. So when you look at that, we can go back to that list of of projects. Um the ones that are deferred maintenance are the ones that um are the most likely to to uh delay. Um those other projects, the Beckman flow, the Beckman Creek flow mitigation, that project, we have we're under a timeline from uh DEEQ to finish that project. Um, Milo Road, we just went over that one. Uh, Gardenacres Pond retrofit. That's uh to help serve uh provide additional capacity for Coffee Creek uh while also um fixing flooding issues. So, that project's you could delay that project. Um but then there's uh impacts to development uh industrial development. [clears throat]

I mean I guess that the citizens are going to look at this and they're going to point out that the ones that we're looking at not delaying are the ones that are attached to development and SDC's rather than the people who've been paying their rates for decades. Um, another thing that you're asking us of us tonight is that we don't we we discontinue the waiverss for people who are not currently paying their storm water fees. This would be mainly people in Oldtown and Montgomery Way. Correct.

Yeah, that's where the there's a number along uh Kenan Creek South also, but the majority are along Montgomery Way in an old town. And those those ones who are under waiverss right now, have they have they received any sort of of storm water construction? Do they have a sto like an active storm water system like you would see in other rateayer areas?

Yeah. Well, there so there's a a lot of components to the storm water system. Storm water doesn't work like water or sewer where you have a connection, you have service, right? Most of the storm water system actually serves roadways and public facilities. So, everyone benefits from the storm water system. There are areas of Oldtown where there is now storm water service.

I just drove through Oldtown on Sunday morning and and where people park their cars or large puddles and things because they they don't have that traditional storm water system like we see in my neighborhood and many other neighborhoods in the city. And if we're going to call this a just and equitable uh rate, I I I have a hard time saying that we should raise rates on people who aren't receiving the same service as others. I I'll hold some questions and let other counselors go. Now, councelor Shadlin,

thank you. Um Matt, could you go back to the map that shows the shows Miley Road phase one and two, please? And either you could answer this or perhaps our city manager. Is Miley Road in the city of Wilsonville? No, it's a county road, right? And so could you please explain why it is that Wilsonville needs to be responsible for the Miley Road project? Yeah, it's a it's a city storm water pipeline because it serves Sharpo. It sure it serves Wilsonville, an area of Wilsonville.

Okay. Thank you. And then also, could you show the uh picture of the flooding of Miley Road on December 8th? 18th. 18th.

Yeah. Um my husband and I were not stuck in that water, but we were stuck in the traffic trying to get home with two grandchildren. And um it was pretty frightening because there was we had to we couldn't get off the freeway. We were heading south on I5. Most people know I live in Charbano. I'm not advocating for Charbano over any other community, but we could not get off the Charvino exit. We had to go down to air to the next exit 551, turn left. We tried to come up Airport Road that was blocked. We had to wait for 45 minutes before they finally started letting a little bit of traffic through. We We made it home through a roundabout way. We could not get through that intersection. It was closed. What I was most concerned about was we had to activate our Charbano emergency plan because we have of course the demographic are seniors and elderly people and we have a very large um senior assisted living facility on campus. And so we became very concerned because even the way that we were able to go down a wrongway street to be able to get home, I don't believe that emergency vehicles could have gotten through there. So, we had to activate our emergency plan so that TVF&NR was aware that if we had any need for emergency vehicles, it was going to be very difficult for them to be able to get through that. Now, by I think 6:00 a.m. the next morning, it was cleared, but I was in conversation with our city manager during that time and we were very concerned about the entire system or much of the system collapsing. So, these are real world situations. I don't mind getting home late. grandkids ended up having to spend the night and then get up at 6 am so we could take them to their school in Westland. That's that's doable, but it's the emergency situations that I worry about where people are either stuck in their vehicle in in water or emergency vehicles cannot respond to them. Thank you,

Councelor Cunningham. I I will advocate for the Sharpo neighborhood. they've they've been paying rates for a long time and so I think that they they do need to ensure that what we do does ensure they they have a working storm water system that's promised as a part of the checks that they write to our city every every month. Um you said that the the one pipe it it was supposed to be replaced 19 years from now, right? How old is that how old is that pipe as it is now? Uh that specific pipe I don't have the data in on but most of the pipelines were built in the 70s.

And what was the expected lifetime of those pipes? Well, of a corrugated metal pipe, it's about 25 to 30 years. That's a lot of deferred maintenance if we're supposed to replace that thing in 19 years. Um earlier you mentioned that if we were to remove day row day road completely from this list right here that it would only save us 10 cents off of the rates completely.

Yeah. But we didn't have we didn't have um the their financial consultant FCS group run the analysis. But when we look at the data, you're removing about 10% of the total project cost. But when you figure in operations and maintenance costs, it does end up to to be about 10 cents. Yes. On the rate. That's I mean I'm not a mathematician. That seems that seems pretty incredible with the $17.70 proposed rate increase. That's only a half half a percent of that entire rate increase over the next three years. And so the math ain't math and for me personally u but I guess they're the experts. Um and then also according to the staff report, we've seen an escalation of construction costs at 53.8%. Right.

Yeah, that's what's reported by the FHWA. looking at these rate increases. I mean, we're looking at 150% rate increase over three years. Again, the math for me ain't math. And if we if we have a 53% increase in construction costs and I'm not this will be more in deliberation later but um that means that we got behind somewhere and that maintenance has been deferred and leadership has been deferred on this and that's all the questions I have. I want to ask something and I apologize to staff because it come probably is coming out of left field. Um, hypothetically, if there is a future vote on urban renewal for the town center and say it passes, is there anything conceivable that that urban renewal district could help with some of the expense we're hear about today? Um, that's a good question. There's, uh, we'd have to go back through the project list. There might be a few projects that could be included, uh, that could be included in that boundary, however, it's created that could help. Yeah,

there was the urban renewal. Um, they're not. So, the as part of the town center plan, there are storm water and sewer line and water line uh, that need to be relocated. The assumption was uh in the master plans is the developers would do all of that. Um so it's not those projects are not in the rate study currently. Well just a comment just my perspective. I mean there is no good answer. No one's going to be happy. And it's kind of like if we look back at what we could have, should have, would have, it really doesn't matter. It's what do we do now? What's our next move? And I, you know, I've in this community had concerns about Kinder Morgan deferring maintenance and inspection of the Kinder Morgan pipeline. And I'm currently pissed off uh as delicately I guess that's not delicate uh with the legislature that's trying to shear some money off on trying to get the Boone Bridge replaced. And my view has been we need to fix it now so a disaster doesn't happen later. So it's I understand our households going to be hurt. Um but there are a lot of households going be hurt worse than ours. But what answer is it if we defer it down the road and I think politically I see counselors kicking things council kicks it down the road and from this particular council member I think kicking it down the road is more of a danger to our community than it is trying to make a final decision. Um, and you know, I want to defer any further questions and input after I get here

from the public, but that's just kind of my global assessment on things. City Council President Barry,

just to add on top of you just said that once we get this resolved then in the report you highlight that um starting let's see it says the storm water rate increase adopted will go into effect March 1st 2026 and then January 1 of each year after that at the time the storm water rate increase implement mentation schedule is completed. So like the end of the three or the five years um whatever ends up being voted on then uh going forward an annual inflationary adjustment will begin and continue each year after and so that will help prevent getting us into a predictment like what we're in now.

Yeah, that's correct. Currently, there is no annual inflationary increase on utility rates except for the uh road maintenance fee. Thank you. I really like to hear what the public has to say.

Okay. Anything further? Okay. For public testimony, we will start with people who signed up in advance to testify. Please remember to include your name and address for the record. staff and people have signed up in advance who well I already know who the first person is but they tell me to read this anyway. Uh Doris Wher My name is Doris Wher. My contact information is on file. Mayor and counselors, I'm speaking in opposition to resolution 3230 because it puts growth on the back of existing rateayers. Two of the projects, Garden Acres Pond retrofit and down day road storm water improvements are slated to add $15.8 million of cost. This is about 40% of the total project costs. So I find it a little difficult to believe that if we took that project away, it would only affect rates by 10 cents. I listened to your work session earlier tonight and heard all the reasons why the day road storm water improvement should be paid for out of urban should not be paid for out of urban renewal funds. Basically, the staff's report said the district could not afford and

still move ahead with all the other infrastructure needed. Then I listened to the staff explain how the city will aggregate and buy land in Coffee Creek. Then the city will sell the land to developers at a loss with the hope that the state might some point reimburse the city for their losses. Does this plan seem fiscally sound? I do realize that the city has been very unsuccessfully promoting Coffee Creek development for about 10 years. At one point I even worked on formbbased code. We spent a lot of time the developers didn't care. So our answer appears to be let's charge rateayers for growth that developers won't pay for. Monthly rateayers are already financially strapped and now you want them to pay for growth. You give lip service to affordability. But actions you are proposing tonight fly in the face of affordability. Growth needs to pay for growth. Thank you.

Thank you, Patrick. Tom, good evening. Uh, name is Patrick Thom. Uh, my address is on the speaker card. One thing that's important to continue to realize and I do appreciate it is that transparency is what allows the residents to trust and understand both the city employees uh and the council members. the citizens of the city is what makes the city and the voices that have been heard both back in December and what will be coming later tonight uh as well as what's already been stated shows that we have asked for more options and what we've been given have been rate changes in my work as a public employee we're always held to this standard to check all options to see what's available what might be available through other grants or community service projects, boards, or if there's even available federal grants that may be available. If my recollection is correct, I remember hearing that there were options that were provided through uh other cities for their projects through federal grants. What I've heard tonight, understanding that delaying some of these projects will cause a higher problem in the near future or further future, is has the city explored all of those options? Have they looked for other state, county, or federal grants that are available?

within my own line of work, I'm held to a legal obligation of reasonable or active efforts in what I do for the people that I work for and serve. So my question in that is has the city gone and looked at to find any of those reasonable or active efforts to help mitigate some of these costs so that we can fill these duties to prevent any disasters in the future. while also not harming the current pain that the increased rates can be seen in the current economic crisis that we're currently experiencing. Thank you.

I have a question of staff. Uh this speaker has brought up some good points. to be interesting to let the public know what efforts we have to look at other sources and the reasons why those sources don't work or do but I think it's helpful for transparency that uh we have a clear answer on that for them grants that grants or any other funding mechanism state or federal federal level that may help with some of these projects.

Yeah, we have and we do. We um we have a low interest loan with the state of Oregon for a sewer project for Frog Pond. We're constantly looking for additional revenue sources to do all kinds of different projects including the Boom Bridge project. We've received grants for um smart transit for both operations and for capital. are actively pursuing grants um and low interest loans federal, state, and regional, and and we're successful in doing that. But in terms of storm water, there's no dedicated funding source for a community of our size with our demographics. Now, there are certain rural Oregon communities that can tap into low interest loans for something like this, um or even some grants from the federal and state, but it's very competitive. Um, but we're always looking and and of course we're searching for additional funds. The the other portion for storm water is system development charges. And as mentioned earlier, this council and previous councils, every council I've worked with in the last 15 years has made sure that those SDCs are set at the highest possible rate that we can as defensible by law to make sure that developers are paying their fair share. So in that regard, the the city council and previous councils has has done their job in that area. So, yes, we have and we do and we will continue to.

Thank you, Mr. Cuff. Uh Karen Bradley, I'm gonna defer to what's being said.

So, thank you, Ruth Webster. Hello. Good evening. My name is Ruth Webster. [clears throat] My information is on my card. Um I'll keep it short and sweet. I just because a lot of what I has been said I agree with. Um and I just want to appreciate all of your efforts and taking this seriously and listening to us. Um and just given the cost that everything is going up, I hope that council really exercises fiscal prudence on this one. um you know finding that difficult balance between precience and short-sightedness through what I hope will be a very thoughtful and robust conversation that weighs many options um and takes into account many different perspectives. Um and then also just personally I just want to express you know as a citizen that it takes a lot to to be engaged in this and to do your research you know looking through storm water rates and digging through data. Um, you know, there's other fun things I think people would rather be doing. Um, but I just want to say that, um, you know, the people that come here, they really they do it because they really care about the city and you guys have that benefit. And I just ask that you keep that in mind. Like everybody is here that's here really cares about that the city. They don't share the same perspective obviously, but we're here because we care, right? So anyways, thank you for your time.

Thank you. Jim Waram.

Good evening, Mayor and Councilman. Uh my name is Jim Warm and my contact information uh is on the card. Uh I provided the council members with an extensive uh list of comments that I had and so I'm going to pare it down just to a few key points that I'd like to emphasize tonight. Uh the first one being the affordability analysis. It was my understanding from the December 15th meeting that that was going to also include um the rate increases from storm water, not just the sanitary sewer water. I can be corrected if I misunderstood that. Uh the next thing I wanted to provide based on the comments from the city staff is pointing out several projects that I feel uh we do have the option uh of uh eliminating or certainly uh coming up with a new idea for. Uh the first one is our water well. Um that well has not been used in since uh 2002. We've not needed it for 23 years. Uh and so I'm curious on why we're spending $400,000 on something that it seems like we could mothball it for a while until we have the money to do the restorations that we need. Uh and so I just want to make sure the city is is looking at all options instead of spending money on a well that we're not even using. The second project that I'd like to point out is the Frog Pond conveyance pipeline. Uh that project's for just over $4 million. That's taking a large diameter storm water pipe uh to manage all the storm water coming off this new development. Uh the Department of Environmental Quality under their storm water rules and their underground injection control rules allow for largecale systems to be installed. And if you do a little research on that, you'll see that that's even uh there's uh examples of that for community developments. And it so it seems wise to me to put in largecale sistns uh that are going to have less maintenance than half a mile of pipeline and a new bank a new outfall on on the river. uh if you

pursue that now we are not dumping all that water into the Beckman Creek which then allows you to take the Ash Meadows flow mitigation project and that project I think can be rescoped uh at best if not just outright eliminated because you're not dumping all that water into the Beckman Creek. And then the last one that I think that um you know is was easy fodder for the city to come back and say yes we can we can cut one project and that is porous pavement. That's a that's proven technology. We do not need to spend $100,000 to try some porest pavement in our town. Uh and so if if nothing else, can we just cut $100,000 from this budget? Um and then lastly, based on some other comments, restoration funding, I provided a long list of uh funding sources under the American Rivers organization. Uh specifically, two that I think that we would um be considered for is from the US Army Corps of Engineers. their core water infrastructure financing program and their environmental infrastructure assistance and so heard from staff that they are investing all these funding sources. Um and with that my time is up and I appreciate your attention.

Thank thank you Michelle Dempsey.

Good evening. My name is Michelle Dempsey and my address is on file. Boy, what a pickle this is. Um, I came in with a testimony and I've been rewriting it as I've heard the staff report. Um, I was really disappointed that none of the three new storm water funding alternatives uh showed any cost cutting effort on the part of the city. And now to hear that it may not even be possible is just a whole new twist. Um with such strong opposition voiced at the last public hearing regarding these straight extreme rate increases. I was wondering why citizens please for fiscal restraint slowed or deferred growth. Um you having developers finance their own projects. None of them were in any of the options. And it's just I just am trying to swallow and fathom how we find ourselves here. Um, and then on top of all of it, um, you there's Oldtown and the Canyon Creek and the third area that aren't even on the storm water system. Um, and you know, these storm water fees really should reflect actual services to houses that are currently served by the existing storm water system. So those outside of the system should not be unnecessarily taxed or charged or whatever word you want to use. You know, if it's not a tax, it's a charge. Um the storm utility rate exemption really shouldn't be eliminated. Um you know these massive increases to storm water. I just worry, you know, with proposed fees on parks and greatly increased utility rates, grocery price increases, and now I'm reading about possible increases to property taxes in Clackamus County. The list just goes on and on and on. And in these uncertain times of high inflation, all these financial increases so close together are just going to be so devastating to so many Wilsonville residents. And these financial burdens are going to force some people,

especially the elderly, those on fixed incomes and those at the lower end of the income spectrum, out of their homes because they're no longer going to be able to afford to live in Wilsonville. It's as simple as that. There's it just seems there's got to be a way to return to the drawing board and find some options that cost less. Um, and most importantly, any future growth should pay for itself. Wilsonville may be divided over the pace of planned growth, but we've been very clear that we shouldn't have to subsidize it. Thank you.

Thank you. Uh, Libby Crawford. Good evening, mayor and council. My name is Libby Crawford and my address is on the speaker card. I'm here this evening to support the responsible infrastructure funding and equally in support of strong financial planning that protects the long-term health of our city. I know this topic brings strong emotions because it affects every household in this community. Like everyone here, I want Wilsonville to maintain financially strong to maintain financially strong in a place where people can afford to call it home. Most residents understand that maintaining critical infrastructure is not an option. Pipes must be repaired and flooding must be prevented. The real question before us is how do we do this wisely without overwhelming very many peop the very people who you're asking to fund it. We can prot pro protect our infrastructure without overwhelming our residents. These goals should exist together. I'd like to briefly offer what I call a citizen alternative infrastructure plan. One designed to protect our system while creating long-term financial stability. First, consider a phased approach to rate increases rather than large increases all at once. Predictability builds public trust and allows families, seniors, small businesses to plan ahead while still funding critical repairs. I call it like a 153, you know, for 15% for three years, pause for five years, do it again for another three, pause for five. Building a safety net with those increases. Secondly, establish a legally

protected infrastructure reserve fund, meaning locked in for the purpose only, not a slush fund to take from for increases and any grants or additional funds can go into this. Dedicated solely to storm water maintenance, repairs, and emergencies. Strong financial guardrails today help prevent the far greater costs of deferred maintenance for tomorrow. Third, provide residents with a clear visibility to all citizens into the system they are being asked to fund, including pipe age, risk levels, placement timelines. Transparency builds confidence and strengthens the community partnership, and I appreciate what was said today. Fourth, I encourage the creation of a citizen-led infrastructure advisory board with finance, engineers, and grant writing expertise to help pursue state and federal funding. If residents are being asked to invest more, they should also be invited to be part of the solution. This is a defining governing moment for Wilsonville and for this council. The decisions made here will shape both the reliability of the the infrastructure and financial expectations placed on our future residents. I thank you all for your service to our community.

Thank you,

Dwight Sims. Good evening, council. My name is Dwight Sims. My address is on the card. Recently, while walking along Beckman Road, just east of Kinsman Road, I stopped to read a sign posted by the city next to the sidewalk. The title was quote, "Rethinking storm water management, a green infrastructure approach. I found in the text the following statement. quote, "The city of Wilsonville promotes sustainable management techniques that filter pollutants, reduce volume, and decrease the temperature of storm water runoff." End quote. Those techniques including include collecting much of that water in swailes, marine gardens, vegetated planters, and reconstructed wetlands. Right across the street from the sign I was reading is the newly restored 64 acre Coffee Lake Creek wetlands between Kinsman Road and the Villa neighborhood. This project, and I hope you've all seen it, removed the narrow north to south channel, which used to run through it and created six new ponds plus 4,400 linear feet of swailes and channels. It was frankly great to see the hundreds of ducks and geese fly in to check it out. And it certainly looks a lot nicer than the dry wheat covered land that it was before the restoration. More importantly, it now provides a perfect example of a low impact green infrastructure development which absorbs and filters storm water while providing natural habitat. Something that concrete pipes can never do. And even though, get this, 33,000 cubic yards of soil were moved back and forth. It was built

without ripping up a single street. It's miraculous. Out of curiosity, I did a little research and found that this natural storm water handling approach has been successful elsewhere in numerous cities including Portland, Oregon. In the early 1990s, the city of Portland had a storm water problem in what they [clears throat] called the Taber to River Corridor. The estimate to solve this problem using a traditional pipeonly approach was $144 million. Instead, by using green infrastructure elements, as mentioned above, the estimated cost dropped from 144 million to 81 million, a savings of $63 million, 44% off the original estimate. Overall, Portland cuts storm water runoff volume by 35% citywide and pollution by up to 90%. Interestingly, Portland's storm water collection features considered the best in the nation, use only 5 to 7% of the city's total land area. I believe that Wilsonville can do likewise, saving utility rate papers rate payers 40% or more on storm water costs. Portland's wellocumented green streets program shows the way. Secondly, shouldn't the Coffee Lake creek wetlands, which became operational just weeks ago, count as existing storm water infrastructure, dramatically reducing the need for future pipe only construction? I hope the city can quote, "think outside the rate increase box and do this the smart green way." Thank you.

Thank you. [applause] Wayne Hickey, good evening. My name is Wayne Hickeyi. Uh I'm a resident of Wilsonville and my personal information is on file. I'm not here to speak on behalf of or against the vote that will be taken tonight for the stormwater uh rate proposal. My concern is how the council has arrived at this decision and other decisions. I'm concerned that this council has already made a decision prior to hearing any testimony. Having attended several uh recent council meetings, I've noticed that the council listens to the testimony or appears to listen to the testimony and then votes as though it never heard a word of what the community said. Federal law has the Hatch Act which prohibits less than a full council meeting to discuss thoughts about any particular item under consideration. And Oregon has a similar statute called the Oregon Meeting Law uh which also restricts less than a full council from meeting to discuss uh upcoming items to be voted on. And just in case any of the council members might not be familiar

with these laws, uh, and a lot of people are not because they're just volunteers. A violation is punishable by a $1,000 fine, and if repeated, you could actually uh carry jail time. This is something to be very aware of because many part-time or volunteer elected officials don't realize they also fall under the same rules as the highpriced state and federal legislators. I have a feeling that casual discussions may be taking place prior to the full council uh meeting uh and hearing public input. something that should be considered. If you allow public testimony and then immediately bring an item to vote, you are not looking out for the best interest of the community. Sometimes serious issues such as storm water rate increases and other any other rate increases need to be tabled until a beta solution is determined or uh adopt a procedure where one you allow uh one minute more than you currently allow and give and take. If we have questions, you answer them if you can. If you can't, it gets noticed uh and they are followed up. But I hear that all you do is uh listen to what we say or whatever and then next go, okay, Joe Smith, next guy up and then you then you vote. It's like the vote has already been decided. And I think that's wrong.

Thank you.

Thank you, Elizabeth Peters. Mayor and Council, I'm Elizabeth Peters and you have all my information. Um, I'm just really impressed with uh some of the testimonies that we've had here tonight. Um and I was so impressed after the last meeting at the um the quality of those who came forward to testify. We have some incredible skill and talent and capability within our citizens here and um I just really appreciate everyone who came and spoke. Whether I agree with you or not, I really appreciate you being here and speaking. Um so I'm trying not to repeat what I heard. Um, but I just want to say this new set of scenarios, it still puts a heavy burden on our neighbors who are on fixed income and those who can least afford it. Now, I understand we have to address issues that were put off due to previous poor leadership. Um, I really do feel that any future growth should pay for itself. So those projects that were um that are covered by SDC's I I do feel like we need to prioritize the Charbano and the Miley Road projects. Those projects that were put off due to bad leadership in the past. Um I also feel very strongly those outside the system should not be burdened without direct benefits. I oppose the notion that the exemptions quote exemptions should be discontinued. If they're not getting the service, they should not have to pay for it. Thank you.

Thank you,

Chris Hayden. Good evening, councelor. Chris Haidman. Thank you all for your time. Um, first I want to echo Elizabeth's comments about thanking everybody for coming. It is an amazing group of people that feel passionate about this and bring their expertise uh to this. My recommendation would be I think three-fold. First, I would assess the risk for each of the five projects of not of delaying it. The risks are legal risks, right? We have to do it because of legal reasons. The thing risks are we have to do uh we have to repair it. We have to do emergency repairs and then repair it later. um flooding that makes neighborhoods inaccessible as we've heard about earlier. Um whatever citizen injury is another risk that we have to face and each of those has a different risk profile. So which ones of those put the city at the greatest risk, the city and its citizens at its greatest risk. Those are the ones that we got to consider funding first. Maybe we lose matching funds if we don't do one or the other. It's another risk, right? Number two, and I love the previous speaker. I added this to my fun things to talk about, innovative ways to solve these. Now we've got the ones, now we've got them in priority order. These are the ones that put the city and its citizens at the highest risk. What are the most innovative ways we could save solve those? Maybe we don't have to build a pipe. Maybe a swale or something like that that is both green and less expensive is the answer. And then finally to councelor Cunningham's comments earlier and and what Miss Peters just said, what are the best ways to fund these? What are the fair ways to fund these? Right? Maybe there are not people getting any services from the system. Maybe they should not be burdened with this. What is the rate at which we fund them? Right? All like and you've got the four

different plans there. um rate different rate different residential rate payers commercial entities and so on. Okay. So that's kind of my recommendation. Assess the risk innovative assess the risk of each of the five innovative solutions and then what's the fair way to pay for the ones that are most critical for the city to solve. Great. Thank you. Thank you. [applause]

Does any counselor need anything clarified by other members of after hearing speaker? Well, I do. I've heard I don't I try to treat all speakers equally. I'm going to identify two people to stand out, but that doesn't mean I'm trying to minimize anybody else. Um, I had sent Jim Warm's uh testimony to staff uh uh after receiving it and I didn't know if there's we could have staff comment. Are they prepared to comment? They are not. Okay. And I heard uh Chris Haidderman's ideas uh this evening as well. Um, is that something that staff would probably need to have time to con to take into account?

Okay. And I'm not trying to put anybody on the spot. Those two and everybody's input's been very helpful. And so those two just kind of they singled out some proposed plans out there that I captured. And um I really from my one vote on council would like that additional information from staff and at least an understanding. Uh Mr. Idleman, you had some ideas if that is that a issue that's in a written piece. Can you submit that to the city recorder? Um and anybody else that also um provided submitted to the city recorder? I'd appreciate that. Um with that are any counselors need anything clarified after hearing anything from public um councelor Chev

are we also going to have an opportunity to speak about our or is this the time for us to speak about the options or anything that anyone said I don't know that I need anything clarify yeah we we're we're just going through the process right now I have this list we have to if we have any questions based on any public input uh that we've heard or any questions that trigger a staff question because of that public input. And I was just identifying two members of the public that provided some input that I would want some additional information on.

Um I don't know that I need any clarification, but I'm I feel badly that um there is a citizen that feels that we all talk ahead of time and then make our decisions. We do not do that. We may not do that. So, I'm sorry that people feel that that's the case. We so go out of our way to make sure that we don't discuss anything that is going to come before the council that has to be made that we have to make a decision on. We do not do that. Please. No. So, I'm sorry that people feel that way. I'd like to get clarification from our uh legal representation that if we have four people here, we may not vote on this issue tonight. Is that correct? No, we can.

You can. I know, but that's what I a citizen said we couldn't a if we don't have a full council, we can't vote. So, I just need some clarification. Yes. As since you have a quorum of council, your quorum of council can take action and then it requires a majority vote of the quorum that is here. Thank you. That's all I have for now. I'd like to speak later. Okay. Thank you. any

I mean if if council wants I can talk about some of the projects questions about projects that were raised. Go ahead.

Um it was mentioned about the well uh discharge pipeline. It's a gashell shaft well. That wall is our backup water supply system and is exercised on a regular basis. The it also is connected to a storm water pipe that uh serves the adjacent neighborhood, the Meadows neighborhood. That existing pipeline discharges at the top of the hill and has caused significant erosion down the entire slope of the hill of the uh creek all the way to Beckman Creek. That's why it is a priority project. It's to save costs for construction of that project. We are uh pairing it with the Beckman Creek interceptor pipeline. So there's some cost savings of doing those projects together because they're in the same area. So that that well is still uh active and is our backup water supply. uh frog pump frog pond pipeline the frog pond east and south pipeline that's 100% developer SDC funded it's not uh have a a utility rate component to that project uh ash meadows was mentioned that project uh is a very complicated project back in the 70s when the Xerox campus was developed they did it out of what's called an outofbasin transfer. They push their storm water from one basin into a different basin. There's a flow control structure in Beckman Creek that prevents that flow from going downstream. We are being required to remove that flow control structure. So that project is to put that that water back in the old uh

drainage basin. That project is actually going to be constructed this summer. We are under a timeline to have that project done. As I mentioned earlier, the porest pavement project, this is a this is not just typical porest pavement. This is uh Gresham and the city of Gresham and the city of uh Milwaukee are showing some success of thin porous pavement overlays that helps treat the uh storm water and improve water quality. This is a new technology and they're showing really um uh good results and it's something that we think we should be looking at uh because it will help save costs down the road if we're be able to make that successful. If we're able to overlay an existing street with porest pavement, not the whole street is porous, just the top few inches, and improve water quality without having to build uh swailes and that are expensive to maintain uh and costly to construct. It's something that could help save uh costs down the road. So, I would say that Wilsonville is innovative. We're one of the first uh cities to implement uh green streets and uh swailes and water quality facilities uh starting with Velva before a lot of cities were even doing that. So, a lot of things that were mentioned are things that the city has already doing and has been doing for a long time. uh when it comes to future growth, uh the the storm water projects aren't related to growth or they're not based

on future growth. The projects that are listed in the stormwater master plan are projects that are needed for growth for for development that's happening now. So, Coffee Creek, Basalt Creek, Frog Pond, and those projects they're growth components are funded by SDC's. So they're the developers are paying for those projects. Now a lot of those projects have a component that are serving existing areas that have existing flooding issues or existing water quality issues. So there is a uh a uh existing uh customer uh component to those projects that are funded by the utility rates. Uh I know uh Brian talked about other grants available. We're always looking for grants, but there are just aren't grants out there that are secure enough that would take the place of regular funding. Can you can you address the issue of the accounts that aren't currently tied into our storm water plan? Is that there's no impact so they should pay no fee because I know that that's not 100% accurate. So could you address that?

Yeah. So I talked I talked a little bit about this last time and the storm water storm water fee covers a lot. Like I said it covers roads that people use. There's there's a a good example is on Montgomery Way. A lot of people on Montgomery Way don't pay a storm water fee, but Rose Lane is a covert project in the plan that benefits just the people on Montgomery Way. So, if they're not paying into replacing that covert, then other pe other community members that do pay the rate are paying for that project. So, there's also, you know, we have a a um Our MPDS permit that we implement that applies to everyone who lives in Wilsonville that has costs associated with it. We have projects that are associated with that. Those are general citywide benefit projects that benefit everybody. We also have stream restoration projects. Um

you you want to we tend to speak in acronyms acronyms as engineers and city managers. Yeah. Can you explain MP and why we can't avoid that and how those are things that are told we have to do. It's not optional. Yeah, that's our our storm water per permit that's issued through DEEQ. We we have to comply with that permit. So we we constantly have to be improving water quality runoff, managing storm water um uh in compliance with that permit and and the the the folks that aren't currently paying, we've done some back of the envelope calculations about how much additional that would bring in um in the annual storm. It's not a huge amount. It's not a huge amount,

but if we don't have that, then that's going to be passed on to everybody else who's paying those rates. Is that not correct? Right. Okay. And I think what was mentioned at the last meeting is you know if you lived along the river and discharged directly to the Wamtt River then maybe yeah maybe your impact is a lot less but even if you discharge in the case of Oldtown to the roadway there's catch basins at the ends of those roadways that collect that storm water. uh they might not have c they might not have curbs that direct that storm water directly to those like everyone else, but it does provide service to that to that area.

Anything else from staff? That's it. Yeah. City Council President Barry. So, um thank you. Thank you for coming back and and giving some extra explanations. Um, can you just go over one more time why we there hasn't been an increase in storm water for 10 years? Um, like I think you mentioned that there was the significant increase with construction costs and that we just got the storm water master plan adopted in 2024 and um the economy and COVID and I mean it seems like there were a bunch of reasons.

Yeah. So explain that. Yeah, it was kind of all a lot of things coming together all at once. There was, you know, the last master plan was done, I don't have the exact date in front of me, but I think it was 2014 and the last [clears throat] rate analysis was done shortly thereafter that included the Charbono U consolidated plan. At that time um we did have significant um cost increase uh inflation between 2021 and 2023 that um we had mentioned and then in 2024 we had the new storm water master plan uh adopted and that has that has a new 20-year look at what's needed over the next 20 years and in you know 8 to 10 years we'll do that whole process again and it'll will be a new list of projects uh that are going to be needed for the next 20 years. So, one thing to [clears throat] one thing to consider is like these this these projects don't go away. They just get added on to um uh if if they get delayed. Any other questions at this point? Okay. At this point, is there anybody who hasn't testified in the audience or online that wishes to give public testimony? Okay. Now, council, let's see. Uh, with that hearing no further questions, everyone having testified, hereby declare the public hearing closed at 9:21 p.m. Is now time for council to consider resolution number 3230 or any other motion that we want to have. Do I have a motion to adopt

resolution number 3230 or any other motion for council to consider? So I'm Thank you everybody. Um I move that we adopt resolution. Will you tell me the numbers one more time? 31. I don't have it in front of me. Resolution number 3230. Yeah. 322. I'm sorry getting late. 32 3 um with option number two as staff recommended. Okay. Is there a second? Second.

Okay. Is there any discussion? Uh councelor Chevlin. Thank you.

Thank you all everyone from December 15th and for tonight for your testimony. Even at the 11th hour, which we heard, we heard from two citizens that have good experience in city city planning, city uh uh infrastructure, and we appreciate that. We really did get them at the 11th hour and as you heard, we're trying to take a look at some of those and see how we might explore those even further. Some of the things I believe Mr. Wiggle shared that we're not able to do, but we will continue to look at opportunities. First, I want to say it's very convenient for us or anyone to sit here in this room and say, "Well, somebody didn't do a very good job before us." I'm sorry. I don't believe that to be true. I believe that our city leaders, elected leaders, and city managers have always done their best. I don't believe we have any evidence of anyone mismanaging their their role or their opportunity or or the funds that come before our leaders. It's just too easy to be able to say those guys did it poorly and now here we are stuck. I believe they made the best decisions that they could at the time given what they were dealing with. And as Mr. Wiggle just pointed out that the storm water improvement plan was only just approved in 2024. So that's when it's really become apparent that we needed to be able to act. So I respect the work that our leaders both elected and employed have done for many, many years for our city. But today we're faced with, as some of you have pointed out, we all know some

very, very tough decisions. every city in the in the region, in the state, even in the country are dealing with cost escalations and utility rate increases. And if they're not dealing with them this year, they'll be dealing with them next year. They're tough. No one wants to have to make these decisions. But we sit here now and you elected us and you've asked us to make decisions for you. We know we have failing infrastructure. We've seen pictures of it. At the same time, SC costs are skyrocketing and people are finding it very, very hard to make ends meet. I was dismayed to hear from the testimony that we just listen and then we vote. That's not what we did on December 15. We listened, we said no. We cannot make decisions based on the information that we had. We needed more. And we asked our city staff to go back even though they had worked hard and through the help of experts, consultants made a proposal to us, we asked them to go back and work harder and that's what they did. So we stopped, we did not vote, we extended the public hearing from December 15th to now. So we don't just listen and then vote. We take our responsibilities very very seriously. So we did ask the staff to go back and they did the work that we asked them to do. Maybe it's not everything that makes everyone happy, but it gave us some options that we didn't have before. But as it was pointed out, we have to assess our risk. And that's tough. That's really tough because now we have

to decide what do we put off that we already know is failing. How long do we extend that time for areas that we know need the work now? And what are the risks if a homeowner's property is damaged because we didn't make a decision or a homeowner, a citizen is hurt? Those are all the risks and we know those are the risks that we're weighing. Thank you for pointing it out. The person that gave us that testimony that's what's weighing on us now. So I thank the experts that uh shared their input with us. Um I really appreciate your uh experience in cities and and how you've uh been able to share things with us. But we have our experts too. I trust Mr. Wigle. I trust the consultants that we have hired to try to make our decisions and make sure that we have the information for us so we can make our decisions. And now we have to take all of this information into account. And we have to determine what's the best route, what's the best decision for our city. We've heard you. We will continue to hear you. And I'm sure that we will continue to look for opportunities to save money, to divert storm water, and then when we come forward with sewer and water in the future, we'll continue to look for opportunities. So, you asked us to go back to the drawing board in December. That's what we've done. Now, we have some new figures on the drawing board. And I believe, at least for myself, I have the decision to make. I have the information I need to make a decision. Thank you,

Councelor Cunningham.

Thank you. Um, I was speaking with a group of citizens this week about these rate increases. Um, one of the things that I told them is that sometimes the best decision is a terrible decision. There's lots of examples of that in all kinds of things. Uh, you go back I when I was a kid, I'd watch a History Channel all the time, watch all kinds of World War II stuff and you see all these battles where the only option was to just go and do it and it was rough and it the solution was terrible, but it was the best thing that they had. We might be in that situation here. We can't get in the time machine and go back 20, 30 years when those pipes were still past their age span uh and fix it. We have to deal with it today. Um with that though, we can't just do this to our citizens with nothing else. We can't do this in a vacuum. We have to find a way to realign the way that we look at these things and we make these decisions. Can you pull up page 343 of the budget that I sent over? We have to realign the way we do things. We have to realign our priorities and the way that we approach these things. And putting when I read the staff report and I saw that Charvinos projects were the first thing on the chopping block, it disgusted me. Sharpo has been paying their rates dutifully for decades. Their project shouldn't be the one put to the back of the line. We've heard a lot of discussion. We've heard we've had a lot of discussions. We we've heard a lot of opinions about urban renewal and the way it's applied and the way it's used and what it can do and what it builds for us and how if you

go drive through our city, everything that you see seems to be built by urban renewal. Well, we have projects up here in Coffee Creek in the middle of an urban renewal district that aren't being paid for and they're asking you to pay for them now. What happened to no new taxes? I cannot in good faith push this through tonight, especially with the storm water waiverss being put in at 100%. If Oldtown is getting 50% of of the value of of what they're paying, then let's charge them 50%. If Montgomery Way is getting 30% of their value of what they're paying, charge them 30%. But they're not getting 100%. Oldtown specifically asked, you all can look it up. There's an Oldtown master plan that the neighbors in Oldtown asked, "Do not come in. Do not build this infrastructure here. We don't want it. We want to keep our neighborhood just the way it is. we don't want you to do this and spend the money here. So, they didn't sign up for ne Netflix premium. They took the Netflix, you know, with ads and now we're going to charge them a premium price. And this is the alignment and this is the priorities I talk about. Here's our storm water fund five-year forecast. That's that dotted blue line. That's our reserves. That's what we're projecting where our reserves go. Our priorities have to get realigned. We have to look at these things again because we can't look at it something like that and say this is fine while the while the city hall is burning down around us. I don't know, may maybe Keith Kato can can add to this conversation, but does does that five-year forecast does that include what what we were looking at maybe implementing here tonight or is that

without not to sorry we can't ask staff for any input here. Yeah, we're we're I mean we're past the point of ask Yeah. very well. Anyways, that's that's your that's your city storm water fund budget. That's what it looks like. It adds to the questions of of how we look at our budget, how we approach those things, who we're putting on those boards. I'll I'll take a break and let other counselors talk if they want. Keep going.

Want to make sure asking I'll let you know. So on the back end of this, we can't we can't make this decision in a vacuum. We can't do it without anything that we're offering back to the community as a solution, as an approach to make this better to say, "Yeah, this sucks, but we're going to do something with it." So, somebody brought up a citizen infrastructure committee. Maybe we need more in more oversight from our our community on this. Maybe we need to offer that transparency and that approach so that our citizens can can look at this and have a say and and look at a 45 year old pipe 20 years past its lifespan that wasn't supposed to be replaced for another 20 years. It was going to be a 80 I'm sorry a 65 year old pipe 40 years past its the date that should have been on its tombstone. And we're gonna say that that there was nothing we could have figured out in the last 20, 30 years, 10 years in this town to ensure that we're not having pipes collapse in Charbano as they pay their rates dutifully every month, that they're having sink holes develop under their neighborhoods, and we didn't and previous leadership couldn't figure that out. That's not deferred maintenance. That's deferred leadership. So, I ask that if we're going to vote these rates through tonight, a 50% almost a 50% increase on you this year, that we don't do it in a vacuum, that we make a promise to our citizens, that we realign our priorities to the people who have been here, who have built this town, who have paid their rates, who have done what they were supposed to do with a promise. written in every check that they wrote to us. That check with their life and their labor behind it because they went out and they worked two days a week to pay

us the government to make sure that they were taken care of. And we haven't lived up to that promise as a city. So, if you're going to push this through, we need to change the priorities and we need to make a promise to our community about it tonight.

Okay. Thank you, Councelor Cunningham. I have a few thoughts. Again, I appreciate both councelor Chevlin and councelor Cunningham's very thoughtful presentation and I sorry it I'm coming back to the things that have impacted our community earlier over the years um that I have seen uh concern about the Kinder Morgan pipeline, consideration about the Boone Bridge replacement all are things that from whatever reason. And by the way, the Kinder Morgan pipeline, that's a private owner that's deferred infrastructure repairs for years until they got in trouble with the feds. So, and finally, they've done a very good job trying to get that taken care of. But deferring things only ends up with more problems. And I could think about should we continue this meeting in March and my view is that that sewer rate discussion is pretty critical and I don't think it would serve any purpose since these are critical uh issues that need to be addressed with storm water improvements. I respect Mr. Wel's efforts to address some of the questions that were raised by these two prior people that testified. And I just think ultimately, no matter how long we push this meeting out, uh if we did, we ultimately would have unhappy people that would not be happy with these rates. Um, I also am one that relies on experts and the city staff has hired

consultants and unfortunately people I've heard people in the community criticize consultants but you know if they relied on us city councilors to try to make decisions without any sort of expertise uh we would then be accused of not relying on experts to give us uh good decisions. And I totally appreciate citizens that uh provide input. I I guess I question sometimes when citizens come in at the 11th hour when the issues have been, you know, we've been going through this over the years. Uh I I think that uh there is differences of opinion as to how our community needs to move forward. I totally agree that in retrospect, anybody can criticize a prior city council leadership for things they chose to do or not to do. But it doesn't solve the problems we have now. And the decisions we make now will impact what future city council may turn to us and decide did we act or we didn't act. Um the issue of affordability is a very critical thing for me and I know we decid the staff recommended bifurcating these two. So, I'm just saying if we make a decision on storm water tonight, I really am needing an understanding of an affordability analysis done with clear priorities of projects on sewer rates because to me, I don't bifurcate them. I connect them because if I'm I'm going to make a decision tonight versus deferring, then ultimately that's going

to impact what I do. um on the sewer rates. So, uh with that, I'm going to join councelor Chevlin and uh city council president Barry on moving forward with uh I do agree that option two would be the best course. But again, I'm my vote tonight is because my expectation is when we discuss sewer rates that we have some clear conversation on that in March. So with that, is there any other comments by anyone? Councelor Cunningham.

I just want to clarify that that this resolution is called the just and equitable rates. I think it's been clearly displayed tonight that they are not just and equitable for our entire community. those who are not hooked up to the traditional storm water system are not receiving the full benefit or not receiving the full go of it. Like I said, if you shouldn't be paid, you shouldn't be paying for the premium subscription when you don't have it. So, I understand that we don't want to delay on these things. Um, and I and I and I recognize that this decision tonight just sucks. But I but I don't think that uh I don't think that you all should should say yes to this when when it's clearly not just inequitable. It's just not they're not receiving the same benefit a cost analysis of of of what construction they've passed on, what they don't have compared to the what we would consider a standard rate payer. that needs to be done and these people should not be paying carrying the carrying the load for some construction that needs to happen up in Coffee Creek. It's absurd that we should go into Oldtown and say, "Hey y'all, you guys have been here some of y'all longest in the city. These are the oldest some of the oldest houses in the city and we need you to pay for some new development up there in Coffee Creek." And I know that it's been said that it's it's new development pays for new development, but I don't think the citizens are buying that. Um, so I mean, maybe I should make an amendment to at least just not call this the just and equitable rate structure, but I I I can't in good faith say say

yes to this with that still in there.

Okay. Thank you, Councelor Cunningham. Councelor Chev. Uh, respectfully, Councelor Cunningham, you've spoke so strongly about making sure that Charbano is considered it the work that's needed in Charbano is should be just and equitable. So, in that regard, there are certain populations that may consider whatever we do tonight just and equitable. Um, I I hear what you're saying about the old town. Um, and I don't know if there are any options left for those citizens. Um, but part of the work even by your definition does include some justice and equitability. Thank you. With that with that, um, is there any further? I'll just say in closing that no decision we make tonight's going to make anybody happy. Uh but I guess key for me and for us as a council at least we have to make a decision. That's why we're elected and uh and uh that's where we're at. So with that, do I have uh we have a motion pending? Uh no further discussion. Uh let's call for a vote. All those in favor of uh the motion which is all uh resolution number 323 uh zero out of the options presented by staff which is option two. Um all those in favor say I.

I. I. All those opposed? No. Okay. Uh, the motion passes. Uh, three one. Okay. All right. Okay. Uh, next is uh turning to city manager business. Nothing tonight, your honor. Okay. Legal business. Nothing tonight, mayor. Okay. Uh the city council uh meeting is adjourned at 9:43 p.m.