City Council - Regular Meeting

Thank you. Bye.

I'll call to order the work session of Willisville City Council of August 17th, 2026 at 5.30 p.m. I'll start by asking council members to review the agenda and items on consent. Are there any comments? Seeing none. Are there any councilor concerns? Councilor Cunningham.

I just wanted to throw out a quick clarification to, I guess it would, maybe it was Thursday. It was one of those meetings that we had, well, a bunch of meetings we've had recently, but I stated that there was a, in the town center code, there's a minimum 40 units per acre. I wanted to clarify that that is for residential only developments. and that based on the financial feasibility study and the assumed 2,381 residential units in 56 acres of redevelopment, that that would average out to about 42 units of development per redeveloped acre. So those are those numbers surrounding 40 units per acre, but just clarification on that.

Thank you. Any further concerns? OK. Turning now to our pre-council work session. First up is the Salt Creek Master Plan and implementing amendments.

Excuse us while we get all set up here. Okay, yeah, perfect. All right, well thank you Mayor O'Neill, city councilors, we appreciate your time tonight. So we are here for a work session on the Basalt Creek master plan. Before I get into that, I just want to do a couple of round of announcements because there's quite a few people here for this project tonight. So with me at the table, I have Lauren Scott from MIG. Also from MIG is Alex Dupey right behind me. We have, as you all know, Matt Lorenzen, our city's economic development manager. We also have Amy Mogg and Zach Weigel in the back of the room from the city's engineering department. And we also have Jason Rice will be joining us remotely. He's from WSC and did the water and sewer analysis for the Basalt Creek Master Plan. And we also have Planning Director Miranda Bateshell with us as well. So a pretty good team of folks to help answer questions that may come up tonight. So go for it. So the real question, why are we here tonight for this work session? In your packet there is the draft of Salt Creek Master Plan. You had the opportunity to review that hopefully. It's a pretty robust package. But this latest group of content is consistent with the feedback we've been getting from the Planning Commission and City Council through the last few years on this project. Inside that is the utility and funding analysis which you can find in appendix H and K. And at this point we've integrated the West Railroad area with the rest of the Basalt Creek planning area. So that's a little bit new from the last time you may have seen that. And again, those can be found in Appendix H and K as well as in Chapters 4 and 5. And remembering that that's really the utility and funding is meant to help for future development of the Basalt Creek planning area. Also the comprehensive plan amendments, attachment four in your packet. These are reflective of the recently adopted economic opportunities analysis, which you may remember, as well as the economic development strategy. And this is also why you'll see the removal of the areas of special concern, because now we'll have a master plan for policy guidance in those areas. Excuse me. Also the code and pattern book, attachment three. So these also reflect the guidance we've received from Council and Planning Commission to ensure development is consistent with the existing Coffee Creek area. These policies have been extended into the Basalt Creek planning area and renamed the NWI or Northwest Industrial Zone. You'll see that come up a lot. And then, of course, there's a use table, which is attachment two, starting on page 14. This is where we've integrated the uses from the PDI, or planned development industrial, and the RSIA, or regionally significant industrial area. into the Northwest industrial zone. Now based on past direction from council. Furthermore, we took the opportunity to integrate more modern uses into that use table that we didn't have existing at the time. The table was roughly 20 years old. So there are certain things that are happening out in the world that we needed to represent. So we've updated the use table for some more of those modern uses. Next slide please. So over the course of this project, we've met with our planning commission 11 times, and as recently as last Wednesday, August 12th. Now, at the June 10th work session, we presented the draft master plan and the appendices for transportation, land use, natural resources, and the overall infrastructure framework. Next slide, please. And then in our July 8th work session with the Planning Commission, we covered the proposed development code edits, as well as showed the drafted Northwest Industrial Zone pattern book. And we also received feedback about the use table itself, where I had mentioned we added some modernized items onto that list. So at this point, what we're gonna do is I'm gonna turn it over to Lauren. She's gonna walk you through the draft master plan itself. and then I'll have a few more slides and we'll get into discussion. So Lauren, why don't you take it away?

Thanks, Chris, and good evening, Mayor and Councillors. Like Chris said, I'll just be touching on a high-level overview of the plan's contents and its chapters. So starting with Chapter 1, that provides our overview to the Basalt Creek Planning Area, explains how the document builds on the 2019 Basalt Creek Concept Plan, and describes the role the area plays in Wilsonville's long-term employment and industrial growth strategy. For chapter two, that includes a review of the information and previous planning that informed the master plan. That includes the original guiding principles from the concept plan, the guiding principles as they are adapted for this specific planning effort, the comprehensive plan policies and work that informed the plan, as well as the various and lengthy technical appendices that supplement. this plan and its analysis, as well as some of the stakeholder outreach completed during the process. Chapter three provides, or summarizes what was learned during the process. It provides a high level overview of all those technical studies, provides a summary of economic conditions, the industrial land readiness process, transportation, infrastructure, natural resources, and then development constraints and opportunities in the area as well. Chapter four lays out the master plan concepts for our different elements like land use, natural resources, transportation, and infrastructure. Like we've talked about, natural resources really are a defining feature of the planning area. Technical appendices and also summarized in the master plan is the updated natural resources inventory that identified various wetlands, riparian corridors, upland tree groves, streams, and wildlife habitat areas throughout the Basalt Creek planning area. And the plan includes recommendations related to resource protection, habitat connectivity, restoration, and updates to include additional areas within the city's significant resource overlay zone. The land use framework carries forward a lot of the original concept plan vision while refining some land use districts and expectations for different parts of the planning area. That framework includes four districts, high tech employment, light industrial craft, industrial and West railroad. And each district is intended to support different employment and industrial opportunities based on things like site characteristics, infrastructure, availability, and market conditions. Now, as part of this process and this master planning effort, the city worked with DKS to complete additional transportation analysis, the most recent of which focused on the West Railroad area. And that analysis evaluated a full development scenario and reviewed transportation assumptions from the city's TSP along with the original concept plan just to ensure that the city is identifying the right projects for this area to be able to serve future growth And so chapter four lays out the transportation framework needed to support that development in Basalt Creek. And the focus is on creating a more connected street network and one that can accommodate future traffic conditions and make those key road connections and extensions. Chapter 4 also includes a bicycle and pedestrian framework, and that framework emphasizes connections between employment areas, future transit service, natural resources, and the regional trail systems like the Ace H. Tonkin Trail and the Salt Creek Canyon Trail. And similar for traffic, additional analysis for water and sewer was conducted as part of the planning for West Railroad. Like Chris said, that's done by Water Systems Consulting, and that analysis is incorporated into this draft. For water, the plan identifies a phased approach for extending service as development occurs, and that concept is for a looped distribution network. And now similar for sanitary sewer, that's expected to occur incrementally as development occurs. It does prioritize gravity service wherever feasible, although in the West Railroad area, the topography of the area means that a lift station is likely recommended, and so that's generally identified in the southwestern portion of our planning area. And then similar for stormwater, Brown and Caldwell also looked at stormwater for this area to make future recommendations to serve development. And so the future facilities outlined are a result of that additional analysis and are generally identified in the eastern portion of the planning area where those dashed lines can be seen. And so that really lays out chapter four. Chapter five is focused on implementation and phasing and organizes the plan's recommendations into different buckets. And the intent here is to create that implementation framework that's practical rather than an isolated list of projects. And this chapter also includes a phasing strategy that really recognizes that implementation will occur over many years and will depend on infrastructure funding, market demand, redevelopment opportunities and partnerships. And I will now pass it back over to Chris with some additional remarks. Thank you, Lauren. Appreciate it. All right.

So there are a couple of changes that are going to be made before that we know of now that will be made prior to the public hearing at planning commission on September 9th. One is we have a little mapping error. This is the sub district map and inside that red circle, are a couple of rectangular properties that are misrepresented as high tech employment, or I'm sorry, high tech. And they will be, they're supposed to be light industrial. So we'll make that change before it gets to the September 9th public hearing at the Planning Commission.

Next slide.

And then back on August 12th, which was just last Wednesday, we had a very positive, very robust conversation with Planning Commission about data centers. Obviously it's a hot topic nationally. The Planning Commission had a really truly fantastic 30 minute back and forth on data centers and what they would like us to see. So the guidance they have given us at this time is they would like to ensure that data centers are an accessory use to a primary use, an existing primary use, so someone couldn't just come in and build a data center to build a data center. It would need to be for their use, much like Siemens has one here now. They would like it to be on the same property. They've guided us to write it up as it would need to be on the same property, not on an adjacent parcel. A maximum of 25,000 square feet for any data center in the city of Wilsonville. Or I'm sorry, in the Basalt Creek planning area. My fault. I'm just getting carried away. I'm just doing the whole city now. But also at the same time, they want to limit it as a percent of the total square footage of structure on that property for the primary use. We don't have that percent number yet. It's something we need to research. This just happened last Wednesday, so we haven't quite gotten to that yet. We'll be using the Siemens property as sort of a data point to see what size, what percent of their structure. So we've got some research to do. Uh, furthermore, they'd like to ensure that an infrastructure analysis as part of the approval criteria, make sure that there's enough power and water and all the things that it takes to power a data center. Um, and then they had a discussion about potentially prohibiting data centers except for in the high tech sub district. Um, the group as a whole did not feel they were ready for that. So right now data centers are listed as a restricted use in all four of those sub-districts you see in the Basalt Creek Planning Area. But that is something they wanted to talk about later or in the future. The other thing which I skipped past is that they would like data centers in the Basalt Creek Planning Area as part of this master plan to be a conditional use for all sub-districts. And what that really means is it's no longer a staff level decision, it would be automatically need to go to the DRB for that decision to be made, adding that extra layer of analysis and oversight.

And ultimately that reaches city council if necessary for an appeal decision, as I'm turning to a city attorney. Because I particularly have a concern about data centers myself, so I want to know if we're going to be an opportunity to weigh in.

Right.

I'm sorry?

It only comes to City Council on appeal of a development application or a call-up by the City Council. All right.

However, this is a work session, and that is something that we can talk about if you so choose to do.

I personally would like it. considered to somehow get to us, because it is a highly charged thing. I also think that it's fairly complicated on those data centers that work for the community, maybe, and those that don't, because there's an argument that they create employment, but if they're a huge complex, they create temporary employment to get it in place, but then it drops to little, but then something like Siemens, I can totally understand, but I envision it'd be neat to have at least council be having an opportunity to weigh in, but that's my thoughts. Sorry to interrupt.

No, not, not at all. I'm actually moving to the last slide here in a moment, but what I will say is in the time since that meeting last Wednesday to today, what I've learned is how much I really don't know about data centers in the limited research I've done. It is a seemingly moving target right now with a lot of complex pieces, certainly worth discussion. So speaking of discussion, look at that.

Can I just add one more point about data centers too? Is refining a definition around data centers as well is something that we're working on?

I'm glad you brought that up. Thank you. That was a request of the Planning Commission for us to come back with a definition for data centers for their September 9th. public hearing, so I have drafted one. It's quite wordy and needs to be scaled back a notch, but again, still learning what I don't know about them, so it's hard to know what to add and include and not include, so that is in process, and it was requested by the Planning Commission. I'm glad you brought that up. I didn't put that up there. So at this point, we just want to open it up for discussions, questions, and we're hoping that if you have specific changes that you'd like us to see make, now is that time to let us know any specific questions. Because overall, this would be the package that would come back to you for the most part on October 5th for your first reading at the public hearing. So now would be the time for us to have those discussions, make any requested changes, et cetera. So I will stop speaking and open it up.

Okay, I just wanted before I, if you don't mind, before I call on folks, just make a matter of record that I think it was last Thursday, and I alerted staff that would do this. I met with Brian Shera, who I think is in the audience back there, of Schnitzer Properties, and we had a conversation and I would like to give to the city recorder documents he provided to me. Um, that if we can make maybe by the end of the meeting copies to council, I think if serves me right. And I hope he can give me a nod in the audience that it was stuff that he already submitted to the planning, uh, commission, uh, during their hearing. So it's a public document already, but I just want to let you know, it was handed to me in that meeting and I listened to him. I appreciate that meeting. I also note for the record that just before I didn't have a chance to look at my emails to later that he requested to appear today. And I think we've made arrangements since then. He'll be able to give a community comment later during the city council meeting, but defer to the city attorney if there's any thought process there.

Any person is allowed to make public comment during the citizen input.

Okay. Thank you. So, With that, Councilor Cunningham? Oh sorry, Councilor Skoll, my apologies.

A couple questions. Actually, I watched the Planning Commission meeting. It was a great meeting and a great discussion. They did a very thorough job in discussing the data center issue. And I am very concerned about it in terms of how they can tend to get out of control. Can you define accessory? A little bit better, does accessory have to be adjacent to the user or can we have pods of accessories that feed users outside of the zone? Can we further define that?

Yeah. Great question, and actually, at the Planning Commission, I had a hidden slide queued up with the definition, our definition, which of course I did not put in this presentation. I have it. You have it. So, well, of course, Planning Director Bateshell, please, to my rescue.

The laptop provides quick access. I'd be happy to answer that question, Counselor Skoll. So the definition that is currently in our code is this, accessory building or use. a subordinate building or use, the function of which is clearly incidental to that of the main building or use on the same lot. Now, there is a secondary sentence here that I'm going to read that was of discussion to the Planning Commission. I'll tell you how they'd like it clarified. So the second sentence says, for non-residential uses, an accessory use may be located on a lot adjoining that of the main use if approved for this purpose through the administrative review procedures of Section 4.030. And so their desire would be if we do allow data centers in any way, shape, or form as this moves forward. I think there's still the possibility that you may recommend that we just prohibit them in all the sub-districts. But if we do allow them as an accessory use, we would amend that language for data centers that they would have to be located on the same lot as the primary use.

Thank you.

Mm-hmm.

So with that said, does that mean that, okay, I think I'm concerned about infrastructure and scaling infrastructure. If you have multiple data centers in the neighborhood, are we able to scale the infrastructure to feed, it would be data lines, electrical, water, whatever, scale that the first time without having to go back and rework it at a later date?

Excuse me, yeah. So that was, I believe, where the request from Planning Commission was to add the second bullet point from the bottom was to ensure that there was an analysis as part of our approval criteria. So they need to prove that the infrastructure needed is available for use. So I think that's what they're trying to get out with that analysis.

So to be determined. To be determined, yeah. Through Planning Commission. Okay.

Correct. Well, they've asked us to write that in to the package that comes back to them at their public hearing on the 9th of September. Great. Thank you. Yes.

If I may add, Councillor Skoll, so essentially what would occur is that because they requested the data centers be a conditional use in every sub-district, that involves a hearing before the Development Review Board, and it adds a substantial amount of discretion to the board to be able to evaluate whether or not this use is appropriate for the area and the surrounding uses. So because it's not a directly allowed use or even a restricted use that says you're allowed but you can only be 25,000 square feet, this is saying you have those restrictions but we're also going to evaluate you as conditional. It means you're not allowed by right, you're allowed by condition. So at that point you can place conditions upon that development. And one of the elements we would put into the code is to do an infrastructure analysis as part of that approval criteria. So that would be played out through the development report review board process to look at the infrastructure availability and the infrastructure demand.

Okay, my only concern with that is that technology changes so fast that we're thinking about it in today's world, but what's it going to look like in two or three years? It could require more electricity and more cooling, or it may not, so we have to find that happy medium.

Yeah, and you may recall that was part of the discussion at the Planning Commission was we had at least one commissioner was ready to just outright not allow them. Right. But the other weren't quite comfortable because of the unknown future. It's really moving a lot and advancing quickly. And so there was some discomfort about let's restrict but see what's going to happen type mentality. And I think you're sharing some of those same concerns. Yes, yes. Yep. Thanks. Mm-hmm.

Council President Berry.

Just wanted to say thank you so much for your report. From what I've heard and what I've read, I think that we should proceed with the plan. I like the idea of what the data centers being a conditional use. The problem with it being on site, somebody could buy a lot next door and then do a boundary lot, you know, a lot line adjustment or something. So it is on site, but just having that layer of review I think is really helpful.

Yeah, thank you for that feedback. And that was also a concern of the planning commissions was if you allow data centers on an adjacent or adjoining parcel, if that business were to go under, could you sell that data center to someone else? And now it's just a leased data center versus connected and contingent or used for the primary use. So I think that's where they're trying to get away from that is at least have to be on the same property. So you couldn't do, you wouldn't be able to do a lot line adjustment to remove the data center from that property and sell it off individually. I think that's where they're trying to, that was the planning commission's desire.

Yeah. And then the other question is, I didn't hear any discussion about the railroad. If we have to, you know, like we're still thinking about how are we going to handle that railroad bridge?

Yeah. Do you want to jump in on railroads at all? That is a hot topic too. You're picking all the good ones tonight, huh? I think we have engineers in the back.

I can ask questions all night.

Hey, I can talk about this all night. Although I believe we have a time limit, but you know.

Good evening. Amy Mogg. I'm the development engineering manager for the city. So for freight traffic to go underneath the railroad crossing, there would be an under-crossing required to serve West Railroad to come from the Ellison interchange. Freight traffic could still come from the south. There is an option in the plan if we could get the railroad to work with us to have a second at-grade crossing, but that's really challenging. But that is in the plan. Both are options, expensive, probably long-term. Thank you.

Councillor Shevlin.

Thank you, Mayor. Just for clarification in regards to Mr. Shearer's documents and discussion he had with you, Mayor, and you're probably already aware of this, so I apologize, but we also received, the full council received documents from Mr. Shearer today. And so I don't know if those are the same as what you submitted.

I haven't had a chance, to be honest with you, to compare the two, because I didn't have a chance to look at that this afternoon. I'm just making mine. I felt it uncomfortable. I got these documents in a meeting, and I want to share what I received.

And I just wanted to share that we all have some documents that hopefully there's quite a bit of overlap, and I read through them, and I found them very interesting, and I look forward to further learning more about it and further discussion.

Yeah, I believe Mr. Scherer is scheduled, along with two colleagues, to bring testimony in the city council meeting. I think we've addressed that, so they'll be able to present.

Thank you.

Councillor Cunningham.

Yes, so... To clarify, this is largely what we're looking to do here. We're largely looking to take the existing Coffee Creek code. It's going to now be called the Northwest Industrial, and that's going to be applied to Basalt Creek. That's correct. Okay. You know, on the communication front with Mr. Schera, as Councilor Shevlin mentioned this morning, Council received I think it's 63 pages of documents from Mr. Shara. Um, and they outline concerns, um, that he, uh, represents regarding this code and the way that it, uh, is currently written, uh, what that means for development in basalt Creek, what it currently means for development in coffee Creek. Um, And so I spent some time this morning reading through that and then going back to an email that council received on the 7th of August, kind of preparing, answering some questions about what was going to be going on in this meeting. If council remembers, we received an email from planning director Bateshell and that included some clarifications such as I'll just read through them. Number one, outside of needing to draft a craft industrial zone, the master plan project did not intend to include major revisions to the development code. The intent was to determine that the city zoning to apply to the rest of the land to make it development ready. So taking Coffee Creeks and moving it to Basel Creek to make it development ready. Number two, with council's direction to have development in Basalt Creek consistent with that in Coffee Creek, the planning commission over several work sessions has proposed very few changes to existing code extending the Coffee Creek district, renaming it the Northwest Industrial Zone and integrating land uses from the city's PDI planned development industrial and PDI RSIA, regionally significant industrial areas. uh zones into a use table and then number three both the council and commission want staff to maintain the expedited administrative review process as an incentive for development applications meeting the city's clear and objective development standards as established by the coffee creek overlay particularly since we just updated those standards so with that in mind i i did have some questions um that i emailed today and I wasn't able to get a response to some, but I do want to have them on the record tonight. We might not have responses to them, but I want the community to understand what kind of questions I see are important here and where I believe our focus needs to be as we take this step to incorporate an entirely new industrial area. Kind of stepping back real quick though, on the communication front, I'm concerned about how this communication with Mr. Shera has been forced. Receiving this email this morning, there was a lot of good information in there. It's great, but we're not having a conversation. We opened up two council work sessions to a developer in Frog Pond to come to council and speak with us. Today, we started our council work session at 5.30 PM. We normally start at 5. To me, that was a half an hour of missed opportunity to have a conversation. Our agenda packet estimates that we'll be completed with our work session by 6.45. That would be another 15 minutes right there. In my estimation, we could have had a 45-minute conversation about these concerns with the largest stakeholder in this area. Some of the concerns that I brought up and I'm looking forward to questions on are what percentage of Coffee Creek have we seen meaningfully developed under the code that we're looking to now move from coffee Creek into the salt Creek, looking at the urban renewal district, there's been about, I think it's $5 million of maximum indebtedness. It's been pulled off of that out of 67 million. It's at about 62 ish, um, in 10 years. And that's a 20-year lifespan on that district. It's supposed to be there for 20 years. We're halfway through it. We haven't touched 10% of the money there to develop infrastructure. So it starts to make me question, is this code inhibiting or is it not helping and benefiting our ability to create these developments? For anybody who read Mr. Shera's email this morning and went through those concerns, many, many exhibits about what is affecting their ability to build something that has been industry proven, it works. All you need to do is go take a quick drive out to Sherwood, go to the roundabout where you can go left to go to Langer's or you can go right to go to the DMV, make that right. There's that industrial development up there and it's fantastic. I would love to see us get going that way but I think we should understand What has happened in Coffee Creek under this code? And I think the answer to that question is not a whole lot. And if it's not working in Coffee Creek, why are we going to consider moving it into Basalt Creek? I think that this needs further conversations. We need to have the stakeholder in the room. And we need to figure out what works for development and what doesn't. I know that there was one pretty significant building that was developed in Coffee Creek. Last I heard, it was half occupied. I don't know if you know if that's changed, Mr. Lorenzen.

I believe you're referring to the Gramps Ferry Industrial Center. It's half occupied.

Yeah, and it's been tough to find somebody to take the rest of it, it seems like. It's sat unoccupied for a couple of years now.

Yeah, I did some research into some of the questions that you had sent to the city manager. I can share some thoughts and responses whenever you wish, if or not at all.

Sorry, I don't, Council Cunningham, I don't want to interrupt your frame of mind. It's just that none of the councillors, I haven't seen your questions. So it would be helpful that we have those questions as a council. so we can look at them, because right now I'm operating blind list. Did you get a copy of this?

Well, I would say, Mayor, too, staff cannot share council members' questions with the rest of the council because of Oregon Public Meetings Law.

Sure, would you be okay with providing your questions so we'd see what the questions were?

Sure.

So we can have a better discussion. That would help me to understand it.

I mean, I suppose if you have any, we can ask the question, council can hear the question, and we can go through that exercise. But I'd be happy to submit these for the official record to the city recorder and have them distributed.

I appreciate that. Go ahead. I didn't mean to interrupt. I want to speak only when called upon, so go ahead.

Thank you, Matt. I mean, please, I would love to have more understanding around this.

Yeah, I think the general observation is that the trajectory has been slower than forecast, and I think that's accurate. There's been approximately 31 acres of the area, almost 32, developed with four projects. Depending on what you use as the denominator, the percentages work out differently. The planning area is 216 acres, The urban renewal area is about 260 acres, but you can get a rough order of magnitude. We're all very familiar at this point with how we did forecasting with Town Center. The methodology used, number one, I wasn't around for it, but as I looked through the documents, what I found is sort of general projections of new assessed value that would be coming on the rolls. It wasn't necessarily calculated in terms of square feet or housing units or industrial buildings. It was just how much assessed value do we expect to be coming onto the rolls over time. to be succinct, it's behind significantly what was forecast. And so to your point, that's why there hasn't been more of the maximum indebtedness borrowed against because the increment doesn't allow for that. We can't borrow more than we can support in debt service. So that's that piece. Other projects in the area are occupied, but to your point, there is still some difficulty there. I've been told by the broker there that that's primarily a function of power constraints, not for the city, not even for the whole planning area, but for that specific corner of Coffee Creek. It's not that power is not available. It's not that there's not capacity. There's just lead time for getting power there, and that is proving difficult for the patience of a lot of prospective tenants. I think the greater question that you're asking is, is the code serving as an inhibitor to development in the area? Do I have that right? That's my thesis. And it's hard to prove a negative. I can share anecdote, and that's probably the best that I can do. I talk with industrial brokers that do business in Wilsonville and in the South Metro Submarket fairly regularly. And sure, I've heard questions about connectivity standards, about different things that waivers have been requested for in order to make precision countertops project happen or any of the others. But generally speaking, it's kind of like, well, it's not our favor, but we can work with it. What we've had discussion with the council about previously is what I have heard repeatedly from the brokerage community, from the development community as the primary inhibitor. It's the parcelization of the area. It's disparate land ownership that's sprinkled across dozens of properties that are all in weird shapes and configurations. And then probably the leading corollary to all that is We think of this area as future Wilsonville, but it's actually current Washington County, and right now it's their regulatory world that applies to it. This area in Washington County is zoned FD20. It's not exclusive farm use. Many urban reserve lands that come into the UGB are zoned EFU. They have a very limited scope of allowable uses on those properties, and so they therefore carry a pretty low value. So when the development community goes, oh, we can urbanize this property, They can get a deal done because as EFU, it's worth low value. As city property, a development site is worth more. They can get a deal done. Here, it's a different set of variables. We have a land use designation in Washington County that allows for uses that generate a lot of value for landowners. And that has made the transition of these properties pretty difficult in getting sellers that are willing to accept a price that a developer can pay. To Mr. Shera's point, these deals get done when the economics make sense. And what we've heard repeatedly and seen in numerous instances is that sellers are pretty happy with it. would-be sellers are happy with the way things are and not eager to transact. And so that's made aggregation and, by extension, development pretty challenging.

Thank you for that. You know, kind of looking through Mr. Scherer's things and trying to think through this, you know, what's been offered is, you know, apply for a waiver. Okay? But to me, if an industry standard, if a proven model requires a waiver under our code, then our code isn't very good. Because the proven model that works, that gets the job done, that enhances the value of that land, that would enhance our ability to draw tax increment financing. that shouldn't require hoop jumping. That should just be to me, a given, um, you know, some of these issues that are being brought up in here are, are, you know, maybe they'd be waved away, but, um, but it doesn't, it, to me, it doesn't, it shouldn't have to come to that for something that, that makes, makes sense. Um, so for me, I mean, I personally think the, you know, if we look at West Hills, when the West Hills came in here and they were asking for some things, right, there was, there was some discussion around, well, we had public meetings, we had planning commission meetings, we had city council meetings, they had opportunities to go and speak at those. So maybe we're not going to change it. That was kind of what I came away with from those meetings as the general idea. And if we do this right now, with Mr. Schera and his counterparts only getting the opportunity to come in and yes, be part of a public meeting, but only be part of three minute public input. When they come back in two years and say, hey, this is still unworkable, will the council then say, well, you had a chance to give your input when we were creating this master plan and this code, so sorry, we're not gonna change things now. I'm afraid that that could very well be the answer because that seems like what I was hearing a lot of when West Hills was saying that things were unworkable with our code. So I would be very careful. I would say that we should be cautious about moving this code from Coffee Creek right into Basalt Creek without maybe taking a moment to pull our industry experts into the room. I would even suggest creating a task force similar to something like our Housing Our Future Task Force, but for industrial land readiness. To have a member of council, and I'd be happy to chair that, because I've been passionate about this for a long time, to go and bring together industry experts, planners, everybody, and bring them all in the room and find out what are the roadblocks, how do we make this work, how do we have development because this has lagged for far too long on such valuable, uniquely valuable lands here in Wilsonville. So that's my two cents. I think we have more work to do on this.

Councillor Shevlin.

Thank you. I spent probably about two and a half hours going over Mr. Shearer's documents this morning. I did find them to be very interesting and also very compelling. But I also know there's two sides to every story. So I'm interested in learning the other side to the story before I suggest we make any changes. Thank you.

So there's a couple of things that Councillor Cunningham raised. And one was the West Hills development. So I'm going to turn to the city attorney because I think there's a distinction here. between that ask, their participation in the work session, versus Mr. Shero's request. And so I would ask the city attorney to clarify that for us, if she will.

Sure, Mayor. So I would say the main difference between West Hills and what Schnitzer properties are, the space that they're in right now is West Hills is petitioning for a legislative file to be opened on making amendments to our development code concerning Frog Pond East and South. a legislative file is already open on Basalt Creek. So they're in different places because West Hills doesn't have a mechanism to participate in a legislative process because no legislative process exists right now. So West Hills has a pending land use application and so any changes to the underlying code that would impact that land use application, they have to petition the council to make that legislative change a process doesn't exist right now. So West Hills isn't providing testimony on draft code amendments. They're asking the council to start a process to look at code amendments. Here we're in an active legislative process. The city provides an equal opportunity to all the public to speak before the planning commission and city council on legislative matters. As you all know, the process is underway. And I would say generally too, you know, How it is structured is the Planning Commission provides recommendations to City Council to make amendments to Chapter 4. It's one of the things that Planning Commission is tasked to do under our code. And so what we really try to do is have information go to Planning Commission, get feedback and input from Planning Commission, then bring it to City Council in a work session, get additional feedback from City Council to then take back to the Planning Commission for additional work sessions. bypassing planning commission in getting information is a challenge because ultimately planning commission is the one that makes the recommendation to city council. You act on that recommendation whether you decide to agree with it or not, or amend it, change it, that's up to you. So West Hills and Schnitzer are in different spaces in the process regarding the code, and I think we just have to be really mindful about the role the Planning Commission plays in all of this as well.

Thank you. The only other, I just want to make a comment. Maybe I misheard. Councilor Cunningham's statement about West Hills. I mean, from my perspective, when West Hills came, we all asked very constructive questions and inquiries as a body, and I had a set of questions that I submitted to be answered, and that's where we're at. I don't think there was any council sway one way or another as to a final decision. So the comment that suggests that we weren't I guess entertaining West Hills concerns really is premature because we as a body haven't spoken yet. So, and maybe I misunderstood Councillor Cunningham, your thoughts, but that's what I understood. So Councillor Cunningham.

I'll just clarify that. I agree, I don't believe that we did come up with any kind of final decision on that by any stretch of the imagination. But I did hear the sentiment some concern that, you know, well, you know, if we make a change on this and they come back later and they want another change, you know, kind of if you give a mouse a cookie.

Wasn't that your analogy?

I liked that analogy. It wasn't. So I just think that, you know, we're here in that stage now that it feels like we're getting some information. And I think that I saw that the staff recommendation was to kind of just to push this through so that changes could be made later. But I just struggle with that, that I question whether those changes will be made or whether or not the answer will be, hey, you had your chance for input. I also really struggle with saying like, okay, yeah, there, there are three minutes of input for a 63 page document that was delivered to us today. That's, that's not a sufficient conversation to have with us or with planning commission or with anybody in city hall. And I think that, um, you know, we, we, we have utilized task forces in the past to bring in those experts. Uh, when we did the height waiver task force, we brought in a developer, who does mixed use buildings to have that voice in the room. One of the things that was brought up in that email that I was referencing earlier talked about how Planning Commission has proposed few changes. We don't have anybody intimately, the information they're getting to speak to the idea of the other half of the story, because I do agree with you, Councilor Shevlin, that there are two sides to this story. But it sure feels like only one side, and that's the city side, has been told so far to Planning Commission and to us. We have not until, I mean, until today getting a very extensive 63-page document, there wasn't really anything that seemed to tell the other half of the story until this morning to me. And now we're here trying to, you know, considering moving this forward to a public hearing in October. And it seems like there is the other half of the story still to be told. There is conversations to be had, maybe with planning commission at this point in time, but not in three-minute chunks, not in one-way email communication. I want... I think everybody wants to see this area develop and develop well, and we want to see our ability to draw in a higher tax base from it to help support some of the financial things that the city needs help with right now with our declining general fund. Having a developed industrial land up there would help to create that tax base to help fund things in the city. So it's an important, it's a uniquely important piece of property area in our city. And I really, really think that we should do everything we can to get it right and to not miss out on it by creating code that inhibits the ability of a developer to come in and build something proven, effective, and valuable for the city.

Thank you. Council President Berry.

I need a little bit of clarification on the process. So has the Schnitzer properties been participating in conversations with the planning commission with their wants?

With planning commission, I don't recall. I know that as staff, we have been engaging with Mr. Shira and his group at Schnitzer properties. Just last Monday, we had a meeting. There were myself and director Bateshell and, Zach and Amy from engineering and he had his engineer, his architect and his planner in the room and we sat upstairs and met for an hour. That's the second time we've done that since I've been employed here in the city of Wilsonville and I have been here about seven or eight months. We exchanged numerous emails and phone calls. So we have at least been at the, we've been at the table and we have engaged and thought we had a very productive conversation last Monday where I think the realization came his desired development for the space off Graham's Ferry is actually very much achievable. And I just want one more point. This one always kind of, I've been talking to Miranda about this a lot. The waiver process is not a punishment. It's actually the standard land use procedure used in the state of Oregon and the city of Wilsonville for 50 years or more. That's every application comes through and starts on that track. You only get the clear and objective track one if you meet all of those standards without us having to create any variances or waivers. So the standard operation for anything, residential, commercial, industrial, is that track two waiver process. That's where it starts. So it's not meant as a punishment. It's that, well, you can't meet everything we've asked. So there's a waiver, and you go down that process, and then you explain to the DRB why you need that waiver. So I just wanted to be really clear about that. It's not a punishment track at all. It's the standard Oregon land use process.

I think that's a really good point that you just made. Thank you.

And if I may add, Council President Barry, thank you for the question. Again, Miranda Bateshall, Planning Director with the city. We also, there was a period of the project at the very beginning where we reached out to stakeholders, including business interests and developers, insurance or properties was invited to the table and participated in that process. So that was at like the beginning of this process back when we were doing the initial work on the EOA and the EDS as well. So getting that input from them as well as broader regional stakeholders was really important. Um, we did used to have a planning commissioner who was involved with industrial development up until, uh, December. And so that was actually a helpful viewpoint for us during that process to have her input. Um, we, I would also say that, um, to add to Chris's point is that we have long operated in the city essentially with just PDI and PDI RSIA, which is our plan development, industrial and regionally significant industrial areas. That code really just had a set of performance measures. And those performance measures is what we took to the Development Review Board. So every development application went to a public hearing for industrial development. And that's pretty consistent across the board. And you're able to use subjective criteria to assess those projects and make sure, are they meeting the performance measures? And if they are, we can approve them. Essentially, that code and the list of waivers that exists within 4.118 just becoming 4.119 with your last ordinance 903 that you adopted, that section includes the waivers that are allowable to get. That has been consistent throughout the development of all industrial areas in the city. As Councillor Cunningham has pointed out, there's an additional change that occurred with Coffee Creek. That includes essentially design criteria through an overlay. That's what it's called now is the Coffee Creek Design Overlay District. And it essentially laid these design standards on top of that area. What that was intended to do was to not prohibit development. And if it is, we should look at it. But it was really as an incentive. It was to say, this is the ideal of what the city wants to see. And if you can meet the ideal, then you get to go through the clear and objective approval process and get approval through an administrative route by the planning director. And at that time, none of our development applications for new development were approved administratively. As you know, we were recently required to change processes for housing to administrative processes. I know that was not the most desirable decision, but a requirement of the state. So we now are doing more administratively. If there's a desire for more administrative review by staff for things like in Coffee Creek and an expansion of those CLEAR AND OBJECTIVE STANDARDS. THAT IS SOMETHING WE CAN DISCUSS. THE COUNCIL, AS YOU KNOW, GOES THROUGH GOAL SETTING EVERY TWO YEARS, AND IF IT'S SOMETHING THAT YOU THINK THIS IS REALLY HOLDING UP DEVELOPMENT IN THIS AREA, THAT IS SOMETHING YOU MAY PRIORITIZE AND WE COULD GO THROUGH. WHAT I WOULD SAY IS THAT IN THIS PROJECT, I ALSO WANT TO MAKE SURE WE DON'T LOSE SIGHT OF THE OTHER PIECES THAT ARE IN FRONT OF YOU TONIGHT, WHICH IS THE BESALT CREEK MASTER PLAN AND THE IMPLEMENTATION OF THAT THROUGH THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN AND PLACING ZONING ON THESE PROPERTIES Part of what's held up this area is that there's nothing entitled, nothing can come into the city, even if it wanted to, to develop. So by adopting the master plan and applying the comprehensive plan and the zoning code, it at least allows somebody who wants to develop to submit an application. And whether that's through the fast-tracked process, because they meet the clear and objective standards, or through the standard process, through our normal, like, Subjective review in front of a board they would still have that choice But without adopting these other pieces they wouldn't have that choice But by all means if we want to do further analysis That's something we can do and look at once we at least get these initial adopting ordinances in place So that would be just I want to make sure we're paying attention to all the elements that are in front of you tonight and also to just call out that everywhere that's developed in the city already and has pretty much gone through the same approval criteria if you're not doing the fast-tracked process. Because we're just applying the criteria that we previously had in PDI and PDI-RSAA if you're on the non-fast-track process. So I just wanted to make that clear that things are approvable. It's not like if you don't meet this bucket of design overlay standards, you can't be approved. You can, it's just a different process. I hope that helped.

Thank you. Councillor Schell.

Well, thank you for the explanation. You both answered my primary question and I too am a big fan of the waiver system. I sat through a lot of the planning sessions with West Hills, had many discussions during those sessions with West Hills about how everything was being coded out per se. Had a couple offline sessions with Dan Pauly so I could understand deeper about how that process works. And my question to Dan constantly was, we're gonna set code in place now, what's gonna happen in five years? What's gonna happen in 10 years and how do we maneuver that? You either go through a legislative process or you use the waiver process. And it was my understanding then and my understanding now that the waiver process is working and essentially we have to set standards somewhere and kind of stick with that standard. Now, if there needs to be a five or 10 year review, that might be an option, but the waiver process is there to allow the developers, the designers, and so forth and so on to kind of maneuver through and get somewhere close to what they want, if not all the way. During my career, I had a couple opportunities to work on large projects, LA Live, and Pier 17 in New York, and sit next to the developer and the contractors as they did that, or they built those facilities and everything, and there were waivers constantly happening, and throughout, I think in the LA Live down in Los Angeles, I think when all was said and done, there were somewhere in the range of 6,500 change orders, and I think that was kind of a low number for the size of the project. So these projects change constantly, and we need to figure out through the waiver system, work through the waiver system to kind of meet the designers, the architects, and the developers somewhere in the middle to make it a win-win situation. But to everybody other's point, there's two sides to the story, and I would like to understand more about both sides of what's going on here. Thank you.

Councillor Cunningham.

I would just point out that I think that we have about 10 years of looking at what this code has produced, and it's not an exceptional amount of development in Coffee Creek. And so, I mean, that fact right there, to me, it kind of speaks to that definition of insanity, trying to do the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. We've seen how it's worked in Coffee Creek and it hasn't. And maybe there's some other issues there with lay down yards and we're trying to address that. But one of the things that Schintzer has presented us in their Johnson economics report was that given what they see the development standards that we've laid out in a clear, in the clear and that's what I'm looking for there. Objective. Thank you. The clear and objective track. it lowers the value of that property by half. That's not a development that we even want there, in my opinion. We want to maximize the land value there so we can maximize our TIF if we were to create an urban renewal district in Basalt Creek or in the existing urban renewal district in Coffee Creek so that we can get that infrastructure going so that we can help support that development. But it hasn't worked in Coffee Creek We have 10 years of data on that. Some of those same issues of lay down yards and things like that, if I remember correctly from our discussion when we approved the regionally significant funds where we would help to aggregate those lands, that Basalt Creek is going to face many of those same challenges. So, I mean, looking through some of the things that were in the brief in this document from Schnitzer, it says, you know, when every industrial project that has come through the district has required waivers to function, that's a strong indication that the standards themselves, not the projects, need revision. They said... Neither the earlier process nor the current Basalt Creek master planning process has incorporated meaningful input from the stakeholders who actually design, finance, construct, and operate employment and industrial property. The result is a set of standards that in our experience no such stakeholder would support as noted above, has contributed to the lack of development to date, and that no other jurisdiction in the metro area has adopted similarly for its employment in industrial zones. Those are strong statements and I don't think that they come and bring this lightly. I think they know that submitting this document is going to hurt their relationship and working with the city because there are going to be hard feelings about what the, the light that this document shines on what we're doing, not doing. And I, I won't bring it. I won't name names, but I have, I have, uh, credible information that some of the large industrial developments that have occurred in the city have not, the end result has not been, the developers have not been pleased with because of all of the things that they had to do along the way to get to something that now sits half unoccupied and has for years. and then we're gonna try to move that code to another location and do it all over again. I think it's insane. I think we should really consider listening to the people who actually design and build these things and have done it for a long time and have a proven track record and looking at what other employment and industrial zones in the region have done and finding and not try to reinvent the wheel and make this so aspirational that we end up getting nothing, like basically Coffee Creek is produced. So it's just... Any comment?

Process. I'll turn to the city attorney. Right now, where are we at in the public process where... Schnitzer can participate moving forward. I mean, they're going to testify, or not testify, but offer committee input in the city council meeting. But after tonight, what are the processes for them?

Well, I believe the Planning Commission public hearing is scheduled for September.

Yeah, September 9th at Planning Commission.

And then a public hearing is scheduled for council in October?

October 5th, first reading. October 19th, second reading.

So those outside of participating with the city project team, which as Chris noted, they've been communicating in various formats, it sounds like, those would be the other opportunities? Yes.

Okay. And then I'm all about process. Sorry, it's the lawyer in me. You know, it's making the process consistently applied to everyone is important to me. And so... Offering one particular developer something that others don't get to me. There's a concern there When we're in a open legislative process, it seems like a hoop has been jumped or a process has been jumped and My worry is if we do it for this particular developer how does it impact down the road and I guess I I turn to the city attorney, get some guidance on that.

Yeah, I mean, we need to treat everybody the same. So yes, there is some precedent that you create if you allow for one member of the public to engage with the city in a legislative process. I would generally advise that you do that for anybody who would ask to do that moving forward, unless you're gonna create criteria around why some people get to and other people don't. And it's gotta be something that's not, we'd have to work through that if that's something the council wanna do. But also what I heard Director Bateshall say is that if there are particular concerns around the development code itself, that there may be some, I don't want to use the word bifurcation because I don't want to editorialize what you're saying, but what I heard you say was around some of these other documents like the master plan, the comprehensive plan, those kinds of things. There may be a way to give staff time to do some additional investigation about parts of the development code versus other parts that maybe there's not an issue. So then development has a mechanism to apply to annex into the city and develop.

Yeah, thank you for the question. Essentially, the master plan document is something that we are under obligation through a grant to adopt by the end of the year. And I don't seem to have received any feedback from the council, including this evening, that there's really anything within that document that you want modified or corrected. Same with the comprehensive plan designation. We would obviously apply an industrial comprehensive plan designation. So those are two things that we are obligated to complete by the end of the year and would seem to make sense to continue to adopt. I would also recommend adopting the zoning map in order to allow those who want to develop to develop, even if they, you know, whether they go through the clear and objective track or whether they don't. enabling the area to develop to the urban standard is really important for us to opening the door to development at all in that area. Now, if there's a desire to dive into what does the NWI zone say? Do we want to continue to have that applied? Do we want to modify the clear and objective track? That is something that could be a project and that we could do and we could modify those standards. We could also, as part of that conversation, if the council wants it, is just say, do we peel back the NWI and essentially what the Coffee Creek design overlay district is and just go back to PDI and PDI RSIA and no longer have an administrative streamlined fast track process and just have the one process for all of industrial development the way we used to have through the PDI and PDI RSIA. We have a lot of industrial development in the city. So from that perspective, I you know, whether the code is, it may not be working now for what the market needs now, and the overlay might not be successful in terms of achieving what we had originally wanted to achieve out of it. But we have a long track record with the PDI, PDI RSIA, which is essentially what people are applying for if they don't end up like qualifying through the clear and objective track. They're really going with that and then just having to meet the design standards that are in the overlay. If you have specific questions, staff is also happy to answer those regarding some of the comments from the public testimony that was submitted to you around connectivity or parking. I know those are some of the primary issues that they have, so if you have questions about that, we're happy to answer them. But we're happy to make it a follow-on project, but we do have these bigger pieces that don't seem to have issues before you tonight that we're happy to adopt to get this area at least online. And just

The discussion of waivers, it's my understanding, correct me if I'm wrong, because I've been involved with the city for a number of years. Have we ever denied a waiver that you know of?

No, we have never denied a waiver, but we have denied a variance. There are two different things, and we have denied a variance. What staff tried to do is, obviously it's not a staff decision. Waivers are reviewed by the board. that's a public review body so they you know we're not sure what they're going to want to evaluate when something comes in front of them but staff tries to work with an applicant to get to yes and so we often try to play the role of DRB what questions might they ask you and so how might you essentially mitigate you're not meeting the standard exactly so how do you go about mitigating any impact you might have through that, but still meet the purpose of the overarching code. So there's a lot of times, for example, we'll allow lot sizes to be smaller than they're supposed to because it makes for better street alignment. Or in one of the examples in Coffee Creek, we were able to retain a tree grove, and so we allowed for the access to be in a different location than we otherwise would have. So it's often very site-by-site specific, But we work with a developer to identify what those things would be and then how they might be able to meet the purpose in another way.

Okay. And then correct me if I'm wrong. To the extent the DRB were to deny the waiver, the developer has an appeal right to the city council. Correct. Correct. Nothing has changed.

No. Right.

That is correct.

And I just want to clarify because I don't want waiver to be misconstrued with discretionary path. So for example, like the PDI zone has discretionary language in it. That's not a waiver. You might need a waiver even from that discretionary language. But like by way of example, in the PDI zone, there's these performance standards. One of them is around vibration. Every use shall be so operated that the ground vibration inherently and recurrently generated from equipment other than vehicles is not perceptible without instruments at any boundary line of the property on which the use is located. It's like, what does perceptible mean? It may mean one thing to one person, a different thing to another person. That's why the development review board evaluates it, makes findings, and decides whether or not this performance measure is met. So when Director Bateshell talks about the PDI zone and PDI-RSIA is what has been traditionally applied for industrial development before Coffee Creek, It was discretionary, even without a waiver process. It was discretionary. It is discretionary. I don't want those two items to get conflated because they're different evaluation standards as well. Thank you.

One last thing. On Coffee Creek, you know the mental health facility that was contemplated, that was going in Coffee Creek, wasn't it, initially? And the governor killed that through, I think, isn't that correct? I was on the development review board that approved that. So one of the reasons why we have some vacancy in Coffee Creek is because of something totally out of control of the city. Would you agree?

I mean, there's no building on that site. I know.

We could have had some really decent development, but for Governor Brown at the time.

I can with certainty say that it was outside of the city's purview, but I'm not going to place blame. However, it was entitled and approved, and we also provided extensions for them to be able to get their permit. They were just never able to get their permit from the state. Okay.

The governor, but I'm saying that you're not saying, okay, fair enough. Counselor Cunningham.

Uh, going back to the question of, of denial of waivers, uh, has, has staff ever, you know, had worked with a developer who has asked about what waivers they're, they're contemplating and been told, don't bother. We're going to say no to that waiver.

No, because, um, Sorry, thank you, Councillor Cunningham. I would answer that with a no because we don't make the determination on the waivers. So the staff cannot say for certainty we will deny that. We have told developers, here's the list of waivers that you can apply for because the code essentially outlines what can qualify as a waiver and what can't. So there have been times people have asked us, well, can I get that waived? And our answer is no, that's not within the list of applicable waivers. We also do provide, as I mentioned before, because we try to get to yes. Like our job is how can we get this project in the city? We want development. We want economic development. And so we will work with someone to say that might not be compelling enough for the Development Review Board. I can say I've said that before. And so you might want to consider these things. You might want to consider additional landscaping, let's say if it's because of the location of parking. You might want to consider additional design standards for mitigating the fact that that wall is taller than it would be. So then we work kind of with the developer, and there's oftentimes this iterative process of them bringing stuff back and saying, do you think this design is something that they might get behind? I never know for certainty, and that's part of the risk of the hearing process, but for the most part, if it's clear to us and we feel that somebody, that the team, the applicant team can make findings that are supported by the code and the master plan, that's really what we're looking at, is does this still meet it? And so when they do, then they present that to the board, and the board, so far, has approved all the waivers that we've put in front of them.

So it does sound like there are some cases where there's, maybe they're on the edge and they're told that there's a chance that that'll be turned down. That's kind of what I heard. I don't want to be misstating your words and twisting them or anything.

Yeah. It's more about how do you get to yes or how do you, even if what you propose hasn't changed, how do you develop more findings or justification for what you're proposing? Because anyone who sat on the Development Review Board knows that for every single code criteria and for policy objectives that are in the master plan, we have to have findings and justification for the approval. And so sometimes it could be about can you better explain how that actually mitigates for you not meeting the standard. I haven't seen anybody just walk away from a waiver conversation. Most of the time it's just how do we either modify the process Is it possible that at the beginning of a project at a pre-app we tell people you would need these waivers and then they don't want to submit? That's possible. I don't know. Because we don't always know why people don't follow through with an application. But typically once we've received an application, then we're just in the conversation of how do we make the project feasible.

Thank you. Just to give you time, it's 10 minutes to 7. We have one other item which we need to get done. So do you have what you need from us?

I mean, I don't want to speak for the project team, but this is going to planning commission in September, and I think we need clarity around the development code issue, whether or not, if council, if at a minimum council is comfortable with, if there's interest that council will direct staff to take on that project next calendar year, I think we need it resolved on what we're taking to the planning commission in September.

Yes. So I'm going to turn to counselors to give, their final comments and input.

If I could rephrase the question, maybe very specifically, is, is council comfortable with us applying the zone map amendment, knowing that you all will have an opportunity to discuss and determine if you want us to come back with a code project to revise that code. But we need to know if it's, if, if moving forward with the zone map amendment, uh, in with this rest of package and materials is you feel comfortable with. Without that, no one could apply for development yet. I just want to make that abundantly clear, is that without the zone map amendment, nobody can apply for development. So you could apply the zone map amendment and allow people to develop if they want. At the same time, next year, if you want to set a goal for us to revise the code, we can do that to potentially make changes that might impact other proposals.

I'm seeing nods at the head. Council President Berry?

I would like to move forward with going forward with the code and the zone amendment, especially if that encourages developer to come in with some projects. Absolutely.

Did the city manager have something to say? I'm sorry, I didn't see your light in time.

No, that's fine. What I would say is if you want to take on a larger code project, just for you to understand that that is going to be a large project, that we would want to come back to the city council and have a conversation about what that scope looks like. It's just not an easy project to just say, hey, we're going to go ahead and take a look at that. And that would be something that we would want to do next year. That's not anything that we're going to do this year.

And that sounds like something that would be in a goal-setting conference. Would it not be where staff would give us a more detailed deep dive?

Yeah, this would be part of your goal-setting conversation, but at that time we would come back to you with what that would look like. If this is something that you want to take on as a goal, we would be able to give you a scope of what that project looks like.

Thank you. Councillor Shevin.

I'm in support of what Ms. Bachel said defined as far as moving forward as long as we have several opportunities to come back and visit any concerns that we have, including a larger project if we set that as a council goal next spring.

Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Scull? Same here as Councillor Sullivan and Councillor Berry. Councillor President Berry.

Councillor Cunningham?

Yeah, I mean, it sounds like we're on a deadline by the end of the year. So if we have a deadline, we have a deadline. But I would be very much interested in having this conversation and seeing what we can do about bringing our code to a place that gets things cooking.

Thank you, Councillor Cunningham. I concur with what Councillor has just said. And can I make a comment? This is me, no one else. It would help me when someone provides testimony as detailed as the packet that I understand we received that would be given to me so I can look at it over the weekend. So I love great input, but we're going through staff materials usually during the weekend. And just to pass it on to anybody, a member of the public, if they really want us to all be on top of information being submitted, the sooner we get it, the better. As a trial lawyer, I used to remember someone handing me a brief the morning of, and I'd go in front of the judge and say, well, judge, I haven't read this. I don't know what they've said. And usually the judge denies it right there because they didn't read it. So if you really want us to look at things, the earlier the better. So that's just a general comment. But thank you, staff.

Turning quickly, public safety project update.

Thank you, Mayor and Council, Amanda Geil-Hinman, City Attorney. I will try not to talk as fast as I do when I'm reading the consent agenda, but talk fast enough to get us out in seven minutes. Okay, so tonight is an update on the code enforcement project, particularly looking at updating our code enforcement processes. So this agenda might change a little bit. I'm going to kind of speed through the background and identified issues. I think Council's aware of this. We've talked about it before. and also the current code enforcement process. So I'll try to get mainly to the recommended updates, the highlight overview, and then we'll talk about next steps. So tonight what I'm looking for is if there's any initial feedback on the proposed administrative process that we'll be discussing tonight, and if there's any initial feedback on proposed exempted code provisions from the administrative process. So council knows that there's a goal around public safety and the first outcome is streamlining responses to code enforcement challenges and specifically looking at updates to Wilsonville code chapter one. We have a city team that's been working on this since last spring. The main issues that we've identified really is that our code around code enforcement was originally adopted back in the 1980s and is well outdated. we're finding that because it's so outdated and there wasn't a desire to kind of overhaul this process, you see different code enforcement provisions throughout our code. And so while one may think to just go look at chapter one where code enforcement lives as that's kind of the end all be all, it's really not. You have to go to whatever additional code might provision that is being violated and see if there's penalties or enforcement provisions there as well to see if there's additional steps or regulations that may be in play. Our current code enforcement process is basically twofold. We have violations that are issued by citation by an officer with fines up to $500 per day per violation. We also have regulations around misdemeanors. The municipal court does not prosecute, does not handle misdemeanors. We don't prosecute misdemeanors. And so misdemeanors are not utilized despite the fact that it's a provision in our code in chapter one and referenced throughout our code. about citing people with a misdemeanor for violation, for certain code enforcement. We looked at code enforcement in other jurisdictions that have relatively recently updated their codes, and kind of spoiler alert, we've really honed in on McMinnville, Tigard, and Beaverton and their code enforcement processes, mainly emphasizing McMinnville and Tigard's processes. So the recommended updates are basically seven, maybe eight steps. Step one, and one, two, and three are sort of that initial phase, looking at either a complaint from a community member or proactive observation, investigating that, doing a notice of violation, and then getting into either the penalties or corrective actions, and then the appeal or protest period. So steps one through three. So first, upon what starts code enforcement, generally we are complaint driven, but that's not the limit. There can be proactive observation by a code compliance officer or one of our police officers, one of our sheriff's deputies. An investigation then occurs where evidence is collected. Council's aware we've adopted an administrative warrant process, which can be utilized during this investigation process. If there is a finding that there is a violation that is occurring, the compliance officer then would issue a notice of violation that has various items that need to be listed in that notice. I would say of particular importance is the timeframe around when they need to come into compliance and that failure to comply can result in a civil penalty. Going to then what happens if it's not corrected, the violation isn't corrected, there's kind of two different steps to it. The first is allowing for a corrective action to occur through a compliance agreement or within a certain time. If that does not occur, if the person says, yep, I want to either comply by a certain time or enter into a compliance agreement and they fail to do so, the city would have the ability to take corrective action and essentially do the compliance by the city and then assess that cost back to the person who engaged in the violation. Separate from the corrective action is the civil penalty. So the corrective action is just getting into compliance that doesn't necessarily remove the civil penalty. However, if a violation is corrected, it gives the city the ability to waive the civil penalty. Additional potential city actions that we are looking at including are things like stop work orders on construction sites, not allowing additional permits to be issued, issuing liens against a property for the fine or costs that are incurred by the city. a potential charge to a utility bill as a means of collection, which also then could mean that water could be shut off if a bill remains unpaid. The reasons that we're looking at these is because what we find generally is telling somebody they owe the city $500 per violation per day for some reason does not incentivize people to come into compliance all that often. And so having these other remedies available, particularly when we see a lot of code of violations happen around construction, could be something that's really helpful to the city. Recommended updates on steps five through seven. So these are the protest and appeal processes. So what we are recommending and what we see in the other jurisdictions that we look at is the first essential step of the appeal is a protest to the city manager where the person provides a written statement with their supporting evidence why they think they didn't violate the code or why they think the assessed fine is not appropriate, or where the corrective costs are not appropriate, and then the city manager issues a final order. What we're proposing is that if a responsible party wants to appeal that final order, that it would come to the city council. This differs in other jurisdictions. Some take it to the city council, some hire a hearings officer. Wilsonville doesn't have hearings officers right now, but other jurisdictions use hearings officers, and then some jurisdictions take it to the municipal court. We're proposing going to the city council for a few reasons. One, we don't have hearings officers. We're not necessarily looking to hire hearings officers for just this process. Number two is that I think especially because the municipal court generally deals in traffic violations, it's very rare for these cases to come before the municipal court. The municipal court doesn't generally deal in code. I think the city council is a lot more familiar with how our code operates and gives guidance on how city staff should engage in code enforcement. We're recommending that it's city council, but of course, that's feedback that we could take if city council would like not to hear these appeals. And then finally, if a responsible party then wants to appeal that final administrative decision, they would have the right to seek a writ of review in circuit court under ORS Chapter 34. The exemptions that we are, and the exemptions are in a chart in the staff report, so just really high level. Some of these are dictated by state and federal law, so traffic violations have to be issued by citation, so they can't go through an administrative process. Our industrial wastewater regulations and industrial pretreatment program are regulated by the EPA and DEQ and have to be certified by DEQ, so we're trying to keep those exempt. The building code has under state law has its own administrative or its own process for enforcement. And so we're recommending keeping that separate. And then general criminal offenses, because those are generally dictated by state law, that those would be exempt as well. The other one that doesn't have that state or federal requirement tied to it is the erosion and sediment control permits. And this is one of the impetus for this whole project was we were finding that our erosion and sediment control permits were being violated consistently through development, through construction. And so we overhauled that enforcement process back in 2018. And so given how comprehensive that is, staff is recommending to keep that process where it is since it was just overhauled in 2018. But it is serving as a model for our general code provisions or a general administrative process we're recommending. So next steps, and this is updated, I'm gonna slightly update. Originally we were planning to come back to city council with the actual code regulations at your second meeting in September. Given that your next two work sessions are a little bit light, we're gonna break those out into two work sessions. So your work session, the first work session in September will be on chapter one solely, and then your second work session will be on all the updates that we're doing to the other portions of the code to conform to chapter one. We're having another planning commission work session. We just had one in August. We're having another one in September. And then if all goes according to plan, we will do hearings with planning commission and city council in October and November with updates effective January 1, 2027. We also anticipate bringing the nuisance code that you've already looked at the draft of as a separate ordinance and tee that up at the same time so everything is effective January 1, 2027. I spent 10 minutes instead of seven, but I tried really hard. So these are the questions for council.

So, um, you have a staff recommendation, um, which you've laid out, uh, council, um, any input or, uh, council president Barry.

Yeah, thank you, Amanda. I thought your report was really good, and it makes sense to me, and I'd like to move forward as you recommended.

Thank you.

Councillor Shevin.

Likewise, I think it's a great plan. It's well laid out, easy to understand. I look forward to the upcoming work sessions. Thank you.

Councillor Scholl.

Good plan. Let's move forward. Thank you.

Councillor Cunningham. Ditto. And you got a double ditto here.

All right, great.

Thank you.

Thank you.

And you spoke fast and we understood you.

Hey, win-win.

Okay, with that, can we adjourn until, are you guys okay to start at 7.10? Is that all right with you? Okay, we'll adjourn until 7.10 p.m. I'll call to order the meeting of the Wilson City Council for August 17th, 2026 at 7.10 p.m. Will city recorder please call the roll?

Councilor Shevlin? Here. Council President Berry? Here. Councilor Cunningham?

Here.

Councilor Scholl?

Here.

Mayor O'Neill?

Here. Please stand and join us for the Pledge of Allegiance. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, for which it stands one nation under God indivisible with liberty and justice for all. City Council President Baric 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's been made and seconded. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. The motion passes 5-0. Good evening, everyone. It's hard to believe that we're already approaching the end of summer. By the time we meet again, our students will be heading back to school and families across Wilsonville will be settling into a new school year. So as we enjoy these last few weeks of summer, I want to ask everyone to start keeping an extra eye out on our roads. We will soon have more children walking and biking to school. Buses will be back on their routes, and our school zones will once again be busy, particularly in mornings and afternoons. For those of us behind the wheel, please slow down, give yourself a little extra time, and be patient. A few extra seconds on our community is a very small price to pay for making sure every child in our community gets to school and back home safely. I hope all our students, families, teachers, and school staff enjoy the remainder of the summer, and I wish them a safe and successful start to this new school year. Our next city council meeting will be on Thursday, September 10th, starting at 7 p.m. The meeting will be on a Thursday due to the Labor Day holiday that Monday, September 7th. City offices, the library and smart services will be closed on that Monday, September 7th. Now I'm gonna turn to the Planning Commission appointment. I want to thank staff, council for input regarding this vacancy. I've considered that input carefully including the preferences expressed by council. After doing so, I'm appointing Cameron Misbah to the Planning Commission for a term beginning August 17th, 2026 and ending December 31st, 2027. Mr. Misbah currently serves on the Development Review Board Panel B. Before asking council to ratify the appointment, I want to briefly explain my reasoning. As council may remember at our August 3rd work session, we discussed the upcoming consolidation of the two development review board panels into a single DRB. As a result, at the end of this year, we will have more existing DRB members than available positions. Historically, the city has generally reappointed board and commission members who wish to continue serving unless they have reached their term limit. I believe there is value in respecting that practice and retaining experienced volunteers who want to continue serving our community. There's also been controversy in the past when the city departed from that practice, including as I understand litigation, or at least the threat of litigation. Mr. Mesbah has expressed a strong interest in moving from the DRB to the planning commission. He brings extensive planning experience. I believe about 30 years worth that will be valuable to the planning commission. I recognize that council members express preferences for other candidates, and I do respect those preferences. However, I believe my responsibility is to consider the needs of all of our boards and commissions, particularly as we prepare for this DRB consolidation. In this instance, Mr. Mesbah's appointment allows us to retain an experienced volunteer, add significant planning experience to the existing planning commission, and help address upcoming DRB consolidation, avoiding the need to terminate a volunteer from a board, which would be something I would have to do, I believe, because that's a mayor decision which you would have to affirm, which in and of itself would cause potential issues. For those reasons, I believe this appointment is in the best interest of the city, and I respectfully ask council to support it. And with that, Council President Berry, can I have a motion to ratify this appointment?

I move to ratify the appointment of Cameron Mesbah to the Planning Commission for a term beginning August 17, 2026 to December 31, 2027. Is there a second? Second. Any discussion? I would just like to say I personally don't know Mr. Mizba, but I did do a small amount of research, and I also support this appointment. It seems like he's done a lot for the city, and I'd like to have him continue.

Thank you. Councillor Shetland?

Thank you, Mayor. I appreciate you explaining your reasoning. I think that... Mr. Mesbah served on the DRB. Now there's going to be a position that's extra, so I support the idea of moving him into this position. I do know Mr. Mesbah. I'm very familiar with his work and his resume and his experience. He's a very dedicated citizen to the city of Wilsonville, and I support the appointment.

Thank you. Councilor Scholl?

I also support Cameron for the selection. It was not my first choice, but I am familiar with Cameron's work and have a brief engagement with him early on in my DRB career, so I'm familiar with what his knowledge base and everything, so I'd support the nomination. Councillor Cunningham.

I do have some reservations about, you know, just the message that it sends to the other applicants, um, that we're solving a problem. And that's the reason why Mr. Mesba is being chosen here. Um, I think it could be seen that way. Um, with that though, I did review Mr. Mesba's, uh, resume or his application. I did some further research. Uh, he also serves on a couple of Metro bodies. Um, Personally, not a big fan of Metro myself, but he has a lot of experience and hopefully that is well used in the city.

Thank you. I mean, just to clarify, Councillor Cunningham, I appreciate every Councillor's comments. I didn't pick Mr. Mesbah just because it solved the problem. I just want to clarify. It just happens to be that it does solve an issue that's important. I know Mr. Mesbah, he does serve on Metro Future Vision Commission and Metro Technical Advisory Committee. I serve on the Metropolitan Mayor's Association and that was set up by and large to counterbalance Metro's influence a bit. So when you don't have a seat at the table, Uh, with Metro creates some issues. So I'm, I'm really glad that Cameron is on those commissions because he can be that sounding board for us. He's also a board member of the Wilson Alliance for inclusive communities. Um, uh, he's considered an expert in his field. He's also in the Clackamas County equity coalition, but I do want to emphasize, cause I don't want to send a wrong message to Mr. Mesbah. It's his experience that, quite frankly, is essential for the Planning Commission now. It just happens to put us in a better footing with the DRB consolidation. So that's all I was trying to emphasize. And I really thank all those other applicants. There were some very strong ones there. And their applications are kept open for a period of 12 months. And I anticipate we'll have openings as we move forward. Any further discussion? Okay, with that, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Any opposed? The motion passes 5-0.

Turning now to communications.

Let's see, Malinke Sundstrom with Will the World Will Share the Outcomes of Tourism-Related Project led by the Will of the World Organization. which assesses catalogs and promotes accessible travel destinations for people who use a wheelchair. And I hope I did pronounce that name correctly. Assistant to the City Manager Zoe Mombert will kick us off with a brief overview.

Thank you. Good evening, Mayor and Council. I'm Zoe Mombert. I'm the Assistant to the City Manager. As a part of my portfolio, I support the tourism development or excuse me, tourism promotion committee and manage the tourism program, which is branded Explore Wilsonville. This evening, Malachi Sundstrom, partner care manager from Wheel the World, will be presenting the work that we recently completed through our Explore Wilsonville project. And he'll discuss the benefits of being accessibility verified, which was formerly destination verified. But before we do that, I do want to provide some background as to how we got here. This project is consistent with Travel Oregon, which is the state's tourism program. They made strong efforts to become the first destination verified, now accessibility verified state within anyone on the Wheel of the World website. So they've invested considerable resources in order to get to that level. So we anticipate being able to piggyback on future marketing. It also just brings more visibility as being a city within the state of Oregon that's already on the site. Additionally, this is part of our 2025 tourism development strategy under objective six, which is focusing on access and Transportation, strategy 2.12 specifically states, being a welcoming destination includes working to ensure that visitors with disabilities get their access needs met. This strategy was within the second stage of the plan. However, it was moved up because the city received a $20,000 grant from the Willamette Valley Visitors Association, or WABA, their strategic investment funds. Of the nearly or a little over $85,000 that they awarded to 10 projects, explore Wilsonville received 23% of the available funds during that cycle. These are the 15 sites that participated in this project. Since the funding came from Wava, we were only allowed to include sites that are within Clackamas County. Two thirds of the site on this list are within the city limits and the others provide activities that are not currently available within the city. I'd like to note that we did reach out to the best Western Wilsonville Inn and Suites as well as snooze in which are additional lodging establishments within Clackamas County. However they declined to participate or did not respond. Additionally, we do have two sites in our Washington County portion of the city that include the Best Western Plus Parkway Inn and Holiday Inn Portland I-5 South that are also on the Wheel the World website. And they were funded by Explore Tualatin Valley, which is our Washington County partner. This is a timeline that we went through over the last year. Most notably, the bulk of the time was working with our partners to identify the 15 sites and have our partners decide that they wanted to participate. A site mapper came out in May, from May 18th to 22nd. They mapped all 15 sites. And then over the last few months of the fiscal year, our partners' sites were built. Malachy will provide more information about that. And then moving forward, there is online training that's available to our 15 partners, as well as future promotion. And then we, as Explore Wilsonville, will continue to support the Wheel the World effort moving forward. So with that, I'd like to turn it over to Maliki.

Hello, everyone. I am so honored, so happy to be here speaking with all of you at the City Council meeting this evening. I am a sisters native, so I am dealing with most of our West Coast accounts, specifically Oregon. And so it's so incredible to be talking to you today. I really appreciate the opportunity and I know we are limited for time. So I'm gonna do a quick overview of just our program, some deliverables and the initiative that we had specifically with Wilsonville. If I can share my screen. So are you able to...

I don't have your current PowerPoint.

Pull up the presentation, possibly.

If you send it to me in email, then yes, I can. Do you want to start running through it?

Sorry about that. I am a Google Meet, so I'm new to Zoom. So I just had a technical difficulty. I apologize. So again, we are Wheel of the World. My name is Malachi Sundstrom. I am the partner care manager, key account manager specifically for Wilsonville. Thank you again for your time today and allowing me to speak about the impact and everything that we're doing currently in Wilsonville. Again, so I'm going to give a brief overview of why we started, kind of our co-founder story, the accessible travel market, the Wilsonville project, and some of the deliverables that all 15 of the partners have access to. So our story begins here with our two co-founders on the left and on the right. Our CEO, Alvaro, has quadriplegia, was involved in a car accident as a teenager, and has since been a wheelchair user. And about 10 years ago, on a trek, which is a vast mountain range in Patagonia. As they were planning for months and months and months how to summit the adaptable chair they were going to use, they finally got boots on the ground. And as they were looking over the summit, they realized that the hike itself wasn't the hardest part. It was the fact that this accessible data was scattered, was not online, was not centrally located, and just quite frankly, extremely hard to find. And that's where Wheel of the World came to be. So our three pillars are going to be that accessible information was not reliable, was not online. There was no centrally located hub. The second was that accessibility needs differ for each and every person. What works for one may not work for the other. This is why we are taking down exorbitant amounts of data to provide based on travelers' users' needs. And the third is that current solutions did not guarantee accessibility. A couple of pointers just into the business opportunity of this is statistically show that we have 30% of the world connected to a disability in one way or another. So 15% of those are with a direct disability and the other 15% often goes unaccounted for being loved ones, companions, anyone with those travelers. And again, this is making up about a third of the world's population. So a huge untapped market. Another statistic that we are trying to showcase is that by the year 2030, all baby boomers will be over the age of 65. It is inevitable. We are all aging. We are all getting older. And we will all have our own needs at one point or another. And out of 50% of our travelers in 2025, we're seniors. So again, providing accessible data for everyone. $25 billion in the US travel market alone. And this is pulling strictly from those with a direct disability. So you can see how this number could quickly multiply as you include loved ones, anyone traveling with those that have the direct disability. 50% of our travelers have said that they would travel more often if there was trustworthy and reliable, accessible information available to them. Just to touch base real quick, I know Zoe mentioned it, but we have professionally trained mappers that go boots on the ground when visited the 15 restaurants, hotels, and attractions in Wilsonville. They took anywhere from 100 to 200 data points specifically about accessible features in all of the data that was showcased on the property. They then upload it to a software that we use, an accessible software that we created, And then they are published on Wheel of the World. Again, this is nothing to rate, rank. This is not an audit. We are simply supplementing with the business to showcase accessible information and maybe some areas that weren't very accessible so that any travelers can manage expectations and show up knowing exactly what they're getting themselves into. quickly on what we are currently doing and what we're very excited to be doing in Wilsonville are the foundation we've laid with the 15 local businesses that are already live, have already been mapped by our team, and are currently on Wheel of the World. We have 17 local team members that are already enrolled into our Wheel of the World Academy, which I'll touch on in just a moment. And with just the 15 local businesses, we have provided over 1,100 accessibility data points across Wilsonville. So we're taking into account the Quality Inn, the Hilton Garden Inn, Vanguard Brewing, Frog Pond Farm, just to name a few of those. Quickly, I want to touch on a couple of the tools and resources that we make available for anyone that is verified and published. The first is their listing, their publishing on wheel2world.com. for any community members, travelers, anyone to be able to see what has been accessibility verified in Wilsonville. The second are our verified seals. So these are going to be similar to TripAdvisor stickers, and they're going to allow any community members, any travelers, the ability to scan the QR code, and it will take them to the destination landing page that we've created for Wilsonville. So again, this is solving, conquering the problem of a lack of a centrally located hub. Here we are providing not only the hotels, but all the attractions, everything that has been verified within Wilsonville. So users can scroll down, plan where they might want to eat, where they might want to stay, some things that they want to do. So we can showcase the Hilton Garden Inn, the Quality Inn, all the specs, everything that's included with those. as well as the accessible activities. So for example, we had Bullwinkles, the Tumwater Vineyard, Vanguard. We had the Smart Transit Center for any users, travelers to be able to get around. And then also the Wilsonville Public Library. So I'll just touch on this real quick. And then if you would like to dive in at a later time. Please feel free. But we provide pictures. We showcase an overview. We have all the accessible info that our mappers found for anything across physical disabilities, visual, hearing, and cognitive. So we have all the check marks, any areas that maybe were presented as a challenge. And again, accessibility is not a one size fits all. So we're really trying to showcase all data. And then it is up to any users to be able to pick and choose based on what their needs are what works for them. The third is an accessibility insights report. This is a private and confidential resource that is given to each partner with a score out of five, a national benchmark, and an inside scoop on exactly all the data points that were taken down for their property. This gives the partners really an idea of where their business stood in terms of accessibility. There's an ADA reference guide per point to show them how it lines up with the ADA. And it really talks about why each individual data point is important and if their property hit the mark. Again, I really want to emphasize this is private. This is confidential for the partners alone to utilize as a resource. The fourth is going to be accessibility widgets, APIs that we provide for any of the partners to be able to extract their accessible features and showcase it directly on their own website. So being a part of Wheel of the World, having your publishing is an incredible first step. But if users really want to take it to the next level, they can download a line of code, put it into the back end of their website, and they can extract all of their accessible features and put it directly onto their own websites as well. We also offer our Real World Academy, our comprehensive training tool. This is going to be led by Sophie Morgan, who is an influencer within the accessible space. She's providing tips, best practices, overall just how to speak and navigate a potential influx of any guests with disabilities, and how to provide them the best service overall. It's very hospitality focused. It's a series of videos. It takes about 90 minutes to complete. It's at your own pace. And again, this is something that any of the partners can use to certify themselves. And they also have the ability to share it with any of their staff, any of their teammates with that complimentary access as well. We have a wonderful video here that, unfortunately, for a lack of time, we won't be able to show, but I would love to distribute this to everyone via email so you can see some of the media solutions and positive impact.

Yes? Sorry. Are we rushed for time?

I mean, it's really up to you as counsel. Let's see.

Do you have a problem, folks? We see the video. How long is it? It's about four minutes. That's fine. I mean, I ran through my end, so we have a little bit of time. So go ahead and play the video.

And Maliki, you'll want to make sure that your share screen has to allow the audio. You might need to reshare if it doesn't have audio.

Give me a heads up if everyone can hear this. OK.

It's not coming through. Oh, never mind. I spoke too soon. It's working.

It was working.

It was working. I'm sorry. I spoke too soon.

No problem. I'll pull it right up. Can everyone see this?

Whoo! Whoo! Creatures of my dreams raise up and dance with me.

Thank you for sharing that video. I will just note there's a very special person that's no longer with us that Something like this is a long time coming. I used to serve on the DEI committee and I really appreciate seeing this video and this communication, but Mr. Sundstrom, continue.

Well, thank you for sharing that and thank you for allowing me to play this video. It's one of my favorite videos we've ever done that really can invoke a lot of different emotions and really just showcase what accessible data can provide to anyone. in this world. And that's going to wrap my presentation. Again, a huge thank you for giving me the space and time to talk tonight. A huge thank you to Zoe and the team at Explore Whistlinville and to all the partners as well. We really wouldn't be anywhere near where we are today if it wasn't for you all. You know, we're working with over 150 different destinations across just the US. Oregon is leading the way with 42 different destinations. currently at this moment. And so we are so proud to be providing the services that we are providing. And again, just thank you for the time tonight. I really appreciate it and would love to answer any questions.

Thank you.

Any questions?

I really want to thank you for the presentation. I think that there's a definite need in our community to address, as we move forward, disability needs. Especially, I've noted discussions about wheelchair accessibility. We have some people that have that different transportation ability and need our assistance. Another discussion and goal setting is how do we incentivize some of the businesses we have in town with the existing buildings that predate some of our code to encourage them somehow to put more accessible access for those folks who are in wheelchairs. My building, before I retired, the law firm only had stairs and we had a Unfortunately, we had to meet in a conference room on the first floor. And I think that would have benefited people to meet in my office. So I hope we keep having this conversation. And I'm not surprised that Ms. Mombert is a part of that conversation, because she knows the history and the meaning behind that. So thank you for that. Appreciate that presentation tonight. With that, our second item on communications today is report out on the results of our biannual community survey presented by communications marketing manager, Bill Evans.

Bear with me with the screen share. Okay. Good evening. Oh, come on. Where is this? There it is. Okay. Good evening, Mayor and Council. As I do every two years, it's my pleasure to present the key findings from the National Community Survey. This is a survey that that the city of Wilsonville undertakes every two years. It's a resident satisfaction survey. So this survey has a very specific purpose. It is a survey that the city works in collaboration with Polco's National Research Center. The city has commissioned this survey every two years since 2012. There's really two ways that this data is valuable. One, the Polko and the National Research Center do similar surveys in about 400 or more communities, which allows us to see how Wilsonville resident satisfaction compares to that in other cities where those surveys are administered. And then because we do it every two years, it gives us an opportunity to sort of evaluate what's happening over time. As sentiment changes, the scores go up or down, we can look at those trends and say, that's something we need to address, or that's something that may have improved as a result of the program or policy. And that direct feedback can inform long-term planning, council goal setting, et cetera. So it is valuable direct feedback from the community. A little bit about the methodology. This is a statistically valid scientific livability survey. It was conducted this spring. The participant addresses were randomly selected by POLCO. They purchased the list from the post office and make sure that their list is geographically representative throughout Wilsonville. They mail out 3,000 surveys. Before they do, they mail out a postcard saying the survey is coming. When they mail the surveys, they give people the option to fill out a paper survey or to go online and fill out a link. 378 of those surveys were returned. That's a 13% rate of return, which sounds a little bit low. I talked to Polko. They said that's pretty consistent with what they're seeing in other communities. However, that is enough for it to be a statistically valid survey. Additionally, 249 residents took an opt-in survey online in early April. POLCO for the last several years has tabulated this information separately. There's a link available on our website where people can observe the open participation data separately. I did a little of that today and it's similar but different. Some are a few points higher in some areas and a few points lower in other areas. I didn't find anything that was really sort of significant in terms of patterns. The data in this survey that you'll see is weighted to reflect the community at large because some groups are overrepresented. By weighting the data, the summary data more accurately reflects the community's actual makeup. About the data, you'll see it in percentage scores shown. And those percentages are percentage of respondents who provided a positive response. So when we're referring to the quality of a program, that's excellent or good. Importance of the program, essential or very important. There might also be behavioral ones where someone might answer very likely or somewhat likely. The level of confidence with the survey is 95% with a 5% margin of error. I mentioned the two different ways that data is sliced. When we're comparing Wilsonville against the national benchmark, any answer within 10% of that benchmark is considered similar. So it takes something 10 to 19% above or below to be considered higher or lower than the benchmark. And very rarely, a score will be 20% above or below, and that's considered much higher or much lower. And then with regard to the trends over time data, anything that's a 7% rise or drop from 2022, or from 2024 rather, is considered significant. So again, it's a community livability survey. They are determining resident satisfaction in 10 key areas. What makes a community desirable? What makes people want to live there? Polko's research has determined that these 10 facets are what most make people want to live in a community or what most affects their quality of life. When Polko measures these facets, they not only ask questions about the quality of the amenities here. They ask questions about how important each of these facets are to the people that live here. So, quality, this might be my favorite slide in the whole presentation. As you see that box on the right, it shows that Wilsonville rates higher than the benchmark comparison in five of the 10 facets. Natural environment, parks and recs, safety, utilities, mobility, which is pretty remarkable. And no red flags in the other five areas, which are all similar within the benchmark. When we move over to importance, I have no explanation for why people feel safety is less important here than other communities feel safety is. My only speculation would be that because it's a safe community that people feel safe in, they don't have to have it front of mind, but that is just speculation. After Healthy Seed, pretty much all of those other categories are fairly well clustered. One way that importance data is used is to identify quality and importance gaps. And you'll see there, there are three areas in which the importance score was higher than the quality score. POLCO recognizes those as opportunities maybe for areas of focus in the future to identify maybe programs and policies that can affect change in those areas. So we talked about the two types of comparisons. With regard to the ratings against the benchmark, most ratings, as you can see, were within 10% of the benchmarks. But when they weren't, they were much more likely to be higher than the benchmark than lower. Two things here, that 26 higher than the benchmark represents more than 21% of the questions, Wilsonville rated higher than the benchmark. I think that's a pretty good number. That blue four facing down, we'll talk more about that one on one particular slide because all four of those are clustered in one particular area. Foreshadowing, you'll get to see that in a minute. With regard to the other comparison, trends over time, the data is a little less optimistic. When we're looking relative to 2024, there are 24 ratings more negative than in 2024 and only four ratings more positive than in 2024. I was looking back at old data and noted that that happened in 2016, those numbers were 0 and 29. And in 2022, those numbers were 2 and 45. So in each case, those numbers bounced back the following time. So the hope is that that happens again in 2028 and it's not the start of a trend. I did do a little extra deep dive with the online tool to observe percentiles, which are not on the report that's in your packet, but are online, just to see where each of the answers appeared in percentile. And 80% of those answers appeared in the top quartile by percentage, which I thought was good. That shows consistency at the high above average level. OK, now the good stuff, the key findings. One, residents value the city's core services. And parks and library are kind of the stars of the show here on the first slide with those scores that exceed the national benchmark. And I added the percentile scores here because they're both plus 90 percentile scores, incredible scores. But they are not the only core services that were appreciated by residents. We have several others here and with a nod to our partners at the school district and at Republic Services. Scores here also very high where those items are starred, those exceed the national benchmarks as well. Really wonderful scores for drinking water, utility infrastructure, storm water. Okay, that, core services. The second, which was, I mentioned that the much higher, the 20% number is rare. The overall quality of Wilsonville's transportation system yielded, that 76% number was a much higher than the national benchmark. So even where that last one is a lower number, 53%, that's up 7% from 2024. Ease of bicycle travel, higher than the average benchmark. Public parking, 79%, higher than the average benchmark. And I'm burying the lead a little bit here. And I'm sorry Dwight, I know you're in the back of the room. I expect a fist pump here with the next slide because Smart Transit is doing some heavy lifting in this category because if you see the number in parentheses on those two categories, those are the overall rank among all communities surveyed in those two categories. So again, both categories, Wilson-Ford scoring much higher than the benchmark and among the top 10 in all communities surveyed. More mobility success here with street cleaning, street lighting in particular, as well as street repair exceeding national benchmark. Just overall high marks for all mobility services.

I have to chuckle when I see snow removal. Yeah. I mean, when's the last time? I mean, we do have snow removal.

Well, when I did this two years ago, somehow snow removal had plummeted. So I think it was just like a self-correction. Like, I don't know what's going on.

Sorry, didn't mean to interrupt.

The next key finding, I showed you that blue arrow with the number four pointing down and all the clustered scores that were below the benchmark. Well, here they are. Downtown area lacking vibrancy. These are the only four scores in the whole survey where ratings from our residents fell below the national benchmark. which I thought was interesting. I don't need to spend any more time on that one. I think you're aware. Community design, there's some ups and downs in that category. The highlights, well-designed neighborhoods, 70% that exceeds the benchmark. Certainly, Vuela is somewhat responsible for the availability of affordable quality housing going up 15% since 2024. That number is still low at 41%, but improving. But you see down below those numbers in dark blue represent significant declines in those three categories below related to commercial growth and places where people want to spend time. It's a possible area of focus moving forward. This one's awesome. People feel safe in Wilsonville. That blue bar, higher than the national benchmark for overall feeling of safety. People feel safe here. And those other scores back that up as well. 97% feel safe in their neighborhood during the day. Supporting those stats are the endorsement of our services with our service providers. Fiverr services, 94%. Ambulance, 93%. At least 80%. All right, moving on. Residents concerned about cost of living. Now these, I included the... Percentile on, I mentioned so few of the scores on that one slide were in the third and fourth quartile. Well here are some that are below that 50%. And I think the real headline is the piece below that only 13% of respondents expressed optimism about the economic impact over the next six months. That number was nearly double in 2024. So there is some concern about the economic impact And on to the next. This is another one where there was some significant declines in some areas. Two years ago, I had my chest puffed out a little bit, and I got to talk about how the city's ratings for honesty and transparency were higher than the benchmark. Those have declined back to sort of benchmark numbers with some double digit declines in honesty and transparency. I should note that in all those areas they are similar to benchmarks. There's no sort of quote unquote concern areas. Some of them have sort of bounced back down toward 2022 levels after a spike in 2024. but they do merit mention as one of the key findings in POCL's data analysis. And then finally, we'll end on a high note with the key findings. High ratings for natural environment, and again, you know, six stars. That's like more than I got in kindergarten. all exceeding national benchmarks, air quality 92%, natural environment, parks, city parks we talked about already, cleanliness, availability of paths and trails, just through the roof scores for all of our outdoor assets. So after the evaluative questions, the city asks two custom questions and then the same every year. And those are, one, during the last 12 months, would you say your opinion of Wilsonville has stayed the same, declined, or improved? And you see the declines have just barely outpaced the improves. More than half says their opinion is unchanged. The second question relates to how people get their information. And I did change the choices this year. Neighbors' word of mouth has not been included in the past, but I think it's noteworthy how many people do get their information from others. Also notable from my perspective is the number of those assets, the top two in particular, that are city managed channels. So as the scores for the spokesmen in the Oregonian are less and less available to provide information, residents are relying more and more on the city to tell its story. And then the last question is an open-ended question that asks, it's an essay question. What do you think is the biggest priority facing the city of Wilsonville over the next five years? And I should note that Polko had a tough job here because some of the answers were like a page long. And so trying to classify them into one category was a little difficult. And this is their best shot at it. I did cut and paste all of these into an AI tool and asked it to evaluate it. And they had about the same categories. They listed those first two as very high, the next three as high. And then the next two, but they had the same categories. They just had had the top tier included those first two categories as sort of similar. Put another way, here's kind of a little word cloud that shows some of the topics that were on people's minds. You see Trader Joe's did sneak in there. And then that's just about it. The highlights, the key findings, the library and other core services, transportation system, safety, outdoors are all highlights that you all should be very proud of. Areas of focus, again, the lack of a vibrant downtown, a pessimism about the economy, community design concerns, and softened trust in local government. To end on a high note, Wilsonville provides a high quality of life, and here's a few more numbers that didn't make it into the presentation earlier, outside of that safety one, I believe. It just demonstrates that people enjoy living here. And that concludes the presentation after I give a big thanks to all the folks that participate in the photo contest each year and help us make this presentation look good with all their amazing images. With that, I'll open up for questions.

Councillor Shevlin. Thank you. Really, really good report. We obviously have some work to do in regards to trust and transparency. But you didn't have a slide on this one, but I did read the report in the packet about, despite everything, I'm paraphrasing, would you move away? And people said no, they were going to stay. So I can't remember the exact wording, but do you remember that one, Bill?

expect to stay here for the next five years, 81%.

Yeah, so people want to stay. They're looking to us to get the work done to bring that vibrant downtown to them. I'm proud of the responses where we have shown, shined, where we shine, and again, I believe every single one of us as council members own the responsibility about trust and transparency, and we should all look inward about how we are promoting that. Thank you very much.

Councillor Schell. Thank you. Good survey, actually, overall. I think the information is very valuable, and it basically shows that Wilsonville's doing the right thing for the overall community. With any survey, the areas of concern are the governance, and I think that Councilor Shevlin was mentioning that, the economic health, and then I also noted the overall health questions about the lack thereof of healthcare or whether that be services or insurance, I'm not really sure how that's packaged, but I think that's, and then mental health on top of that, so I think that's something we should kind of look at and discuss over time. And then in terms of governance, the lack of trust there, I think that's something that, I'm new to the council, so something that I'd like to work on with the community to see what we could do to push that number up over time. But I think that's pretty consistent with government throughout the country. Actually, there was a couple special attention notes in there that I noticed. One was in the, I don't remember what section it was, but the availability of affordable and quality childcare in the community had dropped off quite a bit, and I think that's something else that we should, over time, take a look at and see how we can support that, and then also adult education opportunities. The Rockstars, of course, were mobility, you know, smart. They, you know, they hit it out of the park. Safety hit it out of the park, and then also, the natural environment, which is what Wilsonville is all about. They hit it out of the park too. So overall I think there's some work to do, but overall a good survey.

Thank you. I had delivered this report three times before. The information was like so sort of obvious to me that I'm like, maybe we should move here. And so we did. So the fourth time I delivered it was my first time as a resident.

Yeah. So thanks for the survey, thanks to the staff for taking care of this. I think we're showing well. But we do have work to do.

Thank you. Council President Barry.

Yeah, thank you again for this report. To me, this is such a valuable tool, and I agree with what both the other councilors have just mentioned. I think this tool's really important, because we have people who come to city council and share their comments, we receive emails, we get information from different ways, but this is a statistically sound way of providing more information, And I think this tool, well I know in the past it's guided us and I expect it will again with the upcoming council for setting goals on what we need to tackle and keep moving forward. But I just want to note that I love that the library just is stellar and that this tool recognizes that and I don't know how it can keep improving when it's already at the top, but thank you.

Any other comments? Thank you, Mr. Evans, for this. Of course, thank you. I concur with what the other councilors say. I guess when it comes to some of those tough areas of the survey, I wonder how much influence the national dialogue has on this. I mean, I can see people, when it comes to the expenses You know, in the grocery store, you know, we had to raise, of course, the sewer rates and things like that. The utilities have gone up, garbage and some of those things. I can understand that there's some things that influence the reactions that people may have towards the city that are not necessarily in the city's control. The trust in government, of course we can always do better. I know that other cities are dealing with the same issue and they've looked at it as a potentially some of the national dialogue and discussion, but we can always improve. And I concur with Councilor Shevlin's thoughts on that, that we can always do better. But thank you for this. Thanks for the time. Okay. We'll now move to community, oh, wait a minute. Did I go too, no, no, I'm right here. We will now move to community input and announcements. This is an opportunity for members of the public to address the city council or matters concerning city business or other matters within the council's authority, including items not on tonight's agenda or agenda items that are not scheduled for a public hearing. Please limit your comments to three minutes. When speaking, please address the council as a whole. You may use the podium or the table in front of council, whichever is most comfortable. but please speak into the microphone. If you wish to speak in person or virtually, please complete a speaker card or use the raise hand feature in Zoom. When you begin, please state your name for the record and your address or indicate that your address is listed on your speaker card. Community input is a time for the council to listen and receive feedback from the public to ensure every speaker is treated equally. Council members generally do not respond to individual comments during the portion of the meeting. that follow up as appropriate, staff or council members can connect with you after the meeting and councilors may also choose to address topics later during councilor comments. Finally, we welcome differing opinions and recognize that people may feel strongly about the issues before us. I simply ask that comments focus on the issues and decisions before the council rather than on personal attacks. We can disagree passionately while treating one another with dignity and respect. That standard applies to everyone in the room. Do you, I just wanna double check, do you have any other testimony? Okay. Okay. Okay. I'm gonna go with Ryan Shera first.

Good evening, we're counselors, Ryan Shariff, Schnitzer Properties. My address is on the speaker card. I'm here tonight to give testimony on the Basalt Creek Master Plan. As some of you got a copy of our written testimony, essentially, You know, we're a stakeholder, we're a property owner in Basalt Creek. I think we are likely the catalyst project that'll kick off the district. You know, we've been working, we've owned the property since, let's see, 2021. and we've been kind of prodding to let's kind of get the wheels turning and what we need to do to get the zoning in place so we can pull the trigger and start a development application. However, the proposed zoning for at least Basal Creek, that being copying over the Coffee Creek overlay zone. As you'll read in the written testimony, there's a number of concerns that we have, and they're functional. Not everybody understands industrial. We all, probably work in offices day to day, but when you're dealing with large format industrial with large employers and large trucks, there are certain needs that those types of users need. And the way the current code is, we would not feel comfortable confident enough in being able to lease the space. So if you're not confident enough to lease the space, you're not confident enough to pull the trigger on a project. Our project is a $200 million project and we're kind of caught up in this and now we're talking about kicking the can down the road till next spring. And there is a solution. Wilsonville actually has a really good existing industrial zone called the PDI zone with its own development standards and it's been very successful. And we advocated for that a long time ago and continue to advocate for it. Basalt Creek will experience the same outcome that you're seeing in Coffee Creek. It's just, it is, it's just math. I mean, as you write the code, draw it out. And what can you develop? Well, the amount of infrastructure ratio compared to what you can develop will never pencil. And not being able to park in front of your front business for any employer, you'll never be able to lease it out. So with that, appreciate your time. Thank you.

Next is Zach Areno. Is it Reno? Areno.

Are they online?

Okay. Can everyone hear me? Yes, please go ahead. Perfect. Do you have the slide speaker card that I submitted?

I have a slides attached to Mr. Shura's testimony, but that's just something that was presented to the mayor. So you can go ahead.

Yeah, I was just going to say, in light of that, my name is Zach Reno. My address is on the speaker card. I work for VLNK Engineering Design. And I'm speaking in conjunction with Schenzer Properties. I've spent close to about 80 hours or more poring over the Northwest Industrial and Coffee Creek standards, reviewed each of the meeting packets that has been published, as well as the updates. And still, I have several concerns. The group at large has little concerns Um, and with the code as well, um, and there are several contradictions just blatantly within the clear and objective standards of the Northwest industrial zone. Each one that we previously identified and that you will read in the testimony that Mr. Scherer has provided will require a waiver. I do wish I had more time to get into these particularly, but our focus today is on the parking restrictions along the addressing streets, an item which currently cannot be waived, and the connectivity standards outlined in Table NWI-2, which are also not adjustable. Typically, with flex industrial layouts, you have employee and customer parking that's located in the front of the building. Now, what this does is provide convenient access to the building frontages. It provides clear wayfinding and delineates a clear separation between pedestrian traffic and heavy vehicle traffic. Now, if you guys can all recall brushes and countertops, I think you may have brought it up in a previous meeting earlier tonight. It is a single tenant building and one of Coffee Creek's early developments utilizing a clear and objective standards. The majority of the parking for employees and overflow customers is relegated to the rear of the site. This is also the area where heavy vehicles do most of their maneuvering. Now, every person who has to exit their vehicle from this area has to navigate to the front door are both required to path through these maneuvering areas, which to us poses a serious safety concern not only for the employees, but any customer unlucky enough to park in the rear of the site. Additionally, the distance required to traverse these conditions to the front door would arguably be excessive. Now, if you can imagine how a large flex industrial building might be laid out, how much further the addressing street standards would restrict, and one person would need to travel from the rear of the site out to the front door of the building. It should also be noted that Planning Commission had these same concerns regarding the parking in conjunction with the multimodal street design, as you will see in the Pittasalt Creek Master Plan Staff Report. This is one of the many issues that we are concerned with, as well as several others that I do not have time for, but thank you for your time tonight.

Thank you. Next is on line is Mimi Dukas. And I apologize if I mispronounced the name.

Good evening. Can you hear me?

Yes.

Yeah. Good evening. My name is Mimi Dukas. I'm with AKS Engineering, working with Schnitzer Properties. Following on the testimony that you heard from the last two speakers, I would like to talk about the connectivity standards within the proposed development code. We met with staff earlier this week to talk through some of the concerns that we've raised. And one of the key standards that is in the draft code um, reflected in the coffee Creek standards is connectivity and, um, it encourages or requires very small block links, which is what you would see in more of a downtown district. Um, and it's really designed to make sure that if there are any isolated parcels that they will have access schnitzer has consolidated a fairly large amount of land. And we were told by staff, hey, there's two tracks to how you do development in Coffee Creek. There's track one, which is clear and objective. If you can meet all the strict standards, you get a staff decision. It's very straightforward. Most of the projects will go through track two. And that's got the waiver process. It's got discretionary criteria. It goes to design review board. And you don't know if you are going to be approved for those standards. until you get in front of a hearing body. And so Schnitzer doesn't feel comfortable putting together all the investment into a land use application without knowing if the connectivity standards if the size of their buildings is not approvable. And staff said, you know, we think that you are meeting the intent of the connectivity. You're providing connectivity to the surrounding properties. It looks pretty good. Staff is not the decider. The design review board is the decider. So there's no certainty. You spend a lot of money, a lot of investment, and you convince the design review board that this is a good plan, even though it doesn't meet the code. That is a lot of discretion, a lot of uncertainty for a large industrial developer to put into an application without knowing the fundamental basics of the application are approvable this is not you need an additional window your colors aren't right you need some articulation this is your whole site plan doesn't work your building footprint is incorrect potentially so that's a lot of uncertainty as Ryan pointed out if we had the PDI zone this would be much more straightforward and general connectivity to surrounding property owners can be addressed through that process so we would request that you revisit this code and perhaps the process. Happy to answer any questions. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is Andrew Engel.

Good evening. Is this on? Yes, go ahead. Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. I wanted to comment on the community survey results, especially in the weightings that I was looking at in the full report. My name is Andrew Angle and my address is on file. I thought it was very significant that while our town is 50-50 renting versus owning, our community survey respondents were 80% homeowners and 20% renters. This is almost as discrepant as the age gap where 55 plus respondents comprised 70% of respondents versus 6% of respondents ages 18 to 34, when in reality, both of those groups are about a third of our population. I think this divide comes forward in the types of presentations that we see at City Council and on our community socials as well. I see folks drawing divisions between renters and homeowners and suggesting that homeowners are more desirable or important. So I have a challenge for you all. We apartment dwellers walk, bike, drive, run, and take the bus on our streets to our parks, to our library, to our jobs. Just because our property taxes pass through a property management company and aren't itemized on our rent, doesn't mean they aren't part of our monthly expenses. When Wilsonville says we're full but continues to add jobs and business, that puts incredible upward pressure on housing prices, both on rents and home sale prices. But here's the thing. People with a mortgage don't see that number go up. People with a lease do see their numbers go up every year. When rent goes up, sometimes people have to move. Most of my immediate neighbors have been here for five years or longer. I'm glad they've been able to stay put. They work at ORPAC, Napa, up off the Commerce Circle. They're local. They're not contributing to I-5 traffic. Keeping this town affordable for them keeps our community strong and our traffic burdens reduced. Do you want Wilsonville to remain affordable for the next 20 years? You should. When a Wilsonville resident is a Wilsonville worker, that takes traffic off the interstate and on ramps. and it takes cars off the road every time someone chooses to ride the bus in town for free. The couple of times I've worked in Wilsonville, it's been great to keep my commute inside of one zip code. I don't currently, but I hope to again. So here is my challenge. Take it upon yourselves personally to engage our strong renter population and ensure that your decision making considers all of Wilsonville, not just those who are able to afford realtor fees in the near or distant past. Ensure that your concerns for livability and cost in Wilsonville consider our low vacancy rates and the upward pressure that puts on housing and reject any ideas or attitudes that put wedges between renters and homeowners. Thank you. Thank you.

Next is Chris Hedeman.

Good evening, counselors. My name is Chris Heidemann. My info is on file. So I rise to talk about accessibility. We've lived in Wilsonville almost 11 years, the longest we've ever been in any one community. So this community must be doing something right to keep us here. Our daughter Mia was born deaf and with delayed development. She lived in Wilsonville for about six years before moving into an adult foster home in nearby Milwaukee. She still comes here for Wilsonville for shopping and services because mom and dad live here. She was recently here, picked up a copy of the Boone's Ferry Messenger, and if you're lucky enough to be my Facebook friend, there's a picture my wife took of her actually reading it. It's a great little pic. Anyway, after reading some of the Messenger, she was moved to suggest a new American Sign Language sign, so ASL is Language Deaf Folks Use, for Wilsonville. So formally, we had been using WV. I mean, descriptive, but not particularly exciting. She thought, after reading the messenger, W and V over the heart, right? Isn't that much better for who we are in Wilsonville? Now, of course, one deaf person suggesting a new sign doesn't make it so, but it is how she feels about the community here and what she sees about the community. My point is accessibility matters. We are all one injury away from needing accommodation. We have aging families that might need accommodations. We have kids or other loved ones that need accommodations. Accessibility matters. Thank you. Thank you. Anybody else? Okay.

Thank you everyone for your comments tonight. Now turning to councilor comments, liaison reports, meeting announcements. Council President Berry.

Thank you, and thank you again to everybody who's taking their time to attend and join our meeting. I appreciate everyone's input. So tonight, what I'd like to do is just highlight three fun events that are coming up, including the Skate Jam, the Frog Pond Park opening celebration, and the Reading and Writing event. So on August, Saturday, August 22nd is the Skate Jam. It's the annual event presented by the Wilsonville Skate Park Association. It's going to be at Memorial Park Skate Park down just south of where we are right now from 1 o'clock to 4 p.m. There will be sessions for beginners. through Advance, a prize raffle, gear and apparel giveaway, plus a Kona ice dropping in. It's an afternoon for all skateboard fanatics. So we're really excited about that, and we hope that you can attend. Then we're also really excited about the upcoming Frog Pond opening celebration that's going to be on Thursday, August 27th. It's sponsored by the Wilsonville Parks and Recreation. It's the grand opening celebration for this new neighborhood park. It's going to be an afternoon of treats, hands-on crafts, exploring, and of course trying out the new playground and the outdoor exercise equipment. So it's from 3 o'clock to 5 o'clock. on Thursday, August 27th. And the address is 7042 Southwest Brisbane Street. In addition to the playground and exercise equipment, the Frog Pond Neighborhood Park features a picnic shelter and a future natural area and garden. And then finally, I hope that you'll come join Smart and the Wilsonville Public Library for a fun, family-friendly bike ride from the Wilsonville Transit Center to the Wilsonville Public Library. It's going to start at 10 a.m. on Saturday, August 29th. So get your bike ready, meet your neighbors, and learn how to load your bike onto a smart bus. At 10.30, there'll be a ride along with the Wilsonville Library Book Bike LEADING THE WAY, THE GROUP IS GOING TO DO A LEISURY PACE FROM THE LITTLE, THROUGH THE CITY WITH LOOKING FOR THE LITTLE FREE LIBRARIES AND OTHER GYMS ALONG THE RIDE. SORRY, I'M GETTING TIRED. ALONG THE WAY. AND THEN AFTERWARDS YOU CAN TAKE THE SMART BUS ROUTE HOME FROM THE LIBRARY BACK TO THE TRANSIT CENTER. SO THAT'S MY ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR TONIGHT. THANK YOU.

Thank you. In addition to just regular duties, probably the highlight of my last couple weeks was on August 4th, I had the opportunity to attend a drug endangered children's meeting. It's a meeting of folks involved in Taking care of kids who have been exposed to environments with drugs present, access to drugs and things like that. And there was representatives from CPS, prosecutor, multiple law enforcement agencies, some of the social services that support kids in situations like that. And it was a really good opportunity to, there was a young lady who came and told her story. She's 17 now, but was able to tell her story about how her journey through the system went and some of the difficulties along with that. Pretty hard story to listen to, but luckily she's 17 now, on track to graduate high school, is in a safe place now, and is planning to join the Air Force and wants to join law enforcement and go out and help kids like herself. That was kind of a bright spot in her story. She said that law enforcement was a pretty bright spot for her. They did everything that they possibly could But it was a really good opportunity just to remind myself that these issues, they exist in our communities. They exist in Wilsonville. A lot of the times they're quiet and hidden by design because people don't want to get in trouble. But a really good reminder of that, and I think we always have to just you know, keep things like that in mind as we talk about policy and public safety in our city and what we can do to support that. So that's my report.

Thank you. Councillor Sheva?

Thank you. And thank you everyone who is attending tonight and those of you that are online as well. I think we're entering the dog days of summer. That's what this time is known as, the Shadows are longer across the lawns, and it's a little darker in the morning. So there are, as we wrap up the month of August, a couple of events celebrating the culture in our community through our diversity, equity, and inclusion committee. The first one is very near and dear to my heart. It's Friday, August 21st, is National Senior Citizens Day. It's a day to honor the wisdom of our senior citizens. Thank you. Established by President Ronald Reagan in 1988, this day recognizes the vital role older adults play in our families and in our society. So hug a senior citizen on August 21st. Secondly, a popular Hindu ceremony on August 28th is Raksha Bandhan. This is a It's celebrated in Southeast Asia. Sisters of all ages tie a special talisman called a raki around the wrists of their brothers. The sisters symbolically protect their brothers and receive a gift in return. I just was kind of interested about this because I hadn't heard about it before. I did what a lot of us do. I went on Amazon to see if I could order one of these talismans and lo and behold, the Rockies are available. You can order them for your brothers or a special adult or young man in your life and you can tie the Rocky around his wrist or actually they also come in a pendant form and then wish them safety and that you'll look over them and hopefully you'll receive a gift in return. So Friday August 28th a popular Hindu ceremony. I've been following, pardon me, I've been following on social media pages a discussion about Trader Joe's over the last week or so. And it actually came up in our survey that was just presented that people want a Trader Joe's here in Wilsonville. I do. I don't know anybody that says, absolutely not, I don't want a Trader Joe's. But the sentiment that I've been reading online is that Trader Joe's is not welcome in Wilsonville. The city has made it difficult somehow for Trader Joe's to become established here in Wilsonville. And that somehow the city would make it very difficult if Trader Joe's wished to become established here in our city. Not only in the city, but more specifically in the town center. So I did a little bit of research. and I would formally like to set the record straight, Traders Joe's has never, I repeat, never submitted a formal development application to the city. They have not done that. The city has never turned down nor have they discouraged such an application to establish a store in Wilsonville. They're welcome, we want them here, but they never filled out an application. So what you may be reading on social media about the city making it difficult for Trader Joe's to get in here is absolutely not true. Now, further, Trader Joe's would fit very nicely somewhere in our city and including in Town Center. A typical Trader Joe's store is about somewhere around 15 to 20,000. The average is about 15,000 square feet. Now, in Town Center, the largest retail establishment can go as high as 30,000 square feet. So we know that a Trader Joe's could fit easily in Town Center. There's also been some social media discussion along this same thread that Trader Joe's applied to move into the old theater building. Again, absolutely not true. In fact, I can tell you that no specialty grocer was involved in any discussions regarding the old theater site. I really encourage people to get their facts straight as they engage in these social media discussions. We just saw that there's distrust in our government here in the city. I have to ask, where is that breeding? Where is that coming from? So I encourage people to do their research, get their facts straight before they either post mistruths on social media or before they weigh in and get on the bandwagon and say, yeah, it's a terrible thing.

The city is trying to keep Trader Joe's out of Wilsonville. It's not true.

I hope we get one, and I hope we get one in our town center. Thank you very much.

Councillor Schell. I'll have my meetings, my forward meetings and my past meetings on file with the city recorder. For public comments tonight, I'll continue with the city events for the rest of the month here going into September. The city's annual emergency preparedness fair is backed with an opportunity to learn basics like how to build a go kit, what to know about wildfire season and how to sign up for emergency alerts and more. Come on over to the Steinbooser Barn at Memorial Park from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. on Saturday, April 29th, with questions for experts from the city and several partner organizations. And don't miss the demonstrations, the free resources and giveaway items that can help you get ready for the unexpected. Let's see, short story contest, a reminder for writers of all ages to submit short stories for the Wilsonville Public Library 2026 short story contest by August 31st. Stories will be judged by a panel of library professionals, professional librarians for creativity, style, and voice. Three winners from each of six different age groups will receive prizes and have their stories published on the library's website. Official rules and the entry form can be found on the library's website or by asking a librarian. Let's see, final thing is back to school trip planning with SMART. There's multiple dates here. As a new school year begins, SMART is here to help students and families travel with confidence. Whether you're walking, biking, taking transit, or looking for the safest way to school, the SMART team is here to help. Stop by SMART Welcome Center at 9749 Southwest Barber Street during one of the three back-to-school trip planning pop-up events for help, plus a free bike safety check. Events will be 2.30 to 4.30 on September 2nd, 8th, and 10th. And that's all I have. Thank you.

Thank you. Next is our consent agenda. I'll ask the city attorney to summarize the consent. Items on consent. Excuse me.

Resolution number 3277, a resolution of the city of Wilsonville authorizing the city manager to execute a consultant contract with Via Transportation Inc. for deployment of mobility ecosystem CAD AVL planning and passenger information system for smart fleet operations project in minutes of the August 3 and August 6, 2026 city council meetings.

Thank you. City Council President Berry can have a motion to adopt the consent agenda.

I move to adopt the consent agenda.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made and seconded. Any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Now we turn to new business. Tonight council will consider resolution number 3279. I'll ask the city attorney to read the resolution summary.

This is the resolution number 3278.

Oh, excuse me, 3278.

A resolution of the city of Wilsonville authorizing the city manager to engage in negotiations with the Tri-County Metropolitan Transportation District of Oregon concerning transit boundary adjustments, West Rail service, and other matters.

Thank you. I'll now ask staff to present their report.

Good evening, Mayor and Councillors. I am Amanda Geil-Hinman, City Attorney, and I'll let my colleagues introduce themselves.

Everett Wilde, Government Relations Manager. Good evening. Dwight Bershear.

I am the City's Transit Director.

So tonight for your consideration is resolution number 3278. The resolution, if adopted, would authorize the city manager and any designated city staff to engage in negotiations with TriMet in an effort to find a global resolution to several outstanding items between TriMet and the city and our smart transit department. Of particular importance is the TriMet and smart service boundaries and the west rail services. As the council is aware, TriMet charges higher payroll taxes at 0.8237% than Smart at 0.5%. Three employers located in Wilsonville are within TriMet's service boundary and pay higher payroll taxes despite TriMet not providing services to these properties. Due to current state law, there is no statutory mechanism for those properties to withdraw from the TriMet service district to be included in smarts. Additionally, the future Basalt Creek area is currently within the TriMet service boundary and employers there are and will be charged higher payroll taxes if the service district boundary is not revised before those properties are annexed into the city. The city has attempted over several years to negotiate a change to the service boundaries with TriMet with no success. However, this year proposes a unique opportunity as the current window to submit a petition to withdraw from the TriMet service district is open pursuant to applicable state law. This window only opens every five years. Furthermore, in March of this year, the agreement for the city to contribute to the operational costs of TriMet's West Rail services expired. Staff anticipate that this is an additional item that could be part of negotiations between TriMet and the city to find global resolution to the outstanding issues between the transit service providers. So tonight, staff seek authorization from the city council to negotiate with TriMet. Due to the sheer number of outstanding issues, combined with the alignment of the timing of the petition to withdraw and the expiration of the West Agreement, staff believes the city and TriMet have a unique window of opportunity to find a global resolution. Any potential resolution will require council approval. We're here tonight to answer any questions you may have. Any questions?

Seeing none, I appreciate the report. I do hope that if we pass this, which I hope we will, that we can work it out with TriMet. It's been a struggle for a long time, so thank you for all that. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to approve resolution number 3278? I move to adopt resolution 3278.

Is there a second? Second.

The motion to adopt resolution number 3278 has been made by City Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Shevlin. Any discussion at all? Seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes 5-0. Any city manager business tonight?

I just have one item tonight. To give you an update on the Brown Road construction project, as you all know, that road currently is under construction. Our idea and hope was to keep two-way traffic on that road through flaggers. It has come to our attention that the project is behind schedule. The contractor has notified us due to some power lines that need to be located underground and some difficulty having that occur. So what this means is that we will be closing the southbound lane on Brown Road, which is the west, on the west side next to Tranquil Park. That lane will be closed so that the contractor can work on that side of the road while PGE and the other utilities are working to get those power lines underground on the east side of the road. This will start on Monday, so you can expect to see that occur. There'll still be pedestrian access. For those of you that I know, many of you are avid walkers on that road. You'll still have pedestrian access. And it will only be closed at southbound lane from Evergreen Street, which is to the north, to Camelot Street, which is in the south. So just to make sure you all are aware of that and to make sure the community is aware. Sorry. The school district has been notified, and we're also working with the homeowners associations to make sure that they're aware of it and can get the information out to the community. That's all I have this evening.

Thank you. Next, turning to legal business.

Thank you, Mayor. A couple items for tonight. So the first item for tonight's council's consideration is a settlement and release agreement between the city of Wilsonville and Zurich. It's in your packet. Zurich is the entity that issued payment and performance bonds on behalf of Emmerich Construction Company, the contractor that constructed the city's public works complex. The proposed agreement outlines the party's intent to resolve the outstanding warranty work that is needed to release the remaining retention held by the city for the completion of the project.

Thank you. City Council President Berry, can I have a motion to approve the settlement release agreement with Zurich regarding the public works complex?

I move to approve the settlement and release agreement with Zurich regarding the public works complex.

Is there a second? Second. Motion's been made by Council President Berry and seconded by Councillor Skoll. Any discussion seeing none, all those in favor say aye. Aye. Motion passes five, zero.

And another item for council tonight, mayor. Um, so on July 29th, uh, 2026, the land use board of appeals issued its final opinion and order in the matter. Schaefer at all versus Marion county at all. The city of Wilsonville was an intervener petitioner in that matter. This matter involves the proposed development of what is commonly referred to as the church camp near the Aurora airport. Luba remanded the county's decision back to the county on one of Wilsonville's assignments of error. Tonight, staff seeks authorization to file a petition for review with the court of appeals as to the two other assignments of error that were argued before Luba.

Thank you. Uh, city council president, uh, Barry, can I have a motion to authorize the city attorney to file a petition for review with the court of appeals and land use board of appeals final order day of July 29th, 2026. in the matter of Schaffer et al. versus Marion County et al.

I move to authorize the city attorney to file a petition to review the Court of Appeals of the Land Use Board of Appeals final order dated July 29th, 2026 in the matter of Schaffer et al. versus Marion County et al.

Okay, is there a second? Second. Motion's been made by Council President Berry and seconded by Councilor Shevlin. Is there any discussion? Seeing none. All those in favor, say aye. Aye. Any opposed? Motion passes 5-0. Is there anything else tonight?

Not unless the council has any questions on the public contracting quarterly report.

Anybody have any questions? Okay. Seeing none, I will adjourn at 8.49 p.m. Thanks, everybody.