[0:05] Meeting. We are meeting in person this evening in the Cornelia City Council

[0:10] Chambers. The meeting is also being streamed live on TV, CTV, and via Zoom.

[0:16] Language captions and translation services are available through

[0:20] wordly. You can use any smart device to access the service. There is a QR code

[0:27] and instructions in the back of the room. I will now call this meeting to

[0:32] order at 6.45, a little bit after 6.46 and staff, could you please proceed with roll call?

[0:43] Member Dillene?

[0:47] Present.

[0:48] Member Baker?

[0:49] Present.

[0:50] Vice-Chair Goudina-Zalencia?

[0:52] Present.

[0:53] Chair Lopez?

[0:54] Present.

[0:55] I'll present.

[0:58] Okay, so it looks like we've got a light agenda today, we have one item on the consent

[1:03] consent agenda and I believe there is a presentation or memo. The first item of business is the

[1:11] consent agenda. The only item on the consent agenda is previous meeting minutes, I believe

[1:18] from August. Is there anyone who would like to make a motion or has a comment or question?

[1:23] motion. I motion to approve the consent agenda. Okay. Motion made by Board or Co-Chair Galinas.

[1:35] Do I have a second? I second. Oh, you don't have to decide, Chair. We'll give it to Board

[1:44] member Baker. Is there any further discussion? All those in favor of the motion please say

[1:53] aye. Aye. Aye. Any opposed?

[2:00] No, it looks like it passes unanimously.

[2:05] Okay, moving on. So,

[2:08] public comment. Do we have anyone online or in person? No, it looks like, I see some

[2:16] Notting Hood, so it's a no.

[2:18] And then finally, we're making it to presentations.

[2:21] So that brings us to a presentation from staff

[2:24] on the increase in grant funds for catalytic project.

[2:31] Community Development Director Barbara Fryer,

[2:34] you are on the floor.

[2:36] It's all yours, Barbara.

[2:37] Good evening, Chair Lopez and members of the board.

[2:41] This project, we received an OPRD, an Oregon Parks and Recreation Department grant to complete

[2:53] a storefront improvement project for this particular property.

[2:56] And originally, you folks had authorized $91,500 through not only a direct grant but reimbursement

[3:13] of staff time.

[3:16] And the project, we needed to get a different architect on board for the next phase of the

[3:26] project and as part of that the structural assessment needed to have an engineer to help

[3:36] with the design plans on the architecture.

[3:41] So this request for an additional expenditure of $7,040 is for the engineer to serve the

[3:53] architect to make sure that the structural integrity of that improvement is sound.

[4:01] The Mercado had quite an extensive amount of structural work done next door, and it's

[4:07] all one building when it was originally constructed, and then at some point in time there was

[4:14] a land division down the middle of the building.

[4:16] building. And so the structural work that was done on the Mercado, similar work needs

[4:23] to be done on this building, this portion of the building. And I'd be happy to answer any

[4:30] questions you might have.

[4:32] Are there any questions from the board?

[4:38] Okay, looks pretty straightforward. I think there's

[4:40] any questions at this time. Thank you, Barbara.

[4:41] Thank you.

[4:46] And I do believe there is no motion proposed or anything. Is that my reading or my writing?

[4:50] Okay,

[4:53] so moving on, there is no unfinished business or new business. This brings us to adjournment.

[5:02] Do I have a motion to adjourn?

[5:06] Motion to adjourn.

[5:08] Motion made by Member Dailey. Do I have a second?

[5:12] I second.

[5:13] Second by Board Member Galinas. Is there any further discussion?

[5:17] All those in favor of the motion, please say aye.

[5:22] Aye. Any opposed? Okay, that looks unanimous.

[5:28] Okay, this is

[5:35] the Cornia City Council meeting for Tuesday, September 8th, 2026.

[5:42] We're live on Zoom webinar.

[5:45] We're also available on TVC-TV live stream.

[5:48] And we have wordly live translation.

[5:51] The city is committed to providing equal access to public meetings.

[5:56] Request for accommodations can be submitted to the city recorder at least 48 hours before the meeting at city recorder at CorneliusOR.gov.

[6:06] Or by calling 503-357-9112.

[6:19] If you need information in Spanish, please call me at 503-357-9192.

[6:29] We also have this word translation that you can use to translate any language that you

[6:35] use in Spanish.

[6:37] Thank you.

[6:38] We've already had a couple of meetings earlier, so this is our regular session.

[6:43] First up, I'd like to start with the Pledge of Allegiance. Please stand and join us.

[6:51] Pledge of Allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all.

[7:09] Staff, could you please call roll?

[7:12] Councilor Lopez.

[7:13] Present.

[7:14] Councilor Baker.

[7:15] Present.

[7:16] Council President Godina's Valencia.

[7:18] Present.

[7:19] Mayor Dilling.

[7:19] Present.

[7:20] All present.

[7:21] Thank you.

[7:23] First up this evening we have Oath of Office.

[7:27] Michelle, can you bring up Brenda and do the Oath of Office?

[7:37] It's my pleasure to welcome Brenda Gonzalez-Pacheco up here.

[7:44] Please hold that.

[7:45] Raise your right hand and repeat after me.

[7:48] I, state your name, I, Brenda Gonzales Pacheco, do solemnly affirm, do solemnly affirm, that

[7:56] I will faithfully support, that I would faithfully support, the Constitution of the United States

[8:01] of America, the Constitution of United States of America, and the State of Oregon, the Charter

[8:08] and Ordinances, the Charter and Ornances, of the City of Cornelius, of the City of

[8:13] Cornelius. That I will to the best of my ability. That I will to the best of my

[8:18] ability. Perform the duties of City Counselor. Perform the duties of City

[8:23] Counselor. In and for the city of Cornelius. In and for the city of Cornelius.

[8:29] County of Washington. County of Washington. As such duties are prescribed by

[8:33] law. As such duties are prescribed by law. Thank you. Please join me in welcoming

[8:38] Councilor Gonzalez-Pacheco.

[8:40] Thank you.

[8:49] And you can flip your name tag up.

[8:51] Look at that.

[8:51] Ta-da.

[8:54] Awesome.

[8:55] Welcome.

[8:56] Okay.

[8:57] Announcements.

[8:58] Friday, September 11th at 1 p.m.

[9:00] We'll have a 9-11, 9-11 Remembrance Ceremony.

[9:05] Is that going to be here at the, at our flagpole?

[9:08] Or where are we doing that?

[9:09] That was something I didn't get to ask earlier.

[9:12] Mr. Mayor, keep your eye on social media for more details.

[9:16] The morning ceremony will be at Veterans Park,

[9:20] and then later in the day there will be a visual ceremony component

[9:24] outside on the west side of the Public Safety Building.

[9:27] Okay. Great. Thank you.

[9:30] Monday, October 5th, 6 p.m., we'll have a city council work session,

[9:34] and then also at 7 p.m. that evening, October 5th, we'll have a city council meeting.

[9:41] Public comments, do we have any public comments this evening?

[9:45] Okay,

[9:50] that takes us to the consent agenda.

[9:52] I have a couple items on the consent agenda.

[9:54] Is there anyone wishing to make a motion

[9:56] to approve the consent agenda?

[10:02] I'll make a motion.

[10:04] Yes, Councillor Goodenous.

[10:08] Sorry, I make a motion to approve the consent agenda.

[10:11] That's okay.

[10:12] We haven't met in like two weeks,

[10:14] so you know, we're getting rusty.

[10:16] So I have a motion by Councillor Goodenous.

[10:17] Do I have a second?

[10:18] Second.

[10:18] Second by Councillor Lopez.

[10:21] Any further discussion?

[10:23] Seeing none, all those in favor, please say aye.

[10:25] Aye.

[10:27] Any opposed?

[10:29] Abstentions?

[10:30] Passes unanimous.

[10:32] Takes us on to recognitions

[10:33] and we have a few of them this evening.

[10:35] First up, for service recognitions,

[10:38] chief, you got a couple of them here.

[10:42] Sure, yeah, grab a mic there

[10:44] and I'll let you walk through, you got a couple.

[10:48] Well, we'll have one, so I'll call Corporal Drew C. Miller up.

[10:58] So Drew is in a Sheriff's Office uniform.

[11:00] He served with Cornelius for nearly seven years.

[11:04] He chose to come out here, and he's now promoted back to the Sheriff's Office as a Corporal.

[11:09] And one of the things that I'll tell you is I really have a lot of admiration for Drew.

[11:13] Not just because he chose to serve the community, but we had a really tragic event.

[11:17] There's other deputies that are here that were present for that.

[11:20] But as I watched his body-worn camera and everything that he went through, a true leader in leading his team, leading the fire department, leading me through that event.

[11:32] And I can't thank him enough for the time that he served at Cornelius, and he knows that.

[11:37] I think he really knows that he's appreciated.

[11:39] I don't think Drew's going to have much to say. He's kind of a quiet guy.

[11:43] But I might open the opportunity up for all of you to say something to Drew for his seven years out here.

[11:48] I'll lead off Corporal C. Miller now, right?

[11:56] Congratulations, first off.

[11:57] Obviously a good recognition of your time.

[12:01] I hope we can claim that part of your advancement

[12:04] was because of your great opportunities to grow

[12:07] and learn and advance out during your time in Cornelius.

[12:12] So, but thank you for all those years you spent out here

[12:14] and wish you the best of luck

[12:16] in your endeavors out in the regular county.

[12:21] I just want to echo what the mayor said and thank you for your service for our community.

[12:25] I'm sure you saw a lot of hard things and I just appreciate you responding with humility and being there for our folks when they need it most, so thank you.

[12:36] Yeah, I would like to also say thank you. I know I'm Neo, but I look forward to getting to know you and the rest of the team, the rest of Chief's team, so thank you for your service.

[13:15] Mariah, I think you're up next with the library, so,

[13:28] yep, lights right there for you.

[13:33] David wasn't able to be here tonight because he's at an outreach event that was pre-programmed

[13:39] before he was informed about this, so he's really, really sad that he's missing this.

[13:43] But I did have some words to say that I wanted to recognize David for five years of

[13:48] full-time employment.

[13:50] He has been with the library since 2018.

[13:53] He started as a library aide, but even before that he was a volunteer.

[13:57] So he's been with the library for many years and very dedicated and he has a lot of skills that he brings to the team.

[14:05] I did want to point out that his impact, where he's had the biggest impact with the library,

[14:10] is with his outreach and his dedication that he has for serving the community and reaching as many people as possible.

[14:16] Doesn't matter the age.

[14:18] I don't have the exact number. I couldn't find it.

[14:20] But I know we've distributed in the last three years more than 6,000 books through the bookmobile

[14:25] Program itself that doesn't include our summer reading out outreach that we do with the summer reading signups

[14:31] So that's a lot of books that are going out into the community

[14:34] And that's all thanks to David and finding as many books as possible

[14:39] He's like I can still use that book and so we do we save it for him

[14:44] He's also helped develop the makerspace lab for schools

[14:46] So we have school visits that come over and they come and test out some different technology in the maker space

[14:53] But I think the one that he's the most known for is making gummy

[14:57] anything so

[15:00] That is, he might be known as like the gummy man or something, that might just be me, but

[15:04] that is something that the third graders look forward to doing every year with him.

[15:10] He's also continued doing library cards for the kids. I started that like 10 years ago

[15:15] with the third graders and he's continued doing that and looking for ways to expand

[15:19] that to other grades or any teacher that's willing to work with him. And then getting

[15:23] tours, getting people set up to come into the library and check out and just share

[15:27] everything that we have available to the library. So yeah, I'm very thankful for

[15:33] his positive energy that he has out on the community and just trying to be as

[15:37] creative as possible to get people inside. And if they can't come inside, you'll

[15:42] find a way to go to them. So thank you to David.

[15:50] Susan, I think you've got one for your guys.

[15:59] Okay, so five years ago Will showed up with clean boots. We fixed that in about a week.

[16:04] Since then, he's been elbow deep in more mud than anyone should reasonably volunteer for,

[16:10] answered the phone after hours more times than he'd like to count,

[16:13] and explained to a few residents that, no, the discolored water is not going to hurt you,

[16:19] and yes, we are already on it.

[16:21] He's chased leaks no one else could find.

[16:24] He's exercised valves that haven't moved since disco.

[16:27] He's dealt with flooded meter boxes in February with a kind of attitude most people can't manage in June.

[16:33] And somewhere in there, he became the guy everyone on the crew called first.

[16:37] Not just because it was his job, but because he'd actually pick up.

[16:41] So when the crew lead position opened up, Will threw his hat in the ring.

[16:45] And since then, he's somehow become even more of the go-to guy,

[16:49] juggling every project we carpet dwellers, toss over the wall at him,

[16:52] while lining out the crew to actually get it done.

[16:55] Turns out the hard part of the job isn't the water, it's dealing with us.

[16:59] So, Will, congratulations on your five years and the new stripes.

[17:03] The system runs with people like you, keeping it running, usually in the dark, usually in

[17:08] the rain, and almost always without anyone noticing, but we noticed.

[17:12] We appreciate your dedication, professionalism, and the input that you bring to the table.

[17:17] Thank you for everything.

[17:19] Now, go clean your boots.

[17:27] Thanks, Will.

[17:29] Thanks for making the good water come in and the bad water go out and doing that

[17:34] 24 by 7. Thank you very much. Next up, Senator Manning-Brendham.

[17:41] Thank you, Mayor and Counselors. I think in the spirit of Ryan in his absence, he unfortunately

[17:48] couldn't be here tonight either. Ryan would keep it brief, so I'm going to keep it more

[17:53] brief, but I do want to say I appreciate Ryan very much. He's the consummate, get

[17:59] it done manager. The kind of person that when we talk about a task and that task is given,

[18:07] I literally don't have to think about it again and it's a very comforting feeling. Ryan does

[18:12] so very quietly. In some ways, I've suggested maybe a little too quietly. I think I work

[18:18] on maybe, you know, maybe Ryan Tooting is horn a little bit more, but I appreciate

[18:23] the humility that Ryan brings.

[18:27] A couple of years ago we did a reorganization in public

[18:30] works and Ryan was the foreman at the time. Ryan still leads the operations team but stepped

[18:35] into a role with higher responsibility and higher complexity, higher time investment,

[18:41] all of that. And he did so maybe a little bit grudgingly, but he did so and he has

[18:46] really taken it on. I really appreciate his willingness to work on growth areas, too.

[18:55] And that's a very big positive trait. Filling the shoes with Susan, actually,

[19:02] of Mark Crowell, who is here for 38 years is no easy task.

[19:06] And thanks to Ryan's attributes, along with Susan, they've done a fantastic job.

[19:12] And I can't believe it's been five years and I hope we get to keep them around for a long time.

[19:17] So many thanks to Ryan.

[19:20] I'm going to jump in on Ryan here.

[19:24] I've been very proud that we've had a long tradition of being able to provide projects to eagle scouts

[19:31] that haven't been able to figure out something for themselves.

[19:35] And recently I've gotten the opportunity for Ryan and yourself to carry on that tradition

[19:40] that Mark Crawley carried on for so many years.

[19:43] So we had a couple of Eagle projects come up

[19:45] and Scouts that just, they weren't sure what to do

[19:48] and Ryan was able to hook them up with projects

[19:51] and allowed them to get through their Eagle project.

[19:53] So I'm really glad and proud that our city could do that

[19:57] because I'll use this opportunity to say those kids

[20:00] that weren't from Cornelius, they were coming

[20:03] from Beaverton and they couldn't get that done

[20:06] in that biggest city yet we're getting that kind

[20:08] of good work done in our community here

[20:10] with a smaller staff doing an awesome job.

[20:13] So thank you to Ryan for carrying that tradition

[20:16] on the market started with us.

[20:21] That takes us on to presentations and appointments.

[20:24] First up, we have Hillsborough School District

[20:27] for their 2026 capital bond measure.

[20:30] I saw Beth, yeah, hey, Beth, come on up.

[20:33] You got other people with you?

[20:34] We can get you more chairs, yep.

[20:38] Yeah.

[20:45] And just make sure you got a microphone

[20:47] with a green light, you just gotta tap it.

[20:50] Okay, wonderful.

[20:53] Thank you.

[20:57] Oh, it's in front of me as well. Wonderful.

[21:01] Give us a second here while we...

[21:03] Okay.

[21:06] All right.

[21:08] Well, thank you.

[21:09] And start the clock.

[21:09] Oh.

[21:12] Countdown is on.

[21:14] Thank you so much, Mayor Dahlin, counselors, and city staff.

[21:19] My name is Beth Grazer,

[21:20] and I am the Chief Communications Officer

[21:22] for the Hillsborough School District.

[21:24] and I'm here tonight to just share a little bit

[21:26] with you about our upcoming November 2026 capital bond.

[21:31] And I also brought with me Erica Lopez

[21:34] who is a former Hillsborough School District Board member

[21:38] and she is here to share a little bit

[21:41] about the advocacy efforts if time allows toward the end.

[21:45] So you have a packet in front of you as well

[21:50] that goes through these slides.

[21:51] So I won't necessarily go through each one.

[21:54] I'll kind of hit the highlights and leave some time

[21:56] in case there are questions.

[22:00] But let's see if I can...

[22:03] There we go.

[22:05] We'll skip ahead to some

[22:11] of the meat and potatoes.

[22:13] In case you're not overly familiar with school bonds,

[22:17] capital bonds or otherwise known as general obligation bonds

[22:20] are the only mechanism that public schools in Oregon have to complete major infrastructure

[22:25] projects because normal school funding only provides operational dollars and doesn't take

[22:33] into account times when we may need to replace a roof or an HVAC system and those things

[22:39] can get into the multiple millions of dollars.

[22:42] So we save those for bond asks of our community.

[22:46] And we have had multiple bond issuances over the years,

[22:51] and our community has always been very supportive of those,

[22:54] which we are greatly appreciative of.

[22:56] And our approach to those bonds is to try to keep the rates associated with those bonds pretty stable.

[23:05] And the way we do that is by building into the repayment structure

[23:10] kind of planned drops in the rate every 9 to 10 years or so.

[23:15] So for example, back in 2017, when we passed our last capital construction bond for $408 million,

[23:23] we told voters that we would be coming back in nine years and asking for their support again,

[23:28] and it is nine years. It went by really fast.

[23:32] But in that time, we have of course gotten to the point where we need lots of different projects

[23:41] across our our district. I'm going to take us to a slide that shows just the vastness of what

[23:49] the Hillsborough School District encompasses. We are the fourth largest district in Oregon.

[23:54] We serve almost 18,000 students across 37 school campuses and we have 42 total buildings in our

[24:02] district. Over 2.7 million square feet of interior space as well as more than 19 competition

[24:10] transition fields, tracks, tennis courts, and what not to maintain, we're proud to have

[24:18] Free Orchards Elementary School in Cornelius that serves, I think about a third of your

[24:23] student population is what we have in the Hillsborough School District about.

[24:28] And so they are served at Free Orchards and then Evergreen and Glunko.

[24:32] And within this bond program, almost $43.5 million would directly benefit those students

[24:39] who are assigned to the Hillsborough School District

[24:42] between those three schools.

[24:44] So we're really proud of that.

[24:46] How did we come up with what's in this bond?

[24:49] Well, we pulled together a cross-functional team

[24:52] of community members to form a bond development committee

[24:57] and we met over six sessions

[24:59] over several months in the fall

[25:02] and came up with, okay,

[25:04] what is our total kind of universe of need

[25:07] or what's the top of the funnel

[25:08] as I like to call it.

[25:10] And that was about $617 million worth of projects.

[25:14] And that's inclusive of all anticipated costs

[25:18] escalated over time for a five-year buildout.

[25:22] But we knew that we couldn't really

[25:25] ask voters to necessarily support that level of ask,

[25:29] because we do have that value around keeping

[25:31] their rates approximately the same.

[25:34] and so we narrowed that down to $430 million.

[25:40] And by doing so, this is a little bit confusing,

[25:43] but stick with me here.

[25:44] So this chart, the black bars actually represent

[25:49] the real tax rate that was paid by rate payers,

[25:54] property owners within the Hillsborough School District

[25:56] boundaries since 2006.

[26:00] And then the gray bars are what's currently outstanding for remaining bonds.

[26:08] So really that's just the remainder of that 2017 bond that's not quite paid off yet.

[26:14] So the golden rod bars represent what if voters do approve the bond, what that rate would be.

[26:23] And you'll see that last year, there was a significant drop in the rates.

[26:30] And just to be very transparent with you, that was because $7 billion worth of valuation

[26:35] from Intel that had previously been under abatement came onto the rolls for the first

[26:40] time.

[26:41] So that significantly dropped rates for everyone, which is exactly how those programs are

[26:47] intended to work.

[26:49] But we didn't feel right basing a 20-year repayment

[26:54] of a bond on a kind of a one-year anomaly,

[26:57] knowing and assuming that Intel would likely aggressively

[27:00] depreciate those assets.

[27:03] And so we decided to, instead, do a look back

[27:07] to the last bond and look at the average of rates

[27:10] that had been paid since then, which

[27:13] is $2.02 per 1,000.

[27:15] and we are asking voters to support $1.84.

[27:20] So it's actually 18 cents per thousand less

[27:22] than what voters have paid on average

[27:25] since the passage of our last bond.

[27:27] And it would allow us to do really great work

[27:29] across all of our district schools and buildings

[27:34] in a variety of categories.

[27:36] The main category would be buildings and systems.

[27:39] So about half, a little over half of the bond money

[27:42] would go to critical infrastructure,

[27:43] protecting those investments that we've already made over the years in our

[27:48] buildings, roofs, HVAC systems, and so on, improving safety and security, fencing,

[27:56] security, entry systems, you know, cameras that keep an eye on what's going on

[28:03] inside the schools, and cyber security, things like that, also enhancing the

[28:10] the built environment in terms of more lighted turf fields

[28:15] for students, renovation of auditorium space

[28:18] for theater performances, choir and band performances,

[28:22] things like that, getting us new buses,

[28:27] renovating kitchens so that they function properly

[28:30] and that students can get their free meals,

[28:32] which is a really nice thing

[28:33] that we're able to provide to every student.

[28:36] So let's see, you can see the breakdown here.

[28:40] I do want to draw your attention to our bond website, which is hillsbrode-bond.org.

[28:47] There is an extensive FAQ there in both English and Spanish that addresses a multitude of

[28:54] questions that have come up through the process of developing the bond and then also feedback

[29:00] that we continue to get coming in through the website or emails or through public fora

[29:07] that really deserve to be answered.

[29:11] We've been adding to that FAQ.

[29:13] So any question you might have about it,

[29:16] hopefully is answered there.

[29:17] We also have an interactive dashboard

[29:19] where you can drill down by campus or by project type

[29:23] or by a feeder.

[29:25] You know, you're all in the Glunko feeder.

[29:27] You can look at how much money is going into that feeder.

[29:30] So lots of opportunities to get information.

[29:34] If I still have a minute or two,

[29:37] I'd love to allow Erika to say a few words and or would you like to ask

[29:41] questions of me first or hear from Erika first? How about we do Erika and then

[29:45] ask questions if anybody has any? Good evening Council. Thank you for having us

[29:50] today. As opposed to best role with the school district, my role is separate. I

[29:55] am the co-chair of the Bond Political Action Committee.

[30:00] So how that differs is that the district can actually go out

[30:03] and advocate for people to vote yes on.

[30:06] So we rely on volunteers, and that's what my role is,

[30:09] is to go out into the community, explain what the bond is,

[30:13] and actually ask people to vote yes.

[30:15] The election is November 3rd.

[30:17] And as Beth mentioned, a lot of the upgrades

[30:20] that are happening is not just free orchard,

[30:22] but it follows the kids that go to Evergreen,

[30:25] that end up going to Glencoe,

[30:27] And there, Glenn was getting actually one of the biggest

[30:29] investment in the whole package that we're doing.

[30:34] But what's really important is for you all to publicly

[30:38] support the bond, to encourage your residents

[30:41] and community members to vote yes.

[30:44] I think that there's probably about two thirds

[30:47] of community members that don't have children

[30:49] that are in the schools.

[30:51] And so sometimes that is a gap for us to try

[30:54] to encourage our other community members

[30:56] to know why this investment in schools is really important and so I'm here to

[31:01] answer any questions regarding advocacy and our efforts but we'll be out in the

[31:05] community here in Cornelius, North Plains and Hillsboro going to back to

[31:10] school nights and talking to parents and just continuing to share what are

[31:15] the projects that are going to be happening especially because a lot of it

[31:18] I think are not as visible as like the last one I know you had one in with

[31:25] It's the City of Forest Grove and you had a big build.

[31:29] And so these are like, you know,

[31:31] the things that maybe aren't seen as much

[31:33] like a new roof, HVAC, security, a playground upgrade.

[31:37] And so we really need to communicate

[31:38] what it is that is happening with this bond.

[31:42] We're ready for questions.

[31:44] Council, questions?

[31:46] Council, good news?

[31:47] Yes, I appreciate you all coming out here today.

[31:52] I noticed in the back it says just from

[31:54] initial polling results and I'm curious,

[31:56] When you do these polling, who exactly are you polling to get this data?

[32:01] Yeah, so actually there have been two polls done, one in February and one again at the beginning of August,

[32:08] and each time what they do is look at historical voting patterns

[32:14] and who among registered voters is a likely voter in a November even-year non-presidential election.

[32:24] So we utilize consultants that help us drill down on that data and they make sure that it has the same,

[32:32] even though there's only 400 people responding to the survey, that the breakdown of who they end up talking to

[32:39] matches who the likely voter pool is going to be in a November 26 election.

[32:45] And both times, we had a value around making sure that all of our survey administrators

[32:55] could speak English and Spanish.

[32:57] People were given the opportunity to respond in their language of preference, which was

[33:01] really important to us.

[33:03] And the results are within 4.9 plus or minus margin of error.

[33:09] Okay.

[33:10] So you all feel confident that it will pass?

[33:13] Well, you know, to be quite honest.

[33:15] We saw a little bit of a softening of support in the August polling versus the February but

[33:20] If we think about everything that's happened since February, there's a lot of geopolitical unrest

[33:26] There's a lot of uncertainty around

[33:28] gas prices and the cost of food and what's going to happen next with tariffs and things like that so any kind of

[33:35] taxation measure

[33:36] Even one where we are able to share a message that hey

[33:41] We're just kind of trying to keep things the same and even maybe save money over what you've paid historically

[33:47] It's you know people still focus on their own personal situation and

[33:54] That's understandable so but we still do I mean the polling does still support

[33:59] Path to victory. It's just really important that we get

[34:03] Information out there and answer as many questions that people have as we possibly can and just make sure that awareness is there

[34:10] and so that people actually get out and vote.

[34:12] Yeah, absolutely.

[34:14] I know that on the offside, I am supporting this as my own thing.

[34:21] But I'm curious to, if you all have thought about,

[34:26] in the case that this doesn't pass,

[34:28] what are the backup plans?

[34:31] So in order to make sure that the rate doesn't just

[34:36] completely drop next fall, which would be the fall of 27. We could go out again in May

[34:42] of 27, so that's one more opportunity to kind of take advantage of that ability to keep

[34:50] the rates stable. And if for some reason it didn't pass at that point, then our efforts

[34:55] would be having to take them from what now has become a much lower rate and seeing

[35:02] if they'd be willing to go up from there, so, yeah.

[35:07] I just wanted to say that we get that question also when we're talking to people, and one

[35:12] of the things that is really important that Beth mentioned earlier is that we don't have

[35:17] general funds to make these things, so if an HVAC system breaks, we're going to have

[35:21] to take money from our general fund because it has to be fixed.

[35:24] If there's a leak in the roof, we're going to have to take that, and so that takes

[35:27] away from programming for kids and it takes away from the salary. That's our biggest expense.

[35:33] So it ultimately like it does have an impact in our district where we have to pay for it

[35:39] somehow and it's going to impact learning.

[35:42] That's a very good point. Thank you so much. That's helpful.

[35:48] Yes. Councillor Gonzalez.

[35:51] You mentioned that for those that don't have children in school, how have you if

[35:58] If you've had the opportunity, how have you encouraged them to vote for this?

[36:03] Yeah, so part of our strategy to do that is we are raising, doing some fundraising because

[36:10] it costs money to pass this.

[36:12] So we have to look at, like Beth said, we look at who are likely voters.

[36:17] We try to send out postcards to people ahead of the election time.

[36:22] We also do door knocking.

[36:24] We have also consultants that we're working with that we try to figure out who is a likely voter in a non-presidential election

[36:31] It's gonna end and target those doors because our

[36:35] Universe of voters because our district is so large. It's like Cornelius North points

[36:40] We do not have like the physical bodies to possibly knock

[36:44] So we have to be very targeted at who might likely vote this time around

[36:49] So there's a lot of strategy behind who we're targeting and what kind of things we're using

[36:54] but a lot of it also is going into the schools and kind of galvanizing parents and

[37:00] having them also share with their neighbors and provide materials for them to be that kind of testimony for us in the community.

[37:09] A different angle to answer your question and this is a little bit pie in the sky

[37:15] but public education is such a cornerstone of our democracy and that's really why it was created

[37:22] many years ago and it's always been a pay it forward system where you benefit from it

[37:30] when you're a child and or you're a family that does have children in school and you're really

[37:36] grateful to the 70% of community members who aren't in your shoes and they're contributing

[37:42] to it as well. So it really is just reminding people that this is a community value that

[37:48] we hold. These are historic investments. This is what our community does is we're supportive

[37:54] of schools, we're supportive of students. These students become our future workforce.

[37:58] So really focusing on that aspect of it also, when schools are safer and students

[38:08] students are engaged in activities, the community becomes safer, right?

[38:12] So there are ancillary benefits and our school facilities quite honestly aren't just for students

[38:17] in schools, they're used by community groups all the time for various activities.

[38:23] So in our last bond we built standalone gyms at eight of our elementary schools that

[38:29] had keffa gymitoriums and we built those to a seismic standard that would allow immediate

[38:34] occupancy after an earthquake, for example.

[38:36] And so those can be emergency shelters for the broader community.

[38:41] We have agreements with American Red Cross and I think fire departments that allow our

[38:47] school buildings to be temporary shelters in the case of apartment fires or other things.

[38:52] I know that those agreements have been activated in the past.

[38:56] So really just if they'll give us enough time to talk to them, then we can share

[39:01] all the different ways that it really benefits the broader community, not just current families.

[39:06] with kids. Thank you. I appreciate that. I think it's important for the community to

[39:12] see that perspective. If they don't have kids, how else are the school district

[39:18] is contributing to the community? Thank you. Thank you.

[39:23] I know that November is just around the corner, but if we have

[39:29] community members or anyone listening that wanted to volunteer or help out,

[39:33] How might they do that?

[39:36] Yes, that is amazing question.

[39:38] Thank you so much.

[39:40] We are gathering right now a website.

[39:45] We have also Yes for Hillsboro Schools.com.

[39:48] It's called Yes for HillsboroSchools.com.

[39:50] If you go on our website, you're

[39:52] going to be able to find resources about the advocacy.

[39:55] And we're going to have volunteer sign up.

[39:57] And we're also going to be recruiting

[39:59] at all the events that we attend to.

[40:01] We're going to be asking people if they could help out.

[40:04] And if you are all interested in helping out,

[40:06] I would love to have you at Back to School Nights.

[40:10] That would be really helpful as well.

[40:14] Thank you.

[40:15] Councilor Baker?

[40:17] Yeah, I endorse this.

[40:19] I am full of support of this, partially

[40:23] because of the lawyer rates.

[40:25] I think that's easier so to the community.

[40:29] but during the May a lot of these school bonds failed.

[40:35] One of the school bonds I think of is for Canby and that was,

[40:41] you can, there was arguments that this was needed.

[40:47] You're lucky enough to not have a GAC stacks on top of in the November ballot

[40:57] but because a lot of people were anti-tax, were motivated.

[41:03] This is a really tough sell.

[41:06] You're doing a lot, and there's a lot of good things.

[41:11] And that's when you have so much,

[41:15] it's hard to sell just one item.

[41:19] It just gets muddled.

[41:23] I wish the best of luck for you.

[41:27] This is a really good thing.

[41:30] Having working HVAC, working a roof, programming,

[41:36] because these are things that students need to thrive.

[41:41] It's not something the state think of when they think of education.

[41:47] And when we think about taxes,

[41:52] is, there's people who think what they're paying is enough and they overestimate the

[42:03] state willingness and actually the actual ability to give in funding.

[42:13] At one point in our state history, schools were fully funded by our community.

[42:19] that got changed during the tax revolt in Proposition 5 where the state should have

[42:29] stepped in and that's not happening in the current levels needed. So I'm as a

[42:39] political science student and someone who really want to get out there

[42:46] volunteer, I'm happy to help out. Just let me know. Thank you. Thank you. I will

[42:54] reach out. Very good. Yeah, it's it's a tough one because you're not selling

[43:01] anything sexy like we did for Scrova New School, right? It's we'd like to keep

[43:05] the heat on, right? We'd like to keep the roof from leaking. So it's a

[43:10] little tougher sale. So I'll continue to talk with people and I think all

[43:15] council will talk to people and you know share the information right and we think that's one of the

[43:21] best things we can do is just to get people to look at it these are this is a funding mechanism

[43:28] to do the repairs and the upgrades that are necessary to keep the schools running you know

[43:34] for the kids so I think that's what we can do is be advocates in the neighborhoods and the

[43:40] grocery stores at the local restaurant we talked to folks that helps to just

[43:45] spread the good word. Councillor Girdiness. Do you all have any why am I forgetting the

[43:52] name the liars not just the flyers the yard signs the yard signs okay yeah just

[43:59] let us know or let me know when you get any of those and happy to reach out to

[44:03] community and help make that get the word out so appreciate it. Any other

[44:08] Are there questions?

[44:10] See none?

[44:11] Thank you very much for making the trip out.

[44:12] I have a safe travel back now that it's getting darker.

[44:15] I appreciate the time.

[44:17] Thank you very much.

[44:17] Thank you.

[44:21] Okay, next up, we have a proclamation

[44:24] for Food Waste Prevention Week.

[44:26] Let me get to the right page here.

[44:33] Okay, City of Cornelius, Oregon, proclamation.

[44:37] Food Waste Prevention Week, September 28th

[44:40] to October 4th, 2026.

[44:42] whereas up to 35% of food produced is thrown away rather than eaten.

[44:48] Safe and nutritious food that is currently thrown away could help address hunger in our communities

[44:53] and whereas we all benefit from better utilization of food resources

[44:57] and whereas a family for

[45:00] Labor can save on average $1,800 on uneaten food annually, and whereas a K-12 school and

[45:08] universities play a special role in educating the next generation to reduce, recover, and

[45:14] recycle food. And whereas we have the opportunity to save shared resources, including land, water,

[45:22] and energy, used to produce, transport, and dispose of food that goes uneaten. And whereas

[45:28] As food and landfills decomposes slowly, releases methane gas, which contributes to climate change.

[45:36] And whereas the City of Cornelius has developed residential curbside and business food scrap

[45:41] composting programs, and recently brought food scrap composting to all city facilities.

[45:48] Now therefore, we the Cornelius City Council do hereby proclaim the week of September 28th

[45:55] October 4th, 2026 Food Waste Prevention Week in Cornelis, and we encourage all community

[46:02] members to commit to reducing wasted food. Day to the safe day is September 2026, Jeffrey

[46:08] C. DeLane, Mayor of Cornelis. Next takes us to our Hispanic Heritage Month. And would

[46:19] someone in the council like to read the Spanish version which we have up first?

[46:22] Thank you, Councillor Gondines.

[46:25] Ciudad de Cornelius, Oregon, proclamación para la celebración del mes de la herencia

[46:32] hispana, considerando que el mes nacional de la herencia hispana, un mes de la herencia

[46:37] hispana, se observa cada año del 15 de septiembre al 15 de octubre para honorar las contribuciones

[46:44] y la rica herencia cultural de las comunidades hispanas y latinas y considerando que el

[46:52] El 15 de septiembre es una fecha significativa ya que marca el aniversario de dependencia de Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras y Nicaragua, con México y Chile celebrando su dependencia el 16 y el 18 de septiembre respectivamente.

[47:10] Y considerando que los hispanos y latinos representan aproximadamente el 14% de la población

[47:19] de Oregon y casi el 51% de la población de Cornelias, reflejando en una comunidad vibrante

[47:26] y el crecimiento que Enrique significativamente el tejido cultural de nuestra ciudad y considerando

[47:35] que la comunidad hispana y latinos en Cornelias es conocido por su espíritu emprendedor

[47:43] y liderazgo comunitario y los negocios de propiedad hispana en el condado de Washington

[47:50] han mostrado un crecimiento notable contribuyendo significamente a la economía local y ahora

[47:59] por lo tanto nosotros el Consejo Municipal de la Ciudad de Cornelias Orgen

[48:04] reclamamos del 15 de septiembre de 2016 al 15 de octubre del 2026 como el mes de la

[48:13] herencia hispana en reconocimiento a las importantes contribuciones de la

[48:18] comunidad hispana y para reafirmar nuestro compromiso con la unidad y el

[48:23] Respeto y la apreciación cultural.

[48:28] Fechado este día 8 de septiembre de 2026,

[48:32] Jeffrey C. Delane.

[48:35] Thank you.

[48:37] City of Cornia's Oregon Proclamation.

[48:39] In celebration Hispanic Heritage Month.

[48:42] Where is the National Hispanic Heritage Month?

[48:46] Or Mese Dele,

[48:48] Morencia Espanol, Espaná, Espaná, is observed each year from September 15th to October 15th

[48:57] to honor the contributions and rich cultural heritage of Hispanic and Latinx communities,

[49:03] and whereas September 15th is significant as it marks the anniversary of independence

[49:08] for Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, with Mexico and Chile

[49:14] celebrating their independence on September 16th and 18th respectively.

[49:19] Whereas Hispanic and Latinx people represent approximately 14% of Oregon's and nearly 51%

[49:26] of Cornelius population, reflecting a vibrant and growing community that significantly enriches

[49:32] our community's cultural fabric.

[49:34] And whereas the Hispanic and Latinx communities in Cornelius are known for their entrepreneurial

[49:38] spirit and community leadership, and Hispanic-owned businesses in Washington County have

[49:44] seen notable growth contributing significantly to local economy. And now, therefore, we,

[49:50] the City Council of Cornelius-Oregon, do hereby proclaim the period of September 15,

[49:57] 2026 through October 15, 2026 as Hispanic Heritage Month in recognition of the significant

[50:06] contributions of the Hispanic community and to reaffirm our dedication to unity, respect

[50:12] and cultural appreciation dated the safe day of September 2026 Jeffrey C.

[50:18] Delaney, Mayor of Cornelis. Okay, that takes us on to our public hearing. Let's

[50:28] see.

[50:32] Get out of my way.

[50:36] Okay, now is the time and place for a public hearing on

[50:39] ordinance number 2026-06. An amendment of the Cornelis Municipal Code

[50:46] chapter 18.75. Gateway makes use his own. The city file number is CMCA 2026-01. The

[50:56] city council decision on this amendment will be based upon the record, staff

[51:01] report, and testimony and evidence presented in this hearing. I now open

[51:06] the hearing.

[51:09] The order of business on this application will be as follow.

[51:16] The

[51:16] members of the audience in person and virtually who wish to speak on the proposal, applicants

[51:22] rebuttal, staff closing remarks, close the hearing and begin deliberation.

[51:29] The applicable criteria for this amendments are Cornius Municipal Code, CMC 1.05.110,

[51:38] Amendment and Repeal of Code Sections,

[51:42] CMC 18.125, Amendments to the Zoning Ordinance,

[51:47] and Stateway Planning Goals.

[51:49] Testimonies, Arguments, and Evidence

[51:51] must be directed towards the listed criteria

[51:56] or other criteria in the Comprehensive Plan

[51:58] or Cornelius Municipal Code,

[52:01] which the person believes to apply to the decision.

[52:04] Evidence means FACTS, Documents,

[52:06] data or other information offered to demonstrate compliance or non-compliance with the standards

[52:12] believed by the proponent to be relevant to the decision.

[52:16] Do any members of the City Council have any potential conflicts of interest, bias or

[52:22] ex parte communication with regard to the proposed action?

[52:32] Just to be on the safe side, I am a former planning commissioner.

[52:37] a discussion of this property happened when it

[52:45] happened,

[52:47] but I am unbiased.

[52:51] Okay, thank you.

[52:53] Anyone else?

[52:56] I know I've read many things about this property,

[52:59] seen many actions about this property,

[53:02] so I'm just letting folks know that,

[53:04] but I don't think that's gonna affect my ability

[53:07] to operate unbiased and look at the facts

[53:10] and findings.

[53:13] Okay? If you do believe you're without actual bias or without,

[53:20] would you like to step down from the council during this case? And I think

[53:23] Councillor Baker and myself both acknowledged we don't plan to step down.

[53:27] Would any member of the audience like to challenge the right of any city

[53:31] councillor to hear the matter before them for reason of conflict of

[53:36] interest, bias, or ex parte contact?

[53:41] Seeing none, staff will now present the

[53:44] staff report and application. Barbara thank you.

[53:52] Good evening. I have a

[53:55] PowerPoint and hopefully City Manager Brandon will queue it up for me.

[54:02] So thank

[54:04] you Mr. Mayor and Council. This amendment as noted is the Gateway Mixed

[54:10] Use Zone Amendment. In this graphic you'll see an aerial photo of the area

[54:18] outlined in pink. It's kind of hard to see. The same pink is on both graphics. The

[54:25] Council Creek Regional Trail that will be over the rail line is to the north.

[54:31] Baseline or TV Highway is on the south. North 26th Avenue borders the zone on

[54:38] the east and 20th and 19th avenues border the western boundary of this

[54:44] zone.

[54:47] If you're looking at the pink map, number one is Plaza Las Amigos.

[54:52] Number two is all of the Calida development and that's 378 residential apartment units.

[55:02] Number three is the PGE substation.

[55:06] Number four is the, there's a church in that location.

[55:11] Number five is Zipley Fiber.

[55:14] Number six is a strip mall that has a number of businesses within it.

[55:18] Number seven is the Panda Express.

[55:23] Number eight, I put the number deliberately close to baseline

[55:27] because that's where the gas station is.

[55:29] That's the auto-oriented business right there.

[55:34] Number nine is Burger King.

[55:35] and number 10 is the Heaney family property that is actually now owned by Tom

[55:42] Moyer Jr. and we'll talk about that in a little bit. So the Heaney property has

[55:50] approval for 240 apartment units.

[55:56] So when this site was developed in 2019 or when

[56:00] the zone was developed in 2019 there was a large process that went through

[56:05] public review. And these three were different alternatives that were looked at.

[56:12] The yellow is where housing was intended and the red was where commercial

[56:17] development was intended.

[56:21] Alternative three was chosen to for further review

[56:24] and again residential is yellow slash orangeish color. The red is considered

[56:31] commercial or retail. Blue was looked at for office. Purple for hotels. I think it's only

[56:40] in the far right corner that they looked at a hotel. And then anywhere that it's green

[56:48] was intended to be open space. And from that, this composite was developed. And to orient

[56:58] at you this line that is in this graphic that's yellow is Davis Street going east west and

[57:08] it's a collector and then North or South, yeah, North 26th Avenue which is also a collector.

[57:17] And then the internal street that people know as the Fred Meyer driveway is this orange

[57:28] one that just came in. So you can see that additional development was identified as being

[57:35] possible on the Fred Meyer property and the Kalita property and the Haney property.

[57:48] So

[57:50] the final proposal that went through in 2019 and was approved identified three different

[57:58] types of zones in this overall zone. A was basically north of Davis Road and it was intended

[58:08] to be 100% residential. B was intended to be no more than 50% ground floor residential.

[58:19] So you could have as much residential as you wanted but only 50% of it could be on

[58:24] the ground floor so you could have commercial on the bottom and much more on top. Area C

[58:30] was intended to be 100% commercial. The transportation system plan included the extension of Davis

[58:40] from an east to a, or eastward from North 19th

[58:47] all the way to 26th Avenue.

[58:51] In 20, 24,

[58:58] no, 2025, we amended the zone

[59:03] to add in some additional definitions

[59:08] that were created in legislation that said that we had to allow affordable housing and

[59:17] a higher height for that affordable housing if it was built.

[59:25] And then also in Area B, we modified the ratio of ground floor residential if a developer

[59:37] or could demonstrate that the economy was not such that a mix of uses would work or

[59:47] would pencil, the Planning Commission could choose to allow 100% residential or 100% commercial.

[59:57] So that's still there.

[1:00:00] Then, so that's where we are today.

[1:00:05] The number of auto-oriented businesses in Cornelius has increased significantly.

[1:00:13] We have 37 total along TV Highway. There are more outside of the window of TV Highway,

[1:00:21] but along the Highway itself there are 37, and that includes restaurants and coffee shops that are drive-through.

[1:00:28] They may have an internal component, but they're drive-throughs.

[1:00:32] Gas stations with car washes, or we have standalone car washes.

[1:00:38] We have auto sales and we bunched in tractor sales,

[1:00:44] because you don't get there unless you're in a car or a truck.

[1:00:50] Drive-through banks, and we included the two ATM machines that are drive-up

[1:00:58] and then auto repair businesses.

[1:01:01] So that could be tires, it could be body shops,

[1:01:06] windows, et cetera.

[1:01:09] So total 37, and then up those 37,

[1:01:16] five have been built recently.

[1:01:19] And what I mean by recently is since I've been here,

[1:01:22] so in the last five years,

[1:01:23] and most of them have been built in the last two and a half, three years.

[1:01:30] And a new auto-oriented use was just submitted last week, not in this area,

[1:01:38] but it was submitted last week, has been deemed incomplete,

[1:01:41] but we expected to be complete and go forward to Planning Commission in November.

[1:01:46] So we wanted to get an idea of how does this compare to other similarly populated cities.

[1:01:57] So I picked these cities, Solagrand, Prineville, Pendleton, Cornelius, Sandy, Coosbey, Troutdale,

[1:02:06] and I included our partners to the west because they're our neighbor.

[1:02:13] I didn't include Heelsboro because you can see Forest Grove is a lot more populated

[1:02:17] than we are and Hillsborough is even more so.

[1:02:21] And you'll note that along the bottom,

[1:02:24] not only is there name listed,

[1:02:26] but the various freeways or highways

[1:02:28] that are associated with that town is along that line.

[1:02:35] So this is just a population graphic.

[1:02:38] So you can see that Cornelius is kind of middle

[1:02:42] of the road with everybody else, right?

[1:02:45] Then, if we look at the

[1:02:50] number of auto-oriented businesses per 10,000 people, we're doing

[1:02:59] okay.

[1:03:00] Well, kind of.

[1:03:01] If you exclude LeGrand, Primeville, and Pendleton because they are so rural that they're the

[1:03:09] attractor for these type of businesses and you look at Cornelius, Sandy, Coos Bay

[1:03:15] and Troutdale. Wow, we have a lot compared to everybody else. And then if you

[1:03:23] look at the number of businesses per square mile of the city, you'll see

[1:03:31] that we even exceed all those rural towns that are auto-oriented and serve a rural community.

[1:03:44] Then if you look at it per highway mile, we also exceed everyone else.

[1:03:52] And I dropped Forest Grove off the per highway mile because they have so few.

[1:03:58] It skews the graphic and it's hard to read.

[1:04:01] So theirs is even smaller than Coos Bay.

[1:04:09] So you can see that Cornelius is still heads and tails above everybody else.

[1:04:18] And then if you look at these two graphs together,

[1:04:23] you see, again, the population and the various highways that are related to that city.

[1:04:30] And then the three graphics together,

[1:04:34] so the medium green is the businesses per 10,000 people.

[1:04:40] And again, it's only along the ribbons of highways

[1:04:45] that are identified for that city.

[1:04:48] Then the businesses per square mile,

[1:04:53] again, only those businesses that are auto-oriented

[1:04:55] along the ribbons per total square mile of that city.

[1:04:59] and then the businesses per highway mile.

[1:05:03] You can see that Cornelius is really up there

[1:05:08] in almost every measure except the businesses per 10,000.

[1:05:17] So we thought of this as an issue and, excuse me,

[1:05:22] so we proposed an amendment.

[1:05:25] And this amendment only applies to the gateway mixed use area that was in the pink in the first graphic.

[1:05:37] And these are the different aspects that are proposed for change.

[1:05:44] We would specifically allow for continuation of the existing uses.

[1:05:48] So if Panda or Burger King or the Fred Meyer gas station needed

[1:05:55] to change for any reason, they could do so within their existing tax lot.

[1:06:02] So we're not saying that they have to go away or we're not saying that they have to downsize

[1:06:09] or change in any manner.

[1:06:11] And we're not limiting these types of developments anywhere else in the city.

[1:06:18] that is not currently prohibited.

[1:06:21] There are over 12 and a half acres

[1:06:24] that could be used for auto-oriented uses

[1:06:26] that are not within this zone,

[1:06:29] but are within the highway commercial zone

[1:06:31] where it's more appropriate.

[1:06:35] We also put a limitation on the size

[1:06:38] of a new single tenant use.

[1:06:41] And the intent of that is if you looked

[1:06:44] at the very first graphics,

[1:06:45] The tenant sizes are smaller, and they're intended to have things like multiple businesses in one building.

[1:06:56] And I did research on various smaller format retail, and as an example,

[1:07:07] Trader Joe's are typically 15,000 square feet or smaller, so we capped it at 15,000 square feet.

[1:07:15] You could have a building that's bigger, but it needs to have multiple tenants.

[1:07:19] It shouldn't be just one tenant.

[1:07:22] And this promotes walking and getting out of your car and moving around instead of just one tenant.

[1:07:30] We prohibited new drive-up windows, drive-ins, or drive-throughs for all types of businesses,

[1:07:37] not just fast food.

[1:07:40] It's for everything.

[1:07:42] We prohibited new sales service repair storage

[1:07:46] or fueling of motorized vehicles.

[1:07:50] We set a clear minimum density for multi-unit housing

[1:07:53] and single-unit housing in the code.

[1:07:56] It didn't have it before.

[1:07:59] We added limited manufacturing related to sales and eating.

[1:08:03] So if somebody wanted to put in a brew pub,

[1:08:06] we would allow that with the accompanying stuff

[1:08:11] or a cidery or soap making or anything like that.

[1:08:17] It removes light industrial uses and planned unit developments as conditional uses.

[1:08:24] It codifies the two existing businesses of the utility businesses and allows them to

[1:08:40] continue as they are currently today. It modified service stations field

[1:08:46] distribution and utilities to existing. We had a comment from one of our

[1:08:51] commissioners that requested that we add EV charging to commercial parking lots as

[1:08:57] a permitted use. We clarified building height and outdoor storage and display

[1:09:04] marijuana prohibition and RVs, all of those things are prohibited except that RVs can

[1:09:14] be in the backyard of a townhouse, although I'm not sure how you'd get it in the backyard

[1:09:19] of a townhouse, but the intent was not to have big RVs on the street.

[1:09:28] We moved that sub-district map that you saw to the beginning of the code instead of at the end so that it's clear as you're reading it.

[1:09:38] And then we had multiple sections that had residential design requirements and we grouped them in one area.

[1:09:47] And then those that are common to commercial, residential or mixed use, we grouped so that it was clear what applied to which land use.

[1:10:01] We provided adequate public notice.

[1:10:06] The proposal meets the criteria.

[1:10:08] area.

[1:10:11] We received one letter of comment from Brooke Sobert, who is a real estate agent

[1:10:20] for the Haney property that's now owned by Tom Moyer, Jr., and she provided a real estate

[1:10:29] flyer and a concept plan for this area. There is an approved development of 230 apartment

[1:10:37] on the northern tax lot, and the request was to allow the southern tax lot to have the ability

[1:10:51] through a conditional use permit to get a drive-through drive-in drive-up restaurant.

[1:10:58] We provided the code with that alternative as an alternative to the Planning Commission.

[1:11:05] The Planning Commission chose not to add that recommended text or not the recommended text.

[1:11:14] The alternate text, they chose not to recommend it to City Council.

[1:11:19] So the drive-in, drive-up, drive-through fast food restaurant would be prohibited throughout the zone as originally intended by staff.

[1:11:29] staff.

[1:11:36] So staff and the planning commission recommends the city council hold a public

[1:11:40] hearing and adopt ordinance number 2026-06 approving the Cornelius Municipal Code Amendment

[1:11:49] 2026-01 as shown in exhibit A of your ordinance. And time is of the essence in this amendment

[1:12:00] as additional auto-oriented development may be proposed along the corridor in this location.

[1:12:08] I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

[1:12:12] Answer, Gerdinus.

[1:12:15] Oh, I saw you going. Are you going for it?

[1:12:19] Now you have to ask one.

[1:12:21] That was very thorough. I think it also helped that Peter and I had our check-in on Thursday,

[1:12:28] and this came up as a topic, so we kind of talked about it.

[1:12:32] So I really don't have any questions other than it makes sense

[1:12:35] to want to keep this area for mixed use development

[1:12:42] with heavy use on the residential side

[1:12:44] and wanting to minimize any fast food places coming in.

[1:12:47] I think we can all agree that Cornelius

[1:12:49] has a lot of fast food places.

[1:12:51] And I really appreciate you not just focusing on fast food

[1:12:54] but really thinking of all of the businesses

[1:12:56] that you have a drive-in feature

[1:12:58] or auto-related business attached to it.

[1:13:02] And I think we can see that we skew

[1:13:03] very heavily compared to other cities.

[1:13:05] So it would make sense that specifically for this area,

[1:13:08] we have an idea of what we want it for

[1:13:10] and trying to make sure that the code reflects that.

[1:13:15] Good, thank you.

[1:13:17] Councilor Lopez.

[1:13:20] Yeah, likewise I definitely enjoyed reading this in the packet

[1:13:25] it because I know we've discussed ways to attract more folks to come out to

[1:13:33] Cornelius and stay and I just drive by or go through a drive through and

[1:13:38] actually you know spend some time here and so I definitely enjoyed reading this

[1:13:42] and I'm excited by the possibility so thank you.

[1:13:50] Yes, answer good solace.

[1:13:53] I have a question on the Gateway Mixed U-Zone.

[1:13:57] What other areas of a highway aid would qualify under Gateway Mixed U-Zone?

[1:14:04] So right now, the study that was done in 2019 was only applied to this one area.

[1:14:12] We also have a mixed use zone in our town center, so in downtown Cornelius.

[1:14:19] it is basically, let's see, south of Adair,

[1:14:35] all the way to 10th, there are a couple parcels

[1:14:39] that straddle 10th south of Baseline,

[1:14:43] but I think there's only two of those.

[1:14:46] And then it comes across,

[1:14:48] includes the railroad pieces south of the railroad and then it jumps north to the

[1:14:57] railroad and continues.

[1:15:00] I'm used to 14th and extends north on 14th back to Adair, so that is another mixed use

[1:15:12] zone that we have in the city. But other than that, we don't have any other mixed use zones.

[1:15:19] Would our biggest one be this one that you presented today, where the Fred Meyer is located?

[1:15:25] The one in the town center is actually bigger.

[1:15:29] It doesn't appear or seem bigger because it is highly developed today with smaller types of development.

[1:15:42] But it's actually bigger, maybe less vacancy than this area.

[1:15:49] Okay.

[1:15:50] Sounds good.

[1:15:51] Thank you.

[1:15:51] I

[1:15:58] don't because I remember the past discussions.

[1:16:06] I'll chime in.

[1:16:08] So it's good to have the change in ownership now because now it's not my college roommate's family's property anymore.

[1:16:17] So small world.

[1:16:20] But the one concern I saw actually in our changes is the reduction in the light industrial.

[1:16:26] Can you talk about why we're taking a current light industrial facility off the roles as

[1:16:34] an opportunity since that's what's actually there today?

[1:16:38] That's a very good question.

[1:16:40] We do have other light industrial areas and then we have the heavy industrial area around

[1:16:46] the Kodiak Circle area and there's a lot of vacancy in that industrial area that

[1:16:53] could be used for industrial development.

[1:16:55] We also have the area that could come into the city limits when the property

[1:17:04] owners decide the time is right.

[1:17:08] 56 acres total but 50 acres are

[1:17:12] developable in that area north. The current light industrial area it was

[1:17:22] the former hazelnut plant, I believe, and does serve as kind of a yard for various businesses.

[1:17:34] There are several in that location.

[1:17:36] It's not to say they can't continue as they are today.

[1:17:41] It's that if any development happens on that property, it should be something different.

[1:17:45] And with a continued industrial use there, it would be less likely that other residential would be developed,

[1:17:57] and it would limit the cohesiveness of the pedestrian environment for that area.

[1:18:05] The light industrial storage unit facility that's to the north of this property

[1:18:13] continues to stay light industrial zoning.

[1:18:17] None of the zoning is changing,

[1:18:18] it's just the uses that are permitted in that zone.

[1:18:24] Okay, so redevelopment would be limited

[1:18:28] by the light industrial,

[1:18:29] but the continued use of the existing light industrial.

[1:18:32] Yeah, because I know exactly what you mean

[1:18:34] is some of that drives by there many times a week

[1:18:37] because they live right by it.

[1:18:40] It's a lot of parking.

[1:18:43] There's really not a lot of industrial use that's mostly just parking now back in the

[1:18:48] Haney lot.

[1:18:49] That's correct.

[1:18:50] So, okay.

[1:18:51] That was the only concern I had really on that one was taking a light industrial area

[1:18:57] off because maybe it could be developed into more, you know, like, you know, what I've

[1:19:04] talked about many times is it wouldn't be great if we had more small shop space,

[1:19:09] right?

[1:19:09] like the stuff we have up on holiday with equal manufacturing or those kind of or even in the

[1:19:16] boardwalk property where you've got several small buildings where you can have small businesses

[1:19:22] come in, develop and actually do family wage jobs. But unfortunately that's not what that

[1:19:29] property is really being used for. It's really being used as a parking lot for a

[1:19:32] bunch of people that come in and out of town.

[1:19:36] I can see their concern or want to still use that 26th corner property for something auto-oriented

[1:19:43] because that whole northeast side of 26th is kind of that way leading back into the theater with the new restaurants.

[1:19:51] But what would it stay as then if it just, it just couldn't be a drive through, but it could be some other type of non-oriented commercial.

[1:20:08] It could still be highway commercial, though, basically, right?

[1:20:10] It could still be commercial, you're right about that.

[1:20:14] What it would most likely go to would be either a strip mall, which would have several businesses

[1:20:24] in it, or a sit-down restaurant.

[1:20:28] Over time it could pretend, it's probably not big enough, but if they were to move

[1:20:32] the lot line, if the residential to the north doesn't end up getting built, they could

[1:20:38] move that lot line and potentially put a hotel there if at some point in the

[1:20:43] future it makes sense for a developer to develop a hotel here. So there are a

[1:20:50] number of other uses but again it wouldn't be an auto-oriented use and

[1:20:55] it's trying to get that if you saw the graphics from the first few slides

[1:21:00] trying to get that pedestrian orientation in that area. Yeah I know we

[1:21:07] We don't even have a hotel in town, right?

[1:21:12] So that's one of those, like, wow, imagine if we did.

[1:21:16] OK.

[1:21:17] Yeah, because it's a challenging property there to redevelop.

[1:21:23] I mean, it had the last developed property

[1:21:25] was fairly honest bonds out there in the front.

[1:21:28] That's been completely raised off the property.

[1:21:31] So I'm dating myself there.

[1:21:33] I mean, those have been around a while, remember it.

[1:21:39] Okay, I got no other questions.

[1:21:40] Anything else anybody else came up with?

[1:21:43] Okay.

[1:21:44] Thank you.

[1:21:45] Thank you, Steph.

[1:21:46] Is there anyone wishing to speak in favor of this proposal?

[1:21:52] Is there anyone wishing to speak in opposition to the proposal?

[1:21:57] Are there any other comments regarding this proposal?

[1:22:06] Yeah, did anybody come online?

[1:22:07] Yeah, thank you.

[1:22:09] Having had nothing else, I'm sure the staff does have no further rebuttal.

[1:22:14] The public hearing is officially closed.

[1:22:16] The city council will formulate findings and conclusions and take action by specific motion and vote.

[1:22:22] The motion will be for approval or denial by majority vote of those present.

[1:22:30] We have no unfinished business this evening.

[1:22:35] Surprise under new business ordinance number 2026-06.

[1:22:39] 6. Cornelia Municipal Code Amendment for the Gateway Mixed Use GMU Zone. No report. We've

[1:22:48] already had that and this will be a roll call vote. Is there anyone wishing to read the motions?

[1:22:55] I make a motion. I make a motion to approve ordinance number 2026-06 and ordinance of

[1:23:02] of the Cornelius City Council amending the Cornelius

[1:23:05] Municipal Goal chapter 18.75, Gateway-Mex-U zone.

[1:23:12] And this action takes effect immediately.

[1:23:15] Motion by Councillor Baker, do I have a second?

[1:23:19] Second.

[1:23:19] Second by Councillor Lopez.

[1:23:21] Any further discussion?

[1:23:24] Seeing none, I'm assuming well,

[1:23:27] since we'll do a roll call vote,

[1:23:29] those in favor will say aye.

[1:23:30] Those against will say nay and you'll be called by our city recorder. Thank you

[1:23:37] counselor Baker I

[1:23:41] Counselor council president Corina's Valencia. Hi

[1:23:45] Counselor Gonzales Pacheco. Hi. We are delaying. Hi

[1:23:50] Councilor Lopez. Hi. I

[1:23:53] Have it says a hundred percent on that one. Everybody's in support. Okay

[1:23:58] Hey, are we done?

[1:24:01] Just one roll call?

[1:24:02] That's all we got to do on this one?

[1:24:05] I'm used to having to have like two votes on an ordinance,

[1:24:08] especially the land use, okay.

[1:24:11] All right, that takes us to resolution number 202657,

[1:24:16] the Comcast franchise agreement.

[1:24:19] I don't see Miss Jones.

[1:24:21] Oh, you're gonna, you don't look like Miss Jones at all.

[1:24:23] There's any manager, Brennan.

[1:24:25] Thank you, Mayor and Council.

[1:24:28] Ellie's doing something more important with her family this evening.

[1:24:31] So as the alternate representative for the city on the Metro Area Communications Commission,

[1:24:36] I'll just provide a simple verbal summary.

[1:24:40] And so as I alluded, Ellie Jones represents Cornelius on the Metro Area Communications Commission,

[1:24:48] otherwise known as MAC, and I serve as alternate MAC administers,

[1:24:53] There's the Comcast Cable franchise on our behalf as a member of the MAC.

[1:24:58] The ten-year term of the current agreement expired and the renewal process took roughly

[1:25:03] four years.

[1:25:04] Most recently you approved a resolution last year to extend the current franchise agreement

[1:25:10] which was originally approved in July of 2015.

[1:25:15] So the process started in 2022 and included a needs assessment and discussion of several

[1:25:21] key areas including public education and government TV channels, otherwise known as PEG, public

[1:25:28] communications network services and rates, otherwise known as PCN, technical language

[1:25:34] related to auditing, line extensions, complimentary service, enforcement and insurance, among

[1:25:42] other things.

[1:25:44] The agreement before you was approved by the MAC members at their meeting on August

[1:25:48] is 28th and full approval requires unanimous adoption

[1:25:52] by the governing boards of all 15 member jurisdictions.

[1:25:56] We feel that the agreed terms represent a fair outcome

[1:25:59] for the city and Comcast.

[1:26:02] If approved, the new franchise will expire June 30th, 2036.

[1:26:08] And I just want to extend my appreciation to Mac staff

[1:26:13] and also Comcast for the DILGE obviously it took awhile

[1:26:18] There was a lot of back and forth, but we got there and so I appreciate everyone's efforts happy to answer any questions

[1:26:24] You might have

[1:26:27] Council any questions?

[1:26:33] Well seeing that I will just say that I wish that this was the first time it took years to settle this

[1:26:38] But in my 23 years, I think we were working on this when we want to first join council

[1:26:44] We were in negotiations with Comcast

[1:26:48] Over the cable franchise and got to sit through this a couple times now

[1:26:53] It's always years long to do this thing so net net what really changed around the peg and those kind of things?

[1:27:02] Was it after all that years of talk did things really change much?

[1:27:07] Mayor there are some substantive changes.

[1:27:11] I would say nothing major.

[1:27:13] I am not prepared to get into the details just because I haven't been front at you know in in that.

[1:27:22] So I don't have those off the top of my head.

[1:27:24] But overall, I will say that MAC staff feel that this is a, you know, a satisfactory,

[1:27:31] if not better than satisfactory outcome.

[1:27:34] And my understanding is that Comcast feels the same.

[1:27:38] So in a negotiation, obviously, if one site isn't totally beaten down,

[1:27:43] that's a good sign, and I think that's the case here.

[1:27:46] Okay.

[1:27:48] Any other questions, Council?

[1:27:50] Council. Seeing none, does someone wish to make the motion?

[1:27:54] I'll make a motion.

[1:27:55] Councilor Gondinus.

[1:27:56] I make a motion to approve Resolution Number 202657, a resolution of the Cornelia City

[1:28:01] Council granting a non-exclusive cable franchise to Comcast of Oregon to Inc., and this action

[1:28:08] takes effect immediately.

[1:28:10] Motion by Councilor Gondinus. Do I have a second?

[1:28:13] I second.

[1:28:14] Second by Councilor Gonzales. Any other questions? All those in favour, please say

[1:28:20] I. Opposed? Abstentions? That's unanimous. That takes us on to resolution number 202658,

[1:28:30] an Intergovernmental Agreement with Washington County for Natural Hazard Mitigation Planned

[1:28:36] Cost Share, and City Manager Brennan. Thank you, Mayor. So the Natural Hazard Mitigation

[1:28:44] plan, intergovernmental agreement with Washington County before you, is the result of an invitation

[1:28:51] that we receive from the county to participate in a multi-jurisdictional approach to this

[1:28:58] planning. The plan provides the tool for the county in participating cities and special

[1:29:03] districts to identify and reduce hazards associated with nature, including floods,

[1:29:09] floods, wildfires, earthquakes, and extreme weather.

[1:29:14] It also facilitates access to hazard reduction actions funding from federal agencies, namely FEMA.

[1:29:22] The plans must be updated every five years to maintain that eligibility.

[1:29:27] And the initial project approach was for the county to fund its development.

[1:29:33] However, the county did not receive grant funding as expected in order to do that.

[1:29:37] and so they came to the participating agencies to split that cost with the county taking 50%

[1:29:45] of that cost and the participating entities splitting the balance 50%.

[1:29:52] And so for us, that results in $5,250 contribution.

[1:29:59] We did a...

[1:30:00] We seek approval for that in the budget process, so we have planned for that money.

[1:30:04] Nine cities and seven special districts will participate in the process, and as the provider

[1:30:10] of fire medical response services within the territory of the Cornelius Rural Fire Protection

[1:30:16] District, we've worked with the district and agreed to represent, we will represent

[1:30:22] both the city and the district in the process. They don't have staff, and it's really

[1:30:27] not realistic for their board members to participate in the meetings and so forth and we can do

[1:30:32] that. So our chief Morris will represent both entities and for the city will have an alternate

[1:30:40] and that's Ryan how our public works operations manager when we feel good about this approach.

[1:30:48] And in the arrangement with the district, the city will support future district efforts

[1:30:53] efforts to access hazard mitigation grants because we'll be doing that for ourselves

[1:30:57] anyway so we can do that as well. And we have an existing agreement with the district that

[1:31:03] allows for cost share in those kinds of efforts so we can account for that as well. So happy

[1:31:08] to answer any questions.

[1:31:10] Council, any questions? Yes, Councillor Gonzalez.

[1:31:18] Just to confirm the, our cost of $5,250, that's yearly, annually?

[1:31:27] Thank you for that clarifying question.

[1:31:29] That's just, that will cover this planning process.

[1:31:32] So it's our share of the cost for the consultants who will be needed to facilitate the process.

[1:31:37] So that will satisfy, once the plan is finished, that will cover five years.

[1:31:42] Okay. And do we know why they weren't able to get FEMA funding? Or do we know where we can find that information if we don't have the answer to that?

[1:31:57] Yes. I can certainly ask the county staff. I don't think I ever did. My understanding is that some grant source that was anticipated either fell through or wasn't available, but I can get those details.

[1:32:10] Thank you.

[1:32:13] Any other questions?

[1:32:18] Great.

[1:32:19] With that in mind, is there anyone wishing to make the motion?

[1:32:24] I can make a motion.

[1:32:25] Council Lopez.

[1:32:27] I make a motion to approve resolution number 2026-58,

[1:32:32] a resolution of the Coronado City Council authorizing the city manager to sign

[1:32:37] an intergovernmental agreement with Washington County to participate

[1:32:41] in the multi-jurisdictional effort to develop a natural hazard mitigation plan and this

[1:32:50] action takes effect immediately.

[1:32:52] Motion by Councillor Lopez. Do I have a second?

[1:32:55] I second.

[1:32:56] Seconded by Councillor Baker. Any further discussion? Seeing none, all those in favour,

[1:33:01] please say aye.

[1:33:02] Aye.

[1:33:04] Opposed? Abstentions? Passed, unanimous.

[1:33:08] takes us into reports. City Council, does anyone have any reports tonight?

[1:33:13] Councillor Godinez. Yes, I do have a report just reminding everybody

[1:33:19] that students are back in school, so please be careful when you're driving out there

[1:33:23] and especially as it starts to get darker later in the day, just be mindful.

[1:33:29] I also just want to acknowledge that we continue to see, I sent our community,

[1:33:34] community, our community members being detained and so I just want to keep reiterating the

[1:33:39] message of making sure that our community knows their rights, that they know the PERC hotline

[1:33:47] or they have that number somewhere easily available to them and that also they talk

[1:33:54] to their family or community to sign up for ECHO which is the Equity Corpse of Oregon

[1:33:59] which will help connect them with a lawyer in case that something happens.

[1:34:04] It's better to get registered in their system before any detention happens

[1:34:09] because it's a lot harder to get the information needed

[1:34:12] and it can slow down the process if it's done after, but they're always there to support.

[1:34:19] And again, just knowing your rights, your right to remain silent

[1:34:21] and your right to a lawyer and your right to not have to sign anything.

[1:34:27] And I just want to remind everybody that we have our city website, which I believe is

[1:34:35] cornelliusor.gov slash immigration resources, which I know I'tsel has done a really good job

[1:34:42] making sure that she has put a lot of the resources that I've mentioned on there,

[1:34:46] as well as toolkits that the family should consider sitting down and filling out.

[1:34:51] I know it's not a conversation that everybody wants to have,

[1:34:54] but it's just important to make sure that in the case that anything does happen,

[1:34:58] you have things written down, everything from your child's insurance information,

[1:35:02] doctor, to who you would want, taking care of your kiddos,

[1:35:06] and how we can reach them and get that information. So, that's all for me. Thank you.

[1:35:12] Thank you. Other councillors? Councilor Lopez?

[1:35:15] Yeah. Thank you, Mayor.

[1:35:18] Earlier last month or mid-month, I got a chance to participate in National Night Out, thank

[1:35:24] you for the invitation, and yeah, it was nice to be out there, I had great conversations

[1:35:29] with local residents, and it was just a reminder that, you know, sometimes our community receives

[1:35:37] information differently and some people like to have conversations about it, they have

[1:35:42] questions. And it was nice going to them as opposed to expecting them to come here or show up at events.

[1:35:49] So I'd like to encourage more of that, more of us going to the community and just giving them access

[1:35:58] or the opportunity to ask questions. That was it. Thank you.

[1:36:02] Thank you. Thank you for representing us at that. I was unfortunately out of town.

[1:36:06] Otherwise I really liked National Night Out and was unfortunate that we were in the peak of a bad

[1:36:11] fire season and heat when original date occurred. Any other councillors with

[1:36:17] updates today? Yeah I was also there and staff couldn't get rid of me but it was

[1:36:25] great seeing the community come out. I know parking was difficult and but the

[1:36:33] The amount of community that showed up was just very happy because this was a rescheduled

[1:36:41] event and the biggest concern about rescheduling is that we focus a lot on the date and getting

[1:36:51] people to show up and getting the saving amount of people to realize these events

[1:37:02] change and be willing to show up is always a difficult thing. I will also

[1:37:12] like to say we're entering a I probably will repeat this in September and

[1:37:18] October but we are entering a pretty interesting midterm election. I like to

[1:37:27] I noticed because an incident with Jeanine Solman, our state senator, incident with her where

[1:37:35] a community member was, allegedly, was in her face and through her classes in a bush.

[1:37:49] I believe that was the reporting that came out and statements from our state center.

[1:38:00] Let's continue being respectful.

[1:38:03] Politics is a very high emotion thing.

[1:38:07] As someone who studies politics, watch, attend political events.

[1:38:15] these are high emotions because we are invested. We can't help it. I can't help it being really

[1:38:26] invested and what's going on and emotions get the best of us. So let's not get to a point

[1:38:39] where we're going into people faces because they're not willing to lessen,

[1:38:49] and I've seen it.

[1:38:52] I was also a legislative intern, so I was able to see the differences of approaches,

[1:39:01] behavior of aggressive in your face. Behavior doesn't always or majority

[1:39:12] time doesn't end up an outcome you wish will happen and it leaves people with a

[1:39:19] sour taste. So there's a lot of topics that will be a debating. There's going

[1:39:27] we have a lot of topics we have strong feelings about and which that heart

[1:39:33] outcome will be the best outcome or our outcome is what everyone is thinking

[1:39:40] about. So let's just please be respectful understand with of other

[1:39:52] people standing and that government is very complex.

[1:40:01] It's just how it is in the state of

[1:40:03] Oregon, federal level, county level, even municipal level.

[1:40:11] Janine Solman has lost her

[1:40:15] her midterm, and New Canada is going to step up, so I hope we show them respect that we

[1:40:31] will show to our own family.

[1:40:37] Thank you.

[1:40:38] Councillor, do you have anything this evening?

[1:40:41] No?

[1:40:42] Okay.

[1:40:42] I'll try to keep it short, basically continue to be involved with legislative agenda making

[1:40:49] through the Metropolitan Mayor's Consortium.

[1:40:52] Some of the other meetings were off for August, so no JPEC and no Washington County Coordinating

[1:41:00] Committee, so I'll leave it there.

[1:41:03] City Manager, do you have an update for us this evening?

[1:41:06] Thanks Mayor.

[1:41:06] I'll keep it brief as well.

[1:41:07] Well, I did take any opportunity when we get an unsolicited thanks from community member,

[1:41:14] and this is via our library director, Maria Aguilar, from mid-August.

[1:41:20] And this individual, I'm just going to read the message because it's really nice.

[1:41:24] I write to give you feedback on how much I appreciate your library, the services you

[1:41:28] provide, and the staff that coordinates it all and makes it happen.

[1:41:31] I have gained a lot of knowledge and understanding of the ever-changing world

[1:41:35] of technology.

[1:41:36] I find keeping up with the speedy advancement of technology to be very intimidating, stressful

[1:41:41] and confusing, but your staff has held my hand as they have taught me how to navigate

[1:41:46] through this tech.

[1:41:48] And Helica especially started me on this journey when I came in with a new phone and laptop

[1:41:52] because I didn't understand how to start and set up these devices.

[1:41:57] Since being organized is key to avoid getting lost and more confused in this maze of

[1:42:02] tech.

[1:42:02] I appreciate even more so the patience of Anhedaka.

[1:42:07] She taught me how to organize my notes and I am happy to report that I have improved greatly in this area as this skill has even spilled into other areas of my life.

[1:42:16] Plus with organization, skills comes logic. I benefited there too.

[1:42:21] I have also worked with many volunteers at your library and I have learned much from each one of them.

[1:42:27] I worry sometimes that they will tire out because I am not ready to graduate.

[1:42:31] I sure hope they don't because now with this whirlwind of AI, I feel like I went back to square one.

[1:42:37] Again, thank you for all the help and services you provide. I am grateful.

[1:42:43] I also wanted just briefly to recognize a very impactful crime event that happened on August 27th,

[1:42:52] and I want to thank Chief Coley and his team on the police side, and Chief Morris,

[1:42:56] and especially C-Shift in the fire department who were on that night, the

[1:43:02] county SWAT team led by Chief Coley and and the fire staff responded both to

[1:43:09] the the incident and the perpetrator and and all that was going on on that end

[1:43:14] as well as to the victim who really needed help and I'm just so

[1:43:19] incredibly thankful to all of them and you know honestly I wish they

[1:43:23] didn't have to experience those things but they're always there and we're grateful for

[1:43:27] that so thank you.

[1:43:35] Sorry I got a disturbing text there one of my friends just has been

[1:43:39] admitted to the hospital so no other updates staff no other updates this evening then at

[1:43:48] that point I will take a motion to adjourn and just to let people know we'll be going

[1:43:52] into a work session immediately following our regular session so counsel do I have

[1:43:58] a motion to adjourn our regular session.

[1:44:01] A motion to adjourn.

[1:44:02] Motion by Councillor Agoninas.

[1:44:04] Do I have a second?

[1:44:05] Second.

[1:44:06] Second by Councillor Lopez.

[1:44:08] All those in favor, please say aye.

[1:44:09] Aye.

[1:44:11] Opposed?

[1:44:12] Abstentions?

[1:44:13] Your adjourn to our work session.

[1:44:23] It's a cheat code.

[1:44:25] If you saw the list, it will really help.

[1:44:28] I'm gonna really do my best to kind of consolidate

[1:44:32] and kind of narrow us down.

[1:44:35] And so I'll just dive right in if that's okay.

[1:44:38] Yes, please.

[1:44:39] Okay.

[1:44:39] So the League of Oregon Cities have released the legislative priorities for seven different

[1:44:47] committees that they operate.

[1:44:49] And within those committees there are varying potential priorities that come out of that.

[1:44:56] So that the first thing that I'll say is that this doesn't mean that these

[1:45:00] Whatever priorities they identify with input from all the cities does not mean those are the only things that they'll be working on, but they would just like to know what, you know, what the main priorities are and work with that, so we do want to respond.

[1:45:15] And we are directly represented by myself on two of the seven committees, so one is housing, land use and community development, within which there are three identified priorities, and the other is finance, taxation and economic development,

[1:45:29] within which there are four.

[1:45:31] So again, a total of 27 priorities.

[1:45:33] We get to pick five.

[1:45:34] So I know that that was kind of fast.

[1:45:36] Any questions at this point?

[1:45:41] Okay.

[1:45:42] I don't see any.

[1:45:42] All right.

[1:45:44] So the remaining five committees,

[1:45:46] the balance of them are broadband,

[1:45:48] cybersecurity, AI, and telecommunications.

[1:45:51] There are five priorities there.

[1:45:53] General government, two priorities.

[1:45:55] Energy and environment, there are six.

[1:45:58] Transportation, three.

[1:45:59] and then water and wastewater, four priorities there.

[1:46:05] So again, we'll pick five.

[1:46:07] What I did here was extracted the four goals

[1:46:10] in our three-year city strategic plan

[1:46:12] to at least give us some basis there.

[1:46:14] I also inform my recommendations

[1:46:17] from all of the conversations that we have.

[1:46:20] So I've got a pretty good sense

[1:46:22] of where you are on things at this point.

[1:46:25] Maybe not so much, Councillor Gonzales-Pacheco

[1:46:28] at this point, but anyway, we'll work with that.

[1:46:30] I kind of just highlighted key words in these four goals.

[1:46:34] So the first one really focusing on economic development,

[1:46:37] public-private partnership, job creation, revenue expansion,

[1:46:42] and establishing local destinations or placemaking.

[1:46:46] The second one, community engagement,

[1:46:48] advocating for Cornelius.

[1:46:50] So figuring out ways that we can enlist community members

[1:46:53] to help us advocate for ourselves.

[1:46:56] The third one, expanding staff capacity,

[1:47:00] recruitment, training, and management in order to increase participation, build leaders,

[1:47:05] and enhance services.

[1:47:07] And then the fourth has to do with our community identity and unifying the public behind a

[1:47:13] common theme to instill civic pride.

[1:47:16] So that's just kind of a foundation.

[1:47:18] There are other things that, of course, we care about.

[1:47:20] There's a community vision plan and so forth, but wanted to kind of tie it here.

[1:47:24] So what I've done is I ticked through these.

[1:47:27] I'm really not going to try to do extensive summaries because I'm not really in the majority

[1:47:36] of the committees or don't really have the span to be able to do that, but I can speak

[1:47:42] to them in summary as you saw in the same materials that you received in your packet.

[1:47:47] I've bolded those that ultimately at the end I'll have a couple of summary slides that

[1:47:52] show these are the five that I think might be the ones that we want to respond.

[1:47:56] And so there's one here in this group.

[1:48:00] I'll focus on that. Maintain local control of a safe, modern right of way.

[1:48:05] And even going back to my prior role with another city, this is a constant issue.

[1:48:10] It's even more elevated in this federal administration, just the concept of taking away local authority from local governments.

[1:48:19] And so this is something that I think is important enough that we actually would select it as one of our five.

[1:48:24] If these others obviously very relevant to Cornelius as well, especially supporting equitable

[1:48:31] access to technology, supporting responsible municipal use of technology, et cetera.

[1:48:38] But again, where I land is teasing out, maintaining that local authority and control is very

[1:48:46] important.

[1:48:48] Within general government, Administrative Procedures Act reform, I had to educate

[1:48:53] myself a little bit on this, and that really has to do with rulemaking across state agencies.

[1:49:01] We have actually been at the front of one of these in terms of challenging rulemaking

[1:49:06] because of the negative impacts that it has on our community, and this generally will seek to

[1:49:13] establish more kind of parody in terms of how rulemaking is done across state agencies,

[1:49:18] agencies, which is really all over the map right now, establishing independent oversight

[1:49:22] and auditing and fiscal impact statements. That's another one. A lot of unfunded mandates

[1:49:29] coming and we do ultimately do get some grant funds for some things, but it's like a fire

[1:49:35] hose and we're just constantly, you know, kind of getting pummeled, to be honest,

[1:49:41] with rulemaking from various agencies.

[1:49:45] So this one, I put an asterisk there because ultimately I did not land on these as one of the five,

[1:49:52] but we may want to consider that.

[1:49:55] And then the other one in general government is public meetings, meetings, law, clarity.

[1:50:01] And I just didn't see that floating to the top amongst all the others.

[1:50:06] Next committee, housing, land use, and community development.

[1:50:09] even sitting on this committee, it's, honestly it's difficult to track all of it within this.

[1:50:17] You know, two of them have to do with funding for shelter and homeless response and housing production.

[1:50:26] For me, you know, a very big theme for us is land availability and land use streamlining.

[1:50:32] This one envisions work around that.

[1:50:35] So, a lot of changes have been made to the foundational land use laws, but there are

[1:50:45] other aspects that are really envisioned in this, including clarity and legal certainty

[1:50:51] for cities, clarifying wetland-related statutes and inventories for efficient in order of

[1:50:59] the urbanization of land within the urban growth boundary, streamlining urban growth

[1:51:04] growth boundary expansion and swap processes for residential, commercial, and industrial

[1:51:10] land, improving the process and land prioritization relative to urban reserves, which we don't

[1:51:19] have currently, but I think would benefit the whole system and then funding for technical

[1:51:25] assistance for code audits and updates to comply with new state statutes.

[1:51:32] At the end of the day, we're still locked by state law in terms of the urban growth

[1:51:37] boundary, but I do think any kind of proactive conversation and ultimately changes to the

[1:51:45] system are worth putting this one up as one of the five priorities.

[1:51:53] Energy and environment all, in my opinion, all laudable, important goals.

[1:52:00] I don't really see any of these, again, if we're picking five floating to the top of that.

[1:52:07] I do actually have done some work for us to see about additional local renewable energy generation and things like that.

[1:52:16] There are imperatives for rate increased controls relative to modernizing the electrical grid and so forth.

[1:52:24] But with these, I did not really identify one that would come to the top and be in the group of five.

[1:52:33] This is the other committee where I represented the city finance taxation and economic development.

[1:52:40] The reason why I've identified targeted prevailing wage changes is because it is actually relevant to us,

[1:52:47] given the redevelopment properties that we've acquired.

[1:52:51] And more specifically on this, there are currently two kind of triggers that determine when prevailing wages must be paid on a public-private project,

[1:53:07] and it's really challenging for a variety of reasons. But first of all, the threshold for one of the two triggers,

[1:53:13] which is the public agency trigger was set in 2005, that was at $50,000.

[1:53:20] In today's money, that would be $86,000, so the value itself is antiquated.

[1:53:26] And in the other trigger, the threshold is $750,000 of public money in a project.

[1:53:33] So for example, with the ground day property, we get to that threshold with urban renewal

[1:53:38] funds that triggers prevailing wage for an entire redevelopment.

[1:53:42] And that just simply makes projects much, much harder to pencil and makes them harder to actually make happen.

[1:53:53] In today's money that 750,000 threshold was set in 2007. That would be about 1.2 million today.

[1:54:01] And there are other aspects to this. So I think this is a real world issue for us right now.

[1:54:07] and I think is important enough that we put that in

[1:54:11] as one of the five.

[1:54:13] The other priorities within this are important too.

[1:54:17] They really, the next two alcohol revenue,

[1:54:20] modernization and emergency communication system resources

[1:54:23] both deal with kind of antiquated programs

[1:54:28] that do need to be modernized

[1:54:30] and do impact the revenue side of things,

[1:54:34] but I would still put prevailing wage modernization above those.

[1:54:39] Well, I'll chime in on that one because Sherwood just did a major capital project,

[1:54:46] and when they had the quotes done by the state and the county,

[1:54:51] it was going to be at least 50% more than what they were able to get the project done by,

[1:54:56] and part of it was because the county and the state were going to engage prevailing wage.

[1:55:00] So it wasn't just the 20% that's usually estimated, their actual project estimates from the county

[1:55:07] and city were 50% higher than what they actually got the project done for by using just city funds.

[1:55:14] So this is a big deal.

[1:55:17] It is. It's a very big deal.

[1:55:18] It's for all the, especially the smaller cities with more limited resources to try and get redevelopment

[1:55:24] development happening and economic development.

[1:55:27] It's a huge barrier, a very real one.

[1:55:30] So thank you for that example.

[1:55:34] Within transportation, the big sort of bright light

[1:55:38] is the 2027 transportation package

[1:55:41] that you may be familiar with

[1:55:42] that did not succeed in the last short session,

[1:55:49] especially as compared to the other issues.

[1:55:53] In fact, the city-supported street sign traditions, that one I wasn't familiar with until I read it,

[1:55:59] actually involves another city that wasn't named in here that has a state highway going through,

[1:56:05] and they just want to be able to put things on the street lights.

[1:56:08] That sounds great, but the transportation package is fundamental.

[1:56:12] We're going to be back either next month or in November to talk to you about just paving,

[1:56:17] just being able to afford paving our streets.

[1:56:18] it's, you know, that's totally upside down. And so across the board, whether it's the actual state

[1:56:24] owned infrastructure or the funds that local governments receive through the allocations,

[1:56:31] this is really important. I know, Mayor, you're very steeped in this area too. So I would

[1:56:39] elevate this to one of the five. But we can talk about that. And then the last area,

[1:56:45] of water and wastewater. I chose infrastructure funding kind of similarly. I get to brag because

[1:56:52] of my predecessors and the choices that you've made over the many years have resulted in

[1:56:58] what is really, especially comparatively very good infrastructure here in Cornelius. I'd

[1:57:05] love to be able to brag about that, but it is a constant challenge whether it's

[1:57:09] sewer, storm or water especially, that underground infrastructure is just going to be a constant

[1:57:17] year-to-year struggle to make the upgrades that we need to do to keep it modern and functioning well.

[1:57:24] And this priority would advocate for what they say is increased and sustained investments in these systems.

[1:57:33] I see a lot of small Oregon cities at the table begging for money because their system

[1:57:38] is literally breaking or multiple systems are breaking because they haven't had the

[1:57:44] rate base to support.

[1:57:46] And so I think this one is both for us as well as for all the small cities across the

[1:57:52] state.

[1:57:52] So I would actually elevate that one to one of the five.

[1:57:57] So in summary, I just created a table here where I kind of made a grid, the strategic plan goal areas.

[1:58:05] They all hit on at least one, if not multiple, like land availability does.

[1:58:12] You could probably almost make a connection for all of them in some way, but I tried to at least do that.

[1:58:18] So again, maintaining local control of the right-of-way, land availability and land use streamlining, prevailing wage changes.

[1:58:26] is 2027 Transportation Package and Infrastructure Funding.

[1:58:31] And then I'll just run back real quick.

[1:58:33] The one again that I put an asterisk by

[1:58:35] that we could probably consider for replacement

[1:58:38] would be the Administrative Procedures Act,

[1:58:42] the rulemaking related one.

[1:58:44] So happy to open it up for discussion.

[1:58:47] Thank you.

[1:58:48] Council, questions, comments?

[1:58:52] Yes, Councillor Gonzalez.

[1:58:56] I have a question about the target prevailing wages changes. I'm not very familiar with that.

[1:59:04] Can you provide more information so I can understand it better, please?

[1:59:08] Yes, and it is quite complicated actually, and so I run up against my own limits pretty quickly,

[1:59:14] but we have even just on this current project that we're conceiving of redeveloping,

[1:59:21] which is the Grand Day Food Site,

[1:59:24] one of the first questions that a developer

[1:59:26] or an architect will ask if there's some interest is,

[1:59:30] what is the situation with prevailing wages?

[1:59:34] And so really before we do anything,

[1:59:36] we have to really think through those implications

[1:59:40] because if we trigger it for the whole project,

[1:59:43] that turns the whole project into a prevailing wage project.

[1:59:48] And what that means is that the wages

[1:59:49] that have to be paid on all the trade work that happens on the project has to be at least

[1:59:58] at that prevailing wage and it's much higher.

[2:00:00] And it more frequently, it seems like every year it becomes more common that it just thinks

[2:00:08] the project. And it's not that we're advocating that people don't earn living wages, it's just

[2:00:16] that there should be a threshold that is more modern. It's dated, and actually the way the

[2:00:24] the program calculates that is a bit dated.

[2:00:28] And so the whole program really needs to be modernized

[2:00:33] in many folks' opinion, including mine.

[2:00:36] So by setting this as a priority,

[2:00:40] then we would be sharing those thoughts

[2:00:43] of having like a threshold as you shared.

[2:00:46] Yes, we would be lending our name, if you will,

[2:00:50] to say LOC and all the cities

[2:00:53] that are participating in this, we think this is,

[2:00:56] this should be one of your highest priorities.

[2:00:58] For us it's one of the five out of 27.

[2:01:02] We think it's that important

[2:01:03] that you really focus on that.

[2:01:05] Okay, and the other question I have is about

[2:01:09] maintaining local right away.

[2:01:13] Is there a concern that we might not be able

[2:01:18] to maintain that?

[2:01:19] Over the last, gosh, for me, observing at least 10 years, probably longer, there have

[2:01:26] been constant threats at the state level from national industry to remove that authority,

[2:01:33] because, for example, we charge private companies who have assets in the public right-of-way,

[2:01:39] which is essentially like you or I renting our home to someone, taking away the authority

[2:01:45] for us to do that and one of the main reasons that those companies and their associations

[2:01:52] do that is because they pay money and at the end of the day they pass that cost on to the

[2:01:57] customer anyway, but they don't think that local government should retain that authority

[2:02:04] and it does vary somewhat from one state to another, but it's really important.

[2:02:11] It's crucial. There's a pretty significant revenue there for us, but it's not the main reason. We want to be able to control

[2:02:20] What is ours? It's the public's right-of-way. It's the public space and we should be able you should be able the community should be able to control

[2:02:31] How that is regulated. Yeah, I agree. Thank you for sharing that

[2:02:37] Other questions, comments?

[2:02:47] So I'll give you one of my points on why the land use thing is so important.

[2:02:53] We got a land use decision, Grand Bargain, in 2014.

[2:02:57] Prior to that, I think it was about another 10 years before we got a land use decision.

[2:03:03] By comparison, somebody that doesn't have to deal with Metro,

[2:03:07] between 2006 and 2026, Newburgh, our city, one of our sister cities in the south,

[2:03:13] the outside metro, has adopted six urban growth boundary expansions in the time that we've

[2:03:24] been able to process two through the machine that is metro. So they get to deal directly

[2:03:29] with the DLCD for UGB expansions. Of those 271 acres, 252 of those are currently developed.

[2:03:40] So not only are they able to get land when they need it and when they have a willing

[2:03:44] partner willing to work with them, they can put it into use nearly immediately because

[2:03:49] they come asking for land when they have interested and willing partners.

[2:03:53] And they have a process that gets them through the process about two years.

[2:03:57] They can get it through in two years.

[2:04:00] It takes us at least 10.

[2:04:02] and because the legislative mandates of the House Bill 2014, we are currently locked for

[2:04:09] 50 years out of expansions on the city of Cornelius.

[2:04:14] The only opportunity we'll have is our undesignated land, which may not even be developable, and

[2:04:22] we won't be able to get to that until 50% of the urban reserves.

[2:04:30] 75%, thank you for correcting me, 75% of the urban reserves are consumed and developed throughout the tri-region.

[2:04:41] So we don't have a workable land system as a short answer on all this.

[2:04:45] It works far better if I looked up a lapine, they'd be in the same boat and they're on the east side of the mountains.

[2:04:51] When they have a willing partner, they can go to the state, say we've got a plan, this is how we're going to do it and get it done.

[2:04:58] And we don't have a working system in the metro area.

[2:05:02] So that's one of my points, point counterpoint on the infrastructure.

[2:05:09] I get to sit and listen to all the mayors whine about not having money to do land development.

[2:05:17] But somehow, when we had an open and honest conversation with Holt Holmes and the Spears

[2:05:23] and all of them and said, hey, you're going to pay for a million dollar sewer station.

[2:05:28] You're going to pay for all this infrastructure.

[2:05:31] They penciled it into the development of Laurel Woods.

[2:05:35] Yet I listened to every one of the other mayors whine and complain about they can't

[2:05:40] get infrastructure money to do land development to reach the governor's housing goals

[2:05:47] because their developers won't, they're just sitting back not doing anything with

[2:05:52] that they're waiting for the city, the county,

[2:05:54] or the state to cough up money.

[2:05:57] So I think my concern there is is twofold.

[2:06:00] One, I still believe development needs to shoulder

[2:06:06] a significant part of its cost.

[2:06:08] That shouldn't be spread out over the state.

[2:06:11] Two, I also have a concern with the money part of it

[2:06:15] because you hit it directly on the head as I read it

[2:06:20] in Lapine as I read it in other areas.

[2:06:25] Small cities are unwilling to raise the cost to

[2:06:31] cover the repairs and upkeep that are necessary. You heard our school board come to us tonight

[2:06:39] and talk about they bank them up to a bond and then they forecast all these repairs

[2:06:47] and work they're going to do under bond because they don't want to pull out of their tax money

[2:06:53] they're getting every year to do these things right because it does it would take away from

[2:06:58] money for classrooms money for programs but I see the same thing happening in other cities

[2:07:05] where they're unwilling to shoulder the burden of the cost of their system we've had to raise

[2:07:12] our rates. Because as we've said, we will do it the way the state law says is the water

[2:07:18] system is supposed to stand alone as its own business unit, right? The sewer system, the

[2:07:24] surface water. That is state law. They have to stand on those. And I hear multiple municipalities

[2:07:32] wine and complain about, I can't raise my rates, because they won't.

[2:07:39] They won't shoulder that political onslaught that says, and you do that long enough?

[2:07:46] We were in it the same place.

[2:07:48] When I joined this council, we were using general fund money to basically pay for water in the city.

[2:07:55] Let me repeat that.

[2:07:56] We were using general fund money to pay the water bill in the city,

[2:08:01] instead of having the water system do it and it was a long slog uphill and we

[2:08:07] hate to pass those bills down every time Hillsborough raises our rates but we've

[2:08:12] done that year after year and luckily the council has had the fortitude in the

[2:08:18] past to break away from that faulty system so I hear it but my concern

[2:08:24] is is the everybody's got to figure out how they're going to pay for this

[2:08:28] stuff. Or you have to do things like banks did. They put a moratorium on

[2:08:36] development because they didn't have the money to develop more water resources.

[2:08:41] And until they could come up with a plan to get there and developers that were

[2:08:45] willing to pay for it, they'd just pump the brakes and stop. So that's my only

[2:08:52] concerns. So I think having banking,

[2:08:59] using the financial ability of the state as a bank

[2:09:03] to take loans and pay off through your rates, I think those are a great system by which to

[2:09:09] use funding within the system and the state's ability to do that. But to just go, oh, my

[2:09:17] rate payers don't want to pay it, so let's get a grant from the state to improve our

[2:09:22] sewer or water treatment or whatever, I don't think that's the right answer.

[2:09:28] So that's my two cents on the issue yet.

[2:09:30] So if you guys have feedback input, I think it's important.

[2:09:34] But I feel the more important part is the banking ability of that to be able to address those.

[2:09:41] If I can just...

[2:09:41] Yeah, please.

[2:09:42] I was really on the fence.

[2:09:45] So I'm just going to take the opportunity to say, if you all, you know,

[2:09:49] of the Administrative Procedures Act reform.

[2:09:52] I know Barbara would probably be happier

[2:09:54] if we made that the priority.

[2:09:57] That one really, you know,

[2:09:59] and that is really about the rulemaking

[2:10:00] that is just, especially for Barbara and Tim,

[2:10:03] just a constant fire hose of new requirements

[2:10:07] and they're totally detached from one another

[2:10:09] and they overlap and they,

[2:10:12] they're a lot of unfunded mandates, so.

[2:10:14] Well, in the state,

[2:10:15] we'll come out with a piece of legislation

[2:10:17] And this is the part where we got into it, right?

[2:10:19] That in concept, we probably can get on board with,

[2:10:23] we can agree with.

[2:10:25] And then it gets into the bureaucratic staff,

[2:10:29] and they come up with all these more stringent,

[2:10:33] restrictive, deep rules that can cause unfunded mandates

[2:10:38] or further constrain the abilities

[2:10:40] to actually take away a home rule,

[2:10:42] which is what we sued the state over.

[2:10:46] So I'm aligned with that, too, that we really need to look at the legislation versus the

[2:10:52] rulemaking, because what we see happen at Metro and what we see happen at the State, little

[2:10:58] of the county, but definitely at the State and Metro, is the staff just runs away with

[2:11:02] the rulemaking, and they really change what came out as maybe a concept, a direction,

[2:11:11] some guidelines into something very hard and mandated.

[2:11:14] So I would be in support of more arguing on that behalf.

[2:11:19] I don't know what the, what does the council think?

[2:11:23] You guys may not be steeped in this as deep as the staff

[2:11:26] and I are with both my time in service

[2:11:29] and the amount I do is stuff with JPEC and with Metro.

[2:11:33] So feedback, we do need your feedback.

[2:11:37] Anyone want to go first?

[2:11:39] I feel like I'm going to go and do an attention.

[2:11:43] And some of these conversations before, and I tend to agree, I think, rather have some

[2:11:52] transparency in how this rule-making works so that we're able to at least have some say

[2:11:57] or figure out what is going on and who the key players are and where we might have some

[2:12:03] impact.

[2:12:04] So I agree with the conversation I just had.

[2:12:08] I'll just add, I think these are great with that switch from five with the one that we just discussed.

[2:12:17] It would have been nice to see some renewable energy stuff. I know as energy costs keep going up year after year,

[2:12:25] it'd be nice to be able to provide some relief to the community.

[2:12:30] But I know that, you know, just because they're not on it doesn't mean they're not going to be working.

[2:12:35] Thank you.

[2:12:37] I'm going to chase that down for just one second.

[2:12:41] Reading in my latest issue of Rural Light, which is all about rural communities doing their own power,

[2:12:48] and I think the cooperative groups are actually taking a lead on this,

[2:12:54] because they're developing micro-power generation, power banks, their own solar.

[2:13:00] I think they're leaps ahead of the PGEs or Pacific Corps or any of those,

[2:13:08] because the one group that was in the case study they were talking about,

[2:13:11] they've basically been building battery banks.

[2:13:13] They've got plans for more battery banks,

[2:13:15] and this is in a cooperative level energy group

[2:13:18] to where when they literally got cut off due to a fire danger,

[2:13:23] they were able to run the town for days, days with on or off power or multiple days off,

[2:13:32] just because of their solar and their own banking.

[2:13:36] So I think those are really the better opportunities.

[2:13:41] The hope and dream of PGE to save us, I really don't think that's to happen.

[2:13:47] I think doing something more local, more cooperative,

[2:13:49] if we partnered, you know, us and Forest Grove on a big battery bank or, you know, solar

[2:13:55] fields or anything like that, I think we would be long ways ahead.

[2:14:01] And it also, it breaks a key part of the problem of the cost is the power transmission,

[2:14:08] right?

[2:14:08] Because they keep talking about the upgrading the system, upgrading the system.

[2:14:11] Well, that's because they're trying to get the power from Bonneville, or Boardman, or

[2:14:18] you know what the biggest project in Idaho is?

[2:14:22] A natural gas plant, a giant natural gas fire plant that's going to feed into the same

[2:14:28] grid subsystem that our BPA and the Boardman natural gas plant were shutting down, it's

[2:14:34] basically replacing the Oregon one with one in Idaho.

[2:14:38] So that's where the, it's not, well it's not, it's not building it local, right?

[2:14:45] And that's a lot of what they're talking about is if you could do, let's say the

[2:14:49] nerdy word, local nuclear, but local solar and battery, you keep the grid smaller

[2:14:55] because you don't have to have so much transmission, you've generated or store it

[2:14:58] where you use it.

[2:15:00] So, that's the only reason I wanted to take him jumping on that one.

[2:15:06] Did you have something

[2:15:06] on the topic before we go tangent?

[2:15:11] Well, I just wanted to say I'm still new to this, but what you've presented, I do see

[2:15:19] a benefit to these priorities. Yeah, thank you.

[2:15:24] Anything before we go tangent?

[2:15:25] Can you just go back to the...

[2:15:37] No, I think I'm good.

[2:15:39] I just had some questions which I think I answered myself for the water infrastructure funding

[2:15:47] because I don't know if this...

[2:15:51] Reading from the citizens seemed like that would be the case

[2:15:53] but my first initial thought was thinking of our water rights that we purchased.

[2:15:58] This would be a potential way to visit support our long-term goals to one day hopefully make use of those water rights and actually not purchasing our water.

[2:16:15] I know that's a much larger, very expensive project, so I don't know that's even something that would fall under the administration.

[2:16:26] That was my initial thought when I saw that.

[2:16:32] Well, that's where I was talking about.

[2:16:35] I think I would rather see us look at the banking part of it

[2:16:38] using the credit of the state to finance projects you want to do,

[2:16:43] but then you pay them off through the term,

[2:16:45] because the now money is the opportunity, right?

[2:16:47] The time value of money is now.

[2:16:50] It'll never be cheaper to do what then it is now.

[2:16:52] So if you could finance it with the good faith

[2:16:54] at the state, but pay it off with your rate increases.

[2:16:57] I'll give you an example.

[2:16:58] example, Gresham got off Bull Run because they saw the incredible increases in funding

[2:17:07] that Bull Run is projecting with its different projects and Gresham just said we're done

[2:17:12] and Rockward said we're done and they pushed into their own projects and went to ground

[2:17:19] water. Now people are complaining it doesn't taste as good, it's got more metallic taste

[2:17:24] isn't it? Bull Run is some beautiful water. I mean we can bottle it and sell it to

[2:17:28] other people in the country, they literally do that.

[2:17:30] That's what several of the water brands are.

[2:17:33] But they've made the choice to invest in themselves

[2:17:37] and put it in groundwater and get off the bull run system.

[2:17:41] So they've got a time plan of their infrastructure

[2:17:44] upgrades.

[2:17:44] So to me, that's where I think the state

[2:17:46] should be helping us.

[2:17:48] Less about financing development, I

[2:17:53] think more about the banking part of it.

[2:17:56] If we decided, hey, we want to go back up

[2:17:59] to the coast range we want to go back and push up into the coast range or if we

[2:18:03] want to do a straw all the way the lamin and we'd fund it through the state and

[2:18:10] our ratepayers I think those are there's where the states can really lean in and

[2:18:15] help us if we had the water if we had the water that our farmers are forced

[2:18:25] to pump on their land around here or lose their water right we wouldn't be

[2:18:29] having this discussion with Hillsboro. We could pull it out of the toilet and

[2:18:33] or out of the at any of the other systems. Sorry, that's me. Okay, any others

[2:18:38] before we go tangent? Tangent? Great.

[2:18:45] Sorry, I got distracted from the outside. How

[2:18:49] many of these, in your opinion, how many of these five points will make it

[2:18:56] on to the LOC priorities?

[2:19:00] My honest answer is I have no idea.

[2:19:03] But just from kind of some situational awareness,

[2:19:08] I wouldn't be surprised if one does.

[2:19:10] I'll be surprised if two does not.

[2:19:14] I wouldn't be surprised if three does.

[2:19:18] Three will make it because MMC is on it,

[2:19:21] and that's across the state for the prevailing wage.

[2:19:24] I think as many as three of these five could realistically end up there.

[2:19:32] Yeah, and it's the city of Independence, Oregon, Lakeview, and Oregon.

[2:19:39] L.C. is made up of tons of small cities, and most of them are facing, I know water is a big thing right away.

[2:19:52] local control for failing wage. I see those as the most likely. I would love to

[2:20:00] see a telecom infrastructure broadband specifically co-op energy, water rights,

[2:20:12] you know, our wish list. Things that other places don't may not want us to

[2:20:21] have so and this has to with the whole bubble of local govern and homeroom

[2:20:32] under a lot of you may know this under federal Constitution out there's ton

[2:20:43] of tribal rights and that makes a lot of sense. There are cities that outtakes both our federal

[2:20:57] constitutions and our history. Under federal constitution, cities are considered state.

[2:21:06] So the state is their state rights and cities are just state responsibilities on their state

[2:21:17] constitution.

[2:21:20] There is home rule in there, but it's the state that has the final say and our judges will

[2:21:29] absolutely agree on it.

[2:21:31] And for our counties, they don't have the right to exist, and neither does our cities.

[2:21:40] Counties were created to help govern cities in a similar fashion.

[2:21:53] The state can wake up tomorrow and dissolve cities and counties and create a regional government.

[2:22:03] And that will be the state right to do.

[2:22:08] They can remove how much control as they want.

[2:22:14] They can edit our charter.

[2:22:17] They can take away what we can do. A lot of state legislative actions has been focused

[2:22:31] on a state action and I felt a lot like Portland was their main focus. Cresham,

[2:22:46] Hillsborough,

[2:22:46] So Ben, Salem, Eugene, those are the only cities that have 100,000 plus population.

[2:23:00] And then Lake Oswego, they don't even crack, Tiger, Beaver, they're not even 100,000 in

[2:23:10] population.

[2:23:12] And there's a gratifying notion that Cornelius, under our 20-20 census, is about 14,300.

[2:23:29] Probably lower, since lower woods, it's about 15,000.

[2:23:38] that we're just like them.

[2:23:44] That we're not sitting between nine to 10%

[2:23:49] in our property rate.

[2:23:51] That we have a similar makeup in population.

[2:23:56] The state have 85% white population.

[2:24:02] We have a 52% Hispanic population.

[2:24:07] Murrow County is probably the closest thing

[2:24:10] that do our population percentage, and they have the total county population of 12,000.

[2:24:20] Probably 13,000.

[2:24:24] I don't know about our future. I really don't.

[2:24:30] We have metro, and I have opinions whether or not to stay in metro. I have opinions

[2:24:39] whether or not to stay in LLC just because our priorities aren't aligning with them.

[2:24:51] I've been on the fence to go to an LLC conference. I might actually go pay the

[2:25:00] an extorvent

[2:25:04] package to attend just to complain and figure out and talk to their lobbyist.

[2:25:24] Personally their lobbyists are so fun to talk to because off the record they will tell

[2:25:32] anything and everything that's going on in our state legislative session.

[2:25:41] It's so

[2:25:43] fun hearing, but we're entering a tough legislative session just because the LLC

[2:25:53] is prioritizing several items doesn't mean any of them will happen.

[2:25:58] and transportation bill is going to be reconsidered.

[2:26:05] Several education funding will be considered.

[2:26:11] Definitely data centers will be considered

[2:26:14] and that is going to be difficult.

[2:26:19] We have the Governor's Prosperity Council

[2:26:24] And that's debatable whether or not they get any of their priorities passed.

[2:26:33] This is a long session.

[2:26:35] This is a six-month session.

[2:26:38] The next session will be a short session with the 35 days.

[2:26:43] Bills can be introduced.

[2:26:45] I believe House members have two bills that they can introduce during the short session.

[2:26:51] and senators have probably one.

[2:26:55] Yeah, they'll make up new rules when they get there.

[2:26:57] And governors have four bills.

[2:27:00] But we're moving more and more closer

[2:27:04] to a professional legislator.

[2:27:08] And the past, right now, we're still considered a part time,

[2:27:11] but they've been really shoving the short session

[2:27:15] into a bloodbath of bills.

[2:27:21] So I want people to understand, just because these are five, just because two and three will go forward, doesn't mean we'll get anything.

[2:27:39] And that's something I would say, say it again and again, because the truth of the matter

[2:27:50] were a population of 14,300.

[2:27:54] We're not the biggest city in the artistic.

[2:27:59] We're not the biggest priority.

[2:28:02] And we will get ignored.

[2:28:05] That's why I advocate, that's why I support us having a lobbyist, because if you have

[2:28:11] someone that keeps showing up,

[2:28:15] that it's, we are going to get harder to ignore.

[2:28:23] Thank you.

[2:28:24] Any other questions or comments this evening?

[2:28:29] You got what you need from our staff?

[2:28:33] Yes, and based

[2:28:37] on what I've heard, I'm kind of tempted to swap out infrastructure funding

[2:28:42] with the Administrative Procedures Act or form, would you all be supportive of that?

[2:28:49] I'm fine with that. I know Portland is going to advocate for themselves on something similar,

[2:28:57] but most definitely they're going to advocate like they did last session with a meeting

[2:29:05] law changes.

[2:29:06] Great.

[2:29:08] So it looks like you've got enough head nods to move forward with that swap.

[2:29:11] We'll do it.

[2:29:12] Cool.

[2:29:13] Thank you so much.

[2:29:14] Thanks for staying late.

[2:29:15] Anything else for the good of the order?

[2:29:18] Can I move to adjourn our work session?

[2:29:21] A motion to adjourn our work session.

[2:29:23] Motion by Councillor Gaudiness.

[2:29:25] Do I have a second?

[2:29:25] I second.

[2:29:26] Second by Councillor Baker.

[2:29:27] All those in favor say aye.

[2:29:29] Aye.

[2:29:30] Opposed?

[2:29:30] Abstention?

[2:29:31] We are adjourned.

September 8, 2026 Cornelius City Council Meeting

Transcript