[0:00] Councillor Hussain, city council, city recorder, please call the roll. Councillor Dugger. I am here. Councillor Hartmeyer Craig. Here. Councillor Hassan. Councillor Hassan had communicated she would be a little bit late. Councillor Kimmy. Here. Councillor Teeter. Here. And Councillor Tivnon and Mayor Bader absent. All right. Tonight, thank you. We will begin tonight's agenda with visitor comments. Then we will move on to the consent agenda.

[0:29] One presentation, a public hearing, and council new business.

[0:33] City requires pre-registration for online and in person visitor comments at council meetings.

[0:40] Registration closed at 12 noon today.

[0:43] All the registration was conducted through the City Recorder's office via email or phone.

[0:49] In preparation for this meeting, as far as I know, there's no one registered to comment at tonight's meeting and

[0:56] the city has not received any written comments, so we will move on to the consent agenda.

[1:01] Do I have a motion to approve the consent agenda?

[1:06] A council person actually have an amendment or just a note on the minutes from April 2nd,

[1:13] 2024, before I make the motion, wait, yeah, that was the meeting, okay.

[1:19] So in the meeting that day, there's a note from one of the public commenters and it says

[1:28] is Melody or Melanie, but the person's name is Sabdi from Atrek, so I just thought we

[1:35] should correct the minutes to note that Sabdi is the Atrek number who asked for a moment

[1:40] of peace.

[1:40] I'm sorry, could you repeat that?

[1:42] It's more slowly, please.

[1:43] In the minutes on page 1 at the bottom, there is three virtual commenters, the first two

[1:50] being full of hate.

[1:51] The third one says Melanie or Melody Atrek member asked for a moment of peace.

[1:57] The person that called in was Sabdi from the eight-track.

[2:02] I just thought we should correct to note that Sabdi is the person that called.

[2:06] Was there a last name?

[2:07] I don't know her last name.

[2:08] I'd have to look it up for you.

[2:09] Okay, so just a reminder that when people were joining virtually and not registering,

[2:13] we put whatever they put in the, like, to join Zoom.

[2:18] It's a Sabdi.

[2:19] Okay.

[2:20] I think this is a transcription.

[2:21] It makes somebody heard it.

[2:23] Her name is Sabdi.

[2:25] Okay.

[2:25] Thank you.

[2:26] That was in the chat that day.

[2:28] Okay.

[2:28] Yeah.

[2:29] Make a motion.

[2:31] Yeah.

[2:31] I'll move to approve the consent agenda with the minor note fixed in April 2nd minutes.

[2:38] Second.

[2:39] This has been moved by Councillor Hartmire Prigg and seconded by Councillor Teeter.

[2:44] Is there any discussion?

[2:48] So there's no further discussion.

[2:49] City recorded, please take the vote by roll call.

[2:53] Councillor Dugger.

[2:54] Yes.

[2:54] Councillor Hartmire Prigg.

[2:56] Yes. Councillor Kimmy. Yes. Councillor Teter. Yes.

[3:02] And that's for zero. Thank you. The next item on the agenda

[3:08] is the presentation. The presentation is regarding the community development block grant

[3:13] consolidated plan process update and it will give, given by Kathy, as a reminder, the purpose

[3:20] of this presentation is to provide information to the council. While councilors may

[3:26] asked clarifying questions about the presentation itself. It is now the time to engage in back-and-forth policy development dialogue.

[3:34] Presenters, you may begin when you're ready.

[3:38] Council President, I do have a City Manager's report if I can squeeze that into the agenda before we get into the presentation.

[3:44] Is that all right?

[3:48] It's just missing from our script.

[3:50] Okay, yeah, sorry about that.

[3:53] Make sure we include it next time.

[3:56] I've got a few items, I just wanted to share given the opportunity in front of the council

[4:01] for the community's awareness, the first one is a sustainability item, the Sexton Mountain

[4:07] Hydra Power pump station that we were able to complete for public works has been working

[4:13] on that for quite a while, trying to get essentially using our water source to create power and retrofitting

[4:23] it with some equipment that probably I think safe to say that the city is maybe the first

[4:29] in generating power from its own water system.

[4:34] And so it's an exciting project for nerds like Tim, who I appreciate leading that project

[4:41] from a public work standpoint, but it's also a really exciting project for the city both

[4:46] from a sustainability and a fiscal sustainability standpoint that we're able to generate power

[4:51] from our water source and also then save money in the offing and doing all of the...

[5:01] The next item is also a sustainability one. The heat pump and the heat pump incentive program, I guess folks did want to hear me. This is one offering incentives for folks single family homeowner occupied homes incentives up to $11,000, essentially retrofitting your, or maybe creating a heat pump.

[5:31] where you might not have had or would have an alternative source for heating and cooling.

[5:38] It's a limited incentive program driven by dollars from the Oregon Department of Energy's community heat pump development deployment program.

[5:49] Small number of the grants are actually available so it would encourage folks to reach out.

[5:54] We've got more information on the city's website at Beaverton Oregon dot gov slash sustainability

[6:00] Again limited funding limited time

[6:05] Next we've got a couple of exciting opportunities for

[6:09] Community engagement about important items either to the city and the overall community itself or to individuals

[6:17] One transportation vision visioning workshops that are going to occur at the library

[6:24] They are both going to occur in English and Spanish on the 19th of Saturday, the 19th of October.

[6:32] And more information at beavertonorgan.gov slash gobeaverton.

[6:37] The transportation system plan is a 20-year plan for transportation policy and funding investments in the community.

[6:45] Feedback from folks who attend and participate in the various engagement opportunities on the TSP as we call it.

[6:52] Those are really impactful pieces of feedback that help staff develop the plan and so really have a long-term impact on the community.

[7:03] Those folks who do come out on Saturday, they're going to be interactive sessions and they'll be looking to also have those with language interpretation for both English and Spanish at both sessions.

[7:16] and so I want to make sure that, you know, you can't make one and you're concerned about the language being the primary language.

[7:24] Please come anyway. We'll make sure that you understand what's happening and can participate.

[7:29] The next one, like I said, news for individuals maybe.

[7:34] At the library are also having an end-of-life resource there.

[7:38] That's the 23rd Wednesday in October, 11 to 2.

[7:42] and it's an important milestone obviously in all of our lives trying to provide

[7:51] information though for folks to plan for for death for hospice and health care

[7:57] towards the end of life financial arrangements and other legal considerations

[8:02] really just trying to provide as much information to folks as possible and more

[8:07] information is on the library's website so beavertonlibrary.org.

[8:13] And then lastly, a couple of shout outs. One wanted to recognize public works again.

[8:21] The current issue of city trees, which I'm sure you're all subscribed to. You might have noticed

[8:27] recognition for the city's forestry program, urban forestry and community. Forestry Society

[8:36] has recognized the program and tried to, what we've tried to do in this program throughout

[8:46] the city and throughout its ten years, looking at tree maintenance, canopy preservation,

[8:51] neighborhood planting events, a street of trees tour for folks interested in planting,

[8:59] and information and engagement with local arbor items.

[9:03] We're proud of the program, it's obviously a unique one and the help for residents who

[9:10] are interested in planting and getting more information and concerned about the health

[9:15] of their trees.

[9:17] Lastly, some recognition for artist Kanani Miyamoto, whose art is featured actually behind

[9:26] me on the hallway of the Beaverton Building and also at the Patricia Research Center for

[9:32] the performing arts. The artist is recognized in 1859, Oregon's magazine, and the

[9:42] Across Oceans, which is the art installation on our two buildings, is a unique

[9:50] installation that actually is imagery with paper and window wrapping. It's beautiful.

[10:00] I encourage folks to come to our buildings and check it out if they have not yet, and just wanted to say again, congratulations to Kanani for the recognition in the magazine and proud to have her art in our buildings. I think that is it's unless you all have any questions and happy to turn it over to the presentation.

[10:19] Thank you.

[10:19] I'll cancel the program.

[10:21] Just as I was reviewing my packet on Sunday, the heat pump incentive program, it looks

[10:27] like the applications on the website are rolling so all the way through February, I believe

[10:33] is the last gate that opens.

[10:36] Can you just keep us updated on the availability of money because one of our jobs I think is

[10:42] to make sure that as we are meeting with community groups, we're letting them know that this

[10:47] program and I don't want to direct them to the program if the money is run out is it goes

[10:51] through the gate so if you guys just just kind of let us know where we are periodically check in.

[10:55] How did you do that? Yeah I think what the amount of funding we had was in the 30s of homes

[11:00] we thought we'd be able to get through the program so it will definitely run out we hope and that'll

[11:05] be a good thing but we'll definitely keep you abreast of that. Is that such a cool program? Yeah,

[11:10] so we hope we'll get more.

[11:16] Thank you so much. Let's get back to the agenda. Presentation.

[11:23] Please do come up.

[11:40] Good evening, councillors. My name is Kathy Anderson Peoples and I work in

[11:45] the Community Development Department and I'm sure you know Tyler. He's here to help me out tonight

[11:51] And we'll be presenting a PowerPoint from Heidi Aguilar with root policy.

[11:58] And this PowerPoint is to update you all on where we are with the Consolidated Plan.

[12:07] It's a five-year plan process, and she's here to give you an update on all of the information

[12:14] and data we've collected.

[12:16] Before she's on, I would like just to take a few minutes to go over the CDBG

[12:21] process with you all. Since we're here to discuss the consolidated plan, I'll try to make it quick.

[12:28] Since 1994, the city has received an annual CDBG entitlement award from the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

[12:37] So CDBG is community development block map and we refer to the Housing and Urban Development as HUD.

[12:46] So there are as a this year, I'm sorry, the city's entitlement award is $638,385.

[12:58] There are four major components as a condition of the grant that HUD requires and they must

[13:05] be completed at various times throughout the year.

[13:08] All four of these must meet the requirements set out in the five year consolidated plan, which is what we're updating you on this evening.

[13:18] The first component is the notice of funding availability that the city staff advertises the funding availability in local publications and casts a broad net to the nonprofit community seeking applications after that process is complete.

[13:37] The state staff takes the funding recommendations to City Council for their approval.

[13:43] The second component is subrecipient awards.

[13:47] After we do the notice of funding availability and the decisions are made and Council has

[13:54] we have the Council's approval, we contract with non-profit organizations to complete the

[13:59] agreed upon work.

[14:01] The third component is the annual action plan.

[14:04] And this is where we submit to HUD the plan for allocating grant funds and what our projections are to meet those requirements that are set up in the five year consolidated plan.

[14:18] The fourth and final component is what's called the Consolidated Annual Performance Evaluation Report.

[14:25] That's also referred to as the Caper.

[14:28] That is where we report the actual numbers we served in that year and how the city performed

[14:35] measured against one, the annual action plan we talked about and two, the five-year

[14:40] consolidated plan.

[14:42] So just just a brief overview on CDBG and now I'd like to turn the floor over to Heidi for

[14:49] a presentation on the update.

[14:52] Thank you so much and good evening everybody. I'm going to share my screen.

[15:10] Let me see if this is going to work.

[15:16] Sorry about that. I just need to make sure that

[15:25] I can share it. And I think that I'm

[15:33] having a little bit of trouble sharing. I'm so sorry. I think you may have a backup there. Yeah, Heidi, I can run it for you. Okay. Thank you. Sorry about that. For some reason my computer's not cooperating tonight.

[15:50] Great. Thank you so much. Go ahead. Go to slideshow. Perfect.

[15:53] and go ahead and advance.

[15:55] I'm going to talk, I'll do a brief introduction about myself,

[15:58] and our firm, mostly I'm going to share findings

[16:00] from the community engagement that we have undertaken

[16:03] to support the plan.

[16:04] Also talk about the needs and market analysis

[16:07] that was conducted partially in a concert

[16:10] with your housing needs assessment,

[16:12] and then I want to just provide some of the workshopping

[16:17] that we've found around goals and priorities

[16:18] and invite some comments on that.

[16:23] So first of all, with community engagement,

[16:25] go ahead and go forward.

[16:28] So this plan was done in cooperation with the City of Hillsboro, as well as Washington

[16:33] County.

[16:34] And Washington County has really taken a lead on what HUD calls stakeholder consultation.

[16:38] And that's where the county staff to talk to a lot of people who provide services and

[16:44] housing throughout the county, including in Beaverton, this table gives you an idea of the

[16:50] organizations that were consulted with one-on-one interviews, virtual interviews,

[16:56] in-person interviews throughout the summer. Go ahead and go forward. We also

[17:02] feel that a community survey, Beaver 10 Hillsboro in the county marketed that

[17:07] survey. That survey was designed by the county and we did the analysis and it got

[17:13] really good response. So we had more than 400 Beaver 10 residents complete the

[17:17] survey. You have to think about this survey as being voluntary. It's trying to capture

[17:22] low-to-moderate income people, people who've had housing challenges, but it's also an

[17:27] opportunity for all types of residents to express their opinions and their perspectives on

[17:33] housing needs. We've got really good representation and a good balance of demographics, most of

[17:40] the respondents own their homes, so a little higher than the overall proportion of homeownership

[17:45] in the city of Beberton, most were non-Hispanic white, and about half had household incomes of

[17:52] more than 100,000 a year.

[17:54] Thirty-seven percent had children living in their home, and a lot of respondents represented

[17:59] relatively small household sizes, and I think you'll see that representation of smaller, older

[18:05] households in Beberton's responses in particular, and about half lived in a household with two to

[18:11] three members. We had about 18% four members, 12% five plus members. So we did get a good

[18:19] representation of large households as well.

[18:25] I'm going to walk through some comparative

[18:26] graphics. So this shows the findings of some questions that I thought were really nicely

[18:31] representative of priority needs, comparing Beaverton, which is in the middle there in the green

[18:36] with Washington County in the city of Hillsboro. So we asked in the survey residents to

[18:43] to offer their response to what housing needs they felt were highest need in Washington County

[18:51] in the city of Beaverton and in Hillsboro. And so this graphic shows you in descending order

[18:57] those that got the highest ranking if you will. And you'll see in Beaverton the highest ranking

[19:02] was affordable rental housing for older adults and that was slightly higher than the county overall.

[19:08] but also construction of affordable rental housing was a top-need rental

[19:13] assistance also jumped out as a top-need where we saw a little bit of

[19:17] variation was in if you kind of go by two-thirds of the way down energy

[19:20] efficiency improvements in home was a bit higher in Beaverton and we saw in the

[19:25] comparable jurisdictions.

[19:31] I'm going to go forward. This shows, excuse me,

[19:36] top public facility needs and I'm going to use some of the HUD terms here.

[19:40] facility means like a community center, a health center, and those are eligible activities

[19:46] that you can fund with CDBG. You see for Bill Beaverton, the one thing that really jumped

[19:50] out at me was that 43% of people, so there was a high need for libraries, and that's much

[19:56] higher than the 32% that you see in the city of Hillsboro.

[20:00] And then Washington County. And the homeless shelter was also higher than what we saw in the county and mental health center. The top need pretty much across jurisdictions. Also was one of the top needs that folks expressed. Go ahead and go forward.

[20:18] And we also ask about top public service needs. And it had speak, public services. You think you should think of those as services that are provided by nonprofits. We usually refer to those as supportive services. Pretty consistent responses here.

[20:31] among the jurisdictions with mental health services being the top, express needs, followed by substance abuse services, rental housing subsidies, not a ton of variation among the jurisdictions.

[20:43] A little more, you'll see in Hillsborough on housing information and referral services, but the City of Beaverton's responses looked pretty close to the counties.

[20:52] In terms of infrastructure needs, so you can also use CDBG to help support and leverage

[21:00] construction or improvement of public infrastructure in Beaverton sidewalks, showed up a bit

[21:06] higher than road improvements. That was also true of Hillsboro. You also see street lighting is

[21:12] being important as well as I mentioned road improvements and then broadband infrastructure.

[21:19] So the other thing that we look at and this represents the county overall is disproportionate needs.

[21:24] So we want to understand do certain population groups experience housing challenges differently,

[21:31] or do they have a little more trouble accessing economic opportunity and need different community

[21:37] and development incentives or investments? So you want to make sure that the programs that you

[21:41] are providing are helping people in a way that is equitable, and this data helps you look at that.

[21:49] So these are another set of questions where we asked about what people worry about in terms of their

[21:54] housing challenges. And then this is dissected by Hispanic Latino respondents, other people

[22:00] of color respondents as well as non-Hispanic white. And what you see here is when we ask

[22:05] I worry about retaliation, if I report harassment, you'll see that the Hispanic Latino population

[22:12] and other people of color are slightly higher than non-Hispanic white. But those responses

[22:17] were high across the board. So generally in conditions like this with the housing market

[22:22] that is really tight. We see that people are really reluctant to report any condition issues

[22:28] to their landlord or any feelings that they have experienced from their neighbors. If they feel

[22:35] like they're not feeling comfortable within their development, they're reluctant to report that

[22:39] because they're afraid that they'll get retaliated against or in some cases evicted.

[22:44] And the other one that you see here is I have a disability and cannot get around the neighborhood

[22:48] which was higher for people of color, 32% relative to Hispanic or Latino, but also really

[22:56] high for the non-Hispanic white population, and that's probably going to represent more

[23:01] of your senior population that tends to be more individuals who identify as non-Hispanic

[23:08] white.

[23:10] Go ahead and go forward.

[23:20] You can page forward, it looks like it might be stuck.

[23:27] Great.

[23:27] Thank you.

[23:27] So I'm going to shift and talk a bit about the housing needs assessment and needs analysis

[23:32] that we did.

[23:33] HUD has a template that is provided to us that we complete and we've got drafts of that

[23:40] that are part of the consolidated plan, but instead of reinventing the wheel for Beaver

[23:45] 10 because you had already done your housing needs assessment, we used the graphics for

[23:49] that section that drawing from the housing needs assessment.

[23:52] This should be familiar to you.

[23:53] this first one shows the rental gaps and a rental gap is comparing the distribution of

[23:58] renter households and you see that in sort of the darker orange or the rust color with

[24:03] the units that are affordable at their income level. What you see here is when that rust

[24:07] color bar is higher than the yellowish bar, that means that there's a gap. So there's

[24:12] a shortage of units to serve households, in this case renter households, at that income

[24:17] level. And you see that that exists up until people are earning 35,000 to 50,000 dollars

[24:23] and more, and that's where supply becomes more available.

[24:27] So what this tells us is that people who are earning

[24:29] or have incomes of less than 35,000,

[24:32] they can't find units that are affordable to them,

[24:34] and they're cost burdened. They have to rent up,

[24:37] so they have to pay more for housing than they can afford

[24:40] or they're living over crowded conditions

[24:42] or they're living with friends or family

[24:44] and they're not on the lease and it may be a precarious situation.

[24:47] Then higher income households who have a lot of housing available to them,

[24:51] they can rent down and they sometimes crowd out those units for low-income households

[24:55] because they're just more attractive tenants for a lot of landlords.

[25:05] And this is a similar comparison for owner households. So this is representing owners who are housed, but may want to change. They may want to downsize for those low-income owners, where there's more of those than units valued at the income level. They may be having trouble paying taxes, property taxes, may having trouble maintaining their homes. So what we see here is for low-income homeowners,

[25:29] even though they're in their homes, they probably would really have a lot of trouble changing,

[25:34] downsizing, upsizing if they needed to to help live and support a family member. So the owner

[25:40] distribution is a little in better balance because owners are higher income than renters, but you still

[25:45] see some gaps.

[25:49] You should have to talk a little bit about homeownership rates and differences and

[25:52] homeownership rates. So Beaverton has a lower homeownership rate of about 51% relative to the county

[25:59] over all. It's the same as Hillsboro, but lower than Tigard. And you're unique in that

[26:05] you haven't seen yours really change much. Hillsboro, it went down by 4 percentage points

[26:10] over the last five years, but you pretty much stayed the same in terms of homeownership.

[26:18] We also look at homeownership rates or homeownership gaps rather by race and ethnicity. We're

[26:24] trying to understand, like I said earlier, what the disproportionate housing needs section

[26:28] or people experiencing the housing market differently.

[26:32] You'll see in Beaverton, that Asian

[26:35] and non-Hispanic white households,

[26:37] they have a little bit higher

[26:39] homeownership rates than the city overall at 55%.

[26:43] Where we see the biggest gaps are for Hispanic Latino households,

[26:47] homeownership rate in Beaverton is only 25%.

[26:50] Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander households,

[26:54] as well as your Black African-American households.

[26:58] American Indian Alaska Native households, slightly higher homeownership rates as well as other or two or more races.

[27:05] So when you're thinking about programs like down payment assistance, if you're providing affordable homeownership programs,

[27:13] to deliver those programs equitably, you want to really look at these subgroups,

[27:19] these racial and ethnic groups that have really low homeownership rates and ask yourself,

[27:24] how could we do better in helping them achieve homeownership?

[27:31] And last but not least on the data side, we do an exercise where we project future needs,

[27:37] and this is for the county overall, part of the demands on the consolidated plan for the county

[27:43] are more extensive than for Beaverton or Hillsboro. Their plans are sort of a subset of the county,

[27:49] but this gives you a sense of what those needs are. And basically what we do is we take

[27:54] the current subgroup population groups, we look at how the county overall has grown and

[28:03] then we project forward and we need to do a five-year projection for HUD for the Consolidated

[28:08] Plan.

[28:09] So where you see growth is in all low income households, we anticipate that you could see

[28:14] growth of about 4,200 and if you look at that growth by sort of that income segment, see

[28:21] where that growth is really going to happen is between 50% and 80%, extremely low-income households.

[28:28] So there's like poverty level households as well as very low-income households.

[28:33] So when you're thinking about designing programs, there's not really one low-income category

[28:38] that's going to grow faster than another. They're pretty much growing at a similar rate,

[28:42] although you'll see a slightly higher growth within that low-income household bucket.

[28:46] So

[28:50] I'm going to shift and talk about goals and priorities.

[28:52] For the last couple of months working with Beaverton, City of Beaverton, Washington County

[28:57] and Hillsboro, we've put all of this information together.

[29:00] We presented to staff a couple of times some guidance and priorities.

[29:05] This is information that city staff will use annually when they're setting up their allocation

[29:12] plan and their proposed projects to make sure they're sort of checking in with priority

[29:17] needs and checking in with what we saw with the needs. So guidance would be prioritizing the

[29:22] urgency of the need, really looking at where there are acute needs, people are experiencing homelessness

[29:27] at risk, at homelessness, at risk of eviction. Looking at, and I talked about this quite a bit now,

[29:33] the ability to address equity gaps and reverse the effects of historical discrimination. So just

[29:38] paying attention to the idea that disproportionate needs exist and you may need to calibrate programs,

[29:45] a little bit differently to be able to address those needs.

[29:49] And then the ability to leverage resources

[29:50] and utilize other resources to address needs,

[29:53] particularly taken into account your existing service providers and partners.

[30:00] Prior goals for the city of Beaver 10, so this is five years ago, were a little broader than what we've got proposed for this round of consolidated planning. So they tended to be higher level and have a little more sort of a categorical representation. Go ahead and go forward.

[30:20] So you'll see these really represent those HUD categories that I talked about when I was talking about the survey.

[30:29] So the goals of the objectives were proposing for 2025 through 2029.

[30:34] And these comport with what the county and the city of Hillsboro are proposing to for

[30:40] their goals.

[30:41] These are a little more strategy-based.

[30:44] So goal one is increasing housing stability of low income renter households and special

[30:49] populations.

[30:50] And that could include a number of activities, rental assistance, new construction of affordable

[30:54] rental housing, rehabilitation, as well as housing-related public services, like homeless prevention,

[31:00] for example.

[31:01] A goal to improve public facilities and public infrastructure that benefits special needs

[31:06] populations.

[31:07] And then we have that equity piece built in to historically underserved people in neighborhoods.

[31:12] Goal 3 rather facilitate affordable homeownership and preserve and stabilize existing homes occupied

[31:19] by low to moderate income owners, down payment assistance, new construction as well as rehabilitation.

[31:25] And then goal 4 funding supportive services for low to moderate income and special needs

[31:29] populations.

[31:33] And so with that I'm certainly, this slide actually prompts some ideas for discussion,

[31:39] but open to any discussion or questions about anything that I presented as well as would love to

[31:45] get feedback on the proposed five-year goals and priorities for this plan. Some of the ways you

[31:51] could think about this is if you were really thinking about, I'd like to advocate for this type of

[31:55] activity, I'm hearing my constituents really, you know, are having a challenge in this

[32:00] way. Would the goals and would the activities and priorities really support that challenge?

[32:06] And then last but not least, as Kathy talked about, there's a paper document that reports

[32:11] back those outcomes. So another way to think about this is what outcomes would you really

[32:15] want to see from those investments?

[32:21] With that, I'm happy to take any kind of questions?

[32:29] Yeah, we have a point of clarification very well.

[32:34] This was designated as a presentation for us and so we're trying to respect the boundaries

[32:38] that we're supposed to resect, which means we're not supposed to work session this.

[32:43] So I'm just curious, you know, what would be helpful for us to kind of minimize the back

[32:50] of force since it's not a work session, any guidance,

[32:59] no guidance, we'll try to time box

[33:02] it? It would be most helpful for takeaways, Kathy, or Tyler? What do you need if any feedback

[33:11] and when do you need it? So the process goes, I think we're supposed to, I don't think I know,

[33:18] but we are supposed to have the consolidated plan into HUD by May 15th, 2025. So we have a bit of time

[33:28] more we're preparing ahead of time. So we've done all of this work over about a year's time.

[33:35] We will bring the consolidated plan back to council again for comments and

[33:44] you know whatever issues or outreach you might have. We have a meeting it's called an open

[33:51] house and I should have mentioned that. Tomorrow at the Tigard Public Library and that's

[33:58] at five o'clock, and we have another meeting.

[34:02] It's a, we call them open houses,

[34:04] and the community is invited, and we've published it

[34:07] like on our Facebook page, and Instagram, and Twitter, X,

[34:12] and it's been published in various media outlets.

[34:17] So that is also, that's Thursday, and that will be held

[34:22] at the Cornelius, in Cornelius, at Central Couture del, and that's also at 5 o'clock, so we're

[34:30] there to get comments. And, you know, if Council would like, we can also bring this back

[34:37] again, and, you know, for discussion. This is just basically a presentation to let, you know,

[34:42] where we are and what data we've collected and what it's looking like so far. Thank you.

[34:47] Councillor Hussain.

[34:54] I will be thoughtful of time.

[34:55] I just, this was very, very informational to the-

[35:00] I want to have dialogue, but I'll keep it short. I'm just curious. I'm assuming it's because of HUD that we just focus on housing, right? We don't look at like other factors like child care or health care. Does that sound right? We do. Okay. There's, there's lots of things. We set out a questionnaire six months ago, maybe, and we asked the community what they thought was important.

[35:27] But yeah, childcare is definitely something that could be on the list.

[35:31] Okay. I only bring that up because obviously part of being housed is having access to healthcare,

[35:36] having access to childcare, so looking at it like more holistically, which I know can be tricky.

[35:42] I just, the other is like a general question. On the slide around the ethnicity, I noticed that

[35:49] we were using kind of like the federal government designated ethnicities. Has there ever been an

[35:53] interest or desire to go deeper. So like Asian is very broad. Has that ever been a topic?

[36:01] It's these are you know HUD slots that yeah you know that it's yeah it's kind of interesting they

[36:08] let you report lots of different types of race and ethnicities when you collect the data but when

[36:14] you report back out to HUD there's only like very few like categories that you can report into and

[36:20] And I make the comment every year when I report my documents that, well, if you're going

[36:25] to collect the data, can we please use those dedicated, whatever line items, like how they

[36:35] identify in the actual reports?

[36:39] Yeah.

[36:39] So this is the federal government.

[36:41] Yeah.

[36:42] Yeah, definitely.

[36:43] Yeah.

[36:43] Well, that's what we deserve.

[36:45] Just want to put on everyone's radar.

[36:46] Asian is very diverse, black is very diverse. I understand we're working

[36:51] at the federal government, that's fine. I'll just, you know, I know that there's

[36:55] been, we've talked about like an access center, which is a little bit maybe

[36:59] different around this, but we've also talked about like a multicultural center,

[37:03] which would serve communities of color. So I just wonder like where those things

[37:06] sort of support this kind of work. I think the retaliation comment to me was

[37:12] really interesting because I know as a woman of color and working with

[37:15] There is fear of retaliation for speaking up, so like is there a way to build services or access to services that is safe that allows people to show up and walk in and feel like they can say what they need?

[37:28] So that was just something that kind of popped in my head.

[37:31] I'm watching the time, so I'm going to let other folks speak, but this was a really informative presentation.

[37:36] So thank you.

[37:37] Thank you.

[37:37] We also have coming up the fair housing contract.

[37:41] So that's something that would address the needs for retaliation.

[37:48] Yeah.

[37:49] All right, Councillor Hart, my break.

[37:51] Thank you.

[37:52] Clarifying question, kind of a follow-up to Councillor Hessons.

[37:56] So in the data that we see through, from the survey results, where people were asked to

[38:00] rent.

[38:01] Their needs, it was high need.

[38:03] I think Heidi that you said that all of those categories are CDBG eligible categories?

[38:11] Did I hear that correctly?

[38:15] Most are, but the way that the survey was designed is it wasn't.

[38:22] I was trying to gather data from the residence perspective, so it's more little.

[38:31] It's crafted so that a resident would recognize a need as opposed to sort of those HUD-designated

[38:36] categories.

[38:37] So, yes, for the most part, but the way that the CDBG regulations work, in some cases you

[38:44] are limited in the set-of-side, so how much CDBG you can use to fund some of those activities.

[38:51] So it would be difficult, like for example, even though we go through this exercise, we couldn't

[38:55] take that distribution of priorities,

[38:58] representing that high needs graph.

[39:01] Graph, if you wanted to, you couldn't be able to do this

[39:04] and make the allocation match that

[39:06] because you're sort of,

[39:07] you're beholden to the HUD regulations too.

[39:09] Okay, thank you.

[39:11] If you're interested,

[39:12] it's 15% of the entitlement amount

[39:16] can be allocated for public services

[39:18] and then 20% of the entitlement amount

[39:20] can be allocated toward administration costs.

[39:26] Thank you.

[39:29] I've got one question about the differences in goals between previous years and what

[39:35] we're looking forward to in the next five years.

[39:38] Looks like the biggest differences are previous years included some funding or some goals

[39:42] around workforce development and micro enterprise economic development.

[39:47] Do we see changes in what we might be funding over the next five years based off of the new

[39:53] goals that we have or do is everything kind of fit within these new buckets.

[39:57] We've got like, what do we see for the future of what we might be fun?

[40:00] I think that we need to wait until the data is gathered. Five years ago, and I was actually, this is the last time I was in front of council was five years ago, it was something that came up on the survey results of what was needed. And if that comes up again, then yeah, we'll look at it at that point. It's also, if you serve micro enterprise, that amount of funding does not need to

[40:29] that come out of your public services cap,

[40:31] which is that really skinny 15%.

[40:35] If you fund workforce development,

[40:38] workforce training and hiring,

[40:39] it comes out of your very precious 15%.

[40:44] So that's part of the consideration.

[40:48] Okay, thank you.

[40:49] I look forward to seeing more.

[40:50] Also the other.

[40:53] Yeah, thank you.

[40:54] Question for you.

[40:55] And then I'm gonna give you feedback on the goals.

[40:58] How do these goals connect with, since this is federal HUD money with like our SHS funding

[41:04] which is, there's a lot of intersection there, I even think about like our library funding,

[41:09] right?

[41:09] Library funding is not just books anymore, it's, it's supportive housing services, connection

[41:14] to services like how, how is this different, are we connecting with those programs like,

[41:20] does that question make sense?

[41:23] Like, like-

[41:23] Are there goals that are different than those goals?

[41:27] So like are there complimentary like do we do we partner with those agencies like with the library and?

[41:33] Well, I'm thinking as far as giving you feedback on these goals like did these kind of level up like are we all doing the same work?

[41:38] Because that would be really important to me that we're not doing one program way over here that's not connected with our federal.

[41:44] Like all levels of government should be working together to get, you know, the same goals accomplished so do these kind of.

[41:52] work in concert with the metro, SHS, county, you know, goals and things like that, or are these totally separate?

[42:00] What do you have to say about that, Heidi? I'd say they're totally separate.

[42:04] Yeah, I mean, I understand. I think the desire to be able to have like truly like a consolidated plan where you've got, you know, these services should work together, right?

[42:15] they should sync up. That would be ideal. But realistically, when these are programs that have

[42:21] any federal money in them, they require different reports, different ways of like CSBG, for example,

[42:28] is a totally different process. And so I think you could certainly express that to HUD. The magic is

[42:38] really trying to strike that balance between what makes sense for goals, like real goals,

[42:44] sort of goals with some strategy, and then we're reporting to HUD so that they can see

[42:51] that those boxes are all checked.

[42:54] And we don't want to put Cathy in too much of a narrow box in that you can only fund certain

[43:00] activities.

[43:00] We want to allow some flexibility, but we also need to signal to HUD that the activities

[43:06] that these block grants are really meant to fund the spirit of the block grants are represented there so that's kind of what that's the balance we're trying to strike.

[43:14] I think you could say yes the way that the goals are designed there is an opportunity to work with your partner agencies and organizations to be able to leverage dollars and fit everything into those goals.

[43:29] but if you see a place where there's a gap, like we'd really like to take on this activity,

[43:34] and honestly how this fits in the goal, then we would need to fix that before it's submitted to HUD.

[43:38] And that's kind of what I expected. It's really hard not to support these goals,

[43:43] like they're increased housing stability, who would not support that. The only thing I would encourage

[43:47] you is to make them a little more specific, right? Like it's, if we do one thing in the community,

[43:56] that increases housing stability, that technically meets that goal, but that's not moving the needle.

[44:01] And so, I'm okay with failing goals, let's do our moonshot here, and I'm just making this up.

[44:08] But let's increase housing stability 10% or something like that, very specific and

[44:13] measurable over the next five years, and all of these things improve public facilities by

[44:19] by X amount of dollars or X amount,

[44:22] just those kind of things really appeal to me

[44:24] from a metrics.

[44:26] To a measurement.

[44:27] Yeah, like, because we just say

[44:29] increase public facilities or increase.

[44:31] Like, I think everybody in this, in Beaverton,

[44:35] it's one of the few things we probably all 100% agree on.

[44:37] But like, I want to kind of push us,

[44:39] even if we don't hit them to kind of,

[44:41] to push really hard and shoot for the stars on those.

[44:43] And the way you do that is like,

[44:45] having really big measurable goals

[44:47] that we can see if we're on track for.

[44:49] So I think they're great goals.

[44:51] I would just add that I would hope

[44:52] that we would put some sort of measure in there metric.

[44:56] Okay.

[44:57] Thank you.

[44:59] Thank you all.

[45:00] I just have a quick question. How was the survey conducted? I'm sorry. How was the survey conducted? What was the survey conducted? So the initial survey went out in a lot of different ways. So we sent them out via emails. We sent them out to partner agencies who then like would pass those on to their clients or their

[45:29] constituents, and we collected what and then they, you could send them back, you know, by mail,

[45:39] by email, there was a QR code, we got fancy, and you could scan the QR code and fill out the,

[45:47] fill out the answers. There were questionnaire surveys that went to agencies, and then there were

[45:55] that went out to sort of the Beaverton community at large.

[45:59] It was bigger than that.

[46:01] It was Hillsborough, Washington County, and Beaverton.

[46:03] So that's how it goes.

[46:04] So it wasn't mailed to individual households or something

[46:08] like that.

[46:08] It was more like a digital.

[46:10] It was more what?

[46:11] Digital, mailers, and it was on the website.

[46:16] So it was on, we put it on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram.

[46:20] right. And then we also had a publication, like in the local media posts and we had it

[46:29] online and on all of our websites with links. So out of the total number of the surveys

[46:38] that was available went out. How would you say the percentage of return on the surveys?

[46:43] Do you have that information Heidi? I don't know actually the, I don't have the total

[46:48] number of some people call them touch points, like to try and promote the survey.

[46:55] But what I can say, when we do statistically significant surveys, which we do sometimes

[46:59] for comprehensive housing plans, the magic number is 400 people.

[47:04] So you want, you know, generally if you're getting a capture of 400 across with good demographic

[47:11] representation, you're, and there's more statistical stuff that goes into that, but your

[47:17] margin of errors, you're pretty representative of the community overall and you had over 400

[47:22] but we didn't collect data through a random sample and so we weren't trying to get statistical

[47:29] representation. We're trying to get a decent representation of people and I have, you know,

[47:37] I've spent money to do statistically significant surveys, they're very, very expensive for this

[47:43] kind of work and HUD really, it doesn't matter to HUD if they're a representative sample.

[47:47] They just want to see enough load of modern income people and households represented in

[47:53] the survey. That's really what they care about.

[47:57] Okay. The reason that I asked the question is that all the lists of the agency that we work

[48:02] with, there's no Asian-related community organizations that was listed. You'll see the Hispanic

[48:09] or just general in public, so I like to make a comment about that almost no Asian community had the feedback there.

[48:20] And then second of all, it says less than 20 were Asian or the sample was so low that you had to combine the data or that.

[48:33] on the survey for the disproportionate needs, or...

[48:41] Yeah, when you show Hispanic, non-white, and Asian,

[48:47] on the sub-category, on the node, it says less than 20 was collected.

[48:53] So you had to comment on the disproportionate needs.

[48:59] Yeah, so the reason I'm asking this question is

[49:04] We have a 42% to 45% non-white or people color residents in Beaverton and it looks like

[49:12] very small number of our people of color sample were collected

[49:17] So I like to give more effort in the collecting the data that actually represents somewhat of our population makeup

[49:25] So let's say you're looking for 400 out of 400, at least 150 should be a people of color.

[49:33] That would represent the city of Pivot and population.

[49:36] Yes.

[49:37] Sorry.

[49:38] Yeah, please.

[49:40] Yeah, we have put our advertisements also in the Asian reporter and with ERCO and with

[49:50] and we outreach to different agencies like the Korean Society of Oregon and then other Latino agencies as well.

[50:01] It's hard to get people to respond back. We gave a $100 incentive cash prize, so I think we have three of those to give away. If they responded, they were putting a pot of money, putting a pot to be drawn for $400 or $100. So, yeah, I would love to have ideas about how to outreach to folks and get them to understand that their opinion matters.

[50:30] Yeah, I could have to hear that you're trying to effort.

[50:34] Maybe you can talk in the future about how to get a question.

[50:39] I was just going to add just generally, and I know staff has heard this, but I think

[50:43] anytime there's any type of survey that you want from the community, I think all of us

[50:48] have different types of connections to communities.

[50:51] So whenever I get one, I try to send it out, and I know that we're an I'm not a KSO, but

[50:56] But I do think we try to do a good job of being connected to people.

[51:01] So just something to keep in your mind, maybe working with the city manager's office, if there's something like that.

[51:06] In the future, we're always happy to push it out with groups that we're connected to as well.

[51:10] Great, thank you.

[51:11] Thank you.

[51:12] Thank you.

[51:12] No other questions?

[51:14] Thank you for the presentation and being here.

[51:16] Of course, we look forward to giving you more information.

[51:19] Thank you.

[51:22] So the next item on the agenda is a public hearing regarding a resolution,

[51:30] adapting a supplemental budget for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2024, and making

[51:36] appropriations therefrom. Anyone wishing to speak at this hearing should follow the instructions

[51:42] included on the tonight's agenda. Each member of the public who speaks at tonight's hearing

[51:48] will have a maximum of two minutes. We will begin with a short staff presentation from the city's

[51:54] Finance Department.

[51:58] Good evening, Councillors. Deborah Lochner, Finance Director. So what you have in

[52:03] front of you today is a supplemental budget request for our current budget. Various different

[52:10] things that happen throughout the year that we are asking for you to approve our adjustments to the

[52:18] budget. And so if you have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

[52:26] Any questions?

[52:30] No?

[52:32] Okay. I'll now

[52:33] Now open the public hearing, City Recorder, is there anyone to testify?

[52:38] No council president, there is not.

[52:41] There appears to be no member of the public who wishes to comment on this matter tonight.

[52:48] I will now close the public hearing.

[52:51] What is the pleasure of the council, is there a motion?

[52:58] Yes, I will move to the council adopt resolution 4886, the resolution adopting a supplemental

[53:05] mental budget for the fiscal year commencing July 1st, 2024, and making appropriations there

[53:10] from.

[53:11] Second.

[53:14] It was moved by Councillor Teeter, seconded by Councillor Hassan, any discussions?

[53:23] We're ready for a vote.

[53:25] Would the City Recorder please call the vote by roll?

[53:28] Councillor Teeter.

[53:29] Yes.

[53:30] Councillor Kimmy.

[53:32] Yes.

[53:32] Councillor Hassan.

[53:34] Yes.

[53:35] Councillor Hartmeier-Preg.

[53:36] Yes.

[53:37] Councillor Dugger.

[53:39] Yes.

[53:39] 5-0-2.

[53:44] We're moving along.

[53:46] Next item on the agenda is the work session regarding Metro's regional systems facility

[53:51] plan update.

[53:52] We'll begin the work session with a presentation by Scott, with Metro.

[53:57] When the presentation is done, each Councillor will have the opportunity to comment on the presentations

[54:03] and ask questions of the presenter.

[54:07] Please begin your presentation.

[54:08] Council

[54:12] President and Councillors, I'm Scott Keller, Senior Program Manager for Sustainability

[54:16] and Recycling, and here tonight with guests from Metro that I'm going to let introduce

[54:21] themselves so they can get their titles appropriately to talk about the Metro Regional System Facilities

[54:26] Plan.

[54:30] All right, excellent, thank you so much for introducing us with a light version here.

[54:37] Good evening, Council, Council President, it's a pleasure to be with you again.

[54:42] And for the record, my name is Juan Carlos Gonzales, and I have the, I proudly have the

[54:47] opportunity to serve as your Metro Counselor on a regional Metro Government.

[54:52] Again, I want to thank you for inviting our team and myself to offer an update on the regional

[54:57] and also synthesize these plans.

[54:59] I have a question.

[55:00] A few things I want to share, and then I can hand it off to our team. The plan outlines a set of investments to increase access to garbage and recycling services, and facilities to reduce the amount of waste that gets sent to landfills. It updates equipment and infrastructure to make the system more efficient all while trying to keep costs as low as possible. There's no denying and from

[55:29] the conversation we were able to have a few weeks ago, that garbage and recycling services,

[55:35] especially on the west side, need to be more convenient, equitable, and affordable.

[55:41] One of the key investments in the Regional System Facilities Plan that you'll get to see a

[55:47] presentation on shortly here, that I'm excited about is a network of community drop-off depots across

[55:52] across the region that will drastically improve access to reuse, repair, recycling, composting,

[56:01] and hazardous waste disposal for neighborhoods across Washington County and the metro area.

[56:06] After extensive planning and close collaboration with local governments, your team included.

[56:13] Industry partners and community groups.

[56:16] The draft plan is now ready for review on the Metro website.

[56:20] Metro does invite the public to provide comments and take a survey on the plan

[56:25] and give us important feedback between now and October 31st. So I'm going to

[56:31] hand it off to Dr. Martin McGuire, our Waste Property Environmental Services

[56:35] Director, to take it from here and introduce the rest of the team. Thank you.

[56:47] Is the light on?

[56:49] No.

[56:51] How about now?

[56:52] Okay.

[56:53] Good evening, Council President and Counselors. Thank you again so much for having

[56:58] us. We are looking forward to giving you a presentation on the system facilities plan.

[57:02] I have here with me, SD Siegel, and in our virtual space, we have Louis Sandoval, who are both

[57:07] principal planners and Metro's waste prevention and environmental services department.

[57:11] We have a brief presentation for you today, and hopefully a good amount of time for discussion.

[57:16] We've also brought hard copies of LaPanne if you're interested in following the long that

[57:21] we can share with you. So if we go to the next slide.

[57:25] Currently, our work is guided by the 2030 regional waste plan.

[57:29] This is an ambitious plan for managing the region's garbage and recycling system with

[57:34] the key priorities that are listed here, and we partner with your communities to move

[57:38] this work forward.

[57:39] As Councillor Gonzales mentioned, we are here to discuss one of the key priorities of the plan

[57:44] that is focused on ensuring equitable and affordable services for everyone.

[57:49] To address this priority, the regional system facility plan focuses on addressing

[57:54] the most long-standing gaps in the system and taking a holistic view.

[57:58] Next slide. I want to just start with the term of garbage and recycling system

[58:04] and we really use this as an all-inclusive term to refer to the number of facilities

[58:09] that make up the system that it manages the regions waste and materials.

[58:14] This includes materials such as garbage and recycling and hazardous waste

[58:18] that you see on the left-hand column. The graphic shows how these materials move

[58:22] through the system, some materials, as you know, are picked up on the curbside, while

[58:27] others, such as healthful hazardous waste, must be taken directly to a facility.

[58:31] The system facilities plan is focused on that third column on facilities and services

[58:37] that support the transfer of materials to their final destination, including materials that

[58:42] may not be available at curbside, and other hard to dispose of items or items that may be recycled.

[58:49] Access to these services in the system are experienced differently by people throughout

[58:53] the region.

[58:54] We know we talked about this a bit at the last opportunity we had to engage with you.

[59:00] And the current distribution of facilities means that some people have easy access to

[59:03] these services, such as getting rid of large items, while others do not.

[59:08] Go to the next slide.

[59:11] A good example of the current state of our system is the Metro South Public Transpensation.

[59:15] This facility opened in April 1983.

[59:19] It was designed originally to host an incinerator,

[59:22] and the facility was expected to handle over 800 tons

[59:25] of waste every day.

[59:26] Fast forward to today, and Metro South

[59:28] processes more than 300,000 tons of waste a year,

[59:32] and many days handling more than 1,000 tons of garbage per day.

[59:36] And the challenges to the site are daily.

[59:38] We do our best at operating an overburden facility

[59:41] in a safe and efficient manner.

[59:42] However, to keep high-quality materials out of the landfill, we need more space to separate

[59:48] recyclable, reusable, and repairable items and to ensure safety, including the traffic,

[59:53] and redevelopment of the site is needed.

[59:56] Metro South is just one example of how over the last 40 years, the Garbage and Recycling

[1:00:17] We also know we live in a place where people care about the environment and are willing to spend more resources to keep valuable resources out of the landfill.

[1:00:26] Here is a picture of a local recycling event hosted by James Recycling just last month.

[1:00:32] And people waited in line more than half an hour to recycle items that cannot be collected

[1:00:36] at the curb and paid $3 a bag.

[1:00:39] This is just one example of the values in our region in practice.

[1:00:43] Next slide.

[1:00:46] To address this aging system, Metro Council directed us to complete a system facilities plan

[1:00:50] to take a holistic look at the region's facilities to identify investments needed to improve access

[1:00:55] facilities for everyone. This will be a 20-year vision to provide a roadmap for future

[1:01:01] investment. It's a vision document that will identify facility and program investments

[1:01:05] for the region to pursue. It's essentially a blueprint to set direction and any proposed

[1:01:10] investments will have many decision points along the way before full implementation. And

[1:01:16] it also calls out more areas that need additional study.

[1:01:20] Next slide.

[1:01:22] The slide is busy and has a lot of print on it, but hopefully illustrates over the last

[1:01:27] 18 months, Metro has engaged with local government industry, community and tribal governments

[1:01:32] across the region, hosted an international symposium and engaged with Metro Council to develop

[1:01:36] the set of investments that you see in the draft plan before you.

[1:01:40] Each phase of the plan essentially was building a chapter.

[1:01:43] Each phase of the plan development was essentially building a chapter through an iterative process

[1:01:47] Starting with the values and outcomes and this slide here shows the many touch points with our partners and we are now in the final phase of plan development.

[1:01:57] Next slide.

[1:01:59] You can think of the plan essentially like a project roadmap. Here you can see an outline of the chapters that are in the plan and today we will be giving an overview of the investment strategy and financing approach.

[1:02:11] And with that I will turn it over to SD.

[1:02:16] I just want to do a quick recap of what we did over the last couple of years.

[1:02:21] After establishing the guiding values and outcomes, the project team engaged in activities

[1:02:26] and research to identify gaps in the region's system.

[1:02:30] And three of the key gaps that identified include gaps in access, residents and areas of

[1:02:36] Washington County and East Multnomah County, lack drop-off locations for recyclables hazardous

[1:02:41] waste and large reusable items.

[1:02:44] Facility gaps for collectors, companies collecting waste face challenges related to access,

[1:02:49] costs, and disaster resilience for food waste, yard debris, and garbage.

[1:02:54] And then also the needs of reuse organizations.

[1:02:57] Reuse and repair businesses require more warehousing space for sorting and storing items,

[1:03:02] along with consistent funding to enhance collection and distribution.

[1:03:06] So at the symposium last fall, we presented four scenarios to partners to consider.

[1:03:11] that outline different approaches Metro could take to address the identified gaps.

[1:03:16] And also outline different ways that Metro could fill the gaps.

[1:03:20] And you can see some of that on the right-hand side of the slide.

[1:03:24] Next slide.

[1:03:25] After the symposium and getting feedback from Metro Council,

[1:03:28] we heard strong support for a distributed model.

[1:03:31] And this approach focuses on creating smaller facilities throughout the region

[1:03:35] to improve access to services.

[1:03:37] A survey that we put out showed results that people appreciated elements from some of the other scenarios also including more support for existing reuse organizations and businesses and improving safety and efficiency at existing facilities.

[1:03:52] And the benefits of this model distributed model include greater access to services, increased recycling rates, better handling of hazardous waste and hard to recycle materials, and then also opportunities for public private partnerships.

[1:04:07] next slide. The draft plan that Metro has developed aims to enhance public and commercial

[1:04:12] facilities, food waste processing, and support reuse and repair organizations over the next

[1:04:17] 20 years. You can see the four key investments here as listed in community drop off depots,

[1:04:23] reuse and repair, organics, and commercial transfer fees. And I'll now describe a bit more

[1:04:29] about these four investment areas and you can also read more.

[1:04:33] Starting with the community

[1:04:34] drop-off depots. The vision is to create a network of depots to fill gaps that were identified

[1:04:41] by our residents and small businesses, including more locations across the region to drop-off

[1:04:47] items for reuse, recycling, hazardous waste, and self-haul garbage all in one place. These

[1:04:53] facilities will be designed for public customers driving cars and small trucks apart from commercial

[1:04:59] and to be able to

[1:05:00] We'll be able to easily separate material for recovery to encourage waste reduction over garbage to landfill. You can see an example of a one stop drop off called an eco center in Burnabee, British Columbia, Canada. Next slide shows the approximate location of the network of six community depots envisioned in the plan and some of the modeling estimates for drive times recovery and people to be served at these new facilities.

[1:05:29] The reuse and repair area of the plan includes investments in two new facilities, a reuse

[1:05:36] warehouse and a reuse mall.

[1:05:39] Both projects would be planned and implemented in partnership with existing reuse organizations

[1:05:44] and businesses, and then also a third investment is proposed for a sustainable reuse funding

[1:05:50] program to support businesses and recovering and diverting even more materials from landfill.

[1:05:56] And next on to the organics section, food represents the single largest component of the

[1:06:02] region's disposal waste stream and is a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions.

[1:06:08] Metro Central plays a crucial role in transferring and pre-processing food waste before it reaches

[1:06:13] and markets.

[1:06:15] This facility handles 70% of the region's food waste.

[1:06:18] In our role, it is critical to maintain a contamination-free system to produce high-quality compost and avoid environmental and health risks from microplastics.

[1:06:29] So to improve the transfer and processing capacity of organics in the region, Metro will continue to invest in Metro Central as a regional hub for receiving residential and commercial organics from haulers.

[1:06:40] Also, in the organics realm on the next slide, Metro will develop public-private partnerships

[1:06:48] to support additional organics hubs in areas of the region where there are the greatest gaps.

[1:06:55] Then moving on to the fourth area around commercial transfer stations, Metro Council expressed

[1:07:01] support for repurposing over time, the two Metro commercial transfer stations central and

[1:07:07] to focus on providing the services that are more challenging to provide for the private

[1:07:12] sector, such as self-haul and organics transfer services.

[1:07:16] As the plan is proposing to convert Metro South to a community drop-off depot, this would

[1:07:21] create a service gap for commercial haulers in the southern part of the region, and to fill

[1:07:25] the gap, Metro would take a phased approach to seek to authorize a new commercial transfer station

[1:07:31] or develop a public-private partnership to build a new facility in that southern part of the region.

[1:07:36] There

[1:07:39] are two important areas that need more time for research assessment and discussion

[1:07:43] and this is around wet waste tonnage flow and private facility regulation.

[1:07:48] The plan includes two actions in this area, firstly to study the impact of lowering or

[1:07:52] removing Metro's tonnage guarantee, including evaluation of the current wet waste tonnage

[1:07:57] allocation program and second to assess options for private facility regulation to best serve

[1:08:03] the public.

[1:08:05] Actions are detailed more in the plan, and we'll begin when the plan is adopted by

[1:08:10] Metro Council.

[1:08:11] The next slide shows a visual representation of the facilities and investment projects

[1:08:17] proposed in the draft plan, and also summarizes some of the planned benefits.

[1:08:22] Please note that the facilities outlined with a gray circle around them, with dashed line

[1:08:26] on the map, do not have a specific location determined yet.

[1:08:30] That will be determined during implementation.

[1:08:33] On to talk a little bit about the costs on the next slide.

[1:08:39] So the proposed investments are estimated to cost about $273 million over the 20-year

[1:08:44] implementation.

[1:08:46] And just for comparison, the original scenarios the project presented at last year's symposium

[1:08:51] range from $280 million to more than $800 million.

[1:08:56] The investments will be financed through revenue bonds and with debt paid off over 20 years and the estimated increase in the garbage bill for a single family household in the region over the next two decades is between $1.50 and $2 per month on average in today's dollar.

[1:09:14] This stays within what we heard, people would be willing to pay for the services after the survey that was we put out after this.

[1:09:24] It's important to note again that this is a really a 20-year vision plan and the specific costs and timing of each project will be determined through Metro's annual budgeting process.

[1:09:35] The annual budget development and fee setting will be guided by the solid waste fee policy and with input from the regional waste.

[1:09:41] So, we wanted to just say, again, that there are two ways to provide feedback on the draft

[1:09:48] plan.

[1:09:49] You can leave a public comment or it take an online survey.

[1:09:54] Both opportunities can be found on the project website and will be open throughout the month

[1:09:58] of October.

[1:10:00] And then input we receive will help shape the final plan to be considered for adoption by Metro Council in December and set the foundation for future work to make the plan a real. That we just wanted to pose a couple of questions to start the discussion.

[1:10:20] Great. Great. I just want to add a few more things in addition to what our staff were able to share. So generally, you know, the greater Portland metro area ranks very high across the country and generally globally, I'd like to think.

[1:10:35] for recovery rates, for the kind of materials

[1:10:38] that were able to pull out of the garbage stream

[1:10:42] that don't go to the landfill.

[1:10:43] So that's a really important kind of north star

[1:10:46] for this plan that I want to highlight.

[1:10:50] There was some in the slides that SD and Dr. McGuire

[1:10:53] shared as well, there were a few metrics that stood out to me

[1:10:57] that I just kind of want to leave with you

[1:10:59] before we go into questions as well.

[1:11:01] So the aspirational plan, so with the community drop off depot plan, 20-minute driving distance

[1:11:09] for any person in the region to their nearest depot, baseline currently in the region that's

[1:11:14] 40% with a new plan that would be 98% of people in the region would have that kind of access

[1:11:20] to a depot.

[1:11:22] Also Metro depots per 250,000 residents in the Portland metro area, currently our baseline

[1:11:29] is 0.3 depots per that kind of rate.

[1:11:32] With the new plan, we'd have 1.1.

[1:11:34] So just quadrupling the capacity essentially in that scale.

[1:11:40] And then lastly, with the organics segment

[1:11:42] that our staff talked about, that's really important.

[1:11:47] Again, I just want to highlight.

[1:11:50] And there's interesting science behind this.

[1:11:53] And if you open the packet to what we shared to you,

[1:11:56] I think this is the most photogenic, like photo of organics, waste, decomposing, and I

[1:12:02] want to see some of it, it does not look this pretty, so I don't know, we must have

[1:12:06] hired a firm to take that photo.

[1:12:09] But, you know, over 20, so when food decomposes, it creates methane, and that's why it's really

[1:12:17] important to take that out of the landfill.

[1:12:18] So for example, over 20 years, methane has the ability to be 80 times more potent than carbon

[1:12:25] in dioxide. So that's why it's so important as an environmental, as a climate priority

[1:12:30] for Metro that we prioritize specifically organic. So I wanted to like leave some of those

[1:12:35] numbers and to go on to the spirit of questions and conversation. Thank you so much for

[1:12:41] giving us the opportunity to come back and present.

[1:12:46] Okay.

[1:12:52] Councillor Hartmeyer, please. Thank you. Thank you for coming to visit. I covered

[1:12:57] for Mayor Badi yesterday at WCCC and it was very helpful to hear the presentation a second

[1:13:02] time because it's pretty complex and you know to kind of look at a 20-year plan and digest it so

[1:13:07] thank you and I saved questions from yesterday to save time since I knew I'd see you tonight.

[1:13:13] So a couple questions Councillor Gonzales when you're talking about you know the 20-minute drive

[1:13:19] like when if I look at where we anticipate the Cornelius station being that's not a 20-minute drive

[1:13:25] from like this side of district four even in non-traffic I think you're looking at like a 30-minute

[1:13:30] to drive. And so I'm just curious while part of the goal, especially around

[1:13:36] the thorganics and whatnot, is to reduce greenhouse gases. Like I think fever

[1:13:40] tin would potentially be contributing more, whether that's the self-haul or

[1:13:44] even just like where the transfer stations are located for our commercial

[1:13:48] haulers. So I'm curious, you know, exploration around being any closer to this

[1:13:54] part of the district. Yeah, of course not. I mean, go ahead. I have the

[1:13:59] I get it directed at you that like they're you know, they're on the payroll to like this is their mission

[1:14:03] So I'm happy that they're here to answer so yeah, I just would point out I want to make that clear

[1:14:08] It's a good question, but on page 60 there actually is a deep a proposed depot in southeast Washington County near

[1:14:15] It's not you know, again, this is one of the ones that are outlined. It's not there's not a site yet

[1:14:19] But we're proposing a depot in the Beaverton, Aloha area

[1:14:23] Um, so that's how we get the 20 minutes

[1:14:26] from here, not from the Cornelius site.

[1:14:30] Yeah.

[1:14:31] I think the other thing that I would add to it,

[1:14:35] is we took a measured approach with this plan.

[1:14:38] One of the challenges that was given to staff

[1:14:41] in developing the plan from Metro Council

[1:14:43] was both maximizing waste reduction

[1:14:46] and keeping valuable resources out of the landfill

[1:14:49] and keeping it affordable.

[1:14:51] So this is an increasing convenience.

[1:14:54] And so that's what you see represented in these depots.

[1:14:56] It doesn't mean that there can't be more or smaller.

[1:15:16] So on that screen we see just just a택ake area in the resident's location. We have probably seen限 zawsze and not as the way in particular. That is just based on

[1:15:29] I mentioned the goal is to have one in Southeast Washington County and that would really be decided upon with the county and the cities to determine where that eventual location is within that space.

[1:15:42] Thank you, and for the commercial, holler aspect of it though, and especially if central is intended to go away at some point, you know what does that look like from servicing our area because it means that those trucks then have to go further.

[1:15:59] right there, they already go pretty far, especially with traffic in the area.

[1:16:02] I'm curious for that larger transportation too.

[1:16:06] I just think it's an important consideration.

[1:16:08] Absolutely, and as we kind of move through it quickly, but

[1:16:12] the supporting policy actions that look at the wet waste tonnage allocation and private facility regulation really

[1:16:17] speaks to that, exactly, taking a closer look at what are the trade-offs of the system and

[1:16:24] making changes to the wet waste and what we refer to as garbage or how we refer to garbage

[1:16:31] and how that would move through the system.

[1:16:33] So if Metro Central would move, what would that look like and what would be the implications

[1:16:38] of Metro chain, like removing the tonnage guarantee that we currently have for public transportation?

[1:16:45] We're not proposing that Metro Central would go away.

[1:16:48] We're proposing it would be a organic food hub and still take commercial haulers there,

[1:16:53] but potentially decrease the amount that Metro takes over time.

[1:16:57] We'd relocate the self-haul and all the reuse recycling house, as it is waste, the new

[1:17:03] North Portland community drop-off.

[1:17:06] Metro Central would still be able to be serving commercial haulers.

[1:17:09] Okay.

[1:17:10] Thank you.

[1:17:12] Okay.

[1:17:14] Councillor, can I add something on that too?

[1:17:16] I mean, for my vantage point on the council as well, like diving into it, because this

[1:17:21] plan, we, the regional waste plan, which is the overall 10-year plan that is guiding,

[1:17:27] this is just one of many things that the council is doing to modernize and to really kind

[1:17:32] of update equity and our system and things like that, is, you know, at a high level, our

[1:17:39] region is not for want when it comes to commercial tonnage capacity. I mean, if anything, that's

[1:17:44] what I've learned from my process and staff please correct me if I'm wrong. But, you know,

[1:17:48] So when the adip Metro and all the private capacity as well to absorb that, there's plenty

[1:17:53] there which is why in our carnalia site when we acquired that there was so much conversation

[1:17:58] about all the way from doing more commercial tonnage to doing community kind of this community

[1:18:03] depot focus and do this refinement process that the council went through, the staff went through

[1:18:09] with our partners in our stakeholders like we really heard clearly from our industry partners,

[1:18:14] from the private sector, from other community groups,

[1:18:17] and from residents was, we really want Metro

[1:18:20] to help fill this gap, that like, there's just really,

[1:18:23] it's a huge, it's the biggest gap in the system.

[1:18:25] It's like, where do we go as individuals

[1:18:27] to take our stuff when curbside can't take care of it?

[1:18:31] So anyway, I just wanna kinda add that nuance

[1:18:32] and hopefully it doesn't cause confusion.

[1:18:34] No, I think it did give me a follow-up question though,

[1:18:37] because I'm gonna open the door.

[1:18:40] Yeah, for the spirit of just sharing you.

[1:18:42] Well, no, I think that's helpful context, but I'm curious does not

[1:18:45] draw of any sort of jurisdictional regulation over fees at the private

[1:18:49] transfer station then, right? Because if one of the goals is affordability, but

[1:18:53] now that's going private, do we lose that potential mechanism to help keep

[1:18:58] cost down? Metro does have the authority to regulate fees, but

[1:19:02] currently does not, and that again speaks to the supporting policy actions that

[1:19:07] look at private facility regulation. Regulating rates is one of the

[1:19:11] that council has, and why it's important that those two,

[1:19:16] how waste is allocated through the system,

[1:19:19] the exploration of that and decreasing tonnage

[1:19:22] at the metro station needs to be paired

[1:19:24] with the lever's private facility regulation.

[1:19:28] So that's the idea that those two supporting policy actions

[1:19:31] would be explored in concert with one another

[1:19:34] in conversations with council.

[1:19:37] Yeah, so yes 100% and in addition to that, you know, like two years ago Metro overhauled our tonnage allocation model, which is like how

[1:19:47] Essentially the competitive commercial stations

[1:19:50] How do you know what you're allocated throughout the year so and again?

[1:19:55] I want to be careful with the words I use so like, you know, there's always like a care approach and the stick approach

[1:20:00] In terms of like, do you just set a rate and that's the rate? Does that approach like represent the diversity of sites and travel and costs and different companies? The council decided to go a different route. And instead we created a criteria that had like six variables and depending on how a station performed against those variables. So like one was how close are you to public rates? What's your like living wage benefits and compensation?

[1:20:28] What are additional and there's, again, I can't remember the other four right up top of my head, but we decided to take that approach where, you know, if a company hit all six goals and they matched the public rate, they would have a benefit to getting more tonnage allocated to them.

[1:20:45] And for the most part, most have taken advantage of that. Others have opted not to.

[1:20:50] So, that's, is that okay?

[1:20:54] I want to share that because I think it's an important way

[1:20:57] that we use policy to try and encourage

[1:20:59] and incentivize the outcomes we want to see.

[1:21:01] Yeah, definitely, thank you.

[1:21:02] Okay, I have two more sorry colleagues.

[1:21:05] Okay, a question about the $150 to $2 per month

[1:21:10] that folks said that they would be willing to spend,

[1:21:13] was that like an open question of like,

[1:21:15] how much would you be willing to spend on this?

[1:21:18] For the survey last year, and Luis, my colleagues on the phone, he might have more to say, but for the survey, we actually asked, are you willing to pay up to, I think it was $3, $4, it was in levels or no dollars.

[1:21:34] Yeah, and so the majority, thinking of the people, said they'd be willing to pay between an increase of $3 to $4.

[1:21:39] Now the survey respondents there was 120 of them and it was based on the folks who attended

[1:21:44] the symposium and some of our other project partners, so it wasn't huge but yes, that

[1:21:51] was the majority of folks said they'd be willing to pay between $3 and $4.

[1:21:54] Was that, but were they given the contextual information of how much you pay right now?

[1:21:59] And you know, because I think, I mean I think it's so timely, Marta and Councillor Gonzalez

[1:22:05] came and sauce recently, right about these fees. And so I'm just kind of curious, were

[1:22:10] they given that context of like, hey, and you pay this monthly now, you know, to kind

[1:22:14] of level set, yeah, what type of increase am I willing to engage with?

[1:22:18] It was given with relative context, maybe it looks like Lisa.

[1:22:22] Yes, yes, so this was in the context of the four scenarios of what you did yourself.

[1:22:27] Sorry, can you hear yourself for the record? Oh, yes, I'm sorry. Good evening, cancers for

[1:22:32] So the record, my name is Luis,

[1:22:34] send a lot, I am a Solid Waste planner at Metro,

[1:22:37] and thank you for having us tonight.

[1:22:40] I just wanted to dig right into the response.

[1:22:45] So this was in the context of the four scenarios

[1:22:48] that were presented at the symposium.

[1:22:50] And so each of the scenarios had a cost associated with it.

[1:22:54] And so the server question asked,

[1:22:56] would you be willing to spend an additional $3

[1:23:03] based on the cost of the distributed scenario compared to today's average of $39 per month.

[1:23:09] That was the average garbage, single-family garbage bill at the time last year, and then for

[1:23:16] the no-bill scenario, it was up to $11 per month. So the options were arranged from $0 to $11 per month,

[1:23:25] And most people answered between 3 and 4, 80, I believe, was the cost of the full service scenario.

[1:23:35] And if I could add, I know you just had a presentation where you were asking like, was this a statistical poll? Is it a representative poll?

[1:23:42] Is it like more, but some like really mindful is like, you know, it's the Econ staffs and all that stuff.

[1:23:47] So this was a like an opt-in survey where Metro put out a survey people were able to answer if they just it

[1:23:53] Sound like we call the fully statistical sample so it's a temperature check so I want to make sure to that we're like not talking about

[1:23:59] This is the opinion of all the regions diversity and things like that. Yeah. Thank you. Okay. Last one for me

[1:24:06] So census is like that 20-year plan, you know

[1:24:09] We're kind of like looking at waste of the future or reducing waste and then

[1:24:14] And Council Consulate is hearing that you're also, this is like a piece of the regional

[1:24:18] waste plan.

[1:24:18] I'm curious, like, what type of exploration was done around like non-land fill options

[1:24:23] for managing waste?

[1:24:25] And, you know, like, what type of innovation is out there in the world that we could be looking

[1:24:29] into?

[1:24:29] Right?

[1:24:30] If we're kind of looking at like this transformative potential way of dealing with waste,

[1:24:35] what else was considered?

[1:24:36] Because I feel like I see a lot of the traditional, just like, you know, I mean, it's great to, like,

[1:24:40] maybe dive deeper in organics and you've got something that we can affect our

[1:24:46] greenhouse gas emission reductions through that but what about other options?

[1:24:52] I guess so part of the exploration of this was bringing in international

[1:24:57] national experts from around the world and that

[1:25:00] Was the symposium that we had experts from a Sweden Denmark, New Zealand, Canada, and Colorado to share the innovation that they have done in their communities. The reuse mall was inspired by one of the vice by Sweden looking at what they've done in New Zealand with organics. So we did draw on and Vancouver BC has done an incredible amount of things with both producer responsibility laws and reuse and recycling.

[1:25:30] some of the greatest impacts that we can have as Councilor Gonzalez noted is

[1:25:34] with food waste and we're not there yet. We have a lot more investment that's

[1:25:38] needed in our transfer and processing capacity as well as reuse. Those are

[1:25:43] really big climate levers that we have in pulling those materials out of the

[1:25:48] waste stream. So that's where we're starting. But there's still additional

[1:25:52] opportunities looking ahead at other materials to spur innovation. So we are

[1:25:57] We're trying to push that envelope.

[1:25:59] Yeah, and like we got a grant from,

[1:26:02] or a Congressional Directorate Spending Award

[1:26:05] from one of our U.S. Senators to acquire a D-packager,

[1:26:09] which is important.

[1:26:11] And also, you know, the city of Portland

[1:26:13] is purchasing a degester, like anaerobic degester

[1:26:17] to create a slurry that can then be used

[1:26:19] for like renewable natural.

[1:26:21] So there's like really cool stuff happening,

[1:26:22] but it's on this like precipice

[1:26:25] of using these technologies, and I want to share, personally, again, for my own learning,

[1:26:32] like, there are as much as there will, like, the desire to go after these really transformative

[1:26:38] technologies is appealing, and where we, I think we also recognize that, like, garbage

[1:26:43] is a life cycle, it's a process, right? So, as soon as our manufacturing and raw materials

[1:26:49] are extracted, that sets the course for, you know, what's going to go to the landfill

[1:26:53] fill or not. And what we're recognizing is that we're in this, again, this, this

[1:26:58] opportunity for Metro to have the biggest impact is like, how can we help people redirect

[1:27:04] as much materials before they go to the landfill? I mean, eventually it would be amazing to

[1:27:09] not have that, but there's so many global things that play at, you know, landfills are a part

[1:27:15] of, of our life. And we take great pride in our partnerships to run good landfills that

[1:27:21] to protect our environment and things like that

[1:27:22] and decommissioning them when possible.

[1:27:25] But a lot of it is that human behavior aspect.

[1:27:29] And again, like carrot or stick,

[1:27:31] we want to provide an abundance of options to people

[1:27:33] and make it as easy as possible

[1:27:36] to reduce as much going to the landfill as possible.

[1:27:39] And then we have the Recycling Modernization Act

[1:27:44] and like all these extended producer responsibility things

[1:27:46] that are trying to do like much more deep

[1:27:49] in the like what's being manufactured, what can we buy at the grocery store, and but that gets into weird things around like choice, and you already know where I'm going with that and in like the role of government and deciding that, but yeah, that's that's what we're doing.

[1:28:06] Also the Douggers.

[1:28:09] Hello, thank you. I don't know about you guys. I've thought and talked more about trash in the last three weeks in any point in my life.

[1:28:18] Awesome.

[1:28:20] I'm not sure that it is, but we'll go with that, but thank you for being here.

[1:28:24] I want to put that on bumper sticker account.

[1:28:26] Always.

[1:28:28] I'll start with a question just because I'm curious about it.

[1:28:31] So the commercial depots, the six of them, I think I saw the capital cost for the construction.

[1:28:37] How are those funded on an ongoing basis?

[1:28:39] Is it like user charges or is it like part of the fees or do you guys have that worked

[1:28:44] out?

[1:28:44] That's a great question. So for the community depots, those would be funded by the regional

[1:28:49] system fee. So specifically for the materials that can be recycled and household hazardous

[1:28:55] waste and those items for reuse would be funded by the regional system fee. The self-haul

[1:29:00] garbage would be funded by the salt waste fee. So that's what you refer to as user cost. That

[1:29:05] would be the cost of service for somebody to dispose of whatever load that they're bringing.

[1:29:10] And that kind of gets to a little bit of the complexity of the way that our fees are structured.

[1:29:15] In the, just for reference, the regional system fee is charged on every ton of garbage in

[1:29:21] the region that funds our, we talked a little bit about that at our last engagement that

[1:29:25] funds all of the waste reduction programming in the region.

[1:29:27] So people would be able to drop off these materials, reuse recycling, household hazardous waste

[1:29:32] at no additional cost at these facilities.

[1:29:35] But the self-haul would be at a cost.

[1:29:38] Would be at a cost.

[1:29:39] Yes.

[1:29:40] Further cost of service.

[1:29:41] Okay.

[1:29:41] Yeah.

[1:29:41] that's helpful. You asked a lot of my questions actually, so you were doing it well.

[1:29:47] I can tell you one of my priorities and you guys missed the presentation I think right

[1:29:50] before where we talked about our community development block grant. One of the things

[1:29:54] that stood out to me is our low income households are increasing significantly, particularly

[1:29:59] on the west side.

[1:30:00] May be by 4,000 if I'm remembering, 4,000 households over the next few years. And one of the things

[1:30:06] that we do for our garbage is we subsidize, right? And so, like I do think about this in a way

[1:30:12] that I did not a month ago or a month and a half ago or whatever, and I think about the

[1:30:16] impact. And so, one of my priorities, and I hope it sure will be like stabilizing that wet

[1:30:21] waste cost, too, because for folks like a lot of us in this room, a few dollars a month

[1:30:27] not big of a deal.

[1:30:30] Not only have we talked about trash, but I had a lot, you know, the

[1:30:34] notice went out to Beaverton Reservance and everyone knows me, so they're stopping

[1:30:38] and I actually had an elderly neighbor almost started crying because, you know, they're

[1:30:45] waiting for social security increases and it becomes every little dollar has to stretch.

[1:30:49] So, like, again, I think for a lot of us, it's $3 isn't that much, but I just want to be

[1:30:55] be really careful with our wet waste costs particularly and just figuring out how to make

[1:31:01] it as equitable as possible. I know that's a priority for Metro already. So if you guys

[1:31:05] could just really think about that. And then just one comment in addition, I know you're

[1:31:12] exploring the south facility and potentially a public private partnership or creating a

[1:31:23] a new structure.

[1:31:26] I would defer to you all on that. My current preference is just keep

[1:31:32] it as public as possible, just to keep it even throughout the region. But I don't know.

[1:31:37] The important thing is the outcomes. I'm drawn to keeping certain services as public.

[1:31:43] It's an important service that we deliver to our constituents, and so totally open to that

[1:31:48] otherwise, but just protecting that kind of day-to-day cost while investing in the future

[1:31:54] and in protecting our climate, too, right, because the cost of an action is there, too.

[1:31:59] So I appreciate you guys coming tonight, and I think that's it for me.

[1:32:05] Councillor Hussain.

[1:32:06] Can I respond, President?

[1:32:09] Councillor Vetter, thank you for sharing, especially the story of your neighbor, and there's

[1:32:15] like no question this cost of living environment that we're living through, which is really

[1:32:19] impacting all of us in one shape form or another, so I just want to acknowledge that and that space and our responsibility at Metro to do right by them and all of our residents to meet our regional goals.

[1:32:33] Earlier you also mentioned something about like multifamily and the focus on that. I'm really proud to like to shape shifting gears here.

[1:32:41] you know, since I've joined the Metro Council, we've like, I keep using the word

[1:32:46] overhauled, but haul, it's a word, I guess, with garbage, but we've really

[1:32:51] overhauled our approach to serving multifamily, and like, I want to share an

[1:32:58] example of a project that was so technically like a regulatory difficult to see

[1:33:04] through, but it was so important, and we had amazing partners at Washington

[1:33:08] county to help us see this through but like streamlining the stickers that you put on

[1:33:15] the garbage bins at multifamily was so hard for the whole region and like colors of bins

[1:33:22] I mean like it is it was so it but it has had like a really tangible effect to creating

[1:33:30] again that like if you move from you know tiger to beaver tin or beaver tin to to Gresham

[1:33:36] and you're participating in our garbage system.

[1:33:38] Like you're seeing the same messaging about

[1:33:42] like how do you participate, what goes where?

[1:33:44] And so that's been like an example of one big thing

[1:33:47] and a whole bunch of other initiatives

[1:33:50] across multifamily that I'm happy,

[1:33:52] we're happy to share with you and follow up with.

[1:33:54] But I wanted to provide that example

[1:33:56] because our garbage system is so cross-cutting

[1:33:58] across so many jurisdictions.

[1:34:00] And so when we make changes,

[1:34:02] they have huge ripple effects to your point.

[1:34:04] but I'm really proud of that one.

[1:34:06] Yeah, no, thank you for sharing that.

[1:34:07] I know government moves slow.

[1:34:09] Everything is hard.

[1:34:11] But so we actually do appreciate all those things.

[1:34:13] And thank you for sharing that.

[1:34:14] Of course.

[1:34:14] Thank you.

[1:34:16] That's last time.

[1:34:18] Hi, friends.

[1:34:20] I just want you to know that across the street,

[1:34:22] there's this shop called Mama and Habba's Zero Way Shop.

[1:34:26] And if you're looking to redirect away from landfill,

[1:34:29] that is one way to start.

[1:34:31] Have you been yet?

[1:34:32] Just say yes.

[1:34:33] I just I we discovered it pretty recently and we like my daughter likes to do the card and fill the things and we're waiting to just get rid of certain things so that we can move more to it so I just share that because y'all it's across the street so I'm checking out.

[1:34:49] I just had one maybe clarifying question, when you talked about private facility regulation, was that related to like the

[1:35:00] The concept of reselling things, or was that specific to waste? And I'm sorry, there was like a slide if it would help. Okay. So it's a fair question. So when we referred to a private facility regulation that is referring to the regulation of private, solid waste facilities. So the transfer stations essentially is what that's primarily focused on. Metro as the solid waste authority has oversight on any private, solid waste facility in the region.

[1:35:28] So, we monitor their compliance and have different, as I mentioned earlier, different levels such as the price controls.

[1:35:37] Ton of allocation is one that Councillor Gonzalez mentioned where we allocate wet waste to the existing private transfer stations.

[1:35:45] Is it okay if can we pull up this? There was like this one other side that I was just curious about.

[1:35:50] It's the slide with the store like reselling things.

[1:35:53] Oh, the re-use fall. Yeah, the re-use fall. Yeah, I want that.

[1:35:59] So we presented at the City of Milwaukee last week, it gave the same presentation and

[1:36:05] one of the counselors said, who do we have to arm wrestle to get the re-use small in our

[1:36:12] location. And this is what we're input from you all, it is critically important. This

[1:36:17] This isn't, this is a concept that's included in the plan.

[1:36:21] It is open to where that mall could be located.

[1:36:26] But in this is where the partnerships with cities and counties become critically important.

[1:36:30] And it may not necessarily have to be one.

[1:36:33] It could be smaller, I mean what we talked about at the Milwaukee City Council was a smaller.

[1:36:39] What if there were multiple smaller ones, much like you did the community depots instead

[1:36:43] of one central one.

[1:36:44] And so this is where understanding kind of where the city councils are at in terms of important priorities of investment for you all.

[1:36:53] This is something that really resonated with the number of audiences and residents as something that they would be interested in.

[1:37:00] Hopefully we'll learn more through the community survey that we have for the plan where it asks how frequently if this would people visit this if it existed and that can also inform decision making moving forward.

[1:37:12] and also Councillor page 55 on the has like the big title private facility regulation you'll

[1:37:20] see metro transfer stations private transfer stations material recovery facilities recycling

[1:37:24] compost facilities and you know many of those are private I guess I mean just you know for folks

[1:37:31] to hear the council knows I'm going to be hosting a lot of people in my home soon and laws are coming

[1:37:37] from out of town and the decluttering process of our home was the reality of how much we consume

[1:37:43] and how much we over consume and I do think our community in Beaverton is as great as they

[1:37:50] can be around recycling and reusing and those kinds of things and so just continuing to find ways

[1:37:55] for us to divert away from land use whether that is arm wrestling with Milwaukee for something like

[1:38:01] this but just having that conversation like I think there are people that would want to you know

[1:38:05] figure out how to, like, there is that community exists.

[1:38:08] I think if I heard the mayor speak correctly,

[1:38:11] we're the only one city in Oregon with a climate action plan.

[1:38:15] Someone, oh, okay, well, I heard it,

[1:38:17] and maybe it's true, maybe it's not,

[1:38:18] but I think we've got some super, like, active folks

[1:38:21] who we want to, like, push those kinds of things forward.

[1:38:25] I just wanted to drop, I mean, other councillors said it,

[1:38:28] but making sure that Westside has more options,

[1:38:30] I think that's really important,

[1:38:32] But I would like these. Thank you.

[1:38:36] And if I may add just a little time a bit since you mentioned the zero waste business across the city council.

[1:38:44] So the reuse mall concept is not just about reuse, but it's about promoting sustainable consumption.

[1:38:50] So you could imagine a business like that also

[1:38:54] potentially being located at a facility like this one, right?

[1:38:57] Yes, and to be clear, I'm not promoting just that.

[1:39:00] No, there are many other businesses that do that sort of thing.

[1:39:03] That's just the one that happens to be across the street that I know.

[1:39:06] So please encourage you all to zero waste.

[1:39:09] Thank you for coming in.

[1:39:10] Of course, Councillor.

[1:39:11] And so in addition to the public facilities and the private facilities,

[1:39:15] and again, the parliamentary, just like, it's such a cultural thing.

[1:39:18] So like, it's a part of our behavior in this region to just think about that.

[1:39:23] And sometimes I feel like we take that for granted because there are other regions

[1:39:26] that very much do not prioritize that.

[1:39:29] and also put their own money in their rates

[1:39:32] and to prioritize this diversion.

[1:39:35] We have like a really amazing network

[1:39:37] of nonprofit community-based organizations,

[1:39:40] community warehouse, among many others that just like

[1:39:45] do dope stuff, that's my formal term.

[1:39:49] So I want to acknowledge that we are also trying to figure

[1:39:51] out through like this reprioritization,

[1:39:55] how Metro also creates sustainable funding

[1:39:57] for these community organizations.

[1:40:12] I'm going to have to add, thank you for sharing that perspective. I do think that community-based partnership or that, like, talking to those folks, because, like, I'm in this WhatsApp group, that, like, if someone needs a bed, like, it's a 48 hour. That is, like, that is community-based.

[1:40:29] based mutual aid work and so just thinking about how we continue to partner with those groups

[1:40:34] because some of them are doing it they don't that's not organizational they don't you know just

[1:40:38] making sure that we're sort of infiltrating all of those groups that are doing that work. Thank you

[1:40:43] again. I was with Peter if

[1:40:49] I continue to learn more about garbage. And I'm not an expert in this so

[1:40:54] thank you for bringing us a little bit more up to speed. I was going to make a point about their

[1:40:59] re-use center as well. The Beaverton Transit Center is the busiest transit center in the

[1:41:05] network, and so I want to make a quick plug for this area, being a very competitive candidate

[1:41:12] for this sort of service. I think a lot about our pricing and the rates that we'd be paying

[1:41:19] to help fund these improvements.

[1:41:24] And the high level, the high level of perspective where

[1:41:27] I'm coming from is how can we raise the money that we would need but have the least burden

[1:41:33] some impact on the people who would feel that weight the most.

[1:41:36] So we've talked about if it's a two-door increase, like I'll be okay, but a good percentage

[1:41:41] of Beaverton might not.

[1:41:43] And so are there ways that we can structure this rate, whether it's a reduced rate program

[1:41:49] that we've got for our local waste collection fees?

[1:41:53] Maybe if you qualify by income level or just by some sort of need classification you're eligible for these reduced rates.

[1:42:02] I just want us to think about how we can structure these fees so that the burden is not felt on people who would be driven out of the region because they can't afford a few extra dollars on top of the other rates that are increasing at the same time.

[1:42:16] That's just the perspective I'm bringing into this.

[1:42:19] I would love to learn more about this as we keep on going forward.

[1:42:21] Thank

[1:42:25] you. We got to the fees. I just have a question. Right before I left Nepal we had you come in. We can discuss about fees being increases and that's we have significant discussion about that.

[1:42:41] And this is going to add $2 or maybe $3 in next 20 years or so. That's before we start purchasing trucks, right?

[1:42:52] before we start purchasing.

[1:42:54] Trucks, garbage trucks, am I being...

[1:43:01] Yeah, I think that would be kind of on top of any local increases that would be supporting

[1:43:08] the Beaverton system, which is where the trucks would come in, so this would be, we would

[1:43:13] pay for our own operational expenses, and then the tip fee that we were talking about a couple

[1:43:18] All weeks ago, one component of that is the regional system fee that they've talked about.

[1:43:23] And so the tip fee might increase and it will indirectly be passed on to all of us but

[1:43:29] it would be on top of the operational expenses that we talked about two weeks ago.

[1:43:34] So how much would that impact the residents when you add up all these fees within next five

[1:43:40] years?

[1:43:41] Well, that's a great question.

[1:43:42] I'm not sure if we have that.

[1:43:44] I mean, there's a there'll definitely be an impact

[1:43:48] Counselor and you know again, just building off of what your staff said, you know city is that you have your local hauler

[1:43:54] contract management

[1:43:55] Metro overseas the system

[1:43:57] We pay for a lot of these services are also paid for by the trash that's taken to the transfer station

[1:44:04] So some fees are inherently built in already so I I don't want to say the wrong thing

[1:44:09] So I want to I need to lean on the

[1:44:11] I think the short answer is Metro sets regional fees that fund the regional programs such as these infrastructure investments and other waste reduction programs and local governments that the curbside collection rates for your cities or counties for that level right so I mean scouts accurate and that this would be a component essentially it does end up getting passed through to your rate setting and I don't have the answer to your question as the dollar not tonight but one of the lessons learned from our conversations the last couple of meetings is that in the

[1:44:41] future when we come with rate proposals we also want to kind of provide you with more information,

[1:44:46] break that down into more smaller pieces so you know how it all, where it's all coming about

[1:44:49] rather than just lump some amounts. But also we want to start working with our consultant and the

[1:44:54] region about coming up with some beaverton forecasts for our rates in the

[1:45:00] What's coming in the future? One, two, three years down the road. We've typically kind of only looked at this is what it is now based on last year and what we're doing right now. But we haven't really been asked to look ahead. One of the lessons we've heard from you from a couple of weeks ago is you kind of want to know what's coming ahead, not just right now, but what's coming in the next three to five years. There will be some speculative numbers. They'll be a little bit fuzzy, but we can certainly make a forecast and we'd like to do that in the future.

[1:45:28] when we come back for future rate increases so that you kind of see that big picture not just what's happening in this moment.

[1:45:35] Right, and thank you for that because right now we're looking at dollar two and here dollar two.

[1:45:41] But then as somebody who's going to get the bill, you're looking at a whole chunk of money adding on.

[1:45:48] And then some kind of want to see what's the impact of the residence when you add up all the fees and you get one bill from the city, right?

[1:45:56] right? So then they're going to only see the big number rather than this is all the

[1:46:03] decisions have been made that we did our job to minimize the cost. But somebody who doesn't

[1:46:08] go through this just know the last result is a big number. So I'd like to maybe get an

[1:46:13] idea.

[1:46:14] Yeah. And why would just add briefly what Scott was mentioning around looking out. I mean

[1:46:20] that is something that we are working to do as well of having a five year forecast. So if

[1:46:25] this plan is adopted by Metro Council. You can look at the end, it's kind of chunked

[1:46:30] up in three different phases. So we would be able to forecast out what that fee increase

[1:46:35] would look like over time. And I will just add, I think we can do a better job of making

[1:46:42] sure when you're adopting fees or Metro is setting new fees that we're sharing that information

[1:46:47] with you and giving you the opportunity to provide input in that. So I really did appreciate

[1:46:51] the opportunity to speak with you and I hope that a regular annual engagement as as you're

[1:46:58] working on fees so we can share that information directly.

[1:47:03] Yeah and President, Council President came in if I could add on that so you know this is

[1:47:07] this document in itself is just like a concept of a plan for things that we want to do there's

[1:47:14] always deeper work to understand like how much is it actually going to cost once you start doing

[1:47:19] those layout and things like that, and that's why it's really important when we're

[1:47:23] in here a few weeks ago too, we're talking about another thing that Metro's

[1:47:26] overhauled as a part of the regional waste plan is RWAC, which is the regional

[1:47:31] Waste Advisory Committee, and the new structure will have a much deeper

[1:47:37] representation from local governments, and I think a different balance of that

[1:47:43] direct advice and recommendations to the council, so you know we're putting

[1:47:48] that together, you know, we've had a bevy of local electives from across the region

[1:47:53] apply to that. You know, once eventually, you know, in a scenario that this plan is approved

[1:48:01] and we would love your support to do that when we, if it does come to that, our whack will have

[1:48:06] a very important role in the implementation in asking those questions before recommendations

[1:48:13] for execution comes to the council.

[1:48:15] So I also want to add that layer of governance

[1:48:19] and decision making that we've really been thinking about

[1:48:21] because you're right, as local cities,

[1:48:24] you have the deepest connection to your rate payers.

[1:48:29] And it's important for us to get that feedback.

[1:48:31] So I want to highlight as well that we don't want to make

[1:48:35] those decisions in a vacuum or in an ivory tower by any sense.

[1:48:40] but it's important that I explain that as well.

[1:48:44] Thank you for that.

[1:48:45] One last comment, thank you all.

[1:48:49] I'm also fan of a recycle and reuse,

[1:48:51] except the fact that it's gonna cost Metro $37 million

[1:48:54] to build one where we have active,

[1:48:57] habitat and other organizations that's already doing the work.

[1:49:00] So I rather save some money

[1:49:02] and then empower those organizations

[1:49:04] rather than create new, that's my own opinion.

[1:49:07] I like to have more, but then is the Metro building the business of recycle and repair?

[1:49:12] It's out of expense of $37 million and we don't know how much that's going to increase over time.

[1:49:18] So what is the cost analysis and what's the benefit doing that?

[1:49:22] Where for me, I do recycling every year from my organization.

[1:49:27] They come and take a look at the picture.

[1:49:29] They only take the ones that are sellable.

[1:49:32] And then you're left with the materials that you cannot sell.

[1:49:37] So you end up paying the haulers to come and haul it away.

[1:49:41] So really easy-effective.

[1:49:43] So that's one of the questions I want to just throw out there.

[1:49:47] When you do analysis, who's actually getting benefit?

[1:49:53] And do the people actually can afford to bring it out there

[1:49:56] and leave it where they might get rejected?

[1:50:00] We're going to have to do that and send it back. And it happens all the time. So even the good will do not accept mattresses anymore. They don't take any big furniture anymore because it costs them money to throw them away. So it costs personally money for us to throw them out when we get donations. So something something I like to just have a question out there. To consider.

[1:50:23] Yeah, I mean, I think we are absolutely prepared to partner.

[1:50:28] We've been involving the reuse and repair organizations over the last many three years

[1:50:32] and very much on this plan.

[1:50:34] And we absolutely want to leverage what they're already doing and not duplicate it.

[1:50:39] And so, but the depot concept is really like a one stop.

[1:50:44] It's a one stop place to come to bring a whole host of materials.

[1:50:48] How those materials, reusable materials, repairable materials, we expect to be partnering with

[1:50:52] habitat, rebuilding center, community warehouse to come and take the materials back to their

[1:50:58] sites to potentially.

[1:50:59] So, I mean, those are the details that need to be worked out, but that one way we could

[1:51:02] do it.

[1:51:03] So, we do not expect to, you know, we expect to leverage what's already going on in this

[1:51:08] region around reuse and repair and facilitate more of it by working with them and also having

[1:51:15] this warehouse that they really have asked for over and over again, which is a place to

[1:51:19] store large items and large numbers of items that they can't store in their own spaces

[1:51:26] right now, because if they get 100 mattresses donated, they just don't have the space.

[1:51:30] So it really is our intent at Metro as to work with the existing organizations.

[1:51:36] Absolutely.

[1:51:37] Peter.

[1:51:39] Okay.

[1:51:39] Thanks.

[1:51:40] I have one thing I forgot to share about multi-family services.

[1:51:45] There's something I'm really excited about and I'm really excited to hear about the progress

[1:51:48] you all have made. When I lived in an apartment here in downtown Beaverton with garbage rooms

[1:51:54] on each floor, and there was so much, I would say, pretty quality waste that would be put in

[1:52:01] there to be thrown away because people would be moving and not want to take it wherever they

[1:52:05] were going. And so some of us residents referred to the garbage room as the treasure room because

[1:52:12] there was a lot of good stuff in there. And so I mentioned this for a couple of reasons. I'm curious

[1:52:17] If there's an opportunity, I don't even answer now, but for the reuse model, if there's an opportunity for us to have collection sites that apartment complexes where in their garbage room, there's a reuse bin or reuse corner.

[1:52:31] So it's just able to be part of the collection route.

[1:52:34] And then also for multi-family housing and apartments, if rates could be lower for those types of developments since people are more clustered together, it might be easier to serve

[1:52:46] of 100 people who are in one building as opposed to 100 homes that are spaced more apart.

[1:52:52] So I'm just thinking about how rates are phased in there and how we can give people

[1:52:57] better access to the reuse abilities.

[1:53:00] Thanks.

[1:53:02] Thanks, Councillor.

[1:53:03] And I was just checking with staff here but Metro does have grant programs for community

[1:53:09] groups or housing developments, however, to have pay for the materials to host those kinds

[1:53:15] of things.

[1:53:15] So, I mean, you know, I don't know how much, like, and annually is requested versus how much we award, but I know that we do fund some of those things and trying to put money into things like that. But yeah, I love that treasure room concept. So, thank you.

[1:53:34] And I'll just add and Scott can probably speak to this more later day is work that we've done around bulky waste, which is what we refer to as large item furniture collection.

[1:53:44] both that multi-family and single-family homes and we recently did a pilot project

[1:53:49] studying the collection of those materials to look at how that might inform

[1:53:53] programs at the local level. One of the the hard parts with the curbside

[1:53:59] collection is they often get let let left out sorry it gets passed like a

[1:54:04] certain time and I start to lose my vocabulary left out and implement weather and

[1:54:08] so that the availability of being able to recover those for reuse the

[1:54:12] clients but we have had events with reuse organizations as a part of that pilot study

[1:54:18] and other events including grants that Councillor Gonzales mentioned in working with the

[1:54:25] reuse organization. So they've been an incredible partner in developing this plan through many,

[1:54:29] many workshops with them to get to what you see and will continue to be a vital partner as

[1:54:37] as we move the hand forward.

[1:54:38] I think there are more opportunities.

[1:54:41] Sorry, Louise.

[1:54:42] If I may add just a little bit of the third program

[1:54:46] in the reuse and repair area is a reuse fund

[1:54:50] that's on page 39 of the draft plan.

[1:54:55] So that one, the intent is it indirectly tries to get

[1:55:00] We've got a little bit of the non-facilities-based services that we've heard multiple times, similar comments. And so that program is intended to support the work that we use organizations do. And part of that is going to people's homes to do pickups of donated items. And one of the reasons why they don't do that more frequently is because of costs.

[1:55:27] So that's why this, the program that is proposed on page 39 is proposed to allocate funding

[1:55:35] to these organizations and businesses that are providing the most benefit to the region.

[1:55:42] Yeah, thanks, Louise.

[1:55:43] And just like going through page 39, like you mentioned, this work is so intense and there's

[1:55:51] so many layers to it, and as a council, we set a really high bar for our staff.

[1:55:55] It's like, why are you doing this, what's the data, what are the metrics for it?

[1:55:59] So even looking through it, we see estimated annual cost, how many jobs do you think it's

[1:56:06] going to create, and how many greenhouse gas emissions per cubic ton were anticipating

[1:56:11] to divert?

[1:56:12] I mean, that's just want to give credit, again, to myself, I think they're amazing, for

[1:56:17] the level of analysis that we've done to understand, not just we want to help the climate, but

[1:56:22] to try and quantify it to the best for our ability.

[1:56:25] So, want to highlight that and celebrate the technical research on that.

[1:56:29] If I can tack on really quick.

[1:56:32] You just got me so excited.

[1:56:33] I don't know if we've ever done this with NACs.

[1:56:36] Like, if we did a NAC reuse and rep,

[1:56:39] I don't know if this is like super out there.

[1:56:40] I was just thinking of what Councillor Teeter was saying,

[1:56:42] right, where like, you have these apartments and so,

[1:56:45] like, could a NAC project be that they do something like this

[1:56:48] if they wanted in the NAC, and then we worked with Metro to support that.

[1:56:53] So I just wanted to plug that out there because all you have a response please.

[1:56:57] We have, we share that interest.

[1:57:00] One of our staff has put in a grant request to the EQ to do some reuse work over the next

[1:57:06] two years, and we'll find out in December or January if we get that grant, but we definitely

[1:57:11] want to work on that, and if we don't get the grant, we'll try some other options.

[1:57:15] Yeah.

[1:57:15] I mean the other thing to know is speaking to Councillor Gonzales earlier comments just around

[1:57:24] the ethos in our region we have been an innovator we're leading in this country much around

[1:57:29] our recycling rates as well as producer responsibility laws that we have.

[1:57:33] There is a lot of grant funding currently available both at the state and federal level to help

[1:57:39] subsidize this work and support this work but what you have to have to apply those grants

[1:57:44] is a plan. And this is going to help us get there. The federal budget note that Councillor

[1:57:51] Gonzales mentioned will help subsidize the cost of that investment and Metro Central in

[1:57:55] part of its plan implementation is seeking those large grants to help offset the cost.

[1:58:01] And because we believe this plan to be very innovative, we think it increases our chances

[1:58:06] because we focused a lot on those areas where there are high climate impacts. So that's

[1:58:11] that we mentioned in the financing chapter is that none of the cost analysis that we did

[1:58:16] include grants, but we're actively pursuing those and will be in a better space once we have

[1:58:22] a more detailed plan. Okay, and for context, NACs are our neighborhood association committees.

[1:58:29] So I live in, you're like, what did she talk about? So I live in like five oaks triple creek and

[1:58:33] that's my NAC and then Councillor Dugger is central. So we each have this NAC and then they're their own

[1:58:39] group of people and neighborhoods like a CPO at the county level, but they've organized

[1:58:43] events like on sustainability, on emergency preparedness, so just floating it out there

[1:58:49] into the inside.

[1:58:50] And the last thing we did touch on this, but you all have the hard copy that I think is

[1:58:53] important to note that has come up in some of our other local briefings, is the conceptual

[1:58:58] implementation schedule that is on page 59 of the plan.

[1:59:03] And it has, again, this is the concept level, it has the general phasing of how the plan

[1:59:08] would unfold. And these are the different depots. What is in there now is proposing Cornelius and

[1:59:15] Southeast first because we own that property. But it doesn't mean if there was interest by cities

[1:59:20] to have depots sooner that that would be very important feedback for our council to hear. And so that

[1:59:27] is something that we're really looking for input on what in this plan do you support? What are areas

[1:59:34] that you do not support. That's super helpful for us and the feedback that you share with us today will be bringing back to our council.

[1:59:42] But we've also invited city councils to provide letters to our council that we can share with them or to provide testimony.

[1:59:50] But we will have a work session before to share on the fact that we've heard with council to get next direction on access.

[1:59:57] This is a really important chart, so...

[2:00:01] Thank you. Thank you for your presentation. Thanks for coming in here tonight. Thank you so much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. The final item on the agenda is council new business. Does anyone have anything they wish to share? Yes, the council are part of my break. Thank you. I wanted to bring up a potential agenda item for y'all's consideration. And that's about the recent issue with our water.

[2:00:30] I know we've been kind of hearing updates from staff but also from constituents and so I was wondering if there's interest in maybe a potential future conversation, maybe work session about what happened to understand more of issue, how folks are impacted things like that.

[2:00:47] That's my request.

[2:00:55] I'd be supportive. I'd be curious if it needs to be a work session or if a presentation

[2:01:00] is fine. There are a few of a preference. I do have a preference for the work session.

[2:01:07] My follow-up is I thought we had enough information, so maybe I'm missing something before we—that's

[2:01:12] why I haven't put my thumb up, because I felt informed via emails, but if I'm missing

[2:01:16] something, please. I think—well, I can share just maybe some of my questions, too, about

[2:01:21] about like why?

[2:01:22] I think I'm a little bit worried about just understanding

[2:01:25] like from the mis, it's not a mis-measurement, right?

[2:01:29] It's a recalibration maybe of the measurement

[2:01:31] and just understanding like is this a one-time correction?

[2:01:34] Is this an ongoing issue?

[2:01:36] Do we need to be doing outreach to customers

[2:01:38] that were impacted or just like really understanding

[2:01:41] how our constituents have been impacted by it

[2:01:44] and how can we avoid something like this going forward?

[2:01:47] And then for those that were impacted

[2:01:48] maybe at a really large level,

[2:01:49] Is there a follow-up conversation council needs to have around when the city is the bill or should we be considering things like notifying if like before we take someone's money and worried about like folks that are paying like with like ACH or like you know autopay.

[2:02:05] I'm concerned if they didn't catch it like did we just put someone in dire straits because we didn't know it was coming.

[2:02:10] You know, so it's more of like things like that. I'm just trying to understand is there something more that we should be thinking about?

[2:02:17] or is it done and dusted?

[2:02:19] And it would be presentation style, and I'm more good,

[2:02:23] but I think that I would like to know more

[2:02:25] than what we're getting in email at this point.

[2:02:28] I would, I mean, from my perspective,

[2:02:30] I would like a work session

[2:02:31] because I would like to weigh it on the policy

[2:02:33] on when communication goes out and when we put it

[2:02:37] into place stops and things like that too,

[2:02:40] specifically policy direction

[2:02:41] because it's not just for water,

[2:02:43] but for any of our utilities.

[2:02:45] like if it's anything that we're building for and there's some kind of

[2:02:48] billing error right now it's kind of left on the operational side and I think

[2:02:52] that's mostly served as well but it always does until it doesn't right and I

[2:02:57] just that's that's what I would be interested in a work session for is kind of

[2:03:00] weighing in on what are the options from a policy perspective I would like to

[2:03:05] hear from Dan was the best way forward what would your recommendation yeah I

[2:03:13] appreciate that I think a work session probably given the presentation we had earlier

[2:03:19] and the desire for questions is definitely preferable. You know, I just if I can maybe

[2:03:25] provide a little bit of overview, especially if I hope there are people watching that also

[2:03:30] you know what we said before on your networks and your ability to communicate information

[2:03:34] to constituencies across the city just for some background for those who aren't aware.

[2:03:41] where we took over the reads for utility billing for water meters.

[2:03:47] We took that over from a third party in August, and so it's been a couple months.

[2:03:54] Best laid plans, I think, to a certain degree of course, you take on a new service.

[2:03:58] There's some bumps along the way, and we're discovering a number of different potential root

[2:04:04] causes of some of those.

[2:04:05] And I think, as Councillor Hartmeier-Preg mentioned, there's some certainty around some of

[2:04:11] There's also a lot of other things that we're trying to calibrate and really understand

[2:04:14] the breadth and scope of this.

[2:04:18] And some of it is maybe around identifying the meters that exist and be able to read

[2:04:24] them and accurately, you know, we bill for the actual use of water.

[2:04:30] It's a consumable and that's typically what cities do, you know, and so if you can't read

[2:04:36] the meter, it's really challenging to actually do that.

[2:04:38] and so that's one of the many issues that we're facing and so I think some

[2:04:43] additional time would be great to get some additional information and to

[2:04:48] really track down some of the what's going on we just for your information as

[2:04:52] well we have about 20,000 utility meters and so being able to read those we

[2:04:58] rotate weekly.

[2:05:03] So, it's a lot to read, a lot of staff involved, and part of the reason we brought that back in house was to provide a courier avenue for public works to bring in some staff and to be able to train them and then hopefully move them up through the organization and actually save a little bit of money in the process on some of the way that that contract had been working before. So, it's a good thing with some problems and implementation, and we absolutely take it very seriously.

[2:05:29] that the bills are accurate, it is, as you've stated,

[2:05:35] this is the city building, someone for a service

[2:05:38] and we wanna make sure we get it right.

[2:05:39] So I think we would welcome the opportunity

[2:05:41] to talk a little bit more about how this has worked

[2:05:44] and things that we've found and some lessons learned

[2:05:47] and some opportunities along the way.

[2:05:49] So I do think that back and forth

[2:05:51] would be helpful of the work session.

[2:05:54] And if I can just for those who have auto pay

[2:05:58] and maybe for all of our customers,

[2:06:01] if you haven't looked at your water bill, please do.

[2:06:04] It's one of those things where if you've kind of done

[2:06:06] the fix it and forget it and have it on auto pay

[2:06:08] and you have a surprise, you may be surprised

[2:06:11] at how much your actual read is,

[2:06:15] or we may have made an error,

[2:06:17] and we would like you to reach out to us

[2:06:18] if you feel like it's too high.

[2:06:21] Keep in mind that we bill retroactively,

[2:06:24] so your consumption for the previous month

[2:06:26] and we've been in drier months,

[2:06:30] and so there's probably been a fair amount of landscape

[2:06:32] irrigation and other uses,

[2:06:34] and so it's pretty variable and can be a higher use

[2:06:37] than many people are used.

[2:06:39] So please call our utility billing staff.

[2:06:41] We have resources to work with people.

[2:06:44] We can community action for those who are in need

[2:06:48] of financial assistance.

[2:06:49] We have the ability to work on payment plans.

[2:06:52] We in extreme cases, especially when there's been

[2:06:55] an error, you know, there's some extreme errors that have been made in kind of data entry

[2:07:02] that we're able to work on some other options as well. So, I want to make sure that people

[2:07:07] are paying attention to this potential issue and how it might impact them and that they

[2:07:11] contact us for solutions and don't just kind of go what the lot. And so, it's a big deal that we

[2:07:17] get it right. We're very committed to that and have the conversation. All right, let's have a work

[2:07:24] accession in the future. Just schedule them in. Any other?

[2:07:33] That's it? All right, that concludes our meeting tonight. Meeting adjourned.

City Council Regular Hybrid Meeting

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