METRO POLICY ADVISORY COMMITTEE MEETING RECORD

February 12, 2003 – 5:00 p.m.

Metro Regional Center, Council Chambers

Committee Members Present: Charles Becker, Larry Cooper, Nathalie Darcy, Rob Drake, Bernie Giusto, Eugene Grant, Ed Gronke, John Hartsock, Alan Hipolito, Jack Hoffman, Tom Hughes, Michael Jordan, Richard Kidd, Mark Knudsen, Lisa Naito, Doug Neeley, Brian Newman, Cheryl Perrin, David Ripma

Alternates Present: Jack Hoffman, Karen McKinney

Also Present: Hal Bergsma, City of Beaverton; Al Burns, Portland Planning; Brian Campbell, Port of Portland; Cindy Catto, AGC; Brent Curtis, Washington County; Michael Dennis, TriMet; Kay Durtschi, MCCI; Elissa Gertler, PDC; Stacy Hopkins, City of Tualatin; Jim Labbe, Audubon Society of Portland; Stephan Lashbrook, City of Lake Oswego; Irene Marvich, League of Women Voters; Mary Kyle McCurdy, 1000 Friends; Rebecca Ocken, City of Gresham; Laura Oppenheimer, The Oregonian; Pat Ribellia, City of Hillsboro; Kelly Ross, Home Builders Assoc.; Ramsay Whit, MTAC

Metro Elected Officials Present: Liaisons – David Bragdon, Council President; Brian Newman, Council District 2; Rod Park, Council District 1. Other: Susan McLain, Council District 4.

Metro Staff Present: Kim Bardes, Dan Cooper, Andy Cotugno, and Mark Turpel.

1.  INTRODUCTIONS

Tom Hughes, Mayor of Hillsboro and MPAC Chair, called the meeting to order at 5:03 p.m. Those present introduced themselves.

2.  ANNOUNCEMENTS

Chair Hughes said that the nominating committee he had assigned at the prior meeting had nominated Mayor Becker of Gresham and the Multnomah County 2^nd Largest City member as Vice Chair, and Larry Cooper the Multnomah County Special Districts member as 2^nd Vice Chair.

3.  CITIZEN COMMUNICATIONS

There was none.

4.  CONSENT AGENDA

Meeting Summaries for January 8 and January 22, 2003

5.  COUNCIL UPDATE

Council President David Bragdon spoke about his letter to Tom Hughes, which is attached and forms part of the record. He said there was a lot of common areas of interest for the Council and MPAC. He mentioned that there was an internal team working on the centers issue and that Chair Hughes would be looking to include some MPAC members on that team.

6.  2003 MPAC/MTAC TIME & WORK FOCUS PRIORITIES

Chair Hughes referred his memo to the members, which was part of the packet and therefore is attached for the record. There were four items designated as high priority for the year: 2040 Centers, Regional Goal 5 Program, the Urban Growth Boundary (UGB) Allocation of Employment Lands/Periodic Review Task 3, and the Future Role of Agriculture. He said that besides adding some MPAC members to the Centers Team, there was a need to create some subcommittees. He wanted to create an MPAC/MTAC subcommittee on subregional land need rule. He asked the members to review the suggested work plan as he would like to have a final work plan decided on at the end of the next meeting. Chair Hughes reminded the committee members to remember the impact on Metro staff when forming subcommittees, and added that perhaps local manpower could help alleviate some of that impact.

Cheryl Perrin said she would like to see a subcommittee on economic development of industrial lands.

Chair Hughes said there was a group at Portland State that was looking at the framework for how a regional plan would be developed. He said that it would be good to have that work proceed with MPAC’s work. The report was due in June or July.

Jack Hoffman said that he thought there should be one work plan that combined the Council goals and MPAC’s goals. Then the staffing issue would be taken care of.

Michael Jordan asked Andy Cotugno if the staff had taken a look at the critical path of items on the memo. He said that Task 3 would have a time frame that would drive the rest of the work.

Council President Bragdon said that the direction that Council gave to staff was that they should proceed with the technical work in terms of alternatives analysis. That process would need to be informed by the strategy developed by the group at Portland State. He said that there was not an expectation of a lot of Metro’s resources being put into the development of the strategy, but rather the application of a strategy that was being developed by a policy group.

Andy Cotugno said they were still working on the specifics of the work program.

Chair Hughes said that a discussion about how all the “TAC’s” should function with MPAC had been started. One of his goals for the year was to attempt a rational structure for how decisions and information flowed between the groups/subcommittees to Council. He said that he would try to have a recommendation for an agenda for the year at the next meeting.

Jack Hoffman asked for timelines along with the goals.

7.  AFFORDABLE HOUSING COMPLIANCE REPORT

Council President Bragdon spoke about the Affordable Housing Technical Advisory Committee. He said that the conclusion had been an agreement between local jurisdictions to fulfill some reporting requirements in order to assess the current status. Eleven jurisdictions had completed the reporting requirement, but many had not. He said that now they would like to remove any obstacles preventing jurisdictions from reporting and move the process forward. He mentioned that Kelly Ross, Home Builders Association, and Mary Kyle McCurdy, 1000 Friends would each present a letter to the committee and offer their support.

Gerry Uba gave his report, which was part of the packet and is attached and forms part of the record. He said that there were twelve jurisdictions that had submitted their reports. He said that the second year report was due January 2003, and Metro had received four reports so far. He stressed, however, that the main focus for now was on obtaining the first year report from all the jurisdictions.

Andy Cotugno reminded the committee that the affordable housing goal was to have “consideration” of possible tools by each jurisdiction and for three years of reporting on progress towards implementing the various recommended actions. At the end of that three-year period they would assess how it was working. He said that they were halfway through that three-year period and Gerry Uba was reporting on the first year. They would now put together a second year, and at the end of next year they could look at the numbers to see progress. Then they would have to decide how to construct the consideration and whether additional work was needed.

Susan McLain wanted to know the level of importance that MPAC placed on this process.

Chair Hughes introduced Kelly Ross and Mary Kyle McCurdy to speak.

Kelly Ross submitted a letter for the record, which is attached. He spoke to the affordable housing issue and the contents of his letter. He said that affordable housing was a cornerstone issue of Metro’s planning effort. He urged Metro Council to restate that it was an important issue and needed to be high priority. He acknowledged that public resources were stretched to the limits.

Mary Kyle McCurdy submitted a letter for the record, which is attached. She said that local jurisdictions had agreed to try the voluntary route and it was disappointing to see a lack of even minimal reporting. She thought it would be helpful to hear from the local jurisdictions what stumbling blocks they had encountered. She encouraged those who had successfully completed the report to share with others how they had accomplished that. Metro would have to evaluate whether they were making progress towards their goals on affordable housing, and they may have to be more regulatory in the future.

Rob Drake said that his concern was that the region needed a stable and consistent source of funding for affordable housing.

Michael Jordan said that a formal letter from the governing body would be helpful. He agreed that the huge financial pressure right now made it hard to commit resources to many different projects. He said that if MPAC wanted commitment on something they would have to take a real stand on it.

Mary Kyle McCurdy said that many jurisdictions had done some very useful progressive things for affordable housing and that was valuable to report and share, and that it could be used as a tool.

Rob Drake said there was some sensitivity about how Metro mandated the business of local jurisdictions. That was why the word “consider” had been used.

Lisa Naito and Richard Kidd cited affordable housing projects built in their communities.

Michael Jordan asked for a status report in two months.

Jack Hoffman suggested that the status report included some of the ideas that had been discussed that evening.

Chair Hughes said that the goal was to get more affordable housing in the region and that now they had to make sure the jurisdictions were moving forward to meet their targets.

8.  PERFORMANCE MEASURES

Andy Cotugno discussed David Bragdon’s letter to Tom Hughes, which is attached and forms a part of this record. He said that there were five areas outlined where MPAC might want to make recommendations. He said that this was the first published attempt to compile performance measures and evaluate how they were doing with implementing 2040. He then gave an overview of the report, which was part of the packet and forms part of this record. He said that Chair Hughes should refer questions pertaining to the report to MTAC to provide a specific response and then take the recommendation action at the next meeting.

Michael Jordan asked them to clarify the statement pertaining to “maintaining separation from Metro and neighboring cities and honoring agreements” because he said that they were not honoring them.

Gerry Uba said that the City of Sandy and the City of Gresham had been trying to work out a deal to make sure that those areas were taken care of. So he said he felt that by the time the review process was completed on the document, it would be resolved.

Chair Hughes said this item would be referred to MTAC, and that it would come back at the next meeting so they could discuss MPAC’s recommendation.

9.  MTAC APPOINTMENTS

Chair Hughes said that MTAC was created by MPAC, and that part of their duties was to identify membership. He referred them to the membership list, which is attached and forms part of this record. He said that they could approve the list as it was or suggest changes.

Council President David Bragdon suggested removing position #37 Metro Council Staff. He said that under the current structure it was not necessary.

Andy Cotugno suggested amending the bylaws to remove that position. Responding to a question about vacant positions, he said that about three years ago they had revamped the bylaws because of problems making a quorum because of members who had seats, but were not attending meetings. So one of the amendments stated that if a person was absent for three meetings, they would not count towards a quorum, and they would have to attend three meetings in order to get their voting status back. Some of those organizations, however, liked having the option to participate in MPAC if a topic that they were concerned with came up. He said that it did not create a problem for MPAC from a quorum point of view.

Rod Park said that since they were thinking of bylaws, he had not seen the state of Washington represented.

Dan Cooper said they had a vote on advisory matters but not under charter provisions, i.e. taxi cab legislation. He said they do count toward a quorum.

Chair Hughes said that it might be beneficial to ask them to participate. Input from Vancouver and Clark County would be valuable.

Andy Cotugno said that they actively participated on the Bi-State Committee. Their agenda focused on issues of bi-state significance. They also participated on the JPACT committee because they were affected by transportation decisions for the I-5 and 205 corridors.

There being no further business, Chair Hughes adjourned the meeting at 6:21 p.m.

Respectfully submitted,

Kim Bardes

MPAC Coordinator

ATTACHMENTS TO THE RECORD FOR FEBRUARY 12, 2003

The following have been included as part of the official public record: