2021-04-08 PPS School Board Intergovernmental Committee Meeting
District | Portland Public Schools |
---|---|
Date | 2021-04-08 |
Time | 17:00:00 |
Venue | Virtual/Online |
Meeting Type | committee |
Directors Present | missing |
Documents / Media
Notices/Agendas
Materials
Submitted Public Testimony 4-8-21 (53be5900420ee8fd).pdf Submitted Public Testimony 4-8-21
Rose Qtr. ESC Presentation (1efcedde1df07242).pdf Rose Qtr. ESC Presentation
Reopen and Rebuild Americas Schools summary (354e72848cf5685e).pdf Reopen and Rebuild Americas Schools summary
Minutes
None
Transcripts
Event 1: Board of Education's Intergovernmental Committee Meeting 4 08 21
00h 00m 00s
pronouns i'm the
chair of this committee and then
directors moore and
director brim edwards are um the members
of the committee and director bailey is
joining us here because it's such a fun
committee
people don't want to miss it um and then
we're going to have staff with us as
well and i know we've got our public
commenters here so let's go ahead and um
dive into the public comment and i
believe we have
three people um for public comment and
let me
bring that up as well we have um
i think it is a is it ada crandall joe
cortwright and aaron brown
is that right are the three of you sort
of um
just fine i know it's all on the same
subject are you sort of testifying in a
combined way or separately
yeah uh board member scott first oh it
is online sorry
i it wasn't streaming but it is um we
were hoping it would be ada joe and then
myself
that's all right thank you yeah that's
absolutely fine
um so let's go ahead and dive in and uh
you'll have three minutes each and we'll
just give you a friendly reminder
when we get to that point um so aydah
i think you are going to kick us off
yes good afternoon my name is aydah
crandall and i'm a freshman at grant
high school
when i was in seventh grade at harriet
tubman my classmates and i learned that
our school had some of the worst air
pollution in the entire state
tubman sits just 30 feet from one of the
busiest parts of i-5 and on bad days we
could literally see smog in the air
during recess
as we started learning more about diesel
pollution and the associated health
risks
we got involved with the fight to pass
house school 2007 which would regulate
diesel emissions in the state of oregon
we got on a school bus and drove to
salem where we gave testimony in favor
of the bill and spoke to our legislators
about how important it was to us
when hb 2007 ended up passing it felt
like a huge victory
it was the first time i truly believed
that even as a kid people would care
what i had to say
and that our legislators and leaders
would be willing to do what it took to
build a better world for future
generations
but i was wrong shortly after the diesel
regulation bill passed i learned that
odot had plans to expand i-5 even
further
it doesn't take an expert to tell you
that more lanes means more vehicles and
more vehicles means more pollution
around my school and in the albino
neighborhood
i don't go to tubman anymore but that
doesn't make me any less concerned
i am worried for the safety of future
generations of students and i want them
to go outside and see trees and grass
and a beautiful blue sky
not huge diesel trucks on a freeway
that's so close to our school it may as
well be the playground
i don't want them to have to worry about
whether or not the air they're breathing
at recess will one day lead to asthma or
lung cancer
these are not big asks these are basic
human rights that i assumed portland
public schools would want to fight for
tubman students in the albino
neighborhood should not be denied the
basic right to clean air
and school board members it is your
responsibility to fight for these rights
as i've continued my work with climate
justice i've also realized that the
situation at tubman is a lot more than
just an environmental problem
it's not a coincidence that the richer
predominantly white schools on the west
side are not dealing with these same
issues as tubman a school that serves 60
students of color time and time again
black brown and indigenous people have
been disproportionately affected by
climate disasters and targeted by racist
city planning policies
and the rose quarter freeway expansion
is a perfect example of this
there is absolutely no way odot can
claim freeway expansion as restorative
justice when the original construction
of i-5 is what displaced many original
albino
residents in the first place and when
the existing freeway is literally making
tubman's students sick i'm excited about
the proposals put forth by the
by the albino vision trust and the ideas
of capping the freeway but all of these
things can be done without odot spending
800 million dollars on increasing toxic
emissions
in addition to concerns about what this
expansion will mean for air pollution
i'm also terrified about its climate
impact
already 40 percent of oregon's carbon
emissions come from transportation
and i don't understand how people can
sit idly by and watch odot make those
statistics worse when we have so little
time to take action against the climate
crisis
my future my classmates future are
siblings futures
and the entire tubman and portland
community is depending on all of you to
wake up and realize that
the crisis we're facing we're counting
on you to choose the right side of
history and stand with us as we fight
for racial
social and climate justice we're
counting on you to stand with us as we
demand odot conduct a full environmental
impact statement on the rose quarter
freeway expansion
because it is the only way to guarantee
the protection of our lungs communities
and planet
thank you aydah appreciate that
appreciate your testimony
okay uh next up uh joe cortwright and if
everyone could just make sure you're
muted when you're not talking that would
be
um mrs crandall is a very difficult act
to follow
bps is doing a great job um so i'm going
to talk a little bit about the effect of
the rose quarter project on
00h 05m 00s
tubman middle school i'm with no more
freeways i'm an economist in town
and uh as you know tubman middle school
predates the
existence of i-5 it was originally built
schools built originally in 1950 and the
um the i5 freeway not built until about
12 years later so the freeway
really has intruded onto the school
grounds already and odot's plan is to
move it
even closer and it looks like something
on the order of
20 or 25 feet closer and we've looked at
the plans or tried to get
as best we can the plans we followed
followed or filed public records
requests to get
plans and the materials that i've
submitted to you for the record i have
shown
the plans that we were able to obtain by
our public records request
i've shown you how that compares to the
property lines for
the tubman site and as you can see
there's not only a take
of tubman property that's anticipated
here
but also there's the construction of two
sound walls
and just to give you some idea because
in all of their renderings of the
project
they haven't designed as far as i know
produced any renderings that show what
these sound walls do to
um to tubman middle school but they're
22 foot tall town
sound walls that will run for more more
than a thousand feet
from the far end of lillis albina park
um past the school to flint avenue
and just for reference the berlin wall
was only about half that high
so this is a rather significant wall and
the other thing i need to emphasize is
we're a little bit unclear on where
these will be exactly be located the
plans aren't as precise as we would like
moreover as as we now know um
the projects expert review peer review
committee has recommended that the sound
walls be moved even closer
to the school because they don't think
they're effective in their current
location
and they're by the by the way i
mentioned there are two of them the
other thing i want to emphasize and i
think this is significant is
i don't think you can trust odot's air
quality or noise analysis
because it's predicated on them building
a six-lane
freeway rather than the 10 lane or
eight-lane freeway
that they can easily build given the
hundred and sixty foot roadway that
they're constructing
and in just the last two months or so
we've obtained
three odot documents they're contained
in the material that i've submitted
that show you this isn't just a four
lane to six lane expansion
it's really as much as a 10 lane
expansion and their traffic modeling and
their air quality modeling and their
noise modeling
doesn't reflect the volume of traffic
that would be moving through and past
the school and through this neighborhood
with a 10 lane freeway which they can
easily accomplish
and the other thing that i've documented
in the material here and i'm sure it's
well known to you
is just a dramatic socio-economic and
demographic disparity
between the children who have to breathe
in this site and go to school here
and the commuters who are going by on
the road and the fiscal disparity
between
portland public schools being expected
to pay 10 or 15 million dollars
just to make the air quality in the
building breathable
while odots was going to spend 800
million dollars
next door to make the problem worse so
there's a huge
socioeconomic and racial disparity
obviously between
who benefits from this project and who
bears the costs of it
with that i'll just uh pause and if
there's any questions i'm happy to
answer them and thank you very much for
the opportunity
to comment great thank you joe i
appreciate the comment we generally
don't engage in q
a during the public comment but we are
going to be discussing this on our
agenda today so
you're welcome to stick around i think
we'll have a thank you
update on the projects all right aaron
good afternoon i have to follow both ada
and joe so that's really difficult um
first uh my name is aaron brown i've
worked with many of you on some various
school boards and or school bonds and
levies it's great to see many of you
here today and
um i also just first want to predict
that man it's been a rough year
and i'm so grateful for all of pbs's
time and attention um i can't even
imagine that somehow we've got time to
chat with you
about this knowing that the reopening
conversation is about to go underway um
and i just want to express my sincere
gratitude to all of you navigating
uh really the unfathomably difficult
circumstances uh it is exemplary public
service that all of you have navigated
this last year so
just uh true command accommodations and
appreciation
um i'm really just here to play clean up
on anything that ada and joe missed and
they didn't miss all that much
i would just say that um no more
freeways the organization that joe and i
and aydah uh joe and i especially have
been part of
um filed a lawsuit this last week um
through a nepa complaint
along with our partners at neighbors for
clean air as well as the elliott
neighborhood association
um we're happy to provide it sounds like
many of you have already gotten some of
this documentation we're happy to follow
up with any and all of you afterwards to
be able to look through the specifics of
this complaint
but there's one or two specific details
that i wanted to just make sure
um getting ahead of some of odot's
response to our lawsuits
so um odots after our lawsuit was
essentially pointing out a lot of stuff
joe mentioned about hiding
um some of the traffic projections were
bunk and all of the ways in which odat
was deliberately
00h 10m 00s
misrepresenting the impacts that this
project would have to the tubman
community
to the lungs of the tubman students to
the planet that the tubman students
stand to inherit
and uh what just that much poisonous air
means in this greater scheme
of restorative justice in the albino
neighborhood um
in 2019 we thoroughly debunked all of
their traffic projections uh
joe is the traffic wonk i i did not have
quite the same math education that i
think
uh joe and ada and others are going for
but um
we found numerous parts in odot's
traffic projections when they were
blatantly misrepresenting the proposed
traffic implications and that is
relevant because as joe mentioned
it's not just about the lanes but it's
also about oda did not study the impacts
of congestion pricing which the
oregon uh house bill 2017 funding that
provides the funding for the rose
quarter is also supposed to allow
they did not study the impacts of
induced demand we know its empirical
reality that um expanding lanes of a
freeway makes more people drive odat
didn't study the impacts of that on
their traffic projections
odot included the columbia river
crossing which never got built
in their traffic projections they
include multiple freeway expansions
that never got built but in their
modeling did
in multiple circumstances their fingers
were on the scales that changed how many
cars and throughput are going through
that neighborhood
which therefore lend unnecessary
egregious ridiculousness to their
assertions that somehow this will be the
first freeway expansion anywhere in
north america
ever the unicorn of a freeway expansion
to reduce air pollution
or to reduce carbon emissions um so a
year after we came up with that that was
all in 2019 when we got on the record
when i conducted this peer review that
you might have heard a little bit in
some of their comments in the last week
and that peer review uh they brought in
a bunch of independent consultants that
specialized in air pollution and carbon
emissions and all of them said yeah
actually there's three ways going to
lower air pollution and carbon emissions
and the reason they were able to say
that is that these consultants
were not given the opportunity to
critique the data that odot originally
provided so odot's bunk data
that we dissected two years ago was
never challenged or critiqued
so if odette comes back to you in the
weeks and months ahead saying oh look we
don't worry about these guys don't know
what they're talking about
well odot didn't let that you know peer
review panel
actually review the spot where odot hid
all of the data um so i'm happy to stick
around and answer questions i know that
this is a meeting so we'll just be
listening in but um
uh we're having a rally tomorrow at
tubman by the way thank you to your
facility staff that have
graciously allowed us to pay for the
right to show up and trash the building
before the students and not the building
we'll be in the yard and we will be very
respectful and we'll have
uh plenty of garbage cans but um on
friday afternoon tomorrow from five to
seven we've got a bunch of speakers uh
including aydah's
is going to be speaking in joe um and
some other community leaders and i just
wanted to make sure that all of you felt
invited and welcome to join us tomorrow
at
tubman at 5pm thank you very much for
your service
great thank you thanks to the three of
you for your testimony today um and and
i do appreciate the um the powerpoint uh
it was sent around the board members and
i would just say to my fellow directors
if you haven't had a chance to look
through it
it is it has a lot of very interesting
and helpful information
um is that powerpoint something that
you'll be making available on your
website and if so do you want to say
what that website is
yeah we'll it'll be at least two places
we have two websites we have the no more
freeways website
that uh that aaron supervises and
also i run a little think tank called
city observatory and it's part of our
analytical work
looking at the impact of freeways on
cities and throughout the united states
so it'll be posted there as well so
www.nomorefreewayspdx.com
sorry cityobservatory.org
thank you very much excellent um
just as like submitted comments just
like
as yeah i think i think the issue
um julia is that we don't we don't
generally allow people to do testimony
to do presentations
so um that's the only reason why we
didn't allow them to show it today
um was just just because of that rule so
i i wanted to
let people know where it would be
available um so they could think they
could take a look at it
yeah well it's not too much of an issue
because it's not like that
presentation but i think it just
happened to us
written comments as well
okay great let's let's look into that
yeah and julia it's really hard to hear
you so just just fyi i don't know if
that's
something we can fix as we go forward in
the meeting but i could i could hear you
but it was kind of cutting in and out
so um but yes we will we will look into
that option
uh okay let's dive in um i know courtney
we had legislative update uh next on the
agenda did you have anything you wanted
to share with this group
yeah um thank you director scott and
hello
uh good evening board members we've got
a couple couple extras tonight nice to
see
uh director constant and director bailey
um
so as you can expect based on my uh my
many weekly updates
about legislative session things are
00h 15m 00s
moving really fast it's really hard to
do this virtually
everything's so formal because you have
to set meetings without you can't just
grab someone in the hallway i think i've
mentioned that before it's just an
ongoing frustration with this process
but it's also nice to
not have to commute so there's that
little silver lining i guess
the big the biggest issue right now i
think facing k-12 during this
legislative session is the budget
i alluded to that in my last update the
co-chairs of ways and means released
their framework a couple of weeks ago
the framework has the state school fund
at 9.1
billion which is exactly the same number
that the governor's requested budget had
typically the number that comes from the
co-chairs is
a couple billion higher or i mean a
couple hundred thousand higher
than the 100 million sorry i'm getting
there's two i need to add some zero
typically higher
and so starting the starting point for
the co-chairs budget being the same as
the governor's budget is is very
concerning for the k-12 advocates and
we're all
in close communication about the best
way to advocate i think there's a
sentiment in salem or among legislators
and the legislative fiscal office that
we're somehow flush with cash because of
carers and the american recovery act and
all these other
one-time opportunities that have come
our way
and so we are working on how do we tell
the story
that the state school fund is our
operating budget
it's our perennial you know this is what
we pay teachers with
and it's our per-pupil allotment versus
some of the other the other buckets that
we have and we're grateful for
measure 98 the state the student success
act and in particular the student
investment account
um but those are tied to other things
and
are um very focused dollars
and equity focused investments in the
case of the sia
and uh career and technical education in
the case of measure 98. so
that's the i think the rub here is how
do we communicate that in a way that
makes sense to people who aren't paying
attention to all of the things that are
very specific to how we
operate our schools in this um
you know in the in the current
environment with covid in the background
but also
going forward as we recover and as we
continue to do the
important work we would have been doing
anyway but we're adding a layer of
difficulty because of
the pandemic so i just want to raise
that with you because i think
it's going to be a pretty hot topic for
a while um the ways and means co-chairs
are doing a
road a virtual road show they do this
every couple years when there's a
biennial budget discussion um the
they're doing it by congressional
district
congressional um congressional district
three portland will be april 21st
from 5 30 to 7 30. i'll share all the
information on
on how to watch it how to sign up we're
working with our partners
to um kind of carefully orchestrate the
lineup of who we submit to
to offer testimony because there's only
going to be two hours and there's
uh you know everyone who has anything
they want to talk about related to the
budget gets to come out and sign up so
it's going to be limited to how many k12
people they're going to let speak
so we're trying to coordinate so that we
do so we make sure we get our people in
um but i do think there will also be an
opportunity to submit written testimony
so again i'll share more information
about that but that's going to be one of
the few ways
that board members and and
superintendents and others in the
education space can weigh in
on the budget and we are also working
closely with our
chief financial officer and the school
business officers association to make
sure that we understand the impacts
of what a 9.1 billion dollar budget
means for
pps and for all the other school
districts there's no one that's going to
be
faring well under this scenario so the
message is going to be pretty clear and
the current
kind of drum beat is 9.6 is the number
we're shooting for
so we'll see if we can get there i hope
we can get there i hope we can get above
9-1 i feel
i feel pretty good that we can get above
that but um it's just going to be
it's just going to be a fight
and everything else you know there's a
lot the deadline for scheduling public
uh
for scheduling and having work sessions
on bills is the 13th which is tuesday
so we're right at halfway the halfway
mark in session
um problematic bills this is that time
when they sort of start to fall away
there's a lot of good um little things
i don't want me to to diminish them but
they're just not the
the budget is just the elephant in the
room um there's a
i know amy will director constance
excuse me will be excited to know that
they passed um
in the senate senate bill 513 which is
the civics education bill and we talked
about
um that in our it's mentioned in our
legislative agenda
there's a quite a few bills to get
student voice
in the um in the process which i think
is great and specifically um
getting students that have you know not
been in the room
00h 20m 00s
so getting them involved in the pro in
the legislative process and
so there's a lot of good stuff out there
but again i think
what we where we have kind of had to i
think focus our attention going forward
right now
is on the budget and i'm happy to
answer any questions about anything in
particular
another one i just just because it's
relevant to many of you that
were on the board when when the pilot
happened at grant high school around
menstrual products in schools
in high school um there's a bill right
now that's i'm hope
i submitted some written testimony i'm
hoping moves because
it's really good it's a really good bill
but it has a fiscal so we're trying to
work through
you know what that could look like so
that it doesn't just
just die a slow death i hope it can we
can work through
something that would model what we've
done because we know that that's an
equity issue
that's great thanks courtney any
questions for courtney
about current legislative items
renee this is julia thanks for the
update really appreciate it
are you um working with the district
student council at all
um as a way to also have student voice
uh from pbs show up um
thank you for the question it's on my
list we just got the list of of when
those
events were so not yet but yes i will
let them know and
engage them
courtney i know i know chair lowry
testified in her personal capacity i
believe
about um 16 and 17 year olds voting um
any any uh
prospect on that bill or updates
oh good question i don't have the update
but i'll get before the end of this
meeting i will so
i'll i'll report back on that but thank
you yeah that's great the um there are a
couple of bills
running simultaneously recently around
allowing younger
younger than 18 16 and 17 year olds to
vote in school board elections and then
also
lowering the voting age in general which
i think is a tougher
um hill to climb but i will let you know
by the end of this meeting
what the where that bill is i can't
remember
great thanks any other questions just
along that lines
so to allow 16 and 17 year olds to vote
in school board elections that's like
that can be done
at a state at a state level obviously
that just surprised i thought that's not
set by some sort of national or federal
standard it's a it's an incident state
statute
it can be changed oh okay interesting
great okay all right thanks for the good
night
can i ask about the uh current service
level is there any discussion
about um fixing the current service
level
formula to reflect actual costs
it's all part of the larger discussion
rita director moore i'm sorry i'm very
informal with you and i don't mean to be
i've just worked with some of you for so
long i prefer informal committees
courtney i think you know that so
i'm good okay well uh director moore uh
good question
yeah it's part of the conversation
around um the nine one it's all
it's a it's a really a fight with the
legislative fiscal office we've
you know continued to convert to uh
spread the message to them and to others
that
if we don't if we split it if we do a
split 50 50 it's not going to work we
need it to be the 4951
or the 51.49 it's 49.51 yeah 49.51 sorry
i had to think about it
so yeah it's on it and it's definitely
on our radar and um
and i know that that's been an ongoing
uh something that you've brought up
before and that
um all the advocates have brought up
time and time again frankly
so it's it's not just the 49th
51 split it's also the fact that it
um underestimates the um
the costs for those districts that have
that had the foresight and the
wherewithal to um
to take up bonds for pers um
is there is that even on the table
it's not there's no bill to address that
issue because it's really more of a
conversation
and i i don't know where that is right
now
but i can check in okay i'd appreciate
that thank you
before we move on um courtney i know
this is on
your radar but it's i think important
for us all to
think about making sure that the
legislator
legislature is aware of
federal guidance around not supplanting
state budget based on the federal
appropriations and i think there is
likely to be more specific language
coming down
00h 25m 00s
um from the feds as uh attached to the
esser provisions um where we'll actually
have to
to to provide um some kind of
accountability and documentation
that federal funds have not that state
funds have not been
supplanted um but we need to keep
kind of raising that and making sure
that there are no shenanigans going on
at the legislature based on um
you know the money that they see coming
in from the feds
yeah and report just about any of those
conversations
i'm happy to and uh while i've got the
floor um
director scott uh the 16 17 year old
voting in school board elections bill
isn't sitting in the
senate rules committee and that
committee is not bound by deadlines
so there's more time to discuss it and
sometimes things go to rules to not move
and sometimes they go there for more
time
so i will keep you posted okay great
thank you
um okay we are almost uh half an hour in
but actually um
danny ledezma has joined us and sort of
on this same agenda item as a
legislative update
not a state legislative update but a
local legislative update i know danny
wanted to just give a brief update on um
uh city of portland's uh gun violence
reduction issue is that right danny
yeah just really quickly i apologize for
for arriving late um
the city council yesterday uh discussed
a pretty far-reaching uh
approach to reducing uh violence uh for
the next year
uh they allocated six million dollars
across several program areas
um and you know under the leadership of
commissioner rubio
uh they really sort of tried to take us
a community-centered approach to
violence prevention uh and so uh myself
uh chair kafori uh most of our partners
that we
we partner with we all sort of provide a
testimony in support of this approach
um which is basically to to to try to do
some more
collaboration and coordination across
city bureaus and acro
across uh the the county um there was a
counselor from the city of gresham
that was there as well that also
testified um and
there are two areas that are probably of
most interest to you all
uh the first being they are going to
invest
a little over three million dollars into
additional funding for grants to
organizations that do uh some of the
violence prevention as well as
intervention
uh through the office of uh viola of
youth violence prevention
uh that miss nike green runs um and the
the general you know you i don't have to
tell you this twice but the general
research supports that the more we can
have youth engaged in positive
uh activities uh it goes a long way
towards violence prevention and for too
long
uh we've been a little bit downstream of
that funding and investment particularly
for summer um
so this three and a half uh million
dollars that the city's investing will
support
the um the those grants and they're
hoping to do the
year-long grants to organizations uh
that
that we know you know very well so you
heard uh testimony from
joe mcferrin at the last board meeting
he's one of the grantees that they work
with pretty closely through poic
um so we're looking forward to uh to
partnering with them
in that uh the other piece uh that is
probably of interest to you is um the
park ranger program
so not as a replacement for police
although
um uh the the city is proposing an
increased investment in the park ranger
program
to have more visible presence for
park rangers at park sites not only
to increase the hours during the day but
also to provide graveyard
shift coverage earlier in the year the
city invested more
funding to support the junior ranger
program as well
which is nice because our you know we
certainly want our students who are
interested in the outdoors and parks and
that work to be able to do there their
park rangers are led
by vicente um who is who is really
helpful with
us during some of the hate crime
incidents that happened at bridal mile
uh in the park adjacent to bridal mile
so
we look forward to continuing to partner
with them um as you'll hear
in upcoming board meetings uh we'll be
releasing
uh a request for proposals for summer
enrichment programming
and where we are intend to to really
sort of collaborate with both the city
and our partners at multnomah county
is in the sort of execution of these uh
of these proposals uh for summer so
we're making sure that youth of all ages
are engaged in positive activities uh
partnering with
you know community-based culturally
specific and multi-racial organizations
to provide those those engaging uh sort
of
prevention programs that we know uh do a
lot to reduce
to to reduce crime overall and also to
provide really positive spaces for
students
so you'll hear more from that we're
really excited because
00h 30m 00s
with the city's investment and some of
those programs more on the intervention
side
our investment in those programs on the
prevention side and then multnomah
county's investment
in additional behavioral support
behavioral health and mental health
supports
we think that we can go into the summer
after
you know the year that we've had with a
lo you know with a lot less
anxiety about sort of the violence to
come because we've got we've got
solutions and
and uh not only are we but our our
sister jurisdictions are investing
uh heavily and wanting to to work on the
prevention side
so um i just wanted to let you know
uh we worked with you know commissioner
rubio commissioner ryan commissioner
maps commissioner hardesty and
also the mayor's office was supportive
um
as well and so i think um you know
i just wanted to make sure that you all
knew about all of those connections and
how we're really trying to be good
partners and
make sure that we're all uh in alignment
um
and i think that's it great thank you
danny thanks for that update that is
that is um
yeah i'm glad andrew yeah can i ask a
question
am i coming through better now yes we
can hear you great thank you okay
great um danny thanks for the update i'm
really glad to
hear um about the nimble response um
from the city and the district
and love the partners it sounds like
that we potentially have lined up
did you say that's coming to us through
contracts
or it's going you know in what form is
it
um or does the district already have the
contracts in place
um to move ahead for the summer
programming
we have we have existing partnerships
but this is really
um we're trying to to really have like a
robust set of
uh programs for a summer and so to be
able to do that with the
with the amount of investment that we're
proposing we we wanted to do a call for
proposals
so we have we're anticipating that we'll
we will
continue to support partners that we
already have existing partnerships
we'll probably support partners that we
haven't had a realist a relationship
with yet
uh and then i anticipate that there will
be lots of
um lots of new partnerships that are
formed that may that may look
differently
so um we are you know we're of course
going to be advertising to our set of
contractors that we work with our resj
partners as well as our sun partners
but we've also been uh gathering lists
from the office of violence prevention
from
uh different parts of the county uh so
their their public health department
their um their youth their uh juvenile
uh youth pro department i'm getting all
the departments wrong but uh
not just the department of youth county
of county uh
county services human services
so uh so so we're trying to make sure
that we're spreading it really wide
and we're going through the formal
procurement process
so that we can execute contracts uh with
folks that we don't have
an existing relationship with so we'll
need to go through that process
and what's the size of the funds that we
have that's
going to be utilized here we're still
we're still finalizing
that number so i i want to i want to get
you the accurate number uh we need to
take into account uh custodial and
uh some uh some of our internal
facilities so i'll be able to get that
number to you
uh shortly we're i we were
we're still finishing up uh but we're
hoping to
you know obviously use funding from the
state and from
from federal resources great look
forward to hearing more about that
thank you okay can i just clarify um
am i correct in thinking that um
pps is not going to get any of the grant
money from the city
that everything is going to have to be
financed through the pps budget
is that is that accurate uh
i guess so in terms of the six million
dollar investment
uh those will those are all the
investments were all proposed either
through
partnerships or through city bureaus
that's correct
just to be clear about your question
rita i think so the city's putting
new money into these programs that's
that's going to go directly to those
programs
and i think her danny i heard danny say
that we we are also
committing some dollars to programs that
will come from from from our budget
right but we're not getting any money
from the city right
that's correct okay
okay i want to move on i was just going
to mention just i buried the lead during
the legislative update that
the senate approved the money for the
summer programming
earlier today so that's now headed to
the governor's desk so we'll
be hearing more about the rollout of the
summer dollars
and what the um what the allotment looks
like for pps
in the coming weeks that's the federal
money that's being passed through the
state
that you're referring to or that state
00h 35m 00s
money
no that's that's state money oh okay
because the federal 200 that's
200 right that's the 250 million summer
program dollars
and child care dollars that the governor
and the ways and means committees
worked on okay i want to move on to the
next item on the agenda because it is a
big one
um and an update on um the
i5 rose quarter project and i don't know
courtney am i turning it over to you
or is uh i can get us started and
director brynn edwards can can think up
um so yeah i think the
we've been involved in this the school
board has weighed in on the i5 project
for
a couple years um i know director bailey
is very familiar he and i had a road
trip to albany one time to testify to
the otc
that was fun he bought me he bought me a
hamburger
on the way back um anyway just just an
aside
um we so we've been involved we've the
board has passed resolutions a couple of
times once in march of 2019 and once in
december of 2019
to say hey we would really like to do an
eis
these are the reasons that we have
concerns we want you to delve a little
deeper into it and study this
and share out that data so that we know
what the potential impacts are going to
be like for tubman and its surrounding
community
that the oregon transportation
commission chose to do
an ea not an eis which is a light it's
kind of an ea
it's a it's a lighter dive um
and then then kovit hit and we kind of
you know we were focused on other things
um
director brian edwards has been uh
sitting on the executive steering
committee of the project
for maybe eight months now i i i'm
getting all of my
calendars wrong but i think it's about
eight months um that was
once the otc directed odot to create a
few more
community outreach opportunities so they
have a
they had a community uh
a community group i can't remember the
name of that group because it was
disbanded and
is now the historic albina advisory
group and then they created and then the
esc the executive steering committee and
they also have a
cac the cac and i can't remember what
that stands for maybe it's community
advisory committee
so we've been sitting at that table with
a number of people including the
minority contractors
um the
the truckers i think are on it there's a
bunch of other stakeholders that sit on
the esc
that are relevant to the project and
then there's also a conversation a
separate conversation that hinges on the
project
which is the highway cover or cap
conversation
and i attend those meetings to track
kind of that conversation
and recently there's been more talk
about
what is the tubman situation looking
like and i'll so i'll maybe turn it over
to
director brim edwards um at the last esc
meeting on march 23rd or 22nd
nate mccoy from the minority contractor
specifically asks hey
you know what's the strategy from the
district
and what about the community process
and is there a plan and
i think that's kind of a question that's
still sitting there out there
so uh director bruh edwards maybe you
want to speak to some of that since you
were in the room and at that table
yeah thanks thanks for the recap um
courtney
um i'll say that pps has had
um two primary there there's a lot of
different
interests at the table um and
reasons why either people support the
project or oppose it um
i think it would be most accurate to
describe that pps has
probably two primary interests
um one relates to the impact on our
facilities and the second would be
the caps and um for the purposes of this
meeting i want to focus primarily
on impact on our facilities primarily
harriet tubman middle school
on the caps um there has been a process
that's ongoing that we really we haven't
been the driver
of but we have been i want to say
supportive
of the uh requests
and the work that uh albino vision trust
has done to date on this and i think
my uh impression is that that
is moving ahead in a way that
um it's moving ahead with
it i think in a way that's aligned with
what
the issues that albino vision trust um
raised at the at the onset and
that um i think we should assume that
that's
on track until it isn't um
00h 40m 00s
for right now so then there's the issue
of the impact on our facilities and the
primary
impact um clearly would be on harriet
tubman
and the last meeting i thought
was um a really interesting meeting
because they did bring
in sort of their peer review
group but as noted
i was quite disappointed
in odot and the presentation
and because that fundamentally they're
still making the argument
that this project will make things
better
which as the previous speakers during
public comment
have um you know pointed out some
of the underlying issues with that
assertion
but the reality is
taking bad air and making it slightly
better
is not healthy air for our students
um and then and so
that when pressed at the last meeting an
acknowledgement
that um that that wasn't the standard
that they benchmarked against it was
just
would it be better so it's from
uh maybe really bad to less bad
as a standard so that's one thing and
then the second piece
is we had more visibility
to the planning and design
and this sort of you know continuing the
moving forward
um with the plan that moves the
freeway even closer to our school and
not having really any answers
um as to you know what the construction
impact would be on the school
and i think also sort of most
significantly there were a number of
other partners
at the table who were specifically
tri-met who were quite surprised about
the design
um as as well and
so the point
for people where we are right now with
pbs they asked for
a presentation on sort of our view
on the impact and sort of what community
outreach we've done
and i think i primarily tried to set
expectations about
the district staff coming and doing a
presentation about impacts on our
facilities
because you know we're right in the
middle of reopening and that
is you know for the school district sort
of our highest priority
um but it it would be important i think
for um the board to get
a briefing um on it and
to set a direction so that we can
um speak as a board about
um whether um
what direction we want to take early on
um
and i'll credit director bailey
with putting on the table a
sort of an estimated number
of what it might cost to to move tubman
and i know district staff has been asked
to
get sort of drill down on on that number
so we have more than a ballpark but
you know at the end of the day it
appears and we need to
have a point of view as a district
that this project is going to
if it proceeds is going to really make
that site
um not a an appropriate site long term
for a school now would it be appropriate
for some other
use um potentially you know absolutely
it's um you know still an important
property but
as a for school use not likely
and so developing a point of view that
is
you know the district leadership
including the board
but it also has input from
our school community um
and and then and the neighboring
community
is going to be important
courtney did i summarize
that piece perfectly really great
that was great yeah no that was really
helpful thanks um
let me let me open it up um to questions
i i have a few but i'll
i'll wait let me open it up to questions
from um
board members and and maybe rita we'll
start with you and then open it up to
others if you
if you have any questions yeah thank you
um so um a general comment
00h 45m 00s
and then an actual question um
so i was i was a little surprised
that um we didn't get supporting
documents
um to accompany the power
the odot powerpoint um
and and i was told that there weren't
any
um and i was given the link to the odot
site so i went in
and looked at previous meetings and
discovered that essentially
none of the meetings have a lot of
supporting materials
which is a little concerning and it's
apparently
mostly done through powerpoint
presentations
that are remarkably content free
as far as i could tell so that's
concerning to me
um my actual question is um
apparently on the march 22nd steering
committee meeting
um pps was an agenda item um
and i i appreciate the summary but
was there an actual statement that was
issued
like what was our presentation yeah
there wasn't a
that's probably an overstatement it was
that we had been
asked to come to the april meeting and
they just wanted us a response of
whether we'd be whether we'd be coming
to the april meeting with a presentation
and what courtney and i the discussion
in advance was
um this is not the time to be asking um
dan jung and the and the facilities team
to be
putting together a presentation um right
in the middle of
reopening okay um so it was
it was literally um this is what we've
asked of pbs
and courtney and i um
and we talked to dan um
in advance as well um but it just was
that
um that would be challenging for the
district to
cover and come up with that mostly
acknowledgement that we would come back
in april okay okay um
so so does that mean you're you're
wanting the board to come up with
i mean and i i appreciate this i
i'm all in favor of this um but does
is is there a deadline by which you want
the board to
kind of come up with some sort of
direction
yeah we ideally um
as soon as we get schools reopened like
to engage
the board around what we would set as
our
um sort of
direction for you know it's going to be
district staff um
in terms of what we want to
ask of odot and it's not it's not really
asking
this executive um
steering kit because it's an advisory
committee so that's it let's just be
clear um they
otc and odot made very clear that this
is
like advisory and it really doesn't have
any decision making capacity
so what we would like is the point of
view from the district
of what we're going to tell odot
is that you know what we perceive as the
impact
and how we think it should be addressed
okay and i guess my my last question is
is very very concrete um
so with the expansion of the the
proposed expansion
of the um of i-5
um to further uh you know a further
incursion onto
um uh harriet tubman property
what is the actual distance
between the the highway or the or the
wall
and the school at the closest point
i so i don't know that we have that
information at the top of
at our fingertips i know i've asked joe
crawler to join us because he said it's
on our
little internal technical team and that
is a question that we want the answer to
and
joe i don't know if you have anything
you want to add but i think
we're trying to figure that out the
other thing i'd say
is you know odot has offered to do like
one-on-one briefings
um courtney and i um
think it's going to be important that it
be um a public
briefing with materials in advance and
so the what they've designed because
um it feels like the project is
a little well it's fairly opaque um to
your point
director director moore um
00h 50m 00s
and i say the standard
that they're using on air quality
is um not a standard that we agreed to
nor do i think that most of us would um
i don't know for everybody but not the
standard that
we would want for our students and again
um to date odot has not been able to
articulate
during the construction phase of the
project which we know would have
really significant impacts as well on
the site
of what the mitigate what the proposed
mitigation
if there's a middle school there uh what
they would propose
okay uh amy or scott amy go ahead
so um i do not want or feel like i need
any more information
from odot i think it's time for us to
just
send a letter that says um
we uh we
these impacts are obvious to us to our
students
and you know if in order for this
project to go through
it's clear to us that you're going to
need to purchase this property
and then we get our ducks in a row in
terms of the valuation
for the property we already know that
there's going to be some taking
involved and especially it's my
understanding that it's encroaching even
further than was previously
explained and so i mean i don't think
there's any reason for us to get any
more
mired in this process or do briefings or
anything we know that it is not
an appropriate site for our students
given the impact that is predicted
both short term and long term so i would
like to free us up from this sort of
bureaucratic morass and make our
position really clear
to odot as soon as possible um
that they're gonna need to to buy this
asset from us
um in order to move forward and i think
that with a very
minimal amount of time from a decent
land use attorney
um we can come up with some pretty
pretty compelling points
as to why that's clearly necessary
um so uh i just
i just want to really caution us from
just any more briefings any more
questions
any of that like we know that that this
is
this is going to have an intolerable
impact for our students and then the
other piece is that we need to share
with them
that we're embarking on um a
community-driven
process to identify you know what we're
doing in north portland
with our center for black student
excellence
and that the relocation of
harriet tubman is and and should be
uh likely a part of that and so
the sooner we can resolve this matter
with them and they can
you know provide for us by buying that
asset and we can put those funds toward
the relocation of harriet tubman that
the sooner we can
fold that into that other process that
is going to get underway here shortly so
um i just feel really strongly that we
need to act quickly we've done enough
we we we don't need any more information
to know what the impacts are
and um we need to be really clear with
with them thanks amy
appreciate that scott um yeah i want to
agree with i think everything amy said
director constance um
i don't understand what we would say any
differently to the advisory committee
that would have any impact on anything
that we haven't already put in writing
or
said in testimony um
yeah well we we need to do the due
diligence of
what the the cost would be what we're
anticipating
it would be um in addition um
i don't think that odot is actually the
uh well they may be the project
uh be driving the project they're not
the ones that would have the money to
um purchase this purchase the school
um why is that they buy right away all
the time
and this is right away they're
encroaching
well i don't think they have 100 million
dollars 80 to 100 million dollars
in this project budget
well then they're gonna need to find it
if they're going to want to put that
freeway right next to that school
right well that's been part of the the
conversations that we've
been having they've already been i mean
we're already
00h 55m 00s
i think on the record of saying it's 80
to 100 million
i mean that's that's already there and
and again
you know tactically i'm not against
somebody going and testifying um
[Music]
just let people know and the other thing
i would add
is since apparently odot has been
planning on this lane expansion
for a couple of years no this isn't just
something new that popped out
they've been completely disingenuous
and that's a kind word uh with us
and with the community as a whole um
correct me if i'm wrong i think maybe
you can nod
joe that there was an accompanying memo
to the map of the widening that was
dated 2018
for internal discussion only
um that's at least yes there's there's a
there's a head nod so um you know this
is just
another um
just another breach of trust by oda
the the other thing to consider too
though is that like when we
make a demand that they they
buy us out i mean they then have a
valuable asset
that is has some utility for other
purposes and there are a lot of people
in the community
talking about some kind of interesting
ideas
about what that might be maybe even in
partnership with odot like a workforce
training center or something um the
collaboration between different
different government entities and and
not to get
too tangled up here but the the federal
infrastructure
bill coming down the pike or measure
coming down the pike
has a lot of money in it for workforce
training
and this is an idea that um
that is starting to get some traction in
our community
right to be housed at the tubman site so
i don't know why anybody would want to
house something there
with the air quality so bad and getting
worse if the project goes
through we know now the back of the
school isn't
safe um and i think with
you carve off another however many feet
it is
the front of the school isn't going to
be breathable
i have a couple of questions sorry go
ahead julie
i was just going to say we that's what
we've presented throughout this en
entire engagement with them
um and i think it's a matter of us
having something
you know can't present a bill of uh
here's what it would cost if we don't
know
if we don't know what it would be what
it would cost to build a new middle
school i also believe
that um there's a a conversation that we
need to structure
and that can be done this in a short
order with the um
i say once we get through the reopening
with the harriet tubman school community
um because i i don't think it's
respectful for us
to for people to read in the paper we're
demanding that they buy this
the school when we haven't had a
conversation yet um and i'm not saying
that i i definitely believe that needs
to happen it just
we do need to have a conversation with
the community so that they're
aware of it and that they can
be part of that conversation
um thanks um
how much does the project total the oda
project roughly
does anyone know offhand well it's a
moving target
it was originally 750 million and it's
gone up to like eight or nine
or eight or eight fifty i was curious
yeah i thought it was originally around
five and now it's up to
eight and it was
four 450 or 435 originally and now it's
beyond 800. i was trying to get a sense
of magnitude
um we talked to uh julia you mentioned
the air
quality and i'm just i'm curious given
some of the testimony earlier
so so and i really appreciated your
point i thought it was a good one of
odat saying oh the air quality will be
a little bit better and and you were
sort of questioning you know is that
really the appropriate metric right
going from really really bad to just a
little bit better i have another
question though do we do we trust their
data right so
um do is there any way for us to
validate the
underlying assumptions that they made
that even even to sort of get a sense of
when they said it's a little bit better
do we believe that it is a little bit
better or is that even a question
well i'm not a i'm not a um
environmental scientist
sorry i'm not asking you not asking you
to validate that i'm asking is there a
01h 00m 00s
way for us to validate that
um i would think so um
and i'll just also point out that
the when there was
a discussion about the guiding criteria
and i proposed language that
um the air quality be the standard
via health healthy air standard
um that odot
and um suggested that
they wanted language that would would be
that it would be
better better than the current um and
that is
what um the executive steering committee
adopted i voted against that um
but they've they're clearly attached to
their standard of better but i think
that i think there's two weaknesses in
the the standard one um whether the
underlying
their underlying numbers are correct and
then whether it's going to be better and
then second
whether that's even the right standard
to have set
for the project yeah okay i i would be
interested in
even if it's even if it's an outside you
know group that's that's done some work
on this just just you know
who is sort of validating that and kind
of gets back to these questions of
induced demand and if those things have
been ignored
but we took that into account you know
does that impact the overall air quality
numbers and because you know i i think
it's one we should validate that even
even their initial
um analysis whether it's accurate and
then two whether they're using
the right metric i think they're both
really important questions
um andrew joe how's it stand up
oh yeah go ahead joe crowley right
oh yeah scotty members of the community
good evening
i've been tasked by dan young to find an
environmental contractor that can
basically do that peer review
and or set our own metrics that are
applicable to schools
we have pbs engineering and
environmental on contract uh
phenomenon for a long time for a variety
of uses and we've also um
looking at a scope um
uh that is a little more expansive and
so we may go with pbs um or another
another provider but that'll be coming
along shortly and
uh also have asked for odot to provide
more than just an aerial or overhead
view of the project because
it was in my opinion that um you know
side view or not
close uh would just bring a better
orientation
uh especially when we're talking about
the the walls right you know and
relative to the size of a car relative
to the size building and the closeness
um but in short on the question about
can we validate
or can we compare to their environmental
studies um
we are on on track to do that great
thanks joe no i really appreciate that
um sort of i know a lot of you've been
working on this for a long time so i'm
sorry if this is a remedial question but
are
what are our points of influence in this
process
right i mean i appreciate you know julia
serving on the executive steering
committee i think it's funny that
that's an advisory body though usually
steering committees are a little bit
more than that but i guess that's how
odot is to find it
um yeah yeah and it was much disputed
because
you have um i mean
the the heads of that a lot of the local
jurisdictions
um serving on it and it's like well it's
just advisory
and otc was you know very clear like
they weren't
and you know the question was like is it
even worth serving on it and i think
some groups have decided
um you know very publicly not to serve
on it because
of that capacity so you know the
decision making
is really ultimately going to be otc
right
and i guess that's and i'm happy i can
have a follow-up with with either you or
courtney just just
to sort of bring me up to speed on it
but i mean i you know the school board
does not and the school district does
not have any
official approval um of this project
correct
i don't know about yes but i i wonder
i i don't know if we have to like
approve
if they're going to encroach further
into on determined property
we would have to allow that right we
wouldn't
i'm guessing there's a yeah there's a
yeah
uh eminent domain you know um statute
that that applies there
and the only reason i'm asking and again
and but i think it is important publicly
that we talk about both
you know what's our formal and then
what's our informal you know influence
in this and i think my understanding of
this project is our formal influence is
pretty limited our in
sorry did i say that our formal
influence is limited our informal
influence though it can be significant
and i think that's
just as an intergovernmental committee
and then as a board just you know
talking about what what are those ways
and
you know it's through the engagement and
and there may be some legal
you know action as well if it comes down
to that but just sort of understanding
01h 05m 00s
that
both from so we understand it but also
the community understands i think is
important
i will just um i'll just sort of
i think it's a really um i'm going to
use i'm going to use the buildback
better language right but you know
part of um you know we're hearing a lot
of the federal infrastructure but but
locally as well
and reimagining oregon and all of this
is you know my mind comes
comes together in terms of it's not
enough to simply mitigate
right the impacts that might happen and
and i agree with with others that have
said it's not enough to just simply say
well
it's a little bit better i mean we're
undergoing a revolution
in terms of how government thinks about
these projects and it's a long overdue
revolution but
it's this whole idea that we have to do
more for historically underrepresented
you know
communities this is a historically
underrepresented community and a school
and by doing more there there is a
restorative justice component to this to
this work and
i feel like a lot of governments are are
sort of waking up to this and going down
this road and it does not feel like odot
has caught up and so i think
part of this is is using our influence
publicly to talk about it but also our
influence with the state legislature and
influence with the governor's office
to to to make odot do this i mean this
is not that revolutionary right to sort
of look at a project like this and say
we can't just think about it in terms of
of the highway widening or
or you know that we have to think more
broadly and that's hard
for organizations to break out of but
but again they won't be the first right
governments all over the region all over
the country are doing this and sort of
saying
no no we have to take into account that
oh not only
you know does this make it inappropriate
for a school
used to be this close it was
inappropriate when we did this back in
the 40s and 50s and 60s so
how do we rectify that historical wrong
the generations of children that have
gone through this school and suffered as
a result of that air quality
and and and how do we and and maybe you
know the way to to make good on that is
to actually figure out where 80 or 100
million dollars is going to come from
to move this school and see that
positive benefit and i don't really
think that is
that was a big leap in the 80s it's a
big leap in the 90s it's not a big leap
today
for the way governments need to be
thinking about infrastructure projects
so um
i i i really appreciated the sort of
conversation about
our next steps and and and and you know
i
i will just tell you i i think we should
have some more conversation about it
i do think a board briefing would be
helpful you know and and
and director constantly i appreciate
your point of look we we've been around
this block before and
what we need is a strong statement i
think from a public perspective
hearing from odot having a chance for us
as a board to ask them the hard
questions directly in a public forum
um i think is really beneficial even if
we've already kind of asked those
questions before and we sort of know
what their answer is going to be
i think there is some benefit to that um
so
i i think getting that i think uh
director edwards your point about
um you know the community engagement is
really important
as as much as as we as a as a board
might feel like we want to go down a
road
we do need to engage the community i
don't think it's going to be any
surprise where the community is on this
but at least figuring out what that
looks like and and recognizing we're in
the middle of reopening right now so
that's kind of challenging
maybe i missed the answer to the
question though in terms of timing
um is there a deadline by which
we need by which odot's going to be
taking some action that we can't miss or
we shouldn't miss
um to answer that question i don't
i think we have a range i say we're
primarily trying to get beyond
april just given everything that's
happening um
i want to go back to your your point
about um
how things have changed and i do think
there wouldn't have been this
conversation at all
but for pps just wielding its
sort of moral authority here and saying
you can't just move ahead with this
project
um and and run over us um
and they have set up this larger
structure um
and i i fundamentally
support what you've said about the
different
context of today because the primary
odot argument
is this project actually will make
things a little bit better
and really the conversation that needs
to happen happen
is about the original sin
um because it's it's about what happened
to tubman
when when otaka dot could just do what
they wanted to do
and they just you know placed the
freeway right there
so it's not just about well it's just
going to be incrementally more
it's about fundamentally what odot did
originally
and this is just further exacerbating
that original action they took um and i
i do think that uh the the conversations
around infrastructure it's a
it's a different conversation um and to
set ourselves up i think we need the
01h 10m 00s
information that
um joe had just we should have the facts
because they'll be saying this is make
this is making things better um and we
need to be able to have
uh the facts um
and the impacts on our students i do
think we need to have that community
meeting even though we may not be
surprised again i don't
nobody should wake up in the morning and
read a story in the paper or hear
something on the radio
about tubman and you know we're
you know we've decided to move it and
we're asking odot to pay for it
um that needs to be
a community conversation um
and and lastly
i do think we we can put the numbers
together
and if if we
if we have a solid set of numbers and we
have
had the conversation with the community
um
the the the informal role we have is to
be
to be able to have those kind be able to
have those conversations
can i um can i just add a little bit
um i agree with pretty much what
everybody has said
um um but
i'd also like to mention the extra added
layer
of um pps's um
articulated commitment to be a champion
of um
kind of morally acceptable response to
climate change
um we've made several statements
publicly as a district as an abu and as
a board
and um the board the policy committee is
right now considering a pretty expansive
and um aggressive uh
policy uh for um
climate crisis response so i think the
you know the dimension that hasn't been
mentioned yet today is
around the impact that it expanded i5
would have on climate change
and that this is going in exactly the
wrong direction um
so i i appreciate that
our uh principal focus
certainly the sort of the um
the initially animating focus was
harriet tubman
but i also think we need to put it into
the broader context
of climate change so
so along those lines i think there is
value in having
a a board discussion um
around these issues okay we are 15
minutes over
go ahead scott and your students will
expect of us
and hold us to that standard i do want
to say with the
you know kind of getting our numbers um
my limited experience in transportation
impacts
arguments um in in development is one
side has their numbers another side has
their numbers they never agree um i
i think it's important that we we come
up with something
um it will have to i think challenge
their
their traffic analysis as well as
the environmental impact of that traffic
i think the the notion that they'll
build walls to help
keep the pollution out as well as noise
[Music]
there's no way to predict the wind
patterns around
structures like that it could end up
making things worse
um so there's there's a lot of unknowns
in there that will have to
um i think cop2 in this process that
odot
has not copped to um
okay yeah to the extent that we go ahead
and do that uh
it's really and and i think we should
bill oda for it
they're not going to pay for it but you
know we shouldn't have to do this
we should not have to do any of this
okay thank you for this conversation i
think in the next steps um
are to um discuss whether uh
i guess the timing of potentially having
o.com and
and give us a briefing on the project um
julia do you want to to deal with uh
board leadership on scheduling that or
or like
half the board leadership is here right
now or do you want me to follow up as
the igc
chair um scott do you need something in
writing or
will you take this to the agenda setting
meeting okay okay so i'm
i'm confused uh director constance
did i hear you say you weren't
01h 15m 00s
interested in
having oh dot com in brief us
so just wanted to find if that's what
people want i just feel like
we have the information we know what the
impacts currently are we know they're
going to be exacerbated
and it's time for us to make a strong
statement to them
um i just i think we've spent a lot of
time on something that's very peripheral
to our mission and
um you know we need to just move
on our interests but if other people
want to
you know have them come and do a
briefing
fine i don't really see the value now
well i the the value that i well first
of all i think
um the
individuals on the board need to know
what our our ask is but also
ultimately this isn't like odot's not
going to come up with the money
you know like the house speaker is you
know the governor's office
um i mean somebody has to put
this on the list for you know
for the the infrastructure list and
you know i think we're um having
having our facts down and our arguments
um like
you know you know we need to be able to
say here is what odot is planning
on doing and to date it
is um some been somewhat hard to get
them
on the record for exactly how this
project is going to impact
tubman so scott i think the question for
you and
chair lowry is just is in terms of as
board leadership do you want to put this
on i think you've heard i think director
constant has a good point you've heard
from julian and me and
and i think rita sort of expressed you
know that there's some value in it so
i'll just i'll turn that over to you all
in agenda setting
um it sounds sounds good i will figure
out
we'll take that forward and uh
and i think um sooner is better but also
we
need to get some of that data as well
from the team from the technical team
yeah
um and then i think the question after
that is
um yeah so i actually think i think
figuring out if we're gonna do uh that
that odop briefing for the board
public briefing and then having a
conversation of when we want to
um engage with the tubman community and
and again being respectful of how that
fits into our reopening plan
and staff um um commitments right now i
think is going to be important
um really appreciate this um update
thank you um for for this and the the
conversation and more to come
we're we're about 20 minutes over but i
did want to give um
courtney a chance to just give us a
really high level overview
um of the federal infrastructure package
and how it might impact
schools and and then maybe do a quick
round of questions
around that um in terms of of again
where
where our influence what our role can be
um yeah
yeah i'll be really brief um obviously
we all have been hearing a lot about
infrastructure from the president and
congress right now there's a
the um i sent you guys the bill that is
the sort of baseline bill
that they're using to sort of start the
conversation about school infrastructure
um and i know this is music to director
constance ears because she's been
talking about school infrastructure a
lot over the last few years
um but there's a 100 billion dollars
right now is kind of the number that's
floating around
15 billion would be grants and the other
50 would be bonding
um there's also and i've been in touch
with
blooming hours office this week in
defazio's office too actually because
they have
surface transportation reauthorization
and there's other places to find
money for things so i'm just kind of
paying attention to those those bills
um and keeping in close touch with our
delegation about where we can be most
influential in our advocacy advocacy
and i'll continue to reach out to our
local folks uh and then of course we're
involved with the council
for the great city schools and um so i'm
i'm on regular calls with them to see
how things are playing out and how we
can be
helpful so i'll just keep you all
updated there's not a lot of information
yet but
um it's definitely a topic of huge
concern for
all urban districts and really any
school district because we all know that
our
our facilities are old and we need to um
inject them with
uh more modernization dollars yeah so i
could
and this is this great and and i don't
mean in any way to look a gift horse in
the mouth it's long overdue and and it'd
be great i just want to be clear though
50 billion dollars of bonding capacity
is simply a way of making bonds a little
bit less expensive right they're still
i just i wanted to make sure that
everyone's clear on that that that part
of anything
i i appreciate that and i think you're
right and also it's a starting point so
i think that's the conversation that's
going to have to happen
um as you know the months i don't know
how long this is going to take i don't
know what the timeline is exactly yet
but um
you know certainly there's also there's
also
other um like seismic and hvac dollars
i'm told in some other
01h 20m 00s
places so i think we just need to it's
not this is not a one and done
this is multiple places to play um on
these conversations about how do we
modernize our buildings and our
facilities
so but but i'll let you guys know how
things shake out and
you know as we i had a good conversation
this week about earmarks because
earmarks
10 years ago when i worked in congress i
was in charge of earmarks for senator
merkley and that was when they still had
them
and then they went away and now they're
making their way back
and they will not be a part of the
infrastructure package i've confirmed
but
um there some there are some member um
member uh requests coming through but
there's
they're very very few and we really
can't fit into any of those buckets and
this is
this was the case long ago too but i
just wanted you to know that i i did do
the research to find out that that was
probably not an option
um but i'll keep you know if that
changes i'll certainly
you know be in touch with dan and the
team but i think that's probably not
going to happen for this
for um member requests will not be a
place for us to go after
dollars those are usually last last in
dollars
and um very small amount of money and
only usually only
a few projects per member
so great any any questions for courtney
um just to say i was
contacted by a school community
that was trying to get merkley to do an
earmark
for their school i know who you're
talking about
and i've been in touch with that parent
this week and he's wonderful
yeah oh yeah yeah but uh
we are we are a school system
great anyone else have any questions
courtney let us know how we can um
how we can be helpful in that in terms
of with our local delegation
obviously our local delegation will be
supportive of this but um
you know we're really lucky right we
have we have a great delegation that
supports
what we do and and um and definitely
supports
improving our infrastructure so you know
we should we should thank our lucky
stars for that but
yeah well and the delegation yeah that
is supportive but also an obligation
that's in
um positions of power in congress and so
to the extent there are
we we do it is very i mean the most
effective way to get changes are is when
they hear from local constituents so if
there are
even if there are things that would help
nationally we can actually be the voice
that we and we can also connect with our
counterparts in other districts that
might be for example in de fazio's
district because
he's the tni chair transportation and
infrastructure
structure infrastructure chair in the
house so
you know are there ways that we can push
uh you know for jay to
because he may not listen to us because
we're not as constituent
i'm just thinking there are other ways
to get around it so
yeah great okay any um
any other things for this committee i
appreciate everyone's willingness to go
long i think it was a good good
conversation tonight
hey andrew one other thing um just on
the community engagement
um who would be the appropriate person i
don't know if that's courtney to give
the um jonathan and shanice
yeah um a heads up that that's something
just
because uh i know they're everybody's
got full plates but
to get that just flag for them as that's
a conversation that needs to happen
i'll do that
great thank you thank you it's on
jonathan's radar but i'll make sure that
i recap this with him okay
thank you everybody with that we will
adjourn the integrator committee meeting
Sources
- PPS Board of Education, BoardBook Public View, https://meetings.boardbook.org/Public/Organization/915 (accessed: 2023-01-25T21:27:49.720701Z)
- PPS Communications, "Board of Education" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8CC942A46270A16E (accessed: 2023-10-10T04:10:04.879786Z)
- PPS Communications, "PPS Board of Education Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLbZtlBHJZmkdC_tt72iEiQXsgBxAQRwtM (accessed: 2023-10-14T01:02:33.351363Z)
- PPS Board of Education, "PPS Board of Education - Committee Meetings" (YouTube playlist), https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLk0IYRijyKDVmokTZiuGv_HR3Qv7kkmJU (accessed: 2023-10-14T00:59:52.903034Z)