2021-05-13 PPS School Board Intergovernmental Committee Meeting

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District Portland Public Schools
Date 2021-05-13
Time 17:00:00
Venue Virtual/Online
Meeting Type committee
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Event 1: PPS Board of Education's Intergovernmental Committee - 5/13/2021

00h 00m 00s
actually skip over introductions we have a lot of people in the room um um but just in the interest of time i want to make sure we sort of dive into the agenda and just um uh i'm andrew scott i'm the chair of the intergovernmental committee and i you see him pronouns um as people speak you can feel free to introduce yourself at that point but i don't want to take the time if um if it's okay with everybody um um to just sort of skip over the overall introductions but um today we are going to have a couple different agenda items we're going to hear from um oregon department of transportation a presentation on the i5 rose quarter improvement project and thank you for them uh for for coming and talking to us as a committee and it's one of the reasons why my committee is not normally this well attended but uh um in honor of the subject matter um we have some additional people who have come which is great um and uh and and uh then we're gonna do some legislative updates we're gonna talk a little bit about state school fund and where that stands and then we do have two people sign up for public comment i do believe um cara both of those people who signed up signed up around the i5 project um specifically so if it's okay with other committee members um that public comment is scheduled for 620. i will move that right after um the odot presentation and our discussion so after we're sort of completed our discussion um then we'll do the public comments specifically on that agenda item and then move on we have 45 minutes for the odot topic um we have a little extra time um if we need to go over that for conversation um but i will just ask um that we just sort of keep keep um questions and discussion focused um and i think i'm gonna start by turning it over to brendan and um thank you for the uh uh presentation earlier this week it was helpful to have that in advance um and then if we can limit sort of the presentation aspect to um no more than 20 minutes and that'll leave lots of time for board questions and discussion um and just before i turn into you brennan any any other committee members or board members have any questions before we dive in [Music] going once going twice okay brendan and team take it away uh thank you chair scott i can see that my cube lit up so you can hear me board members good evening thank you for having us for the record my name is brendan finn i'm the director of the urban mobility office within the oregon department of transportation we will keep things succinct because we do very much want to get to your questions and be respectful of your time here this evening uh so briefly i wanted to at least set the stage a little bit around the rose quarter improvement project and how it fits into the urban mobility office and the greater uh plan that we're working on called comprehensive welcome so i'll jump i'll continue to jump back into it uh well the urban mobility office was created about a year and a half ago and of course there's a saw going off in the background here uh the pardon that is that you can't hear me within this great virtual world the mobility office was created about a year and a half ago by the oregon transportation commission to take on some of the bigger projects programs and policies that were created through hb 2017 which was the last large transportation patch package passed by the legislature and signed into law by the governor so we're tasked with some of those bigger projects as well as the creation and implementation of the ccmmp which is a long acronym we love our acronyms in government the comprehensive congestion management and mobility plan uh and what's behind this plan and what the legislature and the otc asked us to do is to think comprehensively about the system in the portland metropolitan region as it relates to the state system stop doing the old approach that we've taken from the past which is to look at it look at everything look at the system by a project project by project basis that's had an um that's done nothing right by equity and it's done nothing right by climate so what we've done through this plan is uh taking away this project by project approach which only moves bottlenecks uh from one area to the next um continuing to contribute to bad air quality and greenhouse gas emissions and again look at the system in a comprehensive manner so it's comprised of a suite of strategic investments that address safety and seismic vulnerability issues as well as a couple of the largest bottlenecks in on the west coast which you'll hear more about here shortly but the kind of overall umbrella to the
00h 05m 00s
system-wide plan is is really embedded in our tolling and congestion pricing program uh this system-wide uh through the i-5 we call the river to river so from the boone bridge up to the interstate bridge and then on the i-205 to the glen jackson bridge we'll be having a congestion pricing system through the sorry the value pricing pilot program through the fhwa sorry more acronyms and this program will manage we'll have we'll have two main purposes one is to manage the demand that's on the system so we can have a reliable flow of uh through through the region that improves air quality and then improves reliability in the system and it also will generate revenue uh that will fund some of these critical modernization and safety projects so that's just my really quick overview because i wanted to give board members chair scott a little flavor of what we're looking at and how the i5 rose quarter improvement project fits into this bigger picture of how we're trying to address uh congestion in the metropolitan region on a comprehensive level so with that i want to turn it over to uh our diligent uh program director megan channel uh who has been overseeing that i'm also we're also joined by erica warren who's one of our strategic advisors and overseeing the historic albina advisory board so with that and to keep us succinct as i promised you mr chair i'll turn it over to megan's channel thank you brendan and thank you portland public school board for having us this evening as brennan said i'm megan channel and i'm the project director for the rose quarter project i will do i'll move pretty swiftly through the slides i'm just kind of giving a high level overview of the project um erica will join me to talk about partnerships and community engagement and then i will provide some information on the design and construction details that i know um you as a boarder are interested in learning about so um courtney you can go to actually slide three here um so just kind of for um orienting everyone this is the project area so the i5 rose quarter improvement project is focused on i-5 between 84 to the south and i-405 to the north and also looking at the local street system within the broadway wildlife interchange in the early 1960s during an era of national highway building we know that construction of i-5 and other public and private developments disconnected the community and resulted in significant displacement here and namely displacement of the african-american community out of the central city so this is important to acknowledge odot's role in this and as we move forward we're moving forward in a way that's not exacerbating those past harms so next slide um the rose quarter project is a significant project for our state uh really addressing key transportation needs with this being one of the top bottlenecks within our state and also a significant opportunity to catalyze and support community development in the local albina area so there's kind of four key areas of the project including i-5 mainline improvements new highway covers that will span over i-5 to create new community connections in space new community connections over i-5 particularly in the form of a new bicycle and pedestrian bridge as well as local street improvements to modernize the multi-modal network in the interchange area so next slide um knowing that the i5 main line improvements and design is of particular interest um to this board relative to its proximity of harriet tubman middle school i just want to specifically share what's planned on the i5 main line so the i5 mainline improvements include the addition of one new auxiliary lane in each direction on i5 between 84 and 405 as well as a full inside and outside safety shoulders so the map on the left side of your screen shows where these improvements would be added and the diagram on the right hand of your screen kind of shares the existing conditions versus the proposed conditions so you can see the existing through lanes are in dark blue that remain in in both existing and proposed condition um the existing auxiliary lanes are shown in light blue and then what's proposed as part of the project is what's shown in orange so in the southbound direction you can see the new auxiliary lane being extended from greeley and i-405 to the morrison bridge exit and in the northbound direction a new auxiliary lane added connecting i-84 to the south and then i-405 and greeley to the north so this again is design consist is consistent with what's been approved in prior planning documents
00h 10m 00s
uh in house bill 2017 the environmental document that was approved by federal highway administration in 2020 what we costed in our 2020 cost to complete report and then just continues to be the basis for our design plans as we move forward so next slide is just sort of a different way to illustrate and demonstrate the different elements of the project um so again um uh with the main line improvements option on i5 there's a lot happening on top of i-5 so the pink shows the location of the highway cover area and we have a lot of work to do with the community to define what those new community spaces will be on top uh new crossings i mentioned the clackamas bicycle and pedestrian crossing that's shown in purple kind of at the bottom of the map as well as a new roadway connection across i-5 at hancock street and then you can see sort of the scope and the area of the multi-modal local street improvements in green megan could you tell us where on this map kel uh tubman is sure so in yeah on this map uh harriet tubman middle school would just be to the north and actually uh basically right uh it is just off the map here but um you see the blue box that says hancock dixon crossing that would sort of be about where tubman is located so to the north of the highway cover area okay yeah all right um next slide um so again this the rose quarter project addresses key transportation needs um and again is a significant opportunity um to support and catalyze development um in the local albina area and achieve benefits for the communities that we serve so we're expecting to see an improvement in our traffic conditions up to 50 reduction in crashes uh saving drivers nearly 2.5 million hours of delay each year so improving that traffic flow for our traveling public and freight as well as providing new space for emergency responders and buses to move through traffic more quickly via the new shoulders the new community connections uh also you know in the form of the highway covers with the new space that's created help support safer streets work to knit the albino community back together and again serve as that catalyst for future redevelopment the project is also about creating jobs and opening up opportunities for our disadvantaged business enterprise or dbe community we know that over 100 million dollars will be going into the pockets of our dbe community through the opportunities with this and so we're partnered with a contracting team hamilton joint venture in association with raymore construction and with a key focus on breaking down those barriers that prevent dbes from typically bidding on odot projects involving dbes early with technical assistance and then helping to build a career pipeline for future construction workers that not only supports energy intergenerational wealth now but into the future um so that's kind of a baseline of what the project is i want to jump to our partnership and community engagement as as the next slide and again i'm joined with erica warren um who is one of our strategic advisors on the project and also um our amazing facilitator of the historic albina advisory board um what you see here on the screen is sort of the the how we're doing the work and who's involved um so in terms of the project governance um we have a number of different committees and really elevating the community voice as we're making decisions on the project um so you can see all of those different spaces there i also highlighted sort of at all levels where portland public school either board leadership or technical staff are embedded within our process as well but with that i will pause and erica i will turn it over to you to share a little bit more about our project values um and our community work absolutely thank you megan thank you to all of you on the board serving our families and our children i appreciate your time it is uh an honor of being a daughter of the albida community to serve in this capacity my partner and i dr stephen holt we make up try excellence and um we are um at the table to help center the voices of those uh communities that generally have been disenfranchised and left out of these conversations um we understand that restorative justice is a big umbrella but we are hoping that uh outcomes of this project would acknowledge the past harms and give us an opportunity to utilize this development
00h 15m 00s
to bring a racial social equity into the historic albino community the community input and transparent decision making is very key in this process we are doing our best to engage several areas of community in these conversations dr holt facilitates the executive steering committee which encompasses uh some of our elected officials other community leaders i have the privilege of facilitating the historic albino advisory board which is comprised of all members of leaders activists those who have been giving of their lives and their time to serve the historic african-american community here in portland and then john l bell facilitates a group that is helping to hold accountable the cmgc into those disadvantaged business enterprise goals that megan referred to earlier so we're taking a strategic step to make sure that the community is involved and that they understand uh and are listening consistently through the process then in mobility focused we're excited that we're being able to focus in on multi-modal transportation that we are utilizing this development to create safer transportation uh and not just reducing crashes but it's safer for all who are traveling pedestrians bicyclists all modes of transportation and then a great concern i'm sure for your team as it is for the historic african-american community is the climate action improved public health the um additions of talking about air quality as well as all of the other things that go into public health our mental health about safety how people fit into the community areas that they feel may be distraught about in relationship to gentrification but how we can pull the communities back together to begin talking about how they benefit uh all of the communities collaboratively uh megan i'll send it back to you thank you erica um i'm going to now get into some of the details um around the environmental review process and then again those design and construction elements so touching quickly on the environmental process uh this just shows a timeline um sort of where we've been and how we got to where we are today um so the environmental review phase did kick off back in 2017. um a couple key milestones um just to keep track of here are the environmental assessment that was published for a 45-day public comment period back in february of 2018 and really in response to stakeholder concerns including those of portland public schools around air quality greenhouse gas emissions and noise the oregon transportation commission directed odot to conduct an environmental peer review associated with the project's environmental assessment and those topic areas and so the peer review was conducted in 2020 and informed the publication of the finding of no significant impact and revised environmental assessment in 2020 november of 2020 and that is the document that completes the environmental process in terms of some of the key findings go to the next slide we did use a scientific approach guided by federal and state standards in the environmental assessment and found that air quality and greenhouse gas emissions do improve with the project meaning that the air will be better with the project built and that noise will be mitigated by a proposed sound wall or noise wall specifically with a noise wall proposed at harriet tubman middle school so we'll get into the details of where that wall will be located next slide in terms of the environmental review panel that looked at those findings in our methodology i just wanted to share the names titles and really areas of expertise of each of these experts um quite quite an impressive group and i'm definitely humbled to have them be part of our process and have them take a look at our work but we did hire grace crunican she's shown kind of on the bottom right hand corner to lead and facilitate and select this panel so as you can see we have experts in air quality noise and sustainability ranging from public sector to private sector with perspectives brought from across the nation um and so um we were again directed by the oregon transportation commission to bring this panel together and are really thankful for the recommendations that they have provided for us as we move forward in our design so i'll hit on a couple of those over the next two slides here but the next slide is really around the noise findings so in regards to their findings around the
00h 20m 00s
environmental assessment or the ea we found that the noise analysis did comply with the kind of appropriate methodology and findings but the peer review did provide some additional recommendations just really around how the information could have been presented we could have done a better job making that not so technical and more clear and then also recommending that we take a deeper dive into some of the construction noise elements and they provided some different recommendations for us to consider including some noise noise barriers or different mitigation during construction on the next slide for air quality and greenhouse gas emissions our evaluation again the peer review did find that those evaluations were done correctly and the conclusions were accurate and even with greenhouse gas evaluation that we went above and beyond kind of the standard federal requirements for the national environmental policy act again we could have done a better job in communicating those findings but the peer review again did provide some suggested mitigation and betterments that could be applied so we are actively working on those as well as in coordination with portland public schools staff and technical team in our coordination so last piece is on design and construction um we can jump to the yeah the first lay there so we are currently at the 20 design level so we're early we have 80 percent to go um i wanted to share that one of our guiding principles as we're designing this project is to minimize impacts to non-odot property really as best that we can to ensure while also ensuring that we're delivering on the directives of the project so this map here kind of gets into the harriet tubman middle school specifics um so this shows the current right-of-way needs based on our 20 design to accommodate the new auxiliary lane the safety shoulders and the planned improvements at the school site which include also the retaining wall at the base of the slope that is on the west side of harriet tubman middle school and a proposed sound wall in that same location so what you see on this map is that the pink shaded triangle area shows the area of portland public schools property that would be need would be needed to be acquired under the current project design so the width of this area varies based kind of on the skewed property lines in that location and then the purple shaded rectangle that's on top of that pink triangle uh shows the area of land that's assumed to be needed for a permanent easement so no project features would be located in that area but an easement agreement would be needed just for ongoing maintenance and operations activities along the back side of the proposed noise wall in that location so again most of the acquisition area that's again shown in pink is in the slope and the vegetated area between the school and the highway but i do want to note that a portion of this also includes the paved area that's immediately west of the school building i'll just note that like in terms of order of magnitude of impact the paved area that would be effective is uh you know at six feet or less depending on where you are along that right-of-way line and there would still be about 20 feet of space along the paved area between the school building and then the back of the noise wall that's proposed in that location so again these are preliminary assumptions based on 20 design we have a lot of work to do and we're going to continue to coordinate with portland public schools at all levels but primarily technical staff on these assumptions particularly for the permanent easement and we know that there's ongoing needs to coordinate specifically around the school's need for that roadway and considerations on fire fire access maintenance access as well as deliveries so on the next slide this really uh thank you for allowing me to share some technical drawings here but um just wanted to share based on a conversation um that we had with portland public school staff back in october of 2020 work session staff did request that the design team investigate if the noise wall along this location might be able to be moved closer to the highway and still achieve the same benefits of reducing noise levels so our design team did run that analysis and did find that the noise wall can be moved closer to the highway um so as not to take up as much space in in the pave in the paved area just west of the school and so we are currently looking as the design moving forward
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to place the noise wall on top of the retaining wall that would be as part of the highway improvements just west of the school so i will jump to the next slide on kind of the methodology and approach here again we have a construction a goal in our construction sort of code of conduct is uh no impact to the school building all of our design and construction assumptions do not impact the school building and then we're assuming that we also want to make sure the school building foundation will remain in good condition and minimizing ground settlement and vibrations during construction as well um so the new retaining wall that would be constructed in this area um uh one of the sort of uh considerations that and methodologies is that it will be built to meet current design codes both for seismic and non-seismic events to help with the slope stability in that area and that any construction access needs and duration again would be in part dependent on what the wall design would be and working again with portland public schools and some of the data collection that we've been doing around geotech information to inform what refinements we might be able to make to reduce the construction duration in this area speaking of construction duration we also have are carrying forward an assumption and as required as mitigation in the environmental document that construction would occur during the summers when school is not in session i do want a flag that we expect right now that construction would take more than one summer window so we'll have continued coordination again with with you and your staff as we learn more about the construction can i introduce just for one sec just please when you say um construction would be limited to summer months are you talking about construction of the wall or construction of the of the highway itself great question um thank you for that yeah it is construction within the vicinity of uh harriet tubman middle school so that would include the wall um the retaining wall the noise wall as well as the highway improvements in that area really to to limit um can uh the impact of construction or disruption to the students during the school year um when you say it would be more than one summer are we talking two summers or six summers uh well i think we're we're more in the uh two summer window um definitely not six but um we need to do some more work to kind of hone that in but order of magnitude um about about two um at this point but we know it's more than one have you taken into account that we have summer programs at a number of our schools we yes we're in active coordination um with your uh portland public school staff to better understand what those are and how we can best coordinate as we continue to develop out the construction plans all right a few more slides and i'm happy to take questions as we go and when i'm when i'm done here um so uh in terms of the noise findings and kind of again the approach here um just want to highlight that the um that the noise wall um that would be constructed uh would reduce the noise levels interior within the school to about a 45 decibel range right now the it's modeled to be about a 50 decibel range so the noise levels would be better than they are today and then again i mentioned that construction activities near the school would be limited to those summer months to avoid disruptions and then during construction odot will be requiring the construction contractor to minimize short-term noise impacts both through the duration and timing of work and the type of equipment used so again we're pulling from a lot of the recommendations from that environmental peer review process to address those those short-term impacts and then on the next slide um you know the project as it relates to air quality findings and approach here we know we we remain committed to working with portland public schools to implement design elements that can enhance air quality at harriet tubman middle school we do know that again with building the project the air does improve but during construction we want to make sure that we're also taking the actions to minimize short-term air quality impacts such including you know monitoring to around controlling dust and exhaust emissions and requiring construction contractors to limit idle time of trucks um the type of equipment that they are using in terms
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of emissions as well so the last part of my presentation uh yes can i ask you a question absolutely so just on this last slide you said that odot is committed to enhancing the air quality how come odot when i proposed language for the project that said that one of the values would be the air quality in the grounds of harriet tubman middle school and adjacent louis albino park is at a level that medical and public health professionals find it safe for children and youth how come odot opposed that language instead substituted something that does does not have healthy air quality as sort of a foundational element a great question and i i know that those conversations have taken place at the executive steering committee the values statement does include in there that we will improve public health at harriet tubman middle school um and so we'll want to kind of continue to work with you on understanding um what that means and sort of what metrics would make sense to to use one thing the metric though that was proposed was a standard that's healthy for youth and children and so the substitution of the other language is not based on a health standard it's a incremental better got it yeah i think um what you are asking for is uh definitely part of our consideration for the performance metrics so the value statement is really around improving public health at harriet tubman middle school we're now drilling down kind of one level deeper with the performance measures which will be coming back to the executive steering committee to start to measure like what what are those standards um or metrics um that would make sense uh as an executive steering committee to adopt um as we measure the air quality moving forward again why don't you go ahead and finish up the last couple slides and then we'll open it up for sounds good um all right last piece here is really just around an update um for a design option that we are considering that would actually shift the highway of proposed highway improvements away from harriet tubman middle school in this location so our project team is evaluating a design option that shifts the northern portion of the highway alignment to the west um again an option that would not move i5 any closer to the school site and so what i'm showing you here is really the current design fronting here at tubman middle school so just kind of as a baseline understanding so the new auxiliary lane on northbound i-5 is shown here as well as the full outside safety shoulders that would extend closer to the school by about 26 feet and so with this the existing retaining wall as i've mentioned would be rebuilt to provide enhanced stabilization of that slope between the school and i-5 you can also see a rendering of the proposed noise wall in that location as well on the next slide i'm kind of highlighting the design option here so this design option really is being explored to minimize technical and construction concerns particularly around the retaining wall in that location and exploring this design option to the west also would help respond to the concerns that we hear from the community in portland public schools around the proximity of the project to harriet tubman middle school so we're in the early stages of this evaluation and are reaching out to portland public schools on this and working with your technical team in more detail um we also know that there would with a shift to the west there would be an impact uh likely to a private property um to the west shinshin foods um so we are in active communication to understand how the design option might affect this property as well so we're going to continue to share the design option information with our partners with the community um and including plans to engage here at tubman middle school community and the shenzhen employees as we gather more information and feedback on the design options so we'll be looking at this really now through mid-july and we'll be carrying this decision forward with our executive steering committee as we learn more um in terms of next steps just kind of want to frame again where we are and where we're going with key milestones as one of the next slides here so again we're at the 20 design milestone some key near-term deliverables and decisions that will be made are around the independent highway cover assessment which is helping us to define what the realm of possibilities are around the highway cover uses to help achieve
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the community vision this southbound realignment design option decision that i just noted um to help us get to a 30 design later this year in anticipation of construction starting in 2023 thank you for allowing me to share a lot of information and i look forward to answering more of your questions great thank you megan um and thank you to the entire team i appreciate the presentation um so we're gonna open it up um and and just sort of round robin um questions as we go through i'm just gonna i'm gonna kick it off with with a little bit of a of a higher level question um and because i think we might get into some some details as we go through this but um you know i really appreciate early on in in your presentation you talked about acknowledging um odot's role right historical role in displacement and the impact that's had um and you said one of the sort of principles um that you operate under for this project and others is to not make things worse um one of the things government generally has been grappling with um more and more um in recent years is this idea of how do we you know how do we do restorative justice how do we look back and and you know in my day job i work for metro and you know metro has um you know had a lot of these conversations right around what is the harm that that urban planning has had you know um transportation planning etc um on you know on communities of color and particularly in particular so i think that's an important principle but one of the things that really came out of the reimagine oregon work over this last year is taking that conversation to a new level right so it's not just sort of recognizing this historical wrongs but really looking at like um you know what what are the reparations that need to happen right what is the what is the fix for it to go back and say we did something wrong it's great that we're finally acknowledging it decades too late but what are we actually what are we actually doing to to fix it and so i i my question is you know at the high level what is odot doing um in that you know regards but you know when we talk about this project and you talk about all the um issues you're dealing with around harriet tubman it sort of makes me wonder if um it wouldn't both be helpful for the project and also a form of restorative justice and reparations to actually move harry tubman middle school um to to a different location you know it opens up some some land that might be used for something else um and really right some of those historical wrongs i know when this issue's come up i'm not the first one to raise it you know sometimes i hear oh well that's you know odot's not going to have money for that um but i guess my question is that something that as an agency you're you're considering or would consider um and and and sort of having that larger question about about reparations for historical wrongs yeah so i can take that one and brendan um i'll answer it at the project level and brendan perhaps can step in um for more of an agency level um in terms of your question about you know relocating harriet tubman middle school you know i think that we know that odot and the project um cannot relocate here at tubman middle school it's really around you know looking at what the impact is what the what the relative impact of the project is um to the school state um and what our analysis shows is that there is not a significant impact that said um uh we want to make sure that we are partnering to make the right investments to again ensure in the spirit of our values and restorative justice and climate action public health mobility that we are making investments that can help improve the area we're working directly with the community and elevating voices of the african-american community you heard erica talk about specifically the historic albina advisory board we're looking to them to help inform what does restorative justice mean what does restorative justice look like in in helping us and helping us move forward in those investments that can be made that truly have an impact on the community so that's what we're doing as a project um brendan i'll turn it to you kind of for the for for the broader question around agency and actually just on a technical basis when you say sorry really quickly when you say oda can't do it is that a legislative restriction um that doesn't allow you to to to include costs like that in a project such as this brendan do you want to take that one from an odot perspective i could from a project level the project does not have the funding available to be used for the relocation of the school really as those funds are kind of it's related to the impacts that the project would have so from a project perspective no the funding would not be able to be used to relocate here at tubman middle school yeah i'll jump in now uh chair scott i think that you know we've had a lot of robust discussions the at the executive steering community lab
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level which uh director brim edwards attends on behalf of of pps which we're appreciative and i know vice chair simpson from the oregon transportation commission involved in a lot of a lot of discussions with community partners on how we write historic wrongs uh through the agency you're right we've owned it i know you and i spent a lot of time working for the city of portland where we had to own it too and i know others governmental entities had to do it too but how do we show up and for us to do it i encourage everyone to go back and watch the oregon transportation commission meeting this morning where we're really trying to address how we do that around the tolling program we're going to be instituting a patrolling program that has never been done before in the united states that has this this piece around climate but how do we get that equity piece right and uh basically the one thing that we do know is that government should not come up with that answer uh we had the equity mobility advisory committee before us today uh to talk about how they're implementing a trauma-informed perspective as it relates to communities of color and those that have been uh disproportionately impacted by the transportation system uh we're starting to get that within our dna uh chair scott and and we're applying that to now everything that we do uh obviously i want to promote that and encourage people to look that we're doing business differently as an agency that's why i be i came to be a part of it um from from past work that i've done so i'm pretty proud of where we're heading and again ms warren's work with the historical bond advisory committee is like nothing that i've ever seen and i've been in government for 23 years about how we're elevating those voices and the investments we make are going to be reflected by those voices so uh that's what we're doing as an agency that's how that's relating back into this project um and again we're kind of abandoning a lot of those traditional uh processes we do for uh for community uh advisory boards and other things to make sure that we are elevating that voice especially the voice of the black community nailed by them so i just have to jump in because i think that tear scott's question um didn't get answered because um a statement that this doesn't have a significant impact on harriet tubman middle school it just it doesn't ring true um because if the the question was about the historic um work that odot did which had a huge impact on harriet tubman middle school so to have a new project in which um there'll be further impact and to ignore and i think what directors chair scott was trying to get at was that sort of the original placing of the freeway next to harriet tubman had a really really negative impact on the air quality and the students there and to go for odot to not just look at the current project and we're going to make it slightly better but look at the original and so i i'm i am curious about the the thinking um and maybe this is uh for you brendan since it's sort of a larger um not not the specific project because if you know if we if we focus just on the project then you don't get to the bigger thing but the you know what happened with the state and i know you know pps is looking at ways in which it can address um things that we've done in our history and that the port of portland is doing the same thing so i'm wondering about director chair scott's question about the original placement and you know the running over the community that happened at that point which has resulted in decades of environmental hazards you know at that school community no that that's right and you know i think we we own that and um we've been out front and blunt about that message now what we don't want to do and again director brent edwards i'm just going to be really clear about this is get out in front of the community that's voice has not been heard so we are doing that now we're going through the process and obviously we we don't want to make the same mistake that governments have that privileged people have in the past which is getting it out in front of the community before we're hearing their voice i appreciate that brendan and i i'd like to just jump in again i said um i'm proud of this work because i'm a daughter of this community my parents met at elliott which is now harriet dunmon middle school my grandparents home was taking an imminent domain so this is a direct impact to my family
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and a number of the other board members who sit on the historic albina advisory board many of their parents homes uh were taken and many of them went to elliot and walked there and lived in those neighborhoods and they are finding ways to have conversations we realize we can't dig up the freeway and give everybody their homes back but there are opportunities that can help us build generational wealth in line so you have a group of invested community leaders who lived walked and breathed uh harriet tubman again which was elliott at the time who are conscious and who are working alongside with you we care about our kids there at harriet tubman middle school and i would say give the community an opportunity uh to to voice uh their concerns and what they feel uh is restorative in regards to um their neighborhood and their homes so i appreciate the work you're doing i hope that you would hear um that we are um forwarding the conversation and we are asking those who have been historically and directly impacted what what their thoughts are in regards to it and and i'm positive there will be an opportunity for collaborative uh outcomes thanks ms warren let me go ahead and just open it up then to board members i see scott you are unmuted you want to go ahead yeah please um one thing i want to note i'm hearing gosh it's a new day and how we relate to the community and yet we sense you know letters of concern to you that you have never responded to directly so it's it's hard for me to hear about this new way of doing business um secondly it's hard for me to hear that you don't have the money when you're coming up with what three or four hundred more million than you originally planned with plan to spend i don't know what the current budget estimate is um so that's also a little hard for me to understand um third i want to you know one of the specific things we pointed out was that when you build walls and freeway caps which look to be pretty minimal right now you affect wind patterns in air flow patterns in unpredictable ways so there is no way to tell whether when you do some new construction like that it conceivably could funnel even more particulate matter into the tubman community um i'm not going to get into the argument about whether this project is going to make air quality better um i'll just say most people think that's ludicrous you've got your model don't want to don't want to argue about that here um but that's that that is a big bone of contention that you continue to push that when it's uh it's not very believable frankly and as critics have pointed out has never happened with any freeway project before in this nation um so you know there's there's a whole lot of things i i can't imagine crossing those freeway lids or spend any time in those freeway lids when you're basically sitting on a freeway exposed to really really poor air quality from all the traffic going below so i've just laid out a number of concerns um you have done nothing to allay those concerns in a couple of years now and i'll stop there i'm i'm happy to address those director scott but well we'll take your lead on how to best proceed you know please go ahead go ahead all right um so i just wanted to touch base i kind of heard four things around you know addressing portland public schools concerns um per the letters that have been written question around budget and cost and funding question around the construction of noise walls and how that might affect wind patterns and air quality concerns and then concerns around the air quality finding so i'll kind of hit them in that order in terms of uh kind of portland public schools um and uh concerns that have been voiced um we do take those really seriously um and have been addressing them i think um in this slide um that we showed in terms of project governance structure um we're committed to the prior
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sort of partnerships involvement that we've had with portland public schools at all level and making sure that portland public schools continues to be part of our project at all levels so i want to want to thank board member julia brim edwards for being our exec on the executive steering committee um courtney wesling our governor your government relations director to be who's part of the project management group um and then a number of portland public schools technical staff that are helping us to actively work through a lot of those concerns that were addressed early on and continue to be framed up through our process so um we are actively sorry but you have never responded to the school board and i didn't i should note any kind of direct way when i proposed language based on air quality that's healthy for our students it was voted down in the executive committee so yes i have been there but the concerns of pps have not been incorporated into the value statements of the project so just for the record even though i've i've been there it it was substituted by a much weaker standard that odot proposed yes and we want to make sure that we continue to partner with you moving forward particularly in light of the performance metrics that we'll be putting together for those measurements um i also want to address the kind of the budget and cost component so the cost estimate right now is the 715 to 795 million dollars that is for the improvements that i articulated early in the presentation around the main line improvements the highway covers um the new community connections and the local multimodal street improvements um and so the those dollars have sort of been feder federally approved for use for those particular features and so that is that's that is um that is the funding that we have available for those features and then in terms of the construction piece um i the one thing that we did learn from our environmental peer review as well as our team's kind of continued exploration of national practices is looking at noise walls and they actually have been found that they can have a beneficial impact to air quality by capturing air particulates to further improve air quality in the area so that's something that we're looking into more it's kind of a it's a new element of this uh of this part of the design and construction world but we're leaning into it and want to understand um how we can build that in a way that not only helps um abate sound but the pollutant emissions as well um and uh in terms of the air quality findings you know we want to make sure that we were getting our evaluation right which is exactly why we had the environmental peer review and independent panel join us as well as participation from portland public schools to share concerns directly to the panel um and the findings were um that our methodology our evaluation and then the findings uh were appropriate and accurate for the project so we do rely on that kind of scientific panel of national experts as we move forward right but that was based on a reduction in traffic assumption correct it was it was based on the modeling that it was provided to us from the regional demand model it's mandated that any project that's happening in the portland metro region uses uh the metro travel demand model and so those were our inputs as we um modeled the project moving forward applied that to a city level model and then used the outputs from that model to inform the air quality evaluation so if go ahead and so i just know director moore's had her hand up for a little while so i was gonna i was gonna switch over to her um rita i'm gonna pick up where scott just left off um so my understanding of the um the peer review the environmental peer review process was that um they were not asked to um analyze in any way the projections for traffic um and and they were only asked to um i'm not an engineer so i'm going to use these terms the way i understand it um so they were asked to accept the premise
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that there would be decreased traffic and then apply that to projections about uh potential decreases or improvements in air quality but they were never asked to address the essential question the fundamental question of whether any of these um projects any piece of this project would would in fact uh result in decreased um volume of traffic is that correct yeah the the fact that the peer review director moore um did not look at the traffic analysis is correct but i do want to state something for the record that our findings aren't showing a decrease in traffic as part of this we do know that we are improving the traffic flow so reducing the stop and go traffic the idling of traffic and trucks um that have in those conditions have the most polluting emissions in the area so with the new auxiliary lane and the safety shoulders that improve traffic flow is part of the modeling considerations and the outputs and then inputs into the air quality modeling as well but it's also based on certain assumptions that there will be improved traffic flow and can and at my understanding is that your analysis did not even consider the problem of a potential induced demand so can i ask if you can point me in the direction of any example in the united states that a freeway widening of this type has five ten years out actually produced um decreased congestion um there brennan i see that you've come off mu i'm happy to answer that but i'm uh if if you wanted to step in i wanted to write that up go ahead um i'll call in okay thank you um director martin's a really good question um we do um just even within the portland metro area um do keep um records of kind of before and after data in areas where we've implemented other auxiliary lanes i'll point to one example on i-84 that connects halsey to i-205 that auxiliary lane was built several years ago and our before data and after data is showing that there is an improvement in traffic flow um with the addition of that auxiliary lane more recently uh there's also an auxiliary lane that was added to i5 southbound near boone's ferry so kind of in the in the tualatin vicinity and we have also seen an improvement of traffic flow and a significant reduction in crashes um as well in those locations where the auxiliary lanes have been added um so similar similar context um and um type of improvement in those two locations that are showing that kind of real life before and after data and and how far out are we from those projects i don't have that at the tip of my fingers um but i bel it's been several years for the i-84 improvement um and then i believe just maybe coming on two years for the i5 southbound but i can follow up with you to get that specifically um and i'll also provide the data on those um in terms of the before and after okay i would appreciate that because um everything i have read and and i claim no no expertise in this but everything i have read um seems to point in the direction of um highway expansion not producing long-standing improvements in in reducing congestion um can can i turn to um some specific harriet tubman questions um so uh director bailey mentioned that um the walls that are being proposed could have some negative impact on air quality um and i'd like to know if if odot in looking at the specific impacts on tubman have have used any of the information that was produced in 2018 by external consultants that we used prior to reopening harriet tubman they did a great deal of work on mitigation strategies for air pollution and one of the findings as i recall was that one potential strategy building a wall would more than likely actually uh decrease air quality would increase the amount of particulate matter so have in designing your plans
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have you considered any of that research around the noise walls or you're finding that um the construction around that area especially the walls would not have a negative impact on the the stability of the soil or the integrity of the foundation of tubman director mar those are really good questions um and i know that the technical staff has shared with us the great work that portland public schools did specific to the harriet tubman state um so we definitely want to partner um and continue to learn from your team um on that expertise and betterments that we can look to incorporate as part of the project um i can't speak specifically to the findings around um the wall but i do know that the wall was discussed there and that is part of our team's conversation um and then as it relates to the slope stability um with the reconstruction of the retaining wall as part of the project we we do see that as building that wall up to current uh seismic standards that would have an improvement on the slope stability in that area okay so i i'm just gonna um i would like to know um whether and and how you have used the information that pps uh accumulated there was a great deal of uh time energy and expense that went into getting that information and and i think it directly um addresses one of your assumptions uh in the the slide on wall methodology uh you say that it is assumes existing building foundation is in good condition and based on my understanding of what was uncovered in 2018 uh 2019 not 2018 um i i i would want some reassurance that that assumption is actually warranted thank you director maureen i we probably should have uh done a better job at on that slide the intent there is to assume assume that the foundations remain in in good condition in that location but to your point we also will look at the study from pps to make sure that that's incorporated um into our into our review because those studies showed that there was substandard fill underneath tubman and a great deal of instability in the hillside so i'm i'm wondering if the your assertion about increased seismic protection takes those facts into account we don't even know what the foundation of tubman looks like it appears just to be kind of sitting on [Music] dirt as opposed to have any real foundation as one would understand it director bailey you're asking a really good question um and we did just recently partner with portland public schools and we did some subsurface geotechnical investigation that area to really understand what are the soil conditions there so in addition to the study and the on the ground research and data collection that we're doing that will all inform our design so i know um director lowry has a question and then i think director berm edwards probably has another question or two and then i want to wrap up director moore did you was there anything else urgent i sort of um i i also want to know if uh if you have or intend to um do some specific site monitoring of existing air quality and and are you factoring that into your projections about the impact of this project on harriet tubman um director morrell have to follow up with you on that that's one of the recommendations that's coming out of the environmental peer review is around the monitoring so we'll have to follow up with you on sort of what our what our team's um approach and recommendations and again learning from portland public schools how we can best do that moving forward all right i think i get to be next um so the design shift timeline that you presented of considering you know shifting the freeway um away from tubman when will you sort of know if that is the um direction that um you'll be taking the project great question um that would be we're exploring that um really in the upcoming months um and so that decision would take place um in july of this year and then is there any consideration of putting a cap on that part of the freeway to help further mitigate the pollution there in the tubman vicinity so we we currently have an independent highway cover assessment process underway um for which um you know portland public schools is with us in that um and really leaning on the
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community vision and the community input um to that independent process um to help define kind of the possibilities around the highway covers and i you know i agree with the senator the sentiment that dr dr scott i'm promoting you andrew director scott uh shared at the beginning of this meeting of um you know i think tubman is um a historic location i think as ms warren shared there's lots of family connections to that location and that site and i think it's important to the community um i also know that the the situation as it is now is very difficult um and i think that there is something in the idea of moving tubman to perhaps um to the jefferson property or to another site um to create a really excellent school as we um as a community look out what does it mean to um sort of reunify albina and i i think this is a moment when um it feels like we have the chance to really um do some innovative new things to reset um some of the historic wrongs that have been done to especially the black community in portland and so i would really advocate for thinking about how do we not just mitigate the effects on tubman um but how do we really say this this injustices were done and what are creative solutions to really move forward rather than just make it less awful because i think right now we can agree that the air quality at tubman is is bad um the fact that students can't be outside all of those um pieces and i think the work you're doing is trying to make it less bad but i would like to make it a lot less bad than than where we are right now so um would really plea for um odot to to get creative about what this might look like as we especially look at the tubman property director lowry that's spot on and we need to do it as a community and we're very thankful that you're having these hard conversations with us and being at the table we need to bring more partners to the table and really kind of coalesce to create to create that synergy we need to create what you just articulated so uh we're here with open arms too and really want to have other partners at the table so we can really um as you stated better better than i can kind of reconnect and reimagine this community to kind of write some of the historic wrong so um hopefully you can join us in asking uh those entities to to join us um of all the potential that's that's available there so i really appreciate that comment so just one final thing it came out a few months ago you've floated a plan to carve away even more from the tubman property than the initial plan that went through the ea and it turned out you'd had that plan on the back burner for several years and never shared it with us how are we supposed to trust when those kind of things keep happening again not in the past but in the current and you don't have to answer that but that's where we are right now yeah director bailly is going to be through our actions moving forward directory edwards did you have additional questions i did so i and i've got to make one observation first um just the environmental peer review panel i think it's important to note that odot admitted that the panel was selected and convened by the former head of odot and not somebody that um and we weren't consulted on the question that was asked um and i believe they had a very narrow framework versus what what is the health standard uh for students who are outside on the harriet tubman middle school grounds so i just want to note that um that that was hand picked by um not by us or the community but um by an individual who is closely aligned with odot um i want to recognize and affirm the statement that um i think that pps is supportive of the um the work that miss warren pointed to that odot is including community members who have been historically impacted by the i5 um by by i5 um
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and i think that's the right thing for odot to do and and i really it's important to view this as an conversation because um and there's a school community that has been impacted um by by i-5 and that will continue to be impacted um and the standard that is being set is not a standard that's based on the health of our students but on um on the [Music] uh sort of an arbitrary is it slightly better is it going from horrible to less worse or less horrible so my question is given that there's going to be a continuing impact um is odot open to setting this up in a way that a um there there could be a achieving two really important community values one the black economic empowerment and the generational wealth that will come out of this project and the health of the community including the school community and i feel like to date there seems to be a you can't a perception from odot or the way this is being structured as is an either or and it would be great if odot was embracing a process in which um it wasn't a choice between the two but that we could have both and so i'm interested in hearing ways in which the odot team thinks that we could have an and solution and again not a slight it's slightly better because i don't think that's from a health standpoint or an environmental standpoint um but a one that's a standard that we'd all want for our students and that also embraces the potential of black economic empowerment through this project director brim edwards um we definitely want to make sure that we're moving forward with an and both approach to our work not in either or and having to kind of make trade-offs there the you know value around public health remains and is guiding our work so again you have our commitment to continue to work work with you and staff on those performance measures and how do we how do we measure that what is the right approach um and then you know in the work that erica is doing with our albina our historic albino advisory board again it's it's working directly with the community elevating the community voices and helping us understand um a what the barriers are be what the opportunities are and how we can partner together to address those in an end both way um so do we have ms warren's contact information if she'd be up for it i'd love to have a cup of coffee and um hear hear about ideas around rebuilding wealth which um i don't know if it's ever been done before i would agree director bailey and i'm sure um our um uh communications director can be helpful in connecting us i would love to have a conversation thank you i appreciate that and courtney probably has your contact information as well so we'll we'll be able to thank you appreciate you all coming today director scott yes hello amy director um i just wanted to piggyback a little bit on what director lowry said and really invite odot i invite all of you to to think about how you might partner with us in a more expansive um vision for our children because i agree with director lowry that it seems fairly clear that the the health and safety of our students at harriet tubman um is is not consistent with really in my opinion any of these proposed improvements whether it's most likely whether the alignment moves to the west or not and so we're about to embark on this process with our community with the harriet tubman community um on envisioning a center for black student excellence and some really significant investment in our historically black schools in north portland which include harriet tubman so you know i'd like to invite odot to be a partner in those conversations including um considering whether a right-of-way acquisition here is what's best for the community you're
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left then with a significant asset that also um makes it easier for you to do what you want to do and we can you know move on to envision with the community what what everyone wants for the future of harriet tubman and again we haven't started those conversations but i'd just like to invite odot to be part of a much broader community-centered um conversation about what we do there so thank you director lowry for for bringing that up and and thank you all for being here great um yeah i will also add my thanks um to brendan and and megan and erica i really appreciate your time there are obviously lots of questions and there will be more questions going forward so um i'm sure you're going to be hearing um more for us but i from us but i appreciate this dialogue and conversation um andrew i'm sorry before we close this out um since i may i may not get another chance to weigh in on this topic as a board member um i i think it's i would say um i i appreciate our emphasis on the school site harriet tubman and trying to find a solution for that um but i also want to remind us that um pps has also made a claim to um aspiring to be a leader in in combating climate change so um i think we have a greater responsibility that um transcends a single school and even if we can come up with a solution for harriet tubman middle school um i think we also have a responsibility to use our position um to question the the wisdom of this project in terms of whether it advances um improvement in greenhouse gas emissions or whether it's going to ultimately um exacerbate the the ongoing um trajectory of climate change um so i i would just like pps to keep the um the bigger existential question in mind great thank you dr moore andrew i i heard a voice was that parker parker i think you're having some connection issues um yes uh yes um yes we can hear you better thank you um okay i think there's a bit of a lag in addition to the sketchy connection um i was wondering because i've got a few um questions uh floating around in my mind who i could um direct those two uh in in written form or sort of in an additional discussion um and then in addition to that i do have one sort of more pressing question and that was specifically about um student students being in engaged harriet tubman students um or i guess other albina um uh the the community but but especially um um the youth um i'm not sure who who would be the most appropriate to and to that specific question um but that uh just uh great andrew can i just respond to that briefly because um parker you should know that um shanice is going to be setting up a process by which that came to mind can you hear me parker anyway i was going to say parker yes yes i can shanice is setting up a community engagement process um to directly engage with the school community around this okay that's that's wonderful to hear great and then parker do you i was actually going to say i i to the extent there are additional questions let's funnel those back um um um through courtney and and there may be other questions for board members as well that we didn't have time to get to today so um we can send those along and and just because we didn't do introductions at the beginning parker's one of our student representatives uh on this committee so so thanks thanks for chiming in um i think we're gonna move on um yep can i just thank you thank you for having us um we really appreciate being here we know we need to be here for the difficult conversations uh director moore i'd love to connect with you offline i don't know if you
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heard my preamble about our congestion pricing system that we're using and how we're going to be kind of dialing that in to kind of look at some of the impacts that that may happen around the possibilities of induced demand based on these improvements so not going to go into it here but love to connect with you offline on that because we're really trying to talk to as many people as possible members of the board really appreciate your time um and and consideration and all that you do for our communities and for our kids so uh chair scott just wanted to to give that thanks to you and we understand we have more hard questions to answer great no i appreciate that and i was going to encourage you if you want to stick around if you have time for the next um uh uh five or ten minutes we're just going to hear from a couple of people who signed up to testify about this particular topic um so with that cara i will turn to you um and i think we have some public testimony is that right yes um we have joan petit or patek pettit pettit all right and joan thank you thank you for being here and we will have three minutes for uh your testimonies tonight okay thank you hello my name is joan pettit p-e-t-i-t my pronouns are she hers i'm a pps parent and i live in the elliott neighborhood near harriet tubman middle school i'm the single mother of two black children that i adopted one of them graduated from tubman two years ago when we moved to portland 12 years ago we moved to historic albina so my kids would grow up in a positive supportive majority black community this community and schools like boise elliot humboldt harriet tubman and benson high school have been true gifts to my family it was only a few years ago that i worked with other parents in inner north and northeast portland to reopen tubman so kids like mine could have a dedicated middle school like almost every other neighborhood in portland my kids have benefited from excellent black administrators and teachers of all races who have real racial and cultural competency who don't see them as stereotypes but as students there to learn sadly that's not always been my kids experience in oregon if my children have positive self-image and esteem i attribute that to this community to this black community to this neighborhood and these schools it's amazing that this neighborhood has survived the oregon highway department devastated this community when it tore a hole through albina a scar that pollutes the air makes our community sick and remains to this day and now odot wants to double down on the harm to this community with an unnecessary freeway expansion even worse they are calling this restorative justice as if paying black people to further destroy their communities to hurt black children is some kind of reparations is anything other than cynical exploitation is the health and well-being of my black children irrelevant to odot are their lungs just collateral damage shame on odot for their cynical marketing for rebranding for their lives for only seeing cars and trucks on the highway for not seeing the black and brown kids in my neighborhood who are as deserving of clean air and good schools as every other kid in this state we need to stop this freeway expansion before it further harms our kids implement congestion pricing build the gaps maybe build the noise wall if it will actually work but do not expand this freeway we can do so much better for our kids than this thank you thank you joan thank you we have tori on our way over welcome tori can you hear me yes we can okay um hi my name is tori hiru and i'm here today representing neighbors for clean air um i want to thank you for the opportunity to provide comments uh regarding the expansion of i5 and the impact that we'll have on top of middle school our organization shares pps's priority for tubman to be a safe and healthy place for students to use i also forgot to mention i used she her pronouns so those of us who follow the science know that despite the inclination to assume that freeway expansions will reduce congestion and improve air quality uh the opposite is true and i was happy to see some of the board members like um dr moore referencing that fact studies conducted in high traffic urban areas like los angeles and houston have invariably shown that expansion of freeways only contributes to congestion through induced demand so while odot says the air quality will improve the science data and history that we
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have at our fingertips for few things this choice would certainly negatively affect affect tubman where 70 percent of students are from black brown and indigenous communities and the air quality is already so bad that experts have recommended that student outdoor activities be limited particularly during high traffic periods health effects institute the area most affected by traffic emissions adjacent to a freeway or really any major road starts at about 1500 feet and as designed this expansion will be will bring traffic within 30 feet of school children are most vulnerable to the long-term uh impacts from traffic because their lungs are still developing so they breathe on average about 50 percent more air per pound of body weight than we do as adults a 2019 study found that students attending school near busy roads had lower rates of academic performance higher absenteeism and higher rates of disciplinary problems than those attending less polluted schools the more traffic that you have on nearby roads the larger the decline in scores on state standardized tests we totally understand the motivation for moving the school and frankly the moral high ground um that is there based on the fact that tubman was there first um but we also want to ask by school board members about the need for discussions with albino community members about the future of the school as many of you know and some of you have stated the albino community has been displaced time and time again including for the building of the i5 freeway and harriet tubman has frequently been at the center of this history with broken promises and disregard as such it's more than simply a building furthermore from an air quality perspective pps has already been forced to spend more than 12 million dollars to reduce indoor health impacts to students and teachers so moving the school at this point would really negate those efforts and lastly i really want to emphasize that it's unclear what site we can realistically categorize as safe territory for students to go to school while air quality is especially bad at tubman directly adjacent to the freeway on the other side of the school emissions are closer to what we call urban background levels this does not mean those levels are safe or healthy for students to be breathing merely that they resemble the conditions at many other schools throughout portland these background levels include levels of transportation pollution like diesel particulate at 10 to 30 times state health benchmarks and i'm not going to go fully into the weeds but those benchmarks are drastically less health protective than the ones that we see in california so it's even worse than that tori if i could go ahead and just ask you to wrap up with your last couple thoughts that'd be great i have just a little bit more meanwhile there are more than 100 schools in the portland metro area that are in an unsafe distance from major roads less than 100 yards from transportation emissions that adversely affect the health of students and teachers so given this reality it's really important to seek solutions that don't require the expansion of freeways we need to be reducing pollution pollution at all of our schools not expanding fossil fuel infrastructure so in conclusion it's just frankly baffling to me that odot has not studied congestion pricing or other alternatives in this process thank you for your time thank you for being here tour i appreciate it karen yes we have joe cortwright hi thanks again for the opportunity to participate joe cortwright i'm with no more freeways i'm an economist with city observatory i'd just like to make four quick points first of all the project that odot has modeled and represented to you is not the project they're proposing to build we've discovered plans that show that this isn't just adding two auxiliary lanes for a short length of the freeway they're building a 160 foot wide roadway that is easily enough to accommodate 10 lanes and that's what they plan to do they're going to have a 10 lane freeway through here so everything that you've heard about traffic just on the outset is untrue because this will be a far larger project with vastly more traffic and consequently more pollution and different impacts so on the basis of what they've modeled that's simply wrong uh but we also know that uh their modeling is wrong um they've totally uh ignored the well documented effect of induced demand that when you add more capacity no matter what you call the lanes it increases traffic in fact it's just about proportional a one percent increase in capacity produces a one percent increase in vehicles that's not reflected in odot's modeling and that's wrong the claims that uh miss channel made about the air quality being better are based on those faulty assumptions about the nature of the project and the incorrect modeling and she's also eliding the idea that air quality will be better because the fleet of cars will be different 20 years from now that there'll be more electric cars and more efficient cars that's not because the project in fact if you don't build the project you'll have less traffic and also cleaner cars which is not
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something that they looked at that is also not the nepa standard you've heard them talk about the peer review the peer review was basically hand selected by odot nobody who was critical of the project was given the opportunity to present any information and as grace crunican who led the peer review told one of uh odot's the hab committee a couple of weeks ago the peer review committee didn't look at all at the transportation modeling which we know is flawed in fact they waived on it so if you used the wrong transportation model they they did not validate the air quality analysis and finally if i could just make one more point odot is turning its pockets inside out and telling you doesn't have any money for anything else odot routinely spends millions of dollars mitigating the damage that its projects do to the environment it didn't used to pay for noise walls it does now pay for noise walls it pays for fairy shrimp shrimp habitat it pays for wetlands if you go to downtown portland and look at the justice center and see the jail in the justice center that was built by the federal highway administration because rocky butte jail was affected adversely by the construction of i-205 so when they need to odot can spend its money to fix the problems it solves but it's not doing that it's doubling down because it's building a much wider freeway that will make all the problems that they've created even worse thank you thank you joe okay thanks to everyone who came kara i think that was that was it right perfect okay um so it is 6 35 so we're already a little bit beyond our time um we have on on the agenda for the rest of the agenda we have a legislative update and a school state school fund budget advocacy uh agenda item um if it's okay with other members of the committee i would last courtney i believe you're gonna be sending out a legislative update tomorrow um maybe if we could focus on the state school funding issue and and try and wrap up uh in about 10 minutes or so um that would be great and then if there are questions from folks about the legislative update tomorrow we can handle those through email does that work for everybody okay take it away courtney thanks director scott well the big the big issue of course has been the k-12 budget the state school fund budget came in at 91 billion that was the co-chairs framework after the governor's budget was released earlier in the year the uh 9-1 is insufficient i've shared that with you all you all know that you're hearing from lots of folks about why that is the case so the advocacy coalition in salem has been pushing really hard on 9-6 knowing that you have to ask for everything right and so yesterday um in a kind of turn of events the joint subcommittee on education passed a state school fund budget of 9.3 billion after the day before late in the day before there was a surprising letter from the governor that to legislative leadership that said if i get a 9.3 billion dollar budget um that doesn't have strings attached related to equity then i'm going to veto it so the uh the house oh i mean the joint subcommittee kind of uh responded with passing that budget and included in the passage was a separate bill to work out the math which is that you still need 200 million dollars to fill that difference and so they're proposing in this bill that passed in the committee that's going to the full committee tomorrow um a uh the funding would be coming from the education stability fund and so that is i think what part of the issue is is um we haven't had a revenue forecast yet we don't know what that's going to look like next week so there's a lot of activity happening in salem around the k-12 budget we've been making the point that and you all know this that the state school fund is the operating budget of school districts it's not the targeted you know high school success or measure 98 it's not the targeted student investment account student success act it's not the one-time federal dollars this is the perennial operating budget that pays for salaries of all of our staff um primarily so um that's where we are i think you know and we continue to meet with legislators to drive home that point we're also to dr moore's uh director and dr moore's points um the the csl issues the current service level issues and the way it's calculated we have been educating all of our elected officials about that difference and that particular point because so much of this is about education and making sure especially with the new folks who are coming in why it is that we are um upset about the way it's it the 50 50 split is calculated how we roll up our budgets for the next biennium so um that message is being delivered we're hitting at home um and so that's that's kind of where we are we'll see
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what the joint ways and means committee does tomorrow um uh and then we'll we'll go into the revenue forecast next week on the 19th courtney uh this is a technical issue we don't need to dive in here but i was i was surprised to see that lfo um actually had pegged sort of current service level budget at nine billion even um and i would love to sort of explore and again i think we're beyond that at this point in the session but i'm thinking about for two years from now sort of explore a little bit more that disconnect um you know having having been someone at om federal omb that that did a lot of those projections and got a lot of pushback i mean this is really uh at that level it really is a factual question in terms of what's being taken into account and what's not and and i think that we it makes me wonder if we couldn't solve a lot of these back and forth if if we had a little bit better understanding and maybe some education around you know what it is that they're looking at versus what it is that districts are actually looking at on the ground that's a great point director scott and we have a slide that i'll share in my update tomorrow um that kind of maps out the differences between how they how lfo takes into account not just the um the roll-up costs but the pers um estimates uh health care estimates um all kinds of tricky things that are frankly i get a little bogged down in the details and because it's complicated but i think you all would benefit from seeing the slide that's great because i actually when i read that in a paper the other day i was like it must be a misprint um because it was saying that we actually that the legislature was if they went to 93 would be 300 million over what they were recommending and so just because that's been broadcast broadly i think it's really important um for us to be able to explain explain that and and understand sort of why it's different because i think the average community member might read like hey they're getting 300 million more than was anticipated how come that is not enough um so it's it's a great question because i thought it was somewhat puzzling and i actually thought it was an error but apparently it's not yeah it's uh it's all very confusing and yes the average if those who are in the middle of this don't get it then how can you know average parent or community member understand it so it's it's very complicated and i'll share what i can and then you know perhaps at a future governmental meeting we could have some kind of um presentation on this if that's of interest it would be to me but i'm sort of a geek about this stuff so well we could also set up a separate meeting that doesn't have a class go ahead it would be to me as well um so can you say a little bit more about what the governor means by equity strings yeah i mean i can't tell you too much because i don't i don't really know where this is coming from there has been a lot of talk about weights and in the formula this session and there's been a work group that i i don't get invited to most of the time but i've been to and claire has presented about um some things from a pps perspective in the past the work group has in my opinion from what i've heard been working in good faith to just talk through some of this like why is the state school fund for example not modeled why couldn't we make model the state school fund on the student success act and have more of those kinds of investments equity focused investments and um and that is a large conversation you know it's got to have the right people in the room it's it's not a one session conversation in my opinion um so that work group i i think there's a connection there but i'm you know i'm jumping to conclusions perhaps but i think there are a lot of advocates who really want to see that change and i think maybe that's where this is coming from but again there's nothing to my knowledge that's come out yet from that work group that's uh you know on a platter ready to go do you get the sense that there's an understanding that school districts need a substantial proportion of funding that doesn't have strings attached i mean we have to keep the lights on yeah i think i think back to my earlier point point director moore i think this is about education and really making sure everybody under school funding is complex is very complex and local property taxes you know we have a local option the how does this all fit together it's hard to explain and i think a lot of people don't understand it and so there i think is a misconception that somehow we're flush with cash um and we've been that's part of the message we've been trying to deliver to legislators is and and they get it you know and we're meeting you know we are meeting with democrats um because they're in charge but they get it and they understand that there is um this is our base budget this is what we you know this is how we operate so um it's 93 is better than 91 um
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if it were you know we'd love for it to be higher we'll see if the forecast comes in with a lot more revenue then maybe there's a potential there's a the potential for for more but even the speaker in a meeting in austin um earlier this week did not indicate that that was likely so we shall see we're going to keep we're going to continue to push on it um i know that um director constance is going to work on a a resolution for the meeting on the 25th around pushing for 9.6 i think that is still worth doing if i hear that that's not worth doing i'll let you know but i wasn't typing in on this conversation because i saw that as the last agenda item we had um advocacy on state school fund but um yes i'm planning to do that and and um we'll prepare it and the only thing that would keep us from bringing it forward at our board meeting on the 25th is if um courtney advises that really that conversation has already concluded and it's just wouldn't make an impact weigh in at that time thank you and yeah i will definitely i again i think we still it's still very much worth it but um things are changing all the time and if that sounds it seems like it's not worth our time we won't but i think it's i i do think it's worth the time even if things start moving faster um it's important to send the message that we we um we have a lot of needs and some of them are being met through these other resources and this one is of particular interest because this is how we keep our lights on as you said and can i just um add in here for the record that a 9.3 budget is equivalent to a 19 million dollar shortfall for pps 19 million dollars not peanuts so i'm happy to hear that they're i'm raising their sights but um i am i am astonished at how many people really have no conception of either what the implications are for districts of 9.3 or what the implications are for a 19 million shortfall okay other comments and amy this was our last agenda item to talk about this advocacy so i think we've sort of covered through that any other comments or thoughts okay tomorrow great um thank you courtney for pulling everything together um thanks julia for the um suggestion and and work to help get odot here for the presentation tonight i think i think it was helpful and i know we're going to have more conversations on that moving forward yeah i just asked how would you like questions to get back to them do you want to just who i mean do you want to organize or do you just want to send them to me i think if board members if board members have additional questions why don't you send them to courtney so they all go as a package and then if the responses we get back send out to the whole to the whole board would be great okay can i ask about um sort of next steps for the board so um is is the full board gonna like consider anything to as a follow-on to this so should i be more blunt i'll be more blunt i i have real questions um and i are working on a resolution okay but i have real questions about the um what we are accomplishing by staying uh visibly engaged in a process that appears to be deeply deeply flawed and and may just be a a bad faith pr exercise on the part of odot here's my um perspective because some some organizations have chosen to exit and others have stayed at the table um there was a conversation and a request that odot partnered with us and it seems like for us to be um and you know certainly i know courtney's engaged in a regular basis on the technical with the technical committee is that um you know it's hard to partner or have a seat at the table if you're not if you choose not to be at the table um i mean of course the board could choose that but then i think also or the district could choose that um the on the other hand um it's awfully hard to complain about not being included if you choose to remove yourself from
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from the process the the two things that are in the in the pipeline for pps is one a and i think this would be important for the board to consider before we take any sort of action is for the community the process that chinese is going to lead with the community um to hear what the school community and the feeder programs um think about what steps we should take before the board just deciding we're going to do so that's that's one thing and i think that's scheduled in the next um six to eight weeks but chinese should clarify that and then the second thing that is scheduled to happen is the facilities staff is um this is under dan young's leadership is putting together what actually um a a more um realistic assessment of what the cost would be if if the community choice was we would like to have the school moved and what that would cost and sort of two components because i know scott put out the very beginning sort of 100 100 millions of the back of the envelope and at this point in time we're looking at getting a sharper picture on you know what land would be available within the albina district um because we'd have to have a place and there's a number of you know there's a footprint that's needed and so um again dan dan's team is looking at that what it would cost because obviously if you move it um pbs there's a cost of pps if we use our own land um and then second also a um look at obviously we have kellogg as one example of what a middle school would cost but getting sharper on that so that we so that we have that and we can engage um with odot and and frankly state leaders um about the cost of moving it if that's what the community um indicates is their preferred path so i just um i really appreciate that and and actually i thought one of the most compelling things that came out and i know people have been talking about it before we talked about our last meeting too but just that reminder that we do need to engage with the community on this and and i i i might have misheard her but i think one of the people testifying tonight mentioned that that she's not interested in in you know in tough and moving um and and and i think for for me this is one of those moments where you know from from my perspective that that feels like it it solves a lot of moving moving this the school solves a lot of issues and and does a lot of you know restores a lot of historical wrong but the community may not feel that way and and i think that as a board we need to be ready and i need to be ready to pivot that you know um that feels like the the sort of sort of fixing uh again this historical wrong if the community wants to keep it there then it becomes an issue of of of what are the mitigation and or you know you know stopping the project right um it's sort of sort of there are different outcomes depending on on what the community wants so i think that process is really it's really important and essential so i'm glad we keep we keep um elevating that so i i think those are important processes for us to move forward on i i do think and i'm not saying this one way or the other i do think those are somewhat independent of whether we're engaged in the uh in the planning process or at what level especially because odot continues to lie um you know they keep they keep saying you know it's a new day we're we're acting you know but but they're not they are not so you know at what point do we say enough already and what's the idea i mean curious scott what's the advantage of walking away from the table though what's the advantage of staying and giving and giving some gps was a partner through this um we run the risk of looking like we have given our stamp of approval on it to it there's no mistaking that we haven't given our stamp of approval i mean the record is full of instances in which um are i understand i asked for a recorded vote on when we we offered a standard and had a recorded vote on it there's there's no question that pps isn't going along with the project and i think that's clear for the last year and a half yeah so i i would i would i just would say that
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from time to time we should evaluate our continued at what level we want to continue um and again i right now i'm not like one way or another that at a certain point if somebody keeps lying to you you need to act yeah maybe scott the next like milestone stone is as chair scott uh mentioned is when our community process and we have a sense of what the community wants because then we may have an idea of what what the best forum and path for us would be in order to affect what the community desires so i i'm a firm believer in um bad behavior that carries no negative consequences is an encouragement to continued bad behavior and i have become aware of at least several instances of what i consider to be bad behavior um most notably the withholding of information about the additional taking of pps property that has apparently been on their books for three years and my understanding is that pps has consistently requested all information regarding the impact of this i5 project on harriet tubman so a deliberate decision was made by odot to withhold um that information from pps um and i have not been intimately involved in this but if that is in fact the case i would hope that at the very minimum we would lodge a formal complaint that um that we're being called partners but um the partnership is apparently only going one way um so some kind of consequences um should be imposed when um you know a a partner is not acting in good faith i'll just say from my perspective which is somewhat from the outside on this i i don't think it feels to me like like odot has been hammered on this again and again and again over the last couple of years um publicly and and in the media and and what i what i would worry about and i i actually agree with scott we need to re-evaluate um routinely and sort of ask the question i think that's exactly right my concern would be walking away um you know as things continue to move forward the less involved we are the harder it is actually to call out you know hodon on these things um and and i just um it also frankly gives give gives them the ability to say well you know folks walked away from the table so how can we partner with them when they're not willing to sit at the table so i just want to make sure we're not giving any um any of those arguments right to them i do agree we need to be careful and they talk tonight the the the point i think scott again made about you know that it looks like pps is on board that was part of their talking points tonight as they you know noted in their slides all the places were involved and so i do think that is a real danger um but i guess i'm just more philosophically i'm a big believer that when you're at the table is when you can really object um and stand up and and jump up and down and go to the media and talk about the problems um that are happening and i i just feel like this is this project is not playing out well for odot or the state or the governor um and i think that's because the people involved continue to raise you know really important questions so yeah i i i think you know uh so we should we should arrange a good time to do pros cons and cut and come to where we are right now and uh when to evaluate in a couple of months i think those are all good points i've heard really valid points for staying at the table and walking away from the table uh but let's let's do a session where we get all that out there and um come to some decision and and go from there and again the you know if it's walk away from the official table um then what are our tactics um for being engaged in a guerrilla warfare to uh to unofficially engage going forward um so i i think i think we can we need to have a session where we get down to it come to an agreement and move forward agree to reevaluate at a certain point in time after that so andrew can you move that as uh as our chair yeah i'm sorry was that a specific
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motion well it's a suggestion to the chair that um that we evaluate yeah that this committee um runs through that that uh evaluation process so what i was hearing uh for for next steps so in the very short term any questions from tonight you get those to courtney we'll we'll engage in that process and then and then i i actually like what julia said about um you know as we go through this engagement learn more about what our community wants that feels like a good time to then come back and and decide you know what what is pbs's position going to be and how will we engage moving forward um so i think that's probably a few months out but scott i mean i agree with you that it's a conversation we need to have yeah and and i i like rita's suggestion maybe one thing we do pretty immediately is watch some kind of formal protest or effectively do that and do it loudly um fine with uh director bailey's uh and director moore's suggestion on that front i also would be interested in courtney's point of view since you engage in the sort of the technical the technical team yeah um i can say that our technical team is looking at a lot of these questions raised about air quality and other um other issues like soil stability and we haven't seen any paper from from them yet so i think we want to wait and see i mean i'll check in with dan on timeline for that i'm not sure what our timeline is but i think that'll be instructive um the i the highway cover work is you know predicated on a project happening so i think that's a little bit of a different um i don't think that's as relevant but i think i think i would want to know whether there was any significant findings of this uh of the consul of the third party consultant first before we launched into a plan but that's just you know i think dan could offer maybe a different suggestion but politically i think we should get some some answers first the uh so i i am interested in oh sorry go ahead no i just want to make a clarifying point answers to questions that we asked not just um answers that we're getting from them based on you know maybe not the right question i'm really interested in their wealth building um i have to say just off the top i am incredibly cynical when i hear that um it's but i will do some due diligence to see um you know if it's how much of it is talk and how much of it is a real strategy um there is a very strong commitment and push by the minority contractors because of the size of the contracting project that this will be and i'm not stating i don't have enough information to validate it or not but it's been stated over and over again by um black minority contractors that this is going to be that is how the wealth creation is happening and there's a bit of i will say an undercurrent of pps is standing in the way of black economic empowerment by holding up the project which which is a a narrative that is um and scott i'd happy to connect with you offline about where that's originating from but sort of it's in either or the only way that you know pbs has to step aside so that actually there's these economic this economic value can um return to the community but there's a very strong narrative of that happening yeah i know um income is not wealth i those the distinction is very important um and i can argue about whether four years of a good salary actually with no guarantee of a continuing salary actually gives you the potential to build wealth
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um well the other thing is what what what are the um um what are the alternative uses of 800 million dollars and um could we find projects that could be equally impactful for um uh what are they going to disadvantage business enterprises um that would not um [Music] that would not jeopardize harriet tubman or um produce more you know increased risk of of horrendous climate change impacts right you know it's this is not the only game in town potentially okay so i i don't think building a baseball stadium falls under that so just let it let it go all right um it's 705 and i'm hungry so um i'm gonna go ahead and end the um meeting thank you everybody for the conversation tonight it was important and a good one and we will um continue moving forward so with that um the environmental committee is a church thanks everybody


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