Special Hillsboro City Council Meeting: July 27, 2026

So welcome to the City Council special meeting and I wanted to explain why we're here today and I want to explain why we're here today and why it was a special meeting on a Monday at 9 a.m. So we were briefed in executive session on legal implications on doing a moratorium and

In that session we learned one of the things if we if we wanted to have a hearing on a moratorium We had to inform the state of this we had to inform and or an agency called dlcd and when the City Council informs dlcd that we are going to have this moratorium or we're going to have a hearing on a moratorium we have to then wait 45 days and

in order to then have that hearing. So the state needs 45 days notice. Today is day 46. We did this on purpose because when the governor instituted a moratorium on enterprise zones,

She left time between the time she said we were going to have a moratorium and then when the moratorium was enacted. And during that time, data centers submitted their applications for enterprise zones. We wanted to avoid the rush of data centers putting in that application. Okay, so by saying we're gonna have this meeting on day 46, we've notified the state and we've followed our legal obligations.

by notifying that we were going to have this meeting yesterday that only gave anybody, data centers or all of you, about 24 hours to respond. But the idea behind it was to prevent a rush of applications from data centers. So I just want to say that. Okay. And as technology continues to evolve, the City of Hillsboro is working to ensure our policies evolve with it.

Over the last several weeks, Council has had a chance to review facts, potential approaches to the issue, publicly deliberate, and reach consensus on direction. A temporary land use moratorium on data and energy storage facilities could help ensure that new policies and recommendations can be enacted thoughtfully.

and most likely would be enacted thoughtfully. If passed today, the moratorium would mean no new land use applications for these facilities would be accepted while the moratorium is in effect. While we seek to strike a balance, allowing data and energy storage in strategic ways that benefit the community, allowing Hillsboro to stay competitive in a global economy while maintaining the standard of living that community members have come to enjoy.

During this potential pause, city staff will continue to research the economic and environmental impacts of these facilities while drafting potential updates to Hillsboro Community Development Code and to define where and how these facilities operate. The moratorium we will consider today is different, very different, and separate from the state's temporary moratorium on enterprise zone agreements, and that's what I was alluding to earlier when I was speaking.

That legislation on enterprise zones focused on pausing tax incentives for data centers across Oregon. The action before this council today is about Hillsboro's land use planning and ensuring our development regulations reflect the community's long-term priorities. Hillsboro has always embraced innovation while responsibly planning for growth. This moratorium reflects that same balanced approach.

As we navigate a rapidly changing industry, we are weighing the best available science, data, and community input before establishing policies that will shape our city for decades to come. And let's begin this meeting with a roll call. Aubrey? Mayor Pace? Here. Councillor Anvery? Here. Councillor Case? Here. Councillor Harris? Here. Councillor Sinclair? Here. Councillor Salgado? Here.

IS HE ONLINE? COUNSELOR SALGADO IS ONLINE. I DO NOT SEE COUNSELOR AL CARE YET. HAVE WE HEARD FROM COUNSELOR SALGADO? YES. SO COUNSELOR SALGADO IS PRESENT? YES. I JUST DON'T SEE COUNSELOR AL CARE YET.

Okay, so moving to item one, public hearing. Consider adopting a resolution approving a temporary moratorium on data center and battery energy storage system developments pursuant to ORS 197.505 to 197.540 in order to allow sufficient time to conduct necessary studies and development of appropriate regulations. Resolution number 2932 is available.

The City Council emphasizes addressing issues in a respectful manner. We ask that all parties to this hearing assist us by participating in the hearing respectfully. During the meeting, virtual testimony will only be taken by those who have pre-registered by 8:00 AM. During the public testimony portion of the public hearing, testimony will be heard in the following order. Those online who have pre-registered and then those who are in person.

For our virtual attendees, it's important to speak directly into the microphone and to please state your name prior to speaking. If you are in person and wish to provide testimony, please fill out a blue card and submit it to the staff on the side of the room who will then submit it to the city recorder. I will then call on people who want to speak. Any questions should be addressed through me.

Because this is a land use public hearing per law, we need to have an address or email address to send out a notice of decision. That is a law. We have to have that. Either your address or your email address so we can let you know what we decided in case you leave early. During general public comment, we only ask for your name though. Just put your email or your address on the blue card. You don't have to broadcast that. And during this hearing, we do not need the address or the email. It will be on the blue card.

And I will now open the public hearing on resolution number 2932. The hearing today will be conducted as follows. First, the staff report. We'll have a staff report followed by any additional correspondence that's been received. Then we'll have questions from the council to staff. Then we'll have public testimony in the following order, as I mentioned. Testimony from those who registered and then testimony from those who are in person.

Questions of staff, if any, by the council can be asked then as well. And then after that, we'll have a discussion of city council. We'll close the hearing, and then you can witness the discussion that city council will have. A decision may be made by the city council at the close of this hearing, or the matter may be continued to a different time or date in the future. If the matter is reset to a time or date in the future, this will be the only notice of date you'll receive.

prior to asking for the staff report, do any counselors wish to declare a conflict of interest for this matter? If so, speak now. Conflict? Any? I would like to ask Chad Jacobs if there's any conflict of interest for myself due to being a plaintiff to the current lawsuit with the Enterprise Zone. Even though this is the moratorium and we're discussing definitions, I just want to verify.

uh... constant clare tragic is from the city attorney's office

As you know, only the Ethics Commission is actually authorized to give you a formal answer to that. I can just give you my best advice, and my best advice is know that in order to have a conflict of interest under state law, you have to have a financial interest in the decision, or the decision has to affect the financial interest of you, your relatives, or business with which any are associated. And because the litigation relates to the enterprise zone tax abatements as opposed to the development, I don't see that there's a direct link between the two. So I would say no, but

again, that's only my personal opinion and I don't have any authority to actually provide that advice on behalf of OGAC. Thank you. No, no conflict. Okay. Councillor Sergato? No conflict report. Okay, thank you. Alright, we'll now receive a staff report from City Attorney Chad Jacobs.

Good morning again, Mayor, Council, Chad Jacobs from the City Attorney's Office. So tonight, before you, you have a proposed resolution which would impose a moratorium. The moratorium process is governed by state law as set forth in the staff memo. And what we're considering today is something called a compelling need moratorium. There's different types of moratoria that state law allows jurisdictions to impose. And what we're focused on is, again, called the compelling need moratorium.

In order to demonstrate a compelling need moratorium in a city where there's urbanized land such as this, we need to look at ORS 195-523A, which sets forth the applicable criteria that we need to determine exist in order to impose a moratorium.

And so the hearing before you tonight, or this morning, I'm sorry, is a situation where you're going to look at that criteria and you're going to say, can we make findings that support that criteria? And if so, you can impose the moratorium.

The applicable criteria, and I'll just read them real quickly so everyone's on the same page, include that the application of existing development ordinances or regulations and other applicable law is inadequate to prevent irrevocable public harm from development in affected geographical areas.

Second, that the moratorium is sufficiently limited to ensure that a needed supply of affected housing types and supply of commercial industrial facilities within or in proximity to the city, county, or special district are not unreasonably restricted by the adoption of the moratorium. Third, stating the reasons the alternative methods for achieving objectives for the moratorium are unsatisfactory.

Fourth, that the city, county, or special district has determined that the public harm which could be caused by failure to impose a moratorium outweighs the adverse effects on other affected local governments, including shifts in demand for housing or economic development, public facilities and services and buildable lands, and the overall impact of the moratorium on population distribution.

And then finally, fifth, that the city, county, or special district proposing the moratorium has determined that sufficient resources are available to complete the development of needed interim or permanent changes in plans, regulations, or procedures within the period of effectiveness of the moratorium. So these are the criteria that we must demonstrate exist to impose the moratorium. In the draft resolution, you have proposed findings for you to consider, where we've outlined why each of these various criteria have been met.

In addition to the proposed findings in the resolution, you can take into consideration both the written comments that you've received before this meeting, which are part of the public record, the other information that's part of the public record that was included in the agenda packet, as well as the public testimony you received today. After we've gone through the process of receiving public testimony and you've had a chance to have all your questions answered, you'll have the opportunity to then deliberate on whether or not to impose the moratorium.

You will also have the opportunity at that time if you wanted to, to amend the draft resolution in any way that you deemed necessary. So with that, I'll turn it over to you all for any questions. And after we have staff opportunity to answer your questions, we will then begin with the public testimony. One last final thing I want to let you know is that my colleague Josh Soper is also online this morning to help out with this process as needed. Great. Are there any questions for City Attorney Chad Jacobs? Questions?

Councillor Sinclair. Is this the appropriate time to inquire about definitions in the resolution? I would suggest that we hold off on that until after the public testimony. Okay, thank you. Are there any other questions? I have some. Councillor Allcare. Related to Kerplin, but I'm expecting that throughout this meeting we're going to be able to ask you all kinds of questions as they come up? Correct. You'll have an opportunity throughout this process. Okay, thank you. Any other questions? Okay. Okay.

SEEING NO MORE QUESTIONS FROM COUNCIL, I'D LIKE TO CALL FOR TESTIMONY FROM THE PUBLIC. THE CRITERIA THAT APPLY TO THE DECISION ARE LISTED IN THE WRITTEN STAFF REPORT AND WERE JUST OUTLINED BY CITY ATTORNEY CHAD JACOBS. THESE ARE CRITERIA THAT THE CITY COUNCIL MUST USE IN REACHING A DECISION. TESTIMONY AND EVIDENCE MUST BE DIRECTED TOWARD THESE CRITERIA OR OTHER CRITERIA IN THE COMPREHENSIVE PLAN OR OTHER LAND USE REGULATIONS THAT YOU BELIEVE APPLY TO THE DECISION. PLEASE DESCRIBE HOW YOUR COMMENTS RELATE TO THE CRITERIA.

Testimony unrelated to the applicable criteria is not allowed and may be ruled out of order. Please keep the testimony limited to the applicable criteria. And each person will have up to three minutes. If you exceed the three minutes, you will be given a warning and we'll ask you to stop your presentation.

and it will be deemed a disruption and you may be asked to leave. If you feel you have to publicly express support for a comment or a viewpoint, we ask that you do so quietly and non-disruptively using snapping your fingers, a thumbs up, or jazz hands.

Clapping or calling out or making any verbal outbursts not only interferes with that person who is providing testimony, but it also interferes with other people's ability to hear clearly in the room and can disrupt audio for those attending virtually. So please do not disrupt. Again, keep the space welcoming, inclusive, and accessible for everyone to avoid disruption, and we ask that all comments be shared respectfully. I will also let you know that as a reminder, we are here to entertain a moratorium.

AND WHILE WE'RE IN DELIBERATION, PEOPLE CAN SEND IN APPLICATIONS. OKAY? SO UNTIL THE GAVEL DROPS ON WHATEVER WE DECIDE ON THIS MORATORIUM, APPLICATIONS CAN BE SENT IN. SO JUST WANTED TO SAY THAT OUT LOUD. OKAY. MAYOR, I HAVE A POINT OF CLARIFICATION. PLEASE, YEAH. RECALLING AT THE LAST COUNCIL MEETING, THERE WAS A NEW RULE THAT I WAS NOT AWARE OF.

when people are participating in public comment and that is the rule that you don't want people to move the chair they're gonna sit on. And can you clarify what direction they can be

Speaking if you prefer they speak to us facing forward or do they have the freedom to face any direction? They want to in this room I just want to have a point of order because I don't want people to do that and not realize they are breaking a rule Thank You councillor all care we ask that the chair stay on the side of the desk It's currently on right now facing the council. Thank you because the the comments are addressed to council. I

I would just like to kindly ask to allow them some freedom of whatever direction they want to speak in. It's their public comment. This is a democratic process. We are here to listen. And if they feel like they can't speak to us and they can speak to each other, that's not our problem. It's not our fault. But I think we should allow them the process. As long as the chair stays on the other side, that's fine.

The comments are to be addressed to council. Thank you very much. We have 12 people registered to speak virtually, and the deadline to register has now passed. When your name is called, please unmute your microphone to testify, and you will be given three minutes to provide your testimony. The first person who has registered virtually is Chris Carpenter. Is Chris available? Can you hear me now? We can hear you. Go ahead. You have three minutes. Great. Thank you.

Mayor Patey, members of the council, my name is Chris Carpenter. I am the political director for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local Union 48. We cover basically the north coast of Oregon all the way out to Sherman County, Oregon, and up into southwest Washington. We represent around 6,000 electricians and have a training center here in Portland, Oregon, where we have, I think it's around 800 or 900 apprentices currently going through our program.

and do a lot of work in the electrical industry around the entire region. Wanted to just play a couple of things that we have some concern around the moratorium. And I want to start with

We wholly agree with the need to regulate this industry, especially as something that has been growing exponentially quickly and all over the country and the globe. We do believe that we need to be very focused on how do we as communities look at the land use considerations, the energy considerations, the water use considerations, any cost drivers that might happen, and how do these facilities impact jobs. We are fully supportive of that and very happy to be in those conversations at a state level and then also regionally and nationally.

I think that when we're looking at this, though, we have some serious concerns over having sort of a blanket moratorium on something for a duration of time. These developments provide a lot of opportunity both for the economic growth in an area. You know, we're looking at right now across the state of Oregon is slowing. We have a lot of members who have to travel out of state to find work in the electrical industry.

seeing opportunities like this where we know that we can get hundreds of people on the job in their backyard is something that we can't overlook. I think additionally, there are ways in which as we start to look at how to regulate the development of these facilities, how do we ensure that we're seeing investment back into our communities? How do we make sure that we actually can turn those dollars and those projects into something that's going to help our infrastructure? I think that that is on the data center end. I think additionally,

Looking at the battery storage facility here, we know that our grid is struggling right now across the state and the region. When we have opportunities to be building things that are green energy, that are green energy storage, we have serious concern over trying to stop those for periods of time. Oregon has some of the most stringent clean energy goals in the nation. We are 47th in clean energy development. So stopping further green energy projects or the opportunity to pull other

economic areas like data centers in to help pay for some of those great grid upgrades or energy upgrades are things that we don't think that we should just be sort of pausing on. I would hope that there were other ways to look at this to say, hey, how do we get the sideboards up that we need as a community and as a state that aren't just saying, hey, industry, go away. That's sort of it. I do appreciate all the time and the thought that has been put into all of this. I know this is a super fun conversation these days, so I really appreciate your time. Okay. Next speaker is Randall Friesen.

Good morning. Good morning. Mayor pace and city council members for the record. My name is Randall. Free. Executive director of the Columbia Pacific building trades Council. We represent over 20,000 construction professionals and their families across the Portland metropolitan and Southwest Washington region. I'm here today to oppose resolution 2932 regarding a more moratorium on data centers and battery storage projects.

We strongly believe land use and development decisions should be evaluated on a case by case basis rather than through a broad one size fits all moratorium. Furthermore, data centers and battery storage should be decoupled and evaluated separately as each technology presents distinct benefits, impacts and operational considerations.

Many of the national debates surrounding resource consumption, such as water usage and grid demand, are driving local policy today. However, older facilities in other regions utilized outdated cooling systems simply because they were cheaper to build. Modern building practices and technological advancements significantly lessen these environmental impacts. This is precisely why the building trades have always advocated for strong building codes, strict standards, and responsible operation systems.

Projects of this scale, especially those utilizing public resources or tax incentives, have the responsibility to deliver tangible community benefits. That means family-wage jobs, comprehensive benefits, and strong local tax revenue. Achieving this requires a true partnership between business, labor, and the community. Historically, this region has successfully utilized project labor agreements and community benefit agreements to ensure large-scale developments, such as a new Hillsboro Hops Stadium, protect local resources while empowering community voices.

Beyond protecting the environment and public interest, these agreements guarantee that local workers have access to top-tier state-registered apprenticeship programs. These pathways create middle-class careers, generate first-generation family wealth, and provide workers with dignified retirement, as noted on Hopp Stadium most recently. Project labor agreements most importantly provide upward mobility for working-class people from all economic levels and backgrounds. Currently, we have members working in other states on data center projects because of the shortage of available work at home.

putting strain on many families in the process. Passage of this moratorium will further impact local families who want and need local work to keep their families together. Data centers are an inescapable reality of modern infrastructure. Our personal and economic data relies on some version of the cloud, and acting a blanket moratorium or ban does not eliminate the demand. It simply pushes development into other nearby jurisdictions where we lose control, environmental oversight, and economic opportunity.

In closing, as we face regional budget shortfalls and work toward climate resilience, the Columbia Pacific Building Trades is neither universally pro or anti data center. We are, however, strongly supportive of coalition building and partnership. We urge the council to vote no, instead partner with labor, business, and community to establish thoughtful, rigorous standards for future development. Thank you for your time and careful consideration. Appreciate it. Okay. Next speaker is Ruben Peterson. Hi.

my name is reuben peterson as a hillsborough resident and farmer i am sickened by the rampant proliferation of data centers and their infrastructure this monstrous construction permanently destroys resources communities and our natural environments

They are in direct contradiction to many of our goals, including our climate action plan, and the long-term effects of their resource extraction and pollution are entirely unstudied, although the short-term effects of skyrocketing utility bills, groundwater pollution, and farmland destruction, to name just a few, are well documented.

Okay, next person is Aaron Nichols.

Good morning, Mayor Pace, thank you very much for having this meeting, considering what I hope to be real strong limit on data storage and AI computing facilities in Hillsborough. For the record, my name is Aaron Nichols, and I live and farm just north of the city. I'm on the board of an agri-skid group, Friends of Smart Growth, which is advocated against wasteful land use in general and data centers in particular.

First, I want to thank Councillor Sinclair, who's been calling for this moratorium and building a coalition to get it enacted. The leadership brought us to this point. I also want to thank the rest of council and staff for being very responsive to a clear public need, listening and responding when those who represent speak.

I didn't read every page in the packet, but what I did manage to read was encouraging. I was heartened to see some of the studies showing serious adverse health effects from data centers are being called out and included in the justification. I think it's incumbent on us to recognize that we will need to hold polluters responsible regardless of whether they're new data centers, transitioning to more intensive AI data centers, or continuing on unchanged.

Secondly, I was encouraged by two sentences on page 579 in your packet regarding the need for employment land to be preserved for employment, not data centers. I think that the city here is making an argument that is essentially one my group has made for five years since Senate Bill 4 legislation began, that the city of Hillsborough needs to live within its means. Wasting land on data centers is not a justification for getting more land. It's just bad economic policy that endangers actual growth and actual prosperity.

I'm thankful for the step away from the 1990s economic strategy that's constantly pushed on us by the Chamber of Commerce and the West Side Economic Alliance. We simply need fewer taxes, less regulation, more land, and the free market will handle the rest. The current state of North Hillsborough shows that strategy has failed for decades.

Naturally, I think there are a few places we do need to make changes in what I think is intended to be a good moratorium and also to better inform the studies. I understand it can't all be fixed today. I think it would be wise to pass the moratorium today with the most important fixes and then plan time in your next meeting to consider the many comments you'll likely receive as this reaches the public. I've submitted written testimony with longer explanations for each of these.

But among the things I think need to be fixed, most importantly is confirming that AI computing facilities are included in data storage. I think using a better definition from the Oregon, that's used in the moratorium at the state level would be a better choice. I worry about what could slip in under accessory use. Secondly, I think that a number, perhaps 15% of buildable space could as a maximum for data storage or BES and pass out a conditional use permit would be required, would be a good compromise.

It's also unclear to me, given the significant health risks and significant harm to the city's own economic development, why we're intending to allow 510 more acres of data storage, about half of Hillsborough's available industrial land, and far more than what's called for in your own EOA. The end goal should be to limit data storage in AI computing facilities to the maximum extent we can. I think, if any way possible, the moratorium should apply to data centers that still need any permitting or apply today.

And there are changes needed for the RFPs including farmland as an affected category. Your time is up. Thank you. Next up is Jeremy Buneman. Mayor, I don't see Jeremy online. So Jeremy, if you are online, if you could retitle yourself and we can move on to the next person and recall Jeremy if they... Next person is Suzanne Kylasam. Suzanne, are you there? Yeah. Can you hear me now? I can hear you. You have three minutes.

Great.

Good morning, Mayor Pace and City Council members. My name is Suzanne Kylosom, and I'm a resident of Hillsboro. Thank you for holding this public hearing to consider a temporary moratorium on data center and best developments. I believe the data centers have caused substantial irrevocable public harm to the community. Here are a few examples. In 2024, the Hillsboro School District lost $128 million due to data center tax abatements.

According to datacentermap.com, Hillsboro now has 35 data centers, which are clustered so closely together. This has created a disproportionate share of the data center development in our region. And since data centers support a relatively small operations workforce, they don't provide very many long-term jobs to the displaced high-tech workers who were laid off from companies like Intel.

For many, many months, community members have been attending the City Council meetings and raising concerns about the data center impacts on our resources and environment, such as the following. Data centers have an insatiable appetite for electricity and water, which has created a burden that the residents have had to pay for. Risks to the health of Hillsboro residents due to air, noise, thermal, and water pollution for these data centers is a real concern.

These concerns are real. Just talk to the folks in Boardman, Oregon, about how their health has been impacted by their poisoned groundwater. I ask that all of you vote in favor of this moratorium and take the time to conduct the necessary impact studies and develop the appropriate data center regulations and restrictions to protect our community. Thank you for your time and consideration of this moratorium. Thank you. Next. Did Jeremy come on? No? Okay. Moving on. Michael Mintz.

Good morning, can you hear me? I can hear you, Michael. You have three minutes, welcome.

Good morning. Thanks. My name is Michael Mintz. I have a BS in environmental science and I live in Milwaukee, Oregon, actually. And I want to thank you for the opportunity to express my point of view at this very important hearing. I'm here today because I feel that this is a regional issue and the decisions that you make here will have repercussions on land use, water use and electricity across the state.

I've been looking over the almost 600 pages that you've published for this hearing. And, you know, admittedly, I am not well versed in the details, but I'd like to ask a couple of questions. When I was a kid, computers took up gigantic rooms. Now, each one of us carries one in our pocket. You know, what's going to happen in 20 years as technology evolves and all these monstrous data centers become more or less obsolete?

We will have squandered our water, our water resources, our land, our farms for temporary construction jobs and for corporations that are shoving AI down our throats. What's going to happen if these corporations become financially unstable, close down, go belly up? Is the city of Hillsboro going to have surety bonds in place? Have we discussed surety bonds?

And what if the jobs that are promised don't materialize? Will money be put aside to pay workers for jobs that would benefit the citizens of Hillsborough? One more thing I'd like to add about is closed-loop systems. My understanding is that these systems use vastly more electricity and that water use at the point of electrical generation is vastly increased.

So we need to look at this too. Being from an environmental science background, you know, I think that this closed loop system could very well be a red herring. Thank you for your time and your consideration. Thank you. Next up is Leif Eccles. Hi, can you hear me?

Yes, we can. You have three minutes. Okay, thank you. All right. My beef with data center started with AI. And if it weren't for the AI boom and the complete upheaval of the semiconductor industry to jump onto the AI gold rush train, I wouldn't have known about the issues with data centers, particularly here in Hillsborough. Related to AI, AI companies have leveraged massive banking debt on a way to profit from AI that's failing fast. Companies are going bankrupt paying for AI tokens.

Soon the house of cards will fall, causing massive ripple effects across our economy, worse than the Great Recession. Then what happens to these data centers that we've rolled the red carpet out for? As we've already talked about, the myth of data centers creating jobs has already been debunked.

These buildings will become a ghost town here in North Hillsborough. The cost of infrastructure improvements for energy usage were paid for by our PGE fees. Any future upgrades to our infrastructure to support data centers should be paid for by the data center companies themselves. With these battery storage facilities, that's an environmental nightmare waiting to happen. We need a plan for possible leaks or fires and for recycling them at the end of their life.

My opinion is that instead of just a five-year moratorium, we need a permanent moratorium on all new data centers. We need to heavily tax the existing data centers to cover the potential impacts on air, ground, and water and mitigate noise pollution. Those tax dollars that we collect should go into a protected fund dedicated to schools and environmental cleanup and any other areas in our community that have

been directly impacted by the installation and operation of data centers. We also want to make sure that this tax fund not be a blank check for our mayor's personal priorities. Additionally, city officials should publicly disclose any and all personal or professional benefits, compensation, or quid pro quos that they have received from data center companies or organizations that benefit from them. Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Sandra P. Sandra P. online.

Can you hear me? I can. Welcome. You have three minutes. Perfect. So I'm all in for a moratorium, but 120 days is not enough to make a difference. What we need is for the city to stop the build on the data centers that have been approved.

and do a study on the irreparable harm for the coming years. And this is why the moratorium needs to be several years, not just 120 days. There is so much environmental harm as well as economical harm and physical harm these data centers bring. And then we know that they will provide short term construction jobs, but it will not provide long term, sustainable, high paying local jobs.

And I want people to hear this loud and clear. You see how much you can't trust Beach Pace or data center Janine Solman. Watch out for the people they endorse. They'll surely push the same values and the same agenda. The environment, the citizens, and the future cannot afford another data center. Thank you. Thank you. Next up, we have Joshua Basafin. Good morning. Can you hear me? I can. Welcome. You have three minutes.

Joshua Bassofin: Good morning, Mayor Pace and Council Members. My name is Joshua Bassofin. I'm the Clean Energy Program Director with Climate Solutions here in Oregon. Climate Solutions' mission is to accelerate clean energy solutions to the climate crisis. And today I'll be speaking to the battery energy storage piece of the proposed resolution

Simply put, our clean energy transition is impossible without battery storage. Renewable energy resources like wind and solar are variable and non-dispatchable, meaning that you can't just start up a solar farm or a wind farm to get energy. They only generate energy when the wind is blowing and when the sun is shining.

So we need a lot of battery storage to be widely deployed at energy generating facilities on the grid and in homes and businesses in order to really accelerate our clean energy transition and meet our state's pretty ambitious clean energy goals. We are woefully behind in that effort of deploying that battery storage and any delay would be devastating, even a short delay.

I understand the council's interest in ensuring that these types of facilities don't have an impact on the public. What I would say is that batteries are rigorously evaluated and certified for safety when they're manufactured, and they're also further assessed for safety and other impacts during the siting and permitting process that is quite extensive. Thank you very much.

Thank you. Next up is Anne Thrall Nash. Good morning, councillors. Can you hear me? I can hear you. Welcome. You have three minutes. Thank you. I am also here to, first of all, my name is Anne Thrall Nash. I live in Hillsboro. I'm also, I'd like to also acknowledge that I'm a planning commissioner here in Hillsboro, but I am speaking just as an informed citizen today in this proceeding.

I would like to echo some of the comments of Joshua from Climate Solutions and would like to focus my comments on the BES parts of the resolution today. My concern is in general for a moratorium on BES, but I would also like to point to the sort of overly broad definition of BES as the fact that there's no size specification or

type of BES. And because the definition is quite overly broad, it appears to put a moratorium on any kind of battery storage within the city, which could impact anything from households all the way up to the data centers, which I think is what most of the public comment is concerned about.

households and other businesses that are quite that are much smaller and of different types than data centers use these systems for backup power and to keep energy costs down as joshua pointed out they're very helpful for

charging when there's renewable energy available, and then they discharge at peak usage times. And at the point of discharge, they are zero emitting, which helps with the city and state's climate goals. When we put this sort of moratorium in, even if it's short, and I suspect that it may end up being longer than the original 120 days, this creates uncertainty for folks around whether or not they can use these things, whether or not

Hillsborough supports them and really puts a dampening effect on a really critical part of our renewable energy and clean energy system. And when that kind of uncertainty comes in, households and businesses may turn to

backup diesel generators, which are regulated by the Oregon DEQ, but they also produce large amounts of local air pollution. And so we may end up having an unintended consequence of this moratorium and that we want to evaluate health impacts for the community, but we may also end up inadvertently if we put a moratorium on these systems.

INCREASING HEALTH IMPACTS TO THE LOCAL COMMUNITY IN A VERY LOCALIZED WAY BECAUSE THOSE BACKUP GENERATORS WILL BE EMITTING HERE DIRECTLY IN OUR COMMUNITY. SO I WOULD LIKE THE COUNSELORS TO BE AWARE OF THOSE UNINTENDED CONSEQUENCES AS THEY CONSIDER THESE RESOLUTIONS. THANK YOU SO MUCH. THANK YOU. WE'RE NOW TURNING TO IN-PERSON TESTIMONY. THE FIRST PERSON UP IS WENDY VALISE.

Please come forward to the desk. Press the button in the center of the console and a green light will turn on. When that green light is on, you are live and you have three minutes. Good morning. Buenos dias, Mayor Pace, members of the council. For the record, my name is Wendy Valise and I represent Portland General Electric. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.

I appreciate the thoughtful discussion taking place around development, and I understand the city's desire to carefully evaluate future policies. These are important conversations, and I respect the Council's responsibility to ensure growth aligns with the long-term interests of the community.

My comments today are specifically focused on battery energy storage systems or BES. While data centers and battery storage are included together in the proposed moratorium, they serve fundamentally different purposes and should be considered separately. BES has significant implications for electric reliability, community resilience, public safety, and Oregon's clean energy transition.

Because of its role as an essential utility infrastructure, we believe BESS warrants its own thoughtful public discussion with sufficient opportunity for utilities, public safety professionals, technical experts, businesses, and community members to participate. We are concerned to see battery storage included as part of this proposed moratorium because decisions affecting infrastructure that serves the broader community deserves the benefit of a broader technical dialogue.

PGE welcomes that conversation and would be pleased to share our experience and expertise. BESS is not simply another development project. It is critical and proven electric infrastructure that helps provide safe, reliable, and low-cost electricity to homes, businesses, schools, hospitals, emergency services, and other essential services that support everyday life and power Hillsboro and Oregon's economy.

BEST IS FUNDAMENTAL TO ACHIEVING OREGON'S CLIMATE AND CLEAN ENERGY GOALS. IT'S AN IMPORTANT ROLE REFLECTED IN THE OREGON DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY STATEWIDE ENERGY STRATEGY AND IT IS IN PGE'S INTEGRATED RESOURCE AND CLEAN ENERGY PLANS APPROVED BY THE OREGON PUBLIC UTILITY COMMISSION THAT DETAIL HOW PGE WILL COMPLY WITH EMISSIONS TARGETS ESTABLISHED BY HOUSE BILL 2021, OREGON'S 100% CLEAN LEGISLATION.

The city's own adopted climate action plan also calls for the development of local battery storage as an action to support community resilience and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Decarbonization requires sufficient backstop capacity resources to reliably serve customers during periods of the day when the sun isn't shining and the wind isn't blowing. Simply put, utilities like PGE cannot integrate the volume of renewable energy resources needed to meet Oregon's clean energy goals without additional battery capacity.

BATTERIES ALLOW US TO STORE WIND AND SOLAR ENERGY WHEN IT IS AVAILABLE AND PRICES ARE LOW AND DELIBERATE WHEN CUSTOMERS NEED IT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. NEXT UP IS ADAM. THE MIC IS ALREADY ON. FEEL FREE TO HAVE A SEAT. WHEN YOU START SPEAKING YOU WILL HAVE THREE MINUTES. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. GOOD MORNING, MAYOR PACE AND MEMBERS OF COUNCIL.

Thank you for the opportunity to comment today. My name is Adam Capage and I am the Director of Outreach and Communications at Renewable Northwest, or RNW. We are a regional nonprofit renewable energy advocacy organization. Our members are a combination of renewable energy businesses, including battery storage developers, as well as environmental and consumer groups.

My comments here today will be limited to the consideration of battery energy storage systems, BESS. Specifically, RNW respectfully requests that BESS not be included in this moratorium and that the regulation of BESS be considered separately when the city has adequate resources to do this important work. RNW notes that as required by state statute,

City staff has established and resourced a work plan to complete changes in plans, regulations, and procedures for data centers. But we saw no similar plans for a best review. This will make a timely and thoughtful process difficult, and planning to do a review of best regulations separately is very reasonable.

BESS systems are a growing and essential feature of a reliable electricity system. They play a vital role in Oregon's energy future, and they already support energy resilience and affordable electric service in Hillsboro. I want to stress, RNW is fully supportive of the creation of standards for BESS.

that will allow Hillsboro to site these important utility facilities responsibly, safely, and cost-effectively. We've helped with similar work in counties across the Pacific Northwest, and we've found that sharing lessons learned is helpful. RNW is always pleased to participate in a process in which there's a mandate to arrive at balanced standards.

Such a process benefits from acknowledging the societal benefits of BESS, the evolution of the technology over the last decade, the current national safety standards and fire safety training requirements. RNW commends the city for including exactly this sort of information in the reference material provided to staff. We've specifically found the report from the University of Michigan useful.

Battery energy storage systems and data centers are very different facilities and each brings their own questions and considerations. Meeting the requirements of the moratorium is best addressed with a separate process and RNW hopes the council will consider the recommendation to develop best standards separately outside the proposed moratorium being considered today. Thank you again for the opportunity to comment and thank you for your work. Thank you. Next up is Jen Little.

And on deck is Steve Sieber. Jen, the microphone is on and as soon as you start speaking you have three minutes. Good morning Mayor Pace and members of the Council. For the record, my name is Jen Little, Vice President of Public Affairs for the Washington County Chamber of Commerce. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am here to express the Chamber's opposition to the proposed moratorium and Resolution 2932.

The Washington County Chamber supports thoughtful planning, responsible land use, and policies that strengthen Hillsborough's economy. We appreciate the City's desire to better understand the impacts of data centers and battery energy storage systems, and we recognize that important work is already underway. The City has already initiated land use code amendments, environmental and economic analysis, and planning commission review.

In addition, the Governor's Data Center Advisory Council is actively evaluating these issues and is expected to provide recommendations to inform future policy discussions. As a long-standing economic development partner with the City, the Chamber values our collaborative relationship and the opportunity to provide input on significant policy issues. The Chamber received only about 24 hours' notice before today's hearing. We respectfully believe additional stakeholder engagement would strengthen this process.

Furthermore, given the compressed time frame, we want to ensure that there was time for Council to review any written testimony submitted. Because these facilities are critical infrastructure, the Chamber believes a moratorium should be considered only after the established planning process has been completed, stakeholders have had a meaningful opportunity to participate, and the Governor's Data Center Advisory Council has had the opportunity to complete its work.

We also encourage Council to decouple battery energy storage facilities from data centers. Best facilities serve a different purpose than data centers and are an important part of a modern reliable electrical grid. Evaluating them independently may help avoid unintended consequences for future energy reliability, infrastructure planning, and economic development.

Data centers are critical infrastructure that supports Hillsborough's economy. They create hundreds of skilled trades jobs during construction and provide digital infrastructure that supports the broader technology ecosystem and thousands of family wage jobs throughout our region.

The Chamber believes Hillsborough can thoughtfully address community concerns while preserving the certainty and predictability that have made our community a destination for business investment. We respectfully ask the Council to pause consideration of this moratorium, continue the planning work already underway, engage stakeholders to establish public process, and allow these findings to guide any future policy decisions. I have also submitted more detailed written testimony

For the record, we emailed yesterday evening, and I have provided printed copies this morning. Thank you so much for your time and consideration. Hey, I would ask that we keep this room welcoming to everyone, okay? So please don't make, if you want to support somebody, that's great. If you don't, that's fine too, but you don't have to say it. Next up is Steve Sieber, and on deck is Simone Campbell.

Steve your mic is on you have three minutes. Good morning Mayor Pace, President Harris, Councillors. My name is Steve Sieber and I work at Trammell Crowe Portland Development our office of 18 local real estate professionals is located at 1300 Southwest 5th in downtown Portland. Today I ask you to pause this resolution and to follow the standard process for policy and code changes.

We are engaged daily in work in your city. I was at, with you, till 11:00 p.m. on Tuesday night at your data center work session. You saw me in the back there. Nothing was mentioned there of this. And the first I learned of this resolution was at 8:00 p.m. last night in the text. I understand why you took this action, but the optics don't look good.

You should use an orderly and thorough process to arrive at your policy and code changes. And this morning, do you feel that you have had enough time to sufficiently understand the content that's been provided to you and how it meets the criteria to pass this resolution? What you do here in the City of Hillsboro matters. You are the role model for the state.

Others are watching, not just other cities and agencies, but businesses, employers, and investors. Pursuing a resolution on a topic of this importance in this manner sends a bad signal. Last note, you have an excellent staff supporting you. We work all over the state in lots of cities. You are envied by many. The success of your city is due in large part to the dedication and the expertise of your staff.

We've done lots of good business in your city and we hope to do lots more and we look forward to working with you and your teams. Finally, I'll finish where I started and ask you to pause this resolution today. Thank you for considering my comments and good luck. Next up is Simone Campbell. Simone Campbell and on deck is Barbara. Simone is, your mic is on and you have three minutes when you start speaking.

Great, the ass kissing's gonna stop here. Good morning everybody, my name is Simone Campbell, you know who the heck I am. I'm one of many Hillsborough residents. I'm here to urge you to adopt resolution 2932 tonight. For the last several years, we've watched the unprecedented, unanticipated clustering of data centers consume our limited industrial land in Hillsborough.

According to the City's own findings in this resolution, between December 2020 and July 2026, an additional 179 acres received land use approval for data centers. There are 143 more acres currently under review.

That has more than doubled the acreage used by data centers in just six years. This is not sustainable and the city itself says so. The resolution states the needed supply of data centers in the city has already been exceeded.

It also finds that unfettered growth will overconsume the city's limited available industrial land, unreasonably restricting the supply for other types of industrial facilities and jobs. But it's not just about the land, it's about health, safety, and the unknown impacts of clustering.

The Virginia Joint Legislative Audit found that the constant low frequency hum from clustered data centers can create health concerns even when it doesn't violate traditional noise ordinances. The city admits Hillsborough's clustering effect needs to be studied and potentially addressed. We can't wait for residents to be harmed in order to study it.

Heat Islands: Peer-reviewed research from 2026 found large hyperscale data centers increased surface temperature by an average of 3.6 degrees and up to 16.4 degrees in extreme cases. Other research shows a single data center can emit waste heat comparable to hundreds of thousands of households. The city acknowledges this clustering could have a similar warming effect here and needs more study.

Air pollution and best risk at 2026 VCU study found cumulative emissions near data center clusters can equal or exceed a power station. And we have a battery energy storage systems coming too. EPA has warned about best fire risk and the city notes these facilities create low hum and have potential and not yet fully understood impacts. Two best facilities were already permitted in the last 32 months with no specific regulations in place.

Council, your own findings are clear. Current regulations are inadequate. Data centers are permitted in 12 zones with no data center-specific standards. The city does not have design and construction standards to address clustering. That's why a pause is the only reasonable option. Alternative code amendments would take too long and allow more projects to slip through. The 100-day moratorium is limited and targeted and gives the city time to do what you should have been able to do all along. Thanks for the...

the heads up on the meeting this morning. As you can see, your attempts to keep us out didn't work. Next up is Barbara, and on deck is Kimberly Culbertson. Thank you, Mayor Pace, Council Members. I'm not here to discuss the economic and environmental impact of data centers because this has been front and center news throughout our entire country for the last several months.

In fact, it's been credibly reported that 71% of Americans are opposed to the unrestrained proliferation of data centers. And it's not because we are against progress. It's because we know that technology advanced without all the proper safeguards poses a dire risk, not only to our environment, but humanity. Taking a pause to study, reflect, and gather all the facts is both prudent and ethical leadership.

I'm also here to talk about the process. From the beginning, the City Manager and the Economic Development Director have been meeting behind closed doors and signing NDAs with multi-billion dollar corporations that receive millions in tax cuts. Tax cuts that deprive our schools, infrastructure, and services of needed revenue.

And I would also ask every council member that if data centers are so good for the community, why is our city management meeting secretly and signing NDAs? Ask yourself that question, please. Furthermore, the community was given less than 24 hours notice of this meeting and presented a 569-page impact report to read, review, and respond. I don't know how that's even possible.

Is this democracy? Is this transparency? Is this the collaborative and respectful? Is this collaborative and respectful to the community that you serve? Does this instill trust in our leaders or so further mistrust and resentment? I urge you to ask yourselves, do you want to be the council members that listened, paused, and took time to research all the facts or the ones that pushed through

PUSHED FORWARD AN AGENDA WITHOUT THE PROPER DUE DILIGENCE. THANK YOU. NEXT UP IS KIMBERLY COLBERTSON. ON DECK IS DIRK KUNITZEN. KIMBERLY, YOUR MIC IS ON. AS SOON AS YOU START SPEAKING, YOU HAVE THREE MINUTES. MAYOR PACE AND ASSEMBLED COUNSELORS, MY NAME IS KIMBERLY COLBERTSON. I LIVE IN DOWNTOWN HILLSBORO. I SPEAK IN CONDITIONAL SUPPORT OF MORATORIUM FOR ADDITIONAL DATA CENTER DEVELOPMENT.

120 days is not enough. And it's not enough to unwind the mess this ill-conceived course of development has caused. The requisite study and improved policy formation will have to be less haphazard than the land rush that caused so much furor and pain in our community.

please consider at least two back-to-back moratoria for each one of 120 days to properly discuss, study, measure, and forecast a more feasible solution for our collective future. At present, these things are squandering our taxpayer dollars, and they're already causing harm to our soil and water, which is our patrimony.

It strains our electrical infrastructure and that stunts our future. So thank you very much for considering this issue with residents and the environment in mind. Thank you very much for your time today. Thank you. Next up is Dirk Knudsen. On deck is Carmen Clausen.

Good morning, Mayor Pace and Council. I'm not really here to oppose the moratorium today, but the timing, without engagement, without disclosure, having worked on this since June 10th, according to your own record,

It's concerning. Mayor Pace, thanks for talking about why you did it so that we don't have applications and I hope planning department is closed today and they refuse to answer phone calls. I do think on Sunday the Facebook channel and the Instagram channel could have put word out to the public because certainly by that point the Hillsboro Herald had put news out, so thanks.

But thank you. Your own findings submitted to the DLCD as the basis for this moratorium cite real specific harms: air pollution, near-clustered data centers, low frequency noise, the urban heat island effect, disparate health costs, and battery fire risk. All of those were in the packet you submitted to the state, and you've acknowledged those.

Those aren't my claims, those are the city's in exhibit A and now they're the legal basis for this moratorium. You've also flagged somewhat vibration as a topic for the environmental study. Now on acreage, the 2021-2024 economic opportunities analysis projected data centers would use about 122 acres.

In June, the council was shown a slide with 436 acres already approved and in operation. And by July 21st, the staff updated the map to show that we had two more applications for 50 more acres. And now we find out that four or five more sites have come in. I've done the acreage count on the four or five new sites. It's another 180 acres plus or minus. That puts us at 550 to 600 acres. Yikes.

Regarding BESS, there are six to eight BESS projects approved in Hillsborough and in Washington County that are not going to be affected. And some of those are in the middle of people's backyards, and it wasn't your fault. That was the county up by the meeting place. But they are not as safe as you just heard.

So here's my ask, and it's grounded in the same statute that you're using, ORS 197.520 subsection four. That section is what will let you extend this moratorium past November because I think you're gonna wanna do that. It requires written findings, quote, reasonable progress is being made to alleviate the problem, end quote. And you can't show that progress and get any extension on your 120 days if we don't work on this from a city standpoint. So you have to show you're trying.

So today I'm asking you to approve it, to direct staff to begin a land absorption study and study all those environmental impacts that will give the city a legal basis for moving past 120 days, which we're going to need to do. Lastly, the Chamber of Commerce, Trammell Crowe, the Westside Economic Alliance, I mean, they pretty much have shown who they are and they are not our friends.

They did this. Okay? So I want everybody to know when you vote, anybody backed by those folks, no go. Thank you. Next up is Carmen Claussen. On deck is William Hoffman. Hey, Carmen, you have three minutes. Go ahead. Perfect. Thank you.

Thank you for your time today. This is my first time participating in a civil meeting like this. Forgive me if I'm not the most eloquent, but that speaks to how important this issue is at hand. I want to express my support for the moratorium, but my concerns about the transparency and access to information that we've been provided as residents. I'm a lifetime Oregon resident, and I recently came to Hillsboro to continue my graduate studies.

I want to speak on the data center president set in the DALS organ and how it should inform the council and the city residents' participation in this civic discussion. In the DALS, residents recently spent over two years fighting with their city, who effectively sided with the company Google to obscure the release of public information about water usage of the local data center.

That information has since been released and it's estimated that the Google data center uses upwards of a third of the city's water supply. But my concern is this is the city's defense of Google the corporation rather than their constituents right to be aware of local resource use.

I think that our own council, some of our council's actions reflect a similar attitude of the city of DOWS to serve the corporation over the citizens, such as the lack of informing the public about data center building plans until after the sites have already been secured by the companies and they will receive those financial incentives with lower standards.

The moratorium seems a few steps too late as there are still many up and coming data center applications that will continue to be reviewed without stricter community protections in mind because they slid in right before the deadline. And I'm anxious because of the sloppy ways in which the data center growth has been handled. As a resident, I would hope for transparency to understand who we are selling our land to, what they will be building, and how it will inevitably impact our community.

From the council, I'm asking for honesty and accessibility to information. The promptness of this meeting after the 45-day minimum is appreciated, but I'm disappointed by the lack of notice provided for this meeting, which I learned about on the forum Reddit, which is not a formal avenue at all to learn about such important events.

I hope future opportunities to hear your constituents will be prioritized at convenient times and be better advertised to encourage community engagement. The informational document provided alongside this meeting is lengthy, nearly 600 pages, and could no way be fully processed by the public before the opportunity to attend this meeting was granted to them. It feels untrustworthy. I want to affirm my support for the moratorium and

express that a longer moratorium would also be helpful to consider. I want to show that taking the time to conduct further research on the long-term impacts of data center growth specific to our area would show your community members that you desire to truly represent them and take their concerns seriously. The members of our public deserve time to engage with these decisions because it is the foundation of our democracy. Thank you for your time. Thank you.

Next up is William Hoffman and on deck is Mr. Brown.

My name is William Hoffman, and I could talk about stuff about data centers like the environment, how it's bad for it, or the mass surveillance that it empowers. But instead, I'd like to first talk about a specific court case, Joel Gavalis v. Google LLC, where essentially there is this man named Jonathan Gavalis who is talking to Gemini AI. And as he kept talking to this AI, it took on the role of this man's wife and just kept...

escalating that role play until the point it was like inducing psychosis into this man. And essentially, it just drove him further and further. And whenever he tried to back out, try to be like, is this real? It said he was experiencing derealization and that the only thing that was real is what Gemini was telling him. And it eventually told him to do stuff, crazy stuff like acts of terror or whatever.

Eventually, his suicide, it coached him through. He was saying he was scared, and then Gemini was telling him it was the only thing he could do. So you may be wondering why I'm bringing all this up. I just like to put into perspective what fighting for data centers and fighting for AI does. It's unregulated, it's not good for the public, and we should not have it. And I think I support this fully, the moratorium, and 120 days is not enough. And...

Honestly, less than 24 hours of notice for Monday at 9:00 AM where no one with full time jobs can come here anyway. It's not good. That's all I really have to say. Next up is Mr. Brown and on deck is Andres Perez-Lete. Mr. Brown, you have three minutes.

Alright, I want to start by saying there's no rule that says that I can't turn around, so I'm turning around. And it's funny that they didn't bring up the renewable energy crisis until we started maxing out the power grid due to data centers. And nothing like a 9 a.m. meeting on a Monday to show that they want to listen to us, the people, right?

My name is Brown Wildfire and I wanted to start with some lyrics from a song called "This is Not America" and it says, "Aquí estamos, siempre estamos, no nos fuimos, no nos vamos. Aquí estamos pa' que te recuerdes, si quieres mi machete te muerde." Here we are, we've always been here, we haven't gone anywhere, we're not leaving. We've been here forever and we'll remind you and if you need to, we'll remind you with our machete.

We're here yet again at another meeting on whether or not the city should continue building the data centers. And we even had a teenager last week tell you pretty clearly, no means no. So why are we still asking you to have to stop? That's the type of thing a rapist does. This is just the hard truth. The system is not made for us and democracy is dead. We don't want to pause on the data centers. We want them gone. They don't want and they don't...

They don't want to listen to us. We the people do all the work and then they take all the credit because they never are the ones to initiate pushback against the status quo or the system. Our water and electricity bills are increasing because of the data centers, which is stupid because water is literally free and electricity should be free too, but no, our wages stay the same while utilities get more expensive and our water gets poisoned. When our community was begging for our leaders to do something, the response was, we have to

follow the law and I ask when the law asks says it's okay for them to brutalize our communities because of immigration laws and because the state says that data centers are okay are we supposed to just let it happen how is that any different for the Americans who just watch black Africans indigenous people Asians and

Pacific Islanders and others be enslaved while doing nothing to free them. Or the Germans that watched the Nazis take away their neighbors just because the law said it was okay. They're more interested in following rules than they are of doing what's right. Revolution means dismantling of the system. It means radical change. The last shall become the first and it...

doesn't mean trying to reform capitalism and try to use it for the people because we don't want to regulate it. That's like saying you want to use the one ring to rule them all for good. We need to get rid of it and nothing less. Anything less is settling for mediocrity. Compromise. Taxing these data centers is just a way of saying poisoning the people and wasting resources is okay as long as we get our cut. Y'all want to solve climate change, energy crisis, animal cruelty, economic issues? Give the land back to the people who wouldn't

disrespect the land by allowing data centers in the first place. We start with the claims of the colonized and nothing less. Doing the right thing, going against the system requires bravery and I know people are brave. Kwame Ture pointed out that we can recognize injustice even as children. If our toy gets yanked out of our hands, we may not be able to put it into words, but we can recognize the injustice. He also asked an opponent, if you were a slave and I were your master and the only way for you to be free was to strike your blow to kill me, what would you do? So I ask y'all, if they

keep building the data centers when we very clearly tell them no and the only way to stop them is to take matters into our own hands what would you do because i'm starting to i'm willing to show up at their houses with pots and pans to make no next speaker is andres perez late next speaker mr brown you are done mr brown you are done next speaker is andres perez late

Next up is Andres Perez-Lete. You have three minutes. And on deck is Antonia Lopez. Hello, Hillsborough City Council. I come here today to urge you to pass a proposed temporary moratorium on new data center developments. You are very aware of how the community has rejected these facilities, and this moratorium is a necessary step in not only ensuring safety and quality of life in Hillsborough, but also rebuilding a trust that has been lost between our local government and the community.

I have lived here my whole life and seeing it be taken over by unnecessary and harmful data centers has been painful and disheartening and I know thousands of other people feel the same way. This is your golden opportunity to start making things right again. Thank you. Next up is Antonia Lopez and on deck is Dennis Morgan or Moran. Ms. Lopez, you have three minutes. Nothing says commitment to community and giving them an opportunity to be heard more than an emergency session on Monday at 9:00 AM.

Mayor Pace, what you're doing today is performative. The rush you stated already happened. You know all the applications you accepted will have to be approved if they meet the outdated land use regulations. You said this yourself. You're bound by state law. Which is why I asked you to call a state of emergency and sue the state. To which what Chad's response was, he didn't think the residents of Hillsboro would want to spend money on a lawsuit. I can't think of anything they would prefer to...

spend taxpayer monies on than ensuring our future generations' well-being. I've come to recognize the value you have to the community as a case study. Someone who comes from a marginalized community but whose white supremacist tactics supersedes that lived experience. The level of cognitive dissonance is something that merits a study.

You are so disconnected from the community, you can't even see how the community views you. The community does not support your policies, your positions, or your decisions. Thank you for publicly endorsing City Council candidates, because now we know who we need to stay away from. The people that are coming from the Chamber of Commerce that literally just stood up here and were against this. I said it before, you have a pattern. This is just another example of you doing the same performative and it's insulting.

Again, the applications that came in will be approved if they meet outdated land use regulations. I'm asking you again to enact a state of emergency and sue the state. Our community would rather use our taxpayer dollars to safeguard our environment, our future, than the $90 million you're spending on a new building for the police department. This is, again, a repeat. You are a creature of habit.

This is again a repeat of what you did for immigration. You wait until the last minute and then you pivot and the pivot is so fake. You sit here and act like this is going to do something. Chad, you know it's not. This isn't going to stop the applications. You and I spoke about this and you said that something happened with the

With a data center that caused harm to the community, that then you guys would enact further regulations for that specific corporation. You said that. I told you that that was, don't shake your head, I don't lie. I told you that that was putting a band-aid on a bullet hole. I asked you, what if someone dies? Well, we don't know that that's going to happen. And I said, well, we don't know that it's not. This does nothing, do not let them fool you. Next up is Dennis Moran.

I'm surprised that the rich CEO that's a mayor is a terrible leader. Mr. Brown, we ask that you not speak while people are coming up. Please do not interrupt. Thank you. Mr. Moran, you have three minutes. And on deck is Elise Fast. Thank you for this opportunity to speak.

I don't have a prepared statement, but I'm going to speak from the heart as a union carpenter and working on the administrative side for some of the largest contractors in the Pacific Northwest and before I retired, one of the largest general contractors in the world. Let me tell you the hard truth about these construction workers. History of construction in Hillsboro is a great predictor of what it's going to be in the future.

These electricians that work on these tech projects are called travelers. They don't live in Hillsboro. They don't live in Washington County. They don't offset our property taxes. I get very emotional about this because I'm a third-generational citizen of Washington County. Where has this council been from the beginning?

the amount of property taxes that you have forgiven in the last 10 years and what you're projecting in the next 10 years is in the billions of dollars. Do you realize that Liberty High School is the poorest performing high school in all of Oregon? You know, I'm a numbers guy.

Do the numbers. What you're doing is egregious to the citizens that live here in Washington County. If you add up all of the property taxes that the homeowners pay in Hillsboro and Washington County, the number...

taxes you have forgiven far exceeds that amount. Think about that. Do the numbers. Numbers don't lie, but liars will figure. I get very emotional about this because I've been a homeowner for 50 years and property taxes have outpaced, they have outpaced incomes.

50 to 1 and the state workers don't see the increase in wages. You people don't see the increase in wages. It's strategies and programs that you're developing that have the direct impact on

the residents of Hillsboro and Washington County. I could go into the environmental damage. Are you aware that they contaminate the soil underneath these projects forever? Are you aware of the hundreds of thousands of tons of powdered cement that they till into the soil? The entire acreage that they use is contaminated not for a few years, not for a few generations, forever.

I'm sorry if I give really emotion about this, but what you're doing is egregious. Next up is Elise Fast, and on deck is Gwen Lilly. Elise, welcome, you have three minutes.

I'm here to add my support for the data center moratorium. We want this moratorium, but the moratorium is only written for three months. I urge you to not only approve the moratorium, but then to extend it indefinitely. That way, should the desire arise to end the moratorium in the future, there's plenty of time to do the following before the moratorium is responsibly lifted.

Number one, do thorough independent studies on the current and projected environmental and economic impact specific to Hillsboro. Number two, require corporations that are vying for our land to testify in front of residents. The burden of proof is on these corporations to prove their worth to us, not the other way around.

Number three, determine strict environmental requirements, minimum jobs requirements, maximum impact on the power grid, minimum electric rate the PG&E should charge them, double the resident rate or higher, minimum economic benefit to our community, and lay on the taxes. We want full school funding. We want grants, small business support, arts funding, low income housing, health care and child care.

Smart business sense is to recognize that we have what they want, that invaluable fiber optic cable thing that's not going anywhere. We hold the cards and we set the terms. And to be clear, we don't ever have to sell. If we decide no price is high enough in exchange for our land and our health, we can just say no.

Number four, write and establish laws and regulations that enforce all of these requirements. This means there are regular independent audits and if at any point the data center's advertised environmental impact is exceeded or they do not adhere to their promised statistics of long-term well-paying jobs, significant financial damages and deadlines for adherence to these requirements will be swiftly pursued and enforced by law enforcement.

And number five, hold town meetings with plenty of notice and give the residents of Hillsborough a voice before the moratorium is lifted and where data centers are approved.

I don't believe three months is long enough for all of these things to take place. Therefore, I think the moratorium should be indefinite to give enough time for the aforementioned independent localized Hillsborough studies, town meetings where Hillsborough residents' opinions make a difference, data center applicants publicly making their case in front of residents for why we should sell them our precious land, creating strict requirements for environmental responsibility, jobs, and economic benefit, and passing laws that enforce all of these requirements.

Furthermore, I think any applications that were ushered in the door in the year 2026 should undergo as many of these same requirements as possible. Require the corporations to appear at a public council meeting and present their benefit to the community and incur a hefty fee if they do not. Ensure that any laws that are established in the coming months apply to existing data centers and ones scheduled to be built. Get creative on our behalf, not on theirs. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is Gwen Lilly and on deck is Jerry Willie. Don't forget that Hillsborough City had to pay $90,000 after a discrimination lawsuit. Gwen, you have three minutes. Mr. Brown, please do not interrupt the proceedings. Thank you. You interrupted me. You do it. This is your second warning and the third warning I'll ask you to leave. Thank you very much. Gwen, you have three minutes. Thank you. Thank you.

This is my first time speaking at a meeting, and I wish I had a little bit more time to prepare, but I wanted to give a relevant reminder. You guys, as elected officials, are conduits for the voices of your constituents. We tell you our wants and needs, and you serve us.

Sinclair understood this when she helped gather nearly 5,000 signatures of local people that understood the irreversible ecological and societal damage we're at risk of bringing to Hillsboro. Even when I speak to the minority of my neighbors who are open to data center development, they still express a need for clean water.

For a healthy environment for themselves and their children, for effective safety programs, and a strong opposition for tax breaks to billion dollar companies. If you don't do the bare minimum by approving this moratorium, you'll be allowing devastating damage to the wildlife that brought me to this beautiful state, ignoring the needs of your constituents and betraying your neighbors.

As a parting message, more and more people in this community and across the country are waking up to the fact that their elected officials don't have their best interests in mind. And you can see in movements large and small across the nation, people have realized their own power. We can remove politicians who seek only to line their pockets and grow their ego. Instead, we now choose to elect officials who fight with us.

So when you sit up there and vote today and in all future meetings, just know the people of Hillsboro are watching and we see which one you are. Thank you. Next up is Jerry Willie and on deck is Jacob Roloff. Good morning, Mayor and Council. Welcome, you have three minutes. Thank you. Jerry Willie, I am speaking for myself. I'm a Washington County Commissioner.

And I am speaking on my personal side. I have not talked to my commission about testifying here today. I just wanted to encourage you on this resolution and taking 120 days to evaluate the process to determine all of the real facts because there's a lot of inaccuracy that's being communicated.

uh... and so i appreciate the fact that you're willing to uh... hit the pause button for the hundred and twenty days i would ask that you separate the battery storage uh... facilities from that conversation in that it's different considerably different than your data center uh... conversation so uh... when you're doing that

Keep in mind that the battery storage facilities are here to help us keep our energy prices down and keep us being able to actually turn on the lights rather than brownouts. We have a serious energy shortage and crisis, not just because of the data centers, but because our national electrical system

communication is is old and needs to be certainly considered by the feds so we're just a little piece of this the battery storage facilities actually are going to help us I think facilitate and minimize that as and keep in mind that

This is why we have the three different rate structures for energy that we use in our own homes and how expensive it is from 5 o'clock to 9 o'clock at night. And it's because we do have too much demand there and battery facilities will, I think, help alleviate that. So thank you for your time today. Appreciate this. Next up is Jacob Roloff.

And on deck is Melanie Bond. Jacob, you have three minutes. Good morning, Jacob Roloff, speaking in support of this moratorium. It's a good thing you guys are holding this vote only six months or far longer for some folks after residents have been saying this is necessary and two months after Councillor Sinclair requested one under the emergency that it is.

I certainly support this move as I have said at other council meetings and although I could not in the last 23 hours read the entire 580 page document attached to this resolution, I saw some of the environmental studies near the bottom and I find it insane that there are still 500 some odd acres allotted for potential data center development in Hillsboro.

The point of a moratorium is to stop data centers because they harm the community as proved by the attached studies and not to make sure some venture capitalists realize their investments and speculations.

Especially as Leif mentioned earlier, the bubble grows and the fallout looms. In the affected industries section, I don't think farmland was mentioned despite agriculture being our number two state industry and a huge part of Hillsborough's way of life generally. A lot of formerly unincorporated farmland is now industrialized with these intensive extractive data centers.

There are two data centers listed in the documents that are described as not in review for permitting, but the land has been purchased. I think this moratorium should apply to those two sites. And further, there are about five sites that are in review for permitting, and those also should be challenged once the moratorium is passed today, or reviewed in light of the moratorium. I'd be perfectly happy for the city to use some of their $55 million in CFSF funds to defend against potential litigation.

Also wanted to note that it doesn't seem that 120 days is enough time to conduct robust environmental studies. As a farmer, you generally have to wait a year. You watch the seasons come and go. You watch two of them maybe, and then you know what's going on. I hope this council does not rush those studies through and that they extend this moratorium at the earliest possible time.

I echo Michael M's statement about closed-loop cooling being a distracting PR term to the actually existing water footprint of these data centers and the broader effects that will take time to investigate across counties and cities. This is one of those resolutions that is the absolute bare minimum, a step zero starting point, and is only happening because of constant pressures from the people that attend these councils and despite the non-existence of political will on council.

This too will not cleanse the abysmal record for most of you on data centers when elections come around this year and in 2028.

I support the inclusion of BESS in this moratorium because at the moment our grid is pushed to its limit from data center draw and they are being built to supplement that parasitic industry and not communities or people. Any new facilities should be explicitly for community resiliency and batteries are necessary for green energy build out but they become useless when data centers eliminate all gains and storage from their intensive draw. Thanks. Next up is Melanie Bond.

And after that we'll take a break because we've been going for 90 minutes. Melanie, you have three minutes. Press the center button there and you have three minutes. There you go. Thank you. I'll get right to the point. This council has a moral and ethical imperative to pass this moratorium. Its importance to our community cannot be overstated.

Yes, this is about the health of our economy and the health of our environment, upon which these data centers have a demonstrably negative impact. This is about our lives. This is about flock cameras. This is about ICE using the data stored in these centers to come after our community, to kidnap people who don't look like them, don't sound like them, and don't think like them.

We know that corporations are collecting data from us to learn where we live and work, where we shop, where we eat, when we sleep, how much we exercise. They know our habits and tendencies and what books we read and how much we can afford to spend on food. Billionaires have used this information to sell us shit we don't need and the idea of a lifestyle we can never truly achieve. Ma'am, please do not curse. Thank you. Please do not curse.

Now that they've used this information to maximize their own profits, they've started auctioning it off to the highest bidder. And who has the buying power to win the bid every time? The federal government.

This is about job loss to AI, about the destruction of the land we call home, about poisoning our water and air. It is also about collecting our online communications and using that data against us. Data that is being stored in giant warehouses in our backyards.

And if you, dear counselors, think that sitting up there is going to protect you from the boot that is coming down on the people in this country, you are sorely mistaken. Most of us are familiar with Martin Niemöller's post-World War II quote condemning the Holocaust.

What many people don't know is that before the war, Niemöller supported radical right-wing ideology. He was deeply politically conservative and a professed anti-Semite. But when the Nazis started going after Protestants, the German minister spoke out against the Nazification of congregations in his home country, and he subsequently spent eight years, from 1938 to 1945, in the death camp at Dachau, the one used specifically to hold political dissidents and Nazi opponents.

First they came needs an update. First they came for the immigrants and I did not speak out because I was not an immigrant. Then they came for the trans community and I did not speak out because I was not trans. They came for the socialists and I did not speak out because I was not a socialist. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.

These data centers are a direct manifestation of authoritarian capitalists coming after their detractors. Stop selling our land to the people who are trying to ruin our lives. We are watching what you do. Every single one of you. Thank you.

We'll take a 10-minute break and come back at 10:43. Thank you. We'll bring the meeting back, get started again. Okay, next person up. We're going to continue with public comment.

Next up, I'll announce the name in a minute. Just get settled here. So we have quite a bit more public comment. I will announce that we're not going to be taking any more cards. Okay, so I'm going to cut off the card submission, but we will hear from the rest of the folks that have already submitted cards. Aubrey, are you good? Okay. All right. So next up is Al Weibel, and on deck is Sam.

Mayor, can I just have a quick question? Sure. When was it decided and who decided not to take any more yellow cards? I decided it because quite a few of us have taken time off of work and we need to get back.

AND PEOPLE HAVE SUBMITTED THEIR CARDS. THERE HASN'T BEEN A LOT OF SUBMISSIONS FOR ABOUT 30 MINUTES. SO I'M GOING TO CUT IT OFF AND WE'LL DEFINITELY HEAR THE REST OF THESE THOUGH. ABSOLUTELY. ARE YOU JUST BASING IT ON WE'VE ONLY GOTTEN THESE MANY CARDS AND WE'RE NOT GOING TO GET ANYMORE? IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO BASE IT ON? WE'VE BEEN GETTING THEM TRICKLING IN AND IT'S BEEN 30 MINUTES SINCE THE LAST SUBMISSION. SO I WAS GOING TO CUT IT OFF SINCE THERE HASN'T BEEN ANY SUBMISSIONS.

I'M RETIRED AND I'M HAPPY TO STAY HERE AS LONG AS PEOPLE WANT TO TALK. THANKS SO MUCH. NEXT UP IS AL WEIBEL. ON DECK IS SAM. TO THE POINT WE'RE TALKING ABOUT WITH THE PUBLIC COMMENT CARDS, IS IT POSSIBLE TO ASK IF THERE'S ANY CURRENT CARDS AND THAT WOULD BE LAST CALL SINCE THE PUBLIC WAS NOT AWARE OF THAT? SURE. IF YOU WANT TO SPEAK, PLEASE SUBMIT YOUR CARD AND THEN THAT'S IT.

Okay, and Al Weibel you're up. Okay one second Sam you're on deck and sir if you could press the center button on the console and You have three minutes sir. Thank you very much. Yes, sir a lot of my comments are actually what I've heard neighbors and friends comment on one of them this meeting a couple people have kind of said it's akin to having a meeting

discussing the pros and cons of locks on your door the week after your house has been looted. And I just pass that on. I'm a little sympathetic with that comment. Another item, I'm sure that everyone who has voted for and against over the past year

years or so on data centers and their ilk, learned enough about it to know that these systems will be obsolete within 10 years. And not only just the internal material obsolete, but the whole construction design of the building will be obsolete as technology changes. And so we've seen...

25-year tax benefits going to something that's going to have a lifespan of maybe 10 years. It just seems a little curious. A comment on labor and construction labor. Given the number of residents of Washington County that would be involved, the taxpayers would benefit greatly from

if instead of building these things, those local laborers, the taxpayers just put them on salary for the equivalent amount of time. It would come to just a fraction of the cost of what the taxpayers are having to cover with these subsidies, welfare payments. And a couple of comments on batteries. The battery facilities

Not all things are equal. PGE has battery facilities. They are a utility and they're regulated, but in unincorporated Washington County and a lot of the ones that are proposed, they are private corporations. They are here to maximize profit for the shareholders, which is what they do. I don't know whether you've read any of their finance reports, but

but a lot of the break on how profitable these things are they sell it peak load which is maximum price and they factor in the subsidies the welfare they get uh... by not paying local taxes and some of them are bragging about fifteen and twenty percent return on investment to that so p_g_e_ another utilities building them that's one category to consider

The other category to consider is just the pure... Your time is up. Next person up. Next person is Sam, and on deck is Angene Banuelos Balaños. Sam, welcome. You have three minutes. Thank you. Thank you all for being here on such short notice and considering this temporary moratorium. Here's hoping we get a permanent one soon.

Any moratorium on data centers and battery energy storage system developments must include already approved or permitted sites that are not yet built or started, including those who apply or who have not yet applied. In order to minimize harm done to our community, these projects must wait for results of impact studies and regulations before they are built.

They don't create jobs for our community. They remove jobs and replace them with AI. This is not an inevitability. We need our water. We don't need to give it away to increase the profits of billionaires and trillionaires who also just so happen to possess significant ownership over Portland General Electric.

We must protect our resources. Please listen to your community begging you to stop giving away our resources that our community needs to live. Land, air, and water. Thank you. Next up, Anjanay Banuelos-Pelaños, and on deck is Stephen Archibald.

All right, good morning. My name is Anjanette Benuelos-Balanos. I am a representative for La Lluna 737. We represent roughly 2,800 union members across the state of Oregon, with 178 of them being union apprentices and over 100 people on the ready to dispatch list waiting for their first job as a union apprentice. I'm also a graduate of Oregon Tradeswoman's Pre-Apprenticeship Program and my union apprenticeship program.

I joined the trade 17 years ago, but what I'm most proud about is my 19 years of sobriety. When I joined the trade, I was looking for an opportunity to become a productive member of society after being released from incarceration.

An Oregon tradeswoman in pre-apprenticeship program in my union apprenticeship did that. I was able to gain skills that allowed me to grow my career. To hear that these jobs are temporary is just not true. Without working on projects like the ones that we were talking about today, I would not be able to have the career I have now.

There was not many opportunities for people like me. While I appreciate the council's desire to safeguard the local resources, a blanket memorandum is not the best tool for this complex issue. Land use and infrastructure decisions need to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis, not through a broad one-size-fits-all.

Furthermore, data centers and battery storages should be decouped and evaluated independently as each present entirely different operational needs, environmental consideration, and community benefits. A blanket memorandum will not eliminate the demand for modern digital infrastructure. It simply pushes the development into neighbor jurisdictions

and states. Currently, my members are working out of state due to the current business environments of the state. My adult child is one of them. He's a fourth generation union laborer and when that happens, our region loses local controls, environmental oversights, tax revenue, and family wage jobs and benefits. It affects all aspects of our community. People move to where the work is and when they move, school enrollment goes down, property taxes are affected as well.

Rather than closing the door to development, we encourage the council to utilize proven tools like project labor agreements, community benefit agreements, where people will gain family wage jobs, which is different than living wage jobs.

They also gain full family medical lifelong trade skills that in return turns into careers. So please vote no on resolution number 2932 and choose proactive coalition building over a blanket member and thank you for your time and consideration. Thank you. Next up is Steven Archibald and on deck is Matthew Van Horn. Steven, welcome. Your mic is on. As soon as you start speaking, you have three minutes.

Hello, my name is Steven Archwald. You know you've done something wrong when you've got people young and old and I

anyone really from Democrats to Republicans complaining about this type of thing across the country. There is no party that is in support of this. There is a minority of people that are benefiting from this. This is corporations. This is not even every data center that will benefit because this is a risky bet from these data centers. They do not know if this will pay off. They do not know if people will say, I want to use AI today. I want to go on chat GPT. They don't know.

We don't know how AI will be used and we cannot make decisions about building all of these permanent fixtures in our community if we're not sure whether we need them. They're a permanent stain and they would cost more money to get rid of.

this is just hurting us, you know, everything that everyone has said, it's really obvious that we don't want this. But if we're going to have it, don't we want it to at least be profitable? And it's not. We're not making money off of this. Only a small handful of companies are making money off of this. Of course, PGE is making money off of this because they want to sell their energy. They want to, when people aren't awake, they want to sell the energy at night. They want to be able to make money. Of course, they're in support of this. Of course, they want us to listen to the shareholders.

But I say we slow down

impose the moratorium, let's do this, and let's listen to the people because that's the real thing that matters here, the actual people. It doesn't matter how much money we're making. We're not even making money. That's the thing. It's the funniest thing ever. All these people are saying, "Yeah, it's going to give us so many jobs," but it's not. And we all know that. But, you know, if you want to debate me on that, you can figure it out. That's what the moratorium should be for. Figure out, is it going to make us money?

Let's also figure out how we can make it safe for people if we are going to do this. I'm not saying put it in someone else's neighborhood. I'm saying put it out of our neighborhoods. Put it in somewhere, like everywhere. We don't need it in any neighborhood anywhere. Let's put it somewhere where we can make sure that it is safe.

and it is not beyond its means. Like people were saying, there's excesses here. We don't need all of these data centers. So let's be smart about this, you know? And it took you six months to get to this point where we could have a moratorium. Let's give ourselves six months or more to figure out what to do because it's taken us so long. You know, you're all sitting here and it's been...

time and time again, my friends, you know, like, why do I have to be here? That's my question. You know, why do we all have to be here? And we're all angry and we're all frustrated, and that's what leads to us all yelling and getting mad about this stuff. But we shouldn't have to apologize for that. It should be you guys apologizing to us for the fact that we've had to come here. You know, if I worked the morning shift today, I could not be here because I didn't have two weeks.

Thank you. Thank you. Next up is Matthew Van Horn, and on deck is Denise Kerr. Matthew, your mic is on. Welcome. You have three minutes. Thank you. Good morning, Council. My name is Matthew Van Horn, and I am a lifelong citizen of Hillsborough, Oregon. Fortunately, I was able to attend this meeting today despite its last-minute announcement and inconvenient timing that almost feels deliberate. How is anyone with a full-time job supposed to attend? But I suppose it's a miracle this meeting is happening at all.

Data centers are a leech on the communities that they inhabit. They use our water, our land, and our power, then rub salt in the wound by forcing us, the people, to pay for the resources. They are rampant pollutants that will destroy Hillsborough's environment if we continue to build them. The blatantly detrimental effects of data centers have been known for some time now and have already started to affect our communities. I fully support a moratorium on data centers. It is the absolute bare minimum you can be doing as a council.

However, I also believe that the way this moratorium is written is extremely flawed. You've given us 120 days to deliberate. I mean, like my friend said, it took us six months to even get to the point where we can have this meeting. So how is 120 days supposed to be enough for us to make an informed decision? We need at least a year, and that's being conservative with the amount of time we're taking. You've heard a lot of testimony that has asked you to think about the investors and think about the shareholders.

your job is to be thinking about the people, it's infuriating to see my community constantly ignored in favor of generous checks from corporations that, if we're honest, would rather us be pacified or dead. The people are begging you, begging you to at the very least pass this moratorium. It's the least you could do. And they're right for being desperate for it because we just, we need it. And it's a shame that it's taken this long to even consider it.

Consider this as an opportunity to redeem yourselves in the eyes of the community, your bosses, as you are public servants. Also, consider this as an opportunity to do what is morally right for your community, even if, for you, it might be less profitable. The younger generation is watching very closely. Thank you. Next up is Denise Kerr, and on deck is Tracy Schultz.

I'M GOING TO START WITH THE ETHICS.

And the playbook, you know, we've seen this playbook before with playing with the timing, running out the clock, and it's like a football play. I mean, you guys just go, which one should we do today? B, eight, nine? Also, the recent approval of having only one reading to be enough readings, I think that just opens a doorway for something slick to be pushed through without anybody knowing it.

Let's see, I like to say something about the theatrics of democracy. Everyone's sort of playing a game here, really, because it's a foregone conclusion that you've already made these agreements with people before anybody catches wind of it. And then I want to talk a little bit about background information.

You know, I would really like to know where you were born and how you were raised so I can better understand your perspective and value system. Same with Calaway, same with Hammond, same with old Diaz. It just goes on and on. Why are you guys hiding?

Why are you hiding? You have some application that scrubs that, and I don't know what you're hiding. It helps me to better understand you. Maybe it's something you don't want people to know. Maybe you were raised in a very, very privileged, affluent family. I don't know. I'd like to know where you went to grade school. Stuff like that. It matters to me.

Now I'm going to go on to the people you've been catering to for the last 15 to 20 years have been people who we would consider to be newcomers. Some people consider them to be transients. Other people perhaps consider them to be nomads, here to make a quick buck and then to get out of town.

But what you've done is you've destroyed the ambience of this town. In your desire to make your new people happy, you have damaged and destroyed all of the landmarks and...

Traditional events of the people who have existed here for decades and decades such as my family and my mother and my grandmother and my great grandmother and my great great grandmother and yes even my great great great grandmother. That's all I have time for but you guys are killing the local culture. Next up is Tracy Schultz and on deck is Ross Schwartendruber.

Tracy, welcome. The mic is on. And when you start speaking, you have three minutes. Good morning, Mayor and Council. My name is Tracy Schultz, and I urge you to approve the moratorium. The decision is not about whether technology is good or bad. It's about the responsible governance of this committee.

Hillsboro has become one of the nation's fastest growing data center hubs. The pace of the development has outstripped our community's ability to understand its long-term consequences. A moratorium is a responsible planning tool. A local government can study emerging issues, update regulations, and ensure future development projects

are in the public interest. That's exactly what we need here. Residents deserve answers about cumulative impacts

not just the impacts of individual projects, but we need clear understanding of long-term water damage, electrical infrastructure, noise, emergency generations of power, stormwater management, wetlands, wildlife habitat, our native oak preservation, transportation, and the fiscal impacts of the tax incentives. We cannot resolve this in 120 days.

These issues deserve careful analysis before we can approve anything else. Approving the moratorium does not stop economic development. It creates the time necessary to establish thoughtful, predictable, and transparent rules that protect residents, businesses, and future investments alike. Good planning provides certainty for everyone.

I also ask the Council to ensure that this process include robust public engagement. The community should have meaningful opportunity to review technical studies, understand fiscal impacts, and participate before permanent regulations are adopted. Transparency builds public confidence, and regardless of where people stand on the issue.

Today's vote is not one of convenience. It is the beginning of more important discussions. Thank you for your time. Thank you. Next up is Ross Schwarzengruber, and on deck is Helen Krieger. Welcome, sir. You have three minutes. Thank you very much. My name is Ross Schwarzengruber, and I'm representing the Willamette Valley Neighbors. We are a Salem-based organization addressing livability issues in the Willamette Valley neighborhood.

Our main issue right now is addressing the upstream and downstream harms of big tech. And that includes social media addiction, data privacy violations, surveillance, and quite a few other things. Those are being handled now in the legislature, so we'll have those in the session, 2027. And we're looking for the upstream harms now to start concentrating on those.

So thank you very much for this opportunity to talk about a moratorium. We would like this idea to carry throughout the valley. Since the developers have started to give up on Hillsboro, they are invading other virgin territories in the valley. Salem is scheduled for a Veris project. The signatory on the pre-application is Alderstone. Alderstone LLC.

This is a special purpose vehicle. These are the collateralized debt obligations of the housing bubble. So as we continue to allow the big investment bankers and private equity to outsource all of our community money, I'd like to remind you what happened in the last week.

NVIDIA offered OpenAI $250 billion to keep their business going. Meta offered Anthropic all the compute that they want. Anthropic is the main client of Verus in their Lion Township project in Michigan that has also not been approved yet. They are on their fourth conditional approval agreement. And to end all of this,

Blackstone and BlackRock CEOs just resigned. Why do you think that is? Do you know who the major investors are in PGE and all of these other companies? Think about this. This thing is popping and we're all gonna be holding the bag while these special purpose vehicles who are LLCs, the one in Salem, just put up their website this morning.

And they signed the agreement in March. So if they can't build a website, how can they build an AI center? Thank you. Next up is Helen Krieger. And on deck is Finn Vining. Good morning, Council and Mayor Pace. I have very short things to say. One is please, please, please.

proceed with voting yes on the moratorium and longer if possible at all. 120 days is just not enough.

The second thing that I want to say is I think we've become so focused on data centers that we have forgotten to look outside that box, look into other ways that we can bring development to Hillsboro. This weekend there was a wonderful sustainability fair sponsored in part by the city. It was absolutely beautiful. The engagement with people was tremendous.

So why don't we look into things that can help us be even more sustainable than just holding fairs? Let's look into things like developing a really state-of-the-art recycling center on some of our industrial land. It's sorely needed.

lot of our recycling the way pick up at the curb. Oh, it feels good, but the reality of it is that it's contaminated and it gets rejected and it goes out to landfills. So let's think outside of the box, put a moratorium on more data centers and expand the livability of our city. Thank you. So next up we have Mr. Finn Vining and on deck we have Jonathan Allen Palmer.

Finn, your mic is on. Welcome. You have three minutes. When I grow old, will I tell my grandchildren, or when I tell my grandchildren about my life, am I going to tell them about the stories I have when I was an adult, when I'm in college, when I'm doing all this fun stuff? Or will I tell them about the memory of what a forest is and what a field is or what a nice piece of farmland is? How can I, as a growing person, have faith in my community to last?

When my children tell me, "Hey, Finn, I want to draw and I want to create," as my mother did before me, as my grandfather and my grandmother did before me, as my great-grandfather did before me, and as I did, will I tell them that they should go and pursue that passion, or should I tell them that that's a fun idea, but maybe we should change it because we have AI to do that for us now?

You guys have said a couple times now that AI will be, or building these data centers will be making jobs. So I guess I should not be worried about those artistic jobs and that, you know, I'm silly for that. Let's just forget that because we'll have a couple temporary jobs where we have construction workers, maybe maintenance workers. So who cares for artistic creativity? Am I right?

As I grow older and begin to go to college, I ask myself not what am I passionate about, I ask myself what will last. My mother, a graphic designer, I can't follow in her footsteps because we will have data centers and AI to do that for me. My father, a software engineer, why would I follow that? Because that's going to be replaced by AI as well. As I look back at my high school experience, one of the things that I found myself very passionate about was film.

For my senior project, I created a short comedy film and I loved every minute of it. Writing it, filming it, producing it, editing it, everything. I loved it. And if I could do anything for a job in a heartbeat, it would be that. But why would I ever pursue something like that when we have AI to do that for us now, you know?

pretty soon if we have these companies that are just, or these movies that are just produced by AI because it's just going to be way cheaper. Why would I ever pursue my passion when I know there's such a slim job for me to make it? When you guys go home, I just ask you, please think about what is my future and what are my children's futures going to look like? Why would I ever pursue my passions when you guys were able to protect your pockets by making some data centers here? You know?

I will say everybody else has said thank you for having you guys listen to us, but I will say thank you when you actually hear us. Have a good one. Next up is Jonathan Allen Palmer, and on deck is Jody Clark Lampa. Hello, my name is Jonathan Allen Palmer, and I'm in support of this, whatchamacallit, I forget what.

But I'm a professional poor person and I'm all about the environment and whatnot, but I've been told by a little birdie that like data centers and whatnot increase utility bills and water bills and all that fun stuff. And my mom, paycheck, paycheck, two jobs, single, and we have about zero dollars left at the end of every month, so a lot of money to spend on whatever. But...

HIGHER BILLS FROM THOSE WOULD RUIN US. I COME HOME AND EVERY NOW AND THEN ON THE DOOR THERE'S TAPE ON THE DOOR THAT YOU GUYS OWE $400 TO THE WATER COMPANY, YOUR WATER IS GOING TO GET SHUT OFF IN TWO DAYS, YOU DON'T PAY IT. I IMAGINE GOING UP IN THAT, I'M GOING TO BE LIVING ON FOOD STAMPS. MY WATER PRESSURE IS ALREADY A COIN TOSS AND SCHOOL DISTRICT IS IN THE TOILET. WHAT ARE THESE DATA CENTERS DOING FOR US?

And I have a lot of blue collar family and whatnot as well. I was just over at them in Rainier. I had to come here at five in the morning. And they all oppose it. I don't think I've heard a single construction worker from my family that's been like, yeah, I love data centers, other than these representatives somewhere behind me that have been saying that these things are dope. And that's all I have to say about that, as Forrest Gump would say. Thank you. Thank you.

Next up is Jody Clark-Lompa, and on deck is Ahmed. Jody. Okay, the mic's already on. Yes, welcome. You have three minutes. My name is Jody Clark-Lompa. I wasn't planning on speaking today, but you guys just bring it out in me. I'm going to address healthy environments. That is what worries me right now about the data centers and our community. And it's not even the...

health concerns about the junk they put out, but the health of our community, the emotional health, the psychological health. We have been put in a position where we have to be angry, we have to fight our leaders who we expect to listen to us. This, the data centers have not been good for us. We have to fight them, but we don't want to have to fight you.

We want you to have the integrity we believed you had when we put you in these positions. We want to have the trust that your thoughts are for our best interests, not for a corporation that makes billions of dollars. Maybe some of that money that we're saving for them could go to, let's say, senior property tax abatement.

I would go for that. I would also go more for the public comment. I know you are so tired. I know, oh Elizabeth, you get so tired of listening to me. I'm so tired of being here. I was supposed to be at work today. 24-hour notice? I'm trying. I'm trying.

But you're not helping us. We waited months to even have a moratorium put in front of us and we get 24 hours to be prepared for this? We're tired, but we're not so tired we're going to quit coming. We are going to keep coming and after data centers there will be other things, but we'd rather be working with you on them than fighting you. I just want you to consider what you're doing to the community.

We want to be here. We've been here much longer than many of you. And we've supported a lot of things that have changed. We don't like everything, and that's okay. It is hard to build a city, but to break a community is becoming easier every day. You need to watch us. We are leaders in our own right, too.

So I'm going to ask that you consider the public health of what is happening. And I'm going to go now. Thank you. Next up is Ahmed. Your mic is on. As soon as you start speaking, you have three minutes. On deck is Kareem Delgado. Good morning.

I hadn't intended to speak this morning. First and foremost, I want to commend the citizens of Hillsboro. You guys are very passionate. You come out, you do the work, you make your feelings known, and you speak to your representatives. I want to thank Councilor Alcara, Councilor Avery, Mayor Pace, Councilor Harris, Councilor Sinclair,

I'd like to thank the city manager and the city attorney because you all sit there and you look at us when we're talking to you as you requested that we sit here and look at you. And I want to ask Elizabeth Case to stop doing whatever she's doing unless it's critical and look at the people that elected you. Thank you all for what you do. You come here and you get criticized all the time. I can't imagine that you're enjoying this.

but I do believe you have the best interests of the city in mind. I know this must be difficult for you, and it's difficult for us as citizens to try to get across to you what we want. You guys live here too. You've got families, and I don't think you guys are making millions of dollars. I could be wrong. If you are, I'm going to run for council. Nevertheless, let me say this in closing. This is important. These data center issues are very important.

The citizens have made their positions known. Please do what you can. Do what you have to do to address the issues at hand. But don't forget, ICE is still out there. Donald Trump is trying to erase citizenship for American citizens. There's still other things going on. Do this, but don't be totally distracted. There's a lot of things happening. There's a lot for us to deal with. There's a lot for you to deal with.

Thank you for what you do, and thanks to the citizens of Hillsborough. Thank you. Okay. Next up is Kareem Delgado. Mr. Delgado, your mic is on. You have three minutes when you start speaking. On deck is Carter Calhoun. Thanks so much.

So I don't have a lot to say that hasn't already been said by folks here. I want to appreciate all of you guys for showing up and being here. I want to appreciate all of the individuals who are in the audience. I'm heartened by the young people, the unemployed, the disabled, the retirees, and everyone else who showed up here today to represent the larger working class community who couldn't afford to take the time off. You know,

I just got a few stray thoughts. So first up, I understand the virtues of paternalism. I too think that I know better than everybody else. But it should kind of give any public servant pause to see such a diverse group of people from the communities you represent disagree with you. If data centers are so valuable, why do we need so many of them to fill our coffers? Why are we staking so much of our economic viability on new and presently unregulated infrastructure all from a single industry?

In my business, if I had a single customer, that customer would be my boss. There are plenty of businesses that you could be investing in for the future of Hillsborough's local economy. They may be too small for you to see behind these buildings. We're not anti-business. I'm a small business owner. There are struggling small businesses throughout our city pleading with this council for help while they drown in rising fees, permit delays, and a lack of city investment. And my last thought is for my union brothers and sisters.

who benefit in the near term from the construction and electrification of these buildings. I beg all of you to look to your left and right and see who your allies are in this. They are the same businesses and organizations with their hands in your pockets. As a major supporter of unions, I know how detestable we all find it when someone crosses the picket lines for their own chance at a paycheck to the detriment of their community.

I ask the members of unions for whom your leadership is on record supporting this sprawl to consider on which side of the picket lines your leaders have positioned you. I know it matters to you or else you wouldn't be union. Your leadership is selling your allegiance to the same masters that exist, that they exist to defend you against. I encourage you to use the power of your numbers to let them know how you feel about that. That's all I have for that. So I'm going to spend the last 30 seconds just saying that I think, um,

It's interesting to me that there has been so much public outcry that has shifted this council's views over time. I think that is indicative of both the responsiveness of the council, so I appreciate the fact that the council is actually listening to folks. I hope that you guys listen a little sooner. And that's it. Thank you so much. - Thank you. Next up is Carter Calhoun.

Your mic is on, and as soon as you start speaking, you have three minutes. Thank you. My name is Carter, and I'm speaking in support of the moratorium, and I am recommending an indefinite expansion of the time given. You are elected to represent us, but you have not gained our trust. You've already put bad tastes in our mouths, so you should probably quit while you're ahead and listen to us.

And if you really wanted to, then you should have done so months ago. But you had pennies on your eyes. If somehow, someway you don't approve this moratorium, you will lose the little hope we still have in you, and it will surely show next election cycle. You have proven time and time again your lack of respect for us, so quit acting so damn oppressed when someone talks out of order because they don't want to listen to your lies. If you have any common decency, you'd side with morality over the law in every scenario.

If this is something me and all my teenage friends have deemed important enough to show up for at 9 a.m., then you should probably listen. You're going to continue to destroy our environment and contribute to rising temperatures, all while some experts have already deemed it too late. But I'm sure you've heard that one already. I am in full support of a temporary moratorium, but only six months? Come on. Bare minimum, a year. Ultimate goal, permanence.

And please, please involve your constituents more in these processes. We are the ones voting for you and putting you up there, so we should be the ones having a say in what happens in our community. Come to the people who you serve first, and don't be so giddy at the sight of an NDA and a pile of cash. I urge you, do not fuck this up. Thanks to everyone who provided testimony today. Staff, are there any comments on the testimony or any additional staff information to provide? No, Mayor.

Okay. Do I have a motion to close or continue the hearing? Motion to close the hearing? Anyone? Does council have an opportunity after public comment? Is there an opportunity after public comment that council can? Yes. At the beginning of the meeting, I discussed the order of operations. And after we close the hearing, then we will have time to discuss. Thank you. Do I have a motion to close the hearing? So moved, Danbury. Okay. Thank you. Do I have a second? Second case. Okay.

ALL THOSE IN FAVOR PLEASE SAY AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. AYE. A

This is a lot of information at once for the findings that Council received and the public received. So I'm going to do my best to do my diligence to represent the people the best to my abilities. I'd like us to consider, and I'm going to name a small list and further the conversation amongst Council. I'd like us to consider our definitions.

per resolution number 2932 for section 2A and C, I'd like us to consider AI compute, artificial intelligence be added as well as accessory to further create metrics on the scalability, the cost, and the energy.

And in addition to that, I'd like us to further talk about these studies on environmental impacts, specifically fire was mentioned as well. I'd like to talk about the plume dispersions that we can talk about greater. In addition to that, I'd like to talk about tech waste being considered for studies and as well for water for the warming effects.

And in addition to that, I'd like to ask that under the economics analysis, that under jobs created, that we add farmland and agricultural economics. And I'd also like to ask that we consider at the end of our conversations of discussions a timeline of extending the moratorium.

WELL, WE HAVEN'T EVEN PASSED IT YET. I UNDERSTAND WE HAVEN'T PASSED IT YET. IF PASSED. IF PASSED, YEAH. THANK YOU. AND BEFORE US, WHAT WE HAVE BEFORE US TODAY IS THE ACTUAL DO WE HAVE A MORATORIUM, 120-DAY MORATORIUM OR NOT. CORRECT ME IF I'M WRONG, ROBBIE, BUT THESE OTHER CONSIDERATIONS ABOUT DEFINITIONS, AI COMPUTE, STUDIES ON ENVIRONMENTAL PLUME, TECH WASTE, WATER FOR WARMING EFFECTS IN FARMLAND, THOSE CAN BE DISCUSSED DURING THE MORATORIUM SHOULD IT PASS, IS THAT CORRECT? THAT'S TRUE.

THE MORATORIUM DECISION IS TODAY FROM THE COUNCIL. ALL OF THOSE THINGS CAN COME UP IF THE COUNCIL PASSES THE MORATORIUM WE CAN DISCUSS ALL OF THOSE OTHER ITEMS AS WELL. I THINK WE CAN DISCUSS IT REGARDLESS OF WHETHER OR NOT THE MORATORIUM IS PASSED. IS THAT CORRECT? OKAY. GREAT. DOES THAT SATISFY YOU? THANK YOU FOR THE CLARITY. THANK YOU. ARE THERE ANY OTHER COMMENTS? COUNCILOR ANVERY.

Yes. How are you doing? Councillor Salgado, I'll get to you after Councillor Emery. Thank you. Thank you. So just to clarify, so the AI compute definition doesn't need to be in this to start the moratorium? And I do understand we don't have AI computes in Hillsborough. I do understand that. But still, would it need to be in?

Mayor, Council Chad Jacobs from the City Attorney's Office. So I think the definition discussion can be broken up into two different ways. First is how do you want to define these terms for the purposes of the moratorium? And then second, I believe what you were just talking about is how do we define these terms for the longer term land use regulations that Rachel Marble was talking about during her work session last week.

And so for the purposes of what Rachel was talking about, that can all be discussed later. If you want to extend the definition for the moratorium, we can work on that today. I will say that staff, we had this discussion with staff last week about, you know, do we think that the definition in the current draft covers these types of activities?

and based on the way the language is drafted we believe it does and as long as that is your intent you know and we state on the record that further supports the idea that it covers it. Now Josh Soper my colleague is also online and he's the one who helped draft a lot of this language and I can certainly defer to him as well to see if you do want to make it more clear if there's a way that we could work that language into the definition just to make it more clear if that's what the council wants to do.

Okay, yes, my concern is for just for the moratorium. And then I have another question as well, which is I think I'm hearing the testimony, I would like to see if we could remove the best from here and have a separate discussion on that, but not have that as the moratorium, in the moratorium.

just hearing the testimony from, especially from the green environmental concerns.

If that's what the Council's body desires, we can certainly do that. Given the testimony that was received as part of this process, Josh and I went ahead and put a draft together where we just removed the best in case that's what the Council wanted to do so that way you can move forward with the moratorium either way. So it's ready to go, but at the end of the day, that's a policy decision for you all to decide if you want to include the best systems within the scope of the moratorium or not.

- May I have one more question? - Yeah, go ahead. - Thank you. And then the environmental studies that are specific to Hillsborough, when would they be concluded? Would they be concluded within the 120 days?

THAT'S HARD TO SAY. SO WE ARE IN THE PROCESS RIGHT NOW OF IDENTIFYING WHICH COMPANIES CAN DO THAT WORK. WE HAVE A LIST. THERE'S A PROCESS THAT WE HAVE TO DECIDE HOW TO GO THROUGH, RIGHT? WE CAN GO THROUGH A LIST THAT'S ALREADY APPROVED BY THE STATE OR WE CAN TAKE A LONGER TIME TO GO THROUGH AN RFP PROCESS TO GET MORE COMPANIES. SO THAT'S WHAT WE'RE WORKING ON RIGHT NOW. WE WANT TO MAKE SURE THAT WE

COMPANY THAT IS VERY WELL VERSED IN THIS. SO IT'S HARD TO SAY RIGHT NOW. I'M SKEPTICAL THAT IT WOULD BE DONE IN 120 DAYS, WHICH AGAIN GOES BACK TO THEN -- AND MAYBE SOME BACKGROUND HERE, CHAD, PLEASE CORRECT ME IF I GET THIS WRONG. THIS FIRST, IF THE COUNCIL APPROVES THIS FOR 120 DAYS, THE 120 DAYS IS REQUIRED. HOWEVER, THE COUNCIL COULD AT THE END OF THAT 120 DAYS VOTE TO EXPAND IT BY ANOTHER -- I THINK IT'S ANOTHER 120 DAYS.

We'll know more, Councillor Annemarie, about the timing of those studies, but until we get a company on board and actually doing it, it's hard to know exactly how long it'll take. Mayor, if I could just reiterate that one point is under state law, state law preempts local jurisdictions such as the city from imposing a moratorium unless we follow the procedures in state law. And so that's why we're having this hearing today, and that's why we talked about the criteria at the beginning of the hearing.

What state law says is that we can, for this type of moratorium, we can only impose a moratorium for an initial 120 days. And then we have to demonstrate, as I believe you heard during public comment today, that we are making progress towards resolving those issues. And then if we still need more time, we can go back and hold another public hearing and then extend the moratorium beyond the 120 days.

But the reason the 120 days is in this draft is because that's all that state law will allow us to do at this point. But it doesn't mean that as we're working on the studies, like you were just talking about, that we can't use the fact that we are continuing to work on those studies as a basis to extend the moratorium further. The state just requires us to do it in steps. And that's the only reason we're doing it this way. Yep.

Thank you. Okay, so just to follow up as I followed up with Councillor Sinclair, AI compute is or is not included in this? You said you felt it was. We believe the way the definition is drafted that it would cover that and certainly that seems to be your intent but if the Council wants to clarify that we could certainly out language the definition to do so. Okay.

AND THEN YOU ALSO ASKED ABOUT THE BES BEING PULLED OUT. SO WE HAVE ONE COUNSELOR WHO IS INTERESTED IN PULLING OUT THE BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE OF THE MORATORIUM. NEXT UP WE HAVE COUNSELOR SOGATO AND THEN COUNSELOR ALL CARE. COUNSELOR SOGATO? CAN YOU HEAR ME? YES, WE CAN.

So I'm going to take up a few minutes. Number one, I just want to point out when I was referencing the ORA and ORS in the memorandum, looks like there was a typo in 195.52038. I think that's referencing homeless law. So since this is a public record, I would advise updating that so it reflects the accurate code. The second thing I'd like to say is just...

So I don't know if that's just my document or if everybody else sees that document. So reference the memorandum that Barry Elkner and Cameron L.L.P. sent us. And so another thing I want to say is I really value the trade union, the value that they highlighted that trade union brings to individuals. I think that's a really important point that was made here. It's not misgivings. I know a lot of people that are in the trade, so I understand how important construction works are to the public. And so, you know, it helps with a lot

And I think that's important to know, but as a city councilor, as one city councilor on this, I have to weigh all of the facts that are in front of me.

on this decision, right? So I want to share what those facts are that I'm weighing and which ones I'm weighing higher than others and why I'm letting that kind of weigh more than others. So here are the facts that we have in front of us, right? These are facts that have been pulled from the report that was submitted to us by City Staff. It's facts that are highlighted in the Oregon Working Group, that's in the working group that the governor put together, which our city and Dirk Knapsen, I think, have contributed to. And these are facts that are out there for anybody that would

So number one, in Oregon, data centers represent two-thirds of land use applications. So every three land use applications, two of them are for data centers. So, you know, there's limited land use. PG reports that 13% of load growth is attributed to a data center, right? Data centers don't use all the power that

So this is something that was highlighted in the revenue, right? The way that these infrastructure projects are modeled, they say we're gonna need 200 megawatts and they end up using 100 megawatts. Well, the public's already taking on that infrastructure cost, but they're not bringing the revenue because they're not using the capacity that they planned for. So that's information that we have. We also have the fact that there's not enough power, so there's completed information that I'm playing

And again, there's some cost in the community invested in this land for decades, right? So that enables this production. And I think that has to be respected. So my position on this is like, we need to slow down given these facts, right? And the speed and the process. And we really need this time to sit back and figure out

How we're gonna put a structure around this because I do value, again, the job that they bring in for construction workers, but another thing that I've heard in the community, and we heard it in public testimony today, some of these jobs are going to outside construction firms because we can't fill the workforce capacity needed to fill that out, right? So we have all these facts in front of us, and that's what I believe.

And for me, the sense is I support a moratorium so we can get our facts straight and our structures straight and make sure that we're aligned with the state of Oregon as we move forward, right? Because, again, two-thirds of the land use applications are for data centers. They're taking up a lot of percentage of land growth. And then they plan for this power usage, and they don't actually...

WE NEED THE POWER USE. WE NEED TO FIGURE IT OUT. THAT'S MY STANDARDS. THAT'S IT. THANK YOU, COUNCILOR SOGATTO. CAN WE GET A CHECK ON THE CODE DESIGNATION? ARE WE CORRECT ON THAT? YEAH, THE CODE SECTION THAT'S REFERRED TO IN THE RESOLUTION IS CORRECT. THANK YOU VERY MUCH. COUNCILOR ALL CARE. THANKS.

Yeah. So I think... Hang on one second, Councillor Allcare. Councillor Sergato, I got an affirmation that it is correct. The code designation is correct. There was a typo in the original memo that had been updated. It had been updated. Okay, thank you. Sorry, Councillor Allcare. Thank you. Thank you. Councillor Allcare, go ahead. Um...

SO WE HAVE 120 DAYS AND WE CAN CHANGE OUR MIND AND EXTEND THE MORATORIUM IF WE WANT TO DO THAT. AND WE CAN ONLY GO UP TO 120 DAYS RIGHT NOW. IS THAT RIGHT? CORRECT. SO IT'S NOT ENOUGH TIME TO DO RESEARCH THE WAY WE SHOULD RESPONSIBLY

So it's not going to be enough time. So I think we need to plan what we're going to do in that 120 days and plan for an extension of that time beyond the 120 days. We should do that today. If we know we have only this amount of time, we should extend it today. And guess what? If we don't need another 120 days, then that'll be good. But I think we should be inclusive of that timeline.

I EARLY ON DID MY RESEARCH BECAUSE I DIDN'T SEE INFORMATION COMING FROM CITY STAFF AND SO I CALLED THE

Tualatin River Keepers, I called the Tualatin River Watershed Council, I called Clean Water Services, I called Columbia River Intertribal Fish Commission, I called several agencies, but I called those. And Elizabeth, you're on the Environment Committee, is that right? Can you remind the public what that committee is?

I'm on the chair of the environmental stewardship committee for the city. It's part of Hillsborough's 2035 plans. We're the ones that's part of the committee that put forward the climate action plan. Okay. We approved. Thank you. I would encourage that committee to start exploring these issues and with these agencies. Early on, every single one of them said, you don't really have to be too concerned about the water except for the groundwater.

We don't know about environmental impacts. They told me McKay Creek had coho salmon in there. We also don't know the human health impacts because we haven't done our research. The city has not done that. And every single one of these agencies said the city should be doing their research. I want to invite that, but I am not relying on staff

to do that work alone. I believe we need to reach out to all of these organizations and have some sort of a commission where they are advising us on what we should do instead of sitting up here and guessing what we should do.

You mentioned that there's going to be a list or there could be a list developing. How will council know who it is that you're going to be consulting with? How do we have some input on who else you should be including? How do we inform the public here about who's going to be doing that research for us? I want to say this because when I called these agencies, they all told me about Forest Grove.

and how they tried to step in and inform Forest Grove before Forest Grove put a data center next to their wetlands. I was in a meeting last week with people having a conversation about data centers. And it was all Latino folks who were present and talking about this, including one person from Forest Grove, and I mentioned it to that person. I said they talked about Forest Grove as a cautionary tale.

And that person is still supportive of having the data centers, doesn't see what's wrong, and I invited everybody there, "Well, have you been watching the news? Have you seen that we have been on the news, been in the paper, have been interviewed, that people have been coming here in large crowds to tell us what it is they're concerned about?"

I've been listening. I've been hearing you. I've been having some dialogue. I'm not everywhere, but I am concerned as you are because I live here in Hillsboro. I came here for a reason, and it wasn't to give data centers a break on energy bills. And it wasn't to destroy the public farmlands that we have that we're very proud of.

Every week when we have the farmers market to talk about who's coming there. I don't want any of those folks, those farmers, to worry like we have Jacob Roloff and other folks. Havisha Vineyards is another one. I don't want them to have to worry about that and us glowing and cheering on that they even exist.

So, we do need to be mindful and I think that if extending another 120 days gives us more time to have more mindful conversations with data information presented to us by experts so that we can be more informed when we're making our decisions. Thanks. Thank you.

So to address the extension of the 120 week, we can only do 120 days at a time. Is that correct? All right. So today, go ahead. Correct. All right. So we can definitely consider an extension. I'm hearing that from you and other counselors. But today before us, we are considering a moratorium for 120 days. That is what's before us now. And we cannot do any further than 100. We can't do 121 days.

160 days. We can't do that, right? Correct. We can do 120 days and then we have to demonstrate that we're making progress towards resolving the issue and then we can extend it at that point in time. So basically we just need time to be able to demonstrate that we are conducting those studies and then extend it at that point in time. Thank you. Councillor... Let's just say one more thing. Yes. When I did all that research, I did it in about three hours. I'm a researcher.

and spending more time on it, I could. I shared it with all of council. Did you all read it that I shared with you, that information and the questions that I had for city staff? 'Cause I spent a lot of time on it. - Thank you, Councillor Harris. - Thank you, I guess this is the deliberation or discussion part of this as well. So I'm gonna be probably a little bit longer than I really anticipated. Most of us on this council took our seats January 2025.

at that point the data center rules or lack of data center rules maybe is a better way to put it that state tax abatements the enterprise zone rules they were baked in by the state and by prior city councils and city counselors newer counselors did not approve any to expand any new enterprise zone or tax rules but those are issues are before us today and i know it's our responsibility to deal with them

I actually was aware of the over reliance on data centers in the city as far back as 2013 when Mike Rowe from the Oregonian wrote a series of articles about them. I talked to at least one city councilor, the mayor and the city manager at the time, not Mr. Hammond, about my concern and

They didn't think it was as serious as I did. I felt that we had limited land use. We had even less manufactured land at that time, industrial manufacturing land. I was concerned about the resources devoted to low employment facilities.

I WANT TO THANK COUNSELOR SINCLAIR WHO HAS BEEN VOCALLY RAISING THE ISSUE ABOUT DATA CENTERS SINCE FEBRUARY OR MARCH. THANK YOU. THEN I CALLED FOR CONSIDERING A PAUSE IN APRIL. AND SINCE MAY, THERE'S A LOT OF WORK THAT GOES ON BEHIND THE SCENES THAT PEOPLE AREN'T ALWAYS AWARE OF. BUT AT LEAST SINCE MAY, THIS COUNCIL HAS SORT OF COALESCED AROUND A TWO-STEP PROCESS TO ADDRESS THE MANY CONCERNS THAT WERE EXPRESSED BY PEOPLE, MANY OF WHOM ARE IN THIS ROOM TODAY.

Step one was the moratorium. We're sort of ending that step one process today. That was to pause new applications for 120 days. And again, I want to reiterate, this was really coalesced in late May, about a month or maybe six weeks after I called for a pause and a few months after Councillor Sinclair raised the issue in a serious way.

We did not, the step two was to do the code amendments, which is, and we're working on, we started working on both of them concurrently. We had to give the notice to Department of State Lands, as the mayor said. That was June 10th. That was given June 10th. That was quite a while ago. And at that point, the 45 days started running. That was step one. Step two, at the same time, we started code development, text amendments to the code to address code.

these new facilities, including mainly the data centers, but also the best that came up during the period of time as well.

And staff has been working really hard to do that and listening to us and our concerns, including those runs by Councillor Allcare and the research she did, the good research she did and forwarded them to the staff to work on those. But what we didn't want to do is have a rush to another set of applications coming in like we saw when the legislature delayed the moratorium on the tax abatements.

We did not want that to happen, knowing we were going to go ahead and amend some of this code text amendment. So the moratorium was touchy. We filed the application, tried to keep it on the low key. We didn't talk about it on city council much, and someone even brought that up. What happened to the moratorium? Well, we did not want a bunch of new data center development applications to be filed before we have the opportunity to have this hearing today.

And so that was a bit of a conscious decision that cost some of us up here on council who did not raise our voices to talk about this or tout about what we were doing or brag about this strategy because it would have been counterproductive to the result we wanted here today. That also addresses a little bit of the reason why the notice was given with a legally minimum amount of time on a Sunday morning.

I understand the concern, but alternatively, how much notice do you want data center developers to have about this hearing?

Do you want them to have two weeks? Do you want them to have three weeks? The three hours we've been testifying today, we could have received development applications and they still would have been valid. We can't not, and I heard some public comment about how we should, any new rules we come up should apply to prior developments or under construction. It's not the law. Maybe it should be, but it's not. Once you file a development application, you get to proceed with your development under the rules that were in place the time you filed the application.

So, these applications and the timing of them were critical to our two-step process. I also want to make clear there's no law, statute, ordinance, state law that allows us to do any emergency moratorium process where we could just pass a resolution and it automatically happens. We have to do this process where we file with the state lands, we wait 45 days, we have this hearing, and then we can vote on it. So, that was sort of what's been happening over the last couple of months.

And that's why it happened the way it did. I just wanted to address, oh, I also want to address the opponents of the moratorium. Nice to meet you, finally. I heard you talk about public pleas for public engagement. Instead of a moratorium and to work on things individually, we can't work on things individually. We have to have code text amendments to work on things. Everyone needs to be treated the same.

I don't know. It's great that you came here and talked about all the benefits of construction to unions and to businesses. I appreciate that. It's things I have been hearing from a few of you privately, but unfortunately the public at large, and particularly the people here in this room, have not heard because that case has not been very well publicly made by those people who are in business doing this. I would encourage it, and you're asking for engagement? 100%. I wish it would have happened four months ago.

Better late than never. And as we develop these new code text amendments, I encourage you and I know the staff will be willing to be totally engaged with the different folks who are impacted on the business side by this moratorium. Because we want these code text amendments to be accurate. We want them to be able to produce jobs that are well-paying, permanent jobs.

construction and permanent jobs both in this community. So I encourage you to continue the engagement that you've now started with our staff. So I appreciate that and I think that'll make for stronger codes going down for us. I think it's already been covered, 120 days is the maximum, then we can do a renewal after we've engaged this for a period of time because we're gonna have to do a new finding before we're entitled legally under state law to do another 120 days.

I talked about the Nozmanian. Yeah, I closely listened to the best thing. I agree it's a different situation, but here's the similarities. Our code text is not

meant to address BESS. That's the issue. And similarly, it wasn't meant to address data centers very well either. So I think, actually, I understand if people want to pull the BESS thing out. I am proposing we keep it in for a couple of reasons. Number one, 120 days, maybe we can lift the moratorium on that if we get it figured out. But we don't know enough about it

uh... and we do need this period of up short pause and i don't think from what i understand at least there's no uh... there's no pending development applications for best so i don't think it's gonna hold up any applicants in the meantime so i think it's better safe than sorry i would i would urge keeping that in uh... i think that's it thank you counselor harris counselor sinclair i see you have a comment but counselor case hasn't come in yet do you mind if she goes first okay go ahead counselor case thank you

Thanks to all the public comments today, online, written, we do hear you. Really appreciate that. One question, couple questions. Have we received any applications this morning that we know of? I have not been told what we have, but I don't know the answer to that. Okay. Thank you.

I APPRECIATE THE COMMENTS AROUND THE BEST STUFF AND I APPRECIATE COUNSELOR HARRIS'S COMMENTS JUST NOW AS WELL AS COUNSELOR OMBRE'S COMMENTS ABOUT REMOVING IT. I GUESS MY QUESTION WOULD BE IS IT SOMETHING THAT WE COULD KIND OF DECOUPLE? I KNOW YOU'VE WRITTEN A VERSION WITHOUT IT IN IT, BUT COULD WE HAVE TWO SEPARATE MORATORIUMS AT THE SAME TIME? AND DOES THAT MAKE SENSE OR IS THAT TOO REDUNDANT? I MEAN, IF WE FINISH KIND OF THE WORK WITH THE

best stuff before the data centers, could we stop it early? Am I making sense? Yeah, so... Like, we could stop the 120 days on the battery before the data centers, but if we...

IF THEY'RE ALL TOGETHER. AS COUNSELOR HARRIS WAS JUST EXPLAINING, AS WE GO THROUGH THIS PROCESS, WE WILL NEED TO MAKE NEW FINDINGS AND HOLD ANOTHER PUBLIC HEARING TO EXTEND THE MORATORIUM. AT THAT POINT IN TIME, IF WE'VE MADE ENOUGH PROGRESS ON THE BEST SYSTEM, FOR EXAMPLE, AND WE NO LONGER NEED THAT MORATORIUM, YOU DON'T HAVE TO EXTEND THAT MORATORIUM. YOU CAN JUST EXTEND THE DATA CENTER MORATORIUM. IN ADDITION,

Just because the moratorium is set for 120 days, if for some reason we were able to resolve the best issues prior to that 120 days, the council could go in and repeal the moratorium related to the best before that 120 days is over and still keep the data center moratorium in place, assuming that we still need more time to do those studies we've been talking about.

Excellent. Thank you. That's super helpful. Then I'm okay with keeping things as they are. And to Councillor Allcare's comments about the Environmental Stewardship Committee, I appreciate you saying that because I just was having conversations last week with the staff liaison to that about having more public policy discussions in those meetings. They only meet four times a year, so it makes it hard to have long, ongoing conversations and work group kind of work, but those are definitely things that I'll make sure we take back.

So I think those are my questions. Yep, I think those are my questions. Thank you. Councillor Sinclair. Thank you, Mayor. A question I have, I want to address a couple different things. To Councillor O'Hara's point about the timeline, so the 125...

days and then in addition to that I'd like us to plan for that because we will vote in October for our second reading on code correct? So that is the scheduled plan that was discussed last week and that all of course all depends on the work that happens and with the planning commission and everything else but that is the plan schedule correct? My concern is that

If we don't plan now, we will be rushed and making poor decisions without due diligence on the studies that are not complete. And so I would like us to plan as if there will be an extended moratorium beyond the 125 days so that we can receive complete studies. And I'd also, in addition to that, since the deciding of code is so new for us, I'd like to ask that we seek...

expertise from people in the field of data centers to understand that code because right now if we approve this moratorium today is there any loopholes for AI compute or for accessory for more applications to come in if those aren't further addressed and amended inside of today's moratorium resolution?

SO LET ME TRY TO TAKE THOSE IN KIND OF ORDER. THE PLANNING IS GOING ON FOR AN EXTENSION. SO IF YOU'LL SEE IN THE RESOLUTION SECTION 3, IT SPECIFICALLY CALLS ON THE COUNCIL TO ACTUALLY RECONSIDER WHETHER AN EXTENSION IS NECESSARY PRIOR TO 120 DAYS IS UP. AND AS CITY MANAGER HAMMOND JUST DISCUSSED, AS WAS DISCUSSED IN THE MATERIALS FOR THE WORK SESSION LAST WEEK, STAFF IS ALREADY WORKING WITH A

outside consultants to try to get contracts in place to have those environmental and economic studies begin immediately. And as part of that process, as I believe we've discussed with you all, we'll come back to the council and we'll discuss with you all sort of the scope of the work and get feedback and talk about who all these consultants should be working with, whether it makes sense to create some sort of panel of advisory body, all that sort of information and stuff that will happen as part of this process.

process. It's not something that needs to be decided today, but that is all stuff that will be discussed as part of the process. But the first step is to get those initial consultants on board to begin outlining the scope of work for us and receive your input and input from the public and everyone else on that. So that all is going to happen.

And the evidence that we then compile of all that work happening is what we use as a basis for findings to then extend the moratorium to say that, you know, we've begun this work, we're making progress, the work is not done, so therefore we need more time. And that would be the basis to extend the moratorium. We can't do that today because we don't have, obviously, have that evidence yet. And so we need to take those steps before we can extend the moratorium. So hopefully that answers the first part of your questions.

The second part of your question as far as loopholes are concerned, we believe that given the broad scope of the language that it does cover the AI types of situations. However, my colleague Josh Soper has drafted potential language if you all want to add clarifying language to the resolution, to the definitions, to clarify the scope of what constitutes a data center, just to make it abundantly clear so there's no questioning about that. In addition,

the accessory versus primary use. I think the question there is that the moratorium is focused on primary use and we don't want a loophole that suggests that someone comes in and really just has a really minor use of something other than a data center and the rest of the project is the data center and saying, well, the primary use is this other thing that's really small.

And so Josh has also drafted some language that if you're interested that we could present to you that would further clarify the definition of primary use to make sure that that doesn't happen as well. So it's really up to you all if you want to consider that language. Josh is online and he can certainly come on and explain sort of what those changes would look like.

Are you good? Yeah, I would love the opportunity for council to hear from Josh. Okay. At your convenience, Mayor. Yeah. So today, is that what we're talking about? Yeah, we could do it right now. If you are interested, then you could amend the resolution to include that language before you adopt it, assuming that you want to move forward and adopt it. All right. What is the feeling on adopting that language? Can you say again what you wanted to adopt? I absolutely, pertaining to...

Section 2B for data centers, I would like it to say maybe a variety of phrases, but AI compute, artificial intelligence, machine learning workloads, high performance computing,

I mean, I know that's excessive. Mayor, if I could interrupt, maybe if the council's interested in exploring a potential amendment, maybe if we could have Josh come online and he could share, there he is, he could explain the language that he's drafted, because I think it covers exactly what Councillor Sinclair was just talking about. Okay, great. And Josh, thanks for being here. And Councillor Sergado and Councillor Ambury and Councillor Alker, I see that you want to speak. Let's get through this and then I'll get to you all. Thank you. Josh, go ahead.

Thank you, Mayor and Councillors. So the language that I drafted is based on some of the comments that were received and some of the written testimony that was submitted. It would have meant two different sections of the definitions. The first is Section 2B, the data center definition. It would remain as is, and then we would add sentences afterwards, which would read as follows.

For the avoidance of doubt, data center includes but is not limited to facilities used for co-location services, computing services, artificial intelligence training or inference services, or digital asset mining services, whether such services are internal or external services, i.e., provided to third parties or operated for the owner's own commercial operation.

Data center does not include a telecommunications switching, routing, or network transmission center. Its primary design and function is the carriage of voice, video, or broadband communications rather than the storage, processing, or hosting of data for end users. The second possible metaphoric consideration would be to section 2c, the definition of primary use. Again, it would remain as is with additional language added at the end as follows. For purposes of determining whether a user

primary use on the site. Such use shall be considered primary if it meets any of the following criteria: 1. The use occupies more than 20% of the gross square footage, buildings, and structures on the site. 2. The use accounts for more than 20% of the original construction cost of all real or personal property on the site.

OR THREE, THE USE DRAWS MORE THAN 20% OF THE SITE'S TOTAL CONTRACTED OR AVAILABLE LATERAL SERVICE CAPACITY OR EXCEEDS 20 MEGAWATTS OF CONTRACTED OR -- HAPPY TO ANSWER ANY QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE. MAYOR, JUST REAL QUICK. I JUST EMAILED THAT LANGUAGE TO AUBREY AND WE'RE GOING TO TRY TO PUT THAT UP ON THE SCREEN FOR EVERYONE AS WELL. GREAT, THANK YOU. THAT WOULD BE EASIER TO READ IT FOR THOSE WHO PROCESS DIFFERENTLY. THANK YOU. I DON'T HAVE IT QUITE YET, BUT I WILL. SO LET'S TAKE A MINUTE TO GET THIS UP ON THE SCREEN.

AND REVIEW THIS. AND I KNOW WE STILL HAVE A QUESTION ABOUT THE BES BEING PULLED OUT OF THIS. I KNOW COUNCILOR EMBER, YOU WANT TO TALK ABOUT THAT, WE'LL GET TO YOU. I DO WANT TO NOTE ON THAT NOTE, THANK YOU FOR MAKING IT, MAYOR. I DRAFTED THOSE DEFINITIONS TO WORK WITH OR WITHOUT THE BESS. SO YOU CAN MAKE THOSE CHANGES IN ADVANCE OF WHETHER YOU INCLUDE THOSE FACILITIES. THANK YOU. CAN I ASK A REMINDER QUESTION? NOT WHAT I WANTED TO ASK EARLIER, BUT AS A CHIRL, I WANT TO ASK ABOUT

THE DEFINITION OF COMMUNICATION. IF YOU COULD HOLD OFF ON THAT, WE'LL HANDLE ONE THING AT A TIME IF THAT'S OKAY. WE'LL GET BACK TO YOUR QUESTION. WE ALSO HAVE COUNSELOR AND COUNSELOR SERGATO WHO HAVE BEEN WAITING AS WELL. THANK YOU. CAN WE GET THAT E-MAIL? WE'LL GET THAT E-MAILED OVER TO YOU COUNSELOR SERGATO. JOSH, WHEN WE GET TO THE EXCERPT, HERE IT IS. LET'S TAKE A FEW MINUTES TO READ THROUGH THIS.

All right. Any questions? Can we scroll down to 2C, please, so we can review that as well? Thank you. Are these additions acceptable to council? Thumbs up? Give me a thumbs up.

May I ask that we get a voice call on that? Because for the record, if people can't see us online, that they know. Sure. Is this wording acceptable to you, Councillor Sinclair? Yes. Is this wording acceptable to you, Councillor Harris? Yes. Councillor Case? Yes. Councillor Ambury? I have a question about the 20%. Go ahead. Josh, could you elaborate on why the 20%, why you chose 20%?

COUNCILOR ALL CARE? SO WAIT, IS IT ACCEPTABLE TO YOU, COUNCILOR ANVERY? YES. COUNCILOR ALL CARE? YES. COUNCILOR SOGATO? YES. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT. SO WE'VE TAKEN CARE OF THAT. AND THEN THE NEXT QUESTION WAS AROUND THE BEST, THE BESS. COUNCILOR ANVERY? YES. THANK YOU. ALL RIGHT.

Actually, I have two concerns. So I'll talk about the first one, the second one first. So the question is, and maybe this is something that Josh may be able to answer, why would we need to call out BEST separately? Wouldn't

if we are putting a moratorium on data centers, according to the newer definition, the updated definition, that means the whole facility, we're not saying, "All right, data centers, but not the PCW facility and not the OFA facility." We're just kind of lumping it together and we're saying the whole thing, everything that takes to run it. So my question is,

why call out BESS separately? And the reason why I would not-- I'm concerned about it being there is because right now all our focus has been on data centers.

not on BESS. And so if we, the work that we'll be doing, I think will be much more on data centers and not on BESS. And so I think that we may disadvantage ourselves in terms of adopting green policy. We may delay stuff. So that's why I want it removed. And also, I think it may be a bit redundant in the sense that if we are calling out the different

things that go into a data center. If we are just saying there's a moratorium, then there's a moratorium on all the buildings and everything that goes in there. So, yeah. Josh, you want to take that or you want me to try that? I can try. So, this is a policy decision for the council, of course, on what exactly it wants to determine the moratorium. And I'll defer to anybody who is

more of an expert on how exactly this industry works, but I'll tell you based on my understanding, the reason it was drafted this way is that you could, in theory, have a data center that does not have battery storage, and you could, in theory, have battery storage that the data center has. And so this is designed to both of those as standalone uses at the end if they work together to do a standalone utility that is not part of a data center.

But the standalone best facility, Josh, what would it be giving power to if we have a moratorium on the actual data processing buildings? Again, I'll have to defer to some more. Okay, sure. Yeah. My understanding is that there can be other types of facilities. Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah, definitely. Okay.

And they're also used to help supply power to the grid. So for example, a VEST system could be used related to a solar farm or a wind farm, and it could collect the energy produced by the solar farm, wind farm, and then provide that energy to the grid itself. So it's not necessarily just directly related to data centers. That's my point. Yeah. That's my point, that if...

My point is, and I think I'm not maybe explaining it correctly, is that if the BESS is co-located with a data center, the moratorium should apply to the whole thing. So that's taken care of. And standalone BESS systems, I think we don't want to lump it here because we do want to think about

other policy and other restrictions we may want to put on them, but separately from them, from the data center, because they're two completely different things.

And we would, the work that we would do would be separate. They would be defining and regulating best systems separately from data centers. We're just combining them all in one moratorium to have it all go through the council at once. If again, it's a policy call if you all don't want the best systems in there, we can take that out. It's completely a policy call for you all to make.

But the point and the reason I think it was originally included in there, and I believe Councilor Harris may have said this, is because the code doesn't address best systems at all. It was just to give time to actually adopt those code changes. And so that was the main purpose of having a moratorium for the best systems, since they are so brand new to the city and we just haven't had a chance to really regulate them. And we've already had a couple come into being in Hillsboro already. Right. Stand-alone ones?

Okay. Correct. All right. So the reason why it's being added is not because there are best systems available.

with data centers because I think that we did hear a lot in the testimony. And so this is for those but also for the-- this is basically for the standalone because the ones that are with the data centers, the moratorium without mentioning best would take care of them.

Correct. And part of the reasoning, just to be clear, for the standalone best systems is because of the proliferation of data centers who need power, that there's a concern that there could also be a proliferation of standalone best systems to support those data centers. Okay. By the same companies? Or by separate companies. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Okay. And we've also had public comment on it, that people were concerned about that as well. Okay. Councillor Allcare and then Councillor Sergato. So I want to keep the BESS in there.

If the staff put it in there as part of this discussion and it came really late. So I feel it's something that was a late addition to this that I think we need to have a conversation and definitely with data centers. I don't want to separate that at all. It was put here for a reason with this. And lastly, I want to just say that we've heard from union

TODAY. I'M A UNION MEMBER, NOT A CONSTRUCTION UNION MEMBER. WHEN I VISITED IRONWORKERS, THEY TALKED ABOUT THE IMPORTANCE OF JOBS AND THEY ASKED ME, AS A CITY COUNCILOR, HOW WAS I GOING TO SUPPORT THAT? THROUGH FAMILY WAGE JOBS.

When we get other companies, we like unions. The developers decide which unions they're going to work with. But yeah, that puts jobs. Data centers do not have jobs like that. The data centers aren't set up for working families to invest themselves here to want to stay long range. Or...

RIGHT, ANYWHERE. THEY GO WHERE THE JOBS ARE AVAILABLE. WHEN I THINK ABOUT THE UNION MEMBERS, I THINK THERE'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE JOBS. THE SAME WAY I THINK ABOUT DATA CENTERS, THERE'S ALWAYS GOING TO BE DATA CENTERS, RIGHT? JUST AN ONGOING -- BUT WE HAVE THE RESPONSIBILITY TO MAKE DECISIONS ON HOW WE WANT TO USE THAT AND HOW WE WANT TO PERMIT THEM TO RUN THEIR COMPANY HERE IN HILLSBORO. THANKS. THANK YOU. COUNCILOR SOGATO.

Thank you. I have a few things. So the best thing, I 100% support Council of Healthcare and Paris' inclusion in this. I think the larger conversation here is not about data, it's about the public concern around land use. And these are new technologies that we haven't seen what the long-term impacts are. And so that provides some support to more foreign-minded. I think I was saying that in addition with one of our local archivists. And what they do when they have a lithium ion battery expiry, right? They just kind of have to let it sit there

And then also including other things in the resolution. So number one,

And we don't have to talk about this right now if it's gonna derail us, but one thing that I heard a lot in the telecommunications industry is how critical data centers work to the telecommunications infrastructure. So we have policies and laws and regulations around the telecommunications whole structure, right? And data centers, from what I understand from industry experts, it's a part of this larger telecommunications system. It's a very critical part of it. So we're separating that from something that's already in existence.

Do we have examples of other industries that are like that where we've separated and kind of seen what issues came up, you know, and kind of just seeing kind of like the pros and cons doing a small analysis. I would just like to see that if there's any other example of that because, again, time is not on our side and avoiding any sort of slip-ups or mistakes.

is really valuable in this. And so looking at other examples where this has been done, I think would be very valuable. And then lastly, I would like to include in the resolution some defining engagement strategies and deliverables, right? Part of what we've heard a lot from our community is like, how are you gonna include us in this? How are we gonna inform about when your meetings are? And I think we need to put something in the resolution that details that calendar, right? How many meetings are you gonna have in that

How many announcements? I really think given the feedback that we've been gotten over how the city has done the community engagement work, and this is not a knock on the city staff, right? We have some of the best community engagement strategies out there for any city. I get praise all the time when I go up to other cities. So it's not a knock on that, but on this specific topic, I think we need to be a little bit more prescriptive. And I would like to see that in the resolution. So thank you.

THANK YOU, COUNCILOR SOGATO. I DON'T NECESSARILY AGREE WITH HAVING A NUMBER OF MEETINGS THAT WE HAVE TO HAVE BY THE END OF THE 120 DAYS. IT'S REALLY WHAT OUR CITY ATTORNEY HAS MENTIONED IS WHAT IS OUR PROGRESS AS WE GO THROUGH. I DO AGREE WITH GETTING UPDATES, WHICH WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT, THAT YOU WOULD PROVIDE UPDATES AS WE'RE MOVING THROUGH THIS. IS THAT CORRECT? ROBBIE? YES. WE'LL MAKE SURE TO INCLUDE

Council will come up with a plan for the 120 days, come up with when we would meet and how we can share that information with council. - Great, okay. I'd like to move forward with-- - May I just ask that-- - Oh, I'm sorry, Council Walker. - I would like regular updates. I'd like to know who you're gonna meet with. I'd like to know what the conversation you had. I don't need to know all of those details. I do wanna know what that progress is. I don't want it hidden anymore.

I WANT THAT TRANSPARENT. THANK YOU. COUNCILOR SINCLAIR, DID YOU WANT TO? THANK YOU, MAYOR. I'M GOING TO WAIT TO LET YOU MOVE THE MEETING FORWARD AND THEN I'LL STEP IN IF I FEEL SO TO BE MOVED. DO WE HAVE A FINAL MOTION TO APPROVE RESOLUTION NUMBER 2932 AS AMENDED? I WOULD -- HARRIS MOVES TO APPROVE. DO I HAVE A SECOND? SECOND CASE. THANK YOU. I HAVE A MOTION BY COUNCILOR HARRIS AND A SECOND BY COUNCILOR CASE. MAY WE HAVE A ROLL CALL? COUNCILOR SALGADO?

Councillor Harris? Aye. Councillor Case? Aye. Councillor Ambry? Aye. Councillor Sinclair? Aye. Councillor Alkaire? Aye. The motion passes. We now have a moratorium on BESS and data centers. Thank you very much. Thanks to everybody for being here. Thanks to council for being here and staff. Really appreciate all the work. Meeting is adjourned.