The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-04-17
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
Portland City Council convened a land use hearing on April 17, 2025, at 2 p.m., with roll call confirming presence of the full body, one member participating remotely. Council members disclosed potential conflicts of interest and ex parte contacts related to the matter before deliberations began. The hearing addressed an appeal by the Forest Park Neighborhood Association and Forest Park Conservancy against a hearings officer's decision approving, with conditions, environmental review, conditional use review, and two greenway reviews for a Portland General Electric transmission line upgrade and expansion project within Forest Park. City staff presented a report on the proposal's history, applicable approval criteria, and the hearings officer's decision, followed by presentations from the appellants, extensive public testimony both supporting and opposing the appeal, and a presentation and questioning of the applicant, Portland General Electric. Testimony covered topics including tree removal, wetland and stream impacts, mitigation planning, alternative routing options, transmission needs, red-legged frog habitat, and consistency with the Forest Park Natural Resources Management Plan. Following the hearing, council members discussed the record and the applicable approval criteria before taking a tentative vote on the appeal. Votes occurred, and outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The matter is scheduled to return to council on May 7 for further action.
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Procedural markers in this session
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0 It's been rough. It's not fun for me anyway. Not as rough.
1 Noon. And welcome to today's Portland city council meeting. It is April 17th at 2 p.m, and this is a land use hearing. Rebecca, could you please call the roll.
2 Canal. Ryan.
3 Yeah. Here. Sorry, I'm not in person. I'm nursing an injury. I'm happy to be in the meeting, though. Virtually. Thanks.
4 Koyama Lane here. Morillo. Here.
5 Novick here.
6 Clark here.
7 Green here.
Procedural episode · turns 8–16
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
8 Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.
9 Dunphy here.
10 Smith. Here.
11 Pirtle-guiney here. Thank you. And who do we have? Linly, could you please make the announcements for today's meeting?
12 So I'll be reading the rules of decorum. First, welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at. Director lannom. Agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting other testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony today should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent and virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
13 Thank you very much. Councilors. We have three types of declarations that we make before land use hearings. The first is for conflicts of interest.
14 Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney I'm sorry, we need to read the item and then read the land use portion. I apologize for interrupting, right.
15 That's just not written in here. Rebecca, could you please read the agenda item?
16 Agenda item 17. Consider appeal by forest park neighborhood association and forest park conservancy against the hearings. Officers decision to approve with conditions an environmental review, conditional use review and two greenway greenway reviews for the upgrade and expansion of transmission lines in forest park.
17 Thank you. And I will now read some council procedures for a land use hearing.
18 Perfect.
19 This is an on the record hearing. This means you must limit your testimony to material and issues in the record. We will begin with a staff report by Portland permitting and development bureau staff for approximately ten minutes. Following the staff report, the council will hear from interested persons in the following order. The appellants will go first and have ten minutes to present their case following the appellant. Persons who support the appeal will go next. Each person will have three minutes to speak to counsel unless the presiding other officer states otherwise. The applicant who is the principal opponent of the appeal, will have 15 minutes to address, counsel and rebut the appellants presentation. After the principal opponent, the applicant, the council will hear from persons who oppose the appeal. Again, each person will have three minutes unless otherwise stated by presiding officer. Finally, appellants will have five minutes to rebut the presentation of the opponents to the appeal. Council may then close the hearing, deliberate, and take a vote on the appeal. If the vote is attended to vote, the council will set a future date for the adoption of findings and a final vote on the appeal. I'd like to announce several guidelines for those who will be addressing council today. First, the evidentiary record is closed. This is not this is an on the record hearing. The hearing is only to decide if the hearings officer made the correct decision based on the evidence that was presented to them. This means you must limit your remarks to arguments based on the record compiled by the hearings officer. You may refer to evidence that was previously submitted to the hearings officer. You may not submit new evidence today that was not submitted to the hearings. Officer. If your argument includes new evidence or issues, you may be interrupted and reminded. You must limit your testimony to the record. The council will not consider new information and it will be rejected in the city council's final written decision. Second, if you believe a person who addressed council today improperly presented new evidence or issues or presented a legal argument that relies on evidence not in the record, you may object to that argument. Finally, the applicant must identify constitutional challenges to conditions of approval. Today, if the applicant fails to raise constitutional or other issues relating to proposed conditions of approval, with enough specificity to allow the council to respond, the applicant will be precluded from bringing an action for damages in circuit court. Thank you president.
20 Thank you very much, counselors. Now we'll go through the three types of information that have to be disclosed. Do any counselors have conflicts of interest that they need to declare? Councilor Kanal.
21 Thank you, madam president. I have close family friends that work for pge. My relationship with them does not meet the statutory definition of a conflict of interest. But as you may know, culturally we refer to people as uncles sometimes or aunts sometimes, even if they're not. So I just want to make sure I declare those relationships exist. For the record, even though they don't statutorily meet that definition. I'd also like to note I've not communicated with any of them about this project at any point.
22 Thank you. Counselors, do any members have ex parte conflicts to declare? Councilor Kanal. Sorry, are you out of the queue?
23 Legacy.
24 Okay, counselor Green.
25 Yes, madam president. So I have received a number of communications for parties interested in this case. That should be declared as ex parte communications. On November 15th, I received an email from maria pope at Portland general electric, which I did not respond to. On December 18th, I forwarded that email to my city email to put it in the record. February 24th, I received an email from a staffer at pge reminding me that the offer for a meeting was on the still good. And then on March 27th, I received an email from another pge representative asking for a meeting, which I declined by stating I am not taking meetings with parties with pge at this time. I also received direct communications from parties opposing ppg, and these were in the form of mass emails. Generally, I just saw the subject line and didn't read them and filed them away. In a few instances. My chief of staff may have responded to those, and at no time did I also know that a number of communications came through zendesk, which I have not seen because I don't access zendesk directly. So those are all that's the nature of my ex parte communications that I'd like to disclose.
26 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
27 Since January of this year, my office has received a high volume of emails and letters from members of our community advocating for the protection of the old growth and habitats of forest park. I responded to many of these members sharing that due to ex-party rules, I could not discuss the situation. I'm prepared to make a decision based on the evidence in the record and the testimony presented today.
28 Madam president, I did forget one.
29 Councilor Green, go ahead.
30 So I did, before I understood the nature of the ex parte boundary on this this case. I did take a one hour meeting with forest park conservancy and coalition members who briefed me on this, this issue. So that should be disclosed. And I'm prepared to make a decision today based upon the evidence in the record.
31 Thank you. Councilor Morillo.
32 Thank you, madam president. Like most of my colleagues, I've received hundreds of emails to our councilor Office inbox from community members that are concerned about this. I have not personally reviewed any of those emails. They have gone to my staff and they have been the ones to review them. I did not meet with any advocates on this issue either. Maria pope from pge contacted my campaign email on November 15th, 2024, before I was in office. I did not respond to that or to a meeting. And additionally, I've been tagged in some instagram posts from 350 pdx yesterday. I did not look at any of the information there as well, and I'm prepared to make sure that any judgment that I come to today is based on the evidence that is listed on the record. Thanks.
33 Councilor Novick.
34 In and thank you, madam president, before taking office. And I confess, I don't know the exact dates. I at some point or another, I received a call from personal friend mark wiener, who said something generally supportive of the project, and another personal friend, angus duncan, who said something generally supportive of pge. Extremely limited conversations that did not subsequently meet with either of them. On December 24th, I got an email in opposition to the project from mike lindberg, another friend. I did that, read that email, made various points expressing concern about the about the project. He requested a meeting. I elected not to have a meeting. Other than that, I've had a large number of emails presumably opposing the project, headlined forest park. I have not. Other than noting that they related to the topic, I have not read those emails, and I'm prepared to make a decision based on the record before us.
35 Thank you. Councilor Dunphy.
36 Like my colleagues, I've received a few hundred emails. I have also had a briefing on this from pge and a conversation with the bird alliance of Oregon about this. I am, however, as my colleagues also said, I feel prepared to make a decision based on the record.
37 Councilor Zimmerman.
38 Very similar context as all of my colleagues. I think that we have been reached out to since the results of the election. I also have preexisting work based relationships with a number of people who have reached out on this, including pge. I haven't taken a meeting on pge on this topic. I was in a meeting that was referenced earlier with the forest park conservancy, and have received hundreds, if not more, emails, generally titled pge harberton either for or against. And have met with some labor partners who in the scope of many topics. This was one topic that came up and we essentially deferred this topic. Given all that, and even in some of the emails where I had responded, thank you for your information. I'm prepared to hear the record and vote accordingly.
39 Thank you. Councilor Avalos.
40 Between January 15th and April 17th, 2025, my office received 49 emails from community members expressing opposition to the reliability project. The primary reasons for opposition include the project's conflict with the forest park natural resources management plan, concerns about ecological damage from cutting nearly 400 trees, threats to sensitive species and wetlands, inadequacy of proposed mitigation measures, and the existence of viable alternative routes outside of forest park. Many also raised concerns about the precedent this project could set for future development. I briefly reviewed a few of these emails before directing staff not to forward additional messages on this topic to me. Additionally, I met with kristen sheeran, nancy bennett, and randy franks from Portland general electric on March 19th, where I received a briefing on the project and had the opportunity to ask questions. I also met with michael meskell from the bird alliance of Oregon on April 15th, where we discussed the community impact of this proposal. I am prepared to make a decision based on the evidence in the record and the testimony presented today. Thank you.
41 Thank you. Councilor canal.
42 Thank you, madam president. I have three ex-parte disclosures. First, like many others, my office has received emails and other communications from community members interested in this appeal due to ex parte rules. I did not read the emails and directed staff not to forward them to me. I did inadvertently see one communication from a person named m o s t e r s a n d s today, encouraging me to oppose this project. I will be basing my decision on the evidence in the record and the testimony today. And third, I was on the parks board Portland parks and recreation board from June to December 2024. My first meeting I was not yet. My term had not yet started, but I attended it and I recall a conversation in that very first meeting about this proposal in June. The parks board was establishing a work group to develop a position to take in a draft letter. I participated to ask for more information related to pj's modeling of power needs, expressing that I'd seen other models unrelated to pge of power consumption over time. I also volunteered to work to join a workgroup of the parks board to draft a position for the parks board to take. I never ended up joining that work group. When the work group reported back to the full parks board in September, they noted who was on the work group, briefed the full parks board on the draft position, and the parks board voted to approve a letter on this project. However, I was not present at the September meeting, so I never heard the work groups report back. Did not vote on the parks board. Park board's draft letter and did not read it. To summarize, I did not participate or vote in any position the parks board may have taken in support or opposition to the proposal, and I'm prepared to make a fair and impartial decision based on the criteria and evidence in the record. And just before I note stop for transparency, I will be stepping out of this hearing and joining virtually for the remainder of it near the end. Thanks.
43 Thank you. Councilor councilor Ryan.
44 Yes, thank you, madam president. Yes. In my role as parks commissioner from January 2023 to June of 2024, I did have meetings with both pge and with parks bureau about this issue. It was pre it was pre permitting and I wanted to put that into the record. And like everyone else. Our office has received a lot of communication and they've wisely not forwarded them to me. And so I will make a decision based on the facts in the record. And I look forward to the hearing. Thanks.
45 Thank you, councilor Clark.
46 Thank you, madam president. Prior to my knowledge of city council's role in the quasi judicial land use review, in this case, I participated in a meeting with the members of the coalition to protect forest park on January 10th, 2025. The same meeting, I believe that councilors Zimmerman and Green were in my office, has received many emails from community members interested in the appeal due to ex parte rules. I did not read the emails and directed staff not to forward them to me. I will be basing my decision on the evidence in the record and the testimony presented today.
47 Thank you. Councilor Smith.
48 Thank you, madam president. I just want to let you know that I had some ex parte communication with folks who have emailed my office. I have not looked at those and or answered any of those emails. And I also want to say that I talked to the pge. Government relations person a couple weeks ago at a town hall meeting.
49 Thank you councilor. I also have a few things to declare. I have received the same emails that my colleagues have referred to, encouraging me to oppose the project that's before us today. In December, before being seated on the city council, I had a conversation with government relations staff from Portland general electric. Broadly not specific to this topic, but this topic did come up and they mentioned that they did not believe there were other viable routes. Other than that, we did not discuss this topic at all. And I also sat on the parks board. I was on the parks board until may of 2024, so I was not part of the process to decide to write a letter. However, I was vice chair of the parks board, so I was involved in conversations about whether or not the parks board should consider weighing in. Through that process, I was not privy to additional information about this project and did not form an opinion on what the nature of the opinion of the parks board should be. I also have had pge reach out numerous times to try to schedule a meeting with maria pope and myself, and my office has informed pge that we would take that meeting after we were done with this proceeding, and not beforehand, so that there was not a risk of additional ex parte communication. With that, I think we've now heard from all councilors. Linly did you have something to add?
50 Yes, just really quickly. In a land use proceeding, we need to give people the opportunity to ask questions or rebut. So it would be appropriate at this time if you're to ask if members of the public or the council have questions about either the conflicts of interest disclosures or ex parte contacts.
51 Okay.
52 Thank you. So are there folks present in the chambers who would like to ask any questions about the declarations that have been made? Okay. Moving on. Councilors. Has anybody made any visits to the site involved in today's matter? Councilors. Novick and Smith, are you still in the queue from previously? Yes.
53 Okay.
54 Councilor. Novick.
55 No.
56 Okay. Councilor Ryan?
57 Yeah. I've lived here for much of my life, so I've definitely been in that area. And then in my previous role, staff member went on a tour of the site and did report back to me. And that was in the summer of 2023, I believe. Yeah.
58 Thank you, councilor Ryan.
59 That wasn't either.
60 Councilor Morillo does this mean like, have we visited forest park ever?
61 I believe this is referring to the part of forest park that these lines would run through.
62 Okay. I'm not. Yes, probably. I go to forest park a lot.
63 Thank you. Does anybody in the council chambers today have questions for either of our councilors, who have made declarations related to visiting the site?
64 Linly I'd note we are in two overflow rooms at this point. And so if there are people in the overflow rooms who wish to raise a question during their testimony when they're in the room, that would not be precluded. So just making sure people have the access.
65 Okay. Seeing no hands in this room and nobody running in from the overflow rooms, I think we will continue. And as our attorney mentioned, if there are folks who do have questions, please make sure that you are signed up to testify and you can ask those questions at that time. We're moving into the hearing now, which begins with a ten minute staff report. I see that we have our staff here and ready. So I will turn the floor over to you.
66 Thank you, madam president. Good afternoon. Councilors. Mayor wilson. For the record, my name is david kuntz, and I'm the interim director of Portland permitting and development. I'm joined today by morgan steele, senior planner within the land use division in Portland, permitting and development. Morgan was the planner assigned to the environmental greenway and conditional use reviews included in the land use case for the pge project, which proposes an upgrade and expansion of transmission lines in forest park. Today, morgan will provide a brief presentation on the hearings officer, report the appeal of that decision, and discuss alternatives for council to consider. And with that, I'll pass it over to morgan.
67 Thank you. Thank you. Councilors. Madam president. My name is morgan steele. I was the planner assigned the environmental and greenway reviews for this case. And what follows is my presentation to city council.
68 We were told council clerk would run the presentation. I'm.
69 You have to give us a second to pull that up.
70 Okay. Sorry about that.
71 This. All right. Thank you.
72 Thank you.
73 Thank you. Rebecca. Perfect. So today we will look at an overview of the proposal. We will explore the existing conditions on site. We will address the applicable approval criteria. And we will go over the hearings. Officers decision in the appeals process. Next slide. So to give a brief summary of the proposal. The applicant requested approval to improve and expand utility infrastructure within forest park and harberton substation, including the upgrade of an existing utility line and the installation of a new 1400 foot long segment, including two new poles specifically within the park. The portion of the project within forest park is in the city's environmental, conservation and environmental protection overlay zones within the city's forest park natural resources management plan. The proposal was considered an exception to this plan, and was thus required to go through a type three greenway review. Pardon me type three environmental review. The work at harberton substation is in the city's greenway overlay zones and alterations to development within these zones are required to go through a type two greenway review. Further, the applicant is requesting to alter conditions of approval tied to past 2018 greenway review for resource enhancement activities at the harberton site. A portion of the work was removed from the scope and in order to be in conformance with the approval, the conditions must be altered. Lastly, a conditional use review was required to place a utility corridor. Use in the open space base zone within forest park. The environmental review is the subject of the appeal before you today.
74 Can I ask that you lean a little bit closer to the microphone? I want to make sure folks in the overflow rooms can pick up the audio.
75 Thank you.
76 I know there are slightly awkward distance depending on your height.
77 Next slide. Thanks. So here we have an overview of the zoning at the site. The area where the majority of the work is occurring that is subject of the appeal includes the open space base zone. The environmental zones, including the forest park natural resources management plan and the northwest hills plan district and the forest park sub district. Next slide. And here we see an aerial view of the site, which gives an idea of the project area within forest park as well as harberton substation. Next slide. And this shows the work from a little bit different perspective. The existing built transmission lines and configurations are shown in red and blue. On the left and on the right is the proposed project. The blue and yellow lines are the upgrade of the existing line, including. Shifting pole two 999 to the south and adding new lines, and the orange and yellow line show the new 1400 lineal foot corridor, including two new poles. Both lines will then connect to the three new poles proposed in front of harberton substation. This work will result in significant impacts to 4.7 acres of natural resources and forest park, including the removal of 397 trees and permanent impacts to two streams and two wetlands. Next slide. This shows the existing conditions on site and just a few things to call out here about the proposed project area. The forest is a second growth mature forest with stratified vegetation consisting mostly of native species. Two wetlands and two streams have been identified within the project area. The proposed area project area also provides many and important ecosystem services to the people and to the city of Portland. The area surrounding the proposed project area is heavily impacted, with existing built transmission corridors, lines and towers. Next slide. So now we'll take a look at some photos of the site. These photos here show the project area and current built transmission line from harberton substation, looking west across highway 30. Next slide. And a few of the existing mature oaks on the site that may be impacted by construction activities. Next slide. The photo on the left was taken standing in front of wetland a facing northwest, and the photo on the right was taken of wetland b facing southwest. Next slide. And these two photos here show stream one at two different locations within the project area. Next slide. And just to give some idea of the bird species that use this section of forest on the left, here is a tree proposed for removal that has sapsucker feeding wells. And on the right, another tree proposed for removal that has pileated woodpecker holes. Next slide. These photos are showing the interior of the forest area. Just to give an idea of the makeup of the forests, which in this case, as mentioned previous, is second growth mixed stratified forest with douglas fir and big bigleaf maples being the dominant trees. The understory and forest floor is mostly native and heavily vegetated. Next slide. Just a couple photos here of the forest floor showing the detritus of the forest. Forest that's so important to the natural ecosystem of the forest. Next slide. And lastly, this photo is looking at an existing transmission tower within an existing utility corridor showing the type of vegetation that is typically present within these corridors. This particular site here is most invasive blackberry. Next slide. And for any land use to be reviewed to be approved, the all applicable approval criteria that is relevant to the proposal must be met by the application. The approval criteria which are relevant to the appeal are from the forest park natural resources management plan, specifically, approval criteria for exceptions to the plan and folded in these criteria, and which also must be met, are the approval criteria for minor amendments to the plan. Next slide. And also the northwest hills plan district forest park sub district approval criteria. And I have given copies of these to the councilors for ease of reference during the hearing. Next slide. The hearings officers decision included approval of all four reviews with conditions. Next slide. Two organizations appealed the hearings. Officer's decision. The forest park neighborhood association and the forest park conservancy. Their submitted appeal summaries were similar and focused mainly on the approval of the environmental review specifically, but not limited to that the applicant failed to meet forest park natural resources management plan approval criteria, including alternatives analysis, mitigation for impacts to resources, and consistency with the forest park natural resources plans. Conservation goal number one of growing an ancient forest. Next slide. Counsel has three alternatives for this case today. You can deny the appeals and uphold the hearings officer's decision and conditions of approval with revised findings. Deny the appeals and uphold the hearings officer's decision but with revised conditions and findings. Grant the appeal and overturn the hearings officer's decision to approve the application with revised findings. And if the hearings officer decision is upheld, staff request conditions that would ensure compliance with both construction management and mitigation. Next slide. This is an on the record hearing, meaning that evidence and testimony must only address items already in the record. No new evidence can be submitted. Next slide. Now to address the timeline. State law states that the city must issue a final decision on an application within 120 days of the application being deemed complete. For this case, since the applicant has only issued extensions totaling 76 days, the council must then make a final decision on this case by may 20th. Next slide. Thank you. Happy to answer any questions you may have.
78 Thank you. And. Is it appropriate for us to ask clarifying questions now or do we move directly into the appellant's presentation?
79 It is up to council how you wish to proceed. Great.
80 Are there questions, counselor Zimmerman?
81 Thanks, steph. You noted in your picture of the current corridor. That the vegetation there was, I think you said mowed invasive blackberry. Can you tell us why is that the vegetation that is present in a place like that? Because I think what I'm gathering from your inclusion of it is that that would be expected in other corridors.
82 Yes, that's that's correct. And I would also. Think that pg probably has some good input on this as well. However, beneath power lines there's maintenance required maintenance that must be done for safety regulations. And like I said, I'm sure they can expand on that. And that maintenance is done regularly. And I'm assuming it's more cost effective to maintain those power lines by mowing them and keeping the vegetation down to whatever the regulations say they have to be, instead of planting trees and planting trees or shrubs, native native trees or shrubs.
83 Okay.
84 So I'm taking that as because of a lack of the native species, that other invasive species kind of takes over is how that looked and sounded in the presentation.
85 Yeah, the disturbed nature of power line corridors really lets in a lot of aggressive invasive species. Blackberries, scotch broom mainly was present out there, some thistle.
86 Okay. And then my last question, the picture you showed that showed the two line the current and the existing. You had I think red and blue or blue and yellow and red and something and those show some distance. What was hard to determine from this, from that photo anyway, was if that would turn into just a larger corridor or between those two lines, if there are still vegetation, natural trees that are in between. And I was hoping you could clarify what that photo meant in that. Are we about to see one bigger corridor or two similar corridors that have a break in the middle?
87 Yeah. So within that area that the general area of those two lines, the different colors you saw is approximately the five acres of disturbance that will occur. And those trees will will come down. Those will be the 400 trees that go away. And there is a restoration plan that includes restoring the area with shorter stature plants. However, that would be the general area where those 400 trees are going away.
88 Okay. Where they kind of blends together the two corridor or the idea of blends to a bigger corridor?
89 Yeah, I think pg would have to maintain whatever distance from the those towers that the regulations state and any tree within those and any other considerations they have to make, such as windthrow.
90 What was that word?
91 Windthrow. So when trees are removed, it opens up other trees to vulnerability. So while those trees might not be in proximity to the lines that they would need to remove them, once you remove all the other surrounding trees, it opens them up to windthrow to a danger to the power lines. Now.
92 I'm familiar with the idea, just not the word that makes. Thank you for clarifying. Yeah. Okay, that's all my questions. Thanks, madam president.
93 Thank you. Councilors. Any other questions? Councilor Green?
94 I may have a question, but I want to clarify. Am I limited to asking my questions based just on the slides we just saw, or based upon the hearing officer's reaction to the staff report?
95 You're limited to the evidence in the record, which would include the hearings officer's decision.
96 Thank you. While we have you up here, I read the hearing officer's report, and I'm hoping that you can clarify. On the approval criteria for minor amendment a, there is a demonstrated need for the proposal. The hearing officer said that staff. Inappropriately. I think the I think the language was. Conclusion reached by staff was confounding and inconsistent with the approval criteria. But I read the staff report and you were arguing from what seemed like a holistic standpoint of all the phases of the project. So I'm wondering if you can clarify what what the staff intent was in reaching that judgment.
97 Sure. Yeah. I'll speak solely to the staff intent. So when trying to analyze the need for project, you want to look at what the project is, presumably, right? Well, in this case, this is part of what is a five phase project. It's called the harberton reliability project. It's five phases. This is phase three, phases four and five, based on the applicant's narrative, will be within forest park. However, what's not clear to staff and what I reiterated in my staff report is that if phase three is placed in forest park, do phases four and five have no place else to go? In other words, if they come in for an environmental review for phases four and five and they respond to the alternatives analysis approval criteria saying, well, it can't go anywhere else because phase three is here now. So if that is the case, it would be one project.
98 Thank you. That's enlightening. And then was the multi phase project proposed based upon analysis of a projected need presented to staff.
99 Well I don't have details about phases four and five.
100 But you do on phase three.
101 Yes.
102 And for phase three was that based upon projected need for the system as they stated in their.
103 As what they stated in their application materials? They gave me it was to at a very high level. Relieve a bottleneck of sorts in their system.
104 So when you say at a high level, what is what does that mean? What type of analysis does that look like?
105 Yeah. And this I pg can probably go into better detail here. However, what that means is that there is, according to pge, there is some issues with the current configuration and how power gets from one place to the other. So to relieve those issues. They implemented the harberton reliability project phases one, two, three, four and five. This is phase three of that project.
106 So but I mean at a high level. Did they did they provide you what kind of models and data were presented.
107 They provided information about why the system had an issue and what type of increase they were expecting and what sort of issues could arise in 2028 if this project wasn't completed.
108 Okay, okay.
109 Thank you. I may have more questions later, but I'll just I'll yield to my colleagues in case there's interest. Thanks.
110 Councilor. Zimmerman, we're back to you.
111 Thank you. I am curious what the. You know, we have a lot of professions in the city of Portland, and we have a lot of volunteers at the city of Portland. Can you help me understand when I hear the term hearings, officer, what the professional qualifications or volunteer qualifications are before a person is named as a hearings officer? And what I'm trying to understand is the there are some qualitative statements that are in this report, and I am trying to be able to understand with what depth this was made from a land use experience or a general legal experience, and I was hoping that somebody could enlighten me to how you become a hearings officer.
112 Thank you.
113 So, counselor Zimmerman, I am concerned that that is outside the scope of the record. The evidence that we have, I think I can say, because it's a matter of public record, that the hearings officers are generally members of the bar. But other than that, I don't think there's information in the record about about the nature of the hearings officer's qualifications.
114 Okay. Fair enough.
115 I apologize, we can't answer that.
116 That's okay. That's that's why you're here. Linly.
117 Thank you.
118 That's all.
119 Counselors. Any other questions for our staff on the staff presentation before we move on? Counselor Green.
120 Thank you. For approval criteria for approval. Criteria for exceptions be. The proposal is a park related development or no alternative locations exist outside of forest park for the proposal. Which of the alternatives did staff evaluate in arriving at this determination? Can you briefly describe those?
121 Sure. I evaluated everything that was provided to me in the application. So there were three different documents that included information about alternatives. The narrative had a section addressing it, like the general narrative. Pg provided a standalone. Their own standalone. Document that addressed solely the alternatives. And then they provided a report called the toth report, which was an independent study from, I believe, an engineering firm that also analyzed alternatives outside of forest park.
122 Thank you. And how many of those alternatives were there in total?
123 20.
124 Okay. And how many alternatives did the applicant present to the case?
125 Well, they provided information on all on all 20. Okay. Yeah.
126 Yeah.
127 During in arriving at a decision for the staff report, did you engage with any, any, any groups besides the applicant?
128 No.
129 Okay.
130 Well. I'm sorry. Can I there there was information in there given to me for the record that I used. Utilized.
131 So in terms of the record, were was any of that information related to or responsive to the alternatives?
132 Yeah, I received a lot of information about that. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Quite a bit.
133 Was there a discussion about alternatives outside the park that were technically feasible?
134 Yes. It includes information on those in the toth report.
135 Thank you.
136 So there just a there were technically feasible alternatives in the toth report outside of the park?
137 Yes. Toth report has two alternatives. Alternatives four and eight, which the applicant refers to in their documents as the northwest marina way. Alternatives. The toth report says that given mitigation of impediments, which is possible, that these alternatives are viable.
138 Okay. In the applicant's summary, they present, I think, eight alternatives. And one of the alternatives was a generation and batteries solution. Did did staff consider that alternative in arriving at the conclusions of the case?
139 I considered everything. It's that was given to me and all like all the alternatives that were given to me.
140 Were you given what level of detail were you given on the generation and batteries? Alternative analysis?
141 I would say the same level that was given to me as the other information, or as, pardon me, as the other alternatives. So. Yeah, an explanation of what that means. A cost analysis. Timing analysis.
142 So it's okay. And then you documented that in the report. Those are all documented in your staff report. There wasn't anything presented that you didn't didn't consider and write up in the report.
143 So I took what pge deemed as the five most viable options. So I used their words. I or I use their information about determining what was they took from the toth report. Like the five most viable or from their own analysis, the five most viable options, and examine them in a little bit greater detail.
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144 Okay.
145 Yeah.
146 Thank you.
147 Councilor Kanal.
148 Thank you. I'll just follow on a line from that. In the toth report and this is reading from the staff report. So I think we're okay to do that. It says alternative eight is shorter in distance than alternative four traverses fewer parcels, which creates less potential to impact the community. Skipping a sentence here. How? However, alternative eight requires clearing trees that may be objectionable to landowners with either. Alternative four. Alternative eight. Additional analysis to determine if feasible 115 route corridor or alternative construction method may be needed. So my two questions here. First, did you or did staff analyze the maybe needed portion of that and have any additional piece to that that you'd like to share or could share with us?
149 You mean the maybe about the tree clearing?
150 Additional analysis to determine another root corridor or alternative construction method?
151 Oh I see. So in my staff report I do touch on that insofar as that the toth report does say that these are viable with further study. However, that further study was outside the scope of the toth report. That information doesn't go any further than that.
152 And then the other question I had is the only that's the maybe part, the preceding sentence identifies one potential drawback in your analysis. Did you find any other reasons for alternative eight not being viable outside of what the toth report said, which was, quote, alternative eight requires clearing trees that may be objectionable to landowners, end quote.
153 No.
154 Thank you.
155 Counselor Zimmerman.
156 Thanks. On page 21, the hearings officer report, I see the hearing officer agrees that the forest park nature natural resources management plan serves to offer guidance, but does not prevent development. I am, I guess, trying to understand how. The staff in this situation, how you're interpreting that and what you would have said, the forest park natural resource management plan.
157 Does the forest park natural resources management plan is not guidance, it's law. It is an ordinance.
158 So then on the two pages later, excuse me, three pages later on page 24. The hearings officer in about the middle of the page says, what is clear is that alternatives outside of forest park do exist, but those alternatives have been fully evaluated and determined to be impractical. And so my struggle here is trying to understand if staff is saying that this is law, not just guidance, and the hearings officer is saying there is an alternative that does exist, is there is there a information that was provided by the hearings officer that qualifies their interpretation of what impracticable means in this situation?
159 Not that I read in the statute and the hearings officers decision. No.
160 Okay. Thank you.
161 Counselors, we will have time for full discussion where we can get back to some of these issues later. But I do want to make sure that we get through our full presentation. So. Seeing no other hands in the queue, I think we are going to move to the appellants. Thank you very much for being here.
162 Thank you. Okay. So to be here.
163 With us today. You are ready. It looks like we have a presentation that we need to get up. So as you get that presentation going, if you could introduce yourselves for the record, please, we'd appreciate it.
164 Yes. My name is scott fogerty, and I am executive director with forest park conservancy.
165 I don't know how to do this. Oh, carol.
166 Forest park neighborhood association.
167 Thank you.
168 As soon as you're ready, you are welcome to jump right in.
169 Okay. Thank you, madam president. Mayor and city council. Forest park conservancy fully supports the Portland permitting and development report. By the staff who are experts in this field. And their findings to reject pg's permit for expansion in forest park. We completely disagree with the hearing officer who misinterprets the forest park natural resources management plan, which has guided the park use for over 30 years and falls under title 33 of the zoning code. This is a law that must be complied with, not used as guidance for review for zoning criteria. Further, pge failed to meet their burden of proof that this project was necessary and had adequate mitigation plan and conformed with the management plan, which has a long term goal of forest park returning to an old growth forest ecosystem. Forest park conservancy is a 28 year old nonprofit organization with the mission to be the stewards and advocates and watchdog organization for the most iconic park in the pacific northwest, and we help inspire thousands of users of the park to understand the significance and uniqueness of this gem. It can't be lost on us that this painting sitting right above me is from forest park. The hearings officer states that the destroying five acres of this project is an acceptable loss to us. It simply is not. It's the largest urban forest park in the nation, and sits in a community that is trying to desperately fight the loss of our urban forest canopy and beef up our climate resilience in the face of a warming planet. This is just unacceptable to us and the community, and the critters and plants that depend on us to say no cutting trees, building roads, bulldozing, filling in wetlands and streams and saying this is good for climate resilience. We don't agree with that. This is not what the plan or the community envisions for the future of forest park. Unchecked industrialization and consumerism can lead to the destruction of our natural world, and we must care about that to protect our environment for future generations. For us today, yes, but for seven generations to come. More importantly, except within the protected natural areas of the region which we live lie most, which lie mostly outside of our urban areas, there are very, very few healthy 100 plus year old stands of douglas fir that sequester enormous amounts of carbon, provide habitat to species of importance in the region, host wetlands and streams, and provide solace, recreation and a sense of place to our greater community. It's not about what is today, but it's about what could it could become. And this is the point of the plan to ensure this park matures and grows into an old growth forest with the vision of the leaders of many decades ago who recognize the needs of Green spaces and to protect and preserve tree species and wildlife wildlife species in our urban setting. The people of Portland, through their governments, have worked hard to protect these threatened landscapes. Every big tree we remove diminishes the value of habitat. The larger the size of the removal, the greater the negative impact on the diversity and the ecosystem services of the region. The area's cut create an edge effect that dries out adjacent forested lands and, as we heard, opens up the area to invasive plants, insects and diseases. The proposed mitigation plan doesn't even begin to address the loss compared to what is present now. We must consider what pge is proposing to replace this healthy, mature forest with shrub grasses, juvenile hardwoods and other plants which pose a greater fire risk in the dry summer months, and especially not with only two years of establishment. 400 young oak trees in forest park is not mitigation. Experts in an oak savanna have weighed in with us and stating that ecologically, 100 100 oaks per acre is not doable. The majority of these trees will not survive. The proposal not only chips away at this irreplaceable ecosystem, but puts the healthy, adjacent forest at risk. We cannot fail to remind people that this is just phase three of a larger, five phase project that we have not been privy to seeing the details of these projects build on the permitting of the previous phases. Our fear is a slippery slope. It's five acres acceptable. Is 20 acres acceptable? Where do we draw the line? One could argue losing just one 100 year old tree is unacceptable, let alone five acres in the age of climate resilience, this project flies in the face of retaining carbon suckers in a region that is seeing increased impacts from climate change, including potential fire danger. And we question the need for this project. Rolling blackouts. I ask, when has this happened in Portland? Other authorities and experts we spoke with dispute this assertion.
170 13 seconds.
171 13 seconds. Oh, goodness. I'll close now. The hearings officer misinterpreted and misapplied the standards, and she stated in her report, this project will have a significant impact and it will. We believe the city staff report correctly analyzes pge's plan and recommends denying an environmental review on the grounds that pge does not meet the criteria of the management plan. Our children are watching. History is watching. Please let set the right tone on the legacy of our iconic park and reject this proposal. Many thanks.
172 Good afternoon council. I'm carol cheswick, forest park neighborhood land use chair. Pge must prove this project satisfies all 16 approval criteria. If it does not meet even one, it must be denied. The staff report, based on years of experience and expert testimony, found that pge application did not meet any of the 16 approval criteria and recommended rejecting pge application. We agree the forest park management plan has simple goals protecting the natural resources in the park and growing an ancient forest. It is impossible for this project to comply. The plan is explicit that utility corridors are to be minimized, reforested, or eliminated when possible because they fragment the canopy and are perfect hosts for invasive species. I went to visit this site last year. I was stunned to see how pristine this piece of forest is. Pge wants to cut down 4.7 acres of forest harm. Two streams, fill two wetlands, build three concrete pads, and install monopoles in the park. The on site mitigation is seedling trees replacing 150 year old trees with seedlings and shrubs. Pge plans to come back to the same area twice in the next few years to do more work. I found this list of logging equipment in pge application and my gut twisted. I could see and hear what this project would mean for the park. Imagine standing in the park watching 15 chainsaws tear into those big trees for caterpillar processors, 640 ton log trailers. That list doesn't include the construction equipment, bulldozers, drilling dump trucks, concrete trucks, concrete pumpers, cranes to lift monopole sections into place. Big equipment in the park for carol.
173 Carol, I apologize, I need to interrupt. Are you intending for your slideshow to be playing right now?
174 Yes.
175 Okay, we stopped your time because I just want to make.
176 Sure.
177 It's up now.
178 Okay.
179 Okay, I just want please continue. I just it wasn't up for a long time, and I want to make sure you wanted it up instead of your face.
180 I'm sorry. I'm looking at my screen, and it was up on the screen and.
181 Okay.
182 All right.
183 Thank you.
184 It was up for councilors.
185 It just was not up for the folks who are online or in.
186 The room.
187 Okay. Okay.
188 All right. Thank you.
189 If you could just note when you want to advance to the next slide, then we can get it going.
190 Okay. So the. All right. Big equipment in the park for two consecutive summers. Overlapping nesting season for birds. And when there are lots of baby animals in the park. Next slide. This project does not protect the resources in the park and grow an ancient forest. Planting seedlings and trees and shrubs can't compensate for this damage. Trees in this area. Next slide are 150 years old. The management plans goal is to have old growth approaching ancient forests by 21. 95 seedlings planted now will be just 170 years old then. But the current forest would meet that goal if we preserve it. The decision? Rewrite city code and makes many mistakes. The hearings officer set aside expert testimony and detailed analysis by staff to rely on pge representation. The decision makes several significant errors. The hearings officer added words to two approval criteria. Invented four new standards not in the management plan, ignored the plain language of the code. Failed to explain to decisions, failed to find the project consistent with the criterion, but decided the circumstances were rare and unusual. The hearings officer decision for one approval criteria is based solely on a frog mitigation project that is not in pj's final application. We disagree with the hearings officer in the staff report on one issue, the fee in lieu option that pge wants to use to mitigate the damage. According to the ordinance, it is to be applied only in the north unit that's harmed by this project. Next slide. These are photos taken on northwest marina way, the best alternate route in the toth report. Pge claims that using this route would result in more environmental damage than building in the park.
191 Pge did not.
192 I'm going to pause you for a minute. I need to remind folks that jazz hands thumbs up, thumbs down. All fine, but we need reactions to be silent so that our presentations can continue. Thank you.
193 Okay.
194 This option and others were eliminated because pge can't complete them by 2028. They say. They say that there's a we'll have rolling blackouts across the region. If we don't have this project done by 2028. If there is a 2028 problem, it is pge problem. And the city should not rewrite our code and remove protections from the park to fix it for them. If 28 was 2028 was a real problem. Bpa and others idaho power pacific corp would be testifying that this project is needed. We have not heard from them. There is no independent evidence this project is needed or urgent. Your staff decided this project does not meet any of these 16 criteria. If you uphold the hearings officer's decision, you will reject 30 years of staff experience and precedents, allowing the hearings officer to rewrite the management plan. Not only would you adopt seriously flawed, flawed findings in the decision, development in the park will become much easier and standards for protection protection will drop dramatically. The goal of the management plan is clear protect the resources in the park and grow an ancient forest. Pge proposal is directly opposed. To go back and just pick up. Pge did not evaluate other alternatives that we've described elsewhere, including non wire solutions such as grid enhancing technologies. Past councils have worked hard to expand and protect the park. This decision will be your legacy. Luba is likely to depend on your judgment as elected officials. Your decision is probably going to be decisive. We hope that you will protect the park and uphold these goals. We'll be happy to answer your questions now or later.
195 Thank you.
196 Thank you. And counselors, we do have a significant number of people signed up, many in support, which is the next section. If there are some clarifying questions we need to ask first, let's get those in. And then let's hear from other folks who support the appeal. Councilor Green.
197 Thank you, madam president. That last thing you said, first of all, thanks for your presentation. The last thing you said about non wire solutions that piqued my interest. Can you can you say a little bit more? About what. What you mean there.
198 So there are a set of I think at least four non wire solutions that the federal energy department is recommending be explored in, in more broad ways and implemented across the country to try and save these kinds of problems. The one of them that I find the easiest to explain puts sensors on existing wires so that they can better monitor remotely the temperature that the wire is at. When this when the system gets too hot, they have to reduce the amount of power in the system to protect things from burning out and bad things happening. So installing these sensors on the wire and then doing monitor remote monitoring allows the system to be adjusted and actually use more of the capacity, because you understand just how hot that wire is. Otherwise you're estimating. And when you're estimating, you have to then allow for some some some error, right. So if you think the capacity is here but you're not sure because you don't have a direct measurement, you have to downgrade it and say, okay, we better operate here to be safe. If you know for sure how much room you have, you can operate at a higher level and get more power on the same lines. We haven't seen evidence that pge has explored using these kinds of grid enhancing technologies to solve this problem. They're not they're probably things that they might have to apply across a broader part of the system, and not just in this one little location. But we haven't, as I said, we haven't seen evidence that they have explored these other technologies.
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199 Clarifying councilor Clark.
200 Thank you, madam president. I have a couple of questions for scott. I didn't catch your last name.
201 Fogerty.
202 Fogerty. Yes.
203 I have a question for you. You. About the mitigation plan. You raised a couple of issues there. You said that you consulted and linly helped me. If this is out of order. You said you consulted an oak savanna expert.
204 That's correct.
205 And you mentioned that the density that they're proposing of the oaks means that the oaks would not survive. Can you talk a little bit more about that?
206 Sure. From my conversations, and I should also say that I, I have some background in urban forestry and in arboreal hair. And so the folks I talked to actually grow oaks and recover oaks from projects by PBOT and ODOT and plant them and regrow them on their property. And the density of oaks across the landscape is thinned. Oaks grow more when they have when there's there are less oaks in a dense growing area. And so having 100 oaks in an acre is, is a really dense oak forest, and many of which I've been told will not survive because of the competition for both water and the fact that they just don't grow in that way in terms of an oak forest. And so the proposal to plant 400 oaks on 4.7 acres is, you know, I mean, approaching 100 oaks per acre, which we don't feel makes up for the loss of the loss of d.b.h. In in douglas fir and western hemlock and western red cedar. So, so that's that's where I was coming from with that.
207 Thank you. I have just two quick questions. You mentioned what's a carbon sucker.
208 You mentioned a tree.
209 A sequester. Yeah, a tree, a sequester. And old, old doug, firs sequester a lot more carbon than young white oaks do. And there are calculations that can be established that will show that factoid.
210 Okay. Thanks. And one last question. There's a frog involved in the mitigation plan. And, I don't know, it's maybe endangered, but.
211 It's a species in decline. Yes.
212 The mitigation plan recommends creating a pond for them. I don't know if that's in lieu of the wetlands. Can you address that at all? I don't know if you're a frog expert, but.
213 I'm not an amphibian expert. But I've had some interaction with amphibian experts and have loved them for a long time. It's my understanding that, yes, that wetlands are the preferable habitat for the red legged frog, and they migrate. And so there's actually a frog taxi volunteer group that helps take them across highway 30 to the other side in linton during their migration period. And so I'm just not sure that a pond would would suffice as a mitigation to a wetland, which is the habitat that they are used to and especially in the proximity of the area that they are living in now. And so I think that would need deeper scientific study on whether that is an appropriate mitigation plan.
214 Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.
215 Thank you. Seeing no other questions, I appreciate you being here with your presentation today and we will move to testimony from supporters of your appeal. Thank you. And for folks who are in our overflow rooms, please, when you hear your name, make your way to council chambers. Or if you are further down on the list, or if you are here to testify later in the presentation. I should have noted previously that we do have an overflow room with remote testimony set up in the Portland building, as well as the opportunity to testify in person in city hall. Rebecca, can you call our first testifiers?
216 First, we have micah meskill. Rachel felice, and catherine thompson.
217 Madam president, councilors and the mayor. My name is micah meskill, and I'm representing the bird alliance of Oregon. I'm representing our organization, the history of advocacy on this issue. And our 10,000 plus current members in Portland who care deeply about protecting our city's cherished parks and natural resources. Forest park being one of the most revered. We strongly disagree or we degree sorry. We disagree strongly with the hearings officer's initial decision to approve pj's proposal, as it did a disservice to the city expert analysis and important land use codes, and instead gave deference to the arguments of a profit seeking corporation. We ask you today to accept the appeal of forest park conservancy and forest park neighborhood association and direct the city attorney to draft a decision based off the staff report's recommendation of denial for the project. You'll hear the sentiment, passionately echoed by dozens of groups testifying today in the several thousands of comments submitted to the hearings officer and to your offices over the last six months. And the overwhelming majority of portlanders who cherish our public spaces like forest park. And this passion for protecting forest park, is bolstered by the strong legal and technical argument for denial of this proposal, based on the key review criteria that this project is required to be measured against laid out by the appellants, the extensive written record, including our comments and testimony you'll hear today. Pj's project is squarely in conflict with key components of the forest park natural resource management plan, and accordingly should have been denied. These arguments are demonstrated extensively in the city. Staff report, expert testimony from city bureaus and other agencies, dozens of community organizations, and by over 1000 individual comments in the written record. The mitigation plan clearly does not meet requirements of the management plan or support its goal of growing an ancient forest. Hundreds hundreds of oak seedlings do not come close to replacing the ecosystem services. Hundreds, hundreds of existing and maturing trees that shelter nearly five acres of native understory and two seasonal streams and a wetland. The alternative routes for the project exist, even with pge artificially impeding these alternatives. They are still clear routes outside the park that are viable alternatives. And lastly, future phases of the proposal should be factored into the decision. This phase is directly connected and related to future phases that have been planned by pge, which would have more significant impact on the park and those impacts should be weighed. Now, city council has the opportunity to reverse the mistake of the hearings officer and lift up the city's own staff expertise and uphold the protections of the management plan. We urge you to accept the appeal and direct the city attorney to draft a decision based on the staff report. The decision to deny the proposal will become the next legacy moment for forest park, and the opportunity for this council to cement itself in the history books as a protector of one of the city's most significant public resources. Thank you.
218 Thank you. Go right ahead.
219 All right. Good afternoon.
220 Mayor wilson. Madam president, councilors, thank you for the.
221 Opportunity to speak. My name is rachel felice, and I'm testifying today as the owner's representative on behalf of Portland parks and recreation. Portland parks and recreation staff have spent substantial time inspecting the site and reviewing this application to understand its implications for forest park. Pge easement over land managed by parks requires pge to comply with all applicable laws and regulations, including local land use regulations. Pr has significant concerns and does not support the project as proposed, because it will have significant detrimental impacts to the park. Consistent with the submitted appeals and the robust staff report that you've seen, pr does not believe the proposal meets the applicable approval criteria. The applicant proposes to impact 4.7 acres of forest park, including removing 397 trees, clearing understory vegetation, excavating and leveling slopes, building new roads and permanent structures, and filling two wetlands. This would be a significant detrimental impact to plant and animal communities. Soil and water resources in the park. The area pge proposes to permanently impact is a forest ecosystem of douglas fir, bigleaf maple, cedar, and Oregon white oak, many of which are over 100 years old, with a dense understory of native plants like vine maple, salmonberry, Oregon grape, sword fern, and trillium. Numerous wildlife communities rely on this habitat. Species such as deer, pileated woodpecker, salamanders, red legged frogs, and douglas squirrel. A small tributary stream flows through the site from its headwaters in forest park. The stream supports water quality in the lower Willamette river and should be prioritized for protection. The site is within the environmental protection overlay zone, and has been awarded the highest rank available for special habitat area, riparian corridor habitat, wildlife habitat and habitat conservation area. Ppr believes there are several approval criteria that were not met by this proposal, but due to time, I'll focus on consistency with the forest park natural resource management plan goals and strategies as it is a required criteria that any approved project must meet. Conservation goal one in the management plan requires projects to protect forest parks, native plant and animal communities, soil and water resources while managing the ecosystem to grow a self-sustaining ancient forest for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. This proposal would remove hundreds of large existing trees and clear forest understory vegetation, excavate and fill slopes and wetlands, and impact soil and water resources, resulting in the permanent loss of habitat. The removal of 4.7 acres of forest would also diminish the scenic values of forest park, and would impact the user experience for visitors to the park. Allowing these impacts to go forward would not protect the park's resources as required by the approval criteria, and is not consistent with the natural resource management plan. Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
222 Thank you. Go right ahead.
223 Hello. Good afternoon. My name is catherine thompson. I'm a retired pediatrician, and I thank you all for the commitment you've made to our city. I've heard some of you speak at the hands off rally downtown. I get a number of your newsletters, and I like the way you brought fresh ideas and fresh eyes to some existing policies. And I trust that you will do the same for this proposal. I was trained as a scientist, and I asked to use the scientific method to look at the data to resolve contradictory testimony in the record. I heard a lot of that at the hearing. So afterwards I entered several documents into the record from reputable, impartial scientific sources. And you can see them. I've referred to them in my written testimony. I will refer today to the robust Washington department of fish and wildlife plan for establishing an oak forest using best practices. It's a little different than what scott fogarty said, but I'm quoting from the record. So according to that record, into the best practices, a forester following those practices would actually plant 500 oak saplings per acre. And for 4.7 acres, that would be 2350 oaks, because very many of them will not survive. The forester from pge will plant 386 oaks, and for the first two years, both foresters are following best practices removing invasives, protecting saplings from foraging and watering if necessary. But at five years things are really different. The best practices forester is using a metric of 100% survival of her seedlings, and there are 2350 oak seedlings still there. Forester pge is now just monitoring 5% of their forest. Their metric is 70% survival of woody cover and 30% of those trees are oak. At best, there are only 270 oaks left, and they're tiny, but they are not even counting them anymore. And going forward, having met their metric, they will resume their regular practice as required by the pcu code. Puc code, which is simply to keep the vegetation off the wires. Meanwhile, the best practices forester is meeting the ten year metric of 75% survival, the 20 year metric, and she and her and that forester will continue to manage that forest in perpetuity. That's what's required. So based on this data, I think you should conclude that, as the staff did and career scientists and a forester, pam hayes, who has put in written testimony, she raises oak forests. The pge oak woodland plan is implausible. It will not produce the ancient oak woodland. They really like to talk about. If the mitigation plan will fail, the stipulations of the forest park natural resources management plan will not be met. Whatever you decide on all the other criteria, we. I ask you to demand a legitimate, plausible mitigation plan. If you're going to approve this plan, and I beg that you side with the appeal.
224 And thank you very much for being here. Could you call our next three people, please?
225 Next we have ali berman, jim and john thompson.
226 Thank god for you.
227 Ali, go ahead as we wait for others to make their way.
228 You're right. It is far away. Good afternoon, madam president. Mayor wilson, council members, my name is ali berman, and I'm the vice chair of the Portland parks and recreation board. Although today I'll be speaking to you on my own behalf as a district two constituent, please listen for testimony from the parks board. A little later in the hearing, I want to start by talking about the land and the wildlife who depend on it. I'm one of the fortunate people who have done the red legged frog taxi. I've shuttled frogs in the rain, including pregnant females. They're super juicy to touch. It's wonderful to their breeding grounds across highway 30. The red legged frog is a sensitive species here in Oregon, and our Portland populations have a lot to overcome, especially in this area that has already suffered severe habitat fragmentation. When pge proposed the site for expansion, I went there. I wanted to see for myself what was at stake. There isn't a trail directly and you have to bushwhack. It's a it's quite a thing. It's not as touched by people as other parts of the park. I walked the land and found mature forest habitat, hundreds of trees, many 150 years or older, thousands of native shrubs and ground cover plants, as well as perennial streams. It's magnificent and will only get better with age, but we have to give it that chance. And approving pge harberton project would set this part of the forest back several hundred years, and set a dangerous precedent that puts other parts of the forest at risk. Pge harbored and project is squarely in conflict with the city's values and the local law that manages this cherished public resource, the forest park natural resource management plan. And there are other options. Pge could pursue that don't require cutting down over 300, nearly 400 trees. I'm here today to ask city council to support the appeals of forest park conservancy and the forest park neighborhood association. The city's own staff report recommended the rejection of pge proposal. Over a thousand portlanders have asked you to do the same. This council is young and so is our new form of government. Please don't set the precedent of rejecting your own staff's expertise and the will of the people for a profit seeking corporation, and instead start your legacy as protectors of the city's public good. Thank you.
229 Thank you. Go right ahead.
230 I think I'm number six on the list as opposed to number five.
231 We have. Sorry, we have jim next. And jim's online.
232 Thank you, madam chair. Excuse me. And members of the city council. My name is jim and my wife, cheryl, and I live on 53rd drive northwest at the end of forest Lane, which of course becomes fire trail one. We also speak in support of the of the city staff and against the hearings officer's decision. There are a lot of ways, of course, to look at the data, a lot of data to get through. I don't envy you the work, but it is important and we certainly appreciate your taking it so carefully. I would like to. And the red legged frog seems to be getting a lot of, of mention and I think, I think deservedly so. It's an example of the hearings officer's report and, and how it treated the evidence. The Oregon department of fish and wildlife talked about the red legged frog as an important species. And it's a it's not listed. It's a species in decline. Excuse me. That's the rung right before a species which is threatened and gets listed. Odf said land use changes such as forest fragmentation and development are among the most significant contributors to the declining populations of the northern red legged frog. This project would reduce the quantity and quality of the frogs non-breeding habitat in the forest, they said. The proposed project is located within a priority wildlife connectivity area, and here we're talking about getting those frogs across across the road. The project would fill in the two existing ponds on the property, which is where the habitat for the northern red legged frog. And so what did pge have to say about that? What did they know about the red legged frog? Page 17 of their mitigation plan. The presence and density of northern red legged frogs and the project site is unknown. What did the hearings officer do with that? The hearings officer said of the mitigation plan. The mitigation plan thoroughly and extensively addresses goals of improving water quality and aquatic habitat. I think, as has been remarked and will be remarked further, the hearings officer's job here. Was was not done carefully. Again, it's a big record. It's a big job, but it was not done in detail. Specific evidence was not was not addressed. I would like to ask a question, and I would like this not to count against my time, but as to conflicts of interest. The mayor's chief of staff is married to mark weiner, who is a lobbyist, I believe for pge currently certainly has. In the past. I would I'd like to pose the question, was that part of the conflict analysis that was done at the beginning of the hearing? Mr. If not, could that be addressed?
233 Mr. Kuhn the mayor did not make declarations of conflicts because we don't yet know if the mayor will be voting on this item. If he does end up needing to vote, we will have him make his conflicts declarations.
234 Then could I ask whether the mayor has had conversations with any of the council members on this issue?
235 I'm I'm sorry, but that's not part of the agenda where we are right now.
236 My time is up.
237 Go right ahead.
238 Yes. Good afternoon. My name is john thompson. I'm a retired physician, and in recent years have enjoyed forest park. I'm an avid naturalist. I worked with marcy cottrell houle to help create the new forest park hike book that just came out and did some of the research for that. I came here today to ask you to reject pj's proposal and to uphold this appeal, because pge is not in compliance with the relevant ordinance. Pge would like to use ordinance 191314 to make in lieu payments rather than develop their own mitigation plan. I've submitted a detailed analysis that if you can refer to it, that demonstrates why they're not in compliance, but in a brief summary, the bureau of developmental services is responsible for making that determination and part of that process you've heard about is the is for Portland parks and recreation to do a study and to make a determination. As you've heard, they have not approved this plan, in part also because mitigation needs to take place in the unit that's impacted. And so none of those things are possible. The report basically states that mitigation of this magnitude can't take place within that unit. So basically with that being said, ordinance 191314 really can't be used because it's not got approval from bds. So in the hearing process, clearly there was a lot of material and undoubtedly some was just looked over. But I ask you today to correct what I think of as an error in that determination, because I don't believe that this ordinance can be used given bds's determination. So thank you very much. I appreciate the opportunity to talk to you today.
239 Thank you very much.
240 Next we have paul matchcoat, marcy hull, and ellen mendoza. Paul is online.
241 Go right ahead.
242 Paul, you're good to go if you want to unmute.
243 Are we able. Oh, go right ahead, paul.
244 My name is paul mic check. After 30 years at bpa, I retired as deputy general counsel in 2014. The hearing officers accepted pgs representation that it had not decided whether to build phases four and five when it decided to make an independent review of phase three. On the other hand, pge has claimed in its own application in its that its 2024 pge transmission plan includes phases three and four as needed to maintain compliance with standards. Pge is committed to build phase five in its 2024 transmission plan. Pg would like you to believe both that phases four and five might never be built, and that bpa and other utilities depend on the projects included in their official transmission plans, and these plans call for completion by 2030 of all three phases. In addition, the hearing officer erred in doing the conclusion that due to rolling blackouts, that pge had demonstrated the need for the proposal as required by the management plan because it demonstrated an increase in energy demand is projected to exceed the current system capacity. This is wrong. Mike hoffman, an expert witness in this proceeding, testified that pj's claim of imminent blackouts by 2028 lacked detailed support from their power supply models and load forecasts. The data showed load growth, but not at the level that would outpace existing and planned transmission capacity by 2028. What is missing from the plan are the details and other utilities ability to absorb load. Pge dismissed other alternatives like demand side management, distributed generation and upgrading existing infrastructure outside forest park. Without sufficient analysis, pge has not presented any transmission analysis by the puc. The Oregon department of energy, the northern grid, bpa or other utilities confirming the urgency of or need for pge specific design or route. In fact, as shown in my testimony in the proceeding, bpa's actions continue to improve the resilience of the grid in the Portland area. Pge has failed to account for bpa plans or service upgrades by 2028 and beyond. In bpa's final 2024 transmission plan. This is in the record of this proceeding. The burden of proof in this proceeding is on pge to show a demonstrable need for its segmented phase three proposal. It has failed to meet that burden. Thank you.
245 Thank you. Go right ahead.
246 Hi.
247 I'm marcy.
248 Cottrell poole.
249 I'm a wildlife biologist, and I've studied forest park for four decades. I know that dates me and I've written several books about it. So today I just want to say, how did we come to have this wondrous place in our city? Well, really, it's a miracle. And it began 122 years ago when frederick olmsted came to Portland to do a park planning study. In his 1903 report, he said, if these woods are preserved, they will surely come to be regarded as marvelously beautiful. But its preservation didn't happen right away. In fact, just the opposite. In 1912, the mayor of Portland disagreed with olmsted. He made it firmly known he did not need parks in his city, and olmsted's vision was dismissed. And in place of a park, speculators platted out massive subdivisions for these forested hills, and they built an expensive 11 mile road, which we now know as leif ericson drive. But something happened then, and that winter there was a deluge, and the repairs of the road were expensive, and the property owners were assessed well. One by one they defaulted. Well, things looked pretty grim for forest park through all these years, though there remained a few advocates who still held onto the hope of the olmsted vision. One in particular was the president of standard insurance, garnett ding cannon, and he came up with an amazing plan of action. In 1945, cannon organized 50 different organizations called and called it the forest park committee of 50. They came up with a plan to amass all those defaulted properties and create a4000 acre park. They took this idea to city hall and council was unanimous. 77 years ago, forest park was adopted by the city council of Portland to become its largest crown jewel park. Well, that was this council's first legacy. The second legacy came in 1995, a collaboration of citizen scientists and a technical advisory committees had been working for three years to draft the forest park natural resources management plan. This is the document, the latest central strategies to protect the park, and they took it to council in 1995, who adopted it unanimously. And the big point is they made it law. So that was council's second legacy. So now for the past 30 years, city staff have faithfully followed the high standards set forth in the management plan. It's the reason we have such a magnificent world class park today. Well, so today we face the council's third legacy. So I ask you, will you continue to faithfully uphold the law to protect portland's crown jewel for future generations? Or will you approve pge permits to establish new precedents approved by the hearing officer to with lower standards that will dramatically reduce the vision for the park, a vision that's been in place for 122 years. What will be your legacy? Thank you.
250 We have ellen mendoza. Ellen is in the Portland building.
251 Hi. Yes, I am ellen mendoza. I support the appeal and ask that you reject the hearings. Officer. Decision. As we face climate change, we will need parks more and more for shade, watershed protection and connection to the natural world that is struggling to adapt. The council should protect the parks we have, and pge can find another way to put in yet another park electric line. Now I'm going to read a poem that I wrote about the topic, the choice. Why put a power line in a park? Because it is easy. The ground is soft. Only trees are in the way because other towers already spoil the illusion of nature. It is not the forest primeval because we need their charged electrons, enabling our leisurely lifestyle, storing our memories and creations. Because. Because corporations run toward money. And this one can see over the hill where data centers are sprouting. Is there another way we ask, why can't the power line go along the roads already strung with wire? Isn't it the law that this park should remain as forest unless there is no other option, and any harm is completely mitigated, but the corporation is murmuring. What about your refrigerators, heat pumps, electric cars, televisions, computers, washing machines, light bulbs and phones? Don't blame us if there is a blackout. What's a few trees? Frogs. Birds? Deer? Snakes? Coyotes in the face of electrical insecurity. Because when we made the park, we chose the forest. We meant it then. We mean it now. Thank you.
252 Thank you, and thank.
253 You to folks in the room for remembering silent support.
254 Next we have thomas cunningham, jeremy Smith, and kai mcmurtry.
255 Miss yourself and go ahead and begin testimony.
256 Are you ready? Good afternoon. My name is tom cunningham. I'm a lawyer, and I've been practicing law in Portland for the last 36 years. I'm also a member of the coalition for the protection of forest park. We are a we are not volunteers devoted to the compliance. Seeing the compliance and the enforcement of the forest park natural resources management plan, which is an ordinance. And I come before the council today to oppose the granting in support of the appeal, because pgi's proposal violates the plan. And I ask this a couple of things of this council. First of all, I would request that they support the staff, report the staff, report the staff. Your staff are the experts. And by unhesitatingly, they denied a recommend denial of bgs report. The second thing I want to ask of you is to make a finding that there are. Alternative locations outside of forest park for that they exist for pj's proposal. That's important because in the management plan on page 217, you find the approval criteria, and in exception b, you find the clause that the pgs proposal must be denied. If the if an alternate location outside of forest park for pj's proposal exists, keep in mind this is plain description, an alternate location. It isn't adorned with any kind of qualifiers. Your search for this finding is made easy by the hearing officer's decision on page 21. On page 21, she notes that pge has already identified different alternative locations, and that should have ended her discussion. At that point, she should have simply denied the application, but she didn't. She wanted to bring it around so that pj's proposal could be granted. And I think here, in my opinion, she made an error of law because she tried to graft on this idea of practicability onto the ordinance by saying that an alternative is. Anyway, that's in violation of s 174 010. She can't amend the ordinance. So I'm asking you to disregard this practicability ordinance. Find that there are these alternative locations outside of forest park and grant the appeal. Thank you.
257 Thank you.
258 Jeremy, I believe you're next.
259 Good afternoon, councilors and mayor wilson. My name is jeremy Smith. I live in district four, just a few miles from forest park. Before I consider moving to Portland, I knew about forest park. Its reputation precedes the city itself. Forest park was one of the main factors influencing my decision to move here, work here, buy a home here and start a family here. Its proximity to the urban center and world class hikes are unparalleled in any major u.s. City. Forest park is the product of over a century of advocacy by the indigenous community, environmentalists and nature lovers. It is a privilege to have such a large urban forest within our city, and we must honor the advocacy advocacy of those who came before us. I'm not against expanding and updating our power grid to improve resilience and accommodate population growth. Updating our electrical distribution capabilities is a crucial part of converting to a renewable energy economy. What I am against is approving a project that would destroy five acres of mature trees, streams and wetlands in a in portland's most beloved park a park that we are legally bound by the forest park natural resources management plan to grow and protect as we aid it in becoming an ancient, self-sustaining forest. Resetting the clock on a forest. Moving towards ancient status is not how we create climate resilience. The mitigation plan put forth by pge does not come close to offsetting the impact this will have on the ecology and air quality of the region. Pge's mitigation plan touts the pavement of the Portland parks and recreations in lieu of fee as a key element. Paying a fee will not bring back the streams and wetland habitats that will be irreparably destroyed by this project, pge says they'll come back out for routine maintenance for two years, but what happens after that? And what exactly is pge's maintenance plan? How can we trust the pge will even exist to steward these trees to adulthood? Taking down a mature tree and replacing it with a sapling is not comparable. I've seen pge's mitigation work in my own neighborhood of lair hill, where they've cleared mature douglas firs to expand electrical distribution capabilities for the new OHSU facility. Pge replaced mature trees with shade plants that are frying in the direct sunlight. Pge has created a new biome by removing the shade cover that the trees used to provide, and the sapling and the saplings that they've put in the Oregon grape. It's already dying. Not to mention that they left trash in our neighborhood and they made the soil barren. I'm not impressed with what they did. I and I don't trust or have confidence in their ability to steward the land that they would destroy in this project. You've been lied to. That the forest park is the only option for this project. We need a third party report, not one completed by a pge consultant that explores additional options. Options that do not impact forest park. The people of Portland deserve a better project. If you scroll through the public testimony record, you will find over 1000 written testimonies urging you to approve this appeal. It is almost impossible to find a testimony against it. That is a mandate from the people of Portland.
260 Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
261 Good afternoon, councilors and mayor wilson, thank you so much to all my fellow community members who are here with us today. My name is kai mcmurtry. I am an Oregon sierra club organizer in Portland, and I'm here to speak in support of the appeals of both forest park conservancy and the forest park neighborhood association, and to ask this council to reverse the hearings officer's decision. I also urge you to direct the city attorney's office to write a new decision based on the city staff report, which laid out a comprehensive, fact based and well informed argument for denial of this pge land use request across many review criteria. Since that staff report and the submitted appeal documentation and the vast majority of testimony you will hear today illuminates clearly why the appeals should be affirmed. I will instead focus my remarks on highlighting the portlanders who aren't able to be here today, but who nonetheless have shared their wholehearted support of the park. To be clear, I am not speaking for them. They have already spoken to start Portland permitting, and development staff received nearly 1200 comments as they compiled their recommendation. Approximately a half dozen were supportive of pge's proposal and the remaining 1200 opposed. Next, when the proposal moved to hearing, more than 900 comments were submitted to the hearings officer, of which approximately 100 were supportive of harberton, more than 800 opposed. When I arrived here this morning, this appeal had received more than 1100 comments submitted to this council, virtually all in support of the appeal in front of you and in opposition to the project as it is opposed. Additionally, let me read a list of agencies who recommend denial of pge forest park deforestation plan, Portland urban forestry, the Portland parks board, west Multnomah soil and water conservation district, Oregon department of fish and wildlife, Portland parks and recreation, community based organizations in opposition include the forest park neighborhood association, forest park conservancy, Oregon, sierra club, bird alliance of Oregon, Portland dsa 350 pdx to alton riverkeepers defend them all, save helvetia, mosquito fleet pdx intertwine alliance. Willamette riverkeeper, access for all and human access project. My friends and colleagues, alongside Portland city staff, are illustrating why pge's proposal is unsound. Thousands of portlanders are standing up to ask you to validate that their vision of a just and sustainable clean energy future matters to this. Council has the opportunity that the hearings officer declined to center public interest when interpreting the law, that we need. Upgraded energy transmission alone is not enough. We must also consider how and where and why we need it and say yes only when the plan centers our community and ecology and humanity. Thank you.
262 Very much.
263 Rebecca.
264 Mike. Mike. Lindberg. Damon. Damon. Monts. Story. Damon. Monts. Story. And. Carl. Anita and mike is online.
265 Yes. Here we go. Council president, members of the city council. My name is mike lindberg. I have the honor of being a Portland city commissioner for 17 years. I lived in four different neighborhoods as a renter and homeowner. Forest park was my go to place for hiking and absorbing the beauty and spirit of nature. I was parks commissioner for about five years and immersed myself in the health of forest park and celebrate the role it played in defining who we are as a city. I was also on the city council when we adopted the forest park natural resources management plan in 1995. My judgment is that pgs application violates the plan in many ways. First, the application is inconsistent with the two primary conservation goals of the plan. The first of those requires a city to protect forest, parks, native plant and animal communities, and its soil and water resources while managing the forest ecosystem in order to grow a self-sustaining ancient forest for the enjoyment of future generations. As the city staff report concluded, if pge's proposal were approved, pge would destroy, not protect, native plant and animal communities and soil and water resources. The second conservation goal is to manage forest park with 4 in 4 ways one. Maintain and enhance regional biodiversity to provide wildlife habitat and migration opportunities. And we did designate forest park as a wildlife corridor to go from Portland toward the coast. Improve water quality and aquatic habitat. And four repair damaged and fragmented natural systems. Once again, pge application is squarely inconsistent with each of these requirements. Pge's application also shows that there are alternative routes for power lines. The routes may be more expensive than running lines through the park, but a developer does not gain the right to use the park simply because it would be cheaper to do so. In conclusion, if the city council were to approve this application, it would involve clear cutting the equivalent in size of about one and a half football fields. And if you account for the later phases of the project, it would be up to get up to about four and a half. Football fields of clearcutting. I hope you recognize and embrace the opportunity before you today, and vote to protect one of portland's national natural treasures, forest park. Thank you very much.
266 Thank you.
267 Daymon.
268 Good afternoon, madam council president, mayor wilson and Portland city council, thank you for the opportunity to comment on this land use appeal today. For the record, my name is damon monstery, and I serve as the Oregon state director of the sierra club. Our mission is to explore, enjoy, and protect the planet. We have 58,000 members and supporters across Oregon working to defend public lands and forests, protect clean air, clean water and wildlife, and advance a just transition to 100% renewable energy. Speaking of that energy transition, we appreciate the need for upgrades to our energy infrastructure. We will need to be able to move clean power from generation to consumption more efficiently and responsibly, responsibly, especially in the face of increasing climate change and extreme weather. But if and only if we truly need a new power line, we shouldn't make climate change worse by saying we have no choice but to mow down carbon dense forests for that power line because of climate change doesn't make sense, especially when independent study shows there are alternative routes that can be made viable for the power lines. Now, sierra club has partnered with pge often in the past on our shared goals, such as clean power and energy affordability for low income Oregonians. And pge has known about the need for power upgrades in this area since 2015 and now claims to not have time for alternate routes. There is no need for us to be on opposing sides of this issue, and I call on pge to abandon this ill advised forest park pathway and work together with community groups and environmentalists instead of against us. We should, as a city, hold an extremely high bar for what deserves taking up more of our public forests. The value of these trees is immense from habitat for sensitive species, cooling and summer heat, and highly effective carbon sequestration, recreation and public enjoyment. There is no credible way you could convince me that planting seedling trees would acceptably mitigate the loss of hundreds of years old trees, which take decades upon decades, to reach maturity. If there are other ways to solve our electricity needs, we owe it to all of the previous generations who advocated to protect this place, as well as our kids and grandkids, to find another way and protect this precious ancient forest. Oregon has already lost so much of its ancient forests since the arrival of white settlers and the timber industry. Even taking just a few a few more acres of healthy forests is an incalculable loss. That would also set an unacceptable precedent. Today, it's 4.7 acres, but the next phase and the next phase after that, and other proposals yet to be seen, will continue to point back to the decision made here today. So instead, let's defend portland's crown jewel park and find a different pathway. Thank you for the opportunity to comment in support of the appeal today, and I urge you to just really take a moment to settle in and remember what you felt like when you first went to forest park and how that how that impressed upon you. The only reason we have it is because we've made choices to protect it. And so we have the opportunity to make those good choices today. And I appreciate very much for taking this this so seriously.
269 Thank you carl. Go right ahead.
270 Madam president, members.
271 Of.
272 The council.
273 Mayor.
274 My name is carl anuta. I'm a lawyer.
275 I've been practicing. Environmental law in Portland for over 35 years. I'm presenting.
276 Today as an individual.
277 I presented.
278 Written testimony.
279 To the hearings officer, which she ignored. That prior testimony focused on how legally and factually, it is improper for pge to try to pretend that phases four and five of the harberton project are not something that is relevant to phase three. Even though phase three's location dictates whether phase five will be in or outside of the park. I'm presenting today, however, on two different issues. Things I would want to know if I was sitting in your shoes. One is the scope and nature of the review you're conducting, and the other is the burden of proof in this quasi judicial proceeding on the scope of review issue. Your review here today is what's called de novo review. That means you look at all the facts and all the testimony, and you put on fresh eyes, and you decide what you think. Those facts actually show. In doing that review, you are not required to, nor are you legally allowed to give significant deference to the hearings officer's decision. In fact, if you do that, you're probably going to be reversed. There's a land use case called lawrence v Clackamas county, where the Oregon court of appeals did just that. They reversed a local government quasi judicial appeal decision, specifically because the local government gave considerable deference to a hearings officer's decision. The court held that, quote, that is not de novo review. So look at the record yourself and make your own decisions about what it shows. There are other cases affirming the lawrence holding. However, since I'm going to be short of time, you'll have to look at my written testimony or ask me questions afterwards if you want to get those or the citations. The city code here is clear. The city council quote. The city council may adopt the review body's decision report, modify it, or reject it based on the information presented at the hearing and in the record. The code makes no reference to deferring to the hearings officer. If you disagree, you and you want to follow the expert recommendations of your staff and the well researched and well supported appeals of the forest park neighborhood association and the forest park conservancy. You simply have to tell your staff that's where you want to go and ask them to write findings to support that. Let's look at the burden of proof for just a moment. The law here is also very clear. The quote the applicant retains the burden of proof throughout the local process to demonstrate compliance with all applicable approval criteria. That's from a case called rockland versus Multnomah county. In other words, it is pge who has to convince you that they've proved they comply.
280 I'm sorry. Your time is up.
281 Happy to answer any questions if anyone has any.
282 Thank you.
283 I think we will call up our next testifiers.
284 Next we have matt schipke swinhoe and nikki grimm.
285 Go right ahead.
286 Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is matt schipke, and I'm here with my colleague swinhoe. We are both members of the Portland parks and recreation board, and we will be representing the board's position today. We urge you to support the appeal and to say no to ppg's proposal to remove almost five acres of important natural habitat in forest park. In doing so, we are also lifting up the recommendations of your city staff and the more than 1000 portlanders who have asked the city to safeguard the unique and special resource that is forest park. The Portland parks and recreation board cares deeply about building and sustaining holistic communities. Our park system is an essential contributor to our quality of life. By providing spaces for residents and visitors to gather, play and build community. By providing habitat for wildlife, by cooling down our neighborhoods, and by making our city more climate resilient. Today, we stand in solidarity with forest park conservancy and the friends of forest park to defend one of portland's most valuable assets, forest park. Pge has proposed removing approximately five acres of second growth mixed coniferous deciduous forest, which would require the removal of approximately 397 trees and two wetlands, as well as the degradation of two perennial streams. These are complex, high value natural resources within forest park, which would be permanently lost and which cannot be replicated through mitigation. Susan will now continue the board's testimony.
287 Good afternoon. My name is swen ho. I serve on the Portland parks and recreation board. The board firmly believes pge plan stands in direct opposition to conservation goals one and two. In the 1995 forest park management plan that was adopted by city council by ordinance, severely disrupting biodiversity, habitat and the forest ecosystem. Conservation goal one states the city will protect forest parks, native plant and animal communities, its soil and its water resources while managing the ecosystem in order to grow a self-sustaining ancient forest for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. Removing close to five acres of forest is squarely counter to those goals. In addition, this section of forest is important habitat for the red legged frog listed as a sensitive species in Oregon. The removal of habitat and degradation of this perennial streams will inhibit the species ability to use this pathway on its migration to and from its breeding habitat. The board is aware that as the city's demand for more energy has grown, however, we do not believe that strengthening the energy grid must come at the expense of our public forest lands. Pge has identified 16 alternative locations that exist outside of forest park. By selecting an alternative site, we can both grow our power grid and ensure the section of forest park remains a public resource for years to come. We ask the city council to support alternatives for creating a stronger, more modern power grid. Thank you for your consideration and your help stewarding our city's natural areas. Thank you.
288 Thank you. Thank you. Online.
289 Nikki. Grimm.
290 I'm not seeing anyone here or going up to the mic in the overflow room.
291 Next we have linda talbot. Susan andrews and matt morrissey. And linda. Excuse me. Susan is online.
292 Susan, go right ahead while we wait to see if linda joins us.
293 Susan andrews, you're good to unmute and start your testimony.
294 Hello. Is my audio on now?
295 It is.
296 Great. Hi. My name is susan andrews. I appreciate your time listening to our testimony today. I am a resident in the forest park neighborhood, and I feel a great sense of gratitude for the chance to live next to such amazing natural resource and living next to forest park. I'm also able to speak today about the value of an existing second growth forest, and explained my opinion that the mitigation plans that pge has proposed will not actually make up for the damage that this proposal would create. So I am speaking in support of the forest park neighborhood association and the forest park conservancy, and the staff's reasoning for countering this proposal from pge. I just would like you to stop and think for a minute about the way it looks when you drive out to the coast on highway 26 and you see the areas where they've logged the tillamook state forest and the number of years. As you drive out there, as I have done, and try to watch how that forest tries to regrow after it's been planted, and there's really nothing similar about it ten, 20 years later. It actually takes that white oak that they cut down 20 years to make its first acorn. The, you know, people who grow christmas trees in our area are aware that it's ten years before you get a tree to put in your living room after they've planted that seedling in their farm. So if you imagine that and compare it to the existing habitat that those trees have, you know, done growing 150 years there or even 50 years there, and then imagine replanting seedlings somewhere and the amount of time it will take to create some kind of habitat out of those. There's no chance for the wildlife. We've heard a lot about the red legged frog, but we have elk in the area. We have pileated woodpeckers. We have a lot of wonderful wildlife. People see black bear in forest park. Where are those going to go? While this area attempts to recover. So the idea of mitigation by replanting or building a new pond. It really is not a, I think, a feasible idea. And this is such a precious resource in this area. I'd like to ask you to protect the park that the forest park management plan contractually requires you to protect and help us in our ability to maintain this resource for our city.
297 Thank you very much.
298 For the chance to testify.
299 Thank you.
300 Next we have rosie sherrod, thomas giza, bob weinstein.
301 Rebecca, did matt have an opportunity?
302 Matt does not appear to have joined us. Okay.
303 Is rosie with us? Okay. Thomas.
304 Am I on? I think you're there were two ahead of me.
305 So we have thomas here. We have thomas online.
306 My name is thomas giza. I'm testifying to. Uphold the support, the appeal that the hearings. Officer on the appeal of the hearings officer's findings. Most of the points that I was going to make have already been made far more articulately than than I will be able to do. I, I bring a large amount of experience and education to this, as I'm a natural resource biologist and environmental ecologist. I wrote a thesis on the effects of power lines on forest ecosystems. I've worked on all sorts of things in the forest management area for the last 60 years that I've been here. So I bring expertise to this. I'm not going to give you all of the stuff about the dangers to red legged frogs, which is large, but nonetheless the point I want, the remaining point that I would like to make is that if the council chooses to not accept the hearings officer's findings and directs city staff, presumably to put together something else, that in any agreement that you make with pge in this case, but think also in future cases you you need to add conditions that are enforceable because when in this kind of situation, we are now left with red legged frogs, the only mitigation that remains in the in the hearings officers findings is that pge will talk with Portland parks and rec about maybe helping to put in some additional ponds. Maybe we've already seen pge back out of a proposed mitigation thing, which, incidentally, the hearings officer didn't recognize, and pge equally could without any enforceable. Conditions on the on the thing. They could talk to Portland parks and rec, for example, and decide that's too much trouble. We don't want to get our bulldozers dirty in there making ponds so and walk away. Put enforceable conditions on any agreements. Thank you. Thank you. And the rest of my testimony is already in the record.
307 Thank you. Rosie.
308 Hello. Members of the council, mayor wilson. My name is rosie sherrard. I'm a resident of district three and an outdoor enthusiast. And I am here to ask you to support the appeals of both the forest park conservancy and the forest park neighborhood association. I urge you to reject the hearings officer's decision and support the city staff recommendation and deny pge's request. Forest park is one of the largest urban forests in the country. It's beloved by our community members, and it's necessary for the life of the animals and the insects in the frogs that live there. Pg is going to come up here and insist that this is the only way for them to have a power line. They're going to minimize the impact of this project. And as we've seen by the habitat that's currently under those power lines, we cannot rely on them. Pge, a company driven by corporate profit, to actually do what's best for the environment and best for the community. The insects, the frogs, the plants, they all depend on this land. Once lost, these ecosystems cannot be mitigated or recreated elsewhere in our lifetimes. We know that pge has more plans for development that could cause further destruction of this environment, and approving this project, since a dangerous precedent to this ecological treasure. This is a critical moment of choice, one which you will be known for. Are you going to treat forest park as a permanent protected ecological treasure required by the forest park? Natural management natural resources management plan? Or are you going to allow it to be used as a convenient land grant grab for profit driven motives? I urge you to support the appeal, deny pge's proposal, and stand with us in protecting forest park for the red legged frogs, for the trees, for the wildlife, and for generations to come. Thank you.
309 Thank you bob.
310 Thank you. Good afternoon, mayor and council members. My name is bob weinstein. I live in northwest Portland. I'm a frequent user of forest park. I urge you to support the appeal of the hearing officer's decision, allowing pge to move forward with their destructive clearcutting plan in forest park. This decision was flawed both in process and in substance, and it sets a dangerous precedent for how we value our public lands and natural spaces. The hearing officer made a critical mistake by prioritizing pge's financial concerns over environmental protection. Let's be clear. Other feasible alternatives existed. The hearing officer dismissed these alternatives primarily on the basis of cost. That's not a sufficient or appropriate justification for selecting a plan that would result in the clearcutting of one of the city's most precious natural resources. Forest park is not pge's property. It's clear cut that it belongs to the public and should be treated as such. What's more disturbing is the hearing officer's clear cut refusal to consider the full scope of the project. The decision focused only on one phase of the transmission line buildout, but it's clear cut that this project does not end with this phase. The piecemeal approach taken here is misleading and, frankly, irresponsible. It's my understanding that a future phase in the works involves clearcutting at least another ten acres. If we only consider the first slice of a clear cut, we ignore the devastation that follows forest fragmentation, erosion, loss of habitat. These are not problems for just this phase. These are clear cut, full project problems and they must be evaluated as such. If you allow if you allow this initial clear cut to proceed based on an incomplete review, you are effectively approving the entire project without appropriate scrutiny. If this project was on federal land, nepa would require all project phases to be considered in an eis. So should you. Let me put this another way. If you're a fan of the zenith permit approval process, it's clear cut that you should support the hearing officer. That's how bad this decision is. Like with zenith, we are watching the city potentially endorse environmental degradation under the guise of procedural correctness and cost efficiency. That's not leadership. The city must stand up for its values. Your own permitting and development office recommended that the hearing officer reject the project due to noncompliance with environmental standards. It's clear cut that this was ignored by the hearing officer. Clear cutting through forest park is not in alignment with our climate goals. Our environmental justice goals and commitments, or our responsibility to future generations. It's clear cut that you have the authority and the duty to reject this flawed decision and require pge to pursue alternatives that preserve our invaluable forest ecosystem, rather than an unnecessary clear cut. Thank you for your time, your consideration.
311 Councilors. We have about 45 more minutes of testimony in support of the appeal. Then we will hear from the applicant, supporters of the applicant, and then a rebuttal from the appellants. We've had staff sitting for a little over two hours, so I'd like for us to take a 15 minute break to give our staff an opportunity to stretch their legs and then come back and pick up where we left off. Does that work for everybody? Okay. We are going to take a 15 minute break. It is 412. We will pick back up in the testimony where we left off at 427. For folks who are in overflow rooms, when we come back together, I'll note that there are some seats available in the gallery upstairs from council chambers.
312 Yes, I am. I am.
313 Quorum. We have councilor Ryan online and six in the room. If everybody could take a seat, and as soon as it's perfect. Rebecca, could you call up our next folks who have signed up for comment, please?
314 Next we have brenna bell, christine bugas and rachel who?
315 Go right ahead.
316 Hi. My name is brenna bell, and I'm the forest climate director. For 350 pdx and a district.
317 Four resident.
318 And I've.
319 Spoken to.
320 Many of you advocating for portland's urban forests from my position as a community organizer for the shade equity coalition. And I don't know if you know, but I'm also an environmental attorney. And as you move into being moving from policymakers to the judicial body, I thought I'd move from being an organizer to a lawyer. As I talked to you today in reviewing the hearing officer's decision, I knew what the result would be when I read the phrase, this case is about facts, not feelings. That's the kind of thing that people say when they know they're doing the wrong thing, but they're do it anyway. It's in the same family as my hands are tied, and I'm only following orders. But if there's anything I've learned from 20 years in the legal field, there is no dispassionate application of the law. The law is always interpreted within the broader social context, and that's why interpretations of the same law can change as culture changes. There's always a lot of wiggle room to reach a new conclusion. So you heard that the hearings officer interpreted the forest park plan as a guidance, rather than as binding city code. This interpretation allowed her to bypass city staff's finding that pj's project does not comply with the forest park plan. This interpretation is neither a fact nor a feeling. It's the approach that she needed to support her conclusion. And as carla noted earlier, you are not bound by that interpretation. So I encourage you to affirm that the forest park plan is binding city code. You do not have to just rely on facts or feelings. Luckily, you can rely on the law as written, which allows you to give the greatest strength to its content and the greatest deference to the city staff. The most benefit to the public interest and the best legacy. As a new city council, enacting your role as a judicial judicial body. So I know you're listening to a lot of us. I thank you for your patience and for all of the questions that you've asked, will ask, and all of the consideration you give to supporting the city staff in this. Thank you.
321 Thank you very much.
322 Rachel who is online? Rachel. You can unmute and begin.
323 Hi, my name is rachel, who I'm a constituent of district two and a member of sunrise pdx. There has been a lot of information that's been thrown around, so I'm just going to give kind of my experience with forest park and of course, just to, you know, urge you to support the appeal against the hearing officer's decision. I came here for college, I'm from hawaii, and forest park was the first experience I've had that in a forest that's not hawaii, and probably the first time I've seen an oak tree, I'm not going to lie. So I have lots of strong feelings for it. It was a great place for a broke college kid to go and hike and experience portland's unique nature in that regard, and I've seen so many other places in my hometown that has gotten overrun by invasive species. And I've heard and seen plants and animals that have gone extinct because of colonization and things like this. So I just urge you to please think about this beloved city gem. And I'm not asking that for pg and e not to expand, just not in forest park. I'm also concerned about the phases that was brought up a little bit earlier. We don't know what is coming next, and I just want to make sure that it's here for my kids and anyone else who's here to enjoy it. Thank you.
324 Thank you.
325 Next we have arianna, scipione. Judas graves and albert kaufman. Ariana's online.
326 Ariana, please unmute and go ahead.
327 Hi. Can you hear me?
328 Yes we can.
329 Good afternoon, madam president. Mayor and members of the council. My name is ariana scipione. I'm a wildlife biologist. I'm speaking on behalf of west Multnomah soil and water conservation district, where I'm their urban conservationist. We are a special district governed by elected officials, and our mission is to support soil health, clean water and habitat on both natural and agricultural lands. I'm here to express our support of the appeals by forest park conservancy and forest park nature neighborhood association. I am part of an ongoing study of northern red legged frogs with usgs to understand population demography, which is population size and age structure in forest park. I collect frogs that are crushed by cars on highway 30, just below the proposed area. This area is within documented non-breeding upland habitat of the northern red legged frog, which is a federal species of concern, a state sensitive species, and a conservation strategy. Species in need of protection. Forest park has very few wetlands that are appropriate for northern red legged frog breeding. This year I participated in breeding surveys at pgs harberton wetland a directly adjacent to their substation, and we found over 1700 egg masses of northern red legged frog. Most of the historic riparian wetlands and uplands along the banks of the Willamette river have been developed. This area has been mapped by the Oregon department of fish and wildlife as a priority wildlife connectivity area, and a conservation opportunity area. It's not just another Green space. It is a high value ecological corridor for many species. It's critically important to understand how this project aligns with other energy proposals in the region, such as the cascade renewable project, currently in permitting with us army corps. It proposes to bring power from the dalles to the harberton substation and has the potential to impact future needs for transmission infrastructure that may impact future phases of this project. Finally, we're deeply concerned that pge's proposed mitigation plan does not meet the requirements of no net loss of functions and values, including the loss of mature forests that provide so many things carbon storage, water filtration and slope stability. These functional values cannot be replaced elsewhere or mitigated in this area. Pge would also need to meet mitigation requirements for wetland impacts through dsp and possible other habitat impacts through odf and w. We recognize the need for reliable energy infrastructure and support the transition to renewable energy. However, it's impossible to do so without sacrificing portland's most important natural areas. We respectfully urge council to accept the appeal and overturn the hearings officer's decision, and require a full evaluation of future phases of this project. Thank you very much.
330 Thank you. Go right ahead.
331 Oh, sorry. Hi. Hello. Can everyone hear me? All right. Perfect. Hello. City council. Madam president and mayor wilson. My name is judith graves. I'm a resident of southeast Portland. And I'm here today to vehemently oppose pg e's proposal to turn forest park's old growth and wetlands into a vast expanse of power lines that will inevitably, inevitably be neglected. And I'm also here to throw my full support behind the forest park conservatory and appeals of forest park neighborhood association. Just a few facts. 200 year old trees and centuries of biodiversity are not replaceable. There is no mitigation that can replace those lost resources. This cannot be fixed. It cannot be undone. Once this decision is made. And there is no contingency plan for the carbon offsets. And numerous alternate plans have been made available. With pg and e raking in $2.48 billion in 2024 alone. I think they're cries of a little too expensive. Might be be a little overdramatic, to say the very least. I desperately urge city council to uphold the aforementioned appeals and respect the values of our community. Values rooted in protecting and preserving what makes the pacific northwest one of the most visually stunning features on the face of planet earth. And not just that, but a visually stunning feature that is also capable of sustaining life. We've already seen 1000 1000 comments opposing these flagrantly obvious contradictions to the forest park natural resource management plan. Prior to the hearing officer's frankly inexplicable choice of approving such a wildly dangerous precedent. Nationwide, the plunder of our national parks, protected and sacred lands has been thrown into hyperdrive, and as self-appointed stewards, it is our charge as a community to ensure that what is currently in our care continues to clean the air and filter the water, and provide habitat for an innumerable measure of flora and fauna for generations to come. Forgive my. Forgive my train of thought. We can't keep Portland weird if we don't keep Portland Green. Short and sweet. And I'll wrap up here by saying oppose pge and direct the city attorney to write a decision based on the city staff report. Recommendation of denial. Thank you very much.
332 We appreciate you being here.
333 Albert kaufman. Albert is online. You can unmute and begin.
334 Hello, everyone.
335 It's albert kaufman.
336 I'm part of district three. I'm also the founder.
337 Of we.
338 Keep trees standing, which.
339 Is.
340 A online facebook group.
341 Of about 800.
342 People who.
343 Are tree.
344 Lovers here in Portland. We started out 5.
345 Or 6 years ago, trying to.
346 Oppose some developers.
347 Who wanted.
348 To cut down.
349 Trees in.
350 Our.
351 Neighborhood.
352 And we.
353 Were able to save some of them. And so we. Continue to.
354 Try to. Keep trees standing.
355 And I'm also part of the shade. Equity coalition. And I also I'm just very thrilled to be here today. Speaking in front of the city council with its new format, which I worked somewhat to help make happen, and I'm. Very excited about ranked choice voting and the fact that you're all there. Many some of you have been hearing from me for years, and some maybe it's your first time being introduced to me, but I wanted.
356 To.
357 Just call in previous activist bob salinger. Oftentimes, he and I would.
358 Be sitting.
359 At.
360 A table testifying in front of you, and I know that in his heart of hearts, where he here today with us. He would be adamantly, you know, echoing the comments that you've been hearing for the last couple of hours. We don't really have all that much time left to preserve, you know, the trees that are being threatened. And so any future cutting really should be off the table. I just noticed that trees have come down along cesar chavez in front of the belmont library. Trees were cut down recently by ODOT to do some road expansion along powell. This is all just wrong thinking. Every time a tree gets cut, it's a shonda. It's a it's a mistake on our part. And so everything that we can do as a community to keep trees standing and to plant new trees. It would be a recommended, you know, anything we can do to keep this place cooler, to keep the oxygen flowing in a valley that has some of the worst air pollution in the country. You know, benefits us. So pge can figure out another way to build transmission lines. There's now solar power that can be put on top of buildings, for instance. So I just want to say thank you very much for hearing all of us. And I do really appreciate the process of this. And I do imagine that you're going to do the right thing in this case, because a lot of us are watching, thousands of us are watching, and we want to preserve forest park, and we want to keep trees standing. Thank you.
361 Thank you very much.
362 Next we have charlie, michelle, wesley. Lucilia cejas and robin glenn.
363 Charlie, go right ahead.
364 I have to get my glasses on.
365 Okay.
366 I am charlie, michelle. Wesley. I'm a tribal member of multiple tribes of this land.
367 Which we are deeply.
368 My people are deeply.
369 Connected to.
370 Grounded by. Guided by. The wisdom of nature and our land. And I just have to ask, is there anything sacred.
371 That this city won't destroy by perceived. Progress or profits, this land that you now have the privilege to reside on? On the backs of thousands of my people's lives. And yet you are now contributing to the destruction of our sacred forest. Despite overwhelming community opposition, of destruction of healthy trees that provide clean oxygen, risk to health and safety of wildlife, beautiful Green spaces that are quickly disappearing for profit. A decision that lacks the Portland core city value of anti-racism because environmental justice is racial justice to my people and others. And this sacred land and a threat to our environment and portlanders healthy recreational lives. This reveals your integrity. This decision that you make, you discriminate against your people on behalf of corporations. So if this decision was made, despite it being a horrific action, it's time to review the core city values, which should be values of this city's to uphold and perceive reputation of Green Portland and should be the lens you hold dear to all your decisions, your concern about more energy to provide more air conditioning due to climate change is nothing but exploitive capitalism. How about addressing the issue of climate change by saving trees and the poor? Excuse that alternative paths wouldn't work because it would include personal property? How about the hundreds of thousands of us community members that say no to the destruction of our beloved forest? This also disregards core city fiscal value dedicated to climate action. This brings me to a summary of the city's land acknowledgment. This city acknowledges and commits to honoring and learning, working towards a more equitable and sustainable future for our lower Willamette river. You all committed to that and commit to seeking solutions to harm done to these lands and water. We the people want to trust you all. So quit legitimizing harm to our sacred forest. Reject pj's forest destruction. Support the appeal. Denying this horrific act of destruction is how to take action against climate change, and instead contributing to it. What you do to our land, you do to yourselves, to us, and to our future generations. So do the right thing. Thank you.
372 Thank you. Sheila.
373 Thank you.
374 My name is lucila cejas. I grew up in the other side of the world, in a loud, dense city of 13 million people, where every single tree was planted by the sign. When I moved to Portland 20 years ago, I fell in love. I had never experienced something like forest park and its through forest park that I learned to respect and care for nature in a way that changed me forever. I've raised my children among these trees and now in district four, I live with that forest in my backyard. That's why I'm here to voice my full support for the appeals filed by the forest park conservancy and the forest park neighborhood association, and to urge you to reject the hearing officer's decision to approve pj's harbor reliability project. This plan would clear nearly five acres of forest park to run power lines in direct conflict with the forest park natural resource management plan and portland's own environmental goals. City staff recommended denial. Over a thousand portlanders submitted comments, and in opposition. The most in city history. And yet the plan was approved. I understand that we need utility safety, but a project of this scale in one of the largest urban forests in the country demands far more public oversight and environmental accountability. Because we're not just talking about vegetation, we're talking about old growth trees that have stood here long before all of us were here. We're talking about habitat corridors, native species, and a park that defines our city's ecological identity. People call us tree huggers. And honestly, I am proud of that because it means we know what is worth protecting. I live in this forest for 15 years. I've watched trees fall, wildlife disappear, and the landscape thinned out. Damage of this scale can't be mitigated, and non-park alternatives do exist. If we move this forward, it sets a dangerous precedent that corporate convenience can outweigh the public good. Science and law. This plan was approved without a full environmental review, and I believe that that alone should be enough to stop it. At the very least, it demands much more scrutiny and public accountability. So please support the appeal. Please stop this plan because once this is done, there is no one doing it. Thank you for this opportunity.
375 Thank you.
376 Robin glenn is online. Robin, you can unmute and begin.
377 Hi.
378 I hope you can hear me.
379 You've heard many.
380 Strong reasons now. Why not to destroy the five acres in forest park, which I strongly agree with? Pge is, of course using the shortest.
381 Easiest and.
382 Least expensive route to increase the power supply. But I think if we give in to letting them destroy these acres, the next phase of this project will destroy even more. And it still, it still won't be enough. Pge they have no transparency about the next phases, which we can't ignore. But if they are worried about rolling blackouts in 2028, these are happening in states with massive data centers. That means to me, they are trying to power the current and soon to be massive data centers in hillsboro data center. Energy needs are endless and massive. Thus, more forest park will definitely be sacrificed in the future. I think the data center issues and use of resources is another serious issue that needs to be dealt with, with laws and applied to it. I'm hoping we can obey our laws and protect this space and forest park for its future and for ours. I have hiked there for years. I love it. Thanks.
383 Thank you.
384 Next we have matthew cooper, l and emily weinberg. Elizondo.
385 Is matthew online?
386 Okay.
387 Please go ahead.
388 Good afternoon.
389 My name is l.
390 I'm a member of rose.
391 City indivisible.
392 And I have with me a stack of 26 letters written by community members.
393 Who want to.
394 Protect forest park.
395 From pge's destructive plan. And I'm just going to read the text of the letters. I'm speaking to you as a deeply concerned community member, to demand that the city take immediate action to stop pge's harberton reliability project from moving forward in forest park. This project will cut down nearly 400 trees across 4.7 acres of portland's largest natural area that provide critical habitat, absorb carbon, reduce wildfire risk and protect the health of our ecosystem. Pge claims they will replant, but a few saplings are not a replacement for a mature, functioning forest. Portland parks and rec, as well as environmental advocates, have already voiced opposition. Yet the city still approved the permit. And this is a blatant example of prioritizing corporate interests over our environment. We urge that you one revoke approval of the harbor ten reliability project and explore alternative routes that do not destroy one of portland's last remaining ecosystems. Two enforce stricter protections for forest park and other critical ecosystems to prevent future destruction. And three hold pge accountable to real environmental stewardship, not just empty pr promises. Portland cannot call itself a leader in sustainability while actively allowing corporate destruction of its most important natural areas. This decision must be reversed. Thank you.
396 Thank you.
397 Next we have katherine peters, michelle dresnok, and amy. Lestat. And katherine's online. You can unmute him again.
398 Hi, my name is katherine peters. I'm an er doctor in this community. I came here today in support of the appeal and to protect the trees of forest park. I live where I live because of forest park. I fell in love with the park the first time I ran on its trails. I have run every single mile of that park over and over, but I still find myself smiling when I come around a curve and see an enormous doug fir, or stand in the silence of the redwood grove in hoyt, or take refuge in a place that allows me peace and solitude within city limits. I endlessly marvel at a city that had the foresight to create something so amazing. Over the years, I researched the history of forest park. I learned that it was not created in one go. It took years to piece together using donated land properties that had been foreclosed and other spaces the city slowly acquired. In fact, it was the Portland city council who first voted to protect this land as a park in 1947 and again in 1995. Today, we benefit from the foresight to have preserved this land. We get to live amongst the backdrop of a wilderness of doug firs, red cedars, hemlocks and more. I'm here today because the past residents of Portland trusted us to continue to preserve and protect the park they worked so hard to create. Forest park is an unparalleled treasure for this city. There is no excuse to put progress over preservation when the states are losing our city's greatest wild space. Removing even one single tree in this park is to forget the reasons that it was created in the first place. It would be to forget that the trees are one of our greatest allies in the fight to keep our environment safe, and to promote the health of the people who live near them. Trees protect us from climate extremes. They cool our neighborhoods. They filter the air we breathe. They provide places of refuge. They soothe our mental health. And they help build our communities. We owe the future generations of Portland the opportunity to enjoy the park we have been afforded to live in a city where they have a wilderness at their doorstep. I'm proud to live in a city that recognizes the value of wild spaces and nature. I hope that the future residents of Portland get to experience the forest park that I know and love. To quote robert olmstead, who did get an earlier shout out, it is true that some people look upon such woods merely as a troublesome encumbrance, standing in the way of more profitable use. But future generations will not feel so, and will bless the men who are wise enough to get such woods preserved for the city council today. I urge you to remember that the Portland city ordinance 168509 states that the primary goal for forest park is the health and preservation of its natural resources. Forest park is one of a kind. Please remember that in your vote and thank you for the time today.
399 Thank you.
400 Next is michelle. Michelle is online.
401 Hey, can you hear me?
402 Yes we can.
403 Thank you. Hi. Thank you for all you do for Portland and Oregon and for letting me speak today. I'm a resident of concordia in northeast Portland, and I volunteer with the forest park conservancy. And I'm an arborist in training at pcc. Thank you for all the follow up questions you had for the hearing officer, and for taking the situation seriously. Beginning of this session gave me a lot of hope. You understand that your people need you to deny pge this permit. Pge's current proposal of one time actions. One time throwing of some native wildflower seeds, one time planting of oak trees, and one time maybe putting in a pond. Or alternatively, their one lump sum of money to Portland parks and rec. None can adequately mitigate their past disturbances to native ecosystems and forest parks, nor their future destruction plan in the space that phase across particularly vital and rare ecosystems. For there to be adequate mitigation, there needs to be continual funds for at least 20 years plus to steward the area under and surrounding the power lines that already are and the ones that are being built. Areas under the surrounding sorry areas under and surrounding the bpa and pge's current power lines, or where the epicenter of invasive plants like himalayan blackberry and english ivy are coming from in forest park right now. It is excessively obvious to anyone who hikes the bpa trail. Pge and bpa should be held responsible for their past inadequate mitigation actions, as well as accountable to all future actions. However, these power companies cannot be capable of being the ones responsible for these ecological goals. And that's okay. We need experts in Portland has them. Pge should be responsible for continual, substantial funds that feeds every year into Portland parks and rec, Oregon bird alliance, the forest park conservancy, and the confederated tribes of grand ronde natural resources department. These are the experts in this area that can steward this drastically disturbed area of the forest. Back to health and beauty. If they have the funds, this fund should be enforced. Even if pge gets bought out or sneakily changed his name to. This is important because people move to Portland because they can work here and access to nature here. People can just move to san francisco if they need a safe place to be, but just want european esque curated grass and trees, you know, Green spaces. Portland has something unique to offer. The people like me move from across the country and world to live near and learn from established native plants and mossy old growth forests. As an arborist in training, I wanted to call attention to a few things if I have time. First, old, old growth forests take much less maintenance time and money for the city and state parks that are Green spaces but not forests. Take continual maintenance and money. You all will need to hire a lot of arborists, and it sounds like pge is sneakily having y'all foot the bill for future care. The more disturbance to the forester is, the more upkeep and money will be needed to steward the area. Also, established native plants are plants that do not need excess water or structure. But this takes time much more than is mentioned.
404 Thank you very much for being with us today. Thank you.
405 Thank you.
406 Then we have caitlin geary, daniel eisner, and desiree mariscal. It doesn't appear that they are joining us. And that concludes testimony.
407 Thank you. Rebecca. Councilors. The next portion of did we have somebody standing up?
408 We have one.
409 Okay. One second.
410 Apologies.
411 Thank you. Go ahead and introduce yourself.
412 Hi.
413 Thank you.
414 Members of. Commission.
415 Commissioners.
416 Mayor.
417 My name is.
418 Desiree mariscal.
419 I'm here to.
420 Support the appeal from forest park. Neighborhood association and forest.
421 Park conservancy against the hearings. Officer decision.
422 To approve the land for pge, for.
423 The reliability project.
424 I have also sent.
425 In my written comment.
426 There is so much evidence that. This project is very unnecessary and utterly.
427 Destructive to our. Beloved forest park.
428 This decision goes against the city's own investigations and requests to deny land use.
429 Permit to pge.
430 Based on the various inconsistencies in the plan and the lack of.
431 Transparency in.
432 Regards to the amount of land in use. With so many of the faces discrimination discrepancies. This is not just my opinion and not my feelings. There is enough scientific evidence to support the fact that this project will cause severe devastation to wildlife in our community. This project is in clear violation with forest park natural resource management plan in our city. Council should honor that plan to its full extent. There is absolutely no need to expand the corridor which is already exist, or to cut down massive amounts of old growth trees to appease financial needs of a multi-billion dollar corporation. The extensive damages of this project will cause cannot be mitigated or offset by a meager mitigation proposal that the pge is offering. Pge's team is also proposing to use various toxic herbicides in large areas that are being cut down. These areas being cut down will not only cause large amounts of runoff, but also will bring down toxic runoff from the herbicides being proposed to use. I am very dubious also at the lack of transparency from the hearings office department, especially especially since I overheard the hearings officer mentioned that our video comments would not be included on the call of January 29th, 2025. Her mic was still on and the officer was not aware, but it was very clear what was heard. The hearings officer continuously interrupted myself and many others who were testifying on the zoom call that day, cutting out our time short. I am convinced that our testimony and the actual scientific facts are not being considered and heard by the hearings office. As a Portland resident for over 20 years, I urge you to please appeal this decision and to grant the to not grant the land use permit to pge to pollute our beloved forest park. I came here to Portland because I fell in love with this area. Especially because of forest park. This park is very, very special to me, and I really urge you to deny the land use for pge. Thank you so much for your time.
433 Thank you.
434 We have one more person. Maybe.
435 We have lauren bright.
436 Hello, everyone. My name is lauren bright.
437 I stand here before you as a humble settler of this land.
438 Not only.
439 To represent what is now.
440 And for over a decade, my.
441 Home.
442 Community of.
443 Northwest Portland. But to speak.
444 On behalf. Of all of the humans and more than human life forms of the forest, which cannot, for a variety of reasons, have the privilege of standing here before you today. I stand here not just as a concerned resident, but as someone who believes in ecological truth, legal integrity and collective responsibility. And we are here to oppose pge harberton project, support the appeal spoken of today, and direct the attorney to draft a decision of denial based on the direction of the city staff. Report guided by the book hospicing modernity. It is in the spirit of maturity, sobriety, discernment and accountability that I say the following things. We often characterize humans as the pinnacle of sentience and ingenuity, placing ourselves in times of need or desire above all others, and creating a distinct divide between what we theorize is and is not nature. I'm sure some of you have heard this before, but we are not apart from nature. Our existence is solely dependent upon complex and ongoing relationships of food webs, nutrient flows, and co-evolved resource allocation. I don't have the time to tell you all the science today. You've heard a lot of it already, but we are subject to the chemical and biological realities of kinetic dynamic systems, of which this proposal is of grave threat. Pj's proposal would carve a nearly five acre utility corridor through one of the last intact low elevation forests in the Willamette valley, a quarter of destruction clearing mature native forests along with wetlands and streams, bisecting habitat and disrupting the ecological memory of the land. Forest park is not merely a collection of trees. It is a complex, interconnected ecosystem that plays a vital role in our region's environmental health. The proposal would not only disrupt wildlife habitats, but also compromise the park's ability to filter air, regulate temperature, manage storm water, and store carbon. These ecosystem services are irreplaceable and cannot be adequately mitigated through replanting or restoration efforts. Behind pj's language of reliability and behind the clean blue bullet points and strategic maps lies the same old story of extraction disguised as progress of colonization, cloaked in bureaucracy, of sacrifice zones drawn through living ecosystems. But as scholar max lebaron reminds us in their book, pollution is colonialism. When institutions call harm unavoidable, what they're really saying is we have already decided who will pay the price. As I'm running out of time here, I'm going to skip to the end and just say that pge may say, in this case, that we cannot see the forest for the trees, but with what we know now about forest ecosystem services, dynamic ecological function and critical habitat, we counter that with there cannot be a forest with just trees. They want us to get caught up in the semantics when they say the forest isn't ancient, while ignoring its potential to be so. Like excusing the impacts of past colonial exploits and ripping away indigenous stewards from their land.
445 Thank you so much for being here. We appreciate your testimony.
446 To continue the practice of.
447 I'm sorry to cut you off there. We have to give everybody equal time, though. Otherwise it's not a an unbiased, fair hearing.
448 That concludes testimony.
449 Thank you. Rebecca. Counselors, the next part of our hearing is a 15 minute presentation from the applicant, pge.
450 You all.
451 Introduce yourselves as you get your presentation going. That'd be fantastic.
452 Sure. Hi, everyone.
453 Thanks for having us today.
454 My name is noah herlocker. I'm an.
455 Ecologist working.
456 With david evans and associates.
457 Yeah. Could you move a little closer to the mic?
458 Yes. Yeah. And I've been. I'm an ecologist with david evans and associates. My name is noah herlocker, and I've been working with pge on this land use application, specifically on the habitat mitigation plan.
459 Thank you.
460 My name.
461 Is david peterson. I'm a partner with the law firm of tonkin thorpe llp.
462 Thank you.
463 Good afternoon.
464 Madam president.
465 Council.
466 Mayor wilson, my. Name is. Randy franks. I'm a senior.
467 Project manager.
468 With Portland general electric.
469 Thank you. And we have the presentation on our screens, but not up on the screen for everybody else. I know this happened before as well. Are you hoping to have it up for everybody or just for councilors?
470 I've shared.
471 It via zoom.
472 Does that work in the room?
473 Once you start referencing it, it'll be right. Perfect. Here we go.
474 Okay. Wonderful.
475 Thank you.
476 There's a utility corridor at the extreme northern end of forest park. It contains several electric transmission.
477 Lines and is an important geographic location. For our city's energy supply.
478 You can see it by the arrow on the far right.
479 Of this image. And if you.
480 Look very closely, you can see a thin.
481 Line showing the project area within it.
482 This project upgrades existing pge.
483 Transmission lines in that corridor, and constructs a new.
484 Short segment.
485 Of line. All this. Infrastructure is. Within an easement granted by the city of Portland in 1971 for pge to build and operate transmission lines here.
486 Here's the established corridor in more detail. It's a steep hillside.
487 And you can see many existing transmission lines crossing this area. This project.
488 Will replace.
489 One pole and install advanced conductor or wire on one section of existing line, shown here with blue dashes. The orange dashes represent two new poles and a 1400 foot segment of new line. Also using advanced conductor. For reference, 1400 feet is about one quarter of a mile or one lap around a high school track. What's less apparent from this photograph is that this this area is neither old growth nor ancient forest. It's also considered edge forest habitat as compared to the more sensitive interior habitat, a bottleneck for portland's electric power exists here in this yellow circle, and this project is the only feasible option to solve it. This bottleneck was identified in 2025 2015. Excuse me. And it threatens the reliability of our electric service, as our need for reliable power has only grown. Alleviating this choke point is important because our experts predict that as early as 2028, there is the risk of outages during times of peak demand, most likely during the kind of extreme heat and cold that occurs with increasing frequency. The impact of unreliable electricity is felt widely, but also acutely by the most sensitive users. Think about the hottest part of the day during an ongoing heat wave, with no fans and no air conditioning. By replacing by replacing equipment and adding more connectivity to the grid, we will improve system resiliency and safety, including risk from wildfires. It allows more energy to flow from the north, east and south, and means we will have greater access to the least costly available energy at any given time. I'll describe what these improvements mean for portlanders in a moment, but we should also acknowledge that if we are serious about combating climate change, we simply have to improve the grid, keep it reliable, and increase transmission capacity. Even while opponents say they agree with improving the grid, at least conceptually. It's important to discuss what is at stake here, specifically because a reliable transmission grid is fundamental to many things. First and foremost, it supplies reliable power for Portland homes and businesses. For this project, that means these areas north and northwest Portland. These are the areas where our experts can foresee overloaded electrical equipment during times of peak usage, such as hot summer afternoons. We also need reliable power to sustain and grow family wage jobs here in Portland. Please read the statements of the electricians, operating engineers, laborers, ironworkers, the columbia pacific building trades council, and other skilled tradespeople, hundreds of them who wrote to the hearings officer in support and many of whom are out in the field working today and unable to attend in person. These family wage jobs are critical to the vitality of our community. The evidence, as judged by a legally trained and impartial hearings officer, agrees that the need for the project is real. The evidence also shows that our project to resolve the bottleneck in forest park creates the least significant detrimental environmental impacts and is the best practicable option. The approval process is the result of this transparent and public process, stretching back nearly three years, with more than 1200 comments to staff, 850 evidentiary exhibits, and five hours of oral testimony. The evidence showed that pge examined all alternatives, more than 20 of them. This project was approved to move forward because the evidence shows there are no alternatives outside forest park that resolve the bottleneck, and that this project has the smallest possible impact within forest park. These impacts are fully mitigated. The hearings officer found, because the evidence shows the project, quote, protects forest park's native plant and animal communities that it improves water quality and aquatic habitat. And this project accomplishes this with a mitigation plan that is extensive and robust. My colleague will share details with this plan in a few minutes, but first, we'd like to explain the regulatory framework, why we talk about need alternatives, consistency and mitigation. Dave.
490 Thank you randy. Thank you council members. So an informed evaluation of this appeal requires an understanding of the history of utility infrastructure in forest park. For over 75 years, the city has expressly acknowledged that utility corridors exist in the park and will be maintained and improved over time, not frozen forever in their current condition. As you can see from this timeline, electricity transmission facilities in the park predate the park's formation in 1948. In 1971, the city and pge expressly negotiated, and the city granted pge an easement for transmission facilities in the very corridor where this project will take place, which included express rights to maintain, repair and rebuild those lines over time and to maintain vegetation within the corridor. In 1995, 50 years after power lines first existed in the park, the city council adopted the natural resources management plan. That plan expressly acknowledges the existence of utility corridors and the need to maintain and upgrade them over time. It does this by expressly allowing exceptions to the plan when work is needed, that disturbs over 10,000ft■!s like this project. From the outset of the plan, the city has contemplated utility upgrades in forest park as long as the criteria are met. This understanding of the natural resources management plan is bolstered by the letter from then commissioners blumenauer and hales, which defined as an appendix to pge application, in which they describe the council's intention in adopting the plan not to ban development, but rather to foster cooperation and provide guidance to ongoing for ongoing utility corridor management, which is precisely what has occurred in this project. Next slide. So turning now to those express approval criteria from the plan. I don't have time to go through them one by one, but they broadly fall into four categories as shown here. The hearings officers decision correctly recognizes the evidence in the record is conclusive and overwhelming that this project meets all of the criteria. Specifically, she found, based on substantial evidence in the record, that there is a demonstrated need for the project. There's an increase in demand. There's an existing bottleneck, and there's an obligation on pge park to meet transmission reliability standards. There's a lack of alternatives. Over 20 alternatives were were reviewed by pge and by staff and the hearings officer. And after reviewing all that evidence, she determined that this proposal has the least significant detrimental impacts of all the practicable, practicable alternatives. The project is consistent with the nmp goals and strategies and the environmental and northwest hills plan district regulations. I go into that in greater detail in the testimony I submitted, written testimony I submitted this morning, and I'd ask that you look that over. Importantly, the hearings officer also found that the project helps meet other city goals regional, state and federal goals and regulations. And lastly, with respect to the adequacy of the proposed mitigation, the hearings officer reviewed the mitigation plan and the associated plans attached to the application found the mitigation to be extensive and robust, and we note that this project includes $2.5 million of in lieu fees, which are not just fees being paid and never going to be spent, but are in fact are going to fund mitigation work specific to this project to be performed by Portland parks and recreation. So to talk a little bit more about the mitigation, I'm going to turn it over to noah.
491 Hi everyone. I hope that you have the chance to review our presentation of the hearing officer, wherein we provided a detailed accounting of resources affected and a multifaceted mitigation strategy designed to fully compensate for each affected resource. With my limited time today, I'll focus on how pgw proposes to fully and robustly mitigate for the proposed habitat impacts. The Portland zoning code encourages flexibility and innovation in how mitigation is approached. The city's guidance for environmental review applicants provides a mitigation sequence that says, first, replace resource impacts on site and in kind when you're able to. But when this isn't possible, which is often the case, the guidance moves to the next step in the mitigation sequencing, which is try to replace those resources on site with a different resource. So with this project, there aren't many degraded open areas in the north management unit that can be restored to douglas fir big leaf maple habitat in a like or like manner. So following the city's guidance, we must look at other restoration priorities to determine suitable mitigation. Ppg's proposed mitigation includes a suite of habitat restoration and enhancement measures, but I want to focus on a few here that are the major components of the plan. Within portions of the disturbance area. Ppg plans to expand an existing patch of Oregon white oak by planting and maintaining nearly 400 oak trees. Oregon white oak habitat is highly imperiled in Oregon. It's an Oregon conservation strategy. Habitat. It's associated with over 200 native species, meaning that it's highly biodiverse and it happens to exist already in this vicinity of the project area. This mitigation action would take one of the last remaining stands of oak woodland in forest park and double it in area, and because oaks are shorter than conifers, the management of the power line corridor is conducive to long term protection of oaks, as it prevents the taller conifers from shading out the oaks, which is a common cause for oak habitat decline. Secondly, the mitigation strategy includes at least 25 acres of forest understory enhancement and noxious weed slash ladder fuel. Wildfire reduction. Wildfire hazard reduction in the north management unit of forest park. This would include the removal of ladder fuels like english ivy, that allow small ground fires to climb up trees and spread into the tree canopy, resulting in much larger fires and tree mortalities. This work would be funded or could be funded via the in lieu fee mitigation, totaling nearly $2.5 million. This is more than enough to implement the proposed habitat enhancement and wildfire risk reduction, and would allow for effective ongoing maintenance and monitoring of these areas for several years after initial treatments to ensure success. This would expand a noxious weed ladder fuel removal effort that Portland parks and recreation is already managing in forest park near linton, so logistics are well known and qualified contractors are already trained and experienced to take on this work. Following on the hearing officer advice to coordinate with Portland parks and recreation on a suitable in lieu fee. We've been in discussions with staff and it sounds like they're ready to move forward with this. We need to just confirm and fine tune the in lieu fee amount. That work is ongoing. There is no standard for determining what constitutes sufficient mitigation for selective tree removal and mature douglas fir big leaf maple forest habitat. However, there are examples of mitigation frameworks established for protecting highly regulated resources such as wetlands and floodplain forests. To demonstrate a robust mitigation, pg is proposing almost eight acres of habitat enhancement or restoration for each one acre of selected tree removal in the north management unit of forest park. This very high mitigation ratio is comparable to mitigation required for highly regulated resources. In summary, pg developed its mitigation strategy in coordination with city staff and following the city's environmental zoning code. Consistent with the natural resource management plans priorities, the city's restore forest park initiative and other state and regional restoration priorities for forest park. Those are those out of kind mitigation approaches. By enhancing and restoring over 34 acres of habitat in the north management unit of forest park, expanding an extremely limited, imperiled habitat type to replace the loss of the most common habitat type in forest park, and by documenting how each affected resource will be mitigated. Pg habitat mitigation plan will fully and robustly compensate for the 4.7 acres of proposed habitat alteration.
492 Thanks, noah. We talked about the need, the alternatives, the mitigation and consistency with city code. But even still, I want to address several recurrent themes. There is no slippery slope here. Addressing the bottleneck in forest park does not make different potential needs any more or less likely to come about. Building this project does not determine where future projects to address those needs would be located. This project does not fill any streams and has never proposed to do so. We are replacing a failing culvert that's leading to hillside erosion. The impacted wetlands are low spots on an access road that is used routinely. You can see one circled here in the photo they formed because the road was built here. Our funding of priority improvements to wetlands elsewhere in northern forest forest park creates a net benefit for this habitat type. Northwest marina way is not feasible because pge does not own the land or easements for a transmission line of this magnitude. Opponents provided well-meaning attempts to fashion new permutations of these routes and novel legal theories about land rights, but they are not credible. They also do not grapple with the very real and new environmental impacts such a route would create, nor impacts to the scenic greenway view shed, and they often repeat the opposite of what's true. What's true is that these routes still require impacting trees and wetlands and forest park. Finally, if all these infeasibility were overcome, it wouldn't be in time, not before the projected risk of outages. We'd like to thank the council for your time. Thank you for the opportunity to present and for your attention. Thank you also to the many city staff for their hard work over these several months. And thank you to the city hearings officer, marissa childs, for her diligent review of the extensive evidence in this matter. Finally, we would like to thank everyone who has testified on either side of this issue. We to treasure forest park. We do not take this necessary work lightly and we have worked hard to provide substantial mitigation, including expanding our longstanding commitment to improving improving portland's tree canopy. These are the facts. This. The need this project addresses is undisputed even by its opponents. The city code clearly permits the type of exception and robust mitigation our project contains. And to quote the hearings officer's decision, there are no practicable alternative locations outside of forest park. We respectfully ask the city council to uphold the hearings officer's decision, with amended conditions and findings, so that we can maintain reliable electric service, support family wage jobs, and advance our collective efforts to meet portland's and oregon's clean energy goals. Thank you.
493 Councilors, as we did with the appellants, if there are some clarifying questions that need to be asked before we move to supporters testimony, now would be the time. Councilor Morillo.
494 Madam president, thank you all for being here today and giving us more information on this really important matter to all portlanders. I have a few questions, but I'll try to keep it brief because I'm sure everybody does. I am curious if you've been able to quantify how much improved electricity transmission reliability facilitates a reduction in fossil fuel use.
495 Wow.
496 Thanks for the question, councilor. If I understand it right, you're asking about improvements in reliability and how that relates to reduced fossil fuel usage. Yep. Yeah, I'm not sure I have an answer for that. And I don't believe that's part of the record that we provided.
497 I believe you claim it's a benefit in the record that you provided.
498 The reliability of the transmission system is not a problem that Portland currently has. And so it's not one that we want to allow to become into existence. The reliability of that grid is something we all take for granted. And as our society moves towards electrifying energy uses is that depends upon fundamentally the reliability of the transmission grid.
499 So listed in the document? I think on page 26 it says climate resilience. The applicant argues that the removal of 397 trees and other significant permanent impacts to the existing forest ecosystem for the purpose, for the purposes of transmission grid upgrades and expansion, supports climate change abatement goals, and thus is a key strategy for protecting forest park's environmental resources. In in their own words, the applicant says, in short, ensuring reliable electrical transmission supports climate change abatement goals and is a key strategy for protecting forest park's environmental resources with improved electricity transmission reliability, the region will have better access to clean energy to facilitate a reduction in fossil fuel use, and therefore enhance support for a reduction in the trend of increasing drought and tree mortality. So it is directly cited. So I guess, you know, I would want to know if you were able to quantify again how much improved electricity transmission reliability directly facilitates a reduction in fossil fuel use, and if so, how that compares to maintaining the current state of forest park. But it sounds like you do not have an answer for that.
500 Well, what I can say is if you look at, say, house bill 2021, which is oregon's clean energy goals, that's based upon electrifying energy uses and then decarbonizing the grid assumed in there is that the grid is reliable and able to serve that load. And so, as mr. Peterson referenced, exceptions that support local, state, federal goals, that's where that relationship comes in.
501 But you didn't quantify it or you don't have data to back that.
502 The data we do have is related to tree mortality. We have our wildfire department looks at and predicts tree mortality and then goes out and measures that to see how that lined up with their predictions. This is in appendix h to our application. And what it showed is that trees in the west hills are dying at a higher rate than our predictions, and that's related to drought and higher temperatures in the summer, which are, you know, associated with climate change. And so to protect those resources, we need to combat climate change. And electrification is a key part of that strategy for our state.
503 So how is your work protecting it?
504 Well, one way it's protecting it is by allowing for the decreased use of fossil fuels in other in other situations. So for example, if you are able to electrify the grid with a reliable and robust system, you're going to be able to power more electric vehicles, reducing carbon use in fossil fuel vehicles. You're also going to be able to deliver power from far away, renewable sources in a reliable manner, and not have to build and rely on fossil fuel generation sources close to the load, which is what you would do if you had an unreliable power system. So if you can't bring the renewable power from the from the gorge, you got to build a natural gas plant in hillsboro.
505 Right? And I think these are excellent claims. I guess I'm just curious if there's any quantification of these claims backed by research or evidence.
506 I'd point the council to exhibit. 859 in the hearings, officer record, one of the elements that we talk about in there is the ongoing transmission planning process, how that works. There are several other exhibits in the record that are annual transmission plans. And these integrate these processes, integrate and overlap with each other to support not just the grid reliability, but those clean energy goals, the clean energy resource plan.
507 Okay, I can I can take a look at that exhibit. I'm I'm also curious, in your presentation, you discussed that this plan particularly has the least detrimental impacts. And earlier in the presentation you said that it was also the least costly as one of those impacts. So I guess I want to ask least detrimental on what specifically. And if there's any more information on the needs analysis, because that part was fairly brief. And I'm just curious if there's a real justification that there is absolutely no alternative spot that we could possibly do this in.
508 Well, let me let me answer the question first about detrimental impacts. That's quoting from the hearings officer's decision. And I believe it's in a section that's comparing options within forest park, because the natural resources management plan says of your options in forest park, select the one with the least detrimental impacts. And the initial proposal that we brought forward in 2022 was to build two new power lines up that hillside. What's actually been proposed through that ongoing process of design, refinement of impact, minimization of alternatives. Analysis is a smaller footprint. That's the least amount of impact necessary to meet the need.
509 Thank you.
510 And the needs analysis.
511 The needs analysis. Again I'll point you to exhibit 859 or that that ongoing transmission planning process is described in some detail. Our experts are looking out five years, ten years, in some cases 20 years. And this happens on an annual basis where there are reliability issues in the grid or capacity issues in the grid. Those models identify that initiate projects to address those needs. And that's done on an ongoing basis. And that is the process by which the need for this project is identified. So, you know, specifically those analyzes as far back as 2015 are saying this location in the grid poses a bottleneck. That's a problem. We need a project to fix it. And that's what this project is. The. The need is also described in the beginning of our application narrative. That's a pretty extensive section that describes that as, again, as I say in exhibit eight, 59 gets into a lot more of the granular detail behind that with some more evidence that's in the record. Moving beyond that, though, the alternatives analysis is a is a very robust document that's also in the application is exhibit exhibit c. Yeah. Thanks, dave.
512 Okay. Thank you. No further questions.
513 Councilor Novick.
514 So actually my questions are somewhat similar. I am willing to believe that if we're facing bottlenecks in 2028, and if none of the alternatives address that in time, then that's a climate problem, because we do need to transition away from fossil fuels and towards electricity. And if we don't have reliable electricity, then people aren't going to be shifting to electric cars, and they're not going to be shifting from natural gas to electricity. And that's that's a problem. But. I. I confess, I don't think I've read 859, but I also didn't see it referenced in your primary documents. I'm looking at the application itself and the alternatives analysis. And what I was seeing was a few somewhat conclusory statements saying, we're going to be looking at blackouts in 2028, and then here's how long it's going to take. More than three years to do the marine way alternative. So I apologize to be asking this now because but I would I'm concerned cerned that I kind of expected there'd be like extensive discussion in the application about why we think there's going to be blackouts in 2028. And if there had been a reference in the application to extensive details in this document, I would have read it. So but now I feel like I'm kind of disadvantaged because you say that it is all spelled out in 859, but I confess I haven't read 859.
515 So thank you for the question. Let me let me address the, the, the issue of exhibit 859 and then I'll let randy talk about the evidence of need because he knows it better than me. So exhibit 859 is our final rebuttal in the hearings officer process. So the pge submitted an application. There was a hearing. There was a lot of testimony from opponents suggesting various ways, alternatives that they thought might work or ways that the alternatives analysis was poor. And also, you know, addressing some of the other issues like need and consistency with the plan and so forth. So exhibit 859 is our comprehensive rebuttal to a lot of the factual assertions that were made below. So that's why you don't see it referenced in the application.
516 Okay, I have read that and I didn't realize it was 859, but again, it didn't seem to me to contain a whole mess of like detail on the projections for 2028. And if you wouldn't mind, like to be honest, I neglected to bring that with me, although I had it in my office, if you wouldn't mind. You know, quoting some of the salient paragraphs with details of why we expect blackouts in 2028.
517 Yeah, absolutely. Councilor Novick I have a copy of the application and I can I can point you to page 14. The project objectives, especially number four, speak to some of the federal reliability standards that those planning studies are addressing and looking to resolve. And then section a3 on the next page. Describes what the what those implications are, why those planning studies are showing that the need exists. It does not describe in detail how the planning studies are done. It does not share the models of the grid and its system. That's that's critical infrastructure protected information. But it does describe generally how that process works and where the need is, is coming from.
518 I notice I think there was a reference to a article by somebody named moore that said that, yes, the you know, grid reliability is going to be a problem, but I don't think that that article was incorporated either. And I should also say that to me, the time issues are critical because there's this question of whether the absence of the word practicable in exception be and its presence in exception c means something. And to me it does mean something. If earl blumenauer on charlie hales practical ability to apply to both, they would have said it in both. So arguments about cost in particular seem to me to be undermined by the absence of the word practicable. However, arguments about time I think, are still relevant because the issue is whether there's an alternative location outside of forest park for the proposal. And if you take the proposal as something that addresses a bottleneck, that's going to be a huge problem in 2028 than something that takes six years. Isn't going to address that. But I'm just feeling, you know, based on what I've read, I'm uncomfortable with the level of detail as to supporting the statements that we're going to have blackouts in 2028. And it's going to take six years to do the greenway proposal.
519 Well, councilor, I'm glad you brought up cost. I wanted to answer that earlier. And let me circle back to that, please. None of these alternatives were selected based on cost. Most of the alternatives don't actually fix the bottleneck. They are very large projects. Some of them are smaller, but they don't actually resolve the need. So they're not a project that's practical because they don't do what our grid needs it to do. Some of them have very large price tags, but that's not why they are eliminated. They're they're they're estimated for purposes of comparison there. The project that we have proposed is the least cost option that we evaluated. But this is not where we started. This is actually getting the causality backwards. Best practices for designing and siting transmission infrastructure, including endorsements by national environmental groups, or to upgrade the infrastructure you have as the first pass. Locate new infrastructure next to where it currently exists as the second, and then thirdly, build new infrastructure elsewhere. It should not come as a surprise that following those best practices and co-locating new equipment and existing rights of way that have already been acquired also becomes the least cost option. It should also not be surprising that having to overcome infeasibility or build mega projects is more expensive.
520 I mean, would it be possible for you to go back? And obviously you can't do it right now and deliver reams of documents that demonstrating that we've got blackouts coming in 2028?
521 I'm going to take a peek at exhibit 859 for a second, because it also references several other documents that are in that exhibit that may that, I think, do what you are asking for. I'll just give you those references directly here. Thank you for the question.
522 While he's doing that, do you want me to take on the practicability issue?
523 No, thanks.
524 Well, it's answered in our materials and some of the legal analysis that we submitted.
525 So there's about 40 exhibits from 180 to 220 in the hearings officer record. These are Portland general electric and bpa transmission plans, as well as studies from northern grid and the western energy coordinating council. I'll also note in that discussion, we provide a rebuttal to some things we've heard here today about where is some other party saying this is a problem? Why isn't the puc saying something? Why don't we have bonneville power administration saying something? And as is explained there, that's just not the way the system works. Each of us are independent utilities with with responsibilities under the federal power act to operate our grids reliably, to identify issues with it and to propose solutions, and then to implement them. So that just misunderstands that that there is not a third party entity out there reading and endorsing all these plans. What there is, is an interconnected process where that information is shared through regional bodies, and it's looked at by the experts at the at the other utilities and incorporated into their plans. And so, you know, one way to think about it is that we are all solving for a stable grid. And if one party has an error in that data, there's this peer checking function of that. And so as described there, that interconnected planning process is endorsing the needs that we are finding in those transmission plans, the projects we're proposing to solve them.
526 I.
527 And again.
528 I don't. I know that I should have, you know, read every, every page of all of the exhibits carefully, but I didn't. But I'm curious. Either I missed something or I didn't see in the application where you said, here's all of the documents that demonstrate that we've got a serious reliability problem in 2028.
529 I believe the transmission plan documents that I referenced earlier provide that in some detail. The application itself describes what that need is, explains where it comes from and, and names several of the regulations that we're complying with. We don't have a detailed description of how exactly we do that, and all the processes that are, that are followed in order to do that.
530 Okay. Thank you.
531 Noah, would you also mind talking about the transmission expert that we brought in for the independent conference?
532 Yeah, I'm an ecologist, so I wasn't privy to talk about transmission planning, but we hired an independent transmission planner to come in and really look and see if there was an alternative outside of forest park that we could pursue that would meet the project needs. And that transmission planner had been working for 30 years in the field and had been doing system studies, and initially came to the same conclusion that there was a little bit of a shortage of data to make his decisions. And because protected data is not released. So he had to coordinate with the planners to run models on various scenarios. And basically those models, they they take the existing grid system and they, they run load projected loads through them. And the models identify where the weak points are. And that's kind of how the plans come together and identify those parts that need to be fixed and inform the plans for fixing those. So in this case, what they were finding was that year over year, those models being run were coming into even more and more sharp need for a repair in this area because the loads, those peak loads were increasing. Each, each year. So that independent transportation planner did look at over 20 different alternatives and pushed pretty hard. I will say, to really provide data and to look at some alternatives. In the park and outside the park, west of forest park and along marina way, and that person's expertise came to the conclusion that's in the alternatives analysis, which is appendix c to the land use application. Basically, that there really wasn't a feasible alternative that would meet the project need. As randy was describing.
533 The first the first seven pages of that alternatives analysis also talks a little bit more about about purpose and need. It's sort of framed in here's how a transmission planner is going to look at this. And then that sets up what follows in terms of those those analyzes that they perform.
534 Councilor Green.
535 My question is very brief. Thank you for your presentation today. In the alternatives analysis that you submitted, section one describes the purpose and need. And first paragraph it says figure one shows 2023 forecasting data conducted by pge's corporate load forecasting team. Pge's forecast methodology is reviewed by Oregon public utility commission as part of the integrated resource planning slash clean energy plan process. Can you clarify which irp that is?
536 Councilor? I don't know which plan that is. Off the top of my head. I did want to highlight that those load forecasts do incorporate grid enhancing technologies where they are deployed in terms of load reductions, where that's available, or ratings increases. And so some of the questions we heard today about those sorts of technologies, that's actually a front end input to that entire planning process.
537 I appreciate that, but I just want to I just want to clarify here, because the alternatives analysis at the bottom of the page says April 2024. And so do does the irp process conclude at the end of the calendar year, the end of is there a specific arbitrary year?
538 Councilor I don't know, the irp cycle. It's independent and separate from the transmission planning cycle, though, which is where the need for this project is generated in that reliability category.
539 Okay. So you can't tell me which vintage of the forecast, which irp this vintage of the forecast comes from for the application.
540 My understanding of the integrated resource plan is that it is looking at different things than transmission reliability, which is to say, is the generation available out in the in the market or in the area, and is the transmission capacity to bring it to where pge's customers are. And that's a different set of questions from how is the grid itself operating and its connections.
541 There was an irp plan published, though shortly around the time that the alternatives analysis went out, and I know that the data was consistent with that. I believe it was from 2024.
542 It appears that we don't know, but we can certainly get that information for you.
543 My question.
544 Councilor Kanal.
545 Thank you. And I'm trying to have a million tabs open. So I'm trying to find the specific place where I saw this. But I will note that in in exhibit 859 sorry. 821 there is a reference to a faq that pge put out about additional transmission capacity will be needed. Is a quote. Additional transmission capacity will be needed in the future to serve major customers and data centers. So this is part of the record. I did look into this, and I think I'm trying to connect a couple previous questions from my colleagues here and understanding. You've also stated that that's primarily a need that you now perceive. I'm paraphrasing, that was not perceived at the initial initiation of the harberton project. But I'm my curiosity is around to follow up on councilor Novick s question around 2028. To what degree are data centers driving the need that you perceive for this project? And I'm speaking here. Just to clarify, if you could answer for phase three as well as for phases 3 to 5 inclusive.
546 I appreciate the question. Councilor Kanal I'm not able to speak for phases four and five. I don't know what what those needs are. What I can say is that the bottleneck identified in in 2015, in our planning studies as a problem dates from that era. And so solving that bottleneck challenge is independent of that data center growth that we're hearing about. In fact, this project was was initiated formally with that early planning process in 2022. And so that's that's also even ahead of that. That change in usage that we, we started hearing about around the time that this this application was filed and then found to be complete.
547 Okay. Can you maybe clarify what you mean when you say you are not able specifically those two words, not able to speak to phases four and five?
548 Yes. And thank you for the opportunity to clarify that those those needs are identified in those long range transmission plans. That's the extent of what I know, because that's where we generate projects. And so the details behind that load for those load forecasts, the reliability modeling, I don't have that information. What I can say is that that phase four looks at the wires that exist in forest park. We foresee those being too small to serve the loads that they're currently serving in the future, and they may need to be upgraded with larger wires. That's the need that our that forecast that those long range planning processes are showing. Next first and then longer range. There's a need to bring more capacity from the north into the Portland metro area. The time that shows up further out in those models. And so that's why that's that that last phase that we mentioned.
549 Okay. And you mentioned this is my last question you mentioned in. Same fact sheet, the that it takes into account the anticipated increase in use based on population growth, as well as just use of more electric cars, things like that. Right. We just talked about data centers. To what degree does environmental decline, environmental related decline in individual use of electricity figure into your plans? And to what degree does decentralized generation figure into your your models, I should say.
550 Can you explain more what you mean about environmental decline in usage?
551 People using less per person than they than they.
552 Use per capita.
553 You know, conservation effectively. Sorry, I didn't have the correct.
554 I hear environmental decline and I've been thinking about tree mortality. So I appreciate the clarification. I am not expert at that load forecast process. What all goes into that. What I what I do know is that those energy efficiency technologies, those usages that is gathered in that process to produce the forecast, and then that model is, is applied to the grid system that we have. And it's studied that way. Okay.
555 I understand maybe just to I had to follow up just to understand this. I understand you personally might not know. And I totally accept that. Was anyone did anyone at pge share that modeling process or how you did it with either as part of any of the. I mean, it's not in the record that I could see so far. That I've seen so far is what I mean. Was it shared with anyone else in terms of the city or the hearings office or anything like that?
556 No, those details are not shared with city staff or with the hearings officer. What we did is engage that outside transmission expert. To review the data that we produced, ask questions like like what mr. Herlocker described. And then we ran those models that independent expert evaluated them. Asked for different scenarios. Took another look at it. And that's what summarized in the alternatives analysis. And so all the information you know those underlying technical models, the computer software that's not shared directly, the outputs of that by by experts are documented extensively in the application.
557 Just you said the alternate. This is the need projection that we're trying to ascertain here I think. But you said it would be the alternatives analysis if you direct me to the right place. That's all I'm trying to get out of here.
558 Sure. Yeah. And actually, you know, the needs and the alternatives kind of come together, because the need is what that forecast, what that grid model shows is a problem. And so you take that load forecast, you take the grid characteristics, run the computer simulations. They flash red where things are overloaded. That says this is your need. And then the alternative analysis is okay if I, if I make that transformer bigger, or if I connected a line over here where one doesn't exist, rerun the model. Does that alternative solve the need? Solve the challenge. And so those those concepts kind of work together that way. And that's why it's in the alternatives analysis.
559 Thank you.
560 Thanks.
561 Councilor Morillo.
562 Thank you, madam chair. I want to go back briefly to councilor Novick line of questioning, because I did review exhibit 859, as did my staff, and I am not seeing where you have quantified the impact of improved electricity transmission. Assuming that your project is facilitating that. On the reduction in fossil fuel use. So could you provide a precise citation of that? Because you offered the claim that improved electricity transmission reduces fossil fuels. In order to demonstrate that your plan is in alignment with forest park's natural resource management plan. But I'm really struggling to see how you can make that claim without quantification of that reduction and a comparison between the impact and the impact of forest park in its current state on climate resiliency. So have you quantified the impact of this project's removal of key features of forest park on climate resiliency, and specifically with exhibit 859? I mean, it's quite a dense exhibit. It's quite long. I did review it. I didn't see any any evidence. It just said that there was. It just says they're wrong with no evidence. With respect to the climate resiliency question. What our application is saying is that this project is in support of goals at the state, federal, local level. And this is an element of consistency with the forest park natural resources management plan.
563 I think your your your question about quantification. I think the answer is there is no demonstration of a precise quantification, but the state and local and local and state governments have policies that they have expressed which essentially have concluded that by increasing the reliability of the grid and increasing the ability to deliver renewable electricity, we are thereby going to advance our climate resiliency goals as a society. Right. So to some degree, this determination has already been made by city and state policy. If you want to put numbers on it, I don't think we're able to do that. I don't think it's the kind of a kind of balancing scale that is conducive to putting numbers on it. So many more electrons would set off so many gallons of fossil fuel. I don't think that works. But it's the fact that it advances these policies. Another climate resiliency aspect that we've highlighted is the is by removing the ladder fuels and the noxious weeds in the park that that we've proposed through the mitigation plan reduces the risk of wildfires. And wildfires, of course, are significant contributors to climate change. And so we are improving our climate resiliency by keeping the forest alive and healthy and not, and helping reduce the risk that it's going to burn down.
564 Right. But I guess what I'm getting at is that your argument here is contingent on a trade off, that if you cut down some of these trees in order to add in electrification, that this is going to reduce carbon output in some, you know, at some point or another. And I guess you have not quantified the impact of this project's removal of key features of forest park on climate resiliency, is what I'm hearing. And in that case, I have no further questions.
565 Counselor Zimmerman.
566 Thanks. In the hearings, officer page 24, they said that what is clear is that alternatives outside of forest park do exist, but those alternatives have been fully evaluated and determined to be impracticable. I'm curious what percentage, what percentage of the project or what cost. What leads to and what do you think we should apply to that? Giving that impractical? Qualification, the weight that it seems to be getting in this document.
567 I'll say one thing. First, I think of that number of alternatives outside the park. That impracticability is actually falling short and not meeting the need. So that is not something that is that is impracticable, but actually meets the need. It is. This project doesn't do what we need it to do. And I'll let dave talk more about.
568 The that's what I was going.
569 To say then.
570 What's that?
571 Is that considered an alternative then?
572 Yes. That that process of identifying something that might work, looking at it in detail and assessing if it does or not, and then documenting why it doesn't. That's the fundamental nature of that. Alternatives analysis. What what what all did we look at.
573 Is there a qualifier that that one applies in this type of case to say that that was a reasonable alternative.
574 Meaning, was it a reasonable alternative to look at in the first place?
575 Yeah. I mean if alternatives, if alternatives are being considered. But then the, the alternatives are then determined to not be feasible. I'm trying to understand the good faith effort aspect of making sure that we're talking about real alternatives and not space lasers.
576 I see. So I think I would refer you to the to the alternatives analysis itself, which consists of not only the toth report, but also a subsequent study that was done and included in the record, which there was a discussion earlier in opposition testimony about statements out of context in the toth report about how alternatives four and 8th may be feasible. So, in fact, that those were those were then further studied to determine if, in fact, they are feasible and were found to not be feasible. So the toth report isn't doesn't stand on its own. There's also the subsequent study. Is there some statute or something that says how many alternatives you have to evaluate? No, I think you just have to, to some degree, apply your own sense of reasonableness to decide, you know, is this a wide enough range of ideas? And I will point out that we heard a lot of ideas from opponents, some of which we have in exhibit 859 and part of the reason it's so long is because we have so much to respond to. You know, some of the things we did is respond to some of the suggested alternatives, like, for example, co-locating on the bpa lines. Okay. Well, pge kind of already knew that wasn't possible. You know, we learned our lesson that maybe we should demonstrate that to the public. We did. So, you know, can I tell you that there's a specific threshold at which you've considered enough alternatives? No, I think that's a kind of a common sense standard that's met here.
577 I do want to add, though, that there was a ranking criteria that was developed so that each alternative was evaluated similarly. And what we did was we looked at a variety of factors that would allow an alternative to demonstrate need. Some of them made it a little bit. And so they scored low. The one, the only one that met all of the needs of the project was the proposed alternative. So projects that might address, you know, improve capacity, but for example, wouldn't meet the schedule or the need, the predicted need. Those were scored lower. Things that didn't provide the safety that was necessary to meet standards. Those were scored lower. So there were a variety of criteria. And cost was a factor in that because ultimately, you know, it's necessary for pge to keep rates approachable. So a higher cost project would affect that.
578 Thank you. And so. Back to the original question of what it seems to be. Continue to come back to a cost that makes it impractical or practical. In fact, the hearings officer on page 25 talks about a specific cost. And so what in in whether in percentages or real dollar numbers, what would what is an impractical cost with a project like this?
579 Well, we did provide a ranking table that put it into buckets. So, you know, for the purposes of quick evaluation, I think it's zero to 0 to 10 million, 10 million to 20 million. And then it goes up from there. And so it just got a score of one through.
580 10 million represents what of this project's.
581 I should refer you to if you can look at that actual thing. Because what it started with was the preferred alternative, you know, and then our projects are offering a cost that's cheaper or more expensive. And so that just gave it a slight change in the ranking. But the cost was not by far the primary determiner of what made something practical.
582 So the table mr. Hurlock is referring to is on page 24 of the alternatives analysis. And I'll just note that where the cost is noted as as an issue, there are other issues on all of those alternatives. So nowhere is this is too expensive. The reason we didn't pick the alternative.
583 Thank you. The I appreciate this line of information. Given how much it appears the hearings officer is citing cost. I. I would like to understand the applicant's position on the, I guess, why the why you think there is flexibility in the forest park natural resource management plan in and around the topic of if alternatives exist, because we are asserting that some flexibility exists, it looks like. And so. Do you agree with the statement earlier that that plan is law? And then how are we interpreting and why are we interpreting that flexibility exists. In that forest management plan.
584 So first, yes, we do agree that the plan is has the force of law. And the entire plan has the force of law. Right. There's the exceptions process as well, which has the force of law. So it's clear that the law contemplates potential projects like this one with respect to the criteria that apply to alternatives. There are they there are two. That one requires evaluation of out of park alternatives and one requires the evaluation of in park alternatives. And admittedly, as mr. Novick, as commissioner Novick pointed out, the criterion with respect to out of park alternatives does not use the word practicable. However, Oregon law is clear that that kind of qualifier is going to be implied nonetheless, because in part because the alternative, the alternative interpretation would, would really kind of baffle common sense. I mean, there's always going to be some kind of alternative if timing or cost or impacts or, you know, public opinion or disregarded. But I think you can look at the history of how this city has handled utility upgrades in forest park before. There are two projects in the relatively recent timeline involving pipeline upgrades, where they had to meet these same criteria. And I mean, in theory, you could move the entire pipeline outside of the park to, you know, if you're if practicality is not an issue. So the Oregon law wisely recognizes that practicability is going to be an inferred obligation here. And so, as mr. Mr. Franks has testified, these out of park alternatives, of which there were many evaluated all fail not on cost so much as but they fail on other reasons. Property rights, timing, other unavoidable impacts that would result from those.
585 Thanks. And my last line, a question you mentioned earlier that the this corridor was not frozen in time, but maintained and improved. And so I am trying to understand if you consider this project to be an improvement and expansion or because it's now going to be two lines, if one of them is frozen in time and the other is a new line. I'm, I'm curious how you would approach what exists now. And moving forward. Because let me go further. I know it's a very unclear question. The addition of a second line is, is causing me, given that statement is causing me a little bit of curiosity for is that considered maintenance and improvement because it's not pulling down one thing and putting up the 21st or 21st century version of a thing that was there previously, but it's now a second item. And so would you mind expanding at all in terms of how you approach that? We have a duty to maintain and improve. It's not frozen in time. And how does that apply to this?
586 Sure. So to some degree it is the 21st century version because not only is there a new line going in in between where the existing line is and the bpa line on the other side, but the existing line is also being upgraded, right? So these, these, these lines were built in the mid 70s when our power usage was a certain way and we had a certain demand forecast and so forth. And now we're 50 years later and we need to put in the new technology that can accommodate use patterns that exist today. So I would say that constitutes maintenance, repair, rebuilding, upgrading all the verbs that are included in the actual grant of the easement to pge.
587 Thanks. And then you mentioned the pipeline upgrade, and I was wondering if there is an area I can find that or cite more find more information about that in this in this report.
588 So my initial letter to the hearings officer, which I think is exhibit 273. That's the one where I got in trouble for submitting a 1000 page exhibit. I don't know if y'all heard that in the hearing, but because I attached copies of the city's cases, which were really long. So then I resubmitted it as an abridged version. So if you look at exhibit 273, I talk about those pipeline cases in great detail.
589 Thank you.
590 I don't know, you probably.
591 Councilor you through your questions. Councilor Novick.
592 So this might be totally inappropriate, but I have a few things to say that would sort of fall into the category of useless advice if you were doing this over again. Well, if we're turning it over, it might be useful, but. So I just spent some time since you said that exhibits 180 to 220 are the ones that demonstrated that we're looking at blackouts in 2028. I just went through the application searching for numbers between 180 and 220, and satisfied myself that you didn't provide lots of citations to them. And again, I feel bad I didn't read them all independently. But if you're going to do this other over again, if you're going to assert that you got blackouts by 2028, I would like site and quote the documents that demonstrate that. On the analysis of one of the out of out of forest park alternatives, marina way. You on page I think 16 of the application you go through. Here's something that we would need to get and we're not sure we would get it. I think it would be useful if you're saying and then at the end you say, we can't do this within three years. I think it'd be useful to say, here's how long it normally takes to get that thing. And here's how long it normally takes to do y thing and like, see if it adds up to past 2028. And as to councilor Morillo question about quantification, personally, I'm extremely willing to believe that having an unreliable grid would lead to a lot fewer electric cars and a lot people, a lot fewer people switching from natural gas to electricity, and that that could quickly outweigh the carbon loss, you know, carbon sequestration, loss of 400 trees. But it would still be useful to go through. And you probably couldn't say if this happens, you know, if this doesn't happen, we will see x number of people not switching from electric from gas to electric in both either cars or houses. But you could take a shot at it and say, just assume that if people decide the electric grid isn't usable, isn't reliable, then let's just assume that x number of people wouldn't buy electric cars and wouldn't transition their home heating from gas to electric. So I just, you know, and I feel I apologize. It's like one lawyer giving advice to another that's really obnoxious. But those are things that I that I would have benefited from if you put them in the documents, in the high level documents that you could expect us all to read.
593 Well, we certainly appreciate your advice to keep this thing moving. I'm only going to respond to the first point. Exhibits 180 to 220 are exhibits submitted to the hearings officer subsequent to the application being filed. So the application had a certain amount of analysis about need issues were raised. Further information was submitted. So that's why they're not referenced in the application.
594 Okay. But I don't think I have to I don't have it in front of me. But I don't think that the final exhibit, the rebuttal, contained all sorts of citations, 280 to 220 either.
595 That's entirely possible. I'll let randy dispute that if it's.
596 Well, I think I think it's in that first paragraph. Let me jump back to it. It's a parenthetical to say these exhibits are in this 40 exhibit block. Here's what they mean. Yeah. So I'm looking at a it's a landscape table. Exhibit five 859 it says comment response form at the top. And it's the first page, page one of 28 response a.
597 First page. Of the first page that starts with a pge comment response form. Is that what you're talking about?
598 Yes. I don't know if you can see it from way over here. Get a sense of what it looks like.
599 I'm looking at it on the computer. Okay. So what page refers to all of the 180 to 220 documents?
600 It's about halfway down on the right side. Several exhibits parentheses, variously 180 through 220.
601 That's okay. That's on page. Page what?
602 Page? 131.
603 It may be the second piece of paper, because there's the cover of me submitting it as page one in the exhibit that's called out as page one of 28 in the in the source document.
Procedural episode · turns 604–614
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604 Oh, you're. Well, yeah. It says the forest park neighborhood association introduced several exhibits. Okay. You're right. I should have gone back and looked at 180 to 220 based on that. I think to be honest, I probably read the forest park neighborhood association introduced and assumed that those were documents that, you know, were supported their case against your application.
605 Councilor is that the end of your questioning?
606 Yes.
607 Okay. Councilor seeing no one else in the queue, we will move to hearing from supporters of the applicant.
608 Thank you. Would it be okay if at this time I made my record regarding some objections about new evidence that were submitted?
609 Go right ahead.
610 Okay. So during the during the applicant's the appellant's presentation and some of the supporters, there were some new evidence introduced. You know, I first like to acknowledge that many of the factual assertions you've heard are rebutted fully in that table that randy was referring to. And there is also a general objection in my written testimony to new evidence, because, you know, a lot of materials were submitted very late in the process, and there just wasn't enough time to review them all. But in the testimony that we heard earlier today, I did note a few specific examples. Mr. Fogerty, he made a number of factual claims about the science of oak savanna and frog habitat. He did not cite to the record. I don't know if he's got scientific evidence backing that up. In the record. But if not, that would be new evidence. Mr. Beausoleil testified about pge, pge work and his dissatisfaction thereof in his neighborhood. That would be inadmissible. New evidence. Miss scipione testified about a red legged frog survey that she participated in and what the data showed. And then lastly, mr. Kaufman testified about other tree cutting projects around the city and the status of air pollution in the city, all of which are outside the record. So I just appreciate you allowing me to make my record in that regard.
611 Thank you.
612 Linly did you have something to add?
613 Because it's very important for us to have equal time for parties, obviously. The this portion lasted a great deal longer than the portion that the appellants had. I, the appellants, I believe, have asked for an additional ten minutes for their rebuttal. With that, I assume there would be no objection to that, because that will be far less than. But okay, no objection. So if the appellants could have up to 15 minutes.
614 But thank you.
615 Thank you councilors.
616 Accepting that. And thank you to our appellants for telling us in advance what your request is. We are moving on to testimony from supporters of the applicants. Rebecca, I believe we have 10 or 12 people signed up. Could you call up our first group, please?
617 Thank you. First we have angus duncan, bret lewelling and carol canning. Angus is online. Angus, you can unmute and begin.
618 Okay. I'm unmuted. Thank you so very much, madam president. Mayor wilson, council members, my name is angus duncan. And I reside in northwest Portland. I'm addressing the council as a private citizen. Albeit one with some background in the electric energy world. Including current service as a public interest member of the western states, 20 year transmission planning process. Former chair of the northwest power planning council and former.
619 Chair of the.
620 Oregon global warming commission. And I have persevered here for the last 4.5 hours because I think it is very important the city council get this question right. I'm not here bearing witness that pge has selected the single optimum transmission reliability fix for Washington county loads, or the optimum pathway for its transmission upgrade. I leave that to pge staff. I have asked questions of pge staff. I've weighed their answers against what I know of our regional transmission needs. I have reviewed their load center resource strategies to defer new transmission and look through the 20 pathway solutions considered. The responses seemed reasonable and prudent to me, and I especially welcome the mitigation step that would exchange a meaningful but relatively moderate loss of douglas fir with the augmenting of a needed and at risk Willamette valley white oak. But my purpose today is to enlarge the frame of reference for you in two respects. One is the need for new transmission capacity, and the other is the consequences of a failure to develop it. Utilities around the country, including ours, are facing the most rapid load increases in a generation and concomitant reliability challenges. And parenthetically, in response to an earlier council request for citation on that need, I recommend the u.s. Department of energy's 2023 national transmission needs study. The specific summary for the northwest region and elsewhere, where the status of our region's grid capacity is given a d rating, largely for being behind the need curve. At the same time, our state is laboring to remove from the grid the coal and gas plants that are fueling climate change locally. We need to back out fossil natural gas as a space and water heating resource, and gasoline and vehicles. These demands are already stressing our existing regional and local grids and are not, I think, given sufficient weight in the staff report, we need to plan for transmission solutions that are needed that will minimize the impacts we cannot avoid. That will enable us to rebuild the power system to exclude fossil generation. Since I can't get through. Much of my documentation, I refer you to the language that I've submitted and generally want to make clear that electricity sufficiency and reliability are at a critical inflection point. If we fail all of our transmission challenges.
621 Thank you very much for being with us tonight. We appreciate your testimony.
622 It looks like brett is not joining us. Carol canning is online. Carol, you can unmute and begin. Carol canning.
623 Now.
624 Can you hear me?
625 We can hear you now, carol.
626 Oh, good.
627 Thank you. I have lived next door to forest park for 46 years. For five years I've been leading hikes twice a week, mostly in forest park. I love the park, but I support pge because I think the mitigation plan is elegant. I think it was well crafted and heartfelt, and I think it the area will be left better than the way it is now, because now it has power lines going through it. In fact, I've never really led a hike there except two months ago when this issue came up and we went up this huge, long gravel road and part of my group said, never again. And it is not a pristine area. It's got the power lines going through it, and the new power line will be in between the two power lines. And after the mitigation, I don't think it will make a difference in that area, even though I do love forest park. And, you know, that's all I'm going to say because we're kind of late here. So anyway, I support pge.
628 Thank you.
629 Next we have jolynn motioner. Jolynn is online. You can unmute him again.
630 Thank you. Can you hear me?
631 Yes we can.
632 All right. Well, good afternoon, mayor and commissioners. My name is jolene. Jolene winter mosher, and my husband, brad and I live at one, three, five, four two northwest riverview.
633 Drive in Portland.
634 And I'm here to express my. Support for pj's proposal to route new power lines through the section of forest park. Like many portlanders, we care deeply about this park, but after reviewing the facts, the route is clearly the least environmentally and socially disruptive option. Portland's energy needs are growing as we shift toward electrification with cleaner vehicles, heating systems, and so much more. So to support this transition, we need a stronger, more reliable grid. Pge proposed route is essential to making that happen. We understood that there are concerns about tree removal, but this section of that they're looking at is second growth forest. And we're talking about 376 trees that are identified for removal. None of them are old growth. The impacted area, just 4.7 acres, is far less than one tenth of 1% of forest parks, 5200 acres. It won't be clear cut. Trees will be selectively removed and replaced with native white oak and low growing plants that actually improve biodiversity and benefit wildlife. And it's also important to note that this project, because it passes through forest park, would face more scrutiny, higher standards and stricter oversight than it would if it were routed elsewhere. Ironically, going outside the park could mean more trees could be removed, potentially well beyond the seven 376 that are planned here. The alternatives pose bigger problems. Other routes would affect homes, possibly requiring eminent domain, displacing families violating scenic protections. They also pass through flood zones, landslide prone areas and rail crossings, increasing cost risk and disruption. We've also heard concerns about the red legged frog habitat, but let's remember frogs, birds and other wildlife live outside of forest park too. In fact, the marina way route passes right through sensitive wetlands, and volunteers that are volunteering to move those frogs, they already place buckets there to help migrating frogs avoid traffic. So the risk to the wildlife are not eliminated. Matter of fact, they're just relocated. And in some areas, even worsened. We've heard calls for better non park solutions, but no one no one has shown how those would work logistically, financially or environmentally. Let's be guided by facts, not fear. This plan has been thoroughly studied. It avoids homes, protects scenic areas, minimizes ecological impact and includes meaningful habitat restoration. I urge you to approve the forest park plan. Thank you so much for listening to me.
635 Thank you.
636 Next we have arthur marks. Arthur is online. You can unmute and begin.
637 Hi there. Let me get set up here. Good evening. My name is arthur marks. I've lived just north of forest park for over 32 years, and I have spent these years hiking throughout the park, including the area of the pge proposal. Thank you for this opportunity to provide testimony in support of the pge proposal. I gotta say that after hearing all the discussions and making notes and then more notes and changing notes and all over the place, nonetheless, I would like to emphasize three important points. First, it's really important that. It there's at first there's a reality to this whole thing and shouldn't be lost in most all the testimony that you've heard and I've heard in support of the appeal, the use of clearcut destruction, loss of habitat trees is loosely being used almost with the entire forest park. It this area, as joe lynn explained, is at the very far north east corner. And some of you have been there. You've said there's some 5700 acres in forest park. This is the small area of five acres and it's along busy highway 30. It's not a remote area buried within the park. It would have other concerns, maybe, if that were the case. It's bounded on the north by harberton neighborhood, which is dozens of homes. On the east side is the noisy highway 30. And then there is a fire road that goes right up through the middle of it. And I've lived there for 32 years. I've seen all the cars parked along there. So there's obviously a lot of activity in this area. It is significantly there's significant intrusion by human activity with I've seen mountain bikers go up through there and people walking their dogs. So it's not a it might not be that sensitive as the people opposing this might be presenting. And it is a right of way. It was I think it's been explained by the pge staff there that it is a utility right of way, and the and so those that oppose the this might they're directing their attention to alternatives. And those have been studied and variety of alternatives. But they fail in a lot of points. And extensive investigations have found that they have significant obstacles. They cause damage to habitat. The environment unnecessarily caused negative impacts. Their residents. They wipe out vegetation along highway 30. There just doesn't need to be a duplication of an unnecessary duplication. And, you know, maybe one thing that the council might do is I recommend the council focus on correcting what maybe should have been defined better in the forest park management plan, to include these exceptions for the existing legal utility right of way. So I support what marcina childs recommended.
638 And thank you very much for being with us tonight. We appreciate your testimony.
639 Jenny, jesse, esmeralda. Botello. Randall friesen.
640 You're welcome. Go right ahead.
641 Hi, president.
642 Mayor wilson. Commissioners or excuse me, councilors, I'm randall friesen.
643 From the.
644 Columbia pacific.
645 Building trades council, representing over 20,000 skilled construction professionals across 22 local building and construction trades unions specializing in diverse sectors of the construction industry, including critical infrastructure projects. Our state.
646 Registered apprenticeship. Programs are.
647 Dedicated to training.
648 And.
649 Diversifying the future local workforce. Ensuring they remain current with the. Latest construction technologies.
650 With strong emphasis on conservation and quality. We understand and share this deep appreciation for forest park. We are part of this community to two often important projects are framed as conflict between environment and jobs. However, the harberton project has already undergone rigorous review and received approval through the land use hearings process. The final decision was clearly based on facts and reality. In contrast to the opposition's claims that this project will devastate forest park, it's important to remember that routine tree clearing around power lines is a necessary measure to mitigate wildfire risk. This project involves precisely that a very limited quarter mile run through an already established and approved corridor. We cannot expect our great city to grow and prosper without a reliable power infrastructure that allows both. Economy. Excuse me, that allows both large and small businesses to thrive. Collectively, this project strategically utilizes an existing transmission line corridor to meet the growing energy needs of businesses and the surrounding communities of north and northwest Portland, while simultaneously supporting significant habitat restoration and enhancements. This project is not merely a desirable addition, it is a fundamental necessity for the continued growth of our economy and the support of family wage jobs, the very real threat of unreliable power and outages due to system overload during extreme weather events poses a significant risk to our members, local businesses and the entire community. Pge has diligently conducted the necessary work. The hearings officer has concurred, and now is the time for our community to move forward together. Therefore, we strongly urge the council to uphold the well-reasoned decision of the hearings. Officer, I want to thank everybody for your time. I know these jobs are pretty thankless a lot of the time, and this is a pretty controversial subject. So thank you for all your time that you spend away from your families. And one last thing I want to note. I know it's nobody's it's nobody's fault, but we had a lot of people trying to sign up to testify this evening, and there's only 3 or 4 of us that were able to get on. But again, thank you for your time. And I know it's probably a technical issue, but so thank you for that. Appreciate it.
651 Thank you. And thank you for flagging that issue for us. Rebecca, do you know if there were any technical challenges.
652 And you she was great, by the way. She would help work through.
653 It with us.
654 Yeah, we got everybody signed up that we knew of. And our last three are joe bond, tyler Smith and nate stokes.
655 Thank you. Oh well.
656 Joe go right ahead.
657 All right. Good.
658 Well I guess now it's evening. I wrote it for afternoon. It's evening now but yeah. Good evening.
659 Madam president.
660 Councilors and mayor. My name is joe bond. I'm a proud member and representative of.
661 The international.
662 Brotherhood of electrical workers, local 48. We represent over 6000 electrical workers in northwest Oregon and southwest Washington.
663 I'm before you, in.
664 Opposition to the. Appeal and. In support of the hearing officer's decision, it is important that this project moves forward for grid resiliency. Being an electrician, I'm all about power, want reliable.
665 Power.
666 And making sure that it works. With the rapid push towards. Electric power, transportation, the electrification of buildings and homes, this.
667 Bottleneck needs.
668 To be fixed in order to keep.
669 Reliable electrical.
670 Service running to homes and businesses. This will also provide middle class. Family wage jobs and opportunities to people to enter these family wage careers. I respectfully ask that you uphold the hearing officer's decision and thank you for your time and consideration.
671 Thank you. I believe. Nate, were you up next?
672 Sure. I can go and let tyler finish this up. Hello. Good evening, council president. Mayor, I want to introduce myself, nate stokes.
673 I'm the assistant.
674 Business manager of the operating engineers local 701. And I'm also the president of the columbia pacific building trades council. I'm going to make it short and sweet because we've been here a long time, and you've heard lots of testimony against and for. I'm here to support the pge project moving forward to make sure that we have the grid resilience that we need. And I feel confident in everything that I have witnessed over my time in the construction industry to feel that they've met the qualifications needed to make sure that this was the appropriate process and gone through to make sure that this bottleneck was taken care of. So I am in support of this project, and I thank you for your time.
675 Thank you.
676 Okay. Good evening. Madam president.
677 Councilors.
678 Mayor, my name is tyler Smith. I am vice president of ironworkers local 29 and chair of our political action committee. I represent ironworkers throughout all of Oregon and five and a half counties in southwest Washington. So I want to be clear. I care about the environment, and I care about forests and trees, and I care about animals, and I care about future generations. And I hope that someday we can get to 100% renewable energy. But I also care about people, and people need energy and people need jobs. This project will offer good union jobs, jobs with justice with full family health care and apprenticeship opportunities, including opportunities for bipoc communities, disadvantaged communities, women and veterans. I simply ask that the council uphold the hearing officer's decision. I'm in support of this project. Thank you, councilors.
679 Thank you all for being here tonight with us.
680 That concludes testimony.
681 Okay. Thank you. Rebecca. Councilors. The final piece of the hearing before we move into our closing portions is a rebuttal by the appellants. We've heard that the appellants, who normally have a five minute rebuttal, have asked that we extend that by ten minutes because of the additional time for questioning the applicant. So I would invite our appellants back up for your rebuttal now.
682 We all still awake. All right, carol, I want to congratulate you all on doing your homework. I'm impressed. I want to remind you, ors 174.010 says in interpreting the law, you must not insert words that do not exist or omit words that do exist. We've heard a lot of that. This is a this is not maintenance or an improvement. This is an addition to the park. Pge proposal clearly does not meet the requirements of the management plan, but pge plans to pay a fee in lieu of mitigation since they can't fully mitigate the damage from the project in the north unit, they plan to pay that. If you adopt that approach, you are opening that door to everyone else. Do you want kinder morgan or zenith energy in here? Applying for permits for new pipelines through the park? They would probably be happy to pay a fee and plant some trees across the city to mitigate that harm. That's not what we want to see. It really does say seedlings. Tree seedlings is what pge plans to plant in the park for this mitigation. We put those pge transmission plans into the record because we were trying to figure out what the heck phases four and five were and what how pge plans for them had evolved over time. We also put in the wec and bpa plans and any other transmission plan we could find, because we were looking for any mention of this project that would confirm it was urgent, or that there were going to be terrible things that would happen. We found nothing. There are standards in the standard in the code is that alternatives outside the park is there's nothing in the in the standard in the code about practicable for alternatives that are outside the park. That's a word that's not in the code. There is no cost consideration for alternatives out the park, outside of the park in the code phase four is reconstructing on pge's existing towers in forest park that is clearly documented in their transmission plans. How you could do that project without doing it in the park? I still don't understand how pge can even argue that it is tied to the park, and you can't use those nice fat new conductors that they're installing on that 1400 foot project until you finish that connection to the next substation. So yes, they're putting new conductors in, but they're not useful until you do phase four. In just a few years. We want to relocate this project, not stop it. We are not against upgrading the grid. We just think it needs to be done in a more thoughtful way. The kinder morgan pipeline projects and the forest park entrance that have been referred to those precedents really don't apply here. Kinder morgan really is repairing existing pipes in the park. It is not new pipes. It is not expanding pipes. It is repairing the existing pipes so they don't leak in the park and become a fire hazard. Okay, again, we've talked about there's no independent evidence of need or urgency from bpa or anyone else. If I was pge and there were going to be multi-state rolling blackouts in 2028, if this project didn't get built, I would have gotten, hey, guys, aren't you worried about your customers? If this happens, please come and testify. Please write us a letter. There is nothing. There is nothing to support this theory except pge statements. We looked really hard. I said that already. Ladder fuels and fire. Yes, they are going to be removing ladder fuels as part of the mitigation strategy. That is a good thing. But you know what? They grow back and they're adding new wires in the park. There will be more yards and of wires, new wires in the park. Eventually those age they become a fire hazard. And so you are overall, we believe, increasing the wildfire risk, not reducing it. Pge talked about an independent study. They did have the toth report, which is available for everybody to read. It doesn't I didn't think it said a lot more about the needs analysis question. There is another further study that they had done, apparently of routes four and eight that they have not shared with us. We asked for it in November. They have not shared it, so we don't know what it says. Pge so one of the things we learned in their transportation plans, yes, they started planning this in 2015. It was originally supposed to finish in 2020. So pge is not exactly been urgent about getting this project done. The, you know, their their deadlines just keep slipping out. They came in for their early assistance in 2022. Didn't get the application until 2024. I just don't see urgency there. Even if you feel there is a need for this project, that is only one of the 16 criteria that you are evaluating. Pge still has to meet all the others. Pge has talked about phases four and five being uncertain. We don't know if they're ever going to happen. We don't know if they're going to happen in the park or not. But then they turn around and tell us that other other transmission agencies, bpa and others are depending on them to get this stuff built. If it's in their plan, they can't have that both ways. Pge has not been transparent. They have not shared details that I'm pretty sure they have about those phases. What else? Please don't let the hearings officer rewrite the management plan and lower the protections for the park. Your staff report. Your staff did extensive analysis. They know what they're doing. They know the park. They've got this experience. They know the precedents. They found that none of the 16 criteria were met. Trust that experience and expertise. The trees in the park are more protected than trees outside the park. So, for example, pge owns some properties up north of the wapato bridge that could be used for one of these alternate routes. Pge owns that property outright. It's unincorporated Multnomah county. They could log all those trees tomorrow, clear cut the whole thing. So the trees in the park are more protected, and it's therefore more important. It's important that we maintain those protections. Again, if there is a 2028 blackout problem, it is pge problem to fix. And we should not rewrite the city code and remove protections from the park to fix it for them. I already talked about that. Yep. If you uphold the hearings officer's decision, you're going to reject 30 years of staff experience and precedents allowing the hearings officer to rewrite the management plan. Not only would you adopt a seriously flawed hearings officer decision, development in the park will become much easier, and standards for protection drop dramatically. The goal of the management plan is clear protect the resources in the park. Grow an ancient forest. Pge's proposal is directly opposed to both of those goals. Past councils have worked to expand and protect the park. This decision is going to be your legacy. Please validate the work of your smart, experienced staff, preserve the management plan and its goals. And I'm tired too, so I'm going to wrap it up there.
Procedural episode · turns 683–691
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683 Thank you carol, and thank you all for I want to echo for really taking this very seriously and doing your homework on on these issues. You heard from a lot of constituents today who are opposed to this and for various reasons. And you also heard that we should be guided by facts and not fears. And I completely concur with that. The size of this is irrelevant, quite frankly. It's the law that guides this. It's the law that controls what happens in forest park, what happens to our public spaces. The hearings officer even said that there's a significant impact here. So trying to minimize that impact, I think is an argument that just doesn't have any water. And clearly pge is not stated the need for this project at this point. I think that digging down a little deeper, we can we have not seen that there is a need, a need that's imminent right now. We also feel that the hearings officer applied the wrong criteria. We heard several times that cost was not an issue, but we've read that costs and we've heard that cost is an issue. In response to city councilor Zimmermann's question, the pg attorney said, oh, we're expanding lines. Existing lines are going to be upgraded. But that's not in phase three. That's in a future phase. Which begs the question, does phase three actually preclude phase three? Phases three and four. And if phase three is not completed, then what does that mean for the for the latter phases in this they also said that, you know, former city councilors hales and blumenauer are supportive of this, but you heard from former councilor Lindberg who is opposed to this. So, I mean, I find that is very interesting that that we're they're quoting certain individuals, but not other individuals. And under the hottest days in our cities, you know, we have spent millions and millions of dollars to grow our urban forest. And on the hottest days, those trees are there for a reason. They're there to shade our homes. If it's hot, you stand under a tree. That tree helps reduce the energy use in your home. And to suggest that taking out trees in one of the most iconic, the most iconic park in the pacific northwest is for climate resilience is to me, a hollow argument. I agree with carol. We are not against renewable energy. We're not against renewable energy projects. We feel there are alternatives that not only should be looked at, but should be looked at very seriously in terms of what the future holds for those projects. Again, pge, by their own statements, are projecting a 2 to 3% increase in energy use in the next year and again in the following year. That that to me does not say that there will be rolling blackouts. And so we do not think there's a correlation between the two. We feel this is kind of fear mongering, to be honest with you. And you heard from your constituents. And we urge you to please not change the urban forest or, I'm sorry, the forest park management plan. By allowing this, it continues to erode on those protections that we have that the community relies on. And I would also like to say that when you make your decision, remember, this is a de novo decision, as we heard earlier, using fresh eyes on this and taking into account everything that's been said here today. So thank you very much for your time and your attention to this matter. It's clearly very important, not just to our organizations, but to the citizens and the community at large. And we appreciate your time on this. Thank you.
684 Thank you both very much. We heard from the applicants about new evidence that was submitted. I'm not sure if the appellants are worried about new evidence that was submitted, but linly, do we need to address any of that tonight?
685 So given the how big this record is, what I would propose is we appreciate, mr. Peterson, thank you for the list of new evidence. We would propose to have a discussion of it and resolve that in the findings. And so we would have time with staff to look and confirm that those are pieces of new evidence, and we would have those rejected. And when council votes, they would be therefore rejecting it. I think I think that's the best way to do it right now with the information we have. Okay, great.
686 So counselors, that concludes the on the record hearings. And at this point we can close the record for oral and written testimony. Correct. Okay. So we are closing the record for oral testimony on this matter. And that moves us into our discussion. We're a little later than I know. I told many of you we'd be going, but we have, I think, a lot of information before us, and we've been asked by staff if we're able to move into the discussion and our deliberations so that we can provide direction to our attorneys. Through a tentative vote this evening. So if folks are willing to bear with us for a little bit longer, councilor Green, looks like you are in the queue.
687 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, colleagues, for the thoughtful discussion tonight. I want to start with the hearing officer's analysis, specifically the sentence where the suggestion is, look, we need to evaluate the case on the merits of the facts, facts over feelings. Right. So that's a pretty inflammatory thing to say. But it is true that you have to evaluate these cases on the merits of the facts. The thing that concerns me the most about the hearing officer's rulings is it appears that the hearing officer themselves did not adequately evaluate the case on the basis of the facts. And I'm speaking to the record here. So if we look specifically at approval criteria, a, the hearings officer seems to have accepted uncritically the assertion that a need has been credibly demonstrated, presented by the applicant. So they present a needs analysis that provides the basis for the project and the proposed project being justified by exception. And as the applicant actually stated on the record themselves, the alternatives themselves are a function of the load forecast. Okay, so that's a pretty important thing that I took away from that discussion. And in light of that, and in reviewing the record of this case and hearing the testimony of paul matched match kit, which whose name I'm probably mispronouncing, but I but I took away that he is retired bonneville power employee vice general counsel there. He did submit several pieces of evidence to the record, notably pointing out, and this was back in what, November 14th? Yes, that on April 18th, the Oregon public utility commission and I'm reading directly from the evidence here from the record. Similarly, in its April 18th, 2024 order 20 4-096 at page 20, the Oregon puc found that for pge's 2025 update to the clean energy plan. Pge needs to do a more complete analysis of need and evaluation of the full range of transmission solutions. So and this would be based upon the 2023 data that the puc received. Based upon my interpretation this paragraph, I did ask the applicants what the vintage of the forecast was underlying this needs analysis, and they did not supply an answer. But I'll note that in the record there is the exhibits. Gosh, there's so many. But there is Portland general electric's clean energy plan from 2023. It is exhibit item 242. So we have in the record that that the underlying forecast data would be from the 2020 irp. And what I'm hearing here from this veteran of bonneville power administration analysis and notably vice general counsel, is that that our own public utility commission found their needs analysis to be insufficient to demonstrate a need to engage in transmission projects to meet a reliability need. So, so for me, I, I find that the hearings officer inappropriately determined that a need has been critically demonstrated based upon the body of the evidence here. My second objection with the with with the hearing officer's analysis is that if you look at what is it approval criteria b, which is about the no, no alternatives in the park. The needs analysis discusses a local or a new generation and battery option. There was like two paragraphs to describe what that meant. And they introduced sort of the suggestion that a new generation might come from the east side of the state, and they would be met with a constraint if it needed to meet load on the western side of the state. But they didn't talk about any modeling or analysis to show where or alternative siting could be for those new generation sites. So. So I find it interesting to note that I see with my well, let me just say I was not convinced by the presentation that they did their due diligence on on really exploring that alternative. And if we go back to paul mascot's testimony, he does note that the bonneville power administration has addressed many of the transmission constraints on the south of alston line, which is named specifically in pge file. So altogether, I find that approval criteria a and b have not been sufficiently met, and so I'm not inclined to support the hearing officer's ruling and I yield my time.
688 I don't know that we have time to yield, but thank you. And counselors, I will say we should put on the record where we're leaning so that we can take this vote, but we will have time for sharing our broader positions when we take the vote on the final ordinance that comes forward to us as well. I just lost our place here, counselor Zimmerman.
689 So, so given that, can we just clarify in terms of the remainder of tonight, I want to make sure that we don't kill any dead horses or belabor any dead points.
690 So we are moving toward the tentative vote on land use hearings. We take a tentative vote, which is essentially our way of saying to staff, here's what we want to do. Please go write it for us and we give them that direction. So this is an opportunity for any discussion amongst ourselves on what direction we want to go there. Any additional questions? I know I personally have a question about something we heard for the attorneys. Any questions for each other that we haven't been able to get at yet.
691 Thanks, and I appreciate that. Counselor Green and I are both versed in this commentary. You know, ultimately, I think what has been proposed is probably the best option in the park. But. Well, and I think that this easement aspect and the right of way aspect, if not honored, is risky. But I am pretty concerned, and I don't think that I've seen in this decision or in this in the report, something that gives me the ability to say that the forest park nature management or natural resource management plan should be overruled. And so in this case, and there was a person earlier who said that those who say their hands are tied are using it as an excuse I think will actually fall to their benefit, because I don't think the standard has been met to not follow that plan. And I and I, I do think that pge should be upgrading. I think that I this is why I said councilor Green is interesting because I think the need part of this is where I feel most satisfied. But in the quad chart that was shown, you know, number one was need, number two was a lack of an alternative. Number three was consistency with the nrmp. And number four was adequacy, adequacy of mitigation. And for me I think only the need was met. I am not there on the adequacy of the mitigation plan. I am not there on the consistency that it is consistent with the nrmp and I'm not there. That lacks lack of alternatives don't exist. And I think that the hearings officers citations are are not. They are not strong enough and specific enough. And her citations do not provide me a reason to think that those that that those plans can overrule the forest park natural resource management plan. You know, land use is one of those areas where I think. It is a damning thing when we can't do what we want to do. And it is a hell of a protecting thing when it does what we need it to do. For a long time it has protected forest park, and I think that if portlanders think that the forest park natural resource management plan is flawed, and we need to revisit that, that that can be a mission to undertake. But that hasn't occurred. And as it stands, the law says that if an alternative exists and the and the hearings officer cited that one does. And so for that, I'll be leaning toward. I guess the right word would be granting the appeal, and I'll leave it there.
692 Thank you, counselor, I have myself in the queue next, and I actually agree with almost everything that counselor Zimmerman just said. I also was looking at that quadrant of need alternatives consistent with the goals and adequate mitigation. And while I am concerned with utility costs and it appears to be the best option within the park, I'm not asked to look at whether there is an alternative that. That is easy or affordable, but whether there is an alternative at all. And I actually would like to ask a question about this to our attorney, if that's all right, because we had somebody suggest that although our approval criteria says no alternative locations exist outside of the forest, outside of forest park, for the proposal that an overlay of state law would require us to create conditions to that that's not listed, however, on our approval criteria. And I want to make sure that that I'm doing the right, the right thing by using our approval criteria as opposed to an overlay that was suggested to us, but that we don't have before us. And that's not part of our our city guidance here.
693 Yeah, that's that's a good question. Council has the prerogative of interpreting its code. As long as its interpretation is plausible, it will be upheld by the courts. The difference between this and some of the other case law is in this case, we have criteria where the word practicable is used in some criteria and not in others. That's not the situation with the cited case. I think council has a lot of range of options of how it wants to interpret that criterion where practicable, is not used. And there were a number of suggestions about how you might. So is that so.
694 That is helpful. Thank you. And if that's the case then looking at practicable in criteria c and not in b, what I have before me is something that says that if an alternative location exists, we should not be granting an exception. And that seems very clear cut to me, that seems like something that in fact binds us to move in a very particular direction. So thank you. Councilor Novick.
695 So to follow up on the point of practicability, I generally agree my legal career started with arguing that the word all means all and didn't mean all reasonable or all necessary, it just meant all. And the section 174 a of superfund. So I don't think I agree you shouldn't read words into into the law. I do think that I mean, what it says is no alternative locations exist outside of forest park for the proposal. So I think that it's not necessarily that any alternative location exists, no matter whether it fulfills the need or not. So if there was an alternative location that would take 600 years to build, I don't know if that counts as an alternative location for the proposal, but I agree that simply the fact that an alternative location is stupid or expensive doesn't mean that we don't. It doesn't mean that we can't insist on it. I mean, it doesn't mean that that it doesn't count. I think that it's quite possible that pg could have made a good demonstration of need, and could have made a good demonstration that the out of park alternatives are don't actually meet the need. I just don't think that they've done it. I think that they could have. I think it's quite possible that they've got loads of evidence. They claim it exists in exhibits 180 to 220, that the grid is going to explode in 2028, but I just haven't seen it. I think that it's possible that they could extensively demonstrate that the marina way option will take many more years than that, so the grid will explode. I just don't think that they've done it. So my inclination would be to, first of all, have a revised finding that it's not true, that you can read in the word practicable. And the hearings officer cited a state case on that, which I don't think says that in any land use rule, at any level of government, you read in the word practicable. And I would ask for a finding that on this record, the pge has not demonstrated the need for something to be done by 2028. And that alternative alternative option can't be done by 2028. Now there's other criteria too, of course, and I probably and if we went through this again, I'd spend probably spend more time in mitigation and red legged frogs. But I'm sort of where I am based on the need and the alternatives. So I just can't get there today.
696 Counselor Smith. And then we may be moving toward our vote.
697 Thank you, madam president. When I think about forest park, it's probably one of the city's greatest resources, not just for its biodiversity, but its natural beauty, and especially for the recreational and educational opportunities that we all enjoy immensely. My understanding and interpretation of the legal framework we're dealing with, and especially the forest park natural resources management plan. I'm just not convinced yet that pge project proposal is consistent with the management plan, goals and strategies. Based on the evidence that I have reviewed and all the testimony that I've heard today, it it just does not meet what I think we should should have today. And even in focusing on on the conservation goal, number one from the forest park management plan, I believe that conservation goals require protection of forest park natural resources and ecosystem and for the enjoyment and benefit of future generations. And we can argue about which generations are future, but we're talking about future generations that will be here to evolve. And. I think I have to agree with my colleague that today it just doesn't meet the criterion for me. Thank you, madam president.
698 Thank you. Councilors seen no one else in the queue, and hearing from a number of folks who appear to be leaning toward granting the appeal and overturning the hearings officer's decision, I would entertain a motion to provide a tentative vote to our attorneys, directing them on what they should put into a measure to come before council.
699 Second.
700 I think we need the motion.
701 So, so moved.
702 Motion and I second.
703 I hear a motion from counselor Green and a second from councilor Morillo to the language isn't up anymore, but to provide a tentative vote to ask our attorneys to write us a measure which would grant the appeal. Linly, would you like to state this properly?
704 Yes. So the motion would be to uphold the to approve the appeal, overturn the hearings officer's decision. And I want to just really quickly so everyone understands what that means. The appeal was only on one of the four applications. So what we would be writing is denial of environmental review, approval of the two greenway reviews and the conditional use review. That is what I'm understanding the motion to be. If that is what is moved.
705 Is that what you believe? You're moving councilor Green? That is what?
706 So moved.
707 A second.
708 Okay, so councilors, this is a vote to grant the appeal.
709 Tentatively.
Procedural episode · turns 710–719
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710 Tentatively to direct our attorneys to write us something granting the appeal. Is everyone clear on what we're voting on? Okay, great. And we do have councilor Kanal still online with us.
711 And linly.
712 Yes. And counselor Ryan.
713 Your hand up.
714 I, counselor Ryan, we have a motion for a vote. Now, we're not in discussion any longer. As your hand up on a point of order or to.
715 A point of order. So could could the motion be read one more time? And then, even though I've been in these a few times, it's always a little counterintuitive on how you vote on this. So for upholding the appeal, then it's a yes vote. And if you're against the appeal, then it's a no vote. Yes.
716 A yes vote upholds the appeal, and a no vote overturns the appeal and upholds the hearings officer's decision.
717 Got it. Just had to hear that for the zillionth time. Thanks.
718 Absolutely. Rebecca, could you call the roll, please?
719 Canal.
720 Yeah. Thank you. In brief, I found the staff report to be persuasive. I did not see all the criteria for minor amendments to be met. Among other things, I did not see a demonstrated need for the proposal or believe that the proposed action is consistent with the plans, goals and strategies and more on that in a second. And that the standard was met with relation to evaluating the alternative locations, and to show that the proposal has the least significant environmental impact. So those are the criteria I want to cite here. Going back to the goals, I just want to point out and read a portion, page 98 of the plan, which is under growing ancient forest. Two items protect forest parks native plant and animal communities. Its soil and water resources. It carries on with the self-sustaining ancient forest line that we've heard under design, management and restoration under that same header. Sorry design management, restoration efforts to maintain and expand biodiversity, protect wildlife habitat, improve water quality and repair damaged and fragmented natural systems. And the other category is called protect and enhance. Protect and enhance the value of forest park as a regionally significant recreational resource and enhance the value of forest park as a regionally significant educational resource. It was brought up that this is some small and relatively unused portion of the park, but in 1995 they did think about that in the same goals section that we are now obligated to use as an approval criterion. Just below that, it talks about goal balancing, which includes. And I'll note here that the phrase significant values is emphasized in the original quote. The plan should take advantage of the south to north gradation of human use and impacts. The northern units have significant values not found in the south. The vision statement mentions the peace, solitude, ruggedness, variety, beauty, unpredictability of an urban wilderness. The plan can most effectively advocate for the protection of these important values where they are the greatest. Given that and that, focus on the northern side of it and its needs, as well as all the reasons brought up in the original motion. And thank you to those who supported that original motion. I vote yes to grant the appeal.
721 Ryan.
722 Yeah. Thank you. I want to start off by saying that I came into this meeting incredibly open, and I kind of wish I would have been. I think some of you might already had your decision made prior to this meeting, and you're going to read your one really wonderful comments. I'm going to read off all of the scribbles I've been doing for the past five hours. Who's counting? And I want to start off by saying that there's been a couple times since in the last few months where I, I want to I don't know who the hearings officer is personally, but I just want to lift them. That's a really hard job. And in a time where I think the political rhetoric and the way we sometimes talk about our public servants, I just want to check that and say that I really appreciate the hard work of the hearings, officer, and I respect the work that they did. And I just wanted to give some attention to them in their role as a public servant. It's a very hard job. I can only imagine. Two I will say that Portland will be having more and more tough decisions that include extremely difficult tradeoffs. And this one is definitely exhibit a on that. Since I've been in this role for the four and a half years, and this is just where we are in managing the climate crisis. So the. These decisions will be tough because both things can be true. And let me find the third one. I do think that pge worked really hard to find the best option. And yet we all want a different option. And so that seems to be what we're hanging with and why we'll probably be back on this topic. Pge also loves trees. They spoke to that frequently. Friends of forest park. They love electrification and we heard that over and over again. So and then, of course, I appreciate that labor showed up because there's some real grim economic times. And this is a secure this would be a secure project for the labor. And I appreciate that they also stayed so long. I'm not sure how all the pge testimony came at the very end, but I really appreciate that, that they were patient and they I heard their voice. Yet it's forest park is a cathedral. So it's you know, I've lived in Oregon most of my life in Portland area, most of it minus, you know, 15 years. But when you get to my age, it's still most of your life. And eight of my years were a little bit further out on highway 30 into columbia county. And so those those forests that we're talking about were the forests that I, that I grew up in. And maybe it's god's holy week, and I'm just treating this in a very spiritual way. It's just really difficult for me to think I could take a vote that would on the appearance, be about deforesting forest park on the during the sacred week, and I this is a tentative vote and at this moment in time, I will vote to uphold the appeal. And I really respected the testimony on both sides today. But I will vote I.
723 Koyama Lane I'm going to try to.
724 Be brief.
725 And maybe inspire some of my other colleagues to also. I.
726 Thank you to all of our the folks that.
727 Came from the public to testify, especially those who.
728 Have.
729 Stayed this whole time. I don't believe. I've seen enough evidence to prove that the forest park option would. That proposal would have the least significant detrimental environmental impact compared to the alternatives. I vote yes.
730 Morillo I will also be brief. Thank you to everyone for your patience. Everyone here supports climate resiliency and the creation of good jobs. I don't think I am disputing the benefits of bolstering the grid. This is something we've discussed in the climate committee, and that it is something of the utmost importance. But this is ultimately a matter of law and process. And in my view, pge did not provide adequate fact based support for key components of this application, including its consistency with the nmp, its alternatives analysis, and its proposed mitigation plan. Big claims require citations, and I did not see citations where it would make sense to see them on this record. I see no sufficient factual basis to set aside agency expertise and the input of a well-informed public in favor of the judgment of a single officer whose findings are inadequately supported. So I vote to support the appeal, and I'm very proud to do so.
731 Novick I first of all, I want to ask linly I've stated before what I kind of thought the findings should be if we voted to uphold the appeal, do I need to restate them or do you catch that?
732 I think through your comments and questions, you're good.
733 Okay, so in light of that, o, I want to follow up on councilor Ryan's observation about the hearings, officer. And I want to say that I actually appreciated the way the hearings officer discussed the climate resiliency issue. So although I'm voting to uphold the appeal, I have great respect for the hearings. Officer, I.
734 Clark.
735 Like councilor Ryan, I'm going to refer to my scribbles. I want to express my appreciation for everyone who came, but also my respect for pge, I and their work that they've done on transmission planning. It may not be adequate, but I appreciate the work that you've done. I also want to give a shout out to the testimony from angus duncan, with whom I served on the. I think, the governor's global warming commission. And I'm sorry we didn't get to hear all of your testimony, but you raised really important points about the future of need and how far, how far behind we are in need. I think I agree with councilor Zimmerman that we are most vulnerable on the easement issue. I think that was something akin to a sacrifice zone, if you will, which was set up a long time ago. It's much like, I guess, akin to the sacrifice zone that we made in the linnton neighborhood. We set aside something that maybe when we look back, we wouldn't have done that. But ultimately, I'm also not convinced based on the evidence and testimony today, I did come in with a very open mind, but I have to say that I don't believe that this is consistent bottom line with the forest park management plan. And so I'll vote.
736 I Green.
737 I won't restate my comments during the discussion. I think I was pretty comprehensive. I just want to note that based upon the facts and all of the facts in the record, I am going to vote I to grant the appeal.
738 Zimmerman I Avalos.
739 Today we were asked to consider this application to remove over 400 trees, and after reviewing the record before us and relying on findings presented in the staff report, I am tentatively voting yes. I just do not believe that this proposal is consistent with the standards that must guide our decision and in particular, the staff report makes it very clear that the proposal does not meet the approval criteria of portland's zoning code or the criteria for an exception to the forest park natural resources management plan, among other issues. Staff found that the application fails to demonstrate how the project's mitigation plan will actually minimize these impacts on resources, and faust park is, importantly, not only a unique ecological resource, it's also a place of solitude and sanctuary for our community. So this introduction of new infrastructure and the removal of hundreds of mature trees is incompatible to me with the goals and strategies of that plan. I want to be. Finally, I just want to be very clear that the city's planning staff, after a complete and thorough evaluation, did recommend a denial. And that recommendation recommendation was not made lightly. It was based on a comprehensive analysis of the code, the environmental impact, and the applicant's own submitted materials. So with that, I vote aye.
740 Dunphy.
741 Yeah.
742 Colleagues, I came into this hearing.
743 Today leaning towards denying the appeal, honestly recognizing that we are in a moment of crisis and needing to upgrade our our transmission system. But based on the evidence, on the record, based on the report, the staff report from senior city planner morgan steele, I can't understand how the hearings officer got to the decision that they made based on a plain text reading of the law. I vote I in support of upholding the appeal.
744 Smith.
745 I just like to support the staff and their recommendation. I vote I.
746 Pirtle-guiney like many of my colleagues, I came in today and decided I take seriously the role of neutrality when we are reviewing land use appeals. And like my colleague councilor Dunphy, I can't see how the hearings officer got to the decision that they did. I'm compelled to vote.
747 I with 12 I votes the motion to tentatively grant the appeal carries.
748 Thank you. We will have this item back before us on the may 7th calendar, I believe.
749 Yes, at the 945 time. Certain.
750 Okay.
751 So can I make a couple just a couple of quick reminders. Yes. Testimony record is now closed. Please continue to avoid ex parte contacts for the next three weeks until we get to the seventh. And please don't if you can avoid posting or about your decision on this while it's still tentative, that would be appreciated.
752 Thank you. Thank you for that direction, linly. And with that, I will close today's council meeting.