We had approximately 29 attendees … probably 7 of whom were from our Working Group (thank you all for your amazing work and support – and please feel free to comment on my notes here). There were also 2 officers from the Washington County Sheriff’s Dept who listened to our safety concerns and noise complaints. We had quite a few people arrive a bit late … and we had quite a bit of representation from Kemmer View Estates this time and a CPO 6 representative (also a Cooper Mountain resident) - welcome. Again, we had scheduled 2 hours for the actual meeting but finished in 1 ½ which left time for mingling and viewing the map enlargements.
The “Jake brake” discussion came up and the officers listened and responded. If I’m paraphrasing correctly, “.. officers have to hear the offending noise personally in order to cite the offender…” So the residents need to do their best to record date, time of day, truck/motorbike description, license (any/all as best they can) and report this to Sheriff’s Traffic Hotline: (503) 846-3998 X1145. Online, you can record this under PATROL, Traffic Complaints. Washington County Sheriff’s Office will do their best to post a car at the time of the repeating offender(s) location and, if it is deemed that the noise is excessive, they will cite.
In the meeting, the mode of presentation was, again, to call for votes on the items proposed (as much as an inclusion exercise as it was to obtain agreement). At this meeting, there was a great deal more discussion and interaction regarding key points – some people weren’t 100% convinced at first, but were willing to go so far as “disagree and commit” for the common good. We had one key exception to straightening of the “kink” and she yielded to changing our request to ask the county to continue to add safety modifications to that stretch of the road – and so we’ve changed the wording accordingly. At that point, everyone agreed to leave the kink in the road.
One resident brought up that he did have photos of accidents on 175th along with a truck fire. I have since seen these photos – and I am reluctant to include them in our testimony at this point as they are not of accidents directly on 175th, but on a side street being used due to closure of 175th. The truck fire is apparently on 175th. I will leave the decision on how to best utilize these photos up to the team. Many thanks to the residents for their factual inputs.
The small mall targeted for 175th and Kemmer was brought up in this meeting. This item shows up in Scenarios 1 & 2 and not in Scenario 3 (note: Page 15 of Sept 2014 version of SCM Concept Plan – as a tiny red dot!). We, as residents, certainly need to follow up this proposal … but it is not in the domain of save175th at this time.
Between the first and second meetings, it has become clear that there is a huge effort involved in the “Go Around The Mountain” solution much of which revolves around governance and funding – neither of which is in place and will take a great deal to put in place. The initial work of Save175th Neighborhood Association therefore is focused on gaining safety and noise abatement improvements while the larger debate goes on – and to justify blocking any road “improvements” that we don’t need. We have offers to partner on some solutions from Washington County Transportation Planning and we need volunteers – we will be holding a Planning Meeting on Nov. 10th – please sign up to identify where you would like to participate.
The presentation prep packet for the Beaverton Planning Commission is now available on our website: www.save175th.org and includes 144 signatures of support representing 95 households..
And, the entire updated presentation is also available in the Prezi format on our amazing website.
And that’s my take. Basically, a very well-received message – any comments from others who were there?
Thanks everyone,
Fran.