Your elderly mother with dementia wanders off while you are out. It is raining and getting dark. The Washington County Sheriff’s Office (“WCSO”) has found your mom, but she has no identification and does not know where she lives. Thanks to the Elder Safe program, the Sheriff’s Office can house mom for the night at a hotel until the connection is made with the family. Learn how the Elder Safe program and other programs supported by the Sheriff’s Office Foundation of Washington County, Oregon work for you and how you can help.

The WCSO provides many services. Unfortunately, not everything needed for public services is covered by the budget. This is where the Sheriff’s Office Foundation of Washington County, Oregon (“WCSOF”) steps in to help. The WCSOF is a nonprofit organization that assists with Washington County Sheriff’s Office programs and services that improve public safety throughout Washington County.

The WCSOF has existed since 1995 and became a 501(c)3 charitable organization in 1997, making donations tax-deductible. Through a board of public volunteers, funds donated to the Foundation are used towards the programs and services that may not be otherwise funded through the WCSO’s budget. The board must act under the rules and regulations of the Dept. of Justice, the Attorney General and follow its Mission Statement, which provides in part that contributions are to be used to improve public safety and educational programs. The Bylaws and Articles of Incorporation are public records, and they are listed on Guidestar, the world’s largest source of nonprofit organizations.

The WCSOF was formed to enhance livability concerns and provide educational support to the Sheriff’s Office to improve the quality of life in the communities, promote public understanding of law enforcement, advance law enforcement training and support educational programs.  

The WCSOF expanded its projects since its inception, but it is not a broad application to social services like other foundations; the support stays focused on livability concerns that are directly related to law enforcement education, training and public safety in Washington County. An example of some of the specific programs the WCSOF supports are:

Sheriff’s Office Program Examples:  

K9 Trials – The Washington County Sheriff’s Office K-9 Trials are a free, family-friendly event open to the public that brings together some of the region’s canine teams for a fun-filled competition. They are typically held at the Hillsboro Stadium (4450 NE Century Blvd, Hillsboro, OR 97124). A safety fair is also provided in the parking lot. The Sheriff’s Office Foundation is responsible for inviting and coordinating vendors for this event, along with helping to fund the reservation of the stadium. The foundation also sells K9 plushies and double insulated tumblers at the event. All proceeds go to the Sheriff’s Office Foundation to help them provide funds to programs in need around Washington County.

Shop With A Cop – Each year, the Washington County Sheriff’s Office (WCSO) engages with local families through their annual “Shop With a Cop” holiday event. The Sheriff’s Office Foundation supports funding for this special program, spreading holiday magic and cheer with many deserving families in our community. WCSO coordinates with local elementary schools to nominate families who could benefit from this program. Generally, students pair with deputies to shop for their families, promoting positive and meaningful interactions with law enforcement. Recently, these events have required some creative adaptations due to COVID-19 safety requirements. While the participating students are not able to meet in person for the shopping excursions, WCSO staff fulfills the families’ wish and needs lists. The donations and support from the Sheriff’s Office Foundation, along with local businesses and organizations, make these special events possible. 

Elder Safe Program – The Sheriff’s Office Foundation helps fund the Elder Safe Program. This program helps victims aged 65 and older after a crime is reported to the police and continues to help them through the criminal justice system. Based at the Washington County Sheriff’s Office, Elder Safe collaborates with the District Attorney’s Office, Disability, Aging and Veteran Services, and city police departments to coordinate services. Volunteer victim advocates provide crime victims with emotional support and information relating to the criminal justice system as well as their cases through follow-up phone calls. Assistance tailored to the unique circumstance of each victim may include personal support, court advocacy, or help filling out forms. Program staff and volunteers understand the needs of victims for information, validation, restitution, testimony, and support as their cases travel through the criminal justice system.

How can you contribute to the foundation?

As a nonprofit, we rely on contributions from individuals, corporations, and other foundations to operate. Your generous gifts allow us to deliver on our mission to assist the sheriff’s office with public safety-related events and programs.

To learn more or donate to WCSOF, visit wcsofoundation.org. There is currently an opening on the Foundation’s board of directors; contact bob.zahrowski@wcsofoundation.org for more information.

City officials have dubbed 2021 “the best year yet” in the life of the transportation and pedestrian safety centered Tualatin Moving Forward project.

Tualatin Senior Transportation Engineer Mike McCarthy detailed the year’s successes in an end-of-year brief to City Council last month, including the November opening celebration of the $20 million bond project’s current crown jewel, Garden Corner Curves. 

Building on the momentum of a robust 2020, six projects that improved life for bikers and pedestrians and peppered the city with new public art were completed in 2021 bringing the total to 20 with another 14 in progress as the calendar flipped.

“We had another really good year, and I’ll keep knocking on wood because it’s been really wonderful. We are excited with how things are working,” McCarthy said. “We’re getting to an exciting time in the program where we’re really seeing things on the ground and really seeing things happening.”

The program’s budget is also thriving.

Tualatin Assistant City Manager and Finance Director Don Hudson, gave a rosy financial report that has the project’s funding up $4 million over the initial $20 million bond from 2018.

“I get the honor of throwing more money at you and explaining why,” Hudson told Mayor Frank Bubenick and City Councilors. Back in 2018, when the bonds were sold, “it was a good time to go into the market and we were an attractive risk.”

The bond sale netted closer to $23 million initially because investors opted to pay higher premiums in exchange for a higher rate of return down the road, the city then banked another $1.2 million by investing moneys that weren’t immediately tied up in projects instead of letting those dollars stagnate.

Investments are currently bringing in about $14,000 a month, a that figure will decrease overtime as more projects are started and as the market shifts, Hudson explained.

To date, Moving Forward has spent $9.8 million replacing buckled sidewalks, installing crosswalks, bike lanes, traffic signals and upgrading crossing with ADA compliant ramps, among other safety improvements, with another $14.2 million projected for upcoming projects. 

In addition to Garden Corner Curves, Tualatin installed flashing lights in four separate locations: SW Boones Ferry Rd at The Commons, SW Hazelbrook Rd and Jurgens Park, SW Nyberg St and SW 57th Ave, and SW Boones Ferry Rd near SW Arapaho St. 

Many of those areas have been enhanced by a public art series in which new sidewalks are imprinted with one of about a dozed stamps designed by area artists.

 One of the year’s largest undertakings, the first phase work aimed at making a series of improvements in the area around SW Avery St and SW 95 Ave, near Tualatin Elementary School, is nearly complete.

At another site, the in-progress effort to replace stop signs with a traffic Signal at the intersection of SW Martinazzi Ave and SW Sagert St. was waylaid by global supply chain snags. Poles for the light are installed but “unfortunately were looking at February or March before we’ll actually be able to get the signal in and turned on,” McCarthy said. 

On the bright side, he added “We’ve had some wonderful artwork that’s been getting installed. The south side of Sagert St. works out to be a great little walk now. It includes more than 10 of the different stamps we’ve been using.”

With upcoming projects, McCarthy anticipates Moving Forward will have spent about half of its funding, $12 million, by the end of this year.

Planning is still in the works for the most ambitious undertaking on the horizon.

 “We’re working on a conceptual design for a project along Boones Ferry to fill in bike lane and sidewalk gaps from just south of Tualatin-Sherwood Rd all the way down to the city limits,” McCarthy said. 

City Manager Sherilyn Lombos reiterated the importance of community participation going forward, calling it the projects guiding star.

“I want to take a step back to 2018,” Lombos said. “There were three things that were really important, kind of our True North. 1. This was single-focused, it was all about transportation. 2. We wanted to make sure that the entire elected body was supportive … and then the third thing was that it was community driven…This wasn’t something that staff sat around thinking up. These were projects that were generated from the community.”

To read the full Tualatin Moving Forward 2021 report or suggest an area for future projects visit Tualatinmovingforward.com.

The neighborhoods of Tualatin’s future, like those in cities across Oregon, will have more living spaces for more people.

City Council last month unanimously approved a housing code amendment ordinance that smooths the way for building a variety of multi-family dwellings known as middle housing in areas previously zoned exclusively for single-family house construction.

So, how will that look? 

More townhomes, duplexes, triplexes, mixed-use structures that house both residential and commercial spaces, additional dwelling units (ADUs) on lots that presently have a single home and possibly the development of “cottage clusters” where multiple tiny home type living spaces share a property. More homes for more people.

The changes were drafted to comply with Oregon House Bill 2001, which requires cities of more than 25,000 people to amend codes that inhibit construction of multi-family housing, but they also align with current efforts to meet Tualatin’s growing need more diverse affordable housing options. 

City Council President Nancy Grimes praised the ordinance as “taking mandates from HB 2001 that are not all palatable and translating them where we could into things that make a lot of sense for the city.”

Cities who fail to implement a compliant code will be required to adopt the state code. In authoring and adopting its own ordinance, Tualatin was able to retain a kind of creative existing structure.

“One standard I would like to highlight is the introduction of floor area ratio” Koper said, referring to code that will keep floor plan size proportional to lot size “so we don’t have a huge hulking structure on a smaller lot.”

Many of the of HB 2001’s requirements mirror housing goals detailed in Tualatin 2040 project, a 20-year plan to broaden housing options in the city and, ideally, create more affordable, environmentally friendly housing.

“It was a good amount of synergy between those (HB 2001 and the Tualatin 2040 project,” said Tualatin assistant community development director Steve Koper. Both seek to remove barriers to varied higher density housing options.

Like many Oregon cities, Tualatin is presently considered a severely rent burdened community, meaning more than 25 percent of Tualatin households spend at least 50 percent of their gross income on housing. 

Building a duplex or multi-plex or a cottage community of tiny houses in a space that previously may have previously housed a single family, could help the ease the affordable housing crunch.

Last year, drivers in west Tualatin watched Portland General Electric’s Integrated Operations Center being constructed near the intersection of 124th Avenue and Tualatin-Sherwood Road and no doubt were curious about what was going on inside.

The Integrated Operations Center, dubbed the IOC, centralizes PGE’s mission-critical operations that maintain the flow of power to customers throughout its service territory. It is the only facility of its kind serving all of PGE’s customers, according to Ray Payne, PGE’S director of grid operations.

He added, “These operations include the System Control Center, cyber security, physical security and network security. It provides immediate and enduring value to customers through improved reliability, increased resilience and security, and better integration of clean-energy resources into the system.”

The 110,000-square-foot-facility centralizes all mission-critical operations that maintain the flow of power to customers, including system control, various security functions, emergency management and transmission, and market operations. 

Once the building opened Nov. 1, the company started a phased-in approach to occupying the building with an initial staff of 220 employees. 

Why was Tualatin chosen to be the site of the Integrated Operations Center?

PGE put together a project selection committee that included architects and engineers whose job was to determine the best site for the new center. Criteria included site-acquisition risk, site-and-environmental constraints and land-use timelines, plus location and land quality, transportation and disaster risk, and recovery.

“Based on a series of criteria… they chose the site in Tualatin because it earned the highest score from the process,” Payne said.

He added that the facility has been built to withstand a major natural disaster to maintain electricity flow after a major power disruption.

“The IOC was constructed with a technology called ‘base isolation’ that utilizes base isolators beneath the building that will absorb the seismic energy produced by a Cascadia Subduction Zone event,” Payne said. “During the event, the building will sway rather than shake and, consequently, maintain its structural integrity. 

“The facility also has redundant utility services (water, electricity, etc.), which will allow it to operate in isolation for about two weeks. The goal in all this is to reduce the amount of time PGE spends taking care of our own operations and provide more time to focus on addressing our customers’ needs.”

The Tualatin-based IOC “is designed to provide a more reliable and resilient system for PGE’s customers by integrating the relevant people, functions and systems into a single facility,” Payne said. “This new facility will also allow us to manage a more efficient, cleaner and more-flexible power grid while also improving resilience in the face of threats to physical, cyber and network operations.”

PGE is a Fortune 1,000 public utility that provides power to nearly half of the electric customers in Oregon.

It aims to achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions across the company by 2040, according to its website. The utility’s investments in new, clean energy and renewable technologies put it on the right path to accelerate its de-carbonization goals and advance a clean energy future.