The city has relied on this incorrect fact since the beginning. Their lawyer told Council, directly before they voted, that they were mandated to take the full 855 acres. But they know this to be false. And at a public meeting before the county in December, after egregiously claiming to be “locked in” to their expansion, the state land use agency’s director sent a strongly worded letter to the city and county to let them know they were relying on incorrect facts. The letter reminded the city that their desire for almost 700 acres of employment land was “aspirational—based on a desired growth rate and a wish for industry to locate here—not on hard facts.

The director’s conclusion: The city is not “locked in” to this expansion and NONE of the 688 acres of employment land are required by the state.

This is the largest expansion of a UGB, by percentage basis, in the history of Oregon UGBs. The city manager has said, in public meetings at the county, that it will look like North Hillsboro. NOTHING about this expansion, from new arterial streets, to gigantic data centers, to massive debt, will look like the North Plains of today. The button below links to the best study on the actual effects, and costs, of the expansion to date. It was done by a retired city planner at the request of our friends at Farmland First and shows the massive costs and unrecognizable city that would result from this plan. Get the facts here.

City Council knows that the opposition is widespread both inside and outside of town. This ballot measure will be decided only by voters inside of the city yet the city used taxpayer money to lobby for a law that would invalidate it. The council voted to remove the referendum from the ballot—an action they have no power to do under their own charter, state law, or the constitution and an action that was invalidated by a judge one week later. The city is not afraid of outsiders—it is afraid of its own voters.