Residential garbage rates are going up $2.90 a month in Hillsboro following a City Council vote last week. The change was prompted in part by new requirements in China for recycled goods.
Author: Justin Pot
Justin Pot is the founder of Hillsboro Signal, and covers City Council. By day he writes about technology for How To Geek.
Washington Country’s Sheriff Office was an early adopter of Amazon’s facial recognition software. Since early 2017 officers scanned around 20 people a day, comparing them to their database of past mug shots.
Hillsboro plans to put a camera on every police officer later this year, but if you want to see any footage it’s going to cost you.
City Council voted to buy 1,800 streetlights, currently owned by PGE, at a cost of $1,476,721.30 during its May 15 meeting.
Imagine gigabit internet speeds at home, for an estimated $50 a month, with no data caps and total respect for net neutrality. If you live in Southwest Hillsboro, or plan on living in South Hillsboro when housing is ready there, that could be a reality for you in 2019. City council directed city employees yesterday to move forward in those two neighborhoods. South Hillsboro, as new construction, is a simple place to roll out a project like this, while the Shute Park neighborhood has some of the lowest broadband access in the city. Rollout to the rest of Hillsboro, if eventually approved, would take an estimated ten years. City officials discussed the plan with City Council during a work session on[…]
Hillsboro’s government wants to build 850 housing units south of the Witch Hazel neighorhood, but can only do that if the Metro government agrees to expand the Urban Growth Boundary. So city officials are working on their pitch. Laura Weigel, Hillsboro’s Long Range Planning Manager, outlined the plan in a May 1 work session with city council members. “Even with the buildout of South Hillsboro, we’re short about 1,300 single housing units,” said Weigel. “We have to put a package together that explains why we’re ready to handle this growth.” The area in question, outlined above in diagonal green lines, is 150 acres previously designated urban reserve by Metro, and all 12 landowners want to come into the urban growth boundary,[…]
A Hillsboro police officer believes mindfulness meditation can improve the mental wellbeing of his fellow officers, and is teaching meditation classes across the country. Here’s Melanie Sevcenko, reporting for Marketplace, talking to Lt. Richard Goerling about his Mindful Badge Initiative: “I think in many ways, mindfulness is a foundation for the evolution of policing in America,” Goerling said. “It’s a foundation for us as an institution to take a really fair and deep introspective look at systems that frankly the data shows are oppressive to certain populations, in many cases to people of color.” Lee Dobrowolski, chief of the Hillsboro Police, says such meditation helps officers perform better while also improving their home lives. Here’s Sevcenko again: His department has[…]
City officials claim Hillsboro is running out of land for industrial development, and would like the Oregon legislature to review the 2014 Grand Bargain that classified 2,200 acres north of the Hillsboro Airport as permanent rural reserves. “There are zero acres of urban reserves currently feasible for future economic development,” said Dan Dias, Economic Development Officer for Hillsboro, in a City Council work session on May 1. “Having viable land for future economic opportunities is critically important for Hillsboro’s competitiveness,” said Dias, “and for the expansion of homegrown businesses from our community.” The 2014 compromise saw 545 acres (shaded above in solid pink) opened for industrial development, while leaving the 2,200 other acres designated as permanent rural reserves. The Metro[…]
MonteAkers.com seems designed to make local state senate candidate Monte Akers unappealing to Republican voters, because it was designed to make him unappealing to Republican voters—and it was funded by a Republican interest group. MonteAkers.com looks like an official candidate website, but it doesn’t really have any content other than an out-of-context quote from a Hillsboro Signal article, used to make Akers, a Republican, look like an ardent supporter of tax increases. Here’s Caleb Diehl, writing for OregonBusiness.com: Infighting in the Republican Party primaries reached a new level a week ago. The Senate Republicans’ Leadership Fund, a political action committee that finances Republican candidates for Senate, set up a website masquerading as the campaign site for Senate candidate Monte Akers, a Republican[…]
Hillsboro City Council narrowly voted 3-2 to bury the power lines alongside Jackson School Road, adding $2.25 million to the $20 million redesign of the road, a major entry point into the city off Highway 26. The change will extend construction one extra year for the project into 2022. Numerous residents came to the April 3 City Council meeting to argue in favor of the change. In the end councillors Kyle Allen, Darell Lumaco, and Olivia Alcaire voted for the change in design, while councillors Anthony Martin and Fred Nachtigal voted against. Councillor Rick Van Beveren, who lives on the street, recused himself. Divided votes at the council level are rare in Hillsboro. In this case proponents cited safety and[…]