City: Municipal gigabit fiber is happening next year in South Hillsboro and the Shute Park area

Posted on by Justin Pot

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[…]

City officials want to build 850 homes south of Witch Hazel Village

Posted on by Justin Pot

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,[…]

Hillsboro police officers are learning to meditate

Posted on by Justin Pot

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[…]

Hillsboro officials claim city is out of industrial land, wants legislature to review rural reserves

Posted on by Justin Pot

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[…]

Republican money funds fake Monte Akers site

Posted on by Justin Pot

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[…]

Council narrowly votes to bury powerline beside Jackson School Road for $2.25 million

Posted on by Justin Pot

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[…]

Council might bury all utilities along Jackson School Road, vote is tomorrow

Posted on by Justin Pot

A work session before tomorrow’s City Council meeting will explore whether all utilities along Jackson School Road should be moved underground. There are already extensive plans for improvement along the road, but those designs moved only some utility lines underground. No public comment is permitted during the work session, which is normal. Residents will have a chance to speak during the City Council meeting, during which there will also be a vote on the issue. To quote a city release about the potential change: The Council is scheduled to vote during the 7 pm meeting on whether to underground all utilities in the public right-of-way on the Jackson School Road Project, rather than the project’s current design, which calls for[…]

The City of Hillsboro is the biggest media outlet in town

Posted on by Justin Pot

I’ve been the only journalist at Hillsboro City Council meetings for a couple of months now, so far as I can tell. Which is odd, because this is a city of 100,000 people, the economic engine of the state, and I’m just a citizen journalist. I’m a volunteer. I have no budget, no advertisers, and no desire to build a business model. I started doing this a year ago as an experiment, and it’s one I plan to continue. But I haven’t had much success generating interest, probably because I’m a better blogger than I am a promoter. The City of Hillsboro, meanwhile, is very good at getting its own point of view across. During a recent city council meeting[…]

Municipal fiber plan could mean gigabit speeds for $50 a month in Hillsboro

Posted on by Justin Pot

Look out, Comcast: The City of Hillsboro is seriously contemplating offering gigabit fiber internet access to all residents for $50 a month, with no bandwidth caps. For those who aren’t tech savvy, that’s an absurd amount of speed at that price. Families that qualify for free school lunches could be charged as little as $10. It gets better: the $88 million infrastructure project required to do this could be paid for in 10 years, assuming 37 percent of residents and businesses use the service. That’s according to a report by Greg Mont, Information Services Director, and Suzzane Linneen, Finance Director, both of whom stressed that these are estimates during a a work session last week on Tuesday, March 20. Every single[…]

The MAX Red Line will extend to the Fairgrounds; what’s that mean for 185th Avenue traffic?

Posted on by Justin Pot

TriMet plans on extending the Red Line all the way to Hillsboro’s Fairgrounds, which will make getting home from the airport at night a lot easier, among other things. But what impact will more trains have on traffic in places where rail lines block the road, particularly 185th Avenue? That’s what city officials hope to look into, and on Tuesday City Council will likely authorize $450,000 of spending for a study. That price will be offset by funds from Washington County and the City of Beaverton. The focus of this study will be where MAX lines cross 185th, just north of Baseline. It’s one of the worst intersections in our city, and the MAX crossing there is “at grade,” which[…]