The Metro Council last week voted to adopt a new Parks and Nature System Plan that will guide development and planning for natural areas it manages for years to come.

Metro has around 17,000 acres of parks and natural areas in its portfolio, but until the new plan was formulated, there was no scientific system for classifying its inventory. The new plan describes the primary characteristics of 11 different “naturehoods,” a word Metro coined to organize its parks and natural areas based according to geographic and ecological identities.

outlined in the plan details the primary characteristics and values of each “naturehood,” from regional recreation to habitat preserves, and is based on scientific study, according to the Metro website. The system is expected to help Metro create consistency across the region when planning for natural resource protection, park development, amenities and programming.

Voters have approved bond measures that enabled Metro to acquire natural areas over the years, but that money could only be used for capital purchases. A special levy passed in 2013 will provide money for land maintenance and upgrades through a grant program as defined in the new plan, Metro Council President Tom Hughes said.

“This is a master plan on how we are going to spend money given to us by the voters,” he said. “We’ve spent some of it on purchasing property and (are now determining) what is the plan for maintaining this property now that it’s there.”

Hughes said Metro will provide grants to individual providers of parks in the metro area, whether they are cities or other entities.

“They know better than we do (what is needed) at the local level, and we’re trying to help their efforts – whether it’s towns or jurisdictions or citizens groups – to set up grant systems so it meets a variety of different kinds of needs.”

The new Parks and Nature System Plan is the result of two years of work by Metro staff and many meetings with community members and other stakeholders. Hughes said its adoption reflects the wishes of the community as a whole.

“As a region, we are a community that has great respect for the natural areas that we still have and a great desire to make sure they are well preserved into the future,” he said.

Metro will add a measure to the November ballot to extend the current five-year levy to 2023, to provide continuity and money for multiyear restoration projects, Hughes said. The goal of the levy is to protect clean water, restore wildlife habitat and provide access to rivers and other natural areas.

Mike Houck, executive director of the nonprofit Urban Greenspaces Institute, was involved in the development of the new Metro plan, which he said is “hugely important.”

So far, according to Houck, voters have been amenable to Metro’s efforts to acquire more natural areas, and the new plan will help guide decisions on how to manage those resources.

“Metro has been very explicit about what land they were going to purchase and that’s why the public approved it,” he said. “The expectation was that they would manage it appropriately, primarily for natural resource values.”

Houck said the plan makes clear that Metro’s role in parks and natural areas is not to compete with local park providers’ efforts but rather complement them, and that Metro is not really focused on recreation but rather conservation of natural areas.

“One of the critical things about Metro is that they have one of the most highly regarded ecological staffs in the region, and the plan is predicated and based on science,” Houck said. “They are looking from a perspective of ecological value, not just to put a trail here or there.”

The new plan also provides a framework for upcoming discussion by the Metro Council on how to provide money for future management of natural areas, Houck said.

“The plan is an exciting next step in the regional effort to protect natural areas and provide world-class areas and trails for the Portland and Vancouver region,” he said. “But it’s simply a step and there is a lot of work to be done in the future.”

One step needed is development of an overview and a funding mechanism for all the parks and natural areas, whether they are owned by Metro or other jurisdictions, Houck said.

“We still need a long-term, regionally-based planning source for managing not just Metro’s natural areas, but we need an overall regional view,” he said.

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The candidates for the new chief operating officer of the Portland Metro Council were today whittled down to one with Metro president Tom Hughes‘ nomination of Martha Bennett.

If Bennett wins the majority in a Metro Council vote scheduled for Sept. 8, she will begin the new position on Oct. 31. Bennett would be the second chief operating officer, a position created in 2003 in a restructuring of the agency’s charter.

Fifty-six people applied for the position from around the country, but the four finalists were all Oregonians. Each finalist was put through a series of interviews – both with Metro staff and stakeholders in the region, according to Metro spokesman Ken Ray.

Bennett has served as Ashland’s city administrator for six years, and prior to that was executive director of the Columbia River Gorge Commission, which manages land use decisions and works with several federal agencies to protect the area.

The position opened in March when Gov. John Kitzhaber appointed the agency’s first COO, Michael Jordan, to a similar role at the state level.

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Next month, voters across the country will decide who will guide their states and communities into the future. But in Oregon, one office on this year’s ballot is unique to the state. Voters will be able to choose their next Metro Council president.

The position oversees Metro – a governmental body that makes land use and transportation decisions for greater Portland. Oregon is the only state in the country with an elected regional governing body. With Oregon facing its largest deficit ever, the new Metro Council president will play an important role in the Portland area’s economic future.

This year’s candidates, Tom Hughes and Bob Stacey, are well respected and possess vastly different resumes.

• Read Bob Stacy’s Q&A with 91��Ƶ reporter Nathalie Weinstein.

•Read Tom Hughes’ Q&A with 91��Ƶ reporter Nick Bjork.

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Tom Hughes is a Hillsboro native through and through.

He was born in the city, graduated from Hillsboro High School and, after graduating college, returned to the area to teach government and history at Aloha High School in Beaverton from 1974 to 2003. He served on Hillsboro City Council from 1976 to 2000, during which time he also served on the Hillsboro Planning and Zoning Hearings Board, the city’s planning commission and the Hillsboro School District‘s budget committee.

In 2001 Hughes was elected to the first of two four-year terms as Hillsboro’s mayor; he was reelected with 72 percent of the votes. While serving as mayor, he also served as the chairman of the Metro Policy Advisory Committee, and was a member of Metro’s Joint Policy Advisory Committee of Transportation.

91��Ƶ: With the current economic situation, what are some ideas for financing capital projects?

Tom Hughes: Well, I think that’s the $64 million question. The problem, which is not unique to Oregon, even though it seems like it sometimes, is that we tend to start looking at issues that involve funding by starting the conversation with funding.

I think (Metro Chief Operating Officer) Michael (Jordan) has started the discussion with the business community and finding out what the investments are we need to make in the future. I don’t think we’re there yet, but we need to focus on what the investments we need to make are. Then how will those coordinate to make the area more vital from an economic development standpoint, rather than starting it with who’s going to pay for what.

Obviously, though, funding is going to have to come from everywhere. We are going to tap into federal sources, state sources and other local sources along the way. Everyone is going to be a part of the puzzle but at first we need an idea of what the puzzle is going to look like so we can start putting the pieces together.

91��Ƶ: What is Metro’s goal in regional politics?

Hughes: In some respects the goal has always been to function as a regional coordinator on major issues that relate to quality of life. That involves coordination of land-use planning, investments, urban form and how we achieve the goals in the 2040 plan.

91��Ƶ: With the present economic situation, how useful is long-range planning, such as the urban and rural reserves process Metro is currently undertaking?

Hughes: I think it’s very useful both in terms of economic development and urban planning. Looking at it from the perspective of a mayor, from the planning side, it’s much easier to narrow down the areas of if we are going to expand the UGB, where are we going to go and how do we accommodate it? That allows us to plan the infrastructure needs in advance.

From an economic development standpoint, the certainty of it is the good component. From an economic development strategy, if you can tell clients thinking about coming to the area or clients thinking about expanding, where expansion is going to occur into the future, it gives them certainty. Unpredictability creates cost in economic development, so predictability reduces costs. The more predictable the system, the more cost effective it’s going to be.

The unpredictability in the markets right now make things harder. But planning is easy; it’s implementing it that’s hard. So it’s hard to know how much, for example, is enough right now. It’s hard to know what the demand is going to be, and how much that demand will be able to drive our ability to pay for infrastructure needs. All of those things are harder now. But if you can get these geographical areas nailed down it’s good for us and it’s good for the people within the urban reserves and those within the rural reserves.

91��Ƶ: How should one government entity meet the needs of such geographically and ideologically different communities?

Hughes: The most important concept in all of that seems to me that you need to realize one size doesn’t fit all. From my perspective, which comes from a local government perspective, it’s important for Metro to identify regional challenges. Then the process should be for Metro to pose those challenges to the local partners and allow for maximum flexibility in letting them solve those challenges how they want to. What happens when you do that is you have multiple solutions to the problem. Instead of having an ‘everything works the same,’ whether you’re in Gresham, Hillsboro or Wilsonville, you have a variety around the region that is really healthy. Everything doesn’t look the same.

It’s that cookie-cutter feel that is the real bugaboo of central planning. That sameness is bad. Allowing ample flexibility, while holding them accountable for results, should be Metro’s goal (and) not messing with the details.

91��Ƶ: How would you work to move forward the Columbia River Crossing? What about the Sellwood Bridge?

Hughes: The CRC is like a lot of other projects in the region in that the heavy lifting on the engineering, the financing and the other fundamental issues that have to be solved in order for it to move forward have been done. Even though the results are still under review there’s some consensus around the preferred option.

I think what’s necessary now for a regional leader is to deal with the political stuff. It now becomes a political problem opposed to an engineering one. The goal of the Metro president will be to move that forward politically – whether that’s working with the legislators in Salem and Olympia, meeting with the congressional delegates or getting the opinions to our regional partners.

Again, the Sellwood Bridge project has similar problems to those I’ve encountered as a mayor. I think back to the fair-plex in Washington County. There was a dispute on one level from the fair boosters and the fair board, and on the other level with the fair boosters and the county. Look, there’s going to be disputes, but it’s about getting everyone involved and making sure that you come up with a proposal that everyone can agree on. It was only the voters that we couldn’t get to agree on the final fair-plex proposal. The same thing is true with the Metro president role. You’ve got to bring the parties together and help them all arrive at something they are comfortable with.

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With Oregon’s unemployment numbers a whole percentage point above the national average, politicians in the state are emphasizing jobs during their campaigns for upcoming elections.

Even the two candidates running for Metro council president are focusing on how the regional government body can help create jobs.

But while Bob Stacey and Tom Hughes agree the issue needs to be a priority, they differ on how the tri-county area and its 1.5 million residents should make it happen.

“Quality of life is Metro’s job if you (were to) put it on a bumper sticker,” said Stacey, a land-use attorney whose resume includes past stints as executive director of 1000 Friends of Oregon and chief of staff to U.S. Rep. Earl Blumenauer. “And quality of life for most in the area right now starts with finding a job for themselves or a loved one.”

Stacey wants to create jobs by removing the barriers to using land already within the urban growth boundary, like brownfield sites and other plots where reuse is financially infeasible.

“We need to address the land we already have,” he said Tuesday night during a candidates’ debate sponsored by the Oregon chapter of the Urban Land Institute. “That want doesn’t come from starry-eyed dreams. It comes from over 35 years experience looking at the problems of this area from four different government positions.”

Hughes, on the other hand, said he thinks the Metro president should play a significant role in attracting businesses to the area. That’s what he did as mayor of Hillsboro, where he helped attract SolarWorld, Pacific University’s Health Professions campus, an Intel development facility and a Genentech facility.

“Recruiting companies isn’t something the Metro president has had to do, but I think it’s something that needs to be done,” Hughes said. “In Hillsboro it helped so much to have the mayor, the political figure, making those calls and making those visits.”

Besides job creation, the two candidates also spoke about one of the bigger issues in the region right now: the proposed Columbia River Crossing project.

“The CRC is going to be subject to tolls; there’s no question about that,” Hughes said. “But where we are proposing to toll is wrong.”

Hughes said he thinks the tolls should be on the interchanges north and south of the actual bridge. Considering that the bridge accounts for only $900 million of the project’s $3 billion to $4 billion cost, bridge users shouldn’t be the only ones responsible for paying for it, he said.

Hughes also suggested that one of the first things he would look into is finding a way to make sure that everyone is paying a fair share of the toll.

“I don’t want the guy that has a family and has to be at his job at an exact time to bear the brunt of this (as) opposed to someone who has a little more flexibility and can avoid a toll time,” he said. “This just needs to be fair, and I want to help make sure of that.”

Hughes believes the project is ready to move forward, and that Metro could help with him at the helm.

Stacey, on the other hand, is less convinced because of the scale begin considered.

“The problem is the CRC project is not achieving the takeoff velocity it needs,” Stacey said. “As the independent review panel set up by the governors suggested, this project has deep issues.”

Instead of building a bridge with 10 or 12 lanes, for example, Stacey has suggested building one with only six.

“If you build a bridge that big, more people are going to use it and, in turn, the interstate and nearby roads in North Portland will become even more congested than they already are,” he said. “If you are going to build a bridge that big then you are going to need to redo Interstate 5 from the bridge to the south edge of Portland. And that isn’t on anyone’s radar or in anyone’s checkbook.”

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