From City Hall to the airport to the baseball field, 2014 was a busy 12 months for Hillsboro. Here are 10 of the biggest stories from a year that included a debate about medical marijuana, more tax breaks for Intel and an award-winning new building downtown:
Two-way streets
A divided City Council in May voted to change the street grid in downtown Hillsboro from one-way to two-way traffic. The $2.5 million project will change Main and Lincoln streets, from First to Sixth avenues, and Second through Fifth avenues, from Lincoln to Walnut streets.
Supporters of the project say two-way streets will slow traffic down – and thus increase congestion – giving drivers more opportunities to stop at downtown businesses.
For the first time in his six years leading the city, Mayor Jerry Willey used his vote to break a tie among city councilors. That led to controversy, as one downtown lawyer said the city charter doesn’t allow Willey to vote on such matters. The city is still moving forward with the project.
South Hillsboro
Hillsboro officials finalized the plan to develop the massive South Hillsboro project, clearing the way for road construction – if the city meets its goal – to begin next year.
The city still needs to figure out exactly how to pay for the $255 million in road improvements associated with the project, which will bring about 25,000 new people – or over a quarter of the current population – to the 1,400-acre area south of Tualatin Valley Highway.
Medical marijuana
After initially delaying their decision, Hillsboro planners eventually decided to postpone indefinitely their vote on how to zone medical marijuana dispensaries, preferring to wait until after Measure 91 passed in November.
The state legislature stipulated that dispensaries couldn’t go in residential zones or within 1,000 feet from schools or other dispensaries. City planners, though, want to broadly interpret the state law and institute additional 1,000-foot buffers – from the Tom Hughes Civic Center Plaza, parks, libraries and residential zones. That would leave few areas of the city where dispensaries could actually locate.
Reser’s Fine Foods
Beaverton-based Reser’s Fine Foods announced in July that it would move production and distribution to a new $18 million facility in North Hillsboro. Public records obtained by The Oregonian reveal how the city lured Reser’s with incentives like property tax breaks.
The company’s corporate headquarters will remain in Beaverton.
Hops’ stadium renamed
The city negotiated a deal to change the name of Hillsboro Ballpark to Ron Tonkin Field. The Ron Tonkin Family of Dealerships will pay $150,000 per year for 10 years for the naming rights. The city will get 70 percent of that revenue, with the Hops collecting the rest. The city also added an illuminated sign to the ballpark’s roof, updated the scoreboard and changed directional signage throughout Hillsboro.
And though the Hops excelled on the field, winning the Northwest League championship, their stadium is still a net loss for the city’s budget.
4th Main opens
The $16.5 million 4th Main building, which eventually won a state award, opened in downtown Hillsboro in May during a ribbon-cutting ceremony.
Over $2.2 million in public subsidies from Hillsboro and Metro – including a decade’s worth of system development fees and taxes from the city for developer Tokola – made the project possible. Part of that money is the $650,000 the city and Metro spent to purchase the property in 1998, using transit-oriented grant funding from the Federal Transit Administration.
The developer has also applied to get 60 percent of 4th Main’s property taxes abated for 10 years under the state’s Vertical Housing Program. The apartment building features a new pub, McNally’s Taproom, on the ground floor.
Airport expansion
There was lots of news out of the Hillsboro Airport this year. The Port of Portland bought more land for the airport from SolarWorld, Hillsboro Aviation spun off its flight-training operation and the Oregon International Air Show featured aerial acrobatics and great weather.
Questions also remained about the airport’s effect on the environment – it’s Oregon’s largest facility source of lead and one of the top 100 nationwide, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
Gordon Faber dies
Gordon Faber, the Hillsboro mayor who led the city as it transformed into one of the state’s major economic engines, died in August. He was 83.
Faber entered hospice care earlier this year and was battling “an advanced stage” of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). He died Monday, Aug. 18, “at home with his family,” his wife B.J. Faber confirmed.
When Gordon Faber took over as mayor in 1993 after 10 years on the Hillsboro City Council, the seat of Washington County was home to 40,000 people. When he left in 2001, the population had swelled to 72,630, making it the fifth-largest city in the state. And it hasn’t stopped growing since.
More tax breaks for Intel
Hillsboro and Washington County officials in August approved a historic 30-year deal with Intel that will grant the tech giant more than $2 billion in potential property tax breaks on up to $100 billion in local investment.
The deal does not require the company to invest anything or add jobs, but officials said it provides the region economic certainty.
The Hillsboro City Council and Washington County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved the deal during a long joint meeting in the Charles D. Cameron Public Services Building.
Kyle Allen elected to Hillsboro City Council
Kyle Allen, the director of field operations for a nonprofit that advocates for labor causes, won a seat on the Hillsboro City Council, defeating Monte Akers of the Hillsboro School Board.
The seat was open because current Council President Aron Carleson was term-limited. Allen had the endorsements of Carleson, Mayor Jerry Willey and other groups around the city.
Did I miss something? This list is subjective, of course. What do you think were the most important stories out of Hillsboro this year? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.
— Luke Hammill