191300

The City of Portland ordains:

Section 1. The Council finds:

1. On November 19, 2014, the City of Portland authorized an Intergovernmental Agreement between the City and the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization (RDPO) Ordinance 186894.  The RDPO is responsible for developing, maintaining, and implementing a regional disaster preparedness vision, strategy, work plan, and process for the geographic area encompassing Clackamas, Columbia, Multnomah, and Washington County in Oregon and Clark County in Washington and RDPO-adjacent Oregon counties (the RDPO Region). 
2. Many agencies in the RDPO Region employ building officials, inspectors, engineers, plans examiners, and architects with professional certifications who qualify as Building Safety Evaluators (BSEs) and other building-related staff such as those who work with permitting, permitting software, and maintaining the facilities of agencies in the RDPO Region.
3. The Pacific Northwest is prone to natural hazards such as earthquakes, floods, wind, snow, and ice storms.  When these hazards occur, they may significantly damage or impact transportation routes, cause a loss of power and communications, and leave BSEs and other building-related staff stranded and unable to report to their normal work locations.  These Stranded Workers may still be available to assist with permitting, or other building-related functions in another agency.
4. The purpose of this Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement is to authorize, facilitate and establish conditions and provisions for the sharing of Stranded Workers within the RDPO Region during a building safety emergency where transportation routes are severely disrupted, or other hazards exist, and Stranded Workers are unable to report to their normal work locations or duty stations. 
5. The City of Portland, Bureau of Development Services (BDS), is responsible for assessing the safety of building within the City. More than 206,000 buildings will need evaluation after the Cascadia Subduction Zone earthquake. BDS has about 150 qualified staff who can evaluate whether buildings are safe to re-enter and re-occupy.
6. With the current number of buildings and qualified staff and estimating 30-45 minutes per building for the initial safety evaluation, assuming all 150 staff are available to work, the best-case scenario is that it will take nearly 20 weeks to evaluate all of the buildings in Portland.
7. Between 40% and 50% of BDS’ qualified building assessment staff live outside the City of Portland boundaries. The City’s building-related staff living outside City boundaries may not be able to report to their duty stations for several weeks until these routes and networks have been restored.  With this Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement, these Stranded Workers could be available to participate in building safety evaluations for other agencies within the RDPO Region.
8. An unknown number of qualified building evaluation staff from other jurisdictions live within Portland’s boundaries and may not be able to report to their duty stations outside the City while transportation routes and communication networks are disrupted. With this Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement, these Stranded Workers likewise could be available to participate in the building safety evaluations within the City.
9. Businesses and residents who can’t re-occupy their buildings are often forced to leave the City and may not return if they are unable to re-occupy and resume working. When workers and businesses leave, it takes much longer for the local economy to recover. Other disasters have shown this repeatedly. The economic recovery of the City and the RDPO Region will be closely tied to the availability of re-occupiable building stock.
10. By entering into this Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement the City of Portland can accept qualified and credentialed staff from other jurisdictions who are Stranded Workers and put them to work evaluating buildings within the City to be sure they are safe to re-occupy.  Similarly, other agencies within the RDPO Region will be able to accept qualified and credentialed City Stranded Workers to help work on evaluating their buildings in their jurisdictions.

NOW, THEREFORE, the Council directs:

1. The Mayor is hereby authorized to approve, by signature, the Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement in a form similar to the Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement attached as Exhibit A.
2. The Director of the Bureau of Development Services is authorized to accept on behalf of the City of Portland any subsequent modifications to the building-related Stranded Worker Intergovernmental Agreement provided such modifications do not increase the City of Portland's financial obligation nor risk. Any modifications that increase the City of Portland's financial obligation or risk must be authorized by Portland City Council.