Tigard city leaders are fine-tuning a final-stretch messaging campaign to build public support for a May 19 public vote on a $150 million bond issue that would combine the city’s police and public works departments on a new campus on city-owned land.
They are fielding a survey in the first days of February not only to gauge community sentiments on the proposal but also test the persuasiveness of themes to build support. They are also crafting language for how to represent the issue in a ballot title and text.
Several key city leaders said they understand public support for the bond to hover around 50 percent, but they said support among individuals typically rises when they hear reasons why the city is pushing for the project. Passage requires a simple majority.
The project is among the city leadership’s top priorities for 2026.
“It’s long overdue,” said incoming council member Tom Anderson, who worked on the same problem in his prior term starting in 2017. “You know, we have to address the current inadequacy. We can’t sustain what we’re doing here. It’s not a luxury; it’s a necessity.”
The 30-year bond would cost average homeowners about $9 a month extra in property taxes, the city calculated, based on a levy of 67 cents per $1,000 of assessed property valuation.
The money would pay for a combined campus to be located on 9.5 acres of land at Southwest Hunziker Road and Southwest Wall Street that the city purchased last spring.
No well-recognized group has formed to oppose the bond issue, and little dissent appears to have shown up on common social-media outlets, such as Facebook or Reddit, though some social-media comments have opposed past levies within the city.
The current police department building is around 40 years old, while public works facilities include some structures that are about 65 years old – all built when the city’s population was a fraction of its current number of about 57,000 residents.
Generally, city staff and elected leadership say the two departments’ various buildings are too antiquated to protect personnel in various disasters, such as an earthquake, when their responses to emergencies would be most keenly needed. They say the cramped quarters of the buildings also serve as disadvantages in hiring employees and offer too little space to train them.
Conversely, they argue, a new, combined facility would offer more unified and spacious offices for city personnel, easier coordination among the two functions and more room for storage, garage space and parking.
This past week, city leaders overviewed the project, marketed under the name Building a Better Tigard, at both its business meeting on Tuesday and a Tigard Chamber of Commerce early morning networking event on Thursday.
The council is expected to vote in February on whether to refer the issue to voters.
Once on the ballot, city elected leaders and members of a supportive political action committee (Building a Better Tigard) will push forward the campaign. Staff members no longer will be permitted to lobby for or against it, a city spokesperson said.
So far, the top preferred marketing pitch on city printed and online materials comes down to community safety: “Help protect our first responders so they can continue to do their jobs protecting you,” a flier says in bold.
For more details about a proposed bond and project to combine Tigard’s police and public works departments on one campus, go to www.tigard-or.gov/buildingabettertigard
