Oregon Public Broadcasting

Portland-area leaders voted for the last time Thursday, on where the region will grow, in the decades to come.

But even before the ink has dried on the maps, people are clashing over the next set of questions – like, where are the children in the future urban areas going to go to school?

Rob Manning reports on the way that question is being answered on Cooper Mountain, outside of Beaverton.

Did you know that if you can get 500 signatures from your neighbors, and 500 more from people in the school district next door, that you can move a potentially vast area from one district to another?

Well, you can – and the school boards can’t do anything about it.

Jack Orchard is a land-use attorney who advises school districts.

Jack Orchard: “The fact that you could have a school district boundary adjusted, of basically unlimited size, on the say-so of 500 petitioners from the affected school districts – that’s an interesting exercise in democracy.”

The seldom-used, 20-year-old law does allow people who don’t like the change to collect 500 signatures to force an election on it.

OK – so what does all this have to do with urban reserves and Beaverton?

Meet Ed Bartholemy. He’s a developer with a plan for the Cooper Mountain area. It’s an area that Beaverton plans to expand into, in the years to come. But as it stands now, most of the kids there attend the Hillsboro school district.

Bartholemy says that’s a problem.

Ed Bartholemy: “Hillsboro’s not growing out here. Beaverton is. This is part of Beaverton. We want a community that has an identity with Beaverton, that’s not divided – you know how school districts divide. We’d have kids on one side going to a whole different school district.” 

Bartholemy says he tried for three years to get school board members in the two districts to move roughly 1600 acres from Hillsboro to Beaverton. Gustavo Banderas is Hillsboro’s assistant superintendent.

Gus Banderas: “There’s no school district that is looking to lose property and the response from the school district to Mr. Bartholemy was we were not interested in moving that property to the Beaverton School District.”

Beaverton and the Northwest Regional Education Service District didn’t support it either. A frustrated Ed Bartholemy finally got an alternative from school officials.

Ed Bartholemy: “We didn’t know anything about the law, I’d never done this before. They handed us this form and said ‘Mr. Bartholemy, you get all your neighbors together, and sign petitions, and follow all the things on this form, and then it goes to Northwest ESD.’ I think they thought the school board would then have a chance to look at it.”

But once Bartholemy collected the signatures, school attorneys realized that the affected districts couldn’t interfere. The law gave ESD board members no alternative but to approve the boundary changes last week.

However Cooper Mountain residents can still intervene. The clock is ticking on a 20-day timeline to collect 500 signatures to force a special election. Supporters of that petition effort held a meeting last night.

Organizer Nina Carlson says people are still coming to grips with what’s going on, a week after the ESD approved the change.

Nina Carlson: “Every person I’ve talked to, with no exceptions, has said to me ‘what exactly are you talking about? I’ve never heard anything about this’.”

Carlson invited developer, Ed Bartholemy to the meeting and local school supporters focused their anger at him.

Bartholemy said the move would actually help the 15 current students affected – because the Beaverton schools are closer. 

Opposition organizer, Nina Carlson says the boundary change could drive a wedge through this part of Washington County – and would hurt all Hillsboro schools by reducing the tax base. 

Nina Carlson: “It may not be a huge number of people right now, but it is some revenue. And in the future, you know about the urban reserve land – and that’s going to be a major amount of people, and students, and opportunities that I’d hate to see go to Beaverton, without Hillsboro even having a  voice in the matter.”

Bartholemy suspects a broader worry. He says now that he’s successfully used this little-known law to force a change, others are asking about it.

Ed Bartholemy: “Well, I can tell you – I’ve gotten a lot of input from people who want to do what we’re doing. So that is an issue.”

Nina Carlson says she’s optimistic opponents will collect the 500 signatures before their 20 days are up. But Carlson says once this local effort is over – she’s going to take on that 20 year-old state law.

Nina Carlson: “We are getting some signatures, we’re going to mount our campaign, and when we’re done with this, we’re definitely going to work on some legislation.”

School officials say the Education Service District would run the election. If Bartholemy’s plan succeeds, the boundary would change this fall. If it’s  defeated, he could come back in a year to try again. He hasn’t ruled that out – but opponents would know what to expect, the second time around.