Bull Mountain is an

unincorporated community An unincorporated area is a region that is not governed by a local municipal corporation. Widespread unincorporated communities and areas are a distinguishing feature of the United States and Canada. Most other countries of the world either have ...

and

census-designated place A census-designated place (CDP) is a concentration of population defined by the United States Census Bureau for statistical purposes only. CDPs have been used in each decennial census since 1980 as the counterparts of incorporated places, such ...

in Washington County,

Oregon Oregon () is a U.S. state, state in the Pacific Northwest region of the Western United States. The Columbia River delineates much of Oregon's northern boundary with Washington (state), Washington, while the Snake River delineates much of it ...

, United States. Bull Mountain is located mostly on a hill for which the community is named. It is bordered on the east by Tigard, on the south by King City, and Beaverton lies to the north. The north-eastern part of the Bull Mountain hill is now within the Tigard city limits, as the city has steadily annexed portions of the unincorporated region on its boundary. In 2010, the community became a census-designated place with a population of 9,133. Fire protection and EMS services are provided through

Tualatin Valley Fire and Rescue Tualatin Valley Fire & Rescue (TVF&R) is a special-purpose government fire fighting and emergency services district in the Portland metropolitan area of Oregon. Established in 1989 with a merger between Washington County Fire District 1 and the T ...

Demographics

As of the

census A census is the procedure of systematically acquiring, recording and calculating information about the members of a given population. This term is used mostly in connection with national population and housing censuses; other common censuses incl ...

of 2020, there were 9,992 people in 3,259 households residing in the city. The

population density Population density (in agriculture: standing stock or plant density) is a measurement of population per unit land area. It is mostly applied to humans, but sometimes to other living organisms too. It is a key geographical term.Matt RosenberPopul ...

was . The racial makeup of the city was 81.4%

White White is the lightest color and is achromatic (having no hue). It is the color of objects such as snow, chalk, and milk, and is the opposite of black. White objects fully reflect and scatter all the visible wavelengths of light. White on ...

, 4.0%

African American African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans and Afro-Americans) are an ethnic group consisting of Americans with partial or total ancestry from sub-Saharan Africa. The term "African American" generally denotes descendants of ens ...

, 0.8% Native American, 8.4%

Asian Asian may refer to: * Items from or related to the continent of Asia: ** Asian people, people in or descending from Asia ** Asian culture, the culture of the people from Asia ** Asian cuisine, food based on the style of food of the people from Asi ...

, 0.9%

Pacific Islander Pacific Islanders, Pasifika, Pasefika, or rarely Pacificers are the peoples of the list of islands in the Pacific Ocean, Pacific Islands. As an ethnic group, ethnic/race (human categorization), racial term, it is used to describe the original p ...

, and 3.6% from two or more races.

Hispanic The term ''Hispanic'' ( es, hispano) refers to people, Spanish culture, cultures, or countries related to Spain, the Spanish language, or Hispanidad. The term commonly applies to countries with a cultural and historical link to Spain and to Vic ...

Latino Latino or Latinos most often refers to: * Latino (demonym), a term used in the United States for people with cultural ties to Latin America * Hispanic and Latino Americans in the United States * The people or cultures of Latin America; ** Latin A ...

of any race were 5.57% of the population. There were 3,259 households. The average household size was 2.93. 25.2% of residents were under the age of 18, and 11.8% were 65 years of age or older. The gender makeup of the city was 49% male and 51% female.

Annexation and incorporation controversy

The Bull Mountain area has been considered candidate for

annexation Annexation (Latin ''ad'', to, and ''nexus'', joining), in international law, is the forcible acquisition of one state's territory by another state, usually following military occupation of the territory. It is generally held to be an illegal act ...

by the City of Tigard, which includes Bull Mountain in its ultimate planned boundary. The debate over Bull Mountain's future has been rather acrimonious. In 2004, Tigard proposed to annex the entire area under

Oregon Revised Statutes The Oregon Revised Statutes (ORS) is the codified body of statutory law governing the U.S. state of Oregon, as enacted by the Oregon Legislative Assembly, and occasionally by citizen initiative. The statutes are subordinate to the Oregon Constit ...

Or. Rev. Stat. § 195.205 (2005) (Urban Service Provider Annexation method) instead of Or. Rev. Stat. § 222.125 (2005) method. At the time, Or. Rev. Stat. § 195.205 was ambiguous regarding the method of counting votes, and Tigard had planned to use a single combined voting method where the unincorporated votes would be counted with the votes of the city voters, and thus the unincorporated voters would be heavily outnumbered. This variation of

gerrymandering In representative democracies, gerrymandering (, originally ) is the political manipulation of electoral district boundaries with the intent to create undue advantage for a party, group, or socioeconomic class within the constituency. The m ...

outraged many of the residents of the unincorporated area, and triggered a campaign against the annexation. A group called "Friends of Bull Mountain" (FOBM) was then formed. The group retained legal counsel Larry Derr and challenged the combined voting method under the provisions of Or. Rev. Stat. § 268 (2005) requiring separate double majority vote counting for annexations within the Portland Metro

Urban Growth Boundary An urban growth boundary, or UGB, is a regional boundary, set in an attempt to control urban sprawl by, in its simplest form, mandating that the area inside the boundary be used for urban development and the area outside be preserved in its natural ...

.OCVA Jan 2005 Newsletter
/ref> In the face of this legal challenge Tigard relented and allowed the double majority vote counting method. As a result, the annexation measure 4-98failed, a majority of city voters (64.71%) favored the annexation, but 88.62% of unincorporated voters rejected the annexation. As is common in such annexation disputes, a key issue was taxes; many Bull Mountain residents thought that annexation with Tigard would increase their

property tax A property tax or millage rate is an ad valorem tax on the value of a property.In the OECD classification scheme, tax on property includes "taxes on immovable property or net wealth, taxes on the change of ownership of property through inheri ...

es without a significant increase in public services, and that Tigard was only interested in annexation to expand its tax base. They also felt the ORS-195 combined voting method was "taxation without representation". Some residents of Tigard have complained in response that Bull Mountain residents use Tigard city parks and other services without paying for them. However, Washington County has been actively encouraging suburban parts of the county to join cities, in order to limit the need for county-provided urban-level services. After the defeat of the referendum, Tigard has been examining small annexations on a case-by-case basis. Many residents advocated incorporation in order to allow Bull Mountain residents to control their own destiny (and avoid further annexation by Tigard), in spring of 2006 a petition for a ballot measure was filed. The Washington County Board of Commissioners voted in August 2006 to allow the incorporation ballot initiative to proceed. A feasibility study was conducted by ECONorthwest and it was determined that Bull Mountain has a sufficient tax base to fund city government and services for its residents. The City of Tigard protested the city boundaries, noting that Tigard-owned properties were included in the proposed City of Bull Mountain, and asked that Washington County adjust the boundaries. That request was denied. Tigard also filed a request to annex which are part of the proposed Bull Mountain boundaries. Many in Bull Mountain complained that Tigard's annexation attempt is little more than an 11th-hour attempt to acquire a large segment of land without due respect for the incorporation process and proposed incorporation boundary. The effort was challenged legally in the Washington County courts. This legal challenge was rejected by the state Land Use Board of Appeals: "the city had not unlawfully obtained consent to the annexation," and the petition for appeal was dismissed by the

Oregon Court of Appeals The Oregon Court of Appeals is the state intermediate appellate court in the US state of Oregon. Part of the Oregon Judicial Department, it has thirteen judges and is located in Salem. Except for death penalty cases, which are reserved to the O ...

. The referendum on the incorporation question was on the November 2006 ballot and failed by a vote of 1,734 to 1,887.

Friends of Bull Mountain

The Friends of Bull Mountain (FOBM) is a

grassroots A grassroots movement is one that uses the people in a given district, region or community as the basis for a political or economic movement. Grassroots movements and organizations use collective action from the local level to effect change at t ...

community organization in the

U.S. state In the United States, a state is a constituent political entity, of which there are 50. Bound together in a political union, each state holds governmental jurisdiction over a separate and defined geographic territory where it shares its sover ...

acting as local advocates for meaningful citizen involvement and responsible land use planning in keeping with the vision of the Bull Mountain Community Plan. The FOBM group played a key roleTestimony submitted for the Annexation Hearing of July 27, 2004
/ref>Minutes of the Annexation Hearing of July 27, 2004
/ref> in defeating the attempt by city of Tigard to annex Bull Mountain. After the 2004 annexation defeat, FOBM worked closely with Oregon House Representative Jerry Krummel who successfully introduced legislation based on ideas and testimony provided by FOBM.Jerry Krummel News Release 8 August 2006
/ref> Notable changes in the 2005 legislature included House Bill 2484 which codified double-majority vote for all "Service Provider" annexations under ORS-195. Also, HB-2477 eliminated the three-mile (5 km) veto which allowed cities to prevent incorporation of a new city within three miles (5 km). The enactment of HB-2477 allowed the Bull Mountain community to attempt incorporation.

References

;General
City of Tigard, Bull Mountain Annexation sectionGroup supporting incorporation of Bull MountainMap of proposed Bull Mountain city boundariesEconomic Feasibility StudyAmy Jo Brown: "Tigard to protest Bull Mountain boundaries", ''Tigard Times'' July 20, 2006
.

External links

Friends of Bull Mountain
{{authority control Tigard, Oregon Portland metropolitan area Unincorporated communities in Washington County, Oregon Census-designated places in Oregon Census-designated places in Washington County, Oregon Unincorporated communities in Oregon