Sherwood Mayor Tim Rosener highlights progress, eyes future challenges

SHERWOOD, Ore. — Since becoming mayor of Sherwood in January 2023, Tim Rosener has seen many improvements in his town of 20,000 plus. 

In his second term as mayor, Rosener is proud of accomplishments such as the Highway 99 Pedestrian Bridge and the Sherwood Skate Park, yet goals and challenges are ahead in 2026 and beyond. 

“When I got in office, one of my main goals was to get that pedestrian bridge, to connect the two sides of town, and connect to our new high school, and make that generational investment for our trail systems and connectivity as we build out the Sherwood West area,” Rosener said. “On a cost per foot basis, it’s one of the cheapest pedestrian bridges built in the whole metro area in the last ten years.”

Speaking of the skate park, Rosener said. “We were very intentional when we picked that location. We did informal polling and overwhelmingly the community thought it was a good idea to put it next to the teen center at the YMCA. It’s just great. It gets used quite a bit.”

Another success has been bringing broadband to the community.

“Bringing Sherwood broadband to the community has been a huge success,” he said. “We continue to roll that out. We’ve actually managed to get a lot of federal money for some of these efforts, including almost $11 million in federal money to expand our broadband networks, expand into the rural areas around us.”

Rosener said the city didn’t change a lot of its goals over the last five years, but has focused on areas such as livability, economic development, and housing.

“There’s a regional housing crisis and we spent many years working with our community to come up with a concept plan for Sherwood West, our next growth area,” he said. “When I look at Sherwood West, and make sure that’s kicked off correctly. I want to be able to walk around here in 30 years, and still have it be a great, family-oriented vibrant community."

Among the challenges facing Sherwood is fighting the state legislature. 

“Salem has been pre-empting a lot of local control over land use planning. They want to put all land use decisions behind closed doors, and not allow any public hearings,” Rosener said, noting that’s the reason behind the two recent city charter ballot measures, which were approved by voters.

City budgeting is a challenge for many Oregon cities and Sherwood is not excluded.

“All cities in Oregon have a structural revenue versus expense problem,” Rosener said. “My biggest concern is making sure we’re doing everything possible to be as efficient as we can with the money we do get. If there are areas where we can be more self-sustaining, we should look at that. If we can use technology to bring down our costs, we should at least look at it.”

Oregon Measure 5, passed by voters in 1990, limited property taxes, which support Sherwood city services, such as roads and police.

Federal funding is also a concern for Sherwood.

“We have challenges coming from the federal government in terms of risks to funding that we get from the federal government, whether it’s direct or through the county or the state that I’m concerned about,” Rosener said. “I think that’s more of a short-term problem, but obviously those are things that we have to pay attention to.”

Police department funding is also on Rosener’s radar.

“Our police department does an amazing job,” he said. “We’re not staffed at the same level as on a per capita basis as some of the agencies around us, but it’s expensive and it’s all paid for out of the general fund.”

He continued, “It’s our number one cost out of the general fund. We’re talking right now about other revenue sources for the police department. I don’t know where that conversation is going to go with the council. There have been talks of a levy, maybe a fee – If you get behind on public safety, it’s really hard to catch up.”

In looking at community goals, Rosener gave a shout out to council members and city staff.

“I feel like we have a great council,” he said. “Everyone is collaborative and works together. We get a lot of good work done for the community. I can’t say enough about the staff. We have just outstanding staff. They really care about our community and just do an amazing job. They’re not afraid to lean in, push the limits and deliver great things.”

Looking ahead to the future, Rosener added, “I am just a results-oriented person, so I’m looking forward to bringing more results for the community.”