The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-05-26

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (14,744 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good afternoon. It is 2:01 p.m. On Tuesday, may 26th. I am calling to order today's meeting of the city life committee. Wendy, could you please call the roll?

Good afternoon, councilor Ryan. Here. Councilor. Morillo. Here. Councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Avalos. Councilor pirtle-guiney here.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you. And, christopher, could you please read the statement of conduct?

Welcome to the meeting of the city life committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at www.Portland.gov/councilor/agene or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting in person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted. When your time is over, the chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude one's testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you. Christopher. Colleagues, we have four items on the agenda today. We'll start with an update and overview of a policy that the former labor and workforce committee was considering that got transferred to this committee around fair transparency for our transportation network companies and their contract contracted drivers. Then we will hear from councilor Novick team about a change he is proposing in city code around signs in the right of way. And then we have two items from the administration that are the next step in the dissolution of the mount hood cable regulatory commission, which we first heard about a few weeks ago. Before we move into all of that, do we have anybody signed up for public input today?

Yes, there are six individuals.

Okay, great.

Item number one, public input on city life committee topics. And just as a reminder for those signed up to testify, you'll be given three minutes each and I'll call up folks in groups of three. So for those testifying in person, you'll see the timer countdown displayed on the monitor in front of the testimony table. And for those testifying virtually, the timer is displayed in zoom. You'll hear the timer chime twice, once as a warning when there are 30s left. So I'll call the first. Oh, and finally, before you begin your testimony, if you could please state your name for the record. So I'll call up the first three nathaniel hudson hartman, angela grigsby, and ahmed chamani.

Go right ahead.

Niall.

And if I seem desperate, it's because I'm empathically passing on that anxiety and depression to you all that I have been feeling from the community members that I serve. So all that aside, I am so, so grateful to pick up this conversation. We started here so long ago in this very room with another quintet of your beautiful faces. I would like to just take a moment and ask every driver who came here today to please raise their hand if they took a trip where uber and lyft took at least half of their fare. I'm going to end it here, because I want to leave as much time for the other drivers to speak as much as possible. So I'll just end with this. When this is all said and done, I want us to be able to answer these questions. Should lyft and uber be allowed to price gouge riders without them even knowing it and keep whatever they choose? Or should we protect consumers and ensure drivers earn a living wage? Let's go get this done.

Thank you.

I'll call up the next group of three. Bob nesbit, caleb price, and samuel aye, Morillo.

Go right ahead when you're ready.

I just want to thank you for letting us address your committee today. I've been doing this for 13 years. About five years ago, I was driving somebody from here to Salem, and I got to drop them off, and I got a second call. And when I got there, there was nobody to pick up. And I got a call from lyft saying it was lyft. And they said that somebody did not resemble my profile picture, although I have a beard and gray hair. It's not. Anyway, they wanted my picture of myself, my driver's license, my credit card on file. It was a scam. And the next day when I went to get online for lyft, they told me that I had fraudulent activity on my account and I couldn't drive anymore. I probably tried ten times to get back on the lyft app, and they kept telling me they talked to security, and every time I talked to security, he said it wasn't his job. They sent it upstairs and I never heard back. So I just voided. And I went on with my uber. I'm talking about, I think we're very vulnerable in terms of what we make. I've been doing this 13 years in my income. Seems like it's harder for me to make what I used to make. There are no incentives anymore. The the the excuse me, the, the mileage rate hasn't improved. And I just wanted to give you some ideas. Seattle pays $1.63 a mile. San francisco $1.40. New york city 128. Portland is $0.70. The federal allowance for driving on income taxes 72.5 cents a mile. So we are basically not making any money upon picking up passengers. We never know where they're going to go, how far they're going to go, and what we're going to make on a ride. And as other people have pointed out, the split that we get has been diminished. So we're working longer hours to make ends meet. Our expenses have gone up exponentially. Anybody who's driving a gasoline car now, I don't know how you could I don't know how you could afford it. I was driving a car that got 42 miles to a gallon, and I was still spending 280 to $300 a month in gasoline. Now I've got an electric car. Uber. Last year, on a national basis. Made 52 billion globally. It was an 18% increase over the year before. Have I done the ceo made $39.4 million with his stock options, and I. I divided his income by 365 days a year. He would make $107,945 a day. And we struggle to make 200 bucks a day. And it's getting harder and harder with all the expenses going up in terms of the price of cars, insurance, gasoline or electric. So we just implore you to to support us. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Go right ahead.

Hi. Good afternoon, committee members. My name is samuel araya. I live in district three, Portland, Oregon. I was a rideshare driver for more than ten years before uber and lyft wrongfully deactivated me for a mistake on my background check. They haven't made it easy for me. I don't get to speak to the real person. They make me to text in english, which is not my first language. Now I'm struggling to find work and pay my bills, but even before I was deactivated, I was having to work more times six seven days a week to make the same money I made when I first started driving. Back then, uber and lyft paid me 80% of the fare. I don't know why they. They cut out my pay so much when they. Charging my riders so much more money and then keep the rest. I see the receipt and just say, wow, I cannot afford to live. I have to pay all the costs gas, tire maintenance and over our mastermind in avoiding costs and shifting the operational cost to the drivers. I just want to be fair again. If I get my job back over and lyft for all of us drivers to be treated with dignity and respect. Because right now I just don't feel that from them, I won't be able to work reasonable hours and then my riders be charged fairly. I hope you all support us and help us make the right shift fair for all of us. Again, just like used to be. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

You're welcome.

Angela is joining us online. Angela, you can go ahead and unmute.

Bob. Bob, can I ask you a question really quick? When you said, is that your name? Me right here. Yeah.

Robert.

Yeah. And you said $0.70 in Portland and you compared it to all the other cities. What were you what was the item you were comparing? Was it, I'm sorry, when you said $0.70 in Portland and then you compared it to all the other cities? Yes. What was it that you were comparing?

What was I comparing?

Yeah. Was it gas reimbursement?

No, that's that's that's miles. That's per mile.

Miles. Okay. Thank you. I didn't hear that.

I'm sorry. Those are all per mile. Seattle buck 63. Yeah. Yeah. That was all the cost per mile. Well.

Okay. Let's move on to our I think our final testifier. Is that correct?

Yes. We're trying to get one additional one on line. He's having trouble joining zoom but angela. Can you hear us? Angela, can you try one more time? There you go. I see you now.

There she is.

Angela, we're not hearing you.

Could we make sure she has the phone number? If she wants to call in separately?

Yeah. Angela, in your meeting invite, there's also a phone number. If you want to try calling back on your phone.

Exeter. The number two. I also texted it to ahmed al-shaibani as well.

Angela, as well as the email. It sounds like nathaniel may have sent you the number, if that's more convenient to pull up. Wendy, do we have the other individual available in the meantime?

They're both having some technical difficulties.

Okay, colleagues, why don't we give it just a minute more to see if either of them can get the technology figured out? And if not, I suspect that their testimony may relate to the next agenda item. So we could move into that agenda item and then have them testify toward the end there instead. But let's give it just a minute more and see if we can get the sound working. Angela, have you been able to figure out the sound on your end?

No.

No, we still don't hear you.

Okay.

I'd like to keep us moving. And what I'd like to do. Wendy, if it works with your ability to track the meeting, is to invite these two individuals to try to testify after the next agenda item. Is that all right? Okay, wonderful. Well, thank you both for being here. Thank you. And, wendy, could we close this item and have you call agenda item two.

Agenda item number two discussion on policy proposal regarding the fair transparency and the transportation network company take rate item number 2026 173.

Thank you wendy. Colleagues. This is a continuation of a conversation that was started in the previous labor and workforce committee on earnings standards for drivers of our transportation network companies, or tncs. Those are companies like uber and lyft. And this is an item coming before us today from councilor, Novick and myself, and I think. Councilor Morillo you are maybe considering joining as well. You've been involved in some of the conversations to councilor. Novick, unfortunately, is not able to join us, so I will give an overview of what we're looking at and why. To provide some background. We will then hear from a few other parties and then have time for discussion and questions. Colleagues, I'm sure many of you have had the opportunity to meet with the drivers union, the folks whose blue shirts and tireless advocacy, even today, make them hard to miss in city hall. And I'm guessing that some of you have heard from uber and lyft and had conversations with them as well. The conversations with the drivers union that I have had have revolved mainly, mainly around two items. Looking at what pay is for tnc drivers in Portland and looking at what support there is and the idea of a driver resource center. Today we will mainly be focused on the first of those items. Councilor. Novick and I, like I said, have teamed up to lead a conversation on earnings standards. And importantly, this conversation is happening all over the country as uber and lyft rake in growing profits. But driver pay in many cases goes down and benefits for these workers because they have been categorized as independent contractors, remains nonexistent. In massachusetts, voters approved a ballot measure which gave rideshare drivers the right to unionize and collectively bargain. And in california, drivers are close to forming a union. In 2018, new york city passed a minimum per trip payment formula to ensure an earnings standard for drivers. Minneapolis, seattle and Washington state have similar earning formulas, as do other jurisdictions. This is neither a new conversation nor one that is unique to Portland. At the same time, we are seeing this reaction from the driver community here and across the country. Tncs have become an essential infrastructure. They help people get to work, to medical appointments, to the airport and home safely at night. They help folks live in our city without needing a car of their own. They support our hospitality and tourism sectors and our arts and cultural institutions. We know that Portland needs a functioning, reliable rideshare market. It's reasonable to say that we want these companies operating here, and I don't fault the worry that some people have that passing meaningful earnings standards for drivers could threaten them. While I don't fault it, I will say that I reject the fact that those two things are inherently at odds. While tncs operate a critical service from out of state and outside of our city, drivers on the ground that do the actual transportation work are our neighbors. They are a part of our community. When an elderly neighbor uses rideshare to get to the grocery store, it is a local Portland driver who picks them up. When tourists use rideshare to explore our city, it is a portlander who gets them to each location safely, and the people who do this work on the ground. Here, the drivers are repeatedly reporting earnings that after their business expenses often fall well below minimum wage. And as we heard today, well below the required reimbursement for folks who are reimbursed under the federal requirements for driving because drivers are independent contractors, they cover the cost of doing business, their fuel insurance, maintenance, depreciation of their vehicles, taxes, and they cover their own benefits, things that are assured to many other types of employees. Increasingly, they are doing so within a pricing system that is not transparent and that is difficult to understand. That's the crux of the problem that we are trying to solve in collaboration with the drivers union and with uber and lyft. Councilor Novick and I are proposing a policy that is admittedly different from those other policies I named, which have been implemented elsewhere. What we're proposing to consider is a simple concept called a take rate. I want to explain what we're trying to achieve with the take rate, but I also want to be clear that the specifics of what this would look like here are part of an ongoing conversation scheduled with uber and lyft and with the drivers union over the next three months. Essentially, a take rate designates the share of a passenger's fare, a portlanders fare when they ride in an uber, or a lift that goes to the company, and the share that goes to the driver after things like taxes, tips, and set fees that are imposed upon each ride, the goal is to ensure that there's a fair split that allows both the tnc and their independent contractor, the driver, to receive compensation. That covers the cost of doing business and allows them to earn a profit to. Historically, that split was relatively transparent and relatively stable. Lyft has even implemented a formal take rate structure themselves, currently promising a 7030 split guarantee. Over time, though, pricing models have evolved and in many cases, the connection between the cost of a ride and the pay for drivers has weakened. What riders pay and what drivers earn are no longer always clearly linked. And in many cases, the company's profit share has grown significantly. While drivers take home pay has decreased. A take rate framework is an attempt to realign the incentives. We should have a predictable, relationship between what portlanders as riders pay, drivers receive a fair share of the fare for the work that they perform, while still allowing companies to cover their costs of doing business, invest in their platforms, and earn a profit for shareholders and importantly in fact, critically, it does this without directly setting wages or dictating prices, which means tnc still have flexibility to determine what the price of a ride is and what it takes to operate profitably in Portland. Done right, this kind of structure also protects riders by tying company revenue to driver earnings. It discourages excessive markups and ensures that surge pricing is actually used to balance supply and demand, rather than simply to extract additional revenue. I want to go back and acknowledge the concern. I mentioned earlier that we've heard from a number of stakeholders the importance of maintaining a strong and stable rideshare presence in Portland. It is not in anyone's interest, not in the interest of businesses in our city, our tourism economy, riders, portlanders who use uber and lyft or drivers for services to become less available, less reliable or leave the market altogether. That's why we need a system that works for workers and for companies. And it's why councilor, Novick and I are at the table with each party trying to negotiate language that will be workable, implementable and fair under our new form of government. Committees are a place to iterate, to discuss, to take feedback, to work a policy so we don't have language before us. Today. We are in the process of iterating with stakeholders, but we wanted to bring this forward to update you all on where the conversation is and get your feedback as well, so that when we are able to bring language forward in a few short months, we can do so with some feedback already in place and continue to iterate. The goal here is not to design a policy that is nice on paper, but fails in practice. If that were the case, we might just propose a minimum wage and be done with it. The goal is to truly strike a balance and create a system where companies can continue to operate and grow, where the people doing the work can earn a living that reflects the reality of their costs and their contributions to the system. And where portlanders still have access to this important service. Today's hearing is an important step. We will hear from drivers and their representatives about the on the ground realities of their work. We will hear from an economist who has done research on this industry and the market dynamics within the industry, and then my staff will go over the timeline and next steps. After that, we'll have an opportunity for discussion and questions. I will note that we invited uber and lyft to be a part of the conversation today. They declined this particular invitation, but I do think it's important to share that they were invited to have a panel and that they are part of an active, ongoing dialog, and we expect that that engagement will continue both from from their side and from ours. Their perspective matters, and we want to make sure that everybody is at the table as we do this work. With that, I know we have already heard from a few of our drivers here in Portland, but I believe we have some designated representatives from the drivers union who are going to share some additional information with us. I'd like to invite you all up at this time. Welcome, and thank you for being here.

Thank you.

It's been a while.

And we always welcome young testifiers also.

It's good to know.

We can't do this without him.

You just have to adjust the microphone height a little bit. There we go.

Thank you all for having us. We presented a lot of these things in front of the labor and workforce development committee. It is great to be back here and in front of some new faces. We're here for rideshare drivers and we're especially here to talk about pay. I have some examples here. If everyone can see these slides of some of these wildly disparate, wildly, I don't know how to word that these wildly different fares. And you can see that in some of these cases, the driver is making only 16% of what a passenger pays. So some of these companies may say something like, you know, passenger rates will go up if this legislation passes. Passenger rates are already up. This ride took 33 minutes and cost the passenger over $100, almost $100. I have some more examples. Some of them are pretty bad. You can see this right here 28 minutes, 17 miles. Why did it cost the passenger $110? And why did the driver only make 14? This isn't just unique. To lift these screenshots that you see on the app here. These are screenshots straight from uber's app where you can see uber is consistently taking a huge amount from passengers and paying the drivers much less, much less than 80%, much less than half in a lot of cases. This is unacceptable in our eyes. When we are the ones with the costs, we are the ones with the rising gas prices that I'm sure everyone is well aware of right now. And as far as transparency is concerned, as you can see by this trip, it's kind of hard to deconstruct here. But the passenger actually paid about $52, including their tip. But lyft likes to frame this in a way where it looks like the numbers are as close together as possible. By showing that tip in your earnings down at the bottom, but excluding it from the passenger payment. Just one of many shady practices that these companies use. And why is it that two $110 trips. You'll notice the screenshot on the right from earlier have significant, drastically different pay for the drivers. And that's why over these last few years, we have formed a massive coalition of over 45 organizations that support fair rides for Oregon drivers and for passengers. I'd like to invite nathaniel to make any additions that I might.

You're crushing it right now. Keep going. Yeah. Thank you. Thank you, joe. And you know, this is a. You know, something we've really learned, and I guess I'm editorializing here is that through through our advocacy that you spoke of, chair pirtle-guiney, we have discovered that this is not just an issue that matters to our merry band of rideshare drivers. You know, this is an issue that is important to a very, very large. Group of our community members. And so fair rides Oregon represents a coalition of faith based institutions, folks that are in the housing and food insecurity sectors, folks from labor transit. And I have provided a copy to the clerk today of a letter of support from one of our community, one of our coalition community members, doctor j.w. Matt hennessy from the Vancouver avenue first baptist church. And I'm just going to read just a small portion of that, if I may, fair transparency for passengers and drivers and a limit on how much the companies can keep as commission are very reasonable prices. Sorry, policies that benefit our entire community, local workers and consumers alike. This is not just about drivers earning a living wage. This is protecting portlanders from price gouging. The ride that you took to the blazer game shouldn't cost you 30 bucks more on the way home, especially when there is a good chance that uber or lyft is taking most of that. That surge pricing was supposed to, as you said, balance the market. It is you being used to extract profits. And so putting a sensible cap on the commission that they can take not only ensures drivers earn a living wage, but ensures that riders are protecting are protected from price gouging. These screenshots that we've been showing you, by the way, that is what you're seeing in the driver app, and it has been increasingly difficult to access that information. It is hidden in external fees and commercial insurance line items and, and lyft fees and uber fees. And it is increasingly difficult to suss that out. And the riders have no idea how much of that fare is going into uber and lyft pocket and how oftentimes very little is going into ours. And so I just I can't say this enough. The fair transparency that is so important to, you know, help inform and educate kind of both sides. Right? So, you know, thank you so much for your time. Don't want to go too long because I know we got a lot of other things to get to. So, you know, happy to answer any questions or provide any additional context, clarity, you know, or feedback for you unless you got something else.

Nope.

Okay. Thank you all.

We good.

I want to know who the co-sponsor is.

So. So, buddy, come on, let's go sit down.

I think we should turn his mic on. I was wondering, I was wondering if he could give us the scariest face, because we were getting a lot of faces during that. That would have been great.

So, councilors, if there are any questions for folks from the driver's union, why don't we ask those now, before we move on to hearing from professor parrot councilor Zimmerman, did you have something? No, just the scary face.

It was the best.

Testimony I. I know any other question for next, we are hearing from a professor and economist who has done significant research on the tnc industry.

I do have questions if we're going to be transitioning. Yes. So. Hi guys.

Go ahead. Councilor.

So there's some stuff here that can be a little hard to understand in terms of I'm balancing roles here. So when a person elects to be an uber or lyft driver, what types of agreements then are you, are you agreeing to in the payment structure? What does the company tell you is what not? You know, I've seen a lot of jobs like you can make up to this and they do that stuff. I mean, like, what is the actual agreement of this? Is the percentage or how, how is that structured when they bring a new driver in?

Well, I would love to share my experience. I started over ten years ago. In fact, it'll be 11 next month. And when I started in the agreement, it was made very clear that I would make no less than 80% of what the passenger paid through terms of service changes and amendments and all these different things that you are forced to agree to. If you want to go to work that has changed. It has been whittled down as my pay, everything moved over to these new models of per mile per minute, and then it got cut down even further. And my pay has not changed since 2018.

Yeah.

The the short answer, vice chair Zimmerman.

Right.

Whatever title they gave me today.

Okay.

Yeah. The short answer is that it's very unclear. You like I think joe hit the nail right on the head. You have to sign that terms of service. And literally they present that thing to you before you can even take any trips. And, you know, it gets lost in jumbled legal jargon. And as you are probably well aware, a large portion of our community english is maybe their third, fourth, fifth or sixth language. And it's a work in progress. So it's very difficult to understand. But I think again, you hit you hit the nail right on the head. These companies self-imposed an 80% mandate back in 2015, 2016, 2017. That's all we're asking them to do is just go back to something that they started doing already.

Okay. And then. So some of the screenshots you shared, right? They're quite similar. I think from a user perspective, we've all certainly taken a ride that was more than it was the last time, but we chalk it up to the hour is different. And so the demand was different. But you're highlighting some pretty significant differences there. So if I were to look at those two $110 rides that you highlighted in your presentation, once the driver is taking home $46, I think, and once they were taking home $14, you want to make sure I didn't miss it. You're you're not asserting that we know why that is. You're just saying, look at that disparity. Is that is that what we're what we're taking from that?

Yeah.

Just for some context. And this is not anywhere that we can tell in their terms of service this like if you're a driver, you can go on like uber, lyft website and look at what the pay is per mile and per minute for your region. If one such one such structure still exists, which it does in Portland, and drivers are being paid $0.70 a mile and $0.24 a minute. So if you take a ride. Oh, and not was it $0.94 base fare. So the next time you take a ride, you can actually calculate what we're being paid. And so they're paying us a fixed amount out of that based on their rate card it's called. And so everything above that is pure profit. Okay. Does that make sense.

So $0.94 a minute. Is that $0.94.

It's like a $0.94 base fare. Okay. Just $0.94 plus $0.70 a mile time and $0.24 a minute. That's our pay.

And the other thing that I wanted to highlight as part of that is these two trips that you're referring to, the 110 trips, one of those where the driver made $14, that trip was heavily surged, but that surge did not reflect for the driver's earnings. Yeah. The other trip that is mentioned here is also a trip that took place began in Washington state, where Washington has regulations on per mile and per minute pay, and that likely shows some of the disparity between the two. However, both trips have extremely high passenger payments. Yeah, compared to what the driver actually makes.

Okay. Thanks. This is this is helpful. I know there's more. I just wanted to while we had you both up there.

I'll have all these slides for the council clerk to share with all of.

You.

And we'll be happy to make like a little cheat sheet. And you can take them with you for your next.

Okay. That was my other question to the chair. I think that councilor Novick had said there was a presentation. Have I missed? Was there a presentation we should have with us or is this. Yeah.

We have the presentation from the driver's union and we can get that posted. If you all send it to my team, we'll make sure it gets to the clerk to get posted. I believe we will have a presentation from the economist as well, which I don't have a copy of right now. None of them are posted yet. I'll also add just we heard from our folks at the table right now about the terms that you're required to sign. In most instances, independent contractors negotiate the terms that they work under. That's part of what being an independent contractor, instead of an employee benefits. And in this case, we have an industry where that's really not the case. Everybody's working under those same terms that are are laid out daily by the company. Councilor Ryan sure.

Dan Ryan: Thank you, chair. Pirtle-guiney. I don't I think I'll go ahead and ask these questions because the two of you are up here right now. It could be that it would be better if I listen to the next presentation, and ditto to sending us this presentation and the cheat sheet. I think when I was listening, what I was struck with is it made it sound like it's probably the whole system nationally has some questions, but specifically in Portland and perhaps in the state of Oregon, is that what I was supposed to pick up? That our you're getting gouged or not being treated even as fairly as some of your peers and other places.

We call it algorithmic wage discrimination. And it is happening everywhere. Councilor. Ryan and this is the idea that the tncs are using their algorithms to extract maximum profit while keeping driver pay as low as possible. And so in most places, this is maybe getting a little bit of the weeds, but I think it's important to mention.

This is all in the weeds at this point.

Yes, yes. People don't understand. There's something wrong just happens. People just don't understand gig work unless they've done it. So in most places outside of Oregon, what happens is, is when you get a ride request, you get any old price for a ride, but that ride is being shopped to multiple drivers to see which one of them will accept it at the lowest price, right? Meanwhile, algorithms are doing the same thing for the riders. You ever opened both of your phones and try to price a ride on both apps and think, wow, this thing jumped up like 15 bucks? What the heck happened? That is an algorithm using, you know, your personal data.

Here to.

To determine pricing. Yeah, you're at the airport. You come back one in the morning, your phone's about to die, you're tired, you're pretty desperate at that point. You'll take you'll pay any old price for a ride. And the algorithms know this. So in Oregon, in Oregon, at least in Portland, we'll talk about Portland. Here we have what's still called a rate card. Most drivers had a rate card, and it ensured that you were paid a certain fixed amount, so you could easily calculate what you were going to earn on every ride. But, you know, folks like len sherman from the columbia school of business who has highly recommend checking his work out if you haven't already, study gig work extensively, you know, has done a lot of research into what uber and lyft call, you know, dynamic pricing or surveillance pricing, the idea that you're getting charged a different price for the same trip. And it happens with different people, right? And so we have a rate card here. It's a crap rate card, and it's gone down considerably over the years. But what it does is it's very, very low. And so, you know, like I mentioned before, you get to kind of calculate what you're making, but it also sets kind of a wage ceiling. So then the tncs can charge more money on that back end, and they still only have to pay us lowly drivers $0.70 a mile, which for context, as I think rob mentioned, bob sorry is less than what the irs will allow you to deduct for your depreciation per mile. Just to put that in context.

That was helpful. I don't know if this is the right place to ask and it could be for the sponsors. Have you also looked at going to the state with some of this legislation as Salem taken this up?

Yeah.

As a matter of fact, we, you know, had a bill that was being considered by the state legislature last year that, you know, took some of the best pieces from other legislation, such as Washington and colorado, where they have fair transparency. You know, we were, you know, we've definitely had some conversations with state legislature to, you know, make sure that all Oregon drivers have basic labor standards. Absolutely. But we know that the vast majority of the rides are happening here. The vast majority of the drivers are here. And, you know, there is a great need here before us in the rose city.

Okay. And that didn't get out of committee. It didn't make it very far.

It did not get out of committee. There are ongoing conversations, but it is slow going. And. There are times councilor Where I'm willing to say, it looks like Salem is going to move on. This we should hold. And there are times where from? From my vantage point, it looks like Salem is having conversations, but they may or may not get there. So we might have to do something. And this felt to me like they may or may not get there. We should we should be having conversations.

And you've worked in Salem. I have not, so that means a lot coming from you. I always assume it takes longer. Okay. Thank you. Those are a couple of my questions.

Okay, colleagues, any other questions for the driver's union?

You did have that person get back online.

Okay. Thank you both. And it sounds like at least one of the testifiers from previously is back online. Wendy, can we invite our guests to say a few words?

Angela, will you please try unmuting and see if we can hear you this time?

Can you hear me?

Yeah. We can. Yes. Thank you.

Okay, okay. Hello there. Councilors. My name is angie grigsby. I've been driving rideshare in the Portland area for about eight years. And thank you for hearing us. I love doing this job. I love talking with people while I'm making a living and keeping people from driving under the influence. It also works for me because I have a husband who needs a caregiver, and I'm limited on the hours and times I can work. If I had a traditional job, they probably would have let me go for calling out too often. Unfortunately, making a living gets harder every day. The cost of food, medicine, gas, everything is skyrocketing, but my pay has gone down over time. Uber and lyft used to pay quite a bit more. When I first started, we got a set 80% of the fares. Now, oftentimes I've seen uber and lyft take upwards of 80%. And how is this fair? When I'm paying for the car, the cost of it, the maintenance wear and tear. And I've also seen they're charging the riders more. And due to this, riders are tipping less. I'm not saying everyone has to tip, but when they're paying $100 and assuming we're getting 70 or 75 out of that, we need to know that we need fair transparency because uber and lyft make it very hard to see what they've paid. There have been many times taking people home from the airport when riders are charged crazy amounts. So I will get riders that are tired, jetlagged, frustrated and just want to go home or to their hotel. And now they're upset with me because they think I'm the one charging them $100 for a 20 minute ride. They don't realize it's not under my control, and I don't get the lion's share of that. I think the companies know they have a captive audience and increase fares accordingly. They also do this at moda center in any venue that has large crowds, all wanting to go home. If there's a peak amount of riders, they will increase prices, sometimes to amounts that are unsustainable, and they don't share that with the drivers. We need to see what they paid without having to jump through hoops continuously, and we need a fair wage for our work and for the costs we pay. The current system is not fair to the drivers or the riders. Thank you all so much for your time.

Thank you very much. Wendy. Did we get our other testifier back online or.

No, they weren't able to join.

Okay. Do we have professor parrot back online? Doctor parrot, I know you were having some technological issues as well.

I've just resent that link as well.

Okay. Have you heard back? Should we wait for a moment or should we go to the next steps and timeline first?

I just sent it, so it might be good to wait a minute.

Okay. It sounds like councilor Ryan has a question, so we'll go to that question first. It's not, but it is now.

Thanks. Sorry, I don't know this, but you're all speaking as your drivers like fare drivers to move people from a to b, but there's also the folks at uber and lyft that I don't know if lyft does this anyway that deliver food and such. Is that different than this conversation?

Yeah. That is.

Pardon me.

Many of us do deliver food as well.

Councilor the city regulates the movement of people differently from the movement of other goods.

That's all I needed to hear. Thank you. That helped a lot. Sorry I haven't been in the committees that have received any of this context, so I get to ask those kind of questions.

As context for our colleagues. I believe when you were formerly a commissioner, there was movement on cost share for delivery of food, or a limit on how much of an upcharge could be charged there. That didn't go to drivers, but that didn't happen for the movement of people.

No.

That was all prior to me.

That was prior to you.

Okay. I have questions about the contract we signed then. Thanks, wendy.

Do we have the professor online?

I believe so, okay.

Doctor parrot, are you.

Yes.

Wendy, can you help him unmute so that we can move to his presentation?

I've tried.

Doctor parrot, if you can hear us, we are ready to hear from you. And I think if you're not able to share your presentation, we have staff in the room who can get it up for you. Hi there.

Hello? Can you hear me?

Yes we can.

All right. Thank you very much. Thanks for your patience. Sorry about the technical glitches on my end.

That's all right. Why don't you go ahead and if you can go ahead and just introduce yourself for the record, that would be great. And I believe we have staff working on getting the presentation up. I think that councilor Novick team has that for us. All right.

Thank you, james parrot. I am a senior fellow and senior advisor at the center for new york city affairs and formerly the director of economic and fiscal policies at the center. Over the past decade, I've worked with several state and local governments across the country and analyzing ride sharing and other gig economy services. I coauthored studies that have formed the basis for the minimum rideshare driver pay standards in new york city, seattle, and minnesota that have affected well over 100,000 drivers, providing 300 million trips annually. I'd like to start off this afternoon by. Looking at an analysis that that uber commissioned recently. Of what? Of Portland rideshare driver pays. What what Portland rideshare drivers make on an hourly basis. Uber commissioned the consulting firm hra to do an analysis. They provided proprietary earnings data for half of all the trips in 2024 by Portland drivers. This analysis computed that after allowing for expenses, the drivers took home $21.82 an hour. Uber is prone to overstate driver earnings and underpay its drivers. In a reexamination of this analysis that professor professor michael reich from university of california at berkeley and myself conducted, we found that after you make necessary adjustments to the way uber calculates after expense hourly pay, that Portland uber drivers are really making something like $12.05 an hour after expenses. The difference between between these two figures is that we provided a much more realistic estimate of what drivers expenses were, and we included all of the drivers time with an estimate for waiting time that uber didn't consider. Uber had also included in its $21.82 an hour the amount of tips which are not, of course not paid by the company, paid by by the passengers and shouldn't be counted as part of driver pay provided by the company. When you look at this in relation to the $15.95 minimum hour minimum pay level in Portland in 2024, you can see that that's 1205 is certainly less than 1595, but that's not really an accurate way to make the comparison. Minimum wage employers, as all employers do, have to pay the payroll tax, the employer share of the payroll tax for social security and medicare. They have to pay unemployment insurance workers comp. They have to pay paid sick time. When you factor in all of those costs. The minimum wage in 2024 in Portland was more like $18.72 an hour. That's what it costs an employer to employ a minimum wage worker, $12.05 is quite a bit less than that. That uber pays. It's 24% below the 1595 Portland minimum wage. It's 36% less than what employer of a minimum wage worker must pay per hour, and it's 42% less than what the average fast food worker made in Portland in 2024. Once you factor in these mandated costs for payroll taxes and worker safety and safety net costs. So it really is more realistic to, to, to consider that uber is paying in the neighborhood of $12 an hour, not the $21 an hour, 20, $22 an hour that they contended in looking at trends in uber pricing over the years. You know, what I'm about to say can shed a little bit of light on on what the drivers have been testifying about. Uber changed their their pricing policy in, in 2022 to go to an upfront pricing approach. And since then, the passenger fares have continued to rise. Driver pair driver pay has fallen. And uber and lyft profits have soared. A large sample of national data from gridwise analytics, a third party app that enables drivers to track their earnings and driving activity, indicates that rideshare fares rose 9.6% from December 2024 to December of 2025, while driver pay per trip increased by only 3.6%. I think one of the early speakers noted how significant uber and lyft profits have been rising recently. Let me just underscore that uber's revenues rose 18% in 2025 and 14% in the first quarter of 2026, while net operating income climbed 50% in 2025 and was up by 42% through the first quarter. For lyft, revenues rose 9% last year, 14% in the first quarter. They lyft recorded a 30% 38% increase in net cash from operations in 2025 and a 7% increase through the first quarter of this year. Based on my analysis of rideshare activity all across the country over several years, it's very clear that it is possible to effectively regulate through minimum pay standards driver pay, so that workers can be compensated for all of their time and have a fair reimbursement rate for their expenses. Rideshare driving in America has evolved considerably over the past decade. In its early days, uber and lyft used ample flows of venture capital to attract drivers to its platform, paying them a relatively fixed 75 to 80% of the passenger fare. Company algorithms manage. Drivers, evaluated their performance and compiled customer ratings. Today, the company algorithms make it extremely difficult for drivers to understand the basis for their compensation. The companies use incentives to influence and control driver behavior and algorithmic discipline and deactivation, which are both perplexing and frustrating to resolve. Increasingly in situations where the companies face an excessive drivers relative to consumer demand, the companies often effectively auction trips at the lowest pay driver will accept, while keeping passenger fares high. As a result, drivers report that their pay and share the passenger fare have fallen, while rideshare companies profits climb. It's also very clear from my analysis of driver patrons in several jurisdictions that independent government pay regulation require, such as exist in seattle, new york city and minnesota, that this independent governmental pay regulation requires an effective mechanism to maintain a workable balance between the supply of rideshare drivers and the level of consumer demand for rides. Without effective supply regulations regulating the supply of drivers, driver pay will continue to be inadequate. I'd be happy to to answer any questions council members have. Thank you.

Thank you so much, colleagues. Are there questions for professor parrot and I seeing that at least some people have the written presentation, the written testimony, I think that it is up online now as well. Any questions for the professor?

Yes.

Okay, counselor Zimmerman, go right ahead.

Thank you. You mentioned that in 2022, the program shifted to upfront pricing. So for a lay user perspective, I remember that's why I originally liked uber when it all started, because unlike a taxi that it always just kept on running. I knew what my price was as a user. So I don't think that that's what you mean. So what does this mean in this context? In 2022 that changed.

Yeah. So it is the the, the term upfront pricing is what the companies use to describe their pay policy. But I understand what you mean by, you know, it's always been possible to sort of see to get to get an estimate of what the fare is before you decide to accept that that, that right offer. So what the companies did differently rather than, than use sort of a taxi rate formula where the fare would be determined by so much per minute and so much per mile, you know, the time and the distance that it would, that it's estimated that that ride would, would require the companies quoted the passenger affair and quoted the driver an amount of money. Now, this could vary depending upon supply and demand conditions at the time. As the companies you know, this was in 2022, after the company's been operating for several years. They had learned a lot about the market dynamics of the rideshare industry, and they were better able to judge what sort of fare they could charge for a ride, what sort of pay they would have to provide to the driver to get the driver to accept that. So the pricing at that point was decoupled from the from the taxi sort of rate card approach of so much per mile and so much per minute. And it was a function of what the algorithm had had set the, the, the fare and the driver pay at given everything that it had learned about the local market and, and what it could basically charge the passengers and how little it could pay the drivers to get them to accept the rides.

Okay. Thank you. So I'm going to call it in the before era, before era of 2022, I, as a user would know that my ride was 25 bucks. Believe me, I haven't had a $25 ride in years. It feels like but a $25 ride. But the driver. It was a. It was a. It was magic behind the scenes that they wouldn't know until that fare was over, to know what the fare was that they were going to make. And now, post 2022 with upfront pricing, I know that the ride is $55 and the driver. Also. Before accepting it, they now can see what the fare is, is that I want to make sure it is a little hard to hear you. That's why I'm repeating back to you.

Yeah, yeah. No, that's that's, that's a succinct way of, of stating it.

Okay. Thanks, chair. That's it for my questions right now. Thank you professor.

Thank you. Councilor. Councilor. Ryan, did you have questions?

Yeah.

This is professor parrot. Is that who this is? Yes. Okay. Welcome to Portland, Oregon. I see you're at the new school. Is that true? That's right. Okay, great. That was my first real job out of college. Was at the new school in 85 to 89. So just wanted to say that. Your you study this across the country. It must be something you do, right? You you study this market across the country. Okay. Yeah.

And I started. Go ahead.

No, no, tell tell us more about your credentials.

So I was going to say that the the way I got into it was I was asked in 2017 by the new york city taxi and limousine commission to undertake a an analysis of new york city rideshare driver pay. The city was getting lots of complaints from the drivers about declining pay at that point, and that. That study led to the development of the minimum pay standard that was enacted in 2018 and took effect in 2019. And since then there have been minimum pay standards enacted in. Seattle, and later that spread to the entire state of Washington and in minnesota in in 2024.

Well, this is how you became an expert.

So I started doing that and then have have been asked by, you know, folks like the city of Portland and cities all over the country to help advise them on how to proceed.

Okay. So anyway, that's how you became an expert. And so my point that I want to ask the question is, what sticks out about Portland when you compare it to other markets you've studied? If you would say there's one thing that's special, unique, different, what would it be?

Well, I don't.

Know that there's anything that that I've learned about how rideshare operates in Portland that is unique. I think it's fairly, I think the the way the industry operates is, you know, to, to a large extent, it's fairly uniform. That's that's the kind of. Operation that the companies have have sought in order to present consumers wherever they may be getting off a plane with a predictable rideshare experience. So the companies have tried to, to make the industry fairly uniform across. Cities in the united states. And they've also spread to other countries as well.

Okay. Thank you, professor parrot. I think from listening to the the good people in the room, it sounded like there were some issues that were a little bit unique. But you're, you're, you're making it clear there's a pattern

About the entire country in terms of this practice, and I appreciate that. Councilor Zimmerman made it really clear there's been a difference since 2022, and I knew there was a reason I stopped using it as much, because the prices did go up dramatically. Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you. Any other questions for the professor? Okay. Thank you so much for being here with us and bearing with us through the technical, technological challenges we're having today. We really appreciate hearing from you.

Thank you. I think the I think the technical problems are all on my end. So I'm really apologetic for that.

That's okay. These things happen. And colleagues, we are next going to hear from my policy staffer, devin, about the timeline and next steps for the work that we have been convening. And while devin sitting down, I will say I was remiss before in not noting when I said that councilor Morillo was looking at working on this as well, that councilor Dunphy has also signed on and is partnering on the work. I apologize to him and his team that I didn't mention that previously. That's a newer partner, and we're excited to have him. Devin, why don't you tell us about what the next couple of months look like and what we have calendared out to make sure that this conversation doesn't lose momentum, and we keep working and moving forward.

Absolutely. Thank you, councilor. For the record, devin mullins, I am a policy manager for councilor Pirtle-guiney. A couple of important dates to kind of to flag for you. Firstly is we have councilor Pirtle-guiney and councilor. Novick, and as well as other co-sponsors are convening kind of a round table series to discuss and negotiate with uber and lyft over what a policy might look like that works in Portland. This process is starting in mid June. So we're looking at, I think the first meeting is June 18th, and we're looking at 3 or 4 meetings, however many it takes to get the policy right, but probably 3 or 4 meetings over the course of June and July and possible follow up. Another important date to flag is kind of separate legislation that we see as complementary to this legislation, but isn't exactly what was discussed today is on a driver's resource center looking to have this in this committee and city life on June 9th. Again, this is complementary legislation that deals with other challenges in the market, from deactivation support to translation and interpretation services. Our office will send out an informational memo similar to the ones we've done on other policy ahead of the city life committee meeting. That way you have some background on it. And then finally, a kind of mid-july August time frame. We're aiming to have the draft ordinance on the earnings standard that was discussed today. However, that might look kind of at the conclusion of those negotiations with uber and lyft. And after robust conversations with the driver's union. Importantly, this will still be a work in progress, but we'll aim to have a hearing on it in the committee so that it can be sufficiently worked by you all. And then just one thing I wanted to add as well is the I'm going to send out an email to all of you, all and your policy staff with the presentations today. Apologies. It was my fault that those were not posted in time. So I apologize about that. And then also share a presentation from the take rate proposal that councilor Novick's office presented at the last labor and workforce committee. I already found that presentation. I'm going to send it to you all. So you have that context.

Thank you. Devin. Colleagues, any questions about those next steps? And at this time, if anybody has general comments or discussion, it's a great time to get in the queue. We'll take just a few more minutes before we move to the next agenda item. Okay. Seeing none before we close this, wendy, did we get any of our other testifiers back?

We have ahmed calling in ahmed, can you please unmute and speak if you're ready? I believe it's star six if you're on your phone. We tried.

Okay. I think at this point we will need to move to the next agenda item. Thank you to everybody who was a part of our conversation today. And if there were folks who wanted to testify in the technology wasn't working, please feel free to submit testimony or send information to our offices. With that, diana, could you please call the next item on the agenda?

Yes. Item number three. Document number 2026-174. Amend city code to transfer oversight of portable sign placement and the right of way and remove registration requirements. Amend code title 32 and add code. Chapter 17.110.

Thank you colleagues. This comes to us from councilor Novick's office and he is unfortunately not able to be here today, but had asked us to move forward anyway. And I believe we have somebody from his team here to present. Perfect. Spencer, good to see you.

Hello, city life committee. My name is spencer knowles. I'm the chief of staff for councilor Steve Novick in district three. And it's a pleasure to be here today for what I hope is a somewhat practical and straightforward change to city code and how we regulate portable signs, also known as sandwich boards. So I'll share a presentation on my screen. So while that gets loaded up, this concept came to us when we were meeting with various business districts, and one of the leaders said, you know, I'd like to buy sandwich boards for all the business members in my district. But not only is there the price of buying the sandwich board, but then there's this permit that you have to get through the city. And that piqued our, our, our interest because we didn't realize that you had to get these things permitted. And I'll note that if you walk down many business districts in the city of Portland, and you look at all the different boards, I won't. They're not all permitted. The compliance rate is is fairly low. And so we decided to take a look at it and see what could be done. For starters, what is a portable sign? They're also known as boards or sandwich boards. They're not attached to the structure or the ground. The placement and standards for portable signs are currently regulated under portland's sign code, which is lengthy and was established. This permit requirement was established in 2001 to place a portable sign in the right of way. You must apply for and display a permit as a little sticker on the bottom of a board. Why were they initially regulated? It was part of the right of way management, a city wide effort in 2001 to regulate the right of way, and was a piece of the sit lie ordinances that were big at that time. They were also factors of ADA accessibility. If they're not placed properly properly, they can impede the right of way. People walking and navigating the sidewalks. And also there was at one point some revenue positives that the city was receiving from this program. However, permitting is no longer necessary for the city and is a burden upon many of the small businesses in Portland, even if it's just a small one. So just a brief overview of the regulatory program permits. You can get in one, 2 or 4 year spans. The number of permits has been issued that have been issued has been decreasing over the years. You'll see here the in the calendar year 23, 24, 25, all decreasing. And there used to be much higher as is reflected on the right in the registration fees the city used to receive from them. So, for example, in 2016, we got $214,000 from board registrations. And last year we got $40,000. And one of the problems is we received $40,000 in registration revenue. But the program to operate the board regulatory program, the cost was $46,000. So we were losing $7,000 a year. Adding this burden of a permit for small businesses.

Sorry, chair.

Yeah.

Go ahead. On that last slide. Total program revenue. What am I supposed to read about that column, though? Because the program you said brought in 38,000. But what is the 168,000?

So the sign program doesn't only address a board signs. It's all the signs across programs across the city. And you still have to get permits for other types of signs, like awnings or lighted signs.

You're just separating out the two things.

That's correct. Yeah. We've also seen that complaints about boards have dropped over the years. So a board compliance is complaint driven and is currently investigated by the enforcement team. People from that team are here if you have questions for them. If a violation is found, a notice is sent. If not corrected, then a citation is issued. Usually they try and get people into compliance before issuing any sort of citations. Compliance with permitting is low, yet complaints have also been falling, suggesting that business owners are somewhat self-regulating. And, you know, when we started looking into this, we were really concerned that if we removed the permit, there might be some ADA compliance issues in that, you know, that would affect that population greatly. But we're not seeing currently that the level of complaints for ADA compliance is not something that couldn't be handled by the PBOT right of way regulatory team. So what this ordinance does, it removes the permit requirement from title 32. Businesses will no longer need to apply for and display a permit for the sandwich board. All the other standards for portable signs, such as size and design will. All will still remain in title 32, as well as some placement restrictions in certain zones and districts, and then it will also add to title 17 to certify PBOT authority to regulate portable signs in the right of way, it will maintain standards for ADA compliance, right of way management will be further consolidated within PBOT, and it maintains penalties for any violations under the transportation fee schedule. And then lastly, why does this matter? We all know how important small businesses are to Portland. I know councilor Ryan has discussed that at length, and this committee has discussed that at length. Let's see. And we feel this is a more efficient and sensible, sensible approach to a boards. And it just is one extra permit that the city is requiring a level of red tape that we can take away and help small businesses operate in the city. So that's our pitch to you. Happy to answer any questions or call up any staff. We have folks from both PBOT right of way compliance and ppe. And here if there are questions.

Thank you. Spencer. Councilor Zimmerman, would you like to kick us off?

So much. I want to kick us off. I love that this is coming forward. And and hats off to councilor Novick and his team for, I don't know, whatever the analogy of getting this over the line. So. The fact that we've been brought in $39,000 last year in revenue because people followed the permitting laws is amazing to me. I just find so I say this in the same week that in one of my districts, one of my neighborhoods in the district, I've got people complaining about signage boards right now, but in large part I was aware of the permitting and that it seems like they have certainly gone down in the usage. It used to be you'd see that city of Portland little sticker on a lot of them and you barely see them anymore, which is why I'll be supportive of this, because even in a time when people are not following it, it Portland has a particular passive aggressiveness that will make sure that business owners comply with keeping the sidewalks clear. Right? We are we are big fans of shaming you into doing the right thing. And I think that that's what's going to apply here. And we talk about compliance. Spencer, thanks for laying that out. When a code compliance officer shows up and says you're out of compliance, please just move it six inches to the left and all of a sudden you're in compliance. I think that's the like, we don't have to overengineer the damn thing, right? So this is definitely one of those dumb laws, accounts and dumb laws should always be attacked. So what I really like about it though, is that having standards is what people ask for. Having to take out a permit to verify that you followed those standards is the silliness of this. Not that there are standards, and I think that was a good distinction. Thank you for putting that in here, is that there will be still be standards. And when somebody gets out of them, our code compliance and nosy neighbors will still be able to do their thing. But we don't have to do a mother. May I permission slip? And being a city of permission slips is something that I'm quite tired of. So all in all the time, run it all the way across. Let's pass it. Thanks for bringing it forward. And as one of the neighborhoods with plenty of of concern about sandwich boards, I have little concern at this point. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Councilor Morillo, were you in the queue or.

No, I got answered by whitney.

Okay. You don't want to also suggest that people shouldn't follow our codes.

No. Certainly not. I guess the only clarifying question I kind of had, though, I think was touched on already was, is there because I think this is very silly. I agree and I think it should go away. The only question I have is are we going to have any issues with like ADA compliance or lawsuits on the city if we change this because of the ADA compliance aspect of it?

I would think not. But I would.

At any time.

Welcome, lisa to come up here and talk about her work on that issue.

Good afternoon. For the record, my name is lisa strader. I use she her pronouns. I'm the Portland bureau of transportation's ADA coordinator. I was just looking at my tracking of concerns and complaints that I've received over the last couple of years for sidewalks, and I get about 2 to 3 dozen a year. But that's all kinds of things on sidewalks. So vegetation, somebody's basketball hoop. Heaved sidewalks. So literally the infrastructure I've had like 3 or 4 in the last two years about something like a sidewalk sign. And as somebody just mentioned, those are pretty easily rectified. The standards don't change, as I think spencer mentioned. So even though somebody doesn't have to get a permit, the sizes are regulated where they're placed or is regulated. And because it seems like they're so reasonably priced that they're pretty, they're more widely used, I think people can easily adjust them when there's a problem. So I, I think we can continue to point to all the standards that we have and that the corrective measures are don't change. We still have a complaint driven system with changing the code from requiring a permit to have one, versus just having it be available to small businesses.

Okay, great. Thank you so much for answering my question. That alleviates any lingering concerns I had.

Great.

Thank you, councilor Councilor Ryan, did you have something or did they get answered?

Well, no.

I want to thank councilor Morillo for asking that question. That was my main question. I think I just want to profess I'm just excited about this. So thank you, councilor Novick and spencer, for bringing this forward. I really appreciate all of the information that you provided. It's such a simple solution for local businesses to actually, the city provides one less headache for them. They're not used to that. So this would be a lovely message we'd be sending out. And your answer about the fact that you can manage the complaints with anyone coming from an ADA complaint, whether there's a permit or not. That's what I thought I heard. Was that correct?

Yes, councilor.

Yes. So that that really was my only concern that there might be on this one. And then when you heard this year alone, we're in the red for even managing this. So it's it's not doing anyone any good, it seems like. So anyway, I look forward to moving this along. And thank you so much, councilor Novick, for bringing this forward. It's spot on.

Thank you, councilor Colleagues.

I put myself in the queue with two small questions. Spencer, you on the slide about revenues and and us being in the red here. There was a note that said the sign program has a reserve deficit of over $250,000. If the permit program goes away, what fund is absorbing that deficit?

So that is the that's the whole sign program.

Okay.

So actually, if we got rid of this permitting program for a boards, it would have prevented last year adding $7,397 to the reserve.

We should know that we have a broader problem than just a board's. In terms of the. The sign program and its ability to self maintain, and we're subsidizing that elsewhere. Without this, we take away part of that problem.

Yes. Without being an expert on the deficit. Reserve deficit, I would say yes.

Okay. And then you said on slide six that that this maintains penalties for violations under the transportation fee schedule. I assume the penalties for violations were elsewhere in code before. Are the penalty levels themselves changing or are we just moving where those penalties are located? Should businesses expect that costs if they are out of compliance and don't correct the issue and it goes to a penalty, are going up, going down or staying the same?

So I would expect that similar to how currently a boards are regulated, the work would be to resolve the issue without a citation first. And then I you know, I forgot to print out the transportation fee schedule and bring it with me. I think it's comparable, but I can get back to you with that information.

I think it would be helpful to know if there's a major change. I'm happy to wait until we get to full council. I also see our PBOT director coming up who maybe has the answer.

Good afternoon. Millicent williams, director of the Portland bureau of transportation. Dan barton is also here in chambers today. He is our code compliance officer. He has, I believe, at the request of several councilors, even seated here today, gone to community to help to support problem solving. Before a fee is assessed. However, the fees, if there were any, would not be an increase to what is already published. Regarding correcting the issues. The the. The violation fee would not be any higher than it currently is, but we do work pretty tirelessly to ensure that we're not passing on onerous or unreasonable or even reasonable fees when we can solve the problem.

Thank you. I just like to make sure we don't have an unexpected shock a few years from now, when we find out that fees have gone up.

So many times. We're working with business owners for many months prior to even those fees being assessed. So from time to time, there may be people who are surprised by fee, given perhaps the relationship with the property, if they're a renter of the property or lease or lessee of a, of a property versus property owner, and we've been in contact with one or the other, there may be a surprise, but typically it's been months that we've worked with properties and businesses to ensure that they are aware of what's happening and what the potential consequences could be to failure to comply.

Perfect.

Thank you very.

Much, colleagues. Any other questions for anybody from the PBOT team or for spencer?

Okay.

Seeing none, I would. Oh, do we have public testimony on this item? I didn't see any signed up, but has there been any last minute?

No one signed up. Okay.

Because there's no public testimony. I will say we took this to all the business districts and asked for their feedback. So we did do some community engagement on it, and their reaction was pretty much sure, yeah.

The reaction was, we don't follow it anyway. So thanks.

Yeah, pretty much. That's all your questions. Okay. Yeah.

I look forward to councilor Novick mitigating or mediating the upcoming a board sign wars of some neighborhood at one time whenever it happens, but we should still pass it. I'd motion to move this forward.

Second.

Fantastic. Could wendy, could you. Oh, wait. Diana, could you please call the roll.

Little swap out here? So just to confirm, moved by Zimmerman and seconded by Ryan.

Correct.

All right. Thank you very much, Ryan. I Morillo. I Zimmerman. I Avalos I pirtle-guiney. I with five eyes the motion to refer ordinance document number 2026-174 to council with the recommendation be passed, has passed.

Thank you very much. And diana, could you please read items four and five? I believe we're opening these together.

Item four authorize a cable franchise fund for the bureau of planning and sustainability to support the collection of public education and government revenues and management. Cable franchise work related to intergovernmental agreements with jurisdictions. Item four amend city code to reflect the dissolution of the mount hood cable regulatory commission. Amend city code chapters 3.33 and 3.115.

Thank you very much. And colleagues. We have two folks from the administration here to help us understand what we're doing today. And I believe andrew spear is going to kick us off. Is that right? No.

I'll kick us off. Hi.

Perfect. I apologize.

Thank you for having us today. Seema kumar, chief of community technology for the bureau of planning and sustainability. In light of the fact that the mhc arc is going to dissolve at the end of our fiscal year, June 30th, 2026, we are here to present two ordinances for your consideration. The first ordinance seeks to amend Portland Portland city code, chapters 3.33 and 3.115. The intention of these amendments is to effectively transfer existing mhc arc responsibilities concerning cable franchise oversight and management back to the city of Portland. This is essentially a housekeeping slash administrative update that's necessary to implement, so that the city can effectively assume those cable franchise functionalities, as the commission is going to dissolve at the end of our fiscal year. The second ordinance seeks to establish a new cable franchise fund fund 234. The intention of this new cable franchise fund is to allow the city of Portland to receive directly its cable franchise revenues and to effectively manage the compliance obligations derived from those cable franchise revenues. Additionally, the new cable franchise fund will succeed and eventually replace the existing mhc arc fund. 855 considering that the commission is going to dissolve with that overview, I'll pass it to andrew speer. Thank you so much.

Hi. Good afternoon councilors. My name is andrew speer and I'm the franchise utility program manager within the bureau of planning and sustainability. Just have a short presentation that will go over a little bit more detail than what sima shared just now. In summary. You'll recall I was here last month for the cable franchise amendments for comcast. And so these next two slides should look familiar. But as sima mentioned, we're going through the process of just closing up all aspects of requirements to dissolve the commission as of the end of this fiscal year. And so as part of that, these two items are practically required for the city of Portland to administer the cable program as outlined. And then again, this slide you've seen as well, we're at the point of the far right item, which is just implementation. And so we're practically just carrying out these last remaining items for approval. And I think these are the last two items that we'll need council approval. And so we're just working through the steps to functionalize the dissolution. Here's just an overview of the chapters that we are bringing forward in the first item with the chapter titles. So chapter, both chapters just have minor edits and I'll cover those in small detail. Next two slides. But in short, most of the changes are just removing references to the mhc arc and ensuring that Portland is the operator. And in effectuating, the code itself. For chapter 3.33, you'll see here on the right hand column. Those are the changes. And again, just removing the references to mhc arc. And then there's some other functions or other language edits that just bring in that. The bureau of planning and sustainability is the operator of the code. And you know, very practical edits here. Nothing, nothing technical in nature other than just the name change. And these edits were included as exhibits into the packet as well. For reference, if you have the red line open. Chapter 3.115 again on the right hand column removes references to mhc. C ensures that cable operators comply with the requirements as set forth in the chapter, and then that the bts is the operator of the code to enforce those. And then we also just a technical aspect as part of opensignal's work. City of Portland has an opportunity to have board members on opensignal's board, and those are appointed via the mayor. And so this just retains that right and clarifies it and removes references to mhc or. That concludes the first item. And then we're moving on to the second item, which is the creation of the new fund post mhc, aac. And again, as simon mentioned, the 855 fund is the current fund we operate under where cable revenues go into as part of the mhc r c, with the dissolution, the. That fund will no longer be able to be used for Portland proper, and so the creation of a new fund is required. So this is just simply authorizing approval of the new fund, which will then be for Portland only revenues and for the city to finish out all the dissolution actions as part of the next two and a half, three years with pain out, the community technology grants, which are have been issued out by the commission, which still have process and payments to go out over those periods.

Just a point of fact, the fund 855 will likely close towards the end of our calendar year, just because there might be residual lingering responsibilities emanating from the closing out of the commission. And so the fund will actually probably close a little bit later than June 30th. Just a point of clarification. Sorry, go ahead.

And then this is a little bit of summary. Again, just wanting to clarify what we're approving. And and for what I've mentioned, the first two bullets, but I think the last bullet here is an aspect of strategy and direction for both the bureau and the city to consider more generally about what is the use of peg dollars over time, and how do we forecast those peg dollars? And as the dissolution occurs, the monies that we take in from the mhc are that are portland's peg revenues. What's the use of those funds? So there's a strategic aspect to this, and the creation of the fund will allow those dollars to be held separately from other revenues and comply with all federal and fcc guidance on peg use and administering of peg revenues. And with that, that concludes the presentation on my end, and I'm happy to take questions.

And, diana, do we have anybody signed up for public testimony on either of these items?

No one signed up.

Okay. So, colleagues, if there are any comments, questions or discussion, let's take that at this time. Seeing none, I will say I really appreciate the the staged presentation. We've gotten over a couple of committee meetings to ensure that we understand what is happening as this moves through, because these are technical pieces that are necessary. And while small, in terms of the changes in the text, do you have a significant impact for some members of our community? So I appreciate the time you've taken to describe the details in previous meetings. Councilor Ryan, did you have a question?

Yes, similar. Thank you. Council, you're not council president, but you are the chair of this committee. Thank you so much, andrew, for coming back. And it's good to see you. You said this is the last one, right? Like this is like the fourth update.

The last item that requires council action as part of the dissolution.

Yes.

Okay. I appreciate that you made that clear. And thanks for methodically walking us through it. It's really appreciated. And it'll be interesting to see how we use the funds that are going into this new account going forward. And we'll look forward to your leadership to make some suggestions on that.

Thank you.

Colleagues. Seeing no other discussion, if we feel satisfied with the information and ready to move this forward, I would entertain separate motions to move items four and five to full council with the due pass recommendation.

So moved.

Second.

Okay. And that was moved and seconded by councilor Ryan and councilor Morillo on both items. Is that correct?

Yes.

Okay. Diana, could you please call the roll?

Sure. Ryan. Aye, Morillo Morillo. I Zimmerman absent. I pirtle-guiney. I with a vote of four eyes and one absent the motion to refer both ordinance number 2026-175 and 2026-176 to city council with a recommendation that be passed, have passed.

Councilor Zimmerman, would you like to add your vote? It was 4 to 0.

5 to.

I believe, because the vote was called. We need to suspend the rules. Is there any objection to allowing councilor Zimmerman to add his vote?

Eric Zimmerman: No.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you. Colleagues. That completes our final item on the agenda today.

Oh, you read those two together.

We did. Yes. We had a presentation of the two together. And you moved them together, right? We moved them in one item. We all get on that. Yeah. Okay. Absolutely. Perfect. So, colleagues, our next meeting is on June 9th. At that meeting, we will, as devin mentioned earlier, hear more about the driver resource center idea. We will be asked to approve a transfer of the franchise agreement for zenith, which has been bought by a new parent company. And we will hear an ask to extend the lease for city kids in one of our city buildings, as well as, of course, have time for public input. And I will just mention for members of the community who are listening that that time at the beginning of each of our meetings is for us to hear from you about any item, not just those on the agenda, but anything related to the committee's work more broadly, or issues that you'd like us to take up and consider that you haven't seen on our agendas? We are happy to hear from people at that time, and I hope that the community will take advantage of that opportunity. If there is nothing else, colleagues, I will adjourn today's meeting. Thank you.

Yay!