The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-04
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (16,892 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Community and Public Safety Committee convened on Tuesday, November 4, 2025, with roll call confirming attendance and the standard statement of conduct read into the record. The session began with a quarterly update on Resolution 37709 regarding Portland Street Response, covering the reporting period of July through September 2025, including discussion of staffing vacancies, hiring and training timelines, a new charting system, expanded hours of operation, communications and town hall engagement, and ongoing work on Medicaid billing pathways and program evaluation scope. Discussion followed on shuttling data, cab usage, program scope, welfare-check response protocols, recruitment capacity constraints tied to training vehicle limits, and budget set-aside allocations across public safety programs. The committee then received a presentation from the Regional Disaster Preparedness Organization on federal funding uncertainty, pending federal grant agreements, organizational restructuring plans, and the value of regional collaboration, followed by discussion of state emergency management relationships, incident command coordination, and credentialing needs. In the final segment, members previewed potential upcoming legislation, including items related to Independent Police Review employee placement preferences, masking and identification verification for law enforcement, restrictions on chemical weapons use, appointments to the PSR advisory committee, and a separate detention facility impact fee ordinance heading to full Council. No vote tallies were discussed; any votes occurring are recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting adjourned ahead of schedule, with the next session set for November 18, 2025.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
0 My. Oh, there we go. Okay. Good afternoon. I call the meeting of the community and public safety committee to order. It is Tuesday, November 4th at 2:30 p.m. Diana, will you please call the roll?
1 Zimmerman. Here. Smith. Here.
2 Canal here.
3 Moreno. Here. Novick.
4 Here. Christopher, could you please read the statement of conduct?
5 Welcome to the meeting of the community and public safety committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at ww Portland council agenda slash community and public safety committee. 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 your 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. Thank you.
6 Thank you. Christopher. In this meeting of the committee, we will receive updates from the public safety service area staff on resolution 37 709, Portland street response, expansion and committee establishment will receive a presentation on regional disaster preparedness from, you guessed it, the regional disaster preparedness organization, and have a brief committee discussion on any potential upcoming legislation related to public safety service area that will be a free for all councilors to talk about anything they've got in their minds. And so, diana, could you please read the first item?
7 Sure. Item number one update on resolution. Resolution 37709 Portland street response, expansion and committee establishment.
8 Stephanie howard. Come on down.
9 Good afternoon. Thank you so much for having us. My name is stephanie howard. I'm the director of community safety, for the record, and I am happy to be here today with April roha, who is the interim program manager for Portland street response. Next slide please. So as council is very well aware, this council, this committee and this council passed resolution 37709 which accomplished several things, including documenting sa's history, expressing council's strong support for psr, establishing a new advisory body to support psr operations, and part of that resolution also called for quarterly reports to this committee on their efforts to implement the tasks that were assigned. That's what we're here to do today. So this being our very first quarterly report, we're covering the period of July 1st through September 30th, 2025. We did provide a written report last week, but we wanted to highlight a few key updates from that report. And of course, we're happy to take feedback and questions from any councilors as we move through. But today, a few of the highlights that we'll focus on are efforts regarding the structure of the public safety service area and where psr fits within that structure, providing updates on hiring, training and operations, communications and engagement updates, and then a couple of other miscellaneous things, including the status of the evaluation of the program. So just first off, we wanted to make sure that it's clear that we are eager to support council and that the advisory body and providing code amendments to title three that would create a bureau in the public safety service area. And as we put in our report, we are really eager to solidify the structure that we have found with the combination of the Portland street response, the office of violence prevention, and the Portland ceasefire program. That collaboration has actually been very, very organically growing, and I think it has led to a lot of really interesting and thoughtful ideas around how these programs can work together and continue to provide even more support for community. And a lot of interesting parallels that I think have been a pretty great experience in learning more about as we've been working more closely together. So we're eager to support council in those efforts and create, you know, a good and stable place for Portland street response to these other programs to reside. Next slide.
10 April April interim program manager for Portland street response. We'll start talking about hiring, training and operations. When we talk about hiring, I want to be clear that we started the fiscal year with five vacancies. Position creation was our top priority, and we submitted the paperwork promptly. In July, those positions began becoming available late August and early September, and until those open, we couldn't do recruitments on those outstanding positions. We did do some hiring between July and when those positions became available, and those were some candidates that we had remaining from earlier recruitments, or we had a medical responder recruitment for the vacancies we already had that was going at the time. And along with those, we've also been working on pathways to leadership and those kind of go hand in hand with hiring. So we wanted to make sure that when we did open these positions that we were providing internal opportunities for employees to promote, we did promote one staff member from a crisis responder, one to a community health supervisor in July of 2025. And we opened up two internal recruitments this October for a community health worker and a community health supervisor. Our ftp completions. This is our field training and evaluation program. Those, again, were staff hired prior to the beginning of the fiscal year, and we had two folks that completed during this quarter. We did have three separations. One employee took a position with Portland police bureau and two employee separated during their probationary period. All in all, to say we ended the quarter with 18 vacancies. Next slide please. This is our hiring and training plan. The top graph really illustrates our recruitment dates. It's important to note, as you compare it to the higher dates that they're very different. Our goal is we're trying something a little different this go around as can be seen with our emt recruitment, which are those five that we opened in July. We opened up five positions. We were able to train three at one time. So we had three start in November, and we have two signed offer letters for folks to start in January January for a later hire date. So we're going to try this again with our crisis responder recruitment. That tends to bring in a lot of really quality candidates. And so that we aren't doing these recruitments over and over and try and maximize our time and be more efficient. We'll see how that goes. So the hope is that with this, we can still stagger our hire dates and meet that next slide please. So training and operations our academy schedule. We had our first academy 1023. And those were anybody that was hired even prior to the end of the fiscal year, all the way up through through October of 23rd, we have two more scheduled. It's important to know that this is a two week academy, mostly handled internally. And so it's a lot of prep and a lot of work. And there is impact to operations as we try to make that as robust as it needs to be for folks going out in the field. Our next two academy dates are January 15th and and tentatively in April 2025. And those are going to coincide with the additional training that's going to be provided by PSU. So we're really hoping to get as as an extension to our regular academy and also start bringing all of our employees through that PSU training. This quarter, we've been working on the PSU curriculum. It's being solidified and created. Now. There's a large focus on culturally responsive engagement for folks experiencing crisis. This is a gap that we felt hasn't been in our academy before, and it's also a requirement for mobile crisis intervention team for the oha designation for that.
11 Could I say one other thing, because I want to give April and the team more credit on that than she's giving herself right now. This iga with Portland, Portland state is one of a kind. It has not been done before by any mobile crisis responder in the state. This is developing novel curriculum to meet the statutory requirements, to help us with eligibility for cahoots funding, medicaid funding under the cahoots act. And so our goal here is really to, again, have Portland street response leading in the areas of of creating, you know, cutting edge programing and and training that can be shared with other providers in this area and beyond. And so I just really want to give April and the the rps, psr training team a lot of credit for the work that they've done on that, because no one has done that work yet. And the training doesn't exist anywhere in the state. So it's a big kudos to them on that.
12 We're very excited about it. Next, we've been revamping our charting system, which previously we still use image trend, but previously it was really great at capturing emergency medical services, but not great at behavioral health. It was very clunky and a source of frustration for our employees. And so to address their concerns and get the data that we know we need to get, we've been working on. It's been six months in the making of trying to get this charting system up and running. It's ready. We've turned it on. But prior to that, each employee went through three separate training shifts to really solidify their knowledge and ability before we made that change and make sure that they were ready for it. And then we also implemented the ems protocol for tarp assisted cooling and oscillation. This summer, psr was integral in carrying these very much needed life saving supplies, and we are trained all of our emts to make sure that they can begin rapid cooling of patients experiencing hypothermia. And we did correspond with amr twice with these supplies so that they could begin that cooling in the field. It was really a great success that we're excited to be able to be a part of. The ems team and Multnomah county. And then as far as operations, our hours of operations actually expanded. Soft launch. On August 28th, we were providing one month for psr staff and staff to get used to working those hours, and some of staff are taking we're taking psr calls that never had before because we were staying, staying so late in the evening, and we also began distributing. We've been beta testing that from July all the way up until August 28th, which we turn that on. And with that, we with feedback. We're starting with two districts, so an east side and west side, and then we have what we call wild cards. And until we get our staffing filled, the hope is to eventually go to three districts with those wild cards. And those wild cards are to try and take those higher priority calls and move between the districts. So we keep that flexibility, but also keep folks within those districts to try and bring down our response times. And we've been focusing on what I like to call us response readiness with the shift change. With our hours change, we also changed how we start our days. And now our folks are coming in and they're getting their cars set up and ready to go before attending roll call before it was flipped. And that is if calls to come in to the queue, they're able to leave roll call and roll call early and go respond to calls. So that was also a big change that we implemented.
13 Communications and engagement in the first quarter. I think that is one of that's been one of the highest priorities that I know our team has had in this, you know, this this year, but certainly in this quarter. And so our outreach teams have attended over I think there are over 26 meetings on that list, multiple community and advisory board meetings. And so we're we are we have them out to help discuss psr, what the program offers, find opportunities for partnership, find ways that we can, you know, help support other first response and many other community efforts. And so really just trying to make psr, you know, more integrally involved in the different community events that relate to community safety and behavioral health resources. We also had our first quarterly town hall meeting. And so that was on August 12th. We had 75 community attendees and multiple representatives from various city staff. And again, those goals, the goal of that was really to try to again educate people on what psr does, how we operate, what the you know, the limits on psr authority really is, and also to invite feedback on how community and others want to hear from us and hear from psr as a program about its efforts. So we got some interesting data from that. Our next town hall will be November 18th. That one will be hosted hybrid at the east Portland community center. And the focus of that town hall will be our providing program updates, but also highlighting our after care teams so that community members can hear what they do and how they engage in this work, and where they fit in the spectrum of Portland street responses. Operations. And then just a couple of miscellaneous updates. I mentioned the evaluation of the program. We're really happy to be working with council offices on trying to identify a scope for this evaluation. We want to make sure that we're being fiscally responsible with budgets, certainly in the environment that we're in right now, trying to really focus on data and information that can help, help inform decisions that council needs to make, help inform programmatic decisions that the operations team needs to make to to strengthen those those programs and systems, and really ensuring that the program is effective and is having the kinds of outcomes that we want to see. So we expect to be working towards getting a little bit more clarity around that scope here in the next few weeks, and hopefully going live with and getting some proposals on that. And then I know medicaid funding is a is a very important topic, certainly for us. I know for council again, in a difficult budget year, and I really appreciate the support that we have gotten from council staff on on these efforts. Essentially, I think we are we have some pretty fruitful paths forward. I think we've got a solid proposal on some codes and billing codes that oha can implement that would really streamline our ability to recover medicaid eligible service costs for medicaid eligible services. And we're working closely with the county to try to develop partnership for the administrative and infrastructure side of getting that sort of billing apparatus working. It's very top of mind for us, and my hope is that we'll have more substantive updates at our next quarterly report. Maybe that's a little too optimistic, but I'm that that's a goal. And, you know, again, I really appreciate the support that we've had from council and city teams on trying to get us to that really as clear cut of a space as we can get to maintain some additional funding for the program.
14 And I just want to highlight on that as well, like our training, our charting updates, our operations, everything is building with that in mind. So that's every change that we make. Is are we building towards that funding. So.
15 Okay, so just a couple of previews for the next report. Let me also just say we welcome again your feedback on this report. If there's something that you'd like to see differently next time, we are very open to that. But a couple of things that we plan to have reports on. As April mentioned, the go live date for the new charting system and being able to have some better data, more reliable data on on that based on that system. Do you want to talk about the cad?
16 Cad buildout? Is moving psr out from underneath fire's jurisdiction and creating its own jurisdiction in cad. And along with that is changing radio numbers, you know, or unit numbers are called. Just trying to figure out the methodology on everything that is in cad. And that's that prep for one. Finally, separating in the cad world from fire, but also getting ready for dedicated dispatchers. So we're laying the groundwork towards that. And it's also to bring our after care teams who are currently not in cad to get them on cad. That's the the the first hurdle that we hope to address. And working towards that radio updates. We are also working on getting some talk channels for our radio folks. We're purchasing more radios to address our additional staffing. And what that is, is to really bring efficiency to our real time communication between our field folks and our supervisors. So we're hoping to go live with that here within the next month or so. So that'll be exciting. And vehicle procurement again, we're doing a lot of stuff. But the vehicle procurement goes along with the radios. We're getting more staffing. We need to make sure that we can actually utilize that staff by getting them out on the road and getting them all the tools that they need to have the to be successful.
17 Do you want to mention the ADA vehicle?
18 Oh yes. Our ADA van that we've been waiting for the tentative delivery date for that is December. So there's going to be with that, like a ballistics grade partition between the shuttling compartment, along with being ADA compliant, and that we're hoping to really be able to address a lot of the shuttling needs and concerns that staff have had around safety. Yeah. And then snap impact were I think, like everybody trying to figure out how we can better support our clients during the impacts with the snap cuts. And we're also currently trying to procure the winter supplies we know we're going to need and build out those supplies versus what we may have had available last year.
19 I think that's the that is the the lowdown on this quarterly report. So we are again, happy to answer questions and take any feedback that you have.
20 Councilor Smith.
21 Thank you. Thank you for the report. When you were talking about the medicaid dollars, were those the medicaid credits that you're trying to get?
22 We're trying to get medicaid billable dollars, medicaid billing. So okay. Yeah. So not the type of like grant funding. I mean, that's the type of funding that funds the chat program, for example, what we're interested in is sustainable medicaid billing dollars. So creating that pathway.
23 And is that in the queue right now for review?
24 We have a proposal that we've been working with oha on, and we're working with some state legislators to build up that, so that oha just needs to make a decision on, on our the codes that we're proposing that would simplify essentially street medicine. So it would work not only for Portland street response, it would help for chat. It would help for central city concern. It would help for a variety of other service providers that are providing these types of services and allow that access to that. They could bill for medicaid services under that program.
25 Thank you, counselor, to elaborate a bit on that. And there's been conversations for months with oha where it's clear that we think that they could create codes that would be usable, but they need like somebody in their management to tell them to do it. So we actually have a meeting set up with representative valderrama and oha staff later this week, where hopefully that will sort of raise the issue. And we just have to I mean, I think that we just have to keep on pounding away until we get the attention of oha brass. So they get this done for us. Okay. And also, as stephanie alluded to, we need to work with the county to make sure that we can bill through them. We're having conversations with them to correct.
26 Thank you, thank you.
27 Councilor zimmermann.
28 Thanks. Well timed. Happy to have this as as good update. So I appreciate the style in which this all came in. So thanks for that work. Really important updates and really important. I think it's nice to see the maturing of the program as it's gotten out of the political fraught and into the at least the jogging phase of, of the sport. So I just I want to commend those who have stuck with it, the employees who've signed on recently, good, good stuff. There are two areas that I have my eyes on. One, of course, is the vacancy side, but I'm not going to ask questions about that because I think a lot of people have their eyes on that. But I want to go and I want to talk about the shuttling aspect. So for me, this is an incredibly important part of the future for psr. It's something that I've on the record said. I think the future of psr depends on them being able to shuttle people, but the numbers are pretty concerning. Only seven clients, it looks like, were shuttled. And while I can, I can see a point where we we get to where we see that increasing. I want to just I just want to highlight and maybe have a conversation. Right. When we shuttle somebody those seven times, what I know is that somebody actually moved from one location to another. And that's important because for a lot of people that meets a need that when they called and they asked for help, that they didn't see a city of Portland van then driving away after a 30 minute conversation, which I think we have our reasons for. But it also leaves a lot of wanting for a better improvement to the system. But when those seven situations, one would hope that they're going to a better place, a better facility, etc. A shelter we have on this report 175 bus passes. But what I don't know is how many bus trips were taken, right? I know how many passes got given to somebody. And then our van drove away. So that's an area that I'd like to just kind of flag is like, I don't consider those equal apples to apples. I consider them kind of a well, we gave them a thing, which is one of our message barriers I think we have to overcome, which is we gave them a thing and then cab rides, 127 cab rides. I, I want to I want to go down. There are two barriers that we've encountered to psr staff shuttling versus calling for a cab call volume and client and employee safety. That's what the report says. And when I go through that report, I have to say it is very concerning to me that if we are concerned enough for our trained employees in a van designed for working with a very tough population, that we aren't having that same concern for a cab ride, and for the person who's driving that cab, I'm very concerned. And we have seen some really terrible outcomes in this community because of that situation in cabs. And then it also talks about the need to decontaminate the psr van. After every time a client is in the van. But I don't think that we're giving a decontamination kit to the tri-met driver or to the cab driver or to the lyft driver. And so this feels like an area that we're going to need some more thought about, some more attention and some more just like plainspokenness about it, because that feels very past the buck ish to me, or avoidant. And that is really the only area that I'm like, oh, this was a great report in this area. I'm very worried about. I'm very worried about it because I think this is this to me, looks like the ingredients that are all sitting on the on the counter by themselves. And when they get into the pot together, we're going to have a disaster. I also share this, and this is why I'm really I really appreciate the work that's going on with the medicaid and the cahoots stuff, because I come from the position of one of the ways the county's future sobering center is going to be successful. I said from the first day of that, of that process working on it, was that psr, I think, has a future where the shuttling can occur for clients that meet the criteria. That is better for those clients, better for for the community. And I want to see that have all the things in place that when they go live, we go live. So I'm flagging this. There might not be a lot of answers yet, because seven shuttles is not very many to work from, from an experiential learning perspective. But I wanted to be very clear about concern that we're passing a dangerous situation onto the uninformed public who is just they have to, by law, take the ride. They can't say no to a person, and we're saying no to those people. And yet our employees are trained and the cab drivers are not. And so I'm just I'm a little worried here. And I just wanted to raise that for the both of you, that if we ever have a future meeting on stuff, I hope this is the paragraph that we can spend some time together on because I, I'd like to be helpful, but I'd also like to be responsive to both the client need and the greater public need here.
29 I really appreciate that, counselor Zimmerman. And your point is well taken. And I think there's there's some nuance that's hard to capture in a report. Of course, I think the frequency with which our teams are putting someone in a cab is, is I don't think those decisions are coming down to I don't feel safe. And so I'm going to put them in. I think most of those decisions are driven by call volume. And so it's there's a, you know, a moment in that interaction when we have somebody who's willing to take, you know, a shuttle to a different location. And the, you know, we have to decide, is it faster right now for this team to to arrange for that transportation with a shuttle or a cab or to do the shuttling themselves when there are, you know, 20 calls waiting in the queue. And so I think that is the driving decision maker around the offering of a cab ride. But again, your point is well taken. And I think that's something that we can hope we can work to flesh out a little bit more in the next report. And I do want to say, I think the numbers that you see, you will see for the next quarter and shuttling are different. I think we're already seeing an increase. I want to also just, you know, flag that, you know, psr doesn't have any legal authority to make anybody go anywhere or do any of that. I think the weather helps make it a little easier to persuade somebody to accept those services. And so I think what we have seen is our teams, when a person is interested in going to an overnight shelter, they have taken that person to those shelters. We're seeing, you know, that we're working with the county to try to develop a good deflection center use and a pathway, and I'm hoping that they have a finalized plan for us on that in the next month. Still working on that. But that's that's absolutely a priority because I think we we share the view that we want to make sure that what we're providing for, for, you know, these people is getting them in a better situation and getting them connected to the help that they need. And, you know, would love to be able to facilitate that connection. But I think that's that's great feedback. And we can, you know, we can work with you and work on getting more meat on the bones of that so that there's, you know, better understanding.
30 I did also note that you you've noted in this report that the current vehicles might not be the easiest for this activity to occur, and you're not buying or retrofitting the current ones. You're going to be buying new as the fleet ages to be more responsive. So I just wanted I note that I see that, so I see a trend line improvement. I also want, given the point you made about our authority, I want to I would be incredibly supportive if down the road we had a pathway or at least a branch of psr, that reflected what we used to have with cheers, where the sobering activities, which is different than the the county's deflection center. Sobering, is a determination that a person is too far intoxicated to make decisions and safely for themselves. That worked for a very long time. It closed in 2019, but we used to very regularly see the cheers van in old town, and I believe it operated with some level of authority to take a person there as a deflection from jail for, you know, public whatever. Psr model has been developed differently. But when I say its existence and its future and the connections with what I think, the sobering center will be able to deflect a lot of things. And I say deflect not to talk about deflection center, but I'm talking about people who are truly too intoxicated to be safe, because right now we have three options jail, hospital, street. Most of the time the street is chosen. Sometimes the hospital's chosen jail is our last recourse. But the sobering center that I think the county is going to open up, I think one of the great partners can be the city of Portland, but it's going to require an authority question to be answered that we don't have right now. And in fact, police cars would be more appropriate given law, but I think less appropriate in client need. And I'd like to marry those things up where the client need might be better served. If we can answer the authority question so that police officers are not having to be the transporting agency the way that cheers operated. And I have some questions on how they did that, but that's kind of the path I'd like to go over the over the months and years ahead here, but just appreciate the report and and the straightforward answers. So thank you.
31 Councilor murillo.
32 I disagree. I think I'm kind of concerned hearing that from my colleagues, because the point of Portland street response is specifically to address mental health crisis calls. And I think that that is expanding the scope of this program far too much in a way that's not going to be, you know, we need to make sure that these resources again, the reason this program was created was because we were having police address mental health crisis calls. They are not adequately suited for mental health crisis calls, nor should that be on their plate. And we were having a lot of people experiencing mental health crises killed because of that. So I think that before we talk about expanding Portland street response's scope at all, we need to just make sure that they can actually address all of the mental health crisis calls that we have on our streets right now, and that's not something that I think we have achieved yet, and I think that we're working on it, and you guys are doing a fabulous job making that happen. But it's going to take a lot more work and a lot more resources. And so I worry sometimes when we talk about using Portland street response as a sort of catch all to every issue, because the mission creep just tends to continue to happen for most city services. So I guess I would just leave it there.
33 Counselor.
34 Thank you. Chair. Thank you for the report. I just a couple quick things, I think. And then I have a few questions. So first, I, I think one of the grounding parts of this conversation for me was an experience I had last week. I went to minneapolis and I was meeting with the behavioral health crisis response, or bcr program that's run by canopy, canopy roots in minneapolis, and just being able to compare and contrast what's going on there. They also run a program in hollywood. They have a they've split out la city limits and different providers do different things in in parts of la. But just listening to that and shout out to the folks who gave the tour there in case they're watching, because I told them to watch it at some point on our committees had really given me some, some additional inspiration for wanting to support the plan to put this into code, to create that co-equal first response branch, to ensure that we have bureau director level leadership for it. I wanted to ask a couple questions, though, as we go forward. One is about the recruitment for a permanent program manager. I know that there was the last time we chatted. It was about the office of violence prevention needed to come first. Where's that at? Where's this one at? What's our timeline for? For getting a permanent leadership?
35 Yep. We are in the second round of interviews for the office of violence prevention program manager. This week. We had a pretty incredible response to that recruitment. We had over 120 applicants. So that hiring committee is doing a lot of work. So so all to say, I'm hoping that we have a final decision. Well, we've got second round interviews this week. Then we will have a community forum. We should be getting that that final date and the details of that event out this week as well for the top candidates, where we can provide some direct engagement for community with those candidates and provide everyone with an opportunity to see their their skills and their ability to navigate that public space. So I'm hoping to have final decision and hopefully an offer out before the end of this month. So that's that's that immediately turning my attention to the psr program manager I have, I've started the process in the dc office to get the recruitment going, just working to to do all of the steps on that. And so my hope, as I put in the report, I believe, to have someone in the chair, you know, the permanent position by March. So trying to hold that recruitment open, I think hiring committee would probably not be able to start working on that best case scenario until maybe January. But it is a priority and I'm hoping to get that position posted before the end of the year.
36 Thank you. And I appreciate the additional detail to what was in the report there. So as it relates to. I don't even know where to begin on so many things. Let me ask about the part about first responder status. And if you can speak to what the steps are there and what is what help we could provide from the council perspective, if any.
37 So the language that you have in the report is direct language from. By. We did connect with them. We do have anne marie working in here who can speak a little bit more about that, because I think the to to create a first responder to, you know, it's a creature of statute. Right. And so it's a state level definition that would have to change for any, any kind of change that would, you know, modify the the role of a psr responder. So I don't have a lot more to offer than what's in the report, but we can certainly have anne marie come up and speak a little bit more to that if you would like.
38 Yeah, it's really about the access to some of the same benefits as well. The terminology I think is is colloquially applied in this context more than it's other than the particular thing you mentioned in the report about strike prohibit, prohibited or permitted, which is sort of separate from this question. So I see anne marie's coming up and I'll. Her respond.
39 I was trying to decide if you needed me up here.
40 We always need you.
41 Anne marie kevorkian. Maddie, for the record, labor relations. So sorry. What what is the specific question that you're hoping that I can help you answer?
42 I'm trying to get access. The the terminology in the resolution was around trying to ensure that that staff, frontline responders at Portland street response can have the same level of benefits from the state perspective as other first responders. I think the report does a good job of explaining why the term first responder is not necessarily the the only term that could be used there or the appropriate term necessarily. But, you know, in terms of designation within pers.
43 So it is really challenging because as you might be aware, telecommunicators who have long been seen as part of the first responder family only, you know, in the last few years, received first responder designation and their impact to pers won't occur, I think, for another couple of years. So I would say that, you know, from a government relations standpoint, the council supporting or working with government relations to bring something forward to the legislature about recognizing mobile crisis responders as part of the first responder family to have their, you know, to have the the legislature, the legislators consider including them as part of that designation would go a long way. Simply stating it here does not, you know, actually make any impacts on the long term pers designation for those individuals? And, and I, I would just be cautious to recognize, too, that even with the recognition of the telecommunicators, it was not an instantaneous move to the pers. You know, there's the federal legislation, I think. I'm sure dca could speak better to this than I could, you know, changed a few years ago as well for telecommunicators and again, impacts there for long term benefits, you know, are slow rolling. So they are not seen in the same way that, you know, our sworn side public safety have been seen. So that that would be my recommendation. You know, I did do some research for the Oregon legislation. And essentially it recognizes that mobile crisis responders are part of the first response family in terms of providing behavioral health services in the frontline. You know, an important designation to show that it's a public health. There's a public health acknowledgment. But from our perspective, from a labor perspective, in a way that we can offer them something that is equivalent to police and fire responders. Unfortunately, we do not have the ability to do that.
44 So we'll we'll follow up then on the state legislative side of it, I think it's valuable. I appreciate your mention of the telecommunicators because I had a gavel earlier, the first of my two this year, and discussed that exact issue. And thanks. Just a quick update. Wanted to let everyone know we are reviewing written applications now for the 14 community positions on the psr committee. There are 15 positions. One will be a psr staff member that you have designated. So I appreciate that but also will be reviewing those. We have four counselors already involved in the review. Any other counselor who wants to participate in interviews, please let my office know. We'll coordinate on that.
45 Are you leading it? You're leading the review.
46 We, the co-chairs of the community and public safety committee, are.
47 So who are the four counselors involved?
48 We have, I believe, counselor. Green. Counselor. Pearl gagne. No, sorry, counselor Lane, counselor Novick.
49 And who has the authority?
50 It'll come through this committee as a resolution. Okay. Yeah.
51 So what's. The body of for doing.
52 The initial reading of 85 plus applications? Okay. And there's a whole process that was emailed out about a month and a half ago. We'll welcome any other participation if you'd like to send either yourself or staff or would love to have you involved in that. And the only other thing I wanted to to flag, and this is maybe not a question that you can answer, but I think it's for the for the future is talking about some of these issues. And I think this might relate to something counselor Zimmerman mentioned earlier, that there's a different team as well that we also have, I think, explored the full capacities of within the public safety service area, which is the peer support specialists, and I would love to look at what they can take on when because because I agree with the sort of problem statement inherent in counselor zimmermann's comments about these are things that ideally, we wouldn't rely on only the police to transport people. We wouldn't to shuttle people. We wouldn't rely only on police for some of these other things, or whoever has been doing whatever the task is before. But I wanted to just make sure that we're flagging that there are other places we could be looking as well as psr. Last question. What is the you have all these positions that are in the process of being recruited, the public safety set aside, which was part of, I believe, Green 13 the budget note from the full budget in June talked about creating created a $2.2 million set aside largely for recruiting, hiring, training, things like that. What portion of that is going to psr and what was the amount that was asked for? Are those the same amount or.
53 I don't know what the specific amounts that were asked for. What I can say is that I know one of the pipelines that we suggested that was moved forward, and he's here now. He can speak to this, but we were eager to engage with the idea of providing scholarships to help bring emts, put them in a hiring pipeline for psr positions. And so that is something that we're really excited about. We had some other ideas that as a service area, we discussed including wellness position that could help support outside of bureaus that already have those positions so that we, you know, felt that is a tool that can help with, you know, retention and, and, you know, ensuring that our teams are are well taken care of while they're doing this work. That was something that was was discussed across all community safety programs. So ovp ceasefire and Portland street response. And I think those were the main ones that that were discussed as a service area. And dc, I'll hand it over to you.
54 Yeah. Happy to speak to it. For the record, bob casey, dc public safety. So specifically, there was, I believe, around $7,000 for the emt program with psr. There was also the wellness coordinator that that stefanie mentioned a minute ago. The wellness coordinator concept actually scored pretty high in the overall rating, and that would have been for all of like stefanie said, all of the entities within the service area that don't currently have wellness program. The problem with that, and that was completely my decision, is the concept was a good idea, but it wasn't fully baked and we wouldn't be able to really gain a whole lot this fiscal year. So I pulled that specific project, and it's certainly something we can we can investigate in the future. And I would highly recommend it because I'm all in favor of wellness programs. The problem is I didn't think we would get bang for the buck this year or even into next year, because it wasn't a fully vetted idea. So that was specific to to entities outside of the the larger agencies that have wellness programs. One idea that was floated was a dedicated recruiter specific for psr. Psr isn't having difficulty recruiting. So that idea, that concept shifted from a focused recruiter only for psr to an overarching psa dedicated recruiter to assist with recruiting efforts across the board.
55 Thank you. I'll just say first, I appreciate that it was broken down, and I want to not get too deep into this because to respect the work that councilor Zimmermann and the finance committee have done and the conversation will have on the tao, that includes this in the future. But also I do appreciate that it was broken out the community safety as its own line, which from the dc office, I do think there was a this 114,000 piece in there. But the big picture is I was a little bit disappointed to only see such a small amount going to this work as part of this, and over half of it going to police, over a quarter of it going to fire when the purpose of this was to have that holistic vision and that just that wasn't reflected in the dollars. And so it's helpful to hear that it was reflected in the conversation. So I appreciate that. I do think that that will be a conversation down the line. But I want to make sure that I think when you say that there's no difficulty in recruiting, that makes sense from the perspective of clearly you got applications. But I also think that there may be things that are maybe not solved by money, which have been preventing those 14 positions from being filled. I recently heard that the hiring freeze does no longer applies, and I'm very happy to hear that. And if there's anything that's on the non-monetary side or the monetary that we can do to help with the speed, if not necessarily the resources of money for recruitment, that would be very helpful for us to know so that we can help you.
56 I will say that our hiring right now is hindered 100% by the ability to train and the speed in what we can do it, and what we're really up against right now is how many people we can have inside of a psr vehicle for field training. And we only have six vehicles. So trying to train emts and crisis responders who both need to occupy that third seat, we can't train more than one person at a time per shift per vehicle. So it really is trying to get these pairings up and how many ftos we have. But really it's it's capacity. So we're trying to be very creative on how we can get more folks through, but it's just until we get we've got to expand in order to be able to move faster. It's I think, the theme on almost everything.
57 And that that is previewing a question I will be asking later about why there's $0 in onboarding or capacity building when we get to the tao. Just flagging, because that that sounds like a really good argument for that. I'll leave it there, mister chair. Thanks.
58 Yeah, I should note that I've let this run a little long. We were supposed to stop at 315, and we had 15 minutes of flexibility in the schedule, but I do want to get right. And then to the potential legislation discussion at the end. Councilor Smith. Yeah. Go ahead.
59 Thank you. Just in keeping with this, with this conversation in peer cities like albuquerque, new mexico, durham, north carolina, similar co-equal public safety programs, they're also struggling with recruitment and retention. And I know you talked about some of the things that you're having issues with. Are there any other recruitment and retention issues that you think we need to know about that may have some kind of impact on the budget?
60 I think we're doing really well. Our recruitment is up, our not our recruitment, but our retention rate is up 44% from last year. We're hearing employees be a lot more satisfied. I'm hearing employees say I want to retire from psr, and that wasn't a conversation that was happening a year ago. We've built out our training. People are feeling more prepared. I think we are just continuing to improve upon the things that we know are working. And again, those, you know, promotional opportunities in those pathways to leadership folks actually seeing those come to fruition and not just being sound bites, I think all of this is going to play a part into our longevity and creating a career for folks to come here.
61 That sounds good. Thanks. Thanks.
62 So I assume that probably everybody realized we wouldn't get through this without my asking a question about welfare checks. But this kind of relates back to councilor Mario's question about or discussion with councilor Zimmerman about the scope of sers work. And I mean, the majority of welfare checks, as I understand it, are sort of person down things. Somebody's lying on the ground, somebody calls in and says, this person doesn't seem to be doing very well. Are they in a medical emergency? Well, I'm not sure of that, but they're not doing very well. And I think that based on some conversations with some well had a conversation with the mayor the other day, he was saying, well, can't it was seemed to be assuming that psr should be able to pick up all the welfare checks. And I was just wondering, no, he didn't say there was capacity to do all of them, but I was just I don't think we've sort of posed the question. Should we assume that anybody who's a person down has a mental health issue and therefore psr should be called, or should we be looking towards thinking that unless there's some actual direct indication, somebody in a mental health crisis, if they're available, we should call PPS three or somebody else other than psr? I mean, should we be working to preserve psr for situations where we have more direct evidence that it is, in fact a mental health crisis?
63 Those calls are currently going to psr, and psr is responding on those calls unless there's a safety concern.
64 So but do you think that's but even if that is true, do you think that's the right thing or do you think it would be better to.
65 Sort of I do, because a lot of times sometimes there is a medical component. That's why we have an emt there who then can start lifesaving care while asking for that higher response. Sometimes it is a crisis response and we don't know until we get there. And I think we are the appropriate non enforcement to go and check. And maybe it's somebody who's just tired and taking a nap, whatever that might be. I think we are the appropriate response and I think my employees would agree as well.
66 Okay. So people don't feel like, gosh darn it, I'm supposed to be here for mental health crises. And this wasn't one.
67 No, that particular call, in fact, is our top priority call. So we prioritize those above a lot of other calls, specifically because we don't know if there is that medical component.
68 Okay. Thank you. Is that a legacy hand?
69 It's legacy.
70 Thank you very much. Really appreciate it. Councilor Zimmerman, do you have any final parting words? All right. Thank you. Thanks very much. I know. Diana, can you please read the next item.
71 Item two, regional disaster preparedness organization presentation.
72 Mr. Fertig.
73 Councilors, welcome. Thank you. Good to be here.
74 How are you feeling? There you go. Okay, great. Are you ready? Yes. Yeah. Great. Thanks for having me today. My name is mark fertig. I am the managing director of the regional disaster preparedness organization. And I'm aware at least three of you have some history with the pretty active. And today councilor Canale is the city representative on the npo policy committee. And so just starting off with a thank you for your involvement, your engagement, your leadership really counts as we get into it. All right. So I'm going to talk about the federal policy changes that are happening. And we see on the horizon and the impact on regional disaster preparedness. And spoiler alert, it's not great. Go ahead. So topics I'll cover. So first I'll give an introduction to the npo. So you have a little bit of background. So it's consistent between you among you all. Then I'll just touch on a summary of some of the changes that we're seeing and anticipating. We'll hit on the impact of those changes, actions and adaptations that the npo is kicking off and moving toward. And then what we can do to then minimize the impact of these changes. And then I would love to have some discussion with you all and get your own inputs and perspective. So, so the regional disaster preparedness organization, we were founded technically in 2014. We are an intergovernmental organization. So it is the five counties and then the three special districts of tri-met metro and the port of Portland came together to establish the npo to support regional coordination. So we are a partnership of public agencies and community serving organizations, and we facilitate collaboration to increase disaster resilience in the Portland metro area. Go ahead. Thanks. So our mission is to really focus on building preparedness capacities and capabilities in the region. And we do that by equipping, training, supporting, planning, various exercises. We invest in technology supplies of a wide variety of sort on our. Our vision is for a more secure and resilient region. And we do that primarily working with various agencies and organizations in a variety of capacities. Good our membership. So we have nine core members, as I mentioned, of which the city of Portland is one. And when I highlight that the city of Portland. So we are an intergovernmental organization, and the city of Portland is our host. And so, again, a thank you to the city of Portland and to thank you to the bureau of emergency management for hosting us for all the all these years. It means something and I think it stands out. I'll also add, I have a lot of interaction with my counterparts across the country. Right. So and there are some really unique aspects of the rtpo and how we work and our prioritization on regional collaboration, rather than just channeling those funds directly to individual districts proportionately, really stands out. And I think as we look into the future, that that will count. So aside from the core members, we have additional contributing members and the non contributing members. And then a whole lot of partners from the federal, state, local level that we work with, nonprofit, private sector. We have a lot of members and participants. Go ahead. Thanks. So the rtpo has two primary sources of funding. One is member contributions. So these are contributions from the individual jurisdictions that participate in the eppo. And those contributions are comparably small and primarily cover my position. The managing director position of the rtpo, our primary and largest source of funding is from the department of homeland security, through FEMA, through the Oregon department of emergency management, called the urban area security initiative. Oac is how we refer to it. It is part of a larger umbrella federal program through dhs called the homeland security grant program, of which there are a few elements of at the heart and the genesis of the oac program dates back to nine over 11. And so it was at that point, various assessments. The department of homeland security was created. And at that point, a recognition that local jurisdictions were not prepared for these type of events. And a lot of that played into the lack of coordination, the lack of collaboration between jurisdictions, in addition to the lack of focus investment to support that cross-jurisdictional collaboration and dynamic. So the Portland metro area has received a more than $100 million since 2003. Since the creation of the program, every year except one year, there's been roughly 420 projects that have been invested in, and that comes out to roughly 15 to 30 per year. And various reasons behind that. And so in the last three years, so specifically to the city of Portland has, on average, about 18% of the total quasi dollars for those years. And so but it's really varied, right? There's some years it's around $200,000 and others years it's closer to $700,000. And that is specifically for investments in for the city of Portland. So there are other costs associated with the rtpo. Since the city of Portland hosts us, and that is excluded from those estimates. So if you look at the graph we have here, there's the orange bar that is standing out. This is the oac $25 that are currently pending in a normal year. So we're in November now. Oh my goodness. It's November. In a normal year we would have had a an agreement in place with projects underway and spending starting at the beginning of the year beginning of 2025. As of today, we still do not have an agreement in place. And for various reasons that I'll explain here. And it's really quite concerning. And so the statutory requirements of department of homeland security, at this point, they are in a gray area. Right. And there's various lawsuits that are pending on that front. And, and so various questions to go forward from here. Good. So an example of some of the investments that the rtpo has made in the region starting at the top. So fire support, we have purchased drones and drone detection devices. We've supported one mile hose kits. So examples are the wild urban area fires that have been in the area. So these one one mile hose kits allow fire personnel to be able to reach those. These drones and drone detection are used frequently at various events when there are drones that are illegally flying in the area. You may recall the apartment fire in northwest Portland a couple of years ago, right. They used one of the drones that were purchased with our dollars to inspect the building during the fire, to identify where cracks were beginning to emerge. We have supported the metropolitan. Medu, the metropolitan explosive disposal unit. Yeah. So the regional bomb unit with a wide variety of equipment, supplies and training and protective gear that is regularly and frequently used in a variety of capacities, we have invested significantly in election security, everything from fire suppressing ballot boxes, office hardening, enhanced security. And between this and the bomb disposal, a number of examples, one of which last year's the a couple of incidents related to ballot boxes law enforcement. So usually between 30 and 35% of any owaisi award is required to go toward law enforcement to prevent terrorist activities. And so we have purchased anti-vehicle barriers. You've probably seen them around at various parades and events in the cities. We have purchased millions of dollars worth of anti vehicles that are throughout the region, and the rpo has facilitated coordination and collaboration of those barriers so that jurisdictions can share them when they know they need more than what they have available at their disposal. We've also also purchased armored rescue vehicles. Right. So that can transport law enforcement to events and incidents. Moving on. Citizen volunteer support, right. We have invested a great deal in the nets program. So the neighborhood emergency oh my goodness. Yeah there we go. Right. And you know supplies training ongoing training, disaster messaging. Right. So you've all received your alerts on your phones. You've seen them on television and radio. We support regional standardization, standardization, multilingual messaging to make sure that we're complying with various laws. There's a website called public alerts. Org. And then last on this list of examples the list goes on is intelligence sharing. So we fund a position with the Oregon titan fusion center, which regularly, if not daily, shares intelligence with law enforcement agencies in the Portland metro area and statewide as well. And that's a big deal. Go ahead please. So a brief summary of of federal policy changes that we've seen and are upcoming and happy to go into this further. First, at the beginning of the fiscal year, as very clearly that FEMA was in question and is still in question, frankly. And so by executive order, through the administration, a FEMA review council was created to review the existence of FEMA, FEMA strategy and focus areas. The results of that FEMA review council have yet to be released. I believe it was in November. According to original executive order. But the the direction or what happens to FEMA and the direction that the department of homeland security takes as a result of that review is pending. Right. And I believe will be significant. In the spring, we saw FEMA close several of their systems, their payment systems in particular. I believe that at that point, that was an attempt to begin to pull back some of the federal dollars from some jurisdictions and states as a way to really influence direction. The payment systems were turned back on. But for us at that point was really an alarm and a red flag and various risks that we face locally. Right. So jurisdictions are spending money based on commitments that we have from the federal government and these grants, and that certainly caught our attention into the summer and then into today. Lots of questions regarding future funding. Right. So right now it's the an award that is pending. It's fiscal 25 federal dollars and the requirements and the regulations and the expectations. And I'm sure you've heard it from other programs, from transportation to health and human services, but we're facing it as well, from department of homeland security. And it is really uncertain whether the state will be able to accept those terms and conditions. And it's even further a question whether the city of Portland will be able to accept those terms and conditions. But we're staying with it as best we can, because if we do legitimately have access to those dollars and we can spend it, we want to make sure that we are taking full advantage of those dollars. And so the question is what comes next? Right. And so the rpo is leaning in. And as I mentioned earlier right. The rpo, how we're organized and how we function as truly a regional entity is unique in comparison to our peers across the country and us leaning in and trying to be strategic at a time when policy funding is constrained and will be increasingly constrained, I think stands out across the country. So what are we looking at in terms of impact, of changes? First and foremost, a regional disaster preparedness will be diminished, right? The degree of collaboration and coordination will decrease and will decrease significantly. I want to stress right I it is generally, I think, really challenging for individual jurisdictions to work with other jurisdictions. Right. And to find that space to collaborate and to have these quasi dollars to leverage that type of collaboration is outstanding. And to lose that is really significant. Community resilience as a whole will erode, and the scope and size will be reduced. And I'll explain that a little bit more. The question is how fast is this going to happen, and to what extent are these changes going to come into play. And this isn't going to be a light switch, right? It's not going to be an on off situation. It will be a slow diminish. And there are risks associated with that, that if I was a council member I would want to know about. So how is the rpo? What are actions that the rpo is taking. Go ahead. And the adaptations? First and foremost, we've got to make sure we're taking care of our jurisdiction members. And so there are there's financial exposure and risk with the current grants that we have in hand. And so we're working very closely with our partners at various levels just to make sure that we are minimizing that exposure. We are reviewing our triggering language, right. We embrace our values of diversity, equity and inclusion. Right. We embrace that. We are a sanctuary group of sanctuary jurisdictions, and we appreciate those values. And we can still adapt our language right to make us more amenable to hopefully make use of existing and potentially future federal dollars. I've been taking great action to make sure that we are informing and advocating first with our partners and leaders across emergency management, fire, law enforcement, etc. But also making the rounds, right? So me being here today is a great example of that. At the end of August, I was in dc. I made the rounds with the Oregon congressional delegates that represent our area as well, just to make sure they are also aware of the implications and to make ourselves available. Right. If they need photos, if they need stories, if they need something so they can dig in and fight where they need to fight, that we're ready to support them on that front. And the last, as I mentioned, is that the rpo is, is and will continue to adapt, remain agile and nimble as we continue to face this. So a couple of so specific to rpo adaptations. So some of the planning assumptions that we're making. One is that the active federal grants, we have two right now that those will continue until June of 2027. Right. So we're feeling pretty confident about that right now. And if you look at the second bullet point, there will be ongoing effort, we believe, to also impound or to reclaim those grant dollars. So we've got to be ready to fend that off where necessary. Next, we believe that new federal grants are unlikely. And so the the awassi 25, which is currently pending, and we're negotiating, there's a chance we could see those dollars. There's also a very good chance we will not. But as we look at future oac, oac 26 and beyond. We think that is unlikely. Lastly, really important factor for the rpo specifically. Remember we have two sources of funding. One are these oac dollars. The other are contributions from our member jurisdictions. The majority of the of the jurisdictions that support and contribute to the rpo are also in financial constraining situations. Right. And and I think a lot of those cases, it's independent of what's happening at the federal level, although that's certainly mixed at at this point. One next. So back to the impact, right. So the question is how do we minimize the impact. Right. So from an rtpo standpoint we're adapting the rpo and we're trying to strengthen our relevance. Right. So we will shrink. And we have just yesterday our steering committee approved an organizational change charter that will kick off a planning phase that we will begin to actively change so that by the end of June of 2026, so not even a year away, we will be a smaller, more nimble, more agile organization that hopefully will be right sized and fit for purpose, that we'll be able to retain member support. We're going to explore new funding, right? Can we diversify our funding sources? Is it possible for us to expand our membership right to other jurisdictions, potentially to businesses, private sector nonprofits that will be a part of that go forward plan as well, and then to maintain a state of readiness. Right. Things change. Right? We are in the business of emergencies and disasters, and there are catalytic, catalytic events, unfortunately, that can overnight change the relevance and the role of organizations like the rpo. So we want to make sure we are ready. And then the last is a request to you. All right. And to the city of Portland and to our other member jurisdictions is to maintain your commitment to the rpo. We need it. And we realize that your budgets are constrained. And so we are trying to right size and get our budgets in line in a way that will work for our member jurisdictions. But I'd ask that you please keep that in mind. And last is that in terms of minimizing the impact, please. Then the city of Portland. Right. And so the first on this list is you need to be aware, right, of the disaster preparedness capability gaps. Those gaps are going to increase. Right. Again this isn't a light switch. But over time when it comes to community resilience, that coordination collaboration and overall preparedness, those investments will not be made. Therefore those capability gaps will increase. I would encourage you all to find ways to support cross-jurisdictional collaboration. That does not naturally happen in most cases. So when you're meeting with folks, right, when you're asking your questions and figuring out where to invest, are there ways that city dollars can be used to support cross-jurisdictional collaboration in a way that leads to more effective programs, more effective delivery, and also greater efficiency for your tax dollars? Our tax dollars, my tax dollars. And lastly, is policy development, right. And so I think the feds are making the assumptions to decrease the federal footprint. And states and local jurisdictions to pick that up. I think there's a flaw in some of those arguments, but there is some truth to that as well. And so when it comes to developing new policies, whether within the city or supporting the state, to figure out how we can focus on emergency preparedness overall and drive that forward, I do think there's a lot that can be done right. If there is a parks levy on the ballot today, there is no reason there can't be an emergency management that focuses on preparedness and resilience in the future. And I believe the citizens would support that in the region. Lastly, to repeat, I would ask that you work your best to maintain the city of portland's commitment to the rpo. That's the conclusion of my presentation. I would love some discussion, especially if you had guidance and input on suggestions on what we can do better in the face of this situation. Thanks.
75 Thank you, councilor Smith.
76 Thank you, thank you, thank you for the presentation. I'm a former rpo representative. When I was on Multnomah county commission, I was the representative there. So I know exactly what you do and how it started. I think it's very chilling that we're in a place where we are right now, where the emergency funds are under threat. Just curious. I knew what it was years ago, so I think I know what you're asking. How much is our buy in from the city?
77 Yeah. So there's an algorithm and methodology of. So every year we establish a budget and then that budget is proportionally allocated by population to the member jurisdictions in the region. The city of Portland, since it is within Multnomah county as a split 5050 between them. And so it's around $30,000. Maybe it was $35,000 last fiscal year.
78 I thought it was $40,000, but that's that's fine. I'm still in the same neighborhood. I know we have to pay to play in these kind of areas to get this kind of, of output. And you know exactly what you're talking about. So I appreciate the work that, that you're doing. If you could wave your magic wand, I mean, do you think it is it is worth us or having the mayor talk to homeland security? I mean, I, I'm just trying to figure out where we can be useful. And in thinking about the kinds of relationships that we have already strained and otherwise, if if that is something that you want us to do, it just appears to me like, you know, you need to hang on to the folks who've been paying to play and getting the information, because I don't know how useful it will be for us to to make those calls. You've already gone to your congressional delegation and they can do that easier. But I think everybody is having a very tough time in this new climate where the federal monies are so uncertain and it is you have the same story that many of us have. I mean, just today, the the food stamp system, I mean, people are not, you know, they're not going to be able to eat this month. And so between the government shutdown and all the the other programs not being funded, the way we're used to them being funded in the past, it's just, you know, it's it's egregious on on many levels. And, you know, as much as we can say, I don't know what our budget looks like, I know we do have a big hole, but that's a small piece to what you are actually doing. And I do think that this work is very important to keep. And I will be supporting this and and asking the mayor to keep it in the budget. But I, I really feel for you in terms of those other outside grants that you're used to having. I don't know where to pick up those dollars from because I know we don't have it. I was writing down as you were talking. I was like, okay, so what does he want us to do? Does he want another? Does he want a pot of money to do some of those things that you're used to doing? But I know we have a hole in our budget. So I'm just curious where you just interested in maintaining your play to pay status with us, or were you looking for something over and beyond?
79 Yeah. Thanks so much, councilor Smith. And first, I just really appreciate your previous engagement with the rpo. And and just where this stands in terms of engaging department of homeland security. I think you all have your work cut out for you. And I appreciate your leadership and the multiple channels that you must be managing with the complexity of the situation overall, I would say keep your eye on the multiple balls and the challenges you have in front of you. So a call to the department of homeland security, specifically about this program, probably isn't going to help that much, considering government shutdown and everything going on.
80 And I don't want to bring attention to it either.
81 Yeah, well, I'm here right, and on record in public because I do want to bring this to the attention. I think there's a story here and a narrative. Right. We don't have huge dollars, but the overall overtime impact and the focus on terrorism prevention and disaster preparedness is significant. Right. And with what's happening in our city as well. Right. The balance there, right. There's there's a story to be told. And so I think there's a few things. One, to have the city of Portland continue to engage and support the rpo. And again, we are adapting. We know we've got to change for the circumstances just so that we can be relevant and maintain that support. Number two, I think we do need to look at what can we do regionally in terms of broader financing for disaster preparedness. Right. We know the ci hub is out there, and we know that that doesn't solely sit with the city of Portland. That's just one example of multiple. Right. And so taking some responsibility that is right sized for us. The other I think is working with the state. Right. I think the state could also do more and then be ready to push right when we we've got our our congressional delegates there. I think they're in for the fight when, when it's ready to be had. And then you can rely on people like myself. Right. I am ready to engage and dig in and to address those as best I can when we can.
82 So I do agree that disaster preparedness. Planning, it should be in play and we should have all that. And it is a story if we're not going to be able to do it. But I'm not convinced that homeland security will be able to separate our need for disaster preparedness versus what's going on with the ice facility. I'll just be very direct with you that I don't know that that moves the needle in any way. We we do know that there is going to be a earthquake here. There's going to be one of the biggest ones we've ever had before. And so we need to prepare for that. And I think that you coming out, talking to the partners, I think it's so important and it's critical. And I hear you and I see you. And unfortunately, I don't know that that homeland security even cares about portland's ability to respond to any disaster at all because we have a disaster on our hands right now. But anyway, thank you. Thank you for your comments. I appreciate the work that you've done over the years. So appreciate it.
83 Thank you. Councilor.
84 Councilor Zimmerman.
85 Thanks. In the last couple of years, we've seen the state office of emergency management split off from the military department and become its own standalone. I'm wondering if you can share did that significantly change the relationship or the way that we see state oem working with the more regional or the or the very local jurisdictions? From your chair?
86 I can't speak to the long history of emergency management within the department of the military department, but I can speak to my engagement today and where I think oem is going, and I feel that it's been a really solid shift. Leadership of oem. I'm very confident in the strategy that oem has set. I also feel confident in the literal day to day interaction that I have with my counterparts at oem. It's a solid partnership, and I know the challenges that we're faced with, that they're faced with as well and that I frequently speak with my counterparts at other urban areas across the country. None of them, none have the type of relationship that I have with my oem counterparts, and that I think stands out right when we can have that kind of trust, professionalism and confidence in each other. And when you compare that to other city state relationships. So I hope that continues. And I know that they look to us for strategic thinking and direction as well. And I'm I'm really positive about our working relationship.
87 That's great to hear. Thanks for sharing that. From a planning perspective, the regionality of this makes a lot of sense to me. Now I want to go to in the moment perspective. I have a good idea about my own office of emergency management. I have a good idea about the state and county. Where would you fall in on now? Let's say day one, two, three or day seven of a significant natural disaster in the region where all of the partners you highlighted before have all stood up their own eoc? How do you see that operating in the moment versus in the preparing? Yeah. Mindset.
88 Great. Thanks, councilor, for asking that question. Yeah. Our day to day, our mission, our vision, our focus is disaster preparedness. Yet we are able to adapt and we are ready to adapt in those circumstances. And so a a role that my position fills is supporting what's called a regional multi-agency coordination. So our mac in various ways. And so in fact there's a multi-agency coordination group in place right now that the rtpo, myself and one of my colleagues facilitates. Right. That is related to the federal presence. And so the Portland emergency management pulled together the mac. They asked the rtpo to support that. And we are another recent example is related to the snap and wik declaration that many jurisdictions have in the region have come together. And in that case, we're supporting it from a a regional joint information system. And so one of my colleagues in this ties to our disaster messaging functionality is the rtpo. So we're stepping in to pull together the public information officers, the disaster messaging specialists and the m directors to make sure that there's at least they're hearing each other and the consistency of message. And they're each of the jurisdictions are aware of how different jurisdictions are responding or not responding to the crisis. And so in this case, it's information systems to make sure that there's a consistent understanding of what's at stake, what's the objective and what are the jurisdictions doing. So that at a minimum, but it's more than the minimum. They are making informed decisions, recognizing that, you know, work that one jurisdiction is doing will affect the work of another jurisdiction. Right. And so making sure that there's consistency and that is work that is underway. Okay. We also have I'll conclude here by saying that part of the awassi dollars and the influence is that in major crises with pre-approval, those dollars can be redirected. So we could potentially pull back those dollars and invest in response to a major crisis or disaster.
89 Thank you. You know, I kind of I come from a little bit of this world, having served as one of the first operations officers for the surf p in our in our state and for chemical, biological responses, mass casualty issues. And I often ask our own emergency management how many incident commanders we have certified. I'm troubled by that number, and I am wondering if, from an rtpo standpoint, if there could be work to be done to help all of the members understand what a reasonable number of credentialed personnel to have on your workforce would be. I say that because it might be more difficult for any one emergency management or fire department or whatever, to try and make a budgetary case to their to their councils for investment in those types of training. But I believe there to be power in a coherent, somewhat outside but partnership. Look at hey, you are a workforce of 7300 people with this many residents, with this many visitors, and you have one certified esi. I guess I'm thinking about how we might message that, and so I don't expect an answer right now, but I offer that up as an area that I think we're underinvested in from a professional experience and credentialing. And then I want to, because of the regionality of this, and I, I want to start this with saying, given the new chief operating officer at Multnomah county and his background, and from what I know about it, I have a lot of hope for the direction that Multnomah county can go. But I have had a great deal of concern over the last couple of winters that Multnomah county really stopped adhering to the principles of ics and nims with respect to decision making roles for electeds roles for senior officials, and had quite neutered that emergency management office. And so I offer that up because with as many partnerships, excuse me as many incidents that the city of Portland has to be in a unified command with Multnomah county for a weather event. It's really hard when they're not working from the playbook that everybody else in America is working from. And I think that I have to place that topic on our dpos list of things to have conversations to have with other senior officials for areas of growth. And I want to say again, they have a new ceo who comes from a background that I think will help us in this area, but I think the cobwebs exist and the muscles have atrophied with who is our greatest partner. Frankly, when it comes to how we take care of our people during emergencies. So I look to your office, frankly, and your your role as a convener, to be able to have some frank conversations so that we can give that team over there the support to have senior level conversations so we can be better. Because I don't think over the last few winters we've met portlanders expectations or needs, and I just want to just offer that up. And I certainly don't expect an answer from you. But it's a this is one of those areas. I think there's power in our dpo, the regionality. And and I'll just to councilor Smith's point to wrap up, I mean I, I share a lot of concerns that we're in a, in an era now where we have injected the politics of a state or a city into the way we can expect to be responded to by the federal government. And this is a this is new territory for us as Americans. And I think that what I really respect about people who are actually credentialed and in the world of emergency management and not some of the rash of political appointees we've seen at the federal level, has been that people who get into this work don't ever ask what party you're registered for when they decide to bring a deployment of FEMA supplies on day seven, on day 17, and the fact that we even have to consider that is is shameful, and it is new territory for for all of us. And it's not something that we are doing here in Oregon. Right. Governor kotek and the mayor of Portland are not talking about mutual aid, does or doesn't go to a county that did or didn't vote for her or that does like Portland. We do mutual aid because it's the right thing to do. And I think that that's such an undercurrent of why everybody who gets into emergency management. We joke in the army, it's like you're not you're not paid enough for the day. You're in the game, but you're probably paid okay the rest of the year. Right? And it's like we we rely on this group of people for guidance, for calmness, for being the ones who put the backpack on and come into work when everybody else shelters in place. And so I just appreciate the approach of regionality here and in this topic, in an area that I care a lot about. And I think is our systems that have worked for generations are threatened under as soon as we inject politics into them. So thanks for your presentation. It's really valuable.
90 Great. Thanks, councilor.
91 Councilor.
92 Thank you, mr. Chair.
93 I just wanted to briefly say first, thank you to director fertig as well as your whole team. I know it's a difficult time to be dependent on the federal funding for that team, and I just wanted to express support for the employees there with a little bit of uncertainty or a little bit more than usual, I should say. I am the city's city of portland's representative on the policy committee, and speaking in that capacity, I do appreciate you being here. I appreciate the report and sharing the impacts of the potential loss of federal funding for regional disaster preparedness. I think it's important to note that this is actually the exact time we need more local preparedness and resilience in the light of the the changes to the federal and state capacity. And it's exactly the same time that there are fewer resources to to support it. And I also appreciate that you offered some ideas for us to look at as we look at how to minimize the impact of a reduction, the minimize the impact of a reduction in funding. To that end, I think the first thing is, is sort of the obvious thing, which is the enhancement of the membership and in particular for other jurisdictions, but I appreciate it. Also, you floating non-governmental membership as well. And I, me and my office are happy to support in that. Thanks.
94 Thanks, councilor.
95 Thank you very much, mr. Fertig. Really appreciate your crisp and bleak summary. Dana, could you read the next item.
96 Item three discussion on potential legislation related to community and public safety.
97 Thank you. So we don't have much time left, but I was hoping we could do is normally we don't have discussions about legislative items until they're actually fully baked and in front of us because and we can't have those conversations separately because of the public meetings law. So I was hoping we could have people who are planning to bring things forward to sort of get them out of the table and give the rest of us a chance to ask questions about them in the one context where we can, which is in a public meeting. So does anybody have anything that they want to start previewing?
98 Yeah. Chair. Appreciate sorry can I may I. Sure. Sorry. I have for the last two weeks I have attempted to put on via our 9/12. But I do plan to bring through a committee and I'm not sure if it will be this committee or if it will be workforce committee. A resolution to support the preference placement for the ipr employees. As you know, we are in negotiation with them right now. Given the charter amendments and the reforms that are happening with independent police review, there's been a challenging and, I think, problematic legal opinion that says that these folks are not guaranteed to work in the new system, and that I think us being able to indicate preference, that they obviously coming from that work and moving into the new system would be quite qualified for this work. I'd like to see that preference. And so I'll be bringing that to council and letting it go through the committee structure and then eventually to council. But I wanted to flag that because I'm not sure if it will come to this committee. That's still up to council president. But I've said that I think given the connective tissue that it has with independent police review and the new cbpa, I could see that it would come here. So I wanted to flag that for you. And I've appreciated the six members of the council who, excuse me, seven members of the council who have signed on for it to be 9/12. But I think we need to let it run through the normal, normal course of action. I'm very concerned that those employees are essentially facing what will turn out to be, frankly, a union busting and then have to try to get hired in a new system simply because we are transitioning to a larger system. So more, more to come with that, more to er with that, I think it'll be a spirited debate. But since you want to us to flag what we might be bringing, I thought I would introduce that. Thank you.
99 Thank you councilor. Councilor.
100 No thank you, mr. Chair. Can I ask a question of councilor Zimmerman on that?
101 You may.
102 When you filed it or when you're going to file a councilor Zimmerman? Which committee are you requesting that it goes to?
103 I'm actually open to ideas. Yeah. That was a conversation I'd like to have with council president where she wants to send things. But I see, like I said, I see a connection to both both both of the, you know, councilor Smith's committee workforce and labor as well as this. So. I'm not sure yet.
104 Thanks.
105 Mr. Chair, I have three pieces of legislation I wanted to mention, two of which I have already mentioned in this committee. One is related to masking, identification and verification. This this was brought up during the conversation around potential future legislation related to the federal government. I think in light of some recent federal guidance on the importance of actually verifying federal officials, which came out today, I think it's really timely that this this topic came back up, and it's really vital that we ensure that people claiming to be law enforcement in our communities and depriving people of their liberty or otherwise engaging in what would be protected law enforcement activity, are, in fact, law enforcement. Before we end up in a situation like many other cities and states are in, where we have people who are claiming it and then are later proven not to be federal law enforcement. And again, I'll mention here that I did just go to minneapolis and and in just outside of minneapolis is where melissa hortman and her husband john were murdered. They were she was a member of the state legislature, and she was murdered by someone who was claiming to be a federal law enforcement officer, but was not the other piece of legislation. I also mentioned in the previous conversation around upcoming future legislation. It's about chemical weapons and looking at how we can ensure that we do not have indiscriminate use of poisons in Portland, regardless of who is actually engaging in that activity. The third piece, I have not previously mentioned in that context, but did mention earlier today, which is that eventually there will be some legislation to appoint people to the psr committee that was created by council. In the resolution that was mentioned by director howard. And by April earlier in this presentation or in this meeting. So those are the three things that I'm working on. I would welcome. I already invited anyone who wants to be a part of the psr conversation and the committee there to to be a part of it, but if anyone would like to be a part of the masking, identification, verification or the chemical weapons related legislation, definitely looking forward to doing that. And it's, you know, these are all being revised as we go because we're gaining really important insight on how to how to implement these sorts of things from the administration as we go. And I appreciate that what we've already received and what we're going to get in advance. Thanks.
106 Councilor Smith.
107 Thank you. I. Mr. Chair, I'd like to talk to councilor Zimmerman, because that's very interesting. I think something like that would be heard in my labor and workforce committee and full transparency. I did sign on to the 9/12, and I think to go into greater detail on how. We maintain a particular. Group so that we are able to be. Have the ability to investigate some of these things. I think that is something that probably should come through labor and workforce.
108 Council.
109 Zimmerman I did not mention I forgot the continue to, I'll say, be in a little bit of a road show, trying to get an understanding for the appetite of the. Oregon state hospital north campus that I have mentioned in other settings, and that has grown some legs, frankly, in terms of people's awareness and interest. And so as I share that gospel, if you will, with more people in the community and get some feedback, I do see a point where we have a discussion, given its connection to the state's state legislature's actions with civil commitments and those those lines, I see where this committee could have an interaction on their chair. Thanks.
110 And, councilor, are you still planning to have an event where you take whatever legislative agenda we have and tear it apart and say, this is the only one.
111 I'm sharpening the knives to get right through that paper?
112 Excellent. So I just wanted to mention that one of on the issue of masking identification, that's california is already passed anti-mask legislation, and I'm interested in finding out how they're planning to enforce that. Are they planning to have the california california police demand that people remove their masks? Are they planning to sort of get an injunction, a court order to do that, and having the police do it directly? So if anybody knows anybody in california who's working on that, I that I appreciate knowing that. And on the issue of use of chemical, chemical weapons, counselor, can you just I think I've heard this, but can you tell us how frequently the Portland police employ tear gas, like over the past several years?
113 Thank you. I've been told by the Portland police that they have not used tear gas or which is cs gas or the related chemicals in that indiscriminate way since 2020 at all. And I have not currently received any, any information to the contrary of that. So I believe that to be true.
114 And are you looking at information on is there any information on the long term health effects of tear gas and other chemical, chemical things that people use?
115 Oh, yes. And coming soon at a time where we have more minutes left of this meeting. But yes, there will be lots of information on that.
116 Councilor Smith or is that a legacy hand? Well. Sure. Councilor murillo yeah.
117 The only other thing that I would add, and this isn't going to committee, it's going straight to full council. So it might not be applicable here, but the detention facility impact fee that my office has created I think does have it does touch on a few things, but it does touch on public safety because part of the fees that would be collected would be to address police overtime and how much funding our city is investing in that I've, I struggled when I was creating this policy about where it would live if it had to go to committee, if it would go even to the environmental committee, because it has to do also with the environmental impacts of tear gas seeping into our neighborhoods and our rivers. It has to do with, you know, helping portlanders who are impacted by these things if they need to move or, you know, pay for other costs. As we know many people, for example, in the reach building, they're being tear gassed in their homes every day. So there are some impacts as far as funding goes for our city, but they're not directly part of the public safety committee. So that will be coming to full council tomorrow as an ordinance for first hearing. And we'll be able to do a presentation and answer questions there.
118 Thank you counselor. Anybody else see nobody in the queue? Okay. We're actually ahead of schedule. Our next meeting is Tuesday, November 18th. I will not be here because I'm in the east coast visit with, among others, my mother and stevie nicks. This this meeting of the community and public safety committee is adjourned.