The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-08
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (6,731 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
On January 8, 2026, the Portland City Council reconvened a session that had begun the previous day, with roll call and a reading of the rules of order and decorum preceding business. The council adopted the day's agenda by consent, noting that two carried-over items—establishing a handbook and nondiscrimination requirements for all-user restrooms—would not be reached and would be moved to a future agenda. The council then took up the election of Council President and Vice President, a continuation of discussion from the prior day. Additional nominations were made, and the newly nominated individuals were given the opportunity to speak about priorities such as staff communication, time management, committee structure, data
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.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Environment right now to do this meeting, so.
1 Sure thing. I'll keep an eye out for it.
2 All right. Thank you very much. Wait, are you keelan?
3 No, I'm. No. I'm. Aria.
4 Oh. Okay. Thanks so much.
5 Yeah. Sure thing.
Procedural episode · turns 6–14
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6 All right.
7 Good morning. It is 2:02 p.m. On Thursday, January 8th, and I am calling back into session this Portland city council meeting, which began yesterday. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
8 Present?
9 Dunphy here. Smith here. Here. Ryan here. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Here. Here. Green. Zimmerman. Here. Pirtle-guiney here.
10 Robert, could you please read the rules of order and decorum?
11 Thank you. Welcome to the Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda. W-w-w-what Portland gov council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up or interrupting others testimony or council 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, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should please address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
12 Thank you robert. Colleagues. The first item on our agenda this morning is agenda approval. I will note that we have carried over items from the agenda yesterday. Generally, when we have a recess meeting, we continue where we pick up where we left off the day before. It is my hope that we can get to some of those agenda items. But the two things that were initially on the agenda for today, items 11 and 12, establishing a handbook and nondiscrimination requirements for all user restrooms. I am very doubtful that we will get to even if we get through the bulk of our business. We have talked to the carriers of both of those items to make sure that they were aware of that, and let folks know who were signed up to testify that they should not expect to have the opportunity to weigh in on those items today, they will be moved to a further agenda. Are there any other. Additions to the agenda, or would anybody like to reorder the agenda? Okay. Seeing none, is there unanimous consent to adopt the agenda? Okay. It appears that we have consent to adopt the agenda. Colleagues. That moves us to agenda item. Thank you, counselor Ryan. That moves us to agenda item ten previously agenda item three the election of council president and vice president. Counselor Zimmerman. Are you in the queue for this item?
13 Yes, madam president.
14 Go right.
15 Ahead for the position of council president. I nominate Loretta Smith and Steve Novick.
16 Okay.
17 Colleagues, we have two new nominations. Counselor Green, are you in the queue for additional nominations? Okay. After nominations, the way that our rules work, candidates have the opportunity to say a few words. Counselor Zimmerman, I didn't catch the order you made those nominations in, but counselors Novick and Smith, would either of you like to jump in and go first? Counselor Smith, would you like a moment?
18 Could you give me a second?
19 Counselor Novick would you like to go ahead, or would you both like a minute?
20 Counselor Smith I'll defer to you. Do you want to go first or do you want to go second?
21 Go. Go ahead. Okay. This is a very big surprise to me.
22 Councilor Novick.
23 I didn't say my reasons why. I'm not sure what you wanted that, but.
24 Why don't you do that and give both both of our colleagues a moment here.
25 Thanks. So in my career, I've. I've worked with both councilors Smith and Novick. I think about both of them as electeds in previous bodies and having the experience on a dais. And when I think about the way in which this last year has gone with the both of you, I've worked on things with the both of you. I think yesterday's conversation being around just two personalities only left us wanting for additional perspectives. And sometimes leadership can come when you aren't expecting it or when you aren't asking for it. And so these nominations to you are, because I'm asking you to step in and broaden this conversation and give us another perspective, because sometimes in a moment of a need for leadership, I think both of you are interesting ideas to me, and I would certainly like to hear more from candidates who want to be president of this council about how they want to be president of this council, rather than. You know, administrative hiccups that we're experienced. So your ideas about what you will do as president, what your thoughts are as a potential president are things that are interesting to me, and I think would make this a healthier and more robust conversation. And I think a four person conversation for a while allows also the other two from yesterday who are still nominated to contribute to that in a way that may be more productive. Thank you.
26 Thank you, counselor councilor Novick.
27 Thank you, madam president. So as of approximately 833 last night, I began thinking about the possibility of if the nomination was made, whether I'd be willing to be council president. And I concluded that I would if folks liked the idea, if folks heard me out and liked the idea, my ideas as to how it approached the job. Again, I didn't start thinking about this until 833 last night. So my thoughts are not polished, but at least you'll know they're honest because they're pretty much off the cuff. Oh, let's see, I forgot my zach ward and my staff gave me a dylan line to use, which I forgot to use. Which is that as he not busy board is being dying. And last night it kind of felt like we were dying. So I think we should try to get back to being busy being born. So I want to start with two things that I said in December of 2024. I told all of you and the mayor and the city administrator that I was was really disappointed that city staff had been instructed not to talk to councilors, and I thought that made it impossible for us to do our job. What I've seen over the past year is, although some city staff feel empowered to talk to councilors by their bosses, there's others who are not, I think because some are more paranoid than others. I've also seen that sometimes city staff have felt like we in this council have presented ideas that were half baked, and we didn't run them by city staff to see if they were operable. Those two things unfortunately complement each other. So in terms of the relationship with city staff, what I would try to do and I would talk to the administrator about this is can we work out a modus operandi where we at the council are careful not to vote for ideas without having gone through how operable they are, how important they are, but also city staff is empowered to talk to us so we get information where we need it. So that would be one priority for me. Another thing that I did was I asked each of you in an email that was not subject to public records requests, because it was before we signed anything or started. What was your what are your highest personal priorities on council? And I said, aside from the fact that we all care about all the big issues, are there things that specific things that matter a lot to you that other people might not have thought of? Because I thought that we should know what those things are so that even if we're opposed on some bigger issues, we can support each other on those issues. I would want to ask that again, and actually, I'd want to ask it whether I was council president or not. And one of the issues that was discussed yesterday was how you set the agenda. What do you prioritize? And to me, one thing that we should prioritize are the things that are really nearest and dearest to councilors hearts. And if we know that 2 or 3 things that you know, this is a bucket list thing, this is what I need to get done before the end of my term. I want to prioritize that. So that's thing one, thing two is I got to tell you, I would not be inclined to prioritize more resolutions telling the administration to do things they're probably already doing. I would prioritize actual ordinances rather than, you know, hopeful resolutions. That doesn't mean that, you know, we never hear the resolutions, but I think that we should shift the emphasis. And in terms of things coming from the mayor, I would ask the same thing, frankly. I would say, okay, you guys, what really matters to you and make them make them answer. And of course, as council president said yesterday, there's some things that actually have legal deadlines. So we got to do those. Another related issue is time management. Time is precious and it's precious to all of us. And one thing I'd like to do is when we put things in the agenda, put a realistic time on them. And that means often a realistically short time, because I've seen things come to us and often actually they are from the executive where it's like blah, blah, blah. We'll take one hour when we know it's something we should probably deal with in 15 minutes. So I want realistically short timelines to deal with things. I also would like us to do a good job of managing our own time. You know, we had a discussion yesterday about council president put out a list of how much people talk and and the council vice president said shaming doesn't work. But I would like to try to figure out. I mean, I'm not saying that everybody can make themselves talk as seldom as Olivia does, but I'd like to figure out some modus operandi where more of us, you know, emulate Olivia than do now. And I got to tell you, I confess that I think that since I saw that list and saw that I spoke the third most of anybody, which was a surprise to me, I'm afraid I've probably overcompensated for that by saying, well, hell, I should talk more. That is the wrong reaction. So I think that we should police our own time and that will make our time more productive. I also think we have to be respectful of the time of the folks that support us. The the clerk, the signal people, security, etc. I was frankly embarrassed to hear yesterday from councilor Zimmerman that the public safety committee has gone over time eight times. That's on me, and that's not good. We totally depend. Our support folks. We need to respect their time. We need to respect the constraints on them. So that would be a high priority. Our relationship with respect for and particularly respect for the time of the support folks. I said yesterday that I don't see the council president as a policy driving position because all of us have our own policy views, and I've got a few priorities of my own that I'd like to push, but I wouldn't see the presidency as a here's the agenda that I'm leading you to towards thing. What I would want to do with it, though, one thing I think that I'm pretty good at is forcing honest conversations based on data about how big problems are and how likely the proposed solutions are to work, and with the understanding a lot of this takes place in committee, I think that we should spend more time in all council work sessions, having some of those conversations and housing and homelessness obviously are big fat issues, and I think that we should have more pointed conversations. And I've tried to do this some in the whatever we call the joint office when their presentation recently about, okay, we spent a lot of money on maybe the county spends a lot of money in rent assistance. Is it really true that for every ten people you give renaissance, you prevent one case of homelessness? A lot of the developers say, will solve the housing crisis by speeding up the printing system. Let's hear from other cities that have. Let's look at other cities that have faster permitting system and see how much additional housing that actually gets. You look at, you know, look at the scope of the problem and have some data informed, academically informed looks at how promising which which solutions are. And also be prepared to be honest with the public about whether all the solutions together don't really solve the problem. I mean, if we can envision that, you know, anything we think we can realistically do can only slow the increase in homelessness by 80%, then we should admit that, and we should be willing to look at possibly off the table solutions like, you know, the should we reach the conclusion that we're not going to have traditional housing for everybody in the next ten years? And should we be moving more towards permanent tiny homes or manufactured homes that are 400ft■!s? I also think that in e major areas of city government, we should have some conversations about what we really want the bureaus to prioritize. What are some of the trade offs? One, trade offs that councilor, Sameer and I have talked about talking about in public safety is do we want the police to be focused on showing up quickly in response to calls or solving crimes? And there is some conflict between that, because the more you run from run from call to call, the less time you have to figure out, you know, how to do the investigation and have the crimes actually solved. I think we also should start in all areas looking more at how we compare with other cities. And that's one example I discovered last week that homicide solve rates vary wildly from city to city to the united states. In new york city is pretty bad. Kansas city is pretty damn good. We were kind of in the middle, so I'd be kind of curious to find out what kansas city does. By contrast, I randomly found a few months ago, and I think they shared this with you, that police forces vary dramatically in terms of how often they shoot people in new york city. They hardly ever shoot people in denver. They shoot people way too much. So that strikes me as another thing we want to look at, you know, how is it that in new york, police don't shoot people? So those are just a couple of examples of the kind of data driven, you know, conversations I would like us to have. Another thing I would like us to do is get the mayor to engage more with us and with the city. Pretty much the only I mean, what I know about the mayor is that he has a priority of adding more shelter beds. I don't know enough about the rest of the mayor's agenda, and I think that we should ask him to engage with us and sort of spell out more his vision with the city and hear about his priorities as well as ours. I think those are conversations that have to be had. Another topic that came up yesterday is, you know, the relationship with the vice president. And all I can say is I think the vice president should be in all the meetings that the president is in, and the vice president should take the gavel a fair, a fair amount of the time. Those are two specific things. I mean, what else has to do with the job? We'll have largely to do with what? The job, you know, who, who's got the job and what they want to do. But those are two specific things. In terms of committees, I actually don't know if the committee structure we have is all that bad. It would be nice if we could reduce the number of committees. It might also be helpful if we simply like decided, as councilor Kanal was saying yesterday, that we should acknowledge that some of them meet less often than others and sort of make that official. And, you know, these are the and rather than the clerk's office, etc. Being prepared to do a meeting and then they're told three days before that it's not going to happen, but I don't think I mean, I don't see an obvious way to reduce eight committees to four would be nice if we could. But I again think that we're all working committees, that we have an interest. And I think that a lot of people have gavels, and I think that's good. So let's see. Those are my thoughts about what I would prioritize. I should say that I there's parts of the job that don't come naturally to me. I am not a procedural wonk, as councilor Kanal is, so I might need somebody to kick me under the table periodically to remind me what the proper procedure is. I also don't do mornings well, so that might sort of limit the limits. My ability to do any job like, you know, if you ask me to do something at 730 in the morning, I have a problem with that. But another thing I want to say is, I've heard terrible things about some of you in the last 24 hours, and I have to say, I don't recognize any of it, because maybe I'm just a pollyanna, but I don't have a problem. I don't have problems with any of you. I have not seen the monsters that I've heard you portrayed as. So I mean, I, I hope that I'll be able to sort of stay in that little bubble and continue to see the best sides of everybody. Another thing I want to mention is that I talked yesterday about the idea of an airing of grievances, and I want to make it very clear that if I'm screwing, whenever I'm screwing up, this is true. Now, in any role, I have no problem being told so. And I think the one thing you've learned from my relationship with councilor Morillo is that somebody can yell at me like crazy one day, and I can yell back at them, and we can be fine the next day. All right? Councilor Morillo says, not today, but based on experience, I think it might be true in a few days. So anyway, that's my piece. That's what I have to say. And I really eager to hear what councilor Smith has to say.
28 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith.
29 Thank you, madam president. Thank you for the nomination. Councilor Eric Zimmerman. You know, I don't like surprises, and that doesn't work well for me. I don't have a I don't have a big speech like councilor Novick. I was not ready for this. I was talking to my colleague. I can't even look at her because I'll start crying. But. I was talking to her about the need for leadership. And this is a big surprise. But what I do know is after yesterday. We need a president who can bring everybody together and who whose main purpose at this point, because I think we have some hurt feelings right now. We have to have unity and we have to have a conciliatory tone because we went below the belt yesterday. And I have two colleagues who are more than capable and able educated. To do this job. And I didn't like where we went. If I was president, that would be job number one. Job number two is to make sure that not only. That, we have everybody surviving in the city of Portland. I want people to thrive. I want us to do our book of business. And I think councilor Kanal councilor Green. They all they say that remark about me all the time. We need to take care of our infrastructure. What we do here at the city of Portland is we make sure we have clean drinking water. We have water to to water our grass. We have people picking up our garbage, making sure that our our streets are safe. That's what we do here. And we build things. That's what we need to get back to. I said I was not going to go for president or anything like this because I wanted somebody else to do it. And. My mother didn't raise me that way. She didn't raise me to put off on someone else. What you can do yourself. I've never been a president before. I thank you for the invitation. Councilor Zimmerman. If that's what my colleagues would like, I would accept it. Thank you.
30 Thank you. Councilor. Colleagues. In a first round after speeches, we go straight to a vote. But the way our rules are laid out in further rounds, we can have discussion before we move to a vote. I'm going to pause for just a moment to see if anybody enters the queue before I have the clerk call for a vote. Councilor Morillo.
31 Thank you, council president. Yesterday I think things got really ugly in a way that they did not have to. And I think that most of us here were prepared to keep it pretty high brow because out of consideration for each other and for our colleagues. I think what I saw yesterday was one of my colleagues saying I would never vote for somebody from the progressive caucus, which just coincidentally happens to be majority people of color on council, because it's no coincidence that majority people of color would need a supportive space and maybe even shared values based on our lived experiences and the people that we're trying to represent. I heard different standards for the man of color, the only man of color up here who's running than for other colleagues. I heard basically vibes based critiques that had nothing to do with councilor Kanal ability to lead and to govern. The only person who has articulated a clear and concise vision of what he would do differently, and to improve the position is councilor. Canal. And it is incredibly disappointing to me, yet again, that my colleagues here who urge us all the time to compromise and to be nice and docile, refuse to compromise at all. When we sat here for seven hours yesterday. I would like to see a level of maturity from my more moderate colleagues that they are willing to compromise this year because we took your compromise candidate last year. I think councilor Smith is absolutely incredible. I think that she has a strong passion for oversight and would dig into the executive side and the things that we need to do as a council. But I think that councilor Kanal has a real passion for this and has wanted this and has articulated a vision for it for a while. So I'm going to hold firm to what councilor Kanal has brought up and the vision that he is bringing forward. This is the youngest and most progressive city council that we've ever had with a wide variety of voices. And that happened because we had districts. That happened because we have ranked choice voting. That happens because we have small donor elections that prevent us from being influenced in the ways that our predecessors were. And I think it is time to let a millennial man of color actually lead. And if you're going to write off everybody in the progressive caucus, then I guess we'll never have a besides maybe councilor Smith, if she can get a seventh vote, a person of color as president at the helm. And I think that is very interesting for my colleagues to do. And I know everyone's going to say none of the criticisms were race based. Have fun telling that to all of your colleagues of color who basically incurred psychic and moral damage yesterday, sitting through all the dog whistles that we sat through yesterday. The different standards that the man of color is held to, the fact that with similar experience, he has not seen as appropriately qualified. The fact that we have institutions of power, that he has been successfully holding accountable respectfully for years, influencing what our colleagues are deciding and doing. I think everybody knows that that is not okay. And yes, I, I am actually known for having fights on the dais and then having kiki haha in the kitchen afterwards. I don't feel that way right now. And I might not for a while because I think I'm actually pretty nice most of the time afterwards. But we are. We are being asked constantly to make concessions, and I am asking you to show some maturity. What I am also asking is specifically for you, council president, because councilor Green last time is the reason that you were voted in the progressive caucus, made a commitment. We made a compromise. We respected your leadership, and we are appreciative of the work that you have done and an inability to pass the helm of power to someone else with different experiences, different knowledge, different background is completely unacceptable to me. You have the opportunity to show maturity and to show that you care about this body more than everybody else. And I'm not seeing that, because what I'm hearing around the block is that apparently two folks from the moderate side are being offered up as the concession, and that the vice president will also be from the moderate block. So basically zero compromise at all. I don't know how you possibly think that is acceptable, because I am not budging, and because I am not as old as you, I will sit here and I won't have to go to the bathroom for the vote. Okay, I will wait as long as it takes and I will wait for councilor Canal. So whenever you are ready to show some level of maturity, I am ready to take a vote. Thank you.
32 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, I am next in the queue. I was surprised no one else jumped in and I want to speak to the qualifications of both of my colleagues who were just nominated. Having held this position for a year, I have seen the. The way in which it affects how you interact with your colleagues, with your own agenda and with the work required at this dais. And I. Am grateful that both of you were willing to accept the nomination from councilor Zimmerman and allow us to have a more robust discussion. I heard loud and clear from many of our colleagues yesterday that they are seeking a change in leadership, some because of the skills I have brought forward, and I'll likely have more to say about that later. But I'd like to separate that from my support for my colleagues and some simply because they want to see another way of running the work. I understand and respect that. I thought that perhaps continuity might matter also, but I do respect the interest in seeing a different way this can be done. And I think both councilor Smith and councilor Novick would bring a different way of doing the work, and a steady hand to the work. Councilor Novick you are whipsmart and your deeply passionate work for portlanders and Oregonians trying to move progressive agendas through good policy has spanned decades. You have proven who you are as a leader, and I think you do bring the experience and ability to move this council forward in a way that I would gladly support. You do it with levity and you bring people together through that. It has been a privilege to work with you over the past year on the parks levy and on many other opportunities we have had, some of which I hope we're able to bring forward over the next few months. I'm excited to continue to work together, and if you are elected, I have no doubt that you would lead as a champion for the priorities of each person sitting at this dais. Thank you for stepping forward, councilor Smith. You and I have talked so many times about values and who people are and how we show up here and the way that you show up not just for your constituents, but for all portlanders. When you feel like their voices are not being heard, is truly impressive. You hold that and hold your district at the same time. And as council president, that's something that is hard to do but necessary. And you have already proven that you can do that. You have been a driving force behind some of the serious home runs that this council has passed this year, and shown your ability to help maneuver across some of the divides on council. I have no doubt that you would continue to do that, not just for your own priorities, but for everybody's. The value of your voice and the experience that you bring through your work on other elected bodies as well can't be understated. We also know that your district has been left out of the conversation for far too long, and I value having leadership from somebody who lives in district one on this council. Thank you as well for stepping forward. I want you both to know that as we continue the discussion, I think we have a hard vote before us, and I would be honored to support both or either of your candidacies.
33 Point of information councilor Clear. So I thought we were nominating and then moving into a vote and then having a discussion. So we're actually doing debate and discussion now in this round. Is that.
34 The way that our rules are set up? And I believe I said this, is that in the first round we do nominations and then move to a vote. But in further rounds it's laid out that we do nominations and then a discussion and a vote. And we were technically when councilor Zimmerman was in the queue in the middle of a round of discussion, new nominations were made. We gave those individuals both time to speak, but we were in the middle of a round for discussion.
35 Okay. And that's why I didn't enter the queue, because I was I didn't. Okay. Got it.
36 You're now in the queue though. Would you like to go right ahead?
37 I would I have a question for both of the new nominees. Councilor Novick, I think, you know, I think everyone knows here that I worry a lot about oversight. So my question to you is what is your what's your philosophy? What is oversight look, look like to you when it comes in terms of the charter?
38 I think that oversight includes gathering information, knowing what the what the executive is doing, making sure that that the policies passed by council are being carried out. And. It includes investigating issues of public concern. As you know, I sometimes feel like the I feel like the appropriate thing to do is sort of oversight with the soft hand that you ask people questions in informally. And if those answers are satisfactory, then you don't have a formal process. But obviously, you know, if I had this role, I'd be respectful of my colleagues who had specific issues that they wanted to conduct oversight hearings on or oversight investigations. I think that I would strive to make sure that any such hearings or investigations are as little confrontational as possible, although sometimes confrontation is necessary. But I think that the key to oversight is adequate information. And I think, as I said before, I think that some aspects of this administration, some staff don't feel empowered to talk to us about stuff. So I think that if people feel more empowered to talk to us about stuff, we'll know more. And there might be less need for investigating things because we already know the answers. I think that city staff, I think that we have great staff here at the city. I think they're thoughtful, they're knowledgeable, and I think that they'll answer questions from us about anything under the sun as long as they're allowed to.
39 Councilor, I apologize, but we actually need to recess the meeting immediately. I would like us to get back to this question. We will have more information for councilors in just a minute and for everybody in the room. But we do need to take a brief recess. We will be back as soon as we can. Highlights the importance of us getting structures and processes in place that are resilient and can respond rapidly to situations as they arise. Structures that, for a variety of reasons, not related to any one or more people necessarily have not yet been created in our new form of government. And it's really vital that we have that conversation over the course of the coming weeks, because we are going to be dealing with the federal government for as long as it is the way it is. I just want to say that people in minneapolis, I had the privilege of meeting with your council president and mayor in October, as well as your attorney general. I haven't met the governor, but I saw his ask for support, and I met with folks outside yesterday who came together in support of portlanders and everyone around the country, because your fight is our fight for due process for human rights and against an unregulated federal law enforcement apparatus that considers itself judge, jury and executioner. That's what I prepared before we learned this, and I am struck by the commonality in the stories we see around the country. And now here in Portland. I think it would be appropriate, if we need to, to take a recess for a short period of time. But I also agree with councilor Smith, on the whole, with the importance of moving to the future and building the institutions that can protect us to the degree as possible against this federal government. Thank you.
40 Thank you. Councilor councilor Dunphy.
41 Thank you. I am. I'm struggling to sit here right now. My initial instinct was to not let this disrupt the business and not let a tyrannical federal government prevent the city from doing the work that we need to do. But I am struggling to sit here right now and feel that I'm able to give this job or this task at hand, my full attention. Right now. I would ask that we do move to either recess or adjourn, or, if necessary, take one round of votes on this and then adjourn after that.
42 Thank you. Councilor, I'd like us to get through those in the queue. And then I think that we may want to take that lead. Councilor Ryan.
43 Yes?
44 Hello, colleagues. Sorry I can't be there today. I listened to what attorney robert taylor said and was expressing that same a similar opinion. Well, not that you gave us an opinion. You gave us the options. And I think in light of what we're dealing with in the present moment, I think it's thoughtful to adjourn the meeting, stick with the presiding officers, the leadership, the capable, experienced leadership we have in these seats that have been managing federal overreach for quite some time now, and that we adjourn the meeting today. And then we come back on Wednesday. That would be my preference, because I'm so distracted and I don't know what it would be like to be there, probably further distracted. And yes, I'm alone in a room upstairs and I'm not distracted by my present company here in atlanta. Thank you. I'm present in this meeting. Thank you.
45 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Novick.
46 Councilor Dunphy expressed my feelings exactly.
47 Councilor Smith.
48 Thank you. I wanted to address something. I think we do have procedures in place. The mayor has gave. Given the direction PPB is is putting out some press and then the mayor. And so we do have those things in, in concert. And we are also, as a council, putting out information as it relates to this latest shooting. So we do have them. We're not without any, without any structure at all. Councilor Kanal.
49 Thank you. Councilor councilor Avalos. I just.
50 Want to first speak to the constituents of east Portland that your east Portland councilor Councilors are attentive, we are angry, and we are going to be doing everything we can after this meeting to deal with the situation. It's hard to find words honestly right now as far as this meeting goes, I, I think my preference would be to do a recess. My preference would be to do a recess and pick another time between now and Wednesday. I don't, you know, just given the weirdness of the charter, I don't want to play with that. I think we should find another time between now and Wednesday to resume this business. So I would prefer that. And I do agree. I was on the side of we should continue. It's it's a it's complicated. I'm feeling complicated about it. But I'm hearing my colleagues and I agree that we should end this meeting, but I think we need to recess it. Thank you.
51 Thank you, councilor. Mr. Taylor, if we were to end this meeting and recess until 9:00 next Wednesday, which is a half an hour before our next meeting starts, and pick back up this topic, at that time, would we be legally able to essentially postpone the start of that additional meeting to complete the business of this meeting? I don't believe we've posted that meeting yet.
52 Yeah, you would have to if you you could recess this meeting, take it up at 9 a.m. On Wednesday morning as a as a reconvene reconvening of this meeting. If you you would then if you couldn't get this issue of the election resolved and the 30 minutes you would either continue, you know, keep that recessed meeting going throughout the day or and cancel the regularly scheduled meeting. So I think there are ways procedurally to accomplish whatever council would like to do in this moment.
53 Okay, colleagues, I am going to recess this meeting until 9:00 on Wednesday. I'm checking the date of that January 14th. We will change some of the posting for our regularly scheduled meeting that day and adjust agendas accordingly.
54 What I thought we would talk about we didn't vote.
55 Sound went off. I don't know if you can hear me, but I can't hear anyone in the chamber last minute.
56 I think they turned it off in the chambers. Okay.
57 Okay. Just the public, which would be me right now since I'm remote.