The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-09-03
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council meeting of September 3, 2025 opened with roll call, a reading of decorum rules, and agenda approval, followed by public communication in which speakers addressed concerns about federal immigration enforcement actions and the removal of a street plaza and outdoor dining space at 31st and Division. The committee referral report listed numerous items directed to committees including foreclosure actions, code amendments, and appointments. The City Administrator's monthly report covered contract award tracking, budget note follow-up, and report length, prompting questions on opioid settlement funds, PCEF grant cancellations, the Chief Equity Officer recruitment, the Zenith franchise agreement investigation, and grant compliance procedures. The consent agenda was addressed, with one item removed and later taken up separately. Discussion covered an eminent domain authorization for the 82nd Avenue signal project, a council tie-breaking rule amendment, and an ordinance suspending certain development upgrade requirements (code alignment project), which drew public testimony from business representatives and was continued to a September 24 special meeting. Council also adopted a new regular meeting schedule, discussed a parking space reservation code amendment, and confirmed two appointments to the Revenue Division Appeals Board, with extended council debate on consent agenda practices and committee processes. Votes occurred throughout the session, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger.
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 Gavin.
1 Good morning. I am calling to order today's Portland city council meeting. It is 931 on Wednesday, September 3rd. Rebecca, could you please call the roll?
2 Koyama Lane.
3 Here.
4 Morillo here. Novick here. Clerk. Here. Green. Here. Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.
Procedural episode · turns 5–13
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5 Present.
6 Dunphy, here. Smith.
7 Here.
8 Now. Here. Ryan. Here.
9 Pirtle-guiney here. And could you please read our rules of decorum?
10 Thank you. Council president. Welcome to Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually, you must sign up in advance on the council agenda at wwe Portland. Agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. 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 today should address the matter being considered when testifying. For the record, your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify your organization. And third, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls their name. Thank you.
11 Thank you colleagues. Our first agenda item today is agenda approval. No changes to the agenda have been proposed other than the removal of one thing from consent. Are there any other changes to the agenda? Seeing none, do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda? Okay. Thank you. The next item on our agenda is public communication. Rebecca, could you please call up our first guests this morning?
12 First, we have nathan anderson.
13 Good morning. Welcome and thank you for being here.
14 Thank you.
15 My name is nathan anderson. I prefer being called lyra. She her. So what I would like to discuss is that we are clearly living in unprecedented times. And that I think that I would like to speak on the matter. I believe all of us can agree is a threat to our constitution and the rights that it guarantees us, as citizens and residents of the united states of America. That matter being the actions committed by the agents of the immigration and customs enforcement under the discretion of the trump administration. As of late, we are seeing numerous reports and incidents of our neighbors and fellow residents, even citizens being abducted by masked agents with no warrant, no crime that they are being detained for, and no representation to be spoken of in any court of law. A right that each and every single person, even those who are not united states citizens, are within our borders, is guaranteed under the fifth amendment of the united states constitution. And as of now, we are watching members of our communities taken from us in our schools, our religious establishments, our workplaces, our restaurants, our courts, even their homes can provide no sanctuary. Men and women, young and old, and children by the hundreds, are being either forcefully deported or detained in concentration camps, with even the support of the national guard being used to suppress the population, such as in los angeles and the 8th of June. And currently the capital itself is under military occupation by our own armed forces. And now there is talk about the national guard being sent to chicago as well. And even more concerning are the comments by the secretary of labor about eventually sending an occupation force to Portland. And I can assure you, it will not stop there. These incursions by the national guard have nothing to do with curbing crime, but it has everything to do with control and curbing dissent in favor of the secret police that is the I.c.e. And its agents. This is not just a violation of our first amendment rights, but it is the it is a clear attempt. It is the administration's desire to occupy the country. They are sworn to act as the sovereign defender of. Yet instead, they wish to invade our cities as if they were part of a foreign nation, making an official, essentially making an unofficial declaration of war upon their own people. Yet despite this, despite the many violations and the clear attempt for the destruction of constitutional law and the rights of the people, congress sits by and does nothing. Even the outspoken members do little more than hope that America will vote out a man who openly makes attacks and punishes those who challenge his authority, and the supreme court indulges itself in its mockery of justice through corruption. Our representatives in the federal branch have abandoned us, but we do not need to fall with the rest of this crumbling state. We have no reason to submit to the will of a man who refuses to uphold his oath of office. And with this in mind, I urge us to peacefully stand united against the clear threat of a deranged and illegitimate tyrant for the peaceful independence of cascadia, where we will stand for the rights of the people and declare that the consent of the governed is an undeniable truth. Thank you.
16 Thank you very much.
17 Addie Smith. Nathaniel hudson hartman. Lynn hanlon. Fisher. Jamison.
18 Welcome. Thank you very much for being here with us.
19 Thank you, councilors. And for the record, my name is fisher jamison. I had originally signed up for this testimony slot a couple months ago to complain about the street plaza at 31st and division being removed. Since I moved to division five years ago, that had been one of my favorite summer happy hour spots. First, a COVID safe way to escape my apartment and later, just a great place to enjoy the weather and read a book or wrap up work. I'm still a loyal imperial brewing customer, but with the plaza gone, the energy on that corner is gone and you can tell that the level of foot traffic at the businesses fronting it is down significantly. At the time, I had a lot of questions about the rationale for the removal. The city cited fire codes with no one really having an answer for why fire code required the removal of this plaza, but not others that take up the full length of a city block. But over the last couple of months, it's become apparent that this is part of a consistent pattern. Some issue is flagged with a piece of pedestrian infrastructure, and the city has no way to resolve that issue without just removing the infrastructure entirely. We're seeing the consequences of this everywhere. In the places I visit, I'm seeing fewer pedestrian plazas and less outdoor dining. The vitality of our streets is suffering as a result. Portland feels quieter and emptier, less like a city where you could go for a stroll after a meal and stumble upon a small business you'd never visited before, and less like a city where you'd want to open a small business to take advantage of the foot traffic in your neighborhood. I don't think this is an outcome that anyone is looking for. I don't think city staff wants this, and I doubt anyone on this council wants it. Even if there are some disagreements about exactly how our streets should be configured. I think everyone recognizes that our walkable neighborhoods are the backbone of the city's economy. What I do think we're dealing with here is a regulatory system that was never designed to allow anything besides parking spaces and car lanes on our streets. During COVID, we recognized that we were in an extraordinary moment, and we needed to throw out those regulations entirely. As COVID restrictions were lifted, we didn't take enough time to truly reevaluate the rules we had for how we could use our streets. I want to first echo testimony from harper haverkamp of strong towns a couple of months ago, who called for easier and more standardized permitting as a solution to this problem. But I think we also need to go further. Portland is going to end this year with fewer street plazas and outdoor dining spaces than we started with at this rate, and we need to treat this like the emergency it is. We need amnesty for non-conforming structures permitted during COVID, and a complete moratorium on the removal of plazas and outdoor dining structures without approval from the city council. Then we need to properly revisit how these structures are regulated and create a real transportation funding stream to allow PBOT to maintain them. Thank you for listening and thank you all for working to save our streets.
20 Thank you very much for being here today to share your concerns.
21 That concludes public comment.
22 Thank you rebecca. Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is the committee referral report. Bear with me. It's a little bit long this week. I referred approval of the comprehensive plan map, zone map and title 33 amendments related to the Portland Gresham urban service boundary amendments project to climate resilience and land use, as well as directing the city administrator to approve a new Portland Gresham urban services, iga to climate resilience and land use. I refer to adopt the Portland urban forest plan to climate resilience and land use. Authorize bureau of transportation to acquire certain temporary rights for construction along 102nd to 115th, and on shaver to the finance committee. Initiate foreclosure action at 8315 north wayland. To finance initiate foreclosure action on 5130 southeast 84th to finance initiate foreclosure action. Foreclosure action on 3821 northwest saint helens road to finance. Initiate foreclosure action on 1822 southeast cesar chavez boulevard to finance initiate foreclosure action on 1810 southeast chavez boulevard to finance initiate foreclosure action at 1625 southeast 35th avenue. To finance initiate foreclosure action on 1541 southwest market street. To finance. Initiate foreclosure action at 1140 southeast 139th to finance. Initiate foreclosure action at 1541 southwest market street. To finance. Initiate foreclosure action on a 121 2229 southeast sherman to finance declare property located at southeast 21st and powell surplus for sale at fair market value to finance. Amend small donor election code to governance. Amend parking space. Reservation code to transportation and infrastructure. Authorize use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting to labor and workforce development. Reappointments to the revenue division. Appeals board to finance assess property for system development. Charge contracts and private plumbing loan contracts to finance and amend city code to reduce permit submittal requirements for upgrade requirements to homelessness and housing committee. Colleagues. The next item on the agenda, because this is the first meeting of the month, is the city administrator report. Mr. Jordan, would you like to give us an overview or provide any highlights from your written report?
23 Sure. Thank you, madam president, and welcome back, everybody. I hope you had a good break. The report as you have is a still evolving document for sure. A couple of things to to note. The very last page of the report is the first, excuse me, report from the chief procurement officer on contract awards over a 30 day period prior to August the 20th. In this particular case of the report, hope to continue to hone this and make it more useful to all of you. So please, any feedback that you have would be helpful. I will note also, the first appendix is the budget note report I mentioned. Last meeting that I would be her last report. I should say that I'd be reaching out to you if in fact we are not already in a conversation and making progress on the note. I have yet to do that. I apologize, and we'll be doing that very shortly to get to those which aren't already scheduled to be making progress. And then the last thing I'd like to mention, madam president, is under the category of this report being an evolving document, we have noticed that both the narrative parts of the report as a whole and the individual narratives of items continue to grow. And we have we have some staff who are novelists in another life and are wanting to make sure they're getting the words into this report. So your feedback on any of those kinds of things, the form, the length, the content, any, any feedback you want to give us, I would appreciate that in trying to make this as usable as it can be over time, and happy to try and answer any questions. Thank you.
24 Thank you, mr. Jordan. I had also known that the noticed rather that the report was growing in length, and I appreciate you noting that I think we need to continue to work toward the balance of making sure that we all get all the information that we need, but that we also have it in a readable, digestible format in the time we have between when it's published and this meeting, so that folks can come with questions. Speaking of which, I see, councilor Smith, your hand up. Do you have a question for mr. Jordan?
25 Yes.
26 Go right ahead.
27 Thank you, madam president. Thank you. City administrator jordan, I appreciate the report. One of the things that I could suggest is that if we could just have since the last time that you did the report of all the monies that we, instead of going all the way back to January 1st every single time, start with the previous month. What has been done since the previous month that you gave us the report? That might kind of put it down a little bit. So on page two of the report, it outlines plans to approve the purdue pharma bankruptcy. And we're joining a settlement to receive payments from the sackler family. And we're also joining a settlement for payments from eight smaller, smaller opioid manufacturers. Could you explain that? And will that have an impact on the $9.5 million that we're receiving right now from the opioid settlement?
28 I guess I might defer regarding legalities of the settlement to the city attorney or someone else who might be here for that. But as far as the actual proceeds are concerned, I don't think that these new joining these new settlement agreements will affect the 9.5 million at all.
29 Because we're going to be getting that for the next 18 years, right?
30 Quite a while. Yes.
31 And so do you know which specific opioid drugs we're filing against this time?
32 I do not and I don't know if linly.
33 I don't I don't know either. Councilor. But we can get back to you on that if you'd like a report.
34 Thank you. One last question. I was looking at the grants division piece, and I also noticed that there was no mention of the p.s.f, the the dollars being taken away, the RFP, the grantees that receive those dollars. And I know we were going to talk about this and we've talked about it in a smaller group, but I had no idea that all of the grants that were awarded were going to be taken. The Willamette week had an August 28th report, where it says that the grants were emailed, that RFP were canceled due to the mayor's July 31st executive order. And this was the first time that I learned that all of them were going to be revoked. I knew that some programs, as a result of the executive order were going to. But just curious why we didn't have an update or report on the PCEF under the grants department.
35 Yeah, my my understanding, councilor, is that we are going through city attorney along with office of equity and human rights and procurement are going through all and I'm sure PCEF staff are involved in this too, are triaging what I would call all of the grant or contracts that are in flight. In other words, they've gone through some process to award.
36 The contracts.
37 The yes PCEF and other contracts. Also.
38 This was a specific request and that's fine. We can follow back up. And just one last question. I was looking at the chief equity officer note. So is this this new job application, is this jeff selby's current job, or is this a person that's going to report to jeff selby?
39 It is that job. Jeff has been in it on an interim basis for some time.
40 And why?
41 Well, when we when we restructured two years ago and created the officer's position along with comms and and climate, we had, we had always assumed that there would be a recruitment for that job. We have had one and it failed. And so we're attempting to do that again.
42 I kind of like jeff. I think he's been doing a great job.
43 I like jeff too.
44 And I'm just not sure why. He's been doing this job for three years and not being considered of being appointed for this job, and that we have to do this national search.
45 Happy to discuss it offline with you, counselor, if you wish.
46 Yes, I understand, I understand, thank you so much.
47 You bet.
48 Thank you, counselor Smith. Councilor Kanal. Did you have questions for mr. Jordan?
49 Yes, madam president, thank you. First to give feedback to your question. First, thank you for the report. To give feedback to your question, I think longer is is very helpful for us, and I'm happy to indulge the novelists by reading it. I also think, you know, you may end up having to do an executive summary to kind of, you know, square that, and I'm sure you've thought of that. I also wanted to just ask about getting more information about some of the ideas that the city is involved in over time in the report, and I'm happy to follow up with you with more information on that. I'll just quickly mention the concern around the the equity comment made me think about the importance of talking about this core services realignment a little further as it relates to the the degree to which it pulls these, this, these branches of work up from the bureau to the service area or whether that continues all the way up to the central side. And so that's where I think there hasn't been a lot of conversation around equity yet as it relates to some of the other disciplines. And I'd love to to have counsel be a part of that conversation. And then just while I have the floor, welcome to the new fire chief. Thanks for shouting that out. And thanks to interim chief jackson for her service during the transition as well. And then for those who are interested in violence prevention, we are. I appreciate it being highlighted that the recruitment I've been asking about since January is live for the office of violence prevention program manager, and you can find that in all the other city jobs at government jobs. Dot com. Thanks.
50 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green, did you have questions for mr. Jordan? Go right ahead.
51 Thank you, madam president. Thanks for the report. Once again. I also like the length. I do read them. I'm curious if a future iteration of this report would, would give us an update on the status of the zenith franchise agreement investigation.
52 I appreciate that, thank you. Counselor. You should have a update in your inbox this morning. Sent one this morning to update council on the status. If you wish, I can very briefly here let you know that we had a discussion a couple of months ago around, well, maybe more than a couple now around the getting of outside counsel to oversee and and help with the structure of the investigation that we're doing under the franchise agreement. We now have that. And it's in your report. We now have that outside counsel on board. The staff have met with them once already to go over all of the materials that we have gotten from zenith under the franchise request and the work that was done by pnd to do inspections on some of the physical changes that were concerns also about permitted work that was done there. And so all of that data is being brought together with the outside counsel to go over the note that you have says that we hope to finish all of that work by the end of the calendar year with the outside counsel.
53 Okay. Thank you for that. And I look forward to reading that report in my inbox. That concludes my questions.
54 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Ryan, did you have questions for mr. Jordan?
55 Thank you, madam president. Good morning, mike jordan. My question is to make sure that under grants, we're implementing the somewhat recent code that we passed in 2020 for my office. Let it. So of course I'm attached. We didn't have anything. We didn't have discipline that had this in our records, which was that we needed to have current financial documents and we need to have a current listing of their board members. And for some reason, the city didn't have that checks and balance, and we were sending out grants without that due diligence. So I'm not in that role anymore, and I'm not micro in it. But I get to ask you this question right now to make certain that we are doing that with fidelity.
56 I my understanding is we are councilor. But I'll get back to you and make sure.
57 Thank you, I appreciate that.
58 Councilor Koyama Lane do you have a question for mr. Jordan?
59 Yes. I also want to thank councilor Smith for bringing up the office of equity and human rights, which is very important. We know over the years we have seen that office being cut almost in half. And as we are having constituents come and speak to us all often, including today, about the threats that we're facing, it's really important that we are working closely with that office, that we're making sure that council is in communication and working with the administration. So I would encourage the administration to be working with us as much as possible. Council president and I have been talking about this since we've been sworn in. This is something that I have been taking a lead on, and especially as we're leaning on that office for things like the executive order and different things that are coming up. It's I would love to hear the plan of of how to make sure that a national search isn't taking a year, but that we have a good plan to make sure we can act really quickly and nimbly, because this is very urgent, and I would love to talk more offline.
60 Thank you.
61 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith, are you back in the queue? Councilor Smith okay.
62 It's a legacy, okay.
63 Colleagues, that concludes questions about the city administrator report. Mr. Jordan, thank you for putting this together for us every month. And I think you heard from a number of folks today that we prefer more information. Got it. So, you know, let's not let's not have folks go on at such length that we can't digest it all. Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is a time certain item that is scheduled for 10:00. So I'm going to have us take up the consent agenda. First item number seven was pulled off of the consent agenda. So it has been moved to the end of our regular agenda. So we are approving the rest of the consent agenda. Rebecca, could you please call the roll Koyama Lane.
64 Hi, Morillo. Hi, Novick. Hi, Clark.
65 I Green. Hi Zimmerman. Hi, Avalos I.
66 Dunphy I. Smith I.
67 Now. Hi Ryan.
68 I. Pirtle-guiney I.
69 And the consent agenda is passed with unanimous consent.
70 Thank you. And we still have a few minutes. Rebecca. Are we able to move on to agenda item eight while we wait for the time certain item, I see linly nodding yes. Okay. Could you please call agenda item eight.
71 Authorize the bureau of transportation to acquire certain permanent and temporary property rights necessary for construction of the 82nd avenue glisan and davis signal improvements project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
72 Thank you and colleagues. This is a second reading, so if there is not further discussion, we will move directly to a vote. Okay. Seeing no one in the queue, rebecca, could you please call the role?
73 Koyama Lane.
74 Oh I'm sorry. Okay. Go ahead.
75 I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Dunphy.
76 I. Smith I kyle I. Brian hi. Pirtle-guiney I.
77 And the ordinance passes with 12 votes.
78 Thank you. Could you please read the next agenda item.
79 Amend council organization and procedure code to include council rule on tie breaking colleagues.
80 This is also a second reading. So unless there is further discussion we will move to a vote. Seeing none. Rebecca, could you please call the role.
81 Koyama Lane? I Morillo.
82 Hi I.
83 Clark. I Green.
84 Hi.
85 Zimmerman no. Avalos I. Dunphy. Hi. Smith no. Canal I. Ryan hi. Pirtle-guiney I.
86 The ordinance passes with ten votes.
87 Okay. And I believe we are. We are one minute to ten. So rebecca, could you very slowly call agenda item five for us?
88 Amend city code to reduce permit submittal requirements and temporarily suspend city imposed development upgrade requirements. I think we've got about 20s.
89 That was great. That was very slow. While we wait for another couple of seconds, I believe this came out of the homelessness and housing committee and that we have a committee staff summary from claire. Is that correct? And we are at 10:00. So, claire, if you would like to go ahead and give us that overview, that would be great.
90 Thank you, madam president and councilors, for the record, claire adams, council policy analyst and staff to the homelessness and housing committee. The ordinance before you document 2020 5-314 was heard in the homelessness and housing committee on August 12th, where it was referred to council with the recommendation to pass. The ordinance directs the adoption of the findings of fact report and the code alignment project. Recommend recommended draft. The recommended draft proposes amending four chapters in Portland city code related to upgrade requirements and site alterations for development projects that meet a specified project value threshold. The proposed code amendments include the following. For title 11 trees. Suspend street. Street tree planting requirements for additions and alterations until January 1st, 2029, and reduce tree plan or minimum tree planting size requirements in certain development situations. For title 33 planning and zoning. Suspend nonconforming upgrade requirements for all projects until January 1st, 2029 for title 24 building regulations. Suspend requirement of seismic evaluation reports for projects that meet or exceed a specified valuation threshold, and buildings constructed or renovated prior to 1974, and for title 17 public improvements apply a partial waiver of street frontage improvements for projects that propose significant alterations of a building that do not result in increased occupancy. The ordinance further clarifies the applicability of the amended code to development projects under land use or permit review. At the time the ordinance takes effect. The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts, and community involvement for people testified during the committee meeting on August 12th. Three people submitted written testimony on this item prior to committee action. The general themes of this testimony included streamlining, permitting to support development and revitalization of commercial spaces, a suggestion to focus future work on infrastructure related costs and impact on the city's housing production goals. And finally, a request to extend the two year grace period to allow additional time to bring nonconforming development up to code. And that concludes the committee staff summary.
91 Thank you very much, councilor Avalos, you were presiding over that meeting. Do you have anything you'd like to add to that summary?
92 Not much other than to say that I'm grateful to my colleagues for putting together this effort. It is the first of many steps that our committee is going to be taking on code revision reform. This one was kind of the low hanging fruit, and I think it signals our intentions to really dig into, remove as many barriers as possible and make sure that people can get housing built. So I'll pass it on to councilors Morillo and Dunphy if they want to add anything, because they are the sponsors of the bill.
93 Councilor Morillo. Councilor Dunphy, I believe you brought this jointly with the mayor. Is there anything you'd like to add, councilor Dunphy?
94 Go right ahead.
95 You know, this is a really thoughtful process. I wish I could take more credit for it, but it was some amazing staff work that's been going on since November. This is looking at some of those things that are just sort of silly in our code. Sometimes if you're adding a bathroom, why do you have to add trees? We love trees, but that certainly adds a level of complexity and cost when we're trying to get things moving in this city. This is not speaking specifically to development of new apartment buildings, necessarily. This is more about a lot of the neighborhood scale improvements that we want to do to try and make sure that we are getting getting this city moving in the right direction. This is a temporary suspension. I think this is also going to have some some longer term conversations in that interim to make sure that we are actually aligning the code in a proper way and and ensuring that our values are met as a community and that our safety and quality are established, but that we aren't running into those continued buzz saws of conflicting bureau requirements and triggers. So I'm excited to see this as a first step for this council and a continued demonstration to the community that we're really serious about getting things built and getting the city moving forward. So thank you.
96 Thank you, councilor, councilor Morillo anything to add?
97 Ditto to everything, councilor Dunphy said. And truly, the staff deserve all the praise and all the flowers for this, because this is exactly what government should be doing. This is a common sense changes that will help modify buildings in Portland that already exist and just make people's lives easier and better. And that is what I think good government should be doing. So really grateful for all the work that was put into this by staff and excited to support this. So thank you so much for making it easy for us to do something good for the public.
98 Thank you councilor, colleagues, we do have a few people signed up for public testimony, but are there any questions about the staff summary or the overview before we move to hearing from the public? Councilor. Clerk. Councilor Ryan?
99 Yeah.
100 Thank you, madam president. Forgive me. Colleagues from the committee, as I repeat myself from the committee meeting, I'm really excited about this work to continue. And of course, I'm all in for this legislation. It's a very wide step. It's also been a long journey since 2021 when, along with commissioner Mapps, we started the permit improvement task force, we included all three other commissioner Offices, and that was the first time in portland's history that it was done in such a comprehensive, collective way. And one of the best things we did our office sponsored hiring terry tyson, the 2122 budget, and then we followed up with adding three people to that team. Yes. This is this is exactly why this is moving along, because we put staff in the budget to be working on this project. It didn't start in November. I'll have to edit the comment made by councilor Dunphy. It started years ago. It's been a long journey. And so I just want to acknowledge. Terry, where are you? There you are like, wave or something. Stand up. And it's your team here. Are they here? They're all next to you. All right. Congratulations to all of you for this hard work. Yes. Acknowledge them. Anyway, it's grateful that that the last council approved this budget item so we could continue this along. I appreciate seeing the suspension of upgrade requirements. Includes many of the most common complaints I've heard from homeowners and small businesses around Portland for the last few years, as barriers for staying in business, and also for expanding location in our city limits. When we're looking at some of the key culprits of the code clutter, I do want everyone to listen to this on the dais, which confuses staff, as you can only imagine how it confuses the customers. One of the key culprits is linked to the last minute walk on amendments from elected officials. My hope is this council will not continue this uncharitable legacy. Thanks.
101 Thank you.
102 Councilor. Councilor Smith, did you have questions while we still have claire available?
103 Yes. Thank you so much for presenting. How will we ensure that PCEF tree planting efforts are aligned with the code alignment plan?
104 Councilor Smith I think that's a question better answered by the staff who worked on this project.
105 Okay.
106 Councilor Smith, would you like to ask that now, or should we save that for discussion?
107 We can do it under discussion.
108 Okay.
109 Do you have any additional questions?
110 No, ma'am.
111 Okay, president, can I just ask a quick question, then come back later? I just want to ask why. What was the rationale behind the sunset?
112 Councilor Dunphy? Is that something the city administrator to weigh in on, or is that something that you'd like to take?
113 You know, I don't have the specifics of this moment. I think if we can get staff to respond to that.
114 Why don't we have somebody come up from the staff team that's been working on this? I don't know if that is dci oliveira or if that's somebody from the department from the bureau. Perfect. We'll get a couple of these technical questions out of the way, and then we will hear from members of the public who are here to speak to the the ordinance as well. Go right ahead.
115 Good morning.
116 For the record, morgan tracy, senior planner with the bureau of planning and sustainability. I think in response to the question about the the rationale behind the temporary suspension, as you may be aware, the complexity of our codes when you put them all together, there are fine threads that sort of bleed into one another as you start to unweave this code, there's potential for unintended consequences, and we want to be able to best understand how those consequences will play out. So as we started developing alternatives to this temporary pause, in other words, a revising the thresholds, right sizing the thresholds that would apply to these development situations, we quickly learned that there were a lot of different ways to approach it, all with different consequences, either positive or negative, that all require further study and analysis. We also recognize that there was an immediate need for action and we didn't want a delay. And so we took the approach of putting a pause for the for the moment to give staff time to further evaluate what that more permanent solution would look like, and better understand what those consequences were at the back end. Also, we are in a moment here in our economic climate that may change over time. And so we want to be able to better respond to that as the those conditions change over over the next several years as well.
117 Thank you. Anything to add okay.
118 Thank you. Covered it.
119 Councilor Smith because we have staff up here now. Would you like to return to your question?
120 I want to go to my original question. How will we ensure safe tree planting efforts are aligned with the code alignment plan?
121 Thank you, councilor Oliveira. For the record, councilor. The urban forestry program, working with the Portland clean energy community benefits fund, staff work with community advisory panels that inform our tree planting is going to go. This code is really designed to speed up like our internal processes, but would have no bearing on how we distribute and plan and maintain our urban canopy. Okay.
122 And just one last thing with with suspension of these requirements, are we losing revenue?
123 Councilor. That's a question that's sort of how long is a string type of question meaning this this program really is an opportunity to speed up our processes. There may be material impacts in infrastructure that's currently financed by the private sector. When they're doing like I think it was alluded to councilor Dunphy's mentioning the tree program, when someone is doing a tenant improvement in a building where we may see impacts, is the ADA ramp requirements. That could be a material impact to to that infrastructure, but at a very small I think we said 15, approximately 15 a year. But again, that's all dependent on how many projects are coming into the city. If there's no projects, we have other issues.
124 Okay. We sure do.
125 Yeah.
126 Thank you.
127 And councilor, I'll draw your attention to the analysis from the city budget office, which does have a nominal potential increase cost listed for some work that is currently funded through construction projects. But it's all very small.
128 Okay. Okay.
129 Councilor Kanal did you have questions for staff before we hear public testimony and move to discussion?
130 Yeah, I.
131 Yes, madam president, the question I have was related. It's just the only number that's cited here is the $500,000 that would be foregone revenue in the context of ADA ramps. What's the overall dollar amount that would be foregone revenue?
132 Well, again, for the record, morgan tracy bureau planning, sustainability. That's a hard number to quantify. Again, as as donna alluded, it is dependent on how much development is we the city is experiencing. So sort of taking these four pauses in in order we we can start with the nonconforming upgrades, which are requirements that are applied to different development situations. It's all on site improvements like bike parking, landscaping, those sorts of things. So there's no direct financial impact to the city for the loss of that. It's more of a a trade off in terms of the public benefit that's lost for the street tree planting requirement. There's no, again, no mandate that the city backfills the the lack of those trees being planted. But we do have the piece of funding that is more than making up for that, that offset the seismic evaluation report, again, is an applicant cost. It's not a city cost. And the street frontage improvement, I think is the one element that that really has some bearing, because the city is under obligation, under a court settlement to provide certain number of ADA ramps per year. And if the development community isn't providing some portion of that, we are still obligated to make that meet our commitment. So that's the one area where there is that potential for direct financial implication back to the city.
133 Maybe I should clarify, and this is, I think, more specific to the second of those for the street trees and using, I'm assuming that you have a model based off of you said it's it's variable based on the amount of development. But if we had an exact continuation of where we're at now, I'm assuming there was a model made on this. And then secondly, as it relates to street trees, I'm talking about that there is a cost. That would be cost is not necessarily the right word here. There would be an obligation to maintain the level of planting, to maintain and grow our canopy, regardless of it being a legal obligation through a settlement the way creek is. So in order to maintain that, I assume there was a model made about the cost.
134 I'm waiting for my urban forestry partner to join me.
135 Of course not. Trying to. Yeah, thanks.
136 Thank you for joining us. Go right ahead and introduce yourself.
137 Sure thing. Hi, everyone. Brian. Brian with urban forestry. So we did look at what the anticipated impact on tree planting would be as a result of this. I think what we've seen is that we're in a sort of a diminishing return period for regulatory code required tree tree planting. We've seen an increase in the number of projects which are triggering the tree planting requirement, but there actually isn't space for a new street tree to be planted. And so we're anticipating maybe a few hundred fewer trees be planted every year. But we're planting several thousand street trees through the program, and that is directing trees, not where private development dollars are going, but where where trees are needed most.
138 Thank you.
139 Thank you. Councilor councilor Green. Did you have questions at this point?
140 Just for discussion.
141 Okay.
142 Councilor Dunphy, did you have questions for this time?
143 Yeah, just for the public and for my colleagues around the table. I want to just sort of put a finer point to this. If you are a homeowner and you want to add a bathroom in your basement and say you want to spend $25,000 on this, please don't quote my math. I'm not a math guy, but say you want to spend $25,000 adding a new bathroom to your basement. City code right now requires you spend about $2,500 on street trees. It's a trigger that at a certain dollar a point, if you are spending more money on an existing structure, renovating something, adding a mother in law unit to your basement, whatever it is, it automatically triggers this requirement. And so if I'm as a homeowner, you know, renovating my bathroom, suddenly I have to add trees. Not the trees are not a bad thing, but it's not directly related to the action that is happening inside of your home. And it becomes an obstacle that some people just say, screw it. I'm not going to bother renovating my bathroom at this point. So that is really the goal of these things, is to look at those opportunities where folks are wanting to do the work in their homes, in their businesses. There's another example that I can give is, for example, the nonprofit friends of noise is attempting to open a all ages music venue in an old strip club in north Portland because of the amount of money that they spent on the inside of it, they were required to redo the curb cuts on the street in front of it. And that was an additional, I think they said somewhere 25 or $30,000 that they had not raised and they were not ready to be able to pay for for curb cuts that were out of compliance, but were also pretty good. Still, there are examples like that across the city where our our good intentions are actively stopping us from getting new businesses and new development and getting people to work to improve the built environment. So as I said earlier, you know, this is not about walking back our commitment to street trees. As we heard, thousands of new street trees will be planted. And the reality is that we need more street trees in my part of town, district one, where people aren't having the extra capacity to add a bathroom to their basement. We don't need a whole lot more street trees in Laurelhurst right now. We need them in powell hurst. So this will continue that work and also hopefully allow folks to to make those improvements how they want. So thank you staff.
144 Thank you councilor Colleagues I don't see anybody else in the queue for questions for the folks before us. So I'll let you all go back to your seats. Thank you very much for being here today. And rebecca, could you please call up members of the public who have signed up for public testimony?
145 First is wade lang.
146 Welcome. Thank you for being here today.
147 Good morning. For the record, my name is wade lang and I'm here today representing the building owners and managers association of Oregon or boma. Boma is a commercial real estate organization representing over 40,000,000ft■s of commercial real estate in the state of Oregon. Boma is in full support of the code alignment project, simplifying the permitting process to make it more efficient has always been a goal of our membership. Just as important, the amendments with within the code alignment project will reduce the cost of tenant improvement project while also reducing the timelines for completion. As I'm sure you're all aware, the commercial office industry in Portland is hurting. It is important for building owners to move a new tenant into their buildings quickly and economically. The code alignment project will certainly help in this process. Nonconforming requirements often take owners by surprise, costing the projects more than expected and delaying their completion. The code alignment will help bring more certainty to their projects. Portland office buildings need this type of incentive to help reduce the vacancy rate within Portland. We also support and offer our help in developing long term code alignments. I was serving on the Portland planning commission when the code alignment project came before us in June. We only looked at changes to title 33 and development regulations. In title 11. We unanimously passed these revisions. It is the right time for this move forward, and we hope it will ultimately lead to a more efficient and transparent permitting process. Thank you very much.
148 Thank you for being here.
149 Kelly ross.
150 Welcome. Please introduce yourself and go right ahead.
151 Sure. Good morning, madam president and councilors. My name is kelly ross and I'm here this morning to represent naiop, the commercial real estate development association, and here to voice our strong support for this ordinance and to also express strong appreciation to city staff for developing this and bringing it forward. I also want to highlight for you a letter that I believe was submitted to the clerk last night or this morning that's signed by ten other business organizations expressing support for this. We believe strongly that the delays laid out by this ordinance will continue. Portland's aggressive actions that have previously been made to improve and speed up the permitting process for commercial development, and in so doing, will help bring new tenants to commercial spaces that are currently vacant. So thank you very much and encourage your I vote.
152 Thank you very much.
153 Michelle schultz michelle is online.
154 Welcome, michelle.
155 Hi. Can you hear me? Okay.
156 Yes we can.
157 Great. Good morning, madam president and members of city council, thank you for the opportunity to speak with you today. My name is michelle schultz. I'm a licensed architect, principal and owner of gbd architects. We are a Portland based firm headquartered in district four, and we're proud to have helped design and revitalize many parts of this community. We love working here and want to keep investing in portland's future, but right now we're seeing a slowdown in development, especially for renovations and additions caused by complex processes and financial hurdles that make it harder to improve and adapt our existing buildings. That's why I'm here in strong support of the alignment project postponement. I also want to acknowledge and thank city staff for their hard work for shaping this proposal today by temporarily suspending certain upgrade requirements for alterations and additions until 2029. Cap removes redundant regulatory hurdles, streamlines permitting and allows property owners and small developer developers to move projects forward quickly. It provides immediate relief without compromising public safety while still maintaining transparency and accountability. This is more than a technical fix. It's an economic catalyst. Cap will make it easier to invest in existing buildings, activate vacant spaces, and support both small businesses and portland's urban core. It sends a strong message that Portland is open for business, committed to revitalizing our neighborhoods and downtown, and ready to partner with the community to create a vibrant, livable city. As a board member of both naiop and boma, I also want to highlight, as kelly did, that this perspective is not mine alone. A broad coalition of local business and community organizations have submitted a joint letter to support. As part of this written testimony. This coalition recognizes that cap provides common sense, time limited relief that will reduce costs, bring greater consistency to city codes, and help keep small projects feasible. I urge you to support the postponement so that important projects can proceed. Now, instead of stalling and disappearing. This is a crucial step to keep Portland moving forward. Thank you very much for your consideration and support today.
158 Thank you.
159 That completes testimony.
160 Thank you rebecca.
161 Colleagues, we now have an opportunity for further discussion. I'll note that this is a non emergency ordinance. So we are discussing today and then moving to a second reading. There's not a vote today. Councilor clerk.
162 Thank you madam president. And I would be interested if there's any interest in making an emergency ordinance. There may be support for that. I think I feel some sense of urgency around this. But before we talk about that, I just want to thank councilor Ryan for the work that he did in the past to bring us to this point and to thank the committee under the leadership of councilor Avalos and all the staff to bring us to this point, because I feel such a sense of urgency around this. So many of us who ran for this position heard about these roadblocks, experienced them personally in our neighborhoods, among our friends, some of what some people thought were really ridiculous requirements when they did want to add a bathroom. Councilor Dunphy. So I really appreciate that. I also feel a great sense of urgency around what's the next phase, what's the next step we're going to take, and can we expedite that? So I appreciate that because I know that we do still have things on the books that stand in the way of progress, whether it's a small project or a large project. And I've experienced that personally in my neighborhood. So thank you for that. And thank you to our witnesses who paid attention through the whole process, I think, and really appreciate your being here today. I don't know if there is any interest in an emergency move to to implement this immediately. I would make that proposal.
163 Councilor are you testing the waters and hoping folks will weigh in on that, or are you proposing an amendment?
164 Well, I'll propose an amendment that we actually put an emergency clause on this.
165 And when we make something an emergency ordinance, we need to list what the emergency is.
166 The emergency is that without these changes, we're we have impediments in the code to development, to economic development, the kinds of things that we've heard from our witnesses today.
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167 I see a bit of a, a meeting going on over there with some of our attorneys and our dca.
168 May I jump in quickly, please? It's my understanding that the implementation date in the ordinance is October 1st, because there's an agreement on land use, that there will be two set implementation dates for rp. And so it's not having this as an emergency doesn't necessarily.
169 Thank you. Linly I appreciate that. I withdraw my suggestion.
170 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green.
171 Thank you, madam president. I would have voted for that because I appreciate your spirit here. I'm prepared to support this colleagues for a number of reasons. But before I get into that, I just really want to thank paddy and acknowledge, frankly, the stance of urgency that they've taken. You know, over the years, I think this part of our city has taken some punches and been blamed for a lack of development in this city that are, frankly, largely external macroeconomic conditions. Doesn't mean, though, that we can't look internally and say, how can we do better? And they have been doing better recently. They helped move a school that was right next to the ice facility in record time, so that school could open up before the start of the school year, and that those kids are still in that school. And that was heroic work by paddy. So this is just more of the same. So they deserve some applause for that. But not right now because that breaks the decorum. I think that there's a couple of things that are interesting for me just from an economic standpoint. One is that and, councilor Dunphy, you sort of highlighted this with your vignette that if you create a regulatory requirement or cost that is overly burdensome, then people have an incentive to evade that requirement. And, you know, I'm not going to name anyone that I know, but but but it is. But it is true that people do try to avoid pulling a permit for work they might do inside of their house if it becomes something that is really hard to comply with. And I think we have, we have an interest in making sure people comply with our regulatory requirements, pursue, pull a permit in good faith, and then we get that revenue. And then we have sort of this this partnership with a built environment that that's consistent with our comprehensive plan in our codes. I think this helps us get closer to that. I also really like the model of pairing a temporary pause in a very targeted way in our code with a more thoroughgoing review, because, as the gentleman had had mentioned, it is kind of a a ball of yarn, so to speak, and I I'm more interested in moving swiftly to adjust the crises and the emergencies that we face in our economy than sort of, you know, tackle it all up front. So I think that's actually a really good model. And this is I'm prepared to support more of that in the future. On the infrastructure cost. I mean, that's a very real thing for us to think about. But I'll note that we passed a bond earlier in our tenure this year that that sort of bond financed much of that ADA obligation, and that's going to be supported in part by general fund revenue. And so if we can do things like this that allow an increase in commerce and economic activity, that was going to support our general fund revenue. So these things are interconnected in that regard. And I also think this this could help solve some of our vacancy rate issues. I know councilor Councilor Ryan is concerned about this, as well as the co-chair of the arts and economy committee, as well as my district colleagues who, you know, we go downtown, we see a 30% vacancy rate. So if you're able to do a tenant improvement at a at a lower cost than you can sign a lease at a cost that that is required to kind of lease these spaces up. So I see nothing but benefits. I'm going to support this.
172 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman, thanks.
173 All the points have been brought up are really, really important and great. I just makes me think, you know, when we talk about foregone revenue relative to a code cleanup, I think in, in the context of a code cleanup, it was never foregone revenue. I think this is just the end of us robbing people for erroneous actions. And so this is exactly the right thing that we should be doing for residents of Portland, because I don't think we really had a right to any of that money to begin with. If you get to the reason of a code, a code is about safety, right? We want the bathroom that's installed in the basement to be safe, to be something that the next owner can have faith that it was installed in a way, and any incentive to not take a permit out because of cost reasons gets us further and further away from safety. So if you think about some of those basics about why does a code exist, this is really moving us in the right direction, and we have a thousand miles to continue going. And so that's really important. And I and I appreciate the staff perspective of there are sometimes some unintended consequences. And I invite as we bump into those, I invite that opportunity to to polish it and clean it up more to the sponsors. I appreciate your work on it. Glad it came to the to the committee. And then I also just want to flag on here the danger of setting things like a $25,000 threshold. Some of you know that my first job out of college was working for the Multnomah county assessor's office, where I would inspect homes. I was a residential property inspector and measure 50. Allowed counties to increase the property assessed rates of homes if they did more than $10,000 in a year in changes, remodel, siding, etc. It was designed to be about major remodels, not general upkeep of a property, which general upkeep of a property is the thing that keeps low and medium income families in their homes for the long time. As you're able to keep it up. It also said $25,000 over a five year period. So if you do siding, maybe a roof, these are all normal things, except those mean those numbers mean absolutely nothing like they meant in 1997 that they do in 2025, because to replace a roof on a little ranch house will cost you $25,000. And yet that's considered by law to be regular, ongoing maintenance. But today, that would incite a new tax assessment, which is out of line with where we're at. I bring that up because the cost of extra improvements that when we put that on there, the cost of improvement should not trigger more things to be done. It is a way in which we ensure that those who are able to do things, or only those who've got the deepest pockets, residential infill, is not being completed by regular, normal portlanders today. It's being completed by people who have the money to do all the other extra stuff. So anytime we slap on a an arbitrary number like $25,000 and we don't connect it to inflation, we will bump into this. In 25 years. We will bump into this in five years. We have this terrible, I think, terrible habit in a lot of things that the county at metro, at the city of setting a number but not attaching it to anything to grow with time and space and and projecting what it means five years, ten years and 25 years down the road. So great improvements. Looking forward to more of them. Thanks to the sponsors, you all should vote yes for this and defend yourself if you want to vote no.
174 Thank you councilor. Colleagues. As councilor Zimmerman noted, we have a habit of essentially upgrading our city through small projects that developers or individuals at times take on on their properties. And that's a habit that we are moving away from. But in the short term, there are some real, real implications of doing that. And we've talked about some of those today. And so I just I have a question for our colleagues who sit on the committee. The testimony that we heard today was all positive. The testimony that was reported on from committee was all positive. Did you, as committee members debating this, have any outreach from organizations expressing concern either about the short term consequences of this shift away from. A. Policy in the city where we upgrade our infrastructure through tacking on costs to small projects around our city, to hopefully an approach where we actually take on those costs more holistically and strategically as city costs. Either folks concerned about tree canopy in the short term, or upgrades to our streets, or anybody who was concerned with that long term cost shift back to city resources for those projects.
175 I don't recall any receiving any negative testimony, written or verbal, from anybody. And I also am, thanks to the really diligent work of our our staff who did this. There was a lot of proactive outreach that was done ahead of that. And my understanding is that while not everybody was. Thrilled because there is some concern that the city may backpedal on some of our values, that was not that was a broader concern, as I understand it, and not not specific to the anything in this. I don't recall any other negative testimony or. Yeah, okay.
176 And I see heads shaking from some of the other committee members shaking. No thank you. I think a move like this is the right direction and the right thing to do, but I also have some concern about us following through on our commitments to make sure that we continue to fund things like our tree work and our street development work. And I know budgets are tight, so I just wanted to make sure that we hadn't heard any negative concerns there. Thank you. Councilor.
177 I just wanted to add as well. Yeah, we did not. I don't recall receiving any negative feedback during the committee meeting, nor has my office received any major concerns. And as co-chair of the climate committee who converses with climate advocates quite often, I can tell you that they are very aggressive in letting you know if they don't like something. So and I think that's a good thing. So I have not received any communications about that. And again, I really want to emphasize that if we're talking about the efficient allocation of resources, people who have worked on this for a long time, researched it, done the outreach, have recognized that that this is all going to be best accomplished through the Portland clean energy fund, as opposed to through individuals who are going to be planting trees. That's just not an efficient way of managing a city and making sure all of our infrastructure is being overseen in one collective manner. That's going to be much more organized. So this is, in my opinion, going to actually improve our tree canopy if we do it the right way. And I think that we can and will. So thank you for that.
178 Thank you, colleagues, for the thorough answers to my question. I can be even more excited to support this, knowing that we didn't receive any concerns. Councilor Kanal.
179 Thank you, madam president. Sometimes I think questions I may ask from the perspective of due diligence are interpreted as as oppositional, and I want to take the opportunity to clarify that that's not the case here. I agree with what councilor Morillo just said about the more efficient way to ensure tree canopy expansion being separate from private developers on an individual project by project basis. There was one piece. And this this is sort of the underlying reason that I asked the questions I did of oppositional testimony in writing. I think it came in after the committee hearing. So it wouldn't necessarily have been discussed there, although I don't actually think we have the data available on the written testimony easily. And it talks primarily about the frontage side of it. So I did want to just kind of explore that, and I appreciate the staff doing that. That being said, I am inclined to support this and I'm looking forward to the conversation developing. And when we get to it in the next meeting.
180 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
181 I'm excited about this for a number of reasons. I also want to thank the staff, the former commissioners, especially the one that's sitting here, all of your work on this and also the committee that took this up and those who are introducing this, I think this is a great example of finding where there are bumps, challenges and figuring out how to problem solve. How do we tweak the code to make sure that we're actually serving portlanders better? I've been on some tours, and I have seen where some of the code is not helpful or it's not meeting our goals. We have some big goals about the climate crisis. We need to make sure that we're not just checking boxes, and folks are planting one little tree in a small area of concrete that will be dying soon anyway. So this is a great example of okay, instead of throwing out an entire program, how can we make little tweaks to benefit everyone and not give up on our goals? So I am I feel really excited that there are so many different folks at the table excited about this. And I we know that it's always going to be more exciting for us, things to be polarizing and for things to seem more dramatic than they are, and to make it seem like we're always on different sides, but would just like to highlight that this is being introduced by the mayor, councilor Morillo and councilor Dunphy. And this very much is about helping make sure that we can have development upgrades. And so I don't want to hear that some councilors never care about economic development or developers or landowners homeowners, because here we go. Yeah.
182 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, we will close discussion on this agenda item and it will come back at our next meeting on second reading.
183 So council president, because this is a land use item, we need to continue it to a time and date certain. It is my understanding that it is likely there will be a special meeting on the 24th, if that's the next one. Would you like to identify with the clerk a date and time, please?
184 Colleagues, assuming that our next agenda item passes and we are moving to weekly meetings, my intent was to have us have a special meeting on the 24th. I had said that we would have special meetings to have weekly meetings until that ordinance was implemented, and those weekly meetings were part of our regular schedule. So yes, why don't we move this to the 24th as a time certain item on that agenda? And as I say that I'm looking into the crowd to make sure, okay, thumbs up from oliveira, that that's not too late. Perfect.
185 So 945 on the 24th.
186 Perfect. Thank you very much for catching that linly. Okay, we will move this to a second reading at 945 on the 24th of September at a special meeting, which I don't believe has been posted yet. But colleagues, you do have a hold on your calendars. And for members of the public that will be posted soon. Rebecca, could you please read the next agenda item for us? I know you may need a minute to write down the land use details their first.
187 The next agenda item is item ten. Adopt council regular meeting schedule pursuant to code subsection 3.02.01 0c1.
188 Colleagues, this is a second reading. So unless there is further discussion, we will move to a vote. Okay. Seeing none. Rebecca, can you please call the roll. Koyama Lane I.
189 Morillo I.
190 Novick.
191 I.
192 Clark. I Green.
193 I.
194 Zimmerman I.
195 Avalos I.
196 Dunphy I.
197 Smith I.
198 I Ryan. I pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance passes with 12 votes.
199 Thank you. Could you please read the next agenda item for us.
200 Item 11 amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities.
201 There we go. Mike on, thank you and colleagues. This is a first reading. So claire you beat me to it. We have a committee staff summary.
202 Madam president councilors again for the record, claire adamson, council policy analyst and staff to the transportation and infrastructure committee. The ordinance before you document 2025 301 was heard in the transportation and infrastructure committee on August 11th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass the ordinance. Amends Portland city code section 16.20 point 460 related to parking space reservation to enable PBOT temporary street use, permitting staff to reserve on street parking spaces in metered areas. The ordinance also allows a permittee to request that the city install parking reservation signage in non metered areas, as appropriate. The full impact statement on this item indicates no anticipated financial and budgetary impacts, nor economic real estate impacts, nor community impacts. No verbal or written testimony was submitted on this item prior to committee action. And that concludes the committee staff summary.
203 Thank you. Claire. Councilor Clark, you were presiding at this meeting. Do you have anything you'd like to add?
204 No, it's very straightforward. It's just shifting staff who can do what? It's pretty. Pretty simple. Unfortunately, we have to go through all this process to make that happen.
205 We have we have some opportunities to make things more efficient in the future. Colleagues, are there any questions for either claire, councilor Clark or perhaps the city administrator? This does come from the administration. Before we move to any public testimony, councilor Zimmerman, thanks.
206 I'm hoping that somebody can help me answer the question about why something like this is coming to council, but the extension of the parking hours was an action that the mayor could take unilaterally. We voted in our budget and it was a split vote, but we voted in our budget about increasing the parking rates, and I understood that. But then to hear that the extension of the hours was something that did not have to have any council action on has caused me some confusion. When this what also seems like a very mundane activity is now coming to council. So clearly I'm taking the opportunity to inform the public that it was not this council who extended your hours. But also I do need clarification for where we weigh in and where we do not weigh in. And and I'm just exploiting the opportunity of parking being on the topic.
207 Thank you. Councilor. Mr. Jordan, are you able to help us understand the difference here? Because I have also received a fair amount of feedback about the extended parking hours and hadn't recalled that being in the actual materials that we voted on.
208 Yeah, I struggle a bit myself, but my I, my supposition would be that there is something in current code that designates these assignments in some way, shape or form regarding parking enforcement or parking management. And that's my guess as to why it's in code. And we've come to you, as most of you know, and councilor Ryan suffered through, we did waves of code change late last calendar year to try to remove things that were administrative and put them in administrative rule, rather than keep them in code. I assure you, we did not catch everything. And so this may be one of those instances.
209 So thanks. I appreciate that answer. And I certainly would expect that there will be many of those that that come up. I think that while we go through these first few years of this change, being as transparent as we can about it is is helpful. This one is just the controversy de jour or month. And so I took the opportunity. So thanks, mike.
210 Yeah.
211 Councilor anything further? Councilor Kanal.
212 Thank you, madam president. First, I appreciate councilor Zimmermann bringing that topic up. And I would like to to talk about this somewhere more, because it is something I've also heard about. Relatedly, my question for the sponsors here is why does this need to even say parking enforcement or temporary street use permitting as opposed to city staff? Why does it need to be as specific as it is, even if we're adding a second enumeration? I understand that there are some context where, you know, we don't want to be telling, saying any city staff will do something that there's a reserved ability to do, for example, law enforcement under state law. But in this particular case, it seems a little bit broader that it's not necessarily a question of legal authority. It's a question of our assignment of authority to within the 7000 staffers of the city of Portland, which groups will do it? And I'm curious why it needs to be stated at all. Thanks.
213 Councilor. Is that a so this came from the administration, mr. Jordan, I think that I saw donna paul walk in, though I'm not sure if she's still here. Do you have somebody who you'd like to have come up and help us with this? We're pausing for just a moment.
214 Madam chair, can I just interject here for a second that I think your question councilor Canal is a much bigger question than just this particular situation. And and per councilor Zimmermann's comments, this really requires a different kind of look at, I think, in terms of both the code and where we have purview and where we don't. These are larger issues than just this little one today.
215 Good morning. This is for public works. And I believe the question is about the parking code hours and the is that correct? Sorry, I was just walking in.
216 I think there was a question that has both a broad and a narrow piece to it. The broad piece. I think we need mr. Jordan to answer. And the narrow piece, perhaps you about how specifically we assign roles to staff. Would you like to repeat the question more more specifically than that?
217 Councilor Kanal you're about 95% of the way there. Why does it need to say these two entities at all, as opposed to city staff? Will is the question.
218 We have matt graham from PBOT who can talk specifically about the parking hours and the and your question in particular.
219 Thank you. Councilor Kanal matt graham, Portland bureau of transportation. The code historically has always had parking enforcement officers where the key piece staff that were in charge of all metered areas through time and efficiencies, we've learned that the staff that does the temporary street use permits can do that, freeing up the time for the parking enforcement to do their job. We still, obviously, as an agency and a bureau, want to have the appropriate people out in the street doing that work. And so opening it up to anyone is, you know, is a is a situation that we're not prepared yet to go. We could expand it in the future depending on what we looked at. But right now the staff are the professionals we feel can do it.
220 Thank you. And just to clarify that, councilor Clark, we're not proposing an amendment. I'm just trying to understand. So, yeah. Thank you.
221 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Ryan.
222 Yes, thank you, madam president. I'm just a big fan of clarity. And it makes sense that PBOT employees are doing work that aligns most with their areas of responsibility. We need to make sure that our parking enforcement teams are focused on the highest priority work. That includes managing the city's right of way. Our parking enforcement teams play a big part in managing that. Critically important work is addressing our city's growing challenges in every neighborhood around abandoned vehicles on our streets. We all get a lot of calls about that, and the teams also have a vital role in connecting individuals living in those vehicles with service providers. I had the pleasure of working with PBOT when we opened sunderland, and you were really a game changer in how we were able to get people into the the safe rest village. There we found that the county's outreach workers were quite inadequate, and so we really did have to rely on PBOT. So always thank you for that. The teams that you have are vital role in connecting individuals living on the streets and getting them off the streets are the streets need to be stable and safe places for all portlanders. We want to make sure that we increase pbot's capacity to do this work. I support the parking space preservation responsibilities, moving over to temporary street use permitting. And of course, I'll be voting I on this. And I think it's really important when we have PBOT operational issues, it helps me just get a little more context because it's kind of up there at the top of the list on what you get questions about. And so this just allows us to not be tongue tied, but to support your efforts to improve your efficiency. Thank you.
223 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Green.
224 Thank you. This discussion has now maybe want to weigh in on the specificity of the staff. I appreciate your your answer on making sure that, hey, we want this to be like still very targeted to a certain type of worker, but I think that should be something that, in my view, would fall to administrative rule making. And so I don't think I necessarily want to amend your code proposal today, but I think like the next time we do a code cleanup package that's kind of largely administrative in nature, we might look for an opportunity to to revisit this section of the code and strike these specific roles and say, you know, as described in administrative rule, such and such as as appropriate. And so I think there are some areas in our city where we want to be specific about who does what work, and that makes sense. But I, as I think through this, you know, temporary street use permitting staff as a label itself might might change. But but then but now it's written in code. And so just wanted to kind of offer that for, for you to think about mr. Jordan and priya. So thank you.
225 Thank you councilor, councilor Zimmerman.
226 Yeah, I think that. Having been a deputy city administrator in a couple other cities, the idea that my public works department, I only had a certain employee who could put a sign up is absurd to me. But this is the Portland way. And I think that this idea that only PBOT bureaus employees have the ability to cover a sign is another example of us not really breaking out of our old bureau model. And I don't think we should continue to support one. I don't think this should be in code two. I don't think our codes that do exist or administrative rules that do exist should further the silos of the bureau model. The bureau model, I think, should continue to be archived. We are in the department model now, and the service area is the word we use. But the public works department is what I care about. I care about the perspective of that dca most of all. And so. The city an employee, whether it be the secretary of the director or the parking enforcement officer or whomever, got the stapler, the duct tape and the sign is what makes sense to normal portlanders when we say, oh, we're going to block off a road for xyz permitted use. So I understand the purpose, the spirit of it. It also is still a little bit to protection for me, and I'm not going to be supporting the protectionist side of this because I think that's what this is doing. And so I will look forward to an additional code cleanup. And I think probably a code exercising. And we'll just cut this out and just get back to back to rationality. Thanks.
227 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, this is a first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. I don't see anybody else in the queue. So we will close our discussion for today and move this to second reading.
228 Thank you.
229 Thank you all for coming up. Last minute there. And rebecca, I believe that is the last item on our agenda. Is that correct? Oh, no.
230 Item seven from the consent agenda.
231 Thank you. Can you please call up our last item?
232 Item seven, reappoint adam abplanalp and appoint greg freeman to the revenue division appeals board.
233 Thank you and colleagues. Because this came off of consent, we don't have a committee staff summary presentation, though there is a committee staff summary posted online. I will turn to our finance chair, councilor Zimmerman, I believe you presided over this meeting. Is there anything that you'd like to share with the group?
234 I'm checking some notes quickly and thank you for coming up. But we were unanimous. I know that speaking for myself, I'm asking the question for most of our boards now if them or any member of their household receives any money from any of our groups. And those answers were no here. So had the support of finance. And with that, I would say if the staff has anything, madam president, I'd invite that, please.
235 Do you have anything you'd like to share with the full council before we move to discussion?
236 Not at all. Unless you want me to go over the presentation that I went over at the finance committee.
237 I don't believe we need a full presentation. I'm seeing some heads shaking. No. If you want to just share with us the brief reappointment versus appointment, why these two individuals were chosen.
238 Yes. Perfectly. Yes. So we have two members that have expired. And so we have one that we are reappointing. His name is adam espenak. And I'll just do a little brief intro on him. So adam, he is a he's the current chair. He's a licensed cpa, managing partner and ceo of cobalt pc. He has served on various tax, accounting, legal committees and boards, and he has served the public and city well in the past. And we strongly support his reappointment. And then craig freeman is our new appointment. He's a licensed cpa senior manager at gefen mesher with more than 20 years of tax professional experience. And this board position also requires approval from metro by iga. And they have approved, and we believe craig would make an excellent new board member.
239 Thank you very much. Colleagues, do you have any questions? Councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Smith.
240 Thank you, madam president. Thank you so much for introducing the reappointment. I think I am I'm so always thrilled when people use their their expertise to, to help us in a public way. So I thank you for bringing that forward and appreciate the work.
241 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
242 Thank you, madam president. I had a couple questions. First, these appointments are retroactive to January 1st. Can you speak to why that is? And if these two individuals have been serving since January 1st.
243 So I believe they have not been meeting since January 1st. I can't not be. I'm not sure exactly because I have I'm new in this position, but I know we did cancel a recent meeting. I think they're supposed to meet in may and then again, maybe August or so, and they didn't meet then. And as for why? Multiple reasons. We had a lot of turnover in revenue. And then I believe with the city council, it takes longer to get to here. And so that was another factor.
244 Okay. So first welcome second.
245 And I never said I'm for the record sorry.
246 Thanks. And I think that makes sense here. I think I'll mention for the administrator for future reference. If folks are not going to be meeting we should just date their appointment. The date of the council appointment process, so that it's clearer to the public when someone starts. And especially for those groups, some of which have rolling term lengths. Hopefully that gets fixed in the long run. But for right now, some of the appointments have rolling term lengths that can allow them to serve longer without a a different concern. The second question I had you've, I think, already answered. So I will stop here through the process of the discussion of those meetings that were canceled.
247 And also just to let you know, we do have two more positions expiring at the end of the year, but we will see you guys in a couple of months, so we won't have to worry about people serving when they're they're expired.
248 Thank you.
249 Thank you, councilor, councilor Novick.
250 Miss holt, I have no reason to think that you would have the answer to this extremely frivolous question. But I'm an old guy. When I saw the name abplanalp, it brought on a wave of nostalgia. Because robert abplanalp was a crony of richard nixon's. In fact, nixon was vacationing at his house in the bahamas when the watergate burglary took place. And not that I would hold against him at all. But do you have any idea if adam abplanalp has any relation to robert abplanalp?
251 I have, no, I.
252 Would encourage you not to engage.
253 Me. Thank you. Councilor.
254 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ryan, maybe a question that our staff can answer.
255 Yeah. Thank you, madam president. I just want to say, first of all, I'll support these folks. I have a question, though. Councilor Kanal I, I thought you would pull things if there was a dissent in the committee. You're going to pull everything off. Consent, even if it's unanimous in the committee.
256 May I respond?
257 Yeah, I'm asking him directly.
258 Go right ahead. Councilor. Thank you for checking.
259 I'm not to be clear, I'm the only things I'm pulling off of. Consent agenda relate to appointments to to advisory boards and commissions. So there's plenty of things that remain on there, such as the minutes. I think the consent agenda on the whole is a very important tool as it relates to this. That's the to board and commission appointments. It's not necessarily relevant whether or not it was unanimous or not, because seven of us are not on a committee. I think in this particular case, and there's a question around the importance of certain bodies as they relate to hearing appeals. So this particular one on the transient lodging tax appeal, for example, I've talked to some of the hotel owners who have questions around how that works and and how they could go about addressing those. So it's more about the need to ensure that the board or commission is accurately reflective, and that we're engaging with this process so that if and when later on, because this has happened, as I think you probably know better than the rest of us actually, that often there'll be a recommendation that is not necessarily heeded by the city council. And part of the conversation is, well, we didn't really worry about who got appointed. We're going to worry about who got appointed. And so we're going to have to engage with those recommendations because we picked who who got appointed. So that's the underlying conversation there. And I've laid it out in more detail in the past. So I'll stop here.
260 For some reason on my my two week break, I wanted to ask you this question, so thank you for answering it. I think this does, when we get back to our lovely dialog about committees and such, I think we need to have further dialog about this. I know for me, if it's unanimous and I still have a question, I feel comfortable going to the chair that committee and doing dialog with them. And I just think that that this does take up time when we're constantly pulling things off consent. So that's all. I just wanted to bring that up because we have a lot of efficiency things coming up. We just approved meeting every week, and we still haven't addressed the need for how we get more efficient with our committees. So it's just a relevant topic at this moment.
261 I agree with you on that last piece. I'll just mention the committee of the whole conversation does relate very directly to this one, and I'm happy to have that.
262 Thank you, councilors, for that discussion. I'll note, councilor Ryan, just because you brought up the idea of something that was unanimous that through conversations with a few of our colleagues, one thing that I have been toying with is the idea that if something comes out of committee unanimously, with no public comment in committee, we can assume that it's probably relatively non-controversial. Everybody was present for the committee hearing that maybe regardless of the type of content, those things should go on the consent agenda. And that's something that I'd be happy to, separately from this meeting, hear folks thoughts on. So we do have the opportunity to use consent in more effective ways to help us be more efficient. Councilor zimmermann.
263 I have to echo councilor Ryan's concern, and I, I want to use this committee. This is a finance committee who generally deals with if you looked at what was referred to committee by the council president today, some very mundane stuff. Right. But there are three members of peacock on that committee. And if you don't trust me to come talk to me about the people we appoint to an oversight, you've got part of your caucus as well. And I and I just encourage us to think about. If you have concerns, true concerns, instead of grandstanding concerns about a membership, a person's membership on a on an advisory body. And that vote was unanimous at finance, that there are colleagues to talk to that can avoid. Sometimes we have those people show up here in person, and then they are put to the back end of a five hour meeting. And I think that volunteer service is important. And when you first brought this up at the beginning of our time together about highlighting volunteer service, I appreciated that part of it. It seems to have gone. Somewhere down kind of a a a hill to die on in a way that is becoming. It seems erroneous. It kind of seems like a chance to ask questions of a thing that you're always going to vote for anyway, and it doesn't seem like it's highlighting the service, but I would respect anybody who wants to pull something from consent, because you think the committee or any one of us missed something, or you've got a deep concern about somebody's conflict of interest. That's why I'm trying to think about the questions I ask when I'm on committee on these boards about a person and their household, and if they're involved in the thing they're advising on. But I think we're all trying to do that from some perspective. But if if we do that in committees for one another and then always will bring stuff here and make everything that goes through committee go through 100% of the same presentation. I to councilor Ryan's point, our use of committees seems moot. And that is concerning for me in terms of where are we going to trust each other. I think that I have said from the beginning that I was hoping that there are people like I use councilor Clark as an example. I am so glad she's on transportation. Right. Because she has far more interest in that than I and skill in that than I personally do. And I like to take the lead from her. I would like to be able to extend that in other places. But if we continually say the committee can't speak for me because I wasn't at it, I just think that we're let's use this consent agenda and this placing of of people on advisory committees as an example of I'm not sure that committees are going to be able to work for us in the future if we're not going to at least give some deference to one another and the committees who dove in. And I just say that again with the finance committee is made up of councilor Avalos. Councilor Novick, council president pirtle-guiney, councilor Green, and myself. I cannot think of a more diverse political spectrum of people to represent the the city's needs on that committee for for a variety of very boring topics and a few occasionally nice, fun topics. So maybe I'm maybe I'm taking it too seriously because it's a finance committee thing today. But boy, we just keep doing this in the, in the in the time when we're thinking about committees future, I don't know what future we have. If this tiniest thing has continually has to be pulled off consent when it should not have been so I'm done. Thank you.
264 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Canal.
265 Thank you, madam president. I think the beginning and end of that, that statement, which is longer than we would have spent on this if we had just pulled it. So if we're talking about efficiency, that's an important note. The beginning and end of this is, I think, relevant here because the the comment that this is the tiniest thing is particularly concerning. These boards are much more important than they're often treated as, especially the ones that have direct ability to influence things such as hearing and appeal. We spent a great amount of time on conversations around what it takes for a homeowner to be able to address certain things when they're trying to build a bathroom or something like that. Tax appeals are going here, including not just for homes, but also for hotel owners, for example. So there's a lot of things that come to this particular board that are relevant. And then on the on the front end, I'll note that I would happen to disagree pretty strongly that the items that were referred to finance were mundane. We had 11 foreclosure actions, a declaring of a property as surplus and authorizing it to be sold. When we're not fully having the conversation around land banking yet, and also an eminent domain authorization that have been sent to finance, I think this I think it might be a little bit overmodest in terms of explaining what that committee is, is having referred to it. So I'm excited to to get into this and in the conversation around the committees. So I'll stop here.
266 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark, would you like to weigh in on this discussion?
267 I sure would, thank you, madam president. I. It's set aside this particular these particular appointments. But what this conversation says to me is that we really need some marriage counseling. You know, we we really need we really need to have some sort of process, which we discussed earlier. And I don't see it moving forward at this point, but some way to work together to find our common values and develop an agenda that we can all agree on and what we want the committees to do, and to try to build some trust around here. We I think we all ran for office because we wanted to make this system work, and we wanted to all pull together. And I just I don't see that happening right now. I so I know that we're going to talk about this in the governance committee at some point. I hope we are revisit the committee issue, revisit the need for some sort of facilitation. But that's just what this this conversation says to me. And I just had to throw that out there. So thank you. Thank you for the opportunity.
268 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Avalos.
269 Thank you for this discussion. I just want to weigh in and say that I share a lot of councilor Kanal. S concerns about how we talk about certain things as being mundane, as being minimal. I, you know, each individual thing we could debate. But I think the broader philosophy I disagree with, and I think it is important that we are having this discussion about the way that we operate, the way that decisions come to this body, you know, absolutely and willing to have a thorough debate about the role of committees and all of that. But I think I often hear this debate being shrouded in this concept of, well, we have to trust each other. And I will continue to say that it is not about trust. My job isn't about trusting all of you. My job is to speak for my constituents. My job is to weigh the decisions in front of me and use my judgment, coupled with the voices of my constituents, to make decisions. So if I'm not on a committee and you are bringing something to this council that I ultimately have one of 12 votes on, then I deserve to have all of the information that I need to make that decision. It is not about the five of you, because at the end of the day, five does not make seven, and seven is what passes things. And this body here we make decisions. We pass them with a vote of seven. We do not pass them with 12. That is not required. So I do not appreciate this concept of trust being used and weaponized as us saying, essentially claiming that we do not trust each other because that's not the problem. The problem is not my trust in you as my colleagues. I do trust you all as my colleagues. I do think that everybody is bringing their particular skills to the table, but I deserve the opportunity to represent my constituents, to use my vote as I need to. And that for me, requires information that requires the process for me to be able to weigh in in a way that's reflective of the people that I represent. So we will continue to have this conversation clearly. But I just want to put a finer point on this concept, because I am tired of being told that I should just trust people when this, at the end of the day, is politics, and I have a vote and I'm going to use it.
270 Thank you, councilor, councilor Morillo.
271 Thank you. I just wanted to say I generally, I actually disagree with pulling these from the consent agenda, and I also fully support councilor Kanal in wanting to do so and getting more information in the values that he brings in addressing governance. That's part of what he was elected to do as a model un nerd as we all know. So I'm grateful for his perspective and what he brings and what he's asking for. I also just want to say we're being a little dramatic, you guys. The national guard could come in any week now. So I think the consent agenda is the least of our problems. And we can we will all pull it together. It will be fine.
272 Councilor Koyama Lane.
273 I love councilor Morillo and I also really love governance. So I actually care a lot about the consent agenda and how we can use it to make our meetings run more smoothly and efficiently. I think it's important. I actually believe we have a majority of councilors that think we could be using it more, and I think that's an important conversation, actually, councilor Kanal someone who's really open to that and has told the council president and I he wants to be part of making sure that we can get more things on the consent agenda. This is this specific thing. I hope adam and craig, you know, this is not about you. This is our own issues that are being aired right now. This is about a difference of opinion of what should go on the consent agenda. We have to have that conversation some people are more interested in than others. We'll start with it in the governance committee. I'm we have to find a way to separate good governance and how to make things run smoothly from some of the interpersonal power struggle type stuff. There's a difference of opinion between councilor Kanal and the council president on if these should be on the consent agenda or not. I'm not even sure where I stand now. I've kind of gone all over the place, but we do need to figure out how we can get some agreement, and it's not going to be everyone. It might be that we have the majority of folks up here that decide these appointments need to go on the consent agenda, and that's that. And this conversation around using the consent agenda is happening. We I mean, even just looking at some of these things today, item 11, maybe some of these things can go on the consent agenda. And we are continuing to have people who are donating their time volunteering. We're wasting it in all different ways to. Make a point, to then make a point against someone making a point. Let's focus on how what should be on the consent agenda and try to move forward somewhat functionally.
274 Thank you councilor. I was going to try to wrap up that conversation, but I think you did an eloquent job at it. So I'll skip that part of my remarks and just bring us back to the topic at hand, which is agenda item seven, which is an appointment and reappointment. And I would like to express my gratitude to mr. Abplanalp and mr. Freeman for volunteering their time on a really important board within our city. Thank you for being here today. In case we had questions about the applicants, and I'm glad that this is something that we can move forward. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue for debate. This is a report which means I need a motion to move it forward.
275 So moved.
276 Second.
277 I believe I heard a motion from councilor Avalos and a second from councilor Canal. Rebecca, could you please call the roll.
278 Koyama Lane? I Morillo. I Novick.
279 I.
280 Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman I Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith. I snell. I Ryan pirtle-guiney. I and the appointments are confirmed with 12 I votes.
281 Thank you very much colleagues. Before you get too excited I see some people closing their materials already I messed up, I try to make sure to do that at least once a meeting, and we apparently had folks signed up to testify on agenda item 11. I didn't think we did. That is my bad. So I want to make sure that we give those individuals an opportunity to share with us their thoughts on the amendments to the parking space reservation code before we move forward toward the end of the meeting. And that moves forward to a second reading at a future date. So, rebecca, can we reopen that agenda item and call up those individuals, please?
282 We can. Agenda item 11 amend parking space reservation code to allow for flexibility in the distribution of responsibilities. And the first testifier was ugo flores. Followed by mark lee.
283 Okay.
284 And I would like to note neither testifier joined us online at any point during the meeting either.
285 Okay.
286 Perhaps they didn't show today then. I'm glad we at least had the opportunity to invite them up if they were here, and I apologize that we didn't catch that earlier. Rebecca, I believe that closes out our agenda. Is that true? Okay, colleagues, we passed the ordinance creating weekly meetings. I had said on the record previously that if that passed, I would start scheduling weekly meetings as special meetings until it went into effect so that we could begin that work immediately. Next week. We have a number of colleagues who are out of town, some out of the state, some out of the country, some of whom are not able to call in. We also have an executive committee scheduled or an executive meeting scheduled for next week. Based on our previous schedule when we didn't have weekly meetings. So we will not have a council meeting next week. We will have our regular council meeting in the evening the week after that, and then I will use that special meeting option to give us a council meeting on September 24th to kick off our weekly meeting cadence. So I just wanted to note that since that's a slight change from what we had talked about in the past. With that, I will. One other note apologies. We do have one agenda item scheduled tomorrow in our recess meeting time, so we will be reconvening tomorrow at 2 p.m. Which means that we are rather than closing recessing today's meeting. Thank you very much for being here this morning.