The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-06-04

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (27,195 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good afternoon everyone. Before we gavel in today, we will receive and celebrate the annual Portland sister cities coalition presentation. I want to take a moment to welcome a very special group of guests who are with us here in council chambers today, and many of whom joined us just a short while ago, downstairs at the 12th annual sister cities reception. Colleagues, today we have the honor of receiving the Portland sister city association, a celebration of the people to people diplomacy that defines Portland on the world stage. These are relationships built on the voluntary forging of ties across borders to encourage cultural understanding, friendship and exchange that come back to benefit our communities here at home. I'd like to extend a warm welcome to the visiting delegation from our sister city in kaohsiung, taiwan. Deputy director general shang tsung and deputy director general wu guanzheng from kaohsiung city government, international affairs and education bureaus. I'd also like to note that today is a particularly historic moment for our program. On may 27th, this council held the first reading of the ordinance, formally elevating portland's relationship with lviv, ukraine, from friendship city to sister city. Today, that relationship becomes official, and in about 15 minutes following our vote, our vote, Portland and lviv will become sister cities. This is a profound and meaningful milestone, and I'm proud that this council is marking it together. I'd like now to turn it over to our international relations manager in the office of government relations, who will share some insights and highlights from our association's work this past year and introduce the leaders who are present with us today. Chiedo take it away.

Thank you. For the record, my name is teto and I manage the international relations program in the office of government relations. It is a privilege to support portland's sister cities program and the extraordinary volunteer leaders who sustain it. Thank you, council president, and thank you to the full council for taking the time today to recognize this important work. The goal of the international relations program is to strengthen portland's engagement with the world through diplomacy, cultural exchange, economic relationship building, and people to people connections that benefit Portland residents. Portland's sister cities program is one of the oldest and most active in the nation. At its core, it's its citizen diplomacy, the idea that lasting international understanding is built not only between governments, but between students, artists, business leaders, families, and neighbors. Importantly, all sister city association programing is funded through volunteers, donors, and grants rather than resources, making the scope of the work especially remarkable. Autrey, chair of the Portland sister cities coalition and president of the Portland ashkelon sister city association. Through his leadership, collaboration and behind the scenes coordination, he has helped keep this network connected and ensured the success of shared initiatives including today's sister cities reception and the coalition's participation in the rose festival grand floral parade this Saturday. Today, as Portland officially celebrates ten sister cities spanning four continents, I would like to share a few highlights from the past year. The Portland sister city association continues to steward portland's oldest sister city relationship through student exchanges and cultural engagement, including an upcoming delegation visit from sapporo, the Portland suzhou sister city association remains committed to fostering people to people connections and exploring opportunities in education, culture and business. As the Portland olsen sister city association approaches its 40th anniversary next year, it continues strengthening ties through educational, cultural and trade relationships. The Portland bologna sister city association hosted another successful sagra fundraiser supporting youth exchanges and scholarship opportunities for Portland students and the Portland guadalajara sister city association recently hosted oregon's largest multicultural cinco de mayo celebration and continued strengthening ties through delegation exchanges. The Portland gao xiang sister c association continues to host the Portland rose festival dragon boat races, one of portland's most beloved cultural traditions, and we are honored to welcome a delegation, as council president mentioned from gao xiang visiting Portland this week. And of course, today is especially historic as Portland formalizes the relationship between lviv as our 10th sister city. This relationship has been championed by the Portland lviv sister city association president tatiana trudel, whose leadership and dedication helped guide the association through every requirement necessary to achieve official status during an extraordinary, difficult period in ukraine's history. With the council's action today, Portland and lviv are now officially sister cities, a partnership rooted in solidarity, shared values and enduring people to people connection. We're honored to welcome the Portland lviv sister city association into the sister cities family. At this time, I would like to ask the sister city association presidents to stand, as I call their names, so council and the public may recognize them. James autry, the Portland ashkelon sister city association. Gabriela tamay, Portland bologna sister city association. Cindi avila, Portland guadalajara. Sister city association. Chi shao chen, Portland. Gao xiang, sister city association. Thomas banky with the Portland chabad sister city association. Karen hansen with the Portland watari sister city association. Mami kikuchi with the Portland sapporo sister city association. Vivian ren with the Portland suzhou sister city association. Catherine moreau with the Portland olson sister city association, and tatiana turtle with Portland lviv sister city association. I'd like to recognize the incredible volunteer leaders for their service and dedication to the city of Portland. Thank you. And this completes the report.

Thank you. I want to thank each of our association leaders for everything that you are doing on behalf of our, our, our city, and for the cities and people that you represent. What you do, you know, organizing exchanges, hosting delegations, raising scholarship funds, welcoming students, building friendship across thousands of miles. It's the living embodiment of what the sister cities program is about. I also would like to just take a moment to give some special recognition to chido. Chito has worked hard to ensure that our city stays meaningfully connected and engaged with our sister city relationships amidst no shortage of other important work. So thank you for all your work on this today. So today is a day to celebrate with lviv shortly becoming officially part of the Portland family. We will be ten sister cities strong. Thank you all so much for everything you're doing here. Colleagues, let's give another round of applause. Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Before we gavel in, I wanted to turn it over to councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you colleagues. I wanted to welcome a group of six seventh and eighth graders who are here from sunnyside environmental school. I actually taught some of these students when they were in third grade. They've been doing their learning their classroom work today in city hall. They even got to have some time with the mayor earlier to present some of their policy ideas to myself and mayor wilson. Very proud of them. And it's always great to see young portlanders in this space. I hope they're seeing a possible future where they're maybe working in city government or maybe sitting on this dais one day. Thank you, council president.

Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. All right. Thank you. I am now calling to order this meeting of the Portland city council. Rebecca, can we please call the roll. Kanal here.

Pirtle-guiney here. Ryan.

Here.

Koyama Lane. Here.

Morillo.

Here.

Novick.

Here.

Clark.

Here.

Green here. Zimmerman here. Avalos.

Smith here.

Dunphy here. And can we please read the rules of decorum?

Good afternoon. Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.Portland.gov/council. Agenda information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless 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, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you very much, colleagues. As a reminder, this is a recess meeting of our yesterday full city council meeting. We've already had communications and approved our agenda, and we are on to item 13. Can we please call item 13?

Council president, I am here. Apologies for missing the roll call again.

Thank you, councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Welcome. Item 13 create a sister city relationship between the city of Portland and the city of lviv, ukraine. Document number 2026-177.

Colleagues. This is the second reading formalizing the relationship between the city of Portland and the city of lviv, ukraine. We all spoke to this historic moment last week. However, joining us today is a special guest whom we are honored to welcome despite the significant time difference. So I'd like to set him up with a little bit of fanfare. Lviv has long been one of ukraine's leading cultural educational centers, known for its historic architecture, vibrant art community, civic engagement, and strong tradition of local democracy. In recent years, this city has also played a critical humanitarian role, welcoming internally displaced ukrainians and helping coordinate relief and recovery efforts during an extraordinarily challenging time for the country. This ordinance recognizes that even during periods of global uncertainty. Cities continue to have both the opportunity and the responsibility to build bridges, strengthen relationships, and advance shared values through local diplomacy. I just got a note that our special guest has not logged on quite yet, but I will note, and when he gets here, we'll acknowledge him. Our first our guest is first deputy mayor of lviv, andrei moskalenko. He has helped lead the city through a period of profound challenge and resilience while advancing its vision for recovery, innovation and international partnership. His presence reflects the strong commitment of both our cities to build a meaningful and lasting relationship. It still doesn't seem like he is logged on yet, but. When we are here, we will welcome deputy mayor moscow moskalenko to speak. But until then, delaying for a few moments, seeing if any.

Are they about eight hours ahead of us? I think.

They're more than that. I think.

More than ten, ten hours. So it's late night. Quite late. Yes.

But this was an important opportunity that he was hoping for.

That's terrific. Well, we did have a chance to hear from the real mayor during the celebration downstairs. Great.

Yes. Okay.

Do you want us to do our comments?

Yeah. Why don't we why don't we move to councilor Comments for now on this. Go ahead and jump in the queue, colleagues. And if our deputy mayor friend is able to join us, we will get him on screen. But whoever wants to talk councilor Kanal can kick us off.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. I said most of what I wanted to say last week, so I will keep this relatively brief. But thank you to mayor andre sadovsky as as well as first deputy mayor when he gets here. Moskalenko, as well as its full city council. The city council of lviv has 64 members. So if I really wanted to take up and stall, I would read them all, but I won't but take that. Those who think 12 is a lot. But thank you to the whole government over there. Second, thank you to tatiana, the whole sister city association as well as our performers from earlier today, who I see up there for sharing the culture of lviv with us. And finally, thank you to cheeto d for your work. We under-resourced the international work at the city. We ask staff to do a lot. We only have one staffer who's solely focused on this type of work, and I wanted to appreciate the work that you've been able to do. Despite these challenges, sister cities are important. They're statements of where we stand. They're statements of who we stand with in terms of local government to local government, but also population to population. I really appreciate how much we've gotten to learn not only about ukraine, which is excellent throughout this process, the ability to learn it, but specifically about lviv. Obviously, learning about America doesn't teach you necessarily a lot about Portland and its uniqueness. So it's been really nice to be able to do that in reverse. And I hope that we have a chance to visit and to see, and maybe even take a couple Portland roses over there and bring some of theirs back with us. But I intend to obviously vote yes on this. And thank you for bringing this forward to the mayor and grateful to be able to co-sponsor this with councilor Ryan as well. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Ryan.

Sameer Kanal: Sure.

Thank you, council president. And we're still waiting. Right. All right. I just want to first of all, look up there where she taught. Tatiana, thank you for your perseverance. I recall you coming to this body many years ago, especially during the beginning of the conflict and the war. And I just really appreciate your perseverance to see this through. So thank you so much. And your comments down downstairs earlier were very touching, as were the beautiful music. There's a musicians there you are. Your name dhaka. Yeah. And mary. Yay! They look like they should be musicians. Those of you that can't see them. And they just really centered us with music. There's something about music and food. No irony to what I'm seeing in front of me with some of the signs at the moment that that really do are a big part of international relations work. I've had the pleasure of being on this council five and a half years, and I dove into one of the sister cities relationships, and that's in kaohsiung. And I've been able to see firsthand the professionalism of cheeto that she provides for the city. And I also really noticed how important it is that we continue to dive into these, especially when there's conflict. When I was in kaohsiung, unfortunately, the conflict in iran started, and you could feel tension from international guests. And. But we were able to look at each other in the eye and talk and realize that the government's actions at some very top level, are not what the people are like. And so we always have to remember to really lean into those friendships. And I'm delighted that this weekend will be having a lot of fun down at the waterfront. When we have the challenge cup between the city council, the mayor and the city council. And, you know, I know how that was created. It was created after being up for like two days. It felt like at the end of a dinner and I was trying to convince them to come to Portland as a body, to be in the, in, in the dragon boat race. And so they agreed. But here's how they agreed. They said, well, we won't have time to practice. And I said, well, last year we only practiced three times. And then she said, okay, we're in. So I have a feeling we're going to have some major competition on Saturday. And I'm really happy that the mayor also is participating. He kind of had to because we did a video, all of us in kaohsiung that night to challenge the mayor, so he really didn't have a choice. Anyway, I'm giving you that story to say that those are the stories that build friendships, that build relationships, that go beyond whatever the government is saying at the top. And so Portland has to continue to build these relationships. And I'm so happy that we now have ten. So I'll stop, because I'm really sure that this deputy mayor is about ready to get on.

Well, unfortunately, it looks like technology, time zones and transportation have failed us. And unfortunately, our deputy mayor will not be able to join us today. Deeply disappointed we will new ways to include them in this spot.

As councilor Clark said, there was a really delightful video that we saw with the mayor of rose at the end, and everyone will remember that part the most we saw rose from from lev today. So let's do this.

Okay. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Yeah, just briefly, I wanted to add my voice to the chorus of folks who are giving cheeto flowers for their steadfast work on advancing this relationship, and really proud of the contribution that you deliver for our city and also our sister city. So thank you.

Oh, before I forget, can I just say I want to acknowledge laura porter, who's a new rosarian, who's a part of this sister city. And if it wasn't for her email to me about six weeks ago that was trying to move this from July to the date today. And I'm really grateful that we moved it to today because it's wonderful to do it. On the week of celebrating sister cities.

Absolutely. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you. I feel especially moved by a lot of the testimony and emails that I've gotten about this. There's someone from district two who wrote in and said, how much this sister city is going to mean to the local ukrainian community who have been displaced in this horrible war and said, even if someone's not from lviv, they know that lviv has played a crucial role as a humanitarian hub and has helped many displaced people. Now we can help them. I also want to pile on and thank cheeto for all the work she does with our international relations, strengthening relationships and engagement that people, people, connections and and also as a councilor, she's supported me in getting to meet different electeds from japan and work with our consul general from japan, who's in the area and taught me how to use both hands. When you give a business card culturally to people from japan. So thank you for all your work, cheeto.

Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. Okay, colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue. Oh, councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: I just wanted to say that I've had the experience of visiting a sister city ten years ago, visited bologna and I was going to italy anyway, and I thought, well, it's a sister city, I guess I got to go and it's one of my favorite cities. And it really did get red carpet treatment. So I was actually just looking for flights to lviv, and I should have realized that there's not commercial flights operating now, but you can fly to poland and take a land route over. And I hope that some of us are able to do that in the next couple of years.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Okay, okay. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue, to our colleagues participating virtually, please. Cameras on and we will move to a roll call vote.

Kanal.

Yes.

Pirtle-guiney. I brian. Aye, Morillo Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Avalos. I Smith. I Dunphy. I any ordinance passes with 12 I votes.

Thank you very much. Congratulations. Welcome home. Welcome. Welcome to the family. Can we please call item number 14.

Item 14 ad code to prohibit the sale or provision of certain force fed poultry products. Ad code. Chapter 17.110. Document number 2026-149.

Thank you. This is the second reading of a non emergency ordinance. Colleagues to discussion counselor Zimmerman.

Thank you colleagues. You may see in the posted documents with this I've posted an amendment. Zimmerman one I appreciated the delay that you adopted last time and. You know, from a perspective of, well, I'm going to read it in and then I can discuss it. So applicability. This chapter does not apply to retail establishments or food service establishment that regularly in the course of its normal operations as of June 1st, 2026, provided, sold or offered for sale or provided free of charge or served in any other manner by any force fed product or food product in which a force fed product is an ingredient. This section may be asserted as an affirmative defense to any enforcement under. And then it lists the Portland city code. In other words, this is a grandfather clause or a legacy exemption clause, which I would move. And I would ask for a second so that we can then discuss second.

Second counselor Zimmerman moves Zimmerman one and Ryan seconds. Thank you. Zimmerman.

I appreciate that. I, I think that in the world of compromise, that this offers us an option here that, you know, I was trying to think about what does it mean to be not of a political party, but of a liberal mindset? Right. I consider myself a liberal mindset and a liberal mindset is that there are many ways of life underneath the tent in which you consider your society. And then there's the illiberal, which says, only our way. And I think that I don't give a damn about foie gras. I don't, I really don't, but I do without cursing, give a darn about. The role in which government plays. And while there may be, and I don't know the true number, there may be only seven. As reported by some media establishments of restaurants in our community who sell this product. I think that this will pass easily because not enough people care or not. Not enough. That gives it a value statement. It's just such a small thing in our community for such a small group. And that's okay. But it doesn't rise up to be a fervor. But what we should care about is that to be a liberal society, to be a liberal community, we have to accept that some folks do a thing that we may not personally enjoy, that we may not personally abide by, that we may not personally find to be something that we want to participate in. And that is the great goal of, I think, a liberal society. A couple of years ago, Multnomah county banned hookah locations, right? And they did that from a public health perspective, because Multnomah county has a long drawn out history, which was good in terms of reducing tobacco use by young people. Great, great mission. But what they inadvertently did is they removed a significant cultural gathering place for a very small portion of our community. They eliminated it like that. And as a person who has been stationed in multiple countries where that was a cultural gathering space, in fact, my going away by the locals in bangladesh was to bring in actually, like you bring in hookah providers, if you will. That's part of a party. I say that not because it's related to foie gras. I say that because in Portland, in a community that I think strives to have many people under our son and for them to do well, and that we won't always understand everybody. I think that Multnomah county failed because they put their desire to protect children from tobacco, and somehow they use that lens to say, people over 21 couldn't go into a place and make a choice for themselves. And I think they got that backwards. This feels very similar to me. If we don't grandfather in the current providers of foie gras, I only know, I think, the one who came to testify. I really don't know where this product is sold, but I find it more responsible if the goal is to reduce the the product in the future, that this would allow that to happen. And if any of these establishments cease to exist, then the grandfather clause goes away. And so I would ask for reasonable consideration of this amendment. I recognize it may not be palatable to everybody, but again, it may not be palatable to everybody. But that is the liberal mindset and a liberal society. So I would really appreciate at least some basic consideration of this as we offer it up. Thank you colleagues.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Colleagues to the amendment. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: I want to talk to to the underlying source. Thank you for that.

Okay. Thank you, councilor Green, to the amendment.

To the amendment. Thank you for articulating your position, councilor Zimmerman. I always enjoy when you do. I, I want to challenge a couple of things there in the sake of, you know, the discourse here. I think the what you're describing is a more of a classic liberal society or a libertarian society, which is sort of a laissez faire approach to things. And, you know, I would embrace much more of a modern liberal society that says it's okay to regulate certain things in the public good for, for, for instance, we used to allow the sale of shark fin as a delicacy in the united states, and we banned that practice. And I don't think that that is a generally controversial thing. I also earlier in the year, maybe it was last year, now sought to bring forward a ordinance to make it much easier to, to run sidewalk vending carts by removing some of the proximity requirements near adjacent businesses. Well, you haven't had a chance to weigh in on that. I had some colleagues say that that that, you know, is we actually want to regulate that and provide prevent that sort of competition. So I think I think there's appetite on this body to pick and choose what it is we regulate and how to do it. And I think that's okay. I wouldn't want someone in my neighborhood to fire up a coal fired power plant, because they have the ultimate freedom to do so under that sort of frame. And because of that, we've we've got land use, we've got zoning considerations to restrict certain activities that we don't want to happen in certain areas of the city. So I think of this in the same vein. I'll note that my opposition is not not on the sort of rhetorical basis of what a liberal or libertarian or authoritarian society is, but rather what it does functionally to the ordinance that underlies it. I think that this largely guts it. It allows the under it allows the ongoing sale and consumption of of foie gras in the city of Portland and largely changes nothing about the current conditions. And what the ordinance is trying to do is say, we want to cease this practice in the city of Portland, and I've already compromised by voting in favor of an amendment that delays the implementation day quite far into the future. So while I appreciate the intent, I thank you for laying out your argumentation. I'm not going to support the amendment today for that reason. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Green, councilor Clark, vice president Clark.

Thank you, council president. Thank you, councilor Zimmerman, for offering this up, this compromise. I think it's very interesting, and I really appreciate the story about the hookah lounges and the mistake that Multnomah county made. But I, I really believe in choice and, and choice to control my body, control what I eat. And I'd like to know from maybe councilor Green, what, what shade of liberalism is it that dictates how I can control my body?

I would I would say that you're trying to draw a false equivalency to bodily autonomy, autonomy in a very inappropriate way. Councilor, I think that we have got a tradition in the united states of saying, we think that certain activities have an unacceptable harm to the broader society or the broader economy or the broader environmental that go beyond individual choice. And so I am comfortable with a certain level of regulation in society. That's that's that's something that I am saying is okay. And I just, I don't, I don't accept this comparison to sort of abortion rights, for instance. It's kind of, I think what you're doing here. Thanks.

Can I ask another question? Not necessarily about choice or liberalism, but I understand that the the underlying ordinance here was also on the books in chicago and that it was repealed. Do you have any idea why it was repealed in chicago?

I do not have any idea what was repealed in chicago.

Okay. Thank you, vice president Clark councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: Yeah. First of all, I wanted to say I appreciate the impulse behind councilor Zimmermann's amendment. I don't want to see a dramatic negative impact on a couple of restaurants in Portland. Actually made a reservation to go to la pigeon to eat the vegetarian menu a couple of weeks from now. But I've been warned that, well, if I do that, they might spit in my food, so I might have to think about that. But yeah, but I mean, I think that if there was seen to be some prospect of a dramatic new expansion of foie gras restaurants, then actually this amendment would appeal to me more. But since I don't think there is such an expansion, such a proposed expansion, it seems it seemed a little disingenuous to say it could keep on going in the places that it currently is, which is always going to happen anyway. This. I also wanted to respond to councilor Clark's comment about being able to control what you put in your body, and to say that I've heard people say government shouldn't control what people eat, and I just have a hard time believing that people, most people, or that a large number of people would actually want to take that to its logical conclusion. It's only been illegal on the federal level to kill and eat dogs since 2018. It was part of the 2018 farm bill passed by republican congress and signed by donald trump. And I somehow don't think that if maxine dexter came forward with the proposal to repeal that and allow the killing and eating of dogs, people would applaud her and say that, you know, thank god that maxine dexter is standing up for our right to eat dogs. So I think that each of these decisions has to stand on its own merits. I don't think that there are sweeping generalizations, and this is a tough one for me, but ultimately, I find myself in the same position as the city councilors in new york city in 2019, who voted 42 to 6 for this ban. And I think that it probably wasn't like the thing that they started the year thinking they were going to vote on. But presented with the question, do you think it's okay to force feed an animal to produce an expensive delicacy for a few people? They voted 42 to 6 that no, they don't think it's okay in pittsburgh in 1923. And pittsburgh, by the way, I don't think is known as like a wacky liberal community. The city council vote was 7 to 2. So I do think that this is this is a tough vote. But I reject the idea that there's sort of a general rule that anybody can eat anything they want, because I just I don't think that most of us would ultimately agree with that.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Morillo.

Yeah, thank you. I hope for the media that's watching this, they see how seriously this is being debated to the point where we're engaging in long philosophical diatribes about liberalism and what that actually means, and bodily autonomy over a foie gras ban to just stop geese from getting tortured. And I'm sorry, but as someone with a uterus that is actually living through a time where our bodily autonomy is being stripped away from us, the idea that our feminism or our discussion about bodily autonomy means that we have a right to cause unnecessary pain to living creatures for our own gratification, is an absurd comparison. Foie gras is actually just a gross practice that does not need to exist. We will all be okay without this additional delicacy. There are many delicious and wonderful things to eat in the world that do not include having to force feed an animal, and I. I'm sorry, but I just cannot believe that we are. While women are actually dying across the country because their abortion rights are being stripped away and black women are dying in hospitals at disproportionate rates because they are not getting the care that they need, that we are seriously entertaining that argument yet again at this dais over a foie gras ban. So personally to the media, I would have liked to spend a lot less time on this. This is a very simple vote to me. This should have moved through simply or died if people wanted to vote no. But hopefully we can get this done today and move on. And I am going to be proudly voting yes. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Vice president Clark.

Olivia Clark: Thank you, council president. I, I too regret that we've spent so much time on this. And in fact, I think I brought that up when this issue first surfaced in the arts and culture committee. It's why are we spending so much time when we have other more important issues to be dealing with? But here we are, we're still at it. And I would just say, bottom line colleagues, I think this is a real slap in the face at a handful of restaurants, the very small handful of restaurants in Portland that serve foie gras and that have helped us through very difficult times, that have helped put us on the map as a culinary destination. I think it's very unfortunate. And that's why I'm supporting councilor Zimmermann's amendment.

Thank you, vice president Clark. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, mr. President. I just wanted to say for the record, I support councilor Zimmermann's amendment. And I said on the arts committee and this this actual amendment failed. It did not pass our committee. So it had to go through a roundabout to get here today. And I'm from a district in district one, and we don't even have no foie gras restaurants. I don't even know what it is, really. But the idea that that we are now getting into to things that I don't think that we regulate here at the city, and there is expected to be a ballot measure where people will be able to say what they want, if they want these kinds of things regulated or banned. So that's coming up in November. I'd like to see what the public has to say. I think we should actually table this until after that vote is taken. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: I want to start by saying that I do see this amendment being brought by my colleague as genuinely looking to try to support some of these small businesses who are worried about the impacts on their business. So I acknowledge that I was glad and happy to support the amendment. Last week that extended a longer runway and lengthened the timeline for this. And also, I'm I'm worried that grandfathering creates some messy implementation, some questions regarding, you know, which businesses qualify, what happens if ownership changes, can exempted restaurants expand sales, or if exemptions can transfer to new entities? So for that reason, I for all of those, I think that a universal, more universal standard is cleaner and simpler and is going to be easier for us to enforce.

Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane. Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Thank you, council president, I just want to acknowledge thank you so much, councilor Zimmerman, for putting this on the docket, this amendment. It's really thoughtful. It doesn't look like it has the support. But I think what you did is you listened to the testimony and you came up with the solution. For those who were brave enough to come into the to the council room and speak on the importance of this for their business at a time where our economy is suffering like I've never seen it before. And when we have a few restaurants that really pleaded with us to please prevent this ban, and I've heard from numerous restaurants that don't serve that also wanted us to not pass this ban. I just really think it's very thoughtful that we have an amendment today that would have allowed those local businesses that are some of. As councilor Clark said, some of the most. The strongest part of our local economy is our is our gourmet restaurants and cuisine. Anytime anyone visits. That's one of the first things they go to. So I just really. Again, thank you for this thoughtful amendment. I'm really proud to vote on it.

Thank you, councilor Ryan councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. First, let me say, I think I take the the amendment in good faith. I wish I'd known there was one coming. I would have loved to to be aware of that, but I think. I really appreciated the comments about the hookah ban. Personally, I had not known a lot of the history about that. I left town for a few years, came back and it occurred in between and some of my memories as a as a young person coming into town before I was before I left was going to some of the hookah lounges. And so I appreciate that. And I obviously the cultural context is not lost on me given my background. I think what I'm struggling with is the applicability to something that's not. We're not hearing a cultural protections argument on foie gras at this moment. And I if there is one that that we're going to entertain, then let's have that conversation. But I do appreciate that comment. I think there are conversations there that may be worth having in a different context with the county, but. I guess had we been having a conversation around a two tiered system, because that's essentially what this would be creating and saying. Any new restaurant that wishes to serve foie gras or any existing restaurant that doesn't currently serve it, that wishes to start serving it, would exist in one plane of one one legal category. It would be unable to do so, and then anyone who has already been serving it as of June 1st would be able to continue using it. And I think that that there are always going to be two tier questions like what councilor Koyama Lane said. But if the idea was there's two tiers and it takes effect at a different time, that'd be one thing. But if it just never takes effect, that's something that I've, I've got concerns about because it essentially would mean that there is no practical change from adopting this ordinance. That's where I'm at at the moment. But I am trying to engage with this because I appreciate the, the attempt to, to get to a place where might get someone to a. Yes, I appreciate that. I just I'm not seeing those two things. And so at this moment, I'm a no as a result of that. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thank you. So to the not knowing it was coming. Point being is that quite literally today, racking my brain last night and trying to find a way in language. So in our engagement with the city attorney's office, we use some language that. And we considered some of the points as it. As we think about our smoking bans, right? We all know that smoking is not legal in restaurants anymore and clubs the way it was. Maybe when some folks on this dais were younger, but there are still places in which you can apparently light up a cigar in our community inside, indoors, they were grandfathered in. And so that was kind of where the model kind of came from. And, but that that just, it was some trying to think through like, what would implement implementation look like in applicability. So I appreciate that. I want to offer just one last piece. I do think there's a cultural aspect. I just don't think it's a cultural aspect that's highly represented in Portland and is speaking out. And I don't know that that's even my main concern. I'm just used it as an example of sometimes we have unintended consequences. But I would say this if this were to pass today, this amendment to pass today, I would support us moving this to an emergency, and I would be one of the. Nine and I and I think that there is a path there that should be, I hope, is considered not friendly in the way we say friendly amendments, but I think that is a very workable piece. And to the questions that councilor Koyama Lane raises, I think those are also quite pertinent. I don't know that they need to be in an ordinance to answer those applicability about sale or ownership changes, etc. But I think that we take a look at what is the practice in other places where grandfathering has occurred, and does that go with the license of the business, or does it go with the ownership on the on the you know, at the secretary of states? I don't know that answer yet. I don't think it has to be in ordinance to decide that. But I think those are really valid, valid points. But if this were to pass, I would support an emergency and I'd be the ninth vote to to help it get through as your current timeline is. Thank you for the consideration.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. I've been interested in the debate between my colleagues today. And, you know, I've actually spent a lot of time meeting with people about this issue broadly. I came in very much undecided, and I think that may be not unique, but somewhat rare on this issue across this dais. And I've been really impressed by the commitment to making progress on animal welfare concerns, the commitment to talking about what a clear, enforceable policy would look like, the commitment to balancing free choice and different choices, and an openness to having a community with different choices, with our collective moral conscience. And so I actually find this amendment very interesting, because we know that there are a number of restaurants in our community that periodically serve foie gras on their menu. We've heard about seasonal choices and things like that. We also have heard that we have at least one restaurant in our community where foie gras has become kind of the center of what a lot of people go there for. And I think this allows us to differentiate between those two things. I think it will eventually phase out foie gras in our city over time, because most restaurants don't exist forever. And it ensures that we don't continue down the path of, of inaction that a number of folks in our community have raised animal welfare concerns about, while also having that conversation about that balance there. So I, I'm very interested in this. And if the concern that my colleagues have is the policy direction in general, then perhaps there is not a path. But I wanted to weigh in because of what councilor Zimmerman just said about an emergency clause. And if the concern that folks have is one of timing, I certainly would be interested in being one of nine to make sure that we don't delay in decision making if this were adopted. Thank you, council president.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney. I put myself in the queue. Just to clarify, for folks at home, tobacco is bad. As the former lobbyist for the American cancer society, one hour of hookah is the equivalent of over 100 cigarettes, and tobacco is a north American plant that was brought to the middle east as a part of colonialism. Seeing no one else in the queue for the comment. It's absolutely true. Can we please move to a vote on Zimmerman?

Eric Zimmerman: One this is Zimmerman one, moved by councilor Zimmerman, second by councilor Ryan Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: No.

Pirtle-guiney I.

Ryan I.

Koyama Lane no.

Morillo no.

Novick nay.

Clerk I.

Green no.

Zimmerman I.

Avalos no.

Smith I.

Dunphy no.

And the amendment fails with five I seven votes.

Colleagues to the underlying councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: All right. Thank you. Yeah. Colleagues, I won't bury the lead. I support this ordinance. And to be honest, I think that one of the reasons this conversation has become so strange to me is that we've spent weeks debating something that, yeah, in the grand scheme of portland's challenges is actually pretty small. We do have major conversations ahead of us about housing and homelessness and public safety and transportation and affordability. This isn't one of those conversations. And that's also okay. Not every policy that comes before council needs to be a grand referendum on the future of the city. Sometimes community members come to us and they say, we've identified a problem. We think there's a reasonable solution, and we'd like you to act. And sometimes the answer is simply that seems reasonable, and that is part of governing, too. We pass major policies, we pass technical policies, we pass niche policies. We pass policies that matter deeply to communities that may be small in number, but care enough to organize, testify, and participate in democracy. That is what happened here. Do I think foie gras is the most important issue facing district one? Absolutely not. My constituents are talking to me about rent and groceries and child care and transportation and basic affordability. But I also don't think that every item that comes before council needs to be measured against the single biggest crisis facing the city, because if that were the standard, then we would never do anything except talk about one issue all day, every day. The reality is that local government does a lot of things at once, and I think we sometimes contribute to public frustration when we turn relatively straightforward decisions into political theater. Portlanders want us to focus on the big issues, I agree, but they also want us to be capable of making routine decisions, responding to community concerns, and moving business along when something is relatively clear cut. So for me, this falls into that category. So while animal welfare is not necessarily my primary policy passion, I respect the advocates who brought this forward. I understand the values argument that they're making, and I think that this is a reasonable policy, and so I plan on supporting it. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Avalos, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, council president, before we get too much further into the discussion, I just want to clarify up front, because I think that the county has handled some phone calls around this and a bit of a panic of like, oh my god, are we on the hook for enforcement? I just want to make it crystal clear that at no, at, at this point, there has not been a conversation with the county about the county handling the implementation. So if this were to pass, the city of Portland may entertain an iga or a conversation with the county on how to how to actually handle the enforcement side of this. But that hasn't happened yet. And this is very much a sort of. Kind of a sort of complaint driven system and a presumption system. So there's not there's not an enforcement arm that's like a center, like a forefront in here. And it's certainly not the county. So if there's folks from the county watching this, rest assured that we're not committing you to anything at this point. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: Thank you, mr. President. Following up on what councilor Avalos was saying, we have all heard from a number of people saying, I can't believe that this is the city council's priority. And this was not one of my priorities. I didn't propose bringing this to this body. My priorities are reducing gun violence and making sure that the students at mcdaniel high school don't have to walk through a gantlet of sex trafficking and making sure that we're doing our part to address climate change and using the resources that we have in the Portland clean energy fund to do that in the most effective and cost effective way possible. But when we have a vote in this body, we don't get to vote high priority or low priority. We vote yes or no. And again, I'm following the lead of the overwhelming majority of city councilors in new york city, the epicenter of fine dining in America and pittsburgh, not known as a wacky liberal city. In saying that, I just cannot say that I feel like it's okay to force feed an animal to produce an expensive delicacy, and I know that reasonable people can disagree. It's an emotional issue. So by definition, reasonable people can disagree.

Thank you, councilor Novick vice president Clark.

Steve Novick: Thank you, council president, back to the unintended consequences. I just maybe have a question for the carrier of this proposed ordinance about what you think the estimated cost in time and money will be for the city administration to prosecute a violation, or whether it's the city or the county? Do you have any sense for that? Can you clue us into what it might cost as an unintended consequence?

We do have director engstrom in the office or in the chambers, who might be able to answer that, because our office has worked with them on the cost side of this and the implementation piece. So I'd be curious to see if that's something he wants to entertain, not to put you on the spot, director, but you're on the spot.

Thank you.

Welcome.

Director engstrom.

Thank you. For the record. Eric engstrom I'm the director of the bureau of planning and sustainability. The councilor has spoken with our office about what this might look like if the city were administering it. We've talked about what the logical places would be for administration to occur. There's been some discussion of the county may play a role, but no commitments, and that would be a discussion that we would have in the future if it passes. Bts has been considered for that role, in part because we have folks through our sustainability program, as well as our waste program, who are regularly engaging with restaurants, in our case, through composting, technical assistance. But but we're there. The county is obviously there from a health department perspective. And we've also taken on enforcement of a number of other things recently, such as the leaf blower ban, things like that. As you pointed out, this is not a situation where there's a large number of players out there in the world. There's a relatively small number of entities that serve this, so we're not seeing it as a major endeavor. There would likely be some ramp up cost in year one to potentially develop some administrative rules, do an education campaign to for people to understand that the rules exist. That could involve a person in our office having to work on this part time for the first six months of its of its implementation ongoing. Again, because there's not too many restaurants we don't anticipate there'd be, you know, very many complaints on this. That would not likely be consequential to, to a budgeting perspective. That said, you know, having this role. Minor role in a number of different things does add up. So ideally, you would consider the financial consequences when you add a program like that to a bureau. It's definitely not hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. And it's, it's probably not $100 a year either. But there is a small cost, and it would be something that we would have to assign someone to do.

Thank you. Just one other question along the same lines. I understand that farmers have actually challenged these ordinances, and other states in new york, in california, where they actually overturned it for a period of time and in chicago. So I'm wondering what the unintended consequence might be or the estimated cost of a legal defense should that happen here.

Councilor, I don't know that I can give you that that number. I mean, I suppose that's a risk that we always take before this body when we make policy that might invite someone who doesn't like our policy to try to sue us, to tell us that we take those risks all the time. And we do have a legal risk fund to, to hedge against that sort of a thing. And so I don't think that there's a direct cost estimate that one can make. I'll just note that I personally am comfortable taking that risk. And I don't know if there's much more I can offer you than that.

I appreciate that, and maybe that's a fund we should have looked at rating. I didn't didn't think about that fund.

I think some other councilors have.

Okay.

In prior discussions, yes.

It does concern me. And I'm really curious to know what happened in chicago. Maybe that's irrelevant to the vote today. But chicago did repeal their ordinance, and that would be interesting to know more about. But thank you, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: And, you know, if you want to take the legal conversation further, we do have rob from the city attorney's office who's advised on this issue online available to answer that question. So you can ask the question to rob about the legal risk. He'd be happy to answer your questions, I think.

I'm looking at what happened in chicago, and you're correct. It was passed and then another city council repealed it. So it wasn't due to a legal challenge as far as what happened in new york city. Initially, the ban was struck down. New york has an agricultural and markets act law that regulates agricultural practices throughout the state. So initially that ban was struck down. It was on appeal. And actually in I believe it was at the end of March of this year that was reversed. So it is now banned in new york. It hasn't been implemented, but that that lower court decision was reversed when I started working on this in the fall. That wasn't the case. I mean, this this just changed a couple of months ago. So that's what happened with new york and chicago. I forget if you asked another jurisdiction, but I will say I've spent time looking at california. The definitions, the the act is modeled after california's ban, which had 12 years of litigation that went up to the ninth circuit. Initially, this ordinance had some what I viewed to be some legal defects. So I recommended we go with what was in the ninth circuit since we are in the ninth circuit. So I think it should be legally defensible. As far as the amendment that failed today, that was a, I thought, a reasonable limitation because we had I had some concerns on its 180 day implementation or effective date period. So there was a concern that folks might try to race to get on the menu. I think what was drafted addressed that by having it dated June 1st. So that could have remedied that, but that did not pass. If you've got more questions, I'm happy to answer them.

Thank you rob. I really appreciate that information that in chicago it was actually another council that overturned it. I didn't realize it had been in the courts for 11 years in california. I wouldn't be shocked if that happened here. Another attempt. But thank you so much.

Thank you. Thank you. Vice president Clark councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: It was a legacy.

Okay. Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Thank you, council president. From a personal values perspective, some of my colleagues may feel very strongly about this issue, and I understand that. Yet my filters to focus on making decisions about our infrastructure, our public spaces, services we deliver. And I know the majority of portlanders want us to improve on our primary purpose. It's really hard for me to understand why we're legislating on a on a handful of local restaurants menu choices. It's no surprise to anyone who's been tracking this. I see all of the lobbyists who are here, the communities here, the grassroots support. We saw you last year in the arts and economy committee, and we did vote this legislation down, as you know, by a 3 to 2 vote. And so I will remain consistent with my vote against this ban. This ban will further tarnish our economic development reputation at a time we can least afford it.

Thank you, councilor Ryan councilor Novick.

Steve Novick: Thank you, mr. President. Just following up on rob just said there is ninth circuit precedent upholding the california ban. And we

We are in the ninth circuit. So I think that for somebody to challenge this would be a fool's errand. And as an aside, I'd also mentioned that kamala harris was quite proud of her defense of the california's foie gras band as attorney general. And kamala harris is about as mainstream. No offense about as mainstream of figures as you can.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

I also wanted to highlight that at least 27 countries have limited the production, sale, or import of foie gras, and king charles has banned it from all royal residences. Portland has a really vibrant food scene and is one of the coolest places to eat. I really do believe in our ability to continue having incredible food scene without foie gras. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. I find a couple of the arguments here. Really good faith and a couple that are really challenging to associate with. We cannot legislate from a position of fear that one person might file a lawsuit. We've had this debate on at least ten things over the last year and a half, where there's the idea of empowering a singular person who might have enough money to hire a lawyer to stop any legislation before we even adopt it. It becomes a valid concept that can be used to not pass in the first place. And I find that to be absurd. Whether it's on this or on any other ordinance. So that that argument does not have weight because we cannot not only is it one person should not be able to prevent us from having a legitimate policy conversation, but also that that is not actually a fairly distributed set of power, because not everybody has the money to hire a lawyer to sue the city. And I imagine that most of the people out. The other argument I want to point out is that most of the people out here, I imagine, are not paid to advocate for this. And you may have to register as a lobbyist because the city requires, if you do a certain amount of time advocating that you have to register as a lobbyist. But the idea that people are paid to be here is not always the case. I haven't committed to this either way in public. So it's been I've seen two articles now saying so and so hasn't said where they're at on it, but I've been supportive of it for a long time. I support it because I think it's not about what we're talking, only about what we're putting inside of us. It's about how it got to be in a position that it could be on our plate in the first place. And that production issue is the problem we often limit. We use when we talk about gas taxes. We use the argument not only about it's it's consumption here being a problem, but also its production and how harmful that is to justify why we do gas taxes. We do this with many other policy choices we make that it's not only about what happens in front of us, but how the thing got to be to us in the first place. And what we're talking about is a abusive treatment. And so I'm proud to support legislation to address animal welfare at the production level, even though it's not here. Through responsible commerce practices and our community's commitment to compassion and ethical treatment of animals. As someone who's not vegan myself, am also especially proud that Portland has this scene. And in district two, we have a vibrant, community centered vegan food culture. So I'll take the opportunity to shout out vegan flip side market on June 27th at the arbor beer lodge and shout out to peter shuff for the arbor beer lodge, for working with my office to ensure that the alley was graveled by PBOT to ensure a good experience for market event attendees. We have the vegan market, we have a lot of different things going on, and I think when we talk about what we might lose, we should also have a conversation of what we're helping grow because we have. I have cousins who are vegans who live in southern california, and they talk about how easy it is when they come up here to find the options that they want. And that's really important to me as someone who obviously wants my cousins, who I am very close to, to come visit, and I think that's the case for just about everybody who's sitting around the country who may have any sort of dietary restriction, whether it's voluntary or it's health based, to be able to say, I can come here and get what I want to eat and have that. And part of that is about ensuring that we have a compassionate system in the first place. And the other thing I want to just shout out is, you know, councilor Green has been responsive to a real community that exists, not just the people in this room. I've heard about it from a lot of folks, and I'm proud to to say on the same side as councilor Green, supporting those local organizers, the small businesses and the of course, the animal rights activists who brought this issue forward for for councilor Green to champion. And carrie.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor. Zimmerman.

Thanks. While I agree with the. I would have liked to have spent time on other things. I think they should have died at committee the way it did die at committee. I do think it's been irresponsible to bring it forward. It has come forward and I agree with councilor Novick we do have to take a yes or no. But I am also I'm not really sure what triggered a few members, but I'm apologizing to councilor Clark. I don't know why my amendment brought such, I think, very terrible words that were just said to you a few minutes ago. I think that was irresponsible of a few members and. And really, there was an undertone there. I'm not totally sure if I understood it, but like I said, I don't really care about foie gras. But when it comes to personal choices and things like that, there's been yes, there are limits, right? And I think about safety to others and safety to yourself. If those two things are met, then I think that we have to really question what is the role in government here. So for me, I won't be supporting this because I don't see this being a thing that is hurting a person who eats it, and I don't see it hurting a person who chooses not to eat it if someone near them chooses to. So this feels like a punch down at the minority that I just don't want to be a part of. I just find it like government will always have this, this. There will be a voice always that comes up. How do we protect that voice? Whether it be one, 5 or 500 is something that I'm trying to think through on this a lot. And so for me, this, this doesn't pass that test. And I don't see a safety concern for the people that we are given a duty to protect. And so I don't know why we would inject ourselves here. And so I do believe that this should not pass today. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you. I thought I'd just place on the record that I, I believe very deeply that one of our most urgent priorities is economic development and the city of Portland. And I think this body is focused by particular focus on liberalizing our housing production methods is one of the the, the center points of that economic development strategy. If we can make it easier to build more housing in this city, then you get more people staying here. And that's the engine of growth. That has largely been my focus. I'll just note that I have a lot of faith and confidence in the innovative capacity of our local restaurant scene, to which is demonstrated over the decades to respond to conditions, innovate, offer new menus, and really attract that. And so perhaps I have more confidence in these restaurants and some other folks, but but I continue to have that confidence because I've seen it. I've seen it in action. And so I don't think that this tarnishes our economic development capabilities at all. And I look forward to moving to a vote. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. While I respect the concerns that have been raised around animal welfare, I do not believe this is the right time for council to move forward with this policy. And as I said before, there's already a broader statewide ballot measure being pursued that would ask Oregon voters to weigh in on major restrictions related to animal products hunting, fishing and agricultural practices. And before I signal support for local policy in this space, I believe we should let the statewide conversation play out and hear directly from Oregon voters. This ordinance may be well intentioned, and which I believe it is, but I do not believe it is. It is the responsibility for this council or any other council to take steps in this juncture. I believe that if there's any government, local government that should be working on this, it should be Multnomah county. And for those reasons, I will be voting no. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Seeing no one else in the queue, rebecca, can we please move to a roll call? Vote colleagues online, please turn your cameras on.

Calling the vote on 2026-149 Kanal. I pirtle-guiney.

Know, Ryan.

No Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. No Green. I Zimmerman. No Avalos. I Smith no.

Dunphy I.

The ordinance passes with seven I.

Thank you I appreciate that.

Do not allow claws in this room right now. But thank you very much for everybody for being here and for all your support. Keelan rebecca, can we please move to item number 15?

Item item 15 adopt and implement the moderate income revolving loan program. Document number 2026-124.

Colleagues. This is the first reading of a non emergency ordinance since our friends in Green shirts are are exiting and it's a little loud. I'm going to wait just a second before we turn over to claire adams with council operations for a committee staff summary report. Yeah we're good claire. Go ahead.

Thank you. Council president and councilors for the record. Claire adams, council policy analyst and staff to the housing and permitting committee. The ordinance, before you document number 2026-124, was heard in the housing and permitting committee on April 7th, where it was referred to full council, as amended, with the recommendation to pass. The ordinance adopts and implements the city of Portland moderate income revolving loan program in accordance with the terms described in exhibit a, which described the establishment of a grant program to fund developers for eligible housing projects, defines affordability requirements and other applicable terms. Designates prosper Portland as the administrator of the program and clarifies requirements for program administration and compliance in accordance with state law. Directs the city to work with the Multnomah county tax assessor to establish a process to exempt from property taxes. Eligible housing projects that use a fee in lieu option to repay program loans, and the committee approved an amendment to the ordinance that changed the income qualifications for eligible housing projects from 60% to 50% of area median income, or ami, and also clarified the program will support the development of low income and addition to middle income housing projects. The amendment also reduced the minimum number of required housing units for eligible projects, from 75 units to 20 units. The full impact statement on this item includes information on financial and budgetary impacts, economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts, and community involvement. One person provided testimony at the committee meeting on April 7th, and no one submitted written testimony prior to committee action. The general themes of the testimony the committee heard included supporting the city's ability to utilize available state dollars for eligible development projects, allowing grant access for smaller development projects by reducing 75 to 75 unit minimum. And finally, suggestion to remove the prioritization of mixed use development projects and maintain focus on residential unit development. That concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you very much. Claire councilor Avalos. This came out of the housing and permitting committee. Can I turn it to you?

Right.

Yes. So this item came to committee in April. The ordinance establishes portland's moderate income revolving loan program and enables the city to access state funding created through senate bill 1537. The program allows the city to receive no interest loans from the state and provide grants to eligible housing developments that meet affordability requirements. The ordinance designates prosper Portland as the program administrator and establishes the framework necessary for the city to participate in the program. At committee members discuss program oversight and accountability, how the city will evaluate whether the program is achieving its housing and financial goals, and whether prosper Portland or the Portland housing bureau is best positioned to administer the program. We also discuss state requirements related to tax increment financing districts and project eligibility criteria. The committee approved an amendment that lowered the affordability threshold from 60% ami to 50%. Ami, as claire mentioned, also clarified that the program can support low income as well as middle income housing and reduce the minimum project size from 75 units to 20 units to expand access to smaller developments. Public testimony generally supported the city's ability to leverage available state funding or state housing dollars, and expressed support for making the program accessible to a broader range of housing projects. After discussion and adoption of the amendment, the committee voted to recommend the ordinance to the full council. That is my report.

Thank you very much, councilor Avalos. Colleagues, there are four people signed up to testify on this. There are a couple folks in the queue, and I also understand there are some amendments. So I'd like to turn to first to councilor Green to float his amendments so that we can have that and our folks who are going to testify can respond to that. And then councilor Smith and Morillo, for technical questions, I'll come to you and then we'll go to testimony. So, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you. Council president, colleagues, I'm bringing three proposing three amendments today. They're titled Green two, Green three, Green four. I decided to split these because they all do kind of different things. And I don't want to complicate the matter. The first amendment basically just strikes the minimum unit count eligibility requirement entirely. It also strikes the requirement. To sort of prioritize these this program eligibility for for mixed use. And I can speak, I can motivate kind of broadly when we get into discussion. Excuse me, Green three, which is the second amendment. The nomenclature is funny because Green one failed in committee. So I'm bringing Green two back as Green one. But Green three is the second of my amendments. That just adds an explicit kind of disclosure requirement to council for the due diligence documents. That kind of a pro forma underwriting requirements that are already in the state law. So that council has some oversight capability for funds that it ultimately is on the hook for. And then finally, Green four strikes the delegation clauses that put this implementation and underwriting function in prosper Portland and moves it actually into Portland housing bureau. So those are what the three amendments do. I take them independently. I could live with any of them passing, but hopefully all of them. So thank you.

Thank you, councilor Green, councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Yes, thank you, council president, in terms of those amendments, did you drop any of those in the committee?

Yeah, we had a total of 30 minutes in that for that item on that day. And so I introduced Green one, which is the same as Green two today. Didn't have much time to make the case. It failed. So I'm trying to.

That's what I was trying to figure out if it had failed in committee. Yeah. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Thank you, council president, on that same thought. So the overriding failed in the committee and then you split it up into amendments.

I did a very narrow amendment councilor in committee based upon some testimony email exchanges I had with the developer that just struck the minimum limits that failed. And so since then, I've had conversations, and so I'm adding more. But that first one that did fail, I'm trying to bring that back and also strike the mixed use parks part, which which was not in the first amendment. And I did that because I think this just going to foreclose a lot of opportunities. The developers are ready to go on. So that's why I'm bringing it back a little bit differently this time.

But but you didn't bring it back to the committee.

It advanced out of committee and it came here.

So you did bring all these amendments.

I brought one of them to committee. It failed. And then since then, I've had the opportunity to think more about what I want to do with this piece of legislation. And so I'm.

Since then, I'm just confused why. Since then, you didn't choose to go back to the committee for all of you to.

It didn't go back to the committee. Councilor it came straight to council. I didn't have an opportunity to take it back to committee.

Because that committee is disbanded.

This is the housing and permitting came out of the housing and permitting committee.

Yeah. The committee voted to refer it.

Oh, they did okay. I think we had a miscommunication in front of everybody right now. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Because what I heard you answer first was that it died in committee.

The amendment, one of the amendments did die in committee. Okay. And what I'm trying to do now is have an opportunity to discuss with my colleagues.

And then that was resurrected. And then it passed.

The ordinance passed out of committee. The amendment failed in committee.

Okay. I was really listening. That's why I had asked technical questions. Yeah, it's confusing when you're not on the committee sometimes. Absolutely. Okay. I just wanted to ask those technical questions before there's testimony.

Great. Thank you. Counselor Ryan. Counselor Zimmerman.

Thanks. These are pretty significant changes. So I guess my as we go through the conversation, I'm going to be looking to the staff to understand why they brought an original. Because you've you've made a lot of changes here and I. You're not exactly a person I consider the developer whisperer. So I am wondering why it is. They were brought from the staff in one perspective and now they're changing. So I think that'll be where I'm listening to see and staff, I hope you're prepared to start talking about what the staff's preferred option is here. Thanks.

Thank you, counselor Zimmerman. Counselor Novick.

Thank you, mr. President. I was actually going to say the same thing. I'm just wondering whether it would be appropriate to ask donnie oliveira and his team up to answer some questions. Yeah. Would that be appropriate?

Now, this would.

Be an appropriate time for that. Yeah. We are we're in technical questions.

Okay.

Mr. Oliveras. I'm just asking you to hold forth on all of these amendments. The numeric limitation, the mixed use requirement, the disclosure idea, and the idea of switching from prosper to phb.

Great.

Thank you, counselors. Donnie oliveira for the record, deputy city administrator, let's start with I'll just go down the line. Is that appropriate? Regarding the threshold, this was a conversation that happened at committee. The original intent was 75, and the rationale behind that was essentially looking at what's in our pipeline for development around the city, and especially actually seeing what's happening with the sdc exemption. We're seeing a lot of projects coming in. In that smaller window, 2 to 10 units is really the sweet spot right there. And that's also consistent with what we're just seeing with the the financing models that are happening right now. We're seeing a lot of interest in capacity for those smaller important projects. So by the way, I don't want to sound like I'm disparaging any housing production. It's good production right now, but we're still seeing a lack of those bigger projects over 40, over 75 that really moves our housing production needle. So when we're looking at a product like financing project like merle, the idea is let's try to incentivize those bigger projects. And just for the public's knowledge, the project out of the state has a fund of $50 million statewide. And why we think it will be competitive and first come, first serve, so to speak. We don't believe the whole $50 million will come to the city of Portland. So we're likely to see a few projects come our way. And I think our preference would be those projects would be larger in capacity. We'll take what we can get, of course, but there was no specifically strategic. I think I said this on the dais at committee. The number could have been 60, it could have been 90. 75 was just to signal that we were looking for something in that higher production level. Regarding the the framing of mixed use as something to contemplate and consider, prioritize that can be struck, especially if that number goes down. That's just to encourage, you know, these these retail developments that we look like look for, especially in our higher density density commercial corridors, where a larger project would likely exist. And then lastly, just to acknowledge why 20 was was seemed practical at the time, the committee, because we were negotiating with the committee on the fly, is that keeps inclusionary housing threshold in place. So those those units below 20 those projects below 20 don't hit. So 20 was the threshold. But again, that was largely on the fly, working with the committee to contemplate that number, I said this to a couple of councilors before, while we want to encourage the higher unit production, it is a policy choice for council to to set that that limit or not, when it comes to the disclosure, it's it's it's legally doable. The one thing we would just caution and this is speculative, but we just want to acknowledge this on behalf of the teams. It it may dissuade some people from participating if they're not comfortable having their financial financials disclosed. So that's just something for us to contemplate. It can't guarantee that won't happen or will happen, but that's something we would be just would flag for council's contemplation. But it's it's technically allowable to share that information with council at the appropriate time. And regarding Green for when it comes to the management of the administration of the program, here's what our current thinking is. Prosper is in the best position to do that right now, largely because it was true back then. It's even more so now with the newly adopted housing package, the $56 million that council just directed. It's the same team that would run the mural that is now on the hook for the revolving loan fund for the rent buydown program. And that's all new work for them. And so there's actually another program they're going to be launching next fiscal year as well. So we're truly at a capacity where there's going to be some trade offs or things are just going to slow down. So it'd be my recommendation and why I'm speaking here, not the bureau's, is to say, if we're looking for all these projects to move forward congruently and with some urgency, we can't overleverage the housing bureau. And that would be that's just our recommendation would be it still sticks with prosper. And the other piece about the. There was a striking of some language related to tiff. We can solve for that on the back end with an ig between the bureaus, but it is more administrative work, and I would just encourage councilors to give us as much flexibility as possible to administer the program.

Thank you.

Councilor Novick. Anything?

Okay.

Thank you. Thank you very much, councilor and colleagues. Reminder we are in technical and clarifying questions. We have four folks signed up to testify. Councilor zimmermann.

Okay, danny.

I think I said I had some questions, so.

It was a little unclear what you were saying there in terms of what the position was. You went all over the map. I think we went back to carmen sandiego. So 20 0 or 75, right? You started at 75. The committee changed it to 20, and now he's making a proposal at zero. Yeah. So you mentioned something with I, I e as it relates to 20. But these are all these are all restricted 50% ami. Isn't that what you guys adjusted it to? So what are we talking about here?

So they we're looking for maximum flexibility. So from that logic, reducing the minimum would allow units that are projects that are 4 to 6 units to be in play. And yes, the different financing mechanisms change based on the size of the project. That's absolutely true. I was saying if we were keeping the project levels relatively high, the difference between 8 and 19 and 20 is I h or not I h. Again, options. It's just an option that a potential housing producer could could take advantage of. So there's really no at this point, if the question is should it be zero or something else, we would say at a minimum 20. But if it's not 20 then zero. No minimum is fine.

I feel like there should be some understanding for what. So when I when I am complaining often to people about they didn't build high enough in my district, often they'll say to me, because this type of construction above, let's say the eighth floor or the seventh floor or whatever, it significantly changes the cost. And so that gives us an idea for where in the cost structure assistance is needed. So what I'd be looking for is where, where in the middle income revolving loan world is the most help needed in terms of 75 as a base, 20 as a base or zero as a base. And I say that with $50 million across the state. Yes. Is nothing correct? So great. We can finance a couple projects.

We could finance.

A couple of floors and a couple of projects because we're not going to get the whole 50 million correct.

And this is not designed this fund is not designed to be the the full capital stack of a project. It's designed to support and assist. And that. But you are speaking to this question of what project types need the most help, and I and I think it's fair to say across the board, across the city, all project types need help right now. I mean, we, we, I'm bringing up the sdc exemption because this is action this council took last year. We are seeing the usage of that product, which is great, but not to the scale that we hope. And it still can. We're still in the middle of the program. We're seeing at this nice threshold of middle housing, which is great, but we are not seeing, though, is the larger projects that are going from those wood frame buildings to your concrete buildings. And that's where the gaps are just not being met right now. So those larger projects, those eight story projects, the financing is just not working out. So in theory, as we're introducing a new product into the market, this merle program, we would like to try to nudge those bigger projects. Now, does reducing the minimum prevent a project like that from coming online? It does not. So that's what I'm saying. It by reducing the minimum, you don't hinder a project like that from coming in. But what is true is you just increase the range of projects that might come in.

Okay, so your amendment councilor Green gives me a lot of pause at the minimum issue, but I do appreciate the mixed use and I expect based on testimony here, I expect I'll probably go ahead and ask to split that question with respect to the other technical aspects. So. The I want to make sure I understand. So was the requirement for disclosure documents to the council okay to the city seems something somewhat reasonable to the council seems very strange to me, and I'm trying to think in the course of our other work. Is this a unique thing? You mentioned something about whether or not organizations may or may not want to. Is this a unique thing? How does that play out currently? And housing bureau or in prosper, what kind of change does this actually implement? If Green three were to pass?

If I read the amendment correctly, the. The direction would be for the bureau to disseminate the financing term sheets related to a particular project to council.

And does that take an ordinance to accomplish that, or is that saying all financial sheets that ever come to the city that want this program have to also come to us? Am I going to get inundated with every application?

It was not our understanding that was all projects. It was just related to the bureau.

Okay. But I'm let me correct me if I'm wrong on this assumption. As the mural is written. Without this, the assessment of a project is applicable and affordable. You would have some sense of their financial documents before you made that. And I say, you mean the city before you made that determination? Is that accurate?

Correct.

Okay. In this case, now, not only will you all have that, but now all those documents will come to the council. Am I getting a courier pigeon? What am I getting to go through their documents?

Councilor. I think that based on the amendment we're working from the assumption that the documents related to that specific deal for the financing of that project would be made available to council.

If I were to ask for those now, are they not?

Yeah.

I adrian delgado, city attorney's office. So I think the way that this would work and the intention would be that council, when they want the documents, would pass a resolution so that the entire council is requesting the documents. Now, generally, if you want to get documents from a bureau, I think our office has issued advice that you can ask the city administrator for reports. You also have some investigatory power. If you were doing a full investigation on a bureau. But this, I think, is a more direct path to requesting specific records. Instead of asking for a report from the city administrator. But we would still expect a resolution to be brought forth every time that you want to receive the records.

That would be strange. I asked for records all the time and I've never passed a resolution for them. Well, I understand, I think we're talking.

About right. That's getting into probably the nuances of the relationship. Like if a councilor Calls a bureau, there's no legal restriction that the bureau would not give you the records. But I think this is a request to formally turn over records to the entire council is the way that I was interpreting it.

Okay. All right. And then in the third piece. I want to make sure at given that councilor Ryan's conversation about what did or didn't happen in committee, did the housing bureau versus prosper conversation happen at committee? And is this a bring back or not?

I do think that one was part of my first effort. And like, I think I got a total of 12 minutes to talk about it. It died immediately. Okay. We didn't have time for a reasonable debate on that. So I've split it into a different theme because I recognize some of these may be more palatable than others.

All right. Last technical question. Are we under some sort of time crunch? Is that why it moved out of committee so fast instead of getting work done.

That day? We had 30 minutes allocated to this item. And then we had the key part of house tau ordinance, and that was the bigger, lengthier piece of business to fill. And so we didn't really have time to run long.

But like, this doesn't have a, we don't have to adopt by a day or we lose out on applications immediately or something along those lines. Yeah. Okay. I just I asked that in the spirit of some committees have taken the spirit of committees, which is working it out and others are just conveyor belting through. So it feels like you guys had some more to have. You keep guys keep talking about. We only had so much time, but okay, that's it for my technical questions.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: I was just putting my hand in the queue for the underlying after the post testimony.

So councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. So I'm going to keep the the comments here specific to the the the questions, the technical questions. But I wanted to ask I've gotten a couple more as we've been going through this. Dca oliveira you mentioned that we will get a couple projects. Do you anticipate that we're going to be allocated this. Can you speak to why we're looking at projects instead of dollars? Like wouldn't the idea of smaller projects, if we were getting if we were anticipating a finite set of dollars, mean more projects could get some portion of financing needs behind you?

So when I mentioned that, yeah, thank you for clarifying. Give me a chance to clarify. When I mentioned the couple project, that's when we were contemplating a couple of larger projects. You're right in theory, if they're smaller projects. But again, I'm speculating on what the state's going to allocate to to the city. It's a $50 million pot of resources. Once we have our program up and running again, these programs have to come into, you know, apply. We have to work with them to make sure they're, you know, ready to go. And of course, we're putting our resources as a safety net to back these loans. So we also want to do the due diligence. One thing I didn't mention related to just.

Before you, I'll let you go on. But just just to clarify, the thing that they will be allocating to us is a dollar amount loans.

Yeah. Through the through loans.

It will not be a number of loans. It will be a number of dollars. Correct? Correct. Okay.

Thanks. We don't know what that number is.

Yeah. Fair enough. Sorry. Carry on.

Yeah. Oh, just related to the administration of the program, which is is also material to your question. Php manages programs up to a certain ami amount and then prosper manages like the middle income level. So if we're looking at ph, but using tif dollars, for example, to back some of these loans, we're basically having two different administrative processes that make it a little convoluted for our community to navigate. It's manageable, but I just want to add that just adds a little bit more confusion, but it speaks to the reason why your question reminded me of that councilor is when we are looking at some of these performers on the projects, these larger projects. That's sort of the sweet spot. What prospers does like that's what they're good at, trying to get these middle income housing projects built. And php can do it as well, but we'd really be kind of ping pong between the two bureaus on trying to land which projects projects we're prioritizing as we move them through the state. So it just adds a little bit more dynamic to the administration.

Okay, thanks. And then I'm a little I, I'm going to switch to to adrian, if that's okay, for the amendment three here. I'm this seemed a lot more straightforward until that response that you gave to councilor Zimmerman would removing the words upon request make it easier? Because I think the idea of having to go through a resolution to get basic information necessary to do our jobs is really unappealing to me.

I think it's I mean, it's just that a resolution is how the council speaks as a body. So I think it depends on your intent. If the intent is that each council member could access the records individually, that's different than the council accessing records. Right. So I would kind of put it back to the council on what the intent is. If the intent is that you meet as a body and you review the records, then they would be coming to the council.

I think I would that kick that question to the the immense amendment sponsor what your intent was.

I appreciate the opportunity. I my intent is actually to really honor the executive side. Ability to execute things. And I think the mural is a really important program. It does give me some risk profile concerns. And I think that the state law does require certain underwriting and disclosure requirements. I think there's a clause that says that you must show a but for need, that if not for this loan, you would not be able to do an affordable project. So there's a pretty high barrier standard there for for making the case in a due diligence sense. I don't actually want to go in and ask for these records all the time. I don't, and I don't think I think that's actually an appropriate for councilors to do. But I think that there's a time where council should say, hey, we might have some concerns that perhaps the implementation or the choice to award a grant that we now have to pay back to the state. May is, is straying from the intent of the state law. So how do we do oversight on this? And I want to make sure that we are not in a situation where some councilors and not to sort of suggest any, any ill intent, but some councilors are not able to get access to that information without a pathway. And so just by writing it into the codifying it right here to say, look, it's it's going to be council as a as a body that would need to sort of say, we have an interest in this. That was my intent. I think earlier, I think my staff, when we were contemplating what to do, we sort of thought about maybe, well, any councilor at any time could request this. And I was like, no, I think that's overly you're putting your hand too far into the administration side. And so that's so I'm actually very much interested in us using this as a method to say there's a formal way to get this. And with all the appropriate redactions that would be appropriate to sort of make sure that this program is being implemented in accordance with the law. And we're not exposing ourselves to undue risk. So that's my intent.

Okay. So then from the purpose of where we're at right now, it sounds to me like that interpretation that we just received aligns with your intent. And we can debate if that's the right thing to do after we hear testimony. Thank you, council president.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith. Okay. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

So hearing that last response is the administration's interpretation that if we pass that amendment, an individual councilor who is looking to better understand a single project would not be able to more casually request that and receive the information the way that we can with any other record that we're trying to, to be able to review.

Yeah, councilor, thanks for the question. I think it's more of a relation relationship issue. I don't I don't know if yeah. That's.

Okay. I'm not sure. There's my question. I'm trying to understand if we pass that amendment, if that actually limits our ability to get information more casually in the way that we normally would.

It wouldn't legally change the way that you interact with the executive branch.

Understand the legal, trying to understand the way that the administration would act.

Councilor. I don't think we've ever been in a situation where we've provided, you know, loan details to council. You know, there's there's some, you know, concern about just, you know, public record type things in general. But I think if you're asking us for information on a regular basis for projects where we're appropriate, we share that information. In this particular case, I was we were interpreting it that the that councilor Green was asking for projects ex explicit to this program. So we would go in consciously knowing that we'd be preparing this information in a way that would likely be conveyed to the to the city council.

Okay. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney vice president Clark.

Thank you. Council president. Excuse me just a second, councilor Green. Well, let me I'm going to beat this a little bit. We'll be lucky if we get any of this money. I mean, it's not very much money, but I am concerned that I don't want to do anything. Based on your comment that would dissuade anyone from investing here. I don't want to add any thing that's suspect or that would that would be an impediment to somebody wanting to come here and and work on a project. I guess that's kind of my concern on the other end. And if there's a way for us to get this information, great. But it seems a little over the top. I don't know, you can help clarify that for me. I, I don't feel like I need it and I don't want to dissuade anyone. And if I really needed it, I know how to get it. So I don't know if it's really. I think those are.

Reasonable questions. And I, I'm prepared to sort of lay all that out when we get into discussion. Debate. Okay. And I did structure these specifically as independent things, understanding that some of these things may not pass because folks have a different risk assessment than I do. So I am prepared to speak to your concern.

Thanks.

Okay. Rebecca, can we move to public testimony, please?

First up we have robert pyle.

Welcome robert. Come on up. Introduce yourself for the record. Welcome to share your pronouns. And you have three minutes. Yeah.

Good afternoon council. For the record my name is robert pyle. I'm the principal of oak leaf redevelopment. I'm here today to ask you to please support the Green two amendment to the ordinance and remove the minimum unit requirement and mixed use preference. There is no minimum unit requirement in the state statute, and there should not be any minimum unit requirement in our local ordinance. Cottage clusters and townhomes are specifically eligible housing types for the mural program. Under the statutory statutory definition of middle housing in rs197a, these project types are effectively precluded from the program. If the 20 unit minimum unit is retained in 2025, only 1652 units of housing were submitted for permit against the updated annual goal of 4500. The $50 million mural fund is first come, first served, and the. And we should seek as much of that as possible. The only statutory allocation is 20% to rural areas. We cannot both be serious about our housing production goals and support a 20 unit minimum requirement for the mural program. We need all the tools we can get, and arbitrarily limiting access to this program serves no purpose that I can tell. During the housing and permitting committee meeting April 7th, dca oliveira confirmed the staff workload is the same for a five unit or a 75 unit project. Funding to administer the program comes from a 5% fee built into every loan as part of the state statute. Loan funds come from the state budget allocation with no impact to the city budget. I'll repeat these funds are provided by the state with no impact to the city budget. As council Green recently put it, a revolving loan program is the cheat code for housing production. A 20 unit minimum requirement also conflicts with inclusionary housing and the multiple unit limited tax exemption. The multi-program 20 to 75 unit projects, which are eligible for both, potentially will use multi as an exemption, not a loan. A tool that is already available to them. There are zero areas of district one that are eligible for the multi program, meaning the mural is the only potential tool to support the production of moderate income housing. In district one, many projects of 20 units or more in d one still won't be feasible due to construction type and the use of concrete and steel, but many 5 to 19 unit projects would framed could be. Additionally, projects over approximately 30 units will trigger the prevailing wage requirements, creating additional feasibility challenges. Senator fam is holding a housing production roundtable in the district on June 22nd, which I know some of you are attending as the chief sponsor of the mural program. It would be great to share with her that we adopted an ordinance that allowed for the broadest possible use of this tool. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here.

Zachary lindell's online. You can unmute and begin testimony.

Thank you. I just want to make sure everybody can hear me. My side seems to be pretty quiet.

We can hear you.

Excellent. Council president Dunphy, vice president Clark in Portland city council. For the record, my name is zach lindell, and I'm the director of government affairs for multifamily northwest. We represent nearly 300,000 rental homes across Oregon, and the professionals who own, operate and maintain them. Multifamily northwest is pleased to support document 2020 124, which would implement, adopt and implement the moderate income revolving loan program known as mural. This ordinance is practical, forward looking step that enables the city of Portland to finance more housing by authorizing the housing and community services department to fund mixed income housing developments and establish a dedicated mixed income housing loan program. Portland's housing shortage requires policies that increase housing supply across income levels. Mixed income housing plays an important role in that effort by supporting financially viable projects that include both market rate and affordable units. Our organization has a long history of supporting policies such as this, as it provides an additional financing tool that can help help projects move forward that might otherwise stall due to funding gaps. In fact, multifamily northwest enthusiastically supported both senate bill 1537 during the 2024 session, as well as house bill 4037 during the 2026 session, allowing the creation of a local mural by establishing new local mural and the rules established by the city of Portland has created a program that provides flexibility while maintaining accountability. The ability to offer below market or below market. Short term loans can help unlock private capital, support project feasibility and accelerate housing production. Additionally, our team would like to recognize the intention of this policy to help provide housing to those earning between 50% and 120% area median income. This diversity of affordable housing is critical. Dedicated workforce housing, priced at 80 to 120%, is often the least represented in our housing continuum and the most precarious to finance and build. Lastly, I would like to say that we support councilor Greene's amendment that eliminates the cap on the number of units for these projects. This change in the cap will allow for developers to consider a variety of project projects that might work best for them. Multifamily northwest supports policies that move portland's closer to achieving 100 2000 new units by 2045, and the governor's goal of producing 36,000 new units every year. We believe this ordinance aligns squarely with the objective by extending the city's capacity to support housing development at scale without over prescribing outcomes or adding unnecessary barriers. Thank you for your time.

Thank you so much for being here today.

Thank you.

Benjamin gilbert.

Robert, if you want to sit, you don't have to sit there.

Hello, my name is benjamin gilbert. I'm a tenant in district four and a volunteer lobbyist for the Portland democratic socialists of America. I support the adoption and implementation of the of the moderate income revolving loan program, as amended. I want to specifically voice my support for Green three and four. It's essential that we build state capacity and housing development. The housing bureau, not prosper. Portland is the logical place for this. And we also need council oversight over how funds are disbursed. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

Jordan lewis. Jordan, you can unmute and go ahead online.

Hello, city council, my name is jordan lewis. My pronouns are he him and I'm a volunteer lobbyist with Portland dsa. I'm testifying in support of Green amendments two, three and four. I support Green two because I think Portland needs residential infill yesterday. More people in city limits means more tax revenue for services, more transit riders, and the cost to provide sewer and water services is split between more ratepayers. These are all consensus goals for the city, and if we can get them done sooner, with a more diverse portfolio of smaller units than we should do that. I also support Green two as someone who lives above seven vacant ground floor retail units, we clearly have too much mixed use development for a city of our density, and until we get that density up, mixed use requirements function functionally as taxes on new developments. If someday we enter another portlandia era building boom, that'll be a great problem to have. And we can recalibrate our retail standards then. But right now, I think something needs to change to better outcomes. I'm also supportive of Green three and four because we are living in the shadow of just decades of failures by markets, by governments, to provide housing where people want to live. And we have to treat that like an emergency. I'd almost treat it like an earthquake. And after an earthquake, we don't delegate it outside of government. No, we should have state capacity to fix these, like super pressing problems. Housing is the number one problem for the Portland area. So I would really like to see government stand up and remediate this problem, just like it stood up and remediated like earthquakes in alaska or california. Yeah, that's all I gotta say. Thanks.

Thank you very much.

That concludes testimony.

Okay, colleagues, we are now into discussion of the underlying councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, council president. At this time I'd like to move Green one. I'm going to do these separately. I'm sorry. Thank you. Green two okay.

Councilor Green moves. Green two is there a second?

I'll second that.

Councilor Ryan seconds colleagues to discussion. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity for the discussion. We did have a brief discussion in committee about this. I think for me, the economics of scale, when you build something right now with the external forces that we're facing, the cost of capital, the cost of labor inputs, the cost of material inputs make it really hard to complete a capital stack, even with this little bit of mural for larger units. And while I do want to see those go up, especially in areas that are zoned for density right now, we have a lot of capacity to build in that's been created by the residential infill program, and the buildings that have been built under this program are affordable at the middle income level, just by the native characteristics of those projects. And so for me, it's about how quickly can we disperse these dollars out the door to get shovels in the ground. And I think I was moved by robert pyles sort of testimony. And also he reached out to my office. We had a couple conversations and, you know, he showed me the permits and flight, walk me through kind of the the economics of these projects. And I have actually seen the success stories of folks who've been able to go out there and buy one of these units for 2 to $300,000. And that is squarely in the affordability range. Or, you know, in the case of, of an apartment, it's just a it's a function of the cost of production so that you can have lower rents there too. And so I really do think this is going to allow us to spend the dollars. And when you're in a crisis of, of faith in government, where you're constantly wondering if, if our taxes are then translating into benefits that people can feel, I think it's better for the long term health of the mural program, which I would like to see expanded at the state level. If we can show a lot of of case studies of success in Portland, Oregon, of putting some buildings up in my district, there's a there's a program that's currently not eligible as written on southwest nebraska street that could be a could be something financed with merle and their gap could be closed. So that's my primary reason for Green two. Also, we have a glut of commercial retail space right now. And adding more to that, I think hurts our current storefront owners because they they have to deal with the fact that there's, there's new competition for the storefronts that are vacant next to them. And it also just works against the economics of the situation we're in right now. And so you heard that also from multifamily northwest as well. And so I ask for your support for Green two. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Green colleagues. Two Green two councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Thank you. Yeah. Thanks for the discussion, folks. So as we have shared, yes, we did discuss it in committee and we made the decision at that time to move it from 75 to 20. I supported that change because the 20 units, like we've been saying, and like you heard from donnie, and I do agree with that argument that we're trying to stretch these dollars, right? It is a limited pot of money. And given this the given that it makes sense to me to prioritize projects that deliver more units per dollar. So that's why I supported moving it to 20. And I

Now I'm like, can't remember. Did we try to move it to zero in committee? And we failed that I can't remember, but we ended up we landed on 20. And I stood by that for those reasons. I think that the. And you know, thank you robert. We've been in communication with him as well with my office. And I think the arguments around. Wanting to put infuse dollars right away, wanting to give make sure that these dollars are eligible in district one, of course, is going to hit home for me. And, you know, when I talked with donnie about this, I think ultimately it's a policy choice. And I think the policy choice I know robert has said that there's no discernible reason. I guess I don't remember how he phrased it, that we would be making this policy choice. I disagree, I think there is a reason to make a policy choice of 20 units for everything that we've said, and it's not a hill I need to die on. I think it's fine to just bring it to the state's level. And so while I didn't support it in committee and I still have my feelings, like I would prefer 20, it's not a hill I'm interested in dying on. I want to get cranes in the sky, and I want to get some of that middle housing built in east Portland. So I'll I'll go ahead and plan to support it today. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Avalos, councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: I wanted to give one last opportunity to the staff. You included mixed use for a reason, I have to presume. What was that reason? Because I am generally in agreement that that is an unnecessary code requirement that we have just blanketed across the city and we are seeing failing in a lot of places. So like, what was the reason? I hope it wasn't just happenstance, no.

Councilor. And just for clarity, in the original ordinance, it references it as one of the things we would look at as a priority was like, not a must have is we're looking at the different structures of a project. Mixed use would be a thing that we would contemplate because in many cases, when we're talking about the larger projects based on where those would go, where zoning, it makes sense to have a mixed use development in places like a 75 unit project would go. Now with the rest, the the rest of Green two. By reducing the minimum, the mixed use component. Becomes irrelevant because it's absolutely right. You wouldn't build a mixed use building with four units in every zone. That's just that's not a relevant consideration. So if Green two is adopted holistically, then that makes you piece becomes moot.

Okay, thanks. And. Who from the city brought this original work to the committee? What department or what section? Where where did this come from?

It's actually prosper. It was a prosper housing and revenue.

And revenue. Okay. That's why tim's here. Okay. All right. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thanks. Council president.

You know, I, I was listening to everything councilor Avalos was saying about our discussion in committee and wanted to jump in to say that for those reasons, I'm actually not going to support this amendment. We did have a discussion about the right level. We heard from advocates who were worried 75 would be too high. We heard from folks in the administration that they wanted to make sure that we captured if it's first come, first serve, and if we're only going to get so many projects, let's make sure we're capturing some of those larger projects. And we settled on 20 that number where inclusionary zoning kicks in to say, we already have a line here. Let's make sure that we're focused not on the cottage clusters and duplexes, which I think are actually an incredibly important part of the system, but a. Different part of the system. Let's make sure we're focused on those larger scale projects. Let's make sure we're focused because we specifically said transit oriented as one of the other criteria here for preference. When you talk about transit oriented, we are often more likely to be talking about mixed use. There was a really intentional decision here, and I, I feel the need to stick with that decision that we made as we evaluated all of these pieces through a true quick discussion, but relatively comprehensive conversation in committee. Thank you, council president.

Mitch Green: Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney colleagues, I put myself in the queue. I'm going to be supportive of Green two. I will tell you that first when we have first, I think robert powell is a fantastic developer. And you know, the the infill model that he has been working on and a lot of the cottage cluster things, when we hear from multifamily northwest coming and telling us, please do this. And then we. Also have dsa here telling us to do this. I feel like either this is a great idea or somehow a terrible idea that I just can't understand, but it seems like a really good idea to me. I also think that, I mean, I will be honest and I will be transparent to this body. I am not certain that inclusionary housing is serving our city well. The number of 19 unit buildings, the concerns I hear from developers, the sort of automatic triggers, I'm just not sure that right now it is helping. And I also am really concerned about this. So so for that purpose, I am concerned about this mural being tagged at the 20 unit point. I also am worried about trying to trying to use this as a tool to entice bigger projects, because I've been hearing from developers that those projects are simply not coming right now, that those investors who would be bringing that level of capital are looking around and saying, we could spend x on building a new building, or we could spend a 10th of x and buy a building that's currently in foreclosure. And if this could help make some of the smaller projects a ten unit, a 15 unit, something on my side of town, as mr. Powell was saying, actually start and we can get any units going. I think that that's a really big deal right now. In a perfect world, if we were in the portlandia era, absolutely. Let's tie it to a bigger thing and see if we can get more skyscrapers. But that ain't where we are right now. So I'm going to be supportive of this councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Yeah, I just one last pitch on this. Green two is really designed to. Maximize the flexibility and lower the burden as much as possible for developers, just because I do think that we need to really use every tool in the toolkit right now to just get production going. That will help our economic picture in ways that have a multiplier effect. The other amendments are different. And so I just just want you to focus on the nature of Green two and the intent behind it. And, and again, hope, hope that you see that I'm trying to speed up the rate of housing production here. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Yeah, thank you, council president, you actually said much of the things that I would have said. So I really appreciate your comments. The adaptable shift from this body is a really encouraging sign. Thank you, robert pile. There you are for your for sharing your lived experience. I believe you superb testimony. Thanks. We can't have housing production numbers like 2025. It's just unacceptable. We have to do something. So let's align with the state. Let's move some dirt. I'm all in for Green two.

Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Ryan, as you said the word Green, it came out of my mouth. Councilor. Novick.

Thank you, mr. President. I had the same reaction you did to the very testimony on on this topic. I also just need to take this opportunity to say that I said earlier that I wasn't going to go to le pigeon because I've been warned that somebody might spit in my food. That was a joke in bad taste, that I should not have repeated. The pigeon did not warn me of that. And I'm planning to go there on July 10th. And if somebody wants to join me because I don't have a date, I will pay.

Thank you, councilor Novick. Got it. I got seven months. Okay, counselor Zimmerman, is that a legacy hand? Yeah. Okay. Thank you. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue to discuss Green two. Rebecca, can we please call the roll?

Colleen two. Green two, moved by Green, seconded by Ryan.

And cameras on please.

Colleagues.

Kanal I.

Pirtle-guiney.

Know, Ryan.

I Koyama Lane. I Morillo. Absent Novick. I clerk.

Thanks to robert and to zach for their testimony. I'm and I.

Green. I.

Zimmerman I.

Avalos I'm sorry.

Go ahead.

Go ahead. Morillo.

Morillo.

Sorry I'm here.

I I.

And I.

Vote yea.

Aye, Morillo. And I Avalos.

Isn't I yeah.

Smith I.

Dunphy I.

And the amendments approved with 11i1a vote.

Thank you very much. Councilor. Novick legacy. Legacy. Okay. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you colleagues. I'd like to move Green what is it? Three I look for a second.

Councilor Green moves. Councilor Green moves Green three councilor Kanal seconds. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Yeah. Thank you colleagues. We got into this a little bit during the technical discussion, but the the intent behind Green three is just to add an explicit recognition that city council. Can engage more formally on making sure that this program is being implemented to state law. And I know that that's there's an implicit duty of and right of council to invoke its charter investigatory powers. I think that that's way up the scale of oversight. That's that's a blunt tool for something like this. It's much more direct, as you heard from our city attorney, to just sort of say explicitly that the city's program manager or designee shall make available to counsel these, these financial statements. And this this one will be especially important for me if we don't pass Green four, because now we've got this separation of the the designee as prosper Portland, we don't have that ability to sort of do that investigation on prosper Portland because they're a distinct entity. And so this just writes in writes into the code that there is an expectation that council can exercise its oversight powers responsibly when appropriate, through this codification. And it would obviously apply whoever the designee is. But that's the spirit behind it. It doesn't do anything more than that. Thanks.

Thank you, counselor Green colleagues, I had intended to give us a restroom break before moving to the next amendment. So I'm going to pause this right here, and I'm going to give us a ten minute restroom break and have everybody back here at 415. We still have an entire we have two other items after this still. So at. And in addition to the one we're on, so said ten minutes. And we are back. Friends, we are in discussion of Green three councilor Clark turning to you.

Olivia Clark: Thank you, council president I think Green three right. I just would was going to reiterate my concern about adding anything that dissuades private participation in the stack. And it just seems like there are ways for us to get this information if we really need to have it. So I appreciate your efforts on this. I really do as a housing advocate, so I just don't want to do anything that might prevent the private sector from getting involved in a in a project. So I'm probably going to vote no.

Thank you, councilor Vice president Clark, colleagues, any further discussion of Green three counselor Ryan.

Yeah, thank you, council president. I think it gets to both three and four. Dca oliveira could you please come up. With three I have opinions on because when I was housing commissioner, I fully trusted the staff's due diligence in the process that we had. So I don't I'm clear on the no on that, but I thought I heard on four. But I think you're being very diplomatic and perhaps I wasn't hearing it, but I heard capacity, strain and challenges. Is that true? Is that on both or on four.

Yeah. Councilor, are we just to be clear, we are discussing just three are open to four. Sorry.

We're on three. But you're welcome to comment on four.

Okay, great. Thank you.

Trying to be efficient time.

Donnie oliveira for the record, regarding for the question is about capacity. And right now at fb, we are, you know, aggressively standing up new programs that council directed the bureau to do related to the $56 million ordinance, the keeping portlanders housed initiative. And those are some really big lifts and really excited to get those forward. We've shared some of the timelines with the project sponsors on that. It'd be the same team, a very small but mighty team that is working on those that would pivot to work on merle, because we are this is also an urgent program as well. And so we do have limitations, just staffing capacity wise at the housing bureau, there's talented team partners that can can support prosper in this. But at the same time, the projects we're looking at to prosper just has the capacity and the expertise to move these forward quickly. Working with the state to get these dollars allocated. So would be our preference that the administration remains with prosper, acknowledging just the capacity at fb.

Thank you so much. I need to hear that directly.

Thank you, counselor Ryan. Counselor Green.

Yeah, just just speaking into it. Like I colleagues, I recognize that not everyone's comfortable with this. And councilor Clark, I hear your concerns and I take them. Well, I think for me, if we if we don't pass this, I think it's still incumbent on this body to at times ask the questions it needs to ask and do the do this oversight it needs to do. It's just it will become a little bit more ad hoc. And this just provides a kind of formal declaration, but I'll leave it there. I'm not going to try to, you know. What's the euphemism? I'll just leave it at there. I accept the position that folks are in, and this is why I separated the amendments in the first place.

Thank you. Thank you, councilor Green, councilor Pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president, do we have.

The acting city administrator with us right now?

We have an acting city administrator. It is a dc, a donna paul.

Okay.

That'll work. We don't usually put language like this in ordinances that we pass. Is there a lot to think about how I want to ask this? I, I'm trying to understand the necessity. Is there an assumption right now in the direction that you all both give and get, that when councilors or the council requests information, it is gotten to us as quickly as feasible? Or is that not an assumption on all work that we do?

Council counsel.

Again, sorry.

Can you repeat that?

Is there an.

Assumption within the administration right now that when councilors or when the council it sounds like this language, the lawyers would say we would need to pass a resolution for anyway, that when we ask for something, it should be gotten to us for information or financial statements. It should be gotten to us as soon as possible. Or is that not an assumption for any similar ask that council might make?

I will have to check with city administrator lee for the response, but we are. Our goal is to get it back to you as soon as possible. That's. That's the administrative side. We try to get back to you as soon as possible.

Okay. And. What position you are.

Not the the always city administrator and I apologize for that. Dca donna paul, you know, when we break with precedent, when we say something somewhere and not everywhere, that starts to create or can start to create the precedent that we mean it in some places and not other places. And councilor Green, I agree with you very much that there are going to be places where we need to do some oversight, and we should ask for the information to be able to do that. And it concerns me that we were told that if we pass this, we'll need to pass a resolution when we want the information anyway, because any time we pass a resolution, we should get that information. In fact, we shouldn't have to. Anytime we ask for something, we should get that information. So as long as that is the administration's intent always, I am hesitant to pass this language here and start to say, hey, sometimes we call it out and sometimes we don't, and then leave to legal interpretation the difference between our intent and what we what we might want in those different scenarios. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, is.

One of the housing city attorneys who was here earlier. If they could come up, are we allowed to compel prosper to give us a pro forma? I think, you know, I think sometimes when I'm thinking of these amendments, there are varying degrees to which any number of us can get in pieces of information. And it really varies person by person that they're speaking with in each bureau or agency.

I think there's a number of ways that you can request information from prosper. It's not going to be the same path that we've been talking about with asking the city administrator or calling a bureau and asking for advice for the records that you could ask for, you know, an issue, a public records request. When we send money from the general fund, we would execute an iga, and I would assume there would be a term in that iga that prosper has to disclose records when we when we ask for them, but it's not the same path. So I think part of the discussion is like, if this is if prosper is going to be executing this program, then we would either this clause would help the city get records from prosper or when prosper executes an iga with the city administrator or revenue, then that's another pathway to for the city to get records from prosper as to include that clause in the iga.

And would a records request get us a really redacted pro forma from prosper, or would we get to read the thing in full?

Generally, I can answer it from the like from the housing bureau attorney perspective, is that when we get a public records request that involves financial information of a developer, that we would redact that information because it's there is a specific public records law exemption. So certain financial information, including the pro forma, would generally be redacted.

Okay. And if we asked the housing bureau for a pro forma, can they provide that?

There's certainly nothing that prevents them from providing it. So the public records exemption is conditional, meaning that you have the city has the choice whether or not to exercise it.

Okay. I think in in my experience, when my office has asked for pro formas, that's not how it's worked out in practice. They have said the housing bureau said that they're not able to send them over, and it really depends on prosper's responsiveness as well if we get them or not. I also think that there is something to be said here about the fact that we are elected officials who are technically having some oversight over these dollars, but then not having direct oversight over them. And that means that that we as elected officials have to do records request on a city agency to get information, I think is kind of concerning. So that's part of why I think that this amendment matters, because we need to have a different avenue for getting this information. And and that's why I'll be supportive of it. So thanks for answering my questions. I appreciate you.

Sure.

Thank you, councilor Morillo councilor Green.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, I just wanted to respond briefly to, I think, the line of concern that councilor Pirtle-guiney raised. And I, I, I tend to agree, but I think I want to just make it clear why I included this. Here I am, I am sympathetic to that sort of like, precedent thing. It's just that in the state law that created the mural, there's a whole section that explicitly says there is an obligation to disclose the full financials and make the case that you have a but for need. And and so I think especially when a case where there is a potential principal agent separation and council as the budget authority is ultimately on the hook for paying back whatever choice the designee has made for the developer, we should be able to have a pathway to sort of look in and inspect those books, so to speak. So that was the motivation there. I think it's very peculiar. It's particular to this thing that we're trying to do here. I don't contemplate that generally for all of our legislation, because we do just have that native authority. And I'll just leave it there. Okay.

Thank you, councilor Green. Seeing no one else in the queue, rebecca, can we please call the roll on Green three.

Green three. Moved by Green. Seconded by Kanal Kanal. I pirtle-guiney.

No, Ryan.

No.

Koyama Lane I.

Morillo I.

Novick no.

Clerk.

No.

Green.

Hi.

Zimmerman.

No.

Avalos.

I Smith.

No.

Dunphy. I and the amendment fails with six I six no votes.

Okay. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: I don't think this is going to pass, but I do just want to move it and just have I want to put on the record why I introduced it. So I would like to move Green for. Ask for a second. Thanks.

Second.

Okay. Councilor Green has moved Green for councilor Kanal has seconded counselor Green.

Yeah. Colleagues, briefly. I think there's just there's a couple reasons why I think Green for improves this and puts the city in a position to be better stewards of those state funds and also, frankly, our own money because we have to pay it back. And it comes from I'll firstly speak to my experience as a counterparty risk analyst in my prior career. Whenever a decision is made to advance a loan to one party, there's an immediate and there's an obligation, particularly in a situation where, like the grantee who's the developer receives the grant through the underwriting process, and then simultaneously, the city of Portland now has a loan obligation to the state of Oregon. We now enter into what's called counterparty risk, because if the person if there's a default situation or the there's two sources of of payback in this method, it's fee and lieu. And then there's a sort of proceeds from a tif district. If either of those failed to materialize, we still have to pay back the state of Oregon. And so we still, we, we now we bear the exposure for counterparty risk. And so having that. Having the agent, the underwriting agent be the city itself mitigates that counterparty risk. You can mitigate the counterparty risk by having more controls. We just passed. We just failed to pass an amendment that I think would have probably helped mitigate that a little bit by giving council some oversight, but it does introduce some risk. I'm not saying the risk is insurmountable. We take on risks all the time, but it is something that I thought about because of my prior experience. The other piece is that I actually think that revolving loan funds are going to become a very important and central part of housing production in general, whether we're talking about market housing, social housing, or anything in between. And I want them to be successful, and I want us to do a lot more of them. And I want the state to re up this program and expand it. And so I think that. Developing the administrative capacity for the city of Portland to to facilitate that as we do it, we just capitalize a small revolving loan for our own selves. Building that capability, I think, is really important. And so having this work be done in the Portland housing bureau and be funded by that 5% fee that robert powell spoke to earlier, gives us an opportunity to build that capacity in-house. This is this is not a vote of no confidence in prosper Portland. They do great work over there. But prosper Portland needs to focus, in my view, on economic development. And Portland housing bureau should focus on housing production. That's those are the lanes that nick fish actually, commissioner Nick fish identified and articulated when we split these things off in the first place. So I go back to that kind of initial intent. And so I worry if we go down this road, we'll continue to sort of, I guess, in some sense, lose an opportunity to build out administrative capacity. So that's my primary motivation. It's risk. It's a risk thing as well as it is a let's build our administrative capacity frame. And so hope, hope, hope, support. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Councilor Kanal thank you, council president. Thanks, councilor Green, for doing the work on this and all the other amendments as well. I'm going to smash the yes button on this one. I think it's really vital that for the taxpayers that are looking at us as a steward of this particular program, obviously they pay into it. From the state perspective. It's it's vital that we are able to keep this in house to be able to exercise a democratic control and have the actual oversight of the program. And we've had this conversation around democratic accountability several times. I think that's really vital. I think it's also fair to point out that I really appreciate dca oliveira point about having enough, whether or not php has enough staff. I also want to note that prosper Portland is facing the same concerns. Prosper Portland is zeroing out its equity department, for example. Right now they are also facing some of the same issues. And I think the question is, how do we solve for the problem as opposed to just just take the face value, which I think is accurate of where we're at staffing wise and assume it can't be changed. I think we can do what we need to do to provide enough capacity. That 5% would go a long way, I imagine, towards that, but also ensure that we're not simply looking at one potential option in a vacuum and not taking into account the prosper is also facing some of the same staff capacity concerns there as well. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Yeah, thank you.

I hear and understand that argument. Councilor Kanal. And I appreciate you, councilor Green I, I do understand where you're coming from. And, you know, like I said in committee, I believe that there are some policy ways to go. Excuse me, policy ways to go about it. Also, just like oversight and reporting requirements, I'm not convinced at this moment that changing this improves the program. And I am actually pretty concerned about the housing bureau's capacity. And I say that as somebody who's working very closely with them and is constantly pushing them. And it's it's too much. And please know I will be coming back at some point this year to ask council to help me figure out how to increase capacity in the housing bureau, because they are doing excellent work, but they are at the breaking point. And I want to like, acknowledge that because I'm really grateful for for what they've been doing. So I think because this is a program that is going to, you know, draw down those dollars very quickly. It's kind of a one time thing. I'm not too concerned about the long term governance questions, even though I agree with your governance questions, councilor Green, I just don't think this particular thing will address those necessarily. And I want your help and I want everyone's help in increasing housing bureau's capacity. And let's absolutely talk about those governance questions overall. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Avalos, vice president Clark.

Thank you, council president. Thank you, councilor Green, for your continued advocacy on all things housing. I really appreciate that as a housing advocate, but I at this point, I really agree with councilor Avalos and the notes that I had written when I first read this, that there's just so much fluidity right now in the housing industrial complex, you know, with not just our bureau, but with home forward and other things that I would prefer that this issue be. Come back to the housing committee for further review. And I also feel like we need to give our new colonel wesley, who's still relatively new, an opportunity to really right the ship at prosper. So I'm going to vote against this, but I definitely appreciate your effort and really agree with councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Thank you, vice president Clark. Councilor Smith.

Thank you, mr. President. I was looking at this and. I'm at the point, councilor Green, that we need to get a handle on what the Portland housing bureau is doing, period, before giving them any additional things to do, because I'm not clear that they're doing what they need to do right now, especially with the challenges they've had. And so putting some more responsibility over there, that's not what we need to be doing. Prosper Portland is capable and able to do this, and the governance and boosting up. We can't boost a whole lot up right now because people are losing their their jobs. So I don't know how we boost up a bureau or any bureau in this city until we get a handle on how we fill our gaps in our budget and, and until we can bring some more revenue in, we need different revenue sources to be able to boost up any, any office, existing or new or, or, or plans to expand any, any other bureaus in the city of Portland. So I will be voting no for this. I hear you, I'm I hear you, but now is not the time.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, council president colleagues, I kind of want us to think back to just a few months ago when the news came out about the made in old town controversy with prosper Portland and how prosper Portland had mismanaged funds by spending giving a $7 million loan for a sneaker company. And then it turns out that the building was only appraised for, I think it was close to 4 million. So they got millions more than was needed due to prior relationships that were established there in ways that are not fully vetted. When we have. We as a city council, have no direct oversight on prosper or how they use their funding, and that puts us in a really precarious position when we are not able to do any oversight whatsoever, we they can make mistakes, and the city is going to be in the position of footing the bill. And then not only that, but we don't even have the power to retroactively look at those mistakes and do oversight and correct them in the future. So if we don't have a mechanism for doing any oversight on prosper, that's going to put us in a really bad position and we are going to be handling the payments for their mistakes with our taxpayer dollars, because that's how we're funded. So I think it's really important that we do vote this amendment through. And I think, as other folks have stated, you know, the housing bureau and prosper are both going through staffing changes. So there's going to be struggles on either end. But at least we as council, can exercise our oversight authority to make sure that those dollars are spent appropriately. And I don't bring up the made in old town thing to like, throw anyone under the bus publicly. But that is a big thing that happened that we can't just brush aside when we're talking about millions of dollars. They got like $4 million extra that was not needed. And that that can't be responsible governance on our end. So because of that and because we have such limited oversight over how prosper does things, I think that we do need to rein that in a bit. And I will be supportive of the amendment overall. And I, I hope that this council is just more interested in doing oversight moving forward, because I feel like we are relinquishing some of our core powers when we do this. So that's it.

Thank you, councilor Morillo colleagues, I put myself in the queue. I will say I am supportive of the principle of what this amendment is trying to do. And I will tell you that dca oliveira is concerns about capacity are very real, and he wouldn't come up and say it publicly if it weren't probably already past the point where it is too much for the few folks at php. But to that end, I do have some concerns about the fact that, well, first I'd like to just sort of say the state of Oregon does the underwriting of this, but the city of Portland backs the loan. Prosper won't be making any of the decisions on the specific loan terms, and the state is the one that gets to make the final call on which of these projects is actually, I think it's worth I don't know a lot about finance. And so I'm just trying to state these things very clearly for myself. But the concern I have is and I have a lot of faith in our our the new prosper director, cornel wesley, I think he's moving this bureau in the right direction. But I do have I have worries about separating our low income housing from our moderate income housing programs. I have worries about the fact that if the city is backing the loan. But we can't we don't necessarily have direct insight into what prosper's decision making process is or the other documents that they were considering. That leaves us in a precarious position and also leaves us in a financially precarious position, because prosper is not capital c, city of Portland government. So I think that I think that the right place for housing loans and housing programs should be the housing bureau. But I also definitely hear that there is capacity issues. I suspect, based on the conversations, that this doesn't have the votes to pass. So we should move forward. It is. 445, but I do think that fundamentally we should not be duplicating kinds of projects. We should really find out like, what is somebody what is a bureau's Lane and put them in there. And then it is up to us to rightsize the staffing and and resources. That's all I have to say. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thanks. Yeah. I mean, I think this is a I appreciate the comments. I appreciate everything that you just said as well. I mean, I don't know about prognostication as it relates to the, the amendment or the underlying, but I know that this passing would give me the confidence in the underlying ordinance, which may be relevant to those who are counting. And I'm very, very this is the most important amendment, I think, that we've talked about. It's also the last one that I see right now. So I have no idea if there's another mechanism to create that, that confidence in those who may not have it, like myself. But I do think that there's a conversation we have to have here because right now we have influence over, I think, one thing at prosper, which is going to come to the committee, the whole at some point, which is appointing one member or reappointing a member to the board. And that's that's, I think, a really concerning lack of influence over an agency that we seem to be giving more and more and more to. And I had there are times where I think that's that's important to do. I supported the storefront support program being at prosper, for example. I think that's a good use of, of prosper. So it's not an exclusively. Everything should go there or nothing should go there. It's that we should be thoughtful about this. And I think it's pretty obvious to me that it's a better fit at the Portland housing bureau. I think that the second part of that chronologically is how do we ensure the capacity is, is there necessarily to support the work and sort of address the concern that has been raised by the deputy city administrator? Because I do think that's worth worth addressing, even if we don't put more work there. But certainly if we do. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: And I also just want to add the fact that when you give the money to the Portland housing bureau, they're not going to have access to other resources that that prosper Portland has, because it's not going to be just like one and done. They're going to have to probably put a capital stack with it. And we don't have that extra capital stack that they have over at prosper. So, I mean, they're not prepared for this. And I'll be asking all of you to to pass on this and vote no.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: So I heard the amendment sponsor talk about being concerned about creating a revolving loan at prosper and not at the city council president. Is there anybody there who is able to speak to what power we have as council through our budget role with prosper, to move programs between prosper and the city and carry the dollars that go with those programs from prosper back to the city. Should we develop a loan program at prosper and decide that we want it in the housing bureau a few years from now, when the capacity exists?

Let's see. Is there anybody here who could speak to the legality of that?

Dca oliveira would you like to come up?

Donnie oliveira for the record, counselor, the question that you asked, and I'm not going to speak to the housing program for a second, but the the conditions by which the city could work with prosper to bring a program with resources from prosper to the city, or in that same manner, from the city to prosper is being discussed. Like, what's the process to do that? So the answer is yes. We are contemplating what that structure would look like. It doesn't necessarily even have to be a budget action. It could be an iga, but we're working with the city attorney's office on that, talking about a different program. I just want to flag two things for this conversation. There's a lot of merit to the questions that councilors may have brought about oversight of prosper organizationally, where resources belong to do these programs. What's the role of prosper versus prosper versus housing when it comes to housing production? Those are all valid things that we're contemplating in the administration and things that this council should discuss as well. What I want to flag, and I believe councilor said this most eloquently, is the program that we're talking about right now is very short term and largely. And I think, councilor President, you said this as well. The administration of it is a pass through function where the state really is the the owner, they're the ones providing the resources. The administrator, whether it's prosper or housing bureau, is doing the pass through still administration work, still a lot of work. I don't want to minimize it, but it's less financial burden from a decision making perspective. Councilor Morillo you are right, the city will ultimately back these loans, whether it be through teeth or tif or other mechanisms, but the program itself is largely short time. What we're hoping to do is focus the fb staff on those longer term programs that councilors are seeking rent, buy down the revolving loan, etcetera, and allow prosper to do this work because it's in their portfolio today. And it is a more timely lift. So hopefully that answers your question. Councilor pirtle-guiney. And the underlying question about oversight.

It does. Thanks. And I think it gives me the assurance that I need to move forward as things are drafted, especially given the short term nature of this program. I do think it is important for us, through our budget role with prosper, to be able to move programs back to the city when that becomes important. So I hope that those conversations that you are having land us a simple path to do that. If not, I think council may need to help weigh in there as well as at some point. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor Kanal yeah.

Sameer Kanal: Dca oliveira. I'm just going to ask one more.

I moonwalk back up.

Sorry. Thank you. We had the same conversation like a year ago.

Yeah.

And there's been nothing from the administration yet to resolve the underlying issue about oversight. So can we expect that there's going to be or I shouldn't say oversight. Democratic accountability? Is there is there anything in the works that we can that we can look forward to from the administration? Or is this something where we're going to? Because, again, if we've had this conversation, if we don't get something, it becomes a blunt instrument conversation, and that's what we have available to us. Can we look forward to literally anything coming out of the administration related to democratic accountability.

Regarding democratic accountability? Councilor, thank you for the question. It is absolutely a conversation that needs to happen on this dais related to what what our existing structure is like, the functional like how prosper exists a, you know, a redevelopment agency in the city of Portland, what it does this this bodies oversight of it through the budget process and not I was referring to questions that we've been contemplating on the second part that councilor Pirtle-guiney asked about moving programs over and what the mechanisms are for that. Your question, though, is clearly about what is this body's role in oversight of basically programmatic functions of the agency? Correct. And that that needs to be that needs to be discussed foundationally, what it is today and what it could be.

With that and made an old town type of situation. I mean, I think.

I'm sorry.

The old town situation.

Yeah. And this is also where you alluded to it, the appointment of a board. Prosper has a public body that makes these decisions as well. So in a lot of ways that body functions publicly as a as a government agency that is or entity, excuse me, that is making decisions on behalf of the public dollar, not this council, of course, but that that's another place where public oversight happens.

Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, thank you. Dca oliveira. Because I was going to bring up again prosper Portland has their own board that they have to adhere to anything that changes or anything, any scope of work that has to go through their board. The only thing that we do is appoint a an executive director, and that's done out of the mayor's office. So I think we we need to stay in our Lane, y'all. We got enough stuff to do over here that we don't have under control yet. Before we start trying to mess with prosper, just let it go.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Okay. Seeing no one else in the queue. Rebecca, can we please move to a roll call? Vote on Green for.

Green for moved by Green. Seconded by Kanal Kanal. I pirtle-guiney. Absent. Ryan. Oh, sorry. Pirtle-guiney.

No.

Pirtle-guiney is a no. Ryan.

No.

Koyama Lane I.

Morillo I.

Novick.

In light of mr. Olivares comment that this is a limited time program, I think that the mural should live short in prosper.

Wow.

So that's.

That's terrible. Novick. Excellent. Okay.

Hey.

Novick is nay clerk. No Green. I Zimmerman.

No.

Avalos. No. Smith no.

Dunphy. I the amendment fails with five I seven no votes.

Colleagues seeing no other amendments proposed. Is there further discussion of this item? Counselor Avalos?

Yeah, thank you all. I just want to appreciate the conversation that we have had over this. I think that the things that we're wrestling with right now are exactly what I'm hoping we can start to get some clarity about. As a council. I'm really grateful to housing committee members who engaged in a great discussion on Tuesday about the progress of the housing strategy and where what we're going to be bringing to council is a discussion about what we need to prioritize what's most important. And it is nitty gritty. It's wonky like the conversation that we had. But I just want to emphasize the importance of that and that these these tensions between these decisions are good, actually. And I think that the city will appreciate us wrestling with this. And so I just want to encourage us to keep doing that. And I also say that because I think, honestly, I'm pretty shook up by the polling data. And I think we need to really work hard to show portlanders that we are serious about making responsible policy decisions that are going to move housing production forward, that we're going to address these governance issues that absolutely need to be addressed as we're creating, you know, continuing to stand up our form of government. And I'm really looking to my colleagues to bring those ideas to the table, and let's create more space for that. Obviously, housing committee is one place for that, but something I want to talk to council president and councilor Kanal about really elevating more in maybe in committee of the whole, because it is it affects all of us. It's all of our, you know, top priorities in lots of ways. And I'm just really grateful for that discussion. Even where there's disagreements, I think we're moving something forward that's positive. So I wanted to say that.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Avalos, colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. This item is a non emergency ordinance moves now to second reading and colleagues. It is currently 458. We have two additional items regarding the mount hood cable regulatory commission and cable franchise fund. We are not going to be able to get to this. I am going to continue these two items to the next available agenda, which is likely two weeks out, because next week we are doing our final votes on the budget. So I will be continuing document number 2026 175 and document 2026 176 to the next available city council meeting. And with that, we are adjourned.

I think we would get out.

We're just so late that.

No.