The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-14
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council convened on Wednesday, January 14, 2026, with roll call confirming the body's members present. The agenda was approved by unanimous consent, and rules of decorum were read. Public communications included testimony on ICE-related enforcement and calls for a mayoral town hall, concerns about shelter policy and city employee morale, support for gender-neutral restroom signage paired with broader remarks on transgender safety and a harassment complaint involving a councilmember, and questions about enforcement of public camping regulations. A committee referral report listed multiple items directed to various committees. Council then addressed several agenda items, including emergency ordinances for legal settlements involving Portland Fire and Rescue and Stellar J Corporation, acceptance of the city's annual financial report, adoption of a plan of action addressing audit findings, and adoption of the FY2026–27 budget calendar, the latter amended to add budget community listening sessions by district. Discussion also covered a proposed Council Governance Handbook, with several amendments introduced, discussed, and addressed through public testimony. Votes occurred on multiple items throughout the session; specific outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 Calling to order the 2:00. Wednesday. City council hearing. We need to start with a roll. Okay, rebecca, please call the roll.
1 Good afternoon. Avalos.
Procedural episode · turns 2–10
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
2 Present.
3 Smith. Canal here. Pirtle-guiney here. Ryan. Here. Koyama Lane here. Morillo. Novick here. Clerk.
4 Here.
5 Green. Here. Zimmerman. Here. Thank you.
6 Dunphy I'm here. And Smith is here. Colleagues, first item on our agenda is the agenda approval. Are there any requests to amend the agenda? Seeing no one verifying that I'm not even in the zoom, so I need to log in. Sorry. Do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda? Okay, great. The agenda is approved by unanimous consent. Hold on. I'm clicking to join into the meeting still. Because. Thank you, mr. City attorney, could you please read the rules of decorum?
7 Thank you. Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at w.w.w dot gov agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should please address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
8 Thank you sir. Next item on our agenda is public communications. Keelan. Can you please call our guests? Our first guest.
9 First up, we have sonny hart.
10 Welcome.
11 Thank you.
12 Please introduce yourself for the record.
13 Thank you, sonny hart. So long time listener, first time caller. First, I want to thank city council for all the hard work you do. And congratulations, president Dunphy and vp Clark. November 19th. During testimony about the detention facility impact fee, we were repeatedly told that city council lacks administrative power to actively fight ice and that that power is held by the mayor. While I commend the efforts of city council, I am failing to see any action on the mayor's part. In fact, there have been repeated requests by councilor Canal to the city administrator asking when the mayor's next public event or town hall, at which ice could be a topic of discussion. I realize there's a new city administrator, but it's been almost two months after last week. We need a town hall where we can talk to the person with the most power to do something, whether it's revoking ice permit or, for the love of god, directing the police to act against ice and protecting protesters. Keith wilson, in his open letter last week, stated we cannot sit by while constitutional protections erode in bloodshed amounts, while also imploring us to remain peaceful. That night, the PPB attacked protesters at ice and officer 93 zero was filmed stating he'd shoot protesters in the head just like rene. Good. Thank god for councilors like Morillo reposting and demanding accountability. He and he and officers like him need fired, not reassigned. Sadly, they have a job waiting for them at ice. We need PPB protecting us, not them doing malicious compliance like pulling them over when they leave the ice facility without plates. The cia has an entire document about how effective simple sabotage can be. I particularly like the section on general interference with organizations and production. If you want to prevent bloodshed, if you want things to remain peaceful while literal fascists threaten our lives, our neighbors, our city, we need this town hall. We need to know that the mayor, what the mayor is doing to protect us, that he hears our concerns and that he's accountable so that we can see action before it's too late. To the city council, please demand the mayor have a town hall. You are the ones getting the brunt of people's anger. Brunt of people's anger from his inaction. We. And just so you know, we haven't had a town hall with him since March 12th of last year. Things are only going to get worse with ice over the coming year. If we are to fight fascism, we need PPB to protect and serve portlanders, not ice. And we need the mayor using every tool in his toolbox. Please, for the love of god before somebody else is shot. Thank you.
14 Thank you so much.
15 Next is eugene jackson.
16 Good afternoon. Thanks. Good afternoon everyone. I don't know about you, but I need a nap. And I hope you guys do not put us through this again next January. I'd like to congratulate our president. Dunphy. Vice president, vice president Clark, and thank pirtle-guiney for her service. Thought you were great. And I've already personally welcomed the new city administrator to the arena of fire and prepare. But I'd just like to speak briefly on the the mayor's shelter policy. As the former city administrator said, that's where all the money that's sucking up all of the funds. And it reminds me of living on a farm in the evening. You know, all the animals come back into the barn, and then in the morning they go out to graze. And that's about what the homeless are doing now. It's just grazing. And you talk about the devil's work with idle hands are the devil's workshop that the prime example? Nothing is being done to really help people. It's just it's it's heartbreaking. I sent you some of you an email this morning concerning the city employees. And personally, I'm really. I sent that formally. I sent it to administrator jordan. But I'm afraid of the mental health problems that really happening there that nobody is really paying attention to. There's a lot of anger there among employees, and I think somebody needs to kind of look into that. I know council canal used to work in the Portland building, which is the pit, and and it's really gotten a lot worse. So take care of your people. Thank you.
17 Thank you.
18 Next is sky cruz.
19 Hello, city council. My name is skyler cruz and I'm a district four resident in the goose hollow neighborhood. I'm here to support using gender neutral language for single user restrooms. I believe this is great policy, but also to speak more broadly on my perspective as a as a hispanic transgender woman. Currently, 20 states have laws which restrict my bathroom access in some way. When I travel, I have to check the local laws to ensure compliance. I am often unable to simply live as myself without scrutiny, judgment, and hatred. There have been a few weeks in the past year that have sent me into a spiral of depression that had me considering suicide, largely due to the right wing news and online personalities rhetoric surrounding my existence. A study from the williams institute at ucla school of law finds that among transgender adults, 44% reported a recent suicidal ideation, 7% a recent suicide attempt, and 21% recent non-suicidal self-injury. I'm not just a statistic, though. I'm a human being who you have seen in these chambers time and time again. Much has been said about brian orndorf, the man who called Angelita Morillo burrito. I'm also hispanic. That hurts me. The complaint by ohlendorf has been used to discredit canal, specifically by Clark and Novick. This ongoing investigation was triggered not just by the complaint of a man willing to use racial slurs on someone just like me, but also by a loud and proud transphobe, sarah thompson, who was seen texting ohlendorf in the mercury article from yesterday, also filed a complaint. Thompson ran for city council in district four espousing progressive values, and became a vice chair for Multnomah democrats. This was short lived, however, as her tweets against trans people and immigrants came to light. She was swiftly booted and has since become a loud and proud transphobe and supporter, enjoying ai content on x of fbi agents, chasing down a dark skinned woman in a hijab and saying things like trans ideology is child sacrifice. The mercury article should have been a wake up call. The hate for people who are different is in the underbelly of this city. Seemingly sending texts to Dan Ryan on the dais. It's quite clear to me that the moderate wing of this body likes to hide itself under fake labels of progressivism. I have no reason to feel safe around half of this body. If this complaint from racist and transphobic people is enough to discredit canal, it shows a clear indication of your priorities. Lastly, I want to remind our moderate queer councilors that they did not receive the endorsement from basic rights Oregon in 2024. Both Ryan and pirtle-guiney complained about this, Ryan in particular feeling he was owed the endorsement for simply existing as a gay councilor. Ryan, you hired an anti-trans podcaster. You don't deserve that endorsement. Clearly, Zimmerman did not apply for endorsement. But let's be real, he likely wouldn't have gotten it. Your identity does not replace the need to actually support queer and trans people. My queer and trans friends, frankly, do not trust you. I hope you can convince us otherwise with your work moving forward. Canal for president was a clear vote to signal your opposition to this hatred. You failed to do that. Trans and hispanic people live very dangerous lives these days. I would say thank you, but I'm not thankful right now.
20 Thank you for being here today.
21 Sarah thompson. They canceled their communications request. Next up is laura curry. Laura is online.
22 Good afternoon, council, and congratulations on the new president and vice president election. I am here today to talk to you about what I understand is part of policy. Now, this began with my conversation with other members in the pearl district on July 29th with mayor keith wilson, council person, Clark and Green and Zimmerman were also, I believe, in attendance with about 500 residents. And the mayor was talking about his intended shelters, which are now in place, and council. Zimmerman said that he would support it based on the fact that there would be a good neighborhood agreement. So I live in the northwest in a very modest place, and I'm here to tell you that what I believe is true is a ban or a legislation on illegal camping. And this is an image of what's happening across the street from me right now. And last time I checked, I don't live in a national park or a state park or blm land, so I'm curious to know, is there truly a ordinance or a law about illegal camping in public spaces? I continue to clean up needles and human feces and waste and residuals from people that are camping in public spaces. I will I will talk to people about moving them to do they know about the new sheltering system? Do they know the new about day sheltering system? Oftentimes not. And another person was talking about the mental health of our neighbors that are living on the street. And indeed, I find that to be a real issue. So I'm curious to know. Is is is camping now illegal public camping? This isn't a rhetorical question. I'm curious. Are you guys allowed to answer me on this?
23 If any of my colleagues are interested in answering, you're welcome to. There is, in fact, a law on the books with regard to the prohibition of public camping. That is a fact.
24 Okay, great. Thank you. Thank you, president Dunphy. Well, then I guess it's not being enforced. And I don't believe the good neighborhood agreement is either council. Zimmerman, do you have anything to add about that?
25 Happy to add something offline. But we really don't engage in dialog in this. But we do have your contact. Happy to do it.
26 Okay. Great. Thank you.
27 Thank you for being here.
28 Steven krieger. That concludes public communications.
29 Thank you. Thank you everybody, for waiting for us and for all you had to say. Next item on our agenda is a committee referral report. I will run through this list, but this list is available online as well. Appointment of teresa carr to the home forward board of commissioners was referred to the homelessness and housing committee. Amend the Portland clean energy community benefit fund climate investment plan was referred to climate resilience and land use. Appoint and reappoint members of the building code for of a building code. Board of appeal was referred to homelessness and housing committee authorization. Submission of a minor boundary change request to the state of Oregon to amend the Portland enterprise zone boundary was referred to. Arts and economy. Adopt a supplemental budget for the Portland housing bureau for fiscal year 2526. Was referred to finance. Adopt a supplemental budget for the Portland housing bureau. Referred to finance amend Portland clean energy community benefits code to allow a transfer of earned of interest earned in fy 2324 to fy 24, 2526 to finance exempt certain code requirements under city code chapter 17.93 with regard to renaming of street, city streets was referred to transportation and infrastructure amend renaming city street code to realign with ors 227.120 was referred to. Transportation and infrastructure accept the city's annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year ending June 30th, 2025, was referred to finance. Adopt. The budget calendar for 2627 was referred to finance committee. Approve the plan of action as required by the state of Oregon. Oregon state secretary will get better guys, I promise Oregon secretary of state to finding by outside auditors for material weaknesses of the 2425 annual comprehensive financial report was referred to finance. Require the deputy city administrator for public safety to provide a report on police officer recruitment goals and costs, referred to community and public safety committee. That appears to be everything in our committee referral list, with that, we now move to we already heard item for our time certain we will move forward to item five. Rebecca, can you please read on?
30 Five item five pay settlement of Eric heard employment discrimination lawsuit in the sum of $75,000 involving Portland fire and rescue.
31 Thank you. Colleagues, this is an emergency ordinance and we have with us. You're not an milligan. No, you're.
32 Milligan is appearing remotely.
33 Today, and milligan is remotely. And you're.
34 I'm rose radish. Radish. Risk management. And the adjuster on this.
35 Thank you. This came direct to our full council, so I'm gonna turn it over to ann milligan.
36 My name is ann milligan and I'm a senior deputy city attorney. My pronouns are she and her. In brief, since I know that we are running over today. Plaintiff joined Portland fire and rescue as a firefighter trainee in 2005. In 2014, he moved into the fire marshal's office, where he remained until his retirement this year. In early 2024, plaintiff filed suit against the city in Multnomah county circuit court seeking damages of 3.25 million, alleging race discrimination and hostile work environment, among other claims. Plaintiff has never been disciplined, counseled or threatened with termination. Nonetheless, given the risks and expense inherent to any trial, city attorney's office and risk management recommend resolving this case for $75,000.
37 Thank you. Rose, was there anything else? Are you here just in case of any questions? Perfect. Thank you. Rebecca, is there any public testimony on this item?
38 There's not.
39 Thank you. Council discussion. I'll look councilor Canal.
40 Thank you, council president. Thank you both for for being here. I just had a question around to understand the scope of the work that the employee did before the retirement was the zone that the cherry blossom apartments were in, a part of the zone that this employee was the the inspector over?
41 Yes, sir.
42 Thank you very much. No further questions. Thank you.
43 Colleagues, any further discussion? Seeing no one else in the queue, a reminder this is an emergency ordinance and requires nine votes to pass. Please call the roll.
44 Avalos.
45 I.
46 Smith. Canal.
47 Thank you and thanks to the public safety service area for being here as well, I.
48 Pirtle-guiney I.
49 Ryan. I Koyama Lane. I Morillo I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman.
50 No.
51 Thank you that was a nay and Dunphy. I and the ordinance passes with ten votes one and one absent.
52 Thank you. Can we please read item number six? Thank you. Rose. Thank you.
53 An item six pay settlement of stellar j corporation contract claims in the amount of $650,000.
54 Thank you. Colleagues, I will note this is also an emergency ordinance. With us is beth woodard, senior deputy city attorney. Take it away. Welcome, beth.
55 Good afternoon. Council. For the record, I'm beth woodard, senior deputy city attorney. Today's proposed settlement resolves breach of contract claims brought by stellar j corporation against the city for termination. For convenience. Sorry. Termination for convenience. Costs under the city's general conditions. In 2015, stellar j was awarded the low bid for contract 3004899. The scope of this contract included work for to dry and haul biosolids from the lagoons located at the columbia boulevard wastewater treatment plant. Before the city issued the notice to proceed, stellar j asserted differing site conditions, specifically that the quantities in the lagoons exceeded the engineer's estimates. Based on this information, the city issued a notice of termination, and stellar j then requested to complete the project at a reasonable cost. The parties executed a change order to resolve the anticipated issues. After stellar j completed approximately one third of the scope, the city determined stellar j's completion of the work would still result in large cost overruns. The city provided notice of partial termination, and the parties agreed stellar j would complete a limited scope for the project. After stellar j completed the remaining work, it submitted a number of cost packages for additional compensation valued at almost $5 million. The city reviewed the claims and agreed to pay some of the requested costs, but only those costs the city could justify under the contract's termination provisions. Stellar stellar j then submitted a claim for additional termination costs totaling $3.72 million. After an extensive review, the city determined that it had paid all allowable termination costs. Stellar j then asked the city to review the determination, and in June of 2022, the city again denied all of stellar j's additional claims. In January of 2024, stellar j filed suit against the city, alleging breach of contract, quantum meruit and statutory claims, and sought more than $2.6 million in damages. In June of 2025, the city successfully moved against the quantum meruit and statutory claims. The city maintained the remaining breach of contract. Claims were subject to the one year contractual limitations period, and should be barred. Despite strong legal arguments, the court determined that was a mixed question of fact and law, and would need to be resolved through trial. Stellar j and the city then attended private mediation in August of 2025, and the parties have agreed to resolve the matter for $650,000. Conditioned, of course, on this council's approval. The city attorney's office and bts recommend approval of the settlement, and we're happy to answer any questions that you may have.
56 Thank you. Beth, is there any public testimony on this item?
57 There is not.
58 Okay.
59 Colleagues, any discussion seeing nobody in the queue a reminder this is an emergency ordinance needs nine votes to pass. Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
60 Avalos I Smith.
61 Canal.
62 I think this is my first settlement without a question. Thank you.
63 I. Pirtle-guiney I.
64 Ryan. I Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman no.
65 Dunphy I.
66 Ordinance passes with ten I one no and one absent vote.
67 Thank you both for being here. Rebecca, will you please read item seven?
68 Accept the city annual comprehensive financial report for fiscal year ended June 30th, 2025.
69 Thank you. We have a christopher here with a committee staff summary. Christopher, welcome.
70 Thank you, mr. President. Also, I believe we're reading seven and eight together.
71 Great. Could you please also read item eight.
72 Item eight approved plan of action as required by the Oregon secretary of state to finding by outside auditors of material weaknesses in the fy 20 2425 annual comprehensive financial report.
73 Christopher, take it away.
74 Yeah. Thank you. Good afternoon, mr. President and council. For the record, my name is christopher hair, council operations policy analyst, and I serve as staff to the finance committee. The report and resolution before you were considered in the finance committee on January 5th, where they referred to council with a recommendation to be accepted and adopted, respectively. The report document number 2026 001, accepts the city's annual comprehensive financial report, also referred to as the acfr, for fiscal year 20 2425, pursuant to Oregon revised statutes 297.425. The report was audited by the certified public accounting firm baker tilly, which concluded that the financial statements are accurate and materially reflect the city's financial condition. The resolution document 2026 002 adopts the city's plan of action, attached as exhibit a, and prosper portland's plan of action attached as exhibit b to address material weaknesses identified in the acfr for fiscal year 20 2425. The resolution further directs that copies of both plans of action be filed with the secretary of state in accordance with ors 297 .4663. The full impact statements for the report include community impacts and community involvement, and the full impact statements for the resolution include financial and budget analysis. There was no verbal or written testimony on the report or resolution prior to committee action, and this concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
75 Thank you sir. Counselor Zimmerman, you were chair. Anything to report?
76 Nothing to add.
77 Okay. Rebecca, is there anybody signed up for public testimony?
78 No one signed up.
79 Okay, colleagues. Discussion. I think everybody has said as much as they want to say today, seeing no one in the queue, I would accept a o. The item seven requires a motion, and a second I would accept a motion to accept the report.
80 So moved second.
81 Moved by councilor Pirtle-guiney seconded by councilor Green. Rebecca, will you please take the roll?
82 Just. Sorry.
83 Counselor Green, please.
84 Thank you.
85 I just want to. It was so long ago now that I think we had substantive discussion on this. We first had it as a presentation by the auditor's office, and then it went to finance to be considered as a report. I just I didn't want to let the moment pass to say the public colleagues, we did have a rich and I think an important discussion on what we found in terms of deficiencies and identified and a commitment from the city to sort of address those. But I just want to remind folks that our cfo, jonas berry, made a plea to city council as we were going into the next budget season, that to be successful in doing this very important work, they're going to need the resources to be successful. And that's all I'll say on that. I just it felt like it was a long time ago. And, you know, we are tired, but it's really important to to remember. Thanks.
86 Thank you, councilor Green. Rebecca, please take the roll.
87 Avalos.
88 To be clear, we just voting on seven right now, right?
89 They're just voting on seven right now.
90 Thank you. Hi,
91 Smith.
92 I.
93 Canal hi.
94 Pirtle-guiney. I Ryan.
95 Hi.
96 Koyama Lane. I Morillo.
97 Hi, Novick. Hi,
98 Clark. I Green. Hi Zimmerman. I Dunphy.
99 Hi.
100 Report is accepted with 12 votes.
101 Great colleagues. Is there any debate on item eight intimately related but requiring a separate vote, councilor Ryan.
102 Yeah, it's not really a debate. I just would like further explanation. So I feel comfortable with the actions that I read going forward. But I'm curious how this occurred. I, I don't like looking backwards too often, and it's of course make you do that, but I don't recall the city having material financial weaknesses in past financial reporting of late. Did something change? Now the our mayor, jonas, you appear from.
103 Cfo barry.
104 Great. Thank you. Council president and councilor. This was also discussed at finance committee that we did have a material finding last year related to something very similar. We've resolved a good portion of that. And so but but not 100% of that. So that finding continues and was a little bit expanded. It was specific to PBOT last year and last year's audit. It's now continuing at a much smaller amount with PBOT due to the actions that we've taken over the last year and with also identified in parks and the bureau of facilities as briefly as I can. The reason for this was both staff constraint and some some sort of lack of process and coordination. And so the actions that we've taken over the past year to resolve the PBOT issues, which are increasing allocation of staff to do the work around closing out capital assets, enhancing training and making sure that the folks doing that work have the appropriate resources to do that, and then building connectivity. So more reporting between the folks in the bureaus doing that work, and central accounting to make sure that we have additional eyes on it, really prioritizing the resources to do that is both. Not having the prioritization of those resources is what led us here. The sort of years of atrophy of that function, and then now reprioritizing that function to address the issue.
105 Thank you so much. That was very helpful. And again, when you're not on the finance committee, you sometimes have to ask these questions when we're at the council meeting I appreciate it. Thanks.
106 Thank you. Councilor Ryan. Any further questions, colleagues? Rebecca, will you please call the roll?
107 Avalos I.
108 Smith.
109 I canal. I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan. I Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy. I and the resolution is adopted with 12 votes.
110 Thank you. And will you please read item number nine.
111 Adopt the budget calendar for fy 20 2627.
112 Thank you. Welcome back christopher. Her with a staff report.
113 Thank you mr. President once again for the record christopher hair council operations policy analyst service after the finance committee the resolution before you was considered in the finance committee on January 5th where it was referred to council with a recommendation to be adopted, as amended, the resolution document number 2026 003 adopts the budget calendar for fiscal year 20 2627, as outlined in exhibit a, the committee adopted an amendment prior to moving the item to full council. The effects of the amendment on the original resolution are summarized in the committee staff summary posted online. The full impact statements on this item includes community impacts and community involvement. There was no verbal or written testimony on the resolution prior to committee action, and this concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
114 Thank you, christopher hair I said your name wrong. I apologize. Thank you, counselor Zimmerman. Anything additional to add?
115 Thanks. The conversation was robust and I will say we were working from a product that was delivered to us by the budget office after, I think, meeting with most, if not all councilors throughout the time since last budget. One thing I want to say about the calendar is that councilors should not think of it as all encompassing. Of all the things you might do from your own chair, from the time you know, from today, frankly, forward. But it represents it represents our legal requirement dates or it represents times when we will convene as the budget committee. And the reason I'm bringing this up is that there's a last year and this year. But last year, right, we created some district budget listening sessions for some members of the group. That worked well. For others, it left them wanting for something else. So there are periods of time in here that some folks made amendments to in terms of getting some more work sessions in. But nothing in this calendar prohibits a person or a group of district councilors from seeking other community input mechanisms or time frames. And I just think it was important to say that because sometimes we can take the calendar as the the end all document, so to speak, and that's just not what this is. There are space built in there for each, for each district or person to do something differently. And I will also say, I think we had some discussion, and I agree firmly that the. The duty of community engagement is not the duty of the city's budget officer. We have other people who do that, least of which you know us. But the idea that the central budget office has to be the ones who I think that was just an improper duty that kind of landed at their feet last year, and we've really disconnected that. So I just want to say that as you look at this calendar and take a look at what we from the finance committee, what we've sent you from that perspective, and I appreciate the staff who helped put this together, because I think they heard from everybody. Most notably is the mayor's budget being released earlier than what we had last year. And I think that that is one thing 12 people can agree on is an improvement. So that's all I have. Thank you, mr. President.
116 Thank you councilor. I'll use whatever pronouns you need to send me to. Thank you. Rebecca, has anybody signed up for public testimony?
117 No one has signed up.
118 Thank you. Moving to council discussion. I see councilor Avalos.
119 Thank you, president Dunphy. So I raised some of these points at committee, and I want to just elevate them again at full council because they go to they speak to how a transparent, accessible and collaborative budget process needs to be. So as far as adopting a calendar, it is important. But how we engage the public and each other as well within that calendar matters just as much to me. And as I was reviewing the proposed timeline, it wasn't always clear where responsibility for broader public engagement sits or how that engagement is being coordinated and clarity around the respective roles of the budget office, the chief engagement officer. The council is important so that engagement is intentional and well supported and aligned with the budget timeline. And let me be clear, I'm not saying that I believe that the budget office is responsible for leading on the community engagement, but they are responsible for ensuring that transparent access to the documents. You know, they talked about a dashboard that they're wanting to announce. So that, to me is part of engagement. Engagement isn't simply going to talk to neighbors. It's access transparency. So I really just want to be clear about who is playing what role in that. And definitely, I think the district based listening sessions, for example, last year, were really critical for building some accountability and trust with the public as we are trying to do this new budget process. And so it's important that we understand how those sessions will be carried forward this year and how they're incorporated into the overall process. And I understand there will be more discussion about that. But again, just want to raise that for the group. Lastly, I just want to say that council really needs sufficient time for robust dialog and access to clear, timely and complete information in order for us to make these informed budget decisions. And it's something we discussed in committee and councilor Novick proposed a amendment that I voted for, which was to add a section of time in the calendar that was essentially a directive to the council president to fill that time with work sessions and other opportunities to make sure that we can have dialog ahead of time. And so and that also includes making sure that we can request and receive information from bureaus, understand trade offs while we're talking with community and working across our districts and across committees. So I'm looking for a process that allows for meaningful deliberation, strengthens our decisions, builds public trust, and ultimately leads to a more accountable and effective budget process. So thanks for considering that, colleagues. I definitely intend to continue raising these questions. And I think as we are stepping into this next phase of our year, I would put this at the top of my list, and I think it should be at the top of all of our list to figure out how we do this budget season differently than last year. Thanks.
120 Thank you. Councilor Avalos. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
121 Thank you, mr. President. Colleagues, I want to start by thanking the the mayor and his team for backing up when he would have his budget proposal available to us. This is significantly before when we got it last year and significantly before when it's required to come to us. And it gives us a lot more time to do our work. I hope that that becomes part of us being able to do this differently from last year. I want to elevate a couple of items that I talked about in committee that I think are especially important. The first is that the budget 101 priorities session, the citywide public info sessions, are really important to level set with our community, what the budget looks like, but they're also an important opportunity to get unfiltered feedback from the community before they've seen a proposal that they are reacting to, where we can ask the community free of a reactive stance, what do you want us to do more of? What do you want us to do less of? What are we doing well, what are we not doing? Well, I want to be clear when I say see more of we don't have more money, but to just get a sense from people with questions like that of what's most important. And I hope that our budget team, as they put together that budget 101, those budget 101 materials allow space for that, that type of input via input orally as as people testify at those sessions or written input at the sessions. If the presentation is going to take up the whole time. I also think it's important for us to have some sort of budget exercise, which I know that our budget team is working on, but we didn't elevate that in the other comments today. So I just want to elevate to all of my colleagues who aren't on that committee that there will be some sort of information. It sounds like, from the administrative side, to help portlanders understand the trade offs, which I think is important as we go through this process. I also just wanted to take this opportunity to say to my district two colleagues that if we don't end up with council wide listening sessions this year like we did last year, I hope we can work together to have a district listening session or two and continue to offer that to our constituents. Thank you, council president.
122 Thank you. Councilor Kanal.
123 Thank you, council president. I appreciate the information that was given here. I appreciate the level setting and framing from finance committee chair Zimmerman. I, I have a couple questions here, and I wanted to start at the top as it relates to the info sessions. I thought those were really helpful last year, but I felt that we were asked as counselors to be present at them, and then the information that was presented was something that didn't necessarily align with my understanding or the understanding that we were being conveyed, specifically, the the budget presentation to the public led off with a description of our new form of government as a strong mayor system. And that was something that I thought was was a little bit problematic to not have run by and to have ambushed on us. I was hoping that we can get that fixed. And so I do think these are valuable the way it is, and it doesn't directly relate to the calendar, but I want to ensure that we the indirect relation is that we have a little time to build this back in second question I had was, are we calling what used to be called the cal csl, or is that a new concept, the current? Okay, so that's really helpful to know the csl current service level. Third thing I wanted to ask is there is a conspicuous absence here of something that got done last year that I thought was really excellent, which is the city administrator's budget recommendations. Is there a reason for that? And I'm not sure who can answer that best.
124 You might be the only person, mr. Canal, who believed that was a good thing. I think largely the discussion around that was that it caused a lot of problems because it put out an unbalanced budget idea that really, if you remember, colleagues, a lot of our input from the community centered around a few key items that were seen as on the chopping block in the city administrator's preliminary budget. So. The administration is not going to do that this time, because you either release an executive budget that's balanced or you don't, and that that one was not a balanced budget. So I think that. The intent was not to it was more to talk about the challenges that our budget is that our our finances are facing, rather than to say, I'm kind of thinking maybe I'll keep some of these and keep some of those, which is essentially what the preliminary budget was. And I think that I'll editorialize just my words here, is that many people found that quite problematic in terms of what it spurred on for the rest of our community engagement. So I think that's why you see a change there. The administration has really leaned into information. Make sure that the size of the of the issue is known. So how many millions are we not at csl current service level? And then to have those sessions and on all the engagement go to toward the mayor's proposed budget being the first budget release that has a balance to it. So that's kind of where that came from. And I don't think I'm alone in that given my conversations, but certainly because this list generally came from conversations with all of you and from the administration.
125 Thanks. I do have a different view on that. Having been here for the last few years, where the this replaced something that was effectively a pdf combining all the different bureau 26 completely independently created requests. And to go from that to what was admittedly incredibly imperfect last year. I want to commend former administrator jordan for doing it anyway, because it actually gave the first citywide view. I agree with councilor Zimmermann what you just said about the the revenue side of it being relevant, and that seems to be in here, too, and the broader revenue challenges. But I think especially because this year and I want to commend the mayor for giving identical, comprehensive, equal budget guidance to every bureau. Every bureau has to submit a zero cut scenario, a 3% cut scenario, 10% cut scenario. That's I applaud him for that. One of the things that comes from that is that we're going to get national monuments put up. And I think having the city administration for those who aren't following national monuments is when what we were referring to, when a bureau puts up and says, if you cut one penny of our budget, the single most important and most publicly popular thing is what will be cut in its entirety. And it's often reacted to accordingly. And I worry that without having the first time that we see that comprehensive look, to have that citywide vision of our new city administrator on it, I worry that that will make for difficult conversations, and we want to really hard fought conversation here about getting that equality so that every bureau submits it so that we're not imposing cuts on someone. We are hearing what they would do. But I also think we have to pair that with that citywide vision to do it. I agree, the other thing I wanted to say is I agree that it caused a little bit of consternation, and I think the reason for that was there were some cuts and then there was still a gap, and then there were so many options for how to cut and fill that gap that would have exceeded. Had they all been done, we would have cut a few hundred million dollars, I think, in the aggregate. And so there were a lot of things to potentially be worried about. I think that could be avoided with a few simple adjustments to how that went around and how that that came to be by having having basically cut about, I don't know, $12 million more than what what there is and give us as opposed to giving us an unbalanced in one way, give it unbalanced the other way, so that there's $12 million for counselors to play with, for example, in in that and obviously the mayor would would revise it. So that's just a couple ideas I had there. I would love to see that back. At this moment I do not have an amendment, but I this is just something I wanted to to put up there. The other thing I saw in the the actual the in the impact statement on the underlying document that there is. Dates for public hearings and community listening sessions listed. Am I missing something? I know you mentioned councilor Zimmermann, that they're in there. Where are the dates for the listening sessions, or is the impact statement just a little obsolete at this point?
126 I'll make sure I'm referring to the right thing, the listening sessions, and I'm looking out there to make sure I've got the staff right. The listening sessions are whatever we choose to do for community. Engagement is not something that we're outlined by date in this that is different than if we're in a work session or like hearings here. So I would consider listening session to be a non required but Portland value thing, whereas hearings are like hearings that we have to list. And that's where the cbo is putting these dates on paper here. I think those are two different things. The get the right term here, the civic engagement, whatever the bureau, they were not present for this conversation. They were not part of it, which was unfortunate and continues to be a concern that you and I share. Yeah. And I, I meant it. I opened this on this topic because I knew that this would be an area that people were like, how much do we put on the calendar? How much do we not? I think councilor Avalos brings important points, which is like the transparency and accessibility is part of engagement. I, I think that that conversation should continue. Council president, and I think it probably should continue more in your leadership of this council and how they tackle the engagement question versus us amending this calendar to put it on there. Because as good as the idea is, I thought maybe that was last year. I don't think it worked for everybody. I did like the the district things, but it didn't work for everybody. So I think having some more flexibility in there for the 12 of you and how we how we tackle that listening session aspect is why you don't see them outlined specifically. And miss levine has stepped up. If there's anything that I've jumbled here or put you in that you want to clarify, please, by all means, I would invite that councilor Kanal is an additional answer.
127 Hi. For the record, ruth levine, budget director. Yeah, apologies. That impact statement language just didn't get updated correctly when we filed it. Sorry about that. We can update it with the clerk.
128 Thanks I appreciate that is my under. Please let me know if my assumption is correct then that the ideal timeline here is just any time between April 21st and I guess may 18th, but probably may 14th. Is that the window that we're looking at here? If we were to do that, those would be the optimal times. Or is that.
129 I want to jump in before ruth? I actually think our committee members would probably encourage you to look even earlier, because if you take the mindset of the best way to get what you want in the budget is before the mayor releases the proposed budget. So from a, you know, no, no politics, what each of us is going to have different priorities for. But I would say that those would be more valuable before late April, so that those pieces can be something you incorporate with your conversations with the ca and with the mayor. I don't think that it hurts after the fact. I don't think they're as necessarily as effective. That would part of our discussion at finance.
130 That aligns with my experience last year as well. So then I'll just say just some notes as we go to put this into the record. I thought that having budget listening sessions last year was excellent. As a step from nothing to something. It will never be perfect. The first time I supported councilor Zimmerman's original plan for them, I was disappointed to see how that got moved from the legislative branch over to the executive branch. We've talked about that before. There's a lot of work to do there. I would suggest that we do five of them, with one in each district and one at the Portland building or another city place, a city building for city employees, because one, I don't think it's appropriate for us to ask city employees to come beg for their jobs in public at four different work sessions, listening sessions. I thought that was disrespectful to them, to I would like to see that people in this seems basic to me. I don't know why this didn't happen last year, that if you're if you live in the district, you get priority. We ran out of time at three of those districts, town halls, and I would love to see that the people who maybe didn't sign up first would actually get a chance to speak. And then if there's time, people who have testified at another town hall would be great. So one in each district, one for city employees. It doesn't have to be in the Portland building. It might even be virtual. I think there's a lot there. And I do think that we should bring them up. I'm concerned. I would love my answer is yes to the councilor Councilor pirtle-guiney request to do this together. I would love to see this be run out of council operations in the future. And that's part of why the budget amendment that I did last year to create a position was designed in part around this, this need. I would request that the council president put committees on hiatus on may 18th and 19th, so that we can meet all three of those days and not have a 15 hour meeting again, but have the time to get through that together. And then the other thing that I think is, is worth mentioning here. I do want to appreciate the mayor having the the courage to, to commit in advance to an earlier date. That's incredible. And I really want to support it. We at some point need to have the conversation later, regardless of this document about how the committee, what the committee role is as it relates to budget amendments and things like that, I think we got about as good as we could get last year on on having the daylighting of amendments, but we obviously are iterating and doing it a second year, and I would like to see that happen. And I guess while I have the floor, I'll just give a plug. More co-sponsors should get an amendment considered first. That would be my suggestion. I'll stop here, I do, I do not know if there is. I like everything in here. I just don't know if the things that are not in here are concerning enough to to try and amend it. That's where I'm at. Thanks.
131 Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Green.
132 Thank you. We actually had a pretty interesting discussion in the finance committee, and I think where I was at on this one, I think this is a great schedule. I think it's responsive to, if you guys will all remember, jonas and ruth and their staff made time to go around and ask us how we want to do our work better. And that was also amidst a period of time where they were trying to squeeze in a bunch of ad hoc requests from maybe even my own staff. Probably, yes. And the product I think that we're seeing is, is in large part an outcome of that work. It reflects a desire to try to move the mayor's proposal a little earlier, but I but I have to recognize that we do have constraints in here that you just you can't get everything you want in there. And so there had to be trade offs made. And so I'm very comfortable with it. We did amend councilor Novick, I think, led the charge on that and making sure that we're explicit about having some extra kind of work session style conversations. And one of the areas of discussion that I had daylighted in terms of my own intention, and it's certainly not something that all councilors need to do, and it's not ascribed here in the resolution, was to say, what I see on this schedule is that we are to see at the earliest our current service level gaps and forecast information by February 13th. Now, likely it's later than that, but as early as February 13th, we can start to program in our committees. We can start to program in our town halls and in the various spaces that we're out. And we have some control over some intention, around intentionality, around talking to the public, around what those gaps show us, what they mean. What does it might say for like how we want to prioritize our resources in the city? And I can say for my own purposes here, you know, I'm grateful that you brought up the rose city reform piece today, because I didn't know about that. But it has some really good data. And one of the pieces of data is, is maya did catalog by category the distribution of non-unanimous unanimous votes, and by a country mile, the highest proportion of non-unanimous votes is budget and fiscal. And those are all concentrated in the budget period. And I think all of us would like to do what we can to avoid some of the length of the time of that, and maybe the opportunity to consolidate some of those concepts. And so we had I think what we can do and what we should do is to start to develop priority based presentations or pre legislation, if you will. We have to get a little clarity on what that means in state budget law, in our committees, in the relevant policy committees. And in fact, councilor Co-chair Ryan and I had talked a little bit about trying to hold some space for some of those as counselors, as our colleagues want to talk about arts and economy related issues. So that way we can go into this work session. That way we can go in, maybe see a proposed mayor from the budget. That does represent a lot of that discussion already, and then we can find maybe some support from our colleagues, maybe even from some unlikely places to have a consolidated package that goes in and does this pretty cleanly if we do want to make a change. So that's kind of how I approach it. I think it's a good schedule. I'm going to support it. So thank you.
133 Thank you, councilor Green. Councilor Clark. Oh, councilor Novick I'm sorry.
134 Yes, I think my colleagues have reflected the conversation we had in finance. I wanted to elaborate a little bit on the item that councilor Avalos started off talking about, which was my proposal. City council work sessions on budget cuts and revenue options the councilors find acceptable or unacceptable. March 9th to 20th. What I am hoping is that by March 6th, based on this calendar, all of us will have a much better understanding of the budget for each bureau than we had last year, that we will know what the building blocks are that we will effectively know, have all the information the mayor has so we will be in a position to start floating. Okay, we've got to cut $60 million. What are some what are some things that we find acceptable or unacceptable and have that discussion among all of us from the ninth to the 20th, and then informed by that, for one thing, that would give the mayor an idea of what he'll get some signals as to what things the council as a whole finds acceptable or unacceptable before he puts his budget together. But also that would give us, once we sort of aired our ideas, which would be kind of a, you know, kind of a preview of what our ultimate minutes might be, although we won't have the mayor's budget. So we know what's amendment and what's not. Then I envision that over the next month we could do two things. We could talk about the various proposals we've discussed in those two weeks in community sessions, and we could start vetting them in our committees, because I think that one thing we learned last year is people can come up with an idea that seems good, and then you want to go to the, you know, have committee hearings where the bureau comes through, talks about how do you operationalize that? So that's that's what I was thinking. And I think my colleagues were thinking, we want to buy. We're hoping that by March 6th, we'll have all the information the mayor has, and then we'll be able to start working on our own ideas and floating them through committee and through the public after that.
135 Thank you, councilor Councilor clerk.
136 Thank you, mr. President. I'm not going to repeat things that people have already said. I wanted to appreciate councilor Avalos comments I agree, and I want to thank ruth levine for meeting with all of us. And along those lines, I hope that the mayor intends to meet with each of us individually again, like he did last go around. In fact, I think he met with each of us about three times or two times, and I hope we can do that again. I do hope that we have something that's easier to access, all of us, the public as well. It was very, very difficult last time to get your head around the budget. Last, I wanted to ask the finance chair if I can, if we're going to come up with a better process for amendments and and budget notes, is that something that the finance committee is discussing?
137 We discussed it. I think that we're recognizing how little influence and power we have over the budget committee when it comes to that topic. Right. So largely, the committee will do what it wants, and that's going to be a committee of the whole discussion. But I think the parts of the conversation, we did have one person testify during this, and I will speak for my own chair, got a lot of interest in what she had to say, which was, you know, what about amendments or notes? How you how do you deal with those? What if notes are seen at the committees? Okay. That's interesting. I certainly think the amendment question is something that we've got to tackle in terms of, you know, the state legislature right now is like everybody gets their two bills that they put forward. I'm not proposing that, but some something to that nature. I think there was recognition that a lot of notes came out of a frustration of something that had just previously occurred in the process in our hearings, and that notes that made their way through finance, excuse me, through their respective policy committees earlier in the season, may avoid the reactionary note. And we have a lot of reactionary notes that led to that large number. And so if they are vetted through those committees, perhaps they'll be more robust. I think those are things we should consider. I certainly last year thought the idea of different bureaus or service areas presenting their budgets to policy committees was a nice try and a complete failure, because if a bureau presents their budget only to five people, and then the other seven are expected to take that up, that's just not a reasonable the way we use committees. That was not a reasonable expectation. And so I think that also led to probably more amendments and more notes. So one thing I would deeply encourage everybody is that we drive and direct that budget presentations are made to the full budget committee. And if there's a one off thing that the committee thinks a that a subcommittee, one off the budget committee thinks a subcommittee should take on, so be it. But let's not start off on the wrong foot. And I think those things, just that more deliberate nature, I think, will lead to fewer notes and fewer amendments. At least I hope that's one of our goals.
138 Well, I say amen to that, and I hope that you will continue to wrestle with trying to provide some sort of sideboards. Yeah, for the amendments and notes, so that we don't have another 140 or 145. But thank you for that work.
139 Thank you, councilor Clark. Councilor Ryan.
140 Yes, thank you, president Dunphy. I will support this calendar. And I want to thank the budget office and also the finance committee for this item. I look forward to receiving more information about further dialog about the community budget forms. I know that was mentioned by my colleague councilor Kanal. I would like to see them by district as well. And being district specific and really allow the people of each specific district to have the agency to really own that session, if you will. And then and I and I and I think there are items that are specific to district. So I don't want to repeat what we experienced last year where we had a couple heated items, and then there were travelers that went to each one, and then that consumed each district budget session. I think we should also consider, and I'm sure maybe have this conversation about looking for citywide topics that are more by the practice areas. So whether it's housing and homelessness, a session on that, that citywide public safety, business and economic development, public works. So I just I would like us to have a little bit more of a nuance this year when we do it, that would allow us to support our districts and wear that hat and then allow us to be in the framework of a citywide issue that's complex and that we can all be engaged in. That's less specific to the district. So I trust that you're having some dialog like that. I'm not in the committee, so I wanted to voice that at this meeting. Thank you. One final thought. Sorry, I would like to see each bureau, not bureau. Each dca provide more kpis with budget plans for this year. And so that we have more of a operational map. So when we're having our conversations in the fall about the what do we call it now, it's not bump toe. How can I forget if we could have toe look at where we are in terms of those kpis, and then do the follow up mid-year, and it will allow us to then make conversations and decisions for the next year. That's, that's connected to the data we received from the year that we're currently in. We've been talking about this for a long time. Welcome, raymond lee.
141 Thank you, counselor Ryan. Counselor Smith.
142 Thank you, mr. President. I was going back over the list. And there are a couple of things that I think we need to do. I support this, but we also need to have the listening sessions in, in the districts. I am totally against having a city administrator's budget come out. It's so confusing. It almost is like a trial for the mayor. If they put something out that's unbalanced to see what people don't like, and then they get people all excited about it, and then they change the budget, and then the mayor releases his budget. So it's like, that's that's too confusing. And the other thing that I heard that didn't sit well from some of my colleagues up here was that they wanted a day for employees to talk about budget items. To my understanding, employees should not be asking for budget items that that should go through the dca. If dca want particular programs kept, they should be delivering that message, not employees. So I know that we had people who came forward, for example, in the parks division, their organization, nonprofit organizations who were using our facilities. But they weren't necessarily our employees. They were employees of the nonprofits. And so they supported keeping those facilities open. But I am very concerned if we're going to try to set up something for employees of the city. That does not include dca interaction, and there has to be some some level setting there. It is important, mr. Chairman, that we continue to have those check ins with the mayor and mr. President, because I've seen all of those mayor check ins, they've been canceled on my calendar. And so I think we need to make sure that we find the time to have those conversations. Thank you.
143 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
144 So I'll start with a clarification here. Two clarifications. First, it appears there's a several differences of opinion as it relates to the city administrator's recommendations. I'm not going to insist upon that being in there for my vote. I just wanted to raise the issue. I do support it. I do still have the concern around not having any of the community engagement piece in here, because what I've learned through doing this work as a community engagement professional with the city for a few years is that if you don't commit to it, it tends not to happen. I'm also concerned about where the money is going to come from for it, because I prefer to have it come out of our existing allocated budget for that work in some other place, either the city operations or the office of community engagement, than out of our individual council budgets for it. And I think I'm just going to say that up front. But the other clarification I want to give is what we saw at the four listening sessions. We had included a handful of people who absolutely were city employees coming in and saying, my position may be cut, please do not cut it. Clearly, there was a difference of opinion between those those people and their dca's or bureau directors or the mayor, depending on what stage of the process that was in. They are also community members. They have a right to come speak. But I found it personally to force that to occur in a public setting to be disrespectful to them. I don't think that was the intention. I just think that's what happened. And so what I'm not saying that the dca shouldn't be the primary conduit. I of course agree with you there, councilor Smith, but I want to say that it might be beneficial to say city employee, if you really feel that strongly that you want to come and do this, you're welcome to. But you don't have to do it in public with your neighbors there or the people who live down the block there. There is a specific place for it. As a side note, I think that one of the things that we can do and the auditor could also do, if they were so inclined, I know it's their prerogative. Whether to do it or not is create more places where we can hear directly and without fear of retribution from rank and file city employees, because often going through and I'm talking about policy and things like that, and I'm talking about budget, I'm not talking about, you know, hr kind of things. The idea that we can have suggestions because the rank and file employee often knows something that that leadership might not, or that it's just not a priority, especially in those service areas that are so broad in what they do that there's a million things for the management to have to know, and they all know what they know. That's not to in any way displace the the primacy of the dca as the conduit up to the city administrator and on and I was very heartened by the emphasis on promoting an excellent workplace culture that then candidate, now city administrator raymond lee, brought up in our interview. And I think this is a small part of that. So I just wanted to clarify that I would like to see at least maybe a tbd on the date, but an acknowledgment that there will be some sort of listening session in here that would be helpful for me. I understand this is a calendar and that's not necessarily as helpful, but you can see in here there are a few things that do say date tbd and I wouldn't mind having one more. So that's that's where I'm at at this moment. Thanks.
145 Thank you. Councilor councilor Pirtle-guiney.
146 Thank you, mr. President.
147 I just wanted to note, because my colleague mentioned encouraging the use of kpis as we move forward from the bureaus, I would actually like to go a step further. I apologize, this is not related to the calendar directly, but I would like us to require kpis as part of this process if we can't get there this year, I understand we're building a new system. Maybe it's a year out, but I just would like on the record that we need to have a clear path for how we get to required kpis for every bureau.
148 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Smith.
149 Yes, I want to go back to what councilor Canal said. Maybe we can have something because you're putting employees in there, upline folks in the bureaus and in the dca in a bad position. Maybe we can set something up where we would have a a suggestion box that they could put something in there. So if we if and they could do it in an anonymous kind of way, it just it is it gets too spicy when you have conflicting views because I think it would be better. And I've been trying not to say Multnomah county, but I'm going to have to say it Multnomah county we had each bureau had a day that they came and presented, and when the bureaus would come, the bureau heads would come and pitch. Why? It was important to have the chair, and in this case, it would be for the mayor's suggested budget and they would defend it. And those are the days that you would do the budget notes for those marks in the in the mayor's budget. And I think if we do that, we don't have this free for all, and every bureau would come in and come before us. And because sometimes we have nobody sitting right there. And that was kind of weird. So if if we coordinate it in a way that it's particular bureaus or particular days, we know what we're talking about. We know which parts of the budget we're talking about. We can add or subtract to those budgets as they come before us. But putting employees in the mix like that, I think it's not good. Thank you.
150 Thank you, councilor Smith. I put myself in the queue. I just want to say briefly, it's not directly related to the calendar, but it is related to the conversation around kpis and metrics. We kind of use those terms interchangeably. They do mean different things. We need metrics in place for the budget. And then within those metrics, we need key performance indicators that we are meeting those metrics. So I just want to say that the community that we're using them interchangeably, we know there's a difference. Thank you. Councilor canal.
151 Thank you, council president. So to the the suggestion by by councilor Smith that does meet the underlying need I have. So I would happily take that and try to do that outside of the context of this particular piece of legislation. On that first concern. On the second concern, I think what I'm looking at here is perhaps and I'll have this sent to the clerk as well, but adding a new line in the calendar that on the left column would say budget community listening sessions by district and in the right line say date tbd or February 20th 3rd to may 13th, date tbd. I think that's a wide enough range of time to give us some flexibility there, but but provide a commitment to the public that we're going to do something. So I make the motion with the with the second way. I said it February 3rd. Sorry, February 20th 3rd to may 13th date tbd. My staff is going to send that to the clerk just for record.
152 Thank you, councilor Koyama Lane.
153 Thank you, council president. I'd like to echo a point made by my colleague councilor Kanal about public engagement. I agree that public engagement must be baked into the budget process. It's so important that the mayor's proposed budget already incorporates engagement from our constituents, from the public, and also includes documentation about how that happened, how the public was engaged. Yeah, I think that's will be very helpful and much better than having that added on the end.
154 Thank you. Colleagues. Seeing no one else, is that a legacy councilor.
155 A legacy hand. But I did make a motion. Oh so. Second or.
156 Second motion. There we go. Sorry about that. Missed that part. Could you repeat the motion just for the good of.
157 The motion to add a new line? I think the most appropriate place to put it would probably be one, two, three, four. The seventh line after community council presentations on budget information by service area bureaus and above, city council work sessions on budget cuts and revenue options that councilors find acceptable or unacceptable. The left column would say budget community listening sessions and in parentheses by district, the right column would say February 20th 3rd to may 13th and then in parentheses date tbd. And if it helps anyone to just not say that and just say date tbd, if that makes a difference to anyone. I'm very open to that and would consider it friendly.
158 Colleagues, we have a motion and a second. Is there any debate on the motion? No. Rebecca, could you please call the roll on councilor Kanal motion?
159 Avalos I.
160 Smith I.
161 Canal I.
162 Pirtle-guiney I.
163 Ryan I.
164 Koyama Lane I.
165 Morillo I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman no.
166 Dunphy I.
167 And the amendment is approved with 11 I and one no vote.
168 Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue for debate on this, can we please call the roll on the resolution?
169 Avalos I.
170 Smith I.
171 Now thanks to all my colleagues for that. I vote I.
172 Pirtle-guiney I.
173 Ryan I.
174 Koyama Lane I.
175 Morillo I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy. I resolution is adopted with 12 votes.
176 Thank you colleagues I will note that it is currently four 2022. We have a hard shot hard stop at 5:00. And the next item, item ten, is scheduled for one hour.
177 We can go faster.
178 Okay. Rebecca, will you please read item ten?
179 Establish a Portland city council governance handbook to collect policies, procedures, and current practices to support city operations and improve transparency.
180 Thank you. We have a committee staff summary from dana richardson, who is pinch hitting for an employee who is no longer here. Welcome, dana.
181 Good afternoon, council president and councilors. For the record, my name is dana richardson. I am here on behalf of craig cook, a former policy analyst for us and staff to the governance committee. The resolution thank you. The resolution before you was heard in the governance committee on December 15th, where it was referred to the council, as amended, with the recommendation that it be adopted. The resolution itself establishes a Portland city council governance handbook that collects various existing policies, procedures and practices into one document to support operations and governance of the city of Portland. It also establishes that council will review and update the handbook as additional relevant policies, procedures and practices are established and formalized. The committee adopted amendments prior to moving the item to full council. The effects of the amendment on the original resolution are summarized in the committee staff summary that is available online. There was one individual who provided verbal testimony, and no written testimony was submitted prior to the committee action. The general theme was that the handbook should include a requirement that public officials provide a publicly available statement aligning each item, policy, decision, and administrative rule to portland's core values and stated emergency priorities. That concludes the committee. Staff summary. Thank you.
182 Thank you, council councilor Koyama Lane not not vice president anymore. Would you like to add anything else? This is your both your item and your company. Yeah, please.
183 All right. Thank you. Council president. So the governance committee has focused on council rules and procedures over the past year since the transition to this new form of government began the beginning of 2025. And these governance conversations led to the proposal to create a council governance handbook in order to meet a need for an informational, transparent guide, not only for councilors and councilor Staff, but also for the public. And in July, my office in partnership with council operations. Thank you very much. Really started digging in and putting this together. I'll say a little over a year ago when I first won my election, I was coming straight from a third grade classroom. And while I get to utilize a lot of those skills, I was very, very new to spending my days in these halls and serving as an elected. And I wish I had had a handbook when I started. A big point of the charter change has been to bring new voices to the table, and actions like these help decrease the barrier for people to have access to this information. Bringing the information together so it's not scattered across different places helps. There be one place to find that information. And while my office has spent a lot of time working with council operations on this project, I want to be clear that this document is meant to serve as a living document that lives in council operations will evolve, grow, change. As the city of Portland grows and changes and collaborates in creating new processes and procedures to support its new in this new form of government. So it would be its own would be owned and managed by council operations president Dunphy. There are four pre-filed amendments, one from your office and three from councilor Pirtle-guiney office. Thank you to both of you and your staff for your collaboration and engagement. Whenever it's. It's the right time to bring those forward. I also want to just say I accept all of those as friendly amendments. Thank you.
184 Excellent. Thank you. We would like to before we move to public testimony and discussion, I would like to introduce the amendments. I'd like to turn it over to councilor Pirtle-guiney to introduce her amendments. And I also have an amendment I will introduce afterwards.
185 Thank you, council president. Colleagues, I'm going to try to do this quickly. There are three amendments before you filed by my office. If you reviewed the two that were first sent to your offices and are surprised to now see three, please know that the new revised one and three are just the splitting of the original one. These were meant to be technical, but two pieces were a little less technical and councilor Koyama Lane asked me to pull those out just so that we could have the discussion in a little better way. That's why that occurred. I'm going to run through these quickly to make sure that everybody sees the pieces. But pirtle-guiney one is truly technical in nature. It addresses a few errors in descriptions and spelling. If you look at page 33 under budget, instead of votes to approve budget, we changed that to creates and approves final budget to better reflect the work of creating that final budget based on the mayor's proposal, but not just approving that proposal. On pages 41 and 42, there are two places where we replaced, one where we took out city clerk and to specifically talk about the administration taking on a role, and the other where we replaced city clerk with council clerk, which is the the language that we use in other parts of statute. There are a few spelling errors on page 43, in a chart that were changed. I believe that's actually it for pirtle-guiney one. Pirtle-guiney two is separated from the technical pieces because it is admittedly slightly more substantive in nature, though these changes were offered as a technical addition to try to better capture the work that we do on the chart on page 32, which talks about the level of authority of the work that we do, there was a section on city code, but we also pass non code amending ordinances, which are also binding on our work. And they were not covered either in city code or city administrative rule. So we added a what is that a row for non code amending ordinances. Similarly we added a row to reflect the work that we do through resolution and where that fits in terms of level of authority in the work that we do. Finally, colleagues pirtle-guiney three, which was in the original pirtle-guiney one which you may have reviewed, I believe my staff sent these all out last week. The revisions were just put up earlier this week. Looks at pages, I believe 36 and 37, and attempts to provide more clarity on the code amendment process. What I attempted to do here was not make any changes to the way we currently do work, but simply to better reflect, given the the previous role that I played in the way that has allowed me to see things move through the council process. What happens when we try to move a code amendment, and what that looks like on the back end, so that folks can better understand that process? I'm happy to answer any questions when the time is right, but in the meantime, councilor Council president, when it's appropriate for me to move these, I would like to do so.
186 Great. Thank you. And I would like to introduce Dunphy amendment one. This amendment is. Functionally expanding on the existing sort of style that exists in this. I think that as I understand it, you know, it lays out for a new councilor. What is the role of the mayor? What is the role of the city auditor? What is the role of the clerk? But it didn't really enumerate in the draft the specific explicit powers of the council with references back to our, you know, our code. My amendment adds a significant amount of new text in blue that directly is more so specifically about explicitly just calling out what our authorities are, what our roles are, and where to find the cliffsnotes of that by clicking through to what the references are. So that is the intention of mine, is to simply bring a little bit more explicitness. Explicitness? I don't know if that's a word, but make it a little bit more explicit to the future baby city councilors who are going to be elected someday. What exactly our jobs are. So that is a function of what Dunphy amendment one is. And thank you. Council councilor Koyama Lane, for working with my office on that. Before we move the amendments, I'd like to open it to testimony.
187 We have four people signed up to testimony. First is terry harris.
188 Thank you, terry harris, for the record. And I've got an hour presentation. And actually, you know, reading the room a little bit, I'll try and keep this brief. But also, I couldn't help but notice that somehow the governance committee has got itself in the middle of the dais. I don't know if that's some sort of long game that was being played over the last few days, but congratulations to everybody.
189 Top that. Thank you for your testimony. Yeah.
190 So very quickly I support the handbook. It's a great idea for clarity consistency future counselors. It has to come with the recognition that it has to be maintained and up to date, which is a lot of work. I don't really have any opinions about the content. I support the edits because of course you all have read it and find it important. And if you find it important, so do I. I think it needs to be crystal clear about what elements of the handbook are authoritative and binding. City. Laws and procedures, and what is just mere guidance and advice and that sort of thing. So that's all I have to really say. But on the rest of my hour, I'll say that I've, I've followed the governance committee now for a year, and I can say that there's still a lot of work that still needs to be done in governance. So the handbook is not going to be the end. It's like about half done is about what I can tell. In particular, committee functioning, formal oversight capabilities, the informal oversight and monitoring of bureaus and the administrative branch, public involvement enhancements and efficiencies, agenda setting and management. Both council and committee budget processes that you just talked about, the committee of the whole and a recent development is perhaps referring items to more than one committee. All of those need rules, and those rules need discussion. And that discussion needs to happen. We're one year into it and you own it. Now. Finally, in the last 30s, I'll refer you to my written testimony, which has some stuff that I scratched out to show the productivity of this council in 2025, compared it to some data we were provided in gtac for 2023, and you all are way behind. There are lots of apples and oranges related to that and I'm happy to go through them, but I can't because I'm out of time. But I encourage you to look at it. Thank you.
191 Edith gillis is online. Edith, you can go ahead.
192 Thank you. I think it's wonderful that we have this concept. We have this purpose. It's necessary. It's urgent. And all the good work that you did to do that, I really agree with. There's nothing in it that I disagree with. I like and agree with some of the amendments. My concern is there's a lot that's lacking, and I would like some more clarity before I go into that. I just want to say part of good governance is supporting the character, the skills, the attitude that we need to have. We can have a rule book, we can have examples, we can have a general structure we can give. This is the charter. This is a law and ordinance. These are the regulations and policies we have so far. And then you can get more and more detail. These are the past. These are potential changeable votable examples. But the most important thing is the mental attitude and character that councilor Kanal did. I have been watching Portland city council for 43 years. I've been going to county councils. I've been going to other city councils. I've been on boards of nonprofits and churches and you name it. I have never seen anyone so impressive with all of just the knowledge, the skills, the resources, getting to access the social skills, the character, the the values. I mean, that's what I also want the governance of us expressing self-government in how we relate with each other for the greater good. And there must be ways, as a teacher and as a parent, as an administrator, that I support that in my students, staff and myself. I integrate that and I support it. I hold it up and that's something I'd like us to do. Also, I'd like us to see more in that and everything else that we hold up again. What is it? Why are we here? What's the purpose of these things? And get with the purpose again, with the budgeting, you would do that too. We also don't need cops because cops say we need cops. What do we need? What is the purpose we're trying to accomplish? And our goals? Again, our professed values transparency, accountability, inclusivity, community engagement for an informed public to inform the council, democracy, equity, social justice, economic resilience. We need to change our economy. And we're not working on that fast enough. We have housing. We need housing security, food security, climate justice. We need to be working on the bigger view. So let's start with this, approve this, and then expand with the details and integrate it every step of the way. What is the purpose and what are the values and how are we going to imply those?
193 Thank you.
194 Edith crystal otero.
195 Welcome. Thanks for hanging with us to the end of the day.
196 You started moving quick. I had to leave my office early. I don't want to lean forward. Can you hear me? Yes. Oh, great. Okay. Hello. My name is crystal otero. I use she and her pronouns. I wanted to express my support for this amendment, and in particular, I wanted to express my gratitude for Tiffany Koyama Lane. I have been so impressed by the work that you've accomplished this year, and I'm so thankful for how open and transparent you have been. And I think this work today shows that. It would be great to know how some of these things work. That's cool. My guess is people in different departments don't know how things work in other departments, but what inspired me to come down here today to take time off from work. Was to say that I am still reeling from the comments that were published in the mercury and they, you know, the comments made by brian o. Oldendorf, vicki payne and talia giardini. A part of you can't make this up, future Portland. Those comments were abhorrent. Those comments impacted me. When I go into rooms in this city and meet with people present ideas, is that what they're thinking of me? You know, in particular, brian orndorf, he's really benefited from this city. And portlanders have supported downtown real estate success through public investment, public processes and community patronage. That doesn't mean we owe any private power broker deference. In fact, it means people who benefit from this, people who benefit from this city owe portlanders. So I hope that as we go forward, we will see that reflected in council actions. And. I think you're all doing great. I think that there really is some work to be done around working between white identified and people of color is very painful for people to watch. Council I don't, I don't, you know, this is Portland but it's it's obvious and I would encourage you to work on it imminently. Thank you.
197 Thank you for being here.
198 Last we have jana tessman. Jana is online. You can unmute and go ahead.
199 Jana tessman. For the record, I'm in district one. I think this handbook is a great idea. I support this resolution, making new material for others to learn from and for the people who come after you is such a thing to do. And I give you Tiffany. And a plus if I want to speak to what this document can't cover, I want to remind you that you don't have to make these difficult decisions alone. You have over half a million brilliant residents in the city of Portland to confer with. Anything can easily be inferred from the charter into a handbook should be sent back to the ballot from whence it came. The only reason the vast majority of you are even here is because of the expansion of the council, which included a conscious and intentional reduction in the power of the mayor, decided after like a year and a half of deliberation and collection and then quantitative analysis of public comment by the commission, and then another half a year of campaigning, which culminated in a vote by the entire city. The commission could not have anticipated everything, anything that is still in question, like whether the mayor should decide yet another thing or a solution more in line with the spirit of the charter. Updates might have council president elected by a plurality instead of a majority. These things should go to the ballot measures, not lawsuits. Canvassers, not lawyers. More public comment. And these budget sessions. And no, Dan Ryan, you shouldn't get to have conversations with the rest of council without being answerable to your constituency or your base. They have a lot more at stake when it comes to you and then you. When it comes to the business of this city, you could stop working tomorrow and be financially better off than the vast majority of the residents of this town. So yeah, let's hear more from the city, the residents, and take it to the ballot. Thank you.
200 That concludes testimony.
201 Thank you. Colleagues, before we move to the discussion, I would like to give an opportunity to councilor Pirtle-guiney and I will also take advantage of that to formally move these amendments. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
202 Thank you. Council president. Do you prefer that I move just pirtle-guiney one first or can I move them all? And then you'll take them for debate one at a time?
203 I would like to do that.
204 Okay colleagues, I would like to move pirtle-guiney one, pirtle-guiney two and pirtle-guiney three and would appreciate a second if anybody is willing.
205 Second all three.
206 Thank you. Councilor Kanal.
207 Great. And colleagues, I would like to move Dunphy one and would entertain a second second. Thank you councilor. We are now moving into debate. We will. Take each of the amendments individually for a vote. But first I want to give the my colleagues an opportunity to. Either weigh in on the amendments or the underlying councilor Koyama Lane.
208 Thank you, council president. I was just wondering if these if I could accept them as friendly or if we have to go through the whole process of voting.
209 I'll look to robert taylor.
210 So I think it depends on the substance of it. I, I'm grateful for this opportunity to talk about friendly amendments because technically speaking, that's that is it's a name we apply to things, but it's not an actual thing. So if there is a motion to amend that's been seconded, that's on the that's before council for consideration. If somebody would like to suggest a change to that, and they'll call it a friendly amendment to signal that they are in line with the intent, but would like to make a small technical change if, if the the person that made the motion is comfortable with it, the person that made the motion can always withdraw the first one and replace it with something new. So if there's a suggestion of a friendly amendment, how about you phrase your amendment this way? The person that had made the amendment to begin with can simply say, sounds great. I withdraw my first one and I move. The amendment in the form suggested that can get seconded, and then we're back on the on track.
211 But I wouldn't want to skip any debate that would need to happen. This just also to clarify, to underscore that this doesn't change the resolution. It's the actual handbook, which is an exhibit. So if there are folks that want to debate it, otherwise I am happy to accept them.
212 If let's see if is there anybody in the folks in the queue are in queue for the amendments or for the. Okay, counselor Green.
213 Yeah, I first of all, I really appreciate the hard work that went into not only the underlying, the. I know that this is a conversation. You guys really worked a lot of time on. I appreciate the thoughtfulness in these amendments. I've read all the amendments. I think they're all good contributions to the underlying. I appreciate the spirit of what I was going to say. Vice president councilor Koyama Lane has suggested I'm interested in the most expedient way forward. And so what I would suggest is if the counselor Koyama Lane, is signaling to your colleagues that she accepts all of these, then we just do our own limitation of debate and just vote a rama. Get it done. Thank you.
214 Thank you, counselor Green. Counselor Morillo.
215 Yeah, thank you so much. My question is about pirtle-guiney three. I just had a question about what it means to define how the city attorney reviews things in terms of legal sufficiency or what that means, because it says that the city attorney must review for legal sufficiency. And it speaks. The handbook speaks to attorney approval, but nothing further than that. And at the state level, it's defined in a much more complex manner. So I have the link to the definition if that's helpful, or if that's the one that you meant to reference.
216 Council president, may I respond, please? Councilor Morillo. Legal sufficiency is a term that I have had both our clerk and our attorneys team use when talking to me. I was not attempting to refer to a new state. Definition, but rather just to capture the way we currently do things. I also didn't know before and should have. I apologize that this language was reviewed by the clerk to make sure it also matched not just my, but their view of how things currently work and what language we currently use. I would be happy to defer to either our attorney or our clerk on what legal sufficiency, what level of legal sufficiency is generally required on that review. But I'm not trying to change anything from the status quo merely to capture the status quo.
217 Gotcha. Okay. And I'm not really even suggesting that we use the state's definition. I'm just pointing out that the state had a very extensive definition of it. So it seems important for us to define it in the handbook, or it feels like it's a very it's significant language. Tell me if I'm overreacting, robert, I don't know. Esteemed robert taylor.
218 Well, when we when we review something for legally legal sufficiency, what we're essentially doing is approving it as to form. So in, in, in the form that it is drafted, if it is passed, it can become law. There. Sometimes we approve something as to form, but it does come with legal risk. And council. This council, previous councils have passed ordinances and code changes that have come with legal risk. So just because we have approved something as to form does not mean it is free from risk. Oftentimes we will advise the sponsor or council of legal risks that might be associated with it. So for from our purposes, when we are approving something as to form, we are saying that this meets the minimum requirements, that if it's in the law, we would we would defend it.
219 Okay, I appreciate that. And I feel better now that it's on the record. I think that the my understanding of the handbook is that it's supposed to be sort of a plain language thing that anybody could access, including members of the public. And I'm not sure that that feels like a term that the average person would understand. So I would like for it to be defined if possible. I also will say I have to leave in about ten minutes, so maybe you'll just vote this through. But I just wanted to flag that concern on the amendment, but I'm fine with the rest of it. Thanks.
220 Thank you councilor. Counselor greene, is that a legacy hand, counselor? Ryan. No.
221 I want to just start off by appreciating the chair of the governance committee. I found that Koyama Lane was so persistent and patient with this process. I was really impressed by that. Julia myers isn't here, but she did a lot of the legwork with aubry in. And there you are. Thank you so much for your work on this project. I have to just say this. I'm good with the amendments. I'll go with the flow on them. But I think if we brought this up every six months, we'd have like five amendments because it's a breathing document. So there has to be a point where we just accept what it is, work with it, and then look at it once a year. My main question, though, is what are we going to get rid of? So as we keep adding things, we need to ask ourselves what can be eliminated? Kind of like permitting in this city. The last 50 years we just kept adding codes, but bts never removed anything. And so that's been part of the challenge for people out there trying to navigate our permitting system. I know, harsh example, but a true one, and I thought you would understand it. So anyway, I just hope that going forward we have the fortitude to cancel what's not necessary anymore. I'll go ahead and support these. I have to leave in about ten minutes. I'm going to be vulnerable with all of you and just say this. Since I've been receiving unnecessary, not fair hate. Today I was contacted by the mercury an hour before the deadline yesterday morning while I was in a committee meeting. Zero context on anything about text messages. The main question was who do you talk to? I go, I talked to anyone that reaches out that's in my district and needs to talk to me about their opinion on a topic. That's all I said. That's why my quote in there is pretty ambiguous, because I got a very ambiguous statement. I could tell by others in that article that I served with. You probably got a lot more context than I did, and good for you. But I just needed to say that because it's not fair when you have to receive a reporter coming at you aggressively and wanting a deadline. And since I always try to not do the no comment thing, I provided a comment. I don't really want any retort right now. I just have to say that I go hi so often, but when there's lies that are coming out at you, you now and then have to have the courage to just defend yourself because no one else will. It's my lived experience. I'm the only one that can say what I just did about what I experienced. Anyway, I don't appreciate any of those comments that I read. If I would have known that that was what the the articles about, I would have had a different quote. I can see some nonverbal that's not trusting, that's not my problem. But I.
222 Just think you should take this up with a reporter instead of with all of us.
223 Well, because this is what happened, I had to hear three times today in testimony about it. And so I just wanted to clear the air and be transparent. And yes, we will be talking to the reporter about journalism 101. Thank you.
224 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal.
225 First, thank you to aubrey, to your whole team that worked on this, to craig cook, to julia meyer. I appreciated the admittedly apples to oranges written testimony from terry harris. I'll particularly highlight the need for council oversight that was highlighted towards the end, and the the difference in the use of the time. Certain agenda hint hint in there. I am going to support all three of the pirtle-guiney amendments and the underlying. I had a question about the underlying as well as dunphy's amendment. So my question on the underlying is do we have a built in cadence? I agree with councilor Ryan about approving it, recognizing it needs to get renewed at some point and revisited. Is there an anticipated cadence? I know it's not written in there. This is more to daylight it. I don't think there's a right or wrong answer, but I'd be curious if the sponsor had an answer to that.
226 Can you repeat your question?
227 Sure.
228 Is there an anticipated cadence at which we would revisit this every twice a year? Is what councilor Ryan said annually next month? Whatever. I'm just curious.
229 I don't have a set cadence that I am very tied to, but council president and I have talked about the idea of something like this being adopted every year. And so that's kind of what I've had in the back of my mind. If if she's open to expanding a little bit about some of her thoughts, I think that she had some good thoughts that that could coincide with when we do get new council leadership.
230 Council president may I councilor Canal I have an item coming before the governance committee. I'm not sure if it's later this month or later than that, proposing some changes that we discussed last year to our code. And one of the things that I believe made it through the comment process in committee is to have some sort of handbook that we review either annually or every other year, around the time that new councilors are seated and, and, or new leadership is elected, so that we do review things regularly. I think that there are some questions about what should be in what shouldn't that we probably will have more thoughts on as we go forward. And having a regular review makes a lot of sense to me. Having it coincide with some of with one of those other regular changes, either leadership changes or new council councilors coming on board. Seemed to me like an obvious time to say, what is it that we want to be doing in terms of what we say about how we do our work?
231 Thank you that that addresses my underlying concern. I'd suggest that we, even if it's not written in here, do it in a year. And then if we can eventually get to two years, it seems appropriate as it develops. My question on the Dunphy amendment is I appreciate the references to other things. I think that doesn't constitute you mentioned cliff notes. That doesn't constitute that for me. I'm a little concerned about maybe some of the things that are put in absent context. And I think an example of that is the line about what the mayor's authority is, which is not in here. But earlier today, you know, there was a conversation around like there is context around it. And reading the sentence on its own doesn't necessarily give everybody the same idea. So I'm willing to put it in. But I would just love a commitment to, to allow for us to add that in, because there is a lot of context on a few of these that I think are worth revisiting. And I didn't feel that way about some of the things that are were already in there.
232 Yeah, absolutely. You have my commitment on that.
233 Okay. Then I'm good to go and I will second the vote a rama suggestion. And we should definitely use that when we have a bunch of amendments as a term for voting on all of them back to back.
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234 Thank you, councilor Morillo.
235 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. I'll be brief because I have to head out for another meeting. But since other colleagues were able to make comments about things not prescient to the amendments, I'm going to leave with this. The racist comments that me and some of our colleagues endured this week are not equivalent to anyone else's hurt feelings about anything else, and there is nothing stopping you from making a statement denouncing what some of these racist lobbyists have said in the halls of power. If you feel that you were misrepresented by a newspaper, I welcome you to put out a statement defending your colleagues of color. Thank you, everybody. Have a good day.
236 So, colleagues, we have four amendments and an underlying bill here. Are we able to move these four amendments as a package or as two packages.
237 If there's no objection? Sure.
238 Colleagues, is there any objection to moving all four amendments as a package, seeing no objection and some very enthusiastic thumbs up. Rebecca, will you please call the amendment or call the roll on the amendment package? Dunphy one and pirtle-guiney one, two and three.
239 Excellent. Thank you.
240 Avalos I.
241 Smith, canal canal.
242 Pirtle-guiney I.
243 Ryan I.
244 Koyama Lane I.
245 Morillo Novick. I Clark. I Green.
246 I Zimmerman.
247 Dunphy I.
248 And the amendment is approved with nine votes and three absent.
249 Thank you. Will you please call the roll on the now amended resolution?
250 Avalos.
251 I know that you know, we're all trying to get through this and vote it, but I did have quite a few questions. So I'll just say that on the record that I did have a lot of questions. And they were about like council operations and like how they're engaging with us, how we access the analysts. So, you know, I guess I'll vote for it. But I'm I have a lot of questions still. So I don't know what to do with that, but I'm just naming that. So hopefully we could come back to that at a future point. So I'll vote I.
252 Canal I shared those questions as well as counselor murillo's questions, but I do think this is an iterative process and it's good to do. I want to thank the the vice president emerita, Koyama Lane and I vote yea.
253 Pirtle-guiney.
254 I.
255 Ryan.
256 Thanks again. Aubrey.
257 I Koyama Lane.
258 Thank you so much to aubrey chen and craig cook who's in the in seattle now. I vote yea.
259 Novick I.
260 Clark I.
261 Green. I Dunphy. I resolution is adopted with nine I votes three absent.
262 Colleagues. Any remaining items that are on our agenda that we did not get to will be continued to a future meeting. With that, I adjourn. City council.