The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-12
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council convened its regular session on Wednesday, November 12, 2025. Roll call recorded the body present, and the council reviewed rules of decorum before public communication, during which several residents raised concerns about city administration, contracts, immigration enforcement activity, homelessness policy, and public housing conditions. The council then approved the agenda and reviewed a committee referral report covering items such as a Sellwood Community Center property sale, business license and tax code amendments, board appointments, and a city investment policy. On the regular agenda, the council heard and voted on a $675,000 bodily injury claim settlement involving PBOT, a bond authorization for fleet maintenance facilities, and a property-rights acquisition ordinance; outcomes of these votes are recorded in the vote ledger. The council then held a first-reading discussion of an ordinance amending the affordable housing code to prohibit algorithmic rental price-fixing, including debate over a proposed amendment addressing small landlords and affordable housing exemptions, with extensive public testimony both supporting and opposing the measure; the item was moved to second reading without a vote. The session concluded with lengthy discussion and public testimony on a Fall Supplemental Budget Technical Adjustment Ordinance, addressing a General Fund revenue shortfall, compensation set-aside allocations, and multiple competing budget amendments concerning the Impact Reduction Program, encumbrance carryovers, and related homelessness and public-safety funding; the transcript concludes before a final vote on these budget amendments was recorded.
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.
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0 Myself. Damn.
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1 Good morning. It is 932 on Wednesday, November 12th. I am calling to order this meeting of the Portland city council. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
2 Good morning. Clark. Here. Green. Here. Zimmerman here.
3 Present.
4 Dunphy. Here. Smith here. Canal here. Ryan, here. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick. Pirtle-guiney here.
5 And could we please get the rules of order and decorum?
6 Good morning. 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 wwe Portland.gov backslash council backslash agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
7 Thank you nancy. Colleagues. The first item on the agenda is agenda approval. Is there unanimous consent to approve the agenda? Okay. There are no there's no opposition to that. The next item on the agenda is public communication. Keelan, could you please call up our first guests for public comment?
8 First up, we have jean jackson.
9 Oh thank you. Good morning. Councilor. My name is jean jackson and I know I'm beating a dead horse, but I'm here to take you back to the February 5th council meeting where you confronted the mayor administrator over signing a contract with zenith behind your back and had to drag out how much the mayor was going to pay the city administrator for the extension of his contract, and not telling the city, not telling you about the city attorney living in las vegas and couldn't talk about it due to ADA. But what he didn't tell you is there were two other city attorneys living back east. And there was a black woman in purchasing who was given written permission by her supervisor and hr to move her invalid husband to texas so that his family could help take care of him, and then pull the rug from under her feet and gave her the ultimatum of quitting, moving back to Oregon, or retire early and lose the benefits. Her name was angela pack, and now she has to pay over $800 a month for insurance and no possibility of a job due to her age and caring for an invalid husband. The mayor also said if employees that day, if employees did not want to come back to the office, we have plenty of laid off federal employees to choose from. You had an episcopal priest a couple of weeks ago, criticized him for his lack of character, for wishing for bad weather, to help him make his numbers to fill shelter beds, which jessica vega, peterson said was her job. And then you allow the mayor to cancel die. And now you're talking about gaza, the people of color of this community are guardians. As the citizens and non-citizens of color that are being picked up off the street, like the Jews in germany in 1930, and the minority construction contractors that you're running out of business and them and their employees and putting them on the street. I watched all of you a week ago vote to spend $1 million on something that you're not even sure what it was you were voting on. It's like the kipling poem. If I'm trying to keep my wits about me while watching your chaos, please. I had so much confidence in you people in January. Please focus on Portland. Thank you.
10 Thank you very much. And as a reminder, and for folks who haven't been here before, we're happy to see your support or opposition in nonverbal ways to what people are saying. Thumbs up, thumbs down, hand waves. But let's try to not clap or say anything so that we can continue through our meeting. Thank you. Go ahead.
11 Next up we have ashley johnson.
12 Welcome. Thank you for being here.
13 Hi. Thank you for having me. The other day my partner was driving to work, passing our daughter's school when he noticed ice agents, faces covered and guns strapped to their chests surrounding a woman against the windows that my daughter and her classmates look out during their school days. A moment of panic washed over him as he tried to stop them from, at the very least, moving this detainment to anywhere but in front of a school. Of course, after just one sentence of asking them to stop this, he was met with the blindness of pepper gel in his eyes. Yet this is minuscule. As I watched a video of a one year old child get pepper sprayed by ice online this morning. Do we want our children to grow up in a world where they look out their windows during their school day to see scary men disguised and holding guns, cornering people as they shake in fear for their lives? Or worse. Do we want to grow up in a world where children are ripped from their parents, put in inhumane environments and sent off to random countries? Regardless of your political stance, what about the children? We are residents of the south waterfront, where every day there's activity and constant reminders of our country's poor decision making. From the military helicopter shaking our windows to children and families lined up outside the ice facility holding their children's hands as they helplessly make phone call after phone call to save their families to busses being loaded and sent out twice a day. We have noticed ice vehicles no longer directly exiting the neighborhood, but instead driving through the streets of where we live and where three different daycares, preschools and grade schools go to play. We have photos of ice agents pulling an actual pistol out on protesters, videos of Portland citizens, some of who are mothers themselves to young children with their faces being pushed in the mud in front of the ice building for simply playing a clarinet. This is not okay. I know that you all know that this is not okay. Please, city council, help us. Please stand up taller for us, for the immigrants who built our country, for the children who deserve to see and feel nothing but light. Following the win of zoran and following the inspirational strength of the chicago mayor, can we please bring that strength and that resilience here in Portland? Can you please, upon waking every day, close your eyes and breathe into your power. Breathe into the laughter of children living peacefully loved and the light of the sun. The peace in the air. Can you please use your power to expand all of that? Help us get and give more of that city council, please help us.
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14 Thank you very much.
15 Next up we have keely higgins.
16 Welcome.
17 Thank you. Well, maybe under different circumstances, I would say thank you for the time today to speak about the current camping ban, but god damn it, I am so tired and I'm so angry. I was here at this desk under a different administration almost two years ago, raging over yet another tent and camping ban that yet another white rich man in power had proposed and attempted to enact. At least then the mayor had shown his face. I see keith isn't here today. I will be speaking to him, though, in my time and to anyone on the council who wants to see homeless people eradicated from this city. Looking at you, Dan Ryan, we haven't forgotten all your through the years. And to anyone here behind me who is choosing this one wildlife to lick a boot and destroy lives, I'm sorry, but you, keith wilson. I know your privilege and your supremacy keep you from feeling shame, but rest assured, you will only be remembered, if at all, for your stupidity, short sightedness, and twisted heart. Despite analysis from experts in the field, our testimonies from those with lived experience or proven precedents or a conscience, you still choose the inhumane route to solve homelessness that aligns perfectly with the trump administration, a route that will undoubtedly lead to deaths. And let's talk about death 450. That's how many members of our unhoused community died in this county alone in 2023, 450 people. That outpaces any other metropolitan county on the west coast, including los angeles county, including Washington county, which includes seattle. Let that sink in. 450 people. People need housing, period. People need mental health services. People need harm reduction and compassionate care and addiction not to be shuffled from one place to the next, not to lose everything they have in a sweep, not punitive punishment for trying to survive. Notice I said, people, these are people who are cruelly, you are so cruelly trying to erase veterans, trans youth, immigrants, family members, friends, cohorts. Every life makes an impact and god damn it, I am here in 2025 telling the mayor of my city to not commit to actions that kill people. I know this testimony won't change your policy, keith, but you need to know that we see you and there will be no peace without justice. Now, to everyone else here in this room and those watching online, I know we're exhausted. We have nazis kidnaping our friends and family with impunity. We're still sending approximately just millions to Israel from this city and state alone. We're protecting and trying to nourish our trans youth while fighting for basic rights for our queer and trans elders. We're fighting for indigenous sovereignty. And of course, we have our pbb, who, let's not forget, wilson is the commissioner of indiscriminately murdering brown and black folks. But this is all intertwined. Our liberations are intertwined. We cannot possibly free one another if we forget our unhoused siblings. Support Morillo amendment. Defend your neighbors against sweeps, feed each other, prepare new systems to take care of one another. Because this mayor and frankly, any politician is not going to do it for us. And finally, ice, the pbb free Palestine.
18 Point of order.
19 Yeah. Yes.
20 Can you please ask folks not to use that kind of language?
21 Thank you. Councilor I was just going to say that I know that there's a lot of heated emotions. There's a lot of heated emotions on some of the things that we'll be debating today. And the more that we can all speak to each other with courtesy, the more that we can all bring professionalism into this room, the easier those conversations will be. I understand the heated emotions. I think it's important to say hard things in this space, and it's important to call out things, to call out actions that are hard to see. But we need to do so. Acknowledging that oftentimes children are watching.
22 Next up we have michael jurkowski.
23 Welcome.
24 Hello. Good morning. My name is michael jurkowski to the city council of Portland. I come before you all to bring attention to a very pressing matter. I recognize that there is a shared vision amongst all of you, and that is the need to build more social housing. Now. I support the social housing initiatives myself and I wish to see more of it getting built. However, we cannot campaign on such promise to the people of Portland while ignoring the declining conditions of current existing housing infrastructure. Now, I currently work as a private security officer and oversee many properties managed by home forward. A majority of them are relatively in great condition, but one that has been particularly an area of concern is the louisa flowers, located in lloyd district over overseen by pinehurst management. Throughout my time as a security officer, I've witnessed a wide range of issues. Many are relating to maintenance, security, sanitation, drug usage, and even criminal activity. Residents often report feeling unsafe in these buildings. Whenever something breaks in this building, it takes months for anything to get repaired and it takes an unreasonable amount of time. A great example of this included when the two front doors had malfunctioned and it allowed basically open access from the outside. Anyone from anywhere could enter the building. This puts the safety of the residents at risk. In addition to the maintenance, there's the sanitation. As I walk through the halls, I see black stains all along the carpets, fecal matter smeared on the walls, urine stains in the concrete, and just a foul odor. These are children are exposed to these smells. But beyond the sanitation, perhaps worst of all is the influence of drugs and how it plagues the building. Because home forward does not currently drug screen their applicants, at least not to my knowledge. Residents of louisa flowers have reported seeing their neighbors abusing substances and other narcotics. The tolerance and enabling of drug usage inside these buildings not only deteriorate the quality of life for residents, it places them and their children at risk of physical harm. Earlier in September, there was a murder that took place in this building. 25 year old hassan hassan mousa, a father of two children, was gunned down outside the building. I happened to have responded to the aftermath of that of that event and had spoken to the property management. I notified them of this tragedy and her response seemed both disinterested and basically irritated that I contacted her. This. This reflects the basic attitude that the management has over the residents of louisa flowers. The killing shook the entire building, and it places residents in a heightened state of fear. With all this to say, I've only scratched the surface. Residents blame management for the conditions. Management point the finger at government for lack of funding, and the cycle continues. I hate to say this, but the state of the public housing has now turned into drug sanctuaries. I don't want to spend my time complaining in front of you, but rather propose solutions. I believe that maybe the city council could consider implementing work requirements and possibly drug screening all future applicants. Lastly, I want to point out that I would urge the Portland city council to consider expanding the role of the auditor's office and begin conducting thorough audits of all these public housing projects. Thank you for your time. Thank you.
25 Very much.
26 Next up we have gabriel lyons. Gabriel lyons. Okay. That completes communications.
27 Thank you. Colleagues. The next item on the agenda is the committee referral report. The referral report includes declaring property known as the Sellwood community center surplus in order to sell it to friends of Sellwood community house to transportation and infrastructure. Amending business license law code to allow sharing select information with bts to finance. Amending the protest and appeals revenue division. Appeals board code to finance. Amending the special taxes code to conform with state code to finance. Amending the lloyd business district fee to correct inadvertent changes to finance. Adopting the city investment policy to finance appointments to various boards. To finance appointments to the children's levy. Allocation committee to governance. Adopting a procedure for council strategic priority setting to governance and requiring the city administrator to prepare a report with recommendations for city design review process to climate resilience and land use. Colleagues. Next item on the actually that moves us to the regular agenda. Keelan could you please call the first item on our regular agenda.
28 Item for pay settlement of ashton and tina roberts bodily injury claims in the sum of $675,000, involving the Portland bureau of transportation.
29 Thank you, keelan and colleagues, because this didn't move through committee. We don't have a staff summary or chair report, but I believe we do have dave farrow from claims and risk management available. Maybe. City administrator jordan, do you want to take this one? Maybe. I think I saw PBOT director williams here as well. I don't have an attorney who's point on this listed on my cheat sheet, I apologize.
30 Ready.
31 Good morning. Millicent williams, director of Portland bureau of transportation. I'm here with jody yates. Jody, if you would introduce yourself for the record.
32 Jody yates, PBOT, maintenance and operations group manager.
33 Thank you. And I apologize to put you on the spot. We don't have our normal presenters here, but usually we hear just a brief reminder of what this settlement is and then have the opportunity to ask any questions.
34 Yeah. Oh great.
35 We may have a phone. A friend for you.
36 Fantastic.
37 Good morning. I was explaining my entry outside, but you've called the settlement.
38 We have?
39 Yes.
40 Introduce yourself.
41 I'm dave farrow, risk management. The claims arise out of a bicycle accident involving ashton roberts. And work performed by PBOT in southeast Portland on July 10th, 2024, while riding his bicycle on southeast division street, mr. Roberts crashed into a freshly cut section of pavement across the bike Lane. Less than an hour earlier, a PBOT crew completed a work order to cut into the pavement for water access, and the crew left their work without any cones, signage or other warnings about the condition. Mr. Roberts claim and his wife tina's claim alleged that mr. Roberts was injured in the bicycle crash, and he produced medical records and bills in support of the allegations. After evaluating the city's liability for the collision and reviewing mr. Roberts medical records and bills, risk management and PBOT determined the best interests of the city would be served by resolving the claims. Prior to litigation, the parties engaged in informal negotiations and agreed to resolve both claims for $675,000. The settlement includes all medical bills and liens, attorney fees, and allows the city to avoid the cost of litigation and the risk of a higher verdict at trial.
42 Thank you very much. Keelan, so that we can plan accordingly. Is there anybody signed up for public testimony?
43 No one signed up for this.
44 Okay, colleagues, are there questions about the claim before us, the settlement before us? Councilor Kanal.
45 Thank you, madam president. Good morning. Thank you for being here. First, I just wanted to say thank you for including all the claims data over the years. And I have two questions. The first is, without necessarily getting into all the particular details, have there been any particular of how this happened, I should say, in the first place, have there been any particular practice, policy or other changes as a result of this incident at PBOT?
46 Thank you for the question. Yes. There has, we've this was. Repairing or preparing pavement and there is now a cross communication between the one crew who's doing the prep and the crew that's coming through to pave back the item. They've also each crew is responsible in. Every crew member is responsible in making sure that traffic control is in place before they can leave a site. So that's not only to this crew, but across the entire maintenance operations teams. And one of the items that's hard to see in this. But it was July 10th. This was a stent of 4 or 5 days of heat prior to that. And it's augmented our heat awareness training and checking in with our crews. One of the root causes on this incident was that the crew leader did not have air conditioning, and had not slept well in going into his fourth or fifth day of work. And it's a contributing factor of being exhausted, was the lack of attention to detail. So one of the other items that were monitoring is no different from when we're in winter weather and monitoring crew exhaustion as they go into that fourth and fifth day is also in our heat times, is monitoring our crews heat exhaustion factors as well. So those are items that we have we've put into place.
47 Thanks. And then my my second question, and I understand that this may be challenging to to answer because of it's about the five year history of the in the claims data, and because I know that that not everyone's been here that long. And director williams, you only started a couple years ago in this particular role. But PBOT routinely has the highest number of claims filed against it. And I wanted to understand if that's a factor in terms of or I shouldn't say a factor if there are. If that is a a metric that you are tracking and attempting to reduce over time in a in a broad sense, in assessing the trends through that of the particular types of claims.
48 Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Absolutely. We track all of the claims against the bureau. We determine what the root causes are when we are able to do that. And we also look forward to having the conversations internally about what we might be able to do to shift activities, prioritize work to ensure that a certain category of claim does not continue to repeat itself and come back. I don't want to say to haunt us, but come back as a as a challenge for us to overcome. Jody does have some additional insights around some of the ways that we're managing through that. We recognize that we have a lot of claims because a lot of the city is under our jurisdiction to manage and maintain, and with the challenges that we've had for funding and with funding over the course of now decades, we are seeing the result of that dis or underinvestment play out in the claims that we receive on a regular basis, but jody can provide more detail.
49 I wanted to add that our risk management team has added an analyst to actually work with us in these categories and and do proactive approaches, not only in our liability claims, but in our worker comp compensation claims. And and we're just doing that kick off on that. And I think it's scheduled for next week, but I can't remember. Dave, are you aware I don't know maybe dave doesn't know my calendar either. That's okay. But I wanted to say that the city is we have an analyst now and the risk claims that's also going to be in that approach as well.
50 Yeah. Thanks. I want to be clear, I'm not because of the nature of your work, there's likely to be more interaction with portlanders on everybody interacts with PBOT on a regular basis, I feel like. And so it's less concerning to me that there are this number of claims compared to maybe other bureaus that might have a different level of interaction, but looking over within a given bureau over time, and I think in particular, it makes sense to focus on those bureaus that do happen to have a lot of claims. And that's the reason for the question. But I appreciate the the information.
51 Thank you. Thank you for the question and the opportunity for us to respond and provide some insights.
52 Thank you, madam president.
53 Thank you. Counselor. Colleagues, are there any other questions or comments about this report or this ordinance? I guess? Okay. Thank you all very much.
54 Thank you.
55 Anyone else in the queue? Colleagues, this is an emergency ordinance. So we vote today. It takes nine votes to pass. Keelan, could you please call the roll clerk?
56 Hi, Green.
57 Hi, Zimmerman.
58 Hi, Avalos, I. Dunphy.
59 Hi, Smith.
60 Hi. Canal.
61 Hi, Ryan.
62 Hi, Koyama Lane. Hi, Morillo.
63 Hi.
64 Pirtle-guiney.
65 Hi.
66 The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and one absent.
67 Thank you. Keelan, could you please call the next item on the agenda?
68 Item five authorize revenue bonds in an amount sufficient to provide not more than $41 million to finance city fleet maintenance, facility improvements, and related costs.
69 Thank you. And I believe this is a second reading of an ordinance. So seeing no no one in the queue for further discussion, keelan, could you please call the roll clerk?
70 Hi, Green. Hi, Zimmerman. Hi, Avalos.
71 Dunphy.
72 Hi, Smith. Hi. No, I.
73 Ryan, hi.
74 Hi. Hi, pirtle-guiney. Hi.
75 The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and one absent.
76 Thank you.
77 And once you have that written down, could you please call the sixth item on the agenda?
78 Thank you. Authorize the city to acquire certain permanent and temporary property rights necessary for construction of the 3260 southwest upper drive north to 3139 southwest upper drive project through negotiation or exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
79 Thank you and colleagues. This is a second reading of an ordinance seeing no one in the queue for further discussion. Keelan could you please call the roll?
80 Clark. Hi. Green. Zimmerman.
81 Hi, Avalos. Hi,
82 Dunphy.
83 I Smith. Hi.
84 I Ryan. Hi. Koyama Lane.
85 Hi. Morillo hi. Pirtle-guiney hi.
86 The ordinance passes with 11 yes votes and one absent.
87 Thank you. And colleagues, that brings us to the last two items on our agenda. And yet we have a long day still ahead of us. I do want to flag. This has been shared with everybody who signed up to testify that we cut testimony time down to two minutes for each of these agenda items, because there were so many people signed up, and we will be taking a break between these two agenda items. I suspect that between the two of them, we will run well into the afternoon, and I want to make sure that all of our staff have an opportunity for a short break, and that everybody has an opportunity to grab some food. So if you are here for agenda item eight, the fall supplemental budget technical adjustment ordinance, I do know that we will be taking a break between agenda item seven and that final agenda item, keelan. Could you please call agenda item seven?
88 Amend the affordable housing code to add prohibition of anti-competitive rental practices, including the sale and use of algorithmic devices. Add code section 30.01 .088.
89 Thank you very much. And we have claire here with us to provide a committee staff summary.
90 Madam president and councilors, good morning.
91 For the record, claire, council policy analysts and staff to the homelessness and housing committee. The ordinance before you document 2025 045 was first referred to the full council by the homelessness and housing committee on March 25th, and it was subsequently referred back to the homelessness and housing committee by a unanimous vote of the full council on April 16th. The ordinance was heard in committee on October 7th, where it was referred to council as amended, with the recommendation to pass, so the summary focuses on. On that October 7th committee hearing, the ordinance, as amended, adds a new section to city code. Chapter 30, affordable housing that promote that prohibits any person or entity from engaging in price fixing or using any service, software, or system that engages in price fixing. Price fixing is defined as agreement among two or more persons or entities, or the or the use of software or systems to set, raise, or maintain or stabilize rental prices, fees, or occupancy levels of dwelling units with different beneficial owners. Beneficial owner is defined by the ordinance as any individual who exercises substantial control or owns or controls at least 25% of a company's ownership interest. The code provisions distinguish price fixing from specified actions related to operating publicly funded or regulated affordable housing, or certain collection or analysis of public data. The ordinance describes the right to civil action of a person or entity seeking relief from violation of these provisions, and clarifies a plaintiff's eligibility for damages. It allows the city attorney to investigate violations and seek injunctive relief, damages and civil penalties, and provides calculations for violations of these code provisions. It also denies a plaintiff the right to pursue relief or damages. If a defendant demonstrates that they could not reasonably have known they used a service, software, or system engaged in price fixing. The violation or violation relates to contracts executed prior to the effective date of these code provisions, or the action was filed more than five years after the most recent violation. The full impact statement on this ordinance includes information on financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts and community impacts, and community involvement. Seven people testified during the committee meeting on October 7th. 32 people submitted written testimony prior to committee action. General themes on October 7th included damage for violations of this proposed code as potential as a potential deterrent for future housing investment, the role of anti-competitive rental pricing and artificial rent inflation, limited transparency and increased displacement risk for rent burdened tenants. Impacts to the local economy. When rent consumes a large portion of household income, concern of the concern around unintended consequences of language that could be interpreted as prohibiting analysis of public data and potential resulting court challenges. Knowledge of property managers normal operations that could be misconstrued and penalized under the proposed code changes a focus on state mandated rent control as a primary rental rent stabilization measure, and finally urging the city to take action as other local governments have done, as opposed to waiting for a federal level decision. And that concludes the committee. Staff summary. Thank you.
92 Thank you very much. And I believe, councilor Dunphy, will you presiding over this meeting.
93 I think I was, but it looks like you got.
94 I'll look to the chair and vice chair of the committee and see if there's anything either of you would like to add to the committee staff. Summary.
95 Great. Not much other than just to say that this ordinance came before the committee twice, and we received extensive presentations from staff and took in significant public testimony from tenants and housing providers. That's the summary. Did I miss anything? Nope. Okay, okay.
96 Thank you both. Councilor Morillo. You are the chief sponsor of this ordinance. Would you like to provide any background or details?
97 Yeah. Thank you so much, colleagues. This feels like it happened 10,000 years ago because it did. But we're bringing this back to council now that we've, you know, made some corrections. We were able to bring it back through the housing committee and work with our city attorneys. And I think that we have the language in a way that's going to be really supportive of our goals and protect the city as well. So there were some key changes that were made to the ordinance. And if folks have any questions, I can walk us through what those changes are. But essentially we went through the algorithmic price fixing tool originally was the thing that was more regulated before. Now it is more focused on behavior of competitively sensitive information being shared through an algorithm. The penalties were amended and there were some adjustments. Adjustments for small landlords. And that was, you know, for folks who have like five units or fewer. And I believe council president is going to be bringing an amendment to that as well. This still completely prohibits price fixing in all its forms, and it's still enforceable by the city. We were also lucky enough to work on this with senator biden's office. As you may know, congress has been trying to pass something like this for a long time, but the makeup of congress isn't really stable enough to do that right now. So it's really important that we get these local regulations in where we can. And we're hoping that this will be part, you know, it's not going to resolve the entire housing crisis that we have in Portland, but it will address part of the problems that we're seeing here. And since we have found that at minimum, there are at least 32,000 units in Portland that are that have been using this algorithmic price fixing software. I think we have a responsibility to chip away at that market and make sure that we are doing what we can to make the rent more affordable in Portland, since that's a key issue that we're going to be discussing, not just right now, but also in the afternoon as far as how we address homelessness in the long term. Thank you.
98 Thank you. Councilor, colleagues, are there any questions? We do have testimony. But before we get to testimony, are there any technical questions about the ordinance? Or amendments to propose? And I'll put myself in the queue for that. Okay. Folks jumped in and then jumped out. Okay, I'm going to move forward then with an amendment proposal. Colleagues, there is an amendment posted online. It is posted as proposed amendment councilor Pirtle-guiney and councilor Dunphy. I want to start by thanking councilor Morillo for bringing this ordinance forward and for being open to this amendment from the start. Councilor, I know that your office and my team did a lot of work together to make sure that we got this right, and to councilor Dunphy and the city attorney's office for helping to consolidate and fine tune a final amendment that I believe has portions that I brought forward, the councilor Dunphy brought forward and some technical changes. Councilor Morillo from your office as well. The amendment makes a few technical corrections that were suggested by the city attorney, which I understand are friendly to the carrier or perhaps brought forward in coordination with your team. It addresses a concern that was brought forward by councilor Dunphy, which I will defer to you to explain, and then includes a portion that I brought forward as well. Councilor Dunphy, do you want to go over your piece of this first? I do not, I can continue.
99 Yeah. Please continue.
100 Okay. We'll get back to that piece at the start of the conversation around this ordinance, there were some concerns raised to me about small landlords, those with just a few units, somebody who owns a duplex and lives in one half and rents out the other, or somebody who has the privilege of owning a few small units. And the cost of the affirmative defense for those property owners can be great. We also know that those small property owners are sometimes the people who are willing to provide housing to individuals who sometimes struggle to find housing from corporate providers who have very specific standards around renting their units. I understood that these concerns were largely around the affirmative defense costs, but that there were other concerns brought forward around creating loopholes. If we exempted holders of just a few units from the policy, could people create multiple llcs to hold many units under different names through a significant amount of work with the carriers office and with the city attorneys? My team is bringing forward language that tries to address the initial concern that we maintain those small landlords in the market without subjecting them to the affirmative defense. These are landlords who don't typically use this type of software, where anyway, so we shouldn't be creating a hole in the policy while also ensuring that we don't create a loophole that allows large landlords to take advantage of this exception. The language in the amendment varies simply exempts property owners who have an ownership interest in a dwelling unit of five or fewer units from the policy, and in doing so makes them conforming changes, including removing the civil action section for individuals who own five or fewer units and changing some of the language in that section, again, to conform with the general idea, which is that landlords who own five or fewer units are not using this type of technology are often not able to launch that affirmative defense, and therefore can safely be exempted from the policy. Councilor Dunphy, did I give you enough time on your piece?
101 Absolutely. Thank you. Yeah. And adding on to that, this is this is my my part of this amendment is trying to be directly responsive to some of our affordable housing providers. The. My understanding from the carrier was that this was never intended to be towards affordable housing providers regardless. But this is just to be a little bit more explicit to call out that this does not apply to dwelling units that are regulated, subsidized, or certified as affordable by the state, federal or local governments. Just trying to make sure that our our affordable housing unit, housing providers who are struggling in a lot of regards right now, are also just very clear that we are not talking about them. So. And apologies for not being ready.
102 I didn't give you a warning that I was going to turn to you first. That's all right. So colleagues, when we get to debate, I will move this amendment. We wanted to put it on the table now ahead of people testifying. Councilor Morillo, you're in the queue.
103 Yeah. Thank you, council president, I know that you and councilor Dunphy worked extensively with my staff, and I really appreciated that. And, you know, working with the city attorneys to clarify that language. And councilor Dunphy is absolutely right. This ordinance was not intended at all to impact, you know, affordable housing units. And I don't think the language originally did. But I'm happy to have more clarifying amendments so that we can ensure that the legislative intent is very crystal clear for folks that were concerned about that, I will say no, I will happily take this amendment. No other jurisdiction that has passed this policy has felt the need to add this. I think that it was pretty clear that small landlords are simply not using algorithmic price fixing. You're not going to use that if you have two, two units or anything like that. And I don't think that if you are a grandmother who has two units that you should be allowed to price fix anyways, but if it gives people peace of mind that they are not the ones who are going to be targeted by this policy, and that we are going after large corporations who are price fixing, then I'm fine with adding that in, but this is small. Landlords were really not contributing to the chief ill undermining market freedom. So if if this exemption is necessary and makes the community feel better, then that is completely fine to me. So that's where I land on that. Thank you.
104 Thank you, councilor Councilor canal.
105 Thank you, madam president. I just had a clarifying question and maybe this is better for later, so let me know if so, why five as the the threshold? Because when we talk about we have this conversation quite a bit, whether we're talking about who's rich in the context of is 125,000 going to be where a tax takes hold or some other line? Why? Five? Because I the argument that is always given is if you live in a duplex, that's a phrase we've all heard, and I am sympathetic to that. But five this is not I don't know that there is a practical difference between owning five and ten in the same way that maybe. So I'm just curious.
106 I it is my understanding that there are other areas of real estate law and development where five is a cutoff. And in order to simplify enforcement by conforming with other pieces of law that exist, we chose to use that number. I had originally proposed something like 3 or 4, and was told it would be a lot simpler if we did five.
107 Okay. And then my other question is if someone could could give more information on the affirmative defense argument, because that's not in the report anywhere. So I just wanted to affirmative defense. That was cited as a rationale for it.
108 There is language in the underlying ordinance which says that if you I hate to paraphrase and I don't have it directly in front of me, I apologize, councilor, but language essentially saying that if you can prove that you don't use this type of software, that you're not liable or that you didn't know you were using this type of software, that you're not liable. And part of the discussion that I heard when this originally came up in the spring, was that going to court, hiring a lawyer to provide that defense for you for some of these small. Right. The the grandma with the duplex, if you will, is always the example that's brought up, though I try not to fall back just on that, because I know that's meant to tug at heartstrings, but that for some of these individuals, that was a significant cost barrier, and that if we didn't expect those individuals to be using these practices anyway, and the policy wasn't meant to to apply to them generally anyway, since they wouldn't be using it. Obviously, if we find out there are, that would be different, that we should exempt rather than require them to go through that legal process if an allegation was made.
109 And if folks have any further questions. Susie, my policy advisor, is also up there.
110 Good to see you. Susie councilor Smith.
111 Thank you, madam president. Just for the record, I am a grandma with a duplex and I appreciate your your amendment to this. And I have a quick question for councilor. Morillo is senator wyden supporting your. Your. Resolution.
112 The ordinance ordinance. So we work directly with his office. They don't officially endorse local policies because they don't do that as a practice. But we have worked directly with them on this, and they are supportive. Yes.
113 Okay. Thank you.
114 Colleagues, are there any other questions before we move to public testimony? Okay. I'm sure we will have a robust discussion after public testimony. Thank you claire. Thank you susie, we may need you again. Keelan, could you please call up our first panel of testifiers?
115 First up, we have cassidy bolger, tyler king, benjamin ficker, chris olson, brian orndorf.
116 Welcome. And please go right ahead. Yeah. Go ahead. You're the first one. Ready?
117 All right.
118 Good morning council I'm tyler king I'm a Portland area realtor and a small mom and pop housing provider. Let me start here I absolutely oppose I'm opposed to price fixing. It's already illegal under state and federal law. And if the city wants to make it illegal, albeit a little performative, I'm all for it. But portland's real problem isn't secret landlord cartels. It's that we don't have enough homes. If we want to stabilize rents, we need to. We need more housing of all kinds. That means faster permits, fewer fees, and fewer rules that make building harder than it needs to be. It also means creating a regulatory environment that welcomes investment in our city. While the proposed amendments from councilor, Dunphy and pirtle-guiney are an improvement, the ordinance still heads in the wrong direction. The penalties could crush small housing providers providers who are simply trying to follow the law. Here are a few straightforward fixes. First, under state law, rent increases are already capped in Portland adds its own tenant protection. If a landlord raises rent within the legal limit, it should be clearly protected from this ordinance. Second, define violations more clearly. It should mean executing a lease or setting rent not every month that the rent is paid. Third, protect good faith landlords who rely on representations from the software companies finally clarified the public data remains public even if the listing comes down afterwards. Let's let's absolutely ban price fixing. And in the real world, we already have. But let's also make sure that the city isn't punishing lawful behavior or discouraging the new housing Portland desperately needs. Since 2018, we've added regulation after regulation on housing providers with little to no measurable improvement for tenants. Before we layer on even more rules, let's take an honest look at what's working and more importantly, what isn't. Every time we add an unnecessary risk, we slow down the very housing production and investment we all say we want. Thank you.
119 Thank you very much for being here. Great. Ahead.
120 My name is cassie bolger. I'm a resident of district two. I work as the director of development at killian pacific, a 50 year old local real estate company. I also serve as the board vice president of Oregon smart growth. We're a local nonprofit organization that advocates for public policy that supports multifamily development. First off, I second everything that was said by my predecessor here. But I would also like to draw your attention to this ordinance's impact statement all the way at the very bottom. The very last statement from prosper Portland is proposed. Regulation introduces an additional policy restriction and could cause additional risk for the Portland housing market, amplifying already existing reputational concerns while negatively impacting portland's delivery of unit production. Real estate investors, fearing increased risk and potential legal liability, may continue to be discouraged from investing in the city. And I don't know if you've all heard, but the listings for this year came out again yesterday, and once again, we're ranked 80 out of 81 cities in terms of attractiveness for real estate investment, which was not good news. So looking at this ordinance through my lens as a local developer, a finding a violation can be based on, quote, inferred conduct and can be paired with a $1,000 per unit per month fine. We own a 347 unit apartment building in the central east side. In the central east side. Such a ruling, based on this low standard of proof and a vague description of prohibited conduct, could result in a $4 million fine for one year of our operations. This is a shockingly high penalty, which would be absolutely unaffordable to us, and a major deterrent to the development of more housing in our city. This ordinance is not the right way to protect portlanders rights and support landlords abilities to provide and manage the housing that we urgently need. Our path toward long term affordability and availability of housing is more production. We cannot continually squeeze available supply with more regulations that make it riskier and more expensive to manage housing. This is a disincentive to produce producers to provide more supply. I urge you to reject it. Thank you.
121 Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
122 Brian orndorf, district four I have been involved in commercial development here in Portland, including 2000 apartments since 2008. Let me be clear, Portland landlords are not price fixing. Developers and property owners have long used both public and private data through software and market analysis to understand demand and competitive rents. This proposal is a solution in search of a problem at a time when apartment construction is at its lowest level in over a decade, city council's focus on removing barriers to building should be the focus, not distort market realities. The data tells the stories. Apartment deliveries are projected to remain at historic lows through 2026. This point of deepening housing shortage not a problem with technology blaming software for rent increases is a misdiagnosis and a harmful one. The true driver of high rents in Portland is chronic undersupply of housing. Like many cities, we failed to build enough homes to meet demand. The path to affordability lies in modernizing zoning laws, streamlining permitting, and promoting infill and higher density development, not banning innovation. This proposal amounts to political theater. It distracts from the real issues, sending a damaging signal that Portland is hostile to investment and innovation. Capital is mobile. It flows to cities that welcome, not punish, housing production. When developers face unpredictable and punitive regulations, the outcome is inevitable. Fewer homes and higher rents. If this council truly wants to make housing affordable, the solution is crystal clear encourage investment, reduce barriers and focus on production, not kabuki theater politics. Thank you.
123 Benjamin.
124 Thank you very much for having me. I am out in new york at the moment, and I thank you again for the opportunity to speak. I am a multifamily broker with kw commercial, specializing in multifamily since back in 2015, most of my business for the first four years was local investors building that relationship with their tenants and increasing their, you know, their portfolio and helping local tenants and local investors in a mutually beneficial relationship. Since 2019, the majority of my business has been investors leaving town. The small local mom and pop owners selling to the much larger portfolio owners, which has driven up costs since we have implemented our rent control policies, which not any one of these policies is bad on its own, but together is making it very undesirable to invest in Portland. I want to point out the July report that came out yesterday. They had said it was not great that we were 80 out of 81, but that is an improvement from previous years when we were 81 out of 81. So we are trending in the right direction. But policies like this will turn that around and we will continue to be at the bottom of the list of people investing in our fantastic city. So as it's been stated by everybody else, the the solution to unaffordable housing is more supply. The the 15 major cities with the largest oversupply of housing have seen the largest rent drops over the last 12 months, and we need to get on that list if we want affordability, we need more housing. This policy will dissuade more housing. Thank you.
125 Thank you very much.
126 Hey good morning councilors. My name is chris olson and I'm a resident of district two and a member of the Portland chapter of the democratic socialists of America housing working group. Over the past two years, the dsa has heard from thousands of renters from across Portland through door to door canvasing and tabling at community events. And the message that we've heard every single time is clear that the rent is just too high. Portland has become an unaffordable city for working class people who make the city run like teachers, service workers, artists, caregivers and young families. The use of profit maximizing algorithms only deepens this crisis. These programs are not neutral tools. They are designed to coordinate rent hikes across the market, pushing prices upward and squeezing tenants out. Renters deserve fair and transparent pricing based on real market conditions, and not automated systems that are optimized to extract every last dollar of possible disposable income and affordable housing market depends on real competition and public accountability, not secretive corporate software. And right now, our economy heavily favors large landlords and property investment firms who treat housing as a commodity to be hoarded rather than a human necessity. As rents rise, working people are forced to spend half or more of their income just to keep a roof over their heads. Every dollar that goes to rent is a dollar not spent on our local economy, on groceries, from neighborhood markets, meals at small restaurants, health, childcare, healthcare and other essential services. When rent just consumes the majority of household income, it starves the economy and other parts of the city they are. These become a barrier to economic growth. They suppress consumer spending and reduce entrepreneurship, and make it harder for local businesses to survive. In short, housing costs are one of the single most significant drag on portland's broader economy. This ordinance is just a modest and meaningful step towards fairness and transparency and stability in our housing market. Please join 11 other municipalities from across this country who have passed similar ordinances to create an economy that works for everyone. Thank you.
127 Thank you very much.
128 Next up we have michael adera, benjamin gilbert, joseph gardner, zachary lindahl, nicholas goolsby.
129 And we do have some people coming from upstairs. So when you get to the dais, please go ahead and jump right in, regardless of the order of names called.
130 Hello, my name is joe gardner, and I'm testifying as a lifelong renter and on behalf of my client, realpage counselors, after six months of failing to work with portland's housing providers, councilor Morillo is once again asking you to vote on an ordinance that is based on a mix of conspiracy theories and false allegations, none of which have held up in a courtroom. Once again, the most likely effect of the ordinance would be to drive rents in Portland higher by inviting a flood of nuisance lawsuits and by dissuading investment into building more housing in Portland. And yet again, the language of this proposal violates constitutional speech protections, likely forcing the city to waste its extremely limited funds on fruitless litigation costs. To see how counterproductive this proposal is, let's talk about how rent rates are going in the cities that first adopted similar bans, according to the most recent data from zillow. And I know councilor, Morillo, zillow. Rent. Rent in san francisco has skyrocketed by 9% since it became the first city to pass an algorithm ban one year ago. That 9% growth rate is around five times higher than the city's rent growth rate the year before, and far above the national average of about 1% growth rate in 2025. Zillow also reports that in the nine months since minneapolis passed its ban, rent has increased there by a catastrophic 12.7% in less than a year, more than four times the rate during the same period in 2024. In fact, of the three cities that have more than six months of data available, only philadelphia has avoided disaster, and its great achievement has been to keep the same 0% rent growth that they had in 2024, and that Portland currently has, without any ban. These mediocre to terrible results should come as no surprise when cities spend their time chasing conspiracy theories and encouraging nuisance lawsuits, they'll get worse results than cities focused on just building more housing. As for the fourth early adopter, berkeley's ban was immediately postponed because of a court challenge based on many of the same constitutional violations present in this ordinance. After months of expensive litigation and unpredictability in the rental market, the berkeley city council recently announced that they plan to narrow and rework their ordinance so that it can get better, withstand a court challenge while strengthening the proposal, as berkeley plans to do, is one approach you could take, I urge you to consider whether this is an appropriate time for this policy at all. When our crisis of houselessness is so acute and our economy is so fragile, is this really the time to be adding one more disincentive for people to build and rent houses in Portland? I believe the answer is no.
131 Thank you very much, michael.
132 Hi mike aurora, thank you. I am a member of the dsa housing working group, and one of the things we've been doing all year is going door to door, talking to renters, knocking on doors. We've knocked on over 3000 doors. The first time I ever heard about algorithmic price fixing was from a tenant for 122nd avenue, and she was a on fixed income. She she she ended the month with $60 on a regular routine basis. Senior. And she she was asking her her property manager how come her rent went up. And what she got was that, oh, it's out of their hands. We have to use this this this price, this algorithm. The algorithm decided what your rent was. I had never heard of this. We've heard it a couple more times. These are folks who are. Every month wondering whether they're going to be houseless. We have run into so many people in this, in this town, anywhere from from the west hills all the way to east Portland, who are like one rent increase away from eviction. So any, any relief, any ability that these tenants can have to negotiate their own rent would be very welcome. Thanks.
133 Zachary.
134 Good morning.
135 Council president pirtle-guiney and members of the Portland city council. For the record, my name is zach lindell, and I'm the director of government affairs for multifamily northwest, representing oregon's largest association of housing providers, which we have about 300,000 rental units, thousands of which are in the city of Portland. We care about issues such as operations of our members, but we're also one of the leading champions for rental assistance in the state of Oregon. We do appreciate that the current version of this ordinance includes a carve out for small providers, and retains earlier improvements, such as clear definitions and protections for those who unknowingly use software containing private data. These are meaningful changes, meaningful steps, and they and we want to acknowledge that progress. Additionally, I do want to thank councilor Avalos and her staff for meeting with some housing providers to better understand the challenges that they're facing. With that said, this ordinance does have a few challenges that we still do want to acknowledge. It does create some confusion and risk for property management companies that do oversee multiple properties for different owners under this language, simply using legitimate portfolio level data to make independent price pricing decisions could be misinterpreted as a coordinated activity, even when it's not. The systems we use are our common common sense business tools, not mechanisms for collusion. They help housing providers analyze public and market data, things like vacancy rates, neighborhood trends, and seasonal turnover to make informed, independent decisions and keep rents aligned with real world conditions. In recent years, Portland has seen rent stagnation, not spikes. Access to reliable, reliable data helps maintain predictability for both renters and providers. We urge the council to work collaboratively, collaboratively with housing providers and experts to craft balanced, data driven policy that supports housing stability and encourages new investment in the city. Thank you for your consideration.
136 Thank you.
137 Nicholas.
138 Hello, my name is nicholas goolsby. I live and work in district four. I'm testifying today in support of this ordinance. I've lived in Portland since 2017. I've lived in what is now district four for nearly six years. I've only ever been able to afford living as a renter. In my time living in Portland, I've rented from private mom and pop landlords and corporate landlords. Without fail, my rent is increased with every lease renewal. The one exception to this was during the moratorium in the height of the COVID 19 pandemic. At every apartment we've had, my wife and I have dreaded lease renewals. We've tried negotiating with management to keep the rent the same another year or lower it, given the state of the property due to a large number of vacancies in the building or maintenance issues. But we have been continually rejected outright by management while they cite, quote, revenue management applications like those described in this legislation, my wife and I dream of one day being able to afford a home in this wonderful city we share. But with these applications, that seems to be increasingly an impossibility. Please approve this ordinance to support a fair and affordable housing market for all partners. Thank you.
139 Benjamin gilbert. Next. Next up we have wade lang, michael abrams, mary emmerson, edith gillis, jeffrey liddicoat.
140 I'm edith gillis. The problem is that we allow landlords and banks to charge too much for rent for mortgage interests, and we allow employers to pay too little for salaries, wages and benefits in unsafe conditions. When corporations are allowed to charge too much for necessities. And government provides two unequal and inadequate services to those who most need to do it, to do the most good. The solution is to hold businesses accountable and require housing, employment, pay and services. Be accessible, livable, affordable. Fair. We have about 41 people less housing units for each houseless person. Vote. Yes. I've lived in Portland since 1982 when I returned from world travel with several degrees, professions, businesses, and a six digit income. I bought homes in jones landing and outer northwest Portland. I rented six bedroom home with the intent to buy it an adjacent house and park rose. I owned several small businesses and volunteered extensively, saving our land, our tax dollars, and the lives of portlanders. Yet my husband stole my investments, savings, earning capacity, housing, and I became disabled. Impoverished. I've been homeless twice. Last summer, home took our federal, state, county, and city tax dollars intended to help low income people have housing security and to house people without housing to instead evict us all in order to build what is unsafe for the majority of us and charge higher above market rents. Home forward broke its promises and violated contracts and laws, poisoned and further disabled us, and made some homeless and dead. Some clients, patients, friends and neighbors who are local landlords say the same thing they want to rent to me, but I'm too poor. While banks screw them. And consistent with nationwide research, the majority of apartments are owned by out of state private equity firms managed by property management companies who screw tenants, local taxpayers, local landlords, democracy and the environment made worse by the setting. Since December 2023, I've spent hours every day looking for safe, healthy, affordable housing in Portland, with each level of government defunds housing justice to overfund home to all place to harm for all places are overpriced and priced similarly with very different conditions and locations and amenities are problems. Even with prices falling the norms the algorithms stop third party companies like realpage, yardi and yieldstar colluding to fix rental prices with anti-competitive practices, parasitic property management companies and the fraud, the so-called resident benefits packages that screw tenants, landlords, neighborhoods, people with disabilities. They build the wrong kind of housing, leave housing.
141 Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here today with us.
142 Wayne.
143 Hi, I'm wade lang and I serve as the local advocacy director for the building owners and managers association of Oregon. Once again, boma must oppose adding prohibition and anti-competitive rental practices, including the sale and use of logarithmic devices, to portland's affordable housing code. Logarithmic software is used to determine what is happening in the market, and is not used to illegally set artificially high rental rates. I am sure the city of Portland and Multnomah county would be actively investigating anyone involved in illegal price fixing. Numerous industries use similar software not to increase their prices, but to remain competitive. This action would become yet another barrier to increased housing supply within Portland. This will not result in lower rents. It will require landlords to increase staff to determine market conditions and pass extra costs on to their tenants, or worse, guess as to what market rental rates are and lead to inconsistency and arbitrary rates. A blanket ban on the software is an overreaction. We are disappointed. City council sees this as a solution to portland's housing emergency. Thank you.
144 Thank you very much.
145 Michael.
146 Council president pirtle-guiney council vice president Koyama Lane city councilors, thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony on behalf of the American.
147 Civil liberties union of Oregon. My name is michael abrams, and I serve as policy counsel for the aclu of Oregon is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization dedicated to defending and advancing democracy, civil liberties, and civil rights. With more than 50,000 members and donors supporters statewide. We strongly support the proposed ordinance, which would prohibit large corporate landlords from coordinating to fix rent prices. It is carefully crafted to outlaw anti-competitive trade practices, practices akin to the behavior prohibited a century ago in the sherman antitrust act. This ordinance reflects the simple reality that technology has changed, and so have the ways in which bad actors can illegally coordinate pricing to disadvantaged tenants. This ordinance provides a clear, modern definition for rent fixing. This will change the decision making calculus of every landlord it applies to. No longer can a landlord rely on ambiguities in existing antitrust laws to engage in price fixing. This ordinance will help even the playing field between landlords and tenants, which is currently heavily weighted in favor of landlords, and restore market competition to the rental market, contributing to lower rents and greater housing stability for portlanders. As a former eviction defense attorney, I can attest that this ordinance will have a significant impact on tenants. I serve clients just across the river in Vancouver, Washington, and I represented hundreds of low income tenants, often single parents, folks living with disabilities, immigrants, and people of color facing eviction because they could no longer afford the rent while also meeting their other basic needs. The vast majority were employed or received regular benefits, but the rent is too high. I recognize company names and the ongoing lawsuits related to these practices, from the names of property managers that oversaw many of my clients homes and set their rents. It makes me wonder how many of them were priced out, in part because these anti-competitive trade practices were being allowed. Today, you have the opportunity to deliver a significant measure of equity and justice for the thousands of renters that call Portland home and help them afford to live here in the future. We respectfully request this council vote yes. Thank you.
148 Mary.
149 Hi.
150 I'm mary emerson, I live in district three and I support this proposal. Software platforms like the private equity backed realpage system violate the spirit of the laws protecting consumers from price fixing and market manipulation. This is accelerating or can accelerate portland's affordability and livability crisis. The very crises we'll be talking about more later today. Price fixing by any other name smells just as bad. I implore you to amend the affordable housing code to include prohibition of anti-competitive rental practices, including the sale and use of algorithmic devices. We heard earlier today from some of our big landlords, our companies associated with that, that they are not doing this today. Great. This should not impact them. This will just prevent that happening in the future. So please think about the future. Think about the livability of our city. Think about not turning out more renters onto the street. Do it now. Approve the measure. Thank you.
151 Jeffrey liddicoat. Benjamin gilbert. Benjamin you're muted. Yep. Go ahead.
152 Thank you.
153 We can hear you.
154 My name is ben gilbert. And I'm a tenant in district four and a lobbyist for the Portland democratic socialists of America. I want to thank councilor Morillo for bringing this ordinance to the council. This is being considered as more than 50% of tenants in our city are rent burdened, and 25% are severely cost burdened. Algorithmic price fixing contributes to a lack of competition in the housing market, allowing landlords to coordinate prices and inflate rents without direct negotiation with tenants. This increases landlord profits and decreases tenants financial power. Realpage has filed lawsuits against other cities in an attempt to intimidate them. Justice Portland must stand up to trump. We must also stand up to corporate intimidation. To the realpage lobbyist, I understand you are a tenant, but the rest of the tenants in Portland don't have the privilege of realpage paying our rent. Thank you. I yield my time.
155 Thank you.
156 Okay, next up we have jordan lewis, spencer trum. Olamina banchero. Destiny. Magana. Pablo. Go ahead.
157 Hi. For the record, my name is destiny magana. Pablo. I am a proud and stubborn homeowner in district one. I am a born portlander. I'm here to commend councilor Morillo who is not my councilor. But for this effort and for council president jenise and councilor Dunphy's amendments. I would like to start by saying that this is a discussion addressing class warfare. I think it's very interesting that the suits that came in earlier said that they absolutely disagree with price fixing, that that's not what they're doing yet. I would not see them most likely sleeping on a floor because their rent was too high. I would like to say that when I first bought my home, I was grieving my great grandfather's death, and so I had the time to mortgage shop. And I will say that this is not most people in the business. Do not look at it as a basic human right. When I was, you know, giving my financials, they said I had a gold folder. This is great. Once I buy my first property, I can keep buying properties so I can have steady income. I rejected that and I reject that. Today I would like to say that the first person who was not wearing a suit earlier had a blue puffer jacket, and he said that he first heard about it from someone who, at the end of the month had $60 to their name. This is ridiculous. I think that if we're going to fire people, focus on sustainable housing, we need to then uphold that. We want people to be housed. We don't want them to end up in overnight beds. We want them to be able to go home, shower and get ready for the workforce and to have their children sleep in their own private beds. Also, to talk about the loophole, I have had rent landlords that were small mom and pops. You know, they never had a formal lease. I paid month to month and I got to stay housed. I really don't think we need a loophole. People who do this, who have these properties, who really aren't in it for the profit. You don't have staff when there's an issue. They come to their house and they fix it themselves for their tenants. So again, the people with the suits are not real household. They don't care about the human. And I greatly appreciate you for your time.
158 Thank you.
159 Good morning. Council president pirtle-guiney and members of the Portland city council. My name is spencer trum and I'm here today on behalf of state representative zach hudson. Representative hudson represents oregon's 49th house district, which includes parts of east Portland and Gresham, as well as wood village, troutdale, and fairview. I testified this spring in support of the ordinance prohibiting algorithmic rental price fixing, and I'm back here today to reiterate representative hudson's support for this ordinance. Nearly half the households in representative hudson's districts are rentals. Between 2019 and 2023, over 60% of east county renters were forced to spend over 30% of their income on rent. That's too much. Propublica's reporting shows how software companies help landlords and property managers use nonpublic data to coordinate rent increases. This inflates rents, displaces communities and makes life much harder for working families. Price fixing has always been wrong. It's bad for consumers and bad for the economy. When it can be done at scale with digital precision, it becomes all the more painful for renters. In east Portland, our senior u.s. Senator, ron wyden, used a good word to describe the arrangement by which companies use algorithms to raise prices and control housing as a commodity. That word is cartel. Jurisdictions across America recognize the threat that price fixing algorithms pose to renters and are responding accordingly. Since this spring, new york state, king county, Washington, minneapolis and san diego have passed similar bans. It's portland's turn now. We must do our part to protect Oregonians and bring down the cost of living by stopping the artificial upward pressure that price fixing puts on rents. This ordinance has attracted a great deal of attention and support when it was first introduced this spring, and the need to pass it has only grown since then. I urge you to listen to rent burdened portlanders and prioritize their need for shelter and dignity over landlords profits, the degree to which Oregonians are burdened by rents is unfair, unsustainable and unacceptable, and these anticompetitive practices must stop. Please pass this ordinance without delay. Thank you for your time and consideration.
160 Thank you very much.
161 Ivanka is joining us online. Filomena. You're muted.
162 Hi. Can you hear me?
163 You can hear you okay.
164 As a longtime Portland resident, former family advocate in Multnomah county for families experiencing homelessness, and as the head of my own family that's currently experiencing homelessness, I support the ban against algorithmic algorithmic ai rental price fixing software and urge you to vote in its favor. It is long past time to loosen the chokehold on the city of Portland that a handful of realty companies have put on the housing market with the unjust monopoly they've created and imposed on us all, taking away their ability to collude together behind closed doors helps even the scales just a little bit for the average citizen, and will go a long way towards making rent more affordable. Please do the right thing and take this very small step towards restoring the dignity of our community. Who should not have to beg, barter, borrow, steal or rely on the government's good graces to be housed? Thank you.
165 Thank you very much.
166 Jordan lewis. That completes testimony.
167 Thank you to everybody who testified today. Thank you, keelan colleagues. That moves us into discussion, councilor Avalos.
168 Thank you. All right. So just had a couple of thoughts. So yes, all of our offices as we know received lots of emails on this topic. And we my office hosted a listening session with all the folks who emailed us just to give them an opportunity to say what they needed to say, explain what their concerns were. Much of what we heard was confusion about what is and isn't allowed under the ordinance. As we continue hearing testimony. For example, we had one constituent asked whether using their own data, excel or public sites like zillow would still be permitted. So we keep talking about the same question, but I'm bringing it back up so that just because it has been a minute since we've talked about all of this, to make sure that we are all on the same page, because from my understanding, landlords can still use their own data and market comparisons. But what's prohibited is software that colludes across the competitors to fix prices. So for the public that is listening, can we clarify for the final time how the ordinance distinguishes between legitimate data analysis and algorithmic price fixing?
169 Yeah.
170 Councilor would you like to respond to that?
171 Yeah. Thank you. And I'll invite suzy doister, my policy advisor, again, to come and help answer some of these questions. I cannot emphasize enough how much this policy does not ban excel. It bans price fixing coordination. So there should not be any issues for anyone. I also will say again, this policy actually supports the free market because we are actually encouraging competition between landlords and the services that they're providing. So I think most people should be pretty open to that. But suzy, do you want to go into depth on that?
172 Yeah. Happy to elaborate. Suzy councilor, Morillo policy advisor. So this is something that we discussed pretty extensively during the committee hearing on this topic, but happy to reiterate here and also refer everyone as I did via email to the committee presentation on this point. But the chief modification that we made to the ordinance coming into this full council reading was this change from tool based regulation to behavior based regulation. So we're being very clear that previously we were regulating the price fixing tool itself and the relationships to the tools. We are now talking strictly about prohibiting a particular type of behavior. And that behavior, as I said during committee, is competitors acting as collaborators. So we are regulating the behavior of price fixing. So this is not specific to a particular tool, although we do recognize very explicitly that there are particular uses of tools that rise to that level of competitors acting as collaborators. But this is a behavior based regulation. We are regulating anti-competitive collusion. So something like excel is not really going to be implicated. That was the case in the previous ordinance draft. And you know, of course there's this strategy of repetition trying to displace reality, right. If we say this over and over again, perhaps it will eventually become true. But I think that, as councilor Morillo has indicated, there was no intent on the part of our office to regulate excel in the previous draft or this draft. National experts, attorneys have indicated that there is no text that is regulating excel or particular tool in that similar manner. The distinct lack of microsoft lobbyists climbing the walls of city hall should indicate to a reasonable mind that we are not, in fact, regulating microsoft excel. But yeah, just want to be clear about that, that this is really about a behavior based regulation, not a particular type of tool. If you, as a landlord are using your own data or even your own tool, that is perfectly fine because you cannot compete with yourself, you cannot collude with yourself. You're working on your own. That's perfectly fine. It's a behavior based regulation. That behavior is impermissible. Collusion in a marketplace.
173 Thank you. Yeah I, I appreciate that answer. And like I said, we chatted with folks just to better understand their confusion ultimately. I mean, I think I, I can appreciate how it feels confusing to folks. And I guess my last thought is, are there what are the ways that people will be able to access resources to understand this better? Like, do we have a plan for if they're like, I, does this apply to me? Because we got a lot of really specific scenarios that, you know, I couldn't in the moment answer that question. So I just want to make sure, especially for the folks in my district that came to me and said, you know, they they have like councilor Smith, right, is a duplex owner and has these really niche questions that we want to make sure that they are understanding how to apply this. So what's our intent in ensuring that there's a a way for people to get those questions answered ahead of this?
174 Yeah, that is a great question. And I believe the city attorney is here. And I would invite matt gander to come up to speak a little bit to the enforcement piece. But as he walks up, I'll just assume that he is. Yes, there he is. Yeah. As he is walking up, I'll just say that I think that there's always that line, there's a spectrum in regulation in terms of specificity. So you have something like the fourth amendment, which is a sentence. It's a single sentence, and it is very broad in what it speaks to securing against unreasonable searches and seizures. What exactly is a search? What's a seizure? What's unreasonable? What does that mean? So you have one sentence. It's very broad and you have courts untangling that meaning for centuries. Right. And then on the other side of the spectrum, you have incredible specificity. Look at federal environmental regulations for examples with definitions on definitions and cross-references to those definitions and incredible explanations. But you still have confusion, because how do I apply that to the specific facts of my circumstance? So, you know, it's it really depends where you want to kick the interpretive can, right? When does interpretation take place? Is it in the legislative session at the legislative level where we clearly define terms in text, or is it more fourth amendment style? Pretty vague. And we let this unfold and enforcement potentially over centuries. So we tried to find a middle ground with this ordinance. And recognizing, though, that this is a complex area of law and that there still needs to be that continued outreach. And so that's something that our office is going to commit to doing. So we're going to establish legislative intent. During the number of presentations that we've had on this topic, we're going to continue to provide outreach to the community about these topics. But I'll let the city attorney speak to this as well. This enforcement will also have that outreach piece.
175 I'd also like to make sure that city administrator jordan has an opportunity to respond to this, because ultimately, the implementation and enforcement will fall to the administrative side and any faqs that are put out or information released would be mr. Jordan from the bureaus underneath your direction. So I'll defer to you as to whether you'd like our attorney to speak first, or whether you'd like to take a stab at this.
176 Well.
177 Thank you, madam president. I certainly will defer to the attorney on all the legal issues, but as a as a. Structural concept, I think the administration has taken the position generally that we would prefer framework legislation that clearly states the policy makers intent as to what they're trying to accomplish and allow the administration to adopt administrative rules that are consistent with that outcome and that intent, but leave us the flexibility to respond to changing circumstances over time. If, in fact, the administration finds, with legal help, that the implementation of a particular ordinance is, let's say, challenging, then it would be incumbent on us to return to council to discuss that challenge and try to figure out how policymakers can make adjustments to the either the intent or the way the structure of the ordinance is so that we can implement the intent.
178 So anything to add?
179 Matthew gander for the record, the only.
180 Thing I would add is that, you know, to a certain extent, the city attorney's office can provide clarity about what we would consider a violation and bringing affirmative litigation. You know what our posture would be in enforcing this ordinance. But inasmuch as you are creating a private right of action to enforce this text, the ultimate question about whether or not this ordinance has been violated is something that can be only determined conclusively by a court. So to a certain extent, like any law in passing this, you are handing it off to a court to determine the particulars.
181 Okay. Thank you all for your answers. I think my final comment on this, and where the amendment that you all put forward is still needs to be moved, and we haven't done that part.
182 I'm in the queue to move it.
183 Okay. So I'll be interested in that conversation as well as it relates to this. But I think ultimately, you know, the intent of this legislation to make sure that we have. A way for rents to stay stable at a time where we need that most, I think is clear and important in the way that this is written. I am glad to hear that there's intent to make sure that people can be brought along because, like anything, we just want to minimize the unintended consequences, especially for district one constituents who I speak for. So I'm happy to hear that and also happy to be part of that process to make sure that we're implementing this in a way that's fair across the board. So those are my final thoughts. But I'm supportive and I'm curious where this amendment goes to. Thanks.
184 Thank you councilor. Thank you all for the answers. Colleagues. Our clerk just informed me that there's somebody here who inadvertently signed up to testify for the wrong ordinance today and would like to be able to testify to this ordinance. I'd like to extend them the courtesy of allowing them to come up. Now, they've removed their name from the list to testify on the other agenda item.
185 Thank you.
186 Joseph schneider.
187 Hello, I'm joseph schneider. I've lived in Portland since 1998. I'm currently a drawbridge operator for Multnomah county. I live in a in an efficiency apartment in district four in northwest Portland that is almost identical to the first one that I rented in northwest Portland in the alphabet district when I first moved here. So not very upwardly mobile, obviously. So it initially cost $550 when I moved here. Now I'm paying 1200 for almost the identical studio apartment that is far above the rate of general inflation, which housing tracked from the post during the post war period up until a little bit after 2000. Housing did not go up any faster than the general rate of inflation, so I think. Among other things, speculative capital entering this market and has resulted in pressure on the rents. So I also lived briefly in saint john's in between times, and I went up to some errands, sent me up there a couple of years ago, and I went to anna bananas, where I knew the owner, bryant, from when he owned both locations and he wasn't there. So I texted him and said, hey bryant, I'm in your your your neighborhood. I'm in your new place. What where are you? And and he wasn't there. So he texted back and forth. He said he was closing the place because of a rent increase, that it no longer made any sense for him to keep the cafe open. And the. I later walked down. I was walking down lombard later that day, and there were boarded up storefronts all over the place, and which really confused me. I mean, at one point, it's not you're not supposed to be able to have gentrification and blight at the same time. So just.
188 Like we.
189 Weren't, I'm sorry.
190 So I believe I'm in support of this and many other policies that would take care of this blight problem we're having. Thank you very much.
191 Thank you for being here.
192 Thank you.
193 I think we all have a new term now.
194 Yes.
195 Councilor Avalos you're still in the queue. Is that okay? Colleagues? I am next in the queue. I would like to move the pirtle-guiney Dunphy proposed amendment, which councilor Dunphy and I. Overviewed before to the underlying ordinance. This amendment makes just a few changes as we overviewed addressing concerns that were brought up when this policy was initially aired around small landlords and affordable housing units.
196 Second.
197 Thank you councilor. I'm happy to answer any questions about this. I do think we gave a pretty good overview before, so I'm going to let us move into discussion without any further details about it. Councilor Kanal are you in the queue to speak to the amendment?
198 Yes, madam president.
199 Go right ahead.
200 I'd like to divide the question on the amendment and remove for separate votes the portion that relates to the removal of c1a1 and addition of e3, which is the small landlord exception from the rest of the amendment. So I'd like to vote separately on the portion that relates to the small landlord exemption, which is the removal of c1a1 and the addition of e3 and then everything else separately.
201 Keelan are we are we able to get this on the screen so that folks can see it? Who are in the room?
202 Yeah, let me let me work on that.
203 It's on. Okay.
204 Councilor Kanal so you want to have separate votes on c1 and then the d1 and e. Yes, you're putting d and e in the same category and you're putting c in another one.
205 Sorry. Is it.
206 There are a number of things happening here. There are also some technical changes that are made. I'm not sure which section you want that voted with. And some of those technical changes I think relate to this piece.
207 I can I.
208 Can be a little more specific here.
209 Yeah. So on page three this is a five page amendment. On page three, in the middle there's a strikeout of a paragraph which has the number one in parentheses. In parentheses.
210 So this is.
211 A2b1 big a two. Little b one.
212 No no that's page two okay.
213 Where are you.
214 On page three. So it's.
215 Okay c1c.
216 Penalties enforcement one. Civil actions a one. It's a strike through there for violations involving a person with a beneficial ownership. And fewer than five dwelling units. That section as well as on page five the second to last section. The section does not apply to the dwelling units of a beneficial owner of five or fewer dwelling units. Those two things are one concept together that I'd like to divide out. The exemption from. Everything else.
217 On the final page. Are you exempting out just e three?
218 Yes.
219 Okay.
220 So my request is to vote separately on the small landlord exemption from everything else.
221 Okay.
222 That is not a motion that needs a second. I believe. And, counselor Dunphy, I believe you and I get to determine the order of how we proceed. Would you like to proceed? First, with the technical changes and the pieces you moved forward, or would you prefer to proceed? Second with that.
223 I truly don't care. Let's do the technical pieces first.
224 Okay.
225 So we are proceeding with debate on everything here except c1, a1 and a3 councilor Green.
226 Well, I got into the queue for different reason, but now I don't know what you're doing. Can you please explain why you're doing this and so I can understand this?
227 Yeah, sure I think yeah.
228 Go right ahead.
229 The rest of the amendments. Great. And I think it deserves to get a 12 zero vote or 11 zero vote on it. I think our real conversation here is whether or not someone who owns five units should be treated the same way as someone who owns six units, or whether they should be treated completely as if they're a person who's living in their, you know, in a duplex that have one additional unit that they rent out. I have a I have a concern about where the line is drawn here.
230 So we're splitting the technical aspects of the amendment, which I'm supportive of all the technical language as well. And we're going to be voting on the technical stuff first.
231 Yes.
232 The technical pieces, as well as the piece addressing affordable housing units, councilor Greene.
233 Well, I guess I don't have any comment on the technical stuff, so if I could just come back into the queue after this splitting of the question.
234 You're always welcome back in the queue. Councilor we'll be on a different question then. So our limitations on number of times in the queue won't apply. Councilor Zimmerman.
235 Thanks.
236 On the amendment.
237 I noticed that you changed some language.
238 On the very.
239 Last sentence.
240 Applicability is the.
241 Larger section e, and number.
242 Four it talks.
243 About the.
244 It's just new language but. Same concept which is has.
245 To be filed within five years. I wanted to ask.
246 Just in terms.
247 Of the.
248 Concept here of five years, that seems like a.
249 Very long.
250 Time, given.
251 That the burden.
252 Of proof.
253 Is on.
254 The person.
255 Or the landlord.
256 Or the company.
257 To.
258 Prove that they didn't.
259 Engage in a practice.
260 And.
261 That.
262 To me is difficult to understand in terms of the record keeping for, you know, the lease or the advertisements maybe that were used. And so I'm wondering if our attorneys can comment for why the five years was placed in this ordinance and what what we're achieving by that. Because I guess my instinct was. That if a.
263 Tenant has a.
264 Concern, you would address it with the most. Recent lease executed, which is usually within a.
265 Year or two.
266 So this.
267 Seems.
268 Like a.
269 Much longer time.
270 And I'm and I'm, I've got concerns about how it would be applicable and also how it would be actually used in the, in the.
271 Determination and the investigations.
272 Thanks.
273 Go right ahead.
274 Sure. Typically, you know, the length of the period of limitations is certainly a policy question. It's my understanding under state law that sometimes three years is used, sometimes five years is used.
275 So when.
276 You say that used for what or in what part of.
277 The law are. We using three and five years.
278 So sometimes it it takes a while to discover that a violation has occurred. And so the way that this would operate in, in litigation say I had a tendency that started after the section was applicable. And I discovered that throughout the period of my tenancy, prohibited conduct had been used to set my rent prices. Typically you would be able, you know, typically you would allege that that was a. Consistent practice, right? That that's kind of all one series of violations. So the court would look back to the entire series of conduct to determine what damages were authorized. So it could be the case that many years in the future, you could be looking at, you know, a really long time. But whether or not you use one year, three years or five years is a is a policy question.
279 Okay. Thanks. And then I just want to clarify. So a violation occurs at.
280 The moment.
281 A lease is signed or a violation occurs every month when a rent payment is due.
282 As drafted, a violation would occur every time a landlord collects every month.
283 So that means one lease could have potentially 12. Violations in it. If we're thinking about.
284 A year long.
285 Lease, correct. Okay, that's the my questions. Thank you.
286 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green, are you back in the queue for this or is that a placeholder for later?
287 I just had broader comments on your underlying amendment, which this feels a little too in the weeds for.
288 Okay. Councilor Ryan.
289 Yeah, I had my hand up for some for the big picture, but since we're in this micro debate about the amendment, I have some questions. And councilor Kanal, you'll probably be involved in this. Isn't there a ruling that four is considered residential and five is commercial? And I'm looking at legal as well, like miss murphy's exemption.
290 Councilor.
291 Can I ask you to pull this into the debate after we vote on the first section? That doesn't refer to the five or fewer?
292 Yeah, I didn't realize that. I'm getting confused up here on what we're actually talking about. I thought councilor Kanal was offering you a friendly amendment.
293 No.
294 Councilor Kanal divided the amendment. And so right now we're debating.
295 The we're on.
296 The first.
297 Is it 4 or 5? One. Okay. Hold that for the 4 or 5 one. Look into this rule. I think that is a thing out there when it comes to loans and such. So I think we should always be aligned with what the reality is in the marketplace. But anyway, back to this one. This is the first amendment that you brought.
298 Now this is a portion of the first amendment. This is the portion of this amendment brought by councilor Dunphy and myself that includes the technical changes that the attorneys and the carrier's office asked for, and the application, or lack thereof, to affordable housing. It does not include the exemption of small landlords.
299 Okay.
300 I.
301 Know it's hard when we do a division.
302 Well, it's hard when we have all these walk, walk on last minute amendments in general, but I will I will go ahead and pause and then speak when we actually talk about the amendment that you brought, that was about providing some relief for the small landlord. The landlords let me know when we're there.
303 Okay.
304 Thank you. Councilor colleagues, is there any other discussion or debate to the portions of the now split amendment that apply to the technical changes or to the portion that relates to affordable housing providers? Okay, seeing none keelan, could you please call the roll for a vote on the first portion of this now divided amendment?
305 Clerk.
306 No.
307 Green.
308 All right.
309 Zimmerman.
310 Clarifying the first part is not what canal pulled out.
311 The first part.
312 I Dunphy I. Smith canal. I Ryan.
313 No.
314 Koyama Lane Morillo.
Procedural episode · turns 315–323
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315 I.
316 Novick absent pirtle-guiney. I the amendment is approved with seven yes votes, two no votes and three absent.
317 Okay.
318 Colleagues, we are now in debate on the second portion of the amendment, which is the portion that exempts landlords who own five or fewer units. Councilor Green, go right ahead. And I believe, councilor Ryan, this is where you want to be in the queue as well.
319 Yeah. I'm just I just want to say, you know what? It's not about this specific thing. It was, again, about the broader I guess I'll have to do it now because this is what remains of the amendment. We heard some testimony today that said that the this is a distraction because the number one impediment or the number one cause of high rents is a lack of supply, and that we need more supply. And I agree with that 100%. And anyone who's taken a basic economics 101 course will know that when you have restrictive trade practices, such as price collusion through any number of tools or any number of behaviors, you result in a market that supplies less relative to a perfectly competitive market. And so I'm supporting this amendment as well as this broader underlying ordinance. I think it's really urgent for our city right now. I think the threats that any, any amount of regulation that we might want to do to protect renters in this city will result in the private equity markets. Doing a capital strike is something we need to call the question on. I'm not going to tolerate that in this city. So I will be supporting this amendment. We have other ways that we can support housing production, and I will continue to do that here. And I'll just note that when economists have studied this question, algorithmic price fixing has cost tenants nationally an extra $3.8 billion in extra rent. And that is money that could have gone to shopping and storefronts. That is money that could go towards tenants actually being able to save for a rainy day and keep our our elders who are aging in place on fixed incomes from being evicted and then having to be swept out of a tent later on in the year. So I will be supporting this amendment. Thank you.
320 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ryan.
321 Thank you, madam president. I want to speak to the overall amendment, which I was supportive of until we started getting into unit count on what applies. I do think that the attorney needs to look into the property management real estate attorney looking into these details, because there is a federal law that defines residential as for and then commercial as five. So I think that we will just be dealing with this later on. So I think this last minute a friendly amendment is could cause some problems later on. And I just wanted to put that out there. I will support the pirtle-guiney amendment once this is clarified, since it provides some aspirin to the self-induced headache of this ordinance would do for our housing crisis. Lessons learned from the unintended consequences from the tenant rights legislation championed by a former commissioner. Since then, the. That was, I think, in 2018 that commissioner Daly passed that. And I think it all sounded great. But since then the market has been gutted, depleted and for sale. Signs went up around that time in 2018 and many of that supply is now gone. Keep in mind, the market was and still is the most reliable affordable housing in our city. As such, I will support the amendment to not pile on more unintended consequences to the people who are rent burdened in our city.
322 Thank you.
323 Councilor councilor Canal.
324 Thank you. Yeah, I, I first just want to state this is not an amendment. This is simply asking for these two to have separate conversations. And so we can talk about if we want to have an amendment, because it actually sounds like councilor Ryan might be supportive of one, because this actually says that it exempts five or fewer, not four or fewer. So the line is not what you just indicated. The commercial residential line is. It's one additional to that, right.
325 Which puts it into commercial.
326 Exactly. So you're saying that the the, the barest minimum of the commercial side is five dwelling units, and that would fall into an exemption here. So it actually sounds like you're you're also raising a concern about the number. But I'll let you respond to that.
327 I don't.
328 Need to respond to that okay.
329 All right. Well then in that case, I think the question here is whether or not anybody should be able to use price fixing software or any other form of of anti-competitive rental practice. And so I think the we've kind of lost the, the lost the, the, the thread here, if we're talking about numbers at all personally. And so that's why I think the separation is a better way to talk about this altogether. I don't think that if you own a quadplex or a triplex or a duplex or you own two single family homes, you should be able to collude on the rental price for the one you don't live in or ones you don't live in. And so I think it's a it's a simple question of whether or not we're saying anyone should be able to do this or not. And I understand that, that I think that the council president made a really good point, as well as councilor Morillo, that this is highly unlikely to be occurring at the lower levels. But it's the question of why would we, why would we carve out and say, it's okay for you to do this practice if you own too few? I will say that that the other piece of it is with property management companies that often represent a lot of the the folks that own 1 or 2 additional rental properties to the one that they live in, the the size of it is less relevant to, to whether or not someone is using it or not, versus whether or not they're using a certain property management companies that might employ this, these particular tactics. So I would I'm likely to be voting no on this so that we're not exempting anyone and saying everyone is held to the same standard. I think that's what creates the fairest context in which people can operate rental properties. Thanks.
330 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
331 Thank you. I do agree with that analysis in general, that I don't think it makes sense from a principle standpoint to say that landlords who have four units should get to price fix, but other people should not. I think that what we've seen from all the research that we did on some of these companies that are actually responsible for the collusion, is that they don't even really contract with people that have such few units. They don't even really talk to you. If you have less than 20 units. So they're not this isn't. I think that when we're we're talking about this, the original ordinance did not does not really impact whether or not small landlords are able to price fix it. Also, this amendment isn't really going to materially change anything. So if the again, if this is a community signaling that needs to happen to make sure that we are centering corporations that are price fixing and using massive amounts of data to collude, then then I will accept it. If it makes sure that we can pass the ordinance overall. But I also want to say that when we're talking about small landlords, we keep talking about this policy as if though it is going to harm them, when actually it's going to help them, because as a small landlord, you cannot stay competitive in the rental market if you are competing with large corporations that have massive amounts of units that are able to set prices together. So we need to make sure that everyone's free market rights are protected under this. And we're excited to push this policy forward.
332 Thank you.
333 Councilor, I just want to clarify, because there were questions about the number five. That was the number that was recommended. When we talked to the attorneys as a number that applied in other places, I understand that there is the number for also under I believe, building code and the commercial, residential and and federal law. I just want to clarify that this was the recommendation that I received for this policy. Colleagues see no one else in the queue for discussion. Councilor Avalos.
334 I'm trying to square what's happening here. And this like five versus four thing. Is there any interest from the authors of the amendment to make it for to be more aligned with, to hopefully address councilor Ryan's concern, to have more of a clear line? I mean, I guess I'm just trying to figure out this five four thing and if it's worth exploring.
335 I would need to go back to the attorneys to figure out why. The recommendation was five. And that was originally made by a different attorney when we were first discussing this policy in the spring. But I'm not sure if you're able to give any information about why that why that number was recommended.
336 So there's actually not one number. The federal fair housing act in certain areas regulates landlords of four or fewer units in certain areas, regulates landlords of five or fewer units. You can obtain conventional mortgage financing for a building with four or fewer units. If it would be owner occupied, and then would need to get commercial financing. Typically for a building with five units. So it's definitely a policy choice for council. But just and finally, there are some areas of city code where we would say that a small landlord is three units. So it's not an area where the law is entirely consistent.
337 So there are parts in our current city code that has defined small landlord as three, 4 or 5.
338 I read one area on another project recently that defined it as three. I can't speak comprehensively to what our city code is. I was illustrating a point that the law poses regulations towards landlords based on size, and sometimes it's three, four, five. So it's really, I think, a policy choice for you all.
339 And then what I'm hearing from you, councilor Morillo, is that for you, the amount doesn't necessarily matter because per the policy in your research, people that are three, four, five aren't using it anyway that the this is targeting, not those people anyway. So that's why you were you were okay with approving it because in your eyes it doesn't affect your goal. Is that what I'm understanding?
340 Yeah. I don't think that this is going to substantively change the impacts of the policy at all, because small landlords are not the ones using this. This is more to alleviate my understanding is this will alleviate the concerns of small landlords who believe that they are going to be impacted. But this type of price fixing software is simply not used by small landlords. Maybe somewhere out there we'll find out years later, but I have not seen any cases where someone has two units or something. There would be no point in purchasing very expensive price fixing contracts with these companies to do so, so I'm comfortable with it if folks need it to be. Well, I'm not the carrier of this amendment, so I'll let councilor Pirtle-guiney speak to this. But if she wants to change it to four, I'm fine with four. That's fine with me.
341 And then lastly, councilor Canal, I guess, are you going to propose a different number or you just want to remove the number entirely? Is that your goal?
342 I think either is is acceptable. I think this conversation is valuable to have. If the number does not is not reduced. I would personally vote no myself on the amendment, the remaining portion of the amendment, just because I think it's exempting too many of of the folks here.
343 But but do you have a number that you want?
344 I think that I'm letting the conversation play out for that. I think this this the questions that our attorneys just answered are, were really helpful for me in determining whether 3 or 4 as well were better.
345 Anything further? Councilor.
346 I guess not, thanks.
347 Councilor Clark.
348 Thank you, madam president. I would like to address the larger issue, but just a question about this number issue. Why don't we pick 20? I mean, it's sort of who's actually using this stuff if if it's people that have more than 20 units, why don't we just say 20 units?
349 I can.
350 Speak to my intent, which was to really focus in on those individuals who own a property with multiple units that they also live in, or who have the privilege of maintaining a property that they've previously lived in, which might have one or 2 or 3 units attached to it when they purchase a different property, to move to people who have the privilege of taking their single family home with a large lot and developing a garden garden unit complex on their lot, those types of situations. And so looking at those types of situations and also trying to take a number that is already used, we know there are multiple numbers used, but trying to hone in on something that is already in use, that number five seemed like the appropriate size to me. But but.
351 It sounds.
352 Body of course can make different decisions.
353 Just. I'm just wondering if councilor Morillo has more data on who's actually using the system. If if landlords or property owners with 20 or fewer are actually using this, why don't we why don't we use it 20.
354 Well, the intention here is to protect small landlords, not to continuously break down the strength of the policy. So I'm going to be honest, you guys, there is no other jurisdiction that has made the carveouts that are being requested here in the most progressive city in America, allegedly. So this is this is really we have had multiple presentations on this in committee at council. We have in good faith, made adjustments with our partners who are in favor and in opposition of this, I do not believe I would not be supportive of further watering this down. And we need to get a substantive policy passed out of this council sometime soon.
355 Anything further? Councilor not on this, okay.
356 I do just want to note, and I should have done this when I first moved the amendment, that the reason this amendment is coming to full council and wasn't adopted in committee is that the the final reviews weren't done when the underlying ordinance passed out of committee, but councilor Dunphy and myself did both bring these concepts to committee for full discussion and debate in committee. We just couldn't move them at the time because they were still getting their final review. Councilor Ryan.
357 Oh yeah.
358 Councilor Morillo did I hear you, though, earlier in this conversation, say that no one's using this software with 20 units or less? I thought you'd mentioned that earlier.
359 I think the point that I'm trying to illustrate is that the majority of people who are going to be paying for highly costly contracts for price fixing are going to be large corporations. At the end of the day, that's what this is targeting. This isn't a definitive number. We're not trying to this is about market power and the fact that there are corporations that are amassing mass amounts of data to increase the cost of rent to make profit. This is not about small landlords. So I think that should alleviate your concerns about small landlords. I understand that perhaps your supporters or donors are going to want further and further carveouts to this policy. I will absolutely be pushing back on watering it down any further. And you can do this with you can price fix better through an algorithm with a larger number of units. That's the key issue here.
360 So I merely mentioned it because I heard you say that earlier. And we have this reality issue in Portland where with infill zoning, a lot of developers, local developers, developers stop their units at 19. And that's where we have the most active development right now. In fact, when this council took action to lift the sdcs, we're seeing some permits actually being pulled, but they're all for 19 or less. So I was just trying to get some rhythm going here in terms of getting production up, which I think all of us agree on. And so I think after you said that, I thought, oh, wow, what if we aligned it with the rules of infill zoning? So just trying to be creative like the rest of you with thoughts off the fly that we often do up here when we have complex conversations. So again, I'm all for more housing and I think we all are. So maybe we're on to something.
361 Yeah. And I want to be clear that I don't think that this policy is in any way competing with the production of more housing, because we all voted for the sdc waivers in order to get more development. So we have done our part as a council, including councilors, who I think are tend to be opposed to something like an sdc waiver because we wanted to do things in good faith with the folks who are developing in our community. So I think who gets to decide what is a large portfolio or a substantial operation? You know, that's that's going to be up to the courts, I think. But the the reality is that we have done our part as council to help with the development of further units. This is not about construction, this is about price fixing. This is about corporate power. And if you are not price fixing and you are not sharing data illegally, then you should not have any concerns that this policy is going to apply to you.
362 Thank you. Councilors.
363 Anything further, councilor Ryan?
364 No, I think it's a longer conversation at the housing committee could look into, because I think we're all into increasing supply. Thanks.
365 Thank you, councilor Green. Final comments.
366 Yeah, I just would like to urge us to actually think we should pass. How do I say it? Yes. Pass this part of the amendment because it's not really a substantive effect on the broader outcome of it. I understand you want to have the conversation councilor, and it's a good thing to do, but I'm interested in the underlying thing that is being amended as passing. And it took a long time to get here with a lot of different community conversations and some compromise. I see this as the potential to do that kind of compromise and still show the renters in the city of Portland that we are serious in, in addressing this. So I'm going to vote in favor of this, and I hope everyone else does too, and I hope we can move on with today.
367 Thank you.
368 Councilor colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue for debate, keelan, can you please call the roll on the second part of the split amendment, which is section c1, little a1 and a3, which relate to small landlords.
369 Clerk I. Green hi.
370 Zimmerman. Hi. Avalos.
371 Hi. Dunphy I.
372 Smith I canal.
373 No.
374 Ryan.
375 Hi. Koyama Lane I.
376 Morillo.
377 Hi, Novick.
378 Oh, sorry.
379 Pirtle-guiney I.
380 The amendment is approved with ten yes votes, one no vote and one absent.
381 Okay.
382 Colleagues, we are now at discussion of the underlying ordinance. I will remind us that we don't actually vote on this ordinance today. It is a non-emergency ordinance, but we will complete our discussion and debate today and then move it to second reading. I'll also note that it is 1137, and I'm hoping that we can take a break for a quick lunch before we come back for agenda item eight. When we're done with this, councilor Clark, are you in the queue to discuss the underlying ordinance?
383 Yes, I am.
384 Go right ahead.
385 Thank you very much, council president. I think I'll speak for myself. I heard some very compelling testimony today from all sides, and I appreciate the effort. Successful effort that council president put forward to amend this and make this ordinance a little more palatable. I'm clearly opposed to price fixing, and I'm very distressed about rising rents, but I don't see anything urgent about this amendment. I personally, and I think I said this last time this came up, I believe we are sending the wrong message at a time when we need more housing, we need more housing investment in the city. I also don't want to risk incentivizing lawsuits against the city. I started my career as an affordable housing advocate. I formed a nonprofit to build farmworker housing and affordable housing. I organized a statewide coalition to work on affordable housing. And then I had a rude awakening. Ronald reagan, who was a president a long time ago, cut all the housing programs. Right. And I was very naive. I had a very rude awakening that we could only realize what we needed in terms of housing was with the help of the private sector, and that that's the only way we were going to build the number of units that we need to build. So I don't want to send a negative signal. I believe that this is a misplaced priority. I would rather focus, continue to focus on streamlining our permitting, removing barriers to housing development. We need to do everything we can to incent development of housing in this community. So just I know we're not voting today, but I will be voting no on this in the future. Thank you.
386 Thank you. Counselor. Counselor Green.
387 I just wanted to add one more high level motivation for the amended ordinance that we will vote on next time we meet, or next time we hear it, is that I actually do think it is urgent to take this up right now. The way that the the price impact works for this type of price setting collusion is it's asymmetric. It it helps amplify the price increases. But then if you have an expansion of supply and there's a softening, you don't see a concomitant decrease on the other side. And so what it does is it ratchets up rents. Right. So when you get into a tight period where there's high demand and high growth, this type of thing will amplify that rate of growth. And we will hit our statutory state maximums. Or we'll have to trigger the relocation fees more often. But the point being is we will lose even more working class portlanders to an increasingly unaffordable housing market. And so if we don't take this up now, when we are in a period of relative slack, then we're going to be sending the next generation of renters down the river or across the river, frankly, to Clark county or Clackamas county or Washington county. And we can't afford that. So I'm going to be supporting this, this amendment. I don't think that's or I'm sorry, this ordinance. I don't think that's surprised anyone. And I encourage my colleagues to do the same.
388 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
389 Thank you, council president. I appreciate everyone's feedback. I will say, I think our office is trying to pass certain policies, and I would appreciate it if my colleagues could start focusing on their own work and bringing policies that are going to help us build housing in Portland, rather than nitpicking the things I'm working on. Because, for example, this climate committee, councilor Zimmerman and I are bringing something forward to address design review so that we can make housing building simpler and better in Portland. So my office is actually working on and happy to work on multiple things at the same time. I can actually walk and chew gum at the same time. I can focus on renters rights and making sure that rent is affordable and focus on building housing. And if you are incapable of doing that, that's not really my concern, but it sure is portlanders concerns who are voting you in? We are supportive of increasing housing supply. This ordinance is not going to be a silver bullet and we have never said otherwise. Empirical studies have been very clear. This absolutely has an impact on prices. The study from the white house has found that these tools can increase rents by around $200 a month. The department of justice has also explicitly said that agreements between landlords and realpage, or companies like realpage, have adversely impacted portland's rental market. We have 32,000 units that are currently under this. I am going to defer to the department of justice on the impact of these tools, not the press office. Of the 80% market share. Actor in the algorithmic price fixing market. So whenever we are ready to take serious action, I'm ready to do that. What I have seen from my colleagues is a lot of passage of resolutions that don't really impact people's daily lives, that are more value signalers, and we need to actually take substantive action today. So you can't have it both ways. This policy can't both completely destroy the entire market and do nothing at the same time. Right? That doesn't make much sense. So this is about anti-competitive rental markets. And for all of my colleagues who are fervent capitalists up here, you should be happy that this is addressing the free market, because we are actually going to incentivize supply because you cannot price fix without restricting supply in the first place. That's how price fixing works. And so we need to do right by portlanders. We need to pass substantive policy at the city of Portland. And whenever my colleagues want to work together on other things to build housing, I am happy to get on that train with you. Thank you.
390 Thank you, councilor. Counselor. Ryan.
391 Thank you, madam president. In the committee meeting before voting to dissent, I asked this question. What proof do you have from other cities that have passed this legislation that shows rents actually decreased as a result of passing this legislation? The answer is that no data exists indicating that as of today. In fact, san francisco's ban has been in place for over a year now, and rent has gone up 9%, according to zillow. In Portland, our rent is actually 3% down this year, according to data on zumper. We have created a reputation nationally as an underperforming market, which is starkly indicated by the lack of permits being pulled to build new units. And the last thing this market needs are more regulatory barriers, like this one that will solidify the narrative that Portland is not interested in development and not open for business. We should all want developers to be motivated to build housing units in Portland. We know we need more. I don't think a single housing builder would be more inclined to invest in Portland if this becomes law. As such, this concept, which is pulled directly from the national dsa and local progress platform, and from my perspective, a solution in search of a problem. Others are experimenting, experimenting with this in other cities and getting sued. So let's allow them to show us that this is a solution to this alleged problem. Before we make major policy changes. This elected body has collectively spent hours of our very limited time on this particular piece of legislation. So until we get real proof that this will prohibit bad practices and maintain rent escalation at market rates, there's no need to have us to spend more time and resources to create a solution in search of a problem. I will be voting no next week. Thanks.
392 Thank you. Councilor.
393 Colleagues, I want to take a moment here. I put myself in the queue just to say thank you to councilor Morillo. On the process side, this is something that, as you noted, has been before council for a long time because there were a significant number of concerns raised and you graciously pulled this back to committee so that there could be further debate and discussion. I know that that's hard to do. I know that that didn't address all of the concerns that were brought up. But I appreciate that you have been willing to work with my office on the concerns that I brought forward, and that you were willing to take the time to have further discussion about this. I think that that time and that approach and looking to pass policies that that have had robust input is important. And I just want to state that appreciation on the record. Councilor Dunphy.
394 Thank you. I have a couple of things I want to say. I want to say that the city, the Portland city council has for decades incentivized the wrong type of housing. In 2019, the we were received the joint offer. At the time the joint offices point in time count, and they noted that there were roughly 4500 people sleeping rough on the streets at that point. And at that same next month, the housing bureau came to us and said there were over 4500 empty apartment units, but almost all of them were at the 80% or above or at the luxury end of the market. Additionally, today, well, maybe not today. I don't know the exact number today, but about a month ago I got a report that said there were 1700 permanently affordable units sitting empty on the market. This body has a bad history, and I don't mean just the last year, but rather the collective Portland city council has a bad history of trying to incentivize the market to try to build. And if a reasonable protection against collusion for large actors disincentivizes those types of developers from bringing that type of housing to the Portland. And I actually think that's a win if they're only going to be able to be bringing that kind of housing here, because they want to be able to manipulate it using price fixing algorithms, then I don't want them operating in my city. This is pretty straightforward to me, and I think that we have demonstrated a very a seriousness on this body to suspend sdcs councilor Morillo and I brought forward the code alignment project that suspended a number of policies that make it easier for homeowners to develop their houses and improve building existing spaces. We have a number of other policies, including cap two alignment project two that we are actively working on. Councilor Clark I hope we have an email thread open about that. I hope you get back to me about that. We are demonstrating that there is a seriousness, but the idea that any housing at this moment should be acceptable and that we should be willing to look past our own values and demonstrated bad behavior that has happened in other cities. Just in order to get a crane in the sky is is false. That's folly. That is a bad mentality for us to be thinking that any development is good development, and we have a responsibility to follow through on our protecting the people who are actually here. As we heard, rent has vastly outpaced inflation over the last few years. I have said it before, I am a landlord. I bought one of the last sub $200,000 homes in the city of Portland in 2014, and it doubled in price in six years. That is insane. And that is leading directly to the situation we have on the streets. It is leading directly to the situation we have in every house. Development for development's sake, is not ever going to be a goal that I will support. Councilor Morillo has bent over backwards to try and make this fit and be responsive, and I am eager to vote for this. So thank you for all the hard work that has gone into this, and I, I am eager to to break the myth that development at all costs should be the goal of this body that is absolutely not aligned with my values.
395 Great.
396 Thank you.
397 Councilor Kanal.
398 Thank you, madam president. Thank you to councilor Morillo for not only introducing this, but also giving the full explanation I. Our format doesn't allow for the full presentation to happen here where people are paying attention, and that's a problem that favors the status quo because presentations go to committee where fewer people engage. And then unless the carrier pulls it out kind of halfway and reground us, which happens often, we often don't hear that. And I don't want to try to summarize or pull out sections of what you or councilor Dunphy said, because I agree with all of it. But I appreciate the call out that this can't both do nothing and wreck the market at the same time. It's a really important point. There's also moving the goalposts here. I don't think anyone claimed that that the purpose of this was to actually make the rent necessarily lower for each individual person, but that it would slow the rate of increase, which is an important distinction and also very valuable. It's also diversion that we're hearing up here. This won't this is not designed to increase supply. Supply is important, as I'll mention in a moment. But that's not the point of this ordinance. I welcome others up here to fill in the gaps they see with ordinances of their own. And I will note once again that there is a clear, not just a there's a often things are viewed through a left right bias up here, but they're actually often about status quo versus change in terms of who introduces items. I'm a renter as this councilor Morillo I believe councilor Novick as well, one of the handful of renters that have ever served in this body. Half of all portlanders are renters and are unfortunately have not been represented this entire time to the degree of their to to the proportion of their population. In fact, you're still not. In order to be pro portlander, you have to also be pro renter. Otherwise you're leaving out 47% of our city and making it more affordable to live here includes having housing that's more in line with incomes. Competition in the market is supposed to help keep housing costs in check. It's obviously not doing that. And I think councilor Greene spoke to that very well as well. I, I was struck by some of the testimony here for for many reasons, as councilor Clark mentioned as well, one of the testifiers said that we have average rent increases of 0%, and I can speak to my experience as a renter where my rent has gone up every year and I have no idea what world they're living in or what Portland they're living in. When a large proportion of rental property companies are putting their data into the same software and algorithm is telling all, all of them how much to charge for rent, based in part on what other companies are charging. That's not only anti-competitive, it is a violation of antitrust law. But we do need to enact the portions of our code that allow us to engage with that. And the entire purpose of this work is not to house more people. Right? The entire purpose of realpage is not to house more people. It's to help corporate landlords increase prices and increase profits as much as possible. I do view part of our role as protecting portlanders from predatory practices, and this ordinance does that. I think it's a very common sense proposal, and that's why it's been supported by a lot of, you know, folks across the the spectrum of of our politics here. Zach hudson and ron wyden are not dsa members, by the way. I think that's important to to to remember, I think I don't think this is going to fix all of our problems. I think it's worth worth mentioning that. And I also don't think that this is that that is a reason to oppose it. I think that it's important to understand that you build a puzzle piece by piece, and that this needs to be combined with many, many other pieces of legislation, both those in the renters bill of rights and many of the pro-development proposals I've heard from organizations like multifamily northwest. I also want to say I agree with some of the arguments from the opponents. I wish we could have had more input into this as well. I think mr. Ohlendorf made a really good point about the primary issue with housing affordability being the supply side, and I generally agree that availability of supply is the key part of that is increasing overall supply. While there are 28 vacant homes per homeless person nationwide, it's under seven in Oregon, the ratio puts us at the second lowest on that, second only to california. And that's bad company in a housing context to be in. And the ratio is even lower in Portland itself. And so ensuring that we're increasing overall supply, as well as making sure that supply is available through a policy like long term vacancy fees, are really important to to address this as well. And I'll welcome working with anyone to make that happen. I've been very clear that I do support development, including private developers, and I want to make sure that things pencil for them because although other people claim the title, sometimes developers actually do create housing. And as councilor Morillo said, these concepts are not in opposition. I'll also cosign councilor Ryan's proposal that that conversation continuing in the housing committee makes sense. But yeah, that's all sort of what comes next. I want to keep the focus on the original underlying ordinance and say, I was proud to speak in favor of the original version of this ordinance, and I intend to vote yes on it. And I think it's been improved. So I want to thank councilor Morillo for her work on this, as well as the co-sponsors, Koyama Lane and Green. And when we get to it, I'll be voting. Yes. Thank you, madam president.
399 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ryan.
400 Since there's so much mention always about housing affordability and I think all of us care about, I know all of us care about that. I'll speak for myself, I do. I think it's important to remember that I'll just speak for myself. Since I've owned a home since 2000, my property taxes and insurance have escalated tremendously. As someone that's living in Portland, all of my elders on my block begged me to always stop the increases in property taxes because they can't age in place any longer. So I think this body needs to be also sensitive to the burdens that is happening to many of us who have invested in Portland as property owners and are increasingly struggling to afford our. Our affordability is also at attack. So I just wanted to put that balance out there so we could all maybe be in the same place of challenge. Instead of doing this. Renters versus property owners, because there's so many property owners that sound just like all of you about the rent burdens. Thank you.
401 Thank you, councilor Councilor Koyama Lane. Thank you.
402 I want to start with.
403 Thanking councilor Morillo for working so hard on this and thanking your whole team. I know it's you've been very patient in this long road, and I'm glad that this is before us again. I'm very proud to support this and be a co-sponsor. I see this ordinance as working towards making our housing system more fair. It's not fair. I've seen I've had students that have lost their housing in the middle of the year. I have seen teachers getting pushed out of living in Portland because they can't afford to both live and work in the same place. And let's be clear, the point of these algorithmic algorithmic tools are to maximize profit. I think this type of automated collusion doesn't have a place in a city that claims that equity and transparency are part of our city's core values. And for me, this is also part of a broader vision of governance rooted in justice, transparency and care. So I plan to enthusiastically vote yes for this ordinance next week. As a small but powerful way to say to portlanders, we are going to protect you and we care about you.
404 Thank you, councilor, councilor Smith.
405 Thank you, madam president, for this. For this particular this particular ordinance, the larger ordinance. Where did you are you a support of this?
406 Who is that.
407 A question.
408 Madam president?
409 We are not voting today. But my intent as of right now is to support it.
410 Okay, great.
411 Thank you.
412 Was that it? Yeah. Okay.
413 Councilor Kanal.
414 We should do this every time I like it. I just want to jump back to.
415 Councilor ryan's point. I think there's a false binary being created here between renters and homeowners. This is not about homeowners. I don't even know if you. If you own a single unit and you live in that unit. I'm unclear on how this affects you at all. It's completely separate. This is separate from homeowners. This is about people who are extracting rent, right? Which is an entire third group of people, and making sure that they're able to do that in a way that is competitive. And so I think that that's an important distinction. That isn't to say that we have to do nothing separately in other legislation. For folks who are struggling to age in place. I agree with that. And I think we've all talked about that. Councilor greene mentioned that earlier. So I just think that we I don't want the fact that something does one thing, but not another thing to be used not to do the first thing. If we think the second thing is more important. So it's it's about let's, let's work our way through this and it's going to be one piece of legislation going through an inordinately slow council process at a time. Thanks.
416 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman.
417 Thank you. I do appreciate the work that has gone into these changes today. And I think that that it has become an improved ordinance. My questions are going to go back to our attorney with respect to section c and then somewhat into d, but civil actions versus the city enforcement. And I'm trying to understand if we have two parallel tracks, if that's what's going on here, where a right to civil action, which means take the landlord to court if you have a concern or you get your neighbors. And then also, it looks like this will have the city attorney now investigating violations. Can you 1 a.m. I reading this correctly? And two, in other housing matters, is this a parallel right of action and parallel in terms of city attorney investigation?
418 Thank you councilor, you're reading it correctly. There's both a private right of action for tenants to bring their own claims. And the ordinance also also authorizes the city attorney to issue subpoenas related to potential violations and bring claims before our code hearings office for potential violations in, you know, collaboration with the administration.
419 Okay. And that's that's the normal way in which we would deal with a code violation inside the city of Portland.
420 I don't believe there is currently a section of title 30. Including, for example, the relocation assistance or the tenant screening protections that specifically creates authority for the city attorney to bring a claim before the code hearings office. And I believe that would be necessary for that to happen generally.
421 Do you know why the the budget office did not indicate that there would be? I mean, it sounds like a new line of business for the city attorney's office. It doesn't look like that was indicated. And I will also say, I did not realize that the attorneys in this that were working on this have have changed your a different face than we had a few months back. So I'm asking some of these questions because I think between now and the second reading, this will probably be where some of my questions and maybe we can set up a a learning lesson for myself in, in some of these, just as an indicator for the last section, if you will. Councilor where I'm still taking a look at things, but thank you for that and maybe we'll do some more offline. Thanks.
422 Councilor Zimmerman, my team is happy to speak with you to clarify any questions. Thank you.
423 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, pausing for a long count of three, I am going to move this ordinance to second reading. We will see it back later this month. We are going to take a half hour recess. We have amazing staff both in the room and behind the scenes, who have been going strong for the last 2.5 hours. And before we enter the technical adjustment ordinance, talking about the budget changes later this afternoon, where I know we will ask them to sit for many hours, I want to make sure they have time to get a quick break, hopefully get some lunch when we come back. Testimony will be two minutes a person and we will limit testimony to three hours in order to ensure that we have time to have a full debate afterwards as well. We have staff who have a hard stop at 5:00 tonight, and I'm hoping we can be done with our work by then. We are going to enter a 30 minute recess. We will be back here at 1233.
424 I would.
425 Oh good afternoon. It is 1236. We are reconvening this council meeting. Keelan do we need to recall the roll or not? Okay. We are jumping into our last agenda item of the day, and I will just note before we start as people comment both in testimony and us at the dais, I hope we can keep our comments to the policies, the values, not character assassinations of any individuals. As we move through this. Of course, if you are supportive or disappointed with what you hear, thumbs up, thumbs down, sparkle fingers are all good, but please don't applause or comment so that we can continue to move through our work. Today we are going to. Once we open this here, a committee staff summary. Take any technical questions from councilors and preview amendments and then move right into public testimony. We will take up to three hours of public testimony. Keelan could you please call agenda item eight?
426 Adopt the fy 20 2526 fall supplemental budget and make other budget related changes.
427 Thank you. Christopher, why don't you give us the committee staff summary?
Procedural episode · turns 428–436
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428 Thank you.
429 Madam president, and good afternoon, president. Councilors. For the record, christopher hair, council operations policy analyst and I serve as staff to the finance committee. The ordinance before you document number 2025 403 was first considered in the finance committee on October 20th and again on November 3rd, where it was referred to full council with a recommendation that it be passed. The ordinance amends the fiscal year, fy 20 2526 appropriations schedule to adjust expenditures across 48 funds, resulting in a net increase of $241.3 million. These adjustments primarily reflect updates and beginning fund balances and other resources carried forward from fy 2024 to 25 to the current fiscal year. The ordinance also directs the city budget office to modify the fy 2026 to 27 general fund current appropriation level targets to include an additional $4,455,568 in health benefit expenses to build up the health fund reserve. In addition, the ordinance amends the number of authorized positions in the fy 20 2526 revised budget, resulting in a net decrease of 1.9 full time equivalent fte positions. The full impact statements on this item includes financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, and community impacts and community involvement. Three individuals provided verbal testimony during the meeting on October 20th. No verbal testimony was taken on November 3rd, and no written testimony was submitted prior to committee action on that date. General themes from testimony included a request for clarification regarding the fund function of the tao. This item, including key budget timelines, and a request related to the allocation of funding for specific areas and projects within Portland. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
430 Thank you, christopher councilor Zimmerman. Do you have anything to add as chair of the finance committee?
431 Yes. Thank you. We as was reported, you know, we opened this on the 20th. Then this council had a work session on the 22nd. There was a robust conversation in the 22nd that inspired me to open up the agenda, the item back for a special meeting of finance on November 3rd. And we had made the commitment that any and all amendments that came forward would be heard, whether or not that member was a member of finance, that we would read those into the record. So no, none were submitted and none were discussed at the finance committee. And then this tao passed unchanged from finance with a 3 to 1 vote with one absence. I say, you know, I just remind folks in terms of I appreciated the ongoing and continuing work that happened at the staff level and also the bureaus and service areas who brought their teams in to help provide some more detailed answers and some explanations for this, this regular practice for the city of Portland. And I think they were able to show us both the staff recommendation slash mayor's recommendation, as well as provide some additional details in the mechanisms that sometimes lead to unclear narratives. So I just want to say thank you to the staff who who provided that. And that was all. Madam president.
432 Thank you, councilor and colleagues. I want to make sure that we're framing this conversation a little bit, since this is a very important undertaking in terms of just the general functioning of government. Our task today with the excuse me, with the tao, the technical adjustment ordinance is to make some changes that the administration has flagged we need in light of budget changes that occurred in may, and to fill a budget hole that has developed since then. The public will recall that this council passed a balanced budget in may, but city revenue is coming in slightly lower than anticipated. So we have a hole in this fiscal year that we need to address. Fiscal responsibility is one of our city's core values, so it's important that we get this right and that we take this step. I want to thank jonas and ruth and the entire budget team for your time and responsiveness. As councilor Zimmerman mentioned, this is this is the fourth meeting. We had a council committee meeting. We had a very robust work session. We had a follow up committee meeting to allow space and time for amendments to be addressed. And I know that over the course of those meetings, you have spent countless hours working with individual councilors on ideas that they've brought forward and questions that they've had. And I want to make sure before we even jump in to thank you for your time and responsiveness and accessibility as we move through this process. As I understand it, we have three options today. We could treat this like a mini budget process and discuss specific program cuts and additions. We could implement enterprise wide constraints, in other words, require a set percentage cut. Or we could take the recommendation of our chief financial officer and budget office to use compensation set aside with the calculated assumption that the mayor's vacancy savings will allow us to prevent widespread job and program cuts to move forward with closing that budget hole. As we move forward, I'm sure we'll have robust conversation about each of those three options. I know I will have some questions to ask of jonas, jonas, and ruth on the record as we move forward. Colleagues, I know there's a range of opinions on council for how we should approach this shortfall, and as we move into our question period now, I'll ask that we take the amendments that have been pre-filed first to to air and then take other technical questions and any other amendments that have not been pre-filed that we need to air before we invite the public to come up and speak. My plan is to give carriers of each of those amendments that are pre-filed time to introduce them now and then. When we get into discussion, after we hear from the public, we will take those amendments again in the order that they have been filed as we move through them. Point of order, councilor.
433 If you have an amendment to one of the pre-filed amendments, when should you talk about that? Should we talk about that first or after you finish with the three?
434 If, for example, your amendment were to amend councilor Morillo amendment, we would hear her amendment and then move into hearing your amendment.
435 I do have an amendment to Morillo one.
436 Okay. And we'll get there. Thank you. There's not a carrier report counselors on this agenda item, because this did come not from a counselor but from the administrative side. And so I want to pause for just a minute because the mayor is here today, as is the city administrator, to see if either of you have anything that you would like to add before we move forward, or if you'd like to have jonas add anything before we move forward.
437 I'm happy to speak at the end of the public testimony and before the amendment discussion. Okay. Thank you, council mayor. Okay. Councilor. Morillo.
438 Thank you, council president. I believe that councilor Smith's amendment references a different funding source than mine. And I have questions, and I think a few of us have questions about that funding source and how it works. So I am curious if we can maybe hear about her amendment first so that we can get clarity on that and really understand the choices that are before us and what's possible and not possible. I.
439 I'm trying to have us cause the least amount of confusion for folks who are watching, and because it amends your amendment. I'd like to give you the opportunity to lay out the baseline, and then we'll make sure to talk about the different funding streams when we hear from councilor Councilor Smith. Seeing no other initial questions, why don't we move into laying amendments on the table so that the public knows what they are testifying on? We have the underlying and a number of amendments. Councilor Morillo, I believe you have two amendments filed.
440 Yeah. And there has been a considerable amount of confusion around the amendments. So kristen johnson, my financial analyst, I would like for her to come down and be able to explain it in detail if that's possible.
441 Okay.
442 And my office has created a slide show as well, just to make it a little bit easier visually for folks who need to go through it. It would it be okay to connect that?
443 Let's do it. Let's also remember that we have three hours of public testimony ahead of us.
444 Oh yes, we will try to be brief, but I think that because there was such a considerable amount of disinformation spread about my amendment, I am required to respond.
445 As kristen here.
446 She's coming from upstairs, so it might be a second. She I just saw her head down.
447 Okay. Is there anything you'd like to say by way of introduction as we wait for her?
448 No. We can all take a moment to breathe right now.
449 And keelan, if we can get this up on the screen once kristen starts talking so that folks in the room can view it as well, that would be great. Thank you.
450 Good afternoon everyone. My, for the record, my name is kristen johnson. I'm councilor Morillo, one of her policy aides.
451 Are you able to move a little closer to the microphone so we can hear you?
452 I'll try to speak louder. Thank you. There you go. Sorry. For the record, my name is kristen johnson and I am one of councilor Morillo policy aides. And I'm hoping to walk us through a presentation that I think will help answer some questions that folks might have. Next slide please. The agenda really quickly is I want to ground us in some background information and talk about a few key concepts that are going to be important as we consider this amendment and the tau in general, then get into more details about the amendment itself, and then of course, open up to questions and discussion. Next slide please. Next slide please. Okay. For background as council president mentioned, we are starting in a in a deficit in fy 2425. The general fund under collected $19.8 million. So this is important information to sort of ground us in where we're getting started and where we need to go. I think we also need to consider a couple of things that we've been talking about. The idea of appropriations, which are a plan versus revenue, which is actual money to spend. You know, appropriations are when we adopt the budget, we adopt appropriations schedules. Those are related to a budget plan. And last year, our our budget did not go as planned, which has a large impact on the decisions that we're facing today. So the appropriations, to the extent that we talk about appropriation under spending, are only as good as the revenue that backs them. Next slide please. So the starting point for all of us, regardless of who's making a proposition, is that we have $4.8 million in general fund and we have $2 million in other funds. Once the required technical general fund corrections are made, we get the 4.8 million and then we have another $2 million related to state refunds and a general fund return from PBOT. To contextualize that, we have a total request total of $23.4 million, not inclusive of the public safety set aside, which is actually budgeted in the fy 2526 budget. And broadly speaking, those requests are for reallocations of state revenue. The procurement disparity study, reimbursement to the insurance and claims fund, policy carryover and encumbrance carryovers. Next slide please. One thing we're going to be talking about a lot today, I think is compensation set aside. And I'd like to explain kind of what that is. I think a lot of people tuning in maybe are just learning about the budget. And so I want to be clear about the things that we're talking about. So what is it? The compensation set aside is a funding that's set aside during budget development for anticipated personnel costs that bureaus will realize in the coming year, and that is calculated across three broad categories cost of living adjustments, annual health benefit increases, and any labor bargaining that happens in the year. The compensation set aside for the budget under development is not included in any bureau's budget, and they adopted it. Set aside. The compensation set aside is typically requested in the spring, which allows for vacancy savings to materialize and kind of true up the required need. Next slide please. So how much do we have in compensation set aside for this fiscal year? Right now we have $17.7 million for this fiscal year. And if we take a look back, what have bureaus asked for in the past? Last year, they were given 13 million in the fall. In 2324, the requests were 25 million. And in 2223, the requests were nearly 15 million. Next slide please. Something we're going to hear a lot about today. A lot of questions around purchase order encumbrances. So what are purchase order encumbrances. Those are utilized to purchase all kinds of things from outside vendors and are tied to bureau external materials and services budgets. They're created in the system. Once a bureau has either valid contract or anticipates a purchase in accordance with other procurement rules, purchase orders encumber funds within our financial system, and an encumbrance acts like an earmark. It tells the system that you intend to consume budget for this specific item, and the system monitors your budget relative to those intentions, meaning you cannot spend and encumber more than you have appropriated. Next slide please. So what is the following conference carryover process about? Because our lives do not fit neatly into specific timelines, it is not unusual for bureaus to begin work at some point in the fiscal year, and continue that work into the next year. This is a natural course of events of the city. Guidance states that carryover can be requested for purchase orders in the fall, if they're related to work of a one time nature that began in the prior year and will continue into the next, the amount of carryover that can be requested must be less than or equal to their prior year. Underspending last year, bureaus underspent their appropriation, but as a fund had significantly less underspent appropriation backed by revenue than was requested in the fall. Next slide please. So those are some founding concepts. I just want us to consider sort of the starting point where we are in the budget and what we mean when we're talking about compensation set aside and general funding conference carryovers. Now we'll get into the amendment itself. Next slide please. On this slide and I apologize if it's hard to read, is a table on the left with some explanation on the right. I wanted to provide a really clear side by side of the mayor's tor and the Morillo one amendment for clarity, to the extent that the two columns match, we are not making a change. So, for example, the line new bfb beginning fund balance. We recognize the same beginning fund balance. We recognize the same amount of money for state revenue and PBOT that's coming in. We agree we should reallocate state revenue funds or refunds to the places that were requesting them. We agree we should fund the disparity study. And then our first departure from the mayor's proposal is about the reimbursement to insurance and claims, and the case of the amendment, rather than having that money come from. General fund overhead or compensation set aside. We are asking prosper to pay an increased portion of their share of the settlement. We agree that the policy carryover should be funded. We agree that the prosper encumbrance carryover should be funded, and then we came to a different conclusion around general fund and conference carryovers. And so that is reduced by about $4.5 million. The public safety set aside we agree on funding that. And because we have made some alternative decisions, we give back $10 million to the compensation set aside, because we know that those costs are being incurred. Now, we know that the bureaus are going to need that money to pay their personnel expenses in the spring. Then we seek to reduce irp. Sweeps and irp sweeps only. And in sum, the package allows us to reinvest $2 million in food assistance, rental assistance, immigrant and refugee organizations, and community safety enhancements. The amendment largely preserves compensation set aside for the anticipated request in the spring. It reduces harm. It provides urgently needed resources to vulnerable community members. Next slide please. What follows next is sort of a series of questions that we've we've heard and we want to address. So overall, what are you trying to achieve. As I just stated, we want to protect our citywide financial stability. It largely preserves compensation set aside so we can meet known, legally required wage and benefit obligations. The obligations are being incurred now and are typically requested in the spring. By preserving the compensation set aside, we are working to prevent bureaus from having to make even more difficult decisions in the spring, because the money they need to back those requests will still be there. It maintains stabilizing services, redirecting $2 million to programs that keep people fed, housed, safe and connected to basic resources, preventing avoidable harm and greater downstream costs. And it repairs past harms transparently. It directs prosper to pay the city's insurance and claims fund for past settlement costs, ensuring restitution is funded appropriately and transparently, rather than draw down from general fund discretionary resources needed for services. Next slide please. Your proposal increases the compensation set aside by over $10 million. Why do we need this? We need to do this. The compensation set aside is budgeted for the anticipated costs, and it's not in the individual adopted bureau budgets. They need to come back and ask for it in the spring. As I mentioned earlier, in the past three years, bureaus have requested 13 million, 25 million, almost 15 million. The mayor's table only leaves about $3.3 million available for spring requests. And if we take it from the set aside now, we're essentially underfunding our existing workforce commitments, ensuring a comparable set aside to last year, and mitigates the risk that bureaus will have to scramble to make sure that they stay within budget come the spring. Next slide please. So why not follow the mayor's proposal and just give the bureaus carryover money now and address any issues in the spring? Well, the under-collection in the general fund revenue means that the available discretionary resources are smaller than what we assumed. Had bureaus known what their actual revenues were. And for many reasons, bureaus have a look into the appropriation of their general fund, but not the actual cash flow of the general fund at the bureau level for a number of of perfectly good reasons. But because of this, no, no budget adjustments took place to recognize the under-collection. And so appropriation didn't accurately reflect revenue receipts at a bureau level by using compensation set aside to backfill the encumbrance carryover requests, we're creating personnel cost pressures that will be realized in the spring by rightsizing compensation set aside. Now, we avoid preventable late year service reductions and ensure that bureaus are not asked to figure out how to absorb the unfunded personnel costs. With only a few months left in the year. And as I mentioned earlier, the the system won't let you encumber and spend more than your appropriation to the extent that appropriation wasn't reduced to match general fund receipt bureaus could encumber more than the appropriated was back. The appropriation was backed by general fund, and there's nothing nefarious about this. And it's not anything. It's a function of the system. And so it's just putting the request into context. Next slide please. But isn't isn't encumbrance carryover the bureau's money. And by cutting those carryovers aren't we cutting the bureaus because the bureaus planned for that in their budget development process. And yes, bureaus did make plans based on resources we thought we would have. And in reality, we did not receive all of those resources to the tune of $19.8 million. And at the end of the year, unspent funds don't stay with the bureaus. They fall to balance, and the bureaus can come back and request to bring those forward. But council has to decide whether doing so fits within citywide priorities and available resources. And now those requests greatly exceed the plan that we originally had, which happens, and what we can reasonably fund. If the bureaus had more insight, as I mentioned earlier, into the revenue that they were actually receiving, then most of those requests wouldn't have literally been able to materialize in the system. And so we might be in a different decision point than we are right now, and reminder that appropriation is only as real as the cash that backs it. Next slide please. So well then what was your what was your funding decision to encumbrance carryovers. We used five kind of questions viewpoints about how would we look at this. If we have to make a tough decision, how are we going to do it. So the very first thing we did was ask, does the purchase order follow the guidance set out by the executive of being? For one time, costs for work started in 2425 but not yet completed. Just ask the question. Then we looked at the contract and we asked, is it for on call services? Which means they're flexible. You incur the liability when you request the service. Given that, could we feasibly pause any of these contracts considering our revenue shortfall to the extent that payments had already, you know, continued to be made in the system? Those were funded? If the payment was made, we funded the payment. When additional information was provided by bureaus, we considered that information. We also considered if bureaus had other funding sources that are also appropriate for their resources. These could be things like their own general fund reserves, special revenues, capital reserves or tech reserves. Next slide please. We've been hearing a lot you know, a lot today probably too about the reduction to the irp program. You're cutting the program. Does this include hazardous waste removal or the glitter program or sidewalk cleaning. And no, the Morillo one amendment contains language that clarifies the irp cuts are, as a matter of law, to be applied solely to campsite removals. The amendment proposes a cut to campsite sweeps and human displacement. The language clarifies that programs such as hazardous waste removal, glitter, or sidewalk cleaning cannot be cut to meet the reduction to campsite removals. The proposal then invests funding into solutions that stabilize portlanders experiencing houselessness by bolstering rent assistance, food support supports to immigrant refugees, and safety improvements. Next slide please. Does the irp undermine the ability to comply with the tozer settlement? No, this cut does not undermine that. Irp is currently in compliance with the agreement and will retain funding to remain in compliance. They're only legal mandate going forward is to maintain compliance. The the tozer settlement requires a number of things. These are outlined below and noted where we're in compliance funding of $3 million for a number of things. Campsite assessment within five business days, allowing for a report. We didn't touch that funding. Campsite removals and in the campsite removals there are some percentages. So in any given quarter, 35% of the removals need to be related to sidewalk obstructions. And for the entire fiscal year, 40% of the removals need to be related to sidewalk obstructions. We are in compliance minimum removals the city will remove in each year. No fewer than 500 identified campsites that are determined to be obstructing the sidewalks. We have already done that. Next slide. That's it. That's the. But we're happy to discuss if anyone has any questions.
453 Thank you colleagues. I would like to ensure that there is time to ask questions about this amendment. I just want to flag for everybody before we ask questions that I did not offer our budget. Team. Time for an introduction here, because that's not our normal practice on this council. But following this presentation, which laid out some baseline budget information as it is seen by one office, I will ensure that after we ask questions about this amendment, there is time for our city neutral policy budget or our budget staff. Rather, our neutral budget staff who work under our city administrator and provide information to council to have an opportunity to set a baseline on the proposal that they have brought forward today. Are there questions specific to the information that was just provided to us? Councilor. Novick.
454 Yes.
455 One thing is there's $2 million set aside for food assistance, rental assistance, food assistance, etc. Is that broken down in an explanation of who will administer it.
456 And who will administer the money going out?
457 Yes.
458 Yeah. I spoke with the grants team, made sure that we understood how a granting process would work, what the requirements are and what would be needed from us. I offered my help to draft grants so not to overburden their team if they if this felt like a burden on top of their current work. And we came to a conclusion that should this pass, that we will be able to get this money out the door.
459 But the first question was, is this broken down x amount for food assistance, x amount for rental assistance, x amount for immigrant and refugee organizations.
460 I believe the amendment specifically says 1.5 million for food rental, immigrant and refugee and then 500,000. We were originally thinking kind of in $500,000 increments and then 500,000 for safety improvements as well.
461 So you're assuming 500,000 for each of those things.
462 Yeah, it's flexible, but yeah.
463 Do you happen to know how much money the county spends on rental assistance every year?
464 I don't off the top of my head, no.
465 You said that the cut to the impact reduction program will affect sweeps only now. The impact reduction program spends money on assessing camps to determine whether they meet the criteria for removal. And most the vast majority of the cases, they conclude they don't and they aren't removed. Would money for assessment remain?
466 Yes, yes.
467 So can you give me a breakdown of that? Like how much? How much is spent on how much is spent on removal as opposed to assessment and other things that they do?
468 I don't know that I have that. Oh, I do have that breakdown right now. So right now in the adopted budget they have for assessments, they have $2.8 million.
469 So. What you're suggesting is that and councilor Morillo, this is really a question for you. What are you suggesting is the assessment process should proceed as it does now, but fewer removals should be done at the end of the assessment process.
470 Yeah. The key thing that we are trying to get at with this amendment is to simply reduce the number of sweeps that are happening. We have had a pretty aggressive uptick in the number of sweeps that have been happening. And while we know that there are certainly, you know, some cases where it's needed, this has become an exorbitant cost for the city where we are just funneling millions and millions of dollars, and we're not actually resolving homelessness. So of course, assessments will still have to be made on campsites. But when people submit reports as well, there's also numbers for the things that you know is a certain number of tents. How big is it? How big of an issue is it? So we're prioritizing the worst case scenarios. Not every every single campsite.
471 Well, but right now not every single campsite is removed. My understanding is for the past year, 20% of campsites that are assessed have been removed. And I actually have a question for chair Avalos. Has your housing and homeless committee had a session where you had or more, where you had a detailed discussion of what the assessment criteria are, how they're applied, who does the assessments, what the what the scoring rubric looks like, how the scoring rubric should be might be adjusted.
472 Not to that level of detail.
473 No thank you. So councilor Morillo would you? I think that currently there's a scoring rubric in camps that score below or above a certain level are removed? Are you suggesting that the scoring rubric should be that it should go from you have to meet a number of 65 to a number of 95, or what exactly? Where in the scoring rubric would your amendment lead to?
474 I don't have the scoring rubric directly in front of me. That's more of a policy question. We're having a budget discussion. What I do know is that ipr has funded and is planning to fund a way more than the target that they were given originally. We are doing far more sweeps than we've ever done before, so we are currently sweeping at a rate to hit about 8000, and they had planned to hit around 6000 to 6500. So if I really need to emphasize to my colleagues that if we do not address some of these upstream issues that our constituents are having, we are creating a system where people are perpetually losing their housing, they are becoming unhoused, and we are creating more of a market for more sweeps contracts. That's all we're doing. We're not addressing homelessness in the long term. So we are exceeding the projection that we currently have. We are funneling city dollars into an endless pit of sweeps. We are not helping our neighbors become housed.
475 Councilor you said that in some cases, I believe you said that in some cases you think that camp should be removed.
476 We are not cutting the full program, right?
477 But you mean you said it's a policy decision as to where you move the line. But the budget decision forces the policy decision. So some camps that would be removed under the current rubric, if with this cut would not be removed. And since there is this score, I'm not saying the scoring rubric is perfect. I'm not saying that at all, but I'd be curious to know. Like at what? What level? What? What where in the scoring rubric your proposal would land us at.
478 So our proposal still is in compliance with the tozer settlement. I think that's the top priority to make sure that we're in compliance with that.
479 Okay. But you're not you're not saying that. You're not saying where in the scoring rubric your proposal would land us. The scoring rubric is based on not just ADA compliance, but it's based on how much trash there is, how many needles there are. Et cetera. Et cetera.
480 Councilor Novick what my office has heard repeatedly, and I think what many councilors have heard repeatedly, is that our responsibility is to do broader legislative oversight, and that we need to let the executive branch execute. So we are saying we want you to have this number of dollars to do this thing. You get to decide the best way to do that.
481 The councilor You know that budget decisions force policy choices. And I'm just saying that I would have expected before presenting a budget amendment that will force major policy choices, that you would have had a suggestion about discussion in the housing and homelessness committee about how the scoring rubric works, how the assessments are done, and what it would mean to reduce in terms of what kinds of camps are removed to adjust, adjust the budget. That's all I'm suggesting.
482 What what my amendment is doing is simply saying we want fewer sweeps. It is up to the executive to figure out how exactly they go about that. I was also in a policy meeting with you, where we were told by experts that people are in desperate need of rental assistance or they're losing their housing. So we are having some of these discussions. But, you know, the scoring the ipr does is up to them. We are asking for fewer sweeps. We are asking for more upstream solutions.
483 So just fewer not fewer by x percent, not fewer based on certain criteria, just fewer.
484 Right. You can do as much as you can with the amount of money that we are giving you.
485 Okay. And as far as doing upstream work, allocating $2 million to rental assistance, et-cetera how many additional cases of homelessness will that avert?
486 I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I think that how many cases of homelessness is a. When we talk about sweeps and what they do to our unhoused community, those things, that money is going into a bottomless pit that is not helping people get into housing long term. Hang on. Stop interrupting me. We are funneling money into a system that is not helping people get connected to services. Despite what the administration has argued.
487 Councilor can you stick to answering the question? We have more amendments to go over, and over 100 people signed up for public testimony.
488 Okay.
489 One more question. How much money do the city and county collectively spend? Well, I'll just say the county, because it's about how much money does the county spend on rental assistance and other homelessness assistance and prevention measures? And how does that compare to the amount of money the city spends on camp removals?
490 I don't have that number off the top of my head, but I think that what you're getting at is that if this doesn't fully resolve all homelessness, then we shouldn't do anything at all.
491 Councilor that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is you are talking about a bottomless pit, which makes it sound like governments in general. To me, that suggests that governments in general are spending far, far, far more on removing camps than we are on trying to address homelessness and other humane ways. And I believe that that is not true. I believe that the amount the county spends on assistance, etc. Is far, multiple times, far, far more than the money that's spent on camp removals. That's the only point I'm trying to make. And I actually I would ask you that question. Do you agree that the county spends many times as much money on rent assistance as the city spends on camp removals?
492 I don't know, do you have that number for me?
493 I don't have the precise number, but I know it's in the tens of billions.
494 Okay. I think that at the end of the day, maybe we're having a philosophical argument here because with sweeps, you can basically never fail, because the more people that become unhoused, the more of a money system you can funnel into, the more contracts you can create. So what we're saying is we're trying to stop displacement in the first place. And human displacement is just not a value that I'm going to stand behind this, this budget cycle.
495 Just to clarify, though, you did say that you would accept displacement in some instances.
496 We're not cutting the entirety of the budget, but yes, we are trying to reduce it. We figured, given the makeup of this council, that you would not go to end all human suffering.
497 Councilor do you have further questions?
498 I just want to say that I object to the implication that I would not want to end all human suffering. If I could end all human suffering, I would.
499 I'm giving you a chance.
500 Councilor colleagues, are there other questions about this amendment before we make sure we place other proposals on the table? Okay. Seeing none, councilor. Councilor Kanal, I believe your amendment is pretty filed and councilor Smith's is not. So councilor Kanal, we're going to go to you first and then councilor Smith, you are up next. Councilor Smith.
501 I wanted to level set some of the information that we received from councilor Morillo.
502 I'm sorry. You're right. I had said I was going to go to our budget team first. Yeah. Cfo berry and budget director levine. If there's some information about the underlying ordinance before us today that you'd like to share, I think we need to get that on the record.
503 Councilor, I don't know that there's anything more to share about the underlying ordinance that we haven't already stated at work session. I'd be happy to. I mean, I.
504 Think you should restate.
505 Okay. Thank you.
506 I think that's the invitation here. Great.
507 So maybe I'll start by sort of acknowledging the reason that we do the technical adjustment ordinance, which is called that for a reason. It's intended to align to fiscal year results, to correct errors, and to align to details or actions that are known subsequent to the budget adoption, as has been previously noted, it does not typically include any process for robust public engagement. It's not intended to be a moment for policy development, and that is the case for the larger budget process, which, by the way, we're working to implement significant improvements to. So that's sort of the why. You know, the other the other thing I would note that the package, as was noted earlier, the package is presented, has my support as chief financial officer and the designated financial leader of the city. It reflects my advice and recommendations to navigate all of the various complexities that have already been acknowledged and I think, in fact, enhanced this morning to remain technically in balance and to minimize financial and operating risk to the city, and to best position us to have robust community conversations and informed management of the upcoming 2627 budget conversations. I'll maybe use this opportunity to to just talk about maybe a couple of. New concerns that I have, if I may, council president related to that amendment. First is that there's some information that was stated in the presentation, which I hadn't seen until it was just given about increasing financial stability. As cfo, I disagree. The proposal that we put forward specifically, we believe, improves and best positions the city for financial stability, specifically by using the compensation set aside, which is a pot of money that's flexible at this moment and available to bridge the current budget gap challenge in a manner that gives us a way to solve for that without having immediate service or staff impacts today. That doesn't mean it's an easy decision. That doesn't mean it's a great decision. It simply means it's the least risk decision that avoids having to make reductions to any services today. It buys us time to implement strategies that are in motion, including potentially using a future both rebuilding comp set aside and using additional resources that may become available over the next few months to ensure that that resource is available to meet those obligations. That was a strategic financial intention developed specifically as reflected in that, in that the tau as proposed. And then lastly, I would just note that I think I'm a little concerned that there's some information that was just presented that that seems to me from the seat I sit in, to be inconsistent with what I've heard about service impacts from some of the bureaus that were referenced. It misrepresented, I believe, some information about the insurance and claims fund and made references, for example, to availability of other funds without acknowledging that those funds may have other legal or policy restrictions or entail other significant risks in utilizing those. So I'm not sure exactly where to go from here, but but I'm happy to take any other questions about that.
508 Thank you. Jonas. Colleagues, there are a number of folks in the queue on a variety of things. Can you raise your hand in person if you are in the queue to ask jonas a follow up question? Councilor Novick go right ahead.
509 Yes, mr. Berry, councilor Morillo office said that the worker that set the set aside money is necessary to address existing workforce commitments, which makes it sound like we cannot pay the currently scheduled salaries and benefits for our workforce without dipping into the compensation set aside. Can you say whether that is true or if not, what you're what is true?
510 Yeah. Good question. Councilor. I mean, the comp set aside is a tool among many resources that's used to manage the suite of of compensation and hr related responsibilities. We know that there are always things like vacancies and unfilled positions that we typically don't want to necessarily budget at the full amount right out of the gate, knowing that those savings will exist. And so the comp set aside in its structure is intended to be a available to meet those needs, to fill those needs throughout the end of the year. There are things like collective bargaining agreements that will not be compromised. Our ability to meet those requirements will not be compromised. Whether there's funds in this comp set aside or not, the city will meet those obligations to the points that have been made in this conversation to date. If we aren't successful in adequately filling the comp set aside, we'll have to identify other resources to do that, and we'll have an opportunity to do that in the spring based upon a risk calculus that's different in the end of the fiscal year than it is right now, just a few months into the beginning of the fiscal year. So it's a long answer to your question, but I think it's important context that it is not required in order to meet our current hr related obligations.
511 Okay. I just want to I have to say I find that a little confusing is that it's not required in order to meet our obligations. So does that mean that the budget we passed without the compensation set aside would pay for the it would pay for the salaries, benefits, etc. Of all the employees that existed when we passed the budget.
512 Yeah, it's a good question. If we did nothing and had 100% full staffing at all times, it the budget without comp set aside would not be adequate. But we know that that's not indicative of reality. We will have vacancies. We will have moments where that fully loaded budgeted hr cost is less than. Sorry, that budgeted cost is more than the actual cost. So it's not exactly as black and white. I mean, we we know historically we have used the comp set aside. And so we do anticipate needing to use some of it. And we have a strategy to rebuild that so that when we need it, it is available.
513 And councilor Morillo office had numbers on how much compensation set aside has been used in previous years. Were those numbers accurate?
514 I'll defer to to ruth.
515 Yeah. For the record, ruth levine, budget director, those numbers were accurate. I think one of the things I want to point out, though, is that the compensation set aside, the total amount is set. It's an ongoing amount that we set at the beginning of each fiscal year, and the total amount is based on things like what cola was. So prior year's total amounts aren't necessarily indicative of what's expected to be drawn for for this next year. Right. Cola has fluctuated, has come down since previous years. I think the yeah. So I'll leave it there.
516 So am I correct in understanding that it largely comes down to vacancies, that if you we had enough money to fill all of our vacancies in the compensation set aside, we would. But if we have less money in the compensation set aside, we'll fill fewer vacancies. Is that mostly what it comes down to?
517 That is a large part of what it comes down to. There's also things like. Health benefits, actual salaries. Right. We budget in some cases, individuals turn over the amount an individual gets paid. Can can vary depending on the the, you know, pay equity analysis and the like. So there are other factors. But vacancies, certainly the largest factor contributing to how much comp set aside is needed.
518 How large a factor like this? I mean, would you expect that vacancies to save, vacancies to represent x percent of the compensation set aside?
519 Yeah, I don't know that I have that specific analysis offhand. I will say when we did some very rough analysis at the beginning of this fiscal year in the general fund, we expected that if you that we expected to be able to save something in the neighborhood of $6 million of just general fund from a vacancy freeze, that's very rough. So I don't want to, like, sell it as overly precise by any means. But that's that's roughly where we got to, which is and that's part of the analysis that went into this proposal was, okay, if we expect to save something in the neighborhood of $6 million from a vacancy freeze in general fund, we're leaving roughly $4 million of compensation in there. That adds up to about $10 million. That's kind of where we got to. But but I, I think jonah's point is good is we do not know exactly what that number will be until further into the fiscal year. And we're tracking it on a weekly basis of what those vacancies are. And so that's, that's kind of the, the, the intention was let's get a rough sense of how big this could be, and then we'll track it as we go so that we can do a check in in, say, January and see how things are looking.
520 Another question. It's kind of a legal question I want to ask you, since you're here, am I correct in thinking that council can bring a budget amendment at any time during the middle of the year? It doesn't have to be just relating to the tao.
521 That's true. There's there's state law requiring what qualifies as a major supplemental, which is different noticing requirements, but it can be done at any time in the fiscal year. Thank you.
522 Anything further, counselor? Okay. Councilor Kanal, you flagged for me that you had questions for jonas and ruth.
523 I thank you so much for being here to you both. So I'm going to just say if we have $17.7 million in the fund right now, and the need ends up being I'm using these numbers not because of any predictive value necessarily, but because of the fact that they're here and they're hypothetical. And we all saw them on slides. If we needed $13.1 million, as we did last year, and we have 17.7 million in the fund, we're fine because 17.7 is bigger than 13.1. In the event that we reduced the size of the fund below, whatever the need is, whether it's 13 or otherwise, then we would have to we would have to address that in some way in a few in the future, which includes the spring bump town, sorry. And in the event that, you know, we you've mentioned there's a strategy, but we're also talking about vacancies. And part of that strategy must include the hiring freeze and the maintenance of vacancies in non 24 seven public safety or exempted positions. Is that accurate.
524 That's correct.
525 Okay. So that policy was not something that we voted on right. The hiring freeze. That was an administrative decision. Is your anticipation that the strategy you're talking about, or at least the portions of it that are separate from the hiring freeze, would be something council would vote on. Or when you say we have a strategy, do you really mean the administration has a strategy?
526 Yeah, it's a good question, counselor. And thank you. I mean, it could be both, right? I mean, obviously there's a lot of uncertainties between now and the spring. Tao, when I think about strategies, it's the hiring freeze, which we know currently has been placed in motion. And that's anticipated, I believe, to generate 8 million, I think is the number that cbo is estimated in. Correct me if that's wrong for for for general fund. So that's a big piece of it. We also know we have other enterprise efficiency efforts that council has already directed. Those are in motion and are uncertain at this moment what those results might be. That's an opportunity to help identify some additional savings. We know we have broadly because of the situation we're in that we're talking about today. Other intentions to identify cost savings measures across the city. And so to the extent, I mean, things we've already talked about in this body, reductions in in ems, carefully managing contracts, et-cetera, prioritizing the most critical spending as appropriated in the current budget. Lastly, there are other potential reserves that become available throughout the fiscal year. As we know, we don't have to spend that money this year on the things that those reserves are being held for later in the fiscal year. Those risks are are different, meaning their risks right now, because we don't know whether the need for those reserves is going to materialize in spring. We hope those risks will not have materialized. And so that gives us an opportunity and a resource to kind of realign in spring, which is also a typical practice.
527 So let me ask just to clarify this 8 million. Thank you for that, by the way. And it doesn't matter whether it's 8 million, give or take a little bit. But my my question is is that you said that that's the current estimate for how much the hiring freeze would save. Is that above and beyond your normal projection for vacancies that would occur throughout a year, or is that it's normally 5 million and now it's eight, let's say.
528 It doesn't really benchmark us, it's just the total amount. I think. I think though, it's kind of I, I, I don't want folks to hang on too much to that 13.1 million from last year because the total changes for multiple reasons. And so I really don't think I think, yeah, I don't want to I don't want to get too hung up on that. And I think, you know, we can do a calculation on what the savings would be in a, in a normal fiscal year. I think based on the first six weeks of the hiring freeze, I think we can pretty confidently say things are being held that would not have been held in a prior fiscal year. I just we don't have like a total estimate right now that's benchmarked.
529 Sure. I'm not asking about the 13.1. I just used that because it was on the slide. I think I'm asking about the 8 million that that jonas just mentioned with relation to what a hiring freeze might save. And my my question, just to put a finer point on it is, is it normally some number that is the vacancy savings, meaning the amount that we don't need of the compensation set aside is that normally some number. And now it is $8 million higher than that based on your projection, the hiring freeze, or is it some number that is becoming $8 million.
530 The latter.
531 Okay. What is that some number then roughly.
532 And that's where I'm saying I don't have that. I don't have a benchmark number for you. I will also caution it's pretty hard to disentangle all of that because bureaus do other things with that money. So and so. And that's where it's part of a holistic strategy around cost savings. I think the other thing to just kind of come back to is like a council president sort of teed this up about like there's different options, different ways to go about this at a super high level. Right? When you think about like, if we were all given a target in the middle of the fiscal year, like cut your budget by this amount this fiscal year, what are the things we would do? We would probably not hire positions, and we would probably potentially pull back on some contracts. I think the so and I think, you know, there were already reductions in place from, for ems in the current fiscal year from the adopted budget. And not to say that there's nothing else left, just that was already a fact. So I think, you know, the what's the what's the daylight between a hiring freeze and a across the board budget cut? I'm not sure how much there is.
533 Sure to two last questions. One is one of the differences is the contractor side. So we know that there's been information sent out about a hiring freeze. Has there been any information that you're aware of that is in the pipeline regarding a contractor freeze on new contracts? At present.
534 I'm not aware of a written guidance to that regard, but certainly that is a a acknowledged strategy to help manage the budget. And it has been communicated to bureaus that we should be looking at all opportunities to reduce expenses.
535 Okay. And then last question, given that earlier you said that the the strategy for making the need of come down to whatever level this towel leaves in the compensation set aside, given that you said that that includes what's already been being done through the hiring freeze, which again, is something that we did not vote on, would us voting to approve this towel constitute council approval of that hiring freeze retroactively?
536 I wouldn't see it that way, but I defer to people smarter than me to make that call.
537 I think we might want to consider that retroactively. Sorry. Rhetorical. In addition, because I am concerned that it would be construed that way. Thank you, madam president.
538 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Avalos, you noted that you had questions for our cfo.
539 Yeah. Thank you. I believe you mostly answered this, but so given that the revenues have come in lower than expected, sounds like your confidence level as far as whether we can fully restore the compensation set aside is, I guess I guess that's the question. Where is your confidence level on that?
540 I would say it's reasonable. I mean, I mean, there is there is no decision we're going to make that doesn't have risk. And so of those options as we considered it, including potentially reducing staff for programs, now the option that I would recommend as the most likely to be accommodated without pain is to use the compensation set aside, given moderate to high expectation that we can fill that adequately between now and when it's necessary in the spring.
541 Are we mainly using the set aside to backfill the $11 million gap in shelter plan funding?
542 I, I.
543 Know the $11 million gap in the shelter plan is reduced by reducing expenditures. So the totality of the adjustments in the tao that draw resources, which in exhibit seven, we kind of walked through those at a high level. There's kind of some technical things, and then there's some, and then there's the big one is obviously all the encumbrance carryovers. Those are the things that are drawing resource from the general fund. And that's what we're balancing the we're using the compensation set aside to balance the 11 million is self balancing. And that reduces both the revenue side and the expenditure side in one place.
544 That's all. Thanks.
545 Thank you. Councilor. Counselor Green, I believe you had joined the queue for this portion as well. Is that correct? Go right ahead.
546 Thank you. Miss berry, I just want to clarify. So the compensation set aside is is a contingency reserve. Would you agree with that? I so I'm curious because the strategies I is I understand it is that the way that we are going to replenish that if we deplete it now in the proposed tore and amended is through efficiency enterprise efficiency savings, as you've discussed. And then also the hiring freeze. My understanding is the hiring freeze does not apply to public safety officers, at least police and fire boec as well, I think. And I think that that's going to be the lion's share traditionally of the compensation set aside draw. And so I so I think in that context. So so I guess there's two questions. How do you respond to to that consideration. And then the second piece being the enterprise efficiencies were already baked into the 2526 budget. And so to the extent that they are now being relied upon to replenish this contingency reserve, are we doing more enterprise efficiency? And can you give us a sense of what what that looks like?
547 Yeah. Thanks. Councilor. On the first part of your question, I believe. A question related to compensation set aside. I believe that is all accurate. My job here is not to make those policy considerations. It's to balance the city's budget. And so that's what my recommendation aims to do with regard to the enterprise efficiencies. I would say it's uncertain. Right. We know those efficiencies were taken on a city wide basis. And as we're identifying how those play out, it's going to hit different funds in different ways, some of which will be general funds, some of which will be non-general fund. So I don't necessarily anticipate more efficiencies, meaning more, more total dollar savings. The 10% is the target that was. Adopted by council, 10% target for 2526. But we don't know yet where those how that math will work out. And so it's more about flexibility than increasing the savings in that enterprise efficiencies. The other thing that I would note that that came up in councilor Kanal question is that wasn't referenced in your inventory of kind of the things to solve is just general underspending. Right, which is related to the contract question as well. So it's the hiring freeze. It's potentially evolving information around enterprise efficiencies, and it's underspending that will occur. We hope we aim across the board and that could potentially be a significant, significant piece, especially if we're talking about a small delta that's not filled, not potentially filled by the hiring freezes as a standalone strategy.
548 Okay. Thank you. That's helpful. And I guess the last question would be so we're about four months into the fiscal year. And so it seems to me that what we're facing here is a overtime risk trade off. So like by drawing down the contingency reserves today for compensation set aside, we're saying we don't want to incur cuts associated with not paying the carryover encumbrances because we and then we think that we might get the resources on the back end. And if we do, then all is well and good. But if we don't, then we are going to have to make a similar we're going to make up that whole all else equal in a in an adjustment with three months left of the fiscal year. So if you spread $13 million or whatever, the number is over, you know, eight months, that's easier than three months. Would you agree with that?
549 I would agree with that. Yes. And just to note, too, that when that decision comes back, if that decision comes back, it will also be coming back with the benefit of additional beneficial information to help solve the problem that we don't have today.
550 Okay, great. And then I guess I'll just leave with this question. So there are choices made in this town to fill the gap. Does that choice come from the mayor's office, city administrator's office, or is it just a purely technical budget office?
551 Are you asking about the choice to use the recommendation to use the compensation? Set aside.
552 Just how we compose this broader package?
553 Yeah. So it generates initially through the city budget office and myself, and making a recommendation about how to technically manage those those challenges.
554 Okay. Thank you.
555 Thank you.
556 Councilor.
557 Councilor Dunphy, you noted that you were in the queue for a question here. And, councilor Smith, I see your hand. You'll be after councilor Zimmerman.
558 Thank you. Yeah. Jonas. I've only. I mean, we've gone through countless hours trying to talk about this, and honestly, I'm still learning things about it today. There were clearly, at some point, policy choices that were made by your office to develop the final tao prior to the the development and the presentation of it. Were council offices consulted about those choices and trade offs as you were developing this town?
559 Yeah. Good question, councilor. Not directly knowing that we would have the benefit of work sessions and multiple hearings about this. So I think didn't anticipate the volume here of interest. But knowing that we had, you know, a month at least of of conversation before we got to this moment today, that is the the, you know, engagement process to help identify a solution forward.
560 In a situation like this is dipping in, I mean, like in past years, similar situation seeing a a significant budget gap between approved and what is collected is this often this this compensation set aside fund is this often the fund that is first tapped in this way? Or was that a policy choice that your office made? And what if it wasn't? What are the other ways that this has been done? And how did you come to the conclusion?
561 Yeah, that's a great question. I don't know that we've faced this situation before, at least not in my direct experience, where we've had to make this kind of a of a call in the past.
562 From the you were you were earlier sort of described as the neutral body or neutral budget office. How do you define that in this circumstance? I suppose, for a budget analysis component of it? You know, you said that council was included through the work sessions and some of the feedback that we got through that, but was there a was this truly a neutral, independent process or was this a did this also come with feedback directly from the administration side?
563 Well, that's a pretty that's a pretty loaded question. Councilor I'll say my seat is to be a neutral party and to provide facts about risks and trade offs and recommendations for the city at large to keep the budget balanced and in compliance with state law. There are elements that are decision points. And so some of those decision points do, of course, go through as we would expect and anticipate and have been mandated, will go through the city administrator and the mayor and ultimately to this body. And so from the seat I sit in, councilor All of those things occurred and are true as I sit here today.
564 And if we are to accept this, this framework for drawing from compensation, set aside to cover these budget gaps, how do we go about guaranteeing that set aside as filled? Knowing that I've heard a number of strategies, vacancy savings, other considerations. But how do we how does it prioritize refilling those coffers versus other urgent needs? And how do you balance that in your decision making as what comes before us in the spring and ultimately what comes for us in the summer?
565 So I'll say with regards to the hiring freeze, there's a process to to manage. You know, essentially folks have to submit requests that go through a city budget office review, ultimately potentially a review by myself and the dca of operations, city operations, potentially up to the city administrator, if needed, to make a judgment. And so that's technically how that's managed within the organization, within the mandate and scope of responsibility of of the administration more broadly, we all have to work together to limit spending to the most critical priorities. And that's not something that I can manage on my own. I need support from dcas, I need support from bureaus. I need support from this council. And being extremely diligent about managing the things that we are spending money on so that we can prevent having this conversation in situation every 3 or 6 months. And so thank you for the question, and I really look forward to moving forward and starting to make progress on some of the really big priorities that we have at the city. Thank you.
566 Yeah.
567 Anything further, counselor, colleagues, I want to note that we are still just in asking questions about the technical pieces. We still have three amendments left to introduce so that the public knows what they're testifying on. And I got a flag that we have some people who have started to leave. So if we can try to keep this to technical questions, we will have time to showcase our positions and opinions. Following public testimony. I have councilor Zimmerman and Smith who have noted to me that they have technical questions still to ask. Perhaps councilor Kanal has another one. And then I hope at that point we can move to the canal amendment, the Smith amendment, and Morillo two, because I believe, councilor Morillo, you have an additional amendment, counselor Zimmerman. Go right ahead.
568 Thank you, madam president. When we got the presentation, in whatever form that was about this amendment, one thing I feel like is missing, and I'm just reading from the document of, of the amendment, and it's the table that says encumbrance carry over reduction table. And I want to make sure that I'm understanding that that $4.4 million, the cumulative of all those groups that that's that's what is being changed in terms of what will make up the new programs in this amendment. That's my first question. Is this table what I should be reading as as the reductions? Councilor Morillo, I think maybe I just want to make sure I'm reading document the right way.
569 Oh, I'm sorry, I was pulling up something else, and I thought you were asking them a question. Could you repeat that?
570 There's there's a table in your amendment on the second page of Morillo one, and it's, it just lists all the different bureaus and then a negative number to equal 4.4 million. I just want to make sure I'm reading that correctly, that that's that's where you're, you're getting the money for the other proposals that were made today.
571 Correct?
572 Okay. Given that my request is that the city administration and the cfo start preparing so that we can hear from, I'm just going to list them. The bureau of human resources for its 37,000 bureau of planning and sustainability for its 442,000, the city administrator for its 660,000, the city budget office. You don't have to talk about your 7000 city operations office for 300,000. Office of community and civic life for 50,000, office of public safety for 323,000. City auditor. I'll let her off the hook for the 36,000. The bureau of emergency management for 251,000. The Portland fire and rescue bureau for 428,000 429,000. Portland parks and recreation for 1 million, Portland police bureau for 873,000. I would like to know what these reductions mean. So technically, this is a question of I'd like to technically know what we're giving up. If we were to pass this amendment. And I can't do that. All respect to our cfo. But you're not a program guy. You're a money guy. And I want to know from these bureau leaders what they will have to give up if this if this reduction in their budgets and reductions, I'm assuming, in service comes along. That's because I asked that because I am well aware that we're having this moment in front of a lot of people who have been here for a long time, and I just want to make sure that the public comment is relevant relative to what what this amendment may change in the town, that that would be my request of the city administration and my questions.
573 Thank you. I, I will say, I think that that that mayor's proposal also makes cuts, and I think that that should be interrogated in the same manner that you are interrogating my amendment, because we don't even know what we're giving up for the mayor's proposal.
574 Councilor, you will have an opportunity to ask those questions. Councilor zimmermann has an opportunity to ask his. And I am trying.
575 And we are banking on hope and a prayer that in the spring, if.
576 You are next up in the queue.
577 I just I recognize.
578 Is next up in the queue.
579 I recognize.
580 That councilor. Cuts you. The two of you need to take this offline if there's going to be a president.
581 I don't think you're listening. My point is, I've already.
582 Heard from those cuts.
583 I need to hear from the new cuts. I've already heard.
584 Them.
585 I understand, councilor Smith.
586 Thank you, madam president. So that we are level set. I want to thank kristen from councilor Murillo's office for giving us that whole breakdown. But I do want to level set some of the information that she put in. She used the number 19.81 million. That was the whole. But the actual whole was $130 million for the 25, 26 that we had to fill when we were filling out the 2526, the 2425 at the end of the year, peter gave a a forecast and it was short by about 20, $20 million. So that's not what we're talking about, what we're talking the reason why we're so concerned as counselors is because we got a towel that included money for carryover and forbearance from bureaus that the mayor said we had to pay. So the backdrop to this is the mayor told bureaus that they would not be allowed to get carryover money and that they could not do forbearances earlier in the year, I didn't get any additional information that he had changed that direction. So when we all got it, we were all like, where did this come from? So that's one piece. The other piece is we got an $8.1 million expenditure that we had no idea about in the previous budget sessions, because our cbo our financial department, they forgot to pay something in 2425. Let's talk about what's going on with this towel. Then there was $4.2 million that we failed to learn about in the budget session that we owed for services already rendered to prosper Portland. So we got the 18 million. Then we got this little bit of 13 million. And so we're all like tripping, like, where did all this come from? And so there was a little bit director berry, there was a little bit of budgeting policy overreach that your office did, because when you gave us the towel, you said we only had $57 million worth of decision packages, but yet you failed to give us the beginning working balance. I asked that question at tao. What is the total? I mean, the restricted and the discretionary general fund. I did not get it. I asked for the general ledger. I did not get it because I wanted to figure out, just like councilor Zimmermann. What were these actual things that we owed that we did not know about? And that was wrong. You guys took our job away from us, and you made decisions about the decisions that you were you were going to give to us. So let me level set even further. On the technical side, our responsibility as city councilors, we, in concert with the mayor, develop and create a budget for the city of Portland, an annual operating budget, by consolidating those financial requests, evaluating program efficiency, and ensuring accuracy and completeness. Is that correct, director berry?
587 There's a lot here, but I think the last statement you made is correct. Yes, ma'am.
588 Financial oversight. As city councilors, we give you all financial guidance. We monitor the budget process, and we ensure compliance with relevant laws and policies as it relates to Oregon budget law. We do strategic planning with you all. We help align the budget with the organization's overall goals and priorities. And the most important thing, and that's why we're here today. That's why there's a Morillo one, a Morillo two, a Smith one, and maybe possibly a Smith two. And there's a canal one. We review and give recommendations. We examine proposed budget changes, like you all are trying to do today. We make revisions and we submit the final budget proposals to ourselves as the budget committee, to the city council to see if we're actually going to do it. That is our job. That's not your job. That's our job. The last thing we offer public communication like we're doing today, we provide a forum, which we're doing today for the public to comment on the budget and explain the budgets, financial constraints and programs to the community. That's the oversight that we have. That's our job. So when people come up here and act like we're just doing things because we have nothing else to do, we're doing our job. We're monitoring the budget direction that's given to the city, budget that's given to us by the city budget office. You give us direction. We're the ones who actually approve it. Council has the authority and the responsibility to make changes through amendments like we are doing today. Through this process and discussing it.
589 Councilor do you have a question?
590 And so I want to get the technical piece, because I don't think people understand the technical piece of our job. They think that this is performative, but this is actually our job. And so for me, the towel got created without having conversations with the council. And that's why you're in a conundrum. $13 million were put on us that we had no idea about. That's why you have this really, you know, active council meeting today. And so we're trying to figure out where to get those funds from. I do have a budget amendment amendment that I'm going to bring to the Morillo one, but I just wanted to make sure that we were all on the same page and whose job is what, because I think there was some overreach done by a couple of different places. But this is our job. Thank you.
591 Thank you. Councilor councilor Canal. Did you have something additional? Please keep it brief.
592 Thank you. I just wanted to clarify. I had a question I forgot and a question I'm clarifying that you gave a response to to councilor Avalos on. You said that the compensation set aside ruth was to balance the the $11 million is self-balancing because it reduces both the revenue side and the expenditure side. And one and this is the $11 million that was not received of outside funding for the mayor's congregate shelter plan. My question is that that's not that's only true if we link all of the homelessness pieces together. Right. Because my understanding is that the 11 million was for the mayor's plan. But the reduction in the tor is split between the mayor's congregate shelter plan and the ongoing alternate shelter system, meaning we're moving 5 million or so dollars.
593 Know that the that 11 million that was budgeted for the external revenue was always split between the alternative shelter and the overnight shelter, the mayor's overnight shelter.
594 So you're saying the revenue was earmarked that way?
595 That was that was how it was budgeted originally. And then when it didn't come in, it was reduced in the same way that it was added.
596 Copy to jonas's point. This is the one I forgot. So and I I'm going to try to explain it. Does your strategy include rebuilding the size of the fund, or does it only include reducing the level of the need in spring? Does that make sense? Meaning if the 17 million goes down to 3 million, is the intention that it will be a higher number than 3 million at that point? Or is the intention that we will only need 3 million at that point? And I will explain why, but I'm curious.
597 Yeah. No, I think the intent is that we will need more than three. The expectation is we'll need more than three and then we'll, I don't know, maybe look to ruth to see whether we actually technically put that into that fund or it's stored somewhere else. I don't know if you have input on that.
598 I mean, I think it'll be up to council to decide if we move funds either into contingency or out of contingency, and then across bureaus will take that to council. Obviously somebody will need to bring that.
599 Sure.
600 The reason I'm asking is that my understanding is that fire and police alone need 7 or $8 million at minimum, usually, or that's part of the budget. And my question is how if we don't rebuild the fund, are we going to be in a situation where we're either holding public safety positions vacant to reduce that need? And I'm specifically conversation of we're going to have to lay those folks off in spring so that they don't need the money then, or is a conversation that we're saying, sorry, psr and chad have to shut down or sorry we have to shut down civic life or sorry we have to sell some city lands. I don't, and I know you can't answer that, but I am concerned because we these needs are not the kind that this is. Councilor brought this up to these these needs in fire and police specifically are not the kind that we're seeing a vacancy projected through a hiring freeze on. So that's why I'm asking the question.
601 Yeah, it would have to come back to council for some sort of action in the spring. I think that was sorry if that wasn't clear. I think that was always kind of part of the plan. And I think there is even potential, you know, a couple months ago talk about, you know, coming potentially even in the winter to do a kind of mid-year check in based on where things are. So I think that would that would have to be part of the plan.
602 Yeah. I intend to order something that's not on that menu, just flagging that if that's where we're at. Thank you, madam president.
603 Thank you. Colleagues, is anybody else in the queue for questions or ruth and jonas, before we lay the other amendments on the table so that our constituents have an opportunity to inform us? Councilor.
604 Could you ask our cbo what our beginning, our total beginning working balances? I would really like to know what that is.
605 Yeah. Councilor will I don't know that off the top of my head, I believe that was included in the prior information that was sent to council offices a week or a couple weeks ago. We will look that up right now and email it to all of council as soon as we can get a firm grasp on the actual number.
606 Are you asking just for general fund or total all funds?
607 As I said before, in the restricted fund and in the discretionary general fund.
608 Okay. Yeah.
609 Colleagues.
610 Even if it's money we can't touch, I know it's a multi hundred dollar, $100 million number.
611 Those numbers will be emailed to us. And I also want to note that councilor Zimmerman had asked for information about program reductions if Morillo one were to pass. And I hope that by the time we get through the next section of our work, we can have all of those bureaus or dcas in the room, or information to our budget team or our city administrator to be able to share with us that information as well. I believe that was everybody in Morillo one, with the exception of the budget office and the auditor. Councilor canal, can you please lay your amendment on the table so that the public knows what they are testifying to?
612 Yes, madam president, I'll try to do it briefly. My amendment is an amendment to the Morillo one amendment, and it's a I will save my comments on the underlying amendment and the underlying council later, but there are, to put it in one sentence. There are many things in that that I'm broadly supportive of. The amendment I'm proposing is a relatively small change to that proposal from councilor Morillo and councilor Green. It is essentially restoring a few of the encumbrance, carry over requests for public safety work that is not already exempted from the hiring and overtime freeze. It restores 511,000 encumbrance carryover for the office of public safety for the Portland bureau of emergency management, and for independent police review. These are the non 24 seven portions of public safety. Because councilor Smith's amendment already addresses some of that, and also partially that the money that we're saving in the compensation set aside will ultimately, as I just mentioned, go primarily towards fire and police. This work. Office of violence prevention safe blocks, Portland bureau of emergency management, etc. Is critical public safety work. It's also work that I asked the city administrator to exempt from the hiring and overtime freeze. That hasn't yet occurred, but I definitely want to encumber it to honor their encumbrance carryover requests so that they're able to continue working. Should there end up being those sorts of freezes. It's about half $1 million out of 17.7 million that's under discussion. And it's an area that will not be drawing as significantly on the compensation set aside because of the fact that we're prioritizing 24 over seven public safety programs in that. So the revised table was handed out. It's also posted on the website. Again, the only lines that are being changed are the office of public safety being zeroed out here, Portland bureau of emergency management being zeroed out. And then there's a reduction in city operations office that reflects the independent police review items within that being zeroed out. And by the way, being zeroed out means that there is not a reduction. So their encumbrance carryovers would be granted in this. And that does mean that we are not saving quite as much. Instead of saving about 4 million of the compensation set aside, we'd be saving 4.3 million. We'd be saving 3.8. Thank you.
613 Thank you. Councilor, colleagues, any questions for councilor Kanal before we continue?
614 Yeah, just a quick one. So on that last point, so you're saying that by adding those back in, you're just taking it from the amount we put back into compensation. Set aside that how you described it at the end there.
615 Yeah. So instead of reducing the the encumbrance carryover request by 4.3 we're reducing it by 3.8. And then instead of increasing the general fund compensation set aside by 9.9 10 million, it'd be 9.4.
616 Thank you colleagues.
617 Thank you. Colleagues. Councilor Smith I believe that you have an amendment to put on the table.
618 Thank you, madam president. I am amending the the fall technical adjustment and amending Morillo one. I'm proposing an amendment to council Morillo amendment, which proposes important revisions to the current title adjustments. And Smith one represents a crucial step forward in promoting responsible budgeting and support for vital programs. The first one, it will restore the 4.35 million for the impact reduction program, which was previously removed in the Morillo one amendment. This funding is essential for creating safer, cleaner neighborhoods and supporting campsite sweeps and cleanup initiatives. Additionally, the amendment allocates nearly 873,000 in carryover funds to strengthen law enforcement efforts through the police bureau. It also directs over 1 million in carryover funds to parks, enabling timely improvements and community programs. And I do also support in other areas of Morillo one for for rent assistance, food allocation and the return of 10 million to the employee cost of living adjustment fund as outlined in Morillo one. This move aims to eliminate the employee cost of living adjustment fund from being used to fund the mayor's title, reaffirming our commitment to fair treatment of our city employees. I view this as a crucial step in rebuilding trust and demonstrating respect for our dedicated city employees. And how I'm going to pay for this is we're going to take $6.2 million out of the city obligation reserve fund and and use that as a general fund transfer. Thank you.
619 Thank you. Counselor. Colleagues, are there any questions for counselor Smith? Okay. And I'll note that this is not posted online right now. But, counselor, I believe your staff are working to make sure that the clerk has that so they can post it.
620 The clerk the clerk has it in all your council offices. Have it.
621 Okay, counselor Morillo, I believe the final amendment that has been filed in advance is Morillo two. Would you like to discuss that?
622 Yes. I will take one minute. Morillo two basically just makes sure that $85,000 is returned to the office of youth violence prevention help, inc contract so that they are not reduced.
623 Okay.
624 Colleagues, any questions for counselor Morillo? Okay. Counselor Novick.
625 Yeah, question. I forgot to ask earlier. I think that your encumbrance related amendment affected about 196 different light items. Is that right?
626 I don't have that list directly in front of me. What's your question?
627 I would just counselor Zimmerman talked about how much money in each bureau was affected. I just wanted to. But but that's based on a whole bunch of light items. So I just wanted to clarify how many light items there were.
628 Yeah. And I think that the analysis that my budget analyst that works in my office did was trying to find, you know, if there were contracts, like we found some contracts from 2018 or something that didn't need to be in there. So that's part of the thing that you're looking at. And I think we emailed an faq to all the offices, and I can get you the spreadsheet if that's what you'd like.
629 Yeah, I, I just one question I asked your office is whether you went through all of that, those items and sort of ranked them as to which was more or less important. And you just I said that you decided that the cease fire item is important enough to be removed from your list. And I just wanted to I mean, want to know, did I think I know the answer to this? But have you gone through all the other 195 to determine that you don't have a problem with with cutting those?
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630 Yes, that's correct. This was when you're looking at a ton of spreadsheets, it can be complicated. We wanted to make sure that the office of youth violence prevention and help, inc. Got their contract. So this is just a small amendment to that. And we did outline the process as well. It was in line with how city policy examines a lot of our contracts.
631 But just to clarify, did your process result in affecting that cease fire amount. So that's why you have to have a specific amendment on that.
632 Yes. And I think when the city administrator's office brought forward some things, they had some quick changes to make to.
633 Okay. Thank you.
634 A quick point of order, councilor. This relates to the office of violence prevention. There's a line item, not cease fire, which is a separate office.
635 Sorry.
636 Thanks.
637 Okay, colleagues, any.
638 Other comments?
639 Any other comments before we move to public testimony?
640 I have I have a floor amendment that wasn't filed, but it's very simple. I'll just read it in the record and I'm emailing it to all of you. Hang on. It just it's an amendment to move the contract for the glitter program from the irp to bts, and it doesn't change any dollars. It just says we want this contract to be managed in the bureau of planning and sustainability, which also manages other abatement type of contracts. So they have that capability and move it out of the irp. And my motivation for that is that I do not want programs like that to be held up as the thing that gets cut first. If we want to have some serious oversight over how much money overall we're spending on campsite removal, this is just to reaffirm the importance of this program. For me, it will only be a relevant amendment if I would say Smith, one doesn't succeed in amending Morillo one because it's a moot point at that point. So I just put that out there. We'll bring it in. Hopefully it's friendly when we get to Morillo one and debate, and we can maybe think about rolling it in. Otherwise I'll move it separately and I'm emailing that out to you guys and the clerk.
641 Thank you. Colleagues. Any other comments or questions for these amendments? Okay. Mr. Mayor, you flagged that you might have some questions before we move to public testimony.
642 Some comments. Council president. Thank you. Council vice president colleagues, thank you so much for this opportunity. I wanted to discuss the fall technical adjustment that's before us right now. Morillo one and any other amendments that are listed and or may come up. Before they move forward. Our spring budget process represented some of the best attributes of how we work with the community. We commissioned surveys. We held town halls. We invited public comment, transparency, accountability at every step. That effort resulted in a unanimous vote, a sign of unity and shared purpose. I now urge my city council colleagues to remember what we put into that process. The fall technical adjustment budget ordinance does not include that same public process of accountability and transparency. It is not designed for massive budget pivots, especially those that will bring immediate, visible changes to every neighborhood in Portland. I've heard from people from across the city and they feel blindsided. They feel cut out of this process, confused by the shifting narrative and unclear answers from the council. Perhaps worst of all is in the rush to bring this amendment forward. It relies on bad information that does not acknowledge the immediate and severe hardship it would bring to neighborhoods. The amendment purports to protect and hold harmless certain programs like workforce development. This would not be the case once we fulfill our legal obligations to leases and other costs, there would not be enough funds left to fully support them. This would also take from parks. Right after we went to the taxpayers and asked for their support and faith. This would take from graffiti cleanup and harm our efforts to revitalize our public spaces. This would take from the Portland police bureau at a time when we cannot afford to lose progress on public safety. I recently returned from a conference of mayors from around the world, and I heard from them and their praise for their protection in Portland, for our free speech, even while operating at a fraction of the resources of our peer cities. Our public safety department has been exemplary. We should recognize and support progress, not punish it. It also takes $85,000 from cease fire and 30,000 from the office of violence prevention, both programs that have contributed so much to the reduction of violence in our city. We are shifting to a new phase in my plan to end unsheltered homelessness in Portland, we are returning to enforcement on safety and sanitation, and we're leading with compassion and outreach. And yes, that does involve arrests for open warrants. Let's look at what some of these warrants involved. Multiple failures to appear for theft, non-compliant sex offender identification, theft, meth and firearm possession. Another with multiple felony warrants, assault of a public safety officer, forgery, failure to register as a sex offender. And that was just for last week. How many were arrested simply for camping? None. We had no arrests simply for camping. This is Portland. The justice system is never our first resort. For some, this will be an opportunity to resolve the issues that are keeping them on the street. Others must be held accountable for preying on our community, and none have suffered more from those crimes than our homeless neighbors. That said, we all know arrests aren't a victory. Outreach is a victory. Shelter and pass off the street is a victory. What I am most proud of is last week. The first week of our return to enforcement is the 39 people that were living on the street and accepted life saving shelter because we had the shelter available. Those are the best numbers we've seen in years. That's the true victory. What's more, we expect to achieve similar results this week and every week going forward until we end the needless suffering and dying on the streets of Portland for most. For our most vulnerable. Portland's progress is real, but it is fragile. Let's work together for compassionate solutions that will bring about our renaissance, not perpetuate more hardship in our neighborhoods. Please vote no on the Morillo one amendment and any other amendments that would replace public process and accountability with unilateral citywide policy shifts. Thank you, council president.
643 No clapping please. We need to move to public testimony. We do not clap and cheer during meetings. Thank you. I really don't want to have to move to ejections on something like this. It's disrespectful to everybody who's waiting to testify. Keelan, could you please call up our first panel of testifiers? And as people come up, if you are the first one up, please go right ahead. We want to make sure to hear from as many people as possible. We will take up to three hours of public testimony.
644 First up we have nicholas beam, catherine lindsay, vadim mazursky, brian kotlov, brian orndorf. Please go ahead and unmute. State your name for the record and begin your testimony.
645 Hello, my name is nick beam. I am the co-executive director of ground school association. I am a voter from district three and a lifelong portlander. I'm here to address some of the cuts that have been proposed to the impact reduction team. It's and how it could potentially affect the glitter program. Since last Friday, I have heard a number of different things from very knowledgeable people about how this may affect us. And it's, you know, what we do is something unique. There's not a lot of people out there that are doing what the glitter program does. I'm sure many of you know, but I'm just going to run over it. We are a peer led environmental recovery program operated by ground school association. Our primary contract is with the city. As of today, we have 47 payroll workers and many more who come and work with us in other ways, over 90% of whom really about 100% of whom have experienced homelessness themselves. We run 36 trash collection routes a week. If you come to work for us and you stay at work with us for, say, a year, you have a better than 85% chance of getting housed. We house people without even being funded for that or trying. So we've received an amazing response when we reached out with our concerns, and we're grateful to everyone who took the time. The different staffers, and especially councilor Green. And that was great. But I still feel that the future for for the glitter program could be uncertain. I have come here today to make the ask that the glitter program be relocated to another bureau so that we can keep our keep ourselves away from this fight and not end up becoming a political football. I hope you will consider that proposal.
646 Thank you.
647 Catherine. Catherine.
648 My name is katie lindsay. I work for ground school association as a development and data manager. As a city employee, I helped create the glitter program with ground school in 2021. I am here to address the Morillo one amendment and potential impacts to the glitter program. Glitter is a peer led environmental recovery and waste removal program created and operated by people with lived experience and homelessness and survival economies. It's currently funded through the city's impact reduction program. The glitter program reduces waste in public spaces, strengthens community belonging, and provides dignified living wage alternatives that move people from informal economies into formal, supported employment pathways. Because of the current budget structure and the city's legal obligations under the tozier settlement, this program is incredibly vulnerable to political shifts and budget cuts. Our workers do not have the same advocacy, power or voice as other organizations. There are some of the most displaced from community and certainly from government. Glitter consistently shows some of the strongest housing, substance use and mental health outcomes per dollar spent precisely because it is community led. We can't risk even the possibility of cutting 67 living wage positions for our most vulnerable community members, especially in the budget landscape we currently exist within. This amendment shows how, even when policy is made for and about our unhoused workers, they are still excluded from that process. We are grateful to urp for advocating and supporting our work, but because of its position in urp, our program has repeatedly been used as a tool, even weaponized in debates to discuss funding shifts until glitter and programs like ours are independently housed or reorganized, changes to irp's budget simply put our unhoused neighbors against one another for already scarce funding, forcing a false choice between sanitation, safety and employment. We can't ask them to face this impossible choice again. We urge the council to support a thoughtful, community informed plan by moving the glitter program from from urp to another bureau prior to supporting any budget changes. Thank you.
649 Hello councilors and mayor. My name is betty mazursky, and I'm here to ask you to reject the Morillo amendment one and the proposed 4.35 million reduction to the impact reduction program as has been exposed today. There are more questions from city councilors than there are answers, which makes it very difficult from a transparency and public input standpoint. But I'll focus on the part that seeks to defund the impact reduction program. Portlanders, including those people living in the streets, need the ipr to be fully funded. I know that from the 128,270, I kid you not reports portlanders sent to irp last year, up 23% from the previous year and a whopping 92,283% in just ten years. I know this from the 12.4 million pounds of trash and biohazards urp cleaned up last year, some of it from my very own neighborhood, up 7.5% from the previous year. And while the Oregonian published statistics that two thirds of homeless decline irps offer of shelter, I know that at least one third of homeless people irp contacted benefited from a warm and safe place to sleep, a hot meal and connection to life saving services, which is the basis for mayor wilson's homeless strategy. And let's not ignore the bigger picture. Morillo amendment one will deal a severe blow to the mayor's recent efforts to address homelessness in Portland, a platform that portlanders elected him to carry out. I know portlanders oppose councilor, Morillo and councilor Greens efforts to defund urp, because I read through the 990 written testimonials submitted to council, the overwhelming majority of which oppose cuts to the arp. That's right. Despite the rush process, there have been several amendments and all of this since Friday. It must be a record that 990 people wanted their voices to be heard, or at least read. And I hope you do read those, because the stories are absolutely amazing of people that have been benefited by irp. Cutting irp now will not reduce suffering. It will externalize it onto our families navigating parks, onto workers and customers, in storefronts and into our rivers and Green spaces. Council members, I urge you to listen to your constituents. I hope this vote you put the needs of portlanders, including the people living in the streets, ahead of the failed ideology of compassionate neglect embodied in Morillo one. Thank you.
650 Brian cotlove is joining us online.
651 Thank you. Good afternoon. My name is brian cotlove. I'm a resident of district four. I'm here to urge you to vote no on councilor Morillo amendment one, which reduces the budget for the impact reduction team by over $4 million. If someone wanted to see Portland fail. This is exactly the type of amendment they would propose. Portland's worst critics are probably gleefully exclaiming, I can't believe they're doing it to themselves. Bottom line passing Morillo one would mean more people living on the streets. Supporters claim this amendment is a compassionate approach, but what is compassionate about leaving people surrounded by garbage, disease, and danger? What is compassionate about leaving some of the most vulnerable people more exposed to violence, sexual exploitation and drugs? I urge everyone listening to reject the characterization of the work that urp does as sweeps. The word sweeps is meant to provoke outrage, not understanding. When we call it a sweep, we erase the humanity of both the workers doing this job and the people they help. These aren't sweeps. They're harm reduction cleanups that keep people alive and connecting them to shelter. Compassion isn't about pretending the problem isn't there. It's about showing up to help. Passing this amendment would hand our worst critics and I told you so moment. Let's keep being the city that believes compassion works better when paired with competence. Please vote no on this severely misguided amendment. Thank you.
652 Okay, brian island off district four. I'm here. Today to ask for a no vote on councilor Avalos.
653 Ill conceived.
654 Proposal to deduct.
655 4.3 million.
656 From the impact reduction. The ipr is one of the few city programs that keeps.
657 Portland functional.
658 Every week.
659 Its crews remove.
660 Tons of trash, needles and hazardous.
661 Waste from our.
662 Neighborhoods, parks.
663 And sidewalks. Without them, our city will deteriorate rapidly. Both public health and safety will suffer. Councilor Avalos amendment claims to reduce campsite sweeps by redirecting ipr funding. In reality, it will make conditions worse for everybody housed and unhoused. This is not a political issue. It's a public health issue. The ipr keeps our streets and parks safe by removing hazardous materials, used needles, fentanyl residue, human waste and other contaminants that threaten both people and the environment. When irp crews are in the field, they're not just cleaning up, they're often the first point of contact for some people ready to connect with outreach, shelter or treatment, cutting these crews would mean fewer opportunities to connect people with help. And let's be clear this isn't a real cost saving measure. It's false economy. The trash fires, environmental damage that will follow only shift to emergency response, fire and cleanup later at a much higher price. We can be compassionate and practical at the same time, but defunding the program that keeps our public safe, clean, and accessible is neither at a time when we should be doubling down on efforts to make Portland cleaner and safer, this proposal does the opposite. I urge you to protect the full funding of the impact reduction program. Please do not cut I p funding support irp, support public health, support the people working every day to keep Portland clean and safe. Thank you.
664 Next up we have laura curry, talia giardini, hart pham, albert miller, Steve no name. State your name for the record.
665 Hello, my name is hart pham. I'm from district three, but I work in district four. I'm actually a security guard downtown. I work across the street from the oasis center. I have a lot of firsthand experience with dealing with the homeless element out there, and with all the people with open warrants that I have to deal with on a daily basis. I'm here to speak against Morillo amendment one. If this amendment passes, my life is going to be in significantly more danger on a daily basis. And I don't say that from like, oh, I love the law and order. I'm a security guard out of necessity. I need a job. And every security guard that works in downtown Portland is basically an uncredentialed social worker. We do our best to connect people with services all the time camps, sweeps, whatever you want to call them. They're good for so many reasons that were brought up. People think they're cruel. It is so much more crueler to watch a person wallow in filth and die eventually, totally alone in the misery of a Portland winter. The trash is not only an esthetic blight, but it's a public health hazard. I don't wear my work shoes inside the house because I don't know what I might be tracking in, and people think it's cruel to sweep. And we we have to meet people where they're at. When you sweep a camp, you are quite literally meeting someone where they're at. I myself have tried to get homeless people into services. I've driven them to centers of concern and tpi and everywhere else. They're not messed up enough to get on the list. They're there. The risk calculus. They're not they're not up enough. If you are in a tent and you get swept and you say, I need housing, you get moved to the top of the list. So it's really good. Actually. 30s left. I have to bring this up. Don't take away money from prosper Portland. I think they're the hardest working people here. They're the only people that are trying to figure out how the city can generate some money. And that's what we need to fix everything. And there's a huge double standard. The interim director of prosper Portland got fired for leaked group chat, where he's just trying to galvanize his troops against an antagonistic city council, which should be synergistic. He got fired immediately when nils group chat got leaked. There was no repercussions at all. So you've already proven that you're unaccountable and beyond reproach. So stop getting in the mayor's way. Let's do something. Thank you.
666 Please. Laura curry.
667 Go ahead. Laura.
668 Thank you very much. Laura curry. I'm a resident of district four, part of stadium hood. I'm here to speak against the reduction of funds for the impact reduction program. Two years ago, daily, I was cleaning feces, human feces, needles, burnt foil, chasing drug addicts and violent offenders out of the back alley of my building that houses 73 families, seniors, children, disabled, etc. Because of what is now currently happening with the mayor's sheltering overnight sheltering system, my neighborhood is getting safer. It isn't there yet, but the benefits are happening. I heard a a phrase used earlier today in another another discussion saying basic economics 101. Well, let me tell you something about that. If the retailers and the homeowners leave the city of Portland because it is so unsafe, then the tax revenues will be reduced. Use basic economics 101 to figure out how that's going to impact the budget for the city that is under this discussion. Now, the impact reduction program is helping people get into housing, getting into sheltering, finding resources for them instead of leaving them on the street in tents. I have lived around it. I have lived helped people that have been living on the street. This is the this is finally progress that's happening in the city of Portland. I say vote no on this wrongheaded Morillo one proposal. Thank you.
669 Cully.
670 Oh hi, I'm talia giardini, I'm a Portland native and a nurse in recovery. The fact that we have to come here and beg for basic services is exhausting and unnecessary. In four months, I pr cleaned up 4 million pounds of trash and bio waste without bio waste biohazard removal, our environment will continue to be polluted and deteriorate. I thought you guys cared about the environment. Do you not remember the recent dysentery outbreak that was a direct result of bio waste build up in camps, and is something typical in third world countries. Cutting ipr will decrease sanitation and increase the spread of disease. We wouldn't be talking about the need for more rent assistance if property values and business income taxes weren't in their fifth year of decline, with no end in sight. If we stop increasing illegal camp enforcement, we need our city to be clean and safe. If we want to be able to fund all the wonderful social services we enjoy providing to our low income and homeless neighbors. This is basic economics and some of you are failing. Class ipr workers are amazing, compassionate rock stars that connect people with services to take away critical access points from people suffering on the streets as inhumane. Without ipr, children will continue to step over dirty needles, parks and sidewalks and natural areas will become less accessible. This doesn't save money. It shifts the burden to other bureaus. You just listen to business owners talk about suffering and this hurts them further. Morillo you ran on cleaning up trash in the city, are you going to follow through on your campaign promise? Or are you going to continue gaslighting us and telling us that all we care about is the esthetic, which is super offensive? By the way, it's unacceptable that you continue to undermine the mayor's plan and want the city covered in filth and health hazards. This amendment goes against our right to a clean, safe city. Vote no on Morillo one and any other amendments and support the mayor's plan. Thank you.
671 Albert miller. No name.
672 Before we call up the next panel, it was brought to my attention that we have some lobbyists signed up to testify who have not, in their testimony registration identified themselves as. So that's okay as long as you do so on the record. When you come up to speak. City code does require that prior to offering public testimony, a lobbyist or advocate registered with the city declare which lobbying entity you are authorized to represent for the communication that you are giving while you're here?
673 Next up, we have jordan lewis, michelle may. Chrysanthi warriors, kevin, gwen, lydia kiesling. All right, one more time. Jordan. Lewis. Michelle may chrysanthi. Kevin. Gwen. Lydia. Kiesling. Next up, we have diane roberts, tom jordan. John. Hollister, sergeant sandeep divakar. It looks like kevin may be joining us online.
674 Keelan. I believe we have a few people who may be coming down from upstairs as well.
675 Okay. Thank you. Go ahead. Kevin.
676 Hi, I'm kevin gwynn. I live in district four in old town. I'm here to to strongly support the mayor's plan. And that I want you to reject the Morillo. Amendment. And I also would like to to bring forward and and note in meeting tommy ly's written testimony about this, which I think sums up the, the, the situation that we have in old town. So please regard that that written testimony and, and look for it online. Thank you.
677 Go ahead jordan.
678 Hello city council. My name is jordan lewis. I'm a registered lobbyist for Portland dsa and a d4 resident. I'm testifying today in favor of the Morillo amendment. I wanted to testify on agenda item seven, but I was in a call at my day job, which I used to pay rent, so I couldn't make that. I can't help but draw some connections between our cities and our county's executive branch. Both our mayor and president got elected on broad mandates that a problem was happening. The mayor, on the fact that people were living on the streets, and the president on pandemic era inflation. The president got over his skis when he assumed there was a mandate for his weird little methods. Swing voters wanted him to magically lower the price of hamburgers. They did not vote to doge all the air traffic controllers or raise their health insurance premiums, and now he has a historic disapproval rating to show for it. I bring this up because mayor wilson campaigned on a surge of shelter bed capacity, which would be used, you can see in his voters pamphlet. He never mentions an increase in sweeps in the standees out in the hallway, no mention of sweeps. I want to quote a north peninsula review article with wilson from last October. Wilson says the plan could save nearly 300 million annually that the city now must spend on police and firefighter calls to incidents involving unsheltered homeless people, including overtime costs, arrest warrants, homeless camp sweeps and fencing around public rights of way. I'll repeat, wilson said the plan must could save nearly 300 million annually that the city must spend dot dot dot on houseless camp sweeps. So don't let the mayor hide his sweep plan behind the idea of a mandate when he was too cowardly to talk about sweeps on the campaign trail, voters indulged in a little magical thinking that we could warehouse over 12,000 of our poorest neighbors rather than confront the problem. That year after year, rent and cost of living rise faster than the median wage. And rather than work towards confronting that uncomfortable fact, a lot of people whose bottom line depends on rent going up every year are here today at 930 in the morning on a weekday, to demand that we further brutalize and displace those who already can't afford to live here. Thank you very much.
679 Go ahead. Excuse me. Yeah.
680 My name is john hollister and I live in district four. You guys got some work to do? Brought this a little early, so why don't you just do your work? But thank you, city council, for allowing me to provide testimony. I'd like to thank individually the commissioners that I know are voting against this misguided amendment. Thank you, commissioner Ryan. Thank god you don't get tired of saving Portland again and again and again. Commissioner pirtle-guiney, I hope I'm pronouncing that somewhat correctly. Thank you, commissioner Novick. Thank you so much. District three needs you and I plan on supporting your reelection campaign in 2026. Commissioner Clark and Zimmerman, I also will be supporting greatly your reelection campaigns in 2026. And a very special thanks to you, commissioner Green. You see, I want you to lose. And with your voting to defund the police a few months ago and now voting to defund keeping our neighborhoods safe without properly working this thing through, you make it so clear to everyone in district four that you do not represent our viewpoints. I am going to work hard to have a candidate named eli arnold who does listen and support district four's viewpoints. Replace you in 2026. Commissioner Smith, you certainly have a bright spot on you right now. This is your moment. I can't imagine the amount of pressure you're under. Your vote can save Portland. Please don't try to fix this amendment with yet another amendment. Just listen to your constituents and vote no. Thank you all in advance.
681 My name is lydia kiesling. I'm a member of Portland dsa and a resident of district three. The nonpartisan news source propublica has published deep reporting from Portland and around the country about the cost of sweeps and the effects of these band-aid approaches to homelessness sweeps, particularly in places that do not have the housing, health care or behavioral health supports for people to be swept into exacerbate homelessness and suffering. In Portland, a sweeps first policy has led to multiple deaths. We elected a new city council because we wanted them to try different things. The old ways of underfunding basic social supports while ramping up enforcement do not work. They rely on a worldview about homelessness that can lead to prison camps. In a country that refuses to invest in real solutions. Why are we talking about sweeping human beings up like trash when there's a half empty luxury condo building sitting right up the street, one that I think still owes the city money. We need dedicated, trained navigators with deep reserves of patience. We need nimble and accessible social service systems and plentiful housing with wraparound support. We need eviction defense to keep people in their homes to begin with. This small budget adjustment will not end sweeps, but it will divert a little more money to real solutions. I am empathetic to people whose homes and businesses are on the front lines of this crisis, but people still need to be adults. There is no santa claus of sweeps who can make this problem of human suffering disappear overnight. If we are not honest about the root cause of homelessness, which is a broken social safety net, and neoliberal economics, we will only compound suffering and push people onto someone else's doorstep, killing some of them in the process. Unsheltered homelessness is a symptom of a society that does not treat housing, health care, food, or education as a human right. I am glad councilor Morillo has brought this amendment, because it will force all of you to go on the record about whether you believe in performative and ineffective cruelty, or if you can commit to the hard and sometimes unpopular work of public policy that is rooted not only in evidence but in humanity. Thank you.
682 Okay. Diane raddatz, tom borden. Sandy divakar. Okay. Next we have oh, sorry. Go ahead. Yeah. Go ahead.
683 Go ahead. Hi. My name is sandeep. I live in district four downtown. When I first heard about councilor Morillo amendment proposed amendment to reduce the budget for impact reduction program, what came to mind was a quote by logan roy from the tv show succession. These are not serious people. I'm going to focus on the impact of this defunding on my particular neighborhood. In downtown. We have a large concentration of section eight housing with a lot of disabled, low income seniors that live in the neighborhood and people in recovery. We have a shelter at 13th and clay with 80 beds. We've had camps all around the safeway on 10th and jefferson. Because of the impact reduction program and the responsiveness from shelter Portland and the mayor's office, the neighborhood is much safer than it was two months ago. I wasn't a fan of mayor wilson and his shelters before I am now. The camps have bred violence, drug dealing, prostitution, and a public health hazard with people defecating on the sidewalks and in doorways of businesses. There have been three shootings and two stabbings and multiple arrests. Weapons possession in my neighborhood in the last six months. Many low income seniors living in this area use motorized wheelchairs and walkers to walk to the only grocery store in the neighborhood and pharmacy at the safeway. Many are scared to go past the camps where people are high, sometimes on meth, which makes them violent and unpredictable. These are the people who councilor Morillo amendment is penalizing. I suggest that the councilor Stop virtue signaling, stop governing by tantrum like another elected official in dc, and focus on making Portland livable, safe, and affordable again. Thank you.
684 Next up we have stephen kafoury seattle thompson, richard elmore, jake gallagher, lynn groves. Go ahead stephen.
685 Thank you, mr. Mayor.
686 Madam council president, members of the council. My name is stephen kafoury and I've been directed by my group, the concerned citizens, to speak against this proposed amendment. We are an informal coterie of civic activists who share a deep love for this city. I remember a time when there was a full time staffer at Portland state, whose job it was to shepherd visiting dignitaries from around the world who wanted to know the secrets of portland's success. However, the combination of COVID, the riots of five years ago, and the epidemic of fentanyl have devastated this city. President trump's unfounded description of a city on fire has not helped. The good news is that Portland is slowly and surely beginning to shed its reputation as a city in trouble. The mayor's actions have laid the groundwork for its reemergence. Streets are being cleaned, graffiti is being removed, shelters are being opened. So homeless people have alternatives to tents, etc. This is not a time to backslide. It is instead a time to assist both downtown and local neighborhoods as we attempt to restore Portland to a place that, again, is attractive to all its inhabitants. It could be argued that most of the benefits of the mayor's program goes to downtown businesses, but note that 40% of portland's property tax revenues come from commercial real estate, whose value has dropped precipitously. You will need a prosperous downtown to have the general fund significant, sufficient to pay for all the services that you'd like to provide. Obviously, much needs to be done. To cut from that. The amendment before you today will stall. The progress is being made. It's not a time for cutting $1 million from parks when the voters just passed a levy. It's not a time for reducing police, fire and emergency services that are being stretched, is it? There are obviously problems that need to be taken care of. Our organization plans to work with you on those issues, like getting daytime shelters as well as nighttime shelters, but we can't do it unless we have your support. Thank you.
687 Okay, I'm checking to see seattle thompson, richard elmore, jake gallagher, lynn groves. Okay, next up we have amy valentine, christine herzog, todd littlefield, Jamie partridge, aiden summers.
688 My name is amy valentine. I live in inner northeast Portland. I am a parishioner at saint michael and all angels episcopal church near the hollywood east housing tower. Our church is location attracts many campers, and the campers build camps across the street. The camps are strewn with trash, needles, grocery carts, strollers, stolen bicycles, plastic bags, tools, tents and tarps. Last week, I arrived at church to find a fire burning on the sidewalk in front of the church. I have picked up used needles from our property. We have witnessed people using and selling drugs, fighting, defecating on our flower beds and urinating on our church. The campers I am speaking of are not people who have simply fallen on hard times. The people I speak of are either drug addicts or mentally ill or both. We as a civil society have a duty to help people with these problems, and we as christians have made a vow to respect the dignity of every human being. The people of my parish care very much about the fate of people experiencing homelessness, drug addiction and mental illness. They provide them with food and clothing and a listening ear, allowing people to wallow in squalor and despair does not help them. It does not respect their dignity. It is called enabling, and ultimately it makes their problem our problem. I am asking that the city council reject defunding the impact reduction program. It is only recently that things have begun to improve because of this program. The program is helping us address our collective problem and it needs to continue. Without this program, we have no recourse and no resources to help our houseless neighbors. Please do not abandon us. Thank you.
689 Christine is joining us online. Christine, go ahead and unmute.
690 Hi. My name is christine herzog. I live in district four. Thank you for this opportunity to speak. I urge all councilors to fully fund the impact reduction program and vote no on the Morillo amendment. The arp is an important part of mayor wilson's program to end unsheltered homelessness. Portlanders voted for him to do this. Many more people than voted for any individual council member. The motivation to propose this amendment raises important questions. Is there a hidden agenda to politically sabotage the mayor? Is there a calculation on the part of proponents of the Morillo amendment that a loss for wilson is a win for them? Do you not understand that the vast majority of Portland citizens want safer and cleaner neighborhoods, support Portland, support cleaner and safer neighborhoods, and oppose the Morillo amendment? Thank you.
691 Go ahead. Jamie. Yeah. Go ahead.
692 All right. Afternoon, Jamie partridge, district two. I'm reading a statement from laura nitti, a resident of district three. Please support councilor Morillo amendment and support and excuse me and stop the street sweeps and the resulting trauma inflicted on our most vulnerable neighbors. I regret I can't be here in person, but I'm working at my job, serving students at a local community college. I'd like you to know how much your choices today will impact our students. According to a recent study, 60% of our college students experience housing insecurity. I regularly hear from students struggling to find an affordable place to live or cope with the stresses of living in cars, tents or couch surfing. In the last two weeks alone, I've heard from students wondering how to keep a roof over their children's heads after suffering an injury preventing them from working, young adults wondering how to keep themselves and their younger siblings siblings housed after losing a parent to ice detention. Veteran students trying to make. Make it without their va benefits, and from young students seeking to move on from homes of unsafe and controlling family members. For myself and our students, cruel and inhumane street sweeps do not represent public safety. Street sweeps disrupt my ability to support students seeking stability when they cancel meetings to protect their vehicle or their tent. Where am I? Mass? Mass shelters are not safety to them. Public safety means keep students and their families in housing they have already and create bridges to safer, more affordable options. My rule at college was created to respond to students economic hardships by connecting them to community resources. The Morillo amendment will reduce state violence against our unsheltered students and help protect access to critical safety nets like rent assistance. Please allow. Please don't allow mayor wilson to keep terrorizing our communities and support the Morillo one amendment.
693 Hi.
694 My name is aidan summers.
695 I'm a registered lobbyist for the democratic socialists of America Portland chapter, and I'm a resident of district four. I'd like to speak in favor of Morillo one. We need to be focusing our resources on things that actually help people with these sweeps. We're moving people around, often taking away what little possessions they have in their lives. And as time as time goes on, the climate crisis worsening, winters are worse. What happens when you take away everyone, like people's possessions, and send them back out into the cold this winter? This policy will kill people and it will be on your hands. If we don't do this small thing that we can to shift resources towards helping people, it will be a failure of this moment, and we're in a time that is only going to get more difficult as our federal government is failing us and we are losing resources for the city if we continue to just use the little funding we have to harass our homeless neighbors, that's a true waste of funding, and I hope that anyone that has been listening today would potentially reconsider their support for this amendment. Thank you.
696 Checking to see if todd littlefield arrived. Okay.
697 Good afternoon, city councilors. Mayor wilson todd littlefield, district one neighborhood. The city of portland's number one responsibility is public safety. The reason we have laws to maintain order, ensure safety, to establish standards for acceptable behavior, I.e. The no camping law which provides stability and order that is lacking in many Portland neighborhoods, all in Portland, need the mayor to be successful on his campaign promise and unsheltered people living on our streets. Many of portland's problems will be solved. One example your budgets will go from shrinking to growing. Families and businesses will want to move here and invest. Removals are needed for the mayor to succeed and vital to the public safety, livability and quality of life issues. Far too many, far too many portlanders and businesses face. They're also lifeline for our unsheltered friends and neighbors, who often require that nudge and help and services. Multnomah county manages public health systems and homeless prevention services. These are not the city's Lane. Vote no on Morillo one, and any other amendments which undermine the trust of and the needs of the mayor, our residents, businesses and those living unsheltered on our streets in desperate need. Thank you.
698 Next up we have justin skolnick, benjamin gilbert, melanie babbitt, Steve gould. Casey hardmeier. Go ahead.
699 My name is justin skolnick. I urge your support for amendment Morillo one. Soon after the amendment dropped, conservative groups mobilized to bombard you all with messages about livability. Then on Sunday, an email arrived from the mayor defending sweeps in terms of trash and hazardous waste and livability. He could have just said needles Novick just did. The word comes up just about every time we talk about homelessness. Of course, most of our homeless neighbors aren't junkies. They're families with kids, women fleeing men who hit them, people who got fired from their jobs for getting cancer, retirees who can't make rent despite working every day of their lives. These are real people who've gotten screwed by this economy. But no matter how much data we collect, no matter how many statistics we provide, the conversation zips right back to needles. Cleanliness and livability. Are people just uninformed? I don't know, but the mayor used the same euphemisms. Is the mayor uninformed? I don't think he is. I think the mayor has plans. Last month, the mayor's buddy, nathan vasquez told the mercury that a community court is in the works. And knowing the lobbyists haunting city hall, I got a hunch what he and keith are cooking up is the unpaid labor system that was part of downtown, clean and safe. Before 2020, that court made homeless people choose between working off the crime of being poor or going to jail. One way to get buy in on a predatory scheme like this is to describe your target population as a threat to our safety and livability, like a contagion. This is how keith wilson is talking about our homeless neighbors. 30 years ago, charlie rose interviewed the writer toni morrison, and she said this about whiteness if you can only be tall because somebody is on their knees, then you have a serious problem. If livability is more than just another white euphemism for keeping people on their knees, you will have no trouble passing this amendment to get our neighbors back on their feet.
700 Yeah.
701 Benjamin gilbert is joining us online. Go ahead benjamin.
702 Thank you. Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is ben gilbert and I'm a tenant in district four and a lobbyist for the Portland dsa. Speaking in favor of Morillo one. The amendment contains precise legal language to ensure the reduction of harmful practices while protecting vital services. It specifically targets cuts to programs whose primary purpose is the forced displacement of people, or the seizure of their property without their consent. It also explicitly protects funding for programs that provide voluntary trash, cleanup, sanitation services, and other public health measures that offer offer dignity to people living outdoors. This is an important shift in our city's policy. It's a long standing demand from homeless service experts and public health researchers, who have documented that sweeps increased the risk of overdose death by up to 22%, sever connections to medical care and medication, scatter people away from life saving services, and simply move campers from one neighborhood to another. This amendment comes just days after the mayor began enforcing a camping ban and intensifying sweeps on November 1st, amid sharply increased ice activity targeting immigrants and communities across the metro area. And we've seen ice go after houseless communities across the country. Sweeps perpetuate a false sense of municipal function, where moving vulnerable people around is the measure of a functioning city, not the provision of housing. When people testify, saying this prevents the pickup of trash that is either misinformation or sadly, they're referring to human beings. For too long, right wing groups like stadium hood have been dehumanizing and harassing our unhoused neighbors, raising ice in their testimony at city hall. Are these the people that represent our city? I ask any city councilors who work with these people, are these the people we want making decisions in our city? When the cost of living increases and wages fail to rise with them, we need a systems change. I yield my time. Thank you.
703 Melanie is joining us online.
704 Thank you. My name is melanie bobbitt and I live in district three. I'm a social worker and have spent my career in local health care nonprofits, including homeless services. My partner is a musician and local small business owner, and we have two small children. We love this community and what we contribute to it, but we've been pushed to our limit and our direct experiences with the homelessness crisis here, repeated safety threats in public spaces with our children being accosted, waiting for the bus home, break ins by people camping on our street, and routinely observing the extreme health and safety issues at encampments. We've been so grateful for the improvements in all this in recent times. For example, a couple months ago, an encampment that quickly went from 1 to 3 derelict rvs adjacent to my kids swim school every week, I watched trash accumulate drug deals, go down or hurried my kids past the waft of drugs as we simply walked from our car to the building. I reported the encampment and was cleared within two weeks. This, as opposed to every day of my child's first years of preschool from 2021 to 2023, passing by the massive tent encampment two blocks from the school, where each day we witnessed some variety of portland's unacceptable tolerance of crime, public health, hazard and general inhumanity, active defecation on the sidewalk, open drug use and everything in between. Sweeps in the work in the full work of the impact reduction program are imperative to keeping a basic level of community safety and livability for all while working at the root issues to support those who are or are at risk of homelessness. Do not return us to the failed, free for all approach to homelessness that has not worked for anyone. Please stop perverting the terms, trauma informed and compassion to mean sacrificing the safety and well-being of our entire community. Do not cut impact reduction program funding. Thank you.
705 Go ahead.
706 Thank you. My name is Steve gold and I live in district four, and I'm here in opposition to the Morillo one amendment and any other amendment that reduces funding for the irp. Mayor wilson was elected with a clear mandate, winning 59% of the votes across the city. As someone has already pointed out, way more than anyone here, he was elected with one central policy mandate, and he's going through with it very simply. Portlanders are fed up with the decline in livability in our city, and with the failure of prior leaders to make any real progress. We want safe neighborhoods, vibrant business districts, and welcoming public spaces. We don't want our open drug use, untreated mental health, and the squalor that exists around encampments. To bring it to a personal level, my family doesn't want people with untreated mental illness throwing rocks through our shop windows, having to recover our stolen bikes from criminals living in encampments, or cleaning up drug paraphernalia from our yards and parks. Not too much to expect. We want leaders to do the heavy lifting, implement policies based on facts, not ideology. Some living on the streets are victims and they need our support, but some are predators and criminals, and we want you to deal with the difference. I have over two decades of firsthand experience dealing with people with serious mental illness, and I can assure you that leaving people to suffer on the streets is heartless. Why would you even consider pulling the plug on something that is beginning to work? As I walk around town, through my neighborhoods and downtown, I see things getting better. Having done your job and passed the budget, I'd like you to stop tinkering with the mayor's policies and let them have a chance to prove themselves with the mayor's plan. Some might choose shelter or treatment, some might move elsewhere. Criminals might get prosecuted. Thinking you have a better idea, and underfunding revenue streams without any public vetting. Vetting is nothing but dysfunction, and it undermines the mayor who's actually doing what 59% of the people voted him in to do. Thank you, mr. Mayor.
707 Checking to see if casey hartmeyer has arrived. Next up we have sarah fisher. James lennig, jay coffey, wolfgang. Chris. Claire. Conomos, tony burch.
708 While we wait to see if any of them are making their way down, I will note that the two amendments that had not yet been posted are now up as well. Green one and Smith one. So all amendments that have been introduced are posted online.
709 Thank you. Go ahead sarah.
710 Good afternoon councilors I'm sarah fisher, I'm an episcopal priest and I pastor hope and bread church, a weekly gathering of sheltered and unsheltered neighbors. My favorite antidote to helplessness is imagination. Last night we held a showcase to highlight art that was created by a bunch of our hope and bread members, all of whom live outside. I thought it might be refreshing for you to hear from some of them. We asked people last night to share their ideas for what the city might spend money on. As an alternative to sweeps. I realize that some of what we heard last night is the job of the county, but it's understandable these days that there's some confusion about what the cities and counties jobs are. Here's what we heard, which I promised them. I was going to bring you computer labs, a homeless business cooperative, ged support, more employment support, more job opportunities for people who can only work 2 or 3 hours a day because of disabilities. More job opportunities for people with mental health challenges. More counseling and care for people with mental health challenges. More places for drop in health care. More transportation options, low cost housing, forever housing pods. Remodeled abandoned houses with rooms rented out to $500 a month for people with $1,000 or more in social security. More places to take a shower, more safe places to go for rest and coffee and tea and support, dry places to hang out when it rains. And not just overnight. Shelters with hours that match when we wake and when we sleep. Please ask them to take away our trash, but not people. I am grateful to my unsheltered friends for sharing their imagination and their longings, and grateful that I have the privilege to get on zoom and share them with you. Please do not get us any closer to real solutions to homelessness. Thank you.
711 Okay, checking to see if james lenig jay. Coffee. Wolfgang. Chris. Claire. Tony. Birch. Next up we have sandra comstock, james donnelly. Shawna cannot. Olsen. Go ahead.
712 Can you hear me? Yes. Okay. I'm sandra comstock, resident of district four, former owner of cafe down on the north park blocks, a small landlord and also the executive director of hygiene for all I. This weekend I was. Well, I guess I just want to say first I'm. I'm speaking in support of the Morillo amendment, and I want to note that housing is how we end homelessness, and housing is how we actually clean up our streets for good, and not just as whack a mole. This weekend, in response to the Morillo amendment, a council chair document indicated if past mayor wilson plans to cancel ground scores. Tent side trash pickup a program run for unhoused portlanders, all in order to preserve rapid response contracts that, in fact confiscate survival gear and displace neighbors just trying to stay alive. Ground scores services give unsheltered portlanders the same trash pickup house portlanders take for granted. It helps people follow the rules and keep camp small, tidy, and orderly. It, in fact, helps prevent the 100 citations in jail time the mayor began enforcing November 1st. Over 90% of ground ground workers have secured housing through these jobs and in partnership with hygiene for all, this program has rescued off the streets, washed and redistributed 45,000 pounds of clothing and bedding this year alone, items that would otherwise be rotting in landfills, costing our city and tax dollars, and also costing us our carbon emissions. Yet the mayor says he will cut this job and public health promoting program that helps people gain housing stability and dignity, all in order to keep contracts that destroy property, displace our most vulnerable, and send usable goods to the dump. As of today, 67% of hygiene peralez patrons, 4000 in total report being swept by rapid response every two weeks. This is up from 45% in 2024. Imagine having to move your house every two weeks. I would do to your mental health. I think that's my time. So I just want to be clear that mayor wilson is making a choice. This is not part of the Morillo amendment. It's a choice to fund the things that help people or that harm them. Thank you.
713 Go ahead.
714 Yeah.
715 Good afternoon. My name is james donnelly. I live in east Portland, the hazelwood neighborhood. Just saquon, I wish to say that I support the mayor's reinstatement of the camping ban and how it's being carried out and the support and thus opposed the Morillo one budget amendment. The reasons are the same as those stated by the many previous speakers. That said, I want to stress that few in east Portland go to sleep worrying about ice, trump or Israel Palestine. But if they do, they talk to widen merkley and dexter from my listening at a number of constituent meetings of my councilors Avalos, Dunphy and Smith, the wants of east portlanders from the mayor and city council are more basic, and the dominant one is making their neighbors and local businesses safe so they can get on with the other struggles of life, like getting and keeping a good job. The mayor's actions are consistent with that. Thank you.
716 Chris is joining us online.
717 Good afternoon, council members. My name is chris olson and I'm a member of the democratic socialists of America and a resident of district two. And I'm here today to voice my strong support for Morillo one. The number of people who spoke out against this amendment who have not read it is staggering. I know that they haven't read it because of the lies and misinformation coming out of their mouths. This amendment is about fiscal responsibility and moral clarity. Morillo one also makes a crucial value statement that Portland should not continue to pour millions of dollars into harmful and ineffective sweeps of homeless camps. I'll never forget the first time I saw sweep during my city council campaign last year. I met several unhoused youth for the first time in. A few days. Later, I received a message from them about a sweep occurring at their camp. I rushed over there to help and witnessed the sweep firsthand. Most of the youth there identified as queer bipoc, many facing mental health issues and physical disabilities, including some in wheelchairs. And they were instructed to move all their belongings they could carry to the other side of the street. And at the same time, rapid response crews began bagging their items without identifying who owned what, even though this is what they were required to do for later retrieval and during the sweep, no housing services, housing or services were offered to these youth. And since then I have heard that two of the members of this encampment have taken their own lives. Sweeps kill and that's the bottom line. They turn homelessness from a difficult situation into a nightmare, and they move people from one block to the next, destroying ids, medication, personal effects and outreach relationships. If sweeps reduced homelessness and got people off the streets, we should see people entering housing with record numbers. With the record number of sweeps under the wilson administration, however, the number of unhoused people across our city continues to rise. Sweeps don't solve homelessness, so let's reduce the number of sweeps the city carries out and use those resources to feed, support, and keep portlanders housed. I urge you to vote yes on radio one. Thank you.
718 Shana cannot. Okay, next up we have bevin burns. Bodo hilliker, peyton chapman, willie schumann, bruce stutter.
719 I believe peyton will be joining online.
720 Go ahead. Yeah.
721 Let me to start. Okay. Hi. My name is bevin burns. That's bevin burns. I'm a Portland native. For 50 years, I've mothered four children here, ranging from 27 to 9 year old twins. And I have spent my 30 year adult career serving in the public sector, serving our most vulnerable populations, who especially our disability community. For the last 14 years, I've served as executive director of bridges middle school, which is an independent, nonprofit school in the heart of slabtown, whose exclusively serves neurodiverse students grades five through eight. As many of you already know, because I've been in offices, rooms and zooms with you over the last several years, we are located just one block away from the northwest northrop overnight shelter, so the city's impact reduction and other outreach programs affect us every single day. These aren't abstract policies to us. They shape what it feels like for our kids to walk to school, for our parents to drop them off, and for teachers to keep our campus safe. That's why I'm here to ask you, please do not cut funding for this critical program, the impact reduction program, or other services tied to it. When cleanups slow down, we see more trash, more needles. Yes, there are needles and we have to deal with them and more hazards along school routes. Families worry, kids are anxious. And instead of focusing on learning, our staff and myself become managers of safety issues. This program makes a real difference not just for schools like ours, but for everyone in the neighborhood. It keeps sidewalks usable, it protects public health, and it gives people meaningful jobs that improve our city. I'm asking you to reject these mid-year cuts. Keep routes near schools, shelters, and transit hubs a priority, and continue supporting the workers who keep Portland safe and clean. At bridges, we see every day that compassion and accountability can exist together, and reliable impact reduction and outreach are part of what makes that possible. Thank you for listening and for protecting the progress and the promises that we've made together.
722 Hello, my name is katherine applegarth, and I'm a senior administrator at the international school of Portland. I'm reading on behalf of bodo hilliker, head of school at the international school of Portland. Good afternoon. Council members. Every day at the isb, nearly 1000 children, teachers and families come downtown to school every day because we believe in our mission in Portland and in its future. I want to say this plainly now is not the time to pull back on funding for the impact reduction program and associated safety and sanitation programs. We haven't fully recovered yet. Our work to rebuild together isn't done. Please vote no on the Morillo amendment. Our campus spans three city blocks, nearly half a mile of sidewalks. During the darkest days of the pandemic, when so many went remote or closed, our school didn't. We opened emergency childcare for first responders. We came early to campus to make sure our playgrounds, sidewalks, and classrooms were safe. We stayed. We believed we never gave up on this city. At that time, however, we felt very, very alone in our work. Since the irp increased its presence, our neighborhood has never been cleaner or safer. We see it, our families feel it. The promise of renewal is working. The irp isn't just about garbage removal or campsite assessments. It's about dignity, safety, and keeping hope visible for the next generation. It's what allows hundreds of children to walk, learn and play downtown safely and proudly every single day. We work side by side with our neighbors, including those living and working at the southwest nato safe rest village to build a more compassionate and peaceful city. That's what Portland is supposed to be about. If we reduce the arp now, we risk losing the progress we fought so hard for. We risk sending a message that Portland is stepping back on its own promise not only to the children of Portland, but to our neighboring, formerly unhoused individuals working hard to get back on their feet. Today, three downtown schools, including isp bridges middle school and lincoln high school, stand together representing education from preschool through high school. Together, we represent portland's future learning, reading and believing in this place we call home. I urge you to stay the course. Thank you.
723 Thank you. Joining us online.
724 Good afternoon, mayor. Council, thank you very much for allowing public comment. I agree with what my colleagues have already said, and I just want to urge you, please, please, to center again children and families and all of your decisions. We're just seeing an intake of added families who are moving here and trusting downtown because it's looking cleaner and safer, and it's not compassionate to have people in the streets or to have garbage or even feces and needles on the streets. It's not compassionate, and it's a balancing test. We have to balance the rights of individuals and the rights of children and families to access the city and their education safely. I believe education is a civil right, and every time our city becomes less safe or less welcoming to students and families, we we create barriers to their civil rights to access their free and public education and the tents downtown, if you talk to students will say there was drugs, there were guns you could get. There was sex trafficking. It's not safe to have these tents. And we need to do better by the most vulnerable people who are downtown. But that is not going back to having more tents and less safety measures for families and children. We need to welcome more people to our city and it's starting to happen. Please stay the course. I know your jobs are very hard and you're responsible for all of these issues, but the more we can invest in parks, more we can invest in clean and safe neighborhoods, the more we will keep and attract families to our city, which then impacts the economics downtown. They'll also spend money and buy homes and rent and participate in government. So thank you very much. I appreciate your commitment to safeguarding our children and our families and our city.
725 Go ahead. I'm sorry. Go ahead.
726 Oh.
727 Good afternoon, mr. Mayor. City council members, my name is bruce studer. I'm the president of the pearl district neighborhood association, and I'm here representing representing residents and businesses who've worked tirelessly to help restore safety, dignity and livability to our city. This amendment is not a budget amendment. It is a dismantling of one of the few programs that's actually working the impact reduction program. Last year alone, the irp removed 12.4 million pounds of trash and biowaste from our streets. That's the equivalent of nine statues of liberty. It prioritizes parks, schools, sidewalks. It cleared 88 blockages. It's employed over 100 portlanders, many in recovery and rebuilding their lives. Cutting this program mid-year means 75% fewer cleanups, 4 million pounds of biohazard left in our neighborhoods, 100 people suddenly unemployed. People who are proof that recovery and redemption are possible. Let's be clear this isn't fiscal prudence. It's a political sabotage. This amendment undermines the city's shelter strategy, jeopardizes our progress, and betrays our neighborhoods. And finally, that we finally saw improvement over years of chaos. It was introduced late on Friday last Friday, shielded from transparency, which violates one of the core values that you guys mentioned today. As far as transparency for the council, public input and debate was weaponized in this budget process against both the house and the unhoused. Without our our without our. I'll just skip that. Children will begin to walk, will walk again, passed needles on their way to school. Seniors and people with disabilities will face blocked sidewalks in the downtown will slide backwards from the recovery is just taking hold. Compassion means keeping people off the streets, not abandoning them. Their accountability means keeping your promises made to every neighborhood, every parent, every child, every small business that has endured through portland's hardest years. I urge you to vote no on amendment one. Don't let politics undo the progress our city has fought so hard to achieve. Thank you.
728 I'm checking to see if willie shuman arrived.
729 You were fantastic.
730 Next we have kara cully, glenn trager, michael nuss, sheila reeves, diana rimpi. Sheila. Go ahead. You're muted sheila.
731 Thank you okay. My name is sheila. And both my husband who is a disabled veteran and I are in our 80s. We bought our condo in old town in 2002. So that when we eventually got too old to drive, we could easily walk to grocery stores, doctor's offices, powell books entertainment, and to give us easy access to public transportation. Tent camping on our sidewalks was not allowed at that time. Now, with the tents and the garbage and the feces that they give rise to, the sidewalks are often impassable. Lan su chinese gardens and the japanese American museum of Oregon have lost an enormous amount of business because there is no parking available with tents, with the tents and garbage filling the sidewalks right up to the curb. Really? Would you park next to a tent? Because of this, many businesses have had to close and it is now an employment desert. I understand if you pass agenda item number eight, a hundred more people will lose their jobs. Not to mention the public health issues of having garbage and pieces everywhere. And because of the blocked sidewalks, we are often forced to walk and traffic lanes, old people dodging cars is not a game we ever wanted to play. Please vote no on the Morillo one amendment. And I also want to say I disagree with allowing lobbyists to testify. Thank you.
732 To testify.
733 Sorry, kara.
734 Good afternoon, mayor wilson. Good afternoon, city council. My name is kara shane cully. I do not support the Morillo one amendment to cut funding from the impact reduction program. I am a board member of a small nonprofit called friends of couch park. Couch park is a small park in northwest Portland located just outside downtown. Our friends group formed in 2023 because of a man with a machete threatening people in the park. I'm not kidding. You can look that up, as well as a line of tents along the east end of the park, where open drug use was rampant. We meet every Friday in couch park. We see unhoused people continue to set up tents again and again, week after week near couch park. If there is less money in the impact reduction program, does that mean that tents will stay up longer in couch park? I note that couch park is the site of metropolitan learning center mlc, a school. It's there right next to each other. It is unacceptable to allow people to camp next to a school. It is reasonable for the city to remove campsites next to a school. City counselors, like the unhoused population, children are also a vulnerable population. I repeat that like the unhoused population, children are also a vulnerable population, and they deserve protection. Friends of couch park has compassion towards the unhoused. We support this city outreach team, which connects the unhoused to services. We want to see more shelter and housing solutions. But friends of couch also believes that our parks and our children deserve protection. Do not cut the citywide impact reduction program. Please, I urge you, vote no on the Morillo one amendment. Thank you.
735 Go ahead.
736 Yeah.
737 Okay.
738 My my name is glenn traeger. I'm a board member of the district four coalition and pearl district neighborhood association. I speak for myself. I urge you to vote no on the proposal to cut 4.3 million from the impact reduction program. This is not a budget adjustment. It's a decision that will immediately make neighborhoods less safe, less clean, and less compassionate. Critics of the mayor's homeless plan are misguided. These are not the sweeps of the past. In the past, homeless had nowhere to go, resulting in a never ending cycle of camp creation and tear down. Under the mayor's proposal, there are day and night shelters that offer shelter, beds and a place to stay for all who seek them. And this should break that cycle, because now the homeless have a place to go, have a place to have a chance to get services that they sorely need. The mayor has put 400 beds or spaces of homeless capability around my neighborhood, and now we're we're asked to cut funding that supports them. This does not make common sense. Please vote no on the 4.3 million cut. Keep Portland moving forward safe and livable.
739 Members of the council. My name is diana rempe. I work for street books, a mobile library serving people outside and on the margins. We strongly support the Morillo amendment. For the past 15 years, we've been out on the streets building relationships as we offer books, reading glasses, harm reduction, and other survival supplies. This vantage point has given our organization a close up view of the suffering and displacement caused by sweeps of the daily trauma inflicted on our library patrons as they struggle to meet their basic needs, and of the ways that sweeps exacerbate crisis and instability. In our daily work on the streets, we see rapid response workers moving from place to place all day long, indiscriminately throwing things into garbage bags as people struggle to gather what they can. We hear the stories of the things people have lost ids, medications, the last picture of their dead child. Many people will testify that this policy is about trash, but that is not true. This policy is about displacement, about moving people out of sight to appease the complaints of those who do not want to look at the evidence of our society's decision that certain people do not deserve to have their most basic needs met and must live without shelter on the sidewalks, doorways and streets of our city. If you're truly concerned about trash and jobs, ramp up existing programs like those offered by ground score, creating many more low barrier jobs as you do so. If you're truly concerned about biohazards work to provide easy access to bathrooms and support meaningful, proven harm reduction programs. If you're truly concerned about helping people live somewhere other than the streets, provide a range of housing options with an emphasis on permanent supportive housing. As I conclude, I will leave you with the story of b, who appeared in her wheelchair at our shift in northwest Portland. She had just been swept and talked about having to leave everything because there was no way to carry it on her wheelchair, she said, crying, I feel like human garbage. We have to stop treating human beings like trash. We urge you to support this amendment and continue the council's important work to meaningfully affect people's lives. Thank you.
740 Checking to see if michael nuss has joined. Next up we have frederick warren, dylan crawshaw, wade lang, kenneth garrett, charles froehlich.
741 Frederick. Hi, my.
742 Name is wade lang and I'm here representing the building owners and managers association again. I'm here today to urge council to maintain critical funding for the city's homelessness and urban camping impact reduction program. This program plays an essential role in ensuring that our public spaces remain safe, clean, accessible and functional for all portlanders housed and unhoused. We recognize homelessness as a complex humanitarian crisis that demands long term housing and behavioral health solutions. But while those systems are being built, we cannot afford to let basic public health safety measures lapse. The cleanup program is not designed to punish. It is a necessary service that mitigates environmental hazards, protects public infrastructure, and supports the dignity of both residents and those experiencing homelessness, all while providing critical employment for members of our community. Removing trash, biohazards and abandoned materials from sidewalks, parks and right of ways is not esthetics. It's about public safety, economic vitality, environmental stewardship. Businesses, workers and families rely on clean, safe, navigable streets and public spaces to function. When those spaces become unusable, the entire community suffers. We support a compassionate, coordinated response to homelessness, but that compassion must include accountability and maintenance of shared spaces. Removing funding from this program will not reduce homelessness. It will only increase the visible impacts of a crisis we are all working to solve. Please reserve the funding as part of a balanced and humane approach to addressing homelessness in Portland, and reject the Morillo amendment. Thank you very much. Thanks for being here.
743 Chair.
744 Good afternoon. My name is kenneth garrett. I'm the senior pastor of grace church on southwest 12th and clay. After a 20 year career as a paramedic, mostly in downtown Multnomah county and downtown, I transitioned into the ministry and I've been there for about 23 years now on on 12th and clay. I'm a lifelong Portland resident, as was my mom and grandma before me. So I guess what I'm saying is, I've seen a lot, and I've seen a lot of the effects of urban attempts to correct the challenges of houselessness addiction, mental illness, the the various things in our community that that, of course, aren't just a plague. They're they're a part of us. And we try to try to do it. And I appreciate that's what everybody's here for. Yeah. It's been it's been quite a ride for me here at grace and seeing what it is. I'm in the probably the densest population density in the county, probably the state in that area. There's a lot of assisted income, low income housing, addiction recovery and marginally homeless people that are plagued by poverty, too. We're a very small church, and my problem is beginning in 1911 or excuse me, 1911. We were founded in 1874, but beginning for me in 2011 with the occupy wall street movement, we ended up dispersing people onto the streets of Portland as as a way of correcting a big camp that was going on across from this building. And we made a rule that they could sleep on the sidewalk, but they needed to be up and gone by seven. That rule was never enforced, and it was never at all at all. My point is, the mayor's plan has made a change after all of those years. It is mind boggling to me that we would even be considering nipping at that plan, or compromising it, or even tweaking it, which has caused anxiety of my church and my people. This has changed our congregation. You ever train a child coming to church on how to recognize drug paraphernalia and not step in? Biohazard? Thank you.
745 Hello, my name.
746 Is charles froehlich. I live in district three and my business is located in district four between old town and the north park blocks. My business has been in downtown for 30 years, and I have never seen conditions as bad as they've been in the past five years doing business, running a profitable business, paying employees in downtown old town is so very difficult. I have read councilor Morillo proposal and I encourage all of you to please vote no on it. The cuts will devastate the health of our residents and our city if you approve them. Downtown was nearly destroyed by many serious mistakes of the past five years, and now irp is one program that is finally having positive results for Portland. I know there are others, but this is one major program. The number of homeless people in the region has unfortunately only grown. That does not mean that camping on city sidewalks and unsanctioned camping elsewhere should be allowed. Camping on city sidewalks is inhumane and has severe negative effects on the individuals and the entire city. Common sense is finally returning to remove illegal campsites and clean the biohazard, toxic waste, and garbage left behind. Recovery based shelter beds, addiction services, psychiatric care, and support for people trying to return to independent living must continue to be fast tracked, but not at the expense of the helpful irp program. During the past five years, I have had to walk around sidewalk camps countless times to get to work and all sorts of people who used to visit my business still regularly tell me that they will not go downtown. Even now, I've witnessed extreme criminal activity, drug dealing, incapacitating, incapacitating drug use, weapons, and predatory sex trade in these camps. Thank you.
747 Dylan is joining us online.
748 Hello. My name is dylan croshaw. I live in district two. I'm here on behalf of residents who voted for a clear direction, and we deserve for that direction to be respected. When we elected mayor keith wilson, it was because he ran on a plan to reduce unsheltered homelessness by opening shelter beds and by enforcing the camping ban. We entrusted that mandate to him. Not a few councilors planning to reverse it behind closed doors. Now, with councilor Murillo's proposal to cut 4.3 million from the impact reduction program, the message is clear they are undermining the voters will for their own agenda. It's selfish. It puts personal politics over the people who live, work and raise their families. In Portland, portlanders elected the mayor and set the direction. We didn't give a Green light for a special caucus to rewrite city policy midstream. This disrespects every voter who believed in the plan. Let's talk facts. The impact reduction program doesn't just sweep or harass our houseless neighbors. It provides services, trash collection, hygiene access, resource referrals, job opportunities, and risk based cleanup, while homelessness and safety are top concerns citywide, for the 2024 Portland insight survey, this proposal would cut 30% of the budget mid-year, leaving millions of pounds of trash uncollected, forcing more people back into unsafe street camps and eliminating many jobs that keep our neighborhood clean and safe. So I asked, do we support a city government that acts, that enforces shelters and cleans for the sake of safety and dignity, or one that lets identity politics and virtue signal signaling undo real results? I stand for the former. I love this city, and I want it to be livable and enjoyable for everyone. This city belongs to the people of Portland, not to political factions or personal agendas. Thank you.
749 Checking to see frederick warren. Okay.
750 Okay, colleagues.
751 It's been about three hours. We do need to give our staff a break. I'm going to ask that we take a ten minute recess and return here at 352. We are just past halfway through the testimony, and we have about an hour and a half left that we'll be able to fit in. After that, I'm going to move us to recess. Please return by 352. Welcome back. I am calling our meeting back to order. We are going to pick up where we were in public testimony and as a reminder, we have two minutes each for public testimony and we are running for up to three hours, which would be 519. I will also remind folks that if you are a lobbyist with the city of Portland, city code requires prior to offering public testimony that lobbyists or advocates declare which lobbying entity they are authorized to represent for this communication. Keelan, could you please call up our next panel of speakers?
752 Next up we have skyler cruz, nicholas shields, matthew schweitzer, jim rice, Eric hoffman. Skyler. Go ahead.
753 Good afternoon, city council. My name is skyler cruz, and I am a resident of the goose hollow neighborhood. I realize that this council meeting has been quite rough for y'all. The amendment has turned into a political battlefield as conservative leaning neighborhood associations and progressive activist communities clash as tensions rise in that room you're in right now, I want you to remember to have solidarity with all people in that room, and especially for those suffering on the street. Regardless of where you stand, solidarity is necessary to move forward in many battles. As mayor, wilson rolled out his congregant shelters, many people on the opposing side, from my point of view, harshly rejected the idea, the main concern being that new problems would be in their neighborhood and urge that they be moved elsewhere. Many on my side called them nimbys. Many on the other side accused us of virtue signaling. Both of these sentiments discount the very real but different approaches we truly believe in. I appreciate Elana pirtle-guiney calls to not resort to personal attacks. I have been pleasantly surprised to hear some of those people today state their support for the shelters. I want to congratulate the people who allowed their opinion to change. I would do the same. I do not personally love the congregate shelter beds approach fully, but I supported them anyway. Overnight shelters do not solve the main issue of the rising cost of living and declining wages. Supporting the shelter was a compromise that I was personally willing to make, and I'm glad to see others now approving of it, having given it a chance, and hopefully can find the value in this amendment should it pass. I care about this issue deeply. Transgender people experience significantly higher rates of homelessness. According to a study by ucla's williams institute, in 2020, 8% of transgender adults had experienced housing instability in the past year compared to 1% of their cisgender neighbors. This affects my friends and my queer community directly. I believe the Morillo one amendment to be a positive change, shifting the focus from hurting people around the city haphazardly to effectively improving the lives of people currently experiencing hard times by providing them with financial support. This amendment. Amendment has been mischaracterized today. Please look at it for what it is, not what people think it is, and support it. Thank you.
754 Fine.
755 My name is matthew schweitzer. I am a district four voter and the president of north rim partners, a local commercial real estate development company. I've been a small business owner in this community for the past 25 years, and during that time, I've had the privilege of watching our city grow, evolve, and face its share of challenges. It's with that long term perspective that I'm here today to urge you not to approve the proposed $4.3 million rejection to the impact reduction program. Like all of you, I care deeply about this city and the well-being of its residents. I appreciate your service and the difficult decisions you must make on behalf of all of us. Over the past several years, I've watched firsthand as portland's houseless crisis has grown exponentially, particularly in the aftermath of the COVID 19 pandemic. These have been some of the most challenging times our small business community has ever faced. I've also seen the dedicated professionals working tirelessly to support our unhoused neighbors and struggle to keep pace with the scale of the problem, limited by the resources of available to them. With mayor wilson's impact reduction program, I have, for the first time in years, seen real and measurable progress on our city streets, progress that has improved public safety for both housed and unhoused residents since the program's implementation. Conditions in some of our most challenged areas have been have noticeably improved. Fewer dangerous fires, fewer people unconscious on sidewalks, and less visible open drug use. While these efforts may not resolve every aspect of the crisis, they reflect a compassionate and proactive approach, one that refuses to accept unsafe and unhealthy conditions as an inevitable reality in our community. The mayor's plan is still in its early stages, and it deserves the opportunity to prove its long term effectiveness. Reducing its funding now would undercut the progress we are finally beginning to see. I respectfully ask that you allow the current funding to remain in place, that we can fully evaluate the results of this important initiative. Thank you for your time, your service, and your commitment to improving the future of our city.
756 Go ahead sir. Go ahead.
757 Thank you.
758 So very much. My name is jim rice with district four. I'm a small business owner here in Portland. I oppose the councilor, Morillo and greens. Cut to the impact reduction program. As many as most people have been shocked to see our great, once great city destroy itself in such a short period of time. Our business has been burglarized 14 times by homeless trying to find money to get to their next fix. I've watched 37 businesses leave within six blocks of our business. Most like rei outdoor sports, starbucks stating homelessness, safety and crime being their main drivers. I've watched hundreds of regulars, guests, friends of our business move out of the state as they gave up on Portland. It feels like as I look around that Portland is dying. A small group of us wanting to be part of the solution, not just finger pointers, volunteered to work in the homeless camps. We asked homeless campers what garbage they wanted, remove something simple, something they didn't have. Every week we removed tons of biohazards, tens of thousands of needles, black mold, rotten food, gross nastiness. It was one of the grossest things I've ever done. Shocking to see how some of the homeless live. Unreal. We regularly provide options to them to be able to get their lives back. I remember terry, who I knew pretty well over the months, who couldn't sleep at night because the rats were keeping him awake because they were crawling underneath his tent. We offered him an opportunity to be able to get out, and he refused because the option meant that he would have to give up his drugs. The only thing that turned the whole thing around was when they started posting, and they started going through and doing camp cleanups. That's when we had an opportunity to be able to get him into services, and he finally got his life right. We need to support the mayor. Thank you.
759 Okay. Checking to see if nicholas shields has arrived. Eric hoffman. Okay. Next up, we have scott simpson. Solera salazar, tiana tozer, diana ullberg, neil mattson. Neil. Go ahead.
760 Good afternoon. Councilors. Thank you so much for this time. My name is neil mattson. I serve as the president of the Montavilla business association. I'm a Montavilla resident and a business owner. I appreciate everybody's endurance through this long testimony. Listening is is definitely an act of of collaborative social justice. So I appreciate everybody's perspective here today. I'm here to share my opposition to the Morillo one amendment and any reduction in the funding for impact reduction program or Portland environment management office, colloquially known as pmo. This proposal would effectively undo nearly three years of collaborative work between neighborhood residents and Montavilla the city of Portland via Portland solutions, Multnomah county's homeless services department, and outreach partners including pdx saints, love and straightway services. In 2020, four, members of our community met weekly for nearly a year to develop the first ever good neighbor agreement that was signed jointly by the county and the city. That agreement was made possible. That agreement made possible for the county to open oak street village, a 30 person alternative shelter community of tiny homes in south on southeast 82nd avenue, just steps from the heart of the Montavilla commercial corridor. Although not legally binding, the nei committed the city to coordinated impact reduction, including campsite removals, within a two mile radius of the site. The success of that process depended on trust. We urged concerned neighbors to support the effort for us to house our unhoused neighbors by assuring them that we had effective, humane tools to address environmental hazards. Unsanctioned and unsafe camping, and to remove vehicles that pose safety risks. Those tools are pmo and the impact reduction program. My neighbors and I have worked tirelessly to build bridges to show that compassion and accountability can coexist. Any reduction in funding to these programs would dismantle the very framework that made this collaboration possible. Possible. Thank you.
761 Go ahead. Gianna.
762 Hi tiana tozer, my ears have been burning. I want to take a moment and remind you, but I guess councilor Avalos isn't here that your texts are public record. I am having deja vu. Didn't we already do this? Wasn't I already here in front of you talking about the budget and and some crazy amendments? This just feels super manipulative and nontransparent. It's a bait and switch. Councilor Morillo keeps talking about moving 4.3 million, but it's not really 4.3 million. It's 12 million and cuts the impact reduction program. Prosper Portland special appropriations and 12 other bureaus, including more than a $1 million reduction to parks. I got to say I was not happy with that levy. I didn't vote for it. And now you're just slapping us in the face with like, okay, you just approved this levy and now we're going to take money away from parks. Great. Portland is just now starting to make inroads into the trash encampments, dismantling the very programs that are driving our city's recovery is not prudent. So I want to remind you, people with disabilities are the largest minority in Portland. 12% of that, 12%, 38,000 of us are people with mobility impairments. Clear sidewalks are vital to ensure that we can exercise our hard won mobility. It took me 34 years, surgeries and four years to learn to walk again. I was disabled prior to the ADA. I used to have to carry a bedpan around with me because there weren't accessible bathrooms. I still don't walk well, I have neuropathy. I'm missing 40% of the muscle in my lower right leg. Sidewalks are key and I don't want to walk in the streets. This was not a class action lawsuit. And we can and we will sue the city again and again and again until our civil rights are respected. I urge you to reject this amendment. I urge you to reject all the amendments and protect the programs that are helping Portland reclaim its vitality, safety, and a sense of community. Thank you very much for your time.
763 Laura solera is joining online. As laura. Go ahead and unmute. Can you hear us? Yes. Okay.
764 Good afternoon. My name is solera salazar, co-founder and executive director of west coast sober housing. I reside in district one. Thank you, city council, for taking the time to listen to our concerns and feedback. I'm speaking today regarding the $4.3 million budget amendment currently under consideration. I come before you to offer a unique, cost saving, effective and humane solution, one that, if implemented, could eliminate the need for cuts to essential city programs. On page 12 of the proposed budget, 24.9 million is allocated for 1500 shelter beds. If na accredited recovery housing beds were recognized and classified as shelters in the city budget, and if vouchers could be applied to either a shelter bed or recovery housing bed, the city could reduce the need to build as many traditional shelters, while also addressing the negative feedback loop. Those shelters often create. Traditional shelters rarely address the root causes of houselessness. Our recovery housing agency, on the other hand, provides employment support, long term housing, navigation, case management, access to mental health and addiction treatment, all for a fraction of the cost. Approximately $30 a day. The outcomes speak for themselves. Data from our program and from national studies show that individuals who choose recovery housing have significantly higher success rates in achieving long term housing employment, recidivism rates, and ceased reliance on emergency shelter systems. The city's innovative homeshare pilot mentioned in the budget, mirrors what recovery homes have been doing successfully in Portland for decades. We are the pilot project and we have the data to prove that it works in 2024 at west coast sober housing, 59% of residents became fully self-sufficient and 44% transitioned into permanent stable housing. If recovery housing beds were included as part of the city's shelter system, Portland could avoid the 4.3 million in cuts while investing in a model that's proven to help people exit the streets permanently.
765 Thank you very much. We appreciate hearing from you.
766 Okay. Checking to see if Eric hoffman, scott simpson, diana ahlberg, next up we have jack dickinson, libby bush, vivian solomon. Rigel hope, Steve herring. Good.
767 All right. My name for the record is jack dickinson. I'm going to be testifying in support of the Morillo amendment. Councilor Morillo I'll start with addressing you. I really appreciate one of the ways that you've been framing this amendment, which is a reallocation and preservation of funds in response to our country's pretty rapidly deteriorating economic outlook, just to level set for everyone. What we're looking at is rising inflation, an increasingly horrendous job market, and a vindictive and cruel federal government that wants cities like Portland to fail. Over the past six months, I've witnessed you being one of the few members of this body to engage proactively on the issues of this moment, and I wish more of your colleagues had that approach. So, moving to the irp, I'll start by saying, I don't think any of us know with certainty whether this approach to sweeps will be effective at its stated goal of moving people from the streets into temporary shelters. And on balance, I dislike when we cut funding for programs like this because then we don't get to learn lessons from their success or failure. But I actually think the effectiveness of sweeps is not crucial to my position on this, as I see a problem in both situations. So first, if the sweeps are in fact ineffective at moving people into temporary shelters, then we really are just spending millions of dollars moving people from one location to another. It's rearranging deck chairs on the titanic. I apologize for the dehumanizing metaphor. Now, if the sweeps are effective at getting people off the streets, I think we're quickly going to run into not one, but two bottlenecks. The first is that we have roughly 5 to 10 times as many unsheltered and unhoused people as we do temporary beds. And the second is permanent housing is increasingly difficult to get people into. We're bailing water out of the boat while there's still a hole in the boat. And given the economic outlook I alluded to earlier, that hole is getting bigger. I've got 15 seconds. So I'll touch on two things. I think what we also might be looking at a little bit here is some political blowback that's falling on city councilors. I know there's been an issue raised in the past of the mayor getting kind of first bite at the apple, and then it's up to city councilors to come in and reassess that.
768 So, yeah.
769 Good evening councilors. My name is Steve herring. I'm the ceo of living room theaters here in downtown and a lifelong portlander. I want to point out that each of your seats are supposed to be nonpartisan. But as the year has dragged on, a significant number of you have self-branded and alignment with a specific political party and an ideology untethered to the reality on our streets, the international city managers association has highlighted how partizan polarization and incivility are incompatible with the regular duties of local government. I've seen moments of incivility today among some of the council members in front of me. We need you working together for the benefit of all portlanders. Councilor maria's amendment frames her point of view as being morally superior to the mayor's. His enforcement of the city's camping ban doesn't mean he lacks compassion and empathy. Quite the opposite. Campsite cleanups and dispersal are the only method that we have working to restore sanitation and safety to residents and businesses across the city, including the houseless. There is no dignity in living in squalor and garbage. Speaking as a house person, the very idea of living on the street would be traumatizing, saying that sweeps unnecessarily traumatize the homeless is starting from a premise that it's okay to live in doorways, under bridges, and intense design for occasional recreational use. Someone living on the streets has obviously experienced significant trauma to find themselves without a place to call home. This is not compassion. It's a surrendering of our entire community to a small group of people, some of whom are actively refusing help. I beg all of you to keep the funding in place to the impact reduction program. Thank you.
770 Vivian.
771 Hello and thank you. My name is vivian solomon. I'm a district four small business owner, and I urge you to vote no on amendment one and any variation on that amendment. I think this amendment shows real lack of civic pride and another foolish shift of our tax dollars away from programs that work, programs that are the result of much deliberation and hard work by a lot of people. And as others have mentioned, the proposed reductions also greatly reduce park funding, which we just voted to increase. So we all want to be proud of our city. We want it to look great. We want it to be happy when our visitors are here. We want companies to be interested in locating in Portland. We need tax dollars to keep funding the services that we are providing. And no one is proud of a city full of trash or hazardous waste. I have seen visible improvement in the very recent past. I drive on southwest 26th avenue under the barbara boulevard overpass to get to the post office. It has been a trash filled homeless camp in the past, and I have been threatened by a man with a broken bottle on my way home recently, trash on that overpass has been cleaned up and the area looks nice. When I reported a derelict rv surrounded by trash and a generator a gas generator in the middle of the road, the area was soon cleaned up, and I'd really hate to see the trash and rvs return. The irp is a valuable tool for the city. It provides a way for community members to report problem campsites and derelict rvs. Without that, without the irp, those calls would probably go to the police or fire departments. Not meant to handle that. And have we forgotten about the metro tax? It's supposed to fund services across the region that address chronic and short term homelessness by providing permanent supportive housing, shelter, outreach, behavioral health services, and other supports. The ten year goal includes connecting and stabilizing many thousands of homeless households with supportive and permanent housing. Sheltering the homeless is addressed by metro. Metro's should not address trash. And finally, where is the irp money going? Irp works, let's keep it. Thank you.
772 Thank you very much.
773 Okay, checking to see libby bush. Rachel hope. Next up we have david bloom, rachel Clark. Alex schmidt, mark shapiro, barbara strauss. I see diana albright has joined online. Go ahead. Diana. Hello.
774 My name is diana ahlberg I own auburn wax. It's an api bipoc gift shop located right across the street from powell's bookstore on west Burnside, sandwiched between west Burnside and harvey milk street. First, I want to say I deeply respect council Morillo goals. I understand that her amendment is intended to redirect funds from the impact reduction program towards rental assistance and eviction defense. I also appreciate that she included language meant to protect cleanup and sanitation services. That intention is clear and I truly respect it. That being said, the erps operations are deeply interconnected. Public procurement documents confirm that the same contracted teams, vehicles and staff handle both encampment removals and debris cleanup, including crews like rapid response, bio clean and central city concerns, which provides transitional jobs for people rebuilding their lives. Because these functions share budget, staffing, logistics, any reduction to what's labeled as the sweeps portion will slow down cleaning and hazard response work citywide. I see the impact daily outside my shop. We have small encampments just off harvey milk street. I've had to call erps 311 number before, not just to move people along, but to remove used needles biohazards so families and visitors can walk safely in response. If response times slow down or coverage is reduced, these hazards will remain longer, discouraging visitors and harming businesses working to keep downtown welcoming. Tourism is down already, and every negative headline that portland's cleanliness or safety pushes more people away. We, as business owners, pay some of the highest business taxes in the country, and those taxes fund programs like this. If fewer people visit your tax dollars, circulate back into the city. And that hurts everyone. From our shops to our public services. I also want to recognize the councilor. Morillo is trying to specify parameters and protect cleanup and hazardous waste services. I don't doubt, I don't doubt the intention at all. I just don't think it's always clear how intertwined these programs are. Clean up, sanitation and cabinet response operates side by side. Thank you.
775 Hi, I'm rachel Clark. I own and operate a goose hollow in and fehrenbacher hof and goose hollow neighborhood. We have seen there some of the best and some of the most challenging of times from our location between Washington park and downtown. I really appreciate the efforts that the city and all the people who are working to do the cleanups have put in. We are seeing a difference. The city is on a course that is reducing the impacts of camping on the people who walk, run, play in the city. As a mother, business owner, resident and landlord of 13 rental housing units in the area, I'm acutely aware of my surroundings and the surroundings for my staff, tenants, tenants, children and my own children. I believe in the efforts that are currently being made, both the county and city, to reduce homelessness, to reduce human displacement and to reduce human suffering. But suffering also comes in the form of the effects of the camping on our children and communities, and the issues that campsites have that are trickling onto the public property. We've seen that at our business, and we've seen the improvements, and I really, really appreciate it. I want to say, though, that being opposed to the Morillo amendment, number one, does not equate to being heartless and cruel, as some have alleged. I think that we all care very, very deeply and so much that it hurts. We are all sick with worry and care, so we're all on the same same side. We all want the same things. In the end, the public has to trust their leadership. We shouldn't need to choose between efforts to reduce homelessness and ending public space camping. So stay the course. Don't reopen the door to camping on on city property. The irp is working. It not only provides garbage removal, hygiene access, resource referral and job opportunities, but also removes campsites that pose the highest risk to health and safety. It is an integral part of mayor keith wilson's efforts to address the humanitarian excuse me and public safety crisis on our streets. Stay the course. Thank you.
776 Afternoon.
777 Thank you for your time. My name is alex schmidt and I own district painting here in southeast Portland. For the past several months, we've been working in partnership with pmo, executing a simple and effective solution. We're filling the orange barriers that you guys have all seen around town with sand to secure our streets. Our team has embraced this project, finding deep purpose and continued employment in restoring our neighborhoods. In the construction industry. We feel every bump in the road, and I can tell you, I feel the city is turning around, but it can't continue. If we give up on programs that have only started to make a broader impact, to take action and prove this model, I put my money where my mouth is. I offered to run an informal pilot program at no cost to the city. I personally invested $5,000 of my own money to cover the crew and materials costs, with only the hope that it would work. The return on that investment has been overwhelming. The on the ground impact is clear. A significant reduction in campsites, rvs, public safety and general cleanliness. Before this project, my business was a victim of theft from adjacent campsites almost daily. Since this work began, our local losses have dropped to zero and our local community is thankful for the effort. This is a solution born from a public private partnership that delivers tangible results. Pmos collaboration was essential in this success. I asked your consideration that you do not forget how important a solid foundation is. Just because we don't see it every day doesn't mean it isn't supporting the whole system. The citywide impact is undeniable and validated by city feedback. Numerous citizens who call me directly, and those who thank our crews every single day. In closing, we have the have proven the theory with boots on the ground that a cost effective solution is possible. Pmo is doing a great job facilitating this joint venture and others, and I'm here today to ask for the resources to continue these projects, to scale the success and keep moving the needle forward. Thank you.
778 Okay. Checking david bloom. Mark shapiro. Barbara strauss. Next up we have mary emerson. Rob bethke, charlie michelle wesley. Reverend heather riggs, peggy mcdaniel. Go ahead. Rob.
779 Good afternoon. My name is robert bethke. And I've been encouraged by my friends who still live in Portland to share my experience of owning a home in downtown the pearl district, and why recent living conditions ultimately made me sell my condo and move out of Portland after 30 years, and why I urge continued support of the irp. For most of the past decade, I owned a luxury loft overlooking the north park blocks from the most recent five years. The living conditions on my mixed use block at the intersection of old town chinatown and the pearl district have varied from untenable and desperate to, at times hopeful. I decided to move away, though, when one of my neighbors was violently assaulted with a bat while walking her dog in the north park blocks. While walking my dog, I was once overcome by secondhand fentanyl smoke from people using it on the sidewalk in front of my home. That was pretty scary. And at the end of last year, two of my vehicles each twice had their windows smashed and content stolen while parked in pearl district parking garages for smash and grabs just on my cars. In a month and a half, I watched the air tags on my stolen property migrate from campsite to campsite from a tax paying residents point of view, the hopeful moments were when the unregistered rv parked in front of my home that was selling drugs finally got moved along when a crew removed the large pile of trash on the corner that occasionally caught fire, or when the tents under our balconies with open fires and drug use were cleared. My co-residents have become adept at filing campsite reports on pdx reporter hopeful to get any sort of action. Homeowners became documentarians in order to provide sufficient support for removal of unsafe campsites that were blocking their front door. As a longtime director of my condo building hoa, we had to elevate our responsibilities to include more security, constant exterior remediation, and increased personal safety. Naturally, we raised homeowners fees in order to cover these additional costs. After five years of attempting to sell to find a buyer who is willing to move into my block, my condo previously owned by a trailblazer, which I purchased for more than $1 million, finally sold in April at a personal loss of over $300,000. Having sold the largest unit in my building, that depressed sale price was devastating to my neighbors home values as well. I urge you to support, to oppose. I urge you to oppose the amendment stripping irp funding.
780 Thank you.
781 Charlie.
782 Oh, sorry. Hi, I'm mary emerson and I live in district three, and I support councilor Morillo proposed amendment to the fall supplemental budget. Regardless of your opinion of the mayor's plan to sweep unhoused people out of existence, we all need to face the reality of today's world. Since spring, when this budget was passed, snap benefits have been cut dramatically for our community's most vulnerable people. That includes low and no income seniors, veterans, families with young children, as well as foster children who reach the ripe old age of 18 and are expected to make it on their own. Medicaid has been slashed to the bone. Thousands of Oregon health Oregonians will lose Oregon health plan. The past month has thrown further disarray around the ongoing availability of food and affordable medical care. And against this backdrop, the state has cut eviction prevention programs. So when people can't feed the kids, they can't feed the kids and they can't meet the rent, they'll be forced to join the ranks of unhoused. And a lot of these will be living in their vehicles or on the streets for the first time ever in their lives. So doing nothing, nothing to mitigate the damages inflicted on our neighbors by the cruel actions of the federal government is not only heartless, it's also going to increase the number of encampments. So please support this amendment. Thank you.
783 Ready? Greetings all. Charlie. Michelle wesley, indigenous of our land called Oregon. I love you, councilor Morillo. You hear us? You listen, you learn, and you take action. Thank you. Classism is a cruel discrimination with systemic disadvantages based on a person's social or economic class. It involves attitudes and behaviors that favor higher classes. It judges someone's worth based on their income or lack of with unfair, inequitable treatment. And I'm going to scratch these next two paragraphs because I just want to say I am out there weekly, more than once or twice a week working with the unhoused. I talk with them. I listen to them, I hear their stories. I hear what they want. They do not like shelters. And I'm going to get to that in a minute. And those of you who are supporting this, I've seen at least three of you out there also listening and hearing the unhoused. And I would challenge some of you to go stay in some of these shelters, stay there for a couple of nights, all of them. Don't be choosy. Those sold called lost jobs that you're claiming. Mayor, why don't we put them to work on supporting the unhoused instead of hindering them by making them out of sight, out of mind? Sweeps are traumatizing. Shelters are routinely reported as unsafe, violent, unkempt, with reports of sexual assaults in a form of incarceration. Permanent homes first is a proven solution and crucial for addressing their own issues. Homelessness affects all walks of life. This could be you someday and being priced out by high rents. I have so much more to say here, but let me close with the city value of equity, which states our vision to lead people, cultivate change and develop a culture of innovation, inclusion and inspiration will strengthen our city and communities. Wilson's plan does none of these. It just moves people around from corner to corner, neighborhood to neighborhood.
784 Thank you. I'm sorry.
785 And we have failed them.
786 We have peggy joining us online. Peggy, go ahead and unmute.
787 Yep. Got it. Sorry. Hi, I'm peggy mcdaniel. I am a resident in the hosford-abernethy neighborhood, a hand board member. However, I'm not speaking for the neighborhood association. Just as a resident and a voter of district three, I'm asking for a no vote on Morillo one. I have a few specific. Bits of experience to share because I live very near the clinton triangle shelter. I jumped in and have been a eager and active member of the clinton triangle oversight committee for over two years now. I also helped work on the good neighbor agreement for the shelter with the city and have, you know, remained very involved with that. So for two years I've had that chance to liaise with the city. It was going for twice a month. Now we're down to once a month as well as urban alchemy, and we actually meet at the shelter itself and talk about what's going on in the neighborhood. The current guests there, etc. So I just have to say that the impact reduction program, the irp, has played a major role in helping the city maintain the good neighbor agreement that it made with us two years ago. It does so much work. I'm also very active with pmo, and I've seen a huge shift in our neighborhood over the time that we've been working with the city and with pmo, etc. So I remember one example I just really want to share. We had an exceptionally service resistant. I also don't really like that term, but I will tell you that there was a person more. There's been more than one, but one stands out in particular that refused to come into any kind of shelter, even wasn't interested in the pods, which originally were also demonized by. I feel like the group that's negative about sweeps at this point didn't want to try shelter. But then finally he entered the clinton triangle and was a successful person there and moved on to shelter. Just because he was touched multiple times by the impact reduction program.
788 Thank you.
789 Checking reverend heather riggs. Next up we have tyce kleinpaste, angeline perla, aaron brown, diana stewart, diane drum.
790 Good afternoon, city councilors and mr. Mayor, my name is diana stewart. I live in the core of downtown Portland, and I'm here on behalf of the downtown neighborhood association. The dna, which represents more than 800 people who live, work, study and run businesses in the downtown for multiple reasons. The dna urges you don't adopt the Morillo amendment one and proposed amendments to it. None of our reasons for this are based on a lack of concern and empathy for our neighbors living on the street. In fact, we see and know well the inhumanity of leaving unhoused people on the streets. These amendments should be rejected because oops, just lost my sorry, sorry. They should be rejected for multiple reasons. One is that they have been rapidly brought before you without an opportunity to really assess their impact on multiple critical services in the city, and how that will impact our overall effort to help people leave the streets and become housed. We believe that these that these proposals. So sorry I lost my that these proposals will prevent the these essential services from helping to revitalize the city and bring people back the services that are needed, including people living on the streets. Second, we believe that that the essential businesses in the downtown and residents in the downtown who have left will not come back into the city with a kind of bad reputation the city currently has. Until services such as these are allowed to continue, and the city does not continue. With a reputation of not wanting to provide a livable place for residents and a successful place for businesses to be able to continue. Third, the tax basis that we all rely on to provide the services that are essential will not be able to be there without these, the tax bases being eroded. So please do not adopt these proposals. Thank you.
791 Okay. Go ahead.
792 My name is diane drum. I'm in district two. Thank you all of you, for your service and especially my district two folks for being here. Sameer I think some of my neighbors want to get together with you. We are a neighborhood. Y'all know redlining, right? Does everybody there know okay, how many of you know about yellow lining? If you've heard of yellow lining, raise your hand. None of you. You. Great. Thank you. If you don't know about yellow lining, you do not know the complexity of redlining. I am a proud resident of a yellow lined neighborhood. We have 90 units of low income housing for seniors and people with disabilities. The irp is not working in my neighborhood. I have neighbors that are disabled in wheelchairs, and they still cannot get down the sidewalk. That being said, after my career as a public health nurse, I know about anosognosia and I know that sometimes people don't know that the situation they are in is bad. I know sometimes they're drug addicted to the point that they don't have executive function. And our policy to let people live on the street in the last count has killed 450 of them. So to continue that policy and not to say to those people this is not okay, is not humane, it's not democratic socialist, it's not progressive, and it has given material for video footage that has been used by republicans and fascist leaning republicans all over the country, at least force them to use it. Videos don't give them the material. Don't bring a false thing of the people who are drug addicted and homeless, versus the working class and small business owners of this city that is not a democratic socialist paradigm.
793 Aaron.
794 Good afternoon. My name is aaron brown. I live in district two, but today I'm speaking as board president of Portland neighbors. Welcome. We are a member led pro homes organization committed to making Portland a place where housing is a human right and where every present and future portlander has a safe and stable home they can afford. I am here today to encourage city councilors to vote in support of the amendment to the supplemental budget because sweeps are harmful, violent and a waste of taxpayer dollars. At Portland, neighbors welcome. We champion a housing first approach, the gold standard for transitioning people out of homelessness. Evidence shows that sweeps do not improve the conditions or prospects of the people they affect, or the city of Portland as a whole. They are a harmful and inadequate strategy for addressing the challenges our homeless neighbors face every day. As you all know, the primary cause of portland's housing crisis is the decades long underproduction of housing that has created a shortage of 140,000 homes across the state. Oregon has the second lowest number of rental homes, affordable neighbors at or below poverty levels in the country. Rather than addressing these systemic harms, sweeps exacerbate them by forcing homeless residents to move farther away from services and destabilizes their everyday lives. We also know from local reporting by outlets like street roots that city officials and contractors charged with conducting the sweeps have a history of destroying medications and documentation that are unhoused. Neighbors need to survive. Every dollar spent on forcibly moving our unhoused neighbors from one wet sidewalk to another is a dollar not spent on programs like rental or food assistance, which keep portlanders from becoming unhoused in the first place, according to the recently released finding home report, 91% of survey respondents said rent assistance would help them remain housed, with half of their respondents saying that not being able to afford rent is their primary barrier to accessing housing. As vulnerable households grapple with the impacts of federal funding cuts to benefit programs, Portland should be doing all we can to ensure that everyone stays stably housed. Portland neighbors welcome stands ready and eager to work with everyone on city council to tackle homelessness through building more homes for portlanders of all ages, wages and stages of life like our inner eastside for all campaign. Our work with building codes. In the meantime, we urge the city to accept responsibility for the policy failures.
795 Thank you very much. We appreciate you being here.
796 Amendment.
797 Next up we have erin meechan. Erin you're muted. There we go.
798 Hello. Thanks for squeezing me back in. My name is erin meehan and I don't actually live in Portland I live in east county out in Gresham. But I advocate for affordable housing. And housing is a human basic need, like the air we breathe. And everybody deserves a place to live. But if you want them to function, they need to have a stable place to live. Please, I support the councilmember morales amendment to the amendment one for putting some of that funding into keeping people's homes housed, helping them with some food insecurities. People that are housed function better in our community. Sweeps are traumatizing and being on the street. I like what somebody had said earlier in this meeting about, you know, check it out. Go stay at a shelter for a couple of nights and see what it's like. If you really want to see what it's like and see what people are going through, try to walk in their shoes for a day or two. I appreciate the hard decisions you folks have to make for the city, and I thank you for your support. And when, you know, for our unhoused and our businesses. So I know that this is a tough decision. But keeping people in their homes, keeping people, you know, off the street and into a shelter, it doesn't really keep them housed, does it? You know, with all the cuts that we had through the state, I think that we really need to make some hard decisions about doing these, putting this money towards funding eviction prevention, homelessness prevention, that kind of thing. Not everybody who's homeless is on drugs. Thank you.
799 Checking to see if tyce kleinpaste or angeline perla are here. Next up, we have nora gruber, lorena guyot, david phones. Delaney, neil, zach langford. Go ahead. Nora.
800 Hello, councilors. My name is nora. I live in district four, next to our much beloved forest park. I'm the founder and lead of my local wildfire prevention group. Fire wise, we are nationally certified. I've been working hand in hand with Portland fire, Portland parks and state fire agencies since 2021. We have been told with our rapidly changing climate, an eventual urban wildland fire disaster in the city of Portland is a question of when, not if. So here's a pretty probable hypothetical scenario should we choose to cut back on impact reduction? I want you to picture a late August night. Portland sleeps. The temperatures remain stubbornly hot and dry. A powerful east wind starts whipping at 35mph somewhere in Portland. An unaddressed encampment starts to burn in a forested area near a neighborhood off the road, behind a fence with no fire truck access. The fire moves into the canopy, advances at about 30mph towards structures with ember storms leading the way. Within hours, this quadrant of Portland is facing what's called a wind driven urban conflagration. Okay, a fire that moves structure to structure, just like it did in la and lahaina. Within a day, a whole community is gone. Schools, parks, neighborhoods, communities that honestly cannot really be replaced. The destruction is catastrophic. An entire swath of Portland is simply not livable for years to come. Toxic remnants of the fire will take years to clean up. And instead of a few thousand homeless, now there are many thousands. So the first question asked in the aftermath of something like this will always be which elected officials voted to defund the one program that directly addressed a primary source of ignition? Because guess what? Half of our city's fires start in unsanctioned camps. We've been lucky, guys, but with hotter, drier summers, our luck will run out. We all remember 2020. Okay. Parts of Portland metro were on alert to evacuate. Your vote. Councilor is quite simple because it is starkly, starkly existential. Okay, let's not let Portland burn down.
801 Lorena.
802 Good afternoon. My name is lorena, and I'm here to speak in favor of amendment Morillo one, with the hopes that you will include it in the budget. I'm speaking today as someone whose parents personally housed homeless friends, worked at a nonprofit that combated homelessness, and have close friends and family who were homeless when I worked at the nonprofit. We talked about solutions, what was and wasn't effective. We discussed food pantries and transitional housing, rental assistance, and how preventative measures were the most cost effective. When we discussed sweeps, it was only brought up because it made our jobs harder, how it inundated our system and how we needed to help. Because during sweeps, people lose everything. Sweeps make everything more difficult. People lose their belongings and become less trusting of the systems in front of them. How can you trust someone to give you a bed when they just stole your blanket? I'm saying this because I know what despair sounds like. I've heard it in the voices of the people I've served, and felt it every time I had to tell someone that we didn't have the money to help them. Morelos amendment is in line with the most professionals who have worked in the combating the homelessness crisis, and I am not an outlier when I say that sweeps are just expensive cruelty. I'm frustrated at the misinformation I received in my inbox from my own mayor, and wonder why more time was spent crafting a deceitful email, rather than clarifying with his colleague. Maybe someone who prioritizes rhetoric over clarification should be reexamined as a viable mayor, and apparently Novick as well. In conversations such as this, I fear it's it's forgotten that real people will be affected by your vote. So I want to end my time with the voices of those who have experienced sweeps, so that what they lost may be known. My prescription sunglasses, birth certificates and passports. My bible and jewelry, the letters from my grandmother. Winter bedding, dentures, my seizure medication, my husband's ashes and my sense of self.
803 Hi, my name is delaney neal. I'm a resident of district two and a member of the democratic socialists of America and asks me 88. I'm testifying today in support of the Morillo one amendment. As a library worker, I work with unhoused individuals every day. I've heard so many stories of the negative impact that sweeps have on people, but one in particular stands out. A couple of years ago, while working at a library outside of Portland, I worked with a woman who was unhoused and extremely distressed because she had recently lost all of her belongings in a sweep. Not only was she dealing with that devastation, she had also lost the log into her email account, which she relied on having written down because of a traumatic brain injury very common among houseless individuals. Her email was how she kept in contact with social workers who were helping her get back on her feet. This is the type of thing that library workers help people with every single day. It is hard to believe that people do not have more empathy for what it is like to have all your belongings stolen by the city of Portland. Imagine working so hard to create stability for yourself and being repeatedly set back just because you don't have a safe place to store your stuff during the day, even while you're at work. Because yes, most unhoused people are employed. All of us are so much closer to being unhoused than we would like to think. I asked the city councilors today to have some empathy and take the steps to stop the sweeps. Thank you.
804 Angelina perla has joined us online. Angelina, can you hear us? Yes. Go ahead.
805 Yes. Can you hear me?
806 Yeah, we can hear you.
807 Okay, great. I'm a resident and voter from the Portland district three, and I recently heard about the upcoming vote to defund the impact reduction program, and I, I want to request that you vote no on this amendment. I live on 83rd ave and the Montavilla neighborhood, where we've welcomed a homeless shelter to the neighborhood, as have other neighborhoods in Portland. And while not on everyone's list of favorite neighborhood amenities, I do understand the importance of providing safe shelter to our citizens and the opportunity to a path to a real home. And I also understand the many ways that we fall short as a society in interrupting the cycles of poverty that land people in these situations. But of course, I also understand the importance of clean and safe streets for all, including our most vulnerable children, seniors, disabled, many of whom are homeless, being surrounded by filth, drug paraphernalia, garbage, human and animal waste, or witnessing people living in these conditions on our streets should not be tolerated by Portland citizens. Homelessness is a result of decades of disinvestment in mental health, affordable housing, public education and many other government social support programs. And it can't be fixed overnight. There will be no perfect solution, but with the steps mayor keith wilson has enacted, I've at least seen a start. Less tense, less derelict campers and other motor vehicles. Beds and beds in all neighborhoods, even wealthier areas that usually have the clout to keep the solutions out of eyeshot. So please don't underestimate the impact that immediate surroundings have on us all, including our youth. We all deserve and are worthy of safe streets, just as we all deserve a safe place to call home. We won't get both overnight, but we will with an unwavering dedication to solving these issues from all sides. Thank you. Please vote now.
808 Okay, checking to see if david jones is here. Next up we have zach langford. Megan brennan. Olamina banchero christine burmeister, miss bird.
809 Great guess. Okay, great. Hello. My name is megan brennan. I'm here as a representative of the central eastside industrial council. I have lived and worked in district three for the past three years, being an active member of the central eastside community. I have seen firsthand both the challenges the city and the progress. The progress. Program. City faces and the progress programs like the impact reduction program has made. I'm here today because I want to see Portland continue moving forward towards solutions that are compassionate and effective. We are grateful for the progress that the city has made with the impact reduction program. It has provided real, effective and humane support where others have struggled. The ercp does not just sweep camps, it connects people to shelter, recovery programs and outreach services. Crews treat people with respect and help restore public spaces that are essential to everyone's safety and access. I have seen this firsthand on water avenue, where I have seen these crews help assemble their gear that they want to keep together. They've picked them up and have helped move the items that these unhoused people wanted to keep. As a resident, I've seen the difference firsthand. Walking to the omsi with my toddler, having to stop him from picking up needles. We also had to walk on the street past a camp where a dog had lunged at my toddler, and my toddler is now afraid of dogs, and we're working on getting over that fear. Employees in my district are also afraid to walk to lunch. We are also afraid to walk to our cars, and with daylight savings, it's a real fear and terror for all the women that work in my office. We cannot grow and thrive as a community if our streets do not feel safe and welcoming. Real compassion also means being responsible with our resources, cutting funding from a program that is thoughtful, strategic and already producing results helps no one. The irp deserves time and support to continue making progress. I urge you to preserve funding for the program, and thank you for your time and service for the city.
810 David has joined us online. Go ahead david.
811 Oh hi there. Can you hear me?
812 Yes, we hear you.
813 Okay, cool. Hey, I just wanted to, like, chime in and say no on this. I'm a lifelong resident of Portland, Oregon. I'm 61 years old. I owned scandals downtown and saw kind of firsthand what I think happened, not only because of COVID, but it seems like the city and the county sort of disinvested in downtown. And they they were, I think, trying to move their impact, you know, out into the city. But they left the core. Unprotected. And then with COVID and with everything else, I think now we're left with like something that needs support. And I think everything you pull away from the center core affects the entire city, because we put so much emphasis on creating that strong inner core. So like parking taxes. Even minimum wage, which I totally support. But our customers need to realize that our city's very expensive to operate in. And if you don't support your small businesses. The whole infrastructure crumbles underneath that way. That's my point. I don't like sweeping, and I want us to find a better way to support our homeless and our people in need. Without, you know, taking away from what we need downtown. Thank you.
814 Elana.
815 Hello? Can you hear me?
816 We can hear you.
817 Okay. So I was going to say something completely different. And after listening to all of the conversation today, I just want to share my experience and then encourage people to cultivate an attitude of yes and versus no. So I'm a longtime Portland resident. I was an advocate for families experiencing homelessness, and I have experienced homelessness, lived in shelters in this county, and I'm currently homeless. A lot of you seem to think that it's really easy to access these programs, or that there's an abundance of beds and resources, and that's just not true. When I was in shelter and I went through my rent well, class, my advocate had thought that we were only in shelter for six weeks because they were told that it takes three months for families to go from shelter into housing. And we've been there seven months and based on our budget, we would be there another six months. My daughter was hit by a car in front of the shelter that used to be on 162nd and stark, and that's the reason that my family gained enough notoriety that we were able to become housed, barring my child being hit by a vehicle. I would have been in that shelter for over a year. And so I'm hearing people say, you know, I don't want the needles. I don't want my kids around these homeless people, these scary dogs. Sure. But what about these people who are living under these conditions? I challenge you to incorporate the attitude of, yes, let's do this. And then let's figure out how we can also continue to keep these streets clean. Versus no, let's just not care about these people. Let's care about sidewalks. Let's care about businesses. Let's care about objects over actual people. And that's what I leave you with. Thank you.
818 Christine.
819 Unmuted. Hi there. Hi, council people. Thank you for.
820 Hearing all of us. My name is christine burmeister. I own two small restaurants in downtown Portland, right behind the Multnomah county central library. I've been there since 2016, so I have seen the rise and fall, and we have made it through everything so far and tried to be really proud. Portland boosters. And I just want to say that sweeps are bad. They really are bad. And so is living in a tent bad? And it's all bad. But there's two things that I feel like need to be emphasized, which is, number one, the amount of money that we're talking about here seems quite small. And every time I've ever called for help with anything to Portland street response or the irp or clean and safe, I've always been told it's a Multnomah county issue. It's not a city issue. So I certainly am not the most educated in this regard. But it seems to me that Multnomah county has the huge budget, and perhaps they're the ones who should be looked at more carefully, and that it seems a bit unfair that everybody's being dragged over the coals for the small part that we do play in this. I also want to say that the other problem is that we don't have enough money. You know, we can keep on cutting things, but we simply don't have enough tax money. And as a small business owner, I can emphasize, as have all other small business owners, that it's a very hard town to do business in, and we are constantly asked to do more and more with less and less support. And people are moving away because it's not safe and livable. So let's do all these great things, but let's make it possible by raising those taxes. And to raise those taxes, we need to have a solid foundation for businesses and residents. So please vote no on this. But let's keep our eye on the ball and make it possible to do all the good things we want to do. Thank you very much for your time.
821 Okay, checking to see if zach langford or miss bird.
822 Hello, I am bird with edpa two. I want to thank you, councilor Morillo for bringing this amendment. I will speak very specifically to prosper Portland. Earlier this year. You all made history by passing an unprecedented settlement for an ongoing battle close to 60 years for the families who were impacted when our homes were demolished for a hospital expansion, that never happened. We all signed a settlement agreement. The city of Portland, edpa two, the plaintiffs and prosper Portland. Prosper Portland has violated that settlement agreement has breached that settlement agreement. Specifically, section two, c, d and more. As part of the settlement agreement and as part of the due diligence feasibility period, so that I can make an informed decision whether or not to accept the two properties offered under the settlement agreement. Prosper Portland is supposed to disclose every piece of information they can relative to these properties. They have not done that. On August 28th, prosper, portland's general counsel, sent an email notifying my attorneys that they were made aware of a encroachment on one of the properties. To this day, she has not provided a copy, a copy of that encroachment. I did get a copy of the encroachment. General counsel claimed that they looked they didn't. They didn't know anything about this encroachment. Well, here it is right here. The survey was paid for and sponsored by prosper Portland. The following day, a neutral party, August 29th emailed prosper Portland for a copy of the survey and they provided it to them. But what's salient here is the overvaluation of the properties. According to prosper Portland, both both properties that they are offering, they value them at 3.29 9,000,100 and $180. I have a recent appraisal. This appraisal was completed this month.
823 Thank you for bringing this forward. I'm sorry, but unfortunately we only have two minutes per person tonight so that we can get through as many people as possible. It sounds like there's more information that we'll need.
824 Is there somebody I can talk to to to bring this to light?
825 Can you email my office those details?
826 Who said that?
827 I think many of us would like to see it if you share it with all councilors.
828 Next up we have ward edward mann joining online, followed by kristen barbara weber, emily stutsman, edith pelletier. Ward. You're muted. Go ahead and unmute. Okay. We'll come back. Go ahead. Oh sorry. Excuse me.
829 Go right ahead in the room. I think we're waiting for the person online still. Go ahead. Okay. Hi, I'm emily stutsman.
830 The ceo and owner of happy lucky. We're a creative agency in the central east side. I own several buildings there, and we have employees, clients and customers who come to our office and to our pickleball courts every day. I'm here because I'm opposed to the budget cuts of the irp. We are so grateful for the services the city has provided for our business and for Portland as a whole. Every day we deal with dangerous issues caused by camping around our building, and the irp has offered real, effective and compassionate solutions to portland's biggest problem chronic homelessness and addiction. We can't grow and thrive as a business community or as a city if our streets aren't safe and if our vacant buildings and lots don't feel welcoming to the dreamers and the builders who want to visit, create, invest and build community here, more commerce creates more tax dollars and more tax dollars. Create more opportunity for everyone. That includes the resources we need to care for those in need. To get there, we must first solve the base layer problem getting folks off the street and into recovery. Mayor wilson's plan deserves a fighting chance. It needs time to play out. We can't start pulling it apart before it's even had a chance to take hold. A chaotic slashing and redistribution of funds from a program that's thoughtful and strategic helps no one. Real compassion means being smart with our resources. We have to be good stewards of the city's funds. This focus effort, given time, can make a real difference for those facing homelessness, for our local economy, and for the people that irp employs. If these cuts pass, the city will be forced to lay off up to 100 workers, including those in successful workforce development programs that prioritize hiring workers with lived experience of homelessness and prior incarceration. Where do those people go when the job that gave them stability disappears? We risk undoing the very progress we've made. There's been so much thought, care and work put into how this budget is used. Systems have been built to maximize each and every dollar, to prioritize the health and wellness of the city and people. Anyway, change takes time, so let's not cut it short. Thanks, everybody.
831 Okay, leaf. Burston, barbara weber, edith pelletier next up, allison gaylor. Felton scott, edith gillis. Yasmine sahul. Go ahead edith.
832 Can you hear me?
833 You can hear you. Go ahead. Hi.
834 Thank you, thank you. Councilor amylo. Amyl and Green, thank you so much, Morillo. We need your amendments implemented asap. You redirect wasted funds from doing harm to instead investing in doing good that we need for the greater good for tenants, landlords, city government, local economy, democracy and hope. I want to live in a Portland where we are humane. And you are starting towards that. The mayor's route is inhumane and irresponsible, dishonest and wasting money. And it seems that most of the people who have been arguing against it seem to be fooled into thinking that. Morillo amendment one is against trash cleanup. She's still keeping the trash cleanup. She's just preventing the additional trash loss in humanity and worsening of homelessness. The trauma, the theft, and the increased disabling that the sweeps causes. Stop allowing cops to terrorize, to traumatize, to rob, to force into moving our neighbors repeatedly forcing Portland to lose their safety and their their tents, their housing. I have held this open the entire time, waiting since 930, and now my phone is dying, dear. Provide the community housing. Provide cleaning and debris removal whole. Prosper accountable for the costs and harms. Redirected $2 million to do good with rent and food assistance, immigration, justice, increased safety and reduction of terrorism. Increase the encumbrance carryover. Bless you. Councilor Morillo. And I do also agree with the small amendment to the amendment from Green. Thank you for being councilors of conscience and common sense.
835 All right. Go ahead.
836 My name is yasmine and I live in the pearl district and I oppose all the amendments. I'd like to share my story. I moved to Portland in 2016 from harbor beach, michigan. Harbor beach is a small rural town of 1600 people, and I paid $325 per month in rent for a two bedroom apartment. And when I moved here, I had no debt, and working in Vancouver, everyone questioned my sanity. Why Portland paying income tax and why pearl district, which is more expensive area? Well, I chose because at that time pearl district had a reputation and the pedestrian lifestyle. You know, walking is good and don't have to drive. And people here drive kind of crazy. And over the years, I saw that I became more and more of a prisoner in my own condo. It was upsetting when I moved and then my dentist, optima dental, moved to milwaukee because of the crime, and that space is still empty. And last week, for the first time, I felt safe. Thank you, mr. Wilson. Mayor wilson, that I felt safe walking from safeway to my doctor's in kearney and 18th, and I like to not take uber to union station. I like to walk there, and next year we're going to see more. You know, there's going to be fast amtrak and with safe area, we're going to see more tourism, which is going to help the city. And I don't see how driving someone, people like me out of pearl district is going to really and businesses is going to really benefit the whole city of Portland in a $4 million is going to cost us a lot. And I'm on the brink of moving out of pearl district.
837 Allison galer joining online.
838 Can you hear me?
839 We can hear you.
840 Okay. Hello. Thank you for being here. My name is allison galer, and I was born and raised in Portland, and I live in district two, and I work in district four in old town chinatown. I think it's time that we stop confusing letting our neighbors languish in their own filth on the sidewalk with compassion, and remember that setting limits is often an act of love and care. When our neighbor is a harm to themselves and a biohazard to their community, it is time for us to step in and help them. Sweeping their campsite may not seem like help, and our shelters may not solve the root cause of their problems, but many of my old town neighbors in need won't get to that stage unless they are nudged and even pushed in the direction of the next best option, step by step. What I've seen over the past five years, every day in old town is that street camping. It's not helping people, it's merely creating a new level of rock bottom for them to hit. And it doesn't feel or look anything like compassion. I don't believe that addressing the immediate needs of our community is mutually exclusive, with being creative, with how we shape government at the macro level moving forward. And I also don't think sweeps are always effective, but I do wholeheartedly believe that when combined with resources, the shelters are offering, cleaning our streets helps all of us and is a worthy investment for everyone in Portland. While a city saturated in urine smells like disillusionment, a clean city smells like hope. And I think we all need that. So please don't cut the irp. It's not incompatible with efforts to provide stable housing. And we we need both of those. So thank you for your time.
841 Checking to see if felton scott is here. Next up we have jacob kritz henry hayes. Weli jeff jensen jeremy beausoleil. Smith connor lennon.
842 Go ahead.
843 Awesome. Thank you. Council, thank you for your time today. My name is connor lennon. I'm a resident in district four. I'm here today in full support of mario's amendment one. When we talk about sweeps, we are talking about people, not trash. We are sweeping people from our streets, moving people from sidewalk to sidewalk. This does not include trash pickup, which, by the way, I support picking up trash and I clean up trash in my neighborhood. As a matter of fact, not to be hateful. I know many of you in this room cannot say the same thing. I want to talk to you today about some of my very personal experiences with our unhoused neighbors on the streets. I want to talk to you first about my friend joel. He's in his late 40s and he's an army veteran. He served in afghanistan, and when he came back home from his stint in afghanistan, serving in communications shortly after almost being blown up, he had too much ptsd to live with his wife and child, and ended up on the street. As a result of this and being on the street, he had his id stolen from him in a shelter. So now not only is he homeless, he also cannot receive any of the benefits he very well deserves for doing what he has done for our country, and that's a damn shame. I have another friend, her name is kj. She ended up on the streets after suffering a stroke at her job. She can no longer work because she frequently suffers strokes and seizures, and because she is unhoused, she does not have adequate access to medication or the lifesaving supplies that she needs. She will die on our streets whether we want to see it or not. And I am mourning someone that is living as we sit here. We need adequate rental assistance and a social support system that doesn't let people slip through the cracks. We cannot widen these cracks and look away when people slip through. This is killing them. Stop the sweeps and mayor wilson, stop killing my neighbors.
844 Jacob kritz joining online.
845 Oh, hey, can you hear me? Hi. Awesome. I'm jacob kritz. I live in district three. And based on what a lot of people are saying, it seems like the most thought people have given to the houselessness crisis in Portland is that homeless people are like, scary and dirty and should be somewhere else. And to be clear, that is all sweeps do is they put them somewhere else. Like everyone who's spoken positively of the of the sweeps, said something to the effect of, well, it cleaned up my neighborhood and like gave no thought to, you know, where those people were moved to. And you know, one of the places they ended up moved to was the springwater trail. I've lived in southeast Portland for about ten years now, and there's just a constant cycle of sweeps come through like, you know, camps like over a couple months, a camp will build up on the springwater trail. It'll become a nuisance. And, you know, sweeps will come, they'll clear people out. And then about a month later, you'll see a lot of those same familiar faces a half mile down the trail. And so all that's happened in the meantime is, is people have remained homeless and have lost all their stuff and had to pick up again. So, you know, redirecting some of those funds towards, you know, rental assistance, food assistance, like, you know, won't end the problem overnight, but at least it won't continue to make it even worse and more cruel. Thank you.
846 Jeff jensen online. Jeff you're muted. Unmuted yes we hear.
847 You okay great. Thanks so much I'm out walking the dog I am a lifelong resident of Portland. I am a professor at the medical school. I in my clinical practice have seen consequences of what occurs medically to people living on the streets. It's awful. You know, they're not served well by being in tents. I strongly oppose all of these amendments and strongly support the mayor. He were doing the right job. We're trying to get downtown back together. I've heard from a lot of people saying outrageous things out here, and it seems like many of them come from a couple of very special interest groups. They're looking for some radical social changes. I'm somebody who has paid taxes in this city for four decades, and I pay the homeless services tax, preschool tax, all of these things as well. In addition, I just started a small business. I'd like to grow that business in Portland. And what we're talking about today is making choices on a budget cut that is largely inflicted because of the loss of businesses from downtown. I support the small business. We've heard from many of these folks today that have the real lived experience of having their business being robbed, broken into and otherwise shut down by lack of traffic. So let's grow the budget. Let's be able to provide more decent services for people. These include all types of housing we can't make better be the enemy of good. I urge councilors to reject these amendments. Get Portland back to being the city that works, the city that all of us love, the city that is our shining example to show our friends. When they go downtown, they see how beautiful it is. We have a high quality of life here. There's many reasons to be optimistic in Portland. I'm very optimistic by the mayor's proposal. Thank you very much for the time.
848 Jeremy Smith online.
849 When the opposition to Morillo amendment one began to coalesce, it wasn't surprising to see who was leading the charge. For the past six months, todd xanax has been stoking the flames of fear by way of the northwest district association. He's led multiple so-called town halls where wealthy white portlanders come to dehumanize and degrade our houseless neighbors. If you attend one of these meetings, you'll see a large amount of gray hair and attendees who are all too eager to grab their torches and pitchforks and kind of feels like they're ready to start a riot. Councilors Clark and Zimmerman have fed into this hatred, and it's it's honestly barbaric. It's easier to end up on the streets than a lot of people think. How many portlanders are one paycheck away from missing their rent or mortgage payment? There's a multitude of reasons that someone can end up living on the streets, but they all share one thing in common they're victims of a capitalist system that leaves us cold, broken, and alone. If we have any hope of solving the crisis. Mental health and drug addiction, we need to stop the hemorrhage of portlanders who end up on the streets in the first place, reallocating funds to eviction prevention and building permanently affordable social housing are two effective ways that we can do this and sweeps people lose their ids, medication, phones, outreach workers have a harder time finding, and people are pushed farther from transit clinics and caseworkers. If you don't waste on the street, provide more public bathrooms. If you don't want people using drugs on the street, provide permanent, supportive housing that treats mental health and drug addiction simultaneously. To look at this as just an amendment about sweeps is myopic. This is about moving away from a punitive society that punishes the poor and takes the first steps towards treating the root cause of why our neighbors end up on the street.
850 Okay, circling back one more time, ward edward. Man, if you want to testify, please unmute.
851 One more panel. Okay. And then we'll need to move to debate.
852 Okay. Next up we have robert rudinsky joseph schneider. Felicia higgins, ross taylor. Chris lowe. Oh, I'm sorry, actually we have henry hayes wiley online from the previous panel. Go ahead henry.
853 Okay I hope folks can hear me. My computer is on, but I don't seem to have the opportunity. I hope you can see me as well. So I am a resident of southeast of brooklyn and also a third year medical student at au. I. Mostly would just like to make sure the council is aware that the Oregon academy of family physicians has adopted a resolution earlier this year opposing all forced relocation of people experiencing homelessness. I'm not speaking on behalf of the naacp right now, though. Our executive director did. Email your office councilor Morillo. But so we the ep and also the Oregon medical association as well. So both our frontline care providers and family medicine and the overall medical association, as well as the American association of family practice, to whom was our providers locally, were really responsible in championing this resolution on a national basis. All three organizations have overwhelmingly adopted resolutions opposed to all forced relocation of people experiencing homelessness. And the reason is that it makes our patients sicker. Literature is extremely clear on this. The evidentiary basis is extraordinarily straightforward, that it leads to disruption to substance abuse treatment, disruption to medical treatment due to consistent loss of medication. When sweeps happen, our patients lose access to their antihypertensive medications, to their antipsychotic medications, to their heart failure medications. So we are your providers. Your doctors have adopted resolutions unanimously opposing programs of this kind as money spent on forced relocation of our houseless neighbors is money spent making people sicker in our communities sicker. Thanks so much for your time.
854 Go ahead.
855 Good evening, members of the council. My name is robert pinsky, and I am with the aurora apartments in district four. I strongly oppose Morillo amendment and the subsequent amendments. Over the past year, the city of Portland has introduced a number of shelters in highly populated, dense residential areas, including one near the apartments. When those shelters were opened, the city made a clear commitment to the residents and those communities that cleanliness livability would not decline, but in fact would improve. There is debate over whether the city has kept that commitment so far. If these amendments passed, there would be no more debate. The city council will guarantee the failure of that promise. Passing this amendment will transfer the burden of the fallout to the community members. It will be parents who must explain to their children why they cannot walk to school alone, why they have to avoid certain sidewalks or bus stops, why they cannot pick up trash because it may be needles or other hazardous materials. It will be seniors who become increasingly worried about their walks to the store, to parks, or to their doctor's appointments. It will be disabled residents who will find sidewalks blocked and roadways blocked. They will have to be forced to choose between going to the road or going through hazardous material or other debris, and then come home and have to clean that hazardous material off their wheelchairs or walkers. This amendment is not just a budget line, it is about who bears the consequences when essential safety and cleanup programs get gutted. It is our children, our elderly and our disabled neighbors who will bear that consequence. These are the people our city has an obligation to protect, and they are the ones who will be directly harmed most by this. The city made a promise to these communities a promise of livability and safety, and to pass this amendment would be to break that promise in a very visible, visual and painful way. I urge you, do not pass this amendment. Protect our children, our elderly and disabled neighbors.
856 Thank you, council president, members.
857 Of the council. For the record, my name is felicia higgins. I'm a registered lobbyist at the city of Portland, and I represent 82,000 home care and health care workers, public workers, and building service workers across Oregon and southwest Washington. I'm here today to express my opposition to the proposed amendment that would eliminate $3.5 million of funding for cross for Portland. I'd actually like to start with a little bit of perspective on the amendment and make a process recommendation. I would like to urge the council to adopt a process of single subject amendments so that each issue could be considered distinctly. So I and I want to make it abundantly clear that I'm here talking specifically about the 3.5 million that is part of the prosper cuts in this, not the rest of the amendment. I think a city budget is also it is a moral document and sort of leads to where you all are headed and lays out what the city wants to accomplish over the next year. But I don't think it is a place to legislate through. And I want to encourage. I know that there are lots of concerns about maybe how prosper is working, or the volunteer board or other things that I have heard or have played out. I would encourage a little bit of outreach around those items and those things because as a as a volunteer who serves on the board, I'm happy to hear and rethink and do all of the work to head in a different direction. And I hope and I know that that's why I actually serve on the board of prosper. I also want to say that the by eliminating the $3.5 million in funding, we're going to go backwards on the direction that we've all committed to and that I've heard many of you commit to publicly that direction of supporting our small business community, that direction of leaning into grants and programs related to people who have experienced incarceration, that direction that we've all committed to around the workforce. So I'd encourage you to oppose the cuts to prosper. I know you're in a tough budget situation, but I hope that we can figure out a different path. Thank you and happy to answer any questions.
858 Hi. Thank you, councilors, for taking public testimony on these matters. Someone way back in the testimony here said compassion means keeping people off the streets, streets, not leaving them there. And this has been a recurrent sort of theme in a lot of the testimony in opposition to councilor Morillo amendment, which I am here in support of the amendment. Because I almost agree with it. Compassion would mean. Housing people, but the irp doesn't house people. It may move a few of them into shelters, but we heard statistics early on that say roughly 80% of encampments are never going to be touched by this. So irp is being massively oversold here. Also, it was asserted that somehow this helps the dignity or the health of people to sweep them and move them along. It's not true. You know, I my friend. Diana mp, put it very well in her discussion of it. I think that I came to Portland in 1977, the modern form of houselessness that we face now was just emerging at that time. Very little has actually changed since then. It's one of the most depressing. You know, I'm coming up on 50 years in Portland. It's very depressing. Mayor ivancie bought one way bus tickets for people to to ship people to california. We're not doing that. Exactly. But the sweeps are not helping people. They're not compassionate. And to pretend that they are is just lying to ourselves.
859 Sir, will you state your name for the record? Sorry.
860 Oh, I'm sorry, chris lowe. I live in district three and I'm a member of Portland democratic socialists of America.
861 Okay, great.
862 Thank you so much. Okay, so checking to see if joseph schneider, ross taylor. Destiny. Magana. Pablo. Jordan davis. Jubilee westergaard. John collins, stephen Green.
863 Oh my gosh. Oh my gosh. Chivalry. Go ahead. I don't think I'm first am I first yeah okay. Hello everyone. For the record my name is joy elise davis. I am the executive director of a nonprofit of two nonprofits in old town Portland, as well as an llc in old town. Imagine black. We focus on democracy here in Portland for the last 16 years. I'm also a proud member of the anti-displacement pdx coalition, one that has been advocating for anti-displacement measures for the city of Portland for around ten years. And today, I urge you to vote yes in favor of this amendment, which redirects away from harmful practices of encampment sweeps towards proven life saving services for our most vulnerable. Portland cannot sweep its way out of this crisis. Time and time again, we have seen that punitive approaches to houselessness not only fail to actively fail, but actively cause harm. Suites sever access to medical care and medication, like we heard earlier this evening, and increases overdose risk and scatters our neighbors away from life saving services and support services and systems. This is not safety. This is sanctioned suffering. This amendment doesn't just oppose what doesn't work, it funds what does. It reflects what services providers, public health experts impacted community members have called for. Stop the suites and the harm and invest in stabilization. Reallocating these dollars is not just a budget decision, it is a moral one. I've heard folks talk over and over this evening about what makes a livable city. I'm reminding you a livable city is affordable. It focuses on folks who are most impacted. I've heard folks talk about children. I've heard very few people talk about houseless children, talk about folks who are disabled. But I didn't hear many folks talk about houseless folks who are disabled. I represent a population that is extremely experiencing quite a lot of houselessness in old town black community members, and I think it's really important for us to think about them and center folks who are most impacted. I also want to encourage you to think about the fact that many folks don't have access to restrooms. We think about the fact that every income level does drugs, and yet many folks don't have access to actually put their safe needles in certain spaces. I also want to remind you that our tax dollars should go towards helping folks who are most impacted, not folks who are parroting white supremacy talking points. Thank you.
864 Hello, my name is jubilee westergaard, and I think I'm going to do something different because everyone has come at it with so many beautiful angle angles, no matter what side of the aisle you're on, I'm going to bring some joy and actually break the matrix a little bit and say that I am houseless. Wu first one up here to actually represent a population that you that people are saying how we should live. I would like to actually voice my opinion and say that I am is a privileged space, but I really love living on the streets. And I came to Portland. Actually, I lived in Portland. I've rented many places, but I've realized that I wanted to be houseless, actually, from living in Portland. I was like, that's a great idea. And I also love people that do drugs on the streets. Oftentimes I will do yoga on the streets and people will think I am on drugs. I will have people try to sell me fentanyl and I'll be like, no, I'm bone sober. But I believe that there is a frequency of living that we have lost touch to. We have talked a lot about today, housing crisis, but I think that there is a tree crisis. I think that we should make camping and living outside, not like a recreational thing. That's something you just do on the weekend or or a holiday or whatever that, you know, sometimes you need to tap into your spirit and realize, you know what? I think I need a couple of days outside and I've decided to live my lifestyle here because we have the beautiful greenery space, and I wish to live respectfully. I don't want to litter and place everything, but I also want to establish that you don't need to have a stable place to feel stable inside your heart, your home, that kids. You know what? If there were past lives? What if kids were druggies back in the day like this? Fear of like people on drugs. People will always be on drugs and they are the shamans of our times because they're tapping into a frequency that we have long lost, forgotten, but also sadness around it. But anyways, that's my little $0.02. So oh, I would really add someone who's houseless who actually has her stuff. You know, I hope it's okay. Right now I feel like I'm going to take a couple seconds to say, like, I think it would be cool if there was like a cool park or something where it'd be like, you are allowed to have a tent here. You are allowed to camp. Like, how revolutionary would that be for a united states city to have a place designated for camping, like within the city? I think that'd be so cool. There's nowhere in that like. Thank you. It's all either housing or public property. Private property. So thank you. Sorry. Thank you. I appreciate that extra time to ramble.
865 Okay.
866 Hello. My name is john collins. I'm homeless as well. I had a tent under morrison bridge and a camp for about a year. My camp was swept twice, pretty much just. I moved my stuff across the street and it really didn't do anything until the third time an outreach worker was c-c-c offered me a direct move into Multnomah safe rest village tiny home, which I accepted, got clean, started to rebuild my life. Six months after being in the tiny home village and having a job, I got moved into transitional housing, a motel shelter which I'm currently in now. You would think that being homeless previous I would be against sweeps, but if you're just doing the sweeps and not having the wraparound services to back it up, then I'm against it. But if you're having those services to support that, I'm all for it. Without that, I would have never rebuilt my life. I work full time, I go to school full time to get my cdl school license, and on my free time. Since I've been homeless, I've documented all of it on instagram, which some of y'all may follow me john man pdx where I'm out there approaching people on the streets offering them shelter, and it's some crazy stuff. But let me tell you the truth. Right now there are beds I call 311 every morning. And in the last 90 days, every time I've called, there hasn't been one day where they've said there's no shelter. So if we were sweeping the camps and there wasn't somewhere to put them, I would say that's not right. But there are beds every day and ample amount, and these places are safe. They're their own motel rooms. Your own tiny home, pod village. I say, let's get out there and liberate these people from an oppressive lifestyle because we have the resources. Thank you.
867 Mayor and councilors. My name is steven Green, business owner here in Portland. Also live in district two. Also the co-founder and executive director for better Portland, a local chamber. I provided you all a letter earlier today with a statement from ourselves and a few of our partners. I want to put it on the record and read it right now, so I appreciate the time. On behalf of the board leadership of Portland and community partners, we urge you not to reduce any of the funding for prosper Portland this fiscal year. Over the past five years, our board members, leadership, and community members have been deeply engaged in listening to small businesses across the city through roundtable surveys and direct outreach to business districts and entrepreneurs. We also actively participated in shaping the city's new advanced Portland economic development strategy, which council adopted to guide the city's recovery and future growth. We agree with councilor Green when he said earlier this week. We need to focus on programs that move people closer to housing and stability, the work that community members have been doing to help prosper, prioritize just does just that. In the creation of advanced Portland, the messaging coming from our community engagement over the last year has been clear. Small businesses need a strong city partner, not a retreat from economic development investment. A few efforts in particular, reflect years of community led work and must continue to be fully funded. The inclusive business resource network, culturally specific high touch business advising and support for entrepreneurs who face historic barriers. The new office of small business, the front door air traffic control tower for simplifying, permitting city navigation and support for our local businesses. These programs reflect the values outlined in Portland growing local business ownership, activating commercial corridors, and strengthening portland's economic foundation. When the city saw crime increase, you invested more. When our parks needed maintenance, you invested more. When we needed to broaden public safety toolkit, you invested more. With our small businesses facing so many headwinds such as tariffs, downtown exodus and increasing costs, we need to keep the budget that you already promised, and we hope you'll find creative ways and to better support the local economy. We want you to vote no for any amendment that includes cutting prosper budget. Thank you.
868 Yeah.
869 That completes testimony.
870 Thank you to everyone who is still here. Thank you to everyone who testified. I know we didn't get to thank you each individually because we were trying to hear from everyone, but we appreciate your being here and sharing your perspective today. Colleagues. There are a lot of people in the queue, but I would like to ask that we do this. By starting with the amendments, because we know that there are amendments and amendments on amendments. We begin to lose colleagues at 6:00 when I know a few people need to leave for additional commitments. And I believe that some of our staff have hard stops at about seven. So I would like us to get through through all of the amendments if we can, which is going to take some discipline on all of our parts as we move into debate and discussion. Councilor Morillo you brought an amendment forward before, are you interested in proposing that at this time?
871 Yes, and I think that it sounds like folks have other amendments to that amendment.
872 Yes. Thank you. I will flag colleagues that as we were hearing from the public to new amendments to councilor Morillo amendment, two amendments were posted. Avalos one, I believe, amends councilor Morillo amendment and Smith two, I believe is a standalone amendment. Councilor Morillo. Would you like to move forward?
873 Yes, I think I would be helpful to hear councilor Avalos amendment to the amendment.
874 Can I do that?
875 We need to have the underlying amendment open in order.
876 To okay, can we open it?
877 So you would need to I'm skipping the line of people here to give you the opportunity to motion your amendment.
878 I motion I move the amendment to be open for discussion.
879 Is there a second second? Okay. So we now are in discussion on Morillo one.
880 I have a friendly amendment.
881 Okay. We have a q here. Counselor Smith, were you in the queue for Morillo one? Most of this queue is from previously, so I don't know who's in for what.
882 No, madam president, this is for Smith two.
883 Okay. We will come to that.
884 Okay.
885 Councilor Kanal, are you in the queue on Morillo one? Yeah. Okay.
886 In order.
887 Because we had we have to be in that discussion to move amendments to the. Yes. So I'm going to move canal one, which again is the restoration of the public safety encumbrance carryovers for non 24 seven public safety. And that is also pre-filed and handed out.
888 Okay. Is there a second on canal one. You're moving it right.
889 Yes I am moving it.
890 Is there a second for canal one. Second. Okay. Is there any discussion on canal one? Councilor councilor Koyama Lane are you are you in the queue on canal one? No. Okay. Councilor Avalos. No. Councilor Green. No. Okay. Councilor.
891 Novick I was in the queue and Morillo one, but I do want to address canal one.
892 Go right ahead.
893 So my concern about the encumbrance aspect of Morillo one is that we were asked to go through 196 line items in five days, and I don't think any of us are capable of doing that effectively. I don't think that that's I don't think I think that that falls into the category of something that we've done too many times, which is we're going to propose to cut things based on the categories they're in, rather than the specifics of the things that are in the category. We did that in a way with the children's levy, where people heard complaints from some organizations that hadn't gotten money they expected. So the reaction was, we will have all the organizations that used to get money, get money, and effectively take it away from all the organizations that the staff and the advisory groups had suggested, without knowing who those groups are or what they were doing until weeks after that had been passed. I think we did pretty much the same thing with the materials and services budget, where there was proposed 2% across the board. Cut to the materials and services budget without a previous discussion about what the materials and services budget paid for in each bureau. And then on the dais, people heard that, well, that for the parks bureau, that that includes water and includes bark chips. So we tried to fix it on the fly and say, well, we didn't mean water and bark chips. One might argue that I did the same kind of thing when I proposed cutting funding for the arts center and the community music center, because I was thinking in terms of a category, well, if we're going to have to cut the budget parks budget, maybe one category is parks facilities that are deteriorating, and maybe at some point we'll have to close anyway. So I thought that was a reasonable category. So I proposed cutting it, overlooking the fact that these are actual facilities that actual people depend on. I think this is the same kind of thing. We're going to cut 196 things, because they fall into this category of items that are in a particular place in the budget and bookkeeping process, and I think that's very dangerous, because none of us know what all those 196 things are. Councilor Morillo is proposing putting back one of them. Councilor Kanal is proposing putting back several of them, but I'm not planning to vote for either of those amendments, even though I like putting back those things, because I think that would create the impression that, well, we solved the problem, and I don't think we have councilor Zimmerman suggested earlier that we should have each of the bureaus come forward and talk about the impact of those 196 cuts on their bureaus. And I think if we're going to go forward with this, we should do that. I'd be particularly interested in the impact on the bureau of planning sustainability, because they're a small bureau, and $442,000 is a lot for them. And I'd like to know what the impact is. But I also know that it's possible that the bureaus won't be able to really articulate the impact because we asked I asked the parks bureau what is the impact of the Morillo amendment on you? And a response I got back was, well, there's 128 items. The median amount of it is $2,000. So in order to really be able to determine the impact, we'd have to talk to 65 managers to figure out what those 128 items do. So I don't think this is the right way to go about this. Maybe there's a right way to go about the issue of restoring money to the compensation set aside. But what I would want to do if we're going to do that is to have conversations about significant budget items that we understand and say, should we cut that instead of cutting into the compensation set aside and we don't have to do this now, we can introduce budget amendments at any time. We don't have didn't have to say to hijack the tao, which is this technical thing that we have to do in order to introduce budget amendments. So what I would have liked to do is submit each of these amendments through the relevant committees for a hearing, etc. But, and but as to the idea of what to do about the compensation set aside in these 196 items, I just don't think we should be talking in terms of these 196 line items. So again, although I appreciate the fact that councilor Kanal, as is his wont, has looked in some details and found some specific things that he thinks should be restored, I don't. I don't like the idea of supporting an amendment, which kind of lends credence to the idea of this whole exercise.
894 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo are you in the queue to speak to canal one.
895 Yes, and I think I have to respond a bit to some of the things that councilor Novick said.
896 Please keep your comments to canal one.
897 Okay, but I think, yeah, sure, it's related to the returning of certain funds. We. Unspent funds didn't stay with the bureau. When the fiscal year closed, those funds were returned to the general fund, and the bureau can request to fund those activities based on a prior plan. But council has to decide whether doing so fits within citywide priorities and available revenue. So not approving a carryover is not a cut. It means we're choosing to allocate limited resources differently this year. This reprioritization is critical in a new fiscal year, when resources from prior years were not sufficient to fund all of the requests in the fall. And I think that we are with many of these things, we are going to dig ourselves into a much bigger hole in the spring. And we have to consider that when when the spring comes, if you're interested in having me bring up budget amendments randomly throughout the year, I have a feeling my colleagues will be more freaked out by that than when I do it in the tao. But if Novick says he's down with it. So I'll keep you to your word. But this is not a hijacking a conversation. We are the budget authority. This is our role as a council. And I would say that if parks can't articulate what a reduction would do, given that they were given the list in August, they are saying that they are not necessarily sure what they are asking for. We are responding to a proposal. The mayor's tao is simply a proposal that we get to respond to. It is no more or less important than our responses and the parks reduction to encumbrance carryover is related to costs that are on old purchase orders. So there are two plus years old, or for items that were otherwise ongoing costs, they simply wouldn't pass the guidance that was issued by cbo if the analysis had been done by cbo cbo. So I would say that it is our job to get into the details. It is our job to look at those line items. I and I will say that I think I learned things from the children's levy. I think that was a mistake and I think I could have done better. And that's part of why my office hired a financial analyst who has 15 years of city budget experience to look at these numbers, to make sure that we are analyzing these things. And so I don't think it's comparable to what's happened in the past. And I think that we have a responsibility to pivot and adjust. I will say I'm a little bit anxious about all the amendments to the amendments that are coming, just because I know from experience that when we do that on the fly, we tend to create imbalanced amendments and that can create problems. But I also will say that part of the problems that were created during the last budget cycle, with the 2% cut that you referenced, were because a cbo gave us inaccurate numbers to create our amendments. And so there are issues that are happening here between the executive and the legislative branch that are not allowing us to operate at our full potential either.
898 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal, are you in the queue to speak to your amendment? Yes.
899 Thank you, madam president. I just wanted to point out, you know, I think I understand where councilor Novick is coming from here. I think what I'm struggling with is that I'm trying to protect 500,000, 500, $11,000 of particular carryovers. And in these particular cases, yeah, the homework we did have it scored by cbo for that. That's how it ended up getting pre-filed. But also these are particular things that that are both by individual item and by category relevant. So what we've learned through this process of the questions that we're asking earlier is that the. Primary parts of the public safety apparatus that will be drawing down whatever amount of money ends up in the compensation set aside in spring will be police, fire and boec not one and the other portions of it will are subject to the hiring freeze, which, frankly, along with the rest of the city, means they're going to be the ones that are often going to be asked to bear the cost of of getting those two numbers into alignment. Should this should the town go through as as proposed by the mayor? I don't want to be in a position where we're saying we can either have police, fire and 911, or we can have chat and Portland street response in the office of violence prevention and what we're setting up, if we don't protect these specifically by allowing some flexibility in the budget, allowing some carryover, which admittedly, not all of it, most of this is not for for personnel, but there are places that there would be moving money away over the course of the year. If not, then we would be in that position. So the purpose of this is to improve upon the amendment as it currently is. And I think your argument is more about not cutting, which is exactly what this amendment does.
900 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick are you back in the queue?
901 I figured I put parts of the amendment later on.
902 Fantastic. Councilor Zimmerman, are you in the queue on canal one?
903 Yeah. I'll just I appreciate your comments. Councilor Novick. You know, I think it was some three hours ago, I asked some questions about the impacts of reductions, and I'm waiting for those to still be spoken to. We were not allowed to hear answers about that, so I will be a no on this. I'm not really interested in making something that, you know, I'm not I'm not supportive overall. And so I'm not interested in incremental better on something that stinks. Anyway, I'm going to leave at six and I and I'm saying that because luckily in this form of government, an absent vote is the same as a no vote. And I'm going to be a no vote all night long. So I want people to understand that. Thanks.
904 Thank you. Councilor. Seeing no one else in the queue to speak to canal one, which is an amendment to Morillo one. Rebecca, could you please call the roll? And again, colleagues, this is canal one, which amends Morillo one.
905 Clark. Clark.
906 No.
907 Green.
908 Yes.
909 Zimmerman.
910 No.
911 Avalos I.
912 Dunphy I.
913 Smith.
914 No.
915 Canal.
916 Yes.
917 Ryan. No. Koyama Lane I Morillo.
918 No.
919 Novick.
920 No.
921 Pirtle-guiney.
922 No.
923 The amendment fails with seven no votes and five.
924 I thank you, rebecca. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue to speak to Morillo one?
925 Can I speak to Smith two or Morillo one? We're just going to go in order.
926 We're in debate on Morillo one, so if you have an amendment to that or if you want to speak to Morillo one, we can do that at this time. Smith two we can take up as soon as we're done with Morillo one.
927 Okay, perfect. I do have I'd like to move Smith one. To amend Morillo one okay.
928 Is there a second?
929 Second?
930 Okay, colleagues, we are in debate on Smith one which would amend Morillo one. Counselor Smith, is there anything you'd like to say to this?
931 Yeah, I'd just like to say this would restore $4.35 million back into the impact reduction program that was removed from Morillo one. It would also allocate $873,000 in carryover funds to strengthen the law enforcement efforts through the police bureau. That was in the forbearance. It would also put over $1 million back in in carryover funds for the park system.
932 Thank you, counselor councilor Koyama Lane, are you in the queue for Smith? One okay. Counselor Avalos, are you in the queue for Smith one. Counselor Green. Smith one. Counselor Novick Smith one. Go right ahead.
933 I would just like to mimic ditto counselor Zimmerman and say that I will oppose this this amendment on the same theory of opposition to incremental terrorism.
934 Thank you. Counselor. Is there any other discussion on Smith one. Counselor, I just want to clarify that you are returning the funding.
935 Back, back into the sweeps.
936 Back into your returning.
937 Into the towel that the that the mayor put forward.
938 You're returning the funding back into the town. Yes. For the impact reduction program.
939 Exactly.
940 And for the Portland police bureau.
941 For the Portland police bureau and for the parks that was taken out of Morillo one.
942 Thank you. Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue on Smith one. Rebecca, could you please call the roll? Councilor Kanal are you in the queue for Smith?
943 One yeah, I just had a question. Where's this money coming from? I see a restoration of 4.3 million. Restoration of 1.8. That's worth six point something.
944 6.2 million. It's coming from the citywide obligation reserve fund.
945 Okay. That's okay. So this is separate from the the it's reiterated this is separate from the money being taken out of the citywide obligation reserve fund in Smith two.
946 That's a whole different story. It just depends on if if Smith one passes.
947 Is anyone from the city attorney's office here?
948 Nancy.
949 Nancy with.
950 Us. I see robert.
951 We also have an attorney with us all the time.
952 Can we can we get a because this is going to I was going to wait to ask this until Smith two. But can we ask about the criteria for whether or not we're allowed to use to, to, to reduce the the citywide obligation reserve fund to do this.
953 That's more of a budget question than a than a legal question. I mean fair enough. Yeah. Sorry.
954 Just so that, you know, I did talk to ruth about it and she said that I can take there is some unencumbered money that is in the city obligation fund that can be used.
955 As.
956 Mr. Taylor, would you like to start us off with a legal, strictly legal interpretation? And then we will hear the strictly budget interpretation.
957 Thank you. Robert taylor, city attorney. The we have reviewed this proposal. It is legal. Those funds are not restricted. So they could be moved.
958 Can I just clarify would this and this is a budget question I think. Would this take anything out of the police accountability sub fund within the citywide obligation reserve fund.
959 No, no it doesn't need to. Thank you.
960 And just I'll ask now mr. Smith to do that either. No. Okay. Thanks.
961 Colleagues. I put myself in the queue for a question. Can you just give us a sense of what is in this fund and what the risks are from taking money out of this fund.
962 Yeah. For the record. Jonas berry chief financial officer so the city obligations reserve fund, or corp, as it sometimes called, includes a handful of sub funds for various purposes, most of which is restricted. The there are some amount, small amount that is unrestricted technically. And I it's related to a legal obligation that I've been advised not to speak in detail about. It's a multi-year obligation. So there is risk with using these funds right now in that we no longer have them available for that intended purpose. However, it is technically feasible. It was not recommended initially because of that risk relationship relevant to the compensation set aside option. If this fund were to be used, it would essentially result in the same strategic savings initiatives because we would still be compelled as a city to replenish these funds in the same way that we would be looking to replenish funds in the compensation set aside. So technically available, slightly different risk relationship relevant in relation to the compensation set aside reserve. And I don't know city attorney if you have more to add to.
963 But we would pay it back the same way in which we would pay back the money to the compensation set aside, correct?
964 Yeah. I mean, ultimately same same deal as earlier. It would be up to council to replenish it. But yeah, I think the the savings efforts would likewise result in some savings that could be used to refill this contingency, this sub fund.
965 And what.
966 Thank you.
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967 What do the things within the sub fund. The other piece of my question was what the things within that sub fund actually go for. Normally when we're not borrowing from it.
968 Yes. So the examples of the things that are in there, at least some that I have in my fingertips, are the aforementioned multi-year legal settlement. It's sort of a pass through for funds for things like the columbia levee project. Police oversight board is councilor Kanal mentioned there's a citywide legal priorities reserve as a portion of that. It does include the. To be clear, the corps does include both general fund sort of the more flexible unrestricted fund, and significant amounts that have strong restrictions around them. So I want to be very clear about that, that the entire fund is is not what would be under consideration with this proposed amendment.
969 Thank you, counselor Morillo.
970 Thank you. I appreciate attempts made to make the amendment workable, but I'm a little bit worried that if we use corps, it's just ultimately going to be another loan. And that doesn't seem to change the predicament that we're in, which is part of what my amendment was trying to address. I have pretty big concerns about the use of citywide obligation reserve funds, because it's the it's my understanding that it covers the harbor superfund, our integrated tax systems, the community opportunity and enhancement program, columbia levee project, police oversight board, and citywide legal funds. And I think that these funds, they represent very important and active obligations that we have. And it would ultimately just be a loan that we would have to address again in the future, which is what I'm trying to avoid having to do in the spring. So I don't think that I personally feel comfortable taking a loan from a fund that is literally for citywide obligations that we're going to have to pay back later by finding more cuts. That is just another proposal that kicks the can down the road, and I just can't support that at this time.
971 Thank you, madam president. Yes, ma'am. It is. It is an amount of 6.2 million, unlike the 14 million that the mayor is asking for and the set aside. And it is something that we can pay back quicker if we take that 6.2, it's going to be paid back the same way in which the mayor is going to get his payback from the set aside. So I would just like to call the question on Smith one councilor.
972 I don't see anybody else in the queue, so I think that's appropriate at this time. Rebecca, could you please call the roll?
973 Clark Green?
974 No.
975 Avalos. No p.
976 Because this is directly responsive to district one testimony. And as a courtesy to my colleague, councilor Smith, I.
977 Smith.
978 I canal.
979 No.
980 Ryan. O apologies absent Koyama Lane I.
981 Morillo it still relies on the executive to figure out how to backfill it so no.
982 Novick. No pirtle-guiney.
983 No.
984 And the amendment fails with three I votes, six no votes and three absent.
985 Councilor Koyama Lane are you in the queue to discuss Morillo one? Go right ahead.
986 So I think.
987 What we're seeing here in the various amendments being brought forward is a message, and I hope that it's one that you're hearing, mr. Mayor, because I feel like there are a sign that there are counselors and community groups and community members that are not feeling brought in early enough or meaningful enough to help shape your plan around homelessness. So I do plan to vote for Morillo one, because data shows that sweeps don't solve homelessness, and they make it worse. Our unhoused neighbors are often told to just move a few blocks in any direction, and I hear from them that they spend the day trying to find their belongings, medication, community, community connections they lost in the process of being swept. And that constant displacement disrupts the stability and trust that outreach workers are trying to build. I mean, you know this we need to be connecting people with services, not disconnecting them from what little support they have left. And we really need you to come to us hopefully, maybe tomorrow in our meeting with some really clear data to show us what progress looks like. And, mr. Mayor, I'm asking that you do hear this as a plea for partnership to bring councilors up here, community groups and the public more fully into your decision making process for supporting our unhoused community members. I think that's the way that we're only truly going to make progress in this area. I want to bring up a couple of things that have come up and I think deserve to be part of the public conversation. And this is just in the last few days, I noticed that whenever we're talking about the budget, anything related to a budget, there's a pattern where beloved community facing programs and bipoc led organizations are the first ones on the chopping block, and I would love for us to be able to have conversations without using those same organizations and communities as part of what feels sometimes like a threat every time we face reductions, and I think ahead of next year's budget, we have the chance. I think you have the chance to bring some of these groups together from some of these organizations, along with councilors, and have them be part of the discussions and decision making. I mean, I can even say, honestly that I've seen your team doing a great job reading regularly with immigrant rights groups over the past month, and I see how it's been helpful in building some trust and keeping a pulse where things are at in the community. And I can see the same type of thing being helpful in this area. I also need to raise a concern that something that appears to be reaching out and even possibly signaling some consequences to organizations that receive city funding if they speak up or support amendments that your office isn't supportive of. And I, I feel like that kind of pressure, it erodes public trust and it undermines us being able to have honest policy debate. And I if you are interested, I would love for you to have an opportunity to respond, because it doesn't seem in line with things. I know that you value. And at the same time, it's troubling to hear those things from community groups.
988 Thank you. Councilor. Mister mayor, do you want to weigh in at this time or should we move through? Okay.
989 Councilor, I appreciate council president, council vice president. Just a couple of things. We aren't just moving people anymore. I hear people saying that it's a game of whack a mole. That is so inhumane and not representative of what we are doing today. It may be something we spoke about over this past 5 or 6 years, but every time I hear someone say that, I think about that. These are individuals. We're not doing that. And last week we sheltered 39 people. The best week we've ever had, notwithstanding somebody bringing something forward over the last many five, six, ten years. That's what we've been building this last ten months together that we talked about during the budget and so on. And we're now experiencing the gains and the support, and we're no longer abandoning people to the street when our impact reduction program moves forward to care for somebody on the street, they are there with outreach, they're there with care, and they are there with immediate shelter. I went out this morning at 730 with my team. Urban alchemy brought their van forward immediately. Somebody went right into a tiny home. That's what a system is supposed to look like. That's being built methodically based on care to end unsheltered homelessness. And we're succeeding. The other point that you had made was about involving our community members in the decision making. There's not a week that goes by where I'm not in a meeting with a culturally specific group. Last night, it was the mayor of newport. I'm trying to bring Portland in as the center point of Oregon to make sure that when we're talking about immigrants, immigrant rights, undocumented immigrants, that we're providing care for those members. So I'm sad that you're stating that I will take that as a point. There's room for improvement, and I will continue to work harder to gain the trust from our community members and from this council as well.
990 Thank you. Mr. Mayor.
991 I would like to speak to Morillo one.
992 Okay. I believe we have councilor Avalos in the queue next to speak to Morillo one. Is that correct?
993 Go ahead, go ahead.
994 Okay, okay. Let's see. I'm also thinking about responding to some of the things that I just heard. But let me say that I'm going to introduce an amendment. It is maybe friendly. I'll introduce it as friendly. And if not then I could move it formally. But before I do that, I want to just speak to the broader intent of this amendment and say that I agree with its intent. I think that I think that this amendment is actually a lot more than just the sweeps part of it. There's a lot of other things in there, but that has clearly become a rallying cry and for an important reason, which is that people are concerned that we continue to destabilize humans as we move them around. And district one in particular has lots of feelings about this, because we are constantly the recipient of the people that get swept out of downtown and into our district and forgotten, just like the rest of our district. So we have some feelings about just that broader effort, because it always disproportionately hurts our community. And our community is already suffering. Our community is actually at most risk of becoming homeless. In district one. We have the most economically disadvantaged population and many other stats that just show that we are at a constant disadvantage, and we don't appreciate portland's problems getting piled onto our district. So I just want to state that clearly, and I know my colleagues have shared that in various different ways. And I think ultimately I share the the core goal behind this, because I don't believe that these sweeps are going to they're not going to save our city. Citations are not going to magically house thousands of people that are sleeping on the streets. We're spending millions and millions to move. People block to block without addressing the real issue. There was a testifier at the end there and I completely agree with him. If you are meeting our community on the streets with a direct resource and a place for them to go that is that fits their need, not just what you think they need, what do they actually need and say they need. And if you're meeting them with that and being responsive to the unique needs of every person that's on the street, I'm all for that. But that's not what's happening. Unfortunately, my neighbors see it every day that people, when people are swept, they're not. They don't just disappear, they're just pushed further east into these areas that don't have the services or infrastructure to support them. And so I just want to state that for the record, that I'm strongly in support of that goal, what my friendly amendment does and what my issue is with the amendment that I'm trying to resolve, is the trade off of cutting prosper Portland at a rate that's going to reduce the kind of services that we desperately need. In my district in particular. You know, I think that there we are fighting right now, a good example. We are fighting right now. We have a deadline. District one councilors have a deadline of December. I don't remember the exact date, but December, where we are being told if we do not make material changes to the parkrose community, we're going to lose grocery outlet and we're going to be even more in a food desert. So I want to put that in perspective that we are under a lot of pressure in our district to make the kinds of economic development changes that are going to help our community, not just the small business owners, but the people who patron those businesses. Obviously, losing another grocery store would be devastating for east Portland, and we're under a lot of pressure to continue to show the ways that the city is investing in east Portland, especially as we have three new tif districts getting stood up. And for me, this reduction of 3.25 million for me is too difficult to make that trade off. Even though I agree with the underlying purpose of the goal or of the amendment. And so my amendment, my friendly amendment, I'll introduce it as that first is to restore the reduction to prosper Portland by 3.25 and take it from the compensation set aside. Part of my decision to do this at the last minute is the questioning that I had with jonas, as it relates to their confidence in how we could put money back into the set, aside, understanding that we are, no matter what, we got to make cuts. And I get that. That's also the intent here of councilor Morillo amendment to start making the hard decisions that we need to have, because these decisions are not going away and they're just going to get harder. But I think that for me, if I'm able to restore that right now and postpone the decisions about prosper that absolutely need to happen, we need to have a discussion about how prosper is doing their work, especially for our district. I'm comfortable moving that discussion a little further and protecting those dollars right now, understanding that we're going to have to fill it in any way in the future. But I have confidence that that will be easier to do than it would be. If we lose these dollars, we lose staff, we lose programs that are going to be harder to build back up at a time when we desperately need them, and we're working closely with prosper, all three of us. We're having town halls. We're talking about gateway, we're talking about parkrose. And so I'm just not that is a trade off. That's too hard for me. And it sucks to be in this position to have to choose to really important things that my district needs, stopping sweeps and making sure that we have economic development tools to be successful and grow our district. So my amendment is, again, to restore the reduction to prosper Portland by 3.25 million from the compensation set aside. That would just reduce the amount that we're putting back in the set aside. But it doesn't completely reduce it. It just makes that whole a little bit bigger that we'll have to fill later. But it's a whole that is easier to fill, in my opinion, than fixing a prosper hole right now. Thank you, councilor Amendment. Okay, okay, I offer it as a friendly let me hear the response first. And if it's not friendly, then we can move it and have a second.
995 To respond. Councilor Avalos, I really appreciate you laying that out and your concerns for your district. And I know how much you love district one and how much you're going to fight for it, and I respect you very much for that. And I think that that is the right path to go. And there are no easy choices in the budget that we're going to make. This is hard because I hear you, and I'm also still concerned about the comp set aside. And I was hoping that if you could find money from somewhere that wasn't the comp set aside, I would feel better about supporting it. But this will completely draw down the comp, set aside below the amount that police and fire typically needs, let alone other bureaus. And from what I heard from jonas berry earlier, they were talking about hope and how they're going to they're hopefully going to be things are going to be okay in the spring. I actually did not hear a very confident plan about how they plan to address the cuts that are coming for us in the spring, and so what we're ultimately talking about is a preference in cuts on the front end by the administration, prosper or something unknown in the future and or something unknown in the future. So. I just I think that this continues to put us in the same hole that my amendment is trying to address. Unfortunately, even though I think you and I are both values aligned on the things, and I think that at the end of the day, we're going to have some very tough discussions to have in the spring.
996 I understand, so I will just move it, you know, again, to open the discussion. Thank you, councilor Smith. And yeah, I think I've made my argument for why. And again, I just urge my colleagues to think about the really important work that we need to do and the partners that we have in prosper. And I'm not in a place to cut those resources to my district right now. And that's why I'm proposing this, but really grateful. And lastly, I'll just say really grateful to all of the folks that have made points today about the importance of us realizing our powers and responsibilities as doing the budget. I think it's actually great that councilor Morillo went through line by line and pulled aside things. That's the work that I want us all to be doing, and that's the work that I want us to create, process and infrastructure for us to do, not just during taos, but also during the budget. So I think you're modeling a way forward that we should all start to move towards, because it is our job. So I just want to name that to you that I respect the efforts of how you went about that, because I do think that's our responsibility. So thank you. It's on the floor and we can talk about it.
997 Thank you councilor. And that was seconded by councilor Smith. Councilor Green, are you in the queue for Avalos one.
998 Yes.
999 Go right ahead.
1000 Councilor. I appreciate you bringing this forward and articulating your position. We've had some warm disagreement on this question, and I just want to reiterate councilor Murillo's assertion that you're leading with your values, and that's respectable and commendable. I'm not going to support the amendment only because for all the same reasons that I think we we highlighted over the the big budget process, I do personally believe that prosper Portland can use its reserves in this moment to help us out. And I understand, you know, I appreciate the letter from steven Green saying, look, maybe not. So this this is a risk. I get that the debate is out there and we should be having those debates. I'm just I'm deeply uncomfortable with using our compensation set aside right now, because I'm pretty sure that we're going to be in a pretty big hole in the spring. And I know that the fiscal stewardship side of me is going to have to answer to, where were you in the fall when you made decisions on the budget? And so that's that's that lens here. You know, again, everything you said about needing to show up your district really rings true for me. And I respect that. So I'm a respectful no on this.
1001 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick.
1002 I'm in the queue to talk about broader Morillo, not councilor Avalos proposal.
1003 Okay. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue to speak to this one?
1004 Avalos one I say ditto, ditto, ditto to councilor Avalos. And thank you so much. Because for fear of overload, I was going to put in an additional Smith three to support prosper Portland. I had a great conversation with with the mayor and with prosper about how this whole thing came up. I wasn't clear about it before, but I am more clear today than I have ever been. And we have to protect district one. No one else has the same kind of problems that we have, and we have a, a, a grocery desert right now. And if we take that money from prosper, it's just going to be all bad. And so for me, adding this to it, mine didn't pass, but we got to prosper. And the mayor was very clear that we have to do that. And just as a as a note, people don't know that the mayor gets to do a contract, an iga with prosper. That is not our job. That is the mayor's job. And that is what happened. And this is why this whole thing snowballed the way it did. And so going forward, we just have to be in conversation with the mayor so that we know what's on the table and what's not on the table. But those igas are in the mayor's that's in his bailiwick. It's not in ours anymore. It used to be in the in the previous council. But I support you and I'm going to vote for it because we need to keep prosper's money and their all of their money.
1005 Thank you, councilor Councilor Kanal.
1006 Thank you, madam president. I this is a conflicting amendment for me because I don't believe we're able to do the obvious thing, which is to say that this the purpose. Why is it 3.25 million? I don't know if everyone knows that. It's because there was an amendment made to the settlement of a lawsuit. The two lawsuit, which we had testimony about earlier back in June, which increased the total amount of the settlement from a million for prosper and a million for the city to 8.5 million overall, I think at least some of us had an expectation that of that $6.5 million increase, that half of it, 3.25 million, would be put in by prosper, who ultimately bears the much of the responsibility for the harm that the lawsuit was about. And that was settled in that way. I don't want to imply that that was a guarantee, but I was expecting at this point that there would be some activity, some action being taken by prosper to to pay the fee. And there hasn't been and that's been disappointing for me. And it's been a challenge for it because in the in the budget process, I was, I think in the middle on a lot of the conversations around prosper, because the question then was, do we remove the funding that we give out of the general fund to prosper Portland and have them make up for it out of their strategic investment fund, which has, you know, tens of millions of dollars in it, which is, I believe, a part of the conversation we cannot have right now, because that's something we do on an annual basis. So that's at least that's how it's been portrayed to me. So that's where it gets very challenging here. I am curious if there's any one either out there or up here who could give me some hope for a different path by which prosper Portland would end up paying for their half of that $6.5 million. Because that, for me, is a the $6.5 million increase in the settlement. And that would be very helpful for me to vote for this.
1007 Councilor Kanal that has to be negotiated with our city attorney's office and the mayor's office. We can't just make them pay something that they did not agree to, and they did not agree to paying for half. So I want to be clear, because I put the amendment forward on this. So you can't hold them accountable for something that they did not agree to. And because we agreed to it, it did not bind them to a half of it. That is something that the mayor could. And going forward in this next budget, he can have the conversation about paying some parts of that, but you can't hold prosper accountable for something that they did not agree to do. Right now, we're we're in dire straits in district one, and we need that money. We need those dollars to go into district one to keep all of those historic park roads businesses in all of those gateway businesses. And let me tell you, I don't think you know this. You were in my committee yesterday, but I went and looked at the results of the parks levy 47, house district 47 and house district 48 are fully in district one. Do you know that not one precinct in our district voted for the parks levy? They don't have the money. And for us to take money from them that they need right now, that is unconscionable. So you can't hold folks accountable for what they didn't agree to. We can work with them over this next year to see how we can get some of that back. But we got to bring in more revenue and we can't hold them accountable for that. So I can't I can't walk with you along that line.
1008 So to that end, as I said earlier, I do not mean to imply that this is a guarantee were my exact words, and I stand by that. I think there's a question here, which is that this money is coming out of the compensation set aside. And so we're going to have to start worrying about, would you prefer to have this money go to prosper or police and fire or all these other programs, because there's no plan that's been given to us. It's rest assured, there is a plan. And to to build that fund back up. And so I am concerned about that. And I would like if again, anyone can say that that's a conversation that they're willing to have. And it's been it was June 5th. It's been five months. And not a single person out of the prosper board has has said that we want to take accountability for this yet or the or anybody in the the folks that that liaise with. And I understand they have a new director. So I don't want to put him on blast because it's not about him.
1009 But I agree we should probably recess then.
1010 I don't mean right now. I'm just if that's a conversation, someone's willing to indicate publicly that they're willing to have, not even to have the conversation now, but just say you're willing to have it. That would be helpful for me to vote for this. And that's that's all I was trying to say.
1011 Thank you, councilor.
1012 Mayor, colleagues.
1013 No.
1014 I don't see a response from anybody in the room. I think that's certainly a conversation we should continue to have. And I was going to note at some point in this discussion the importance of that as well, colleagues seeing no one else in the queue to debate. Morillo Avalos one which amends Morillo one. Rebecca, could you please call the roll on Avalos one which amends Morillo one.
1015 Green no.
1016 I'm sorry, that was a no.
1017 That was a no.
1018 Thank you Avalos. I Dunphy.
1019 I.
1020 Smith I.
1021 Canal no.
1022 Koyama Lane.
1023 I.
1024 Morillo no.
1025 Novick no.
1026 Pirtle-guiney no.
1027 And the amendment fails with four I, five no votes and three absent.
1028 Thank you colleagues. Councilor Green, are you in the queue to discuss Morillo one?
1029 I am colleagues. Before we heard testimony, I indicated that I was prepared to introduce Green one based upon some very late conversations I had with impacted communities who received those phone calls that my counselors had mentioned. Councilor Koyama Lane had mentioned over the weekend, where they were told that their program would be cut if we passed this amendment. And so pursuant to that, I would like to move Green, one that simply moves the glitter contract with ground score out of irp, out of Portland solutions, as it were, and into bts second. So there's no fees associated with this. It is just simply a contract. And both of those bureaus have expertise in managing ems contracts, so it should be pretty straightforward. Take any questions okay.
1030 Thank you. Councilor Green. Councilor Novick are you in the queue to Green one? No. Okay. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue to Green one?
1031 Yes.
1032 Go right ahead.
1033 I have a question. Councilor Green, have you talked to the bureau to ask them? Would they be willing to accept that contract and and monitor it, or are you just dropping it in their lap?
1034 Great question. Over the course of the day, my staff has been working to try to get an answer on that. We did have director engstrom respond to say, technically, we could take it. I don't like it.
1035 But they don't. They don't like.
1036 It that that's I'm paraphrasing.
1037 Yeah.
1038 Okay.
1039 So we do have dca oliveira in the room. Yeah that's helpful. Yeah I just don't councilor Green want to have you in the position of speaking against your your own amendment.
1040 I believe in honesty and that's an honest position. You know, to an earlier point it's always ideal if you have more time to do policy, bring things through committees, have longer conversations. But again, we got a bunch of organizations whipped up over the weekend because they received phone calls saying your program will be defunded if these councilors get their way. And so I still believe in the underlying amendment. And so this is an effort to say, I don't want this program to be retaliated against, even though it's the amendment says you're not going to cut them. So that's what we're trying to do here. And it's a bit of a blunt instrument, I recognize that.
1041 Councilor Smith.
1042 Thank you. I understand I don't like that either.
1043 Councilor Morillo, are you speaking to Green one?
1044 Yeah. Thank you, councilor Green, for bringing this forward. I think it's really critical. And whether or not this passes now or later, we're going to try to make sure that it does pass later, because the reality is that we are under a system where we are trying to, as a council, bring amendments forward about different things. My amendment very specifically outlined that we are not cutting glitter, we are not attacking ground score. Those are important workforce programs for unhoused people. So if the administration is going through and calling those folks and whipping them up into a frenzy and by the administration, I do mean you, mayor wilson, and some of your staff, they are actively pitting us against community members that we never wanted to stand against. And it is the executive branch's duty to execute the will of council, which is the budget authority, not to threaten organizations that we never intended to impact. And we spent the entire weekend in many days after addressing that misinformation. The glitter program and ground score were deeply concerned that this was going to impact their program. And I heard arguments that under the tozer settlement, we have to have a certain amount of money allocated to sweeps in order to stay in compliance. We have done more sweeps and certainly enough sweeps even before the end of the fiscal year to account for the requirements of the settlement. So we cannot be in a position as the budget authority to continuously have our agency threatened and to have community organizations be put as this sacrificial lamb that we constantly have to address when we are trying to do something. That is very clear. My only intention with my amendment was to reduce the number of sweeps that are done. That was it. It was very simple. And under most forms of government, legislative intent would matter when you are implementing policy. But the administration has been so firmly against what it is that this council wants that we have to nitpick and negotiate line by line, semantic after semantic, to ensure that we are not misunderstood. And that has put us in an impossible position where we are pulling teeth to get information from the executive in order to draft our amendments. And we are having to write amendment after amendment clarifying what I think should be very obvious coming from some of us about legislative intent. So we need to protect ground score, we need to protect the glitter program. And unfortunately, I think that those programs will not be protected long term unless they are separated from the impact reduction program, because I do want to see sweeps reduced, and I do not want there to be any unintended consequences to those programs. And I am sorry that we were put in that position all week.
1045 Thank you, councilor Councilor Kanal to Green one.
1046 Yeah, I have a staff member who used to work at ground score, and I consulted there, and definitely something where folks who have been involved in this work thought that protecting it from the sort of retaliation was really important. So I'm very happy to to be in a place to support it. And I want to really connect the conversation that's been happening here. And what councilor Morillo just said to what councilor Koyama Lane said earlier, because it is the the number of the amount of emotional labor of defending yourself that you have to do when you're in community, working with some of the folks who are the most marginalized is already very high, and it gets exacerbated when something that explicitly says this will not threaten the glitter program is then characterized to that program, as this will affect the glitter program, and it forces people to defend things that are not under attack because they don't necessarily know because they're being told. Right. And so I, I do I really appreciate the councilor Green called this a blunt instrument because usually we don't need a blunt instrument. And right now I think we do. I think this is on this particular issue. I think that is an important thing to do to utilize the correct blunt instrument on this particular issue. So I'll be voting. Yes.
1047 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor, I'll be a no on this as I have all of the amendments, because I, I have some concerns that I'll detail later, but I just want to let you know that I think this is a program that is really important. And as we move through the rest of our work over the course of the year and the next budget cycle, I'm happy to be a partner with you to figure out how we can make sure that it continues, and that the good work that it does continues in our city. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue to discuss Green one. Rebecca, could you please call the roll Green?
1048 Hi.
1049 Avalos.
1050 Hi, Dunphy.
1051 Hi,
1052 Smith.
1053 I.
1054 Now I.
1055 Cheese I Ryan is not here. Koyama Lane.
1056 Hi, Morillo.
1057 There's never a better moment to do the right thing than to do it right now, rather than waiting eternally, I.
Procedural episode · turns 1058–1066
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
1058 Novick know.
1059 Pirtle-guiney.
1060 No.
1061 And the amendment fails with three absent. Three? No. And six I.
1062 Out of order. Apologies. There were seven.
1063 Do we need to do a revote?
1064 Green. Avalos. Dunphy. Smith. Canal.
1065 Green. Avalos. Dunphy. Smith. Apologies. My program did not count. Smith seven I the amendment is approved with seven I.
1066 Okay.
1067 Two no and three absent.
1068 That sounds right. Councilor Novick. Are you in the queue to discuss Morillo one.
1069 Yes, I am specifically, I'm in the queue to discuss the removal of 4.3 million from the impact reduction program. I think I as I said before, I'm concerned about these huge decisions being coming to us with five days to look at them. I think that if you're going to propose a big cut to a program that will force policy, big policy, changes to that program, there should first be a detailed discussion about the policy that exists to begin with. And I think that that would involve a discussion of how the assessments are done. Now, what the criteria are, how the criteria are used, what's the scoring rubric is and what the results are. I know that the assessments are done by folks hired by central city concern, many of whom have had experience with homelessness themselves. I know that only about 1 in 5 camps that are assessed are removed. I have some idea of what the criteria are, but I'm not going to stand here and say that those criteria are perfect and it's being perfectly executed. But I think that before we make a budget decision that is going to drastically change the policy, there should be a discussion about what the policy is. And I would be delighted to attend if councilor Avalos wanted to have a discussion in her committee, or if we were going to have a council work session where we looked at some specific examples of here's a camp that was removed, here's what the neighbor said, asking for it to be removed. Here's hear from the assessors who went out to make the judgment. Hear from the homeless folks who were affected. And then I'd like to also hear examples of here's a camp that was not removed. Here's what the neighbors had to say about why they thought it should be removed. Here's what the assessor said. Here's what the homeless folks said. I think that that kind of discussion could lead to possibly some changes in the policy, but I'm not comfortable with saying we're going to cut the budget in order to have fewer removals without criteria for what, which removal shouldn't happen and which should. I also want to note that we had councilor Morillo earlier. Neither of us knew exactly how much the county spends on rent assistance since then. Actually, I've gotten an email from sarah morrissey, who is now at the county, telling me that in fiscal county fiscal year 2024, which I assume is 2324, they spent $134 million on rent assistance, which obviously dwarfs the $10 million that we're spending on camp removal. Now, I think that there's less money now, but even if that has been cut in half, that's a 7 to 1 ratio. The community as a whole spends a lot more on rent assistance than on camp removal, and I would not agree with the assertion that any money spent relating to homelessness that has not ended homelessness is money thrown into a pit. But if you do believe that, you have to acknowledge that the pit for rent assistance is a lot bigger than the pit for camp removal. I would also note that councilman Rios proposing to spend an additional I don't know if it's 500,000, a million, 2 million on rent assistance, and obviously real people would benefit from that rent assistance. But it's a small fraction of what the county is already saying. It's not as if that would end homelessness or move the needle significantly. I'm not saying it's it's meaningless, but I'm saying that it's not like we are going to end homelessness by adding $2 million to rent assistance. So I also want to note that councilor, the council president, and I paid for a poll earlier this year giving people trade offs about the budget. And what are the questions we asked was if you had to choose one to balance the budget, would you rather cut funding for the safe rest villages and the poll describe what safe village villages were, or cut funding for removal of the most problematic homeless camps and by 42% to 36%. People said that they would rather cut funding for the safe rest villages. I suspect then there was a bunch of I don't knows. I think we can be pretty certain that the I don't knows, most of which couldn't make up their minds. They didn't want to cut either of them. I also suspect that many of the people who said that we should cut funding for the safe rest villages didn't really want to cut either of them, and probably many of the people who said that they wanted to cut funding for camp removal didn't want to cut either of them. So I think it's quite clear that we do not have a majority in the city for the general proposition of reducing funding for removal of the most problematic homeless camps, we might have some some discussions within the community of what most problematic means, but as a general principle, people are not jumping to say we should reduce funding for the most problem removing the most problematic homeless camps. So that's another reason, I think, that this is not a decision that we should be rushing to in a five day period. So that is why I'm a no on this portion of the Morillo amendment. Although again, I do think it would be really valuable for us to have a discussion about the process of assessing camps, removal, the criteria that they're used, how they're applied, and if you agree with the criteria, what the what the numerical cutoff point should be. Thank you.
1070 Thank you. Counselor. Counselor Smith, are you in the queue to speak to Morillo one?
1071 Yes, ma'am. Thank you. I'm going to go back to Smith one again. I, I appreciate the work that you did on this. Councilor Morillo. You did a lot of research on this, but I can't support it. And you know why. So I need us to be able to have those dollars for public safety, for the police bureau, for fire, for cease fire, and most importantly, I promised the mayor that I would support an amendment that would put restore back his 4.35 million for the impact reduction. And it's not just about the promise. It's it's the importance of making sure that we have those dollars to do those sweeps. After listening to everybody today and listening to the community and listening to the business community, it was no question in my mind that people want this service and we have to have this service. So as much as I like the the Green one, because I don't like the retaliation, and I voted for it because I had two bipoc businesses call me and tell me the same thing. And so I didn't like it. But too much is at stake right here, right now, so I can't support Morillo one. I'm sorry. Thank you.
1072 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo are you in the queue to speak to Morillo one.
1073 I am and I want to thank you. Councilor Smith, I appreciate I've really enjoyed working with you and I know that we will work together more and that we will figure things out. So I've appreciated that. I want to address some of the things that councilor Novick said, because we are acting like sweeps are a new program that we have no data for. As if those sweeps and the impact reduction program haven't existed for years and years, we make policy decisions based on programmatic changes, and I don't know what makes my approach any different than anyone else's. For the entire city budget, we had two weeks to look at the entire city budget. I don't know if you remember how big those binders were, but they were about this big and we got three of them, and nobody was as mad at the mayor or his team for bringing us two weeks to figure all of that out. So I think five days is sufficient to read one amendment. First of all, I think that's part of our job and our role, and I would rather help a couple hundred families with rent assistance than harm 8000 people by moving them from place to place pointlessly. I would point folks to the propublica article by kay rambo that talks about the impact of sweeps on unhoused people. People are losing their medication. People are displaced from resources and from connections. They often overdosed because they are pushed from corner to corner. People are dying because of our sweeps. And again, my amendment was never about addressing garbage or sanitation because I deeply care about those things. It was specifically about addressing human displacement. So when we talk about spending money, we have a duty to spend money on things that work. Why are we getting information from the impact reduction program that that someone calls for an encampment to get swept, they get swept. And then hours later, another encampment crops up. The reason is because this doesn't work. We are funneling so millions and millions of dollars into a bottomless pit that is not going to help any of our neighbors. And I think that if you had to stand in a room and you had to shake people's hands of families that received rent assistance, so they didn't end up on the streets and you had to look them in the eye, you would not say, well, it didn't end all homelessness, so it doesn't matter, because those families would be eternally grateful that they didn't end up on the streets. And we should be eternally grateful for every single individual person that has helped, because that means it's less money for us to deal with later on. It is more expensive for us to perpetuate this system than it is to help people right now. I don't expect that this amendment is going to pass today, and I want to talk about why I don't expect it to pass. I mean, I think we've heard we know that it's not going to, but we have to do that because the behavior of the mayor and certain members of the city bureaucracy over recent weeks reveal some deeply troubling realities about the way that this city is currently being run. First, we were presented with a proposal containing remarkably little detail, and we were told that it was simply a technical process and that there were no politics here. As you'll recall, that didn't sit too well with quite a few of us on council. And as we looked into the details, it became clear that this was in fact a political proposal. We saw a series of budgetary priorities being pursued that neither this body nor the public had weighed in on must get much less signed off on. And many of us recognize the sleight of hand, and a few of us went to work on an alternative. And so last week, councilor Green and I introduced a carefully crafted, legally precise amendment. And its goal was very simple to redirect $4.5 million away from costly, cruel, and empirically failed practice of sweep encampments, of sweeping encampments and into proven life saving services like emergency rental assistance, food aid and resources for our immigrant communities. We were specific. We targeted cuts only to programs whose primary purpose is the forced displacement of persons or the seizure of their property. We explicitly protected funding for voluntary trash cleanups, sanitation services, and other public health measures that offer dignity to people living outdoors. But that is not the story that the public took away. Instead, the mayor chose to deliberately mischaracterize our amendment. He portrayed it as not a targeted cut to sweeps, but as a measure that would gut a number of beloved programs like glitter, and that it would eliminate 100 jobs that would leave our streets awash in garbage. And that would. I'm not kidding. Take away money from women experiencing domestic abuse. And I think many people in the audience or who are watching from home, would be surprised to find out that none of that is true. But instead of picking up the phone and calling me to bother checking in with the counselors who wrote the amendment, he took it upon himself to spread disinformation to the public, and city employees went directly to the workers of those programs, whose budgets they claimed were under threat, and told them that they would be cut if this amendment passed. The mayor effectively held those programs hostage, using them as shields for deeply problematic policy. And now, regardless of how anybody feels about the merits of this amendment, the fact that the mayor and city bureaucrats would engage in this sort of behavior should be of deep concern to every single one of my colleagues, because this council is tasked with a legislative agenda, and the and the executive is tasked with executing that agenda. And it would seem that the mayor is more interested in his own agenda than he is in working within the boundaries of our new government. And what is that agenda? Well, it should be pretty clear right now. The agenda is sweeps a record number of sweeps, more than we have ever seen before. And that is reflected in the proposal. And how does the mayor propose to close our budget gap? By continuing to fund his disastrous sweeps programs and instead make cuts to day shelters and storage facilities, programs that are critical to providing dignity, stability and opportunity to those living on our streets. We know very well that sweeps do more damage than good, and we know that because it's been studied over and over and over again, we have the data. Experts presented this information to the housing and homelessness committee. We know that sweeps increased the risk of deaths from overdose. We know that they sever connections to medical care. They scatter people from life saving services, and we simply move people from neighborhood to another, from one neighborhood to another. And we know that when we move people further from housing, they are not going to get the supports that they need to stay housed long term. I also want to be very clear with the people who testified today that the mayor's plan to add 1500 new shelter beds is very welcome, and I supported that in the 2526 budget. But let's be honest, a mat on the floor doesn't move anyone closer to housing either. It is a temporary respite at best, and a cruel excuse to displace and dispossess at worst. And I'm afraid that that's what we're starting to see as the approach to to December 1st. But what they absolutely are not is a solution. Sweeps are expensive, they are cruel, and they are ineffective. And we have spent hundreds of millions of dollars on this approach, only to see the deaths among our homeless neighbors quadruple between 2019 and 2023, and the number of people sleeping on our streets continues to grow. So at a certain point, I'm getting told by everybody that there is a better time to change policy, there's a better time to do budget, and I would like to know when that time is, because I can't in good conscience continue to vote for a fund, to continue to vote to fund this approach. This amendment is the point to that. It is finally aligning our budget with what service providers and public health experts have demanded for decades, which is that we stop the harm and fund what works, fund programs that keep people housed and keep people stable and keep people fed. Councilor Green. And I heard that call, and that's what our amendment does. So I've heard the argument today that this is not the time to change direction and that this is a technical process and we need to approve and move on. I disagree, and I think that's probably what we're going to end up doing. So I guess we can wait for December 1st or we can wait for the next budget cycle. Or we can wait until the cows come home. But I want everybody here to think about when you'll be willing to draw the line and say that enough is enough, and that sweeps an overnight. Shelters are not going to cut it because I have personally seen enough. Thank you.
1074 Thank you. Counselor. Colleagues, we have five minutes left. Counselor Green, are you in the queue to speak to Morillo one again?
Procedural episode · turns 1075–1083
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1075 Yes, briefly. Counselor Novick, you do raise valid points around budget or amendment or council actions that would substantially change a program or a policy of a budget. But I'll note that this amendment was crafted to to retain enough resources in the budget to hit the budgeted removal of 4000 camps. And so from that lens, it doesn't change the program in a substantial way. It does change the dollars in a substantial way, because we have surplus dollars relative to that. That effort. But more broadly, I just I have to say that I'm pretty disappointed that we've had to spend so much of this meeting, hearing from constituents who are pleading with us to continue essential services, trash removal, campsite cleanup and funding programs that we can all agree will help folks on the street connect with services and live with dignity. We all want these things. I'm disappointed because the amendment in question is very, very clear that these sorts of programs are not to be cut. This amendment is specifically and exclusively about cutting sweeps. But instead of having a conversation about the effectiveness of sweeps, the efficiency of sweeps, and the morality of sweeps, we seem to be having a discussion about who thinks we should have streets filled with hazardous waste and who doesn't. Well, nobody here wants garbage filling our streets. That's not the issue. I want trash collection. I want campsite cleanups. I want to make sure we're connecting folks who need services connected with those services. What's at issue here is whether we think we can do those things without grievously harming people. And I think we can. I reject the idea that violent human displacement is necessary in order to achieve our shared goals. We know empirically that sweeps are not only ineffective, they are counterproductive. They layer trauma on top of trauma, and they lead to more deaths on our streets. Sweeps do not work. They can't work. Is it not clear to everyone here that sweeps just move people from one neighborhood to another? The most compelling piece of testimony I heard today was from nora, from fire wise, who's very worried about people living in forest park. They're there because they're swept out of downtown. Okay. The people in east Portland are there because they're swept out of downtown. That's a very real concern. I appreciate the mayor's effort to add overnight shelter beds. Everyone who wants a cot for a night should have access to one, but I cannot and will not support a policy of forcing people into those shelter beds. This is what's at issue here today. Sweeps are violence, and what has become painfully clear, painfully clear in recent weeks is that the mayor's grand plan to end unsheltered homelessness relies in the end on violence. So I urge my colleagues to listen to the experts, to listen to the data, and to listen to the pleas of those directly affected by this violence and to vote to pass this amendment. Thank you.
1076 Thank you, councilor, colleagues, I was hoping to speak to this. We don't have time for that. So I will just say I sent out an email to my list with some of the reasons that I'm not able to vote for this. I agree with many of the values my colleagues have brought forward, and I am sure I will find an opportunity to say more at another time.
1077 Councilor Kanal thank you, madam president. I'm looking forward to reading that. I will probably send a longer version of this out in some method as well. I agree with councilor Murillo's assessment that I don't think this is going to pass, which kind of gives me the ability to say to those, I don't want to cut. The Portland committee on community engaged policing or all the other programs, you know, the office of violence prevention, Portland bureau of emergency management. I don't think it's going to do that because it's not going to pass. So as a result, I think that I can focus on voting when there's a large package on the single biggest thing here, which is the conversation around sweeps. And so I will be voting yes on it as a result of that. Two things on that. One is I, I think that I'm opposed to the idea of the idea that I'm opposed to the argument that people are making here, that it's either due one thing that's been proposed, or leave people alone, which seems to be tied to one's views of what the county's previous strategy used to be. I reject both of those, and I've been working to find a middle ground here, and I think the middle ground is to go where the data tells us the two. There's one of the articles in propublica was already mentioned. So I'll just say there are actually two. One relates to storage and how we don't utilize it enough here, in the sense that 4% of our items that are stored are end up being recovered and the rest get trashed. And that's that's including all the things that we heard about ieds and things like that. I really, really appreciate the testimony today, and I hope that those who disagree with this vote are willing to continue the conversation, because I, I do think that if you are not going downtown, you are seeing a different type of homelessness problem, quote unquote, than if you are in the central city. There are lots of neighborhoods around the city where you see folks in tents, but you don't see needles scattered on the street the way you do in stadiums. That's a that's a fact. And so I appreciate the people bringing that up. I think we actually share a lot of the same understanding of what the problem is, and just have a different approach to how we fix it. The, the piece of it that I wanted to to, to highlight here is that propublica's piece this summer said that $1.3 billion was allocated to to these problems. And while folks have brought up the 450 people who died on the streets, I think it's also important to mention that that quadrupled in four years, despite the the previous administration ramping up sweeps to about 20 a day. And now we're talking about tripling that number. There's 75 homeless people here, 7500 homeless people here. There are 1500 beds that we're talking about. That's the most important data point of all. And I think joyce davis said her piece better than I can, but please read her written testimony. I really appreciated it and I was going to quote from it, but she already spoke, so I won't. But I'll be voting yes on this. Thank you, madam president.
1078 Thank you, councilor Councilor Novick.
1079 I was in the queue to move to call the question and call for voting Morillo one. Since there's nobody else in the queue, I'm not sure that's necessary, but.
1080 Okay.
1081 Councilor councilor Smith. Okay, okay. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. And with that. Your staff is already two minutes over and we are paying overtime. Mr. Mayor, can you be quick?
1082 I just want to go through some of these key points. And to councilor Morillo I was out, I was overseas and did not get back until Saturday. So this came to my desk as a surprise and I rallied my team and the administration over the weekend to come in to assess this. We worked.
1083 With team could have called me. That's what you have staff for, colleagues.
1084 We are trying to get to a vote before two people at this dais need to leave, who are already two minutes late.
1085 The first point of note is it removes 3.25 million from prosper in terms of economic development. And we talk about district one, about bringing that district back. And that's important in this particular time when we're fragile, we've lost fred meyers in district one because of safety and security, not economic development. We are on the verge of losing Oregon clinic in district one because of safety and security issues, not economic development. We are on the verge of losing grocery outlet in district one because of safety and security, and we are trying to help them stay, not because of economic development, but we do need all of it. When we talk about the impact reduction program and cutting it by $4.3 million, we're talking about a 75% reduction with the remainder of the fiscal year to reduce 4 million pounds of garbage from the street. We also have to talk about impact reduction program. This group of individuals have been working their tails off, giving our city their best through Portland solutions. And those are real people doing real work on behalf of us. Often people with lived experience. There are 2000 calls from our pdx reporter per week calling in and encampment asking for abatement for help. Those are real people calling in those reports. In addition, the people that are calling the reports on are real people on the streets that need care. It is not a negative. It is a positive that we're trying to help those into care in our community. We look at the encumbrances this amendment. Takes away from Portland fire and rescue $428,000, and we don't know truly what it is. I've looked at the spreadsheets. The lines go on for a long time. If I overreacted this weekend because I saw friends on there, programs that we funded for years with the assumption we were going to lose it. Yes, I may have overreacted because I didn't have the full comprehensive information to begin with, so picking up a phone wasn't going to solve the issue. We needed a profound discussion on what was going to be affected. Parks is going to be cut by $1 million. Just when we worked our tails off to fund them fully with the community saying, trust us, we can manage the parks better. The Portland police bureau $873,000, and I don't even know what was going to be removed from that. So let me answer this last thing. While you may criticize the administration. My job is to make you successful. My job is to make the city successful. I do that by thinking slow. I have told often in our meetings in my office.
1086 Thinking slow. But you put out a statement before calling my office. I didn't hire a financial analyst for no reason. Mayor wilson, can we please get.
1087 Councilor and mayor again? We can take disagreements offline. We have now kept staff five minutes over when we said we would be done.
1088 Let me make this last point. I have said to many of you, when amendments are being brought that are going to have a material effect on our city, it is time for us to think slow and do our due diligence to define what our outcome is.
1089 Mayor, is this to Morillo one?
1090 It is. It is to measure what we are trying to achieve, to analyze it with a group, with the administration as our partners, building a trustful relationship. We need a professional, disciplined executive. Also, we need a professional, disciplined council. Together, we have to move our city forward. I ask that you vote no on Morillo one.
1091 Becca, could you please call the roll?
1092 Green I.
1093 Dunphy I.
1094 Smith?
1095 No.
1096 Canal I.
1097 Koyama Lane here.
1098 Yes, I.
1099 Morillo I.
1100 Novick no. Pirtle-guiney. No, no.
1101 I'm a circle back. Avalos.
1102 I don't believe she was able to call in in time.
1103 No.
1104 And the amendment fails with five votes. Three no, and four absent.
1105 Thank you. Colleagues, we are at 707 and we had a hard stop at seven. Councilor Smith, I know that you have another amendment. We're okay. We're okay. Okay, colleagues, I am going to move this to second reading. It will be on the agenda next week. I will note that if we do pass amendments next week, we will need to have nine votes to pass the underlying ordinance to get around the requirement that we have five days in between the passage of amendments and the passage of an ordinance, I see our attorney making a face as if perhaps that is not true. In this case, we're going to double check on that. I believe that's the case. We will get back to you on it. Either way, this will move to a second reading at our next meeting. With that, I will adjourn our meeting.
1106 Thank you. Michael.
1107 This will.
1108 Be amended next week. Then you have to wait another week to vote on it or make it an emergency. Okay.
1109 Yeah. Let's