The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-05-12
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
On May 12, 2025, the Portland City Council held a work session, described as a repurposed Governance Committee meeting opened to the full council, with Councilors Clark and Morillo joining online. The session began with framing remarks on council culture, trust-building, and shared governance practices under the city's new structure. Representatives from HRA Advisors, including its Inclusive Cities Practice, then presented a draft, non-binding scope of work centered on alignment, shared objectives, and a proposed multi-task timeline running from initial conversations through a summer retreat and development of a "governing agenda." Discussion followed regarding whether HRA had effectively been selected without a competitive process, with questions raised about procurement, funding sources, and possible alternative consultants or groups previously engaged by council members. Councilors raised concerns about scope creep into policy/strategic planning versus focusing on internal procedures, meeting frequency, tie-breaking rules, committee structure, and culture-building. Public records law compliance, geographic scope of best-practice research, and relationship to the Mayor's office and City Administrator were also discussed. Each councilor present shared personal motivations, needs, and requests regarding council culture and process. The session concluded with an informal show of support to proceed with a revised, RFP-style scope of work, with further individual outreach and a possible retreat planned after the budget process concludes.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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0 How will I gave one to.
1 Good afternoon. It is 2:30 p.m. And we are opening a work session of the Portland city council. Councilors, this is our normal governance committee time. And we're doing something a little bit different today. We have a number of committees that have things coming up that are related to the work of their committee, but that committee chairs have said to me, I really think all of council ought to be a part of this conversation. The first two came from the governance committee, from vice president Koyama Lane, and from the arts and economy committee, from councilors Ryan and Green. And when that happens, we are working with your offices to turn committee meeting time slots into full council work sessions instead, so that on the occasion when something arises where we really do need everybody's eyes on it earlier in the process, we can use those committee times. So today we have a group hr and a with us to have a conversation about the work that we do and the way we work together and relate to each other. But before I welcome our guests, I actually would like to give our vice president a couple of minutes to frame up what we're doing and why we're having this conversation, since often when something comes to full council, the committee it comes from, the committee chair has the opportunity to do that. Councilor would you like to jump in?
2 Yeah. Welcome, everyone, to this repurposed governance committee. I know making committees into work sessions is a new experience for all, so thanks for testing it out. This is new. We'll find our way with it. Might be some bumps in the road. Might get a little messy. I know everyone is genuinely working to do their best. I appreciate your support as we do this work of in general, just being the first to run this new form of government. It's a big deal. As council vice president and chair of the governance committee, you've charged and entrusted me with thinking, as well as I possibly can, about how to approach challenges to our governance as the council and identifying resources to help get us started. Okay, we all know this is a really busy and tense time for all of us. We're in the middle of the budget. I want to I want to share why it's important to make time for foundational work. Also to make sure that we have some set shared council practices and also some sort of a shared future agenda. I've asked myself when and how we do the work to govern as a great functioning council, as a great team, or whether we'll merely be functional, which in my mind is the bare minimum and I believe will mean that we haven't done our best work. I want to make it clear I don't pretend to know everything or have all the answers. I do know that every one of us has raised important questions about how we are as a body operating, how we're fulfilling our responsibilities for governance. And if I'm being honest, I've observed negative behaviors among us. And this isn't about individuals. No blame or shame. I am identifying it more as a function of politics as usual, and how we've seen politics operated in the past. I as we I have we all we've seen some of these breakdowns in our work together. Our historical election represents a paradigm shift. That means intentionally breaking these cycles that have been a big part of political and governmental spaces. We know we've named this. We have work to do to build trust with each other, with city staff, with the public, and, and an important building block is focusing on creating a shared way forward. I want to make it clear that I gained nothing from our governance system, taking a long time to work out or from being messy, or if my colleagues are dissatisfied. In fact, I having my name on this committee means I actually have the most to lose from a more prolonged, messy process. But I see this work as necessary for the future health of us and for our city. So I'm willing to take this on, but honestly, I can't do it alone. I have to have willing partners, and without a shared goal and commitments from my colleagues, it can't go very far. We are different people. Everyone up here and the people that the councilors that are online, we all have our own diverse lived experiences. I want us to really understand how we bring our own knowledge into council and almost as importantly or more to understand where we're still learning. We must meet the challenges of governance under this new structure. This is what our constituents have elected us to do and asked for and expect of us. I can tell you I've had so many different groups, many different groups all around Portland who are saying, we're rooting for you guys. We really want you to succeed. Have you guys heard that too? There are a lot of groups we have to be willing to put aside some of these breakdowns and really dig into setting a precedent for how Portland city council will govern it governance, and hopefully some things that will remain long after all of us are gone. So we hold our positions and this council in trust for the community now and in the future. So I invite you to join me in this first step of that process. My expectation is not that we experience some kumbaya moment, but that we actually just show up, roll up our sleeves, and get to the continued hard work of governing. If this isn't the path forward, if this doesn't feel right, we'll discern that together. We'll move forward on another path. So I invite you all to join me in remembering what we all agreed to in December to push each other on issues, not on personal things, to offer mutual respect, to engage in open communication, to be open to letting each other surprise us. I invite you to join me in being mindful of the space and the time we each take up in this session, and make sure that your colleagues have the same opportunities. I invite you to join me in arguing, passionate about arguing passionately about what you want to see, not only about what's not working. So thank you for allowing me the privilege to start leading us on this. I look forward to working with you all. And with that, let me introduce juan felipe visser and andrea bautista. Bautista schlesinger from hra to begin their presentation with us today.
3 Councilors, while our guests come up, I just want to flag for folks that councilors Clark and Morillo are both joining us online right now. Juan, do you want to kick us off?
4 Sure. Thank you all so much. Thank you. Council president, council vice president, for that wonderful introduction. And all councilors, we do know that this is an extremely busy time. So thank you for taking time out of your very complex budget process to spend some time with us and talk through what we think is very important work that we're going to be doing together. Hopefully. My name is juan visser. I'm joined virtually by andrea batista schlesinger, ella brady and nisha singh. We're here from hra advisors, specifically the inclusive cities practice, which andrea leads. And I'm going to let her talk a little bit about. We'll also have a brief presentation, which we'll share, but we're looking forward to spending this time together. So thanks again and I'll kick it to andrea.
5 Thanks, paul, can you hear me? Okay. Audio.
6 We can. Yeah. Go right ahead.
7 Terrific. So as juan said, my name is andrea batista schlesinger, a name designed to be complex. When introducing me. And I'm a partner at hrna advisors, which is a mission driven, employee owned consulting shop that works on issues that matter to cities and the people that live in cities. I, as I've said to some of you, was not born a consultant. I've been in a city hall. I've been on the side of politics intersecting with policy. I've worked on philanthropy. And through those different lives, which culminated in me starting this practice focused on centering racial equity and economic justice, and how cities do economic development policy and planning. Through those chapters, have realized how very important it is that once we have opportunities to advance policies for those who are often neglected, we have to do so well. We have to govern well. And so I have developed, along with juan and others on this call, a practice focused on transitions, transitions and governance. My personal view is that you can learn everything from how someone or a body is to govern by how they do so in their transition. These are moments that are stressful. They are tender. They are moments in which people are figuring out how to align the responsibility of their new office, how to work with their colleagues, how to exercise lateral authority, how to understand what is possible in the constraints of governing. And so we have worked with incoming executives and incoming city administrators. We've done some some work with councils as well. But about this question of how do you seize the moment of transition to advance an agenda, to reconcile your aspirations with constraints, to develop the habits of governing that embody who you ran to be? And so that is the mission of our practice, and that is the work that we would be thrilled to do with, with you, typically, as we're thinking about a transition, we're thinking about a few elements of it we're thinking about. What people are there to do. We're thinking about who is helping them. We're thinking about how those messages are communicated to others. But one thing keeps coming up for us, and we can move to this slide, if you will, on alignment. That's us. And different transitions we've done. And the next slide on alignment. And this is really an operational. Framework for us, which is that in order to be in alignment you need to have a shared assessment of the status of things. You need to have shared objectives, whether those objectives are about what you want to work toward or how you want to work. And you need to know what role you are playing. And in this case, what role is this new council in, a new structure to play, and what role are you to play within it? What role are the committees to play and what role are you playing together? Our aspiration is that through intentional work together, that starts with what it is you actually want to accomplish, that you can get to this state of alignment that, I think, is what the president and the vice president of the council started us off with, as a as a challenge to get get to this place and to work in a way that reflects what you want to work toward, that embodies how you work as a council, how you want Portland to see the government that it has invested in restructuring. So that's a little bit about us. I mean, we have been in government. My team and I, we have operated in and around policy making and feel great empathy for the situation that you are all in, which is one that is profoundly challenging. As public services and with resources that are never commensurate with the challenges that that you must tackle. And also playing in new roles. And so our hope is that we can be a trusted partner to you in this next stage. As you move from transition into, into full governance. So right now, what we would like to do, and I'm going to introduce juan to take this on is talk a little bit about our scope. This is a scope that was informed by conversations with several of you. More to come. We want everybody to have touched it to make sure. Are we asking the right questions? Are we trying to do accomplish? Is the right objectives? Are we starting from the right premises? So to spend this time talking with you so that the questions are right, and then as you go to focus on budget in may, our hope is to continue to and through June to talk with each of you individually, to enrich this, and then to launch fully with a retreat and a moment to exhale, as one of you said, and I like that image to exhale together and to fully embark upon upon this work. So what we're presenting to you today is our theory of the case, informed by doing this work in other places at other times. But hopefully you'll hear some of yourself in it. We want to make sure we're asking the right questions. We want to leave with a clear mandate that we can then begin to work on in June. So thank you for taking this time with us, juan.
8 Thank you so much, andrea. So thinking about what we're seeking to achieve here. And of course, as andrea said, this is a preliminary scope. The purpose of this conversation is to hear from you. If we're on the right track, seek any refinement so that it has everyone sort of fingerprints on it and it meets everybody's needs. So the objectives that we've laid out in this draft of the scope is to a help you define what you're working towards. So that's your shared objectives, which andrea just talked about in the alignment conversation, help you align on how you want to use this power in the new governing structure, help you enable or consider the best ways to work structurally and make decisions together. Council vice president mentioned this earlier enable you to define where you want to be by the end of the year as a council, as a city, right, as distinct sort of dimensions, and agree on the roles that you'll play to achieve your objectives. So if you go to the next slide. We've laid this out in five distinct tasks, which each sort of build on the next. And they factor in the timing that we understand from the conversations that we've had with you all make sense. But another question we'll have is about making this time frame also work, so that you can all participate fully and get what you need out of this process. We begin by setting objectives and intentions through the end of the year. So we started that in the weeks leading up to this conversation, in individual conversations with some of you, we seek to continue those conversations. But this process, of course, continues in this meeting. It's the purpose of the work session. But so far we've heard a number of themes. So you want to unpack a little bit more about how you spend your time. We've heard that loud and clear the role in the structure of committees. And this is a non-exhaustive list which we will expand on as we continue to talk. Certainly, how you engage each other. Right. And the role of council itself as a body. So we'll continue with that work in this task and moving into the next one over the next few weeks. While you all are heads down on the budget work, we hope to snag a little bit of your time individually to talk through some of these things. We'll take stock of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Anyone who's done a swot analysis knows what we're talking about here, but these are individual conversations with you all where we'll learn what's working, what could be improved, what's on the horizon that council should prepare for, and also start to really better define the role of council and what you seek to achieve by the end of the year. Although we do think we're looking at different time frames here, certainly by the end of the year, but also by the end of term. And then we'll synthesize those findings to bring them to the group, which is where we get to our third task after budget in late June. Once you've all taken the breath that andrea mentioned, and I think it was councilor Ryan who talked about this last week, we'll reconvene in this retreat to define council's sort of shared ambitions, and we'll take everything we've learned so far from our conversations and present on the implications of the swot bring precedent examples. I know this is of great interest to body of city councils and other similar bodies to show how they have addressed these challenges that you all are bringing up to us, and really facilitate a discussion to align on your shared ambitions for council, for broader city government, and of course, for Portland. And by this point, again, we're talking sort of late June. We think we'll also be able to or we are. It is our hope to have itemized also through our conversations, a set of potential quicker fixes. So we're not waiting until the end of or later in the year to give you a sense of what you could adopt based on what we've already learned, right? Things that could help improve protocol process within the way that you all do your work. After the June convening, we'll spend a few months working with you all to develop what we're calling a bold governing agenda for council, which will lay out objectives and specific recommendations that align with your desired impact as a council, and provide a roadmap for you all to advance these recommendations in the short, medium and long term. And we believe those recommendations will land in sort of three areas. One is policies that council can advance through legislation to deliver meaningful change for Portland. Second is new or improved structures, processes, protocols within council to help you more effectively advance these policies and also changes to council's relationship with other city officials and bodies to more effectively advance those policies. So those are some of the dimensions we're thinking about. And then lastly, help you all kick off the implementation of the governing agenda. So going back to the discussion of alignment is really having that kind of wrap up conversation about the roles that each of you would like to play to implement the agenda practices you all want to adopt, to coordinate and drive progress on it, and specific actions that you'd like to take by the end of the year and into next year. So that sort of is how we have laid out the work. I think if you go to the next slide, we can show how it kind of breaks down time wise. So we're in the sort of kickoff discussions phase here in this month. Again, we're acknowledging how incredibly busy you all are over the next few weeks. So we'll be doing the sort of swot and goal defining conversation individually, trying not to take up a lot of your time until after the budget process is concluded, after which point we'll end up in the retreat stage where we can actually talk about everything we've learned in these conversations and talk about what your ambitions are moving forward. Spend a lot of time later this summer working through your governing agenda, and then reconvening in late September or early October to kick off. So that is what we've laid out here. I know you guys also have a copy of the more detailed scope, so hopefully you've had a chance to look through that. But you know, obviously we can answer any questions that you all have. And we've also prepared a few questions to help guide discussion if that's helpful. But I defer to council president and vice president, however which way you want to proceed.
9 Thank you. And colleagues. This is an opportunity, right? This is an opportunity before us. And as you see, the next thing on the agenda is discussion and figuring out if what we've heard today, what you have before you on the proposed scope of work makes sense. Or if it's missing the mark a little bit from the conversations that you had with the folks from rna and what you're hoping for. So, juan, we do have a number of folks in the queue to ask questions. What I'd like to do is run through those questions, because I suspect there might be some more fundamental process questions there. And then after we get through those more fundamental questions, we can move into a discussion potentially around those questions that you all laid out. And maybe it will flow there naturally, and maybe we'll pause and say, let's pull some of those questions out. Does that work?
10 Perfect. Thank you.
11 Mr. President. Sure. Okay. Councilor Smith.
12 Thank you. Thank you, madam president. Thank you for presenting all those things that you talked about is definitely, for sure, things that we need to work on. But I'm missing something here. Did the council president, did you put out an RFP for a consultant or is this a sole source contract? Because I don't I'm I'm missing something here. So it appears that they're already hired.
13 So hra reached out to us.
14 Who was us?
15 Reached out to the mayor's office and my office to say you have a new form of government. Is there a way that we can help to your to the vice president's office as well?
16 I'll say I.
17 Took it and ran with it because what I heard was they were offering their services. They've worked with other cities across the country. They confirmed that their services are at no cost to the city. They get all of their funding. They're fully funded. My vice chair, Ryan said, make sure to look at who their funders are. Those are great question. So we looked into that. There's a lot of big like ford foundation. We worked with city procurement to ensure that public procurement rules were followed. We did due diligence speaking with other jurisdictions who have worked with them. So I spoke to some other city councilors who have said they've come in and done similar work with their city council as a whole, and we're really helpful. We met with hra several times to see if this was a potential good fit between what their approach and experience is and what we need, and then also had conversations with many of you, many of your staff, to see if there was openness to this type of work and holding a work session around it to see if this could be a good fit moving forward.
18 I totally agree that that we do need this, but maybe like I said, I'm missing a whole bunch of spaces in here and you know. Vice president Koyama Lane we did a consulting with future labs, and they brought some folks in in December, and I thought they were amazing and outstanding. So I was just waiting for the opportunity that we had to have as a group to see if we can do that competitively. So it seems like this is a sole source contract, whether they're getting paid or not, that we're we're going to be using them whether or not we like them. It's kind of putting us on the spot because you put people in front of us and as if we have to choose them or that they're already in the queue. And that's what I'm feeling. Like you've already done your due diligence on who should be giving us a retreat. And I'm just feeling off balance on this.
19 So, councilor, I think the reason that the proposed scope of work that you have before you says proposed, and the reason that everything on the slides around.
20 I don't have a problem with the scope of work. I just.
21 Want a timeline, and scope.
22 Would look like, say, a draft. That is not that we have not agreed that we were going to.
23 Councilor.
24 That we were going to put on.
25 The reason that they say proposed in draft is because this is an opportunity. It's a conversation. And if we. Hear them, if we leave here today.
26 No money.
27 I know it doesn't matter. We're still hiring them to do the scope of work that that I think that we really.
28 Need in order to have this conversation. Yes. In order to have this conversation, we needed to have some conversations with which councilor Koyama Lane office took and ran with. Okay. And we needed to get to the point of saying, yes, we do want to sit down with you and have and have the start to this work. But if we leave here today and folks around this dais say this doesn't feel like a good fit, we don't have to go any further and we can reevaluate and say.
29 I just want to know the ground rules around this. It seemed like to me that it appeared that you all had already hired this group, and that we were going to talk to them about what we need and what we don't need. That's all I'm saying. It was weird to me that this came up in the way that it's coming up in a work session, and not as an RFP for us to determine who we want. And it's really difficult for us to say that because they're the people that you have already identified as, as a good group. Just because they're free does not mean that that is, these are the folks that we should be hiring just because they're free.
30 Councilor Koyama Lane did you want to add something about governance's work here?
31 Oh, just that this is something.
32 That we have talked about in the governance committee. And also we've checked with the city administrator to see that we don't need a contract with them to work with them. But I hear what you're saying, councilor Smith. And I will say, I do remember being at that training with you in December, and I remember you bringing up a good point because you said, not everyone's here, and we need to do the same work with all 12. And I've kept that in my mind now.
33 And with that, with those folks, not these folks. I said we should meet with the folks, the two city councilors who have a consulting firm who ran the who ran that over there at apano. That's what I said. I said, we need to bring them back. I didn't say anything about this group.
34 So councilor, I, I very much believe we had to we had to do some groundwork with hr for them to be able to talk to all of you about what your interest was, right, for them to know where to start those conversations. So there has been some pre-work done. You are right. Coming out of those conversations with governance, but there's not a contract signed. There's not a long term commitment. My hope would be that everybody goes into a discussion today with an open mind to see if it's a good fit, and also comes out of the discussion today with honesty to say to vice president Koyama Lane and I either, yes, this is a good fit, let's move forward, let's do this or this did not feel like a good fit. And we need to reevaluate.
35 Or can we look at other folks whether or not it's a good fit or not? I want to look at the other folks who who gave us aa2 day retreat.
36 That was the local progress group.
37 Yeah. And they were really good. We've already done some of the work already. I'm just going to just feels odd to me. I feel off balance in a way because I don't because you've obviously given them they have an intention and you already given them the word that they may be hired by us. It doesn't matter if they're giving us money or if we're giving them money or not. So there's a there's an expectation that we talk to them like they're already hired, and so they can go back and course correct on some of the scope of work that they need to do. So I'm just not used to this. I mean, I don't know what you all have been doing in governance. I don't know if you did an RFP. It just feels funny to me.
38 I think you'll find that this is very similar to what you saw in December. Let's have the conversation today. And if it doesn't feel like it works for everybody, there is nothing to stop us from reevaluating, okay? Councilor Avalos. Great.
39 Thank you for being here. And I think in general about all of this, agree that we need this. We need some space to talk through our procedures and our culture. But my questions are what I'm noticing and what I would like some clarity on, because what I heard you say, and I'm looking at this document, I'm looking at the third page at the top with the three dots, and the first one says policies that council can advance through legislation to deliver meaningful change for Portland, which that one is the one I have a question about. But the other two make sense to me. Right. So we definitely it makes sense that the scope of work would include us talking about new procedures, processes, structures, protocols within council and then the changes to council's relationship to the mayor. Those make sense. And what I understood this process to be, I guess what I'm seeing in that first dot and also noticing on page two. Let's see over at yeah, I think I like highlighted a couple points like page two under task two, second dot where it has a, b and c, and it's like by the end of 25, by the end of the current council, by the end of their term. And then the third dot under task three where it says council will set out to do across the three domains expert and task three within council for broader city government for Portland. So what my question is, is it sounds like you're trying to guide us through a discussion that's like strategic planning for the kind of legislative outcomes we want to accomplish. That's how it's reading. And that's what I'm trying to clarify, because I guess my response, if that were the case, I would say that's not what I think we should be focusing on right now. I do. I would love for us to talk in general about how we could, you know, have a larger strategic plan for council. I guess it would be my preference, though, to do all of this other stuff first, because I just feel like that's a whole other level that I don't even know how to approach right now. But I do agree that it'd be nice to be able to just talk about, like, our internal governing procedures. So I guess I just want clarity on what when you say creating a governing agenda, what does a governing agenda mean?
40 Councilor. I'm jumping in only because I want to say I shared some of those concerns when I first saw some of this. And the folks from local, the folks from hra gave a good explanation of why having those conversations hand in hand can be helpful, but I want to let vice president Koyama Lane chime in about what some of her thinking was on that topic as well. And then maybe, juan, you can fill in some of the conversations about why you included those more policy oriented pieces where there may be more substantial differences than on some of the governance pieces.
41 Thank you for bringing up.
42 Thank you for bringing that up, councilor Avalos. I agree, and that is a place where that is correct. That council president was like, whoa, whoa, whoa, not strategic planning. We need to back up from that. This is more how we interact with each other. When I see this, and I understand why that would be a little confusing. Policies that council can advance through legislation to deliver meaningful change for Portland. For me, that's government governance related. I've heard from multiple people that it's hard to have governance be a smaller subset of councilors working on it when it is something that touches everyone's job and work. So I see that as legislation that we can pass that is related to our processes, how we're running. So for an example, that would be public testimony and what we're doing around that, how we are figuring out how the mayor breaks a tie, how we are deciding how we interact with city workers, like those those things that are coming up about how exactly does a bill become a law in this new system? I mean, stuff that we've been talking a lot about, but really fleshing that out and getting that in as legislation. Juan, what is your take?
43 Yeah, I would say this is really about you telling us what you wish to achieve by the end of the year, right? I think it can be mostly about what council vice president is saying about your objectives for the way that this body functions, right. If you feel like you're ready to go further, we can be supportive. I think is what we're saying. We do want to start with our practices, to start with the objectives, right? And then work our way back into the processes and the structures. Right. But if the objectives are about are more structural and that's where you want to stay, that's what we can do. I don't know if andrew, if you wanted to add anything to that, but.
44 Yeah, I mean I'll just and I appreciate all of these questions and I. For whatever it's worth, I think us and some of the other partners, potential partners that you've mentioned, are all operating in the same kind of orbit. And local progress is a key partner of ours. But to answer the question about, look, I think part of this is about your habits and how you all are going to come to develop the relational ease that will enable you to move fluidly, which I think is what you all want. There's enough disease out there. There's no need to operate without without ease here. I think also just having done this now, working in and around city halls and on issues of governance for almost 30 years, it is very helpful to ground the urgency of developing new governance practices in what you want to do and in not just how you work, because ultimately, those habits are only truly formed when the why is understood as being connected to your ability to advance the agenda that you came here to advance. All of you. Being able to move with ease is critical. Having the habits and agreements are critical. We would love, however, to do that work while we're also defining what is the role of council in this iteration, what do you want to work toward? What are the structures that will get you towards playing that role? What are the habits that will get you to live in those structures? I don't specialize in agreements based on sticky notes that then people break once the going gets tough. Having that why, which is about the policy agenda and what you want to work toward in my experience, creates the stickiness for those habits and for those agreements. Would juan and I were also thinking about is a way to how do we marry both? I would love to do, as an example, scenario planning as part of our. If we move forward to do a retreat. And scenario planning is work that I've done with cities across the country to see. Let's not just take this abstractly. How do we take something, a decision, an event, something that is critical and play through? What are the questions we're going to ask? What are the roles we're going to play? What are the structures for decision making, for communication? What are the research questions that you would have? What are the in order to live in? What is the ultimate outcome and then how are we going to get there? Now I'm going too far in answering this question. I apologize, but the question excites me because it's one of the premises of our work that good governance has to be grounded in what you want to work toward. And then what impact do you want to have? What role do you want to play? What are the structures that will let you get there? And what are the habits that will enable you to work with ease toward that end? That's our theory of the case. But if we're working together, you know, we're we're your partners in this. And as juan said, we're flexible. I know we don't just want to leave you with a set of agreements of things that you'll say you'll do differently or better in order to get along. I think what we want to leave you with is a roadmap. I also don't want to say the word strategic plans. I've never heard anyone respond favorably to the words strategic plan. However, think of it more as a roadmap of where do you want to be, where do you want, and how do you want to get there? Does me mincing those words help at all?
45 Yeah. Thank you. That is helpful, I guess. Then I'll just close by saying I do generally agree with that theory of change. I but I do think I would want some discussion about how that manifests, because for me, what I would prioritize right now is definitely some community building, community agreement type of things. And that's what a retreat is really good for and just some grounding. I think that's number one. And then number two for me is like fixing some of the sticky policies that we're running into issues when it comes to like how we move legislation forward and, you know, the tiebreak and whatever. So those are the two main buckets I would see. I totally get you in that. You know what you're working towards that bigger kind of question can inform those first two. But I wouldn't put so much emphasis there. That's just my personal opinion. We could work through kind of how that looks, but I say that because I just would worry that I think I think one, I don't know that we're ready for that is my opinion. So thank you.
46 Thank you, thank.
47 You, thanks.
48 Councilor councilor Kanal.
49 Thank you, madam president. I have the good and bad luck of following three people who said a little bit of what I was going to say. I very much appreciate the introduction from the vice president on on sort of the problem statement as well as the aspirational value and what we were able to achieve. I think that's really grounding and I appreciate it. I had the opportunity to meet with hra. I don't know if everyone did. I hope that you all did. But I had a pre conversation and I think that they they were really I really valued that conversation. I thought it was they asked very good questions and I was cautiously optimistic, you know, leaving it up with that, I will say that I led the very first thing I said was a very similar concern to what councilor Smith put forward, that I generally have had issues in other contexts with the idea of just choosing a vendor ahead of time. I don't think that the act of synthesis is neutral. I don't think that the act of summarization of our of 12 people's diverse viewpoints is neutral. Who we pick to do that work is vital to and the level of trust we have, that the outcomes of that process will will be reflective of what we want. So that that is a concern I share too. As I was reading through this, I, I had the exact same experience, I think, as, as councilor Avalos, that I got to task three and I started to say, wait a minute, this sounds like it might be broader than what we talked about because nowhere in that conversation did did content come up. Everything was conversation around process, which I definitely think we should be talking about. And when I saw task four lead off with that exact same bullet point that every red flag in my brain went off at once, I don't think we should be. I think we should not merely say we could change it later, but proactively state that is not part of the purpose of this upfront. I that just deeply concerning to me because it never came up in our conversation and so I'm a little surprised by it. And I don't like the idea of being surprised by that in this context. More broadly, I'll just say two things. One is, I think, you know, this timeline might be a little bit ambitious on the whole, and that's good. But it's also I don't want this to supersede some of the things we know we need to do now. We know we need to increase the frequency of our full council meetings already. And I don't necessarily want that to be put into this process and then not yield a document until July. I've circulated a draft that I intend to file to move in that direction already. So I am concerned about this superseding existing conversations. There may be some, like the tiebreak, where we do need that time and it would benefit from it too. So this isn't an absolute thing. And then the last thing I'll say is I am in favor of moving fluidly. That's a nice thing, but it's not my goal. It's a nice to have. It's a nice way to do things, but I don't think it's the goal itself. I'm interested in moving in the direction of justice, in the direction of liberation, the direction of expanding who's involved in this. The direction is more significant to me than the fluidity, and I think all 12 of us might share those interests, but we might define those goals differently, because we were elected in a system that was designed to yield a representative, diverse council. And that means we're going to disagree on issues, and we're not going to share a legislative agenda other than some relatively narrow list of consensus positions, which I don't think need the emphasis that we're talking about because they're already near unanimous in support. So I, I'm a little bit just on this content side of it, a little bit concerned. I remain in favor of having a conversation about some of the, the structures and the processes and protocols as well as I think it's a nice touch to talk about the relationship to the mayor, the administrator and the city staff as well. Whether or not that's this group. I'm very open minded, and I share again councilor Smith's concerns, and I'll leave it at that. Thank you.
50 Thanks, councilor. Councilor Novick.
51 I just want to reiterate that I agree that if we go forward with something like this, the policy agenda should not be part of it. I also wanted to say that I appreciate any consultant who says they don't want to use the phrase strategic plan.
52 I think we're hearing loud and clear the need for some changes to the scope in that direction. Councilor Smith, I see you back in the queue, but I'd like to give councilor Morillo an opportunity since she hasn't spoken yet. And then we'll come back to you, councilor Morillo.
53 Hi everyone. Apologies for being camera off. I'm really sick and no one wants to see me right now. But thank you first of all, to the governance committee and specifically to council vice president for putting this together, I know that you've received more than your fair share of concerns and complaints from all of us about how processes are going, and I think you've been trying to find the best way to address all of them. And I just appreciate your leadership so much this time. I have not had a chance to meet with the hr and a folks, and so I just wanted to add my $0.02 here that I think that we should definitely focus on some of those nitty gritty policy procedural questions as far as like the tiebreaker vote, how ordinances are heard, how things policies move through committee, and more of that structural stuff. Because I think that when those rules are set in place and there's less disparity in how things go through committee than people, there will be an inherent sense of fairness that dispels a lot of the fights or disagreements that people get into. And I'm also excited to talk about some shared governance ideas as far as how we treat each other, how we move through these difficult discussions together. And I think it's good that we're framing all of that before a very difficult budget comes up ahead this, this upcoming few weeks. So thanks.
54 Thanks, councilor. Councilor Smith.
55 Thank you, council president. And I want to go back to some of those really technical kinds of things that we need to. We need to get some some clarity on. And that is a part of you know, who breaks the tie. If a tie is broken, those kinds of things. What kind of committee rules that we have that I was expecting to come from governance. We've jumped into a whole nother thing. But I think what's more important for governance is to identify our rules for our committees, because we have none. That is really critical so that some of these things will be taken care of. As a result of that. My team is we're staffing up and we're having a retreat ourselves in June. And so in order to tell you all what our priorities are, we have to get back from our folks who are consulting with us to tell us, you know, what our what our priorities are, so that you can use it so that it's valuable in the bigger scheme of things. But I think that it's important that we do need the work. I appreciate the time that you spent with this because it, it what it says is that you took this very seriously in terms of what we may need to be a successful council, but I think we have some other more pressing things that could be on this paper to help us get through this budget cycle.
56 Thanks. Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
57 Thank you. I want to just echo a lot of what I'm hearing. I agree that the what I'm hearing mostly, and what makes the most sense, is to really focus on the internal processes that hopefully we can do in a retreat. What are our agreements? What are our needs, how? What do we need from each other? And then the other piece is thinking specifically around these governance procedures, procedures, processes. There's been a lot of conversation about how many committees we have. Should that be adjusted? How do we do that? I think that needs to be the priority. I support taking anything out of this that looks close to strategic planning or guiding a policy agenda and making sure that really it's about if there's anything about policy, it's about governance policy. It's about we have this brand new form of government. So let's make sure that we're building up those resolutions, those rules or ordinances that help this run well. And. Yeah, I think part of all of this is connects to for me to like why we need a little bit of help. I think we need some help streamlining some things and deciding when we do make decisions. How should that happen? It can they come from your elected leadership team? When is that okay for it to just come from us? When should we bring in other folks? Which ones? All 12. I think that we're seeing it is a big body, so figuring out some agreements around that, I think it would be great to get some clarity. And I think that's work that we can do together. And I will say, I want to give a shout out to my vice chair, Dan Ryan, who has been really open in talking through a lot of governance pieces. And I think it's councilor Clark was saying we do have a have great conversations in governance. I'm also hearing that we need to bring in everyone. So my hope is we can do a lot of that work all together.
58 Councilor Green.
59 Thank you. Just a technical question on what is meant by retreat. Is it just in this room? Because you have to notice it because there's 12 people. Like, how does that work?
60 The hope is that we could do something similar to what the county recently did, which is where we do get to be a little bit more vulnerable and do it behind closed doors and have our attorney there telling us when we might need to back things up a little bit. But some of the work that honestly I was pushing us towards gently in December, but I wasn't elected to be vice president yet and didn't feel like I could be super pushy about being like, let's make our agreements and let's. But it would be, it would be that type of work. And I also just want to flag that there are committee rules drafted and waiting to come to the full council.
61 Thanks for that clarification. I, I wholly support that type of retreat. I, I think we need to have a little bit of vulnerability. Thanks for bringing this forward. I know it's you know, it's not as glamorous as some other work, but it's absolutely essential to us being good at our jobs. Right? There's a lot of folks watching watching. So yeah, I just want to echo also that I think the priority is procedural. Like, you know, us having a frank conversation about what do we want to cede to a subset of our elected body to make sort of quick turn decisions? How do we want to engage? I mean, I also I think some of these governance questions need to be heard between all of us. So I'm open. I'm open to the conversation. I'm open to the consultant views. Thanks.
62 Councilor. Ryan.
63 Yes, thank you, madam president, and thank you, vice president. Good to see you in person. We had a chance to meet last week virtually, juan. And hello, andrea, representing the firm in new york city. Yes, I was skeptical until I found out where your revenue sources came from. And I understand a business model like this. I ran an organization that received foundation and corporate money and private donations to then offer our services for free to government and nonprofits. So I appreciate your business model in regards to the savings that you provide. And I thought your sources came from very objective organizations like ford foundation, who do focus on objective, results based work. And so I think that made me much more open to this process. I do have a couple questions now that I had a chance to look at more of the details and why I'm here, it is. I just want to hear some of the other municipalities that have gone through a similar process, but we hear about Multnomah county and honestly, that doesn't I want to hear more than just Multnomah county. Tell me who else you've worked with, maybe of similar size and scope.
64 Oh, sorry.
65 Go ahead. Okay.
66 Thank you. It's good to see you again. Councilor. So, you know, part of what I think, honestly, one of our first tasks is going to be to look in more deeply at the intersection of this particular governance structure, size of city, budget of city. And that's work that, you know, that we've been just beginning to do quietly in the background, I can list off some of the cities where we have worked, either with a legislative or executive branch on the issues of governance and transitions, cities and counties from miami-dade county, where one is actually an alum, to new york, to pittsburgh to allegheny county, to oakland to dallas. And I'm probably missing a few places now. Every city and every place is really quite different. And I will. You know, I will say that part of the research process that we were going to embark upon was to, you know, dig in more, more deeply to like councils working under like state laws that govern how you are able to do your business. And that's research that we have begun but have not completed. But in all of those cities, we have worked in some way, at some form with either the executive, the legislative and or key stakeholders that are focused on co-governance.
67 Thank you. That was helpful. I heard some pittsburgh, dallas, you had me at those. I would give you some feedback right now that I believe new jersey is the other state that doesn't have a sales tax. Is that true?
68 New hampshire?
69 It is true, yes.
70 Great. I'm so glad I lived there for a while. And it was like, wow, I'm in the only other state that makes that makes you that doesn't allow you to pump your gas. And now we change that and also didn't have a sales tax. So by the age of 23, I just thought every state was like that since that's the only other state lived in. Then I realized was anomaly. Thank you for humoring me and giving you a little bit of my bio.
71 Actually. Wrong.
72 Councilor I have another.
73 Question about. What's that? Oh no, I was just saying I think I'm actually wrong. I was thinking about the other state without where you couldn't pump your own gas. I believe it's new hampshire, which is what the vice president whispered over.
74 My shoulder in 1983. It was new jersey. Okay. Hi. I know some of you weren't alive at that moment. Back to the conversation. My understanding is this project. I think it's been confirmed. You're going to help us become more functional, as you're going to help train us in how to become more functional as a governing body. And we're focusing inward. Right. And so we're not going to do this work out in community. This is actually an inward scope. Is that true?
75 Yes.
76 Okay. I just want to make sure I was validating that. And I think I hear a good example of why we need some help right now, and I don't I'm not shaming any of us for this. This is new. It came with not much of a blueprint and something that you could think sounds so simple is how to figure out how to do this tie. Breaking. It seemed like it didn't offer clarity to hardly anyone when they when that decision was made and the charter vote. And so last week, the governance committee actually did wrestle with this for two meetings. And then we did we were able to land it with a lot of great dialog. And we look forward to having that conversation with the entire council. But I think there was some miscommunication on even getting it on the agenda. So we have to get 9/12 of the councilors to just talk about something when it misses the deadline to file, because we had our meeting after that. And then I think some of you and I could have played a part in this, and I apologize if I did thought we were actually voting on it. And it was like at 9/12, it would be an emergency vote. It could have been an emergency vote, but it could have just been a first reading. But we didn't have the opportunity to have that conversation yet. So I look forward to having that conversation. And I'm giving you that story just to say that we're building something and why we're building it. There's we're not always on the same page. We put the city attorney through a lot last week to try to get some clarity on how we could continue to have this dialog and move it forward, and I think that we will be able to have a very high functioning meeting about that topic when we actually finally daylight it in front of all 12 of us. I give you that to just say there's some growing pains stuff right now. And so we're building and as we're building, it's easy to speculate, it's easy to overthink. And now and then we just need to get the topic on the agenda so we can actually have the conversation. And we chose to do it through a committee. And then the committee did its due diligence. And now we're waiting to have that conversation amongst all 12. So hopefully now since we have filed it, we voted on it was all in public. It'll be on the next city council agenda. Correct? Great. And so I think some of this is that we're just need to be patient with how we're building this system. And so I just wanted to put that out. And I do think that taking a breath after the budget season to dive in again, because we did our some of this work in December when we didn't have a lot of experience and knowing what we were actually going to do. So now that we'll have a big six months under our belt, it probably will be more fruitful to then re have to rehash some of those conversations, and I want to respect my, my colleague and the leader of the governance committee for having that wisdom and knowing that that's why this made sense. So I didn't get in the way of this. I thought that it had a lot of timeliness to it. And I actually think after the budget process we go through, it will even be more timely to take a breath and figure out how we continue to move forward as a governing body that's here to serve as public servants, the city of Portland. So I want to thank you for your time. I'm glad that you're getting more clear about the scope. I would agree that I did get when I got off the phone last week, that some of our conversations that I was reflecting on, that got into more of scope of the actual strategic plan, seem like we might be doing some scope creep, mission creep. So I think it's good that you're hearing that feedback today. It's kind of affirming. Thanks.
77 Thank you.
78 Thanks. Councilor councilor Morillo.
79 Thank you. Yeah. I think something that's also come up, and I think that I just want us to think about this moving forward, is that sometimes we have really difficult governance conversations to have, and there is an urgency to address the system so that we can start making decisions based on mutual shared agreements that we've all voted on. Like I think about the tiebreaking vote, I think that's a big question that is still outstanding. And there are sometimes attempts to put things on council agendas, but without, in my opinion, sufficient time to discuss them. And that's no one's fault. The council agenda is just stacked because there is truly so much for all of us to cover right now. So there's not any way to avoid that. But sometimes I've seen us trying to have some of these discussions about like a tie breaking vote with 20 minutes allotted on the council agenda and knowing how chatty this group is, it's pretty hard to get into substantive debate and discussion and a decision in 20 minutes on something as complicated as that, that could ultimately change the entire structure of how things get voted through. So, and I'm not sure what the solution is for that, given how much we have to cover all the time and within these council agendas. But I just wanted to name that as like a tension of wanting this, these things to be resolved quickly and then not actually having the time set aside to get them done. So I'm excited that we're having some specific space to address some of these questions.
80 Thanks. Councilor councilor Kanal did you have more?
81 Thank you. Just to clarify, are we using this discussion time solely to talk about how we talk about governance, which is itself how we talk about issues, or are we also able to talk about governance today?
82 This is a there's a few ways to answer that. First off, this is a work session. So we're not making decisions about anything having to do with our work or things coming before council. Right. We work sessions are for discussion. We certainly could talk about some other topics, but I do want to make sure that we get enough information from each rna to know if folks are comfortable moving forward and give enough information to air rna, that if folks are comfortable moving forward, we can do that successfully. Okay, so I'm not I don't know if that answers your question because I'm not quite sure what you're getting at, but hopefully that helps.
83 Yeah. So I guess this the first thing I'll say falls into that second category. I'm not sure to what degree this would involve outside consultants or us, but I do want to sort of touch on something councilor Ryan said about should this involve the community? Part of the point of this is to involve the community more in the conversation around policy. That that's part of the one of the goals of governance is, is to do that. And, you know, we're having this conversation on a Monday, which is an unusual time to have it. And I imagine there's not a lot of viewers online. And if you aren't able to see the room, it's fairly empty. Although we do have one of our gtac members here in the back, and I hope that you get a chance to meet him. But I think that's that's something that I the community input in this is critical because understanding when people can take part in our meetings is a core part of figuring out when and how often we meet. As far as I'm concerned, having council meetings in the evening was theoretically designed to maximize the ability of people to participate, sometimes in the morning and sometimes in the evening. Do we know that to be true these first four months? Not. We have no data on it, but we should get that, you know, and we have anecdotal data, of course. But I think that, that that's, that's sort of the thing I wanted to, to convey. And then big picture, I think the, the fundamental issue here is we have 13 people who are able to contribute to a council agenda. Now, we used to have five. We have 12 people who are going to deliberate on on items that are before the full council, when we used to have five and we have cut from 36 to 45 hours a month of full council meeting in the old system, depending on if there were 4 or 5 weeks in the in the month, 36 to 45, and now we have 15 hours of full council time. So that that is everything else is important too. But that is a fundamental thing that you can't fix until you you can't fix everything else. You fix that. So I think that's the sort of artificially created scarcity that that predates any of us being here is the underlying issue. I think it exacerbates some of the other problems that that the vice president laid out at the beginning as well. So it's not the only thing. It's just I feel like it must be the first thing.
84 Thanks, councilor. I want to make sure that we get at least to the three people who are still in the queue, and then to any other general comments that come up. But there are, I think, some specific questions that we need an opportunity to weigh in on also, and we are about halfway through our time. So I'm just noting that. Councilor greene, I'm going to jump over you to councilor Zimmerman since he hasn't had a chance to speak yet. Councilor Zimmerman.
85 So I think I understand the intent of today, which is to signal if we are interested in participating in this thought exercise. Okay. I mean, first and foremost. And this is an uncomfortable work session because I think this just is highlighting a lot of weirdness that exists. So I'm not really in love with this. I'll just say that. But I am and have always been a very big supporter of elected bodies or leadership. Bodies shouldn't shy away from the value that can be achieved from a retreat right from, and I mean that from a very small somewhere in town. Spend a day in executive session where you can work through some of the things that make you more effective, and we will get made fun of for doing that. And it is valuable. Right? So I've encouraged it. I've participated in it in other bodies, other governments. So I say that first and flatly like from that perspective. So there's some key questions for me. I appreciate the questions that were raised earlier with respect to agenda setting and things of that nature. I would agree. Not appropriate. This is really about how does the body want to work together as as people. And so I think that vice president kind of captured there's some structural stuff and then there's some cultural stuff. I think that this type of exercise helps us more with the cultural stuff, so that we can get through the structural stuff. And I and I value that with respect to hra. Just in my brief, I didn't know that you were meeting with folks. I know nothing about that. But in terms of will facilitation happen in person or on zoom? That's a major question for me. A recommended timeline. There's been a little bit that's been said around here that somehow this will affect us with the current budget cycle. That's not going to happen. I'm just going to set a reality check for everybody. This is going to be a budget thing. And. With respect to an insider and outside local group, I don't think I have strong opinions or feelings that way. What I do have some concern about is, I think a significant amount of that charter review got kind of pushed from an ideological standpoint, and I think that a lot of the current trend of government involvement, community engagement, is being pushed from a certain ideological trend. And so for that purpose, I think just a good evaluation of whom are we bringing in as a as a facilitator who is who hasn't got an agenda is a valuable question. And I'll just remind folks, it's really easy to not screw this part up, but just across the river in our in our sister government, we had a chair of a county bring in her own executive coach as a facilitator for her government, her other county commissioners, and didn't tell them that this was her bought and paid for. Facilitator excuse me coach, that kind of stuff really sets people off. And I think that we've got to be really cautious and I've never met hr and I don't know who you are. And that's okay. And I think the due diligence that I've heard from a few other people is very helpful because my. My armor is up a little bit about being handled by outside groups right now or, or having something not seem to be what it is on the surface. And so from that perspective, I'm slightly cautious here, but what I will commit to the council president and vice president is that after we get past this budget, if there's a time where we can have an off dais conversation about better ways in which we can move information through this council to produce more effective outcomes and reduce the number of times any one of us feels blindsided by a thing that has come to council. I will commit to that process. I think that's important. So I'm giving a soft. I'll be there. But but we got some work to do in order to find the most appropriate time to get full, full participation. And I agree that full participation is the only way to do it.
86 I'll take that.
87 Councilor I want to assure you that hra is not my executive coach.
88 Do they commit in person?
89 I believe that's part of the agreement. Yes.
90 That's right. Yeah. Juan is there. I am on parent duty this evening in new york, but spend much of my life on an airplane. This was a priority to be there in person, and that's how we would work.
91 So I think you're hearing that commitment councilor Counselors, everybody else left in the queue has spoken at least once already. So I'm going to ask you to limit your remarks to 1 or 2 minutes so that we can get to some additional questions that our vice president has for us. Counselor Green, go right ahead.
92 Thank you, madam president. So I think just broadly, when we talk about governance, what I like, I'm okay with messiness. I actually think the current law creates it requires the messiness. I don't think it's embarrassing for us to kind of trip over process. I think it highlights maybe that there are gaps. That's nothing to be ashamed of. And so this kind of work is really useful for figuring out how we go forward and fill those gaps. So I am all in on figuring out how best to adopt rules that we agree upon. But as we get down the road, I want to caution against adopting rules as a substitute for debate and deliberation. I don't want the spectrum of our structure to move so far away that we are. We are not really a body of legislators. We're a body of sort of rubber stampers that live in a very small box. And I'm not suggesting that's on anyone's agenda right now. But, you know, we're at time equals zero. Every every organization moves pretty far away from its initial inception, unless you've sort of flagged things in advance. So I'll just leave that there. Thanks.
93 Thanks. Councilor councilor Avalos.
94 Yeah, I just wanted to flag a couple of things. I've been sitting here just thinking about what I believe is important that we need to work out. So I'm just going to put them out for the group to consider and us to keep talking about. So here's what I think. I've got a list of seven things one. Council and committee meeting frequency. Council ops capacity. That's a whole bucket of work. Two community agreements how we work together, culture type of things three how a bill and I can. You don't have to write so fast. I can give this to you later. Sorry I know I'm going quick. Three is how a bill becomes a law. That's just kind of general. We've been talking through, like how it gets through committees and all of that. For mayoral tie. We still need to work through five how the public engages in our policy making from concept to law. So what is our, you know, not just how we move things, but how does the public engage as we're moving things? Six the role of council ops, attorney's bureaus, etc, and helping us move our policies. You know, I'm still trying to understand how do we use these resources like attorneys, like policy folks and council ops to help us develop our policy ideas? And then lastly, I think just a larger code review to adjust what we've learned in the last few months. You know, we passed the 3.02 or whatever it is. You know, we did what we had to do and the time constraints that we did. But I think that now that we've been governing for a few months, there's a lot of things in there that I want to revisit. So those are that's my to do list that I'm just putting on the table. But that's what I see as that's what I'm hoping you all can help us do is like, you know, some of that culture work and then giving us space and helping facilitate the dialog that we need to have around some of these, like procedural and code adjustments that we need to make. Thanks.
95 Councilor Ryan.
96 Yeah.
97 I just want to set up some parallel structure that I think could be helpful. So some of us come from the nonprofit executive side, and we know that we had strategic plans, operational plans to deliver the scope of the mission so that we could get the results for who we're serving. And we had to have bylaws that provided structure and boundaries so that we could deliver the above. And without those bylaws, it would be pretty difficult to deliver that sometimes bit more personable in the 12 step movement. Basically, the 12 steps are so addicts can successfully stay sober, but you have to have the traditions, and the traditions allow us to not kill each other while we're trying to get sober. So let me pivot to us. So in these meetings, we are all council and we're doing trying to move policy work. Sometimes we win, sometimes we don't. But we definitely need a politically agnostic governance structure to provide a fair place for us to do that work. And we're struggling right now to build, in my opinion, that objective, politically agnostic, agnostic governance structure. And we're building that now. And I hope to god that we can keep leaning to this work so we can get that settled. So then we can continue to do our very tough work as counselors, serving our constituents to move Portland forward. But right now, we could use some level setting on what that objective, politically agnostic governance structure looks like to perform that no matter who's in office. Thanks.
98 I'm going to take 90s for myself to have an opinion before I turn to our vice president for some additional questions. I'm hearing a lot of folks who are interested in using this as an opportunity to have some outside support building that. I love how you phrased it councilor Objective, politically agnostic governance structure, but I hope that as we do this work, we actually use it as an opportunity to take a step back before we even get there, because as our colleague councilor Zimmermann said, some of this is about the how we work together. I'm paraphrasing there. I'm sorry you were a few speakers ago, but the relationships, the expectations, the culture, those things around how we treat each other and what we can expect from each other. We don't have that culture yet. And usually as a body, new folks come into half, two thirds, three quarters or more of the body in existence with agreements around the culture. And because we don't have that, I think we are finding it harder to build the objective, politically agnostic governance structure than it should be. And so I hope we don't skip a step in this work and that we take the time to build the culture while we're together in a retreat, because that, I think, is what's hardest to build at the dais. Councilor vice president Koyama Lane you had some questions you wanted to make sure we got to today so that we know how best to move forward. Do you want to throw one or more of those out?
99 Yeah.
100 I'm hoping that we can go around and hear from every councilor If they're willing. I think it's also okay to pass and just take 2 to 3 minutes. And I'm looking at the agenda. I feel like it touches on a lot of different parts here, but I think it would be valuable to hear. A little bit about your why. Why are you here? This isn't necessarily easy. Why are you on council? You can choose if you want to take from your stump speech or whatever you want. Where are you? Here. What are some of your needs right now as a councilor? And then do you have any asks of the group and of hra? I think that touches on a lot of the different things here. That first part, the why is connected to you all. Introduce yourselves also, councilor Clark, who sometimes I would like to hear her voice more than I hear, was just texting me that idea. I think that would be great if. Do you think that could be a good use of our time right now?
101 Sure, absolutely.
102 I do think it would be helpful for us to have a few minutes to get our thoughts together.
103 Councilor can you please repeat the three questions that you had.
104 Your why, your needs, your asks.
105 Asks for each rna or for each other either.
106 And some of those things like councilor Avalos was listing her things. I was like, oh, she's already doing it. She can say him again.
107 Councilors, let's take 2 or 3 minutes if folks want to reflect on that.
108 No questions. Oh. Where's the hearings right now?
109 Are folks feeling ready to jump in with the promise that our vice president has offered to go first, so everybody else has a little bit more time? Okay, I'm seeing more.
110 It's okay to pass. You don't have to do this if you don't want to.
111 The questions were, why are you here? What are your needs as a councilor? And any asks you have for hr or for each other?
112 Why am I here?
113 You're why?
114 Why did you run?
115 Okay, we are in counseling.
116 Councilor. Why don't you model what you're looking.
117 For here?
118 The why piece. I did run to bring a perspective that usually isn't on this dais. I do feel like part of my part. Like me being in this role is as the person with the least amount of political experience is to push us to think about the experiences that we're bringing in and what we've experienced before, and think about what things are we going to bring that serve us, and what things can we reject. And to keep asking that question when, if and when we start moving in a direction of status quo or how things have been in the past that that we can stop and say, do we want to do it that way, or do we want to reject that and think about a different way in terms of my needs, I need some help with the culture piece. I notice that when there's friction or issues, that an easier answer is, oh, maybe they'll solve this in the governance committee. We that's not going to that's not going to work. We have to work out some of this stuff. And I need help with that. So my ask is an open mind from my colleagues. And for whoever is going to help us if it's hra or another group, I would like patience as we're figuring this out, because I do genuinely think this is an exceptional group of 12. I have said this before that I think we're going to look back at this first group and be like, we're pretty lucky to all work together, and I think we have a lot of potential.
119 Why don't we continue around the dais? Councilor Morillo are you able to jump in with answers to any of those questions?
120 Yeah, I am, thank you. Sorry, this is not going to be as coherent as I want it to be right now because I'm so sick. But I appreciate these questions. I think it's good to be rooted back again in our values, and I would say that I really view this governance body as an ecosystem. And every individual who is here fulfills part of that ecosystem and fulfills a role. So sometimes I hear discussions about like, well, someone is biased because they only represent this group of people. Like I have made it very clear I'm here to represent renters. I'm very here to represent unhoused people. As the only person with lived experience having been houseless in Portland. And I think about my immigrant mother, who, you know, had limited opportunities here in the us and spent the majority of her life cleaning wealthy people's houses in the hills. And that's who I'm here to represent. And I don't think that's actually a bias, that's negative. I think it means that I'm fulfilling my role in the ecosystem that is this council, and I see that others are here to balance my perspectives out as well. So I appreciate that I'm here because I truly love district three. Every time we have a town hall, I have the best time getting to work together with councilors Koyama Lane and Novick. And I think that what we need from each other is just time to process a lot of these policy changes together, and making sure that we're making decisions collectively. I think what I need from the other councilors is to acknowledge that while we're having these discussions, some voices have always been at the table and some have not, and that when we're centering voices that have not had a seat at the table, that's not a bias in favor of those voices. That's actually equalizing the playing field in a way that it hasn't been before. I also need councilors to acknowledge that some of our community members are really good at organizing and filling the room up, because they haven't had space at the table. And so that's not an indication of the tables being stacked in a certain way that's indicative of not having power within the system and having to generate power on your own through community. And I feel very grateful and joyful about the relationships that I've had with people on council, even people that are very different from me. I feel like some of my strongest friendships have actually come out of that. So I think what I'm asking for is really exactly what we're doing right now. Just time to process these rule changes together and just very grateful for councilor Koyama Lane leadership at this time. So thank you.
121 Thanks, councilor. Councilor Novick.
122 I'm here for to achieve some pretty specific policy goals, which I won't go into. I know that I need to care about process. I ask that my colleagues indulge my frustration with talking about process and knowing that I will do my best to care.
123 Councilor Clark.
124 Thank you, madam president. I ran because. I want to make this new form of government work. Very simply. I want to be I want it to be able to perform the basic functions of government and do them well. And I want us to take good care of what we've inherited, our assets. I want to create a safe environment for everyone where we can all thrive and feel safe. And I ran because I want us to become a city of yes again. If we ever were.
125 Yes.
126 In terms of needs, I really want to work in a collaborative environment. So issues around culture are really important to me. I want to be able to work through our differences in a collaborative way. I think like councilor Koyama Lane, I asked that we be patient and I'm really talking to myself when I say that because I'm not the best process person. I didn't used to like the word process, but I realize it's very, very important that we be patient and listen to each other and that we develop a sense of trust, that we give each other the benefit of the doubt. And I really don't think we're all that different. We may come from different places, but we're still humans and we all have our own issues that we bring with us. But my goal is really very basic. It's just to make this government work. So thank you.
127 Thanks, councilor. Councilor Green.
128 Thank you, madam president. Why am I here? Well, I ran pretty unabashedly as a left wing guy championing students, renters, young people, old people who care about climate. I ran to make sure there was a voice. I don't think there's any shortage actually here for the labor movement and generally for poor people. That's that's why I ran for office. And I think that's why I am here. I think that's why voters elected me to fight for those things. But I also share what others have said about in the process of fighting for them, making sure that we are leaving really good practices, a good legacy of good governance that's really important and we won't be successful in the other if we can't do the good governance. What do I need? I do need more council meeting time, maybe less of the other time, but that's what's the conversation we are going to be having, I think, before here. I also need that culture stuff too. So I guess, I suppose my ask of my colleagues would be when we do get our tense moments or when we have conversations like this, we try to take our egos out of the situation as best we can and remember that we're we all were elected by different constituencies. Maybe a lot of those overlap, but when we're at the dais, we are arguing from a place of principle and that, you know, avoid that pot shot that you can take at your colleague because it just slows us down and it just makes our work harder. And so, yeah, keep it tight, I guess, is what I would ask. Check.
129 Thank you, councilor Zimmerman.
130 I think I just need more city council meetings that are focused weekly and predictable.
131 Thank you, councilor Avalos.
132 Thank you. Why I ran for office is simple. I want to increase the people's voice in city hall. Point blank. Period. I spent the last couple of years on the charter doing that structurally, and now I'm here to do it with my leadership I need. I would really love for us to have like, a kind of like that list that I put put together. I'd love for us to just generate a full list of needs just so we can. I can also understand what other people are grappling with so that we can just have like a kind of like a to do list would be ideal, and then we can start chipping away at it. I also need these kinds of discussions to be more council wide like we're doing right now. So and you know, we'll as we work through some of these outstanding things, we'll figure out what's the role of committee and council. That's one of the big questions that I have. But I do think these kinds of discussions should be more full council. And then my ask would be to just build in enough time to actually work through some of these issues, whether that's more council meeting time, just generally making sure that we are giving it the time it really deserves and not trying to rush through this. And I think lastly, I'll just say, I think neutrality and objectivity are often used as weapons to silence voices historically left out. So I would ask that we consider that nothing is going to be 100% objective. I am not 100% objective. I am here to represent my constituents. I am here to represent a point of view. I don't think that's wrong. And of course I don't want to confuse objectivity with just us being collaborative partners. Of course I want us all to make decisions that were judging fairly with collaboration, but they should. I don't agree that we need to just be neutral, so I would ask that we explore what that really looks like as we are around this dais and how we're representing our voters. That's it.
133 Thanks, councilor. Councilor Dunphy.
134 Thank you.
Procedural episode · turns 135–143
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135 You know, in March of 2020, as the pandemic was starting, I left this building pretty burned out and I left government and thought I was going to be done. The only reason I ran for office was because I thought that at this moment, with this system and this change, that my skills and experience in the community and in this, the halls of government could actually be helpful. And I wanted to try and make sure that I could contribute towards a functioning body and help my colleagues understand how to be better. 80% of this job is soft power. They don't teach you that in college. You know my needs. I think I need in order to do my job well, I need bookends. I need to know where the edge of what my job is and what it isn't. And I think we I need to function in a system that has common agreements, even if we don't have unanimous agreement. Common agreements, not unanimous agreements, just some basic expectations of how we carry ourselves. And, you know, I don't need assumed good intentions or the, you know, the benefit of doubt. I don't need friends. I like you guys a lot, but that's not why I'm here. I'm not here. I'm here specifically to deliver results for my community. I don't need deference paid to me as an individual, but I do need us to operate in a system that pays deference to this body. Robert's rules is a big stick. It can be a crutch in the right circumstances. It can be a weapon in the others. I think we just need to agree that we are operating with the right tools. My big ask is that we just. I say this a lot. I just desperately don't want to reinvent the wheel. We're building a new government. We're not reinventing government. So.
136 Thank you, councilor Smith.
137 Thank you, madam president. I ran because of malaya ADA and jordan junior and their parents, jordan and stephanie, who are my grandkids and why I get up every single day to do this kind of work. I know that it's very important that we have black voices, that we have underserved voices, that we have vulnerable voices no matter where they come from. Those are the voices that I came here for. And to make sure that they were heard. And it doesn't matter if it's in district one, two, 3 or 4 is that if people are struggling or experiencing any difficulties and I know you and you call me and ask me for help, I will help you. I ask that. Maybe this is a part of governance, but I ask that we stop making long speeches just before we take a vote, because that just makes everything longer. And it cut me and pushed me to three meetings of cip last week. And I think if we learn how to be a little bit more succinct before we vote, instead of saying all that we say, we can say that when we speak that we can get through this work a little bit quicker. And I think, and I know the reason that I ran was because I thought that we needed some experience on this board. And creating something from a foundation that was so important that we needed to have some experience in local government. And that's why I'm. Here. And thank you for asking us the question, vice.
138 President.
139 Thank you. Fairly obvious reason first, love Portland. It's the greatest city on earth. I want people to get that again and to know it. More specifically, I'm here because I worked in community engagement for three years at the city, and I felt like this room in the past didn't give a darn about what people said if it didn't align with the status quo. And so to bring the people of the city who haven't been at the table, including a lot of folks in district two, but not just limited to district two to the table, not just through my representation, but through my facilitation of bringing other people into the room to represent themselves. Obviously, I have policy positions and interests, community and public safety systems that are holistic, prevention focused and accountable, and getting the city to be affordable to live in again. But I think the other reason that I'm here is I believe in the charter, I believe in the will of the voters, and I want this government to work to. And I like the way that councilor Clark said that in terms of needs, I mentioned more council meeting time. I need fair representative spaces for discussion. I agree with councilor Ryan about seeking a politically agnostic governance structure, and that was a jumping off point for me to something that councilor Ryan didn't mention, but which I think is important. The status quo is not politically agnostic, but it's often portrayed as such. While changes to the status quo are deemed ideological. And if I kept going on this one, I'd just repeat councilor Morillo and councilor Avalos. I'll stop. I also need time to be in my district and not have to show up to committees. I'm not on to argue against something that I won't be able to have time at the full council to do, because the district expects me to be there to. And then my ask to the group, my ask to h.r. And a there was a major red flag for me in in task five, which is quote, to support the president and vice president in implementing the council governing agenda, end quote, which to me presupposes the answer to a question we haven't talked through yet. It implies that we've agreed to a more expansive role for the president and vice president than what's in code. That's a conversation we started before the election of president and vice president through that rules ordinance, where we did come up with some really great compromises, but just never finished it. And so I want to kind of raise that as like, let's not presuppose answers to the question. And then my ask to the group is, join me in ending use of call the question and rejecting artificial scarcity in the meeting time, which I think would also help with the ask from councilor Smith as well. Thanks.
140 Thank you, councilor Ryan.
141 Thank you, madam president and madam vice president. I really appreciate you making us answer this question, I really do. At first I didn't, but now I love it. So first of all, I jumped in to be a nonpartizan public servant elected leader in early 2020. And the aim remains the same today is to get my hometown out of the ditch, to watch Portland go from a top ten city for decades in livability and economic development, to this city now being in the bottom ten on such categories is deeply disturbing. I don't see us having a healthy budget to serve portlanders, all portlanders until we get back on top again. I will continue to respect our differences, and I appreciate all the learning that comes with that is humbling as it is on every given day. I will add that being a district two rep, no matter what district I would be in, is really joyful. I think maybe I won't speak for anyone else, but I'm finding the time out on the streets, talking to those people who have been struggling and working their tails off to survive. Portland the last six years have my heart and getting spending more time out in the district truly does allow you to have the time to, in my opinion, to be a more relevant public servant. And finally, I look forward to our first dragon boat practice tonight. That's this evening, 530. Please come if you can. Many of you have signed up and we're waiting for you to show up this evening. And thank you staff as well. We will learn how to paddle in the same direction on the Willamette river and have some fun doing it. Thanks.
142 I'm going to try to be quick because there's two other things we still need to do. So I'm going to skip over a lot of the fluff of my why, but I will just say I'm here because I believe that good governance and honest conversations and doing our due diligence and working together across our differences can actually make great policy that makes our community better for everybody in Portland. I hope that we can remember that what we want for ourselves. We also need to offer to others on the body, and that we remember that when we work together, we often make policies better. I hope we can respect each other and this body and trust each other, and that we all put in the work, in bringing things forward, in the discussions we have in committees to be able to earn that trust when something gets to full council, that due diligence has been done. And I would ask everybody to do that and put in that time and put that time into the work that we do here with rna as well. We have 19 minutes left. I think it's important to make sure that if folks have questions of rna that we didn't get to in the beginning, that we have an opportunity to ask those. And then if there's time, because I know, juan, you all can talk to folks individually, but if there's time, let's make sure if you all have any specific questions that you need to ask of us that we get to, but let's just take a moment and pause and see if folks have other questions for air in a specifically while we have them in the room. Councilor Smith.
143 I just have one question. Will you be looking at the kinds of things that we can talk about through the lens of the public records, because there are things that we can talk about and we can't talk about. Are you planning to do that?
144 Yeah, I would say that's a big part of what certainly what we're studying ahead of having further conversations with you all. And I think it will be a big subject of the discussion, because everything that we will be doing together will obviously fit within the parameters of what is possible to be discussed. So that is a big part of what we're looking at at the onset. Thank you councilor.
145 Councilor zimmermann.
146 Will any of this cost any money? Not just them, but what we rent, where we go, any of it.
147 Depending on where we do a retreat, there might be rental fees, but we certainly have some options that wouldn't. We also could do it here where we have conference rooms, though I know sometimes people prefer to go off site and presumably the day of the retreat, we will probably have some food, but other than that, I do not foresee costs.
148 And then for Elana, have you conducted this work with any body in Oregon in the last two years, since they refurbed the public meetings laws at the state legislature? I think getting this extends the question from commissioner Councilor Smith.
149 We have not.
150 Okay.
151 We certainly would want to make sure that they looked at those laws closely, because we do have some limitations here that are pretty specific. And I'll note for anybody not in the room that our city attorney is here in the room with us listening to all of this, and has been providing guidance, vice president, to your office as we prepare for this. Correct. Okay.
152 And then do you have a proposed date, madam president?
153 Councilor Koyama Lane.
154 Oh, I.
155 Was.
156 So we're going to be passing a budget on June 18th. I would hope that this is after the budget, and I would hope that this is after people come up for a breath of air, because we're in a to work ourselves like dogs. Until then.
157 Councilor, I have said from the start that most of this work would need to be after budget. I know that that date, June 16th, was just thrown out and I think for the goings on of our conversations that make sense. But if you look at the timeline that hr and I put forward, retreat doesn't come until mid June or late June or July. Rather on here, it kind of overlaps the July word. So I think we've got some flexibility there. If folks need time after the budget, I think that's important to take so that we can all be in good spirits and getting along.
158 Last one was whether or not we were going to get an idea about other options besides hra, because that's been raised. I'm not loving how today went, so I'm a little bit cautious just in even in their prep materials and what kind of got used for today. So I am interested in what exists locally, regionally before we go national. Thanks.
159 We'll do a temp check as soon as we get through these questions. Councilor I think that's important to do. Councilor Kanal.
160 Thank you. I just have one question, which is, is it possible to look beyond the united states context? Also, for best practices, I want to look at local things. I want to look within our state law or similar things. I definitely agree with that, that viewpoint. But I also know that there are some things that happen outside the united states, not just in terms of policy, which we often talk about in like housing and things like that, but even on governance. So will this search for best practices be exclusive to the united states?
161 No. If it's helpful for this group, for us to look further, we certainly will.
162 Thanks. And then I'll just cosign all the comments about looking into things and doing. Not necessarily more due diligence, but just broader. Thanks.
163 Councilor Koyama Lane.
164 I just want to be clear, I'd love to have done this not on the dais, but because of quorum and ethics laws. It's not an option right now. The hope is that we can do a retreat, not in the public. And I know it might be uncommon to show this kind of vulnerability on the dais, which can feel uncomfortable. I don't believe that vulnerability equals weakness. I think a lot of the public would love to see this. And just to be very clear on the record, if anyone gets blasted for the vulnerability on here, it goes to me. Teacher Tiffany councilor, Koyama Lane vice president, who was elected unanimously and said, everyone look at me and I'm going to remind you, if you vote for me, I'm going to make us think about the health of our group as a 12. So and I literally I think I said, don't vote for me unless you are going to be signing up for me to stop us and be like, are we looking at each other? Are we seeing each other as humans? Are we thinking of how we're moving forward together? So shane dixon, kavanaugh, anyone? It's me. You can blame me for the vulnerability. I take all of it.
165 Councilor Ryan.
166 Thank you. Council president and vice president. Wow. Mike. Mike, you threw down the mike. I have a really boring follow up question. The scope. I just want to make sure we continue to get clear about the scope. And we know that this council works closely with the mayor's office upstairs. We also work with the city administrator. They often sit there. And how have we how are we going to think about that in terms of this work? Will that be a part of your assessment? When you think about this, when you've thought about we haven't really had this conversation, but that's why we're asking it in the meeting today.
167 I'll let andrea add, but I will say part of what we laid out in the scope is related to the to your relationship to other elements of the city structure. Right? And that includes the mayor's office and others. So that is certainly something we'll be looking at as part of our assessment.
168 Okay. So part of the assessment period would be some conversations with those partners internally.
169 It's possible. Yeah. Again this is this is really up to you all okay.
170 Thanks. Some we'll have to think out loud about clearly appreciate it.
171 Councilor Kanal.
172 Sorry. Councilor Ryan triggered a question I needed to ask is your client in this context? Do you view your client as the city council? Or would you? Okay. Perfect.
173 Thank you.
174 Any other questions for hra? Okay. I want to have time for a temperature check. But before we do that, juan, do you have questions or. Andrea, questions for us. Things that you need to hear or. No.
175 No. I think you've been extraordinarily generous in your reflections, in your questions, in your what I think is healthy skepticism. So if we were to move together, move forward together, I think we've gotten a lot of critical insights that would allow us to bless you, that would allow us to refine this scope, which has draft all over it for a reason. And, you know, ultimately, our work around the country and as well as globally for some of my colleagues, is to make sure that local governments work to serve the needs of their communities. And so we'd love to be helpful to you. That's our mission. You know, we're more than facilitators. We try to be partners to the to the people that we work with in the cities where we work. So I think you've given us a lot and I'm grateful for it. And we await your your feedback and direction.
176 Councilor Kanal are you back in the queue? Okay. Just checking. So, councilors, I think we have a couple of options moving forward. And there is a timeline before us, but we also want to do this right. And the timeline isn't too rushed because we do have to do budget first. We can give a thumbs up that yes, we want to see a refined scope based on the feedback today from hra and decide then if we want to continue moving forward, we can give a bit of a proverbial thumbs sideways. We might want to move forward, but folks want the opportunity to dig around a little bit and toss out some names of other folks you might want to work with also, or instead first. Or we can have a thumbs down. You're not into this process right now. We don't want to do this at all. So I think we need a little bit of a temperature check right now so that we can then figure out what our next steps are, which is the last thing on the agenda.
177 Councilor I just want to clarify, I truly am open if any of my colleagues would like to do some of the work to find other options, bring them forward, do some vetting. I think that's totally fine.
178 Are these mutually exclusive? Can we both ask for a revised scope of work and do looking elsewhere.
179 At juan andrea, are you all willing to move forward with a revised scope of work, knowing that folks might be doing a little due diligence elsewhere, too? Or would you prefer to pause on your work with us if we're doing that other scoping, that other looking? I think it's a resource.
180 Do you one.
181 Better.
182 Since we're.
183 Not let me do you one better. Let me do you one better. What I'm going to suggest is that we turn our scope into an RFP. And that you use that in the way that you wish. And you may say you all are the right people to move forward to fulfill what's in this RFP. You may say we want to issue it. But I would feel more than happy, more than content to use the resources that we have to help you refine this and, and decide what you want to do from there. I will note, you know, that we're we're ready to go and we'd love to work with you. But if you think what is most helpful from us is to take this feedback and turn it into a scope that can be shared with others, we're also more than happy to do that. What we want is for you to meet the goals that you all just named.
184 How does that sit with you? So I think thumbs up is let's get that refined scope in the form of an RFP. Thumbs down is let's not move forward. And once you all see that and have a few days in the meantime to poke around some on your own, you can bring some feedback to the vice president and I about how you're feeling about moving forward. I'm seeing some thumbs ups. Thumbs ups. Okay, I'm seeing either thumbs ups or no thumbs at all. And I got. A message from at least from I've got a message from one of our folks online that they're putting their thumbs up also. So I think we're going to move forward in that direction. I want to make sure we have a few minutes for closing and next steps. Council vice president, do you want to say anything or should we look to andrea and juan for their thoughts?
185 Juan, do you want to say anything again?
186 I think we're just really grateful for your time. This was always intended to be a process of kind of reflection and really taking input from you all, and we're very grateful to have received it. Andrea gave us a direction. You all seem comfortable with it. So we'll as far as we're concerned, we'll proceed in that way and just look to you all for any other next steps. Grateful for your time.
187 We really appreciate you being here with us today and flying in for this meeting. I know it's a short meeting to fly in for, but it's important to have you here and andrea taking the time to be with us today, even though you're not able to be here. And I heard loud and clear your commitment, both in conversations with the vice president and I and to councilor Zimmerman earlier today, that if we have a retreat with you all, you will be here with us for that as well. So thank you both for the time. Council vice president, you really have been running with this. Would you like to say anything in closing today?
188 Thank you everyone.
189 With that I will close our work session. Thank you all for taking the time today.
190 Thank you.