The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-09-08
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (7,119 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Finance Committee convened on Monday, September 8, 2025, at 12:01 p.m., with roll call and a statement of conduct read into the record before the agenda proceeded. The session focused on property-related matters, beginning with a proposal to declare a small lot at Southeast 21st Avenue and Southeast Powell Boulevard as surplus property, discussed alongside the disposition process, internal bureau review, and public notification requirements; a motion to refer the item to full Council with a recommendation to pass was made, and a vote occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The committee then considered authorizing the Bureau of Transportation to acquire temporary construction easements for the Northeast Shaver Sidewalk project between 102nd and 115th Avenues, including discussion of funding sources, community engagement, and eminent domain authority if negotiations failed; a motion was made and a vote occurred. Finally, the committee reviewed eight proposed foreclosure actions on delinquent properties across all four districts, with details on liens, delinquency dates, and amounts owed presented for each property, along with discussion of payment plans, probate issues, and the foreclosure sale process. A motion to advance the foreclosure items as a group was made, and a vote occurred, with results recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting concluded with a preview of the September 22 session.
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.
0 Good afternoon. I'm gonna call the meeting of the finance committee to order. It's Monday, September 8th at 12:01 p.m. Clerk. Can you call the roll, please?
1 Novick.
2 Here.
3 Breen. Avalos.
4 Pirtle-guiney here.
5 Zimmerman here. Christopher, if you could read the statement of conduct, please. Thank you.
6 Welcome to the meeting of the finance committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance. The committee agenda at wwe. Slash agenda slash finance committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. If your lobbyist, identify the organization you represent, and virtual testifier should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
7 Okay, today is the day all about property. So a little bit of surplus, a little bit of eminent domain and several foreclosure. With that colleagues, we're going to go through. Well actually let's go to item one and then we'll just keep on clicking through. Thanks.
8 Item one declare property located on southeast 21st ave and southeast powell boulevard as surplus property, and authorize the city administrator to dispose of the property at fair market value.
9 Hello. Take it away.
10 Good morning. Council. For the record, my name is maddie sartor, and I'm the director of the bureau of fleet and facilities. And I don't think I've had the pleasure yet of being in front of this committee to talk about real estate items. It's something we used to do all the time, but there's a lot of new processes, and it's probably taken us this long to figure it out. So we're here today to advise you that we wish to dispose of a property that up until last year, we actually didn't know that we owned. It is at southeast 21st and powell. It is a lot that was purchased or been granted to the city back in 1978 as part of a project that occurred with ODOT and PBOT and the city. We became the holder of that property. We became advised of the fact that we own that property when it was found to be in pretty substantial disrepair. We have since fenced that property and cleaned it up, but recognize that it's excess to our needs. We wish to dispose of it with the proceeds going into an account that we're seeking to fund, which is an opportunity fund for our bureau to be able to better position ourselves to negotiate for real property assets that we don't yet own, but need to acquire. The bureau of fleet facilities is a cost recovery organization. That means we don't really have any advance funds to do the due diligence, make down payments, etc. So we're seeking to dispose of properties that we have no need for so that we can seed that fund and be more strategic in the market for the half a billion or so in real estate needs that we have right now. Any other questions can probably be surfaced by pauline goble, who's here to explain the disposition process.
11 Hi, my name is pauline goble and I'm the facilities excuse me, city real property coordinator. And this property was directed to go through the city proper real property disposition process which was admin rule, administrative rule 1302 and so as part of that, we had a 60 day, excuse me, a 21 day internal notice to other bureaus to see if they had interest in acquiring the property, or to find out if they had any assets at the property as part of that process. No bureaus expressed interest in that, but they did let us know about some property there, which we will be transferring with the sale of the property. And then the next part was, excuse me, is a 60 day public notification process which involves posting signage at the park, at the lot and also notifying residents within a certain radius in a mailer to invite them to participate and provide public comment. And we have finished that process. And so we are ready to go ahead and list the property with the approval of council. Any any questions?
12 Let's take a look. We'll see.
13 Vice chair pirtle-guiney.
14 As part of the 21 day internal notice, which I know goes to all bureaus. Yeah. With the housing bureau specifically, do we have conversations internally about the need for property banking for future housing development in our city? And is that part of that process, or is not that not part of the conversations that are had within those functions within our city at this point?
15 Well, the housing bureau is definitely one of the five major land owning bureaus that has to respond to any request. Excuse me. And we did specifically talk with them about this because there was a neighbor next door that has some low income property. And as part of that, excuse me, housing bureau did not see that there was any need for that as well, or anything that could be done with it as well. Because of the constraints of the size of the property, it's not even 3000ft■!s. So with the constrais that precluded that process. But we do. We are in communication with them. Absolutely.
16 Thank you.
17 Steve.
18 Just for my own, you know, education here, the nature of public comment on a topic like this. You said it opened up. I'm not sure if we got any public comment, but what would we be? What are we seeking when we when we do that public comment? Some of our other issues makes a lot of sense to me, but is it to air ideas like a land banking issue, or like we want to use it for a park? Or what do we what we normally see in this type of situation?
19 Well, I think the goal is to make sure the public is aware that a property in their vicinity is up for sale, and so they have an opportunity, if they wanted it to become a park, or if they wanted some other use for it, they have their opportunity to try to work with council or to let people know maybe they're interested in it, but it's just to make sure that the that the, the, the transparency, which is the value of the city is, is out there for the neighboring community of that subject property.
20 Thanks. It's good to hear I appreciate that. With that, I don't see any other comments at all. Any other discussion? No. And we don't have any public comment on this item. And so with that I will go to a roll call vote. Oh sorry. Am I missing something?
21 I believe we need a motion to refer.
22 Thank you.
23 I would move that. We refer this with a due pass recommendation to the full council second.
24 All right. We have a. Do you want it on consent?
25 I'm thinking about the the standards that we currently have for consent. And I think that this could fall within what we use consent for because it's a property item that's not foreclosure.
26 I'm going to take that as a motion and a second by pirtle-guiney and then by Novick for a motion to pass this with the intent that it go on the consent agenda to the full council. And with that we can move to roll call vote.
27 Pirtle-guiney I.
28 Novick I.
29 Zimmerman.
30 Aye.
31 And the motion is approved with three I to refer the ordinance to city council with the recommendation that it be passed.
32 Great. Thank you. Appreciate that. I know that there will be more that will be more interesting. But this little, little block, it's time for it to go back to the public. So thank you.
33 Thank you. All right. Let's go to item number two then.
34 Item two authorize bureau of transportation to acquire certain temporary rights necessary for the construction of the northeast shaver sidewalk, 102nd to 115th avenue project through the exercise of the city's eminent domain authority.
35 Great. Take it away.
36 Good afternoon. My name is priya. Was the deputy city administrator for public works, and I'm pleased to introduce this item. The northeast shaver street sidewalk project is a community, community driven investment. The project originates from safe routes to school planning process and long standing advocacy by the parkrose school district and neighborhood. The goals here are simple but impactful to provide safe, comfortable and accessible walking conditions for parkrose students and neighbors, to improve access to transit, and also to support stormwater management, all while minimizing impacts to mature trees. To move this work forward, PBOT is requesting authority to begin right of way negotiations with property owners along the project corridor. It's an important step for PBOT to pay project owners for fair market value for a temporary construction easement, which grants temporary access to portions of the property for construction purposes only. With me today is scott cohen, capital project manager from PBOT, who will walk you through the project details and funding, as well as any any right of way processes before you. And with that, I'll hand it over to scott.
37 Thank you. Thank you, donna paul chair Zimmerman, councilors. I'm scott cohen, I'm a project manager with the Portland bureau of transportation. Believe it or not, I'm very excited to share this project with you. This is a great one. Picture says a thousand words. We're going to build a sidewalk on northeast shaver between 102nd and 115th, replacing what we have out there now. This is a well-used corridor by students, families, and neighbors walking to parkrose middle and high school, serving about 1700 students. It's used by the parkers transportation district for their busses, TriMet and then, of course, just a key corridor for people getting east and west from 102nd. This project came out of the safe routes to school planning process. That was an intensive effort that the city safe routes program ran in 2017 to prioritize investments and work really closely with community to find out what investments they needed to access schools. The project goals, you know, obviously, to build this safe and comfortable sidewalk, but also to increase accessible conditions. All the facilities will be American with disability act requirement accessible. We're going to be improving transit access, improving stormwater management and minimizing our impacts to mature native trees along the corridor. The yellow rectangle is the project area. The Green rectangle is a project we just recently completed in 2024. So we're going to be connecting to other infrastructure we just invested in. And then you can see parkrose high and middle are just to the east of the segment we completed in late last year. Here's a little flavor for what we're going to be getting. This is what we did last year. You can see the previous conditions and the what the corridor will look like are standard with sidewalk planting, strip with trees, curb ramps and landing areas for transit. Also highlighting a few of the other infrastructure improvements that we're doing along this corridor. There's five improved transit platform areas for getting on and off TriMet. We've got seven stormwater facilities that we're adding along this property, working closely with our partners at biz. And also we're having the street lighting. We're upgrading that and the eastern section to meet our PBOT guidelines. This is our project schedule and our funding sources. We received a grant from the Oregon department of transportation safe routes to school program in 2021. We went through project development phase during that time, working closely with community like the parker school district and our own internal partners to figure out the best places to locate the sidewalk to minimize tree impacts and utility relocation. We started design in earnest in 2023. We're nearly done with the design process, and here we are, right of way towards the end of that. And then we expect construction in 2026, and our funding sources are listed below. A mix of ODOT grant, fixing our streets, our local ten cent gas tax and then also from our Portland clean energy fund partners contributing our sidewalks to school program. We've done a significant amount of public involvement to this point and expect to do more, but we've met with the school district, their transportation staff, people on the street, the parkrose neighborhood association. There's been a lot of letters, physical and electronic email. We've really let people know what's happening. We've tried to be very detailed. You can kind of see a little image on our letter down there that's showing people exactly where the sidewalk would go in relation to their property line and what there could be impacts on their property. Carly.
38 Yes? Hi, I'm carly ruggles, PBOT right of way. Agent three I'll be talking a little bit about the right of way needs to complete this project. The purpose for our meeting today. So yeah, we seek authority to initiate the negotiations and offer just compensation to property owners for necessary easements. If they fail, the city may proceed with condemnation to obtain these easements. We don't anticipate that happening, but what is required are temporary construction easements along frontages from 28 properties. These temporary easements will facilitate construction of the sidewalk improvements, driveway and walkway reconnections communications. As scott mentioned, there has been extensive communications with the neighborhood and community. Property owners specifically have been informed of project impacts to their site, and they will also receive a mailer for the upcoming council hearing on October 1st. We'll continue working hand in hand with property owners and the community throughout the right of way phase. That's it.
39 That's our show.
40 Great. That was a good show. All right, with that, I'll go to vice chair pirtle-guiney, please.
41 Thank you. Chair. It looks like everything is temporary. Easements. There are no permanent easements. Is that correct?
42 That's correct.
43 And when you talk about engaging the neighbors, how many neighbors at this point have actually responded or have you had direct communication with. I don't mean the outreach. There's very clearly been a lot of outreach, but how many of those 28 neighbors have we actually had conversation with? Confirmed that they understand what the process is and gotten direct feedback from.
44 That would be.
45 Yeah, well, you know, I don't have an exact number of how many properties we've how many property owners or residents that we've connected with. I think part of it is that we wait to kick the process off, to be in earnest negotiations until after council gives us the authority. So we've been trying to alert them, but we're not able to actually, you know, negotiate with them yet.
46 But we haven't heard back from anybody either very excited or very upset. Of those 28, to your knowledge.
47 We've we've definitely heard some good feedback from from neighbors, but we have not heard any concerns about the temporary construction easements or the sidewalk project. Okay.
48 Great. Thank you.
49 Councilor Novick.
50 I just wanted to thank you for making my day by showing where the money is coming from. Having spent three years of my life pouring blood, sweat, and tears into passing what eventually became the fix our streets tax, it's always nice to see it being used for a good project like this. So thank you.
51 And a third of the money from for sidewalks. Love it. Yeah, thanks for including that. Thanks for the graphics. I've said it before, I'll keep saying it, but you really put the bold underline here with those pictures. Anything is better than mud. So thanks a lot. Appreciate this project. It's good. It's definitely needed in that area. All right. With that I will entertain a motion.
52 I move to recommend to council to authorize initiation of negotiations of a necessary condemnation proceedings.
53 Second there we go. Moved by councilor Novick, seconded by the vice chair. We can do a roll call vote.
54 Thank you.
55 Pirtle-guiney I.
56 Novick I.
57 Zimmerman I.
58 And the motion is approved with three I and zero no votes.
59 Great. Thanks a lot.
60 Thank you.
61 Okay, when we're ready for item three to come up, which is actually I'm going to brief once cully. What we're going to do here is there are several items that fall in the same category of these foreclosures. I'm going to have the team present on all of these together, and have the clerk read them all in. My intent at the end is to take a motion to adopt all of these. If you have one that you would like to pull out separately, I'd ask that you flag that so that we can have a separate vote on that one. But I anticipate this is likely to be unanimous for items four, five, six, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12. So just keep that in mind as we go through this presentation. Okay.
62 Chair.
63 Yep.
64 You just named a series of items that are not inclusive of all of the foreclosure items. Does that mean we're going to hear that some are pulled back? Yes.
65 Okay. You're going to hear three and seven got pulled back or referred. We'll deal with those later.
66 Great.
67 Thank you.
68 Great. Okay, Clark, let's you read the item in.
69 And to be to be clear, I'm going to read the non-preferred items. So item three and item seven have been referred back to the mayor's office.
70 Great.
71 Okay. Item four, initiate foreclosure action on 1541. W I s.w. Market street for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property. Item five initiate foreclosure action on 1140 southeast 139th ave for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property. Item six initiate foreclosure action on 1541 southwest market street for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property. Item eight initiate foreclosure action on 1810, southeast east cesar chavez boulevard for the collection of delinquent liens. City liens placed against the property. Item nine initiate foreclosure action on 1822 southeast cesar chavez boulevard for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property. Item ten initiate foreclosure action on 3821 northwest saint helens road for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property. Item 11 initiate foreclosure action on 5130 southeast 84th ave for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property, and item 12 initiate foreclosure action on 8315 north wayland ave for the collection of delinquent city liens placed against the property.
72 Thank you. Rebecca. Okay, we'll hand it on over. Go ahead.
73 Good morning, chair.
74 Zimmerman and vice chair pirtle-guiney and councilor Novick. My name is thomas lanham. I'm the revenue division director. Joining me is kevin foster, our foreclosure prevention manager, because we prefer not to foreclose, but we have to do that sometimes. We're here before you today to begin the foreclosure proceedings against eight vacant properties that are in extreme duress and are eyesores in their neighborhoods. These properties are on chronic violation of city ordinances around fire life safety, or are in disrepair and have visible trash, debris, and graffiti on the property. Code enforcement staff with the bureau of permitting and development and the revenue division have been working with the owners of these properties for years to rectify these code violations. The owners have generally not cooperated with city staff to remedy the violations and have fallen into arrears in their lease payments. Many of these properties are located in residential neighborhoods and are causing significant problems for neighbors. They are typically also the subject of multiple calls to the Portland police bureau. The foreclosure prevention manager has reviewed each property to ensure it meets the criteria for foreclosure, and he's also reviewed whether any aggravating or mitigating conditions exist within the case history that would prevent the city from moving forward with foreclosure or warrant an adjustment to the lien amounts the property owners have received notifications of pending foreclosure action on at least five of the eight properties. There appears to be camping or other unauthorized occupation. If foreclosure is approved by city council, we will work with Portland solutions to assist in providing services and alternative shelter options if needed. We have staff available from the Portland permitting and development bureau, as well as the city attorney's office and the city treasurer, all of whom have roles in this process. Should any questions arise in any of those areas. And with that context, I'll wrap up and I'll invite kevin to walk you through a brief presentation, including some details about each of the eight properties.
75 Good afternoon. Councilors, start by stating my name, kevin foster. I am the foreclosure prevention manager for the city. I want to start out by giving a high level overview and some background information about the city's foreclosure program. It started back in 2016 with the mayor's office to address vacant and distressed properties with the intent to mitigate the problems these properties create in the communities that they are in. When the liens are forwarded, when the liens are forwarded to the revenue division for collection, we make several several attempts to engage the property owner to correct the violation at the property so the case can be closed and the property returned to productive use. After case closure, we will work with the owner to clear the balance owed. If property owners are non-responsive and or unwilling to work with us, we use foreclosure as a last resort. This is the team that works on foreclosure, Portland permitting and development recommend properties to the revenue division for foreclosure consideration. These properties have code enforcement and nuisance liens on them. The liens are generated from verified community member complaints. The city attorney reviews each property and advises if there are any legal barriers that would prevent us from foreclosing on the property. Revenue division reviews. The delinquent account, sends out letters, and makes attempts to engage the owner in resolution I. I review the referrals provided and recommendations from Portland permitting and development and the and our city attorney's office to determine which properties we should move forward to submit to council. The city treasurer handles all the processes for conducting the foreclosure sale. This slide just shows some characteristics of the of our foreclosure referrals. One thing I do want to highlight is vacant and distressed properties with uncorrected violations tend to worsen over time. The longer they sit neglected, the worse the outcome and impact is on the community in which they are in. When owners are willing to correct the violation and bring the property into compliance, we have options. We have options available to work with them. One of them is the lean reduction review program. After the case is closed, owners can apply to have the balance owed reduced after the after the reduction. If the owner is not able to pay the balance in full, we can work with them on a payment plan. We can offer a payment plan up to 60 months. In cases of hardship. We offer hardship payment plans that last 12 months. In that 12 months, the owner the owner would only pay the interest and the billing charges for engaged property owners. Sometimes they just need time to bring the property into compliance. In those cases, we offer waiver of fees for a period determined by Portland permitting and development to allow time for this. There is also flexibility to for us to accept reasonable arrangements between revenue and the property owner for resolution. There are a total of eight properties being recommended for foreclosure consideration. The properties are located across all four districts. The combined total of liens is 36 and the amount owed is $432,000. The next two properties I'm actually going to present together the address is 1541 southwest market street. There are seven liens against the property. The property is located in district four. Delinquent since 2024, and roughly $36,000 owed. Next property. This is the legal address 1540 1wi the w I just means west of interstate southwest market street. There's one lead against the property. Property is located in district four. Delinquent since 2024, with $9,100 owed. This property was formerly a medical a medical office building. It has been vacant for the last five years. The current owner is the lender, who foreclosed on the prior owner in June of this year. This property has fire damage from six fires, believed to be caused by the unlawful occupants who were on site. The property property is covered in graffiti. The property has an accumulation of trash and debris on site. There have been complaints regarding the unlawful occupants that are on site, threatening people who are walking by the property. The next property is located at 3821 northwest saint helens road. There are two liens against the property. The property is located in district four. Delinquent. Since 2020 for $22,000 is owed. This property is an abandoned warehouse. We have been unable to reach the owner. The property is owned by an llc. The owner has not responded to our letters and we've. We've tried skip tracing for contact information but have not been successful. The secretary of state's website shows the llc as an active. This property is covered in graffiti. There's excessive trash and debris on site, and there are unlawful occupants camping in an rv on the property. Next property is located at 5130 south east 84th avenue. There are seven liens against the property. The property is located in district one. Delinquent. Since 2020, $118,000 is owed. The property owner lives out of state. As you can see from the picture, this property has excessive trash and debris. There are unlawful occupants on site. Unpermitted work has been done to the garage and other areas of the house. In 2023, there was a fire at the property causing damage to the roof, leaving it exposed to the outside elements. I also want to note that there has been 71 police calls to the property, with the majority of these calls being for crime and disorder. The next property is located at 8315 north wayland avenue. There are five lanes against the property. The property is located in district two. Delinquent since 2023, $38,000 is owed. This property was referred to the extremely distressed properties enforcement program. Properties referred to this program have chronic nuisance and housing violations complaints. Property referrals to this program come from the the police bureau and the district housing inspector. This property has complaints for unlawful occupants, excessive trash and debris on site. This property is in a repetitive cycle. The city incurs costs by sending contractors out to clean the property and remove the and remove the trash and debris, and because the occupants are the unlawful occupants are still there. The trash and debris is returned. This property is currently the owner is deceased and this property is in probate. The son of the owner lives out of state. I am working with him on a payment plan to allow time for probate to go through the long term goals for them to, once the probate goes through, is to sell the property. The next property, these next two properties I'm going to present together as well. The address is 1810 southeast cesar chavez boulevard. There are four lanes against the property. The property is located in district three. Delinquent since 2023, $65,000 is owed. The next property is located at 1822 southeast cesar chavez boulevard. There are two liens against the property. The property is located in district three, delinquent since 2023 with $34,000 owed. These two properties are owned by the same llc. These properties were single family residence, which were which were torn down to build affordable housing. The work has not been completed. The permits have now expired and this is now a vacant lot with overgrown landscape and trash trash on site. Until recently, the owner has been unresponsive. As of last week, I had someone reach out to me that's saying that they're representing the owner and I'm going to work with them from now until we head to council to get some type, see if we can get some type of resolution so we don't have to move this property forward. The next property and final property is located at 1140 southeast 139th avenue. There are eight liens against the property. The property is located in district one. Delinquent since 2008. The amount owed is $111,000. This property has a long history of code violations. The driveway was expanded without the proper permits. There's complaints of abandoned vehicles and trash at the property. The current owner is u.s. Bank. They foreclosed on the prior owner earlier this year. They are in. They're working to have this property to sell this property. So as long as they're able to move that forward, we won't move forward with submitting it to council. Next steps in the city's foreclosure process. You will determine a date or whether we move forward with ordinances on the property. So I can present it to the full council. While that's going on, I'll continue to try and reach out to these owners to see what we can do to get them off this list. The property owners still have the right to pay off the amount that's owed, and we will remove them from the process. And then lastly, I'll present to city council. This will conclude my presentation and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
76 Great. Thanks, kevin. I'm looking to colleagues. If there are any questions for them go ahead. Councilor Novick.
77 Hi. This is more a process question or a couple of them, but there's no like specific triggers that lead to instituting foreclosure, right? It's not like the amount of the lien or the length of time of noncompliance. It seems to be largely, mostly based on how much of a nuisance the property is.
78 Exactly. Yes.
79 And if neighbors think that a property, local property is a problem property. What steps can neighbors take to put the city in a position ultimately to do this? Like they complain about code violations and that leads to liens that lead that ultimately leads to foreclosure?
80 Well, what they do is they can make complaints to Portland permitting and development, and then someone from their team will go out and just verify the verify the complaint. And then there's a process there where we give the owner time to correct the violation.
81 But then if they don't correct, then there's a fine. And that turns into a lien that could eventually lead to foreclosure. Yes. Okay. Thank you.
82 Thank you.
83 Thank you. Chair, I want to just note that it stands out to me that some of these properties have been delinquent for a much shorter period of time than many of the properties that we've considered before. Clearly, some of them have been properties where the neighbors have been struggling with them for far longer than the delinquency date. But I do think it's worth noting, as we try to balance. Ensuring that property owners can retain their properties and correct the problems with ensuring that we don't have problem properties in our neighborhoods, that the balance is a little bit different here. I'm wondering if you can share a little bit more about the conversations that you've had with the property in district two on north wayland avenue, when we have a property that's owned by an estate, I, I have a little bit of a higher bar that I want to see us make sure to meet in our work with the families, since that's often the the only, frankly, generational equity that that families are able to hold on to after a family member's passing.
84 Okay. So I've met with this property owner son and he is out of state, and we're working with him on a payment plan. And what's he's we don't want him to lose his property either. So we're going to do everything we can to work with him so that he does keep the property and is able to sell it. And I talked to him. I actually talked to him this morning, and I'm working out a new the past payment plan. He couldn't perform on it. He was behind a couple of payments. So I'm going to start a new payment plan with him. And as long as he gets that to us, by the time council votes, we'll remove it. We'll remove it from this list.
85 So this is a property that has had a payment plan before that was meant for a period of time, but then wasn't met any longer.
86 No, I actually sent out the payment plan to him in July, and he just wasn't able to make the payment until he I mean, he sent the payment in September, but it was short based on the terms of the agreement starting in July, and he's not able to bring that payment plan current. So I'm going to start giving him another opportunity.
87 And you think that between now and when we hear these in council, you'll have enough time to work that out.
88 Yes.
89 Okay. Thank you very much. Thank you chair.
90 All right. Just another kind of clarifying for the record kind of question. So if I'm one of these properties, I happen to be the owner and I, for whatever reason, am not able to respond to you, it becomes a point where you've made the choice now to come here and and say, hey, look, zimmerman's property at whatever place has $50,000 in, in liens against it. When we foreclose. And let's say the property is a $300,000 property when we foreclose, what does that look like? After the council takes action? And in terms of payment, making the city whole and also the, the, the owner, what does that look like?
91 We should just check and see if brigid o'callahan, she actually manages the foreclosure piece of this. Brigid, are you online?
92 There she is.
93 Yes, I am. Well, it's as you might imagine, it is very protracted legal process that we go through fairly stringent legal process. So it requires notices. And it just so I to make sure I understand your question. Your question is the process and and what happens with the former owner is that was that the nature of your question?
94 I'll say it more more clear. So if I owe the city $50,000 and that's what brings us to foreclosure, and then the city takes ownership of it and then sells it on the market. And $300,000 has gotten at an auction where that balance is in terms of I only screwed up for $50,000 worth, I didn't screw up for the whole thing. How does that work for the public who's not involved in this every single day?
95 Sure. What happens is that we work through, as I said, the notice process and the owner of the property or those with a recorded interest in the property. So that could be a lender, for example, up until the day the morning of the sale, they have the opportunity to pay that off. In your example, that $50,000 to pay that off. And then we remove it from the list. At no time does the city of Portland actually take ownership for the property. So I want to be clear about that. We are simply selling it through the foreclosure process, primarily to recoup the city's costs, in most cases, right to recoup the value of the lien if there are funds remaining after the city's liens are satisfied, then those funds are returned to the owner or those of record. So, for example, it might be a lender, the property that the funds would be returned to. So those with legal ownership of the property would would receive the funds. Any residual funds back.
96 Great. That's what I was hoping to hear you say. That's an important point as we go through these, is that we get our piece, but then any excess goes back to those others who are owed and then back to that owner of record. And I think that's an important piece here. I appreciate the the walk through of all these properties. I've either gone to all of them or I've done a google recon of all of them as well. And certainly a a host of nuisance. And so this isn't always the most fun part of the job, but it is in terms of the livability for the neighbors who are adjacent, incredibly important. And while I know that the property and code enforcement folks are not here in the in the room, I think that that that part of their job is incredibly important. And so I appreciate those who have stayed on them. If you look at the records, the years, we go back in terms of the work, and I know we have quite a high threshold before we really apply this stuff. And so that's not lost on me. And I am also aware that a lot of the property code compliance staff was asked to do their job with with little in terms of enforcement over previous years. And we're doing a little bit of catch up right now. And so that is becoming very clear and I'm glad that they're doing it. They're doing good work. The nuisances that we're going to abate simply by going through this in every one of the districts is is important. And between 9000 and 117,000 tells me that we are taking an individual look at every one of these and not just applying a rubber stamp. If you hit this threshold, therefore you go forward. So thanks for that. And with this colleagues, I just want to ask if anybody has a request that we pull these as separate questions. No. Vice chair chair.
97 I'm happy to move these forward as a group. I am noting that our colleague from district one is not here today, which means that we're moving forward to properties in district one without anybody at the dais who represents that district. So I would just ask that when these come forward at committee, we have the or at council rather all planned to note that and would ask that as chair if if you're comfortable flagging for her that we are moving to properties in her district with the group, I think that would put my mind at ease.
98 As opposed to doing this one by one.
99 Well, if we're moving it forward as a group and we don't have anybody from district one here to say, yeah, these ones in my district, I'm comfortable moving forward as well. Let's move them as a group. Let's just make sure we do our due diligence to make sure the district one folks know that there are two properties from their district in this group that we're moving forward.
100 Okay. I think by moving them in as a group, I'm just saving time in our vote today. I would expect that when they come to the full council, they'll be voted on one by one as well. Unless you have the same action as the presiding officer over that. But I would assume when we send them forward, they'll still be items four, five, six, eight, nine, ten.
101 My misunderstanding. I thought you were trying to combine them into one item. I'm not.
102 I'm not. I'm just a fan of. All in favor say I kind of stuff instead of doing this for eight items. Okay, thanks for that clarification. And yes, she she'll be aware. Of course she's got the materials as well. With that, I would certainly entertain a motion from the 1 or 2 of you. A motion to approve items four, five, six, eight, nine, ten, 11, 12 with a recommendation that they be passed by the council. Anybody want to take me up on that offer?
103 So moved.
104 All right.
105 Seconded.
106 Thank you. With councilor Novick moving and the vice chair seconding, we can do a roll call.
107 Vote pirtle-guiney. I Novick.
108 I.
109 Zimmerman I.
110 And with the motion is approved with three I votes and that's the motion to refer the ordinances. Document numbers 2020 five dash 33 two 2020 five. Dash 333 2025. Dash 334 2025. 336, 2025 337 2025 338, 2025, 339 and 2025. Dash 3402. City council with a recommendation that they be passed.
111 Great. Thank you clerk. Hopefully we saved a little bit of time there.
112 And I would like to note for the record, there is no one signed up for public testimony for any of these items.
113 Yes. Thank you. All right. With that, colleagues. Thank you. Make sure I'm not missing anything here. Okay. Our next meeting is going to be on Monday, September 22nd. And just to preview a little bit there, you'll hear something about our flood safety benefits fees. It has to do with some of the changes that we know in our some of our special districts, as well as more discussions of street vacation and surplus property. So a barnburner of a meeting coming up. Thanks for being here and we are done.
114 Thank you.