The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-02-25
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (17,701 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 Governance Committee session, per the transcript, opened Monday, February 24, 2025 (though the stored record lists the date as 2025-02-25), with roll call and a reading of the standard conduct statement. The first agenda item concerned a resolution establishing procedures for what items go to committee versus directly to full council, including exceptions for ordinances submitted by the Mayor or Auditor. Extended discussion addressed amendment language, including changing "city administrator" to "auditor," clarifying vague terms like "sufficient attention" and "balance of efficiency," and combining resolved clauses for clarity; a scrivener's error was also noted. Public testimony was received from a remote testifier raising concerns about protecting committee authority, public notice, and decision-making transparency, prompting the committee to pause further action on the resolution pending review of that testimony. Votes occurred on adopting amendments, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The second agenda item involved broader discussion of committee and council procedures, including how appointments to boards and commissions should be routed, the volume and efficiency of advisory bodies, and coordination with the Office of Community and Civic Life. Discussion also covered ordinance reading requirements, emergency clauses, and vote thresholds, with clarification provided by the city attorney. The meeting closed with a preview of upcoming budget coordination discussions and a note on future meeting dates.
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 Okay. Good afternoon.
1 I call the meeting of the governance committee to order. It is Monday, February 24th, 2025 at exactly 2:30 p.m. Keelan. Will you please call the roll?
2 Dunphy.
3 Here.
4 Pirtle-guiney. Here. Ryan. Here. Clark.
5 Here.
6 Koyama Lane.
7 Here. Lori, will you please read the statement of conduct?
8 Welcome to the meeting of the governance committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at. Agenda governance 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 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 you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent and virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
9 Thank you lori. All right. Today we only have two things on our agenda. The first is we'll consider whether we adopt a resolution pertaining to counsel and committee procedures in the context of determining what items come before committees, before full council consideration, and what items may go directly to counsel. And then we'll also have a committee discussion. There'll be some working together, brainstorming about general committee and council procedures and rules similar to last time. There'll be a lot of time for feedback and some workshopping. Keelan will you please read the first item?
10 Adopt procedure to establish what comes before council and committees. Thank you.
11 So colleagues, we discussed this topic at our first meeting and we discussed a draft resolution at that time using the feedback that you all provided, we composed a resolution, the resolution that you see before you today. And it is also submitted through council. So clerk does that. Could the public look at that right now then. Is that up. Okay. So it's on the agenda. So we're here for the first reading of it to discuss the resolution here, public testimony if there is any, and propose amendments. My understanding is our committee vote could happen today or at a future meeting. And in short, the resolution states that ordinances and resolutions will usually go to a committee first. And there are some exceptions. The resolution outlines those exceptions, and I did submit an amendment to this resolution.
12 Do you want to put that in the. I'll put that into the record.
13 Yes. Could I vice chair could I have a motion?
14 Yes. Sorry. Where are we? Right here. Madam chair, I'd move to adopt the amendments into item 2025. Dash 037.
15 Councilor Ryan moves to adopt the amendments to item 2025037. May I have a second?
16 Second.
17 Were you supposed to ask for a second? Is that okay? Yeah, yeah.
18 Okay. Okay.
19 It's so just it's been moved in second.
20 Okay. So this move has been moved by councilor Ryan and seconded by councilor Dunphy. Is there any discussion? My colleagues. Let's see.
21 Have it. Do you have it? Okay.
22 Very good.
23 Yeah. So, colleagues, I printed out for you which folks can also the public can also see online the proposed amendment with the strikethrough and underline. Councilor Clark, did you have something you'd like to say?
24 Well.
25 Are you ready for feedback?
26 Absolutely.
27 Okay, so I just had some questions. So on the second, be it further resolved, this is about ordinances. So who exactly pulls it out of committee. This is an exception may be made if the council president, the chairs of the appropriate committee and the council are submitting an ordinance. All agreed that the topic under consideration in the ordinance has received sufficient attention in committee or council discussions, and the balance of efficiency prevails. So how does it actually get pulled out of or forward? Does the council president do that or. What's the actual process?
28 Councilor is your question. Who would be the one pulling it?
29 Yeah.
30 How does it how does it get pulled?
31 Council president the chairs and the councilor. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
32 I believe.
33 That this is all about whether something goes to committee or not. Not pulling it out of committee. We have provisions elsewhere that four people can pull something from committee. I think that this is saying that it wouldn't be sent to committee if those individuals all agreed that it didn't need committee attention for those reasons.
34 Okay. And, madam chair, may I continue?
35 Yes, please.
36 So in the next, be it further resolved, if an ordinance is submitted by the mayor or the or the auditor, the council president and committee chair may decide to make an exception in consultation with and upon receiving notice to the submitter. I had a note to myself on what basis? I'm not sure I know what I was talking about. I guess my general sense is that I just wondered if we need more definition here receive sufficient attention. It's pretty general. Balance of efficiency prevails. Okay, I can go with that, but. I mean, what basis do you make that decision? Is it just on the balance of efficiency? Everybody agrees that it's gotten a lot of attention. It's just it's just kind of seems kind of amorphous to me. It's very general. I guess I'm looking for more definition I. And maybe it's not possible.
37 Councilor Clark, are you looking for more definition on the piece where it says all agree or sorry? Can you tell me clarify again which part feels a little mushy?
38 I made a note to myself on the second or the third, be it resolved, that they may decide to make an exception in consultation with and upon giving notice to. So on what basis do they make that decision? Is that in the earlier be it resolved based on sufficient attention, the balance of efficiency, is that that.
39 Is I'm hearing that.
40 That's it.
41 You are wondering if there could be more clarification there about how that exception is made?
42 Yeah, I'm just looking at is there any any more we can any more definition we can offer to this.
43 I also realized I was supposed to speak to the amendment first. Is it okay? And I didn't do that because okay. If I say a little bit okay. So colleagues, there's an amendment that I'm bringing before you because the auditor's office reviewed the resolution and asked that their office be included in the second, be it further resolved. So at times the auditor has items that need to go to council in an expedited manner. So in this amendment, I also removed city administrator and left in the mayor. This is because the city administrator serves under the mayor. Also encode. The mayor is listed as someone who can bring items directly to council, but the city administrator is not. I decided to lean into keeping this resolution language consistent with city code. That code is 3.02.020. Council agenda section. Section b item submission. Do we have some hands up? Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.
44 In thinking about the comments councilor Clark raised, I'm wondering if it would make sense to pull the language in the second resolved clause into the third resolved clause as well. To say that the council president and committee chairs agreed that the topic under consideration in the ordinance ordinance had received sufficient attention, and the balance of efficiency prevailed, that they could make an exception in consultation with, and upon giving notice to the submitters, and perhaps that language in number two is still too squishy for the councilor. But if that were sufficiently defined that we might just pull it down to number three so that we have clear consistency between the two.
45 I think that would help a little bit. If you don't mind having a dialog here. I guess what it says to me is just judgment. It's just based on the judgment on on what the council president at all feel is sufficient attention. What you feel is the balance of efficiency and timing. I guess I just have to be happy with the fact that I trust your judgment that you're going to make the right decision when you decide to, to bypass the committee or whatever.
46 Well, and I think not just me, but whoever is after me, because I, I think that things should go to committee, with very few exceptions. I also think that there will be emergencies where we need to have exceptions, which is why I'm comfortable when it's somebody else in that council president, chair having some exception language like this. You know, I think if folks want to tighten it up, I certainly wouldn't be opposed to that. I'll just note that for the record. But I do think it's important to have some standards laid out, but also room for, you know, our our committees meet once every other week generally. So if we don't have a little bit of room, then if we have emergencies come before the city where we're going to be stuck.
47 I appreciate that. Can I ask one more question? So on the be it further resolved on the last part of the of the page, a resolution that does not create a procedure or other direction for council work and does not affect policy, or that is received sufficient attention in committee or council discussions, and where the balance of efficiency prevails, may bypass committee deliberation. So do you foresee these are primarily messages or you know, I think we talked earlier about this is that in lieu of a proclamation, we have a resolution. It's more of a message or a political statemen. Or what do you foresee as something that does not create a procedure or other direction for council, does not affect policy.
48 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
49 Well, the one that we've seen so far this year was the mlk day resolution, talking about the importance of that day to the city. And I think you see the same language, as is noted for ordinances. Plus the addition of that does not create a procedure or other direction. Without suggesting that we would do things like that more often, because proclamations are the jurisdiction of the mayor. I would suggest that there could be things like that, in that it didn't create a policy that needed to be discussed. The resolution was, in essence, a vehicle for having a statement from council and that things like that might come straight to council.
50 Thank you.
51 That's in line with what I was thinking too. Now that proclamations are not actions from council, that this is that is where that could apply. Councilor Ryan.
52 Yeah. Thank you, madam chair. I should have asked this. Of course. The few times we've talked about this. But I have to hear why we decided at this moment. It's hitting me why this is being brought up as a as a resolution as opposed to an ordinance.
53 From my understanding, because this is a brand new form of government, we are building almost the rules book.
54 Yeah.
55 If we need to change something in code, it would be an ordinance. If it's not a code change, it's something that we can do. More as a rule or resolution. We will also have some flexibility there to try it and see how things are working and adjust it. Because as this these different resolutions that we pass or this rules handbook, we're kind of creating, while it can be changed, we could also be setting up what electeds are doing 100 years from now.
56 Yeah.
57 So I think in terms of.
58 Like this answer, I just thought for the public record, since we are talking about something pretty important, which is how to bring ordinances and such to the council for its eventual passage, I just wanted to make sure we had another chance to explain why this is a resolution as opposed to an ordinance.
59 Yeah.
60 It's almost like we're building our administrative directives as opposed to policy. And that makes sense because we have a lot of urgency about providing some guidance, but we haven't had enough lived experience with it. To be 100% certain is where I'm coming from.
61 Thank you for bringing.
62 That to.
63 Perhaps, maybe I was trying to make it digestible.
64 Well, I.
65 I think that's great for the public to see and explain to. I know, you know, a couple of months ago I was wondering and really needed someone to kind of help me draw out, you know, we have ordinances and code. I'm looking to my colleagues to see that this is correct. Rules and resolutions. And then we can also have, you know, also some some letters of understanding with the mayor too. So they're kind of these different levels and options. And I.
66 Love the.
67 Hand gestures. Yeah it helped. Yeah.
68 I just want to make.
69 Sure we have that dialog.
70 Are you still in the queue.
71 Or is that okay?
72 Councilor Dunphy.
73 Thank you.
74 Madam chair. From a, I'm looking at this from a less substantive, more stylistic standpoint. These the first two, be it further resolved, the one that's beginning is saying an exception may be made if the council president dot dot, dot and the one that is being amended on here, the second one feels as though it is directly referencing the. I mean, I'm going to say the, the third resolved feels like it is. It is referencing the first resolve, but it's stylistically it feels like it should be an entirely. Each resolve needs to be a separate subject. And so therefore it almost feels like these should be combined into one resolved. Which we could do. And it feels it feels a little bit duplicative, I guess, is what I'm saying here. We have that vague, that relative vagueness in terms of judgment, but also this is saying that an exception will exist and then also an exception will exist. Also, I'll just note that there's a scrivener's error on the very last. Be it resolved, there's a double period at the end.
75 Thank you councilor.
76 But I think we could I think we could combine these into one one resolved section and accomplish the same thing with a little bit less of the. Or we'd have to add a little additional language to the third one, like, you know, may decide to make an exception in in referring to the appropriate committee or something along those lines, because it doesn't actually have the I mean, taken by itself. This resolved does not explain what it's actually talking about.
77 So colleagues, if let's see if I can capture what I heard, I heard in the be it further, be it resolved for the first paragraph and the third paragraph, councilor Dunphy is saying they seem a little bit there's some repetition and maybe those could be.
78 The second and the third.
79 The second and.
80 The third.
81 So the, the first one being, therefore, be it resolved, ordinances will be considered in committee before coming to a council. That is a complete idea. The be it further resolved, an exception may be made if the council president and chairs of the appropriate committee and the councilor Submitting ordinance, all agree that the topic under consideration of the ordinance has received sufficient attention to the. That is a complete idea, but this one says if an ordinance is submitted by the mayor or the auditor, the council president and committee chairs may decide to make an exception in consultation with and upon given notice to the submitter. That feels like a continuation of the second one. Just expanding to say that this also includes the auditor and the mayor. And I also just don't. I'm not really clear if it's necessary. It feels like it's just almost saying the exact same thing.
82 But maybe specifying auditors.
83 Calling out the mayor and auditor as submitters in the in the chain of communication and decision making makes sense. But. I think we could even. Thinking out loud as I'm saying this, but I think we could even just simply strike. Turning at the balance of efficiency prevails, period. If we struck and be it further resolved and turn that into a new sentence if an ordinance is submitted by the mayor.
84 Take out the be it further resolved.
85 Yeah.
86 And then just expand that into a relatively long but more thorough.
87 I wonder if that. Connects with what councilor Clark was talking about too, about wanting to make sure the same details that are in that second, be it further resolved, are are connected to that following paragraph.
88 Councilor Clark.
89 I actually thought that councilor Pirtle-guiney was recommending that. Were you recommending combining the two? I think.
90 I was recommending pulling the language from the second to the third, but I think that councilor Dunphy's suggestion is much cleaner to just get rid of the and be it further resolved, so it says, and the balance of proficiency prevails. Period. Capital I if an ordinance is submitted. Yeah, right. I think that's a much cleaner way to get at it.
91 And Clark, would we need to make an amendment to the amendment? No. Okay.
92 No, the amendment hasn't been motioned yet. So you can make all the edits you want to and then make a motion.
93 To vice chair Ryan.
94 Oh, you did move it.
95 We haven't passed it.
96 Okay, so then I think then you can continue to make friendly amendments to the motion, and then we can vote on it.
97 Yeah. Buckle up. I think we'll have a new a few edits here.
98 Yeah yeah yeah.
99 Then I would, I would move that we in the amendment strike the words strike the semicolon and strike the. And in the second, be it further resolved and then strike the words, be it further resolved from the third and combine that into one single resolved section.
100 Second.
101 This motion has been moved by councilor Dunphy and seconded by me. Councilor Koyama Lane. Do we have any other discussion?
102 Yes.
103 Can I ask one more really simple question. On the next page, reports may go to council or committee depending on the type of report, direction and code or charter. And it's that's up to the council president to assign. I'm just checking.
104 The way that our code currently works. Is that any item submitted by a councilor is referred to the committee of that councilors choice, or if they don't specify, then the council president can choose to send it to full council or to a committee of the council president's choice and any item brought to council by the auditor or the mayor is referred to full council or to a committee based on the president's direction. So I believe that this would just default to that language.
105 Would the scrivener's error on page two need to be included as the amendment, or is that just a code cleanup.
106 That you mean the double period? We can consider that a scrivener's error.
107 Thank you. Yeah.
108 Keelan do we have any public testimony?
109 Yes, we have two people signed up. Would you like to hear? Okay. First up we have terry harris joining us online.
110 Terry.
111 Can you hear me?
112 We can hear you.
113 Okay, great. Thank you. I yeah, this is terry harris. I'm from hillsdale. I would have been there, except I've got whatever bug is floating around. And so I'm home instead. I have some written comments that have covered some of the territory that you've talked about so far, and more territory. And I just at this point, strongly urge you to read the comments. I have very specific concerns about the drafting, similar to what councilor Clark mentioned. And councilor Dunphy mentioned. And then I've got some other bigger points that I think I need to make here. If you're building a strong committee system, you're going to have to defend that committee system. And if you're looking for efficiencies, you need to build the efficiencies into the committee system, not create workarounds, which is what this is what you're trying to do. It's bad practice and you will fall into it and never get out of it. So I'd urge a reconsideration of that. All of this needs to be in the context of protecting the public's right to notice, and right to be meaningfully engaged and meaningful. Comment. So oftentimes these things are a way to shunt political, public comment away from committees where we want more of it. Again, you need to protect your committees because they're they're very important to this form of government. Finally, and just schematically, these sorts of decisions need to be made in public, not by agreement in the back room. By between councilors or or whatever. Most legislatures have a have a process that you refer it to a committee or don't refer it to a committee. But then you can suspend the rules and have a vote of the council to decide to, to bring it up immediately. That is a better process. That's the more common process. And I'd urge you to consider that instead of deciding behind the scenes, if we have agreement to go to full council or not. And then I have a ton of drafting suggestions for you, and I would urge you to slow down, consider them. And in the last 30s, let me just I don't think this has to be a resolution. You know, you can build this as guidance as you build your rule book. You can staple these guidances together. And then because all these rules have to work together, consider them together later. That's what you sort of decided at your first full meeting. And I hope that's still the plan.
114 Thank you. Any questions?
115 Next up we have alan kessler. Alan. Okay. That completes testimony.
116 Okay. That was.
117 Helpful for me to hear some public testimony. I know I believe that we are pretty united in wanting to protect committees and for the bulk of the work to be able to happen in committees and for there to be public input. From what I understand. This amendment came up. So there is a process for things going to committees first rather than straight to full council. But there might be something that I'm not totally understanding because I don't know if I completely understood how that would be impeded. Councilor Clark.
118 Thank you, madam chair. I didn't have an opportunity to see what mr. Harris's put forward, and given that he was instrumental in the attack and the government transition advisory committee, I would really like to have an opportunity to consider what he's offered. And I. And slow this down a little bit, if that's possible. I mean, he's he's really talking about a balance of power. And I appreciate that, he noted I was trying to get at the not I wouldn't call it backroom. He called it back room. But maybe having more light on on what these actions. So I would like an opportunity to review what mr. Harris has offered. And just given that he spent a tremendous amount of time studying this transition and looking at other how other governments do this kind of thing, and he is a member of the public. I like an opportunity to pause if possible. I don't know if we do that today or if you're wanting to fast track this, but I don't I don't really feel a tremendous amount of pressure to hurry up. But I would really like to see what he had to offer. Thank you.
119 Thank you, councilor Clark. And another thing to highlight that I did hear in that public testimony is the idea of not necessarily needing to pass all these resolutions, but putting these ideas together and coming with coming up with some sort of agreement of our recommendations. And then once our rule book is a little bit thicker, then and then we've been able to try some of those resolutions to those rules or those possible resolutions, then passing those all, all at the same time. Councilor Dunphy.
120 Thank you, madam chair. Reading through mr. Harris's testimony, I actually I do agree with him about the idea of the suspension of rules and publicly making a decision to refer something to the full council rather than a committee. I think that that rather than trying to get into a section, we're trying to define, define what a powers and exceptions may be, simply just letting the body make that decision. It makes a lot of sense to me, reading through the specifics of his testimony, looking at the now therefore be it resolved recommendation, I feel like this is a little bit style over substance. I'm not really sure that this meaningfully moves it in a different direction of having sub bullets within a single resolved. But I would be interested in reading through this a little bit more carefully and moving something forward at this point. And he also raises some interesting questions about some of the specific language that is. Not necessarily problematic, but has the potential to be in the future. So I really appreciate the input. And. General thoughtfulness about this. So that's all.
121 Councilor Dunphy. Did you find it under written testimony? I'm trying to find.
122 Oh, yeah.
123 I it is under written testimony for agenda items. And then. 25 or 2020 5-037.
124 Okay. So you have to just scroll down.
125 Yeah.
126 There it is. Councilor vice chair. Ryan.
127 Yeah.
128 Thank you, madam chair. I appreciate the testimony as well. I also think what we're trying to do is provide guidance, and it seems like some of our colleagues that are working hard in our committees are waiting for this guidance. And I, I'm going with the flow to not have it be so formal that it's a rule. But we're we're trying to provide some guidance. And we landed here. So I haven't read the testimony. Sorry, I just heard about it and I didn't think you a student. Councilor Dunphy, for navigating that. But if you all want to look into more of that detail, maybe we take a recess and I'll read it. I don't I don't know, but my point is, we're building something here, and it seems like that we have colleagues that are waiting for some guidance on how to move things from their committees to the regular council. And I think there is some urgency on that. From what I've been hearing.
129 Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
130 I am happy to take some time with this, if that's what folks prefer. I do agree with councilor Ryan that the more direction we can give to councilors in how to operate their committees, and that we can give to council as a whole, because some of the procedures that we will be considering affect council's operations as a whole, not just committees, the better. I would offer, and it's imperfect because it involves us moving from the discussion here, knowing that the council as a whole could make changes. But I would offer that if the committee is interested in gathering a few things to move forward at once, rather than doing it piecemeal. I would be happy to amend the direction that I have given to committee chairs and amend the loose structures that we're working within, in those places where we don't have formalized structures yet to reflect where we are in our conversations here. As long as everybody knows that, that means that there may be further adjustments as things get to full council. But I wonder if that provides us a little bit of time to continue our work, while also being responsive to the rest of our colleagues.
131 Councilor Clark, are you suggesting. I'm not sure I follow you? Are you suggesting that we wait and bundle some things together and pull them out?
132 I'm not suggesting that the testifier suggested that, and I wasn't sure if the interest in waiting was specifically about this piece, or about being responsive to that call to bundle things.
133 I am interested in slowing this piece down. Okay. Personally, and I don't feel given the subject area here, I don't feel the urgency on this particular piece. I feel urgency around the budget direction because that's really hitting us right away. But I feel like this piece can wait. This particular piece. Thank you.
134 I'm hearing from quite a few colleagues that. Does anyone still have a hand up? I see, hands up. But sure that waiting a bit might be fine. And we still have all this language now. So as we talk about more things, we can be keeping them together, and we can bundle it or decide to come back to it. But it seems like there's agreement that folks want to. I mean, I agree also, I this is a long document that terry put a lot of time into, and I'd like to look at it. I wanted to share my perspective as council vice president, who, you know, big chunk of my work is meeting with council president and supporting her. And what I have seen is that some language, not not an ordinance, but but whether it's a rule could be helpful at times for when some councilors don't want to send something to committee, they just want to go straight to full council. So that is what I have seen as as there being a need for it to be clear that you at least try to do the work there first. I don't know if you'd like to speak to that or add on to it.
135 I think at this point we have started to create a precedent of sending things to committee, which I appreciate. And with that beginning of a precedent, I never like to say we should bind ourselves to things that haven't passed yet. But if we think that this committee's proposal to full council will be to continue to move in the direction of sending most things to committee, which is what this resolution moved us toward, and I believe what the testifiers testimony also would move us toward. In fact, perhaps even more so if everything is pointing in the direction of continuing the precedent that we've begun to set. I am comfortable continuing to work with councilors to move in that direction. I feel like everything is lining up that way, so we don't have things pulling us in different directions. And we can take our time on this.
136 Great. And a bit of a time check. We've spent about eight minutes more on this than we had planned. It seems clear that we're not ready to pass a resolution, do we? Does it still make sense to adopt the amendments, or where do we go from here? Keelan.
137 I don't know. I actually like to look to our city attorney, robert taylor, to weigh in on that.
138 Motion.
139 For the record, robert taylor, city attorney first, great conversation. Second. I think I've said this before. Terry's been terrific throughout this process, even in 2024. So I just wanted to I'm sure he's listening. So I wanted to say that for his benefit. The motion that has been made in seconded makes the change from city administrator to auditor and also makes the change that councilor Dunphy suggested in the be it resolved. So if you want to just vote on that, have that be in the that amendment be adopted. And then you can take time to further consider that might sort of close the discussion on this today.
140 So the hour or the or we have to table it. Right. Those are two choices.
141 Or you could you could adopt the amendment today and just take no further action. Right. And then essentially you could take it up again at a future meeting. I don't think you need a motion to table formally.
142 So the document's just evolving. And it's added this.
143 Correct.
144 Adopt the work we did today.
145 Yeah. So the motion is still on the floor. It's been moved in second. And we've had discussion. And we did a second. Did we do the second amendment to the amendment.
146 Yeah we.
147 Were able to add that in.
148 Will the clerk please call the roll.
149 Thank you robert.
150 Thank you Dunphy.
151 I pirtle-guiney.
152 I.
153 Ryan.
154 Hi, mark.
155 Hi, Koyama Lane.
156 Hi. The motion carries and the amendments are adopted. Okay. I look forward to picking that back up later. Thank you so much for our public testifier. That was helpful. All right. Keelan, will you please read the second item?
157 Item two. Council and committee. Procedures and rules.
158 Okay, so. I sent you all agendas. Next time, I'll print those out for you too. I don't. All right. So I'm going to be talking about. The. The second piece on the agenda number one. So now we're moving into more discussions about what is going to help this form of government work. Well. So, colleagues, you may recall we discussed this topic at our first meeting. At that time, we had a draft document published that said, in short, appointments to volunteer city engagement groups will have a hearing in the governance committee. I decided actually not to move forward with a first reading of a resolution at this time, because I want us to spend more time on this framing question that I emailed to you on Friday. The framing question is should procedure out? Should procedure outline that we hold council hearings on appointments in governance, committee in policy related, the related policy committee, or have some sort of system that allows for both. So in some cases, policy committees may be able to hold more in-depth topic topic specific hearings on appointments to things like oversight boards. It as I thought more about this, it made sense to me that if it is an appointment that is related to climate change, that it could make sense for folks in the climate resilience land use committee to be the ones that have the public testimony and or that that flows through their committee. So my goal right now is to have further discussion to give more direction. That could be for possibly drafting a resolution that maybe comes before us, or maybe is bundled with other resolutions. So it could move on into a first reading in an upcoming governance committee, or be part of this, this bundle that we're that we're talking about. Councilor clerk.
159 Thank you. And I appreciate your thinking about this, madam president or chair. I like your thinking. I, I can see it going to a substantive committee, but then after they have a discussion and maybe there's a lot more detail. You're looking for somebody like freight mobility, which we talked about today and transportation committee. Then does that if they approve that appointment does it then go to the full council? It does. Okay. So I like your idea of going to a policy committee. And now that would be the council president who would make that decision. Where it goes. It may not always be really clear, straightforward, since we have a little bit of overlap in the committees. But I think it's a good idea when if we're looking for somebody specifically on, you know, using the transportation committee, a freight mobility expert or a safety expert or something like that, I think it makes a lot of sense. Thank you.
160 And one more thing that I wanted to add was, I know that a concern is that we only have two hours for this committee work, and there are a lot of these boards. And so it's possible that a lot of appointments could be sent to these policy committees. And so I'm open to hearing about some different ideas about ways that we could have it, have them the appointment go to the related policy committee. And then if the chair co-chairs decide they would like to send it to governance, that that's then when we could step in. I think we have a few different options there. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
161 I want to suggest a different frame for this, and I, I may end up being on the dissenting end of this one, and that's okay. But I, I started by thinking about what the role of council is on these appointments. And I think there's two different types of appointments. The bulk of appointments that we get are actually confirmations of recommendations that the mayor has brought forward for appointment. And then there will occasionally be times where we are directed as council to make appointments. And I think that those roles are really different. And I think that where we are in the role of making a council driven appointment, running through policy committee or even full council, depending on the topic at hand makes a lot of sense. We need to be thinking about the specific policy implications of our choices, and what direction we are trying to move as a council, and who will help bring the voices to the table that we're looking for, where our role is confirming the mayor's appointments. There's a balance because while we need to make sure that the mayor is not moving in a direction that council wholeheartedly disagrees with, we also need to be a little bit more hands off and respectful of the mayor's authority to bring us those recommendations, and where that's the case, I think that a conversation in governance allows us to have a vetting process, not just go on to the consent agenda at full council without council vetting. As was the practice at times, not always, but at times in the past. But it allows that space for us to maybe look more broadly at what are the themes that the mayor is bringing forward. Are there high level concerns? I think we can make sure it's posted with enough time that if our colleagues on other committees have concerns, they can bring those to us, and we can streamline those appointments so that the mayor can bring a few appointments at once, perhaps, and we can look through all of those rather than having this be piecemeal, spread out amongst all of the committees, a whole lot of different meetings. And then we get these reports to full council, where we have 5 or 6 reports for what could have been 1 or 2 reports for us to weigh in on at full council. And, and I think that that balance of respecting the mayor's authority while still having a vetting process to make sure that it's in line with what we are looking for, running through governance, and then things that are council appointments, running through policy committees. Makes sense to me the way I've been thinking about this work. I just wanted to offer that up.
162 Thank you. Councilor. Vice chair Ryan.
163 Thank you, madam chair. I think there's three things going on here. I think that I'm glad we rethought about this as well. I actually think content experts that are in the committee structure. It's really the admin and the bureau side that digs into these. They're the ones that have the knowledge of the content experts that they need. And I think they'll be mostly engaging with some one committee, some two committees. That'll be a whole nother conversation on who would vet that. That's my experience. And then there's the admin mayoral appointments that are more city wide and that's different. And so that's two. And I agree with everything that I was listening to by by you council president. And then I'll also say this, I think this could be a special task force. What we haven't done is what we needed to do when we were when we're transitioning. But now we're here and we packed everything up without sorting it through. So what we know is I'll just say it. I think we have too many boards and commissions and advisory committees, and it's also really tough to staff all of those. We never are caught up with the appointments. We kind of like in codes in general and what I dealt with in permitting, we have a tendency over the last 20 years that I can see at least of adding, adding, adding and never getting rid of the clutter. When we add and it's a good thing when you're doing efficiency work to not keep adding, but actually weed stuff out as you're adding. And we've done a bad job of that when we pass code and policy in general. And so now's the time to take a breath on that. So I think our biggest lift here is actually the third one, which is to do some efficiency work. I don't know who is on this amazing task force, but I do think it's a combination of working and partnering with michael jordan's team on some suggestions on this. And to do that project and with our budget challenge that we're in, this is connected. And so we have to look at where we can provide some efficiencies because the staff doesn't have the bandwidth to continue to staff all of these commissions and committees out there. So the third one is the one clearly I'm the most excited about, which doesn't mean I'm campaigning to be involved in the task force, but I probably will. But I'm just saying that I want to make sure we got that into the public record.
164 Thank you, vice chair. Ryan, is it okay if I speak a little bit to that?
165 Yeah.
166 So I, I know this has already come up at governance that we all want to make sure that we take some time to hit reset on these different volunteer boards and commissions and really make sure that we're valuing our community members, valuing their input, making good use of their time, having some standardization across all these different boards. It still, still is. I sometimes hear different numbers about how many of these exist. I will say I've got at. Last week I got to have two meetings with the help of the city assistant city administrator, set it up with the folks from office of community and civic life who are going to come and talk to us about how we can hit the reset and make sure that we are digging in and being efficient and just buckle up, because it sounds like the roadmap will likely be like 12 months, but it will involve there'll be a lot of different pieces to it, and I think those folks will even be able to come talk to us. And it's an important thing to think about because it is kind of it's thinking about the whole the whole picture here. And then specifically. Separating what committee these that these appointments are going to go to is also important. But yeah, vice chair Ryan and I will be working with this team from the city, and we'll be able to report back to councilor Clark.
167 Well, thank you for that. I am so happy to hear that because as the council president was speaking and I wasn't privy to this, I'm thinking, what about the volume? There must be a volume issue. So I'm really gla. And I really appreciate councilor Ryan's experience and wisdom on this, because I'm I'm not that familiar with it. You know, I know at the legislature we have sunset clauses and we have some standardization, but a lot of things just have a natural sunset date. And it sounds like we have never had that, at least on a lot of these committees. So the volume, it makes a lot of sense now to me, what you were actually offering council president. So I'm happy to hear there's a committee that's going to do some weeding out, if you will.
168 Councilor Dunphy.
169 What does that thank you.
170 Thank you. You know, I think that I'm I'm specifically thinking about what the. Madam president, what you laid out there about the difference between. Where we are affirming what the mayor has brought forward versus what we are actively appointing. And I'm thinking that there are a number of very specific high profile boards. For example, the mayor appoints the prosper Portland board, the planning sustainability commission, the Portland clean energy fund. These are some of the relatively high level that I believe right now are mayoral appointments that I cannot imagine. Prosper Portland, a new board members not getting a hearing. In arts and economy, for example. There are some probably weird ones that don't fit nicely into a policy area. The noise review board probably doesn't really fit nicely into any of the other ones. Maybe that is something that we're governance could serve as an overflow, but I do think that I the other big concern I have right now is that sometimes the there's a limited pool of candidates who apply to be on a board, and those nominations will sometimes end up, you know, if there's only one person who puts their application in, there's not a whole lot of vetting that actually went on at the executive level. I also am really concerned about wasting volunteers time making them appear before multiple committees or. Having to, you know, come downtown and show up in person. I still think it's really important to make sure that the person who is being appointed has an opportunity to be before us in some capacity, but I just want to make sure that we're not dragging them through a multi-month long process in order to serve as a volunteer on a board. My preference right now would be that, you know, based off of the conversation that that to the extent possible, we should probably refer appoint all. I mean, I think we should put appointments towards the policy committee with governance as a backstop for any where. It doesn't clearly align with any other committee. I still am personally of the opinion that after a committee hearing on an appointment, that those appointments should go on to the consent agenda. I know that some of my our colleagues do not agree with that, but I think that that is an important opportunity to simply make sure that we're moving these things along. And I also think it's incumbent on individual councilors to be able to reach out if I, you know, if a committee that I'm not on is hearing a appointment from somebody who lives in my district and is I don't otherwise have an opportunity to do that, it's incumbent on me to figure out if I'm comfortable with that, as it informs my vote on the consent agenda and not to try and make it another hearing or another extended process. So I think that there there is a careful balance there to make sure we are getting the right folks, but also volunteers, you know, sometimes amazing work that is being done by volunteers, but sometimes there's only a limited pool of people who can actually volunteer. So I'm not inherently trusting the vetting that comes up until the point. So there's a little bit of a rambling response. I'm done.
171 Thank you for that. Councilor councilor Pirtle-guiney.
172 I think councilor Dunphy's point about how we respect volunteers. Time is a really important one, and I'd like to suggest that as we formalize a procedure here, we note somewhere that we don't expect portlanders to show up at every step of the process, and that even if an appointment is pulled off of the consent agenda, I don't think that we should expect that at the last minute. Right. That that pull often happens at the last minute. I don't think that we should expect that a volunteer at the last minute is then able to show up for council, if they have been present for vetting in a committee, whether it's the governance or a policy committee. I think that that should suffice for council in terms of a conversation with them. And if the vote needs to be done separately so that a councilor or councilors can voice their opposition to a specific appointment, that should happen without somebody needing to come back to council.
173 I have a question for my colleagues. Is it possible that some of the volunteer members on these boards and commissions would then be advising some of the policy committees so that, to me does seem to make sense, then, that the time that that community member shows up before council members would be in the policy centered committee, especially if they might be working together, I know. That if someone were to come forward about public safety, I or for a commission or committee volunteer position for public safety, I'm not exactly sure that I would know all the right questions and know what they're talking about in that policy centered committee to ask. I do also agree that it can be tricky to know which ones of these are high profile, which ones are not. It also because we need to be doing a bit of a cleanup and reset of all of these, it's not even really clear. Which ones does the mayor appoint? Which ones are we? Part of that list isn't super easy to find. Another reason why I am leaning towards it. Going first or giving the chairs or chair an option to hear it in their policy centered committee is because I think that then it can go to the consent agenda. And I think rather than folks from that policy committee wanting to then talk about it more in front of the full council, I'm thinking if it does go through the policy committee first, there's more of a chance that our colleagues will be fine with it going on the consent agenda. And I really like the idea of if this becomes a formal resolution, having there be something in there about there's not not being an expectation, there not being an expectation that portlanders have to show up in person or have to be there for the for both parts of this. I'm wondering if we want to have any more discussion where folks are feeling or you're leaning councilor Clark.
174 I just think this is a great discussion. I just I'm actually pretty excited about it that because we are on the threshold of tremendous change and it's an opportunity to do this and to, you know, refine things, I just I think this is a great conversation. And I had actually written down consent agenda and didn't say it, but that's absolutely important because we don't have a sense for what that volume is. As committee chairs or committee members, we don't know what's coming at us. So also we can change this later to and we can always come back to it after we learn more about who's on first. So thank you so much for organizing this, madam chair.
175 Vice chair Ryan. Yeah.
176 Thank you, madam chair. Trying to be additive here. My experience with the content experts that the parks board does advise the director of parks, the dirac used to always advise the head of development services. And that's why we would have those in those committees. But I think until we. But then there's little ones like the floating homes, you know, that that's like a 1 or 2 people at that in that bureau really were dependent upon that. And that's why I think this inventory that we need to do, engaging with civic life leadership and with michael jordan's office, is something we probably need to get at sooner than later, or we won't get to efficiency. I'm not going to live with accepting that's going to take a year. I think that there's been a lot of thinking about this for a lot of years, and it's now just time to act. And so it would be great to get this moving along. And so I hope we once we know like how many there are and we get some initial feedback, we can have some goals about how many we can eliminate, what's the time, what's the consumption of time for all of the folks that work at the city to manage all of these, which ones overlap? It just it's really exciting to get towards that. But I think we I'm glad we had this conversation. I don't think they should all go through here. I do think the ones that matter, the ones that I think are the most helpful and additive to the public servants here, are those that are content experts, and I think they really are mindful in the bureaus to find people that are additive, that really help them think through these challenging issues.
177 Councilor Dunphy.
178 Yeah, I want to I agree with everything that councilor Ryan just said. I I'm really eager to have a, a, a more robust conversation with our colleagues at civic life to make sure that we can get a and if we have advisory bodies, they are staffed, they are supported. And when their recommendations come to a committee or to this body as a whole, that they are heard wholeheartedly. Too many of us have seen those examples where really well intentioned neighbors spend months and months working on really beautiful reports that end up sitting on a shelf in the city council has patted them on the head and said, thank you for your service. We're going to do whatever we want anyway. I think that through that process, I would like it to maybe what? Ideally, it would be fantastic if we can actually define some of these major policy recommendations or major policy committees that have a, you know, a higher standard, perhaps. I mean, yeah, you know, the yeah, the drac, the design review. I try not to use acronyms where I can the prosper Portland board, all these like higher level ones where they are volunteers that have serious consequences versus some of the ones that we've been staffing for generations, but simply just sort of exist under their own weight and nothing ever comes of it. And I know how frustrating it can be to be on an ineffective board. I was on the community police relations committee back in 2011. Incredible group of volunteers, community members, police officers, all in one space and accomplished absolutely zero in the six years that they existed. So I want to make sure that we're just we need to be really intentional and stop the past practice of calling everything a committee or a blue ribbon commission, or assume that wasting volunteer time is good governance. It's not. So I would rather have five committees that are really, really well serviced by the by the city system than have 300 that that all of their recommendations fall on deaf ears.
179 Go ahead vice chair.
180 Yeah agreed. And that's what's in code is all of those committees and advisory boards. So I, I can't wait for us to get to the bottom of that. Yeah, absolutely.
181 Thank you, vice chair. And we will not wait a whole year. I think it might be that there are a lot of different pieces to it. And so it might there might be some different phases, but let's let's get into it as soon as possible.
182 We could layer it.
183 And because what I hear is we want to make sure that all of folks that are volunteering feel like all of them matter. I can see where it can be tricky to decide which ones are higher level, high profile, but I do trust that with the office of civic life, community and civic life, that we'll be able to have some of those conversations and get a bit more specific for my notes and my chief of staff's notes that we're taking as we're going to take what we chat about here, and then we try to decide what we're going to do with it. Let me know if I'm not allowed to do this, but like, we'll just love to hear, like a bit of a poll. Can we kind of can we do that if we're not voting? Am I allowed to just say. How about I'll say it and then you tell me thumbs up or down? Is that what I'm hearing is there's a few different things we can say. All of these suggestions, appointments, they go through governance only, and then they go to council, or they only go to a policy related committee, and then they go to council or they go to governance. But policy committee chairs could say, actually, we want to see that. They could pull it. We need to make sure we give enough time for that or flipped on the other way. Flipping that around policy committees, they go directly to the policy related committee, and then governance can serve as a release valve. If those chairs or co-chairs are feeling like they don't, they don't need that to come to them. Or another idea is that okay to present those options like that in here?
184 Yeah.
185 As a discussion, just kind of here.
186 I like your hybrid.
187 Which one going to governance first going to the policy committee. Policy policy committee versus with governance as a release valve by the choice of the chair and co-chair.
188 Yeah, that's.
189 My preferred.
190 It could also be something as we're as we talked about the other resolution with terry that we are we'll try it. We'll we'll bundle these. We'll see how it's feeling and be willing to be nimble. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
191 I just want to ask a clarifying question with either of the hybrid models that you suggested, are both of those a one or the other, as opposed to going to both committees? Because I think in the name of time, going to both committees is very different than saying either a poll or a release valve, but it still only goes to one of them.
192 Great clarification. Thank you. It would be one or the other, and I very much agree that the volunteers should not have to come here more, more than once, and that we should write in something respecting that they could come online. And if it comes to consent agenda for full council, they don't necessarily have to be in person. Councilor Ryan.
193 It's just having a conversation about this. So adding on to that, their question, who decides where it goes? Is that in any of this then I just haven't found yet. So is it the well, let's have the conversation then, because we're really admiring this whole hybrid, but we haven't made any decisions on how we're going to manage it, which is why we're having such a wonderful meeting right now. Any thoughts? I mean, I assume it'd be the two people to the that are sitting here, but president and vice president of the board of the council.
194 Councilor pirtle-guiney your hands up. Did you want it to be up?
195 Yeah.
196 I think in the way that vice president and chair Koyama Lane laid out the option, it would be the chair of the committee who decides not either of us.
197 I was wondering, vice chair, were you asking who decides which policy committee? It's most closely related to?
198 Oh, that would be a different question. I'm sorry, is.
199 That your question, or are you asking about the release valve sending it to governance? Because, yeah, that in that case it would be the chair or co-chairs.
200 Someone has to make a decision, whether it goes to governance or to a policy committee.
201 It would be policy. So it would default to policy unless the co-chairs of public safety say, we'd like to kick this to governance. Our agenda is packed.
202 So would be the council president.
203 In this case. It the way that I hear you describing it, vice president and chair, is that the decision would be made by the policy committee chairs, that everything would go to policy committee, and a policy committee chair could say, I don't have time. I'm pushing this to governance, which means that as the chair of governance, your agenda could at times get packed with these.
204 How do they know.
205 That's too subjective?
206 So I.
207 Think, for example, an appointment comes through that's related to transportation infrastructure. So it's sent to you because you are the chair of that committee. And you might say, oh, I, I really want this to be on our committee agenda. We want to engage on this. And you can that will be the default.
208 The question is who who sends it to me.
209 To you, the president.
210 Okay. That's that's what I thought.
211 You the original question I was that's what you were asking. Oh the.
212 Original who sends it to the committee?
213 Yes.
214 That's you I apologize. So because this would be because appointments would be an item coming from the mayor, and items coming from the mayor are assigned to committee based on the direction of the council president. Then, yes, the council president would determine which the appropriate committee was to assign it to, obviously, within the direction here, to send it to a policy committee.
215 Okay.
216 Yeah. I mean, we're building so we're going to be editing this for a few years, I'm sure, but I think we won't really know until we start doing it. And so when we do the bigger picture assignment, which is cully, let's see, dissolving some of our committees and getting more clear about what ones we need, ones we don't like. If I was say I was a forester and we have a commission, right? The forestry, the tree, was it the urban forestry commission? If I was a if I was a public servant in leadership role of that, I would want to say so. And what we're talking about right now, and I think that's why we're so I vision the day that it would say each of say we have like one third. Let's just have fun of the amount of boards and commissions that we currently have, and we get to the point where it says this commission's process to appointment is this this commission's process is this. And maybe each one speaks to what the likely process is. Then I feel like it'd be less subjective on what a head of a committee is thinking, or what the president and vice chair is thinking, but it would formalize it into the infrastructure of the of the organization.
217 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
218 I would caution us against writing into the infrastructure of a board or committee, which or a board or commission at the on the administrative side, which council committee it goes to, because council committees could change in the future. And so whereas right now the city's board of forestry, is that what we call it? What do we call anyway?
219 Urban forestry.
220 Urban forestry. Thank you. Whereas right now urban forestry might go to climate resilience and. And land use. Thank you. I don't know why land use just befuddled me. Climate resilience and land use in the future. That might not be the name.
221 I like it.
222 I get what you're saying, that, yeah, I would probably always scrub the details of the said committee, but just say the appropriate content committee.
223 Got it.
224 But I think we're going to learn more as we build. This is what I'm trying to get at, like where our goal is to have some efficiencies, improvements, and the reason why we're having this long, fascinating conversation is because it's pretty messy right now. It was messy before January 1st, and now we have an opportunity to clean it up and make it more efficient. But I would hate to think that the content experts in the in the bureaucracy wouldn't be heavily involved in some of our thinking as we're building this. That's my point.
225 Thank you. Councilor Ryan.
226 Did you want to say anything else?
227 No.
228 Councilor Clark.
229 I am going to suggest that we may have enough information here to move on. Madam chair. And I was going to suggest, given the urgency of things, that we skip to three. Can we do that? That seems like it's more in our face right now.
230 We actually.
231 Yeah, we have we're right on time. At 350. Well, because we also pulled that other resolution off. We actually we're pretty good on time. So we have we start at 350, we have a good 30 minutes. And then for number three, it's that's going to be a bit more of a sneak peek into our next meeting, in our next conversation. Does that sound okay?
232 Okay. I'm just desperate to get there okay.
233 All right, I was I appreciate your comment, councilor Clark. I was thinking the same thing. I'm looking at my chief of staff and lori from council operations. I think we have enough information to kind of move forward. And I'm guessing what makes sense is to take this feedback, draft a resolution, not necessarily worry about it having a first reading, but but just have those things on hand. I think we have what we need. Okay, great. So the next question that we are tackling, by the way, I think we I think we're doing a great job. I know it's messy and we have to do all of this in public. But we have to do this in front of you because we're not allowed to do it behind closed doors. So this is how it works. Okay. So this topic is basically the path of ordinances. How how do we how do they come through.
234 To.
235 In this new form of government, through committees to full council talking about first reading, second reading structures. And we touched on this a bit. We specifically spoke about public comment and whether we'd like to have comment in committee at full council, both if it's at both, if there are some limits. So this this week, let's keep in mind we have a little bit of a broader lens. So here's our framing question. How do we want the pace and structure of first reading and second readings to work? Now that we have both committees and the full council, so we can consider what our current code and procedures say, I think passed out a few pages of the current code that you can also pull up. I didn't give it to you because I know you have. I think everyone got one besides you. President. Sorry. We can also pull it up online here.
236 Over.
237 Councilor. Councilor dunphy's shoulder.
238 Okay, it's the stapled one.
239 Okay, I like this.
240 And that. So that one is just literally printed off of our city website talking about what the current code is. Now, as I was looking at this in my office, I made a table. And this is where I'm hoping meghan, can you put it up? We will also be putting this document, this resource on. Attaching it as an exhibit so members of the public can look at it later. It's very much a draft. That's why I wrote on the top. The top. This is a draft and could have mistakes. So I looked at the code and I just kind of broke it down into what are the different council actions? What are we thinking? The current code says, and there might be some already. I know there's a couple places where folks might be reading that differently. Where might we make some possible adjustments and then other thoughts or questions. So I know that I've heard some of our colleagues say, oh, wow, now that we only have council meetings every other week, does that mean that we have to have a first reading in a committee and a second reading? Well, that's going to be at least a month. And then it goes to the full council and needs a first reading and a second reading. So what I have here is can you all see it? Can you see it in the audience? Okay. If anyone wants copies. Emery can pass them out. Are we able to put it up so other folks can see it too? Or is. Oh, okay. Thank you.
241 Oh.
242 That's probably too small, but we're trying. Okay, so for emergency ordinances right now from what I understand, it just needs to have if it's an emergency, just one public reading. It goes straight to council. Public testimony occurs three minutes per person needs seven votes to pass. That's implemented immediately if it's passed. And then there are just regular ordinances or non emergency ordinances. From my conversations with the council president, we have since we're we're just starting this, the what we are doing is in committees, we are mirroring what's happening in full council. So the in that case it would mean that you need a both a first and a second reading in committee before it goes to council for a first and second reading. Now I will say I've had some other very smart people say, actually, I'm not sure if that's you might not have to do a first or second reading in committee whether or not that's exactly the case. It might just make sense for us to get clear on that, and this would be the place to do that. First reading is one. Public testimony happens three minutes per person. So then when you do the second reading, no public testimony. So the wondering for these non emergency ordinances is that should we say that you have a first reading in committee and then you have the option as a committee to send it to council if it's ready. So it's not then showing up four times but then it's three. Let's see. And then we can also talk a bit about the where public testimony fits in. And then for reports and resolutions those go through a lot faster. First reading in committee and council and then you can get those through. So it seems like it's really just looking at ordinances. So to go back to my question, yeah, how do we want the pace and structure of ordinances ordinance non emergency ordinances to work. Now that we have both committees and the full council? Councilor Dunphy.
243 Well.
244 Also, does this structure preclude the possibility of adding an emergency ordinance to an existing ordinance or preclude situations in which implementation would need to be done on an emergency basis, but could still benefit from committee structure, work or committee vetting? And if we were to add an emergency ordinance to a an ordinance that was filed as non emergency, does it require 9/12 to add that?
245 Great question. So is your question could an emergency ordinance be added to a non emergency ordinance through like a 9/12 vote.
246 Yeah.
247 Can you turn it into an emergency ordinance.
248 Yeah I know an emergency ordinance or emergency clause can be added to a non emergency item.
249 Yes I'd love.
250 To hear robert taylor.
251 Is that a 9/12 or a simple majority.
252 Robert taylor city attorney if you have a non emergency ordinance it requires two readings first reading and a second reading. If on the first reading of a non emergency ordinance, you decide that this is ready to be passed now and there is sufficient support, you can add an emergency clause. That amendment to add the emergency clause passes on a majority vote seven votes, but then to pass it from the full council that same day, you need nine votes to do that.
253 Would that be true if.
254 I mean. There are reasons to have a to add an emergency clause, but also still have maybe two readings of a hearing as it pertains to the implementation, is there say we get to a second reading and decide to add an emergency clause on an ordinance. Just so implementation happens more immediately. Would that still require 9/12 in order to or nine votes in order to become an emergency on?
255 Yes. So that is another scenario. So you can have a non emergency ordinance that has its first reading. Then it comes to council for its second reading. And at that point you decide to add the emergency clause. You can add the emergency clause as an amendment with seven votes and then to pass it as an emergency ordinance, it needs nine votes.
256 Thank you. Very helpful. Robert.
257 Mr. Mr. Taylor, were you saying we could pass it out of a committee after a first reading? Or you have to add the emergency clause in order to do that in the committee. To get it to council. You can skip.
258 You do not it does not have to have an emergency clause for it to be voted out of the committee to the full council. The reason you would add an emergency clause to an ordinance is because if it has an emergency clause, then the ordinance is effective on the day you pass it. Non emergency ordinances are effective 30 days after passage. So that's the significance of the emergency clause.
259 So do you believe that maybe we were reading misinterpreting it, thinking that we had to have a second reading in a committee for an ordinance.
260 Yeah. For, for the, for committee hearings. I do not believe you are required to have two different readings in the committee. Okay. The reading requirements are for the full council's consideration.
261 So would your recommendation be that we can just leave that as is? Or do you think we need more specific language explaining that? That you only need a you don't have to have a second reading.
262 Yeah I think I would I would clarify how it's written in the chart to, to make it clear that it a non emergency ordinance needs both a first and second reading at council, and then it's up to the committee whether they want to have one reading or multiple reading. And the and the way that I'm thinking of the flow of an item is a say a non emergency ordinance is submitted by a member of council. They then either designate a committee to hear it or the president designates a committee to hear it. It goes to the committee. They work on it, make changes to it. At one committee or multiple. And then ultimately, when that committee feels it is time for it to go to the full committee, the committee would pass a motion saying, we recommend this ordinance, as amended, be reported to the full council. Then when it goes to the full council, after it comes out of the committee that first time, it's before the full council. It would be the it would be first. It would that would be the first reading of it. And then it could come to a second meeting for the second reading of it.
263 City attorney taylor, thanks so much. Everything you said I was able to follow as I should, but what about in committees? What's the so it's we know what it is in council because it's 912. What's the law? The number in a committee meeting for the same like it used to be 4/5 when there were five. So I get it. We never had committees before. So to expedite things in a committee we could still do the emergency. Is it majority. Is it. You know I guess right here was it 4/5 I just need is this new and we're building that it's.
264 Yeah. Yeah it's new in your building. It it's new in your building it. And I think you know for five for five member committees a majority is three members. So you.
265 That's if it's a first and second reading.
266 I think for, for I think for any item you could move it out of committee with a majority vote because all the committee is doing is making their recommendation by a majority of the committee for that item to be heard by the full council. And then it's up to the council to decide, are we going to pass this as a non emergency ordinance, or are we do we want to add an emergency clause and pass it as an emergency with nine votes?
267 So you have me thinking differently which is always good. So we don't have to do the same rules that apply to the full council in committees.
268 It you are not, you are in. You are not required to have a supermajority vote to move a emergency ordinance out of the committee. And in fact, the way the rules are written now, any four members of council in writing, right, can demand that something get pulled out of a committee and come to the full council.
269 Thank you. That gives us some creativity I didn't know we had, so we can move things out quicker from committee than I realized. Okay, I was taking the full council process and that's different in committee. Okay, thanks. Because the only one that didn't know that.
270 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
271 I think some of the confusion here may be around what we what charter and code allow us to do, and then the policy decisions that we as a committee have to make. And as council president, I've said to committee chairs, until we have directions for how our committees operate, operate under full council rules, with perhaps a few exceptions, because we need to have consistency and we need to make sure that until this committee gives our policy committees direction, everybody's operating under the same rules and we have a lot of space for policy decisions. But I believe and attorney taylor, tell me if this is incorrect, that code and charter allow us a lot of flexibility with what our committees do, and we could continue to allow that flexibility or not. We could say to committees that a 9/12 agenda item, for example, needed that what is essentially a 75% vote, and that we needed to have four of the five members of a committee vote out a 9/12 agenda item. Or we could say that a simple majority vote could send a 9/12 agenda item, an emergency item. I shouldn't call it 9/12. That's its own thing, I apologize. An emergency item that needs nine votes to full council. We could say in our rules for committees as we establish them that a single hearing, even on an ordinance out of committee, is acceptable. And we could say that they need to spend more time with it than that, is that those are policy choices, though, that this committee can make for how we direct our other committees to operate. Is that accurate?
272 That is that is accurate, that is accurate. And I believe under the rules now it it contemplates that that council would adopt rules for the committees. So you can decide that in those committee rules that are going to be adopted, that for emergency ordinances coming out of committee, you want to set a higher standard, or you can decide any item coming out of the committee just needs to come out of committee with a majority vote, I think, to councilor Pirtle-guiney point right now, we don't have those sort of those committee rules right now. And so there's this question of, okay, we have an emergency ordinance. It's in committee. How many votes does that need to pass out of the committee? Does it just a majority, or do we need to have a higher a higher number? And I don't think you're you I don't think right now you are required to have a higher number, but you could decide earlier. Yeah. But you could decide in those committee rules to require that.
273 We could add that rule.
274 You could add that rule if you want.
275 But it's not there now.
276 All right.
277 Councilor.
278 That's what was new to me. And I think everyone like I think we were all operating under the 4/5 system. What we're hearing from our city attorney is we don't have to do that. If your point of view, council president, is that we should do that, you know, keep keep talking. I'm just thinking out loud right now. I'm sure we all are.
279 Yeah, yeah.
280 Just just a put a finer point on what I'm looking at at this document here, a non emergency ordinance under this system would take a minimum of 5 to 7 weeks to go from introduction or from the date it's filed with the council clerk until a final city council vote happens. But an emergency ordinance could be done in as quickly as one week if we had completely we had an emergency clause. We get it introduced quickly and it is voted on by the full council. A resolution is 3 to 5 weeks minimum, and a report would similarly be 3 to 5 weeks. Just wanting to point that out there here, because that means that these are very deliberative steps at every, every point. And we have to be intentional about thinking about these things in negative time planning and how the implementations of implement how the implementation would occur. So I just wanted to make that a finer point here and make sure that we are, you know, thinking about that as we add to this, you know, seven weeks is a long time for any individual policy moving forward. I mean, these things are supposed to be slow, but also just that just noting that the difference between a 5 to 7 week process versus a one week, a potential one week process with an emergency clause. It feels like that is an opportunity where future councils could abuse this system. I don't know, I'm just flagging it. I don't know what I'm thinking of. Ultimately, I just.
281 Thank you. Councilor Dunphy. I think these are those are great questions, councilor Clark.
282 Thank you, madam chair. I've heard from our colleagues a lot of frustration about this. This is going to take too long. Meetings are staggered. It's so long. How can we expedite this? So I'm. And I feel the same way. So if we can reduce the time, great. And if we want to make a higher bar or a trade off for an emergency, great. I mean, let's make it for five. Just make it a, you know, a higher bar to attain if it really is an emergency. But I'm I'm perfectly fine with taking something out of here. I'm not I'm not sure what it is, but we just and I think public perception is too, is that we don't want to be slow about everything that we do here. We are deliberative. There's plenty of time to deliberate. But if we can speed up this process. Terrific.
283 Councilor Clark, can I ask you a follow up question?
284 Sure, sure.
285 Now that we know that we really only have to do one, a first reading in committee, and then it could be voted out with a majority.
286 One reading. Yeah.
287 Yeah, with just one reading. Does that do you think.
288 Yes. Yes.
289 Yeah. I'm open to having a higher bar if you cut that one out. And I just want to make sure there's plenty of time for public input as well. And that does take time.
290 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
291 I just wanted to go back to councilor Ryan had said, councilor Pirtle-guiney if you want this a certain way, you should say that. And I just want to make sure to clarify what the we have our code right now, we have the direction right now to committee chairs, and we have where we're going. And I want to clarify that I had said to committee chairs operate under full council rules, which is where we got the two hearings at each, not because code requires that, but because we needed to have some consistency and to say to chairs, apply the rules of council to your committee was going to be the clearest direction that I could give while this committee deliberated what we want the policy to be in the long run. So I did not do that. Councilor Ryan, to suggest that that's where we should be in the long run, but simply because I was looking for the most clarity for chairs until this committee had time to deliberate and process, I would be happy to see that cut down to being on. I think the way councilor Koyama Lane wrote it provides clarity how many agendas it's on, right, that there's a minimum of that there could be in the policies that we establish a minimum of three agendas, one at committee and two at council to move something. And obviously, if a committee needs more time to debate something, they'll take more time than that. I have no problem with that. I just want to clarify that my direction currently to chairs is based on needing to have consistency.
292 Okay.
293 And we all have that in our brains. So I just found when just when our attorney, robert taylor, said that we could move it out of committee much faster in one reading, I you should I just went there. And so I instantly was like, that's much that was aspirin. And so I wanted to ride with that. So with a councilor Clark, I'm in this conversation to embrace what our city attorney told us about doing, getting something out of committee and trying to lean into that as much as possible.
294 I think that would be great direction to give folks in whatever policy we come up with.
295 I think all the murmuring is that that would be helpful to move work. And with the separation between a committee meeting and a council meeting and the first reading, I think there'll be a lot of time for community that are engaged to come and testify. So I think we'll allow for enough process. And usually nothing gets to a committee vote unless there has been some of that engagement anyway on big picture items. So anyway, thank you. That was a you gave us new information. I can tell that allowed us to think about this differently.
296 And mr. Taylor. So just to circle back to what councilor Clark said, we wouldn't actually need to be changing anything. We don't need to bump from first and second reading in committee, because actually it's really just a first. So first reading in committee, right?
297 I would.
298 Request that we, at the end of our work on this topic, end up with a set of rules for committee chairs so that everybody has the same set of, of rules in front of them, not in code. But as we were talking about previously, the procedures and rules that we operate under that are voted on by council but not put into code, and that we include that direction there so that we have a complete set of rules for how our committees operate. That would be my request at least. What I'm looking for out of out of what we what we eventually vote on.
299 I think I. Missed something.
300 Do I understand correctly, councilor Pirtle-guiney that the ask is what we do end up landing on to make sure to still write it in our resolution rules handbook so we can we can have that set.
301 Exactly.
302 I would hope that chairs would be able to go to this section of whatever our handbook ends up looking like, the section that says committee operations or whatever that is, and be able to see a complete set of rules for how they should run their committees.
303 Councilor Ryan.
304 Yeah, I think I might need some clarification. So I think I heard you right. We were talking about emergencies and how we operate at council level, and then we took it to the committee level. And we don't need to adopt the same rules at the council level. At the committee level. That gave us some creative expression up here on how we could then build this. I personally, after listening that, got excited about knowing we could do it in one reading at the committee level and then that would move it on. I can't tell right now where the dialog is going with this. I understand the consistency that you put out, but are we comfortable giving a new update on what the what the what we're talking about at this, at this level, to say that actually you can get it out of a committee with a majority vote.
305 Councilor Ryan, are you asking for us to update right now or to update all the councilors or both?
306 First of all, we don't have anything that we voted on that it's just been more of. And I would probably I understand that and respect it. The two of you are dealing with conversations I'm not in. And so you were providing some consistency. This conversation is allowing us to rethink that. Right. And so I think it would go over really well if we would change our tune and explain, based on the dialog we had in this committee, based on dialog with city attorney in committees. We, in fact, don't need to do a first and a second reading with the same emergency rules that are applying to the full council.
307 President. Pirtle-guiney, would you like to respond to that?
308 So I think there are two steps here. The formal step is that, as we have seen other resolution drafts, we need to have a resolution at some point that provides direction for how we want our committees to operate with more clarity than anything that we have written down right now. And I would wholeheartedly support only requiring an ordinance to be read once in committee, in that resolution draft that we ultimately produce. I think the near term thing that I hear from you, councilor Ryan, is could I update direction to chairs in the meantime? And as I said about the last item in general. Setting how we operate based on something that hasn't passed yet makes me a little bit nervous. But if everything is moving in the same direction, then I don't have a problem with that. And if this committee is pretty unanimous in thinking that that's the direction for what we want to recommend to full council, and if we each believe without saying anything too specific, because we haven't discussed this in council, but if we each believe that that might be a direction that our fellow councilors would be comfortable with, then I think we should certainly think about an updated direction to each of our committee chairs. And we have a question then about when do we offer that direction to make sure that we're not getting in the way of agendas that folks have already set? But I think we could talk about as of x time, let's update chairs on a couple of things, even maybe, and this could be one of them.
309 Can I ask clarification.
310 Please.
311 Just to make sure. Thank you. That was helpful. Why? We don't have official rules yet established for committees, but you have been offering some guidance. This is a conversation. Say we've updated our guidance. Yeah.
312 And I'm happy to do that. I think if we are going to update on a few things, let's make sure that we know that. So it's not new direction every week to chairs. Yeah, I'm watching councilor Clark's face as I say that. I think that could be worse than what we currently have. So my ask to all my ask to all of you is do we think we would have more updates coming in the next committee meeting or two out of this committee, or do we think that we are not going to have any other updates for a while, so that I can try to figure out how we can have some semblance of predictability, both for our chairs and our fellow members, but also for the public who are trying to follow along as we run a system and develop it at the same time.
313 My suggestion is that we update the councilors because we haven't really made a different decision. We've just clarified through our attorney and actually our council clerk also flagged this, that that actually never was the case. And that was a different interpretation, that there had to be a first and second reading in committee. So it seems like it makes sense to let councilors know that that has been clarified here. I don't think that's really us making a decision. Councilor Dunphy.
314 Thank you, madam chair. I want to note that there is a there are two different things that we're sort of talking about. There are the legal requirements for a first and second reading, but then there's also the logistical requirements of having something read, having public testimony and then us deliberating on that. And that often cannot be done in the same amount of time to be able to meaningfully respond to testimony that we've just heard and then change and amend language cannot really be done in the period of a two hour. I mean, potentially it could. But and I think that this comes to the other the core question that we haven't really addressed yet, which is what is the role of testimony and testifying in this structure? My preference has, has been that committees would be the place where the bulk of testimony would be heard. I still think that there is a need for some amount of testimony in the main council when something is going to the full council. I still think that there is a risk that if we don't provide an opportunity for the broader council to have public testimony, that. Not, I mean, even less concerned about feedback. But what I'm really concerned about is people using the communication slots in a full council hearing in order to bring up specific testimony about an item that is later being heard. I don't know how to square that. It's a tension. I think that I think that having that if a city if a I mean, there are circumstances in which everybody comes to council, two people testify. They say it's written perfectly, everybody go now and we just refer it back to the full council. But that doesn't often happen. And the role of a committee is not so much a check box exercise as it is a. Cooling saucer. I don't know what is the expression. I mean, like there's like a wasn't there an expression? I think that was like the role of the senate, but like it's where the work is supposed to happen and where we're supposed to be most directly and nimbly responsive to, to the community. So I guess, to my question to robert specifically, is, does a committee reading count as a first reading for the purposes of the two readings, or is it fully just we're doing whatever we want. But from the perspective of public law, that first reading at the full council is the only thing that actually counts.
315 For purposes of the charter. And the charter is what establishes the two reading requirements. Those readings have to happen at the full council. Whatever happens at the and under the charter, it gives the council the ability to establish committees. Those committees are advisory to the council. How you choose to structure and have those committees operate so that they can advise the full council. That's entirely up to you. And I think this is what this conversation is about, how to structure those committees, what rules should apply to them, how quickly things should come out of the committee or not come out of the committee. I think those are all. I think they're all appropriate things for this body and the full council to think about and consider.
316 Okay, I do want to leave enough time for councilor Ryan to talk to us a bit about budget deliberations. It will be a bit of a sneak peek introduction to something we will be talking more about at our next our next meeting when we're together. Governance committee councilor Clark, can you.
317 Just really quickly I would just I'm increasingly confused now, but I think that the council president's directives, the emails that you've been sending out with maybe three quick points, I can see doing that here with the this committee is headed in this direction looking for your feedback or whatever. But I think giving people a sense for that. But I think just off of what councilor Dunphy is saying, it's going to be really hard to do some big things in just two hearings in a, in a, in a substantive committee. It's going to be difficult in that two hour period, end of.
318 Councilor Ryan, this is going to cut into your.
319 Oh I'm good. I think the current topic has been most important, and it's impacting the flow of the workload. And we're in it right now. And so I think what I want to acknowledge, just to try to say something, to move on to the next, is that today we established that we have an opportunity to look at the committee system differently than we look at the rules and the charter that impact council meetings of the entire council. And I think some of us knew that. But because of the guidance, which was smart to give, it has us thinking that they're both exactly the same. And so I'm grateful today that we can look at this differently. And so that's where we're at, right?
320 Yep. And I'd like to come back to this and specifically talk a bit more about public testimony and some of these other pieces that came up. So we'll take notes and we'll come back to this. Councilor pirtle-guiney, can you be very fast?
321 I can, I just want to, with a nod of heads, that I'm generally saying the right thing, confirm that the direction we want to move in, that I can share with all councilors, is that committees should not feel like they need to have a first and second reading of an ordinance that a single formal reading suffices, however, this committee, I think I have heard now at two different meetings, believes that council that that committees are the place where the bulk of public testimony and deliberation should take place, and therefore it is up to a chair whether they need to have more time with a topic or not. But that if some of that deliberation has occurred before, an official ordinance has been put together, and they can do that with just one reading of the ordinance, that's perfectly fine. And we're updating direction there. And if they need more than one reading of an ordinance or hearing on an ordinance within committee, that is also okay. Okay. I just wanted to make.
322 Sure committee can.
323 Majority of the committee can vote to send it to full council. They're ready. And from our last meeting, we also touched a little bit on having some limits on the testimony at if you gave testimony in committee, can you should you be or should should other people be prioritized when it comes to full council? Okay. For introduction on this part of our presentation, I'd like to turn to my vice chair and give some who will give some background on our on our discussion item where we might be going next. Councilor Ryan.
324 Yeah, sure. This is just a little bit of information as we will expand upon this at the next meeting. We hope, because it's budget season and in budget season, things can move very quickly. And later this week, in fact, we'll get some more information from the mayor and the city administrator about their best thinking about where we are with our big budget. And we have a finance committee meeting that met this morning. They're obviously the one that I think the public would assume, rightly so, that they will dive into this. And in fact, later we're meeting with the chair of that committee to have additional conversations about this. But we want to make sure that there's coordination in the content committees that we've been speaking about today. So, for example, just think of something like, say, the public safety committee. We would want them to really dive in deeper to the budgets of the police and the fire and such. And so that will happen. And then how will we coordinate that with the finance committee and with the entire council? We want to make sure that there's due process and there's also role clarity on which content committees are diving into what. So we can be efficient with our with one another and with the people who work here at the city of Portland that provide staffing. So a lot of it was being mindful of the folks who work in the city and not having them repeat to 3 or 4 committees, but to try to bring some clarity on where that goes. So I look forward to that conversation and we'll bring back some better thinking on that. Any thoughts you have between about that, please. Let's have a little bit now and reach out to me anytime and I'll make sure that that's relayed as I do. Dialog with chair Zimmerman.
325 That makes sense.
326 Yes. I want to just thank my vice chair for taking a lead on this, working to really make sure that the our committee here at governance and the finance committee, that there's a bridge there and there's collaboration and that there's real thought about how we can be intentional about engaging all councilors in talking about the budget. Did you want to say something?
327 Oh, just I really appreciate that. I really feel the need to have that direction so that we're all pulling in the same, just using the same procedures as we go through some budgets and how we have input on what those budgets are when we're face to face with the bureau. Yeah, that's going to be really, really important because we have some very difficult decisions to make. Particularly, I'm thinking PBOT and the situation that they're in. So that direction is going to be very important to us.
328 Thank you.
329 You know, we don't have anyone in the box today from the city administrator's office. But if we did, this is where I'd kind of bring them in on this dialog. So I'll make sure that that's a part of the journey here is because we need direction from the city administrator and his team on the efficiency of how we connect with the content, with the different bureaus and the different work areas. Yeah. Okay.
330 Great. And so our next meeting will be on March 10th at 2:30 p.m. We will have gtac members here. The government transition advisory committee, and they'll be talking to us specifically about their suggestions for the budget process and how we're engaging in it. And also, they're going to talk a bit about their suggestions on how policy does move. So that could maybe help us in and how we're thinking about things also. So we'll meet on the 10th and instead of meeting on March 24th, we will be meeting on March 31st. So we're going to be doing the second and the fifth Monday in March for our governance committee in order to skip over spring break there. All right. So the meeting of the governance committee is adjourned.
331 Okay.