The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-10
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,369 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council Governance Committee met on Monday, November 10, 2025. Following roll call and a reading of the conduct statement, the meeting covered an update on the City Council Handbook and its overlap with a budget note on information access protocols, noting that a related agenda item was held for a future meeting. Public testimony on general governance issues was heard from one speaker, addressing city administrator recruitment and information access protocols. The committee then considered reappointment of an individual to the Portland Children's Levy Allocation Committee, hearing background from the levy director and the appointee, followed by councilor questions on committee structure, business-community representation, and lessons from a prior controversial funding period; a vote occurred, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. Discussion followed on a proposed resolution establishing an annual council strategic priority-setting process, including public testimony, with extensive committee discussion about timing, structure, supermajority thresholds, and whether existing mechanisms already address prioritization; the item was held for revision and return at a future meeting. Finally, the committee reviewed draft, still-under-legal-review proposed amendments to council rules (chapter 3.02), covering inactive-item procedures for committees and council, a council handbook provision, and amendment-filing deadlines, with feedback offered for further refinement before formal introduction.
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.
1 Good afternoon. I call the meeting of the governance committee to order, and it's Monday, November 10th at 230. Rebecca, that's who's over there. Will you please call the roll? Clerk here? Dunphy. Here.
2 Pirtle-guiney.
3 Koyama Lane here.
4 Ryan, here.
5 Okay. And, craig, will you please read the statement of conduct?
6 Welcome to this 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 wwe gov slash 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 your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying. State your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
7 Thank you so much, craig. So in today's meeting, the governance committee will hear general public testimony on governance issues. We're also going to consider reappointment to the Portland children's levy allocation committee. We'll consider resolution on strategic priority setting for the council. And we'll hear from council president and discuss potential changes to council rules. This agenda also includes a discussion regarding information access protocols for legislative and oversight functions. We will hold this agenda item, however, for another meeting, and we will not be discussing that today. Before we go on any further, we have our chair remote today. Hello there, chair Koyama Lane. Before we get started, any thoughts you'd like to offer the meeting?
8 Thank you so much for chairing councilor Ryan vice chair Ryan, I am still pulling that up. Is it possible for you to go first?
9 Pardon me? We heard you, but are you ready to share any thoughts? You don't have any today?
10 I do have some. I'm still pulling them up. Can I have one more moment?
11 Did you. Oh, absolutely.
12 Absolutely. Sorry about that. We rotate our seats up here so a lot of us have little accommodations. I have shorter legs than some. So I have this thing that I'm trying to find, and that's why I'm distracted. I've been running around. This one's really high. Is that mine?
13 Sounds lower than usual.
14 So while you're looking for that, I'm going to find my little high chair, if you will.
15 Oh.
16 That's it. Has my name.
17 On it, right here.
18 For those interested, this is what's underneath my feet. Okay, nice. Highly recommended by my chiropractor. Okay, there we go.
19 I love this vice chair. Thank you. I'm ready. I'm ready now.
20 Okay, go for it. The floor is yours.
21 So in the governance committee, we've been working on a city council handbook to collect various information and processes that are helpful to write down. And we first brought the city council handbook for discussion on September 8th. Councilors have had the opportunity to provide input on the table of contents, which did include sections on communications between city council and the city professional staff. We began discussing the council policy process on October 6th and discuss it again in governance on October 20th. Our conversations that we've been having have overlapped with the budget note introduced by councilor Morillo, titled budget transparency and information access framework, also known as Morillo 11, and in that budget note, it recognizes that current information access protocols that impede council's ability to perform its legislative and oversight functions. So, in essence, the work that we've been doing in governance, the conversations we've been having overlap with this request to the city administrator made by councilor Morillo in her budget note. So we wanted to update you all and the public that because of that overlap, the city administrator is putting together, we have a working group with staff from president pirtle-guiney office, councilor Morillo office, council, zimmerman's office and my office and the mayor's office in order to draft communications processes for us to deliberate and come to an agreement, it's important that the city administrator and city council and the mayor are all on board on the same page, with a shared set of recommended processes, and our plan is for the outcome of this group to have some sort of a proposed information access framework to be discussed by the full council, and then put into the city council handbook. So all of this is to say that we're kind of putting on hold what we've been talking in governance, and we'll have a small group of councilors working with the city administrator. He'll he'll be bringing some different options of what are some different ways that we can have communication flow and make sure that council has access to city staff for both working on legislation and also constituent questions. And we will come back to you all after those conversations. Thank you so much. And back to you, vice chair.
22 Thank you so much. That was great to get an update. I don't have anything to add, so why don't we just go on to item number one? Rebecca, can you please read item one?
23 Item one public testimony on governance issues. We have one person signed up, terry harris.
24 Great. Welcome, terry. You know the routine, I think because we have such a packed agenda. If you could do three minutes, that'd be great.
25 I am I'm familiar with routine. Thank you, terry harris. For the record, given an opportunity to speak, I will always take it. I came here in this general setting to talk about two things. One, the city administrator recruitment, and the other was the information protocols that was on the agenda. That's not on the agenda, but apparently something else is going on with that. So let me start with the city administrator recruitment as written testimony to this item. I have submitted the recommendations from a year ago when the other the previous recruitment would have occurred. Those recommendations are pretty good. The search team for the transition when the transition was conceptualizing the recruitment, put together a plan and that plan was pretty good. I just sort of say that. Council's input is really important, and as you're negotiating, when those candidates come before you. Maintain plenty of time and access to those candidates, but community input is also important. The previous recruitment team had panels of different community members and interests and stakeholders. Those should be part of the recruitment as well. The city administrator's report that you're hearing on Wednesday has a note that you're going to be doing this soon. So I just wanted to get that in front of you. Now, as for the protocols, I guess I'll save it a little bit for next time. But I also want to say is it's kind of important not to get sucked into protocols and restrictions on the council's ability to get information it needs. Do not over protocol yourself and that you can't be flexible. You can't be collaborative. You can't be. Transparent. Those values need to override any sort of rules and restrictions that a city administrator is going to put on you. So I just give you that warning now, and I will elaborate it on on it next time. And, and I guess that's about it for now.
26 Thanks so much, terry. Is there anyone else? Rebecca.
27 No one else is signed up.
28 Okay then can you go ahead and read item two?
29 Item two reappoint Dan floyd to Portland children's levy allocation committee for term to expire December 31st, 2027.
30 Looks like we have with us today both lisa pellegrino, who is the leader of the Portland children's levy, and Dan floyd himself is here in person. Thank you for coming in person. We don't always have that opportunity, so it's really nice to have the appointee come to the meeting. Lisa, the floor is yours.
31 Thanks, Dan. Hi, councilors. I'm lisa pellegrino. I'm the director at the Portland children's levy, and we are here as as the clerk stated, to request reappointment of Dan floyd for another term, another two year term at the. Portland children's levy allocation committee. Sorry, I'm just dealing with the glare. Oh, there we go. Are you running this? I wasn't I was told I needed to run it, so okay. First I just wanted to quickly run through pcls mission and goals. We are a local option property tax levy that grew out of the need to increase opportunities for all children and families in Portland. We support community based programs designed to achieve three outcomes prepare children for school. Support them to be successful in and outside of school, and eliminate racial and ethnic disparities and outcomes for children and youth. Okay, go to the next slide. I'm supposed to advance it. We can advance it. There we go. The levy is governed by an act that was part of council resolution 37 610. And it requires oversight by a five member allocation committee that sets policy, oversees implementation and makes funding decisions and competitive funding rounds. Three of the five seats on the allocation committee are appointed by the mayor. The city councilor, which is currently filled by Dan Ryan. A citizen with knowledge and experience related to children's services, which is currently filled by charity krieger and a representative of the business community, which is currently filled by Dan floyd. To my right. The remaining two seats include a county commissioner and another citizen with knowledge and experience related to children's services that's appointed by the county commissioner. Megan moyer currently fills the seat from the county commission, and felicia folsom is the county county citizen appointee. Pcl supports the mayor's request to reappoint Dan floyd to a second two year term on the allocation committee. And go to the next slide, and I will give you a little bit of background on Dan. I know he's not going to toot his own horn, so I will toot it for him. Dan was born and raised in Portland, attending Portland public schools and lewis and Clark college. Here he grew into an active participant in a wide range of community efforts and a real civic leader. He served on other boards with missions that are related to supporting youth, which includes all hands raised and insight, an organization focused on supporting people with disabilities. He's also been on the board of the league of minority voters. He's been a youth sports coach here in Portland and served on the board of friends of baseball, which is an organization that supports access and participation of all youth in baseball, regardless of family support. He's currently the owner of a local small business, which is called htc race series, and that is a requirement to hold this seat on the committee. You must be in the local business community during the pandemic. Htc race series co-created with sunshine division, an emergency food distribution network, to home, deliver 6 million meals to people in need. So he's had some long and deep experience with volunteer food provision in the community. He also has experience in grantmaking. When he worked for safeway, he reviewed and made recommendations on grant applications, managing 15 million annually in giving focused on hunger relief, education, health and human services, and people with disabilities and those funding areas very much tracked to the areas that pcl funds. His service on the allocation committee for the last two years has been exemplary. He's attended every meeting. He always comes prepared. He asked good questions, and he treats collaborators and community members with respect. So with that introduction, I'm going to turn it over to him for a few minutes to just talk about a little bit about why he wants to continue serving.
32 Thank you. Lisa. That's better than I could have done for myself. So thank you. And as you heard, I'm Dan floyd. I am here on behalf of my reappointment to the allocation committee. I want to thank lisa and the team for your leadership over the last two years. And as she explained, I've been around for two years now through the grant process, and it was quite the learning experience. But throughout the process, the team has provided amazing communication, leadership and through something that's that is fun and rewarding, but also very difficult because there are tough decisions to make and and those who are attempting to serve really need it. And it's it is a tough gig. So I want to thank lisa and everybody else who was also on the the allocation committee. I want to thank the the city council for the opportunity that I had over the last two years. And then, like I said, she did a better job than I would have done. So just a few things that I'd like to add. Just going back to, you know, the first thing that I'm born and raised in Portland, I'm very happy to be here. I don't plan on leaving. I'm very thankful for everything that I've had in my life and and what the city has provided me. There are a lot of organizations that serve me as a as a kid, and I am who I am because of that. And again, I'm very thankful. And I believe in acts of service, and this is what I should be doing for my community and for those who help me throughout my life. So there's that. There's there's a selfish reason, too, being the the business person on the committee and an entrepreneur, often in a Lane where I'm focused on my business and, and I don't get a lot of education outside of that, oftentimes. So serving on boards or working with the Portland children's levy, it's a amazing opportunity for me to learn from really smart people and strong leadership like lisa and councilor Ryan and others who are part of that committee. So selfishly, I'm going to learn a lot. I learned a lot the last two years, and I would learn a lot in the next two years. And then lastly, I just think that when you have a great team, continuity is pretty damn important. And when you have a strong, strong group of staff members, then with the community council and allocation committee that have proven successful, but also focused on continuous improvement and focused on getting feedback and being better at what we're doing, I think you got to keep that team together. And now, having been through a large grant process, which was tough, and now going into a small grant process, which I think should be a little easier, I would hope. I think there are a lot of lessons that can be learned, and a lot of things that I know I've personally learned that I would apply to the next two years through that small grant process. So again, thank you for the opportunity. Thank you for your leadership.
33 All right. Thank you both. Lisa and Dan, hold on for a second before I open it up to my colleagues to ask questions. Rebecca, has anyone signed up for public testimony on this item?
34 No one is signed up.
35 Okay, now I see we have council colleagues with their hands up, so they're going to ask some questions. Councilor Dunphy.
36 Thanks, lisa. I had a quick question for you, and I had a couple questions for you, Dan. Specifically, this is the first I realized or it occurred to me, that we have a dedicated seat for the business community. But this is not this is a property tax, right? So this is for homeowners and property owners, but not specifically an additional tax on business owners. Do you know the history of why there was a seat saved for the business community specifically?
37 I think going back to the inception of the levy, it was the the the citizens crime commission and the Portland chamber, both very active in the campaign, originally to pass the children's levy. And I think they wanted to have some representation or be assured that there would be some representation from the business community who had supported the levy in the first instance. And so that has been kept into the authorizing legislation from the beginning.
38 Gotcha. And this was this was the language that was written out in the original voter approved effort.
39 Yes. I mean, it's in the right now. It's in the act, but that's all part of the resolution. But yes, that was part of the original. It used to be a member of the Portland chamber, and then they declined to keep appointing people. And, and so the the seat was held for a business community representative more broadly. So not necessarily someone who's on the chamber.
40 Gotcha. And Dan, could you I didn't I didn't hear what your business was.
41 I have a couple of businesses. One is located in Portland and it's called hood to coast racers. So we operate an event production company that operates 50 events worldwide, the largest of which is here in Portland, traveling from timberline to seaside. And it's a amazing opportunity that we have to showcase 200 miles of Oregon to the rest of the world.
42 Awesome. I guess I have a philosophical question for you a little bit. Do you feel like being the business representative on here? Do you feel like it's your job to be a member of the business community? You know, with that mentality of owning a small business and doing all that and that, it's your job to take that and reflect it into the work? Or do you think that you are more a connection point to the broader business community? Do you have are you on the Portland metro chamber? Are you do you report out? Do you act as an official liaison to business districts or anything like that in your capacity?
43 I think my job is to take I don't know if that slide three or whatever, that past experience in the business world and the community in, in Portland and other organizations of which I serve, take that experience and do everything I can to serve those who the children's love is supposed to serve. And I think my past experience shows I have experience in the business community. Yes, I'm not reporting back to the chamber or anybody else. I'm doing my best job on behalf of what the children's levy is asking us to do.
44 Thank you.
45 Thank you, councilor Clark.
46 Thank you, mr. Chairman. Welcome. Thank you very much. I have to say that I've learned a lot through being on the council about the children's levy that I didn't know before. I haven't been involved in it. And it was kind of an amazing process that you go through to select your grantees. I was very, very impressed by that. When you said you love baseball, you just about got me. But I really appreciate your background and but I wanted to ask you a question that may be somewhat afar from what you do with the children's levy, but do you have a relationship or as you're reviewing grant applications or have in the past, is there any kind of discussion about a relationship with Portland public schools and student achievement? Is there any connection with what you're doing there with student achievement scores, and does that factor into anything that you do there? Maybe that's a question for both of you, but really you're you're the person that we're interviewing today.
47 Yeah, I think I think that is for both of us. Would you like to start on the process? And I'm happy to add, lisa.
48 So you are asking is there any is there student achievement? Is is. Part of our review process for grants.
49 Does that does that factor into anything that you're doing with the children's levy, the with the Portland public schools student achievement?
50 We fund programs that take place in Portland public schools, and we look at what happens to the outcomes of kids as a result of participating in those programs. And so we're looking at students, some student outcomes on an annual basis. That's part of our. And then Dan receives I mean, as an allocation committee member, he's receiving the reporting and looking at that and discussing it with the with the rest of the committee when we present those annually. So that's an interaction. I mean, there are also like he, you know, looked at a lot of grants recently and grant applications. And, you know, in those grant applications, they identify the kinds of outcomes they're trying to produce with kids. And sometimes those are student achievement related, although not necessarily. It just depends on the type of service that we're funding, like child abuse prevention isn't necessarily focused on that, for instance. So, you know, it just depends on the on the service area that we're that he's making decisions on. So I'm not sure if you're asking Dan because Dan I know has worked with all hands raised, which does a lot of work with Portland public. But I'm not sure if you're thinking about that.
51 Maybe councilor Clark, I don't know if I'm going to just maybe a different way of saying it than what lisa just said. I, I don't think in my reading that there's a direct line to pbs, but I think in all the program areas, we're serving, children who are likely attending or have attended pbs. And I think it every single one of those program areas has an impact on their ability to to achieve in the classroom, no doubt.
52 I think that's the response I was looking for. Thank you.
53 And councilor Pirtle-guiney.
54 Thank you so much for being here. Thank you for your commitment to Portland both through this work. And I know you stated very clearly that you don't plan on going anywhere. This is your community. I, I want to just raise what might be a bit of an elephant in the room. Council had an interesting conversation about the children's levy in the spring. And as we look at. The work that the board did, I think there was a lot of really incredible work done. But I'm wondering if there are any lessons learned that you'll be bringing forward out of the conversations that were had in the spring that we should know about, or if you feel like the process went smoothly and it was all a misunderstanding. And and there aren't pieces to bring forward from that.
55 I mean, we just sent him the process improvement report today because we just finished going through.
56 I apologize to ask before you had time to read the process improvement report. I don't need a deep answer like that. I just just generally what's your what is your take? What is your approach moving forward after that controversial period?
57 Yeah. Councilor pirtle-guiney I've had I've had plenty of time to reflect over the last few months, but then also just did receive that report this morning. And so as I reflected over the last few months, I know that with a change in government, I think that there there is additional communication that needs to occur, whereas there was a lot of learning that took place, I think, amongst the council and those on the allocation committee, it's a thorough process, as you have now learned, as I learned over the last two years, and it's one that takes some time to learn, I think, for all of us. That being said, I think that the we all made the right decision. We funded the organizations that need to be needed to be funded, but that doesn't mean that we are not going to spend a lot of time, or we should spend a lot of time reflecting on what we have done and make improvements, regardless of our success. In all the nice things that I've said about the council and and the staff, we still have to get better and we still are going to read the 54 page report that you sent this morning, and we have meetings scheduled next week, next week to determine how we can move forward and improve the process. And I assure you, we will with the team that's in place, the staff and with the allocation committee, people who are dedicated to doing this work were going to be better at this.
58 Thank you. I appreciate the reflection.
59 Yeah. I'm just going to add a couple things. And that is when we recruited, you know, Dan floyd for this role. He doesn't talk about it a lot. But when you've had spent years and years as a little league coach, when you don't have kids, that just says a lot about your commitment to children. When you're a person that doesn't have children, but you choose to spend your volunteer time focused on children and youth, that really speaks to your values. So I've always really appreciated that. And I know that didn't really show up in the testimony, so I wanted to offer that. Also, in terms of councilor Dunphy's question, when we were recruiting for this slot, we looked for depths of of perspective. One would be volunteer experience at working with children and youth. The other was that Dan brings foundation experience at safeway foundation, so it helps to have people with knowledge about what it's like to do granting. And so finding someone from the business community that also has philanthropic foundational background is really helpful. And so I know when we were looking at several people that kind of gave you an edge. And then I would just address a little bit about councilor Clark's question about the overlay, what I've always liked about the children's levy. And a lot of people don't realize this. First of all, it's not just Portland public schools. It's the six school districts in the city of Portland. And many of our children live in the districts east of Portland. Councilor Dunphy, of course, knows this, and we also have to remember that this was built for that time. You're not in the classrooms, so only of the children's life. Only 18% of their time is spent in the classroom in the bell schedule. The rest is evenings, weekends, summers. And so these are those investments that help those children and youth that often don't have the resources at home. Back to what we granted this year for those types of robust programs. Every research study, all the data indicates that those investments do wonders for student achievement. Communities that have robust services in the evenings, weekends, and summers are taking much better care of their children and families, so I just wanted to lift those as well. And thank you so much for agreeing to to desire to serve another term. I appreciate that the chair of this committee has her hand up. There you go, Koyama Lane. The floor is yours.
60 Thank you for being with us, mr. Floyd. Thank you for the service. You've already given us. I am just curious, as you're being reappointed to the Portland children's levy allocation committee, is there anything that you'd like the public to know about the work that the committee does, or the impact you've seen it have on kids and families in our community? Just wanted to give you that opportunity.
61 Of course, some of this may be I may be saying this same thing, but I think it's worth noting that, like I said, it's an education process for all of us, I think. And there's also communication that probably still needs to occur with the public. And I would just want the public and the council to know the the amount of work that lisa and her team put into this process and the amount of people who review grants and who have input. And that from my two years of experience, every single one of those people took this very seriously and does this because they care about the mission and they care about what we're being asked to do, which is serving those who are underserved and children in our community. And I just they're coming at this, and we are all coming at this with the with our hearts in the right intentions. And I can't I just can't say that enough. It's just a great group. But thank you for the opportunity to say that one more time.
62 Okay. Any more questions? I just want to add that you're always the first person at the meeting. Like you're always there at least five minutes early.
63 100% attendance. My peeps and central catholic teachers would be.
64 It's refreshing. Okay, so I would like to entertain a motion to have the report document number 20 2544 zero be sent to the full council with recommendation to be accepted.
65 So moved second.
66 Okay, so it's been moved by councilor Clark and seconded by councilor Dunphy. The motion has therefore been moved and seconded. Is there any more discussion? Not seeing any. Let's see. I have to look on the screen there. All right. Okay. Well, clerk please call the roll.
67 Clark I.
68 Dunphy I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan.
69 I.
70 Koyama Lane.
71 I and the motion is approved with five votes.
72 Thank you both so much for your time. Congratulations. And this will be taken now to the full council at an upcoming meeting. And the council president will be in touch. Yeah. Thanks. Thanks so much. Okay. So let's go ahead and please read the next item. Item three.
73 Item three adopt procedure for annual council strategic priority setting.
74 Great. Okay, so colleagues I have been I know we have a couple people. We have a couple people signed up for testimony. Is that true?
75 Yes. We have two people signed up.
76 Okay great. We'll do that after. I just want to introduce the item first a little bit further. I've been talking about this for some time as council president has patiently listened to that both one on one and in these meetings started back in January. And I just think we should basically have an annual recalibration for the good of the order for our city. I think we need to meet as a as one body and attempt to get on the same page about the top priorities facing our city. I'm thinking 3 to 4 after about a year without having some clear common goals as a body, I become more convinced that this is what our city needs at this time. Both the city of Portland as an organization and more importantly for the people of Portland. Sometimes our committees feel like an incubation think tank for ideas that are not necessarily aligned with urgent city priorities. And sometimes that can be healthy, very healthy, in fact. But sometimes it can also lead to pet projects that are consuming our time. And it's very precious, this thing called time. And it strains our public servants who work for the city when they can't see us as a leadership body, moving towards a common purpose and goal. When we meet at a body at the beginning of the year, for example, we could come to some balanced consensus on what those top priorities are. After priorities are identified, we identified several key strategies and measurable targets for each. I think we should do this with the mayor's office, with our city administration, namely the administrator, as well as the dca, the bureau directors and staff as needed to land a unified focus plan. And I I'm really clear this will be very difficult and there will be healthy key word healthy tension. Yet from this collective plan, we can also maybe rethink our committee structure for that year, ad hoc task forces that could dig in and implement with the city's public servants. I think Portland deserves a focused governance body, especially at this time of extreme challenge. This will also help create future budgets and give more certainty for those serving on the ground and those eagerly awaiting to see improvements to our services, we can hopefully have a few, have a more focused approach to budgeting, which would take place after we do this. Doing this prior to the annual budget, would, I think, be a best practice. And this is a practice that a lot of large organizations go through. It's very common to do a level set at the beginning of the year. So I'm not mentioning anything that's a new innovation. It's actually just aligning with some good practice and better practice out there. And that's why I hope we do this annual exercise before the mayor announces his budget each spring. I want you to know I'm very flexible. There's a lot in this that has time constraints. I think we were trying to be careful with time boundaries and not wanting this to extend itself too long. I think this is a body that needs more discipline about time boundary management, so that's why that's in there. But if it got too obsessive, please know I'm open to that. Most importantly, I wanted it read into the public record so we can start to finally so we can have this discussion. And with that I can take any questions to level set this before we hear the testimony and then hear the testimony. Or if you'd like to go right to the testimony, we can do that.
77 Thanks to your testimony.
78 You want to hear testimony. You good at home there or wherever? Councilor. You're good. Okay. All right. We just made a decision up here. And so, rebecca, go ahead and please read the names of those who are going to testify. Please.
79 First, terry harris.
80 Welcome back. Terry.
81 Good to see you guys again. Terry harris for the record and thank you for this opportunity. And I'm going to come out and say from the beginning I'm generally favorable for this. I think this is a good idea. It seems to have a good scope. It's good to have good facilitation involved, and it's good in a limited time time frame. And structure. I would warn not to overload the agenda, which is a little bit what I just heard. Just be careful with the expectations. It's a good idea. Gtac had several recommendations coming into onboarding of you all a year ago, where that could have occurred and should have occurred, but having it done annually and in January seems like a perfectly fine idea. I could nitpick some of the details in the resolution, but I'm not going to. I will say that it might take a little bit of rethinking of what you mean by priorities, and have a different mindset as to not priorities, but maybe problems. We all agree we know we need to solve. And and just a quick comparison. For example, homelessness and housing is always going to be a priority. It's going whether you like it or not. And there's going to be disagreements. And on what the priorities, what level of priority and the actions within the priority. There's no reason to spend your time strategically planning that. It's just going to happen. On the other hand, something like park maintenance, that is something that is a universal priority. You know, it's a problem you've got to solve. Now you have a five year ticking time clock to solve it. It would be good to figure out at a strategic session how and on what timeline and what's the workforce and team that needs to get to work now and what their roles are going to be. That's a great thing to do in a session like this. So identify the these sorts of problems. Asset management is another one. And identify the timelines. And those are probably going to be associated with bonds on the horizon. Your debt the budget cycles. And then assign the appropriate work groups from the administration, from the council in the committees and what those timelines are going to be. So anyway, I think it's great. I have you got great opportunity here. If if you think about it in the right way. Thanks.
82 Thank you so much, terry. Rebecca, who's the next person?
83 We have one more person signed up, diane salazar. Diane. And there's someone who's called in.
84 Sarah. There's someone. Yeah. Calling in right now.
85 Caller. You can unmute. Diane salazar. Diane, if you are called in, you can unmute and begin your testimony.
86 I think it's dean, right.
87 Oh, apologies.
88 It's okay. Oh, yeah. Sorry. Hi. First time using this by phone.
89 Apologies. We hear you.
90 Good, good. So good afternoon, counselors. I'm dean salazar, and I urge you to adopt this resolution as a long time advocate for effective governance in Portland, in the state of Oregon, I see this measure not as a procedural footnote, but essential architecture we need for accountable and empathetic leadership. We cannot serve the working class, bipoc communities or disabled youth effectively if our priorities are fragmented and constantly shifting. This resolution addresses a fundamental flaw the lack of a shared, measurable public strategy. Research and municipal management confirms that when local governments establish clear annual strategic plans, complete with specific objectives and outcomes as mandated here they achieve significantly higher rates of budget alignment. This isn't just abstract it prevents millions of dollars from being spent on disconnected projects. For me, promoting economic fairness means ensuring every public dollar is spent with purpose. This framework is crucial for the efficiency. Furthermore, the requirement of a 75% supermajority for final approval is a vital safeguard. My belief, honed through years of work, is that government must serve with conviction and care, which requires broad consensus. Just as my work supporting initiatives like participatory budgeting focuses on shared community ownership, this supermajority ensures the strategic direction is a shared value, not a simple majority win. It demands a collaborative spirit. Our city needs to thrive. The dedicated time this resolution carves out by temporarily suspending committee meetings is smart strategy. Policy setting is deep work that cannot be rushed. By adopting this resolution, you are showing the strategic persistence and commitment to accountability that our community deserves. Please adopt this resolution. Thank you.
91 Thank you so much.
92 That concludes testimony.
93 Okay. Thank you rebecca. All right. So now we're open for discussion. Everyone's hands are up. So we'll start with you chair Koyama Lane. Go for it.
94 Well I just.
95 Wanted to kick us off by expressing my sincere thanks to you, vice chair Ryan, for your leadership around this and your initiative in bringing this resolution forward. I think your work on this is really important because as your resolution states, we still have yet to have had a dedicated time to come up with some shared strategic priorities and future planning. And I think that this resolution makes our values of the values of transparency, accountability, collaboration, by making this an annual thing that has a public process and has strategic direction part of it. So I do think that this will help us be better equipped to align our collective work, set some clear objectives and outcomes, and devote real time and space to thinking strategically, rather than having to react or just focus on operational pieces. And I know I have mentioned to you, if you are open to a friendly amendment, I see the pros and cons about this being something done in December or January. I can see it being depending on the year, depending on if we're getting new electeds coming in or not. And if you are open to a friendly amendment to changing the timing to say, December or January, I think that could give us a little bit of flexibility and scheduling. And the other piece I wonder about is striking the phrase following the election of council president, vice president, that section. And also striking the portion that specifies it's for meetings no less than four hours. I, I do actually like that idea, but I wonder if we can be a little bit more flexible if we don't have those specifics there, but also would love to hear what my colleagues are thinking. Thank.
96 Thank you. I think the big takeaways on that. Are you going to I'm saying yes to a friendly amendment that includes the month of December. And so, for example, next year in 2026, if in fact there that would be an election year. So we would have new people and you would say that's the year you would do it in after they're elected. Whereas this year it could have been December where we're building, of course. And so that's a practice. But you want us to be flexible with a two month span and most likely get into a rhythm of being cognizant of elections. Correct. Is that what I heard?
97 Yeah, that is correct. And I can also see with scheduling where let's say if we do have four planned meetings, that maybe it works, that we have two in December and two in January, just maybe that it gives us some some flexibility there.
98 And your friendly amendment then adds the word we'll meet annually in either or so. It's a it's a both just you could choose like if you handle it in December then it's handled. If you need two months you want that flexibility. So you want to offer any language on that friendly amendment. And your second part is what I heard is basically to take out striking the following the election of council president and vice president. You want to have that all strike, strike that out.
99 Yes.
100 So it would be adding December or before January and then that would that would necessitate striking following the election of council president and vice presidents, because that will always happen in January.
101 So on that. Now therefore, be it resolved. I am comfortable with the language you're offering of adding a month and then striking that language. So as the author of this, I'll say to all of my colleagues, I'm comfortable with that friendly amendment. Is it friendly to others? Are you? Is this. Anyone else have a thought on that? I think council president.
102 I might when I give my remarks.
103 Okay. So we're going to accept that right now as a friendly amendment in discussion because others and you said as much you want to hear from your other colleagues. Is that true? All right. Thumbs up. Yes. All right. On to councilor Pirtle-guiney.
104 Thank you, vice chair and chair, for getting this on the agenda. I think this is a really important piece for us to take up and figure out how we want to do. And vice chair Ryan, you and I have had a lot of conversations about this, and I've shared some concerns that I think we as a body right now have a lot of shared priorities, but opposite strategies for how to reach them. So I agree that we need to go through this process. I think the vice president and I had hoped we were going to be able to get there over the summer, and it hadn't worked. And then we got to the point where it was kind of like, we're almost at the end of the year, should we really do this now? But I'm glad to see a proposal coming forward for how to do it. I do keep in the front of my head as I think about this, how we make sure to do it in a way where we don't run into this conflict of having shared priorities, opposite strategies, and those holding us back, but instead this being something where we can air those concerns and really get to a place of understanding where it is, where we have not only shared priorities, but also shared strategies so that we can move forward. I think that while we didn't go through this process this year, we do have some priorities that have bubbled to the top. Terry named many of them asset management, parks maintenance, housing development. I think I might add to that list the work that we did during the budget. And also councilor Ryan, under your guidance since then around supporting small businesses and the economy in our city. So I do think that we have managed over the year to let some priorities bubble to the surface. But having that list earlier is certainly a good thing. I have a couple of concerns that I want to raise about the specific language on the page, because I want this to be something that is evergreen, and that helps move us ahead and doesn't become a hindrance to the work. Inadvertently. The way this is currently written, we could have our committees on hold for one and a half to two months by the time we get through a process that ends at the end of January, and then that needs to come forward and be voted on by council before we even get a committee proposal from the council president. And I'm looking right now sitting in the council president chair at the moment at a schedule where the administrative side is already bringing forward things that they need us to put on our agenda out through January and February. We have a really important report that council is going to want to dig in on that. I couldn't schedule for a work session until the end of January. Our first or second meeting of January are already taken up by council president elections, and hopefully, as the council vice president moves forward with a handbook every other year or every year, depending on how often that comes forward. Conversations about our rules and procedures. And I worry as I look at how our calendar sits now at the idea of not having committees to get through the basic functioning of our city, let alone policy proposals that councilors have in in the hopper that they're working on for a month and a half or two months. I'm also concerned that trying to get to a 75% I vote yea is absolutely what we should do. But if we're not able to do that, if we have a very divided council, where does that leave us and what is the release valve? So I am wondering if folks are interested in a conversation about paring back some of the language here and having a resolution with your whereases with the. Therefore, we will meet annually. I actually think after the election of the president and vice president is a good thing, because then we have a leadership team who can help guide us through that discussion and who maybe in their election process, put forward some ideas about what some of our priorities might be that can help lead us into that conversation. But if we have that, therefore either amended as the vice president is offering it or as it currently stands, if we talk about maybe not the no less than four hours four times each, but that the strategic priority meeting will occur over the course of a few meetings to give us time to dig into the work. Right. Something a little more general that we suspend council meetings during the process, and that it be a component of the handbook and maybe end there and not put in all of the other pieces. If that's something that my colleagues would be open to considering.
105 I, I find that to be friendly. And that's why I wanted to get this proposal out so we could finally get these edits in place. Yeah. And so what I got from you is you approved of the vice. The chair's adding December or and January. You were on different pages about keeping the language. Following that, you would say following the election of the council president, vice president is something you're interested in keeping. And that's why we're having a meeting. And the vice, the vice chair, the chair of this committee was good with cutting that. So that's just acknowledging what just happened.
106 I'll note those two things have to go together. If it says December or January, we have to take out the after the election of the president and vice president, because we won't have had that election yet in December. So I think we need to make a decision about those two things together. I think there's value in waiting so that we can hear the the proposals from the people running for council president. But I also see the value in having more time. So I'm interested in hearing where others are. But I did want to make the point about the potential value in waiting on that one.
107 Okay. And then when we got to the time, I was pretty open with that. So what was your suggestion on the friendly amendment in terms of.
108 Further resolved, the annual strategic priority setting meeting will consist of a series of meetings to allow council time to. And then maybe we move up some of the language you have later. So to allow council time to identify individual councilors operating values and priorities, councils shared values and councils shared values and priorities, that language you have later on you have a one, two, three and I would take the one and two, move them up to talk about enough time to do that work without setting a minimum number of hours or meetings.
109 Okay.
110 And your last point on edits.
111 I would then.
112 I saw a cut on the be it for the resolved.
113 I would end at be it further resolved. This council operating procedure will be a component of the council handbook period, and I would cut the last three that we moved up part of the second to last. Be it further resolved that require that this be conducted with a contracted with a skilled contractor. Costs vary year to year, budgets vary year to year and I would cut the the resolved about a 75%. I vote because I worry about what happens if we are, if we're stuck, and if we're not able to move forward with our other work because we're stuck.
114 Cut it out entirely.
115 That was my proposal.
116 That was that. This is all friendly for those watching. There's enough friendly amendments here that we will be bringing this back to my office to bring back a new one, because we're not going to wordsmith up here. I'm highly against that in general, but we're having a meeting right now and we're getting the feedback we need. So on that note.
117 Lovely vice chair. Isn't it great?
118 Yeah.
119 This is good governance. We're supposed to model that, right? Council clerk.
120 Thank you, mr. Chairman. I do have some comments, but first I just wanted to ask you if you had a model that you were working off of or how you came to the 75% or the four meetings. Just what was the logic behind that before I weigh in on it, just want to.
121 Yeah, I wasn't attached to the 75%. It was more to get some. The model that I've worked at my entire life when I've been in leadership, is that bodies that are functioning well and get a lot of results have this practice each year, and it's really important to be aligned. In some models, it's the board, the staff and the community are all like, yeah, those are the priorities and those are what we should measure, I think, to earlier comments, it's like, how do we solve the problem is where you have the juice and the and the tension and the healthy debate. But I've never worked under a system where you didn't have this. When you're trying to move complex population work. And so I thought it was important, as we're building this in the governance committee to talk about these better practices that leaders tend to adhere to when they're running the really large budgets for the community.
122 So I'm totally in support of this, but I just want to know how you came up with the decision to do four meetings, four hours.
123 It doesn't.
124 Really it doesn't.
125 It doesn't matter. What mattered is that we weren't having this, and I wanted to get it on here so we could really have this conversation.
126 I just wanted to clarify that, that there was some standard about that.
127 Zero attachment.
128 Gotcha, gotcha. Okay. Well, in that case, I think I'm I think this is great. I really appreciate you bringing it forward. You know, when I was running and I think probably a lot of us people ask, how are 12 people going to do this? And my common response was, well, we'll have a process where we will identify what our common values are. And out of that, we will come up with, you know, a short list of priorities, and that's the way we'll do it. And of course, you know, we haven't gotten around to that yet. So I really, really appreciate your doing this. And I think that the timing is good because I think in this community we're really at a turning point. You know, we're looking at a recession, we're looking at a budget crisis. So we absolutely need some kind of a process to focus on what our top priorities are. And I agree with council president that we may not have consensus on how we solve those, but at least we know what our priorities are. And yes, we I think we have, just through our committee process, already identified, you know, a short list of what those might be. So I, I really appreciate this. I don't I don't have a stake in any of the particulars necessarily. I think that was interesting. Today in my committee, we had a presentation on parks with people from the community and people from the bureau to talk about what next steps are. That's that's coming to us, that's in process. We'll be looking at at more of that. We don't have to come up with that ourselves necessarily. We'll we'll be given something to react to. But we do need to identify a very short list of our priorities. So I'm I'm completely supportive of this. I'm glad we finally got to it. And I appreciate your leadership in bringing it to us.
129 Thank you, councilor Clarke. And I think I'll just add that with all the indications we have about the 2627 budget, it seemed more necessary than ever to get this in motion as a practice at the beginning of the calendar year.
130 I say one more thing.
131 Absolutely.
132 I just, I forgot, I just wanted to tell you that I chafe at not having the committee meetings and I, the council president, just added weight to that and that there are important things coming from the administration. But we also have stuff that we're all doing in our committees. I mean, that we're on a track to perform that are important, even though we don't have that short list of priorities. I think some of the things that at least working in my committee are priorities for everybody. We have. I feel some consensus across the board, but so I chafe at not having committee meetings. It seems like we ought to be able to work around them. So I appreciate your flexibility on that.
133 Yes. And I'm flexible about that as long as we do this, because I've heard that story for a while now. And I, we got to we got to, in my opinion, still do this level setting work. And we have a system set up with the administration on how to move the mission critical work to keep the operations going. And that's been something the city has known how to operate for decades. And so there is a way to do that. And I think, I hope that people that currently have gavels for the current committees can open up to maybe having half the amount of committee meetings and being more focused in their priorities at that time, so we can lean into something that I know the chair of this committee, Koyama Lane, has been very vocal about. Can we just get in the same room with the facilitator and talk? I mean, it's really similar to what was being proposed by the the the chair of this committee earlier in the year. It's just putting some more meat on that. So, councilor Dunphy. Thank you.
134 I'm going to be a bit contrarian here. And I'm going to say I'm actually not supportive of this. I think we have three priority setting exercises already. We have committees that are decided every year. And the city council at the beginning of every year when we decide what committees we're going to have, can set the priorities there. And that that inherently will guide the work. We have service areas which this council has the ability to change, what service areas we do and what the work of the city is. And third, every 24 months we have an election and the composition of this body will be selected by our neighbors based off of what we or other potential future city councilors put out there and say, these are the priorities we want to see done. Further, I represent east Portland. A majority of 75% of this body could vote to say that east Portland is not the priority, the way that passively, every single past city council has chosen not to make east Portland a priority. And I will not be stopped by prioritizing east Portland, regardless of what this body says. Additionally, I'm a duly elected official by a new system that embodies our form of proportional representation. It inherently brings forward voices of community that would not be supported in a majority. A winner take all first past the post system. I, as an elected official, have a responsibility to find seven votes. I can work on any pet project I want to if I can get seven votes, and if I can't, that's my my responsibility as an elected official. I don't mind help with some guidance or some guiding conversations, but I won't be told that I can't work on something just because it's outside of what the majority wants us to work on. And inherently, I don't think that consensus should be the goal of this body. We don't get easy decisions. If it's an easy decision, it's made before it comes to an elected officials level. And so I think that a simple majority is is a goal that we should always keep in mind. I count to seven in this building. I love it if we can get to 12. And a number of times I've been on the the other side of a 1 to 11 vote. But that's my responsibility as an elected official. We are a city that loves process at the cost of outcomes, and we have all these checkpoints to say what we should be spending our time on. If. And lastly, I'll say that the needs of a legislative body are different than the needs of an executive body and are different than the needs of a business and are different than the needs of a nonprofit. And so I agree strategically, if I'm when I ran my coffee shop, if I'm running a nonprofit for the state of Oregon, if I'm doing a community group, that is a very, you know, I you need to identify your priorities because it also goes with funding. It also goes with staffing resources. But the needs of a legislative body inherently need to be responsive. And that doesn't we can't we could not have forecast well, maybe we could have, but we probably would not have forecasted that so much of our time this year would have been spent responding to the federal overreach and the situation with ice. How would we, in a situation where we had set our priorities for the year in January, how do we respond to a July federal overreach and a need for this body to react? It wouldn't be acceptable for anybody in the community to say, well, that's, you know, that's not our priority. So we're going to just keep moving on. We can't dedicate resources to that. And I don't think it would be acceptable to most of our colleagues to say that we can't respond and pivot. I think it's a good opportunity for us to, as a body, grow and build relationships, but that's a responsibility of the body. And I don't think that consensus needs to be our goal. So I think that there are plenty of checking points to to guide this. So I'm ultimately not not not supportive.
135 Okay. So what I listen to all of that and what I got from you is there were no friendly amendments, suggestions. You were just giving your list of reasons why you don't think this body should spend time discussing what their strategic priorities are for the city. You don't think that's necessary as a governing body of the city.
136 Separate from the conversations around the composition of our committees, composition of our service areas and elections.
137 And just an opportunity to stand to make a couple points based on listening to all that. I do think some of your points are would not be experienced. It doesn't mean that you, as an independent elected cannot bring up any issue at any given time. It. I don't think the constraints are as severe as they were painted, but that's your perception based on this first reading, and I'll continue to take questions because we are bringing this back, and maybe you'll be able to see it in a different way when there is new language.
138 Certainly open to the conversation.
139 Okay. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
140 Councilor, I want to thank you for bringing up those points, because while I'm trying to figure out a way to make this something I can support, I shared some of those same concerns when I first read it. And I just want to say, as we continue this conversation, I hope that we are creating a document. If we move in this direction and have this process, whether or not we pass something, we could have this process actually. But I hope if we have a goal setting process like this, that we are doing it more for the sake of the conversation that occurs and the way that it helps us air our differences, then for any document we get at the end of the day, which is, I think, one of the reasons that I was looking at stripping some of the language that required that vote, because we can all bring whatever we want and we don't know what will come our way, and we have to be able to pivot. And while we want to be proactive and not just reactive, part of our work is to be reactive to the concerns we hear from portlanders to the situation on the ground, to the federal administration coming in and trying to invade our city, all of those things. So I, I hope that as we continue down the path of discussing whether we want to pass a resolution stating that we're going to do this, whether we want to put it in the handbook but not pass a separate resolution, whether we don't want to pass anything at all but want to say yes, this is something that's important, that we keep those concerns in mind. I also think that you just shifted me a little more towards saying no. I really think this should happen after the election of the president and vice president, because that's a period when presumably and we'll see in the future, there may be years when a new president keeps the committees that we have, but there may be a process every year after the election of president and vice president, where we're saying, do we have new committees? What does this look like? What are the priorities for these leaders that our council just elected to help guide us through the next year? And in my mind, this could be part of that process. We could have a conversation. That is what are all of our priorities, that guides the proposal that a president brings forward for our committees. And it could be that it's part of those things that that you pointed out, we do already have that do already allow us to set our priorities. When I look at what our committees are right now, I actually think they align very well with what our priorities are. I think as a body, and maybe these things can work together as opposed to this being a separate document that feels like it's binding.
141 Thank you. Council president. Councilor Clark, are you back up or is that historic I think legacy. So okay, your hand is up, but councilor Koyama Lane, chair of this committee.
142 Are we skipping councilor Clark?
143 Yes. I've already spoken to you.
144 At this moment.
145 Okay. I don't think it's a surprise to folks that I think doing this type of work is very valuable and important. I can be moved on when exactly it is. I like the idea of separating it from the council president vice president vote, because I don't think it should be about any 1 or 2 people leading. I think it should be about the body of 12. In kind of thinking about what councilor Dunphy shared and what our member of the public shared, I also would entertain the idea of striking the words, objectives and outcomes and focusing just on the strategic priorities. I, I understand that it could be hard to focus on deliberating different objectives and outcomes, but if there's a session that focuses on shared challenges, I can see that being a place where we could find some agreement to use the example brought by terry, I think it'd be possible to come to an agreement that housing and homelessness is a priority. However, it probably would be very difficult to get a shared agreement on exactly what those outcomes should could be, which ones to focus on. And so I, I think that this it's really. Disappointing and that we haven't done this work already. Most cities do this. I look often at the city of long beach's notes from their council retreat, and I look at it longingly and and see how they are able to each talk about their own districts and things they love about them and where what, what's unique to each, what they're each facing in their districts. Where do they have some agreement on where there are shared priorities? I yeah, going back to the committees being paused, I understand the concern around boxing us in. I also think that instead of the word will that they will be suspended. I think we could put they may be suspended just to give us that flexibility, if that makes sense, to start them a little bit later in January once we have a new council president and we're trying to get this work done, I am believing that we do need to have some kind of a vote on a resolution to actually make something like this happen, because I think there there might be, even if it's just 1 or 2 people who are going to push back against this. And in general, I don't think that this is that has to be something where everyone comes out feeling beautifully. It's not a kumbaya thing where everyone's going to agree. But I do think that this is a part of I think it's what our constituents deserve, which is us really sitting down and being forced to explain where we're coming from, what we prioritize and and sharing that with the public. And that hasn't happened yet. I do see I hear what councilor Dunphy is sharing that decisions have been made, gavels have been handed out. But I actually think that that's quite different from kind of getting on the same page and seeing where we do have some overlapping priorities, and I very much see the value in doing this work.
146 Thank you so much, council clerk.
147 Thank you. I really appreciate those comments. Councilor Koyama Lane, I think I'm definitely well, you and I have talked about this in the past, the need to do this. We've even talked about individuals that could do it with us. And so I'm glad to see us finally discussing this as a committee. I just wanted to address councilor Dunphy's concerns. I hear you, I, I don't think that what you're talking about, it's not mutually exclusive at all. And, I mean, I have priorities that you probably wouldn't agree with. Possibly. But I think councilor Koyama Lane is right that I think the public is expecting this from us. I know my constituents are. It's like, you know, what do you stand for or what? Where, you know, generally where is the council going as a group? So I think we have a responsibility to the larger community to do this as well as to ourselves. But your concerns about bringing forward your priorities, I think they're not mutually exclusive. At least that's how I feel. My, you may not agree with my priorities, but I think there are going to be cross-cutting issues that we're all going to agree on.
148 Okay. Councilor clarke, councilor Dunphy.
149 Yeah, I don't disagree. I think you're probably right. I bet there are things that are I won't even say. I mean, yeah, priorities. If all I cared about was the baseball stadium and nobody else cared about the baseball stadium, I can still talk about the baseball stadium. I get that. I don't care that much about the baseball stadium, but if it were that, you know, that's the thing. I wonder, though, if we're not looking for bookends, if we're not looking to limit the ability of our colleagues to work on things that are outside of the priorities, why couldn't this just be a work session in which we just discuss what our priorities are, and use that conversation to inform other parts of what we're doing? I mean, it doesn't feel like it needs to be a formal, facilitated report. I mean, I just one of the things I hate about this city is that we spend so much time putting together beautiful pdfs that nobody will read after they're done, and that we pat ourselves on the back as though we've done something. But I think that having a conversation in public about what our priorities are, or where we want to spend our time, or what our voters are telling us, or what our neighbors are telling us, is important. And I just don't know that it needs to be a suspension of the council, a formal guided conversation with a facilitator and a and a report to come out that we share publicly. I'm not sure what value we get and what how the work looks different than if we didn't just have a work session at the beginning. I mean, the first thing we could do as a council in January could be a work session in which we talk about our priorities, and we could do that again in the middle of the year or after the fiscal year if we wanted to. But I still think that each of those checkpoints are an important priority setting exercise that we have authority already to do. So.
150 Okay. The hands keep coming up. Councilor. Clerk.
151 Well, I hate to keep I think we should we could just have an ongoing dialog because I think, councilor Dunphy, that we absolutely need to have a different party organizing, facilitating our discussion and making sure that everybody has adequate time, making sure everybody is drawn out and that we we do it. We should have done it. You know, in the very beginning, we we we we spent so much time receiving information and not taking much time really talking to each other during our onboarding, that we missed that opportunity. But I really believe we need a facilitator. We need somebody else to help guide us through that. Now, whether we need a report, I don't know about that. I agree with you that we are the city of planning, that we have plans up the wazoo, that we have a problem with execution. But I think for our own benefit, to have a time out with the facilitator would be beneficial. It doesn't have to be a big old report, but and some of it we could actually do with a questionnaire. You know, we could have a facilitator say, here, fill this out, I will digest it, I will feed it back to you, and then we'll have a dialog. I mean, there are different ways to structure it so that we're not spending an inordinate amount of time on it. And we're not writing some tome about, you know, what we said to each other. So I think we can we can bring it down, we can make it smaller as long as we come up with, okay, we did articulate, you know, top line priorities, maybe second line priorities. But we're going to I think we absolutely need outside help to do that. Case closed.
152 Thank you, councilor Clark. Chair Koyama Lane.
153 Yeah, I appreciate this conversation. I agree that a neutral third party is probably ideal if there's not a set. There's not a this hasn't been done before and it's the first time. But I shared with councilor Dunphy the notes from long beach and their city administrator puts theirs on. I don't know if that's exactly the right fit for our group. Maybe someday. But I can see a neutral third party being something that is is a good way to go. And we've even had conversations here in governance about this being something that's done through this committee, starting some of that work. But I think similarly to some other conversations we've had, let's do something because right now we have not done we really haven't done anything like this in terms of the notes or a report. I think that for some cities it's a matter of public record and that when you are done, you follow up and and share that with the public. I would not support putting hours of time into some sort of report, but support the idea that we hand over what is used for public records. And I think many of us and councilor for wonder if this resonates with you at all. I think I believe that you do some similar work with your own office team, which I value also, and so see it as you know, do. I guess it's a question of do we see ourselves as a group of 12 as needing to do some of that work and try to find the ways that we are somewhat of a team? I think most of us believe that's important for our own council office team. I see that that being important on different levels. If you continue to zoom out.
154 Thank you. And we need to move on to the next topic soon. So I'm going to say something that I said earlier. I see your hand. Is your hand up again? I okay, we I got a lot of clear direction on the beginning of the warehouses and I could have done some wordsmithing there to make it land. And I see that craig went ahead and did some of that. Thank you. But I think I've heard enough discussion to know we got a noodle with the end part, and we will do that. And, chair, I'll ask that we bring this back as a topic to recast it at the next meeting. And I think we can get something that we can then move forward with after this really good conversation with great feedback. Does that work for everybody? Okay.
155 Timing wise, I know that the next meeting is largely about advisory bodies, but as long as we have time, I would love for us to continue this conversation.
156 I missed the first part. What is it? The next meeting.
157 Our next meeting, I know is largely booked up for or the only thing that's on there right now is around the advisory bodies. But I think we'll also have time to discuss this too. So as long as there's time, let's.
158 Based.
159 On all of the feedback of everyone was earnest about their feedback, which I know this group is, I think we were able to listen to it. We'll watch the video and make some more edits, and we'll get something back to all of you, and I'll talk to you one by one when I when we meet. How's that? Okay, rebecca, please read. Thank you everyone. And again, this is going back to my office and we will return at the next meeting with an updated version. Rebecca, please read the next item.
160 Item four council rules discussion.
161 Okay. Thank you. Rebecca, where am I on item four? Who brought this one? Is this you?
162 This is me.
163 I'm looking at councilor Pirtle-guiney and just said, is this you? So, council president, take it away.
164 Thank you, vice chair. Colleagues, as we discussed at our last full council meeting at the beginning of the year, we passed an ordinance that included having an update to chapter 3.02, which is the rules that guide council's operations sometime this year. And I think when we passed that, some of our colleagues expected that we might need an entire overhaul to 3.02. And I have spent the last few months thinking about what is working well and what's not working well, where we have, despite what what some people like to suggest is a body without process, where we have actually very much honed in on processes for our work and have established ways, even less than a year in of doing things, and where our rules still either catch us up or don't provide the full guidance that we might need in order to operate in the way that we have started to operate. And I put together, based on conversations about one off concerns that some of our colleagues have raised in council meetings and other committee meetings, and my own observances from from serving in the council president's role. A few things that I think we might want to add, update or change as we move forward. Unfortunately, that document is still in review. I'm not sure if you know this or not, but our attorneys have been very busy over the last month or two taking on issues that they did not think they were going to have to take on this year.
165 I was looking for this document.
166 I'm about to hand you.
167 A draft. And the reason we don't have something posted in a formal way that we can debate and vote on today is because it is still in review. But what I am handing you is what we have given to the attorneys, with the caveat that I expect that there will be some changes to this before I bring it to this body in an official capacity. And so I wanted to be able to give that introduction first. I expect changes to this as we work through all of the details with the attorneys, but this will allow us to walk through the. The areas of change that I'm suggesting, because what I'd like to do is get your feedback now so that as we continue to work through that process with the attorneys, if there's major pushback in some areas, it's it's static excitement about others. I know that as we continue with these conversations. So I want to walk through this with everybody and just flag the couple of things where I thought we might need to make some changes. But before I do that, I want to call out some things that I think are working well, just to kind of ground our conversation, because I think we have a committee process that, while we all agree we have too many committees, is actually working quite well and people seem to be bringing things to committee to work through, it is not perfect. I see your face, councilor Ryan. There are changes to make, but we're starting to establish the use of that. We at this point have a pretty good cadence of how our conversations go in committee versus council, and how those two things are different. I think we have, through the year, used work sessions in different ways, but established some key places where we use work sessions. There's a lot that we have started to already solidify in how we do things, but there are a few places where I would recommend changes. So the first is that at the beginning of the year, we had a very bare bones idea of what our council committees would look like, and that has really we've put some meat on those bones through the year. So right now we have a a kind of slimmed down piece about committees in 302 050 that talks about their formation, their authority, their membership, and that the council may adopt committee rules and procedures by resolution. So what I am proposing we do is in 3.02050, which currently says council may adopt committee rules and procedures by resolution. I'm suggesting that we flesh that out a little bit and that we parallel much of our process for council and the way that committees have been operating. I would suggest, in our code. So we would add that when an item is referred to committee, a chair or co-chairs have 90 days to place it on the agenda. That parallels the 90 days that we have to place something on the agenda at council. Once it comes out of committee and is headed to council, I have added in subsections two and three talk about the actions that a committee may take. This is how we're operating right now, but it's not codified anywhere. And I think it's important to say a committee is making a recommendation, a due pass or a due adopt recommendation. They're not just moving things forward without recommendation, and that committees can also refer things to another committee for additional consideration if needed. Or it can vote not to refer an item or take no action. I think it's important to spell that out. Subsection four deals with something that I talk about later in other ways. Also, that if a committee votes not to refer an item to full council or refer it to another committee, or takes no action on an item that has been placed on an agenda. And the item isn't put back on an agenda that, after 180 days from when it was initially placed on an agenda, it is considered inactive. We don't have any way right now that policies that we bring forward go away. So we actually have on our docket about a half a dozen policies, some in this committee that have been brought forward, and the committee decided not to act. We didn't vote it down. We didn't vote. No, we never officially killed the item in that way. But it's clear to everybody committee that we're not taking action on that item. And our clerk's docket is going to be full of these things, 2 or 3 or 4 or 5 years from now. If we don't have a way of those items becoming inactive and being able to be removed from the docket 180 days gives us plenty of time, even in our busiest time of year, for a committee chair to decide to bring something back, or for, as our rules allow for council members to pull that item from committee to the full council for a vote, if the committee has chosen not to act. I chose 180 days because I wanted it to be enough time for one of those two things to happen without being so long that we have things just hanging indefinitely where nobody really quite knows what's happening with them. I'm not tied to that number. It was my best guess on what the right balance was. And then I moved down to number five here, continuing to be able to adopt other rules and procedures by resolution. So that's this first item. Is it helpful, vice chair, if I run through everything first rather than stop for discussion on each, or would you like to stop for discussion on each?
168 I will. I think that we should go through one by one. This is an item that has not been shared with the public, correct?
169 It hasn't. We can send it to the clerk for posting if you'd like. I didn't want to cause confusion because I think this will change as it comes out of legal review, but I'm happy to have it up there with that caveat, if that's helpful. And I also just saw a note from councilor, Koyama Lane and councilor. I'm having my staff send this to you right now. I apologize, I hadn't realized in advance that you were going to be online.
170 I think for me, I just received this and so I'm in a I feel more like I'm in a workshop mode with you on this, and I'm not in a space today to take any action on voting.
171 No, we aren't able to take action. This is still in legal review. This is just to daylight.
172 Read that. Yes.
173 I am daylighting these places where I think we might want to make changes and asking for your initial feedback on them. Okay, this is still in in review though it's not.
174 So I would say based on that it would be important to go through it one by one. It would be easier to manage the feedback.
175 Great.
176 Does that work for you?
177 That works for me. Do you want feedback on one?
178 So we're starting on the first one.
179 Shh.
180 Let me share.
181 Yeah, I can have my staff send it to craig for posting.
182 I just I just sent it to. Great.
183 The document was just emailed to all the committee members.
184 Can we throw it up on the screen? So people at home can follow along as we read it?
185 So we're going to put this item on the screen so that you can see what we're discussing. We're in a workshop mode giving feedback as councilor Pirtle-guiney is bringing this to us to be daylighted today.
186 Can I just.
187 Anyone put their hand up? You have your hand up?
188 No.
189 Councilor Clark has her hand up.
190 So basically you're just talking about when something becomes inactive, you want to declare it inactive.
191 That's what subsection four is.
192 Yes.
193 I'm fine with this.
194 Great.
195 I have no other comment.
196 Section one. Just or not. Section one, but item one that I just walked through.
197 I mean, I suppose you could add that the committee does not adopt. I mean, it just says do pass or do adopt. What about.
198 Subsection three? Vote not to refer an item or take no.
199 Action, okay.
200 You might want to combine those.
201 The they were originally combined in the separation to a sub two, and sub three was upon recommendation from the clerk's office.
202 Okay.
203 So I am not opposed to recombining if folks would prefer that, but that was our clerk's recommendation for keeping it structured for their tracking purposes. And vice chair, the chair is raising her hand. I'm not sure if you saw that.
204 Yeah.
205 She's sorry. Councilor chair. I have been reading the document. Failed to look up to see her hand was up. The floor.
206 Is yours.
207 You're all good. Council president and I have talked about this a little bit about what's the right word. And I was like, is is dead too sad to say that I, I'm not sure what the right word is, but council president, weren't we playing in with some other words? I wondered if inactive kind of made it seem like it wasn't taken off, and if it was kind of just there, but inactive. Were you talking about some other words also like dismissed or removed? I'm this is just a wordsmithing thing, but I'm wondering if inactive is the right word there. Other other than that, I, I agree with this concept.
208 Let's do.
209 Move on.
210 Let's do this. I am not tied to the word inactive. I did not use the word dead because I know that that was you. Had you had asked that. We try to think about a different approach here. If anybody has suggestions on a word that captures, we are removing this item from the docket. It's no longer a part of the work that we're doing. I think expired was a term that we had talked about at one point. I am open to suggestions and please feel free. Colleagues. Mr. Harris, members of the public, to share any preferences that you have.
211 It is great. Yeah.
212 Councilor Clark is sharing that she likes inactive.
213 I think it's accurate. Okay.
214 I like it too. It's accurate.
215 Yeah.
216 Okay. Should I move on to item two on the list? Okay. Item two amends 3.02040. And this is the section of our code that lays out our council rules. This lays out president and vice president. Elections and duties. General rules of procedure motions, and our use of robert's rules of order. And it would add a new subsection f after those sections that speaks to inactive items. So we're we're kind of pulling that piece we just talked about. And we. We parallel it for the full council. So very similar language. If an item is placed on the full council agenda and is then subsequently removed from the agenda, or the council chooses not to take action on it, and it is not placed back on the agenda within 180 days, it's deemed inactive. So this is the same concept we just talked about for committees. But ensuring that that's the case for council items. Also, we have placed things on full council agendas, which we then remove. We then choose not to move forward. We don't take a vote on it that fails. We don't send it back to committee. And again, it's sitting in limbo. If after 180 days that's not put back on the agenda, either through a petition or through council president actions, and it's not sent back to a committee that would then be removed from our docket, it would be deemed inactive. And as a reminder for the council agenda, the council president could put it on the agenda. It could be added to the agenda through a 9/12 action by any councilor or when we go through the agenda approval process, it could be proposed to be added to an agenda by any councilor. So there are a variety of backstops there to get things back on an agenda within 180 days.
217 Would that need 9/12? If someone wants to put it back on?
218 Those are our current rules.
219 Now the third one, your third item.
220 Yes.
221 It's also required.
222 Yes.
223 I just had to hear that again. I'm trying to reflect on the last ten months. And have there been any situations like this? And it would help to reflect on that. And what's the problem we're trying to solve here?
224 So I believe it's happened more at the committee than the council level. I think it has happened once at council with a procedural item way back in, the way back in the spring. And I am not remembering the specifics of this because it was way back in the way back in the spring. But it has not been common at full council where we have removed things from the agenda. Either we've sent them back to committee, or I've worked with the carrier to get them back on an agenda. A few weeks or a month later, after more work is done or or as we have time to place it back on the agenda. So I don't think we have a lot languishing at council the way that we have a few things languishing in committees, but it would ensure that we have those parallel processes at both levels of at both levels where we do our work.
225 Okay. Thank you. And just I was smiling because I've been put on the spot about things that happened three years ago by this council. And sometimes it looks like, why can't you remember that? So just for the record, even in this 110 month period, you can forget about stuff that happened earlier in the spring.
226 It's been.
227 A busy ten months.
228 Yeah, yeah.
229 There she is, chair of this committee. Koyama Lane your hands up. Is that. That's fresh. Right.
230 I was just going to say.
231 Vice chair Ryan, that we have a couple from governance that are basically inactive or sitting there, just kind of sad and not sure what to do with them. So I think like one is adopt procedures to establish what comes before council versus committees. And then that was eight months ago. We ended up kind of not needing that resolution to go forward. So we have a couple examples in in governance. They're just kind of sitting there.
232 Thank you. Anyone else on item? The second item of this list the inactive items okay. Why don't we go to the third one. Oh wait. Sorry, councilor Dunphy, I.
233 Just.
234 I will say that this does seem like a protection against non-priority bills. That and pet projects that if there's something truly niche at one of us wants to throw on the agenda, if we can't get movement, that this is an inherent way for us to control our agenda against flashy things that are distraction and away from the the core pertaining back to the last thing. So that's all.
235 Anything else on number two? Okay. I think we can go to council rules and procedures.
236 Okay.
237 Number three on here I was trying to keep up with the conversation we've been having here about a handbook. By including that in our rules and procedures. So this is in that that same section 3.02040 that lays out our council rules and procedures, and it would establish a council handbook. It's listed as e. I think that it's actually supposed to be an f or a g here. Or we were maybe we're reordering some things in the final. But this would codify the fact that we have a handbook. We could also, depending on what happens with the conversations in this committee, call it council rules and procedures instead of a handbook. But the idea is that we have this handbook or set of rules and procedures that we readopt every year or two years to reaffirm that this is how we're guiding our actions. And that also gives us an opportunity to adopt changes to the handbook. I suggested in here as a place to start conversation that we're adopted every two years after after elections, when we have potentially a new body. But that notwithstanding that direction, that we must adopt it every two years after we have potentially new folks elected to this body, we could also re adopt changes anytime there's a change in council leadership. So, for example, after the election of a new council president. So I tried to capture what I thought we might be moving toward with the handbook. Of course, this is a little bit dependent on us moving forward with adopting that handbook that I know the council vice president is working hard on.
238 Thank you, councilor Dunphy.
239 Yeah, I guess you started to address exactly what I was going to say, that this sort of assumes to some extent, that a future council handbook will be binding in some capacity, rather than necessarily a best practices or advisory document, in which case, if, as a council, we decide it shall be binding. This makes sense. If we decide it should be more guiding best practices. I think that this then doesn't make sense. I think we need to have that conversation first, and I don't know how we get to that, because I think the council is pretty divided on these things.
240 Okay, councilor Clerk.
241 I would suggest we consider permissive language may as opposed to shall. And I'm not sure I like the word handbook, but I mean, we're really talking about council rules and procedures. Not I don't I'm not sure I like handbook, but anyway, I'm thinking permissive.
242 Councilor Clark, if this section were changed to say, council rules and procedures, council may, within the first month of a new council convening in an odd numbered year, adopt rules and procedures in addition to those changed in charter and code period. The council rules and procedures. And then take out, shall just say, the council rules and procedures guide the actions of council. And may be adopted notwithstanding blah blah blah. The council may adopt changes to the rules and procedures. Would that? Allow us, if we decide to have a binding handbook, to use that handbook to fulfill this section, but also not require us to have something in a way that might be more comfortable for you?
243 That's my thinking.
244 I'd welcome other feedback on those potential changes. And if there is no other feedback, that's fine to.
245 I look forward to seeing the rewrite.
246 Okay. Yeah.
247 Anything else on number three? Okay. Number four amendment deadlines.
248 Oh.
249 The vice president.
250 Oh, sorry, I didn't see it. There's a delay. Go for it.
251 No I'm good. Thank you for your patience while I'm virtual. I am wondering, just as I was doing a google search about council procedures, it does look like we already have a council procedures in drafting manual from the council with the council clerk. I don't know if if that is something that we should consider. It looks like it was last amended January 1st, 2025. But also I'm I'm open to wording whether it's procedures, rules, handbook or some sort of combination.
252 We'll work on the language here. I believe that that drafting manual is not something that council adopts. It's something that the clerk updates based on the practices of council and any changes that we've adopted to our work that would affect that drafting. But rebecca, is there anything you'd like to share with us?
253 Yeah, that is not adopted by council. That's the drafting manual that speaks primarily to to authors and drafters of legislation in council.
254 Councilor Ryan, did you want me to move on to number four?
255 Yeah.
256 Okay. Amendment deadlines. This is a piece that I think may be controversial, but I'll share that this is also a piece that more than one of our colleagues have asked me to take on over the last few months. We do a lot of amending on the fly, which sometimes allows us to move quickly, but sometimes means that folks are voting on things that they haven't had time to really run the trap lines on, to ensure that it will be implemented in the way that they are hoping it will. So what I am suggesting, and again, very open to feedback, is that this first subsection just refers any council action listed, refers to an ordinance or resolution a 9/12, an emergency ordinance, all of those things. That's what's listed in in what we refer to in subsection one. This goes on to say that amendments proposed in committee may be filed in writing in advance, or introduced from the dais during committee. Committees are where we iterate. They're where we come up with ideas on the fly and put them into our work, and then move them forward to council. It makes sense to me that we should be able to iterate in committees, and in the time between when something passes out of committee and moves to agenda at full council, we have time for our clerk and our legal team to do any additional review that's needed to make sure that the underlying ordinance or resolution still complies with all of our requirements that they check for when we bring forward a new piece of legislation. So there's time to make sure that those iterative thoughts can be corrected if need be, because something doesn't quite fit with how we how we do our business at the city. But I go on to say that amendments brought to full council must be filed in writing with the council clerk at least 24 hours prior to the posted start time of the council meeting, and there are two release valves to that that I want to make sure to flag, because I know that this is controversial. But the reason that I'm putting this here is twofold. First of all, we all have had times where an amendment is brought forward and we say, wait, what is this? Actually, do I want to talk to folks who might be impacted? I want to hear from my constituents. The only people who are here to know, to testify on this are people who are already in the room. And it doesn't give time for the public or for us to do our due diligence. It also doesn't give time for our clerk team or our lawyers to do their due diligence. And while we may sometimes disagree with the recommendation of our lawyers, the reality is our lawyers and our clerk are here to make sure that we are doing things legally and correctly, and we need to give them time to review our processes. There are two release valves to this, and I foresaw the question what about in an emergency when something needs to move? The first is we can override our our rules here with a vote of nine. We can always choose to do that notwithstanding what's written on the page. We can always overrule it with a vote of nine. So if there was something that was so important that we needed to amend it in council and pass it that day, we could do that. We would just need nine votes instead of a majority in order to do so. The other release valve here is if something is not filed 24 hours in advance, if we need to iterate, if somebody misses the deadline, they can always still propose their amendment. We would just have to know as a body that if we passed that, that well, I guess they could always still propose that amendment. We would just need to know as a body that if we wanted to adopt that amendment, we would need to hold over that item to the next agenda. And we have at times done that. In fact, just recently we had something brought forward by one of our colleagues, and a lot of amendments started getting thrown around on the dais. And I said, we're holding this over to the next meeting. There's too many things being thrown around. We need people to have time to actually see this, to see how they work together. Give our clerk and our lawyers time to make sure that the things being proposed are actually implementable. And so we held that agenda item over to the next meeting. We got amendments filed in advance, and we took action at the next meeting. So this in no way kills an amendment. It just says that either it needs to be so important that we get 9/12 or we need to pause. We need to hold it over so that those amendments being proposed can be filed in advance. And then again, we don't make that requirement for committee. Committee is where we iterate. Committee is where we have time afterwards before things get to full council. And amendments in committee could still be introduced in advance or from the dais.
257 Councilor Dunphy.
258 So if.
259 We have a vaguely non-controversial. Nonemergency ordinance for a first hearing, and we get really compelling testimony that says something more than a scrivener's error, but hey, you've got my address wrong in this or whatever it might be. We hold it over for a week. Could the council legally take a vote on the amendment and then pass the underlying ordinance, or would it require an additional week beyond that to approve?
260 I'm looking to the clerk to make sure I don't say this wrong. I believe what's written currently is that if something is amended and it is a nonemergency ordinance, you must wait at least five days before passing that amended ordinance. So I believe if it were an emergency ordinance or a resolution, we could make that amendment and immediately pass it. If it were a nonemergency ordinance, we would either need to have nine votes to turn it into an emergency ordinance, or we could use those nine votes to amend it the prior week. Right. Notwithstanding this, we can still amend it with nine votes, or we would need to wait that additional week.
261 Okay.
262 So and there are, I mean, emergency ordinances in addition to being able to vote on it immediately, it also puts it into effect immediately. Right. So I'm trying to think of I don't know what the circumstances would be, but usually it's 30 days after a final vote that something becomes into effect or whatever. Cool. Yeah. I learned. We have.
263 I.
264 Believe, passed an emergency ordinance with a different effective date in. It so that if we don't want to rush the effective date, but we want to rush the vote, I believe we can add an effective date and still vote on it as an emergency ordinance. I see rebecca shaking her head. Yes, okay.
265 I think we should be as explicit about that in here. I think we should maybe write it out as as detailed as we can. I think in this. And that would be my only other thought.
266 Chair.
267 Vice chair. May I ask a clarifying question. Councilor Dunphy, do you think that we should write it out as explicit as explicitly as possible with those details in the code, or do you think that that should be in an addendum explaining these things posted when this is voted on?
268 I guess I don't really have a very strong opinion one way or the other. I think we need it needs to be written down, and it shouldn't be at the discretion of whoever is the chair at the time or the or the the president at the time. Whoever's overseeing the meeting. I think it should be written down somewhere, whatever makes sense administratively, I don't care.
269 Everything that I just stated isn't at the discretion of the person chairing the meeting. It is things that are allowed. So what I might do is capture that in an addendum, so that it's clear that our intent is that this, coupled with those other things that are already allowed in different parts of code, gives us these various options. If you're comfortable with that, rather than crowding our code.
270 I think that makes sense. I mean, it obviously it's not fully winging it, but I do think that if it's not written down, if it's not explicit, then I think to some degree it is up for interpretation and therefore puts us in a vulnerable spot. So an addendum. Fine. Great. Yeah. As long as we just have a publicly accessible document that we can point back to, to, to prove our, our intent and our actions. So.
271 Chair Koyama Lane yours. You're up.
272 I think that this.
273 Is definitely a best practice. It's what I would prefer to be able to see an amendment 24 hours prior to the posted start time of a council meeting. I do worry about this being in code, rather than it being something that is encouraged, and I do worry about fully taking away that option of being able to have that these amendments on the fly.
274 Thank you. I'll go ahead and give a couple of comments. The irony is not lost, but this is a walk on amendment today that we're, you know, everything here is we just got it now so it doesn't work to get something while you're in a meeting. And I'm glad that we made a decision that this will go back to your office and this will come back.
275 It was.
276 Never my intent that we pass this today. It is not through review yet. And I'm bringing it forward as a.
277 That's right.
278 You've made that clear earlier. It's just I've been probably the biggest critic of walk on amendments. I think where that comes from is from being the person that brought all the permitting bureaus together. And when we looked at where we saw some of the biggest culprits when it came to the code clutter, the confusion with people doing permits, it was often you could trace it to a walk on amendment, and that the staff didn't have months and months and months and months with legal to process. Some especially anti walk on amendments when it comes to land use issues and permitting issues in code. So I've said that multiple times. I also said that during the budget process. So I'm basically more supportive of this than I think some would be because of my lived experience with the horrors of walk on amendments. That said, this council does it a lot, like a whole lot like, I don't think I've experienced anything passing too often without it. So it would be a major behavior change of the current culture of this newly formed government. I'm sure you've thought of that quite a bit, and you stated that this might be controversial at the beginning. Very diplomatic of you once again, council president. So I'm actually pretty much in favor of this, especially because you covered the emergency clause. Yeah. Anyone else? And we have five more minutes. And for the scheduled time in this meeting, do you want to go on to five?
279 I can be very.
280 Quick moving through five because this is the technical pieces we are because we are already touching 3.02. We are removing the requirement that we bring changes to 3.02, which we passed last year. We are removing the part of code that talks about the election of the first council president and vice president, which of course is no longer relevant because that happened already. We are standardizing language around passing versus adopting resolutions. And then we needed to clarify some language because currently our code says that the president must place items on that that have met administrative requirements on the agenda in a timely manner, not to exceed three months or 90 days. But it that actually, technically could lead to us being required to place something on the council agenda that hasn't yet passed out of committee. And so this is clarifying that items must be placed on the agenda once they have been referred to the full council and have met all of the administrative requirements, so that we don't have something that is in committee, right, that 90 days, I think our intent was once it was in the hands of the full council. And so this is just clarifying that that's once it is in the hands of the full council, whether that's because it's been referred directly to full council or because it has been sent to full council from committee, I believe that is just clarifying the intent. If somebody is intent was different from that, it would be good for them to to say that at some point during this process. So those are all technical pieces that. Are are team in. The clerk and attorney's office has asked us to take on while we were making other changes to 3.02. That's it. I think that as a package, this will help us work more effectively. And once we have final language from the lawyers, I'll bring it back as a true proposal. But in the meantime, I really appreciate the feedback today, because what I will do is take that and make some tweaks to what we have in the attorney's office right now, so that we can bring forward something that is a a better baked proposal.
281 Thank you so much. Any other questions? We've had two items today that we're taking back to offices and will be bringing them back soon. I can't think of anyone that has more perspective and a lens on the last item than you council president. So I really appreciate all the insight you've given to this process. And this meeting was very helpful at daylight and all of that. We have just a couple more minutes left. Does anyone else have any more questions related to the last item? Okay. The final item was discussed at the beginning. That's coming back later. So unless the clerk tells me there's something I'm missing, we can go ahead and agenda governance committee. Thank you all for attending. Those who are here and watching. Bye bye.