The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-02-10
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (17,561 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 held its inaugural meeting on Monday, February 10, 2025, with roll call confirming attendance of the committee's members. After a reading of the standard statement of conduct, the committee outlined its scope, covering internal operations, executive appointments, auditor reports outside policy committee areas, and periodic review of council rules. The main agenda item concerned the appointment of Laura Campos to the Cully Tax Increment Finance District Community Leadership Committee, with background on her community involvement presented by Portland Housing Bureau staff, followed by questions about residency and role classification, and public testimony from a Cully TIF committee co-chair supporting the nomination. A motion was made and seconded to advance the appointment to full council, and a vote occurred, with the outcome recorded in the vote ledger. The remainder of the session was devoted to discussion of two draft resolutions concerning internal procedures for board/committee appointments and for determining whether items go to full council or committee, covering topics such as posting deadlines, consent agenda use, nominee appearances, the role of policy committee chairs, and treatment of ceremonial resolutions versus ordinances. Discussion also touched on public testimony procedures, time management, and coordination with the Government Transition Advisory Committee, with the next meeting scheduled for February 24, 2025.
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 For. For. Joining us on.
1 Hey, thanks for joining us today.
2 You guys turn.
3 Good afternoon everyone. I call the meeting of our very first governance committee to order. It is Monday, February 10th, 2025. It is exactly 2:30 p.m. It's the first time I've ever done that. Keelan, will you please call the roll? Dunphy. Here. Pirtle-guiney. Here.
4 Ryan. Here. Clark. Sorry.
5 Here.
6 Koyama Lane.
7 Here. Lori, will you please read the statement of conduct?
8 Welcome to the meeting of the governance committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at. Portland.gov/council slash slash agenda slash governance dash committee or by calling 311. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at the 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. Please remember three things. First, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. Secondly, if you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. And finally, virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
9 Thank you so much, lori. So as I said, this is our first meeting of the governance committee. This committee will cover subject matter areas, including internal operational support and recommendations. We will review executive appointments. Auditor reports that are not related to policy committee areas, and periodically review city council rules and procedures. We will also review other non policy needs, including overseeing the administrative functions of the city. Typically, this committee will meet on the second and fourth Monday of each month at 230 in the afternoon, and I will just quickly provide a brief overview of what we're doing today in this meeting. So today we will consider the appointment of laura campos to the cully tax increment finance, or tif district community leadership committee. And then we'll also have some time as a committee to discuss possible committee and council procedures and rules. Keelan, will you please read the item.
10 Item one appoint laura campos to the cully tax increment finance district community leadership committee for a term to expire October 1st, 2025.
11 So moved. So we're out right now. Did I jump the gun?
12 No, but you're great. You're doing great, Dan. I appreciate you. So, yeah, I. I would thank you. Keelan. I'd like to invite up our speakers. Thank you for being here. Colleagues will have some time to ask questions after we hear from our guests. Clerk, can you announce our testifiers, please?
13 Should I finish the nomination? No I don't. Okay, thanks. That'll be. Don't give me that part. Thanks.
14 Good afternoon. I don't think it was on yet. I mean, it's.
15 Green is good.
16 There we go. Good afternoon. I'm helmi, historic director at the Portland housing bureau. And I'm joined today by jessica conner, who is a senior member of fbs policy and planning team. And she's also our lead with the cully tif district formation. So on November 16th, 2022, through ordinance 19107, one city council approved the cully tif district plan. The plan includes a community governance charter that articulates a community leadership committee and their responsibilities, which are namely, to advise the city of Portland and prosper Portland staff, mayor, city administrator, city council, and the prosper Portland board of commissioners on the implementation of the tif plan by providing guidance, public recommendations and oversight and process of the city and prosper portland's implementation of the tif plan on behalf of housing bureau and prosper Portland. We're looking for council's confirmation of laura campos to the tif. Tif community leadership committee, and I'll provide a little information about laura campos. So laura campos is a long time volunteer in the cully neighborhood. She has tirelessly and graciously provided her time and attention through efforts at verde cully gathering garden and nia. In addition to her dedicated efforts to essential community anchors in the cully neighborhood. Laura was essential in diversifying the curriculum at Portland community college. She assisted with the design of the longhouse on the Portland state university campus, and she also started the annual powwow at pcc sylvania campus. Laura studied art at the art institute of chicago. She went to law school, wrote a book, worked for the bureau of planning and sustainability, and stopped driving in 1973 for environmental reasons. Laura is also a youth mentor, something she hopes to continue while during her tenure on the cully leadership committee in order to continue building future leaders. Laura's perspective, experience and expertise will support the development and successful implementation of the city's first co-created tif action plan, and we urge your support in appointing her to the cully leadership committee. Just a note this appointment is filling a vacancy. It will end in October of 2025, and then we'll be back in October to reappoint or with a full phb positions on the leadership committee. Thank you. That's the end of my comments, and jessie is here to answer any questions you may have regarding the process.
17 Does it make sense for us to take questions or for us to have our other public testimony? Person speak?
18 I mean, I think you can go either way. If your councilors have questions before you want to hear testimony, you can do that.
19 I think, councilor Clark, you have a quick question, right? Go ahead.
20 Thank you, madam chair. I know laura, actually. She lives in my neighborhood, and she's very active on the south Portland neighborhood association. I think she chairs one of our committees. But I was just curious as I was reading through the material provided on the tif, the committee membership, it says all committee members must live, work or worship or have children enrolled in school or have been displaced from the area. I know. Is laura working in cully or. I'm not sure what the relationship is because she's one of my constituents.
21 Thank you. For the record. Jessica connor, senior policy analyst at the Portland housing bureau. Thank you for the question. Councilor Clark laura campos marked worship under the category for the response to that question.
22 Councilors, do you have any other questions at this point?
23 No, I.
24 President pirtle-guiney.
25 I just want to clarify, you said something about leading the tif district. Is she being appointed to a leadership role beyond that of all of the directors of the tif district, or is this into one of the standard director roles within the tif district?
26 It's part of the community leadership committee. I believe it's the standard. It's not a co-chair.
27 Okay. Not a co-chair, but a committee member. Perfect. Thank you.
28 Thank you so much.
29 Yes.
30 Can we hear from jorge sanchez bautista?
31 Taking your seat, jesse. Hello. First time being up here. For the record, my name is jorge sanchez bautista. I am coming here as a citizen, but I also serve as the co-chair of the cully tif. I already forgot it. Cully tif clc, short for tax increment financing. So yeah, I'm just here to simply say to please recommend this nomination to the full council. I have had been able to have an interaction with laura and she seems really nice and seems really passionate. And as councilor Clark has mentioned, she doesn't live in cully, but she has expressed interest to, you know, returning, returning work and providing work back to cully even though she doesn't live in the area. And something that's really remarkable for folks having moved away from the neighborhood but still passionate and still wanting to be involved in the community. Yeah, keep it short for you. Thank you.
32 Thank you so much, jorge. Thank you, colleagues, for your questions. Thank you. Presenters. Councilor Ryan, do you have a motion now?
33 I do, I jumped the gun earlier, but now it's now. It's time. Madam chair. I move the appointment of laura campos to the cully tax increment finance district community leadership committee. That's a mouthful. For a term to expire October 1st, 2025. Be sent to the full council with the recommendation that the appointment be confirmed.
34 Second.
35 It has been moved by councilor Ryan and seconded by councilor Pirtle-guiney. Will the clerk please call the roll?
36 I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan.
37 I.
38 Clark. I Koyama Lane.
39 I the motion carries and the appointment will move to full council for confirmation. All right. We're doing great. Keelan, will you please read the next item?
40 Item two discuss possible council and committee procedures and rules.
41 Okay, so now it's time for us to create this new form of government and do this work that you all know I'm super dedicated to and very excited about. I am thrilled to work collaboratively to put together rules and procedures for how our new council, our committees, our appointments will work out. For example, we need to create an internal procedure for exactly how appointments to boards and committees are made. We kind of just modeled that we have work to do in regards to developing our formal rules around the path an ordinance takes, from creation to final vote. At council, we have a whole lot of work ahead of us to get there, but we'll go step by step together. And I really have full confidence in this committee here in this group that we're going to be able to do this collaboratively. So colleagues, to get us started. We have two pieces to look at, two pieces of support materials, which are also available online and printed out for you. So let's start with the draft resolution, whose purpose is stated as. Create an internal procedure around the appointment of portlanders to city boards, commissions, and committees. President pirtle-guiney you had a hand in drafting this, would you like to say a bit about it before we open up a discussion?
42 Absolutely. Thank you. Vice president Koyama Lane and chair Koyama Lane, one of the things that is different now for us from the past form of government is that we don't have a hand in working with bureaus to bring forward folks who we are appointing to boards and committees within the city who oversee the work that that our bureaus do. And in the past, commissioners worked with their bureaus, sometimes talked to people before they were brought to full council. And so it was easy for council to move those names forward quickly. We need, in our new form of government, an oversight function for this council in moving those names forward to appointment. And the recommendation that you have before you is that nominees from the mayor, these generally come from the mayor of portlanders to serve on our boards and committees at the city. Come to this committee for review before being recommended to the full council for appointment. And the reason they would come to this committee is so that there is a common place where we can have some oversight around whether we have positive trends or perhaps negative trends. Appointments all coming from a certain area, or appointments that aren't taking into account the diversity of committees or of community members who are affected by decisions. We would then have the responsibility of making sure that the leadership from specific policy area committees were also getting a view into those appointments, especially those high profile ones around certain policies, making sure that our chair or individual members who sit on those policy committees are able to bring forward any positive or negative comments about those appointees, and then we would move them, of course, to full council for consideration.
43 Thank you. Councilors, we have a couple options before you. You have a packet with both of those drafts. I'm wondering if you would like the draft read aloud if you would like a moment to read through the draft, or if you're comfortable with just jumping right into the discussion. What's the preference here?
44 I well, I read the homework before you gave it, so. Oh yeah.
45 So a+.
46 I'm ready to jump in if we need to, but.
47 No shame. If you'd like it read aloud or you'd like a moment.
48 When was this posted? On the.
49 Very recently. In the last couple hours.
50 All right, so I think we should just read it then. If someone's watching and they're wondering what we're talking about. Yeah. And unlike Jamie, I haven't probably done as much homework. So you get the gold star councilor. Great.
51 I'm happy to read the first draft resolution and offer ours. It has the little star at the top. Okay, so the purpose is to create an internal procedure around the appointment of portlanders to city boards, commissions and committees. Whereas previously commissioners reviewed the appointments of portlanders to boards and committees associated with their bureaus, and therefore the council voted on confirmations on the consent agenda, but nominees are now reviewed and recommended solely by the executive branch. Councilors should conduct their own review and nominated appointees before confirming the appointments of portlanders to these important boards and commissions. Having a single space to review all nominees allows for council to monitor trends in appointments like background and experience of nominees, as appointments to boards and committees facilitate the general working of the city administration. The committee overseeing the governance and operations of the city is the appropriate place for such a review to occur. The leaders of policy committees should have the opportunity to review applicants to high profile boards within their policy areas. All councilors will have an interest in the appointment of portlanders to these positions. Therefore, the council president will request that the administration submits any nominees for appointment to city boards and committees on e council and to council leadership. At least one week before the posting deadline of the committee meeting at which they are requesting nominations be reviewed so that all councilors can review the nominees with sufficient time before a vote is taken. If any councilor has concerns about a particular nominee, they will flag those concerns for the council president and the chair of the committee, which reviews appointments. Nominees may be submitted separately or as a group in a single report. Nominees for confirmation will be reviewed by the governance committee or, if there is not a governance committee, the committee, which oversees governance and operations of the city and any nominee may be asked to come before the governance committee to share their interest in serving, either in person or virtually. The committee will determine whether a nominee needs to appear before the committee nominees, who the governance committee believe council should confirm may be moved forward in a single resolution or report, but the committee may also remove nominees from the original resolution or report and move them forward in separate resolutions or reports. These separate resolutions or reports do not need to be individually posted to committee and debated. The initial group posting suffices for posting requirements. The rules will be updated to reflect this. Okay. Now we have some time for discussion. And councilor Clerk, would you like to start?
52 Thank you, madam chair. Just a couple questions. So on the first bullet under therefore at least one week before the posting deadline of the committee meeting, is this the subject committees or operations committee? I think you mean the subject committees like transportation and infrastructure or. It's not clear to me.
53 The posting deadline is the same for all committees. So essentially this would give us an extra week to review these so that we have time to do any research, look over resumes, things like that, beyond just the regular posting deadline, which sometimes only gives us a few days.
54 Okay, I'm not sure I follow. So the nomination goes to, let's say if it's in the something for PBOT, it would go to the transportation committee first and then here or not. Okay. So it's posted in the subject. Committees have to affirmatively reach out to operations committee. Is that the way it works? After you review them?
55 Two separate things. The first bullet has to do with the mayor posting in our system these names, which gives us the heads up that they're coming. And this would say that there are normal posting requirements, which is that we need to have things turned in the Tuesday before a committee meeting. And this would request because we can't force it, but would request that the administration submit those a week prior to that so that we have sufficient time to do our background research. Okay. Separately is a conversation about the interface between policy committee and governance. And I think that's the piece that you may be asking.
56 Okay. So let's say that that it gets posted, it gets turned in and posted by Tuesday noon. Does that mean. I'm sorry I'm having such a hard time with this. Does that mean that it goes that's a week before the substantive committee meeting or the operations committee meeting? Man that's marvelous.
57 The way this is written, it doesn't conceive of appointments going to the policy committee. Okay. Trying to find the balance between nimbleness and having a process that's easy for the public to follow and know where to where to go to see that folks are being appointed to committees, but also make sure that we have the policy expertise. We would have things posted in a way that all councilors could see them. Right now, our system doesn't allow for that, but there are many workarounds we can do to ensure that happens. We would have things posted in a way that all council members could see them, so that, for example, I'll take somebody who's not here right now. Councilor Avalos, chair of our housing and homelessness, our homelessness and housing committee, would be able to see there's a list of appointees. Here's a couple that have to do with my policy area. I want to look at those also. But the appointments, the approval of appointments to recommend to send to full council would run through this committee, not the policy committee.
58 Okay, so I think I understand now, but the onus then is on the policy committee to be paying attention all the time to that list, to whatever gets posted. So it's really on the policy committee to be paying attention. Nobody's going to alert the policy committee that somebody is coming up.
59 I would hope that the chair and vice chair of our governance committee might be able to work out between them, notifying the chairs of the relevant policy committees.
60 That would be lovely. I would really appreciate that. I might have one other question, but I can I can wait if somebody else wants to go. Oh well, quickly. Bullet number four or number? Last bullet. Is that consented. Do we still use a consent agenda for these, or will we be using a consent agenda?
61 I'd like to call on you.
62 You can call on me, but I think if you nod, we understand that, too. For those watching who may not see the nod, depending on the camera angle, our chair has nodded at me to take this one. This does not. It does not create a standard on where it would come, but it certainly could come on the consent agenda. If the majority of councilors would support that.
63 Well, I certainly would advise that we have a consent agenda. I don't really understand at this point the volume of names that may come through, but if we have to stop and have a discussion and vote on every one, it might get tedious. But if we have the right to pull them off, then great. But I'd like to see a consent agenda.
64 I might recommend that if we move names as a single list, as a as a single report, that that report go to consent agenda, but that if there are any names that we as a committee feel need to be pulled out of that single report, those move outside of the consent agenda, because that likely signals that there needs to be more conversation about them.
65 Exactly. I think that's the way it's normally done. Do we need to say anything about consent agenda in this resolution? Or add anything? We could?
66 We could. And I just want to clarify or just highlight for folks that this is a discussion. This is exactly what it's supposed to be, a conversation about a draft that could then be formally submitted and voted on in the future. We're not voting on this today. We're more, you know, wanting to hear feedback from the whole group. Okay.
67 Thank you. Thank you so much.
68 Thank you. Councilor, councilor Dunphy.
69 Yeah. Thank you. So actually, the it would be my preference that any nominee who is advanced from this committee hearing does go directly to the consent agenda. And I would like to codify that specifically just to make that the norm, because I think that a if we have any sort of hearings in the general council about a nominee, that is an exceptional amount of time for, you know, the amount of people that we are going to be confirming for things. However. I it does make, you know, I'm wondering if there isn't a. I'm trying to form this into a sentence we had, I don't know how many bodies we have now that require appointments. I think in 2019 it was over 300 different city bodies that had appointees. If we are requiring two two hearings per person, that certainly feels like a lot. But also it feels as though this format necessitates a higher effort to try and get in person attendees to come to a confirmation of some sort. It was wonderful to have george come and speak on behalf of our appointee today, but and it's great to see their resume. But if we're putting all this effort into trying to vet appointees, I'm I would like to see a higher standard that we are trying to encourage that person to come before the committee. It may require us to have a different timing for our committees. Considering a lot of these folks may be working during the day, and perhaps it necessitates an evening hearing for the governance committee. But if we are going to all this effort and having a person appear on a, on a, I mean ultimately appear on two separate agendas, I'd like to have a chance to actually engage with them in some capacity. The other just the other just note is I think you caught a couple of these, madam chair, that there are a couple of scrivener's errors in here on this resolution that I would love to just make sure we, we go through with a fine tooth comb, but otherwise this is starting to get into the right direction. Yeah. So I guess I mean, I sorry, I'm just thinking about this in a bunch of different directions, but is the intention for these procedures to be pro forma, or are we actually vetting these folks?
70 From what I understand, the shift is that that was the former role of counsel and that now it really is the administration doing more of that vetting and then submitting the nominees before us.
71 Okay. Are there is there any concern? I guess this is not necessarily one answer that we can have specifically, but is there a concern that the procedures and the timing that we have from our committee schedules to full council hearings creates? We're basically creating an additional full step, which is at least an additional week compared to the old system. Is there a concern about that delay causing, you know, a delay in work that these folks are going to be doing?
72 I'm wondering if annie von berg would be interested in coming up and helping us think through this a little bit, respond.
73 Hello, chair. Councilors annie von berg, assistant city administrator. For the record, that's a really great question, councilor. I'm not sure. I think you may be aware we do have quite a list of committees that would fall into this category. I think the running list of community based ones is just under 80 right now, so that is something to consider in terms of the amount of time these are for. The vast majority of those occupying this space is a volunteer position. In terms of the question for an extra week or extra couple weeks. That's a really good question that I'm not sure I know. Ocean within our civic life department who manages this program, would be a great expert and resource to consult in this space.
74 I did want to add that there was intention around this committee being on Monday, so it falls before the posting deadline, so we could then bring it to the full council the following week. Councilor Ryan.
75 Yeah.
76 Thank you chair. So we're going to be doing some wordsmithing because I think we got this like at one. So here we are. We're discussing it now. It didn't come up last week when we were prepping. So you get to watch a public meeting. How exciting. We were wordsmithing a resolution. First I just have to check the first bullet because it's not factual. And therefore the council voted on confirmations on the consent agenda. Sometimes we did, sometimes we didn't. There were a lot of confirmations that were not on consent agenda. They were an item and it was really bureau by bureau. So I just don't think we should have that in there. So I think if we just took off on the consent agenda, that would make it accurate. The second to last bullet and the whereas I'm, I, I see there's language that's a bit editorial like it says review applicants to high profile boards who who distinguishes what's a high profile board and what's not. And then that will lead me into another hopefully discussion. But I think the one that we really need to have. So I'll look to the people who probably drafted this. Tell me what you were thinking when you said high profile.
77 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
78 Thank you. Chair. Councilor Ryan, I was trying to without calling out specific boards or frankly, having to make that editorial decision. Note that there's an understanding that while there are some boards and committees where we may assume that folks being brought forward are probably the right people, and that's fine. There are other boards and committees where there's, frankly, a lot of politics behind who gets appointed to them, and that we would want to make sure that in some way, we were acknowledging that while these appointments are coming through the governance committee, so that there is consistency so that portlanders know where and when to tune in to see what's happening with appointments. There is also a note that we, of course, need to make sure to loop in the chairs of the policy committees to councilor Clark's point, and this was a way of noting that some of these appointments can be very political, and that we need to do that outreach, high profile was probably a loose term, and I could have found something more specific, but it is intentionally not defined because it's less about which boards and committees and more the acknowledgment that there are some where those leads on policy committees will be very interested as well.
79 I think that was helpful. I think by just taking out too high and just say, review applicants to profile boards within their policy area. I mean, it's the same point that we were discussing with councilor Clark, but I would shy away from the word high in this instance. And this gets to a bigger conversation. And annie were here and at the end of last calendar year, and there were many moments where we could tell we were just moving from one form of the government with another, without doing the proper weeding and efficiency work necessary to accommodate that. And there's been complaints for some time that any time a commissioner or wanted or a new director wanted a new councilor or commission, just kind of like we did with bureaus and offices, we would add another one. And so I think a majority of people who work here, especially those that staff them in the bureaus, would say we have too many. And so there's a scrubbing thing that needs to go on, just like we have to do now that it's budget season with how we look at where we haven't taken that step yet to transition from the commission form of government to this form of government with different checks and balances. And we just moved it without doing that efficiency sorting work. So I'm just proposing on a big picture topic, maybe putting a pin in something. Where are we going to do that work? Because that's actually bigger than I think this this is important. But there's this operation opportunity that we could look at at this time. So I just offer that to this group, to you, annie and annie, maybe you already are doing this because it's our new form of government where you're doing all sorts of marvelous work that we don't always know about unless we ask a question.
80 I if it's okay, we would love an opportunity to come to the committee and kind of go over the work that's been teed up this so far. I think previous about the December time frame when we were trying to get a lot done. We recognized so much of this work would really benefit from the new council in place and committees in place to help inform the next steps. So whenever the time allows, we would love an opportunity to show you all what we have right now, what we've had up to this point, and maybe some opportunities to improve the system going forward. And seeing how we can get your feedback as well, what you would like to see and to bring the process together. So it's a seamless process from one branch to the next.
81 And just to clarify, we're talking about how at the end of last calendar year, a lot was put into code that we're talking about to just so we kind of just had something.
82 By name.
83 Only by name. And the expectation is that we will go through it and do and have time to work together and do some pruning. And that's really what this group is about. And to give a little bit more context to what we're thinking about today, we'll see how much time we have. But the idea was to do the appointment to, to kind of practice and talk about two draft resolutions that maybe are we won't have to do too much discussion or debating over and then to move into some questions exactly on this, these topics, what are some of the things we need to be thinking about changing for in resolution and ordinance, so we can make sure that it's clear and we have agreed upon how something goes from yeah, an idea to actually being an ordinance, how someone from the bureau can bring something forward to council going through, kind of combing through all of that. It will take a lot of time. But that's what this committee is for. And then just also wanted to say one more time just for these actually everything we're going to talk about today, these are all a draft. It's all a draft. So the hope is that there is a lot of discussion. And I can see councilor Pirtle-guiney making notes and crossing some things out. So that's what this is supposed to be. We're not taking a vote. But this discussion is really healthy and helpful.
84 Yeah, I'm good with that. So I think that's why I offered it. So this could be a work item. It looks like we have a partner and maybe an upcoming meetings. We can make sure we loop back on that. I would hate for us to get too far into this without doing something that I really wish would have already happened. And so I think it's great that we're doing this. You're telling us we're going to do this process. Okay, great. Okay. That will that will make things. All right. I'm going to now look at the therefore part, put my hand down and keep listening to my colleagues as we discuss this current draft we just got okay.
85 Thank you. Vice chair, councilor Clark.
86 Thank you, madam chair. Just a quick comment. I think just riffing off of what councilor Ryan said, and I think this is just the public knows this is the way we have to discuss things. We can't discuss behind the scenes. Everything's out in public. So we're we're working through this and it's not necessarily elegant, but that's the way it has to be done. But I think high profile is really in the eye of the beholder. Right. And I know from councilor Alana's experience in Salem, the same as mine, is that you've got really controversial committees. It's always a big deal when you're appointing somebody to the Oregon transportation commission or the board of forestry. I mean, there are some really heavy duty appointments that always go before a committee and get discussed thoroughly. And I don't know how many of those we might have. I don't know what the politics will be in the future, but that's why I want to emphasize again, that it would be great if our chair and co-chair here could maybe flag for the policy committees what's coming or who's coming, who's coming to dinner here, who, and just make sure that they get a chance to look, because we're all busy. We're all on multiple committees and going in different directions. So any help you can give us in flagging, I think would be appreciated. So thank you. Thank you. This is great practice.
87 Thank you, councilor Dunphy.
88 Thank you again. Riffing off of councilor Ryan what he was specifically saying. I have watched as the city council in the past have wasted an enormous amount of volunteer people's time by approving these bodies, bringing them together to do good work, and then disregarding the result. The actually, councilor Ryan, you specifically on the government oversight, you fought for some of the very specific things that the gtac brought forward and the staff recommended against your colleagues. That was an enormous amount of waste of time. And it's a disrespect to, in my opinion, to the volunteers who are trying to make our city better. So I'm interested in finding ways of institutionalizing the work that we're doing, and only seeding committees that actually will be informing the work. I cannot, you know, I believe that we are building a system right now that is going to be better suited to being able to actually hear reports from outside parties, from to take testimony, to take recommendations from the auditor, for example. I'm interested to thinking about that from a, from a structural standpoint that if we're going to have 80 community based boards, that those folks have their time recognized and respected and that whatever that report comes into, you know, there's always certain things that that elected officials will muck with. But thinking about what that structural set and then from the same side of it, not having boards that were going to ignore, we shouldn't have, you know, there's low profile work that is important, that is necessary. But we shouldn't be treating those low profile boards with less urgency or less seriousness than the high profile. You know, planning sustainability commission is really important. The cully tif district board is also really important if you live in cully. So trying to think about how we are sharing power or how we are intentionally empowering that work as a draft, I don't know. I think that this would be the committee to do that in some capacity. I just don't know what that actually looks like. And then I am interested to hear more from annie about where the, the, the next steps of our boards and commissions are. As I mentioned, you know, one of the last things that commissioner Nick fish did was work beginning work on the boards and commissions, because at the time we had boards, we had commissions, we had blue ribbon committees, we had all these different things. We didn't have any consistency. We didn't have consistent staffing levels, we didn't have support. And all that ultimately leads to us not buying into the product that is being created. So I think if we're going to have committees, we need to give them some power, and if we're not going to empower them, we need to not have the committees.
89 Vice chair Ryan.
90 I think what is.
91 Missing is my mic is on. There we go. Is that we don't have a balanced we don't have balanced guidelines. So what I experienced is I'd come into a role as a commissioner and there would be a body that was formed and say they all appeared to be on the same side of some key issues. And so that wasn't balanced. And so then you would try to vet that, to bring that proper balance. Then there were ones I'll never forget this. Like the a what's it called now? It has a different name now, but it used to be called, you know, development services. And it was all one demographic. And so I had an opportunity to quickly make sure it wasn't one demographic. And I did that. And I found many people from african American, latino community that are in the business that are peers at the table that just were never asked to be a part of a commission before. So, you know, those were good days at the office. Right? But then there were others where I would find there was just one point of view on something, and then I'd try to get new people in the committee and they're like, I don't feel welcomed at this commission. Well, that's too bad, because they're discussing things that you have a lot of interest in. And I'm giving you this very candid description to say that I think that a we I do think we have too many. I don't think anyone's going to push back on that. But I also think over the years we've had a lack of proper balance and guidelines on how to do that. So it's not it's a host of things, but one would be skill sets and they often wouldn't look like at those issues. Any of us that have run organizations that have boards put so much effort into who you nominate to make sure you have that intelligent, creative balance. And I don't think over the years and years at the city, we lost sight of that. And so they became more of a political reaction to get something built. And then often that culture would stay intact. And then that is why sometimes there would be I'm just going to say sometimes it was smart to not go along with recommendations when things were completely out of balance. So I loved it. In the last couple of years, we started to see more split decisions come from planning, and that was I was told that was more controversial, but what I experienced was a more balanced government. There should be tension on tough issues, and it was great that there finally was. And so I think we did a really good job, in my experience, the last couple of years, trying to get more of that balance. Yeah. So it makes sense that we're going into layers beyond this. But what's behind this resolution and what kind of work we have to go through to actually improve the conditions? And annie, you're going to be such a great partner to work with because I know that you have been listening to your colleagues on this topic for some time, and it really is timely to do this sooner than later, because this is staff time. And with $100 million, let's just say there's a $100 million deficit, and it's a time for an opportunity to look for efficiencies. This would be a really a really golden it's really ripe fruit, right? Right below us. Yeah.
92 Great. Thank you. Colleagues, I am really pleased with the different things that came up from this. I think it's really helpful. This is how we're going to get stronger resolutions and ordinances and all that. Some things that I heard that I just want to highlight, I heard from a few folks that it's important to make sure that committee chairs are looped in, that maybe there's something there's can be some conversation about, if that needs to be written into the resolution, whether committee chairs from these policy areas that are related to the appointments are invited here, or are notified. Some sort of assurance that that there will be a way for them to engage and that this will be flagged for them seems sounds important. I heard quite a bit about making sure that this process is efficient and timely, and doesn't waste our volunteers time, and also makes it so if we if we do have many appointments, that these are things that can get through, and we're thinking about making a timeline that works well. And then I also heard councilor Dunphy talking about making sure that we are respecting volunteers. Times time. I agree with that. That's the most valuable thing. It's the thing you can't get back. And if we are having folks volunteer their time to do to help us with work, that it actually is something that can be used and is valued. I am writing a note that we can come back to that and think about, how can we talk about that in this committee, and maybe actually putting that into rules or making it a so I'm thinking I president pirtle-guiney has done this with me a few times, but it's ordinance and code and then level below is resolution and rules. And then we're also talking about a few different areas, but thinking about where that could fit. So yeah, this discussion is helpful. I think it will inform us in creating a more formal resolution that we can actually put through council in a future, a future meeting. All right. Yeah. Go ahead.
93 Thank you chair. That was such a great summary. Since you're here, annie, I just wanted to add we didn't talk about geography, I don't think. But now that we have the district form of government, if you will, community, that geographic representation will be a new lens to look at. So I think what I'll be looking for when we meet again, working with them is just the guidelines, whether it's skill sets, culture, background, life experience, geography so that we have it more of a rubric, if you will, with more symmetry going forward. It did feel like you had to just quickly find people that could fill those roles. And I know that that's always going to be a part of this, but I think having some more guidelines is what I'm obviously most attached to here to get that balance.
94 That's a great point. What I'm hearing is while your office does a lot of the vetting, there being a clear rubric or way for us to be able to see the work that you've done in a clear way? Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.
95 I'd like to go back to something.
96 That councilor Dunphy brought up, because there was a point that you made, councilor That I had been thinking about when I first offered to put together some notes for us to consider today that I didn't include, because I wasn't sure if there would be support or not. And I'm a little bit curious about the rest of our colleagues thoughts on that. And that is the idea that somebody would appear before this committee when they are being nominated for appointment, and whether we want to require that, whether we want to leave, open the door. So maybe it's not required for everybody, but we could choose to require folks to appear whether we want to not require but invite folks to appear or in the resolution in in the rules that we put together for ourselves. Stay silent on that, but have the opportunity to do something there in the future. And I'm just curious if that's a topic that other folks have strong opinions about or not.
97 Councilor Clark, did you want to answer that?
98 Well, I don't really have a strong opinion. I guess I think we should offer people the choice. However, I think that if we do notify policy committee chairs and there is a concern that we certainly can do that, but I don't think it's a have to or must, but there has to be maybe some qualifier on there. I would just add that.
99 Councilor Dunphy.
100 Well.
101 I will say it is my strong, my strong preference that the person would appear certainly not a requirement. And maybe it becomes more of a cultural norm or expectation that the person is invited, is explicitly invited, and is available to be attending virtually. And to that end, we will be, you know, we would need to be extremely disciplined in our time to make sure that, you know, if we say the person's hearing is at 3:00, at 3:00, we are logging in and letting them speak until 315. I do think it's important to be able to have folks show up. And I think again, also, that may mean some additional flexibility for our timing for this. And if that person is unable, I mean, perhaps a statement or a written recorded message or, you know, the we learned with COVID that there's a lot of ways we can communicate with each other without being in present in person. But if this if we're not appointing, if we're appointing someone to a board, it's an important position. If we if it weren't important, we wouldn't be appointing them. And so I think that that requires a little bit of perhaps scheduling inconvenience, but a little bit of extra follow through for that person to come here and tell us why they think they're the best person to come do it.
102 Vice chair Ryan.
103 Yeah, I would just add on to councilor Dunphy's comments. Ditto. And also, it's just a better practice, but I don't think it should be in writing in case someone's like sick or there's some reason. And so it's not like we're bound by things that we're writing in here detailed, but I think we should create a culture that has that as a better practice. Most of the times in former role, I would always meet with them knowing that the staff at the bureau did the vetting. My questions were always, how does this a nominee is additive to the group? What skill set and life perspective are they bringing to the table that's missing, and is it a deficit of your group at the moment? And so I'll always be looking at that when it's about appointments. Back to why I'm attached to this rubric. So we could just formalize that with in this process.
104 Yeah I just wanted to ask councilor Ryan a question. Are you saying don't put don't address it at all in the resolution? Don't address attendance?
105 I'm always been in this type of I always think broad and policy and more detailed in administrative practices. And so I think the practice should be definitely that we have a better practice. That includes connecting with them during that journey, especially the person from the policy committee that might have the most interaction with, say, the planning commission is always a good one to mention the police accountability commission if you're in public safety. So there's those I didn't want to say it. Higher profile commissions. I think that that practice is a little bit more organic. But my point is, if you put something that's detailed in here and then you're trying to just get someone through and it's taken maybe a month longer than they already wish, and they just happen to be like out that day when we have a Wednesday council meeting or we have one of these meetings. I just would hate to make us follow that literally as much as have it be a practice that we create.
106 Councilor pirtle-guiney. Perhaps we could include language explicitly stating that nominees would be invited to address the committee, and then from there, we can create the practice that there's an expectation that folks do appear before committee, except in unusual circumstances like that, without having to bind ourselves to something in writing that would delay things.
107 So.
108 Anything else? Councilors.
109 Are we on? We did this. We did it. Therefore part.
110 Yeah. So we're going to have, I believe many more appointments come before us and we'll have a chance to think a little bit more about this before we submitted in council and make it something that we is, something that we vote on. But I think there's this has been a start of a good conversation. All right. So if it's okay, I'd like to move on to a discussion of the second draft resolution. Again, this is just a draft. So the hope is that we have a discussion and we can add things, make it better, come back to it. So you have this one in front of you. It's also online in the meeting materials. And it is a draft resolution that has a purpose statement. Create an internal procedure around what comes to full council versus a committee. So I believe this is something that already has been asked quite a bit and would be something that we want to provide some clarity on as soon as we can. Again. President pirtle-guiney, would you like to give a summary of the document? And then we can open things up for another discussion?
111 Absolutely. And this is something that I think has been walked around but not talked about directly in a few instances before council. We have created committees. This is one of our committees that doesn't touch on specific policy, but we have six committees that address specific policies and as ordinances and resolutions that are policy oriented come before our body. There may be times where people want to bring those directly to council. It's a faster path. We also have 12 counselors now, which means that council discussions can take a bit of time, and we don't have as many council meetings as we used to have. So there is, I think, a benefit to things coming to committee. And at a certain point there will be a question called about whether things have to come to committee or not, and in what instances something might come before committee versus full council. So the hope is to begin that conversation here around when things might come to a committee or a council. What you have before you suggests that, as a rule, with some exceptions, ordinances which are those code changes would always go to the appropriate committee that exceptions could be made from time to time. If the chairs of those committees, the president of the council, the councilor Bringing something forward, all agreed that this was a code change where expediency was more important than having the deliberative process before committees, and that resolutions would generally go to committee, but that there may be cases where the rule is actually that those resolutions wouldn't go before committee because they are largely ceremonial and not policy based, and that reports, depending on the type of report, could come straight to council or go to the full committee. And I'm happy to give examples of any of these that have begun to come up in the conversations that we've had, but that's the starting point here for us to talk about.
112 Thank you. Councilor. I will now read through this so we can hear it out loud.
113 Yeah.
114 So this draft resolution has a purpose of purpose to create an internal procedure around what comes to full council versus a committee, whereas committees are designed to allow for more nimble problem solving and policy review committee members through the receipt of reports and participation in presentations, are often the experts on council on a given issue. It is council's responsibility to ensure the balance of efficiency with the deliberate development of good policies that have the input of a broad cross-section of affected portlanders. The public and issue area stakeholders can follow public committee work on topics of interest. Therefore, ordinances will be deliberated on and in committees before coming before council. An exception may be made from time to time if the council president or the chairs of the appropriate committee and the councilor Submitting an ordinance if it is submitted by a councilor, all agreed that the topic under consideration in the ordinance has received sufficient attention in committee and the balance of efficiency prevails. Resolutions will generally go to committee, but a resolution which is largely ceremonial and does not create a procedure or other direction for council work, may come straight to council reports may go to full council or committee, depending on the type of report and the discussion on the report that is needed. Nothing in this procedure limits the ability of four members of council to put a policy from the committee, from committee to the full council, as code now allows. All right, councilor Dunphy.
115 Thank you, madam chair. Is the expectation through this that reports may go to council or committee, but if it goes to committee, it's not going to the full council.
116 I'm nodding.
117 No. That that is not the expectation would be that reports that come to committee would then also go to full council. As an example. Nominees for boards and committees come actually as a report, not as a resolution or an ordinance. So that's something that would come to committee and then go to full council. There are other reports which right now under code are directed specifically to council, which we might just accept at council without needing much of a discussion.
118 What about I mean, would there be a circumstance in which it may end up on the consent agenda? But are there circumstances in which perhaps a, I don't know, an audit of vision zero would only go to the transportation committee and wouldn't come to the full council? Or is it sort of expected that all reports are now going to have two stops?
119 Currently to be formally accepted? Something has to go through full council. So the expectation under this draft resolution would be that reports could have one stop just at full council or two stops, first at committee for a deeper dive discussion and then at full council for official adoption.
120 Okay. Thank you.
121 Councilor Clark.
122 Okay, that was kind of confusing. I have three questions or issues. So do all reports need to go to the full council? I mean, are they all reports equally important? No, I it just seems like that's a lot of a lot of info. I mean, maybe superfluous in some cases, I don't know. That's my.
123 Let me clarify something.
124 When we say report, because I believe that's actually used in two different ways. Okay. A committee may request that a report be brought to that committee. Right. You could. Councilor Clark, as chair of the transportation and infrastructure committee, request that PBOT bring you a report about a topic that your committee wants to hear more about. That report would not need to go to full council, okay. However, there are places in code where it says a report on x will be brought to council or where it doesn't say a report, but it merely says that council as a whole will have authority. I'll use today's example to confirm nomination to boards and committees, and that happens to come to us as a report. Those types of reports would by necessity, go to full council because by code they are required to do so. But a report, as you might think about it, as a committee chair that you are requesting as chair is a report to your committee, not a report to full council. So that would not need to continue on. And I think we have an imprecision here in that we're using a word in two different ways.
125 Thank you. And I appreciate that. That's that's helpful. As far as who can bring forward something. We don't say anything about the mayor or the administrator. Is that something that you all have considered.
126 The mayor and city administrator can bring forward things as an ordinance, a resolution, or also submit reports. I believe that this resolution is neutral around who brings it forward, except wherein it says that an exception could be made if the council president and the chairs of the appropriate committee and the councilor All agree that something needs to come straight to council. I attempted to write this in such a way that if something were submitted by the mayor or the city administrator, then the council president and chairs of the relevant committees would need to agree. But because there was no introducing councilor, there would only be those two people or three if there are co-chairs that would need to agree as opposed to that. Third, or if there's co-chairs, fourth person. But I believe this could apply no matter who brings forward an item.
127 Okay. We may want we might want to chew on that a little bit and just consider if we should call them out. The different branch of government. And last question is just have you consulted with the city attorney on these resolutions?
128 These are all.
129 Here in draft form to get a sense of what policy direction we want to go. And once this committee has made a decision about policy direction, these will run through the clerk and city attorney's office before they come back as a formal resolution to consider and vote on.
130 Thank you. Process issue. Thank you so much.
131 Vice chair Ryan.
132 Yes.
133 This is fun. I'm enjoying this. It's so fun to be building policy in a draft. At a as a is this this is televised right now. Probably. Okay. Hello. Those watching at home. You must really love public policy. Yeah, or this is one of your best sleep aids. Exactly. I have a few things. Create an event. The purpose. Create an internal procedure around what comes to full council versus a committee. I don't know if it's a versus thing, but that's just a question. And maybe it's an and that's all the second bullet. Well, one, I just can't stand the word experts in the longer I've been in elected office, the more I dislike that term. That editorial term. So I don't know if it's necessary. There is my point. Anyway. I think that obviously if you're in a committee, you're the most well versed, you've had the most opportunity to take time with something. But I think experts is kind of a big word that's overused. The third one, it gets a little bit definitely at councilor Clark's statements that I do think we have to take a pause on, on how we include mayor and the admin and staff in general, because it's not on here. So when we set input of a broad cross-section of affected portlanders, will some who are affected are definitely city staff. So I would hope that something we're discussing that gets into the that would impact the operations of a said bureau, that they would have a chance because they would be impacted by that. Is that the gist of maybe what you were trying to get at there?
134 Are you referring.
135 To.
136 The.
137 Last bullet in the whereases?
138 No, I'm the second to last one. Input of a broad cross-section.
139 Of affected portlanders.
140 Yeah. And I, I could assume those portlanders could include city staff.
141 I certainly wouldn't preclude that. And I, as we've seen already, when we hear input, we often hear from staff and from the public testifying about an issue. I don't think that that would change.
142 Okay. Maybe we consider that. So again, draft, we're just doing some reporting here on this hot draft that we just got. This is fun. Now I'm in the air force I think the second one starts to get at what you're also talking about is that when you mentioned it, councilor Clark. Yeah, I could see where we're to me, it feels like we're missing the mayor in that area. Yeah. The third bullet where it starts with resolutions, will generally go to committee by resolution. I. I don't think all resolutions are largely ceremonial, so I would take out which is largely ceremonial and does not create a procedure or other direction for council work. I've seen many ordinances, not resolutions, used to inspire action to move the work period. And I can think of numerous examples of that that I don't want to bring up right now, because we could go down that rabbit hole. But my point is, I don't know if that's accurate. In my opinion. That's not my experience. So I don't see that as being accurate. And I'm missing when it goes through all this. I'm missing proclamations, and they happen to the point where we're all wondering why we had so many all the time. What's that? We're just not doing, even though we did one for mlk.
143 May I jump in chair? Yes you may.
144 Okay, so.
145 I didn't know about that decision that was made. Okay, let.
146 Me stop now.
147 Makes proclamations. Council does not. We passed a resolution honoring mlk day because we do not have the power of proclamations in council anymore.
148 That's why.
149 Those are all within the power of the mayor now.
150 Okay, sorry if I'm the only one that figured that out. I guess it's. You didn't know that either. Yeah. Okay, so everyone watching at home, this is riveting. So we can no longer do proclamations at a council meeting. We have to do resolutions even though they're proclamations. Okay, fascinating. And so thank you. Real time knowledge. Yeah.
151 And I think. That does kind of talk.
152 About when.
153 Did we change that was is there resolutions.
154 It was part of the.
155 Implementation of the charter.
156 Oh I voted on that.
157 Oh great. Councilor Ryan, it's my fault. All right.
158 So and how I read.
159 This, we had a real.
160 Riveting conversation about that.
161 Yeah.
162 And that therefore resolutions will generally go to committee. I, I think that is an acknowledgment that they in general will carry some weight. There will be times this is how I'm reading this, when it is largely ceremonial, like if we want to do. Portland taiko day again, that doesn't need to run through a committee first.
163 Something like it.
164 Could go straight to council.
165 I get now why that language showed up because they were more in a proclamation headspace I think, than resolution. So I think for me, I have to still detangle the two because they have a very different impact on the work of the city and a proclamation doesn't impact workflow in the same way that a resolution can. And so I'm saying here with a little bit of discomfort, maybe of clumping them together. This is a draft and we are thinking out loud.
166 And.
167 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
168 Councilor Ryan, what I was trying to capture here, perhaps inartfully is that ordinances will almost always go to a committee. We're talking about code change in an ordinance. I know that resolutions will generally go to a committee, but there might be more frequency with which a resolution goes straight to council. And I was trying to capture that difference here by saying that resolutions could be more ceremonial, as opposed to directing policy. And when that's the case, those resolutions could go straight to council without going through a committee, while still noting that a resolution that is largely about creating procedure or direction that is more policy oriented should still run through a policy committee, just like an ordinance would. So that was what I was trying to capture with the word. But there and it sounds like you are saying something similar, but that perhaps there needs to be more clarity. I want to call this out though, because if you are not saying something similar, I want to make sure that we that we kind of pull on the differences there a little bit so that we can understand where we need to land.
169 I think I'm saying something different. I, I did just say that for me, it was just important to distinguish with a lot of clarity that resolutions will go directly to committee, but a resolution may come straight to council. To me, that says everything that I need to know in terms of the draft, I wouldn't go into the again, I just wouldn't go into the editorial of what that might be like, because they really do run the gamut at times. So I that's all. That's why I was making that point. And then my second point was, now that I just learned that proclamations are clumped in with resolutions, I understand those tend to be more ceremonial, but resolutions oftentimes are not. So I'm back to you're looking at me like I tell me what you're.
170 Thinking, chair.
171 Koyama Lane, if I may.
172 Yes.
173 Councilor Ryan, the reason that I just emoted a lot with my face is that we specifically do not have the authority to pass proclamations, and we should not consider resolutions a stand in for proclamations. If we were to do that, we would end up duplicating a lot of work with the executive branch at a time when I think we're trying to better understand the lines between the work that the mayor does and the council does, we did around mlk day pass a resolution that may have sounded like a traditional proclamation, but I wouldn't want to suggest to the public listening that council does resolution, that council does proclamation like work through resolutions on a regular basis. I don't think that that's a path we want to go down for a variety of reasons. So I just want to make sure that.
174 We know. I'm learning in real.
175 Time that for.
176 The public, for me.
177 And maybe two other people, the public is, you know, checking this out right now. So I'm good with this clarification. I do think that I might not be the only one that doesn't know that on this council, because we all went, oh, all. And so we just needed to know that. And so let me ask you a real time question. So in real time, you have people that will reach out to you to say, it's this day coming up. Will you please do a proclamation? And so is our is our next step then to connect with the mayor's office and pass it on and to them.
178 I it certainly.
179 Is okay.
180 And now I. Know I'm glad there's a staffer in here, because I screwed up on a recent email around that. Thanks.
181 Thank you, vice. Chair Ryan. Sure.
182 For the record, there's always at least two people watching because my mom and dad watch every single one. I'm serious. They do.
183 But that's can I just quickly I.
184 Do think it will last.
185 Yeah.
186 I just address councilor Ryan really quickly. I'm sort of a little more informal here, since we're just really having a conversation is I was thinking, well, there must be another word for proclamation, but we could sneak around. But never mind. But but I think that your your idea of the council sends a message to the mayor. Maybe we want the mayor to make a proclamation or want to point something out. We should consider that. I don't know that we need language for that, I don't know, but I think that's a really interesting concept.
187 I was so beyond editing this at that point. I was just trying to figure out how to do my job, this new job. Yeah. And I didn't realize that. Now I know, yeah, I didn't want to belabor it, but I don't see adding this now that I know what's up. It's just I want to know how to deal with constituents when they're asking to have a day. I didn't realize that, that we weren't doing those any longer. Yeah.
188 Thank you, councilor Dunphy.
189 Thank you, madam chair. Reading through this specific document. And I don't know, maybe this is the right approach. Right? The most appropriate place to talk about this, but I'm, I'm wondering what the role of testimony is in the committee versus the full council and whether this is the place to, to enshrine that in some capacity about whether the expectation is that the majority of testimony would be received at a committee hearing, or whether someone would have two bites of the apple by being able to skip the committee hearing and come to a full council. I think we need to be clear about that. I just don't know if this is the place to talk about that. Actually, I do think this is the place to talk about that. I'm going to say that. What are your what are folks thoughts on the role of testimony in committees versus in a full council? And how do we not honestly, I'm I'm also imagining the budget hearings, which I've seen historically are eight hours of people coming and telling us to defund the police and then not actually talking about the procedures of the day and taking every single available testimony slot. So are we simply opening ourselves up to double abuse? Are we allowing people to really rig the system in in certain ways? Also, does the fact that we have committees in midday and we also now have evening hearings? Does that mean we need to think about these things differently? I guess I'm interested to know what you all are thinking.
190 I think this is a great question to let you know. We gave you two copies of some draft resolutions for us to just have as warm ups, and then we do have a third one that we have been calling our messy draft, because this one is even a little bit messier, and we were maybe going to see how many of these questions, if we got there, we would go through there are eight questions on this draft with probably ten more like many sub questions. Also, to give you a little peek, one of them says once we determine if testimony is coming up, is happening at full council when it has been taken in committee, once we determine if testimony is taken at full council, when it has been taken in committee, and if policies are read at council before being sent to committee, we may need to adjust code around first and second reading of ordinance and first reading of resolutions. I told you it's still a little messy. Councilors determine when they are ready for policy. To be public, we need to establish what it means for ordinances and resolutions when they become public. If this means visible to other councilors. So we have quite a few questions. It's one of them that's on here. If you believe that you have a specific question that you think should be kind of moved to the top, you can let us know. But before we do that, is there anything that any feedback that you wanted to give on this second draft resolution specific about a start on an internal procedure, about what comes to full council versus a committee? Councilor Dunphy, did you want to ask anything more about that?
191 Okay.
192 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
193 I was actually just going to respond to council. Dunphy. To say what what councilor Koyama Lane what chair Koyama Lane is reading from is a broader conversation about how a policy moves through our process, and that that might be the more appropriate place to talk about public comment, though we could make a note, especially in the whereases here, to the fact that there is likely going to be more time for public comment in committees, and that that might be a reason for our policies around sending things to committee. And if it's helpful for you to have a note of that in the whereases, that might be a way to tie these two different policies together.
194 To clarify, councilor Dunphy, do you feel like we need to have that conversation about testimony before you can fully talk about this?
195 No, not at all.
196 No. I think the question about testimony is important, and I think we need to be explicit. And I'm not feeling super strong about where we land, just that we do land. And we answer that question as it pertains to the, the, the formal question of whether something comes to full council versus a committee that doesn't need to be the testimony question doesn't need.
197 To be addressed.
198 And I don't have any further questions about this document right now.
199 Okay.
200 Thank you, councilor Clark.
201 Thank you, madam chair. I would I just wanted to add on to councilor Dunphy's remarks. I think that it's hugely important that we dive in nothing about this, but the next time and that we also, I don't know if you're thinking about other ways to get public input so that it's not just hello out there, it's not just here, it's not just in council meetings or in committee meetings, but there are other ways to get public input as well, with field hearings or other kinds of meetings and that possibly just looking ahead. I know this is not relevant to this piece, but looking ahead, is there a way that we can catalog or document the public testimony that the committee gets and hand it off in a report or whatever to the full council so that we don't have to repeat everything? I think ideally, that's the way this was envisioned, that the public testimony would be in committees. But there has to be a way, maybe to catalog it, to digest it, and to pass it along so that we don't have to have everybody come and repeat the same thing. But there are other ways to collect public testimony as well that don't have to be in this building. Thank you.
202 Go ahead, vice chair.
203 Well, I'm pausing for a second because I realized you wanted to first wrap up the second draft resolution dialog, and then councilor Clark is bringing up a really good conversation. But it's not really relevant to that one. So is this my our way of saying that we're any more feedback on the second one? You're done. I'm done. Councilor Dunphy.
204 I just also wanted I wanted to make sure that I kind of captured a lot of that. I heard some a great explanation at first about what a the different types of reports. So it could be requested by a committee. Also, there's a lot that's there are places in code that specify what a report is. And oftentimes they just have to come before council. That includes appointments. So it's important that we have a clear process here. I heard that we from a few colleagues that having the mayor's role explicitly outlined in this would be helpful. I also was appreciative about the conversation around how we no longer have proclamations. That is now like a version of a resolution. So maybe having some more thought around that and also hearing this conversation around public testimony, making sure that it it will be efficient. There's not repetitions that it's respective respectful of the folks that are coming before us and that if needed, it might even be need to be reflected into this.
205 The final one would be just really digging into the word ceremonial and doesn't create procedure other direction from council work. And that's just based on my experience that there often was a lot of procedure and direction that would come from those. But can we put a pin in this conversation like we keep doing today? Because it's our first meeting and we're building something? I think, first of all, we've always had a work done at the committee level back to earlier, like, say, the planning commission, the tree commission, like you would often. I would try to do my homework before that would come to the council. And it's not the same thing. But now we have committees that I'm thinking of the staff like. So they're still going to be all of those committees and commissions that we talked about, probably too many. We have a pin in that already. And then then it would come to the committee, then it would come here. So I think what we're getting at is time sensitivity. And I do think this committee probably needs to have more dialog about what, to your point, councilor Clark, that in committees you'll have more time to drill down. So that probably means more testimony. Maybe it goes a minute longer. Councilors probably have more time to have this kind of conversation that you wouldn't do at a full council meeting with 12 people, and that gets to thinking about rules of engagement with the whole council. I think we're at a point where we have to limit look at limits of time, of all of us when we're at council meetings, on conversations, not just the questions, but the amount of time. And that would be also for staff to know that. And then in committee meetings, we'd have more opportunity for that engagement. So when the council president says we only have two minutes from the public today in a council meeting, that would maybe trigger something where we as a body have less minutes as well on a topic. So I think it gets to that time management issue that all of us are probably thinking about, especially when we went home really late that one night. So yeah, I want to make sure I put a pin in what you brought up. Thank you, councilor Clark.
206 Councilor Clark.
207 Yeah. Can I just add one more thing to that? That as you were speaking, councilor Ryan, I'm just thinking is how do the policy committees, after they've done a lot of intake, a lot of churn, a lot of discussion, come up with something. How do they what other ways do we have to convey that to the full council so that the entire group of the other nine or however many, how we can inform them, work with them before something comes to the full council, you know, whether it's one on ones or whatever it is, because time is precious and we talk a lot and we have a lot to say. So the more we can do individually or whatever, when we have something coming out of a policy committee would be good. Just just another pin on a future conversation.
208 Wonderful. I'm taking notes on all the pins here. So it seems like on that first draft resolution, folks, correct me if I'm wrong. If I'm wrong seemed ready for president pirtle-guiney and I to maybe make something a bit more. Making a formal resolution. Are we at that place for this second one as well, that we should move forward with your feedback? Come back to you with a formal resolution, or is this something we should talk more about at a further meeting?
209 Let's try it. Okay, great. Let's take a stab at it. Come. You know, bring it back. I think you've gotten some good feedback. You've reflected it back to us. Really appreciate it. I just a lot of hard work. I can see there's a lot of work that went into this and I really appreciate it.
210 Yeah.
211 Do you want to add something?
212 Yeah. I agree I think this was great to have our first conversation today. And I think it's also great that we did just get the draft and we're talking about it in front of everyone in a very transparent manner. I hope that when it comes back in a first reading, perhaps to this committee, I hope that legal will have a chance to scrub it before we see it.
213 Absolutely. Okay.
214 Thank you so much. This discussion is very helpful to the president and I, and will inform us in putting together some sort of formal resolution that we will submit via council, so we can go over that in a future meeting. Now, I'd like us to begin considering this big question of a path that an ordinance or resolution takes. So some of these different things have already popped up. Let's keep talking about which ones we think are the most urgent. Looking at the time, we might just do one question and that's okay. But yeah, ultimately our committee here needs to. Our job, I believe, is to co-create rules, procedures for the creation of passage of for the creation and passage of ordinances and resolutions. So then we as a bigger full council can vote on them and hopefully pass them. And so just in everyday terms, we're going to decide and make sure it's really clear how policies get passed in this new form of government. And I believe having really clear rules and procedures will give us a clear framework, and it will also help the wider community engage in the legislative process, which is very important. So today, let's start with a prompt to have some discussion to start moving us forward closer to a former proposal. So here's question one. It starts with a scenario. So let's discuss a scenario which will kind of help us think through the important questions and decisions. So let's say one of us creates an ordinance and it's published and viewable on e council. It's destined for a hearing in a policy committee. But first, our rules currently say that the ordinance has to pass through full council, not for a vote, but for a public notice. So we need to decide if we keep this requirement to have newly introduced ordinances be read before full council, before heading to committee. If we do keep it, that will mean at our council full council meetings, we could read the ordinances and resolutions by title and which had which committee is headed to. This may slow down our work, but it also leads to possibly more transparency and preparation. Do we want to air towards that more towards speed. So yeah, air towards speed or transparency. We also need to think about our timing of posting deadlines. If an ordinance is announced at a Wednesday city council meeting, that's beyond our current Tuesday agenda deadline. So question number one, councilors, what are your thoughts? What are your questions? Go ahead, councilor Dunphy.
215 Great. It's a good it's a great prompt. I personally I mean I it feels like this is essentially taking the procedures and the legislature where a first reading happens by the speaker and then gets referred to a committee. I think that in terms of our I mean, you know, in the legislature, they're the committees are meeting multiple times a week. We're meeting every other week. I would on the side of speed outside of transparency, for the purposes of referring to a committee, I think that it's a it's a pretty pro forma box checking exercise. If I'm introducing legislation around speed bumps, it's going to the transportation committee. We don't know. And there will be an opportunity for the public to not only be noticed, but to weigh in. I think that we should make that as as much of an administrative procedural. Action as possible, personally.
216 Councilor Clark.
217 Thank you, madam chair. I guess I could just say ditto, but I'm just going to add that I don't think that speed and transparency are mutually exclusive, especially if they're if things are posted and there are other means of getting the word out. I'm I'm really I'm really pro efficiency and speed because it's going to go to the committee and it's going to get chewed up in the committee. It's going to get digested there. So I'm I'm much more aware where councilor Dunphy is. Thank you.
218 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
219 I've gone.
220 Back and forth on this one and I am happy to move toward speed. But I just want to note two things. The first is we don't currently have a way to publicly post things when they are complete, before they're posted on an agenda. And so if we are erring towards speed, I would ask that at some point we think about how we make sure that the public knows that there's something out there that we will be considering at some point. Since chairs have a period of time right now operating under full council rules, it's 90 days before they have to put something on the agenda. And so I would just ask that that be something that we put a pin in to come back to. I would also note that if we are erring on the side of speed, we need to revisit our current rules, which do require that anything that's passed from a committee to council be directed to that committee by council, and there may be a way that we can work around that by not having to have it come to a full committee. I've had some conversations with our attorneys. We have a process in place right now that the attorneys and clerk are both comfortable with, but we might be able to come up with something more flexible, but we will need to adjust that language at some point as we move through this process. Not a reason not to move in that direction. Just a note for all of us that we have a conflict right now in our code, and we can figure out how to work through that in the short term, but we probably need to fix it in the long term.
221 Vice chair Ryan.
222 Yeah. Thank you.
223 Chair I, I have three things to say. One is I just don't like the word speed. You know, tortoise won the race because they were methodical and steady and such and but I think I was confused on the original scenario. I just assumed that the chair and the vice chair or the president and vice president of the council would vet said topic and delegate it to a certain committee. And I didn't ever think that would be a council action to do that. So maybe am I missing something? And so are we. But the charter says what again, the three. The one page charter. Yeah.
224 There's a piece in code that says and I'm paraphrasing because I don't have it in front of me, though perhaps our council operations staff does have it in front of her. I'm looking at her flip through things. Maybe not, but there's a piece in code that says that anything that a committee refers to, council for adoption essentially has to be referred to that committee by council. So committees could hear reports, have discussions, create things. But if they are going to send an ordinance or a resolution to council, it would need to come through council. It could be do you have the exact language.
225 That just feels like a spin?
226 It is.
227 A committee has only those duties delegated by council resolution. No committee has authority to make decisions that bind council or the city committees are advisory bodies to the council. Here's the relevant point and may only make recommendations upon matters referred to them by the council.
228 So the definition is.
229 The council.
230 Well, so I think there's a question there. And it could be and I would want to ask the attorneys that we could fulfill that just by. To your point, councilor Ryan, the president and vice president, considering something and sending it there on behalf of council. But I would want this committee to have comfort with that if we were going to ask the attorneys to interpret it that way for us.
231 Yeah. Should we.
232 Check that out with the attorneys? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise. Oh, wow. Like that could really be quite a spin cycle. Okay. All right. It was understanding it. Yeah.
233 Councilor Clark. Yeah.
234 No, definitely. It sounded like there's a lot of room in what you just read for interpretation. Yeah. So going to the city attorney is a really good move, because it seems like we might be able to work with that and not spin our wheels, as you were suggesting. Councilor Ryan. And I would just say, too, that I don't like the word speed either. It doesn't sound good. Like traffic safety speed.
235 No.
236 But efficiency. We're really looking for efficiency to operate with maximum efficiency here. And it seems like council president there ought to be a way to develop some mechanism online. I mean, we're smart people here to list, you know, coming interactions or, you know, future issues. Because I know for my committee, we're going to put together a work plan and it will have, you know, future issues, not necessarily the exact moment we're going to pick them up. But it seems like we all ought to have a list of coming attractions, you know, and that we can find a way to put that up and not have to have a cumbersome, cumbersome process. Thank you.
237 To weigh in on that hill. Is there any.
238 Conversation within the g tech? I don't remember there being anything. I don't think they got into that level of weeds. But I'll try that again. The question was, did the government transition advisory committee have any sort of recommendations on that? Circuitous like the council refers to a committee, which then refers it back to the council question?
239 I'm not sure. I think I.
240 If this.
241 We don't know.
242 Yeah.
243 The circuitous.
244 Path occurred when we created our rules at our first meeting. This language is from the original code that was instituted when the previous council created a pathway for this council. We then created a system that allows for committees to develop policies on their own, which created conflict there, though perhaps conflict that we could work through. If we interpret this as allowing the council president or president and vice president to delegate something on behalf of council.
245 In general. I mean, I know we are reinventing this form of government, but we are not reinventing government, and there has to be a best, you know, best practice somewhere that we could follow and copy and do it ourselves.
246 I will add that members of gtac this advisory committee, commission no advisory. What does the c committee. Have been so excited to meet with us? They we've met with them a few times, and I know that if we were to also reach out for some feedback on this, I'm sure that they would be delighted to think it through with us a bit. And they're also coming. To our to a in March.
247 March.
248 March, March 10th for a committee meeting and then March 19th to full council.
249 Wonderful.
250 Does it seem like we have discussed that enough in a preliminary level, that question, do we have it in us for one more question? Actually, question number two is specific to public testimony. Can we can.
251 Even run a roll, okay.
252 If we get tired, we can also put it in the parking lot and come back to it the next meeting. Okay. Question number two. Another topic is public testimony on ordinances. If an ordinance and resolution has been through committee and received public testimony, how do we want to think about public testimony than at full council? So do we care if the testimony is repetitive, or do we want to place limits that prevent council from repeating discussion that had already been had in committee? Limits could look like numbering, limiting the number of testifiers, inviting representative testifiers from among people who testified in committee, prioritizing testifiers who did not testify in committee, or a number of other options depending on the goal. So a few discussions of trade offs. If an ordinance that comes to full council has spoken testimony limited, it allows for more time for councilor Debate. It signals to stakeholders that the public and the public that committees are a place for more spoken public input on ordinances. Councilors can still review spoken testimony and written testimony and review statements from the committee. Or allowing testimony at council ensures all councilors hear all concerns spoken live in person. It creates more opportunity for the public to weigh in. It can be argued that this is more transparent. It could be argued that it creates more opportunities for the public to feel like all councilors hear them on an issue, and there may be other benefits. So ready to talk about this one? Councilors? Go ahead, councilor Dunfee.
253 Great.
254 So I just changed my own mind in my own head as we were sitting here thinking about it. I think that committees need to be the primary place where where council or councilors receive testimony. I think that that needs to be inherently the place that if we're going to have, you know, six hours of testimony, that is where it comes. I think that especially when we are considering the amount, you know, the lowered frequency with which the full council is meeting and the fact that we are now meeting at night on the third week of the month, I think it's unfair to staff to be here until 1:00 in the morning hearing the same testimony over and over again. I don't think it actually substantively moves engagement in any meaningful way. However, I do believe that there needs to be intentionally some ability for limited public testimony at full council hearings. And the specific reason is we will always have a communication slot. And what I have seen is if people don't have an opportunity to sign up to testify on the budget, the vision zero plan, whatever, the thing is that we will lose those communication slots to people who feel entitled to taking them to get their three minutes set. So I'm wondering if it couldn't be limited to maybe some specific invited and maybe specific slots I don't, or a specific amount of time. Three people per, you know, maximum or five people maximum, something like that. For a full council hearing.
255 Thank you. Councilor Clark.
256 Thank you. There's got to be a middle path here, right? Because I still want efficiency and I want public input. We talked earlier about trying to take everything that comes to a policy committee and condense it in some sort of format that we could even publish or provide at the council meeting that has the names, that has, you know, something about what they said, or, you know, that's more staff work, but it would save us time so that we have time to deliberate when the 12 of us are together, this is the only time we can really do that. So we don't want it to be repetitive. I don't know of what you're offering is the best way to find the middle path, but it's an idea, you know, what we're engaged in is a culture change here. You know, in our government, our form of government. And it's going to take some retraining of all of us. You know, the city staff, the elected officials, all of us and the public. We're going to have to teach the public that this is the way you do it and make an extra effort in that culture change by reaching out, by making sure that, you know, each policy committee is really aggressively reaching out to the community when they have an issue to discuss so that we don't so that we do have time to deliberate. There's got to be a way to do it, that you have fewer slots and you have condensed testimony from the policy committee. It's just an idea, but it does require more outreach on our part. Thank you.
257 Thank you, vice chair Ryan.
258 Yeah. I.
259 I agree with both of you. And I think we're building you built off councilor Dunphy. I want building off of you. I think what you're getting is some collective feedback that says it's an and, but there's probably a drilling down that obviously goes deeper at committee. And there's an efficiency that that doesn't need to do that at the council level. And I support all that was said about. There is something important and necessary in democracy within the big body that makes the decision, has a chance to deliberate together and listen to some fresh testimony, if you will. But I do think time limits become the. The big difference is probably more of a technical type. Change is what I would offer, and I think that's what you're looking at right now. Right? Okay. It's getting some feedback on this. So just adding on I think we're just building off of one another. Unless I said I didn't want to put words in your mouth, counselor Clark.
260 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
261 Just echoing that. I really like the proposal that I see developing between councilors Clark and Dunphy. The idea that we would have a certain number of slots for, I don't know how we choose it, but some sort of representative testimony and a report of all of the testimony that was distributed to all councilors and available for the public, so that we can have a sense of the full flavor of the conversation. I also think at some point, we will start seeing what it looks like as things come from committee to full council with some sort of report, whether that's a staff report or a report that the chair delivers. And that could be another place where we can capture some of the discussion, not instead of, but along with the report of public comment and a limited number of representative slots for testifiers. And with those three things, I think we might be able to get a good picture for full council with. Without frankly asking portlanders to show up twice to tell us the same thing that we should be able to understand after they say it to us the first time.
262 Well, I wanted to say I'm really impressed with my colleagues. I feel like there was a lot of space to have many different discussions about different topics. I think this is great. I think we're off to a good first start with this specific question about public testimony. I hear that there's really a desire to find a balance, and. That there also is an understanding that we do want a lot of work to happen in those policy committees. And what it reminds me of is some conversations we're having of trusting our leadership. I think there's a piece of that there with trusting the leadership of these committees, that they are doing a thorough job bringing in community members, that they are sharing that information. I hear councilor Clark really coming, talking, speaking a few times about making sure there's a clear way to disseminate that information so the full council can get a glimpse at all the hard work that's been done. I hear some conversations about talking about some sort of limits for if testimony is at both in the policy committee and then also at full council, and it sounds like we can talk more about that. Yeah. Just to give a preview of some.
263 Go ahead.
264 Is that limit not just on those testifying but also on us as a body?
265 I think. That's another I would propose that. I mean.
266 Another thing. Yeah.
267 I think that'll be another.
268 Question to bring.
269 Up here.
270 Yeah.
271 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
272 I just. To say, councilor Ryan, as we talk about the various procedures that we need to establish, I think there is a point where we'll have to dig a little deeper around what our own conversations look like. Right now, the only guidance we have is that the person running a conversation in a council meeting or in a committee meeting should rearrange the order to make sure that folks who haven't yet spoken have an opportunity to, but it doesn't. Contemplate the amount of time folks have taken and the idea that if everybody has spoken but one person only asked one question and one asked five questions, maybe we bump that person who was only asked one question up in the order. I think that's a different piece that we'll need to take, but probably will be a few procedures down the line as we take on the things that will affect our immediate ability to govern ourselves. First.
273 I appreciate how you've adapted with some of what you just mentioned in a very short period of time. I do think we have to look at some time limits on this end as well. When we impose them on the community, then we have to look in the mirror. And how will we discipline ourselves? Both the staff management level and at the elected level? Yeah.
274 Councilor Clark.
275 I just want to add that some of this is cultural, and some of us have already had conversations with our fellow councilors about the time taken to speak, but it's bigger than we are. There are cultural issues here, but we can start by just having individual conversations and try to sensitize people. Thank you.
276 I appreciate the value placed on efficiency and sharing the microphone and space. So to give a little look ahead, our next meeting for the governance committee will be on February 24th at 2:30 p.m. Monday, we'll revisit many of the topics we've discussed today. We will likely have some things that are formally submitted in council. If we can get there, keep an eye out for additional documents. Colleagues, I'm available to meet about any of this. And without further ado, I will adjourn. Adjourn, adjourn the meeting and of the governance committee. Okay, done.