The record · Transcript
Council session — 2026-06-18
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (4,092 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.
Candace Avalos: Good afternoon everybody. I'm now calling back to order this recessed meeting of the Portland city council. Rebecca, can we please call the roll. Kanal here.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Pirtle-guiney here.
Ryan Koyama Lane here. Morillo here.
Steve Novick: Novick here.
Clark Green here. Zimmerman.
Avalos present. Smith here.
Dunphy here. And can we please have the attorney read the rules of decorum?
Good afternoon. Welcome to the Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.Portland.gov/council. Backslash agenda information on engaging with council can be found on the city council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states. Otherwise, your microphone will be muted. When your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council 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, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you're a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
Candace Avalos: Thank you very much. Can we please move to item 14.
Item 14 adopt and implement the moderate income revolving loan program document number 2026-124.
Candace Avalos: Colleagues. This is the second reading of a nonemergency ordinance. We've had a council discussion and some amendment work. Is there any further discussion of this item before we move to a roll call vote? Councilor Green.
Mitch Green: Thank you. I, I think that it's I'm excited about this. We had some amendments last week, and one of them passed and I really appreciated the conversation. I just wanted to say that I think this is actually going to be this is one of those things that's not not easy to understand. And it's kind of got a weird name and it's byzantine, but I think we have an opportunity to, especially with the amendments that passed last week, to see revolving loan funds become an increasingly important tool to replace some of the more impatient capital in the housing production capital stacks. You know, private equity markets are not there for us right now. And so when jurisdictions, whether it's at the city level or the state level, establish these revolving loan funds to then replace that, I think that's going to be the cheat code for housing production in the years forward. So this is going to be a very small piece. I think there's like maybe $20 million on the table for the the city of Oregon, although it is a first come, first serve program. What I'm hoping is when we see these successes and we can, you know, I think chair candice Avalos would would entertain this as like is inviting in some of those developers who've been able to make use of it and say, hey, this did unlock something that was frozen. Let's celebrate that. Let's advertise that so we can continue to reinvest in these things and expand that. So I'm really excited about it. And I appreciate the debate we had last time we talked about it. I vote I will vote yes.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, counselor Green councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Thank you, council president. I'm actually going to defer to counselor Smith and pulled up my notes. So sure.
Candace Avalos: Counselor Smith.
Loretta Smith: Thank you. Thank you, council president. I think this is a a very good program because if you look at the ecosystem of building housing, there is very little out there in the in the world for middle housing. And that middle housing piece is where folks can probably pay some of these higher fees back. But this is important, and we have to do it. And I'd like to see more middle housing in in east Portland. And I look forward to seeing what projects come out of this. Thanks.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor. Morillo.
Angelita Morillo: Thank you, council president. I will be voting yes on this today. But I also just want to add that, you know, I have some concerns that I stated last time, and I do need to reiterate them because this does essentially leave the city carrying the repayment liability to the state for the loans prosper underwrites and the council never approves. And that means that council that means that prosper is going to be writing the checks. But if the deal sours and the tif or the fee in lieu repayment doesn't materialize, the city repays the state out of its own funds, our own funds. And so the entity making the underwriting call bears none of the downside. While the body holding all of the liability has no way to address that or hold it accountable. And council's investigative authority under the charter does not extend to prosper. So if a deal goes bad, we as city council can't actually compel the underlying records to be responsive to that deal going bad. We can't ask for the pro forma, we can't ask for the underwriting documents. And I think that that puts us in a very vulnerable position. And, you know, I'm just going to say, again, with what happened with made in old town, for example, we don't want to be holding the bag for that. We want to make sure that we can do oversight in the ways that the city requires of us. So I think this is a good step forward, and I will be supporting it today, but I am just generally concerned about how how it's moving forward and the impacts that are going to happen if something goes wrong later on down the line. So I think revolving loan funds are great as a concept, and we need to create one within the city, but we also need to do this as well right now while we have the chance. But we also can't reduce the risk that this is going to put us in. So I just wanted to state my piece, but I will be voting. I thank you.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Morillo councilor Smith.
Loretta Smith: Thank you. Thank you, council president. I don't know why we don't have people up here from the housing bureau. Somebody here other than council to it's the dca. Yeah. Okay. Hi, danny. Could you come up for a second? It's almost like we're on our own. And people know about these agenda items, and we don't have anybody from the administration ever to sit here. And so we end up kind of, you know, going back and forth with ourselves. And we're not the administrators of this. So thank you so much. I think this is a very important project. Could you explain this revolving loan? Because there's a couple that we have now. We have the. The revolving loan from the tau, which has a 60% and below and that we're responsible for. And then we have this program. And the reason why we created this program is so that we could get the state money that that the governor has. Could you address some of those issues that councilor Morillo was talking about in terms of taking all the risk, if these projects, if they go bankrupt or go sideways or or or if they are short some some funding and they need additional funding to complete projects because you kind of.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah. Thank you. Councilor. Donnie oliveira. For the record, councilor Morillo is referring to the risk the city funds would have if a project that was granted by the state went belly up or went sideways. Just this particular loan that your this ordinance, excuse me, is giving the city the authority to administer programs that are a state led loan. So this is really a state loan program that you're giving us agency. In this case, the ordinance bestows that authority to prosper, to administer the projects through that loan. The reason why prosper is the appropriate body for projects that are in tif is we be able to utilize tif as essentially the safety net. If those projects didn't pan out now, I believe what council was referring to is if there is no tif for whatever reason, then yes, the city's full faith and credit would be backing the true underwriting or the underlying loan if that were to play out.
But tif is the one who.
Would be the first line of defense, if you will. Yes.
Loretta Smith: Would be the first line of defense. No, I like it. I think it's it's great. It would have been great to hear from prosper as well to, you know, kind of level set what they see in the future. Are there any projects in the pipeline right now that you know of that are waiting for this ordinance to pass?
We are aware of of several projects, and especially you heard from robert pile at the last meeting. He's got projects in that smaller range, and we have projects like broadway corridor on the bigger size that that could potentially be eligible for the program. So those are examples of projects, but.
Loretta Smith: I'm not voting for this. If you don't have none in east Portland.
It's a competitive it's a competitive program. Councilor it's a competitor.
Loretta Smith: To get something in east Portland.
Noted.
Loretta Smith: No, I like it. Thank you.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Kanal.
Sameer Kanal: Dca oliveira. Good try. Thank you, council president. Just since we're on this subject, is there anything that I think we need to have a conversation at some point about the city wide, but is there anything for this particular program that does protect it from not all being in the same part of the city? Is there any geographical protection for this at all?
There is not.
Sameer Kanal: Okay. But the. And what about the projects that are not in tif districts?
There are other fundamental like financial fundamentals to pay that back. And if I can invite staff up to walk through non tif projects if you'd like. But the answer is yes, non tif projects are eligible as well.
Sameer Kanal: Okay. And then for the tif projects, I mean in terms of geographical protection, there are tifs and parts of the various parts of the city. They're not necessarily evenly distributed, but and not necessarily the loans will not necessarily be evenly distributed between them. But there, there is the opportunity. It's not like all the tiffs are in d4 or something.
Correct?
Sameer Kanal: Yeah. Okay. Colleagues, I, I am really concerned about the prosper part of this. I think I mentioned this last time. I really appreciated both Green three and Green four, which didn't pass along with Green two, which did. I don't understand why Green three was so controversial. I get why Green four was, but I just had a different opinion on that one. But I would have loved to have more reporting. Don't see what the harm is and more reporting, but I'll begrudgingly be supporting this, but with the intention of revisiting if there is a concern about who manages it. And so I'd ask for sense of leadership to be aware of the possibility that if if council feels it's not working, we might want to get this back into fb. Thanks.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Vice president Clark.
Olivia Clark: Thank you, council president. I am an enthusiastic supporter of this and really appreciate my colleagues bringing it forward. I think we are in such a bad situation. We have such a great need that any time we can leverage something, we will look in every couch cushion, look under every rock and try to get get something going. And this is an opportunity. And I for me, I know, I know, so I'll turn this way.
No it's great.
Olivia Clark: It's poison waters. Anyway, I this overcomes any concern I have about risk about it going to prosper. So I just want to let people know that I think this is fantastic. Thank you.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, vice president Clark councilor Pirtle-guiney.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. I am so glad that we are taking advantage of this opportunity. There are state dollars that we should not just leave on the table. This certainly is not the panacea of creating middle housing or homeownership opportunities, but it is a piece of the puzzle that we need to have access to. I got in the queue, though, because councilor Kanal asked broadly about support in other areas of the city, and I just want to say specifically, I look forward to seeing some of these projects in district two. Thank you, council president.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney. Thank you for five colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. Rebecca, can we please move to a roll call vote?
This is for.
Document 2026-124 Kanal. I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan. I Koyama Lane.
Tiffany Koyama Lane: We'll take projects in district three. Also I vote I.
You I.
Novick I.
Clark I.
Green.
I Zimmerman absent Avalos I Smith. I Dunphy. I the ordinance passes with 11 I one absent.
Candace Avalos: Thank you very much. Rebecca, can we please read items 15 and 16 together?
Item 15 authorize a cable franchise fund for the bureau of planning and sustainability to support the collection of public education and government revenues and manage cable franchise work related to intergovernmental agreements with jurisdictions. Document number 2026-175. Item 16. Amend city code to reflect the dissolution of the mount hood cable regulatory commission. Amend code chapters 3.33 and 3.115. Document number 2026-176.
Candace Avalos: Thank you very much. These are the first readings of two separate non emergency ordinances. Christhopher herr from council operations is here with a committee staff summary report. Christopher take it away.
Good afternoon, council president and councilors for the record christhopher herr council operations policy analyst. I serve as staff to the city life committee. The ordinances before you document numbers 2026-175 and 2026-176 for considering the city life committee on may 26th, where they were referred to full council with a recommendation that they be passed the ordinance. Document number 2026-175, establishes the cable franchise fund fund 234, effective July 1st, 2026, to be administered by the bureau of planning and sustainability. The new fund will replace the mount hood cable regulatory commission, or mh crc fund. 855 following the dissolution of the mh crc on June 30th, 2026, the cable franchise fund will support capital costs related to public, educational and governmental or peg access services consistent with applicable law. Account for costs associated with any subsequent intergovernmental agreements with partner jurisdictions and fulfill outstanding, outstanding obligations of the mh crc following its dissolution. Funding sources for the cable franchise fund include city revenues, iga revenues associated with services provided to partner jurisdictions, and resources transferred from the mh crc fund. 855 to address remaining obligations of the former commission. The ordinance document number 2026-176 amend city code, chapter 3.115, as shown in exhibit a and chapter 3.33, as shown in exhibit b. Amendments to chapter 3.115 remove references to mh, crc and the iga that created. It ensures cable providers are held to the same standards as they are under the mh crc and retain the city's representation on open signals board. Amendments to chapter 3.33 remove all references to mh, crc and retain all other functions performed by city staff within the bureau of planning and sustainability. No verbal or written testimony was provided prior to committee action on either ordinance, and that concludes the committee staff summary.
Candace Avalos: Thank you very much, christopher councilor Pirtle-guiney. This came out of your committee.
Elana Pirtle-Guiney: So it did. Thank you very much. Council president. Colleagues, this is the most controversial thing we'll do this week. Just kidding. We moved this unanimously out of committee on may 26th. This was on our agenda previously in the month, but we ran out of time that meeting to hear it. So it's back today. Previously, I want to say in may, the city life committee brought a proposal to full council unanimously to dissolve the joint commission that we have to regulate our cable franchises. This is the next step in that work. I think we said at that time, things came a bit out of order just because of what we needed to do with the budget process. These two items are what I think we wish we would have heard. First, where we can make the. The more technical adjustments and decisions about whether we want to do the dissolution and move in this direction, but they needed to come as follow ups to the earlier piece that had to do with the budget. Essentially, this replaces the old regional fund that went away with the commission, with the funds to allow us to do our work as a city in this space. It removes outdated references and shifts that responsibility back to the city, allows us to do the work that we have talked previously about doing. As our cable franchise fees diminish over the next few years. Thank you, council president.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, councilor Pirtle-guiney colleagues, I have confirmed that there is no one signed up for testimony. So we're going to move both into technical and clarifying questions and also to council discussion. Councilor. Novick.
Steve Novick: I just wanted to thank you, mr. President. I just wanted to introduce two notes of semi sadness. One is that I remember when cable tv started and now we're apologizing, abolishing the cable regulatory commission because there basically is no more cable tv. And I'm reminded of the words of one of the major characters in the chronicles of narnia, who says in the final book, the last battle, I saw it begin. I didn't think that I would live to see it die. And I also just want to give a shout out to david olson, who was the leader of the mount hood cable regulatory commission for years and was a fierce advocate for consumers and made Multnomah county a great place to be a cable consumer. So I don't know where david is now, but I hope he's listening.
Candace Avalos: Thank you. Councilor Novick. I put myself in the queue because I actually have a couple questions for staff. If staff could come up, please. Welcome friends. I just wanted to put on the record a little bit. Could you explain to us what is the future for opensignal and metro east, for the grants that this commission has historically put out? What should folks in our community expect as a result of this? Specifically folks who work with those organizations?
Sure. For the record, Eric engstrom, director of the bureau of planning and sustainability. And with me is andrew spear, who's the franchise utility manager for bts. Both of those organizations are community media centers, which get the bulk of their funding through the public education government peg fees that come through cable regulation with the mh crc. They. Metro east was receiving both operational money and capital investment directly from mh crc. In the case of opensignal, the city used. It's essentially used its franchise fee revenue into the general fund to do the operational side of opensignal, and the capital side was still coming from the crc directly. So with the dissolution of the commission, those two entities take slightly different paths. The city of Portland, of course, remains served by opensignal. Metro east is serving the east county jurisdictions. In the case of opensignal, we will then be administering both the capital grant that goes to opensignal, as well as the operational grant. And then we're also spinning off the council services that you're familiar with, the broadcasting of council itself to a contract with opensignal, instead of including it in the grant. So opensignal is is having a smooth transition because we can manage all of those parts as a city. Metro east is in a little trickier situation because they have to deal with multiple jurisdictions, and in the aftermath of the mh crc, they will have to form agreements with Gresham and other cities to replace that system. And that's an ongoing dialog right now.
Candace Avalos: So there's definitely some some change happening. Is it? And obviously that's going to happen. Has that impacted at this point to your knowledge, their bottom line or their ability to continue doing the work that they were doing? Have there been layoffs or anything like that? Either of those organizations? You know.
This is andrew spear. I'm the franchise utility program manager at this time. No, there's no layoffs that have been identified as part of this change. And the, you know, our work within the bureau has been to keep the same funding as last year into this next fiscal year for the organization.
The long term trajectory is that this action, by dissolving the commission, we've taken the cost of running the commission out of the picture and bought ourselves a few more years to consider the question of what happens when the peg revenue runs out entirely. And that's still a another bridge we need to cross in the future. Great.
Candace Avalos: Thank you. A sort of we we've discussed this privately. I want to put this out there. Comcast is sort of the last cable provider. And part of that is because, as I understand it, some of the companies that were cable providers went away and some of them have transitioned to more of an internet company. And as I understand it, comcast provides cable, but also internet, but it's beneficial for them to be a cable company. What would happen for the city if they did eventually transition to becoming an internet company? Would we receive more money out of this regulatory agreement, or is that a a scenario? We envision this this corporation moving towards?
There's a lot of nuance behind your question. So there's fcc law that inhibits jurisdictions from imposing fees on other services. If the entity is a cable provider. And so in the case of comcast, as a dual provider of internet and cable, we can only impose franchise fees on the cable portion. There's a longer term question. If the city perhaps was to say, we no longer want to have a cable franchise in the city of Portland, we could then impose franchise fees on all services related to comcast and their operations, with exception of cable, of course, but. You know, but that's like a both a policy question and there's still a somewhat significant amount of number of customers that receive cable that is meaningful because we receive millions per year in franchise fees, but it's not the same level of gross revenues they receive. Comcast is receiving for internet services.
Candace Avalos: Gotcha. Thank you. That's helpful. Who will be managing the community technology grants going forward?
There are two community technology grant programs that bts has managed historically since absorbing oct. One is the mount hood cable commission's grant program that we had been staffing. That program is essentially sunsetting because we've we're going to prioritize the grants to the community media centers directly. The other grant program that we had been running had been through the general fund, and that was one of our cuts in this year's budget. So sadly, there are no community technology grant programs going forward that are currently funded. Other than we are continuing to manage the legacy grants that have already gone out the door.
Candace Avalos: Okay. Thank you. That's all my questions, colleagues, any further questions for our friends from bts? I'm seeing no one else in the queue. All right. With that, I'm going to move this item to second reading. And the second item, move both these items to second reading and colleagues. That's our agenda. That's everything we have for today. Relatively easy. With that, I am going to, unless there's anything for the good of the order, I'm going to adjourn this meeting of the Portland city council.
While you still can.
Candace Avalos: Thank you, everybody.