The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-08-14
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (17,820 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 Labor and Workforce Development Committee met on Thursday, August 14, 2025. The body conducted a roll call establishing member presence and approved committee minutes covering May 15 through July 24, 2025 by unanimous consent. Presentations addressed the Community Opportunities and Enhancement Program (COEP) and the Bull Run Filtration Project, covering workforce impacts from a land use suspension, apprenticeship utilization goals, project costs, and COEP funding allocations to business technical assistance and workforce development service providers. Discussion also covered the current intergovernmental agreement between the city and Prosper Portland, potential program improvements, and annual reporting requirements under city ordinance and administrative rules, with questions raised about whether certain code provisions had been repealed. An ordinance to authorize use of disparity studies to inform minority contracting opportunities was discussed, including legal standards for race-based remedies, with consideration given to converting the proposal into a resolution directing a new city-specific disparity study; the item was referred back to committee staff for further work following discussion, with no objection noted. Public testimony was heard from contractors, union representatives, and business association representatives regarding technical assistance gaps, workforce disruptions from the project suspension, and funding structure concerns. No vote tallies are reported here; any outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger.
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.
Procedural markers in this session
Literal phrase counts from the official captions — a measurement of procedure, not a judgment of anyone's conduct. Click a marker to highlight its occurrences below. Captions contain errors.
0 Good afternoon. Good afternoon. I call the meeting of the labor and workforce development committee to order. It is Thursday, August 14th at 12 p.m. Keelan. Will you please call the roll?
1 Good afternoon. Novick here. Green. Here. Dunphy, here. Here. Smith.
Procedural episode · turns 2–10
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
2 Here. Thank you. In today's meeting, the labor and workforce development committee will approve the committee minutes, receive a presentation of the community opportunities and enhancement program and the bull run filtration project. Consider an ordinance to authorize the use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting opportunities. Hear public testimony on labor and workforce development issues. Clerk keelan, please read the first item.
3 May 15th, 2025 through July 24th, 2025. Labor and workforce development committee minutes.
4 Okay.
5 The minutes can be approved by unanimous consent. If there's no objection from your colleagues.
6 Are there any objections? No. Minutes are approved by unanimous consent. Without objection, the minutes are approved. Let's bring the first item up.
7 Item number two. Community opportunities and enhancements program. And the bull run filtration project.
8 Could I have a. Priya, I see you and. Dca. Donny oliveira, could you please introduce yourselves and talk about what you're going to be here presenting on today?
9 Good afternoon, chair Smith and councilors, I'm priya dhanapal, the dca for public works for the city of Portland. And today I'll be providing a focused update on the filtration plant, specifically the workforce impacts from the recent land use suspension and where we stand now.
10 Excellent.
11 Thank you. Chair. Councilors. For the record, my name is donny oliveira, the dca for community and economic development. And I'll be with you today to provide a high level overview of the community's community opportunities enhancement program and discuss some next steps we're contemplating. Thank you.
12 Thank you. Dca donna paul, could you start us off?
13 Absolutely by sharing slides.
14 This is just.
15 Great. The project will ensure our water remains safe and abundant for generations, and it's required by EPA under the safe drinking water act to treat for cryptosporidium. And a compliance deadline for this project is September 30th, 2027. So every month matters as we work towards building a facility that will protect our public health, as well as ensure reliability for future generations. And next slide please. In this presentation, I'll cover a brief project overview, discuss the pre and post suspension workforce numbers, and take any questions or comments you have for our team. Next slide.
16 Is a possibility.
17 Is there a possibility that you could speak louder.
18 Or absolutely.
19 Closer to the mic?
20 Can you hear me now? Councilor. Yes, absolutely. Great. So as you see in this slide, we're currently in active construction for both the filtration facility and connecting pipelines. And our aim is to meet the 2027 deadline. The remand has caused a delay, but we are still working to meet the deadline as set in our bilateral compliance agreement with. Oh. Next slide please. This project is a $2.1 billion program, and it's one of the largest investments in our city's history. It is also an important investment in long term water safety and resiliency and wifia loan that we secured will help reduce the financing costs. Protecting ratepayers over the course of the project. We are still evaluating the cost impacts of the remand and look forward to sharing that with the council in October, when we will present an annual report on the filtration. Next slide please. This project is a major economic driver and it has created thousands of job directing nearly $400 million to local contractors. And next slide. And before the land use pause, we were making steady progress towards the 20% apprenticeship utilization goal and exceeding it in some trades. And we you know, these numbers reflect the strength of our contractor partnerships and the diversity of our workforce. This slide here shows the breakdown in apprenticeship by trade for the filtration project, for power equipment operators and laborers. We are exceeding the 20% apprenticeship utilization goal and making progress towards the goal with other trades. And on the pipelines project, we were already meeting the 20% utilization goal before the land use pause. And again, these numbers also reflect the strength of our contractor partnerships. Next slide. This slide shows the breakdown in apprenticeship by trade for the pipelines project for laborers. We were exceeding the 20% apprenticeship goal and making progress with the power equipment operators and carpenters. Next slide. The land use suspension lasted five months. We spent about $80 million during this period to maintain momentum. And this this time was spent to include design reviews, equipment procurement and preparing for the restart. The workforce dropped from about 350 craft workers to just a handful for the site security. Again, we were at or above nearly all our workforce goals except for apprenticeships, which are contractor was working to increase, and I cannot emphasize enough how much of a regular meetings and partnerships with trade groups representatives really made the difference. Next slide please. After the restart, staffing returned to pre suspension levels with in just four weeks, which is a proof that the workforce readiness was never a limiting factor, particularly given the good partnership we have with the contractors. Next slide. Like filtration, the pipeline workforce levels have rebounded quickly as well since the pass ended, and that is a very high level update of a workforce on the filtration. And I'm happy to answer questions. Now if you would like. Or I can pass it to my colleague dci oliveira to finish the presentation and answer the questions at the at the end.
21 Thank you. Do any of my colleagues have any questions of dc, dc, donna paul. Thank you.
22 Thank dca, donna paul.
23 Dc oliveira.
24 Thank you. Look at the other presentation teed up. All right. Okay. Thank you. So councilor is at a high level. The community opportunities and enhancement program coep going forward is a city of Portland initiative designed to increase diversity and construction and contracting. It aims to increase representation, and it removes barriers for construction firms so that many of our contractors and small businesses that are local to the city have a greater access to our larger infrastructure projects. Next slide please. So I want to go through a brief history of the program. These the language on the left are is actually in the ordinance that was adopted in 2020. But starting back in November of 2017. Then the city council adopted a resolution that began to contemplate how the city of Portland could better serve our communities and our contractor communities, to provide a funding mechanism to support workforce development and technical business assistance services. That program evolved with the first mou, basically memorandum of understanding between the city and prosper. I want to take a moment to acknowledge that when I talk about the city, we had organizations like the former omf or office of management and finance, which is now our fleet and services and procurement. We have the office of equity and human rights and our public works bureaus, water, environmental services, transportation and parks, working with, with prosper to contemplate how to deliver those services. In the year of 2020, first council adopted an ordinance to direct an iga intergovernmental agreement between city and prosper. And then really, we codified the program in November of that year that established coep in code, it set admin rules, and it really put the foundation of what the program was to deliver to our business and workforce communities. Where we're at today is we are in the final year of the current iga between city and prosper. And we'll go into those details a little bit. But fundamentally, this has been an iterative process that has resulted in the work that we'll discuss momentarily. Next slide please. So really quickly, the coep fee calculation as described in admin rule 1.25 of the of the chapter that governs coep, describes the fees being calculated in two ways. The first is activity based rate, which is 1% of the hard costs on capital improvement projects over $500,000, and the water bureau, environmental services and our omf now fleet facilities, capital improvement projects. And then we have a fixed rate model for parks and rec and PBOT that pays a fixed rate based on their historical contract values. And that's adjusted annually for the adjustment period. So this is the foundation of how those fees are calculated and how we build the program based on next slide please. So really at a high level we're in the second and final year of the current iga that runs through this fiscal year. And for the two year funding program, this total was approximately 2.6 million or $2,598,000, broken down into two distinct buckets, $635,000 for business technical assistance, and close to $2 million for workforce development. And we'll go through those specifics in a second. In total, this would bring that approximately six, seven year commitment to just shy of $9 million in coep resources available to our contractor and workforce community. Next slide please. For the service providers that are offering business technical assistance, the $635,000 was distributed as such. You can see there that latino built livelihood. Northwest. Namak and urban league received the appropriate the amounts listed. Those were their annual goals and the current targets for their businesses served in fiscal year 23, 24, 24, 25. And of course, we'll have data for this year. Later on. I just want to flag that this this iga is in partnership with these organizations who represent the business and workforce communities that we want to support through the program. They're indicative of the leadership and the folks that know best on how to provide those services. And we can go into details about the types they provide, but we really look to them to deliver this, this, these grants are administered through prosper Portland. But really, it's these organizations that are as partners that are guiding this work. Next slide please.
25 And dca oliveira. So this is for okay. That was my next question. What happened to the workforce development piece.
26 Next slide please.
27 Thank you.
28 And this is the breakdown of how the remainder of that 2.6 million is allocated through through workforce systems. So the money goes through workforce systems. And then they partner with these organizations to deliver those specific services. As you can see on the scopes, there's varying range of specifics. But largely we cover outreach and recruitment, pre-apprenticeship training and retention services by organization. Next slide please. So this is really the opportunity for us to have a conversation about where we're at today and the opportunities for next steps. It just so happens that earlier this year in March, city administrator jordan had directed at the time it was dca, morrissey and I. And now dca is included to begin the evaluation of the program for what comes next. We are at the end of this cycle, and so now's the appropriate opportunity to start evaluating not just the financial structure of the program, but the program improvements that we might contemplate going forward. Those meetings have already started. They began earlier this summer, and that's really to get us to 26, 27. More interesting, perhaps, for this conversation is that we've been hearing loud and clear that there's an opportunity for us to improve the existing iga. And while that exists and there's not a lot of change to be had in the structure, we do think there's an opportunity for us to work more collaboratively with our public works bureaus, with procurement, and with prosper in our external partners to get the right technical assistance to the people that need it today. And so those conversations have already started, and we're really excited about the opportunity for us to make some small tweaks, perhaps introduce some additional resources to the pool to get through the remainder of the year to meet the demand that's out there that we desperately know needs to be met. As I shared with some colleagues earlier, these are extraordinary times for our contracting community and anything we can do to help. And it would. It probably is not necessary to unpack the iga. There's just not a lot of time, but adding more resources and refining some of the delivery of those services is probably the low hanging fruit there. I'll also want to offer that, you know, we are collecting data and our our program providers have continued to exceed our target goals. We do an annual survey, and we continue to see that the services they are providing are far exceeding the targeted outcomes that we had set up in the in the program initially. And the last thing I'll offer to this regarding the current iga versus the need today when this program was contemplated, it was designed to help the broader ecosystem of contractors and workforce. We were looking at how do we support emerging businesses and contractors to get access to the contracts and the infrastructure projects the city was was producing? I think it's fair to say that just the uncertain times we're experiencing, the need might be shifting, and the projects and the contractors on those existing projects might need a little more support than the program initially contemplated. And we're happy to figure out how to deliver those, those resources there. And I'm going to stop there to I think that was the last slide to answer any questions you all may have.
29 Thank you. This was very, very, very good. And just kind of piggybacking on on the last question, on the last statement that you made about having additional conversations on this new iga that's coming up in 26, 27, I'm sure you're going to be able to look at some of the best practices to see, you know, what worked, what did not work. But I would like to be sure that you're involving a, a larger coalition than the ones that were identified in the workforce development and in the technical assistance so that people can feel you said you you kind of did a high level approach to this, and you were dealing with some extraordinary circumstances, especially during during COVID. So I want to make sure that that we are talking to everybody, giving us the input that we need to make this an exceptional program. And I like what you said when you said, we're going to try to identify if there are other opportunities to increase the funding for coep that that was great. I want to talk to you in pre. I want to hear from the contractors and then we can have a conversation about, you know, what's what's doable now, what can be changed today versus what can be changed in the new iga. Is that fair.
30 That's perfect. Thank you. Councilor.
31 Yes. Councilor Dunphy.
32 Yeah. Sorry. Just looking at slide five, which outlines the service providers for business technical assistance. I'm noting that the budget is pretty flat across groups, but the expectations of goals are pretty disparate, and the number of businesses actually served is pretty lopsided. I mean, namak is punching above their weight. I understand that some of that has to do with the slowdown because of the demand for the 2425, but can you tell me a little bit about the how the dollar amounts were tied to the goals of businesses served?
33 Thanks for the question, councilor. Without getting too much in the weeds, it's a fair question. It also depends on the types of services that are being provided. Right? Are we are we actually helping contractors with like bookkeeping? Are we actually providing technical assistance in a higher capacity? Are they are they covering more ground and work sessions. There's each provider is not only has a unique group of people they work with, but they're also providing a certain set of expertise that may allow them to talk to more people, you know, more broadly than a targeted session. But the resources reflect the service more than the numbers. It's almost unfair to show businesses served, because not all those data points are equal in terms of service provided. Does that make sense?
34 Yeah, yeah. It's different different kinds of services being provided to different kinds of businesses. Correct. Is the slowdown that is experiencing between the 2324 and the 2425, is that almost exclusively related to the demand for luba, or.
35 It is one of many factors? Councilor I would not pin it on any particular project, nor any particular. I mean, I think we had a general because remember these services, these contractors are providing resources and expertise to many businesses that are experiencing a downturn in our construction economy. And I think there's just a this is just a general zeitgeist and reflective of city of portland's overall development malaise.
36 Thank you.
37 Dxva oliveira, do you think that slowdown in terms of the businesses served had anything to do with our our. We had a delay in in the bull run for a few months. Do you think that had anything to do with it?
38 I would not go that I would not pin any sort of downturn or even have these numbers reflect necessarily a downturn. They some of them are because just general malaise in our development cycle. But to pin it on bull run for example I don't think would be fair.
39 Okay, okay.
40 There it may be that's something that we're teasing out. Is there direct connection between these these. These services and the projects that were our city's infrastructure bureaus are working on? And just to reiterate, the whole ecosystem of construction contractors development is experiencing sort of a recalibration. And that's tough. And so when you see numbers go down across the board, is it noise? Is it correlation? Is it is there a possibility that this is direct? Perhaps. And I would say generally speaking, yes. But to pin it to one particular project is not is not fair.
41 Well, the struggle is real for many of the small contractors. And I was talking to the mayor yesterday and he said, look outside. He said, how many cranes do you see? He said, back in 2017 we had cranes all over the place. We don't see as many cranes. And so that is a very elementary kind of way to look at it. But that is the truth. The cranes can tell you what we're doing in a city in the type of development that we're having. So I do understand that I, I want to make sure that before you leave, that if we have any other questions from the committee before we bring the next panel up, if they have any questions, I think, councilor Green, you have a question.
42 Thank you, chair Smith. Thank you, donnie, for being here. My question is around the iga and a little bit of just I'd like to get a little bit more understanding of where that kind of came from, why the city thought that it was best to kind of work with, like grant prosper, the sort of the duty, I suppose, of executing this program to act as a historian here. Excuse me. Councilor, thanks for the question and offer that the prosper had the existing relationships with the park systems, for example, prosper can be a little bit more agile in their contracting given just the nature of the organization. And frankly, they have done business technical assistance in other capacities as well. They just had that muscle. Not to say that the infrastructure bureaus couldn't have done that or didn't have that or procurement. It just felt as I've been, has been shared with me, the right place to put it from a, a consistency perspective. And that was the logic train behind it. No more than that.
43 Okay. Thank you. And I guess my second question would be, you know, either the current iga or what's contemplated maybe as improvements on it, how how would we approach like oversight and kind of engagement when we hear from a contractor or constituent that that this program is not working for them because it's sort of it seems to span two different service areas. And then there's also prosper Portland. So that's a little confusing. And I would just like to know how best to support that and partnership with with the administration.
44 Councilor. That's a great question. It's actually part of the conversation we're having today. I won't I won't speak for them. I'll just say that from my seat, having prosper and the infrastructure bureaus and procurement working together and sharing information more effectively will absolutely benefit our community partners so they know who to go to. They know how to approach and get the resources they're looking for. Right now, it's just who you know, and that's just unfair. It's just a lot of legwork for people to interact with us. So you've actually nailed one of the things that we're trying to solve for.
45 Thank you. And I appreciate that sort of recognizing the who you know thing is, is something that's not unique to this problem. It's everywhere in society. And I think that's part of what, what we're trying to overcome specifically with this program. And so this is really timely conversation. That concludes my questions at this time. Chair.
46 Thank you, vice chair councilor Kanal.
47 Thank you, madam chair. Thank you for being here. Dc olivera and also dc Elana paul. So my question is maybe going to force you to put the historian back hat back on a little bit. Ordinance one 9197 requires annual reporting to city council. And I just wanted to understand where when I couldn't find it, the most recent one. So I'm curious what time of year that normally happens and what the plan is around that when the last time it occurred.
48 Council, I will get back to you on that. You've stumped me on that, on that requirement. So thank you.
49 Yeah. It's in it's weird. It's worded kind of in a way that implies that procurement does it over does it and omf does it. And I'm not sure if there's distinct things in there, but it's in the exhibits and it's in the binding city policy. It's 81.25.
50 Yeah. Let me maybe when there's other presenters I'll, I'll do that homework and get back to you shortly.
51 Alvaro de oliveira I do see our procurement director back here. He may be able to help you. Perfect with that answer.
52 Elana friends.
53 I know. Sylvester, I saw you at the corner of my eye, and I was thinking that he could talk to you offline, but I appreciate you coming to the table.
54 I'm sorry. I assumed you were asking me to show up at the big kids table. So that's why I showed up.
55 I'm going to have the big kids show up at the big kids table. So go ahead. In support of that question. I would like to engage with my team in terms of the time frame. I believe that our compliance team does provide data that's reported to the council in an informal consent process.
56 Okay. And so councilor Kanal, is that answer adequate for what you're trying to identify?
57 Not really.
58 I I've only been here ten months, so I can't give you the exact cycle in which that was reported. However, I would like to check with my team and see how that's reported to you, the method, and also to double check myself and make sure that the process includes all of the information that's required.
59 Fair enough. Yeah, I'm happy to get the rest offline. Just quickly clarifying, have you done an annual report in those ten months?
60 I have not in my ten months I have asked for quarterly and I've worked with my team in order to get quarterly reports, just in general as the procurement reporting, and you probably will see some of that contracting performance in recent months in the upcoming months.
61 Okay.
62 Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Before we end, could you give us a description of the report that you're talking about? Because I'm not familiar with it. Sure. Could you give.
63 Me let me close the tab. Here we go. So this is on coep specifically.
64 Okay.
65 And where are you getting this description from?
66 This is exhibit b to ordinance 190197 that create that define the program. It created a binding city policy adm 1.25. This is section 3.1.4. Establish annual performance metrics for the coep performance and report to city council. It's also. Down below. Section six om, f and over will report annually and as requested to city council. The activities, expenditures and outcomes for the previous year.
67 Okay. Excellent. Well thank you. I think dca aloe vera, you can get back to us and email all of us of the findings include the director as a part of that that email. And we'll get back to you. If you all could please stay in the hearing room until after our next panel comes up, that would be great, because I'm sure we're going to have some conversation that you're going to want to respond to.
68 Thank you. Thank you, madam chair.
69 Can I just also note it is in city code 5.35.060 as well.
70 So if they forget it is in city code. Could you say that again? Councilor canal.
71 5.35.060. And I think that's defining the administrative rules. Have to figure that out. And then the administrative rules I mentioned earlier are how that was defined, what the report should include.
72 I think I'm going to make you the parliamentarian of the council. That's what I'm going to do. No it's excellent. We're going to call the second. Is that the second or the third?
73 Keelan the next item. Number three, authorize use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting opportunities.
74 No. We need to stay on agenda item two.
75 Okay.
76 And would that be the second panel with maurice ramming. Yeah okay. Maurice ramey, randall friesen, mark matthews, faye burch and andre baugh.
77 I think it's maurice.
78 Thank you so much for being here today. If you could introduce yourself and tell what company you're from and give us a quick synopsis of your understanding of the co-op program and what's working and what's not working.
79 Okay. And I'll try to be quick. And I believe randall is also online and andre is also online. So my name is maurice rahming. Thank you, councilors, for having me here today. My company is o'neal construction group, o'neal electric and howard jacobs masonry. And so my overview on the synopsis of what's happening. And over the last few years we've been participating also with pacific mark as well on a lot of the ratepayer funded dollar projects, whether it was a Washington park or the columbia boulevard wastewater remodel there. With that said, in two thirds of those funds comes from that go to the co-op, come from those particular projects. We haven't had any real engagement for us as a general contractor or us as a subcontractor or any of our subcontractors, being able to access technical assistance on these projects. These projects are very complicated projects, and so it's critical for their success to be able to have that assistance necessary to be successful. One of the things that and I'm like, you know, I bring up problems. So I'd like to come with solutions as well. In the past, when we had the 1%, which was the cba, and then it turned into cip and so on, where there was heavy reporting that was done on it and it was you. The monies were listened to by the people, the boots on the ground, which are the contractors and the subcontractors and the workers. Right. And what the needs were. And then the allocations were associated to those needs. And that was done through the labor management oversight committee. That is not happening today. We have contractors that need technical assistance. They're small contractors and they receive no assistance. They don't even have we don't even have a clear understanding of what each area of providers, what their specialty is. In the past, we would have there would be a survey done to actually for contractors that are working on the project to say, how many people are you planning on hiring? Right. The bull run filtration project has a potential of 4700 new hires. It has certified firms that are participating over almost a half $1 billion worth. Right.
80 I'm going to unpack this. So let's go back to what you said earlier so that I'm clear. What you said was that the co-op program, which is a reincarnation of a cba that was put in place by prosper, tell me what year that was, so that I know that we're talking apples to apples.
81 And I believe it was 2016 and that was a city run project.
82 City run. And then in 2017, we got a new project. And I'm going to because I need to get some clarification. Dca oliveira could you come up please.
83 And so and you.
84 Had.
85 And you had two reports in that time period where the reports that the annual reports were about this thick and it showed this is one of the reports that came out. There's another one.
86 So that was under a cba.
87 That was under cba that.
88 And then we moved to the co-op program in 2017. Right?
89 Yeah, we eventually we moved we moved to this new system.
90 This new program came de oliveira in 2017. Correct?
91 Yes.
92 And so we changed some of the rules. And what I want to make sure that we're we're clear on what exactly happened, because you said a couple of things that there were some reports that were not done, and there was some assistance that was not given to contractors. Now, we had a list of folks who got the technical assistance money and who got the workforce development money. Are those folks responsible for giving technical assistance for all the small contractors or just the folks that they're working with?
93 It's thank you for the question, counselor. Daniel. I rare for the record, the contractors that are providing services are not directed to only work with folks that are subcontractors on the projects they have to. There's a nexus there that they have. There's a rubric, but it's not a 1 to 1 requirement.
94 Okay. And so what I think I'm hearing from morris is that there is more there's an additional technical service that's needed. Is that what you're saying?
95 There's additional technical assistance that's needed. But even going one step further and saying what the rubrics, there are a number of areas in that rubric that just are not being implemented, and it pertains to those contractors and those contractors that have been working on these projects. And so the contractors that we have subcontracted, and you'll hear from mark as well, that are subcontracted to do city work project right now that need technical assistance, that technical assistance is not provided to them, nor do they even know where to go. Nor do we have a list of the for the service providers, what their specialties are for the services that they're providing. So it's up to the contractor to try to hunt down services and try to hunt down who's serving what for.
96 So you're saying under the old cba, you all used to know where you could get technical assistance from? If so, all so. So let's level set. Donny. All the city, city owned projects, all the subs are eligible for technical assistance. Is that what I'm hearing for the small folks? Do we have something that will give people where to go? Because we had a list on where to go for technical assistance.
97 Councilor, thank you for the question. I think you're identifying something that we've we've heard that we need to refine as far as our communications, that the thing to make. I just want to reiterate from earlier when the iga the current iga was developed by the city and prosper and partnership. Prosper is the administrator of the grants. We were looking at a more holistic ecosystem. We were who wants to come work with the city? It was just a slightly different angle. I completely understand the concern that morris is flagging. It's real. He's asking for resources to be, to be directly provided to subcontractors that are working on projects. That's a completely legitimate need. There's no question there. The program design today was not directly designed. Not to say it can't be. It just wasn't. And so what we're working, as I alluded to, we're working right now on is how can we in the short term, for the remainder of this iga, provide some additional resources to meet that gap that he's daylighting.
98 So you beat me to it. So I was going to ask you the question, what can we do to kind of fill the gap just until we until we actually do the 2627 so that we don't have small contractors coming forward saying that the city is required to have technical assistance on all of their city owned projects, and we're not getting it and we don't know where to get it. And so I think that goes back to councilor Kanal question in regards to is there a report done?
99 The answer is the report is not done. We just confirmed that.
100 And that's and that's what I'm saying. So I think there is a there is a gap. And we need to figure out after this meeting how we can fill that gap so that those folks who are falling through this donut hole, that they're able to get what you say is statutory, am I hearing that that it's statutory, that, that subcontractors get technical assistance on all projects?
101 I wouldn't say it's statutory if the resources are there. Absolutely. But at some point the resources are.
102 So that's what we try to do is to make sure that we have technical assistance on all projects and who who's offering that technical assistance and what it's for.
103 Councilor. I just want to make sure we're really clear the resources are available for subcontractors, contractors that are working on projects. But it's not a guarantee that just because you are, you automatically get them. Okay, I think and again, I just want to be really clear, what morris has already flagged as a gap is something that we were aware of and we want to try to rectify in the short term as best as possible. And note that that's something that we'll have to address in the next structure of the program in the next iga.
104 And so what I'm talking about in the next iga, I know we need to address that, but is there anything that we can do, like between now and the next ig. Because I think there's a hole that, that, that could possibly meet the criterion in terms of what we're hearing from morris that we have right now.
105 So I don't want to take up our partners time here. But staff already started working on some ideas. Okay, great. I want to check in with our service providers because we have, you know, five groups that do great work. We want to make sure that they're at the table for that conversation as well, as well as the contractors that are looking for the resources and see what we can come up with. So I don't want to get ahead of that conversation, but councilor, that's.
106 What I just want to make sure the conversation is being had and that everybody recognizes that there's a hole and that we need to fill that hole as much as possible before we do the new contract and not just leave it to the new contract has to be done. And then we'll come back and address this. And I also want to make sure that we realize that you were under a cva before and it had different policies, it had different procedures, and it had different resources that were available. And so I want to make sure that we're not mixing and matching services with what was in our past compared to what we're doing right now. And so we recognize and I think councilor Kanal and others on this committee recognize that there is a whole and I appreciate you so much. De oliveira. Recognizing that hole and being willing to talk about it and possibly feel it. I'm not saying you'll be able to feel it totally, but to identify some opportunities to fill that so that people feel that we're doing what we need to do to make sure that our subcontractors are getting the necessary technical assistance that they should actually have. We want to make sure that these projects, that they're that they're good, they're solid, that they're solid foundation wise. And we don't want to have to come and have this conversation in public about this, because I think a lot of this stuff can be done administratively. It doesn't have to be done at the at the council level. And I I'm, I'm really happy to hear you say you are willing to work to do that. Thank you so much for that. And morris, could you finish what you were saying. And then we're going to go move on to mark and then faye or fay and then mark.
107 Definitely. And one of the things is in the iga that you have at prosper, it has a rubrics and that rubrics, it has some key elements that we're taking out of the old process that actually gives you ways of having the best results. The rubrics is not being implemented fully. There are parts of it that are taken very few parts, and the majority of it is left. And so to implement the rubrics will actually address a lot of the challenges that the contractors that we are working with are facing to be able to be successful. One last thing. And so on the workforce side, in the past, there would be a survey that went out to us saying, how many workers do you need in order to? Like I said, we have 4700 new potential jobs, right? And then we could add the pre-apprenticeship programs can align the training towards those work opportunities. That hasn't happened and hasn't been happening. So we are going to miss the opportunity to really make sure that people can participate on those job sites that reflect our city and our community.
108 And begin to train the pre-apprenticeship for the particular work that's coming in the future. I sit on the transportation infrastructure committee, and we had a whole committee on Monday morning about the eber project, and the administrator said that there were going to be thousands, up to 20,000 possible jobs. And so I could imagine someone would want to take an inventory of what kinds of jobs are needed for that particular project, and to start training up from from a pre-apprenticeship level so they can get into the apprenticeship, he said. Look, some people are going to earn their journeyman's on this project alone. Yeah. And so for me, if there's a way that we can help and we do, we spend money on the pre-apprenticeship programs, work systems run, they run that program. And I think that if there's a way that we can expand who we're helping to make sure that there's not a gap in services for technical assistance, that we do that in. De oliveira is already committed to having those conversations and seeing where we can be helpful until this new iga is put into play. I'd like to hear a little bit from faye on this, and give me your synopsis of what we can do to do better while we're implementing this, this current co-op program.
109 Thank you. Councilor, if it's okay, I'll proceed.
110 Yes.
111 I started working with.
112 Could you introduce yourself, please? And who you're with?
113 My name is faye burch, and I have fm burch and associates, and I am working on the bull run facilities and pipeline project.
114 Thank you.
115 I started working with the current bull run pipeline portion of the facilities project in sandy, Oregon in 2021, several years before the contractors were on site. We held many outreach meetings at the Portland water bureau and talked to all trade groups multiple times on their own turfs. Bbg members showed up and bid more than any other trade groups, and because I serve on their board, I knew it to be a big demand on the organization and staff to support them. The project is so large that a small project was roughly $40 million, so very few mbas and wbs could bid and manage at that level, and were matched up to the second and third tier level under the few later successful mbas, and even at the second and third tier level, they were impacted by big project requirements on award and requirements. Some that I approached prosper Portland to cover 18 months ago. To assist covering. I received no results. Some of those I'll give you in the last insurance was an issue. Our team met with every contractor a week or two before they started work. They rarely had family insurance to cover all employees, and it had to be in place before they could start work. We met with them in a week. They started working a week and they weren't ready. Many were were used to waivers, but waivers were no longer being issued. Several people walked away because they could not pay for their insurance.
116 And you're talking about their business insurance to.
117 Their business insurance had to be in place. It was a new thing for them. Yeah. Those that scrambled and paid had to definitely make financial adjustments. No arguments here. Having insurance for your employees and their families is the right thing to do. By the way, the pbj program stepped in again and connecting all participants. Those were members. Those were nonmembers, those were nbs, wb majority firms, and they helped them get their health insurance.
118 So we're mixing. So you're talking about health insurance versus business insurance. And so are you saying.
119 That health insurance for their employees. It was a required it's a requirement.
120 Okay okay.
121 On that project.
122 Yes okay. Great.
123 Another issue was the material costs and supplies to meet requirements. If subs didn't have a line of credit to order materials, no project dollars were available to assist until payment could be made. So if you couldn't get the materials that were needed, you couldn't participate. Even if you got an award, you had to back out. Bonding on the pipeline. Some were required to cover their own bonding cost. If they left it out of their cost estimate. The confusion came because the other project, the other half of the project, did not require bonding. Dumping fees was another issue. Unreasonable requirements of dumping of spoils required driving from sandy, Oregon to hillsboro on an hourly basis. And just hearing that you know how ridiculous that is. That means you'd be driving all day long, back and forth, back and forth. So the contractor and the team checked every every dump site in the sandy area. None would accept the spoils. And so it was unsolvable. We had to find a owner in the area that would allow them to dump on that site. It couldn't be found. They had to back out and they had to. They were penalized for not being able to meet that contract requirement, although it was unreasonable. Assistance with bid preparation. One firm wanting to do a good job hired an engineer to assist to understand project requirements and best approach. The engineer was costly and his approach did not coincide with with the project's overall approach. It was costly and ultimately was a part of the withdrawal from that. From that award, legal fees needed to resolve the issue. And though the contractor spent months preparing for the project that he was prepared to start, it didn't happen. He had to withdraw, and there was a great deal of mental anguish on his part.
124 So I want to make sure that we get to everybody, but I want to understand something. You are a member of pdg, right?
125 Yes, I'm on that board. Yes.
126 And morris, you're a member of pdg?
127 That's correct.
128 And if I remember correctly, I saw pdg on one of the slides from de oliveira as getting some technical assistance money. So why didn't we go through pdg to get some of those.
129 The, the technical assistance funds at that time was identified for just a small sliver of what was needed. And I believe what was told is that the funds weren't project specific. So you couldn't necessarily use those funds for the particular project. The issues that we were bringing up. Right.
130 The they weren't project specific then. There was flexibility in the use of those funds.
131 That wasn't that wasn't what was articulated to the executive director.
132 So those funds were standard. So they were the same funds that were received in 21, 22, 23, 24. And then here comes a big $2 billion project with unexpected needs.
133 And basically, pdg has been paying out of their general fund in order to help contractors as best as they can. The dollars that was provided by prosper. Well, I can let the executive director talk a little bit on that, but. We were constantly told that this wasn't covered underneath the agreement. This is one of the reasons why I said having the boots on the ground, having the contractors, you could sit there and say, hey, let's provide quickbooks training for some contractors. The reality is, if you have a contract at where the bees or water bureau, there's a lot of requirements. These requirements are necessary and totally understandable. But the needs and the services are not aligned. And so we end up going beyond in providing the needs for those firms.
134 So were those those items put into the gmc for the for the bull run to be able to I mean, you have to get those things written into the gmc right?
135 No, they're very tight. The gmc yeah is very tight. There's no.
136 I do know that we when I was at Multnomah county and we did the Sellwood bridge, we put specific things in our gmc. Yeah. You remember that mark?
137 Yes.
138 We did put language in for technical assistance in the gmc. The gmc can be amended. So that's that's what I'm saying. This is a this is a huge project and I see what you're saying. But I want to make sure that we're saying we're on the same page with I think pdg gets $100,000 for technical assistance.
139 135 yeah, okay.
140 It was 135. Yeah. And so and so you're saying since that started that we have this big $2 billion project and there's health insurance, there's bonding issues that and there's certain. Kind of training expertise or, or tools that you need to be able to do this new project that wasn't required prior to. Correct.
141 Correct.
142 Okay. So I get what you're saying. And so I want you to be able to because you've outlined a few things from, from from health insurance, like I said, to the bonding to materials to dumping fees and having to do that every hour.
143 These are all new things. Yes.
144 These are all new things. So when we have the conversation with dca oliveira, could you I know you're working. Could you participate with maurice to outline these things or write something up so that he can include that in the conversations? When we're trying to fill this donut hole?
145 Absolutely. That's the whole need here okay.
146 Yes. Perfect. Thank you. And mark, could you quickly before that, could I keelan what's our timeline. We have 20 minutes of.
147 I'll make mine short.
148 Yes. No we do. We have how many people do we have to testify.
149 We have two people signed up today.
150 Okay. So I want to make sure that we have time for those two people to testify. Mark, could you introduce yourself and quickly tell me what what some of the concerns you have?
151 Yeah.
152 I'll go real quick. I'm mark matthews with pacific, mark construction, the president. In the past, a lot of these 1% has not met who it needs to, has not met and came to who it needs to come to. As far as the subcontractors go, a lot of people miss that. Subcontractors? Who hires all these apprentices? Who brings all the help on the work that we need. So it's very important that we utilize these subcontractors to do the work we need to do. I've been on port city of Portland. I think I've been on like seven, five or 5 to 7 projects that the city of Portland had. And I have not once found that these subcontractors are getting the help they need. They might be getting the help to get the projects, but they're not getting the help they need to maintain to get in to. Once they get on the job, they don't know what to do. There's a lot of paperwork involved, which I get. I mean, you got to have the paperwork because that's that makes it transparent, get some transparency and also accountability for what we're doing. But and it answers to the community and the taxpayers. So that's a very valuable thing that we get them the help that they need. I have contacted the city of Portland, and they do send us to send them to pbg and to nam and mac and all them. But here's the issue we have. They only have so much funds to deal with. If you have seven jobs going on and you're not getting but $130,000, and you do that and you're trying to get all these subcontractors, I hire about 25 to 30 subcontractors on each job that I do is all minority. I don't hardly hire any non minorities. Almost all minority women and va veteran owned businesses. Disadvantages. So I do hire a lot of minorities as you know. Small Sellwood bridge. I worked on all these other projects. When you don't get the funds that's on that job, to come back to that job to help those subcontractors, it's a moot point. We're getting ready to do. By the way, I am on bull run. We're getting ready to do bull run project. And on that bull run project, I have, 95% of my subcontractors are definitely. Disadvantaged businesses.
153 They're disadvantaged. And that's what I wanted to ask you, are these folks disadvantaged businesses? Yes. And that's how we're in this new climate. We need to understand who's disadvantaged.
154 Exactly. And so with me having those and not being able to give them help just to hear my history, I just the last three projects I did, I've lost five contractors on one project that went out of business. I had another project, three went out of business, and one just walked off the job. So we got to give.
155 Them technical assistance.
156 No technical assistance because pbj only has so much money. Namak only has so much money. Bill has only has so much money. But I do have a solution for this whole thing.
157 Okay, I'm excited about that.
158 Just because I'm I'm in it. Okay. And I like I said, I'm on bull run and I really feel the need that we have some solutions to all the problems that we have. And the solution I have is get that 1% and give it back to the project. And everybody might freak out about that. But if you give it back to the project and have them help the so the subcontractors can get some help and you have an advisory board anyway on those projects. So you take the advisory board, you find out what the contractors need because the contractors work with the subcontractors, what the subcontractors need, and then you can allocate the help to them. And that solves the problem because you're helping the subcontractor on that job. You can bring them to work, you can bring them to the job, but if you don't help them, they're not going to go anywhere. And you just hear what I just heard. Five left, three left. That's eight people gone for trying to get them into the work. So we got to get some help for them. When they're working on the job. We have all these all these requirements that the city requires of us. So if you have if you have the advisory board, give them help us city advisory board, help us help those subcontractors and distribute the funds. That way, at the end of the day, any surplus should go back to your general fund and you guys use it for whatever. So we're missing the point when we just say, okay, what about the apprenticeship program? What about this? Right. Well, they're getting the funds a little bit of the funds anyway, but we need to get a bigger job.
159 No, no, I hear you. And I'm not happy about some of these small businesses going south because we they don't have the necessary tools to be successful on our projects, because we do want to make sure that that all of our disadvantaged contractors, subcontractors, that they're able to work. So do you want this new language to be put into the new 2627 iga? That's what you're talking about.
160 Absolutely.
161 So I want to make sure that that is one of the solutions is to go through the advisory board and to do the 1%. Now, I think that there is an expired there's a there's a certain amount of money that can be put back because this is a $2.1 billion project, right. And 1% of that, I will not do that math in with those big numbers. 20 million, that's what that's what my economist says on the committee. He said that's $20 million. And what you're saying is, is that would that $20 million be for the life of the project or.
162 Absolutely.
163 Okay.
164 Because the requirements are so high, because they ask so much of us and take it from me, I know I'm on the front line, okay. And it's really important that we help these subs. I mean, I'm going to retire someday. I'm going to move on. But it's got to help because it's going to help the community and the taxpayers.
165 And I think in terms of describing things and. Being on the front lines, that can also be used as a description. I don't know if our if our director of procurement is here being on the front lines, you don't have to come up. But is that a way that we can describe who needs help and, and how we can help folks that need this technical assistance? It is a huge job. It is. It is an opportunity for us to also create new business people who were not there before. And I think that's what government is for, to be able to make sure that they're serving all of their residents. And I think I have heard quite enough to be able to be effective, to make sure that we're saying the right things. I want my committee member, councilor Novick, to chime in on this.
166 I just wanted to know if people have any concern, if the 1% always went back to the individual project, would that mean that there's some smaller projects where 1% wouldn't be meaningful at all, so people would really working on those projects would get no technical assistance?
167 No. Because if you end up with a surplus, it's all about building the businesses up. Is that to me? I'm sorry.
168 It was to anybody actually.
169 And I can I can answer that a little bit because there are some that are coming out of your general fund as well. Two thirds of it is coming out of these ratepayer dollar funded projects. And so even if you were to take that two thirds and say, okay, we're going to assign that to the project, I think what me and mark's challenge and frustration is, is when we encourage a small business to participate. And then there's the support is not there. And then we're trying to exhaust pbj's funds to support them or we're doing it ourselves. And then they don't make it right. And it's great that they win the job. But we want them to be successful throughout the life of the job and continue to bid on city projects and be successful. And so I think that there's a way of doing both. And I think that's a great question. Thank you for that. The thing is, is that we have $400 million that is currently contracted ou, and that there's not really a sign of support for those firms. And so we need to make sure that they're starting off. This is the first interaction they're having with the city. Right. We want it to be a positive interaction. We want them to say, I want to go after that other city project and that other one. We don't want them running away or going out of business. And that's what we're having. And that's where, like I said, we're two of the main contractors on these ratepayer dollars. We've been there through Washington park, columbia and now on bull run. And we're seeing that our contractors are struggling and we want them to be successful. And I believe the city I believe yes, I believe everyone wants them to be successful. But we've got to give them the tools and we've got to give them the help to make sure success happens.
170 May I clarify something, commissioner? You mentioned the gmc having technical assistance dollars. They do. And the things that I mentioned are all exceptions that are happening with the current bull run. Okay. Not things that would be covered on technical support. There are things that need to be paid for or supported and financed.
171 This is on top of.
172 On top of. Yes.
173 And this can be used with ratepayer dollars and not necessarily our general fund.
174 Yes. That's that's a recommendation. Yes.
175 Thank you. Councilor Novick do you have any other questions?
176 Legacy.
177 Okay. Thank you, councilor Dunphy.
178 Thank you. You know, I, I start trying to jump to solutions and trying to figure out where the pinch point was of something that went wrong here. And I'm not clear. Clearly, something has gone wrong and I can't tell if it is the underlying code that the city adopted or is implemented or is attempted to move. I can't tell if it's the iga and a lack of oversight. I can't tell if it's implementation by prosper Portland or bureaucratic processes that are sort of leaderless and rudderless in a lot of ways. What is your interpretation of where this really like? What is the point where we as legislators can insert ourselves into this to try and make sure that this starts moving better? And maybe it's an unfair question to ask, but you have such history with this that maybe you can give us some insight.
179 And I can try starting to answer the question. Right. And the first thing I want to say is that both bhs and the borough staff has been excellent to work with. They have requirements. Those requirements are totally understandable. Right. So I want to say that first. Right. I want to say procurement office in the city has always been super helpful. So I don't I don't think it's they understand the issues. Where I see the disconnect is, is that you have the contractor and I think the contractors great, great partners with the city as well. You have the contractors, the agencies and everyone that has kind of skin in the game. They don't want to see a subcontractor fail. Right. I think the disconnect I think prosper needs to be more connected because at the end of the day, I think that they potentially can do harm but not realize that they're doing harm because they don't have they're not on the job. Sites like me and mark are every single day working with the agencies to try to come up with solutions to problems and working with those subcontractors, their, their, their priorities are not necessarily they might be aligned, but they need to be more involved, engaged and understanding. Because when they provide technical assistance, I don't think that they have clarity on what technical assistance really looks like. Technical assistance for bhs is totally different than technical assistance for me, building your back deck and your backyard.
180 Yep.
181 Councilor Dunphy, I think and I want to try to answer some of your questions because I think this is bigger than coepp.
182 Yeah.
183 This is not a co-op necessarily issue. This is an issue. It's a it's a policy issue on how we choose to go forward in how we choose to help disadvantaged businesses on contracts, especially these larger contracts and the smaller contracts that that we have. So I want to I want to give randall friesen from the building trades. I know he raised his hand to help answer that question. Randall, could you introduce yourself and give us some insight?
184 Hi there. Good afternoon. I'm randall friesen with the columbia pacific building trades council. Thank you, councilors, for giving me the opportunity to weigh in. So back when r-wi was negotiated, we are party to that contract obviously. And the intent for the 1% set aside was to go back to the projects. So what I'm what I'm hearing here in this conversation is that it was agreed to then, but then from what dca excuse oliveira. Oliveira. Thank you. It sounds like the rules changed after that. It was approved and implemented. So if the rules change, then that wasn't communicated. And you didn't have all the parties at the table then that's that's kind of the beginning of how I see that it happened.
185 With the new iga after 2017. Is that what you're talking about?
186 I think so, because after once the 1% set aside was agreed to, that it was to go back to the ratepayer to benefit only the ratepayer would that would mean it would be tied to that project. So it'd be project specific. It wasn't intended to be a fund generation to go to other purposes and needs. We agree that that any kind of training program, nontraditional apprenticeship programs are important. But this fund was not set up to provide for those unless they were connected directly to the project itself. So it sounds like things changed after it was implemented and it wasn't communicated. And so moving forward, I think better communication following the rubric would be a good, good spot to work. And, you know, it looks like just a lack of communication. But those other programs are important. It's important to support the community. But these funds were set aside specifically to benefit those specific projects.
187 So, randall, do you all have any regular meetings with prosper, like, say on a monthly basis so that we can like solution, we can find solutions to problems that contractors are having with some of our projects. Is there anything set up like that?
188 We don't have anything like that. But I would welcome the opportunity.
189 Okay.
190 Thank you so much, randall, for your for your expertise and giving us a 30,000 foot look from the building trades level. I want to also give andre barr, who is he has his hand up to andre. Are you trying to chime in to councilor Dunphy's question of where this where this problem lies? Or are you just have a bigger. Statement on what we could do better and how we could do it better.
191 I think it's both. Again, andre bore I'm with group adb. I am the lead diversity manager for the bull run facilities. So that's both the pipeline and the facilities. I work with fe for other folks, three other folks on both projects. I'm also on the columbia boulevard step project and worked in the industry in this area for about 30 years. I have a lot of history on the 1% and where it came from, how it got here. But first, I'd like to point out the 1% is in general, as prosper Portland indicated, comes from all the projects. However, there is a rubric part of it that says ratepayer dollars has to go back to ratepayer dollars. That goes back to 2011, back to a court case that came out and there was a approval that you had to segregate the dollars. So the dollars that come from ratepayer bees and water projects have to somehow go back to those projects. The other dollars are can go to other projects, but not bull run projects. And bs projects have to go back to those projects. How they go bac, I think, is the discussion item where the breakdown is, is in my view, I was trying to get to these dollars since I've been working on this since 2021. Originally, these dollars were included in the jv in the proposal to be managed by the jv. However, they were taken out by council and that's great.
192 What council? What year. 2017 okay. 2017.
193 Yeah. And so they took them out and directed those to go to prosper Portland under the idea. And this is true at the time prosper Portland had the best broadest reach into 55% of those funds go to workforce. The 45 goes to contractors. That was the idea at the time that, you know, they had a broad perspective. They had a lot of connections into the community, not only workforce with work systems, but also on the contractor side with the community groups. The disconnect to me is that when I contacted prosper Portland, many of the people talking in front of you contacted prosper Portland. The community groups, we were told. I got an email from the director of the co-op at prosper Portland saying, we cannot give you funds to help your project. That just boggles my mind.
194 And this was back in 2017.
195 No, no, this is in may of this year, right? Yeah. And they said that before and they continued to say that they cannot provide funds to these projects.
196 And in 2024.
197 So what I heard today and what I heard today, you have a lengthy history on what has happened with these 1% funds over the years, even dating back to the cba. But what I did here today is that dca Olivia, he is the new dca for prosper, and he's willing to sit down and work out some way that we can fill this donut hole until we can put all of this in the 2627 iga. Is that something that you're willing to work on with them?
198 I'm willing to work on it, but there's $2 million that have disappeared, and a lot of that money is ratepayer dollars that I'm unaware has gone to a ratepayer project. That's a problem. I mean, that's just a fundamental.
199 There's $2 million that disappear. Where did you see it disappear from?
200 Well, it. Oliveira said that there was a $2 million. That is $2.5 million. That's gone to him. It's been spent.
201 So it's.
202 Been spent. It didn't. It didn't disappear. It was spent.
203 Well, it spent, but it didn't go to ratepayer programs I'm aware of. You've got contractors, you've got workforce providers that haven't seen a penny.
204 Okay.
205 We had 400 workers out of work. We went to prosper Portland. They couldn't help them.
206 You mean during the bull run when we were waiting in the interim for the hearing?
207 Yeah, we were looking for help for those workers in any shape or form and could not get any assistance at all.
208 Okay, I know what I'm going to do. I appreciate I appreciate that, that information. I appreciate all of you spending the time in your busy day. What a lot of what you do is during the day and to come here in the middle of the morning, afternoo, to be able to educate us on what should be happening, that is great. So there's two things that that I that I have next I wanted and this directly affects you all. So I want to move to the third agenda item around the disparity. Study this this I want you all to stay here for a second. Go ahead. Keelan.
209 Thank you. Number three, authorize use of disparity studies to inform and support minority contracting opportunities.
210 Okay.
211 So. A couple things. And we may not be able to go in detail because we need to at least have 40 minutes for we only have two people that are in the queue. But we need to at least have 30 minutes for discussion. I put forward a ordinance that would allow the city of Portland because currently we don't have a disparity study, and some of the contractors have said to me that maybe we could use the 2023 state of Oregon disparity study to show some of the disparities for the city of Portland and for some of the disadvantaged, disadvantaged businesses that are here. And so I put that into a draft form. But I wanted to get your sense of how you felt about it. And I also and I thought I was going to see heidi here. I don't see heidi. Heidi. So heidi is with our our city attorney's office, and I wanted to make sure that I am so in compliance and in balance of what I'm saying, heidi, and what the possibilities are. I think that you can level set us because my idea, you know, every idea that I have, I don't think necessarily that it's the right idea. I just think it is an idea. So I bring it forward because I think I am solving for a solution that might need solving. There's been a lot of conversation about contracting and underserved businesses, and how we can help those businesses further with these contracts that are that are run by the city. And I was like, well, let's see if we can use the disparity study from PBOT from 2018 and the disparity study from the state of Oregon for 2023. And I wanted to get your sense on if that's something that's possible that we can use, and it might have some impact on these folks who are who are sitting here today.
212 Thank you. Good afternoon. Councilors heidi brown, I'm with the city attorney's office. Good to see you all. Thank you. So yeah. Councilor, your question about there was a disparity study done by the state in 2023. As you noted, looking at whether there were disparities in use of minority and women owned businesses and finding that there was disparity in that. And there was a study done by the port of Portland in 2018 that made some similar findings. What is required by case law in looking at when you want to give a preference, or have a program or service that is specifically given to people based on their race. So in other words, we want to say if you're black contractor, an asian contractor, any particular community of color that you have to first have done a study showing that the government entity that's wanting to give a preference is the one that historically caused some harm, discrimination that resulted in a disparity. So we'd have to look at did the city of portland's actions create some disparity in the past that was discriminatory towards a these particular. Demographics,
213 Demographics?
214 Yes. So it wouldn't be broadly any community of color. It would be each you'd have to look at each demographic to see which races maybe were disparately impacted by the city's conduct in the past. And then we would look at a disparity study, would then look at how can we narrowly we have to narrowly tailor our remedy if there's other remedies we could use that aren't race based. We're required by the law to use non race based ones. But if we can't, because the only solution is you've left out people of color. Let's say black business owners have been historically left out, continue to be underrepresented within the market. And therefore then you would say, okay, you are in that circumstance allowed to narrowly tailor your remedy. Maybe you say, okay, we're going to do this. This is our goal, a percentage, and we work towards that goal in seeking to meet it. I would also.
215 Include gender as well.
216 It would include whatever your finding a historical disparity. So it would be gender, it would be race. There's a slightly lower standard for gender than race because of the historical discrimination. The courts because. Because historical discrimination against black people and other people of color. It's a very strict standard to be able to give a preference based on race, because historically it was always given to white people.
217 You make a you make an important point, heidi, that this was not just this is not new, this is old case law. That's that's correct to me. And so I want to make sure that the contractors you. So what are you telling me about my ordinance. Give me a give me the one, two, three. I won't hurt my feelings.
218 No thank you council. And I appreciate that. So we wouldn't be able to use an existing disparity study for, for our actions. We need to have a disparity study done on behalf of the city that would show the city conduct that led to a disparity. And then what narrowly tailored remedy would we provide in order to remedy that problem that we created and that persists?
219 Okay, I thought I was being clever. So I one thing I want to I want to hear from morris because, morris, you believe that we could use these studies.
220 So I know that we've had this various studies in the past. Right. And so we're basically the information or the data that is collected through that. If the data and I think the bbc did both disparity studies in the past.
221 Now who is the bbc.
222 So they're you know, they're the organization that was hired by the city to do the disparity study. I think prosper also did one simultaneously.
223 What year are we talking about?
224 Oh.
225 So this is years ago because we haven't had one in many years.
226 And they're basically like bread. They go bad after a period of time. But I my understanding, I thought possibly that you if you had the data collected right and still showing the same results from the previous disparity study and you have a regional approach. So whether it's if you're, you know, if odot's doing a disparity study, you're the state does a disparity study shows disparity. If the port of Portland does a disparity study. And it's also shows the disparity, and it's not necessarily that the city's disparaging against those firms, but it might be the contractors or the way. And so then it's.
227 It's not it's not statutory that. And so I think what, what what heidi is saying, what she's talking about is statutory. And that's what we're going to have to deal with. Right.
228 It's federal law on an equal protection clause of 14th amendment of the constitution and also title vi of the civil rights act, which and then the interpretation of that by the courts has been to say that you have to show that the that our actions were the one that caused this. So we can't use the ports even though it's the same area. And maybe the maybe some of the data could be shared.
229 It has to be our direct.
230 Action. Have to look at what did the port do? What did the city of Portland do? What did Multnomah county do in order to in order to comply legally with with that?
231 Okay, I want to get a couple of my councilors questions quickly in here, because we're going to be writing up against a lot of time. Councilor Dunphy.
232 Thanks. I just I want to just point out that between these, there's a through line here between a lot of these issues that we're talking about, and there's a certain degree of I don't know if it's irony because I don't want to use the word incorrectly, but the fact that the previous city council entrusted what used to be known as the Portland development commission, who is directly responsible for incredible amounts of gentrification and harm to the black community. We entrusted these dollars to that organization under the old system of government, with the arm's length relationship between the city and prosper, and you are now coming back to us again saying that yet again, the old pdc is poking its head out and it's not meeting the community where it's needed to, and it's not listening to the demands of what this city council has ordered. It feels as though there has to be an, you know, I mean, the disparity that is happened in this community because of the actions of our government historically are so clear that I feel like there has to be some easy way that doesn't involve us spending a half $1 million in the next nine months to try and put an excel spreadsheet together on a fancy pdf. This is a continuum. I'm just continually frustrated by this relationship between the city and prosper Portland, and we need to have an ability for the elected officials to direct how these dollars are spent, and direct staff on how to actually implement what we're trying to accomplish. So I appreciate, councilor Smith, you trying to see what documents we had on hand already to try and push this across. It feels like a plain text reading of a history book at this point shows the disparities that we have caused and are continuing to cause today. I just wanted to just eating at me and I needed to say something.
233 And I appreciate your comments, councilor Dunphy, but I'm going to go back and I'm going to say this again, because if when you have new eyes and I see dc oliveira as new eyes, when you have dca donna paul, I see her eyes as new eyes looking on something and comparing them to the previous Portland development commission. I'm not going to do that. I'm going to deal with the folks that are in play today and give them an opportunity to show us what can we do when we're trying to be creative about helping the most vulnerable of our disadvantaged businesses in the city? How we can do that? I'm willing to sit down and talk to them and come up with some creative ways that we can get some dollars so that we can continue to keep businesses small. Our small businesses in the city of Portland, with boots on the ground, I think there's not going to be any way for us, councilor Dunphy, to get out of not doing a disparity study, and I appreciate your comments. I'm not I'm not you know, I'm not wedded to anybody's idea, but I want to do it the right way. And I just thought that I was being, like I said, a little bit clever and trying to use what we had as existing. And we probably already know what the, what the, what the response is going to be, but we have to go and do our own due diligence, because I have a feeling that this is going to be needed across the board, and this is a great way to start with it. With the contracting first. Councilor Kanal could you give us a few comments on this?
234 Thank you, madam chair. Yeah, I think it's interesting to me, the argument about and this is nothing to do with our city attorneys, but it's a federal issue. The idea that there's a higher level of scrutiny applied to anything related to race, despite because of the history of racial discrimination, seems counterintuitive. You would you would imagine there'd be a lower standard, given the fact that as as councilor Dunphy put it, there's a plain text reading here. It's also disappointing to hear that because we utilize state standards for a lot of the state certification for a lot of how we assess a firm in terms of are they an emerging small business, whatever those particular cobid certifications are, the state's data should be relevant in as part of this, I understand that maybe the study itself, but as a part of this conversation and it I think I want to keep the focus on that because there's three different parts here that are are notable to me. One is the clear disparity in the ratio from available firms to firms that are being utilized in that state study. Right. The second issue is, given our role in part, at helping people get started, the fact that availability itself is so low, right, 33.9% of available firms are owned by either white women or people of color. That is significantly lower than the share of population. And the third part, which is sort of outside of the clear tables, has a lot to do with the another line of work that we're in, which is theoretically assisting smaller firms with developing their capacity and able to move from being subcontractors to prime contractors. And you can see the disparity in the dollars that are going even when a firm is utilized there, that is either woman owned or person of color owned. You can see the disparity in the amount of dollars that's going. And I think that's I'm going to I'm choosing to use this time to bring that up, because we are going to have to do a separate disparity study, and it's going to take a lot longer than we should have to do it. But that this is you don't need to be a rocket scientist to understand that these are three lines of work that the city is in. Well, depending on how you consider prosper as part of the city, but not three lines of work that the collective of the city government and prosper are in, that are that that have disparities. I am open to the conversation, as I have been this whole time about the democratic accountability of prosper Portland to the city government. I have significant concerns there as well as I know at least two of my colleagues do. And then I'll just take the opportunity to say, and this is, you know, related, I think, to the previous agenda item as well. I really appreciate our panel being here. And I also know that there's a lot of folks who wouldn't have the bravery to come up and talk about, you know, the experiences that you've had with, with government. And so for you, for anyone else who's listening, who maybe wasn't a part of this but have similar or different experiences, please feel free to reach out to my office. I would love to hear from you and talk to you about it. And I know that many folks are in conversation with other council offices. Feel free to add me to your list. I am broadly looking at how we can grow our contractor pipeline, how we have accountability for the dollars spent, decision making processes, for how we get, how we determine who gets money, and better options in terms of what's on the menu for contractor assistance. Those are the things that I'm looking for and I'll be talking to, you know, the dca for public works and that team procurement, some of the firms as well as well as the folks who are providing technical assistance. And the last thing I wanted to add is it appears that the things I cited in the last agenda item, and I think this is relevant here too, are no longer in code or an administrative rules requiring some of the things we're looking for, whether it got moved. But this committee heard a agenda item from councilor Dunphy reinstating a portion of code related to fair wage policy a few months ago for contractors. And the reason that was necessary is because the old council, in a large package deal, redid code in November, October and November of last year. And it appears that's what happened here, too. I'm verifying that, but it appears that everything related to co-op and the annual report and all that stuff, including the administrative rules, was repealed as part of a wholesale repeal and replacement of title five of city code. If that's the case, I'm going to verify that. Either way, the fact that it's not the same numbers as it used to be, and this is not old code, this is created in 2020, right? This this entire set of code around co-op. If that's the case, it's very concerning to me, both in terms of what it says about the democratic process, to have the administration provide such a large repeal of code. At the same time, back then, especially after an election or in the midst of it at best. And secondly, what that does for the accountability for this program. And that doesn't mean that staff are not wanting there to be accountability. I don't mean to imply that at all, but I do want to make sure that we're working together as a committee and eventually as a council to create clear requirements that create predictability for when we hear information about the success or failure of our programs. And to that end, I also want to make sure that if someone asks prosper, who is getting support through technical assistance, they get a list that we publish the list of firms that get that, that, that that information is made public. And we're not saying that we cannot allow people access to that list, which has happened in the past. Thanks.
235 Thank you so much. Councilor Kanal. Well, we will double team that information to see what's happening with the code. And just as we have done with some of the noise ordinances, we'll bring it back to this committee to try to get that reinstated so that we have a basis to, to stand on. I have one more question before we go to public testimony, and that's councilor Green. Could you please answer your question, sir?
236 Yes. Thank you, madam chair. You know, as one of the co-sponsors of your of your ordinance, I just I want to say I was I was ready to follow you on this because I appreciate your leadership in this moment. We're in a very important moment in history where it's important to stick our necks out for the communities we were elected to serve. Thank you. And I thought this was a really creative approach. And I really appreciate, heidi, your doing your due diligence and making sure that we're doing it right. So it seems like we're probably have a little more work to do to go down this road to do some explicit disparities. I want to echo everything that's councilor Kanal said. I mean, racial disparity was written into this constitution in this state, like it's our it's in our bones. And so it, you know, and portland's the largest city. So it's, it's sort of absurd to think that, that one could not infer the same underlying process of discrimination that created disparities at the local level or the, or the state level. And so I just wanted to name that, we'll follow the letter of the law. Of course, you know, in in thinking through this kind of code, the case of the disappearing code piece, I, I also note that, you know, that that involved a community equity inclusion committee. That's, that's a governing that's a necessary community governing aspect of that. And it's, it's sort of ascribed in the administration rules, which are also no longer present.
237 Right.
238 And I don't even know if this committee meets who's on the committee and whether or not they're an active part in this. But this is something that we need to be thinking about, because that's part of that ordinance that created all this. So I don't know if our panelists have any experience with that committee, you know, if you wanted to offer a comment, if the chair allows it.
239 Councilor Green, I think that that code in that particular entity went on vacation with the $2.5 million that they said disappeared as well.
240 So that then.
241 Right. But we can but people come back from vacation, right? And so when we come back off of our recess over the next two weeks, we'll, we'll be better informed about, you know, when things have been missing or how we get things back in. I think this is this is obviously under this kind of scrutiny that we're going to be on being from the federal government standpoint that we want to do this. We want to do this everything right. Heidi, I thought I saw sarah, but I don't know if she's here. I want to bring up dca, morrissey just to make sure that we totally are able. Thank you so much. Dca morrissey, could you introduce yourself? I want to make sure that I'm that I am saying the right things, because we do have an executive order around how we do things, and this was just a conversation about the ordinance. I'm not going to take a vote on it today. I'm not going to try to in this current form. But like I said, I was trying to be clever and I just wanted to make sure if there's something that you need to add to this conversation to help us better go forward in terms of helping this group of disadvantaged businesses.
242 Thank you, councilor, for the record, sarah morrissey, dca for city operations. I think there's an opportunity you could direct a resolution instead of an ordinance that has these studies. You could revise and have a resolution, and you could give the direction or not direction, but you could have a whereas where we would conduct a disparity study on behalf of the city of Portland for workforce and for contracting. And then we would work on the administrative side and your office to make that happen.
243 Well, see, that's why I got all these smart folks around me. That sounds great. That's. Is that something that you all would support, putting a resolution forward, asking them to do a disparity study? I know you wanted to use this information so that you'd have this in your back pocket quickly, but would you support me putting forward a resolution that would direct the administration to participate in a disparity study?
244 Yes, yes, most definitely. And I think that it just disparity studies take time. And I know the firms obviously need help today.
245 But dca morrissey how long would this would a disparity study take if we got this through our committee in two weeks.
246 And I would say we could start scoping work. What we do need to do is identify budget to fund the study work. But we have been speaking to firms and we would be using, you know, a lot of the data that's been talked about today, as well as the work that has been led by the port with their disparity study. So in some of the estimates we've been receiving, basically, if you start in September, you could see a completion date by March of 2027 or 6. Sorry, 2026. I don't know what year it is. That would be a very long timeline. But yeah, so basically it would be running from September of this year through March of 26. Yeah. Correct.
247 Perfect. And that would be actually just before the budget. And so if there were some additional things that we needed to do, because I don't think this is just a total co-op problem. I think there is a there's a there's a universal issue here, and we need to separate the ratepayer money versus the money that can be used from general fund to see how we can layer some of these things to, to make sure that everybody is getting the kind of technical assistance and workforce development dollars from the city, and that we're being good partners. And it is not lost on me. It's not lost on me that you all who have contracts with the city of Portland, that you all came here and spoke today, that was very risky and I understand that. So y'all please don't don't, don't, don't, don't get on these folks because they're speaking their truth. And this it is to make us better. And I appreciate you all identifying the great partnership that you've had with the city, because that's important. We need to maintain these partnerships. We need to have a line of communication, and we need to have a place, a safe space where we can. Like randall said earlier, if we could have a monthly meeting so that if there are some things that come up and we want to create some opportunities for solutions to problems, and all of them are not going to be administrative and they're not going to be legislative, we can we can solve some of these things in-house. So thank you so much. I want to go to our next I want to go to our next agenda item so we can hear from the public. So you all can hear what the public is saying too. But thank you so much. Yes.
248 Item four labor and workforce development. Community feedback. First up for testimony, we have con tran.
249 I'm so sorry. It's okay. Thank you.
250 Okay. Fantastic. Libyan. Hi there. Good afternoon, chair Smith, vice chair Green and members of the labor and workforce development committee. For the record, my name is con tran. I'm the policy director for the Oregon chapter of the national association of minority contractors, or nay. Mac, if you want to say all that, we are a business association that represents minority owned construction firms across the state, working to ensure equitable access to public contracting and workforce opportunities, the community community opportunities enhancement program, or as I like to call it, is not an abstract program. It directly funds training, mentorship and technical support that have been helped. Dozens of bipoc contract contractors and workers build sustainable careers in our industry. As you've heard today, I just want to give you some information on namak through. Namak alone has served 242 small businesses owned by people of color and delivered 1700 over 700 hours of technical assistance since 2021. We are just one of nearly a dozen partners cbp has. But this conversation is not about namak. I think you may have heard me say this before during the budget hearing, but these aren't just numbers. They represent real people business owners gaining access to contracts, workers building sustainable careers and families contributing to the resilience of portland's economy. That's why we are deeply concerned about proposals to use funds to help cover costs of any project. This approach is counterproductive. The reality is contributions to any project would be a drop in the bucket. Using bull run as an example is a $2 billion project, as I know it has about 2.5 million his budget. Usually that's 0.1% of the entire project. It doesn't make any sense, but the damage to small businesses and workforce development would be significant. 141 businesses were served by cbp. As you saw in the slides earlier today, 141 last year, 2023, 2024. That's a lot. But pulling money from the city would weaken the very pipeline of diverse contractors and workers that those projects, like bull run would actually need and rely on. And I'd like to point out something mr. Mathews stated about the 1% set aside from from cvp, with the bull run project expected $2 billion to completion to 1% of that is 20 million. But per city ordinance funds, what that one, what that 1% set aside is from hard costs. I don't I don't need explain to anyone in this room behind me what hard costs and soft costs for construction is. It would be significantly less than 20 million that you would get back. In other words, we'd be taking dollars away from developing the very businesses and workforce we want to see on these projects, only to spend a minute fraction of it, patching up the small gaps in funding for those projects. Oregon strongly believes in equity in the public contracting and accountability, so per city ordinance, again, cvp dollars are intended to support business development for disadvantaged construction trades businesses. If we start diverting funds, we must risk we risk eroding trust, slowing progress in workforce development and undermining the city's one of the city's best tools for dismantling systemic barriers in contracting. I urge you all to protect the integrity of the funding. Civic projects are vital, but they must be funded through their own dedicated resources, not the expense of businesses and workers who are finally getting a foothold in this industry. And that's my time. Thank you.
251 Thank you.
252 Next up we have anjanette banuelos bolanos.
253 Hello, council. Thank you for having me here.
254 Good afternoon.
255 Thank you for having me here. Allowing me to speak today. My name is anjanette banuelos bolanos. I'm sorry. I'm a business representative for liuna local 737. I'm also in district one. I'm also a ratepayer for Portland water bureau. We represent over 2800 members statewide. At the time of the bull run project shutdown, my union alone had had between 150 to 200 members working on the site. This included. They were employed by several minority owned, women owned emerging businesses on this project. The project was shut down for nearly 120 days, which negatively affected our members as well as these businesses. We are still not back at the original number of members on site. As of last week, we only had 55 to 60 members. Back to work. Our training center ramped up and enrolled new apprentices into our program to ensure contractors would be successful to meet the requirements of orea, and in part was working with Portland youth builders or Oregon tradeswomen, pyb and several of the other pre-apprenticeship programs. Some of these participants even quit their jobs to join a union apprenticeship because, like you said earlier, that they would some of these people would be able to start as an apprentice and journey out on this project. However, when the project shut down, it displaced many of these new apprentices and required contractors to send both journey workers and apprentices back to the hall. While the project was shut down, contractors lost parts of their workforce as some of these members had to go back to the hall, they were able to be sent out to other projects, but not all. Once the project started, contractors didn't have the same workforce as they did before the shutdown. They were now facing unexpected costs associated with onboarding new members and onboarding new members and new employees, which included time requirements for orientations, new drug testing, new certifications. Because on this project, they need to have certain qualifications, be able to take the job. The workforce they had prior had met all the requirements and all the training that they needed. And now this is another unexpected cost that some of our contractors are facing. In short, is that this project is affecting all of us ratepayers, union members, nonunion members, contractors and pre apprenticeships. And I would like just that.
256 To be okay. Thank you.
257 Thank you so much I appreciate you.
258 Thank you.
259 That completes testimony chair.
260 Thank you keelan. I want to kind of see how we can rework this ordinance. And I want to refer the ordinance back to my office for further work. And could I get a dca, dana paul and dca oliveira. Thank you. Back up. To the diocese. So here's what I, what I think I'm going to do. And I think it's going to be helpful to all of us. Would you all support me in my efforts to rework this ordinance and refer the draft ordinance back to my office to do further work and do what dca morrissey suggested to do just a straight out disparity study in general, is are you all okay with that? Okay.
261 Yes.
262 Thank you so much. So I move committee members to refer the draft ordinance back to my office for further work and change it into from an ordinance to a resolution.
Procedural episode · turns 263–271
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
263 Second.
264 Thank you. Councilor Novick. Do you have a problem with this? Are you good? Okay. No, no, no, I just want to make I just want to make sure because I have to check in with y'all. So do we. What do we need to do next? Keelan.
265 I think if there's no objection, it can just be referred back to you.
266 Okay.
267 And you're good. So we don't have any objection. And so that's what I'm going to do. Do you have any closing comments? Any of you dcas that of things that you've heard that you wanted to clear up.
268 And chair daniel, for the record, just to reiterate our commitment to working with the folks that spoke in the room today and our other partners to continue to refine the program. We're open to the feedback, and we're trying to make do with, I think the point that was made very clear is with limited resources, with a lot of need. So to do that work.
269 Thank you.
270 And everything that dca Olivia said. We are committed to doing the work together with the partnership and looking forward to working together with the offices as well.
271 Thank you and I look forward to working with your offices. So as we have these conversations, it sounds like councilor Kanal would like we'd like to tag team this along with our vice chair to make sure that we can get something done, because I think oftentimes when people come to us. Their expectation is, yes, that we listen. But there are other expectation is that we go into action around something. And I think we're going to do that policy wise. That will help us long term, not just for a few months, but it will help us identify how we can change the language for 2627 and also give us the, the, the ammunition that we need to fight some of those people who don't particularly care for us doing disparity studies and they don't care about them, and I won't say who their names are either. So for the good of the order, I am going to close down this committee hearing. And I want to thank all of you for testifying. Thank you so much, maurice, for pushing us to have this conversation in a way that's meaningful. I think this was a very meaningful hearing, and it gives us an opportunity to say what this administration is going to do, because we've we've been going on previous administrations. And so we have to level up to our own administration. And I think that you all have been good about opening your doors to make sure that our voices are heard. So for the good of the order, I am going to close down the committee. Any other words? Committee members?
272 Yeah, I'll just say three out of the four dca's were here in this meeting. And I just appreciate all of you, as all four of you, for coming into these meetings so often. And, and we don't always express it. I know you've had stuff earlier today. We may have stuff later today and at least one case and yesterday as well. But appreciate you and your team spending time with us today.
273 Thank you. Any other comments, mr. Novick?
274 Yes, I just wanted to say when sarah said 2027, I thought that was real and I thought, oh man, that's how long it takes to do those studies. So I was relieved and surprised to find out it was actually 2026.
275 Thank you so much, sarah. Thank you for coming, dca morrissey, that your comments have been received very well in all of you. Thank you. We're closed.