The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-06-25
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
June 25, 2025 Special Meeting, Portland City Council The council convened a special meeting at 1:32 p.m. with all members present via roll call. After adopting the agenda, discussion turned to Portland Children's Levy funding, following a motion to suspend the rules to add the item. Extended debate addressed a proposed ordinance to repeal a one-year funding extension and remand of Children's Levy Allocation Committee recommendations, with amendments proposed and modified before adoption; votes occurred and outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. Public testimony included representatives of community organizations, allocation committee members, and nonprofit leaders addressing equity, funding impacts, and process concerns. The council then held a first reading on an ordinance consolidating noise enforcement under Title 18, which included committee summary, public testimony, and an amendment adding an emergency clause; a vote occurred. The council also considered a resolution on Portland Street Response, including proposed amendments, extensive discussion of definitions such as "co-equal" status, staffing, and committee structure, followed by public testimony and votes. Finally, the council held a first reading on an ordinance creating a temporary System Development Charge exemption for residential housing, with two proposed amendments—one modified and adopted, one not adopted—followed by discussion of infrastructure funding impacts. The meeting adjourned after 6:00 p.m.
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Procedural markers in this session
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0 Hi, Jamie.
1 Hello.
2 We're zoom pals.
3 Good afternoon. It is 1:32 p.m. On June 25th. I am calling to order a special meeting of the Portland city council. Colleagues, we have a few things before us today because we have been spending a lot of time on budget and needed to do some catch up on some additional work. We will go through them in just a minute. But first, keelan, could you please call the roll?
4 Canal Ryan here. Koyama Lane. Here Morillo. Novick here. Clark here. Green here. Zimmerman. Here. Avalos.
5 Present.
6 Dunphy. Councilor. Dunphy, can you hear us?
Procedural episode · turns 7–29
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
7 Yes. Here. Hello? Here.
8 Okay, great. Thanks.
9 Cool. Thank you.
10 Smith.
11 Pirtle-guiney here. Thank you. Linly, could you please read the rules of order and decorum?
12 I will.
13 Good afternoon, and welcome to Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at. Agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony today should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls their name. Thank you.
14 Thank you. Linly colleagues. The first item on the agenda is reorder and approval of the agenda. Are there any motions to reorder or remove items from the agenda? Okay. Seeing none, do we have unanimous consent to adopt the agenda? I don't see any objections. Keelan. Lynn, could you please read the next item on the agenda?
15 Item number two amend code to consolidate noise enforcement and improve fairness and consistency in noise regulation.
16 Point of order, council president.
17 Yes. Go right ahead. Councilor.
18 Can agenda items be added? After? I thought there were. I thought there was another item. Maybe that's what councilor Ryan has his hand raised for.
19 I, councilor Ryan, is that what you're raising your hand for as well? Yeah. So the agenda approval is a great time to add items to the agenda, as somebody could motion to suspend the rules at any time to add an item to the agenda as well. Does that clear up your point of order or point of information, councilor?
20 I guess, but I was hoping that we could get that situated before we called the first item. Councilor Ryan, are you introducing an agenda item?
21 Thank you, councilor Avalos. And thank you, madam president.
22 I want to pause for one minute. Keelan, I'm not sure if you finished reading that agenda title. Are we in item two or are we still in a bit of a no man's land right now, just so that we know procedurally how we want to move forward?
23 Yeah, I mean, I, I read the title, but I think if we need to go back to the agenda approval section, that's fine.
24 We're okay. Linly. Okay.
25 Point of order. We've already moved on on the agenda.
26 I councilor Ryan, go right ahead.
27 Yeah. Thank you, madam president. I heard the part where you can suspend the rules at any given moment. I hope that what's been talked about will happen, and we will suspend the rules and go back and revisit the Portland children's levy vote and have a thorough discussion about that today. And so I will pause and hope that that I will bring that up later. If someone else doesn't, it just I thought someone else was going to do this at this time. So that's why I wanted to make sure that it was put into the on the dais that it was spoken. And we obviously have a lot of people here that would expect such transparency and dialog from this council.
28 Councilor Novick did you have a point to make before we move forward?
29 We move that. We now moved on to the agenda. So I can't propose adding something to the agenda.
30 At any time. Somebody can move to suspend the rules to add an item to the agenda.
31 Okay. So now is not particularly important. Well, what the hell. Might as well I move to suspend the rules to add an item to the agenda. An ordinance which I have here, repealing the one year extension of funding for the Portland children's levy for fy 20 2526, and approve the funding recommendations of the children's levy allocation committee for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028, thereby repealing ordinance 192065.
32 Second second.
33 I believe councilor Kanal beat you to the punch there, councilor Ryan.
34 Cool makes me hopeful.
35 Okay, so colleagues, we have a motion to suspend the rules and consider an additional agenda item which has been seconded. Linly. Is this a debatable motion? The motion to suspend the rules?
36 Yes.
37 Okay, colleagues, is there any debate around suspending the rules? I believe we will need to vote to suspend the rules to hear this. So this is not debate on the ordinance that was put forward itself. This is debate on whether to suspend the rules. Councilor Ryan, are you in the queue to debate whether to suspend the rules?
38 I'm supportive, but there's no need for me to debate at the moment.
39 Okay. Councilor Novick.
40 No.
41 Okay. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, could you please call the roll? This is a nine vote, nine person majority vote.
42 Canal I.
43 Ryan yes. For transparency, I.
44 Koyama Lane I Morillo.
45 For clarity. This is to suspend so that we can have the discussion correct.
46 Novick I.
47 Clark, I Green, I Zimmerman. Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I motion carries with 12 yes votes.
48 Okay colleagues we have a motion on the table which. I believe. I believe actually we need a we have suspended the rules to consider this. I believe we will need a motion in a second to move this. Is that correct or are we automatically there?
49 You have suspended the rules to place this on the agenda. And you'll just need to decide when on the agenda you're hearing it okay?
50 So colleagues I would place this immediately on the agenda since that motion was made, unless the mover and seconder would prefer to place it at the end of the agenda.
51 Now is fine.
52 Okay, perfect. So I believe we should take this up now. This is a motion to repeal the one year extension for the portland's children levy for 20 2526, and approve the funding recommendations of the children's levy allocation committee for July 1st, 2025 through June 30th, 2028. Is there discussion to the motion?
53 Apologies. Where did you say it was going at the end of the agenda?
54 No, we're putting it on the agenda right now. Councilor.
55 Okay.
56 Is there discussion to the motion? Yes. Okay, okay. Councilor Smith.
57 So what we what the plan is that we're voting on is to remand the remand and do give the recommendation that the Portland children's levy originally gave us.
58 That is the motion that has been made.
59 Okay. I do not support that at this time.
60 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Morillo.
61 So for clarity, because I just this is my first time seeing this ordinance. This is a just a full remand of the original. It would go back to the original recommendations that were made.
62 Exactly.
63 Okay. Are there any other impacts that we should be aware of on this?
64 No, other than I think one impact of doing this would be to restore trust among the members of the numerous citizen advisory bodies which saw this body summarily reject the recommendations of dozens of volunteers on several different advisory bodies to the children's levy. So I think that beyond the specifics here, there's an issue of our credibility with our advisory bodies in general.
65 Councilor did you have additional questions?
66 Okay.
67 I think this is a difficult discussion because right now what we're seeing is that different communities are being pitted against each other for a small fund of resources that exist, and I don't think that should have ever happened. We have legacy organizations that have done work with bipoc communities for a very long time, that have that trust, and we have new and emerging organizations that are also doing wonderful work, and that they should be commended for that and be given the opportunity to build that trust. So I think over time, I'd like to see the children's levy kind of address that dynamic as far as supporting new and old organizations in the work that they're doing. I think what my office heard was a lot of concerns from some of the equity folks that had worked with the children's levy, that a lot of the feedback that they were given was not necessarily taken into account. We were also reached out to by numerous members of the original community committee that gathered all of the applications first, and that they didn't feel necessarily like their recommendations ended up being fully taken into account, or their feedback with a five member body after that. And so I just want people to understand that this is kind of a nuanced discussion, and that this is the information that my office received, and that I think a few of our offices received. And that's part of what went into into the decision. But I would like to see over time with the children's levy, a return to some of the equity persons information and making sure that all of that's actually being taken into account, because it's my understanding that there were a lot of, you know, we heard a call for culturally specific grantees to demonstrate that at least 51% of the people that they serve are black or brown. And for a thoughtful approach that doesn't pit communities against each other. So a lot of the organizations that were given funding did not fit that criteria. And I just wanted to name that as we're having this discussion.
68 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Novick.
69 I just wanted to note that every decision we make about money pits somebody against somebody. Somebody gets money, somebody doesn't, or somebody gets more money and somebody gets less. And I believe that the children's levy that staff responded to all the complaints that people heard. And again, I've heard many members body talk about the importance of citizen involvement. And the children's levy is an example of citizen involvement on steroids. Dozens of volunteers going through an elaborate process to come up with recommendations. And I would like anybody who votes against returning the recommendations of the those advisory committees and of the staff to say nothing about citizen involvement in the future.
70 Thank you sir.
71 Councilor Smith, you're back in the queue.
72 Yes. Just for the record, there was a 12 zero vote to extend current grantees, a 12 zero vote, including including the maker of this new ordinance. And there were reasons why that happened, because we did listen to folks who said that they didn't believe that it was equitable. Everybody has a different reason for equity, and we have all been trying to identify ways in which. All the organizations could, could be served in this year. I don't think us remanding the remand is something that we should be doing. I think that we need to identify resources after the first of the year so that we can fund all those folks who actually fell through a donut hole. This is hard work, and we understand that the decisions that we make here, they're permanent. And at this point, we would actually have to come back again to get this done. So for me, I would like to talk and ask a question of lisa pellegrino if she's here.
73 And lisa pellegrino, director at the levy.
74 Thank you. Lisa, I was I want to tell you that I was very troubled by a couple of things that pcl did. You all sent out letters to grantees that they were they were being recommended. And so with those letters, they believed that they were getting money, and it was not made clear to them that the council makes the awardees, and that was sent out months ago. I think that you all should have came forward because I think it was. I believe that pcl knew that there was going to be some issues, whichever way it went. And had we seen some of the issues and heard about some of the issues earlier, we could have straightened this out. But we were up against a budget and a budget cycle. So for me, it's very disingenuous to gather all these folks together when you actually gave us the recommendation to extend the current grantees. You're the one who gave that gave that direction to us. So for me to be able to have to be here at this point, to be able to vote on this, I don't support that vote because I think we can have everyone win after the 1st of July.
75 Councilor is there a question?
76 Yes. So my question is we talked about identifying ways in which we can reform the scoring system and how we do business. First of all, that letter needs to stop. Only letters should be sent out to grantees after the council. Secondly, this new.
77 Group. Councilor councilor Because I feel like I'm not getting the chance to respond. Okay.
78 I'd like.
79 To make sure.
80 That we allow lisa a chance to respond.
81 Perfect. Go ahead.
82 There was no letter sent. We sent out a recap of the allocation committee meeting, which was a meeting held on April 23rd, and the title of the thing that we sent out to everybody. Okay, so that's all the applicants is here is what the allocation committee decided. The city council must approve these allocations, and we will get back to you with a date on which that will happen as soon as we have a date confirmed, which is exactly what we did. As soon as we had the city council date confirmed. And we let people know that it would come before council and when they could testify. We provided each of those communications to all the applicants, so we were not telling them that the decisions were final. In fact, it says that in the if you look in our rfi that is published online, the applications that people read, it's in there too. We have never pretended that the allocation committee was the end of the decision making process. We told people what what was going to happen, so I can't.
83 So when I.
84 Talk, what else I could do.
85 I that's that's good. That's good information because I just seen the email that was sent out to the current grantees that that pcl sent out saying what they would be getting July 1st. So that was something very similar that you sent out to the other folks. So the new grantees, they believed that they were going to be funded, and that's what they told me. That's what I heard from people last week, that they thought that they were already awarded. That's why they made decisions that they made to fund their programs after July 1st. And that is so that's the troubling piece to this. So now if you remand the remand, so we have two groups of people who each have a email saying that they're going to be funded.
86 The email that was sent to the current grantees on the extension was sent after the order. Exactly. Councilor Zimmerman brought forth.
87 No, no, that's fine.
88 So I had to notify them of their of what the council ordered. So I that's the that's the situation I'm in. We are trying to communicate the actions that are being taken by the bodies that are making decisions.
89 No, I appreciate that. So what I'm saying is with the actual ordinance that's on the table right now, then you would have to send them another email telling them that they will not. That's that's what I was trying to establish. And that's why I don't support doing this, is because I think there is a way for everyone to win after the 1st of July. And I know you didn't bring this forward. I know that councilor Novick did, but I just wanted to clear up that it is it is a lot of confusion going on.
90 Councilor is there a question there, or should we have this discussion amongst councilors?
91 Yes, we should have the discussion amongst council. Thank you.
92 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Ryan, do we need to keep our staff at the table or can we let them go back to their seats?
93 I want to yeah. Stay there for a minute because I want to talk about why first. First I want to say this. This fund is a lock box is how I try to think of it always because it's a restricted account. It's a contract between the voters and the taxpayers. This is how much money we have to fund the Portland children's levy, period. End of story. I don't know what what fantasy there is in the next year's budget that's going to clear up money out of operations to fund these accounts, I'd like us to stay focused on the Portland children's levy account. So I want to establish that, first of all, two, we made what I thought was a very thoughtful decision after the shocking seven five vote to not accept the recommendations, the best equity plan I've ever seen in terms of giving out money to the community. Bravo for that.
94 And I'm going to pause you for one minute.
95 I have a question.
96 I'm I understand I'd like to ask folks to jazz hands. Thumbs up, but silent applause, please.
97 Got it. Councilor Zimmerman, I thought your amendment after that vote was really thoughtful. I know we all voted for it because we, a lot of us just wanted to make sure that those organizations were not were didn't they had funds in 2025 going forward. That said, like any last minute amendment, sometimes it has consequences. Of course, we couldn't have known about. I've had the opportunity to listen to you explain a couple of them. So I think it was a very thoughtful proposal here to look at why not just extending the these awards for one more year was was a good idea because it's having some messy accounting consequences, if you will. Could you alert us to a little bit of that so we can get back then to the other one. But I wanted to let us know that trying to break this down a little bit, first, let's look at the fact that we get to have this conversation. Thank you for the 12 zero vote on that. Two why we want to look at that. Rethinking the amendment that was passed after we, the majority here rejected the thoughtful Portland children's levy recommendations. So can we get to why that matters?
98 I'm not exactly sure what the question is.
99 What I heard from you, director pellegrino, is there was some problems with us making voting in that amendment at 12 zero. We had some unintended consequences with that, that of course, we couldn't have known about. And at that late hour, can you explain why it's smart for us to reconsider that amendment?
100 Well, the consequences are primarily to the organizations that would have received funding under the recommendations that the allocation committee made or the decisions that they made.
101 Speak a little bit louder.
102 Sorry. The primary consequences are to the organizations that were the allocation committee selected for funding that are not current grantees. So the ordinance that you passed that extends all current grants means that none of the organizations that were chosen by the allocation committee for funding starting July 1st would get money July 1st. And if the if the extension is for a year, then our funds, which are defined by and come in an annual revenues, would be spent on extending those current grants. They would not be there to fund something else.
103 So there's also some groups in that that are current recipients that didn't even apply because that program no longer exists. Is that true?
104 Yeah. So they wanted they were planning to stop that program. They didn't apply for a continuance. Yes.
105 Some giving money to organizations that aren't doing the program that they did in the previous set of awards.
106 So they did not apply to continue funding and operating that program.
107 So I appreciate this, and I wanted my colleagues to hear a little bit of that, because for me, that was why I was really crystal clear. We should rethink that decision. Is there anything else you would like to explain to the council on why that makes sense?
108 The other issue is sometimes we raised various questions on some programs that were not performing well, and those will be continuing to be funded under that order.
109 Colleagues, I hope that today we can clearly, I would love to redo the vote, but what I'd really like to do is get this right. I'm a big believer in not being right, but getting things right, and I hope we can just take a pause to at least stop what we did, and then have some dialog. If it means that we have to come back for part two of your amendment, if you will, or this ordinance in July, then I would be open to that. But I don't want us to do is leave this meeting in such a messy place. And I really applaud you, councilor Novick, for bringing this up today. And I guess I'm pleading that if we have to do it in a part two phase, then would we consider that? Because I really want us as a council to get this right for the community. People are watching and I'm so proud of the equity formula that was put in motion. And I'm a big believer in accountability and acceptance. Once something like that is put in motion. And I'll just say for everyone, we wish there wasn't a 21% cut in that fund in one year's time, and that more awards were getting awarded at this time. We can't control that with this vote. But we can do is get this right. So thank you for coming up and answering some of those questions.
110 Thank you. Councilor, I'm in the queue. Colleagues, I know there have been a lot of conversations about what the next steps are, and I just want to share that. For me, the absolute top priority is making sure that we have funding this summer and for as much of this summer as possible, because the idea that some of the proposals that were floated might leave us with summer months when kids are not in school, when kids often have the most instability without hunger programs or mentoring programs funded feels like a worst case scenario. I do support this proposal. Councilor. Thank you for bringing it forward. And I hope that as we move through this discussion and any other discussion on this topic, we keep in mind making sure that we have as much as much coverage in programs for the summer as possible. Councilor. Koyama Lane. I. That puts us back to councilor Smith.
111 Yes, madam president, thank you so much. I just want to reiterate that we all voted 12 zero for this a couple of weeks ago, and we were covering a good majority of the programs, the only programs that were not covered for the summer under the Zimmerman amendment was this donut hole full of organizations. And I think that we could get those funded and we won't have the issues that we're having around issues around equity. And if the process was done properly, because that's that's actually what it was. How do we have large mainstream programs who don't serve at least 51% bipoc students and families that are getting the lion's share of the money? And so that's that's the issue that I think that we were all trying to solve for, and that there was an unintended consequence, particularly in my district, of smaller organizations. And I get that as well. But I think remanding the remand of the remand, it is it is very messy. And I think that we should identify additional resources to make sure that everybody is covered after the first.
112 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
113 Thank you, council president. I'm going to I want to openly acknowledge that there have been unintended consequences as a result of council actions. I always want to look to address, impact and seek compromise that finds a path forward for all. And I'm just going to be honest. I'm learning, I make mistakes, I reserve the right to change my mind in response to new information. I'm always going to work to be accountable and act in alignment with my values. I still have questions and concerns about and thoughts about ways we can be providing technical support. I know that being able to provide that support and having access and the capacity to fill out grants, that that is equity. And I want us to think about how we can operationalize equity. I fully believe that we have a team here that's open to that and wants to do that. As I've had many conversations in the last few weeks, I know we need to invest in this as a development, short term and long term. I want to share that I have worked on another amendment. I know that we will be voting on councilor Novick first. That is one that is somewhat of a compromise. And I hear what council president saying, which is that the focus is to make sure that the kids can get services. It would rescind the ordinance that was brought forward. And really in a good faith way, one that we all agreed was something that we could. Use to bridge the gap if it would actually take a full year for six months to a year for this to for us to have a conversation again. But we've I've gotten new information that it is possible we can expect July 16th, that we could come back and hear from Portland children's levy about review of what they'll bring to us. And so this ordinance would repeal the previous ordinance and direct the allocation committee to include a summary of how it addressed concerns raised by council during the remand process, and we would be able to make that decision on July 16th. I have talked to lisa pellegrino about if they understanding they can't take action until council decides, but that the hope is funds could go out after council decides and it has been confirmed with the attorney that we can backdate and make sure those contracts start. Or we can recommend that those contracts start July 1st. So I wanted to share that that is another possibility. I know there are a few different routes. After having many conversations, I don't think that there is anything that everyone's going to agree on and is very clear, and I can pass around another option to.
114 Point of information, madam vice president, is your intention to offer this maybe as an alternative? And if so, would you amend the motion on the floor?
115 The point of me bringing this up is to flag that I will bring this up. If councilor Novick is taken off the table.
116 To do it as an amendment.
117 Or I can do it as an amendment. I don't think councilor Novick is open to that.
118 Councilor Novick you are in the queue before you speak, I want to flag for folks who are in the room that as a new ordinance that has been added to our agenda, we will be taking public testimony on this proposal. If you are interested in providing public testimony, I'd ask that you approach the clerk who can get you signed up. And just to clarify, the ordinance before us does three things. Councilor Novick, I'm looking to you to tell me if I'm wrong. It would repeal the one year extension which was passed in order to provide bridge funding for the period of time while new considerations were being made. It would then rescind the remand of the children's levy allocation committee recommendations, and it would then pass the children's levy committee recommendation allocations.
119 Correct.
120 So those are the three things that this would do. We will take public testimony on this. If there are folks who are interested in signing up. We are limiting public testimony today on all items on the agenda to two minutes in order to ensure that we have time for this and the many items that were already on our agenda. Councilor Novick. Go right ahead.
121 I just wanted to respond to a couple of points fellow councilors have made. Councilor Smith keeps on talking about a 12 zero vote. I was one of the five people that voted against overturning the recommendations of the allocation committee. I voted for the Zimmerman amendment because my understanding was the only alternative was that nobody would get any money for some period of time. So I thought that was a bad idea. It wasn't that I agreed with the original decision that seven members of this council made on the topic. Councilor Koyama Lane used the phrase unintended consequences, and I take issue for that. The unintended consequence of the vote of seven members of this council was that organizations that the allocation committee had recommended would get money, would not get money, and that the recommendations of the allocation committee, which flowed up from considerable citizen process, would be rejected. Those are the consequences. They were obvious consequences. They were intended consequences.
122 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, I'm going to move us into public testimony. This is a little backwards from usual, because I wanted to make sure to give folks some time to hear what we were talking about before we took signups for public testimony. Keep councilor Avalos what?
123 What are we taking? Like what is the actual motion? So the motion is just right now to add to the agenda councilor Novick saying, are we still in that? And that's what you're saying. We're taking public.
124 We voted on that motion, and we are now in discussion on the ordinance which councilor Novick has put forward. So we are taking public testimony on the ordinance which councilor Novick has put forward, which would do three things. It would repeal.
125 Hold on. When did we vote? I didn't vote.
126 I believe you voted councilor. I believe you voted. We voted 12 zero. If I am remembering correctly, keelan is nodding yes. We voted 12 zero. To add this to the agenda, there was then a discussion about the fact that we needed to know where to add it. I recommended that we add it to the beginning of the agenda. Unless the person who made the motion and seconded it, councilors Novick and canal disagreed with that. They both nodded yes, that they agreed. So we've been in discussion on the ordinance that was moved. Do we have a problem with the lights, or did somebody just bump the light switch? Perfect.
127 So we are in discussion on Novick amendment right now.
128 We are in discussion on the ordinance that was moved by councilor Novick and seconded by councilor Canal. Keelan. Do we have anybody signed up for public testimony?
129 We do have folks who are signed up. Let me check with okay, really quick.
130 Hoping. It's a good sampling of concerns and.
131 Folks.
132 Okay. So I think we'll go ahead and get started. Jonas. Cassie. Okay.
133 Could we call up if we have them three at a time just to keep us moving?
134 Yeah. The we also have Dan salazar. I'm sorry if I mispronounced that. Nike Green, madison capps.
135 And when your name is called, please feel free to come up to the table and give your testimony in the order in which you were called up. Go ahead. Go right ahead.
136 Good afternoon. Councilors. My name is jonas cassie, and I'm the founder and executive director for ethiopian and eritrean cultural resource center. As I have shared in my past two testimonies, the ecrc youth mentoring program was not created out of convenience or just passion. It was born out of urgency and personal experience. In 2018, while serving as interpreter during a parent teacher conference, I witnessed multiple immigrant and refugee students scoring far below expectations. The root cause was clear they lacked mentorship, academic support, and cultural relevance guidance. That experience inspired me to launch our mentorship program to help these young people recognize their work, their worth, unlock their talents, and realize their full potential. Over the past 4 or 5 years, with the support of the apcl small grant, we have accomplished a great deal. We have seen students grow academically, socially, and emotionally. The impact of this work has been powerful and as a result, demand has continued to grow due to our proven success in crc and other black and african led mentoring parents. Where. Notified or chosen for a larger grant to expand out, to expand our reach and deepen our impact, we were ready to serve more youths, more families and more schools. That's why the city council recent decision to suspend these grant awards is deeply shocking and discouraging. It creates a major obstacle to moving forward and undermines years of effort, trust building and progress. We strongly believe this decision was influenced by. I strongly believe this decision was influenced by incomplete information, misleading narratives, and a rushed process. Today, I respectfully urge this honorable council to revote and approve the pcl grants awarded based on the recommendation of the pcl grant allocation committee, which followed a fair, community centered and equity driven process. If this this decision is not reversed, it will not only stall momentum, it will also crush the dreams of hundreds of young people who finally felt seen, heard and supported. We urge you to take this seriously and stand with the communities you pledge to serve. Thank you.
137 Thank you very much.
138 Greetings, council. I am dean salazar. I serve on the Portland children's levy community advisory council, and I want to take a moment to rebuke some narratives that are simply untrue. First of the reviewer committee, there were 90 very diverse reviewers and the community advisory council, which was very diverse. We helped shape the recommendations to ensure that the widest variety of communities and the widest possible amount of supports could be provided to communities that need it. For example, the. For the first time ever, there was a pacific islander program in Portland history, the first ever trans focus program, and this portfolio extended to college age youth for the first time. Even with less funding, we were getting out to more organizations than ever before in an equitable way. And one particular metric, which I unfortunately was not able to write down fully. It increased from 7 to 19 organizations. That is quite efficient and really equitable use of money. There were tons of people of color involved in the process. By the time I had gotten to the allocation committee, it had already been through lots of organizations, such as camille trevor, which is led by two black women, people who led a community engagement often were refugees and immigrants and so much more. I am disappointed to see that, like yesterday, the pccep thing that sometimes decisions are not made in the public's best interest, but in the name of personal interest reframed as public interest. And I believe that we should be doing a lot more to hold ourselves to a higher ethical standard. Thank you.
139 Thank you. Go right ahead.
140 My name is nikki Green. I'm the ceo, founder of triple threat mentoring city council revote today and approve our pcl funding. Our youth can't wait. We are the leaders on the frontlines, mentoring, guiding and protecting black and brown youth across Portland. The pcl funding is not a luxury, it's a lifeline. You said you wanted to hear from community center our voices even now, you heard from our community when we said we wanted new, small and emerging organizations to access pcl funding. You heard from our community when we said we didn't want the city alone to own that process, but to be bipoc and community led. And you did this through your citizen oversight committee that included seven bipoc individuals and your phd level panel of bipoc folks. You heard from our community through your bipoc community led scoring committee. I'm not for sure exactly who city council was listening to when they decided to rebrand the pcl allegations. Regardless of black voice. But again, we stepped up and we stood before you and you heard from our community that said you got it wrong. But it didn't stop there. Not only thousands of black families and constituents that are represented by our organizations, but you now have also heard from those very large legacy organizations. Naacp, psi have sent you letters of support on our behalf as black led organizations that should be funded. You've heard from 20 plus black led organizations through letters of support and elected officials that are black telling you to move forward with funding. The pcl allocation committee's recommendations. And since we're all singing the same song in perfect pitch and harmony, we're glad that your adult and you recognize that you got it wrong. But because of your character, you have a great opportunity right now to make it right. Re vote and do what you say that you've been waiting for, which is to be led by the community. And let me say this clear. We're not a donut hole. We are a black community, proud servicing. And we will not stop until we're fully listened to. Thank you so much for being here today, john.
141 Thank you very much.
142 Madam president and council members, thank you for the opportunity to speak today. My name is srinivasa turner, and I'm the co-founder and executive director of lso experience life science outdoors. We're a decade old, nationally recognized, Portland based nonprofit founded by myself, a third generation Oregonian and another black woman and led by a team and a board that is more than 90% black. We exist to serve youth and families from this community, from underrepresented communities. We were asked not to lobby or testify early in this process, but we are here today in coalition with so many other nonprofits. As you can see before you, that's power. That's community at power. And we're sharing our voice with you, because what's at stake is too important to stay silent. What's at stake is integrity, equity and trust. In my 15 years as a nonprofit leader, I was relieved by this grant process that was thoughtfully and equity and equity driven process created by the Portland children's levy, pcl centered community voices and partnered with black and brown led firms to design the process with inclusion, transparency and fair and fairness at the heart and the center. Their work was affirmed by the citizen oversight committee, which corrected outlier scores and ensured equity in action and directives to you all from the allocation committee was unanimous. And yet, after the recommendations came out, the rules changed. A politically connected organization stepped in late and shifted the conversation not through transparency, but through influence. Puppeteering politicians on this very council. This was not equity. This was power at play in greed. We want to ask that you continue the funding for the organizations as you first received the recommendation. The consequences for our organizations are real. Without the $100,000 in annual funding, our tap and roots program will cut youth participants in half, reduce stipends for college bound students, and we may have to lay off full time staff members. We urge you to honor the process, respect the recommendations, and restore the funding. Thank you.
143 Very much. Additional public testimony.
144 Yes. Next up, we have felicia tripp, Eric knox, alonzo chadwick, gary hollins.
145 Thank you all for being here. Please go ahead and. And give testimony in the order you were called up.
146 Hello. My name is felicia tripp, and I am an allocation committee member. I'm here because we were told our process was inequitable. I want to give you the history, which is noted in your email that you received from me. The allocation committee thought of it from this way. Equity is looking at the group that's not benefiting, not being at the table. This is the lens that we started with when we went through this allocation process. Second, after the previous allocation process, which I was a part of, we had an outside evaluator evaluate us where we could be more equitable. And they will give you I'll give you four examples of what they recommended that we implement. One, they recommended that we create a small grants program because there's many smaller organizations that were not prepared to be able to come to the levy check. We did it. We now have a small grants program. Two they asked us to hire an outside consulting firm to make sure that they went out to the communities, communities of color, immigrant communities, refugee communities, LGBTQ and disability communities to make sure that the new scoring rubric and application their voice was heard. Check. We did that. Third, they asked us to diversify. The grant reviewer pool. We did that check. Why is this process inequitable? Please tell me why it's inequitable. We have heard from the community. We did what community asked us to do, and I personally find it offensive as a member of the allocation committee who spends her time questioning systems to make them more equitable, to be told that the process that I held accountable for my community is invalid. Thank you.
147 Thank you.
148 Greetings council members. I feel you have a choice today. Vote your conscience or vote your interest. Interest is about scarcity. Conscience is about justice. Justice makes a wrong right even when that right is inconvenient, uncomfortable and unpopular. This decision, made in haste and cloaked in confusion, was absolutely reckless. It disregarded process. It dismissed community voice. It unraveled a grant making model rooted in equity and design, by and large, by black and brown hands. We were excited when this new council came in. Diverse, dynamic, historic. We thought, finally, leadership that looked like us, that literally understood us. We saw a glimpse of what Portland could be, but today we're stunned. Not because our opposition came from those that we typically suspect, but it came from those who once promised to disrupt these very systems. Now, instead of breaking it open, you are reinforcing it. We are watching members of our own community who once campaigned on courage fold into politics of self-preservation. The politics of I'll scratch your back, you scratch mine. We expected more. We still do. This isn't just about money. It's about trust. It's about the soul of the city and whether it can still recognize justice when it's staring it in its face. I urge you, you can correct this. You should correct this. Vote your conscience. Vote correction, vote community and remind us that Portland still believes in the people it claims to serve.
149 Thank you. Go right ahead.
150 Hello. City council. My name is alonzo chadwick. I'm a dedicated member of this Portland community who has spent 20 years advocating for our black and brown families and communities. My commitment has always been to ensure that children and families have access to the essential services and resources they need to navigate the systemic challenges that hinder their growth, success and long term sustainability. Recently, I had the privilege of serving on the grant review committee, where I witnessed firsthand the dedication of numerous culturally specific organizations that met the city's established criteria. It was devastating and disappointing to learn that the recommendations that we worked hard on were disregarded, as if our as if our efforts were inconsequential. I invested myself personally, 40 hours of time reviewing grant applications, and now it feels as though my and all the others on the committee's commitment to this process has been completely overlooked and flat out ignored. I urge you to reconsider this decision. Only this time I implore you to support what is true, just and necessary for the organizations that tirelessly serve our most vulnerable communities. I hope you will choose to stand on the right side of justice. Thank you.
151 Thank you very much. Go right ahead, mr. Hollins.
152 Hello. My name is gary hollins. Currently, I sit on the Portland public school board as well. I'm not here in that capacity. I'm here in the capacity of. I am a staunch supporter of our youth and our kids 100%. And I understand the difficulties you guys have in trying to fit budgets in when the money is not there. Absolutely. We just went through that. We just went through a $40 million budget deficit that we did. And when we're doing that, there is a process that we went through. I don't know if it helps or not, but you do look at programs, you look at new programs that are having an impact. And that's what I'm here to talk about is the impact of the funding for our kids. When we look at and I know you wouldn't I mean, we didn't talk about this, but when we did, when they had the black lives matters movement, and they went over across the bridge and they laid down on the bridge, that was one of the girls who led that actually came from Eric knox, from his basketball team. She led that. When we look at organizations like triple threat, where they actually have kids who were otherwise fall through the cracks, they picked them up and they fill those cracks for them. And so when we're talking about impact, I just want you to look at, you actually have the authority to maybe reallocate funds to all the organizations in order for those that can't be served by larger organizations, can be served by some of the smaller organizations. That's one of the things that we did that we practiced at pbs when we did that. And I just ask that you guys maybe look at that as an option as well. Thank you.
153 Thank you very much to all three of you.
154 Next up we have madison capps, sarah hobbs, cihan mckelvey, aisha carter.
155 Thank you for being here today.
156 Madison. No, sarah.
157 Okay. For the record, my name is sarah hobbs. I didn't plan on testifying on this issue, but right now, I am so angry, I can't stand it. While you all are bickering about these, the people that are going to suffer are the children who will benefit or not, depending on where this vote ultimately goes. I'm not hearing about how this is going to affect the children, that the funding, the funding for the programs. It's about the kids and all I'm hearing is y'all bigger and bigger and fighting and fighting and I'm angry. I raised my kids here years ago. They're grown now, and it's gotten worse. I understand funding is an issue, but there needs to be the consideration. This is the children's levy. This is the fund. Programs that benefit children who are members of marginalized communities. So I implore each and every one of you, put your darn egos on the back burner. And ultimately put the children first.
158 Thank you. Go right ahead.
159 Good afternoon, council members. I sat in this very seat and pushed hard for the allocation committee recommendations to be remanded, and I believe in that. I think that there were flaws in the process. I think that there was inequity that was built into the process. And I do think there was a lack of transparency built into the process when nobody knows how decisions were made after the scoring took place. This room is filled with people that I have worked side by side with, that are dear friends of mine who I believe in strongly. And I will say that the last time I was sitting in this seat, I said that an extension of the previous awards was not ideal, but that might be the best of the bad situation that we're in right now. If there's a better option, then I'm not opposed to that. Psi is not opposed to that. Our interest is not the one year bridge. Our interest is the five year impact of what a improved process could bring. And whatever the stopgap is for the one year bridge, we would be okay and live with that. If the one year bridge was continue all of the previously recommended awards for one year. While we're looking at this process and do something different the following year, we would be open to that. What we want to ensure happens is that culturally specific organizations are prioritized heavily in the process to determine awards. If you're going to look at, go through a thorough process of ensuring that a review panel puts in hours in time and scores these applications. After that, what happens is what we had an issue with. And if after that, what happens is culturally specific services are weighed at a level that they should be, then we would not have an issue with the process. Our issue wasn't with the scoring or issue was with what happened after that. And whatever the best stopgap is to get us through this current year, as long as the process is reviewed, that is something that we would support. Thank you.
160 Thank you, councilors, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is aisha carter and I use she her pronouns, and I am the development director at bradley engel. Bradley engel is in our 50th year of providing services to survivors of domestic and sexual violence in Multnomah county, and we are the only culturally specific standalone domestic violence organization for black survivors, as well as queer and trans survivors in the state of Oregon. We are also one of 36 organizations to lose our Portland children's levy dollars because of the decision to remand the funding on June 4th. Those dollars were for our healing roots and kinship programs, a tandem approach to addressing the impact of intergenerational violence on black families. We work with both black survivors of domestic violence as well as their children to restore safety, stability and family trust in culturally relevant and specific and sensitive ways. We provide financial support for basic needs and housing stability. Host support groups for survivors to connect. Engage in art therapy and cooking classes that focus on culture and community, and host monthly meetings to remind our participants that they also deserve joy. The program is led, planned and directed by black staff and received support and input from black survivors in our community. Healing roots and kinship are responsive, impactful, and the only programs of their kind that combine both dedicated space for survivors as well as their children to process, grieve, and reconnect. After being impacted by domestic violence in their homes. The news we received on June 4th was devastating, not just to our staff, but to the survivors and families we serve. We hope you'll reconsider your decision to withhold funding from the 36 Portland organizations doing incredible work to serve our communities. Thank you.
161 Thank you very much. Keelan. Is there additional public testimony?
162 Yes, we have rana usman and alex sanchez. And then one last call for madison caps.
163 Thank you both for being here.
164 My name is rana. I'm representing Portland youth builders. Thank you, council, for allowing testimony. I heard a lot of talk about equitable practices and equitable approaches. And we were one of the 3634 programs that were recommended for funding and deeply impacted. And everything we do is rooted in equity. We are a bipoc led organization with a with a bipoc led board. Maurice rahming, our board president, couldn't be here from o'neill electric, and he is in full support of what he's in hopes that you all will look into your process. The folks that we serve meet every criteria of the Portland children's levy recommendation. We serve predominantly bipoc folks, and the folks that we serve are in historically poor neighborhoods. With these dollars, we get to help young people not worry about rent, about childcare, about bills, about creating a better holiday for their families, about being able to break generational curses, being able to purchase a home, being able to give everything that they've always wanted for their families and to do better and to make their parents proud. And these dollars deeply impact the work that we do. Given what is going on with national dollars and funding as a whole, things are tight. Equity work at its best, is slow and muddy, and my hope is that you all reconsider your decision. Thank you.
165 Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
166 Hello, my name is alex sanchez. I use he they pronouns, and I am the executive director of the ywca of greater Portland. And for full transparency. Transparency. I'm also a member of the pcl community council. But my tenure on that council started long before I became the executive director of the ywca in January. First, I just want to say that I have been providing social services to youth and families in the Portland metro area for over 15 years, and I want to be very clear that the pcl application process has not pitted our organizations against each other. Many of us have worked together as trusted colleagues for many years. We are very accustomed to competing for limited funds, and we are also very accustomed to intentionally partnering with one another to make those dollars go further. When all of us know that we can't get funded for everything that we ask for. So while we are not pitted against each other by the process, the decision and the rhetoric surrounding the decision does pit us against each other. It forces us to come sit here at this table and testify on opposite sides of an issue from people that we have worked together for many years and will continue to work together, regardless of what council decides to do about this remand. But in my own organization, we were the highest scoring application in the child abuse prevention portfolio. We scored a 93 and we are now one of those 36 agencies that will receive no funding this year, and that will cause us to not only not be able to expand our highly successful therapy program for children and their families of victims of domestic violence, but in fact, we will have to roll back many of the services because of other funding cuts. And so we are now facing having talented therapists and folks in our team have their hours cut, their benefits cut, losing their jobs in a time of really intense job insecurity and funding instability across our organizations. So I just really want to be clear about the impacts that this has, not only on new programing, but on existing programing in our organizations as well. Thank you.
167 Do we have additional public testimony.
168 That completes testimony?
169 Okay, colleagues, we have had a discussion on this item. We have had public testimony. This is a last call for any comments before we move to a vote. Councilor Morillo.
170 Gosh, yes.
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171 I just wanted to name because this was brought as an emergency. Folks online cannot testify. That's just part of the rules and that's nobody's fault. But I wanted to highlight an email that we all got as city councilors from kiyoshi owens, who is part of empress rules equity consulting. And this is a black equity organization that gave us some feedback on on this process with the children's levy and sort of informed our decisions and our thoughts about this process in our office. And part of the criteria that they had was that they wanted the city of Portland within the children's levy to revise the eligibility criteria for equity, reinstate community led grant review panels, implement mandatory equity training for all decision makers, implement a transparent scoring and funding process, and have a community oversight and accountability. So I say all that because we have an email from them in our inboxes. If anyone feels the need to pull it up at this time, but they recommended that we pause current grant allocations until some of those reforms are adopted, not take a year to resolve those issues, which we firmly agree with. I don't think it should take a year to address inequities. That's not right, and that we need to center black led and serving organizations funding priorities, form a workgroup with black led grassroots and direct service nonprofits to implement changes and commit to shared leadership in future design and oversight. So I guess with all of that, I want to say that councilor Koyama Lane had brought forward, I think, what she was hoping would be a friendly amendment, but may not be received that way to councilor Novick proposal, and we have printouts here for everyone on the dais, and I'm hoping that we could amend councilor Novick proposal, and this one would undo the one year extension to the awardees that was brought forward by councilor Zimmerman, who I think very thoughtfully and quickly tried to come up with a solution for some of the things that came up, because we've heard that some of those organizations either no longer exist or actually wanted to return the funds, and it would also give the allocation committee some bullet points of concerns that we want them to address, some of which came from empress rules equity consulting and the allocation committee will have three weeks to reassess based on these recommendations that they've and they've confirmed that they can do it in three weeks. So we would not be starting the whole process over. We would not be starting, you know, getting all of the applications from the very beginning. And that is my compromise proposal to what is on the table right now.
172 Councilor I want to just make sure that we're all looking at this the right way. This is a motion to amend the ordinance on the table. Is it a motion to amend it just to bring what councilor Novick brought down to the repeal? Or is it a motion to essentially remove all of the language in councilor Novick ordinance and replace it with the language in councilor Koyama Lane proposal?
173 This would not be doing a full remand in the way that councilor Novick would, so it would be replacing it.
174 Replacing the language in the ordinance that councilor Novick brought with the language in the ordinance that councilor Koyama Lane brought. Correct. Okay, colleagues, there's a motion on the table. Is there a second.
175 Point of order? I mean, is that even I respect that there's amendment but is a full replacement considered the same thing? Meaning that couldn't councilor Novick then bring back his original because full replacement is a little different than amendment. I'm just trying to understand some process.
176 That is a fair question, and one of the reasons that I wanted to get a clarification there. So linly, I understand if the original ordinance was amended to just the first section of therefores, that was about the repeal of the extension. But what our colleagues are proposing is to replace this language with this language. Essentially what in other places might be called a gut and stuff amendment. Can we do that here? And what does that do in terms of affecting the ability to hear either of these separately in the future?
177 I believe the council has two options, which is it can either figure out what the changes are, and I think I could fairly easily characterize what those changes are and have it be amendments to particular sections. I believe it could also move. And second, a substitute ordinance and vote on the substitute ordinance. And if council if that motion passed, councilor Novick would no longer be on the table, the substitute ordinance would be on the on the table.
178 Councilor, are you proposing a substitute ordinance or are you proposing an amendment?
179 Sorry, let me clarify an amendment. So I think it would be replacing sections b, c and d, but it would keep a and section two. So parts one through four of councilor Novick proposal would stay the same and part five would get adapted. It wouldn't be fully replaced. So I would characterize this as an amendment. I apologize for misspeaking earlier.
180 So you are proposing that we amend councilor Novick ordinance in section one. Subsections one, two, three and four remain the same. Subsection five would say has decided to repeal ordinance 192065. P. Council anticipates receiving recommendations from the allocation committee in response to the remand of document number 2025 207, in the near future. So the five that was in councilor, Koyama Lane, Koyama Lane. And then now, therefore, the council directs a repeal ordinance 192065 and that would be the end of the ordinance as you've proposed amending it. Is that accurate?
181 I believe that's accurate. And I just sent you a message so that you have it written and I can send it to linly. Would that be helpful for you?
182 Yes. And I'd like to clarify. I'm assuming that the intent is to have it remain an emergency ordinance. And so you would have a section two, I believe, councilor Koyama Lane section two has some revised language, which I would assume you would also want to move, because the current section two is not consistent with. The other language from councilor. Koyama Lane.
183 So, colleagues, in order for us to follow this, I believe what we're hearing is that section one sub five would be switched to the language in the Koyama Lane ordinance. Section two would be switched of the therefores would be switched to the Koyama Lane ordinance language, but we would maintain Novick section one one through four and a of the therefores the repeal, we would be deleting b and c and d of the therefores.
184 And we would be removing exhibit a, there would.
185 Be an exhibit.
186 Reference to exhibit a would.
187 Be removed. And for folks who are following online, I apologize. The original ordinance is posted, but I don't believe the language around this amendment is. We'll see if we can get that.
188 Point of information. Yeah, that's what I was going to say. I cannot keep up with this conversation because I don't have whatever you're looking at. So someone could get that to us. Please. Thanks.
189 Councilor Koyama Lane for our colleagues who are online, that doesn't help us with members of the public, but for our colleagues who are going to be voting, can you email them your ordinance so that they can try to put the two of these together and know what they're voting on? Yes. And functionally, for folks who are online, what this would do is it would repeal the extension and include language suggesting that we hope to receive new recommendations from the allocation committee in the near future. Is the language that is used, but it would not. It would repeal the other pieces of councilor Novick or remove the other pieces of councilor Novick ordinance. Colleagues, we have this motion on the table. Is there a second?
190 Second?
191 Okay. Councilor Green has seconded it. We are in discussion on the motion to amend the ordinance. Councilor Zimmerman, are you speaking to the amendment?
192 I understand.
193 What this does is.
194 Councilor Novick are you speaking to the amendment?
195 Yes. This is a gutting stuff. This isn't really amendment. And I think that the people who came here today in the community as a whole, deserve to see an up and down, up or down vote on ordinance and see how many people are willing to admit they made a mistake before. I think if councilor Morillo can get approval to introduce her proposal as a separate ordinance, she can do that. But I request that people vote down this proposed amendment. So we get an up or down vote in my ordinance.
196 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Morillo.
197 I'm just trying to help make a compromise here. So I appreciate that you have strong feelings about it. Councilor Novick you've made mistakes on council before. I think you've apologized for your uber vote 10,000 times, and so I hope that you'll have some grace with me as we're working through this.
198 And I have to apologize for anything.
199 Councilor Morillo colleagues, let's try to keep it civil. Councilor Zimmerman, did you want to weigh in here? You had asked for a moment. If not, that's okay.
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200 We just don't.
201 Have I want to just I agree on the initial piece. I would like to see first Novick councilor Novick ordinance and an up and down vote on that before a consideration of a compromise. So I'm I'm in a similar camp, I think, as the sponsor.
202 Any other discussion to the amendment? Seeing none keelan could you please call the roll and colleagues as a reminder, we are voting on amending councilor Novick ordinance with the language that councilor Koyama Lane has put forward for councilor Morillo, I guess has put forward that was introduced by councilor Koyama Lane.
203 We don't vote on steve's first.
204 No, we have an amendment that has been proposed. So we are voting on the amendment to the ordinance. This is the language that was proposed by councilor Koyama Lane and moved by councilor Morillo, seconded by councilor Green, and as an amendment. This is a simple majority vote. Okay. Thank you. Canal a point of order.
205 Point of order.
206 This is an emergency. Do you have to have nine votes.
207 On the underlying ordinance? We will, but to amend the ordinance as a simple majority vote. Okay.
208 Canal.
209 For the record, I do think either of these would be an acknowledgment that we made a mistake. But with that said, I vote no.
210 Ryan.
211 Yeah. On this amendment at this time, I'm going to vote no because I want to vote up or down on Novick.
212 No.
213 Yes, maria.
214 I.
215 Novick no, Clark.
216 No.
217 Green.
218 Yes.
219 Zimmerman.
220 No.
221 Avalos.
222 Yes.
223 Dunphy.
224 I.
225 Smith.
226 Could you read the amendment again?
227 Would you like me to read the full amendment?
228 Yeah, that we're voting on linly.
229 Do you have it or would you like me to read it?
230 I didn't get it.
231 The full amendment.
232 Yeah, that we're voting on right now.
233 Yes. So the amendment is to amend. I don't have it. I can do this. So section five.
234 Is this one is this Morillo.
235 So we're voting on maria's proposed amendments. The changes I'm going to describe are the changes from councilor Novick s to councilor Morillo. So section five of the findings changes to read. Council has decided to repeal ordinance 192065. Council anticipates receiving recommendations from the allocation committee in response to the remand of document number 2020 5-207, in the near future in the now. Therefore, council directs directive a remains the same. Directives b, c and d are removed, and in section two the language in councilor Novick is replaced with the following language. The council declares that emergency exists in order to avoid a disruption in funding for this important work. Therefore, this ordinance shall be in full force and effect from and after its council. Its passage by the council and councilor Morillo. I just want to make sure I've captured your changes correctly.
236 Yes, I believe so.
237 Linly okay.
238 I.
239 Pirtle-guiney know.
240 The motion fails to pass with six a split vote.
241 Colleagues, we are back to the original ordinance that has been proposed in discussion. Councilor Morillo are you in the queue to speak to the original ordinance?
242 No apologies.
243 That's okay, councilor Zimmerman. Go right ahead.
244 Thanks. I want to appreciate councilor Novick and bringing this forward. I was also one of those five who who didn't vote for this remand to start with. And I am really appreciative of the community members, the organization leadership, or participants or parents of participants who have shown up over the last several weeks to share your impact statements. It has been helpful. I, I think that this period has been regrettable in terms of the yanking of chains in multiple directions, and I don't think it's been healthy. And so. For me, one of the one of the folks who shared thoughts on community engagement, it really resonates with me and the idea. The idea that we would push back on a community engagement process that takes a significantly long time. A lot of volunteers, a lot of people with a variety of experiences at the very end to say it, it didn't occur in the way we think it should occur. I think that spoke to me a lot. I am comfortable saying, I think there is a problem and we've got to intervene if we think there was a problem, but that hasn't that case hasn't been made to me and it's why I will support this ordinance. By councilor Novick because I think we can shape processes. But I haven't seen a red alarm type of situation where we are out of sync with the broader community and what the community has asked for in terms of this process. And I think that what I hope, I guess, is that councilors will support this and support this correction of process and record. And if there are things for us to inform for the next time that we have those cases be made to pcl, to our colleagues to see what will be the guiding light for the next one. But I think that director pellegrino and team, your testimony, your availability of information has been helpful throughout this entire thing. And I and I appreciate that. And so, again, I hope that colleagues will recognize the flux that this has thrown a lot of organizations into and will will vote to support councilor Novick fix it ordinance. And I think it's a good fix it ordinance. So thank you, colleagues.
245 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Koyama Lane.
246 Thank you very much. This is very difficult. And we've been elected to do this difficult work, and I'm grateful that we are all showing up to do that, I would like to offer a friendly amendment to councilor Novick ordinance, just to include five b from my ordinance, and I can hand that language over to you. Keelan councilor Novick made a couple adjustments, but it would read the same except except instead of saying direct the allocation committee to include a summary of how it addressed we're adding or plans to addres, and is adding the words to discuss how to.
247 So, councilor, I want to back up a minute so everybody can follow. If you look at in the section one the council finds of councilor Novick amendment or councilor Novick ordinance, section one, the council finds and we go down to five. Is that where you're adding this, or are you adding this after the therefores.
248 After the their force. So when I refer to five b that's in my ordinance and it would be including that in the therefores in councilor Novick so.
249 Is this an e in councilor Novick therefores we have a through d currently we would be adding an e to the therefores.
250 I would defer to councilor Novick where he would like it.
251 That sounds right.
252 Okay, so colleagues, if you look at councilor Novick's ordinance, we would be amending councilor Novick's ordinance to add a section e in the therefore section, which would be a modified version of excuse me, five b in what councilor Koyama Lane brought forward the b therefore, if we look at the. Therefore b in councilor Koyama Lane ordinance, and we would be amending that in as a new e in the therefores of councilor Novick's. Everything else would remain the same in councilor Novick's ordinance and councilor Koyama Lane. Can you read through what those changes are to be again, so that folks can follow that?
253 So b would read direct the allocation committee to include a summary of how it addressed or plans to address concerns raised by council during the remand process, including consideration of racial equity impacts, scoring and inconsistencies, and testimony from applicants. The summary should also describe how the allocation committee assessed whether the program served a majority of the intended demographic population, defined as more than 51%, particularly in the case of culturally specific or responsive grants. The committee shall be shall also include a plan and then striking for improving future processes. And adding instead a plan and adding the words to discuss how to and then would pick back up at. Clearly assess and value the extent to which an applicant's leadership and board composition reflect the populations they intend to serve.
254 A direct response. Councilor I had suggested direct the allocation committee to include a summary of how it addressed, or has already addressed how it. Oh, okay. So how it addressed. All right.
255 Sorry I.
256 Other way. Yeah.
257 However you.
258 Want to how it. Yeah okay. Sorry. It's fine.
259 Past and future.
260 Right.
261 Okay. The language we have is okay. Councilor. Yes. Are you accepting this friendly amendment?
262 I would like to I'm inclined to. I would actually first, though, like to ask director pellegrino to look at it and give us her thoughts on it, whether.
263 It's colleagues, why don't we? We're not going to recess. But why don't we sit at ease for just a moment so that the director can grab that language from keelan and linly and take a look at it?
264 I apologize, but we need some clarity. We're struggling to follow. So we're taking.
265 You're taking kclb. If taking tcl, be on the therefores and adding it as a new subsection e to the therefores of the Novick ordinance, as.
266 The as the words were changed.
267 As written with the changes that councilor Koyama Lane read and the rest of the Novick ordinance would remain the same. So functionally, colleagues, I believe what we're doing and I would look to councilors, Koyama Lane and Novick to correct this is repealing the extension, that gap year funding, repealing the remand, approving the recommendations and directing the staff of the children's levy to look at their processes and bring recommendations to council on whether changes need to be made and, if so, what those changes would be in the future. Is that accurate? Councilor Koyama Lane. Is that accurate?
268 I believe.
269 So, okay, lisa, there was a question about whether this works. Can you address that question before we move forward, please?
270 I can do my best. I little you know, given what happened last time, making hasty decisions, it's hard to read and listen at the same time. I just want to make sure I understand what's happening. So you said, did you say that this would repeal the extension? Correct. I just want to make sure I'm.
271 Functionally this would do four things. It would repeal the extension, that gap funding. It would repeal the remand. It would put in place the original allocations that were recommended by your committee, and it would direct you to bring us a report about how the process has already been improved or could be improved for the future.
272 Yes, I think we can do that. I just want to make sure I understood.
273 Thank you. Councilor Novick. I do you accept this has been offered as a friendly amendment? We're waiting to hear back from you on that.
274 Yes.
275 Okay. And your seconder I believe, was councilor Kanal. Councilor Kanal. Do you accept this as a friendly amendment?
276 Yes. And thank you.
277 Okay.
278 Colleagues, we have a now amended version of councilor Novick ordinance. I don't believe we need to take testimony again, but I'm looking to linly to confirm that. I believe this is consistent with.
279 The testimony that we heard.
280 It is. Okay.
281 Thank you. And I believe councilor Zimmerman councilor Koyama Lane that those are hands from previous comments. Is that correct?
282 That's correct.
283 Okay. Councilor Ryan, are you in the queue to speak to the now amended ordinance?
284 Sure.
285 I had it.
286 Moved to the end of the queue somehow. You were at the start on my queue. I'm not sure what just happened.
287 But I'm cool with.
288 The go ahead. I've called on you.
289 I appreciate that we had this dialog. Thank you, vice president. Thank you, councilor Novick for agreeing to the friendly amendment. I think I will look at my original comments. I just want to lift, first of all, the fellow members of the allocation committee, I happen to be the allocation committee rep. So it's been quite a humbling process to bring this forward. And I really appreciated that. Felicia came forward. Folsom. Felicia trip folsom is the og on the allocation committee. Every word she said was true, and she wouldn't have taken time out of her busy day to come here as an equity champion for decades. Repeat that. An equity champion for decades, well known nationally in that regard. To come and speak the way she did. It was so refreshing. And also the testimony today was the testimony that we've been needing to hear. All of you, I've had the pleasure of listening to you, the allocation committee meetings, but my colleagues had not. And so today was probably the most thorough opportunity we've had to hear your voices. So thanks for showing up. And it is about the kids. So I'm in a lot of pain because of that. And I'm also grieving right now because a family member just passed this week. So I'm emotional and I'm wore out because I can't even believe we're here doing this again. But I'm grateful. I've also have a history of making mistakes and admitting to them I'm in recovery. That's what you do and I'm going to make more mistakes, people. But my job is to get it right, not to be right. It's the most overrated thing in the world, is to be right all the time. And it's also usually not a good day at the office for me. When someone I know calls me and says I need to change my thinking all of a sudden, when they don't have all the same information that I have. And one of the hardest things about being elected officials saying no to your friends. And I'll continue to do that. It's just what we do. But I respect my colleagues that also voted yet to remand this the first time. This is a hard job. We have so many things coming at us at once, and particularly during the budget season, it was a lot. And so I think that today I hope that in the spirit of my mother in law who came here from mexico to raise three children, we just do what's right for the kids, especially those kids that are new arrivals and refugee children. And I hope that today we just get this right. And I really want to respect the children's levy staff for your grace. You've done nothing wrong. You've just improved a program immensely over the last five years, and you did a lot of this work in the last awards, even before the blm movement started. So you've been on the right side of history and you're just going to keep improving. And so your willingness to take feedback and keep improving, that's how we should all do. All of our accountability system should have this process. So yeah, this has been messy. But I hope today we just get it right and we can all move forward. And so yes, I'm a big yes. Vote on this. Thank you. Councilor Novick. And thank you to the other councilors who have been willing to have humble conversations the last few days. I really appreciate it and sorry that I'm a mess a bit right now emotionally, but I and I didn't know we were going to do all this this morning, so it's rather humbling and I look forward to hopefully sending this forward before we end the fiscal year. So those amazing decisions that were made, very hard decisions with tough tradeoffs. And let's again, remember, if we had more revenue, this wouldn't be the challenge. We have to do all we can in the city to get the revenue back. Our property taxes are down. That's what's happening here. And so there's a 21% cut in one year's time. That's no one's fault. So I look forward to voting yes on this. And thank you all for your patience and your persistence and your passion.
290 Thank you, councilor.
291 Councilor Green.
292 Thank you, madam president, and thank you to everyone who showed up and gave council another chance to listen. I'm one of the pers. I'm one of the people that voted for the man the first time. And I got to tell you, not my favorite vote. I think I regret that vote, actually, and I think that it was motivated from a place of genuine concern. And I'm happy with the amendment, the friendly amendment, I think, to councilor Novak's ordinance here that I think will help assuage some of that. And I think we need to do better going forward, myself included. But I think, you know, the first time to not make a mistake is the first time the best time to not make a mistake is when you make the first choice. But the second time is, is when you get to choose again. And so I'm prepared today, colleagues, to vote for this Novick amendment on the 9/12 agenda. I do want to apologize for any harm this has caused in the community. I know that that's cold comfort, but it's not about my ego. It's not about me as a councilor. It's about the city and the children. And I think this amendment is the right thing to do for these, for this city and its children.
293 Thank you, councilor, councilor Clark.
294 Thank you, madam president, and thank you to councilor Ryan for your participation in the Portland children's levy. And thank you to councilor Novick for bringing forward this ordinance. I learned a lot in this process. What I really learned is that the Portland children's levy has an exceptional process and exceptional citizen involvement process. It is a model for the rest of the city, and unfortunately, everybody involved in the Portland children's levy, the grantees, the applicants, even us up here, I feel have been whipsawed through this event. And it hasn't it hasn't been fun. It's been hard and I've learned a lot. I was one of the people that voted against the remand, and I intend to vote for this measure today. And I just want to express my appreciation to all the people that spent all the time to come here and clarify about the process. 90 reviewers amazing. And that you took the input from the reviewers. Amazing. What a great process this is. This should be emulated across the city. So thank you so much.
295 Thank you councilor, councilor Morillo.
296 Thank you to everyone who came and testified today. We've been my office has been, you know, reading your emails. My chief of staff has been meeting with many of you and getting more information. And I do appreciate councilor Novick bringing this forward as well. I know how deeply you care about it and how many of us care about this issue. I, I will say we are in a difficult budget season and it is hard that there is actual scarcity now and the resources that we have in many ways. I, I also feel like I've been staying up at night thinking about the impacts of this, and I think that's deeply regrettable. But I think what I regret most is that communities who should be standing shoulder to shoulder are being pitted against one another in this process. And I really hope that we can examine this process in the future to avoid doing that going forward. I really do want to emphasize the feedback that we got from empress rules equity consulting from kyoshi owens, who worked with the children's levy since 2019 to talk about an equity process. And they have been speaking with my chief of staff about this issue extensively, and they did not feel like their recommendations were fully taken in by the children's levy, and that as the years have progressed, that there has been a rollback on those recommendations. The 90 member committee that gathered all of the applications has been incredible. It sounds like it was very diverse, and that's part of the best part of this process. And in the final five, there was only one person of color on it, to my understanding, and they received a 30 minute equity training before reviewing applications. So I think that there are spaces where we can strengthen this process and make sure that all things are taken into account, and what our office has also heard is that there are new organizations that are doing really wonderful things, and there are legacy organizations that have built trust in the community for a very long time, and that we need to find ways to not pit them against one another. So I, I will be voting yes on councilor Novick ordinance, and I want to ensure that in the future, we are actually addressing the structural issues here because there are structural issues. And that was originally what this remand was about. And if we fail to address those structural issues, then we're not actually doing right by the community in the long run. So I'm going to put a pin in that and say that that's something that my office is going to continue to look into, and I'm grateful that we were able to have this very difficult discussion today. And I am very sorry for any, any harm that this caused.
297 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith.
298 Thank you, madam president. I just want to thank everybody for coming and testifying and taking out of your day. To do something that should have been settled on June 4th, but it wasn't. I agree with councilor Morillo when she talked about some of the structural issues. I heard some some of the same issues that she did. And I just go back to what the Portland children's levy director said on the record. The last time that we were here is that pcl de-emphasized black led orgs, and they're not being a prioritization of black led organizations. That being said, that is structural. That is something that the pcl director said. And so I think that we would have found out some of those things. And as we go forward with this new amendment that my colleague put forward, we can identify some of those things and make sure that language means a lot and it's important and it's critical. And when we say things, we have to be responsible. We as a group understood that there were some unintended consequences. So I appreciate you all coming back again. I appreciate what you've said to us and thank you for coming this afternoon.
299 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark, are you back in the queue? Okay, colleagues, seeing no other discussion, we are moving to a vote. This is a vote on the amended version of the ordinance which councilor Novick brought forward. Because this is being brought as an emergency ordinance. It requires nine votes to pass. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
300 Canal.
301 Thank you. I got it wrong on the first vote. I'm going to vote, I hear I want to thank councilor Ryan and councilor Smith for raising some really vital issues in this conversation. Councilor Smith raised concerns that I think formed part of our problem statement. And even if we had some other individual concerns, there were some parts that were shared, some specific concerns around hunger relief, the, in my view, somewhat absurd idea that pcl staff could not require all applicants to disclose board and top level leadership's demographic makeup as part of the application process, which I think the friendly amendment now covers. I also saw some documents that contradicted each other from staff, but any legitimate problem statement? Sorry, a legitimate problem statement does not constitute a blanket justification for any potential action to respond to it. So the action I voted for to remand the decision on all six categories was much broader in both scope and impact than what I was trying to achieve. It was taking a steamroller to something that at most deserved a scalpel. And I think there are some places that a scalpel would be helpful. I agree with councilman Rios point about empress rules recommendations, and here's where I'll thank councilor Ryan for thoughtfully raising some of these issues with me in a way that broaden my understanding. So I didn't know all this in the moment of the vote, with the benefit of the time to reflect and think about it. I did know it. Pretty soon afterwards. I took a few meetings on this in the last couple of weeks, and was grateful to hear that at least five of my colleagues were interested in a solution of this for the last week or so. I appreciate everyone's input and your patience with us to work through it individually and not together, to come up with a better path. I recognize that even this vote will not be a better path for everyone, but I think I've had the chance to weigh the pros and cons, and that this is about picking the best of our options today and the best outcome I vote aye.
302 Ryan.
303 First of all, thank you, councilor Canal. That was kind. And humility and vulnerability are leadership traits that we should always lift in society. I vote I Koyama Lane.
304 I'm going to vote I, I appreciate councilor Novick thank you for accepting the friendly amendment. It's going to make it possible so we can make sure that you can eat this summer in our community. And also we'll be able to address and hear about some of the structural, structural issues. I want to echo that this process has been a lot. It's been difficult. I have had a lot of conversations, and what I've noticed is I've listened to many different individuals, heard a lot of different perspectives, and it's clear that there are a lot of different. Everyone has their own experience and their own understanding, and it has been challenging. I have heard things like you said, councilor Kanal, where I'm hearing conflicting reports and I know that we need to address some things and I am happy to support this amendment and vote, I thank you, Morillo.
305 Yeah, I'm grateful for everyone who came and testified and who met with our office. I'm grateful for councilor Novick and for accepting a friendly amendment from councilor Koyama Lane. I think that the amendment makes me feel comfortable moving forward with this, because I know that it means that we are going to address the structural issues within the children's levy in the future. And that is not to say that is not a critique on individual reviewers. When we talk about structural issues, we are talking about structural issues that need to be changed. It's not a knock on any individual person. And so with that, I feel comfortable making some of these changes and appreciate everyone's grace in this process. I vote, I.
306 Novick I have to say, I'm surprised and delighted by how it appears this vote is going to turn out. I'm really grateful to everybody who testified, and I'm so impressed that you came down here not knowing if you get a chance to testify and taking advantage of that chance. I also want to say that, as councilor Morillo referenced, I was something of a reputation for making mistakes and apologizing repeatedly until I'm blue in the face, sometimes over a period of years. And I don't think that. I don't think that doing that is essential to being a good public official, but being willing to change your mind and make mistakes is so. I really appreciate serving in a body where there are people willing to do that, I.
307 Clark.
308 I Green.
309 I just want to offer this, you know, I think at times from the outside looking in, this is a messy body and it looks like we're sort of a little chaotic. But I want to remind folks that there's 12 of us who are deeply connected to community. And I changed my mind because I got a lot of outreach from community. And that appeal appealed to my values. I think one of the things that I that hit me the most was like the suggestion that I'm being ideologically rigid at the expense of children. And I heard that and I'm changing my mind now. And so also, I don't want to forget to mention that councilor Zimmerman did us all a favor on June 4th by salvaging what was a gap in the thing that we did. So I, I don't want this action to look like we're undoing a poor action on his part, because I think that that was a great show of leadership. I.
310 Zimmerman.
311 Thank you for that, councilor, I vote aye.
312 Avalos.
313 Thank you colleagues. This has been a whirlwind. I think that ultimately we I believe that I made the best decision I could with the information that was available to me at that time. At that last meeting, it's clear that there has been a lot of new information, and no matter what we choose some someone will lose something. Someone will be unhappy. It's our responsibility, of course, to make the most just decision. But I also just want to say that because I don't, I don't. I guess I don't appreciate the framing of this thing is anti-children and this thing is pro children. I think everyone was voting with the pro children mindset, right? I voted in that last amendment thinking that there were some gaps and that bipoc children were going to be affected if I did not remand it. And so but like everybody has been saying, obviously there's new information and I'm really grateful to community that has come out and given us more context. But lastly, I'll just say for me, the most frustrating thing for me about this entire thing has been the scarcity of time. Not enough time to review and deeply understand the implications. Not enough time for us as councilors to be responsive to the valid community concerns. It is my job to listen to the community, and I didn't have enough time to weigh all of those things. I was rushed to a decision, not enough time to craft a solution that made the least harm. This is not a rubber stamp council, and I'm going to be very vocal about that moving forward, that we need to adjust our systems accordingly. All of that being said, grateful for the discussion and I am going to vote.
314 I Dunphy.
315 Yeah, as my colleague said, I wish I knew then what I know now. I'm thankful to everybody who has had this conversation today and all the groups that came forward to tell us that we got it wrong. I got it wrong. I apologize for that. And I'm voting I.
316 Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance passes with 12 yes votes.
317 Thank you. I want.
318 To pause for a moment and thank our staff, who just had multiple complicated new ordinances and amendments thrown at them that were not digital. They were all thrown on paper. So thank you to keelan and linly and your teams, behind the scenes colleagues, those that ordinance and those one of those amendments were actually able to be posted online so that folks following along could follow along as well as possible given the last minute changes. And I really appreciate that behind the scenes work that we often don't see and that doesn't get called out in this room. Colleagues, we are over time, but we do have agreement because there was a lot of work happening behind the scenes there to run our meeting a little bit late tonight, I believe, until 530. So I know some folks have conflicts, but if you are able to clear your schedule to stay, we will get through as much of what is on the agenda as possible. We'll continue through the order on the agenda and two folks who are in the room and online for our upcoming agenda items, who thought we were going to get to you earlier in the afternoon. Thank you for your patience. We had a little bit of housekeeping work there that took us a little while, so let's move on to agenda item two. Keelan, could you please read us agenda item two? I promise we'll let you get through the whole title this time.
319 Thank you. Amend code to consolidate noise enforcement and improve fairness and consistency in noise regulation.
320 Okay. And I think we still have councilor Dunphy with us, and we have christopher back up here. Fantastic. So, colleagues, this is a first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. So we will not be voting today, but we will have our discussion. And we have a committee staff summary from christopher haire.
321 Yes. Thank you, madam president. Councilors. For the record, my name is christopher haire, council policy analyst, and I serve as staff to the community and public safety committee. The ordinance before you documents 2020 5-148 was considered in the community and public safety committee on April 8th, where it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass. The ordinance. Repeals city code sections 14.3, 3.0 ten, unlawful noise disturbance and 14.3 3.0 20 unlawful operation of sound producing equipment. It also amends the definition of nuisance activity in section 14.100 and 20.0 20. Definitions. By removing subsection f one, which references the operation of sound producing equipment as prohibited under section 14, a point 30.0 20. These changes collectively eliminate all noise related provisions from title 14 public order and police of city code. The ordinance additionally directs the city administrator to provide a report to city council on the noise programs. Collaboration with portland's music industry. The report will address the development of compliance resources and templates for title 18 noise control, and include progress on a self-reporting system intended to support title 18 enforcement efforts. One person testified in committee and eight people submitted written testimony prior to committee action. The general themes of testimony included a consolidation of noise control enforcement responsibilities under title 18 to improve clarity and effectiveness, consistency and objectivity, and enforcement to support the sustainability of local venues, artists and cultural events. Role of expert input and evaluating the relationship between title 14 and title 18. Strategies for enforcement during hours when the noise program is not in operation. Future city council consideration of the noise program, staffing capacity and resourcing needs. Development of a streamlined and objective framework for noise control, enforcement and coordination between the Portland police bureau and noise program staff in the enforcement of noise regulations. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
322 Thank you very much, christopher. And this came out of the public safety committee, and I believe, councilor Kanal, that you were presiding at the time. Do you have anything to add?
323 Yeah, a little bit might be a little redundant. It was heard in committee April 8th. It was referred unanimously to the full council. It's the first item that ever came out of the community and public safety committee to the full council. And the first of two will be hearing today. It was referred with the due pass recommendation, and I think everything else that I would be saying is what christopher already said. So I'll stop here.
324 Thank you very much. And, councilor Dunphy, you brought this forward. Do you have anything you'd like to share with us about why you're bringing this ordinance to us?
325 Yeah, you know, I'll try to be as brief as possible. And also with me, with us at the dais is my policy advisor, evan hoffer. If he can fill in any gaps, because I am reporting from a hotel room in milwaukee, wisconsin. Colleagues, this is something I have been working with the music industry on for over five years. This is a common sense, an adjustment to how we regulate the noise industry ever so briefly, as we have heard for years, the city has relied more and more on police for enforcement of any sort of code. And as we have cut the number of staff in the noise office, police have referred more and more to title 1430, the nuisance code, and it has led to some unfair circumstances in our community. And this is about consistency. This is about making sure that the right folks are responding in the right ways. And I to support this the next time it comes. On a second reading. Evan, did I miss anything that I was supposed to say?
326 Do you have anything you'd.
327 Like to fill in for the councilor?
328 Oh. Absolutely. For the record, my name is evan hoffer. I'm music and arts policy advisor to councilor Jamie Dunphy. The code change before you would read, we have two sections in the in our public code that deal with noise enforcement. Title 18 and 14, a 30 00020. This would be repealing the sections within 1430 01020. And having all noise enforcement happen under title 18. Let's see here. Title 18 is civil code rooted in a public health approach to noise. It's periodically reviewed by a citizen committee. It lays out decibel limits, provides for exceptions, variances, and permits, and provides that while enforcement may utilize an ear test to see if something is too loud, if a technical measurement is taken, that measurement supersedes 14. A 30 is I'll call it provides only the ear test, has no nexus to title 18 or its technical adjustments. The codes are separate. They're enforced by separate bureaus. There is not clear information sharing between the two, allowing us to do clear, disparate impact analyzes. And there's a history of jurisdiction shopping where complainant citizens sort of seek the preferred outcome depending on which system they would rather use. And I can get into more of that if you would like. Our expectation is that repealing 14, 830 should not have a significant impact, if at all, on current noise enforcement activities as far as what the community is seeing, because police are empowered to enforce title 18, we would love to see more unarmed responders doing this kind of work, but that's not what we're talking about today. We are talking about simply removing the duplicity of these things. We'd be moving from a criminal code to a civil code for oversight on these matters, so fines as necessary would come out of the administrative side, out of the noise office. And if an officer did need to pursue criminal charges against somebody for noise related reasons, they would need to use a different tool for that. And our representatives from pb, I'm sure, can speak more to that issue if they would like. I agree this is a common sense issue. A clearer, more direct system will increase community belief in our noise controls, ability to do a good job. And you know, we started this five years ago trying to figure out what was causing black owned music businesses to close. And we found evidence that this was part of why. And so we'd be thrilled to see it removed from code.
329 Thank you very much for the added detail and councilor. Thank you for bringing in a staff member to support. Since you're not able to be with us today here. Colleagues, are there any technical questions about the committee work or what is in the ordinance before we move to public testimony and then to our broader discussion? Councilor Smith, technical questions.
330 Thank you, madam president. So will we have an opportunity to speak afterwards after the public testimony?
331 Yes. We generally have full discussion after public testimony. We just did things a little differently previously because things were brought last minute there.
332 Okay.
333 Thanks.
334 Okay. Any other technical questions before we move into public testimony, colleagues? Okay. Seeing none. Thank you all for the information. And keelan, could you please call up our first panel of testifiers?
335 Yes. Thank you. First up, we have kevin torres. Renee, muskies, mary sipe, derek trost.
336 Thank you very much. Go right ahead.
337 I'll jump in. Good afternoon. My name is mary sipe, and I'm the chair of the cities of portland's noise review board. The noise review board is a quasi judicial, volunteer citizen advisory body that is established under the city's noise code, title 18. The noise review board advises the noise control program by evaluating the effectiveness of title 18, and by developing recommendations for amendments, additions, or deletions to the city's noise code. The noise review board has voted unanimously to support this proposal to repeal these two provisions in title 14, which address unlawful noise and unlawful use of sound producing equipment, and to consolidate all noise code enforcement under our noise code title 18, the noise review board agrees that title 18 is the appropriate legal framework for all noise code enforcement in Portland. Title 18 provides clear and objective guidelines for noise enforcement using zoning and decibel levels. The noise review board agrees that repealing these two sections of title 14 will provide greater accountability, remove the potential for biased enforcement, improve fairness and consistency in noise regulation, and provide music venues, especially with consistent enforcement standards. We strongly encourage the city council to pass this amendment. The. This proposal has been discussed at the noise review board for the last five years. So this isn't just some brand new spur of the moment. We've been very much involved in this, so I'm happy to answer any questions about the noise review board title 18 or the noise control program.
338 Thank you very much. We appreciate hearing from you today.
339 Go ahead.
340 Hi, my name is renee muskies and I'm a member of portland's music policy council, as well as a lifelong working musician at sings and plays guitar in two bands. In order to work on my craft and build my business, I have to rehearse, record and teach guitar out of my home. I can't afford to rent a practice space, and because most apartments do not have adequate soundproofing to accommodate rehearsals, I've always had no choice but to rent a house. I play at reasonable levels and stop by 9 p.m. Every night out of regard for my neighbors. Even so, right now my neighbors can easily call the cops and silence my rehearsals without a decibel reading simply because it bothers them. If this ever happens, there's a good chance that that same neighbor will complain again, and I would have to seriously consider moving. This would be a huge inconvenience and financial strain for me, and not something I can do. Every time a neighbor complains. This makes where I live a gamble each time. This is something I've always worried about and shouldn't have to fear. Running my business when construction or yard work are also businesses with more protection from the noise code. The type of noise happening should not matter. Personally, I'd rather hear music than lawnmowers or jackhammers, but my understanding is that people aren't calling the cops on those things as much. It's necessary work and so is music. Music is a business for tens of thousands of portlanders, including myself. And if the city sees value in the huge contribution that live music makes to our economy, then music should be protected by the noise code. We should be afforded the same protections as construction or yard work. At the very least, we are all businesses and we should be treated equally. Repealing those sections of 1430 is a win for everyone, honestly, and it's the right choice for Portland and for equity. Thank you.
341 Thank you both very much. And I think we had somebody online.
342 Go ahead derek.
343 Good afternoon. Thank you for this opportunity. My name is derek trost. My introduction to law enforcement as a young adult was at age 19. A neighbor had complained about my band rehearsing at the house I rented, and police arrived to inform us of the complaint and that if they returned, they would confiscate our equipment. Fast forward 40 years with a professional degree in architecture and a specialty in acoustics. I designed recording studios, live music venues, practice and rehearsal spaces, and I serve on the noise review board. I still play in bands, and I'm still often rehearsing at home, and I've spent countless hours volunteering my time to help members of my community navigate the process of dealing with complaints connected to making music. We still have language in title 14, a 30 stating that sound, which is, quote, plainly audible, unquote, is not allowed. Sound is measured in decibels by definition, zero decibels of sound pressure means that a typical person can't hear that sound. One decibel, then, is audible. 15db is a whisper 70. A typical group conversation, all sound above a whisper is certainly plainly audible. There's good reason, then, to consider the language in title 14 a 30 unreasonable, if not absurd. There's good reason that the supreme courts of the states of florida and texas have both deemed similar sound enforcement language to be unconstitutional. Meanwhile, we have a noise code, a noise office, a noise officer, and a noise review board. Let's finally eliminate this redundant and unreasonable code language and lean into supporting and expanding the unique resource that is our Portland noise control program. Thank you.
344 Thank you very much.
345 Kevin torres. Okay, we'll move on to paul cohn. David og one jackson. Brandy. Hail mary mclaughlin.
346 Thank you for being here.
347 Hi. Good morning or good afternoon. Councilor. My name is paul cohen and I'm the president of the city of Portland chapter of protect 17. We represent approximately 1000 city employees across most city bureaus. Our members include the city's engineers, engineering technicians, it professionals, planners, permit technicians, botanical staff, public information officers. Portland street response mental health workers and the city's noise control officer. So I'm speaking today in support of councilor Dunphy's proposal. Portland has a past history of being a leader in environmental health and environmental law enforcement and urban related urban planning related matters. The federal government funded our first research to develop our noise code about 49 years ago. This happened with money from the EPA, the environment, the federal housing and urban development agency. In 1976, the city of Portland operated our first noise control office with under doctor paul herman, and he had two noise deputies to support the noise office's environmental health efforts for our community. At that time, doctor herman and the two deputies responded to far fewer noise complaint cases than the current noise office. Doctor herman rendered less than 50 quasi judicial case decisions annually. Today, the noise office renders decisions on between 550 and 600 noise variances annually. The number of complaint cases cases that the office triages to find resolutions to community, environmental environmental health concerns is ten times greater than were handled annually, with three dedicated field staff almost 50 years ago. As you make current proposed changes to how noise pollution and as a human health issue is dealt with in the city of Portland, I want to want to take the time to remind you that we were once a national leader in this important body of work. Please consider ways to return the office to an appropriate level of staffing to respond in a timely and equitable manner to all portlanders, and to stop requiring such a high level of triaging by the current reduced staffing levels. It will be difficult to accomplish commissioner Dunphy's goals with no excuse me, councilor Dunphy's goals with no field staff to support this. In closing, I just want to thank you for your support for this vital program.
348 Thank you.
349 I guess I can go.
350 My name is mary mclaughlin. I'm founder of music Portland and music Oregon. Thanks for the opportunity to speak and frankly, for your heroic work on the whole budget cycle. And what I just witnessed, it was incredibly moving. For decades, Portland was consistently ranked among the top ten music cities in the country. We haven't fallen off those lists because we haven't lost talent or passion. We haven't. We slipped because we lacked the strategic integrated support that other far smaller cities have built into policies and civic priorities. Cities like minneapolis, pittsburgh, charlottesville, none with our cultural scope or history have invested in their music scenes. They've simplified permitting, supported public and all ages event and worked with small businesses and partners to grow music citywide. Meanwhile, portland's music scene, one of our greatest cultural and economic assets, is treated like a nuisance. Venues and artists face punitive enforcement, overlapping policies and a fragmented permitting system that stifles opportunity and innovation. And yet, despite all that, portland's appetite for music still supports nearly 300 music venues. That's twice as many as nashville and 30% more than austin. Over 90% of them are locally owned and independent, and together they bring more people through their doors each year than all of our professional sports teams and all of our traditional arts institutions combined. But Portland is leaving money and cultural capital on the table. Music, Portland, or music tourism is one of the fastest growing travel trends. Cities that support music attract the young, creative, highly employable people we need to fuel our economy and revitalize our downtown. Portland has the talent. We have the venues. We have the legacy. What we need now is leadership. Leadership that sees music not as a problem to contain, but as an asset to grow. Please vote to repeal these parts of title 14. It's an outdated and damaging code, and repealing it is the first step towards building a smart, collaborative music strategy that truly serves Portland. Thank you.
351 Thank you very much.
352 Go ahead.
353 Your next great.
354 Hello, council. For the record, my name is brenda hale. I'm a Portland musician and a cross country coach for grant high school. Go generals. I'm a member of the music policy council and a representative from the music community for compliance pathways. In the noise office's title 18 noise advisory workgroup. When we reduce all sound enforcement to a plainly audible standard, bias flourishes bias that is disproportionately shut down black owned music establishments while their white counterparts survive and thrive. Biases that affect musicians operating out of residential areas, as opposed to venues in commercial and mixed use zones. Music is not just performance, it is 90% practice, which largely happens in residential zoned areas where you may be at the mercy of a noise concerned neighbor. When a neighbor can openly submit a complaint, regardless of measurements taken, and law enforcement has the power to show up on a scene to make citations without measurements taken, we have effectively extended the hand of the law to a neighbor who may be operating on their own biases. Biases that scream that's noise, not art, that's noise, not culture. Complaints like these are based off of subjective experience. Has been the foot in the door for venue closures, events canceled and evictions. Portland is a growing and a bustling city, and cities have their own natural sound and rhythm. Portland's natural sound and rhythm thrives largely in part from its arts and music scene that is legendary across the united states from the 1940s jazz boom in northeast albina, which came to be known as jump town, to the alternative darlings of rock, punk and hip hop. Today, our Portland seal is one driven by creativity and inclusivity within the scene. We're one of the few cities that has a dedicated noise office, and yet we're still relying on outdated nuisance codes to enforce to inform how we enforce sound in our city. It's 2025, and you don't need to be an audio engineer to take an accurate sound pressure reading. It is my hope that with the repeal of these sections of 14, that we may make strides towards more objective, data informed methods of enforcement. Thank you.
355 Thank you very much.
356 I'm speaking the testimony for david o'guin jackson, who had to go and dj the blazers, so he can't be here. So not my name, but his name is david ogg1 jackson, who has been a music business owner in Portland for over 25 years. As well as being a celebrity dj, recording academy board music advocate representing our pacific northwest region, and he has had the honor of serving on the music policy council to oppose noise codes that are outdated and subjective. These codes, whether intentionally or not, have historically left room for enforcement agencies to disproportionately target black and brown owned venues, promoters and talent, making it nearly impossible for them for them to build and sustain successful businesses. David has witnessed firsthand how subjective city codes have been weaponized over the years to systematically shut down our spaces and silence our contributions to the city's cultural and economic landscape. Don't just take my word for it. Look at the data. How many black or brown owned clubs and venues are operating in Portland today, like soleil's or alberta street pub? I urge you to make decisions that allow all of us, especially those who have been pushed to the margins to matter in this ecosystem, support the repeal. Let's create a fair, inclusive and thriving music community for everyone.
357 Thank you all very much for being here.
358 Next up we have. Miss montez, montez and jim brunberg. Go ahead.
359 Should I just begin to save time? Okay. Thank you. Council president and council, thanks for your leadership today. That was, as mara said, moving to witness. It's an honor to be able to testify on this fiscal neutral, pro-business and pro-community issue. My name is jim brunberg, and I founded the independent venue coalition in Oregon, nonprofit that helps sustain and improve the role of dedicated performance spaces that bolster oregon's economy, culture and community. I'm also the vice president of the national independent venue association board, and I co-own some venues in town hall in mississippi studios, and I'm a lifetime musician, and it's an honor to talk about something where we're making some forward progress in a really important area art. Music especially saves lives. Art is mental health. Art is societal health. Performing arts venues can save cities, but it can be messy and sometimes a little noisy. Rules regarding noise cannot be arbitrary or rely on the discretion or worse, cause contradiction and confusion with individuals tasked with enforcing the rules. The proposed repeal and improvements goes a long way to increasing access, fairness and allowing culture to thrive in a reasonable way while still preserving the livability of our neighborhoods. Portland is a great music and performance city. Our garages, rehearsal spaces, house parties, street fairs, and other community events act as crucibles and universities for great artists and their creative and production teams that go on to spread a little of portland's excellence and weirdness around the world. Artists like esperanza spalding, who's won five grammys, the decemberists, thomas lauderdale, portugal, the man, the shins, life savers, countless other bands that I'm not nearly hip enough to name. This goes all the way back to the beginning of rock and roll. Louie, louie and the kingsmen are from Portland, so let's support this repeal. Let's work together and recognize that music and performing arts are one of the pillars of what makes Portland a great place to live. We look forward to working directly with the new city council and arts and cultural offices in order to strengthen our industry and culture, which is one of the strongest attributes of portland's thriving culture and economy. Thank you.
360 Thank you very much.
361 And that completes testimony.
362 Thank you to everybody who was here to testify or got their testimony to us in another way. Colleagues, I am opening up the floor now for discussion on the measure. I'll note that this is a first reading on an ordinance. So while we won't vote today, this is the opportunity for discussion and any amendments that might be needed. Councilor Smith. Got it. Councilor clerk or councilor Morillo. Apologies.
363 I just wanted to say how excited I am for councilor Dunphy to bring this forward and that I will be supporting it wholeheartedly and very happily. It's nice to have an easy decision to make today. We haven't had a lot of those in the past few months, so I. I actually new councilor Dunphy when he was working on this, back when he was working in city hall as a staffer, and it took so much community engagement feedback and the fact that this is going to be a science based policy that's going to make it so that we can do enforcement in a way that is more removed of bias and actually helpful to our community, I just think is really wonderful, and I'm very grateful that he put this together and has worked for so many years with community to make this happen. So just had to give him his flowers. And I'm very excited for us to move on to the stage where we get to vote yes on it.
364 Thank you, councilor, councilor Clark.
365 Thank you, madam president. I just want to say that the first time I met councilor Dunphy, this is what we talked about. So I know he's he's dedicated, but I'm really I'm really disappointed that councilor Dunphy did. He forgot to provide some musical accompaniment to the hearing today. And I really hope that he'll overcome this when we bring this back next time. Thank you.
366 Councilor Dunphy. I'd suggest that you talk to your colleague, councilor Clark, about her musical performance ability. Councilor Green.
367 I got in the queue because I thought that councilor Clark was going to sing, so I can comment on that. No, I'm just kidding. Councilor Dunphy, I really appreciate your leadership on this. When I first met you, I too knew that if you got elected, this is one of the things that you were going to fight hard for. I just want to note as as one of the co-chairs of the arts and economy committee, I think this ordinance, this code change can really provide some enabling support for that kind of arts based economic recovery. And I just really look forward to that. I look forward to voting yes next time we take it up.
368 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Novick.
369 In the classic children's book the phantom tollbooth by norton juster, the hero milo, and the chapter called the valley of sound takes decisive action against arbitrary restrictions on sound. I'm glad we have our own hero of sound, Jamie Dunphy, on this council.
370 Why did I get in the queue after you councilor Novick. I'd like to echo everything my colleagues have said. Thank you to the councilor Dunphy. I also just wanted to note that I appreciate our staff in this space represented by pro tech 17, coming forward and raising their concerns, I hear you. I don't think that there is an immediate fix for the concerns that you raised, but I've noted it and it'll stick in the back of my mind as we move forward here. And I will make sure that either I ask or if one of our committees, maybe arts and economy, wants to take this on, that. My colleagues ask for updates on how this change affects the any increases in the complaints that you have in your work, so that we can address the need for more staff in the next budget if we do see a huge increase there. So we hear that you're under pressure already and that it could get worse. Thank you for bringing that concern forward, councilor Ryan.
371 Thank you, council president. I just wanted to take time to thank everybody for being here and also an apology I had from, let's see, 2020 for two years and yeah, I'm sorry. Where's mary? Sorry, mary. We probably should have brought that up when I had it. So. But I'm glad that this stays here. And I would like to actually propose. We don't do this often, but you're all here. And this is a council that seems totally in agreement with something like 12 zero. And thank you, councilor Dunphy, for your leadership. Would you be okay if we just did an emergency ordinance to vote on this today?
372 Oh my god, let's get it done. Brilliant.
373 I would certainly be eager to get this passed into law as quickly as possible. However, I also understand that many of my colleagues have very principled views about the use of emergency clauses, and there's not a true emergency, so I would defer to the body.
374 It's a it's a friendly emergency clause because.
375 You know, in the spirit of.
376 The of the warmth in this room, I talked to my colleague next to me who's very principled on this issue, and I think they're ready to loosen up today on this. Are you can you.
377 Do it?
378 Councilor Kanal councilor Dunphy, I think this may be the proposal of a friendly amendment.
379 So I would.
380 I don't know yet if councilor Kanal in support or not.
381 I'd move that.
382 We vote on this today as an emergency clause. Linly.
383 I would accept a friendly amendment.
384 So do that, right?
385 Yes, it would be great. Councilor Dunphy, if you could identify the nature of the emergency that would result require this to be in full force and effect. And it could be something like.
386 It's like the 4th of July holidays.
387 Here, and you need to be able to, like in a summer solstice season. And people need to be.
388 Out in in order to have this go into effect before summer events. Is that what you're suggesting, councilor Ryan? As the emergency?
389 Is not.
390 Do we need to vote on this amendment, or can we accept it as a friendly amendment?
391 I would I would recommend that adding an emergency clause.
392 Be voted on.
393 Be voted on, please. Okay.
394 So an amendment has been proposed. Councilor Kanal. Is there a second?
395 Like that?
396 Okay. I'll take you off the spot. Is there a second for that.
397 Second?
398 I said it the loudest. Let's get this done.
399 I think we're going to give that to the noisiest councilor Morillo. Colleagues, is there any discussion on the amendment to add an emergency clause in order to have this go into effect before the summer season? Okay. I'm taking I'm sorry. I'm a legacy. Hand in the queue, councilor Ryan, are you a legacy hand? Okay. Seeing no one in the queue. Keelan, could you please call the roll on the amendment?
400 No.
401 I have been in a band that played at a July 4th event where there were threats to call the cops. It didn't happen, but tha. That is why your argument did persuade me on the July 4th thing. So I'll vote I.
402 Ryan. I Koyama Lane.
403 I.
404 Maria. I Novick. I Clark.
405 I.
406 Green.
407 Zimmerman I. Avalos I Dunphy.
408 I was that an I councilor Dunphy.
409 Yes that's an I okay.
410 Yes.
411 Thank you Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I the ordinance is amended to add an emergency clause with five yes votes.
412 Colleagues, we now have an amended version of the ordinance before us. Is there any discussion on the amended version of the ordinance? Councilor Zimmerman thanks.
413 I just wanted to highlight the work. We continue to give tasks to our code compliance teams. And for me, having been a person who worked for a while at city hall before this current government, I just think it's important to lift up that type of work because this government spent a lot of years basically telling employees who were hired to help us keep our, our, our public structures, our private structures, to keep it at a safe environment. We're told you couldn't do it right. There are a whole lot of laws that don't have to be written on the books. This is one that does. So thank you, councilor Dunphy. But this group of employees has all the tools sitting on the shelf that have been in the previous form of government were basically told they will collect dust and you will not enforce on a whole host of types of things. And I just think this is a great opportunity, that it's one of those uncomfortable parts of a civil society, but it's a necessary part of a civil society is that some buildings are really unsafe, some trees are really unsafe. Some things that we put in the public right of way can be really unsafe. All those things come together. And I just those employees for any government, I don't think necessarily get the highlight that they need. Right. These this same team who takes on stacks of things to enforce to keep our community safe and livable. You know, they're the same ones who help us enforce against slumlords. Right. And so this is an important team who has for a decade plus been told, don't do the thing. And so I just appreciate that we're highlighting them. We're giving them more resources to do it. We need to keep doing it and make sure that as we do these types of things, we give them the resources every single time, and we don't tie their hands behind their backs. So thanks a lot for the team who will be working on this.
414 Colleagues seeing no other discussion. Keelan could you please call the roll on the amended ordinance, which is now an emergency ordinance and therefore requires nine votes to pass?
415 Colleagues? Canal.
416 Thank you, councilor Dunphy, for bringing this up and for creating clarity around where the roles of code enforcement and police on the title 18 code enforcement will happen. I think this is a simple code cleanup that will result in more objective, measurable standards for determining violations. I supported it in committee. I support it here too, for that reason, as well as for freeing up police resources for calls to service. But the equity enforcement and the story about solas has always been really compelling to me. I vote aye, Ryan.
417 I love it when we clean up codes. It's great to do housekeeping.
418 I vote yea Koyama Lane.
419 Councilor Dunphy I'm grateful for your leadership and hard work. You're wonderful. And I believe our council is better because you're on it, I vote I.
420 Morillo ditto. She said it all, I vote, I.
421 Novick this gives me the opportunity to make a second cultural reference, a certain tony award winning musical advises that when you bring the noise, you should also bring the funk. And I've been delinquent in bringing a funk ordinance to council. But I pledge that in the not too distant future, I will bring forward an ordinance designating give up the funk by parliament as the official funk song of the city of Portland. I enthusiastically vote aye.
422 Clark.
423 Why? Hard to follow I.
424 Green.
425 I.
426 Zimmerman.
427 I.
428 Avalos I'm.
429 Very proud of you, councilor Dunphy, thank you for bringing this forward.
430 I Dunphy.
431 Thank you, colleagues I vote aye.
432 Smith I.
433 Pirtle-guiney I.
434 The ordinance passes with 12 yes votes.
435 Colleagues, we're two for.
436 Two.
437 With 12 zero ordinances today. Good work. Keelan, could you please read agenda item number three for us?
438 Support and expand Portland street response as a co-equal branch of the first responder system and establish the Portland street response committee.
439 Welcome back. Mr. Hare. Could you please go over the committee staff summary for us?
440 Yes. Thank you, madam president. Once again, for the record, my name is christopher hare, council policy analyst, service staff to the community and public safety committee. The resolution before you document two 2020 5-175 was considered in the community and public safety committee. On April 22nd, it was referred to council with a recommendation to adopt. The resolution declares city council's position that Portland street response psr shall remain an unarmed crisis response program dispatched through the city's 911 system and operating independently from law enforcement. The resolution affirms that psr should not be required to participate in campsite removals or in other enforcement activities. It further states that psr must be adequately staffed with qualified personnel capable of delivering its core services, and that the program should maintain and expand access to life saving supplies such as naloxone, blankets, water bottles, food, and clothing. The resolution petitions the mayor to maintain and expand psr voluntary transportation service for individuals served by the program. It calls for the reestablishment of funding and materials for psr communication efforts, including culturally specific outreach materials. The resolution urges the mayor to direct the deputy city administrator for public safety to work with council on drafting amendments to city code that would designate psr as a co-equal branch within portland's emergency response system. It also requests that the mayor direct the bureau of human resources to explore the designation of psr staff as first responders with all the associated benefits. Additionally, the resolution calls on the mayor to launch a national search for permanent psr program manager, ensuring community representation in the selection process. It emphasizes the need to prioritize hiring, onboarding, and training for psr staff to enable 24/7 citywide operations. It further directs the review of the 2022 call allocation study and continuation of the public safety call restructuring project. The resolution affirms the importance of ongoing consultation with Portland state university evaluators, and calls for a report back to council on both the evaluation and restructuring efforts. By August 2025. Finally, the resolution pursuant to city charter section 2-103, establishes the Portland street response committee to provide recommendations on the future of the program. This committee is scheduled to sunset on December 31st, 2025, unless extended or formally established through subsequent ordinance amending city code. The resolution urges the mayor, through the office of civic and community life, to develop a selection process for committee membership. 26 people testified in committee, and 254 people submitted written testimony prior to agenda posting for full council. General themes of testimony included dispatching appropriate first responders to different 911 call types, potential cost benefits of alternative response programs, psr original proposed original purpose and scope of work. Impacts of arrests during a mental health crisis. Potential to increase first responder coordination and integration without increasing bureaucratic overhead. Request for more community involvement in decision making. Determining when an armed response or alternative response is necessary. Potential politicization. Politicization of psr, psr funding amidst current budget cuts psr merger with existing programs like project responds, psr is a 24 over seven service to effectively meet community needs, especially during night time and psr handling of repeat calls and situations where individuals refuse service. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
441 Thank you. I believe, councilor Novick, you were presiding over this committee meeting. Do you have anything you'd like to add to that summary?
442 No, I think that christopher said it all.
443 Okay. And I know we have a few co carriers on this, but councilor Kanal I believe you were the primary carrier. Is that the case?
444 We're all together on this but I'm happy to start us off okay.
445 Go right ahead.
446 Thank you madam president. Colleagues today, councilor Morillo, councilor Avalos and I are introducing a resolution to support and expand Portland street response as a co-equal branch of portland's first responder system. I'll give a brief overview of the document and then pass it to my two colleagues. And then there's a couple friendly amendments I'll introduce because they came subsequent some some were worked on subsequent to committee consideration. So psr is a relatively new part of our first response system, but it's taken several steps already from a community initiated pilot program to where it is today. We were one of the first large cities in America to advance community based mental health response. We used to be invited to speak at conferences. As time has gone on, though, we've stopped leading the way and now we're seeing other cities get invited to talk about their successes. Cities like seattle and albuquerque, both of which we heard from in committee. I think we all want Portland to lead again. This document will publicly express council support for Portland street response, but we'll have tangible and meaningful results that build on what's been done in the budget and the policy changes the last few months. Affirming psr is designed for mental, mental and behavioral health crisis that it can respond to 911 calls in line with de-escalation best practices. Clarify council's intent to be part of an integrated first responder system with fire, police, boec and pbem, and to remain outside of those reporting structures so they're not subsidiary much in the way that fire and police are co-equal with each other without either diminishing the other, adding an additional co-equal branch over time would not negatively affect either. It would state our intent to move the 24 over seven coverage over time, which is one of the stated prerequisites for medicaid reimburse ability and invite the creation of council direction and framework for eventually putting psr into code, which many parts of the city government ranging from fire and rescue to urban forestry to police to noise control, are, all are and encourages as well the mayor to reestablish an independent evaluation which we put into the budget and to hire permanent psr leadership. Finally, this resolution brings regular portlanders back into the process of shaping psr future. It doesn't change any of the existing work that's gone on there, but it recognizes that when the program was first launched, it was launched with community input and support to help shape it. But now there's no formal way to do so and so bringing people in rather than keeping them out is the goal here, and it's good for the program as well. There's been a lot of instability and change for the program to date, but writing all this down and committing us to psr future as a city and as a council has meaning because psr does good work and we want it to continue. We want psr to know this council believes in you, we support you, we want you to be successful, and we intend for you to be here to stay. And I'll also note that the councilors that worked on this consulted and got feedback from a lot of different groups on this, including psr leadership, the office of the deputy city administrator for public safety, pro tech 17 and PFA, which represent many of the psr employees, the Portland police association, the fire bureau, bureau of human resources and friends of Portland street response, and I'll pass it to councilors murillo and Avalos if they'd like to add anything. And then I'll say one last note.
447 Councilor Morillo. Anything to add?
448 I saw councilor Avalos get off the mic first, so I will defer to her.
449 First councilor Avalos.
450 Anything to.
451 Add, councilor?
452 Yeah. Thank you, thank you, thank you, councilor Canal, for providing that critical context for what we're intending to accomplish with this resolution today. The only thing I'll add here is that, you know, some may say that this resolution is unnecessary, but it is critical that this new council demonstrate its support for a program that has such broad community support and represents a best practice for providing portlanders with an emergency response system that serves them well. We also need to communicate clearly our vision to expand the public safety continuum and ensure that psr has a strong, defined place in that continuum, and we want to make sure we continue that conversation around chat and ps3's also, having a place in that continuum. By showing this commitment to psr program staff, they will be able to have the security and belief to be able to recruit the best employees possible. And then with that, I'll pass it over to councilor Morillo.
453 Councilor Morillo.
454 Thank you colleagues. I'm really grateful and excited to have gotten to work with councilor Kanal and Avalos on this, and all of the community partners who helped to make this happen. I'm also very grateful for my chief of staff, andre miller, who was there from psr's inception, and he has worked with community organizations on this for a very long time. I think the Portland street response I worked in city hall when it first got started. I was doing constituent services for commissioner Jo ann hardesty at the time, and we are seeing that this is something that is being taken away in other spaces. We saw that cahoots is being defunded and that it's a community resource that is desperately needed. I remember at the time, Portland street response was extremely innovative, and we were invited to national conferences all the time. We were leading the charge on the changes that are necessary for our city, and it's time for Portland to show that we are recommitting to Portland street response, that we are going to be led by community and for community every step of the way, and that we are going to properly support and fund them so that the employees are taken care of. The employees are getting everything that they need so that they can take care of our community's needs. So I am extremely excited to get this moving forward today. And thank you, councilor Kanal, for your technical overview. I don't think there's anything else to add there. And with that, I will turn it back to you. Council president.
455 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, are there any technical questions before we move to. Sorry, before we move to public testimony? Councilor Kanal.
456 I just wanted to formally move the friendly amendments. If that's appropriate at this time.
457 Why don't we have you move those and get seconds before public testimony so folks know what those look like, and then we'll discuss them after testimony. If that works for you, great.
458 That's perfect. Yeah.
459 So they are posted on the website for this item. The file is was updated. So there's going to be the second thing I mentioned. If you haven't reloaded it lately it will not be there. So you might want to reload it. It's the proposed amendment second exhibit. So it's a package of friendly amendments posted to the document. I'll briefly say what they do here. It adds a whereas clause to explicitly state that this resolution honors existing labor agreements, including our letters of agreement with the ppa and the PFA, and does not supersede them. It clarifies the whereas clause about the settlement agreement to clarify that the settlement agreement still binds the city without giving a false impression that we're not in compliance with any of it, we're in compliance with most of it. It clarifies the first, therefore, be it resolved so that the original meaning that council wants co-equality and integration for psr, not separation or isolation, is clear and avoids any possible interpretation that the resolution is designed to not have our first responders work together. I think.
460 You slow down. It'd be great to follow along, sure, and give you due diligence, but you just kind of rattle.
461 Sorry. Happy to happy to do it. So it's on page one is the letters of agreement related. Whereas on page. Way down we find it. I'm going to ask the clerk you updated the file, right? I'm not seeing one of them. It should be on page one. It's the more recent update, right.
462 I am checking to see if we have received most recent updates.
463 Well.
464 I'm showing two changes on page one. Are you looking for a third change on page one as well?
465 I'm only seeing the one that's interesting, but you see the settlement agreement, one.
466 I do with what I just refreshed I see. Whereas the city is still under the 2012 settlement agreement.
467 Okay. So that is the second one. I don't need to be able to see it. I know what it is, but as long as other people can see it, it clarifies that we're still under the settlement agreement, but not implying that we are not in compliance with any portion of it, which I think is a good faith reading of the original text. So it's just cleaning that up. If you scroll down to page. Five, the first, therefore be it resolved, that's the clarification that emphasizes equality and integration, not separation or isolation. I think there was a good faith reading of it that could interpret that as saying something other than its intent. So this is designed all pretty much all these amendments are designed to ensure that the intent is reflected and that there's no misinterpretation. So independent reporting structures not not in an org chart under fire or police, but still able to correspond and pass things back and forth. If a responder arrives at a call that is better for a different responder. So that's the end of page five. You're going to see a lot of little date updates. That's just to reflect that. This was written in March. It's being heard in June. So we're moving everything back 2 to 4 months depending on the particular timelines for it. And that was based on feedback we heard in terms of how to implement it. At the bottom of page six, it changes immediately. Launch a nationwide search for a new permanent program manager to prioritize a nationwide search that's at the request of the community safety folks at psa. And then if you scroll all the way down to the exhibits, this page nine in this file, it adds one Portland street response staffer as a member to the Portland street response committee, again at the request of psa's community safety folks. And it clarifies what was already written, but just not as clearly that psr leadership would also be involved in the selection process for the psr committee. And I'm, of course, open to conversations around the content of these clauses. But just to avoid amendments to amendments and the confusion that might occur there, I would suggest potentially having the friendly amendments take effect, then talking about other amendments. And so I'd ask for a second.
468 Second councilor Koyama Lane seconded that. Okay, colleagues, before we get into discussion of the amendment or the underlying resolution, if there are no other technical questions, I'd like to move us into public comment so that we can hear from members of the community. We do have over 20 people signed up to testify today. Okay. Seeing no one. Oh. Councilor zimmermann.
469 Yep.
470 So I don't know who gets this technical question, but does this technically make these employees first responders? Does that change the retirement are first? Are there any other first responders in the city who don't take 911 calls? That's my first technical question.
471 Psr does take 911 calls, right?
472 So since they are going to separate themselves, would they, as a nonintegrated group.
473 I'm looking at our attorney who works with public safety because this gets into legal interpretations of what a public safety officer is for our two retirement systems. And I think the question is, does this inadvertently put Portland street response into either of our retirement systems, either the city police and fire system or the police and fire pers system?
474 Good afternoon.
475 Council president, council vice president, council. Good to see you all. Heidi brown, chief deputy city attorney. So our under charter, our fire police disability and retirement system is for sworn members of police and fire and surviving spouses and minor dependent children. So it would not expand this. But also in answer to your question, I believe the way I read the resolution is to request or urge the mayor to have a bhr investigate whether they could be labeled as first responders. And our office is doing some some legal research on what that would mean. And, and sort of to support bhr in that, in that review.
476 Okay. Next technical questio. Since this first responder title is getting used a lot, are they required to be dps qualified?
477 I'm still researching that issue.
478 But not right now. They're not.
479 Yeah. So just the word that heidi you were mentioning, it says to explore it.
480 Yeah.
481 It says item for explore and to come back to the community and public safety committee by currently August would move that back to October as part of those deadline changes with information and recommendations. So it does not commit to any course of action on that, but to look into it. And this is something that we've been asked about. So I wanted to get an answer.
482 Councilor did that answer that question or did you need more follow up from heidi?
483 Are there any first responders that we're aware of who can refuse to go to certain types of calls? Let me reframe that another way. Are there first responders who take 911 calls and can say we that they they. That they won't participate or that they don't they don't go to calls if 911 dispatches them, are we aware of that at all?
484 Well, I think there's so boec has policies around who to, to direct to certain calls and police respond to calls that would be, you know, appropriate for police or historically given to police, fire for fire, ambulance for ambulance. And then Portland street response. Also, boec has policy related to what calls Portland street response goes to.
485 Are you aware of any policies at all where a firefighter who is at a fire related event, but the situation now deems the need for a police event where one of those agencies would say, well, we won't do it with the other agency being present. Is that a common practice or would this be a new practice?
486 Well, just my understanding of this resolution is that it won't, especially with the amendment that councilor Kanal was putting forward, that it that it would make sure that they're operationally independent, meaning that that they would have their own they they wouldn't report through to police PPB, they wouldn't report to PFA, but they'd be in the public service safety area community safety division. But that that wouldn't prohibit a co-response, in other words. So if there were a response where boec determined it was appropriate to send both police and Portland street response, that they would send both.
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487 And by being co-equal, does that mean that we now have to designate a new position called chief in this bureau, or does it become a bureau? Let's ask that. What does co-equal mean in terms of our org chart practices? These words would seem to have meaning, and I'm trying to understand what meaning is there and which parts of this is mostly just performance.
488 I understand. So I think that as far as whether it designates it as a bureau or office, that's going to be something you have to do by by code. And my reading of this is that part of what the resolution would do would be to create a committee to look into and provide some feedback to the caps on what code language could look like related to Portland street response. So this resolution in and of itself would not create it into an officer bureau. And then similarly, on the co-equal response, I think it's again, investigating and looking into that. And then I think if council determines that it's appropriate to put it into code, you may want to choose to define what you mean by that.
489 Okay. Thanks. I think that's the end of my technical questions. Thank you.
490 Thank you, thank you counselor. Councilor Kanal I know you had comments for discussion, but did you have any technical questions before we get to public testimony?
491 No, I just have a point of order that literally everything that was just stated is not in the document. And I hope that we don't get into a pattern of just saying that documents do things that they don't do. I think that's a really bad precedent to set with this new council.
492 You wrote a document that calls for a co-equal. I have every right to ask what the meaning of co-equal is. And so if we're going to talk about the meaning of documents, I think one of your strategies to rattle off make one of the longest documents that we've had in front of us is, in fact, part of a strategy to hide what is actually occurring here. So no thank you. I will ask every technical question that I have a right to thank you.
493 Colleagues, I want to make sure that we are talking about technical questions. I see the three carriers all in the queue. Councilor Morillo do you have a technical question or should we wait until discussion after we have an opportunity to hear from members of the public?
494 I just wanted to respond to councilor Zimmerman's questions about what's in the resolution, if that's okay.
495 Briefly.
496 Yeah.
497 So part of the reason that we created this was because what it directs bhr to do is to do research and come back to us with a report and recommendations about all of this, including any impacts on benefits. Purs. Et cetera. So it's not a final decision on anything. It's an exploratory body for that reason, so that we can get answers to some of those tough questions that you have. And I think that should this committee pass and be formed, then you can ask all of those tough questions. I would also say that. I think that this language has been up for quite a while, and I think that councilor Kanal is being forthright about it and doing in, you know, in good faith to try to engage everybody and make sure that things are being done right. And I hope that if you don't trust him, at least you trust me a little bit on that and that we can work on it together. But I think that this is really a community good, and it's going to help us answer some of those questions about the future of Portland street response. So I know we have some of our experts here, but I just kind of wanted to level set on that. And the amendment language I also sent to you so that you could read it directly, because I know that you hate not being able to read it. So I hope that you know that we're trying to do this in good faith, and that this is going to be something that will get us the necessary information to expand the program in the way that it needs to be expanded. Thanks.
498 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Smith, did you have technical questions?
499 Yes, yes.
500 From a technical standpoint, I wasn't quite sure if this should be a report that we ask of the city administrator instead of a resolution. It is not a ordinance, and there's too much information that you have to get back, whether it's a first responder, if they have I don't know what a co-equal means either. And I kind of got thrown off on it when I when I read it a couple of days ago. But I, I think that this could have been asked for if you're asking for information, we could have asked the city administrator to do a report, and you could have gotten all of your questions asked. This is not a resolution that is in resolution for it's a lot of information and it is long. But just from a technical standpoint, I don't know that this is a resolution that's ready to go right now. There's too many unanswered questions about what it does.
501 Councilor was there a question?
502 No.
503 Okay. No. The question was, should this be a report or should this be a resolution? That was my technical question.
504 Okay.
505 I think that that sounds to me like a question for an attorney. So I'm going to ask either heidi or linly if you can weigh in on the appropriateness of this being a resolution.
506 I don't I think it can come in in either format for this particular document. And, and it could have been brought forward as a report to request that the city administrator, like you're asking counselor Smith. But I also think it's fine to put it forward as a resolution where you're stating a number of affirmations, whereas clauses in relation to Portland street response and council in the city's perspective on Portland street response and then resolving to create the committee, I do think the creation of the committee seems appropriate through resolution, and that's done under your under the council's authority, under charter to create commissions. So I think, if nothing else, certainly the creation of that committee, it makes sense for that to be a resolution that probably wouldn't be in a report. I suppose you could have separated out things, but it does seem appropriate that all of this could be brought forward in a resolution, particularly that one aspect.
507 Thank you.
508 Yes, thank you, councilor.
509 Thank you, councilor Clark, do you have a technical question?
510 I'm not sure it's technical. Should I go ahead and ask anyway.
511 If it's.
512 About the policy and the debate around whether we want to support this or not, let's wait until we hear from the public. If it's about what's before us and what is what the nature of the language is, then let's get it out on the table now, so that the public also knows what they're commenting on.
513 Well, I see that interim dca cassie is on the dais, and I've just wondered if there are any of the technical questions that he can answer that have already been asked, or if he could address how this fits into the service area's plans for growth and oversight of psr? Is that is that technical enough?
514 Director cozzie can you answer that in. A straightforward way?
515 Yeah.
516 Good afternoon, council.
517 President and council. For the record, I'm bob cozzie interim dca for public safety. A few points that I'd like to address. Psr has really tried to focus on capacity building at this point, increasing staffing, training, leadership development, leadership pathways within psr so that we can have a positive impact on existing employees. In addition to that, we do have plans of increasing direct community engagement through quarterly town halls. Now with that, if council creates an advisory body, we're going to figure out how to make that happen. We're currently wrapping our arms around the impacts of the final budget for the service area. We have some adjustments to make. I can't tell you today exactly how we would operationalize the support needed for a community advisory body, but and it will take a little bit of time for us to determine the best path forward. But what I can say is I've been part of the planning for psr since its inception. I was in the rose room early on with a lot of these planning meetings, and I saw the commitment then. I've seen the commitment increase. I've seen it wane over the course of the past five years. I've been fully committed as my past experience. Boec director. Psr has always been considered from the dispatchers perspective as co-equal. We dispatch police, fire, ems, psr. We really haven't thought about it in a different way. With that said, I can certainly say that psr has strong support not only from me but within the service area.
518 Councilor does that answer your question? Okay, we're going to go with it for now. Councilor Ryan, did you have a technical question?
519 I believe it is by listening to director cozzie. Just then, one of my questions I had was the fact that this suggests building. It says to build a committee and that takes resources. So this is a resolution and they're usually free of resources. So how do I reckon that with this request.
520 Yeah.
521 And that's a request of, of resources in the dialog with, say, councilor Connell's office about where the resources would come to build this committee.
522 Right. We are a as I mentioned earlier, we're really trying to wrap our arms around the overall budget and trying to figure out what the resources would need to be to support a committee like this. We know that there's costs tied to stipends. We know that there's staff costs. We want to make sure that the committee is successful. So what does that look like? How much time from our staff will that take? These are unknowns. At this point. I wish I could answer more specifically, but I do know that as a service area, we if we're directed by council to move forward in this way, we want to give it everything we possibly can in order to help it succeed. And that goes with anything that we're directed to do. We don't want to be set up for failure, of course.
523 Okay. But currently there's no funds set aside to do the work that's in the.
524 That is correct.
525 Okay. Thank you. And the other part, first of all, I was really grateful the mayor put resources into the budget. I enjoyed my time not that long ago, working with the Portland street response, spending a couple of hours with them there in a building mode. It looks like the morale is picking up. There's. I hope the retention rates continue to improve. And I see the leader over there. I wish that this was coming forth with a strategic plan from the leadership at Portland street response, and we were discussing that and that's missing here. So it feels really top down to me. So my question is, have the offices worked with the Portland street response leadership to get advice from them on on how they're building this from an organic building from the bottom up, which is the best way to do system work?
526 I'd like to be able to answer that.
527 And I have I know that stephanie is here, and April, I know you're in the audience and I just wanted to acknowledge your leadership. One and if you want to come up, perhaps you come up and help answer this.
528 Let's try to get us to public testimony.
529 I am my technical question is, is there a strategic plan that we're working from here, or is this just a top down resolution coming at you?
530 Why?
531 Why is that question not being directed at the sponsors?
532 Okay.
533 Answer it.
534 Is that a.
535 Fair councilor If you would like.
536 To I think.
537 I think this is a wonderful, transparent moment. You get to share what you're sharing, and I get to hear from the group, the leaders that do this work on a daily basis, if in fact, they're working on a strategic plan that gets to the heart of the matter of what this.
538 Is, I think there might be two questions here. Is there a strategic plan? And regardless of whether or not there's a strategic plan, why was this brought outside of a strategic planning process? And that second question, I believe, is appropriately directed toward your colleagues. Councilor. But why don't we start with is there a strategic plan?
539 Good afternoon. Councilor stephanie howard. She her pronouns. I am the director of community safety for the public safety service area, and I get to oversee Portland street response. There are there is a great deal of planning happening from leadership in psr regarding expansion and capacity building, staffing, training and operational policy development. That's happening. I don't know that there's put together one strategic plan, but if that was something that council was interested in, we could create that and present that we'd be happy to do so.
540 And that would take resources.
541 I think it would, but I think probably to collect what we have in the works already is within the resources that we have to do.
542 Councilor canal did you want.
543 To would you like to address.
544 The second question?
545 Yeah, I mean, certainly we definitely have talked with the leadership over time. We had a meeting on Monday. We've talked about it, and I've incorporated a lot of their feedback into the proposed friendly amendments that we're about to talk about here. I also just wanted to clarify that as it relates to the resolutions, allotting funds two things. One, that this references specific pools of funding that are already allotted, not the 7500 for stipends, which is now 7000, by the way, not 7500, but everything else is discussed in there where, for example, the funding for the evaluation was already budgeted. This just directs it. And the other thing I'll note is that this council, our predecessors, created a commission that had a much more significant financial contribution through resolution. It was resolution 37527 creating the police accountability commission on December 8th, 20. Sorry, November December 8th, 2020. And I'll note that that at that time, 11 of us weren't here for that vote, but that, you know, councilor Ryan, you were and voted for the creation of this commission at that time through a resolution which created a much more significant expenditure of funds than this would.
546 Okay.
547 Councilor, do you have more technical questions? Otherwise? I'm going to.
548 Move a legal question. Okay.
549 Thank you. Councilor Kanal made me think about that. This committee seems different in the way it's being built. It's like in the council universe. But is the executive branch was included in the one that councilor Kanal was discussing and it came up through the enterprise, and then it was that type of partnership. This is the council building a committee. It just I just don't know if there's precedents. Or is this the new day that we're in, that we're building these new committees at the direction of the council?
550 I did get sign off from from city attorney robert taylor on doing this through a resolution. I just want to clarify that, okay.
551 That's fair. I just wanted to still know if it's a new way that we're building these type of committees. So I haven't had a lot of time to dig into this. I was I'm not on that committee. So when you're not on one of the committees and you're getting a first reading and it's resolution, you're just going to ask some curious questions.
552 Was that a question for linly or for heidi?
553 Yeah, for linly. Sorry. Linly.
554 Go ahead. Linly.
555 I mean, in looking at the resolution, I this is not a resolution I've reviewed, so I'm giving you an answer based on general information about committees. I mean, the council has the ability through the charter to establish committees. It appears that this one will establish a committee and that the mayor, through civic life, will create the selection process for that committee. I maybe it's more akin to a charter committee or something like that, where we have committee, although that was by charter. I don't I don't think it's prohibited. I think you can do it this way, and I don't think it necessarily presages how we will do all committees. There's many different ways we form them. And they, you know, looking back, heidi and I looked back and there's a lot of committees that have been created by resolution rather than through operation of code.
556 So thank.
557 You, colleagues.
558 I'm going to have us move to public testimony so that we can hear from members of our community about their thoughts on the resolution before us. And for folks who are testifying, I would remind you that we do have an amendment that has been proposed and seconded as well. Keelan, could you please call up our first set of individuals who have signed up for public testimony?
559 First up we have ray rich and john barnes, sarah hobbs, albert kaufman.
560 Welcome. Go right ahead.
561 Good. Am I here alone? Should I go ahead? For the record, my name is sarah hobbs. After now 12 years working in suicide response, starting with commissioner Novick at the vista bridge. Portland street response was presented as an alternative to police response to mental health crisis. We have a suicide crisis going in the city, but pets is not allowed to do suicide intervention, and a lot of people don't know this. I'm constantly butting heads when I said they don't do this, that automatically at the very least goes to the Portland police bureau's behavioral health unit. Enhanced crisis intervention team, and on rare occasions, the crisis negotiation team. I am here to say, if you're going to pass a resolution making them equal with first responders. They hands allow them to do first responder work because we were led to believe their job was to take police out of these responses. And they don't have the authority to deal with one of the biggest mental health issues that had the biggest police response are the most apt to go sideways if something goes wrong. I'm not saying don't make them. First responders do. Broaden the definition of what the response responsibility will be. Thank you.
562 Thank you.
563 Okay. Checking for ray richardson john barnes, albert kaufman. Moving on to amanda rose precioso joining us online, followed by paul cohen, kaya sand, jeremy Smith. Go ahead amanda.
564 Hi, I'm amanda rose prezioso. I'm a licensed clinical social worker with years of experience volunteering my own personal times with people living on the streets, and I have countless occasions where I was called and worked with police officers and the person in mental health crisis and to help resolve and really make it better for everyone. So when I see this resolution coming to the table, thank you. I want to give a special thanks to councilor Kanal, councilor Avalos and councilor Morillo. Thank you for being visionary on this. I think it's highlighting it and bringing it to attention on something that I was just doing on my own. And when I moved to Portland and I see this type of work, it gives me an avenue that I can go explore further for career. And I think I want to echo the person before me is untie the hands, right? And someone who can do crisis intervention, suicide, crisis intervention. I want to be able to do the full work as possibly in my future as a Portland street response responder. Right. Again, I would say this is an important resolution to pass. I know it's uncomfortable. It's kind of a new thing to say, coequal, to kind of make it its own standing, standing on its own. But I think it's vital for the growth and for the future of this really important service. And I can give you one example. Right. When I got called to the streets, this person was in a mental health crisis. They overdosed on an over-the-counter over-the-counter medication. It wasn't enough to be considered an ambulance or a police officer, but I'm there to be able to relieve the police officer, to be able to transport that person to the hospital. No ambulance was called, saved everybody it is you may need to fund it a little bit more. But I guarantee you, when we really start to focus on the Portland street response, you'll get so much back in the community. So please support this resolution today. Thank you.
565 Go ahead sir.
566 Hello again, paul cohen. I'm as I said before, I'm president of the city of Portland chapter of project 17. We're the union that represents the Portland street response mental health workers. I'm here today in support of the resolution, which would demonstrate important support from city council for the future of psr. Our members in psr work tirelessly to provide a vital service to portlanders who are extremely who are in extremely precarious circumstances. However, for most of its existence, the psr program itself has felt unstable as its future has seemed to hang in the balance of political decisions in city hall. It has been very difficult for psr employees to feel like the work they are doing, work that has been widely praised throughout the community and beyond, has a stable footing on which to grow. This resolution provides important commitment to the mission and values on which psr was founded and has successfully operated. It offers critical support to both the program and psr workers, and additionally, it establishes clear avenues for growth and expansion of the program. Our members appreciate the support from members of this committee and the city council, and they look forward to continuing to serve the people of Portland to the greatest extent possible. They look forward to a robust psr program that is an integral part of portland's public safety system. Most importantly, they believe that psr will help our vulnerable neighbors, growing neighborhoods and our vibrant city thrive into the future. Thank you.
567 Thank you very much for being here. And I'll note for folks who are counting that we have two colleagues who are online. So we are still at seven.
568 Thank you.
569 Hi.
570 Good afternoon, council president pirtle-guiney councilors. My name is kaya sand. I'm a writer based in district three and an organizer with friends of Portland street response. I want to speak specifically to one aspect of the resolution, the community advisory committee. And here's why. Portland street response was dreamt up, championed by a community that's been steadfast in its support. Even when the going got hard. I worked on the earliest community based research to produce Portland street response foundational report, then district one neighbors advised the pilot phase. Portland street response is stronger because of its community origins. I'm writing a book on these programs nationwide about two shadow teams in dayton, ohio. And in doing this research, it's absolutely clear that we and we are legion. It's city after city, 134 strong. We are involved in an energetic, collective effort to update the public safety first responder system nationwide. It's a big deal. No city should do this in isolation. We all need research. We need to share and learn from each other, including all our local wisdom and experience here in Portland. It's not the time for council to draw the curtains closed. Shrugging off broken trust in a years long promise to create this community advisory committee for Portland street response. This came from city councils of the past to remain healthy, Portland street response needs to thrive out in the open with ideas, input, expertise from neighbors in all your districts. Please vote yes on the entire resolution and then council portlanders, we can finally begin to celebrate this beautiful thing that we've built together. Thank you so much.
571 Jeremy Smith joining us online. Go ahead. Jeremy.
572 My name is jeremy bosley Smith. At 9:59 p.m. On Monday night, I heard someone yelling outside my home. I looked out my window and I saw that one of my neighbors was having a mental health crisis. Another one of my neighbors texted me that they were witnessing the same event, and that this was not the first time our neighbor had been in distress. In this way, I wanted to call the emergency line to have someone sent out to check on my neighbor, but I did not want it to be the police. Before I called, I looked at my phone again. It was now 10:07 p.m. Portland street response does not respond after 10 p.m. There are entities in this city that want to see Portland street response fail, as evidenced by councilor Zimmermann's comments earlier. They want to do this so they can justify the need for more armed police officers. Portland street response cannot do their jobs if they're undermined by pointless bureaucracy and lack of funding. I have bipolar disorder and have been someone confused and afraid, wandering on the streets and not sure how to get home. It's easier to get there than a lot of people think. People with mental illness don't need someone with a gun showing up. They need emergency professionals that understand the nuance of de-escalating situations and collaborating with the person in crisis. To find a resolution, we must make Portland street response a co-equal branch of the first responder system and establish the Portland street response committee. I urge you to please support this resolution. We can achieve sustainable public safety without more police. And it looks like councilor Zimmermann might have left. But I do want to say that it's extremely unbecoming of a Portland city councilor to bully their colleagues in the way that he did earlier. Unacceptable. Thank you.
573 Next up we have christopher olson, odelia zuckerman, lynn smouse, caroline fenton. Kathleen. No, sorry. Go ahead. Lynn.
574 Thank you for the opportunity to give my testimony. I wanted to be there in person but had to leave. I am lynn smouse. Margaret lynn smouse, legally better known as reverend lynn smouse lopez, and I. I am urging you all to support this resolution to expand, support and expand Portland street response. I come at this very, very personally. If Portland street response had been expanded earlier, it may have intervened and helped my son before he injured a woman seriously and had to be locked up. He he was suffering from schizophrenia and drug abuse and we could not find help. And Portland street response would certainly have been an answer to our prayers. In many ways. I saw the value of Portland street response as they attended to people where near the church I served for many years, ainsworth united church of christ, and there were people that we called and got their response to help support people in a calm, peaceful manner. Portland street response was the best thing that came out of Portland in a very long time, and it needs to be fully supported and fully expanded for the whole city and 24 hours a day. It also needs to separate it, be separated clearly from police and law enforcement, the sweeps and so forth, so people can engage and develop a trusting, honest relationship. I thank you for being able to share this. Thank you.
575 Go ahead.
576 Hi. For the record, my name is odelia zuckerman. I'm the co-chair of the Portland committee on community engaged policing, also known as pccep. I live in district two and I work in the domestic violence and sexual assault prevention field. I support this resolution for you today to give some brief background, pccep was born out of the settlement agreement between the PPB and the us department of justice, starting over ten years ago. The settlement agreement exists in large part due to ppb's excessive use of force against people with perceived or actual mental illness. The foundation of the settlement agreement, which is still out of compliance, speaks to the importance of passing this resolution today. Based on input from multiple town halls, numerous public meetings and discussions with portland's first responders, city officials, and independent researchers, we recommended securing and expanding psr to mayor wheeler in 2024, and his response was extremely positive. I encourage all of you to read the recommendation we wrote. I've also heard concerns from council today about the community board included in this proposal as a co-chair and volunteer on the only independent police advisory body in the city. I'm extremely supportive of psr having a similar community board. I've experienced information withholding on the city's behalf and have seen the impacts it has had on community, trust and confidence in the city to keep Portland safe, as it has promised for years. Giving community members a seat at the table only does good for the city. It allows more community involvement and, say, and can help begin repair harm previously caused, particularly around empty promises. About psr. Community members deserve this space because we've been lied to over and over again. Give them a seat at the table. It's disheartening to hear the same pushback for so many years. When the community continues to share its widespread support for expanding psr. Thank you.
577 Christopher olsen, caroline fenton okay, we'll move on to kathleen swift joining us online, followed by anne caspit, kristen wing, peyton myers. Go ahead kathleen.
578 Okay.
579 Unmuted.
580 Sorry.
581 Hi, I'm.
582 Kathy swift.
583 And I support this resolution. I'm a. Senior vice.
584 President at heritage bank. Whose Portland office says are.
585 In the 1000.
586 Broadway building.
587 And in.
588 The lloyd district.
589 I am in the business district.
590 At art.
591 Venues and in old town and east Portland.
592 Every day.
593 And many evenings.
594 I've personally.
595 Seen that Portland.
596 Street response is very effective at what they do.
597 With.
598 Individuals in distress. Substantial progress has been made in this last year in improving.
599 The people.
600 Traffic and feel of safety in the city. We need to keep that progress and build on it. Given that I bank many of the social safety net providers in this city, I'm regularly in the community seeing the same homeless and addicted people. Over time, I see them having both good days and bad days, and these people deserve compassion, which psr provides and does well. Please pass this resolution as amended as it provides expansion to 24 hour availability with ensuring organizational stability and a confirmation to all that psr is valued as a first responder within the community. Thank you.
601 Okay, checking for an caspit kristen wing peyton myers, followed by benjamin gilbert and kip silverman. Joining us online, jordan lewis, barbara buczynski. Benjamin, go ahead and unmute.
602 Hello.
603 My name is benjamin gilbert.
604 And I'm.
605 A.
606 Volunteer lobbyist.
607 For the.
608 Portland democratic.
609 Socialists of America.
610 And a tenant in.
611 District four. Thank you. Councilor, canal, councilor, Morillo.
612 And councilor Avalos.
613 For bringing this forward. It is essential that the city have an unarmed de-escalation program independent of police. This program needs to operate 24 over seven like other parts of public safety, and I appreciate the psr will not be required to participate in sweeps, which would undermine their trust in communities. The creation of a community advisory committee is a great reflection of how a program that came from the community can continue to be guided by the community during elections season. As I knocked on doors across the city, I experienced a consistent through line of support for the expansion of Portland street response. I hope council members will pass this resolution. Resolution. Thank you. I yield my time.
614 I kip joining us online.
615 Hi there. That worked. Thank you. So first of all, thank you to the public safety committee for bringing this forward. I really appreciate it. I wanted to again add my voice in as a 25 year plus resident of Portland, Oregon, and as co-chair of the Portland committee on community engaged policing policy and reform subcommittee, that Portland street response needs to become not only a co-equal first responder organization, but also be given the resources it needs to fully succeed in a 24 over seven manner and build and recruit and train the people they need to meet the needs of the city. The narrative that Portland street response just shows up and hands out water and leaves is tiresome. Psr, unlike other first responder agencies, often needs to build a trust relationship with people who are unhoused or do not have the support they need to get coordinated care that is formative rather than reactionary. There are what I have heard described as frequent fliers that all first responders deal with, but psr is one of the one agencies that can really understand the needs of the individual and find coordinated care. I also added a written testimony. So I'm going to make this short because I'm hearing a lot of the same things. But if we do not offer a clear path to dispatching the best possible responder, given the situation that's called for at any given time, and do warm and or hot handoffs as needed, we're never going to get out of the mode of reactionary care that we're currently in, and we need to move forward on this. If the previous. Previous policies of response and more draconian laws would have solved the problem. Thank you. Done so already.
616 Thank you.
617 Okay, jordan lewis, barbara buczynski.
618 Hello city council. My name is jordan lewis and I live in the stadium hood living near providence park. I am no stranger to public disorder and that by that I mean people outside yelling, often late at night. To be clear, I don't enjoy that. Sometimes in the debate about policing, we can lose track of our common first principles. And I just want to I sincerely do want to solve the problem. I don't want someone yelling outside. I just am not willing to ruin someone's life or end someone's life by involving a police officer, an armed police officer, and many people in my life agree with me. When unarmed alternatives like psr stop running at 10 p.m, when sorry, I lost track when unarmed alternatives like psr stop running at 10:00 pm, which is when most disruptions tend to happen. That doesn't mean I'm going to call the cops. Instead, that just means I'm not going to call anyone and the situation is just going to fester. I've said this. I've said this in testimony multiple times over the years, and I will continue to say it until psr operates 24 over seven. It's been five years, I think five years since it started, and we're still waiting for night service. And we spent those years constantly being asked, do you like psr? Are you sure? Are you sure? And every time people show up and they say emphatically yes, every time, sometimes it stalks like feels like we're stuck in a long 2020. But recently I'm starting to see an idea of what comes next. And I think mature, co-equal psr is a part of that. So please pass this.
619 All right. Albert kaufman has joined us.
620 Hello everyone. I joined at.
621 The. Beginning of the.
622 Meeting. And after.
623 Two hours of your deliberations, then went out for.
624 Pizza and came back and I just happened to.
625 Catch this. So I'm really glad to.
626 Just spend.
627 A few.
628 Seconds just.
629 Sharing that.
630 I live.
631 In southeast.
632 Most of the.
633 People that.
634 I see that need help, that are obvious really need psr. They don't need the police, and I'm.
635 Really hoping that we can bring our.
636 Psr fully forward.
637 Fully funded.
638 I'm a big fan.
639 Of.
640 The police.
641 Don't get me wrong, sometimes they.
642 Are needed and.
643 There are certainly times in our neighborhood when they are.
644 Needed and I'm.
645 Glad that they're there. But there's.
646 A lot of times when they're.
647 Not needed and they I think the situations can be handled very well by someone who has a mental health background, possibly. A medic. And I don't think we need fire trucks and police engines coming to our streets all the time.
648 So I.
649 Really hope that you all will see clear to funding psr fully. We've been asking for this for a long time. It works really well.
650 In other cities.
651 There's just one way that our.
652 Town can kind of.
653 Come into, you know, into in line with other. Cities that are doing the right thing and adding in a sort.
654 Of psr component.
655 Into our policing. And so I appreciate you all so much for sticking around and for turning a one hour meeting into however. Long this is going to work, and very much appreciate that you've all decided to serve our city. And I look forward to talking to you about. Lots of different things, but this is one of them. So thanks for.
656 Listening.
657 And have a great rest of.
658 Your night.
659 Amy barton is joining us online, followed by jackie yearby.
660 Hello counselors, I am amy barton. I am chief of the seattle care department, which is our third public safety department housing seattle 911 and the care crisis responder team, which has been dispatched since 2023. So I do study 911 data all across the country, and know that at least half of your calls involve mental health issues, houselessness substance use. And in seattle, the care department was legislated to be co-equal with police and fire. My title was legislated and the crisis responders and co-responders across Washington state actually do have that designation of first responder at the state level. So our primary objective is actually to support and to free up law enforcement to respond swiftly to high priority 911 calls. And I am a loud advocate for appropriate investment across all three departments. My family has been in Portland for generations. I know your city, I love your city, and I know and respect many of your leaders in public safety, including chief de and chief gillespie. So the work of psr should never have been weaponized. It should not be politicized, and it is long past time to reimagine where it sits in your public safety continuum. And it is true that you are a national leader in this space. And it's been disappointing to me personally to be at these conferences and convenings and to not have psr spoken about as someone who has navigated and does navigate the political, the labor, the fiscal environment of seattle, I can assure you Portland is no different. I have no special advantage up here in king county, and some of the conditions here are actually a little bit more severe. So it's hard to imagine any real barriers to progress other than historic territorialism. Sending the right first response to 911 doesn't have anything to do with politics. It is the right thing for your budget. It's the right thing for your neighbors. And I am always here ready to support and answer questions if I can. Thank you.
661 Go ahead jackie.
662 Thank you. And thank you so much, amy. Council president.
663 Pirtle-guiney.
664 Members of city.
665 Council and fellow portlanders.
666 My name.
667 Is jackie yearby. I live.
668 In.
669 District two.
670 And I'm an organizer with. Friends of. Portland street response.
671 I also served.
672 As governor.
673 Brown's behavioral health policy.
674 Advisor two years.
675 Ago.
676 When friends of.
677 Portland street. Response formed.
678 And rallied 12,000. People to sign the.
679 Petition to save.
680 Psr.
681 We were in.
682 Crisis mode.
683 I am so grateful.
684 And relieved. Sorry.
685 I might.
686 Get emotional.
687 Sorry to be in a very different place today. Thank you for believing in psr and helping to set it up for success as an integral part of portland's public safety system. I urge you to pass this resolution so that we can continue to set psr on a clear path for success. Yes, there are questions. We don't have it all figured out. Right? And I think that's a good thing. Right. That gives us an opportunity to like to try things out, to see what works, to innovate. And the community advisory committee feels like a really important part of that. Portlanders are invested in psr, and that's why friends of Portland street response are so invested in having a community advisory committee. I want to thank councilor Kanal, Avalos, and Morillo and your teams for your dedication and your leadership in really in bringing this forward and just doing so much to support Portland street response. And to close, sorry, I got to get emotional again. I want to close by thanking the dedicated psr staff. We got you.
688 Testimony.
689 Thank you.
690 To everyone who stuck with us as we ran over to be able to testify on this today. Colleagues, we started our discussion before public testimony, but we're going to move back into discussion now. I want to flag for us that staff have said that we can stay until six, but we have a hard cutoff at six, and we do need to get through our first reading of agenda item four. So I'll ask folks to try to be judicious with your comments. Councilor Morillo.
691 I'm sorry, that was from before.
692 Councilor Zimmerman.
693 Thanks. So I'm not sure why. And maybe the sponsor this time can answer this technical question. Why does it seem that this resolution, at least with the public testimony that we heard, people feel like somehow this expands psr or gives them more staff because we all just took a vote a week ago to pass a budget that authorized 14 new positions in psr. That is the expansion. But there seems to be some confusion in the public comment about what this does, and I'm wondering, why do you think that is as a person who for many years have said they've got to be able to shuttle, they've got to work at different shifts, they've got to have that authority. But something's going on here and it seems very similar because I'll remind folks this, this passed with a 3 to 2 out of committee. Similarly, because I think it felt like there was some I don't know, there seems to be this this misinformation going on here. And I'd love to get to the bottom of that, because most of the things in this seem supportable, but are coming from a strange position, or there's some feeling in the public about what this is. And I don't think that's what's really on this piece of paper.
694 Madam president.
695 Go ahead.
696 Thank you. And thank you for the question. Yeah, I, I think there's sort of a two part answer to your question. The first part is that in the April 22nd meeting of the committee, I said then and I cut for time today, the line that I'm paraphrasing, that this resolution does not immediately move psr to 24 over seven service. We are in the process of taking a big first step in the budget. That's what I said. Then the mayor's proposed hadn't dropped and that this would build on that, but that committing explicitly to getting to 24 over seven is important for medicaid reimburse ability. So that's that's a sort of nuance to that aspect of it. The other thing that I think that's important about this, and I think that I can't speak for all the different testifiers. Thank you all for testifying, by the way. Is that having a council that commits to that being a goal is a big deal in and of itself. Having a council that commits that psr is a part of the future is new. That hasn't happened all the time in the past. And so I think people I can't speak for every testifier, but I can say that I imagine at least some of them are excited about that being a potential goal that we set through the resolution.
697 But but it's I want to be clear, like, there's nothing in this resolution that expands psr. Right? Because we already did that. We all 12 of us, 11 who voted on it, passed a budget that already expanded psr. Can you say that in the record? Just to clarify, because it's obvious there's some some thoughts about there's people who are for and against psr sitting on this dais. And I think there's nothing more inaccurate about this Portland city council.
698 Well, I let our votes speak to that part of it. But I'll say for the question around, does this expand it? I'm happy to answer that question. No, this this resolution does not add a single staffer to psr. We did. In fact, as you stated, councilor Zimmerman put that into the budget to add 14 new positions, and there is a, let's say, a potential path forward that could be taken in a future year to add the additional staffers necessary for 24 over seven service. This does not do that. This commits that. Our goal is eventually getting to 24 over seven coverage of the city.
699 I have that goal for all of our city services. The first, I think first section of now. Therefore, because there are so many number two says should not be required to take part in sweeps and other enforcement activities to avoid departing from its original missions, etc, etc. So I want to I want to get a sense of so that that doesn't occur. So if the city of portland's impact reduction program is going to is going to sweep a camp, it's been scored. They have done some outreach ahead of time with outreach workers, which is not psr. If and then when they show up 3 to 10 days later, if in that time a situation emerges with a person where they have a crisis moment, that would be all called a qualifying event, it would be a psr type of call. Is that something that if we were to pass this today, that you would hold up this resolution and say they shouldn't go to that because it's happening at a homeless camp that is being swept at the moment. And so therefore they shouldn't go to it because I, I don't think that's what you're saying, but I want to give you the chance to highlight it, because what I would say is, I don't think psr should be assigned to sweeps all the time either. But if in the course of a sweep, a crisis moment happens, I sure hope we aren't saying that psr can't go there if they're the best responding agency. I'm just curious about that nuance because we are floating a lot of things that I think sometimes as a public and sometimes as this body. We are still fighting this fight for the existence of psr, and we're using some of the same language from several years ago, and I think we're well past that. Can you clarify a little bit if that happened, what you would think this resolution is directing in terms of city action?
700 I think.
701 I'll defer to my customers.
702 Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I keep I know all three of you wrote it, but yeah.
703 Thank you. I'll try to keep it brief because I know we have a lot to get done. I think obviously the goal of Portland street response, first and foremost is to ensure that you have the right mental health crisis responder wherever that person may be. And that would include at a, an encampment. I think the issue that has come up in the past is that they were trying to get Portland street response employees to be a part of the sweeps thing, whether or not that they were like necessarily picking up people's valuables and things like that, but that they were there, you know, as a de-escalating force. But what that ended up doing was making a lot of houseless people wary of Portland street response. You know, they would see the logo, they would see the vans, and they would associate them with sweeps and not with assistance. And so I think that the intention of this resolution is to avoid that. I would also point out that this is a resolution and not an ordinance, which means that it's not like legally binding. I think that there is going of course, with the 911 call, there is always going to be nuance in some of those situations, and there are going to be tough calls to make sometimes. I'm sure for the 911 dispatchers.
704 That's helpful. But resolutions do they they direct policy. And so that I know it's not legal piece of it, but it's from an internal city policy. Whether or not they get assigned to it, it would be important. What I hear you saying, I think we are agreeing in this is if at that moment, the outreach worker who is there or any passerby said called 911 because there's a mental health need, we could still have a psr person show up after the fact or in response. But I think they have learned, which is why we've, by the way, hired many more outreach workers in the city, because when that was occurring, the example you gave was before the city had its own outreach workers, or only knew in the last 18 months, I think. And then we hired some new ones in this newest budget. But I think that that is the evolution of the description you're giving that old model. That's a really helpful piece here in terms of how how this resolution will get used to. I think, guide the executive branch of this government to employ all of the different resources that we have as a city for the best response to the situation, whatever it is for, for that reason, is why I want to be able to get there. But I don't want to. I don't want to pass a resolution that that binds a, an executive branch in ways that have unintentional consequences. And that's where my critical eye is going on this resolution. And I so I appreciate that. Councilor maria, thank you. I think that's all I've got.
705 President colleagues, before we continue, I'd like to give a professional courtesy to one of our colleagues. Councilor Avalos has a hard stop at 520, and she has an amendment she had wanted to introduce to our next agenda item. So I'm going to pause us in this conversation. We will come back to this, and I'm going to ask that we open agenda item four, which is amend.
706 I think that's.
707 A no.
708 Councilor Avalos, you don't have a hard stop anymore.
709 Well, I was going to try to stay a little bit longer, but yeah, if, if, if there's a hard stop at six right of the, the whole meeting.
710 We are going to try to get to both.
711 I'm just going to be late.
712 You're going to wait. Okay. Perfect.
713 I'm going.
714 To.
715 Be there. Yeah.
716 Go ahead.
717 Keep keep up this discussion for now.
718 Thank you.
719 Okay. Councilor Zimmerman, did you have anything additional? Okay. Councilor Kanal.
720 Yeah. Thanks again to all the testifiers. I want to respond directly to the first two testifiers asking for psr to be allowed to respond to suicidal ideation. I agree completely with you, and I'm really glad that came up. Even though it's outside the scope of this document. I just want to kind of use that as an example of there's some labor issues that get resolved here through other means, and there's been some progress on that sort of more granular level of policy development on the administration side. And I'm intending to circle back to psr as we set the agendas councilor, Novick and I, for the community and public safety committee to talk about this. I just want to acknowledge that. I also just want to thank everybody who testified at the previous meeting and committee. In the written testifiers, there were over 500 testimonies submitted in writing to this, with, I believe, only 14 in opposition. I wanted to comment on the length. It is long. It was filed in March. It was heard in committee 69 days ago. That's ten weeks tomorrow. I am sorry that we wrote something too long to be read in ten weeks, or to have questions asked in ten weeks. I'll note that we had feedback from some councilors, from two labor units, from some staff attorneys, and we crafted the friendly amendments to be responsive to their needs for clarity and even some small alteration. I want to clarify an earlier comment. I do think it's perfectly valid to ask about what co-equal means. I think it's misleading to say we don't know what something means, so we can't support the document when the point of the document is to start exploring what it might mean. I think it's misleading to say that it calls for separation when it literally says the opposite, and where it was able to be misinterpreted. We've offered a solution which is technically what we're talking about here, and most notably, the idea that we don't have any first responders that can say no to certain types of 911 calls, ignores the obvious example that police cannot respond to 911 calls that would cause them to support isis immigration enforcement activities, a restriction, by the way, which was created in a resolution resolution 37277. We talked about that on Tuesday at the community and public safety committee. For those who want to review the video, the only other thing I wanted to mention is that there there are some there is a $7,000 impact here for the stipends for 14 volunteer members, and that should be acknowledged. I'm happy to pay for that out of my council budget. There are other costs associated with this work that are already budgeted and acknowledged here, like the staffing necessary for the 14 new positions, which was included in the in this year's budget, and the independent evaluation, which was funded as well through the budget. And I also want to acknowledge that there are some costs that are not financial in nature, but that we don't budget separately as a matter of course. For example, when we talk about advisory bodies, a portion of the advisory bodies, program managers time will go towards creating the neo govt recruitment for this, and that's normal. We don't ever reference that as a separate cost. So because it doesn't take a manageable amount of sorry, a an increment of time that is worth documenting, you know, penny by penny. So I think that's those are some things there that I just need to be said. And I wanted to clarify that. I think we're still technically debating the amendment, the friendly amendment package. So I did want to just call attention to that and say that the purpose of this is to clarify. I understand if people don't want to support the underlying document, but to avoid the misperceptions, that's what the friendly amendments are about and to ensure that the timelines make sense. They were written in March, but needing to update them now for the fact that it's June, so I'll leave it there. Thank you.
721 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan.
722 Thank you, thank you, madam president. Councilor Kanal. You could probably help with this. I'm sorry. It was great to get context on how long this has been sitting there. When you're not on a committee, you don't realize that. So here you are getting all the information, and I appreciate that you're doing a reprise. That said, I do find that the word sweeps is being used in different ways. And so if we could get a definition of what the word sweeps means in this resolution, that would be helpful.
723 Councilor I think it's hard since we didn't define terms in the resolution, but I wonder if either of the other councilors who introduced it could describe their intent.
724 I think sweeps are obviously related to what the work of Portland solutions currently does at the city of Portland. I'm sure we could pull something from their website about how they define sweeps, if that's necessary. I see andre pulling out his phone, so perhaps my chief can help with that. I don't know, I I'm going to be honest. It's a little hard to do this after a while because some of the questions do come off as maybe disingenuous over time, because I've had other policies where I had a whole glossary in the resolution in an attempt to avoid any miscommunications. And then people said that was too many definitions and wrong and terrible. So I'm, you know, let's get to the real heart of what we want or don't want to do here and just stop playing around. Honestly.
725 I'm actually not playing at all. I just asked a simple question, and I think it deserves an answer because we have different organizations within the city that do tough work with our humanitarian crisis impact reduction folks, the outreach workers. And, you know, we're trying to blend the system in psr with that. So having a pure and clean definition in this resolution about what sweeps means seems like a fair question to ask at this time.
726 So I'll take a crack at it. It occurs in two places. One is in the, whereas that references the. The two year evaluation by Portland state university, which talks about psr not being used to carry out sweeps of unhoused people, enforce camping bans, or require individuals to engage in shelter or service use. And that requires notable because voluntary transport, voluntary shuttling to shelter is definitely still allowed and is in progress now and then the other. And so for that particular use, I'd say the PSU report can give more context. And the other place it's in the therefore be it resolved, it's the first one I believe part two should not be required to take part in sweeps and other enforcement activities. And I think that context is the definition that that it's a contextual definition that is helpful for me in referring to it. I think the idea of taking someone who is camping outside and requiring them to move is my working definition as I read it, and I think we can we can go off of that as a working definition. But there I would say that the actual literal legal one is going to be in the documents that I mentioned.
727 The campsite removal.
728 Thank you.
729 Okay. And then the second question I have that I brought up earlier, I want to get to a yes on this because I agree that we put this in the budget. We want to keep building it. The fact is this committee is going to cost money. And this wasn't brought up during the budget process. And now we're outside the budget process, and we're asking a system to spend time and money on something that's not in the budget. Would you be open to separating the two, like having the committee be a separate vote?
730 No.
731 Okay.
732 I got a friendly no.
733 I will say I actually put up a budget amendment and an accompanying note that would create two positions in council operations to do community engagement, and the note would clarify their use. They were not proposed. We didn't have time for the proposal, but a portion of it went into tcl ten. And so there was that was an attempt there. I think where we're looking right now is also exploring options within the administration to staff it. And I think as we all know, the budget had a lot of amendments. And so I think it's fair to ask to give some time to our public safety service area to kind of look and see where's the best place to make something like that work? Should it, should it be approved? So this was there was an attempt to do it through the budget. I will say that of course this was not originally filed thinking it would come up in March. But you know we have a backlog.
734 I also just want to say it is a measly $7,000 in a ginormous city budget. Canal I'll split that with you if you want out of my personal money, if it would satisfy everybody. So we could move this along. But I think that, you know, this is this is not a huge question. And if every single time we as the legislative body who are directing agencies and policy, had to hire a brand new staffer to get anything done, well, then the city of Portland would have a lot more staff than we currently do because we pass policies all the time. What we actually do is require that agencies examine their staffing and allocate the appropriate staffing when necessary. So I think that this is this is very small potatoes.
735 Thank you counselor I but I still get to ask those questions because this is not an ordinance. It's a resolution. And I've been trained to ask questions when they're when there's a budget and fiscal impact outside of resolutions. And so this is nothing I'm used to that's all. So that's why I was trying to do a friendly amendment to decouple them. Thanks.
736 Counselor Zimmerman, I believe you've spoken to this. I think we're on counselor Smith.
737 A couple things that I'm concerned about. And in building this, this new expansion of psr, we got rid of 60 positions in the permitting department and to now have conversations around expanding psr to a 24 over seven model and to have committees to build it out. If we couldn't afford to have the permitting, and we're going to vote on sdcs next to try to increase the number of sdcs, I'm concerned that we're building something that may end up having to be. Not funded properly. And so for me, this is this is about existing jobs that we represented, jobs that we are going to actually get rid of. And now we're talking about increasing a whole new system under the public safety system, which we don't know if they're going to be a part of. A fire, police retirement. And yet we're trying to expand this. So it's not like a one and done one time only money. And you're using this. This is about really expanding this. Do we. So the question I'm also asking myself is do we expand this under public safety. Or do we expand this under something that should go under the joint office? Because a lot of the mental health services, as it relates to working with our homeless and unsheltered folks, should be going under the joint office. So I have other questions on if this is the appropriate place to actually put psr. So that was just my it's a discussion, but it's a statement that I'm concerned about us building this and not being able to build it in a way that's meaningful. And also, on the other hand, we just got rid of people who are going to be gone in September. So I don't like it. I don't like building something up. When we also had people who who are losing their jobs, they're actually losing their jobs. And so I have a problem with it.
738 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Green.
739 Thank you, madam president. I will be brief because I know we need to move on. I just want to remind folks that I think it was Green 13 that created a public safety set aside for the director of public safety service area to use for capacity expansion uses broadly defined at the request of individual elements and bureaus divisions, psr, what have you inside there to ask for resources in this next fiscal year to expand capacity? So I think the $7,000 for this committee work could come out of that budget. There is money there. The other piece is that what we heard from our community members, from portlanders is that we want to prioritize in a scarce budget. Public safety and public safety has a very broad meaning. And this this expands this sort of expresses council's will to say when we are faced with scarce resources, we are going to shore up public safety. I see Portland street response part of public safety. And so that's why I'm going to I'm prepared to support support the amendment today or the just all of it.
740 I we should be debating the amendment, but we've been debating the entire thing because the amendment is so intertwined with it. So we may vote on them just one and then the other. At this point. Councilor Novick.
741 Yes. Question for councilor Kanal or councilor. Morillo. My understanding was that the $7,000 is not for staffing to support the committee, that resources for staffing and support the committee would have to be something else. Is that right?
742 Yeah. The $7,000 is a stipend. The maximum allowable by law is $500 on the. Under the federal 1997 volunteer. I can't remember the middle word, but volunteer something act. And it's 500 times 14 community members is $7,000 there. The question we're figuring out is, is to what degree are there existing staff who can do 0.25 fte on advisory committee related to this work, which, by the way, is a model that exists in most many of the couple hundred advisory committees that exist around the city, none of which advise on psr.
743 Thank you. Anything further, counselor Clark.
744 Just really quickly, there's a lot to like in this resolution. And I realize it's just advisory, but there's a lot to like. And reaffirming our support for Portland street response, unarmed crisis response, the adequate staffing, the maintaining lifesaving supplies as it goes on and on and on. I like all that stuff. But I have to tell you, I feel like this is premature. I just feel like we just gave psr 14 positions for a whole nother shift. We're getting more information from PSU. I'd just like to take a little more time with this and let them get their feet on the ground, get this new, this new 14 positions going. This just seems like a big leap forward when we just made a leap forward. And I'm not I'm not ready to support this. I'll support your amendment. Councilor canal. But I'm not going to support the resolution.
745 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Zimmerman.
746 What's happening?
747 Okay. Colleagues, seeing no other discussion in the queue, we do have an amendment before us. Keelan, could you please call the roll on the amendment that councilor Canal put forwar? And somebody's going to have to remind me who seconded that?
748 Councilor Koyama Lane councilor.
749 Koyama Lane. Seconded. Thank you, madam president. Before we heard public testimony.
750 Clerk. Repeat the amendment, please. Before we vote.
751 I councilor It's an extensive amendment. It.
752 Oh, it's that one. Okay.
753 Yeah.
754 Okay.
755 You got it.
756 Yeah.
757 Okay. Keelan go ahead.
758 Canal on the amendment.
759 I Ryan.
760 On the amendment.
761 I Koyama Lane mario. I novic.
762 I.
763 Clark. I Green.
764 I Zimmerman.
765 I Avalos.
766 I just want to say I'm pretty sure Koyama Lane is online. So if you want to go back to github or I know it takes a minute when you're online to unmute, but yeah, but I vote I.
767 Dunphy. I Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I and we want to circle back to councilor Koyama Lane.
768 I call her.
769 Councilor. We're voting on the amendment to the Portland street response resolution right now.
770 Are you talking to me?
771 Yes.
772 Sorry, I vote I.
773 Thank you.
774 Motion carries with 12 yes votes.
775 Okay, colleagues, we have an amended version of this resolution before us. We've had some significant discussion, I think, on the underlying resolution. Are there any other comments before we move to a vote? Okay. Seeing none keelan, could you please call the roll.
776 And I'll.
777 Thank you. This document is an expression of council's will to support Portland street response, to support public safety, to support the public safety response, a city responsibility to people in mental health crisis, real or perceived. I appreciate the feedback and the ability to adjust this from April 22nd to now, and lots of people here and elsewhere have given their thoughts, and I'm grateful we were able to talk through and make a lot of the changes and appreciate all those who testified on any side. I'm excited to get started on this work should it pass. But let's be clear this is a vote on Portland street response on whether we want to commit as a council to a 24 over seven mental health responder. And I think that's something we should all want to do. And on whether or not we should fulfill the promises that that we made in the past. And I believe that's really important as well. Thank you all. I vote aye, Ryan.
778 Well, this is tough. I'm definitely I think this will pass, but I really want to make sure that we get this right. And I don't think we I think we were disingenuous about the expense that will be involved in this. I think it's more than a 0.25 fte to build this. It's I've never seen that happen before. And I think it should be more bottom up coming from the expanded team at psr, bringing us their strategic plan and getting behind that, I'm sure that can all happen. I get the signaling that we want to do today. So if I was really politically astute, I would say, oh, I better vote yes on this, but I think I want to just do caution that this at this time wasn't well thought out as much as it could have been. I'm sorry we didn't have a it's not a first reading, second reading because it's a resolution. But I do think there's budget implications here that we're ignoring. And because of that and because the budget was so tight and so difficult to land, that matters to me. And at this moment in time, I'm a no on this and look forward to hearing the process along. Thanks, Koyama Lane.
779 Proud to vote. Aye, maria.
780 I know we're short on time, so I'll keep my comments very brief. I just want to thank all of the staff and volunteers who really took time to inform all of this. I want to thank commissioner Jo ann hardesty for bringing this forward, for working with cahoots. I want to thank street roots, kya sands. I want to thank my chief of staff, andre miller, who did extensive community organizing around this, who I'm proud to have on my team. And I know that this was incredibly thoughtfully led and well done, and that this is exactly what the community deserves. And this came from community, and that it's time to center back the voices that were pushed out of the Portland street response discussion in the first place. So this is actually not top down at all. This is bottom up. And that's exactly the kind of governance that I plan to continue doing. So thank you very much.
781 I vote yea Novick.
782 I share councilor Ryan's concern about establishing a new advisory committee without having the resources specifically allocated to support that advisory committee, and I actually don't like the idea that councilor Green suggested about taking money from his public safety set aside to fund that. However, this morning I offered councilor Kanal a backroom deal. I said that I'd be willing to support his resolution with the advisory committee if he was willing to change his vote on the Portland children's levy and respect the work of those advisory committees. I think that was totally unnecessary. And councilor Kanal would have changed his vote on the children's levy anyway. But I am bound by my backroom deal, so I vote, I mark.
783 As I said, I think this is really premature. I'm a strong supporter of Portland street response. We voted, we expanded Portland street response. I think it's great. I'm not ready to talk about a co-equal branch of the emergency response team. I just think we need more time to get the program even more established. I'm going to say something that's a little weird, but it seems like we're throwing a bunch of fertilizer on a little seedling before it's really ready to absorb it. So I'm going to vote no.
784 Green I Zimmerman.
785 I'm thinking about seedlings now.
786 Thank you.
787 And whatever the hell Novick just admitted to, I. So I mean, obviously, I've been working on the sobering center plan for a long time. I believe in it, and one of the key tenets of that was a future with Portland street response. Because of the deep need of help on the streets, help in every form. So I think there are a lot of words in this resolution that I think were purposely put in in ways that kind of have become talking points over the years from old, I think, old war wounds of trying to create something from nothing. And that takes a lot to create something from nothing. I have I have a lot of sympathy for that. So but I do think that this is going to pass and it should pass and maybe bring down the temperature on this idea that somehow the council doesn't support psr. Right? It does. It's funded it. It's going to pass this thing. And I think it's time to get into the year 2025 and stop living in 2021. With respect to what is psr in this community, it's very clear what psr is in this community, and it's always going to be evolving. I think that's a good thing. I think that I want all of the first responders, all of the emergency services, all the people who go to somebody in crisis to be evolving. So with that, I vote I Avalos.
788 I want to thank friends of psr for working with our offices so diligently and patiently as we collaborated on this, and I want to thank psr staff and other public safety programs for all the work you've done over the years to really make this program a national model to be proud of. And it's because of your dedication and hard work that we're here today able to commit to this, to this expansion and long term future as an integral part of our emergency response system. So I proudly vote aye.
789 Dunphy.
790 I had a whole thing I was going to say, but we're late on time, I vote I.
791 Smith. I pirtle-guiney. I the resolution is adopted, as amended, with ten yes votes and two no votes.
792 Thank you colleagues, we are not going to make it through both items left on our agenda, but we are going to get through a first reading on agenda item four. So keelan, could you please read agenda item four for us?
793 Amend system development charge exemptions code to add a temporary exemption for residential housing projects.
794 Thank you. Christopher, could you please give us our committee staff summary for this ordinance?
795 Yes. Thank you, madam president. Once again, christopher haire council policy analyst and I serve as staff to the finance committee. The ordinance before you document 2020 5-2 43 was considered in the finance committee. On June 16th, it was referred to council with a recommendation to pass the ordinance amending city code 17.1 14.070. System development charges, exemptions through the addition of a subsection that provides a temporary exemption from service development charges. Sdcs for residential housing projects. The exemption will apply to all new dwelling units or congregate living facilities as defined by state building code, with certain restrictions and requirements as defined within the subsection. Additional requirements for exemption include that a building permit has not been issued before the effective date of the ordinance, nor issued after September 30th, 2028. An amendment adopted during the June 16th committee meeting revised the language in the proposed code change, subsection 17.1 14.0 70j2a2. Adjusting the effective date for the sdc exemption from October 1st, 2025 to coincide with the ordinance's effective date. Upon passage, 14 people testified in committee and eight people submitted written testimony prior to the agenda item posting for full council. General themes of testimony included possible factors contributing to the recent decline in housing production in Portland, current and potential impacts on local development projects, correlation between limited housing production, rising rental costs, and increased houselessness potential impacts of sdc exemptions on currently stalled housing projects and ongoing bond requirements for new developments. This concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.
796 Thank you. Christopher. Councilor Zimmerman, I believe you were presiding over this meeting. Anything to add?
797 Yeah, and it was great and we should all pass it next.
798 Colleagues, are there any technical questions before we hear from a few members of the public? Councilor Avalos.
799 Well, can I do my amendment now?
800 Yeah. Why don't you put forward your amendment? We're going to wait to discuss it until after public testimony, but it will allow people to speak to it.
801 Yeah. That way I could possibly leave. Okay. So here we go. The amendments on the website was emailed to you guys. So let me read what the amendment says and then I'll explain it. So it is under the now therefore the council directs to add part. There's an a. The amendment would add a b and the b says the mayor. Hold on. Yeah. The mayor will return to council once the 63 million threshold of foregone revenue has been reached, so that council can consider whether to terminate the exemption if it is sooner than three years or under. 5000 units. Let me explain it real quick, my reasoning for it so I get my reasoning. Bullets up. Here we go. So here's the thing. If we approve this proposal as is, we're agreeing to lose a lot more than $63 million. This is what I'm concerned about. The impact statement clearly says that that the 63 million in foregone revenue only represents the 2500 units that they thought they would build anyway. It doesn't include an additional 2500 units that we hope will be built. And I had a discussion with dca oliveira on the dais about this in the finance committee, and I even said I didn't feel answered by the discussion. And I had a follow up. And yeah. And then reading it again, looking at the impact statement, it's clear that this has a potential for costing us a lot more than what it says. If the if we're not clearly defining what is the actual moratorium line, I think that this council needs to enter this with very eyes wide open, knowing that if this proposal achieves its goal, which of course we all want it to, but we could stand to lose twice as much based on what it says. And I know that I was assured that, oh no, it would be this or they would come. I'm sorry, but your promises are not enough. I'm a legislator. This is an ordinance. I want to cement in the ordinance the expectation that we're setting here that much in lost infrastructure revenue is really serious, especially to communities like east Portland, like that are still waiting for the basics. And when developers are building new units, it puts greater strain on our roads, our water pipes, and if they're not paying into the system through sdcs, as this waiver is suggesting, then those costs can eventually turn up and things like increased water rates and somebody is eventually going to pay it. Right. So I stated very clearly that my support for this came with that price tag and not a cent more. And so all I'm asking in this amendment is that the council takes the our budget authority seriously and requires that the mayor come back to us once we reach this threshold and give us the opportunity to agree or not to losing more revenue. I believe it's the fiscally responsible thing to do. And I agree that this exemption could, you know, help move housing projects that are stuck due to those financing gaps. And I want that just as much as everyone. But I think that we owe it to our communities to fully understand the consequences, since they since they may be the ones paying the price in the long run. So those are my that's my reasoning. And then I guess I need a second if I have a second.
802 Thank you councilor. Is there a second?
803 Second.
804 Okay. We have a second. So colleagues, we are not going to discuss this right now because I do want to make sure that we hear public testimony, but we have this open. And if councilor Avalos is not able to stay any longer, I wanted to give her the professional courtesy of putting that on the record. In her own words. Councilor Morillo, do you have technical questions before we make sure we have time to hear from the public?
805 No. I'm so sorry. My hand was up. I did just want to note for folks that I am bringing forward an amendment, which I just emailed to all of you. Thanks.
806 Okay. Thank you, councilor Green, did you have a technical question?
807 No.
808 Okay, keelan, why don't we make sure we hear testimony from the public and councilor Morillo I am going to look at the amendment that you just sent as well to see. Do we need to share with the public what that will look like?
809 Yeah, I can outline it briefly if you'd like.
810 Why don't you take just a minute to outline it?
811 Okay. I'll do it quickly. Essentially it's just asking that the community and economic development service area is going to receive a written implementation reports every six months for the duration of the sdc waiver, and it just has some specifics on that so that we can actually track with metrics whether or not this is working and if it's actually producing the units that it says it's going to produce. So it's just asking for a written report. It asks for unit characteristics, development trends, progress towards the stated goal of building the 5000 units and identification of any changes to that second. Okay.
812 So we have two amendments open. Thank you.
813 I just have a point of information real quick just for because if we're having a hard stop at six, if we don't get back to the amendments, do those just roll to the next meeting or what really happens?
814 Yes, we will be able to vote on them and discuss at the next meeting as well.
815 Okay. Sounds good. Thanks.
816 Thank you. Councilor keelan, could you please call up our first panel for testimony?
817 First up, we have robert pyle. Dave peticolas, ty barker, sarazen. Go ahead.
818 Hello council. My name is robert pyle I'm the.
819 Principal of.
820 Oakleaf.
821 Redevelopment I collaborate with other Portland.
822 Businesses to build. 100% solar.
823 Powered.
824 Small scale.
825 Infill multifamily. Exclusively within.
826 The city.
827 Of Portland.
828 We believe that. Transit oriented gentle density.
829 Is the.
830 Key.
831 To improving portland's.
832 Affordability, climate.
833 Resiliency.
834 And maintaining the authentic.
835 Character of.
836 Portland neighborhoods.
837 We urge you.
838 To adopt this temporary exemption and. Make it effective immediately.
839 As an.
840 Emergency ordinance.
841 Reducing entitlement costs will cause more production.
842 Current forecasts.
843 Indicate we're expected to.
844 Deliver only 600 plus.
845 Units this.
846 Year, compared to our long term. Average of.
847 3000 plus.
848 Rents are. Also forecast to rise in 2026 and 2027 due to the growing imbalance between supply and demand. For those concerned. This exemption means less funds.
849 To support our public.
850 Infrastructure. Either way.
851 With or without.
852 This exemption.
853 Sdc revenues.
854 Are down due to the lack of new projects in the pipeline. At least this way we will gain new units, grow.
855 The property.
856 Tax base to councilor.
857 Ryan's earlier.
858 Point in the context of the children's levy, and create millions of dollars of economic activity. The existing infrastructure supports. 300,000 units in the city. Surely it.
859 Has.
860 Capacity for.
861 305,000. Please also consider as soon as possible. Number one temporary. Exemptions from design review two. Adoption of a self-certification program. And expansion.
862 Of the pre-approved.
863 Plans library to include multifamily building types and three reducing. The minimum unit count and expansion.
864 Of the.
865 Areas. Eligible for the affordable housing program. We also look forward to the discussion on social housing between.
866 The.
867 New revolving.
868 Loan programs.
869 At the state level and the Green social housing model in chicago. We can act on the.
870 Scale.
871 Of months, not years. Thank you to.
872 The mayor, the governor.
873 The. Members of the multifamily.
874 Housing development workgroup, and.
875 To.
876 The finance committee for advancing this item.
877 To the full council on a unanimous.
878 Five zero vote.
879 Thank you.
880 Thank you very much.
881 Okay.
882 Dave, go ahead.
883 Hello and good afternoon. My name is dave patricola. I live in the portsmouth neighborhood and I'm a member of Portland neighbors welcome, a pro housing and pro tenant organization. Thank you, counselors, for your thoughtful debate and consideration of this proposal. And I acknowledge that there are trade offs between the need for infrastructure revenue and the need to do everything that we can to spur home construction. Portland neighbors welcome supports the system development charge holiday for several reasons. First, the housing shortage is an acute and multifaceted problem, and we need to use every tool that we can to meet our production goals, which we are woefully falling short of. Second of all, system development charges are a regressive cost burden that falls heaviest on the lowest cost housing by increasing housing costs, sdcs increase the market power of landlords and ultimately drive up rents. There are alternatives to sdcs that are less sensitive to cyclical fluctuations, and many cities do not use system development charges at all, including the city of seattle. Portland itself went without sdcs for many years in the past, without problems, so please support this proposal, but then also use the holiday to study alternatives to sdcs that provide a more stable source of funding for critical infrastructure and that are more equitable. And our organization would love to participate in that work with you. Thank you very much and have a great rest of your day.
884 Hi, barker. Sarah zon.
885 Members of city council. My name is sarah zon. I'm the managing director of development.
886 For.
887 Security properties. We're a seattle. Based real estate investment company.
888 With a significant Portland presence.
889 I'm also the current board president of Oregon smart growth.
890 And.
891 I was a member of the recent multifamily housing work group convened by the governor and mayor to address how to increase market rate housing production. I'm here today in strong support of the proposed sdc waiver, but I want to focus my testimony this afternoon on the amendment proposed by council member Avalos. The original proposal was specifically crafted to provide certainty around access to the fee waivers by meeting permit issuance deadlines, and one of two specific options to lock in the waiver. We can be certain these waivers will.
892 Come.
893 To the project without that certainty, as may be the case under this amendment, such that the program could be discontinued before the three year timeline. Within a very short window, those waivers become uncertain and an unreliable, unreliable source. Projects set their budgets many months before permit issuance, and for larger projects, can spend upwards of several million dollars at risk. And before an equity partner is committed to design and title and permit a project, anything short of a clear timeline and absolute certainty means we cannot rely on that fee reduction. This ultimately serves to entirely negate the waivers value, as we would have to disregard the benefit in our underwriting, putting us back to square one. Equity capital is a scarce resource and they have choices on where to invest. We need every tool available to us to convince them they should invest in Portland. I urge you to pass the waiver. As originally crafted, this waiver will provide tangible financial relief to projects that don't currently have a path to viability. Equally important, this action sends us a clear public signal that Portland is serious about increasing housing supply and understands that bold action is required. Let's not miss this opportunity to break the cycle of underproduction, and let's begin reestablishing Portland as a great place to invest. Thank you.
894 Thank you.
895 Next up we have michelle schultz. Isaac, and heidi hart. Bill crawford.
896 Good evening, city council.
897 Thank you for.
898 Listening to our.
899 Testimony today. My name.
900 Is michelle.
901 Schultz and I'm a licensed architect.
902 Principal and owner.
903 At.
904 Gbd architects.
905 We're proud to be headquartered.
906 In district four. Our firm has been designing projects in Portland for over 54 years.
907 I spoke. To council.
908 Finance, the council finance committee last week and wanted to.
909 Reiterate the testimony.
910 To you all today.
911 Gbd has had the privilege of.
912 Shaping this city's skyline. Neighborhoods and public.
913 Spaces across generations.
914 But in recent years, we've.
915 Had a seen a troubling slowdown.
916 In housing development.
917 Driven in part.
918 By financial. Barriers that make it increasingly difficult to get projects off.
919 The ground. At Portland. Business owner.
920 I've built my career and we've built our company. Around the belief that this is a city worth investing in. We want to continue doing our work.
921 Here.
922 Creating the housing, communities and public spaces that define Portland. But more and more, our work is being pushed outside the city and even outside the state, because it's where projects are actually being built. That's where the math works and the momentum exists. If we want to reverse that trend, we need action now. That's why I strongly support the temporary exemption of system development charges for residential projects. This measure isn't just about lowering costs, it's about removing a key hurdle that's preventing much needed housing from moving forward. There have been false comments regarding a loss of revenue. 0% of $0 is still zero. We're not seeing projects now. We have don't have system development charges coming in the door. The sdc waiver will have an immediate impact on shovel ready projects that currently don't pencil. It's a powerful tool to unlock housing production, retain local jobs, and restore confidence in portland's development pipeline. This is a practical, time limited solution that signals to investors, developers and residents alike. Portland is serious about building housing and open for business. Thank you very much for your leadership and your consideration in this important step towards portland's recovery. Thank you.
923 Thank you.
924 Isaac is joining us online.
925 Hello.
926 Thank you.
927 President pirtle-guiney other members of the council. My name is isaac amoruso and I serve as the deputy director of government affairs for the home builders association of greater Portland. I appreciate the opportunity to testify this evening. The exemption before you is a targeted, temporary policy designed to break a logjam and jumpstart production in Portland. We were very grateful that the finance committee recognized the urgency of the moment by amending the ordinance to take effect 30 days after passage. We are now asking the council to demonstrate that same urgency and pass this measure without delay or amendment. Right now, more than 7000 apartment units in portland's housing pipeline are stalled because they're not financially viable. These are real projects that are ready to move, but they're stuck due to excessive cost burdens. One of the most significant cost drivers is system development charges, which can add between 15 and $35,000 per unit to a project with an average cost of $20,000. That's roughly 8% of total construction costs, which is enough to kill some projects entirely. In 2024, Portland produced only 818 market rate housing units. This year, we're projected to produce just a little over 600. This is not just a housing slowdown. It's a systemic failure to respond to a repeatedly declared emergency. I also want to express concern about the proposed amendment requiring that the mayor return to council for reauthorization. If the $63 million revenue revenue threshold is met, this would cripple a major component of the legislative intent of this ordinance, which is to attract investment into the Portland housing market. This kind of amendment creates uncertainty for investors and developers, and those are precisely the types of that's precisely what we're trying to unlock with the passage of this legislation, it's important for investors to know the cost of a project up front. They budget months before a permit is pulled. They can't count on a waiver that might be pulled partway through permit review due to an arbitrary foregone record threshold. That uncertainty risks undermining the effectiveness of this entire policy. So on behalf of the homebuilding association, I urge you to pass this ordinance. Thank you very much.
928 Thank you.
929 Heidi hart is joining us online. Hello, councilors.
930 My name.
931 Is heidi hart.
932 I am.
933 A renter in the buckman neighborhood, and I'm also a board member of Portland neighbors. Welcome. I'm here to ask you to support the proposed three year sdc holiday. I am deeply concerned that the.
934 Very.
935 Few homes that are being built in Portland right now will result in significant rent increases. When we start.
936 Seeing increased in-migration, which is already picking up. That is what happens subsequent to the great recession collapse in home building, where we saw large year over year rent increases and a acceleration of the housing crisis. Many of the reasons.
937 For the.
938 Situation we are currently in are outside the city's control. We cannot change high interest rates, tariffs on construction materials, or the unfortunate fact that the federal government will not be funding the affordable housing dollars we need anytime soon. However, I ask that for the reasons within your control that you prioritize addressing them as quickly as you can. That includes this proposed sec holiday, as well as building code reform, social housing and re legalizing building apartments in portland's high opportunity, low displacement risk close in neighborhoods that already have built out infrastructure sdcs pay for important things. We need parks, roads and pipes locating new construction spurred by this sdc holiday in areas that are infrastructure and opportunity rich will not only help ameliorate the effects of forgone infrastructure dollars, but will have positive effects on both the lives of the people who are able to live in neighborhoods with close access to jobs, businesses, parks and transit, and on both business and property tax revenue. The current parks sdc sdc fund can only be used for new park construction, not maintenance of existing parks, and new unrestricted revenue can be spent on the city's most significant current needs. Thank you very much for your time.
939 You. Crawford, Eric högstedt. Durgesh patel.
940 May I begin?
941 Go ahead. Bill.
942 Hello.
943 Elected members of the Portland city council.
944 Colleagues.
945 People of Portland.
946 My name is.
947 Bill crawford.
948 I'm here to.
949 Testify on my own time.
950 As a resident of. Portland against the moratorium on.
951 System development charges. I've experienced infrastructure.
952 I raised.
953 Private money.
954 For a public water fountain.
955 I've worked for a developer.
956 And for the.
957 Last nine years I have.
958 Worked for Portland.
959 Parks as their sdc assessor.
960 I'm a.
961 Proud member of the cp union, and I thank you.
962 For your support.
963 I urge you to consider the damage. This moratorium will bring to.
964 Equity, housing.
965 Affordability.
966 And the quality.
967 Of life in our city.
968 Why hamstring.
969 Our city's.
970 Improvements when and where we need it the most?
971 The minimum.
972 Amount the parks.
973 Bureau alone will lose. For 5000.
974 Units is 39,000 $705,000 minimum.
975 These impacts will.
976 Be.
977 Significant and. Deeply felt in.
978 Underserved communities.
979 Why transfer wealth and opportunity away from.
980 Our cities.
981 Most.
982 Vulnerable to.
983 Wealthy and out of state developers?
984 There's no.
985 Obligation here to build affordable market.
986 Rate or even long term housing.
987 Developers could put all.
988 Their new.
989 Units on airbnb and skip affordable. Units altogether, and.
990 Just make 5000 mcmansions.
991 Aren't we here.
992 Trying to improve the affordable housing crisis?
993 Meanwhile.
994 New projects like verdell, burdine, rutherford.
995 Park, Lane park.
996 Mount scott community center.
997 These would all go.
998 Unbuilt and unfunded.
999 And what.
1000 About the north Portland aquatic center sdcs.
1001 Fund these projects?
1002 People should look forward to the many other improvements to sdcs bring, but this ordinance ends that it bears repeating that affordable housing units do not receive system development charges under the fb exemption program. Once again, affordable housing equals no sdcs already, developers don't need this ordinance to create affordable housing. Just because they scream at the loudest doesn't mean it's true. We'll get fewer parks, fewer affordable units, and perhaps even more houseless. Portlanders know that if you vote yes on this ordinance, you are voting against creating very necessary and popular civic improvements, and you risk making housing housing prices worse. Please vote no.
1003 Thank you.
1004 Thank you Eric.
1005 Hello city council, my name is Eric högstedt. I'm a Portland based real estate broker, a brokerage owner, and I serve as a local director on Portland metropolitan association of realtors. I'm testifying today in full support of the proposed temporary waiver of system development charges. As drafted. This action is not only necessary, it's overdue. I work directly with small developers, homeowners, housing providers every day, and I see firsthand how our current fee structures and permitting delays are strangling the very housing supply we all say we need. The sdc waiver is a step in the right direction, but it's just the tip of the iceberg. We need full. We need a full overhaul of the systems that are stalling housing creation in Portland, from zoning to permitting and fees. This is a moment to get very serious. We cannot continue layering costs and red tape onto those trying to create housing. While lamenting the affordability crisis we're in. The market won't fix this alone. Leadership from this council is required to remove barriers and incentivize real production. Now, I urge you to pass this ordinance without delay and to keep pushing for deeper structural reform. Portland's future depends on bold, pragmatic action, starting here, starting today. Thank you very much.
1006 Thank you.
1007 Checking for. Dr. Josh patel. That concludes testimony.
1008 Okay. Colleagues are very generous staff who are already many hours after what they thought this day would be have offered to give us until 630. And I'm wondering if we can maintain a quorum until 630 in order to debate and vote on the amendments that were put before us. I'm seeing one nod, two nods, three nods, four nods. Okay, I think we are maintaining a quorum to be able to move forward on these amendments. So, colleagues, we have two amendments before us. I'm going to take them in. The order that they were brought to us. Is there any discussion on the amendment brought forward by councilor Avalos? Councilor canal.
1009 I have a question and I'm not sure. I don't want to put dca on the spot, but I might I don't know if anyone else is here that could be able to answer it, but my and it might be, it might be.
1010 Why don't you tell us the question and we'll figure out who the question.
1011 Is, whether or not a cap at 63 million or a potential cap, should we adopt this amendment and then not later increase it? Whether it would imperil funding for the north Portland aquatic center? That is my specific question, and I'll be asking the similar version of the question for the overall ordinance. Yeah.
1012 Do you see, donna paul, are you able to answer that on behalf of parks, or do we have anybody in the room who can?
1013 Nils.
1014 Do we have anybody from our. Okay. Councilor Kanal I'm going to try to get an answer for you from one of our folks who's not in the room, so that we can get that question answered, because I don't see anybody coming forward who has the answer unless. Kristina, do you think you know.
1015 I will just share what I, what. I believe I know, and then we can confirm later. I've had just some very rough conversations with park staff about the different items that they spend sdcs on. And my understanding is that the aquatic center is not is not one of the projects that they would envision could be potentially impacted by any future reduced sdc revenue. So that's helpful to understand.
1016 That, I just want to make sure I understand you're saying that regardless of whether or not the ordinance or the amendment were to pass, there would still be funding for the north Portland aquatic center.
1017 That is my highly caveated understanding. Yes, councilor.
1018 I accept the answer and the caveats. Thank you.
1019 But we'll get confirmation. Yeah.
1020 Thank you, councilor Green.
1021 Thank you, madam president. I'm speaking today in opposition of the amendment from councilor Avalos. I respect the good faith, desire for transparency and accountability. But my reason for opposition, I will just try to summarize. I think part of the reason why we have so many unhoused people in this city is we've made it very difficult, in an already difficult environment to build housing, and you can only do so much affordable housing production. You also need normal conventional finance to do it. And the cost of finance is a function of uncertainty. And so if we add uncertainty into the into the waiver, then we're raising the cost of finance and we're raising the cost of housing and we will build less of it. We will simply build less of it. My number one interest right now in this city is getting as many people inside houses as possible, and that includes keeping people from being displaced in the first place. And so I'm supporting the waiver as unamended. But I would also say that I just think as we're thinking through this system, development charges are regressive. They're deeply regressive, especially at the scale of housing that we want to build with this 15 to 40 units. That's a high percentage of the capital stack with system development charges. That's going to get passed on to renters, that's going to get passed on to homeowners. I think it is reasonable to think about the impacts to end user costs. There are utility rate impacts with foregone sdcs. But if you build 5000 units of housing because of this waiver on the margin, that's 5000 new ratepayers to spread the fixed costs of your utility system, over 5000 new ratepayers, which will lower costs on the margin. So I think so I'm not supporting the amendment. And happy to take any questions for the economist at council if you need me to do that. Thanks.
1022 Thank you councilor Colleagues. Unlike my colleague who just spoke, I'm a big fan of sdcs and coming around to support the underlying measure was hard for me, but it felt like at this moment in time, the benefits outweigh the costs. And while I agree with councilor Avalos that we don't know the total cost, and when we say that the cost is just the or the, the lost opportunity I guess is just the units that we know about that seems disingenuous. But I can't support this amendment because if we're going to do this, if we're going to move this proposal, which I do support the underlying ordinance, we need to do it in a way that matters, that makes a difference, and that means we need to give the certainty that developers in our community are asking for. And if I'm going to support the underlying ordinance, I don't want us to make changes that make it less effective. This is temporary. I'm willing to support a waiver temporarily in order to jump start housing production in our community that we desperately need. Let's make sure we can achieve that goal. I'm not supporting the amendment for that reason. Councilor zimmermann.
1023 Thanks. And for both councilors pirtle-guiney and Green. I appreciate those comments. I would also encourage my other colleagues to vote no on the on the amendment. If this program was wildly successful and we saw 5000 units be built, I think it's a great problem to have, if that if this program is so successful that we saw 10,000 units be built, I think that's probably a good program to have or problem to have. And I share that because that's the mindset from which I'm coming. I think it would be a mischaracterization on the understanding of whether or not sdcs are going to be collected in the next three years on 5000 units. And given the way we developed in 2020 for 800 some odd units, they will not be. It's not going to happen. They're not coming in. We have not seen any indication in portland's market to say that that period is over, which is why this injection is required. And so. There is a three year timeline that is a very appropriate and very strong backstop to alleviate concerns that this becomes a path to sdcs being gone forever. So I think that the committee and the staff who worked on this put together good backstops, and this amendment would introduce a level of uncertainty that can be hard to understand, but is a very real level of uncertainty for the folks outside of Portland that we rely on for the development and financing of projects. So please, let's vote on this one, and I would urge you to vote it down. And so I don't have to speak on the next one. I think Morillo amendment is just fine and you should pass it. No problem. And then we should pass the whole darn thing.
1024 Thank you. Councilor, councilors, is there any other discussion to the amendment brought forward by councilor Avalos? Okay. Seeing none keelan can you please call the roll? Can I can I pause this for one minute? I'm sorry, I just got a bit of an answer to your question, councilor Kanal, and I want to make sure to respond to that before you're asked to vote. Dca shamansky says that while we can't speculate on the impacts to any specific project, that it's likely that the north Portland aquatic center will not be impacted and that the current cost projections are covered by the current budget allocations. Obviously, we don't know what will happen in the future. So I just that's what my chief of staff is getting from her right now.
1025 Thank you. This is great. They did get an unprecedented amount a couple of years ago for this.
1026 Yeah.
1027 I'm sorry. Keelan. Please go ahead and call the roll.
1028 Canal.
1029 Yeah. Thanks for the timing on that. And thank you to all three of the last speakers. I you said everything I'd say. I seconded this to have the discussion. I think it's worthwhile to have. And I appreciate the underlying problem statement that I think councilor Avalos is bringing up. I do vote no on the amendment, though.
1030 Ryan.
1031 No.
1032 Koyama Lane. Councilor Koyama Lane, are you there?
1033 Morillo no.
1034 Novick.
1035 No.
1036 Clark.
1037 No.
1038 Green.
1039 No.
1040 Zimmerman.
1041 No.
1042 Avalos. Dunphy.
1043 No.
1044 Smith.
1045 No.
1046 Pirtle-guiney.
Procedural episode · turns 1047–1057
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
1047 No.
1048 Amendment fails with ten. No votes and two absent.
1049 Okay, colleagues, we have another amendment before us today which was proposed by councilor Morillo and seconded by councilor Zimmerman. Councilor Morillo. Does everybody have that language?
1050 Yes, I e-mailed it to everybody. Let me know if you didn't receive it. I can quickly recap what it's about as well, which is basically just that. Every six months I'm asking for a report with updates on the progression of us actually building units with the sdc waiver and the impacts of that.
1051 Call the question.
1052 Councilor Zimmerman, you have a question?
1053 No, my mic was on. I call the question.
1054 Oh, colleagues, is there any discussion to this amendment? Okay. Seeing none keelan can you please call the roll?
1055 Canal. Hi Ryan.
1056 Thank you. This is a great amendment. Having an update every six months toward a stated goal is a good idea.
1057 I vote yea Koyama Lane.
1058 Thank you councilor Morillo for this, I vote aye maria.
1059 I'm really proud that me and Dan had a moment today. I vote yea.
1060 I also appreciate the Dan angelina moment.
1061 I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman I Avalos Dunphy. I Smith. I pirtle-guiney.
1062 I colleagues. I think this gets to some of the concerns gets us the information that will help us understand some of the concerns that councilor Avalos was raising as well. So I appreciate this alternative approach.
1063 I the amendment is approved. Sorry. With 11 yes votes and one absent.
1064 Okay, colleagues, we have 14. We have 14 minutes to have some discussion about the underlying ordinance so that we can move it to second reading. Is there any discussion about the underlying ordinance to amend our system development charge code temporarily? Counselor Smith.
1065 Yes. Who is here on behalf of the executive side.
1066 We have dca oliveira here to speak to the impacts. We have a number of other tcas also, but this mostly comes out of.
1067 It comes out.
1068 Of we're talking about spurring housing development, which is in mr. Olivares portfolio. Thank you.
1069 Thank you for coming up. I have a question. In the in in the materials and the presentation, it said that there was going to be $63 million for 2559 or something like that. And so but actually it's going to be more than that, that we're going to lose in terms of system development charges. Am I correct on that?
1070 Potentially.
1071 Potentially if we if we're if we do what the mayor is asking and go up to 5000, it's going to be more than the 63 million, correct?
1072 Okay. For the record, I just for the record, just for.
1073 The oh, sorry. Thank you. I, I just wanted to make sure because oftentimes I was looking at the presentation before and I know 63 million was was thrown around in the, in the newspaper. But I was like I was adding up the 20,000 times 5000. And that was like $100 million. And so I was like, I know it's going to be more than 63 million. But I just wanted to make sure, for the record, that it's clear that we understand that it's more than the 63.
1074 Thank you for the question, counselor. The 63 million represents the foregone revenue that will not be collected based on our forecast for housing production standard over the next three years.
1075 Right. Thank you. Thank you, I appreciate it.
1076 Councilor Green.
1077 Thank you, madam president. Well, since dca is at the at the dais, I wonder if you can maybe take a minute to describe some of the bottlenecks to affordable housing production that exists in the city and why it's important to have a broad basket approach and why this tool might, might help us address that. I'm sorry to put you on the spot with a question that you probably haven't. Yeah, thank you for the question, councilor Green. It is a very large question, and I think it's appropriate, maybe for a committee wink, wink one day to contemplate at a very high level, all housing production has similar needs, whether it be affordable or market rate. You need of materials, labor, permitting processes. You need your permitting bureau staffed. So in a broader sense, by by igniting housing production or housing engine, we're supporting all housing types. When we have a lull of affordable housing dollars, whether it be, you know, the public sector, dollars coming from bonds or tiff or the federal government, we largely rely on our market rate housing because of inclusionary housing to generate that, that affordable housing market.
1078 That otherwise.
1079 Doesn't exist with those.
1080 Public dollars.
1081 And having said that, and something we contemplated in the committee conversation, is we need to keep our labor force in Portland working. And so as the bond dollars are slowly, you know, winding down, we need the housing production to come from somewhere else. And because those labor dollars are generating, you know, economy revenue, obviously wages.
1082 For our.
1083 Residents, which is building up our economy. So our, our affordable housing nexus is directly tied to the health of our overall economy. I would love to come back to a committee or this council as an appropriate to talk about those, those nuts and bolts of that. But fundamentally, the sdc exemption is helping our overall housing production by keeping that engine going where it otherwise would probably, you know, like come to a halt really soon. Thank you. And I just kind of want to expand on that. I think when we're at a low level of production, the opportunity cost of what you lose in sdcs is low. If we were ripping and roaring, the opportunity cost is higher. But that again, that's that's probably a good problem to have. I'm going to stop editorializing because I think we're after time. So thank you. I just wanted to ask the question about that.
1084 Thank you.
1085 Councilor councilor Kanal.
1086 Yeah. The I have two questions. And one, feel free to get back to me at a later time. The first one, I'm also curious, in addition to the north Portland aquatic center, as to what this does to the potential future funding for the interstate firehouse cultural center and the work there. So feel free to get back to me before the next meeting. It's not urgent. The other question is sort of a rhetorical one, but you may have comments on it, I think. But my main concern around this is the and I think this is probably centered primarily in district one, but I think it would happen in all the districts. And the element of creating infrastructure needs and passing that on to ratepayers. Yes, we would have more ratepayers. And I think doctor Green definitely acknowledged, explained that very well. But I think I am. It's not just the things that are funded through rates, right. We have infrastructure needs that would be in transportation for example, that is not funded that way. So to what degree do you anticipate there being a future general fund or bond obligation? Because I think some of this is not going to if you don't build certain things, it's not necessarily a requirement. I don't think it's going to be the full 63 or 126 million. But do you have a rough ratio or percentage or share of that that you think will be foregone outside of the ratepayer context that we'd have to make up?
1087 Thank you for the question. That is a very complex question, in the sense that there's a lot of different elements of sdcs. Our bureaus don't treat sdcs the same. And perhaps donna paul will want to build on my answer and prove it. In fact, the infrastructure bureaus use sdcs in slightly different ways. So water and bus, for example, have a certain structure, whereas parks and PBOT have a different structure. What that's to say is that localized improvements that a housing project will have will be built into their public works permit. So really specific location specific improvements are built into to permits. When we talk about sdcs, we're talking about broader system investments that may or may not be directly located where those that project is happening. So and that's something that I think the bureaus are going to be evaluating over the next couple of years. When it comes to the value of the loc of those investments. Yes, we have to and it's built into the ordinance. We will have to have a moment where we reevaluate the projects on the list to see what if there is foregone revenue, what is prioritized. And that's something that the administration will contemplate. Council will contemplate if in fact, we are hitting that that $63 million and above target, the last thing I'll just offer is our infrastructure gaps are well known. Councilor Clark and her committee has talked about it at great length. We have a broader evaluation that needs to happen not just because of housing production or lack thereof, but because we've woefully under invested in basic infrastructure across the city and in east Portland, mostly. But I think every district has elements that could use a little jolt that that doesn't change the fact that we also are lacking housing production, too. So more to come on that. Yeah, this is all for public works. And I think Olivia captured it pretty well. The things that I would like to add are, like you said, different bureaus are impacted differently. Pbot specifically doesn't have any specific delays with respect to the proposed ordinance for the next three years. But longer term projects like the montgomery park street park streetcar and the broadway corridor Green loop could be impacted. But I also want to flag that the stc portion of the revenues is only like less than 5% for the montgomery park streetcar and for bus and water. Again, the it's a different way in which it's impacted, and it will show up in the rate revenues if you're going for b is, for example, will use the reserves to for the budget cuts with respect to the sdcs for water, it would be the bonding aspect of it. And so we are prepared to address those impacts. And as they come, we will either rescope reprioritize delay projects as needed. And then if utility bureaus have to adjust with respect to increasing rates, we will come back to council with that at that time. Yeah.
1088 Thank you, councilor. Councilor Smith.
1089 Thank you. So the other question I had, if they come back like say one of the or many of the developers come back to change to do change orders for different permits. If they change the permit, are they going to be responsible for paying that extra or do they get that waived as well.
1090 In the in the unlikely event that that would happen, yes, they would pay for any sdc that was not housing specific. We have those two stage gate moments in the in the process that permit issuance at the at the foundation or the budget note, depending on the project type. I'll just tell you that if a project has gone through the full design development permitting process, the likelihood of them changing after that fact is almost almost zero. I mean, it would be a pretty incredible change if they went through a change at that point.
1091 So the other question is, and I think we talked about this before, I wanted to find out there were some developers in the queue that are going to do market rate housing in district one. And so I was just curious to where where those particular places or spaces are that we have in district one that are already in the queue.
1092 Thank you for the question, counselor. We'll have to get back to you on the specifics, but we're happy to do that.
1093 Okay. Perfect.
1094 Anything further? Councilor?
1095 No thank you.
1096 Colleagues, this is a first reading today. But when we come back for second reading, I just want to encourage everybody's support. I mentioned during the amendment process that it was hard for me to get there on this ordinance. I believe that sdcs are one of the only things that keep us maintaining the infrastructure that we have in the way that we need to, in a city that is not always very responsible in how we invest in our infrastructure, but we also are in a housing crisis right now. And on balance, while I do think that the forgone revenue is going to be more than this ordinance as it is on balance I think this is really critical. We need to jump start housing in our community. We need to make sure that we do that well, that we do it right, and then we need to get back to having our our funds set aside to invest in our infrastructure. And in a world where I think we can do both, I think it's time to prioritize one and then get back to prioritizing the other. So I just encourage everybody, when this is back before us for second reading to support it. Councilor Clark.
1097 I would just like to add I support sdc as well, having been a long time public employee and local government, but I also think we need to work on what we use them for when we get back to them, what the definition is, whether we change the state law, or whether we try to stretch the definition as far as we can go here in the city, just put a pin in that colleague.
1098 Councilor, I think you and I agree that ensuring we can maintain and expand capacity probably falls within the definition of sdc, although we don't currently interpret it that way at the city of Portland, colleagues, are there any other comments before we close the first reading on this ordinance? Okay. Seeing none, we are going to close this first reading. This will come back at second reading, at our next council meeting, and at 629, with my immense gratitude to all of our staff who have stayed many hours after you were scheduled for. Thank you so much to all of you. I'm looking at keelan and adam, and I know there are a bunch of people behind the scenes I can't see as well as linly. I will close the meeting.