The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-02-05
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council convened on February 5, 2025, opening with acknowledgment of public frustration over the administration's approval of a land use compatibility statement (LUX) for Zenith Energy. After roll call establishing quorum and reading of decorum rules, the council approved the agenda and heard public testimony, including from members of a city workers' union describing ongoing contract negotiations, and a speaker recommending zoning changes to encourage office-to-residential conversions downtown. The council then took up and approved findings for a demolition review land use item on Southwest Porter Street, and approved a consent agenda including prior meeting minutes; votes occurred on both items, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The council next considered resolutions to appoint a city administrator and a city attorney. Extensive public testimony was heard, much of it opposing the administrator appointment and citing concerns about transparency, the Zenith decision, tribal consultation, and community trust, alongside testimony supporting the appointment. Council discussion included an amendment adding a service end date of January 2, 2026, to the administrator appointment, questions about salary figures (which were stated inconsistently across speakers), organizational restructuring, budget challenges, and the council-administrator relationship. Votes occurred on the amendment and the resulting resolution, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. The council then considered and voted on a resolution to appoint a city attorney, with outcomes similarly recorded in the vote ledger, before adjourning.
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Procedural episode · turns 0–13
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0 So.
1 Good morning, I am going to call to order our city council meeting on February 5th at 9:34 a.m. We have a couple of important things on the agenda this morning, and I know we have a lot of guests with us today. Before we begin, I just want to address the fact that I know that there are a number of folks who are here today who are very frustrated with the city. Many of us have heard from you, and we know that you are disappointed that the administration signed off on zenith's land use compatibility statement. I know some of my colleagues at the dais are equally frustrated, and I know that many of us equally distrust zenith and their business practices in the city. I've personally heard from many of you that you are angry that the city seemed to operate in the past behind closed doors, and that it looked like zenith might have gotten special treatment. Just like no company should get special treatment, though no company should have the law applied to them unequally. We have to create strong laws that protect Portland and ensure that those laws are implemented well. Raise concerns when they aren't. That's why one of my colleagues, two of my colleagues, actually are working on a resolution to ensure that there is an investigation into the city's dealings with zenith to ensure that our laws were implemented correctly. And it's why we held a hearing that I know many of you were at, and will continue to hold hearings on a number of topics to determine ways that we can strengthen our laws, to ensure that we actually transition to a renewable energy economy with fewer safety risks associated with some of the fuels that I know many of you are concerned with. I want to thank you for being here and continuing to remind us that this issue is important. I'll also ask that throughout this meeting, we treat each other with respect so that council has the time to ask many of the important questions of mr. Jordan and mr. Taylor that are on our agenda for today. With that, I will ask our attorney to read the rules of decorum. No minutes first.
2 Agenda first. If I can call the roll just to establish quorum, then we'll be set. Thank you.
3 I'm.
4 President Dunphy here.
5 Smith here.
6 Now.
7 Here.
8 Ryan. Here. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick here. Clark. Here. Here. Zimmerman. Here. Pirtle-guiney here.
9 Attorney. Could you please read our rules of decorum?
10 Yes. Good morning. Welcome to the Portland city council. To testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at. Portland.gov/council agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. 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.
11 Oh.
12 There we go.
13 Let's try that. Oh, better. If you cause a disruption, warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
14 Thank you. Councilors. We now need to approve the agenda. Are there any requests to reorder agenda items or add an item to the next meeting's agenda?
15 Okay.
16 Councilor Kanal.
17 It's not a motion. I just have a question. Are the lengths of time in here something that that is part of this conversation? And if we're running under on one item and over on another, is that going to be a concern or do we need to amend that now to add more time to one of these. Other than the time certain agenda items? I believe that the times are there as a as guidance to the public on what to expect, but are not binding. Is that correct?
18 That's correct. Thank you.
19 Any requests to reorder or move things on the agenda? Okay, without objection, we'll move on. I, public communications clerk, can you please invite up our folks who are here for public comment today?
20 Yes. Thank you. First up, we have injured and off. Okay, we'll move on. Next. Next up, we have carrie coe.
21 We'd like to come up as a group for the three of us. Is that all right?
22 Okay. Carrie coe, glen devitt, and ana maria perez. Okay. Carrie, would you like nine minutes to share? Oh. And is carl close also?
23 Oh, I think I don't know, I think I think the three minutes. Three minutes is.
24 Three minutes. Okay. Thank you.
25 Thank you. Great. Hello, council. Thank you for having us today. My name is carrie coe. I am with the city of Portland professional workers union cp. We are here today to introduce you to our union and to update you about our experience in contract negotiations. I am a city worker at Portland permitting and development. I was also part of founding this union and am currently serve as union president. I'm not alone here today. There are those up here with me, behind me and watching, representing our 800 members around the city. Classifications in our union include coordinators, analysts, admin, specialists, and more. We are part of virtually every program here at the city, doing the people's business, doing essential work. Our work helps provide the services the portlanders need from city government so that they can thrive and be successful. Think of us as kind of the glue that holds things together. We started this union because we wanted clarity in our working conditions, protections on the job, and a voice at decision making tables that affect our careers and our families. We have been negotiating for nearly a year. Our experience is that labor relations says they want to get to the end and to settle this contract. However, they are not making it happen. They are dragging their feet. As we move into mediation, we are asking you to empower your negotiators at the table to settle this contract. The city does not need to push every contract through an expensive mediation process, or force every union to exercise our right to strike in order to secure a fair and reasonable contract for your workers. So please empower your team to settle this contract so that we can focus on being your partner to move the city forward. We've also heard that you've inherited a difficult budget cycle. Our members are the financial and data analysts around the city, so we have a unique perspective on the budget. We'd love to talk with you more about that at some point. Potentially tough budget is one thing, but what we find problematic is the relentless and fear mongering communications about budgets, resets and layoffs coming out of the city administrator's office. On top of all the national chaos that we are experiencing. This creates fear, low morale, and discontent in your workers. This is the time for us to focus our collective energies and be clear about our priorities. We are asking council to use your power to refocus the transition and the budget on providing essential services that portlanders need, want, and are required to have our members execute the city's core priorities. We do that work, so please empower your team to settle the contract so the city can live in its values, and so that your workers can have the stability that we need to do the people's business. Thank you.
26 Thank you. Go right ahead.
27 Thank you.
28 Good morning. Council. Mr. Mayor. Chief administrator, I appreciate this opportunity to address the council. Thank you. My name is glenn c devitt. Like you, I am a city worker, and I am honored to serve the people of Portland. I am also a proud member of the city of Portland professional workers union. I work at the Portland bureau of emergency management, where I coordinate our volunteer first responder program, and I'm also an on call duty officer. I know that as a group, you've been educated about my bureau's work and our holistic perspective on city business and our entire reason for existing as a bureau is to support emergency responders and protect the public's well-being and their property. Now, I want to be clear when I say emergency responders, I mean every single city employee. Emergency responders are not only our brave and visible frontline personnel like firefighters and police. Cp members are also essential for many critical functions. For example, emergency responders include the cp workers, who are procurement and grant specialists. Obtaining the critical materials that we need to support shelters for homeless populations today. Emergency responders include the dpw workers, who issue permits that ensure that businesses can keep their doors open and serve the public safety. Emergency responders include cp workers and the police bureau, who are on call as victims advocates to protect those most impacted by crimes. Emergency responders include cp professional communication staff, who in the last few days have been very busy ensuring the portlanders portlanders know what to do in the case of winter weather, how to get around, how to care for the most vulnerable among us, and where to go for resources. Emergency responders include cp housing bureau staff who, in response to federal threats of withdrawal of funding, have been drawing down emergency funds once again for the critical care and well-being of our most vulnerable neighbors. I could go on, but I won't. Cp is keeping labor peace. No one wants a strike. As an independent union led by volunteers and staffed by volunteers, our goal is to preserve stable, high impact jobs in the city of Portland and attract the best possible talent. The city's negotiators seem to be using stall tactics to exhaust us. Makes sense, but let's stop wasting time and tax dollars on expensive mediation and strike preparation. Let's keep doing the good work. Like many cp members, I've spent years of my career in the private sector. To be perfectly frank, we could make more money working somewhere else. But like you, we know the calling of public service. That's why we're here. All we ask in return is for stability and to focus on the good work. All we want is a fair contract. I hope you'll use your positions to encourage the city's negotiators to do the right thing, not only for cp, but for all portlanders we serve. So I thank you for your time and your consideration, and I thank you for your service to our city.
29 Thank you.
30 Hello. Good morning. Council. Mr. Mayor. City administrator, my name is ana maria perez. My pronouns are she her, and I'm a data analyst at the bureau of planning and sustainability. I'm also co-chair of the cp bargaining team as a data analyst. I do the people's business. Analysts like me perform essential services. Our work makes the city's work transparent to the public. We make sure the city is being fiscally responsible, as well as equitable and accountable for our actions. For example, I developed the interactive city or climate and energy dashboard, which is filled with graphs, charts and maps about local carbon emissions and energy use in Portland. The dashboard holds us accountable to our climate goals and shares information about how we make our decisions. I also work with other analysts across the city and our service area to establish performance measures and report on them to ensure we are meeting the city's goals year after year. Without analysts, the city wastes money. We make sure that city work is effective in meeting the needs of the community. Something that I know all of us here want. As I said, I am our union's bargaining co-chair. I am here simply to update you on our experiences at the bargaining table. I am in these negotiations, bringing proposals forward and listening to the city's side. Meanwhile, the city's bargaining team is not doing its part in settling these contracts. We have been bargaining since March 2024 and would expect to be much closer to a settled contract nearly one year later. For example, in the last bargaining session in January, the city's team did not bring any proposals to the table, even though we had already filed for mediation by that point. The city has over 20 outstanding articles. They should be actively negotiating with us. They are not. Instead, a majority of their work is incomplete and we have only 12 tentative agreements, many of them boilerplate, leaving important things like sick leave, layoff protections and overtime still unsettled. We've pressed for mediation as a mechanism to get the city to do their work, because a slow negotiation is a waste of money for you and our union. We are ready for our members to get what they need and deserve a strong contract. Cp's goal with our first contract is to have clear and consistent expectations for our members. This is our first contract as an independent union, and we are determined to create a solid and just foundation for current and future members. We want to settle this contract. We want. We need labor. Peace. As city workers, we are united, showing that we love the work we do to serve portlanders every day. But we also want to exercise our right to organize and be respected by our employer. Thank you.
31 Thank you all for being here with us today and sharing all of your experiences.
32 Next up we have carl close online.
33 Thank you for this opportunity to provide public comment. My name is carl close. I live in southeast Portland and I'm a principal at kurt fisher structural engineering. I run our downtown Portland office. I also grew up in Portland and I'm now raising my kids here, so I'm committed to seeing our downtown fully recover and prosper. I'm providing public comment today to offer a recommendation, a recommendation for the council on how Portland can create more housing downtown by updating the zoning code to spur more office to residential conversions, also known as adaptive reuse. Residential conversions in the downtown area will improve our community in four key ways, bringing additional foot traffic that will help downtown businesses recover. Increasing our region's housing stock while providing the environmental benefit of reduced carbon impact relative to new construction. It preserves our historic buildings by giving older buildings a new life and avoids demolition of underutilized buildings. It makes our city safer because renovated buildings will be retrofitted, which means they will be much safer and more resilient than existing older buildings that often have significant seismic deficiencies. It sounds like a great option for Portland to convert some of these underutilized office buildings to residential. So why is it not happening? It's simple. These conversions are often not profitable in the Portland market, or are deemed to be financially too risky and time consuming. So if we want to see more office to residential projects move forward, something needs to be done to address the cost, duration or risk associated with the project. Fortunately, other cities have tackled this same issue and found solutions for potential ways forward. I urge the council to look at other cities that have had success with residential adaptive reuse conversions. One city in particular is los angeles. In 1999, they passed an adaptive reuse ordinance that was the catalyst for the city, creating 12,000 units of housing in the first 15 years. This was done by making adaptive reuse in certain areas of the city by right, meaning that they just need to adhere to the building code, but get to bypass a zoning code. Requirements and design review. The rationale behind eliminating these steps is that the building already exists, so in some sense it should be grandfathered in instead of applying new zoning and design review board requirements to the existing building. Thus, the main focus of the adaptive reuse projects in los angeles is on the safety aspects of the conversion, as mandated by the building code. This shortens the time to get a conversion permitted often by more than a year, and also reduces the risk taken on by the owner. While this is not likely to be the only change needed to make office to residential projects viable in Portland, it is a good idea that the council should consider when next looking at this issue. Thank you for providing this opportunity to speak, and I'd be happy to provide more information if anyone on the council is interested.
34 Thank you for sharing that with us.
35 That completes communications. Okay.
36 Next we have a time certain item on the agenda. We at our last meeting, councilors heard a land use petition and moved to bring that item to this meeting for final approval. Do we have information to share? Just a brief overview about that or.
37 I'll read the title and then item three consider proposal of type for demolition review approval for 118 southwest porter street and Portland. Permitting and development staff recommendation for approval for a contributing building in the south Portland historic district. Lu 24 077225 dm.
38 And I believe we need a motion to move this item. Or are we just move right into the vote?
39 Good morning. Linly reese, chief deputy city attorney. Yes. Last time you made a tentative vote, council prepared findings. You have those in front of you. And at this point, council simply needs to make a motion to approve the findings and decision. Second, and then a roll call vote.
40 So move.
41 Councilor Ryan moved and councilor Green second.
42 Councilor Novick.
43 Councilor Novick. Thank you.
44 Council.
45 Councilor Ryan. Ryan Ryan Novick. Any discussion?
46 Novick second.
47 Okay. Keelan. Can you call the roll?
48 Yes.
49 Avalos I.
50 Dunphy. I Smith.
51 I no. I Ryan.
52 I'm going to say a couple things. I just really support the I think we all do the condo mission to provide needed services to families impacted by childhood and adolescent cancer. In fact, it was by far the most moving testimony I've ever experienced here on the dais in my four plus years in office for a land use hearing, I think we had to roll out the kleenex as I recall. So I just want to acknowledge this location and property as adjacent to an existing facility. The demolition allows the nonprofit to expand their services, and facility in this location is strategically beneficial to OHSU and randalls children's hospital. There has been public and community engagement, but I was impressed with in their outreach. And most important, I agree with the recommendation from the historic landmarks commission for demolition of the building for this higher and best use for the property, I vote I.
53 Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick.
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54 In the immortal words of ronald reagan, mr. Gorbachev, tear down this bungalow. I.
55 Clark.
56 I abstain. I was unable to attend the meeting.
57 I was an abstention. I think an abstention is permitted as long as there's no objection from her council councilors.
58 Any objection to councilor Clark abstaining from this vote? Okay, without objection, we will accept the abstention.
59 Okay. Thank you. Green.
60 I just want to say I really appreciate the staff work that went into making this a decision that I think I was able to make a clear eyed evaluation of our cities evolve, our cities change. And this is just a really good opportunity to meet that changing need. So I vote I Zimmerman.
61 Yeah, thank you for being a district four property. Thank you to the colleagues for doing this. I know that the historic nature of something is often fraught in our city, so I also appreciate the flexibility of the historic landmarks commission. I think that's the way to keep such commissions relevant and flexible to the current times. And I'm excited for you. Can do so I vote I.
62 Pirtle-guiney I.
63 The findings are adopted with an I vote of 11.
64 Thank you. The next item on our agenda moving to the consent agenda is approval of our council. Minutes from our previous meetings. I believe we do this without objection. Is that correct or do you need to call the roll right?
65 I would just announce that no items have been pulled from the consent agenda, and then we would have a roll call vote to approve the consent agenda. Thank you. Avalos. I Dunphy. I Smith.
66 I.
67 I Ryan.
68 I Koyama Lane.
69 Can you.
70 Remind me what we're voting on. Oh yeah this is the consent agenda. I'm sorry. So this is the first time our council has had a consent agenda to vote on. So these are items that are voted on with a single unanimous vote of council. If there is an item on the consent agenda that you want to discuss, that item would be pulled and added to the regular agenda. We received no requests to pull. We only have one item today. It's approval of the minutes and there was no request to pull that item. So we're just having a roll call vote to approve the consent agenda. Got it I thank you, thanks, Morillo. I Novick.
71 I.
72 Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I pirtle-guiney. I the consent agenda is approved with an I vote of 12.
73 Okay. Moving on to the regular items on our agenda counselors. Today we have two resolutions before us from mayor wilson, both of which are to move forward with the confirmation of appointments that he is recommending for our city administrator and our city attorney. You may remember that we approve the nomination of the city administrator, the city attorney, and the chief of police. We will be taking up that third position at our next meeting. Mr. Mayor, would you like to come to the dais and present your item for us?
74 Council president, would you like me to read both items together or.
75 I believe we're taking them up separately.
76 Separately? Okay. Item five appoint michael jordan as city administrator.
77 Mayor wilson, city administrator. Jordan, go right ahead when you're ready.
78 Thank you, council president. Thank you. And good morning to our colleagues and the councilors. Together, we have an important leadership decisions to make. City leaders, city workers and the public have a great deal riding on getting these appointments right. City administrator michael jordan has made this once in a generation government transition, one we can all be proud of. He has graciously agreed to continue serving this coming year, and I come before you today to ask the city council to support his appointment in the same way he supported Portland. As part of your deliberation process, I would like for council to consider an amendment to today's resolution that identifies January 2nd, 2026 as the end date for michael's appointment. That amendment reflects my intention to launch a robust nationwide search for portland's next city administrator by this summer. I'm grateful for michael and to his dedication and willing to continue to provide steady leadership as the bridge to our future. Before I read the exact language I'd like council to consider as an amendment, I would like to turn this over to michael jordan to share a few words.
79 Thank you, mayor and council president. Members of the council. This has a certain thunderdome esque to it, but thank you for giving us some time today. You have a statement that I put into the record before you. It's been one of the great challenges and one of the great opportunities of my entire career to be able to do this with the city of Portland. It is really the reason that I stayed on. When mayor wheeler asked me to. I have found it completely up to the expected challenge. And I think the city is well positioned with the new form of government to create an amazing future for this city. I'm I'm honored and humbled that the mayor would ask me to stay on for a few more months to be able to assist the council and the mayor in in landing this change, if you will. We have found together, I think, that all of us are learning about how this is actually supposed to operate. We could make some assumptions, some of them good assumptions, some of them bad assumptions in the last couple of years about how this could operate. But with you all in the offices, now that you hold, I think we are finding that there's a significant amount of ambiguity about how we're going to relate to each other, how information is going to flow, how can we make decisions efficiently for the city, how can we frame the appropriate questions for this body to work on and deliberate on and move the city forward? I am grateful again for the opportunity. I look forward to the work with you and with the mayor over the next year, and I am particularly committed to work with you, to architect a process by which we can bring on the city's first full time regular. I won't say permanent, but regular city hires that the city has ever made its entire history. And so working with you to design a process where portlanders feel like they have an opportunity to be involved in that decision as best we can, will really be a great honor and opportunity for me to work with you on. So thank you, madam president, and thank you, mr. Mayor.
80 Thank you very much. Mr. Mayor, would you like to say anything else about your amendment, please?
81 Yes. Thank you. Thank you. Mike, as I mentioned, I'd like for the council to consider an amendment to today's resolution that would set an end date for michael's appointment. I propose to add the following language to the resolution. Whereas michael jordan will serve as city administrator through January 2nd, 2026. With that, I will defer to the council president pirtle-guiney, on how she would like to proceed with the amendment and discussion on the item as a whole. And thank you for your time this morning, and I look forward to your questions and discussion.
82 Thank you. And I believe, councilors, that we could add a whereas to the item that says whereas michael jordan will serve as city administrator through January 2nd, 2026 and update the therefore be it resolved section to include in accordance with this resolution.
83 Yes. Thank you. I would like to move that amendment second.
84 Madam president, for purpose of discussion, though, why would we not just add it to the point of the document that talks about term, where we have it similar for the others?
85 We could do that as well. The recommendation that was given to me was that we add it in an additional whereas and therefore okay.
86 So mr.
87 Clerk, by process, do we vote on this amendment before we hear testimony from the public?
88 You can do it either way. You can leave the amendment open so that the public can testify about it before you take up the vote. Or you can you can vote now.
89 Okay.
90 Why don't we move to public testimony? When we finish public testimony council, we will be having discussion on this amendment. We'll then take that vote, then have discussion on the full resolution, and then take that vote. Thank you, mr. Mayor and city administrator. And we'll now take testimony from the public.
91 Thank you. First up we have fred neil.
92 Good morning, madam president and councilors. My name is fred neil and I'm the co-chair of the government transition advisory committee, or the gtac. The gtac serves as the primary advisory body for the city's transition. The gtac did not deliberate on the appointment of michael jordan, but we did deliberate on the appointment process, and we recommend a robust, well-designed, timely, community informed, transparent city administrator appointment process. In December, the gtac sent a letter to the mayor and councilors elect detailing our recommendations. We've resubmitted that letter as written testimony. Last year, the city chose to contract with a recruiting firm called modus recruiting to develop a recommended recruitment plan this past fall, after input from hundreds of portlanders and the gtac modus recruiting finalized the draft position announcement. Community informed recommendations for a city administrator job description, and a recommended recruitment strategy and timeline. The reasons for the city to adhere to a good process are to recognize how crucial the hiring of the city's first permanent city administrator is to the successful transition to a new form of government, to set the standard for all appointments to follow, to provide transparency necessary to guarantee the charter requirement, and lift up the qualifications so everyone can see them. To embody community expectations of what it means to have a professional city administrator to align with good government values embedded in charter reform. To provide a roadmap for the city during a time of significant transition and elected leader onboarding, and to serve as an accountability mechanism. The gtac wants to reiterate its recommendations from December. Acknowledge the overarching purpose of the recruitment is to appoint a city administrator on the basis of executive and administrative qualifications as directed by the charter. Receive a briefing on the recruitment efforts as soon as possible. Recognize modus recruiting as recommended. Recruiting plan is a good example to follow for the initial appointment. Encourage a recruitment that is nationwide in scope. Ensure the process at minimum engages community such as listening sessions and a series of interview panels composed of city and community leaders. Consider whether the recommended timeline can be accelerated, and a city administrator appointed before June 25th without sacrificing strategies to engage community. And early on, establish and communicate to the public your general support for a formal recruitment process and ensure appointment is neither delayed nor pressured to occur outside of an open and transparent process. In conclusion, the gtac recommends a robust, well-designed, timely, community informed, transparent city administrator appointment process. Thank you.
93 Thank you for being here and for continuing to make sure that we remember the advice that we've been given and all the work that you've done.
94 Oh, sorry.
95 Sorry. Multnomah county chair vega peterson submitted testimony. She's not able to be here in person, so she submitted video testimony and we'll play that now.
96 Good morning, president pirtle-guiney and council, thank you so much for this opportunity to speak on behalf of michael jordan's reappointment as Portland city administrator, even though I'm unable to be with you in person this morning. So many long history of working with mike in different roles over the last several years. During my time in the Oregon legislature serving house district 47. Mike and I worked closely together when I served as a state representative on the joint information and audits committee, and mike as the director of the Oregon department of administrative services, was a partner to me and to legislative leadership on a number of critical and complex issues that had statewide impact, whether it was digging into an audit on the department of transportation or bringing new it projects online for the state. More locally, I want to make sure all of you know about the importance of mike's commitment and diligence as we work together over the last 20 months on our intergovernmental agreement to continue addressing homelessness collaboratively as a city and county. He was a leader and advocate in these discussions and in the creation of our homelessness response system. His current role in co-chairing the hhs's implementation committee is very important, and the true partnership he brings to this work is notable and commendable. This committee's consistent work to implement the homelessness response action plan is critical to our success. Mike has the proven leadership and experience in overseeing day to day operations across two dozen bureaus and offices at the city of Portland, and he took his responsibility for leading portland's voter approved transition to a new form of government. Seriously. And I know that I, as a Portland resident, am grateful for that. The city under mike's leadership has worked hard alongside the county as we've implemented ranked choice voting and continue to integrate a new form of government in the way that we work together. Mike's reappointment brings stability in this transition to a new form of government that the residents of Portland should welcome, and will definitely benefit from. The power of governmental partnership is a value that we all hold, and I look forward to continuing our strong, effective partnership in all of Multnomah county and the city of portland's shared commitments and work, both in the work with you as a council and with mayor wilson, and with mike jordan and his administrative team. Thank you so much.
97 Next up we have robert butler, followed by diane meisenhelder and nick caleb.
98 Thank you for being with us today.
99 I'm robert butler. Good morning. I have a big problem with a couple of things. He could continue as an interim director, but there's no point in making this a contract. The mission is, is that we need the opportunity to get the highest, best qualified in the country to join us and help us out. No effort has been done to accomplish that. And because there's been no effort, I don't think we should postpone this any further. And the effort should begin now. And he would continue as a temporary now. The legacy of ted wheeler is going to continue as the ruination of this city for many decades. And one of the problems is the people that he elected or chose to serve on staff, and that was a failure. Janet hardesty, chris warner, the committee members of the charter, mingus mapps being given to bureau two largest bureaus without the experience. These things are terrible. And that's why if wheeler were to run again and the only opposition was a donkey, the donkey would have won. So the biggest problem with mr. Warner is he was selected by chris. Chris was selected by the mayor. And this he's already failed in the sense that the charge of the last commissioners before city council and like November, was that the city must hire independent consultants to review what could be the biggest disaster in the history of our city. The 32.1 $2.1 billion cost to relocate the city water works from bull run to Gresham. That's $2.1 billion. And that excludes interest. The interest on that, including the wifi alone, is about $900 million. That's a $3 billion project to begin with. That was a lie. See what it was going to cost us. It's $3 billion, so we need to immediately convince the mayor and the current manager to follow the instructions of the city council. We need to immediately hire the independent contractors and consultants to determine if this is the biggest disaster ever made. This started out as a $150 million project for ultraviolet, and $350 million ly for sand filtration to lie was 500 million. Now we can do the ultraviolet for $700 million, and the bull run project is $3 billion, including $900 million worth of interest. We're losing $8 million a day for every day we do.
100 Thank you, sir, I'm sorry, but we need to make sure we have time to hear from everybody.
101 Thank you.
102 Diane, and sorry. Diane meisenhelder is joining us online.
103 Can you hear me?
104 Yes, we can hear you.
105 At the 350 pdx mayoral forum. I asked the question about whether there would be a national search for the city administrator and would it involve public engagement. Candidate wilson quoted nothing about us without us. He talked about a search looking for a record of success we could verify in cities similar in size to Portland, and then testing their fit with our values and having public engagement in that process. After the zenith decision making, I would urge you to consider carefully these two confirmations. We witnessed a presentation by city staff and zenith filled with omissions, misleading information, and evasion of important questions. Councilors are the policy makers, and this is an important precedent, precedent setting decision that jordan oversaw. And your involvement should not have been circumvented. City attorney taylor, when pressed publicly, conceded that there were options for council involvement but did not help you pursue them. I asked my question at the mayoral debate as someone who had followed the city's so-called climate emergency plan, as well as emergency planning as a net volunteer affordable housing policies and public safety carefully over the past four years, and understood that some of the same players worked behind the scenes with industry and business interests to help shelf or delay progressive key policies and push forward other policies not in the best interests for reducing emissions health or for the public or environmental good. We know what happened with the Portland clean air protection program. We watched developers overturn environmental amenities and protections. We follow the cleanup of superfund sites, the economic opportunities plan, the delay on even the mildest options for the phase one build shift plan, much less actual decarbonization, the city's role in freeway expansion, and the list goes on. In the midst of a climate emergency and other pressing needs, we don't have time for these misdoings. We can't afford leaders without courage, nor players who have let Portland slide backward from being a beacon of progress for localities around the country. At this point, other cities have surpassed us in many policy realms, and we might learn from their skilled implementers. We've managed to transform city governance and have this promising city council to build from. But you must fight for your power together as a council in these difficult times ahead. You need city implementers who will deliver on what you decide and what voters have called for. Portlanders want and need honesty, transparency, accountability, oversight, and public engagement. We fear the old bureaucratic culture hasn't yet, and may be incapable of allowing this new governance experiment to move forward in the best of ways and with the support it needs, instead of being a barrier. So please consider this carefully, and I would also encourage council to in the future, support the amendment or the resolution by Green and Morillo on zenith.
106 Thank you.
107 Thank you for joining us.
108 Nick. Caleb.
109 He's a letter written testimony.
110 I'm sorry. What was that?
111 It sounds like maybe he had submitted written testimony and isn't here today with us.
112 Okay, great. Thank you. We have karen cherry, harlan schober and lynn hanlon.
113 Can you hear me? Hello.
114 We can hear you.
115 Okay. Good morning, esteemed members of the council. My name is karen cherry, a business owner in district four and resident of district three. I'm here to speak today in support of the appointment of michael jordan as city manager. As we consider this important decision, I urge you to reflect on the pressing matters of safety and livability that our city faces and how mr. Jordan's leadership can advance these critical areas. The role of city administrator, as outlined in section 2-406, requires a demonstrated ability to manage complex city affairs effectively. Among the core responsibilities is the imperative to advance the city's core values of equity and transparency. Safety and livability are fundamentally intertwined with these values. By prioritizing equitable access to safe neighborhoods, mr. Jordan can help foster an environment where all residents feel secure in their homes and communities. In recent years, we have witnessed challenges that threaten public safety and the quality of life in our city, from rising crime rates to the impacts of homelessness. These issues require an administrator who can not only execute and enforce laws, but also collaborate with community stakeholders to develop comprehensive solutions. Mr. Jordan's commitment to communication and collaboration, as highlighted in his job description, is essential in addressing these multifaceted challenges. I believe mr. Jordan will make certain that the deputy administrator of public safety will be present, communicate with public safety organization as well as citizens of Portland. Furthermore, the responsibility to control and administer the financial affairs of the city is crucial in ensuring that resources are allocated effectively toward public safety initiatives. This includes investing in community policing, mental health services, and housing solutions that directly contribute to the livability of our neighborhoods. Mr. Jordan's experience in budget, preparation and finance will be vital in making informed decisions that benefit all portlanders. Therefore, I know michael jordan will do the right thing and not cut emergency service budget in the next fiscal year. Additionally, mr. Jordan's role in investigating city affairs and ensuring compliance with laws can enhance accountability within our departments. This oversight is key to maintaining public trust, which is essential for a safe and livability. Livable city a well-informed administrator can ensure that our city's policies reflect the needs of the community and are effectively enforced. In conclusion, as we move forward in this critical appointment, I strongly believe that michael jordan is well equipped to address the pressing issues of safety and livability in our city. His leadership will be instrumental in advancing our core values, ensuring efficient administration, and ultimately creating a Portland where all residents can thrive. Thank you for your time and consideration.
116 Harlan schober.
117 He's not here.
118 Lynn hanlon.
119 Hi, city council members, thank you for this opportunity to address this issue. My name is lynn spitaleri hanlon. I'm a small business owner in outer southeast Portland. This new city council is such a refreshing change from the lack of transparency, disregard and disregard for community input of the last city council. Two city councilors have called for an investigation into possible violations of its franchise agreement and make all public records around zena's backroom dealings with the city, which included donny oliveira, who is his boss, is michael jordan, so they asked for a pause on all zenith related proceedings until investigations have been completed. This council has made it clear you value transparency and community involvement. Unfortunately, mayor wilson's interim city administrator, jordan, apparently did not get the memo. Mayor wilson, city administrator jordan, and deputy city administrator oliveira just screwed over the community, the environment, local tribal entities and stripped power from the city council. You all took away your power by granting zenith energy, the land use compatibility statement. They need to continue to expand their dirty, dangerous business of transporting fossil and so-called renewable fuels with no real public process or oversight. During the public briefing about zenith, dca, oliveira presented information and misinformation clearly biased in favor of zenith energy. He neglected to mention zena's many violations, including the most recent one that led to the deq that led the deq to require the new lux. In the zenith briefing, a representative from the columbia river inter-tribal fish commission clearly stated that zena's proposed expansion violates indigenous treaty rights relating to the river. Why did administrator jordan ignore input from the tribes? Once appointed, michael jordan will be free to defy the will of the council when it suits him. He is clearly not the right person for this job. The community deserves better, the river and those who depend on it for their livelihoods deserve better. And honestly, this city council deserves better. Block this appointment and insist on a real process to find the best person for this job. Michael jordan has clearly proven he is not that person. Thank you.
120 Next up we have michaela mccormick, lori king, laura feldman. Michaela you're muted.
121 Hello I'm michaela mccormick. Thank you for entertaining my comments today. I'm here to urge you to not appoint michael jordan to city administrator. Mr. Jordan oversaw the 2022 process, which was flawed and illegal. That led to granting the lux to zenith energy. It included illegal lobbying by zenith, parts of which were false or meaningless concessions that allowed them to continue pursuing their catastrophic climate strategy. Jordan's deputy, donnie oliveira, said that the conditions in the 2022 lux quote were based on conversations we've been having with advocates at the time, unquote. To the extent he meant the environmental and community groups who have been blowing the whistle on the backroom deal. This is a complete fabrication. Not only were advocates specifically not consulted during this process, it happened while the city was being sued by zenith over the 2021 lux, where columbia riverkeeper was involved in the litigation to defend the city. Instead, the city created a separate, secretive process to pursue its own agenda. Staff also did not explain what made them decide to reverse their decision in 2022, in spite of zenith's continued violation of the comprehensive plan and zoning in its presentation to the city, staff omitted key information, including that zenith has to acquire a new lux because it was caught doing illegal modification and use of piping, and did not have adequate permission to operate. Staff skewed its presentation to avoid mention of any of zenith's past violations, including failure to report its 2022 lobbying and ongoing investigations. Staff declined to answer questions about the construction and modification that was the subject of deq's. November 2024 investigation. Interim city administrator jordan had the responsibility to interrupt these unethical and illegal actions, and see that the process was set on a proper track. He should not be appointed city administrator. Instead, the investigation proposed by councilors Green and Morillo needs to be pursued.
122 Thank you.
123 Lori king king.
124 Good morning.
125 Good morning, mayor and council members. I'm lori king. First, I'd like to register my support for all Portland workers in achieving fair contracts. But I want to say I'm not happy today. I've been very sad and angry since I heard that the city administration granted zenith, the lux, and some office in city hall without any public process. It's not just that I think it was a bad decision, and I think you've heard a lot. We have ample evidence for this, but it's the way the decision was made. My main reason for testifying is to support our city council. Not only were portlanders kept out of a transparent process on the lux, but the council was as well. The administration of the city, in large part led by michael jordan and mayor wilson. They did an end run around the council on around the council on Friday, two council members let it be known that they planned to introduce the reasonable resolution calling for a delay in the lux consideration pending investigation into whether xena's franchise agreement had been violated. After this, just a few days later, Monday morning, the lux slid through. Why couldn't that decision wait? City staff acknowledged on 121 that the deq's February 4th deadline did not bind the city. Where was the respect due to the legislative branch of our city government by the executive branch? Council members at best. Heard about the lux decision a half hour before the public. How will Portland be governed? The public wants involved council members who will ask the hard questions, for instance, about zenith's franchise violations. Maybe councilors will ask the questions that the administration won't ask because because these questions might well put corporate players on the spot. There's only one way I'd even start considering a support for hiring michael jordan, and that's if he acts legally, morally, and reasonably and rescinds the lux until the resolution council is Morillo and Green are considered properly. Other than that, we need a new administrator who will work with the city council and the public. And I also want to add, and due respect, we're not leaving.
126 Thank you all.
127 Laura feldman.
128 Good morning everyone. My name is laura feldman. As someone who lives in the blast zone on the north Portland peninsula and who has worked on the Portland harbor superfund cleanup on the lower Willamette for many years, I'm heartbroken, utterly heartbroken that mayor wilson and city administrators are giving zenith the lux despite their legacy of violations overlooked by the previous city government. And at a time when the future of the country itself is being taken over by corporate interests at every level, it's truly traumatizing. The imminent and ongoing disaster of the zenith oil terminal, which threatens the cei hub where most of oregon's fuel is stored, is a harbinger of whether or not Portland will be a safe place to live. I urge mayor wilson and staff to rescind this lux and make time for this new and hopeful city council to consider Green greens and murillo's resolution giving council members time to investigate zenith's violation of the city's franchise agreement. Thank you.
Procedural episode · turns 129–137
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
129 Thank you for joining us.
130 Next up, we have margaret butler, jordan lewis, jeremy Clark.
131 Welcome. Thank you for being here.
132 Hi, city councilors. My name is margaret butler and I'm a lifelong portlander. And I, like many people here, are utterly appalled at the administrative decision to grant zenith deluxe. So I'm here to speak in opposition to the appointment of michael jordan. We need a city administrator who understands the emergency we're in. I worked in the labor movement for 40 years, and when I retired, I put my attention to the climate emergency. And boy, that was scary. So six years ago, I was part of a part of a group of Portland residents who built a garden on the railroad tracks at zenith. And we did that because the city had a no new fossil fuels zoning ordinance, but couldn't do anything to prevent this expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure that zenith was engaged in. And we were appalled then. It was wrong. In this time of climate emergency, to expand the transport of fossil fuels around the globe. Five years ago, five of us pled guilty and went to a trial in the Multnomah county court hearing, and five out of six jurors voted to acquit us because we had made the case that we had tried everything else to shut down this ongoing harm in our community and that peaceful protest was more important and more justified than letting these oil trains continue to roll. Now it's five years later. Since that time, and the zenith throughput has only increased exponentially in that time. Emissions around the globe continued by zenith. Continued operation here have only grown. The evidence of climate breakdown is everywhere. The time for business as usual is over. We need a city administrator.
133 You for one minute, I apologize. I know that folks want to express their support for our testifiers, but I ask that you do that in a way that is within our rules of decorum. We're starting to see clapping and cheering, and I want to make sure that we're able to get through everybody's testimony without interruption. And I apologize for interrupting you, miss butler.
134 That's okay. So we need.
135 You, the city council, to make sure.
136 We have administration.
137 Who will take bold action on behalf of portlanders in the midst of the climate emergency, which is only going to get worse. Thank you.
138 Thank you for being here.
139 Jordan lewis.
140 City council and president pirtle-guiney. In my friend group, I'm known for being the uppity politico who's always linking news articles and makes sure everyone reads through the voters pamphlet, even when they have better things to do. After election night, I was put in this weird position of having to defend electoral politics to minimum wage workers who foresaw losing their insurance, friends who foresaw family members being torn away from them, and trans people who foresaw losing access to gender affirming care. For me, the best argument not to tune out was the local elections. Me and hundreds like me spent our summer and fall working tirelessly to elect a diverse and representative city government. We succeeded and this gave us so much hope in such a dark time. I spoke to over a thousand voters and climate came up constantly. Zenith came up constantly. I don't remember a single voter approving of zenith at the January meeting. Donna oliveira said the fourth was not a legally binding deadline for the city to approve the lux. So imagine how I feel trying to mobilize people against a second trump administration. After the mayor rushes approval through just before the council that we broke our backs for can get a chance to investigate it. Now I look like an idiot. I hesitated to even show up today because I want to work in government, and I feel like testifying today might put me on some kind of blacklist, but there's no point trying if you can't look voters in the eye and say you have their best interest at heart. Mayor wilson, zenith is a losing issue, and by rubber stamping it, you've permanently tarnished your administration. You started your term by prioritizing the profits of a texas oil company over the welfare of your electorate and the democratic process. If you want to see where that gets you, I suggest you ask the previous mayor. I'm not sure what recourse this council has at this point, but it's crucial that the investigation see the light of day. Michael jordan has been a medium sized fish in a larger, larger ecosystem of voter contempt, dysfunctional blue state governance that, when faced with a fascist takeover of the federal government, turns around and tells us concerned voters just looking out for one another that we're the problem. Consequences may not exist in dc, but I need to believe that they exist in here. Thank you.
141 Thank you.
142 Jeremy Clark. Jan zuckerman, edith gillis, and candice jimenez.
143 Good morning. Counsel counsels. The city administrator is appointed to advance the city's core values, which includes transparency, communication and collaboration. The administrator is also responsible for advancing the city's efforts to mitigate the human made climate crisis and prioritize environmental justice initiatives. It is our duty to call into question the clear violation of our city's core values, city administrator jordan's and dca olivares unorthodox nontransparent process and their poorly communicated decisions, which prioritize zenith energy over the health and safety of portlanders, will place us in peril for decades to come, relying on the promise of zenith energy, a profit based fossil fuel company with a history of dishonesty and violations, to lead the way in reducing our city's greenhouse gas emissions using so-called renewable fuels, with the clear goal of increasing the throughput of flammable fuels in the hub. Calls into question the commitment of the administrators in advancing efforts to mitigate the human made climate crisis and prioritize environmental justice initiatives. Not only do records show malfeasance and lack of transparency regarding zenith energy, but our administrators also chose to ignore councilor Green and Morillo resolution to investigate zenith and false statements made by the city staff. Rather than collaborate with the city council's call for transparency and clearer communication, our administrator chose to collaborate with zenith energy, advancing their core values over those of the city's rewarding zenith illegal activities. By approving the lux. We need leaders who are willing to admit mistakes and take responsibility for them. We need a city administrator that clearly upholds our city's values. Thank you very much.
144 Thank you for being here.
145 Edith gillis, candice jimenez.
146 Hello. Can you hear me?
147 Go ahead.
148 I am edith gillis, you all city administrator, mayor, councilor City staff have my empathy, best wishes, gratitude and commitment to support you to best serve portlanders. Which means I also want you to immediately reverse your bad decisions, to allow zenith and to cut all budgets except the police. If you don't correct this, it will have devastating, horrific consequences for city governance and funding, public trust and cooperation, success with official city priorities. Local and state economy and environment and harm. The safety and resilience of all portlanders and regional people and entities. Zenith and cops endanger public safety and mental health, reduce housing security, cost us all while doing us no good and are not transparent. Undermine democracy and do not comply with city priorities or the public will only approve michael jordan, any other city administrator, if they end and prevent this dangerous corruption, extortion, and instead provide these protections to each aspect of city management. Respect greens and Morillo proposal, zenith and oil bomb trains and the costly current cop culture, while robbing other departments that do more good to prevent crime than cops ever did. Or will means that the city and local businesses and homeowners have to pay higher insurance, raising our costs and inability to pay taxes. The city bond value goes down. Corporations in the cities overcharge and under service, and wise investors are knowledgeable residents with the ability to willfully Portland metro. Those who remain will have less money and willingness to pay taxes, have less money, time, energy, health, and ability to do the unpaid volunteer work and community building and disaster resilience we need. Businesses and tourists won't come to such a dangerous, unfair, depressing, violent, ugly place. Stop zenith until it cleans up its mess, complies with city priorities, provides proof of safety, pays fines for its lies and fraud and violations and pre-pays response for future injuries, health care, housing, environmental cleanup and restitution to businesses, nonprofits, governments and civilians to return. 30 years after zenith leaves and cleans up all its mess and harm. Requires zenith to reimburse local businesses, nonprofits, schools and businesses for increased insurance. Because zenith increases our risk. Prevent oil bomb trains so more housing can be more affordable along the tracks. Require zenith have its site proven safe and effective. Fire prevention, suppression, loud and visible public warnings for all people, and environmental cleanup and escape require all cops to pay their own liability insurance to the city and fire them when they don't protect all portlanders and comply with city social justice, climate housing security priorities, cut the police budget and increase the parks, housing and social justice investments. Have cops enforce laws against polluters, bad landlords, employers that pass homelessness, lying property owners and empty housing units, and bad landlords property managers, instead of wasting money on cops and zenith, invest into what we need for requiring empty, habitable houses and accessible people. Less housing to be available to houseless people, affordable rent, livable wages, local solar, electric and food security, a public bank and public power. Hemp and bamboo for making our own face masks and medical gowns. When the us wars against china and suppliers. The repeated lies and reckless and dangerous all along.
149 With.
150 And pop culture of dishonesty and violent and unaccountable racism, classism, ableism, sexism endangers all of Portland. Our economy and city finances give us reasons to trust and invest, do not.
151 Allow for being with us. I'm so sorry to cut you off, but we need to make sure we can get to everyone and have time for councilors to ask questions as well. Thank you. Candice jimenez.
152 Good morning, esteemed council members. My name is candice jimenez and I'm a tribal citizen of the confederated tribes of warm springs. I serve as chair of the Portland harbor community coalition, which is an organization committed to ensuring that the cleanup and future of the Portland harbor reflects the needs of impacted communities. I'm here today to stress the critical importance of holding our city administrators accountable to the people that they serve, particularly when it comes to decisions impacting the Willamette river. This also includes tribal sovereignty and environmental justice across the board. As we've heard today, the recent approval of xenos energy land use compatibility statement is deeply concerning. Zenith energy has a well documented history of environmental violations in Portland. That goes without saying. The Willamette river is sacred to indigenous peoples and central to the culture and survival of many tribal nations. My ancestors have lived along these waters since time immemorial, fishing, gathering and stewarding the land long before industrial pollution made it unsafe. The Portland harbor superfund site is a direct result of ongoing and unchecked industry contaminating the river, disproportionately impacting tribal nations and other frontline communities and all those here today. Any decision regarding this river must center the voices of tribal nations through meaningful consultation, not as an afterthought, but as a fundamental requirement of environmental justice and treaty obligations. Just as the columbia river inter-tribal fish commission reiterated at the January 21st listening session. And I'll also go on to say that we've had a lot of outreach with the office of government relations, and we still have not heard back. Councilor Morillo made a point in this discussion. Quote, our role as elected officials is to be watchdogs on policy decisions that are coming before us. The public deserves we deserve to have all of the information in front of us before we make decisions on granting land use credentials like this. Yet we have seen in this process a failure of transparency and due diligence and the actions of mayor wilson, city administrator jordan and deputy city administrator oliveira do not exemplify this. The prioritization of the health of Portland residents. Instead, we see dialog and approving the statement deepens the mistrust in city government and also calls into question the commitment to the well-being of our communities, accountability to the health of the river and the surrounding community is built upon trust. We all know this when city leaders ignore the voices of frontline communities, tribal nations, and environmental advocates, they continue to erode the public faith and government and reinforce the system that continues to put corporate fossil fuel interests above the public health and safety of our people. If trust is to be rebuilt, it starts with rejecting zenith's continued expansion and ensures a future that prioritizes environmental justice alongside you all. As chair of the Portland harbor community coalition, I know that our communities care deeply about the Willamette river and the health of our people. I want to just end with that. Our tribal cultures are built upon respect respect for the land, air, water, animals and to each other. And we own the collective responsibility to care for the river for future generations. And we must uphold this.
153 Thank you.
154 Next up we have charlie, michelle, wesley, linda lou, and al nguyen.
155 Hi. Can you hear me? Okay.
156 We can hear you.
157 Very good. First, thank you. Councilor Morillo and Green very much. I am charlie michelle wesley, tribal member of the confederated tribes of multiple tribes of this land and original stewards of our mother earth. You now have the privilege to reside on. And yet you're seeing a decision now contributed to the contamination of our sacred mother. As evidenced by this decision. And despite overwhelming community opposition due to pollution of our air risk, to our health and safety, lack of Portland core city values of transparency. Zenith is a deadly threat to our environment and portlanders lives. These are your community members. Pollution does not discriminate. So if this decision was made despite horrific risks to all life, it's time to more deeply review the core city values, which should be your values as a city administrator and mayor, and should be the lens you hold up to all your decisions to earn our trust. Now only not only was there disregard for the core city values of transparency, but also the fiscal value, which states the city of Portland is dedicated to being fiscally accountable to the public. And whereas fiscal resiliency, climate action, equity and the needs of our most vulnerable, which is us when it comes to this decision, will be the focus of every budget decision. And whereas community values, addressing inequities and transparent budgetary decisions are essential to developing that trust. This brings me to the city's land acknowledgment, which is rarely acknowledged. We acknowledge that the rivers, lakes, streams and lands of the lower Willamette river rest upon the occupied territories of my people, of multiple tribes. We recognize the many villages, traditions, cultures. And this is your your land acknowledgment, cultures and relationships that existed along the river since time immemorial. We recognize these tribes, stewarded these lands and rivers for future generations. We recognize and undertake responsibility for the destruction of the river and land. These are our sacred places. We recognize the economic and social values that enable the harm to the river, and perpetuate harm against communities along the river. With this acknowledgment, you all are committed to honoring and learning and working towards a more equitable and sustainable future for the lower Willamette river. We, the city, commit to seeking solutions that acknowledge the inequities of socioeconomic policies and the harm done to people and our relationships, to the lands and water. We want to trust you all. So I ask you, how can you legitimize the harm to us and our sacred mother earth? My concern is this and other decisions and plans don't respect most of the core city values and the fact that administrator jordan is a wheeler appointee, blocked jordan. Rescind luke's.
158 Thank you.
159 Thank you for your testimony, linda.
160 Lou.
161 Hi. Good morning, city councilors. Before I make my case to oppose the reappointment of mr. Jordan, I suggest you all to look at the room full of people and not reduce us as environmental activists. We are real people. You live in Portland just like we do. So we want our city to thrive, right? And therefore we are here to weigh in on what qualities of leaders we require of our city administrator. So I urge you to listen from the standpoint of a collective desire to build Portland better. So I am a strategic consultant. So I use data across according to census data, more than 2020 000 people moved away from Portland since 2020. These are not just taxpayers or figure, but our friends, your neighbors, people that you nod to when you go on a walk, familiar faces at your workplace, and even at bars. People left because we did not see a valid leadership. And that's why you guys are here, where you are. We put you in power. So when a bunch of kids got into trouble, we look to the school, we look at the principals and ask, why did you allow your kids or your students to behave like that? The former ted wheeler administration has definitely set Portland back. And I say with my chest, because I moved here in 2020 and I'm finally feeling hopeful again for my life in Portland, where I want to make myself a permanent home here. So it's evident that mr. Jordan, as someone who has worked and dedicated his life in public serving. While often has put portlanders interests at front, we should also look at the other decisions that he helped made. When people tell you who they are and who they are friends with, believe them. I am a gen z, so I will say mr. Jordan can be seen as ted wheeler's exes. So I want to empower city council members who are sitting here today and who are asking the smart governance questions to keep asking those critical questions. So I was at the listening session the last time, and I was very impressed by councilor Green councilor Morillo councilor Kanal, councilor Lane and councilor Zimmerman. To ask those difficult procedural questions in terms of your power and responsibility in relationship to city administration. Those are the questions that smart people ask, and they are painful. But I ask you to not be embarrassed or scared or rather be proud. Speaking as your constituent, I demand you feel supported, emboldened, inspired, and dedicated to steer a new leadership and no longer only delivers from business influence and corporate interests. Thank you for your time.
162 Thank you.
163 For your testimony.
164 Al nguyen.
165 Good morning councilors. My name is nguyen. My pronouns are he him. I live in district three. We have heard from multiple speakers earlier today about transparency, about the need for transparent process in searching for a new city administrator, as well as transparency in city processes and operations and decisions. I would like to point out that the approval of the zenith land use statement is the opposite of transparency. It came out completely out of nowhere with without any input from the community. And it went to a company that has a history of ignoring the law. They went and did construction on their site without any permits. They have been fined by the state department of environmental quality. This is not your frien. And I would argue that city administrator jordan's decision to approve this decision is disqualifying, and he should not be appointed reappointed as city manager. I urge you to reverse the approval of the land use decision. Do not, and oppose the reappointment of city administrator jordan and support councilor Green and Morillo initiative to bring more transparency to this government. Thank you.
166 That completes testimony.
167 Thank you. Keelan. Councilors. We have an open motion on the table. I know that folks have a number of questions for the city administrator. I am hoping that right now we can keep discussion to the motion on the table, which is to adopt the amendment to the resolution to add a an end date to mr. Jordan's service with the city. Are the folks who are in the q and the q to discuss the amendment. Okay. Councilor Kanal.
168 I wanted to speak to something that I think councilor Zimmermann addressed, which is it's a technical question on whether why this is in a whereas in terms of adding it in, this seems like it should be something that's in a therefore be it resolved. So it's a purely technical question on the amendment here. I do support adding text to clarify the end date. That is something that I appreciate, mayor wheeler bringing up, and councilor Avalos proposing, but I my curiosity is about whether or not this could be something that would be added to the, I want to say, the second. The second, therefore be it resolved so or sorry, it's the only one. Now therefore, be it resolved, that the council hereby confirms michael jordan's appointment as city administrator until January 2nd, 2026. That's that's my question. I'm curious what other folks think about that.
169 So I believe that saying confirms michael jordan's appointment as city administrator in accordance with the resolution, would point back to the therefore with the end date. But I'll let the attorneys speak to whether we need to make a change there to have the same meaning.
170 If the attorneys were to confirm that, that would address my concern.
171 It would I the in this resolution points back to the whereas so it would be incorporated.
172 And just to clarify, that means that should there be a desire for further extension, it would need to come back to council.
173 Agreed. Thank you.
174 Thank you, counselor, for putting that on the record. Counselor Smith, are your comments about the amendment?
175 Yes, ma'am. Thank you, madam president. Should we also include what the proposed salary will be in that amendment as well?
176 I if you would like to make an additional amendment. I don't believe that that's before the body.
177 You can't add it to what you're talking about right now.
178 We have an amendment proposed and seconded with language about the end date. We could vote that up or down and then consider a separate amendment to add salary information.
179 Okay. Because I didn't see that anywhere in the original amendment.
180 I believe in the supporting documents we received. The salary scale was included, which is tied through our hr systems to the position itself. But I don't think that the placement within the salary scale was included in any of the documentation we received.
181 Well, it would be important to know what that salary is going to be, because that is also going to be something people are going to use to make their decision.
182 I, I'm.
183 Looking it's in the impact statement. The specific salary is not but the salary range.
184 But we should know what the mayor is planning to offer. Mr. Jordan if he's approved.
185 Let's hold that. If you don't mind, counselor, until after we vote on this amendment, and then we can discuss whether we'd like the mayor. To just tell us his intention or whether we would like to discuss a separate amendment. To that end, what folks would like.
186 To do. Okay.
187 Thank you.
188 Perfect.
189 Counselor Ryan, are your comments to the amendment counselor Zimmerman. Counselor Green, do you have comments to the amendment?
190 Yes. I want to thank counselor Avalos for proposing this amendment shows responsiveness, I think, to some concerns we have about the big public trust issues at play here, as well as comments that I've received about fiscal stewardship and not being in alignment with the gtac. So with that in mind, I do support the amendment to add in a clause that puts a sunset date to this confirmation.
191 Being no additional comments, no additional hands. Keelan could you call the roll on the amendment? And can you remind folks what the amendment is as you call roll, please?
192 This is a vote on the amendment to add an end date to the one of the whereas statements.
193 Avalos. Hi.
194 Dunphy. I Smith.
195 I know I. Koyama Lane I. Morillo I.
196 Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman I pirtle-guiney. I the amendment is approved with a vote of 12 councilors.
197 We are now moving into discussion on the resolution itself. We have a question about salary, and I know that folks have questions for the city administrator that they'd like to ask. Mr. Mayor, are you comfortable coming forward to discuss the salary question that was raised? And after that, I believe we, city administrator jordan, will invite you up in case councilors have questions for you directly.
198 Yes.
199 Thank you, counselor. I appreciate that the michael and I haven't had a discussion regarding wage. We wanted to go through the vote first as a course of process, but I think it would be reasonable to expect a cost of living adjustment that would be fair and reasonable. And we can certainly use our recent union discussions and that increase that we had. I think that that would be reasonable. And I think that's a great spot. And I'm I'm confident michael and I would come to an agreement on that. I don't see anything extraordinarily above what his current wage is.
200 Counselor Smith, did you have a follow up?
201 Mayor?
202 I'm not sure what his salary is right now. Could you, for the record, tell us what that is? You keep telling me about a cola. I don't know, a cola for from what point?
203 I believe his salary. You know.
204 Mr. Mayor.
205 I just.
206 Mr. Mayor, I believe hr is in the room. I'm not.
207 Sure if I could.
208 That would be conversation.
209 From a privacy standpoint. I'd prefer to have them follow or I'll follow that lead. And while while our colleague from hr is getting set up here at councilor Smith, I will just draw your attention to the financial and budgetary impacts section of our impact statement, which says that the salary range is currently 277,000 to 383,000.
210 And that's that's very important because we're in a $100 million deficit. And I want to know specifically what he's going to be making and what the mayor plans to offer him.
211 Could you introduce yourself for the record, and then we'll let you get set up there?
212 Certainly.
213 Good morning everyone. My name is risa williams. I'm the class comp and pay equity manager at the city. If you allow me just a moment, I will. Confirm mr. Jordan's current salary. Thank you all for your patience. Current and current annual salary is $290,700.80. That falls within the established the current established compensation range. City administrator classification.
214 Thank you.
215 Do you have a follow up question?
216 Yes. So, mr. Mayor, what you're saying is you plan to offer him a cola. You don't know what percentage of a cola you're going to offer him, or if you're going to increase his salary. In general.
217 I would expect an increase in general, yes, but it would be reasonable and within existing cola and or union type ranges that we just went through as a council and as a mayor. I think that that would be reasonable, that our staff level increases should be commensurate with our senior leadership increase as well. I don't expect any more than that, and it would certainly be within reason and reasonable. I don't.
218 You don't have an idea. You bring this forward and you have no idea of what you're going to offer him above and beyond this. 297 I can't imagine as a as the, you know, the leader of this organization that you wouldn't have in your mind what you're going to offer him for this position before it is approved.
219 I councilor I just noted it will be a reasonable increase that will be based on a cost of living adjustment. I don't see an extraordinary increase if that's what you're anticipating, but.
220 I just want to know what you're going to offer him, because we can't have any see if we leave here and don't and don't know what you're going to offer, we have no way of coming back and saying what that's going to be.
221 May I explain.
222 To council? Pirtle-guiney contract while the.
223 Mayor is deliberating? Mr. Taylor, I know that you are our next agenda item. I just might suggest to you that we may take a little bit to get to you. I want to make sure that you know that, that it'll be a bit of time here. We have other councilors with questions as well.
224 I thought.
225 It might be worth noting that we might need attorney taylor for questions related to this as well. At some point.
226 We do have a an attorney from our attorney's office here with us today for the meeting.
227 This is really. A discussion of.
228 Contracts or an offer. It's within the range.
229 And, madam president, the reason why I'm I am really going ten toes down on this is because we are asked to budget to the penny and know what we're doing. But in a situation like this that we just give our executive and the mayor free rein without knowing. And then once we do find out and it's not acceptable, acceptable to us, we don't have a way of changing it.
230 Understood.
231 I believe the mayor may have a response for us, and depending on that response, I may have a suggestion.
232 Let me use the word estimate here, just to make sure that we're complying with the laws and such. But if we were at a cost of living at or around 3%, and then through union adjustments that we've just gone through at about a 4%, I would assume an estimate of about a 7% councilor. And it's within the range. It's clearly at the low end of the range. I would expect that to be a reasonable amount.
233 I try not to do math in public, but what is 7%? What does that what does that move the 297 up to.
234 Just the 7% on about 290 is you're looking at about $20,000 increase.
235 Okay. Thank you. And I do this because people are watching on tv. You say 7%. They don't know what that is. No problem. I know how to calculate it on my computer. But I just wanted to let you know these are the things that I've heard today about transparency. And there is so little trust in us right now in regards to transparency. And we need to change that trajectory so as clear, you know, we need to be as clear as we can about the dollars and cents, what's real and what's imagined and what is actually going to be adopted going forward. I get it. And I understand that that is that is the going rate. I just wanted to know what it was.
236 Yeah. And forgive me. You know, I want to be and I want to provide candor. But also in employer employee relationships, these discussions are customarily behind closed doors. So I, I respect your question.
237 Right. And normally if it was not a public need to for us to approve it, that is the transparency that you get when you have to have our vote to go forward. And as you know, if we wanted to terminate that contract, we would not need your vote, that this council could terminate it without your blessing. Yes. So I think, you know, this is not a normal employer employee relationship. It is a public relationship. And I think we all need to understand what's at stake, what's on the table. We are the people who have the power of the purse. And so I'm trying to figure out about this $100 million deficit. I know this is small monies, but everything adds up. And I had a couple of questions for michael jordan after we move off of this, but I have some questions that I'm concerned about that I need answered before I take my vote.
238 Certainly.
239 Thank you.
240 You're welcome.
241 Thank you, counselor, thank you for jumping up here to help us with those questions.
242 Thank you.
243 At this time, I would like to invite city administrator jordan back up counselors. I know that everybody has a lot of questions. My request to you all is that if you can ask your most pressing question first so we can make sure that we hear questions from everybody. And then if you have a follow up to that, go ahead. But let's try to keep it to one question per counselor first. Once everyone has had an opportunity to ask a question, we can loop back around, ask additional questions, see how much time we have at that point, I'll go in order of hands in the queue. Counselor Ryan, go right ahead.
244 I got bumped up since I wasn't involved with the amendments. Okay. Hello? Michael jordan, you. You are a legendary public servant. You have more knowledge about how state and local government works than anyone I can think of. And you are highly respected from your peers across government. And we saw that earlier with the testimony from the county chair. As such, at a time of transition, you are a good fit for 2025. And I'm not surprised that mayor wilson asked you to extend your service for the entire year. And I want to thank your life partner and your wife for agreeing to this. We had a conversation last week, so I felt like I wanted to put that on the record. By the end of this year. Mayor wilson, with the approval of this body, will make our first big appointment of our new city administrator, and it gives us some time to conduct a much needed national search for an innovative change agent leader. That said, we don't have time for a maintenance leader of our one city organization. As we discussed in our dialog prior to this public meeting, are you willing to do extremely uncomfortable things, make difficult decisions to focus on the movement from the bureau's silos that block the creative flow we all seek with any team, and what highly taxed portlanders deserve to the urgent task at hand to integrate, integrate into the work areas so we can experience, in your words, one city. Let me just say it another way. In just over six months, we officially brought entire bureaus. This was just six months ago. You know this under one dca led work area. And in my opinion, now we have some pretty obvious clutter duplication of roles at the top and in middle management. The budget season does give us the luxury, doesn't give us the luxury of waiting for the mayors and our first appointment of a city manager in 2026. We need to do difficult surgery today. Are you willing to end your celebrated for all the right reasons? Career with a tough year of doing the efficiency of merging all the bureaus into work areas and provide us with the cost savings plan that will also deliver services with greater efficiency and accountability for portlanders.
245 Where was the question time?
246 I'm sorry.
247 Well, it's hard to imagine a decision more uncomfortable than today, so I'll just say I'm prepared to do a number of difficult things and recommend things to the mayor regarding organizational structure and regarding cost savings that are necessary. The numbers have been thrown around here much today, and this is as severe a budget challenge as I've seen in 40 years, and it is going to require extraordinary change. And I think your comments about trying to move us more towards one integrated city are apt here. And you'll recall, councilor, that the decision that was made back in November of 23 by then city council to adopt an organizational framework, was only the beginning of change. It provided us the opportunity then to dig deeper into the organization and look either within service areas or across service areas where there are opportunities to remove duplication, create more streamlined business processes, and fortunately or unfortunately, I'm not going to make a judgment on that. But we will reduce our footprint. There's just no question that we will have to be a more efficient, more streamlined, and quite frankly, smaller organization than we are today. I don't think we have a choice.
248 Councilor Zimmerman.
249 Thanks. I know for most employees who've ever worked anywhere, having your salary discussed in public is awkward and uncomfortable. But I will also say it is the normal course of business across America that the salary of the city manager, the city administrator is part of and known to the dollar when we adopt these contracts. So that will be my expectation moving forward. And so I appreciate us getting through that moment of awkwardness. And it is just the nature of the job. So I appreciate the amendment. I think it's important, you know, 1231 or January 2nd of 26 is, is, I think, an important sunset date so that we can engage in a search firm so that we can attract what I think is a national search to allow us to have the engagement of this council, members of the public, the mayor, to find that next city administrator, and so I very much agree with the direction there. You know, I'm going to convey a little bit in terms of our conversation when we met privately with the district four team is I asked mike to take some massive restructuring over the remaining months of this year. Right. And insofar as I think it would be, it would hurt our retraction of new candidates to this position in the year forward. If they know that they've got to come in and make massive restructuring. Those are the types of moves that city managers and city administrators actually don't survive in the long term. They have to make them, and then they usually have to exit that organization within short order. And what I'm asking you, mike, and, you know, this is I want that to happen in this calendar year so that our next candidate can stay here for a number of years. And so that the mayor, this council has somebody who is not having to do the most uncomfortable work that is in their career. So I hope you'll take that seriously. I know it's going to be uncomfortable. I'll support those restructure changes to reduce the footprint. And I also for my colleagues, I know there's some some there's a big choice for us. It's also new for Portland. And I want to send one signal out for us. And I hope we recognize that. It sends a signal out to the candidate pool as we go to look for our next city administrator. There is at times a mindset about, do you go to a city who is split on your city manager, right. That that is part of the industry and that can be a challenging thing. What I would say is all of the issues, concerns, there are incredibly valid issues and concerns. But our appointment today, I hope, is a 12 zero vot, because that will set up and this meeting will be the next meeting that candidates who consider to put their name in the hat in the future across this country are going to look at this meeting and how we engage with our city administrator, with our mayor, because it signals to them the relationship that we'll have moving forward, and people will make a choice whether or not to come to Portland to apply to serve us based on whether or not they think they have a council who they can work through difficulty with, or if it's always going to be a struggle to have that support, where you think that maybe the job is in jeopardy every single day. And so I think that the expiration date on January 2nd allows us to get through this budget year, get through a search throughout the summer, and gives a lot of folks cover to take a 12 zero vote today. And I think that's an important signal. And I recognize everybody will will have their own opinions. But I want us to think about our reputation that we're setting as we engage in a future search. So thank you for stepping up. I'll be supportive. And that's I have no other questions.
250 Councilor Smith, I'd like to give councilors who have not yet had a chance to ask a question, an opportunity first. Do you mind if we come back to you?
251 Thank you.
252 Councilor Green.
253 Thank you, madam president. I'll just start by saying, you know, thanks for being here today. You know, you've heard from a lot of people in the building, but the land use compatibility statement, I won't belabor that point. I think they made it better than I did. I'll just say that, you know, I was disappointed that went forward when there was a pending an outstanding resolution to take up substantive issues with that. So I'll leave that there. And I'll just remind folks that it's the power of city council to address big, uncomfortable policy issues and engage in oversight. And that's what I will be doing in the next few weeks. But I do have a question for you. I, I received an email from a person who I, who I admire and respect, bob weinstein, who's a resident in my district. And, you know, he's got issues with the top heavy nature of our organizational structure. And you're and you're aware of this as well as the six dca's, the number and also the sort of level of compensation and the severance packages. And so I'm wondering what you can say here between now and then and setting us up for the next city administrator that can give someone like bob some assurances that we're going to take that kind of fiscal stewardship seriously. Thanks.
254 Well, I appreciate the question. And I've heard heard the comment multiple times from multiple sources and to the question that councilor Ryan asked about tough choices, the illusion that councilor Zimmerman mentioned about this year and how challenging it will be, and we should take on those challenges. I think one of those challenges is the structure of the organization. We did the best we could. Over about a year prior to November of 23, interacting with multiple cities across the country, interacting with the international city managers association and the national league of cities to try and construct a framework for the council to consider back in November of 23. Is it perfect? Absolutely not. Is it absolutely the right structure for Portland? Probably not. And there was every expectation that we would continue to evolve that structure going forward. And I expect that we will do that this year. And to previous comment about our current fiscal situation, we should take into into account both whether management is top heavy or whether we have duplication of management deeper in the organization. We should be looking at those things. There's no question. I will say, however, it it isn't just throwing darts at a whiteboard that gets you these kinds of structures. There are things to think about, about risks to the city, spans of control and levels of management. Those things aren't just made up. We do them because there are certain parts of our organization where the activity is of higher risk. And going to the question about our future city administrator that will hire this coming year, not only will they look at maybe the recording of this meeting, but they'll also go to the org chart and they'll say, can I feel comfortable being held accountable for this big organization with that current structure? And they'll look at that before they apply and they'll want to know, have I got a team of leaders that can run the organization for me, because you can't keep your eye on 7300 people. There's no way to do it. And so the development of those spans of control and levels of management are really important. Happy to work with both the committees of this council as we move forward through this year. But we will be proposing changes. There's just no question.
255 Thank you for that answer. My next question is in the last budget, there was a budget memo that sort of called for an independent investigation of sort of a consultant's view of restructuring and how to be efficient. Do you intend to put dollars into the next budget, mayor, to sort of front load that early in the fiscal year?
256 We oh, I'm sorry.
257 Go ahead.
258 We did just for information sake. Councilor we did prepare a scope of work for that independent third party. It's prepared, I think, working collaboratively with the mayor and with your committees, perhaps the governance committee would be the appropriate place, but I'll leave that to the to the council president. But working together, I think we can decide how we want to move forward on that study. You know, that the scope definition can define how many commas and zeros we might have to put with that analysis, but we'd love to work together to move that forward. But we're prepared with the scope of work for that budget.
259 Note thank you. I look forward to that. And then last comment I'll make, because I just have to say it, I think the I think the comparison to what the union got and the compensation is inappropriate because that's the result of collective bargaining with the union. And I'll just leave it at that. Thanks.
260 Councilor. Koyama Lane.
261 Okay. I kind of feel like I want to take a deep breath first. A few different things. First.
262 I.
263 Would like to.
264 Acknowledge community members. I know not all of them are still here. That showed up today, took time out of their day so important that you're here? It's important information for all of us, and I know that you all are representing just a fraction of the community members that care a lot about this issue. I want to say that I hear really clearly the feelings of concern, frustration, anger those are very justified. The concerns about oil trains rolling through our community, it's very concerning. I want to say keep advocating, keep organizing, keep showing up. Also, just like this is educating too. I remember talking about zenith with some teachers about a year ago at sunnyside environmental school, and they didn't even know about it. It is like becoming more and more common that like everyday folks are hearing about this. I share a lot of these feelings. I feel like we all kind of wish we weren't put in this place right now. I think you both maybe wish that you weren't put in this place right now. Just taking a taking a guess here. I look out and I see I saw, like, a student with a sunnyside environmental school sweatshirt. Like, I know, like, my constituents care a lot about this. So this is something that, like, we have to talk about and we have to keep uplifting. I'll say, hearing about the lux being signed last minute felt shocking and not good to a lot of folks to me as well. I can also step back and see. I understand things get leaked and there's a lot of us. And so I do understand the concerns about being careful with when information comes to us. And I think it also puts us in a tricky spot because we're all getting emails that are also saying, I mean, one of the concerns is about timelines, due dates. This isn't the only thing where it's been like, what? What is the timeline for this? And then all of a sudden it just kind of happens. Maybe actually, do either of you want to speak to that? Like, did this have to be signed right now? That's a genuine question.
265 Well, okay. That's great. And I appreciate you asking. Thank you. Councilor. I will say that this is not going to be the last time that your city administrator has to do part of their job. That I think is a pretty significant part of their job, and that is to assess and try to minimize the legal risk to the city. And that legal risk isn't just a question about our image or how we want to act from a policy perspective. It in this case could have significant commas and zeros behind it. And our administrative responsibility to treat every applicant for one of these kinds of actions equally. From a procedural perspective, to the degree we do not, we run a risk to the city. And it's part of the administrator's job working with the legal team and risk management and subject matter experts. Depending on the question to assess the risk to the city. And that risk is usually measured in dollars. And so it was my view that regardless of the policy questions in play and the fact that the resolution that is being put forward has to do with our oversight of a franchise relationship and how that has been managed over the years is a legitimate question for us to look at. It is, however, not necessarily associated with this administrative action that us taking a different approach to it than literally thousands of applicants over over years puts the city at risk. And so if you ask the question that's that's at least my response to an unfortunate timing and, and set of issues. And it's really trying to assess risk.
266 And may I add as well, this came to me 60 days ago. And the question was shall we administratively check this box and move it through before the January 1st assumption of power that the council and I took over and after consulting with multiple council members, we all thought that we have to daylight this. And so we asked the previous administration to allow us to move it into this new year in which we had the work session recently and I delayed or wanted to delay, so I could gain as much knowledge as I could to make sure that there wasn't anything impractical. Or as mike said, it's an administrative function. I wanted to know all of the parts and pieces. And so I've been listening for the last 60 days, working and talking with all of you and community members where necessary and appropriate. And then this past week, I started working with senior executives from around the state, senior executives, not business, but political, to make sure that we had the legal protections, that we were moving forward in an appropriate manner. And with my experience being 30 days in office, I wanted to make sure I was working with senior political individuals from around the state to just understand the process, to make sure that we weren't going to compromise the city legally throughout the process. And then I did, and I do agree with councilors, Morillo and greens resolution for an investigation. I think that that's where we really need to dig in and see and look at the franchise and see if there truly was and to find out how did we get here, because we don't want to get to this point again. So, okay.
267 I'm glad that you acknowledge that. That was one of my questions. And what I'm really hearing, I just want to uplift is the hope for moving forward, especially around oversight, transparency, community engagement. I know you're going to you're you want me to I'll wrap it up really quickly. It's just it's clear that folks are not like, this hasn't been working. Folks are not feeling part of the process. We have work to do. Also, focusing on mr. Jordan really quickly, I do. I'd like to know more about what this search looks like. What's the process? How can we make it as transparent as as possible? And I also just I've given you all a fair warning I like. I'm going to force us all to see each other as human and remember that. And I do genuinely care about figuring out this relationship, holding each other accountable. We don't agree on everything, but like making sure that we also are treating each other with respect and keeping humanity in mind. And I do hear the piece that like we need to do a, a really great search and it needs to be transparent and we need to attract top talent. And part of that is us working together. It's being honest. It's I mean, it's doing some of this kind of awkward stuff out in the public and remembering like what our goals are and, and staying focused here. Yeah, I'm kind of I'm kind of getting lost a little bit. But basically in general, making sure that we are trying to collaborate with each other, being as honest as possible, showing up in good faith, not just trusting each other, but also like earning each other's trust. There's a lot of trust that's been broken with the community that needs to be repaired, and we need to keep working as a group to on this. Thank you.
268 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark.
269 Thank you, madam president. Hi, michael. Thank you, mayor wilson, for bringing this forward to us. Mike, I think you've done an excellent job shepherding us to this point through the charter change, and I look forward to the next level of change, implementing the charter and dealing with a difficult budget. I think in hindsight, you know, we all have 2020 vision in hindsight, and there were some hiccups along the way with us. But we're here now and I think it's good. But building on some of the comments of others, I wanted to ask you a general question about trust and maybe for the folks that are here and the folks who are at home watching, it's sort of in the context of the new relationship, the new form of government governance within a legislative body. Can you talk a little bit about that relationship for people, as well as how do you build trust? And I would say, I so appreciate your being available to all of us, to meeting with us by district. It's been invaluable. But how do you build trust and what is transparency in this situation? I don't mean that this zenith situation, I mean generally thank you.
270 Thank you. Councilor. It's a big broad question you can go a long way with. I'll try to be brief. For trust, at least in my experience, it's proximity and time. You need to be close to each other. You need to work on things together. You need to be in a foxhole together. Sometimes when it's really hard and be honest with each other about where you're coming from and why. Why you believe what you believe. None of us have the corner on wisdom completely, so we kind of got to bounce off of each other a little bit and hear different perspectives. And that's part of what we're building here, I think. Are we bumping into each other once in a while? You bet we are. Is there any roadmap for what we're doing? No. So we're kind of collectively making this thing up as we go along and it will get better, I guarantee it. I think this is the most diverse and smart and wise city council that I've ever seen in for the city of Portland in my 40 years. But that diversity and smarts and wisdom comes sometimes at a cost, which is we're going to have different opinions and we're going to feel strongly about them, and we're going to bump into each other sometimes, if we can keep an open mind and realize that the only way this government, this new government is prosperous and does well is if we stay together, that's the only way it works. I have watched it work badly in another venue in the Portland metropolitan area. Not so distant future or past. And if the branches do this, we're in big trouble. If we stay together on things, even when it's hard, even when we disagree and stay in the room until we can move things forward, we're going to be fine. And through doing that, we'll build trust.
271 Thank you. I appreciate that and I look forward to being in the foxhole with you, particularly on the issues in infrastructure and transportation asset management. But thank you so much.
272 I hear you.
273 Thank you.
274 Councilor Morillo.
275 Thank you, madam president.
276 Thank you both for being here today.
277 I appreciate.
278 Councilor Koyama Lane.
279 Always acknowledging.
280 People's humanity, and it.
281 Is a hard.
282 And.
283 Difficult conversation.
284 I also.
285 Think that. The best. Relationships require.
286 Accountability and. Transparency in.
287 Order to build that trust and move forward.
288 I want. To point.
289 Out some of the comments that were made that this.
290 Is a just a.
291 Run of the mill.
292 Procedural process.
293 With zenith.
294 Nothing about.
295 How the city has.
296 Engaged with zenith is.
297 A run of the mill. Procedural process.
298 In fact, our own.
299 City auditor.
300 Said that.
301 The way that staff engaged with zenith. Was far past the scope of.
302 Regular procedures.
303 And we have much more.
304 Information to.
305 Look into moving forward. I am grateful that mayor wilson is supportive of. Councilor greene and his resolution to look into this. But to say on the one end.
306 We are.
307 Going to do very unusual things with zenith that we.
308 Don't do with.
309 Other contractors when we're making agreements as a city. But then when accountability is part of the process, when delay, so that we can do an investigation as part of the process, suddenly everything has to be by the book, right? That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. That seems like two separate standards for two different groups. The 2021 luba decision. And for folks watching at home, luba stands for the land use board of appeals said that weighing zenith use against the city's comprehensive plan is a quasi judicial decision because of the level of discretion involved. So those are fancy terms that basically just mean that city council should have some judicial oversight, because this is a very delicate and difficult matter. The city of Portland ignored this in 2022 and then again on Monday, February 3rd, when the executive branch approved the lux with little to no notification to city councilors. This was really frustrating to me as a city councilor, because you were well aware that councilor Green and I were bringing forward a resolution to do an investigation on zenith, and that we wanted to the intention was to delay the lux until such an investigation had been made, so that we could really make a decision rooted in the facts. And our city attorney himself told us that the February 4th deadline was completely arbitrary. We did not have to legally approve the lux on February 4th. So when we're talking about the legal consequences and the cost to the city, maybe we're hearing different information. But I was under the impression that we were able to get an extension granted to us so that we could do an investigation and do our due diligence and get all of the facts necessary to actually make an informed decision. And so now I'm getting to my question. Apologies. Sorry, madam president. I know she's trying to run this meeting like a tight ship and I'm making it hard, but I'm a little bit alarmed to hear you say that this is going to happen again, because you're going to have tough decisions as a city administrator, because I think what I want to hear or what I want to know is, how are we going to avoid this happening again? I think that as a city councilor, I would love to work with you and have a transparent process, and leaks wouldn't be such a big issue if we were actually more transparent with the public in the first place, right? So I would love to hear how we're going to repair this trust, and how I know you're going to have to make some executive decisions without us, but how we are representatives of the public. We were elected by the people. They're making demands of us. And if you are going over our heads to make some of these decisions, I just want to know how we can expect that there will be trust built. I don't want to hear that this is just going to keep happening, because that's not really going to work for me.
310 That's a good question. I, I do believe these kinds of tensions will keep happening. The, the we have a, a scant few words in the charter that define our roles. And there is a wide gray space between them. And so I do think we will continue to have to talk to each other about our separate roles. And, and sometimes we're going to one of us, one party or the other will feel like the other has overstepped their bounds. And we should talk about that to continue to learn. So I think we will keep having these kinds of challenges. I think we made a choice based again on my previous statement about risk, the history on zenith presents lessons on multiple sides of the question. Previous decisions that were remanded by luba present multiple lessons, not just one in in how the city should approach these kinds of processes. And I think the issues of transparency and how zenith was interacted with outside of just the administrative process is are legitimate questions for the council to ask about. And I believe we should talk about how that history has been played out. I will say that I think that we need to have a serious discussion about how that happens, because I think we may have differences of opinion about how we get to those answers, and we should talk about that.
311 Thank you, councilor, councilor Smith.
312 Thank you, madam president. Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you, michael, for coming forward today. This is very uncomfortable in many ways. I wanted to ask the question when there are executive announcements that are made, can we come to an agreement that we have one executive response? And I'll tell you what I'm talking about. A couple of days ago, mayor wilson announced a 50 bed opioid. New project that he was going to do at bybee lakes. The old wapato jail. And yesterday I tried with three people who should be in the know, where is this money coming from? Is it coming from 2425? Is it something that needs to be put on the books? I was told from schuyler at one point, the original conversation that she thought that it was 3 or 4 months in back that we received the money. I said, okay, then it needs a budget modification to be put in front of the other councilors, because we don't know about that money. And she said, let me check, but I want to make sure. So we went round and round from the cfo to others and then the grants management. They emailed me last night and said that there is no opioid money, and that they didn't know when it was coming in and they didn't know how much it was. So I said, okay, that's interesting. But I also emailed you before I left work yesterday. I said, if anybody should know this, michael should know this. And I got no response from you. So I guess what I'm saying is, if we're councilor, if we have a question, there is one person that I expect to know that answer and to go find out. For me, it is you. And so I'm really frustrated right now because I got another communication from schuyler this morning that said, oh, no, that money is already been noted in the fall bump. And she sent me a list of the line items that were in that fall bump, but it did not include bybee lake because we didn't even know about it then. And she said, well, I said, if you have $2.1 million hanging around, which I know we have to appropriate every single penny, then either you're going to take it from another program, or you're going to take it out of a contingency pot. And at either case, you have to come before council to get that approved. And so I want to know from you, will we have an executive response, a singular executive response. And let me just say this off the bat, I totally love the idea that we would put 50 more opioid beds out into the system. That is perfect. But something dinged in my head to, I don't know that five lakes is the appropriate place because it is a high barrier homeless shelter. So why would we put 50 opioid beds? And they don't even do that at at at bybee lakes. And why wouldn't we put it over in the clinton triangle where they actually do that? So that boggled my mind that we would do that because they have to pay to be there. They have to not be on drugs. But the way it was explained to us. And so you have to be very clear with many of us and especially with me, because if you tell me something, I have some follow up questions. I'm going to ask you where the money's from. Was it from 2425? Was it from 2526? Where's the line item? Show me some receipts. And if I don't have no receipts. And I have different responses, I've gotten four different responses, but I failed to get one from you about this case. And so I need a singular. Executive response when I asked about a serious issue. Because this is serious work. And the second question I want to ask you too is did you not know that mike myers was living in las vegas for the last four months?
313 I didn't get the question. The first question.
314 The first question, will we have a singular executive response when I ask the question, like when I asked the question yesterday, where is the money coming from for mayor wilson's 50 bed opioid that he's going to go over to bybee lake?
315 Well, it's clear that you got multiple responses from us up to this point, and I will reconcile those multiple responses.
316 Multiple different responses.
317 Yes, yes, councilor. And I'll reconcile that and get you a single response. Now to the second question. I've been aware that mike's been in las vegas. I want to say since late September or early October, I can't remember the exact date he has had a medical problem that he has is not. I will just say I'm not going to discuss his medical problems, but he has a severe, significant medical challenge and he has been doing the work from las vegas since then. His contract ends on April the 29th. I believe it will not be renewed. I would like to have mike stay as long as then to help us put together the recruitment for the fire chief. He is exemplary experience and I trust his judgment to help at least put the system together to do the recruitment and get us in a position to be able to make a great hire for the fire chief.
318 Just to be clear, for the folks at home and who are sitting out here, he is not our fire chief right now. He is over our public safety department. He was our former fire chief, and he has experience in other places that he has been. But I was so shocked to hear when the mayor said he had just learned that mike myers was in las vegas two weeks ago, and he's been so diligently having coffees with every single dca even before, after, before we before we even got elected. And so that was very surprising that you would not have relayed that information to the mayor, that one of our dcas is living in las vegas. And so I have a problem with certain information that you are knowledgeable about, that you are not relaying to the mayor that kind of stuff. He needs to know.
319 Thank you. Council.
320 Thank you.
321 Mr. Jordan. I think I get a question now.
322 Oh boy.
323 I want to ask about your approach with your relationship with council. And a few of my colleagues have touched on this. But you're right, there are scant few words in the charter for what your relationship is with us. You manage the administration of the city, which is overseen by the mayor, but you are in a role that is duly responsive to both the mayor and council. And we may have different approaches, you and I. We may have different approaches across council on what that relationship should be. And you're right, we will navigate that and work through that together to create a unified approach. But I'd like to know where you're starting from. I'd like you to speak a little bit to what you see as the starting place from your values, from your beliefs, for what your relationship with council is and how we fill in those scant few words in the charter.
324 That's a good question. Council president. I think you are accurate. In your statement about dual accountability is accurate, but it is so short of the complexity of the of the circumstance. Certainly, I'm unilaterally responsible to the mayor every day, every hour, every minute. I am responsible to a supermajority of you every day, every hour and every minute. And I appreciate that. But I don't think that's very fulfilling. I think the more fulfilling answer is how do you as a as a chief executive, how do how do I interact with a board of directors that's accountable to the public and has has all of the issues that come with that accountability for everything that goes on in this city? You're the ones who will get probably the first phone calls or maybe the second, but you'll get a phone call very early when folks are not happy about something that's going on in this city. And often, I would say significantly majority of the time that will be because of how management has done its job or not, how the administration has delivered for the people of this city. And so I view my job in very many ways as being the person that has one foot firmly planted in policy and politics, and the other foot firmly planted in management and administration. And a lot of my job is being translator. A lot of my job is trying to inform your policy decisions with the practicality of implementation and management and some of the logistical tradeoffs, whether they're fiscal or managerial tradeoffs to infuse those into your policy conversations so that you can make a wide open eyes, wide open, informed decision. And then when you've made a decision, it's my job to inform the implementation and managerial part of making sure that your intent manifests on the ground in the community about the policies that you pass. And so it it's a huge job and it's a high wire act. And this is a big place with lots of moving parts. But I think fundamentally that's a role that I play in this administrator's role. And let me say, probably the most important part of that is to make sure you're successful. This place does not work if you are not successful. We can't make policy decisions from the administration. We have to have your guidance. You have to be able to frame the right questions so that you can deliberate on them. I'm hoping that the committee structure will be a huge help for us to be able to interact in a little more informal way and be in each other's hip pocket a little more so that one we can build trust, but two, we can have informed dialog about the perspectives between policy and management. And it is a sometimes very challenging dialog. And I'm hopeful that the committee structure will help us with that and give us more chance to have these kinds of conversations that we can give and take and make sure we know where each other are and hopefully get to conclusions that work for everybody. That's how I see my role.
325 Thank you. Councilor Kanal.
326 Thank you so much for being here. I apologize for misspeaking earlier mayor as well. So I want to start by saying, you know, I'm going to use a couple of things as reference points here that relate to the zenith conversation, but they're not really about that. They're about the process by which it happened. And I would have loved to have the chance to chat about some of these things before, because I try not to have surprises, but I had two surprises come my way since our opportunities to chat, one of which was the dca indicating their intent to step down. And the other was was what happened with zenith. And when I say surprise, I want to note for the record that I actually found out through the press release. So for anyone who is thinking that this is something that council knew or had a decision in, I found out through the press release, actually, the email about the press release that came out a minute after it was published. So I just want to note that for the record, my questions are about dcas. So dcas, as a, as a rule, don't exist in the charter. They're they're something that was, I think, a good idea because there's 27 bureau directors and span of control is an issue, which is the number of people a single person can be expected to manage. So using the fact that we have been given feedback from the public alleging that in this case a dca, and I'm not saying I agree with it or disagree, I haven't even looked into it, but alleging a dca came here and gave us false information. That's a thing that is serious. If that were to hypothetically be true. And again, I don't want to imply that I agree or disagree. My question is in a hypothetical situation where we did all see that as what happened. And let's say it's not a dca, let's say it's an anyone from the administrative side comes to and misleads or lies to the council as the ultimate manager for the administrative side, directly for dca and directly for bureau directors, what do you think should happen if a staff member comes to the city council and lies or misleads us? How would you want that process to work?
327 Hard to comment on hypotheticals because there are so many what ifs buried in them, and the fact that in inaccurate information gets conveyed to council is one thing. The intent behind that is a very different thing. Yeah. And I have certainly been involved more times than I want to admit to over the years in having to discern between an act and the intent behind the act, usually in a human resource perspective, in doing an investigation and trying to figure out, first of all, what's the truth? And then secondly, what do you do about the truth? And as far as an employee, any employee sitting here and delivering inaccurate information to you, that's a problem. The edges of that problem are really gray and nebulous. So sometimes you'll get information I have seen, let's say historically I have seen not for you. Historically, I have seen councils get information that is incomplete, and it can influence how the council deliberates. And so and that incompleteness, at least in my experience, has almost never been intentional. It is that the whole story isn't illuminated yet, that we don't know everything yet. And sometimes this is happening in real time as council is deliberating. So to not drone on too long about your question, I think at its core it's an assessment of truth and then an assessment of what do we do about that? And when it comes to city employees, that's almost entirely an hr problem that I have to deal with.
328 So thanks.
329 And related to that, you know, and on the I'm noticing, I'm going to go and nobody else has a hand up. So I'm just noting because of this that I'm not I'm cutting half of my questions. I want to be clear about that.
330 I'm hearing you say in related to that, but we do need to do a time check before you move on to too many topics. But go ahead.
331 These are all about dcas. I want to be super clear about that. All my questions relate to the dca role, so I asked and I'm curious about the assurances here at the zenith work session. What confidence should we have that this is not going to just be issued on February 4th and that on February 5th and beyond? We're just going to be told, here's a thing we did and it's too late to change it. How can we be confident that that will not happen? I asked that question verbatim about zenith again, not about this, but about the fact that we were not communicated with because this came out through and again learned through a press release whether this was an administrative action, quasi judicial, it's not a normal action. I think councilor Morillo said that pretty clearly. Do you think it's appropriate for counselors to find out about high profile administrative decisions through press releases, rather than through direct communication? And do you think that council is an audience for or an advisory group to the administrative side, or the part of the government that sets the direction and the mayor and administrator execute that direction as a charter says?
332 Well, the first question we've already run into in other in another venue besides zenith, and I won't go into the details, but but the timing of information flow and the audiences that information flows to, whether it is the council, the press or staff, depending on the issue, that timing is sometimes very tight. Let's put it that way. However, I don't think it's appropriate for this council to be surprised by something that is printed in the paper that is of some consequence to how the council works, or issues that the council that we know the council cares about. So you shouldn't be surprised.
333 Thanks.
334 So. And the next thing is, based on the assumption, and mayor wilson can correct me if I'm wrong on the assumption that we have dcas who are interim through June 30th. Right now, the city administrator is interim through June 30th. If the extension of the city administrator were to go beyond that. But the interim status of the dcas did not continue. My assumption is that the city administrator, you in this case, would be responsible for determining who is the replacement. And this, I guess, is in April for the dca public safety and whether or not the other five would be kept on or replaced by somebody new and leading that process. So that's my assumption. And my, my question is, and I want to be clear, that I didn't get dca. Oliveira did not assure me that I would that that that hypothetical I laid out would not happen. He was, to his credit, not he didn't promise something. But I am asking you because to give me maybe clearer assurance on this, you will be finding a new interim permanent or possibly both. Interim now permanent, later. Deputy city administrator for public safety councilor Novick and myself are co-chairs of the community and public safety committee. Will we be involved in the decision making process for who the new dca for public safety is? And I want to be clear for both interim and permanent, and if so, specifically, how will we be surprised by. Here is the new interim dca for public safety. Will we have a seat on the final interview committee? A representative, for example?
335 The short answer is we should talk about that. I've worked for lots and lots of elected bodies and single elected officials where I have had I have had the authority and the responsibility to make higher fire decisions. And when it is a higher of significant importance and the dca of public safety would be a higher of significant importance, I would like to find out how the council would like to be involved in that. And the short answer about how is, I don't know, I think we should talk with at least with the public safety committee to say, how would you like to be involved and at what level? I want to be clear, though, the charter is very clear. It is my job to hire, and it's my job to get rid of people in these kinds of roles. And but having said that, I would love to engage with you in in what's how do we do that? Just as the city administrator's appointment is the mayor's appointment. But you all have to endorse that appointment. And so you should be involved in that architectural process for how we're going to get to the decision that the mayor will have to make about an appointment. So just just as that I would like to engage with the council in these really high level personnel decisions about the talent that's going to lead the city in the administrative role, to make what you all want to happen, happen. And so I think you should be involved. I just couldn't give you an answer to the exact architecture right now. But we should interact on that.
336 That's okay. Can I just get the very specific part?
337 Sure.
338 Will we? And I'm specifically referring to councilor Novick and I can you promise us we will not be surprised by who the new interim dca for public safety is?
339 Yeah, I think I can promise that.
340 Thank you.
341 I have one more, but I'll wait.
342 Councilors, we are at noon. Our meeting is scheduled until 1230, and we have another appointment that we need to hear from. Plus finishing this, I'm going to ask if everybody is available, at least until one. That gives us an additional half hour. If we would like to take additional questions, we will need to extend that beyond 1:00. Realistically. So I'm wondering.
343 Call the vote.
344 Madam president.
345 I'm not sure that we need to vote on this. Oh, call the vote here.
346 Yeah, let's.
347 Do it. Okay.
348 It's time.
349 I'm.
350 Yeah. There's no one else in the queue. Right? Right.
351 Are you okay? And one more.
352 I know councilor Kanal has one more. I know a few others have statements to make. Councilor Kanal, I'm hoping that you can turn your question into a comment with your vote. Because I'm hearing folks calling for the vote. We have a call from councilor Zimmerman. Did we have a second? I don't know that we need that second. Okay. We're going to close discussion and move to a vote on the resolution to appoint. This is not a reappointment because you are interim right now, but to appoint mike jordan, michael jordan as city administrator.
353 Sorry, y'all. I have a statement. Okay. So thank you to those who testified. And in particular, linda lou's comments resonated with me because I agree that this appointment is about more than a single administrative decision, but instead about the qualities we're looking for in this powerful new position. As a former charter commissioner who spent a lot of time thinking about the relationship of our new branches of government, I have a particular interest in watching how closely those powers, authorities and responsibilities of each branch of our government are realized, because it's clear to me, based on recent events, that we need to thoughtfully discuss how the powers are unfolding in this new government, the best example being the surprise influx approval that was made without council. Despite our clear signals to delay that decision so that we could perform our elected duty to provide oversight on critical decisions that impact our community. So I just want to state on my record my disapproval of that decision. For me, approving this appointment without a specified end date was a nonstarter. So I'm grateful to my colleagues for approving the amendment that we added prior to this vote to secure that end date within the resolution. I want to thank the gtac for working diligently to recommend a robust process for a national search. And I'm voting I today to allow for stable leadership while we give ourselves the time to conduct a thorough and community informed search for our next city administrator. Thank you, I vote I comfy.
354 Two quick comments. First, I've had the pleasure of working with administrator jordan for ten years now, his first week working for the bureau of environmental services was my first week working for commissioner Fish. I have found him to be a consummate professional, a systems thinker, and an ideal public, faithful public servant. To that end, with regard to the comments we've heard about zenith, I personally do not want a city administrator who feels empowered to ignore the will of the city council and change and interpret the law as they see fit, and as such, I believe the zenith decision was ultimately the fault of the city council for not fixing the law in the first place, and I look forward to finding ways to make sure that we can impact whether or not zenith continues to operate using legal bounds. But my vote today is based on three very specific things one. We are facing an enormously complicated budget cycle that we need faithful and continued leadership in order to try and navigate through that budget. Conversation will also inform the staffing and form of government changes that are going to be vital to our success in this next chapter. And third, that administrator jordan has promised to help begin the robust international or national, maybe international search for a permanent city administrator. I think that the timing on all of that would be deeply unfair to anybody other than mike jordan in this. It's probably unfair to mike jordan in this circumstance to. But because of those reasons and my trust in mike and the ultimate assurance that I have from this council that we will be having further conversations about zenith, I vote I.
355 Smith.
356 Madam president, thank you. I've been listening to the testimony from everyone today about zenith. I've been listening to the council folks about transparency and making sure that we have good governance and that our government is stable. And as I think about how to go forward, I think that michael jordan has the experience, the background and the track record to help us get someone who's going to take us into the future. I watched his record at das. I don't think there's anybody in this room or at this city who has more experience navigating at the top than michael jordan. I do have some concerns in terms of how I get information, but that is not enough for me to say that we need to wholesale take him out of this position for this next year. But I want to be clear, I still want transparency and I want trust to continue to build with us so that we can make sure that we have a city that is not just surviving, that we have a city that's thriving, and everyone in that city has an opportunity to thrive. So I am going to support this vote. Mr. Mayor, for your appointment to the new city administrator's position.
357 Thank you.
358 Councilor canal.
359 I'm going to note this three times, one for each of the three appointments. I gave this feedback to mayor wilson when he said that he was going to nominate michael jordan and robert taylor and bob day to the three positions that are mayor nominated and council appointed. That's disappointing to me because it's keeping the overall slate the same for now as an election widely seen as a change election yielding 12 new out of 14 elected officials. At the same time, I'm not inclined to hold any one of you individually responsible for that by voting against based off of the whole. I'm not inclined to make a point on that. So my vote is based entirely off of the nomination individually. And the question I just want to note that for the record, and I do hope to see some process for this particular position that looks beyond the city and beyond, you know, what we've had in the past. I the question I didn't get to ask was about severance packages for dcas. I also just want to daylight that I think if they are continuing on, you know, there's $209,000 approved by, you know, for each of the six dcas. I also have concerns that didn't get brought up, I think, on the questions around what does the assistant city administrator do? What is Portland solutions? I don't think those are things that reflect on you, but there are things that I want to understand about them that I don't currently, and I just want to be super transparent about that. First, I want to thank the mayor for I think I'm where councilor Avalos was at in terms of having the end date be written is really helpful in our conversations around that have been very helpful as well. Mayor wilson, I don't know that I agree with the idea that having a 12 zero vote or something other than a 12 zero vote is going to dissuade applicants. I may be wrong on that. I don't have experience as a city administrator, but even if that's the case, I will say that the applicants who expect a 12 zero vote are not the candidates I want to see going forward. This is a big, diverse city. We have single transferable vote as our mechanism that yields disagreements within districts. And I think it's good for administrator candidates to know future ones for the regular position that you will need to work with each of the 12 of us individually. I agree with with councilor Zimmerman that I imagine that this video will be shown or will be seen by future candidates, and I'm excited to work with those candidates if they should be selected, because we're not just the council president and the council vice president and ten backbenchers. We're individually elected officials who deserve to be talked to. And I am profoundly bothered by the idea that we got surprised by that and didn't even get a courtesy heads up. In the case of zenith, I again, I'm not inclined to vote based on that, but I am very concerned that the substantive leadership of the administrative side of the city is in the hands of six people that are all interim, and that extending this position will put that in the hands of someone who will not be here long term. That's really concerning to me. Right? Because frankly, on many of these issue areas, whether it's public works or vibrant communities or public safety, whatever, the a lot of the driving force behind what actually gets done and what gets slow rolled in in the administrative side of the city. And I'm speaking as the only person up here who's worked at the Portland building. And I've seen this that is really important. That's going to get driven more by the dcas than it is by the city administrator position. And that is of profound concern to me. So that is where my consideration is. And I'm saying this out loud, as I'm not 100% even sure when I started saying this how I was going to vote. But I will say this in closing, there is a lot of pressure to go along and get along up here. There is a lot of pressure. I hope everybody understands that. And there's also a separate thing, which is the fear that if you vote yes or no, you're going to get punished for it. That's already happened to me in being up here. But I know that our relationship going back to when we were at the Portland building and talking there, and before you were the interim city administrator and the chief administrative officer, was your title then that I trust that when you tell me, I'm not going to be surprised that that doesn't matter whether I vote yes or no right now. And if you were asking me, mayor wilson, to vote yes on keeping the city administrator in place till June 30th, I would absolutely vote no. But because of that dca situation, I can't, and I apologize for that. I wish we'd had more time, I vote no.
360 Okay. Thank you. Thank you, madam president, for managing and convening this challenging session that we've had. I appreciate.
361 It, I apologize. Keelan, do we need you to actually call on councilor Ryan since this is a vote?
362 Oh, I did, I'm sorry. There must have been a noise. Ryan.
363 Yeah, there was an awkward silence, so I just started going.
364 Sorry.
365 I'm hungry. That was my fault for not talking to you.
366 It's a it's been a fascinating day so far. And also, thank you, mayor wilson and michael jordan. This has been messy and necessary, so I appreciate your willingness, your patience and your authenticity this morning or this afternoon. And as you said, michael jordan, there's no blueprint for what we're building. And we must continue to have conversations like this, and we must stay together as we build. And thank you for that reference. In a past experience, I think you have the right temperament. And actually, you really did prove that over the last couple of hours. And I think you have the chops to do hard things. That was where I had more doubt, and that's where we've had our longer conversations. We have to move from the siloed bureau culture that still exists. Just because we move people around doesn't mean, voila, the culture has changed and we have to build an efficient enterprise, and we have to do it in this 2526 budget. We delayed this hard work last year. I mentioned that a few times, not about a year ago, and we cannot delay this any longer. Thank you for your willingness.
367 I vote yea Koyama Lane.
368 It's clear that we have work to do setting up this new form of government and culture, the culture around it. I hear a lot about oversight, transparency, community engagement. I plan to fight for those things to be part of this culture, of this precedent that we're setting. Also, mr. Mayor, I remember I think back to our first time when we sat down at that mcmenamins downtown together, and something that we do have in common is we both are. You know, we're not deeply entrenched in, in politics. Well, now we are, but we're both we're not we weren't we didn't come to this as insiders already. So what I see is, I understand your desire. This is kind of what I'm guessing. And I think from some conversations I had to keep things, keep what you can stable as there's a lot of new things going on. I do hope, and I will push for a national search for top quality candidates. I don't think that we have to have a 12 zero vote. We're not going to, clearly, but I, I still think it's true that anyone who's a really talented city administrator is looking close at what we're building, is looking close at this culture and how we're treating each other. And when we give grace and when we don't. And it's I'm not even just talking about between us and mr. Jordan right now, talking about how we're interacting with bureau directors, with city workers, with we have some work to do. It's going to take some work. I believe that that like, we're we're here for it. But there it's new. So there's a lot of fear that keeps coming up and a lot of worries about power and who has it and who doesn't. And like this is part of the work. We need to keep talking about this. But I do believe that top quality candidates are going to do some research, and they're going to look and see what's what kind of reputation are we building? What I have seen so far is that you are open to talking things through to disagreeing. I am going to hold really high standards, and I'm also going to do it in a respectful way. I also believe deeply that I let people show me who they are. I heard a lot of things about many people on this dais before I actually got to know you. I it's important to me that what I believe about you is what you are showing me. So continue to show us and we're going to push you. I thank you.
369 Maria.
370 Okay.
371 Thank you. Thank you.
372 I want to start off by saying again, thank you. Being a city administrator is a very difficult, unbelievably difficult job. I believe during one of our meetings, michael, you told us that city administrators have maybe one of the highest turnovers rates because it's such a difficult job with such intense public scrutiny. And I think all of us here on the council are already even though it's only been a month in, we're familiar with the intensity of public scrutiny as well. And also I know that with with great power comes great responsibility and scrutiny. And I, I fully expect that as a city councilor and as a city administrator, you know, you'll take heat from the community and from us sometimes as we're representing our communities. I also know that trust is really hard to earn, and it's very easily lost. I appreciate that you addressed my questions today. I think that we are going to continue fighting for transparency and accountability between the branches, executive and legislative, and I trust that we can do that together. I also think that you have we had a great meeting with you where you went over all of the things that you do for the city, all of the skill sets that you bring that I think are really underestimated. And I think if the public saw a whole layout of all the things that you do, people would be really shocked about all of the work that you carry on your shoulders. So I also want to take a moment to be frank with the public that is sitting here and maybe streaming this from home, that we're in a really difficult position as council. We are dealing with a $100 million shortfall, new federal horrors every day that are going to impact our sanctuary city, the withholding of federal funds that could impact our economic process even further here. And I think that given the sunset clause and the commitments that I've heard about transparency moving forward, I feel comfortable reappointing you through the end of the year, because we are going to need someone who knows how the process works. We're going to need that stability as we face some really difficult things together. Moving forward, I'm going to be watching very carefully. And I'm, you know, I might be a little bit annoying to make sure that we have a very robust public process in picking the new person. That's my commitment to the people watching this. That's my commitment to my district and my expectations moving forward are that the executive branch is going to work very carefully with council on big decisions. We are representatives of the people and we should receive timely and accurate information and communications from our city administrators and the dcas who operate under them. So the public and the council deserves transparency, and the council needs transparency in order to make the right policy decisions by the people that elected us. And with that, I, I'm looking forward to building that trust with you and meeting more with you, and let's get the work done. I vote I.
373 Novick first of all, is a complete tangent. I have to say that coming into this council, I worried with the huge age range among us that there wouldn't be enough shared cultural reference points. So as a fan of spider-man since 1968, I was delighted to hear councilor Morillo refer to a phrase associated with that cartoon. I appreciate all the comments of people who think that we need to have a very careful process to pick a permanent city administrator, and I think we've made it clear today that michael jordan is really, despite the title, an interim city administrator until next January. And I don't think that we would have had the bandwidth to do a search to find a new city administrator, given the kind of extensive search all of us want by June 30th, and because largely because we are going to spend the next few months occupied in the miserable task of cutting tens of millions of dollars out of a budget, which in the general fund sense, primarily, almost overwhelmingly goes to police, fire, parks and housing. And we're going to make savage cuts to some or all of those. And that's going to take up all of our emotional energy. And based on conversations that we've had with mr. Jordan, I think that he will be invaluable in helping us make those vicious cuts judiciously. I also wanted to make a comment that I wish there were more of them still here. To folks who were here about zenith, who I know also care generally about the critical energy infrastructure hub and the overwhelming issue of climate change. And councilor Morillo I co-chair a committee that specifically charged with issues relating to climate resilience and land use, and I hope that you will engage in the work of that committee. We, I hope, are going to have folks from state deq in to ask them about what they plan to do with their charge from the legislature to regulate the critical energy infrastructure hub and require that those companies that 11 of them, including zenith, take steps to ensure that their tanks do not explode when the earthquake comes. We also, I hope, will make recommendations to the rest of the council on how to reduce our own fossil fuel emissions, which will require tough choices that sometimes will bring you and bring us in conflict with some citizens of the city. Like more protected bike lanes, bigger investments in transit, changing the land use laws in ways that promote compact development, which is good for the climate but some people don't like. So I hope that you will come and help us make tough decisions, push us to make tougher decisions. And I have to say, just as an editorial, that personally I think of fossil fuel companies as like drug dealers. Drug dealers are evil. But as long as the demand is there, drug dealers will pop up. I think the same is true of fossil fuel companies. So I really hope you will help us engage in the really difficult task of trying to reduce the demand. With that, with those three tangential comments, I vote I.
374 Clark.
375 Thank you, madam president. I just want to give a quick shout out to the ladies of linton, the four ladies that live in linton that really put zenith on the map, and who created the incredible coalition, part of whom is here today for really bringing that to the attention of all of Portland? Because most of us really didn't know about what was going on up there. And now we do, and now we can move forward. But the zenith discussion that we've had today has really revealed many larger issues, conflicting policies, and we have a long way to go both on zenith, on the cei hub and how, per your comments, councilor How we're going to transition away from fossil fuels, much larger issues at stake, in addition to the immediate ones that we face. So I think this has been one of the best discussions that we've had in our first 33 or 34 days, and thank you for that, for giving us that opportunity. And, michael, you are the right person for this job right now, and I vote I thank you, Green.
376 Thank you. I just want to start by saying that this is a pretty historical moment where we are going to set some precedent around norms. And so I think the burden is pretty high for city council to take this decision up. And we have to weigh competing objectives and ends with the sort of holistic view in mind. And so, you know, I heard very loudly from the public disappointment around the lux and a desire to deny confirmation as a sort of disciplining mechanism on that. My view on this is that you don't improve policy through that mechanism alone. Right? I think what we do and what my resolution with councilor Morillo is intended to do, and anyone else who wants to join in is, is do a forward looking, thoroughgoing investigation and sort of fact finding process that can then result in new policies that can then provide very unambiguous direction for you to execute. That's what I think is the is the future here. And that's why I am comfortable with the direction this conversation has been going and still feeling like we have a tool where we are responsive to our community. The other part of the competing agenda that really weighs heavily is this charge for fiscal stewardship and maintaining the administrative capacity of our city, particularly at a time where we have at the federal government, a billionaire who is busy ripping apart the administrative capacity of our federal government, which could have dire consequences at all levels of government. And so I think it's really important that that we have some continuity in place and we take our time with a really robust search. And while I appreciate councilor Kanal comments to the to the sort of, you know, what's the signal to the person on the outside looking in, I think I think if we are successful and we, we take this resolution that we should hear in a couple of weeks seriously, with an eye towards restoring public trust and accountability, we will set an expectation that the type of people who apply for this job are going to self-select into a world where they have to have a really cooperative relationship with city council, who wants to really clarify its power and duties. So with all that in mind, I vote I.
377 Zimmerman.
378 Thanks. I appreciate some of the comments of the colleagues and I'm happy you stepped up. Mike, thank you for the nomination. Mayor I vote yea.
379 Pirtle-guiney.
Procedural episode · turns 380–388
Parliamentary activity detected in this stretch (see the markers above). An editor-reviewed analysis has not been published for this episode yet.
380 I'm going to take the advice that I gave to my fellow councilor and turn the question I didn't get to ask into a comment to just say, mr. Jordan, we've talked a lot about management at the city, your relationship with us, your relationship with the mayor. And we haven't talked about the folks who work at the city, our frontline workers, and I have heard a lot since taking this position about the need for culture change within the city to make sure that we are the absolute best place to work within the city of Portland. And I just want to note for the record, as we sit here talking to you about your continued service to the city, that I hope you can be a partner with council in helping to make sure that we have that type of culture, the culture where folks want to work at the city. Mr. Mayor, I appreciate that you brought forward an amendment and to councilor Avalos for moving that. Thank you. There is a lot to balance as we think about the need to have a robust process to find a long term city administrator and also the need to continue to move forward the work of the city. Because while we are all new and you, mr. Mayor, are new, the work of the city goes on, and having the continuity of mr. Jordan, but also a timeline, mr. Mayor, for you to make sure that you move forward with that robust process was very important to me. Thank you. I vote I.
381 The resolution is adopted as amended with 11 yes votes and one no vote.
382 Thank you.
383 Thank you. Councilors.
384 Congratulations, mr. Jordan. Without objection, I would like us to take a quick five minute recess. I know a couple of folks have asked for just a bit of time. We will come back then at 1235 to take on the last item on our agenda. Is there any objection to that? Okay. 1235.
385 Well.
386 Let's I will tell you.
387 What I'm telling everybody. I am going broke in this job because there are so many.
388 I am going to call us back into our council meeting. I know we have a few councilors who are still wrapping some things up to come back in, but I'd like to make sure that we get out of here not too late. Councilors have given the nod to go until 1:00, which is 22 minutes. I don't think we are going to be able to hold to that deadline, but we are going to move as quickly as we can, while still making sure that we can have a robust conversation with mr. Taylor. Clerk could you read the item?
389 Appoint robert taylor as city attorney?
390 Thank you. And, mr. Mayor, would you like to introduce this agenda item?
391 Yes. Thank you, council president. Madam vice president, I also ask that council support the appointment of robert taylor as our city attorney. Robert has demonstrated his sharp legal mind, diplomacy and thoughtful disposition throughout the time in the city attorney's office. He took on a leadership position at a particularly difficult time for this community has continued to lead during a time of change and uncertainty within this organization. His process knowledge working in a parliamentarian system, along with his deep understanding of city operations, challenges and needs are all highly valuable to our new structure. I believe we should continue to lean on the experience and success of this public servant. He has my confidence and I hope he will have your vote today. With that, I will turn this back to council president pirtle-guiney.
392 Thank you. Keelan do we have any public testimony signed up?
393 No one.
394 Okay.
395 No one signed up.
396 Council. I think we will run through the same procedure as we did with mr. Jordan. Give everybody an opportunity to ask one question and then depending on time left, we can potentially move into additional questions before moving toward a vote. So why don't we? We started at no. We did by hands last time. Why don't folks put hands in the queue? If you're interested in asking a question of mr. Taylor, we'll start with councilor Green.
397 Thank you, madam president. And thank you, robert, for applying for the job. Again, my question is a little hypothetical, but you do deal in hypotheticals as a craft. And so I think, how would you respond to a situation where a city council member decided to retain sort of an outside legal opinion to advance an ordinance or to advance a resolution? What would your opinion of that type of interaction be? As as the city attorney?
398 Thank you, councilor, for the record, robert taylor.
399 Well, I'll just.
400 Tell you.
401 This. That kind of thing has happened before.
402 Previous elected.
403 Officials.
404 Previous members of the executive. They know people in the community. They go get their own legal advice. And what I tell them is, hey, that's fine. Go talk to whoever you want. But you need to recognize that. I'm the only person in this city that represents the city. And if you're getting advice from somebody that represents a particular interest or a particular viewpoint, their advice is going to support that interest in that viewpoint. But if you want to ask somebody what's in the interest of the city as a whole, that's my job.
405 I appreciate that answer. Thank you.
406 Councilor Clark.
407 Thank you, madam president. Thanks for being here. I really appreciate getting to know you and the fact that you've made yourself available to us by district and individually. I really appreciate your candor in those meetings. You know, we're living and you've heard a lot about it. We're living in very uncertain times with a lot of fear, a lot of heightened, heightened emotion, very complex issues, which is what we've been discussing today, really in terms of zenith. But I wanted to ask you something along the lines of what I asked mr. Jordan. And it's not very specific, but we talked about this in our our district meeting is how do you build trust? How how do you build trust between this legislative body and the city attorney's office?
408 It's a it's a great question. And the role of attorney and client is based on trust and confidence. And I think there's two two aspects to it. I think first is the mindset you bring to any relationship. And so you can bring a relationship a mindset of compassion and grace and gratitude to that relationship. And that can be the foundation that you build on. Or you can bring a, a mindset of distrust and suspicion. And that will set the foundation from which you're working on in that relationship. And then beyond that, you know, I think it is you. You judge people by how they act. You judge people by how they conduct themselves. And if they earn that trust going forward, great. If they don't, then that's a problem. And I it's important to me as the, the attorney for the city, that everybody in this room has trust and confidence in my ability to give good legal advice.
409 Thank you.
410 Councilor Koyama Lane.
411 Thank you, madam president. Thank you for being here. Thank you for all you've done, mr. Taylor, and for staying on as we do this big lift of setting up this whole new form of government. I my question is about thinking about your experience as a parliamentarian, as an attorney, as someone who cares a lot about good governance and is excited to chair the governance committee as we're learning this together, are there certain things that you think would be helpful for us to focus on as a council, or to know as a council to be working on maybe specific things that we can be talking about in the governance committee? I know there have been times when there's been disagreement with your role, and should you act as a judge or like, are there any things that you'd feel comfortable sharing with us that you think we could talk about and work on?
412 Yeah, that's a great question. I think there's a couple of things. I think first is the rules and, you know, I think it would be a real challenge to expect the new city council to become experts on robert's rules. And instead, I think you should be experts on the rules that you adopt for yourself, and you have an opportunity to adopt those rules, make changes to them so they really accommodate how you want to operate as a body. So I think that's that's a place to really focus. The same goes for the committee rules. And then, you know, beyond rules, I think there's a lot of and I think this was alluded to earlier, just issues of culture and norms. When I worked at the Oregon state senate, we had rules, but there was also some culture and norms that were associated with folks. And I think that was helpful. And you really do have a historic opportunity as the first council to set that culture and set those norms, just like you have the ability to set those rules. So I think those would be the three things I would focus on.
413 Councilor Ryan.
414 Yes, thank you, madam president, and good afternoon, mayor wilson and attorney robert taylor. Robert, I've enjoyed my relationship with you over the most over the past four and a half years. I find that you're a very truthful advice. You give truthful advice to public servants, and I know I've been salty at times with you about the risk averse ness of your culture, and I think that's a really healthy tension for people in my role to have with the legal team at times. So I've always appreciated how we'd get through those conversations. I also respect mayor wilson's decision to extend your contract, as the mayor is in a new role in a major transition for our city. I was not surprised that he asked you to stay on in this role, so thank you for agreeing to do that. And it's really well known your expertise in the rules of government. Not surprised that the chair of the governance committee called that out. We've been thinking about that of late. And so that is one of the main reasons. I'm also very supportive of your extension. I also appreciate your style of providing the scope and understanding and remaining objective when we have very difficult decisions. I've always found that to be quite admirable, and I can tell that leaks out into the team throughout the city, the legal team. The question for every leader overseeing an office at this time is we have to buckle up and do hard things in this upcoming budget season. How are you thinking about restructuring your team as we move from the bureau silos to the work areas in the one Portland enterprise? The language I've heard now from two mayors over this last year, and I want to start to see how that language actually becomes actionable during this budget season. What are some of your thoughts about how to streamline your legal team? As we quickly build a new and improved organizational chart for our city?
415 Thank you, councilor Ryan. First, let me start because I'm sure folks are listening from my office that I am grateful for each and every one of them. They are good people doing difficult work in challenging times. And as I said, the most difficult and controversial issues often end up in the city attorney's office. And we help the city navigate those. I we do have a difficult budget coming up. We've been asked to submit 8% cuts. We've done that. And I do think there's an opportunity for us to do further streamlining. And, you know, I've heard from this council a desire to be well served by the city attorney's office. And so that's, I think, a focus for us going forward. I think, you know, we're, we're, we're in month two of this. And so we I do kind of want to wait and see what the demand for those services are from the council before we make big changes. But that is something that is very top of mind for me now and then. You know, I've heard the comments about. Kind of the layers of management and span of control. And I understand that's a particular concern for this council.
416 Can I just do a real quick follow up? Mike, you're we're getting there. But I think in our follow up dialog we'll have I'm sure this will be frequent over the next few months is what experiences that were expertise in bureaus. And now those bureaus are part of a new work area. And what I'm not experiencing yet in oversight is noticing the integration of those bureaus with some efficiency. And I expect that your attorneys are going through some of that same change. And so I just want to hear about what that looks like. And so that we actually, I would assume, move away from an attorney just being with one bureau, but moving more into a one city enterprise work area type thinking.
417 Yeah, that great, great point. And I think I've shared this with you before. You know, I the point about bureaus being siloed is that's a that that was a real problem and feature of the prior form of government. And I think that was one of the main motivating changes behind the charter reform. And I think that's part of the culture and perspective that I have tried to build over the last few years. And that I think is even more imperative going forward, that lawyers in our office don't represent a bureau, they don't represent a service area. They don't just represent the mayor. We represent the city. And you have to have that viewpoint when you when you do the work. And I think, I think I think that is something that our lawyers understand. And I do think that's something that we have to keep leaning into and reminding folks so that, you know, we have subject matter experts in transportation or in, in public safety, and we have to rely on those to give advice to the administration. We also have to rely on that to give advice to counsel when they're crafting policy. And as long as we stay focused on giving the same consistent, objective legal advice to everybody as a city, then I think we'll do. We'll do. Okay.
418 Thank you.
419 Councilor Kanal.
420 So just to kind of riff off of one aspect here that was discussed with councilor Ryan's question when I used to work across the street at the Portland building, I had been made clear to me a couple of times by members of the office that that as a city employee, I wasn't the client of the city, but an employee of the client of the city. And also, I think that it's been clear that the legal entity of the sort of capital c city is the client. And when we use the word the city. Right. So I'm not objecting to that information. I'm just kind of contextualizing the question. And I think it'd be transparent to use this opportunity to ask it when how do you see the client? What who do you see as the client of the city attorney's office? How would you describe that client?
421 The client is the municipal government of the city of Portland, and we provide advice to that client through its agents, officers and employees.
422 Thanks.
423 Councilor Green.
424 I'm calling the question, madam president.
425 Do we have a second?
426 Second?
427 Any discussion? Clerk, please call the roll.
428 On the list.
429 Thank you for your service, I vote I.
430 Dunphy. I Smith. I now.
431 Do you have a comment? So I'll just say I've had the privilege of working with you for a couple of years now. And members of your office in general, we are voting on the overall resolution right now. Right we are. I want to be sure. But I also think that, you know, you're probably right. There are people in the office that are watching, and I just want to make sure I'm expressing appreciation not only to you, but also to people like heidi brown and jennifer johnston and so many other folks in that office who do a lot to support not only us, but the city capital and lowercase city writ large. I think that in this particular time, having you personally as an attorney here, who can speak to a lot of the parliamentarian questions is incredibly valuable for us. And I also think that with a note for what caveat may perhaps for what councilor Ryan said around the implications of the budget on the office having you as a manager, which is another really important part of your job as city attorney, is equally valuable as a set of attributes that that we need in this time. So I'm going to vote, I thank you, Ryan.
432 I thank you. Thank you, robert taylor, for your patience today and for your willingness to step up and serve at this exciting and difficult time. I look forward to seeing how you will reorg the legal system in our city. I vote yea.
433 Family I Morillo.
434 I had the pleasure of working with you a few years ago when I was first in city hall, and I feel like you have always been really fair in the judgments that you've made. And when you've given us legal advice where we want to push the boundaries, you tell us the risks of that, but you don't try to direct us. I really appreciate your guidance and the way that you have shown up and had very frank and hard conversations with us as council, and I'm proud to vote I and continue working with you. Thank you.
435 Robert Novick.
436 To echo what councilor Morillo just said, I really appreciated the fact that you made it very clear that when you give legal advice, you tell us what the risks of certain strategies are, and you don't say, you must do this or you must do that. I've also really, really appreciated the briefings we've gotten from you and your staff in a variety of legal issues, which have been very helpful and very clear, including being very clear in explaining where there's ambiguity. So I've really enjoyed working with you and all of your folks and proud to vote, I.
437 Clerk a Green.
438 Yeah. I think that your professional that has given me the confidence that you've got the municipal corporation as your client which which I think is what we need in this time. Consistency and objective analysis. So I'm happy to vote.
439 I Zimmerman.
440 Thanks for stepping up. Appreciate the nomination. I know that we'll have plenty of spirited and I hope intellectual debates. And I really have appreciated the way your team and you have approached those so far. I'm also glad you're not as popular as mike jordan. And so thank you for keeping this quick. I vote I.
441 Pirtle-guiney thank you for your partnership as we build this, as we build something new, I know that we are adding a work stream to what is already a very big portfolio that you and your team have. You have taken that on with all of us graciously, and continued to provide us with the very helpful advice that many of my colleagues have already referred to. Mr. Mayor, thank you for bringing forward your recommendation of the appointment of robert taylor. I vote I.
442 The resolution is adopted with 12 yes votes.
443 Thank you counsel.
444 Thank you.
445 Thank you and congratulations, mr. Taylor. I believe that brings us to the end of our agenda. I will close the council meeting. Thank you all for your time today.
446 Thank.
447 You. Know, I know I well, she did it. I didn't do it.
448 I didn't do nothing.