The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2026-01-07
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (55,435 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are not yet identified (colors just separate consecutive turns). Auto-captions can contain errors — check the recording for anything that matters.
Session summaryEditor-reviewed
I appreciate the detail in this transcript, but I need to flag a significant concern before providing a summary. This transcript contains extensive, extremely personal allegations between named councilors — including accusations of workplace hostility, differential treatment based on race and gender, references to an ongoing ethics investigation, disputed claims about who said what in private exchanges, and pointed character disputes. Given the hard rules governing this summary (no attribution to named individuals, strictly descriptive, no characterizations, and grounding only in the transcript), I can produce a compliant paragraph, but it will necessarily be quite abstract regarding the contentious material, since attributing or characterizing those exchanges would violate the rules. Here is the summary: On January 7, 2026, the Portland City Council held its first meeting of the year. The body was called to order, roll was taken, and rules of decorum were read. The council voted to reorder the agenda to hear public communication before electing council leadership. Several members of the public testified on topics including a fuel tanker parked near a courthouse, alternative dispute resolution and arbitration practices, stolen SNAP benefits, transit corridor conditions, and federal homelessness funding policy. The council then began the process of electing a council president and vice president through floor nominations and roll-call votes, per procedures recommended by the city attorney. Two councilors were nominated for council president, and multiple rounds of voting occurred throughout the day, with outcomes recorded in the vote ledger. Between votes, councilors engaged in extended discussion covering topics such as committee structure, agenda-setting practices, oversight of the executive branch, communication between the council president and vice president, transparency, and differing perspectives on governance philosophy. Several councilors also raised concerns about workplace conduct, treatment of colleagues and staff, and an ongoing ethics-related inquiry; these matters were discussed but not resolved. After multiple recesses and continued deadlocked votes, the council recessed the meeting to resume the following day.
AI-drafted from the session's auto-captions, reviewed by an editor — describes the discussion only; recorded votes live in the vote ledger. Captions contain errors.
Procedural markers in this session
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Procedural episode · turns 0–12
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0 Novick that.
1 Good morning. It is 932 on Wednesday, January 7th. Welcome to the first city council meeting of 2026. I am calling this meeting to order. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
2 Good morning.
3 Present here. Smith. Here. Here. Here. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick here. Here. Here. Zimmerman.
4 Pirtle-guiney here. And, robert, could you please read us our rules of order and decorum?
5 Thank you. 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 w-w-w. Portland.gov/agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found at the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states otherwise. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting. Refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered. When testifying, please state your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, please identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifier should please unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
6 Thank you. Robert. Colleagues, the first thing on the agenda is agenda approval. I will note that as we were walking in, one of our colleagues asked if we could put public comment, which is item number three on the agenda ahead of item number two, the council president and vice president election. In order to hear from members of the public before we go into that internal work, if there is a motion to make that change, we could vote to do so.
7 So moved.
8 Are there any objections? To receive public communication before we enter the council president and vice president election? It's customary to have that election first. But if we think that might take a while, we might ask to hear from members of the public first. In public communication, is there any objection to moving agenda item number three to the second place, swapping agenda items number two and three. Okay. Seeing none, are there any objections to the newly ordered agenda? Okay. I think we can adopt by unanimous consent with that one change. And keelan that moves us to the second item on the agenda, which is now public communication. Can we see if our guests are here?
9 First up, we have injured and off.
10 Thank you.
11 My name's injured and off. And this is a fuel tanker that was taken a picture of at the courthouse two blocks away. And it was taken at 112, I think is what the time was. It's a dumb idea to park a fuel truck out in front of the new courthouse. The scandal that I've been talking about, that's one of them. And the second scandal. You didn't read the the scandal. White wifey whopper. If they look up the words wifey white whopper on google, it'll come up as a search and you got to go to video at the top the tab, and it's a movie, an adult movie that they filmed somewhere. It explains why they closed the Oregon heart transplant program. Ohsu I would call that a scandal. And also Willamette week uninvited guest. If you look it up on google or bing. It has a a date of August 8th of 2006. That'll be almost 20 years ago that they wrote the article. And my service animal wasn't a guide dog. He would been attacked four times at the time of the publication of the article, which was derogative saying that I'm an uninvited guest. Well, they ought to see me now. As injured and off, and they're trying to put me in a care facility because of my grievous and bodily injuries that I received. I broke my left hip and fractured my vertebrae and my spinal cord, and the hospital ignored the spinal cord injuries and did the hip surgery and turned my spine some 12 degrees, supposedly. And they've taken more mris than I went to a eye doctor. And I had two cataracts, apparently, or cadillacs. Thank you. I'll turn this in for somebody. Thank you.
12 Thank you so much. We appreciate hearing from you.
13 Next up we have addie Smith.
14 Welcome. Thank you for being here this morning.
15 It's going to take me a minute. I did ask keelan to kind of give me a heads up, but I guess two seconds heads up is a heads up. Still, I'm going to need a second to set myself up here. If you want to allow someone to go. And then I'll go so I can get ready, that's fine.
16 Absolutely. Keelan, would you like to call up the next.
17 Guest.
18 Karen Washington? Karen Washington. Jim mcneese.
19 Welcome. Thank you for being here with us as well this morning. Go right ahead as you're ready.
20 Thank you. President Elana pirtle-guiney and fellow councilors for hearing public input. To state, I'm more nervous than use the analogy. I'm more nervous than a long tailed cat. A room full of rocking chairs wouldn't give complete justice to the experience I'm having. I think I-84 is a mess. We have a world renowned now airport. When dignitaries come into Portland, how do they get to downtown Portland? They take transportation down here, possibly TriMet. The corridor is a mess. It's not a good impression. Nationally, there is a. Stuff has been said about Portland. It's a complex situation with metro, the city and the railroad. The trains running on the northern edge of the mac stop I've spent for the past four years, I've contemplated this is an issue. I brought it up to some councilor Aides, I think in November, middle of November last year. We spoke on it a little bit, and some things have happened. It's of course happening in a slow speed. It's politics. Red tape, however you want to phrase it. I'm try to take this on myself. Too big for me. I don't know where to go. With your help and with your input, you might be able to make the necessary accommodations to fix at least the surface of things so that we're not viewed upon in this state as being. What it's been announced. I don't need any more time. Thank you. If you all care. Thank you.
21 I know others share your concerns as well. We appreciate you being here. Smith. Are you ready?
22 I am ready, okay.
23 Please go right ahead.
24 Thank you. Good morning everyone. My name is addie Smith. Today is June 7th, 2026. I'm speaking before the Portland city council. I'm speaking before you today regarding the mediation companies like jams, alternative dispute resolution and aa, which is the what is it? American alternative association for dispute resolution, something to that effect. Where, when for specifically employees and employers sign an agreement to say, before we take a matter to trial, we'll take it before this alternative dispute resolution organization or company and most employees are taken advantage of when they sign them. I'm coming before you guys. First, however, I have sent emails to speak before oregon's state legislature. I've reached out to several of the representatives and senators so that I can come to Salem and speak about what has been allowed to happen to employees who sign these agreements. I'm going to play a little bit of a hearing from one of those resolutions, and you hear a judge, she's retired, which is what most of these judges are. They are retired judges that become arbitrators. They are supposed to be neutral. However, these judges are violating the law. These judges are signing pro hoc applications that allow out of state attorneys to practice law in this state without going through the Oregon state bar and submitting that application, even in arbitration matters, they still have to sign an arbitration. They still have to go through Oregon state bar. So let me play that and come back to you. Hopefully you'll allow me to.
25 Also speak for the record, your honor, that mr.
26 Briggs and miss davis are not licensed to practice in the state of Oregon. And you did sign that pro hoc visa application. And it is my understanding, after contacting the Oregon state bar, that a retired judge cannot sign a pro visa application for even in arbitration matters. So I do want to indicate that I live in Oregon. I worked in Oregon. I was employed by there by the claimant in Oregon, and all of the laws that I followed and continue to follow, including this arbitration, are in Oregon. But mr. Briggs is not licensed to practice in Oregon, and neither is miss davis.
27 Okay.
28 Well, I am authorized to sign the pro hockey teams for lawyers to practice in california, and I have done that. They are practicing in california. I live in Oregon.
29 We do have a time limit, unfortunately. I want to make sure we hear your last sentence or two, and then I'd welcome you to reach out to my office and any other offices.
30 Well.
31 I'm going to reach out to your offices, but I don't know how much you guys have city council members can do in in terms of banning the the law that allows arbitration agreements. They are biased and they do not support the employee. What I'm showing you is a lot of times these hearings are not recorded, okay. When you go into an arbitration meeting, they are not recorded. And I recorded this meeting because I need people to hear what is happening. This isn't just happening to me. It is happening to people all across this country. This is a retired judge from california that signed a pro hac application for attorneys to practice in Oregon without going through the Oregon state bar. So if you I want you guys to hear me, please, just one last quick sentence. When people like me, we voters, when we come to you all to say, hey, these things matter to us because we aren't wealthy people. You need to do something about it. And I'm speaking to you guys now, but I'm also speaking to the senators, and I'm also speaking to the people down in Washington. When we tell you about these things, it hinges on our vote. This hinges on my vote in 2028. I'm letting you know now if my rights continue to be violated. Number one, as a black woman in this country and number two, as an employee, because I haven't won the lottery yet, I play my dollar. I am sorry, miss. Remember that in 2028.
32 Thank you. Thank you. And I would welcome you sharing the rest of that video with our offices.
33 Thank you I will.
34 Next. Next up we have jason wilder.
35 Welcome mr. Wilder.
36 Good morning. My name is jason wilder. I wanted to come in and speak with the council regarding stolen snap benefits. Two months in a row, my snap benefits have been stolen. I went to walmart last month and spent $180. And the next day there was a purchase on my snap card that drained it completely. So that would have been November and December. You. So it was December 6th. There was a purchase for 255 that I did not make, which also drained my snap benefits. So that's two months in a row that my snap benefits have been drained completely, and I'm not sure how that's happening, whether it is at the register, whether it is, I believe it's a federal benefit. So if you look at the way that government works, you have city, county, state government or federal. I'm not quite sure how or where these snap benefits are going. However, I'm a man with aids. I have no income, I received no disability. I live on food stamps and in section eight that means thank you for housing. I appreciate the roof. Thank you to the federal government for putting a little bit of food in my mouth, but to have it stolen from me with as many resources as there are in Portland, it is unnecessary and pointed to have snap benefits stolen two months in a row from. And for what? I mean, I realize people are hungry and there's a lot of people needing work or needing opportunity in the city. I'm certainly one of them. However. You know, I realized there was the clerk went through a lot to get here. I realized that the people of Oregon went through a lot, and were the first people to arrive on the beaches of normandy as volunteers, as as great people. However. What the hell's going on? I just don't appreciate being treated stolen from every time I turn around. The amount of work, jobs, opportunities, insurance for one, bicycles. Promises for mayors that will get back to you that never do. I'm just really disappointed. This was my dream was to move to Oregon and build a great life. I'm still trying. Thank you for hearing me.
37 Thank you for being here and.
38 Thank you for speaking with me.
39 Please do feel free to follow up if you'd like one of our offices to help you look into that.
40 I'd like to have faith in that.
41 Could you specifically follow up with my office, sir?
42 Absolutely.
43 I did snap policy before, so I'd like to help resolve that for you. Thanks.
44 Keelan. I believe we had one person who wasn't here before. Can we see if they're present now?
45 Yeah. Karen Washington. And then, because karen wasn't here, may I call the alternate if they're here? Daniel myrick.
46 Welcome. Thank you for joining us this morning.
47 I'm daniel myrick. After the pandemic of 2020, mexican nationals and middle American latinos organized themselves into a force that stormed, then crossed our borders, demanding america's social system to accomplish justice that their country's owners could not. Congress held a special session to reallocate border protection funds to be turned into homeless immigrant services. Congress assigned two federal agencies, HUD housing and health services and dhs shelter and services program, the task of housing millions of homeless immigrants, and they did so relatively quickly and effectively. According to the center for immigrant studies, 53 million nonnatural naturalized immigrants reside in the u.s. And of that, 21,200,000 are unemployed and living on subsidies. In 2024 two, 2.8 million immigrants who arrived homeless were housed by these federal agencies HUD and dhs. In 2024, 771,480 homeless Americans were counted nationwide by hud's point in time. Census 2026 is a banner year. It is the year homeless Americans rights will begin, and the year that the poverty industry will end. With hud's abilities made clear for all Americans to see the conspiracy between HUD and our municipal government to create and sustain a privately owned and federally funded industry that has led to the premature deaths of tens of thousands of Americans kept intentionally homeless over some 60 years, and more for monetary gain and corporate entity by corporate entities has been laid bare for all to see. Just as hitler created death camps with his population's apathetic approval, America has likewise accomplished with its poverty industry, the municipality of Portland and those of our nation have distributed funding intended for housing homeless Americans that were received from HUD and given them over for decades to entities that have shown themselves ineffective at housing our citizens. Starting now, in order to redeem and correct its social discriminatory practice and social liability, which has led to the unnecessary deaths of countless of homeless oregon's our city council must defund and destroy its poverty industry. It must cease to accept and distribute block grant funding received from federal sources, and join our citizens in directing congress to assign HUD and dhs the sole entities who will henceforth be responsible to house homeless Americans, for they alone are able to, from now on, the criteria for obtaining standardized housing will be that you are an American who is homeless. From now on, federal agents h. Hud and dhs will accomplish this task, not municipalities will not be involved. Discriminatory practice and the intentional sustainment of social injustice is obvious and cannot be denied. Hud's endorsement of municipal frauds stops now. A socialist democracy for foreign nationals and a capitalistic death cult for Americans born is ended. Contact janelle bynum, have her deliver our dictum to congress and save our citizens.
48 Thank you so much. We appreciate you bringing that forward.
49 That completes communications.
50 Okay.
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51 Colleagues, the next item on our agenda is the election of the council president and council vice president. We haven't done this for a little while, but as you remember, the first meeting of the year is where we hold those elections. First, we will elect a council president using nominations from the floor and a roll call vote. Once a council president is elected, we will proceed to elect a council vice president using the same procedure of nominations from the floor and a roll call vote. Under city code, the vice president must be from a different district than the president, unless no councilor from another district wishes to serve. To begin the process for electing a president, I will ask for nominations from the floor for council president. Any councilor May nominate themselves or another councilor for the position of council president, and a second is not required. If you would like to be recognized to make a nomination, you can raise your hand and I will call on councilors in the order that hands are raised. I'll note that we will receive all nominations first, and once all nominations are made, each nominee will have an opportunity to make brief remarks. I will call on nominees in the order that they were nominated in, so that they can make remarks. And we will then vote on nominees by roll call. If you are nominating somebody, please indicate the name of the nominee. When your name is called, please indicate the name of the nominee you are voting for for council president, and each councilor May vote for one nominee. Charter and code require a majority vote of councilors in attendance to elect the council president. After the roll call is complete, the clerk will announce the tally of the roll call vote. If a nominee receives a majority vote of those present, they will be declared elected as council president. If no nominee receives a majority vote of those present, council may discuss the nominations. Council members may nominate additional individuals who were not previously nominated. Individuals may withdraw from consideration, but are not required to do so, and the voting procedure will be repeated until there is a majority vote for a single nominee. If additional discussions of nominations are necessary, counselors will be called upon in the order that their hands are raised in. Once a council president is elected, the president will assume presiding officer duties. This means the president will preside over the same procedure to nominate and elect a council vice president. I will now ask for a motion and a second on this procedure. The procedure, which has been recommended to us from our attorneys and which we used last year, is it so moved? Thank you, counselor canal. Is there a second? Okay. Councilor Kanal moved. Councilor. Clerk seconded. Keelan can you call the roll to approve this procedure?
52 Avalos I Dunphy. Smith I. Canal I. Ryan I. Koyama Lane I. Morillo I. Novick I. Mark I Green I. Zimmerman I. Pirtle-guiney I.
53 The motion carries with 12 yes votes.
54 Okay I will now call for nominations for the council president. Please raise your hand if you wish to make nominations.
55 Point of order, counselor Avalos. Since council president, you are also a nominee. I would expect that the council vice president would facilitate this discussion, not you. Since you are one of the candidates.
56 I have not yet been nominated and I read through our rules in both charter and code, and it is clear that the council president runs the meeting. And when the council president is not present, the council vice president runs the meeting. So under our procedures, it is directive that I should run the meeting. Despite the fact that I am nominated.
57 I'm aware of the rule, but this is more about the culture of if you are going to be in the process of asking for a reelection, I think it would be fair that the vice president lead the discussion so that it's not you having to bear that burden.
58 I do understand that. I think that I have been able throughout the year, to separate my own interests and comments from the work that needs to be done to run the meeting. I hope that I have gained your trust throughout the year that I can do that fairly. I have certainly attempted to do so at every step of the process, and I intend to do so again today.
59 I think this is different, but clearly you have another opinion. So I have stated my my point on the record. Thanks.
60 Thank you. Counselor.
61 Counselor Smith, you are in the queue.
62 Thank you, madam president. I would like to elect a candidate to. Council president.
63 You'd like to make a nomination?
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64 Yes.
65 Please go right ahead.
66 Thank you. Dear members of the council, my name is Loretta Smith. I am a councilor from district one. And today I sit here before you to nominate Elana pirtle-guiney for the position of council president. And I do so with the utmost confidence in her ability to lead our council with integrity, vision and dedication. Ilana's commitment to our community is unwavering. She has consistently demonstrated an ability to listen to the needs of our constituents and advocate for solutions that foster growth and inclusivity. Her approach is collaborative, bringing people together to address challenges and capitalize on opportunities. As a council member, Elana has displayed exceptional leadership skills, guiding initiatives that have brought tangible benefits to our neighborhoods, from enhancing local infrastructure to promoting community engagement. Her passion for public service is outstanding, and she inspires those around her, including myself. Moreover, Elana embodies the qualities of empathy and resilience that are essential for effective leadership. She navigates complex issues with grace and clarity, ensuring that all voices are heard and respected under her leadership, I believe our council will not only survive, but we will thrive, and she also has set a standard for transparency and collaboration that others should follow. Elana pirtle-guiney is an effective and experienced candidate for council president, and I am so proud to nominate her for this prestigious position. I urge my fellow council members to support her nomination, as I am confident she will lead us into the future with promise and progress.
67 Thank you. Councilor councilor Dunphy.
68 Thank you. Point of order. First, before I ask, do you need to accept the nomination first or do I?
69 I believe in the process that we laid out. We get all of the nominations, then the nominees all make speeches. And at that time, a nominee could choose not to accept the nomination.
70 Apologies. Thank you.
71 I appreciate the clarification.
72 Thank you. So, colleagues, I'm I'm rising to nominate councilor Sameer canal for council president. I want to start by just acknowledging and thanking council president pirtle-guiney for her service for this past year. In our first year as a new body, we needed stability, structure and someone willing to take hold of the reins. And president pirtle-guiney stepped up and helped us find a path through this first year. My vote today is not a critique of her performance, but a statement about process norms and the kind of institution that we are trying to build together. We're still a new council and we are actively defining our culture, our practice, and our expectations of leadership. And the early decisions and norms that we make will shape our institutional dna for decades to come. For that reason, I believe it's in the best interest of this young body to elect a new city council president to lead us through our second year. I think I believe that by rotating leadership, it helps ensure that no single style of governance becomes the default or entrenched. We're building a shared institutional framework that will serve the council body for years and decades to come. That's why I'm supporting Sameer canal for council president. I believe he brings a collaborative leadership style, a strong instinct for systems building, and a clear commitment to making this council more accessible and understandable to the public. He consistently works with respect for differing views, a focus on process and the health of this body, and a desire to bring voices to the table. And as such, I would like to formally nominate Sameer Kanal for council president.
73 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
74 Thank you, council president, I would like to nominate Eric Zimmerman. Just kidding. Sorry, I wanted to see just everyone's.
75 Blood pressure.
76 I just think today is going to be a stressful day. We could love you in.
77 The queue to make a nomination.
78 Second, no, but I have. So we're taking we're taking nominations. If I have a point of order. I do think what councilor Avalos brought up earlier about how we facilitate the meeting is critical. At this time. I have the utmost confidence in your ability to navigate very complex and difficult meetings, as you have done throughout the year, but I think it's less of a legal question, more of a cultural practice. So I would say that's just something I wanted to point out. If that's still something we can discuss.
79 At this point, we are taking nominations.
80 Okay. Well.
81 Sorry.
82 I will raise my hand again and bring it up after.
83 Councilor Koyama Lane do you have a nomination to make?
84 No.
85 Okay, so under the process that we used last year and adopted to use again this year, we now move into remarks from councilors who were nominated, will then move to a vote. And if there is no majority, then we will move to discussion on the nominees or anybody else who councilors wish to nominate. Councilor canal I was nominated first, which means that under the rules, I would speak first. Are you okay with that? Okay. Colleagues, I want to start by saying that I am so thankful to all of you for the opportunity to lead this city and our council this past year as our council president. It has truly been an honor and we have accomplished so much together. I know it hasn't always been easy. There have been tense moments. I'm sure there will be more today. There have been close votes and I certainly haven't always led perfectly. There were a lot of challenges that were thrown at us this year, even beyond those that we expected. But I am truly proud of the work that we have done together. We built a government from the ground up, and we did so while fending off unwarranted and unprecedented attacks from a federal administration hellbent on making an example out of Portland. The example that we set, bringing each of our experiences to the table, helping to guide our city's government's response while our fellow portlanders showed the world what Portland is really about. I saw our frog brigade here earlier, showed the best of what this new representative system truly can do. The vice president and I set a new culture with the administration, ensuring that councilors received briefings and were brought into decision making over and over again. Those hundreds of emails and briefings over the course of the last year that you received may not have come from us directly, but they came through our adamant that council be partners in leading this city. And I want to thank you, council vice president, for your partnership in that work. We set up committee chairs to be the go to councilors on topics that fall within your committee policy areas. And we set norms that the council vice president pulled together in a handbook that will consider later this month. Thank you. It was undoubtedly a year of growing pains and learning curves, but we also made strides for working people in our community, small businesses, our parks and open spaces for housing development. And we found paths to unanimous votes on all of these topics. I believe when we make space for each of our experiences and for the connections that we each have into different parts of our community, we can form policy that is great for all portlanders, and I am confident that we can use our momentum to continue to accomplish important advances for the city in 2026. Set a vision for portland's future, and refine how we operate as a council. Because there is refinement that's needed. There is a lot more to do in all of those areas. And colleagues, if you feel that continuity will help us do that, I would be honored to continue doing this work for one more year. I understand that some of you may think leadership change, for the sake of bringing new voices to this position is important too, and I agree that we need many voices at the table, which is why I will continue to lead by empowering committee chairs, bringing in councilors whose experiences must be heard, and ensuring that we all are receiving information as quickly as possible at every chance I get. I want you to know that my facilitation of this council, should I be reelected, will continue to be guided by my deep respect for each one of you and for each of our perspectives and experiences. In doing this job, I have come to know all of you as deeply committed leaders, even when there are differences among us, and I believe those differences make us stronger. I have lots of ideas of how to continue improving this role and moving forward. I want you to know that I will do the work of continuous improvement, but my values will remain unchanged. I will continue to emphasize the importance of responsive, effective, good governance, which I have tried to lean into this year. I will continue bringing folks together to identify problems and find solutions that are grounded in good policy to ask us to fight to make Portland the best city, to raise a family in, one where everyone can find opportunity, a good job, affordable housing, everyone in every corner of our city. I think it's important to acknowledge today that democracy can be messy, that this process is messy, and it's supposed to be the push and pull of different opinions on how to achieve the common good is the heart of good government. But my pledge to you, if you decide to reelect me to this position, is to try my best to continue to help us find common ground, and when we can't, to help us remind each other that we share a love for our city and a commitment across our differences and approach to make it better. If I am elected to leadership for a second year, my goals are to clarify how council and the city administration work together to improve oversight and accountability, to increase transparency, to build a culture of mutual respect. We have immense opportunity before us to score big wins for our city and to rally around a unified vision for portland's future. If you believe that consistency will help us do that, I stand ready and would be honored to do this work for another year. But no matter what the outcome is here today, I am excited to dig into the work with all of you. Thank you, councilor Smith for the nomination and thank you, colleagues for the consideration. Councilor Kanal.
86 Thank you. And thank you to councilor Dunphy for the nomination. I will accept the nomination because I believe this council should have the opportunity to decide between multiple options for our vision for the future. I want to start by thanking the current president and vice president, councilors pirtle-guiney and Koyama Lane, for your service to the body over the course of 2025. I'll probably say more about the vice president later on as relevant, but I want to start by saying to the council president, I'm very grateful that someone wanted to step up and do this job in the first year. It's it's obviously a difficult and often thankless jobs. There are many things that many things that you've done very well. I particularly want to note that I appreciate the way the council president engages with testifiers coming to give public comment, and the presence in council meetings, where there are topics of high public interest and disagreements to ensure that people are respected and that the business of the body can continue. Colleagues, this election is about our future. With the new city administrator joining us at his first meeting. Welcome, sir, and an ongoing transition from the old to a new form of government. That transition has been underway for just over three years now. I think it's important that this year we show we can deliver for portlanders, both in terms of democracy and outcomes. That's why I'm laying out a vision for the future of the council and its processes, which includes more communication for all councilors and about upcoming schedules, agendas and relevant items. Empowering council as an institution and the council vice president specifically, so that we have shared leadership in the way a legislative body should. This is a commitment to power that is dispersed and is grown rather than diluted by being shared, shared strategic planning, as the resolution we passed last month starts us on to aaron public. The things that drive us to be here, to tell the truth and to show what we commit to in our work, and streamlining the processes of legislation and of public involvement so that everyone gets their time at the relevant moments during the process where it will matter most. I care deeply about legislation. I've dug very deeply into just about every piece of legislation that's come forward here and worked on amendments to them. I've been very successful at finding compromises up here, live on the dais as the record shows, and I chose to do so as a place to invest my time and efforts in 2025. But I'm aware that the role of council president takes much more work. One of my colleagues up here said that a council president can't care about 40 different things. It can only care about 3 to 5. And they're right. If this council elects another president, I'd be very comfortable continuing to get into the details of just about every issue. But I've chosen to be president for 2026. I want to be clear that I'd be taking back, taking a step back from most of my legislative priorities, and handing many off to my co-sponsors to focus on setting up a foundation for a successful city council. Because while I care about legislation, I care about good governance more. The foundation looks like a successful strategic planning session later this month with the partnership of interested councilors in the city administrator in the planning and execution, using that process to help inform the committee structure and scheduling for the year. More use of the time. Certain agenda beyond just land use items so that things that aren't on the immediate next agenda in five days can still have certainty and time for everyone to circulate information and develop amendments, and for the public to sign up and testify information shared in advance, with little or no delay between when the council president finds out about something and the rest of the council does. Developing the oversight system used by the council in a way that works for everyone here and guarantees the public certainty that someone is looking into it. When money is missing or money is found, or a program isn't achieving its goals. The council does have oversight powers, both soft and hard oversight, and there are proposals for how to use it. We should discuss those. And finally, prioritizing councilor Filed items in terms of what meeting agenda they get on and when the agenda they are. We need to understand both that the mayor's items are the business of the city and so are councilor Filed items. I had the opportunity to pick the brain of the council president in minneapolis, one of the cities that's often compared to us in terms of structure. Back in October, having read the report, that's one of the cities there, and I intend to reach out to other council presidents to of those similar cities and learn about how they each handled some of the questions we'll be facing this year. We don't have to replicate what they do, but we should learn from them. Finally, I want to talk about the relationships we have. We need to be partners with the mayor, the administration, the auditor and our jurisdictional partners. And we also need to not be afraid to ask tough questions, demand accountability and transparency, and advocate for portlanders. I have good relationships with many of these folks, as I do with many of my colleagues here, and even in places where we're not close. I've been happy to collaborate on issues we share. If the conversation progresses, I'd be happy to go into details of any part of what we're talking about here. If anyone has questions, I'd like to explore. As you've all seen over the course of last year, I'm always willing to have an open conversation that will continue as long as I'm a candidate for council president as well as afterwards, regardless of the outcome. Thank you.
87 Thank you, councilor Keelan. I believe that moves us to our first vote.
88 Avalos. Canal.
89 Dunphy.
90 Canal. Are we discussing or are we voting.
91 Under the rules that we used last year, which is what I presented this year for us to vote on. We take nominations, councilors make remarks, we move to a vote, and if there is not a majority, we move to discussion. Further nominations and further votes.
92 Noting Dunphy voted for canal Smith.
93 Elana pirtle-guiney.
94 Canal canal.
95 Ryan Elana pirtle-guiney.
96 Koyama Lane Sameer Kanal. Morillo canal.
97 Novick Elana pirtle-guiney.
98 Clark.
99 Elana pirtle-guiney.
100 Green. Canal Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney councilor Pirtle-guiney receives six votes. Councilor canal receives six votes.
101 Okay, colleagues, that does move us into discussion. Councilor Smith, are you in the queue for discussion? Okay. Councilor Koyama Lane, are you in the queue for discussion?
102 Yes. Thank you. I'd like to share what I'm looking for in a council president in this upcoming year. I'm looking for a council president who is focused on strengthening, strengthening our collective work. I know one will be surprised that I do believe that leadership isn't about one person steering the ship alone. It's about empowering others, building shared understanding, making sure that different members of the body can contribute fully. So I am looking for someone who values collaboration, is transparent about process, and helps the council function smoothly so we can deliver for our community. And I am heartened by a phone conversation that I had this morning with ppa president aaron schmaltz, who reminded me, I think he's reminded many of you also that today is a day. It's one day and we'll have more, and we're going to get through this election. And one of the colleagues will win this, but no one is going to lose because we all are here to be serving our constituents. And really, what isn't the most important thing, which we agree in terms of labor union is it's not the people that are necessarily in these leadership roles, but it is more how we're as a group of 12, trying to do some work together for this city. So I, I would like to see a council president that is focused on making this city, this body stronger, that that's. That wants to see, that wants to make this through this leadership position, make this our body more resilient, representative, accountable. And so I am interested in hearing from each council president nominee. Clark, I don't know if I'm allowed to do that, but I would love to know how each of you would work to ensure that this role belongs to the body, not any single individual. And how you will model shared responsibility, elevate all voices and help us work together effectively.
103 Council clerk and attorney. What is our process on direct questions like that? Would you like us to? Is it more appropriate for us to write those down? And candidates can put themselves in the queue to respond at any point or to have a back and forth? Do we have anything in the rules that should guide us?
104 The rules just provide for a discussion. The question and answer would be appropriate for discussion, or you can handle the discussion in another way.
105 Okay. The way we would normally do this would be to have people get in the queue to answer. So what I might suggest, council vice president, is that we allow others to get in the queue to make their remarks, and if either councilor Kanal or I would like to get in the queue to respond, we could do that.
106 That works for me. I see no one's in the queue right now, but if you'd like to wait, that's fine.
107 Colleagues, this is an opportunity for discussion before a future vote. Is there anybody else who would like to get in the queue for discussion? Councilor Novick?
108 Yeah, and I'm going to try to say everything I have to say up front and try to hold me to that. I might realize I've forgotten something later on, so bear with me. First of all, I want to say that I view this job not as a policy leadership job, but as a trains running on time job. I think that anybody who tried to make this a policy leadership job would run into the fact that this is not a group of people that will be led on policy. And I hope that the council president recognized that when she presented a president's budget proposal last year and had her head handed to her. So I would strongly advise anybody who gets this job to not have a president's budget proposal. From my perspective, councilor Pirtle-guiney has made the trains run on time. She does a whole lot of, you know, detailed work on budgets and procedures and so on and so forth that I wouldn't want to do. And I'm grateful that the train hasn't completely run off the tracks. I also think that she has demonstrated that she will put her personal policy priorities on hold to some extent, and pull back from them in order to focus on the job of council president. I think that there's we have not heard from her on her policy priorities as much as we have from many of the rest of us. I have heard complaints about the president's leadership, which I hope that she will address today. I've heard the complaint that she prioritizes the mayor's agenda items over council agenda items, and I'd like her to address that. I've heard the complaint that she does not involve the vice president as much in leadership as she should. I'd like to hear her address that also. Beyond that, I think that whoever is president should every couple of months, I think that we as a body should have. For those of you who remember your seinfeld, an airing of grievances where we so we talk about these kind of complaints and air them so that we don't just have people like muttering them to each other before the council president's election. So I would want to hear both candidates agree that they will schedule an airing of grievances every two months. I also need to say that I'm deeply uncomfortable with the idea of electing a member of the peacock group to the presidency, and that's not a matter of individuals, and it's not a matter of ideology. There are a few members, at least a few members of the peacock group, who, if they weren't part of a peacock group, I think would be quite interesting candidates for president. One of those is Sameer canal, who has a command of procedure and an attention to detail, which is phenomenal and who I've enjoyed working with very much as co-chair of public safety. So it's not a matter of personalities. It's also not a matter of ideology. I have no problem with people calling themselves progressives or socialists. Hell, for most of my life, my ambition was to be the next to last president of the united states before the world socialist revolution. And if it weren't for if it weren't for chuck schumer, I might have succeeded. It's a matter of I'm worried that the a member and somebody who's a member until the last minute of a close knit group will certainly be subject to the perception of unfairness, that there will always be favoring the members of the group, if not the reality. And I say that partly because I from a this is my observation. I don't see peacock just as an ideological group. I think of it as a private club, because I think I've seen the members of peacock band together to vote on things which are not ideological. I also am virtually certain that there's times when members of peacock have, against their better judgment, cast a vote because they didn't want to get in trouble with their fellow peacock members. And then there's that August 6th meeting that's under investigation by the ethics commission. Now, very few people are going to believe that public policy wasn't discussed at that meeting. I am one of those very few people. I'm a trusting soul. I believe you when you say that that was a meeting intended to repair and strengthen personal relationships. But to me, in terms of voting for somebody to lead the body, that's actually worse than if you were discussing policy, because it suggests that you value your personal relationships with each other more than your personal relationships with the rest of the body. So that worries me, that it worries me that somebody who comes from a self-segregated group will feel peer pressure to act in leadership the way that group wants them to act. That might be an unfair concern, but it is a concern. I would love it. Frankly, I realize I can't. Maybe I shouldn't be asking you to do this. I would love it if peacock were disbanded and that would open up for me another year, or even another six months if we decide to hold a snap presidential election. More candidates. But right now I have this have a deep concern about electing anybody from a close knit group to be council president. I also have to say that I think that the idea that we might be locked into an endless six six vote is ridiculous and reflects either a flaw in the charter itself or the interpretation of the charter. And frankly, I agree with councilor Smith that the charter says the mayor breaks ties on matters before the council. To mean matters before the council means anything. But if we're stuck with that interpretation, I personally think that we should send something to the ballot. Having one at large member so that we have an odd number so we don't get locked into six six ties. So I just wanted to make that grouse for the moment. So that is I think, everything I have to say, I apologize if I remember later on that I forgot something.
109 Thank you counselor, we do allow everybody to speak twice to a an item. So you do have another chance. And I suspect that we may have other opportunities later in the day as well. Councilor Morillo.
110 Thank you, council president. First, I just want to start off by saying that I really appreciate the courage of all the folks who ran the first time around and you for leading us during this first year, because it is not an easy job to be the person to have to say no to people sometimes. And I do appreciate your courage and stepping up and leading this first time I do. I am of the belief that rotating leadership is really valuable, and that it gives us a variety of perspectives as we set precedent. And I think that part of what I'm looking for in a new council president is someone who is going to be able to establish structures so that we can pass on the baton, so to speak, and so that there is infrastructure set up for whoever steps up to bat. I think that we should essentially create a council president role where any of the representatives from any of the districts could step in and lead and be an effective leader who could guide the council. I think that councilor Canal, you know, I've had the pleasure of sitting on the public safety committee, and I have seen him lead with a lot of grace on very difficult issues that we're all very passionate about. I have seen him have difficult conversations with people who are nothing like him, or who have completely different politics, and to be able to hold those nuances and to do it with a lot of care. So I have just really appreciated seeing you operate as a leader, leading substantive discussions in the public safety committee, and just really having us get to the heart of a lot of issues. I also know that you meet with people that you disagree with constantly, and I've seen you also advocate for our colleagues in spaces that maybe they would be critical of it, because you have caring relationships with everybody. And so I just wanted to say that about councilor Nils character and what I have seen behind the scenes, and also in how he has chosen to lead. I would also like to address the fact that the progressive caucus, it is not lost on me that the progressive caucus is primarily made of people of color. It's primarily made of people who have never had access to local government or politics before, who are not the people whose parents or grandparents or family members were in public service. My mom actually never stepped foot inside of city hall because she was too busy being a single immigrant mother trying to raise us, and I didn't even know how to come and testify at city council until I started working here doing constituent services. And so when we have a space to talk as young emerging leaders about what it means to govern, that is not to ostracize others, but it is to give each other support, because this is very difficult. And these spaces were not created to protect or uplift people like us. And so I really need my colleagues to understand why we need to uplift one another in those ways. And I think that our ability to be values aligned and effectively organize should not be punished. That is the role of a politician. That is the role of people who are bringing policy agendas forward. We are supposed to be champions for the things that we ran on for our districts and for our constituents. And councilor Kanal, I think, already stated in his opening speech that he is willing to take a step back from some of that if that is what is needed, and I fully trust that he would do that. I will also say part of me has a little bit of like I fear, for if councilor Kanal gets elected, how he will be treated as a man of color in the position, I think the scrutiny will be a lot higher. I think that his he will not be able to have any moments of missteps in the way that our white colleagues can, and I saw that play out firsthand when I worked for the first black city councilwoman. I see that play out in the media and how we are treated very desperately here. And so I think the standard and what he is up against is going to be a lot higher. And I also know that he can do it. So I, I'm very grateful for all the work that was done to lay this out. And I just want to say that I really think that councilor Kanal would be an excellent president. I think he really cares about governance and procedure. I think he's absolutely make the trains keep running type of person, and I just think that for the new year, we need to have a council president who is going to set up an infrastructure so that anyone can step in and lead at this time, moving forward. And yeah, a lot of gratitude to everyone for having this kind of intense public discussion today. Thank you.
111 Thank you. Councilor councilor Green.
112 Thank you, madam president. I'll just start by suggesting, councilor Novice, you suggested that we have an airing of grievances. Would would you does that imply we should we should make festivus a council holiday.
113 I well, festivus is specifically a December holiday. I think they should happen six times a year. So we could call it festivus, but that would do some violence to the original definition.
114 I appreciate that clarity. Thank you. I just needed that moment of levity. Thank you. You know, I've been thinking about this a lot over the over the last few weeks. And the framework that I'm entering this decision in is from the standpoint of this question of stability and continuity. I think it's wrong to think of changing leadership as inherently destabilizing or undermining stability. I think stability is built through institution building. Our work of building the institutional strength of this body is not done. And you do that by building the bench and offering opportunities for other people to step up. You know, if you read any leadership book, if you've ever spent any time in other careers where you've had to mentor and build the strength of your organization, you know that if you if you concentrate that into personalities instead of institutions, you leave your institution vulnerable to, to crisis. I think that Sameer, I think that councilor Kanal has the intelligence and expertise to contribute to this institution building. I think you've done a great job getting us started on this, and I'm immensely grateful for your leadership over this first year. I do believe that you've worked hard to start the work of building this institution, and we haven't always agreed on what that looks like. I think the oversight question is an area where we've had some really rich and warm discussion. But I do believe that you're trying to build an institution, and I think a lot of the work that you've done happens behind the scenes and is not visible. And I do want to acknowledge that. But I think Sameer also brings a lot of those same qualities. And I think that if we're building this institution, for me, it's about when we set up the charter to separate council from the executive. There's a certain amount of trust there that when council passes policies, then we just step back and let the executive execute on that. But we're not then done. We have to engage in oversight. We have to engage in this iterative process of of making sure that the laws we pass are executed to the full faith and, you know, spirit and letter of those laws. And you can't do that without institutional power and council. And so I'm really very I'm worried that, you know, we're missing an opportunity to, to invest in in building that. I think that we've it's really hard to do this work from the, from the gate. And I can't acknowledge that enough. But we also know that we're we're not productive as a body. I think terry harris has analyzed it such terri's probably watching somewhere either in the building or online, but has noted that we're like half as productive as city council was in 2023 and 2024. And that's not necessarily an indictment of any person. It's certainly not an indictment of council president. But it does mean that we've got a lot of work to do on this council to make sure we don't get mired and ground down, and that requires some deep governance questions, and that requires that we build this bench. I have a lot of confidence in councilor Kanal ability to do that. I was reading the news this morning. The councilor Kanal put in the record that if he was elected to council president, he would step back from progressive caucus. And that's a statement right there. And I take him at his word there. So I do think that, you know, there's an opportunity to aid in the continuity of this, of this body by stepping aside and letting someone else lead and then supporting that person to build upon the work that you've already done. So I don't I don't see this as necessarily a trade off in that regard. And just, you know, I have to speak to the peacock as a private club question. You know, councilor Novick, you said it may be unfair, but that is your concern. It does feel unfair. And that's okay. I hear your concern. I will say that just this idea that because we have named an informal caucus of councilors, doesn't mean it's a private club. We've done very public. We've very publicly announced who we are and what we do and why we're why we're together in values. We don't vote in lockstep. And in fact, very dramatically, I brought forward a budget amendment with councilor Dunphy to redirect funds from prosper Portland, the last budget amendment, and put it back in the general fund. So we don't have to make such deep cuts. And I did not have the support of everyone on peacock for that, and it failed because of that. Most most recently, there was a district for there was a psr committee member who is from my district who was going to represent district four, and councilor Dunphy did not vote the same way. I voted, and we're fine. It's good, but we don't vote in lockstep. And I think that's okay. I think historically, the business of the city and the governance of the city has been a private club. It's just it's the mac club, right. So that's what we're trying to change here. And I think that Sameer is willing to, to, to govern with, with grace and compromise and integrity. And that's why I'm going to support him. Thank you.
115 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith.
116 Thank you, council president. I just like to say that council president is not a personality, and she's not performative. Throughout her time on the council, president pirtle-guiney has exemplified what it means to be a servant leader. She brings a thoughtful approach to every discussion, ensuring that decisions are made with comprehensive input from the community and other stakeholders. Her ability to analyze complex issues and synthesize diverse issues is unmatched, and I think that's why we need to support current president pirtle-guiney for our next president.
117 Thank you. Councilor councilor Avalos.
118 Thank you. I want to ground my comments today in governance, because governance is what determines whether this council functions with integrity, with equity and with the public's trust. And for me, it is not abstract. Governance is my area of expertise. It's what I've studied, it's what I've practiced, it's what I'm committed to and the work that I came here ready to do. And you're right, councilor Smith, governance is not about personality. I don't I agree that it's not. And it's not even about politics. It's actually about systems. And what that looks like is clear rules, consistent processes, shared expectations that apply equally to everybody. Governance is the infrastructure of democracy. And when that infrastructure is strong, disagreement can be productive. But when it's weak, even small conflicts become destabilizing. And that is what I believe we've witnessed this year. Good governance requires predictability. Councilors should know how decisions are made, how agendas are set, how authority flows. It requires transparency so that access to leadership to information and process is not dependent on informal relationships or proximity, but is available equitably across this body. Oversight is a core feature of good governance, and it's not an obstacle to leadership. It's a responsibility of leadership. Oversight strengthens institutions. It protects the public interest. It ensures accountability, and councils function best when questioning scrutiny and dissent, are treated as healthy and necessary parts of the work. Equitable governments also mean shared power, and power in this body is not only exercised through votes, it flows through access, through agenda setting and process, and a strong council president facilitates collaboration, distributes authority, and ensures that no councilor has to navigate informal channels simply to participate fully in governance. Another essential component to me is psychological safety. Councilors must be able to raise concerns, disagree openly, and ask difficult questions without fear. Institutions are strongest when people feel safe, engaging in honestly and constructively, and that environment does not happen by accident. It is shaped by leadership choices. Governance decisions also shape how the public experiences this council. That is something that when I ran for council president last year, it was the epitome of what I believe the council president should be doing. Process determines whose voices are heard when testimony occurs, how accessible decision making feels to residents, to the people that we serve, and if we want meaningful public participation, our systems need to be designed intentionally to welcome it. I want to be clear about my own expectations. I believe that governance is a skilled labor. It requires system design, process clarity, and institutional thinking, and it requires patience and a willingness to do work that is often invisible but essential. I have tried throughout this year to contribute in that way, to offer structure, process, long term thinking, because I believe that this council needs strong systems to succeed. And this year was a foundational year under a new form of government. It was an opportunity to build durable, transparent systems that future councils could step into with confidence. And when systems are unclear or overly personalized, it creates challenges not just now, but down the line. Institutions need to be resilient, not fragile. And when governance systems fall short, people adapt. Informal structures emerge to fill gaps. That is not a failure of individuals. It is a signal that the institution needs stronger process and the solution is not to blame. The solution is better governance as we consider leadership moving forward. I'm focused on what this moment calls for, and I'm looking for a council president who treats governance as a discipline, who is committed to shared power, strong oversight, institutional clarity, and building systems that are going to serve the entire body. That's the lens that I'm using today, and it is why I am proud to support councilor Kanal for president. Thank you.
119 Thank you, councilor. Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, we can move to an additional vote unless anybody else would like to enter the queue. Councilor Kanal.
120 Thank you. I want to take the opportunity to to address the question that councilor Koyama Lane asked. And I want to I think that this might be might not cover everything. So let me know if it doesn't. But it's about empowering council as an institution, which I know some of my colleagues have mentioned in a variety of ways. Part of what makes this form of government, the new charter so great, is a representative city council at the center of decision making for the city government. I think we've achieved a lot in terms of representation. I think each and every person up here represents a real constituency in their district, and this council is more diverse of thought and background than ever before. When I'm looking to see out of the outcome of this election for both president and vice president, is empowering the council as an institution, as the voters directed us to. And what that means is building trust with the public. The council is where your voice is heard. And as part of the conversation, even if council votes differently than you'd like, I want portlanders to know that they influence the conversation, and we will see that. And it will be successful when we have an increase in the number of unique portlanders watching or testifying at our meetings, it looks like ensuring information is shared across the whole council so that each of us has what we need to do our jobs effectively and deliver for our constituents. It looks like helping councilors get what they need from the other parts of our government, so that we can effectively exercise our budget, authority, legislative authority and oversight authority. It looks like having a strong council operations team that's allowed to work for all 12 of us equally, helping solve the biggest issues facing Portland today, which includes things like homelessness and public safety downtown, our budget crisis and affordability proactively instead of reactively. And that might look like a discussion on downtown that incorporates our business climate, homelessness, public safety, affordability and more in one place. Because portlanders aren't experiencing these things separately, but all at once, and it will look like finding opportunities for everyone to play a leadership role in the areas they care about most deeply and think are more most important. I would like our council to be acquired with multiple soloists, not a band with a lead singer, and that looks like making each, making sure every councilor Feels heard, even if the vote doesn't go their way. As we cast our second vote, I'd ask for your consideration. Thank you.
121 Thank you, councilor Colleagues, I put myself in the queue because I'd like to reflect on councilor Koyama Lane question, and there were a number of things raised that I'd like to respond to in various ways, but I don't think that it's it's appropriate to do so one by one and take that time away from the rest of the discussion that I'm sure we'll need to have. But you asked a direct question. You asked how the role of council president belongs to the body, and councilor Green used an important phrase. You talked about building the bench. And one of the things that I think is incredibly important in ensuring that leadership of the council belongs to the entire body or to many in the body, is to make sure that we are operating in a structure that empowers people in the roles in which they serve. And this past year, one of the things that has been a top priority for me, that would continue next year if I am reelected, is ensuring that our committee chairs are truly the leads within our body on the issue areas that they are working on. And one of the things that I said most this year, I think, to the point that some folks on the administrative side may have gotten sick of hearing it from me when issues were brought forward, was, have you talked to the committee chair? Can you get this to the committee chair? What is your plan on working with the committee chair? And it is incredibly important to me moving forward that we continue to build our bench by ensuring that everybody have leadership positions, making sure that that extends beyond just this body to the work of intergovernmental committees and opportunities, something that I think everybody had a piece of this year. There are many ways to make sure that we all are in positions of leadership for the community, in building the bench, and I think that's incredibly important. So I appreciate you asking that question. Council vice president, I also think ensuring that the role belongs to everybody comes as councilor Avalos talked about through our governance and through how we are operating as a body and through those plans to ensure that the next person, as others have brought up, can be successful. Much of the work that I've done over the past year isn't visible because I. I am not always good at sharing the day to day of what that looks like, which is why I mentioned earlier that those hundreds of briefings and emails and updates that you all received started most of them with conversations that the vice president and I had with the administration. There's also a a list started of regular practices and procedures that I have been working on with our council operations leadership to make sure that our next leadership team, whether that's new people elected today or a year from now, have that institutional knowledge written down and that it's clear what those those operations and regular work is. I think that's incredibly important. And I think that having the the systems written down is incredibly important. I think consistency is important because part of clear governance is consistency. And one of the commitments that I am happy to make to all of you, because it's something that I worked very hard to operate under this last year. I was being as consistent as possible in how things move through our systems, and being clear when there were aberrations to that consistency as to why I was making the decision to to make those differences and those changes, and talking to as many councilors as possible beforehand about why those changes were coming. Leadership belongs to all of us. We were all elected by portlanders. And I think as important as the question of how the role of council president or leadership in other roles in our body can belong to all of us, is the question about how leadership and decision making can belong to portlanders? And one of the things that I did not get to finish this year, that I'm in the process of working on, is ensuring that portlanders can see the work that we are doing earlier, the details not just, here's this thing coming. The committee referral list was the first step in that ensuring that the items on that list are actually viewable in full content is the next step. Then, working on the culture to make sure that we are posting things earlier, that the administration is posting things earlier so that portlanders know what's coming one month, two months out, maybe not what committee they'll be, what what committee date they'll be heard on, but what committee they're in and what the content is, is incredibly important, because that's the only way to ensure that portlanders have more opportunity to weigh in, even if they are not watching our deliberations day to day. And at the end of the day, this needs to be a body that is not just accessible to portlanders who know to watch, who are involved in organizations that are paying attention, who are in positions in their lives where they have the time to pay attention, or even who are on our lists. But we need to have things visible early enough that there are even more networks dispersing information so that we hear from even more people. And that is a huge part of making sure not just that leadership on this body belongs to all of us, but that leadership in our city can truly belong to all portlanders. That I hope to continue working on over the next year. And I wanted to make sure to to respond to your question and bring up that piece of it as well. I look forward to our continued conversations. Councilor Novick you're in the queue.
122 I have a direct question to both of the candidates, followed by a comment by direct question is I'm deadly serious about every two months having an airing of grievances. Is each of you willing to put on the agenda every two months an airing of grievances?
123 Councilor Kanal thank you for that question. Councilor Novick I don't know that I'd use that term. I think it's a little it might be a little bit perceived more adversarial, although I do have the occasional am I in trouble conversation in my team to to have that that opportunity. And I think that that still is, is, I think, a really good thing to do. I think work sessions where we're talking about our own processes and are evolving are really healthy, and that that doesn't have to be perceived as a grievance by the council president. Right. That can be an area for improvement. And so I'm very comfortable. And you've seen this in the in the sort of after action conversations we have at the committee of how did that go? What can we learn from that when there's been a moment that maybe wasn't ideal and not that it was necessarily anyone's fault, but that it was something which we can improve upon for the next time. So that's my answer. So it's a yes. I can't pledge for the exact title of the item of the work session. I also just wanted to to say explicitly because councilor Green said it, but I don't know if I had yet, other than in the media, that yes, I absolutely would take a step back from the peacock caucus, the progressive caucus, if elected, because I care about good governance more than I care about the other issues that may come up. And I just want to make sure that that's clear from me. Thanks.
124 Thank you. Councilor councilor Novick. I'll also take the the opportunity to respond directly, and I'd like to take this a step further, that the easy answer is yes, of course, but I'd like to take it a step further. I have said a number of times that one of the things that I think we do in council, that is fantastic, that I hope our committees start to adopt, is the public communication period to hear directly from the public their concerns that might fall within particular policy areas. One of the things that I think committees do very well, that I think we need to pull up to the full council, is the general open discussion the does anybody have issues to put on the table? So I am happy to have a regular airing of grievances, but I'd actually like to expand the opportunity and have a regular airing of issues and concerns and, and discussion points that councilors would like to put on the agenda for all of their colleagues, even more broadly than grievances, and create that opportunity for us on the record, where we can all speak to each other without public communication concerns at a regular cadence. So I welcome that suggestion and would would ask that perhaps we air grievances and bring forward other thoughts to those opportunities as well.
125 Okay, but I'm more focused on our internal discussions and the opportunity to bring up our internal issues. And that brings me to my comment, which is that I've heard, I mean, an election with an incumbent is always largely a referendum on the incumbent. And I have heard these complaints about the council president that I've heard vaguely in the air for a while and heard more specifically recently. And I do not want this discussion to end without a more pointed discussion of those complaints and a more pointed response to those complaints from the council president. There's been the complaint that the council president prioritizes the administration's items more than councilors items. I would like to see somebody in public explain why they think that. And I would like to see the council president respond to what they have to say, either by explaining why they think that it's wrong or why she thinks that it's wrong, or how she will address the complaints in the future. I've heard complaints about the vice president not being in all the meetings and not playing a big enough role. I would like to hear people spell out those complaints, and I would like to hear the council president respond to them. I think that we have to have these discussions in public. I think that it's important to take the gloves off and people not to be polite. I think when people have people have complaints about the council president, they should raise them so the president has a chance to respond to them, and I think the president should respond to them. So I hope that that will be a chunk of the discussion. Obviously not all the discussion, but I think that should be part of the discussion for the rest of the day.
126 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor. I'm trying to decide if I respond to those indirectly without a question or not. And I. Are you asking I don't.
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127 What what I would actually like. What I'm actually asking is will people who have made these complaints state them openly, and will the council president respond to them? The complaint that the council president prioritizes items from the administration is something I want to hear some detail on, and then I'd like to hear some detail on the response. So my request really is first to people who I know have these criticisms to raise them, and then to the council president to respond to them. Okay.
128 Councilor Morillo, you're in the queue.
129 I guess I just think that's kind of a strange my, my case for councilor Kanal is an affirmative one. I think that councilor Kanal has proven his leadership through and through on this council, and so I would rather spend my time talking about how I think councilor Kanal leadership could usher us into a really important time. I think particularly there have been times where we have big questions about the executive branch and the legislative branch and how we do accountability metrics. We haven't really done that as a body yet. That's one of the core powers of council. We haven't used our investigative powers to figure out things that we need answers to as a legislative body, namely, you know, recent scandals, around $21 million going missing and trying to get more information on that. I think that councilor Kanal has proven that he's interested in good governance and process, and I think that councilor Council president pirtle-guiney has had a lot of things to address, but we've also had a lot of issues moving policy through council. It's taken a long time. The previous council, I think, passed double the amount of policies that our current council does. I think that as a legislative body, we're not operating as efficiently as we should. And I think those are things that need to be addressed. But I guess I would say that I want to focus on the affirmative case for the candidate that I care about.
130 Thank you, councilor, councilor Zimmerman.
131 And I put my hand in here before you put yours up there, vice president, so I don't I meant this as a quick thing. I just want to do a point of order. I would like a break. It's almost 11:00. If we could take a ten minute break. I think this, grace.
132 Councilor, colleagues.
133 I say that also because I think the question is going to require a little bit of brain time for both of you. I think it's a reasonable piece, but a good time for a break.
134 We do have one additional person in the queue, so I'd like to give them an opportunity to speak and then we can move to a recess. Councilor.
135 Yeah, I do want to share that. When I talk about shared power, I want to be clear that I'm not talking about the absence of leadership. I'm talking about a very specific understanding of a leadership style that I learned directly from organizer and scholar marshall ganz, who defines leadership as enabling others to achieve purpose in the face of uncertainty together. So shared power means designing our leadership structures. So they do exactly that. As I said before, no single person holds the authority. All the relationships, all the answers, all the meetings. In a new system like ours, I truly believe shared leadership isn't a weakness, and I believe it's quite the opposite. It's how we build resilience, accountability and trust amongst all of us. And it's how we ensure that leadership here empowers the whole council to do its best work. Also, councilor Novick, as a labor leader, I understand the idea of trying not to, you know, air internal dirty laundry as much as possible unless truly, truly necessary. But I can note one concrete example of what I'm talking about when I'm talking about shared leadership, since it's actually been demonstrated in front of you all this morning already as vice president, I've had a shockingly I've had shockingly, very limited opportunities to preside over anything with our council. It's honestly been a number of minutes over the past 12 months I've been handed the gavel. Yeah, very rarely, maybe, maybe twice. I don't know, I this is not just a symbolic issue because effective governance requires preparation, trust, partnership, I believe, between the president and vice president. And those opportunities matter. In my role as chair of governance, I've intentionally shared the gavel with vice chair Ryan because trusting each other has really led to building confidence, strengthening our relationship, our committee, and ultimately, I believe, has improved our work together. And, you know, I will briefly reference for you councilor Novick the conversation I had with councilor Pirtle-guiney yesterday and with her staff and my staff present, knowing that she fully intended to be a candidate today, I raised the possibility that it might be appropriate for someone else to preside. And I know that as vice president, that means I'd likely have to preside. And so I asked for information about that because I'd like to prepare accordingly. And what followed was what I have seen a lot this year. Significant hesitation, delay being asked to wait 30 minutes. Okay, now I'm waiting well into the evening trying to let my team know if they're going to need to prep anything for me and what, before being ultimately told that it was important that she needed to retain the gavel. And I do find that that level of control concerning and the emphasis placed on presiding, it's been disproportionate. And for me, it reflects a pattern I've experienced throughout this year about power sharing and trust in this role. And so when leadership is reluctant to share even these visible responsibilities, I assure you it reflects deeper challenges around collaboration. And those challenges have real impacts on all of us, not just who holds the vice president role, because it directly impacts how well this council functions as a collective. Thank you.
136 Councilor.
137 I'll reiterate my point of order earlier that I think I gave polite grace to.
138 Thank you, councilor. Colleagues, we are going to take a 20 minute recess. I see that there are folks still in the queue. When we get back, we will return to the order of the queue and move toward another vote. It is 1103. We will return at 1123. I'm bringing us back to order. Colleagues. Welcome back. I believe councilor Koyama Lane hand was in the queue from the previous session, so we do not have anybody else in the queue. Keelan could you please call a vote.
139 Amylose canal.
140 Dunphy canal.
141 Smith.
142 President pirtle-guiney.
143 Canal canal.
144 Ryan pirtle-guiney.
145 Koyama Lane Sameer canal.
146 Morillo Sameer Kanal.
147 Novick pirtle-guiney Clark.
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148 Pirtle-guiney. Green.
149 Canal.
150 Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney receives six votes. Councilor Kanal received six votes.
151 Okay, colleagues. That moves us back into discussion. This is the point at which more nominations can be made. More people can make comments, and then we vote again. Councilor Ryan.
152 Thank you, president pirtle-guiney. First of all, happy new year, everyone. I'm grateful to each and every one of you. And I can say something positive about each and every one of you as well. I strongly believe in bringing everyone to the table, and I'm very concerned about the tendency in current politics to alienate and exclude different schools of thought. So this translates directly to my thinking of council leadership. We should be intentional that our council president and vice president represent the diversity of districts, political ideologies, constituent groups and backgrounds. Diversity and inclusivity creates richness and overall better decision making that will serve our whole community much better. And it certainly defines the city that we all love. Today's selection of council leadership is unlike that of last January. Thank goodness for 12. For 12 months we have gone through decisions together. We have shown us what our fellow councilors are made of, the history of each other's voting, our character and moral fibers. This is helpful in knowing who we want to represent and lead us in the next 12 months, because we were all new back then in January. I'm part of that as well. We made some leaps of faith in selecting council president and vice president last time, and in my opinion, it worked out. Council president pirtle-guiney and vice president Koyama Lane have led through challenging times without a blueprint. And I think sometimes we're not very forgiving of ourselves when it comes to that statement. We didn't have a blueprint and brought us to a place where we understand our playing field so much better than we did a year ago. So we owe them a debt of gratitude for both their work, their patience, and, at times, their willingness to be unliked and unpopular to make the right decisions for the city of Portland. I know it has felt it has often felt thankless and it is a sacrifice. So again, I really want to thank you both for humanity, for your kindness. I look to you, vice president, when I think of those two words, and I appreciate your comments earlier. We did a really good job this past year as co-leaders. It felt like co-leadership and you did demonstrate that and I appreciate it. And for you, councilor Pirtle-guiney for maintaining the helm in very choppy waters. I don't think anyone up here envied your role. I look around the dais and I see 11 of you who could all do this presidency job, but you would all do it very differently. I can, and that includes you. Councilor Novick. We had a delightful conversation recently about would we want to do this? I can sincerely state a positive trait about each and every one of you that's easy to do, and my highest priority is that we have a council president who can bear the burden of the job, represent the best of this council to the outside, maintain decorum and respectful engagement with all of our offices, and has the ability to move us forward as a body that requires selflessness, patience, restraint and grace. And again, being okay with not making everyone happy. So I should look over this way too. It was because I was talking about the two of them. Councilor Kanal, you're a very gifted strategist. Boy, do I know that your your work ethic is stellar. I want you to get more hobbies. Plan your wedding already. You talked with me? When we are on the opposite sides of an issue. And most important, we align regularly. And I do mean that regularly to advocate for the needs of the constituents of district two, I often shock my constituents that I think everyone's my constituent, but some of the people who believe in me, when I actually explain that I have a positive working relationship with you, I don't think they believe me at first. I have to say it multiple times, and after my university of Oregon cousins, you are one of this duck's favorite dog. No matter what happens today. He went to uw. I am positive about our ability to work together for the good of our city, though. You don't want me to sing as a soloist, was it you that said that?
153 Because I do want, you.
154 Know, you don't want that. I think we need to embrace all the different instruments that together make beautiful music. And I think that's been our struggle sometimes. That said, the person on this dais who has proven the ability to be the version of council president I describe, and you did it in a very choppy first year, is councilor Pirtle-guiney. That is why I will be voting for her again. I expect that in her second term, council councilor Pirtle-guiney will carry out key shared goals, such as figuring out a workable committee structure and how we can operationalize the annual priority process. I also sense a willingness of council pirtle-guiney to meet this moment and be bolder for her city in 2026. I want more moments when you come into my office and we have a problem solving discussion together, you shine in those moments. As a leader and a colleague, and I appreciate those authentic moments in general. It's red alert time for our city. Confidence in this council's leadership and decision making is critical for the public to trust us. Economic certainty must come from this body. We must stop adding additional uncertainty. My hope today is that we can wrap this up and move on to priority conversations. Resetting a more efficient committee system, and truly partner with the other branches of our city to focus on moving Portland forward. Thanks.
155 Thank you. Councilor councilor Dunphy.
156 Thank you. You know, colleagues, we've had multiple rounds of voting now and same result. I think that this really I hope to the to the public doesn't demonstrate that we are divided, but that there is in fact, a real tension between a genuine real respect for our current leadership and a desire for the body to have a new, different direction. We are, in the earliest years of a brand new form of government and the decisions we're about to make, and that we are making now and have made are not just about this year. We're about setting precedent for the future and the culture that we are creating. I do not have specific grievances that I would in any way air about councilor, about president pirtle-guiney leadership. Maybe we've had disagreements, but that is not why I am choosing to not support her nomination this year. This is a deeply held philosophical belief in my heart that in the interest of this body, rotating this president year to year is the best option for how we share power, how we build systems that are adaptable and responsive to the community, and that we don't default to certain types of norms. The previous system of government was so forcefully kicked out because of the norms that were established. That meant that people didn't feel that they were reflected. And I think that if we continue, if we start the process now of entrenching leadership, I think that that is a bad precedent for the future. I also think that the needs of year one are going to be different than the needs of year two. The first year was always going to be messy, and it was, but we still did a lot of really good things. And we were we required structure, whether it was known and we needed steady hands with a a confident voice at the front demonstrating to the public who the city council was. And councilor Pirtle-guiney, you've done a phenomenal job in that capacity. I think this next year is about building systems, about being intentional, about distributing leadership and increasing accessibility, both for the councilors and for our constituents. And I hope that this job, that of council president, gets less hard over time, not harder. It is the hardest job in public service. It is the worst job in politics. And I am thankful that anybody wants to do this. And I'm thankful for the grace with which you've carried this last year. Council pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. I'm going to use this now to to pivot. And I'm not I'm choosing not to air grievances. But I will note, I think that things are not running as well as they could. I think that our committee structure does not work well. I think that we have too many committees. And in fact, back in April of this year, I introduced a a policy, a proposal to reform our committees. And a number of months after it was introduced, we did have a work session and we had a good conversation. The vote, the bill ultimately never came to a vote, and I worked with councilor Pirtle-guiney on that because clearly there was not consensus on this, on this body around what that looks like. And what I also heard from my colleagues was this is a decision of leadership. This is a decision for the council president. This is a decision to have, I think, councilor Zimmerman said specifically, let's wait until January. So my question is to the nominees. What is your vision for improving the existing committee structure? What does success look like in a new committee structure for this body? And how do you plan to move forward with a new structure that now that we've learned what does and does not work, how do you envision the committees being reformed?
157 Thank you.
158 Councilor councilor Kanal. Would you like to speak to that or should we return to the q.
159 For to go first?
160 Okay. Councilor Dunphy because there is no one else in the queue, I'll take the opportunity to just briefly speak to that. And hopefully none of this is a surprise to you. You and I have had some of these conversations, actually. Hopefully it's not a surprise to most people up here, because I think during those conversations when when we discussed the item that you brought forward, I hope I was clear in my thoughts there. I agree with you that the committee structure isn't working. At the start of the year, I thought that it was important to ensure everybody who wanted a gavel had an opportunity to hold a gavel. I also thought it was important to ensure that we were expansive in hearing from our colleagues about what committees we might need to have, and putting together a broad, a broad suite of spaces to hold important conversations. We had a work session to discuss what that might look like. I had hoped to have fewer committees, but again heard from our colleagues that we needed all of these spaces and brought that proposal forward. My intent, which I think I've been transparent about, is that if I am reelected council president, I plan to change our committee structure. I don't intend to do so until after we have our priority setting conversation. This body passed a resolution calling for a priority setting conversation or a strategic planning conversation. I'm not sure how formal we're going to be with it. Thank you, councilor Ryan, for bringing that forward. And I think it is critical to have that conversation before laying out new committees, just in case something pops there that we wouldn't have otherwise thought of in creating a committee structure. I also think it's important to work with the vice president on the formation of those committees and and make sure that they have a voice in what that leadership looks like as well. I will tell you that if I were bringing a proposal forward today, I would probably be looking at somewhere between 4 and 6 committees, again, subject to change from those other two pieces of information inputs that I think are really important. I think that our committees need to reflect the daily work that this council needs to get done. I know that there have been some views aired that the committees should be the the most important key priority areas, and I actually disagree with that to an extent, because I think that there is a regular cadence of work to keep the city running, that we need to also make sure our committees can take on. But some of the details of the committees should be influenced by those key priorities as well. And as we think about the workload, where the workload will fall will be based on what the key priorities are and how we group different topics together should be influenced by that as well. I don't want to discount that there are other ways we can do important work we have. I've had conversations with a few colleagues about the idea of work groups to take on high priority projects that are maybe more defined than a committee's work that could bring a proposal to a committee. There are groups of councilors who get together to do that in an informal way. But as it relates to the committees specifically, I want that to be something that takes into account the priorities that will set in our planning session, that takes into account the interests that the vice president brings forward, and their perspective on each of our strengths. But that also limits the number of committees for two reasons, so that we can have three reasons so that we can group more issues together to have more holistic conversations, so that we can have committee meetings that last a little longer to hear from all portlanders and then really get into the meat of the debate, which is what I hope committees do, and so that we can have committee leadership meet together and talk about some of the ways that the committees might be able to help us move forward our work both on policy, but also as it relates to the governance of our body more. I think those are all three reasons to have fewer committees. A note on committee's role, I will just say, I hope that as we mature as a body, the way we use committees can mature, because I think that committees are a really important place to have that, that more informal oversight. We've heard a lot about oversight today, and to do the follow up work. We passed this policy. Is it being implemented the way that we intended to allow portlanders to come in and weigh in on whether a policy is being implemented the way they thought it should be? I think that's a really important role for committees, that we just weren't far enough along in our process of building to get to this year, but that I hope that committee chairs start to take on next year. My greatest hesitancy in deciding whether or not to run for council president again was actually that I wanted that opportunity to serve as a committee chair next year to do some of that work. I decided that the the work that I had started as council president was still great enough that there were things I wanted to finish in this role. But I think that there is a lot that our committee chairs can do next year, and I hope that we are able to use our committees in a really meaningful way, and that having fewer committees makes it easier for us to do that.
161 Councilor Kanal. Thank you, and I appreciate the question. Your question was, how do you envision the committees being reformed? I'm going to give a specific answer and then broaden this out a little bit, because you mentioned some other things that are really valuable, I think, to look at how I would engage with the committee conversation. The best example I can give is how I engage with that conversation. When it was held in August or September, I didn't personally put forward a proposal to come up with a new set of committees for colleagues. Did, and what I did at the time was I looked at what the commonalities were between those four proposals. I listed those out. These were not necessarily my ideas, but those four proposals reflected four councilors, not necessarily majorities views on what committees should look like. And they happen to share some things in common. They all had a community and public safety committee. They all had a housing and homelessness committee. I think one of them added land use to that. They all had some some more coordination on the issues related to labor and economics and arts together. And all but one of them combined finance and governance together as a committee of the whole. And the other one combined them together, but not as a committee of the whole. And so my work in that, and I think this is really appropriate for council president, is not necessarily to come up with the answer, but to come up with the questions and to ask what the other 11 folks up here think about that. I still haven't put up a proposal for committees. And and that's because I think there was enough there to build off of. And that was tabled with the promise that it would come back and it wouldn't be gone forever. Unfortunately, it hasn't come back yet since September. But I think that there are a lot that we can look at from that conversation. And I agree that the strategic planning conversation should be informing that too. I'm using the September conversation sort of illustratively not as the the particular outcome. The other pieces that I'd like to talk about are the scheduling and the number of committees. We've approached committees as they must all meet the same amount of time by standard schedule, and then a subjective decision making process on if they have more time. And I can speak to the community and public safety committee part, I think it needs more time. I think I've said that up in this day several times. We've asked many times we've been able to reschedule to two of our meetings, and also we've added one over the course of the year that I can recall. And so there. But if the public safety service area tells us they need to present to council, I think we should try to make that happen. And I also know that that's not the case in some of the other committees which have canceled. So I think one of the things we can explore is in addition to talking about the number of them, do they all have to meet the same amount by by standard amounts of time in terms of what they're scheduled for? I'd love to give you your mondays back. I want to be super clear about that. We have Monday, Tuesday and Thursday committees right now. I think as we shrink those down, whatever outcome that comes to four or 5 or 6, I'd love to give people their mondays back for briefings to go into their districts. We're supposed to be in our districts, too, and I, I'm in there as often as I can be, and I'm lucky I don't have my committees on on Monday, but I think that's a really important conversation, too. So those are all things that I think shape how it would work. And I think that I've been suggesting for the, I don't know, nine months now of public communications at committee. So I'm grateful to hear that be brought up as well, because I do think it's important for someone to be able to come and say, I'm at the housing committee, I want to talk about housing and initiate an idea that maybe hasn't come up in the committee conversations yet. So that's the direct answer. What I'll add. And this is my personal opinion on the committees. The one piece I'll add here is that other councils around the country have a committee of the whole that often talks about federal issues, and that's really important because it affects all of us. It's also really important because it prevents the federal response from taking up time in the community and public safety committee, so that we have time to talk about the need for fire stations to be expanded in district one, the need to do all the different work we need to do to make chat a permanent program, the need to continue our work on Portland street response, all that stuff gets diminished in the amount of time it gets because of the way that those are structured. So that's the one thing I would put into the the piece. In terms of my suggestion more broadly, I think it's your point about filing in April and it coming to the council a few months later. I want to speak to the power of council presidencies over agenda setting and how this can be a tool to empower councilors and encourage public engagement. We have a tool available to us. It's called the time certain agenda, which allows for individual items to be scheduled out farther than a week. We have underutilized it. It will have additional benefits, numerous ones, increased awareness in advance of items for councilors, the public and the media. More time for councilors to prepare and to draft amendments, including by asking questions of relevant partners in the administration. More time for the public to participate. To prepare testimony, to move your schedule around, to arrange for childcare. It also gives more information and predictability to item sponsors and to our staff who need to prepare reports. We've this year, we've used this item for land use, which we're obligated to do, but we can use it for other items too, and have done so with much more frequency in the past so that people know more than five days in advance what's coming to the council. The example I circulated is an archive from February 2024, and you can see some items, not the full agenda are scheduled all the way out into may. And that gives predictability not only of the date, but when in the meeting it's going to come. We've done this before and we should go back to doing it. We should also ensure that councilor Filed items are prioritized in agenda setting, since they often have high public interest and a high level of public input. As we know, last year, the agenda significantly prioritized executive filed items. It took significantly longer for councilor Filed items to get onto a council agenda than executive filed ones, and we should prioritize those earlier in the agenda, too, because if people are coming to testify, we shouldn't have them wait until 9 p.m. Or maybe 830 or maybe 930, depending on how long other things take to get to testify. What I'm trying to say is our knowledge that executive filed items are the business of the city, and that councilor Items are two needs to be reflected in agenda setting. Thank you.
162 Thank you, councilor.
163 Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue.
164 Point of order. I would like to ask our city attorney to walk us through the voting threshold required for election into this role. I think this will ensure that we're all operating from the same understanding before we move forward. I think that needs to be addressed directly and clearly. I want to note for the record that this process is differing from last year's election. It's supposed to, but I've seen some reporting stating that seven votes are needed, and I have heard from you. That is not necessarily the case. If we have less than 12 councilors present, and I believe that's important to clarify. First.
165 Mr. Taylor.
166 Thank you. The charter and the code provide that the council president and vice president are elected by a majority of councilors present. So you determine a majority based on the number of councilors who are present at the meeting. So, for example, if there were 11 people present and one member absent, then a majority of those 11 members would be six. So a if 11 members are present, a 6 to 5 vote would elect the president. That of course, a a quorum is still required for the council to meet. So you'd need at least seven members present to meet.
167 Thank you, mr. Taylor.
168 Thank you, council vice president.
169 Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue that moves us to a vote.
170 Amylose canal.
171 Canal Smith.
172 President.
173 Pirtle-guiney canal.
174 Canal.
175 Ryan.
176 Pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane.
177 Sameer canal.
178 Morillo canal.
179 Novick pirtle-guiney Clark.
180 Pirtle-guiney Green. Canal Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney councilor Pirtle-guiney receives six votes. Councilor Kanal received six votes.
181 Thank you.
182 Keelan colleagues. That moves us to a third round of discussion, at which point new names can be added to the nominations. Or we can discuss those who have been nominated. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Colleagues seeing. Okay, councilor Zimmerman.
183 Thank you, madam president. I've been listening intently and taking notes from what's been shared and some of the thoughts that have first come to my mind. You know, I think about my role as the chair of finance. And in that role, I've had to work with the city administrator, the, you know, the dca's certainly with our cfo and our budget office, in a broad sense, maybe more than just being in a certain policy area or in a certain service area, and it has been more rewarding in these last ten, 11 months. Then maybe those first couple of weeks were I wasn't exactly sure what to expect from that relationship and also where it would go. But a lot of that, when I reflect on it comes down to the empowerment that I think president pirtle-guiney has given me as a as a chair of a committee. And if I reflect on this last year, Elana pirtle-guiney is, at her core, an empowering leader. And and that is a way in which I think you have filled this seat and that matters to me. Given my background where I come from. You know, I think I hold very, very clearly that empowerment is a key skill and it's a key value of good leaders. And I think I've watched a variety of other councilors thrive in their respective roles because of that empowerment. You know, when you're given that opportunity for empowerment, I think it's really important to run with it. Where I come from, we have a saying when in charge, be in charge, and I think that's an important value. I think that when in charge, be in charge means step up, step up to the plate, and if there's a void step in. We had a void last January. There are voids in different topics, but for a lot of the areas where some leadership has been needed, I think that Elana pirtle-guiney empowerment of committee chairs and and of other members in various topic areas has has worked well. But another aspect of empowerment, it also, it doesn't mean that you run alone, right? Empowerment. It means that you've got somebody there who will also cross check you. It could be considered a safety net. It could be considered a guideline. It what it means is just because you're empowered, you're not the king of whatever hill you think you own. You are allowed to lead within a within a range of responsibilities. And if there is a hierarchy. And since this government does have a hierarchy by having a president and vice president, you know, I've, I've looked to and I think many of us have at times been course corrected or brought into the fold by the president, given her role as the president of this council. But in large part, that's been a de minimis amount of my experience over the last year. And the majority of my experience has been empowerment. And empowerment matters because it's it's a word that I think encompasses a lot of the values I've seen shared across the dais today, things like shared leadership, enabling. Those are words that have been used, and I could categorize those as versions of empowerment. You know, I committee chairs have all performed differently, and the president has allowed us to set our agendas, has allowed us occasionally to request more time or less time. I, I know that there has been a time when the president told me as a committee chair, maybe I couldn't do something, but it was such a non-issue. I don't remember what that was. Meaning the majority of the time, as a leader of the finance committee, when I asked to be able to do something or schedule something or bring something to my committee, she did that. That was also precedent setting. And it was something that why I voted for Elana pirtle-guiney last year. And I'll remind you that, you know, Elana was our compromise candidate last year, that she wasn't a nominee in the initial voting, but she she encompasses those values that I thought were so important. And I've seen that throughout the course of the year, and we've had as many agreements as we've had disagreements. And I think that the way in which you disagree, president pirtle-guiney, has been helpful for me, and I think it's been fair to my colleagues and myself. And so I some of the folks who were voting for councilor Canal are using some of the words that I guess I want to make sure that everybody understands. I'm applying those also to council president pirtle-guiney, because I think she has been enabling, empowering. I think she has shared, I think to, you know, I've seen her. I think about our response as a council where we were dealing with the the federal overreach in our community. And I watched that. The council vice president was a conduit for our council to work with not just stakeholders outside the city, but with our leadership within the city. I've seen how different committee chairs have been given the first pitch, if you will, on any given topic that maybe that touches their committee. All of those, combined with a little course corrections, I think, point to a leadership style that is still maturing for a council that is still getting its legs, that is still debated whether or not you know, it's working yet, but I, I actually believe in in continuing with Elana pirtle-guiney leadership because I think those are all aspects of empowerment, because the role of president, for me, doesn't exist just to be a label about who calls on who next. It talks about how and what you're going to do the work. And I think that's why we put so much emphasis on this role. And so I am glad that you have stepped up to serve another year. I will continue to vote for your presidency. And I expect if I am in any facet of leadership, whether it be finance or any other in the year forward, that you'll empower me. But you'll also, of course, correct me if you have a values where you think I've stepped out or I'm not leading in a way that's good for this organization. So thank you. Pirtle-guiney councilor Pirtle-guiney you continue to have my support.
184 Thank you.
185 Councilor councilor Novick.
186 A couple things. One, just following up on the discussion of committees, I think that the original allocation of committees and leadership that the president made was fantastic. I think that she made sure that we gave every important issue its due in committees. I think that she made sure that people were on the committees that they cared about. And I think that the innovation of having co-chairs from subcommittees was terrific, and I really enjoyed serving as co-chairs with councilor Kanal and councilor Morillo. I think that in terms of maturing committees, I don't think that it's anything that the council president needs to do. I think it's all of us need to do. I mean, for one, I think the role of committee should be to hear and refine policy proposals and leading hopefully to the rest of the council generally being prepared to defer to what the committees came up with, although that I won't always be the case. There's been a few problems with that. One is that we haven't actually had all that many policy issues come through council. So because we're not all councilor Morillo. And so I think that as we go along, we'll have more practice in the committees refining policy proposals. Second, I think that and this is actually something that councilor Zimmerman observed to me and public safety committee the other week. I think it's a good practice for us as committee chairs to decide. We are not going to try to push something through in the first meeting, that we will sort of the default will be we present something in the first meeting. We chew over it, let people think and then come back again. And the third thing is that one of my new year's resolutions is to pay more attention to what's going on in other committees. So I'm not faced with something in council that I haven't thought of before. And that's on me. And I think that's on all of us to know enough about what happened in the committees, that we are not coming at something from nothing. So that's I mean, that's my view on committees. And again, I don't think it's I think that the council president did her job, which is to have the right committees and the right people on them. And I think the rest of it is on us. Second, I wanted to say that I really appreciate the vice president stating a specific concern. I really appreciate councilor Kanal specifically saying that he thinks that too much priority has been given to administration items rather than council items because although I know most people are saying this is not about criticizing the incumbent, this is about new leadership. There have been criticisms. The incumbent, and I think they should be aired in the incumbent should respond. So I will say that I do think it would be good, whoever the president and the vice president are, for them to have an agreement that in some way the vice president gets to hold the gavel periodically. So the vice president is used to holding the gavel, and that has that expertise. And I would like to hear a discussion of how we go about the president will go about balancing administration and council requests and how that's happened so far and how it might why what's happened so far is good, or how it might how it might change in the future. So again, I really appreciate people being willing to state specific concerns. So I think this is the time to air them and to hear responses to them.
187 Thank you councilor.
188 Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, we will move.
189 To you. I thought you were asking them.
190 Would you like us to address.
191 Out of.
192 The queue to give you that space? You're asking for a response.
Procedural episode · turns 193–214
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193 I think what I said implicitly asked for a response, but I was not doing it directly.
194 Councilor Koyama Lane were you.
195 In the queue? I'll pull back. Yeah.
196 Councilor Smith.
197 Thank you, madam president. I just want to say, you know, shared leadership, it can take any form or many forms. It doesn't always involve with literal sharing of the gavel between the president and others. It's necessity typically depends on the unique dynamics and objectives of the group. In our committee meetings, our advisory boards, we embrace the principle of shared leadership. Despite holding fewer council meetings, we have maintained our effectiveness. And just like previous councils, and this was demonstrated when my amendment passed in August, allowing us to increase the number of days from two meetings to four meetings as a full council. So of course, if you didn't have as many meetings, you wouldn't have. I don't consider that not being effective. What we need to do is we need to get a leader who is confident, who is secure, who is experienced, and who has demonstrated her ability to lead. That's why I'm still supporting president Elana pirtle-guiney for president for this year, and I wish we would call the question and take the vote.
198 Thank you councilor.
199 I.
200 Councilor Avalos.
201 I guess I just have a process question. I mean, I think I'm really uncomfortable by the rigidity of the queue when this is an election. And if you're getting asked questions by councilors, this is the time to talk about them. So I guess I'm not I'm not understanding why. It's like you're kind of going with this like it has to be. You got to be in the queue. I find that very frustrating, because that kind of rigidity is actually a perfect example of why I'm not choosing to reelect you. So I feel like if you are getting questions from folks, and I'm happy to do that, I've been holding back. But I think this is very emblematic of my frustration, and I just want to name that. And I think that if you're getting asked questions, you don't need to get in the queue. I think you should. Both of you should respond.
202 Thank you. Councilor. There have been a number of small questions and big direct questions asked. And I will say for myself, not as council president, but as a candidate, I'm choosing to respond to things a few at a time and try to hear from all of you and put myself in the queue when when I feel like there are a group of things that I should respond to. And I've looked to councilor Kanal when he wasn't in the queue and there was no one else there to see if he wanted to respond before a vote a few times now. Councilor Kanal, if you need me to address you differently from the council president role, please let me know. Okay councilor Kanal you are next in the queue.
203 Thank you. I want to answer councilor Novick questions. There are two questions here. One is about balancing administration and council requests, and the other is about the role of the vice president. So I'll start by talking about the balancing administration and council requests part. I think I spoke to that in the agenda setting side of things, but I think it's very difficult to give a very definitive answer to that. But I'll give you what I can. And the reason it's difficult to give a definitive answer is because we have a new city administrator, and I want to make sure that we're talking through how his organization of the administration yields a flow that can be managed. And I don't think it would be fair for me to say, I'm going to just impose something on someone that we just hired, 12 zero. And without even having the conversation. So that's the first thing I would say. But what I do know is that we can't make the assumption that because it comes from the administration, it is inherently more important to be on an earlier agenda and be earlier within that agenda. We have to move towards some other system. There are ideas for criteria to use, I think within councilor Items. It's nice to know it came out of committee. It's nice to know it had been discussed, vetted, perhaps even voted through with a unanimous opinion. It's nice to know if it has a lot of co-sponsors that that signifies things as well. The amount of time something takes, you know, some items are 20 minutes. You might be able to fit that in a meeting more, you know, earlier meeting than a 40 minute item, for example. So those are things that I would talk about there. I can be much more specific about the vice president. And so I'll switch to that side of things. There's an episode of the west wing where they're talking about whether or not to retain the vice president going into the second election and the, the the president writes a reason down on a paper. And when they flip it over later on, it says, because I could die. And, you know, I, I don't mean to be negative, but I could walk out and get hit by a bus any day. I want to make sure that the vice president is ready to go and is is in a position to do that. I also think I want to acknowledge and show appreciation for all the work that's been done formally and informally by our current vice president, including serving as a lead on federal issues, a formal role which I think provides a model. I've said from the beginning, I think that a council president should share power and information broadly. It has to start with empowering the vice president position. Everyone up here deserves to have two people you can go to for information or support, and we also need to have more clarity in what the role does encoded. There's not very much clarity at all. A couple ideas for how to do this, including the vice president and the regularly scheduled meetings that are held with other branches the mayor, the administration, the clerk's office formalizing more responsibilities for the vice president. One specific idea is, is project development. With councilor Ryan and myself on the strategic planning session for later this month, or working with specific mediation or labor issues that need a short term project leader and chairing meetings when the president is a co-sponsor of legislation. I think that's really important. If you're a party to the conversation in a direct way, and that's something that councilor Novick you and I have done and modeled in the caps committee, if the council votes to have a committee, the whole I would also suggest that the vice president, either chair or co-chair it. I think we can have a council that is strong because all 12 of us are strong, and that starts from going from 1 to 2 with formalized authority on the way to 12. I'll also add that if chosen to be president, I would want someone with different politics from mine to be chosen as the council vice president. I think that was a good model in 2025. I think we should continue it in 2026. And the fact of and the goal of empowering that person, even if they do have different politics from mine, is the good governance this council and portlanders deserve. Thank you.
204 Point of order.
205 I'd like to call the question. I'd like to call the question.
206 We do have somebody else in the queue. Mr. Taylor, do we need to take a vote to call the question if somebody else is in the queue? Or can we just call the question.
207 The motion to call the question made by councilor Smith? Is there a second?
208 Second?
209 Okay. Colleagues, I don't believe this is a debatable motion. I think we move to a vote on whether to call the question okay.
210 A vote to call the question. I thought it was automatic.
211 No, no.
212 No no it's not.
213 And it's only me in the queue.
214 Oh, sorry about that. Vice president keelan.
215 Go right ahead.
216 No.
217 Dunphy.
218 No.
219 Smith.
220 Yes.
221 Canal.
222 I want to hear from the vice president. No.
223 Ryan.
224 Yes.
225 Koyama Lane.
226 No.
227 Morillo.
228 No.
229 Novick.
230 No.
231 Clark.
232 Yes.
233 Green.
234 No.
235 Zimmerman.
236 Yes.
237 Pirtle-guiney.
238 No.
239 The motion fails with four yes votes and eight no votes.
240 Vice president. Go right ahead.
241 Yeah, I'm happy to go next. But council president, if you would like to respond to councilor Novick questions, I'm happy to defer to you.
242 I do intend to, though I suspect you may have other questions. So I will wait and let you go right ahead.
243 So I do want to emphasize that the council presidency was never designed to be specifically held by one person year after year, especially at the very beginning of this brand new form of government. I do think that what we do now doesn't just decide this year and this moment. It does set expectations for how power operates under this system. I do believe concentrating leadership at the outset risks recreating actually the very dynamics that our voters overwhelmingly agreed that we needed to move away from. I also think that two consecutive terms should raise the bar. I think if a council president were to serve a second consecutive year, that decision should require overwhelming support. Otherwise, then I think it is showing that the role belongs to a person rather than the whole body. And I believe that if a leader has genuine commitment to building the bench, I believe that sometimes that building the bench looks like knowing when to step aside, when to lean into a different type of role, possibly one that's more supportive, where knowledge and experience can be shared, and give a chance for other colleagues to step up. I also want to highlight that the calling that colleague that I intend to continue supporting, councilor Canal is clearly capable. He is these things that councilor Smith just said confident, secure, experienced. He has a partner that he's worked with all year, a committee co-chair who speaks highly of him. And I wrote this down. Correct me if I quote you wrong said I enjoyed working with him very much as co-chair of public safety. That is something that I like to hear. I don't think necessarily that there's one right way to lead. I think someone else was saying this. Maybe it was councilor Ryan. Every councilor is going to have different strengths and different growth areas. That's a feature. I do believe that our body benefits from experiencing multiple leadership styles, multiple approaches to collaboration, different ways to move forward, to keep things moving forward. And there are there are some styles that are not the only way. They're a little bit more political. I think what we we have seen in other bodies where it's it's about the agenda control and making negotiations behind the scenes and, and transactional deal making. And that is one way to do things. But it's not the only way. And I do think right now we need to be modeling transparency, collaborative leadership that brings people along, working collaboratively. That includes working with the vice president that is elected into this role. And that can look a lot of different ways. I know I've been asked for specifics that can look like passing the gavel from time to time. It could also be as simple as including that colleague into meetings, such as the weekly meeting with the clerk that I have tried for a year to get into, but have not been included in, and the refusal and the gatekeeping around that. It does make me nervous. And I will say, for my experience, public trust is is really is growing. I will have constituents on the side that stop me on the street and they just go, oh my gosh, I'm watching these, these meetings. And I never have before. I've had some teenagers say that they stayed up late watching these meetings and it's amazing. And also that trust is fragile. The public is feeling genuinely represented right now. We need to reinforce that trust by modeling democratic practices internally, and we have a chance to do that right now. Thank you.
244 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, I put myself in the queue to address a few of the things that have been raised. And I want to address one specifically, which is the role of the vice president. When we started out a year ago, I actually had pitched myself to all of you as a potential candidate for vice president. And I said, I think this is a role where somebody can take on special projects. And in this first year, I think this is a role where somebody can help to provide the structure for our governance. While the president has to do the job of running the day to day in some very administrative tasks. And that is, in fact, exactly the role that I asked vice president Koyama Lane to step into. I think that shared leadership can look a lot of different ways, and I think it is critical. It doesn't always look like doing the exact same thing and being in every room, because it should look like expanding capacity between the two. And council vice president, I have wanted you to be in a leadership position, and that's why I asked at a time when our city faced the most incredible threat by the trump administration, if you would be in charge of our federal response and you expanded our stakeholder engagement, our work with the administration, our work across the city with grassroots organizations and truly set up our city to effectively prevent a federal invasion. And I am incredibly grateful to you for taking that on in our first year, facing a real need for governance structures, I asked you to take that on in the governance committee. Our governance structures was a piece of what I ran on actually in my campaign. It's something I care very much about. It's something that I have had the opportunity to see work and not work in other structures, and that I had a lot of thoughts and ideas about. But I wanted to have somebody else lead on that, because I knew that I wouldn't have the time as council president to do it in the way that I hoped it would be done. And I knew that you, with your background as an educator and an organizer, bringing people together, seeing different ideas and thinking about how we might work together, would make you incredibly strong in helping to lead that work. And I value the work that we did together, where you gave me an opportunity to bring things forward in governance and also the work that you did without me, where you brought things forward there to help give us the foundation that we have today. Councilor Novick you asked specifically about the gavel, and I am absolutely open in, in any role as a council president or any other leadership role in sharing a gavel and giving other people an opportunity to hold a gavel. I never worried that if I had to miss a meeting, we would be in in a bad situation, because I knew that the council vice president would be able to jump in. I also knew that when I said a few times that I might have to miss a meeting, we had conversations about what that would look like. And frankly, council vice president, I never heard from you that you wanted to hold the gavel more until today. So I hope that whoever the next leadership team is can have those frank discussions. Colleagues, there were a few other questions that were asked around agendas and agenda setting. And I just want to be clear that almost every Thursday, our chiefs sit down together to talk about what's coming and your chiefs receive spreadsheet with information about requests from the administration and from the executive about what they'd like on agendas. And most of the time, by the time those things get to that spreadsheet. Dcas have already had conversations with those of you who are running relevant committees about the timing for those items, moving through committee, and then hopefully to the council agenda. Where I have had information about agenda items that councilors are bringing forward. As early as I get that information from the administration and from the executive, I have tried to ensure that I pencil those things in for time on agendas as well. But sometimes I don't know about things coming from councilors. As early as I hear about things coming from the administration, that information from the administration, though, is available to all of us. I see it just a few days before you do, and then I make sure it gets to all of your chiefs. I asked that we put things on there from councilors, and I flag in meetings where I see that information, things coming from councilors and have numerous times told the administration and the executive that they, in fact, could not have as many things on an agenda as they were asking for, because I knew there were big items coming from councilors that would need to be on those agendas, and we would need to make time for them. I can only operate with the information I receive from the administration, from the executive and from my colleagues here in order to plan ahead. But I've tried to do that. I know a lot of people have said what matters more, what gets seen first, and councilor Kanal, I appreciate that. In your response, you talked about the amount of time something would take, because when I build an agenda, the number one thing that I am looking at is not who brought an issue forward. It is how much time will this take and how much time do we have on the agenda? What has to come because there is a deadline, be it budgetary, something put forward by the state that the administration is trying to respond to, or a deadline to get something moving that a councilor Brings forward. Because if it's not enacted by a certain date, we won't be able to achieve the goal. Where are there deadlines? What's going to take a long time, and what else has been requested that we can fill in in that meeting? We generally, in a meeting, have time for one meaty item, one item that is controversial or asks a bigger policy question or might draw a lot of public comment. All of those things can lead something to be not a 20 or 30 minute item, but a 60 or 90 minute item. We generally have time for one of those, a meeting, and it is more often that those meaty items come from councilors and from the administrator or the mayor. Not exclusively. There have been items from the administration that are meaty. There have been items from councilors that are not. But it is more, more often by percent that those meaty items come from councilors. We can only fit one of those on an agenda, which means that there are times where a few of those come out of committees in a week, and some have to wait so that we have enough time to hear from the public and dive into the policy questions and take on things that are meaty. And I will tell you that more than who something comes from, or whether or not I think it should move forward, the things that are driving my decisions have been. Is there a deadline? What's the meaty item that we're going to take on in this agenda, and what else can we fit in around that? And then in the what else can we fit in around that? When was it requested? How long have we known about this? Is this something where folks have already asked for a date? Whether that comes from the administration, the executive, or all of you? And I just want to clarify that, because I don't know that I've always been clear about what that process is and what that thinking is. And I think I've taken for granted sometimes this year, the the benefit of the doubt that I might have from all of you or, or perhaps don't have. But that's the process that I have used. I have also tried to push us to plan ahead more with the goal of having that information, as I said, available to the public earlier. Councilor canal having the the time certain agenda. It's a really great idea, and I will wholly admit that it's not one that I thought of. I have been pushing hard to have things posted earlier so people could see them, but haven't used the time certain. That's certainly something that if I am reelected, I will endeavor to do. I think it's an incredibly good idea, and I appreciate your insights and your experience. Having served on the staff side for our city and having seen that, I think it's an important part of how we can move forward. I also want to address this issue of leadership transition because while I don't know what will happen over the next year and who else will be interested in running for council president, I can tell you that if I don't make a commitment here today that I won't run again, my wife is going to be very disappointed because the job of council president takes a lot of time. And I have said clearly that I am honored that some of our colleagues asked me to do this again. I would be honored to serve all of us again in order to continue the work that I started this year, in order to continue helping us move in the direction of setting up our council. But I have absolutely no intention of running for a third term. I have absolutely no intention of making this role about me or my personality, or how I would choose to do things, and I have every intention after this year of asking whoever is the next council president for some great policy committees that I'd like to serve on, something I haven't gotten to do this year, and spending the final two years of my term focusing on some of that other work. So I just want to make that clear so that you all know how I'm looking at this next year. With that, I would again be honored to have your support. Councilor Morillo.
245 Thank you, council president. I guess I want to say that, you know, I think that to express the elephant in the room is that I think that we actually genuinely care about each other and maintaining relationships. And so I think people have had hard discussions with one another behind, not behind closed doors, but one on one with relationship building and as individuals. And I don't think that's always a negative thing. So I fully trust that councilor Koyama Lane, who I have found to be very forthright, that she had some of those hard discussions with you, and I think that I would like clarity from you as to why she was kept out of certain administrative meetings, because I do think that in her role as vice president, councilor Koyama Lane has done an extensive amount of invisible labor to keep this council going, to keep relationships going, to protect us at the federal level from ice and other issues that are encroaching upon my community specifically. So I think I want more explanation as to why she was kept out of certain meetings or what the rationale was behind that decision making, because I think that she has asked for that public or, you know, with you many times. I would also say that when we are doing agenda setting, something that I've come up against as a counselor is that you are essentially punished on the agenda. If you do have a meaty, substantive policy, of course, if you have a resolution that just says, hey, bureau, have you considered looking for funding during a funding crisis, we are directing you to do that. That's a very simple resolution. The bureau is probably already doing that because we are in a funding crisis that doesn't take a lot of there's no tension in the council about whether or not a bureau should look into that. It's not substantive. So that can easily go on the agenda. A more complicated policy like, say, an algorithmic price fixing ban, where we have to talk about legal structures and, and a lot of different things is going to take more time. But I don't think that we as councilors should be punished on the timeline and the agenda for bringing substantive items forward. So I will just say that that type of agenda setting is actually prohibiting us from doing meat and potatoes work. The real substantive work, it lends allegiance to more symbolic work that does not actually accomplish much. But I definitely, you know, I get to work fairly closely with councilor Koyama Lane. I'm in the same district. Our offices are right next to each other. I get to see her leadership style and how she communicates with others, how she has really tried to bring everyone along, and there have been times where I've wanted to fight people, and Tiffany has told me to build bridges and to be very sweet and kind. And so she's probably saved you guys a few times from me. So I would say that she's very direct, and I would just like to hear what the rationale was for keeping her out of certain administrative meetings and what your intentions are for whoever your vice president would be next, how you would bring them into that decision making space.
246 Councilor Clark, I think you beat me there into the queue. Go right ahead.
247 That was a question for you.
248 Thank you. Council president.
249 Next in the queue.
250 I don't think so. Was she.
251 Well I'm happy to address that question. I'm going to let councilor Clark speak and then I'm happy to address your question.
252 I think this is why someone else should facilitate the meeting.
253 Would perhaps the council president would like some more time to think it through. And while I do my thing.
254 Go ahead, councilor Clark.
255 As the person who characteristically says the least around here. Thank you. I think our first year has been mr. Toad's wild ride. You know, for those of you that have been to disneyland, you know what that is. When I ran for this position, people said to me, how are 12 people going to pull this off? Good question. And I think so far we've done a good job and we've done a good job. Under council president's leadership. With all due respect to my colleagues, I don't think any one of us on the dais could have done such a good job in guiding us through this first year. And as councilor Novick said, I and I'm having come from TriMet, I think she did a great job keeping the wheels on the bus. I think our council president's been fair, been balanced, been open, and I haven't always agreed with her, her decisions or her votes. In fact, behind closed doors, I will admit I have vehemently opposed things that she's wanted to do. I've even raised my voice and I have used bad words. But I do believe that under her steady hand, we've been very productive and we've moved forward. And my major point here is that as we look ahead to the next year or in the next year, 2026, my crystal ball says that we need stability. We need consistency. I strongly disagree with my colleagues who want change for change's sake. This doesn't. Having a council president for two years in a row does not lock us into anything. I'm looking at the long game here and it is a long game for our city. I don't want us to be forced into another big change when we have very, very big, difficult issues coming at us this year. I'm very grateful that the council president is willing to do this again, and I want us to build on her experience, to use her experience and the relationships that she's built. I believe we need a very calm, steady hand on the wheel here, an unemotional leader who's concise and calm under pressure, who has established relationships that are valuable to all of us. For these reasons, Elana has my full support for a second year as president, and I figured she wouldn't want a third. Colleagues, we need stability as we come into this year. We need that continuity. We need someone who operates with grace and calm and clarity. And for that reason, I'll be voting for Elana pirtle-guiney.
256 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. I did put myself in the queue to respond to councilor Morillo and councilor. I want to be clear, I was speaking to the request for gavel time when I said that I had not heard that before. I also want to be clear, and I. I don't want to turn this into a tit for tat. And she said, she said or she said he said, and I'm trying to figure out how in my responses to do that. There are an astounding number of administrative tasks every week that go into keeping council running. There is a regular meeting that the council vice president and I are in every week and have been from the start, together with leadership, from the administration and from the executive branches around things that are coming through various various branches of government. And the council vice president, I believe, has been in those meetings from the start. There may have been 1 or 2 at the beginning. I honestly don't remember back to last January on every single meeting, but that's something that I see us doing in partnership and a place where we push hard together for council. We sit down every week together to talk through what's coming up and what we need to be working on. And those are, I think, really critical meetings and on the weeks when we miss them, I feel it. On the weeks when we miss them, I feel like I don't have a partner in the decision making in the way that I appreciate having had in our council vice president, and I certainly would expect to continue having that meeting. If a different vice president is elected. And I were elected president and we and they were interested in continuing to have that type of partnership, I don't want to presuppose anything about what the council vice president's plans are when we get to the vice president election. So I'm trying to speak a little bit generally here. I think the specific meeting that the vice president is talking about is a meeting where we take everything that is on those spreadsheets that you all get and that we talk about in the meetings with the administration and the executive, and we take the items that have come out of committee and figure out what can actually fit within the time allocated on the agenda. And frankly, it is a far more administrative meeting than I think folks would realize because as I described before, a lot of those decisions are made before that meeting, and a lot of the big questions that I have going into that meeting, I bring up in the weekly check ins with the council vice president. There are multiple offices in that meeting, which is truly about what can we fit into an agenda, and how long does the agenda need to be, and do we have the support from the staff who support us in this room for the length of time that agenda needs to be? And are there other things scheduled that it would conflict with? And do we have time for all of the work sessions folks want and things like that? There are a lot of offices in there. And when the vice president first brought up being a part of that meeting, I said, I have no problem with that, but I'm worried about getting it rescheduled. And it's often first thing in the morning or later in the day. And you're right, the council vice president has asked a few times to be involved, and I don't have any problem with the vice president being in on meetings like that. Certainly, I also think that we are stronger when we can do more. And I would sit down if I were elected president again and somebody else were elected vice president with whoever that person is, to say what matters most to you? What meetings do you want to be in? What do you want to be a part of, and how do we divide and conquer? Because there are certainly meetings on things that I asked the vice president to take on in her role as vice president that I wasn't a part of, because I know that we can do more when we divide and conquer, but then come together in those weekly check in meetings to make sure that we're on the same page and headed in the same direction and know what each other are doing. And I think that those meetings are some of the most important meetings of the week for the council president and vice president, and whoever is elected to those two roles today. I would highly recommend having those meetings on a regular basis. Councilor Morillo, are you back in the queue for a second time this round?
257 I am. Thank you for that answer. I appreciate more of that background. I would say that you have framed the bureaucratic process of agenda setting as inherently boring and unsexy, as a way to hide how absolutely critical and important that meeting is. The meeting where we decide the timing and agenda items that move forward at council when they are voted on, how quickly they move through. That is actually a critical power point. That is a moment where we decide whose agenda moves forward in the city and how and when and why. And so while you have described it as this boring procedural thing that maybe councilor Koyama Lane does or doesn't have time to do, which I think she could speak for herself, and I think she has spoken and said that she wanted to be a part of it. It is absolutely critical. I think that kind of boring bureaucracy is actually how we maintain or don't maintain the status quo, whose voices are centered and what gets pushed forward. I would also say that I appreciate that you're acknowledging that you would want to collaborate with whoever is the future vice president to decide what roles they want or don't want, but what has been demonstrated prior to this open discussion is that that is not what has been happening. And so I would also like to hear from councilor Canal how you would coordinate with a vice president for agenda setting, especially since you have stated that you are open to having a vice president who is maybe even diametrically opposed to you politically on council.
258 Councilor Kanal would you like to?
259 Yeah, I'll just say two quick points on that. Thank you for the question. The first, I already said, I think if there is a regularly scheduled meeting with a part of the government that is outside of council that should be scheduled around the vice president as well as the president, should the vice president want to be there? And I think the assumption is, yes, the assumption is it's always better to have it. And I want to be clear that that doesn't mean that we should have a vice president who does the same thing as the president. It's not about having two people do everything. It's about there being a venn diagram here of some projects and some things that are shared and some that are separate. But agenda setting is one of the most important things. And so that's why I would I would include that there. The other piece of that in terms of coordinating is it is a lot about relationship building and finding ways to work together. I really appreciate I think for other colleagues have brought this up. I've actually co-sponsored something with everybody up here over the course of the year, whether it's a budget amendment or it's a resolution or it's an ordinance, with the exception of just because it was a different type of process. The council president, we we worked together on developing processes for two appointments. And so I think regardless of who it is, and there are people who are different politically from me up here, I think it's about being willing to say, okay, so that's not working for you. What about this other option? What would work for you? What are your underlying needs here, and how can we find a way to get to that? Councilor greene mentioned the budget amendment that he and councilor Dunphy put forward on prosper, and which had differences of opinion that did not necessarily cross, or that that did not necessarily mirror the lines. You might expect. What happened after that failed is that there was a conversation behind the scenes where instead of leaving the budget the way it was, or taking $13 million out, we helped figure out a $3 million adjustment to the budget. And I was a part of that conversation. I think that's the best example I can give, is we found something that worked for multiple people, because otherwise there was going to be a lot of dissatisfaction from pretty much everybody. And that's mirrored, I think there was a golf fund and small donor elections conversation too, was 4 million. It could have become one. How do we work through that together? And it's the same when you're talking to one person as a president and vice president on process issues, because it needs to work for everyone.
260 Thank you, councilor.
261 Councilor Smith.
262 Thank you, council president. I think we've heard everything from a to z, and we need to get to a point where we can take these votes. It's it's imperative that that we're very intentional. And I agree with you, council president, that he said she said I've had enough of it. I hear that on the weekends with my grandkids, and we know who we want and who we don't want, and we need to take the vote. I would encourage and urge folks who are not voting for council president to consider voting for her. She has done an amazing and outstanding job, and I think she will do another amazing and outstanding job. So please consider her as an option. Thank you.
263 Thank you councilor. Counselor Morillo, you're in for a second time.
264 Yeah, I just wanted to say, councilor Smith, while I appreciate your style and your push for efficiency, this is a matter that is going to require discussion. And we can try to force the vote a million times, but it's actually just wasting more time because I think most of us are feeling pretty set on our person. And unless we hear something that is actually going to move us, we are going to continue to have the discussion we, you know, compromised during the last vote. I think we are very interested in hearing a robust debate and forcing the vote early. When people are in the queue and have things to do, it's just not going to work. And I would just ask that we stop doing that.
265 Thank you, councilor, councilor Avalos.
266 I just wanted to reject the premise that people who are asking for votes for councilor Kanal leadership are doing it for change, for change's sake. I think we've been pretty clear about what we are looking for. We have expressed what the qualities are of a council president that we're seeking because it affects everything that we do. It affects how we serve our constituents as well. And I think ultimately, you know, I agree absolutely with the last comment from councilor Morillo that, like, we need to talk about this. And I know it's uncomfortable, but I'm prepared to sit here until we have a real discussion. And at the same time, you know, I, I think we're all trying to be very careful because, of course, nobody wants to air out any dirty laundry on the dais. So, Steve, I hate your recommendation. Actually, I ain't doing that. Not because and I think part of why I don't like that recommendation is actually a big foundation for why I'm choosing a different president, which is that I feel like there have been multiple opportunities over this last year where we have raised concerns, where we have made suggestions for changes. And I heard council president speak on this long laundry list of good governance practices that I will just note. Many of those things on that list were things that weren't your ideas. They were things that people have brought to you and weren't implemented. And so what I haven't heard yet is if there's this long list of things that you, you know, say are good governance and that you want to implement, but were brought to you over numerous occasions this year and you did not implement. How are you going to convince me that next year is going to be different? Why didn't you implement them? And that is a direct question to you.
267 Councilor. It's hard to take a direct question without specifics, but I also understand that you're trying to avoid the tit for tat as well. There have been many good ideas brought forward that I have tried to incorporate into the work that I do. We all come from different backgrounds and bring different perspectives and have different experiences in leadership, and that has allowed us to bring forward new ideas for how we do things. Some of those we've debated in committee, some we've debated behind closed doors, and some I've been able to bring forward that we're not my ideas, but we're certainly things that I think have been good for council. There are still things on my list because. There has not been time or opportunity to make all of the changes yet, and I would be happy at our next recess or a week from now or two months from now to sit down and talk through what some of the ideas are that you're thinking about. We've also had many ideas brought forward in committee that various committees have said aren't the direction that we want to go, and I've tried to to be respectful of those choices, whether those were things brought forward that I initially agreed with or disagreed with. There have been some of each. So I don't know that I can give you a specific. Here's the one thing that will change your mind, but I continue to be open to conversation, to guidance, to counsel. I have come to you many times this year with meaty issues that I hoped to have your input on, because I think you bring a wealth of experience and a wealth of perspective and thoughtfulness to the way that you approach these things. And I will tell you that I will continue to do that. And at times we've left disagreeing, and I haven't moved forward in the way that you would request. And at times you have confirmed what I was already thinking. And at times you've changed my mind significantly, and I appreciate that in the time that you have spent with me on some of those meaty issues. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. I think councilor Smith will get her way here, and we will move to a fourth vote.
268 Amylose councilor Novick.
269 I'll wait.
270 Okay. Thank you, councilor.
271 Canal Dunphy. Canal Smith.
272 President pirtle-guiney.
273 Canal canal.
274 Ryan. Pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane canal Morillo canal Novick. Pirtle-guiney Clark. Pirtle-guiney Green. Canal Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney councilor. Pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor. Canal receives six votes.
275 Colleagues. That moves us to a fourth round of discussion. Councilor. Morillo.
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276 Thank you. Maybe I just have the most questions today. If any of you read opb recently, they wrote an article about this past council cycle and how that went. And one of the things that I definitely noticed was that they essentially pointed out that we have a very weak council that is not pushing forward as much legislation as the prior council and not serving our constituents the way that I think they were hoping. I think part of that is procedural. This new structure is slower. We're moving through policy in a different way. I also think some of this is the executive branch is getting to set the agenda much more aggressively than our body is. They have much more information than our body does. And I think that I'm very interested in sharing that power, making sure we have legislative oversight and that we're able to pass forward policies that represent what our constituents elected us to pass. So I would like to ask councilor Canal what your vision is to strengthen the council, make sure that we have a an ability to really pass robust policy and to serve our constituents. And what you would do differently to hold the executive branch accountable as far as oversight? Sorry, that was maybe like three questions.
277 Councilor Kanal would you like to answer that, or would you like to get in the queue and hear from others first?
278 I'll hear from others just in case there's other questions.
279 Okay, councilor Zimmerman.
280 I'm just going to do a point of order. At 1 p.m. We break. I think we go ahead and answer.
281 Okay, councilor Green.
282 Yeah, I just. I want to talk a little bit about change for the sake of change. My colleague had sort of suggested that we don't we don't need to change for the sake of change. And I want to be very clear that I'm supporting councilor Kanal not because I just want change for the sake of change. I'm supporting councilor Kanal because I see expertise, I see heart, I see intelligent and some leadership qualities that are different than councilor Pirtle-guiney. She has those two. But I think, as I said earlier, when we were building this institution, and this is very relevant to what councilor Morillo had just raised about the relative weakness of our branch of the government, that when we we add to that list of experience, we're adding people with different lens lenses and different forms of experience. That's why I'm supporting councilor Kanal, and I do think it's important to mix it up. You know, I also think it's it's important for us to be willing to compromise. Before any of us were sworn in and before any of us elected. The first did this a year ago before any of us formed a group called peacock. The narrative had formed right off the jump that there was a divided council and that there was two factions. One was progressive and one was moderate. That's how the city has been describing this council since the very jump. And when we tried to elect a progressive who was named as part of that group last time, we we spent ten rounds and we and we couldn't get someone from the other side to compromise. Famously, I, I compromised and I did it knowing that I wasn't going to get my first choice. And I did it at the risk of some relationships. And I did it knowing full well that many of my supporters and my base were going to be really disappointed in me. And they were. And I took some beatings for that, and I had to repair some relationships for that. And so I think as we're going into this conversation and we're talking about concepts like unity, compromise, togetherness, every single person at this dais gets to compromise. It's not just for those of us who have been described as progressives, right. So I sort of reject this idea that it's only us who always have to come to the center or the middle when we're frankly, trying to we're trying to elect a person to occupy a non-ideological position on the council. And I'll just remind folks that councilor Canal has made it very clear today, multiple times, in no uncertain terms, that if he's elected, he will not be part of peacock. He will step away. And so I think when we talk about compromise, I don't want anyone to be confused that that those who refuse to switch their votes, that there's only one set of people at this dais who do that. And I'll just leave it there.
283 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal, did you want to answer some questions?
284 Yes, I will do that. Thank you, councilor Morillo, for the for the questions. I think I talked a little bit about the vision. There are three questions. The vision on strengthening the council as an institution. But it it really does mean and I really appreciate you bringing up that opv article because part of what it is is not about having an adversarial relationship. I think of a very good relationship with the with the mayor. It's a new relationship with the city administrator, but it's good with the with the auditor and their office as well. You heard me speak a year ago very highly of our council clerk and I. Nothing has changed there. I've always felt that way. And so I think there's a difference between an adversarial relationship and a relationship that says we have our role and they have their role, and we should make sure that we're navigating that effectively. And one of the ways that that happens is, is pacing and speed, but also being willing to advocate for the council as an institution. There are definitely things that get announced sometimes by other branches of the government. That council should be brought in on before they're announced. I know that, and I'll be I'll be clear. I know the council president agrees with me on that, but I think it's about advocating for that and making sure that those are conversations were brought in on early. It's about, as I mentioned, building trust with the public. We are the we are the people's house, right? There's nowhere else where you can come and talk to a branch of government in a regularly scheduled public meeting where we're going to hear you. If there are 100 people sign up or 200 people sign up or 500 people sign up. Although I will note, we have unfortunately had to shorten public testimony too often in the last year. That is something I really hate doing, and when I had the opportunity to push through a vote in February at my committee, but we ran out of time for public testimony, I chose not to for that exact reason, even though I strongly believed in the item I was bringing forward. It's also that information sharing piece I would love to to have certainty in what's coming. And I think all of you have talked to your chiefs about what that experience is like. And so I ask you, you know, listen to them. But another piece of it is about making sure that when we're having the conversations that cross committee lines and issue lines, those are conversations that can happen here, too. And that's why I'll bring back up the idea of having work sessions on a big, singular issue that crosses thematic lines downtown. And for those who live in other parts of the city, I want to note we need the tax revenues from downtown to be able to fund anything in any other parts of the city when when big pink sold for a significantly less valuation, that cost the city $2 million a year in tax revenue. And so it's really important that we have those conversations because downtown is about homelessness, public safety, affordability, business climate and so much more. It's also about our contracting and procurement. So that's the strengthening the council in terms of an ability to pass robust policy and serve our constituents. I think that has to do with agenda setting, which just to reiterate, the key point there is about ensuring that there's time for the big meaty issues and not saying we're over time, we're running out of time, but creating that time. And I think there's a couple things examples on this. For example, this is not about policy per se. It's about the budget. We often create policy through the budget. The way our structure is made right now, we should be taking committees on pause during the budget cycle and making sure that there's not one 15 hour meeting in may on the budget. And I think that's a really important thing to to keep in mind, not necessarily all committees, but creating some more space for that. And as far as the executive branch accountable as far as oversight, this is one of those questions I really love to to receive, because it's a question that I don't think a council president should be answering. I think a council president should be creating the space for you to answer it. And so what would you do differently to hold the executive branch accountable as far as oversight? Councilor greene put up a resolution that will start that conversation. We may not pass it, we may amend it and then pass it, but we could discuss it. And I remember in early December, the day that we closed out that legislative agenda work session before the canceled homelessness and housing work session. Right. And the conversation that councilor Greene brought up about how we have just not been able to have those conversations yet. I think it's important that you create space to have a conversation on a really important issue that ends in a decision, even if you don't know how that decision is going to go, even if you fear that decision may not be what you want. And that's how I would approach it.
285 Councilor Novick.
286 Three things one. Councilor Avalos I really think that the airing of grievances is important for, for one very specific reason, which is that I've heard complaints about the president's leadership over the past few days that I hadn't heard before. And in order for me to really consider a complaint in deciding how to vote, I need to have heard it further in advance and studied it. So I think that having periodic, you know, airings of grievances would help me in the next council president election and would have helped me in this one second. I just have to note that, councilor Kanal that I don't think that the committee should stop during the budget process, but that's that's a total aside. Another thing I want to say, and here's where I'm going to, you know, take the privilege of being an old guy who's just going to say whatever the hell he thinks is councilor Kanal. I think you have done a phenomenal job of campaigning for this job today. You have given very thoughtful, direct answers to a whole mess of questions. So I'm going to tell you what I want, what I really, really want, what I would like to what I would like us to do today is reelect councilor Pirtle-guiney elect councilor Kanal vice president. First, we'd have to eliminate the stupid rule. We have the vice president, and the president can't come from the same district. And I kind of agreed that the vice president should be a training ground for the for the, for the next president. So what I would hope would happen is once we'd elected councilor, pirtle-guiney and councilor Kanal, then over the next year, councilor Kanal would be able to demonstrate that he's capable of carrying about five things rather than 40. And speaking about those five things a limited amount of time, and that he would continue to work with me on the public safety committee and on a number of public safety issues, which, for one thing, would give you a chance to demonstrate that you're interested in public safety goes far beyond occasionally being adversarial to the police. And at the end of that year, I would expect to be prepared to support councilor Kanal for president. I would, I've left out taking a step back from peacock, so that was what would happen in my ideal world. So I just wanted to lay that out there.
287 Point of order. We we can't talk about other elections, what we're going to do in the future and giving people that kind of runway that's that's not appropriate.
288 I think councilor Novick can probably lay out what he sees, but we certainly can't make any guarantees here today. You're right. Councilor Ryan.
289 Yes. Thank you. Council president councilor Novick. Your comments were fascinating as the person's literally sitting in between the other two electeds in district two. So anyway, that was a fascinating scenario planning. We're only two minutes away from taking a break, and as someone that desperately needs that break, I'm going to use this time to actually welcome raymond lee as our city administrator. I don't think we introduced you earlier. Did we? Anyway, could everyone just give a warm welcome to our city administrator? It's been wonderful to look over there and see you. And this is your first time in the chamber? Yeah. All right. I thought we should acknowledge that. And please, god, can we take a break? Thanks.
290 Thank you. Councilor and mr. Lee will get to give a city administrator report after this agenda item. I councilor Morillo.
291 I guess I just want to say I'm not as gracious as councilor Kanal. So I don't think that the progressive caucus should have to disband, or that people shouldn't be allowed to state their political views in order to become council president. I think the point is that we should rotate who gets to be in it, and that means a variety of perspectives. And I just had to make my peace with that. Although, again, councilor Kanal is much more gracious than I am. And I would also love a break to eat and maybe even pee would be great, so we can all leave now.
292 Thank you councilor. With that, before we move to another vote, we are going to recess for 40 minutes so that folks can grab some food. We will be back here at 139.
293 I know last time it was late April the 9th.
294 Thank you colleagues, we are coming back to order a couple minutes late here. Councilor Ryan, you are in the queue. Oh, okay. There is no one in the queue, so we are moving to a vote.
295 Oh, yeah.
296 Go right ahead.
297 Lois. Okay. Canal Smith.
298 President pirtle-guiney.
299 Canal canal.
300 Ryan. Pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane. No. Morillo.
301 President elect. Sameer. Canal.
302 No. Pirtle-guiney Clark. Pirtle-guiney Green.
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303 No.
304 Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney.
305 Councilor. Pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor. Canal received six votes.
306 Colleagues. That moves us into another round of discussion. Unless we would like to take an additional recess. Is there anyone in the queue for discussion? I can pause before I call for another vote or recess.
307 Point of order. How many votes have we taken?
308 I have five, but I would defer to the clerk.
309 Thank you.
310 Councilor canal.
311 Thank you. Before we took the recess, councilor Novick floated an idea which I wanted to to speak to, and I'll do it in two parts because I want to ask for councilor, the council vice president, to speak to that idea and what the experience is like of being a vice president, because I think that's helpful for people to understand in the context not only of the role, which we'll get to in detail later, but also in being vice president to one of the candidates where there actually is a.
312 Point of order. Point of order, madam president. We're trying to pick the president. We're not trying to pick the vice president right now. It's just totally out of order. We need to talk about why we want to vote for president, or why we wouldn't want to vote for a president. We're not talking about vice president right now.
313 Mr. Taylor, can you speak to germaneness?
314 Yes.
315 Councilor Smith has raised a point of order and an objection that the matter being discussed is not germane to the topic. That is a issue that the presiding officer can determine. And then the body can appeal that ruling if they desire. So you can rule on that of whether that is a discussion of the vice president is also germane to the to the president.
316 I think that we need to speak to the role of the president and the candidates before us, or being additional candidates. Councilor Kanal if you are interested in having a conversation with our colleagues about whether they would consider two councilors from the same district for president and vice president, you may want to have that conversation individually with up to five people. Did you have anything further?
317 Can I make a point of order?
318 Councilor Morillo you are in the queue next, so you don't even need to make a point of order.
319 Of that. I think part of the difficulty, again with you facilitating the meeting is that we got to hear from councilor Novick that he would like for councilor Kanal to wait his turn to be president, essentially, and to get some training, even though you are of comparable age and experience. And so I don't think it's really fair to have one of our colleagues get to say that sort of thing and then establish who would be president, vice president, and for other people to not sort of say that, especially since it tends to be a marriage between two people who are going to have to be working together quite closely. So I think if that question negotiation has already been aired, it's not really fair for us to not have that discussion because I was planning on asking councilor Novick, what would he think about having councilor Kanal as president and maybe councilor Pirtle-guiney as vice president?
320 Councilor as a conversation about who would be president. I think that's quite germane. And I think you could ask that question.
321 That's my question.
322 Councilor Novick, I guess I should say. Councilor Koyama Lane are you okay with deferring to councilor? Novick if he'd like to answer that question since you're next in the queue. Absolutely. Councilor Novick.
323 I well, I think I've already answered that. I said that I'd want to I'd want anybody who's currently in peacock to be out of peacock for a significant amount of time before considering them for president. And that's the primary thing. I also yeah, I also said that. Now that's the primary thing. I said a couple other things too, but that's the primary thing.
324 Okay. Can I respond?
325 Councilor Morillo go right ahead.
326 Sure. There are six peacock councilors. There are also only six councilors endured endorsed by the Portland business alliance. So if we want to talk about caucuses, divisions and politics and lines, then we can do that plenty. But I think that the point is that regardless of your politics, people should be able to rotate as long as they have shown that they are able to be impartial and work with other people who are not like them. I think that councilor Kanal has proven that he is willing and able to work with people who are completely different than him, and to have those negotiations and meetings, so I really don't think it's fair to impugn one of our colleagues and completely prevent any of us from ever taking leadership on this council, because we are doing things to support one another in a system that is, again, not built for people like us.
327 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane. Councilor Novick.
328 The rest of us have not constituted ourselves as a separate caucus, which meets separately to talk about their interpersonal relationships. And I don't think that's something that only people who aren't white men, you know, have a special have a special need to do. I think that you that you guys have segregated yourself into a club. And as I've said, I don't think it's merely an ideological thing. And I've said that I have a concern that somebody who's up until now has been part of a club that values their relationships with the rest of the club more than relationships with other people, should be council president. Again, I've said that it's not about individuals and it's not about politics. And if there was a mod squad of moderates that had behaved, that had had the same kind of club that you guys have, I would have had had the same concern. I also will tell you that I can't remember who said this, and I don't know how serious an idea was, but somebody suggested that the other six, at some point, other six of us should get together on a regular basis. And I said firmly, no, I do not want to be part of a separate group within the council. I want to have all of my relationships with all the other councils be on this, be on an equal footing.
329 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
330 Thank you. I'm kind of digesting all of that. Councilor Novick, I appreciate you being honest and I appreciate you sharing your perspective. I know that we talked about this this morning a little bit. I do have some concerns or I, I worry about the idea of like disqualifying half of our body for this position for you. I am a little surprised because from our conversations, I've heard you speak really highly of working with councilor Kanal, and it has seemed like you're actually open if he's willing to do some things like step back from policy priorities, to take a step back from peacock. I do respect that you make your own decision and and have your values and where you stand. I, I would be interested in some more formal conversations and answers around what is a about building like in this, in this new form of government? How does a caucus work and what do we need to know about that? I think a lot of us have done we've all done a lot of learning over the last year. I know I have, and I will say, while we haven't called it a full caucus, also the women of color get together sometimes and the people of color on council get together sometimes. Yeah. So that's kind of some of my thoughts about what I am hearing. I am not loving this, but I'm I'm hearing people ask for specifics and are saying that that's that they are important because it can connect to how it's been for me and how that affects the full body. So I will tell you, I actually have never heard the rationale about the clerk meeting until just right now. I actually have never gotten a firm no that I couldn't be included into those meetings, but a lot of moving the goalposts and oh, maybe we meet. And I found out about that meeting because I sit next to the council president and can can see the schedule pop up at times. And because one of her staffers in front of me said, hey, it's time to go to your weekly clerk meeting, I actually would prefer someone to just say, you're not invited. This is why here's the line up. That feeling this whole year of feeling like I have to figure out what's being hidden from me has been really challenging. So that's a specific. Another specific going back is around the budget process and around the package of the president's package of amendments that I didn't know about and didn't see until everyone else did, and felt very surprised by them. The morning of when councilor Zimmerman was speaking about course correction, it actually reminded me of another specific that was very challenging when I had been doing the work of keeping track of speaking times on this dais, starting from the beginning of the year, for several weeks, a couple couple months. Council president's office knew I had been tracking. I'd been having some conversations because it was becoming clear that there were some voices that were maybe taken up some more space. And because someone who identifies as a woman on this dais told me, I have a hard time speaking up because I feel dumb and don't do anything about this. But that's how I feel. And I and I feel strongly that it's taking. Looking at something like speaking times isn't just for that one person or for the women up here, but it's also for just down the road. What is our what are our what's our culture around that? I was taking data. I was having conversations. I actually was making some progress and had had conversations with people that were taking up a lot of space and was sharing some different ideas that I had. I some of those are just possible scaffolds. I mean, I wrote you all an email about this, but instead I did not know. Along with all of you, I got an email in my inbox to all of my colleagues that I had no idea about, hadn't been consulted on. We're actually instead a friend or some partner from PSU used ai to track the talking times instead, and then maybe moments after that, there's an article in the Oregonian magically referencing this data. And that sequence was really upsetting and surprising to me, because it's an issue that I do care about. And the way that move forward, that type of that manner. Of course, correcting is not it's not my style. There was not council wide conversation going immediately to the press. It felt horrible being caught flat footed, being left out of a process that our offices knew I'd been actively working on. And a few of the ideas that I had talked about with some of my colleagues is we're like, instead of a timer where we get like a gong and we have to stop talking like, what if we have call this in teaching a scaffold, we have some kind of a support where like we have a stopwatch that's going just so you can monitor your own time. So it's actually about like self-awareness. And some like giving supports. There was a I had also shared in one of our joint meetings with the county, we had at one point, like gone down the line and tried speaking in that way. Okay, those are just my ideas. I know that if we were to bring us all together, that we would have a more fruitful discussion and we'd have more ideas about different scaffolds, because that's what shared participation brings. And then just in general, as a third grade teacher, I, I deeply believe that in general, shame doesn't move people in a good direction. I can see that some things have improved with making a hard limit. You can only speak two times. I don't think necessarily that people have shortened their time. I think now they know they get two chances. So for me, being being led in being, being able to step up, being able to collaborate means being able to have those conversations first, naming the problem, collectively, sharing context, discussing a solution, and sometimes bringing that to the whole body rather than encountering decisions and narratives after they've already been made. So I believe those kind of small shifts. There's some examples for you, but I think they can make space for more. Inclusive dialog can help elevate different voices around the dais, honestly, ones that historically have maybe connected to identities that have been easily overlooked. And I truly do believe this, that my colleagues that you guys have ideas. And then when we can work together, we're going to make stuff stronger. I think collaborative processes can tend to produce more balanced and effective outcomes.
331 Thank you. Councilor councilor Avalos.
332 So I want to respond to what I heard earlier said about empowerment. I don't doubt that some councilors feel empowered. I believe that experience is real, but it has not been universal and it has not been my experience. And I honestly feel uncomfortable talking about this. I'm gonna be real with you. I don't want to talk about this, but you want examples. So I'll give you some examples. As the chair of one of the city's largest and most complex policy areas, I have often felt left in the dark rather than empowered. Access to information and agenda setting has felt uneven, conditional, rather than grounded in the responsibilities of the role. And I want to be clear about what I mean by that. This is not about disagreement. It's not about and it and it is completely appropriate for colleagues, including the council president, to disagree with me, to say no, to make decisions I don't support. That's not what I'm asking for. And when we talked earlier or we had an exchange earlier, you mentioned that, you know, you brought me in on things and you've we've you've come for me for advice. Of course, those things are real. Right. But what I'm asking for and what I expect and expected as committee chair is to be brought in early, brought in often on decisions that directly affect the work that I'm responsible for, and to be given a clear understanding of reasoning behind some of those decisions. One concrete example in may, my committee passed the unified housing strategy. It passed out of the committee with a clear timeline and a December 1st deadline for when that needed to get reported back to to us. Now, despite that, it was not scheduled for council consideration for several months. And again, we understand that there's lots of ways, you know, things that decide the timing and all of that. But I think what was particularly insightful about that scenario was that not only was it not scheduled for several months, but other items were coming directly out of committee and getting put right on the next agenda. And I remember being really frustrated about it because councilor Clerks swimmable cities bill passed in committee the week prior, and it was put on that next agenda while I was still waiting for answers of when I was going to get unified housing strategy on the agenda, we talked about this and I told you my frustration, and I've heard you say today, oh, well, there's decisions about, you know, well, what has what amount of time, how much time is it going to take. But that's not my point. I understand that those are decisions. My point is that I wasn't brought in on those. And so when I hear you talk about empowering the committee chairs, that hasn't been my experience. Because for me, empowering me would have been, hey, councilor, here's what the calendar looks like. I know that you have a resolution that is due on December 1st. Here's what I'm saying. You know, I'm going to decide to put this here for I didn't get that. So that's what I'm talking about, about not feeling empowered. And this is not about individual situations where I've been, you know, again brought in on things or brought given information. It's about a pattern. And when I raised these concerns about that discrepancy, the explanation that I received, again, was about, you know, we need to balance timing and all of that. I understand that, but it didn't help me understand why a time sensitive issue, housing policy was delayed, nor was I included in that decision. And so I think ultimately what I'm saying here is that empowerment in governance isn't about intention. It's about access, autonomy, trust. And I don't believe that those things have been distributed evenly on the council. I can sit here and and say absolutely proudly that there have been times that council president has has succeeded in those things. But what I'm telling you, and the reason why I'm choosing not to elect her a second time, is that more often than not, that success has not been shared and I have not felt it. And so I think the last thing I want to say, you know, I said at the beginning, the other thing that concerns me is that I want to name something that's kind of uncomfortable at this point, which is that the fact that I'm weighing my words right now and that I have been delaying talking about this, speaking honestly, is because I fear. I fear that it will result in more disempowerment. I fear that I'm going to be more shut out. And even if it's real or perceived, that should be a signal that something's not working, that there isn't trust. And I think that good leadership should not make people feel afraid to speak and to dissent and to say, I am uncomfortable by this or I don't agree with this decision. And so empowerment shouldn't depend on who you are. It should come with the role. And that distinction matters to me is institutionally. And that's what I'm talking about when I talk about leadership going forward. So I wanted to give some of those concrete examples to talk about patterns. And, you know, again, I asked earlier and it's like I've heard you say that there are all of these things that you want to change, but I guess I'm not feeling very confident in those changes coming, because I feel like we've asked for changes throughout the year, and I haven't seen signals that those things were coming. I haven't, and even if they couldn't come, I haven't heard good explanations for why. And that is what I believe is your responsibility as council president is to explain your decision making. And that is what has felt has left me in the dark often this year. I'll leave it at that.
333 Thank you. Councilor councilor Dunfee.
334 Thank you. You know, I want to talk a little bit more. I keep reiterating this that my vote is not personal, that it is institutional and philosophical about my belief of how this body should operate. Something I have said repeatedly is something I said last year was that I don't want a speaker of the house. I don't want a a president to be the equivalent of the county chair. We don't want an all powerful executive. Right. If this were an administrative role, if this were a as it currently is, if this were about keeping the parts of the machine moving and getting things on calendars, I'd consider running myself. It's a power position, though, that right now that is feeling like every step we've taken in this last year has increased the power of the presidency in some ways, because we have deferred some of that power. We had that conversation about committee chair, committee. Committee structure. And I lost seven amendments in a row about things that were prescriptive about what is whether we want to be overt about something in policy, or we want to defer and give power to the presidency. All of those seven amendments that I failed on, I would have preferred to have seen us be more intentional, more descriptive, more leave less discretion to the role of the presidency. That is my philosophical view of what I think we could this role should be. I worry about anything that is consolidating power or treating it more like more like a speaker of the house and less like like the the president of the us senate, who is usually the lowest ranking member, who has to go and sit there and gavel in. I would be happy to run the gavel if that were what it was. It's not what the role I think it should be. It's not the role I think it is. And to that end, I do still believe that the role, because we have not figured this out, because we are still figuring out the mechanisms and we haven't really gotten down to that question. I've heard my colleagues say we don't want a speaker of the house. I think that that comes with us sharing power. I think that comes with a change in leadership. I think we need to recognize that we are still 12 months into this job, and that is not enough time for even a single budget cycle at this point to have gone through. We are still figuring this out, and I am. With every vote I make, I think about not only what is happening today in east Portland, what is the right decision for my neighbors, but what is going to be there for my daughter when she's an adult, and what's going to be there for her kids someday? And I think that colleagues, I would just urge us to really avoid things that we know don't work well. And even if it is slightly more of an unknown, I think that we have the opportunity to to continue to build something that is defensible for the long term. So I will continue to my position that I think it is. Thank you again, councilor Pirtle-guiney, for your leadership. But I do think we still need a new president.
335 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo second time.
336 Thank you council president. Yeah, I agree with everything the councilor Dunphy just laid out. And I guess I will. I do want to point out a dynamic that I see happening up here, which is that the folks who are more moderate on council have all affirmatively stated that they feel empowered by the president, they feel like their agenda items are getting heard and quickly facilitated, and the more progressive folks on council are all mostly sharing a unique experience. That that is not the case for our policy and agenda setting. So we are having very different experiences with the council president, and that's something for us to take note of. I will also say, I think council Novick you are probably the most sincere person as far as strictly being like we are not having a caucus, whether it's formal or informal, right? I believe that you are sincere about that, but I will say that it as far as the progressive caucus and us working with people or not, some of the biggest policies that are more conservative leaning. And when I say conservative, I mean Portland conservative. Portland conservative leaning councilors have passed forward, were done with the help of us. Councilor Smith, your cip policy was created with a funding idea created by councilor Green, your socialist colleague.
337 No, ma'am. It wasn't.
338 I think you guys worked together very closely for that. Me and councilor Novick are working together on a very complicated privacy policy. I know that councilor Canal has worked on extensive policies with all members of council, which he listed earlier. But maybe we need to restate again, and I know that I have worked with councilor Zimmermann on numerous housing policies that I think a lot of developers would be surprised to hear that we ended up finding agreement on, and really cared about and worked on together. So I will also point out that the progressive caucus, any policy that you pass, you need at least seven votes. So somehow, magically, I am finding a way to get consensus from one of my colleagues to pass policy, and I'm doing that successfully. So the idea that the progressive caucus is so entrenched that we somehow can't work with other people is simply not true. And I would say that I tend to be pretty hard line on a lot of things. But councilor Kanal has demonstrated a willingness and ability to work with people across the aisle for countless things, and with people who I think would have, you know, great tensions with him because of his former police accountability work and other things. But he has shown that he is willing to speak with and work with those people. So we need to be real about the different experiences that people are sharing here. And I think the fact that we have to we feel the urge to bring quantifiable data about our which policies are being brought forward when they're being heard, how they're being passed through shows that that point of view is not being taken seriously. During the budget cycle, we frankly, had a very disastrous amendment process that was partially led by the council president and a president's package that did not include amendments from majority councilors of color and was negotiated with who majority councilors who are moderates. Okay. So that package ended up failing pretty disastrously and pretty publicly. But the idea that people are not negotiating within certain caucuses just because some people are more public about it versus others is just we're either talking about being more open about it or less open about it. But those are things that happen naturally when you're negotiating with people that you align with. I will say there are plenty of policies that I've brought forward where I actually haven't talked to my progressive councilors because I figured they might be okay on it. And I've actually picked the person who I thought would be most oppositional to brief or to inform on, because I realize maybe they're going to be my seventh vote, or I want to make sure that they just understand something more complex when it comes up. So I just want to outline those differences in experience that I think councilor Avalos laid out very well and say that I have seen councilor Kanal demonstrate time and time again that he's willing to work across the aisle and that it should not be an indictment on him permanently, that he has found people of shared values to work with. As a political leader, I think that he is perfectly capable of reaching across the aisle, and I've really appreciated his leadership this year.
339 Thank you, councilor, councilor Ryan.
340 Yes, thank you, council president. First, I want to say that there's been multiple examples where I was frustrated. That was part of my earlier remarks with about the council president and I having tension. One was with storefronts. I think I waited three more meetings than I wanted to wait. When we were talking about new committee structure, I kept bringing up priorities for the city, and that was fun. And that got swatted down by council president and said, let's separate that into a different topic. So I can't sit here and be quiet. When I heard that one side's treated one way and one side's treated another. In fact, one of the reasons I'm definitely supporting Elana pirtle-guiney is that council president for another term is because of that fairness that I've experienced. And so I just had to make sure that that didn't that was put out there, that there was equal treatment. I'm going to pivot to a question because I noticed people are asking questions. I think that's really good to hear how the two of you think. I also think our society is craving diplomatic critical thinking from leaders, not echo chamber rage. That is, rightly so, a turn off to many hard working people that want us to focus on priorities that improve our city's services in our national and state political system. It's when elected officials place their country or their state over the party. As such, I'd like to remind colleagues we are nonpartisan, elected public servants. For example, permits and potholes don't care about our ideology. So I'd like the two of you to give this some thought. Give an example where your decision or thinking evolved, and that put you in opposition with many who support you politically. That's my question.
341 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal, do you want to take this now, or take a little time and hear from other people to think about it?
342 I'll wait, to be honest with.
343 Councilor Novick.
344 I need to respond to councilor Morillo the accusation that councilor Pirtle-guiney conspired with her more moderate colleagues to come up with the president's package is absolutely false, at least from because I didn't know a darn thing about it. And as soon as I saw it, I thought it was insane. No, no disrespect intended to council president. What I did see come forward in the budget was what I affectionately referred to as the Green nihilism amendment. And I have to tell you, my impression at the time was five of the peacocks got together. One of them, councilor Koyama Lane, did not join and came up with a pork barrel thing with with various goodies, and then added stuff that they knew that councilor Smith and Zimmerman would like. And that's how it went through. And that was an exclusive pork barrel project process that did not include me. And the council president didn't do anything like that.
345 Didn't vote for it either.
346 Oh, sorry. Sorry, councilor Avalos. But that was that was my perception that it was a peacock subgroup that decided to throw something together and add stuff to buy off the votes of a couple other people.
347 Okay, so you're also throwing out accusations because I didn't say that. I said that in the priority package that she created, she ended up prioritizing the amendments of certain people. Right? So whether she was having conversations about it or not, there was certain voices and thoughts prioritized. That's what I said.
348 Who? The.
349 Okay. Councilors. Councilor Novick do you have anything further? Okay. Thank you. Councilor councilor Canal.
350 Thank you. There are a lot of questions, so I'll try to get through them. I'll just start by saying to councilor Novick first direct question. I would want to answer that. If not elected to council president, I would be very happy to continue my work as co-chair. Hopefully alongside you, I would prefer not to have a similar experience to vice president Koyama Lane, and I would prefer not to be president in 2027 under either circumstance. So, councilor Novick, you also made a couple comments that I want to respond to, which I think are a little unfair. You said that you wanted me to demonstrate that my interest in public safety goes far beyond occasionally being adversarial to the police. That's a quote I want to note that I was a lead sponsor of the Portland street response resolution. I led the psr committee appointment process with a lot of support from the council president. I should note, I worked with my two colleagues to fight for our community centers because community centers are a part of public safety. I fought to make chat a part of our ongoing budget. I've advocated for expanding our industrial firefighting capacity near the cei hub, expanding our fire station count, restoring our training center in district one, advocated for more funding for boec. And perhaps you may have forgotten I haven't. You and I worked together to get three new positions at pbem. I absolutely care about more issues within public safety than policing. That's why I'm very happy that that was a position I was able to do this past year. And as for being adversarial, I voted for chief days appointment. I sponsored the amendment to increase police health care, which passed 12 zero. I engaged with respect to the brass when I talked to them, which is often and with the rank and file, like when I went on a ride along recently with the a few months back. Actually, now with the focused intervention team, I remember that their non-sworn staff at PPB two, like the record staff, have some of the hardest jobs in the city and I fight to make those jobs a little easier. At the same time, I don't apologize for having opinions about policing and about trying to make policing in Portland better. I don't think that you can exist in this body and brown man in America and not have opinions about policing, and my opinions are not adversarial, even when they're not in 100% agreement with leadership. Mine are nuanced. Mine are informed by the real experiences of both police officers and the communities they interact with. And mine are always evolving as I learn more information. And secondly, you said that we shouldn't elect someone who's part of a club that values the relationship with the rest of the club more than relationships with other people. I agree with your value there, but it's inaccurate to apply that to me. I've invested the most time on my relationships with you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor Ryan, particularly in the district two context, and I value my relationship with each and every one of you. Even I sometimes meet one on one with some people and in groups with others. I think that's irrelevant to the level of of respect and priority that I give. To answer councilor Murillo's question, I worked with councilor Avalos on social housing sanctuary city codification in the weekly council meeting ordinance with councilor Dunphy on the weekly council meeting ordinance as well, I worked with councilor Smith on the sanctuary city codification, the disparity study, and we've taken a tour together and are going to be talking more about wage theft. I've worked with councilor Ryan on the strategic planning resolution, on the rules ordinance back at the beginning, and on the amendment to fund the broken windows fund. I worked with councilor Pirtle-guiney, as I mentioned earlier on the appointment process for the cba and the psr committee, I worked with councilor Koyama Lane on the social housing resolution and vision zero. I worked with both councilors Novick and Morillo on sanctuary, city codification councilor Clark on vision zero, councilor Green on social housing, councilor Zimmerman on the original rules ordinance on the urban forestry amendment, and on the assistant city administrator budget amendment. I am very proud to have worked with everybody on here. When I started thinking about it, I thought, there's probably nine people I've worked with, and as I went through it, I realized, no, it's 11 in preparation for this conversation. And so I think that's really important. And I'll give a couple examples in response to the last question, which is councilor Ryan's question. And these are going to be in two different directions. And one, I voted no on the prosper amendment that was discussed earlier that councilor Dunphy and councilor Green brought up in the budget. I also voted no on councilor Avalos amendment to move 15 or 20 million. I can't remember dollars out from the police budget to a policy set aside. You leaned over to me at that time and said that you were surprised by that vote, if I recall correctly. And so I'm very comfortable taking a stand that's different from my colleagues. I will continue to vote my values regardless of what order I vote in, if I'm last or if I'm, you know, in whatever order. But I will never try to utilize this position in favor of a position, because I am very comfortable going against anybody up here and going with anybody up here on a given issue. And I'll also say this isn't about a vote, but this is about a particular conversation that did shape my understanding. And it was the conversation the three of us had with business owners on mississippi a couple of months back. And I know that that mattered to to all of us. It was really helpful to hear that. That's not a crowd that I don't. I think I think that people might expect that that's not my crowd, but they were, because they're my district constituents. I learned from them, I listened to them. And so I'm very happy that you asked that question to give me the chance to answer it. And I appreciate the questions as well. From councilor Morillo Novick.
351 Thank you. Councilor councilor Clark.
352 Thank you. Council president. I'd like to just go back to the issue that someone brought up about patterns, patterns, patterns of behavior. First, I just want to say councilor Kanal. That's an impressive list. I, I think if we all had done that, we'd see that we've all collaborated quite a bit. We have a lot of really good things that we've done. So this review of our grievances to me is, is is getting a little tiresome. Maybe it's a function of age, but I, I let go of a lot of things, I let go, I don't stick with the grievance. I want to move ahead. And I'm always looking for the silver lining on things. And I was not included in that council president's package, as I recall. I don't maybe my memory doesn't serve me well, but the pattern I wanted to ask about, let me just say that people can grow and they can change. And I think we've all grown. We've all changed. There's been a lot of really great ideas thrown out here today that I think I'm all about stealing good ideas, whether it's from you or from another city or whatever, to make things better, make things happen. So a lot of good stuff has been said here that whoever ends up as council president and hopefully it's Elana pirtle-guiney will incorporate some of those changes in the coming year. So I believe that people can grow and change. But and I appreciate the conversations that I have had with Sameer canal. In fact, really early on I went to him with some suggestions on comportment at the dais, and he took that to heart and was very open and to my suggestions. But I've also noticed that there's a pattern here of complaining about not having enough time on our agendas, or not having enough time in our meetings, and I'm concerned that councilor Kanal you have a habit of taking up a lot of that time, of pulling things off the consent agenda, of offering lots and lots of amendments on almost, I'm going to say, every issue, but most of the issues that come up before us and it's gotten a little tedious, and I realize that you have a big brain and you and you apply it, and I appreciate that, and I've told you that, but I'm concerned about that pattern and how that will evidence itself in the future wherever you end up. So I just wanted to throw that out there, that there are other patterns that we haven't discussed here that will impact the future as well. Thank you.
353 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith.
354 Thank you. Council president. I just want to go back and and for the record on who started cip, me and Eric Zimmerman started cip, the sidewalk improvement and paving project. Councilor Mitch Green asked could he be a part of it and be a co-sponsor? And I willingly said, yes, and I welcome that partnership. So let's be clear on who started what and when. This is a nonpartisan body. Yet half of this council has chosen to band together and form what they called the peacock caucus. I say we should call the other folks the penguins or something like that, because we all dress really well. But excuse me today, excuse me. We are choosing between two candidates for council president, and one of those candidates is a member of that caucus. And I've heard several members of the peacock caucus speak today about their concerns with the current president's leadership, saying that they don't feel empowered, that their voices are not heard and that they experience unequal treatment. Well, let me be clear. I do not agree with every decision the council president has made during her tenure, but she's not giving me everything either. I feel confident in her leadership, and I feel confident that my colleagues, who are not a part of the peacock caucus, will say the same thing. They've experienced the same thing. So, council president, for me, I'm not here to be negative with folks or go negative on folks. I am voting for something. I'm not voting against something. Council president has consistently demonstrated integrity, decisiveness and a clear sense of direction in her leadership, and I'm going to continue to support her. There's nothing that you all can say that will change my mind, so don't try. So we just need to keep voting and voting. I'll be here until this time next year. Voting for council president. Thank you.
355 Thank you councilor Colleagues, I'm next in the queue, and I'd like to speak to the direct question from councilor Ryan. Councilor Ryan, I want to share two examples and maybe a little bit of color commentary about them. The conversation we're having today is just starting to scratch the surface of the type of frank conversation that unearths the divides between the people around this dais, and I think we've spent all year with a little bit of tension about whether we want to unearth those divides publicly, or whether we want to run to do the work that portlanders elected us to do without getting caught in those conversations about what divides us and whether we can run to do that work that portlanders elected us to do without airing those differences. And one of the places I'm going to name two one where I changed my mind, is on strategic planning, because early in the year, a number of our colleagues said to me, that type of process isn't going to get us anywhere. We're going to name similar priorities, but mean different things by them. We're not going to move forward. We're just going to air extremes, and we need to be doing the work. And I said to you, as you noted, we need to divide these things. I don't think the votes are there to do these two things together. And you divided it and brought part forward separately. And you and I talked a lot. And I talked to a few of our other colleagues. And I think very truly that that resolution you brought forward will set us up to have a far better year this year than we had last year. And I think it's incredibly important. And there are colleagues who I had been strongly aligned with on that issue previously, and I changed my mind. But I want to bring up a different example as well, because another topic that has come up today a few times is oversight. And we talk a lot about what sound like partizan divides. We're nonpartisan, so I prefer to call them ideological divides. And the conversation about the ideological divides is always a little funny to me, because I remember a meeting before we were all sworn in, after we were elected, when quorum requirements didn't matter where. I was sitting in a room with my peacock colleagues because I share many endorsements, I shared many endorsements, and I share many values. And you'll see on the voting record that I voted on many of the big policy priorities that my colleagues have brought forward. But I think that more important on some things than any ideological divide for this council is the style divide, the divide in how we approach our work, the divide in how we relate to institutions. And I have believed very firmly that one of the benefits of this form of government was the oversight and accountability we could provide. I think that accountability saying we said something needed to happen, is it happening? But more importantly, we are all hearing a concern from our constituents, and the bureaus don't seem to be paying attention. Why not? Let's bring them in and have a conversation is one of the most important things we can do in our committees, and I really strongly believe that that work should start in the committees. And I have been, frankly, frustrated that we haven't done enough of that this year. And councilor Green, you and I have had a lot of disagreements about how oversight should be done. And when you first brought forward a resolution going straight to not big oversight, as we've called it, but a more formal type of oversight than that committee work. I said, why this? Right? Why not that other process? And we talked. And at the end of the day, when you tried to bring that resolution forward as a 9/12 resolution, knowing that I would very much upset many of the members of this body who supported me for council president last year and who have been supporting me today. I signed that 9/12. And when you didn't get the nine signatures to put it on the agenda and you said, I want to bring it straight to council, I said, why not committee? You gave me your answer. I said, let me think about it. And I referred that straight to council, and that will put me at odds with many people who not only share a sense of the approach and how we work with the administration. Many people who supported me for council president last year, many people who are supporting me today, the administration itself, that said to me, why are you as council president, allowing this to come forward? This is scary, but I think you are right. And my thinking did evolve from the conversations that we had, and I am taking a stand that I know is at odds with many people here today. And I plan, if I am council president again, to bring that forward. And if I am not council president again, whoever walks into this seat will see it penciled in for later this month on the the penciled in agendas that they will get to decide whether they continue to move forward or completely switch up. I think those are both important examples. Councilor Ryan, because I think they both get to the heart of some of our. Some of our meaty disagreements that are beyond ideology here. And I think that it's really important for us to continue to have those conversations. And I'll note that I haven't done a great job making space for those this year. I felt like we were playing catch up at the beginning of the year. There are a number of things that waited longer than I think anybody wanted them to. At the beginning of the year, as we played catch up from things that hadn't happened at the end of last year, as the previous council. Waited for us to make some decisions. That didn't happen as we got our feet under us for the first month. That didn't happen as we took on a very contentious budget process that led to a lot of things being delayed. And in the last few months, we have had requests for a lot of work sessions. But one of the things that I am committed to doing, and this gets to some of what councilor Novick has asked as well, is making sure if I'm council president, that I leave space for us to have more of these conversations. And if I'm not that I ask others to, because we have to be able to air these things in order to do the work that the city needs us to do quickly and efficiently. Councilor Novick I believe this is your second time in the queue this round. Go right ahead.
356 First of all, councilor Kanal, I know that you care about public safety other than going after the police, and I know all the examples that you listed. What I meant to say rather inelegantly is, you know, I think that if you became council president, a lot of people in law enforcement would say, oh my god, the world has ended. And I think that you and I are going to do some work over this next year, assuming that we have the opportunity to continue cochairing public safety together, where we can work on substantive public safety stuff, that will make it abundantly clear to everybody that you care about keeping the city safe, that you care about crime, that you care about solving crimes, etc. And we will work with the police on that. So that's all. I mean, I did not mean to say that you have limited concerns. I just think that over the next year, there'll be an opportunity to highlight your broader concerns. The other thing is, I know that you and councilor Morillo councilor Koyama Lane value your relationships with the rest of us. And we've had good conversations together. But it's it's a big thing to ask people to overlook that you're part of this group that has these group chats, that has special, you know, special retreats together. And it's asking a lot to tell us to think that when the chips are down, if there's a choice, you won't often make the choice to be with the people you hang with. And I think that I think actually councilor Kanal that in a way, by saying that if you were president, you need to step back from peacock. You're kind of acknowledging that. And I'm just saying that. I'm just saying that I'd want to have some distance and also to be kind of personal. I realize that you can't have seven people meeting, but I have to say, I think I have pretty good progressive credentials. I mean, I cast one of the three votes to establish the small donor program that we all ran under. If I had voted differently, that would not exist. That was amanda fritz, charlie hales and me. Nick fish and Dan saltzman were against it. I was the sponsor of the ceo pay ratio tax, which I like to think is one of the most progressive tax proposals ever passed anywhere. So it does actually kind of hurt me that there's a progressive caucus that doesn't include me.
357 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal is this a direct response? Yeah, go right ahead.
358 Well, I'll leave it up to you and the other five if you can have my my spot. But that's but I recognize that there's an underlying issue here, which is that. Yeah, there's, there's some clearly there's been some, some hurt caused. And that was not the intention at all. I don't question anyone's progressive bona fides who claim them because you can see what people do, right? We can see how people act, how they behave, what they vote on. And I think that's a you know, in your particular case, it's pretty clear. And I think to the the other piece of it, you know, I asked you in advance and I'll just I'll just say here what I asked, which is what is it that would put your mind at ease about that, that besides time travel, because I obviously can't distance myself from it retroactively today, but it's not an acknowledgment that there is a, a, a problem here. It's acknowledgment that there is a perception and that it satisfies people's goals. I'm going to vote the same way that any council president would. We're going to vote our conscience when it comes down to the last vote. And, you know, one of the reasons that the council president votes last is so that they're not shaping the conversation through their vote. Right? So I have no concern that that would affect me in any way, in any direction, being in it or not. I think the other piece of it is that we have different styles. That's a very, very important thing. There's there's types of leadership and different people have different ones. I think asking for the ideas we're bringing forward to be implemented by someone who doesn't believe in them is not fair to anybody. I don't want to be unfair to this body. I don't want to be unfair to whoever the eventual president is. But there are people who have been advocating for these ideas for almost the entire year of 2025. The time certain agenda is not new. I've been bringing that up for months, having the ability to utilize. In fact, we budgeted we budgeted for a second evening meeting in July. That was in the original proposal. It was amended out to have it be a full council meeting. It's still budgeted and not being used for committees right now. There's a lot of things that we've had conversations and I mentioned that not to to say we have done something wrong or anything, but the fact is we've been discussing it since may to of how to utilize the options. We have to create committees where the public can come in every now and then after normal work hours. All these ideas have been brought up for months. And so I think it's fair to I would never ask the council president to lead in a way that is not her style. Because you're right, there is a difference in style. And I think that's what this is partially about.
359 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Clark, I believe this is your second time this round. Right ahead. Okay.
360 Got me. Thank you. I want to follow up a little bit on councilor Novick comments. I don't need to list my progressive credentials. I certainly have them, as do others who are not in the peacocks. In fact, you know, the peacock group probably practices ageism because I think everybody in peacock is under 40 or under, and the rest of us are probably 40 and over. But anyway, be be that as it may be, that as it may, that's, that could be an issue. But what I wanted to just bring up is that, you know, the public's been watching us for the last four hours, at least four hours, I think. I wonder what they're thinking as we air all of our our strengths, our weaknesses, our grievances, our concerns, our differences. But I also wonder what the public would think about electing a councilor as president who's under investigation by the Oregon government ethics commission for a violation or violations of our charter or state law, or just the very least, an ethics issue? I just want to throw that out there. I think the public would have a concern about that.
361 Thank you. Councilor councilor Green.
362 Okay, actually, I just did a what's your real biological ace test age test. And it said that I'm 51. Unfortunately I'm 44. So I don't know I don't know how to feel about that. But I don't know that we've got ageism in peacock. But but no, I actually had a question for councilor Kanal because you're you're sort of the challenger here captured the incumbent. And it's in the context of, of trying to convince you to support a thing that I'm working on, just on the merits. And cyp comes to mind. Before we get into that, I just want to recognize councilor Smith did lead the charge for siff cyp. I know, I know, I just want to make it crystal clear. I was proud to join you on that. I'm still working on trying to find the money, but I don't want to. I don't want to take.
363 You're working. We are working.
364 We're working on it. I don't want to take your shine off. Yeah, I'm glad to be part of that effort.
365 Ever take my shine.
366 Oh, I know that, I know that I think I think this whole city knows that. But my question to you, councilor, is you. You did not support cyp, and you eventually did support snp. But but it took a lot of it took a lot of lobbying for me. I had to make my case. It wasn't just because I'm your friend. It wasn't just because I'm you're in your caucus, but I really had to make the case to you. On why you thought it was good for the city. So I'm curious if you could give us a little bit of a recount of some of those exchanges that we had.
367 There's.
368 Go ahead, councilor.
369 Thank you. Yeah. I there's so many questions coming I love it. This is. I'll go in order. So I forgot to answer one thing for councilor Novick earlier, which is that you said that if I was elected president, a lot of people in law enforcement would be losing their minds. I think law enforcement on the whole is pretty, pretty even keeled bunch in my experience. So I'm not particularly worried about that. And even if there were a few, I think there's no better way to prove them wrong than to show that, you know, no one's hair needs to be on fire. I've been very happy to work with folks there on the conversation around the ethics investigation conversation. Yeah, we've had a couple of complaints filed. I think it's appropriate to to ask that question, and I'm grateful for the chance to respond to it directly. This is a country that believes in due process, or at least it's a city that does. And while that's the while that's in place until we completely lose to the trump administration, this is sarcasm for the transcript later, it's important to remember accusation doesn't mean guilt. The ogiek already, you know, reviewed that we did not actually break rules. They're currently investigating whether we intended to. And so obviously any council president, I think all 12 of us commit to high ethical standards in office. But that's a worthwhile question to ask. And I'm glad you did to the comment about taking up a lot of time. I think this is really a valuable one. That's what we talked about. And I'm trying to to answer your question, without taking up too much time in the answer, but it's really important to remember that people who are comfortable with a decision rarely object to the process. And so as a result of that, you often see that people who maybe disagree with something will take up time and and try to argue against it. That's that's common. I do so generally in one of two ways, even if I'm uncomfortable with the conversation. This is teeing up my response to councilor Green later. Or if there's an amendment to author that can help get everybody's needs met. I don't stop when I get seven votes either on my proposals. And so I, I think that there's a lot of conversation here about procedure and why we keep talking about rules and things like that. And I think that relates to the question about conversation procedures, how the public gets protected when power wants to move fast. And that's why we need to have it. That's why we need to ensure that there are conversations that happen about things like appointments to really important bodies. And finally, to the question about cip, what ultimately changed my mind on cip was hearing from the administration about the fact that it would not preclude some of that additional money from being spent in d2. I, I think we all had conversations by district. I recognize the need to focus on district one, and I agree with that. I was uncomfortable with the idea of creating a new pot of money that wouldn't benefit the district that at the time had the second highest traffic death count and which, by the way, is now the highest. The rest of the city had a 37%, sorry. The city had a 37% reduction in traffic deaths year over year. It's about 55% in the other three districts besides district two and district two. Our preliminary count is that it went from 19 to 18, and we don't have the final stats yet, so it could go up if we had the same decline in traffic deaths, that the rest of the city had. Ten more of my constituents would be alive today than they are. And so I don't apologize for advocating for district two folks. But what I learned through that conversation, and we did have many, is that there the way in which PBOT interprets that would be different than I feared. And because I have the unique experience of working on the administrative side of the city and talking to those folks and being one of them, and having experiences that maybe nobody else here has of finding out in February that you might get laid off in June twice before and not knowing for four months if you have a job. I take a lot of advice from the administrative side. That doesn't mean I'm always just going to rubber stamp them, but it means that I listen to what they say. And so between that and hearing your intent and councilor Smith's intent, that's what ultimately moved me. Thanks.
370 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Dunphy, thank you for your patience.
371 Thank you. Yeah. You know, I meant to cue up a question at my last talking points, and I guess I wanted to ask both of you specifically about the your, your, your guiding philosophical vision for the role of president. I said, you know, in my opinion, I don't want a speaker of the house. I don't want a county chair. I don't want a parent. I don't want to have to defer on certain things. But I understand how the body works. I'd like to know both of you, I guess. How are your thoughts about what? The ideal council. I mean, I don't think anyone thinks that this year was the ideal by any stretch, but what would the ideal council president's role be, and how would you go about carrying yourselves to make that reality?
372 Councilor do you want a minute? Do you want me to go first, or should we let councilor Morillo speak first?
373 You know what you are.
374 Councilor Morillo are you going to have a question that we should hear before we do this? No. Okay.
375 I can buy you time.
376 Okay. Go ahead. Want me to buy you time? Okay. Great question, councilor Dunphy. So I look forward to their essay writing over here. I think, to address some things that have been said. I think the the key thing that I keep hearing is a hesitation to vote for Sameer not because of his credentials or ability to lead a meeting or anything like that, but because he's part of the progressive caucus. And folks here are saying they have progressive bonafides, and I agree, I think that being progressive, though, is kind of a useless label, like being a leftist or whatever. It being a progressive is an action that you take. And I think we can see people's records based on the votes that they've taken, who has endorsed and supported their policies. And I think, again, I want to emphasize that there are plenty of points where people in the progressive caucus have disagreed pretty firmly on pretty big issues like prosper Portland. That was a big vote that was very public and very intense, and we had tough disagreements, and we cared about our relationships enough to maintain them. That's just one example of many where people have worked across the aisle to get votes for progressive policies, and have also disagreed on some things, because while we may have the same goals to serve portlanders, we have different ideas about how to get there. So progressive is a useless label unless we're actually looking at what people have stood up and are fighting for. But again, when it comes to people being willing to work across the aisle, that's what I have seen. And councilor Smith, I want to give you your flowers and make sure that there is no misunderstanding, that I know that you were the brain origin for cip. I was saying that I thought that that was a really great moment when you and councilor Green worked together to figure out the financing for it, because we have no money for roads and infrastructure right now, and it's a really difficult time. And I thought it was really cool that people were able to work together across the aisle. But I think theoretically, if we were going to look at who our progressive seventh would be, it might be councilor Smith. Honestly, someone should tally the votes. She might be our secret peacock. So, you know, I guess I'm just saying that we have all demonstrated an ability to work across the aisle, whatever that aisle may be, on different issues. When that nuance comes up and I have full confidence that councilor Canal can do that. So I just don't want this to be a perpetual disqualifier for someone who is really wonderful and qualified. Thanks.
377 Thank you. Councilor councilor Kanal, would you like me to take this one first or would you like to?
378 I took the last.
379 One first. Okay. Councilor Dunphy, I appreciate the question. And I think that with more time, I could probably have a very eloquent answer. But I've got a bit of a bullet point answer for you today, and I hope that's all right. I think it is part of the role of the president to try to have the pulse on where our colleagues are, to have a sense of where councilors are for a few reasons. One, so that as issues come up, we can help identify who on council needs to be brought in. There have been a number of times this year I'll use work in Salem as an example. Our government affairs team came to me and said, who do we need to bring in on this? And my first answer, of course, is the committee chairs. But when when I have known that it was an issue councilors were passionate about, I was able to say, you also need to talk to these councilors. This is important to them. And I think putting in the time to try to have as much of a pulse as you can is an important piece. I think that's also important because it allows the opportunity to try to find the path to a broader majority. You know, one of the things that's been interesting today is I hear our colleagues use many of the same words to describe councilor Kanal and myself, and I think councilor Canal, and I see some similar strengths in ourselves. And one of those is the ability to hear the debate around us and find a place where we might be able to bring people together. And I think we've been able to do that in different ways from our different positions this year. Knowing where your colleagues are is an important piece of that to being able to read the writing on the wall and see what might be coming, and then speaking for the city when the mayor can't. And I asterisk that because one of the conversations that we had last year was whether the council president should be a spokesperson for council, and I think in many cases, as it is issue related, the council president shouldn't always be. It should be other councilors who are working on those issues. And I do think that there are some cases where something is more of a citywide issue, where that is a role that person can play when the mayor can't. But there's a big asterisk there, and I wanted to name it, not because I think it's an important piece, but because I think we misnamed it a year ago. I think the second bullet is to advocate for council involvement, and that is that work of saying council needs to know, council needs to be involved, you need councilors on that hiring panel. You need councilors to be involved earlier in the process of something, or else you're not going to have our buy in. And that's a conversation that I've had repeatedly with both the administration and the executive over the last year. The vice president and I have tag teamed that many times. And it's a place that has been interesting as council president, because it's hard to separate that sometimes from other work that I'm doing. So, for example, yesterday my district two colleagues and I had a check in with the mayor, the regular check ins that each of our districts have. And an issue came up that the mayor's interested in working on, and I couldn't take off my council president hat in that room to just say, I want to know more. Right. And and all of us said we all need to be brought in. But I was pretty adamant with the mayor in a way that I have been in rooms that I'm in as council president. In that case, I was just there as a councilor That we all needed to hear from him. And I think I don't want to preempt work that he'll be doing, but I think we'll be having conversations with him, being able to do that in any room, I think is really important, and that's something that all of us, I think at times do. But that as council president, I sometimes do ahead of my own work. I think our city administrator has been very patient with us today. One of the first conversations you and I had was about the role between the administration and council, and the need to make sure that council has direct information from the administration that doesn't always flow through the executive branch. In fact, ideally, that doesn't ever flow through the executive branch, and that our relationship with the executive should be different than our relationship with the administrative. We are three different branches. So I think that's the second piece of the role that is really important. And the third piece of the role is that more ministerial piece that we've talked about, the keeping the trains running, the making sure that. That that the work we are doing is moving forward. The countless decisions every day of what is the precedent on this or this has been the precedent. Do we want to keep doing that, or how do we want to handle this thing? And that involves very close work with the clerk's office and council operations. Obviously, each of our committee chairs works very closely with council operations as well. But I think that there is a necessity of being able to have a strong relationship and a healthy working relationship with those two offices and with the the administration as well, in a different way. But with those two offices and with all of the groups that support our work as council, that is different than what the job of a councilor is day to day. And I'd be happy to speak more to what that looks like and what my weekly work is. If that's helpful, though, I don't want to take up the time if we don't need to, but I would say those three categories are really important pieces to the role of the council president.
380 Councilor Kanal thank you. Thanks for the question. Yeah, I'll try not to repeat myself from before too much, but I would also break it into three parts. I think there's the part that's internal to the council as an institution. There's a part that's external with the rest of the the city government, and there's the part that's public. The internal part is about conducting, not controlling. It's about making sure that questions get asked that need to be asked by by folks, and that there is time to answer those, that there is an opportunity for people to weigh in, that extremes on a position are aired rather than silenced, and then worked through that. There's delegating happening. It's important that things get done, not that the council president do them them directly and themselves. I think it's very helpful to delegate. And that's a really important piece of of the proposal I'm making here today. It's about ensuring that if there are process impediments like the committee structure, I keep bringing up this downtown work session that you find ways to carve through those and are explaining it well. I would love to see this is not an idea I brought up before, but I would love to see something like walking through the agenda as it's posted each week for the public, as well as councilors to the external side. And this might answer another answer to something that councilor Ryan asked earlier. There was a meeting yesterday where we're we heard about the 9.5%, and this is a budget proposal to reduce some of our. Our technology services, human resources in the bureaus over the course of the year. I oppose that in the budget, but it passed, right. And I am not inclined to say it's okay if that doesn't get met, because it's important externally, but within the government for the council president to advocate for what council approved, even if I didn't vote for it. It's important that you are an advocate for the role of council, as expressed by the voters when they approve the new charter. As a candidate for council, I talked a lot. I brought it up many times here. I don't think the message we should be sending to voters is, I know better than you about what you voted for, and I'm not accusing anybody up here of that. But I am saying that when we don't fulfill the charter which has council at the center of decision making, that's the message that gets sent institutionally. And so that's that's the difference. It's advocating for the council very firmly, but internally, just making sure that the questions get asked and that there's space to answer them, the public part of it. I agree with the tension that that councilor Pirtle-guiney brought up about. To what degree do we need to speak on behalf of the city when the mayor's not available? And I think that's really a valuable conversation to have. I don't think there's a clear answer on it, and I recognize the complication there. I do know that some of the actions that the city needs to speak in defense of, or to advocate for are council decisions, specifically our sanctuary policy are the protect Portland initiative, those sorts of things, which is maybe different from the policy that came from the mayoral side on federal grants. And so in particular, when those are council conversations that are being put into the public space, that's a particular place where the council president can advocate for it. But ultimately it boils down to, are we enhancing and empowering the council as an institution, which means all 12 councilors? Are we making sure that everybody gets to be heard? And the public piece of it goes one step further, which is we need to be making sure that the public is able to weigh in here. Last year, there was a a process underway. I think councilor Zimmerman was leading on it originally to create the budget town halls. And I think that's a really valuable thing. These places where we get out into the community, the places where folks come here, I would love to see us have a meeting outside of city hall once during the year. And and I've, as I've said up here before, that's d1 is first on that list and making sure that we're coming out and being where the people can go. And the last part of that is also integrating with the culture. This is not my idea. This is your idea, councilor Dunphy. But when we have evening meetings, a little pre gavel of a musical performance from a local artist, those are the sorts of things that integrate council into the life of the city. We start at six, 545. We've got a performance going. I think that's a really nice way of, of highlighting the great people that make up our culture here. Thanks.
381 Thank you. Councilor, counselor Smith.
382 Thank you, madam president. I appreciate all the the comments that we've had. And I'm just doing another time check. And I think we have talked about the pros and the cons of these two candidates. And I think people have enough information to make another informed vote. But I want to go back to something that you said councilor Kanal kind of misled us a little bit. You talked about the ethics investigation, but there were two ethics investigations, and you put them all together like they were one. The first one was for the chat that you had during the budget. The second one was for having a retreat in August with the peacocks. So there were two. There were not just one. So I want you because you ran them all in together like they were one, and they're just going back and reviewing it so that that wasn't the case. I think whether you have a ethics investigation in process or not, even if you take that away or you take it into consideration, we have enough information. We need to take a vote on this. Thank you, madam president.
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383 Thank you, counselor councilor Koyama Lane.
384 Thank you.
385 So I want to talk about the time we're in as a country where I believe federal overreach raises the bar for the leadership. That is really important at a local level. Responding effectively requires council leadership that is going to really work to unify the 12 of us as much as possible around shared values and the actions we take, and can also credibly partner with and support our mayor in this area, offering guidance, collaboration and openness to shared leadership on this topic. And it. I was a little interested to hear some of council president's thoughts about who gets to speak for council. How, when and why. Because it does make me think of those very first press conferences. You know, right when president trump was beginning to really focus on Portland, and that was clear, and it was in a very threatening, scary way. And there was clarity that I heard from council president that certain councilors should be the ones speaking out. It should be out in the front about what's happening in Portland, that a narrow set of voices would be more effective or safer in the the difficult moment. And I think as we also have the frog still here, any of them, we had the frogs here. I think what we learned from that time is was the opposite, that when different colleagues spoke in their own voice about their values to their constituents, constituents about their lived experience went on different news stations, had different conversations that actually strengthened our response here in Portland and helped our city stay steady, resilient, and successful through uncertain times that are not over. And that collective expression didn't dilute our message. It really reinforced it, I believe, and it reminded me. It reminded us that our greatest strength really comes from working together, sharing the microphone rather than gatekeeping. Who gets to speak. And this is a moment that calls for strong leadership, I believe. I'd love to see a strong person of color, a son of immigrants, at the front of some of this work. And councilor Kanal is someone I believe I know deeply understands what's at stake for our communities of color, for immigrant communities. And I believe that he can lead in this area and can really complement and work well with mayor wilson on this. And I think our resilience as an institution depends on us ensuring that our leadership reflects both the moment we are in and the people that we serve. Thank you.
386 Thank you, councilor. Colleagues.
387 President, point of order. We've come up past the 3:00 hour. I think we are due for a break.
388 I agree.
389 I agree, and I just put myself in the queue to make one statement. I'm sorry. And then I think we will take a brief recess. Colleagues, councilor Ryan asked previously about times when we've changed our minds, and I believe strongly in listening to experts and listening to those most affected by by an action. And throughout the federal crisis, I have worked hard to do both. And in those first days of the federal crisis, what we were hearing from the nonprofit organizations who I was taking advice from, from the groups who were working with, directed directly affected communities, who I know many of us were listening to from experts like the aclu, was that there were certain spokespeople who they were suggesting we put forward. And as their advice changed, so did the work that I tried to do. I think that is an important fact. Thank you. Colleagues, I've heard a few calls for recess. It is 3:00. We are going to recess for 15 minutes. We will be back here at 317. Colleagues, I am calling us back into order for today's council meeting and noting that I've never seen us all arrive. So on time after a recess as today. This is amazing. I. Believe that we did not take a vote before we left and there is no one in the queue, so unless anybody immediately enters the queue, I will ask keelan to call the roll.
390 Avalos. Canal Dunphy. Canal Smith.
391 President pirtle-guiney.
392 Canal canal.
393 Ryan pirtle-guiney Koyama Lane.
394 No Morillo.
395 President elect Sameer canal.
396 Novick actual president. Elana. Pirtle-guiney.
397 Pirtle-guiney.
398 Green canal Zimmerman.
399 Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney. Councilor pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor Kanal received six votes.
400 So much unpredictability. Today, colleagues, we are in round six of discussion. Councilor Dunphy.
401 Thank you. Colleagues, I just want to call back to our swearing in ceremony a year ago in which judge ortega said, quote, a truly diverse leadership space complicates governing. And that's a good thing, because if we are truly making space for a variety of perspectives, it is more likely that our decisions will take into account more of what is actually true, rather than satisfy the few with the most power and influence. I. I really can feel the tension in this building, in this room right now. I know we're all tired. I know we're all really deadlocked. I know we also, at our core, respect each other, and I don't want to see the next round of conversation devolve into finger pointing and tit for tat. I don't want to impugn any of my colleagues motivations or actions. I, I, I restate my my my plea to this body that I think that there has got to be a creative solution here. But I think that for the good of this body, we should genuinely consider new leadership. And I think that it has become clear at this point that the third candidate isn't going to emerge from our body. And I would just again urge everybody to really consider voting for Sameer. Thank you.
402 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
403 Thank you, council president. Yeah, I completely agree with councilor Dunphy. I think we have made very we've had a really positive discussion today, affirmative discussions about the candidates that we care about. And I think the critiques about governance as far as making sure that we have new leadership and that this is a thing that cycles through and that we are building institutions rather than upholding individuals is really critical. So I and I think we are you know, I heard other folks say, well, why don't you guys move? Because we're pretty deadlocked and we're going to stay that way. I think we are pretty committed to making sure that councilor Kanal becomes president as well. So I would hope that since during the last election, our colleague, councilor Green actually took a big took some swings from community members that supported him in order to be the person who compromised that our our colleagues would also be willing to be good partners and do that as well this time around. Thank you.
404 Thank you, councilor Councilor Novick.
405 This is completely out of place, but I just have to say something. We have not celebrated our victory in the supreme court. That means the national guard will not be coming here. And that's pretty awesome and kind of amazing. This supreme court came out that way. So I wanted particularly to call out the city attorney for their work on this. And the Portland police, who I think through their behavior and their testimony in court, played a critical role. So thanks. Thanks to both. I also wanted to say in my tradition of saying things that are half, half kidding, half serious, the first decision the city made was what to call itself. That decision was made by the flip of a coin between francis pettygrove of Portland and asa lovejoy of boston. I have kerry tymchuk, the current keeper of the penny, standing by, and he is prepared to use it if necessary.
406 For.
407 Thank you, councilor.
408 To decide the issue before us today.
409 Councilor Koyama Lane.
410 I'm just going to quickly quote.
411 My mother in law, wendy, who said, you know, you guys need to give the gavel to that Sameer guy. He's the most hard working guy, I think, on that dais. He reads so much and researches everything. Give him a shot. That's from wendy. District three.
412 Thank you. Councilor. Colleagues. Councilor Kanal.
413 Thank you, thank you. I this is it's I have so much empathy for the folks who ran last year because it is very weird to be a topic of conversation in this way up here. I appreciate the conversation we've had. And I think, you know, I wanted to mention that I am not running to be the president so that I am the president. I'm running because there is an important governance conversation that needs to happen here. And I think piece by piece, over the course of this conversation, we've seen that platform. So instead of resorting to random luck, what I'm looking for, as I said this from the beginning, is I'm looking for someone to be council president who is going to commit to that governance agenda and who has a track record of pursuing it. And so I want to just stress that openness this entire time I've said that. And I'll say it again now I'm open to that. If someone wants to be a part of that. And the part that I haven't had a chance to talk about is the strategic planning and the big conversations part, because that is a really important piece of what we haven't done here yet. And I want to share that commitment to strategic planning in 2026. I was proud to co-sponsor councilor Ryan strategic planning resolution, and I note that it shouldn't have required a resolution at all. What a current structure has shown me is that having a council president who will prioritize big picture processes and also not commit to any particular outcome, will help make things work better. For example, this year we ended up increasing the frequency of council meetings, but pushed off the conversation about changing our committee structure. It's important that we have a council president who will enable difficult conversations to continue, even if the outcome may not align with their preferences. I hear people telling us all the time that, in their opinion, we seem to be moving in several different directions at once, and I hear that good process enables good outcomes, and council can prioritize topics and work within the breadth of opinions on each one. If we take the time to name our priorities, publicly engage in some truth telling and be strategic, and I want to just reiterate that commitment as we go forward in this process. Thanks.
414 Thank you. Councilor. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
415 Canal Dunphy. Canal Smith.
416 President pirtle-guiney.
417 Canal canal.
418 Ryan pirtle-guiney.
419 Koyama Lane canal.
420 Morillo canal.
421 Novick pirtle-guiney Clark.
422 Pirtle-guiney Green. Canal Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney. Pirtle-guiney councilor Pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor Kanal received six votes.
423 Councilor Kanal. Colleagues. I put myself in the queue as we enter this seventh round of discussion. And I don't have anything written out, but I feel like it's important to say a couple of things about our body and leadership of our body as we move forward. And I think folks offices have all been notified. But I'll say it here for anybody who hasn't gotten an opportunity to talk to your team and for folks who are listening, are are staff who support us, have said that they have a hard stop at 5:00 this evening, shared that as soon as I heard it with councilor Canal, I see you nodding there. We have a little bit of time left, and I know that things feel stuck right now, and I know that when things feel stuck and there are two people whose names are forward, it can seem like it's stuck because of us. Our body has done amazing work together this year, and as we move into our second year, we have momentum. We have momentum from some big wins, both at the dais and also in the way that we have worked with, especially the executive branch over the last few months. We have a lot of big conversations scheduled over the next month that are going to allow us to start to form a more clear vision for our city about who we are as a body and how we will go about our work over the next year. And we have a number of things that will be coming forward over the next month. On the governance side, our handbook, a governance package that I've previewed that will be coming to the governance committee. And a number of other conversations. We are at the at a at a point of being able to really show this body working together. And I just wanted to take a moment in the midst of the debate and the conversation to point that out, because I hope that any portlanders who are still watching and have hung with us for this long see today, not as a re-airing of divisions from the beginning of last year that some folks thought would hold us back. But as a part of that process, as we launch into a second year with the momentum we have built over the last few months, and with the momentum that I see when I look at what is what is before us over the next month, that whoever our next president is, myself or someone else will have to figure out how we move through. But that, I think, will be part of our work, I hope will be part of our work no matter what. And I'm really proud of us for that. And I just think it is important in all of the conversations that come out of today to note the things we all want to note, the qualities that everybody, no matter who they're voting for, is saying they are looking for to note the places where we are aligned, and the fact that these conversations are part of a healthy democracy and part of a healthy path toward launching into the next part of our work. Councilor Koyama Lane.
424 Okay, so back to the coin flip. A coin flip gives us a 5050 outcome, but it doesn't tell us why we're divided. If we're even contemplating a coin toss. I think that's an admission that this body is pretty deadlocked between two visions right now. Two leadership options. And, to be frank, one side of that coin already had its turn. Fairness in this moment doesn't come from chance, comes from balance, and from recognizing that when we are split down the middle, the responsible, responsible choice is to allow that coin to flip at times and to allow the other side of that coin to have a chance to lead. That is an arbitrary. It's how we move forward together. Although it is very tempting to leave this to luck. Councilor Novick maybe after like many more hours of this, I'll be open to considering that.
425 Thank you. Counselor. Counselor Zimmerman.
426 I guess this idea that a coin flip. First off, I'm not entertaining that idea whatsoever. But to use the analogy that was just said about somebody who's had their chance, you know, there's been a lot of maybe impugning is too hard of a word, but a lot of questioning of the record of the current president. I think that comes with the role. Right. Because more than anybody, she's got the record that can be discussed. And many of us have, you know, we've listened to that. We haven't really struck at each point to say, I disagree or I agree, but we've aired those grievances somewhat, but it's not like the other side of that coin is untested, or that we don't have a record of councilor Kanal to discuss. Councilor Kanal talked about he has a good relationship with the mayor, the administration, the city clerk and others. And I would just say flatly, no, you do not. I think you have probably one of the worst relationships on this dais with some of those that you named. I'm actually so concerned about those relationships. That injecting another change at the highest levels of the organization with a person who has in my, in my editorializing, bad relationships with those three fronts would be the wrong move, not just for us as a city, but for our workforce who comes to work every single day. And you can disagree with me on that, and that's okay. I think that councilor Kanal showed his stripes when he was anti afscme workers who worked for the independent police review because of a charter change, that he and some others are dead set, that says that they don't have a right to their job in the new form of our police accountability. I disagree with that. And and that's okay to have that disagreement. But there was nobody in our exec sessions and nobody in the public who was more adamant about the ipr, not really having a right to those jobs. I'm very concerned about that moving forward. I haven't forgotten it. So that's a side of the coin I've seen. What councilor Clark mentioned with respect to patterns, you know, patterns in terms of how you conduct yourself here, the delays, the tactics regarding the consent agenda. I agree with her. I think that those patterns have have I voiced those concerns previously in the year I hold them still, I find them to be juvenile in in the best case and and disruptive in most cases. I'm also holding a report here about the committees of this year. And what I'm reading is that no committee more than yours has gone over their allotted time on the days in which they were scheduled, and given that you were co-chair. And if I'm being completely fair and I just have that number, your committee has still gone over more than any other committee in terms of its allotted time. And I say that because so much of today's discussion has been about the mechanics and the process or the grievances that people have with the way that the council president does that job. But I think your side of the coin has shown more problematic pieces of that. Right. As a member of the of the public safety committee, and I recognize that your co-chair has enjoyed working with you. It's my least favorite committee. It is the committee I think is run most poorly. I don't think that you have done a good job as committee chair in that. And so I also reject the complaint that I hear often from you about complaining that you don't have enough time. But frankly, all the chairs and the co-chairs who do sit this dais have had to make hard choices about what they schedule, and none more than you complains about not being able to schedule the things you want, but you are the only person who had the authority to schedule. And so I think that complaint is yours and not council. President's going a little further. I think that there's a temperament it takes to sit this chair. The temperament that I expect of the president is not a temperament I think you hold. I think about when you came into my district and caused disruption and protested overnight that my fellow colleague, one was in support of one was not. But the fact that you came into a different district to cause a problem really bothered me. Someone else did that and she apologized and said, I noted. I note your concern on that. You never did. Some three weeks ago, you had an outburst in this room when something didn't go your way that shocked every person sitting here in a way that it shocked me. It scared many. That is not the temperament. I expect to sit in that chair and I say this. This does not bring me any joy. I have waited, hoping that we would have an alternative candidate, that we'd have a vote. Because I don't want to say these things, but you have accepted this nomination. You have put your name forward. We have gone six rounds of voting now, seven rounds of voting now, I think and I do think it is fair. Right. We have we have called the council president's record into question. I have noted many of those concerns. I think there is no person on this dais who I have spoken to where I haven't shared a concern. I have with the way council president has conducted some thing over the course of the year. And so I do think it is fair, given your standing as a candidate to rise to raise these things. You know, councilor Vice president Koyama Lane mentioned, you know, president pirtle-guiney response and I want to talk initially about her response the night we called together, I think, a rapid press conference in response to the federal government telling us they were going to put national guard troops in our streets, and that certain voices were going to be the best messengers at that time. 2020 is great, but in the moment someone has to make the decision. And I believe that council president showed the temperament that made sense that day, in fact. Vice president Koyama Lane came up to me and so did her chief of staff and just said how damn proud they were of me for what I said at that press conference. And within the next 24 hours and in the next couple of days, frankly, councilor Kanal, you were one of the people who didn't like our approach. And I have to say, I don't think there's anything more important that this body did or that I did as a councilor This year than my actions from September 27th until the day we got the ruling with the supreme court that councilor Novick mentioned there was no bigger threat to Portland, no bigger threat to the American way of life. And you disagreed with our initial tactics, and I was very fearful that you were going to get enough of your colleagues to not let Portland make the stand in the way that would not escalate the problem. And instead, we were able to prevail. And I'm very appreciative to those of you who I know were on the fence on what is the right path to take. I had some really deep conversations with many of you, and for whatever reason, I think calmer heads prevailed, and I don't put you in that to that category, at least in the first 96 hours. Councilor Kanal you were there later and I will give you credit for that. But in the initial I don't think that you were prepared, nor did you show an initial instinct that said calm will win. And that concerns me, because much of this conversation today has felt a little bit more about process and not a lot about the future of our city. And I'll tell you, I'm not really voting for a person on how they put agenda items on our calendar. I think that there are soft skills involved. I think there are human skills involved. I think there are techniques that bring style to this job, to this role. If we just needed the wonky later to put things on the agenda and calling people on the dais, we could hire it out with ai. But I don't think that's what the role is. I am concerned with my colleagues for some of the reasons that I've that I've heard, because it seems like most of the concern is around administrative process. Against the council president. But. I am concerned that that administrative process grievance is not enough for me to change my vote in terms of who I elect from this body, to represent us as a as a council to the city administration, to the city employees, and greatly to the public at large. I'm not willing to send councilor Canal out as my representative to the larger public, because I don't think that that temperament and that instinct exists with you in a way that that I'll be supportive again, I'll say, this does not bring me any joy to to say these things. But I feel so strongly. And for much of today this has been about small problems, I think, with councilor, pirtle-guiney and some large problems with her approach. But I still believe to my core that she has the temperament to deliver and to represent this council in a way that places the council and the public first over her own ambitions. Thank you.
427 Thank you, councilor Councilor Morillo.
428 Thank you, council president. I understand that during the beginning of the federal invasion, there were a lot of discussions from community organizations about what the best voices were to prioritize at that time. I will say, as the only immigrant on council, the only person who has to carry my passport out of fear that something might happen to me. Though I know we have other colleagues who have immigrant family members, it's a little bit different when you are directly an immigrant yourself. It was kind of appalling to find out, like an hour ahead of time, that there was a press conference or something going on, not just the one that you indicated, but numerous situations where we were convening for the public to talk about things that would impact my community. And I don't care which organization it is, I'm not going to have any nonprofit tell me, based on their data, that the only people that should speak during a federal crisis that impacts my people is that I shouldn't get to speak because someone else might be a better spokesperson. I just don't concede that. I don't think that it was the right move for them to tell us that, and I think that people need to have the discretion to understand why that's incredibly problematic. So whose voices get prioritized in these situations matters a lot. And I would say that if we want to talk about who really took leadership during the federal, the attempted federal invasion, I would say it was councilor Koyama Lane who really balanced federal responses, who worked with immigrant rights groups, who did a lot of that on the ground work. And it was also councilor Canal who helped to lead substantive code changes to make sure that my people were protected, not performative presidents packages that frankensteined policies that other people had been leading, that took credit for work that other people had done. He brought his own work forward to take care of my community, our community, because he also has family members who are immigrants. I also have to say councilor Kanal will be perfectly fine at facilitating. He has already acknowledged some of the drawbacks that people have brought up. He has acknowledged that he will be willing to take a step back in policy. He has even conceded on things that I don't think he should have had to concede on, like having to step away from peacock. He is meeting you where you need him to be, he is making concessions and he is being very agreeable. I'll also say that in my experience on this council, both on this body and from what I see people talk about in the media and online, is that people's temperament is measured quite differently depending on their gender and the color of their skin or their nationality. And that is a fact, because I have absolutely had some of my white colleagues have outbursts at staff at each other. You can hear them yelling at each other through the door. You can hear people have tantrums. This is politics. And I think politics is passionate. I'm south American, so that doesn't freak me out. But for many other people, that's really scary. In Portland, Oregon. And we do not hold other people to the same standard. So there is absolutely a double standard in who gets to be confrontational, who gets to be direct, who gets to be aggressive. And I would say that if councilor Kanal had one bad incident that is, apart from anything else that I have seen the entirety of the year, that I have had the pleasure of working with him. And from the time that I knew him on the campaign trail beforehand. So I would really ask my colleagues, who gets to rage, quit a meeting and leave, because I think we've all seen who does that, who gets to yell at someone behind closed doors, who gets to openly yell at staff, who gets to cuss at another colleague before the closing of a meeting where media is present and who gets an article written about it, and who doesn't write. The man of color is always going to be held to a different standard, and I simply do not allow that because I have already seen this firsthand. Having worked for commissioner Hardesty and I just having seen what happened to her, I never want that to happen again. And I think as a more white presenting person of color on this council, I am going to come in clutch and protect Sameer in this moment because it is unacceptable that this standard not be applied to all of us equally. Either it is or it isn't. And I also have to say, we continuously have this conversation about, well, we're just talking about minor bureaucratic issues, minor agenda setting issues. Guess what, you guys? We're bureaucrats. Our power is with the bureaucracy. The bureaucracy determines whether or not we uphold the status quo, or we move away from the status quo. It determines whose voices get heard. When an agenda gets brought forward, what policies get passed and when and how. So I don't care if you find it boring, that's power. That is the power that we chose to get elected to wield and to have. And so when we bring up issues of bureaucracy, those are extremely serious issues. And I don't really want to get into any further details because I respect my colleagues, and I would like for us all to preserve our relationships. But I am going to demand that my white colleagues hold themselves to the same standards that they hold us to, and the media as well. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
429 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
430 To be clear, my chief of staff and I were very damn proud of you that night, councilor Zimmerman. And we still are. Yeah. And multiple things can be true at the same time. I reject and frankly, just do not agree with the narrative that is being painted right now about councilor Canal that he does not have the right temperament when in reality, in my experience, I have only experienced him as respectful and very conscientious. Conscientious. That's a hard word for me sometimes. And also it isn't lost on me that he is the only man of color on on our council. And so it it's making me think about a lot of things, and it is making me think about how there are members on this dais whose behavior has been genuinely hostile and threatening towards colleagues and staff, screaming and faces, intimidating subordinates, creating fear in the workplace. And myself and my staff have been on the receiving end of that, and I believe some of that is it is being looked into, and it is particularly confusing to me because there is a pattern from our current council president of berating people of color and those in subordinate positions, both inside this building, behind closed doors, and also in public spaces. I've witnessed it. I've experienced it personally, and I'm not going to sit quietly while an accusation that feels rooted in some racialized fear possibly is being leveled over what we all know was an accident of opening a door. Especially in this political moment when white backlash politics are already doing real harm. We need to do better than this. And I will say I was I was deeply disappointed and devastated, and I shared this directly with council president on the last when we finished our budget. At that last meeting, when I observed in front of members of the public councilor Kanal say, have a good night to the council president. And the response was, some people were here, some people saw it. I don't even want to say it. It was f-u-c-k y-o-u. And that was the moment that that I realized that I could not vote for you for another year. And so we're going to talk about temperament. We can talk about temperament.
431 Thank you. Councilor councilor Smith.
432 Thank you, madam president. First I want to say there's a difference between being a bureaucrat and being management. And I think there are a lot of folks up on this diocese have not figured out the difference between the two or being an activist, and we are management here, and I'm not sure that councilor Kanal has recognized that we are management. We cannot be on the front line with labor picketing ourselves. We cannot act as if we are activists. We want to get to some nitty gritty. Let's talk about this. First of all, there's a difference between public safety and and the police councilor Kanal have been very good on public safety, public and community safety. But when I went back to my office, I got a call. And people are afraid that councilor Canal will try to defund the police. We got public safety and police. They're different. And two things can be true. Three things can be true at the same time. So there are some concerns about policy and policies and funding and things that we do that are our book of business. We are appropriators. We are management. We are policy makers. We are not activists. And we need to present ourselves as though who we are. So for me, I have been very proud, very, very proud of the work that president Elana pirtle-guiney has done here. She knows the difference between the two. She knows how to say and how not to say, but I want to back up to vice president what she said. That wasn't a smoking gun. That wasn't a nugget. I've heard all of you all say some use some language that we haven't used. But you need to go one back further. Yes, we need to go back. Why did she say that? It was because of the conversation that in the exchange that she had with canal before, she didn't come out of the blue with that? She did not. And I'm not going to go back and forth about those things because everybody has used a cuss word. That's not it. Are you fit for the job? Sometimes certain people are not fit for particular jobs. Councilor shad ahmed, he has never done this job before, so I can't say if he would do well or not. But I know what's happening right now. I know where we're at and where we were, and we would not be where we're at right now if it was not for president. Elana pirtle-guiney. And so all these little nitpicks about the current president, it's just it's too much. Y'all need to stop that, because that's not going that's not going to make a difference in how I change my mind about who's going to be president. And it looks like to me that we're going to be here until next week, because that's not moving me. It's not moving me with, with with an insinuation that she's treated people of color poorly. That doesn't move me. I was in the room when she convened the executive session, when we went up with the albina descendants and people in the administration said, let's talk about this in two weeks. And she said, no, we're going to talk about it, and we're going to settle it today because they've been waiting 60, 65 years. That's the policy. That's the that's the stuff that I can get behind. Let me tell you, if there was somebody that I wanted to get into a foxhole with, aside from councilor Zimmerman, it would be with councilor Elana pirtle-guiney. I would be in a foxhole with her, and I would fight to the bitter end. And I know she would fight to the bitter end for me, so that those little things, Tiffany, they don't work. They don't work. Thank you.
433 Councilor councilor Green.
434 I do have to respond to this, this idea that phone calls are being made to people's offices during the recess, expressing fear that if councilor Canal was the council president, then he would defund the police. And I think I would just say, if we're having this much hard of a time to get him elected the council president in the first place, there's no votes to defund the police on this council. That's just never going to it's not a serious that is not a serious critique. I think what they're concerned about is the feeling that someone who's been a strong advocate for police reform might sit in the chair and let that bias his work. And I think you just have to let the merit speak on its own. I think he's he's ran public safety in partnership with councilor Novick in a very fair way. And there have been times where he, I think in the most recent when I was trying to, you know, cut a certain amount with others from the policy encumbrance carryovers. He was very, very, very concerned that it was going to impact police and fire budgets. And that's just another example of places where he didn't automatically go along with the thing I wanted to do. But I just if folks are out there thinking that the council president decision is going to affect the police budgets, you just need to lose that idea out of your head because it's just not it's not a reality on this council. It doesn't matter if it's Sameer, it doesn't matter if it's pirtle-guiney. I just had to say that thank you.
435 Thank you. Councilor councilor.
436 Morillo second time.
437 Thank you. Yeah, nothing could be a more transparent display of power brokers in the city of Portland than a police union heads calling different councilors and threatening their endorsements, or whatever it is they're doing to make sure that a man of color who has worked on police accountability issues doesn't ever, ever, ever step into the presidency. That is absolutely disgusting. And we should reject that type of politics, because the point of this job is for him to lead the council body. And actually, councilor Kanal would be forced to step down as co-chair of public safety. So I think the police should be very relaxed, because then maybe we'll have less accountability oversight during the committee hearings. I don't I don't understand what this irrational fear is, frankly. And again, councilor Kanal, regardless if we are going to say that police accountability is inherently adversarial, it is not adversarial to be held accountable unless you are unprepared to be accountable. And that goes for your personal relationships, that goes for institutions. And I think that for the most part, a lot of us have had actually really great relationships with chief day. I would say that chief day has done a lot of work to de-escalate the way that police interact with community, and we have publicly had praised him. Many of us who are very critical of police have said, you know what? Some of this stuff has been handled very well, much better than I've ever seen it before. So this idea that councilor Kanal somehow can't hold the presidency because he cares about police accountability is absurd. And it is not a surprise to me that there are some people up here that don't care about what staff are saying on the ground, because they don't have great track records with staff themselves. So when staff of color are saying that they have issues, I will, I guess, remind councilor Smith that during that executive session, there were a lot of us behind you who supported albina, but you only remember council president pirtle-guiney, I guess. But all of us were pushing to make sure that that settlement was done quickly. There were there were a few of us that were making sure that happened, and we were with you till the bitter end, too. But we are not going to dismiss the experiences of staff. And if the discussion is going to be centered around temperament, I want to remind you who started it and made it ugly. First, it was not our side. We were trying to keep it clean. And secondly, you have put us in a position to address it, so I am addressing it. Councilor Kanal deserves to be council president. He has every ability to do so, and we should not allow the entrenched power systems of the past and the head of the police union to get to decide for us as a council who our council president is. And I think the fact that that is a negotiation that is happening when we leave these, when we leave these chambers, that is a huge problem.
438 Thank you. Councilor.
439 Councilor Dunphy.
440 Thank you. I just want to again, I just want to acknowledge, in my experience, I do believe that councilor Kanal has the the temperament to be able to do this. My experience working with councilor Kanal has been that he is thoughtful and respectful and passionate. Absolutely. But not not at the expense of, in my experience, personal relationships or the work that is being done. I. I approach this vote with confidence that I do believe councilor Kanal has the temperament and the experience to to be able to do this job well. I just wanted to say that.
441 Thank you, counselor.
442 Colleagues, I'm noting that we do. We are pushing up against probably needing one more recess before we continue our work, but we'll go a few more speakers first. Counselor Smith, second time.
443 Thank you. Council president. Let me address something. The albino descendants vote was probably one of the most emotional, kind of just all encompassing things. And what I said was that when the administration, the council president who was in leadership, she stood up for all of us and said. But I am not taking anything away from her, nor will I take anything away from any of my other colleagues, because it was a 12 zero vote when there were a few people in that room who didn't want to, but they changed their mind. I just identify what she did as a leader. She didn't have to say anything, but she stood up and said, no, we're not waiting. And my colleagues agreed that we shouldn't wait. And I appreciate you from the bottom of my heart. We are at a crossroads and we have to figure out who do we want to lead us in this next 12 months? And not only do police unions call me business people call me constituents call me grandmas call me. All kinds of folks call me about stuff because they are not concerned. They're really concerned about what's going on. So I. I really thank folks who can have the courage to do this because I couldn't I was asked and I said, no, I didn't have the courage to do that. But these folks do. And it's not like I like anyone better, but I just want Elana because I am team Elana and I know she will do the better job. I believe that, and she will give a fair shake to everyone, not just policies that come through the peacock door. That's it, madam president.
444 Councilor councilor Novick.
445 Just wanted to say something nice about each of the candidates. One is I have no concerns about councilor Kanal temperament. It would not surprise me if councilor Maria and I yelled at each other more in a single week than councilor Kanal has yelled at anybody's entire life. And second, I did want to address the difficult job the president has done of speaking for the council, recognizing she can't. I mean, drawing the distinction between herself and the council and speaking out when the council needs to speak, and being careful not to overextend yourself and think, think she's speaking for the council when she can't. I'm not being very articulate, but I think I would have an extremely difficult time being out there in public saying things and not just saying things as Steve Novick, but figuring out what I can say on behalf of the council. So I think the councilor Pirtle-guiney has done an excellent job of that. It's a job that I don't know that I could do.
446 Thank you, councilor.
447 Councilor Avalos.
448 I think it's excruciating, excruciating. To be lectured by people who have known track records of being horrible to staff, horrible to us. It is painful and I'm choosing to leave it at that. So I'm saying that because you know what? I'm not michelle obama. When they go low, I go to hell, I'm cardi b and I'm trying really hard to keep it above ground. But please, if we're going to go down that route, please do not open that door because I will crash out.
449 Thank you, councilor Colleagues.
450 Seeing no one else in the queue for debate. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
451 Avalos. Canal Dunphy. Canal Smith.
452 President pirtle-guiney.
453 No.
454 Canal.
455 Ryan. Elana pirtle-guiney.
456 Koyama Lane.
457 Future president. Sameer canal.
458 Morillo girl. How do you always read my mind?
459 Sameer Kanal Novick.
460 Now more than ever. Elana pirtle-guiney.
461 Clark pirtle-guiney.
462 Green canal.
463 Zimmerman pirtle-guiney.
464 Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney.
465 Councilor pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor Kanal received six votes.
466 Councilor Novick. I want you to know that I'm very disappointed we haven't had any sort of groundhog day reference yet today. Councilor Smith, are you back in the queue or is that a legacy hand? Councilor Koyama Lane.
467 You know, I almost appreciate it just being out there plainly that phone calls are being made that apparently public safety leaders will lose their mind over Sameer canal if he gets to hold a gavel that people are scared of. Councilor canal scared of of the dark skinned man on our council. It's honestly not that creative. It's a pretty old playbook. The thing I'll bring up right now is we can can we can consider the voters in district two councilor Kanal receive more votes than councilor Pirtle-guiney in this new system, designed to better reflect voter voice, that express preference should carry some weight in leadership decisions. It's not the only factor, but in a representative democracy, I believe it could be one of them.
468 Thank you, councilor Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan, could you please call the roll?
469 Canal Dunphy. Canal Smith.
470 President pirtle-guiney.
471 Canal canal.
472 And pirtle-guiney.
473 Koyama Lane canal canal canal.
474 Maria canal.
475 Novick pirtle-guiney Clark.
476 Pirtle-guiney Green. Canal Zimmerman. Pirtle-guiney pirtle-guiney.
477 Councilor. Pirtle-guiney received six votes. Councilor canal received six votes.
478 Councilor. Morillo.
479 You know, sitting through this meeting all day, I think that it is exactly illustrative of why we have to have certain spaces where we feel connected to people to have our shared experience, because we have heard all sorts of just code words for everything. Right? Wait your turn Sameer. Why don't you get some more knowledge even though you're the same age, same amount of experience? Councilor pirtle-guiney. She was the first president no one had ever had experience being a president before, yet nobody questioned that she would be able to do that. We knew that whoever had to step into that role would be doing it for the first time, and that it would be hard. Then we talk about the police are terrified. They're quaking in their boots. They're so scared that someone who has worked on police accountability policy is going to be president. Okay, well, what if what if the black and brown portlanders that are scared that maybe we'll have a president who isn't focused on police accountability? What about our constituents who do care about that? What about the portlanders that voted 82% to do a police accountability ballot measure? 82% is unheard of in support of a ballot measure. By the way, that's like a pretty big deal. So when we're talking about, again, who's afraid, whose voices we're prioritizing, it's people who are afraid of police accountability, who are afraid of a dark skinned brown man on our council who apparently do not hold our white colleagues to the same standards. What this this whole discussion is showing me is that there really is just an existential fight here about the status quo and who's always had power and who is going to be thinking about things a little bit differently. And again, if we are showing anyone's ability to compromise on this council, it was, again, people from the progressive caucus who have worked with our colleagues across the aisle to pass policies that a lot of people would be surprised by. I'm sure a lot of developers and realtors had their jaws on the floor in shock that me and councilor Zimmerman not only like each other, but work on good policy together. I think that there would be a lot of people surprised that councilor Greene was willing to concede last time around. I would love to see that level of maturity from some of my colleagues on the more right side of council, because why is the expectation always on the progressives to be the ones to concede when we do reach across the aisle and work with you all the time? And in fact, I would say many of your accomplishments have been done only with our assistance. And that's not to say anything bad. I think that's positive. I think we should work together, but let's not pretend that we have a caucus or a group of people here that's incapable of working across the aisle because we are councilor Kanal has taken 10,000 meetings with the police bureau. He has talked with people. He has worked on policy with them. He has never held things behind closed doors and made sure that the police didn't know that things would impact them. I think we've all heard that he's working on a mask ban. The police have some concerns about that. He didn't do that behind closed doors. He talked to them about it. He brought them into those negotiations and discussions on the policy. And that's the expectation. But I feel like what we are doing here today is we keep saying, okay, councilor Kanal, we want you to do this. And then he does the thing and then you move the goalpost. We want you to get out of peacock. Okay? I will move from peacock. Well, actually, that's not enough. You need to have left ten months ago. Or we need you to drop some policy ideas. He says, okay, I'm willing to do that. I'm willing to make sure that I'm going to prioritize the office of the presidency. Well, we just don't believe you. Well, what we do believe, for some reason, is that the council president, who we do have grievances with, because she does have a record and that's a little bit harder to argue, is that just because she says she's going to act differently than we should take her word for it, and it's not lost on me seeing people in the audience who I know are making calls. Also to try to sway the future of our council. But these old power structures, they need to stop. This is not when portlanders voted for charter change, when they wanted to transform our government. This is what they wanted. They wanted a variety of voices to be represented, and they wanted a variety of voices to be represented in leadership. And I think it is good governance to rotate who is in that position so that we can have a variety of skills, voices and perspectives centered. Even though frankly, I think Sameer is going to be too nice about it. I think Sameer is going to be really nice about it, and I think he's going to be perfectly balanced in how he brings policy forward, because that's just the kind of person that he is. He's extremely principled and will just he'll just do the right thing. So I really hope that my colleagues will just consider the fact that we were willing to negotiate the first time around. We have worked alongside you on many things, and these really weird racialized attacks are so disheartening for me. And to be honest, they reaffirm why I feel the need to meet with my colleagues who have different backgrounds, who haven't been connected to governing or power structures before, or who are people of color or who came from poor backgrounds, because this place isn't built for us, and it wears on you emotionally, psychologically to be in this space. That's why when sophie peel asked me if I'm having fun being on city council, I'm not having fun. It's not fun. It is a heavy burden to have to make decisions, to take care of our constituents and to be at the center of so much public backlash and the unique backlash that you get when you are part of a marginalized identity. So I really hope that my colleagues will just just have the maturity to actually negotiate this time around. Thank you.
480 Thank you. Councilor councilor Koyama Lane.
481 I really appreciate everything you just shared. Councilor Morillo I agree that what you're describing is happening in this body. Councilors of color are held to a different standard, and I see us being forced into narrow, stereotypical narratives no matter how we show up. Teacher tiffanys two two kind or soft to lead angelina's to fierce, loretta's too strong. Candice is too pink, I don't know sparkly. And Sameer is cast as scared as scary. There's a pattern. There's there's no version of leadership for us that's simply allowed to exist without distortion. I will say. When councilor Smith was at the county, I noticed that the Oregonian covered when one of her colleagues swore. But Oregonian didn't cover what happened here when it was actually public and at the same time, similar and more extreme behavior from other colleagues on this dais is normalized, excused, reframed as being authority or passionate. These stereotypes are not just observations. They're constraints. They're tools used to limit who's seen as the first asian American woman ever to be elected to Portland city government. It is important that I say this. There are tools used to limit who is seen as credible, who is seen as safe, and ultimately who is allowed to lead. I'm done accepting that framework and I think this council should be too.
482 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, I'm hesitant to speak now because I don't want anything I say to sound like it is undermining, negating or denying the experience of either of my colleagues who just spoke, because I think it is important for us to hear those experiences. I also want to be clear, because I don't know what is happening in terms of phone calls. I've only received one phone call from an outside group lobbying me on these votes that I didn't ask anybody to make phone calls. I also want to point out, in light of some of the conversations about leadership and phone calls that have been raised, that in the committee structure that the council vice president and I put together at the beginning of last year, councilor Kanal co-chairs public safety. That we have committees chaired by members of our council, led by members of our council, either in partnership or alone, whose ideology spans the spectrum on this council from all backgrounds in leadership roles. So I do not want to. Say anything that would sound like it is doing anything other than hearing the experiences that my colleagues have had, because I think it is important to hear that. But I also want to be clear that that is not an action or a narrative that I have asked for in this debate. Councilor Morillo a second time.
Procedural episode · turns 483–495
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483 Yeah. I think when we talk about sharing leadership, though, we have to look at which committees have co-chairs and which don't. And I'm pretty sure the younger progressive people of color were given a babysitter for some of our committees because we would be pushing more progressive policies. So let's be very frank about what's going on there. I, I also just honestly want to get back to the nuts and bolts, because I think this got to a really ugly place and I'm very, very angry that it went to that way with Sameer. If I'm being very frank, it's going to take me a few weeks to talk to some of you more nicely again. The reality is we also have serious, just regular issues with governance, with council ops, with how they're supposed to be supporting our body, that we have not addressed, that the council president is supposed to address. Frankly, as a city councilor, I feel like council operations, as someone who lobbied at the legislature before and saw how the policy was made there, you have a group of policymakers that work outside your office that do research, that do budget, and they help put those that information together and that research together for the councilors so that we don't have to have, you know, more staff and things like that. But the lack of infrastructure and support which you have failed to provide is part of why we also had to have such robust office structures, because council operations has not been set up in a way to actually support the councilors. The council operations has frankly acted more as a a body that supports the council president and solely works under you. So when we are talking about effective governance, we also have just not seen this body or this president set up a functioning governing structure for us. And I know part of that has to do with happening through the governance committee. But some of that is your direct responsibility as far as council operations goes. And that is part of why we are at a disadvantage, as council about getting information from the executive branch. That is why we don't get the same research or budgetary information, because all of this should have been facilitated through infrastructure and process, not through an individual. Because individuals can come and go, you want to set up infrastructure so that anyone can move into that position, and we can succeed as a council, and we haven't done that yet. So I would like to hear more about what people are planning on doing to make sure that we have systems in place that outlast us so that when we if we don't make it back into office, or if lightning strikes when I leave the building and I don't come back here, that there is something established with or without me, with or without the council president, with or without any of us.
484 Thank you. Councilor councilor Canal.
485 Thank you. First, I want to say that I appreciate that I have been able to be a co-chair of the community and public safety committee, and it is 100% accurate, councilor Pirtle-guiney said about me being in that role. I think that that's something that I would want to emulate, because not everything will change. If there's a different council president, whether it's it's me or anyone else, and something I would want to emulate is ensuring that there are people who have expertise and a voice on different issues who are in those roles. The second thing I want to say is in response to councilor Smith. I actually if I was picking the thing that I was most impressed by over the course of the year from the council president, it was the same event you picked up on the the albina settlement and it was behind closed doors. I would not have brought it up otherwise, but since it's already been brought up, that was that was something that I was very appreciative of myself and my capacity as a councilor and as a constituent. With relation to the comments from councilor Zimmerman, I noted that you have said you have waited, hoping there would be an alternative candidate, but instead chose to make stuff up about me instead of presenting that alternative candidate. So my question would be, if you would like to see one, please feel free to nominate one. And I think it's worth talking about that because it's been a few rounds. I think it's worth having the conversation. Last year we went to a third councilor Candidate and that's a worthwhile conversation. I'm very open to that conversation if it ensures the kind of governance we're talking about. I just want to point out I got criticized for attacked, actually for upholding a charter change earlier on a asked me ipr. I don't I don't regret that. I don't apologize for it. But I will say that I agonized over that vote. I spoke to afscme to to labor council about it beforehand with respect, despite our disagreement. But I don't think that we should be in a position of of voting in opposition to the charter. It's a very simple thing. I was very upfront about that when I ran for for council in the first place, and the other piece of it that that I want to talk about with the committees running over time, yeah, that happened. And I think it's important to say I mentioned this earlier in the committee conversation to councilor Dunphy's question, public safety is special. I don't I don't apologize for that. It should get more time if it needs it, if the if the public safety service area wants to present a report to us, we should have the time to do that. And I'll note that the workload increased for that committee with no additional time when federal stuff got added, and the way that other councils around the country, including the ones gtac assessed, handled, that is, they have federal items be covered in the committee of the whole, which we don't currently have and which we need. And the last thing regarding the press conference, the assertion that I didn't praise your comments, I'm sorry that you need that, but I did actually say that I appreciated the term sitrep normal. I specifically came up to you. I said I was I was appreciative of that particular comment. I said that would be the money line of the night was the particular thing, but I am. I am a little irritated that my colleague got silenced in that, and I understand why you would be okay with that. So that's just an important thing to to raise here. And as for the question as to if I have the right temperament for the job, I think we can talk about that and that's fine. That's ultimately up to my council colleagues who've worked with me for a year and seen how we engage with respect, with some healthy tension, and also with a commitment to our respective values, which sometimes overlap and sometimes don't. And that's okay. That's what a representative council looks like. I appreciate what councilor Novick had to say to to correct the record on that.
486 Thank you. Councilor. Councilor Ryan.
487 Yes, thanks. Council president, point of order. And the point of order would be that I heard you mention that we'd be adjourning at five. Is that correct?
488 That is correct.
489 I want to do a break before that, but that seems odd since it's now 424.
490 I thought we could use a recess, and then we had a number of other people jump in the queue. I'm happy to move us to a recess, actually.
491 So the point of order would be this I think we're going to adjourn this meeting, and I think we need a night of reflection. And I think we should end today by giving each person a couple minutes to say something before we go and just go down the line. That would be my suggestion. I hope this isn't a long process conversation or they don't have to say, let's vote on this. Maybe we can just do agreements. It seems rather civilized. I will say there was some comments about sides as the person who clearly doesn't have a side and has voted in the dissent more than anyone else, and even has been the lone no vote the most often I offer this suggestion. I think it would be good for the order of the decorum of the room. If we want had an evening to sleep on things, then overnight we adjourn again tomorrow afternoon and we end the day by just giving some reflective thoughts. But I don't think we're going to break the six six in the next 40 minutes. And it's starting to get a little personal. And I don't think that's good for the city or for us. Thanks for listening to me.
492 Thank you. Councilor councilor Clerk.
493 Thank you, madam president. I would just echo those comments. I my concern is that we're starting to devolve and getting a little personal. I think this is a habit we have when it gets late. We've been here all day and it starts to get a little hurtful. I don't know, I don't need to make a final comment, thank you very much. But I do think that we need to take a break and get some distance, go home, maybe get some exercise, get some food, sleep and come back tomorrow. Thank you.
494 Thank you councilor. Councilor Smith.
495 Thank you, madam president. I just want to go back a second. And I don't know if it was councilor Morillo or vice president Koyama Lane that insinuated that the head of the labor union called me. That wasn't who called me. I didn't say that. And so, just to be clear, the head of the labor union, aaron schmaltz, he did not call me. So understand that I have a mind of my own. I know how to think independently. I don't need a gazillion people to to tap me on, on tiktok to say that I'm okay. My district and district one, they believe in public safety. I have a monthly coffee with a cop with community members, neighborhood community members who love that meeting. They live for that monthly meeting so that they can sit in front of a law enforcement officer and ask a question and get a response back.
496 And so can you make sure this is germane? Yes.
497 And so what I'm saying is don't twist my words, shake your head, do whatever you want to do. But that is not what I said. And I wanted to make sure that I got it right.
498 Thank you. Councilor, colleagues, I would like us to take a ten minute recess. We can decide during that time if folks would like to make a final statement or not. That gives people time to decide if they'd like to do that. We're going to recess and be back here at 437, at which point we will have about 20 minutes left. Councilor Smith, are you. Oh, wait, I guess we have to formalize this. I'm bringing us back into session of the Portland city council. Council? Councilor Smith, are you in the queue or is that a legacy hand? Okay, colleagues, after some discussion, including with my fellow candidate councilor Canal, we are not going to move forward with having everybody take last words. So I am going to recess our meeting to tomorrow, when we will pick back up at the previously scheduled time. Thank you all.