The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-04-22
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (19,335 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
On April 22, a session of the Portland City Council's Arts and Economy Committee was held, with roll call confirming attendance of committee members. The meeting opened with recognition of a departing Parks staff member transitioning to a role in Santa Clara County. The bulk of the session featured presentations from the Office of Arts and Culture and Portland Parks and Recreation. Topics included the office's grant-making programs, the Arts Access Fund, public art collections, and the Portland Action Plan tied to the regional Our Creative Future framework. Figures on arts-related economic activity, grant disbursements, and attendance were presented, though some figures—particularly around Arts Tax collections and disbursement projections—were stated inconsistently across speakers and discussion. A Revenue Division representative addressed the structure and cost of collecting the Arts Tax, citing rising school district allocations and administrative costs as factors in declining disbursements. Parks and Recreation staff presented on facilities, programming, funding sources, and youth employment. Public testimony followed from arts organization leaders, a Parks Board member, a Portland Public Schools arts administrator, a labor union representative, and others addressing funding, equity concerns in the Access Pass program, and community impacts. Councilors posed questions on district-level facility access, volunteer and philanthropic partnerships, and asset management. Votes, if any occurred, are recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting concluded with plans for further budget-related discussions.
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.
0 Okay.
1 Good morning everyone. It's good to see people in the chambers today. I look forward to hearing your reports later. I'm councilor Ryan, co-chair of the arts and economy committee with my colleague councilor Greene. And today, I call the meeting of the arts and economy committee to order. It's Tuesday, April 22nd, happy earth day. Kind of an appropriate group of panelists for earth day. And deidra or. No, it's not deidra, it's keelan. I'm on the wrong person. Everyone's here today. Deidra, will you please call the roll?
2 Clerk. Here. Here, Dunphy. Here. Smith. Ryan.
3 Here. Deidra. Is that correct? All right. Sorry I mispronounced your name earlier. And keelan, are you there to do training? You're everywhere. Keelan. Okay. Christopher, will you please read the statement of conduct?
4 Welcome to the meeting of the arts and economy committee. To testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance to the committee agenda at ed.gov. Council agenda. Arts and economy committee, or by calling 301. Information on engaging with the committee can be found at this link. Registration for virtual testimony closes one hour prior to the meeting. In person. Testifiers must sign up before the agenda item is heard for today's meeting. Individuals may testify for two minutes. Your microphone will be muted when your time is over. The chair preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or committee 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, the committee may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the clerk calls your name. Thank you.
5 Thank you. Christopher. And how many people do we have testify that signed up for testimony today? 12. And we'll do two minutes. Why don't we do this? Why don't we do it after the reports? But that means I should make sure we leave about a half hour at the end. Okay. Sounds good. All right. I just want to start off by saying this is like all of our committees new, and we're all building the best we can so that we can be additive. And the we started with a level setting. We received data from econorthwest that looked at the economic conditions of Portland and the entire metropolitan area. We thought it was good for this particular committee to be very grounded in, in the real data that we're experiencing. Then we went on to activation projects. Some of you that are here today were a part of that. Those are projects that are moving, and most of them are the ones that we've highlighted are downtown. We know that the evening, the night, the weekend economy is based on the successful activation of those projects. That's been a bread and butter revenue generator for Portland for decades. And since COVID, we've struggled to get that back. And we have to be determined, in spite of whatever's going on, to remain focused on such activity. Then we looked at some of the agencies and the partners that we work with that are close to the city, such as prosper Portland. And we'll do more on that in upcoming meetings. And then we looked at our permitting challenges, and actually we revealed a lot of hope and opportunity. The good part about hitting bottom is you have nowhere to go but up. And so I've really been grateful to watch the evolution of permitting. It's something that we've been shy to really tackle, and we really went down to the nuts and bolts. And so we that was our last meeting. So today we wanted to bring forward those departments that sometimes don't always aren't readily recognized or not recognized always as being part of our part of our economy and part of the revenue generation that a city so desperately needs. And that has to do with, I'd say it's a joy department within parks. There's the recreation side, where families and elders and everything in between engage with the many activities that parks offers. That brings a lot of people out, and that's good for us. And also that's good. That's good for the economy as well as the arts. Arts often doesn't get labeled as an economic generator. Nothing could be further from the truth. We've seen so much data on that over the years, and in fact, they really speak to local areas that are having some blight, some challenge. One of the best ways to bring back the economy is always the arts. And so it's an investment. It should never be marginalized. And so it was really important for this committee to make sure that we centered it as a part of the economic development of our city. So today we're going to hear from some of the leaders that we have on staff that is in that area there right now, a part of the vibrant communities service area, kind of like gerald ford, the president, the only lasted two years. This this will be a very short lived work area, but you'll be remembered as a very important moment in time as we allowed all of these silos, sometimes within the city, to actually get to know each other. Many of them that have a lot of crossover. And so I'm really want to say that I'm happy to see that that's been occurring over the last two years. And no matter where what work area you're put into that you will continue to embrace one another and know that your your partners, no matter what silo that you that you're in, get out of it and keep working with one another. And before I go any further, I have to acknowledge there's someone here with us today. Todd. That's you off grid. Todd, you've been with the city for many, many years. For a young person. And you've also spent a lot of time in parks. You're also part of commissioner Fisher's staff as a policy leader. And your fellow colleague, Jamie Dunphy. Councilor Dunphy says hello. And I just want to say I'm really proud of you in your new assignment. It's in my notes somewhere. You're going to come up. Can you come up and just have a moment with us?
6 Thank you.
7 Todd, how many years have you been with the city?
8 15 years.
9 15 years. And todd is one of those people that knows how to build bridges. I've really watched you in so many meetings since I've been here. Connect the dots between people that were sitting at a table that had some, that had some conflict. They're having conflict with one another. They they, you know, they could get on the same page. And I've watched you artfully help them get there. And that's a skill set that's hard to teach. It's something kind of innate. You had good parenting, I'm sure. And so I just want to thank you so much for everything that you've done for the city of Portland. I know that director long is back there nodding her head, because in her tenure here, I know that you've been her her person for many of those tough moments. You've always been there, and you always have a way of seeing an outcome that's better than what most people can imagine. And so is it. Santa clara county.
10 Santa clara county parks director. Yes.
11 So look at you, heading off to go to california with your family. And it's a real big gain for them. And it is truly a loss for us. But I want to stay positive and say that you have been a real treasure for the city of Portland and on behalf of so many people as you depart, because I understand your last day actually already happened. So you're doing some volunteer work today. That says a lot about you as well. Anyway. Canal, I'll just give a big round of applause for todd love.
12 Thank you.
13 Want to say anything?
14 Just thank you for your kind remarks. And it's really been an honor. Serving portlanders public service is one of the best jobs you can have, and just really proud of the work we've done over the last 15 years. So thank you.
15 Thank you todd. Thank you for your leadership. Yeah. And so the joy department is here today. And I just want to start this meeting with a presentation with we're going to hear a presentation from the arts and culture. We're going to hear a presentation from parks and recreation. And then we have 11 people signed up for testimony as well. So to begin, we have the office of arts and culture. I've been so impressed with the good work of this mighty and resilient team. Under the leadership of director charity montez. Hello, charity. Good morning. We have asked her to tackle many new and historical challenges under her charge, and she's consistently delivers with grace and creativity. One specific issue that she and her team have addressed is challenges to paying and collecting arts investments and student access to the arts tax that comes with that. And you'll hear more about this later. These are investments. It's not. It's often framed in a way that sounds so down and out an arts tax. It should just be called an opportunity. Invest in what our children need and what adults need as well. And I'm grateful for the work that director montez and her team in developing this presentation for us today. You have 20 minutes. The floor is yours, along with you and darien and todd. Todd. You're everywhere.
16 All right. Thank you. Councilor, actually, yeah. Todd's going to open.
17 All right.
18 Yes, yes, I have to read them. Thank you. Item one, office of arts and culture and parks and recreation operations. Thank you.
19 You're welcome.
20 All right. Good morning, councilors again. I'm todd lofgren, deputy director of vibrant community support services. And I'm here today on behalf of sonia shymansky, our deputy city administrator, who's away today. Our team is pleased to be here with you today to share information about the city's arts, culture, recreation facilities and programs, our office of arts and culture and Portland parks and recreation teams will share an overview of their programs and services. You'll hear how our teams are focused on supporting family friendly communities where art is central to public life. The parks and recreation system delivers high quality recreation experiences for all portlanders and visitors. Contributing, like you said, to our local economy. We also do a brief overview of our funding sources and revenues, and we'll start with director montez.
21 Thank you. Todd. Okay. Good morning. Councilors. For the record, my name is charity montez, and I'm the director of the office of arts and culture. I'm really excited to be talking with you this morning, especially since last week, the 2024 Portland insight survey findings came out and revealed that portlanders expressed the highest degree of satisfaction regarding the city's outdoor and natural areas, amenities and arts and culture. I think that makes our presentation easy this morning. Since you are the arts and economy committee, we'll be sharing a mix of information about the value of the arts for arts sake and the economic impact of the arts. For starters, the arts are critical to portland's economy and to the region. In 2022, arts related spending in Portland generated over $405 million in economic activity and accounted for nearly half of all arts related spending statewide. Next slide please. The office of arts and culture launched, launched on July 1st, 2024, expanding on the previous city arts program. And while we were still within our first year, we already play a critical role in ensuring the arts remain a core part of portland's identity. Our vision is arts at the center of public life in Portland. To fulfill on that vision, we collaborate with artists arts organizations across service areas and with other government agencies to expand access and support cultural expression across the city. Our portfolio includes grant making, arts education coordination, public art, performing arts venues, and cultural planning. We do this work and more with six fte, and we leverage a unique staff sharing model with grants management and with recreation. Next slide please. What we might most well be known for is grant making. The office of arts and culture is committed to funding individual artists and arts organizations of all sizes small, medium and large, ensuring access to the arts for all portlanders. We do that through two main grant making programs. Our general operating support program provides direct, flexible funding to nonprofit arts organizations, and our small grants program provides project support for arts organizations and individual artists. Next slide please. Both grant making programs are funded through a mix of arts access fund and general fund dollars. This slide shows that mix for fiscal year 2425. You'll see that our office is disbursing nearly $5.5 million in grants this year. The community and economic impacts of these awards can't be understated. Next slide please. General operating support grants support mission driven work across disciplines visual arts, folk arts, performing arts, literary arts enriching the community with diverse programing. Base awards range from 15,000 to $175,000 based on organizational budget size, with smaller organizations receiving a higher percentage of their operating budget than larger organizations. In fiscal year 23, 24 arts organizations funded by the office of arts and culture reached 2.5 million attendees. That includes paid and free participants, 1.1 million portlanders demonstrating the broad community impact and more than 200,000 k-12 students ensuring young people have access to cultural experiences. This year. In fiscal year 2425, we're providing $4.1 million in general operating support to 80 arts organizations in Portland, and we look forward to sharing the impact of those awards later this calendar year. Next slide please. In partnership with the friends of ecfc music Oregon and the regional arts and culture council, our small grants program distributes grants ranging from $500 to $5000. These grants foster creativity, innovation, and career development, strengthening portland's vibrant arts ecosystem. A highlight of our partnership with friends of ecfc is that grant funds are often combined with artist residency space at the interstate firehouse cultural center, which is a Portland parks and recreation asset. Artists have described this support as transformational, and the model of funding plus space is one that we'd like to explore further. And our partnership with music Oregon marks the first time the city has made a dedicated investment in the creative endeavors of musicians. All told, in fiscal year 2425, our partners have distributed $1.36 million in small grants funding to 230 individual artists and 90 arts organizations touching every district in the city. Next slide please. The office of arts and culture also manages the arts access fund. Fueled by the voter approved $35 art tax, the revenue bureau collects the arts tax, which on average provides roughly $11 million each year to support the hiring of certified arts teachers in all k through five public schools in Portland, and to award grants to arts organizations. Since 2012. The arts tax has collected over $135 million to support the arts and arts education in Portland, and the office of arts and culture works directly with all six of the Portland school districts that receive funding from the arts access fund to ensure that youth are receiving high quality arts education. Next slide please. Research shows that arts education leads to greater sense of belonging for students and higher engagement in school and the school districts received their funds from the arts access fund. First, in the current 2425 school year, the city disbursed $7.8 million to the school districts. This funding ensures that every elementary school student across portland's six school districts has access to arts education. This year, that's 28,000 young people, and this year, 114 arts and music teachers are funded in part by the arts access fund. After the school districts received their funding, the office of arts and culture receives the remaining revenues for arts, education coordination and grants. In fiscal year 2425, we will award more than $3.5 million from the arts access fund to arts organizations, which I shared on the previous slide. For next slide, please. Despite the impact and benefits, there are some big challenges ahead for the arts access fund, which will have an outsize impact on the funds available for grants. First, the arts tax is a flat $35. It is not indexed for inflation, so its buying power has been decreasing since 2012. At the same time, teacher salaries have increased, so the city is dispersing more funds to the school districts despite lower enrollments and less teacher fte. Finally, the cost of administrative collecting. Excuse me, the arts tax continues to rise and recently collection activity has decreased. To illustrate, this slide shows the disbursements since fiscal year 2014, and in the current fiscal year, we were budgeted to receive $3.5 million from the revenue bureau, but only received $2.1 million. And in fiscal year 2526, the revenue bureau is projecting just 1.8 million for the office of arts and culture. And that's almost $2 million less than disbursed for arts education coordination and grants in fiscal year 2324. Because the arts access fund carries over a balance to cover obligations across fiscal years, this year's decrease will not impact this year's grants. Rather, it will have an impact on next fiscal year's grants awards beginning in July 1st. Next slide please. That takes us to public art. The office of arts and culture is committed to enriching the cultural, social and physical landscape of Portland through public art. Our public art portfolio includes public art, collections management, the percent for art program, public art murals, a temporary installation space in the Portland building, and special initiatives like the mellon foundation funded Portland monuments project. I'm excited to share that we are in the process of hiring a public art administrator, which is a first for the city of Portland. The public art administrator will oversee our public art collections management contract with the regional arts and culture council, and they will manage the percent for art program, collaborating with and supporting capital projects, managers and infrastructure bureaus like parks and PBOT. Next slide please. Beyond just beautification and decoration, public art provides several cultural, social, and economic benefits to the community. It can create a sense of belonging, improve street safety, increase tourism, humanize the built environment, and more. The city's public art collection comprises 1700 artworks. Included in that are 180 outdoor sculptures in parks, rights of way and other publicly accessible spaces, and 650 2d artworks specifically documenting portland's history and local artists through the visual chronicles of Portland collection, and many of those pieces that are hung in city hall are part of that collection. So you're familiar with them today. The program places special emphasis on purchasing art from underrepresented artists and adding art in historically underserved communities. And the percent for art program is robust and allocates up to 2% of eligible costs of capital improvement projects to public art, acquisitions, artist and residency programs, and the development of creative space. But much of our collection doesn't have dedicated funding for maintenance. Additionally, there are about 25 key pieces in the collection that are in need of deeper conservation work to the tune of approximately $1 million that currently isn't funded. Going forward, we are eager for the public art collection to be included in capital asset management conversations and planning. Next slide please. The office of arts and culture has administrative oversight of the Portland five centers for the arts, which are owned by the city but managed by our colleagues at metro. Next slide. These world class venues include the arlene schnitzer concert hall, the keller auditorium, and the antoinette hatfield hall, which includes the newmark, winningstad and brunish theaters. Earlier this year, we partnered with metro to launch a 20 person workgroup to consider new operational models for these cultural facilities. Recommendations from that workgroup are underway, and they'll be presented to city administrator jordan by June 30th. Next slide please. The 2023 arts and economic prosperity six study found that nonprofit arts and culture audiences spend an average of $36.45 per person per event in Portland, not including the price of admission. In fiscal year 2324, more than 800,000 visitors attended performances, cultural activations and community events at these performing arts venues. The venues generated $77 million in economic activity, supporting 520 jobs and contributing $4.1 million in local and state taxes. 789 events were hosted across these spaces, reinforcing the city's reputation as a cultural hub. In general, audiences at our performing arts venues have returned to about 70 to 80% of pre-pandemic levels, and we're looking forward to a time when the venues bring over $1 million, not $1 million, way more than $1 million, but a million visitors to downtown Portland again each year. Next slide please. Cultural planning is also in our portfolio, and our creative future is the regional framework to advance arts and culture throughout the tri county area over the next decade. For 18 months, community engagement for our creative future was shaped by a steering committee made up of 21 community members, each one bringing diverse perspectives from across the region. The previous city arts program manager championed portland's cultural planning, leadership and partnership across seven local governments Clackamas, Multnomah and Washington counties, the cities of Beaverton, hillsboro and Portland, and metro or regional government. This regional cultural plan was accepted by Portland city council in may 2024, and the entire plan can be read at our creativefuture. Org. Next slide please. Building on the goals of our creative future, the office of arts and culture is currently developing a Portland specific implementation plan known as the Portland action plan, which will be published later this year with a 7 to 10 year implementation timeline. The Portland action plan will propose strategies and actions the city can take directly or in partnership, to ensure arts and culture remain at the center of public life in Portland. Goal one centers on building and inclusive arts and cultural community that reflects, serves and welcomes all. Goal two focuses on purposeful connection and coordination within the arts and cultural community to advance collaboration and advocacy for the arts. Goals three and four are about economic vitality, cultural prosperity, and empowering the arts and culture and creative communities with sufficient sustainable funding and other resources. And goal five is about recognizing artists, creatives and cultural nonprofits as vital partners in the health and development of every community in Portland. The Portland action plan will guide our work and vision for serving portlanders through arts and culture in fiscal year 25, 26, and beyond. Next slide please. And since this is kind of a budget conversation to round it out, this pie chart shows the office of arts and culture is multi funded with sources including general fund, arts access fund and the percent for art fund. Both the arts access fund and percent for art fund are restricted and carry over a balance to cover obligations across fiscal years. This year there was also $1 million grant from pcf as a contribution to fund the arlene schnitzer concert hall, roof and cooling tower. Those funds were passed through to metro to perform the work, and we don't expect any PCEF funds this year. Next year, and as I've already shared, we do anticipate fewer resources from the arts access fund next year. But the percent for art fund, that program averages about $1 million for public art each year, depending on the capital improvement projects, and we don't anticipate a decrease there. Finally, we did submit a cut package of 8% to the general fund, and that would mostly impact our non percent for art funded public art contracts and projects. And at the start of this slide deck, I talked about the economic impact of the arts in our city and our region. And while there is a material and important economic impact, it's much more than numbers. Through the cultural planning process, we saw that the work of artists, creatives and cultural nonprofits is essential to the region's economic vitality. But it's also critical to promoting a sense of well-being and belonging. The arts can assist us with our most pressing community issues, and those benefits to our region, while harder to measure, are just as important. Next slide please. That concludes our presentation. And I want to open it up to questions and discussion. But councilor Ryan, I heard maybe you were going to change the order. Oh, okay. Great.
22 Yeah, actually I do have a of the people who signed up. Did they specify if it was this item or the next item?
23 Next.
24 Okay, great. So colleagues, we have people in the queue and I'm happy to see thomas. You're here. Okay, great. There could be questions specifically about the revenue generation. So. Okay. Co-chair Green.
25 Thank you, co-chair Ryan. And thanks so much for coming today to give us this wonderful presentation. I mean, I think portland's an arts town. Our our economy is very much built upon art. And I think that we need to continue to maintain that commitment in that light. I am curious about the revenue structure and the sort of cost associated with collecting that. I think you mentioned briefly some overhead costs suggestions there, but but I see we have our representative from revenue to maybe answer these questions. So please state your name for the record and then maybe give me some an overview of the overhead costs associated with revenue collection.
26 Certainly. Thank you. Chair Ryan and chair Green. My name is thomas lanham. I'm the revenue division director. We collect the arts tax, local business taxes, local income taxes, about 1.5 to $6 billion a year. The arts tax. You may know the structure. Maybe you don't. So I'm going to go back over it. There's the total collections, which in a typical year is around 11.5 to $12.5 million. The arts, the collection costs of the revenue division is the first bucket of disbursements to cover the city's costs of collections. The second bucket is school districts, and the third bucket previously was rack and now was the city arts office. So those first two buckets by code get filled first and then the third bucket last. So right off the bat you have a dynamic where that third bucket is essentially leftovers. So if the expenses are high either for the city or for the schools, that's going to end up impacting that third bucket, which is your arts grants bucket. If collections are soft in a year, the same thing. The first two buckets get filled. But the third bucket is the bucket that will experience the deficit or the shortfall. So in fiscal year 2324, we actually had a pretty strong year. That was a 12.3 or $4 million a year. So if you were to look back at the chart you had, I think it was slide nine showed that year, kind of looking like a healthy and normal disbursement year for the for grants for I think it was rack that year. The school districts since then, since that that peak you can see there in 2324 the school district teacher salaries expanded by around $385,000. Between those two the that year and the next year. So that took a big bite out of the out of the monies that flowed down. And then for next year, they're projected to grow another $800,000. So that's why you're continuing to see deterioration in what falls to the third bucket. So that's the biggest driver of the of the cliff that we're seeing is just expanding teacher salaries. And in particular in the david douglas school district. I think following labor negotiations. So that's a big piece of it. Revenue collection costs are also up, but that's not the primary driver. They're up about 100 to $150,000 over those three fiscal years. So that's just the normal growth of salary and benefits that you'd see for the collection staff. And then I think, you know, as, as was noted earlier, the arts tax has never been indexed to inflation. We have either flat or negative population growth depending on which survey you look at. So there's a problem there just in terms of steady erosion of the purchasing power of the arts tax. The good news is we are expecting a rebound next year. Some stronger collections in 2526, primarily driven from two improvements. One of them is being fully integrated into some third party platforms like turbotax, where it's just a lot easier for people to file and pay and to remember to file and pay. And then the second thing there, which is probably even more substantial, is we're now finally getting fully integrated with the Oregon department of revenue in terms of receiving their data to help us better identify who we didn't hear from, including financial data that will help us identify really who should have paid so that we're not sending notices to folks that may be in poverty or have lower incomes, but rather focusing our collection efforts on the higher end. So there may be the breaking news. There may be a revision to next year's disbursements through to the arts office. I can't tell you how much that would be, but I think we'll probably be able to disburse a little more than, than what you're seeing on on the graph there.
27 Thank you thomas. That's helpful. And you know, I don't typically think about teacher salaries as part of this as overhead. I you know, when I when I talk about overhead, I'm talking about the processing, the chasing, the people who you sent out a mailer and they didn't send it back. So I'm so I'm glad to hear that we're getting some third party integration there and making it just less painful to pay the tax. I think we do need to deal with this, this index problem. And maybe think about how to reform the tax. So it's shared more. It hits taxpayers in a much more fairer way than a flat tax does. So thank you for that.
28 Certainly. On to others. Y thomas is up here. Is everyone have specific questions for him? If not, I want to get in there. Did you have who's next in the queue is councilor Clark.
29 I did, I just want to follow up, but I have other questions as well. But just as long as thomas is on the dais, I just wondered what if you could in the first bucket, the cost to collect. Can you give us a percentage?
30 Yeah. In a typical year it's about 11 or 12%. So over the life of the arts tax, the cost of collections is around 11 or 12%, which is far more than the cost of collection of any of the other taxes that we collect in the revenue division. To give you just a sense of the workload, we send 350,000 mailers to Portland households every year. We expect to hear from 500,000 taxpayers $35 at a time, or an exemption form at a time. All for 11 or $12 million. So the cost of collections, frankly, that's that's not the true cost. We do have some general fund subsidization of that collection effort internally, because it just doesn't pencil out any other way. When the arts tax was first passed by voters in 2012, there was this promise of a 5% cap on the cost of collections. And that, frankly, was never, never realistic. I've been before this body and its previous iterations many times talking about that. So. Because of the very low amount of revenue, it's very and the very high number of people that pay the tax, it's really hard to get that percentage down any further than it is.
31 But it sounds like some of your plans to work more closely with the Oregon department of revenue and turbotax. That might make a difference.
32 Yes, I think we should see some stronger collections next year, but that's not going to stop the overall trend that you saw in that graph. The things that are driving that trend really are cost increases that without an indexing to inflation, you're just going to continue to see a steady deterioration in the amount that flows through.
33 Thank you. That's helpful.
34 I wonder if we could just stay on this thread and then put a pin in the rest, and we'll come right back to you. Anyone else specifically for thomas?
35 Yes, I have have a question. Thank you, thomas, for this overview. In regards to slide nine. So you're saying that the large request that that went down from the arts access fund were solely because of. Collection?
36 No, not solely the primary driver of the big dip that you see in these two years, 2425 and 2526 projected are are increasing teacher salaries as a result. You know, the higher teacher salaries. That's the biggest piece. The next biggest piece is there were softer collections in tax year 2023. We have a joint collection group that handles all of our personal income taxes. So the supportive housing service tax for Multnomah for metro, the preschool for all tax for Multnomah county and the arts tax is all one unified call, essentially a call center and group. So if you call in for service on a personal income tax, we're not routing you to, you know, further different people. There's all one collection group. So if there is difficulty collecting for one of those groups, it ripples through to others. So you might recall last year, last may, as we were collecting for tax year 2023, around 12,000 letters went out for supportive housing services and Multnomah county taxpayers that did not adequately explain the purpose of the letter. And so that caused a lot of phone calls to come into our call center, and it caused us to redirect our efforts to make sure that we took care of that, those taxpayers, their questions, and that that had the effect. It's difficult to put a number on it, but that did have the effect of softening collections for the arts tax. The good news is, I do expect that we'll be able to claw that back in next fiscal year.
37 Well, that explains it more. So question I, I was listening to the presentation and the 8% that you gave back to the to michael jordan's office. How much was that?
38 I'm not sure.
39 Thank you for the question. The 8% is of general fund is not related to the arts access fund, and it's about $357,000.
40 Okay, so it wasn't over the entire 10.15. Okay, great. Thank you.
41 Jamie is here specifically for thomas. Okay, thomas, I'm glad we're spending a little bit of time on this because this is alarming. This doesn't make sense. And I realize that you made the case for the teachers. Salaries have gone up in contract negotiations. And I'll agree with your sentiment, councilor. I just don't think that's it. And I think you got there when you were answering councilor Smith's question, some ball was dropped when it came to the enforcement of collections. To explain this, I just want to try to get to the bottom of it, because no one expected such a drop like this. So tell me, what is the action plan so that we don't drop the ball like this again with collections?
42 Well, to be I want to be really clear about this, that the, the collections again, are not the primary driver for what you're seeing here.
43 The drop that much. That's like an extreme drop. And you.
44 Between those two years.
45 Salaries and the overhead for the first two I heard that. But still this is an unprecedented drop. And we didn't have that much population loss.
46 It was there was $1.2 million of increase in those two fiscal years, either budgeted currently in the current fiscal year or next year, $1.2 million of increase in in school allocations. So that is the primary driver for the dip in this chart that you're seeing. Revenue division collection costs went up about 100 to $150,000 each of those two years. So that's in there too. But it's not a primary driver. And there was some softer collections. It's true in tax year 2023, which flowed into the current fiscal year.
47 And you equated that with the other taxes coming on board. And the capacity of your staff had to focus on the collections of those, which meant that this didn't receive the attention that it used to receive.
48 Right. The arts tax only has about 6 or 7 actual full time dedicated collectors. So. So just think about that for a minute. That's all we can afford.
49 Which is why when I had oversight of this bureau, back when I really pushed on making it easier for the taxpayer and those who works with taxpayers. And that's where the turbo tax conversation came up. It's been a really slow implementation process. Can you tell me when we can expect that efficiency to be part of this equation? So maybe we'll start to see some more acceptable collection numbers?
50 Yeah, I think so. First of all, I want to thank you, chair, for your advocacy in that area because you were early and often kind of on the topic. So in terms of third party, third party tax software preparation products, we're actually not just in turbotax. We're in a total of 11 different products. So there are many others. Some of them are specific to paid tax professional preparers, their products and other products that are available in the in the. In the, in the marketplace. So we're in many of those products. That effort started five years ago. The issue is that the city of Portland cannot compel third party platforms to carry our taxes. And so if you are the turbotax's of the world, the very first thing you focus your product changes on every year is federal requirements. Because everybody files a federal, most people file a federal return. Then the next thing that those those tax software companies focus on is state level products. Because again, that's the bulk of the market share. And then only in in only when there's time and available resources do they actually focus their attention on implementing more local county or city kinds of taxes in their products. So it is a long it's a lot of work to get them to bring us aboard. In fact, we had a at one point, a joint letter, I think, written by mayor wheeler in the in the chair of Multnomah county and the metro president imploring intuit to please bring our taxes on board.
51 So I'm hearing that. So why do you project next year would be lower if, in fact, you're putting in these more efficiency measures? We're not trying to play catch up with the other taxes. So this might finally get the staffing it deserves. Why would you project that? It will continue to go down when we've had some self-inflicted wounds that have caused it to go lower?
52 The collection should go up next year compared to this year and the previous year. The problem is it's the costs are increasing even more than the collections will increase. And that's why you see.
53 Can we get can we follow up with a breakdown of the different factors on why we're seeing such an unprecedented drop in collections and therefore in distributions, and how have we been communicating this drop in collections, which is which is indicating a drop in disbursements to our schools community?
54 The schools are not seeing a drop in their.
55 Because they're of the part of the first two. It's the rest of the arts ecosystem.
56 Yes, unfortunately it's the arts office. It used to be rack that would that would see that volatility.
57 Okay. I'm grateful.
58 That you were here today. It did really stick out. And so we needed to have this transparent dialog in the public. And I look forward to a more details on to explain how we are experiencing such an unprecedented drop in collections.
59 Happy to do that.
60 And back to the line of questioning. Back to you, councilor Clark. Thanks for allowing us to detour a bit.
61 Of course, of course. Thank you, mr. Co-chair.
62 I'm going to switch gears away from the arts tax, and I'm assuming that at some point our other co-chair will be discussing this in the finance committee, I would assume at some point, but I'd like to switch gears and ask a question first. You're aware that tomorrow the city auditor's office is coming out with a report on asset management and the city's performance on asset management. So I wanted to ask you in, particularly regarding p5, how you approach asset management and what condition are the p5 assets in?
63 Thank you for the question, councilor Clark. The Portland five centers for the arts are listed in the section in that report that is under spectator venues. So spectator venues had management of p5, administrative oversight of p5 until last year. And we included them in that section. Still, you'll see that the conditions show good and fair depending on which building it is. But at the same time, I think that there is a larger story and we don't have the full understanding of what kind of deferred maintenance is required on the buildings. Our partners at metro are completing facilities condition assessments later this calendar year, so next year we'll be able to tell more of that story.
64 Thank you. That's really good news. Staying on the p5, I understand we've talked before charity about the group that's working on p5. And I'm wondering if they have really dived into alternative management models, not just city and not just metro, but are we looking at public private partnerships or other ways to manage and really maximize the potential or the profits of p5?
65 Yes, that's exactly what the workgroup is doing. Now. We've had the workgroup launched in mid January, and we are continuing to meet until the end of may, and then we'll be working on the recommendations. So we we're sort of towards the end of our meetings, but the workgroup is considering a whole number of operational models. Those questions that you asked, private public partnerships, we could look at, nonprofit operations. We could look at for profit operations. There's a half a dozen ways that you can sort of slice and dice it. And so they are considering those options. We brought in a dedicated facility like performing arts center consultant, to guide some of those conversations and to benchmark the Portland five center's from the arts to other performing arts centers across the country.
66 Great. I'm really happy to hear that. And so can you use your crystal ball and tell us what what's the next step after they complete their report?
67 My crystal ball only goes so far. I think that they'll complete they will complete their report and we it goes two directions. So the workgroup is making recommendations to dca, shimanski and general manager of visitor venues craig strauss at metro. And then each of those dca and general manager will make their recommendations to our city administrator and mayor. And then the merc and metro council. And I do anticipate that our leadership will want to immediately jump into the next step, which is likely looking at more due diligence and revisiting the iga. That is the operational agreement between the city and metro.
68 Okay, that's great information. Can I ask that you provide the results to this committee as well?
69 Yes.
70 I think we're all interested in the outcome of that work. One just one more question, mr. Co-chair. Yes, I my understanding in just beginning to look into p5 is that of the facilities in p5 that the councilor is really the only profit making center. Can you talk a little bit more about that? And also I'm wondering in the same vein, I believe there was supposed to be somewhere someone doing a review of the market in our in our community and what, what we can actually support as far as performing arts centers. So two two questions there.
71 Thank you. So for the first question, really, the Portland five centers for the arts are five venues, but they're looked at as one performing arts center even though they're across three buildings. So when we talk about the keller being more profitable, it's the current system is not entirely fair to separate out the buildings that way, because the administration and operations of those are shared across all of the venues. So metro's overhead costs are shared across the venues. But it is true that the keller is larger. So it's the largest venue, and it is where the broadway shows happen. So those are commercial shows and they are. When I talked earlier about pre-pandemic levels for performing arts, broadway is actually back there. They're doing really great. They're sold out all the time. So that's the kind of, you know, so those commercial shows are doing really well. If you there's if you were to look at a way to, to split and sort of do a profit and loss across venues, it would be with a lot of assumptions and caveats, but you would see that the commercial shows at the keller do bring in more profit, and that helps subsidize the nonprofit performances at the other venues and really specifically the. There are four tiers and Portland five centers for the arts is really like a rental host agency. So the performers, the venues are filled with performances and presentations by folks who want to present it, and they rent it and they pay for it. And the nonprofit organizations have received discounts based on what kind of tier they are. So if 70% of your calendar at the Portland five centers for the arts is with nonprofits who are receiving a discount, you have to have some kind of balance and have those commercial presentations bringing in higher profits to subsidize the whole system. But I think one of the things that you'll see when we talk further about what the workgroup is coming out with is that there there are not many performing arts centers across the country that don't function without subsidy from the government, and even deeper subsidy than is provided here in Portland.
72 And my second question.
73 Oh, you.
74 Read the results in.
75 A follow up.
76 Oh.
77 I blanked on it.
78 You know what.
79 I did to.
80 I'm so sorry, councilor.
81 Okay.
82 Colleagues, I would like to.
83 Ask my.
84 About seven more minutes in this area.
85 Just no.
86 More questions. But just to my co-chairs that when we do get the report, I hope that we can schedule time on the committee to do a deeper dive into that.
87 Thank you.
88 Specific assets in the p5. I agree. Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Thank you for your patience.
89 Thank you. Chair.
90 Charity. How does Portland compare to peer cities with regards to the total amount of money we're spending on public arts and broadly arts dollars?
91 That's a really great question. And I don't know the answer. We have been looking and only talking about what the office of arts and like what's in the office of arts and culture sphere. But if we look at the investments and our our team is working on this, but if we look at what we invest in arts education, what our office does in grants, there's other places in the city that invest in the arts, and that includes parks and rec, which you're going to hear about. Pbot has a lot of arts programing, so we actually think that the city's investment in the arts is a lot more than what you just heard from us today, but we haven't had the chance to benchmark that against other cities yet.
92 Okay.
93 You know, my understanding on the state level is that we are woefully behind. We are, I believe, 45th or something like that. Out of 50 states. And Portland has not has done our best. But with a state partner not investing like that, it's hard for us to compensate. But I still believe that as a percentage of our economy, this represents a, you know, the broader creative arts and creative culture of our economy. This represents an enormously outsized, undersized part of our budget. I think we need to be looking for opportunities to increase this. And I'll tell you, colleagues, I'll just forecast I am actively working on reforming the arts tax and would welcome any buddy on this committee to help me with that, because it's going to be hard. I have two. I have one, I have two questions. I'm sorry, but I'll make it very quickly with regard to implementing the our creative future recommendations, I heard that there's an arts action plan with some framing guidelines. I worry that that the framing guidelines are feeding into a narrative that is historically not served the arts well in this, in this city, specifically in that the guidelines. How do I put this in my experience as an artist and as a policy maker, I have experienced that the arts are often viewed as a nice to have. They are a viewed as a twee little thing that fits in your hand, and that means it's the first thing that we that gets cut out of budgets. But everybody in this room knows that the arts are a huge part of our economy. They are a part of our the drivers of business and small businesses in every part of our community. And they are an enormous part of public safety. I would urge you all to look for ways to reframe that argument to prevent future city councils from saying, well, you know, when you're comparing public art and a police officer, the general public is going to scream that we want the police officer. It's a false choice. And I would urge you all to make sure that as we are looking for the specific implementation recommendations for our creative future, that that is centered. I love the way that this committee has framed it because it's arts and economy, it's jobs, it's money into the city, it's tourism, it's our our image. To that end, I would ask, could you tell me a little bit about the specific philosophy around the city's arts granting and specifically the operation or the general operating grants that we have? I have heard it pejoratively defined as trickle down economics, in that we are giving a lot more money to the bigger organizations in hopes that it will trickle down to the smaller organizations. I don't know that that's a fair characterization, but could you tell me a little bit about how we approach arts granting?
94 Thank you for the question, councilor on the grants we did transition that grant making function in-house to the office of arts and culture July 1st. It was previously done by our contractor, rak. Rak currently does small grants for us, but that general operating support came in house and a couple of things happened. Rak previously had set up a tiered system that looks at that base base awards that are based on percentage of overall budget, like the budget size. So smaller organizations with smaller budgets would get a larger percentage of their budget in that grant award, and larger organizations would get more money, but they would get a much smaller portion of their overall budget. In the general operating support grant. I believe rak set that system up about five years ago, and we there was a lot happening July 1st last year and lead up to our change in government, a new service area, a new office. We wanted to make sure that we didn't drop the ball and we didn't drop the importance of getting these grants out. We also shifted to web grants. So we have spent nine months getting all 80 of those arts organizations in our system, going through web grants, working with the grants management division, bringing things in alignment with the grants policy, the new grants policy. So we determined that we were going to keep rack's process for base awards. So that tiered system that already exists. At the same time, a couple of other things happened. We received, you know, oversight of the Portland five centers for the arts. And so when folks look at why are some of the orgs looking like they're getting a lot more than previously, this city council had been giving a rental subsidy to p5 to, excuse me, to the nonprofit resident companies and featured companies that use p5 to offset rents. And that was going up in a stair step for three years. And the first two years used up all the money that city council had allocated for it, that that expired. And we also took on giving those rental subsidies. So the nonprofits that perform in p5 that receive general operating support from us got a rental subsidy on top of it, and that for efficiency, we wanted to just do one contract and one check. So we issued it at the same time with their general operating support grants. But it wasn't meant to be a larger general operating support grant. It's a it's a p5 subsidy going forward. And we have heard from a lot of our general operating support grantees. We've had multiple listening sessions. We've heard a lot of questions around this process. And if and when it's going to open up again, it's also kind of a once you're in it, you're in it. People don't get out of the general operating support cohort. And as they were able, rac would add nonprofit organizations to it. So now we've got 80 folks that are in this cohort. So there's just a lot of questions. How do you get in? When are we going to open it up again? What's that structure? What's the importance of the smaller nonprofit organizations versus the large ones? We actually don't think that it is a I don't think it's trickled down. It's a it's an all boats rise sort of a situation. It's very important for us not to pit large arts organizations versus small organizations. We need an entire healthy arts economy and ecosystem. So we're dedicated to supporting all of it. We're also looking at redoing our general operating support program, and we'll be having further conversation with grantees. With grant makers. We're looking at what other folks are doing, including our colleagues at the children's levy, and looking at best practices across the country in grant making. And we'll start those conversations more in July.
95 Great. Thank you.
96 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. Charity, I have a question about the 70 to 80% return since COVID. You know, there's a lot of factors on why things are down. We heard about the collections and distribution earlier, but when you hear that since COVID, we're still only at 70 to 80%, that's troublesome, because that's always been what ignites our evening and our weekends economy downtown. When you talk to people, they say one of the main reasons they come downtown is, of course, to see an arts event. What are the factors that are making that challenging, to get it back to where it was? What are you hearing from the partners?
97 Well, we hear a number of things. Audience behavior has changed. Audience behavior started changing before the pandemic, but there is sort of a shift to streaming. I can get anything I want to see on my phone. Our behavior changed when we were more isolated, working from home a little bit more. So we don't necessarily think about going out to see live music or live performance in the same way. There are other shifts coming out of the pandemic around things like nostalgia, and so we've seen small performing arts venues and music venues having less audiences, but folks are instead focusing on going to really large stadium shows. We don't have really large stadium shows here, so there's a lot of just ways that audience behavior has changed. And in particular, performing arts and theaters are the ones that have been hit the most. The ones that are are being able to bring back those audiences quicker are the ones that are innovating, doing in two ways. Either you know, partnering and doing really interactive, immersive kinds of artworks like the winter light festival or hopscotch or these kinds of interactive things. Those are very popular. Or going to like the classics and really the nutcracker or really kind of nostalgic things. Concerts and comedy is doing really well. And like I mentioned, the broadway shows are doing really well. It's really a mix across, and I think that there is a little bit of not thinking about coming downtown.
98 Yeah.
99 Thank you. I know we because we found out how many people are testifying. We had to edit our agenda. I just want to end by thanking you so much for the big lift that you've been through. You and darien especially and dawn's. Here are the members of the arts and culture team. Could you please wave that are here? There's dawn. You're a small and mighty team. Any way you have gone through so much change and you are building a centralized system and working with web grants, it's really impressive. I think that will be good. We can move on to item number two. Thank you so much for your time and we appreciate the dialog. And I think we do have an agenda item coming up to dive deeper into the arts houses downtown. All right. Sounds good. So if we could please read up if you could read item number two. Is that right? Yeah.
100 Questions?
101 Sure. Item series. Public testimony.
102 I'm going to do the testimony after this item because you told me most of the people that have showed up today are for this item, right?
103 It's part of the same item though.
104 So yeah, let's hear the presentation. And then I suggest we do testimony. And so those of us that elected can hear it and then we'll do our questions. How's that. All right. Cool. Welcome. Today is an opportunity I have a little bit of an intro that someone wrote for me. I should read it. It's good to see you, director long. Today's opportunity to learn about parks and recreation programs. I appreciate the team who is here today. I've worked and with this dedicated group of professionals when I was a commissioner and now as a counselor, they the work they do every day for portlanders, especially our families and elders, show up in beautiful parks, active community centers that make people want to stay in our city. Parks, recreation activities for our community. In a time when there's not as much joy to go around as there used to be, is so necessary for portland's soul, deputy director lofgren and director long, thank you for your dedication to bringing joy back to our city. And I am going to end with saying it's so good that I think we put the recreation side into the arts and economy committee because you truly activate the city, not just downtown, but throughout every corner of our city and every district. Thanks for being here. The presentation and the floor is yours.
105 Wonderful. Thank you. Hello, councilors. I'm adina long, director of Portland parks and recreation, and I'm so happy to be here with the arts and economy committee this morning. Portland parks and recreation gives life and beauty to our city by providing a diverse portfolio of parks, public places, natural areas, urban forest, recreational and arts facilities, and public programs used extensively by residents and visitors alike. We already know that portlanders are deeply connected to our services, facilities, and programs. Prior surveys have shown that about half of Portland households use recreation programs each year. Our parks and recreation system is critical to quality of life for portlanders, and is especially important for families and a newly released 2020 for engagement with parks report from the national recreation and parks association found that 86% of united states adults seek high quality parks and recreation when choosing a place to live. Portland's parks and recreation system is consistently ranked one of the best in the country, most recently ranked by the trust for public land as ninth best. Today. In the brief time we have together, we'll share our mission and vision and just a few of the ways we support portland's economy and families. We'll talk about our recreation facilities, including our built facilities and sites, as well as the components of our system that include outdoor, active and passive recreation. We'll talk about our public programs and the ways our system supports arts and culture for the community. We'll look at some key highlights and how we reach out to the community to support participation and access. Then we'll briefly discuss funding, resources and including some fee examples and example ranges of the costs associated with operating some of our recreation facilities. The presentation should clock in under 20 minutes, so that you have at least 20 minutes to ask questions. There's a lot of information to share. So what we have today is necessarily at a high level. But please know that we're happy to come back for additional discussion of any topics that arise today that warrant a deeper dive. All right. Let's get started. Portland parks and recreation's mission is to provide equitable access to welcoming places, programs, and services that improve community health and our environment. We envision a parks and recreation system that is responsive to diverse and changing community needs, nurturing health and connection for all our recreation, arts, and environmental programs are key to helping us accomplish this vision and the outcomes we'd like to work toward with the community. Portland's park and recreation system is critical to our quality of life and the stability of our economy. Recently, an Oregonian survey asked the question, why do portlanders stay? 31% of residents said natural beauty, the top category. Others cited the proximity to the outdoors and access to recreation. Portland parks and recreation supports local, regional and national visitation through sports, events and tournaments. Arts and culture. Events. Events at the waterfront park, family destinations, and the Portland international raceway. Family destinations in Portland like the Oregon zoo, japanese garden, and forest park, are visited by 3.5 million people each year. Events and tourism have a big impact for portland's economy. Travel Portland statistics found that in 2021, the Portland region welcomed 11.3 million overnight trips, with those visits resulting in 3.8 billion in direct spending, 88 million in local tax revenue, and that the travel industry supports 27,130 jobs in the Portland area. Annual events like the Portland rose festival and blues festival draw hundreds of thousands of visitors. A sport Oregon report to council noted that a nascar event hosted at the Portland international raceway in June 2022 produced upwards of $8 million in direct economic impact for our region, and Portland parks and recreation is one of oregon's largest youth employers, giving many Portland youth their first job and an important opportunity to earn money and learn responsibility. Many of those youth end up working for us full time as adults. Let's talk a little bit about what our parks and recreation system offers to the community. I want to say here that I'm extremely proud of Portland parks and recreation and our staff. We have been working very hard since the COVID 19 pandemic to rebuild our programs and serve as many portlanders as possible. You've heard before that our parks and recreation system accounts for 15% of portland's land, including 8000 acres of natural areas, Portland parks and recreation system includes a variety of recreational activities and program sites, including community centers, indoor and outdoor pools, and sites that support specific activities like schools, uniting neighborhood programs, preschool or golf courses. Our system also includes the Portland international raceway and Portland tennis center. We operate two art focused community centers, the community music center and Multnomah arts center. We're working in partnership with the community to revitalize the interstate firehouse cultural center in regional and neighborhood community centers, people can participate in art, music, and dance classes. And our summer free for all series offered 47 events last summer, including concerts, movies and parks, and specialty festivals. From July 4th through labor day, you can find a free event in a Portland park most nights of the week. This map shows regional, neighborhood and partner managed community centers, art focused centers, indoor pools, outdoor pools and our tennis facility. The Green shows where parks are located. When we think and talk about recreation in Portland, in Portland parks and recreation system, we tend to talk about indoor facilities, but our system also includes many assets that support outdoor, active and passive recreation throughout parks. These range from active recreation amenities like sport courts, fields and playgrounds to more passive recreation amenities like gardens and places for people to gather. Community members can hike on trails, meet up with their dog, parent friends, cool off at splash pads, skateboard or bike at a new pump track like the one at gateway Green. Portland parks and recreation provides a wide variety of public programs that support portlanders, and many support children, youth, and families. We provide access to free meals and nutritious food. We provide child care and after school programs, classes, day camps, and summer camps for all ages. We support citywide sport programs and sport leagues in the community, swim lessons and aquatics programs that include fitness classes, lap swim, swim teams and events, and an opportunity for indoor and outdoor recreational swim. Our programing supports teens and youth, seniors and people with disabilities. Our public environmental education programs offer ladybug walks, nature day camps, teen nature team and more. We've already mentioned youth employment, but our youth conservation crew and park squad give teens access to natural resource and recreation jobs as well, and Portland parks and recreation works to support and with the support of community partnerships and volunteers. Total estimated attendance is a measure that represents the volume of use within our recreation programs. Portland parks and recreation has seen total attendance increase over the first three years since COVID, and with support of the parks levy as a funding source in fiscal year 2324, attendance was over 1.3 million for registered activities, meals served summer free for all events passed, scans and drop in visits, as well as sports leagues. We also tracked the number of unique customers using park system programs or facilities each year. Annual customers is a measure that represents our market reach in the community. It represents users who have had a transaction in our registration and reservation system, like the trend we just saw for total attendance. We are also seeing an increase in the number of individuals participating. Community surveys show that about half of Portland households use recreation programs each year. Of note, when we look here at just registered program utilization, nearly 25,000 or almost a quarter of portland's youth under 18 participated in a recreational program last year. You see a slight dip in youth user totals for fiscal year 2223, 24. Excuse me, the Green bar at the bottom. So while mount scott community center is closed for construction, parks has moved as much program as possible to other locations. However, the interruption in the community center's normal programing has resulted in some decrease in programs and participation. Here are a few participation highlights from last fiscal year, portlanders received 118,000 free meals. Portland parks and recreation's teen force sites saw nearly 36,000 pass scans. Some are free for all events were attended by an estimated 30,000 people. Attendance for environmental education programs, camps and classes was nearly 7000, and more than 10,000 participants took swim lessons, a number that has largely held steady. After reopening. Following COVID, Portland parks and recreation is now back to offering the recommended two week length for swim lesson courses with mount scott community center offline last year during repairs, repair, repairs that are ongoing, Portland parks and recreation increased programing elsewhere, but this has limited our ability to increase aquatics programing programs like schools to pools, partnering with Portland public schools to provide swim classes to second graders, help to further provide access. Our parks and recreation system also supports permitted events, including athletic field use, weddings and picnics, and public events put on by community organizations, businesses, nonprofits, and other groups. The parks and recreation system is a catalyst for community to come together. Portland parks and recreation's work to build community partnerships, enable stronger community connection, and allows Portland parks and recreation and partners to serve more portlanders. We provided over 2.3 million in grants to 25 grants to 25 partner organizations last year, in addition to financial grants to partners, parks has increased its space grants, allowing free or reduced cost access to Portland parks and recreation facilities and spaces for partner programing. In fiscal year 2324, the value of those space grants was just over $460,000. Portlanders spent nearly 400,000 hours of time last year helping to deliver parks and recreation system. Whether that's coaching sports teams, pruning roses or caring for our natural areas. We really appreciate the many ways portlanders show up for their community in parks. Recreation services has been building an outreach program called project connect. Project connect provides different ways to bring community and services together, and helps Portland parks and recreation improve access to parks and recreation activities, especially for black people, indigenous people, people of color, immigrants and refugees, people with disabilities, LGBTQ to plus people, youth, older adults, and people living with low incomes. Over 100 organizations and leaders have joined the recreation services community network and receive information about park and recreation services to share with their communities. The recreation outreach team takes resources, information and activities to community events and meetings, and participates in public information sessions at libraries. In addition, project connect has created outreach agreement partnerships with organizations to help sorry to help connect their communities to Portland parks and recreation services and programs. Portland parks and recreation access pass program began in fiscal year 2122, helping to meet a parks levy commitment to remove cost as a barrier. The program provides an optional discount on activity fees from 25% to 90%. In fiscal year 2324, the access pass program provided 4.1 million in financial assistance to more than 18,000 people. Of the people registering for some level of an access discount, 70% self-identified as living at or below the current Oregon poverty level. You can see here that 33% of access discount use was applied to community center membership or drop in attendance, and 34% was used for summer camps and classes. Now I'm going to talk briefly about the funding, resources, and expenses associated with recreation programing, golf and the Portland international raceway. This slide summarizes the budget for recreation programing, including programing facilities and programs like community gardens and environmental education and parks. We anticipate spending nearly 54 million this year delivering recreation programs. On the left, you see our resources that fund recreation mostly tax resources in the form of general fund and parks levy. Those are the two Green slices. In addition, we charge fees for many of our programs. Our team makes a little additional revenue from the Portland water bureau, the interagency revenue that is our aquatics team, who takes care of the water bureau's decorative fountains. On the expense side, unsurprisingly, the biggest cost is people. That includes both full time as well as seasonal casual staff. The budget supports around 200 fte and includes more than 12.5 million for seasonal casual staff, primarily seasonal staff, to deliver additional programing in the summer. External materials and services include all the utilities for our buildings, as well as supplies to make our programs go everything from pool chemicals to supplies.
106 For.
107 Art classes, internal materials and services is what we pay to the central service divisions for things like technology and fleet. We have a tiny slice of capital that reflects purchases like exercise equipment that exceed the capitalization threshold, the inner fund cash transfer cent funding on a one time basis to our capital fund for an aquatics project. We understand council is interested in the fees Portland parks and recreation charges for programs and services. This slide provides a few examples from our recreation programing. You will see some ranges here. Youth and senior admissions have lower rates than adults, and costs are adjusted for a few facilities that have different amenities. If your office would like additional contacts, we're happy to provide a briefing or share a summary document following today's presentation. Like the fee examples, facilities in the parks and recreation system have a wide range of operating costs. We've provided a range of operations costs, estimated fee revenues, and the net operational expenditures for regional community centers, neighborhood community centers, the arts focused centers, and our outdoor pools. Again, if this committee or your office would like a more detailed briefing on any one of these cost examples or for specific sites, we're happy to provide one. The golf fund and the Portland international raceway fund are designed as self-sustaining enterprise funds. Revenues in the fund come from a variety of sources, including Green fees, cart rentals, driving range, food and beverage and merchandise sales. That revenue pays for our staff who manage the grounds, reflected in personnel and the management company that is contracted to run the business, which is reflected in external materials and services. The fund also pays for internal city services like fleet and technology. Cash transfers are payments to the city's general fund for overhead services like the city budget office, counsel offices and the city attorney. Debt service is the contribution to the citywide pension bond payment. Green fees vary, but are around $30 for a 99 hole round. Golf employs 26 fte and budgets nearly $750,000 for seasonal casual staff. Portland international raceway is also self-funded, earning revenue at the site for events including racing events, track rentals and swap meets. In the last several years, we've brought premier events to the city, including nascar, indycar and formula e. The cost for running the raceway are more heavily weighted around personnel. Since we manage the track directly without a management company, staff do all the event booking and in many instances provide seasonal casual staff to support events, Portland international raceway employs six fte and budgets $125,000 for seasonal casual staff debt. Retirement for this fund is a bit bigger because it includes payment on an interfund loan that was made to repave the track a couple of years ago. While the fund has struggled in recent years, particularly during COVID, the fund has developed a reasonable reserve against downturns. That concludes our overview, and we look forward to any questions you might have. And I'd like to invite some staff members to join me. In case there's any questions I can't answer.
108 Thank you, director long. What I'd like to do is to make sure that those who have been patiently waiting to that came to testify, that we pivot to them. So if you could wait and we'll listen to the testimony, then we'll get in some dialog. Thank you. Call up. Did you say there's 10 or 11? Yeah, maybe. Okay.
109 Item two, office of arts and culture and parks and recreation. Operations. Public hearing. We first we have jessica Green, justin mendiguren and adrian feldstein.
110 Yeah. Please come up. Jessica, good to see you. Thanks for your patience.
111 Do we have two minutes or three?
112 Two minutes okay. Yeah.
113 Anyone coming up? Are you.
114 Coming up I think. Did you announce the 2 or 3 names? Yeah. Please come up. Thank you. Name and role for the record. Let's get started. We'll set the clock at two minutes.
115 Hi. Thank you. Counselors. My name is jessica Green, and I'm the executive director of the Portland parks foundation. Over the last decade, with council direction, pbr moved to address underserved parts of the city, addressing inequities in the tree canopy fees and access to nearby parks and community centers. This led to expanded commitments that overlapped with a period of diminishing revenues. The city found temporary solutions with voter approved levy and with funding allocations, allowing the city to reduce the amount of general funds budgeted for parks while still expanding the system. So now that the levy is set to expire and parks is taking yet another general fund reduction, we have to ask ourselves what kind of park system are we willing to pay for and what would that look like today? Pbr provided you with lots of numbers around our current recreation system. What's behind these numbers is the heart of a recreation system that makes this city livable for families and for individuals. Behind these numbers, pbr is providing the infrastructure for portlanders to activate their communities, nurture their youth, support their elders, and allow families to have access to safe, affordable, dependable and fun places to play, build community, and maintain a sense of belonging. Behind these numbers are hundreds of partners who build on this infrastructure to offer recreation opportunities to thousands of individuals and families. Their creativity, commitment to equity and breadth of programing for our communities tells a powerful story about the value of these partnerships, and the role of pbr provides for them to activate. Us. As city council considers what parks and recreation system we want for Portland, I encourage you to remember that pbr provides the infrastructure that these partners all build on. Without the infrastructure, then what? So the questions to ask now are what types of park and recreation system do we want for our future? How can the city provide the infrastructure to get us there? And how do we leverage partnerships? Thank you.
116 Thank you. You nailed it.
117 Next.
118 Welcome. Hi, I'm adrian feldstein, and I'm a public health physician, a member of the Portland parks and rec advisory board and co-chair of the urban forestry commission. Also an avid outdoors person and ppr swim instructor. Speaking. I'm speaking as an individual. I want to give you a very specific perspective on really highlight the life enhancing and really life saving services provided by ppr and really ask, as we go forward in this budget crisis for equity and creativity. I also want to ask for your support to for it to pursue long term, sustainable funding for both operations and maintenance. I'm here to make the case that these services, although often viewed as optional, are not. Portlanders come and stay in large part for a parks, trees and Green spaces. And it really took being on these boards to understand really the scope of what ppr does. Basically, they manage 15% of the of our land in parks, community center, public pools, natural areas, trails, sports fields. You heard from director long about the extent of it provide access to Green spaces and provide a whole host of classes. Community stewardship, feeding and emergency programs, and public safety and park rangers. In addition, one thing you may not understand is they provide the monitoring and management to improve the entire urban canopy. So as a public health physician, I just want to say that these assets and services are not optional. Access to Green spaces and canopy promote physical activity, provides numerous physical and mental health benefits, including improved quality of life and productivity important to our economy and reduce deaths. Urban canopies reduce air pollution, heat exposure and noise levels, and a few of the specific positive effects also include reduced blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, depression, cancer and a whole host of other conditions. Recreational programs reduce crime through youth engagement, positive development, alternatives to gangs, and improved community and social cohesion.
119 Thank you. We have to move on to the next testimony.
120 So just want to say you're the economics committee. This we talk about this in epidemiology is quality adjusted life years. And this is these are some of the strongest medicines that we have. And so I really encourage you and actually when.
121 Thank you.
122 You made great points. Deirdre. Would you please read the next two.
123 Next we have justin mendiguren there joining us online.
124 Hi there. Can you all hear me?
125 Yes.
126 Hi there. My name is justin. Thank you all for taking the time for me to come up in front of you all today. I am a recreation lead for Portland parks and recreation. My testimony today revolves around the access discount, which was talked a little bit about in the presentation that we just saw. I believe that as we're figuring out a difficult budget cycle for Portland parks, this program needs to get a little bit more scrutiny. As stated, with no financial or residency checks, anybody can get up to 90% off the cost of memberships or registered classes while lowering these rates. Sorry, lowering these barriers to access is wonderful. The unverified blank check nature of this program is financially unsustainable and presents an equality based measure rather than one rooted in equity. Because if anybody can claim any discount, regardless of a stated income and that process is not verified, then it's not only a system, like I said, more of an equality measure than an equity measure. It's creating unreliable data in terms of the cost for the bureau, these discounts cost $1 million of levy funds in fiscal year 2122, $2.8 million in 2223, 4.2 million. As mentioned in the presentation in 2324 to about $2.2 million in the first quarter of 20 2024 2025, which is the most recent data that I have access to. We have over 150 individuals who do not live in Portland park zone districts who would not be eligible for access discounts, who are utilizing 90% access discounts. This is not a number that includes unhoused folks. Typically, we kind of have a workaround for that, where we will list their address as the Portland building in the system, because obviously any equity measure should be targeting those unhoused individuals in our city. We do have some great examples of equity measures in our city, one of those being the north Portland pass, which is something that matt dishman was able to use for free drop in programs after or for those affected by the columbia pool closure. This is a great equity measure because it targets a specific group, gives access, and is more financially sustainable. When we're in the face of cutting programs like camps, after school programs, we're talking about cutting an entire community center, eliminating city wide sports trail maintenance, utility workers. We're just a little too lazy. Fund with our fair, with the way we're spending money on this program. Thank you.
127 Thank.
128 You justin. Next person please.
129 Next. Next we have chris o'grady their online.
130 Good morning councilors. My name is chris o'grady. I'm a portlander, a parks board member, director of tribal affairs at care Oregon, and someone who believes deeply in the power of public spaces to heal, uplift and connect. I'm speaking as a member of the public today on my own behalf, as an indigenous community member and someone who works on behalf of families every day. I'm here to speak from the heart and from experience. The programing you're hearing about today isn't just a nice to have. It's essential infrastructure for the health of our children and families. This system does more than just offer swim lessons and day camps, though. Let's be clear, teaching 10,000 plus kids how to swim is life saving work. It creates spaces where kids and families can laugh and play without a large, and in most cases, any financial burden. Where a parent working two jobs can know their child is safe after school, where teens who might otherwise be pulled into the wrong crowd find mentorship, identity and employment. I've seen it in action. Nearly 1600 youth employed last year, over 36,000 teen forced visits. These are real pathways out into leadership and toward belonging among the Portland community. And it's equitable. The access pass gives $4.1 million in financial assistance last year, meeting folks where they're at, not where they wish they were. Let's not forget the scale. Over 118,000 free meals served. That's not a parks program. That's a lifeline for families in our city. As a board member, I see the data as a community member. I see the difference. I hear about parents at peninsula park who are finally able to exhale when their kids play safely. I see young people from the youth conservation crew discovering their relationship with nature and with themselves. This is what creates lifelong parks advocates and I see the return on investment. This program is deeply strategic. It drives $88 million in local tax revenue and supports over 20,007, 27,000 jobs in Portland. You want a safer, healthier, more connected Portland fund this work. We're not just growing gardens and teaching sports. We're planning resilience, leadership and belonging. Thank you for your time and for your commitment to the future of this city.
131 Thank you chris.
132 Next. Testimony please.
133 Next we have Elana jackson.
134 We have graham poll.
135 Graham cole.
136 Rate. Graham's here. Welcome. Two minutes and we'll start the clock. Just say something.
137 Good morning. My name is graham cole. I'm a proud Portland native and the executive director of whitebird, a 27 year old nonprofit presenter of contemporary dance. We received general operating support from the office of arts and culture. Like many of our fellow recipients, whitebird absorbs financial losses so that the sectors around us see net gains. Each one of our performances represents dozens of venue workers, paid hundreds hundreds of cars parked and thousands of drinks bought, most of them downtown. You saw in the office of arts and cultures presentation how that translates into a large net gain for the local economy. We present as many performances as we can. That's what we do, but are limited by costs rising and funding sources plateauing. The issue at hand is funding for the office of arts and culture generally, and general operating support specifically. That support helps us provide portlanders with a wealth of affordable opportunities to enjoy great art. We want to be active partners, as this council charts a path toward to the thriving Portland we all want to see. In this spirit, I encourage you and your fellow councilors to consider the following one. Preserve funding for Portland arts and culture now and in the future. Two besides simply funding it, support the staff of the office of arts and culture as best you can. Their team has been exceptionally communicative and has collected many good ideas about how the arts can continue to drive portland's recovery. Three prioritize the recommendations coming out of the performing arts venues workgroup. The current fee structure of Portland five is not setting local organizations up for success, and is badly in need of reform. And four please revisit the structure of the arts tax. Thank you for that. As a as a citizen, I'm very concerned about how it's been implemented. We look forward to working in close collaboration with you to lead Portland to a new era of vitality. I believe in our creative future and I know you do too. Thank you for your time.
138 Thank you so much, graham. Thanks for all you do to bring dance to Portland next, please.
139 Next we have kristen bryson.
140 Hello, kristen.
141 Good to see you. Sorry I missed the event last week.
142 It's a good one. It's a good one.
143 It's the annual arts. What's it called?
144 Heart of Portland. Portland. You can catch it on Saturday or Sunday. Excuse me. We have an open event at the museum all day.
145 Oh, nice.
146 All right. Now, now we can start the clock.
147 Okay.
148 Hello, councilors. My name is kristen bryson. I'm the director of visual and performing arts education for Portland public schools. As we approach the end of this school year, I will have spent 11 years at the central office supporting arts education. I feel incredibly privileged to have been the first wps employee hired to implement the arts access fund during its inaugural year in 1314. I'm here to speak to the transformative power of public investment in the arts, an investment that has reshaped access and opportunity and reignited communities for thousands of students, families and neighborhoods across our city. Back in 2012, before the arts tax passed, pbs had only 13 music and 13 visual arts programs across 61 elementary and k-8 schools. Today, thanks to arts tax funding and matching support from rps general fund, we've grown to 50 music programs and 54 visual arts programs. Now, 93% of our elementary campuses offer both music and visual arts. That means over 19,000 students are guaranteed 90 minutes of arts instruction every week. All year long. The arts access fund sparked a cultural shift in our schools. What began as words on a ballot became a bold promise brought to life by arts educators, school leaders and community stakeholders. Rps launched a three year strategic planning process to define what an equitable, comprehensive, high quality arts education should look like for our students. That work became our guiding framework, and we've spent the last decade building upon the arts tax baseline to expand access with intention. This is what's possible when public funds are protected, protected and then matched with vision and commitment. In today's financial education climate, arts programing could be easily been the first to go. But thanks to the foundation laid by the arts access fund, rps has been able to shift the narrative, writing a different story, one of growth and resilience, where the arts are not just preserved, but prioritize expanded and embedded into the fabric of every child's educational experience. The return on the investment is clear. We applaud the city and Portland residents for maintaining this meaningful commitment to the arts. Thank you.
149 Thank you so much, kristen.
150 Next we have carissa burkett. They're joining us online.
151 Could you put the clock back up?
152 I don't see it.
153 Hi. Can you hear me? Okay.
154 Yes, we can hear you. Great.
155 Thank you so much. My name is carissa burkett. I'm the executive director of north pole studio, and I'm testifying today on a general operating support recipient to show the breadth of what that fund supports. North pole studio is a new nonprofit that supports the professional careers of artists with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. The organization was founded in 2020, a very difficult time to start a new nonprofit, and started as an all volunteer run organization serving about ten artists with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. Four years later, we serve 275 and have a $1.2 million annual operating budget. I mentioned this to show both the great need of what we do in our city, as well as the great support that has come around us during the pandemic. Two large arts organizations serving folks with intellectual and developmental disabilities closed. We've had a waitlist solidly since the beginning of this organization and have just moved to a new space. North pole studio fills a crucial need in the community for artists with autism and intellectual and developmental disabilities. This population has very limited resources after they leave the school system. Many folks are unsuccessful in integrated job settings or in higher education settings, and north pole allows for an opportunity for earned income through art sales commissions and licensing, as well as a way to have visibility in the community and share and share their work more broadly, giving voice to this very, very important part of our community. The general operating support and the investment in arts organizations like north pole is crucial, and I encourage continued investment. And also considering all populations in the community, especially folks with disabilities, really appreciate the growth and support that has happened so far. And there's still more to do within this specific sector of disability and arts. Thank you.
156 Thank you so much.
157 Carissa.
158 Next up is james b lee.
159 Excuse me, I'm james lee. I reside in southeast Portland and speaking only for myself. Thank you for hearing me today. I'm a physics person who has spent a lifetime developing a detailed theory of sound in auditoriums. In terms of the basic laws of physics, I seem to have been the only person interested in doing that. I have a great deal to offer with respect to the new auditoriums and the rehab of the councilor That is coming up. Councilor Ryan knows very well that last the previous council kicked the can down the road on these projects, so I assume it will be coming up before this committee and then pretty soon and then to the full council. Obviously, I would very much like to be included in the staff discussions on this, because I have a great deal of unique knowledge to offer. I was not ted wheeler did not permit me to do that. Last year, in spite of five importunities on my part to do it, and it's kind of hard to take that when you're only person in the room who actually understands what's going on. So I asked, you know, I asked to be included. You know, in whatever way I can possibly, possibly help. Any questions I can answer in the few seconds we've got left?
160 Yes.
161 We'll get your name and contact information. And thank you for offering your services. Yeah. Thank you james.
162 Thank you councilor.
163 We have two more.
164 Next up, we have mark mccrory.
165 My name.
166 Is mark mccrory. I'm executive director and ceo of the Portland gay men's chorus. And I want to thank you for this opportunity to testify. I also want to acknowledge the hard work and dedication of the Portland office of arts and culture to support an equitable and meaningful arts and cultural community. Their fabulous. You know, I was curious about the economic impact about pgmc, and we do an audience survey after every show and winter. At our winter show, we had about 2500 people show up. And when I asked, about 61% of them indicated that they ate or shopped before or and after the show, spending between 50 and $300. So if about 1525 of those attended spent an average of $100 before or after the performance, we can suggest that that weekend we generated 152,500. In that weekend. The more arts, the greater impact, the better the economy. Now, it's not just about the economy. Our most recent show, our new world, which was a collaboration between us, Portland lesbian choir, rose city pride bands and bridging voices. We had 400 musicians on the stage at the arlene schnitzer concert hall. Originally a celebration of turning the corner for queer rights, it became a show of solidarity for the queer community being targeted. When we ask audiences what they enjoyed most, it was quite clear that this was about coming together as a community and a sense of connection to one another, and I have three quotes. First, the camaraderie between the audience and performers. We are all here to support the arts and the LGBTQ community. Everything. Fabulous voices, uplifting music, sense of community. Third, the music was uplifting and the massed choirs and bands were phenomenal. The solidarity of everyone there moved my soul to a better place. Arts and culture are critical for a lot of reasons economically, culturally and building a healthy Portland. We have got to make sure that our arts and cultural ecosystem is sustained, supported and grows to ensure a vibrant, positive future for this incredible city of roses. Thank you. Thank you.
167 So much.
168 Thank you for the data.
169 Next up we have mario mesquita.
170 Welcome, mario.
171 Two minutes.
172 Hi there. So good morning. Committee chairs. Committee chairs, Green Ryan and members of the arts and economy committee. My name is mario mesquita, the director of advocacy and engagement at the regional arts and culture council. And I'm actually here with my colleague as well, kristin calhoun, director of partnerships and programs here at rac. We wanted to thank the office of arts and culture for today's presentation and for the city's ongoing investment in the arts and culture. Rac celebrates the office's first year, and it's committed partnership in the service of our artists, organizations and creative economy. Much of the impact we celebrate today reflects years of shared investment and collaboration between rac and the city, and we're excited to build on that foundation together. Rac led the city and county's participation in the national arts and economic prosperity study, which I think has actually already been talked about earlier, which concluded in fy 23 because they kept on extending deadlines because of COVID, helping to underscore just how vital our sector is to Portland and the region. In fy 22, portland's nonprofit arts and culture sector generated over 405 million in economic activity. This spending supported more than 6400 jobs, delivering nearly 309 million in income to local residents. Cultural events. Cultural events drew 4.6 million in-person attendees, which included 1.47 million non-local visitors who spent over 81 million stimulating portland's hospitality, food, retail and transportation industries. As was mentioned, local and non-local audiences contributed 10.5 million in local tax revenue, with an additional 15.2 million at the state level and 62.4 million federally. Recent statewide data reinforces this sentiment. Oregon's creative sector contributed 9.5 billion to the state's gross state product, supported over 6160 1000 workers statewide. Yet despite also mentioned a little bit earlier, Oregon ranks between 38th to 45th nationally in per capita arts funding. Rac stands ready to continue co-creating the future of the city's cultural vision, from commissioning and stewarding public art for our community to daily art experiences. Providing professional development for artists and equitable grant making models, our work centers, creatives and communities who give Portland its unique.
173 Thank you so much. For being here. And that concludes testimony.
174 Sorry. We have one more individual. Okay. They're online. Next up is Ryan sotomayor.
175 Welcome, Ryan. You have two minutes.
176 Hello, everyone. Co-chair Ryan, co-chair, Green committee members. It's wonderful to see you. My name is Ryan sotomayor. I'm the business manager of labor's local 43. But I am a city of Portland employee on unpaid leave from the recreation contract. So as a recreation leader and arts and the economy are near and dear to labor's hearts, appreciate charity montez's presentation, presentation and director long's presentation. They covered the span of everything that happens in parks and recreation. I appreciate the points made, but we don't have parks and recreation separate. But there. Community based everywhere that there's a community center. We have parks, tax and utility workers that labor on those grounds and fields. We love the arts. Labors want to support the arts in any way that we can. We want to see increased funding for arts and also for parks and recreation programs in the community centers, and then also in the parks. As you have been presented today, everywhere that labors go, we feed the children. Arts are for the children. We appreciate your leadership and looking at all the different revenue streams and different outside the box things. Labors here to help that happen. I want to shout out the folks that are in the cfw who work for summer free. For all who are working without a contract. We'd love to see them have a contract. And we appreciate your time and your consideration. Thank you.
177 Thank you Ryan. Colleagues, we just finished testimony. We found out we had more than we realized until this morning. And so thank you for your adjusting to this. We went over a lot of our meetings yesterday. And so I want to be cognizant of time for staff. So we have about two minutes each and most of us have our hand up. I'll start with you, councilor Smith.
178 Thank you.
179 Could you could the parks director come up?
180 And.
181 I appreciate the. Report from earlier. One of the things that was very glaring to me. I am the council councilwoman from east Portland and district one, and I noticed that there were very few community centers compared to the other districts. I think we only had two. And I also noticed that it's about an average of 1.5 million that we spend to administer parks, programs, and it's kind of tough to ask this question in light of our budget deficits. But are there any other community centers in the in the near future planned for east Portland?
182 Currently, there's nothing planned. However, we are opening two very large parks, mill park and park Lane park, this spring and summer, which will increase the number of opportunities for recreational access in your district.
183 And do we ever, like, partner with the boys and girls club at all to try to help, to make sure that we have services in underserved areas?
184 I might pass that question to maximo baron. He's our director, sorry, manager of recreational services. I don't think we have a relationship with that nonprofit specifically, but we have relationships with dozens of other nonprofits and other program providers that we're connecting with and increasing access to both our programs as well as sharing our programs with their constituents. Is there anything else you'd like to add, maximo?
185 Hello.
186 My name is maximo.
187 Park.
188 And the recreation services manager for Portland parks and recreation. I'm sorry, can you restate the question?
189 Well, the question was, do we ever partner with other nonprofit organizations that have services like the boys and girls club to use any city funding to help make sure that underserved areas are served with youth programs?
190 Yes. So, charles jordan community center does have direct partnerships. And then, as has been mentioned with our project connect program, we've got over 100 partners that we work to engage with throughout our our. Bureau and our service.
191 Thank you for that. And I just want to say thank you for all the free programs that people are able to obtain throughout the city. That is so important. And I know that levy has really helped us out a lot. It makes a difference if you can go somewhere to a park in your community and all the people that we're feeding, oh my god, those numbers were outstanding and I hope we're able to keep that up. And thank you for what you do in the community.
192 Thank you, councilor Smith. It might be a good idea if you could follow up with all of the nonprofit partners in each district. So as district reps, we have a better sense of that.
193 Yes, we can share that.
194 Thank you so much, councilor Clark. And thank you, all of you, for being rapid. Right now, it's just where we're at.
195 Just actually, my question follows up on councilor Smith's question, conveniently enough, is I just wanted to hear you talk a little bit more about what you're doing to train or support community based organizations that can actually help develop or manage run programs, like around volunteer training. Do you have a program like that or recruiting other cbos or non potential volunteers? It just seems like that's a that's the future.
196 Sure. Hi, todd lofgren again. We have a whole range of from programmatic volunteer opportunities like golden ball for instance, is largely volunteer run, where there's volunteer coaches that run the games and the practices. And we have volunteer kind of support for that to on the other end of the spectrum facilities. So for instance, I would community center used to be a directly run center by the city. And now we have a nonprofit partner that provides community center like activities in that location. I'll just mention another example. This is more on the nonprofit side, but rosewood initiative in east Portland is a partner of ours. They partner with Multnomah arts center, and they receive some grant funding that complements the community center type of activity, activities that they have as well.
197 I'm familiar with some of those. My question was really around, do you do volunteer training or development? Are you looking for more volunteers or.
198 Always looking for more volunteers? We'd love to have them. Whether they want to work in a park or work at a community center and provide support, or if they have a special talent, they might be volunteering in one of our arts and culture centers. So really, we try to meet the volunteer where they're at, and so if they're interested, they should reach out to vibrant communities at Portland, Oregon. Dot gov. And we're happy to try to connect them either with our direct service. And sometimes we can refer them to our nonprofit partners that are providing services.
199 Thank you.
200 For sure.
201 Thank you, councilor Clark. Councilor Dunphy.
202 I will.
203 Phrase this as a statement because we are low on time, but rather I just want to acknowledge that I think that the parks bureau. Parks and rec is perhaps, in my opinion, one of the perhaps the most important thing that we do as a city and the thing we should be the most proud of. I think that you are portland's front door and the way that most people feel good about their government. But I think we need to get a clearer focus as a bureau or as a around who we're serving and why with limited dollars, I think that the Sellwood public or community house is a is a perfect example in that we couldn't do all things to all people, and the community stepped up in major ways so that now we can take our precious limited dollars and focus them on areas of the community where there are not the there is not the infrastructure to be able to stand that up. I think that you are a pivotal part of the public safety continuum. That's public space. Activation is how we get through most of the crises we're in right now, and that community is how we actually get community. Safety and parks are the place where we do that. Additionally, I have watched as good 14 year olds with nothing better to do after school have made bad choices because they didn't have the option of playing hoops or an after school class. It's not a twee little nice to have. This is actual life saving. To that end, I think we need to have bigger conversations about the future of the bureau, whether we should be in the golf business, whether we should be in the international raceway business, whether the levy, the sequential levy funding model makes sense, and also whether or not there is a need for the city to take a bigger role in redefining what sdcs can be used for. It's really wonderful to open up brand new, beautiful parks, but it's terrible to watch as we don't have the money to maintain the ones we already have. You know, the bathroom at ventura park has been closed for quite some time. I would love to make sure that we can we can focus on that. And also I think we need to that same conversation, find ways to make it cheaper and easier for community groups to be able to step in and use these spaces. I've heard from multiple neighborhood associations in east Portland that the biggest expense they have every year is the cost of permitting for a park event, and the city is the one that pays the gives them the money to pay that permit. So something that doesn't make quite sense. But thank you for all that you're doing. Thank you for the way you're serving our community. And I will stop there.
204 Thank you.
205 Thank you for your comments, council.
206 I hope that the rest of the council will join me and keep pressuring government affairs to actually focus on how we can change the state statute on how we spend our sdc money. So the next the last question that I have, it really gets into the public private partnerships. The volunteers. And when I think of my career, it was always in the nonprofit space. Being that person that activated volunteers, activated philanthropy for that organization. And in the enterprise, it is the city of Portland. Parks and recreation and the arts are the areas that have the best potential to do that, because that's where people play and are engaged. And so my question is, and this will be to you, director long, because sadly, you can't answer this, todd, because you're leaving and you're gone. So my concern is actually, in a way, connected to that. Some of the people who led the effort in your bureau that really were leading in terms of generating revenue from the philanthropic space and stewarding and guiding volunteerism. What how is that going to be built at a time where we really need that system to be very responsive to all the portlanders who want to volunteer, especially at a time that we're in right now? It's an opportunity, and I hope that we wouldn't cut any of the professionals that provide that support. So I just want to hear your vision and your partnership with the foundation on how you're igniting that type of activism throughout the parks system.
207 Sure. So we have a community partnerships division. They focus on our relationship building around friends and partners, as well as manage our volunteer program. So I think todd alluded to it. We have volunteers who are individuals picking up trash in their park during their daily walk, and we have boards and nonprofits and institutions that are running multimillion dollar japanese garden. So it really runs the gamut in terms of how we're utilizing volunteers and partners. So we do have a system in place. We've got over 200 friends and partners, recreation in particular, since the levy was instituted. It's really spending a lot of time and energy in in nurturing those partnerships, and in particular in neighborhoods where those partners may have not had as strong of a voice and not been engaged in decision making about what kind of programing they see. So I feel like we're doing it still. Maybe not raising the philanthropic dollar in the same way, but a different sort of capital, if you will. But I will also say that there still is fundraising that's going on. As you know, we'll be meeting with some leadership from the usta soon, and they've expressed interest in finding out how they could support our work. And we've worked with the usda in the past, nike, other corporate sponsors who have supported and endowed many of our capital projects, and we're still open to that. And we do have staff in place to support that work.
208 Sarah, some document that we could see that looks at the trends over the last decade or the last five years, at least on the purse that's been coming from the private sector and what the action plan is to increase that during this time.
209 We can certainly share data on what has happened over the last few years, we have not had a real projected look for the future, but there are a lot of partnerships and connections that we've made that I'm hopeful will result in that, that sort of support.
210 I think for me, it's helpful to look at some business models, operational models from, say, new york city, seattle and our partners to see how they're doing it. And I think there's some practices out there that we could really learn from. It seems like it's an area where we could focus on some improvement. So my lens is focused on that, and I appreciate that you are transparent with where it's at today, and I hope to hear that you and the foundation make some strides in this area, because it's really, I think, ripe for revenue opportunities and even more engagement from the community. Thank you all for being here today. We're just a little bit over time. You all invested a lot of time with us this morning. Again, you are the joy department. We, I think, have a very supportive council on how we sustain this, these systems and improve upon them at this time. And I think it's true that all of us believe that people move and stay in Portland, really because of what we've been talking about today. And it's not lost on any of us. And going forward committee, we'll have the co-chair and I are going to have some good conversations with all of you about how we handle this time during the tight budget season. And so we'll be back to you soon on how to best utilize our time during the budget season, which is like now through the through the through June. Anyway, thanks so much, everyone for being here. And arts and economy committee meeting is now over.