The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-12-08
Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (18,618 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
This Portland City Council Governance Committee meeting, held Monday, December 8, 2025, opened with roll call, a statement of conduct, and chair/vice-chair announcements before addressing an agenda covering prior meeting minutes, general public testimony, a Portland Elections Commission appointment, a strategic priority-setting resolution, and an ordinance on appointed boards, commissions, and committees. Public testimony addressed concerns about the city administrator recruitment and confirmation process and about council oversight capacity. Discussion on the elections commission appointment included questions about lobbyist registration status, with input from commission staff and a city attorney confirming no prohibition exists on lobbyists serving on such boards. The strategic priority-setting resolution was extensively discussed and amended, covering facilitation responsibilities, timing relative to council leadership elections, treatment of committee schedules in January, and coordination with budget processes. The appointed boards, commissions, and committees ordinance was presented by city staff, covering classification systems, creation and sunset provisions, periodic review, and member conduct standards; public testimony and a councilor raised technical and structural concerns, including proposed amendments. Votes occurred on multiple items and amendments throughout the meeting; outcomes are recorded in the vote ledger. The ordinance was advanced as a first reading, with further discussion and a vote scheduled for the following week's meeting.
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 Good afternoon. I called the meeting. I should turn my. There we go. Good afternoon. I call the meeting of the governance committee to order. It's Monday, December 8th. It's 230 ish. Wendy, will you please call the roll?
1 Clerk here.
2 Dunphy, here. Pirtle-guiney here.
3 Koyama Lane here.
4 And Ryan here.
5 And. Craig, will you please read the statement of conduct?
6 Good afternoon. Welcome to this meeting of the governance committee to testify before this committee in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the committee agenda at ww. Gov agenda. Governance committee. Or by calling 311. 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. If public testimony will be taken on an item, individuals may testify for three minutes unless the chair states otherwise. 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.
7 Thank you. Craig. In today's meeting, the governance committee will approve the minutes from the October 6th and October 20th committee meetings for general public testimony on governance issues. Consider the appointment of a member to the Portland election commission. Consider resolution on annual strategic priority setting for the council. Consider an ordinance adding code related to appointed boards, commissions and committees. Now we'll move on to chair and vice chair announcements. I am going to preside over the meeting today because our our leader is virtual today. And I will ask if if she'd like to weigh in before at the end here we will be we'll have a full agenda with committee appointments and two long developed policy decisions. The goal of today is to get the items passed from this committee to the full council, so that our elected body can deliberate together and make meaningful progress on streamlining how the city runs our advisory board processes, and establishing an annual strategic planning effort for the city council and for the entire city for that matter. Both the code change and resolution before us today will make really big strides in improving how government functions, transparency and engagement with our community. So for those who are speaking today, invited testimony, my fellow councilors and the public, I ask that you keep your comments focused and concise so that we can keep this moving on time. Chair Koyama Lane. There you are. Would you like to add anything? It's really good to see you.
8 Great to see you. Thank you, vice chair Ryan, for presiding. Really appreciate it. And I don't have anything else to add. I'm looking forward to a great meeting today.
9 Thank you so much and I really appreciate you calling in. Okay. Will you please read the first item? Wendy?
10 Item 1st October sixth through 20th, 2025 governance committee minutes.
11 Why do I have something different? You're doing the you're doing the the minutes, right? Okay. So what you just said. Yes. Oh, sorry. I was looking at something else. Okay, so basically I'm just doing the head nodding thing. You guys are nodding like that. Tiffany, give me give us the nod. There you go. Okay. Moving on. Will you please read the next item?
12 Item two 2020 5-469 public testimony on governance issues. We have one person signed up.
13 Great. Welcome. A surprise testimony. It's good to see you. Yes. And you know the drill. You have three minutes.
14 Great. Thank you. Just a couple quick things. As I spoke to you last time, I talked.
15 For the record. Say your name.
16 I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Terry harris, for the record, last time I spoke a little bit about the city administrator recruitment. This time, I'll talk a little bit about the city administrator confirmation that's coming up in that. I think. It could have been so much better. And I don't have problems with the candidate in that. I don't really know that much about the candidate. I do have problems with the process. Like I said last time, we needed the there's an important community involvement component that should have taken place. As far as I know, it didn't. As of this morning, nobody has signed up to give testimony in the city administrator confirmation hearing, which I think is a sign, but I don't know what it means. And it's either there's no support or nobody knows enough to support the fact that not a single citizen has signed up for that is is a signal that something went wrong. Anyway, the the community engagement component that is listed for that item on the agenda is all one year old. It's the old stuff from gtac, and it's the old stuff from the prior recruitment. I think the mayor on Wednesday needs to be held accountable for this, and unfortunately it then lands on the council to be accountable for it because you are forced to make a decision based on very little. Anyway, that's number one. Number two is accountability. And oversight is going to land on the council very soon. And there's not a lot of infrastructure that you have to deal with it. I would just hope that you could avoid nuclear options of oversight while maintaining some serious oversight. And otherwise accountability, investigation and oversight is going to be politicized due to process problems, and you're not going to get to the root causes. So I'd urge you to try to not go nuclear while also staying substantive in the oversight, because I think in several, several things on your agenda, you're going to see that soon. So anyway, that's what I have today. Thank you. I'll be back later.
17 No thank you. And last meeting you did testify on one of our topics today for strategic priorities. So thank you for reminding us of that. Okay. There's no one else has signed up.
18 That's correct.
19 Okay. Thank you wendy okay then go ahead and please read item three.
20 Item three 2020 5-470. Confirm appointment of member to Portland elections commission for a term to end April 30th, 2029.
21 Well, today we're going to we will be considering the nomination of a new member to the Portland elections commission. The commission is a nine member volunteer commission which implements the small donor elections program. According to the charter. Chapter three article for the Portland elections commission first recommends people for appointment. The mayor appoints and the council confirms at their October 22nd meeting, miss lee was unanimously recommended by the Portland elections commission. Miss jenny lee has been recommended by the commission. The mayor has appointed appointment authority and council now has confirmation authority. This vote is to move the nomination of miss lee forward to the full council. I welcome susan here. No. She's online. Hello, susan. And you're the director of the small donors elections program. And you and your staff will give us some more information. Welcome to the dais. And hello, jenny lee, as well as joining us in person. We appreciate that you're here in person.
22 You just.
23 The Portland elections commission chair, jenny amy sample ward is here to introduce everything.
24 Thanks, susan. Thanks, everyone. Hi, everyone. I'm amy sample ward. I'm chair of the Portland elections commission, and I really appreciate commissioner Ryan already summarizing some of the points for everyone's information before you. As stated as the report for an appointment of a new psc member, jenny lee, as commissioner Ryan already shared, the commission was created in code in 2019. Voters enshrined it in charter as an independent body in 2024. Nine member body four year terms. It implements the small donor elections program and is permitted to implement other related policies if delegated to it. Part of our work is to evaluate the performance of the small donor elections program and recommend to the director and council how to operate and improve the program. The charter also requires the psc to provide the mayor and council annual notice of the amount of funding that the small donor elections program needs to be solvent through each election, and you will be receiving that next month. Stay tuned. The appointment process, as commissioner Ryan already shared, is that we as the psc, recommend appointees. The mayor appoints and council confirms. Our primary goal in that process is to ensure that the commission collectively reflects the diversity of Portland. In selecting applicants to recommend, the psc looks at which members still have time left on their terms, identifies needed areas of expertise and lived experience so that, again, we can meet that goal of reflecting the diversity of Portland. Jenny's expertise in democratic engagement of communities that have been historically and systematically excluded or marginalized from democratic participation is unparalleled and really deeply valuable to the mission of the small donor elections program. We really want to ensure that all voices are heard in portland's democracy, and bringing in expertise of how to do that is key. The commission voted unanimously to recommend the appointment of jenny to the psc, and are now requesting that the governance committee move this into the full council for confirmation. I'm happy to answer other questions, but also I know that jenny is here and can share herself.
25 All right. Thank you so much, amy, and for the kind words. So good afternoon, vice chair Ryan. Members of the governance committee as well, chair Koyama Lane virtually. My name is jenny lee, and I'm honored to be here today and under consideration for confirmation to the Portland elections commission. Thank you for the opportunity to be here and share a little bit about myself and my interest in serving. Also, for the record, I know sometimes when it's invited it's a little different, but I did want to just state, as with testimony, that I am a registered lobbyist with the city of Portland on behalf of the coalition of communities of color. So my commitment to building a healthy democracy through policy as well as implementation has spanned over the last eight years. It's encompassed voting systems and equitable representation, civic engagement and outreach, campaign finance regulations, as well as portland's small donor elections program. I'm very excited to potentially serve on the psc because it is an independent commission that provides meaningful, substantive guidance and oversight to the program. We opportunity to review and analyze extensive data and research each election cycle to improve the program. Every year, the work of the staff and commission is incredible, and has resulted in a stronger program that builds on successes, improves areas we're still learning, even as the electoral system has changed dramatically, and it's that ability to incorporate findings and the continuous improvement collective effort of this commission that I very much hope to contribute to. And as you know all too well, Portland is facing a truly unprecedented challenges. But I think we should be incredibly proud of our years of work building a robust democracy. And that is a foundation to whether these very challenging times and really rise to the occasion, as you know, as councilors of having our portlanders having faith in our local government and democracy is essential. And I see the small donor program as a critical part of that. And I hope to continue to this work going forward. So thank you to the members of the commission for the recommendation to the mayor, commission staff, for all of your dedicated work, and thank you all for your service as and consideration of this appointment.
26 Thank you so much, jenny. Are there any questions for my colleagues?
27 Yeah.
28 Council clerk.
29 Thank you, mr. Chairman. Hi. Welcome. And thank you so much for being willing to serve in this capacity. Your credentials are impeccable and I'm very impressed. But I do have a question generally not necessarily for you, but how we feel about having someone who's a registered lobbyist at the city to be serving in this capacity. Does anybody have any thoughts about that? I just it just a little question about that.
30 I'm looking for an attorney. There was no one stopping this meeting today.
31 I don't generally have attorneys in the room for committees, but there should be somebody on call. So we should have somebody we can get here pretty quickly. Do you want me to try to do that for us?
32 Well, it's a fair question and I think it should. It merits a legal response. And thanks. I must be in a lot of committee meetings where they're told to be here.
33 So I just look to my staff who are in the back of the room, and they're going to go grab somebody for us.
34 We can have a dialog, you.
35 Know, Jamie, have your hand up on this issue.
36 Yeah, a little bit. Well, I will say that I don't certainly I don't particularly have a concerns about that simply because portland's lobbying registry requirement is sort of a register first and assume that you are a lobbyist. Yeah. I mean, I was a registered lobbyist in my volunteer capacity with the organization music Portland. Generally, our city's lobbying rules are. Not the most robust. It's more about just identify yourself up front and, you know, if this is in your job description, know that you're going to have to fill out a report. So I certainly don't. I also know jenny from a thousand different hats that she wears, and she is one of the more community involved members of of Portland that I've met. And even if she were, well, she's also happens to be registered lobbyist for an amazing community partner as well. It's not like she's, you know, western states petroleum institute or or walmart or so. I don't personally have a problem with it. I don't think that there should be a challenge with that. From a boards and commissions perspective, she's not serving as a representative of the organization that she is employed by. So I don't personally have any concerns about this. And I think that jenny's going to be an amazing addition to this committee. So and I'm excited for her volunteerism.
37 So thank you, councilor Dunphy. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
38 Thank you for asking the question.
39 Councilor. And, jenny, I want to thank you for stating up front that you're a registered lobbyist. I don't have a concern with somebody being a registered lobbyist, but I do think that it requires us to and being appointed somewhere. But I do think that it requires us to ask different questions and to consider what group that person lobbies for and what that group's interest is in the work that they might be doing as a board appointee. In this case, I actually think that the work that miss lee has done talk about you while you're sitting here. But I think that the work that you've done actually lends itself to an important voice on this body. To have somebody on the elections commission who has an understanding of how to reach portlanders and ensure that they're engaged in government, I think is actually important, because we need somebody there who's thinking about how candidates reach portlanders and engage them in elections. And and so having that nexus and having somebody who knows how to do that intimately, because they've done it in getting portlanders engaged in the work that we do at city hall, I think could be really helpful. But I do think that it's important for us to ask the question. And like I said, I appreciate you providing that information to start with, because there could be times where somebody was a registered lobbyist and their interests, I think, as a lobbyist, conflicted with the board or had a a vested interest that might be inappropriate in the board. We were appointing them to where it could be a problem. So I would say not a categorical no from me, but let's ask more questions. And councilor Vice chair, I'll note that I got a message from haley beyonce that we do have some folks in the room who can speak to that overlap. That ocean and amanda are able to do that if we need. We're also working on the attorney. If you want the legal opinion, though.
40 Thank you. I'm going to ask a.
41 Point of information from the commission's rules. We do already have multiple members of the psc who are registered lobbyists with the city of Portland, and the advisory board application does ask for conflict of interest, and jenny has none. So I just wanted to offer that as part of this conversation.
42 Great.
43 Okay. Are you good with this? Okay. I have a couple questions. It's good to see you. First of all, thank you for all the work that you do in our city. Your statement of interest, jenny, you said serving on the advisory board will be dynamic and meaningful experience with significant opportunity to advance equity in our elections and government. Can you share more about what this means in practice?
44 So for equity, meaning that in a broad sense, but particularly given my role, again, a focus on those who have been most excluded historically we've done, including in my professional capacity at extensive voter education and outreach. But the ability to bring folks in to the process as donors and expressing their perspectives, having candidates to connect with them, and really bringing a broader base and folks exercising their power as a Portland voter is, I think, the area that I'm particularly interested in that encompasses all demographics. And this is something that I think helps elevate perspectives in a way that's unique for many other kinds of democracy building activities. So I hope to support refining the program, making sure it's adaptive, especially as we move into the next election cycle with this new system of government. And so that's looking to demographics, geography, how many folks in amounts that folks are contributing that I'm looking forward to helping support with that analysis and then understand what recommendations adaptations we might want to make.
45 Okay. Thank you. I see that we have the city attorney in the office. Do you think there's a need for the. I think we resolved this, but maybe not. The question on the table is any rules, if you will, about someone being a registered lobbyist and being on a commission. And we decided that there's a number of people that fall into that category. And it's about transparency. That's a summary, not an opinion. Go.
46 Thank you. For the record, robert taylor, city attorney. That's a great summary. I think that's correct. There's no prohibition on a lobbyist serving on a board like this.
47 Awesome. This could be one of your briefer moments at the dais.
48 Thank you.
49 That's a good day at the office. Right. Okay, back to you, jenny. Your bio shows your deep background in election advocacy and lobbying. How would you maintain neutrality? I think the plus that the council president mentioned is also it's a there's a fine line where, in my opinion, you'd have to really work on neutrality in such a commission. So what what are some of your ways that you will bring that independent use that word earlier neutrality to your role?
50 I think ultimately it's because one of the ways is that because the system is so important and that this is really about program and a structure, it's not about any one candidate or perspective, but that it's it's a faith in the success. And so I have I feel like learned that even more over the past couple of years and other areas of government reform that I've been able to support in that that is really the guiding star of, I think what this commission does, and there is a very robust membership of the existing commission. I think anything that I, you know, any perspectives that I shared, there is the opportunity for folks to respond, to have a meaningful conversation about it. And I have no doubt if it ever did creep into anything that the other members of the commission would engage meaningfully on that. So I take the I take that service very seriously. But also, I think over time, this is a long game. It's about real systems change and that upholding that, making sure it's successful and sort of unassailable is really of the utmost importance to me.
51 Thank you. Any other questions? Okay. If not, I would like to entertain a motion to have the report document number 2025 470 be sent to the full council with the recommendation to be accepted.
52 So moved second.
53 Okay. That was moved by councilor Duffy and seconded by councilor Pirtle-guiney councilor. So we have both. The motion has been moved to seconded. Are there any more discussion, any more discussion on this? Looking on the virtual screen okay. We're good okay. Clerk please call the roll clerk.
54 Hi, Dunphy.
55 Hi, pirtle-guiney.
56 Hi, Koyama Lane.
57 Thank you for your service.
58 I Ryan.
59 Thank you.
60 I motion is approved with five ayes and no, zero and zero no votes.
61 Again, thank you for being here in person. And can you please read the next item?
62 Item for 2025 441 adopt procedures for annual council strategic priority setting resolution.
63 Thank you wendy. Today we have a we will have a second discussion about a resolution that directs city council to convene annually each January to deliver a strategic priority plan for the upcoming year. I have listened to you on this committee and other councilors, and have incorporated changes to the original resolution that was sent out on Friday, and we will discuss these in more depth today. The plan will help to align the work of the council and communicate with transparency to the public about what their elected officials will be focused on. We haven't had many opportunities to inform the public about our our shared priority agenda. Looking back, the one real opportunity we have was through the budget process, but that really wasn't focused on council shared strategic priorities. It was more of a reactionary process due to the urgency of time and more individualized with each council office, and this could help us add a layer of shared goals we could all work from as well. We can all recognize how the annual priority setting will add value by informing the budget development process for the mayor and the city administrator, both of whom should be partners in council's process, we can have a more focused approach to budgeting each year alongside the mayor's team, letting them also understand the council's priorities and opportunities for shared vision. This is why we should do this annual exercise well before the mayor announces their priority, their their budget in late winter early spring. As a quick recap, we discussed the annual council strategic priority resolution at the November 10th governance committee meeting, and because there was a lot of feedback, I agreed to pull this back to my office, rework it and bring it back at today's meeting, I really appreciated the input from my colleagues, and I've incorporated many of those changes that were suggested in November, including removing the required number of hours of the meeting time and specific percentage to adopt the annual set of priorities. A change suggested, but but that is not included in my revised resolution is language that the priority setting work could be done in December and January. I remain strongly on the mind set that the work should be done in January, following the voting of the new council president and vice president, as well as after some possible onboarding of new councilors post-election in those every other year cycles, I think we all understand how it would be difficult to both conduct strategic priority work and elect the council president and vice president. Concurrently with those thoughts, I open this up for additional thoughts and feedback, and I look forward to moving forward with a common best practice of doing an annual priority and goal setting process at the beginning of each calendar year. With that, I turn it over to the floor for more conversations. And I think I'll wait. Maybe we should do this. Councilor Kanal is there. You are. Councilor Kanal has been has some friendly amendments that I think they want to bring forward. So why don't you come to the dais and read those out? And have you emailed those to everyone prior?
64 Yes. And they're filed at the the page that has this draft. Thank you, councilor Ryan. For the record, my name is Sameer Kanal. I'm a city councilor from district two. Today. I want to thank councilor Ryan for bringing forward this resolution adopt procedure for annual council strategic priority setting. I'm broadly supportive of it and have supported your call to do this process since August. And that was four months ago when you first raised it. During the conversation around committee changes. It's actually unfortunate, in my view, that this requires a resolution at all, but hopefully this will, if approved, be implemented by council leadership. This policy has a lot of strengths. I think it's made better by the proposal made by councilor Ryan to amend it. So I'm speaking, assuming that the other friendly amendment from your office, councilor Ryan, has passed. I think it it creates whereas clauses that very strongly are articulate the problem statement. I think it's clear that the public has an expectation created under the previous form of government, that strategic planning would happen for the city and led by the council. And I also think that this creates generally a clear path forward of how to implement such a process. Personally, I've experienced being a part of city strategic planning before. I helped with the structure for that for public safety in my previous role as inclusive policy manager for the public safety service area, and I think these are really strong. There are also a couple areas where I think this policy could be improved. I first want to note we have no immediate path outlined in the resolution for how the strategic strategic plan will ultimately be used. I think this could be addressed here, but is ultimately the responsibility of the council, ideally council leadership, but not just those two individuals to refer back to this document as needed. I'm personally content with it the way it is in this document, in this section, because I know at least councilor Ryan and I will be here to ensure that we refer back to whatever the outcomes of these are to the things that I want to address in the amendment. I have some concern about the administration facilitating our strategic planning process. I think this is something we can resolve by having council operations team or another mutually supported facilitator with no tie to the executive branch, be our facilitator. This is also tied to the point councilor Ryan just made, that the budget process, which is the closest thing we've had so far, was shaped by the executive branch, and we were in that reaction kind of space. The mayor and administrator should be key subject matter experts that we consult and be in attendance, but not as a facilitator. Secondly, I think there's a lack of clarity that could be polished a little bit with how how emergent issues are identified, requiring a committee to meet or for those conversations to occur at the full council during the period of time that we're doing strategic planning. And I'm concerned that absent a little more clarity, it will be the decision of just one councilor. And as someone who's asked for the public safety committee, and I want to stress the public safety committee to meet often enough to address significant issues and been rebuffed many times on that request. I want to be sure that it is committee leadership who are best suited to know what's going on in that topical area, who can identify that an issue is, in fact emergent, and third, ensuring that the timing is workable. Our council president election will be on January 7th, which means we'll likely start scheduling meetings for January 14th. And that's to ensure that the president and vice president can not merely be elected, but be organized for this process to in order to get something on the council agenda by January 31st. That would require filing by January 23rd under our current calendar, which means about nine days to do this process. The way it's written, I don't think that's the intention here. So I'm hoping to create clarity that the council can continue actually doing the planning through January 31st at least. And that brings me to my amendment, which has three things. First, replaces city administrator as the default facilitator with council operations and opening the door to identifying a mutually supported facilitator instead. Second, to clearly define who identifies emergent issues requiring either consideration by a committee or the full council as the committee's leadership. And third, to ensure that the strategic plan is not merely filed by the council leadership but actually placed on a council agenda, and given that timeline until February 28th, so that the planning process itself isn't squeezed to as few as nine days, and that the outcomes actually get voted on, instead of being stuck waiting to be placed on a full council agenda. And you can see the full text of it as canal one on the page for it. Again, thank you to councilor Ryan for keeping this conversation going over several months, and I look forward to hopefully helping make it an even stronger document going to the full council.
65 Thank you, councilor Canal. And if you could stay at the dais, I, I trust there could be some questions that you would be a part of the q&a on councilor Kanal. That's or councilor Clark. That's a new hand. Yeah. Okay. You're up.
66 Thank you, mr. Chairman. First, I just want to say thanks for reworking this. First of all, thanks for bringing it forward. And secondly, thanks for reworking it. I think it's much better and I'm very supportive of it. I don't really have any questions, but I just was reading the canal amendment for the first time today, and I'm, I'm not sure that I'm well, I like the extension of the time frame and the wording is fine. The the first proposal here to take this out of the hands of the city administrator. I'm not sure I agree with that. I. I would like the city administrator to take the lead for now on this. And we're sort of it's a whole new world and I don't because we're 12 different individuals with different perspectives. I'm not sure I want us to be working on the facilitator this time. I'd rather see the city administrator with that responsibility or his or her designee. So with respect to councilor Canal, I'm not sure I agree with you on that one, but I I'm fine on the second one. That's all I have. Thank you.
67 That was very helpful. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
68 Thank you, councilor Ryan.
69 And I'll echo councilor Clark's gratitude both for your bringing this forward, but also for your pulling it back and making some of those changes. I think what we have before us is something that moves in the direction of the the need for strategic planning work in a way that can be workable and allow us to to ensure we don't lose a month of the work of the city, which I can assure you, is already piling up for January. I. I'm looking through my notes to just see where I want to start here, I apologize. In the way that you have this laid out. Now is the strategic planning session a an official council meeting or is it a work session? How are we operating it? And what I'm trying to think about is this question about who facilitates it and how that works with what type of meeting it is that we're having.
70 I thank you for that question, councilor. I think it should be a work session. And then, like we do with all of, I think, our best work and we do it collectively as the entire council is workshop it in the work session and and then bring the final resolution to the council. Okay. This should be an interactive meeting, not bound by some of the formalities that we experience when we're in a formal meeting. And I don't think it should come from one committee. I think it's all inclusive.
71 That makes a lot of sense to me, and that helps me think about.
72 I was assuming not so much. I didn't really spell it out.
73 So it's on the record now. We've said it.
74 Yeah.
75 I don't mind the original language about the city administrator overseeing it. I think that we need to be I think that we need to do a better job at drawing the distinction between the administration and the executive. They are not the same. The administration is supposed to be neutral and sit between the executive and the legislative branches of our government. And as long as we can. Do a better job, I'll say moving forward at creating that separation there, I'm comfortable with the administrator overseeing it. I'm wondering, though, councilor Canal and I'm sorry, I have a few questions. I'll go back and forth if that's okay. But I'm wondering, councilor Kanal, if you have talked to council operations about whether they feel like they are set up to do that work, or whether you're intent in your language is truly for council operations to to find a facilitator with councilors to do the work, and that it wouldn't be facilitated by council operations.
76 Thanks for the question. It's closer to the second option than the first. It's not exactly that. My intention was that we would look for a mutually supportive facilitator, and that the default option, should we not be able to find one in the time frame, would be council operations, which is, you know, part of our team as opposed to someone on the the other side of the, the aisle of the the division of labor and separation of powers in the government.
77 Okay.
78 Thank you. That's helpful. I'll just share colleagues, that I could be okay with either of these. I don't feel a need to make a change. If I hear from the rest of you up here that you're really interested in it. Coming through council operations, I'm certainly not opposed to that either. I'm curious to hear other people's thoughts on that piece. Councilor Ryan, I really appreciate the change from shall to may suspend committees. I am already hearing committee chairs scheduling out into January. I'm already hearing from the administration about things that they need us to move in January. And I think that if our intent is for January to not be a time when committee chairs take on big picture policy, where do we want to go from here? Discussions. But we kind of pause those types of conversations, but still allow committees to meet in order to do second, or I guess it's not second readings in committees, but to to pass things that they've already had extensive discussions on or to move things forward that we need to to keep the work of the city running, things like that, that we might have committees with lighter schedules in January but not cancel them completely. That that makes a lot of sense to me. I just want to state on the record that my hope is whether it is your language or councilor Kanal language, that we move forward today around committees continuing to meet, that we do so in a way where I would hope at least that the intent is we're not doing the big policy work in committees. We are continuing to move forward. The work that we've started or the general operations of the city, so that we don't get behind on those things. We had an experience this last year where we got behind, and it was a real struggle to catch back up for a lot of our committees, and I don't want us to end up in that place again. I think we can do that under either of the the proposals brought forward for language. I hope that's our intent. And then I also just wanted to ask a question about the timing, because I would hate for this to be a process that puts our regular work on hold for two months. I also very much understand councilor Kanal your concern about not having it passed in time for the end of January? And I'm wondering, councilor Ryan, what your thought was when you said January 31st? You said bring forward by January 31st, was your thought that it would be passed by January 31st, or that you were saying, bring forward this proposal by January 31st. We're doing the work this month, and then council will debate the work presumably the next month. What was the original intent there so that I can try to think about.
79 Yeah.
80 What what it is that we're trying to accomplish and how we make sure this works.
81 Let me take the multiple questions that you asked. I think that it's important to note that there's a word may in here. And so there is complete authority and agency for each current committee chair to move work. During the time that we're also doing this. That was made clear. That's why there's word may. So I don't think that's an issue. I also want to remind everybody I do think this is our regular work. So when it's characterized as not regular work, I think that's what we're trying to do with our culture is to say at the beginning of each calendar year, this is part of our regular work. So both things can be true.
82 I'm sorry for implying no, that's okay. I should have said ongoing work, the ongoing year carryover.
83 You're in it quite often. You want to make sure there's clarity and dialog. And so I think those were the two questions. I'm actually indifferent. Was I signaling that I think it should be a priority at the beginning of the calendar year. And it would be really good for the city of Portland if we did focus as much as possible at the very beginning of the year to get clarity and to get it to the council as quickly as possible. Yes, I think that would signal some high functioning of the city council working together for the city's purposes.
84 Thank you. Yes.
85 I'm also a realist. And if it goes past January 31st, I don't want this to bind us. And so I'm open to that friendly amendment.
86 Okay.
87 I think I may prefer your language about bringing it forward by then, because I think that actually pushes us a little faster.
88 That's where my brain was coming from. I felt like the signaling that and if it was if this was not a resolution, I would have been thinking about it differently. But resolutions are aspirational. And so the aspiration is for us to focus in the month of January.
89 Can I ask one other question about intent you have in your resolved? The council president or vice president will bring something forward and may present a new policy committee structure. And I'm just wondering by saying that it could be either of those leaders, either of those leaders, I suspect we will have times looking into the future where we have a vice president and president who work together collaboratively, and we will have times where we have a council president and vice president who are less collaborative. Have you thought about a future where potentially we get competing frameworks or competing committee structures because of the language that allows either to bring something forward? Right now, I believe our language just allows the council president to bring forward a committee proposal or committee membership proposal. And I wasn't sure how this tied into what we already have in statute. And if you had any thoughts that we should get on the record about what would happen if there were competing proposals.
90 That was a direct question to me. I'm always aware that could happen. I chose the language just as a way of moving it forward. I was probably thinking more logistically, like maybe the council president is gone for a week and we need to just keep it moving. So I think I was thinking not politically as much as artistically, but if you have a friendly amendment for a language there, what would it be? And or.
91 Would you do that?
92 We could say elected council leadership. We could say.
93 What they are.
94 I know I well and I.
95 I hesitate to say that it should just be the council president because I don't want it to look like a power consolidation. I just was thinking about, as I read this, the potential for conflict there.
96 I had no suggestion on. Edit.
97 Let me think about it.
98 Think about it. That's fair. There are more. Hands up. Councilor. I'm going to go to Dunphy. Okay. Councilor Dunphy, thank you.
99 First to councilor Canales amendment. I actually do have a specific concern about removing the city administrator from this, because reflecting on our first year in office, I feel like roughly 80% of the things that we have done have been us reacting. We have really not been a very policy forward board yet, and I don't really anticipate it kicking up that much more. I think we will continue to to bring in some good ideas and do some sort of small policy work and adjust things and suspend stuff. And, you know, my biggest accomplishments have been taking something that got deleted and putting it back on the record, and then just deleting another section. Like, those are the kind of the level we're at right now. And so without the city administrator there, I worry that we are setting ourselves up for a lot of effort to tie our own hands, but still be reactive. And if we don't have the city administration there to help us align those priorities, and they aren't also their priorities in some way, then we are going to continue to react and then also just have less opportunity for policy conversation. But more broadly, I am still ultimately I appreciate the work that has gone into this, but I'm still going to be a no on this today. I still feel like this is, at best, a tool that will give us something that is. A a public communications document that doesn't actually impact our ability to do the work and won't necessarily drive better results. I think that this is. I don't I still don't understand ultimately the benefit other than to restrict my own ability to pursue policies that I want to pursue. It is my job to find seven votes on any policy, and if I can't convince six of my colleagues to vote for something, then that's that's that is my own job failure. So I'm still going to be a no, ultimately. And I am also just specifically because I think we need to craft our if we're going to have a priorities system, a priority. Prioritization is the word I'm looking for. Thank you. Exercise. It has to be with the the broader administration as well.
100 Okay. That's fair. And I just hope you also took time to read that. It's really clear in the language that everything that you're worried about could be managed with this resolution. Your feelings are fine to to express on the dais. I just want you to know functionally, you get to do everything that you're talking about, even when this passes. If this passes, absolutely.
101 I see that, which is why I don't ultimately understand why I think we need it.
102 That's a that's a fair conversation. I think I've made it really clear that it's just a really common practice for leaders to have such conversations in a transparent manner, free from lobbying and special interests. As we reveal how we're thinking to the public. Yeah. Councilor Clark, what's that? Oh, hello. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Your hand is up. Thank you, councilor Clark.
103 Oh, hi. Thank you, vice chair. I believe a proof that we do need this resolution, which I will be voting for, is that we have not done any strategic planning up to this point, and it's almost been a full year. So I think this document is important to have this conversation and express our intention and really hope that this can get out of the governance committee, because this also shows to illustrates to me how governance issues touch all of us on council. And so I really do hope that all the councilors can have a chance to weigh in on what they would like to see. And I my hope is that doing this work will help our incoming city administrator, or passing this or having this document will help our city administrator understand some of our priorities and hopes, and help set us up for a good and effective partnership.
104 Thank you. I'm going to go ahead and is councilor Dunphy. That's. I'm sorry. Okay. Legacy council clerk.
105 Thank you. I have a variety of comments just listening to my colleagues here. I'm going to just react to some things. And I think this has been a really good dialog. First of all, councilor Dunphy, I think you sell yourself short. I think we really you and the rest of us really have done more proactive than reactive work. So yes, there's been a lot of reaction, but I think you're selling yourself and the rest of us short. And I really learned from these conversations between us in committee. And I always reserve the right to be smarter. After I hear from my colleagues. So just want to put that out there now. Councilor pirtle-guiney when you brought up the is this going to be in a public work session? Your question suddenly it dawned on me, I'm sorry to seem a little dense that this is intended to be public. Is that right? Because I'm just wondering if we shouldn't if this shouldn't be proceeded ideally by some sort of retreat where we are not in public, and we do have have frank conversations with each other about our values, not necessarily our priorities, but it just seems like there's a could be a precursor to this. Now, I'm not going to offer any kind of amendments. I'm just throwing this out for for food for thought. But I had always wanted us to have some sort of a retreat where we could, you know, just be very frank with each other about things. So I'll just throw that out there. And lastly, back to the whole idea of the city manager. I think that we're in the middle of a culture change, and we've had 100 years of a certain kind of government that, you know, got us to this point. We're going to be going through a real culture change. It's going to take years. And I really want us to benefit from someone who is or has professional city management experience that that is their profession. And we don't have that in this community. We don't have it. I think among consultants we might hire to facilitate something. I want a real a city manager who knows what cities are supposed to be doing, how they function, how other city councils do this kind of thing. And I think you're right, councilor Ryan, that this is really a normal kind of function on the part of city councils. Usually there are smaller group, maybe, you know, 5 to 7. But so again, I really want to have the city manager with us on this and maybe even doing the facilitation themselves. But but just want to throw those points out. I do hope someday, and I think I may have had this conversation with some of my other colleagues, that it would be nice to have some kind of a retreat at some point where we could just let our hair down and talk about our values, and we've never done that. We had like a half hour, I think, once at PSU before we were sworn in, where we talked a little bit about that.
106 Thank you, councilor Clark. I didn't hear any new amended language with that. And I think that's also healthy to put out a operational thoughts. And I think we can discuss that in the new year as well. I'll just add one little point to that, that in my experience with elected bodies, as you can do, that you, the members of the media are are of course invited, just like any executive committee meetings. So there would always be that. Yeah, yeah, that was my experience with the school board and such. Anytime a body has a retreat because it's sunset law, sunset laws or sunset laws. So you have to have some public access. So I just wanted to add that caveat. Yeah.
107 Councilor Kanal thank.
108 You, chair. Ryan, I just wanted to clarify two things. One, I agree with both councilor Dunphy and councilor Clark that the city administrator should be present. I think that they should be free to participate by giving their subject matter expertise, and should be present throughout the process. I also know that facilitation can often be leading, and so having the facilitation be be within the council's purview, to me, seems like a more appropriate thing than having the facilitation be the city administrator. And just wanted to clarify, it's not that I don't want them there. Quite the opposite. I think that it'll actually enable them to participate more fully with implementation context and things like that. The other thing is regarding the bring forward language. I don't know what that means exactly because and I councilor Dunphy raised this point, he and I do think you're selling yourself short as well. That noise code ordinance was filed and was considered approved for agenda on April 3rd, but did not get a vote on the city council until June 25th. That's 83 days. So if we put if bring forward means file, then we could be sitting here from January 31st almost all the way to April 30th before a vote happens, because under current code, the council president has 90 days to put something on the agenda. If and by the way, filing actually occurred earlier than April 3rd, that April 3rd is the date the clerk marked it as approved for agenda. So for the committee agenda at the time. So I want to just kind of clarify that. And so the reason that I proposed changing it was twofold. One change, bring forward a place on an agenda so that it's clear that council will start talking about this in public on a date. And then given that, that might need a little more time moving that date from January 30th 1st to February 28th, which I think achieves the same purpose that councilor Ryan was talking about, of having this occur prior to the conversation, being focused on the mayor's priorities in the budget. Because the city administrator's recommendations came out this year on February 28th. And so by having council actually have that conversation first that helps address it. I just wanted to clarify that.
109 I heard everything that you said. I'm sure that the councilor Pirtle-guiney and her role as council president has maybe some additional thoughts. If not, it's okay. But I think what I'm hearing from you is that you want to say bring forward and vote by. Is that what you're saying? You're concerned about landing on the council agenda? Is that what you're saying? And I assumed this language meant that. But you're saying you need stronger language. What language is that?
110 Councilor Kanal. Thank you for that. That is correct. And my proposal is specifically pull it up here that the council president or vice president, in coordination with the facilitator, will place on a council agenda council strategic framework as a resolution by and it doesn't have to be February 28th. But that's what I proposed, just to give a little extra time to actually get it on there, because I know the council president often has more than just the next week's agenda with some.
111 So it's in the third to last, be it resolved where the edits are suggested. Correct? Okay, hang on, we'll do some cosmetics soon on what we're actually voting on. And before we do that, I'm going to take two more hands. And then I think we're at a place where everyone's stated how they're thinking, how they're voting, and it's time to move on. The legislation in terms of the logistics, councilor Pirtle-guiney and councilor Koyama Lane, you're after her.
112 Thank you, councilor Ryan. I'm. Concerned that if we move in the direction that councilor Kanal just laid out, this work bleeds into two months. And what I think you're proposing is that we get down to business and really get this done in the first month. I'm wondering if we could say something like, your language will bring forward council's strategic framework as a resolution by January 31st each year, and then add to the end of that clause, and the council president will place it on an agenda as soon as possible, something that says that we are moving quickly, getting this on the agenda, but that really says the work is closed by this point. We're bringing something forward. We are getting this done within that first month so that we get down to business so that we prioritize it so that we don't put it off, so that if the council president election is difficult, we don't then say, well, we have to wait a few weeks and pull things together and, and draw out work that I think we really need to do quickly so that we can have a clear vision of where we're going, especially if we want this to land before the budget work. So I'm wondering what folks think about something like that.
113 Keep chewing on it. And then we're going to go to councilor Koyama Lane.
114 Thank you. I appreciate this conversation. I'm chewing on what council president just brought up. I, I am supportive of the language of of clearing, having clarity around the work as closed up by January 31st. I'm a little worried about the language as soon as possible, but I would feel comfortable about saying. And then it's on specifying it's on the full council agenda, or it's submitted by a certain date. And then the other question, when we were discussing the city, if it should be the city administrator who's facilitating or if it should be a facilitator chosen by council, I don't feel super strongly in either direction. I like us being able to have some choice, and I also was wondering if we were to go with council operations or facilitator chosen by council. Could we choose the city administrator? Does that? Is that still open enough that we we could choose, and if so, then I would feel comfortable with that language.
115 Okay. Thank you so much. On this topic, I'll say that I understand the sentiment why you brought this up. And I don't like words like as soon as possible, but I do think there's something that could be said that's placed on the next, next council agenda, something that just shows that this is an urgent issue and it goes from it goes from what we decided upon in our mutual consensus agreement or whatever our agreement, where we could land on a on a vote, and then we bring that to the next agenda. I think there's concerns based on experiences last 11 months that that might not happen. So that's what I'm picking up on. I have to say this. So craig, here's what I didn't know that I had to bring up a new one because this is me asking for forgiveness, that in the last form of city council, when we said we're bringing something back to our office, we're just bringing it back to our office. So there was no reason to amend it. It was just being reworked. And now it's being brought as a fresh resolution. So I apologize if I didn't do something according to the new rules. So will you help me out here on what I'm supposed to do? Because I thought we were just reintroducing it because it was pulled to my office.
116 Yeah. So this resolution was continued. And so since you did not kill the amendment prior to this meeting, I think what you would need to do is move the amendment and vote on each amendment separately, because we have two amendments on the table, yours and councilor Kanal.
117 And I'm trying to think this is efficient. I want to talk about it a long time or suddenly it's not efficient at all. So can we play with the friendly amendments that were circulating right now that councilor Kanal has brought forward, and then do this all in one.
118 You are able to make changes to what's been filed from the dais. Councilor Kanal amendment. My understanding was based on the language that you had filed in your amendment. So it is if you approved councilor Amendment with your language or if you made changes to councilor Kanal amendment, I think that would encompass all of them.
119 I listen to you right now, and it makes me think we should first pass the amendment that I brought. Now that I know that's what I did, that I reworked it. So what we brought and then we'll address the friendly amendments.
120 Yes, I think that.
121 Okay.
122 Can I move. Please help me I would like to move. Ryan. Amendment one second.
123 Second.
124 All right. Let's let's know that's on the table. And then we need to vote on that first before we add the friendly amendments to that amendment. Yes okay. Clerk. Take it away.
125 The question is on Ryan. Amendment one.
126 Clerk I.
127 Dunphy I.
128 Pirtle-guiney I.
129 Koyama Lane.
130 She said I but your sound was off. I think.
131 I thank you for the clarification and Ryan. I the the motion passes.
132 Okay. Now we're moving on to passing basically edits that are called friendly amendments unless we want to call them not friendly. That doesn't seem right. They don't seem unfriendly to me, although let's let's you want to go ahead. Who's who's pitching those councilor?
133 I believe somebody at the dais would need to officially move.
134 Okay. So would you say you have two?
135 Yeah.
136 Can I actually, I'm willing to move canal amendment one, but I'd like to split it into two pieces. The first piece is the the be it further resolved, the one, two, the fourth, be it further resolved. Can I move that one first?
137 Yeah, please say it.
138 I move the canal amendment say 1.1. The the the first part.
139 Councilor three parts. Can you read the one that you're moving?
140 Oh, sure. Okay.
141 I'll read his language. The strategic meetings will be facilitated. Oops. By council operations or facilitator chosen by council. That's the amendment. Is there no.
142 Second. I said second. Sorry. I guess my sound isn't great. Can you hear me? Okay. Second.
143 Okay. Okay. So that's been moved and seconded. Now we're having discussion on that.
144 I have a question. Oh, sorry, I have a question.
145 Oh you want to pile them all on one.
146 No, I was just thinking that we had some discussion. But councilor Pirtle-guiney has a. Yeah, I thought the comment.
147 Councilor pirtle-guiney.
148 I'm just wondering what. And I'm sorry to put people on the spot, but whether council operations thinks that they have the expertise to do this or not. I'm sorry. I don't want to give somebody work without actually hearing whether they think that that's work they can.
149 Having a thoughtful meeting. Thank you. Yeah.
150 Good afternoon, chair Ryan and members of the governance committee. For the record, my name is dana richardson. I'm your council operations manager. I appreciate being brought into this conversation. I'm not aware that council ops currently has this capacity or skill within our existing staff. I think that's all I really have to offer.
151 Thank you. I'm sorry to put you on the spot, dana.
152 I mean, who knows? My people are amazing, but as far as I know at the moment, we don't.
153 Anything else? Okay. If. No, there's no more. Oh, there is one more hand up. Hi, councilor. Koyama Lane. That's a fresh hand.
154 Yes. Yeah. And I don't know if this is helpful, but I had have had conversations with mr. Craig cook about the idea of kind of just in passing around governance and council operations, possibly being able to support us in something like this. So that doesn't mean that that is absolutely for sure an option, but that those are some, some conversations that we've had and have looked at some other cities where council operations has supported in similar, has supported similar work, have also seen other cities where the city administrator does too, but that there's some there was some conversation around this. And so I understand why that's an idea that's here.
155 Thank you.
156 Any more thoughts before we do the vote on this amendment? Clerk, can you please call the roll?
157 Thank you, mr. Chair. I would just like to clarify who seconded that amendment.
158 I Koyama Lane.
159 Thank you. And this is on the one paragraph. Be it further resolved, the strategic meetings will be facilitated by the city administrator or their designee, in coordination with council leadership, council operations or facilitator chosen by council would be amended to your amendment.
160 That's correct. This is the facilitation thank you amendment.
161 On that motion. Clerk.
162 No.
163 Dunphy.
164 No.
165 Pirtle-guiney.
166 No.
167 Koyama Lane.
168 I.
169 Ryan.
170 No.
171 The motion fails with one eye and four no votes.
172 But there's more. Okay. Yeah. You're going to pitch this?
173 No. I'm just I believe there were two eyes. Did I miss here our colleagues? No. Okay. I'm sorry.
174 It's okay.
175 Just me.
176 Yeah.
177 Do you want to pitch the next one? Okay. Councilor. Clerk. Thank you.
178 Colleagues, I would like to move canal amendment 1.2, which is on the second page. The third from the last. Be it further resolved, changed the council president or vice president in coordination with facilitator, will place on a council agenda. Council strategic framework as a resolution by February the 28th each year. Is there a.
179 Second point of clarification? Does yours also include the changes to the one two third, be it resolved section redlining the word the and then adding the words identified by a policy committee leadership?
180 No, I just went right to the last one.
181 Okay.
182 Just the last one. I forgot the very, very first thought. Sorry.
183 I think the breakdown is very helpful. So we're focused on one, be it resolved.
184 Well I'll second that one. If we're talking about just the final resolved with regard to February 28th, I second that.
185 Okay. So we have a we have the amendment motion. And second, any more discussion. Okay. Clerk. Please call the roll.
186 Thank you. Mr. Chair. Could you please clarify again who seconded that? Thank you. And would someone be so kind as to read again the motion language?
187 Sure. Okay.
188 The motion is. To change the language and the third to the last. Be it further resolved to the council president or vice president in coordination with the facilitator, will place on a council agenda council strategic framework as a resolution by February the 28th each year.
189 Thank you. On that motion clerk, I. Dunphy. I pirtle-guiney. No Koyama Lane. I Ryan. I with four eyes and one no vote. The motion is approved.
190 Okay. Have we there's one more. Right. Anyone you want to take it on again? Council clerk.
191 I will move one more canal amendment. It's probably .01. It was the third. Therefore be it resolved, it's the second. Be it further resolved to remove the the is that the is this added. Is that yours?
192 Yeah that.
193 I don't know why. They're two different colors but there's a blue section. And a red section.
194 Is the.
195 Blue part of your amendment.
196 Blue is additional text being added.
197 Okay. Sorry. Being removed. Let's back up okay.
198 The motion is to make the change to take out the the. So the third be it resolved is council policy committees may be suspended during this time frame to provide the time and capacity for full council to focus on strategic priority setting, with special consideration for emergent issues identified by policy committee leadership, city operational obligations and other policies which may be addressed at full council and bypass policy committees until the strategic priority framework is adopted or until January the 31st.
199 Second.
200 Okay, it's been motion with a second discussion.
201 Question. We just changed this reference. We changed the previous ref or the next reference of January 31st. Do we also have to change this to be February 28th, or can they operate on different timelines?
202 Councilor Kanal says.
203 No, no.
204 The first where it says January 31st. Here is it says until the strategic policy framework is adopted or. But I think it has to do with when the committees would be suspended in councilor Ryan's original text. And I think that still holds if amended, as opposed to when the vote on the final outcome would be.
205 Yeah, chairman.
206 There's further clarification then.
207 Go ahead. Council. Yeah.
208 Thank you. I, I guess I want to hear from councilor Canal about why he wants to make this amendment, that something has to be identified by a policy committee leadership. I don't I don't understand why that's necessary.
209 Yeah. It's to broaden out who can make that decision. It's not to restrict it. Quite the opposite right now, whether or not an additional committee once a once the normal committee schedule is adjusted. Right now, only the council president can give you more time. And I think it's really important that we have the committee leadership be able to identify that there's something pressing and get that additional time, because otherwise it's a single councilor who may not be on those committees. Who's making that, so that this allows for more input into that process.
210 It's interesting.
211 Because it's not the way I read it, but I'm happy to hear your intent.
212 And I'm open to a workshopping the language, if that helps, to get to that intent. But as I've mentioned in a few other places, we have the public safety committee have been asking for more time. We even approved a budget that allowed for two evening meetings a month and then a council, a weekly council meeting ordinance that allowed for one evening full council meeting a month, with the intention that the other slot budgeted for would be for committee meetings. Can't get it. So I think trying to ensure that that the chair, vice chair or co-chairs, whatever the council policy committee leadership is, can identify that there's a dire need to have that meeting is really valuable.
213 And all you're saying is with special consideration.
214 Yeah.
215 Special consideration for emergent issues.
216 And those emergent issues could be identified by the.
217 So you're really just calling it out. It it. Yeah.
218 That's the intention.
219 Okay. Councilor pirtle-guiney.
220 I also have a question about intent here, the way that I originally read this, but now I'm questioning myself. Is that exceptions could be made if a policy committee chair or co-chairs decide they need a committee, if there are city operational obligations that would necessitate a committee meeting or other policies may come up, which could be addressed at full council instead of committee. But I've second guessed myself now and want to make sure that that is the intent, because it could also be read to say that if a policy committee chair or co-chairs thought an issue was emergent, it could be addressed by full council instead of a committee. So which is your intent? I want to make sure we're voting on what I think we are.
221 That's a great question. The former is the intention the way you originally thought it. And I think that's why for two reasons. One is that's why it's earlier in the clause, as opposed to like where the words are placed and the commas make it a little confusing. But and then the other piece of it is that the council president has authority over the full council agenda, as in code, and this could supersede that anyway.
222 So what we're voting on in terms of the intent, unless one of my colleagues wants to state a different intent, is that policy committees may be suspended, but work can still continue in three ways. A policy committee could take up an issue that a chair or co-chairs identified as emergent. A policy committee could take up city operational obligations, or other large issues could be addressed at full council. Okay. Thank you for that clarification.
223 Any other questions? I'm a little bit torn on this one, because I hope that you all took some time to see the word may. So I think we all know that you can continue to work on whatever issues you need to work on in your committees. And so the intent here is a language change to make sure that it includes the leaders of policy committees. And so really it's in the third line that you want to see. That added. Is that the only edit.
224 There's a the that I didn't think was necessary.
225 Of course there is. I say that tongue in cheek to my very intelligent wordsmithing colleague. So I'm good with that. Any other questions? And thank you for further clarifying that. Okay. Clerk I think we're ready for the vote.
226 Clerk.
227 Hi, Dunphy. Hi.
228 Pirtle-guiney.
229 Hi.
230 Koyama Lane.
231 Hi, Ryan.
232 Hi.
233 Okay.
234 So the this has been amended and how. And so now do we vote on it one last time? Okay. All right, clerk, let's vote on the big enchilada so we can move on to the next item, okay?
235 You need to move in second.
236 I move that we.
237 Oh, I thought we just did all.
238 That passed.
239 The now amended resolution with a due pass or that we we send the now amended resolution with a due pass recommendation to the full council.
240 Second, second.
241 Right. It's now it's been moved and seconded. Council please call the.
242 Clerk I Dunphy.
243 No pirtle-guiney. I Koyama Lane. I Ryan I. The resolution as amended, is approved with four eyes and one no vote.
244 Thank you. And now, if you could please read the next item.
245 Item five 2025 471. Add appointed boards, commissions and committees. Code adding code. Chapter 3.40.
246 Thank you wendy. I want to recognize the months of dedicated work of julia meyer. I see ocean out there. Thank you. Ocean and amanda garcia. Snell. This is a team that has drafted the advisory board, commissions and committee reports in city code. For today's discussion. Colleagues, today we are considering an ordinance to add appointed boards, commissions and committee code. This is part of the advisory bodies enhancement project, a project to ensure the city's boards, commissions and committees align with our new form of government and that we have standard citywide practices. As a reminder, this fall we heard a couple of updates on the project. Since then, the project has progressed, publishing its final report at the end of November. I'm pleased to introduce this item with chair Koyama Lane and mayor wilson. As we consider the code, I want to remind my colleagues of a couple of things. First, the code is only the council's first step in adopting new citywide policies and practices. In addition to the code, we will need to adopt rules of procedures on the relationship of the council to boards, commissions and committees, and on appointments and confirmations. A draft resolution of the council procedures has been prepared by the project team. Bringing this resolution to the governance committee is a priority in the new year. Second, there has been a lot of discussion about syncing up the requirements and processes for the council and mayor's created advisory bodies. However, the legislative branch or executive branch do not have the powers to legislate this action for the other. Adoption of citywide practices also requires executive action by the mayor, city administrator, and chief engagement officer. Last week, the mayor expressed expressed his intent to comply with the same requirements for mayor created boards, commissions and committees that the council sets for council created bodies and the chief engagement officer is prepared to release administrative rules for comment as soon as the council approves the code. Before us today, we have sarah ames from the city's attorney's office present in the event there are questions about this. Thank you so much for being here this afternoon. Although it's winter solstice, so it looks like we're well into the night. Julia and amanda will discuss the next steps to get this to the finish line, so I won't go into all that, but we are looking to schedule the code revisions at a city council meeting with a tentative date of January 14th. I'll now hand it over to our presenters, amanda garcia snell, the city's chief engagement officer, and julia meyer, project manager for the advisory bodies enhancement project. Welcome. Thank you for being here.
247 Thanks, councilor Ryan and councilors, good afternoon. I'm amanda garcia snell, chief engagement officer. For the record, thank you for having us back to the governance committee for this final phase of the advisory bodies enhancement project. As you may recall, we released the final report a couple of weeks ago and are hoping to use this time today to talk through the draft ordinance and code that will help us move forward, move toward implementation. Depending on the outcome of this presentation, we anticipate being able to come to full council in the new year and with more at that time, we'll bring more detail, as you mentioned, of the administrative rules that will accompany the council direction outlined in the ordinance and code. Before I kick it over to julia to dive in, I want to again extend my appreciation to you all to for your leadership on this effort and to my colleagues julia and ocean, as mentioned in sarah, on the work on this effort, as well as other staff, community members and your fellow councilors who have supported this project. I also just want to note that julia's temporary position is coming to a close at the end of this month, and I just really express my deep gratitude for the work that she's accomplished in this space. And with that, I'll hand it over to julia.
248 Thank you. It's really good to be here again. Julia meyer. She her pronouns project manager for the advisory bodies enhancement project vice chair. Ryan, I know we're running a little bit late. I had a 15 minute presentation. Do you prefer something more succinct?
249 Thank you. Okay.
250 Leadership? Yeah. Brevity's leadership skill, please.
251 Yeah.
252 Great. So, yeah, we are here today to present the first step in adopting citywide policies and practices related to appointed boards, commissions and committees, or what I'm probably going to refer to sometimes as abcs. And that's an ordinance adding city code provisions. Next slide please. I'm going to quickly go through background and context. And then I'll really just focus on walking you through the draft code. Talk about the action that we are requesting from the governance committee. And very briefly touch on next steps. Next slide please. I've spent a couple of times before you going over this. I won't belabor it. I might just skip to, you know, this year where amanda came to this committee in late spring, presented an outline of this project, and we've really been at it pretty consistently for the last eight months or so. Next slide please. There's a lot of inputs that have gone into this project over the last eight months. I will again kind of appreciate, as amanda did, this committee for really keeping the momentum of this work going. It's work that historically has stalled out sometimes at the city. And so I really think it's the leadership of this committee that enables us to be here with the draft code today, as well as an internal workgroup we had that had representation from all the service areas, as well as councilor Canal, who was there as a representative of the full council. That was really helpful to get us to a whole set of new citywide recommended policies and practices. And you can find them all in our final report, which is attached to the ordinance as exhibit a. Next slide, please. So briefly, I do think there's some important notes on how to understand what's before you today. And councilor Ryan addressed some of these. The first is that this project is part of a larger effort to rethink how the city engages with community. Abcs are a crucial component, but just one of many ways. And so I would invite you to kind of situate this within a larger portfolio of business that needs to happen at the city, and to think of abc members, current and past, as a resource in that larger work. Second, this project is really a internal reorganization effort that's aimed at standardizing practices and increasing operational efficiency. So a lot of the proposed practices are very behind the scenes type of work. And it's hoping that by getting kind of the city's house in order, we help the members of abcs contribute to the missions of the abcs more effectively. And the third is what councilor Ryan, I think well articulated about abcs are really interesting, part of our new form of government, because both council and the mayor have independent charter authority around appointed boards, commissions and committees. And so, as councilor Ryan mentioned, adoption of these policies and practices is going to be this code council procedures that council can adopt around its own relationship to abcs, as well as administrative rules and other executive guidance. And I really appreciate that. What's before you today is being co-introduced by the chair and vice chair of this committee, as well as the mayor's office. So just to keep in mind, as we go through the code, you're not going to see all of the proposed practices reflected in the code, right? There will be additional practices in council procedures and additional practices in the administrative rules. Next slide please. So let's get into the code. The proposal is to add Portland city code chapter 3.40 and appointed boards commissions and committees. This slide just articulates the section's purpose of the chapter definitions, classification, application, the creation, sunset, and periodic review of abcs and member conduct. The overall purpose of the chapter is to establish policies for the city's abcs. Next slide please. There's a very brief definition section. It only has two definitions enabling legislation and creating authority. Enabling legislation just refers to the charter provision, ballot measure, act, city ordinance or code provision that establishes the abc, its duties and authority and creating authority refers to the council or the mayor. For the reasons we've talked about before, is that the charter gives authority to establish boards and commissions to both the council and the mayor. Next slide please. So we've talked about this a couple of of past governance committee meetings. The chapter 3.40030 establishes a classification system for abcs at the city. There are two big classes, each with subclasses. The first class is abcs. The city does not have sole authority to create, alter, or dissolve. Those include independent charter bodies, ballot measure oversight bodies, bodies required by law and intergovernmental bodies, and the second class is abcs. The city has sole authority to create, alter or dissolve, which really just have two subclasses, those that are ongoing and those that are limited limit in the sense that they end at a specific period of time or upon the happening of a specific event. What is not included in abcs our bodies, comprised solely of city employees, informal community sounding boards or consultations, and interagency bodies where the city has only elected representation. Next slide please. So this is section 3.40.040 application of the chapter. So this code chapter applies to independent charter bodies, ballot measure oversight bodies, bodies required by law bodies created by the council, whatever their classification, ongoing advisory bodies and limited advisory bodies that are subject to the Oregon public meetings law. So basically, all of the subclasses I just listed, except intergovernmental agreement bodies. And then section b is important and just establishes that the city administrator may establish administrative rules for any abc covered by this chapter. That's a reference, again, to the executive action that needs to happen to get us to citywide practices for abcs. Next slide please. So chapter section 3.40.050 talks about abc creation, sunset and periodic review. I'm just going to briefly go over each one because I think they're all doing important things here. So this is about creation. It again restates the charter authority that both council and the mayor have the authority to create, alter or abolish abc's. It does say that the council will create new abcs through ordinance, with the exception that council may create limited advisory bodies through resolution. Next, it says that the mayor or a councilor May propose to council the creation of an abc. And that person is then referred to as an abc sponsor, and that the abc may be created only after the sponsor has analyzed and reported on a set of things. The proposed primary purpose, mission, functions and responsibilities of the new abc. The number of seats, qualifications for the seats, and the appointing authority for each seat. Any possible duplication of efforts or conflicts with existing advisory bodies, and the anticipated financial, staffing and operational impacts upon city resources, and whether the abc will have dedicated resources. This section also states that each abc only has the functions, powers and duties and responsibilities specifically delegated to it by the creating authority through enabling legislation or resolution. If by council or through mayoral action, and the council has the authority to modify the functions, powers, duties and responsibilities by a majority vote, so too does the mayor have the authority to modify the functions, powers, duties and responsibilities of an abc created through mayoral action. Next slide please. So this is the same chapter section, but this is about sunset. We've talked about this the last couple of times we've been here as well. The proposed code language states that an abc will sunset and automatically dissolve after four years of operation, unless the creating authority. So the mayor or council extends the abc's term or the abc's enabling legislation or resolution, or the mayoral action specifies a different sunset. Next slide please. The final piece of this section provides for what we call periodic review. And it would require that the city administrator report to council periodically about the status of all of the city's abcs, and the report will assess whether existing abcs are inactive or outdated, might be combined with other abcs with similar powers, duties or functions, fulfill an ongoing purpose, or could be time limited with a sunset applied and align with citywide abc standards and practices. Next slide please. And then final piece 3.40.060 is on abc member conduct stating that members of abcs are public officials, subject to rules of conduct established by the bureau of human resources, including ethical standards and rules related to workplace harassment, discrimination, and retaliation. Next slide please. So what we're here to ask you for today is that the governance committee recommend this ordinance to the full council. The ordinance directs the addition of Portland city code chapter 3.40 on appointed boards, commissions and committees, as shown as exhibit b to the ordinance. And the city administrator will ensure that the council receives a written implementation report within six months, and council and the mayor receive annual reports on the abc program. Next slide please. This is our last slide. It's just where we go today after today. So again, an ordinance adopting code provisions is a very important first step and only a first step in the adoption of citywide policies and practices. As councilor Ryan mentioned, will also want to come back on council rules of procedure. And then there will be administrative rules as well. We hope that all three of those things can be adopted as early as the beginning of 2026. One thing on this slide I do want to note is this reconciling and cleanup of existing code. As this project was developing recommendations for citywide policies and practices, the service areas and offices were conducting an assessment of the city's existing abcs. That review did result in a set of proposed recommended changes to the city's advisory bodies. They're in the final report. Towards the end of that document. They are drafts only those recommended changes. And I think the city, you know, is seeking feedback on those proposed changes. But once the details of those get hammered out, there's a public process where folks can weigh in about those proposed recommendations. Then I imagine a code cleanup package would be back before council. For your consideration about how you want to implement those. And I, for the sake of time, I'll stop there and just really appreciate the time. Thank you.
253 Thank you so much, julia and amanda. I'm open to questions right now. Councilor Dunphy.
254 Thank you. Would this be a better time for I have a I have a number of questions, but should we do? Is there public testimony first or should we just.
255 I don't I was told we don't have any. Do we have any.
256 We have two individuals signed up to testify.
257 Oh, sorry about that.
258 I would rather wait.
259 Yeah, let's let's listen to the testimony first.
260 Yes.
261 You have terry harris.
262 And thank you. You'll be back at the dyess soon. Yeah. Welcome, terry. Sorry about that.
263 Hi, terry harris, for the record. And thanks for for doing this. I will say, first of all, generally this is a massive effort. I appreciate the work that's gone into this and this report. And the code will be very useful moving forward. The classes classifications make sense. It's bringing order to chaos, and all of this will be really helpful in the just a couple quick things. And then I have a bunch of code nitpicks that I'll try and walk through really quickly. But first, disappointed in the report not being more explicit about the budget advisory committees that went away were supposed to come back and are still not yet coming back. And this report doesn't sort of move that ball along. So that's just something to keep on your on your radar. Multnomah county did a complete overhaul of their budget advisory committees. There's so much better now I know you guys can do it too. Okay, so the code the code is necessary and it's good to be in its own chapter. It's good to acknowledge that it's nowhere near complete. There's going to be a bunch of other stuff that happens. I made some edits there in the written testimony that you should be able to see, and I believe I sent them to your offices over the weekend. Some of them are necessary, I think, and some of them are just better practices that might make things easier in the future. But let me walk through them. In the definitions section, I added the definitions of abcs in the definition section okay, and I moved it from the classification section. I think that'll that'll be helpful. I think there's a recognition that the charter section 2.103 controls all of this. And that charter section can probably speak for itself. So I deleted a bunch of stuff that talks about that. And I think it's clear that I deleted it. I let me skip to rulemaking. I moved the rulemaking by the city administrator to a separate section, because I think that's really important, especially because a lot of what happens next is rulemaking. I think that section on rulemaking needs a scope. What rule, what is that rulemaking going to be for? It's going to be for standardization. It's going to be for membership. It's going to be that sort of thing. I think it needs to be scoped and not just wide open. That that's the city administrator can do. I think in creation it's not a sponsor responsibility. It's a responsibility of the council findings in the resolution. I think that is it just kind of has to be that way. And so I made some edits along those lines and that's and that's basically it. Any questions I can try and answer them.
264 Thank you so much.
265 I think you know.
266 And the next person to testify.
267 Next we have councilor Kanal.
268 Good afternoon once again. For the record Sameer Kanal district two city councilor, I want to outline the strengths today of the policy package, where it could have gone further. And the amendment that I also pre-filed, which is down at the bottom of the list. Community deserves to have a voice in government and to see their priorities reflected in the decisions we make. Advisory boards and commissions help make that happen. They bring residents into the work of government, help us explore complex issues and ensure community experience and expertise directly shape policy. Strengthening these pathways strengthens our democracy, and that's why this policy and this entire project matters. I've spent the past several months participating in the development of the package before you today, as someone who previously oversaw several city advisory bodies while working at the public safety service area, I know firsthand how meaningful and impactful these groups can be when they're supported and structured well. First, the strengths. This report takes an important step by recommending periodic reviews of our large lists of boards and commissions. Over the years, the city has created many advisory groups, some still extant, others inactive. Regular review will help us identify when a body has completed its purpose, or when it should shift from abc status to a community consultation. That clarity will reduce duplication, help us focus our dollars and resources where they're most needed. It also ensures there's some oversight on the mayor's office, who's created the overwhelming majority of advisory bodies and volunteer bodies. The report also employs our human resources bureau to support members behavioral expectations. We must maintain standards of respectful behavior, including working against discrimination, harassment, and retaliation. And bhr support is critical to ensuring that. I also want to highlight the important recommendations of supporting the staff who manage these bodies. They need guidance on the law, technology support, agenda, collaboration and report development. And one of the most important is standardizing the number of seats on each body. Because fixed seat numbers reduce bias and ensure fairness and predictability in recruitment and filling vacancies, there are also areas where this policy could go further. During the engagement process of this project, members and staff who were surveyed expressed wanting more access to city leadership and council. I'm strongly supportive of an annual convening and recognition event to ensure transparency, coordination and appreciation. This relates to page 46, the report. This could also be a place where advisory bodies can present their work, share strategic priorities and connect directly with elected officials and other city leaders. Other local governments do this as well. Finally, I want to address my ongoing concern regarding council appointment procedures. Through this process, we consistently heard that members want more visibility and acknowledgment from council. Committee level engagement should be the minimum, but we must expand transparency at the full council as well. And that brings me to the amendment I'm proposing that the administration present. This is just to the ordinance, not the report. Present an initial implementation plan by the end of February 2026, so council can provide directions on which parts to prioritize with more than 60 pages of strong ideas here, one additional touch point ensures alignment on priorities and clarity on next steps. I also added a small change to add the reports back to council to include continual improvement, not just implementation. These two sections go hand in hand and I checked with julie meyer, our staff leading this process, who agreed it would make it consistent to put the two together. Thank you for your time. I'm happy to answer follow up questions.
269 Okay, we will take those. We'll have questions right now, but I need to do a time check. So it's 417. We I've been doing some logistical thoughts up here about how to move this forward. This is an ordinance. We can do ordinances in one reading at a committee meeting. We can also have a first reading and then bring it back next week. If that happens, we would have to do we would bring it to the council with a full emergency so we could vote on this hopefully before the end of the year. And some of that is because staff are. Julie myers been driving this from the beginning and having her engage would be really helpful. So I just wanted to put that all out there. That all said councilor Dunphy.
270 Thank you. I also want to start by giving amanda and julia a lot of kudos. I know that so much of this work has is over a decade old. I was in city hall last time when when commissioner Nick fish first tried to take a stab at this and wasn't able to get that before his, he unfortunately passed away from cancer. And so I appreciate the amount of incredible work that has gone into this. That said, I have some serious concerns about voting on this either today as an emergency or next week even. I think that I have some specific concerns. I share almost everything that terry has has raised as an amendment. I would be very interested in trying to see us move in that direction. I recognize also, as you were saying, that there is some iterative work that needs to happen to this section of code. That code will inform rules which will then inform code cleanup project. But that inherently makes me feel a little squeamish. And then I also have some. I will also be proposing councilor Kanal amendment that he has pre-filed. I don't know if we'll do that today or if we'll do that somewhere else, but I have some specific questions that I was hoping staff could come up and answer. And again, some of these may be ones that we have to clarify later, but there are ones that are immediately. At the very least, my staff are saying, please go ask these questions because we need answers. Starting the charter gives, as you said, charter gives council authority to create boards and commissions and gives the mayor authority to create advisory bodies. But it seems like this section of code, in a lot of ways, addresses both of them with the same breadth. How do how does this ordinance distinguish between those two categories, and where is the legal boundary between those actually defined in code?
271 Thanks for the question. Councilor. Is it okay? Do you want me to start? So let me start. And then obviously amanda's here. And sarah ames from the city attorney's office is here. If you prefer a legal response. So I think I think your reading is accurate. I think that this code. Addresses abc's created by both branches in many parts. So something like let's take the periodic review section that I think is really important in this code. Council has the ability to direct the city administrator to report to council on things. So that periodic review is you directing the city administrator to report back to council on all existing abc's, those created by the mayor and those created by council, for example. Right. Or you take a section like sunset, right. This idea that unless otherwise stated abc's will sunset after four years that can apply to both mayor and council created bodies because it doesn't take any authority from the mayor, the mayor still has the authority to come back and say, actually, I'd like to extend this body, right. Just as council has the authority to come back and extend council created bodies. So the area where you're going to see the distinction is 340 .00584. That's really where the distinction lies. And for folks not following that list of numbers and letters, it's the mayor or a council may propose the creation of an abc after the following things are analyzed and reported on. So that is the only section that's saying if council creates a body, whether it is proposed by the mayor or council, council won't create it until either the mayor, if the mayor is proposing it to council, or the councilor, if a councilor is proposing it to council, is going to analyze the following four things. That's the only place where you're going to see the distinction of the authority's. The mayor, as councilor Ryan mentioned, intends to hold the mayor's office to the same standards that council creates for itself in this creation provision. But that is where I think the advice from the city attorney's office is that council could not have that same provision applied to mayor created bodies through code.
272 Okay.
273 And councilor Kanal, you had some also some feedback on some of that.
274 Yeah, I'm speaking here not as a proposer of the amendment, but as council's designee to the work group. And in talking to the two colleagues to my right here, the original version of this really didn't have many limitations at all or any definition for the mayor in their creation. That office's creation. I, I think if you look at most city code, it is to clarify, define, empower or restrict the executive branch and the administration broadly. I think that's a fair read of it. So by adding this applicability to both, it actually strengthened it in my view. I'll also note that the enabling legislation is probably where the distinction between advisory and non advisory would be made clear for each individual body, because the the bodies that have specific decision making authority are different from each other. And what that authority is, the scope of it, the type of it, etc. And so it's the specific enabling legislation that might need. That's probably where the thing you're asking about would actually be defined.
275 That makes sense, but certainly feels scary to me in that the code is supposed to be the backbone in many ways of what all of our proposals are guided by the charter, but that code language is our our, our daily reader. And if we are reliant on forms being filled out properly with a certain robustness for the next 100 years, I worry that that is leaving us short and leaves us to vulnerabilities. I also have some some questions. I guess. More specifically, I mean, I have a number of questions, but responding directly the four year term, first of all, is that defined in code or will it be defined? I didn't see it in there. Will it be defined as being tied to the mayor's term, or is it tied to the off year, four year creation, or is it going to be independent of either of them, just sort of based off of like when they get created? It's just a four year license moving forward.
276 That's correct.
277 Councilor okay. And is that to the dissolution of the board or the membership of the board, like, I don't know, imagine some major emergency happens and suddenly the planning and sustainability commission goes away. Like, is it that we have to restand this or that those terms just all expire.
278 The board itself?
279 Okay, okay. Colleagues, I'm trying to be as mindful of time as I can. I apologize for this. In section 340. 030b, it states specifically that the city has sole authority to create, alter, or dissolve certain abcs, but it doesn't define who the city is in that context, whether that is the council, the mayor, the city administrator, or some combination. Who is that intended to be legally exercising that authority?
280 It is all or both. It could be either. And this is to to mr. Harris. Yeah. Amendment to that's the one part I support a lot of it by the way. But there's a lot in there. This is the one place where I think it's not exactly clear the way that it's amended. I think it's better to say the city. It's it's to distinguish the city from another entity, meaning if we have a committee that's joint with the county, that's the I think the distinction there. And if you look at the c gives more clarity to that. Okay. The next section down on what is not in the scope of this project.
281 Okay. That makes okay similar section or same section, similar ish question. The 3.40.030 classifies as advisory bodies, even though the council has charter authority over non advisory bodies and decision making boards and commissions. So our council's decision making bodies excluded from this framework, or is it intended to be included of council?
282 It's intended to be inclusive.
283 Okay.
284 And just to clarify that we're using advisory, but it's abcs is just a general term. And I think the the, the elegant solution that was found here was to say appointed is the a. So okay, if you look at the just the chapter title appointed.
285 Gotcha time check.
286 Thank you. Yeah. Very. Yeah. Very briefly. With regard to the bhr component of this, giving the human resources department authority to treat our advisory members with the same sort of protections. I know that that is specifically been a thing that we've heard in the past, where volunteers on boards have had bad experiences, and hr has said they're unable to sort of help with anything. But does this code section of code envision these folks equivalent to a city employee in terms of their protections, or is it more equivalent to a public official, meaning, could a board member have egregious behavior and be dismissed by bhr because of this violation? Or, you know, can't get fired by bhr? Right. But there are other tools. How does that envision this, that authority?
287 Yeah, I'll answer. And then if the city attorney's office wants to say something in a different way than I'm about to, it does not envision that abc members or city employees, nor does it envision that abc members are elected officials. It does envision that abc members are public officials, and public officials, and elected officials are not synonymous.
288 If I can add, having led, there was a sub workgroup in the last iteration of this that I did in my former job. Bhr doesn't actually fire folks. They recommend to the the manager that that that person be fired in or whatever other disciplinary action. I think that would be a similar structure here. And each appointing authority might get that recommendation from bhr. After an investigation into allegations of conduct or misconduct.
289 Okay, great. And my very last question is just what would legally prevent this ordinance from requiring that the city administer requiring the city administrator to provide council with a timely, detailed report within 30 days of any new executive created advisory body? Is there anything that would that would prevent us from being able to have something like that?
290 It's my understanding. Council has the authority to direct the city administrator to report to it on things. So I think that is in council's authority.
291 Okay.
292 Thank you.
293 Thank you, councilor Dunphy. So we are a minute away from ending the meeting. I'll give us, like, ten minute grace the most. I think this is where this is going. We are going to do this as a first reading today, and we'll be taking this back at the top of the agenda next week. And we will have an opportunity, if passed, to put onto the council agenda, because our council president is very adaptable and we would do that at the final council meeting of the year next week. So good. We do need to discuss if we're going to have this amendment read into the record as a part of of this. That's I think, the issue. We don't have to vote on the amendment today, but we will decide whether it's motion and seconded into the public record. Thanks for listening to all that. Let's go to the next question, councilor Clark.
294 Oh, I'm sorry, there's not much time. I would just say that I really appreciate the work. It's very complex. Obviously, there's lots more questions. I'm clearly not ready to vote on this today. I thought I heard comments about it needs more standardization, and I haven't had a chance to go through all of terry's proposals yet. But I do feel that he's right on on the context on the budget and budget advisory committee. So I want to spend some more time with that. So thank you.
295 Thank you. Councilor Clark councilor Pirtle-guiney.
296 Really appreciate the work that's been done here. There are some just flags in terms of. What the record shows and what our intent is that I want to make sure to make next week. I'll save our time today. I would love to have my colleagues, councilors clarke and Dunphy, look through the edits from terry harris, the amendment from councilor Kanal, and figure out if there's an amendment that we want to bring forward next week. I'm very open to some of the things that I've heard about, and I'll leave it at that for today.
297 Thank you.
298 Councilor Clark. Is that new legacy? Okay, councilor Kanal, go ahead and.
299 Be very, very brief. Please. Also read delgado's written testimony and it will help explain in part, it has more than just this why that second part of the amendment I proposed is so important to narrow the scope and be very specific about what's being brought back by the city administrator. It also has a lot of other value.
300 Thank you. And you have your hand up. I didn't want it up.
301 I didn't, but I.
302 Would, I believe you.
303 Would it.
304 Be better.
305 To. I have every intention of moving the canal one amendment towards this. I could do that right now or we could do it next week. Whichever.
306 I think having it into the public record, if it's moved and seconded, is better for transparency sake there.
307 So I would like to move canal one, which specifically reads now therefore the council directs it adds a subset a, new subsection b that says the city administrator will report back to the city council in a work session by February 28th, 2026, to discuss and to receive feedback on implementation priorities and the proposed implementation plan. New section c has some additional new language as city administrator will ensure that the council receives a written implementation report within six months. Adding the language of the passage of this ordinance that includes, but will not be limited to, progress on elements in exhibit. A final project report implementation, adding the words and continuous improvement sections, and then updates lettering to previous section c, now b, section d. So I would like to move that.
308 And can we have a second. Okay. It's been moved and seconded. So colleagues we have we have some legislation now that has an amendment. And we are going to go ahead and conclude this first reading and bring this up at next week's governance meeting. Yes. As a second reading that we'll be voting on and I think that's it. Any other questions? For the good of the order. Thank you, sarah ames, for being here today. And we'll see you again next Monday. It looks like and I really encourage my colleagues between now and then, to reach out to our colleagues that are in front of us and, and our councilor Legal advisor, sarah ames, as well. And with that, I think we're good. Anything else on the agenda over there? Clarkson. No. All right. This concludes our governance committee meeting. Have a wonderful evening.
309 It's.