The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-03-18

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (26,170 words), shown in readable case and split into speaker turns. Speakers are AI-suggested and editor-reviewed (low confidence — auto-captions garble names); each color marks a speaker.

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Good evening.

Good evening. Before we officially gavel in, I am turning this over to councilor Koyama Lane for a pre gavel celebration. Councilor Koyama Lane.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you, council president. Good evening everyone. Thank you all for being here today. As we recognize minoru yasui day, thank you to mayor wilson for formally recognizing this day through an official proclamation affirming the importance of remembering this history and carrying forward its lessons. It's an honor to gather in this space with very special guests, people who are very important to me, to reflect on the life and legacy of minoru yasui, and to bravely commit to being the allies today that our families needed during world war two. And with that, I will turn things over to our guests lynn, June, peggy and kay. Thank you.

Good evening, president Dunphy and city council members. Mine was just 26 years old when he defied the military curfew imposed on people of japanese ancestry that led to the unjust incarceration of over 120,000 men, women and children, including my family. And he did this to test the constitutionality and his act of defiance 84 years ago was a stand against government overreach and discrimination. He knew that no government should have unchecked power. He recognized the common struggle of marginalized people and worked tirelessly across ethnic, racial, class and other elements of diversity, including age and disabilities. And for his lifetime of activism, he was awarded the presidential medal of freedom in 2015, and he's the only Oregonian to receive this honor in 2016. In an intensely bipartisan year, we worked with the Oregon legislature and unanimously passed house bill 4009, designating March 28th was the day he defied curfew as minoru yasui day in Oregon in perpetuity. The bill was signed and we had the March for justice with over 400 people ages 103 down to three years old, that retraced men's steps from his office in what was portland's japantown to police headquarters, where he was arrested and jailed. And we continue to hold many a day events every year since. So we wanted to thank you for your proclamation recognizing men, but also calling out past and present injustices. Now we must do our part to correct them because in men's words, if we believe in America, if we believe in equality and democracy, if we believe in law and justice, then each of us, when we see or believe errors are being made, have an obligation to make every effort to correct them. Now your proclamation calls out the alien enemies act of 1798. We must push congress to repeal it with the passage of the neighbors, not enemies. Act. So every day is a call to action to speak out when our democracy is threatened and the rule of law broken. So what would men do? That's the name of our event. This year, as we mark the 10th anniversary of min yasui day and the 250th anniversary of our declaration of independence, both rooted in democracy and the belief that power belongs to the people. We must unite the power of our voices and actions. Because what min says, what is done to the least of the least of us, can be done to all of us. So this is min's call to action then and is called to action now. Thank you for letting us share more about min's legacy.

Thank you. Lynn, would you like to say your full name for the record?

Sure. Lynn fuchigami parks great.

Would you like to introduce yourself?

My name is June schumann. During 2014 and 15, I served as project administrator for the minoru yasui tribute committee in Portland. It was formed by holly yasui and peggy nagaya. The purpose was to nominate minoru yasui for the 2015 presidential medal of freedom. The committee felt this national recognition for min yasui should not be delayed any further. The Portland based minoru yasui tribute committee involved dedicated lawyers, advocates and community leaders with active connections to local and national organizations. Minoru yasui, tribute committee submitted the presidential medal of freedom nomination to president obama with nearly 90 letters of support, including past and current federal cabinet officials, representatives, senators, governors from multiple states, local advocacy organizations and community leaders. Here are some examples of the important ways local and national organizations supported the recognition for constitutional and racial justice. Fought for by minoru yasui. First, the Oregon aclu leader obtained a support letter from the national aclu. He then submitted the local letter referencing the mcnaughton award granted to minoru yasui in Oregon in 18, 1983. Secondly, the legislative liaison for Oregon aclu. Facilitated the approval of state legislative action to establish March 28th as minor yasui, the day effective 2016. Third, the. The Portland urban league learned about aye, Morillo suis role in helping to establish denver, colorado's urban league in the 1950s. They were among Portland local advocacy organizations to support minoru yasui for the presidential medal of freedom. Fourth, portland's coalition of communities of color was one of the organizations to learn about how minoru yasui had an active role in denver to establish advocacy organization for black, latino, native, and asian American communities. His efforts in denver in the 1950s were in line with coalition of communities of color present day mission and submitted their letter of support for minoru yasui. Lastly, I wanted to mention hood river middle school students who in 2015 studied what is a hero? They learned about minoru yasui, who graduated from hood river high school and said in their letter of support, minoru yasui is a hero because he stood up for what was right. He was a hero because he dedicated his life fighting for what he believed in. Thank you for my statement. Councilor Tiffany.

Koyama Lane, thank you very much for inviting us here. Thank you to all the councilors for being here. My name is peggy nagai and I have a few words about the yasui case. I was his lead attorney, reopening his case, his world war two case in the early 80s. Sherrilyn ifill recently described doctor martin luther king jr as a democracy warrior who put his body on the line and spoke truth to power, harnessing a truth force to demand change. Likewise, yasui as a lawyer, patriot and activist, was a democracy lawyer who put his body on the line when he intentionally violated the military curfew imposed upon u.s. Citizens of japanese ancestry. By this act, he spoke truth to power. The incarceration of persons without due process is a clear violation of the fifth amendment's command. Does this sound familiar? Well, yasui firmly believed the government was transgressing fundamental rights. He did not know the extent to which government lawyers, both in the war department and the department of justice, lied, suppressed, misrepresented and falsified a key military report and other government assessments so that they could argue national security mandated incarceration. Does this sound familiar? The evidence of these lawyers, the evidence these lawyers tampered with, intentionally misled the supreme court about the military assessment of the west coast and hid the generals racist views of japanese Americans as an enemy race, calling them animals and saying that no amount of time would make a difference. To prove the loyalty or their disloyalty to the us, general dewitt said it would be like separating goats from sheep language that characterize American citizens of japanese descent as subhuman and alleviated any moral obligation to treat them as the us citizens that they were. Why did these lawyers, against their own ethical rules, withhold exculpatory evidence from verified government sources that the incarceration was not necessary? Why is it that the solicitor general of the united states, the fourth ranking official in the department of justice, representing the federal government in all us supreme court cases and appointed by the president, refused to disclose credible reports from the office of naval intelligence, the fbi, the federal communications commission, all of which found no evidence of sabotage, and all of which said that it was unnecessary to imprison japanese Americans. We reopened his case in the 1980s. I've been asking myself these questions for the last 40 some years, and it's been an exhausting process of wondering, why did this happen? Why did lawyers. Because I used to practice law. How could we. How could we betray our ethical obligations? And I have come to to. I still don't quite understand it. Why did they betray their responsibilities? To not serve the public interest, to not act with integrity, to not seek justice, and to ensure a fair process rather than pursuing a conviction at all costs. Why did they not uphold the law? I've come to believe that these high ranking government lawyers and officials did not see, nor did they believe, that the united states is a multiracial, multicultural, inclusive democracy where all people are created equal. Rather, I believe they saw it as a white country, where they are guided by beliefs like manifest destiny with whiteness at the core of the nation's success, history, politics and culture. That is why history is repeating itself today. That is why we have a current day supreme court justice ruling that ice agents can make arrests based on race, ethnicity, spanish speaking proficiency and type of work called the kavanaugh stop. It allows ice agents to arrest people based on these agents personal stereotypes and racism. And what would yasui say in the final year of his life? He said, this is the united states of America, founded in liberty, dedicated to the proposition that all men and I included and women are created equal as an American citizen, as a lawyer, I felt that we owed at least the obligation to tell our government they're wrong. That is a sacred duty of every citizen, because what is done to the least of us can be done to all of us. I knew we had to protest in honor of min yasui. Let us fight for the rule of law, fight for our democracy, democracy, fight for the soul of this nation. Thank you. Yes.

My name is k ando. I was incarcerated in the minidoka war relocation center, which is located 16 miles northeast of twin falls, idaho. As a youth, we had a lot of fun because our parents all had jobs working in the camp as cooks in the mess halls, fire department, police department. So it was the camp was self-sufficient. And as youngsters, all we did was play all day until school started on September 26th. That was my ninth birthday, but we didn't celebrate my birthday for some reason. Nobody knew about it and we didn't even have a cake. And christmas was really nice. They had toys that were donated by the churches all through the united states, and I got a gift, but I remember it. But it was really a nice present. And in camp to this day, you. For me, it wasn't that bad. But for the older generation it was really bad. And I wish some of them could come here and explain to you what happened. But most of them are either not here anymore or in in the late 90s. So I'm right now 92. So I'm one of the younger ones that knew about camp, and we had a lot of fun and. And what we did was we went out and played. And one of the things they had a Kanal and they used to swim across the Kanal and the good swimmers went in the swipes and watermelons. And then we used to look at them while they were eating watermelon. And then pretty soon they said, come on in and help yourself to the watermelon. That was really a great present for us, and that was our my adventure in camp. And for the older generation, it was really terrible. But for us, it was really, really good. Thank you.

Thank you so much, all of you, for your powerful words and reflections. Thank you to everyone who joined us this evening. Let's continue to honor min yasui by caring for the conviction that at times, challenging unjust laws is absolutely necessary in the pursuit of democracy and dignity for all. Sometimes I sit at my window here in city hall, and I imagine him because he walked around downtown telling a police officer, hey, arrest me, arrest me. You know, the police officer said, run along home, sonny boy, until he went to the police station and said, you have to arrest me. I'm breaking the curfew on purpose. So as we wrap up, I encourage everyone to continue honoring, honoring min's legacy by staying engaged, learning more. Please research congresswoman ilhan omar's neighbors, not enemies. Act hr 630 please attend the ce day celebration right up the street at the Oregon historical society, hosted by the minoru yasui legacy project, and we have proclamations to give to you all to gift to the japanese American museum of Oregon, the minoru yasui project, the jacl, and one to you, mr. K ando. Thank you for sharing your story with us. Let's all remember that never again is now.

Thank you all for being here. There's going to be councilor Avalos request for us to do a quick photo outside. We're going to do that and try to be back here in well, as quick as we can get. We got a full evening tonight.

Great.

And welcome back, ladies.

And gentlemen. I'm now gaveling into order. This meeting of the Portland city council on Wednesday, the evening of Wednesday, March 18th. Keelan can you please call the roll?

President Smith?

Kanal present.

Pirtle-guiney here. Ryan here. Koyama Lane. Morillo. Here. Novick. Here. Clark. Here. Green.

Here.

Zimmerman.

Here. Dunphy here.

And can we please read the rules of decorum?

Good evening. Welcome to the Portland city council to testify before council in person or virtually. You must sign up in advance on the council agenda at www.Portland.gov/agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's webpage. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states. Otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order. Disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. State your name for the record. Your address is not necessary. If you are a lobbyist, identify the organization you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.

Thank you very much, colleagues. Our first action item today is approval of the agenda item number four titled amend council schedule. During the 2627 budget process has been pulled from consent, in part to add an amendment and to add an emergency clause. We have many substantive policy items to hear tonight. I would like to be able to place this at the beginning of the regular agenda, so we can compete and move on to other business, rather than move it to the end, as is normally the case. Is there any objection or may I have unanimous consent to place item four between items three and five? I know I would like to usually items from consent get pulled to the end. I'd like to have it read chronology chronologically, if that's okay. Are there any other requests to amend the agenda? Do I have unanimous consent to approve the agenda? I see lots of lots of little nods. The agenda is approved. Thank you. Colleagues keelan, can we please call public communications?

First up, we have karen shirai.

Yep. Come on up. Karen. Welcome. Please introduce yourself. Share your name, your pronouns if you prefer. And you have three minutes.

Hi, my name is karen cherry.

I am a business owner in district four. I own stadium superette. I'm part of stadium hood. You guys have seen me all in various venues here testifying. I also testify for county and I've been testifying for state legislature. I am advocating for businesses in our area. We've had now 35 businesses closed within a four block radius of our store by providence park in the last two years. I am dealing with ongoing crime, and the consensus of a lot of the businesses is that very thing is crime and safety. I don't know what else to do other than continue arresting the people that commit these crimes. I'm up to 26 people as of the Sunday before last that I've had arrested since last April, due in part for me, like either following the suspect until police can get to my location to arrest the people. Some people I've had to let go just because I couldn't wait any longer due to business and stuff. And and it just it's just an ongoing cycle of homelessness and drugs and crime. And with all the monies that we're spending on the homeless and snap benefits and all these things, I just don't understand why it just is continuing, you know? And like, what else can we do to mitigate these things? You know, and the reason why our, our, our economy is so bad is because we do have these crimes. And so when, when retail outlets have criminal activity or vandalism, like I've had, you know, we're going to have to raise our prices. You know, I could barely afford the employees that I have working right now. And just because, you know, I have now more employment taxes, I have cost of living, you know, increases. And, and so I'm just, I'm pleading with you guys like, you know, please help in some way. You know, I just, I feel like we're the minority. And, you know, I didn't necessarily choose to open the store. It wasn't my dream. It was my husband's dream. But I helped make it happen. And I'm continuing to make it happen for him while he works construction, just so that we can keep the store open. I mean, we literally have to have two incomes, right? The store and his income just to keep the store afloat, you know, and, and so I just, I don't know what else to do other than, like I said, I feel like we need to bring back neighborhood watch to help the police kind of be eyes on the street, you know, know these different locations. If we can bring back reserve program, maybe to give us a little bit, you know, more, more boots on the ground. I don't know, I just, I want somebody to reach out to me and see what else we can come up with to help our businesses not have to close. I don't want to close.

So thank you so much for being here tonight.

Next up we have evan lewis.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Please introduce introduce yourself for the record pronouns if you prefer. And you have three minutes.

Yes.

My name is evan lewis. He him. I am the executive director of third angle new music. I'm a proud member of two local grassroots arts advocacy groups, Portland arts and culture for equity and Portland arts leaders. And I am here speaking on behalf of my organization and the 49 other portland's Portland arts organizations who have signed a letter emailed to the council last Monday. This cohort of 50 organizations represents groups from across the city that encompass multiple artistic disciplines and budget sizes, from those under $75,000 to those with annual budgets over 15 million. This request is in direct response to the recent discovery of $8.5 million of unspent arts tax funds. We respectfully request a multi-year, structured drawdown of a portion of these reserve funds to stabilize and preserve arts non-profits across the city over the next several years. These funds should serve as a bridge toward a renewed era of increased public investment in portland's vibrant arts and culture, community, and creative economy. We ask that the city distribute during this fiscal year 1.6 million from these funds equally to all 80 general operating support organizations. This would mean a one time fund disbursement of $20,000 to each general operating support organization, with an understanding that there will be additional funding from this pool next year, and that the pool of eligible organizations will be larger as a result of application requirements that are more equitable and open for all. Immediately following this distribution, we request that the city restructure the framework of eligibility for general operating support. We request that all arts organizations who apply, particularly those who have had who have been previously denied access to general operating support funding for a myriad of reasons, many detailed in our letter, including budget size and staffing structure. These organizations be eligible within the next year to apply. Our third major request is especially timely with today's release of the city auditor startling report on the arts tax. The detailed report found many large concerning issues with the arts tax in terms of goals, oversight and accountability. We request urgent action by the Portland city council to reconsider and remedy the arts tax structure by presenting a new funding framework to put into effect within the next tax year and 2027 funding cycle. The report spells out what changes are needed and needed now, and we urge you to act on them immediately. Thank you for your time and for supporting arts in our community.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have doctor carmen p thompson.

Welcome.

Thank you.

Introduce yourself for the record pronouns if you prefer, and you have three minutes.

Hello. My name is doctor carmen p thompson and I live in district two. I'm here to comment on the discussion of agenda item number ten and last wednesday's city council meeting, in which councilor Kanal made reference to my written testimony about pages 23 and 24 of the pdf redline adjustments to the climate investment plan of the Portland housing bureau that strikes equity language from the fund in an attempt to comply with mayor wilson's flawed executive order. That going forward for the entirety of your tenure, forces you to go on the record to state your commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. Every time you are asked to affirm or approve changes or removal of diversity and equity inclusion language from the policies or programs of city agencies and bureaus that are seeking to comply with mayor wilson's ill conceived executive order. In other words, his executive order has added an additional layer of responsibility to councilors to confirm or deny their commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion. With each attempt by city agencies and bureaus to remove equity language in order to comply with the order. As a result, voters will have a public record for which to evaluate you and to hold you accountable on your position on diversity, equity and inclusion. With regard to pages 23 and 24 of the Portland housing bureau's red line, adjustments to the climate benefit plan council, Dunphy, I look forward to your promise to add to the council agenda discussion on the new equity language to replace that which was stricken from pages 23 and 24. You promised to have this discussion in 30 to 45 days, and I and the voters of Portland will be anxiously awaiting this discussion. Councilors. The problem with the executive order of the. Of mayor wilson's are numerous. As a black woman who is part of the protected classes that this executive order seeks to target that this executive order targets. My concern is as much about future generations of councilors who will not have the institutional knowledge that you have about the city's prior position on diversity, equity, inclusion. If left as stands, these future councilors will not have to have any commitment to make any commitment to diversity, equity, inclusion and housing that the Portland housing bureau has to abide by. Likewise, other city agencies and bureaus will also be without commitments to diversity, equity and inclusion. If such language is not put back into agencies, policies and programs, all of which may take decades to restore the language of diversity, equity and inclusion was put in place because of decades of exclusion and is endemic of oregon's white supremacist history. I frankly do not need a disparity study to understand institutionalized white supremacy and anti-blackness in Portland. It is literally written in our city records, and it remains to be seen this council's role in advancing diversity, equity and inclusion policies that this executive order threatens to roll back. Thank you.

Really good timing. Thank you. Thank you so much for being here.

Thank you.

Next up we have jack dickinson.

Welcome. Please introduce yourself for the record and pronouns. And you have three minutes.

All right. My name for the record is jack dickinson. I'm here today to talk a little bit about the moda center renovations. But briefly, I want to comment on some of the recent news. The city of Portland should rename cesar chavez boulevard, either to dolores huerta boulevard or just back to 39th. We can talk about whether this is an appropriate use of scarce public money, but I don't think it is unreasonable to ask our city streets not be named after serial rapists. And in the future, let's be a bit more careful about naming things after men with cult followings, because there's a bit of a pattern here. All right, so now let's talk about the plan to renovate the moda center. And I'm just here with a couple concerns that I have. So first I have a concern that we're really doing this without examining our priors. There's a pervasive assumption in politics that the stadium deals are a boon for the economy, but the research broadly does not support that conclusion. To quote a 2023 paper titled the economics of stadium subsidies a policy retrospective, studies consistently demonstrate that sports stadiums have little to no tangible economic impact on host communities, and thus typical public subsidies tend to exceed any meager economic benefits. I think it's okay to abstract this a bit, a little bit. I mean, the basic logic behind stadium deals is kind of the same logic behind trickle down economics, and I think that's why the logic has been so sticky. Now, in a press release, the mayor cited $670 million of annual economic activity. And this leads me into my second and more important concern, which is there appears to be nobody representing the interests of the public right now. The figure appears to have come from lobbyists for the blazers, with whom mayor wilson has been privately meeting with for nearly a year. I would have hoped that the mayor would have been wise enough to not simply regurgitate lobbyist talking points. But alas, here we are. I feel I need to remind you of a simple fact. You work for the people of Portland. You do not work for the Portland trailblazers. By all means, find and exploit the areas where those interests align, but don't assume they're aligned all the time. I think we need you all to be more open about this conversation, because talking about these things is part of how we create the leverage. And with the new ownership getting a sweetheart deal from the state, I think they're going to be even less inclined to walk away. If we ask for things like partial naming rights or pilots. And clearly there's an element of fear here. Nobody wants to be the elected official that gets blamed for losing the blazers. I get that, and I don't want the blazers to leave. But I also think if we're talking about political consequences, you should be fearful of being the elected official who gleefully robs safe because you refuse to call a billionaire's bluff. Steve, I appreciate how open you have been about this particular topic. That's all I have time for today. But since I'm probably never going to be back here testifying about sports ever again, I just want to say on the record that if we do end up getting an mlb team, the only acceptable name for it would be the Portland crows, and I won't accept any other answers for that. So thank you.

Thank you so much.

Next up we have bridge crane simka.

Welcome.

Good evening. Thank you all. Madam vice president. Mr. President Dunphy, I'm charles simka bridge. Crane johnson. It's good to be back here. I believe this is the first time I've done this thing since mr. Novick, the originator. Somewhat of my name. Back when charlie hales thought it was his duty as mayor to rush through a police contract before, in the final couple months of his term. And I know your plates seem already full, but I know that that's an ongoing process to look at how we can successfully negotiate with the Portland police to not only bring down the not too bad crime numbers, but to make sure that everyone of every background in this community feels safe and sees their community represented. Among the Portland police bureau. When I was here a couple weeks ago, you were all involved in a good effort to try and get money, and I think that's the correct phrasing for it. We often talk about things here about the money part and not the actual results part, trying to get money out. We were arguably quibbling and throwing shade about whether it was going to be $150,000 or $350,000 out to some organizations to help victims of the victims of state terrorism, actually, and fortunately, I know that that issue is crucial to all of you, but especially commissioner Avalos, who I'm sure will be looking at ways to get back to that money and increase the spend so that people who are. I don't have the phrasing. I didn't keep it on my screen. I think the phrasing we had earlier was war detention centers, concentration camps. The japanese American people, you know, did describe it as incarceration. But of course, it was a a separate, special system of incarceration. Like too many of our neighbors. I do think one thing that sticks with me from that time is that councilor Morillo was very adamant about facts. And I think that actually one way to actually improve public sentiment about going back into the either that particular source of money or other funding to make sure that anybody caught up by ice in their state sponsored terrorism has representation, is to talk about the numbers that are already suffering. When we had the poem downstairs about the experience and no more tears, we had names. So. And also that's important for you to scope the problem. The the crisis with homelessness is that a few people get housed and many people remain extremely underserved or not served. So I look forward to a time soon when we will talk about how many people have been victimized by trump's state terrorism and how we're going to make sure they get due process. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

That completes public communications.

Excellent. Thank you, everybody, for being here tonight. Colleagues, our next item on this is a update from the city administrator. With regard to the federal response. We're going to I will continue to be holding times on our agendas to hear updates about the ongoing federal response and any other emergency response matters. At the beginning of council meetings. City administrator lee.

Thank you, council president. There's no new updates today. Staff is still working on the permanent policy that will be trying to bring forward to council in the summer months, but we will keep you updated as we get new updates on the schedule of the hearing as well for the land use. So as soon as we get that update, we will make sure council is up to speed on that.

Thank you very much. Keelan can we please read item number four?

Item 2020 6-112 amend council schedule during fy 20 2627 budget process.

Colleagues. This is an item that I filed specifically in response to our 2026 2027 budget process. Specifically, it is because we have a number of meetings that we must have, and we have to change our calendar. We have to remove some of the committee structure meetings. And I specifically also had it pulled from, well, it was pulled from consent, but I also have an amendment which has been filed to fill out the rest of the legal requirements that we need in order to enable our budget calendar. It additionally adds an emergency clause to ensure that these changes are enforced by the time that we need them to be. The amendment is posted online under the item. I'm happy to answer any technical questions if I am able to, and. That is about as much as I have to written here in front of me. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thanks council president, just a technical question, if I may, can you speak to the the changes from the April 29th, may 6th and may 13th. This is not about the amendments, about the underlying. The the move from the morning to the afternoon session. Just wanted to understand that a little bit.

Yeah, those. I'll ask my staff to come up and help me walk through specifics because there's a lot of moving parts. Evan, please join us.

Greetings. Thank you for the question. Councilor for the record, my name is evan hoffer, policy advisor for council president. In the three weeks that we have between the mayor's proposed budget document and the initial hearing and our full council budget hearings, we have a number of work sessions that are scheduled in order to here to move through our our key wow words. I apologize in order to move through program areas and bureaus in a, in a consistent way, in order to allow consistency of that schedule for the public, for our staff. And also that there's a regular cadence of being able to think through potential amendments. Following those morning hearings. We intended to schedule them all in the mornings. So it's consistent. If you're going to a budget work session every morning, Tuesday through Thursday, three weeks in a row.

Thanks. And can you speak to the choice to include an end time? Most of our other schedules have just a start time for the meetings.

Absolutely. That's out of respect, primarily to staff for a 5 p.m. End. We are consistently able to hold over those times and and we do regularly. However, in the context of a, of an intense period, making sure to manage our time in a way where we're not burning each other out is a value for the office.

So how is that going to be interpreted? Is, I guess what I'm saying that those two things you just said contradict each other. So I want to understand.

Absolutely. I can I can speak to that clearly. Yes. That is a loose 5 p.m. That is an intended and not strict 5 p.m.

Got it.

Thanks. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. I understand the value for all of us of having the consistency of budget work sessions in the morning. This is also a change for portlanders who might be coming to testify at council meetings to see a meeting from 2 to 5 p.m. Our council meetings generally are in the morning or these evening sessions. Are you willing to work with council operations to make sure that there's clear posting and information going out on email channels, social media, all of the spaces that we have to communicate with portlanders so that our constituents understand that if they are coming for a council meeting during that time, it is a different time than they are used to being here.

Absolutely. Yeah.

It is my intention to use every tool that I have, and that is within the city broadly, to try to be as transparent with the public about the number of opportunities folks can and can either speak specifically to the budget or the change specific here about when they they expect to be able to come and address us. Yes, I will use every. I'll be working closely with council ops with the clerk and hopefully all of you as well to boost it on social media and other places.

Thank you. I want to make sure that portlanders know how they can communicate with us, not just about the budget, but through our regular courses of business as well.

Absolutely.

Thank you. You have my my assurance to the maximum ability. So colleagues, first, I would like to move my the Dunphy one amendment which. And thank you, councilor Ryan. Is there any discussion on the amendment? Okay. Can we please call the roll on the amendment? Dunphy one.

I smith's absence.

Kanal I.

Pirtle-guiney I.

Ryan I.

Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick I Clark I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy. I. The amendment is approved with 11 yes votes and one absent.

Thank you colleagues and can is there any further discussion on the now amended underlying ordinance emergency ordinance? Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. I just wanted to ask if you could speak to. Just a little clarity. It didn't relate to the. It wasn't a technical question before, but you said three days in a row. So I'm seeing that we have recess sessions is referring to may 18th, 19th, 20th. Are you referring to in April, may the April 29th, may 6th and may 13th week in terms of having the Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday cadence that you mentioned. Evan.

Yes. So April 28th, 29th and 30th are two budget work sessions and a joint city county work session, which, based off of the. The schedules could not be. At that same time. Then may 5th through seventh and may 12th through 14th. Each of those three day blocks all have back to back work sessions.

Okay, I just want to understand because I'm I'm also seeing committee on that time, but I. Okay. Yeah, thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. And we will be doing again, in addition to sharing this information as widely about the rescheduled council hearings, we'll also be trying to share as much information about the budget calendar publicly. So folks have a better idea. And if there are any conflicts, you know, for example, we are trying to work with some of the committee chairs in order to try and accommodate some additional putting back some additional time. We will try to be as flexible about this, but I want to maximize the amount of time that we get to talk about this budget.

And I appreciate that. Councilor. I just councilor President, I just wanted to make sure I understood it exactly, and I would love an updated version of that, that calendar, just so we can be prepared. But I know it's a lot of work that you're all doing and your team as well. Thanks.

We are working as hard as we can and we will get it out as quickly as possible, but it'll be hopefully in your inbox very soon. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue to discuss. Can we please call the roll on the now amended emergency ordinance?

Absent Kanal. I pirtle-guiney I.

Ryan I.

Koyama Lane I aye, Morillo. I Novick I cclark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy.

The ordinance, as amended, passes with 11 yes votes and one absent.

Thank you colleagues. We will get through the budget, I promise. Can we please call item number five?

Item 2020 6-055. Amend campaign finance code to maintain enforcement of voter approved regulations following court order. Amend code chapter 2.10.

This is the second reading of a nonemergency ordinance. Is there any further council discussion? Seeing no one else in the queue? Keelan. Can we please call the roll?

Avalos I.

Smith absent Kanal. I pirtle-guiney. I Ryan. No Koyama Lane. I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. I Green. I Zimmerman. I Dunphy.

The ordinance passes with ten yes votes, one no vote and one absent.

Fantastic. Can we please call item number six?

Item 2020 6-039. Amend chronic nuisance property code to address human trafficking, gun violence and administrative challenges. Amend code. Chapter 14 b .60.

Welcome christhopher herr from council operations with a committee staff summary report.

Yes. Thank you. Good evening, council president and councilors for the record. Christhopher herr council operations policy analyst and I serve as staff to the community and public safety committee. The ordinance before you documents number 2020 6-039, was considered in the community and public safety meeting on January 27th, February 10th and again on February 24th. It was referred to council with a recommendation. It be passed. The ordinance amends Portland city code, chapter 14 b point 60, as shown in exhibit a to revise definitions, procedures and enforcement provisions related to chronic nuisance properties. The ordinance through the proposed code changes, removes references, assigning administrative responsibility to the chief of police or precinct commander, and assigns those responsibilities to the city administrator or their designees. Throughout the chapter, the ordinance modifies the definition of a nuisance property. Under the proposed language, the property may be considered a nuisance property when two or more nuisance activities occur on the property or within 200ft of it, by a person associated with the property during a 90 day period. Previously, the threshold was three nuisance activities within a 30 day period. The ordinance adds several activities to the list of nuisance activities, including loitering to solicit prostitution, as defined in Portland city code section 14 a point 40.0 40 operation of a massage business in violation of Oregon revised statutes. 687 .021 possession of a loaded firearm in a public place is defined. Important city code section 14 a point 60.0 ten unlawful prostitution procurement activities as defined in city code. Section 14 a point 40.0 50 and failure of transient lodging operators to maintain required records and logs, as defined in city code. Section 6.04.1 30. The ordinance removes from the list of nuisance activities, unlawful operation of sound producing or reproducing equipment, and excessive noise as defined. Important city code section 14 a point 30.0 ten and important city code chapters 18.04 and 18.14. The ordinance limits the definition of persons associated with a nuisance activity to individuals who entered, patronized, or visited the property associated with the nuisance activity. The ordinance also adds a new section, Portland city code, section 14 b point 60.025, that provides an exemption from chronic nuisance designation when the person in charge of the property has timely reported suspected nuisance activities to law enforcement and has engaged in good faith efforts to assist in addressing those activities. The section also establishes criteria for qualifying for this exemption. The ordinance amends procedures under Portland city code section 14 b point 60.0 30 by increasing the number of police reports required to initiate chronic nuisance proceedings from 1 to 2, and allowing other official documentation to be used to initiate proceedings, extending the time for a property owner to respond to a nuisance. Chronic nuisance proceeding from ten days to 14 days, requiring notices to include a list of possible abatement measures, points of contacts and a summary of potential next steps or future actions, and reducing the time in which the person in charge of the property and the city must agree on an abatement plan from 60 days to 30 days. The ordinance also amends provisions. Important city code section 14 b point 60.0 40 by adding implementation of abatement measures to the list of remedies a court may order, removing the specified time frame of six months to one year for court ordered closure and securing of a property, and instead allowing closure for a period determined appropriate by the court, increasing the minimum civil penalty from $100 to $1000 for each day. Nuisance activity occurs on the property after the city has provided notice of a chronic nuisance proceeding and removing language, allowing a property's general reputation or the reputation of persons residing in or frequenting the property to be used as proof and nuisance proceedings. The ordinance also makes minor technical and conforming edits throughout the chapter, including updating cross-references and alphabetizing lists for clarity and ease of reference. The committee adopted an amendment to the ordinance prior to moving the item to full council. The effects of the amendments on the original ordinance are summarized in the committee staff summary posted online. The full impact statements on the item include financial and budgetary impacts and analysis, economic and real estate development impacts, community impacts and community involvement. Ten individuals provided verbal testimony and committee, and 34 individuals submitted written testimony prior to committee action on February 24th. General themes included relationship between human trafficking, prostitution activity and incidents of violence in Portland, and connections raised between these activities and certain properties, particularly along the 82nd avenue corridor. Community safety concerns, including experiences of parents and students associated with mcdaniel high school, encountering prostitution related activities in the surrounding area, and broader impacts on neighborhood safety and community reputation, impacts of nuisance properties and open sexual exploitation on surrounding neighborhoods, businesses and commercial corridors, and a desire for efforts to improve safety for residents, students, businesses and commuters. Desire of small business owners and community members for additional city tools to support and support to address nuisance activities occurring on or near the properties. Partnership between certain hotels that may be implicated by the code changes and community organizations providing shelter, housing assistance and other services to community members. Importance of addressing human trafficking and nuisance activity while minimizing unintended consequences for vulnerable communities, including sex workers, victims of trafficking, unhoused individuals and immigrant communities. Concerns about potential displacement of vulnerable populations or sex workers moving into less visible environments that may increase vulnerability to exploitation. Concerns regarding profiling, increased police contact with certain communities, and expanded law enforcement authority, and potential implications related to due process and surveillance concerns regarding potential impacts on business owners and property operators in areas with higher levels of nuisance activities, including properties renting rooms to unhoused individuals or property owners not directly involved in the activity. Reference to policies used in other cities, including seattle. Stay out of areas of prostitution and stay out of drug area approaches and discussion to potential impacts. Interest in additional services and resources in areas such as 82nd avenue corridor to support individuals experiencing trafficking and reduce conditions that contribute to exploitation. And finally, interest and increased flexibility and timely action by the city when addressing chronic nuisance properties. That concludes the committee staff summary. Thank you.

Thank you. Christopher.

Councilor Novick. You are both the sponsor and the committee chair. I also understand there will be some amendments to be discussed, so I turn it over to you.

Thank you very much, mr. President, and thank you. Christopher, I want to begin by thanking the members of the committee of public and the community and public safety committee and everyone who's engaged with this legislation over the past few months. We had two sessions on this proposal in the community and public safety committee, and a brief summary of it in an in-between session. We spoken with victim advocates, survivors, motel owners, law enforcement experts, counselors and others to refine this ordinance. The fundamental question this ordinance poses is to what extent do we think property owners have an obligation to make sure that their properties aren't being used as a base for certain sorts of illegal activity, such as human trafficking or drug dealing. Currently, the code allows the city to initiate a process to have a property declared a chronic nuisance property. If there are three instances of illegal activity documented by the police within 30 days. What we've heard from law enforcement is that it is too restrictive. A heck of a lot of bad stuff can happen on their property and property without law enforcement documenting the existence of bad stuff happening within 30 days. So the heart of this legislation is to extend the timeline. What passed out of committee was two instances in 90 days is sufficient to initiate the process. Councilor pirtle-guiney is suggested making that 3 in 90 days, and I'm amenable to that amendment. What happens when the city initiates the chronic nuisance property process? Is the city informs the property owner that, or the person in charge of the property that we've seen this activity, and we're asking you to take steps to to come up with a plan to abate this activity. And then there's back and forth between the property owner and the city. And hopefully they come up with a plan to abate the activity. In unusual cases where there's not an agreed upon plan, then as a last resort, the city can go to court to get the court to order abatement or other activities. That is very, very rarely happened. Among the things that this ordinance does in addition to that, though, are to address concerns that people had primarily about not largely not about our proposed amendments, but about the existing law. For one thing, taryn patel of the asian American hotel owners association came to us and said that under current law, if a property owner calls up to report a crime in their property, that instance could be held against them as an instance leading to their being declared a nuisance property. So we passed an amendment to address that that says that if somebody calls up to report a crime in their own property, that's as long as they're cooperating and taking steps to make sure that the activity is abated, that's not going to be held against them. Another thing that we did was we deleted from the list of nuisance activities noise, as a nod to president dunphy's, reminding us that noise ordinance has been used in nefarious ways in the city. We have several other amendments today in response to continuing conversations that aren't one way or another, sort of along the same lines, making sure that this or that the chronic nuisance law is not abused, I will say that one of the reasons that we brought this ordinance forward is that we have heard that students at mcdaniel high school, which is in district three, walked through a gantlet of sex trafficking every day. And so although this ordinance does not relate solely to sex trafficking or to the area of daniel high school, that was one of the motivating forces in our bringing this forward. Now, it's important to note that this ordinance does not further criminalize sex work or sex workers. It doesn't change the approach of the human trafficking unit and their engagement with victims. The police do not arrest victims of sex trafficking. It doesn't reestablish any kind of prostitution free zone. And actually, one of the amendments that I'm bringing forward today would christopher talked about how the committee had added loitering to solicit prostitution as one of the nuisance activities. We're proposing to delete that because that seems like something that goes after the victims. So we're going to remove that and but add some as nuisance activities, some human trafficking crimes listed in state code. On. We heard a presentation on human trafficking here January 23rd meeting. We heard an alarming description of the problem both locally and nationally, including who is trafficked and how. How pbb and victim advocate groups work to connect victims with resources while focusing arrests on buyers and traffickers. How resource strain requires the type of innovative approaches to reducing human trafficking that this tool represents. And again, how PPB considers this code to be a tool of last resort after outreach and requests to property owners have failed. I'd like to ask deputy d.a. J.r. Ujifusa, who's here to come forward and make a very brief statement about the history of the human trafficking problems on 82nd.

Good evening, council president. Vice president. My name is j.r. Ujifusa. I'm with the Multnomah county district attorney's office. I will try to be as brief as I can and give a little history. As councilor Novick mentioned, the average age of entry for victims of trafficking is between 13 and 15 years old. That is backed up by a recent PSU study which identified over 400 local victims in our community, which they found the average age of seeking services was 15.5 years old, which means that they were trafficked before seeking services for being a victim of trafficking. These are the most vulnerable victims in our community. There's an overrepresentation of children of color, as well as individuals that are from the LGBTQ plus community. In the history of Portland, we in 2007, the city allowed the prostitution free zone to sunset. In 2008, the street level prostitution activity. Human trafficking activity skyrocketed, skyrocketed until about 2012 when we saw craigslist and backpage.com allow for the trafficking of human beings to move online. The online trafficking culture increased until 2018, when the fbi closed down backpage.com. And what we saw in our community, as well as communities throughout the nation, is that the movement from online went back to the streets, back to motels, back to cars and street corners and sidewalks in our communities. Most of the time, these were communities of color and underrepresented communities and vulnerable communities. What has changed, though, as councilor Novick said, is we are trauma informed, victim centered. We have moved away from arresting and charging victims of trafficking and focusing on buyers, traffickers and those who enable the trafficking, especially of children in our community. This is a tool to combat human trafficking. Human trafficking crimes are very dynamic, complex and challenging. It is the last resort for those who refuse or have been educated, who we have worked with in other ways to reduce trafficking and are enabling it to happen. And I'll be available for questions after. If there are any questions from the counselors. Thank you.

Thank you chair. Mr. President, I see, I see the councilor Kanal has his hand up. I was wondering if he's got a question for the deputy d.a.

No, I had a question for christhopher herr.

Oh, I'm sorry.

I apologize. Christopher, could you come back up?

Thank you for the, I think, longest committee staff summary we've ever had. And I appreciate your work on a very dynamic and large scale conversation. You said the word certain and it's the second to last bullet on the second to last page concerns regarding profiling com-a increased police contact with certain communities, expanded law enforcement authority and potential implications related to due process or surveillance. And I just ask if you could speak to what the word certain means. Which communities are we talking about?

Yes. Thank you for the question, councilor. I believe that the testimony that centered around that a lot of it was specific to sex workers. And then also there was other testimony that was tied into that that had reference to what's going on with the federal government right now and our immigrant refugee community members. And so that increased surveillance and how the federal government could abuse that. And with that, increased law enforcement, that distrust just how that can affect those communities.

Thank you. Of course.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal I apologize again about that. Councilor. Novick. Did you also want to preview your amendments before public testimony?

I did it actually, even in your office suggested that we actually try to move the the vote on the amendments before we get to public testimony. I don't know whether what your preference is.

I think that that is perfectly reasonable, so that the public is testifying on the bill that we are discussing.

So.

So one of the amendments, Novick three, would be, as I previewed before, to remove from the nuisance activities, loitering, to solicit prostitution, because we think that that is a statute that appears to be focused on victims rather than traffickers. And we would remove a reference to prostitution or related offenses, as defined in s 167 007 through 167 oh 27. But add human trafficking or related offenses as defined in other ohs provisions. So those will now be designated as potential nuisance activities. So that's that's the Novick three Novick four, which sort of shift back from something that our initial. It relates to the amount of time that a property owner has to come up with a plan to address the nuisance and to negotiate with the city that with the city, and to actually abate the nuisance. So in our as we came out of committee hours, said that you had 30 days to respond to the initial to, to come up with a plan and 60 days to abate the nuisance. What Novick four would do is say that, first of all, that it would increase the timeline for the property owner to respond to the letter from ten days to 14 days, and then leave 60 days to negotiate an abatement plan and 90 days to abate the activity itself. So again, that's Novick five would amend the list of abatement measures. One thing that this proposal does is historically, the police can propose any number of abatement activities to the property owner. But we didn't have sort of a menu listed in code of these are some of the kind of things you might be asked to do. So borrowing, I think, from Washington, d.c. We've added a list of. These are the kind of things you might be asked to do, and that's primarily intended to give the property owner an opportunity to say, okay, let me look at these. Maybe we can improve lighting, maybe we can put up signs stating our zero tolerance policy for illegal activities. Maybe we can do a better job of controlling entrances and exits to prevent unauthorized access. Et cetera. Et cetera. We proposed adding to abatement measure possibilities. A list of activities you could do. This is really this is specifically, you know, to address victims of human trafficking engagement with service providers and advocacy groups work with peer led groups, including on property visits, to increase availability of resources proposed to make available information about resources for victims, including support groups, advocate information and the national human trafficking hotline. Have staff training programs to educate employees on identifying victims. So we want to add that to the list of potential abatement activities. Another thing we wanted to add to the abatement list is current code says that the court, if the court is going to impose conditions on the property owner, has to consider a variety of factors, one of which is the financial capacity of the property owner to do what the court's asking it to do. The current code does not say that the city needs to consider the same factors in proposing abatement measures, so it would simply add language saying and determining what abatement measures should be included in the agreement. The city administrator or the designee should consider the same factors required of the court. Finally, Novick six addresses another issue that actually councilor Pirtle-guiney identified in the existing law. The existing law says that the initiating the process to declare a property nuisance property can be based on police reports. It doesn't say what the police reports have to say and councilor Pirtle-guiney noted. Wait a minute. What if the police report reports an unfounded allegation by a grumpy neighbor with a vendetta? Now, I don't think that the city has relied on such reports with such allegations in the past, but we thought that it was worth changing the language to say, police reports or other official documentation that a police officer has determined that probable cause exists to believe a nuisance activity has occurred, which should eliminate the unfounded allegations of a grumpy neighbor. So those are my proposed amendments and what I want to turn it over, if I may, to councilor Pirtle-guiney to to talk about her proposed amendments, please.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick and thank you, council president. And I want to start just by thanking councilor, Novick and others who've worked on these improvements to the chronic nuisance code. I have two amendments that I will be offering today. The first is pirtle-guiney one, which I'd like to speak to, but I may not move because the content is also captured in Novick six, and I prefer the way that councilor Novick has put it forward. But I do want to talk about a piece of that, because it's a piece councilor That you didn't mention about Novick six, and that is the change back from 2 to 3 or more nuisance activities. I understand that councilor Novick underlying ordinance loosens the complaint threshold in two ways. By changing the window for complaints and reducing the number of complaints that constitute a chronic nuisance, I support the movement of the timeline and nuisance pattern should certainly be measured over the course of months, not the course of a single month. But I do worry that if we move the complaint threshold from 3 to 2, we put too low a barrier forward, which could lead to frivolous complaints that, while technically qualify under the code, don't actually establish a pattern of nuisance. We heard from the testimony and committee in the overview today that systems like this have been historically applied unfairly and in biased ways, particularly around race in the past. And I think the movement to two as opposed to three reports gets us in, in a situation where there is too much risk of that. So pirtle-guiney one moves us back to that threshold of three. That's also captured in Novick six, which includes the other language councilor Novick went over, I prefer that, but if that doesn't pass, I'll move pirtle-guiney one and pirtle-guiney three, which unfortunately, what's posted online is pirtle-guiney two. And after some additional conversations today with the sponsor of the measure, we replaced pirtle-guiney two with pirtle-guiney three colleagues. Pirtle-guiney three is in your inboxes, but it came in too late to be posted by the clerk. I don't know keelan if we're able to get that up for folks who are watching, is that possible? Thank you. Pirtle-guiney three does two small things. It clarifies that when the. It clarifies that the response clock for respondents to a concern begins after the property owner has received notice. It's important to me that we are providing both true due process to an individual who has a nuisance complaint against them, as well as a true opportunity for response. We want to make sure individuals have their full clock to respond. Additionally, it provides some clarification and additional language to increase the chances that we actually get that notice to the individual who owns that nuisance property, so that they have their full opportunity for response, so that we are doing our due diligence to give them their due process and their opportunity. We add language to a paragraph that includes the words of delivery of the notice, and a further paragraph. In that section, we are adding language which says if the person in charge is not present at the address where service is attempted, but an employee of the person in charge is. Service may be made on the employee with the request to provide it to the person in charge. In addition, if the ownership document for the property lists an alternative mailing address, a copy of the notice shall be sent to that address. We are trying to ensure that we meet a person at the address of the nuisance property. If they are not there at any other addresses of properties that we know that they own. If we cannot find them there, that we are mailing it as well, so that again, that owner has the opportunity to respond and engage with the city before we take any actions against them. And council president, I don't know if this is the appropriate time, but if it is, I would be interested in moving Novick three, four, five and six and pirtle-guiney three.

As a package.

Councilor Novick. Is that what you.

Yes.

Okay. As package three, four, five, six and pirtle-guiney three second.

There we go. Colleagues. There is a package of amendments before us and we move to technical or clarifying questions. Our first councilor Pirtle-guiney are you any anything anything first?

I don't think so.

Okay. Just want to make sure. Great. We're moving into technical or clarifying questions. Councilor. Morillo.

Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. This is a question for you on the. I was just wondering what the basis was for changing it from 2 to 3 or I feel like two maybe was also arbitrary in the original code, but I'm just curious if there was any reason for that.

Thank you. I believe the original code was three and the amend the. The ordinance that councilor Novick brought forward lowered it to two. And what I am asking is that we move it back to the three that was in the original code. Two, in my mind felt like something happened. Your neighbor didn't like it. It happens again. They complain. That may not be a pattern. You might have a cousin who comes over and causes a disruption, and you tell him to go away, and they come over again a month later. By three, we can start to expect that you are addressing whatever that concern is. More realistically, that is what is in the code. Now, I don't have any reason to believe that that hasn't been working in the. The letters that I've gotten from constituents about this, I haven't heard anybody say raise it above three. So returning to the original was my intent there.

Okay. That's helpful. I think it feels some of the the metrics here feel a little bit arbitrary to me. The part that feels arbitrary is the when we're talking about a police report and I, I think the amendments improve what's here. But the thing that concerns me about the police report is that instead of it being a completed, documented offense, it just is a required report. And so that could be an attempt or conspiracy, or it could just be a written report. That doesn't necessarily mean that they were like found guilty. But maybe I'm reading it wrong. I don't know if you want to speak to that. Councilor Novick. I'm just trying to understand it.

Yes. The reference to a police report is in the existing law, and it does not require that there be like an actual conviction of an offense. It. So we that that's what's in the existing law. What we are saying in the proposed amendment is that it shouldn't just we should make sure that it's not just a grumpy neighbor complaining that it should be. An officer has made a determination. The probable cause exists to believe that an offense has occurred. And then if this winds up going to court, then the the rules there say that the court must find, by a preponderance of the evidence that the offense actually has occurred. So it's sort of the way law enforcement normally works in a way.

Okay. And you've worked a lot with the da's office. I assume that they are saying that they're going to be taking on these additional cases and being able to process them through, to give these owners due process if necessary.

Well, initially the d a is isn't involved. I mean, initially it's a discussion between the city and the property owner. There's not a heck of a lot of cases that actually go to court, but I'd like to ask jr to give his thoughts on that question.

Good evening again. That is correct. This is not something where the da's office will be doing the same thing we always do, which is the human trafficking team will be investigating human trafficking. By doing that, if we identify that there are properties or other. Individuals who are enabling that trafficking, then this is an option to start to work with those businesses or property owners to fix that enabling. But this doesn't add anything to the da's office as far as charges or cases, this would be a civil case that the city would do if it went all the way to the end. The beginning is just a letter saying, we noticed this and we'd like your help into to abate this. And here are some suggestions.

Okay, I will pause for now. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. Have a technical question first and then one other comment and it's for councilor. Pirtle-guiney just this might be two part for pirtle-guiney. Three what is the distinction here between the highlighted text and the fullness of the read paragraph? At the bottom? Is the read paragraph new or is that changed? Councilor Novick. And then yours is just the yellow highlight.

So the read paragraph I apologize, I was trying to differentiate between pirtle-guiney two and pirtle-guiney three, which is the replacement, since I had assumed folks might have read two in advance and then we dropped three on you last minute. Got it. So the red part that is not crossed off replaces the red part that is crossed off. All of that is an amendment. The highlighted portion is just the change from 2 to 3. So if you previously looked at the amendment I had filed pirtle-guiney two, you would have seen the red that is not crossed off without the highlighted portion. Highlighted portion is now added in pirtle-guiney three. All of that is the new text and replaces what is crossed off here.

Thank you. So my question then is about I guess the highlighted portion here. And I want to note that when you presented this, you when you combine the two, you said that the intent was to ensure that the business owner would have the fullness of the time. And so I want to understand how that is, how that happens when the clock starts, when an employee gets a document, but not when the business owner or manager gets the document, and how there's any guarantee that that that information is communicated.

So pirtle-guiney three actually does two things. And if you look at the top portion of pirtle-guiney three under a three, there is a highlighted portion that says of delivery of the notice. So instead of demand that the person in charge respond within 14 days to the city administrator, it now says within 14 days of delivery of the notice to the city administrator. I was concerned before that that could be 14 days of printing the notice, and then somebody holds on to it for three days. You don't see them, you go again. You try to find them a second time. Suddenly there's five days left for them to respond. So this says 14 days of delivery of the notice. And then with the second portion of this amendment, rather than attempting to deliver, actually, rather than delivering the notice to the address of the nuisance property. And if you'd like, you can mail it as well. What we are saying is you attempt to deliver it to the notice of the nuisance property or such other place, which is likely to give the person in charge notice of the determination. So if there is another address, you know, for them to attempt to deliver it in person there. If you cannot find them at either address, then you can leave it with an employee and mail it to any additional addresses that you have on file. So there is still a hole here. There is still a hole that if you cannot find this person, you leave it with an employee and they don't pass it along. What I was trying to do here in adding the second attempt at hand delivery and the requirement that it's then mailed, as opposed to just an attempt, a single attempt at delivery, and then the option of mailing. It was to say that we need to try every way that we have to reach somebody, while also recognizing that using our police time to go to a business 40 times to try to deliver this is probably not a good use of our resources and at a certain point is predictably futile. So this is admittedly still leaving a hole there. But my attempt at finding where that balance point might be between every reasonable attempt to close that hole and the point at which we really just are not going to, to gain an additional outcome.

Okay, so that opened up. Thank you for that clarity. That opened up one thing that we should talk about later, which is, I think the way the first one's written implies that the notice is being delivered to the city administrator or their designee. And I think that's not your intent from how you just explained it. And I just think it's kind of weird wording. And so I'd love to get some clarity on that. And then the other question I had is.

Two commas there to create a clause.

Exactly. The other question is what constitutes an employee? And the reason I ask this is very specific that these are many of these properties are family run. And as someone who had a father who had a small business and worked there, I was an employee. But not everybody is are people's spouses were covering the front desk or those sorts of things. I want to understand what constitutes an employee.

Councilor council president councilor Novick. I think we may need to look to how that is defined elsewhere in statute. I don't think it's defined in this part of the statute, but I believe there is very likely some legal precedent we could turn to there.

And frankly, councilor, that was my suggestion, and what I was thinking of was like, whoever's working the front desk. And you're right, maybe it wouldn't be an employee. But so I'm open to some other description, maybe to, to a, a person present at the, a person working at the at the property.

Yeah. I think part of the challenge here and we'll talk about this when we get into the actual debate on it, is that these. You'd be looking at someone who is determining whether or not this is a person that constitutes a substitute, and that is more discretion being given. And that heightens all the concerns that we talked about in the committee. So I think it's worth exploring. The last thing I wanted to say is I would strenuously object to any consideration and vote on these amendments before the public has had their say. And in fact, due to the sheer magnitude of these amendments, would love to have some discussion after after testimony. But before we get into the amendments on whether or not we should even be doing this here or referring it back to a committee. So but I there is no practice that we have had of not hearing from the public before non-sponsor amendments, and even many of the sponsor amendments. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal so the package of amendments has been moved, I actually agree I would. They are on the table. They are available for the public to to respond to. I would like to move to testimony first before we come back for further debate and vote on the amendments. If that's any further technical or clarifying questions, colleagues. Keelan, can we please call up any public testimony?

We have 12 people signed up tonight. First up, we have holly brown, kanan patel, robin miller, chelsea pearson, adam skiles.

Any of those.

Folks are here or online, you're welcome to come on up as a as a panel or a group or whomever is here first gets to go first. Welcome. Please introduce yourself for the record.

Good evening, honored members of this council. My name is chelsea parson. My pronouns are she. They. I am a survivor of almost a decade of commercial sexual exploitation and human trafficking. I now serve our community at safety compass, a local nonprofit providing confidential advocacy and crisis response to survivors like myself, I have personally spoken with hundreds of survivors and lived experience experts, some of whom are actively engaging in the commercial sex industry, and some who were lucky enough to retire from the industry. Overwhelmingly, our stories are ones of violence and oppression, not of empowerment. I would like to take a moment to acknowledge the privilege I have in being able to speak here today. I have the inherent privilege of being a light skinned person and having my basic needs met, and having the choice to offer testimony in front of this council. As we talk about bridging the gap of a law that already exists to become a more effective tool for safety, I invite everyone in this room to consider your own privilege. Now, I want you to consider that at this very moment as we speak, there is someone, probably many someones, stuck in a hotel room on 82nd avenue who is unable to leave or eat or even sleep until they meet their quota for making as much money as they can through the exchange of commercial sex. Commercial sex acts. I hope no one else in this room ever has to experience the feeling that comes from the commodification of one's body for another person's pleasure. However, if that is something that resonates, you are not alone and I offer you my solidarity. The responsibility of managing the safety of the city falls to our leaders. And if a law that was intended to create pathways to safety is ineffective, the responsibility to make adjustments falls upon this council. As you consider what adjusting this law means, I beg you to consider those most marginalized and vulnerable who do not have the privilege to be in this room. Today. I ask this council to please make the tools that interrupt an industry that profits from the commodification and harm of others actually effective, and amend code chapter 14 b 60. In an anti-violence movement that faces so much pushback because of a violent industry's profitability, it is the least that can be done. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here.

Robin miller is joining us online.

Mr. President, I apologize. Representative tran is available to testify remotely. And we normally often give electeds a privilege to testify early. So after the next witness, I would ask that we go to her.

I would be happy to have.

Representative tran after robin finishes hers.

Hi. Thank you. Hi. My name is robin miller. I'm here tonight as a survivor of commercial sexual exploitation or prostitution, and I'm here to speak in support of Portland city code 14 b .60. This ordinance ordinance isn't just necessary, it is lawful and it is long overdue. I'm not speaking in theory. I'm speaking from lived experience. I was bought and sold on 82nd avenue in Portland. I was raped on 82nd, I was beaten. I lived under constant control and threat. I was moved up and down 82nd through motels, places where everyone knew what was happening and where no one intervened. These motels were not just and are not just neutral spaces, they are hubs of exploitation. And they're places where my life was at risk. And I'm also an advocate, and I've been serving victims and survivors of trafficking for 12 years, countless, and I would say the same for them. So when we talk about nuisance properties, let's be honest about what that means. We're talking about locations where exploitation is allowed to flourish, where systems fail to interrupt violence, and that violence is predictable, patterned, and preventable. I often hear we keep hearing this argument that it's going to passing this ordinance will push the sex trade somewhere else, somewhere more dangerous. And I'm wondering. I can't figure it out. Where is this? Somewhere else? Where is this more dangerous place? More dangerous than being trafficked in plain sight, in known locations where violence is normalized and profits are protected. More dangerous than motels where buyers come and go all night, where women are isolated behind closed doors and where no one is accountable. The reality is exploitation already happens in dangerous places. This ordinance does not create danger. It disrupts it. The conditions that allow it to continue to go unchecked. What this ordinance does is create accountability. It says that property owners and those connected with the spaces cannot keep ignoring repeated harm. It gives the city a tool to intervene when patterns of exploitation are clearly established. Let's be clear nothing. Doing nothing is not neutral. Doing nothing protects the status quo. And the status quo is violence. One second, you guys. I'm shaking. I don't ever shake like this. This ordinance will not solve everything, but it's a step toward interrupting systems that have allowed people like me to be hurt and the people I serve to be hurt over and over and over again in the same locations with no consequence. I stood out in front, out above a hotel lobby in the 90s after a man tried to kill me. I ran from the room without my clothes on and screamed, fire, fire, fire, fire! Because I knew no one would come if I screamed rape or help me. The owners of the motel or the managers came out and they saw me and they looked at me. The man left, but they did nothing. I serve, I see women and girls coming out of the same motel today when I'm on driving on that street, Portland has has an opportunity to act, to say that repeated exploitation is not expected, not acceptable, and not invisible.

Thank you so much for your testimony. And representative tran, please go ahead.

Good evening, council president Dunphy, council vice president Clark and members of the council. For the record, I am state representative tran from house district 45. I represent the student of mcdaniel high school and the residents of sumner park, rose, rose way and madison south neighborhood. I come here today to stand with human trafficking advocates from across our city who are demanding that we finally stop looking the other way. This past month. Well, this month, the Oregon senate unanimously passed house bill 4157 to support trafficking victims, sending it to the governor's desk. The state level work is a direct response to the incredible activism of survivors who are now fighting for the freedom of others. During our committee hearing, a survivor shared a haunting story of being repeatedly assaulted and purchased in full view of the staff at the hotel near mcdaniel high school. This hotel is still in business today on northeast 82nd avenue. We must be better leaders for our children, both for those being trafficked and for those who simply want to walk to school without witnessing human rights violations. The legislation we passed in Salem gives victims a voice in court. The amendment before you today give our neighborhoods and students a voice in their own backyard. To be clear, this new code update is not a magic wand that will solve every facet of human trafficking. It is a surgical tool. It is designed to address blatant, violent, illicit activity crimes that often involve minors. By holding property owners accountable for what they allow to happen under their roofs and very close to their property. I want to directly address the concern regarding equity and potential overreach. This is not an attack on hotel owners, nor is it intended to displace the housing insecure or target consensual sex worker. I recognize these questions of whether it could be used to target minority owned businesses. Every law carries the potential for misuse. However, the mechanism to prevent overreach is not to vote down focus vital legislation, as I believe this is. This mechanism is you, the council, it is your staff. It is the mayor. It is the police chief. It is. Other city leaders like myself, our constituents and those that might be speaking in opposition today. It is our collective responsibility to ensure this tool is never used to unfairly target the vulnerable. We cannot let a hypothetical risk prevent us from taking necessary steps to rescue those being trafficked in our city today. Thank you.

Thank you representative.

Okay. Checking to see if holly brown is here. Kanan patel, adam skiles.

Welcome.

Myself, kanan patel I am one of the business owner on sandy boulevard. I am a motel owner. So one of the biggest problem we are challenging challenging as of now is drugs and prostitution. Sorry, is drugs and prostitution. On reporting police frequently about the stuff's happening are in the property or outside the property, so we really get a good help from police. But when they are arrested, they get back out from the jail and the cycle is on and on. So we we really need a help to cut off that cycle. So when a prostitute or a drug dealer is arrested, they come back out of the jail and they are still back in this area. So the crime rate is never going down. The crime rate is always going up and up. And as a mom of two kids, I never let my kids to walk on the streets on sandy boulevard. I used to take my kids away from sandy boulevard or 82nd avenue. I'm even scared to walk in the parks on sandy boulevard. One of the incident happened with me last year was I was walking along with my six month child on the sandy boulevard. Some of the people, the homeless people they use like some knives and guns because I was like, what is the reason of doing that? And the statement they gave me was, so you call the police on one of our friend who was dealing drugs outside your property. So we are gonna shoot your child. So I was like yelling, I need help, I need help. Some of the people gathered around me and they helped me to move around to move my house. So it's a big challenge. We are fighting as a small business owners. We run property along with the families. I never let my child a lot of time to stay with me. I used to leave them with my in-laws because it gets harder for us to pay the bills. My daughter there was recently shooting in my property. Last. Yes, last month. So the questions come here is they are not usually the people staying in our property. So during night time they come walking the properties and they does a lot of stuff that is inappropriate. We are scared to walk outside to pull the people out. So we really need some security on sandy boulevard, especially at night times. We are always happy to help Portland police if they need any tips from us regarding prostitution and drug dealing. A lot of people like they comes and whenever we ask them, they are like we are helping people not in the property but outside the property. I used to counsel a lot of prostitutes walking on the side, and I feel proud on me that I cleared up one prostitute and I sent her to work as an amazon. I paid a lot of stuff for her. She went to the talks, she got a good lady, she got her kids back, and she owns the apartment on sandy boulevard, but she is clean. She got her daughter back and she is working on amazon and two others jobs. So I feel proud on myself. At least. I try to change one of the life of a prostitute, but I'm still working on that part. But I really need help.

Thank you so much for being here tonight. Thank you for your testimony.

Thank you.

Next up we have amy Koyama, tommy jarvis, Loretta guzman, zachary lauritsen, hannah lewis. Go ahead and come up to the table. You can state your name for the record and begin your testimony. Go ahead.

Okay.

Hi, my name is Loretta guzman. I'm a small business owner here in the city of Portland. And I was also raised here. I think when I originally first read this, what was coming before you guys? It was there was like so much. But I'm glad to hear that, that everybody is like putting input in this. And so it's not just going to fall on the business owners because we run in businesses, we are held to a higher standard than people, but we also can't control everything that happens out on the streets around our businesses. We try to, but also you guys need to put something in place that works for us because there's like not a lot for help for us when we do call or we do need help, a lot of times we have to go to other sources to get help because right now our system is eroding. It's not safe out there. I don't care what you guys say, you know, you guys already know. I come here all the time and speak. I speak about, you know, my real life experiences that I have. So there's a lot of concern in our kids are our future. And I feel like you guys need to take in, give, give our kids safety. Our kids don't have safety. You know, my, my little nephew, his dad was killed. He just he just moved his, him and his mom had to move because, you know, she has a lot of trauma from everything that's happened. And she could have very easily been somebody who fell between the cracks and became a prostitute and became a drug addict. She could have been out there on 82nd, and I had to do a lot of work to help to get her to where she, you know, was able to get get a job. And, you know, and I did a lot of juggling with the kids. So our kids are our future. And I hope you guys do something really. Put something in place, but also don't put all the blame and all everything on us as business owners. It's hard for us right now. You know, everything is raising on us. A lot of businesses are really struggling and I don't know, we just need help. And so I just feel like our system is really eroded. And so I hope we get some real help out here and you guys will see me more. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony.

Emmy is joining us online.

Aye, Morillo. Thank you so much. My name is amy kojima and no relation to councilor. Koyama Lane. But I'm happy about the, you know, yesterday proclamation earlier. I'm a survivor who has been on 82nd avenue many years ago and long time advocate for survivors, people who live and work on the street, migrant asian women working in massage parlors and other people in or adjacent to the sex trade who have not been meaningfully consulted in the process of drafting this legislation. I oppose the expansion of current nuisance property ordinance, especially in the name of preventing and interrupting exploitation and abuse within the sex trade, because it displaces people and activities that community considers nuisance, rather than addressing underlying social economic conditions that lead to vulnerabilities and abuse. People engage in sex trade under varying and oscillating combinations of choice, coercion and circumstances. Public policies must respect and empower choices, fight coercion and vastly improve circumstances so that everyone in the sex trade, regardless of how one entered or how much power they currently exercise, can benefit from greater freedom and safety. The proposal before you does not none of that. In fact, it does the opposite. It pushes certain people and activities further underground, displacing, isolating and endangering people who are already vulnerable to exploitation and abuse. From the street sweeps to backpage.com shut down to motel and strip clubs, closures, displacement without addressing the root causes always result in additional harms to the marginalized. Last summer, seattle expanded its nuisance property law and recently received the first batch of public records from its enforcement. I noticed that in December, seattle's chief of police issued a letter designating a business as a chronic nuisance property based in part on the police report generated when someone at the business called 911 to seek medical assistance for drug overdose. I don't think it was the intent of seattle city council to penalize businesses for saving lives by reporting overdose, but this is a textbook example of unintended consequences. The Novick amendment comes close to addressing this particular harm, but does not actually provide relief because seeking medical emergency assistance in good faith is not included. Nobody in seattle foresaw the expanding chronic nuisance property ordinance might discourage businesses from calling for medical assistance and possibly cause delay in assistance and increase preventable death. But here in Portland, we are telling you right now that the likely detrimental consequence of enacting this ordinance on the safety and lives of people in sex trade, please scrap this association now and start over with a broader group of stakeholders to enact the policies that respect choice, fight coercion and radically transform social and economic circumstances and conditions that produce vulnerabilities. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much for your testimony tonight.

Zachary is joining us online.

Good evening everyone. Zachary lauritsen at Oregon walks. We're a pedestrian advocacy organization, and I'm testifying in support of the changes to the nuisance property code and my role at Oregon walks. I do a lot of organizing along 82nd avenue, and over the years, we've really developed a community vision for 82nd as this transit, rich, as this housing rich spine of east Portland. And thanks to the work of advocates for years of many of your predecessors, and frankly, many of you were making steady progress towards those goals. You know, one of the biggest challenges, frankly, is 82nd avenue's reputation. And that reputation is based in a lot of reality. Often mcdaniel students tell me about hearing gunshots being a weekly occurrence. 82nd avenue is known as a place where folks can get drugs of choice parts of 82nd avenue, especially as mentioned earlier in the northern section by the grotto mcdaniel. That area is well known as a place to purchase sex, often from people who have been coerced or trafficked into Portland to do so. And that's the reality. And philosophically, Oregon walks. Myself personally, were not big in the enforcement lens of using police to achieve ends. But this legislation reminds me as a time, as my time as an educator. Some of you know that before I was at Oregon walks for 15 years, I was a coach and a teacher and an administrator in public schools in Oregon. And in that role, we needed various tools. You know, you taught appropriate behaviors, you used restorative practices, you intentionally built positive community, but sometimes you needed to have traditional discipline as one of those tools. And this feels a lot the same. You know, first we want to build a lot of housing on 82nd avenue, really develop out the transit. We want to have thriving businesses so that we bring positive interactions. We want to pave and plant trees and make the space more welcoming, welcoming and and humane. And the case where we know exactly, for example, where a hotel is being used, as we heard earlier tonight, as a brothel or a building that is a drug or a gun dealing location, you know, we need those traditional discipline tools. And I see this legislation as, as tightening and cleaning up the code that refines those tools that we have in that tool belt to address these challenging behaviors that you've heard tonight. I appreciate the process over the last few months. I appreciate actually hearing the attention to detail tonight to improve this legislation. And I hope that we can heed the call of neighbors on 82nd avenue, but also around the city in general to start addressing these nuisance properties and the very real harms that they're causing to our community. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Hannah lewis is joining us online.

Welcome, hannah.

Hi. Council. I had hannah lewis, she her pronouns. I had a very well thought out testimony for tonight, but I'm going to go rogue because just hearing everybody's comments, the amendments, it's inspired me to share a stream of consciousness with you. I also want to thank zachary for the spine of east Portland. I'm going to be quoting that going forward. I just want to say thank you to council. This process has been very well thought out to understand the impact of residents, owners, impacted individuals and our workers on the streets. Meaningful consultation has occurred through the public testimony process. This first was brought to us back in January and I thought we were voting in January. But here we are in March and continuing the discussion. A point that was brought up earlier was the change to the number of instances in 90 days. And I'm curious around that because gun violence and trafficking tonight is being referred to as a nuisance, but it's really so much more than that. So when we have this history of issues happening at a property and then all of a sudden there's gun violence, or we confirm trafficking, is that weighted heavier? Just a question. I have removing loitering I think is a win for those that are consensually out there in the sex work industry. At every one of our community meetings, where the human trafficking unit presents, it's really interesting. The audience ends up turning their attention more towards the buyers than the women. So is there an opportunity to call for tougher consequences along the lines of loitering? But maybe it's it looks more like repeat offenses. We've also heard from some from some really great business owners. Miss patel very impressed to hear from her. Loretta guzman as well. And we see those business owners being listened to tonight. I want to talk about an experience I've had in the sumner neighborhood with the quality in. This goes back to delivering notice to a property owner where I personally tried to reach that hotel before I was really plugged in to my neighborhood association or city council and how it all works, and it went unanswered. So is there an opportunity to hold the property owner accountable for being contactable, and how many owners work in their businesses, train their staff, know how to support their staff with this nuance? And then just to add on to rep tran's statement for students, it's more than witnessing this. It's more than living among this. It's the fact that they are walking to school and they have a car slowly pull up to them and want to know their price, how students respond to that. Just want to say thank you for your time and thank you for this process.

Thank you very much, hannah.

Okay. Next up. Well, actually, let me check to see if tommy jarvis is here. Our last testifier is liliana lindseth. Joining us online.

Welcome.

Please go ahead.

Hi, my name is teal. Some of you guys have seen me. I go by teal but some of you guys have seen me in council. Sorry, my baby is here. As someone that has worked as a sex worker in Portland by choice, I'm here to testify the opposition to the ordinance 2020 6-0 39 to amend their chronic nuisance property. I do want to thank everybody that has been hearing the concerns from the community about making a difference between consensual sex work and prostitution, from human trafficking, because there are definitely two different things. Consensual sex work is not the same thing as human trafficking. Human trafficking is a real and pressing issue in our city. However, I'm here today with concerns for the unintended impacts that this could have on sex workers in Portland. When you criminalize sex work and any action aiding in sex work, you put our community members at a greater risk, pushing them to the shadows and forcing them to work in unsafe conditions, specifically using, lauding and soliciting. Solicit prostitution. Thank you for changing that as well. Prostitution or related offenses, public indecency, unlawful prostitution and procurement activities, things like this that I just listed can potentially lead to harming consensual sex workers. I do, I do not want others who choose to work here to face greater danger as a result of well-intended but harmful policy. For example, amending policy to include verbiage as prostitution or public indecency dredges up negative ideas around consensual sex work. I do urge you guys to work with bipoc led sex worker organizations within the community to work on decriminalization of sex work to help separate sex work from sex trafficking. If you are going to work with work on things that affect the sex worker community, then you should have consensual sex workers included in the conversation. If you're voting yes on this, then you should think about working to make consensual sex workers safe, as well as decriminalizing sex work, and step towards and step towards working towards that. Thank you so much for listening to me, and I hope that when you guys vote yes on this, that you guys are thinking about consensual sex workers in the community that can be harmed by specific words. Thank you.

Thank you so much for your testimony tonight.

That completes testimony.

Colleagues. I'm going to give us a ten minute bathroom break. We will be back here at 810. And we are back. Thank you, colleagues, for getting back on time. We are now moving into council discussion. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: Thank you.

Yeah. Colleagues, I testified on this proposal when it was in committee because I wanted to make sure that the people most likely to be impacted, particularly members of the sex worker community, were meaningfully included in the conversation. I appreciate that outreach occurred and that amendments were made, but I'm still hearing from community members who remain deeply concerned about the impacts. And so I want to take those concerns seriously and ask a couple of questions to get to the heart of that. So and I don't know who will answer some of these. I see there's people in the audience. I'm assuming. Councilor Novick you have staff that are available to answer technical questions. Yes, yes. Okay. Sounds good. Let's start here. So we have heard that this policy is intended to focus on buyers, not victims. So I was wondering if someone could explain how that distinction is operationalized in practice, especially when enforcement is tied to place based nuisance designations.

Councilor Avalos thank you for that question. I'll try to answer it as best I can, because I think enforcement with chronic nuisance is a little different than enforcement for criminal investigations, but they go hand in hand. And so as of, I would say roughly around 2012, law enforcement and prosecutors offices, especially in the Portland and Multnomah county area, decided not to arrest or charge victims of trafficking any sellers. And so the focus of investigations of enforcement of missions has been specifically towards reducing demand. Because we know economics, you reduce demand, you reduce trafficking, as well as looking into the people behind the scenes who are forcing individuals, victims, manipulating and controlling them to engage in this work. And so it's been we've been focusing on buyers and traffickers, 100% of victims that are victims in significant trafficking cases when they are contacted, say, I chose to do this. I don't have a trafficker. I am an independent sex worker. 100% of those individuals say that. And so although I think theoretically it's easy to say there's a difference between someone who's a sex worker and someone who's being trafficked. Reality is, is that all victims of trafficking are groomed and told and taught to say that they are independent, that there's no one behind the scenes running them, and that the details of trafficking. When you look at the details of the violence, the homicide rates, the horrible things that I hear on a daily basis that is, at the very least, a lack of choices and most likely because someone is forcing them to do that.

Okay, I don't think that answered the question, but I'm going to move on. So my next question is, this ordinance still relies heavily on police reports and probable cause determination. So in communities, particularly in east Portland, where people may be reluctant to engage with law enforcement due to immigration concerns or prior experiences, how are we ensuring that this is not silencing victims or discouraging reporting?

Yes, human trafficking is one of those. Councilor Avalos human trafficking is one of those crimes that very few people come forward on their own. There's a lot of proactive investigations that go on. What I will say is probable cause is a standard in which warrants are, you know, in which warrants are used to apply to search homes. The resident's probable cause is the standard for officers to use to make arrests, to refer cases to the da's office. So probable cause is the standard that I think is available to law enforcement in a day to day basis, in a daily basis, for all sorts of things. As far as silencing victims, this only focuses on business businesses and property owners in which we have are trying to seek ways to reduce crimes on their businesses or related to their businesses. So I don't believe in my experience, and I've been doing this since 2008. I don't believe that there is a mechanism here that would silence victims of trafficking, because they're worried about what what may happen to the business who enabled their trafficking, if that's the question.

Okay, let me move on to another one. So I appreciate the amendment to ensure that if a property owner calls to report their own property, that they will not be penalized. I understand the spirit of that amendment. However, I am still wondering how does this ordinance protect tenants, small business owners and immigrant owned businesses from being penalized for activity they might not be aware of or have the ability to control? I heard a little bit of that in the testimony. I'm wondering if you can respond to how this ordinance will address that.

Well, first of all, I want to point out that the ordinance amends existing law, and under the chronic nuisance statute exists under existing law and under existing law, the property owners can be held responsible for authorizing for for allowing illegal activity. What this, what the underlying law does and what is that is provide that if illegal activity is going on in a property, then the property owner is asked to take steps to abate that illegal activity. The property owner may or may not be aware of the activity, but they're informed that this activity is going on. Will you take steps to stop it? And then there's a back and forth between the property owner and the city about what those steps might be. So the property owner isn't penalized for conduct they weren't aware of. They're told, here's conduct that's going on. And will you take steps to address it? I also want to note that we're discussing the amendments now, and I. Are we? Yes. We're not discussing we're not discussing the the underlying measure.

So which amendments? All of them.

It was a package of amendments.

Right.

We we had there was a move. Yeah. The package of amendments had been moved in second. We are.

I still think my questions are relevant, but thank you for letting me know. Yeah. Okay. My last question is, what evidence do we have that nuisance property designations. And I am aware that you are amending an existing ordinance, but my concerns are that the amendments are making it worse, not better. So what evidence do we have that nuisance property designations reduce trafficking or exploitation rather than simply moving it elsewhere? And specifically, what are the metrics that you're using to determine whether this ordinance is actually improving safety?

I'd like to actually ask you ask the question of whether it is. Or is it making the same? They also ask that you. If there's a need to address the question.

Of why we think that there's that these that the nuisance property designation is effective.

Okay. But to be clear, just to restate my question, I'm asking what specific metrics you plan to use to determine whether the ordinance is improving safety. So that's my my ask. Go ahead.

So I hear that you're asking about the future metrics.

Well, I guess I'm asking a technical question about how to implement the ordinance. So maybe if you want to share a bit of your experience, I don't know that you're the right person to answer this. I'm looking for actual metrics that we will use to enforce the the law.

I think that the law will be enforced with the city using it to try to get property owners at properties that designated property product nuisance properties to try to try to abate the nuisance. And I can't promise whenever we pass laws, we don't generally say we're going to change the law back if we don't have certain specific evidence of certain results within a couple within a couple of years. We think that this will reduce illegal activity at the properties that are designated as chronic nuisance properties, but there's nothing that we I mean, there's nothing that we do is guaranteed to have a particular result. We make our best guess as to what the result might be.

Yeah, I understand that. But I also thought the point of making laws is so that they could produce certain results. And so what I'm asking is technically, in your belief, what do you believe is changing about this law that you think is going to with specific metrics, make a difference in human exploitation and not moving it elsewhere? Because that's the concern that we're hearing that it's going to get pushed away. So how do you how are you? What is your judgment on how this is going to affect that? And I am looking for specifics because I do think that we can ask for that as we are passing laws.

I think that if there's fewer places for exploitation to occur, then less exploitation will occur. I also note that part of our concern, and again, this ordinance is not just about human trafficking, but part of our concern is the students and mcdaniel walking through a gantlet of sex trafficking, which is partly because of the hotels that have tolerated that periodically. It's not all hotels at all times, but if hotels are accepting sex trafficking in their establishments and hotels are around that area, then you can see more of that activity and the students will see more of that activity. So I am hoping that by holding property owners in that area accountable for sex trafficking under establishments, you'll wind up with the students walking into daniel high school dealing with lex, not having to walk through a gantlet of sex trafficking.

Thank you. So then what I'm understanding by how you're describing it, you do not expect this to abate it. You just expect it to move because what you said is your concern is people seeing it and that there's a row of hotels. And if this is a place based ordinance, tell me more about how that's not what I'm.

Councilor that is not what I said. What I said first is that I think by reducing the number of places where trafficking can occur, I would hope that reduces trafficking. I also said that there's an additional issue, which which we're concerned about, which is that children of daniel high school walking through a gantlet of sex trafficking.

Yeah, I appreciate that. And I please do not lecture me about the impact. I am aware I am aware of that impact. I work with youth about this. So I would appreciate that not being the case. I think that what I'm hearing though, is that it's not a clear 1 to 1, and that's what I'm asking. I'm asking for data on is this a 1 to 1? And if it is, we don't want it in this area then that's great. But I didn't hear that. That is the impact that it's going to reduce human trafficking across the city. If there's just one place particularly I say that because the dea specifically, or I'm sorry, your title, your dea assistant specifically said that when it was moved off of online, it just moved back to the street. So it was you didn't abate it. You just it moved somewhere else. So I'm taking your words of how you described that situation. That's what I'm trying to avoid. So I'm looking to understand how the ordinance is going to avoid that impact.

Sure. I want to talk about metrics in a couple of ways. The way that chronic nuisance works is that the vast majority of businesses don't even get to this point because they send their employees to be trained. We've been training hotel and motel staff for ten years. Most of these businesses say, we want to help. What can we do? We'll send our employees to be trained, and we want to look for signs so that we can report it and help it and prevent it in our hotel. This is for the hotels or businesses, whatever it may be, that have refused to do that, refuse to meet with the city, refuse to work with investigators and detectives to identify victims of trafficking. And at the very end, this is a last ditch effort to say, we need your help to prevent trafficking of youth and minors and individuals in your hotel. As far as metrics, if I can prevent two young people in Portland from being trafficked and their trafficker to be held accountable so that they don't recruit other young people, I think that metric is well worth creating and amending this city code to protect those youth in our community, because they are not youth from other countries, they're not youth from other states, their youth that you live next to, that go to school with your children that go to church with you and other things. That metric, I think is enough. And the fact of the matter is, is because trafficking, trafficking is so prolific, and we've seen that there's over 10,000 attempts to purchase another human being a week. It would be very difficult for us to say that that metric has been met, other than to say we are protecting and helping vulnerable, the most vulnerable in our community not be trafficked. And when I said it moved from one place to another, absolutely. I didn't say increased or stayed the same. I was just saying about the general movement of what we see was from street level to online to back to the street. I'm not saying that the same numbers happen in each movement. All I was saying is that that's what we see in an historical look at trafficking in the city.

But have you seen a reduction then as a result of that, or absolutely that it's just moving from?

Absolutely. We've seen a reduction in.

Okay. Well, I appreciate the value statements. Again, I'm looking for facts. I'm looking for metrics. So that's what I'm trying to seek out. I agree with the values. I obviously care a lot about this, especially as a survivor of sexual abuse. So this is very personal to me too. So I would appreciate having a little bit of deference for the fact that I'm coming from my own lived experience and that there are people in my community that are experiencing the result of exploitation by further pushing this into the shadows, and especially immigrant communities. And so and that's what I heard from the immigrant communities that I talked to in a workshop, that they are concerned that women are being pushed into trafficking, or they're being pushed into sex work because isis stealing the permits, they have no way to work. And so for them, it's the choice between working with working for sex or feeding their family and keeping a roof over their head. And so I think it's important that we're naming these as the real impacts and the people that are being affected by that. And this is not some ideological thing. This is a real impact that I'm seeing in the district. And I think it's important we voiced that. I'll say that for now. And thank you. I'll yield the rest of my time. Thank you.

Thank you.

Councilor Avalos mr. President, I'd like chelsea to have an opportunity to weigh in on her views of whether this would simply push sex work into the shadows.

I would appreciate that, but I think I've asked my questions, and I if I have more, I will ask them. Thank you for your for your your perspective. But I think I'm done with my questioning and I'm not asking for further. Thank you.

I'm going to move this forward. Thank you. Thank you, councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, mr. President. Thank you to everyone who testified today. I also read through the volume of written testimony as well. So I want to thank folks for submitting that. I'm I'm going to speak just to the amendments on the floor as a package. I think in general, I think these amendments are an improvement on the. The piece that came out of the committee, I don't know if I can support the underlying. But I'm going to save my comments on why or where I'm at on that until we get past this vote, but I. But I do appreciate the I appreciate the I want to call out specifically, I appreciate the amendment. I think it's Novick three maybe that that struck the explicit reference to solicitation of prostitution and just replaces it with the human trafficking citations or s I forget exactly which one that is, but it's part of this package. That was a big one for me. So thanks for being responsive to that. I think there are some other. There's some other cleanup stuff that I think I heard that councilor Pirtle-guiney also laid on the table that was that was helpful relative to what came out of committee. So I'm going.

To.

Support the amendment package, but I've, I've got more to say on the underlying when we get to that stage in debate. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor Green councilor Kanal.

Mitch Green: Thank you, council president. First, I wanted to thank my colleagues on the community and public safety committee for a thoughtful conversation, not just in the conversation around this agenda item, but councilor Novick led on holding presentations about human trafficking and raising the attention of the committee, the council and the broader community to the issues that we're talking about here, including the particular nexus, not just on 82nd, but the particular points around what the police and the da's office refer to as the blade here. I also want to thank the testifiers, in particular those who do important work on this subject safety compass, da's office, but also rep tran, who led the way on house bill 4157, which I support. I want to start by saying I share the concerns and the assessment here. I had the privilege of going to an event with councilor Novick, and I think several other counselors or staff were there too, at mcdaniel high school. It was an hour and seven minutes in before the first mention of hotels or motels in talking about the problem, and it was in two responses to the question, what are some misconceptions around the situation around mcdaniel, where one person said they felt hotels were a big part of the problem, and the next person said they felt they were not. Hotels were mentioned one other time in passing with no commentary, and this crowd was parents and one student. No representatives from hotels were there. They talked about what one of our testifiers talked about in testimony, the experience of their children and their communities. They talked about the desire to have a police response, and that includes the county not engaging in catch and release. And they talked about the need to do more and have more conversations with hotel and motel owners. That hasn't happened yet, but we're still talking about running them out of business, which is the only really predictable outcome of this legislation. And I want to be clear, I don't assume bad intent from anyone who supports this. I think councilor Novick and his team are trying to do the right thing. I do not think their goal is to do anything other than what they say, which is ending human trafficking. But I have to say, and this is underlying my vote on every amendment, that one of the most dangerous things a person with decision making can do, a decision making authority can do is to recognize a real problem and say, just, we have to do something. Because when you say we have to do something, you're really opening the door to doing anything. And while I agree with the testifier who said that doing nothing is not neutral, we have a responsibility to find a solution that addresses the problem. Instead of blaming another group of people. And what has been done here is taking an accurate assessment of the problem and going and finding a scapegoat. Business owners along 82nd beyond the one that we all know about and proposing creating new policy to bail out the people who should be keeping us safe from their responsibility to do so. The sponsor noted that the fundamental question this ordinance poses is to what extent do we think property owners have an obligation to make sure their properties aren't being used as a base for certain sorts of illegal activity, such as human trafficking or drug dealing? And I disagree with what that question we're being asked to answer is. In my interpretation, the fundamental question of this ordinance is whether or not the responsibility for addressing an observable, geographically limited pattern of a particular type of crime, which is to say human trafficking along 82nd in the area there is resides with the police or whether or not we should allow the outsourcing of that responsibility to private business owners. And there are ancillary questions as well to this, and I'll name two. How does this affect other businesses? How would it affect yours? At what point does something within 200ft of your business become your fault? Would we consider the stadium superette a chronic nuisance property because they're surrounded by some significant criminal activity? And perhaps some of those people have purchased something in the past from the superette. And I'll note that that's in the the original code. That's not part of councilor Novick proposal here. This idea that you are responsible for something within 200ft of your of your business. If someone's purchased something from your property. And secondly, why have we not implemented council guidance to move over time. Dollars to the police's human trafficking unit? The commanding sergeant of that unit has said in years past there was overtime available for human trafficking and said that there are no hours available for them now, despite a council approved budget note saying to move overtime away from protest response and community presence to a suite of community needs, including human trafficking and PPB data showing that they presented in our committee that the overtime spending on protest response and community presence did go down, but that overtime spending on those community needs did not go up. I'm not opposing this legislation without offering an alternative. I would think we should do a two part alternative, which is to first get PPB to follow the budget guidance approved by the city council and give the human trafficking unit the resources we said to and for the da's office to commit in public to stopping catch and release, which we've heard from some of the business owners here for the kinds of abuses that we're talking about. And let me also say that I support using existing law, criminal law, yes, but also other legal structures like eminent domain to address the specific nuisance property that is at the center of what we're all talking about here. I understand that this law will target all hotels and motels, but the examples people are giving, many of them focus on a single property near mcdaniel high school. We don't need to name them, but everyone knows the state of the property and the state of public safety in that area. Why do we need to put other hotel and motel owners out of business when we know where a lot of this is centered? Why can't we use the existing code about the state of that one property? And I think that we have to talk about this because that is what's in the community impact statement. And it's also in the statement of, I think by reducing the number of places where trafficking can occur, I would hope that reduces trafficking. We know what the impact will be. This is designed to go and put the the impact on a whole host of businesses as opposed to the the small subset, which everybody agrees. It's a small subset who are doing the, the, the particular types of activity we're talking about. So with that, I'm going to make a motion because of the importance and because my comments were about the underlying and because of the volume of the amendments that have been proposed here and the time it is now to postpone this item, the entire item to a time certain, which is the next meeting of the community and public safety committee.

Councilor Kanal has made a motion I is this a debatable motion? It also needs a second, second.

Sorry for clarity. You want to refer this back to the public safety committee. Okay.

I'm looking to our attorney's.

Point of information. With the way our committees are structured, can we refer to a time certain at a committee, or do we need to vote to send it to committee as a separate action? I am not trying to be pedantic here. I am trying to make sure that we know what our rules are and are following them.

That is a good clarification. I don't know.

If it's.

The two questions voting.

To time certain and whether that's debatable.

And.

Voting on.

Defense committee.

Yeah. Should should a should a referral back to a committee be to a time certain or is it simply is it a simple motion to refer back.

I'd like to.

Oh, sorry.

Go ahead.

I can amend the motion because I think I think this is a correct I think it's a motion to refer to the committee and. Yeah. Okay. With with the intention of it not being referred with an indefinite never come back to it, but with the intention of it being discussed.

Okay, so the motion and a second is to refer the item back to committee. We are in a motion as well on amendments.

The motion to refer takes precedence.

So that motion. Thank you. We're learning a lot about robert's rules.

Who was the second? I'm sorry.

Avalos was the second.

And is this a debatable motion?

And it it is debatable. The motion to refer to a committee is debatable.

Okay, so we have a motion and a second that is debatable. To refer this back to committee. This is going to take precedence. So we are now in debate of the motion to refer. Councilor. Novick. Do you want to.

Yeah.

Yes. This proposed ordinance already passed out of committee, and I have yet to hear anybody objecting to any of the specific amendments that have been offered here today. I've heard a lot of argument about the about the underlying measure. So I don't see what the point would be of sending this back to a committee which already passed the ordinance out. And when I don't see any argument that there's any reason for the amendments that we're proposing, which I haven't heard anybody opposing, to be discussed by the committee.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Aye, Morillo are you to the motion?

Yeah. First, I want to say thank you to the folks that came and testified, both at committee and here. I think this is a very important issue for our entire city and painful for many people in our community for a lot of different reasons. So I just want to honor the work that's being done here. And I it did come out of committee. I do think it needs to go back to committee for a few reasons. For one thing, I think that the amendments, some of them are certainly improvements. I think the removal of language around sex work and changing it to human trafficking is really critical. But there are simply too many changes to the actual. The amendments that are proposed make it slightly better for me, but not good enough for me to feel comfortable with them, because there are a lot of changes that need to be made. Like, for one thing, I think at its crux, the police report thing I think needs to be changed to actual evidence and not just an officer's arbitrary perspective on writing a report. They're all of the amendments are slightly better than what is being proposed, but I don't think that they actually make things better in the long run. And the, even the discussion about changing it from 2 to 3 and back to 2 or 3 is it's very clear that there is no real metric for why we are making these decisions. It feels very vibes based, and the majority of what we have seen as far as data collected from the aclu, is that chronic nuisance ordinances actually reduce public safety because they can incentivize landlords to repress crime reporting and evict victims. That is what we often see. So. I don't feel comfortable with this as is. And I think that this is a very complicated policy that just requires a bit more discussion and committee. We had some time for discussion. It was I raised some concerns in committee and then it was quickly we quickly moved on from them before they were fully addressed. And now we're here. And that's fine. That happens sometimes. But I think with the amount of feedback that we've gotten from community members, I am concerned about it. The town hall that was also held talking about this policy, councilor Kanal brought up that there were no hotel owners there present. I would also point out that there were no sex workers present there to talk about the impacts of this. And so I just don't feel comfortable with this as is. And I think it does need further research and discussion.

Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney to the motion.

Thank you for a different motion, but if you don't mind, I'd like to speak to this one, please. Thank you. Council president colleagues, I am generally a fan of taking more time in committees, but what I have heard tonight are concerns with not even the language in the underlying ordinance, but the language in the current law, which is some in some areas is being changed and some is not. I am hearing a lot of concern with the extent of the amendments, but what I see are a few amendments that don't change the direction of the underlying ordinance, and directly respond to concerns that have been raised, perhaps not all of them, but many. And folks saying that it is making it better. I am hearing a lot of opposition to, at a minimum, the underlying language, the original language in code right now, and perhaps to the ordinance before us. But I'm not hearing an interest in changing this policy, perhaps an interest in other changes to the current code, but not this policy. So I'm not sure why we're sending this back to committee other than to delay. I'm I'm trying to listen for interest in digging in on this, and I'm not hearing that. So I would ask that we vote on whether these amendments move us in the right direction or not, and that when this comes back up, presumably in a week, because I believe this is a first reading of a nonemergency ordinance, that we give an up or down vote on whether this is a change to the current code that exists that we like or not. But I'm not sure why we're sending it back to committee if there's not a real interest in addressing the language to move us toward something that makes our current code better in a way that's different from what we have before us.

Thank you. Excuse me. Thank you. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you, council president. I do feel that these amendments are moving things in a bit of a better direction, and I'm trying to separate that from the underlying, also from the idea that maybe some more work needs to be done on this. My thoughts around more work being done on this connect to and councilor. Novick. You can let me know if this is addressed in any of the amendments, but there is written testimony from Multnomah county health department's public health division where they are they say they're supportive with changes, and they ask for an inclusion of a requirement for annual public reporting on the ordinances. Inflammation over a three year period. Is that already addressed in any of the amendments?

It isn't.

It isn't. Okay, so I am I am interested in that. And then the other one that stood out to me was the one from the northwest regional director for the asian American hotel owners association. That one's more about engagement, which is important. This Multnomah county health department, public health division one is one that I think deserves some more. I think some more conversation. I think that could be an important amendment to add.

Can I ask you to restate that again? Remind me what the what the health department said.

To ensure the ordinance is effectiveness and to guard against potential abuse or unfair use, we respectfully recommend the inclusion of a requirement for annual public reporting on the ordinances implementation over three year period. This transparent reporting mechanism will monitor implementation and enforcement practices and increase accountability and transparency, allowing the public and policymakers to track the ordinances impact, monitor for unintended outcomes, assess its equity, and make data driven adjustments as needed. So I do believe this is very important. Everyone who's come to testify. Thank you so much. I do think it's we want to make sure that we do this right. And this seems like something to consider. And so I could be supportive of spending a little bit more time and being able to work on these amendments. I'm seeing like last minute amendments come in. I know there's mixed feelings about that. I do support making sure we're getting to as best of a place as possible and doing it well.

I'd actually beat that. I think that is an interesting potential amendment. And given the time, I actually would be okay with continuing this to the next council meeting and we could see if we can work on that amendment and drop it into the drop it into the package.

If this item is continued, I will schedule it with urgency.

Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Councilor. Ryan.

Thank you, council president. Well, you know, it must be council after dark because we always have these moments when you think something's moving along and then some surprises come at you. I'm not in support of putting this back to the committee. I am good with it. Going back, back to the council. So I hope that it stays in the Lane of the council. I really just want to say a couple things I really appreciate council Novick solid and comprehensive work. You connected with. You connected the dots with those closest to this issue, providing safety for those who understand sex trafficking system. It's very complex. Victims, family members, d a s office, hotels, schools, neighbors, police and thank you all for being here. Many of you are still here in the audience. I also really want to take a moment like we all have to thank you all for the those who testified. It was outstanding testimony. You're brave, you're courageous, and you're also fighting for those who don't have a voice. How many times do we have to hear the average age of mostly young women? There's also men. There's also boys that often gets dismissed, girls and boys who are on the street that don't have anyone advocating for them. Your lived experiences, your advocacy for children and youth inspired me. It really did capture my heart. I'm confused about some of the pushback that's currently happening. I feel like we got off topic a few times. I want to ask if it's okay. When we hear things like the dea does catch and release, like maybe the dea could come back up and explain that as opposed to having that just tossed out there, because they're thoughtfully remaining with us in the room. Anyway, I want to end by saying these are really thoughtful amendments. Thank you, councilor, pirtle-guiney and Novick. You could tell you really worked well together to make these even more thoughtful and improve this legislation, which everyone seems to agree they have. So I look forward to supporting those when we ever get to vote on them. And I would like to hear a response from the dea on that statement, because it was a very heavy statement, and I think it's important for transparency in government to allow that.

I will definitely do that. But we're going to get through this discussion of the motion first. Sorry, councilor. That's okay as.

Long as we have transparency.

Absolutely.

Councilor Kanal. Yeah, so first I repeated a statement from testimony. I want to just be very clear about that, but it's also something that I've heard from many, many of the people who've weighed in on this. And I wish that people had paid attention to the testimony in committee, where I think some of the folks may have given up on our willingness to listen on this after it got referred out. But, you know, it's that testimony still exists. And I'm grateful to councilor Koyama Lane referred to the written one. I want to stress that I do not think that all the amendments are improvements. I think a couple of them are. I will if this fails, I will be dividing out the amendment package. I think it's an a rewrite of most of the legislation, and it doesn't make sense to to do that here. After the ordinance that we referred out was not the same as what it would be if these amendments all passed. Right. The committee referred out something that is very different from what will be heard in the later parts of this consideration, because of the volume of amendments being proposed in a single package. And I think that's that's not exactly fair. But it's also broadly that in committees where you can do the changing of direction, I think that's the better place to do it. I was asked by councilor Novick if I wanted to put up amendments to it. I drafted one, I prefiled it to get rid of the 200 foot requirement, because I think it's ludicrous to have guilt by association. And again, that's not in the, the ordinance or the the amendments today. It's in the the original code that is being altered in the first place. But fundamentally, the purpose of this is to help make a law that is not currently being used, which is why I'm not focused on changing it. Help take a law that's not currently being used and provide as much discretion as possible to try and use it to go after business owners, not traffickers, business owners, for things that might happen 199ft away from their their property. And, and, you know, when we have someone who comes up and testifies about it, and then they're accosted after they testify in opposition, that's a problem, right, for being a business owner. And I have a colleague who asked my motivation, who's also talked about how one of the most marginalized groups in Portland is business owners. And I think that's a fair point to raise. It is. And so if if there's going to be a change in direction, I don't think it's fair for me to say I'm going to offer this small amendment, and then it's a total change in direction. So that's why I haven't done that. But I think it's fair to say if we want to have a change in direction, we should go back to committee and do it. So that's that's my underlying interest here. I can debate the individual ones. If this motion fails, I'm happy to do that. I'll be I'll just divide them and go one by one because some of them are very good. I particularly I tend to support more of the ones from councilor. Pirtle-guiney. I also like a significant part of Novick five, but there's other ones in here that I think are pretty problematic. And we've had this conversation before, and I was hoping to have a conversation on the underlying before amendments. We're limiting what we could talk about because we not knowing the direction the council helps, would knowing the direction, the council would help me understand whether we're trying whether what the purpose is of amending something to make it better when it's just not good in, in my personal opinion. So that's that's what I was trying to get to. But because the amendment was allowed to be moved before we've been stuck in this. So anyway, that's the that's the rationale here. I would love to have consideration of it if I wanted to kill this just completely off and say, this isn't a real thing. It's not important. I wouldn't be proposing to refer back to committee. I'd be proposing to postpone it indefinitely. But because I do think there is merit to talking about this actual problem and addressing it in a way that addresses it and doesn't go after a different situation, because I do think there are plenty of tools that and I'd love to ask, when the ADA comes up, what other tools exist when there is a single property that is the nexus of so much of this? I'll just put that into the ether. But that's my rationale for the the motion.

Thank you, thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor. Morillo. Oh, sorry. Briefly colleagues, I will remind you there is still another item after this. And if we do not start the item by 9:00, we must move that to the next agenda and that's in ten minutes. So we are probably going to be moving into the next agenda. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you. I just want to say I have had to make the very tough choice of sending an ordinance back to committee when I was very certain, like fairly certain that based on the discussion at the dais, that I had the votes to get it done, but my algorithmic price fixing ordinance, I realized that day that there was a legal issue that made the policy not as strong as it should have been to serve portlanders. And even though it could have been an easy win that day, I made the choice to refer my policy back to committee for the good of the public. So it wasn't a cheap win. It did eventually pass, but I had to send it back to committee to fix the things that were wrong. And then it did come back to council and it passed. And I think it will do good. So when I say that I think this needs more discussion, I don't say that lightly. And I don't say that as someone who I've worked on a policy for months that I'm profoundly passionate about and had to make that tough choice, I think the issue here is that I don't just have issues with the amendments, and not just with the, but with the whole underlying code. I think that's correct. But if we're going to revisit the law, then we should do it thoroughly and we should do it right. It doesn't make sense for us to piecemeal this and to not do it, to not address all of the impacts that this could have on communities of color, on businesses that are not actually causing harm directly. And this is exactly what we're talking about here. This is the purpose of committee, which is to make sure that we are fleshing out those conversations and addressing them. The there are a lot of people that we have heard from, mostly in written testimony and to our offices, who are also experts on human trafficking, who have studied this issue extensively. And the committee, we discussed some of these things, but there were also, frankly, a lot of amendments that came out after committee, which means that we didn't have time to process them. And that's okay. I'm totally someone who has brought amendments last minute as well. But when you have about six amendments to process to code for code change, that is a that is a very substantial, I would say, and I have been chided before and told that if I'm making substantial changes to a policy that it needs to go back to committee to be processed. So what I'm hearing is, frankly, a lot of vibes based policy making around the three versus two. There is no evidentiary basis for some of these adjustments that we're making. We don't have analysis of these chronic nuisance cases that show what the right numbers are and why we are making those adjustments, other than we think it might have this impact. Maybe this is a good policy. It is an important policy, and it deserves due diligence. And so again, I say this truly as someone who understands the position that it is to send a policy that you care about, that you've worked on really hard back to committee. But I think that that is the right choice because there's just too much to process with this policy. There's too much drafting, and the amendments don't cut it either. But if it does come to that, I agree with councilor Kanal. I would also approve to divide the question on each amendment and have that discussion there so that we could draft it to its full capacity.

Thank you. Councilor. Morillo and councilor. Novick.

First of all, I thank you, mr. President. Councilor Kanal and councilor Morillo on the committee. I do not recall them saying that they had a list of amendments they'd want to make, except councilor Kanal had one to amend the underlying ordinance to eliminate the within 200ft and have it just be on the property. So it was not like they offered a bunch of amendments that were voted down. So I don't see why they think that we would benefit from further discussion in committee. As the amendments we're talking about today, they're pretty straightforward. They're not hard to understand. One of them is, instead of 2 in 90 days, 3 in 90 days, that softens the the proposal a bit. The others are instead of councilor. Pirtle-guiney is proposing that. Whereas the current law says that you can serve the person in charge by first class mail, she wants there to be personal delivery to the property. That is not a very complex proposal. The other. Another proposal is currently under the existing law. You can base the determination of whether something is a nuisance. Property is based on a police report and. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney and I decided that a police report should be that it should specify what the police report might say. This is not like we don't have a whole bunch of like big, long, complicated things. They're pretty simple things. And I do think that my colleagues do simply want to delay. I don't think they see any reason to think that sending this back to committee would make any difference. They don't like the underlying law. They don't like the proposal. That's not going to change.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor Avalos.

Candace Avalos: I think what we're saying is that there is plenty of written testimony, testimony from community emails we are all receiving from constituents our own experiences. That is what we are saying is the reason it needs to go back to committee. So there's your answer.

Thank you. Councilor Avalos colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. Keelan can we please call a roll on the motion to refer? Back to committee?

So yes.

That's.

A yes vote is to send the item back to committee.

Avalos aye, Morillo.

Smith absent. Kanal. I pirtle-guiney.

No, Ryan.

No.

Koyama Lane.

No.

Aye, Morillo. I Novick. No Clark.

No.

Green. Zimmerman. Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: I don't see him online.

Okay. Absent. Dunphy.

No.

The motion to refer the item back to committee fails with four yes votes, six no votes, and two absent.

Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: I move to divide the question of the amendment package into all of its subsidiary parts, and I will probably make a motion to divide some of them further, but I'm happy to defer to whatever order councilors Novick and pirtle-guiney would like to go in.

Okay.

Either one.

Yeah. Before we move on, I did promise the ADA if you would be able to answer that specific question.

I know it's late. I'll be very quick. I was surprised. Councilor Ryan, thank you for bringing that up. I was very surprised by that reference to catch and release. There is no one other more concerned about that than the district attorney's office. The district attorney's office every day, and justice in the judicial courts requests individuals be held, requests bail be made and filed, preventive detention hearings to hold people. The catch and release issues are squarely upon the funding of the jail and the jail beds open from the county. They are squarely upon the challenges for the defense attorney issues that are going on in the courts, and they're on the judicial decisions made in recog. So thank you for allowing me to to to speak on that behalf. I also want to there was one other question. I'll be very quick. This is not regarding one hotel. This is not regarding one motel. This is not regarding one specific part of the business. Part of the reason chronic nuisance works is because there are all these motels and other businesses that are doing the right thing. The vast majority are saying, we don't want this. We want to report this. We're spending money and resources to make sure this doesn't happen. And I just want to bring that up. Thank you for your time.

Thank you very much. Councilor Novick. Oh, I'm sorry, the motion to divide. Okay. There we go. Thank you. Councilmember quick.

I did want to speak to the motion to divide. I just wanted to say that given that it's 9:00 and councilor Koyama Lane and I have already agreed that we're going to work on an additional amendment. That means that we're not going to set to vote on these amendments and then send this to second reading next week. So I think it makes more sense for us to recess and take this up at the beginning of the next meeting.

I agree, it being 9:00 right now.

I can't.

Open up the next item.

We are not able to read the last item. So the these two are. It's too late. These two items will be continued and we are out of time so I. Information please just. Oh, they will be continued to. Before you. Yeah.

Before you adjourn the meeting.

Yeah, yeah.

You can suspend the rules with nine votes if you want to do the grant thing.

Let's do it.

Okay.

That's in the ordinance.

How do we move out of the item we're on?

Well, you just passed it to second. Okay. Just pass it on to.

The item is continued to the next.

So I will. Yeah. It's pending. So I will move to suspend the rules to allow.

Keelan is.

I'm sorry, staff was just released.

There you go.

Good try. We will get to it next time. Colleagues. With that, these items will be continued and we are adjourned.

Is that about her.

Thing being canceled?

She didn't seem terribly.