The record · Transcript
Council Session — 2025-11-20
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Session summaryEditor-reviewed
The Portland City Council reconvened on 2025-11-20 to complete agenda items carried over from the previous day's session, beginning with roll call. The body first took up a first reading of an ordinance amending business license code to allow sharing of select business license tax information with the Bureau of Environmental Services, with discussion covering the statutory basis for the change, the limited data elements to be shared, and confirmation that no one had signed up for public testimony; the item moved toward a second reading. The council then turned to a second reading of the Fiscal Year 2025-26 Fall Supplemental Budget (Technical Adjustment Ordinance), reviewing its history through committee meetings and a prior first reading. Discussion addressed use of the compensation set-aside fund, the city obligation reserve fund, encumbrance versus program carryovers, enterprise efficiencies, hiring freezes, and requests for additional resources for District One, including conversations about bottle drop facility funding. An amendment (Smith 2) proposing to shift funding sources was discussed at length before a vote occurred on it; outcomes of that vote and the subsequent vote on the underlying ordinance are recorded in the vote ledger. The meeting was adjourned, with council noting a recess the following week.
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Procedural markers in this session
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0 Good afternoon. It is 204. We're a little bit late, I apologize. And we are reconvening. I might have said adjourn last night. Oops. We recessed last night's meeting and we are reconvening to complete our agenda items from the meeting we began yesterday. We will reconvene the meeting. Rebecca, could you please call the roll.
1 Clerk? Here?
2 Green here.
3 Zimmerman here.
4 Avalos.
Procedural episode · turns 5–13
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5 Dunphy here.
6 Smith here. Canal. Ryan. Koyama Lane here. Morillo here. Novick.
7 Pirtle-guiney here. And I'll note that I believe counselors Ryan and Novick will be joining us at some point throughout the meeting. So, colleagues, we have two items in front of us today. Agenda items ten and 11. Agenda item 11 was originally listed yesterday as agenda item four. That was our consent item that was pulled off of the consent agenda for further questions and discussion. When something is pulled off of consent, it generally goes to the end of that day's regular agenda. Since we ran a little bit late yesterday, we weren't able to open that item. We have new rules that require nine votes to start a new non-emergency item after 9:00 at night. So we rolled that item over to today. Our precedent is to carry over an item to the top of the agenda. When it's something that has been pulled like that. So although it is listed second as number 11, I'm going to have us move into what was agenda. Item four is now agenda item 11. First, today I apologize for any confusion that might cause, but rebecca, could you please read agenda item 11 for us?
8 Amend business license law code to allow sharing. Select business license tax information with the bureau of environmental services.
9 Thank you. And you know what, colleagues, I jumped right into that and was remiss in not having us read our rules of order and decorum. I'm going to pause for a minute and have us do that before we start talking about agenda item 11.
10 Good afternoon. 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 wwe Portland 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're a lobbyist, identify the organization that you represent. Virtual testifiers should unmute themselves when the council clerk calls your name. Thank you.
11 Thank you. So, colleagues, we are in agenda item 11, which you may have in your notes from yesterday as agenda item four. This is a first reading of an ordinance. We generally don't have committee staff summaries. When something is pulled off of consent. But I do want to turn to councilor Smith, who pulled this off of the consent agenda, to just talk a little bit about why you pulled it off, anything that we need to know. And then we will look to our committee chair, councilor Zimmerman, for a committee chair report on the agenda item.
12 Thank you, madam president. Although I would like to have our cfo up here to have questions. And let me give you a little level setting on this. Thank you, colleagues, for enduring this. I requested that this item be pulled from the consent agenda because I felt that any time we consider expanding the city's access to private tax data or other private information, we owe it to the public to be clear on what the proposal does and does not do, and what problems we're trying to address with this policy. Assuming that lacking this information was an operational challenge in the past, how was this barrier previously addressed, and why is the proposed change preferred? So if you could kind of put a finer point on this, cfo jonas.
13 Yes, ma'am. Yes. Thank you, councilor, for the record council, jonas bury, the city's chief financial officer. So this item was one of a package of four kind of technical cleanup items to various sections of city code, all related to the revenue division as a package. These housekeeping adjustments ensure that the current city code aligns with recent changes to state law and or corrects inadvertent errors or omission from prior code changes, and so appreciate the sort of isolating of this one related to the private private data question as just a little bit of background on this specific item. So Oregon revised statute ors 31 4.835 places restrictions on sharing of tax return information by the Oregon department of revenue, and primarily that exists to protect taxpayer privacy. In 2024, the Oregon legislature adopted house bill 4031, which amended that ors ors 314. So that that rule, a set of rules around privacy, applies to local governments as well. And as mentioned, the intent of both the original ors and hb 4031, which extended that responsibility to local governments, is to protect taxpayer information which can be highly sensitive from an appropriate disclosure. So this code change would update our code to align with that statutory update regarding privacy, and I apologize. So this code change specifically in addition to aligning with that that requirement which which requires that we not that we keep that data private, this code change would allow us to share that certain elements of that data with bts bureau of environmental services, to aid with the compliance activities that bts performs.
14 And that was kind of troubling why it was going to be. Yes. And what were they using the information for, and what type of information is being used and what risks to taxpayers information is associated with this new change?
15 Yeah. So the so bts is required to conduct environmental. And I should note we do have staff from bts I believe on online and available to answer questions as well. But I'll give it I'll give it a shot. I did get some notes from them about this, so bts is required to conduct environmental, industrial, environmental surveys of Portland industries to remain in compliance with this federal and state regulations about conditions of the city's columbia boulevard wastewater treatment plant. Having access to certain pieces of information. And I'll talk about what those are related to business tax records allows us to quickly, accurately and consistently gather the information that they need to improve the customer service to industries to reduce regulatory and enforcement errors. It also helps facilitate making sure that those industries remain adequately and equitably regulated, and reduces risk of noncompliance. And ultimately, you know, failed or inadequate compliance can result in damages to the city's collection systems, treatment processes and surface waters. With regard to the information that's included, it's very limited. So the only information shared with bts is the business name, address, phone number and the industry code. And then further, bts is not allowed to share that information beyond beyond just the function of that that specific compliance requirement.
16 Okay. Excellent. Thank you for giving us that explanation. Madam president. I don't have any other concerns about this. I don't know if my colleagues do.
17 Okay. Before we hear any other concerns, councilor Zimmerman, is there anything that you'd like to share from committee?
18 Thank you.
19 I just appreciated that the finance team was able to bring. I apologize for not being there today. You guys. I'm under the weather, but the finance team has brought together this last meeting, and we have a few more of what I would put in the category of housekeeping items. And this passed out of committee, with all four present voting in favor. And I think it's just for me. And the way that it was described is, you know, aligning, aligning our own rules with the rules that we see at the state and federal level and staying up to date on anything with respect to privacy and making sure that all of our teams are in compliance. And as all of these different levels of tax governing bodies are changing, it's just a matter of of housekeeping in my mind. Thank you.
20 Thank you, councilor and councilor Ryan, just as an update, we are discussing agenda item 11 first, which was agenda item four on our agenda last night. This is the item that was removed from the consent agenda. Colleagues, are there any other questions or any discussion on this agenda item? Okay. And rebecca, have we had anybody sign up for public testimony since this was pulled from consent?
21 No one signed up.
22 Okay. This is a first reading. So if there is no other concern or discussion, we will move to a second reading. Anything else colleagues? Thank you, mr. Barry. Please don't go far. I think we'll need more of you today. With that, I would like to move us to agenda item ten. Rebecca, could you please open agenda item ten?
23 Adopt the fiscal year 20 2526 fall supplemental budget and make other budget related changes.
24 Thank you. This is a second reading of the ordinance. And colleagues, I want to just pause before we jump in, because we've worked through a lot on this ordinance. I want to start by framing up some of the conversations that we've had, just as a reminder for anybody who is watching, either here in city hall or online. The item before us today is the technical adjustment ordinance, or tao, where the city council adopts changes in and makes corrections to appropriation levels. In our fiscal year 20 2526 budget. This is a standard practice that we do at the city of Portland every fall. The finance committee first took up this agenda item on October 20th, followed by a work session of the full council on October 22nd. And given the many questions that councilors raised in that work session, instead of sending the item to full council, our finance chair made room in a new agenda for the tao to be considered in another committee meeting, allowing space for councilors to bring amendments forward to committee. That meeting occurred on November 3rd. The tao, then, of course, as we all know, came to full council for a first reading on November 12th, and there were several amendments debated at that time. As I said in my remarks on a different night, even when we disagree, we can and should appreciate the work that is put into showing up for our districts and their unique needs. And I want to thank everybody who has put work into really digging deep and thinking about whether there is a better way to close a budget hole that we're facing, or whether the staff recommendation should move forward. Council considered five amendments on November 12th, none of which received the votes to pass. And following much deliberation, we moved this item to a second reading, which is what we're here for today. As we move forward. If the tao passes today, it requires seven votes on a normal second reading, amendments would require seven votes. If, however, the tao is amended, we would need to pass it with nine votes as an emergency ordinance today, our rules require five days between an adopted amendment and final passage of an ordinance, unless it is an emergency ordinance. And as I suspect we may hear from our cfo and cbo director, they need us to pass this before the end of the month. I think we have staff prepared to answer any additional questions. I know often on second reading we move straight to a vote, but we were a bit rushed at the end of our meeting last time, so I want to make sure we have time for any additional questions. My hope, though, is that we can get this done today in one way or another, so that we can return to the robust work that's needed before budget conversations in the spring. I do want to be clear, though, before we get into that, that I recognize that there were a lot of concerns brought up around this town that were similar to some of the concerns that we heard during the budget process. We need time to sit with these proposals, and I know that there is a discomfort with the salary set aside that was in this recommendation. And so I just want to flag, mr. City administrator, that as we move forward today, it's my hope that if the conversation goes there, we can have conversations about how you'll make sure that the constraints needed are met so that we don't run into issues with our salary set aside later, and that we can keep on track for backing up the spring proposed budget to ensure that this council has enough time in the spring to do our work, and that we get clear information and options as early as possible as we work together on our budget work moving forward. We do have two amendments still posted, and I believe that we have colleagues interested in speaking to at least one of them. So although, as I said in a second reading, we often move straight to the vote, I'm going to pause and see if we have any councilors who would like to move amendments, or who have technical questions about the underlying ordinances for jonas and ruth, both of whom are here today, I want to make sure that everybody is as comfortable as possible with what we are considering before us as we move toward a vote today. If anybody has questions or amendments. Councilor Smith.
25 Thank you, council president. I don't want to move my Smith to yet. I want to have a conversation about it so that we can get an understanding of what is different from the previous five. Smith two. Actually, it keeps the tao whole in its current form, in which the mayor put it forward, but it does change funds. It changed $5 million coming from our city obligation fund going to the employees set aside fund now council president the employee set aside fund has $17 million in it. And the mayor took $14 million out of that fund to fund a hole in the tao. And I'm suggesting that we take $5 million from the city obligation fund and at least keep 8 million in the the city set the employee set aside fund. And the reason being is because that fund is for colas. That fund is for when our our public safety folks they they need overtime dollars. And if we take almost $14 million out of a $17 million fund, I think that is an egregious act. And that is the reason why I came up with Smith to as an alternative to the other amendments from the previous two days. I think that we have all made it very clear that we desire more collaboration out of the budget process. And I do want to thank cfo jonas berry and budget director ruth levine for working through difficult conversations with us in this past week and helping to identify the benefit from a fully resourced budget office and the need for more support and security for staffing is is my key motivation for this amendment. I think that the other piece that's new and different from the previous amendments, that it also takes $500,000 out to help and give additional support to district one. From from the perspective, we have been inundated with telephone calls, with walk ins, with people saying how bad the bottle drop is on 122nd and glisan, and how bad the security is for historic park rose. When we're dealing with grocery outlet, the dollar store, and with park rose hardware, we need some additional relief. Just as there is some relief given in this town. We do have new stuff in here. It is just not carry over money. This is an important time that we need to be able to help those in our districts. We have to have a 30,000 foot look at this. I mean, when when folks get swept in the central city area, they're swept out to our district. And so I don't know if people are accounting for that. So that's why I'm asking for an additional $500,000 to go to pmo. And then my amendment, it ends. And so I just wanted to have a conversation with folks to see how they felt about that. Because this is this is very important.
26 Thank you. Councilor. Colleagues, we don't have an amendment open, but we do have a question from the councilor. Councilor Ryan, are you hoping to speak? You look like you were unmuting.
27 I did, because I think it's a good conversation to have councilor Smith. And I'm glad the mayor is here, because I think you're going to be a part of this conversation. What you're talking about, I understand, and I think we have that also out at delta park area in district two for sure. As you know, I've been listening to storefront owners all across the city, and this comes up over and over and over again. I also know I've had dialog with the mayor about bottle drop, and the mayor's been diving into the details of this, so I think this is a good time to daylight some of those plans. So what I'm looking I want to say to you, I think you're absolutely onto something, both from a policy and an operational standpoint. And I'm I think getting it started somewhere would make sense as long as we're seeing it as a big picture plan. It's not just district one, but it goes around citywide. So I could see if there's if there's a way to do this financially. I could see a pilot starting mid-year. And so I'm I'm interested in hearing from you, mr. Mayor, if that's okay. Because you've talked about this with some of us about your dialog with the bottle drop folks. And I know way too much about bottle drop to be dangerous, and it still continues to fascinate me.
28 But there's two separate bottle drops.
29 Yes.
30 The one in my district and the one that's coming online that that the mayor is very intimately involved with. And I'm talking about the one on glisan and 122nd.
31 Understood.
32 Okay.
33 Yeah. I just want to make sure the dots are okay.
34 Mr. Mayor, would you like to address councilor Ryan's question?
35 Certainly. And been talking to the district one offices as well as your staff. We had a meeting earlier today. The timeline of the matter was with the new Oregon bottle recovery drop at powell. It was a new location, and we all had the experience to see how the neighborhoods can be impacted by this operation. And we see that in saint john's and how that business district in the hayden meadows area has been impacted. We didn't want that to occur on the new powell location. And so we spoke to the Oregon bottle drop and expressed to them that we needed financial support because this is a new facility. And without that financial support, the city, the mayor wasn't going to support that because we have to care for the neighbors as well as the bottles and the bottle return. They agreed. We also and I also was very clear I need them to address the 122nd glisan location, because that is a heavily impacted neighborhood. They have a grocers contract that is going to be discussed in q1, q2 of next year. So they've agreed to sit down at the table with us when those contracts come open to discuss that same sort of support for public space and public safety. We couldn't address it at the time regarding the powell facility, but we are going to open that discussion with brc senior leadership in a matter of months. So while I understand the $500,000 ask at this particular time, and we need public space and public safety support in all four districts, so it's difficult for me as the mayor to sit here and say we should focus on d1, which we should, but it should be for d2, d3, d4, because public space and public safety isn't a particular area, it's a citywide effort. And then as an aside, I did spend my weekend in d1. I met the owner of the grocery outlet and I specifically looked at the was checked out public space, public safety around that area, and I asked my irp team to come in and take some actions. I was in the gateway area on Sunday, driving through, addressing 112 and glisan and the gateway area in particular. And then yesterday I was at division midway looking and just making sure that we're providing the sort of care that d1 needs. I'm going to go back to, to punctuate this, and I'm going to answer a question that wasn't asked. I'm going to go back to just state that the the tau this particular moment is about a technical adjustment ordinance making changes right now without input. Community input isn't what I feel this is for, but I respect and will follow the spirit and the intent of the council as we move forward. But to finish d1 is as important as the other three districts, and we are making meaningful changes. And councilor Smith, councilor Dunphy, councilor Avalos. I am committed to being shoulder to shoulder with you as we revitalize that community for Portland as well.
36 Councilor Ryan, did you have anything further?
37 No. Thank you. We needed to hear the vision. And because you've been in the detailed dialog and you oversee basically the operations with the ca, so that was helpful. And what I heard is that you're not recommending this amendment in terms of this fiscal year, that you would like us to stay the course. Is that what I was supposed to hear out of that? There were other things to hear, of course.
38 Yeah. We haven't consulted the voices of businesses, community members on this amendment, as is our normal customary approach when passing these amendments and such. So that's what you hear is, is that the administration, the mayor, doesn't recommend this change at this time. But we hear d1 loud and clear, and we are going to work shoulder to shoulder to make sure that that community is being fairly represented in operations.
39 Okay.
40 Thank you, mr. Mayor. Thank you, councilor Councilor Koyama Lane.
41 Thank you, council president. And thank you to all my district one colleagues. I really appreciate that you keep talking about your district. I hope that you keep that up. The health of our whole city is intertwined, and it's important that we all are thinking about district one and lifting it up. Also, I want to thank councilor Smith for just the expertise that you bring around budgets and how you patiently will explain things to me and just help point out things. I think it's really important, and I'm glad that we have your expertise on this dais. I, I am concerned, I think your question was, what are our thoughts about this? I'm concerned about dipping into the compensation set aside or the comp set aside. I, I also I last few days was looking at different amendments. Where are other places we could take from. And you know, as I started going down that road, I started learning how tricky it is and how if you touch the general fund reserves, it triggers other things and you have to get permission to do that. And I have some concerns around dipping into a fund that will that supports our superfund work. So I am disappointed that we don't have some clear amendments that are a better place that we can take from from the compensation compensation set. Aside from what I'm hearing from our cfo and budget director, is that that seems like the least risky place. If you are able to explain that quickly, I would like to hear that again in like the most simple terms possible, I will say like, I don't, I don't love it. That's money we're setting aside for our employees. But right now I don't see any other real clear ways forward.
42 Yeah, again, for the record, jonas berry chief financial officer councilor, thank you for all the things you just you just acknowledged. I will agree that there is no easy option. There isn't a great option. If there was, this would not be probably wouldn't be sitting here after the hours we spent having this conversation. You are correct that as I city budget office, other folks who have sort of the responsibility for other funds as we do that assessment of all of those resources as we do in the budget process as well, but specifically right now looking for options to fill this one time fiscal year need. Indeed, the comp set aside was identified as the least risk among all of those options. And the reason for that is because for a couple couple reasons. One is we have time. We know we don't need to spend to expend that resource for a few months. Typically, it is there to be used later in the fiscal year as needed. We do expect that we will need some. Probably we'll need more than 3 million. And the reason that that's a least risk option is because we actually have tangible strategies, some of which are currently, in effect, the largest of which currently in effect, to intentionally recapture underspending specifically, personnel underspending to refill that bucket to an amount that we expect is adequate to meet the needs that will arise in spring. And so of all of the options, this is the single option or the best option that gives us a implementable pathway to fill that gap without doing harm. And by that I mean without stopping programs, without impacting staff today. So that's probably a longer answer than you want, but I, I want to be really clear that there's a lot of thought and assessment of those risks and impacts that goes into this recommendation. And so those are the kinds of considerations that we think about in making these recommendations. Council can choose otherwise. No question. This is council's authority to make a decision about where these dollars come from. As I've communicated previously finance committee previously at this at this council. My assessment as chief financial officer is that this is the lowest risk option for the city. As of November 20th, 2025, and council can choose otherwise and just recognize that that comes with a different set of risks that I believe is a is a higher level than what's been recommended. And I'm sorry, ruth, if you want to add.
43 Do you mind if I add just two things quickly? One is just for folks who might be watching. And because of some of the questions I've heard, I want to be super clear using compensation set aside in the current year to balance the tao does not impact anyone's salary. It will not mean somebody won't get a raise. It will not mean that just because it is called compensation set aside does not mean it has a relationship to anyone's salary. People are going to get paid the same regardless of where this comes from. So I just want to be super clear about that. For staff who might be listening. And. What would happen if if the tao were passed as filed? Is the mixture a mixture of bureaus, you know, needing to save? And we talked about how the hiring freeze is one avenue for for sort of generating some of those savings. And we will need to come back to council in the spring as we intend to anyways, because there's quite a few things that in the current year budget that we'll need to get cleaned up between the enterprise efficiencies things and other, you know, routine types of actions that happen in the spring, we would we would have some strategy that we developed with council to figure out how how do you sort of repoint those savings to the correct place at that point? It would also be possible for council to say, actually, we're going to draw from contingency from elsewhere or from another fund. And we talked a bit about how doing that in the spring is a little bit less risky than doing it in the fall, because more is known. Right. In the next six months, we'll learn more about what unfolds in the world. So that's just the the last piece I wanted to add to that.
44 Is there anything further?
45 I think you covered a lot of these other things. I was wondering, but I mean, the thing that I am holding on to is, is there a possibility that we get to the spring and we regret that we have? Not as much in the comp set aside? And it sounds like, yes, that might be possible, but we have some options around contingency that we could pull from in that case.
46 Right? I mean, I think, I think we it is possible, it is possible that we would need more than what is left in the compensation set aside come spring. I think that's likely. In fact, the question is what are the what would be the strategies at that point to be able to address that? And I think they would be first pull from underspending that's generated because of the hiring freeze and because of other savings directives. And look at contingencies and look at other funds, such as the one that's that's pointed to in Smith to.
47 Well, I don't love this. And you all have acknowledged that it's it's not ideal. And I also hear the importance of getting this wrapped up as soon as possible as we are heading into recess next week. And so I am committed to making sure that we pass something today.
48 Thank you. Councilor. Counselor Green.
49 Yes, thank you, madam president. Good. You're still up there, jonas. Ruth, I just wanted to ask a technical question about the Smith two potential proposal that has not yet been moved, but we're in conversation around it just to get an understanding of the mechanics and the citywide obligation reserve fund vis a vis the comp, set aside contingency. The way that I've been thinking, I mean, it seems like it's a loan. That's how I think about it. But how would you how do you guys think about it, I guess is the question I have.
50 I mean, I think the mechanics are not dissimilar from, from using compensation set aside, which is to say we would we would look to refill whatever we use to balance from corfe. If, if council went that route. I think there's a question of like, what's the time horizon over which you'd need to refill it? And we can have that conversation, but it's not a loan. Technically, I want to be clear that there's no like, interfund loan happening. It's general fund discretionary revenue. That's being that's sitting in court right now. And so it's just using that general fund differently from how it is currently budgeted. But council can choose to do that. So there's no like actual loan. It's different than saying like oh you know solid waste fund or something. We need some money temporarily and we'll repay it. There's no repayment. It just is general fund discretionary. It's just sitting in corfe.
51 And the one tweak I might add to that is and ruth, you mentioned this as well, but there would still be, I think, a risk related expectation that that fund continue to be refilled. So while it is sort of moved, we would want to continue kind of doing some work, in particular with city attorney's office and others to identify, you know, is it okay that that's moved and never comes back or, or do we need to continue to, to refill that? And so again, that's sort of a nuance of the different risk relationship around identifying use of that source versus one that, you know, we know is a bit more fungible at this moment, which is which is the comp set aside. Does that make sense?
52 It does. Yeah. And that's helpful. Like imagining just from a risk perspective, like the worst case scenario, which is like our strategy to refill either of the two concepts doesn't materialize. What would be the impact to our obligations if, if we didn't have the $5.5 million?
53 Yeah. So the so this is. I know I'm the attorneys are in the back of my brain, you know, pounding their drums about what I can and can't say or should and shouldn't. I think they may not know a lot, but the so in either scenario right there, I think the there is risk that there is not enough to refill to meet the need, whether it's refill compensation set aside or refill, this element of the corf. The the risk relationship in spring will be different. It's different for the corf, in large part because it may give us time to kind of continue to do that analysis and come back and say, so let's imagine we use comp, set aside the current proposal. We're $1 million short from what we need in spring. We can look at that point and say, is it worth now accepting that different risk to utilize the corf in spring, knowing we need to meet that comp, set aside obligation, and then figure out how we refill that additional million? Or is there another resource? Have we actually been able to capture underspending somewhere in the organization that we can utilize and not have to have any negative impact or draw on other resources? Is there a different contingency fund that we know we've held for a specific purpose this year? And now we can say, oh, actually, we can comfortably free this up or a patchwork of those. So those are the risk realities that will be different in spring, when we're at the end of the fiscal year and thinking about next year's budget, that we just don't have a lot of confidence in recommending without having risk of destabilizing other, other areas of the city.
54 Thank you that that helps clarify that for me, colleagues, just for the sake of the discussion, I'm not inclined to support the amendment amendment that may be proposed because in my view, it just kind of feels like it's swapping one, sort of I mean, this is going to sound like a pejorative, but it's like a kick the can down the road type of proposition. For another, it's both a risk proposition that we are taking on by not making cuts now. And they're in the same class. For me, reasonable people can disagree about what the risk profiles are and these two options, but my intention behind the support of the amendment last week was to sort of actually deal with some of those encumbrance carryovers up front now. So I won't I won't be supporting this. Thanks.
55 Thank you. Councilor. Counselor Smith.
56 Yes, thank you, councilor Green. And so I'm just wanting to remind you with the towel, since you said you didn't want that money taken out with the mayor's plan, he's taking 14 million out of the employee set aside instead of the 17 million. So he's taking a whole lot more than I'm trying to take out. And it doesn't make sense. Your your reasoning does not make sense to me. Because if you want it less of a if you want it to have more, more safety mechanisms for employees, then you would try to to support Smith Smith to so that we can take 5 million from corp. And you just heard from our cfo that said he doesn't know if we necessarily have to pay it back or if it's a loan. It is it is called the city obligation fund. And also understand something to this is not money that we need to pay for, because $3.9 million in the mayor's budget is going towards our risk fund, we are paying 3.9 million in a way that we have never paid before. Generally, when we pay off risk funds, we pay it over five years. So he's putting a big lump sum that he would not ordinarily put in just on the basis of all the all the settlements that we had. Normally it takes five years, so we have no reason to take 3.9. I think putting $500,000 in district one to put additional safety services in district one to deal with the issues that we're having right now, is more important than us putting that 3.9 million forward and taking it from the employee set aside funds. So for me, I have a different view of what that looks like. I appreciate your your your reasoning on that, but for me, I'm looking at the big toe because we should have never been taking 3.9 million. We should have never had to pay 4.3 million to prosper. That bill has been kicked down the road for for the last two fiscal years, and we're supposed to balance the budget. So yes, I'm really irritated right now because people are dying on the streets. We have people who are selling drugs, taking drugs, loitering. They're stealing from from people who live around that 122nd area. And we have people who are getting ready to move grocery outlet. Like the mayor said, grocery outlet is on the verge of just moving. They need us to show something not in the budget cycle. They need us to show something that we're doing new on top of, to say it's worth staying because the city is being a good corporate partner, and we're not being that to district one right now.
57 I you're a great orator, councilor. I might change my mind. If you move this amendment.
58 I might move it if you second it. I'll move Smith to.
59 Is there a second?
60 Second.
61 Okay.
62 Councilor Dunphy, you are next in the queue. Are you in the queue to speak to Smith to?
63 I actually am, yes. Thank you. And in the interest of time, I will also just say my broader comments. But speaking to councilor Smith's amendment, I'm going to be in support of this because d1 desperately needs help. There may be concerns about pulling from whatever fund, but I'm always inclined to vote yes for anything that's bringing responsive dollars and resources to east Portland. I have repeatedly said that I am not fighting to ensure that district one finally gets our fair share, which we haven't received for years. I'm not looking for 25%. I'm coming for half. If d1 succeeds, the rest of the city will be flourishing. I cannot adequately express the level of visceral anger and fear that my neighbors and district one share with me, sometimes quite unkindly so. Thank you, councilor Smith, for your partnership in fighting for east Portland. In every conversation. Broadly, this is my first fall budget adjustment vote as a city councilor, but it is the sixth fall that I have spent working in this building. I understand the desire to draw a distinction between the tao and a bump. The that this is intended for technical adjustments, not policy changes, that the accounting error of millions of dollars being on one side of the ledger versus the other. That is a technical adjustment. I get that, and the bump was always a robust conversation about changing policy and allocations. But in fairness, most of those years council was fighting over where to spend the extra money that we found as a surprise. I will say I don't feel good about supporting this package. I will admit that I'm not great with numbers or budgets like my colleagues councilor Smith and Green, but I cannot shake the feeling that we are robbing peter to pay paul. But I don't have an alternative, so I'm likely to support the underlying bill. But I'm not happy with about how this went. This this is a policy change. This is not a technical change. This is a policy choice to compensate for a lack of collections that we were expecting. And council was not given a choice. We were presented with an option, borrowing from the compensation set aside to cover the enormous budget gap in business license tax collections is a policy decision, and it comes with risks, and it comes with consequences for this body in the spring and worse choices in the summer, which is going to be a terrible experience regardless of process improvement. So I don't feel great about this. I'm going to be supportive of Smith two and will ultimately be supportive of the underlying bill because we have to move on with our lives, and we have tortured jonas and ruth and the budget team for long enough, but we've got to see something else next in the spring. We've got to see something different. And I appreciate my colleague's patience on this. And I also urge my colleagues to please help us in district one. We need help. Thank you.
64 Thank you counselor.
65 Colleagues, I may follow my colleague's lead, councilor Dunphy. And in in order to save time, give my remarks on both the amendment and the underlying right now, if that's all right, councilor Smith, I appreciate you digging deep and thinking creatively to find solutions for your district and for your concerns with the tao. I am not comfortable with the fund that these dollars are coming from. I think that the. I have not been able to get over the concerns I have about pulling money from that fund, so I won't be able to support the amendment, but I have heard the mayor talk a few times about the outside funding he has negotiated for the bottle drop in district three. And mr. Mayor, I'm I'm asking you today, once that funding is secure, because I don't want you to jeopardize that. I don't want to jeopardize support coming from the private sector for the needs of my colleagues. District. I'm asking if you would also, once that first bucket of funding is secure, find a solution to see if we can get a similar bucket of funding for the other bottle drops. Because district one is hurting, they are challenged in that area. There are challenges across the city and across districts, but district one around the bottle drop is challenged. And I will tell you, district two is also hurting and we have some amazing partners who are trying to revitalize the delta park area. Despite the bottle drop challenges at that location. And I know that extra help could be used there. So I'm I'm willing to say go to district one first on this, but please don't stop there. And this is my plea to you to try to find that same outside funding for the other districts. Councilor Koyama Lane, I want to thank you for asking about the the compensation set aside. And to jonas and ruth for your answers, specifically ruth, for speaking to the the clarity to our employees that using the compensation set aside today will not place in jeopardy their compensation for the rest of the year. I think it's really important to say that on the record, I shared many of the concerns that my colleague raised when I first saw this proposal and our budget team jonas, jonas and ruth. But ruth, your staff as well have spent a significant amount of time sharing with me a more extensive version of what you shared today to get me to a place where I could be comfortable using the compensation set aside in this way and councilor Koyama Lane. I think it was important to get some of those explanations on the record in a concise and clear way. So thank you for asking those questions. Mr. Jordan. I said previously in this meeting that if we're going to use the compensation set aside, we need to make sure that we meet the constraints that we are counting on for this to be the right decision. And so I am looking to you, and I know that part of the time it will be under a new city administrator. But I also know that you will have many turnover documents for them. So hopefully this is included somewhere in those. We must meet these constraints because I don't want to, as my colleague asked, if we might regret this decision in the spring. This is clearly the least risky decision decision. We can lower the risk through the actions that you are able to direct. So I hope that your dca's are taking that seriously and that the bureau directors are taking that seriously. So that so that we don't come to regret our decision in the spring. Colleagues, I know that the options before us today aren't pleasant or fun, and that there are many people who aren't quite comfortable with them. But I've heard over and over from our team that they are the least risky of all the risky decisions. For that reason, I will be supportive. I appreciate the work of our staff that went into bringing this proposal forward to us, and I look forward to the work in the spring of making sure that we really do have the the feedback from portlanders and the priorities that we've been working toward, clearly expressed in the budget. Thank you, councilor Clerk.
66 Thank you, madam president and colleagues. I'm sorry I'm not there in person. I also have some other medical issues going on. I just want to say a couple of things. I appreciate councilor Smith's persistence and her budget acumen. And I also appreciate the fact that the mayor spent time over the weekend in district one looking into the issue and that he's found outside funding. So I really appreciate those efforts. I am like councilor Dunphy. I'm no budget expert, so I would really appreciate us taking the time to walk through all these different funds in greater detail, or at least for some of us, before we dive into the next budget. I do have a question for I think it might be for jonas or maybe its legal team. I'm not sure. Could you just explain very briefly the this exercise and rebalancing, I think. Is it dictated by state law and is there a timeline and is there a penalty if we don't meet that timeline?
67 I can speak to it a little bit. So the. In general, it's state budget law has, I guess I would call it a suggestion for budgeting ending fund balance as beginning fund balance. I don't think it's 100% a requirement from a state budget law perspective, but linly can weigh in on that in terms of the the trouble, and I won't go into much detail now is because we've planned to do this. The it's really hard to stop now. So there are several just there are several. What I think of as truly technical adjustments in this technical adjustment ordinance that move, in some cases, significant dollars from contingency into operating expenses. And if that doesn't happen, those those bureaus cannot spend that money by state budget law. So that's the part where the timeline kicks in, because it really will have impacts on them and their ability to spend those dollars, because they legally cannot spend them without moving it into the operating expense. I don't know if you have anything else.
68 To add. Affirm that. I mean, the hard and fast rule under budget law is that once your budget is adopted in the spring or early summer, you may not make an expenditure, an encumbrance that's in an amount greater than what's been appropriated. So you end up having these, these entities that are waiting for money to come or have already made encumbrances on those funds, and they will not be able to spend them until this is passed.
69 So, okay, so it's a suggestion, but there are obligations is what I think I hear you saying.
70 Yeah, I think if the if council wanted to move in a direction where we no longer did this in the fall, it would take us a year to plan into that, but it would be possible. The county doesn't do it all the time, so it would be possible. But given where we are right now, it would create significant challenges.
71 Okay, I appreciate that, madam president. I'm just going to I don't want to address the amendment necessarily, but I do want to say that we need to pass this ordinance today, whether it's suggested under state law or or not. And I'm I'm definitely not comfortable in voting for this amendment and would hopefully we could proceed with passing the towel. Thank you.
72 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
73 Thank you, council president. I feel a little bit confused because I feel like I'm almost hearing different takeaways from my colleagues than what I'm understanding of what we're hearing from the presenters right now, because what I'm hearing is that we are still going to have to find cuts in the spring, and that essentially, right now we are being asked to trust that between now and the spring tor that the mayor and the administrator are going to find the necessary cuts and hiring freezes to prevent us from doing that in the spring, is that accurate? Or please help me if I'm misunderstanding.
74 Councilor. I'll answer that. That is not consistent with, I think, what we're intending to say. So so one option would be to do cuts right now and actually implement real cuts, reducing services or staff. This strategy prevents cuts specifically with a strategy so that when we come to spring, we also don't have to do cuts. That's the goal. That's the ultimate goal is to use the system that we have, the financial systems we have to bridge and identify, not cuts, but cost saving solutions, one of which is a hiring freeze, not a cut. Although there are certainly human impacts to that and other spending, you know, careful spending management so that when we get to spring, we're not having a cut discussion. I don't like the position we're in right now. I don't I won't like that position when we're there either. And I don't from a cfo position. I don't want us to be there. And so we're going to work really diligently with the city administrator, the incoming city administrator. I'll speak for myself, but I think I can speak for my dca's that we all don't want to be there. And so the goal is to avoid specifically getting to a situation where we have to do cuts this fiscal year.
75 Okay. Thank you for clearing that, clarifying that. I think I may have misunderstood what you were saying then with regards to counselor smith's amendment. I think it would be helpful to hear if you think that we've saved enough more, we've saved enough for things like the super fund, or if it forces a future choice where we have to refill it. Because I know that technically it's not a loan according to like financial and legal terms, but I'm just using the term loan for us laymen over here. Because I'm just worried about the long term impacts of that, or if we're just trading one one cost for another later down the line.
76 Yeah. Yeah, I'm I'm not legally qualified to talk much about I think the big picture circumstances related to to Portland harbor. But but it I think came up earlier this afternoon. I mean it is a risk decision right. Do we risk this comp set aside fund. Do we risk a different fund. And and again I think the advice or recommendation is that we might want to do a little more due diligence around that question and other questions related to the amounts that are in the core before really feeling comfortable, at least from the seat I sit in, that that's the best choice, and that might be a different a different equation. When we come to to spring. And again, I know that's not a super direct answer to your question, but it might be the best I can do.
77 No. That's helpful. So it sounds like there there isn't a lot of clarity about what the what it will look like if we end up passing councilor Smith's amendment. As far as the impacts of trading those dollars.
78 Yeah, I would say that we will still have to figure out what does that mean come spring either, you know, we are successful in refilling that, so to speak, or we're not. And then what is the trade off that we would have to decide in spring or in next year's budget to accommodate for that?
79 Okay. Thank you so much.
80 Thank you. Counselor. Counselor Green.
81 I just wanted to say that I there's a couple of us that are rejecting this idea that this is just a technical adjustment. It's not. It's for reasons that my colleagues have articulated. There have been political choices made. One example is there was a new program announced by Portland solutions called like the the basic sidewalk cleaning initiative. That's a new program announced in the recent months. And that relies upon, per the notes that we saw in the spreadsheet on the impacts of not approving the encumbrance carryovers that relies upon approving an encumbrance carryover from previous fiscal year. So that is a that is a choice to do something new. Okay. And and so I just I just wanted to name that because I, you know, councilor Smith, I think you're right to, to challenge this idea that we can't do something new and reprioritize our budget. I don't like how you're paying for it, but I can tell you right now, if you bring an ordinance before this body that finds $500,000 from these encumbrance carryovers for programs that are aren't going to be executed, because we've looked at that, too. We know that there is money there that you could cut without realizing any service delivery. I will vote for that, okay, outside of this context, but I won't vote for this amendment.
82 Councilor Smith, you're in the queue.
83 Thank you, madam president. I'm a fighter, just like my father and my son and my grandkids. And I will stand on ten toes on the need for that $500,000, because it is equally deserving to have a good look. And until somebody tells me something different, the last word that I remember that you said about carryovers, mr. Mayor, was that you instructed the bureau heads that they could not take carryover money this last year, that they were not to depend on any of these contracts, and that they should not go into hiring. They had a hiring freeze and they shouldn't have. Created new bills that would cause them. Because you have 18, roughly $18.3 million in carryover and forbearance. And the last word that I heard, and maybe you said something different to them, that now they can carry over money. But that's what I heard you say. And so that is what has gotten us to this point. Well, if they're able to get that money, I didn't get my $14,000 back because I had $14,000. It's a small amount. I didn't ask you for it back. I knew it goes to the general fund to help pay the the gap or to build up the new beginning balance for fiscal year 26. And I'm not going to ask you for the $14,000 back, but I am going to ask you for my $100,000 back that councilor Novick so conveniently tried to take away and did, but that's another story. But for now. I think we're equally deserving. I really do. And maybe you changed it. Did you change direction to your bureau heads? Why are you allowing them to to carry this money over? That's all I'm saying.
84 Thank you. Counselor. Anything further?
85 I just want to answer if. Are you saying that you did not give new direction?
86 And. Yeah. Apologies. Because. Yeah.
87 I was talking to the mayor because he had to give the bureau heads who report to him, not to y'all.
88 To report to me. Councilor.
89 And you report to the mayor and he gives you direction. So I'm just trying to figure out, did you give new direction and tell them that they were now able to get their carryover money? The encumbrance and carryover money? Because all of this is not encumbrances.
90 I'm going to let.
91 Yeah. Maybe bruce will be is the technician. But I think councilor We're talking two different.
92 I think a philosophy I don't. I know what you're going to say, jonas. And trust me, I don't want to, I don't I don't want the answer from you. I want from the people who give the direction, who gave the original direction to the bureaus to say, you cannot take any carryovers, you cannot create new bills. And we're going to put a freeze on hiring last year, this, this past year. So when did that direction change? Because we got $18 million in the towel. That allows them to take their carryover and forbearances ones that they approved valid. And some of them they didn't approve valid. So I'm just asking did you change the direction.
93 And I don't think we're really talking about carryovers as much as we're talking about underspending.
94 The underspending and the forbearance.
95 Right? The underspending is a matter of those bureaus performing within the constraints of their budget, which is a positive. And then the main point and question that we had and we talked about was public safety. They were doing well at reducing overtime to where they had an unexpended 2 million. And we wanted to promote fiscal responsibility, our core value, by using those funds to then use and fund the new year. But as a wholesale standpoint, we didn't plan those underspending to go to each one of the respective bureaus. We wanted to aggregate those and help fund an already difficult. Challenge environment that we were experiencing. So we weren't trying to encourage or entice carryovers for those particular budgets.
96 Yeah, and if I can help supplement that and ruth maybe can help too. I think we're confusing and conflating two different types of carryover.
97 But it was put in one amount.
98 Direction was around program carryover. The tor addresses encumbrance carryover which are two different elements that are not necessarily connected. And ruth can can maybe talk technically about what those mean.
99 Yeah. I mean and we've talked a bit about this, but we historically program carryover is have had more scrutiny than encumbrance carryovers because they are less connected to the original intent, sort of of the the money from council and the it's sort of one step further away, right. With the program carryover. You're saying, well, we didn't do this this year, so we're going to try to do it next year. And then we're trying to be really careful about you know what. What are you why did that change. What happened. These are more intended to be we got started. We encumbered the money. We had it under contract. And now we're completing that contract. Now we can, you know, there can be reasonable disagreement about the extent to which we should allow encumbrance carryover. And I fully look forward to having that conversation with council. But that that is the distinction. And the original guidance from the spring was specific to those program carryovers.
100 Right. And I, I don't want to extend this meeting any longer than I really need to because as council Morillo will tell you, her staff went through a an exercise of what was a true encumbrance and what was just a carryover, and then that would begin to talk about Morillo one. But I'm not going there. But I just want to make clear that all of that $18 million that y'all have in in the encumbrances, it is not all encumbered, okay? It is not. And I don't want to get in that fight. We fought that fight a couple of days ago, but I just wanted to go on record with the mayor to see if his if his direction was being followed or if people were just putting stuff in against your direction. I'm trying to help you out, sir. Well, but anyway, I, I get it, I understand it. I know we need to do this, and and I don't have any more council president. We can take the vote.
101 Okay? We do have two more people in the queue, but maybe that'll move three more in the queue. Councilor Ryan.
102 Thank you, madam president. I agree with the spirit of the amendment that you've raised. Councilor Smith. My question and answers from the mayor and the summary from the council president affirms my decision to vote no on the amendment. I support the plan the mayor outlined. And I do think leading with the one is wise. And, please, the delta park area in d2 has been suffering for years as well. As you know, I want to acknowledge that this has actually been a really thoughtful process. And councilor Dunphy's right. There were many years where this was about people coming into the council chambers asking for new money, and that's more enjoyable, but it had its headaches as well. The easiest ones are when there's when it's more like the the budget is pretty crisp and clear and clean. And I think last year was one of the closest to that. And so that's why it was a 15 20 minute item. I kind of thought this year was a bit similar. I respected that we decided not to focus on cuts. Now, you explained that that was hard for me to understand. I thought that we could try to prepare for that, but what it allowed is the testimony to show up from the community. And it was really powerful. People came with very different perspectives. Yet there was one thing in common they were all compassionate for fellow portlanders. Your love of portland's appreciated, and I honored it. And it was really exciting to see that type of dialog. And it wasn't just one sided, like sometimes it is when we have people coming in asking us for money. So there was a chance to do some really solid debate. And I think today we need we have a pin in what we need to talk about for the the upcoming budget for 2627. I think we got a really good sneak peek of it today. I think we need to stay the course and continue to implement the recently adopted budget we just adopted in June, and I want to thank the public servants who are on the ground daily doing the work for Portland. And I do believe it's important for us not to disrupt that and have more fits and starts. So thank you for your patience as we sit up here and try to figure out what's best for the city. So I will be supporting the tao. Thanks.
103 Thank you. Councilor councilor Morillo.
104 Thank you, council president. I'm sorry to keep kind of coming back to this, but I just want to make sure I'm fully grasping it before I'm going to cast my vote. So it's my understanding that neither police or fire are going to be subject to the hiring freeze. And from what I've heard, nothing has been done right now to enact any enterprise efficiencies. So at best, it seems like the hiring freezes will back those enterprise efficiencies. And the money that was taken out of the adopted budget. There's nothing here to actualize savings. So the hiring freeze in the general fund bureaus will be needed to cover the cuts that have already taken place, and police and fire both of those bureaus have recently hired new staff. So I'm just really struggling to understand how this tau is going to actually pencil out in the spring. Given all of those factors.
105 Councilor answer couple questions. And, ruth, if you want to add more detail, that'd be great. But so public safety I think is a little bit well, let me back up. The objective is to achieve savings. And so the challenge with at least the kind of sworn elements of public safety is that without the kind of personnel, there's often an overtime trade off, which is actually counter to the savings objective. And so that I just that's it's obviously more nuanced than that. But that's sort of the basic math around the public safety question. I also want to acknowledge that there is action, very lively action on the enterprise efficiencies that takes time to implement, as we communicated, it would in in June and July. And so I just want to be clear, particularly for the folks who are impacted, who are both doing the work to identify those efficiencies and who will ultimately probably have their programs in potentially positions impacted by those efficiencies that are implemented in the budget, that there is a lot of work going on and it hasn't yet kind of it's been on the edge of rising to to the level here. Obviously, we're executing the communications element of those enterprise efficiencies in this tau that is included. So I just wanted to kind of state for the record that that there is a lot of activity going on around how we operationalize the enterprise efficiencies that were in fact codified in the current year budget. And, ruth, I don't know if you want to add more on that.
106 No. Just to say that on the enterprise efficiencies, I do expect that in the spring tau, we would have to kind of, regardless of this compensation set aside, that we would have to come back to sort of shift the places where that was budgeted from across bureaus, because when we implemented those in the budget and the proposed budget and the adopted budget, it was sort of a placeholder in terms of how they were distributed. And we don't necessarily expect the savings and the the position changes to exactly align with each bureaus allocation from those enterprise efficiencies. And so we fully expect to come back to council both for the 2627 budget, but then also to correct it for the current year's budget to say, okay, here's where the positions were reduced, here's where positions were moved and align the current year's budget to those amounts. So I do expect that would would take place with council.
107 Okay. Thank you counselor.
108 Anything further? Councilor Koyama Lane.
109 To the amendment that is on the table. When I first heard about it, it felt like a for sure. No go for me because it touches the superfund project. And then my team dug into it a bit more and talked to some of you all. And I was moved a bit on this because you all were able to explain to them that this is kind of the the next, less risky option. Can you, in a very simple way, explain in just a couple of sentences why exactly this one's this is like a the second.
110 Less risky option. Yeah. So the so essentially there's just I'll say less perfect information or less information to two reasons. One is there's less sort of confidence in the need for that, that the amounts that are in the fund. So because there's less confidence and we may have more confidence later in the fiscal year, it's a little bit less risky. The other I think reason is that, you know, we essentially know that we're not going to need the comp set aside dollars between now and when that adjustment occurs later in the year. So we know we have the benefit of a little bit of time.
111 Do you want to say something, ruth.
112 Just in terms of the corf, I think the general fund discretionary that's in there right now has been added to it over a period of two years, because we knew with the knowledge that this is a multiyear process, as we talked about, I think, last week, in terms of, of. The yeah, what's going on with Portland harbor and. And therefore and there is an ongoing amount from the general fund and so that this would only touch sort of a portion of what has already been contributed to that. And then that would leave the ongoing amount. And so it would if nothing else happened, it would automatically kind of refill itself. The question is, do we need to refill it beyond that amount. And then. Yeah, so that's that's kind of the explanation of why that money is sitting there.
113 Thank you. That was very clear.
114 Councilor Smith.
115 That was a a legacy hand.
116 Okay. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue. We will vote on Smith to the proposed amendment.
117 Clark.
118 No.
119 Green.
120 No.
121 Zimmerman.
122 No.
123 Dunphy, I.
124 Smith I.
125 Ryan.
126 No.
127 Koyama Lane.
128 Yes.
129 Morillo I.
130 Pirtle-guiney.
131 No.
132 And the amendment fails with 4i5 no. And three absent votes. Okay.
133 And colleagues, I didn't want to interrupt conversation. To note earlier, councilor Novick has tried to join and been on and off the meeting. I'm not sure if he's on at this point or not, but he has been trying to listen in to as much of this as possible. Colleagues, that moves us to the underlying ordinance. The tao on second reading, I think many of us spoke to the full tao as we spoke to the amendment, and I am not seeing anybody else in the queue right now. So if no one else joins the queue, we will move to a vote on the tao. Councilor Zimmerman.
134 Thanks, I appreciate that. My question is actually to the staff that are there given if this tao passes, are you able to preview? How you think you'll you'll roll out the spring tao in terms of one the direction that will be given out to bureaus, but two the. I guess the prep work with the council offices. And just in that both the philosophy, the actuals and getting us up to speed.
135 He went back to nrdc.
136 Oh, that's right, I got.
137 Very nice.
138 Great councilor, thanks for the question. I think it's maybe a little difficult to answer, given kind of how fresh this moment is. And obviously learning a lot about expectations and processes. So I think it's difficult to sort of lay out what that process and timeline might look like in, in detail in this moment, but we'll say confidently that we'll, you know, hear loudly the sort of need to have more robust interactivity, more clear and coordinated communication with council and a little bit more kind of opportunity to have both information sharing between between us and and dialog prior to having something submitted. So I can't speak to sort of the details, but but can acknowledge certainly we will be working and look forward to working with council to identify how to optimize that pathway.
139 Yeah, I appreciate it and I look forward to working with you. Thank you jonas. That's all madam president.
140 Thank you councilor. Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue for debate. Rebecca, can you please call the roll on the underlying ordinance? The tao?
141 Yes, councilor Clark. I Green.
142 Hi.
143 Zimmerman.
144 I people.
145 Dunphy with deep reservations. I vote I.
146 Smith I.
147 Ryan I.
148 Koyama Lane I.
149 Morillo I think equally with some concerns about what's going to come for us in the spring.
150 I Novick.
151 I the mayor.
152 Pirtle-guiney I.
153 The ordinance passes with ten votes and two absent.
154 Thank you. And jonas and ruth, thank you to your teams for preparing all of the information that we needed. I know there were a lot of questions through this process. Colleagues, that is the final item on our agenda. So with that, I will adjourn our meeting. And as a reminder, while my mic is still on, next week is a recess, so there won't be a council meeting.