The record · Transcript

Council session — 2026-04-22

Transcript from the session's official auto-captions (26,664 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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And there we go. Good morning. I am calling back to order this meeting of the Portland city council. Can we please call the roll?

Kanal here. Pirtle-guiney. Good morning.

Here. Good morning. Threw me off.

Koyama Lane. Here. Aye, Morillo. Here. Novick. Here. Mark. Here. Green. Here. Zimmerman. Pavlo's Smith.

Dunphy here. And can we please read the rules of decorum?

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.gov/agenda. Information on engaging with council can be found on the council clerk's web page. Individuals may testify for three minutes unless the presiding officer states. Otherwise, your microphone will be muted when your time is over, the presiding officer preserves order disruptive conduct such as shouting, refusing to conclude your testimony when your time is up, or interrupting others testimony or council deliberations will not be allowed. If you cause a disruption, a warning will be given. Further disruption will result in ejection from the meeting. Anyone who fails to leave once ejected is subject to arrest for trespass. Additionally, council may take a short recess and reconvene virtually. Your testimony should address the matter being considered when testifying. 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. We already approved our agenda yesterday. So first item this morning is public communications. Please call the first person up.

First up we have noelle spivak.

Welcome. Good morning. Feel free to introduce yourself. Feel free to share your pronouns if you'd like. And you got three minutes.

Good morning everyone.

My name is noelle spivak. I use pronouns and today I'm representing myself as a cully. I'm a resident in district two. I want to wish you all a happy earth day. And I was reminded that the first earth day 1970 was really inspired by the apollo mission, and seeing those photos of earth that were beamed back to to the united states. And I was inspired by the artemis two mission that just took place. And seeing those photos and, and it was just so satisfying to see competence on display from the federal government at that time. And, and I was also inspired by a couple films I saw with my 12 year old recently. One was project hail mary. Some of you may have seen that. Really great to see again, like how special it is that we're here on this wonderful planet together, and also how so many people came together with so much intention, such focused mission to make something impossible happen. And the other film that we saw recently was f1. This is a brad pitt film that there's this scrappy group of car designers, etc. And they go up against the biggest teams in formula one racing, and again, they're coming together trying to get over their egos, to really put it all on the line and make something impossible happen. Of course, this is hollywood. We've got two like blond, flawed heroes here, but I feel like these things have in common, like just really showing people coming together and doing really impossible things. And I feel like here in Portland, we also have a major hail mary moment. We have multiple interacting wicked problems. And kudos to you all. And for everyone who's showing up through these budget hearings, just showing how much you love and care for the people in our community. Not easy by any means. But because these things are kind of interacted, it might mean that we have some opportunities for multi solving. And that's kind of what PCEF is all about, raising up economic opportunities for folks who are most impacted and really driving down our carbon emissions and making sure that people have the protection that they need going to the future. I've got 35 seconds left. Basically, what I want to say is there's no gap analysis going on. There's no one in charge like looking for where we are missing the picture. There's no like comprehensive plan for retrofitting our city for the years to come. And I think that it's time to do that. And we need to get everyone together across jurisdictions, across sectors, and really start to figure out who's in charge of doing what and putting those teams together so we can start using resources more efficiently. And I'll put the rest in writing. Thank you so much for your time and have a great day.

Thank you so much for being here this morning.

Next up we have lydia kiesling.

Good morning.

Good morning. My name is lydia kiesling. My pronouns are she her, and I'm a resident of district three and a member of Portland dsa. Last month, a uk based group called movement research unit led a workshop for our members about the shipment of American weapons and weapons technology overseas. During an informational session on how to use public data, we learned that a local company has made multiple shipments of ai ai based drone technology to elbit systems in israel from Portland, with a stop in new york city. Elbit supplies military drones to the israeli government, which has used them to murder literally unknown numbers of civilians in gaza and to pursue illegal and dangerous wars of aggression in lebanon, syria and iran. This company is called sightline intelligence, and it is located on the waterfront right off mcadam. When you look at their website, it is horrifyingly clear what kind of technology they provide. These are tools meant to zero in on human targets, on people and groups of people, images of human beings with little squares over them, with labels giving the percentage probability that they are civilians, a percentage arrived at by an algorithm whose logic will never be known to us. This technology is part of the nexus of violence that has enabled the murder of doctors, journalists, aid workers, teachers, veterinarians, shopkeepers, mothers, fathers and many, many thousands of children, including the brother of a district four resident. In 2024. Closer to home, sightline intelligence also has a contract with customs and border patrol, the same agency that murdered alex peretti in minneapolis and has killed 366 other people in the us since 2010. Six of the councilors sitting here today have made a public commitment to investigating our city's complicity with genocide, whether as a hub for weapons manufacture or as a transport site. All 12 of you should wonder how our city might be connected to war crimes around the world. There is a moral imperative to discern whether our local companies are using shadowy ai tools to profit from genocide in gaza, ethnic cleansing in the west bank, war on iran, or the kidnaping of our neighbors by federal agencies. But there are also local questions that fall within your purview. For example, is sightline intelligence receiving local tax breaks to export violence around the world, or to help our government brutalize immigrants? You'll see. I'm holding a photo of the OHSU aerial tram. As shown through a drone scope. An image from a sightline intelligence promotional video. How did they get this image? Do they have permission to fly their drones on city property? Are they using the movements of portlanders to train this software to make that calculation of civilian or otherwise? I do not consent to have my body or the bodies of my children used to create technology that will slaughter other people's children overseas. I'm asking this council to use the tools at your disposal to look into sightline intelligence and to ensure that not one penny of public money, one inch of public space, or any public resources are being used to carry out this immoral work. Thank you.

Thank you so much for being here this morning.

Next up we have casey r. Casey are. Next, we have kate calvert. Kate's joining us online. Kate you're muted.

I'm sorry. Good morning. It's kate calvert. I live at 7417 north huron avenue. And I'm going to address the questions neighbors still have for the six unit infill housing you have proposed on 7416 north huron avenue. The proposed development is on a narrow, substandard and already crowded street. It is adjacent to an unimproved roadway, north oakland with no sidewalks. Both roads have high pedestrian usage by children under the age of 16. Thus, the proposed development raises safety questions. Further review is needed before the city can improve approve permit application, which will result in increased traffic. We requested that the Portland bureau of planning and sustainability work with PBOT to require a developer to conduct a transportation impact study to assess the adequacy of transportation infrastructure to safely support this six unit cluster. The study should at minimum, investigate the impact of adding additional parked cars, assess whether the existing road infrastructure of north huron, us can safely support the anticipated growth document and quantify pedestrian patterns at various times of the day, especially with children under the age of 16. Assess current street parking availability and predicted parking demands of the six unit cluster. Investigate whether the access to the proposed project site is sufficient for construction vehicles without reducing safety on the block, and gather information regarding safety, parking and sidewalk access needs for the residents with disabilities and propose a plan to ensure they are addressed. We have asked. We have. Have you what have you done? Specifically, council president Elana pyridyl, via your response to me on Monday, April 13th to see if there's anything we've done and I quote, to see if there's anything we've done in other neighborhoods that may help ease tensions here. Has any of this been done? Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up we have jack dickinson.

Good morning.

All right. Hi. My name for the record is jack dickinson. I'm going to actually start. We've got a video queued up that we're going to play about 23 seconds of. If you want to go ahead and roll that.

We're getting it.

Yeah. No worries, no worries.

Look at back here for example. Look at back here. Let me show you. You see this back here. You see who that is? That's the chicken. That's the chicken. This guy has communication with the city of Portland. Look at them back there making sure everything is going according to plan. He's probably on the phone talking to the the city officials, you know? Yeah. We're doing a good job here. Ice is out here. But you know yeah, we're standing. You know we're holding.

Thank you. So if you're confused, let me help paint a little bit of context. So if you recall back in October, this body passed the protect Portland initiative and codified our sanctuary policies. That was done in a relatively late session that went on long after that happened. A bunch of people stepped out into the hall and there were photos taken, one of which I was in, kind of stretched out with the chicken suit. That was the photo that was posted to the city of Portland instagram page, as well as, I think, a couple other places. And that has been the entire basis for this conspiracy theory that I'm some connection between the antifa terrorist cell and the city of portland's corrupt officials. Let me talk about a less humorous instance of kind of what I'm here to talk about. So there's a pastor that's been involved both during the daytime and down at night at the ice facility, involved during the day to help provide know your rights, information involved at night to kind of provide a de-escalating, but, you know, resilient presence. There has been a series of videos that have been a series of escalating videos about her that have basically linked her, tried to link her to child trafficking, to running an underground railroad, all in connection with tina kotek. Her church was doxxed, except for it wasn't actually her church. It was someone else's church that was doxed. I don't know if they've corrected that, but like, that's there's a pattern here and I'm, I'm not here today to ask you to do anything specific. I just want this to be something that you are all aware of for a couple reasons. One, this is a real threat I'm not talking about just to me or to, to the pastor or to any of the people that are involved in this, but to the city, because this is the same kind of playbook that was used to get a surge of federal agents into minneapolis, kind of this vague notion of a connection with city officials with some sort of activity. I also want you to be aware of this just because if something does happen, whether it's a church's attacked or an individual is attacked, I don't want, you know, officials to be unaware that this has been happening. I don't want the response in that moment to be, oh, why didn't you talk to the police about anything we did, like we've been dealing with with this for a while. I want you all to be prepared and ready to act in case there's a moment where there's political will. And I also just want to point out that these individuals are largely empowered both by the actions of of federal agents, but also by our inaction. And so just something to be aware of. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

All right. I'm going to see if the alternate is here. Mark sherman. Mark sherman all right. That completes communications.

Thank you very much. Thanks, everybody for being here this morning. As we regularly do, I'm going to turn to city administrator lee, see if he has any updates regarding our response to the federal interventions in the city.

Thank you, council president. There are no new updates today for this meeting.

Sounds good. Can we please. Oh, we are early before the time. Certain. So can we please read the consent agenda?

No items were pulled from consent. I'll call the roll. Kanal. I. Pirtle-guiney aye, Morillo. Ryan. Absent. Koyama Lane. I Morillo I Novick. I mark I Green Zimmerman I. Smith.

I Ryan is here.

I thank you, councilor Dunphy. I the consent agenda is approved with 11 yes votes and one absent.

Sounds great. Colleagues. Well, we have a time certain starting at 950. It's 948. We have to wait. 90s.

It wasn't tough.

Yes, we actually have to do this. I apologize, it's okay. We are certain it's going to start at 950. I know.

I thought councilor Novick would tell us a joke.

Steve Novick: I keep on telling you guys. I only make jokes in response to something. When there's silence, I'm helpless.

Yeah, his jokes are contextual. Okay. A caveman and a bear walk into a bar and the bartender says, what's the what's the deal here? And the caveman says, bear with me.

Are.

And then later the bear comes back to the bar and says, hey, I'd like to have a drink. And the I'll have a beer. The bartender says, why? The big pause? And he goes, because I'm a bear.

Oh.

I know, I know. Councilor it's 950. Can we please call item number six?

And your name is.

Yeah.

All right. Item six, document number 2020 6-105. Re-appoint. Member to the historic landmarks commission for a term to expire August 2nd, 2030.

Thank you colleagues. We have I believe claire adams from council. No I don't no no no council report. We are just going to move directly into staff presentation on this. I believe we have. Is it stacey. No. Aye, Morillo stacey monroe from planning and development. Take it away.

One second. Adam.

I have to join the meeting.

Adam. Thank you for wearing that vest. I didn't see you.

Thank you for noticing. I was worried you wouldn't. Adam, for the record. Sorry. Thank you.

Yeah. Something. Something about a rainy morning. I think we're all just going to have a good day today. Right.

Blazers win.

Yeah. The blazers.

That's what I that's that's definitely why. That's definitely why I'm in a good mood. I definitely watched that. Oh I didn't I didn't I didn't.

Watch it.

I'm lying. Perfect.

Great. Thank you. Good morning.

And before I'm jumping ahead of myself I want to also very quickly this this item originally was heard at the. At councilor, Novick and Morillo committee. I want to see if you had any opening comments on this, or we can just turn it over to stacey.

I think this will be a landmark day.

See, that's the otp.

Wanted.

I can't top that.

Great. Wow, that's hard to follow. Good morning.

Good morning.

Stacey monroe with Portland permitting and development design historic review team. And I'm the liaison to the historic landmarks commission. To the right of me is peggy moretti. She is the current member that is up for reappointment today. As previously mentioned, this item did go to the climate resilience and land use committee on March 12th, where the committee recommended approval to city council. I'm going to share a little bit about the historic landmarks commission. They provide leadership and expertise on maintaining and enhancing portland's historic and architectural heritage. They're also decision making body and an advisory body to city council. They provide advice on historic preservation matters and coordinate historic preservation programs within the city. They actively participate in the development of design guidelines for historic districts. There are seven members on the commission, all with an interest, competence and knowledge of historic preservation. Every year, they create a state of the city preservation report, and since 2009 they presented it to council. More recently, they presented it at their hearing on March 30th. And I have copies of the presentation. I can provide council offices a link if you're interested in in watching that presentation. Peggy. She's amazing. She brings a wealth of experience and expertise to the commission, and we hope that she continues to do so. For another four years. She's been serving on the commission, as I mentioned, since 2022, and she's currently the vice chair. She's a retired executive director of restore organ. And under this position, she has gained a deep understanding of issues around historic preservation, including the many challenges, technical, financial and regulatory that face those engaged in the preservation work. She has two other active memberships, both on track the development review advisory committee, where she works to increase the understanding and collaboration between these two groups. And she's also on the board of directors of the bosco milligan foundation architectural heritage center. With peggy's reappointment, her term will re-up in August and will run through August of 2030. With this reappointment, all seven positions on the landmarks commission will be filled. We appreciate your support and considering this recommendation. And peggy is here, of course, for any questions, and I'm happy to answer any as well.

Thank you, thank you. Keelan has anyone signed up for testimony on this?

No one signed up.

Okay, colleagues, any council discussion? Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Yeah, I just want to say a couple words. Peggy. You're amazing. I agree with you. I've had the pleasure of appointing you last time and working with you, and you've really been a resource and you've educated me so many times on little issues. I can't walk by a historic property and not think of you seriously. You've made an imprint. So thank you for your service. Thank you for understanding that we deserve nice things and restored properties. It's heritage and I appreciate all that you do and also how broad you take that lens. Thank you. Yeah. You've been very consistent about the equity lens when you look at this. So thank you. I really appreciate you and thanks for your service to our city.

Councilor. Ryan councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thanks so much for stepping up. Peggy, I appreciate your willingness to serve in this volunteer capacity. I'm curious for the members of the RFP now. Sunsetted climate resilience and land use committee. I'm curious from the members, was there any discussion about the trade offs with historic preservation and making this a city where we can add more capacity so more people can live? Because that's an issue. So I'm curious to know if that came up in the conversation.

I don't know this specifically, but I think that we had some such discussion, and I think that we felt that peggy's background and her and her diverse background can confirm that she is aware, she is aware of those trade offs and that she'll. Peggy, you can pipe up on this, but my feeling is that I just got back from europe that you will take into account the views of those who might think that nothing less than 600 years old is historic, and those who think that something that's 40 years old but has significance is historic.

Yeah, I guess I'll say I would love to hear from you. What would you say to someone like me who's like, just really worried that design, review and historic preservation has gotten in our way of, of building the capacity we need? Thanks.

Well, I.

Appreciate the question. And, and it's one worth asking. I, I want to make it really clear that preservation is not about freezing things in amber and that every old thing isn't precious. The the landmarks commission always operates from the standpoint of analyzing the public benefit and the balancing act of that. I think it's important to start maybe adjusting one's lens or one's preconceptions about what preservation is aimed at, to think more in terms of how do we steward valuable assets intelligently, and how do we look at building reuse as a central tenet towards creating housing and reducing emissions and retaining cultural heritage, not just architectural heritage? And so those are the kinds that's the the lens that we're looking through. And I could also add that I know we're all looking at process and efficiency. And in my earlier business career, I was a total process geek. So I really, I really embraced this, this, this looking at those things. And, and I just think that the, our historic fabric is part of is a big part of what makes Portland, Portland and attracts residents and businesses and creates identity for all of our different neighborhoods that are very unique and special. And that sense of place that there is a there, there in Portland that doesn't exist in so many other major cities that have been developed without maybe as much thought towards stewardship. So I don't want to go on and on, but but please know that I don't think there's anybody on landmarks who isn't keenly aware of and supporting the idea of density and growth, and we just want it to be done with thought. And this idea of stewardship, they don't need to be at all mutually exclusive.

I appreciate that, peggy. It was important for me to hear that today. Thanks.

Thank you, councilor Green. You know, I put myself in the queue. I've had the pleasure of working with peggy for almost a decade at this point. And in fact, fun little quick story. My first week on the job working for councilor, our commissioner, nick fish. There was a story in the Oregonian saying, hey, what happened to the jensen beach carousel? And nick was particularly nonplused about it because he had worked hard to make sure that the jensen beach carousel was safely stored. So he told me to go find it. So I found the jensen beach carousel. It was where we thought it was. It was not missing, but it needed a permanent home. And for the next five years, I worked really closely with restore Oregon to actually get the jensen beach carousel transferred to their ownership. I unfortunately made peggy's job a lot harder for quite a while, and we worked hand in glove for not only the five years that I worked in the city, but actually for a couple of years afterwards when I had left the city, I continued to help where I could on this effort. Unfortunately, we couldn't find a home for it here in Portland, and it's now out in hood river, I believe. Right?

Yeah.

The dalles.

The dalles, the dalles. But in the years that I got to work with peggy, I will tell you that I found her to be exactly the kind of person we want on the landmarks commission and exactly that, that kind of leader in our community that sees both the value of preserving what we've got while we are pushing to accommodate the city we need. So you have my absolute confidence in this, and thank you for being willing to serve again.

Thank you.

Colleagues. Seeing no one else in the queue, can we please call the roll?

For this report? We'll want somebody to make a motion to accept the report.

So moved.

Second moved by Kanal. Seconded by pirtle-guiney.

Great. Thank you. Kanal.

Thanks for stepping up.

I pirtle-guiney. Hi Ryan. I Koyama Lane.

Thank you for your service.

I Morillo.

Thanks for taking time with us.

I Novick.

Thank you for your great answer to councilor Question.

I cclark.

Thank you.

I Green.

Thank you.

Aye, Morillo no sorry, I'm saying ssmith.

Here I.

Thank you.

I thanks peggy.

The report is accepted with 11 yes votes and one absent.

Thank you.

Thank you very much. Can you please call item number nine?

Item nine document 2020 6-113. Establish a new transportation utility fee to help fund basic maintenance and safety of the city's transportation system. Ad code. Chapter 17.20.

Colleagues, we heard this item at the committee of the whole, however, have brought it to the full agenda here in order to get some public testimony, I want to just note that we have scheduled an hour for this item, and we have a number of people signed up to testify. I'm going to turn it over to councilor Clark. Vice president Clark.

Olivia Clark: Thank you. Council president, colleagues, as council president indicated, this was last at the committee of the whole. We had really extensive testimony. And at that meeting, we made three significant changes to the original underlying ordinance. We dedicated resources to vision zero and to the cip. We had an amendment that provides relief for portlanders living in multi-family housing. We also had an amendment that directs the staff to develop an alternate rate structure for nonresidential accounts, particularly small business, and adds an appeals process. And there was more. But I think we did a good job of addressing the public testimony that we heard at the cao. You know, that this ordinance is really meant to address one of our most important city assets, our in our infrastructure, and that's our streets and roads, which we really have an urgent need to repair. So with that, I'm going to hand it back to president Dunphy for questions and for public testimony.

Great colleagues. I'm interested to make sure we get through testimony first. So if there are any technical or clarifying questions, we can certainly ask them. But let's I'd like to move forward. See. Okay. Keelan, can we please call the first panel of testimony?

Yes. Thank you. We have 19 people signed up today. I will call testifiers in groups of five. Please come to the testimony table and go ahead and state your name for the record and present to council. First up, we have rebecca wise barton rad one, a crush, john fall, jonathan star, mike dennis.

Good morning. Come on up. Folks are welcome to please introduce themselves. For the record, you're welcome to share your pronouns. And you have three minutes.

Hi. My name is rebecca barton. So I take public transportation or I bike. I was going to bring in my helmet Portland bike bus today. Thanks. Pbot. So I don't own a car. The closest bus station to me is a 5 to 7 minute walk. It's a temporary bus station along columbia and 60th. It's super dangerous to walk there. There's no sidewalk there. The next closest is 15 to 20 minutes away from me. And while it's a much safer walk, it does take me longer to get there. Recently, the potholes along homan and were fixed. My husband, my neighbors and even the delivery drivers all talked about how great it was that those potholes were filled in. So two things here. We need street improvements and it can be done. Taxing utilities is not a fair way to gain those street improvements. I don't own a car, but I do shower every day because I bike. This is tax because there's no way to get out of it. In 2025. June nikki dobay and jeff newburg, newburg submitted a research paper that was funded by the Portland metro chamber, and they pointed to 100 year old code Oregon supreme court ruling that said city council does not have the power to. The power of taxation at large. So I believe this is out of order to make this utility fee. It should be on the ballot and we should vote for it there. I'm not necessarily against this. I just want it to go through the ballot. I want to see what the people vote on it because I see the benefits of it. I want to have a sidewalk that walks me to that five minute away bus station. But I need to shower. So and I don't drive, so I'm not really adding to these potholes or the problems of the road. I would just like to see this go to the ballot. Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

Who's next? You can go next. Go ahead.

Okay. Hi my councilors. My name is john starr. I'm a resident of district two. I'll start with several ways. The city is not raising revenue from vehicles. No tolls, no congestion pricing, no property taxes, no sales taxes, no mileage taxes, no road usage taxes, no carbon taxes. And soon there might not be fuel taxes. The two primary ways the city collects revenue outside of state funding is through parking fees and the gas tax. Heavy vehicle use tax parking doesn't generate much revenue, mostly because it's free across 90% of the city. The downtown area is the only location I know of where the city generates any revenue from vehicles parked in a public right of way. There's also the gas tax, which I personally like. It's been approved by voters three out of three times. However, it doesn't raise enough revenue at only $0.10 per gallon and expires in 2028. To replace the proposed tough funding, the gas tax would need to be 25 to $0.30 per gallon. I think it would pass. The only thing stopping it is your willingness to put it in front of voters. So to recap, vehicles are barely being taxed. Either the parked ones or the moving ones, and the city needs more revenue for the roads. The city has a plethora of options available, but has decided to go with a new tax on water bills. It seems strange at first. Why tax utility bills to pay for roads? People are already struggling to pay rent, bills and groceries and utility bills are already very expensive. It's also a regressive tax, meaning the residents that can least afford to pay will pay the most. And why all the abstraction? If you want to tax households, the city already collects property taxes. Just increase those. Well, it makes perfect sense if you ask the right question. How does city council raise taxes without asking voters? It's really been incredible to watch the mental gymnastics this council goes through to convince ourselves that tough is a fee and not a tax. It's right there in the name utility, a service the city provides and fee a charge you can avoid if you don't use the service. The power company can cut my service if I don't pay the bill. Same with the water bureau. I can avoid parking fees by not parking in certain spots. I'm eager to hear how the city plans to enforce lack of payment for the transportation utility. Would it be? House arrest? You'd have to blockade my house as well so I can't get deliveries. Or would you cut my water service? But if you cut my water service, wouldn't that make it a water fee and not a transportation fee? So that doesn't work either. It's like tinker bell counselors. If you believe hard enough, you can make the tough reel. Let's put an end to this nonsense and call it what it is a tax. The city needs more revenue for the roads. The city needs to raise taxes. And part of the democratic norm in our system is to go to the voters. When you need to raise taxes. Anything less is subversion of our democratic norms. Do the right thing. Councilors put an end to this nonsense. Send us the tut. Or better yet, a new gas tax.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, president Dunphy and vice president Clark and members of the city council. My name is mike dennis and I'm with Oregon walks, a pedestrian advocacy organization. Oregon walks strongly supports the transportation utility fee, and we urge a yes vote. You all were dealt a very difficult hand of millions, if not billions, in maintenance backlog and no pathway to pay for it. This wasn't your fault. And yet here you are having to make very difficult decisions to right the financial ship. This is being fiscally responsible because we can pay now, or we can pay more later. And not just in terms of dollars pay more later in tragic injuries and lives lost. So you all seeing and if anything, catching up to every community and city around us which already have a transportation fee. You are showing that Portland can tackle the hard stuff, lay the foundation for the future, and help power portland's revitalization. Thank you. We raised a few ideas to strengthen the top for the transportation utility fee when we testified two weeks ago, and are pleased by the improvements in the ordinance to make it stronger, fairer for low income households and renters, and more certain to advance safety for vulnerable road users. Thank you as well for incorporating our input and input from others in the Koyama Lane zimmermann amendment. This will advance vision zero in the sidewalk improvement and paving project, and matters tremendously for portlanders who walk and roll. And let's not forget, roughly a quarter to a third of portlanders who will pay this fee as a household don't drive. They walk, they roll, they bike. This fee should work for them too. In these safety investments. Yesterday I had the great pleasure of joining with school kids on their morning walk to marysville elementary school out near holgate and 82nd. It's one of Oregon walks, walking school busses and I was just overwhelmed with the joy, the energy despite the rain, despite it being 730 in the morning and having to keep up with these kids and just seeing and experiencing how they benefit from walking and how they deserve to grow up in a Portland where walking is safe and accessible and not an act of courage, where they aren't saddled with neglected liability liabilities that our generation didn't address, and where pedestrian safety isn't a neglected ask. It's the highest standard we hold ourselves to. That's why this vote matters. Please vote yes.

Thank you very much.

Good morning. I'm john fall. I live in district two. I'm opposed to the fee and I'd like to second everything the gentleman in the red tie said, including his many suggestions for alternative methods to raise this. These funds. I'd like to thank councilor Novick for his previous foresight on this issue, but it's too late. This council and your predecessors have raised the water rates over and over and over again to intolerable levels. You have made water a luxury year after year. We pay for the fiasco at bull run, and apparently rates are going up again in July just for the water. Not a fee for something else which could be raised in other methods. Instead of coming to your constituents year after year for more and more money, we need more accountability from the water bureau. Now, supposedly this is an idea of other ways to raise the money. There's this idea to raise fees on streaming services. I'm not opposed to that at all. But two or more years of budget deficits, and we're raising fees on streaming services to pay for entertainment. I don't need to see pink martini in pioneer courthouse square. I need to drink water. And similarly, I don't need to go to the moda center to see the trailblazers. I need to drink water. So raise the fee on steaming streaming services, but use it for the basics. This city is lacking in the basics. At least there is a degree of logic in using sustainability funds to address soaring water bills and road repair. It appears that city leaders have more empathy for the billionaire owner of a basketball team than for their own constituents. There are other ways to raise this money. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Okay. Checking to see if rad one across is here. Next up we have andy namkung, philip ross. G. M midha, rachael whiteside, claire wallach.

Welcome folks. Thanks for being here this morning. Introduce yourself for the records and you have three minutes.

Good morning, president Dunphy. Vice president, clerk, council members. For the record, I'm andy namkung, transportation justice coordinator and lobbyist representing verde. I'm here to comment in support of the transportation utility fee. We hear constantly from our community members, primarily low income communities of color, about concerns with dangerous speeds, poor lighting, unsafe crossings, unfinished sidewalks, and limited access to transit in their neighborhoods. It's why verde works on transportation policy in the first place, and it's why we've been working for years now to expand state and regional funding for transit, safe streets and affordable ways for our community to get around. We also hear frequently about rising concerns with affordability. Utility rates have spiked in recent years and are expected to continue increasing. The cumulative effect is significant and for our local water, sewer and storm water utilities, many of the ratepayers who need bill relief most, so renters and those in master metered buildings can't use existing city assistance programs because they're only available to folks living in single family homes with their own water bills. Those concerns of transportation funding and affordability don't need to be in conflict with each other. If we don't find a way to pay the cost of sustaining our system, our communities will bear the costs in other ways. The American society of civil engineers reported that in 2026, each organ motorist will pay an average of $324 in the form of excess vehicle repairs and tire wear as a result of driving on roads that are in need of repair, and every organ resident will bear an economic cost of $894 just in one year due to crashes in the form of medical emergency response, legal costs and more. So we wanted to be able to join you in championing proposals to raise money locally and invest in the changes we need. We had concerns that the original ordinance would create a conflict between raising money fairly and raising money quickly enough to meet the challenges we're facing. However, the amendment process worked as it's supposed to and corrected for our most significant concerns. Councilor, Koyama Lane and zimmerman's amendment addressed this by committing to spend a share of tough revenues on vision zero and cip, making sure that non-drivers are seeing real value out of the amount that they're paying in. And councilors Avalos and canales amendment addressed this by initiating a project to finally figure out how to get bill relief to multifamily residents. This has been a gap in our utility assistance program for decades, and at minimum, this means the tough won't require low income apartment dwellers to cross-subsidize their peers in single family homes. But it also solves the problem of how do we deliver relief in a form that isn't a credit on an individual water bill, in a way that I sincerely hope this council will build on. Be attentive to implementation of this element, making sure that we're building on the work that community groups are already doing to solve this problem. There's a lot of fertile ground here, and I'm hoping that this is this is a start, not an ending point. Just really appreciate the work that went into developing this proposal. And we really hope to work with you through implementation and also on future more progressive funding mechanisms as we continue to build off of this foundation. Thank you so much.

Thank you very much.

President Dunphy and members of the council. My name is jim middaugh. I'm a resident of district three and here today as the volunteer chair of the city of Portland bicycle advisory committee. I want to start by thanking all of you for taking on this hard work. And a special shout out to councilor Clark. Your steadfast and grounded leadership has been essential to getting us here. Thank you for the hard work. I testified before the transportation and infrastructure committee earlier on this item and referred to your future selves, your future you. And my point then was, when you look back on today and this action you're about to take, and when future generations look back on this moment, it's going to matter. It's going to matter what you do. If this was easy, it would have been done. Fortunately, we've had charter reform and we've had the good people of Portland elect you and you're ready and you're able to take an action that your predecessors have been unwilling or unable to do. You're the ones you're the ones who are going to get it done. You're the ones who are going to allow Portland to join cities across this state and region and providing sustainable funding for their transportation systems in a fashion that everyone else does. You're going to join our parents and grandparents in investing in the systems and structures that make Portland work. You're the ones who recognize that everyone benefits from a good system of roads and bridges and sidewalks and signals. These things are the things that are the warp and weft that tie our community together. They support and create great jobs. They keep us safe and allow first responders to take care of us. They even manage the water that falls from the sky and can cause flooding and other damage, and they increase our property values. We all benefit from that. We benefit from it every day. And we've been benefiting from a long time. Our roads and sidewalks and bridges are the legacy we received, and you are the people today who are going to hand a positive legacy off to future generations. The bicycle advisory committee knows that taking care of what we have is a top priority. Basic maintenance benefits everyone, all road users. I urge you to work with the people affected, the utilities and others to continue to refine this proposal and make it better every single day. I urge you to work with low income and other folks who will struggle to continue to improve this system. I urge you to work with the bicycle advisory committee and your other advisory committees to ensure that not only will this measure help improve our roads, but it will also improve public trust. And I know you're up for it. Finally, I want to reiterate, I urge you to learn as you go. You're doing something new for Portland, and I know that you're capable of learning and listening and continuing to improve the way we pay for all the things we need. You guys can do this. You must do it. Fug on you, and future generations is counting on you. The bicycle advisory committee urges you. We passed a motion to address this funding shortfall. Thank you all for your leadership.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, president Dunphy and members of council. My name is rachel whiteside, and I'm speaking to you today as union representative for project 17. I am also a Portland resident in district one, east Portland. Project 17 supports approximately 1000 city employees covering most of the bureaus in PBOT. Specifically, we represent over 200 employees who work on planning, engineering, maintenance and property management, all while advancing the city's climate, accessibility and equity goals. Protect 17 has partnered with the city for many years in search of stable funding sources for the city's transportation system. We've taken an active role with all three fix our street campaigns, as well as turning out members to advocate in Salem. However, developments locally and nationally have shown that both state and federal revenue sources are unreliable, and it's clear that we need a solution that's under our own local control. Perpetually strained budgets have weakened PBOT year after year, and unfortunately, this year is no different. Fear of layoffs have taken a major toll on employee morale, and workers wonder if they can trust their family's livelihoods to the twists and turns of the bureau's budget. Unstable funding results in more expensive projects that take longer to finish. The deferred maintenance backlog is well known to the members of council. This, and it's also clear to any portlander who drives bicycles or walks on our streets. This backlog has a dragging effect on nearly every project, both large and small. Major projects are bogged down by the need for more dramatic rebuilds. Deferred maintenance also puts smaller projects that could be low hanging fruit for advancing safety, climate and accessibility goals out of reach. For many otherwise simple projects, the poor condition of pavement quickly makes the projects too expensive to even consider. These smaller projects would otherwise be extremely cost effective, but instead they're left on the shelf due to lack of funding. Long term sustainable funding is the only way to reduce PBOT maintenance backlog and unlock the potential to make real progress on the city's larger transportation goals. The voters of Portland have now passed fix our streets, our local gas tax, three times in a row. The last two ballot measures passed by well over 70%. Portlanders are willing to pay for self safe, well-maintained streets. They understand this will help our economic recovery and give us more livable communities. If national and statewide political entities are no longer trusted partners, portlanders must provide for ourselves. A transportation utility fee is a proven tool that's used in cities across the us, including 31 in Oregon. Please join us in supporting the work that we need for safety, prosperity and stability in our communities. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Good morning, councilors. My name is claire and I've served as the pedestrian representative on the fixing our streets oversight committee for the last seven years, and I'm here to ask you to vote yes on the transportation utility fee. Over the course of my time on the fixing our streets oversight committee, I have watched PBOT be a conscientious and careful stewards of our transportation dollars. Some examples include taking advantage of paving projects to restripe for safety innovations in pavement maintenance, to bring streets up to good condition while keeping costs down and leveraging the fixing our streets funds for grant matches. Giving the dime that we pay at the pump. The power of a full dollar for construction. This leads me to believe that PBOT will spend the funds raised by the transportation utility fee in the same thoughtful manner, with an eye to addressing both our maintenance and our safety needs. The transportation utility fee is a great step forward in funding our transportation system, but the need is so large that we can't afford to lose the $17 million per year that fixing our streets generates for PBOT. Also, as a gas tax, fixing our streets serves as a price signal to portlanders to stop burning fossil fuels, which aligns with our city's climate goals. I urge you to remember this in 2028 when fixing our streets three, which was passed by 72% of voters, expires and hope that we can continue that program. Thank you for your leadership in bringing forward the transportation utility fee and for approving the Koyama Lane zimmermann amendment, dedicating tof funds to safety improvements such as vision zero and the sidewalk improvement and paving program brings us one step closer to ensuring that portlanders, regardless of age, income, or ability, are able to travel safely on our streets. And selfishly, that includes my two children who walk or bike to school every single day. It would be great if them and all of their peers were able to do that safely. Thank you. Please vote yes.

Thank you so much. Thank you all.

Philip ross is joining us online.

Hi. Good morning. My name is philip ross, a resident of the cully neighborhood. I'm here representing b line urban delivery. We're operating out of the red west warehouse on southeast seventh and salmon. Beeline provides last mile logistics and warehouse services for 250 small businesses. And we're delivering their products to over 500 businesses in the metro area. We deliver these goods using pedal powered freight trikes and electric vans, which last year offset nearly half 1 million pounds of co2 emissions. I'm happy to provide a link of our impact reports to the council for review. Beeline depends on a transportation system that is well maintained and works for everyone people walking, biking or driving. Pbo's funding situation is getting hit from multiple angles and the result is showing up everywhere. Streets, signals, sidewalks and safety all are showing up in decay. With basic maintenance falls behind. It becomes a bigger bill later, and it also makes it harder for everyone to move around the city safely and reliably. This is why beeline is in support of the transportation utility fee. We believe this fee makes sense for three reasons. First, the utility fee will help create a stable, ongoing funding source that is focused on maintenance and safety. Second, it includes guardrails and accountability by defining eligible uses, as well as providing public reporting and program oversight via an appeals process. Third, it creates a mechanism that allows for program improvements over time. It won't be perfect, but starting with this framework and funding it gets from the program will hold space to refine it with real data and input from constituents. Portland's transportation system is a key component for a thriving economy and safety for all. The transportation utility fee will be at best, a practical tool to maintain our transportation system in a way that aligns with the city's safety, climate and equity goals. Again, this is why beeline supports and encourages the members of the council to establish a new transportation utility fee to help fund basic maintenance and safety of the city's transportation system. Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Next up, we have frank moscow, ava frazier, tabitha boschetti, jessica, tom ford. Sarah russer.

Welcome, folks. Come on up and introduce yourself for the record.

Good morning. My name is jessica and I use she her pronouns. And I'm a resident of district two. I've lived and owned my home in the northeast woodlawn neighborhood for 18 years now. Today I'm in. I'm here in support of the transportation utility fee. The road outside my home has been breaking down now for years. I'd say we have potholes, but that's not even a word that captures what's happening to my road. The asphalt has been breaking apart in so many places, revealing underlying concrete, creating holes and long strips, weaving together, creating this perhaps beautiful pattern. But really, it's what we call a rumble strip running through a residential intersection, and there's no way to avoid it because I live close to mlk and lombard, drivers are cutting through my neighborhood, constantly trying to make up time, and then they meet the rumble strip and they are swerving and crossing into traffic, trying to dodge the worst of it. I've actually seen cars drive for a full block on the wrong side of the road, trying to get through items fall off, landscape trucks, off metal, scrap trucks into the road. I can't even ride my own bike now. Through the intersection in front of my home. Have you ever tried to ride your bike at night through a road like that? Even with the greatest light, it's treacherous. Both my husband and I work from home, and I work with clients in a quiet, focused setting, and we laugh now because the timing of a truck hitting my intersection, it's always at the wrong moment, right? When something serious is happening with a client. And then here comes the rumble of the landscape truck. So it's funny, but also it's not. It's not really how we should live or work. And that's just noise. That's frustrating. But more importantly, it's a safety issue not just for drivers, but the kids in my neighborhood who are trying to ride their bikes around the neighborhood. It's just not how I think our city should be maintained. And honestly, the city has tried. They've tried to patch the street a few times, and I do appreciate that. But each time the asphalt comes right back up, it lasts for a little while, but then it starts deteriorating and the holes come back because patches aren't the answer anymore. We need real investment. We haven't funded this department adequately, and now we're facing reconstruction costs that dwarf what prevention would have cost. The data in this ordinance says every dollar spent on preventative maintenance saves 6 to $14 in reconstruction, and we're well past preventive preventative measures on my street. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Hi. My name is eva frazier. I'm here representing bike loud. As the volunteer board chair of bike loud. I'm here to add our voice of support for this transportation utility fee. First off, I'd like to say thank you to PBOT, the mayor and you all councilors for your efforts, outreach, thoughtfulness in crafting this utility fee. It's really been great to see how the council has taken feedback and testimony and brought new amendments to really make this a strong, useful funding mechanism. Bike loud is an advocacy group that invests its time and efforts into encouraging active transportation, like biking and walking. So we especially appreciate the specific dedication of funding to vision zero and those safety efforts, helping with our sidewalk infill as well, because we all know sidewalks are are not sexy, but they're certainly necessary. I am a proud portlander and I really want our city to be safe, walkable, bikeable, and and for drivers to be safe as well. So I hope you'll vote yes on this funding mechanism and so we can continue moving forward on our climate and safety goals. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Go ahead sarah.

Okay.

Good morning. My name is sarah, and I'm testifying on behalf of the Portland chapter of families for safe streets. All of our members have lost a loved one to road traffic, violence or sustained injuries in a crash. Or, like me, both. Our potential Portland membership grows every month as more and more people are needlessly sacrificed to portland's road traffic. Families for safe streets supports the tough for many reasons, including that it is fiscally responsible, raising funds right now for basic maintenance and safety is imperative. Decades of neglect has led to a severe maintenance backlog and an unaddressed road fatality and serious injury crisis. To delay addressing these problems will only exacerbate them and make them ever more expensive to resolve. We greatly appreciate that the tough prioritizes safety by guaranteeing 25% of funds raised will go to vision zero and sidewalk infill improvements and paving. This is important for two reasons. First, vision zero has not met its objectives, in part because it has never been fully funded or empowered. The tough will provide an infusion of funding to help ensure vision zero is an effective program. Secondly, this ensures that our most vulnerable road users benefit from the new fee. People who opt to walk or bike are not only more exposed to danger, but they also inflict virtually no harm on other road users or damage to our roads, so it is important to ensure they benefit from this new fee. To a point, I'm sympathetic with any opposition against a new fee. I understand how it might feel like a burden on top of taxes and utility fees that Portland residents already pay. I feel that too. On behalf of our membership, I'd like to try to put that in perspective. This fee will help defray not only maintenance costs, but the cost of losing human lives in road traffic. We have not fully accounted or accounted at all, really for the cost associated with losing lives in road traffic. A true accounting would not would acknowledge, of course, the cost of the life lost, which is unimaginable in and of itself, but it doesn't end there. We need to also account for all that person would have contributed over the course of their life. The life sentences have often debilitating grief inflicted on family, friends and community, and the costly extra burdens inflicted on our police, our justice system and emergency responders. When held up against all the costs associated with a dangerous transportation system, the tough, which will start to address them is incredibly good value. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Frank is joining us online.

Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Can you hear me? Okay, okay, okay. Lots of.

Are you in the room with someone else who is also attending the meeting? Or have two devices joined to the same meeting?

I will, I'm closing my phone. There's nobody else. Is this better?

It is not. Keelan. Is there anyone else unmuted in zoom?

No.

It is coming from your end, frank. We see the activity light around your screen.

I don't.

Know what's.

Frank. There's there's a call in number that you could call. And once you get reconnected, we'll, we'll call your name.

Okay.

I'm just going to go ahead and mute that. Okay. Tabitha.

Thank you. To keep us moving forward. Good evening, council members. My name is tabitha boschetti and I'm speaking here today as a co-chair of the city's pedestrian advisory committee, or pac. I want to start by thanking everyone who's been working to put together and refine this proposal in such a short time frame, and what we know are exceptionally challenging budget and societal circumstances. Members of the pac often emphasize that walking to get where you need to go should not be only safe, but a joyful and healthy part of your day. We've heard people talk about getting back to basics, and there are few more basic functions of government than providing adequate infrastructure to move your body on its own power from point a to point b. We also know that the city has limited tools here. We can't just modify our broken property tax system today, nor can we change what happened at the state level in these past couple years, which is a profound failure of leadership at the state level. But nevertheless, we have to be our own heroes here today. We have an imperfect tool in the transportation utility fee, but it's the tool we have and the tool we need to use. Pac members have been calling for addressing historic disinvestment in our transportation systems, as well as addressing the deadly impacts of unsafe streets. For many years before I certainly joined. We now face down dire emergency circumstances that void of leadership at other levels. And we thank you as the council, for stepping up, for being the adults in the room who are willing to say that this is risky, it's politically challenging, and it's something that we need for our future. We also know that a fee that comes from all households and businesses, that's a tough ask. That also means that we have an obligation to provide broad benefits and make inroads toward addressing those historic inequities and building better safety. The amendment from councilor, Koyama Lane and Zimmerman supporting the sidewalk infill and vision zero strongly aligns with priorities and absolutely what we have been asking for as a focus going forward. We know it's not everything. We are staring down many headwinds. Anyone who's been watching the budget, you've been involved, obviously very much in the budget, knows that we are in a deeply difficult position. The tough is still a step in the right direction. We ask that council be cautious about any other changes to revenue. You know, keeping the gas tax, keeping other sources of revenue are something that we seem to need to do, at least until we somehow get to a future where we can actually bring our streets into a future that equitably and sustainably serves our future. So thank you for your leadership and thank you for your time.

Thank you very much.

I'd like to invite.

Frank. Frank, can you hear us?

Hello?

We can hear you. Can you hear us?

Yes.

Hello. My name is frank moscow, and I am the founder of adopt one block and the co founder of we believe in Portland. We enable cleaner neighborhoods. And we do this at a scale that is insanely cost effective. Our core adopt one block volunteer program has over 1900 volunteers in council district one, over 2400 volunteers in council districts, 2700 in district three and 1100 in district four. Pbot has been a great partner to all of us as we help make Portland cleaner and happier. We are working with PBOT to dramatically improve the cleanliness not of just each of your individual neighborhoods, but also the major thoroughfares in Portland. Each of you and your constituents in your districts will see that improvement on a daily basis as you live your lives. Our solutions will yield much more community clean for much less money. And that will be good news. In an obvious win for everybody in our community. While we are leveraging thousands of volunteers and partnering with other non-profits, PBOT engagement in support is essential for our success. We need. If you're a partner with stable funding and a consistent partnership to reinforce the shared commitment to a cleaner city and community investment, supporting portland's next renaissance, I urge you to vote in support of the transportation utility proposal. Thank you.

Thank you very much.

Next up, we have jonathan clay and emma sager both joining online. Go ahead jonathan.

Good morning.

We might have lost jonathan. Emma.

Yes. I'm here. Can you hear me?

You can hear you.

Thank you very much. Thank you council, for the opportunity to testify today. My name is emma sager. I'm a resident of district four living in Multnomah village. I am also the city manager of milwaukie, Oregon and a former employee of the Portland bureau of transportation. Though today I am testifying in my personal capacity as a Portland resident, I would like to urge council to adopt the proposed transportation utility fee. Through both my professional and personal experience, I'm acutely aware of the funding crisis facing PBOT and transportation agencies across the state. We can't wait and need to act now. In my opinion, it is critical that we start treating transportation like a utility and funding it accordingly. Utilities are most equitably, sustainably and transparently funded based on consumption. This makes logical sense when we think about other types of infrastructure and utilities like water or sewer services. I believe transportation should be looked at the same way. We are consumers of our transportation system. From the minute we step out of our front doors in the morning to the minute we return at night. But in the city of Portland, we haven't looked at our transportation system like other utilities. And that is why we face the asset maintenance backlog today. At a time when my household, like all others, is looking at rising costs, I don't take any fee increases lightly. That said, I am still supportive of this new fee on my bill. As to me, it's my way to pay my fair share. As someone committed to reducing my household's fossil fuel consumption, I now drive an electric vehicle, but this means I no longer pay the ten cent gas tax. I believe I should still be contributing to the maintenance and safety of our system. My car causes damage to the roads even if it doesn't burn fossil fuels. My family, especially my two young daughters, also deserve safe, quality facilities for walking and biking systems. We use almost every day. As an administrator, I also feel this is a smart step the city should take for financial stability and equity. As you've heard today, state and federal sources are unreliable and no longer sufficient ways to fund local transportation systems. Milwaukee, like many other Oregon cities, have implemented transportation utility fees that have enabled us to make continuous investments in street maintenance and safety investments. Milwaukee has been able to design our utility assistance program to exempt those living on low incomes, and I feel the utility bill more than fuel taxes or some other revenue options, can be strategically designed to fairly collect much needed discretionary revenues from those who consume these systems, while protecting those most vulnerable. I am committed to portland's future for Portland to remain a fantastic place to live, visit, and work in. We can't have crumbling roads, dangerous bridges, or unsafe streets. We used to be seen as a transportation leader, a city to emulate in terms of how to build and create a sustainable, safe, multimodal transportation system. Let's get back to that. We should have moved in this direction more than a decade ago, and let's not miss this opportunity another time. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Jonathan.

Good morning. Members of Portland city council. Thank you for the opportunity to give testimony. My name is jonathan clay, and I'm representing multifamily northwest in the capacity of a lobbyist, the largest association of housing providers in Oregon, representing nearly 300,000 rental units statewide, including thousands here in Portland. I can't help but to mention this morning that Portland still remains underbuilt for housing and under invested in any any enacted regulation, tax rule or fee that creates additional costs or new administrative burdens on housing providers will only serve to disincentivize further housing in and production. And further diminish the housing supply that we're so looking forward to, to creating, so ensuring that the population is fairly and equitably contributing to the transportation infrastructure is an important function of government. You know, however, sadly, the tough per unit fee assigned to multifamily properties unjustly reassigns that burden to the housing provider rather than a direct billing to the rightful recipients. As it's written, this ordinance will raise housing costs in the city of Portland. You know it. If this ordinance passes, what recourse does the average multifamily housing provider have now that hundreds of monthly individual transportation utility fees are now being charged to the building's owner, you know, fixed term leases and regulatory impediments don't permit the tough to be quickly assigned to the rightful parties. Besides raising rents, how else would housing providers expect to recoup the losses of paying for other people's transportation utility fees? It's this inequitable assignment that is that is the biggest pain point for for our industry. Please reconsider moving forward with tough relying on that per unit methodology. It's been argued that many jurisdictions have similar fee services or excuse me, fee systems. However, portland's housing regulatory environment works against tough being appropriately billed back to the attendant recipients. Additional. The tough policy would layer simultaneously with existing city imposed gas taxes allocated for the same purpose. Unfortunately, on top of that, the city of Portland already charges housing providers a hefty annual $70 per unit fee tied to their business license. Considering all of these problematic unintended consequences, members of northwest respectfully urge you to oppose the per unit tough monthly as a meant for multi-family and single family buildings, we thank you for your attention in this matter.

Thank you very much.

That completes testimony.

Okay, colleagues, we have gotten through testimony on a first reading of a nonemergency ordinance, which we spent a lot of time discussing. Is there any further discussion? Councilor Smith?

Loretta Smith: Are we in discussion?

Yes we are.

Okay.

Thank you. I appreciate all the comments that we heard today. And for me, it's an honor to be a cosponsor of the tough. Along with my other colleagues, I support the transportation utility fee because it is crucial initiative aimed at addressing the ongoing maintenance and improvement of our city's streets and sidewalks. As Portland continues to grow, and to develop the demand for well-maintained infrastructure is more pressing than ever. As chairwoman and vice president Olivia Clark says, we need to get back to basics and I support her 100%. And what I always say, infrastructure and improving our sidewalks and streets is our book of business at the city of Portland. I also want to give kudos to councilor Zimmerman and councilor Koyama Lane for adding the 25% of the new revenue to be secured for vision zero and cip. The sidewalk improvement paving program that will add additional sidewalks in district one and district four. Safety is first, and I believe that a well-maintained street and sidewalk are vital for the safety of all Portland residents, including pedestrians, cyclists, and drivers. The transportation utility fee will provide dedicated funding to ensure that we have regular maintenance, repair potholes and improve accessibility, greatly reducing accidents and enhancing safety across the city. Two I believe that economic benefits that we get from from this tough is quality infrastructure. It is so important and essential for a thriving economy. By investing in our streets and sidewalks, we not only enhance the esthetic appeal of our neighborhoods but also attract businesses, tourists, ultimately boosting local economies. A reliable transportation system, I believe, ensures that residents can access jobs, services and amenities efficiently. Sustainability and environmental impact the transportation utility fee will help fund projects that promote sustainable transportation options, including bike lanes and improved public transit facilities. Investing in these projects encourages residents to choose eco friendly modes of transport, reducing traffic congestion and lowering carbon emissions, benefiting our environment and our community health. Having an equitable access, it is essential that our investment in transportation infrastructure serves all Portland residents equitably, and I appreciate the amendment that councilor Avalos and councilor Kanal put forward that will make sure that our most vulnerable residents have an opportunity to to be supported in this effort. I believe Portland streets maintenance backlog has reached a critical amount 6.6 billion, with over 64% busy streets and 72% of local streets are in poor condition. This is a critical ordinance that we have to pass today, driven by declining gas tax revenues, rising costs and budget cuts. The Portland bureau of transportation is exploring new monthly fees for residents and businesses, and to be able to address the crumbling infrastructure. The key aspects of this is the maintenance backlog, street conditions over the past five years, busy streets and poor condition rose from 43% to 64%. We are in a funding crisis. Declining gas tax revenue and inflation have half of half of the purchase power that it did previously, while PBOT has cut 42 million from its budget since 2020. It is important that we take care of our streets and for me, this is a legacy ordinance for me. I want malia, ADA and jordan jr, my grandchildren and their friends and my neighbors to applaud the city of, to applaud the city council for having the courage to do what is right, to improve our streets and sidewalks for residents that ride, walk and roll. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Councilor Ryan.

Dan Ryan: Yes.

Thank you, council president. I have a process question before I say anything else. And that's when we pass. Something at such a high number tended to in council the whole I question why we have a first reading and a second reading.

Normally, items that come out of the committee of the whole will go on to consent, especially if they have high levels of support from us. And going forward, we as a general rule, will continue to do that. This one was specifically decided with vice president to put it on the regular agenda, so that we can have public continued public testimony.

Okay, I respect that. And if someone puts up an emergency clause, I get that too, since. But anyway, because we now have the committee of the whole, I think it merits this type of a conversation.

Agreed. Absolutely.

Colleagues. Although the targeted focus on safety and sidewalk outcomes amendment made this complex legislation better, as did the. The burdens of on those that are that are most impacted. As it stands, I still support the fee structure. The majority will approve. I would prefer that we send this type of action to voters to decide, especially knowing that the current budget proposal includes a 6.6 combined increase to water and sewer rates. On top of adding this new fee, this action will accelerate inflation burdens during an affordability crisis on our residents and our small businesses. As it stands, my neighbors in their 80s who seldom drive will share the same burden as me, who drives almost daily. This would impact our already struggling families and also small businesses who manage slim profit margins. Or for those in the private sector, translation money they earn to pay themselves. The average restaurant, for example, will see an annual increase of $611. In this new formula, I want us to evaluate additional approaches to fund our transportation needs. I want to see fairness and would like to see a funding formula that is tied to system usage. While we are looking at improving the revenue system, why did we not take a bolder look at restructuring of PBOT operational system? I hope the restructuring action is an outcome we can celebrate in the near future.

Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Ryan. Councilor Green.

Mitch Green: Thank you, mr. President. I want to start by saying I want to echo a lot of what councilor Smith had raised in the importance of funding cip. I appreciate your leadership on that. And a big

Part of my support for the tough has been recognizing that it will provide a necessary stream of of revenue to support investments in sidewalks and pedestrian safety improvements in and not only district one, but also district four, where we know you've got kids who walk home in the middle of 35th avenue because there's no sidewalk that connects them between jackson middle school and their neighborhoods. That's a deeply concerning situation that faces our city. And so if we don't pass this tough, we're going to be looking at dramatic cuts to PBOT in this next budget year, which only then pushes us further and further back on the promise and hope that maybe someday some of these communities will get sidewalks. I think that's that's unacceptable. And it's a difficult thing to do to adopt a less than perfect revenue source for this. I also want to acknowledge that a lot of the testimony that I've heard and a lot of the engagement I've had with the community, I agree with, I, I think it's far better to fund our transportation network with things like dynamic pricing, parking, things like congestion pricing. But unfortunately, the state legislature and the governor has left us in a lurch. Our forward progress on the congestion pricing work was killed by the governor in 2024, and our ability to move forward coherently as a city to say we want to prioritize investing in the basic bread and butter of our transportation system instead of freeway widening projects is not something that we've been able to do as a group, and because of that, we are left in a situation where we have to find less than perfect revenue options. And the tough is that. And so I entered this by just recognizing that this is a sort of harm minimization approach as far as I'm concerned. That's that is also why I offered an amendment, and we passed that amendment to provide the space for us to continue this conversation in a very open, public and structured way. So we can we can figure out how to continue to make our local approaches to financing our transportation network more equitable, more logical, and, and in the spirit of continuous improvement. So in that spirit, folks, I hope I am, I'm going to support the tough. And I hope that when we go into the next long session, we show up as a city that demands more for transit, that demands more for our local transportation networks. And I think if we if we do that together, we can deliver better for our constituents and our future generations. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Green. Vice president Clark.

Thank you, council president. I'd like to thank all the people who showed up today to testify, both online and in person was very compelling testimony with lots of really great ideas. And I agree with councilor Green that a lot of these great ideas are not things that we can proceed with. There are things that have to happen at the state level. Also, thanks to my vice chair, councilor Smith, who took the words right out of my mouth. So I, I appreciate everything that you had to say there. I just want to add that I think the amended ordinance really addresses pretty much all the issues that we have discussed here. I feel it's brought equity. And it also means, and I will restate this, I think I said this at the committee, the whole. That I think our committee, the public works committee, is absolutely committed to oversight on the implementation of this ordinance. And there are a lot of things that have to happen before it gets implemented. Just to clarify that this thing is not going to get implemented at least until 2017. So I mean, 2027, sorry. So you have my commitment that we will be watching and having discussions about the implementation and all the things that came with the amended, the amendments to the ordinance. So with that, I appreciate everyone's support. This is just the first reading. I don't think we're voting today. Maybe it can go on the consent calendar at the second reading. I appreciate that. And also, councilor Ryan, I appreciate your comments very much. I respect where you're coming from, and I'll just leave it at that. Thank you.

Thank you. Vice president Clark councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, council president. First, I just wanted to thank councilor Clarke for her very fearless leadership on the transportation and infrastructure committee. Getting this done took a lot of effort and making sure that people were focused, that we had an agenda. And unfortunately, we're in this position because for the past 30 years, the council's before us did not take the initiative to take care of our roads. And now we are faced with very difficult decisions. I think it would be no surprise to everybody, anybody who's listening, that I would prefer a much more progressive tax. Unfortunately, we can't do progressive taxes at the city level, that we are preempted by the state in doing that. And so these are the limited choices that we have at the local level to address this. What I did notice today, though, is that there were folks who I profoundly respect from organizations that I profoundly respect, who last time they came to testify, testified against it. Councilors took that feedback, made amendments, and then those same people came back and testified in favor of it today. And that's exactly how government is supposed to work. People made changes that benefit the community and honed in on those things that people were concerned about. I especially want to thank councilor Zimmerman and Koyama Lane for working together on that amendment. I think that really addressed some of the things I wanted to see changed, and I think it shows that we're a council, that there is a shared vision for how we want to do this, and we want to do it in an equitable and good way. And with the tools that we have at the local level, we will find ways to do that. So thank you to the community for coming and engaging with us and telling us, hey, we respect what you're trying to do. We also want to see some things improved. And then thank you to my colleagues for being responsive to those things and making it as good as it can be. So thanks everyone for this process and I look forward to voting yes on it next. Next time it's on the council agenda.

Thank you, councilor Morillo councilor Kanal.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, council president.

I want to thank all the testifiers for being here, for providing your input as well as those who wrote in. This is one of the rare items where there's a lot of public interest and a significant divide in the opinions we've heard over the course of this. I think it's fair to say our in-person testimony was mixed, but more supportive. I think it's fair to say our written testimony was mixed, but less supportive. And I agree with councilor Morillo that the trend line on the testimony was getting better as time went along, as we've had a chance to revise this, I'm not sure, council president, if the intention is not to have a chair's report when it comes out of the committee, the whole. Which is fine if so, because we were all there. But I wanted to mention that I facilitated the first and councilor Ryan, the second of the two discussions at the committee of the whole. And in my experience chairing the first, watching the second, I really appreciated the thoughtfulness of all of us in not only listening to testimony, but just trying to make better policy throughout and the continued recognition of the obligation we have to address the bad place that we are in financially as it relates to, in part, the transportation system. I wanted to put a couple items into the record for legislative intent purposes. First, my understanding is that the money that would be raised for this is to be used for doing things, and by that I mean we have sufficient capacity at PBOT already for people who determine which project goes in which order and what's best to go in what order. And so I don't think that we need to be using this money to expand planning capacity, but simply help to pay for the execution of the great work of the existing planners who are already at PBOT. Secondly, I agree with everything councilor Green said about looking at other items to pursue with relation to legislative authorization or allowance at the next long session, because I also support congestion pricing and other processes that the state should allow us to do. I'll note that governor kotek's old district is a part of district two, and I hope she hears what I'm hearing from the same people when I imagine my two colleagues are as well about the need to pursue these sorts of things. I live pretty close to the I-5 bridge and other entry points into the city, I think are a place where some of those those actions would take effect. Third, approval of this does not constitute taking a position on whether or not to renew the fixing our streets gas tax. And I think that was tried to be put into the conversation by someone who's not up here. And I don't think that we're taking a position on that. I support retaining it personally for all the reasons that testifier said about it being a price signal and all that. And fourth, I agree with council vice president Clark about the about public works continuing to work on this. I'm intending to use committee of the whole where necessary to continue the conversation. We should have the administration return to the committee of the whole. Teach us and the public about the financial assistance that's being built in different models, pursuant to councilor Green's point about how we can evolve this, lessons learned as it's being implemented, and so on. I'm also grateful for all three of the amendments, in particular colleagues approving Avalos Kanal one, which provided the path forward for finding support for renters. And I'll close by saying generational equity is vital here. We're inheriting a council, but also a city and frankly, a world from people who did not plan for the future. And we're doing our best to do the same here. So thanks.

Thank you, councilor Kanal and councilor. It was in my notes to give you a committee chair remarks, and I skipped over it in my eagerness to get to testimony. So I apologize. And going forward, we will make sure that that happens. Councilor. Novick.

I'm going to repeat some things I said last time, but. So I'll try to limit it. But I just want to say again that if we do not take action to start repairing our streets, the city dies. We're right now in a path where in the not too distant future, a majority of the major streets in the city will revert to gravel. And if that happens, the city dies. I also want to issue a small correction to councilor Morillo o's comment that we're here as a result of 30 years of neglect. I would say that it's at least 39 years, because I know that the city council in 1987 knew that we were that what we were getting from the state and federal gas tax was not enough to maintain our streets. And I love bud Clark, but bud Clark neglected the streets. Bureaucrats is a great mayor in many ways, but vera katz neglected the streets and as did tom potter, as did sam adams. And I want to say again, as I did last time we took this up, that I think that the fact that this council is poised to take a difficult, painful action is a tribute to the new form of government. And I think that a large part of the reason that while cities like milwaukee and lake oswego and tigard and all of Washington county are recognized long ago that they needed the local funding source for their streets, I think that Portland was handicapped by the commission form of government, and the fact that there was only one transportation commissioner at a time, and people who weren't the transportation commissioner Didn't feel a sense of responsibility for all of Portland, including the streets. And I think that in this council, we all recognize we all have responsibility for all of the major functions of government, including the streets. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Novick, councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks. Wise words. Councilor Novick, I appreciate what you said last time. And this time, first off, you know, I want to use my my time today to to thank councilor Clark for her steely eyed vision on this. You've put together something that I think has the potential to, to deliver and address address problems and, and a system that we constantly hear about and to. Councilor. Koyama Lane. I appreciate us being able to I hope, you know, given what people have said today, and I think how much we worked on it, improving the. The portion of this with vision zero and cip, I think those were important accountability measures. So, you know, this is a this is a measure I kind of similarly feel is probably passable and most appropriate for voters. I enjoyed the tut over tough that was said. I do kind of think this falls into the transportation utility tax realm. And and I understand that there are a couple of things that I think were a little bit lacking. And I think part of that's why it was lacking is because it's coming forward as a fee instead of a tax that we would have to take to voters is, you know, most of the time when a community has this conversation, we talk about the number of road miles that will be completed. We talk about the number of sidewalks that will be completed. We talk about frontages. That was pretty lacking, right? I think we, we, we can have those conversations. The bureau can have that conversation with us because it's to. 12 but if this was being voted upon by by the voters, I think you'd have to say this is our target. Here's what we're going to deliver. Et cetera, et cetera. And I, and I just I haven't seen that. And I think that was an important part of the public conversation that hasn't happened. So I'm going to reserve my vote. I'm leaning toward a no. Still, as I did in committee of the whole, I think that this is given the affordability aspect of this and a significant increase, and the applying it to the to the utility bill, where one cannot avoid it, I think my opposition is frankly, mechanism only not so much substance here. And that it would be would be better to be voted upon. But I don't want that potential no vote to be any indictment of the work that those of you who put your hands in this project and worked with it is very appreciative, yeoman's work. You did a good job, and I appreciate what you've brought forward, and I thank you for that. And I and I expect that this will probably sail through. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor zimmermann. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Thank you, council president. I, I want to thank my constituents who are here today because it is not lost on me that the only opposition we heard today came from district two and. There are a lot of affordability concerns in my district. There are also, as we heard from another one of my constituents, a lot of our least maintained roads in district two. I supported this coming out of committee of the whole. I intend to support it again. I'm comfortable supporting it as a fee, seeing the history of many other cities in Portland supporting this measure as a fee and that being deemed appropriate. But I don't want those concerns to go unacknowledged. We have to figure out how we build our future in a way that's responsible to our children and our grandchildren in a way that doesn't put off the costs any longer, and in a way that is responsible to portlanders here today who are struggling with affordability. And when we need higher level of service because of what's been put off before. That requires a higher investment. There's not an easy answer. Sometimes there's not a way to do that and meet all of our goals and all of our values. And so on balance, I think we must move forward. And I think a lot of good work has been done, and I could repeat all of the concerns and all of the gratitude that have been brought up by my colleagues, and I don't need to do that. But I just I want to make sure that portlanders who are concerned about this know that when I hear our chair of transportation and infrastructure, I'm not sure what the new name of that committee is. Our infrastructure, our public works committee say that they will keep a close eye on how this is implemented. And when I hear my colleague in district two who sits on that committee say, we need to put these funds toward actual pavement on the ground and improvement to our streets and sidewalks and various right of ways. I appreciate that, because that gives me the confidence to say to my constituents who have concerns about this, we're going to do this, and we know that's hard, but we're going to do it in a way that has oversight and that is responsible and that delivers the results we've promised, because that's what we must do. So I want to specifically appreciate both of your comments. Councilors Clark and councilor Kanal, for giving me the ability to say that with confidence. Thank you. Thank you, council president.

Thank you.

Councilor pirtle-guiney colleagues, this is the first reading of a nonemergency ordinance. It now moves to second reading. And we are going to take a ten minute break before we come back and have our final item for the day. Please, please, everybody be back by 1125.

Councilor Avalos, are you there?

Oh he's gone. Okay.

I can't tell him he's going to be.

Oh yes, I'm here.

Oh, and I see Green as well.

Okay.

And we're back. We got a quorum. Barely. Can we please move to item ten?

Item ten, document 2020 6-056, amend council organization and procedure code. Amend code chapter 3.02.

Colleagues, this is a continuation of our first reading. I think this is our third attempt at trying to do this. Again. I'm going to start by turning it over to councilor Pirtle-guiney. And then we are in the. We have already have a amendment open and seconded. So we'll move to council discussion of Kanal one. So I'll turn it to you. Kanal. So. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you, council president colleagues, as a reminder, this ordinance makes updates to chapter 3.02, which is the part of the code governing council procedures. I started this work per council direction. As council president. I brought it forward first in the governance committee last year in November. It had extensive debate and changes in the governance committee. I bring this forward with much gratitude to my colleagues on that committee and our colleagues who are not on that committee, but came forward to bring ideas, proposals and be part of the discussion. When this was before committee. Somewhere along the way, as this moved forward, we had a change in council leadership, and councilor Dunphy brought forward some amendments as well, based on how he was hoping to move things forward as council president and his experience taking the reins and and bringing a different set of eyes to the work of how things run through our committee and council structure. What is before you today also includes review and some changes that were requested by the teams who support our work. Most specifically the council clerks team, but also our council operations team provided much appreciated feedback on how things are moving through our system and how we can make sure that we capture that appropriately in the words that are on the page, so that as portlanders look at the code that guides us, it lines up clearly and simply with the work that we do behind the scenes to make sure that everybody can understand our processes. I am happy as we move into the final to do another overview of the different sections of the code and what each of them do. But I think right now, council president, I'd like us to get to the amendments that are open. I believe we are in the process of considering additional amendments, and I don't want to bog us down talking about the whole when we only have an hour to talk through some of these amendments.

Thank you very much. Councilor pirtle-guiney and that is correct, colleagues, we're going to try and get as much done as we can before 1230 where we are going to stop for the day. Councilor Kanal and councilor Avalos, who is online, we have your amendment opened and seconded. Could you please give us a quick review of what we are talking about?

Candace Avalos: Yeah. So this is Avalos Kanal one. It's the third line under exhibits and attachments. It would remove section 3.02.0 30i, which is the section that creates a rule that 24 hours prior to the posted start time of a council meeting is the latest that an amendment can be submitted, and I'd like to speak to it, please. Okay. So colleagues, councilor Avalos and I propose an amendment to to to remove that. I'll note that this rule, given how we do recessing the meeting between multiple days, would it prevented any amendment being proposed to tomorrow's agenda items? These are the ones that start at 2:00 on Thursday, unless they were submitted by Monday at 9:29 a.m. Now, this is a special week, but that makes the so-called 24 hour rule a 76.5 hour rule. So just clarifying that this is not 24 hours before the vote is taken on the amendment, but on the actual start time of the meeting, and that when there are multiple days, the whole thing is technically one meeting. In addition to the logistical hurdles that this poses, especially with agendas being published on on fridays, this also means that we cannot be reactive to testimony that we hear with even small scale changes. I'll also add that you may all remember that there are many items that have come before us with administrative deadlines that can best be described. Maybe it's been described more, you know, discreetly than this, but but colloquially as do it right now or everybody dies. And how many of those items would then become a take it or leave it from the administration with the metaphorical gun to our head, that these timelines create? The only tool that we realistically have available is to use the amendment process to come up with something that both meets the administrative deadlines and goals, and also the needs of the council. I do see some of the concerns that we've had with late amendments, and I want to just talk about that. There are already two tools for these that already exist and do not need to be adopted. The first is that we must require amendments in writing, to the satisfaction of both the presiding officer and the council clerk's office. This will not only address part of the concern around poorly designed or last second amendments, but also allow for the requisite reviews to occur. And I'll note that the clerk already has responsibility for noting when the administrative requirements are met. We may remember that from some of our previous discussions. And then in terms of what we have at our disposal is the other tool. It's an amazing mechanism that we occasionally use to respond to detailed or lengthy last minute amendments, which is simply to vote no. And this is our responsibility to exercise individual discretion over individual amendments at their own merits. Last week in the tao, there were amendments where councilor said I did not get enough information in advance to vote yes on this, and the system worked. Sometimes those amendments were not. All of those amendments were not unanimous. Some did pass anyway and some did not. And that's how it's supposed to work. That, I think, is the best example I can give of the system working. You know, realistically and recently, in summary, we do not need to write a rule to prohibit ourselves from doing something that we can just vote down. I'd ask for your support in this amendment to remove that section of the proposed new code.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor. Novick to the amendment. Yeah. This is yeah, we are now to the amendment.

So I think that amendments on the dais sometimes are useful to get us through things, but often they cause confusion and we wind up with a chaotic mess. And so I think that I approve the idea that generally speaking, we should have a 24 hour rule, even if that winds up turning into a 76 hour rule, if that's something that we can. But I just think that councilor Kanal is right, that you can always just vote no, but I think that all of us get caught up in. Oh, okay, that sounds good. Now let's play with a small tweak. I can support that. Et cetera, et cetera. And then you wind up with confusion. I do think, and I'm going to propose a separate amendment on this, that there are circumstances, particularly because of the public meetings law, where we show up and we don't know where the hell the votes are, but it becomes clear from the conversation that with 1 or 2 small, easily understandable tweaks, we could get to seven or even eight votes, but maybe not the nine in order to suspend the rules. So I'm going to suggest a modification, which is that the presiding officer, at their discretion, may allow amendment from the dais, and that puts a bunch of trust in the presiding officer. But I really think that there are going to be cases where the presiding officer can look around and say, we can address this with something simple that everybody understands. That'll get us past today. And but if that's not the case, I think that it is just too much of a mess to be dealing with last minute amendments. And by the way, I note the irony that I'm proposing my amendment on last minute amendments, that at the last minute we thought that we had filed this last week, and then we discovered that we hadn't.

Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor. Ryan.

Yeah, that's a question for councilor Kanal I, I see that you just took everything out. Right. So but you made a point that it could be 72 hours. So are you offering an amendment that speaks to the time, not the time of the the time, the item will be read, not the beginning of the council meeting. Are you just blowing it up?

May I respond to that? The answer.

Right now I'm just seeing it.

Blow up.

The answer to that is neither. This. This rule does not currently exist. This would be adding a rule if the underlying passes unamended, and my amendment would be to revert to what we have now. I don't think that can be accurately described as blowing it up. We've been operating for 15 months with the rules the way they are.

You did I mean, you striking out this amendment? Correct. That's my term follow up there. Sorry.

It is striking out the whole section.

Yeah. But then you made another point. But you didn't offer anything with that point.

Correct. Because I think we have the tools already available to respond to the, the, the need that I think I think there is a perceived need for this amendment, which is that.

You kind of tease me with that. So anyway.

But.

Yeah, I mean, we could one could talk about negotiating it this way. We actually have a committee to do that. The committee of the whole. And, and fundamentally this, this is sort of, you know, several months after the the conversation was.

Oh, I'm well aware I was in the governance committee. We've been talking about this for a long time.

Right. And I think the fundamental concern there is that only five people were able to talk about it and that we fixed that. So I would love to have this this conversation about is there a better rule in a, in a, a setting that is designed for it? And so if we were to remove it now pass the rules. It's not like we can never change the rules again. And I think there may be a better conversation when all 12 of us are able to talk about it in the committee of the whole, about how we handle amendments.

Thank you. Councilor Ryan and councilor Kanal. Councilor. Pirtle-guiney.

Thank you, council president. I guess seeing all of the hands with questions, maybe I should have waited, but here I am, colleagues under the language in the new proposed in the new I, which was moved forward by the committee. We can react to testimony. We have two tools we can hold over an item to continue work at the next meeting, and we can, through a 9/12 vote, suspend the rules to bring an amendment forward that was not filed 24 hours before the start of the meeting. And frankly, I think that there is a place in governance when there are eight votes for something and we know it will help move the conversation forward to ask colleagues for courtesy votes to suspend the rules. And we are a body that has been so divided. We have not used that tool, but it is a tool. We have to get there. Colleagues, the reason that this refers to the start of a meeting is because that's when people look at the agenda. That's when people look at the items and look at all of the various iterations of those items to know what the conversation will be and whether or not they want to weigh in. Councilor Novick. I'm open to your idea about trusting the presiding officer. I haven't yet found the language. I think you said you sent it. I would want there to be some direction to the presiding officer in order to move the conversation forward, in order to respond to testimony. When it is clear that there are. A significant number, that there's a significant amount of interest, something that doesn't just allow the presiding officer to move things willy nilly. But I'm interested in that conversation. But colleagues, we have a choice before us with this section of the code, and I know it is a choice that makes our work harder. I have brought last minute amendments as well. I have had amendments that I thought were filed in time but were not. But if I have to choose between transparency for the public and ease of my own work, I'm going to inconvenience myself. And that's the choice that we have before us today with this amendment. I hope that even if we make changes to it, we maintain language about posting because this isn't about our own ability to know and our own ability to vote no. This is about the public's ability to see something, know if they want to testify and weigh in, let us know what they're thinking and be a part of our conversations. And I just think that that is a critical piece of the work that we do, that we have not given space for in the way that we've moved forward in the past. Thank you.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney colleagues. I put myself in the queue just to try and clarify what I understand the existing language that this would this amendment would strike. I also checked with the clerk. This is their interpretation as well, and that it is more focused on the item than the council meeting, rather that the. The. The 24 hours prior to the posted start time of a council meeting in which the item will be heard. That was our intention to say that it would be if we have a 2:00 item tomorrow, that 2:00 today would be the the deadline for that. I do understand the reading that or how you interpret it, to see that it could be read as 76 hours and 30s or whatever it might be, the intention and the interpretation as we currently have it, is that it would be focused on the item rather than the start time of the meeting. Councilor. Kanal.

Thank you, council president. Is that an interpretation that a lawyer has weighed in on?

No, that is interpretation that the council clerk and I have had.

But as I understand the the philosophy of it, I'll note that when this this exact same thing came up when we had the between 4 and 6 membership. And we actually were told we needed to adjust the language for that with a. I'll note on the dais amendment. So I'm just curious what the what the legal interpretation of the posted start time of the council meeting.

I think you're right that there probably is more work to be done there. If city attorney robert taylor is willing to weigh in, I'd appreciate that.

Hello.

Robert taylor, city attorney, thank you for the question. I do think you could read this language either way. I do think the clerk's reading of it is the better way to read it. And the meeting in which the item will be heard. So it is true that a Thursday meeting is a it's a recessed meeting of the Wednesday meeting, but the Thursday meeting is. It's a separate meeting. That is the meeting in which an item is heard. So I would read it consistent with what the clerk has interpreted it. I do think if there's disagreement on council and you want to add more clarity to that point, you could leave this language in the code and then adopt an amendment to really clarify and make that finer point perfectly clear.

Thanks. So let me ask just a couple clarifications on that. Sorry. Thank you for being here, robert. We take ten minute recesses frequently in the middle of meetings. So if it's in the second half of the Wednesday meeting, we took a ten minute earlier today. We came back at 1130 ish. Then 1130 would be the start time of the meeting for this item. That was only heard in the latter half of it.

No, the Wednesday meeting. You're still in the same Wednesday meeting, even if you take a short break during that meeting.

Okay.

In January, we recessed the meeting for a week. Well, six days it was on Thursday. I want to say the eighth, so I will. And we recessed it to the 14th. And that was all one meeting. Technically it was a short one at the beginning of the 14th, but nonetheless it existed.

I think in that situation where the where you're recessing a meeting on a Monday and reconvening on a Friday that reconvened Friday meeting is a, it's a, I would say that's a separate meeting for purposes of this rule.

I appreciate that. I think that a plain text reading of this might differ from that. And I think clarity, therefore, might be helpful for the public to understand if the intention is transparency. And that's not a legal question, but I appreciate that, and I'm not disagreeing with the guidance on it at all. I'm just trying to indicate what I think might be the way someone reads this. Certainly, I read it that way. I'm not going to debate the merit of Novick one here because we're not in that item. We'll get to that when we get to that. But I will say that the very fact that it exists and the fact that if anyone actually thinks that they would like to vote for this, that is proof that you should vote for Avalos Kanal one, because this would not be permitted unless Avalos Kanal one passes. So. And that's not to say it's a bad idea or a good idea, but just the process of it here. I'll also note that in the event, let me just find the note here. The. In the event that we're talking about transparency and posting this text does not actually say anything about posting. It says prior to the posted start time of the meeting, but it doesn't actually say that the amendments need to be posted. We already expect items in writing. We've just kind of gotten a little bit away from that, and I think that's something that can be between the council president and vice president and the folks who sit over there, the attorneys and the clerk, something that can simply just be executed to say, we'd like it in writing, which they they do ask for that all the time. And often we kind of fudge it a little bit. And I'm sure that I'm not speaking for anybody, but I'm sure that stresses people out over there. And I'd prefer not to do that. So I think that's the, the part about posting, which is not really addressed in the, in the text anyway. But I would like to, to consider the idea that in the event that there is the testimony, even testimony from we actually did this in the committee of the whole on the tough that in hearing what people said, we wanted to make adjustments. Sometimes we wanted to make adjustments on things that are very, very minor. Again, I'll mention the question over how many people are in a committee other than committee of the whole was between 4 and 6. We wrote that with the intention that that meant inclusive four or 5 or 6. The interpretation came back that that would be interpreted as five, meaning not 4 or 6, but only five. And that adjustment does not require, you know, however many hours in advance to do it. So I would love to look at if there are guardrails we can put up. I think one that I've heard that I really agree with is that if it requires if the if it's to change code, that we need enough time for code review as part of that process. But I think these are things we should talk about in a, in a designated setting for that, where we have set aside the responsibility of discussing governance, which is the committee of the whole. And everybody on this dais would be part of that. Thanks.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks. One clarifying question. Councilor Kanal you are striking. I one and it says a councilor May propose an amendment to any listed any item listed in subsections. Et cetera. Et cetera. By striking that, what mechanism do we then still have for amendments if you strike that? Because I kind of got the crux of your strike should have just been two. So I'm just trying to understand your your number one strikeout.

Yeah. So the way I've been reading, I one, it's a good question is that it is not designed as an authorizing statement because it doesn't exist presently and we're able to make amendments today, but that it is it is limiting in the sense that it limits us to subsections a through f as things that are able to be amended. And so the removal of it would not take away our authority to make amendments, because again, we've operated for 15 months with that authority absent this text.

And I think if I read that correct, it means we can amend everything given this except the consent agenda, as if this were to pass unamended because a through f, and I think g is when we get to the consent agenda, it would say we basically can't do it by saying you can do these, you're in without saying it, saying you can't do these. So. I'll put it this way. I'm going to support your amendment wholeheartedly because I am not interested in this body or the clerk or anybody else getting into a stopwatch. When was it submitted game? And given the discussion that we've watched, that's exactly what will happen. Kanal got in at 359, but Zimmerman got in at four. Is for a correct time or not. I think that's foolish. I also think that we have learned a lot to the point about the power of the no. We have made as a body, and I'll just say as a body, we've made some mistakes by passing some things in the moment where I think that this reaction to this 24 hour issue is just that. It is a reaction to to some not great legislation happening on the fly. But what, two weeks ago now, I think you all voted unanimously to an amendment I made on the fly to change one number from seven 5 to 1 zero zero. I made it on the fly. You all approved it. I think it went well. If on this situation. Councilor Kanal I asked him about number one, if number one is the thing that would keep me from from voting for his stuff, and we would just say maybe we don't exercise that out. That would be an on the fly. So I agree with councilor Kanal that the power of the no is important here, and I acknowledge the fact that this is a reaction to this council's. Previous 15 months at various moments. But I've also watched this council, especially in the last several months, really kind of put its foot down at different points and say, do you have that in writing? Councilor today, councilor Novick has delivered to us something in writing, right? This is helpful and we can see it. So for for those reasons, I think that council rules designed to get at behavior are probably not very favorable for my my chair. I think that peer pressure is the good pressure in this case. And council rules are about making a fair and equitable system, which I know we're not on it, but I will not support Novick one, because it kind of puts into question the presiding officer's issue on this very same topic. And frankly, I think largely I heard last year of concerns about how the rules were applied. So for those reasons, I am not supportive of this 24 hour clause. While I think it has good intentions, I think it has multiple unintended consequences. And I certainly think that the. When did something get posted? When did something get heard? And is is going to become a mess. In fact, I wrote down mess. That was my note when when I saw it and. I just lost a train of thought there. The. I'm going to stay in that lost train of thought, so I'll conclude. I'll support you. Councilor or councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you very much. Councilor Zimmerman. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you, council president. I've been honest that I have gone back and forth on this, where I do see it being helpful to the public is transparency. So members of the public can follow along with what amendments are coming up. It's already hard enough for for some of us up here to track all the amendments. And this is our job. And and we have a lot of time, a lot more time than the average portlander to focus on, on what's coming at us. And at the same time, I do think as a council, we need to have an honest conversation about where we're at as a body at this point with our council agendas. For the following week being released on Friday at noon. I think we need to be honest. Do we really have enough time to for us, for our staff members to see that, to figure out how something works, what's happening exactly in each item, be able to prepare what amendments we might want to bring and be able to do that. I mean, friday's almost over. Then we just basically have have Monday. What I see is that many of us are are currently struggling to meet the deadlines that we have right now. That time is it's a pretty short window. What I feel this conversation seems to me like a committee conversation. And I talked about this in the governance committee, how this is something that is going to impact each and every one of us, and how this is something, you know, that did make me really think seriously about us having committee of the whole. So we could have this type of workshopping. And I it does not seem like we are we're ready to, to agree on this and that there needs to be more discussion. I appreciate the different things being brought up. I personally would be open to considering something like a deadline for p m the day before, so I am open to supporting this, knowing that I believe that we need to have some more conversation. And if someone makes a motion to refer this to committee of the whole, I would be supportive of that.

Thank you. Councilor. Koyama Lane. Councilor. Morillo.

Thank you, council president. I first of all, let's highlight the beautiful moment where councilor Zimmermann and Kanal finally agreed on something. Put it in the history books. It's almost as good as when me and Ryan agree on something. It's awesome. And we like that because we're doing our dragon boat thing now we're buds. But I think I would prefer for us to have a deadline, because I do think the last minute amendments have been pretty sloppy. I think they haven't gone through legal review. We haven't found like the right sources of funding for amendments. And that does lead to a lot of hasty decision making with a lot of really critical policies. So I appreciate that this was brought forward as a change. The conversation between councilor Kanal and robert taylor did stress me out a little bit as far as like the legal finessing that is going to have to happen around that, but I trust that we can figure out what those exact deadlines are. I think that, you know, having I've said this before, but having lobbied at the state legislature before, they had deadlines for when amendments could go to committee and the world did not collapse. And I think that people can adapt to systems. And if the system is in place, we can adapt to a changing amendment deadline. I also think we're going to have to get comfortable with like, okay, you didn't get to change one word in a whole ordinance. Are you going to vote down the whole thing because one word, or are you going to suck it up and vote it through? That's going to have to happen sometimes, you know, or just vote no and call it a day. So I, I think that the deliberations have gone on for so long because of these last minute amendments, because we haven't been able to wrap our heads around what's happening, and we need to put these restrictions on ourselves so that we can give our colleagues the courtesy and time to process what's being brought forward. I would say that if this passes, I would pair this with councilor Novak's amendment that he brought forward as well. I would be in favor of that. I do feel similarly to councilor Koyama Lane that the discussion that we're having here today makes me feel like we need to be discussing this at committee of the whole. And I know like councilor Green has an event that was pre filed and he has to leave at noon. And our meetings always end up going far longer than intended, which means that we're losing out on critical voices too. And I'm not even sure we'll get to a point of voting on these things today. So I, I think it could go to the committee of the whole for us to workshop this, because that's what I'm hearing just based on robert taylor's answers. And that back and forth of the unclear deadlines, it seems like there needs to be clarity around some of those things before we commit to forever entrenching ourselves into this system for the next 100 years, or, god willing, however long do people of Portland want us to serve?

Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor Smith.

Loretta Smith: Thank you, council president. I do agree with councilor Koyama Lane. We got to be honest here. Sometimes folks, you know, this is this is this is my complaint with the whole process is that people bring forward amendments to the big council that they knew they already had when they were listening to it in committee, and they never say anything about it. And then you have the committee members who sit through committee. They don't say anything about it. And all of a sudden, as soon as they get to the big council, they got an amendment to something. Well, why didn't you say that in the committee? So that's the gotcha. They do it all the time. If you have a problem with something, then let's work it out. In committee. People wait. They know that they're going to drop an amendment on the dais. They have it already prepared a week in advance and they know it, and they don't want to give us enough time to think about it. Sometimes if I don't, I'll be honest with you for real. I you bring stuff on the day of and you don't come and talk to me and I don't know about it. I vote no for it because I just I need some time to think about it. But we can't legislate common sense, right? We can't legislate people to do the right things because people are not doing the right things to begin with. They're bringing it at a space where they shouldn't be. We should. We should. If it's somebody that is does not sit on that committee and they want to bring something forward. But you've got people who sit on the committee where it was referred from, and now they're going to bring something forward. That's that's not right. That's a gotcha. That's a always I'm going to one up you. I'm always going to put something on your stuff. I'm going to amend it. I mean, we got people who amend everybody's stuff. They can't let one thing go by without an amendment. I mean, if we need to stop that, this is ridiculous. So if we want to have a real conversation, we can have this conversation here, my dear, or we can have it in the committee of the whole. But I mean, it's here now. It came from a committee, came from the governance committee, didn't it? So sending it back to the committee of the whole I think is ridiculous. I mean people need to put their cards on the table, take the vote, whatever you have to do. Thank you.

Thank you, councilor Smith. Vice president Clark.

Thank you, mr. President. You know, 15 months into this, it's we're still making it up as we go along, clearly. And my dear colleague, councilor Zimmermann, it's already a mess. Okay. I am not going to support this because I believe that we have other safeguards. I'm happy to discuss it elsewhere. We got plenty to discuss, but I am not going to support this. With all due respect, I do think we have other ways to approach it. Thanks.

Thank you, vice president Clark. Councilor zimmermann.

Yeah.

My last train of thought was that I think this will add actually delay. I think this will get into the issue of something changed. It didn't change a delay delay, delay. And that's been one of my complaints about this system. And moving to committees that I don't particularly find valuable is this is just been a city council who gets things done at half the pace. And so there's part of that, that concern that I would have the the other part that I have certainly come into readings into events without a preconceived outcome, right. Every now and then I know how I'm voting. But a lot of times I don't. And so I value what we do here in presentation. I value and I say it all the time to the public, don't undervalue the power of showing up in person and testifying. So in those situations, it's almost unanticipated in terms of where where amendments may go. And so that's where. I just want to add those as as two reasons that I, I am supportive of this because I'd like to see the body mature and its practices mature without a rule that just does a, a shall. You shall, you shall do your work this way. Rather. I think that as we move forward, we'll see practices, which is actually. That's the art of governing, I think, a lot more than the rules of any given body. So thanks for that lost school of thought or train of thought or whatever the right saying is. That's where I was coming from. All right.

That's all.

Thank you. Councilor zimmermann. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thanks. Yeah, I agree with all of that. What councilor Zimmermann just said. I'll also add, I don't support referring the entire item to the committee. The whole that wasn't my intention. I just wanted to clarify this. I think that if we are able to pass this amendment, which would remove this particular restriction, that any conversation about what, if anything, we do around the amendment process after this entire ordinance is resolved, up or down, would be a great conversation to have at the committee. The whole and I think, you know, obviously we just got started. We've had a couple meetings. We're now going into the budget calendar, but this is something. I have a list of governance related items that I want to tackle in there. I mentioned this back in January, but we have to talk about how we don't have 45 rounds of council president votes again. And that's something I want to talk about in the committee. The whole to this, to me, is part of that conversation or that broader category of conversations in the sense that we need to have a the governance role of the committee, the whole take on the things that we can't get done in one ordinance, because realistically, we can't get everything done in one ordinance. And I also appreciate the comments from my colleagues that let me get to the point of saying, we're not the state, and I'm so grateful for that. I am so grateful that we're not the state, the state that cannot pass a transportation package to save its life, the state that can't pass a public meetings law that would allow for for local jurisdictions to get their jobs done. The. I could go on, I won't. But despite having excellent state legislature legislators, including from the Portland area, the state as a whole is not a system I want to try to emulate. And so I think that context is different, and it has to be different because people can make a 20 minute trip to get here, which most, most Oregonians cannot, to get to their state legislature. We don't have sessions. We don't have so many different things that that define that way of doing things, because we're an ongoing body that meets regularly. And so in order to to continue this ongoing work, but avoid the lengthy delays that would happen if we have, you know, like this item, for example, is on its third, first reading. And the way that you get around that is by not creating rules that force it to have multiple first readings before you can get to the second and maybe eventually third, fifth, whatever readings. So if you are just to clarify, a yes vote would eliminate the restriction and allow us to continue the conversation. I would say in July, if not sooner at the committee, the whole on on what to do about amendments. So I would I would again ask for a yes vote.

Colleagues, seeing no one else in the queue as councilor Kanal said, a yes vote on this amendment will remove the proposal to have a 24 hour limit. A no vote will retain the 24 hour limit. Keelan can we please call the roll.

Kanal I. Pirtle-guiney no, no. Koyama Lane aye, Morillo.

Morillo no.

No no.

Clark.

No.

Green. Oh. Councilor. Green on line. No. Okay. Absent. Zimmerman.

Yes.

Avalos.

Smith.

Aye, Morillo.

Dunphy.

No.

The amendment fails with a vote of five ayes, six noes and one absent.

Okay. Councilor Kanal you have amendment Kanal two.

Yeah.

Pulling up my notes here, colleagues. I proposed five amendments in a single file last time, and I want to observe that the council clerk's office has, as usual, gone above and beyond to help address my concerns, so I withdrew Kanal three. They are still in a file marked Kanal two through six, so I want to start with Kanal two Kanal to reverses an action taken at the old governance committee that changed the way the four councilor Discharge worked. If you look at the the exhibits and attachments down near the bottom, there's something a file called committee disposition map, and it shows what what the original version was as current rules. And I think two versions of the council that. Sorry that the governance committee considered. I don't remember which one we're currently in off the top of my head. Council president, can you speak? I think this is your amendment.

I think it's Dunphy two with amendment. I think we passed the p e, p, g and the Dunphy amendments.

So then we're what happened was in the governance committee, the current rules, which is the left column switched to the right column, which is Dunphy two with amendment. This is something that this amendment Kanal two would reverse. And I just want to speak to the rationale here. When this was originally crafted, the four councilor Discharge rule. The original intent was as follows. We were debating not only the flow of an item through committee, but also how council committees are assembled and how membership is put on them. And the power of the president was a part of this. So this is a council of 12 and we're nonpartizan. The council president has a lot of authority over who is on the committees, in the sense that they're the only person who can put forward a proposal of which members are on which committees setting aside committee, the whole. In assembling a five member committee, there will be, by necessity, imperfections in the ability of those five people to represent 12 different voices. In other words, there will be times when something might pass out of committee but fail at council, and that has a built in way of rectifying itself in the sense that if the vote is yes at committee, it gets referred to council. And then the the vote at council is a no, and the item does not pass. There's also the opposite problem, though, where an item might have seven votes at the full council or, barring that, six votes in the mayor's tiebreak, but does not have the votes to get out of committee. And so that was the original conversation around the four councilor Discharge. And this is the item. You can see it in the bottom left corner. It's the the bottom left part says item passes, no item dies, four letters, and then it goes back into the full council queue in the current rules column. That doesn't exist in the other two. And that's what this amendment Kanal to would change by putting that back in. So it would allow for an item that does not pass at council. Sorry, at committee to have four councilors, including perhaps members of the committee or perhaps the other seven councilors who are not on the committee to put four letters up and let that come to the full council queue. It would not force it on a on a given agenda, the council president would still retain their authority to place it on an agenda within the 90 day time frame, but it would allow for that to continue on so that an item that has sufficient interest to be placed before the entire public is able to be placed before the entire public, as well as all 12 councilors for for a vote. So that's what it does. And I would formally move it and ask for a second.

Second councilor Kanal moves Kanal two councilor Morillo seconds. Councilors to discussion of Kanal two to the amendment. Councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you councilor Kanal. I'm in full support of this one and here's why. I think you explained very much for the process of. This entire council represents the entire city, and sometimes committees are going to be just because, by virtue of organizing them and the limited committees we have, the numbers that we have. Sometimes they'll be stacked in favor or against a certain political perspective. And I don't think that there is a single person here who wants to be at the mercy of the committee if they happen to one day be assigned to an unfavorable committee, as far as what their agenda is, as far as their district's agenda is, and bringing something forward. So because of that, I think this is really critical. And if you can prove that it would have gotten out somewhere else, then I think that's fine as far as discussion goes. So I think this is really important and we should be able to fight it out in the coliseum. That is the full council.

Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor Zimmerman.

Eric Zimmerman: Thanks. If this passes. And it kind of goes to how it is currently, I have to ask what is the point of committees? So I, I am calling into question what is the purpose of committees? I have done that. I continue to do that. So a committee that means nothing, which is one that if it decides that not to pass something along, then people can just pull it up anyway. You know, let's talk about when this rule was first adopted, it was December before any of us took office. And, you know, councilor Kanal and Koyama Lane and Avalos were sitting in a big conference room across the street before we were elected, trying to figure out what is day one look like. Right. And our great debate at that point was some people said, two, I was a person who said six, which as far as I took it, was up until you get to the quorum or the passing number of seven, right. So we have a disagreement about the ability to say my thing didn't pass. So therefore, I wanted to take it to the full council. And and there is no secret that I fall on the side of that should be very hard to do to overcome the committee. So we agreed to. Four and and has been used in small part. But I think that the committee role is something that if it's going to exist, then it should be able to pass or kill. The other part of that is I do believe you have options that exist with what committee to go to. Where do you think it's most appropriate? Because at the end of the day, there is nothing that stops any topic from going to any committee. If it's really upon those who bring it there to find that connective tissue. For why does this relate to finance? Why does this relate to city life? Why does this relate to name it? But ultimately, you can go where you think you're going to be successful. I just think that's part of the back of house governing aspect. So I appreciate it. I know exactly where you're coming from. I'm not going to be supportive of it because I think that going to committee, if we're going to have committees, I'd like them to have a role. And right now, this furthers the fact that maybe they don't have a role in my mind. So that's why I'm not going to be supportive. Thanks.

Thank you. Regular scheduled programing.

Thank you. Councilor Zimmerman. Councilor. Novick.

Thank you, mr. President. I have a question for the current and past council president. How often has the foreperson discharge rule been used?

Twice.

That consistent with your recollection? Former president pirtle-guiney.

Sounds right.

I don't.

Have the list, but that's it. That sounds right.

That to me is significant. I am inclined to support this amendment because I too is in that room. We went back and forth and I also was for six and we were at two. Et cetera, et cetera. And we wound up at four. And I got him a feeling lazy. I'm like, all right, we came up with four before. I don't see any grand reason to change our minds now. And it hasn't been over utilized. So let's just stick with what we have.

Thank you. Councilor. Thank you. Councilor. Novick. Councilor Kanal.

Sameer Kanal: Thank you. And I just wanted to add one thing I forgot to mention. It does put there is one change. It does put a guardrail up that says you can't just do it ten years from now. It puts a 30 day limit on it. And I forgot to mention that in the introduction, which I think is a responsible way of of ensuring, because I know that some of the other purposes of this entire underlying ordinance unrelated to this topical area is to help items that are procedurally dead also become administratively dead. And so this I wanted to make sure that this was not out of line with that. So that's that's the reason for that. I did want to mention I this I think that. Councilor zimmerman's point about what is the role of the committee is a really important one and an underlying conversation that we have not resolved as a council. I know, councilor Ryan, you brought this up in the past as well. There's several of us who have. I think the question that I would have is not maybe the overarching broad question at this moment, but maybe a more specific one, which is, is it the role of a committee to kill something that might have seven votes at the full council? And I don't think it does. I don't think that that's part of the rule, part of the role. Sorry to I don't think that the committee is designed to be a place where things go to die or potentially die. I think the idea was that it's where a lot of the workshopping can happen, where maybe the people who are very up on an issue, advocates can come and testify, the staff can have more conversation, the rules are more lenient. You don't have the two times ten minute rule that you do with the full council, and that ultimately, the workshopping and evolution of a policy can happen. And I think one way to to point to the how that's different is that things can evolve, even though the people who are helping them evolve don't support them. And that's okay. That makes the policy better. Councilor Zimmerman co-sponsored an amendment with councilor Clarke on sorry, with councilor Koyama Lane on the tough, and then didn't vote in favor of it. That's okay. And so I think the idea that we can workshop an item in committee does not necessitate that it can kill an item. And so permanently, and I think the idea that it's still going to kill an item sometimes leaves open the possibility that with enough broad support, whatever that number is, it's for right now can nonetheless have the full council weigh in on it. And I think that's a fair trade off there. I was on the side of two back in December 2024. I'm glad we compromised it for personally. I think we talked about three and five as well. And there's there's a lot of reasons why any of those are better or worse. But I think it was not just the fact that four has worked because it is a limited use thing that has only happened twice, but also because we compromised. The very fact of that was good. So I that's that's my argument on that part of it.

Thank you. Councilor Kanal. Councilor. Koyama Lane.

Thank you. I am going to support this amendment because I worry that removing this release valve will further politicize our committee systems. I don't love the idea that you shop around your legislation to see where you think it would be most welcome or would pass, and I don't want to encourage that at all. I also think without it, it will make it harder for us to agree on committee structures and that the makeup of them will be more controversial and political. So that's why I think that we need to keep this in.

Thank you. Councilor Koyama Lane councilor Green.

Tiffany Koyama Lane: Thank you. I'm going to echo what councilor Koyama Lane said, and my primary motivation for supporting this amendment is I think it it risks politicizing the committees. And I think the committee should be composed based upon interest and expertise. So I'm going to support this.

Thank you. Councilor. Green. Councilor. Ryan.

I did land on four back in December of 2024. I've always been an advocate for dissent to be heard. I've also, since we've passed that become an advocate for questioning why we have committees and just and you know, this both council presidents know that. So I'm kind of in a torn place at the moment. This feels like the amendment. I just thought I'd say that out loud. And I I'm just confused on on what to do with this. I can't remember the two times it came. So I've been racking my brain trying to remember what the two items were. Can anyone.

It was foie gras and.

Oh, was already did. It's coming.

It's coming back.

Okay, so this is the amendment. Okay.

And.

What's the other one?

It was the masking.

Masking? Yeah. Which one?

Councilor Kanal masking policy.

Sameer Kanal: We haven't taken that.

We haven't gotten to it yet. We've not actually done either of those yet. We've they've been discharged and rescheduled. They are currently calendared. But they've not actually as a body, we have not heard a, an item that was not passed through. Okay.

Let's go. Scott. Further politicized. Okay, thanks.

Thank you very much.

Councilor vice president Clark.

Olivia Clark: Thank you, council president. I'm not confused, but I think I'm having ptsd.

Yeah.

From that debate so long ago. And consequently, I think I'm a no, thank you.

Thank you. Councilor. Councilor. Morillo.

I think the way that you can alleviate all your stress about the foie gras ban is that when it comes to council, everyone can stop talking and just vote yes or no. I will say in district three you guys can think it's unimportant, but the reality is those people hustle. They fought for something they wanted. They came. This is Portland, Oregon. They want the foie gras ban and I'm going to vote for it. So I think it's the solution to that is that everybody stops talking for so long. That's the answer. And then you move on from the agenda within five minutes. That's how we do it. As far as this goes, though, on a more not serious note, but on a very heavy topic, right? Councilor Kanal mask ban, which I have co-sponsored, is a matter of grave public interest. This is something that the public has been asking us to address for over a year, ever since ice has come to our community and started kidnaping our neighbors and has been completely unidentifiable. And there they there may be debate about whether or not we should pass this about what it actually does. The public is demanding that this is a discussion. This is a matter of massive public interest. So for something to die in committee and then not get talked about when the entire city is waiting with their breath held for our answers, I think is exactly the reason why we need the four signatures. And I'll just say it to the fact that a union can threaten to file an unfair labor practice before council has even passed a policy sets a really negative precedent for us as a legislative body doing work moving forward. And I will say, I think that's very unusual behavior from the police union. I don't think I've seen any other union do that ever before, but they tend to operate very differently than other unions anyways. So because it is a matter of such high public interest, it's something that the public deserves to know where we're going to stand on that. And I think that there are a lot of political reasons for why people don't want to show where they publicly stand on that. But the four signatures are necessary, and I can guarantee that if any of you are sitting on a committee one day where you're outvoted, you're going to wish that there was a way for your policy to be heard so that you could get the seven votes at full council.

Thank you. Councilor Morillo councilor Smith.

Angelita Morillo: Thank you, council president. Councilor Morillo my point exactly. I don't think anyone up here but me has gotten a ordinance thrown off the agenda indefinitely, like I did with my housing ordinance. And so in those kind of extreme cases, this would be perfect for that. And just so that, you know, councilor Ryan, you have signed off on a four signature. We have more than four signatures. We have 5 or 6 signatures to be able to bring back the self-enhancement home ownership and the williams and russell cdc homeownership, because mine got thrown off. You you all are talking about something that didn't get on. I was on and I was thrown off indefinitely. I have never seen such a thing. So for me, I'm able to use this to get my stuff put back on the committee agenda. And I had like 30 people here to speak. Some of those people will never come back to a city council meeting again. I mean, it was unfortunate. It was on February 18th, the same day that the ice protesters were here, and they shut us down and we had to go back to our offices. But they were like traumatized by that whole process. And I know some of you were online taking the meeting, but if you would have been here live and experiencing the faces of the people who you actually called to come to a night meeting, and they were turned away. And I got so many calls and texts and people were like, I'm never coming back there again. It's crazy down there. So for me, I need this to be able to get and council, not council president. He knows about this. We have a request in right now to get this put back on the agenda so we can hear the ordinance straight up, not as an amendment but an ordinance. So I you know, there's there are some extreme cases why we need this, but I think it's it's important.

Thank you. Councilor Smith, councilor Pirtle-guiney and colleagues, I will just note we are three minutes away from at least a number of our colleagues turning into pumpkins, and I'm going to try and get through the folks in the in the queue right now and limiting debate to that. And hopefully we can get a vote and we will have to hold the rest of this over. Councilor pirtle-guiney.

Elana Pirtle-Guiney: Colleagues, I wasn't going to speak to this amendment because the change that it is addressing isn't actually one I brought forward. It was part of the iterative process and committee, but I, I hope that as we vote today, we are voting on whether we think this is good policy or not, whether we think that the way it changes, how we interact with committees is important or not, and that this doesn't become a proxy vote for any of the many other issues that have been brought up already. I know my vote will be about how I hope we use committees and not about my position on any particular policy issue. Thank you, council president.

Thank you. Councilor pirtle-guiney councilor Morillo.

Angelita Morillo: Yeah, I'll be brief. I think it's great if you can get the votes, councilor Smith, to bring it back to full council. That's exactly what this is designed for and it should be for that. And if you want to look into other pots of money that aren't touching existing things, that will help with housing, I have some ideas for you, and I want to connect with you on that later. That being said, the I do want to correct the record because this has been said a lot. The ordinance that was originally proposed, it got an indefinite stay with a majority vote on council. So to say that it was just unilaterally postponed forever is not accurate. And I think we have to stop spreading that narrative.

Point of order. I had a separate ordinance from the slow the flow. It was a separate ordinance. That's to be clear, I'm not I'm not exaggerating about this. Mine was separate. So there were two. Remember.

That is.

A point of clarification, but not a point of order.

Oh, okay. Sorry, point of clarification.

Fair enough. Councilor. Thank you. Councilor. Morillo. Councilor. Zimmerman.

I still support the for number discharge or excuse me, discharge the wrong the for sending it straight to right, because that was really designed from the perspective of what if the president doesn't schedule you or what if the committee chair doesn't schedule you. So. Mostly talking to them. So I'm going to wait till they're done. So the. This is about if something fails at committee, but we all still have the same ability to bring something forward. I was shocked when something died at committee, and then this mechanism was used to bring something back to the full council when it died at committee. So I just want to clarify, because I think we have in the way folks have spoken about this, we've kind of combined the two situations. I, as a committee chair, I always applied the same 90 day rule that we put on the council president. I guess it was not written down, but I applied it to myself for I have 90 days when somebody brings something to the finance committee to have it be heard. And I was always aware that a person could. Bypass committee using the four person thing to have the council president have to put something on so that will still exist. If if we do not pass Kanal to Kanal two is putting back in the ability for if something dies at committee, I think there are different points. I think there are different mechanisms. I just highlight it because the way people are talking about it is, is, I think, kind of blending together. And I don't want won. My vote against Kanal two is not about getting rid of the four person number. It is about when it is appropriate. So just to clarify, and I frankly, councilor Kanal and I have gone through this multiple times. It was a good conversation. We just come from different schools of thought on this. And I and I and I, and I'm going to apply that to my vote. And and thank you.

Thank you, councilor Zimmerman. Colleagues seeing no one else in the queue to discuss Kanal two, can we please call the roll?

Kanal.

Aye, Morillo.

Pirtle-guiney.

No.

Ryan.

No.

Koyama Lane I Morillo. I Novick. I Clark. No Green. I Zimmerman.

No.

Avalos I. Smith. No.

Dunphy.

No.

The amendment fails with a vote of six I votes. Six no votes.

Colleagues, without objection, I'm going to recess this meeting.

Did councilor Smith mean to vote? Yes, because she just said she was using this mechanism to bring her ordinance forward.

I'm using the current rules.

Okay?

Okay. Okay.

Without objection, colleagues, as we are at time, I am going to recess this meeting and this item until tomorrow. Afternoon, and we will continue our conversation there before our. Actually, it will be at the end of our agenda tomorrow. We have a land use item tomorrow and the mount hood cable regulatory committee item, and we will recess until then. 2:00 tomorrow. Thank you.